Boy Caesar by Jeremy Reed Read Free Book Online Page A

interpret the words written into what sounded like an incantation and heard Danny’s voice taking up, fluent with the rhythm. Any doubts he may have had about the strength of his friend’s ties with the group were dispersed on hearing how directly he entered into proceedings. Instinct told him to get up and leave, but he stayed on out of curiosity. The primitive hoodoo worked like a hypnotic, the malediction cooking in the chant. He tried to free himself from thespellbinding rhythm and its qualifying sexual motif before finally letting it take over.
    The percussion steadily increased, the beat underlining the voices as they established harmony. He kept his eyes closed so as to shut out the reality of the situation. He knew instinctually that the chant was an invocation to Slut and that at some stage he would materialize in the room. When he opened his eyes briefly he could see Danny completely given over to the music. He appeared to be in a blissed-out state, completely oblivious to anything but the insistent rhythm.
    Jim remained too tense to let go of his senses. His consciousness shifted in and out of the music, got caught up in it, then resisted. When he looked around again the lights had been put on dimmers and the room had darkened. He heard the door open and caught sight of the man he assumed to be Slut entering the room. The emaciated but defined figure was, as Danny had warned him, blindfolded. His naked torso was tattooed with interlocking serpents, and he wore jeans slashed to threadbare ruins. His shaved head showed a blue grizzle of hair-roots around the ears, and his multiple lip and nipple piercings enforced his evident masochistic traits. Jim backed off from any idea of becoming associated with such a cult. If, as Danny had led him to believe on their way over, Slut was periodically crucified on Hampstead Heath, then he looked the living image of his legendary status. Jim found him repulsive and fought again with the impulse to get up and go. He found it hard to believe that this primitive ceremony was taking place above a pedestrian Soho alley. The whole thing was so out of context with his own life that he wanted nothing to do with it.
    When the music stopped Slut began intoning his own mantra. Jim kept his eyes open and watched the whole circle now focused on their leader. Slut was contorted into some form of expositive dance, like an urban shaman attempting contact with tribal spirits. He held an arrow in one hand and appeared to be working the point into his chest in imitation of St Sebastian. Danny and his circle looked on enthralled as the arrow went home, leaving a residual trickle of blood. The first arrow secured, Jim watched horrified as the manbegan working a second and third into his torso. He showed no sign of pain as he continued with his ritual of self-inflicted torture.
    Jim had little doubt that the ceremony would culminate in an orgy, and he wanted to avoid the possibility at all costs. The room was becoming suffocating, and bad vibes fizzed in his head. He got up abruptly from his cushion and made for the door. The group were so concentrated on their leader that not even Danny turned his head to watch him go.
    Jim found himself back outside on the badly lit stairs. The doorman looked at him menacingly but made no attempt to have him stay. He simply fixed him with the same inscrutable expression, the same glacial blank.
    Jim ran down the three flights of stairs, opened the heavy security door and hurried out into the alley. He didn’t stop running until he was safely back in the pedestrian flux of Dean Street. When he slowed up he was glad only of his freedom and continued for a while walking in a state of directionless shock. He found himself back in Old Compton Street, its hologrammed bars swimming up at him like the tropical tanks in an aquarium. Men were pressed up against the windows, staring dumbly out at the night crowds, engaged in watching a reality movie. He felt himself for a