III.
Kurt searched the cabinet for an old video about Mongol invaders. Clad in bulky fur and leather, Genghis Khan rode his horse, plunged into a village, slashing his way through and emerging bloody and triumphant. No one among his people said he shouldn’t have done it; no one expected him to calm down and behave himself between battles. Killing pumped hot spunk into the warrior’s balls, his lust boiled, ever renewing after each fuck and kill, ever surging, unending rage and ferocity. He fucked countless women as a conquering warrior’s right. He had populated Asia with his warrior seed. He had fought, killed, and fucked. Not made love: not given a shit about cunts and civilization, but fucked and fought, fought and fucked, fucked and killed, draining his balls of life.
Damn, where was the video? His old VCR, obsolete, but it still worked. The world had changed. Warriors had become mere soldiers, civil servants of the state, expected to hand out lollipops to kids in bombed-out villages or pile sandbags, expected to be heroic and harmless out of uniform, chaste as nuns. Sure, they watched porn flicks in the barracks and told fuck jokes and sometimes found their way in red-light districts and hooked up with cheap whores who later crawled into the barracks. No one jumped onto his horse, howled ecstasy to the winds as he galloped across the plains, hurtling into town squares, swinging swords against his hapless enemies, slicing off heads, his cock getting harder with each kill. He couldn’t find the title he was looking for. The great Khan had not died as a pensioner in a veteran’s hospital.
“There’s no point; if they don’t take me, what the fuck am I good for?”
Terry handed him the phone, resumed his position on the floor by the couch, and waited for Kurt to make his call. In the bedroom, he had paused, wondering if he should change into Kurt’s clothes as he usually did, if that would somehow mollify Kurt, get him into a better frame of mind. He had planned to take the soldier out for dinner tonight to a restaurant famous for its steaks. If Kurt wanted, he’d invite Jamal. He could tolerate Jamal as long as Kurt stood between them, and if Jamal put his arm around his shoulder proprietorially, as he had done a couple of times when they were together in Kurt’s apartment, and joked about borrowing Kurt’s bitch, Terry pretended he wouldn’t mind and didn’t shrug the arm off. Kurt didn’t care to spruce up for restaurants, and Terry couldn’t remember if this establishment had a dress code. He could always take the men to a chain restaurant like Baton Rouge that wouldn’t object to a soldier in fatigues and a T-shirt.
“Hey, Jam, what’s up, buddy?”
Kurt sat, placing one leg on either side of Terry’s body, and lit a cigarette.
“Nothing much; the bitch is here. Sorry you can’t make it tonight. Yeah, it’s official now; no playing in the sandbox anymore for me. It’s not going to happen. Give me a shout tomorrow afternoon. We’ve got some talking to do.”
This wasn’t going the way he planned. Staring down at Terry, he could shoot his head off now, but he wanted a softer approach. Anger roiled and snarled in his throat and he could hardly bring himself to speak a civil word. His groin sweated and heated, his cock half-stiff in semi-erection. How would the bitch relax if he kept browbeating him? He touched Terry’s head and the teacher purred like a fucking cat. He kept rubbing and Terry pressed closer to his crotch.
“You want it, bitch?”
Terry didn’t answer, and Kurt remembered the shack rats who sometimes found a way into the tents and barracks and gave the soldiers blowjobs without a word for cigarettes and candy bars. His Luger he kept in a box on the closet shelf. His rifles stood in their respective sacks in a corner, covered by his uniforms and shirts.
He let Terry snuggle between his legs, caressing his boots, and he drank the beer until his mood shifted and he stood up without warning.
“You haven’t seen my Luger, have you, bitch?”
IV.
“That’s it. Take it in your mouth, slowly, slowly, wrap your tongue around the barrel, feel it, feel, make love to it like a cock. It’s your friend. Soldiers have a favourite weapon; it’s their duty to clean and take care of it. See? You can get used to it, like a real soldier.”
He kept Terry’s head in his grip as he slid the barrel in and out of the teacher’s mouth. Terry licked and even sucked, knowing Kurt wanted it, even though he didn’t understand the purpose of the game. He lapped like a kitten at a bowl of cream, and his brain splashed phosphorescent hues over his thoughts and desires, and the barrel of the gun heated up in his mouth and, really, it wasn’t an uncomfortable exercise. Kurt’s sweet words about being a soldier and making love and dying for love, how true, like Romeo and Juliet dying for love, except no gun had been involved. Oh, he was choking on it, he didn’t want to gag, but he overcame the reflex and sucked the Luger to show his devotion and how well-trained he was. Kurt needed to do this and he, Terry, just did what Kurt commanded to soothe the soldier’s anxieties and calm his nerves. Terry didn’t care for a thrashing, although one could happen without warning, especially if Kurt were in a foul mood. But then he didn’t have to be in a foul mood to flog his bitch; he just had to feel in the mood to do it like last time when he spread-eagled Terry and shackled him in a doorway. The tip of the barrel hit the back of his throat and he gagged.
“Not too fast, cunt; take it easy.”
Hits of popper had relaxed his muscles and nerves, Kurt insisting he sniff a few times while he sat between the black boots. The soldier’s temperament had improved, and his own brain melted into streams of colours and golden fish with gossamer fins as Kurt seemed to speak, bubbling underwater, about guns and bullets and loaded chambers, how he, Kurt, had played Russian roulette in Germany, and again in Turkey, each time clicking against his temple, how soldiers sometimes played dangerous games because they were used to them. Soldiers playing games, the wheel of roulette, dice tumbling over numbers, Russian steppes and troikas skippering over frozen fields, the whispery click of the gun, click, click. With some effort, he was able to formulate a statement, to participate in the conversation.
“I saw a show once about soldiers in Kandahar playing hockey in the sand.”
“Yeah, we did that, too. You got to play games; it’s so fucking boring most of the time in the army. Ninety percent boredom, ten percent action. Here, take another hit. I want you soft and easy for me.”
“Oh, yeah, please…”
Sitting on the unmade bed, Terry had fondled the Luger and wondered how it would feel to shoot. Kurt had offered to take him out somewhere, a shooting range so he could try out the rifles, but so far that had not transpired. Then he removed his shoes and socks, stripped without thinking, found a pair of Kurt’s worn fatigues, redolent with the man’s odour, and a clean khaki green army T-shirt in the bureau. He wished he could also wear Kurt’s dog tags, but would wait a while before asking. If Kurt didn’t grunt disapproval about the change of apparel, it would prove his mood had also grown less explosive and more amenable because he liked seeing Terry in his clothes. The draperies were drawn against the daylight. Although Kurt had lived here for a couple of years, the walls still remained blank. Not a single poster or picture, just the messy bed, night tables, bureau, laundry hamper, and closet, nothing to indicate personal interests or permanence. The gun felt cold in his hand, a German Luger, loaded with stories no doubt, and Terry thought it might be a good idea to check the chamber.
“Hey, bitch, what the fuck’s taking you so long?’
Better not to irritate the soldier who so quickly raised his fist or whipped off his belt. And Kurt smirked at the fatigues and T-shirt, but said nothing. Terry, after getting the soldier another drink, knelt on a pillow between his legs. Kurt checked the gun’s chamber to see that it was empty of bullets, Terry believed, and he purred when the soldier caressed his cheek.
Before kneeling, he had glanced at the TV: a man in a strange furry hat with a long narrow moustache hanging down both sides of his chin, ponderous in vaguely Asian- looking armour and wielding a sword, and shouting something to other similarly dressed men on horseback. But as soon as the gun barrel passed between his lips, gently inserted, he forgot about the television and tried to make sense of Kurt’s words, something about Khan and can’t, and how soldiers, a real soldier lived to die, fought and fucked until killed in action, and he nodded his head, knocking his teeth against the barrel, agreeing because Kurt often talked about fucking; it was his great pleasure in life. Terry had come to love hearing about the adventures of military cock, and his head swirled, a kaleidoscope, a whirligig, scarcely resting on his shoulders, caught between Kurt’s legs, his mouth working around the gun hard, warm and moist.
“You love me; don’t you, bitch?”
Did he say yes with a gun in his mouth? Was it a word, a mumble, a nod, a sputtering of spit foaming around a steel rod? Yes, well, yes, he agreed, he’d do anything for Kurt, including another popper hit sucked up through his nostrils. If he sniffed more, his brains would melt into a pool of gold and turquoise and soft diamonds, but he inhaled more because, holy fuck, Kurt’s mood had changed with each click of the rotating chamber: click, click.
“I want you with me, cunt; let’s go together.”
Yes, yes, Kurt, let’s go together. The position of the barrel shifted in his mouth and hit the upper palate. It hurt, but Terry’s brain did not register pain so much as sudden alteration and discomfort.
“A soldier can take his own life. It’s honourable; they did it in Japan, the samurai, and in Rome. That’s what they did instead of dying a slow death in civvies. Come with me; say you want to be with me forever. You and me, never separated. You want that.”
He could not deny it. In the rainbow pool of his skull, Margo shimmered waving good-bye to him, his family, too, his friends and students, the street where he lived, the bright wooden floors of his house, the shelves of books, all wavered like shadows underwater until the gun’s barrel hit hard against his palate and his brain emerged out of its drugged funk to signal pain.
“We’ll die together, bitch, you and me together. It won’t hurt. Don’t worry. You won’t even know what hit you. First you, and then me. Like in Shakespeare, right? Trust me. This is the only way. Two bullets in the gun. One for you and one for me. You ready, baby?”
The tip of the barrel poked into his palate, and his head hurt under Kurt’s grip, the gun in the soldier’s fist, trigger finger poised. Colours dissipated, his eyes opened, he was swimming upwards, swimming up through the pool, reaching for air, emerging, his head shaking, his mouth sore, and Kurt’s words not making sense anymore, no, he shook, no, his hands fighting against the gun, the barrel knocking his teeth, what the fuck…
“Kurt, no!”
He managed to push himself back, or Kurt relented and dropped his hands, staring at Terry as if he wasn’t seeing his friend, his eyes lightless, unfocused, then he raised the gun to his mouth and inserted the barrel.
“Kurt!!”
A click.
Silence.
The heartbeats of both men resounded through the room, and Kurt released the gun, which fell besides Terry’s knee on the pillow. He leaned forward, grabbed Terry again, searched his face as if seeking some kind of clue to what, Terry did not know, but the gaze was almost tangible.
“What were you thinking, bitch?”
Terry’s body shivered as if stricken by a blast of cold air, and he couldn’t catch his breath, and Kurt embraced him, wrapped both arms around his neck, and rocked the way one rocked a baby.
“We need a drink.”
Terry tried to move, his head clear of colours and waves, but his body lacked the energy. He heard yelps and howls on the television, horses neighing, and the eruptive roar of sudden fire and the thrumming of his heart.
***
For all installments of “A Good Kill,” click here.
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Pieter Köhler writes about dark and often objectionable subjects, and finds the interface between pornography and literature liberating. He now resides in England.
