Of Snakes and Giants

[Nathaniel Blackwood]

And here were the whores again.
Nathaniel could bear to listen to Felix scream and wave those little hands of his, but the 'whore' argument, together with the insinuation about the supposed horrid deeds they had done, made him finally stand up from the table.


“We had already had this conversation, Felix, and I am not in the habit of repeating myself a million times over,” said Nathaniel, his voice dangerously tense.
He grabbed his gloves from the table and waved them at Felix accusingly.
“I hate your determination to treat me as some low-life client who, on top of everything else that you so obviously deem disgusting, refuses to pay you for your ‘services’. I have already told you what I bloody want from you, but you refuse to listen to me! And I refuse to be treated this way! You still don’t understand anything, and you never will, because you refuse to even try. This is goodbye, Felix. I hope you’ll eventually find people who you’ll be happy to think of as friends, rather than clients.”

With a violent flap of the fabric, Nathaniel put on his overcoat and, instead of pulling on the gloves, shoved them into his pocket and grabbed his hat, then headed straight for the door.
All of this was a little bit too dramatic, he had to admit, but he knew it was the right decision. He shouldn’t have even tried to start seeing someone so young in the first place, and now he was paying the full price for this mistake.

[Jacob Smith]

At these words, Jacob’s heart dropped like a stone at the bottom of his stomach. He abhorred ‘goodbyes’. It was hurtful enough to watch a stranger walk away from him; watching Nathaniel leave, the man who raised so many conflicting feelings in his soul, was outright unbearable. If he left, did Jacob have to spend another month of restless nights, stewing in his own thoughts and listening to an echo of their conversations, fruitlessly trying to comprehend its meaning? No, he was not going to allow it!

“No! Wait!” he leapt from his chair and dashed across the room to cut Nathaniel’s exit. Closing the distance in a mad rush, he yanked the hat from his escaping lover’s hands with the swiftness of an experienced magician and hid it behind his back. “Let’s not do anything hasty, shall we? No more theatrics; let’s sit and talk it through like civilised gentlemen, hm?” Jacob took a few steps backward to reach the front door and locked it with a turn of a key, keeping his eyes on Nathaniel the whole time. “It occurred to me that we are definitely not on the same page,” he let out a nervous laugh. “What did you say about friends? I am pretty sure you never mentioned anything of sorts before. I would have remembered.”

Jacob turned his attention from the guest for a brief moment to pull down the blinds, then carefully and slowly approached him again like a wild tiger and dared to touch his arm gently.
“I am sorry I mistreated you. Let us start over. Maybe you would fancy a drink?”

[Nathaniel Blackwood]

Jacob was a difficult young man to understand. Or maybe that was exactly that — he was young, and all their problems stemmed from that.
“Very nice of you to think that I am capable of conversing like a 'civilized gentleman’, Felix. But you know what’s truly uncivilized? Stealing other people's hats.”
Nevertheless, Nathaniel did not make a single move to take his hat back from Felix. Instead, he just stood there — thinking, hesitating.

He should have, in good conscience, left then and there, despite all the closed doors and shutters, never to return. For their mutual good. So why was he not doing just that? The answer was sad and easy — he was too busy making another huge mistake instead, and Nathan himself was very much aware of it.
“Very well,” he muttered after this very long pause. He then moved back to the table, sat on his chair, and ostentatiously slowly put the gloves on the table.
Now, with its windows darkened, Felix’s shop became even more mysterious in its ambiance. Nathaniel took another slow, probing gaze at the shelves, and to his surprise discovered a huge phallus — proud and erect — on one of them.
“Is that your spare?” Nathaniel inquired with a slight nod towards the impressive thing.

[Jacob Smith]

When after a pregnant pause Nathaniel moved back to the table, Jacob sighed with relief. It was a minor victory, but a victory nonetheless. He hurried to join him before Nathaniel changed his mind. But shortly after, the tense silence descended on the shop once again.

Until Nathaniel’s gaze happened upon the candle.
“Oh yes! Do you want to have a closer look?” without waiting for a reply, Jacob swiftly fetched the candle from the shelf and gleefully presented it to his guest.
It was a very special candle: a fetish of Papa Legba, moulded in a handy phallus-shaped form. A curious eye might have noticed an image of Papa Legba himself carved into the base of the candle. Pop-eyed and somewhat exasperated, he held his massive endowment upright in his tiny hands as if he were trying to prevent it from crushing him underneath its weight. At first, Jacob placed a candle as a joke; he found it amusing to observe his customers trying their best to avoid noticing the huge penis on the shelf. However, soon enough, Jacob has grown fond of the thing. The shelf became a makeshift altar to Papa Legba, with the candle as its main exhibit.

“It is Papa Legba, the god of the crossroads, my favourite spirit,” confided Jacob. “I’d like to think I am also his favourite.”

With a mischievous grin, he looked Nathaniel dead in the eye, kissed the tip of the candle (it tasted like wax and dust), and then put it on the table. Suddenly, the inspiration hit him, and he resolved to make a leap of faith. Still feeling Papa Legba’s dusty blessing on his lips, Jacob introduced himself: “My name is Jacob. Felix is for strangers and clients.”

He suspected that knowing his name might keep Nathaniel from escaping better than a shabby lock. But why Jacob needed to keep him so badly, he would have failed to put into words.

“It is said there is power in true names. Now you know mine. Pleased to meet you,” saying this, Jacob held out his hand for a handshake.

[Nathaniel Blackwood]

There definitely was something Nathaniel did not know about the crossroads, for the look of Papa Legba’s physique suggested some other functions, what with such a build. The expression on the spirit's face might have evoked deep sympathy if it hadn't been so dangerously bordering on hilarious, and Nathan felt a little bad for disrespecting the spirit with these emotions.

Blackwood didn’t get a chance to comment on any of this verbally, for Felix’s manoeuvre cut his flow of thought short and busied his body with reactions of a different nature.
Nathaniel’s brows raised, and his mind quickly and obligingly tossed up memories of the last night they spent together in a very similar fashion. Felix knew what he was doing. Did Nathaniel tell him he had the most beautiful lips on the most handsome face Nathaniel had ever seen? He could not remember if he did, but in any case, Felix must have known this himself.

And if that wasn’t enough, he absolutely had to tug at Nathaniel’s heartstrings with the revelation. In his mind, Nathan was already opening the buttons of his shirt when the confession put a stop to the process and pulled him back only to immediately drown in a new storm.
After a brief pause he had to take, Nathaniel extended his hand in acceptance of the handshake, his touch almost delicate under the influence of evoking emotions.
“Well, my name is still Nathaniel Blackwood. Pleased to finally meet you,” he said, and gently squeezed his fingers before letting go of the hand. He then sat quietly for a heartbeat, examining his acquaintance in the light of these new findings.
“Jacob,” echoed Nathaniel at last. “It’s a very beautiful name. Jacob. Suits you. Does it come with a different surname as well?”

[Jacob Smith]

Savouring another minor victory, Jacob finally stopped holding the hat hostage and placed it upon the table. Then, he balanced Papa Legba’s candle on top of it to keep guard. Nathaniel would have to get past the spirit if he decided to take this crossroad.

This victory, however, was short-lived. The dreaded question came soon after. The family name. Generally, to get it, one is supposed to acquire a family first. This is where things started to look ugly. Jacob took his sweet time before answering. Now, when he actually bothered to listen to himself, he noticed how fast his heart was beating. The poor thing definitely resolved to go elsewhere but couldn’t escape the confines of the ribcage. However, since Jacob has already revealed the secret of his name, there was no point in being cagey.

“Smith,” he screwed up his nose as if smelling something foul. “This is how they called all the bastards in Westport House. Daddy was so busy putting babies in every servant that he forgot to leave some seed for his lady wife. Haven’t acknowledged anyone, even the ones of the right colour. Died heirless, that miserable fucker — oh, the irony! 'Twas quite a scandal back in the day. So here I am, living off the kindness of strangers.”

The more he said, the worse Jacob felt. His breath became heavy, his head — dizzy. He was not used to giving any snippet of information about himself for free. It was a recipe for ruin. Nevertheless, somehow, he couldn’t stop himself as soon as he started talking. It was almost like a flood: chaotic, destructive, pointless.

“Anyway,” Jacob made an effort to reach his head above the flood and smile, “it is all bygones. You mentioned something about friendship? Can I rely on your discretion then?”

[Nathaniel Blackwood]

Nathan should have known better — in particular, he should have remembered that the topic of family was a taboo subject with Felix; to his mild, but sudden surprise, it turned out that Jacob was more willing to open up about his background.

What it was all about was something Nathaniel could never have predicted. Westport House? Heirless miserable fucker? Even when he was busy at work, Nathan still had his sisters and parents, and they together with their family dinners brought about many a gossip discussion. Dead noble notoriety was oftentimes amongst them. And that particular combination sounded pretty familiar.

“Do you mean to say that you are…” Nathaniel started, but let the second half of the thought fade.
Of course Jacob did mean to say exactly that. That explained his eloquence and extensive education beyond your usual standard.
For Nathan that also meant that his dick had exceptionally good taste in men.

And so it turned out he was sleeping with a little marquislet this whole time.
“What? Oh, yes. Of course. No one will know, I promise,” Nathaniel resurfaced from his thoughts and moved closer to Felix… Jacob with his chair. “I am sorry you had such an unfortunate childhood, Jacob. I don’t know if that’s any consolation, but despite everything you matured into someone extraordinary.”
With these words and a small smile, Nathaniel touched Jacob’s fingers with his fingertips.
“I'm saying this as a friend, of course.”

[Jacob Smith]

Nathaniel took the revelation surprisingly well. Maybe he didn’t believe that Jacob spoke in earnest. Either way, the leap was made, and it seemed Jacob soared instead of crashing on the sharp cliffs of consequence. So far, at least.

“You know what I like about you?” seizing the moment, Jacob reached out and gently caressed his guest’s cheek. “It’s how magnificently peculiar you are. If you told me that you stepped through a mirror a fortnight ago, I would immediately believe you! It’s like you came from the place where the sun sets in the East and rises in the West, where white is black and black is white, and morality is completely alien to us,” while he was speaking, Jacob traced his knuckle along Nathaniel’s jaw, trying to distract him. He felt like a snake charmer hypnotising a cobra with a little tune and sleight of hand.

“I thought I could not fall further from grace,” Jacob carried on, “but then you appeared at my doorstep, the very Devil himself — and handsome at that! — and showed me how naive I was.” he took Nathaniel’s hand and caught his eye. “With that said, you — as a friend — must realise I have but one humble talent in life. If you are intent on scaring away every gullible widow who looks my way, I’d be driven out of business shortly enough. And what am I supposed to do then, hm? Would you employ me as one of your diggers?”

[Nathaniel Blackwood]

Nathaniel found himself on the cusp of something of a metaphysical conundrum: on the one hand, Jacob’s touch and the sheer fact that he used the word ‘like’ in his proximity made Nathaniel’s heart melt. On the other hand, his other spoken words were… something else.

“So let me get this straight: you're telling me I'm making you a worse person? A fallen, sinful man?” Nathaniel chuckled, looking at Jacob’s beautiful face and holding his hand in return. “And not only that, but I'm also not allowing you to make money for your humble living now? If your descriptions of me weren't so flattering I'd be deeply offended by your words, Jacob Smith. And I am sorry, but you know perfectly well you're too handsome to be a digger.”

Nathaniel’s small smile briefly faded. Jacob did say he liked all of those questionable traits about him, but the way he worded those things was a bit too harsh to take them lightly.
“Let’s decide one thing once and for all, Jacob: if you want me out of your life, you must say so. I’ll understand. But think hard: you have already stopped me once today, but if you don't want to know me — really don’t want to know me — I must hear this now. I promise I won't take you prisoner in my mirror world for this.”

[Jacob Smith]

“Mhm”, Jacob nodded in assent with a small sly smile. Nathaniel was making him worse with every passing hour. For instance, never before was he so brazen to openly insult someone to their face. Another man would have taken offence, but not Nathaniel — a sure sign Jacob’s unwise words held a grain of truth.

Jacob’s caresses might have successfully distracted Nathaniel for the time being, but they couldn’t keep his attention for long. Soon enough, the guest challenged him with a question that made Jacob stop and think.
“I don’t want you out,” he replied after a short pause. It was easy to say. But why he didn’t want Nathaniel to leave was a much harder question to answer. “I have never met anyone like you.” Jacob continued, thinking aloud. At least, this much was certain.

Nathaniel also managed to trick him at their first meeting and worm into his head. Jacob was still quite ambivalent about it. Probably, he deserved the poetic justice; but the way its blade was cast upon him made him stagger for days. Figuratively and literally.

“I also have a question for you,” Jacob let go of Nathaniel's hand and gave him a piercing look. “Why do you have to be so wrath with poor Mrs Whittlock? And don’t try to fool me with this tale of indecency! I can see it’s something else, I just can’t put my finger on it. And you know, the reason why she came to your parlour is because I sent her your way,” he nodded towards a poster of 'Blackwood and son', which hung in the place of honour next to the entrance. “I want to be sure I didn’t make a mistake.”