(c) 2017, Dove
His face shimmied on the surface of the water. It was reflected back like a prism of colors and shapes. I only see this now in hindsight. A memory like a dream fading into the ether, hardly there and yet ever present.
Sweat beads on my forehead. The past comes back. Dripping down my cheeks. Under my arms, my shirt has rings the size of cantaloupes. My musky moldy smell spreads.
I continue to breathe with my eyes closed, eyelids like butterfly wings touching so very gently, the paradox of one part of my body to another. How sweat and gently, can co-exist.
I am drawn back yearly to this place of perpetual death. Formative high school years bullying at its finest. I was training for a marathon, for the marathon, the marathon to get me into the Olympic trials. I was the number one in the county, I was breaking records every run. Faster, quicker! Once a week a least I was being tested for blood doping. They couldn’t believe how fast I was. Each test came back negative.
I was running through the woods every day. Seventeen, fast furious, feeling my limbs move like a well-tuned Porsche on a racetrack. Taking turns at speeds that blur the eyes. I was at Big Lake. Some mud slowed me down. My shoe came off. I stopped. I sat down to pull it out of the mud. When I got up Dan was there. Eighteen, with muscles like a lion on the prowl. He growled at me. Pulling at my shirt. I ran back toward the lake. I was quick like a gazelle. But he sprang and got my legs. I was down on the ground with rocks in my face. He flipped me over. He pulled down my shorts; he put his mouth on my genitals. I was hard. I came in his mouth. He flipped me over again and fucked me.
He went soft, finished. I was holding a rock in my hands. I began to pound it into his head. Blood was everywhere. I pulled him to the water. I held him down watching his face shimmy on the surface.
Caught trialed jailed released.
This year is the tenth year after my release, the 20th since his death. I wonder could we have been lovers.
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Dove currently lives in Philadelphia PA USA. He has been writing his whole life and has been working hard at writing.
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GAY FLASH FICTION 