________________________sacred perversions: chapter one - by adire___

June 02, 2002, 3:47 p.m.

          Thunk.

          The newspaper fell heavily, invading Lucien's line of vision and making his coffee cup rattle against the wire-grate tables so popular in these outdoor cafes, and especially in New Orleans's Cafe du Monde. Side columns, splashy logos, a Mardi Gras mask next to the Times Picayune logo up in the left hand corner, gaudy ribbons nearly obscuring the previous day's date. Seventh Boy Missing, the headline proclaimed in grim black letters, selfishly drawing the eye from those trivial side interests. Below the headline was a picture of the boy.

          "My son."

          Lucien glanced up at Diane, at her tiredly pretty face and the grey streaks tucked into the bun of her ash blonde hair, and then studied the picture without responding. Sweet-faced, pale, with soft, dark hair that the black-and-white photo turned into an indistinguishable grey, though if he had to hazard a guess, he would say was brown. The same with the eyes, deep and dark, large and soulful with the wisdom of a young, naive angel. He had Diane's mouth, and couldn't have been more than ten. Lucian might have looked like that when he was younger, were the eyes paler, before time had hardened him, turned his lightly weather-tanned features into sharp chisels, fledged his hair from those baby-down locks of ebon softness into the slick black shag that fell into his coat's collar now, tucked behind his ears and efficiently keeping most of the strands out of his face. Most of them, and he irritatedly blew a few loose tendrils away from his mouth before speaking.

          "Is this why you wanted to meet with me, Diane?" It had been twelve years since she had walked out on him, leaving no note, simply removing her things from his apartment and vanishing from the city....and his life; twelve years since the fickle love of an older woman had slapped him from his youthful naivete and into crueler maturity. Twelve years, and not a hint of contact, not a word of explanation; he had moved on, married, had children of his own, recently divorced. He still wore his wedding ring, and as his eyes fell upon hers he unconsciously slid his left hand, fingers long and coarse and capable, beneath the table.

          She was still beautiful, he thought as she lowered her eyes nervously, refusing to meet his steady blue stare, her own eyes as green as envy and touched with laugh-lines about the corners; so she'd led a happy life, it seemed.

          Or she had....until now. When she'd called him two nights ago, urgency in her words and fear in her voice, he had almost hung up on her. But curiosity had driven him, and it was curiosity that had led to this meeting, in the crowded anonymity of the French Quarter's old-style ambience.

          Beneath his unwavering scrutiny, she finally broke; it was a tactic that he used on suspects often, and it was no less effective on the innocent. "Lucien, please don't be angry, " she pleaded, wringing her hands; she knew that look could once sway him, but although his stomach gave a faint wrench, he remained cold. "I know I should have said something, but that's so long in the past.....please....I need your help now. Brian's vanished, and I'd heard you were a private detective, that you were the best--"

          "Were. I'm retired now." He cut her off coldly, pushed the newspaper back towards her; in the reflection of the balmy afternoon sunlight, he caught a flash of cold hurt and anger in her eyes, but she masked it well, though she could not hide the snide tone to her voice.

          "Still as heartless as ever." He said nothing, only taking a sip of his coffee, glancing idly over the crowded French Quarter square before returning his gaze to her. "Lucien, you must understand; surely you have children of your own?"

          A single dark brow lofted as he smirked coolly, dryly; so she'd noticed the ring. "Had. Traded them for the lakefront property in the divorce." His wry humor was met with a wall of ice; he had expected no less.

          "That's not something to joke about, Luce, " she snapped, and he tipped his head slightly at the catch in her voice, upset, offended.

          "Who said I was joking?" Sighing, he reached for the pack of Djarum Blacks and the lighter waiting next to his nearly-drained cup of coffee. Her lips twitched as he lit one, nostrils distending in distaste; she had always disapproved of his smoking, but she held no sway over him now, and as the pale curls rose he eyed her assessingly through their thin white veil. "I suppose you want me to do this as a favor. For old times' sake. That sort of thing."

          She dimpled; predictable tactic. The fluttering lashes were next. "It would be nice, yes."

          "You realize the boy's probably already dead." She paled, and Lucien almost felt chagrined for his callousness, though it was the truth; he had heard bits and pieces about the recent disappearances that had the city's rumor-mill flying and had parents guarding their children jealously, though even his associates in the NOPD could provide him with very few facts. Young boys between the ages of seven and thirteen disappeared, invariably soft and pretty, invariably dark-eyed and slender, just like Brian--and reappeared in various locations between one and two weeks later, all of them with their throats slit, bodies drained of blood and showing signs of repeated sexual abuse, although they had been cleansed so meticulously that not even a trace of DNA, the merest edge of a fingerprint, could be found. It was the work of a sick, disturbed man, and Lucien could almost understand Diane's distress at thinking that her son might be another victim.

          Almost.

          "I...I.....I won't believe that. Not my son."

          They never want to believe it....not about their own. He nodded, short and clipped, flicked the ash of his cigarette into the coffee cup's saucer. "Just preparing you for disappointment. It'll cost you, Diane. I'm not doing you any favors."

          Now she was as frosty as he, and as formal; this had turned from an appeal to an old "friend" into a business transaction, and she was already reaching for her checkbook. Perhaps he might make that vacation in Barbados this year after all. "I thought it would be this way, " she bit off. "How much?"

          "Fifteen thousand. Five up front, ten on closure."

          She gasped, frowned, scowled. Not a pretty sequence on such a pretty face. "That's robbery!"

          "That's my price, " he drawled, and resisted the urge to smirk as he replaced the cigarette between his lips. "I am retired, after all." He would have charged anyone else as much....or almost as much. Maybe there was a touch of revenge in this after all, beautiful self-vindication.

          "Bastard."

          Lucien watched her, waited, let his eyes speak for him. She would cave soon, from sheer desperation--and he knew the moment that it happened when her lips stopped trembling and tightened into a line of grim determination, when her fingers clutched at the pen poised in a slender, work-roughened hand.

          As she signed the check, he took a deep, satisfied draught of the thin white stick between his lips, leaning back and relaxing.

          Barbados, here I come.

          His hands were large and thick and heavily veined, and he did not know a heaven.

          He stared at the canvas, swirled his finger in the thick white paint, touched it to his lips to breathe its scent�c.and then drew a slow, deliberate line down the chest of a wasted waif, marring the strokes that he had freshly painted, changing the portraiture into a macabre death slashed in grisly twain.

          Rafael, you are pathetic.

          The painting was far from ruined�c.but he could not continue it now. Not when the red and white had already cooled, lost their salty flavor.

          The eyes stared at him, the only points of varied color in the picture, brown swirled with blue and transparent rainbows, heavy, dark�cand he felt accused.

          I can�ft do it this time. I just can�ft.

          He stared at his hands for long moments, at the long, thin gnarls of his twistedly graceful fingers, and ran them through his hair, threading and clumping the black locks with paint, brushing the tangled mess from his eyes and letting it hang over his shoulders, tickling at the small of his bare back, spreading its color against his thin white skin.

          He was still naked. The boy�fs body laid on the floor next to the easel, the wide wet mouth on his throat smiling red and sweet as innocence.

          Sighing, Rafael closed his eyes, turning away from the canvas, from the corpse, from the tubes and tins and buckets of paint strewn everywhere, the handles of the paintbrushes thrusting up from cups of water and solvent like shriveled brown phalluses, and left the small windowless room, the white-walled and sterile den that most artists called their studio, that he called his Hell.

          This one had been eleven, only a couple of years away from too old, far from too young, thin and frail with wide, soft features and dark doe's eyes. He had tasted like rotten red wine, clotted and sweet, like addiction....a pure little altar boy of ill repute, innocence only waiting to be tainted.

          He still had not been the one.

          In the small atrium that he had converted into a personal lounge, he sprawled his lanky frame across the black wicker couch, lounging like a Southern belle at her midday rest and stretching one arm along its back; he had no worries that anyone might see his naked form, for his sprawling lakefront property was isolated, the nearest dwelling a speck along the curve of the rock-strewn shore. Sunlight wrapped him in honey as it streamed through the thick glass walls; his eyes were dazzled by the reflection from Lake Ponchartrain, and he closed them before their fragile amethysts overheated and shattered, laying one limp arm across his brow. Perfectly dramatic. Disgusting.

          His showing at the New Orleans Museum of Art was in five days, and he was still short two pieces; for Rafael Dausset to put on an incomplete show was unheard of. He could not bring himself to care for the inbred snobbery of the art world's elite, or their expectations; once his paintings were finished, he had no use for them, for they were nothing but the dried and decaying remains of his spent passions without the heat of the moment, the decadent and painful pleasure.....but his own quest for perfection refused to allow him to fall short.

          Dark eyes, haunted and sweet, suddenly loomed against the blackness of his eyelids, and he snapped his eyes open with a gasp, feeling a tingling thrill run through his body.

          Maybe he could....maybe he could after all.

          He threw the chenille quilt draped over the back of the sofa around his waist, tucked it neatly, and returned to the studio; that cooling, violated body waited, and he dipped his fingers into the pale, pale boy's mouth to stroke the rubbery roughness of his tongue, gathering blood onto his fingertips. It still tasted sweet-salty, and he smiled as he turned to the canvas, using his fingertips to trace the sensual shapes of the image-boy's mouth, kissing his lips with his hands.

          In the back of his mouth, he could still taste the passionate kiss of Brian's dying moan.

Chapter Two

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