“Resurrection Men”
\nby A.C. Quill<\/p>\n
I stumble off the night bus, and find I\u2019m lost in South London. In front of me runs a long, high brick wall. The map app on my phone shows me what\u2019s behind the wall: Nunhead cemetery. A big green obstacle, I\u2019ll have to trudge round the edge of it, if I want to get home.<\/p>\n
Or could there be a short cut?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A sudden flash of a memory: me, boosting my friend Tristan up a similar wall. He didn\u2019t weigh much. He\u2019d swung a leg over the top, then cried out: \u201cSpikes! Mind your groin!\u201d<\/p>\n
I reach a massive pair of wrought-iron gates. It\u2019s dark, and there\u2019s nobody to see me. I heave myself up the ironwork, my feeble biceps straining, and achieve the summit; I topple down the other side. The ground smashes the breath out of me.<\/p>\n
When I open my eyes again, I find I\u2019m on a pale avenue, lined by an honour-guard of trees. At the far end stands a chapel, roofless and fire-gutted. I limp towards it. I see stars through the empty window arches.<\/p>\n
The whole place smells of leaf mould, undergrowth, chilly autumn night air. The smell turns me on. That\u2019s a Pavlovian response, from my previous adventures with Tristan.<\/p>\n
At the chapel steps, the path splits, and both left and right fork disappear into wooded darkness.\u00a0I\u2019m a part-time occultist, but I don\u2019t relish walking onwards alone.<\/p>\n
Why not phone Tristan, while I walk? He might enjoy mocking my fears.<\/p>\n
\u201cCallum!\u201d He sounds startled. \u201cWhat on earth are you up to?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGuess where I am?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was exactly what I was going to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNunhead cemetery!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus! Not permanently?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust taking a shortcut. You know, you\u2019d love it here.\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice softens. \u201cNunhead! We haven\u2019t fooled around there, have we? Shame. I could pin you against that huge obelisk, and go wild\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Now I can hear his voice, I feel bolder. I choose the right-hand path, and I stomp away from the chapel, past the urns and ferns.<\/p>\n
Tristan and I had first met on a tour of the mausoleums of Highgate.\u00a0\u201cWhy are you here? You\u2019re not even a goth,\u201d he\u2019d accused. He was tiny, raven-haired and indignant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a psychogeographer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOoh, do you want to feel my ambiance?\u201d He\u2019d flicked his pierced tongue at me, while the tour guide frowned. I was a flirt-blind nerd, but Tristan had insisted we meet again at Highgate that night, and he\u2019d lured me over the wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll look like grave robbers,\u201d I\u2019d objected.<\/p>\n
\u201cResurrection men.\u201d Tristan had stroked the railings. \u201cI bet I could make you rise again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside the cemetery, he\u2019d pressed me up against a stone pillar. His mouth had been slippery with black lipstick and so hot and perfect I thought I\u2019d pass out. His fingers sneaked up under my T-shirt and brushed my nipples, making me gasp.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh yes,\u201d he\u2019d murmured. \u201cYou\u2019ll do.\u201d I let him sit me on the marble of a low flat grave and straddle my lap. My arse had frozen, my hardening cock had been pressed against his ridiculous lace-up leather trousers. \u201cYou\u2019ll definitely<\/em> do.\u201d<\/p>\n At the other end of my phone, Tristan is drifting into his own reminiscences. \u201cWe vowed to visit all of them, the seven big old London cemeteries…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t vow,\u201d I object. \u201cYou just kept organising our next date around the next graveyard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou didn\u2019t say no.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said no to some things.\u201d I\u2019d refused (after that first time) to roll around on the graves. Too disrespectful. So we\u2019d started making out on memorial benches. In Memory of Timothy, Who Loved This Place<\/em>. Cheers, Tim, I\u2019m enjoying it, too.\u00a0We\u2019d unlaced Tristan\u2019s goth clobber to expose bits of his skin to the night air, traced each other with shaking hands.<\/p>\n Tristan had been so infinitely sensitive. His responsiveness had been very useful, because there was a limited amount you could sexually achieve in a chill graveyard. I\u2019d often wriggle my hand down into his trousers and slide my icy fingers up into his hot wetness. Tricky for him to come, that way, but impossible for either of us to break away, every sensation creating more need.<\/p>\n Suddenly I see a familiar shape silhouetted ahead of me. I\u2019ve come back to the roofless chapel, the path delivering me to its threshold again. \u201cOh, piss. I must have missed a turn-off.\u201d I retrace my steps, faster this time. Ivy tries to trip me, roots thick as my finger.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re definitely feeling OK?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, just got a bit lost.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re usually such a boy scout. Remember when you brought a blanket!\u201d\u00a0Tristan cackles.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a sensible precaution!\u201d I\u2019d wanted the soft tartan rug to cover up the sharp stones and enable us to fuck, so I could fill Tristan up and feel him spasm round me.<\/p>\n \u201cAs though we were going for a picnic in the Peak District.\u201d He was pretending not to remember, how I\u2019d got what I wanted: we\u2019d spread the blanket down between two table tombs and he\u2019d pushed back against me, begged me to go deeper. Angel statues had looked down on us, pallid and calm.<\/p>\n \u201cSorry I wasn\u2019t transgressive<\/em> enough for you,\u201d I faux-apologised. \u201cWhat was that short story you liked, where the two lads shagged in a crypt?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis Mouth will Taste of Wormwood<\/em>. Splendidly decadent. And what did you call it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis Nob Will Taste of Fishfood<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n Tristan sighed. \u201cPhilistine. Good job I was so easy-going. And portable.\u201d<\/p>\n God, I\u2019d forgotten that. I\u2019d lifted him up entirely, one time, and pinned him against a thick yew tree. Ground into him, made him howl. \u201cSo you were.\u201d<\/p>\n The trees whisper overhead, an owl hoots, but Tristan\u2019s voice keeps me going. Stiffens my resolve, if you like. I\u2019m getting so hard it\u2019s difficult to walk.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you remember that time you saw a ghost?\u201d I ask him, to change to a less stimulating subject. \u201cIn West Norwood. You looked over my shoulder\u2026\u201d I\u2019d been on my knees in the mud, licking his delicious small wet cock, but I can leave that part out. \u201cYou said: there\u2019s a ghost over there.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you didn\u2019t believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did it look like?\u201d I ask, to placate him. \u201cThe ghost?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTall, pale, pissed off. I mean, I know what it was, now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToo much cider?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was you.\u201d<\/p>\n He sounds deadly serious, so I try to be open-minded. \u201cWhat, gone back in time?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGhosts are untethered in time, aren\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou think I\u2019ll spend my afterlife watching myself have sex?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course! It\u2019s fun! And it\u2019s ethical voyeurism.\u201d<\/p>\n A high building appears ahead, dotted with Gothic nobbles. Have I reached the exit gates, on the far side of the graveyard? No, it\u2019s the bloody chapel, again. I won\u2019t tell Tristan I\u2019ve walked in a circle twice, he\u2019d crow about it. I sink down to sit on the chapel steps. I think of tender things, suddenly: wrapping him in my coat, holding him under my arm, kissing him softly.\u00a0\u201cWhat are you up to? We could meet here. Tick it off our bucket list.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCallum, I don\u2019t think you\u2019re in any fit state.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re calling me on the phone, yes? But I\u2019m not hearing you on the phone. I\u2019m messing around with a Ouija board.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m afraid so. I\u2019d hardly asked is there anybody there, when you came through the ether, frisky as a premium-rate phoneline\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n I hold my phone at arm\u2019s length and stare at it. It looks utterly normal.<\/p>\n Tristan\u2019s voice is tinny: \u201cI hate to ask, but have you been in an accident?\u201d<\/p>\n I look back down the avenue which brought me into the cemetery. At the foot of the gates, on the gravel, is an ominous slumped shape. \u201cWell, it looks like I fell off a twelve-foot iron gate.\u201d<\/p>\n For once, he doesn\u2019t tease me. \u201cOh dear. Well, you might not be dead! You might be astrally projecting.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll call you an ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWill you ring me back, after that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course! If I can. You sit tight and think happy thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll think about your awful lace-up leather trousers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou loved them. You used to rip them off me!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo I didn\u2019t have to look at them!\u201d<\/p>\n Tristan hangs up. I certainly don\u2019t feel dead, or dying. I feel more alive than ever, with the stone beneath me and the stars above, hungry to hear Tristan\u2019s voice again.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n A.C.Quill is English and queer, and writes in their study with a roaring fire while it rains outside. Their work has appeared on the Circlet Press site as microfictions, and Cunning Linguists: Language, Literature, and Lechery<\/em> by the New Smut Project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Resurrection Men” by A.C. Quill I stumble off the night bus, and find I\u2019m lost in South London. In front of me runs a long, high brick wall. The map app on my phone shows me what\u2019s behind the wall: Nunhead cemetery. A big green obstacle, I\u2019ll have to trudge round the edge of it, … Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: Resurrection Men by A.C. Quill<\/span>
\nI steal myself and peer closer at my own body, see my chest rise and fall. \u201cOh, thank heaven, I\u2019m breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n