Stress Relief

A young man, hardly old enough to avoid being called a boy, lay sprawled, indulgent, wanton on the dirty stone floor of the alley. This body, lying amidst the unidentifiable sticky, slimy, smelly rubbish that littered the floor; rubbish that had been trampled and melted and compressed until it was actually part of the floor, this defiant body seemed out of place. He still had the boots on his feet, pseudo-platform, black, some kind of vinyl.

The trousers, now torn at the knee and ripped up the seam on one side, also black, shot through at odd places with glittery red thread, just enough to glitter in a certain light, to give the illusion that the black wasn't all it appeared to be. Flared at the bottom slightly, low cut around oh-so delicate looking hipbones, hipbones like the bowl of a wine glass; smooth, delicate, fragile. Breakable.

The top, cut short, exposing the vulnerable midriff to anyone, concave, taut, tense, even in the unnatural stillness in which he was lying, also black, the boy's preoccupation with black being a curiosity. Black hides the stains better. Again, low-cut at the top, rounded off to almost hang off the shoulders, drooping down in long, flared, flowing sleeves, echoing the princess gowns of fairytale castle's, the effect intensifying the bird-like, frail porcelain quality of the bony shoulders and drawn throat.

The face, with its androgynous effeminate features, its dainty nose and pouty mouth. The bedraggled, tousled hairstyle, short shorn, yet long looking, curly yet spiky, the colour a gentle tawny, yet also a sooty black. The eyes, formerly alive and framed with long black eyelashes, now glazed over.

The body, lying like some kind of shiny tin foil wrap among the dirt and grime and dumpsters of the alley, haloed in a thick cloying liquid.

The passing bystander, who isn't a bystander at all, looks down the alley and spies the body and calls out to it. But it doesn't respond. And the 'bystander' stands where it is, unwilling to brave the filth of the alley where the body lies, and asks itself… how did this happen?

*** Three days beforehand ***

Terrence Mitchell, twenty-three, successful, clever, handsome; standing at 5'11" with soft red hair and heart-melting honey brown eyes, already with the blood pressure of an unhealthy eighty year old. The stress is killing him. His doctor tells him that he needs to take it easy, get plenty of exercise, drink lots of water and eat properly. Then gives him some sleeping pills to help him sleep regularly. He tries this for a few months with little result. He is beginning to wear down.

He works as a dealer in the stock market, buying and selling shares for other companies. Terrence has already earned enough money in the past one and a half years to tide him over for the rest of his life. But, he's starting to feel the pressure.

Over the past few days, he had been making more and more risky deals and had had one too many narrow escapes. He wanted to stay in work, for a few more months at least, but the strain of practically conducting the lives of so many people was horrendous. He needed some form of stress relief.

So, our clever little business boy tries everything. Horse riding, hang-gliding, golf, tennis, swimming, tai chi, health spas, everything and anything. And nothing works.

Terry is desperate for some kind of mental relief, but Terry is also, surprisingly, alone. He has no wife, no girlfriend, no family, no parents. He doesn't even have a dog.

In the end, it was Terry's loneliness that made him do what he did, made him go where he went for some help.

But it was his 'friend' and colleague Alex Aldrin who put the idea in his head in the first place.

"Ter, my man, how ya doin'?"

Terry groaned into his hands where his head rested.

*Please, * he asked the higher powers. *If you have any decency at all, you'll let him leave me alone. Leave me a… *

A heavy hand came rushing out of nowhere and walloped him in a comradely fashion on the back, almost severely winding him.

"H-hi Alex. I'm not bad. How're you?"

Alex Aldrin grinned and sat down next to him.

"I'm absolutely bloody brilliant mate, just great, thanks for asking."

*Someone's on anti-depressants. * Terry thought bitterly to himself and continued to hold his aching head in his hands, hunched over on the edge of the large fountain in the courtyard outside their building.

Unluckily, Alex noticed his misery and decided to try and spread his joy.

"Terry, you don't look so good. Still on that stress medication?"

Terry gave a feeble laugh, which sounded strained and tense to him.

"Heh, yeah, yeah, I am. My doctor had me doing acupuncture last week. It didn't help a bit."

It really hadn't.

Alex tutted and sat down next to his fellow dealer.

"Ah, don't let it get to you. Stress's killed off loads of our kind. You gotta stay strong, just a few more months in the game and you'll be able to retire, get a house in Maui and settle down."

Terry couldn't even find the strength to make a comment to this, so he continued to hang his head.

After a while, Alex's buoyant mood seemed to be penetrated by Terry's hopeless glom and he began trying to help the other man in earnest.

After a while of talking about what had helped him out of his depression in the job, Alex lowered his voice and began talking to Terry in that confidential, 'dirty dealing' tone that you only ever hear bad gangsters in Vinnie Jones movies use.

"Hey. Hey Terry mate. I'm only telling you this 'coz you're my mate and all. Something that's helped me a lot with the stress and everything."

Terry lifted his head and listened out of boredom and some curiosity.

"Now, I know that you're a stand-up kinda guy, but you're also desperate. I can tell. I've been in your position. There's one stress relief activity that I bet you haven't tried yet, something that your doc won't put you on, but it is guaranteed to work."

Now Terry's interest had been spiked despite himself.

"Go on."

Alex handed him a card with a street address on it.

"What's this?"

Alex grinned nervously and looked around a bit before whispering back.

"S'kinda like a 'dating service', only more direct if you know what I mean."

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, could the man get any more suspicious looking?

"What do you mean, 'kinda like a…'"

He trailed of into silence and thought about it while looking at Alex, who was grinning and winking at him.

"Wait a minute." Jerry lowered his voice to match Alex's. "You mean prostitutes?"

Alex looked slightly uncomfortable.

"They ain't really. They have a whole agency thing going on and stuff."

Terry rolled his eyes incredulously.

"Yeah Alex, organised pimps. Look, this is crazy. I can't-"

Alex cut him off sharply, seemingly annoyed.

"Look, do you want to get rid of your stress or not. I'm telling you, this is the best way to do it."

Terry said nothing, looking doubtfully and disgustedly at the card.

"Look." Alex finally said. "It's up to you if you do it or not. If you do want to, ask for Ara. Ara's the best."

When Terry continued to ignore him Alex got up and began to walk away.

"Think about it. It'll end all your problems. I'll see you later."

Terry just folded the card up and, not finding a bin anywhere, put it in his pocket.

***One day beforehand ***

Terry was nearing the end of his rope. He had had enough of the numbers, the companies, the complaints, the rising and falling and rising of the companies' successes, like the sea. Unstoppable, yet decided by him. He had no friends, no support group and had suddenly realised the other night, when he had found himself drunk with a bottle of Scotch in one hand, thinking about what it would be like to jump off his balcony, that his stress levels were starting to become dangerous.

He'd had a hard day at work and had blown-off his appointment with his doctor, unwilling to go through anymore pointless money draining consultations on his 'stress levels' and how much water he was drinking a day.

He found himself hyperventilating in the car park in his car and had gone for a drive around town with the windows down, trying to keep calm.

In the end, he had had to stop and step out to take a breather. He reached into his pocket to get his medication and had found a piece of folded card instead. Pulling it out, he suddenly remembered Alex's conversation with him the other day.

* There's one stress relief activity that I bet you haven't tried yet, something that your doc won't put you on, but it is guaranteed to work." *

He looked at the address on the card and noticed, by some twist of fate, that he was no more than a few streets over from the address on the card.

*No. I can't do that, it's wrong. * He told himself.

*But you need something. Don't you see. You'll end up killing yourself beneath a train or something. *

*No. N-n-no. I can't. It'd be… I can't. *

*What other choice do you have, you're at the end of your rope. It's either this or go looking for a gun. You know you can't quit the job now. You think you can stand that for much longer? *

Terry almost actually moaned at the thought of having to go through another day like today again, even once.

*Exactly my point. You don't have to spend any cash. Just see what's up. *

The voice in his head convincing him to do so and the thought of even more stress being piled onto his shoulders with a viable release right in front of him was too much for Terry to bear.

"Okay." He muttered to himself. "But I won't… buy anyone. I'll just go see what it's like."

The voice, which sounded suspiciously like Alex, laughed its head off.

In the end, it was an impromptu panic attack that made Terry do what he did. That and the boy had a silver tongue.

He had driven over to the address on the card and found a street corner inhabited by people. Leaning against the wall, having a smoke, desperately trying to show off their skinny, bony bodies, hoping to be taken home for the night, make some cash, buy what they needed.

He edged slowly towards a smaller group, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. He was shocked, then, when a hand tapped him on the shoulder from behind. He whipped around with a startled yelp and a look of shock splattered across his face. The person behind him chuckled darkly, sounding as if he were too tired to actually bother to laugh.

"You're first time 'ere luv." the voice didn't as much inquire as state.

Terry, frozen up until then, nodded stiffly, then remembered himself and shook his head, stuttering slightly in embarrassment.

"Y-yes. Oh, I mean no, no, I'm, it's, I mean, it's not, I mean, I'm not what you think, I'm not…"

The boy slid closer to Terry, laughing softly at his discomfiture and running a pair of hands up the lapels on his jacket. Terry gulped.

"Don't worry about it luv, I don't care. S'what I'm here for anyway. But then you don't seem like the type to come round a place like this."

Terry shook his head.

"No, well, I wouldn't have, s'just Alex suggested to me, and I've been under a lot of pressure lately, haven't been thinking right, so I was desperate and…"

The boy cut in again.

"I see. Well, was there anything in particular you wanted doing?"
Terry stumbled back a little bit as the boy tried to press up against him.

"Oh, no, no, I'm not. I don't swing that way. I'm really sorry, I just don't like guys."

Again with the laughter, and having been subjected to it three times already that evening, Terry was beginning to realise that it held a sound of sadness in it, of strained entrapment, similar to Terry's own sick desperate laughter, only more subtle, more established. The boy sounded as if he had been walking the earth for years and had realised that there was nothing better than this.

"That's alright hun. It's all the same in the end. Besides, the girl's have all been bought. You shoulda got here earlier."

Terry was beginning to feel panicky, his vision narrowed and he broke out into a chill sweat. He pulled at his tie uncomfortably, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.

"Alex told me to ask for Ara." He muttered.

"Ara? Well babe, there's little that Ara can do that I can't. Plus, I can do a little bit more."

Terry was silent.

"So whaddaya say luv. Gonna take me offa this street corner for a little while?"

The boy was good. He had recognised Terry's agitation and had taken advantage of it, appealing to his softer side.

Terry just nodded his head dumbly and the boy grinned. He turned and raised his hand to someone else, telling them that he was on a job, and then linked arms with Terry.

"So hun, where's your car?"

Byrdie Merle, nineteen, 5'3" bullied from an early age for possessing the features of a girl. Eventually, he learned to live with it, then embraced his differences, submerging himself in the new gay culture of the city and learning how to use his attributes to get him what he wanted. Introduced into the world of drug use aged sixteen by an older boyfriend, he then became addicted to heroin, ending up owing to everyone and dropping out of school. Did his best to get a job to support his habit, but was kicked out of home aged eighteen (or rather, kicked himself out) and found that he couldn't afford to continue his habit if he wanted food to eat occasionally. So, he ends up here, on the corner, waiting for some friendly face to buy him and make it all worth his while. Outside he may look composed and confident, but inside, he is screaming and trembling for another hit.

Of course, he gets more business than most, with his mop-cut curly hair fading, ebbing and merging between a soft charcoal black with tawny highlights, and his main features, his large, expressive, stormy purple eyes with just a sheen of silver. He is beautiful. There's no other word for it.

Terry opened the door to his expensive apartment and stood back, letting his guest enter first. Dy stood in the middle of the room, looking around in wonder at the sheer expense, and feeling very out of place. He felt cheap. He wanted a shower. He needed a hit.

He hid this all very carefully, however, and turned to Terry with grey smudged eyes, bringing out the silver colour in his purple orbs, lids lowered in a seductive fashion.

"So. We're here then." He purred suggestively.

Terry took of his coat and hung it up on a hook, then undid his tie and the top button of his shirt. He yelped when he found cold little fingers helping him with it, unbuttoning the shirt button by button, fingers slipping inside every now and then, fingers which danced across his skin, making him hitch his breath and gasp in unexpected surprise.

"Y-you don't have t-to…" He stammered.

"Oh, but I want to." Dy drawled, voice heavy, thick, sweet and flowing like honey.

"Look." Terry suddenly felt nervous. "I don't want to... I mean, you don't really have to..."

He stopped, cut off by Dy's tongue sliding across his sculpted collarbone. The boy was annoyingly good at doing that.

By now, his whole shirt had been unbuttoned, and Dy slid his hands around Terry's fairly slim waist and up to his broader shoulders, slipping the shirt off his back slowly, then slipping s-l-o-w-l-y down his arms.

Terry moaned appreciatively as that hot wet mouth on his collarbone moved up to suck on his throat and then up to his lips, where they sucked and nipped until he reciprocated the kiss.

It was different to kissing a girlfriend. The taste was totally unknown, slightly smoky but pleasant; the tongue against his was more dominating yet also allowed him to have control. The lips weren't as full, but were fuller than he would have expected.

Dy was a good kisser.

As he kept Terry's mouth and attention occupied with his own mouth, Dy's hands snaked down to gently undo the belt holding Terry's trousers up.

Terry whimpered slightly when Dy broke the kiss and suddenly realised where Dy's hands were. The shyness flared up again, but he didn't have to worry as Dy sank to crouch at his feet, dragging the trousers down Terry's legs as he went.

Dy was well aware of the erotic picture he made, practically kneeling at Terry's feet.

Terry's head swam as he saw that tousled head lean down to lick up his shin and then come up slightly to nip at his inner thigh as Dy came back up. He didn't register anything at the moment except the intense look Dy was giving him, the feelings that flooded through his system, the promise of things to come.

Byrdie leaned in for another kiss, then whimpered softly himself as Terry suddenly became more involved, lifting the smaller boy up slightly by his ass so that he could wrap his legs around his waist. His hands went around Terry's shoulders to hold on and he broke the kiss, panting lightly, nuzzling his head into the crook of Terry's neck.

"Bedroom?" He asked softly, breathing into Terry's ear.

"Yeah." Terry gasped back. "Good idea. Now."

He carried Dy, still clinging to him, into his room and shut the door behind them.

The lightweight bed shook as its two occupants gasped and panted their way to the stars as solace was taken from one of their bodies and as one of them went through yet another night absorbing someone else's pain again, adding to his own. His clothes lay strewn around the room, hanging from cupboards and bedposts and the light, carelessly discarded like unwanted wrapping paper, like unnecessary inconveniences.

Power was given up, surrender was taken and used and abused. Mechanical thrusting, emotionless motion, heads thrown back, fingers clawing, hands grasping, legs bracing.

High-pitched moans that were almost the whines of starving animals, almost gasps, bestial grunts and finally, released, almost panicked screaming and yelling and the ultimate satisfaction that he had finally worked out his stress.

They lay apart, on either side of the bed, spread-eagled and panting. A skinny, track-marked, sweaty arm reached tremblingly over to the cupboard top and pulled a cigarette out of the packet there. Some more searching located the lighter and with a click, fwoosh lit the little white stick and took a drag from it, sighing afterwards.

Terry watched drowsily as Byrdie lit a cigarette and smoked it fast, finishing seemingly moments after he'd lit it. He sat up and rested against the headboard, and Byrdie laid himself back down, knees drawn up to his chest slightly, hands clasped like a child in prayer in front of him, head almost but not quite touching Terry's chest. Terry reached down, almost absentmindedly and ran a hand through those sweat-dampened, tawny owl coloured locks.

That fine-boned, delicate, wickedly expertised hand came up to trace down Terry's leg slightly, not erotically, not yet, but with the promise of maybe getting there.

"You were amazing." Terry said softly.

Byrdie sighed and dropped the hand down between their bodies.

"I aim to please." He sighed out.

Their conversation went slowly, lethargic with after-sex glow.

"How long have you been doing this?" Terry asked.

"A year and a bit."

"That doesn't seem long."

"I suppose not, not when you don't have to live it."

Terry dropped his hand down to rub the elegant neck, the one that still bore reddish blue bruises and teeth marks. His teeth marks…

"Why do you do it?"

Byrdie sat up and supported himself on one arm while he reached for his underwear.

"Dependent on the 'white stuff' in' I." He said somewhat shortly.

During the pause while skin-tight trousers were located and pulled on Terry just leaned his head on his hand and watched the beautiful body dress.

"What about your parents."

"What about them?"

"Don't they care?"

"Fucked if I know." Muffled while pulling a T-shirt that wasn't his over his head.

"I left them before I wound up with my skull caved in by a baseball bat or somethin'. C'n I take that?"

Pointing at the almost empty packet of cigarettes.

"Yeah, yeah, sure." Distracted at what he had just heard, Terry waved his hand in the direction of the box.

"Thanks." They were pocketed (where?) and then the boy who wasn't a boy held out his hand.

"Cash please."

"Oh. Oh yeah. Sorry."

Terry got out of bed, wrapping the sheet around his waist despite the fact that everything yet to be seen had been, and rummaged around until he had the right amount to pay for tonight's services.

"Oh my God." As he was handing it over to the opal-eyed boy.

"What?"

"I- I just- paid a..."

Byrdie waved a hand dismissively.

"Don't think about it. You did, you done it, it has the money and you won't have to see it ever again."

He made his way to the front door.

"Wait!" Terry called after the boy.

He turned and waited.

"How can you live your life like this?"

Byrdie turned and regarded Terry with the stare of an ancient cat, the ones that the Egyptians honoured by burying them with their pharaohs.

"How else would I live?"

Leaning forward, he brushed his lips across Terry's cheek in an ironically chaste kiss. "I would have had you free if you had asked nicely." He whispered.

"Look after yerself. You really are too stressed." He called before flowing out of the door.

It was the last time he would be seen alive.

A young man, hardly old enough to avoid being called a boy, lay sprawled, indulgent, wanton on the dirty stone floor of the alley.

The face, with its androgynous effeminate features, its dainty nose and pouty mouth. The bedraggled, tousled hairstyle, short shorn, yet long looking, curly yet spiky, the colour a gentle tawny, yet also a sooty black. The eyes, formerly alive and framed with long black eyelashes, now glazed over.

The body, lying like some kind of shiny tin foil wrap among the dirt and grime and dumpsters of the alley, haloed in a thick cloying liquid.

The passing bystander, who isn't a bystander at all, looks down the alley and spies the body and calls out to it. But it doesn't respond. And the 'bystander' stands where it is, unwilling to brave the filth of the alley where the body lies, and asks itself… why did I let this happen?

Terry makes his way over to the body, kneeling down amidst the grime and grunge, lifting it halfway.

"Byrdie?"

The eyes rove tiredly to his face and stare at him blankly.

"I know you don't I?"

Terry, scared, sickened, confused, nods and smoothes vomit-sticky bangs out of the boy's face.

"Last night. I…"

He is cut off by a chuckle sapped of life.

"Oh yeah. You wanted to know how I could live my life. Looks like I couldn't."

Terry lifted the rapidly numbing body and struggled with it to the steps of a metal fire escape, setting it down as gently as possible next to him and supporting it with his own body.

"How did you end up out here?"

Byrdie slumped against the cool railings, eyes closed in exhaustion. He shivered slightly, more of a tremor running through his body involuntarily than a shiver of cold, and Terry was suddenly hit with his fragility, his diminutive size, his youth.

"I got caught on my way home by someone less gentle than you." He said. "I'm spoiled for work now. I dragged myself back, got a few hits and took them all at once." He winced from his stomach, then relaxed again, looking paler than ever.

"I was in the way, so they took me out to die out here."

Terry looked in horror at the place where the boy had been lying and saw the blood that had collected under his body. And he had poisoned himself on heroin. No wonder the boy was pale.

"Bloody hell!" Terry swore, then turned to a limp Byrdie and shook him a bit.

"Come on. We'll get you into a hospital and then…"

He was scared by the way the boy's head had just lolled back and forth on his neck when he had shaken him. This listlessness comparative to the peace and humour in the kid's laugh.

"It'd be no use. I'm too far gone, luv." He opened his eyes to blink at Terry.

"It's my time to go anyway. Been on this planet far too long as it is."

He leant forward and threw up, a messy mixture of bile, blood and spit. He leaned back, re-closed his eyes and went boneless against the staircase, sliding down until Terry caught him.

"Shoulda died a long, long time ago."

Terry sat frozen, unable to move with the enormity of this man barely out of childhood waiting to die, unable to move and do something to stop this and make it be all right. The liveliness, barely hiding the bone-crushing weariness that had once struggled through the horror in those eyes was gone. This wasn't the same living body that Terry had been with the other night. This was a living corpse. He was dying in pain.

"S'ok Ter." The voice was weak and thready but soft, and Terry suddenly realised that he was crying, over the spilt life in his arms.

"I'll be alright. You were good to me in the end, weren't you? You made it good for me."

He lifted a hand and grabbed Terry by the hair almost painfully.

"Bury my body somewhere pretty please." He said. "Will you do that for me? I've got nothing else to want."

Terry sniffed and nodded.

"Relax as well mate." Byrdie said with a chuckle in his voice. "You're gonna end up killing yourself."

Terry waited there for a little bit longer, and then carried the body away.

In years to come, everyone in the business remarked on how Mr. Mitchell was still going strong after all those years, after all the others had either killed themselves or bowed out.

Some people attributed it to the fact that he took a few days holiday every year to go to a pretty place in the Cotswolds and swarmed there themselves, although they never benefited from visiting there like he did.

Some people said he'd gone mad from the strain and that it was pure dumb luck.

One man of about his age claimed that it had been his miracle stress cure, which he had shared with Mr. Mitchell a few years ago, but he was always talking crap so no one believed him.

One up-and-coming young man asked him one day, out of the sight of the rest of them, with no intention to tell anyone else.

Mr. Mitchell had told him, "A friend I met once told me the way to do it. I take his advice very seriously, because he was born old."

When Mr. Mitchell began walking away, the young man shouted after him, "But Terry, what did he say?"

Terry didn't bother turning round, just yelled over his shoulder.

"He told me to relax."

I know, I know. Crap and you can't understand it. I don't like the ending myself, so I wouldn't worry if I were you.