Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘Open your legs, Sam,’ Cliff pleaded. ‘Oh, please —’

Sam obeyed, arched his back and let the breath hiss out between his teeth. Cliff hung over Sam like a God. He positioned himself, saw his cock glistening with lubrication. Let it slide between Sam’s buttocks, stilled, and lifted.

‘Oh, God —’ The pain, he hadn’t known about the pain.

Sam felt beads of sweat pop on his brow. He tried to wrest free of Cliff but Cliff was too far along to be stopped. Cliff was holding Sam tight, keeping up the pressure, easing in, sliding in until he was up to the hilt.

‘No,’ Sam said. ‘Wait —’

Cliff had his teeth in Sam’s shoulder and he was growling with lust. He began to move, thrusting, thrusting, twisting this way and that way, up and down, side to side, up and down. Every thrust was so painful, but Cliff was oblivious as Sam began to cry out. Sam was breathing short and fast, flexing his muscles and biting back on the sheer agony of the act. He closed his eyes. Vertigo overwhelmed him.

And he was tumbling through Te Po, The Night, and falling through Te Kore, The Void. He felt himself nearing unconsciousness. Took a deep breath.

Please, not eternal darkness.

A thousand years passed. Then, across the Void, a pinpoint of light. Something began to build in Sam, something made up of Cliff’s rhythmic movements. He opened his eyes and saw that Time had stretched and expanded. Go fast, the old man motioned, before the rains come. In front of him was a temple, and voices were calling, Haramai, Sam. His heart was thundering, almost breaking out of his chest.

‘Oh, Sam —’

Harper was lunging now. Going deeper.

Sam saw something sliding down the pillars of the temple, coiling wet and glistening. You and me, cobra, let us enjoy our brief moment in the sun. A saffron-robed monk was kneeling before Sam and suddenly Sam began to feel a sun exploding within him, showering Te Kore with light.

Cliff was in orgasm, his body shuddering and spilling over. The shock of it forced Sam to breathe out, let go — and he reached a kind of understanding. A moment of revelation. He opened himself up, made himself vulnerable. With a groan he too was pulsing a river.

‘Sam, yes —’

They were both laughing and crying at the same time. Nothing else mattered, past, present or future. All there was, was now .

This was the secret embrace at the end of the day.

And they had found it.

Auntie Pat gave a deep groan. She grasped the arms of the chair, leant forward, her eyes staring into the past.

‘Sam!’ she cried. ‘Daddy’s coming —’

Then she closed her eyes and, exhausted, seemed to fall into unconsciousness.

‘Auntie Pat,’ I whispered.

I was concerned for her but I also knew I might not get another chance to hear her story about Uncle Sam. It was coming at a cost. At every disclosure she was diminished, as if the telling was draining her of life.

My mind went to Uncle Sam, and I thought of him with Cliff holding him after they had made love. I thought of him in surrender, in all his vulnerability. I was above him and Cliff, looking down at them. I imagined him wide-eyed, his face drawn and enigmatic. I conjured up a single tear, welling up and out from his left eye, glistening in the moonlight. I willed him to look into my eyes and share his silent grief with me.

In the old world of the Greeks, a man was still considered a man when he was the active partner. He remained himself, maintaining his masculinity. He could shower, put on his clothes and walk away, back into his own life. But it was different if you were the passive partner. There was no going back. Having a man inside you changed you. It was as if the penetration reached not only some physical centre but also some small room within which your identity lay. The masculine identity of the man inside the room had been constructed by his society. His very being had been imprinted with codes which guided him and said, ‘This is what a man does and this is what a man does not do.’

Being made love to by a man was, I knew from my own first experience, a kind of crucifixion of all those hopes and dreams of living as others live. Whoever you were, it shattered your room like an eggshell. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could never put you together again.

Auntie Pat began to stir. As she moved, my attention was drawn to the movie poster just behind her — of the old RKO movie called Till The End of Time , the one with Guy Madison in it. When I was younger, and Auntie Pat was my reluctant babysitter, her idea of entertaining me was to take me to the matinee where they showed such movies at the Majestic. While other boys played rugby with their friends, I spent my afternoons with Auntie Pat, eating popcorn and licking a chocolate cone upstairs in the balcony. When I grew up and blamed my own taste in movies on her, she confessed to me that it was the only way she knew of to keep me occupied without having to do anything or to talk. When I was much older, and had my first sex in the balcony with Jimmy Whelan, I kept thinking of Auntie Pat and whether she knew how much more exciting going to the movies could be.

‘I hate it when people watch me while I’m asleep,’ Auntie Pat said.

She stared at me and there was such hostility in her glance. I knew she was always so careful about how she presented herself, and it suddenly struck me that I really had no idea which was the real Auntie Pat and which was the false. I suspected I didn’t know her at all, just as she hadn’t known the real Michael either.

‘I didn’t know George’s first wife was Turei’s sister,’ I said.

‘It didn’t work out,’ Auntie Pat answered. ‘Those marriages that are made because of sentimental obligation, never do. As I said, George was always a sentimental person. Don’t be taken in by him.’

Auntie Pat lapsed into silence.

‘Do you want to go on?’ I asked.

She nodded. Then:

‘Sam and Cliff didn’t have long together,’ she said. ‘Perhaps an hour at the most. Sam looked up and, through the window where the hay bales were pulled by winch, he saw our headlights. He heard the warning cry of the wild horses. He knew we had arrived.’

‘Cliff, wake up.’

The headlights swung, dazzling, through the window of the barn. Cliff was still sleeping. Sam wanted to memorise the smell, taste and touch of him. He breathed Cliff in. He held Cliff forehead to forehead, mourning and keening over all that they had been to each other.

Cliff started awake. He looked at Sam, his eyes trying to focus, and almost fell off the ladder. He remembered where he was and, with a sexy smile, he began to nuzzle Sam’s neck, his lust rising again.

‘Well, what do you expect?’ he said cheekily. ‘After all, I’m a healthy mid-Western boy —’

Sam quivered with emotion.

‘We have to get dressed,’ he said. ‘My father’s coming.’

Arapeta was out of the car and snapping his orders.

‘Florence? You, Patty and Monty stay in the house.’

Florence went up the steps without looking backward. She could have gathered Patty and Monty with her, but she didn’t have enough strength for them or for Sam. They would have to fend for themselves. All she wanted to do was get as far away as she could from Arapeta and what he was going to do. Humming to herself, her eyes glazing over, she entered the house. It was better to go into the bedroom, shut the door and wait until it was all over.

Patty took Monty’s hand. Her heart was overflowing with regret, and she turned to Arapeta.