Tell What You Want

Although the joke wasn't the worst, Adam wasn't laughing.

"Are you always this direct?" he asked.

"Always" Hubert replied with a light and confident smile. "If I want something, I do whatever it takes to get it. If I have to fight, I fight. If I have to pay, I pay. It makes life easier."

"Does it?"

"Sure it does. Do you want to try it?"

Adam looked into his eyes and saw how dark they were, almost black, abysmal like black holes.

"How's that?" Hubert urged.

"What?"

"Will you try it? Tell me what you want at this moment. What do you want? What do you desire? Right here, right now."

What did he desire, here and now? Nothing came to his mind. He only felt a rush of heat, as if his body answered him instead of his reason.

"I desire nothing at this moment," he answered.

"Really?" Hubert leaned over and looked into his lowered face so that they were very close. "Really really?"

"Mm" he nodded.

"And I do" he said and kissed him in surprise.

"What are you doing?" Adam pushed him away definitely feeling a frantic heartbeat. It was not a kiss, but a wet, passionate dance of lips and tongue, which entered his mouth and began to wander around releasing hormones. "Are you crazy?"

"After all, I said I take what I want. You should try it yourself."

"Thank you. I don't need anything."

"Then why are you sitting by yourself, all alone, thinking, on the edge of the lake, with a look on your face as if you wanted to jump into it?"

Adam was stunned. He wanted to give a sharp retort to this provocation, but he could not.

"Did I really look like I wanted to drown myself?"

"I didn't say that. Maybe you wanted to jump in to swim?"

Lechoń sighed.

"Are you and Piotr friends?" He asked.

"Are we friends? I don't know. We meet sometimes for coffee, we talk. We're both only here temporarily, both mentally different than most of the people here, so it's easier for us to get along with each other. We're the same age, we have similar interests. That sort of thing."

"But he told you about me, and he never does."

"What, you think he's sick of you and wanted to tell someone?"

"Sick of me?" No, he did not think so, he did not think at all that Piotr might be tired of worrying about him and being at his every call and sometimes even without him. Maybe there was something in it after all? Maybe he was a burden to him?

"Because if you thought that, I'd say you were wrong. I'm betting he needs you no less than you need him. Have you ever seen him at work?"

"No."

"Being a priest is really a lonely life. For obvious reasons, they're not allowed to love and start families. They usually get parishes far away from their hometown. They have to live a holy, exemplary and solitary life because no one like them is exposed to the public and judged. Just a rumor can ruin them completely. They must always be there for everyone, but they are not really close to anyone. Having a problematic cousin who relies on him is important to Piotr because he has someone close to him that he can give his normal human love to. Don't you think?"

"I never thought that way."

"He must not have a lover, a wife, children. Few people want to be friends with a priest. He must be for everybody, and he is for nobody. I think he would be very lonely if you wanted to take a bath and got caught in a cramp."

"I don't feel like jumping in the water. And you don't have to watch me whenever I go out on the lake. You know there are other, no worse ways without leaving home."

"Would you like to do that?"

The question was as direct as the guy asking it himself. Cheeky, even. But someone once let slip the theory that it's best to confide in strangers because they disappear from our lives and won't be able to use our weaknesses against us.

And they, despite their night together, were strangers.

"No. I had already decided not to do it."

"So why is Piotr worried it might be different?"

"Because he remembers how I was then and now... it's kind of the same. Something happened that threw me off balance and..."

"And?"

"And if I were the same person I was then, I would probably try something drastic. Like I did then."

"But not now?"

"Not now. I know better now. Although in some ways it's even harder..."

"Piotr mentioned that it had something to do with your case. Something to do with a murder..."

"Did you hear about the case of the serial killer, the Stołeczny Sznurownik? He got an interesting nickname. I looked it up in the dictionary. The word 'sznurownik' doesn't exist. So, the 'Stołeczny (Capital) Snurownik' raped and then killed three boys by hanging them. Have you heard about him?"

"A little," Hubert admitted. He could see the emotions changing in the lawyer, how they flooded him like they did at night, completely uncontrollable, maybe even unrecognized, but so strong that it was impossible to stop.

"I was the one who got his case. I got him out of jail. He was barely out, arrested at the scene of a fourth murder."

"Do you mean to say he killed as soon as he got out?" Hubert was really shaken up. Such an act required no small amount of daring or a complete shedding of human feelings. He must have been a complete psychopath if he committed another degenerate murder right after getting out of prison.

Adam nodded.

"I couldn't believe it," he continued. "It was... I believed in his innocence, I really believed him, but when I saw him in custody something in his face told me I was wrong. It was the face of a murderer. The monster's."

He saw it in his memories and a shudder shook him. He didn't want to remember that moment or Kwiecień.

"Had you never doubted him?"

"Never."

"Why?"

"The police had no hard evidence. They based the whole case on circumstantial evidence and a confession, a confession that was coerced."

"But why, if others based on that evidence believed him guilty, did you think otherwise? Could it have had something to do more with you than with him?"

"More to do with me?"

The lawyer seemed confused by the question.

"Didn't you project something from your life onto this case?"

Did he do that? Adam wasn't sure. He understood the loneliness of Wojciech Kwiecień, a man who lived away from his family because they did not accept his otherness. It was that otherness that was the main reason he was arrested.

"He was gay."

***

Clouds gathered in the sky, but none of the forecasts predicted rain. They had secured the construction site additionally, just in case, but Hubert left without worrying about the damage. He was more uncomfortable with the clouds he noticed on the forehead of Adam, Piotr's cousin. From what he already knew about him, the guy had a good heart and deep sensitivity, qualities perhaps beautiful in poetry, but in life a nuisance. To see and feel stronger, more, deeper, in this violent and evil world could not be pleasant. Especially if you were a man whose sex was expected to be tough.

Adam had already drunk the second glass of vodka and his pale cheeks flushed. They were sitting on the terrace of Hubert's cottage, not paying attention to the sunset breaking through the dark clouds - a view that might be beautiful, probably romantic, but neither of them was in a beautiful or romantic mood.

The fact that Adam had accepted his invitation for vodka didn't so much disappoint Hubert as it saddened him, for it indicated that despite what he himself had said, Adam wasn't at his best and was looking for something, anything or anyone, to change his state of mind. Even a stranger like Hubert.

And that could prove dangerous, because even if he wasn't planning anything, wasn't going to either drown himself or otherwise deliberately end himself, he could take reckless actions that would end just as tragically in consequence.

Hubert didn't want anything like that to happen to Adam…