Free Song Of Time by Ian R. MacLeod Page A

There’s so much of him. The notches of his spine, the breadth of his shoulders, are architectural in their span and grace. These small marks are immaterial to his beauty, although they lack the randomness which I might have associated with being buffeted by the sea. The way the ones across his back line up, a clustered series of four or five long, diagonal strips, I can’t help thinking of the fall of a whip. But they’re not damaging, nor deep. More consistent with playful cajoling or goading than outright torture. But why? Adam lets out a deeper breath. The muscles within his shoulders slide within the golden skin.
    “It’s nothing serious. If you’ll just be patient…”
    Dab and spray. My thin fingers do a spider dance. Closer to the buttocks now. There’s bruising down there as well, but I decide not to go too far. His flesh is much warmer than mine. He’s so much more alive . This process, the smell and the sensation, take me back to times when Maria, or more likely it was Edward, sat on this same stool, knees or shins or elbows brightly bleeding whilst I attended to them with what was probably this same spray.
    I move up to the tops of his shoulders and wipe away a trail of dried weed. He barely moves, his breathing is easy, his eyelashes rise and fall as he blinks, although I’m conscious that my lips are intimately close to the side of his face.
    “You’ll have to hold still…” I’m a sculptor, shaping a bust—no, a whole body. I’m Michelangelo. Once again, he’s David.
    “Would it be better,” he asks, “if I stood up?”
    “No, no. Sitting is fine.”
    I move to his feet, his calves, his grazed and battered knees. “It’s a bit worse here. Are you sure this isn’t hurting?”
    “Yes.”
    So I work on, although he’s like no man I’ve ever encountered in putting up with all of this without the usual dramas and fake modesties. As I approach mid-thigh, and with that clenched towel already agape between his muscled thighs, he simply lifts it away. I suppose modesty must seem irrelevant when you don’t even know who or what you are— but at least he’s okay down there. Still, this whole male terrain seems both eerie and familiar as I dab at the lesser marks on his lower belly and ignore the dimpled stare of his navel. We never really get used to the sight of the opposite sex, although they’re not so very different from us. Men also have their pectorals, their nipples. Their throats are thicker, but they share a womanly vulnerability and grace. We’re all works of art, or at least we should be…
    “Can you move your arms a little?”
    I catch the soft musk of his scent as he raises them. But I’m almost done now. And what better way, Roushana, I can’t help musing, to spend a little of your last corporeal time on this earth, than in doing something like this? The sheer physicality of his flesh, the things the mullahs and mystics either wallow in or claim to detest, is overwhelming. It’s simply here, like a painting or a symphony…
    As I move around to his left side, I notice that something just beneath his ribs that I’d previously imagined was mostly a bruise or a stain of seaweed is in fact a larger cut.
    “Is it alright…?” He breathes down at me as I stoop towards it.
    “Fine. I’ll just…” My belly drops as he moves himself slightly and the rent in his side opens a pale mouth. “If you can hold still…”
    At least the wound appears clean, but it’s so large that I can’t really bring myself to look fully into it. Amazing, that some vital aspect of artery or connective tissue hasn’t been severed…I grope for the packet of artificial flesh in the far back of the cabinet and knead and work a Satsuma-sized lump until it’s soft and warm. My fingers tingle and cringe as I mould it into the cut, but he doesn’t flinch.
    “There.” Much as a builder might cover up some hopeless brickwork, I spray a patch of waterproof covering over my bodged job. I really