Free Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway Page A

pleasurable that he wanted Carmelita Moose to float up and up forever so he could keep jumping up, reaching for her and pulling her back down, jumping up, reaching for her, pulling her back down.
    When Gabriel opened his eyes, ever so slightly, the face of the principal loomed inches from his own. The man was wheezing, his breath emitting, at regular intervals, spouts ofhot air that made Gabriel think of raw meat hung to age but forgotten. The priest’s left arm held him gently by his right, his right arm buried under Gabriel’s bedspread, under his blanket, under his sheet, under his pyjama bottoms. And the hand was jumping up, reaching for him, pulling him back down, jumping up, reaching for him, pulling him back down. He didn’t dare open his eyes fully for fear the priest would get angry; he simply assumed, after a few seconds of confusion, that this was what happened at schools, merely another reason why he had been brought here, that this was the right of holy men.
    From some tinny radio somewhere way off — Brother Stumbo’s room next door? — he could hear Elvis Presley singing “Love Me Tender.”
    Through his slitted eyes, he could see that the motion of the priest’s hand obviously gave him immense pleasure: his eyes were closed, the furrows on his forehead smoothed out, his lips curved into a smile, his face glowing in the moonlight with the intense whiteness of the saints in the catechism book.
    Gradually, Father Lafleur bent, closer and closer, until the crucifix that dangled from his neck came to rest on Gabriel’s face. The subtly throbbing motion of the priest’s upper body made the naked Jesus Christ — this sliver of silver light, this fleshly Son of God so achingly beautiful — rub his body against the child’s lips, over and over and over again. Gabriel had no strength left. The pleasure in his centre welled so deep that he was about to open his mouth and swallow whole the living flesh — in his half-dream state, this man nailed to the cross was a living, breathing man, tasting like Gabriel’s mostfavourite food, warm honey — when he heard the shuffle of approaching feet.
    He shut his eyes tight. He held his breath.
    Jeremiah had awakened with a start from a dream of playing concerts to vast herds of caribou. Why, he didn’t know, but he thought he might have heard a whimper from Gabriel. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he decided to check up on him, perhaps give him just one kiss.
    With great reluctance, he slid out of bed, flinched from the cold and slipped into the night. His pale blue pyjamas glimmering, the little ghost, all vapour and mist, floated through the eerie light, down one aisle and up another.
    But Gabriel was not alone. A dark, hulking figure hovered over him, like a crow. Visible only in silhouette, for all Jeremiah knew it might have been a bear devouring a honeycomb, or the Weetigo feasting on human flesh.
    As he stood half-asleep, he thought he could hear the smacking of lips, mastication. Thinking he might still be tucked in his bed dreaming, he blinked, opened his eyes as wide as they would go. He wanted — needed — to see more clearly.
    The bedspread was pulsating, rippling from the centre. No, Jeremiah wailed to himself,
please
. Not him again. He took two soundless steps forward, craned his neck.
    When the beast reared its head, it came face to face, not four feet away, with that of Jeremiah Okimasis. The whites of the beast’s eyes grew large, blinked once. Jeremiah stared. It
was
him. Again.
    Jeremiah opened his mouth and moved his tongue, but his throat went dry. No sound came except a ringing in his ears. Had this really happened before? Or had it not? But some chamber deep inside his mind slammed permanently shut. It had happened to nobody. He had not seen what he was seeing.
    “Silent night, holy night,” sang a heavenly choir of angels. The little baby Jesus lay sweetly, all naked, rosy and plump, upon a bed of golden straw. Surrounded by