Author: Daydreamer
Date: 30 October 2005

The Painting - Part 3

"I'm not what you think," Blair said.

They were sitting in the garden with the remains of their lunch spread on a table set back under the dogwood. The day was somnolent with warmth, the scent of spring blossoms in the breeze, the hum of bees carried through the air. Spring was fast turning to summer, in the way it did in Cascade.

He had debated with himself all through the meal over whether to risk telling Jim the truth. He might think Blair was lying to make himself look better, or else that he was crazy. It couldn't be helped. It would be taking unfair advantage to become a part of this man's life without letting him know exactly what he was getting. And he was becoming a part of James' life. The older man touched him incessantly, grounding himself, grounding his senses, in the touch and scent and sight of his guide.

James looked at him for long moments, his gaze steady upon him. Finally, he said, "Tell me, then, if you must."

And so he did, and in detail. Nothing was left out, from his childhood spent traveling the world with Naomi, his first encounter with his dream man -- Jim -- when he was four years old, his job, his research, even the night he had been attacked. And the dreams. The fantasies. The desires.

Jim's face, as he listened, mirrored disbelief, annoyance, and grim implacability. There were also fleeting moments of softness and a species of wonder.

He had expected many comments, many questions from him when he finally fell silent. He had not looked for the one he got first.

"When I was 16, I had a delusion that I save a little boy in a dark woods." He leaned forward and stared at Blair. "Were you that little boy?"

Blair stared at him, then slowly nodded. "I suppose I was." What was he supposed to say now? Where did they go from here?

Before he could find words, James leaned back in his chair. Crossing his legs, he changed the subject.

"So, what is it like living in this future so many years from now? You speak of a car, which I take to be some form of transport, and of a tel-o-fone that seems to be used to communicate. And tel-o-vision, a way to see things? Explain this to me."

Blair did his best, going on to tell of many other miracles of modern life that he had taken for granted, from airplanes and computers to garden tractors and harvesting combines that had taken the place of slaves and indentured servants.

"Medicine," he went on, "has made great advances. People in my time seldom die of things like appendicitis and childbirth problems, smallpox, malaria, and yellow fever, or childhood illnesses. If you truly have epilepsy, and it's not just a side-effect of being a sentinel, this problem of yours would be easily controlled.

"Don't mock me," James said with a dark look from under his straight brows.

"I wouldn't, I promise. You would be able to do whatever you pleased: run, jog, drive a car, travel, work if that was what you wanted. Anything at all. People do it all the time." He paused, the gave a slow, lazy, seductive grin. "And people with your -- proclivities -- don't have to stay in the closet?"

James frowned. "Closet."

Blair waved his hand. "Hidden. Ashamed. It's not fully accepted, but it's not like it is now."

"If only--" James began, then stopped.

He was silent, gazing past Blair with a faraway look in his eyes while he considered it. Finally, he shook his head, a single gesture of regret and, perhaps, denial.

Turning back to Blair, he watched the small man for a moment, then his lips curved in a slow smile. "And in the midst of these many wonders," he said in soft tones, "you dreamed of me."

The heat that moved over Blair was uncontrollable. He met James' gaze, his own seeking, half-afraid, for mockery. "You believe me, then? You really do?"

"Why not?"

"It must sound so wild, so impossible." No one he had ever known, not his mother or his friends, and least of all his dissertation advisor, would have listened with half the patience, or been so accepting, as this man had been.

"Perhaps I believe it for that reason. Or it could be I am merely credulous."

"Or you prefer it to the alternative?" Blair asked with thoroughly modern cynicism.

"If you mean by that I would rather consider you my personal miracle instead of a puta or catamite," he answered quietly, "then you may be right."

Blair watched him for a long moment. Driven, finally, to speak the thought that was in his mind, he said, "Did you pray for a miracle?"

"On my knees. For years."

The tightness that rose in Blair's chest forced tears to seep into his eyes, pooling among his lashes. "I doubt," he said with difficulty, "that I'm anywhere near so holy."

James smiled, his gaze caressing as it lingered on Blair's face. "Good. I have no use for angels. And I would rather you didn't disappear again. It was hard enough when I thought I'd lost you."

"I don't think I know how," he answered in a husky voice.

"No?"

"For all I can tell, you brought me here, and anly you may have the power to send me back again."

"If I do, I'll never use it."

Blair tilted his head, his blue eyes dark and vulnerable. "Promise me?"

James only smiled. Rising to his feet, he held out his hand. "Come into the house," he said. "It's the siesta hour, and you should rest."

"And you," Blair answered as he moved behind, wondering at the feel of Jim's hand on his own.

"Oh, I intend to, at least a little."

The smile James gave was open and rich with sensual promise.

James may have belonged to the Victorian era, he may have been a product of the Puritan legacy to America, but once his mind was set, it seemed there was no prudishness in him. It could have been in the influence of his French grandfather, a man from a land with more understanding of sensuality and a doctor, as well. One who knew the human body. Or maybe it was because he had been born and reared before the arrival of Freudian theory or the sexual revolution to make him self-conscious. But most likely, it was because he was a sentinel, and sentinels reveled in their senses.

On top of that, he lacked all sense of the press of time. There was no hurry whatsoever about the way he led Blair into the bedchamber, no desperate haste or fumbling anxiety as he drew the younger man to him.

He cupped Blair's face in his long elegant fingers, his fingertips testing the texture of Blair's skin and the sturdy bones underneath. James' gaze moved over Blair's brows, his eyelids, the line of his nose, the smooth point of his chin. His lips followed, delicately brushing. By the time James reached his mouth, Blair's lips were tingling, parted for the touch and taste of him.

Warm and sweet, the kiss was everything Blair had imagined, more tantalizing than his dreams. James traced the sensitive edges of his lips, lapped at the corners to collect their moisture, dipped inside. Sinuous, inciting, his tongue touched Blair's. Made bold by the rise of languorous pleasure, Blair met his incursion, twining his tongue with the other man's in gentle invitation. With small strokes, James traced the silken underside, swirled along the glazed edges of Blair's teeth and, retreating, encouraged Blair to venture into his mouth in his turn.

Complying, it was an instant before Blair noticed James' fingers at the row of studs on his shirt. He worked his way along them with patient precision, each clinking softly as it hit the floor, then slid the shirt open, laying his chest bare. James stroked the silky skin of Blair's collarbone, then slid his hands around the smaller man and gently ran his fingers up and down his back. Drawing his hands back to the front, he stroked and petted, then smoothed the edges of the shirt away from Blair's shoulders, letting it slide to the floor.

Trailing a line of heated kisses from the corner of Blair's mouth and along his jaw, James descended by inches to the tightly puckered nipples that rested in soft fur. His soft breath wafted over them and made the skin surrounding them prickle with the tiny rises of gooseflesh. James smoothed away that roughness, inhaling deeply in wordless satisfaction as Blair's skin acquired a faint rose bloom under his care.

Blair tilted his head back, closing his eyes against the delicious onslaught of longing. He smoothed his hands over the muscles of James' shoulders and felt them bunch and lengthen under his palms with movement. There was something so exquisitely right about this moment, something so perfect, that he felt his heart swell in his chest.

Blair stilled for a moment, then dropped his head to rest on Jim's shoulder.

The other man froze. "What, cher amour? What is it?"

Blair blushed, suddenly embarrassed. "I'm -- that is, I've never..." He forced his eyes upward. "Only in dreams. Only with you."

"Magnifique cadeau," James murmured softly in French, his lips returning to worry the small gold ring that dangled from Blair's nipple.

He was Jim's. He always had been, always would be. There were things about this man he had never guessed, never expected. Yet in his essential nature, he was as Blair had formed him in his mind. He was the lover of his dreams, his night visitor, his favorite daydream. For this moment and for all time. He knew it, felt it in the very depths of his soul. And if he was wrong, if he was deluding himself, he didn't want to know.

With a small, incoherent murmur, he buried his face in the taller man's neck. Blindly, he found the stickpin that held his cravat and opened it and pushed it into the folds before unwinding them. He sought the studs of James' shirt, pulling them from their placket layers and dropping them to the floor. Spreading the open edges wider, he pressed his lips to the hollow at the base of James' throat and stripped the fullness of linen and the coat he wore over it down his arms.

With a laugh deep in his throat, James stepped away long enough to free himself of the entrapping material. With swift hands, Blair was soon divested of his shoes, socks, and trousers. Gently but firmly, James led him to the bed and seated him upon it. With another laugh and a joyful swoop, the older man joined him, bowling him backward into the softness of the cotton mattress, then rolled above him. Resting his weight on his elbows, but pinning the smaller man with his knees, James began with infinite slowness and an infinity of kisses to release him from the last vestiges of his virginity.

"You are so beautiful," James said as he searched the soft fur of his chest for the dusky brown circles of aureoles centered by budded nipples. "And this -- adornment," he said with a sly grin as he gently tugged the ring, "I find I like it quite well."

"Soft as silk," James said as he found and discarded the tie Blair had used to pull his unruly hair back in the way of the time.

"Perfect," James murmured as he shifted off Blair, dipping to nuzzled the downy soft sprinkling of dark hair the covered his abdomen, scraping gently with the stubble of his beard. Moving lower still, he opened Blair's thighs with firm pressure to journey toward something that had only been touched by Blair's own hands before now. Rising proudly from its nest of dark curls, Jim wrapped his hand around Blair's cock, then gently lapped the sweet nectar from its tip.

"Oh, God, Jim," Blair said in aching delight and recognition. Hearing Jim's low chuckle, he realized his mistake, but was too lost in the mounting, spreading sensation inside him to correct it. He made, instead, an amends of caresses as he reached out to his sentinel.

Jim's flanks were lean, fitted with firm muscles, as his trousers were stripped away and kicked aside with shoes and socks. "You're beautiful, too," Blair said as he followed the angular masculine line, feeling the delicious touch of that smooth, almost hairless skin against his own dark pelt.

His adventuring touch slid along Jim's hip bone -- and it was Jim now, no longer James, for this was the man he knew so well from his dreams. The man whose touch set him on fire. Blair slid his hand along Jim's hip to where his root rose, taut, vibrant, warmly throbbing. Clasping, holding, he murmured, "Like iron under silk." And smiled when he heard Jim's soft exhalation.

Then leaning to trace the seam of flesh that decorated the underside with his tongue, he paused to whisper, "Perfect," on a wafting sigh before continuing.

It was a beguilement, one so rich in wonder they were lost in it. It flowed constant around them, inside them. A joining of two who were meant to be. From different times, different backgrounds, different lives and different experiences, they were here to join together in a ritual as old as sentinel and guide, as old as all humanity. Their hearts beat high with it; their skin took on its glow. The air seemed tinted with blue and gentle growls and contented purring could be heard in the air. Their every breath, every calculated and eager caress, pushed it higher, sharpened its edges. The need it fueled spiraled upward, suffusing them, coalescing in their bodies as a parched and exacting need.

Blair's breath expanded in his chest. His blood pulsed in hot torrents in his veins. The surface of his skin was so sensitized that the lightest touch sent shivers of sensation along his nerves. He could barely imagine what if must be like for Jim. Drugged and heavy with desire, he clenched his hands on Jim's arms in mute appeal.

Jim answered it in a swift roll above him once more. Blair felt the sure touch of his fingers as he tested, stretching tight muscles to ease the way. Then he entered him in a warm, fluid slide. A small cry rose to his throat as he felt the stretching fullness. Blair clenched around Jim in giving, liquid pulsing. Then as the wrenching spasm eased, Jim began to move, seeking a rhythm which he could share.

It came, easy and natural. The friction was blessed, bringing soft gasps and cries of gratification. Endless, effortless, it sounded the limits of endurance, of will, of sanity. It found them in a sudden internal upheaval, in the vivid, silent joy that burst inside them.

Time ceased. There was nothing but this, no one except the two of them. Nothing mattered, nothing could or ever would, so long as they could come together, heart to heart, body against body, to create this bliss, this consummate grandeur.

Incapable of thought, unable to move in the grip of inexorable splendor, they held each other. And somewhere in the spinning fringes of his mind, Blair knew the truth beyond a doubt.

This was, in the end, the only real miracle.

The early summer was wet. No surprise for Cascade. Sometimes it rained all night, at other times the showers came every day during the siesta hours, clattering in the courtyard outside the window as they made love. The streets became quagmires. The water flooded the outer edges of the town, driving snakes and frogs into the center of the city. Insects were rampant. Maria began to mutter about floods and fever season going together.

Between the rains, the sun came out hot and bright to raise the humidity to suffocating. Vines and shrubs in the courtyard leaped into rampant lushness. Linens left unaired developed gray mildew spots and leather in the back of armoires sheeted over with green mold. The citizens of Cascade steamed like seafood in a broth.

Blair felt the heat like a damp, hot blanket wrapped around him. There were times when he couldn't breathe, felt he wouldn't be able to stand it an instant longer. Then a breeze would wonder from the direction of the sea; it would cloud up and shower, or else the day would fade into the long, comparatively cool twilight.

The window in James and Blair's bedchamber became a bone of contention. Blair could not bear to sleep with it closed, while James seemed convinced the night air was dangerous. Besides, James would say, the candlelight attracted moths and mosquitos, and their flutter and whining outside the mosquito netting kept him awake. He compromised, finally, by opening the window halfway, and dressing for bed in the dark. And he spent a good half hour every evening tucking the mosquito netting securely under the mattress to seal out insect intruders.

The netting was so heavy, however, it blocked what little movement of air there was in the room. Blair often waited until Jim slept, then lifted the muslin near his face so he could breathe.

He was in the courtyard one morning, pulling the weed seedlings that sprang up daily in the cracks between the paving stones. Rafe Van Ryf found him there.

"What are you doing? Why not call one of the houseboys for that task?" he asked as he strolled toward Blair.

Blair rose from where he knelt on the paving, turning to him with a smile. Rafe was a constant visitor, James' only true friend, and he valued him for that, though he was never sure what the dapper man thought of him.

"Were you looking for James? He went to the market. I made the mistake of saying I had liked fish we had a few days ago and he decided we should have it again." Blair shook his head. "He spoils me."

Rafe laughed. "I'll wait for him, if you don't mind. But really, must you grub in the dirt?"

"I need something to occupy my time," Blair said as he rose to his feet.

"Bored already?" Rafe asked quietly, searching Blair's face.

"Not at all. But I'm not used to a life of leisure, you know. I've worked all my life. Maria runs the house and I'd be taking my life in my hands to interfere there. James has a firm handle on all his family's holdings and doesn't need my help with that. I've read everything he has that I can read and I'm making progress with my French, but even James can't teach me to read it overnight."

"And there is only so much time you can spend bewitching him, eh?"

Blair frowned. "I don't know what you mean."

"Come, don't be coy, lad. You've changed his life: I've never seen him so outgoing and interested in the world beyond his door as he has been in these last few weeks. He never mentions his illness, hasn't had to shut himself away with it since you came. I am astounded. And terrified."

"Terrified?"

"For what will happen to him when you go."

Blair moved away toward the chairs under the dogwood. Turning to the other man with a frown between his eyes as he followed to drop into the chair across from him, he said, "Why should I go? Unless you think he will send me away?"

"There's little danger of that." Van Ryf gave a dry laugh. "You are his life."

The pleasure those words gave him was like an ache. "You think so."

"Hasn't he told you?"

Blair shook his head.

"If not, it's because he is also afraid. He knows that if he loses you, it will be worse by far than it was before. He did not then know what was missing from his days, you see."

Blair gave him a steady look. "Let me set your mind at rest, then. I have no intention of leaving, now or ever."

"What if you cannot prevent it?'

A small frisson ran over him, and he shivered with it in spite of the warmth of the day. It took every ounce of self-possession he had, still he merely raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"Yes," Rafe said with a nod. "James told me. I'm not at all sure I understand or accept this story of yours, but I know that a man capable of making Ellison believe it is capable of anything."

"You are -- very plain spoken."

"This is the first chance I've had to speak to you without James near at hand, and time may be short."

"I appreciate your concern, and even share it, but I think this is something between Jim and me. And I'm not sure he would like being discussed behind his back."

Rafe snorted. "I'm sure he wouldn't. Are you going to tell him what I said?"

"I don't think that will be necessary," Blair answered, his gaze straight. "I expect you have already done your best to warn him, and my words would only drive a wedge between you." Blair smiled slightly. "You're the only real friend he has."

Rafe watched him for long seconds. Finally, a smile tugged on corner of his mouth. "I don't really blame James for being besotted. If I were like him, I'd cling to you, too. Now, if you have a sister..."

Both men laughed and then Rafe stood.

"Having said what I had to say, I expect it might be best if I go now and return another time after all."

"Was there some reason you wanted to see James, some message I can give him?" Blair asked as he rose as well.

"As it happens, yes. There was a sailor died last week at the hotel with yellow fever. Rare up here, but it happens. Now it's among the immigrants and they're falling like flies, not unusual with newcomers. People are leaving town for the country; a half-dozen of my good friends and their families will be heading up the coast to Bellingham."

"You are thinking of going away also?"

"My mother asks for my escort. I can hardly refuse; my younger sister and my father died of the fever a few years ago. I'm all she has left, and she lives in horror of seeing me snatched away from her."

"Perhaps you will return to say good-bye to Jim, then, before you leave?"

Rafe smiled. "James hated his father. A rough, cruel man who pit his sons against each other and caused nothing but pain in his life. Ridiculed him for his illness, mocked him publicly and treated him worse than a slave. And yet he lets you call him Jim, the name his father used." Rafe shook his head in wonder, then regained the threads of the conversation. "Anyway, I had hoped the two of you might come with us."

But Blair had learned enough about Jim to know how unlikely that was. Supersensitive about his moments of inattention, he would never venture into a situation where he must be constantly among people. They might go riding in the carriage, or attend the theater behind one of the comforting loge grilles usually reserved for pregnant women and those in mourning, but his house was his refuge. He would not leave it for more than an hour or two.

"I hardly think--" Blair began.

"If anyone can persuade him, it's you," Rafe said with a wry smile.

Blair shook his head. "It might be too much of a strain for him. He's still just learning control. I wouldn't want to be the cause of embarrassing him like that."

"You can at least mention it, can't you?"

Blair smiled and agreed that he could, though he wasn't at all sure that he would.

And it wasn't necessary after all. James had heard the news at the market.

"Yes, I know about it. Rafe came by," he said when James brought it up.

"Ah, yes, his mother always cries hysterically until he takes her out of the city." James shook his head with a smile.

"A lot of people are going, it seems," Blair said in tentative tones.

James surveyed him in thoughtful silence. Finally, he said, "If we quarantine ourselves, perhaps there will be no danger."

"That might do it, or might not. Yellow fever is carried by mosquitoes." Blair went on to explain something of the process.

"This is another of the discoveries of your century? It seems possible; mosquitoes are certainly something we have in plenty. So, do you want to join those who are leaving the city?"

"I'm not really worried about myself," Blair said. He briefly explained vaccinations and his own history of travel outside the country. "I'm probably protected. But you..." He took a deep breath. "I want to do whatever you usually do, whatever you think is best."

"You want me to take responsibility," James accused with a smile in his eyes.

"I want you to be happy," Blair responded, each word distinct, "and that's all I want."

The look of love that rose in Jim's eyes was almost like pain. He reached for him, and the subject was discussed no further.

It was two weeks and three days later that Blair noticed the headache. It started as nothing more than pressure behind his eyes and a faint soreness in his skull. By degrees, his eyes began to hurt, and the pressure increased to constant pain. He felt achy and so tired he could hardly move. Deciding to go to bed early, he had a tepid bath brought to the dressing room. As he stepped from the copper tub, he almost fell in his weakness. He caught himself and reached for the towel. Suddenly, he was chilled to the marrow of his bones.

Sometime later, when James came to bed, he turned toward to the larger man, huddling against him for his warmth. A sharp exclamation left him. Rolling from the bed, James kindled a sulphur match and set a whale oil lamp to burning.

"Mon dieu!" he whispered as he brought the light to the table near Blair's pillow. His gaze was wide and dark as it rested on Blair's face.

"What is it?" Blair whispered, tired beyond belief.

"What have I done?" James asked softly, almost to himself. "Ah, mon cher amour, my only love, what have I done?"

What followed was a confusion of light and dark, of wet burning heat and shuddering cold. It was distant voices muttering, discussing, hands pulling at him and urgent pleas to drink, to eat, to sit up, lie down. And always, James' face, haggard and pale, hovering above him.

After what seemed years, but was probably hours, or maybe days, he roused himself to be desperately sick to his stomach, ridding his body of vile black matter he recognized as the result of internal bleeding. Sleeping again, he dreamed he was drowning in a black sea, and woke clinging to Jim's hand. Sometimes, he could hear himself talking about the other time, babbling about ice and soft drinks, about hospitals and doctors, vaccines and antibiotic cures.

"Yes, yes, I know," James whispered in despair against his hair as he held him. "If only I had taken you away to Bellingham. If only I could--"

"No, no, no," he whimpered, caught in his nightmare and fears, afraid of abandonment. And feeling Jim's hold tighten, hearing his sigh, he was safe again for a little while.

The priest came at dusk on what might have been the second day, but could have been the third. His face was lined and thin, his eyes reflected a thousand consoled miseries, and some beyond consolation. His cassock was simple, his Bible worn. He stood praying for long moments before he turned to James. "This is his request?"

Jim shook his head. "Mine."

Blair couldn't think. So weak. Was this last rites? Could he be that sick? He knew he must be, still there was a part of him that refused to consider it possible. He was going to live forever, or at least a hundred and fifty years. How else was he ever going to return from whence he had come?

The priest began. Latin. It took a moment for Blair to decipher the words. He opened his eyes, suddenly shocked into something near rational thought as he realized he'd never told Jim. "Wait," he cried, struggling to focus. His sentinel knelt on the bedstep beside him with his dry, chapped hand cradled in his own larger one. The priest in his vestments stood waiting, patience in his face.

"Jim?" he asked, a zephyr of sound.

"What, my soul?"

"Jewish," he gasped out. "I'm Jewish."

There was a stunned silence.

"Is that okay?"

Jim leaned forward and kissed his cheek, ignoring the priest. "Of course it is."

Jim turned to the priest, opening his mouth to speak, but before words emerged, the priest spoke.

"It is the same God, my son."

Moments later, he heard the priest's benediction. Jim's coat rasped with a noise like sandpaper against the starched sheet. His mouth brushed Blair's heated lips.

Blair smiled. Sighed. Settled deeper into the pillow, deep into gentle darkness.

It was, after all, a lovely dream.

James had done what he could for Blair. There was no hope of finding a rabbi out here, but the priest had seemed to be an understanding man and had blessed Blair anyway.

Now there was one last thing that must be accomplished for Blair. The trouble was, he wasn't sure he had the heart for it, much less the stomach.

He had tried desperately to find a way around it. Doctor's, nostrums, nature's sweet time: nothing had helped Blair. He was dying, the fever consuming him. James had waited as long as he could before coming to this last possible solution. Pray God he had not left it too late.

He stood on the balcony outside the bedchamber and stared down into the deepening twilight shadows of the garden below. It had become Blair's favorite place. What would it be like without him? Useless. Barren. Though a thousand blossoms flowered there in the years ahead, they would always lack fragrance or substance.

James had known it couldn't last. Yet somehow, he had dared to hope, had dared to believe for a few short moments that heaven might allow him some degree of normal life, some happiness.

That hope was gone.

What would he do, afterward?

He didn't know; he couldn't see that far. There was only a vast nothingness beyond this night, this coming moment. It was possible, even probable, that his episodes of petit mal would return. The idea held no fear. There was comfort in the visions that came to him in his illness, and no reason to fight them any longer.

Self-pity. He had thought he had conquered that weakness long ago. He had been wrong. But he would harden himself against it. He must, even if the effort turned him to stone.

Swinging slowly, he stepped back inside the bedchamber and walked around the bed to stand looking down. Blair's face was so flushed, his lips such a dark, unnatural red. The pain of seeing him that way closed like a fist around his heart.

Rage at fate, at circumstances, at Blair himself rippled through him. How dare he come into his life, only to leave it? He had been fine the way he was, not happy or satisfied, no, but resigned. There was no pain in resignation.

The anger was life-giving. He could use it, must have it. If he nurtured it, it might be enough to see him through.

Putting his hand on Blair's shoulder, he shook the slighter man. When he did not rouse, Jim shook him again, more roughly.

"Blair," he said in a hard, cold voice. "Wake up. It's time for you to go."

Blair's eyes, as he raised his lashes, were fever-bright and not quite focused. His parched lips made a faint dry whispering sound as he tried to speak. "What? Oh, Jim, I was dreaming--"

"The dream is over. You can not stay here any longer. You have to go back."

"Back?"

There was no comprehension in Blair's face. Despair brushed James, but he pushed it ruthlessly away. "Back to your own time," he said. "Back to miracle medicines. This is no place for you now."

"But I can't." The words were fretful. Blair closed his eyes and turned away. "Please don't make me go."

"You must," James said, catching the younger man's chin in his fingers and forcing him to face him. "There is nothing for you here. If you stay, you will die. Do you understand me?"

"I want to be with you," Blair protested, his eyes closed.

James' hands began to tremble. To stop them, he grasped Blair's shoulders, and wrenched him upward. Through his teeth, against the tearing sensation in his chest, he gritted out, "I don't want you. Can't you understand. I. Don't. Want. You."

"I'm your guide..." Blair whimpered.

"I have no use for a dying guide."

Blair's eyes opened, then closed again halfway. Through them, James caught the glitter of fear, the beginning shimmer of tears. "But I love you," Blair said so softly that even with his enhance senses he had to put his ears to the younger man's lips to hear.

James thought his heart would burst with agony; he could hear its thunder in his ears. He swallowed hard, trying to control the harsh rasp of his breath. "You never loved me, never knew me, never cared what I needed. You loved a vision, a man out of a dream. I fit your silly fantasy, and so you used me. But it's over. Do you hear me? It's over!"

"No," Blair moaned. His lashes fluttered as if he was trying to stay conscious, trying to reach out to him, but could not quite find the strength.

"Yes!" James insisted. "Did you think I loved you? Do you really think I could? You are too different with your endless tales of imaginary wonders, with made up stories of far away places and times. And morals? Bah! You have none. You opened for me like the puta I once called you. Catamite! What can such a one mean to me?"

"Jim!" Blair's eyes were open now, though dull with grief beyond comprehension.

"You cannot even say my name right. James, I tell you. I am James! Does that not tell you anything?" He released his guide with a hard push. "Listen to me. Listen, because your life may depend on it. I am not the lover of your dreams. I cannot fulfill your childish and ridiculous yearnings. No mere mortal could."

Dry, feathery words came to him. "But I'm safe with you."

"Safe? That's only another illusion. There is no such thing as safety. All living, all loving, is dangerous. There is no other way."

"But I want -- to stay -- here."

There was a slow shimmer of tears rising toward the blue irises of Blair's eyes. James couldn't stand it, refused to look at it.

Breathing slow and deep against the pressure inside him, he spoke in tones made vicious by strain. "You want to hide, to avoid the pain of the world where you were born, of being alive. You are afraid of the risk. But it won't work. Get away. Get out of here. Go and find something real. Go, before it's too late!"

"Don't, Jim. Please, don't--"

"Don't what? Don't tear down the walls of your dream world? Don't let in the light so you can see how frail they were? They are built of air and disappointments, lies and longing and fables from books. That's all, pitifully all."

Blair shook his head in answer, closing his eyes tight. Tears seeped from under his lashes and pooled like silver beads in the dark hollows under his eyes.

Desperation touched James with the sting of a lash. He couldn't stand the tears, couldn’t bear the suffering he was causing. He sprang to his feet, facing the man in the bed with his hands knotted into fists. "You can't stay here. You can't, because I won't let you. Can you comprehend that? You have to go. There is nothing here for you. There never was."

"Jim! Please!"

He had to get away. If he stayed, he would throw himself down on the bed beside Blair, fold him in his arms, and hold him close while he begged forgiveness.

"No," he said, the word so harsh it tore at his throat. "Get out of my house. You are not to be here when I get back. You hear me? Go!"

Wrenching around, he groped blindly for the door. He found the knob and managed somehow to blunder out of the room. He thought he heard Blair cry out behind him, but he could not stop to be sure.

Air, he had to have air. His heart was battering at his breastbone and the agony in his mind was so acute he could not think. He would suffocate if he could not find a place to breathe, some dark spot to be alone and unseen with the sorrow and the terror spinning aound him.

Night had fallen, spreading its gray blackness under the trees and shrubbery of the garden. He made his way to the farthermost corner and stopped there. Tilting his head back, he stared up through the tree limbs at the great basin of the night sky with starlight shining through its holes.

What had he done?

Would Blair survive?

Would he?

There was a noise from above and behind him. He turned with panic beating in his brain.

It was as he feared. Blair was standing in the open window of the bedchamber, silhouetted against the yellow lamplight from inside. Did he see him? James couldn’t tell.

Blair was moving out onto the balcony, his progress slow and uncertain. The wonder was that he could move at all, he had been so weak.

He seemed to be searching the garden below. James knew he should have stepped forward, should have let the other man see him. But what good would that do?

Now Blair was weaving, unbalanced, clinging to the balcony railing with a frail grasp as he leaned out to see. A warning rose in his throat. James opened his mouth to call out.

Blair's braced arm gave way. He staggered, toppled. He was falling, plunging downward in boneless, plummeting grace.

James sprang forward. His muscles bunched in frantic, straining effort. His feet skimmed flagstones. He had to catch him, to keep him from striking that hard, unyielding surface. He was racing, racing against death and time.

He lost.

Blair struck the ground. He lay still, a pale blur in the darkness ahead of him.

James came closer. He ducked under a tree limb and swung around the base of the dogwood tree. Ahead of him was the spot underneath the balcony, bathed in starlight, where Blair had fallen.

He wasn't there.

James jolted to a halt. Somewhere inside his head, he heard a soft cry, his own soul's wailing.

Gone.

Was it all an illusion? Had he really fallen? Or had he never been there at all?

He didn't know and the disorder of his thoughts combined with his grief was insupportable. There was a roaring in his ears, a shudder and catch in the beating of his heart.

Gone?

He should make his way upstairs, walk into his bedchamber and discover if Blair still lay in his bed. He wanted to do that, needed to do that. Yet the effort required more strength and courage than he could spare.

He knew anyway. A primal beast raged inside him, clawed to be let loose. He dropped to his knees, threw back his head, and howled, the sentinel crying out for his lost guide.

As he knelt, as he raged, he saw the gray, obscuring fog of his petit mal approaching. He felt it enclosing him, immobilizing him, quieting him. He did not fight it, but closed his eyes and took it into his empty heart.

"Blair, honey, talk to me. Open your eyes. Please open your eyes. Say something, anything. Oh, Blair, please, wake up. Wake up!"

The voice was familiar. It belonged to a woman, but it was not Maria.

Listening in passive assessment, Blair heard the concern, the fear, and the doubt in it. There was something about it that tugged at his mind, bringing with it faint alarm. He wasn't sure what it was, but knew it was important.

He was comfortable, yet there lingered an impression of pain. He thought if he moved too quickly, or even at all, it might return.

His body seemed light, as though he had lost weight. He was weak beyond words. More than anything else, he could find no will to move, no worthwhile reason to make the effort to speak.

"I can't get through to him, Doctor. What am I going to do?"

"Give it time. He's been one sick young man."

"It's been ages. He's so still, like he isn't even there. If you knew Blair, you'd know, he's never still. I can't understand it; he has to come out of it."

Loving concern and exasperation. Blair thought about it while long seconds, or perhaps hours, ticked past. Oh, yeah. He had it now.

He lifted his eyes by slow degrees to stare at his friend Maureen. He'd known her since he was 15. Part mother, part sister, all friend. His voice breathless, hardly more than a whisper, he said, "Mo? What are you -- doing here?"

Maureen screamed and grabbed Blair's shoulder. "Oh, God! He said something! Nurse, come here! Did you hear him? He's going to make it. I told you he would. Blair Sandburg is a fighter. He doesn't give up! He's going to be all right!"

But he wouldn't be, not ever. Because this room in which he lay was tiny, air-conditioned, gray-curtained, sterile. Filled with medical marvels attached to his body with wires and tubes. It was an intensive care hospital unit.

Maureen was beside him, leaning over him, holding his hand. But James was not there.

Blair closed his eyes, blotting everything out.

It was more than forty-eight hours later that he was placed in a private room, and another twenty-four before anyone was allowed to speak more than a few sentences to him. He was glad. He wasn't ready, might never be ready. He was well aware, however, that a demand for an explanation was inevitable.

Maureen, when she visited on the fourth morning, was bright and cheerful and came bearing a potted hydrangea with huge blue mopheads of flowers. She chatted about traffic and parking problems, but her eyes were luminous with curiosity as well as compassion.

It was after a short silence that she said, "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, Blair. Not to me anyway. The police are going to be coming when the doctor lets them. But I have to ask. Where in the world have you been for two whole months?"

Two months. Such a short time, yet forever. Blair moistened his lips. "I'm not sure you would believe me if I told you."

His friend cocked her head as she watched him closely. "Were you out of the country? You seem to have picked up a funny little accent."

He hadn't realized. It really wasn't surprising, he supposed, when he thought about it. "No, I never left Cascade. I was at the Ellison mansion. Do you remember me telling you about it?"

"Remember! You have got to be kidding; I've haunted the place. And everybody knows you were there. Your car was found in the drive and your clothes were scattered all over the upstairs bedroom. They found traces of blood, semen. The story was on TV, in all the newspapers. God, Blair, you have no idea how terrified I've been! I tried to contact your mom, but I haven't found her yet. When you didn't show up, everybody was sure you'd been raped and killed, and your body carried off somewhere."

Maureen's face was pale and her eyes wide with remembered horror. Recognizing it, Blair said, "I can see how it must have seemed. I'm so sorry."

"You mean that's not what happened? You weren't attacked?"

"Not exactly. There was a man, a lot bigger than me, and mean drunk. We fought. He meant to -- but someone came."

"Who?"

Blair took a deep breath. He wished for his mother as he'd never wished for her in his life. She, at least, might believe him. He closed his eyes for a second, them opened them. "James Ellison. He dragged the man who attacked me off, then he -- took me home with him."

"Who is this Ellison guy? And why in hell didn't you call and let us know you were okay? For God's sake, Blair!"

"I couldn’t call, there were no phones. And I couldn't let you know because -- because there's no way to send a message between 1868 and the present."

Maureen closed her eyes. She shook her head, a slow gesture of disbelief and despair. Long seconds passed, then in a voice soft with pity, she said, "Oh, Blair."

"You don't believe me." Blair's voice was flat.

"Honey --"

"It's true. It happened."

Maureen raised a hand. "No, listen, Blair. Please. What happened is that you were raped, hurt, taken off somewhere and kept for weeks as some fiend's sexual playmate."

"No, he didn't, he wouldn't--"

"It happened, honey, face it! I don't know who he was or where he took you, but it's the only thing that makes sense."

"You're wrong. I saw --"

"Honey, just listen to me, will you? There's no use hiding behind some sweet self-deception; it isn't good for you. And it's not your way. And what happened to you wasn't sweet; it was mean and vicious and criminal. So maybe this guy got to liking you, I don't know. Maybe he got tired of you, or just felt sorry for you after you came down sick. Whatever the reason, he apparently brought you back where he picked you up and put you out. You were found wondering around the old Ellison place in just a long shirt."

"And what do the doctors say was my problem?" Blair spoke with quiet reason, because getting angry would not help.

"Yellow fever. That's why I asked if you had been out of the country. I thought maybe you were taken to South America, Africa, some little Caribbean island where such a thing might still be hanging around."

"It was epidemic in 1868."

"Blair, please!"

"I was there, Maureen. I saw the old St. Anne's the way it was before they changed the bell towers. I saw the clothes, the carriages, the street sellers. I heard the way people talked, saw the way--"

"You've been reading about those things for years; it wouldn't take anything for you to make all that up and see it in your mind. I don't know for sure why you think you went back in time, but I have a good idea. What happened was so awful, you've blanked it out. In its place, you substituted this fairy tale that lets you feel good about yourself."

Was Maureen right? She seemed so sure, and all Blair could muster to prove what he said were memories. And what were memories except visions in the mind?

"Or just maybe," Blair said in slow consideration, "it was all a dream."

"That's right, honey," Maureen said with relief rising in her voice. "That, or a hallucination brought on by your high fever. It was touch and go there for a while. Your doctor said the only thing that kept you alive was sheer will power. You wanted so much to live."

If Maureen wouldn't believe him, then no one else would except possibly Naomi, and she was apparently out of pocket. He could keep trying, dredging up details and forcing people to listen, but he saw that it might be dangerous. Like his friend, they would think he was compensating for his traumatic experience. They might even think he was mentally unbalanced, if not completely insane. It would be safer to pretend, to let them think what they would.

It had been easier in James' time, but then, people had no dependence on psychological explanations. They still believed in miracles.

In the days that followed, Blair was visited by a psychiatrist, a counselor, and a policeman. Each of them, in their own way, wanted to help him deal with his problem. By then, however, he had found his feet and memorized his answers for the endless questions. There were just two, and he used whichever seemed appropriate at any given time. One was, "I don't know." The other, "I don't remember."

Finally he was allowed to go home. Maureen had seen to things for him, forging his name on checks to pay his rent and electricity, and she'd returned Larry to the lab. His warehouse seemed bare and poverty-stricken, his possessions strange, as if they belonged to another person. It didn't matter.

The first surprise came when he was sitting in the waiting room for the last of his mandatory counseling sessions with the psychologist. He'd picked up a dated magazine and found Jim staring out at him. Blackened face, bandana-wrapped head, haunted eyes, it was still Jim. He'd skipped the appointment and stolen the magazine, slipping out the door with it tucked under his shirt.

He'd devoured the article, reading about the only survivor of a sabotaged mission to South America. He was sure it was his James, but he ran into stone wall after stone wall in trying to locate the man. He could have hired a private eye, but doctoral students are notoriously poor. He had to put it aside.

The second surprise came when he was reading the Ellison family history he knew so well. It was different. Instead of vanishing at age 34, James Ellison was presumed to have had a seizure and wandered away at age 16. He was never seen again.

Well. That cast a whole new light on his rescue in the woods by the teenaged Jim, didn't it?

Blair renewed his efforts to find his mother in the hopes that she might be able to fund a real search for the man on the magazine cover.

The third surprise came in the form of a windfall inheritance. The elderly owner of the Ellison house had died in her Massachusetts nursing home. The deed to the house had a highly unusual encumbrance. It seemed that if the house were unoccupied when the owner died, at any time after January 1, 2005, the house would go to one Blair Jacob Sandburg, if he resided in the city of Cascade at such time.

It had almost made him faint.

And even better, it came with a sizable monetary endowment for repairs and renovations.

Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out how to access the money to hunt for Jim.

So he decided to fix the house up and live in it.

"Are you nuts?" Maureen asked when she discovered Blair's plans. "That old place must have terrible memories for you. I'd have thought you'd want to avoid it like the plague."

"I love that house; I always did."

"And hanging around it nearly got you killed! Think, honey, think. What if that lunatic comes back?"

Blair bit back the retort that hovered on his tongue. "I appreciate your concern, Maureen, but I'm not sixteen anymore. I'm a grown man."

"In other words, mind my own business."

"In other words, be glad that I finally have something I want. I still haven't found a suitable subject here for my dissertation, so the house will give me something to work for and focus on while I continue to look. You may not think it's what I need, but it's what I want."

Maureen watched him for a long moment. Finally, she said, "All right. I won't say any more."

She did, of course, but it didn't stop Blair."

When the paperwork on the house was all finalized, Blair plunged into renovation and restoration. His warehouse was a litter of plans and elevations, of contractor's bids, of plumbing and electrical catalogs, paint chips and drapery samples. He took pleasure in chasing down wallpaper that was the exact replica of what had been there before. It was an adventure to track down the craftsmen who could duplicate ceiling medallions and balusters. Every daylight hour he could spare was spent sanding doors and moldings and stripping and refinishing antiques; clearing out and carting off junk and sorting through the good bits that were left.

And now and then, when he stood in the old house or sat in the garden eating his brown bag lunch, he would stare around him, remembering.

But he still couldn't find Jim. He wondered if he could summon him, as he seemed to have been able to before his trip back in time. He was too unsure, too unclear on what it could mean for Jim. If Blair's need, the guide's call for the sentinel, could draw him across time while masquerading as epilepsy, and if the sentinel's need could pull Blair back to 1868, what would it do now? Now that time seemed changed, now that things were different?

He missed Jim with a pain that never eased, never ended, but still, he was afraid to try and call to him. He was too afraid of what it might indicate if he came, but also of what it could mean if he did not.

Blair had left Jim, but not of his own will. As he allowed himself to look back now, he could see that neither had it been by Jim's will. A sentinel protects his guide; it was one of the first things Burton wrote about. Jim sent him away to save his life, and for no other reason. The shouting and hurtful things that had been said were for one purpose, to convince him to release his hold on the past and return to his time in the future.

It had been Jim's strength of will and his might that had carried him back to Jim's time to begin with; why should he not have had the resolution and power to send him away again?

Then time had changed and now it seemed that Jim was here, with him, somewhere. That the boy who'd saved him in the forest when he was four, had grown to be a man who was a decorated Army officer. And Blair missed him, longed for him, grieved for him with every fiber of his being.

He saved the courtyard garden until last. He had a fountain cast, using the broken pieces to construct a mold. A volunteer dogwood, descendent of the long dead original was found in a corner, and returned to its place. The flagstones were cleaned and replacements found for those that were broken or missing. He discovered, in an antique shop, chairs and a table of wrought iron in a grape leaf pattern just like those that had once sat in the morning shade.

Finally, it was done. The last drape was hung, the final mirror installed. The carpenter's truck disappeared down the street. The antiques Blair had searched out were delivered and hoisted up the stairs. He hauled his boxes of clothes and dishes from the warehouse and put them away in the armoire and the cabinets of the new kitchen that had been built to look like those from the old butler's pantry. He ate his dinner of fast food in the garden, then went inside as night fell. He turned the new deadbolt lock on the front and back doors, and slowly climbed the stairs.

The bedchamber was the same, exactly the same down to the delicate stripe of the wallpaper and the starburst under the half-tester. There was a whale oil lamp on the bedside table and candlesticks on the mantel.

He struck a match and made the room glow with the old-fashioned lighting. Passing into the dressing room, he took a bath in the claw foot tub he had had installed, then put on a nightshirt of plain white linen. He brushed his hair, still long, still curly, still unruly, and left it hanging down his back. Then he moved with steady, deliberate steps back into the bedchamber.

It was time. He could not live with fear forever, and would not be controlled by it. If James were gone, then he would take what consolation he might find in a fantasy of his image. If he could not have what was real and true and fine, then there was no shame in pretending.

He closed his eyes, centered himself, breathed softly once, twice.

The house smelled of new paint and sawdust, floor finish and, yes, linseed oil The tower room housed a gallery for the artist in his sentinel. Tomorrow, he would throw open the windows and air out the newness.

He breathed again, trying to relax. Tomorrow, he would order the climbing roses to run up the wall. They should be planted in December.

He couldn't concentrate. Maybe he was still afraid, after all.

He walked to the high post of the bed and leaned his head against it. His voice soft, broken, he said aloud, "Jim? Please, Jim. Please come to me." Nothing. Silence, except for the ticking of the porcelain mantel clock. Even the dim gray corridors of his mind were empty.

"Jim," he whispered with wet burning tears rimming his eyelids. "I miss you."

And then the phone rang.

He jolted, yanked from his memories, and scurried to find his cell phone. As he answered it, the front door bell rang. He was listening to a policeman, a Captain Banks talking in his ear about his best detective having spells and needing time away and taking off to go camping for a few months in the mountains as he walked down the stairs to the front of the house. The man on the phone was apologizing for his officer, explaining that he was ill and that he wouldn't hurt him and he shouldn't be worried and they were on their way as he opened the door.

The porch light cast a man's shadow across the floor and then the man appeared in the doorway and he dropped the phone. He could vaguely hear the captain still talking but his eyes were on the man standing before him.

James.

Jim.

Gone from 1850, a teenager vanished into another time, grown to manhood in a world that had to have been very strange to him, but alive now, very much alive.

It was James, and yet he was different. His hair was short, trimmed military tight against his skull. A worn navy T-shirt was stretched over the width of his chest and tucked into faded jeans. There was mud on his hiking boots and he held a windbreaker in his hand.

He smiled with gladness and promise in his eyes as he stepped in and tossed the coat aside, walking steadily toward him.

"What took you so long, mon cher amour, my dearest love?" he asked with a grin. "I've been waiting for you forever..."