He is about 15, slender, tanned, beautiful. Wearing school clothes. Private school. Someone has killed him, bashing him on the head repeatedly until he sank into a bloody mess on the ground.

I saw his hand in the dirt; he hadn’t been buried very deep. Determinedly I clawed at the summer earth, which was already hard and dry. His hand poised in a frozen brown wave.

He came into the room, dishevelled, confused, as if he had just woken. He didn’t notice that he was coated in blood and dirt, his blonde hair dreaded with his death.

I loved him. I didn’t know him, yet I loved him instantly and completely. He was all I wanted.

<and yes, I know all about the illusory nature of love>

Tenderly I began to wash him, peeling back the layers of clothing which were saturated with unspeakable substances. His limbs were almost useless; he had forgotten how to make his body obey him. I washed his boysoft face, pushing the tangle of hair from his blue eyes. His chest. His arms. And then his groin. I rubbed my hand lightly over his secret parts, not breathing, relishing again the devastating softness, the impassiveness, encouraging his hand there. I washed his long athletic legs, glancing at his slowly moving hand. My arousal mirrored his glorious state. Virgin hard ons always do it for me. Even on chicks and especially on those of ambiguous gender.

I was never sure whether he was really dead. Dead or undead. He never knew either. It didn't seem to matter. At the time it seemed like the best sex I had ever had.

Occasionally on the train I see a boy who reminds me of him. Something about the careless tangle of richboy hair. Muddy knees combined with the bewitching reek of last lesson football practice. I see these boys and I just want to kill them. To keep them. Forever. As if they were rare exotic butterflies.

<how 19th century of me, so . . . genteel>

Sometimes I do. Kill them.

But they don't keep for long. Certainly not forever. Not like butterflies.

Even the freshest of meat spoils.

And although I detest waste, I free myself of regret, and commit those beautiful creatures to the earth, as tenderly as any parent tucking in its little ones for the long wintered night.