Where the Vile Things Are, page 34
Just then—before either of us could say anything to him—his phone went off (it was sitting on the coffee table) and he looked down and said “Valmont,” and his face grew dark again and his eyes filled with tears, and he just lost it!
He immediately went to the bar cart in the dining area and grabbed two bottles of liquor and ran back to the room and locked the door.
I don’t mean to speak ill of your nephew, so I choose my words carefully; but he is dangerous and he has ruined my best friend. I have no doubt that all of this can find its source in him. I’m worried about Stefan, and neither of us know what to do.
I hope maybe you can help.
MESSAGE CL
(Retyped from original hand-written letter)
To: Oliver Merteuil
From: Rafael Danceny
December 3rd 20__
I’m getting ready to head over to the Mark Hopkins to come see you. I just wanted to tell you how excited I am about all of this, and I wanted to do so in a letter. I know when we were last together you said no letters, you also said that what had happened between us couldn’t happen again; but I haven’t stopped thinking about what it felt like to be inside of you and I want it.
You said it is too dangerous and too complicated and too risky for us to keep going and continuing to explore this; but I don’t think so. We can keep it between us and in secret until I sort this shit out with Cécile, and then we can proceed however we want when that time comes; we can live out in the open—think of the kind of couple we’ll be and the courage and authenticity we can inspire in others.
When I’m not with you, I’m still thinking about you. I look at your pictures and I think about how new and different all of this feels and I think about how much I like it and I like you.
I really like you, Oliver. No, I more than like you; I fucking love you!
I’m writing you this letter, even though I know I’m going to see you—even though I’m on my way to see you—because I still need to talk to you even when I’m not with you. I want to give you this letter and take the time to write you instead of simply messaging you because I think a love letter is really just the most authentic, most genuine, and one of the most romantic things someone can do in this day and age.
You inspire so much in me, Oliver; I need to show it to you and show you how much you mean to me.
We will figure all of this out; I know it’ll be just fine! I’ll prove it to you. By the time you’re reading this I’ll have made you feel safe and secure and protected. I’ll have wrapped you up in my strong arms and held you close to me and you’ll have felt how much you mean to me.... (Wink)
Have faith in me and have faith in us. I know you’re hesitant because I have always come across as straight; but I guess a part of me has always been a little heteroflexible. You’re just the first dude to make me feel like this... I know we aren’t quite sure what it means, but I do know I want to build a life with you; however we make that look. It doesn’t matter; I just want it.
I love you, Oliver. You are fucking perfect.
MESSAGE CLI
To: Oliver Merteuil
From: Nathan Valmont
December 3rd 20__
Ollie, I am sure you don’t think me so completely inept as to believe for one second the lie you told me when I happened to find Rafael Danceny going to your suite, and you opening up the door and being there when you told me you were still in New York and you would call me or text me as soon as you walked through the front door.
I know for a fact that you have been home for the past four days and Danceny has been over to the Mark Hopkins every single one of those days, and only once did he leave the same night.
I have to applaud you on how you kept your face so composed and straight, even as you continued to lie to me about what you were doing back so soon and why Rafael was with you. But, if you don’t want all of that skill to be wasted I suggest you train your new fuck boy to behave better.
Teach him not to blush and avert his gaze bashfully at the least hint of suspicion; not to stand up for—or defend—one guy more fiercely than he normally would any other dude; make him aware of not drawing attention by realizing he is not always obligated to praise you in front of others; make sure that if you let him look at you in front of others that he at least knows how to do so without looking at you as if he owns you, which anyone can notice.
Honestly, if you’re going to keep this on the down low, then I suggest you get him to stop making it so obvious that he likes to have your lips on his dick.
For all of this, if it was anyone else—any other dude—I would have beat the living shit out of him. But it’s you and I love you and I hate you, and they are one and the same; and right now I can’t tell which type of love it is; but there is a lot of fucking sadness either way.
What have I done? What did I help create? You came for me and you came for me hard and you have left a lot of victims in your path—your journey to this moment was paid for with sacrifices, and Stefan is the greatest of all of these sacrifices. I love you and hate you and I am in awe of you for it; I don’t know what to do or where to go from here, other than to once again demand that you get rid of that fucking douche bag Danceny and keep your obligations.
You want to know why I did it, Ollie? You want to know why I came for you? I’ll tell you... because I wanted you! It’s that simple. At the party, you were my first in every way; when you were Thomas, you were the first boy I ever kissed. The first I ever dared to touch; and you drew me in. You drew me in so deep and I couldn’t stop thinking about you after the party. I couldn’t get you out from under my skin.
I had to punish you for it. I realized how vulnerable I was to you in every single way, and I worried and knew what harm you could do to me. Even then at the party and in class, I remembered feeling always that I wasn’t the only predator in the room. There were always two hunters, and I had to make sure you knew that I was always the alpha.
I never forgot you because you were my first real victim; my first real casualty. But years went by and when you returned—when you reemerged as Oliver Merteuil—you looked nothing like the soft, doe-eyed boy I took with me into that back bedroom.
All I could ever remember of that time were bedrooms: my bedroom and the bedrooms of my friends, and all of the things I did in them and all the people I did them to....
I came for you a second time because once again, I wanted you! Don’t you get it? I wanted you and I knew the only way that I could have you was if I took you from Jeremy, and the only way that I could do that and bring you down to the place I needed you to be so I could get what I wanted was to humiliate you in front of everyone.
It had to be done. What do you mean to even ask me why I did it? You know very well why, and you know you love it and love how I could rip you to shreds and yet preserve you all at the same time. Love makes us hurt each other and love continues to keep us together.
See the control you still have over me, Oliver? Submit and let’s stop doing this. We both know each other all too well; that should be enough for you to be warned.
You told me you’re going to be gone all day tomorrow at the gallery and that you won’t be home till really late? FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC! I’ll be over as soon as you return. We’ll have until dawn to satisfy the deed between us and finally put an end to all of this and be together. We deserve each other.
Get rid of Danceny. You’ve spent too long entertaining this little LARP of Call Me by Your Name. Enough is enough! We both know he’ll drop you and go back to breastfeeding. Spare us both the humiliation. So far, your little “love that dare not speak its name” has been whimsical, but if it continues, it will look more and more like your decided preference and after Stefan... well; I don’t think I need to be humiliated again.
I wasn’t made for it; and I, too, can be one hostile little faggot.
Danceny isn’t really a sacrifice; you know it and I know it. Besides, even if you feel like it is, I think I have given you quite a good example about how to pay for it! Look at Stefan; that beautiful young man who I have gutted over and over again; and who is wasting away and losing his mind a little; from what I have been told. I am sure that all that has been taken from him is worth AT LEAST as much as a VIRTUE SIGNALING INCEL who lacks any real personality or wit and who has no experience when it comes to being with gay men and the real depth and emotion and complications that come with being us.
I’ll see you later, Oliver. I don’t want to say anymore right now when it comes to my feelings for you; all I can do is continue to try to believe in you and us and wait for you to get back to me.
When you do; remember that for your sake as well as mine and for the hope of our happiness and survival that you choose to fix things between us and not give me any more runaround or postponing; doing so will make for a dangerous situation—for us and everyone around us.
MESSAGE CLII
To: Nathan Valmont
From: Oliver Merteuil
December 4th 20__
Watch it, Nathan, treat my feelings and my personhood with more respect. You want me to be with you, but threaten me at the same time?
Please.
Do you know why I have never gotten involved in a real relationship with a man? Not since Jeremy? It wasn’t because I didn’t have the opportunity. As you know and have seen, men ask me out all of the time; Carter Belleroche would marry me in an instant. It was so that no one—no man, especially—could ever control me or dictate my emotions; whether I had a good day or a bad day; peace of mind and ensuring that I was never accountable to anyone, EVER; was—and has been—the only thing that matters.
I am never afraid of being called out on anything that I do. I have truth as my weapon always, and I never deny a goddamned thing! I own up to everything; in short, I deceive and manipulate for my pleasure, not for necessity. I have nothing to hide; therefore nothing to keep me in line, in someone else’s control.
You message me telling me all of my sins against you and take no responsibility for anything. You only talk about your forgiveness of me and how I disappoint you. How can I let you down or disappoint you when I don’t owe you anything?
You found Rafael at the Mark Hopkins and this pissed you off? Okay, but what did you get from this? Either it happened coincidentally, as we both told you; or I did want him there and I didn’t tell you; what does it matter? If the first is true, then your accusations are bullshit, and if the second is correct; so what? We’re adults. It wasn’t even worth bitching and moaning about!
But you are fucking jealous, and jealousy doesn’t understand anything.
So let me clarify some things for you, Nathan.
Either you have competition with Rafael or you don’t. If he is, then you need to bust your ass to prove to me that you are better than him and always will be; if not, then you still have to in order to make sure he never becomes your competition—or anyone else for that matter.
Why are you making such an issue out of this when you’ve never doubted yourself before? Is that what’s going on with you now?
You don’t really want me at this point, Nathan. You want to exert your control over me once again, because you only ever really want me when I’m underneath you.
You don’t really care at all about all of the things you did to me—what you took from me—because you’ve always been the one to hurt, you’ve never been hurt. Until now, that is. Pain is awful, isn’t it? Real pain that pierces like a searing hot needle through your heart and is left there.
You can keep your suspicions and accusations about Rafael, so I won’t address anything in regards to the day I returned to the city or about Danceny being at my hotel. You apparently went through a ton of trouble to keep track of my movements and get information, didn’t you? Was it worth it? Are you any better for it, Nathan?
I hope you got something out of it. It didn’t do anything to disrupt my life, either way. All I can say in regards to your threats is that it does nothing for me and it doesn’t intimidate me. At this moment... I have zero desire to sleep with you.
To hook up with you as the person you are being right now would be a nightmare. It would be like cheating on you. I wouldn’t be making love to my soulmate; my best friend; my partner in crime; my true love... it would be hooking up with someone who is not even worthy of filling that guy’s undies.
I have never stopped loving that Nathan, and I can’t trick myself into sleeping with this guy. The Nathan Valmont whom I loved and have always loved was charming and smart and clever and I will tell you, as I have already admitted, that even in those moments of hate that fueled the game, I couldn’t help but love that man with all that I had inside.
If you see that Nathan; let him know I miss him, and he will always be welcomed between my sheets.
it won’t be today or tomorrow; you—his evil twin—fucked way too much up threatening me and trying to dominate me. I don’t want to fuck up and offend him more....
Or maybe it’s because I already have plans with Rafael?
Hmmm....
But what does it matter? Your possible rival is doing no less to me than you’re doing to the one that he loves.
After all, isn’t one lover worth the price of the other one?
These are your own values. You would sacrifice “that beautiful young man” who you have “gutted over and over again; and who is wasting away and losing his mind a little,” even him you would slaughter again and again to the first inkling—the first fear of being laughed at and mocked for it.
Let me know, Nathan. Get back to your old self and as soon as I can be sure that you are the man I love, I will prove it to you in every single way.
MESSAGE CLIII
To: Oliver Merteuil
From: Nathan Valmont
December 4th 20__
I’m going to respond to this right now. I don’t need to think about it and I will try to be as clear and succinct as possible so that there is no room for misunderstanding or error. We don’t need to go around in circles to identify clearly that you and I are both capable of destroying each other. We have made it so that we always have enough ammunition—we hold all of each other’s truths in our hands and it is the best for both of our survivals to treat each other with mutual consideration and respect in regards to the power we both hold.
Honestly, between tearing each other apart and leaving nothing but scorched earth in our wake and not doing so; let’s just drop all of this and forgive each other for it and be together. So I will remind you again and stress once more how serious all of this is; going forward, I will either be your boyfriend—your partner—or I will be your enemy.
I know you don’t like ultimatums—yes and no’s—but at this point I don’t have a choice. You have to realize that now I have no option but to trap you. I can’t risk you tricking me again and you had to realize that this was coming—that I would have no other recourse than to finally call you out and take you to task for all of your deceit. No more excuses. No more trying to charm your way out of it.
Your place or one of your favorite suites; I don’t care, but the ball is now in your court and you have to play. You have no more passes. No more reasons. No more justifications as to why I can’t fuck you—why we can’t be together—we’re all we have left. We were forged in hell and set loose on this earth, we are made for each other.
We’re stuck with each other, Merteuil. You and me.
The time has come to be direct. I will do so first by telling you that I only want us to be together; to get past all of this... poison... all of this hurt; give me what you owe me. If you do not, then I have the right and the means to deal with you as I see fit and that you will deserve.
I also say that to refuse any of this... to not answer me one way or another will be taken as a declaration of war. I will pursue the course of dismantling and destroying you once and for all, and I will show no mercy if you don’t give me an answer in the next twenty-four hours.
Yes or no?
A word will do. It’s all I need.*
*Oliver Merteuil copied and pasted the above message and simply added to the end of it:
All right, then.... If I am required to pick between the two....
War.
MESSAGE CLIV
To: Vanessa Rosemonde
From: Isabelle Pratt
December 5th 20___
Not much to report. Stefan isn’t doing any better. At this point... I don’t know what to do. None of us do.
I only wanted to let you know that of all people, Nathan has reached out to me to help facilitate a meeting between he and Stefan. He’s claiming that he only wants to make things right and knows that he can; but there’s no way I’m going to let him near Stefan. Especially when Stefan is so fragile right now and is just in the worst shape, I really believe Nathan will only make things worse for our friend.
Is he really trying to make things better and do the right thing by Stefan, or is he just deceiving all of us again? It’s not worth taking the chance. He’s fucked up his own life and he’s fucked up the lives of other people too many times to be trusted.
I’m sorry. I know you love your nephew, but there’s another side to him and that side is killing my best friend.
I hope things are going well. You should come visit Stefan; I really think seeing you will help.
MESSAGE CLV
To: Rafael Danceny
From: Nathan Valmont
December 5th 20__
Twice now I’ve been by your place, and both times you haven’t been home and your roommate says that you return late at night; but I know that you’re only coming long enough to grab a change of clothes. You are quite the specimen of desire aren’t you? Honestly, I’m impressed. I give props where props are due, and you are clearly pulling major game.
