11 In the Hands of Masuria Woodcutter

Adam didn't understand the question, but his heart started beating even harder.

What could he expect?

If they turn on the light will he see the foil laid out on the table, the duct tape prepared and the tools to quarter the corpse?

"I prefer... in the dark..."

He was afraid that if he saw all this his courage would leave him completely. Out of fear he will start to act like a coward. He will run away, scream, and maybe even pee his pants.

"Be careful, don't trip" Hubert admonished him and led him to the second room, as dark as the previous one.

At that moment the man pulled his arm more violently, threw him off balance and Adam suddenly found himself with his back on a soft, quite wide bed. Above him he saw Hubert, who was removing his shirt.

Adam's voice was taken away. In surprise he opened his mouth, which after a moment was filled with a strong, dominating, but wonderfully caressing tongue.

So he wants to do "it" with me first, he thought, appreciating the irony. He'll do to him what Kwiecień did to those boys, he decided. Only instead of a rope at the very end there will be an axe. But there was another difference - the boys didn't know what was going to happen, they didn't accept their fate willingly.

Adam embraced the man and returned the kiss. If it's going to be like this, let's at least make it enjoyable.

Hubert's hands that flowed under his shirt were not violent. Adam felt their roughness, under which his skin trembled gently. He felt their strength demanding obedience, but there was no violence in them. There was a caress. As they undid his belt, as they slid under the fabric of his pants to remove them, Adam felt the desire intensify in him for them to embrace him, to hold him, to caress him. He wanted to forget himself in them and felt he could do it.

Hubert's thumb slid across his cheek and Adam felt the wetness on it. He blinked his eyelids and realized it was his own tears.

Tears?

He did not understand, what was happening? Why were his eyes...?

"Free yourself," Hubert whispered in his ear. Not maliciously, not provocatively. He sounded warm and soft. "Release your emotions."

Free your... emotions? After all, his emotions are free, he wanted to protest when he realized that would be a lie. Now, in the embrace of a stranger who could turn out to be a murderer Adam felt so much inside him that he couldn't handle the onslaught of feelings flooding him.

Sadness, guilt, use and betrayal, anger, hate and fear. The longing for warmth, the desire for security, the hope for the future, the love he had so much inside him and had no one to offer it to because of the wounds he carried inside him, still unhealed after so many years. Rejection... Loneliness...

In the arms of a stranger, under his sure touch, Adam's body trembled - not from one particular emotion, from a thousand of them, which, buried somewhere under the mask of legal rationalism he wore every day, began to flow out disordered, chaotic, so much so that he was unable to distinguish one from another. They turned into tears that, without his will, flowed from his eyes and disappeared in Hubert's lips that kissed them.

Why had he brought him to this house? What intentions did he really have? Adam didn't care at all. Even if he were to die at this moment, his heart was finding peace with each passing moment.

He had freed himself completely, and though he was flooded with the unknown, he was freely giving himself over to that unknown.

There was the ecstasy of catharsis, followed by the physical ecstasy of letting go of all fetters. There was also a hint of pain as the body that no longer remembered the closeness began to rediscover it. And when he finally closed his eyes, it felt pleasant and peaceful. And it was all the same to him if he ever opened them again.

***

First he took a deep breath. The air was cool, so Adam searched with his hand for some kind of covering. Still half conscious, he pulled a warm, fragrant blanket over his head.

He felt strange, as if he sensed he was in a strange, unfamiliar place. A second of panic, then the decision to open his eyes.

This wasn't his apartment or even the hotel room where he had spent the previous night. This interior, wooden, spartan, but furnished with a wide and soft bed, he didn't remember.

Under the navy blue blanket of a nice, warm teddy bear, he was completely naked and his body was a clear reminder that he had experienced more than simple embraces that night.

So he was alive after all, he realized, and instead of relief he felt shame - not because he had spent the night with a strange man, but because he suspected him of being the murderer and himself - his victim.

The clock on the bedside table read ten o'clock. Adam couldn't remember the last time he had woken up so late. He had slept long, hard and soundly, although he had no idea when he had actually fallen asleep. He only recalled being in Hubert's arms at the time.

Hubert, a construction worker at the hotel who lived on the other side of the lake. He had strong hands, rough from physical labor, scratchy stubble and mesmerizing eyes. Ada didn't know anything else about him, well, except maybe that he was a divine lover and liked to work with an axe. Equally relaxed and rested Adam hadn't felt since... Well, never mind, he decided without being able to remember.

Well, and definitely Hubert was determined and bold. To approach a stranger in the middle of the night and drag him to bed like that!

Adam got up and, hastily getting dressed, looked into the other room, which was a general room with a kitchenette. On the table was a tray covered with a linen cloth and in front of it was a piece of paper with the word 'bon appetite' written on it. Next to it was a similar card with an arrow and the words 'bathroom.' Ingenious, Adam thought, and headed after the sign.

There was a fresh towel waiting for him in the bathroom and even a change of clothes still smelling of the store. Apparently Hubert had decided that the one Adam had been wearing the night before wouldn't be suitable to wear. To be right. After all, Adam remembered that at night they hadn't paid any attention to him rolling around in it with proper commitment and now he felt uncomfortable in it.

Out of necessity Adam also used the cosmetics he found on the shelf and found that they were definitely of the higher end. Only now did he notice that the cottage itself was not an old house remembering communist times, but a new, nicely decorated, fashionable log cabin. Its decor, though modest, was quite stylish. Maybe Adam didn't have much to do with builders, but somehow he imagined their living conditions differently.

After breakfast he decided to clean up after himself and that's when he noticed a huge pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Well, this was more like reality. He laughed and with a commitment worthy of at least fighting for the reunification of Korea, he set about washing up.

Hubert was still nowhere to be seen and Adam figured he must have gone out to the construction site. He looked out the window leading to the lake and admittedly saw the hotel, the pier and even the windows of his room, but not the construction site. He wasn't going to spend the whole day in this house and was already wondering what he should do to avoid being it left at the mercy of thieves when he noticed a set of keys on the dresser. Probably one matched the lock on the exit door.

He decided it would be best if he locked the house and dropped the keys off to Hubert. That way he would have a chance to see him in daylight. Admittedly, there was a risk that he would be disappointed, but he chose the option of lights out himself. Admittedly he didn't know what it entailed, but what did it really matter? In a few days he would leave here anyway and forget all about this adventure.