Authors: Patrick Logan
Seth Grudin wiped the
corners of his mouth as the man that stood before him hiked up his khakis and began doing up his belt. He started to stand, but the man ordered him to stay on his knees.
“Stay down.” The voice was strong and powerful, commanding respect. And after what he had just done, Seth figured it was only fitting.
“What about my money?” he asked in a sheepish voice. “We agreed on twenty.”
When there was no immediate answer, Seth glanced up. It was dark out, and even though it was a full moon, it was partially blocked by the corner of the dumpster he squatted beside and also by the man’s looming head. Still, there was enough light for Seth to make out that he was sneering.
“Should have got the money first, faggot,” the man said with a chortle.
Seth’s looked away and he started to scramble to his feet, when the man surprised him by squatting down to his level. His face was wide, his impossibly white teeth seeming to glow in the darkness. A hand grabbed Seth by the cheeks, forcing his mouth open. He felt the calloused pads of the man’s fingers biting into his narrow face. Seth tried to shake the man away, but he had an iron grip, and his fingers only dug deeper.
Still smiling, the man said, “You’re lucky I don’t cut you.”
They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, Seth at the mercy of the man’s grip, unable to even look away from his dark brown eyes.
This was intentional, of course, but it didn’t make his threat any less true. Staring into those dark, empty pools, Seth knew that this man who had petitioned him inside the bar was dangerous.
Very dangerous.
He was getting sloppy, and as a result, he had gotten himself into another situation.
Just remain calm; don’t say anything that might enrage him. Just—stay—calm.
Seth’s resolve nearly broke when out of the corner of his eye he noticed the man’s hand slipping behind him.
You’re lucky I don’t cut you.
But the man’s hand dug into his pocket and Seth heard the sound of jangling change, and not the sound of a switchblade.
Then the man laughed and shoved Seth’s head backward as he let go. Rising to his feet, he tossed a handful of change at Seth as he rubbed his cheeks with both hands. A quarter hit him square in the nose and he grimaced.
With that, the man turned and walked away. It even looked like he had acquired a swagger to his step that hadn’t been evident in his waif-like behavior in the bar.
Seth continued to rub his face as he watched the man go. Despite the john’s laughter, Seth knew that that had been a close one, and his heart raced in his chest.
He was terrified.
Only after the man’s footsteps could no longer be heard did Seth dare pull himself to his feet.
He brushed dirt from the front of his shirt, knocking the spare change to the ground where it tinkled like shattered glass. Even if he had been able to see it in the dark, he wouldn’t have picked it up.
Even he wasn’t that desperate.
Eyes downcast, he made his way around the dumpster to the door to the club. Relief washed over him when he saw that the twig that he had wedged beneath the door keeping it open was still in place, saving him the walk around… and the need to pay cover again.
He grabbed the opening—the door was exit only and lacked a handle—and pulled it wide.
Loud dance music and the smell of cheap cologne immediately struck him. He didn’t particularly care for either, but after what had happened in the alley, he breathed in deeply through his nose and tried to let the music flow through him.
The man had been telling the truth; he was lucky that he hadn’t been sliced open, or worse. Prostitution was always a dangerous business, but the incidence of violence in male-to-male interactions always seemed much higher.
Seth let out a deep breath and tried to calm his pounding heart.
The altercation in the alley was the second time that he had been threatened, and although the first time he had ended up with a bloody nose and a black eye, this time had been worse. The man would have cut him,
wanted
to cut him. In fact, he was unsure why he
hadn’t
.
A shudder ran through him, and Seth continued down the hallway, his pace quickening.
The narrow hallway was illuminated by LED strips on the floor and ceiling, which changed color and intensity based on the beat of the music. Every few steps, a green laser whipped down the hallway before continuing on its path and exiting out of sight. He passed a dressing room, its open door offering a quick glance inside the well-lit space.
A man was sitting on his chair facing the open door, but he never saw Seth; he was too busy looking down at his bronzed skin, rubbing silver glitter on his pecs. He was wearing a silver G-string and fairy wings that looked comically small on his large back.
Storm
, Seth thought. As if answering him, the loudspeaker suddenly erupted.
“And now, all you queers put your hands together for your final act of the night:
Storm
!”
A cheer broke out from the end of the hallway, but Seth kept his gaze in the dressing room. Storm stood and stared at himself in the mirror. As Seth watched, more curious than anything else, Storm made his pecs bounce, then reached down and grabbed his crotch with a hand, shifting things around, propping his equipment up. The man had a smirk on his face, but he suddenly caught Seth watching him through the mirror and his smile faded. Storm quickly made it to the door and stepped into the hallway, roughly pushing Seth back against the wall as he traipsed by.
“No free shows,” he grumbled.
Seth waited in the dark until Storm, smile slowly creeping back on his face, made it down the hallway. With two large steps, the man jumped up onto the stage, his silver wrestling boots landing so softly that they barely made a noise.
Only then did Seth slink out of the hallway, around the stage, and to his usual seat at the bar.
You’re lucky I don’t cut you.
Seth shuddered again and turned his eyes to the stage, if for nothing else but to distract himself—and to forget.
“You all right, Seth?”
Seth didn’t turn immediately. Even though the last show of the night had ended more than five minutes prior, his eyes remained locked on the stage, and his mind in thought.
When a hand gently rested on his arm, he nearly jumped.
“Sorry,” the bartender offered, moving away.
Seth stared at the man. He was cute, and like all the men who worked at the Glittering Fairy, he was in great shape. And he also sported a set of ridiculous wings.
“Sorry, Tom,” Seth said, shaking the rust from his head.
“Rough night?” Tom asked, going back to wiping down several of the newly washed glasses.
Seth nodded.
Tom nudged his chin toward Seth.
“That what happened to your face?”
Seth instinctively rubbed at his cheeks, which were still aching.
“Yeah.”
“Another rough john?”
Seth nodded again and averted his eyes.
“Didn’t pay, either.”
“Shitty. You need a drink? It’s past last call, but there’s no one else here.”
Seth looked around and realized that although he had been staring at the stage for what felt like an eternity, he hadn’t noticed that pervert’s row had cleared out. He turned completely around and surveyed the entire club. He noticed two other patrons toward the back, both quickly trying to finish their beers with a large black bouncer hovered over them.
Although he hadn’t seen people leave, he wasn’t surprised that they were gone. No one stuck around too long after the last show of the night.
“It’s okay, bouncer won’t tell you to leave if I don’t want him to. Let me get you a drink.”
Seth turned back to Tom. Under other circumstances, he might have thought the man was hitting on him. But not Tom. He was just being friendly, which was something that Seth desperately needed right now. In fact, as strange as it was working here, Seth didn’t even think the man was gay.
“Can’t pay,” he offered glumly. “John didn’t pay.”
Tom made him a drink anyway; his favorite, gin and tonic.
He slid the glass over and Seth grabbed it.
“Thank you,” he said, taking a sip. It was strong and tart—just the way he liked it.
Tom said nothing and went back to cleaning the glasses. As Seth continued to drink, he noticed that the place consistently started to brighten, as if someone was very slowly raising the dimmer. Then the music cut out, although it took a few seconds to realize that the ringing in his ears was a side effect and lacked the bass thump of an actual tune.
Tom passed through the swinging doors behind the bar for a moment, presumably leading to the kitchen, leaving Seth alone with his thoughts.
You’re lucky I don’t cut you.
The thing that scared Seth most about the encounter wasn’t so much the prospect of being stabbed or sliced open, although that in and of itself was indeed frightening. It was how he felt about it; somewhere, deep inside his soul, he felt that he deserved it.
That he deserved to be cut up, to be killed.
As if eavesdropping on his internal monologue, Tom suddenly reappeared and stopped right in front of Seth.
“You got anyone to talk to, Seth?”
Seth looked up at the man and saw genuine concern on his face.
“No,” he responded simply.
And it was the truth; Seth hadn’t had anyone to really talk to in a long, long time. Since before—
He banished the thought with another large sip of his gin and tonic. It was almost empty now.
“How long have you been coming here?”
Seth thought about the question for a moment.
“Five years?”
Yeah, that sounded about right.
Still,
five years
.
Saying the words out loud made them more real. And they were a shocking revelation.
Five years was a lifetime.
He finished his drink, and Tom immediately grabbed his glass even before he could put it down. His first thought was that the man would quickly clean it—it was the last one left, he saw—but instead the man refilled it.
Maybe he is hitting on me
, Seth thought.
But why
?
“Five years,” Tom said with an air of incredulity. He turned and flicked on the TV above the bar. The sports highlights were on, but Tom quickly switched it to the news.
“You gotta to get out of here, Seth... move on,” he said quietly, turning back to Seth.
Move on to what? To where? I have nothing—I deserve nothing.
He wanted to lament his woes, but that wasn’t him. He got what he deserved, and what Tom didn’t deserve was to hear about his problems.
Instead, Seth turned the question on his head.
“What about you? You were here five years ago, too—you were here before I got here.”
Tom sighed and made a face, the meaning of which was clear.
Typical
.
“I’m doing my thing... taking courses during the day. For me, this—” He spread his arms out in front of him. “This place is just temporary.”
Then he paused, which said more than words to Seth. This pause meant,
But for you, I’m not so sure
.
And he was right, of course;
this
wasn’t temporary for Seth. This, coming here or to any of the other gay bars in the clubs looking for men who would pay a few bucks to get their dicks sucked, was what his life was—probably what it would always be.
And even at that, it was more than he deserved, he knew. In an absurd way, he was grateful.
Tom turned his back again, and Seth raised his gaze to the TV, just in time for to see the words ‘
Askergan County
’ pass from the ticker to off screen.
His heart skipped a beat.
Tom grumbled something about not wanting to know about Hickville USA and raised the remote to change it.
“No! Don’t change it!” Seth’s words came out louder than he expected, but they worked. Tom lowered the remote and peered over his shoulder.
“What? You want to—”
“
Shhh!
Turn it up!”
Tom made a face, but he obliged.
There was a pretty blonde on screen, and she was speaking intently to a large black man in a sheriff’s uniform.
“Now, Sheriff White, can you tell us a little more about what happened here? What happened in Askergan over the last forty-eight hours?”
But despite his demand to Tom, he realized that he didn’t care about what they were saying.
There was something else that had drawn, and now kept, his attention.
Behind the sheriff and the pretty reporter, a house was smoldering, reduced to mere rubble. Several firemen were still trying to put out the remaining small fires.
“What is this place?” he whispered.
There was something about it, something that made it impossible to turn away. Something
familiar
about it, even though he was certain that he hadn’t ever been to the place. In fact, there was only one place in Askergan that he had been—
And then Seth saw
him
, and all of his thoughts melted away.
The camera focused on a man in the distance, moving away from the burning house. He was too far to make out anything distinct, other than the fact that he was thin and covered in soot.
“This man giving you trouble, Tom?”
Seth didn’t even acknowledge the bouncer that had come over, likely drawn by his shouts.
“No,” Tom said hesitantly.
And then the man on camera turned his head and stared directly into the camera lens. The gaze only lasted a split second before he looked away and then hurried off screen.
A second, but that was all Seth needed.
“No,” Seth moaned. He slumped back in his seat, but it was a bar stool and he slipped off the back.
His body collapsed awkwardly to the dirty bar floor.
The man on the news report had a beard, and his face was streaked with dirt.
But it was him, Seth was certain.
And it made his blood run cold.
“No,” he moaned again.
The man on camera had been none other than Jared Lawrence, the man that he had been running from for all these years.
Come