[ 3:23 PM ]
The red light lasts forever. There’s no other cars anywhere. No oncoming traffic, yet I sit here patiently following the rules and listening to the sleepy purr of my truck.
I could just go. I could break the rule and just soar through the red. Yet here I sit, sweet as ever, waiting for the color of a light to give me permission to step on the gas.
The purring of the engine reminds me of the AC humming in Bradley’s house. Just hearing it, I drift into a trance, imagining myself wrapping my yellow-haired boy up in my strong arms on his couch, or in his bed.
My phone rings. Naturally, I’d placed it in my lap so the device sends a sudden and not-unwelcome wave of vibrations through my happy place. Bringing it to view, I find it isn’t the client I was expecting.
It’s Bradley. He hasn’t talked to me since the night of the birthday boy. When I returned to his house after my date, no one came to the door. Some dark, morbid part of me wondered if he’d done something to himself. My mind filled with visions of him lying lifeless on the floor before his couch that we’d slept on a dozen times. Or on the carpet in his bedroom. Or in his bathtub. Just the thoughts chilled me in the ugliest way that I had to cancel on a client because suddenly I had the urge to vomit on a nearby flowerbed. As I hadn’t eaten all day, there were no gifts in my belly to offer the brightly-colored flora. They were thankful.
I bring the phone to my ear. “Brad?”
“You do realize I’m really pissed at you, right?”
I swallow. “Because I didn’t stay?”
“Not that.” He clears his throat, blasting my ear with static and fuzz. “Because I’m being forced to spend the week with my mother and old relatives I don’t know who’ve flown into town and still haven’t left, even though my dad’s service was well over a week ago.”
I’m not sure what this has to do with me. But following Bradley’s logic, considering his mental state, isn’t the easiest thing to do.
“And,” he goes on, “my dear sweet mother is hounding me about being single for the rest of my life. I’m too pretty to be single.”
“Haven’t met the right girl?” I jest.
“What I’m saying is, how much is it going to cost me to have you get your butt over here and pretend to be my boyfriend?” He waits exactly four seconds for an answer before adding, “Or is there some long list of damsels in distress you have to fuck first?”
“Where’s your mother live?”
“Ten minutes’ drive up the North Freeway, exit where the Sheraton is—big rundown thing, can’t miss it—enter Castlewood on the right, big gated stuffy community, tell the guy at the front you’re here for the Prince Estate family gathering, they’ll buzz a thing, let you through, blah, blah. When can you be here?”
A car honks behind me. I look up to find the light’s turned green.
“Already on the way.” I hang up, toss the phone into the passenger’s, then stomp the gas and make the distance between Bradley and I less and less.
Stuffed with noisy traffic in the shape of all imaginable car brands, sizes and colors, the freeway proves far longer than ten graceful minutes’ worth of trucking along. A full thirty-five later, I’m listening to the sweet ticking of my turn signal at long last as I exit right where the giant hotel full of at least twenty of my sexual exploits sits, then whip down the road.
The subdivision is exactly as he described. Even approaching it, I see the tall, white-brick houses flirted with by curvy manmade lakes, all held safely within the confines of a prudish, tall brick-and-wrought-iron wall. Castlewood, the shiny script lettering reads on the wall near the entrance. The security guard at the gate looks vaguely familiar—a portly forty-something with dark skin and a pencil-thin mustache—but really, most people look “vaguely familiar” to me, considering the high volume of clients with which I’ve had contact. The look he gives back is not one of recognition, which I find quite relieving. He asks for my name and intended party. “The Prince Estate,” I answer. “Here to pay my respects to the family.”
It only now occurs to me: Bradley Prince? Is that his full name? Is he really a … Prince? The thought makes me giggle inappropriately, filling with a baker’s dozen worth of jokes I can’t wait to crack. The guard gives me a squinty look before pressing a button that grants me entry to this white-brick paradise.
My rundown truck slowly gliding through this shiny car hell of monochrome and beige, I must look like a cockroach. One lady, tall and skinny as if she’d not eaten a thing since last August, pokes up her head to watch me drive by. She was watering the garden; now she’s watering her tiny dog who’s making a game of it, jumping up to catch the sprays of water in its mouth as she absently holds the nozzle, still watching me.
I pull into the driveway and turn off the ignition, staring at the monstrosity ahead. I thought Bradley’s house was big. These people are fucking loaded. When I get out of my truck, I find my legs wobbling, overwhelmed by what I’m seeing. I feel absurdly underdressed all of a sudden … a filthy rat coming in from the rain.
I’ve had my share of rich clients and old, money-shitting men who rain gold on me to make their fantasies come true. But it just isn’t the same with Bradley. He isn’t your client, I tell myself. I’m living some other person’s life today. I’m stepping into another’s shoes, and for some reason, it does not feel the same as the roleplaying I do nearly every day.
I’m a good person.
Coming up to the door, I give it three solid knocks before realizing there’s a doorbell. Just before touching it, the door opens and Bradley is standing there to save me. To make matters more hilarious, he’s dressed up perfectly in a blue button-down shirt with grey, pinstripe slacks. His clothes make his yellow hair and blue eyes shine as bright and pure as primary colors; I supply the red all over my shamed face, underdressed and unprepared.
“You look great,” he says for a greeting, and I have to wonder if he’s making fun of me. “Come in, babe. My mom didn’t believe me when I said I’d been seeing a gorgeous man for the last four months.”
“Four months?”
He leans in, whispers: “Just go with it.”
If there’s anything I’m especially skilled at, it’s going with it. I step into the, uh, palace, and am led quickly through a taller-than-the-world foyer and into a brightly-lit dining hall. At the table, a large number of grey-haired men and women sit, chatting quietly and sipping glasses of—something. I feel dizzy and overwhelmed, but Bradley keeps pulling me further on. Too quickly, I start to feel myself gathering the attention of the occupants of the room as my dirty, lowlife self is pulled along the hall like a puppy on a leash. It might be my imagination, but the conversation in the room seems to cut in half, and by the time Bradley’s led me to the other end of the table, it’s nearly silent.
“Mother,” he says, pulling my attention from all the old men and women in the room who are staring at me. “Meet my boyfriend I was telling you about.”
The woman, her conversation with one of the old men interrupted, turns to face me. Her eyelashes are long as fingers, inky and curled. Her face is long too, as if pulled through some queer machine. She’s exceptionally bony, her arms awkward and elbows pointy. The draping of an elegant red dress across this skeletal form attempts to distract from it. She has no boobs. Her ears go on forever and two shimmery gold curtains of metal hang from them.
She doesn’t greet me. Her eyes run down me from head to foot, slow as a beetle.
“This is Wes,” he goes on. “He has been really good to me in this dark time. I could not ask for a better man.”
He’s being stiff. I notice by the precision of his words and his absence of contractions.
His mother lifts her skeletal chin to me, as if to get a better look at my face. With as much plastic work as she’s likely had done on her, her age is a complete and utter guess. I’d believe it if she said she’s forty years old. I’d believe it if she said seventy-one.
Finally, she says, “Was he predisposed the day of your father’s funeral?”
She asks Bradley, yet says the question to my face. The effect is unsettling.
“I was out of town,” I answer, my sad little pulled-out-of-my-ass lie. “I regret very much not being here when it happened. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
She turns, her eyeballs appearing like two dry marbles struggling to rotate in her skull and at last meeting her son’s. “Do you mind taking your—friend—into the billiard? I’m engaged.”
“Engaged?” says Bradley flippantly. “That’s mighty soon.”
“Engaged in conversation,” she answers as coolly, not giving me another second of her eye contact. “Don’t be crude.”
I’m surprisingly unaffected by this. Really, the approval or disapproval of parental figures is about the last thing on a very long list of things I give two shits about. Still … “It was a pleasure meeting you, though I regret very much the circumstance. Bradley has always spoken highly of you.”
Even though halfway through my words she’s turned to resume the conversation with nameless-relative-number-six, I finish them all anyway, my last words said to the back of her perfectly-preened head of chestnut hair.
“She loves you,” Bradley insists as he pulls me through two corridors and into the billiard, which houses a pool table, shuffleboard, and a pair of sticky-looking leather couches around a glass table with ashtrays set out. “Thanks for coming on short notice. Wanna get fucked up?”
“Huh?”
“Fucked up. I have literally every brand and color and flavor of booze you can imagine. I have whiskies from Thailand and spicy tonics from Peru. I have imported rum and vodka from both ends of Italy—the clean end and the dirty one—as well as France’s finest in red and white wines. Feel like something German, I got that too. Sake? Hate it, but got it.” He’s saying all of this while leading me across the billiard to the bar that’s set by the large windows, which overlook a courtyard and a granite statue of a naked man pondering. “Polish? Got that too, right next door to Germany. Ever had Swedish vodka? Me neither.”
I’m pretty sure he just made half of that up. “I thought you don’t drink?”
“I don’t. But I’m going to. I think it’d be a particularly fun hobby to pick up. All artists do it. All artists get fucked up when they make art. It’s what colors the world, isn’t it? Drugs and booze and naked men.”
“Is that The Thinker?” I ask, pointing.
Bradley shakes his head no without even looking. “Some knock-off by a … what the fuck was his name? … Anton Cuntpoodle? I don’t know. Charged us twice what it’s worth. My dad was an idiot for buying it. But people with money are stupid. Fool and his money are soon parted, blah, blah. What do you want to try?”
His fingers run through the bottles, each of them clinking against one another. His eyes are furiously blue, agitated, determined. The only time he looks at peace is after I’ve made him cum. Is that all he’s been reduced to after his father’s passing? Just a steady river of insanity punctuated by tiny islands of sexual peace?
I tell him, “You’re not stupid.”
“Hmm?”
“You have money,” I clarify, taking his hands away from the bottles and enclosing them with mine. His furious blues meet my murky brown ones. “You have money and you’re not stupid.”
“I’m stupidest of all.”
“Foolish as fuck,” I agree. “But not stupid.”
He grins, amused, and for this one beautiful moment, his fury is broken apart. He is so fine to look at, I keep telling myself in these fleeting moments. I wish I could have a boyfriend like him. I wish this wasn’t some pretend, bullshit sort of game to him. Suddenly, I find myself wondering what he was like before his dad died. Would he have even given me a second look? Is all of this possible just because he’s in a lost state of mind, and when this emotional cloud of his passes, will I no longer be his flavor of the month?
Who’s using whom, exactly?
“I’ve been kinda foolish, I know.” Bradley pokes the bottles, suddenly appearing quite uninspired to drink any of them. “Doing all these crazy, foolish things. I feel like I’m wasting some wonderful opportunity, too.”
“What opportunity?”
“With you.” He scowls. “I bet all of these taste like piss, anyway.”
“You mean you think you’re wasting an opportunity … with me?”
“You’re getting to know me at my worst.”
I come around the counter of the bar to bring myself close to him. He looks up, startled, meeting my eyes. “I think you’re stronger than you let on,” I tell him. “Or at least, you’re stronger when you got my cock inside you.”
His gaze detaches. “Can we … not make it about sex right now?”
Sometimes, I feel like it’s the only language I speak. “I’m just trying to cheer you up. You are a strong person. Some people’s reactions to death are, like, to curl up and cut onions all day. I’ve been paid to keep guys company after they lose someone, I see it.”
He wrinkles his face. “Cutting onions?”
“Euphemism for crying. C’mon, keep up.” Bradley chuckles, the light in his eyes shining for this brief moment once again. Yes, good. Keep them shining. “If you don’t mind me confessing something to you … I’ve never actually had a boyfriend. Not a real one.”
“Just a girlfriend,” he corrects me.
“Liza.” I smirk. Our hips press together. I feel his cock through my pants. “What a time.”
“You fucked a girl,” he says, gripping my waist. Even our thighs are rubbing against each other. “You’re so butch.”
“It was a very troubled time in my life. We didn’t even use protection. I could’ve gotten her pregnant. We were so lucky.”
Bradley wraps his arms around me, our chests pressing together now. Faces inches apart, our noses nearly touching, he says, “A little Wes running around isn’t such a bad thought. I bet he’d be just like you.” His soft lips press into mine, a brief kiss.
“I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” I reply, then return the kiss. A tingle of pleasure runs up my arms, feeling the soft fullness of his lips on mine. I inhale deeply as my hands fill with his smooth ass. “You smell really good.”
“I wish I could be more like you. Free to do as I want. Uncommitted. Filling the world with happiness.” Brad rests his head on my shoulder, turning our sexy moment into a hug. His arms squeeze and my hands respond, clenching his ass. “If you only knew the real me.”
My hands run up his back, feeling the shape of his slender body. “What do you mean?”
“The ‘me’ who isn’t a wreck. The real me is so … lame. The real me is so … uptight. I do nothing fun. My highlight of the month is … getting highlights.”
I bury my nose in his yellow hair. After so many nights of resting my chin on it while we lie on his couch, it almost feels like it belongs there. It’s stiff and smells like lemonade. How fitting; yellow, lemon-scented hair. Brad’s a big tart lemon today.
What does that make me? “I used to think that,” I tell him. “Whenever a client tells me how much he enjoyed my company, I always think, if only you knew the real me. Then I stop and wonder what the fuck ‘the real me’ is. Is it the character I put on in the hotel room? Is it the guy who always goes home alone and plays decade-old video games by himself? Is it … something in between?”
“What happens when you get older?” he asks. “Are you ever gonna … retire?”
To be honest, I haven’t given that too much thought. “I guess so. Makes sense. I’m not gonna look like this forever.”
“Why do you let the escort-thing define you so much?” Bradley’s started running his hands up and down my back the way one soothes an upset lover. His touch is so calming, I could believe he’s the healer. “Work doesn’t make the person. You’re more than your cock, Wes. You’re more than your charm.”
He lifts his head right then and plants another kiss on my lips. This time, his tongue joins the party. Reflexively, I thrust him against the bar counter, our kisses growing more and more aggressive. The breath between us turns hot, and his hands grapple for support against the counter.
Just as suddenly as it started, it stops as Bradley pulls away. “Not here,” he says quietly. “Feels too much like I’m wanting to fuck you on that pool table over there just to spite my cunt of a mother.”
“We could,” I point out.
“No, no.” Bradley shakes his head, shuts his eyes as if in pain. “No. Not today. No crazy today. Enough recklessness. Enough of it. I’m starting to get sick of myself.”
“Brad?”
He pushes me from him, somehow gently, then crosses the billiard and disappears into the foyer. I’m left by the bar with my stirred-up thoughts, worries, and a neglected hard-on. The room suddenly seems piercingly quiet, even with the chatter still coming from the dining hall. Strange thing about the chatter; all I hear are words and words and words, no laughter.
This is a house without laughter. Somehow, even just being here for five minutes, I already know that for a fact. This is a house of silence. This is a house bound by white, suffocating bricks and wrought-iron fences and a security guard at the gate who squints and sneers.
Figuring Bradley will be back at some point soon, I stroll around the billiard. Shelves of books. Shelves of board games. A stunted mahogany table with a marble chess set on top. I walk further down the throat of this “game room” that has certainly not seen as much merriment as a game room ought to, and come to a shelf of pictures. I see Bradley’s high school graduation photo, which make me grin. Braces, really? I guess it fits. His teeth are basically perfect, I’m not surprised. I see another picture of young Bradley in a tuxedo with some pretty girl next to him in a matching black dress. Clearly a prom date or something.
My eyes move to another photo. I stop. A set of wise, steely eyes meet mine. Grey hair. Handsome face.
Dimples.
I take the picture off the shelf, certain my eyes are deceiving me. I stare at the picture, my heart racing, my mouth going dry. I stare and I stare and I fucking stare at the photo of this man, disbelieving. The curve of his jaw. The patient gleam in his eyes. Bradley’s mother stands next to him with young Bradley dressed in his graduation gown between the two.
“You found him,” he says to my back.
I spin around, my heart in my throat, my palms sweaty, my mouth a pit of sand. Bradley nods at the picture. “Happy little family,” he mutters. “Proud of their happy little graduate.”
“Your father?” I finally manage to ask, the question sticking in my throat and my finger poking at the man in the picture, the man with the kind eyes and the grey hair and the dimples.
He nods once, then says his name, but he didn’t need to, because I already knew it. My first-ever client. My favorite client. My savior.
Rod. Rod is his name.
“You alright?”
I set the picture back on the shelf so gently, you might think I was convinced it were on the verge of shattering. “I’m alright,” I lie. “I’m perfect.” The picture on the shelf, I stare at Rod and his wife and his son, his perfect family.
What a small, small, small and ever smaller world we live and die in.
“My mom just asked me if you were my latest art project.” Bradley shrugs. “She meant it as an insult, but I answered her honestly. I told her you were the person who saved me. I told her I was in love with you. I told her that without you, I’d probably be as dead as my dad. I miss him so much, Wes. He was disappointed in my life choices, but he respected them in his own way. I saved the last voicemail he sent me. Sometimes, late at night, I listen to it when you’re asleep. Isn’t that kinda sad? Isn’t that kinda horrible and sad?”
I pull him into my chest, rubbing his back soothingly and swallowing all the words I could spill out right now. I’ve seen your father naked, I could say. Your dad met me in a hotel room at the Marriott and paid me six times, I could say. He made my first experience so easy, so comfortable, so smooth. He taught me to find the beauty in people.
Instead, I tell him, “You’re beautiful.”
“Can we do this the normal way?” he says to my shoulder, pressed against me, his throat creating little vibrations of his words through my body. “I want us to be normal boyfriends. I want to take you out to dinner and spoil you. Can we do that? Can we be normal?”
“Just relax,” I tell him, echoing the words his father told me on our night in that hotel room. “Take your time. Be yourself, no matter what that is. I won’t harm you. I won’t judge you. I’m all yours tonight, and you’re mine.”
I guess that’s exactly what Bradley wanted to hear because the next thing I know, he pushes me onto the pool table, the balls scattering behind my back, and climbs atop me. His family and his mother and whoever else at the other end of the house, he pulls down my pants and slides my cock right into his warm, wet mouth like it belongs there, like it’s just gone home. I gasp, once again caught off-guard by Bradley’s ever-surprising spontaneity.
And as he sucks me off, I close my eyes, lost in a world of sensations and tricks of his tongue. Rod’s kind face surfaces, painting itself on the backs of my eyelids. Find his beauty, he seems to say. Everyone has a beauty in them.
And then I cum.