[ 11:55 PM ]
Five minutes until the imminent turn of night, and I still wait for my client to arrive. I double-check the name of the hotel he sent me in the text. It’s a referral from a regular, and for referrals, I always insist on this hotel because it’s central, because people are always nearby, and I’m more safe. Always on my terms, I’d say. My place, my time, my terms.
Except I’ve broken the second term: I let him talk me into meeting halfway-to-midnight. The desk clerk, Jimmy, looks bored as fuck, poking around on his Twitter most likely. The room key dangles lamely in my hand.
Liza sent me a text earlier today, something about her and Bobby staying at his place this weekend to work things out. I sighed and didn’t bother replying; her and Bobby are a lost cause and I don’t know how to tell her. I want to hope for the best. I always hope for the best, but the evil, heavy demon called Realism always sits on top of me and his words are never kind.
I check my watch. Midnight. Still no sign of him. Referrals have chickened out before, but something about this doesn’t seem right. The client might have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe the lover caught onto their plans. I’ll likely get a text of apology in the morning. Doesn’t mean I’ll get my time back. A night wasted is a night wasted, especially when I only get paid upfront—in person. And if said person doesn’t show, then I go home empty-handed.
Another half an hour later, I feel a wave of sleepiness rushing through me. Bradley’s waiting for me, I remind myself. He’s curled up on his couch watching reruns of X-Files. Go home and save him. The hotel key feels heavier and heavier.
“Gotta cancel, Jimmy.” I turn the key back into the clerk, who gives a bored nod. I have a bit of a deal with him, since I’m such a regular customer. I’m sure he has his suspicions of what I do, but he never asks and I never tell.
Back on the street, a chill consumes me. It isn’t winter, far from, yet I feel the prickling all-too-familiar fingers of ice walk up my back, tickle my neck, and play in my hair. My nerves tense up. My feet feel slow.
Crossing the too-dark parking lot, the sound of footsteps reach my ears too late. I look up and the shadow of a man appears, standing too close.
“What the fuck?”
Those are the last three words I’ll utter before I die. The first fist folds me in half, and when I scream out, it is silent because I’ve no air left in me. The second fist breaks my cheek apart, and the stinging pain of it cuts through my head like a long needle. If I could see anything but stars, the last vision I might have is my blood and teeth on the pavement.
Collapsing on my side, I feel the ungentle kiss of a booted foot into my spine. Another one finds my gut, threatening to spill the lunch and dinner I didn’t eat today. Two of them, I wonder drunkenly. There’s two of them. Three. A foot comes down on my face, and not to be friendly. My nose goes cold. Stop, stop, stop. I can’t lift my hands to block any incoming head kicks because they’re too busy protecting my abdomen from being split open.
Suddenly there’s a dancing of fingers at my crotch, which confuses me for a second until I feel my wallet breaking free from them. A sprinkling of change rains on my face like a gift—a quarter smacking me on the forehead, the tip I’ve earned tonight, I guess—and then a merciful slapping of feet along pavement fades into the darkness, and then there is silence.
I cough, tasting the bitter metallic twang of blood along my teeth. My tongue slides across them, my jaw so sore I wince. I still have teeth, I realize, feeling lucky.
Lucky.
It takes me several minutes to climb back to my feet. My hands shake, still holding my body tightly as a lover. I look into the dark, my head feeling split wide-open. I wonder for one dizzy moment if it is. “Help,” I whisper into the blindness. Hunched over, my ribs feeling like spikes poking at my insides with my every flinch and movement, I take two steps before collapsing back onto the ground. I feel nothing.
“Help.” I cough once more, blood spurting onto my lips. I lick them, tasting it again. My jaw is all wrong. Something in my leg is knocked out of place. “Help.” Not even the mice can hear me. Not even the wind.
It takes me a solid minute to wrest my phone from my other pocket. The screen is perfectly intact. Of all things to come out of this entirely unscathed. Not even a scratch. A missed text message on the screen reads: Sorry, have to cancel. Reschedule for next Tuesday?
Fucking referrals.
Dismissing the text, I call Liza and push the phone to my ear. Voicemail. I hang up and call her again, grunting as I maneuver my body to make the fucking phone work. Voicemail. I do it yet again. Voicemail a third time.
“Help. Fuck it.” I close my eyes and wait.
I won’t know why they did it. Was it the plan all along?—Was I baited by a false client, only to be robbed? Is the text message a lie? Or was I targeted because I’m gay? Or was I just coincidentally mugged in the parking lot of my favorite off-brand hotel of choice?
“Fuck you,” I tell no one at all, spitting out more blood. I’m a generous person. “Fuck you. Take it all. Fuck you.” I’m a good person.
I try to get back to my feet again, collapse to the ground with a sickly grunt.
“Fuck you. Get up.”
I push my foot into the gravel, prop myself up with an elbow, then drop clumsily back to the pavement, my bones betraying me, body going limp and the back of my head hitting concrete, inspiring a headache.
“Mmm …”
I’m a good person.
“Brad.” I touch the phone with my working thumb—my blood streaked across the screen like some shaman’s spell, a hieroglyphic, blood magic—then press the device to my aching face.
He answers with a less than patient voice. “Is he done bumping your butt, sweetie?”
“Yep,” I tell him, choking out the word despite a spasm of pain in my gut. “Got … got all he … he wanted.” Breathing is such a chore.
“You out of breath? You alright?”
“Can you … C-Can you … Can you come pick-pick-pick me … pick me up?” I rasp and suck in a grating, ugly lungful. I don’t like how that sounds. “P-P-Pick me up …?”
His voice turns serious. “Where are you?”
“H-H-Hotel on … on the …” I’m trying to remember the name. Everything is so far away all of a sudden. “Twelfth and … and …”
The phone slips off my face. It kissing the concrete is the last thing I hear.