THEN
The after party was at Tish’s house. The guest list grew exponentially larger when Seth gave out her home address to the patrons of Corner Bar and insisted they all join us there for free beer and the screening of their new video.
“You can be the first ones to see it,” Seth promised them in a sultry voice. He still had the ability to make any everyday Joe feel extraordinary. Meanwhile the thought of all those strangers seeing that video made me nervous as hell.
At Tish’s house, the band was welcomed like royalty, which extended to me because Seth had always elevated me as part of their court. There was a wide range of guests in attendance—Petty Crime’s groupies, Hilliard High graduates, Mitchell’s work friends from Sunoco, Sabrina’s Libertarian bros, an assemblage of Hilliard band geeks, and a couple of my colleagues from the visual arts department who’d helped me with editing. There were some of Seth’s drug buddies present as well, which meant I’d need to keep a close eye on him, just in case he was tempted.
Seth wanted me by his side the entire night, not in a possessive way, but in one of shared camaraderie. He drank but not excessively. Just enough to have a goofy smile on his face when he couldn’t figure out how to get the video to project onto the screen they’d set up. I assisted him with that task, and he lavished me with affection to the point that I was red and stuttering and slowly backing away so that I didn’t pop a boner in front of the crowd.
The video played, and even if they didn’t like it, our audience definitely seemed captivated by it. Like viewing my own photographs in larger-than-life size, this was a similar experience, only it wasn’t just my artistry on display but my body and soul as well, since it wasn’t hard to guess who the “you” in the song was. It felt a lot more personal now than when I was filming or editing the footage on a computer and could put some distance between myself as the creator and the boy on the screen.
I tried to gauge the viewers’ reactions. Did they think I was crazy to put myself on display like that? Or starved for attention? Was I making a complete fool of myself as a person and an artist? Did I tell too much? And that didn’t even account for its technical imperfections.
I started spiraling then at this Pandora’s box I’d inadvertently opened when Seth laid his hand on my arm and said, “Stop.” I glanced over, and he gave me a reassuring look. “It’s an amazing work of art, Hiroku. It’s honest and real and beautiful. It’s the perfect expression of Petty Crime and what we’re trying to accomplish. You should be proud of yourself and what we’ve accomplished.”
The same feeling overcame me as when Seth had first seen my photography and told me I had a real talent, and in the many moments since then when he’d encouraged me in my art. He’d given me the confidence I needed to pursue my artistic vision, and this was the result. I was filled with gratitude.
“Thank you, Seth.”
People clapped. A few people whoop-whooped. A few others looked stunned. I supposed that was to be expected as well. Seth made an announcement that the band would be going on tour in a couple of months and invited everyone present to follow them around the country, Phish style. The crowd dispersed, and Seth came over and pulled me into a long, lazy kiss. I didn’t care if people were watching. I was already thinking about our private celebration at the end of the night.
“I meant what I said about the tour,” Seth told me. His nose brushed against mine, his forearms rested on my shoulders. His fingers were tangled in my hair, and I didn’t even mind that he was messing up my carefully coiffed hairdo.
“You’re going to have quite a following,” I said with my eyes closed, only half-listening because I was still in a fog of nerves and lust.
“I mean about coming with us. I want you on the tour, Hiroku.”
I blinked my eyes open to see if he was serious. His expression was open and trusting. He genuinely wanted me there with him, but the tour was four months long at least, nationwide, and it wasn’t scheduled to start until the end of summer.
My body stilled in his arms, an accidental response, but Seth noticed it nonetheless. “You have to come with us,” he said more urgently. “The band needs you. I need you.”
His voice had a note of desperation in it. Of course, I wanted to say yes. Like the times I skipped school or jumped off the cliff or took the stage wearing only metallic briefs, I wanted to join Seth in his adventures, travel the country and live it up like a rock star…
But.
“I have school, Seth. And my parents…”
His face fell, and the light in his eyes dimmed. He pulled away from me and conducted while he spoke. “Fuck Hilliard High. Fuck your parents, Hiroku. What have they ever done for you as an artist? If they saw this video you created—this magnificent piece of brutally honest work—do you think they would appreciate it? Or would they be ashamed? I mean, they don’t even know you. Not like I do. I’m your family. I’m the only person you need. I can make you into something special. I can give you anything you want.”
His voice rose in pitch as he made his argument. It had been so easy for Seth to quit school and to leave his mother’s home. He barely even said goodbye to her. But even though they didn’t always accept me, my parents still loved and cared for me. I couldn’t just…run away. And school was something I was good at. I still planned to go to college. I couldn’t give that up, even for Seth. I wanted to trust Seth would take care of me, but even sober, I couldn’t pin all of my hopes and dreams on him.
“I don’t know, Seth.”
He searched my soul. I’d never been able to hide anything from him, and this time was no different. It took only a few moments for him to grasp everything I wasn’t saying. I was doubting him. His belief in the two of us and what we could accomplish just wasn’t enough for me to gamble my future. Or my heart. Seth’s face crumpled.
“Please don’t be mad at me for this,” I begged.
“I’m not,” he said dispassionately. He wouldn’t look at me. “It’s cool. Don’t stress about it, Hiroku. I know it’s a crazy idea. Just… when I think about doing this without you…it doesn’t feel right.”
I reached for his hands and squeezed, then brought them to my lips.
“You won’t be alone, Seth. You’ll have the band. They’re your family too, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “Yeah…but they’re not you.”
I tried to catch his eyes, but he looked past me. I’d hurt him, and I wanted to make it better for him, but I didn’t know what else to say, and I didn’t want to give him false hope. Seth clapped my shoulder. “I’m going to get another beer.”
The party continued on. I drifted away from Seth in order to properly thank my Hilliard colleagues for showing up and for their contribution to the video. Then I got caught up with Caleb who’d come out to support Mitchell. Sasha wanted to come, but she had finals. They’d gotten back together. “She’s crazy, but she’s mine,” Caleb said with a rueful smile. He asked me if I could believe that Mitchell was going to be a father, which would make him an uncle. He shook his head in disbelief. I told him I thought they’d both do a pretty good job at it, and I meant it.
It was late by the time I realized I hadn’t seen Seth in a while. I started looking around the house for him, then outside on the patio where the kegs were set up. I was heading up the stairs when Tish intercepted me and asked to show me her art portfolio for a class she was taking. After giving her a bit of feedback about what pieces I thought were her strongest, I told her that I had to find Seth.
Tish placed a hand on my shoulder and said gently, “Stay with me, Hiroku.” Her soft hand on my arm and the tone of her voice, which was like a lullaby—it wasn’t for herself but for me. Seth was up to no good, and he’d sent Tish to distract me.
“Where is he, Tish?” I asked in a voice I didn’t know I had but reminded me a lot of my father. She only sighed and glanced back toward the stairs.
I tore up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and banged open every door like a one-man SWAT team. And here I am embarrassed to admit what I found because it is such a fucking cliché that it is almost unbelievable. But, here goes…
I found Seth in the master bath, shirtless, snorting lines off the bare, hairless chest of a boy about my age. The kid was laid out like a sacrifice on a waist-high countertop wearing nothing but his underwear, and even though he wasn’t the same guy, he looked remarkably like the kid with the cornflower-blue eyes I’d found Seth getting head from roughly a year ago—Seth’s type when he felt like cheating, I supposed.
They had fucked or were about to fuck or would fuck in the near future. But even more maddening was that Seth had broken his other promise to me, the one where he swore to stay off the hard drugs, and then I realized he might have gone back to using the very next day after our camping trip because you can’t trust an addict. I knew that fact from experience.
As we stared at each other from across the room. Lifetimes passed, his and mine. All of the trust we’d built up over the past few weeks since making our pact evaporated right in front of my eyes like lines being snorted up your nose. Here and then not. My eyes stung, and my bottom lip felt fat and clumsy as I bit down hard enough to draw blood because I’d be goddamned if I was going to cry.
“And so it goes,” I said, utterly defeated.
Seth wiped his freshly powdered nose with the back of his hand and smacked his latest kill on the thigh in a motion to hop to. Seth’s hand so casually slapping that boy’s flesh gutted me. The boy scrambled up, put his pants on, and seemed about to leave, but Seth ordered him to stay.
“We could share him,” Seth said to me, and it pissed me off because it seemed like further proof that he didn’t know me at all.
“Only if he can fuck me,” I said, calling his bluff.
Seth would never allow it. Getting head from another guy, maybe, but he’d never willingly let another man penetrate me. Seth glared at me, and that deranged look was in his eyes. I could taste his tang of aggression in the air. Maybe he would hit me. Seth’s fists or his words, I couldn’t bring myself to care which.
“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” Seth asked. “Getting railed by another man. Fucking Fabio with his perfect teeth. That biker at Eileen’s. God only knows who else…”
I shook my head. There was never anyone else, but I didn’t feel compelled to reassure him now.
“I could never be good enough for you, Hiroku, could I? No matter how rich or famous, I’d always be beneath you.”
I tore my eyes away from him. “I don’t give a shit about any of that, Seth, and you know it.”
“Don’t you though? With your nuclear family and your perfect attendance record and your daddy’s money. You never understood how hard it was for me growing up.”
I dragged my hands over my face, wishing he would just stop. I couldn’t believe he’d resort to this. “I tried to understand, Seth.” I jammed my thumbs into my eye sockets. God, how I’d tried.
“Who are you to judge me? You were nothing when I met you. Just some dorky kid with a cheap camera and a furry hand.”
I was a kid. A stupid, foolish kid, and two years later, I’d learned nothing because there I was in the same exact place, experiencing more or less the same devastation. Shame on me.
“I made you, Hiroku,” Seth raved. “I fucking molded you from nothing. From fucking mud. And now you’re an artist, thanks to me. You should be grateful to me for turning your boring, ordinary suburban life into something special, but instead, you constantly look for ways to punish and deny me and remind me of what a piece of shit I am.”
“You really believe that?” I wished I could say it was only the drugs talking, but they also had a way of unearthing truths you’d rather keep buried. For him to think I existed as a mirror to only reflect his flaws...
“Your love always comes with conditions,” Seth hissed. “You’ve never loved me with your whole heart, Hiroku. Never.”
He said the word “never” with so much vehemence and hatred that I couldn’t stop the tears. Couldn’t stop the pain either, welling up inside me. Filling up my organs, shutting me down. God, it hurt. And the idea that if only I’d loved him more, accepted him without conditions, then this awful end might have been avoided. “I did love you, Seth. You know that I did.”
“That’s right. In the Before.” He narrowed his eyes at me, then snapped his fingers. Seth’s hot piece of ass jumped to like a trained monkey and came to stand by his side.
“Meet Cory.” Seth ran his hand lovingly over the boy’s shoulder and down his arm. The boy shivered. He must be high. It looked so familiar and so grotesque. “Say hello to Hiroku, Cory.”
“Hello,” Cory said with a nervous hitch. With his Texas drawl and shaky confidence, Cory was as innocent as a lamb.
What a pleasure it would be to corrupt you, Seth had said to me so many months ago. I didn’t know what was more upsetting—that my heart was hemorrhaging right there in front of him or that Seth seemed to be enjoying it.
“You want to go on tour with me and the rest of Petty Crime, Cory?” Seth asked in a sickly-sweet tone.
Cory’s eyes brightened, and he grinned. “Sure thing,” he said only it sounded like shore thang. I hated his accent, hated his naivety, and I hated his willingness to do whatever Seth wanted. He reminded me so much of myself.
“Cory’s ready to go on the road with me, and we’ve only known each other for twenty minutes, but not you, Hiroku. Not you.”
Seth shook his head and wagged his finger at me while tears brimmed in my eyes. Some part of me believed I deserved this, because I couldn’t commit to Seth in the way he wanted. But why did he have to do this? Why did he have to be so goddamned mean?
“Well,” I said with a defeated sigh. “It looks like you found yourself a new number one groupie. Congratulations, Seth. Thank you for putting an exclamation point on this remarkably shitty relationship.”
Seth smiled, the corners of his mouth drawing up in an almost clownish expression. I wasn’t sure exactly what he’d snorted because he looked positively possessed. “It will never be over between us, Hiroku. Our souls are forever bound. When I call for you, you come to me. I made you—every single piece of you belongs to me—and however hard you try, you will never be rid of me.”
He was fucking with me—he had to be—but even knowing that didn’t decrease the potency of his threat. As irrational as it sounds, I even suspected some kind of sorcery had taken place. Seth dabbled in the occult.
As if sensing my vulnerability, Seth continued, “Who are you without me? You’re not interesting or special. You’re not even that attractive. I make you special. I make you desirable. The only reason those other men want you is because they know you’re mine. Without me, you’re nothing.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I shouldn’t believe his words, but he’d voiced the fear I’d always carried with me like a virus lying dormant in my bloodstream—that I wasn’t enough. Seth had activated it, and it was multiplying out of my control.
“I’ll take that risk,” I said defiantly.
Seth shook his head, a rueful smile on his face. “You’re too weak to be alone.” He made a motion with his hand to dismiss me. “Go home and wait for me. You can make me feel bad about this later. This is my night, and I won’t have you ruin it for me the way you ruin everything else.”
Then he drew his newest plaything close to him and kissed him full on the lips while gripping his ass from behind. Seth thrust his hips a little and moaned for my benefit. I watched because the masochist in me couldn’t look away. “He tastes just like you,” Seth said and licked his lips.
Those were his last words to me.
I fled from the bathroom like a kicked puppy, stopping just outside the master bedroom door where I bent over with my hands on my knees and tried to pull myself together. I might have been hyperventilating. I just needed to get out of the party without anyone seeing me fall apart—the other emotions could be dealt with later—but as I was rising up to a standing position, James was making his way toward me.
“Where’s Seth?” James asked, and I could only guess at why he’d come. Seth’s remora, always swimming just a little behind to feed on Seth’s scraps.
And then everything that had been culminating over the past several months passed by me like tumbleweed. I’d tried leaving Seth, tried setting boundaries, I’d followed him down to his darkest depths, and when that didn’t work, I tried to bring us both back up to the surface. But none of it mattered because there I was still trapped in this emotional hell, existing only to be manipulated and abused, and I couldn’t even trust myself not to go running back to him for more. Seth would keep me on standby like a vampire’s old frozen dinner and bleed me until there was nothing left.
I had a terrible impulse then.
I wasn’t entirely powerless. I could still escape this pain, and I could make Seth pay for what he’d done to me on my way out. In that moment, nothing else mattered, save for my own personal revenge.
I pulled out my wallet, which was flush with cash from the profits of the video where I’d laid my soul bare for everyone’s viewing pleasure. It was a performance, only I wasn’t acting. I worshipped him. I made sacrifices for him. I may not have loved him unconditionally, but I loved him the best way I knew how. And for what?
“How much does Seth owe you?” I asked James the Nazi.
James eyed me in the way he usually did. “I only make the exchange with Seth.”
“He’s tied up at the moment, securing our entertainment for later tonight.”
James tilted his head like that was news to him. “It’s like that, huh?”
“How much?” I repeated. I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
“How about this?” James suggested, relaxing a little in his stance like he was settling in for the long haul. “You blow me, and I’ll give it to you for half price.”
It never ceased to amaze me what stripe of folk would proposition me for a blowjob, but then Seth had always said my mouth was made for fucking.
“What the fuck, James? You’re, like, the biggest homophobe ever.”
“Head is head,” he said simply, “and from what I saw, you look to be pretty good at it.”
I refrained from physically gagging at his offer. “How about this? You give it to me half price, and I won’t tell Seth you tried to trade me sex for drugs.”
James shrank back a little at that suggestion. Some part of Seth’s reputation for being a jealous lover must have reached him because it seemed he didn’t want to go any farther down that path. We made the trade. James assured me he’d given me a good deal, even though I wasn’t an expert on the exchange rate of heroin—if that was even what it was. I did know that it was a lot of product, which meant Seth wasn’t just planning on getting high that night. Seth always did like to buy in bulk, I thought bitterly.
James also told me there were plenty of queers in the movement and that Japan was the model of an ethnostate. I told him fascism was not a good look for him. Then he left, via the cold dark portal to hell from whence he came.
I clutched the baggie in my fist. It was almost the size of a golf ball. Nothing good could come of it.