When the phone rings after midnight or before eight in the morning, Michael’s mother had said more than once, you can bet money somebody died.

The call came at 12:17 am.

Friday nights were Michael’s favorite nights. He spent every week playing a normal college kid at Yorke, living in a dorm room, going to class, eating shitty cat food and studying with friends in the library. But Fridays…Fridays he went home. And home meant Griffin and their apartment in the Village. His friends at school thought it was hilarious that Michael led this odd double life. His freshman year he hadn’t told anyone about Griffin. He’d wanted to, but working up the courage took a little while, especially after living his entire life afraid of his conservative, judgmental father. Griffin had understood and hadn’t forced himself into Michael’s college life. Michael just let everyone think he was a momma’s boy who went home every weekend. By sophomore year Michael started to hint to his friends that wasn’t quite the case. He wasn’t sure how to tell people at school. Just tell them? Or should he invite Griffin to school to meet them and let them figure it out? The decision was made for him the awful week he came down with a vicious case of strep throat that required more medical attention than the school clinic could give. His mother had been out of town visiting his grandparents, which meant Michael had to bite the bullet and call Griffin to take him to the doctor. Griffin had come immediately. And he’d come in his Porsche since it was faster, he claimed, than the far more subdued Range Rover he also owned. He’d pulled up in front of Michael’s dorm and emerged from the car looking like an off-duty rock star in ripped jeans, sunglasses, and a black t-shirt clinging to his broad chest and tattooed boxer’s biceps. Michael had watched from his dorm room window as Griffin ran up the steps, two at time, as a couple of Michael’s friends who were on their way to class stared in wide-eyed wonder at the visitor. By the time Michael was back at school a week later, he had gone from being a regular student—quiet, studious, with a handful of friends and good grades—to something of a legend. It wasn’t the money so much. There were other students who came from even wealthier families than Griffin. It was that nobody would have suspected in a million billion years that quiet, studious, and incredibly boring Michael Dimir had a rich, older boyfriend, especially one who looked—as Michael’s friend Astrid had said—“Like THAT.” Luckily his confused friends got over it fast, especially when they got to know Griffin, got to talk to him, and found out how chill and funny and down-to-earth he was, even if his father was the former president of the New York Stock Exchange and Griffin could have bought the school with his trust fund had he wanted to.

Still, when Michael threw his stuff in his backpack every Friday after his last class was over, there were a few people who smirked knowingly as he headed out his dorm’s side door to catch the bus that would take him to the train station. A few looks, a few smiles, sometimes a few eyerolls. Whatever. It didn’t bother him anymore. How could it when he had just gotten flogged and sucked and fucked—the Friday night special?

Griffin was sitting up against the padded leather headboard on their bed and Michael lay draped over Griffin’s hip with his back up while Griffin rubbed his favorite Vitamin K goo into the welts. They were both naked and smiling and tired and happy.

“So,” Griffin said, running the flat of his hand over Michael’s naked hip, “how was school this week, dear?”

Michael laughed at Griffin’s attempt to sound like his mother.

“It was fine,” Michael said. “I passed my Astronomy midterm. Sun’s the big yellow one. Moon’s the little white one.”

“The moon’s my favorite,” Griffin said before slapping Michael on his moon. “Did you miss me?”

“You know I missed you. I always miss you.” That was the game they played. Of course they texted every single day they were apart. Texting, Skyping, and talking on the phone a couple times a week, too, but they always acted like the five days they’d spent apart was five weeks.

Griffin squeezed a bit more goo onto his fingertips and rubbed it hard enough into one particularly nasty bruise under Michael’s shoulder blade that Michael groaned.

“Slut,” Griffin said, laughing softly.

“I can’t help it,” Michael said. “It hurt. Good hurt.”

“I already let you come twice tonight, Mick,” he said. “I’m not going to let you come again. You know what the Bible says—spoil the rod, spoil the child.”

Michael lifted his head and looked at Griffin.

“Spoil the rod, spoil the child?”

“Yeah,” Griffin said, shrugging. “If I spoil your cock, you’ll get spoiled.”

“It’s ‘spare the rod, spoil the child.’ And the rod is not a cock, it’s a rod rod. Like a cane.”

“I think my interpretation is the correct one.”

“I’m calling Father S,” Michael said.

“Call anyone you want, but I’m not letting you come again until tomorrow.”

Michael dropped his head down. “You’re mean.”

“I’m mean? Me? Mean?” Griffin sounded aghast. Michael loved making Griffin aghast. “That’s backtalk. I will show you mean.”

“Oh no,” Michael said. “Anything but that.”

“That’s it, sub. You’re getting it this time.”

Michael tried to make a break for it, but Griffin was too fast for him. Before he could even slide off the bed, Michael was trapped in Griffin’s arms. Griffin threw him onto the covers and wrestled him down onto his back. Because it was obvious from Griffin’s smile—and his erection—that he was enjoying this play fight, Michael kept it up and had almost squirmed out of his ridiculous master’s iron grasp before Griffin got a good hold on his wrists again and pinned him down to the bed, hands over his head.

“Submit, sub,” Griffin ordered.

“You’ll never take me alive,” Michael said.

“Are you dead?” Griffin asked.

“No, sir.”

“I want to take you, but if I can’t take you alive and you’re not dead…either I’ll have to kill you—gross—or you’ll have to let me take you alive. What’ll it be?”

Michael turned his head to the side, tapped his foot, wrinkled his nose.

“Mick?”

“I’m deciding,” Michael said.

“You brat,” Griffin said. “That’s it. Dead or alive, you’re getting it. And if you come, you’re in trouble, and not the good kind of trouble.”

Griffin reached over Michael’s head for the under-the-mattress strap he used when he wanted to tie Michael to the bed. It was a perfect moment and Michael knew it. Griffin was happy and horny. Michael was happy and horny. They were happy and horny together and alone and in their bed, which was the most comfortable bed in the universe.

It was right at the moment when Griffin was about to enter him that the phone rang.

They had a landline phone in their room, a weird relic of their pre-war building. Usually the only people who called them on it was the doormen to let them know they had a visitor or a delivery in the lobby, and sometimes Griffin’s mother when she couldn’t get Griffin on his cell.

They both turned their heads simultaneously to the ringing black phone on the side table. They hadn’t ordered take-out, and it was way too late for visitors.

“Shit,” Griffin said, immediately unbuckling Michael from the bondage strap.

“Your dad?” Michael asked.

Griffin’s eyes were wide with fear. A week ago his mother had taken his father to the hospital with chest pains. The doctors said it was only severe indigestion, but Griffin had been on edge ever since.

He answered the phone.

There was a pause, a short one, and then Griffin said, “Dad’s okay?”

His shoulders slumped with relief, and Michael exhaled the breath he’d been holding.

“Okay,” Griffin said. “What’s the number again?”

He pulled a pad of paper out of the drawer and scribbled a number on it with a pencil.

“You don’t know?” Griffin asked and Michael knew he was talking to his mother. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with Griffin’s father. But that didn’t mean they were off the hook. Something was definitely up.

“I’ll call right now. Thanks, Mom. Love you.”

Griffin hung up.

“What is it?” Michael asked. Griffin had grabbed his jeans off the floor and was yanking them on. If he was getting dressed, it meant Griffin was worried he’d have to leave the house in a hurry. Michael threw on his clothes, just in case. Where Griffin went, Michael went, too.

“I don’t know,” Griffin said. “A friend of a friend called my old house number. Mom answered and took the message. They didn’t say what it was. They just asked me to call this number right away. I need to find my cell.”

“It’s on the kitchen charger,” Michael said. Griffin nodded, his face blank with worry. Michael followed him from the bedroom to the kitchen. He picked up the phone and dialed the number. Michael tensed, not sure what to do or say. Someone on the other end of the line answered quickly.

“Hey, this is Griffin Fiske,” Griffin said. “Someone told me to call?”

Silence followed.

Michael watched Griffin’s face, his eyes. At first they flashed with shock and then his brow furrowed as if he’d felt a pain in his stomach.

“Fuck…” Griffin breathed. “I’m sorry. Yeah, of course…Right. No, I never…Definitely. Yeah, definitely, I can do that. Eleven? Right. Okay. Thanks for letting me know, Jay. You, too. If you need anything, you know…Right.”

Griffin hung up.

“What?” Michael asked.

Griffin swallowed visibly as he put his phone down onto the counter.

“You remember my friend Adam, from rehab trip number two?”

“The guy with the beard we met for dinner last year?” Michael asked. “Yeah, he was hilarious.” Adam was a comedy writer who wrote for one of the only two shows on TV this season he had any desire to watch. He had a quick cynical wit and knew all sorts of Hollywood gossip. Michael had liked him immediately.

“Was that him on the phone?”

“That was his husband, Jay. Adam had a relapse.”

“Oh, shit,” Michael said. “Is he in the hospital? Or back in rehab?”

Griffin shook his head and that’s when Michael knew his mother had been right about phone calls that come before eight in the morning or after midnight.

“He died.”