by Gregory Ashe
“Let’s fucking burn them, then.”
Matty dropped onto the sofa, head dropping into his hands. “That would be awesome.”
“Fucking awesome.”
He peered through his fingers; glints of amethyst and a chop of blond hair. “That would be fucking awesome.”
“It’s sounding more and more natural.”
“But you know why I’m not going to do it?”
“I’d like you to tell me.”
“Because my mom and dad are going to come over for Sunday dinner. And so Sunday morning, before I have to get to church for the youth Bible school, I’m going to take down that—that fucking San Francisco picture and hang up all the other fucking ones. Is that the most fucked up thing you’ve ever heard?” He was crying, the tears almost as bright as the amethyst glint of his eyes, but his voice held steady until it broke on the last word.
Shaw dropped onto the sofa next to him. He ran a hand down Matty’s back, feeling the tremors that shook the boy, shushing him, letting Matty cry into his hands until he was ready for—the thought collapsed into dark matter inside Shaw’s head. Until what? He wasn’t sure, but his pulse skyrocketed, and his skin was tight, tight and hot, especially in a line down the center of his chest like an invisible zipper ran there and someone was running it up and down, up and down, the friction enough to generate sparks. Up and down. Up and down. Hot metal friction from the hollow of Shaw’s neck to low in his belly.
Matty finally blew his nose into the cardigan and wiped red eyes and said, his voice rough and honking, “Do you want to be my therapist too? I’ll pay you double.”
“I just want you to talk about whatever you want to talk about.”
“I’ve never told anybody that stuff.”
“But you need to.”
Matty nodded.
In the quiet, Shaw was suddenly aware of the enormous wash of blood in his ears, so loud that he couldn’t hear his own breathing, couldn’t hear the traffic outside, couldn’t hear anything.
“You need roosters,” Shaw said, more to say something, anything, because the tidal sound of blood in his ears was going to make him do—the thought imploded into blackness again.
“What?” Matty said, blowing his nose again.
“Lots and lots of pictures of roosters.”
Matty blinked and shook his head.
“All over the walls. Everywhere. On the dinner plates. On the napkins. On the tea towels. The soap dish in the bathroom.”
“What are you talking about?”
“And then, when your mom and dad come over, you just tell them straight out.”
Matty must have figured out the punchline because he buried his face in his hands again. “Oh no.”
“Mom, Dad, you tell them: I like cocks.”
Matty dissolved into giggles, falling against Shaw, burying his face in Shaw’s chest. And the giggles turned into tears. And the tears turned into sobs, and Shaw ran his hand through the unruly wave of blond hair and stroked Matty’s back until the boy had stopped shaking.
“I look like shit,” Matty said after he peeled himself away from Shaw. Touching his red eyes and his snotty nose, he said, “I feel like shit, so I must really look like shit.”
“Matty, I don’t know what you’re going through. My parents are, like, the ultra-liberal hippies that every gay boy probably dreams about. I mean, my dad runs the family business, and my mom teaches art at WashU, but they’re still massive hippies. I think they knew I was gay before I did. My dad set me up on my first date, for Christ’s sake. But God knows I’ve still found plenty of ways to disappoint them.”
“You? You’re perfect.”
Shaw’s cheeks heated. “If you think I’m perfect, ask North sometime. He’s got a list of all the things wrong with me, and it’s the size of a phonebook. But that’s not the point. The point is, I know what it’s like to be keeping a secret from your parents. Something you know is going to disappoint them. Something you know will break their hearts. And I’m telling you, it’ll kill you if you keep it inside too long. No matter how bad it is when you tell them, it won’t be worse than dying from the inside out for the next ten years, or twenty, or fifty.”
Matty’s red eyes were still dry, and his gaze was steady, and Shaw found himself thinking, again, of how remarkable those eyes were, how incredible, and then—just a blip, a hot spot, a flare at the back of his head that vanished a moment later—the thought: North never once looked at me like that.
“What was your secret?” Matty said, his voice so low Shaw might have imagined it.
That I loved him. That I couldn’t stand the thought of being without him, even though I knew he didn’t love me.
“I had dropped out of college,” Shaw said, forcing a smile. “It had been going on for a while—I tell people I’d been sliding out of college for sophomore and junior years, grades so bad that they only kept me because when I was a freshman, well, that doesn’t matter right now. And senior year I finally called it quits. So I wasn’t going to Harvard Law like my dad wanted. I wasn’t going to Chicago’s English Ph.D. program like Mom wanted. I wasn’t going anywhere.” I wasn’t even going out of my shitty apartment, Shaw thought. I wasn’t even opening the blinds. I was just levitating inside a bubble of light the color of dishwater. And I would have stayed there the rest of my life if he hadn’t kicked in my bedroom door and dragged me out.
But Shaw didn’t say any of that. What he said was, “Then I went on for disappointment number two: I became a private detective. Something bad happened to someone I care about, and I . . . wanted to know why. I wanted to know what really happened. And I wanted to make sure it never happened to anyone else. If you thought dropping out of college was bad, you should have seen my parents’ faces when I told them about Borealis.”
“But you’re doing something brave,” Matty said. “You’re doing something wonderful. You’re helping people. I’ve heard about some of the cases you guys take. You’re amazing.” Matty paused. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell, his lips parting. “You’re amazing.” Matty leaned forward, and Shaw knew what was happening, and he couldn’t bring himself to pull back—didn’t want to pull back, in fact, because this was Matty instead of a parade of guys like Hank that stretched all the way back to Percy. Matty was the first one since—Carl, Shaw wanted to say Carl, but a part of his brain hammered on the glass and shouted North, since North—
Shaw’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and it startled him so badly that he actually fell off the couch. Matty, poised above him with lips still parted, looked down with something that might have been anger or humiliation or both.
“Sorry,” Shaw mumbled, dragging the phone out of his pocket. “Sorry. Sorry.”
“What are you sorry about?” North asked.
Shaw sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was North’s other voice. The voice Shaw hated.
“I wasn’t talking to—never mind. What’s up?”
“I’ve got an address for Brueckmann. I want you to meet me there.”
Matty was already rising, turning his back on Shaw, just a shadow against the dying light across the city.
“Where?”
Shaw could hear the smile even in that other-North voice that he hated.
“A leather club.”
Chapter 14
North was freezing, wet, and on the threshold of drunk. The first two were Shaw’s fault for being late; the third was his own.
Pigs and Pups was not well advertised on the street, which North assumed was intentional. It had no signage, and the windows were blacked out. By day, anyone passing the refurbished industrial building that sat at the intersection might have mistaken it for another condo renovation or a headquarters for a struggling tech startup or even simply an abandoned attempt at urban revitalization. The building, with its 1950s lines and ornaments, really looked rather respectable.
By night, however, Pigs and Pups was anything but
respectable. Men—exclusively—approached the building singly, in pairs, and once that North observed, a thruple. They wore leather. Some of them, granted, didn’t wear very much leather. Some of them, if a blue hair spotted them, might have gotten reported for public indecency. There were a lot of leather briefs. And a few leather thongs. The April night, not to mention the mist and drizzle, made those poor guys look very, very uncomfortable.
Ronnie had come through, of course. Ronnie always came through. Pigs and Pups wasn’t registered in Brueckmann’s name, and it wasn’t owned by DDD Collaborative. It was another holding entirely—a corporation, Man2Man, Inc., which made North roll his eyes so hard they were at risk of coming out of his head. He wasn’t sure how Ronnie had figured out the connection. As always, Ronnie would never tell.
On his way to the club, North had swung by the Central West End again, hoping for a glimpse inside Mark Sevcik’s apartment. When he spotted the same unmarked Chevy Impala that he had seen on his first visit, and a quick jog around the building confirmed that the lights were on in Mark’s apartment, North had given up the attempt. He didn’t need another run-in with Barr and Reck. Not tonight, anyway.
Another pair of men passed North, breaking his thoughts: a butch older man in thigh-high boots leading a twinkie brunet by a chain. The twinkie licked his lips at North, and the older man raised an eyebrow.
“Can’t tonight,” North said. Not any night, really, but it didn’t hurt to be polite.
“Find us inside if you change your mind,” the older man said, and then he yanked on the chain. As the two closed the distance to Pigs and Pups, North watched the older man’s hand crack against the twinkie’s pert little ass and the word slut carried on the night air.
North needed a smoke.
“Hey,” Shaw said, jogging up the block in those ridiculous hemp pants, in that ridiculous Lululemon top, his hair spilling out of its bun in a wet tangle and the fierce angles of his face set with worry. “Are you ok?”
“I’m not going to melt if that’s what you mean.”
“What?” Shaw scanned him, as though only now noticing the drizzle of rain. “Oh. No. I mean, did everything go ok? With your dad?”
“We’re here aren’t we?” The sharp symmetry of Shaw’s face closed into hurt, and North’s need for a cigarette doubled. It was going to be one of those nights, one of the nights when Shaw’s precious feelings were stretched out like spider silk and just breathing on him could leave a bruise that lasted a week. “Where were you? What took so long?”
“Soulard.” Shaw wiped a slick of water from his high cheekbones and stared at his fingers as though the mist were some sort of fucking miracle. “Matty got spooked, and I had to—”
“You were at Matty’s? At our client’s house?”
“He thought somebody was following him—”
“Somebody was following him. You. You sniffed after his cute little ass all the way to his house.”
Grinning, Shaw said, “He thought somebody else was following him. All day, he said. So I went back to make sure he got settled in ok.”
“He wanted you to do more than get him settled.”
“He’s just a kid, North. And he’s a client.”
As though on cue, a stringy blond boy slunk past them, his chest so scrawny that he was practically falling out of the leather vest he was wearing. “That’s a kid,” North said, jerking a thumb. The kid stopped, looked, brightened. “Keep moving. I’m just making a point.” The stringbean slunk down the block again. “That, that’s a kid. What you’ve got is a Bengal tiger pretending to be a kitty.”
“That is a very interesting metaphor.”
“I mean, Matty is hot for you, and he might be new to the scene, but he knows what he wants.”
“I knew what you meant. It wasn’t that complicated of a metaphor.”
North blew out a breath; it was like talking to a brick wall sometimes. “This is a gay club. Are you ready for that?”
“That’s great. I happen to be gay.”
“It’s not Rivets. It’s not some metrosexual, hipster, pour-over coffee and we-also-serve-draft-beers hangout.”
Shaw wiped at those ridiculously high cheekbones again. “What’s gotten into you tonight?”
“Forget it, ok?”
“Forgotten.”
North rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen up. He just needed to say something casual. He just needed to blow past the last five minutes like they hadn’t happened. Reset.
“Lot of doms in there tonight,” he said as they started toward the club entrance. “Lots of them looking for a boy like you. Maybe you’ll even find someone you like.” He laughed. “That’d be a change.”
And there it was again: the hurt in Shaw’s eyes, the little-kid-lost expression that made North want to chuff his way through a whole pack of Lucky Strikes.
“You’re being a real asshole tonight.”
“Fine.”
“To me. You’re being a real asshole to me.”
North shook his head and kept going toward the club, and after a moment, Shaw followed. As he always did. As North had known he would. This was the part of himself that North hated, the part he absolutely hated, and even as part of his brain recognized this fact, even as part of his brain tried to turn off and reboot and spin around and apologize, he kept walking.
At the door, the bouncer eyed them both—they were obviously out of place—but he just nodded and pointed deeper into the club when Shaw passed over a fifty and asked for Brueckmann.
Pigs and Pups had an obvious theme, and once the bare minimum of the aesthetics had been met—whips and chains and vinyl suits mounted on the walls, pillories and crosses dividing floorspace—the owners had obviously decided to spare any further expense. Cheap linoleum, cheap particle-board bars, cheap folding chairs. Music thudded in the background, mixing with low voices, and the air smelled like cleaner and a wet sponge. Like so many things, the fantasy of a BDSM club was a far cry from the reality, and North fought a surge of dark amusement as he passed the paunchy older men dragging their boytoys around—and, in a few cases, the reverse. To be fair, there probably was a back room where more serious action happened, but out here, in the main area of the club, it was the leather equivalent of a lady’s tea and gardening society.
A young man wearing nothing but a mohawk of jet-black hair, a nice set of abs, and tiny black leather shorts, was behind the bar in the back. He gave them each the once over and settled on North.
“Two whiskey sours,” North said, and he absolutely knew he was being an asshole. But to his surprise, he didn’t get a reaction this time.
“That your boy?” Mohawk said as he set down the drinks. He was tugging at the top of his black shorts, almost enough to give a show.
Something primal and terrifying coiled in North’s chest at the question, and it was terrifying precisely because he didn’t understand it. North tried to shake off the feeling, tried to smile, and said, “Well, Shaw? How about you? Are you my boy?”
“We’re looking for Brueckmann,” Shaw told the bartender.
Thumbing his abs—and giving North another peek at the trail of dark hair below his shorts—the bartender shrugged and looked at North.
“How do we get to see Brueckmann?” North asked, taking a sip of his whiskey.
“He’s the owner. I don’t know. Call and make an appointment.”
“How about you get him for us?” North smiled, and Mohawk melted. “Boy, give him a really nice tip before he goes to find Brueckmann for us.”
Shaw’s face was a storm behind a sheet of ice, but he peeled off another fifty and gave it to Mohawk. With a shrug, Mohawk moved down to a phone hanging behind the bar.
“Nobody’s going to cruise you if you don’t smile,” North told Shaw.
“Every time.”
“Speak up, boy.”
A flush worked its way into the triangle of Shaw’s face. “Every time you see your dad
, you’re a total fuck.”
“What’s your problem? I’m just teasing. Christ, why are you so sensitive tonight?”
Shaw set his jaw and shook his head.
“Fine. I’ll cut it out. Geez, I’m sorry.”
This time, Shaw rolled his eyes.
“Look,” North said, picking up the second whiskey sour. “I got you a peace offering.”
“I’m going to walk around.”
“Don’t get spanked. At least, not too much.”
Shaw walked away so stiffly that he looked like he was about to snap off at the knees. North wondered what Shaw would see. He wondered how much it would shock him. For all Shaw’s intelligence, there was a surprising innocence about him. Not naivete. It wasn’t that. He was just . . . pure, somehow. Across the room from North, a blond boy was on his knees, his master licking the side of his neck, and then the master gave a jerk of the chain on the boy’s collar. Something like that, for example. North wasn’t sure what Shaw would make of that.
The man gave another jerk on the chain, forcing the boy’s head up, exposing more of his neck, and suddenly North was imagining Tucker’s blond head like that: the collar tight around his neck, just on the edge of choking, and the pebbled skin of his neck as North ran his tongue along it, and then pulling back, staring into his eyes. Only in North’s mind, the eyes weren’t Tucker’s blue anymore, and the hair wasn’t Tucker’s blond. The hair was chestnut. And the eyes were hazel. And the narrow, sharp triangle of Shaw’s face above the collar smoked in North’s imagination.
When Mohawk came back, North said, “Do you have a smoke?”
“No smoking policy. Sorry. Mr. Brueckmann’s sending somebody down.”
“Is there a back room going on here?”
“You a cop?”
North slid the second whisky—Jesus, that had been an asshole move—toward him, and after a moment, Mohawk took a sip. “I’m not a cop.”
“Are you looking for something in particular?”
“I told you I’m looking for Brueckmann.”