by Damon Suede
“Handblown, but Czech crystal is the best.” Bauer considered him with those relentless blue-gray eyes. “You can stay for dinner.” Not asking anymore.
Ruben dodged. “I bet these cost a hundred-fifty, two hundred bucks apiece, right?”
“I dunno.” Bauer scratched his head absently, and a muscle ticked at the angle of his oversquare jaw. “I had brandy out of a snifter at the Boscolo in Old Town.” He picked up a glass with his long, loose fingers. “I’d never felt anything so right in my hand. Y’know?”
“Bauer, I wasn’t giving you grief. It’s a nice glass.”
“I used to be an asshole to my parents for buying expensive shit, and my mom said you have to pay for art or else artists starve. And this is art.” The glass glittered in his grip.
“True.”
“The man who made that probably lived for six months off what I spent at his little shop. He didn’t grow up in Scarsdale with a triple trust fund, but I did, so I feel like I can throw a bone. Even the shit I do for fun makes money.” He swept a hand at his bear skull and the silk rug and the zillion-dollar view of Manhattan laid out like a willing sinner. “Plus for an added bonus, it drove my stepfather crazy.” A manic smile.
Ruben nodded like the family drama meant anything to him.
“Not like I don’t know how lucky I am, Ruben. I know I won that lottery.” He sounded lonely.
“I know. It’s cool. I know you do.” Why did his new employer feel the need to make a case? Ruben drifted back toward him.
“Anybody can rip people off. If you make serious money you have to leave the world better. Charity. Art. Anything.”
Ruben snorted. The belly of the glass filled his palm perfectly. “See what you mean. And you can afford it.”
Bauer grinned. The shark had vanished and the ragdoll returned. “I mix business with pleasure whenever I can.”
“No shit.” Ruben shook his head in disbelief.
“So… dinner. Food’s already prepped if you want to grab a chair. Chef’s gone. It’s just us, so we’re gonna rough it.”
“I bet.” And just like that, Bauer made the decision, which pleased and terrified him. He’s keeping me here.
Whistling, he returned with a pork thing with parsnips that smelled good and tasted better. For whatever reason, once Ruben sat down here, the price of everything stopped bothering him. This was the first time he’d spent in this penthouse without money on his mind. Instead of boss and hire or bodyguard and principal, they turned into two guys who needed to eat and sleep.
Bauer acted more relaxed than he’d ever been. They ate hungrily and though his boss had wine, Ruben felt no temptation. Huh.
Peach always said alcoholics reach for a drink when they’re Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. HALT, the acronym was. Whenever the urge emerged, he’d tell himself to “Halt” and it usually worked. Except, in this penthouse, Ruben didn’t feel any of those things. Anything but. More like the opposite of “halt.” Full steam ahead.
After food and coffee, Bauer seemed intent on entertaining him, and they both wound down. Just as at Barney’s, the stream of flattery and charm gave Ruben the hypnotic feeling of being in absolute control. Something seductive about his wishes holding sway and Bauer’s eagerness to please him. Made no sense, but made Ruben drunk with luxe and borrowed power.
He likes having you on the premises, Ruben’s brain offered, but he ignored the thought.
Courtesy of ESPN, the projection TV spewed a baseball game across the whited-out windows. Bauer had a lot to say about the scoring and stats that went right over his head. Ruben didn’t particularly like baseball, he preferred the pace of soccer or basketball, but a game was a game.
Eventually Ruben caught himself staying awake out of politeness, hoping his boss wasn’t doing the same. I like him too.
Gradually the commentary dwindled and Ruben turned to check. Bauer’s face was cuddled hard against the white cushions. His eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell smoothly. The cowlick in his hair had sprung loose.
His boss had fallen asleep on the couch with the news blaring, a vague smile on his lips, his breath steady. Not nervous for once.
’Cause I’m here.
Even weirder, Ruben could have dozed if he stopped fighting. Again he stole more than a glance. A narrow strip of abdomen revealed the line of springy fuzz pointing south from his navel. Even now, at the end of the day, Andy smelled fresh baked.
“Bed,” Ruben whispered to himself, and as he bent to wake the man, he thought better of disturbing him when he’d finally found some peace.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Instead, Ruben tiptoed down the main hall to the guest room next to the office and stripped to his boxers.
As soon as the door shut, he questioned the decision to sleep over, even with Bauer forty feet away, even for a night. This room made him feel like an impostor, underlining everything he hadn’t figured out and all the things he needed to change still.
Not that his brother’s couch was so comfy, but without Bauer’s coaxing he knew he didn’t belong.
His brown toes sank into the sixteen thousand dollar Agra rug. His jeans hung like seaweed from the Philippe Starck valet. His stubble scraped the eight-hundred-dollar pillowcase. No part of him belonged in this place. He put a glass of water on the nightstand.
He shouldn’t have stayed.
Sleep steered clear.
If he’d had a book, he’d have read. Instead he opted to play Scrabble on his phone for an hour before he gave up and turned off the lights.
For the first time in his life, he lay awake staring at the ceiling with no cracks to count. Bauer’s ceilings looked as seamless as the rest of his life.
Around two thirty he heard someone moving in the library and then his door opened. He shut his eyes.
A whisper? “Rube?” His boss going to bed, checking on him. The door closed again.
He opened his eyes when he heard Bauer climbing the stairs and moving around directly overhead.
Something still bugged him here that kept him from settling. The unnatural stillness, maybe. Bauer’s climate control kept the air exactly ten degrees below body temperature. The mattress held him like a gentle hand. The triple-glazed windows overlooking the park kept the room goldfish quiet, but Ruben couldn’t keep his brain from scurrying on its wheel and his thick dick from slithering against the mattress.
Princess and the Peabrain.
Despite the spacious quarters, Ruben wrestled with the surge of claustrophobia and closed his eyes. If he’d been at home in Miami, he’d have bumped Marisa’s ass with his joint to wake her and get it wet. At his brother’s he’d take a cold shower. His cock wasn’t fully hard yet, but the sore tingle telegraphed how long it had been. Since coming to the city, he hadn’t gotten laid. Weeks, come to think of it.
As he hunched against the warm bedding, his juicy foreskin slipped smoothly back and forth a quarter inch inside his boxers. He imagined trying on the suits with Joysann. The wet pout of her mouth. The hypnotic rush of power that came from taking whatever he wanted, no price tag. The firm clutch and drag of those hands tugging and smoothing his body through the wool.
Andy’s hands.
He froze, horny and ashamed. His cock vibrated beneath his belly. Bauer’s hands. His employer’s hands had felt too good and he remembered them exactly.
“Halt,” he whispered to the dark room. It even smelled expensive.
He sat up to take the final swallow of the water, warm by now. Time for a refill. He tried not to think about the liquor in the library, living room, kitchen, and more. He was only thirsty for water.
Starved for contact is all. And he could not afford a wet dream in this bed.
Self-conscious about his bare brown legs and his stiff boner, he pulled on his trousers over his straining boxers but didn’t bother with anything over his wife-beater. Barefoot on the wool rug, he padded out into the hall. The over-the-top security made the entire building feel like
safe space.
At three thirty in the morning, the silent apartment held its breath. The wide plank floors didn’t even creak as he made his way back to the kitchen to refill the glass of water instead of using the bathroom sink. He opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator and stared at the shelves loaded with kumquats, lamb chops, and fresh cilantro bagged with its roots still attached for maximum organic whatever-the-hell.
Crazy. He’d let Bauer’s paranoia seep into him until it metastasized into insomnia and blue balls. For the millionth time, he understood why guys jerked off out of boredom just to numb their brains.
He drifted to the dining room where the dishes waited for cleanup by Bauer’s staff. Resisting the urge to put everything in the sink, he tugged open the terrace door and stepped outside into the quiet, sultry air.
His skin started to ooze sweat, but at least he could breathe out here. His back prickled with the sensation of being watched. Bullshit, of course. He and his boss were alone up here, and he was the only one awake. Right?
Hating himself, he looked up at the blank black of Bauer’s windows.
For reasons he didn’t examine, he stood looking up at them for a full two minutes, for a sign, for a clue.
Nothing and no one looked back, but his prickling unease did not subside.
Stupid. His cock bobbed and finally sagged inside his creased boxers.
In other circumstances he’d have said his instincts had him on alert, but in this bullshit situation he knew better. Andy Bauer was more likely to be struck by lightning or abducted by aliens than fall prey to any kind of Tom Clancy scenario.
Bullshit.
Bauer had to be running a con, with him as window dressing. Maybe that was it. Maybe he wasn’t telling Ruben the whole truth after all. Maybe he did want a rough wingman to crack the ladies. And maybe the reason Ruben was earning so much for so little was to allow Bauer to act out some egomaniac kink. Exhibitionism, voyeurism. Best to stay dumb.
Sleeping dogs lie.
Two puzzle pieces snicked together in his mind, and in that moment, sweet certainty gripped him: his boss had duped someone.
Watching the dark glass above, he hoped it wasn’t him.
CHAPTER FOUR
FEAR IS the cheapest weapon and the hardest to hold.
“Think fast.” A blue racquetball bounced off the window and smacked into Ruben’s chest hard enough to sting. He spun. “Ow.”
It was day three, 2:19 p.m., and Bauer glared from the other side of the living room with his hands extended to catch.
Ruben squeezed the little ball, collapsing it in his hand. Why was Bauer pissed? And why the ball?
“Think. Faster. Dumbass.” Bauer sounded angry and looked straight at him. “Well, then you tell him to sell or we destroy his family and sell them off for parts to the Swiss.”
Ruben straightened. “The hell?”
“I want him to shit his pants!” Bauer shook his head and pointed at his earpiece and laughed without smiling. “Lowball him.”
Oh. Phone call on the headset. Until today, Bauer had kept his business behind closed doors. What was this call, anyways, and why did he want Ruben to hear it? Or did he? Had he just come out to play?
Andy ground his teeth. His jaw flexed. “This close? He should shit his pants, man. And then he sells or you’re going to come give him a colostomy with a chainsaw.” He beckoned for the ball.
Speechless, Ruben gently tossed the blue ball back underhanded. He didn’t want to break anything. Fuck knows, he couldn’t afford replacements. Was this jagoff playing catch?
“Bullshit.” Bauer sighed, either at him or the call. “If not fast, at least you can fucking think, Joe. We got him pinned down.” With a snarl, Bauer pitched the ball hard at the window so that it smacked into Ruben’s chest again.
A game.
Ruben goggled and muttered, “Nuts,” but finally he threw the ball back at the glass. Following orders.
It bounced wild but his boss caught it, giving Ruben a thumbs-up and that goofy clean-cut grin. Raggedy Andy wanted to play.
For the next half hour, they played fake handball against the window in a million-dollar room, grinning like idiots while Andy brokered some kind of takeover. Happily, nothing got broken.
By the end of the call, Ruben had learned fuck-all about international finance or the Apex Fund, but at least he’d started to think of Bauer as Andy. Dude was too nutty to be called “Mr.” Anything.
As predicted, Ruben’s security duties just peddled make-believe, but they sure as hell paid well. Every time Ruben felt like grumbling, he looked at those new suits hanging in his brother’s closet and bit his tongue. None of his business how Andy wasted his money or anyone else’s.
A couple of clients came to the apartment for meetings while Hope served drinks and research reports. Ruben shook their hands, laughed on cue, and saw nothing to endanger Andy’s money or safety. The clients were bland and blank, mostly old white dudes dressed like soap opera villains in handmade shoes, but not an eyepatch among them. Boring, actually. As he’d suspected, any black ops Wall Street mercs were strictly no-show.
Sure enough, the man spent most of his time on phone calls piped through a Bluetooth earpiece, shouting financial advice into the air like a schizophrenic with an MBA.
By the weekend, Ruben felt pretty certain the biggest threat to Andy Bauer… was Andy Bauer. The security gig ended up feeling funny but harmless. As long as Ruben stuck around, Andy could pretend he was in danger, but protected at the same time. Ruben could track Andy’s paranoid logic: he wanted an invisible goon, so he’d bought one.
Gradually Andy monitoring him and his lack of boundaries started seeming pitiful, unnerving, but unfreaky. He seemed as lonely as Ruben felt. Maybe he was.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Funny thing: he dug Andy’s company. The occasional predatory flashes showed calculation and financial know-how, but he wasn’t a prick, exactly. He took an interest in Ruben, which automatically made him interesting. Not a bad guy, just lonely, rich, and too brainy to be normal. Personally, Ruben thought Andy had suffered from too much education and not enough life. Boarding school, fancy college, all kinds of shit that obviously kept him rich but made him no friends that Ruben could see. He sympathized; they were both private people, holding cards close.
A leaper and a looker. They made a good team.
Maybe loneliness and boredom did strange things to his imagination, but Andy began to live rent-free in his head.
The long shifts with Andy left Ruben no time for a life. His best window for meeting some rich nymphomaniac was in the twenty-two minutes it took him to walk down Park Avenue in the morning, but Park Avenue at dawn proved to be sadly nympho-free.
Ruben got in the habit of taking a scalding shower every night before crashing on his couch. The hot water wore him out, and he’d struggle toward sleep while the cat glared at him, waiting to be overfed. At least he managed to hit a couple AA meetings, but in this neighborhood, most were packed with old-timers and in Spanish.
Still, tonight was Saturday and he’d hoped he might be able to go out, maybe a movie or dancing. Anyplace where he might be able to hook up, because these days his balls throbbed like a fucking root canal.
As soon as Ruben got downstairs at the Iris, he texted his brother that he was homebound, and a few blocks later he got a reply. “GIMME THIRTY” which meant Daria was over and Charles was getting busy.
Whenever his brother entertained the girlfriend, Ruben took a walk around the block for a couple hours. Stations of the cross for losers. Here is the pizza parlor, here is the free clinic. Wasn’t Charles’s fault. Tonight Ruben opted to hit the grocery.
On the way he dug out his phone. “Peach?”
All the way to Ninty-Sixth Street, she golfed and he griped. She kept asking about his social life and he shrugged it off. He was grateful for the friendly ear but conscious of the lonely box he’d built around himself. His weird fixation on Andy didn’t come up and he wa
s too ashamed to spill the beans. Him, as a guy, having a female sponsor was really unorthodox, and for once he understood why. Her Sondheim quotes didn’t teach him anything, but they calmed him down even as he was surprised by how tired Peach sounded.
Finally, Ruben hung up and wandered into Associated Supermarket. Paying rent, he couldn’t afford, but since moving in four weeks ago, he’d helped his little brother out by covering groceries and meals.
Charles lived up on 109th in Spanish Harlem, so a lot of the locals and signs used language Ruben couldn’t understand. He tended to nod and glower so no one asked him questions. Scary mug to the rescue, again.
The grocery store still seemed like an alien planet to him. Marisa had done the shopping, always. He cooked sometimes, but mostly she’d been a housewife and happy about it. Standing by the baskets, Ruben fished the list out of his pocket: Fanta, Wheaties, pasta, chips. Nothing green, nothing fresh. Charles still ate like a teenager because Daria did most of the cooking. For the past month, Ruben had fought his gut with crunches and push-ups.
Ruben headed down the first uncrowded aisle and realized he was standing in a narrow aisle of wine and beer. What motherfucker had decreed that supermarkets could legally sell booze? He nodded to himself and avoided that landmine, knocking out the whole list in about twenty minutes.
The air conditioning inside the store chilled him so much that the swelter outside felt refreshing when he emerged. Taking his time to waste another ten minutes, he trudged back to the apartment, balancing the bags, praying the stretched plastic would survive the journey and that his brother had put on pants.
He took the stairs slowly and made noise with his key in the lock just to be safe. “S’me.” He ducked into the tiny kitchen.
The cat showed up expecting a snack, but settled for dry kibble, crunching at him with bored resignation.
Ruben scratched its head. “At least you didn’t have to walk around the block.”
Charles swore otherwise, but Ruben needed to find a place of his own ASAP.