I sighed.
“Well, who knew? All it took was a little murder to get him back,” I said, digging my fingers into my head, trying to get rid of the headache that was starting.
“It wasn’t murder, Lee,” Bishop insisted, his voice brooking no argument. “And you know it. You were saving that boy. That’s what you do, defend the helpless, protect the innocent, just like you always swore to do. Like you always did for me.”
I looked up at him and shook my head, even if he wouldn’t acknowledge it, I knew it was different.
“It wasn’t the same, Bish. There was no ‘brotherly’ love involved,” I said wryly. “Just lust. I went there to use him, just like all the other men had.”
“But you didn’t. You thought he was a consenting adult. When you found out differently, you could have walked away,” he said implacably. “You could have stayed out of it. Pretended not to see. You could have left him there. Then what would have happened?”
“Fuck that! You know I couldn’t have, Bishop! They would have killed him!” I said, my voice getting louder as anger starting to replace my guilt. How could he not understand?
“God, I’ll never forget the smell of his burned skin…” I shuddered. “I lived through Afghanistan, but it wasn’t until I came back here that I found something that made me physically ill to think about.”
“So, again,” he continued, “You could have walked away, right? You called the police. They would have saved him, right?” he demanded.
“I couldn’t leave him,” I whispered. “I promised him I would save him. I had to.”
“So, you saved him. Saved him from the man assaulting him. Saved him from a life that was pure hell. How, exactly, is that a bad thing?” he asked, his eyes piercing.
“I didn’t go there to save him, Bishop. I went there to use him, just like all the other men did,” my voice broke as I yelled at him. “He fears becoming the same monster his tormentors were to him, but I already am.”
I realized suddenly that I was yelling, on my feet, my chair pushed back, hands balled into fists on the table as I leaned on them.
“Really? So why didn’t you?” Bishop asked, still seated, his face blank, his eyes quiet as he spoke. “You’d gone hundreds of miles for him, killed this bastard, Ricky, for him. You could have fucked him then. No one would have known. He certainly couldn’t have stopped you. After all, you spent your hard-earned cash to fuck him, right? But you didn’t do it. Why not?” Bishop stood now, also leaning forward on the table, his face tipped up toward mine in challenge, his eyes flashing like lightning.
I looked at my brother in disbelief. How could he even think of such a thing? Rape Mason? The mere thought of it had me diving for the trash can as the pastry and soda came back up. I coughed and spat, eyes streaming as another wave of nausea hit me. After a moment, a wet washcloth was laid gently across the back of my neck, and I looked up to see Bishop staring down at me, a soft smile on his lips.
“That’s what makes you different,” he said quietly, pointing to the mess in the trash can and I raised an eyebrow at him. “The mere thought of forcing another human being to have sex makes you vomit. Those men who hurt Mason had long ago lost whatever reflex it is that lets us keep evil out of our souls.”
He held out a clean glass of water and I gratefully used it to rinse my mouth out, then took a sip. I sat back down as he pulled a fresh trash bag out from under the sink and changed the bag, then sat back down across from me.
“So,” he said, “The next question is, how are you going to get him back?”
22
Mason
I stared at the clock on my phone, watching the time pass. Minute after minute ticked by, but I found myself unable to act. I’d showered, dressed, and packed my things in a daze after Lee had left, then sent a ride request via Uber and waited for my driver to show up, trying desperately to figure out how the hell Lee was my Dark Angel.
I didn’t understand how it could have been him. How could a guy from Ohio have even ended up in Milwaukee to begin with, much less as a customer? And how astronomically remote were the odds that the same man, years later, showed up to pick me up from the damn airport? The Universe was obviously fucking with me.
Part of it made perfect sense. I mean, he obviously had his military training, so he knew how to shoot a gun. He had his medical training, so he knew how to dress my wounds. This man couldn’t let an injured animal by the side of the road suffer, much less a human being. His comments that day about his injured leg and everything else I’d learned about him—it just all made sense. Except it didn’t.
Why would Lee ever have to pay someone to have sex? He was a hot guy, great body. Smart, funny, sweet. It just didn’t make sense.
I walked into the bathroom and that heavenly smell I’d noticed on him years ago that had been my lifeline was super strong. The bottle of body wash and lotion Mama D had given him when we were at their house the other night was open. I sniffed it and realized that was the source of the wonderful smell. Lee had said she made them each some all the time, with a scent unique to each. I looked at the label she had made on the front of the bottle… “Hero”. Of course. How could I have been so stupid?!
I carefully closed it and set the bottle back down and walked into the bedroom. I’d heard Lee pull out of the driveway a few minutes after he’d left the room. I didn’t know if, or when, he intended to come home. I just knew I couldn’t be here when he did.
I picked up my phone.
ME: Lizzie, I need you. 911.
LIZZIE: …Pulling over.
My phone rang.
“Bug? What’s wrong?” I heard her voice, and the concern and love in it made the tears that had been building behind my eyes overflow, and I started sobbing.
“Lizzie?” I sobbed, trying to get my breath. “Lizzie, it’s him.”
“It’s who, Bug?” She asked quietly.
“…Lee. He’s my Dark Angel,” I managed to get out.
“What? How?” she asked. Thank god she believed me without question. She knew I’d never fuck around about something this important.
I told her the whole story, not even leaving out the humiliating experience the night before. When I explained how I’d connected everything, she stopped me.
“What did he say, Bug? When you said you knew it was him?” she asked, her concern filling her voice.
“He… he didn’t really say anything. He just… he got this horrible look on his face, he told me he was sorry and he left.”
“Okay, so where is he now?” she asked gently.
“I don’t know,” I began. “He left, Lizzie. He left.” I started crying again.
“Oh, Bug. Sweetie… there are moments in life that define us. Things that, years later, we will look back on and say, ‘That was it. That’s the moment I became the person I was meant to be.’ I think that day, years ago, was one of those for him,” she began. “And I think… I think maybe today is one of those days for you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, sniffling. I’d found a box of tissues under the sink and had worked through about half of them already. I struggled to concentrate on what she was trying to convey.
“For a lot of your life, you had your choices taken away from you. You were forced to do things and be something that you really weren’t. Today, though… I think today, you have a choice. Today you get to decide. Who do you want to be? Do you want to be someone who hides in their apartment for the rest of their life, afraid of anything and everything? Afraid of loving, or being loved? Or do you want to be someone who takes a chance on love? Someone who’s ready to acknowledge that they deserve to be loved and are ready to take a chance. It sounds to me like Lee had a lot of choices to make all those years ago, and he chose to save you. So, today, what are you going to choose? Who are you going to be?”
“I don’t know, Lizzie,” I said, still sniffling. “I don’t know… I don’t know what I want. I’m just afraid. Afraid it won’t work. That he’ll
realize I’m… I’m not worth it,” I sighed. “What should I do?”
“Oh, sweetie, I can’t tell you what to do on this one,” she said, sighing back at me. “This is your decision to make. All I can do is tell you that I love you and will always be here to support you, whatever choices you make.”
We talked for a few more minutes, but she had to get to work, so we said our goodbyes and she promised to check back in on me. Before saying goodbye, she reminded me of the event that evening and made me promise that if I felt I had to leave that I call her so she could cancel.
I closed my phone and looked around the room, remembering the delight I’d felt the night before from seeing Lee on this bed, naked and waiting for me. The power that it gave me. The power he gave me. The sense of confidence.
I realized at that moment I did know what I wanted. I wanted it. Wanted him. Whatever this thing was between us, I wanted to explore it. Good, bad, or indifferent ending. But I needed to understand how he had ended up in that hotel room years ago.
I grabbed my phone and pulled up my message app.
ME: Are you o.k.?
I waited. And waited. Then finally I saw the little dots flashing and knew he had seen my message and was responding.
LEE: …Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?
ME: I’m sorry. I overreacted. I shouldn’t have said what I did.
LEE: I…understand. I deserved it. I was such a shit back then.
ME: I have a hard time believing that.
LEE: No, I was a serious jerk at the time.
ME: “…At the time?”
LEE: Fuck you. :)
ME: I think we tried that already….
LEE: Well, no, not really, but still….
ME: Lee. Come home.
LEE: …. You’re still at the house? I thought you went to the airport.
ME: How did—never mind, it doesn’t matter. I’m still here. Come home.
Was he psychic or what? How the hell had he known I’d Ubered? Or did he just guess? I shook my head as I got off the phone and pulled up the Uber app, canceling my ride request. Fortunately, it looked like no one had accepted it.
Regardless of how he knew, he’d known. I paced for a few minutes, trying to figure out what to do while I was waiting. I mean, not like this would be important to me, or anything. Only possibly the only person I had ever wanted to have sex with. No pressure…
My stuff was still packed. It was too early to cook lunch. I’d already showered. The thought of jerking off made my stomach turn. I had too much nervous energy available to just sit there and do nothing. As I walked by the open hallway door the light from Lee’s office cast shadows on the floor, and the sight of a single Lego falling into the hallway reminded me of the mess that had been made in Lee’s office the night before. It would help me pass the time so I might as well make myself useful. I went into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of Tupperware containers I’d seen there the day before and made my way into his office.
There were still tiny robot bits and broken shelving everywhere, so I went about picking things up. I put the robot pieces into the plastic containers and did my best to straighten things up in the office. I sorted through the broken pieces and Lego bits and tried to remember what went with what, but I knew it was a lost cause. I’d have to trust that Lee would be able to figure out how everything fitted together.
I ended up just piling all the bits into the plastic bins and sorting out as much as possible. I put the shelves back up, happy to see they had just been knocked off their brackets by our little visitor, not broken. I placed them as close to their original layout as I could remember and was trying to get a desk drawer back on its rollers when I heard the front door open. I heard a slightly uneven step approach the door to the office and stop. After a moment, I looked up to see Lee looking down at me, his blond hair going every which way, eyes red-rimmed.
“What—? You didn’t have to do that,” he said, his voice hoarse, taking in the sorted bins and cleaned-up room.
“I thought I might as well be useful…” I said, looking around. I was pretty happy with how fast I'd gotten things cleaned up. “I just didn’t know what pieces went together, so I just put them all in bins.”
Lee walked into the room until he was standing in front of where I sat on the floor.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and held his hand out to me. I looked at it for a moment, then at him, feeling like he was thanking me for more than just cleaning up the office.
His green eyes were a dark, mossy color, red-rimmed, but vibrant. The pain I saw there, the anguish… I couldn’t let it stay a moment longer. I placed my hand in his and he pulled me to my feet. My body rocked slightly at the sudden reduction in gravity.
We teetered momentarily, then we were leaning close. Too close, again. We stood there, frozen for a moment, wobbling on the edge of… something, until Lee seemed to shake himself slightly, clearing his throat and stepping back.
“Maybe we should have this discussion in the kitchen…” he said, his face solemn as he turned to go to the other room. I couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at my mouth. At least I wasn’t the only one who had a hard time focusing in close quarters.
In the kitchen he sat down at the table and I sat down across from him, then silence fell. Neither of us seemed to know exactly how to start this conversation.
“How did you end up in Milwaukee?” I asked finally.
“I was driving for Uber and had picked up a couple of army guys who were afraid of flying, but they needed to get home, so, I drove them to Milwaukee from Cleveland.”
“Hell of a long drive,” I said.
“Yeah, swore I’d never do that drive again. But I liked driving… got me out of my head, let me meet new people, let me make a little extra money. The trip was last minute, so they even paid for a hotel room for me for a couple of nights in Milwaukee.”
“I did a little sightseeing, then went on the internet. I hope you believe me when I tell you, I didn’t know you were just a kid,” Lee said earnestly. “I mean, I thought you were a lot older than eighteen. I responded to an add online… there was a picture of you in a tux. You looked young, yes, but I had no idea you were barely eighteen.”
“That photo… there was something about it… something about your eyes. You were the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen in my life, but your eyes looked… haunted. Lost. It felt like… I could see all the sadness in your eyes that you were trying to hide from the world,” he sighed.
“Did… did you know who I was when I came to Akron?” I asked, my hands folding and unfolding a piece of paper I’d sketched on the previous day. A horrible thought occurred to me. “Do your brothers know?”
“No!” he said emphatically, shaking his head. “No. My brothers hired you, I didn’t know anything about you at first. I lost track of you after my last trip to the hospital… it must have been shortly after that when you changed your name.”
“You… you came to the hospital?” I exclaimed, surprised. I’d never known.
Lee nodded dejectedly at the table, his head down.
“Why?”
“I promised you I wouldn’t leave you. I couldn’t go in the ambulance with you, so I visited you at night. At the hospital, I mean, when you were still in a coma,” he said, his voice hollow. “I was so damn scared for you, Mason.”
He looked up at me, his eyes overflowing with tears.
“I stayed with you until the night I walked in and found you there with Tira Graham. She was there with this detective who was investigating your case. She told me about you saving her granddaughter and they started asking me how I knew you. I knew it was time to go back to Ohio.”
His voice trailed off for a moment, then he spoke again, his voice stronger.
“After Mack died, I did a lot of things I’m not proud of, Mason, but hiring prostitutes was the only thing I did that ever hurt other people. I didn’t realize what it was like for you, or them. I thought it
was a victimless crime. I didn’t know… Maybe I didn’t want to know, what their lives were really like. Not until the night I met you.”
I nodded, but then he continued.
“I’ve tried to make up for it, but there’s really no way I can ever make amends. I’ve been working with some friends of mine to try and build a network of drivers willing to help anyone involved in human trafficking to escape, but it’s never going to be enough. I promise you, though, I will never give up, and my goal is to help anyone who wants help to escape from the vicious cycle.
“To be completely honest, though, while I didn’t recognize you when you first arrived in Akron, I did figure it out that night,” he admitted, his eyes avoiding mine. “When you fell asleep in the car on the way home from that hotel. I pulled up and the security light came on. It just made you look so goddamn young…” His voice trailed off. “And your face… looked bruised.”
I winced at the thought of the multiple bruises I’d earned over the years, but then a kernel of anger smoldered in my chest.
“All this time. You knew all this time…?” I demanded, adding up the days.
“Yes, and I’m an asshole,” he ground out, shame emblazoned on his face. “I am so sorry, Mason. I should have told you, especially before—” he stopped, unable to go on.
“Before we fucked?” I demanded, the anger growing inside me.
“Yes! No! I mean…” He stood again, and this time he was the one pacing. “It’s not an excuse for what I did, but it’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world to bring up in casual conversation…
“Oh, hi!” he began, his voice in falsetto. “Remember me? I came to Milwaukee to fuck you for money, because I thought you were the most beautiful person I’d ever seen, but I didn’t know you were just a kid. Hey, you don’t mind that I shot the guy who was attacking you, right? And, oh, yeah, can we hang out?”
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