3

by Jacob Z. Flores

  It was the end of the millennium, according to most people, who were wrong. Every time Justin corrected someone by saying the year 2000 was actually the last year of the twentieth century, they typically stared at him as if he were stupid. Eventually, Justin had given up and gone with the flow. It was easier. Aggravating, but easier.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t see him.” Xavier’s voice pulled Justin back to the situation at hand. His friend took a swig of his Dos Equis and leaned against the bar, a smirk dangling from his lips.

  Justin knew what the smirk meant. The games were about to begin.

  Whenever they went out, they would survey the crowd and select who they wanted the other to try and pick up. If they both took someone home, then they both won, as the ultimate goal was to fuck or be fucked. If one of them didn’t pick up a trick, the loser had to not only face a week’s long torment over his failure but also had to buy the first three rounds of drinks the following weekend.

  The rules of the game were simple: the person they picked out had to be a guy at least somewhat hot; they weren’t supposed to pick someone excessively ugly or fat. Doing so was a violation and cause for swift justice—four shots of Jose Cuervo, purchased at the offender’s expense.

  The game was meant to test their pickup skills, of which Xavier was always the undisputed king. Since the game’s inception, by Xavier, of course, Xavier had never bought Justin drinks the following weekend. The Dos Equis his friend was currently downing was the third and last of which Justin had to pay from the previous weekend.

  Truthfully, Justin hated playing the game. He was no good at picking up men. More accurately, he was awful at it. He was too painfully shy to open himself up to such bald-faced rejection. Xavier had tried to teach him some moves, but whenever Justin tried one, he either came off as a pervert or an idiot, neither of which got him laid.

  Xavier claimed Justin had the goods required to make a sale but hadn’t learned how to properly package the merchandise. Whatever the hell that meant.

  Xavier had no trouble with rejection. He always said it was their loss, even though rejection rarely happened for Xavier.

  Xavier wasn’t exactly the hottest ticket in the bar. His nose was excessively large, as were his ears. They made him look more like a caricature than a real person, but his confidence more than made up for his physical flaws. Whenever he approached someone, he did it with the confidence of a perfect ten instead of the five or six he was.

  Justin was always amazed at the guys Xavier could snag. Last week, it was a bodybuilding dentist with pecs of death. The week before that it was a corn-fed football player visiting San Antonio from Oklahoma. He’d bedded most of the Bonham’s bar backs, bartenders, and even some of the go-go boys, and this club’s reputation was built on hiring the hottest staff in town.

  Despite the active bed acrobatics, none of Xavier’s flings ever amounted to anything substantial. The one-night stands satisfied Xavier’s sexual appetite, but for the most part, his friend was lonely.

  Justin saw it in the corners of Xavier’s eyes, hidden beneath the endless sexual craving. It was a spark that flickered, hoping this one, this trick would be the one to stay more than a couple of hours. None of them ever did.

  His friend wanted a man to call his own, but his own player ways kept tripping him up.

  He had been like that in college too. Only back then Xavier chased girls in order to appear straight to everyone on campus, including their fraternity brothers. Since Justin was trying to do the same thing in college, he latched onto Xavier and the two became fast friends. Naturally, Xavier was the first person he came out to after graduation, and Justin was surprised when Xavier admitted he was also gay.

  At first, Justin toyed with the idea of potentially dating Xavier, a subject Xavier brought up first. He couldn’t do it. They were too good as friends. It was best to leave the relationship as it was.

  That turned out to be one of the best decisions Justin had made in the twenty plus years of his life. Xavier’s sluttish ways would have eventually broken them up, effectively ending their friendship.

  “I think someone’s growing chicken wings,” Xavier said, clucking like a chicken.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Justin asked as his mind once again returned to the present. The DJ was spinning the latest mix of “We Like to Party” by the Vengaboys, and the gays were tearing it up on the dance floor. “And I’m no chicken.”

  “Then go pick him up.”

  “Pick who up?” Justin asked, aggravated. “Are you blind to how many people are here?”

  Xavier laughed and took another gulp of his beer. “I’ll give you one minute to do it before I go get him and bring him to you. Which, as you know, is a penalty, punishable by—”

  “Two tequila shots, I know,” Justin said, cutting him off. “Will you just point him out to me? And be more specific than ‘walking through the door’.”

  “He’s the Mexican leaning against the wall on the right.”

  “Really?” Justin asked. “Mexican is being specific? We live in San An-fucking-tonio!”

  Xavier laughed like a fifth grader at recess, something he did whenever he teased Justin, which meant he heard the snicker on a daily basis. “He’s wearing a black muscle shirt and acid-wash jeans. Thick black hair. He’s also wearing a puka shell necklace that all the fags are wearing these days.”

  Justin scanned the crowd and saw him, leaning against the far wall with a pink Cape Cod in his hand. He was muscular and rugged, and way out of Justin’s league. Well-sculpted arms and shoulders framed the black shirt. Even at a relaxed stance, his biceps and triceps were clearly defined. Justin hated him for that. He had been working on his arms for months and had yet to develop such muscle tone.

  The muscle shirt also clung to his body as if the fabric was wet, and it revealed an absence of love handles on his tightly packed form. Small, perky nipples poked out from the cloth, and the shirt’s fabric ended about an inch before the jeans began. A treasure trail of hair started at his navel and disappeared beneath the waistband of the jeans. Just below the waistband was a package ready to be delivered.

  “Do you see Puka Shell Boy?” Xavier asked.

  “Yup,” was all Justin could say.

  “Then go get him.”

  Justin swallowed hard. This wasn’t going to end well. The image of a B-52 going down in flames flashed before him.

  Then he noticed Puka Shell Boy’s friend.

  His friend was a few inches taller than both Puka Shell Boy and Justin. If he had to guess, he would put him at almost six feet tall. Sandy-blond hair lay perfectly manicured and parted to the left. Longer strands of hair curled inward at his cheekbones and lightly kissed the most unbelievable alabaster skin Justin had ever seen. His skin looked smoother than silk, as if a sculptor had spent hours chiseling the precious stone into perfection. Draping his skin was a green short-sleeve button-down, neatly tucked into his dark-blue denim jeans. The shirt was fitted but not painted on him like Puka Shell Boy. His lean body resembled a dedicated runner and was neither waifish nor frail.

  Then Justin noticed his eyes. Dark-green tinted eyes decorated his features, magically cutting through the dimly lit bar and outshining the sparkling disco ball. They weren’t a green he had seen before. He had seen light green and even olive green eyes, but these eyes looked to be made of jade. They were a deeper, richer green hue than he had ever seen before in his life. They looked exotic and expensive, found only in jewelry from a faraway Asian country like China or Japan.

  They were breathtaking. Justin didn’t understand how people were walking by him and not staring into those eyes. He could stare at them for the rest of the night.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Xavier asked. “You’re standing there with your mouth open like a fucking retard.”

  “He’s so beautiful.”

  “No shit!” Xavier exclaimed. “Think of him as my New Year’s present to you. You just have to close the deal.�
�� Xavier put his arm around Justin’s neck, Xavier’s sign of friendship and love. “By the end of the night, Puka Shell Boy will be on his back looking up at you, or you know, looking down at you on your back.” Xavier then pushed Justin forward. “Now, hurry up. It’s almost midnight.”

  Justin didn’t know what came over him. All it took was a simple shove, and he was crossing the room toward the stranger with the perfect skin and the amazing green eyes. He felt drawn to him, as if he were caught in an unbreakable gravitational field.

  Puka Shell Boy noticed Justin coming first. He elbowed his green-eyed friend and flashed a disinterested grin, most likely thinking Justin was coming to talk to him. He wasn’t. Puka Shell Boy no longer existed in his world.

  As he approached, the crowds around him got louder. Apparently, the stroke of midnight was approaching. Someone was speaking on a microphone, most likely the drag queen hostess for the night’s festivities, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. All he could see were the green eyes and the white skin pulling at him like the moon pulls on the ocean.

  “Ten, nine, eight…”

  Closer still he drew, passing by couples with their arms around each other, preparing for their New Year’s kiss.

  “… seven, six, five, four…”

  Six feet from the most beautiful man he had ever seen, Justin found he was holding his breath. He had to remind himself to breathe for fear that he would pass out only a few feet away from his intended. Up close, his eyes were more radiant than from across the room. Flecks of gold glinted within the green irises.

  “… three, two…”

  Then he was standing before him. Puka Shell Boy leaned next to his friend, amazed that he wasn’t the object of Justin’s attention. He whispered something in his friend’s ear, but his friend wasn’t paying attention. He, too, was staring straight at Justin.

  “… one ….”

  Justin reached up and put his left hand around the green-eyed beauty’s neck. Pulling his head toward him, Justin crossed the remainder of the distance.

  Their lips met, and the world suddenly came crashing back to life. Noisemakers exploded throughout the club. People were yelling “Happy New Year,” and confetti and glitter were tossed about. The DJ began playing “Auld Lang Syne.”

  Through the noise, the revelry, and the singing, the two never stopped kissing. Their tongues jostled in each other’s mouths as they each inhaled the other’s hot passionate breaths.

  Never had Justin been more excited about a new year.

  CHAPTER 3

  2010

  SPENCER HARRISON leaned against the bathroom door; the cold wood against his bare skin made him shiver. He pushed harder against the door, forcing his skin into the wooden fibers and rubbing his flesh up and down, hoping to bring forth pain, discomfort, or even a splinter, anything was better than the numbing stiffness currently creeping through his body.

  He wondered if this was what a dead body succumbing to rigor mortis felt like as, one by one, each digit, and then each extremity turned lifeless and frozen. The flesh extending out from his limbs fell prey to the sedated state, as it grew first warm then coldly numb until the sensation at last captured his heart.

  It throbbed in protest as the icy fingers squeezed the organ in a deathlike grip. The anger that previously had boiled his blood upon learning Justin had cheated, with Dutch Keller, of all people, cooled and iced over.

  Looking down at his naked body, he expected to find himself encased in ice. Instead he saw the usual fare—white skin and body hair around his nipples and genitals, which drooped impotently toward the floor.

  He ran his hand over his skin, and the sensation felt foreign, as if he were touching someone else’s flesh instead of his own. Brushing over his chest hair or his pubic hair elicited no reaction from the follicles. Red marks appeared when his fingers pinched or clawed at his skin, but he felt no pain.

  Even the body quakes, a term he had given to shivering in his childhood, went unnoticed by his mind. His limbs flinched and his muscles contracted, he could see it happening, but he felt nothing.

  He was in shock.

  “Spence, please come out and talk to me,” Justin pleaded from outside the bathroom door.

  Justin’s voice shattered his emotional catatonia. He locked the bathroom door and backed away from it like he’d seen so many helpless victims do in the horror movies Justin loved and forced him to watch. He regarded the door with fear, as if at any moment the killer would burst through, ready to dismember him with a machete.

  Except Spencer wasn’t a helpless victim. A victim? Maybe. He had been mortally wounded by the man he loved, but that didn’t make him helpless. A lesson taught to him by his father. He wasn’t helpless when his parents practically disowned him for being gay, or when he was bullied in school, or even when he received that letter long ago from the life insurance company.

  No, he faced every problem head-on. He might not have been the soldier his army father wanted, but his father had made sure he learned how to survive.

  He closed his eyes as he always did when he needed to revisit a fatherly lesson from his past in order to overcome an obstacle of today. On command, from the depths of his subconscious, the father of his childhood materialized before him.

  Ice-cold blue eyes stared down at him; the tendons in his father’s neck spread out, and spittle flew from his enraged mouth.

  “An enemy is only as big and bad as you make him out to be, boy!” His father’s jaw muscles clenched like an African cat’s hind legs before chasing its prey. It was standard protocol whenever his father was extremely angry and ready to rip into someone. “Don’t go cryin’ like some sissified pansy when a bully knocks you on your ass. Get off your ass, dust yourself off, and then crack open his skull.” His father waved his massive fist before Spencer to demonstrate what righteous anger looked like.

  “But, Daddy,” he sobbed, nursing a swollen eye. “It was Brandon. He’s the one who hit me!”

  Upon the revelation, Spencer winced, expecting his father to go nuclear after learning his oldest son had treated his younger one so rudely. His father simply stared at him. He couldn’t interpret what that meant. His father was rarely at a loss for words. In fact, he usually raised his voice to its loudest decibel until he was the only one who could be heard.

  “Your brother did this?” his father asked. He ran his fingers across his buzzed head. Spencer heard his hair bristle against his calloused hand. When his father spoke, his voice contained no anger, only pride. “Well, damn!”

  Spencer was crushed. He didn’t understand why his father wasn’t angry.

  “That don’t change a fucking thing!” The rage in his father’s eyes returned, the pride discarded in favor of his favorite emotion—resentment. Resentment at producing such a weakling boy, capable of only love not hate. Resentment from looking at Spencer and seeing nothing resembling himself. “He took you down. Now do something about it. Don’t just sit there holding your face like a girl. Hurt him. Hurt him so he’ll think twice before doing it again.”

  Spencer couldn’t believe what his father had said. He expected his old man to be angry with Brandon, not with him. After all, he was the innocent victim. He was the one who was minding his own business, playing hopscotch outside. He didn’t do anything to cause his big brother to walk up to him, push him down, call him awful names, and then hit him. Why couldn’t his father see he was the innocent victim?

  Now his father wanted him to hurt his brother? He couldn’t do that.

  “But he’s my brother. I love him. I don’t want to hurt him.” Spencer couldn’t stop the tears. He tried to hold them back, but they were too strong for him. Everything was too strong for him.

  “It didn’t stop him from hurting you, did it?” His father yanked him up from the ground by his shirt collar. Spencer’s stomach dropped to his feet from the sheer force of his father’s actions. “And you can stop the innocent-victim routine. You’re big enough to know there are no i
nnocent victims. There are only two types of people in this world—the strong and the weak. You better decide now which one you want to be.” His father turned him around to face the street before him. “Only the strong survive. Now you go find that brother of yours and whoop his ass.”

  “He’s bigger than me,” he protested as his father pushed him toward the street. “He’s in seventh grade!”

  “Enemies will always be bigger than you, boy. You just have to learn how to cut them down to your size. No matter who they are.”

  Afterward, his father turned around, dismissing him. It was his father’s way of telling those he commanded to follow his orders.

  He found Brandon an hour later in an abandoned and secluded field five blocks from their neighborhood. His brother and a couple of his friends were riding their bikes along a dirt course carved out by years of use. The big hills and sharp turns called to the adventurous boys, and they jumped and turned at breakneck speeds, each one trying to outdo the others in an effort to be king of the course.

  He made his way to a pile of rocks left by one of the city’s construction crews after repaving a nearby street. He plucked a large rock from the pile and then proceeded through the tall grass along the course’s perimeter. He waited among the tall reeds like a lion stalking a gazelle, crouching near Big Bertha, the biggest and scariest hill, and also the boys’ favorite.

  While Spencer didn’t have his brother’s strength, he did have accurate aim, the only physical trait his father appreciated.

  When Brandon approached the hill, Spencer stood and revealed himself. His brother’s eyes widened in surprise. Then he threw the big rock that waited anxiously in his small hand. The rock struck Brandon square in the chest. The force and surprise of the impact caused his brother to tumble off his bike and down the hill, ultimately dislocating his shoulder and breaking his right ulna.