Turning Point Club Box Set

by JA Huss

  “Oh,” I say. “OK.”

  “They died.”

  “They died?”

  “Yes. In a horrific car crash last summer on their way home from Grand Lake.”

  “Oh…” And then I realize why she doesn’t want me to tell Ixion. “Shit.”

  “Apparently there was a freak thunderstorm and they—”

  “No,” I say, waving my hand. “I don’t need to know.” Because I don’t want to picture them slipping off the side of a mountain. A whole fucking family. “The baby,” I say. “The house had a nursery.”

  “I know,” Evangeline says. “It’s horrible. Just… horrible. I was so obsessed with them when I was in the house last winter. And it felt like they were still living there, ya know? Like they were gonna come home any minute. I had pictured them all on vacation. Perhaps they didn’t like the cold, I remember thinking. And they spend their winters in the south of France. But I was wrong.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out. “No, he doesn’t need to know this.”

  “I’m glad you feel the same way. I mean, I love the house, Jordan. Love it. Ix mentioned that you’re living there, and I’m so glad it’s not empty. Because I was gonna ask him to try to talk you into selling it to us. But now… I just don’t like the idea of Ixion living in a home where an entire family died like…”

  “Like his did,” I say, finishing for her when she doesn’t.

  She nods and swallows. “Yeah. Like his did.”

  I don’t know why this news upsets me so much. It’s not like I knew that family. But I can’t go home. I just can’t walk in there knowing. And even though I live in the office, I can’t stand to think about the empty nursery upstairs. Or the little girl’s room. Or the teenage boy.

  Or the master bedroom.

  The only thing worse than a whole family dying is one of them surviving.

  So I drive. I just leave work and get in my car and drive. And the phone is ringing and buzzing texts at me, so I turn it off.

  I don’t know why. I really don’t understand what’s happening to me. All I know is that I don’t want to talk to anyone.

  I just drive north on I-25. Just keep going past Fort Collins, past the Wyoming border. Past Cheyenne. And when I get to Casper, I head west for some unknown reason. West towards… something. I dunno why. I just keep driving. Then I’m going north. The darkness is all around me as I head towards Thermopolis. And then all the little towns on Highway 20 start popping up on road signs.

  Kirby.

  Winchester.

  Worland.

  Washakie Ten.

  Washakie Ten. I say it over and over in my head. Washakie Ten, where Ixion landed last year and hid out in a tiny cabin. Washakie Ten, a place I knew once. Washakie Ten…

  I know where the dirt road is. How? I have no idea. But I find it. Against all odds in the dark. I find it. And I turn off the main road and head deeper into the woods. The pine trees tower over the road like giants, obscuring the stars and the moon.

  The cabin is dark and looks so much smaller than I remember. I turn off the car and just sit there, the ticking of a hot engine the only sound.

  And I remember…

  We’re going hunting, he’d said. Turkeys or deer, I don’t really remember. It didn’t matter because we weren’t there to hunt. We were there to fix me.

  I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. Not now. Why am I here? Why now? After all these years? Why now?

  She was tall, and older. Not old, probably not eighteen because that would’ve been so much worse… but older than me. I was twelve. And she was very pretty. Very pretty. I remember thinking, Why is she wearing that dress in the woods? You can’t hunt in a dress.

  And maybe she read minds or maybe I didn’t think it, I said it out loud. Because she gave me a sad, sad smile.

  And she said, “I’m yours for the weekend, Jordan. Your father paid for me. Do you know what that means?”

  And I did. I knew.

  But he’d left by then. Some excuse that he needed to go to the store and pick up milk or whatever. So we were alone. And she took off her clothes, and then she took off mine too.

  “We’re going to play a game,” she said. “A dirty little game.”

  And I don’t know what my face looked like in that moment, but I remember how I felt. And I remember what she said next. “Would you like to play a dirty little game with me?”

  I get out of the car and walk up to the front porch. My hand reaches for the door and finds it unlocked.

  I don’t know what I expect. Leftover filth from squatters maybe. Because that year I turned twelve was the last time I came up to Washakie Ten.

  But what I find is a perfectly neat and tidy hunting cabin. Even in the faint light of the moon coming through the front windows I can tell people have been here recently.

  Does he rent it out? Do they—my parents—come here? I try to picture my father bringing my mother here for a long weekend and find I can’t.

  The light switch is right where I expect it to be. My fingers flick it on and I see the old, worn, leather couch. A couch that lived in my father’s home office until I was… what? Seven? Eight, maybe?

  We just stood there. And she took my hand and placed my fingertips on her breast. She smiled. I remember her smiling as she cupped my hand around the firm mound of flesh. She squeezed it for me because I didn’t know what to do.

  “He knows your secret,” she said.

  “What secret?” I asked.

  “That you like boys, Jordan.”

  I squinted my eyes. Trying to figure out what that meant.

  “But girls are who you’re supposed to like.”

  “I like girls,” I said. I remember my throat tightening up. Making it hard to swallow. Like there were rocks in there or something.

  “Of course you do,” she said. “Of course you do,” she repeated. Her mouth angling in to mine until our lips touched.

  I kissed her back.

  The bedroom—my bedroom—looks the same too. A raw log bed with a small child-sized mattress is pushed up against the wall. I liked it against the wall because the wall was comforting to me. I liked to press my back up against it. The patchwork quilt my mother bought from a local Indian reservation when I was small still acts as a bedspread. The pillow cases are navy blue…

  When it was all over I just looked at her. At her hair. Spilling out onto the pillow. It’s golden, and long, and soft. I touched it a lot that night. Played with it as we played our dirty little game. As she touched me, and caressed me, and fondled me.

  “Where did you come from?” I remember asking when it was over and the morning sunlight was spilling through the window.

  And she said… and she said… “He keeps me.”

  And I didn’t know what that meant back then.

  But I do now.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I think some fathers do things like this. They hire a prostitute for their teenage son and turn it into a big deal. A tradition.

  Sick fucks. Rich fucks. Fucks like my father.

  But this is so much worse now that I think back on the experience. What she said… To fix me. To make sure I like girls, in other words.

  I think I blocked it out because one, I just didn’t understand it. Oh, I knew I was there to have sex with her. That wasn’t the part I misunderstood. But I did like girls. I still do like girls. I just… liked Ixion too. And two, because my father… I fucking worshipped him.

  Still do. I love him.

  But he did that to me. Said those things to her.

  Fix me.

  I fall into the couch cushions, exhausted from the long drive. Wondering if my mother knew.

  Loving men is confusing because you have your best bros. Like me and Ix. And I love him. I’d do anything for him. Any. Thing. But it’s not supposed to go any farther than that. You’re not supposed to crave his body, or his attention, or his touch.

  And to be clear, Ixion and I were never li
ke that. He’s not into the bi stuff like I am. Sure, we shared Augustine a few times, but that’s all it was. A share.

  I’m not looking for a man, I’m looking for a man and a woman. I’m looking for what we had back in LA. And now that what happened here is reemerging, I have to ask myself—did my father make me this way? Was this formative experience what made me who I am today?

  A man who is unable to find satisfaction outside a plural relationship?

  Her game was clever for the time. I mean, no one even blinks at a blindfold these days, but back then? It was super kinky.

  Put this over my eyes and take me out to the woods, Jordan. Tie me up and smack me with this twig. I will pretend to cry and you can rip my dress off. Touch me anywhere you want. Touch yourself, too.

  Did my father tell her to do that? Or did she make it up? What kind of teenage girl knows how to do that shit?

  A very badly abused one, Jordan.

  She scared me. I remember thinking that. I remember taking her out to the woods, blindfolded so I had to hold her hand and tell her to step carefully, and tying her to the tree like she told me to.

  But after that… after that I just froze.

  It didn’t make any sense. None of it made any fucking sense to me. What was I supposed to do with her?

  And the things she said to me. I know now that it’s just playing, right? Games. Dirty talk. Things that make you hot.

  But I had never had sex before. Barely even masturbated. I wasn’t thinking about sex with Ixion. I was thinking about football and Christmas. I was thinking we had fun last summer and this winter his family was taking me skiing with them in Aspen. I was thinking in one more year we’d be in middle school and then after that we’d get our driver’s permits, and then… I dunno. Whatever. We’d have fun, like we always did. And it would all feel pretty good because it always did. That’s why we were best friends in the first place.

  I didn’t get it, I just knew it was wrong. More wrong than any confusing feelings I ever had for Ixion.

  And I felt shame.

  It was a dirty little game and that’s exactly what it felt like.

  Dirty.

  Being alone with this girl made me feel dirty. Filled me with shame.

  And when I got back home Ixion asked me, “How was the hunt? Did you tag a deer?”

  So it must’ve been deer. Because I remember staring at his face as he asked me that.

  And I said, “No. It wasn’t that kind of hunting trip.”

  And somehow he could tell something was wrong. He knew. He felt it, or I was acting weird, or I dunno. He just knew.

  I remember sitting up in my room at my desk, just staring out my window. There was a pine tree just outside. Ix and I used to climb it when we were small. I fell off once and broke my arm. He was there for that. Went with me to the hospital. Signed a great big red X on my cast.

  And he was there this night too. He decided to sleep over. And I know now that it was because he was worried about me. He didn’t want to leave me alone. I had these moods I went though sometimes. And therapists I’d go talk to. But until that night when I tied that rope around the tree branch, slipped it around my neck, and was about to jump off and end everything for good… I didn’t understand why my parents made me see therapists.

  You’re not supposed to like boys.

  But I did like him.

  He stopped me. He saved me.

  How could I not love him for that?

  And then he saved me again when I fucked everyone over in LA. He swooped in like the best friend he was and pulled me out of the flames.

  What would my dad have thought of me if Ixion wasn’t there?

  Should I care? Since it was him, and that weekend with that girl who made me who I am today? Is that why I can’t manage a normal relationship with a woman? Is that why all the world’s a game to me?

  Is that why… is that why I had Chella’s father killed and never even blinked?

  Was it him—my father—who I really wanted dead?

  The sound of a slamming car door wakes me up. Sunlight is shining through the windows. Boots thud on the old wooden porch as they approach the door.

  Then knocking. “Jordan?”

  It’s Ixion.

  “Come in,” I croak out, my throat still dry from sleep.

  He opens the door and peeks his head in cautiously. “Hey,” he says, coming inside and then closing the door behind him.

  “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Augustine called, looking for you. And then Evangeline mentioned she had lunch with you yesterday so I got Darrel to track your company car. What the fuck are you doing up here?”

  He walks across the room and takes a seat in the chair opposite the couch. I sit up, rubbing a hand down my face to wake myself up.

  “Did she tell you?” I ask. “About the house?”

  “What house?”

  “My house.”

  “What about it?”

  “She found out what happened to the family who used to live there.”

  “OK.” He waits for me to explain, so when I don’t, he continues. “Well, what happened to them?”

  “We decided not to tell you.”

  This make him grin, rake his fingers through his tousled hair, and then chuckle. “So why bring it up?”

  “Because that’s why I’m here, I guess.”

  He gets serious then. Props his foot on his opposite knee to wait me out.

  “You remember that time I came up here with my dad to go… hunting?”

  “Which time?” he asks. But I can tell by the expression on his face, just after the words come out of his mouth, that he knows which time.

  I nod. Then swallow hard and lean forward, head in my hands, and stare at my feet. I still have my shoes on. I still have my suit on. I must look like a total fucking mess. “It wasn’t hunting.”

  “No?” Ix asks. Cautious now. “I mean… I figured something bad happened since, you know, what you did that night I stayed over was kinda… drastic.”

  I nod again, then lift my head a little so I can look at him from underneath my tumbling hair. “He had a prostitute waiting for me up here.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. He left me with her and then… then she told me why. He wanted her to fix me.”

  Ixion shakes his head, not understanding. “Fix you? How?”

  “I guess… I guess he was afraid I was gay?” I shrug.

  “What?” Ix whispers.

  “Yeah. So he hired this girl. She was young, like probably not even eighteen. He hired her to… I dunno.”

  “Fuck you, obviously,” Ix offers.

  “No,” I say. “I mean, yeah. That. But it was more than that, Ixion. It was weird. Very, very weird shit. Like BDSM shit.”

  He just stares at me. “Why? I mean, OK. I’ve heard of this kind of shit from other kids when we were in high school. Other boys who got this kind of gift. A kinda get-it-out-of-your-system type thing. But you were like…”

  “Twelve,” I say. “I was twelve.”

  “That’s the year…” But then he pauses. Thinks about that for a second.

  And I wonder, is he putting two and two together now? Because twelve… that’s the year I started using the cameras to find out people’s secrets. That’s the year I talked him into doing it too. That’s the year we figured out his father had a mistress and his mother knew about it, and… yeah. Kinda shattered his perfect illusion of love and family.

  “That’s the year I got weird,” I finish for him.

  “That’s why you wanted to kill yourself that night?”

  I shrug. Because I… guess?

  “Are you gay?” he asks.

  “I guess bi counts as gay. I dunno. I like women too. I don’t really want to fuck dudes. I just want more. I don’t know why, Ixion. It just makes me…”

  “Happy?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yeah. I just like it. I like not being the only one. I like sharing. I like… kink.
” That last word. Kink. It comes out soft and low. Like I’m ashamed, which is stupid. Because everyone already knows all this about me. There’s not a person in my inner circle who doesn’t know what I am. What I like. What I want.

  Even my father knows this. Somewhere along the way he just… accepted it. It’s not a secret. I’m not hiding who I am.

  So why is it so hard to admit it out loud to my best friend?

  “I hate your father,” Ixion finally says, breaking my silence.

  “I don’t,” I say.

  Ixion huffs out a laugh, then sighs. A long, loud exhale. “He was always mean to me. Trying to make me stop being your friend. He was a dick. And when I got out of jail, after… you know… he called me up one day.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” Ix says. “It was the usual sorry-for-your-loss bullshit. But then right before he hung up, he said, ‘You killed them. That stunt you pulled in LA was what killed them.’”

  “Jesus Christ,” I say. “I’m so fucking sorry, Ix.”

  “Wasn’t you. I mean”—he huffs—“I blamed you, I did. But it wasn’t you who killed them. And it wasn’t me either. And you know what?” He stares at me. His eyes glassy. Blurry. Bloodshot like he’s been up all night driving out here.

  “What?”

  “Fuck him. Fuck my dad, ya know? He cheated on my mom all those years. And fuck her too.”

  “Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t—”

  “Don’t what?” He laughs. “Don’t tell the truth? I mean, look. I took the fall for you because I didn’t want your life to get screwed up over such a stupid mistake. And fuck Augustine for believing I was the one who made that sex tape. And fuck Alexander too. Fuck everyone. They all thought I was that kind of guy, ya know? The kind of guy who’d make a sex tape of his friend to ruin her life.”

  “You’re not, I am.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You are that guy.” And then he laughs. “But I don’t even care that you’re that guy. Because deep down we’re all fucked up. Everyone is fucked up. We all have secrets. We all have shame. We all have something in the past we’re not proud of. We all make mistakes. And if he had just left you alone, you’d have been fine. I always knew you loved me. I always knew that, Jordan. Because you wear your love all over your face. And I stuck around anyway.”