Hiroku

by Laura Lascarso

  Like most things regarding Seth’s choices in life, a lot of it came back to his bipolar diagnosis and how his prescription drugs had failed him, which made me wonder how much of his behavior was even within his control? Could therapy help him, as I’d suggested it might, or would it only make him feel like a failure because his chemical imbalance would never be resolved by talking it out?

  Kyle and I became friends as well. We spent enough time together in Seth’s apartment that we started hanging out at school when it was convenient. I learned his supplier was a nurse who worked at an assisted living facility. Though he didn’t tell me who or which one, I sensed the nurse was a relative of his, and selling drugs was a way for them to supplement their income.

  It would be so much easier if I could think of Kyle as a bad guy, using people like Seth as a way to profit from their addiction, but Kyle wasn’t making a ton of money at what he did, and he was addicted to the drugs himself, which made it hard for me to hold it against him.

  It also wasn’t difficult to get the drugs. Seth’s other two dealers weren’t great people, but their customer service was worthy of a five-star rating. At any time of day Seth could make a call, and ten minutes later there’d be a knock on his apartment door. No questions and no complications, they were like the Uber of drug dealers.

  It was in this highly sanitized, highly “safe” environment that my curiosity at what it might feel like to fly with them began to grow.

  One night, Kyle and Seth were “cooking up dinner” in Seth’s kitchen, and I was bedazzling a black leather corset for the band’s upcoming show. Petty Crime was playing out again at The Tomahawk on Halloween night, and the band was going dressed as characters from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Seth, predictably, was Dr. Frank N. Furter, Mitchell was Riff Raff, Dean was Eddie, Sabrina was Columbia, and I was Rocky Horror, Frank’s lab creation. My job, according to Seth, was to lounge around on a chaise they’d set up onstage and read a book, stopping on occasion to casually strut across the stage in my shiny, gold underwear. I predicted that having me onstage would be a disaster, but as Seth argued, I’d signed that piece of paper, which meant my dignity came second to the band’s needs.

  Seth was telling Kyle about the show, and Kyle was saying he’d try to make it. They brought the finished product to the coffee table where I was working. I moved my jewels and fabric aside to make room for them. Seth and Kyle both admired my work—Seth saying I was far better at evenly spacing the studs than he was. Kyle, not having seen Rocky Horror, asked if the corset was part of my costume.

  “No, this is for Seth. My costume is even worse if you can believe it.”

  Kyle’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “So shiny, so elastic,” Seth said while leering at me. He’d already gotten a lot of mileage out of that purchase. “If you want to see Hiroku in his gold undies, you’ll have to come to our show.”

  “Keep Austin Weird,” Kyle said. It was our city’s unofficial motto and one that we art freaks kept authentic. “I wish I was gay. I’d get so much play with these classic good looks.” He raked his hand through his tousled waves of golden brown hair and preened a little for our amusement. We both laughed. Kyle was about 99% heterosexual, so it made him an easy friend for both of us to share.

  Then Seth turned his attention to laying out the lines with fastidious attention. Dosage was important to him. And timing. Kyle watched Seth’s movements as if in a trance. It was like when you were really hungry and you could smell the food as it was being brought to the table.

  I remembered what Melody had said about flying.

  “Do you think a person could try it without becoming addicted?” I asked them.

  Seth stopped what he was doing and glanced up at me. Kyle’s brow furrowed at the interruption but seemed to pick up on Seth’s shift in attention.

  “I think you could,” Seth said carefully.

  I’d tried to make it seem like it was only a hypothetical question, but Seth knew my intent. “Are you sure about that?” As an expert on both me and getting high, I trusted Seth to know if I could handle it or not.

  “Positive. And I’ll be right here with you. I’ll watch over you and make sure nothing goes wrong.”

  I bit my lower lip and looked at the white lines laid out like a measure of music.

  “Do you think I should?” I asked Kyle. I needed a second opinion on this.

  Kyle glanced over at Seth, and something unknown to me passed between them.

  “Seth would know better than me,” Kyle said. “But I would only take a little bit your first time.”

  “One line,” Seth said, swiping away the others with a credit card in one deft movement.

  I stared at it, having second thoughts. Seth scooted sideways and motioned me over. I sat down in front of the line and swallowed. It looked so innocuous, like a thin line of baby powder or baking soda, and it was such a small amount. Seth handed me the snipped-off straw.

  Like when I got my first piercing or jumped off that cliff at McKinney Falls, Seth was right beside me, but my stomach was still in knots, and my head felt a little dizzy. My heart sounded like a too fast drumbeat in my ears.

  Seth rubbed my back and whispered reassuring words. “I’m right here with you, Hiroku. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. You’re safe with me.”

  I knew it was a bad idea—possibly my worst idea—but I couldn’t contain my curiosity. I took a deep breath, exhaled, then leaned over and inhaled through the straw, sharp and fast. The powder tickled my nostrils and then burned my sinuses and made my head ache just a little bit. Seth sat behind me and guided me back against his chest. My head fell against his shoulder, and he kissed my forehead.

  “I don’t think it’s working,” I told him.

  “Just wait.” Seth gazed down at me with a tender expression.

  I sucked in my lips and glanced listlessly around the room. Both Seth and Kyle were watching me like their personal science experiment. Kyle looked a little anxious, his eyes like saucers, and I wanted to reassure him that I was okay.

  I took a few more breaths and gazed vacantly around the room. And then it hit me—a full body relaxation followed by a surge of unimaginable pleasure, raising me up off the carpet of Seth’s apartment and levitating me into the air. My entire body was encased in the most delicate silk-spun cloud of sunshine and rainbows, caressing every nerve ending with a loving touch, lifting me up, up and away.

  “I love you more than anything else in this world,” Seth whispered with tears in his eyes, but I was a helium balloon, and he was so far away and getting smaller and more irrelevant by the second.

  There was no room in my mind for Seth or anything else. All of that space was taken up by this all-encompassing and otherworldly pleasure.

  “Hallelujah,” I uttered as my soul escaped my body.

  It was better than falling in love.

  In the days that followed, I tried so very hard not to think about it or pine for it. At school, at home, and especially with Seth, I tried to put the experience out of my mind.

  But I couldn’t. And it scared me.

  We were at school a few days after getting high together in Seth’s apartment, when Kyle told me I probably shouldn’t do it again. “You’re going places, Hiroku. That shit will only hold you back.” I agreed outwardly while at the same time wondering how much just one pill might cost and how many I could get with what I currently had in my bank account.

  When Seth asked me if I wanted to get high with him two nights later, I hesitated, then pretended like I hadn’t heard him.

  “I said, do you want to come over and get high with me tonight?” Seth asked like it was nothing. Perhaps it was nothing to him, but to me, it was a really big deal. It was supposed to be a one-time thing to satisfy my curiosity and nothing more.

  “I can’t. I have jiu-jitsu tonight.” I was glad we were talking by phone and not FaceTime. I was sure he’d see something on my face that contradicted my words.

&nb
sp; “Hot date with Fabio, huh?” Seth asked.

  “It’s a purely professional relationship,” I assured him because he was spending way too much time preoccupied with the thought of us together.

  “Wouldn’t you rather come over here though?” Seth purred into the phone. “We can order in. I’ll undress you with my teeth, tie you up to the bedposts, and fuck your brains out, and then we’ll get high together? Doesn’t that sound like more fun, baby?”

  It did sound like fun, but I didn’t want Seth to know how badly I wanted more.

  “I can’t tonight,” I repeated. “I’ll see you Saturday for the show.”

  He groaned like he was getting paid to do it. “Remember, you’re a pivotal part of our performance,” Seth said severely. He knew I’d been having misgivings about strutting around practically naked on stage, wearing nothing but gold briefs and a smile.

  “I told you already, I’ll be there.”

  I went to jiu-jitsu that night, then home, then to bed, and then to school, but always in the back of my mind was the echo of that fierce and potent pleasure and the desire to access that feeling again. It was an overwhelming itch I wanted to scratch.

  The next time I saw Seth was for Petty Crime’s Rocky Horror Picture Show themed concert. I fulfilled my duties as eye candy adequately, and the audience raved at their campy performance, throwing rice on stage and shooting us with water pistols. Seth ate it up. He was magnificent at Frank-N-Furter in all of his black leather and fishnet glory. He’d been practicing walking in stilettos all week, and his investment of time really paid off. Seth wasn’t shy about putting his hands on me during the performance, to the point that I had to turn my back to the crowd and remind Seth with a look that I was only human.

  They closed out their performance with a cover of Violent Femmes’ “American Music,” and I was surprised when a good portion of the audience knew it and started singing and clapping along. I felt a rush that the band probably always felt from performing. I could see how it was like a drug all its own.

  Of course, it didn’t quench my other, more pressing craving.

  There was an after party at the house of one of Seth’s groupies. Her name was Patricia, but they called her Tish. Seth had recruited her to play Magenta and sing backup for the band. She’d teased out her hair and spray-painted it purple as well as donning a French maid’s costume. I sensed there had been something going on between her and Seth in the past but that it was over now. Her outfit was provocative enough to offer me some stiff competition, but at least while I was around, Seth only had eyes for me.

  I tried to change back into my regular clothes after the show, but Seth insisted I work the party in my gold booty shorts. Seth still wore his costume, only with combat boots, so I didn’t feel completely ridiculous. Sabrina was kind enough to lend me her sequined jacket, so I more closely resembled a Rockette as opposed to a straight-up stripper.

  We arrived fashionably late, via Seth’s van, which was also used to transport the equipment to and from shows. The whole band was amped up on the post-show rush, and the costume aspect made it all the more festive. Tish kept our drinks refilled, which was hospitable of her. I drifted away from Seth’s orbit to catch up with Mitchell and Jeannie. There was a weird kind of tension there, but I kept the conversation light. A few minutes later, Seth came around and caught my eye, nodding for me to follow him inside the house.

  We ended up making out in the laundry room. The door had a lock, so I was down for it. But I’d left my wallet in the van, which was also where I kept my condoms. Of course, Seth wasn’t carrying anything on him. I’d gotten a prescription for PrEP that summer through the health department and started taking it when Seth and I started hooking up again, but that did nothing to prevent a whole host of other STI’s. I told him we’d have to wait until later when we were back at his apartment.

  “Come on, Hiroku. Just this once? I’m begging you.” Seth dropped down on his knees and clasped his hands together, glancing from my face to my dick, which was protruding from within my tight, metallic pants like a king’s golden scepter. He nuzzled my balls with his nose.

  “We don’t have lube either. You’ll have to settle for a blow job.”

  Seth hooked his finger under the elastic band of my costume and tugged a little. “You’ve been walking around in this all night. Tempting me. I’ve held out as long as I possibly can. I’ll give you anything you want. Gold, diamonds, fried tofu?”

  I’d been thinking about getting high all night—it was hard not to when everyone around us was either doing it or planning on doing it later. It was the weekend, and it was Halloween, a special occasion. It wasn’t like I was getting high before school or alone in my bedroom.

  There was also a part of me that worried if I didn’t give Seth what he wanted, he’d go seek it somewhere else.

  “Fine, but after this, we go get high,” I told him.

  Seth glanced up at me as if he couldn’t believe what I’d just said. He completely abandoned my aching dick and stood slowly.

  “Have you been thinking about getting high?” he asked with a knavish look in his eyes. Kitsune.

  I shrugged like it wasn’t a thing, but it was too late. Seth had spotted the chink in my armor.

  “How many times have you thought about it, baby?” he asked while trailing his fingertip down the center of my bare chest and causing me to shiver.

  How many minutes are there in a day?

  “I don’t know. A few.”

  “So, you liked it?” he asked, eyes glinting.

  “It was all right.” I looked away so he wouldn’t see the bald craving in my eyes.

  Seth wrapped one arm possessively around my waist. “How about this? You stick by my side all night, and when people ask who you are, you tell them you’re my boyfriend. And you mean it. Then we’ll go get high.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, sensing this was a trap. “What does that mean, your boyfriend?”

  “It means you’re mine, Hiroku, and only mine.” I opened my mouth to protest, and he placed his forefinger against my lips in a shushing motion. He traced the shape of my mouth with his fingertip and said, “In exchange, I will blow your mind whenever you want. We’ll do this thing together. You and me, all the way.”

  “But you’ll still fuck around?” I asked, knowing this offer came with contingencies.

  “I can fuck around without any emotional attachment. You can’t.”

  “You don’t know that.” I hated it when he made assumptions about me. I especially hated it when I suspected he might be right.

  He stared at me like he was trying to tunnel his way right into my soul, like a wood-boring beetle. “I have your name tattooed on my chest, Hiroku. I spend all of my time with you. I made you sign a contract with the band. You have more of your stuff at my apartment than you have at your own house. I asked you to marry me, which you blew off. What more of a commitment do you want from me?”

  “I want you to be faithful,” I said stubbornly. It didn’t seem like a lot to ask, but it made me feel so weak and needy to say it out loud.

  “You are the only person I’ve ever loved, Hiroku, and I will never leave you. You know in your heart that’s true. We have a cosmic connection.”

  That was Seth’s way of demurring, but he wasn’t wrong.

  “So, you’re saying that if I only have sex with you, you’ll get me high whenever I want?” Maybe if I said it out loud, Seth would realize how messed up it was.

  He gave me a reproachful look. “No, I said that if you commit to me, I promise to take care of all of your needs—emotional, mental, sexual, and metaphysical. And you know I’ll do a good job of it.”

  He reached down into my pants, squeezed me hard enough to bring me to the edge of pain.

  “No one knows you like I do,” Seth said and kissed my neck, then scraped his teeth against the tender skin of my throat like a gothic vampire stripper. “Please say yes to me, baby. Just this once. I only want to make you feel
good. Pretty please?”

  I felt myself slipping into my old ways, falling under his spell, but what was I gaining by holding out? I could walk away from this arrangement at any time, and if another man caught my eye, I’d deal with Seth’s jealousy then. Besides, I doubted anyone else could give me what Seth provided, so specifically curated to my needs and magicked from the heady mist between us. He’d created me, after all.

  I sighed into Seth’s shoulder. I couldn’t bring myself to say yes.

  But I also didn’t say no.

  NOW

  The word “addiction” has Latin roots. It means to enslave. The Latin translation proclivitas literally means a steep descent.

  I think the most shocking thing to me now, looking back, is how quickly my addiction took hold. And how all-consuming it became. How the things I once cared about became less important. My thoughts were never without that background buzz of need, which grew louder and more insistent the closer I thought I was getting to my fix. Choices that would have once given me great existential grief, or at the very least, made me pause to reconsider, I began to make somewhat effortlessly if it meant getting me closer to getting high.

  I suppose that’s where the shame comes in too. Because as my addiction grew, my personhood diminished so that at times I’d look in the mirror and see nothing of my former self, only the shell of my insatiable craving. A mask I wore for my parents or my schoolmates in order to live this dual existence, knowing I could only keep it up for so long before the whole charade fell apart.

  All that time I’d been struggling against Seth for a sense of self, but my addiction claimed that almost immediately. I was a slave to it, and the descent was indeed steep and swift.