Did Lucas go out on his own, then? Probably not. In my previous line of work, I’d dealt with a lot of very rich men. I learned that most of them got that way partly because they never shared their toys. Whoever was keeping Lucas in this kind of style probably expected not just exclusivity, but for Lucas to be here and available at all times.
Would Lucas even want to go out or talk to old friends? He couldn’t discuss his work, as he didn’t have any. He couldn’t share anything about his living arrangement, as that would likely be the end of it.
What did he do all day, every day? Who did he talk to? I assumed no one. Which explained, at least partly, this unendurable outpouring of his heart to me. He was bored, lonely, and taking advantage of the opportunity of an audience.
I’d seen firsthand how much he liked to put on a show.
Was it worth it? I wondered. Sure, it kept him off the streets and surrounded by beautiful things. But was the price Lucas paid for being a rich man’s plaything worth the paycheck?
I couldn’t stand that Tony didn’t shout our love from the rooftops. But at least we could go for pizza together. What must it be like to be not just a secret lover but a hidden one?
These were the questions running through my head as Lucas droned on. I thought of asking them, but Lucas was in the middle of some long story about trying out for his school’s seventh-grade production of West Side Story. At least we’d made it to junior high school.
Besides, while I felt badly for him, I didn’t know that Lucas’s job satisfaction—or lack thereof—was of any more relevance to Brent’s disappearance than whether or not the thirteen-year-old Lucas wound up cast as a Jet or a Shark. I had to move this along.
At least I didn’t have to be subtle about it. Lucas liked it when someone took control.
“Enough.” I cut Lucas off just as he was about to launch into a monologue about how his father took the news that his son was joining the Drama Club rather than the football team. “I think we’ve covered enough of your origin story for one episode. Let’s fast-forward, okay? What do you think happened to Brent?”
Lucas slumped in his chair and took a long swig of his beer. He crushed the can in his hand. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “He said he needed a break. Just for a week or two, he said. But that was two months ago. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“A break? From what?”
“From me. From us.”
What “us” was Lucas talking about? From everything I’d heard, it was over a year ago that Brent had complained to people about Lucas’s overeager pursuit of him. He’d cut off all contact. Why would he have been in touch with Lucas as recently as two months ago?
I could have asked a question, but I seemed to get better responses from Lucas when I framed them as commands.
“Tell me what was going on between you and Brent that he wanted to get away from.” But even as I said it, I knew what the answer must have been.
“He never said anything? Not even to you? I thought you said you were friends.” His voice quavered and his eyes watered again.
I knew what he was thinking. Lucas had no life. Whatever was going on between him and Brent—and what else could it be than the obvious, I realized—was the center of his universe. Lucas didn’t know I’d only met Brent once—he probably assumed we were very close. After all, look at all the trouble I was going to to find him. If Brent hadn’t told me what was going on, then maybe Lucas wasn’t that important to him after all.
At least, that was what I assumed was going through Lucas’s mind.
“Of course he did,” I gambled. “He told me you and he’d became lovers. It meant a lot to him.”
Lucas buried his face in his hands. “Thank god. I was afraid . . . after all this time . . . that he just didn’t care.”
“I’m sure he did,” I fibbed.
“It was hard for him, I know,” Lucas said. “He still had . . . feelings for Charlie. He didn’t want to hurt him. He also wanted to get away from SwordFight. Like I did. That’s what got us talking again.”
“Explain.”
“There was a time—I’m sure Brent told you—when I was kind of . . . obsessed with him.”
“I heard.”
Lucas blushed. “I was. But it wasn’t just him. There was a lot going on in my life at the time.
“My kid brother. He wasn’t like me. I broke away from my father at an early age—I think back when I decided to take the role of Tony rather than join the football team, my dad kind of wrote me off.”
Wow. Who’d have thought that story would turn out to have been relevant? Maybe I should have been paying more attention. I didn’t even remember Lucas mentioning a little brother, although I’m sure he must have during the ten-minute discussion of his family tree.
“I was born a rebel. Never did a goddamn thing I was told to do. Even if it was what I wanted, too, I’d do the opposite just to piss people off.
“But my brother, Colin, was a daddy’s boy. Followed orders like a good little soldier. Did everything my father told him to, including enlisting in the army on his eighteenth birthday. Just like dear old Dad.”
Lucas lifted his face to me. It was pale and stricken, a mask of tragedy. “He was killed in Iraq within a month of his deployment there. His convoy ran over an IED.” Fat tears ran down Lucas’s face but he made no sound. He wiped at them like you wave away flies at a campsite—as if they were pests you expected, accepted, and learned to live with. He was quiet for a minute before saying “And that, as they say, was that.”
He reached for his can of beer and grimaced when he found it empty and crushed. I thought he might get up for another but instead he just scrunched the corpse he held into a smaller and smaller ball.
“I loved that kid. So much. Despite our differences, we were always thick as thieves. I don’t know, but maybe if I wasn’t such a fucking hardass, if I’d listened more, I’d have gone overseas, too. Joined the army like my father always told me to. Maybe I would have been there with Colin. I could have protected him. Saved him. If only I’d followed orders like a good boy.”
Holy Freudian minefield, Batman. I suddenly had a pretty good idea of how Lucas developed his desire to be submissive. Somewhere in his unconscious, he was making up for past sins. He was finally listening.
I wondered earlier if Lucas realized he was living like a prisoner. I bet he couldn’t have articulated it, but some part of him knew that’s exactly what he was doing. It led him here, to the most glamorous solitary confinement in the city. Part of him thought he deserved to be punished for his crimes that led to his brother’s death.
I wanted to give him a hug. I wanted to carry him out of there and get him on the couch of the best therapist I could find. This boy I thought might have hurt Brent was turning out to be the biggest victim yet. The lostest of the Lost Boys.
“When he died, there was a hole in my heart I was sure could never be filled. For a year, I felt empty inside. I’d come to New York to be a real actor, you know. Only, I didn’t have the talent. And I knew it. But I had the looks.
“So, it turned out, did a couple of other thousand guys. Before Colin . . . died, I’d been approached about doing porn. I always turned it down. I had . . . hope I’d make it as a legitimate actor.
“Once he was gone, though, the world was a lot less optimistic. The next time a sleazy guy offered me his card, I called. A month later, I made my first film for SwordFight.
“I liked it. I liked the attention, the sex. I started to feel alive again. When some of my co-stars taught me their tricks, I took their advice.
“I also took their pills. Then, their needles. Turns out I couldn’t fill the hole in my heart, but I could numb it out real good.
“And then, I came across the most dangerous drug of them all. Love.”
“Brent,” I said.
“You got it,” he said. “The boy I was meant to love. The boy who’d been made for me.”
Lucas’s eyes strayed to a framed
photo on the grand piano across the room. I hadn’t noticed it before. Strange, because I should have—it was one of the only personal items in the whole place. And the only one that obviously belonged to Lucas.
He looked as adorable in the photo as he did in every other. Younger than in the other pictures I’d seen, but unmistakably Brent. I was surprised Lucas had it out like that. I couldn’t believe his sugar daddy appreciated having a picture of his boy toy’s ex around.
Unless that was part of the appeal. Having not just your own live-in porn star, but one who was connected to another. Acquisition by association.
Brent stood in front of a typical suburban home. It could have been anywhere. The sun settled against his yellow-blond hair like the heavens were kissing him with light. Even though he squinted against the glare, you could see the affection in his eyes for the person taking the picture.
Lucas saw me catch what he was looking at.
“Did you take that picture?” I asked.
Lucas nodded. I suspected it would have been hard for him to talk at that moment.
“That’s what makes it so special, then. You can see how much he loved you.” As the words left my lips, though, I realized something wasn’t adding up. What was it?
I had some part of the story wrong. Okay, maybe Brent had been sleeping with Lucas on the sly. But love? That deep a connection? When had that developed? Over the year Brent had known Lucas, he was either trying to avoid him or dating Charlie. Unless someone was lying to me, the timeline didn’t make any sense.
Lucas nodded again, this time accompanied by the sound of a man trying to swallow the unwanted lump in his throat. From across the room, I could smell his sweat, which had turned sour.
But who was lying? And why? Someone must have misled me, because I had no doubt that the boy in that photo not only loved but adored the man who took that picture. There was an innocence about it, too. This was a love that contained no shame nor concealed any secrets. From a boy I’d been led to believe either feared Lucas or was having an illicit affair with him. It made no sense.
“I’ve seen hundreds of photos of him,” I said, “but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Brent more beautiful than he looks there.”
Lucas looked at me and, for the first time since I met him, he laughed. But it was a shrill laugh, tinged with a high keen that made me think of breaking glass.
He stood up so suddenly it startled me. He picked up the picture, kissed it, then handed it to me.
“See what I mean?” he said. “Why I believed God sent Brent to me? Why, during one of the worst periods of my life, a time in which I was becoming addicted to four different drugs without even realizing it, I became so obsessed with him?”
I studied the photo he handed me. Yeah, I thought. I can. I’d fall in love with someone who looked at me like that, too.
Then, I peered closer and felt a weird dizziness. Like a kind of double vision as a few details I hadn’t seen before emerged like tiny ripples on a puddle from a single drop of rain. A mole on the left cheek. Bigger ears than I remembered. Darker eyes. Differences so small I’d never have noticed them if I hadn’t been wondering why Lucas felt the need for me take a closer look.
“I assumed . . . ,” I began.
“That’s not Brent,” Lucas said. “That’s my brother. That was Colin.”
32
The Lucas Boy
“Well, you know what they say,” Freddy mumbled through a mouthful of marble cake. “Incest is best.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I insisted.
I’d called Freddy the minute I’d left Lucas’s gilded cage. On the way out, the guard who’d opened the elevator, Matthew Smith, winked at me. “Have fun up there?” he asked.
Something made me think he knew the score between Lucas and his benefactor. I suspected he might have seen a film or two of Lucas’s, too. There was a knowingness in his inflection that you only achieve when you’ve seen a person perform fellatio. It brings people together like that.
Luckily, his goofy smile and foppish hair made his remark more playful than pervy.
I couldn’t help flirting back. “The only way it could have been better,” I answered, “was if you’d joined us.”
Matthew widened his eyes in mock shock and swept back the loose lock of hair that flopped to his forehead. “I don’t know if that place could have stood the three of us in there,” he teased.
“Don’t worry,” I assured him, “it’s bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside.”
Truth was, Matthew’s playful banter was a welcome tonic after Lucas’s increasingly depressing tale. I shook my shoulders like a puppy shedding a summer rain. I needed to talk through what I’d just heard with someone.
Freddy. I was supposed to call him anyway.
“You’re just in time,” Freddy answered the phone. “I was about to ring Tony and tell him you’d gotten yourself in the deep shit again, darling.”
“No,” I said. “Although I do feel like I’ve taken a swim in the sewers. Wanna grab a bite and I can fill you in?”
“Who could resist an invitation like that?” Freddy asked. “What boy doesn’t dream of being invited to dine with someone who’s covered in crap?”
“This is New York, Freddy. Everyone’s full of crap.”
“Yeah,” Freddy agreed. “But most of them have the good sense to keep it on the inside, darling.”
“Okay . . .” Freddy began, scooping up some of the vanilla ice cream he’d ordered as “dessert” for his pound cake. Don’t ask.
How Freddy managed to look like he did while chowing down like a starving dog at an all-you-can-eat buffet I’d never understand. Unless what I’d assumed were his biceps and pecs were really fat deposits. Naw, fat never felt that hard and strong. If he were an X-Man, his mutant ability would be to convert junk food into muscle.
I’d skipped dessert—let alone two—and watched him with envy and hatred.
“. . . let’s say we believe Lucas—that he never fooled around with his real-life brother.”
“I do believe him,” I insisted.
“Okay, Nancy Grace, calm down. I’m giving him that one. But hooking up with Brent because he reminded him of his brother is still kind of icky, don’t you think?”
“Consider the circumstances,” I said. “It’s not like he spotted Brent in a bar somewhere and went out of his way to pick him up. The first time he ever saw him was in a pretty unusual situation that forced them together.
“Remember, at that time, he was at one of the lowest points of his life. He was depressed and feeling guilty about his brother’s death. He was just getting into the adult film industry and experiencing the excitement of having people constantly telling him how gorgeous, special, and desirable he is. At the same time, he’s doing something that goes against every value he’s been taught by his conservative army parents. He’d cut off his family—the one he felt he betrayed by allowing his brother to go to Iraq ‘in his place,’ and he’s becoming part of a new community—one that values him only to the extent he stays hot and available. It’s all jumbled together in one big mindfuck.
“Meanwhile, he’s keeping himself together by self-medicating. Taking every street and prescription pill he can get his hands on.
“One day, he arrives on set tweaked on meth, primed to perform with a hard-on-ensuring Viagra and mellowed out by a Valium chaser. That was pretty much his standard cocktail for filming. He walks into a room crowded with strangers for what he expects will be just another day of shooting. Pardon the pun. That was the dorm room scene we watched.
“There Lucas sees this breathtaking creature who could have been his brother back from the grave. The director introduces them, gives them a simple scenario to act out, and then it’s time to fuck.
“Meanwhile, Brent reads Lucas pretty quickly. He doesn’t know what Lucas’s story is—not yet—but he can tell Lucas is awestruck, almost hypnotized in his presence. Brent, being SwordFight’s hottest new prope
rty and the happy little narcissist he is, assumes Lucas is reacting to his attractiveness and star-status. He takes charge. He seduces the confused, overwhelmed, and somewhat stoned Lucas right there, on camera, before Lucas has a moment to sort out his feelings.”
Knowing that background, the chemistry between the two of them, the impression Freddy and I had watching that scene that whatever was going on between them transcended mere sex, made a lot more sense.
“Are you saying Brent raped Lucas? Took advantage of him in some way?” Freddy asked.
“No, of course not. Lucas was a more-than-willing participant. Brent had no way of knowing Lucas was a mixed-up, overmedicated mess deep enough into drugs and depression to fall into a fantasy that confused his feelings toward his brother with Brent. Brent assumed Lucas’s reactions were strictly sexual. It turned him on to think he had that kind of power over the big stud.”
“It would turn me on, too,” Freddy threw in.
“Shocker. In any case, after the scene was over, Lucas got more and more obsessed with Brent. He told me a part of him knew what he was thinking was insane, but another part of him couldn’t shake the sense that, somehow, Brent was his salvation. Sent to him by God as a second chance with his brother. But this time, one he could rescue and protect.
“A Lost Boy he could save.”
“That,” Freddy observed, “is heavy.”
“Kind of like your ass is going to be if you eat one more thing,” I couldn’t resist pointing out.
Freddy stuck his tongue out at me and then used it to lick his bowl of ice cream.
“Could you be any more disgusting?” I asked, wishing I didn’t notice how long and flexible that tongue was. I wondered if the sexual tension between Freddy and I would ever totally die out, or if it’d always lurk in the background like a Peeping Tom outside his neighbor’s window.
“Absolutely,” Freddy promised. “Wanna see?”
“Yeah, no,” I assured him. “Today’s been depressing enough.”
Third You Die (Kevin Connor Mystery) Page 24