by Neil Plakcy
I struggled not to start yelling at him as soon as I picked up the call. “Hello, Victor.”
“I hope you have learned a lesson, Larry,” he began. “I am in control at all times, and I decide when to end something, and on what terms.”
I didn’t know what to say. Did that mean he expected me to remain his boy toy for as long as he wanted? Not one shot, but for an unlimited time period? I wasn’t going to do that.
“I can see you are not the person I thought you were,” he said. “That sweetness I saw in you was an illusion.”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Victor,” I said.
“One more dinner,” he said. “Tonight.”
Crap. I had planned to cut out of the office at a reasonable hour and bang out the rest of the payment-system work on Julian’s project.
“And if I have dinner with you tonight, you’ll pay your bill with AppWorks?”
“I don’t let others dictate my terms.” Victor paused. “But yes, that is what I intend, assuming everything works out as I have planned.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but I didn’t have a choice. “Tell me where and when.”
“Lincoln Road and Jefferson. Eight o’clock. Don’t be late.”
He hung up before I could say anything more.
Dominic leaned around from his cube. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“Nothing I can’t handle.” I knew I ought to call Julian and explain that I was seeing Victor that night, but I had no idea how long his flight was, or if he was already in the meeting with his attorney. I figured I’d talk to him that night, after whatever was going to happen with Victor Kunin was over and done with.
I trudged back to the condo. As I walked up to the front door, I was surprised to see Angie sitting on the bench outside.
Her shoulder-length brown hair had a bright blue streak in it, her T-shirt looked like a paint-spattered graffiti wall, and chains hung from the waistband of her skinny jeans.
“Hey, Angie,” I said as I got close.
She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. She had gotten her eyebrow pierced, and the skin around the opening was red and angry—just the way I felt. I didn’t need her and her drama on top of all my own problems.
“Hey, Larry. Can I talk to you?”
I wanted to tell her to get the fuck out of my life, but I’d thought of her almost like a sister for years, and I couldn’t do it. “No law against it. Want to come upstairs?”
“Not really. Fancy buildings like this give me the creeps.”
“Come on, then,” I said. “There’s a nice walkway along the water in back.”
I unlocked the gate with my key and led her down a flagstone path to the broad sidewalk that ran along the bay front. The sun was setting, sending streaks of red and yellow across the water. A sailboat bobbed at anchor, and the office towers of downtown Miami glowed gold.
“How’s Linc?” I asked.
“Don’t know. I left him at a motel in Key Largo on Saturday.” She turned to look at me, her profile against the fading light. I’d never noticed how sharp her chin was. “I feel like crap about what happened, but it’s better this way. I was never going to be happy with Leroy, but I couldn’t figure out how to tell him.”
“So you fucked his brother.”
“It wasn’t like that.” She stopped and crossed her arms over her chest.
“That’s the way it looked from the outside.”
“Linc and me, we always had something going. I mean, not like sex, but we were always more, you know, simpatico. I freaked when Leroy asked me to marry him and move in. I wanted to get out of my parents’ house something fierce, so I said yes. But once I was there, it was like get me the fuck out of here.”
“I felt that way when I was in high school,” I said. “But I left, Angie. I didn’t screw around with anybody else’s life.”
“You gotta help me, Larry. I fucked up, and I hate thinking that Linc and Leroy are going to be the ones who suffer.”
Yeah, you’re a regular Mother Teresa, I thought. But I held my tongue. “What do you want me to do?”
“Talk to them both. Tell them I’m a bitch. I was the one who made the mistake. See if you can get them to be brothers again.”
“I don’t know, Angie. Leroy stayed with me for a few days, and he was pretty broken up. I don’t think he can forgive Lincoln anytime soon.”
“See, that’s the thing. He doesn’t need to forgive Linc. Get the two of them together and make ’em hate me.”
A Coast Guard boat motored past, sending a light spray of water toward the shore. “Why?” I asked. “What’s it to you?”
“I’m not a total bitch. I like both your brothers. And I don’t want to have this bad karma on me.”
The wind picked up, and I realized that what I’d thought was spray from the boat was actually the beginning of a rain shower. “I’ll try,” I said.
She went up on tiptoes and kissed my check. “Thanks.” It started to pour, and she sprinted back toward the street. I stayed there for a minute, letting the rain wash over me, and then walked up to the building’s back door.
28 – Ride the Giraffe
I showered and dressed for dinner. The rain had stopped, and the air felt fresh after the wash of negative ions. I got to the corner where I was to meet Victor about ten minutes early and stood outside a beauty salon that advertised new age products and services, most of which I’d never heard of. I knew about Botox, pedicures, and Brazilian waxing, but keratin? Oxygen therapy? A rose-quartz massage sounded painful. And what would a bee-venom face mask do for you? I couldn’t imagine anyone, no matter how vain, who would use bull-semen hair conditioner or snail-secretion skin cream.
A short, chunky girl with frizzy blonde hair stuck her head out of the salon door. “Are you Larry?” she asked in a British accent.
I nodded.
“Come on in, then.” I followed her inside. “You’re a friend of Victor’s?”
“Not really a friend.”
She cocked her head and said, “Oh, I get it. Well, he has a very special treatment in mind for you.”
Yuck, I thought. “Not bull semen or snail cream?”
“No. Have you ever had your body painted before?”
I must have looked at her like she was nuts. “It’ll be fun.” She led me into a back room and closed the door behind her. A massage table covered in a canvas tarp sat in the center of the room. “Strip down to your briefs and get on the table, facedown,” she said.
“Is this going to hurt?”
“Not at all. It’s very sensual.”
Yeah, well, if that was the case, I wanted Julian to be the one painting me. She had some mellow house music playing in the background, and I zoned out as she slapped paint on my skin. I had no idea what kind of design she was painting, but it felt like lots of stripes and swirls, and the paint tubes she was using were yellow and tan and dark brown. “This isn’t going to be as artistic as I’d like,” she said. “But Victor wanted something quick. I guess you guys have some interesting fun planned for tonight.”
I didn’t say anything. Once she finished painting my back, my feet, and the backs of my legs and arms, she used a blow-dryer on me. When my skin was dry, she said, “Now roll over. Carefully!”
I did what she asked, pleasantly surprised that I wasn’t going to embarrass myself with a hard-on.
“Let me put this mask on you, to make sure I don’t get any paint in your eyes.”
With the mask on, my other senses were magnified. The music was eerily soothing, as was the rhythmic slap of her paintbrushes. “It’s a good thing you’re not too hairy,” she said as she worked. “Otherwise this would be a lot harder.”
Nearly two hours had passed before I was able to stand up and get a look at myself in the mirror. “Jesus!” I said. My body, including my bikini briefs, had been painted a light tan, with darker irregularly shaped spots. My legs and feet were white. “I look like a giraffe!”
“That’s the idea,” she said brightly. “Now for the hat.”
She walked over to a rack of goofy hats and face masks and returned with a cap with two spotted horns and ears that stuck out. “Bend down, please,” she said.
I was too stunned to do anything but comply. “Now you are ready for Victor!”
She opened the door from the back room into the salon, but I stood rooted in place. “I’m supposed to go out there?” I asked.
“Of course! Now come, come.”
I thought about my job and how important it was for me to keep it. I had only been working for a few months, and I hadn’t had a chance to save. If I got fired because Victor Kunin refused to pay for his work, I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent. I’d have to move back to Homestead with my parents. And there was no way I was doing that.
“Can I at least have my pants?” I asked her.
“And waste all my beautiful painting? Stop being foolish.”
When I stepped awkwardly out into the salon, Victor Kunin was leaning against a chair with a leather leash and collar in his hands.
“Victor, this is sick,” I said.
“Giraffes don’t speak,” he said. “Lean your head down so I can put this collar around your neck. Then we’re going for a walk.”
I opened my mouth to complain, but I remembered Victor’s temper. Instead I lowered my head, and he hooked the collar in place. Then he headed for the salon door, with me following on the leash.
We began a slow promenade down Lincoln Road. I was dying of embarrassment as people laughed and pointed, took out their cell phones and snapped pictures. It only got worse when I saw a guy I’d often seen at Java Joe’s, and then Eddie, Julian’s interface guy. I hoped neither of them would recognize me under the giraffe hat and body paint.
“Have you learned your lesson?” Victor asked as we approached Washington Avenue, the end of the pedestrian mall.
“Yes,” I mumbled.
“And what is that?”
“Don’t fuck with Victor Kunin.”
He laughed. “Yes, I guess that is the lesson, however you interpret it.”
There was a bigger lesson too, I thought. Don’t mess around where you work. I’d broken that rule twice, first with Victor and then with Julian, and the first screw-up had led me to this point. I knew I’d have to try hard so that the second broken rule wouldn’t have the same kind of terrible consequences. I couldn’t stand to lose Julian after all this.
A little girl in a ballerina tutu pointed at me. “Daddy, I ride giraffe!”
Hell to the no, I thought. Silently I pleaded with Victor to say no.
The girl’s dad interceded, though. “The giraffe is very busy, sweetheart.”
She started to cry. “Wanna ride giraffe!”
Victor leaned down and said, “This giraffe is mine, sweetheart. And I don’t let anybody ride him but myself.”
He used that creepy tone I’d heard from him, and the girl stepped back and nodded, then grabbed her daddy’s hand.
We continued walking, but I was worried. Was I going to have to carry Victor on my back at some point?
Fortunately we reached the salon, and Victor stopped. “I’m done. I’ll messenger over a check to AppWorks tomorrow.”
He dropped his end of the leash and walked away. I watched him go for a moment, then grabbed the handle of the salon door. It was locked.
My heart rate zoomed. What was I supposed to do? Walk all the way home in this ridiculous getup? My house keys and my wallet were inside the salon, along with my clothes.
I banged on the door. “Hello! Somebody!”
Then it began to rain again. I huddled miserably under the salon’s tiny awning and kept banging on the door. Finally a light went on in the back of the salon, and the British woman stepped out of the back. She looked like she had been sleeping.
“That was quick,” she said. “I didn’t expect you back for at least another hour.”
I stalked past her and into the back room, where I unhooked the collar and took off the giraffe cap. I pulled on my clothes quickly and then hurried out the front door. How could Victor have humiliated me so badly, when he had started out as such a nice guy, driving me around in his Porsche, wining and dining me?
There was an awful empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, which had more to do with Julian than Victor. What would Julian say when I told him what had happened? At least I’d only been humiliated—nothing sexual had happened with Victor, nothing that should make me feel guilty about cheating on Julian. But I still felt that way, and it hurt.
I figured the rain would wash away the giraffe paint by the time I got home, but I was wrong. Instead, when I got a glimpse of my face in the reflection of the lobby windows of our building, I saw that the tan and brown had run together. My shirt and pants were soaked, and I was sure they’d have to be trashed.
I looked like a soldier with a bad camouflage job. Manny and Gavin were both in their rooms, which was one small bright spot. I took a long, hot shower. I couldn’t get some of the paint off—faint smudges on my face and distinct giraffe squares on my arms.
Because I desperately had to do something to wash away the awful feelings inside, I did what all geeks do when the world gets to be too much—I retreated to my computer. I caught up with Facebook, watched viral videos, read about the latest gay celebrity to come out of the closet. Finally around two in the morning I fell asleep.
After another shower in the morning, the paint was almost all gone, though there were a few spots still visible on my cheeks and arms. On the bus to work, I worried that one of my fellow riders had seen me parading down Lincoln Road the night before. The Hispanic lady in the maid’s uniform gave me an evil eye, and the fat old man who spanned two seats stared at me like I had a booger hanging from my nose.
I was grateful to slip into my cubicle and get to work. When Kaitlyn bopped up, I was completely in the zone, bug testing the sandwich-store app. “Great news! The model-agency guy had his check messengered over this morning. And he referred another client!”
After I congratulated her and hunched back over my keyboard, she flounced away. I didn’t understand what was going on with Victor, but I hoped that all my contact with him was finished. I would tell Boris to give the new client to someone else.
It was late in the afternoon when my phone buzzed with a message titled WTF. It was a photo that Julian had received from Eddie the interface guy, which he had forwarded to me. It was an excellent shot, capturing me in all my giraffe glory, being led on a leash down Lincoln Road. No text at all.
I pushed my chair back and walked out to the lobby. “I’m taking a break,” I said to Mila. “Be back soon.”
“Must be nice,” she muttered, but she smiled and waved good-bye.
Outside, the gray skies reflected my mood as I dialed Julian’s cell phone. The call went right to voice mail, which meant that either he was on another call or had shut the phone off. Or that he’d blocked my number.
“Call me, Julian. I can explain what happened, but it’s complicated, all right?”
I walked around the block holding my phone, hoping Julian would call me right back. But he didn’t.
29 – Emergency
My mood was as dark as a broken monitor. When I went back up to the office, I couldn’t focus. I kept glancing at my phone, hoping Julian would call me or send me another text or something. I stayed at my cube until the office staff left at five thirty, then sneaked out while the rest of the programmers were busy.
It was pouring again, and I huddled under the bus shelter with rain coming in sideways at me. The bus was hot and damp, and I could smell every person around me. I tried to think of anything else besides Julian and that picture he’d seen, and I remembered that Angie had asked me to try to engineer a reconciliation between my brothers.
It was close to six o’clock, which meant Lincoln was probably in that happy time between getting off work and getting completely drunk. So after I went upstairs, t
ook yet another shower, and pulled on a T-shirt and shorts, I called him.
It sounded like I’d woken him. “Leavis,” he grumbled.
“Leavis number one. This is number three.”
I heard some rustling, like he was trying to sit up. “Larry?”
“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”
“What do you want?”
Fuck. I guess I should have thought through what I was going to say. “Just checking up on you, bud,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“It hurts when I piss,” he said. “I think the bitch gave me some kind of disease before she left.”
I’d spent a couple of days with Leroy, and he hadn’t complained of anything. “Sure you didn’t work it too hard?”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“No, thanks. I know where your dick has been.”
“Thanks for the call, Mary Sunshine. I’m hanging up.”
“Hold on, Linc. Listen, I’m sorry. I, uh, talked to Angie last night.”
“Don’t tell me she hit on you too.”
“Nah. I’m too ugly for her. She likes the pretty boys like you and Leroy.”
That got Linc to laugh.
“Listen, she feels like this business is all her fault. She asked me to try and get you and Wee-Roy to kiss and make up.”
“Like I’d ever kiss his ugly face.”
At least he could still make a joke. “Where are you now?”
“My buddy Jeff’s place.” Jeff worked at the motorcycle shop with Lincoln. He was a forty-something underachiever with a Harley, a Hell’s Angels jacket, and a bad attitude.
“If Leroy’s okay with it, would you go home?”
“I don’t know, Larry. He probably wants to sneak up on me in the middle of the night and cut my dick off.”
“I doubt it. I think he knows this whole business was Angie’s fault.”
Lincoln started to cry.
“Jesus, bud. You’re not in love with her or anything, are you?”
He snorted back a sob and said, “With that skank? No way. I hate the way she used me.”