Juggernaut

by Amelia C. Gormley

  Zach waved off the words. “I don’t care about that. At least the money my father paid me went to some good, in the end.”

  “Still, you might have needed it if he—”

  “He hasn’t spoken again about kicking me out. I think he’s afraid of the scandal it would create if anyone found out.” He sighed and rounded the desk to drop onto the sofa beside Bryan. “I’m sorry. I wish we could have done more.”

  “Don’t. You did everything you could. I know Andrew would be so grateful.”

  “I just— I wish—” Zach’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I don’t even know anymore. I don’t.”

  “Hey.” Bryan’s hand settled on his wrist and squeezed. “It’s okay. Maybe at the end of the day, the important thing is that we didn’t give up trying to get justice for him.”

  Zach forced a wan smile. “Maybe. Maybe I just need to have faith that God will see to dealing out justice.” He met Bryan’s hazel eyes, and he felt his own smile brighten into something more genuine. Working with Bryan these last months had both strengthened and shaken his faith, but they’d forged a friendship, the two of them. “So what’s next for you? Have you had any luck with job prospects?”

  Bryan snorted. “Excuse me if I don’t spare your sensibilities when I say ‘fuck no.’” They laughed together, and Bryan’s thumb caressed the knob of his wrist joint idly. Zach blinked at it and looked away, which only made him that much more aware of the contact. Bryan was a touchy person, and probably just missed his husband’s affection. He had no way of knowing that he was making a knot twist and tighten deep in Zach’s gut. Something squirmy and uncomfortable that left him deeply uneasy.

  Because it wasn’t a bad feeling. Not at all.

  “I don’t know,” Bryan said. “I couldn’t find a job with a company that offered subsidized housing even if I wanted to, but what else is there for a tenement rat like me? I mean, I was motivated enough to spend a lot of time reading, so I’m better educated than a lot of the kids who grew up in the tenements, but still . . .”

  Zach swallowed and laid his hand over Bryan’s, stilling the stroking of that single digit. “I’ve been inquiring too, but all my contacts come through my father, and even if I weren’t persona non grata there, those people aren’t exactly trustworthy.”

  Since his last confrontation with his father, living in the reverend’s house had become a very cold existence. Zach may not have been formally disowned, but he might as well have been living alone for all the companionship he found in his family home. His father acted as though Zach didn’t exist, and each time his mother and sisters began to have a conversation with him, the reverend would appear with something that needed their attention right now. The only one who went out of his way to speak to Zach was Jacob, and that was to gloat at his favored place in their father’s esteem.

  Bryan shrugged. “I wouldn’t want you to do that anyway. Actually, I have one small hope of an opportunity.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, um . . .” Was that a blush creeping up from under Bryan’s collar? “There’s a company based out of Princeton, New Jersey. Word circulated around the tenements that they were recruiting, and I think I might be qualified. It’s not what I ever imagined myself doing, but it’s a living, and I hear good things about the company.”

  “Really? What would you be doing?”

  “Um . . .” Bryan cleared his throat and looked away. “Working as an escort.”

  “What?” Heat blossomed up Zach’s neck and across his face. “You’re joking.”

  Bryan gave Zach a tense look and pulled his hand out from under Zach’s. “Actually, I’m not. At this point, it’s either that or the military, and I just can’t bring myself to . . . Look, I know what your beliefs are, and I respect them, but I don’t share them. I think God would be a lot less unhappy with me working as a rentboy than if I were killing people for a living. I’ve heard terrible things about the corporate brothels, but if these ballot measures pass in November, a lot of jobs will be opening up in three different states for escorts who want to work as independent contractors. It’s a chance, and those are pretty rare right now.”

  “I know, but Bryan—” Zach forced himself to close his mouth, shutting his eyes while he was at it, asking God for some guidance. He was just a man, human and thus fallible and in no way fit to be anyone’s judge, but it was hard to remember that when everything inside him believed that what Bryan proposed to do was an outrage. “What about Andrew?” he asked at last.

  Bryan looked away. “What about him? It’s been over a year, and Andy would prefer for me to find work where and how I can than starve on the streets saving myself for his memory.” He lifted his head and turned back to meet Zach’s eyes. “Besides, some people, after a loss like this, they hurt too much to consider being with someone else, but I—” He shrugged, a helpless, befuddled gesture. “I just miss it. Andy and I made a lot of beautiful memories that way. I want that again.”

  Zach’s flush grew hotter. “You’re not going to find it working as a wh—an escort.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m definitely not going to find it here in the shelter.” Bryan made a derisive sound. “It’s a chance to get out, Zach. Don’t you see that? To be something better than a tenement rat.”

  “I know! I just . . . I can’t stand the thought of it.”

  Bryan smirked, a teasing glint in his eye. “Why, Zach, are you jealous?”

  Oh Lord, his face was going to combust if he kept this up. “Don’t be stupid. I’m—” His eyes widened, teasing and being teased forgotten as another thought occurred to him. “I’m afraid you could be hurt.”

  “Afraid? What do you mean? I’ve been told this service takes precautions against anyone hurting their employees . . .”

  “Yeah, but—” Zach pressed his lips together, damming the suspicions that had been nagging at him since the beginning of summer. “Don’t you remember those bombings?”

  Those bombings the Righteous Action League had claimed responsibility for. Those bombings masterminded by a man named Dennis Adams, leader of the so-called Midsummer Martyrs, or so the prosecutors were trying to prove in court. Those bombings for which the Righteous Word Party had been investigated for possibly abetting.

  The bombings had happened right after the reverend had announced his candidacy, which had been moved up to coincide with protests of the midsummer festivities, at the behest of a man his father had called Dennis . . .

  He couldn’t tell Bryan all that. Couldn’t give those horrible suspicions a voice and lend them any more weight than they already had as wild flights of his imagination. Whatever he thought of his father’s politics, he couldn’t believe the reverend would actively conspire with terrorists and murderers.

  “Zach . . .” Bryan’s voice was full of tender fondness, touched with something sad. His hand closed over both of Zach’s, which were twisting together in his lap, but Zach didn’t dare look up, afraid of what he might give away. “Thank you for caring.”

  Lips gently brushed his cheek, and he jerked his head around to stare at Bryan in shock. He was so close, his hazel eyes huge and beautiful and filling Zach’s vision. He could feel the whisper of his breath, and his stomach lurched, his heart taking off at a jackrabbit pace. There was something in Bryan’s eyes, something that went beyond friendship and gratitude. Had it always been there? How was he only now noticing it? And then Bryan’s mouth covered his, and thought and fear and reason all just melted away under an onslaught of feeling.

  He’d kissed before. He’d had sex before. He’d had a girlfriend in high school and another in college. He’d been fond of them, tried to convince himself he loved them, even, though he’d never quite succeeded. He’d ended the first relationship because he’d felt guilty being with her and knowing she wasn’t the woman he wanted to cleave to, as the Bible said he should. The second had ended when he’d graduated and returned home to work for his father. He’d been grateful for the excuse for the same reason he�
�d broken up with his high school sweetheart: something had been missing.

  Zach had thought it was simply a product of his discontent over giving up his dreams of a ministry, but nothing seemed to be missing from Bryan’s kiss. He tasted sweet—oh Lord, so sweet! He smelled earthy and inexplicably alluring, despite the must of his dingy, thirdhand suit and the odor of unwashed humanity that seemed to pervade the shelter. Zach wanted to breathe and taste him forever. He didn’t even realize he’d pressed closer with a plaintive moan until Bryan’s arms closed around him and his tongue advanced, teasing Zach’s lips open.

  And they did. God help him, he opened and let Bryan in. And it was good. So terribly good. His fingers somehow made their way into Bryan’s ragged, slightly greasy hair, and he met that inviting tongue with his own, as if he would drink it down. Drink Bryan down. Inhale him. Absorb him into his very cells.

  This must be it, he thought wildly. He could hear his father condemning him, imprecations of sin and evil ringing through his mind. Surely this was how damnation happens. Not with a feeling of guilt and wrongdoing, but with this terrible, terrible sense of rightness. This must be how Satan lured you in, by making it feel so good, so perfect, that it seemed wrong could never touch you, that sin could never have any relation to what you were doing.

  Either that or everything he knew about sin and God and morality and himself was wrong, and always had been.

  He tore himself from Bryan’s mouth with something close to a sob, his breathing ragged. His tongue flicked against his lip, and he could taste Bryan there, and all he wanted to do was dive back in for more of that flavor.

  “I can’t!” he gasped, closing his eyes, trying to put the temptation behind him. But all he could feel was the heat of Bryan’s body so near, the moist, warm breath still brushing his face, and he wanted it back, all of it.

  “Zach—” He heard yearning and frustration in Bryan’s voice, and sadness, as well. Finally Bryan pulled away, drawing himself to the other end of the sofa. “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding defeated. “Apparently I read you all wrong.”

  “What?” Zach blinked at him, clenching his hands against the itching urge to reach out and draw Bryan back. “Read me wrong? I never—”

  “Yeah, Zach, you did. I brushed against you once, just to see if you’d react, to try to get an idea of which way you swung, and ever since you’ve been putting yourself within reach of me, inviting me to touch you a little more each time.”

  “I—” Zach floundered for a rebuttal but couldn’t manage one. Dear Lord, Bryan was right. After that first time, it had always been Zach placing himself in Bryan’s personal space, seeking those subtle little caresses. Enjoying them. Denying that they meant anything at all, that it was just Bryan being touchy-feely. What in God’s name had he been thinking?

  “That’s not who I am, Bryan,” he said dully, knowing that he was lying. He’d wanted Bryan to push the issue, to make a move on him, to exonerate him of making the advance himself.

  “You sure about that?” Bryan’s voice hardened a little, sounding a bit bitter. “Because it felt a lot like you were kissing me back just now.”

  Zach covered his face with his hands, feeling the tingle of his lips beneath his palms. How had this happened?

  He tried to envision telling his father and shrank away from the thought in terror. There it was. There was the shame he should have felt when Bryan had been kissing him.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said finally, his eyes burning with tears he didn’t quite understand. “But I’m not ready, Bryan. If I am . . . what I am . . . I’m not ready for what that might mean.”

  “I know,” Bryan murmured sadly, and Zach lowered his hands but stared down into his lap, unable to meet Bryan’s eyes. After a moment, he felt Bryan’s hand on his hair in an undemanding caress. “Take care, Zach. Thanks for everything.”

  He barely heard the door close, but when he looked up, Bryan was gone, and Zach knew he’d seen his only friend for the last time.

  LATE NOVEMBER

  “Have you any idea what this is about?”

  Nico looked at his mother when she spoke. She was seated across from him in McClosky’s limousine as it wound its way along the mountain highways toward the general’s cabin. A heavy, wet snow lay on the ground between the dense trees, and the car’s tires splashed over the slush on the roads.

  “No.” Nico shook his head. “To be honest, I’m trying not to think about it too much.”

  After the general’s recovery, he and Nico had scheduled a contract for the weekend after Thanksgiving. But earlier in the month, McClosky had sent a very earnest—someone who knew him well might even say urgent—request for Silvia and Nico both to spend Thanksgiving at his cabin. That had thrown them both. They’d each had the general as a client at one time or another, and they both knew it. While Nico and his mother were fairly upfront about such matters, there was a certain amount of “out of sight, out of mind” they applied to the situation to keep it from feeling too incestuous. McClosky’s invitation to them both—especially when he had booked Nico’s time for the long weekend—had them off-balance and unsure of the general’s intent.

  Shrugging uncomfortably, Nico called up the news on the HUD and divided his attention between the broadcast and his mother. A medical alert logo appeared before the anchorwoman’s sober face faded in.

  “The Virginia Department of Health is now investigating what may be the first confirmed Virginian case of what appears to be a new strain of antibiotic-resistant, flesh-eating bacteria. The lethal infection was first documented in Maryland in September and resulted in the closure of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, for decontamination. Since then, at least two dozen other cases have been reported . . .”

  Silvia shuddered. “Turn that off, Nicolás.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me you’re squeamish, Mother. I saw you kill someone with your bare hands this summer.”

  “Yes, well, that was in self-defense and didn’t involve the words ‘flesh-eating,’ now did it?”

  Nico snickered and shut off the HUD. He crossed the space between the opposing seats and sat beside her. “Are you all right, Mamá?”

  She nodded, though her gaze darted rapidly past his face, refusing to settle on his eyes. “Of course. I suppose I’m looking forward to the new year. Between your being attacked and the bombing and threats, it seems this year has been more bad than good. I’ll be glad to move on.” She shrugged, clasping her hands together. “I don’t know. Something about this doesn’t sit right with me. Logan has been a client since before you were born, and I’ve never heard that tone from him. He’s a good friend, but it seems as if he’s accompanied all our misfortunes this year.”

  “Now you just sound superstitious.” Nico smirked, trying to imagine the flinty general unnerved about anything. “Maybe he’s just nervous about facing you again, even if you did forgive him.”

  Silvia forced a smile, patting Nico’s hand. “Yes, I’m sure that’s it.”

  They spent the rest of the ride in silence, though his mother’s hand remained on his, stroking occasionally like she needed to touch him to reassure herself that he was there. Nico found himself staring down at it, trying to pinpoint the moment when it had begun to look like an older woman’s hand. Slender and delicate boned, with dark-blue blood vessels snaking under thin bronze skin. Silvia hadn’t tried to evade old age by surgical or pharmaceutical means and had instead opted to face it with grace and dignity, letting it ripen into a different sort of beauty.

  Still, she had always seemed ageless to Nico. At least until now, when the years had begun to show in that frail hand.

  The general welcomed them at the door to his cabin with all the warmth one would expect of family at the holidays. Not for the first time, Nico wondered why McClosky had no family of his own. It had always felt tactless to ask, but perhaps his mother knew.

  “Let me show you to your rooms,” the general offered, helping Silvia with he
r coat and greeting her with a restrained kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Well, I could hardly refuse such an invitation.” She turned dark, slightly censorious eyes on him. “What is this about, Logan?”

  “We’ll talk over dinner.” He clasped her hand in both of his and brought it up to his chest, an almost old-world gesture. There was something beseeching in his eyes, and Nico realized that he, too, seemed older than he had just a few months before. “I was about to pull it out of the oven.”

  McClosky showed them each to a guest room, which was out of the ordinary. Usually when the general had him to the cabin, Nico was ensconced in the master bedroom with his client. It seemed further evidence that, though McClosky had booked Nico’s time as though it were any other assignation, he had something else in mind entirely.

  They made subdued chitchat over their turkey, and Nico noticed his mother looking at McClosky almost as closely as he himself was doing. Finally, the general pushed away his barely touched plate and drained his glass of wine—his fourth that evening—leaning back in his chair.

  “Silvia, Nicolás,” he began, then paused, drawing a deep breath and releasing it in a sigh. “I’d like to speak to you about closing Costas Companions down for a while. At least until after the holidays. Preferably for the whole winter.”

  “What? Why?” they demanded, talking over each other. Nico wasn’t sure which of them spoke more sharply, but his mother nearly came to her feet with indignation.

  “Why would you ask me to do such a thing?” she asked.

  “Believe me, please, Silvia. I would not do so without a valid reason. I can’t say more, but you will both be in danger if you continue working. In fact, it would be best for you both if you left public life altogether.”

  Silvia settled back into her chair. “Have there been more threats from the RAL that the FBI hasn’t informed us of?” She grimaced. “I won’t let those terrorists win. I won’t. I run a legal business, and I do so ethically. They can’t shut us down. I won’t permit it.”