Infected

by Andrea Speed

  Dee had picked up the flyer for the band and scowled at it. “Bussard Ramjet? You’re just asking for innuendo jokes.”

  “That might be part of the joke, but I don’t know them well enough to say.” Chai handed him E’s flyer.

  “These friends of yours?”

  “The DJ is. The band contains his boyfriend.”

  Dee somehow frowned even more violently at the second flyer. “DJ Glittertrash? Oh, come on. How the hell do you know him?”

  “He’s a fellow former man whore. We called him E.”

  Dee put the flyer down. “Can I hope it’s ’cause his name starts with e?”

  “Yes.” Chai paused briefly to take a sip of his mocha. Still pretty damn hot. “No, it’s because he did lots of E, and he was more than happy to share it.”

  “Yes, that’s what I was hoping it wasn’t,” Dee said. He seemed unusually relaxed, but that was probably because he hadn’t started working with the public and trying to save people’s lives and all that stuff. Chai could easily see how that would be stressful and had no idea how Dee stood it. The first time someone barfed on him, Chai’s service would end. “So he plays all that dance music that pounds like a migraine and sounds pretty much the same?”

  Chai shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard him spin yet. But if his musical tastes are the same, then yes, probably.”

  “Ugh. I don’t suppose Bussard Ramjet are any better.”

  “Haven’t heard them either.”

  “Figures. But with a name like that… maybe postpunk prog rock with a psychedelic edge?”

  “I think I understood half those words.”

  The barista called Dee’s, sort of—he called him Traygo, which was not a name as far as he knew—so Chai had a moment by himself to search the flyers for clues. He found none, but he found a typo, which was better than nothing. Dee came back with his coffee, his misspelled name a scribble on the outside of the cup. “I think I’m gonna go back to doing the Roan thing.”

  “I’m afraid to ask, but what was the Roan thing?”

  “He’d give baristas a patently false name, just so he wouldn’t have to put up with being called Ron or Rowan. I’m this close to telling them my name is Peggy and seeing what they do with it.”

  Chai understood this because he usually got drinks with the name Ty on them. “Have you tried Dee?”

  Dee nodded. “Which has been interpreted mostly as Lee, although occasionally Gee.”

  “But not Pee, so you have that going for you.”

  Dee shook his head, but Chai saw his smile before he hid it behind his cup. “So stupid.”

  Chai picked up the DJ flyer and waved it like a limp flag before dropping it to the tabletop. They were sitting outdoors as it was a clear, sunny day, although right now it was cold, with the wind off the currently unseen Puget Sound particularly biting. If you went two blocks south, you could see the Sound like a smooth gray mirror, reflecting the sun in blinding glimmers. He used to think Seattle was the only city with a pretty part and a dark part, but now he was experienced enough to know they all had that dichotomy. Economic class alone dictated which side you saw more often. “Wanna go?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No. But he’s a friend, so I gotta check it out. Wanna come with me?”

  Dee sighed like he was asking him to cover his crash test dummy shift. “Is this a date?”

  He briefly considered playing it coy but then figured, fuck it. After a certain age, it lost all charm. “Yeah. We can have Italian food and some cocktails before we drop in.”

  Dee sat forward, smiling slyly. “Cocktails? Sounds fancy.”

  “Nah. I was thinking of cheap-ass cocktails with names like Glitterbomb and Suck My Cinnamon Stick. No need for classy with house music.”

  “Those aren’t real drink names, are they?”

  Chai shrugged. “Probably. Remember that pretentious place I told you about with the weird, longass names for their drinks? I say we do that to everything all the time.” Chai raised his cup. “I’m not drinking a mocha. I’m drinking a Charlie Didn’t Get A Date For The Prom, So He’s Stuck At Home Playing Video Games And Ordering Pizza.”

  Dee grimaced, but he was still smiling when he picked up his cup. “Okay, so this is… Jack Has A Lightbulb Stuck Up His Ass But Is Too Embarrassed To Call 9-1-1.”

  “What?” Chai spit out before laughing.

  “Okay, so maybe I was injecting a little of my work into things.”

  “Oh no. Don’t tell me you actually treated a guy with that issue.”

  “And worse. You have no idea how much worse.”

  “Save that for our date,” Chai suggested. Actually, having been a cam boy and an escort, he already knew quite a bit about the freaky shit people could be into, and he didn’t want to know any more. That’s why prudish people tickled him so much. They were usually into the sickest shit and hated themselves for it, hence their playing morality police with everyone else. You only did that if you were ashamed of your own kinks.

  Dee raised his cup in a cheers gesture and took a tentative swallow of his coffee, probably to see if it was cool enough to drink. When he was done, he said, “So, there’s gonna be this thing at an art gallery next week for Dylan, but I’m actually trying to arrange it as a casual party, since Ro and Dylan will be heading back to Canada after that. Wanna come?”

  “Should I? I mean, I don’t really know him. He just saved my life, which I gather isn’t such a rare thing.”

  “It’s not, but you should definitely come. Besides, who is going to invite Holden if not you?”

  “Oh, now I see your deviousness.” Chai sat forward and wondered if there was any way to put this that didn’t sound accusing. “But seriously, you know you’re just gonna hafta live with Holden being my best friend, right?”

  “Yeah, I got it. But what does he think about it?”

  “He’s… okay with it.” Chai tried to sell it, but Dee’s skepticism was clear.

  “He told you to dump me, didn’t he?”

  “No! I’m a grown man, and I can date who I want. He knows that.” Dee raised his eyebrows at that. “Seriously.”

  Holden had simply said that he could “do better,” but then Holden said that about any guy Chai had a thing with. To be fair to Holden, he had been right so far, as all Chai’s attempts at relationships, pre-Paul, had been failures. And Paul was a fucking disaster, but Holden hadn’t been there to warn him. Not that he would have listened; Chai never did.

  To try and take some of the heat off of him, he asked, “Does Roan know about us?”

  “Of course.”

  That was a surprise. “You told him?”

  “Oh hell no.”

  “So how does he know?”

  Dee kept giving him that look of raised-eyebrow surprise. “Were you not paying attention the other night? He always had super senses, but they are freaky strong now. I’m halfway convinced he has x-ray vision or some shit. He probably knew we had a thing before you came in the door.”

  “No,” Chai said, although Dee was right. Roan did things so out of the realm of possibility he had no idea what to write off as impossible. Although X-ray vision was totally comic-book, right? There was no way he had that. Right? The longer Chai thought about it, the more unsure he was.

  Dee leaned forward and lowered his voice. “By the way, it hit the news.”

  “What?” For a moment, Chai didn’t know what Dee was referring to. That was a nice handful of seconds.

  Dee’s brown eyes remained steady. “They found some cops in a burned-out foreclosure outside Kent. It’s a mystery because the guys were supposedly on a fishing trip, and they have no known connection to the house, which was deliberately burned down. They also suspect foul play, but there’s no particulars yet.”

  Chai felt his stomach sink, even though he reminded himself these men kidnapped him, assaulted him, and were probably going to kill him before Roan interrupted the party. He could still remember that scream
/roar, and it still caused a shiver of goose bumps along his spine. That wasn’t something you ever forgot. Chai decided it was the sound of getting replaced at the top of the food chain. “Oh. Any leads?”

  Dee both shrugged and shook his head. “If they have anything, I haven’t heard it. I’ve heard unofficially they have so much nothing they’re a little confounded by it. Like there was a crime scene on top of a crime scene, which was then cleaned up haphazardly, and separating elements of each is hard, if not nearly impossible. But they’re cops, even if they were cops who lied and were clearly up to something weird. They’re gonna keep trying.” Dee now lowered his voice to a whisper. Chai could barely hear it, even though he leaned forward. “The arson was Holden, wasn’t it?”

  Chai shrugged and felt like he was betraying Holden somehow. “He knows a guy.”

  Dee snorted and sat back. “Is there a lowlife in the Seattle area that Holden doesn’t know?”

  Chai wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not. “I’m one of those lowlifes.”

  Dee’s eyes briefly bugged out, and he raised his hands. “No. No you’re absolutely not.”

  “I am. And while I didn’t know whoever Holden called this time, I’ve known a couple of people with inordinate attractions to fire in my time. I read up on it when I was in the hospital, recovering, because then you have nothing but time. A lot of kids who were sexually abused have a thing about fire. So it makes sense that both Holden and I know people who are firebugs since we know so many abuse victims, who also happen to become sex workers a bit more often than people who weren’t abused.” Chai was genuinely surprised by the amount of anger he had about this. He clenched his hands into fists, one on his leg and the other on the table. “So, yeah, maybe Holden knows a lot of lowlifes, but a better name for many of them would be survivors.”

  Dee nodded and put a hand over his fist. His hand was warm from the coffee, and Chai could feel slight calluses, which was a weird little turn-on. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. That was a total failure of empathy on my part. I never wanted to be one of those cynical assholes who forgets about the person behind the pain, but… yeah, I think I did.”

  He seemed sincere, with genuine apology in his eyes, and Chai was inclined to forgive him. It wasn’t because he was hot… although, in all honesty, it didn’t hurt. “Okay. But you’re on warning.”

  Dee nodded. “I got it. I’ll try and stop being such a bitchy queen.”

  “Well, not too much. That’s partly why I like you.”

  Dee smiled at that, and Chai returned it, clasping his hand. Sure, he was a little older, but ever since the accident, Chai had felt a million years old. He wasn’t sure what his age group was anymore.

  It was a nice moment they were having, so of course it was ruined. They heard a man yell something about a purse, a sentence partially swallowed by traffic noise, and then a guy came barreling around the corner at full tilt, smacking into other people on the sidewalk and sending them sprawling. He was a seedy looking white guy clutching a purse that clearly went with nothing he was wearing, and he never stopped running, not even when he collided with people.

  Chai had his cane leaning on his chair, so he picked it up, and when the guy came running by, he stuck it out.

  The fall was spectacular. He never saw it coming and was still holding that purse, so he slammed face-first into the pavement, not even breaking his own fall. Despite this and a very bloody chin, he got up almost immediately, but a purple-haired woman at a neighboring table took the lid off her coffee and threw it, with enviable precision, right into his face. He screamed and fell back to the sidewalk, grabbing his face.

  “Oh, you big baby,” Dee chided. “Her coffee’s not even that hot.” Dee thought about it a moment as the man who shouted the alert about the purse snatcher, a stocky Latino guy, finally caught up to the guy and collapsed knees first on his back, pinning him down. “Well, espresso in the eyes probably does sting like a motherfucker.”

  Although Chai had done little more than move his cane, it was weird what a rush he got from making that asshole eat the sidewalk. Was that how Holden felt when he took down a bad guy? If so, he kind of understood it.

  Next time he saw Holden, he was going to have to ask him where he was training and if he’d teach him to fight. It might be nice to do some ass kicking for once.

  25—The State I’m In

  One Week Later

  ROAN FELT he’d prepared as much as he could. He took painkillers, he had mints, he even had some salve to rub under his nose that blasted him with the scent of peppermint and rosemary. And yet, it didn’t really turn any of it down.

  The peppermint tried, it really did, but it was kind of always bound to lose. Being in an enclosed space with other people nowadays was its own special kind of hell, and the fact that he knew most of these people didn’t help. The synesthesia made it seem like his life was one unending bad acid trip, with the colors of scents a constant visual scrim in the air. He could ignore it if he focused on one thing and concentrated, but it was remarkably hard. Honestly, Roan thought it was harder than it should have been.

  Not that there was anything that could be done about it. Medically, all he got was stares when he asked if there were any treatments. One suggested hypnosis, but Roan couldn’t be hypnotized; he was one of those people who simply wasn’t susceptible to it. So that left no treatments. It was just something he was going to have to get used to. And he’d found conflicting information on whether or not he was a typical case of it or not. Ultimately it didn’t matter. He was simply tired of feeling like he was living through a continual series of bad acid trips.

  He clung to Dylan, his aquamarine port in the storm—which was sometimes a literal thing. At least this event was cooked up for Dylan by his art friends and some of Roan’s friends, and many of Dylan’s works adorned the walls of what was essentially the basement area of a bar that did work part-time as an art gallery. They blocked off the door connecting the bar to the gallery when there was a show so no confused drunks could end up in a gallery with art they could puke on. If they wanted to visit, they’d have to leave the bar and go around to the side of the building. Few drunks were quite that ambitious.

  At least it was warmly lit, neither too bright nor too dark, and the most dominant smell that had seeped into the woodwork through the years was oak with hints of wine and yeast, which wasn’t the worst. But there were a million scents layered on top of them, from the people here, the people who had been here but left, and the people going back and forth. Roan could have tracked each and every one of them if he had the time or inclination. He didn’t.

  Mostly, Roan was thrilled to see Kevin out of the hospital. He was walking on his own too, which was a great sign, although Colton was always there to help him. It was weird to see them together and know they were a couple, but after everything, why not? Kevin deserved to be happy. Roan didn’t know if he’d put odds on it lasting, what with the age gap, Colton’s troubled past, and the fact that he was a recovering addict of multiple drugs, but hell, who knew better than him that sometimes you just had to go for it. You never knew until you tried.

  And Colton seemed very solicitous of Kevin, helping him settle in a chair before going off in search of drinks and snacks. While he was gone, Roan went over to say hi to Kevin.

  “You’re still in one piece,” Roan said. His color was a warm amber, although there were spots of sharp colors, mainly from the medications he was on and the pain he was in, which was at least less than it had been at the hospital.

  “You too, I see,” Kevin said, giving him a pained smile. Roan felt he should offer him some of his painkillers, but then he understood why Kevin might be eschewing them—recovering addict boyfriend. Right.

  Still, he leaned down and whispered, “I can slip you a Percocet.”

  Kevin chuckled. “No, that’s okay. I actually hate the side effects, and painkillers in general make me feel awful. So I’m good.”

  “Really? Man, I
’d be totally fucked if that was true of me.”

  Kevin nodded toward a painting on the opposite wall. It was a still life, but rather than bowls of fruit, it had grasping hands reaching out of the bowl. One of Dyl’s more “whimsical” surreal paintings. “Dylan do that?”

  “He did. It’s called Hold Still.”

  “It’s nice. In a creepy sort of way.” Kevin tilted his head, looking at it sideways. “Has he been watching lots of David Cronenberg films lately?”

  “Not lately. I think that one was painted while we were bingeing Hannibal.”

  “Okay, that explains it.” Roan was looking at the painting, which he did like, but he felt Kevin’s eyes on him. When he glanced back, Kevin was frowning at him. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Weirdly so. Why?”

  Kevin studied him skeptically, a little line forming between his eyebrows. “You seem different. A bit on edge.”

  “Oh.” Should he tell him the truth? Roan hadn’t really talked about it because explaining it would be too hard. Besides, did he need another weird thing to distinguish him from everyone else? But Kevin was an old friend, and Roan knew he could keep a secret. Roan crouched down and told him, in a whisper, “Somehow I’ve developed synesthesia. It can make being around people… interesting. Or being anywhere, really.”

  “Synesthesia?” Kevin puzzled over that a moment. “Wait, is that that thing where you hear colors and shit?”

  “Basically, yeah. My senses are all scrambled, and since they’re super to begin with, it makes things challenging.”

  “So what are you seeing now?”

  Roan glanced around to see if anything had changed. Not really. “Ever seen Laser Floyd while looking through a pitcher of Kool-Aid fruit punch?”

  Kevin winced. “Man. I’m so sorry.”

  Colton came back and handed Kevin a nonalcoholic drink that smelled strongly of cranberry juice. “Oh, hey,” Colton said, glancing at Roan’s face before quickly looking away. Guilt and embarrassment made his aura kind of spotty, while his scent was more like pencil shavings than anything else. Roan had told himself he was eventually going to sit down and write up a scent bible to try to figure out what it all meant. Maybe there wasn’t anything to it. But that was the worst possible thing, as Roan liked to solve puzzles. A puzzle with no point was the worst puzzle of all, but what was life if not that?