by Todd Young
“You’ll be alright on your own?”
“Yep.”
“You don’t want to come?”
“Nup.”
When they’d gone, maybe fifteen minutes passed before Angel was masturbating, thinking of Finn of all things, and of how it had felt to fuck Finn through his shorts, though his thoughts then seemed to take a bizarre twist, and he ended by thinking of how it had felt to run his fingertips over the taut mounds of Finn’s naked ass.
The black semen troubled him again, and he had a shower. Afterwards, as he was standing in the living room and drying his hair with a towel, he started wondering what he was doing. Why had he come here? To New York? What sort of job was he going to get? Seeing the world the way he did? And if this thing with Finn, which he’d just started thinking was a possibility, wasn’t a possibility, then where was he going to go, what was he going to do, where was he going to find someone else who was infected and somehow fall in love with them?
Angel frowned at the pedestrians on the crossing below the window. The lights had just turned green and a dark-haired man, crossing with a lanky stride, unexpectedly caught Angel’s attention. Angel recognized him, he thought, as one of his own — as a fellow angel — simply by the grace with which he was moving, though there seemed to be something more to it than that, and as Angel frowned again, he realized who it was, and his face twisted in grief and frustration. It was Hunter, the fuck who’d given him the disease in the first place.
32
Angel scrambled to find his clothes. He pulled a dirty T-shirt on, threaded his feet into the jeans he’d been wearing yesterday, and tried to keep his eye on Hunter as he buttoned them up. Hunter had stopped to cross at the intersection again, adjacently this time, and Angel figured he might possibly catch him. He tugged his sneakers on and grabbed his wallet and keys. When he got to the door of the building, Hunter had disappeared, but Angel knew in which direction. He ran across the traffic, horns blaring, and then continued running for half a block or so until he caught sight of Hunter’s dark head again.
The fuck was walking along as though he didn’t have a care in the world. If Angel had a gun, he could have drawn it and plugged a bullet into the back of Hunter’s skull.
Except — he tried to think — he wanted to see where Hunter went. As much as Angel would have liked to jump him from behind, it would make no sense. He’d be charged with assaulting him, a charge that wouldn’t vanish, he imagined, even if the police managed to later charge Hunter for his part in what had happened at the institute.
Hunter walked in a straight line for five and a half blocks and then turned in at a doorway above which there was a burned out neon sign that had once said “Bernie’s.” Angel glanced down the staircase, but was too afraid to follow, so he stood beside the door, pulled his cigarettes out, and started to smoke, hoping a cop didn’t come along. He smoked three or four cigarettes, and guessed maybe half an hour had passed before Hunter emerged from the building again. By that time, Angel had thought things through. Hunter was, after all, a wanted criminal, and Angel had had the foresight to call the police. That was ten minutes or so ago, and now, as Hunter stepped onto the sidewalk, a squad car rocked to a stop.
“That’s him,” Angel said in a loud voice, though he was shaking. He pointed at Hunter.
Hunter turned, smiled at Angel, and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Angel lunged forward, but in that moment Hunter seemed to vanish. Angel fell onto the gritty sidewalk, falling heavily on his forearms. He rolled, and as he rolled, glimpsed Hunter speaking to the police officers. Hunter pulled something out of his pocket, some sort of ID, and then said, “As you can see, I’m a lady.”
Then, for one insane moment, in a sudden haze of light, Angel saw Hunter miraculously mutate into an attractive red-head in high-heeled shoes, and somehow this seemed to be the person the police were speaking to. The officers shrugged, glanced at Angel on the sidewalk, and then turned, most likely thinking that they had better things to do.
The squad car pulled away, and by the time Angel had gotten to his feet, he’d lost Hunter. He glimpsed a red-headed woman and craned his neck, but within a moment she’d disappeared, and there was no one in the crowd of moving pedestrians who fitted Hunter’s description.
Angel had hurt his elbow. He twisted his arm to look at the wound, and at that moment glimpsed a kid standing in the doorway of Bernie’s, standing at the top of the dark staircase from which Hunter had emerged. He looked as though he barely had the strength to hold himself upright.
“You see that?” the kid said.
“What?”
“The way he changed?”
“Yeah. I saw it.”
“You know who he is?”
“Yeah. I know him.”
The kid nodded, looking frightened suddenly, though his eyes travelled from Angel’s face to his thighs and back again, coming to rest on his blue eyes, by which the kid seemed spellbound.
“He didn’t pay me,” the kid said.
“Didn’t pay you?”
“For …”
“Oh — right.”
“Fucked me fifteen or sixteen times, like he was some sort of maniac. I can barely stand up.”
Angel nodded. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen. Just turned.”
“And you’re hustling?”
“I’ve been hustling since I was fourteen. My folks threw me out, when I told them I was gay.”
Angel nodded and the kid swayed. He took a firmer grip on the door and looked for a moment as though he might pass out. Then his eyes widened and he stared at Angel, and in that moment something thrilled down Angel’s spine. A warmth spread, filling his body as warm water might. The kid’s eyes were green, vivid, and he had long lashes, as though he were a woman who’d spent hours teasing her lashes into dark curls. His mouth was like a rosebud. But he had a dark bruise on one cheekbone and looked filthy.
Still, Angel stood there, staring at him, and the kid stood motionless, staring back. A passing pedestrian knocked against Angel and said, “Watch it, buddy,” and Angel moved forward and took the kid’s hand. The kid’s skin was warm and roughened, and some sort of electric spark seemed to kick between them.
“You want me to walk you home?” Angel said, and immediately felt like a fool for saying it, as though they were kids in grade school.
“I don’t — I mean … I’m on the streets.”
Angel nodded. He turned away, looked along the street for a moment, but it was only as he turned back that he realized he was still holding the kid’s hand. The kid glanced at the way their hands were entwined and then lifted his eyes to Angel. His face broke into a frail smile.
“I can’t do anything right now,” he said, “unless you want a blow job.”
“No. I don’t.” Angel disentangled his hand and ran his fingers through his hair. He turned to the kid again, stared at the depth in his green eyes, and felt that he should move away. But for some reason he couldn’t.
“He fucked you — that guy?”
“He — shit. You don’t know what he did. I’ve never been fucked like that.”
Angel nodded. He hesitated. He knew he shouldn’t say it, but something about the kid, something about his gentle face, soiled and broken, something about the spark Angel had felt thrill along his spine, something in the idea that the kid was alone, and wary, made him say it.
“You can come back to my place … If you like.”
“To your place?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t do anything. Like I said. I don’t want to be fucked. And I’ve only got fifteen dollars, so if you’re thinking you want money out of me. Hell, at the moment, the way I feel, I’ll give it to you.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Angel said, and then something made him say, “I promise you, I’ll never hurt you,” though he’d been schooled by his mother not to make promises, as promises always seemed to get broken.
He
glanced at the ground, ashamed of himself, because it was a stupid thing to say. How could a person say they’d never hurt a person they’d just met? Hell, anything could happen. They could be in a fist-fight in ten minutes.
The kid swayed again. “I’m not sure I can walk,” he said.
“I’ll hail a cab.”
33
At the top of the stairs, Angel heard Jason laugh. He turned his key in the lock, heard Finn mutter something, and realized the voices were coming from the bedroom. He walked toward the doorway, the kid forgotten. The door was standing open and Finn and Jason were in bed, Jason straddling Finn and tickling his chest. They were naked, and Finn was writhing.
Angel pulled the door closed, but caught Finn’s eye as he did so. Finn stared calmly back at him without expression, or was it just those damned eyes? Angel didn’t know. He stumbled as he turned away from the door, suddenly angry. Then he lifted his eyes to the kid, who looked as though he was about to flee.
“It’s okay. They’re my roommates.”
The kid nodded.
“What’s your name?”
“Cole.”
“Cole?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Angel.”
He took the kid’s hand again. It was soiled and the kid stank, but something seemed to pass between them again as they shook, and Angel held onto the hand unthinkingly, reluctant to let it go.
Slowly, Cole pulled it away, drawing his shoulders in awkwardly as he did so. He blew air out of his bottom lip, lifting his bangs. Then he smiled, a shy smile, but it seemed to light his face from within.
Angel’s heart turned over. This new sensitivity to the dark, to what was going on in the world, seemed to have a flip-side, and Angel watched in awe as Cole shimmered for a moment, like a glistening light in a mirror. He was at one second a beautiful, innocent kid, who’d be at home in a field of corn, and then, at the same time, as the image shivered, his face shifted and fell, and Angel could see what he might look like at 40, after 20 years of meth and the streets.
Angel winced, saw him as the young, innocent kid again, and then he was simply Cole, the guy Hunter’d fucked, and who Angel had picked up why? Because he wanted to help? How was he supposed to help?
The bedroom door opened. Finn emerged, tugging a T-shirt awkwardly over his head. “What up, Cole?” he said, nodding at Cole without surprise.
“What up, Finn?” Cole replied, scanning Finn’s face, and Angel realized that they knew each other from the streets.
Jason stepped through the bedroom door, his head lowered, a lock of auburn hair hanging over his brow.
There were moments of silence.
Then Finn said, “He pick you up?” turning to Cole.
“What? No,” Cole said. “I—”
“I found Hunter,” Angel said. “He’s been with Hunter.”
Finn nodded. He lowered his head for a moment, tugged on the waistband of his T-shirt and then lifted his eyes. He looked from Cole to Angel and back again, as though trying to understand something that for the moment eluded him. Then, as his eyes flicked over them, a thought occurred to him, and along with it a shadow passed over his face.
“So that’s how it’s going to be,” he said.
“How what’s going to be?”
“You and him,” Finn said, staring at Angel, his gray eyes glittering in the bright afternoon sunlight.
“I just — he needed someone to help him out,” Angel said, and then wondered why he was explaining himself to Finn. Why now, when he’d just found him in bed with Jason?
Jason had crossed the room and was stooped over the coffee table. He found Angel’s cigarettes, picked them up and said, “Is it okay if I …?”
Angel nodded, watching Jason warily.
Jason lit a cigarette, sat on the armchair and lowered his eyes. Moments of silence again passed in which no one said a word.
Then Cole, feeling awkward Angel guessed, made an offer, “I can go,” he said, and started.
Angel reached for Cole and gripped his upper arm, surprised as he did so to find his fingers slip around Cole’s bicep until they met. He’d thought Cole was thin, but not that thin.
“Maybe Jason and I should go back to his place,” Finn said.
Angel turned to Finn and nodded. He could never love him, he realized with a sudden and determined certainty. He could never love someone he didn’t understand.
34
Angel led Cole into the bathroom. He told him to feel free to use the tub, and as he was speaking, realized just how much Cole stank. The T-shirt he was wearing had once been white, but now might have been gray or cream or even a pale brown, stained as it was by grime and sweat. Cole’s jeans were riding high, the seam of them in the crack of his ass, and Angel wondered if they were the same pair he’d left home in at fourteen. They certainly looked like it. Cole’s ankles were bare, while the jeans themselves had grown shiny and paper thin.
Angel ran the bath. As he was stooping forward, he glanced up and smiled at Cole. “Take your time,” he said. “There’s no hurry. I don’t need to be anywhere, and you’re welcome to stay.”
“I’ll have to work tonight.”
“Work?”
“Go out.”
Angel shook his head. “I’ll pay you — just to stay here.” He opened his wallet, slipped a hundred out and handed it to Cole.
“You don’t want …?”
“I don’t want anything, Cole.”
Cole frowned, a vertical line forming between his brows. Then his rosebud mouth stretched a little, tentatively, into what Angel supposed passed for a smile, or might have been passing for a smile for a very long time.
Angel closed the door, sat on the couch and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he leaned forward and cradled his head in his hands. In his mind he saw Hunter, saw the way he’d transformed into an attractive red-headed woman in a lavender dress, and Angel frowned, wondering how that was possible. Though anything seemed possible now. And as he thought it over, it struck him that another thing had been different about Hunter today. He was hairless. In the institute, Hunter’d been covered with thick, dark, body hair, but now, like Finn and Jason and Angel, his skin was smooth and pale. Somehow, back in California, he’d done something to himself, and Angel now wondered what Hunter knew that Finn didn’t.
Finn was smart; he seemed to have it all down pat. But a guy like Hunter had to be moving on some other level.
It was late now, rush hour, and in the street, horns were blaring. Angel got up and closed the windows, even though it was hot. He sat on the couch again and lit a cigarette. From the bathroom, he could hear the occasional splash of water, and he found himself wondering what Cole looked like naked. Young and skinny, he imagined, which wasn’t exactly Angel’s ideal of hot. Though he imagined Cole hadn’t been eating well, hadn’t had enough food, and had missed a final growth spurt. He wasn’t so short, but he was willowy. Still, there was something about him, something that made Angel feel protective. He wanted to wrap Cole in his arms and never let him go.
The light grew wan and the ash from Angel’s cigarette fell into his lap. He’d have to give the cigarettes away. He didn’t know what it was that made him crave them, but Finn and Jason were smoking them too, and it wasn’t as though you could smoke on the street, or not without someone hassling you about it.
Angel heard the water drain from the bath, and then the shower started up, Cole rinsing the dirty water from his skin. Angel realized he’d given Cole nothing to wear, and that Cole might emerge from the bathroom in his filthy clothes again, which Angel didn’t think he could bear. He got up and found a T-shirt and a pair of jeans in the bedroom. He slipped a clean pair of briefs out of the dresser and then knocked on the bathroom door.
“I’ve got some clean clothes for you here.”
“Clean clothes?”
“Yeah.”
“O-kay,” Cole said, sounding less than sure about it.
Angel opened the door
and dropped the clothes on the floor, turning his head so that he wouldn’t catch sight of Cole, though he nevertheless did somehow manage to catch a glimpse of him, to catch a glimpse of pale, hairless skin and damp, soapy eyelashes. As he closed the door, Angel realized he was growing hard, but he ignored it, simply adjusting his cock distractedly in his jeans. He wandered across the living room, turned the light on, drew the curtains, and then paced, as though afraid that Cole might emerge from the bathroom and make a break for the door.
A moment or so later, the bathroom door opened with a gush of steam. Cole had combed his hair backwards, over his head, a style reminiscent of juvenile delinquents from the fifties, whose hair had always seemed dark, though Cole’s hair was definitely blond. The T-shirt swam on him, hanging to his thighs, and he’d rolled the jeans up, turning them over three or four times.
“Sure will be nice not to have to go out tonight,” Cole said.
“You don’t have to go out any night.”
“What?”
“You don’t …” Angel hesitated before he said it. “You can stay here. I’ll look after you.”
“What sort of things are you into?”
“Things?”
“Whips and leather and any of that shit?”
Angel frowned. “Cole. I’m offering you friendship.” He reached out and shook Cole’s hand again. Cole’s skin was clean and damp and almost hot, and Angel felt something travel through his arm again, as if a thread connected them, something organic, perhaps umbilical, which blossomed in his chest, making him want to lean forward and kiss Cole on the mouth.
Cole nodded, apparently acquiescent, and withdrew his hand. He glanced at Angel, glanced away, and then turned to him again and studied his features warily.
“What do you want from me?”
“I, just, I … Cole, that guy who fucked you …”
Cole closed his eyes.
“He did the same thing to me.”