by Noah Harris
“Please fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, and look to the front for a safety demonstration by our wonderful stewards and stewardesses.” He’d ignored the static voice, buckling his seatbelt and looking outside at the luggage handlers unloading a nearby plane, tossing everything haphazardly into the trailers and laughing at one another. He could imagine them calling their targets before throwing the luggage. On top of the purple-flowered set. Left of that gray one. No, the other gray one.
“We’ll be taking off shortly, ma’am, if you could fasten your seatbelt,” said a stewardess from the walkway, leaning over to talk to the dark-lidded woman next to him. She sighed and clicked the buckle into place, and then looked at him for the solidarity that he couldn’t give her. She rolled her eyes and looked back down at her phone, skipping songs. “And make sure you set your phone to airplane mode, please, ma’am.”
The plane started to roll, and Shaeffer gripped his only armrest with one hand, his other bunching up in his shirt. He’d flown plenty of times. That wasn’t the issue.
It rolled, sped up, the sound of the air whipping by outside loud in his ears. And then the front of the plane had taken off, then the back, they were in the air, and he dipped his head down, squeezing his eyes shut as the tears gathered in them, hot. The ache in the back of his throat was painful, like someone was squeezing it.
Shaeffer stared out the window, watching Houston below shrink, then get blanketed by the clouds, thick, fluffy and joyless. His chest panged, and he thought about Tokyo. He’d never been before, never been to any country where they’d spoken anything but English, in fact. He was scared to make this trip alone when he knew what it was like to not be alone, but more so, he was hurting. This trip, flying solo, would be difficult, but nothing compared to severing himself from Konrad, the man he loved, the dragon who protected him and who he protected. But there was nothing that could have been done, no other option.
He was dying. He knew he was. This would probably be his last show. The doctor, the new one, had gotten the report from the old one who’d told him he was getting fat, and when he saw Shaeffer at their appointment, his hands had paused as he’d checked the growth in, on, over, his abdomen. Then he’d looked up at Shaeffer, eyes serious, lips pressed together tightly in a straight line, and let out a sigh. Like he was dreading his explanation and dreading Shaeffer’s reaction to it. It had grown faster than any cancerous or diseased mass he’d ever seen if the previous doctor’s report was correct, and he wasn’t sure what it was besides something under the skin, growing, hard and unmovable.
“You don’t know what it is?” Shaeffer had asked in disbelief. This doctor was supposed to be the best in Houston and all the surrounding cities.
“I-I’ve never seen something like this, no. I could get you a second opinion,” he offered weakly, and Shaeffer stood up quickly.
“You were my second opinion,” he said coldly, and the doctor had floundered under his stare, his mouth opening and shutting.
Now he was on his way to Tokyo, not sure how long he had before whatever was growing on him took over his body. It might even force him to stop modeling. He felt like he’d gained weight, simply that, but it was so hard, like a sheet of metal under his skin. He didn’t want Konrad to touch him when he felt, looked, like that. And he knew, if he told Konrad the truth, he’d never let him leave. They’d stay together, both broken, a dying man and a blind man trying to take care of each other until the dying man disappeared and left a broken man struggling to survive on his own. The broken man, no, Konrad, had been recovering impressively, and he was thrilled and comforted by the protection and latent safety Konrad’s dragon afforded him. But he was still a broken man, a blind dragon. How much could they really take care of one another?
He’d thought about it, though. This wasn’t to say he hadn’t thought long and hard about it. But he’d come to his conclusion. It was sad, just too sad for both of them to live with and pretend everything was normal.
“Anything to drink, sir?” asked a new stewardess, and the look on her face when he looked up at her made him realize she’d probably asked a few times. She maintained a smile, though. It faltered slightly when he looked up into her hooded eyes in surprise. The dusky freckled face of the woman beside him was chuckling in amusement.
“Just a ginger ale, please.” His stomach was bothering him. Nausea. The only discernible side effect. She poured the glass, her bangs falling over her eyes, and he wondered about the people in Tokyo, the people that looked like her. Maybe he would stay there, not come back to Drake Street. Maybe he would stay there for a whole year and if he lasted that long, try to find someone who enjoyed his company more casually and didn’t remind him of anything back home. The only similarity to home would be the new man’s same lack of respect and compassion for him as his old boyfriends. He wouldn’t be kind or understanding, he wouldn’t desire anything more than his body and his connections.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked, handing him the ginger ale carefully over the other passengers.
“I-I’m fine.” His mouth tasted sour. “Do you have a sick…a sick…” he covered his mouth, but the dreadlocked woman had already reached into the pocket in front of her and handed him the bag, which he immediately vomited into.
“Scared of flying?” she asked with a coy smile, though she also looked vaguely disgusted, and he shook his head.
“Scared of landing.” She looked at him, obviously thinking he was stranger than he’d realized his response had been, and looked back at the stewardess. She took his ginger ale and allowed him to climb over her to go to the bathroom and dispose of his sick bag. He kept his eyes low, holding onto the seats as he walked down the aisle toward the cramped bathroom. He struggled with the door for a moment before slamming it shut and locking it.
Sick bag now in the trash, he looked in the mirror at his sweat-sheened, pale face. He looked like how he felt. His eyes were glazed over. He wondered if this was what he’d looked like for the past few weeks, amazed Konrad hadn’t said anything or broken it off sooner. He looked terrible, sickly, diseased. But Konrad couldn’t see him.
Or maybe that was just his paranoia coming back, that fear that everyone would eventually abandon him. He’d never thought about the fact that Konrad might stick around until Clara had told him, in her own words, that he would. That had been the first time he’d considered them staying together. But now he wouldn’t stay and subject Konrad to his illness, whatever it was, forcing him to watch, or feel Shaeffer waste away. It would be cruel.
Leaving in the way he had was better. In the midst of a fight, a storm between them, Konrad angry and hurt and wanting him to leave anyway. It was easier that way, better than having to say goodbye to him as he was drawing his last breath. He didn’t want Konrad to see him that way, the way he looked now, in the mirror, but worse. It was easier to cut their losses and make peace with what they’d had together, what he’d always wanted. He’d had it for a while, but he had to let it go for the good of them both.
He wiped the tears gruffly from his face, sniffling hard and then exhaling slowly. He needed to get it together. It was going to be a long flight.
When he exited the plane, feeling hollow but more in control of himself, the first thing he saw was a group of men standing close together, one of them holding a poster with his name scrawled across it in neat magic-marker. He walked toward them, dragging his luggage behind him, and one of the men darted out from the crowd and picked it up for him. Another did the same for his carry-on.
“Uh, wow, thank you,” he said uncertainly, and the man holding the sign handed it off to someone’s waiting hands.
“Shaeffer Gipson.” He thrust his hand out, and Shaeffer shook it, feeling his arm undulate with the force of the man’s handshake. “It is wonderful to meet you. Akihiko is waiting.”
“Right,” he nodded, looking at the oddly formal men carrying his luggage like sacks of potatoes.
“This way.” He followed them
through the crowded airport, some of them at his sides and behind him to shelter him from the masses. They exited into the sunlight a purple Hummer limo parked right in front of the entrance. “If you will, Mr. Gipson.”
The men holding his luggage packed it carefully in the trunk and then opened a door for him, holding out their hands as he climbed in to make sure he was stable.
“Shaeffer,” smiled his agent, who was sitting inside the limo.
“Iris?” She patted the seat behind her, her teeth glowing in the limo’s interior black-lighting.
“I hope you’re ready for the royal treatment,” she said knowingly, and he furrowed his eyebrows at her.
“The royal treatment?”
“Shaeffer Gipson,” came a voice, deep and lilted. His agent grinned voraciously over his shoulder, and Shaeffer climbed into his seat, looking behind him.
Akihiko.
“I am so glad to finally be meeting you, Mr. Gipson. I saw your work in GQ and I knew I had to have you. I hope your flight was satisfactory.”
“It was, thank you,” Shaeffer replied, feeling overwhelmed. His fingers twitched, and he put them under his thighs. Akihiko had his black hair slicked back, and his cheekbones seemed to jut out from his face. His lips were full, glossed, and his eyes were dark, reflecting the light like polished obsidian. His clothes seemed to be made out of the same material, metallic and shining.
“You will head to your hotel for you to get ready at the suite we have for you. I will then see you at the show tonight.” Shaeffer nodded, wondering whether Iris had known Akihiko was going to make an appearance when Shaeffer landed, and whether he was going to ride with them to the hotel. Shaeffer felt intimidated by him, and started to hope not. “Perfect. I still see you tonight,” he said, and then rapped violently on the door. Shaeffer nearly jerked backward at the sound. The door swung open and someone helped Akihiko out, holding his hand high like a princess.
“He’s quite a character, but he’s going to pay you more money than you’ve probably seen in your life,” Iris said. The limo started to move, and before he knew it, they were at the hotel. Iris had said nothing besides making a few comments about landmarks they passed, ones Shaeffer had never heard of. He should’ve done some reading on the flight.
“Mr. Gipson!” a woman said when he climbed out of the limo, declining help from the men standing outside it. Her smile was like a shark’s. “I am Maya. I am going to be helping you get ready up until they transport you to the venue. I will be taking care of hair and makeup, as well as your nails. Although,” she leaned up into his face, scanning his features. “Your skin is nearly perfect. Beautifully shiro.” He leaned back slightly, giving her an awkward but grateful smile. Shiro?
“Thank you,” he said, and she nodded happily.
“Shall we head in?”
The hotel was enormous, probably the tallest building he remembered seeing in recent memory. It touched the sky, he was sure of it. How did airplanes not scrape the antennae with their bellies? The entrance was two heavy glass doors that required a keycard, and Maya scanned hers before ushering him inside, along with the men carrying his suitcases and Iris last, who had been admiring the building.
Shaeffer felt immediately at peace when he walked into the lobby, for the first time in weeks. It was a mixture of smooth white walls and expansive glass windows, with a minimalistic fountain-filled reflecting pool in the center and plants everywhere; they sprouted from the ceiling and walls, ivy climbed nearly every surface. They walked by the receptionist, who smiled and bowed her head at them, and Maya passed her keycard once more over the elevator scanner. The doors opened and they stepped inside, but Maya held up her hand when Iris tried to follow them.
“We no longer need your assistance, Ms. Lawrence.” The men holding the luggage glanced mirthfully at one another as Iris gaped at Maya and stuttered.
“I’m his agent. I should be next to him while he’s getting ready for the biggest show of his life,” she said angrily, and Maya smiled serenely.
“We will take good care of Shaeffer.” The doors slid shut, and Shaeffer looked uncomfortably ahead of him.
“I hope you don’t take that too personally, Mr. Gipson. Agents tend to hover or make silly suggestions, and I know what I am doing.”
“I get it,” he said agreeably. They reached their floor, the second to top floor, which made Shaeffer’s ears pop, and stepped out into the hallway.
“Right to the end of this hallway, if you’ll follow me, Mr. Gipson.” She led him toward a room, scanned her keycard, and held the door open for him. Inside were three attendants waiting, chatting casually. They fell silent when he walked in, watching him with wide, starry eyes. “These are my assistants. You don’t need to know their names. All you need to focus on is you,” Maya said, poking him gently in the chest. He looked back at the assistants, their chests heaving excitedly, their eyes gazing at and studying his face in admiration. “You may begin,” she said to the girls, and they jumped up, clapping their hands.
“Bath time, Mr. Gipson,” the tallest one said, her long arms reaching out to guide him out of the sun-bathed living room with its floor-to-ceiling windows into the marble bathroom. The whirlpool tub was already filled to the brim with steaming water and bubbles. The other two girls followed them and started gently peeling his clothes off, surgically, speaking quietly in Japanese to each other, wonderingly. He kept hearing that word, shiro. And a new one, utsukushī. He didn’t know what either word meant, but they were said in hushed tones like he was some kind of treasure.
They helped him into the tub and doused him in hot water, and he felt his body relax almost instantly. It was the perfect temperature, and the jets seemed to beat all the tension and stress out of his body. The tall girl massaged his hair with all kinds of fragrant shampoos, conditioners, and oils, whispering mayonaka shiruku as she did so, and Shaeffer felt his eyes close drowsily.
When he closed them, though, no matter how relaxed and pampered he felt, no matter how much he felt like a prince in this light-filled, luxurious suite, he felt hollow still. Like he’d left his insides at the airport in Texas, or maybe in Konrad’s loft on Drake Street. Like he was just skin and this mass on his stomach, uncomfortable and heavy.
No matter how pretty they made him feel and look, with mascara coating his already luscious lashes, his hair fluffy and curled to perfection, his fingernails, his teeth, his skin, all gleaming…it all felt ugly. He was putting on a show on the inside and the outside, empty and foul and swollen with bad feelings and this disease that had taken him away from Konrad.
Everything that used to keep him going, when boyfriends left and called him vapid, shallow and cruel, when he missed his mother and felt stomach-churning hatred for his father, when he sat alone in his hotel bedroom and picked at the pilled bedsheets watching reality television that somehow made him feel worse, not better…it wasn’t gone, but it was worthless. None of this, the compliments and loving gazes and caresses from fans and artists, the attention; none of it mattered. Nothing mattered except the heart in his chest that felt like its beat was off-tempo, slow and struggling, longing to be in the arms of the angry man he’d abandoned like Shaeffer had been abandoned so many times before.
“It won’t, Shira,” the man grunted, and Shaeffer wobbled. The man was tugging on the bodysuit they were trying to fit Shaeffer into, glittering crimson with gold embroidered scrollwork. “It fucking won’t zip. It doesn’t fit him anymore.”
“What’s wrong with it? It couldn’t have shrunk, we haven’t washed anything since Akihiko finished the pieces,” said the woman beside him, Shira, her voice low. “And he made them to this guy’s measurements, exactly,” the man replied, his voice equally hushed.
“Kare wa futotta,” Shira hummed irritably, looking up at Shaeffer. He avoided their eyes, feeling his own fill up with tears of embarrassment. He didn’t know what they’d said, but he knew it had to be something along the lines of his own horrifying thoughts. He hadn’t tho
ught the mass had grown so fast that he wouldn’t be able to fit into the piece. He felt mortified. Maybe it was the mass, and maybe he’d gained weight too, in his depressed state over the past few weeks. Maybe it was the mass making him gain weight, conflating into a disaster for his career and his life. He tried not to think about it, tried to focus on what the costume fitters were saying.
“We’ll have to sew him into it,” she said finally, and he squeezed his eyes shut, leaning his head back so they couldn’t see his face. Mortified. They quickly sewed him into the bodysuit, and he felt it strain slightly against his spine. “Just don’t bend over,” the man said, half-mocking and half-suggesting. They pulled out the red glass beads, which looked like scales, and started attaching them to the rivets on the suit. It took all of fifteen minutes to get them on, and they tinkled against one another when he moved. When he looked in the mirror, he was reminded of Konrad’s huge dragon form, standing formidably in the middle of the loft, growling and hissing steam. His stomach flipped, and he looked away.
A chainmail crown that draped down his back like a veil completed the centerpiece of Akihiko’s collection, and Shaeffer felt a strange dread in his stomach for the show. He wasn’t going to do it justice, and he was going to fail Akihiko and Konrad, all the people who had believed in him. A woman with a headset walked up behind him
“You’re walking in five,” she said briskly, and he nodded, feeling nauseous again.
“You look like a dream,” Akihiko said from the side curtain, and Shaeffer turned to him in surprise, then looked down at himself. “My dream. Exactly what I imagined for my piece. You are perfect.”
“Thank you, Akihiko. It’s an honor,” Shaeffer said honestly, although his stomach was still turning, and Akihiko snapped his fingers.
“I like to enjoy a glass of champagne before I address the crowd,” he explained lazily, taking the glass that had been carried toward him on a platter. There was another glass on the platter, and Shaeffer eyed it for only a moment. Maybe it would ease his nerves. “I always offer a glass from my bottle to my main attraction.” The words made him feel ill for some reason. There was something familiarly objectifying about them, like he was just a pretty treasure to be paraded around.