“I’m sure you did. But . . .” Ángel winced. “That tan.”
Sean looked down, seeing for the first time the way his arms were darker than his shoulders or chest. Oh God, he had a fucking farmer’s tan. And nobody’d ever told him. Feeling a little betrayed, he turned on Ángel. “Yeah, well, we can’t all afford tanning beds, can we now?”
“Actually, I tan the old-fashioned way. Nude. In the sun.”
Sean’s face flared with heat. “That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Really? Gayer than ‘Yeah I’ll suck your dick for forty bucks as long as you wrap it’?”
What?
Sean steadied his face, trying not to let on how shaken he was. How could he have known the price?
It’s just a good round number.
“I was joking,” he said, looking down at the floorboards.
“I know. Come here.”
Sean moved toward him, stopping when they were nearly knee-to-knee. Ángel reached up and tucked his fingers under the top fold of Sean’s towel. Instinctively, Sean breathed in, holding his breath and sucking in his stomach.
“May I?” Ángel asked.
No way, he wanted to say, I’m taken, and I don’t swing that way. But he wasn’t taken, and whatever way he swung didn’t matter when someone else was pushing the swing. And Ángel was going to see it all tonight anyway.
Just keep it professional.
“Yeah. Okay.” He hoped Ángel couldn’t feel his stomach quivering as the towel slipped across the skin of his hips.
Ángel gathered it and folded it once, twice, then sat back on the arm of the couch and . . . Sean wasn’t sure what he was doing, to be honest. He’d thought this would feel humiliating, being examined, but it wasn’t that bad after all. Like years ago when he was on the swim team and Coach Alonso would sit by the pool and time his laps and give him tips on his strokes and be friendly and helpful and not sexual in the slightest and holy fuck, why was he even drawing this parallel?
“Looking good,” Ángel said, and gave Sean a pat on the hip. “All you need is a trim. You know, for a street kid you’re pretty fit. If I hadn’t seen you before, I wouldn’t even know.”
Nude and penniless and post-enema, and that was what he found humiliating. Ángel must have seen it in his face, because he dropped his hand.
“Come on and turn around for me.”
Sean did. He heard a cap being unscrewed, and then he felt Ángel’s slick hands spread across his back, gently massaging. He forced himself not to groan. Nobody touched him like this.
The lotion was fine, expensive-smelling, something Sean would never wear—but then, this wasn’t about him. In fact, tonight, he might as well not even exist. He’d be somebody else, somebody their client wanted, somebody who wasn’t out of place with Ángel.
“Do I use a name?” he asked.
“Good question. Yeah, I think so. Something that fits in better with mine.”
“Jesús,” he suggested, and was rewarded with a low laugh.
Behind him, Ángel’s hands came to rest cupping the small of his back.
“Maybe not so obvious. Not too hard to pronounce, either. If it’s got an English version, all the better—he calls me ‘Angel,’ makes me sound like a stripper, but oh well. Luis? Or we could go all out, balls to the wall: Fausto, Dionicio, Dante.”
Dante—it was like his rentboy alter ego was more authentic, more palatable, than Sean O’Hara, the stupidly Irish burden his father had unloaded on him. Not for the first time, he felt torn and slightly dishonest.
“Dante, let’s do that.”
“Dante, mi hermano.”
My brother.
They were really doing this.
Ángel took his hands off Sean, moved back, and the rush of cool air from the ceiling fan almost left Sean shivering. The good feeling in his bones began to drain away.
“You got any pills?” He could hold out for heroin.
But Ángel didn’t reply, just got up and headed for an adjoining room. There was the sound of wooden furniture rattling, doors being opened and shut, drawers sliding, and soon Ángel returned with a stack of neatly folded clothes. Diesel jeans, a tight, thin navy henley, and a snowy-white pair of CK briefs. “Put these on,” he said, ignoring Sean’s question.
“Pills, Ángel,” Sean insisted. All of his muscles suddenly felt tight, like his body was too big for his skin. His hands were the worst; he thought the bones would pop right out of his fingers. “I need something to take the edge off. Anything.”
“Get dressed, and I’ll give you half a Xanax and some rum. You’re not showing up to a job reeking of weed, and as for anything stronger, guys you pick up on the street might not mind if you’re wrecked, but this guy will. He pays way too much to get serviced by some tweaker.”
Sean’s nostrils flared. “I am not— Okay, okay. Let’s chill out. Okay, I’ll get dressed.” He reached for the underwear and yanked them on. He probably looked like a fucking poser idiot. All these fucking brands—jeans that cost more money than he’d spend on food in a month—but these were Dante’s clothes. Not Sean’s. Dante’s tighty-whiteys and designer shirt and scented body lotion. Dante, who’d be sucking some guy off in a couple hours, maybe getting it up the ass, if that was the client’s favorite item on the menu. Something about Ángel’s “grow your hair out” comment gave him a hint he’d never get paid to do the fucking.
His hands shook as he tried to do up the button on his fly. Ángel finally reached out and did it for him, knuckles brushing his stomach.
“You’re starting to look expensive,” he said appreciatively.
“Uh, thanks, I guess.” He didn’t want to do this. He wanted to prove to Ángel that he could do this.
Ángel handed him his shirt, then stood and strode through a narrow doorway tucked into the corner of the living room. When he returned, it was with tumblers in one hand and a bottle of dark rum in the other.
“Sit,” he said, and Sean did. He took the tumbler Ángel poured for him, then the promised half a pill. He downed both in a series of long, hungry gulps.
Ángel sat beside him, sipping slowly from his own glass and watching him from over the rim. “Aged five years. Good?”
“Yeah,” he said, trying too late to slow down by sipping the remnant at the bottom of the tumbler. “It’s good.” The rum sent a welcome trail of fire down his throat, and yeah, it was light-years better than the yeasty bottles of malt liquor he’d share with Cristina to make the highs last longer.
Ángel poured a third small tumbler. Stood up and carried it to a closet on the other end of the living room. Opened the slatted door. Put it on a shelf and intoned something Sean couldn’t quite hear. He caught a glimpse of low dishes crowded with candles, statuettes, little offerings. When Ángel left the tumbler behind, closed the door and returned to the couch, Sean was careful not to stare at him.
“Do you know the orishas?” asked Ángel.
“Not really. I wasn’t raised with that. My mom was Cuban—she had some friends, back when we lived in Tampa, they were santeros. But that’s about it. I know enough not to be impressed with all this New Orleans touristy voodoo shit. It’s all the same religion, right?”
“Good question,” said Ángel, but he didn’t answer it. “You don’t like this city?”
“I love it.” The spirit of the rum rose back up his spine and flowered into his brain. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yes. And you’re looking for beauty.”
“I’ve got a girlfriend. Got. Had. I don’t fucking know. She’s— Oh God.”
“How’re you going to live five years from now?”
“What? What the hell does that have to do with anything? Who even thinks about that?”
Ángel, apparently. He leveled Sean a dead serious look. Sean took a deep breath and tried to answer, tapping into that hazy vision where Cristina was paid to look gorgeous and walk around and smile at people, and he could . . . well, he didn’t have any specia
l skills or artistic talents, but maybe he could be her bodyguard or something.
“I don’t fucking know. I’ve got short-term goals. I get those out of the way, then . . .” He stared at the ceiling.
“Short-term goals. Like what?”
What are you, my fucking guidance counselor, too?
“Get money. Get Cristina back. She’s with some lawyer now. He says he’s going to rescue her. But I want to take care of her myself. So I guess . . . roof over our heads.”
“Drugs,” Ángel added coldly.
“It’s not like that with me and her. It’s not like that at all. I’d give her—” He cut himself off, realizing how fucked-up it would sound to list the offering of heroin as proof of love. But he still felt it. And she’d do the same for him.
“Why not let her be rescued? Or at least live that dream. Ride it out.” Ángel’s words were accusatory, but his voice was soft. “Is this about her happiness, or your pride? And if it’s her, then why not step back and let her have this?”
“If she wants it. Fuck, I’m just dragging her down.” His eyes hurt and he wanted to cry. Hard liquor always did this to him, goddamn it.
“Hey. You’ve both got your own paths to walk. And you need to open your eyes so you step the right way when the time comes.” Ángel laid a hand on Sean’s forearm, gripping hard as if holding him steady. “Right now you’re stumbling backwards, and all the disasters in your life are piling up at your feet, shoving you into the future.”
“That’s deep, man.” He remembered the altar in the closet. Remembered his mother telling him how the slaves had hidden their African gods in the statues of the Catholic saints. Ángel wasn’t the kind of person to remain satisfied with the surfaces of things. “I’ve met a lot of people who talk crazy shit to me, but yours, it kind of makes sense.”
“We’re close. I can feel it.”
“Whoa, whoa. Let’s not go too far. Tonight’s going to be freaky enough.”
Ángel let go, smiled and nodded in a casual way. The transition was flawless. “You’ll do fine. You imagine the person you want to be for the night, and the next day, you walk away. I think you understand that already. I’m going to send an email. Then I’m going to call a cab. You have five minutes to change your mind. After that, this is it. No going back.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Sean said. “I’m ready.”
Sean knew he wasn’t going to like the client the minute they walked into his suite. Actually, he’d had a hunch from the moment the cab had pulled up outside of the hotel, and he’d been struck stupid by the sheer expensive opulence of it. The ceilings of the lobby glistened gold and white and dripped with huge crystal chandeliers. Monster-sized ornate furniture crowded the floor.
“Do not look around,” Ángel had hissed as they’d passed through the huge front entry under the watchful gaze of the doorman, so Sean kept his eyes forward. He didn’t need to look around to know how excessive this place was, how exclusive. He was a trespasser in another world and the other world was watching.
Any person rich enough to afford this place had to have stepped on a lot of necks to get their money; any person vain enough to want to stay here had to have some serious pretensions. He’d been talked down to a lot in his life—by his father, by his teachers, by charity workers, by the various people he’d encountered while panhandling—but he had a feeling that was just the small leagues.
Having successfully navigated the lobby, Ángel led them to the so-called “European Palace Suite.” Oh, a definite ego. Maybe Sean would call him “Your Highness.” Fucker.
He forced himself to smile when the door opened and Ángel ushered him in.
“Not bad,” the client said, giving him an appraising look but talking right past him. He led them from the front foyer—big shoulders, that was the only detail that really hit Sean—and went to take his seat in a gold-tasseled armchair opposite a fireplace. A fireplace. In a hotel. In New Orleans. He didn’t offer either of them a seat.
Ángel took Sean by both shoulders and positioned him with his back to the fireplace, facing the client. Dusted his shoulders. What was this, Christmas dinner with some judgmental old codger of a grandparent? Was he being presented for fucking inspection?
He stood there like an asshole, pinned by the client’s scrutinizing gaze, while Ángel found a nearby liquor cabinet and poured the man a drink. He took it without a “Thank you.”
“You can call me Mr. Walker,” the client said, looking up from his swirling glass of whiskey on ice to where Sean stood. He smirked, and Sean twisted his hands. This was the exact opposite to before, when Ángel had looked him over and it hadn’t been sexual or uncomfortable at all. This was cold and predatory.
He had the sense that Mr. Walker wasn’t used to hearing the word “no.” For the first time, he felt not resentment, but a caged-animal kind of fear.
Mr. Walker took up a lot of space on the armchair. He was tall and broad and white, but darker than either of them, with a deep tan that must have come from boating or skiing. Sean imagined him on a yacht, or in some mountain range in Europe on vacation with his wife, arranging “business meetings” to indulge in his true tastes.
“Walker,” Sean said, squaring his shoulders against Walker’s cold gaze. “Like Texas Ranger?”
Ángel’s face froze into a completely unreadable expression, soft and vague as the middle-distance stare of a fashion model in a photograph.
“Your brother has a smart mouth, Angel.” Walker stood, handing Ángel his drink and moving to stand directly in Sean’s face. Sean forced himself to stand his ground. Walker grabbed him by the chin. “Let me guess, no real father figure in your life, right? Well, I’ll help catch you up on what you missed: you need to shut your mouth unless you’re sucking cock.”
Fuck you. Sean bared his teeth. I hate this fucker already. He felt Ángel squeeze halfway between them, wedging his arm between their chests.
“Hey, hey. Heavy discipline is extra. Just reminding. You wanted reluctant, right, Walker? If this is too reluctant, Dante can dial it back down. Let me handle him.”
Walker snatched his drink from Ángel’s hand and took a step back, rubbing his chin as if he were making a difficult decision in a boardroom. Ángel slipped into the space he’d occupied, blocking Sean’s view of him.
“Coño, ese singao . . .” He rolled his eyes, then looked straight at Sean. “Sí, tú puedes.”
Hearing Ángel curse Walker out, knowing Ángel was on his side in the real world beyond all this role-play bullshit—that calmed him right down. Yes, he could do this. He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders.
Just in time too, because Walker was done waiting around. “Oh, I like that.” His voice was so smug Sean wanted to strangle it out of him. They weren’t speaking Spanish for his fucking benefit. It wasn’t a goddamn kink. He hated how cheap it felt, just like that. “Is that how he keeps you in line? Feisty little thing. I bet he was always getting you out of shit, back when you were kids. Bet you picked a lot of fights.”
“He did,” Ángel agreed, turning to Walker with an easy smile. His hand trailed down Sean’s shoulder. To Walker, it probably looked sensual—a slow, wanting touch—but to Sean it felt like a warning.
He tried to slip into the skin of that other person, and if it didn’t work all the way, at least the effort kept him from telling Walker to fuck off.
“Well, you tell him that shit isn’t going to fly with me. I’ll turn him right over my knee, and if that costs extra, it’ll be money well spent.”
“Mr. Walker isn’t happy with the service yet,” Ángel said with a strange kind of formal dignity. “Maybe you could take his drink. Or remove his shoes.”
“Try not to look too bitter about it,” Walker added cheerfully. He sank back into his armchair, loosening his tie with one hand. He finished the whiskey and held the empty tumbler out to Sean, rattling the ice in the bottom of the glass. “You heard him. He’s just trying to look out for you.”
When Sean finally forced one foot in front of the other, Walker faked him out, pulling the glass out of reach as he lunged forward, grabbing Sean between the legs with his other hand.
Sean’s visualization attempt had paid off, because he didn’t punch Walker in the face.
“Aw, see? Nothing. This is just a job to you, isn’t it? Not your brother; he loves what he does. He gags for it. I bet he’d pay me for the privilege of sucking my cock. But then . . .” Walker’s hand squeezed, a little too roughly to enjoy even if it weren’t attached to such an asshole. “The way you look at him, I think maybe slut runs in the family.” He shifted. Sat back, releasing his hold on Sean. “Angel. Strip him. Just him.”
It’s time to go away for a while.
Okay. I can do that.
Somewhere far away he could feel Ángel’s hand stroking down his cheek—in apology, maybe, or to calm him—then Ángel’s hands reaching for the bottom of his shirt, pulling it over his head. Walker was talking, but Sean couldn’t quite hear him, couldn’t quite make out individual words.
Which was why he was surprised when Ángel’s mouth suddenly landed on his own, tongue pressing insistently into his half-opened mouth.
“Kiss each other,” Walker had said.
Sean’s eyelids fluttered closed, his body tensing then softening as he was enveloped in Ángel’s arms. His hands, balled into fists, were crushed between their chests. That profound sense of violation washed away, like Walker wasn’t even there, or if he was, Ángel would protect him. His body and his weird, wandering spirit.
Ángel kissed and licked him open, and he felt cold where Ángel’s arms reluctantly lowered, down to the fly of his jeans—no, Dante’s jeans—and reached inside to cup Sean’s slowly hardening cock. Dante could keep Walker, could keep the humiliation and the scrutiny and the threats, but Sean wanted Ángel all to himself.
He stepped out of his shoes and the pooled legs of his jeans, and all the while Ángel pulled gently on his cock, and he felt himself grow to fill Ángel’s hand and hoped he was big enough. He moaned—a sad, lonely sound—into Ángel’s mouth. And then Ángel let him go.
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