Riptide Rentboys

by Heidi Belleau

  It was Walker who grabbed him next, fingers digging hard into his shoulders and pulling his body close. Walker’s kiss was invasive, a furious thick tongue and punishing teeth that caught and tugged his lips in between teasing little licks. Walker’s hand reached up, trying to grab him by the hair, but it just skimmed across his buzz cut and down to snatch one ear instead. He yanked Sean’s head to look at Ángel, who was standing and watching, his face unreadable.

  “You’re disgusting,” Walker told him. “You can’t get hard for a man like me, but get your own brother’s hand on your dick and suddenly you’re meowing like a fucking kitten. You’re unnatural. You need me to fix you.”

  Now that hit hard and deep, digging down past Dante and into Sean. The insults didn’t even have any basis, but somehow they still hurt, like Walker knew something about him that he didn’t—maybe they were brothers, maybe this was all a sick joke, gleefully orchestrated by Walker, regretfully enacted by Ángel, who had no choice . . .

  Walker pressed the flat of Sean’s hand against his erection and held it there. “Feel that? I’m going to teach you to love my dick. I’m going to teach you to worship my dick.” When he let go, Sean lurched drunkenly to one side. Ángel caught him in his arms again. They both watched as Walker returned to his seat and spread his legs in a commanding gesture. “Enough games. Angel, come here and teach your little pervert brother how to suck my cock. Dante, take care of my shoes. And watch.”

  Ángel stepped forward and sank to his knees all in one motion, as if this were a dance. Sean remembered floating along with him through the narrow streets earlier tonight, and how he’d stayed half a step behind. He did that again. There were suns and vines and lilies woven into the rug that pressed against his knees, and Walker’s shiny black shoes had tight, waxed laces.

  When he laid the shoes aside and looked up, Ángel was working. Creating dreams. He moved slowly, keeping his eyes open the entire time. The way he gave head—God, it was art. Walker had his head tilted back, all the cruel tension gone from his face as Ángel lovingly swirled his tongue.

  Sean felt Walker’s hand cup the side of his face. He leaned into the warmth; the band of a heavy ring pressed into his cheekbone.

  “Good, good,” Walker gasped. His thumb pried at Sean’s lip, and Sean opened his mouth, trying to match Ángel’s unhurried rhythm and meticulous movements. “This is everything I wanted.”

  Sean’s mouth slipped free of Walker’s thumb and he rose slightly on his knees, up until his cheek touched Ángel’s. Watching Ángel’s movements out of one eye, he leaned in, finding some neglected inch of skin on Walker’s cock and licking and sucking along it dutifully. When Ángel rose and dipped again, taking Walker’s full length, Sean moved down to Walker’s sac and burrowed into it. Obedience. Worship. He didn’t pray at any altar, but he understood the concept. He let Ángel teach him.

  He didn’t even know how it happened, but suddenly he and Ángel were kissing again, Walker’s hands pressed to the backs of their heads and keeping them close. Ángel’s mouth tasted like cum, but to Sean it was strangely sweet, a taste he wanted to keep and savor. He deepened the kiss without being prompted, Walker’s erection nudging against his face. His consciousness drifted, his body seeming to waver like seaweed in a slow current. Underwater. He almost thought he could hear it, that deep, ever-present roar and rumble of being submerged.

  Ángel drew away, leaving Sean tilting into the space he’d left behind, searching for him with his mouth, because for some reason, even though he could see, the patterns of light and shadow and color no longer made sense.

  “He’s ready,” Ángel said.

  Suns circled his head. Vines rose from the shadows, wove between them, and flowered into starbursts.

  They helped him stand. He hadn’t realized he needed help to stand. Just like that, the sweet sense of unreality turned to something threatening. His mind, moving in fits and starts, tried to recall everything he’d eaten or drunk in the last twelve hours. Tallied up the drugs, their interactions, whether it was possible for him to be this high. It fucking wasn’t. Something had gone wrong, someone had . . . someone . . . someone . . .

  He twisted in their grip, trying to fight them off, but all of his joints just flopped around like someone had cut his tendons, like he was a jellyfish, an anemone, something boneless at the mercy of the current.

  Ángel. Ángel had given him the pill, but not the pill, it wasn’t the pill. The rum. Ángel had given him the rum. The rum he’d drunk as if he were parched.

  “Ángel!” he slurred. They were laying him down on the hulking four-poster bed. Vines curled around his wrists and ankles, clicking into place. Words in a language he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand any of this. He’d trusted Ángel. Ángel was his brother. He didn’t . . .

  The bed’s heavy curtains closed.

  It’s time to go away.

  On the bed, Dante struggled a second longer, then fell still.

  Cream-colored curtains, bleached bone-white in the center where the sun struck, rippled in the rush of air from the ceiling fan.

  His head was throbbing. He sat up, covering his eyes, and tried to organize his scattered memories. This was Ángel’s couch, this blue velvet. He was in Ángel’s apartment. Maybe he’d never left. Maybe he’d taken Ángel up on his offer for a place to stay for the night. But no, he was wearing last night’s clothes, the expensive jeans. Dante’s jeans.

  His head hurt like a bitch, but the rest of him . . . He scissored his legs, stretched his arms, and failed to notice any sinister twinges. His palms felt oddly burnt, like he’d picked up a hot pan handle. That was weird, but not telling of anything in particular. Okay.

  He hit the bathroom. Freshened up and drank some water from the tap. Contemplated vomiting, but no, his head didn’t hurt that bad, and his stomach was basically okay. He checked the medicine cabinet, but Ángel didn’t keep his Xanax there, just aspirin. He popped a couple anyway.

  “You all right in there?” came Ángel’s voice, muffled through the door.

  His heart seized. Last night. Ángel. “Yeah, fine!” he called back. “Be out in a second.”

  Shit. What now? He looked wildly around the bathroom, trying to come up with any sort of plan. His first urge was to find a window and escape—he could sell the clothes for a good chunk of money, cut his losses on the whole prostitution thing, and get the fuck out before anything weirder happened—but another part of him, perhaps the stupidest part, still trusted and admired Ángel and wanted to hear his side of the story. Maybe he was reading it all wrong here. He didn’t black out a lot, but it could have happened.

  So he put on a guarded smile and stepped out of the bathroom into the late morning sunlight.

  “Hey,” said Ángel. He was wearing a fresh pair of jeans. A plain wifebeater. Hair combed back into a cleaner version of a fifties Greaser’s style. “You feeling up for some breakfast? I’ll take you for a beignet at Café du Monde. My treat.”

  “Uh, thanks.” Sean looked down and picked at the pockets of his jeans.

  “Those? Tell you what. I got a C-note tip last night. I’ll keep all of it, and you keep all the clothes.”

  It wasn’t close to being a fair trade. The jeans were worth more than a hundred on their own, never mind the shirt.

  “I can’t,” Sean said. “They’re too rich for me.”

  “Then pick up another outfit at Walmart. The clothes you walked in here with, they need to get burned.”

  It wouldn’t have annoyed him yesterday, but it did today. He tilted his chin up. “Hey, fuck you. I was just fine before I met you.”

  Ángel sighed. “Come on, man. You’ve got to think professional. Want to make this kind of money again?”

  “You know what, to be honest, I’m not sure I do. You’re a sellout. You sold me out.” He was shaking so hard he thought maybe he’d just fall to pieces. He had to keep the anger going, or else he’d just end up a crying mess. He stormed over to the couch and
sat, putting his aching head in his hands.

  “What do you think happened last night?” Ángel’s question was perfectly calm. In the face of it, Sean’s anger seeped away, leaving the way for mounting terror. If he had done something to Sean last night . . . Looking at him now, how fucking cool he played it—oh hey, how about I buy you a beignet?—meant he had to be some kind of fucking sociopath. And Sean had—

  “I don’t fucking know. It went— I don’t—”

  “You were fine. A little glassy-eyed, that’s all. The client shot his load early. Had us make out and give each other hand jobs while he talked dirty so he could fill the rest of the time.”

  “You’re lying. You tied me down. I remember—” But he didn’t remember. He didn’t remember anything. He remembered making out, like Ángel had said. Remembered being naked.

  “Nobody tied you down. I got you into bed and I climbed on top of you. Maybe I pinned your wrists, but look—you were okay. You didn’t fight, you didn’t . . . You agreed to go through with it, right? And you did. You did great. That was a really tough job, and you nailed it. I’ve never seen Walker leave smiling, no matter how much I lick his ass.”

  Ángel sat down beside him and took his hand. Sean remembered Ángel’s hand. On his face, on his shoulder, on his chest, on his cock.

  “You could do good for yourself in this business, with your girlfriend or without, long as you cut down on the drugs. I’d let you stay with me awhile, ’til you got on your feet and figured yourself out, got a clientele going.”

  “I don’t fucking need to cut down on the drugs. And I don’t want to stay with you, I want to be with Cristina. I love her. You’re just . . .” He struggled to think of the words.

  “I’m trying to help you, Sean. You’re so used to being used and betrayed you can’t even see that for what it is. You’re standing at a fork in the road right now, and the path you’re planning on going down? It’s going to end badly for you. It’s going to end really, really badly. Because you’re going to get more and more into the drugs, until you can’t live without them—hell, you can barely function without them now, just look at you—and then you’re going to turn to street hustling again, but you’re going to get desperate and you’re going to get sloppy, and one day you’re going to get into the wrong car, and I won’t be there to help you.”

  Ángel took a deep breath and reached out, cupping the back of Sean’s neck and pulling him forward until their foreheads touched. “So look. Forget breakfast. I’m going to give you your cut of the money, five hundred dollars as promised, and I’m going to let you walk out of here. Take it. Go see your girlfriend, go have a real meal, catch a movie, whatever, and I want you to think it over. I want you to think real hard, Sean. About what you want. About where you’re going.”

  The five hundred dollars was all in twenties. He counted it three times, wearing his best poker face so Ángel wouldn’t know just how much this money was worth to him. Afterward, Ángel walked him down to the street and caught his hand just as he made for the sidewalk, tugging him back into the shade of the entryway. And then he kissed him.

  Sean just broke out of his grip and walked away.

  The Best Western drew him in like a magnet, and it wasn’t far away. The beige checkerboards on the upholstery, the Formica-topped reception counter, the soft-rock hits piping at low volume from the corners of the lobby . . . it was all so familiar, and he felt like he’d walked into an embassy of mundane ugliness in the heart of a magic city. Harried families and businessmen talking into their hands formed lines in front of the counter, and that was just fine with him, because no one was paying him attention. He didn’t stand out.

  He found a chair with a clear view of the elevator and settled in for the wait. A USA Today section sat on the table next to the chair, so he pretended to read it. If anyone asked, he’d tell them he was here for a meeting. Yeah. He glanced at his nonexistent wristwatch and practiced a business type of face. And when Cristina came by? Fuck, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. He wouldn’t make a scene. Just ask her what she wanted, and make it clear that he was here for her.

  Apparently the IRA had just laid down their arms. His dad probably would have had something to say about that, but he didn’t give a shit. Hurricane season was off to a bad start this year. Some incomprehensible scandal involving American Idol. He read it all, front to back, and then started over again, putting the paper down only when his hands started to tremble. He needed food, water, dope, and Cristina, and he was having a big problem figuring out in which order.

  The crowd had thinned by now, enough to have a clear line of sight to the receptionist, a full-figured black girl in retro glasses. She flashed him an automatic smile, but there was a tightness to her eyes that told him he’d better not stick around too much longer; she’d marked him.

  The elevator dinged. For probably the hundredth time, his head jerked up toward it on cue, sad mid-range Pavlov’s dog that he was. But this time, it was worth it. Cristina.

  It had only been a couple days, but he was almost surprised by how beautiful she was, like he’d forgotten the small details of her: the way her hair had strands of red under a certain light, the way her jeans fit a little bit snugly, especially around her full, shapely thighs. She threw herself out of the elevator like a whirlwind, balancing a backpack and a tote bag as she spun. One leg of a pair of jeans trailing from her pack had gotten caught in the closing elevator door, and she howled in frustration, tugging on it to the rhythm of a stream of Spanish and English curse words. It would have been funny if he didn’t know how seriously she tended to take herself. The receptionist obviously didn’t know, because he could see her hiding laughter behind her hand before it burst free and she had to disguise it as a cough.

  “The fuck are you looking at?” Cristina snapped at her, giving the jeans one last yank. They popped free, and she stumbled back with leftover force. This time the receptionist did laugh. Sean wasn’t sure whether he felt sorrier for Cristina or for her.

  He stood. “Cristina!” he called out. When she turned to him, it was like she didn’t even recognize him at first, and then her eyebrows stitched together furiously and he knew that she did.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Sean? Come to gloat about— And what the fuck are you wearing?” She balled up the jeans, passing them between her hands like a football.

  “Never mind that.” He couldn’t help but smile nervously. They were talking. She was giving him the time of day. “I have something important to tell you.”

  “What, that you’re batting for the other team now?” She gestured to his outfit by way of explanation. She looked reluctant, but she still came alongside him, obviously expecting him to walk her out.

  “Gay for pay in the USA, baby,” he said, and showed her his stack of twenties. He grinned like crazy as he took her pack. Shoulder to shoulder, they left the hotel, Cristina flicking the bird at the receptionist at the last moment. The gesture was cheerfully returned.

  “Mmm, you smell good,” Cristina said once they were outside, and stood on her toes to kiss his neck. It felt dizzyingly sweet, Cristina beside him and money in his pocket and the ancient city street spread out before him. “So where we going now? I’m glad you came early, baby, ’cause I would’ve gone looking for you anyway. I couldn’t spend another day with that motherfucker. He put up a front like he was a big spender, but he didn’t have shit, and all he was saying was ‘rehab, rehab,’ like a fucking doll with a string, then he told me I had a mouth on me, and I was like, ‘Yeah, motherfucker, what, you think you signed on to fuck fucking Hello Kitty? Of course I’ve got a fucking mouth.’ And things kind of went downhill from there. I missed you so bad.”

  “I like your mouth,” he said. “I love it. I love you. I thought you were gonna leave me. All this crazy shit happened. Let’s get some lunch. You get yourself anything you want, I’ve got the money.”

  “I love you too, baby. Yeah, let’s go to Café du Monde.”

&nbs
p; At Café du Monde they shared a plate of beignets, and he spent way too much of the time thinking about how close he’d been to doing this very same thing with Ángel, and way too little time thinking about how cute Cristina looked with her lips dusted with powdered sugar.

  “Do you ever feel like you turned into a different person when you— when you’re on a job?”

  Cristina blinked and wiped a smudge of sugar off the corner of her mouth. “You want to talk about this?” She winced, but then took a deep breath. “Well, no. I mean, sometimes I just kind of . . . I guess I kind of just go on autopilot maybe, let my body do its thing while I think about, I dunno, movies or something. But no, I’m still me. Maybe I pretend to be younger, is that what you mean?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know what I mean.”

  “So you got all that money for one night? And the clothes? Because, damn. I gotta say, even if I hadn’t planned on going back to you, I would have changed my mind now. You look hot.”

  “Really? Because I feel like an asshole.” He rolled his shoulders, as if his shirt was too tight. Actually, it fit perfectly, which now that he thought of it was kind of odd. Ángel and he looked alike, maybe, if you tilted your head the right way, but they were nowhere near the same size. “I guess I could do it again. But I’d need to set up a Craigslist ad, get some shots, screen clients.” He loved how professional that sounded.

  “Yeah,” Cristina said, smiling and looking real happy for him. “You can buy a laptop. That would be fucking awesome.” Her smile faded. “But first, let’s score, okay?”

  He ignored the look of anxiety, the way her body seemed way too tense.

  It was fine. He’d take care of her, just like he’d said. He’d never let it go too far.

  Sean scanned the shapes draped over the riverfront steps, looking for any familiar face. He succeeded in spotting a crusty Dutchman named Monty he’d gotten high with last week, so he strolled over to re-introduce himself.