by E M Lindsey
Miguel’s ears started ringing and he knew his voice was rough when he said, “Uh. No.”
“Kyle and his boyfriend got into a huge fight about it. Kyle insisted you wouldn’t be looking at him the way you were if you didn’t have a dick, and John told him that people without dicks can probably still get off, then he bet us all he could get you to fuck him by the end of the night. He came around this morning and said you were insulted by the implication—and it was like, no offense dude—but he said you fucked him raw just to prove how much you still had a working dick. But like I said, that dude is the biggest fucking liar, so we just want to settle this right now. Did you fuck him?”
Miguel’s eyes went hot, and rage bubbled in his chest, and it took all of his self-control not to pull this obnoxious little asshole by the back of his hair and bash his face into the bar. “My dick is just fine,” he said, his mind working without him being consciously aware of it. “Kyle, on the other hand is a fucking liar. He wasn’t worth my time.”
“I fucking knew it,” the guy said, giving Miguel a triumphant look as though he hadn’t just pulled the rug from under Miguel’s feet. “I knew his fucking boyfriend wouldn’t let him get dicked-down by some deformed biker freak just because he was curious.”
Deformed biker freak.
His ears rang louder, but before he could say anything, Martin was on his feet. “You should go. And tell your friends that you shouldn’t fuck with bikers. They don’t appreciate it, and they don’t have a lot of moral code. Google it. Look up what happens to people’s dick and balls when they decide to make bets on the wrong kind of people. You’ll understand why.”
The kid paled, and somewhere amidst the chaos of his head right then, Miguel felt satisfied and grateful at the way Martin had put the fear of God into him. And the best part, Martin wasn’t entirely wrong. If Miguel had been patched in, if he’d been at all worth anything to his father’s current club, he’d have men down here raining hellfire and brimstone all over these fuckers.
But he offered them nothing. Occasional brute strength, occasional tales of caution, and the ability to put bikes back together with a little spit, duct tape, and prayer. And there was no fucking way he’d tell any of them he’d been hurt by the dude who fucked him. He might as well let someone blow his dick off for all the club members would do to him if they found out he was gay.
Letting out a shaky breath, he reached for his glass and tipped back what was left. Setting it down on the bar, he tugged his sleeve as far over his stump as he could, and he turned his face away from the crowd.
“Do you want me to take care of that for you?” Martin asked. “I know people. I know a lot of people. My shop has serviced a lot of clubs over the years. I have friends—loyal ones.”
Miguel swallowed thickly and shook his head. “Nah. Not worth it.”
Martin gave him a scrutinizing look, then shrugged. “You’re not patched in.”
“Nah, they don’t really want a queer missing his right hand to draw attention,” he said bitterly. “My old man wants me around to help pull the jobs even the prospects aren’t interested in.”
“Fuck that,” Martin spat.
Miguel couldn’t help his bitter laugh. “Not much I can do about it, man. It’s not like I have anything else going for me.”
“I have a feeling you’re wrong.” Martin let out a long breath, then turned to face him. “I know you ain’t gonna show tomorrow. Not after that. But if you’re really unhappy, it’s not that far a drive to Florida. I got a little apartment above the shop that no one uses anymore, and about a hundred sketchbooks, and a roll of pig skin. Maybe you ain’t gonna ink like the rest of my boys—or anyone else I ever met—but I have a feeling there’s something in you waiting to come out. And I’m rarely wrong about shit like this.”
Miguel shook his head, but even as he denied it, he felt a longing wake up inside of him that hurt. He wanted out. He wanted to get the fuck out and never look back. “I’ll think about it,” he said very softly.
“It’s a long process, but it’ll be worth it.” Martin stuck out his right hand again, meeting Miguel’s eyes without a flinch, without hesitation, as he took his stump and pumped it a few times. “Call me. Whenever you’re ready.”
He was gone, the card now in Miguel’s palm, the sound of quiet laughter in the background. They probably weren’t mocking him. They were probably too afraid, but he was tired of living like this. He ran his split tongue over his bottom lip, separating the ends, feeling the alien sensation between the tips. He looked down at what was left of his hand—a quarter of a palm, a knuckle of his thumb, ink, and a mess of scars. Martin was right—maybe there was something left in him. Maybe there was something inside waiting to wake up.
“It’s about fuckin’ time, boy.” His father’s words were slurred, too fast for his thick tongue, which meant he was drunk and high. Miguel fought back a sigh, dodging the beer bottle aimed at his head, and didn’t have it in him to flinch when it made contact with the wall.
A shard of glass scraped along the back of his neck, but that was nothing to the ache inside him leftover from his trip to Austin and the three hour session he had in Martin’s chair. Martin’s card burned in his pocket, his fresh tattoos just starting to itch over his scars—the strangest sensation when he’d been numb there for so damn long.
His old man didn’t notice, of course. Or if he did, he didn’t give a shit about the pain in his eyes. Miguel served one purpose to him, and he was so fucking tired. “I got a run for you, boy, and Blaze’s bike needs some work when you get back.”
I can’t, Miguel wanted to say, but old habits die hard. The words lodged in his throat, and he cleared it, but they still wouldn’t come.
“Got a bitch waiting for you in your room. She don’t care your face is fucked up. Just cares you got a working dick,” Chuck said, then laughed at his own apparent joke.
Miguel brushed past him, reaching behind the bar for a bottle of Jack, which went down like razor blades, but he wasn’t going to get through this sober. He drank, and another strung-out woman crawled into Chuck’s lap, grinding on him.
“Go on, boy,” Chuck ordered. “Go get your dick wet so we can get on the road. We don’t get this done by tomorrow afternoon, we’re fucked. Or I’m fucked and you’re dead.”
Miguel had heard that threat before. His life was always on the line when it suited his old man. But the Jack was taking hold, and he thought maybe an orgasm would at least help take the edge off. At this point, he didn’t care what hole he stuck it in. If it was willing, he could get off. He could maybe forget, just for a minute, that he’d let himself want something other than this hell.
Heading down the hall, he pushed the door to his room open and saw her there. A faint haze of cigarette smoke like hell’s halo surrounded her body, which was emaciated and frail. She looked like one hard thrust would crack her in half, but he knew better than that. Women like her hung around the clubs to be used, in hopes of getting an in, in hopes of fulfilling some fantasy that didn’t actually exist. Or if it did, it wasn’t here. There were no broken bikers in this club waiting to be saved by a kind soul and pair of big tits. Just a bunch of aging addicts slowly losing their reputation and hold over what fragile connections existed between them and the other clubs in the area.
They’d be run out soon—arrested or killed—and they’d die out. It happened enough times, and Miguel had a choice to make. Did he want to be around when the time came? Did he deserve the opportunity Martin had given him?
“Come on, baby. Your dad told me you don’t got an old lady.” She dragged her hand up the inside of her thigh, and he sighed as he reached for the zipper on his jeans. He saw the way her gaze lingered over his scars, on his hand, the furrow of her brow as she waited to see if his dick had survived.
Like Kyle. But she wasn’t trying to be dishonest about it, at least. And she didn’t pretend like she wanted to love him as he slipped between her legs and sank inside.
> It was over quicker than he expected, but it wasn’t hard to close his eyes and picture someone else under him. He tuned out the noises she made and replaced them with the fantasy of someone—some soft man who wanted him for who he was and not what he could offer. He didn’t really give a shit if she came, or if those noises were fake—all he cared about was that she pushed him to the side and let him lay on his soiled bed when it was over.
“Well, fuck,” she said. “I guess it don’t really matter none.”
He rolled over to face the wall. “What’s that?”
“Nothin’. Tell your daddy we’re even.”
Miguel said nothing as the door to his room opened and shut, and when he was alone, he reached for his discarded jeans. It took him a second to locate the card, and he squinted in the dim light at the gold embossed numbers printed under Martin’s name. The drive would be impossibly long, but worth it, he knew. Worth it to put this place behind him, to let it burn to the ground without him taking another hit, another round of scars. He’d been through enough.
With a sigh, he knew his mind was made up. It had made itself up in the bar that night, and then in the convention tent as Martin dragged his machine up and down Miguel’s arm, showing him that even the worst job can be fixed with just a little effort. A metaphor for his life, maybe, but one he was willing to accept.
It was time.
His entire life fit into a single saddle bag, and as he walked past his old man, passed out on the sofa, he knew he’d have no regrets. There was nothing left here for him, but he knew he had a future just outside those doors, and he was ready to reach for it.
Chapter Four
Standing in front of the mirror, Amit removed his hearing aids, letting out a sigh of relief as the loud ruckus faded to a dull thrum he could tune out. Technically he wasn’t supposed to take them out during family gatherings—though technically, it wasn’t anyone’s fucking business what he did considering he was an adult who was in charge of his own life.
But then again, he was never really in charge of anything. He remembered trying to explain to his white friends at school why he couldn’t just tell his parents no. The first time his friend Bryce mouthed off to his mom, he nearly had a heart attack, terrified Bryce was going to be beaten half-to-death. Instead, Bryce’s mom had just tapped her foot and said, “Is that how you show respect?”
Bryce had laughed it off, she had walked away, and Amit had desperately tried to understand how that was even possible. He tried it once at home with his mom. Just once. Never again.
He’d been the lesson his sisters learned—since he was older, and since he was braver, maybe a little dumber. But Amit had never quite stepped out of himself—not enough to show them who he really was. His family was traditional—loving, of course, and supportive. He’d die for them as much as they would for him, but there were expectations. He’d go to a good college, he’d get a good job, he’d get married and have a big family. He’d do all the things his parents expected of him the day they set foot with a two-year-old boy, a one year old girl, his mother pregnant, his father sponsored by a distant cousin who had naturalized years back.
By the time Amit was a teenager, he didn’t remember Rawalpindi, and the only Punjabi he spoke anymore was enough to understand when one of his parents were yelling at him. They weren’t angry about it—never had been. They wanted him to fit in, in spite of their differences— his dark brown skin, his lithe build, the fact that he didn’t go to church like all his other friends. His parents didn’t complain when he said he wanted a Christmas tree—they signed gifts ‘From Santa’, and were able to afford the latest video game so he could be just like all the other boys.
Just like all the other boys, as long as those boys fit neatly in the box his parents had constructed for him. It meant going to a hearing school, it meant not being allowed to even try sign language until they offered it in a little high school club where kids learned it off internet videos. He met his first Deaf friend in college, and things got better then. He kissed his first boyfriend at a football game, then promptly went home and had a two hour long panic attack thinking it might have made it into the TV cameras.
When no one called to shame him, to kick him out of the family, to tell him he was going to hell with all the other queers, he got a little braver. He held Kevin’s hand in public, went on a date to Olive Garden, and got wasted on terrible table wine. He didn’t bring him home for the holidays, but one Christmas they rented a cabin in the mountains and spent the weekend skiing, and laughing, and fucking.
They broke up two months later because they were in college and nothing was easy. He was heartbroken, and he couldn’t talk to anyone about it, so when he got back to campus the next semester, he dated girls. Then he dated more girls. Then his dad had a stroke and died three days before his graduation, and Amit’s life changed again.
“You really don’t need to do this,” Farhia said. She was only twenty months younger than he was, and had always been more of a confidant than Aminah, who took the role of bratty youngest sibling to heart. Farhia looked devastated when she laid eyes on Amit’s suitcases, and the stack of boxes. All of his things had fit into less than ten containers—his entire life so easily boxed up and moved out of his apartment and back to the home he’d grown up in.
His room hadn’t changed much. His stuff had been cleared out and the bed was bigger to accommodate guests. But it still felt like his, and it wasn’t exactly a hardship to give up his life to take care of his mother. His degree was psychology—and he needed graduate school to go anywhere with it, but he didn’t have time. He didn’t have room for debt.
What he did have was service skills, and he was pretty enough to land a job at a posh bar downtown, which meant he could work nights and take care of his mother during the day. It was fine. Not ideal, but it was fine.
It was what good sons did.
“Mom will be okay without you, you know,” his sister carried on.
It was easy enough for Amit to pretend like he couldn’t hear her. Some days he wished he couldn’t. Some days it was hard, straddling the line between Deaf and hearing, and he felt cut off from both worlds in making this choice. Hearing at home, Deaf with his friends, dating women but almost exclusively attracted to men, and feeling like he was missing out on something because his life was just so…limiting.
But really, he was fine.
Seven years later, and it was still fine. Amit had gotten a little braver—found an ink shop in Fairfield, decorated his body, and made some friends. He was now practically running The Library Nook, even if he was still titled Bartender for payroll. But he was ahead on bills, and had a good savings, and a couple of grad school applications tucked away in his desk.
Farhia had let her mother arrange a marriage for her the year before, and the wedding was coming up, which had Amit stressed beyond all reason. His mother had been hinting around at marriage for him, but the thought of tying himself down to someone he’d only met a handful of times—someone who would very much not approve of who he was deep down—it was too much.
He knew shouldn’t let his sister go through with it, either, but she had always been more pragmatic than he was. “I’m not looking for the love of my life,” she’d told him when he worried aloud that she’d end up miserable. “Mom and dad didn’t love each other right away, but they did eventually.”
Amit wasn’t so sure they’d loved each other. Maybe in their own way—the way that came from having a shared home and children—but there had never been a spark. There had never been heat or craving, and god, he wanted that. He didn’t want to give up choices, options, freedom, all because it might make his mother happy. He loved her, but he loved himself too.
He just wanted to be allowed to be who he was without fear, and that was so damn much harder.
Amit took a breath and opened his dresser drawer. Inside sat a neat array of nail polish in nearly every color he could think of, and all of them—each and every bottle—remained
unopened. Some days he’d pull them out, line them up, and stare. He’d had a lot of courage in his life, but there were steps he was still too afraid to take. Like the things he hid in drawer beside that one, under piles of old socks he never wore. Lace, in soft pinks and purples, the elastic waistband large enough to fit over his hips, the fabric with enough stretch to hug his ass. They were nothing more than a moment of insanity, maybe, and too loose with his credit card. He’d ordered the panties, then waited in a panic by the door every day until they arrived because if he couldn’t handle questions about dating men, he certainly couldn’t answer questions about that.
Tiny bits of himself existed that would probably forever remain hidden. It made his heart ache, and sometimes it was hard to breathe. He’d see people at his bar coming and going, living their best lives, and his jealousy was so profound he could taste it.
The ink helped. Taking charge of something—even if each piece could be covered by sleeves and a pair of pants, he was giving himself something. Color, life, meaning in ways that none of his family would ever understand. He considered himself just as much a believer in Islam as his parents—but he could never understand how being himself was more of a sin than lying about who he was. His phone buzzed, reminding him of his appointment, so he slammed the drawer shut and reached for his keys.
“I’m going out,” Amit called to his auntie, who was in the kitchen throwing something into a pot he wasn’t really interested in exploring. “Tell mom I’ll be back late, but I can drive her to the doctor in the morning.”
“Alright, raaje, but I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said, and he fought back a groan, and the urge to pull his hearing aids out and pretend like they were dead. “You know my niece Samantha…”
“I have to run, auntie,” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “You can tell me later.” Deaf gain, is what his friends would call it, because people in his family had stopped calling him rude and just started accepting that half the time he left the room without trying to understand what they were saying. Frankly, he was happy to keep up the lie.