Bath Haus

by P. J. Vernon

  As hard as it is, I turn my back to him and head for the kitchen door. The pitcher in my hand keeps him from following. As I reach for the handle, I think I see Hector reflected in the glass there.

  Pointing a finger gun at the back of my head.

  * * *

  • •

  I burst into the master bedroom, where my phone’s been charging all afternoon. I yank it from the wall and unlock my home screen. Shit—no service bars. Hector’s rendered Wi-Fi moot but a signal still comes every now and again. After all, Kristian’s threats keep rolling in like the goddamn tide. If I’m going to out Hector—sink his credibility before Nathan sees my dick on his phone—I’ve got to move. Now.

  I pad down the hallway, arm extended like a makeshift cell tower. The world’s shortest antenna, and when I reach the staircase, a bar finally appears.

  My pulse ramps up. Social media first. Surely, this pro at Facebook fraud will have one. If not, I’ll find him. No one’s unfindable. If nothing else, I’ve learned that the fucking hard way.

  Before I can open the browser, the phone vibrates in my hand. Two text messages. Both from the same Washington number: Rachel Henning, Det Sgt, MPDC.

  Call me asap.

  We found him.

  A surge of adrenaline. Questions burst like fireworks. I’ve told her nothing about meeting him or Tilly or his room at The Jefferson. My hands tremble; no amount of day drinking can steady them. She says she found Kristian. I’m now alone. Hector’s brooding on the deck. Nathan and Tom are on the beach, and I have service. Fresh from a shakedown, but I have to know what the hell she means.

  Crackling and popping and static-tinged, but the call goes through.

  “Henning here.”

  “What do you mean you found him? As in, you know where he is? Or did you catch him? Is Kristian arrested?” Questions. Confessions. Everything erupts uncontrollably. “I should’ve told you earlier, but I saw him. At the Jefferson hotel to get our dog back. He booked a room. Seven-twenty-one. Now he’s texting me again. I should’ve called sooner, but I’m terrified and—”

  “Oliver,” Detective Henning cuts me off. “Slow down. It’s okay.”

  I take in a gulp of air, listen for footsteps downstairs in case Hector—or anyone—came inside.

  “Kristian can’t hurt you. That’s why I called.”

  “So he is in jail?”

  “You don’t understand.” Detective Henning sharpens her voice. “He’s dead.”

  My heart blows wide open. Dumping panic and questions and fear like jet fuel.

  “Kristian’s dead,” she repeats, breaking up in a waning signal. “His name is Olav Eriksen. He’s Norwegian. Stateside on an overstayed tourist visa. He is, was, an escort for hire. Four months in New York, then three in the DC area.”

  A thick knot scales my throat. I finally choke out: “How did he die?”

  “Overdose.”

  “Drugs?”

  “The medical examiner’s report isn’t done, but it looks like he shot up bad dope. Thought you needed to hear it. Stopped by your place a few times but couldn’t catch you. I need you to come back in. Make an official ID to close out your file.”

  As what Detective Henning says sinks its teeth in, a deeply uncomfortable question comes to mind. “What time did Kristian—Olav—die? What day?”

  Crinkling pages flip on her end. “Coroner put the time of death two days ago. Late. Between ten thirty and midnight. Why?”

  The detective’s voice dwindles as the phone falls from my fingers. I don’t need to hear any more. She can’t help me.

  “Why do you—wait,” she squeaks from the floor. “When was your last text from him?”

  She can’t save me because Kristian’s messaged all day today, all day yesterday, all from MeetLockr. I bring my hands to my throat and squeeze.

  “Oliver? You there?”

  If Kristian’s dead, who have I been talking to?

  V. Terminal Respiration

  Cardiac arrest. Clinical death.

  50

  I collapse at the top of the stairs. The railing keeps me from tumbling. All the way to the bottom where my neck snaps and I die.

  And someone gets what they’ve wanted all along.

  Kristian is dead. But Kristian is also messaging me, and not from a fucking autopsy table.

  My mind surges in thousands of directions. It’s explosive and primal. Dictated only by instinct. Identify my enemy. I must identify my enemy. How the hell do I do that?

  The MeetLockr account. Someone’s been talking to me in Kristian’s name. The ramifications of this bleed through. Congeal as hard, unforgiving facts.

  Kristian hadn’t deleted and reinstalled MeetLockr, but the messages picked right up where he’d left off. After Detective Henning said he took a hotshot.

  Someone else knows. And now Hector shows up, coincidentally, to cut the internet and extort me. What would Detective Henning say about that?

  Kristian, what he’s done to me, what I’ve done—someone knows it all, and I’m naked again like I was in Haus. Shamed. Splayed open for all to see everything inside. A scalpel has sliced my belly wide open to the air and sepsis is just around the corner. My dignity is abandoned on wet tile. Wrapped in my black briefs and flippantly discarded.

  Geotagging! MeetLockr’s users depend on it. I open the app, scroll for my most recent message from Kristian, and tap for the distance.

  200 meters away.

  Kristian is dead. Someone knows everything, and that someone is one of only three human beings within a two-hundred-meter radius.

  Hector. Tom. Nathan.

  Electricity snaps up my spine, and I look over my shoulder. I creep down the stairs, but a plush Persian runner muffles my steps. I came inside to grab beers, so I should make for the kitchen.

  The back door opens. Laughter. The damp slapping of rubber flip-flops against slick tile. Glass on granite. I freeze.

  “Oliver?” Nathan slurs. “Hey? Where’d you go?”

  “Upstairs,” I call back, voice cracking like a choirboy’s. “Had to make a call.”

  “We’re going out tonight,” he shouts.

  “Spin,” Tom adds. “Party’s just getting started.” A boisterous shuffling as the gaggle of gays collapse on couches to check phones and catch missed messages. A breather before louder music and harder drinking.

  I reopen MeetLockr. Scrolling frantically, I head back upstairs.

  The main staircase winds around a vaulted, two-story living room before splashing into the foyer. Halfway up, a landing opens to the space below. An arched cutout in the wall displays an enormous vase. A blue-and-white porcelain of ponds, lotus flowers, and koi. I kneel behind it, peer over the ledge and into the living room.

  I find the anonymous profile—dead Kristian’s profile—and text a single character. The only thing I’ve ever messaged this person:

  ?

  I tap reply, hold my breath, and brace myself.

  * * *

  • •

  On one camelback love seat sit Tom and Hector. Tom’s hand rests on Hector’s upper thigh, nearly on his groin. Tom crosses his ankles on the coffee table of sculpted sandstone. On the opposing one sits Nathan. Fresh Corona Light in hand, liquor-fevered cheeks.

  Tom has Hector, Nathan has me. But no one gives any hint they’ve received a new message. My heart beats in my throat. No one betrays himself by startling.

  Nathan closes his eyes and his head falls back into a cushion. I duck, worried he’s seen me. Then check the read receipt on my text.

  Message send failure. Fuck.

  Fingers trembling, I retry:

  ???

  Message send failure.

  I press send again. Again. Again.

  Failure. Failure. Failure.

  Why did He
ctor have to fry the goddamn Wi-Fi!? The question’s rhetorical, but that doesn’t stop my fear from answering.

  Because, it whispers, Hector knows exactly what he’s doing.

  * * *

  • •

  I button my shirt before Kathy’s full-length mirror and watch Nathan towel off from a shower. My hands shake as I search for a way to slam the brakes on tonight. To bring everything to a screeching, screaming stop so I can figure it out. But there are no brakes. No way to halt any of it. No escape.

  Whatever it is.

  Arms wrap around my chest and I clench my gut.

  I’m thankful Nathan’s as drunk as he is. Sober eyes would read me for panicked and undone, but the only sober eyes in this house are my own. Now I’m forced to go out. Play charades at Spin while Cher asks a teeming dance floor if we believe in life after love. Share a table with whichever of these men is coming for me in ways I can’t begin to imagine.

  Kristian seduced me. Kristian attacked me. Kristian stalked and hunted and tried to finish what he started. That was all real. His lips and his hands in the steamy darkness of Haus. The electric touch of his leg at The Jefferson while he spun tales of abuse and scissors.

  And he’s dead. And it’s not over. No matter how hard Hector argues his own case while prosecuting Nathan, the facts are simple: he’s a user, a criminal, and he’s made his demands plain. He even saved my soiled jeans for the occasion.

  Behind me, an intoxicated Nathan struggles with his own pant leg after crating Tilly. I’m struck by another reality: Hector could be right. Words cut deep when they’re true, and Hector’s practically scraped bone. How much daylight is there between him and Nathan, really? Threats. Manipulation. Gaslighting. One uses his fist and the other his lips, but the effect’s the same: complete control.

  And now Kristian is dead. Which means something far worse—someone far more dangerous and patient—has been watching the whole goddamn time.

  Who?

  51

  NATHAN

  Too drunk for dinner and too early for Spin puts us in a holding pattern of freezer pizza and pregaming. I place another empty bottle on the coffee table as Tom stands.

  “If you’re going to the fridge, grab me a new beer?”

  “You got it,” Tom says.

  From my phone, I crank the volume on the sound system. Seated next to me, Oliver seems to wince. The Wi-Fi hasn’t worked all night, but Bluetooth still connects my playlist. A “Blue Monday” remix pulses and pounds so hard the house palms shake.

  “So how many does it take to make an orgy?” Jeff winks from the opposite love seat.

  “Huh?” I laugh.

  “Tom says, like, six guys.” He pauses, knowingly. “But I think four’s the magic number.”

  “Anything more than two should count, right?”

  “How about you?” Jeff eyes Oliver. “What do you say?”

  Oliver says nothing. He smiles snidely and nurses the same beer he’s had for the past hour. More fixated on his phone than ever, but just as dodgy about hiding his screen—which he’s somehow managed to crack.

  “You’re no fun,” I tell my now fiancé.

  “You’re wasted.”

  “It’s six!” Tom calls from the kitchen, barely able to carry all the shit in his arms. A pile of shot glasses clink on the coffee table as they tumble from Tom’s hands. A couple of beers and an unopened bottle of Patrón follow. “Four is literally just a foursome.”

  “Is tequila a great idea, Tom?” Oliver’s disapproval is starting to grate.

  “We’re celebrating.” Tom pulls the cork out with his teeth. He pours and downs his shot. Jeff follows suit—as do I—and Oliver sits uncomfortably. Liquor untouched.

  “You wanna celebrate?” Jeff asks, wiping his mouth. Out of his pocket comes a baggie of pills. A dazzling array of rainbow colors I’m not sober enough to recognize.

  “What’s all in there?”

  “A party.” Jeff shrugs and takes two.

  “Anything this small has got to be dangerous.” Tom pinches a pink pill in his fingers before tossing it back. “Maybe we’re not making it out tonight.”

  “Or maybe the club gets better,” I say, chasing down a white tab with beer. Oliver, on the other hand, doesn’t even flinch. A baggie of pills should have him salivating, but it seems to do nothing. Fuck him. I find Jeff’s eyes. And also, fuck him. I give him a grin but my vision’s starting to split.

  “I’m obviously planning the bachelor party,” Tom starts. “It’s gonna be major. Like party-plane-to-Fiji major.”

  I laugh, gesture to the substance abuser’s wet dream before us. “This isn’t it?”

  “Where’s the hooker? The free pass before you’re legit?”

  “The foursome,” Jeff adds with a slick smile. “Oliver will give his boy permission, won’t you, Oliver?”

  I can’t tell if Jeff’s joking or not. The truth’s probably somewhere in the middle, but whatever pill I popped is kicking in, and I like where this is going. A slow tingle crawls my scalp.

  “No need.” I take Oliver by the shoulder, pinch. “We’re actually in an open relationship now. Did you know that, Tom?”

  Oliver makes a stupid face, and Tom says, “What?”

  “Don’t sweat it. Oliver forgot to let me know too. But, yeah, we’re apparently wide open.” I finish my beer. I’m not sure if my words are meant to entice or accuse. Again, likely somewhere in the middle. “Oliver fucked around, so then I fucked around.”

  “Nat, stop.” Oliver slides closer. “You’re getting sloppy.”

  An eerie euphoria sweeps my spine, and tiny flames dance in everyone’s eyes.

  “So, ya know, Tom.” I snap my fingers to the beat of electric music. “Feel free to send more dick pics to my fiancé ’cause it’s totally fine now.”

  Drunk, drugged, and high on his vapid gay life, Tom still freezes. His posture, iconic like Joan Crawford of Arc when he finally speaks: “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

  “I love the bachelor party idea,” I interrupt. Jeff shifts uncomfortably. “What do you think, Tom? Wanna swap tonight?”

  Jeff shoots Oliver a glance, who shakes his head as if to say no. But his no could mean no, do not engage with Nathan sexually or no, do not engage with Nathan violently because he’s intoxicated and unpredictable. But I don’t know lots of things, right? And if I didn’t know different, it’s almost like these two know each other from somewhere.

  “Hey, Jeff, you top, bottom, or vers—”

  “Chill the fuck out, Nathan. Take this.” Tom slides a tablet my way. Chill? Anger erupts, and I swipe it onto the rug with shot glasses and empty bottles.

  “Jesus, dude!” Jeff stands like he’s looking for a fight. For wasting his score or perhaps something else. “Oliver’s right. You’re sloppy.”

  I scoff. “Don’t get pissed at me because Tom can’t keep his dick off other guys’ phones.”

  “Baby,” Tom starts. “It was before we got serious—”

  “I don’t give a shit who you sleep with,” Jeff spits before pivoting back to me. I gird myself. “But Nathan over here can’t be shocked. I’d step out on his controlling ass too. Prick.”

  “Nat, don’t.” Oliver takes a fistful of my sleeve, but I toss my phone on the coffee table and tear free of his grasp.

  “This is my goddamn house.” I rise to meet Jeff’s glower. “Who do you think you are?”

  I reach for the asshole’s collar, but he ducks. When Jeff pulls back a fist, Oliver leaps between us, screams, “Hector!”

  Silence as what he just said is absorbed by the room.

  He’s stopped midsentence. Tom knots his brow. They both look at me. The music couldn’t be any louder and I hear none of it. There’s only my heart, thumping hard like a war drum.

  Maybe it’
s the booze or the pills slipping through my blood-brain barrier with unsettling ease, but a sinkhole opens in my chest. I’ve stumbled on a fresh lie. Sunk both feet into a heaping, steaming pile of a lie—one I did not see coming. The sadness is as inescapable as the rage.

  “So.” I brush spit from my lip. “That’s who you are.”

  Oliver takes a step closer. “Enough—”

  “Don’t!” I thrust my hand out, and he jolts.

  “Nat”—Oliver’s voice catches on tears—“please.”

  “I’ll deal with you next.” I zero in on Jeff. “After this motherfucker’s finished.”

  “Can everyone please reset,” Tom cries. I break an empty bottle on the stone table. A popping crack like a gunshot, and there are no more resets. No more chances. No more bullshit.

  “This is Hector, is it?” I bite into the side of my cheek. Hot blood and pain keeping my double vision in check. “Hector, your tweaker rapist.”

  “Put the glass down!” Again, Oliver grabs my arm but this time I shove him. Way too hard and he stumbles into a back wall.

  “Listen to your sugar baby, Doc.” Jeff, or Hector, rather, puckers his lips. “Before you get hurt.”

  I tighten my grip on the broken bottleneck. My body’s on fire. Oliver, Tom, the whole room, it all darkens. Narrows to a tunnel that holds room for Hector only. Not for the first time, I wonder if I’m willing to kill a man. Before I can answer that, the front door bursts open, and a new voice screams a question of her own.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Mother growls.

  52

  OLIVER

  My spine digs into the wall, my chest heaves.

  “Mother?” Nathan’s dumbfounded. As am I. As are Tom and Hector. As are Kathy and Victor, who stand just beyond the foyer. What happens next is anyone’s guess. “What are you doing—”

  “I asked you a question!” Kathy interrupts. Black leather pumps clicking on hardwood as she draws closer. Rosewater perfume precedes her, and the breeze sends gooseflesh down my neck.