by Pat Henshaw
A Kiss in Time
By Pat Henshaw
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2020 Pat Henshaw
ISBN 9781646566211
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
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This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
To Jake, Becca, and Sarah, without your backup this wouldn’t have been possible. Thank you! You all are my heart and my life.
* * * *
A Kiss in Time
By Pat Henshaw
From the time I knew the difference between spray paint and a soda can, I’ve wanted to be a muralist. When I was a kid, my mom and I would walk back to our apartment through the dingy streets of downtown, past monumental brick walls painted with gateways to better places.
On 12th Street, a group of stylized children beckoned me to a pristine playground where everyone was happy and smiling. The painted paradise was signed Mo’e. One day, I promised myself, I’d be Mo’e and give other kids a dream like the one he’d given me.
After my mom died, I began my career as a tagger, got caught, went to juvie, got out, tagged again, went back to juvie, and got out. At seventeen I recognized the revolving door, so got a job selling stuff to tourists in Old Town.
Ten years later, I was still selling crap, but I saw an ad saying the local Arts Commission was looking for area artists. I was stoked until I read that only artists with college degrees or a “significant body of juried work” were even eligible to apply. Talk about a bummer.
With a juvie record, but no recent tagging, and no “significant body of juried work,” I was feeling hopeless.
Yeah, I was living the life. Selling stuff by day, tending bar or partying, drinking, fucking by night. But life was like a hamster wheel. I wasn’t getting anywhere on my dream. I was just marking time like I’d done in juvie. Something had to give.
A coworker, a cute little preppy named Monika, told me about the City College art program.
“Eric, you can make contacts there and work on your art.” She bounced from foot to foot, making me a little more hyper.
“Moni, I’m too old. I’ve almost gunned down thirty.”
“Naw, you look like you’re eighteen,” she said with a giggle. “You get carded all the time.”
True. At twenty-one I’d gotten a DMV ID to prove I was of age. Now I worked for a club and felt sorry for the guys like me who looked like perpetual kids.
“Besides, who cares?” she asked. “You could suck up some classes for your dream job, right?”
When I remembered myself as a little boy who wanted to step through the brick walls and live in another world, I realized she was right. So what if I was the oldest guy in my classes? If I could push through the wall and touch my dream, it was worth it, right?
That night I took the Light Rail to the City College campus, filled out the forms, and enrolled in art, English, and math. Two cores and one love.
I felt fairly confident about the math and art classes. I’d managed my money and lived on my own for years and even had a little savings account. I had a small studio apartment downtown, didn’t own a car, and ate regularly. What more could a high school dropout ask?
But English? Not so sure. I hadn’t written anything since high school, and I wasn’t doing so good in English then. Besides, my handwriting was really hand printing and looked like a second grader had done it. I was fucked on all sides. The only thing that might save me was I read a lot. I mean a whole lot.
I was apprehensive as I walked down the hallway to the English class. At one end of the crowded space two people stood nearly toe to toe, one yelling at the other. A tiny blond girl in what appeared to be half a ballerina outfit was screaming at a stud. She was rip-roaring mad. He kept looking around like he needed help.
“You’re not a freaking homo!” she yelled at him. “I don’t believe it.”
He tried to step away, but she was having none of his cutting her off. Around them nobody seemed to be paying attention. Those who didn’t have a piece of paper in front of their faces had their cell phones glued to their eyes. People were bumping into people, but nobody seemed to notice anyone else and bounced from body to body like balls on an old pinball machine.
The guy who was being harassed for being gay gave me such a helpless look I couldn’t do anything but wade to his salvation. If he wanted to be gay, I could give him gay.
“Hey! Miss me?” I grabbed him around the waist and gave him a quick kiss on the lips.
“I never thought you’d get here.” He sighed.
The girl stood next to him stunned into silence.
I’d never seen him before in my life but he was definitely my type. He was tall and slender with nice musculature showing through his tight tee shirt. I figured by his elbows that he was about my age. They weren’t teenage elbows, and elbows never lie.
“We better get in there.” He pointed to the classroom where I was headed.
He’d put his arm around my waist, so I turned, and we took a step toward the door.
“You fucking fairy,” the girl muttered, sliding away after she punched him in the arm.
“Thanks,” he said as we quickly unhooked and found seats across the aisle from each other. We both squeezed into desks not made for men over six feet tall.
“Joel,” he whispered, pointing to himself.
“Uh, Eric.” I was trying to figure out what had just happened.
The instructor walked in and class started. I winced every time I had to turn around to pass back papers to the tiny Asian girl sitting behind me. As I glanced up at Joel, his eyes laughed at me. I had to grin myself. Nobody’d ever called me small.
Unpeeling from the desk as the class ended, I found myself face to face with him.
“Look, I’d like to thank you for saving me back there,” he said as I lifted my backpack and started for the door. “You want to get some coffee?”
He was cute, and I was attracted. Another time, I’d have jumped at his offer, but I had to stay focused. If I got distracted by some random hook-up, I could screw up my plans and be back in the hamster wheel without even noticing.
“Naw, I’ve got to get to my next class.” I stepped to the side, ready to go around him. “It was great meeting you. Nice kiss, by the way.”
His lips were just the kind of wonderful that would play in my fantasies and dreams for months to come. I kinda wished I hadn’t had a life plan needing my eyes-front attention.
“See you Wednesday.” I turned and walked away quickly.
After work I nearly ran home. I drew him four or five times in charcoal, then started a painting. If nothing else, I’d have these remi
nders of him if he dropped the class and I never saw him again. Then I went to bed and jacked off remembering the kiss. Damn.
* * * *
Wednesday was crappy. Rain, rain, and more cold rain. The English class was again crowded and wet, a bunch of people pushing into the room, sitting on the floor along the walls when all the desks were filled. I’d gotten one of the last seats and didn’t bother taking off my jacket when I squeezed myself into the desk.
The instructor came in, told those waiting that the class was filled and it was useless to hang around trying to add. She held up the add list with its names from Monday. Then she took role.
Joel was a no show. Figured. Oh, well, at least I had the sketches, right?
* * * *
My love life, which could more accurately be called a love death, held more caskets than roses. I’d had four relationships and countless hook-ups over the years, mostly with short, spry guys who thought they could boss me around. One of them called me “Beanpole,” a nickname he said fit me.
The relationships were bogus, me looking for love in all the wrong places and with the wrong head. The longest together time lasted six months, and only because of an apartment lease we shared.
I guess you could say my heart had been broken and mended a number of times, but only if you were a romantic sap, which I’m not. What I usually tell people is when whatever’s going to happen happens, well, I’ll be here for it.
After class, I’d just gotten myself extricated from the desk and my homework assignment stashed in my ratty excuse for a backpack when one of the other students rushed toward me.
“Where’s Joel? How come he wasn’t in class today?” he eyed me like I was stashing Joel in my backpack.
I was about to answer “How should I know?” when I remembered we were supposed to be together, kind of.
“That’s what I was wondering, too.” I shrugged. “Buying the books?”
The maybe twenty-year-old gave me a suspicious look, but finally nodded, turned and left. What had Joel gotten himself into?
None of my business, I reminded myself. I’d done him an unexpected favor. I’d been a saint, hadn’t I? My part in his drama was over.
* * * *
Friday was a replay of Wednesday with Joel as a no show. This time another guy, a little older and a lot bigger and meaner looking asked me where Joel was. If I weren’t tall and sometimes mean looking myself, I would have been intimidated.
“Don’t know. Said he’d be here,” I answered zipping my backpack.
“You give him a message from me.” The big guy pointed a stubby, calloused finger at my chest. I eyed it and then him. His stance adjusted, lightened, and the finger came down.
“What?” I raised an eyebrow.
“You tell him that Ian said the stuff better be there tonight.”
“Ian who?” I added a frown for effect. “You threatening Joel?”
The guy looked a little scared, but stuck to his attitude.
“You just tell him.” Then he turned quickly and stomped out of the room, almost at a run.
Weird.
I was tending bar that night at Long Point, an unsubtly named gay bar frequented by older men and women who like to listen to jazz and not club music. One of my favorite tracks was playing with Ahmad Jamal and Dave Brubeck, the classics, when who should walk in but Joel with an older buttoned-down type.
They were both in suits and ties, not uncommon for the Point. The older guy had his hand on Joel’s shoulder and was saying something Joel obviously didn’t agree with.
“Oh, shit.” Stevie, who was working the bar with me, placed a drink in front of one of our regulars. “Look who just arrived.”
“Yeah? And?” I answered. How did Stevie know Joel?
“It’s William Greenbriar, and I’ll bet the other guy’s his stepson, the heir apparent.” Stevie looked at me as if I was stupid.
“Greenbriar of the pro soccer team? The owner?” I asked.
Stevie sighed as he always did when I was slow to catch on to something he thought was important.
“Yes, meathead. That Greenbriar.”
“Huh.” I was used to his slams.
He and I’d had a thing a couple years before, so I knew where his attitude was coming from. He resented the fact I’d called him a dyspeptic diva when I’d broken up with him. I’d gotten tired of him hitting on my friends and borrowing my clothes, trashing them, and then complaining I was stingy because I didn’t want to “share” them with him.
He was a hustler, and I wasn’t into being hustled.
So the guy I’d kissed in the middle of the hallway at City College might be the heir to the Greenbriar soccer franchise. Huh. What else could I say or think?
Not only did this news make me more curious and deeper in the dark about what had been going on, but it made me back off. I definitely didn’t need a new diva in my life, no matter how much I wanted him below the belt.
* * * *
I didn’t think he and his old man had seen me yet, and I was wondering how and why they’d wandered into the Point when Charlie, our boss, came out to give me a break. As he tied one of the bar aprons on, he tossed me his keys and said he’d left me a sandwich on his desk.
“Take your whole break, kid,” he added. “Do some of your homework. We’re fine out here.”
I grinned at him, then looked up to see Joel staring at me. The older man, his maybe stepfather, was talking a mile a minute, staring off at the foyer, not noticing he’d completely lost his maybe stepson.
I nodded at Joel, then at Charlie, and hurried to the back, not knowing what to think. Why were they here? Far as I knew they’d never been in the Point before.
True, the Point was a respectable gay bar, not a dive or dump. But still, really rich people didn’t usually drink here. So what was up?
I hadn’t gotten the plastic wrap off the sandwich when there was a soft knock on the door, and it eased open. Joel stood in the doorway, looking a lot more grim and older than he did the one day at school.
“Hey, can I come in a minute and talk?” He slid inside and closed the door.
He sat down in Charlie’s visitor chair. I was behind the desk in the more comfortable office chair, the one I used when I helped Charlie with the books.
“What do you want?” I asked. Sure, curiosity had bitten me, but his showing up where I work? A little too much.
“I wanted to thank you for when you saved my ass.” He was staring at me, which put me off my PBJ Charlie-style. Charlie thought the B was for banana, so he put peanuts, banana slices, and jelly together in sourdough bread. It was great actually, something I looked forward to eating whenever he made them.
Now? I wasn’t so hungry.
“Okay. You’re welcome. What did I do?”
“Your kiss kept me from blowing my cover. Now I’ve got a huge favor to ask.” He was grinning the entire time he said all of this, so I wasn’t sure how much was truth.
“You’re an undercover what?” I figured I was probably going to get the whole story piece by piece and would have to pry it out of him one word at a time.
“Narcotics.” Yup, I was right. Piece by piece it would be.
The gist of the story after I’d asked all my questions was there was a group selling drugs at the three City College campuses, North, South and East. Because the Light Rail now made it easier for students to take classes at all the campuses, it was easier for the dealers to move around.
The narcotics cops had been closing down parts of the group over the years, but when they closed one arm, another would spring up with the new semester. They were after the kingpin and thought he was someone close to the college, maybe a faculty or staff member.
Joel, or whoever he really was, had been taking classes for a couple of years and felt he was closing in on the number one guy.
I relayed the message from Ian and told him about the other one who’d stopped me after class.
He told me the girl who’d been
yelling at him was some sort of go-between and had accused him of being a cop. He’d told her he couldn’t be a cop because he was gay and the force didn’t have gay cops. She wasn’t buying his story until I came up and kissed him. Now she was convinced Joel was gay, I was his boyfriend, and maybe she and her contacts could trust him for real.
“So I’m looking for a relationship with someone I can trust, someone who attends City East.” He rolled his shoulders and massaged his eyes.
He gave a short grunt of a laugh. “I’m thirty-two years old, for God’s sake.”
Okay, he was going to ask what I thought he was leading up to. Time to negotiate, right?
The kiss had been stellar, but I wasn’t completely a saint. I was finally an art student. I’d worked hard to get here. I didn’t need to get roughed up or killed so he could catch some drug dealers. I just wanted to paint, dammit.
“Could you see your way to be my relationship until we catch who we’re looking for?” he asked, his eyes not on me. “We’d be together at school and the department would rent us a place. I’d try to stay out of your life as much as possible, but I’d be there at night, all night, and in the morning. And weekends.”
“How much do you know about me?” I countered. “You obviously found me.”
He sighed and looked pained.
“All the juvie stuff, if that’s what you’re asking. What you’re majoring in, where you’re working, you know, the regular shit. On paper you’re totally believable.” He still wasn’t looking at me and seemed to be squirming in his chair. “Oh, yeah, and there was the kiss.”
Yeah, there was that.
“So how do you know Greenbriar? How’s he involved?” Might as well cover all the bases before I commit myself or at least make my counter-offer.
Joel’s face turned slightly red and he rubbed at his eyes again.
“Uh, we had a thing. We’re just friends now. He came here with me tonight to see you.”
He shrugged. Still no eye contact. What was up with that?
“Uh huh,” I grunted.
His eyes found mine finally.
“Really. It’s over between us.”
