Bad Idea

by Damon Suede

  “Well, you didn’t shut me out. I did. Yeah? A key might keep me honest.”

  “I want to, though.” Silas weighed the little piece of metal in his hand. “I never had two keys before.”

  Trip crawled back onto the bed, right over Silas, until they were nose to nose again. “Well, this is purely selfish. Maybe some night I get home and you’re in my bed asleep. I would fucking love that. No more waiting on the stoop in the cold.”

  “Oliver Twisted.”

  “Leave your clothes here. I got pens and paint.” Trip pinched his nipple. “I want you in my bed. I want you in my life. I promise to come over to yours. I don’t want you to vanish, Mr. Goolsby.” He whispered, “Deal?”

  Silas stared back and whispered, “Deal.” His eyes gleamed, wet with secrets. He ran a hand over Trip’s chest. “So beautiful.”

  Then Trip shook his head and Silas nodded, at the same time. And Trip had the strange feeling they’d both told the truth, that both answers tangled in a way that left them inseparable.

  Like us.

  All at once, Trip wanted the whole future with Silas like a kaleidoscope jumble… all at once, afraid of nothing, side by side, walking forward. All at once. He wanted them naked and sweaty. He wanted them dancing in suits. He wanted to share dinner with their families at one long table. He wanted to hold hands on the Brooklyn Bridge. He wanted to sing at the top of their lungs on a road trip to Cape Cod. He wanted to feel, with lazy fingers, his semen leaking out of Silas. He wanted them drunk in matching costumes at Comic-Con. He wanted to draw and laugh and be unafraid out in the world with everyone watching, for once. He wanted to curl up with Silas in their warm bed, kissing his face… his sweet, scruffy, sleeping face… but lightly, so he wouldn’t wake.

  I love him.

  A tear slipped out of Trip’s eye, but he ignored it because their cheeks were too close for it to embarrass him. Silas’s blunt erection ground into his pelvis at a funny angle, where their bodies fused.

  Right then, right there, he loved Silas so much he didn’t care if Silas loved him back, just the loving was enough.

  “You okay?”

  Trip nodded, though Silas couldn’t see the movement.

  “Good.” Scratch that. Apparently his spidey-sense was working overtime.

  Cowed, Trip looked back at the Judge on the end table, scanning the buckles and stitching, the hooded eyes and the horny hands, a hundred thoughtful details in the drawing. Must’ve spent two weeks on it and then some. “Can I really use him?”

  “Yessir. I drew him for you, didn’t I?” Full Alabama. Silas grunted and reached over. He closed the sketchbook and patted it proudly. “I give you full permission to exploit that rigid fucker every which way you want. Put him through hell.”

  Trip ran a hand over the pencil. He almost felt the hours and hours of the fierce attention and affection that cooked off the page. What had Cliff said? Amateur meant slaving away for love. Emotion throbbed in each line that sliced the page into self-righteous villainy. Silas did that for me. He took a shaky breath.

  “Nap?”

  He nodded, then chuckled, because again, Silas couldn’t see him.

  “Excellent.” Apparently Silas didn’t need to see him to know. Those hands urged him down so their faces lined up.

  Trip peered into one soft hazel eye and then the other; both sparkled with gentle humor. If Silas noticed the redness in Trip’s eyes, he didn’t say so.

  Finally Silas whispered, “I’m really glad you like him.”

  “I love him.” Trip snapped his mouth shut before he went further. Keep it together, brainiac. “You kidding?”

  “Good.” Silas wrapped one loose, brawny arm around him and hooked his chin over the top of Trip’s head, cradling him puzzle-piece close.

  Trip kissed him between his pecs and pressed his face there, not looking at the scary Judge or his handsome hero anymore. He whispered it again. “I love him.”

  Somewhere above him, Silas pressed a kiss to the top of his shorn head and sighed. “Me too.”

  13

  EVERYONE has their own shit sandwich to eat, and the bread makes a big difference.

  Kurt liked to hit happy hour at Splash on Musical Mondays, not for love of showtunes, but because the gay geek community tended to converge to get trashed and sing along.

  Silas went early to the Unbored offices because he wanted a friendly pep talk, even though Kurt wasn’t keen on his newest infatuation. Trip would never meet or agree with Kurt’s idea of a catch.

  Unbored Games covered a narrow floor of an old piano factory on Lafayette, just north of Houston Street, because that’s where the cool kids congregated. Office space in Brooklyn would have been way cheaper and newer, but Kurt loved razzmatazz, and his investors were outer-borough-phobic. He’d taken the lease on a third of the space back when he could scarcely afford it and gradually expanded—fueled by Red Bull and ruthless ambition—to devour the adjoining square footage like a digital amoeba. In nine years, Unbored had gone from bootstrap origins to one of the companies to watch in Silicon Alley.

  The elevator opened right into the workspace, a point of pride with Kurt: having the entire floor and all those windows looking out over NoHo. They were high enough that the view was mostly puffy silver horizon, and down below the traffic’s faraway rumble sounded like the Adriatic Sea.

  Silas parked his ass in a reception area papered with framed awards and launch posters that were supposed to intimidate showbiz types. He was a couple of minutes early, so he paddled through his text messages. Two from Trip put a smile on his face. He resisted the urge to reply immediately.

  On the other side of the open space, Kurt laughed and said something from his corner. Curious, Silas headed back, following the wall of arched windows. Before he’d gone three yards, shouting stopped him:

  “—because they’re cunt-noggins!” The male voice sounded angry.

  Jesus.

  Kurt’s opponent sat with his back to Silas. Tangled waves of light-auburn hair fell to his shoulders. Who talked like that to a CEO? Kurt glared at the seated figure, red-faced, his mouth working but no words emerging to ease the crackling tension.

  Christ. Had he roller-skated into the middle of open-heart surgery by accident?

  Kurt wiped his face and stood, revealing an impeccable three-button Burberry suit, but he’d yanked his gold tie hard to the side and unbuttoned his collar. He didn’t retaliate. Obviously he needed this sloppy nutjob to like him, whoever he was.

  No suit. Of course, in game-world, that didn’t mean much. Video game studios had little use for corporate drag. They usually aimed for “ironic slob” as a uniform. The seated adversary could be anyone from an investor to a writer to a deranged blogger.

  Silas sauntered closer to Kurt’s lair to get a gander at whoever had him so ruffled.

  Shoulder-length hair and a faded green T-shirt, so no venture-capital drone. So many geeks jumped in after school and forged hundreds of international best sellers in garages and basements. Billions of dollars built nerd heaven. Games already earned way more money than Hollywood, with way less scrutiny.

  Kurt glimpsed and noted Silas minimally, but his canned charm sprayed steadily on his crazed guest until—

  “Blah-blah.” The long-haired fella flipped Kurt off and snorted. “Bullsh-shit.”

  Kurt held up both hands as if white-flagging. “I get it. I’m hearing you, but we just don’t have a market that’ll support that kind of project.” He grabbed handfuls of his bedhead and tugged it into bizarre spikes he didn’t smooth down. “A gossip game? Hug wars? Get real, Ziggy.”

  Ziggy.

  “Do you think I-uh’m as retard-ded as the rest of your slay-aves?” Ziggy’s voice halted and swerved with some kind of impediment. Not a stutter, but as if he couldn’t control the consonants.

  “I’m taking you seriously. I trust you more than any—” Kurt pleaded.

  “More th-aan nothing. More than your di-hick!”

 
This Ziggy person gave a wheeze of choked nonlaughter. He swiveled his skull to an odd angle, making his auburn hair float like hot Einstein. Maybe he was just one of those hardcore playtesters who communicated in grunts on a World of Warcraft headset in the dead of dorkness. “I didn’t say Hug Wars. I said let’s be smart.”

  When egomaniacs collide!

  Silas tried to read the back of the man’s tousled head, wondering what he’d walked into. Maybe this was a project lead for one of the big studios. Xbox Live had pushed for a lot of independent content, but why would they fly to New York? Why was he baiting Kurt?

  “Ah-ah…. Item.” Ziggy jabbed a pale finger at Kurt. “No one elss-sse has any-fucking-thing like it. The tech supports a who-hole other kind of interaction, duh-uh-umbass.” His neck twisted as he spat the last syllable out. His chest rose and fell hard. “Quit wax-inng your crack-hair or you get scoo-scooped.”

  Kurt didn’t put up with that kind of belligerence from anyone, so this nut was definitely important to the company: maybe press or a co-branding partner. Some Hollywood jag-off with an expense account?

  Ziggy had a narrow build… early thirties, maybe. “Or wa-wait! Fuck buyout! Duh! We can just license the hardware and the protocols. Contracts or what the hell. But you should tie it up, like now. Yester-rerday. The designer doesn’t game ee-ven, so he hasn’t twigged to what he’s got.”

  “’S’too expensive, man. I don’t have the capacity to handle hardware anyways, and it doesn’t fit any of our games. Zig, Pizza Hut doesn’t sell tickets to Italy.” Kurt spoke slowly, but the agitation made his voice higher, making him sound about fifteen.

  Silas caught Kurt’s eye again and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Should I split?

  Kurt subtly shook his head “no” but didn’t invite him in or introduce Silas to the lunatic lecturing him.

  “Gay-yame changer. Kurt, you know I’m right. I’m al-wways right about this kind of shit. You’re gonna blow the… I duu-uhhnno… future of features.” The shoulders bent as he struggled to get his words out, and one irritated hand paddled the air uncontrollably. “If you don’t use the… fuzzy nutsack on top of your neck.”

  Silas stifled a snort. No one talked to Kurt Bogusz like that and lived to see daylight. He dropped the magazine and the pretense of waiting and edged a few steps closer to Kurt’s corner for a ringside seat.

  Kurt stared at his guest without blinking, apparently unaware he’d mussed his impeccable hair.

  Even seated, this Ziggy person looked short and slight, but not a kid by any stretch. He showed no signs of being cowed by Kurt in multimillionaire master-of-the-universe mode. “They got gaze deteck-tion coming at Carnegie Mellon. And thoh-hose sisters in Korea have starrrted testing subdermals.”

  Kurt noticed Silas trying for a better view. He held up a finger and tightened his jaw. Beads of sweat studded his face. Since when did Kurt sweat?

  Ziggy ran a hand through his tangled locks and leaned forward in his chair. “I mean half is for animal tessst-ing and the other for OT, but it’s low-hanging fruit. Nuh-none of this stuff is for gay-yaming, but it is. Duh?”

  Who is this whackjob? When had the name Ziggy been mentioned? If Silas didn’t know better, he’d have thought Kurt seemed guilty or horny or afraid.

  Silas nodded, then looked between them. As he considered Kurt’s tense shoulders and Ziggy’s messy curls, he realized he’d stumbled onto a kind of secret. Everything crystallized. He knew exactly what was going on, because he’d seen himself in the mirror a bunch after he’d met Trip.

  Kurt has a crush.

  All this time and he’d kept it hidden. He didn’t date, really. Too picky. He said hustlers were simpler than small talk… order from a menu, home delivery. But obviously this Ziggy got under his skin. Silas smiled, tickled at the idea of Mr. No Nonsense getting mushy about anyone.

  Silas pretended not to notice Kurt’s signal to wait. Determined to snoop, he wandered closer and leaned against a whiteboard that partially screened Kurt from prying eyes. All the other staff must have gone home early.

  Kurt shook his head sharply.

  Ziggy turned to eye Silas with a face perfectly proportioned like a Tintoretto angel’s—jeebus amoebus—with a broad nose over a scarred upper lip, a noble chin, and a long throat sloping into proud shoulders, and impossibly thick arms holding battered… crutches.

  Crutches?

  Ziggy was disabled. He was the ponytail guy from New Year’s Eve. Silas struggled to put the pieces together. Kurt had kept him hidden and had some kind of soft spot. He also did work for Unbored? And he obviously gave two wet shits for Kurt’s power and reputation.

  Kurt came out from behind his desk. “Ziggy, this is my best friend.”

  “Nnph.” The eyes that scraped over Silas were an unsettling pale blue: no welcome in them and no patience, either. Even more classically handsome head-on.

  “Silas.” He extended a hand to shake so Ziggy didn’t have to try to get up. He jumped forward full of the weird guilt he always felt around people who couldn’t walk or hear easily. He knew better, but he always felt like he should apologize.

  “Fuck’s sake.” Ziggy corrugated his forehead and exhaled. “I’m a fucking c-c-cripple, jocko; I’m not may-ade of thuuhhhmb-tacks.” He sneered and pushed himself up awkwardly on the oversized forearms. His hand felt horny with calluses, and he gripped a little too hard, either to prove his strength or because he didn’t know how to gauge it. He sank back heavily, letting the chair catch him.

  For two seconds, Ziggy’s strange eyes cruised Silas without shame: face, torso, crotch… and then jogged his head dismissively, as if Silas passed muster but didn’t merit attention. He swung his full flashing focus back to the boss in the Burberry suit.

  Kurt looked queasy and hypnotized by his foe. “Ziggy codes and playtests for our adventure titles.” His face had pinked at some point. “We were just talking about—”

  “The dummmbest fucking piss-taking misss-take this…” His mouth circled the word before he spat it out. “…homunculus will ever make.” Ziggy pointed across the desk at Kurt with the tip of one thin black crutch. “Bec-hause it’s gonna may-ake some uhh-ther asshole rich as a born-again hooker.”

  Kurt snorted, resigned. “Lemme think on it. All right? I just need to chew on it.”

  Silas had never seen his friend so passive. Why would he put up with this kind of tantrum from anybody? He remembered Trip’s remark about stuff that threw you for a loop. Shitty ideas. Huh. He turned to Ziggy. “This a game you’re pitching?”

  “Kurt, swearrr to Gahd. You’re gonna regret this until you ahr-are a cold dish on the worm buffet.”

  Ziggy grabbed the strap of a laptop case and slung it over his shoulder, catching his hair and then wrenching it free without flinching. He lurched to his feet and caught himself on his left crutch just before he overbalanced.

  The sarcasm obviously pissed Kurt off, but he didn’t snap back. He swallowed slowly and waggled a hand in Silas’s direction. “Silas isn’t competition, man. He’s a friend. A colleague. Character design and concept art only. Chill out.”

  “Hi.” Silas gave a feeble wave, uncomfortable watching these two guys maul each other.

  “Perfect.” The cold eyes shredded Silas, scalp to toes. Ziggy’s deep scowl could have been a muscle spasm. “Just ’cause he’s your friend dzzz-does not mean he doesn’t wanna be a zillionaire. Ahh-amateur hour bullshit.”

  “Not like that.” Kurt grimaced at Silas in apology. “Silas does concept for us.”

  “For yuh-you.” Ziggy snorted and rolled his sulky eyes. “While you get your dick wet inna rent-a-hole. Great.” He tipped his head at Silas, swinging the wavy hair out of his face. “Yeah. Goo-ood luck with that.” He slammed his palm against a crutch handle hard and locked his mouth shut as if to stop the jerky flow of words.

  Silas jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I can totally take off. If y’all have business—”

  “No.” Kurt shrugged an
d smoothed his hair down. Was his hand shaking? “Zig has identified an opportunity in some new hardware that senses—”

  “Don’t yah-yap about it, asshole. Fuck!” Ziggy glowered at Silas and flailed for a minute, legitimately about to fall, then caught his weight again on his crutches at the last moment. He breathed heavily and flushed dark; a vein snaked up one side of his classic brow into his wild hair. He spat and muttered, “This is retarded! Know bett-ter. Shouldn’t have said any-fuck-uhking-thing.” His right arm jerked spastically, the fingers knotting and flexing until he seemed to force it back onto the second crutch. “Great. ’Nother whore-no porno-clone to duh-do his lord-shit’s bidding.”

  What’s the big deal?

  “No.” Silas opened both hands as if proving he was unarmed. “For real. We were gonna hit Splash to hang out—”

  Ziggy growled at Kurt, choking on the wet syllables. “Asss-loaf.”

  “Cockknuckle.” Kurt didn’t blink. He looked wrung-out. “You can’t act like that, Zig.”

  “Don’t you… ever say can’t to me!” Ziggy blinked hard several times. “I thought-tut this was a pri-yivate sit-down.” He struggled and shifted on his feet, bracing himself against his crutches, his fists clenched so tightly that his forearms bulged.

  “Goddamnit, Ziggy.” Kurt pleaded, flapping a hand at Silas like a high-school stoner arguing with a principal. “This is my best friend. Hell, Silas designs all your wacko monsters. Zig, he sculpted the bosses for Miss Taken and all four Chopping Malls.” His last words were loud enough to bounce off the windows, not a shout, but a command. “Stop freaking out!”

  Without warning Ziggy did exactly that, as if Kurt had pressed a button. He blinked and took a deep breath. His wolf-blue glare slid over to Silas, and an odd, bashful smile crept across his aristocratic face as though a sitcom mom had caught him sneaking a cookie. “Uhh. Duh.” Ziggy glanced at Kurt and back, pursing his lips. “No offin—” He opened his mouth wide and fought with his tongue. “Offense.” He blinked.

  Silas flashed a small smile back, unoffended and unsure what threat he could have presented.