But I was Tony’s secret. The source of his shame. How horrible was that? How could we possibly be happy together if our entire relationship was hidden in the shadows? The only things that grow without light are mushrooms and fungus, neither of which were attractive analogies.
Compare and contrast.
Kristen not only could accept my past as a sex worker, he’d probably be thrilled. It was hard to believe he wouldn’t be as sex positive in his private life as he was in his work. If so, I bet he’d be scorching in bed.
How different would it be to date a guy who not only wouldn’t be afraid to be seen with me, but who would show me off proudly, like a jewel, not hide me like a disfigurement?
Of course, I was getting ahead of myself. It wasn’t like Kristen had even made an overt move on me.
Except, I didn’t need him to. If there was one thing I knew, it was when a man wanted me.
Kristen LaNue wanted me.
I think I wanted him, too.
The whole thing had me a bit giddy, kind of nervous, and more than a little nauseous. Romance always hit me in the gut and my stomach wouldn’t stop churning.
Kristen’s attention to me, and my attraction to him, were inconvenient distractions, unwanted temptations.
An excess of alternatives.
A flush of hearts.
10
Hard Cops
I decided to stop thinking about Kristen and instead turn my attention back to the boy this was about.
Brent Havens.
When I’d talked to Brent, he’d complained how his audience often mistook his onscreen persona for his real one. People projected on to him whatever they wanted him to be. Given the movies that comprised his, er, body of work, that person tended to be a youthful, energetic, and available hottie with not much on his mind beyond getting laid and showing his partner a good time. The definition of the best kind of boy toy: one who wants to play with you.
Confusing any actor’s performance with how he conducts his life off-camera is obviously absurd. As fun as it would have been to find myself in a Brokeback backbreaking three-way with Jake Gyllenhaal and the late but not forgotten (at least not by me!) Heath Ledger, I wasn’t holding my breath.
But we’re all guilty of some projection. Given the impossibility of ever truly understanding another person, it’s only natural we imbue them with traits based on assumptions and prior associations. If you’re a healthy person, as you get to know someone better, you replace those presumptions with his or her reality. In my experience, it’s at that point when a relationship starts to get into trouble—when the person you’ve been imagining and hoping for turns out to be the person he or she really is. It’s a trap I’ve tried to avoid.
Yet, wasn’t that what I was doing with Brent? I hardly knew the boy. In my mind, though, he was a good kid whose unconventional career choice did nothing to diminish his basic decency. A young man who sold sex not to exploit others but to help them, by making otherwise unattainable fantasies come true. A boy who needed love, understanding, and protection from the Big, Bad World.
Remind you of anyone I am?
Was I projecting myself on to the blank slate of Brent Havens? What did I know about him, really? Who’s to say he wasn’t some big cokehead on a bender? Or running a scam on some elderly aficionado from which he’d walk away relatively untouched and $50,000 richer? Was my assuming the best about a boy I hardly knew really any more reasonable that the less generous assessments of those who’d actually worked alongside him?
Maybe. Mason’s and even Kristen’s judgments were clouded by profit. My motives were clean.
Or at least that was what I told myself.
It was a more flattering motivation than the other likely possibility—that my quest to rescue Brent was a subconscious effort to save myself.
I wish I’d gotten to know Brent better before he’d gone missing. Now, there was no way to assess whether he was more likely the victim or perpetrator of whatever happened to him.
Unless . . .
I agreed it was ludicrous to assume a performer’s true personality could be assessed in every film role. Still, sometimes the real person showed through. And given the weak plots and emotional nakedness of a sex tape, maybe even more of the star’s authentic nature came through.
Maybe I should check out the Brent captured on camera before making any more assumptions.
I could go to the local video shop or the nearest Web site and see what was for sale. Or, I could call the boy voted in his high school yearbook Most Likely to Amass an Astonishingly Large Library of Pornography.
I decided to go the cheap route.
First, I had to check with Tony to make sure he didn’t mind my being out for the evening.
“No problem,” he answered, lowering his voice, “baby.”
Tony worked in an open cubicle at a police station in midtown. I knew he didn’t want his fellow officers wondering who he was calling “baby.” As well meaning as his term of affection was, his whispering it made it hurtful.
“I have to work a case tonight, anyway,” he said. “We found a guy in the Hudson River. Been there a couple of days. At the least. Water’s always tricky—hides a multitude of sins.” Tony’s tone betrayed his resentment. “Really fucks up time of death.”
I found it endearing that, when it came to interfering with one of his investigations, Tony could get mad at water.
“Sorry,” I offered.
“Looks like a messy one, too. The victim had been beaten. Whipped, actually. There were also bruises on his wrists that indicated he’d been handcuffed but straining to get out.”
I started to get a little worried. “COD?” I asked. You don’t live with a detective without learning some of the lingo.
“Too soon to say,” Tony answered. “Although we know he was dead before he was dropped in the river. No water in the lungs.”
“What do you know about the vic?”
“Not much. We’re pretty sure whoever put him there never meant for him to be found. He was nude. There was a rope around his ankle, and we’re assuming it was tied to something to anchor him down. But the rope either caught on something or got nibbled through by a cooperative fish or two. The body got free and floated to the surface. Lucky break.”
Things weren’t going well when that counted as good luck. “So, no ID at all?”
“We know a little. Guy was probably mid-thirties. Dark complexioned. Too much bloating and decomposition to tell much else at this time. Maceration was—hey, are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Yeah,” I croaked, unconvincingly. I threw in a “sure, go ahead” to add conviction.
Tony sounded skeptical. Well, more skeptical than usual. Occupational hazard. “You know what maceration is?”
I couldn’t help it. “No, but if you let me slip my hands down your shorts, I can try and figure it out.”
Tony laughed. “It’s not as much fun as that, unfortunately. It’s the process of how things soften in liquid. In this case, human skin. After a few days underwater, the skin starts to saturate and peel away in long strips. Every hour, we lose more identifying features. The epidermis detaches and we’re left with bone and muscle. After a week—”
“I get it,” I interrupted. This was starting to sound more grisly than I wanted to hear. Besides, what few details Tony’d shared dismissed my worst fear—that the victim was Brent.
“Mr. Sensitive,” Tony teased.
“Guilty,” I admitted. “I am really sensitive. Especially when you run your tongue along my—”
“Gotta go,” Tony said, his voice cracking like a teenage boy’s. “See you later.”
I imagined him sitting at his desk, red-faced and awkwardly turned on. There were many things I loved about Tony, not least of which was how easy it was to get his motor going.
Who’s Mr. Sensitive now? I thought, smiling.
A few months ago, if Tony had said he was “working late,” I’d have been worried. We’d
agreed to an open relationship. In theory, I had no problem with it.
What I didn’t like was the lying and evasiveness that accompanied it. There was a stretch back then when he was becoming increasingly unavailable. There were more and more late nights at the office and pretty thin excuses. I was convinced he wasn’t just playing the field a bit—something I felt he was entitled to after a long, monogamous marriage and a frighteningly scarce sexual history, but seeing someone in a more serious manner. Having another relationship that mattered.
Turned out I was right—but the boy he was seeing was his son, Rafi, whom he’d kept secret from me. When he finally introduced us, it was kind of a breakthrough for our relationship. But it hadn’t gone as far as I’d hoped, and I was tired of being known to Rafi as Tony’s “friend.”
Which brought me back to Kristen LaNue and my fantasies about him. How liberating would it be to be with someone who accepted me as I am, dick and all?
Now I was the one thinking of cheating.
Or was Kristen just another person on whom I was projecting what I wanted? Outside of our brief interactions, I knew nothing about him. Maybe in his private life, he was as deeply closeted as Tony. Or he was a total creep who never picks up the check and leaves the bathroom without washing his hands.
Or, god forbid, he was a plushie.
Could I make a purple dinosaur costume work?
I wouldn’t mind finding out. Not if I’d look good in a purple dinosaur costume, mind you. More about Kristen.
Probably not a good idea.
Okay, no more dwelling on the sexy Latino who seemed kind, charming, rich, and into me. Because who’d want to think about him when I could imagine skin dissolving off corpses at the bottom of the river.
Or not. No, I needed to see some skin, but the kind that was attached, and lots of it.
Now that I’d cleared it with Tony, I could place the call that would make that happen.
11
Heatstroke
“You’re asking a single gay guy if he has any Brent Haven movies in his collection?” Freddy wondered incredulously when I called. “That’s like asking a fat guy if he has ice cream in his freezer.”
“Well, I assumed you had the ice cream, chubby,” I answered. “I guess I didn’t know that Brent’s movies were also membership requirements. So, can I come over and watch a few?”
“What’s the matter, Tony not putting out for you these days? Bed death already? It’s only been a few months. What are you two, lesbians?”
“That’s a mean stereotype about lesbian relationships petering out on the sex front,” I objected. “I know some women who—”
“I was just joshing,” Freddy said. “What, I can’t joke about lesbos, but you can call me ‘chubby’? Double standard much?”
I knew he wasn’t really mad. “I’m just trying to get to know Brent better.”
“I suppose you could do that by watching him on video getting tag-teamed by Lucas Fisher and Hugh Jestman,” Freddy observed. “Or you could, I don’t know, call him. Didn’t you say he gave you his number?”
“He did, but—”
“I know, why bother talking when you can form the deep emotional connection that only comes from seeing someone anally penetrated by a large vibrating egg? In my opinion, more friendships should start that way.”
“Like yours don’t,” I said. “Besides, I’d prefer talking to him. There’s just one problem.” I filled Freddy in on Brent’s disappearance and my efforts to find him.
“Oh. My. God,” Freddy intoned. “That beautiful child. You’ve done it again.”
“What?”
“Gotten another one killed.”
“Killed? Who said anything about killed?” I ran through all the other possibilities for Brent’s absence, my theories and the ones offered by the guys at SwordFight Productions.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Freddy responded. “And maybe he grew wings and flew to the moon, too. Let’s be honest, sugar. Boys who go missing around you turn up dead. Terminated. Rubbed out, knocked off, whatever. How many times does this need to happen before you accept that you have the karma of a cadaver dog? You’ve stumbled across homicides like Angela Lansbury when she played Jessica Fletcher, except without her raw sexuality. I’m calling your biography Murder, She Wrote. Again.”
“Okay,” I admitted, “maybe I’ve had some weird flukes in that area. But this is New York. It’s bound to happen.”
“Oh yeah?” Freddy asked. “Who else does any of this shit happen to?”
“Tony deals with murders all the time.”
“He’s a homicide detective,” Freddy said. “People call him when there’s a victim; he doesn’t run into one on every other corner like they’re a Starbucks or something.”
He had me on that one. Not that I’d admit it.
“Can I come over or what?”
“Sure,” Freddy said. “What could be more fun than a movie marathon featuring a probably-dead legend o’ porn? We can put on some Amy Winehouse and moon over pictures of a young Patrick Swayze while we’re at it.”
“Could you stop being so morbid?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if you pick up some ice cream on your way over. I just ran out.”
“No problem. You want I should pick up some dinner, too?”
“Ice cream and dinner?” Freddy asked. “No, darling, the ice cream will be dinner. That way, it counts as one course. What are you trying to do, make me fat?”
“Uhhh,” Freddy moaned as we watched Brent’s movies on his ridiculously large sixty-five-inch screen while lying on his bed. Freddy lived in a studio apartment, and there was no couch, sofa, or other chairs. Given his usual definition of “hosting,” there was no reason for such traditional seating. You were either on your way in, out, or in his bed. Why else would he have you over?
“Oh my god, that’s good,” Freddy groaned. We were watching a particularly sexy scene in a movie called School Gayz. Brent played a prospective fraternity member being rushed by the world’s hottest pledge master. At the moment, Brent was being asked to prove his loyalty to Alpha Gamma Rimya by seeing just how far up his butt he could accept his co-star’s tongue. It didn’t seem like a particularly tough hazing, but who was I to judge?
“So sweet. So fucking smooth and good. I gotta have it,” Freddy pleaded.
On screen, Brent groaned. “Gimme more, sir,” he begged.
Freddy ran a hand over my chest. “Yeah, baby, like he said. ‘Gimme more,’ ” he rasped hungrily, his breath hot against my cheek. “I want more.”
“Get it your own damn self,” I told him. He was talking about the ice cream I’d brought over. He’d gotten through the first two bowls before the opening credits of the first movie we’d watched were complete. We were now on the third.
The horrible thing about Freddy was that he could eat crap like this and his body somehow managed to turn it into muscle. Whereas I just look at it and need to double my cardio.
“I can’t,” he whined. “You’ve killed me. Filled me to the gills with this stuff and now I’m too stuffed to move. You’re going to have to feed me in bed for the rest of my life, as I get fatter and fatter until they have to lift me out of here with a crane. Come to think of it, you may want to get me a bedpan, too. This could get messy.”
“Okay, that’s just gross. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll get you another bowl if you fast-forward to the next part with dialogue.”
“Are you retarded?” Freddy asked incredulously, as I got up to fetch his bowl of frozen crack. “You tell me you want to come over to watch porn, and then you ask me to skip the sex scenes? Isn’t this like watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie for the acting?”
“No,” I said from the kitchen, fifteen feet away. “I didn’t say I wanted to watch porn. I said I wanted to get a better sense of Brent through his movies. I’ve already seen him have sex with a fireman, an adoptive uncle, his baseball coach, and a rugby team. Turns out he has a pretty good-sized cock for such
a little guy, he’s admirably versatile, and, given proper inspiration, he can come twice within fifteen minutes. Not much more to learn on that front.”
I didn’t add the obvious—that Brent was ridiculously hot. He moved with the grace of a dancer. He had a sexual intensity that singed the screen. His body was flawless. His skin was smooth and almost hairless. He had a quality that made you believe that if you touched the TV, you’d feel real skin. He seemed more alive, more vital, than anyone else on the set. I wasn’t much for tattoos, but he had a two-inch silver star on his right shoulder and a ring of matching, smaller stars around his left ankle that really worked for him.
“You haven’t seen the part where he blows himself, yet,” Freddy said, watching me with greedy eyes as I returned with another bowl of Rocky Road. “Folds himself in half like he’s hinged at the hip.”
“Sounds like a cinematic classic,” I said, climbing back into bed. “How Spielberg didn’t work that into one of the Indiana Jones movies, I’ll never know. Still, it’s not going to help me figure out where Brent is, is it?”
“It might,” Freddy mumbled through a mouthful of frozen delight. “It proves he could be hiding in a very small space.”
I took advantage of Freddy’s involvement with his dessert—excuse me, dinner—to snatch the remote from him.
“Hey!” Freddy shouted. “That’s my job.”
I ignored him and fast-forwarded. I sped through a scene in which the school’s star quarterback uses skills he probably didn’t learn on the football field to persuade his professor to change his D grade to an A minus, and another where the crowded action at the campus library’s restroom made me wonder where these boys got any studying done.
Finally, I came to another scene with Brent. After the bacchanalian excess of the previous footage, this encounter was almost romantically sedate. Brent and another freshman were seated across from each other on twin cots in a dorm room. The walls were covered with posters of muscle cars, bikinied pinups, and popular bands. There was an Xbox, stereo, and bong on the desk, but, curiously, not a book in sight. Further testimony that the library was rarely put to its intended use.
Third You Die (Kevin Connor Mystery) Page 8
