All I Want for Christmas... Is No Christmas

by Colton Aalton

  Actually, it was worse than being invisible. If you googled only my first name, and added something like “escort” or “gay,” you got plenty of hits. Page after page at gayescortreviews.com, but other sites—gay blogs, Twitter, commercial porn sites—had picked up pictures of me and scattered them for all to see. Hayden was famous and I was infamous. The sooner I got over fantasizing about him, the better.

  As Agent Richardson closed the door on his way out, Hayden settled into the acoustic room with an air of authority. He was the last person I wanted to know about my being a rent boy, and here he was interrogating me during my arrest. Let me take that back; Landon was the last person I wanted to know about my escorting, but Hayden was a close second.

  I clung to a vague hope that maybe Hayden wouldn’t tell Landon. But what was I thinking? Arrests were matters of public record, so it wasn’t like it would be a secret. Landon and everyone on campus would know in days. Maybe I could plead guilty to some lesser charge that wouldn’t include prostitution. Like reckless endangerment of my own life, or maybe gross stupidity.

  I instantly felt exposed and wished I had dressed when I had the chance. Hayden didn’t repeat Richardson’s offer of letting me put on my clothes. He removed his suit jacket and pulled up a chair opposite me, turning the chair so the back faced me. Leaning forward, Hayden threw his arms over the back of the chair. His sleeves were rolled up, and his awesome forearms were inches away from me. I stared, mesmerized by the sight.

  “I’m sorry for the strip search, Alec, but we had to ensure you weren’t carrying a bug,” Hayden said. None of this was making sense. I knew Hayden worked for the Attorney General, but why would he help bust a gay prostitute in Aspen? And a bug? Why on earth would I carry a bug? To record the sounds of tricks plowing my ass? Maybe to post an audio on gayescortreviews.com to go with the ample pornographic pictures?

  Hayden produced a photo from his shirt pocket and passed it to me. “Do you recognize this man?” he asked. The photo showed Anton Volkov, looking shadowy and surrounded by two of his goons. Anton was a sadistic asshole, but accepting an escorting gig with him had paid for a good chunk of my final year of college. I got a two-week trip to Europe out of it as well.

  I nodded in agreement, still mesmerized by Hayden’s arms. Crap. If I wasn’t careful, I would get hard thinking about his arms and the rest of his awesome body. If I let that happen, given I was stark naked, I might as well wave my dick in his face.

  “We thought so,” Hayden continued. “And you accompanied him on a trip to Europe at the end of last summer?” Okay, here it comes, I thought. Anton must have turned me in, and because we had been in half-a-dozen European countries, I was probably an international criminal. Maybe that was why the Attorney General was involved. Perhaps some of the suits who nabbed me at the St. Regis were from Interpol. Still, this was not making sense. Run-of-the-mill prostitutes didn’t get this attention, arrested by guys in suits and questioned by hotshots in the Attorney General’s office. In an acoustic room. Guys like me spent the night on the cold concrete floor of a jail cell.

  I told myself that I shouldn’t admit to anything, but with Hayden sitting across from me, I had zero willpower to resist doing whatever he asked. I was a crappy liar anyway. “Yes, I did,” I replied, wondering where this was headed. “In August,” I added, thinking a moment later that I shouldn’t be volunteering information.

  Hayden gave me a long look and smiled. “I should back up,” he said. “We owe you an explanation.” He cupped his hands under his chin, making his biceps press against his shirt sleeves and giving me yet another distraction. “Today wasn’t supposed to happen like it did, but Washington panicked when they heard a rumor that Volkov might be in town and then you didn’t show up at the house the last two nights. They decided to be safe rather than sorry, so they pulled out all of the stops and brought you here. The strip search and body scanner were a precaution in case you happened to be bugged, although I told the FBI they were overreacting.”

  The reference to the FBI sent a chill through me. What had I gotten myself into?

  “Volkov is an extremely dangerous man, and we suspect he has been conspiring with a terrorist group. By sheer chance, I happened to be looking at his file when I got back to Washington after Thanksgiving, and I saw a surveillance picture of Volkov and you at Heathrow. I thought I was imagining a resemblance between you and the young man in the picture, but I checked with Heathrow internal and to my surprise they confirmed you were in Heathrow on that day—or at least your passport was. Still not believing the wild coincidence, I called Landon. He was reluctant to talk, but he eventually told me about your trip to Europe. The pieces came together, because we knew Volkov hired call boys.”

  My face felt like it was on fire. Hayden looked at me and hastily said, “Uh, I mean male escorts.” I almost told him I didn’t care whether he used any of rent boy, hustler, gay prostitute, call boy, or male whore, but I didn’t, still reeling from the news that Landon knew about my escorting. That revelation might have been worse than getting arrested. How much more of a catastrophe could this Christmas become?

  “So…,” Hayden said, letting out a deep breath. “We’re hoping you can help us with some information about Volkov. The sooner we build a case against him, the sooner we can move against him and get him out of commission before he causes serious damage. He’s dangerous enough to implicate national security.”

  That probably explained why Hayden wasn’t reading me the riot act about my escorting. He wanted to extract what he could from me about Anton before I got locked up. “I don’t know anything about Anton that would help in a terrorist investigation,” I said.

  “You may know more than you think,” Hayden replied. “Things you thought were harmless or irrelevant might be critical to our investigation. If you’re willing, I’d like to show you some pictures and debrief you on what you did with Volkov in Europe.”

  I grimaced about the prospect of telling Hayden about what I did with Anton in Europe. Mostly I hung around during the day, wishing I could see more of Europe than hotel suites, and at night I was facedown on the bed underneath Anton. I didn’t reveal that to Hayden, instead shrugging and saying, “Sure.”

  Hayden left the room and returned with a stack of folders. I took the opportunity to hastily climb back into my clothes. When he returned, Hayden glanced at me and said with a smile, “Too bad. I was enjoying the scenery.” I almost told Hayden I would strip if he would, but I was in enough trouble already.

  We spent hours looking at photos and talking about my trip to Europe. I gave Hayden as detailed an account as I could of where Anton and I had been, who he had met, and what we had done. I left out the details about what had happened when we were alone in Anton’s hotel room, although I suppose Hayden knew well enough what those were.

  We got to the last folder. “This is a long shot,” Hayden said, pulling out a couple of grainy photos, “but do you recognize this man?” I was hypnotized by Hayden’s sexy forearms and had to force myself to look at the photographs.

  “Sure,” I said. “That’s Slade.”

  Hayden sat up in surprise. “You met Slade? You know him?”

  Knew him? Yes, I knew him, in the full, carnal sense. Swallowing my embarrassment, I told Hayden about the day in Bordeaux when Anton had met Slade and we toured expensive wineries. Anton had gushed about getting appointments at so many First Growth properties, and I had been happy to see the quaint towns, vineyards, and French chateaux. The French, with no age limits for alcohol, let me taste the wine, too, but I couldn’t risk getting drunk and had been careful to spit the wine out after swishing it around in my mouth. At least most of it. Anton and Slade hadn’t let anything go to waste and got totally trashed. They had taken turns with me that day, but my account to Hayden left out the explicit details of the sexual encounters.

  Hayden was interested in everything I told him, but he got excited when I described the boat trip Anton and Slade were planning in the Med
iterranean for next summer. They had discussed ports of call all day long, and I did my best to reconstruct the itinerary they settled on for Hayden. I had followed it mostly because I loved geography and maps, and Anton and Slade kept consulting a big map Anton had purchased, checking distances between ports and how far the docks were from airports. Hayden took detailed notes, stopping me and asking me to fill in gaps.

  When we finished, Hayden was lost in thought. I didn’t see how a cruise agenda could be all that relevant, but he was intently focused on it. Looking at his face I could tell his mind was racing. I tried to think of anything else I could add. “I’ve got pictures of Slade,” I offered.

  “What?” Hayden said, jumping up. “Pictures? Where?”

  Taken aback by his reaction, I shrugged and pointed to my cell phone, buried under the pile of illicitly obtained hundred-dollar bills. “I took a few pictures on the trip. Most of them are like tourist attractions and stuff, but Anton and Slade are in a couple.”

  “Can I see them?” Hayden asked.

  “Sure.” I retrieved my cell and opened my folder of shots from Europe. Most of the pictures were crap, but I scrolled through them until I found half-a-dozen shots of Anton and Slade. It wasn’t like they were posing for me, smiling into the camera. In some photos their backs were to me and in most they happened to be in a corner of the frame. But two shots of Slade were good. Hayden was thrilled and called one of the suits into the room and gave him instructions to download the photos. I had to give the guy my cell password, and after he was gone, I worried that my phone had my entire little black book of tricks. Three clicks would gather enough evidence to convict me of prostitution ten times over. Well, the cops would probably get my cell phone sooner or later, anyway.

  It was midafternoon when we finished. Hayden seemed lost in his thoughts as we belatedly ate sandwiches that one of the agents had brought in while Hayden and I talked about Anton. I was happy to stare at Hayden as we ate. Granted, the scenery would have been better if he had been shirtless, but in his dress shirt with his tie askew and his sleeves rolled up, Hayden was almost as hot.

  As we finished, Hayden looked at me with a slight grin. He sighed and asked, more to himself than to me, “What are we going to do with you, Alec?”

  Ugh. This is where they lock me up and throw away the key, I thought. Maybe they’d go easy on me because I didn’t have a criminal record. That was about all I had going for me. Although I had cooperated with Hayden’s investigation, so maybe that would count for something. Thinking about that, I asked, “So, because I helped with your investigation, will that help with the charges against me?”

  “Ah,” Hayden said, frowning, although I thought I also detected a slight smile. “Charges. Hmm. Exactly how many times have you broken the law, Alec? I don’t care about traffic violations. So, you know, only the serious stuff.”

  Wow. I wondered if this was the place where I should say nothing and ask to speak to a lawyer. Not that I knew any criminal defense lawyers or could afford one. Actually, I had slept with a couple of criminal defense lawyers, but they weren’t going to admit to it now that I had been arrested.

  The FBI obviously knew about my escorting, so I didn’t see what I had to gain by refusing to answer Hayden. But, what to say? I mumbled, “Um, well… um, I suppose… uh, maybe….”

  Hayden cut me off with a smile and a chuckle. “I hope you never need this particular shred of legal advice, Alec, but you can always refuse to answer that question on grounds of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

  “But, back to your question about charges against you. You’re not charged with anything. We don’t think you have anything to do with Volkov’s terrorist activities, unless you are going to tell me differently. And in that case I need to read you your rights and let you get a lawyer.”

  Hayden’s reference to a lawyer made my stomach churn again. “No,” I said, surprised that Hayden would think I might be involved in terrorist activity. “I mean, the, uh, you know, the escort stuff.” My face burned again.

  Hayden grinned and laughed. “Oh, that,” he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Look, Washington doesn’t give a rat’s ass about that, and ironically, that’s the reason you can help us. Granted your, uh… career… has created a few issues. The bank in Aspen reported you yesterday for possible money laundering—you know, outsized cash deposits—but it’s a federal bank and we can handle that. The IRS is more of a problem; they don’t take kindly to letting anyone get away with unreported income. So you’ll have to pay back taxes and some interest and penalties, but at least we can head off tax evasion charges. It goes better with the IRS when taxpayers come forward voluntarily.” I felt a knot in my stomach. Neither money laundering nor tax evasion were things that had occurred to me, but should have. I mean, how stupid could I have been, making deposits of thousands of dollars of cash?

  “I can’t speak for the town of Aspen,” Hayden continued, “but if anyone here wants to make a stink about what you’ve done, I can assure you that we’ll help you. I’ll personally help you. The Attorney General himself will help you.” A sense of relief swept over me as it sank in that I wasn’t getting arrested and dumped into a jail cell after all. And the Attorney General would help me?

  “Frankly,” Hayden said with a chuckle, “the sheriff in Aspen smokes pot—it’s legal here—so I don’t think you have much to worry about.”

  I was hugely relieved, but if I wasn’t being busted, why the big operation to nab me? “So, if talking about Anton is all you wanted to do, why bring me here?”

  Hayden waved his hand at the room around us. “Acoustic room,” he explained. “I can’t explain much about our case against Volkov because it’s top secret. Much is at stake. Any conversations about the case have to occur inside a sealed room. I can’t even talk about the case in the john inside the DOJ building in DC. Even if the AG is standing next to me taking a piss.”

  “Oh,” I replied. Things were beginning to make sense. I felt such a sense of relief over not being arrested that I wanted to throw my arms around Hayden and kiss him. I wanted to do that regardless, but I caught myself. Things weren’t all good.

  The Justice Department may not care about my whoring, but that didn’t mean Hayden was okay with it personally. Being a rent boy wasn’t an issue for Hayden’s investigation, but that hardly meant he didn’t disapprove of my activities. And even if he was okay with my rent boy past, that didn’t mean his career wasn’t still an issue.

  Before we emerged from the acoustic room, Hayden thanked me several times. “Um, am I going to have to be a witness or testify?” I asked.

  “None of that,” Hayden replied. “You didn’t see Volkov or Slade committing any crimes, at least things we care about, and we won’t arrest them for anything you witnessed. What we want to do is to nip their plans in the bud, to preempt them. You’ll not have to testify. As far as you’re concerned, the investigation is over and we’re done with you. You’re free to go. I’ll have one of the agents take you into Aspen.”

  Hayden paused a moment but then gave me a happy smile. “Hell, scrap that. I’ll give you a ride. We’re headed to the same place.”

  On our way to Red Mountain, the snow temporarily let up until it was merely a fine mist drifting down from the gray clouds. In Colorado’s mountains, the brief respite meant little; Aspen could easily be covered with another six or eight inches of snow if the clouds closed again and the snowflakes fell more heavily. Suddenly the setting sun blazed through a crack in the clouds, reflecting off the fresh blanket of new snow covering the evergreens along the highway. The snowflakes sparkled as if Hayden and I were in a magical snow globe, the sun’s rays casting a brilliant reddish-orange light across the valley and onto the mountain peaks to the east. As quickly as the sun appeared, it retreated, darkness closing in on Aspen.

  Earlier I had thought this Christmas Day was my worst, but because I wasn’t arrested after all, things hadn’t gone all that badly. Of course, it wa
sn’t like spending the day being questioned in an acoustic room was fun, but I would not complain about Hayden being my interrogator. I glanced at him, his handsome profile making a knot form in my throat. If only my life had taken a different turn and I hadn’t gone down the path of being a rent boy. But that was history, and not something I could change. As the light died, I sighed, melancholy over what might have been.

  Hayden was silent, but as we wound our way up Red Mountain, he said, “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

  I had answered questions for hours and now Hayden was asking permission to ask another one? It didn’t matter. My reaction to Hayden was the same as it had been all day long, maybe more so. I was happy to be around him and I would tell him whatever he wanted to know. As crazy as it sounds, merely being in the car with Hayden gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. I was happy to talk. “Shoot,” I replied.

  “Ever since Thanksgiving I’ve been wondering why you took off so suddenly when we were having coffee. I thought things were moving in the right direction and I was looking forward to, well, whatever came next, and then wham! All at once, you acted like you saw a ghost and ran away as fast as you could.”

  Ghost? Maybe the ghost of Christmas future, the ghost of a coming disaster. I thought for a minute. I had nothing left to hide. Hayden knew everything about my rent boy past anyway. The way to feel closer to Hayden wasn’t to keep secrets. “Truthfully?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Hayden said, “I’m big on the truth. You know, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

  I chuckled and launched into my tale. “When the shades opened that morning,” I said, “I thought you were the most gorgeous man I had ever seen. Seriously. I thought things were moving in the right direction too. But then I realized it was hopeless. I mean, face the facts. I’m from nowhere, struggling to even finish college. Why would you be interested in me? You’re older, sophisticated, and mature. I saw how those agents deferred to you back there. You were totally in charge. I’m a kid with my head up my ass. I wait tables. You’ve graduated from Harvard Law School, clerked for the Supreme Court, and landed a prime job with the AG. We’re from different worlds. I knew you were totally out of my league.