Black Market Blood

by Francis Gideon

  “What the…?”

  Sully rose from his desk, marking his place in the opera Pod Mostom. He paused his music to hear the punching sound again. Maybe by the front of the house? He peered out his window into the street and saw nothing. He strained his hearing and tried to glance into the backyard. The elevator shaft at Artie’s was located in the very center of the house, making its circumference much wider than most houses on the block. Lisa’s and Cecil’s rooms faced the back of the house, while Sully’s faced the front. He left his window and stepped out into the hallway to knock on Cecil’s door so he could get a better view.

  No answer.

  “Cecil?”

  Still no answer. Lisa’s door had the red tape she used when she didn’t want her sleep disturbed. Cecil’s door had no sign, and when Sully tried the knob, it was open. Cecil’s bed was unmade and there was open food on his desk. Against the rules. Sully closed the container and put a rubber band around the chips. He was about to make the bed into hospital corners when he heard the same huh-huh-huh from before. He glanced out Cecil’s window and saw him near a tree in the backyard, punching something that looked to be a bag of flour strung up on rope.

  Cecil was a water elemental, which made his brow shine with more sweat than average after each punch. Sully hoped Cecil had put on some patchouli scent so he wouldn’t attract unwanted creatures in droves to the house’s door. Cecil was the youngest in the house, which meant he had a sordid past to end up here, a past that was going to be difficult to get from him. Sully watched as he demolished his imaginary enemy with more and more punches and kicks. Flour puffed into the air.

  Sully and Cecil had barely spoken more than two words to each other over bedsheets or house protocols, but Sully always saw anger and sadness cross his face and he understood the determination in his gaze. And knew he should probably do something.

  By the time Sully made it outdoors, the sack of flour was on the ground. Cecil had some duct tape to patch it together and rehang it. Clouds shifted in the sky and the day became sunnier, a shift from the dark atmosphere September had been cultivating lately with all the rain.

  “You shouldn’t use duct tape on that,” Sully said.

  “Why the fuck not?”

  Sully barely blinked at the aggression. “Because you’re going to wrap it too tight and it won’t have the give you need for your hands.”

  Cecil looked down at the flour bag, half-taped. He shrugged. “So what?”

  “Well, you know why boxers wear gloves?”

  “So they don’t bash the guy’s head in.”

  “No, actually. There are twenty-seven bones in the hand and only one in the head. Boxers wear gloves to protect their hands. Not the opponent’s head. They’re only looking after themselves, like you should be right now.”

  Cecil considered this fact as he opened and closed his palm. Sully hissed at the bruises and nicks already there. “You should come inside, patch that up. Or we’ll have ghouls and fairies everywhere.”

  “I’m fine,” Cecil insisted.

  “I know you are. But I’m thinking about myself. Like you should be.” Sarcasm mixed with his sincerity, and Sully beamed. When Cecil still didn’t move, Sully dug in his pants pocket. He hoped the superglue was still there after fixing the bum leg on his desk. He let out a wry smile when he grabbed it. “Here. Take this and seal the wounds. It’ll work for now.”

  Cecil grabbed the tube when Sully tossed it. He glossed the glue over his knuckles without another word. When he was done, he retaped his bag of flour so it wasn’t as tight. He hoisted it up on the rope again, flour misting the air. He hit it once with the heel of his hand, then shook his wrist. Because Cecil had listened to him twice now, Sully decided to step closer.

  “So. You doing okay?”

  “Yeah.” A punch. “I’m fine.” Another.

  “You sure about that?”

  Cecil stopped punching. “I bought this. I didn’t steal it from Artie.”

  “I’m sure you did buy it. I wasn’t accusing you of stealing from the kitchen.”

  “Good. Because I don’t steal and lie about it.” He threw a couple more punches. “I can’t lie.”

  “Everyone lies.”

  “Not me. I’m an elemental.”

  Sully scoffed. “And some poor soul told you that you can’t lie?” When Cecil didn’t say anything, Sully knew it was true. “You can lie. It’s just extremely difficult to.”

  “So what’s the difference?”

  “One is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m going to bet someone not so great told you that you couldn’t lie in order to make you say something you didn’t want. You told him whatever it was, and then you felt bad because he made you think it was your fault.”

  Recognition flashed across Cecil’s face. “And the other one?”

  “The other is a handicap or disability you learn to live with. You can lie, but it takes time and practice.” Sully wasn’t too up-to-date on the psychology behind whatever it was that made elementals act the way they did, but he’d seen enough of them over the years. Most elementals ended up being very literal and had a hard time with figurative language, which made lying difficult. Lisa had mastered it by now, but she’d only done it by watching an endless loop of gangster or mafia films in order to understand and mimic the right ways to lie.

  “Whatever. Same difference. It doesn’t matter.” Cecil went back to punching, the discussion now closed.

  “Are you practicing?” Sully asked.

  “For what?”

  “A bad john. Everyone here has a strategy. I’m curious what yours is.”

  Cecil narrowed his eyes. He shrugged. “Your name is Sully, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re human, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Is that a philosophical question or a biological one? I’m not so sure I can answer either because I didn’t have a choice in the matter. No one does. Not even the supernaturals.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Cecil rolled his eyes. “You already know I’m an elemental. Water one. I manifested at twelve.”

  “That’s gotta suck. You were probably alone since then.”

  Cecil shot him a glance, as if to say how dare you actually say these things out loud. He punched the bag of flour hard again but didn’t wince at the pain. When the white dust settled, Sully took a step forward, around the other side of the bag.

  “Can I show you my technique?”

  “Whatever, man. Most people do what they want anyway.”

  Sully threw a punch. The flour was harder than he thought and he bit back his wince. Even though his hand hurt, he did it again. “Are you watching me? You gotta throw your punches from your waist. That way, a punch will land where you need it to with more force. You may also avoid breaking one of the twenty-seven bones in your hand.”

  Cecil didn’t say anything as Sully demonstrated his technique again. He threw a few more jabs, then raised his eyebrow in a silent question, asking if Cecil wanted anything more repeated.

  “Does that just work on humans?”

  “Most supernaturals have human bodies, even the shifters. They still get hit like me. And everyone in this world will go down with my secret move.”

  “What is it?”

  Sully threw a jab to the center of the bag of flour, grabbed hold, and twisted it. “Right to the nuts and break them off. It’s an oldie but a goodie.”

  “Even on women?”

  “A punch in the boob will also suffice.” When Sully smiled, so did Cecil. “Now you try.”

  Cecil did as he was asked. His movements were less frantic than before. He pulled away and cleared some of the flour from his sweat-glistened face. “I still don’t get it, though.”

  “What do you mean? About punching or defending?” Sully asked. “I have other techniques, like knowing the weakness of each monster. You want to hear those? It’s long, but I don’t have to work until six today.”


  “Maybe later. It’s just weird that you’re human.”

  “And you think humans can’t fight?”

  “They can, obviously. But I don’t know how you can stay here. Artie’s place is for creatures, both selling and buying, right?”

  “Not always. I know you haven’t been here long enough to see all the clients, but we get all types. A lot of humans come in for the supernaturals because it’s a kinky fetish and, well, a lot of men and women here can deliver. But I actually have a couple regulars who are human and want to know that they can get a human in a good, clean environment like Artie’s. I also have a couple supernatural creatures who want to be with a human, but they’re worried about being outed as a supernatural. With me, they can be whoever they are and not worry I’m going to rat them out to their boss or anyone else. Some supernaturals come and want other supernaturals because they want someone who gets it. For those guys it’s all about exposure and understanding. They need love and are afraid, so they come to whoever is here. It’s not just me either. We have a couple other humans working here.”

  Cecil nodded, taking this all in. “But they can’t last long, right?”

  Sully had heard the question a lot; supernaturals were traded and trafficked for sex at an even higher rate than humans because not only did they satisfy a bunch of strange fetishes, but the disease rates were lower. So were the death rates, since many supernaturals lived a long time and aged at a different progression. They healed faster too, which meant they could take more clients. Some supernaturals, like werewolves, needed to have sex during their hormone cycles, and elementals like Cecil were extra sensitive and tasted different. From a business perspective, it was just smarter to get in the supernatural game than to deal with human workers who aged faster and got rampant and sometimes incurable STIs and other chronic injuries, like cervical dysplasia.

  “The humans here are okay. Doing much better than you may expect,” Sully said. “Artie’s house is different from where you may have come from. The humans here can work as little or as much as they want.”

  “Except you still gotta make rent.”

  “Yeah, everyone pulls their weight. But it’s different than wherever you came from before.” When Cecil didn’t do or say anything, not even punching the flour bag again, Sully asked, “Are you thinking of staying?”

  “I already said yes. So I’m here.”

  “But you can always say no again.”

  Cecil cocked a brow as if this had never occurred to him.

  “I mean it,” Sully emphasized. “Artie asks everyone when they arrive if they want to stay or go with Imogen, but that’s mostly to make sure there are enough beds and enough food in the fridge and enough people to clean it up. It has nothing to do with making sure you keep taking customers. If you don’t want to deal with johns, you don’t have to. You can leave whenever you want.”

  “I guess that makes sense. Not exactly a permanent career choice.”

  “It can be.”

  “What?” Cecil made a face, twisted with disgust. “Are you talking about going home with one of the clients?”

  Sully laughed. He got this question a lot too. There were many men and a handful of women who wanted to take him away from this life and save him like in Pretty Woman. They thought if they bought him enough stuff, he’d be swayed and want to leave the only place he thought of as home and the only people he thought of as friends. As if money is the only thing to happiness. Yeah, it was a huge factor. Sully had done many things for money that made him toss and turn at night if he thought of them long and hard. He’d stayed with John for years, a man who treated him like property, because he’d thought it was the only way to make it out alive. But once the dust settled, and he could finally see beyond the three minutes ahead of him, Sully realized that money—while important and he never wanted to underestimate its power—wasn’t the end goal. A home was. Sully had found that in Artie and her house, which was more than he could say for other people. Even if he never again worked like he did now, taking a few jobs every week, he would still always be here.

  “I know it can be hard to envision that this life doesn’t end in something horrible,” Sully said. “All we’ve been told is that something bad is going to happen to us because of what we do. I get that. Especially if we were forced into sex work at first.”

  “Were you?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Cecil nodded. He didn’t ask for Sully’s story and Cecil didn’t proffer up his own. Sully appreciated it because he didn’t want to get personal with this kid. His history was too long and too gritty to hash out without the use of jokes or a lot of alcohol. “Even if we were forced to do this at first, Artie makes it known that we have a choice now. We can go with Imogen, the social worker, and never see the inside of a house like this ever again. Or this can be our job if we want it, or there are other aspects we can take up.”

  “Other aspects? What do you mean?”

  “All sex work isn’t sex. You know how many guys come in and cry on your shoulder?”

  Cecil nodded with a laugh.

  “Well, that’s still work. Trinity calls it emotional labor, which is quite fitting. Even Artie has us do other things—like clean and cook for one another. Some of the people better with math can help with the books. We have that fake magazine too.”

  “The fly-fishing one?”

  “Yeah, it’s a front so guys can use their credit cards and their partners won’t find out. But people here do write for it, you know that, right? It’s not just a dead magazine and a front. It’s also an outlet. It was started by a siren we had here, and she knew about the ocean, so that was what she wrote about. Maybe you don’t like fly-fishing—maybe you like rocks and gems, and you can go and write and start a magazine like that. Fill it with some poetry and one-act plays instead.”

  “Huh. I did spend a lot of time in a forest. Maybe I could write about the wildlife.”

  “Exactly. There are so many jobs here. It doesn’t have to be sex work all the time. You just have to ask what else you can do, especially since I’m assuming there was a reason you didn’t go with Imogen when she offered you a way out.”

  Cecil glanced down at his hands. He flexed them but stared as if they didn’t belong to him. A brother? A kid? Cecil was hanging around for some reason because he thought he had to, but it was too personal to say aloud. Imogen, one of Artie’s friends, gave them new names, new houses, and often new careers. So the only reason to hang around was because you were waiting for someone, or had no one. Sully was the latter, so he hoped Cecil was the former.

  “You know, never mind,” Sully said. “We all have some bullshit sob story that’s not always worth hashing out. How about you throw me some punches?”

  Cecil smiled. He readied himself, struck from his waist, and landed the perfect shot. He did a few more while Sully watched and praised him.

  “Hey, you’re pretty good at this. Maybe you could teach a self-defense class here. I bet Artie would love it.”

  “Maybe. What do you do?”

  “I’m still working. I like working.”

  “But what else do you do? I saw into your room once. You have a lot of books. Do you write a magazine too?”

  “Nah. My books are my own. I write and read and listen to that annoying opera Lisa can’t stand. I keep it loud just for her.”

  Cecil laughed. “You know what? It’s actually not that bad. It’s getting in my head now.”

  “Good! It’s one of my favorites.”

  “What’s it about?”

  Sully rehashed the story the best he could without speaking in another language. He struggled to not share the fact that the opera Pod Mostom was one of many in John’s collection, and when John had taken him to see it in the theater, it was the one time in their entire arrangement when Sully felt as if he was loved. “I suppose it’s mostly about saints and sinners. A bunch of women wake up in the middle of the night to plant a garden in the city center, without taking credit for
it. A body is found when the mayor tries to rip it up, and an investigation starts, and you know, drama happens. It translates into Under the Bridge in English. It was never that famous, but I think that’s why I like it.”

  “Sounds neat.”

  When Cecil threw a few more punches and the bag fell down, Sully insisted they not hang it back up. They practiced blocking shots on each other before ending their small workout with a run around the block, where Sully always kept Cecil in his sights. Sully breathed a sigh of relief whenever Cecil gave him a high five as he passed on Sully’s left. Sully never knew what to do with the new people who entered the house; some seemed so fragile and wounded that telling them to stay in this life felt wrong. Some left with Imogen as soon as they could, not even thinking twice. Imogen was someone Sully knew all about but had never met face-to-face. As much as he was happy here, the thought of choosing anything else still terrified him.

  They stopped at a park to catch their breath. Cecil watched the swing set with desire. He manifested at twelve, Sully remembered. He probably hadn’t seen or used a swing set in years. Elementals are always fucking left behind, worse than vamps, worse than… kids like me who no one wanted.

  “Go on,” Sully said. “After the swings, I’ll race you to the slide.”

  Cecil laughed, then bolted ahead. People looked at them as they bounced around on the playground equipment, but it didn’t matter. They were having fun.

  “You ever been in love?” Cecil asked when they sat in the swings for the second time.

  Sully pumped the swing, getting higher and higher and hoping he could make the question disappear. John never counted. He could never count, even if he had taken Sully to see Pod Mostom.

  “Sully?” Cecil asked. “You ever been in love?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “If they buy you now, they’re always going to think they can,” Sully said, repeating Trinity’s words. “It’s hard to form boundaries not based on exchange.”

  “But did you ever love anyone in a different way? A nonromantic one?”