Infected

by Andrea Speed

  “I called 9-1-1,” Jessie said, right behind Scott.

  Scott had moved in so he was next to the other drunk idiot. If he made the suicidal decision to take on Grey, Scott would be right there to stop him and encourage him to rethink his life choices before they got him killed.

  And Scott must have been psychic because the guy took a step toward Grey maybe two seconds after he arrived. Scott stepped in behind him and snaked his arms around him, coming up through the drunk’s armpits and lacing his hands around the back of the guy’s neck. It was a lock hold, meaning he could flail like a ninny but he was going nowhere. Oh, there was a way out of it if you could stamp on an attacker’s foot, but Scott was willing to bet this guy didn’t have it together enough to make that call. Luckily, he was correct.

  The drunk made a noise that might have been a word and tried to break the hold and lift his head, but he was unable to do either.

  “Dude, I don’t want to hurt you,” Scott said. “There’s been enough violence for the night. But I can and will beat your ass if you try me, so don’t.”

  “Fuggo,” the man said emphatically. It was probably fuck you, but he seemed too drunk to really make those hard consonant sounds. He smelled like a brewery that had pissed itself.

  Shithead was trying to get back on his feet and pull away from Grey simultaneously and was failing at both. He said some things, but it was all word salad. Occasionally you could recognize some word fragments—uck, it, ock—but not in a way that made any sense. Unless he was just spitting out a random assortment of curse words, which was possible. Scott played hockey. He’d seen guys get so drunk they seemed incapable of normal speech.

  “Uh, guys,” Jessie said. “What’s that?”

  She was pointing at the intersection, and Scott looked, figuring maybe these idiots had a friend. But standing out in the strangely empty street was what he initially thought was a big dog. Then Scott realized that no, not a big dog, but a big cat. Judging from the spots on its dirty blonde fur, it was a leopard. And it was looking straight at them.

  “Oh shit,” Grey said at the exact same time Scott thought it.

  Scott looked around hastily to see if any of the businesses on the street were open, and they were lucky. A shop front down, a tiny thrift boutique was still lit up. All Scott could tell about it was it must have been a haven for drag queens, as its display window featured a full cotton-candy-pink wig on a Styrofoam head and green platform shoes that looked like torture implements. Dragging the guy he had in the modified headlock along, he said, “Let’s get inside. Nobody move too fast.” He’d done some research on big cats after getting to know Roan, and if he’d learned one thing—besides lions being the most social of all the big cats—it was that running had a tendency to encourage cats of all stripes. It was like they were jocks; they liked the challenge.

  They all backed into the shop, Grey carrying the struggling, uncoordinated Shithead like a bag of pucks. When Shithead saw the woman, who was bleeding from the nose, he said something and tried to reach for her, which led Grey to slamming him face-first into the nearest wall. Three times, until he stopped complaining and left a smear of blood on the wall, and then Grey tossed Shithead deeper into the shop, again like a bag of pucks. Like said object, he hit the floor and lay there. Scott handed off his guy to Grey, who grabbed him by the back of the neck and said, “Move and I do the same thing to you.” Shitfaced or not, the guy froze as much as he could. Too bad these idiots didn’t realize that Grey was in full training mode and had been for two weeks, which meant he was at peak strength. He could draw and quarter them with his teeth alone.

  The door of the shop was narrow and had glass insets, but they looked like the old-fashioned kind, which were generally thicker than the stuff they used nowadays. Scott threw the lock on the door, in case it would do any good.

  Someone cleared their throat, and they all turned to see a guy behind a small counter. The whole shop was tiny and crammed with various knickknacks and artifacts, including a disco ball that hung up in the far corner and threw white spots of light like confetti around the room. The guy was in his midforties, chubby and balding, and looked quite a bit like Divine out of makeup and in a peach cardigan.

  “Must I ask?” the man said. His flat vowels marked him as being originally from somewhere in or around Minnesota. That region. Scott had met enough hockey players from that area to know it on first sound.

  “That fucktrumpet”—Grey pointed down at Shithead—“punched this woman.” He then pointed at the woman, who was leaning against the counter, hand over her face, blood dripping from between her fingers. “And we were keeping things civil ’til the cops arrive, except there’s a leopard in the street. So we’re hiding in here. Sorry.”

  “There’s a what?” he replied, seemingly not interested in the domestic dispute at all. He went to the window behind the counter to check it out, although how he could see through all the stuff on display Scott had no idea.

  Scott had a better view out the door, and he could see the leopard on the sidewalk now, sniffing at the spilled blood. It was long but fairly thin, all things considered. If it threw itself at the glass, it probably wouldn’t break it, or it would hurt itself so badly in doing so as to make it a pointless exercise. “I have to admit, my first impulse was to call Roan,” Scott admitted.

  Grey frowned and nodded. “Yeah, but he can’t save us anymore. Seattle’s on its own.” Did anyone outside the SPD grok how truly scary that was? Maybe now, with things falling apart.

  “I had no idea this neighborhood was so exciting,” the shop owner said. He almost sounded regretful.

  Jessie had been eyeing all the clutter with the wide-eyed expression of a kid who had stumbled into a free-candy emporium. “Your shop is awesome,” she said. She meant it too.

  Well, at least she couldn’t say her first night in Seattle hadn’t been eventful. The problem was, Scott was sure he was never going to be able to top it.

  4—Chastity Drive

  HOLDEN WAS woken by the sound of banging from the other room.

  At first he thought it was someone knocking, but there was no rhythm to it, and upon further consideration, clearly it was cupboard doors slamming. Holden had slept commando, so while he went to have a piss, he only bothered to grab his black satin bathrobe, which he cinched tightly around his waist. He wasn’t getting dressed until he absolutely had to.

  As he suspected, Chai was moving around the tiny kitchen, making coffee and slamming everything he could unnecessarily, his movements sharp and tense.

  “Hey,” Holden said warily. He was glad he didn’t have a hangover; otherwise, this noise would be killing him.

  Chai slammed the fridge and looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected to see Holden in his own apartment. “Oh. Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “Really? ’Cause I’m thinking being quiet would have been the best way to accomplish that.” Holden sat on the arm of the sofa. He was still pretty tired.

  Chai sighed, his shoulders sagging. “Sorry. I’m just so pissed off right now.”

  “And here I thought you not coming home last night meant you were having a good time with Sam.”

  “I was. Until this morning.”

  “What happened?”

  Chai slammed a coffee mug down—his “Cats Don’t Give A Fuck” cup, one of his favorites—and turned to face him. “Okay, so last night he told me he’d just gotten out of a relationship a month ago. He was in rebound territory, which was fine with me because I feel I’ve been on the rebound since the accident, you know? The sex was okay, nothing special. But this morning I overheard him on the phone, talking to someone he was clearly in a relationship with. I confronted him about it, he lied at first, and finally he fessed up.”

  “So he’s a cheating bastard. Wasn’t that why you broke up with him in the first place?”

  Chai gave him a look Holden decided was deadpan. “Yeah, but get this. He’s married. To a woman.”

  Now
that was a surprise. “He’s bi?”

  “No. He told me he doesn’t like labels.” Chai belatedly made air quotes with his fingers, and Holden assumed they were meant to go around labels, but who knew? Could have gone anywhere. “I don’t think they have an open relationship either ’cause he didn’t mention her before, and he didn’t mention me to her, and he’s never going to. Not only that, but apparently I didn’t go back to his condo with him. It was the company condo.”

  “At least you know he’s still the same scumbag he always was.” Holden noticed he’d left his phone on the coffee table and picked it up for a look. He hoped Dylan might have texted him how Roan was doing, but Dylan didn’t text any more than old man Roan did, and even if he did, he could easily see Dylan thinking that was tacky. He did have at least one voicemail message waiting for him.

  Chai sighed dramatically, still making as much noise as possible as he poured coffee into the mug. “Why couldn’t it have just been a drama-free hookup? I mean, exes who’ll even touch me since I’m an amputee are a very small group. Why does he have to be such a shithead?”

  “Maybe it’s the way he was raised.”

  “He’s from a suburb outside Medina.”

  “Yeah, see? Way he was raised.” Holden checked his voicemail to find he actually had two messages waiting for him. Dylan’s was the first. Sounding bone weary, like he’d been up a thousand years, he dutifully reported, “Roan’s confounded another set of doctors. Doctor Rosenberg’s been contacted, and they’re hoping she can have a look at the findings, but they’re confident it wasn’t an aneurysm. There’s no sign of that occurring. I told them he’d actually recovered from an aneurysm midattack once, and they looked at me like I’d suggested cutting off my own leg and eating it. Because, as we all know, aneurysms don’t work like that. Just like the virus doesn’t turn people into half lions.” Dylan sighed. “I know you think I’m a good Buddhist, but at times like these, I just want to reenact the hammer attack from Oldboy. And yes, I saw that, because Roan watched it, and that was the most fucked-up film…. I’m digressing. Anyway, they’re unofficially chalking this up to a cluster headache-slash-migraine attack of unusual severity, at least until Doctor Rosenberg gets her hands on it. I’ll feel better when she does. I don’t know why Roan has to be such a medical mystery to all these people. Except yeah, I do know why he is. It just pisses me off. They’re gonna hold him for at least another day, probably to poke and prod him some more and piss him off. I’ll let you know if there’s any changes.”

  Being the first and, as known so far, only one of his kind had undoubtedly been hard on Roan, although if he weren’t such a tough bastard, it probably would have hit him a lot harder. Still, it was no picnic for the man who had chosen to love him either. Again, Holden didn’t envy Dylan at all. He had Roan, sure, but he had all the pain and heartache that came with him.

  The second message was a surprise. “Holden? Hi, it’s Dahlia. Could you call me back at this number as soon as possible? I’d like to meet and talk to you. It’s about Alexei. Okay, bye.”

  Dahlia Shear? Wow, now there was someone he never expected to hear from. Then again, did he ever expect to hear from her?

  “What’s up?” Chai asked, taking a seat in the armchair, mug cradled carefully in his hands. He had a pretty good prosthetic for his missing leg, so it worked more with him than against him when he sat down, but he was still extra careful doing so, especially if he had something in his hands. Occasionally, the landings could be rough, doubly so if he was feeling some pain.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have a look on your face.”

  “Hard to have a face and not have a look on it.”

  Chai’s scowl was evil and totally warranted. Holden was being a smartass just for the hell of it. He rolled his eyes, mainly at his own snarkiness, and said, “Just got a voicemail from a client-slash-acquaintance I haven’t heard from in a while.”

  “What’s a client-slash-acquaintance? That’s new to me.”

  “A client who became a loose acquaintance. It happens sometimes.”

  “Not to me.”

  Holden knew he might regret sharing this story, but it would probably get Chai’s mind off what an asshole his ex was, so maybe it was worth it. Holden sat back, getting comfortable. “You ever heard of Dahlia Shear?”

  “No. Is that a person or a drag persona?”

  “Person. She’s an artist, writer, ghost wrote a sex column, one of those types of people. When I was working at Elite, she hired me, although under her initials. Imagine my surprise when I show up at the hotel and my date’s a woman.”

  “Holy shit. You told her you only did men, right?”

  “Yes, but she knew that. She saw that on my web page. She was doing an art project about sex workers, and she wanted to ask me some questions since it was a multimedia project. She assured me no names unless I wanted to give one, no faces, and I didn’t have to answer any questions that made me uncomfortable. I figured what the hell, it would probably be the easiest money I ever made, and agreed. We broke into the hotel’s minibar, had some overpriced peanuts and beer, and we ended up hitting it off somehow. Near the end, she asked me some questions about whether I’d ever sleep with a mixed couple, but I didn’t think much about it since it fit in with the other sex questions she’d asked me.”

  “Mixed couple?” Chai repeated, brows drawn down in confusion.

  “Male and female.”

  His confusion only deepened. “Wait. She said she knew you only did guys. She saw it on the site.”

  “She wasn’t thinking about sex with the woman. More like a woman watching two dudes get it on. I told her as long as they paid, I didn’t care who watched. I’m not exactly shy. So anyway, kinda forgot about the whole thing until she hired me again about two and half weeks later. I figured it was follow-up on her whole art project thing, and the fact that I was sent to the address of a house in Magnolia cemented that impression. She’s got a really nice house, and as it turns out, a hot husband who is the absolutely best-looking teacher I’ve ever seen. His name was Alexei Barany. He’s a professor at U-Dub, English lit, I think. Younger than I expected too.”

  Chai sat forward slightly and rested his elbows on his knees. He apparently sensed this story was about to get good. “I don’t suppose you have any pictures.”

  “Not on me. But google and maybe you’ll find some, ’cause he’s not shy about showing off his body. Anyway, I ended up having dinner with them, and it was really good and kind of fancy, which was weird. I thought any minute they were gonna try and stab me or lock me in their basement dungeon or something. I helped with the dishes, and when I got Dahlia alone in the kitchen, I asked what’s going on, ’cause something was. And she tells me her husband has a birthday on Saturday, and she thought I might be a good present for him.”

  Chai, who had picked the wrong moment to drink, started strangling on his coffee. After putting the mug down, he hit himself in the chest a couple of times and managed to tame his choking, although he still had tears running down his face. “What?”

  “Well, turns out both Dahlia and Alexei were bi and way into polyamory. She liked me, and she thought Alexei might like me as well. Yeah, it was terribly weird, but I was being paid for it, so why not, right?”

  Chai’s eyes were wide and threatening to fall out of his sockets. “You went through with it?”

  Holden scoffed. Yeah, he knew Chai wasn’t down for some of the weirder stuff, but Holden didn’t even consider that in the top ten of weird things he’d done. Maybe it was number eleven. “Yeah. Alexei’s hot, man. I flirted with him, he flirted back, and I decided to see how far he was willing to go with this by kissing him. And holy shit, that dude was all over me. Dahlia knew her husband’s taste in men.”

  Chai looked vaguely horrified. “And she watched you two have sex?”

  “A little. She participated too. I mean, she had sex with her husband while I fucked him, and then she pegged him, and we s
pit roasted him, so it was pretty fun.”

  Holden was afraid he might have to go get a shovel to help scrape Chai’s jaw off the floor. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Alexei was a mildly kinky fellow, a submissive who liked a bit of light bondage and being bossed around and pegged. Exactly the kind of guy you want at a good orgy. They hired me two more times, but really, they were into swingers who wanted to fuck both of them, so I was just an appetizer before they found a steady third. At the time I came into things—no pun intended—their girlfriend had decided to finish her degree and was accepted at UC Santa Cruz, so she’d moved. I was invited to the showing of the sex worker art project. It was… interesting. I’m not sure what the point was. At least Dylan’s art I generally get. I wasn’t sure I got that.”

  “Dylan?”

  “Harlow, Roan’s husband. You know that abstract watercolor I have in my bedroom? He did that one. He’s a pretty good artist.”

  Chai shook his head as if clearing his ears. He’d always had a bit of performance anxiety, which was why Holden was so surprised when he decided to give porn a shot. He often needed a little help to get over himself. “You’re making this up, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “So why haven’t I heard this story before?”

  “Oh. It happened after you moved to California. You weren’t around for it.”

  Chai bugged his eyes out. “You shoulda called me and told me. I totally would’ve wanted to hear this story. That’s… crazy. I mean, I’ve heard of a gay couple hiring a third, but not a wife hiring one for her husband. And they’re still together?”

  Holden shrugged. “As far as I know. They seemed to genuinely love each other.”

  “Do you think she wants to hire you again?”

  “After all this time? I doubt it. Maybe she’s turning that whole sex worker thing into a book. Maybe I have to sign a release or something.” Holden honestly didn’t care. It was just weird to hear from her again after all this time. He couldn’t help but wonder if Alexei was still hot. A Google search might answer that question for him.