Pain Slut

by J. A. Rock

  “You will be. But you’re also always gonna be a kinky fucker.” Dave sat on the bed. “So what’s his name?”

  “Drix Seger.”

  Dave nodded. “Okay. Strange, but I’ll take it. And what’s he do for a living? Or does he suck blood full-time?”

  I’d really been hoping to avoid this part. “He’s a . . . private investigator.”

  Dave’s mouth fell open. “Oh. My. G—”

  “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “I do, though.”

  “No. You always, always have the option of keeping your mouth shut.”

  “So he’s Drix Seger: Vampyre PI.”

  I glanced around, as though others might be listening. “Shh.”

  “Say it. Say, ‘My boyfriend is Drix Seger: Vampyre PI.’”

  “He’s not my—”

  “Shut up and tell me your boyfriend’s a vampyre PI.”

  “I can’t shut up and say it,” I pointed out.

  Dave lit an imaginary cigarette. Took a drag and gazed off into the distance. “The air was muggy and stifling and stretched over the city like the roof of an Ottoman yurt. I was in my—”

  I groaned. “Please stop noir-monologing.”

  “I was in my office, poring over my latest case—seems a shop owner I’d bumped gums with a few times had met with the business end of a wooden stake—when in walked Miss Kitty La Fey.”

  “David . . .”

  Kamen had paused with a rib midway to his mouth. “No, I wanna hear this.”

  Dave continued. “Kitty was to bad news what baseball is to America. I took one look at her beautiful gams and glistening fangs and was lost in a reverie of sweat and sunshine, and . . . Reno.”

  I shook my head. “You have serious problems.”

  David ground his imaginary cigarette out. “He’s a vampyre. And a private eye.”

  I sighed. “I know.”

  “And he’s making you happy.”

  “I know.”

  “Let’s tell Gould.”

  I didn’t stop them as they headed into the kitchen and casually announced that I was dating a vampyre. Gould seemed genuinely pleased on my behalf.

  “And Miles isn’t really a sub!” Kamen informed Gould. “He’s a bottom who likes to dom his tops!”

  Gould mock-gasped as he put the lid back on the guac. “Kick him out of the Subs Club.”

  “He’s a witch!” David cried. “Burn the witch!”

  “You guys. I really do like being submissive. Sometimes.”

  “He’s a switch!” David cried without missing a beat. “Burn the switch!”

  Le sigh.

  They all descended on me, chanting “Burn the switch!” and pretending to gnaw on me.

  I fended them off. “You guys are such freaks.”

  “But we’re awesome, right?” Dave asked.

  “You’re not too shabby.”

  “And we’re gonna light Hymen College on fire with our awesome. Right?”

  “Let’s settle for having a civil, rational discussion.”

  “Fire!” Dave yelled.

  I let it go.

  On Saturday, I went over to Dave and Gould’s an hour before Drix was due there for dinner. Dave was chopping peppers at the sink. Kamen was at the table laughing at something on his phone and waiting for it to be time to grate cheese for the chili. Gould was finishing the last of some wine that was lying around, so that we could “feel okay” about opening a new bottle when Drix arrived.

  “You guys are going to be good for Drix, correct?” I asked.

  No one answered.

  “He’s so tall,” Kamen said for the umpteenth time. I’d shown him a picture of Drix and me, and he hadn’t been able to get over Drix’s stature. “I can’t believe you’re dating someone that tall.”

  I set the table. “What does his height have to do with anything?”

  “It’s just funny.”

  “Uh-huh.” I gave him a gentle shove. “I think you have an unnatural fixation on people’s heights. First Ryan, now Drix . . .”

  Kamen looked up from his phone. “It is funny when people are either really tall or really short. And Drix is, like, Godzilla.”

  Dave glanced over at us. “That’s who you think of when you think tall? Godzilla?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not, like, Yao Ming, or that guy from The Raymond Carver Show . . . No, not— Wait.” Dave paused, holding a knife loosely in one hand. “Who’s Raymond Carver?”

  “Books,” I said.

  Kamen raised a hand. “I had to read a story by him in school.”

  “Do you mean Everybody Loves Raymond?” Gould asked.

  “Yeah, Everybody loves Raymond Carver.” Dave went back to cutting. “You guys never watched that? I feel sorry for you.”

  Kamen narrowed his eyes. “You’re lying, right? There’s no show about Raymond Carver.”

  Dave tossed a piece of pepper at him. “Yeah, buddy. I’m lying.”

  “I thought so.”

  Dave held up a hand. “Air high five.”

  They air high-fived from opposite ends of the kitchen.

  I joined Dave at the sink and opened a package of ground beef. “So you guys are gonna be nice, yes?”

  “Of course,” Dave said. “It’s important to treat Godzilla with respect. Hand me a pan.”

  “I have meat hands. Do not refer to him as Godzilla.”

  Dave opened his mouth. “Wh—”

  I cut him off. “Edward Cullen is not an acceptable substitute.”

  “What about Lestat?”

  “No.”

  “Andre the—”

  “No.” I walked over to him. “God, can D just . . . start a hotline or something that we can call when we need him to come cane you?”

  Dave reached around me to get a pan. “That is an idea he’s bandied about.”

  I grabbed him from behind. Squeezed him around the middle and lifted him up. He yelped.

  “Meat hands!” he shouted.

  “Just call him Drix. Okay?” I set him down.

  He yanked his clothes straight, muttering to himself.

  Kamen picked up his guitar. “I just got inspired.”

  “Kamen?” I said sharply. “I think it’s time to grate the—”

  Too late. Kamen sang:

  “He’s a vampire, and a private eye

  “All rolled up in one.

  “He feasts on the blood of his human slaves,

  “And he found the Maltese Fa-al-connn . . .”

  He smashed out a chord, doing some painful-looking headbanging.

  “Vampi-ire!

  “Private Eye!

  “Catches criminals!

  “Bleeds them dry!”

  He trailed off.

  “Doo doo doo da dee die die . . .”

  We were all silent a moment.

  Then Dave tossed the meat into a pan and asked, “Can I call him Damon Salvatore?”

  They were good.

  Until wine happened.

  We talked about Drix’s job, about Dave’s efforts to style his mannequin heads’ hair. About the Subs Club and the coven and James, and Kamen’s secret chili ingredient—which was crushed corn chips, and not a secret at all.

  Dave was on his third glass of wine when he offered Drix more rice for his chili and said, “So after you destroyed the city of Tokyo, did you—”

  I rammed my elbow into his side.

  “Ow!” He dropped the rice spoon.

  I turned apologetically to Drix. “He thinks you’re as tall as Godzilla.”

  Drix laughed. “I am really tall. Not gonna lie.”

  “I think you’re awesome.” Dave picked up spilled rice grains and set them on a napkin. “I just have a few questions. To make sure you’re good enough for Miles.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Dave. Don’t—”

  “What? Your dad is off driving trucks, so I have to be, like, the dad with a shotgun and make sure Drix treats you right.”

>   “You do not have to do that.”

  Drix looked at Dave. “I would be happy to hear your questions.”

  I swatted Drix’s side. “Don’t encourage him.”

  “Shh, Miles.” Dave waved me away. “This’s businessss.” He focused on Drix. “Okay. Miles is a masochist. But . . . true or false: You’re not going to hurt him hurt him.”

  “Dave—”

  “Let him answer, Miles.”

  “True.” Drix glanced at me. “I would never hurt him in a way he didn’t want to be hurt.”

  “Okay, cool.” Dave pretended to mark his answer down and then flipped the page of an invisible notepad. “Second question: Are you responsible for Miles no longer dressing like Mr. Rogers, but rather, a hipster who ate a hobo?”

  “Uh . . . no,” Drix said.

  Dave turned to me. “And that was a compliment, Miles. I like the hipster-hobo stuff.” Back to Drix. “The last one is the hardest of all.”

  “That’s what she said,” Kamen muttered.

  Dave looked sharply at Kamen. “I do believe she mentioned that, yes.” He focused on Drix.

  Drix nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Dave paused dramatically. “Does the fog hang heavy over the city as you make your way to your third-floor office? Are you lost in a haze of memory and smoke as you contemplate the gold ring on your desk? The ring given to you by William ‘Bag o’ Bones’ Wilkinson, on that day twelve years ago in Chelsea?”

  “Uhhhh . . .” Drix turned to me for help.

  I sighed. “He wants you to do a noir monologue.”

  “Do you know a Miss Kitty La Fey?” Dave demanded. “The dame’s all business, but trouble follows her like a cat looking for cream.”

  Drix smiled and leaned toward Dave. “It was actually a cold, crisp day. I’d just been to the deli and had ordered a hell of a ham sandwich. On rye. I walked the city streets, recalling the days when I was just another gumshoe pounding the concrete jungle. I reached my office and had no sooner picked the lettuce from my teeth when a dame walked in I’d have known anywhere. Houndstooth coat and legs for hours.”

  Dave was staring at him, entranced. “Who was it?”

  “Who else? Missy Van Belle.”

  Dave slapped the table. “Oh my God. She’s got trouble written on her like—”

  “Like the twenty-fourth of October,” Drix finished.

  Dave burst out laughing. “You’re really good at that.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve been asked to monologue.” He leaned back. “Now it’s my turn for questions. Where did you all meet?”

  “Mmm—” Dave bit into a chip. Chewed for a few seconds. “Kamen and I went to high school together. But we never really talked. I mean, it was classic jock and queer kid. Except Kamen was an incredibly nice jock, and everyone loved him.”

  Kamen grinned. “Awww.”

  Dave did an exaggerated shrug. “It’s true! Kamen won prom king by a landslide, and then he broke his crown into three pieces and gave one piece to each of his opponents.”

  “That never happened,” I assured Drix.

  “You weren’t there, Miles!” Dave said.

  “Yeah,” Kamen said. “I totally did that.”

  Dave scraped the last of the chili from his bowl. “Okay, fine, I made that part up. But Kamen really was a nice jock, and I actually never got bullied. By him or anyone. But we still ran in different circles. We graduated, and then two years later—”

  “I was at a leather bar,” Kamen said. “It was my first time there.”

  “I was there too,” Dave said. “My second time. I about shat myself when I saw Kamen. We did some catching up. Then decided to go to Taco Bell, because we were twenty years old and scared shitless of all the half-naked people blowing each other in dark corners.”

  “I had like eight Gorditas,” Kamen added.

  “And I had nine. So, uh . . . I guess we started hanging out. And then a couple months later we heard about a munch—”

  “—and we couldn’t stop laughing at the word ‘munch.’”

  Dave nodded. “We met Miles there. And Miles knew everything about BDSM.”

  “So we wanted to be friends with him.” Kamen smiled at me.

  I remembered the two of them—twenty years old, laughing at things that weren’t that funny, Dave experimenting unsuccessfully with hair product . . . I was only a couple of years older, but I’d wanted to help. Wanted to share all I knew. Wanted them to look up to me.

  “We asked Miles where all the gays were,” Dave went on. “Because this munch was, like, Het City. Middle-aged White Het City.”

  “And I said”—I broke in—“that I knew a guy who’d been to some of the munches. But I hadn’t seen him in a while.” I looked at Gould.

  “Gould!” Dave said. “But we tracked him down on Fetmatch. And he knew Hal . . .”

  Kamen spread his arms. “And the rest is history.”

  I caught Gould’s bitter smile. The rest wasn’t history. Not by far. The rest was messy, complicated, and had changed each of us.

  Gould said, very quietly and to the floor, “Hal’s fly was down.”

  We all turned to him.

  Gould reached for his wineglass. “That’s the first thing I ever said to him. ‘Your fly’s down.’” He drained the last of it. “We were at a synagogue potluck, and his pants were unzipped. And normally I was too quiet to say anything to a stranger, let alone anything I thought would embarrass the other person. But Hal was . . . I wanted a reason to talk to him. Seeing that little bit of his dumbass smiley-face boxers seemed like a gift from God. A reason to go up to him.”

  We waited to see if there was more forthcoming, but Gould busied himself pouring another glass of wine.

  The rest of us went on to talk about the upcoming season of Space Camp, but after a moment, Gould made a small sound between a laugh and a hum. I glanced up and saw that his eyes were wet. Dave noticed at the same time and started to say something, but Gould stood abruptly and walked to his bedroom. Shut the door.

  “Hold on.” Dave got up and went to Gould’s door. I offered Drix another glass of wine, but Drix shook his head, and neither of us could keep our eyes off Dave.

  Dave knocked on Gould’s door. Waited a moment, then knocked again.

  Just let him go, I wanted to say. If he doesn’t want to be out here, then he doesn’t want to be out here.

  But Dave would never let go of anything Gould-related. He had to protect him, as though Gould were some glass ornament that would break if you tapped it too hard.

  He’s a grown man, I thought suddenly, savagely. He doesn’t need you to kiss it and make it better for him.

  Which really wasn’t fair, because Gould’s grief was real. I was just tired of it mattering more than the rest of ours because Gould had shared some special connection with Hal.

  Dave turned and saw us all watching. He went to the freezer. “Dessert time?” he asked, opening it. “We have ice cream.”

  An “Uhhh . . .” from Kamen was the only response he got.

  Dave let the freezer fall shut and walked back to Gould’s room. This time he didn’t knock—just opened the door and went in, closing it behind him.

  I tried to give Drix a reassuring smile. “Sorry about that. They’ll be fine.”

  Drix nodded.

  Kamen picked up his guitar. “Gould’s just really sensitive about Hal.”

  Drix and I listened to Kamen play for a few minutes. Eventually Dave emerged from Gould’s room, shutting the door softly. He came back to the table. “He’s gonna stay in there a while.” Dave looked at Drix. “He said to tell you it was really nice meeting you, though.”

  “It was nice meeting him too,” Drix said.

  Dave sat. “He really, really loved Hal. It’s not his fault—he just gets really sad sometimes. And it’s almost the two-year anniversary of Hal’s death.” He sounded somewhat apologetic, but mostly defensive, as though he suspected Drix of secretly condemning Gould’s
behavior. Which irritated me in some small way I couldn’t articulate.

  “Of course.” Drix glanced around. “I’m sorry for your loss. All of you.”

  Dave nodded wearily. “Believe me. We’re sorry too.”

  I bought baby things. All at once, in a ridiculous online spree. I bought a crib that wasn’t a death trap. A dozen blankets. A mobile. Colorful nursette bottles. A bassinet.

  I placed the items in the nursery as they arrived. I found it impossible not to go in there several times each day and look at the room that would belong to James. The room where I’d rock him to sleep and read him stories. The room his earliest memories would be tied to. In the closet, I’d stored the crib Mom had given me. I didn’t know what to do with that. I couldn’t sell it or give it away, so I left it in there. And as long as the closet door remained shut, the room was . . .

  Perfect.

  June twenty-fifth was only two months away. Britney shared her ultrasounds with me via Cheryl. Cheryl showed me examples of the type of pictures and letters I would be required to send Britney for the first year of James’s life. I went back to wearing cardigans. I talked to my dad on the phone, and he assured me he’d be back in town for James’s birth. Dave wanted to throw me a baby shower, but I said absolutely not.

  I invited Drix over to see the nursery once I had everything in there. “This thing is particularly awesome,” he told me, flicking the space mobile. The next time he came over, he brought gender-neutral sea-creature wall art, and I accidentally told him I loved him. I proceeded to stammer through an explanation that I hadn’t meant it that way, and he kindly changed the subject. He told me some stories about the neighbor kids he’d babysat in his teens. Kept me relaxed with tales of babies he’d calmed and diapers he’d changed and bottles he’d warmed.

  He came over nearly every day now, but it never felt intrusive. It felt completely natural to have him in my home—even when he forgot to take his giant vampire boots off at the door and tracked dirt on my rug. I got used to him trying on costumes for coven meetings and asking me which of his largely homogenous black ensembles looked better. I was indescribably grateful for his offer to help me once I became a father. But at the same time, I was terrified. What if I got used to having him around? What if James and I depended on him, and then he left? He wanted to quit his job to pursue an admirable yet nebulous goal: helping people. What if he was like my father, or like Hal? Unreliable. Given to whims.