by Dan Lopez
In her memory, Sean appears with sly, downcast eyes and lips parted just enough to allow a seductive peek of his tongue. A former high school and intramural athlete, when they met he was settling into the body he’d likely carry through to middle age—neither in shape nor overweight, but bearing shades of both. A transitional body. He captured her attention immediately despite the inconvenient fact of his marriage (or, perhaps, because of it). He was enigmatic and she liked that, too. She knew his name, his age (twenty-eight, her age now), and his preferred sexual positions. Little else was forthcoming. He knew nothing about her beyond her phone number, her address, and that she was willing. Nor did he seem interested in learning more.
At the start of their affair she regularly inquired about his tastes and opinions, his profession and aspirations—in short, his life—but he gingerly deflected her queries. What little he did offer came only under duress (which is how she came to learn the bit about his athletic past). His aptitude for deflection outpaced her appetite for hectoring, and fearing above all breaking with the illusion that she was an unsentimental girl who preferred casual hookups to relationships, she eventually abandoned her efforts, reconciling with the fundamental mystery of him. Clearly, privacy figured prominently in the hierarchy of his desires. His reasons simply remained beyond the scope of their relationship.
Despite her resolve to not dig into his past, a tension remained between them. Her fundamental nature demanded an intimacy he refused to supply, and that imbalance excited him. Their most passionate trysts occurred when he’d show up at her door unannounced in the middle of the night after she’d worked a long shift and was looking forward to sleep. “I’m outside,” he’d say, his voice oozing through the speaker on her phone. “I’m coming in.” A month into their relationship he’d asked for a key to her house for this express purpose. It was that kind of a relationship. She’d listen, heart racing, as the front door opened and shut, followed by his quick steps across the living room. Waiting under the covers, she struggled with conflicting desires, wishing that she’d had some notice and could’ve tidied up before he arrived but also delighting in the fact that she hadn’t. She liked to imagine herself as the kind of person who held nothing back from her lover: This is my mess, take it or leave it; I don’t care one way or another. But, of course, she was the exact opposite kind of lover. She did care. She cared a great deal.
From the bedroom door he’d lock eyes on her, his stare seeing right through her even in the darkness. If he was an enigma, then she was common and plain as conventional wisdom. “It’s late,” she’d say, and he’d smirk and grunt, “Mm-hmm.” Then he was on top of her and she felt her body responding to his touch, rushing away from her. More than once she came before him, her body drawing him in deeper until he finished.
“Do you have to get back to your wife?”
He’d lick the sweat off her neck and then get up and dress. “I’ll see you again soon. Wear black panties.”
Then he’d be gone and she’d spend the next however many nights sleeping in nothing but black panties, waiting for him to return.
She spends too much of her life waiting on men, she thinks as she thumbs through the endless minutiae of other people’s lives. But her efforts pay off. In the middle of the epically mundane something amazing happens: a familiar face surfaces.
She shoots up on the couch and brings the phone close to her face. The analytic mind spins up all its faculties.
There on a crowded dance floor, shoulder to shoulder with a brawny boy, is Alex.
Her brother looks sallow in the club lights, but the angle of the photograph flatters his sharp features. The boy he’s with wears a dopey grin while tossing a sturdy arm across her brother. A proud sneer adorns Alex’s face. Her brother has many gifts, but humility isn’t among them (though he’s not as confident as he’d like to appear either). In the photo he’s trying too hard. Not that it will matter: the boy looks half gone already, bleary-eyed and drunk, probably tripping. A Venn diagram of toxicology comes to mind and she hopes that Alex knows better than to party irresponsibly. She’s never known him to do more than drink and smoke pot, but six months is a long time in a teenager’s life. Troubling, too, what a hormonal teenager might do to impress a would-be lover, especially on the eve of his eighteenth birthday.
He’s young, this boy. Not much older than Alex—twenty-one, twenty-two max. A college student for sure. The longer she examines the picture the more familiar he becomes until she’s convinced she knows him from somewhere. But from where?
Her phone pings again, reminding her of Bill’s voice mail. She dismisses the notification blocking her screen. Bill and the pharmacy can go to hell.
Ah, but that’s it! The boy. She recognizes him from the pharmacy! From the time she covered for Josie at the store by the university. He came in with a prescription for a fungal infection. She frowns. What is Alex doing with this guy? Where did they meet? Are they dating? The stream doesn’t offer much context. No location is tagged and the only commentary is in the form of two emoji hearts and a thumbs-up. The post has eighty-three likes.
For all the world it’s young love, but in the final moments before her baby brother’s birthday, Laila doesn’t agonize over the boy’s identity or his suitability. Nor does she obsess over matters of safety. No, the burning question concerns the ease with which Alex can find someone while she herself struggles. What is his advantage? Perhaps, as with everything else in life, finding a man is simply easier for men.
Rousing herself from the couch, she resolves to clean the apartment in the morning. She’ll call Bill, too. Apologize and explain the situation, or, at the very least, concoct a plausible lie. On her way to bed, she adjusts the thermostat. It’s chilly, and with just one person the house won’t heat up that quickly overnight. She sends a final text before turning in:
Happy Birthday
Then a quick follow-up:
Be safe!
“I’VE CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT URBODY COUTURE,” HE SAYS.
His bare shoulder presses against the wicker bookcase, its shelves decorated minimally with a conch shell and a leather-bound volume that nobody has ever opened let alone read. You wouldn’t be surprised to learn that its gilt-edged pages were printed upside down or simply left blank. Like the plastic areca palm in the corner, this book is a prop designed to sell an idea.
“What about all your sketches?” You reach for the bottle of bourbon. The seal is broken from plying Eddie with a few shots before he headed for the shower. “Are you just abandoning them?”
He throws himself onto the couch, messing with his phone for a second before shoving it deep into a pocket. “Don’t be stupid.” He pouts and shields his eyes with his hands. “I just wanna focus on my own thing.”
You sip the bourbon to get the taste of it, then cut it with some water.
“Check it out, papi. I’m gonna start my own line called Balas de Cariño—bullets of affection! It’s all about peace, love, and ass.” He sits up, cocks his head at you. “That’s tight, right?”
“Sure.”
He regards you with hooded, vulnerable eyes. It’s taken a long time to earn his trust, but he’s finally dropped his adolescent bluster and allowed you a sincere glimpse of his ambition. Your hands twitch. If he were any of the others, you would seize the opportunity to destroy him, but the thought makes you queasy. So instead you focus on aesthetics. “What’s the artistic vision?”
“Simple, clean lines.” He slinks over to the counter, pulls the bourbon from your hand, takes a sip, and bites back a cough. “I want to do something fun. I’m tired of complicated and dark.”
“He’ll be out of the shower soon,” you say, referring to Eddie. “Then we can have some fun.”
He shrugs.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you want him anymore?”
“Nah, he’s hot. I don’t know.” He scratches his scalp and yawns. “It’s getting late.”
You light a cigarette, then toss him the pack.
The smell of smoke will linger in fabrics and resist attempts to eliminate it, but for now you’re not worried. “Go ahead,” you say.
He draws a languid puff, exhales a quicksilver filigree that rises like a cobra from the basket of his mouth.
“How do you intend to finance it?”
He takes several quick draws before grinding out the cigarette in the sink. “I don’t know yet.”
“What if I could find someone for you to talk to—an investor?”
He picks at a pimple on his neck. “That be cool, I guess.”
“That’s something I could do. I could ask around with some people I know... There’s a lot I’d like to do for you. A lot I could show you—”
He cuts you off with a kiss. His breath tastes like menthol. “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” he says.
“All right. Whatever you want. No big deal.” You place his hand on your cheek and massage his knuckles. “I think the shower just went off.”
“Good.”
A moment later, Eddie emerges from the master suite in bare feet and dripping on the carpet, his thick athletic body wrapped in a towel.
“We’re just getting started,” Alex says.
Eddie assesses the situation, gazing badger-like between you and Alex. “That shower really did the trick.” He forces a laugh. “I’m not so shaky anymore.”
“I’ll get you something to help you relax.”
Alex entertains him while you pour a bourbon, stirring in a few drops of the GHB just to loosen him up.
“Why don’t you drop that towel, baby?” Alex says.
Eddie hesitates.
“Come on. Don’t be shy.”
“I’m not,” Eddie says, but he makes no move to remove the towel from around his waist.
Alex pauses. “You have done this before, right?”
“Of course.” He responds too quickly.
“What about a game?” you suggest, pressing a tumbler into Eddie’s hand. “Do you like games?”
“I guess,” he says, scratching his clavicle. “What kind of game?”
You and Alex exchange a glance while Eddie stares on, cow-eyed and nervous.
“Let’s play Control,” you say.
Eddie sips his bourbon and winces. He puts the glass down. “What’s that?”
“You’ll like it,” Alex says. “It’s fun.”
Your hands throb. Tonight is Alex’s night, not yours, but wrapped in that towel Eddie looks so innocent and maybe even egregiously naive. He looks at you with expectant eyes. You encourage him to drink up. After a few more sips there won’t be any hesitation. Like all of them (except Alex), he’s too eager to comply, to simply go along. While you struggle to control the throbbing in your hands, Alex moves in and kisses his bare shoulder, which is splotchy from the hot shower. Eddie places a hand on the back of Alex’s head, roughly guiding him toward his nipple, and you think how driven by instinct men are, how ignorant of even the possibility of a delicate touch or of equivocation.
“The rules of the game are simple,” you say, focusing Eddie’s ecstasy. “I control you in every way. You must do what I say; otherwise, you get punished.”
“Oh.” His voice is foggy and he giggles. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Nah, baby,” Alex says. “You’ll be amazed what you’re capable of.”
The drugs do their job. Eddie shudders at every touch. He acquiesces in a fit of nervous laughter that flexes the muscles in his throat. The throbbing in your hands escalates to a thumping.
“Okay,” he says. “If you think it’ll be fun.”
“Oh, yeah, baby, I do.”
Alex toys with him, nibbling his lips and teasing out his tongue. Deep white grooves mark the broad surface of Eddie’s tongue like irrigation canals. Alex murmurs something that you don’t hear, but it doesn’t matter what he says. Eddie is too far gone to resist. Alex’s eyes roll back like a shark’s eyes before an attack.
You slip between them. “It’s time to play.”
Eddie kisses you. When you don’t resist, he kisses you again. Emboldened, he reaches for your pants. The veins in his neck bulge. You grab his hand.
“Slave,” you say, pointing at Alex. “Dog,” you say, pointing at Eddie. “Master,” you say, pointing at yourself. “This is how we play.”
“Yes,” they both say in unison. “Yes, sir.”
The bedroom is nearby. You pin Eddie to the mattress so that his head hangs down the soft edge. His feet reach out toward the wall. He slips closer and closer to the blurry line of consciousness. If you wait too much longer he’ll be a limp doll, no use to anyone.
Alex crouches beside you and Eddie nuzzles into the front of his jeans like a good pup.
“Suck his dick,” you hiss at him. Without hesitation he pulls Alex’s thick cock out and begins licking it.
Alex stretches his head back, cooing encouragement. You share a smile. Happy birthday, you want to say, but you’re afraid of ruining the mood, so instead you order him to fuck Eddie’s mouth. “Show this dog who’s in charge.”
While he does you rip at your leather belt. Your vision blurs as you watch Eddie’s throat expand with each thrust. He coughs, but Alex pushes on, choking him with his cock. Eddie sputters around the organ in his mouth. Tears form and his eyes bulge, but he doesn’t resist. The cheap, rough comforter rasps against your shins and the top of your bare feet as you get into position. It probably burns along his back. He struggles, but you order him to draw his knees into his chest and then you hold his arms down.
Alex withdraws a little just as you jam your dick into Eddie’s ass, eliciting a glorious howl. Eddie takes it all in stride, and that’s how you know that he’s done this before and that earlier he was just being coy, and if he’s done this before then he’s just like the others. When he asks you to slide over a bit, to hit his sweet spot, you slap him.
“Dogs can’t speak!”
He could’ve spoken up at any point in his life, and maybe if he had this wouldn’t be necessary now, but he hasn’t and the time for talking is over, and now you have to take action.
You never intended to involve Alex in this. That’s the truth. You always intended to protect him from the work, but he’s here now. He’s here now and your hands are on fire. Staring into his eyes you silently ask for forgiveness before your logic fails and your brain slips into a more primitive mode, and nothing remains but the work.
You tear Eddie’s ass, pounding recklessly.
“Fuck his mouth, slave. And you, dog, take it and shut the fuck up!”
Alex presses his hard cock farther into Eddie’s mouth, and you act quickly. Vacating his ass, you straddle his chest and pin his arms to his side with your knees. “Keep fucking,” you order, wrapping your hands around Eddie’s vascular neck. Your grip starts off tender, but soon his pulse is hammering against the ring made by your fingers. His heart beats faster. The circumference expands and contracts as Alex slides in and out of his throat.
“How does that feel, slave?”
Alex can only mumble. His fevered, serious expression belies a man focused on a task.
“Good,” you say. “Very good. This is a dog. Use him.”
Alex accelerates his thrusts. Eddie tries to scream, but you clamp down, silencing him.
“It’s him,” you say. “He’s responsible for everything.”
“Yeah,” Alex says. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“Good. Talk to him. Say what you want to say.”
“Ah, it feels so good. You like that Puerto Rican dick? Yeah, you do. Take it, bitch!”
“Fuck him harder!”
Eddie’s eyes widen, snot leaks from his nose. You keep Alex focused on your face, encouraging him to fuck harder.
Bruises are forming. You relax your grip long enough to place Alex’s hands on Eddie’s throat. “Squeeze,” you order. “Make Daddy proud.”
Alex obeys. His large hands easily wrap around Eddie’s muscular throat. He can likely feel the mur
murs and gurgles now, but he continues to pound away at Eddie’s face. You lay your hands over his and squeeze. Together, you squeeze harder and faster than you ever have alone. Eddie bucks his hips and tries to flip you off his chest, but you have him pinned, and his screams are muffled by Alex’s cock and, of course, by the pressure of four hands on his throat. He tries to bite down, but you hold his jaw open with your thumbs. It’s enough to give Alex pause, but you’re too close now, so you redouble your efforts. There’s nothing he can do anyway, he’s too gone on sexual bliss to really complain. Eddie’s eyes flutter. His struggles cease and a glob of Alex’s spunk drips out the corner of his mouth.
You release your grip and Alex collapses back into an armchair. He pats himself down with Eddie’s towel. He’s panting, and his smooth, tanned skin glistens. The Virgin on his arm twitches. He falls asleep in the chair in that position. You smell his sweat on your hands, and dropping back onto the bed, you finish yourself off. It’s unclear how much time goes by before the throbbing in your hands subsides and your vision returns to normal. Somewhere in the back of your mind floats the realization that it’s past midnight and therefore Alex is no longer a minor. Everything he’s done tonight was done as a legal adult. Only then does the extent of what you’ve done crystallize.
A long time passes before Alex stirs in his chair. He rises and slouches across the carpet to Eddie on the bed. He lies in the same position, his skin already cold.
“Hey,” Alex says, tapping Eddie’s shoulder. “Yo, get up, son.” He tries to rouse him for a few moments more while you pretend to sleep.
“Hey, papi,” he calls.
You open your eyes and fake a yawn.
“Yo, get up. I think something’s wrong. He’s not moving.”
You smile.
THE ROAD IS EVERYWHERE.
Thaddeus whistles a tune while peering up at the red traffic signal rocking from a cable. After so many hours on the road, he’s come to appreciate Gertie’s quiet company. They’re like two astronauts barreling through space—everything around them the russet hue of a fading sun. Her long silence allows his mind to wander back to the lady from the parking lot and her business card pressed against the instrument panel.
