by Lydia Nyx
Unexpectedly, the night Zane took Stephanie out, he ran into Davey. They’d gone to Africana, a club famous for both an eclectic mix of patrons and dancing. A bunch of people from the film showed up there as well. Davey wore hip-hugging jeans and a slinky red shirt showing off his stomach, hair pulled back and his sun-bronzed skin darker in the low light.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Zane said, after nearly running into him on the way to the bar.
“Why would you?” Davey looked impatient to get past him. He held two glasses. “You just saw me.”
“I saw some of the others,” Zane said and looked around. For some reason he didn’t want to step aside and let Davey pass. “Great club, huh?”
“It’s all right,” Davey said. They were talking loudly to be heard over the music, but Davey’s voice sounded flat and forced. He looked around, his gaze never meeting Zane’s face. “I gotta get back to the table.”
Zane looked down at the glasses and counted again. One, two. One, two.
“Oh, you’re here with somebody?” Zane asked.
“Yeah, I’ll see you later.”
Davey moved around him and breezed off, disappearing into the crowd. Zane watched him go, supposing this was exactly what he deserved. The knowledge didn’t make him feel any less like a fool, however.
Zane went to the bar and ordered drinks for himself and Stephanie. He planned to ply her with a few beers and some conversation and then let his masculinity out to dance around — it already bounced gleefully in his head, eager to smell the open air again. His father told him he was doing the right thing, finally getting back on the straight and narrow.
The night had been officially ruined though, and Zane didn’t even realize until he sat at the table in front of a nearly-full drink, brooding over Davey more than listening to Stephanie talk. A hurt little boy sat slumped in his stomach, whining and demanding to know why Davey had to be so mean. Not that it mattered — why should it? Cause you didn’t do anything that bad to him, the jerk! You were honest with him! That’s noble! Yes, that. He didn’t do anything to deserve being snubbed, and Zane had every right to be ticked off at Davey giving him the cold shoulder. He was only trying to spare Davey’s feelings and not let him end up broken hearted.
Zane excused himself, got up, and headed to the bathroom, scanning the crowded club as he weaved around tables and people. Maybe Davey left already.
He tried to think about Stephanie. Stephanie, who had a low-cut top on and laughed at his jokes. Stephanie, with her pretty, shiny pink eye shadow and blond curls. She smelled nice, too.
Coming back from the bathroom, thinking about peeks of Stephanie’s pink bra, he saw Davey. He sat at a table near the dance floor, leaning forward in his chair and talking to someone, a young man with shaggy blond hair. After a moment, Zane remembered him as one of the extras. He looked enamored with Davey, his eyes as wide and bright as his huge smile. Their faces were so close Zane thought they might kiss. Zane had the sudden urge to run over and push them apart and warn Davey homosexual overtures in public would get him imprisoned in Cairo. A valid excuse to intervene, right?
“I’m not feeling very well,” he told Stephanie when he got back to the table, his hand on his stomach. Indeed, he thought he might throw up. “I think it’s all the different foods lately. Or the water.”
Stephanie fussed over him and offered to drive him back to the hotel. He let her, only because his hands wouldn’t uncurl from the fists they were in.
She left him at his room with proper regrets expressed by both parties, but somehow he ended up back downstairs in the lobby, sitting on a couch and staring at the doors. Maybe Davey wouldn’t come back that night. Maybe he’d never come back. Maybe he had gotten arrested. Zane’s mind began a vicious argument with itself, and he worried after a while someone would actually see his head throbbing.
What’s all this about? a sour, surly voice sneered from one side. What are you so fucking upset about? Because your fuck buddy has someone new to fuck?
It’s just the principle of the thing, a softer, more reasonable voice spoke from the other side. We didn’t do anything cruel to him, we didn’t mock him or make him feel like shit. Why does he pointedly have to make us feel like shit?
You’re just a jealous fool, the other voice cajoled.
I’m not jealous! What do I have to be jealous about? He’s the one that’s so damn smitten with me, not the other way around! His own voice had jumped into the mix.
Oh, you could have handled it, the taunting voice sneered back. You could have taken it on the chin and turned your back…
If it was anything but another man, the soft voice whispered regretfully.
Zane rubbed his hands over his face. The desk clerk looked up, then back down at the desk. Did he look crazy as well?
He got up, went outside, and smoked a cigarette outside the lobby doors. The carport ceiling hovered high above him, the space echoing and airy. He had a hole in his chest, and no matter how much smoke he sucked in, the void wouldn’t fill up.
He went back inside and checked the clock. Just after midnight. He wondered how long the hotel restaurant stayed open. While pondering this, the door behind him opened, a warm gust of air hitting his back. He turned and looked and his stomach lurched when he saw Davey — alone, looking tired. He stopped short when he saw Zane. Zane stared at him, and Davey stared back.
Zane grew angry — angry for the way he felt, the way Davey made him feel. Angry that Davey had ruined his evening, however inadvertently.
“Hey,” Davey said and resumed walking, making to move past him. “What are you doing down here?”
“Just came back from the bar,” Zane said and turned to follow him.
“Oh. Good night, then.”
“Wait a fucking minute!” The desk clerk looked up. Zane lowered his voice, “What the fuck is your problem?”
“My problem?” Davey blinked owlishly. “Didn’t know I had one. I was just going up to my room to crash.”
“Yeah, exactly.” Zane told himself not to seethe, not to act stupid. “You haven’t said a complete sentence to me since we got here. You’re always running off!” He gestured toward the elevators.
Davey stood silent for a moment. Zane could see him choosing his words.
“Sorry. I’ve just had a lot on my mind,” Davey said.
“Yeah, and I know what.” Zane lowered his voice more, stepping closer. “You lied to me. All that shit about ‘it’s all right, I’ll get over it, don’t worry about it.’ You put on a front, but you’re really dying inside, that’s why you’re trying to punish me.”
Davey’s placid expression changed. Anger replaced indifference, his eyes clouding and darkening. He got up in Zane’s face, close enough Zane felt his breath as he spoke, low and scathing.
“I’m not the one with the fucking problem. How many times have I told you, reassured you every time you get anxious for no damn good reason, that I don’t want anything from you? How many times have I had to pet you and calm you down, but you just get fucking bent out of shape again? I don’t want anything from you. Do you understand that? I’m not asking you for anything!”
“Oh, so that’s why you’re giving me the silent treatment? That’s why you’re ignoring me and trying to make me feel like an asshole? You’re manipulating me!”
“I’m not manipulating you!” Davey stepped back. “I can’t believe this. First you’re upset I won’t leave you alone, now you’re pissed off because I am!”
“I never told you to stay away from me!” Zane got loud again, and the desk clerk anxiously looked over. “When did I ever fucking tell you to leave me alone?”
“Oh God,” Davey said and waved a hand. “I’m letting you go, Zane. Why can’t you do the same?”
Davey turned and stalked toward the elevators. Zane stared after him, incredulous. The voices started yammering in his head again and he quickly followed.
“Hey!” Zane grabbed his arm as they reached the e
levators.
Davey wrenched away, glaring. “Don’t be a fucking drama queen, Zane!”
Zane stayed by the elevators with him, intending to get on, because he had more to say. Davey pounded on the button and tried to push him back when the doors opened, but Zane got inside anyway. Davey gave a disgusted sigh.
“You’re making a huge fucking scene,” Davey said. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, Zane standing on the opposite side of the elevator, arms also crossed.
“I’m not letting you get away until you tell me why you’re acting like such a prick,” Zane said.
“I’m not the one acting like a prick. You’re the one who has a problem with me leaving you alone.”
“I never told you to leave me alone!”
“What does it matter? Why do you give a fuck if I’m around or not? You never did before!”
“Because you’re my friend! Whether we’re fucking or not, you’re still my friend. You can’t just discard me like that. If you do, you’re an asshole!”
“I have done nothing but spare you, friend. I’ve kept you from being inconvenienced or put out. Isn’t that what a friend does? I never tried to smother you, or make you have feelings for me! I never asked you to love me! I’ve been the best friend you could ask for. How dare you stand here now and tell me I’m the one being a selfish, thoughtless prick!”
“You haven’t spared me a moment since you met me! You never let up!”
“Now I am!” Davey yelled, face livid, eyes burning. “Why won’t you let me go!”
Zane stepped forward, grabbed Davey’s face, and kissed him soundly; kissed him hard, lips smashed against Davey’s, gripping his face tightly, so tightly Zane trembled. Then he let go. Davey’s lips were bright red, his eyes wide.
“Just because I don’t love you, doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings for you,” Zane said softly.
Davey stared at him a moment, breathing hitched, then he paused, not breathing at all. A second later, he hauled off and punched Zane in the chest, making him gasp and stumble back.
“Ow! What the fuck was that for!”
“Prick,” Davey whispered, withdrawing to his side of the elevator. “Figured you needed a punch to the heart as well.”
They were silent, Davey leaning against his wall, gnawing at his thumbnail and glaring at the floor. Zane rubbed his chest, gritting his teeth. The numbers above the door lit up one by one, until the elevator came to a halt. The doors opened.
Davey stepped through them and out into the hallway. He stopped and looked back. Zane held his breath. Davey motioned for him to follow, and Zane didn’t know if that meant he wanted him to come to his room, if all had been forgiven — or just declared even — but he acquiesced. They strolled slowly down the hallway, side by side, reminding Zane of their last day in Marrakech. They were silent, until Davey spoke.
“What are you really afraid of, Zane?”
“Afraid?”
“Are you a homophobe just like Daddy? Scared of being a faggot?”
“No! Don’t fucking say things like that. I told you my brother’s gay, and I adore him! This isn’t about that.”
Davey slipped his hand into his back pocket and withdrew a keycard.
“You have issues with your own sexuality,” Davey said. “That goes deeper than your father kicking you down the stairs for sucking a cock.”
“Maybe I do,” Zane said. They stopped in front of a door, and Zane looked into Davey’s eyes, those blue depths calm now, but not happy. “I’ve had a lot of conflicting messages in my life,” Zane said. “You have no idea.”
“You’re a grown-up now. It’s time for you to make your own decisions about who you are and what you want.”
Zane wished he could explain — the tension in his house growing up, simmering just below the surface always; his father’s fists; the screaming, the names called.
“It’s not that easy,” Zane said and looked down, shame battling with pride battling with a sense of his own weakness. His chest still smarted from the punch.
“Zane, look at me,” Davey said.
He did.
“When I was fourteen,” Davey said, “my mother was shacking up with this shady guy on the outskirts of Indianapolis. He had a son, a year older than me. I was fascinated by him. I thought he was cute. One day, he let me kiss him in the backyard. It was my first time kissing another boy, and it felt good. The next morning on the way to school, he and two of his friends jumped me. They called me a faggot and knocked me around a little. Then they dragged me into a shed where that cute, fascinating boy shoved his cock in my mouth while his friends held me and pushed it down my throat until I threw up.”
Zane closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“The point is,” he nudged Zane and he opened his eyes, “I never let their actions define who I am. I let it define who they are. A bunch of close-minded, violent bigots. The best revenge I could have ever gotten was to not let it put me in the closet.”
Zane looked away. He didn’t want to imagine Davey being abused in such a way.
“I’m not like anyone you’ve ever met before, Zane,” Davey said. Zane looked back at him. “And I guarantee you’ll never meet anyone like me again. I don’t want you to miss out.”
“You’ve got a high opinion of yourself.”
Davey swiped the keycard and opened the door.
“I think you have a pretty high opinion of me, too.”
Zane just gazed at him, not speaking.
“You need to take a lesson from your father, like I did from those bastards.” Davey reached out and touched Zane’s lower lip with his thumb. Zane tasted the salt of his skin. “Don’t be him. You need to understand what makes you a man has nothing to do with who you sleep with. Until you realize that, you’ll be missing out. On me, and a lot of things.”
Davey withdrew his hand and stepped into the room. The door closed in Zane’s face; he stared at it for a while, thinking Davey might open it up again, but when he didn’t, he stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and walked back to the elevator.
Chapter 11
“You should get him a gift,” Elliot said.
“What?” Zane looked up from his paper. Elliot sat across from him, eating eggs and toast. Elliot didn’t like foreign fare. He preferred his food familiar, as Zane had learned from numerous food runs. “What are you talking about?” Zane asked.
Zane had, after much internal debate, consulted Elliot and Cristiano on his dilemma with Davey — providing as few details as possible, of course. He needed some advice, never having been in such a delicate situation before.
“Oh yes, that’s a good idea.” Cristiano sipped tea while reading his own section of the paper. He probably didn’t need to find the English parts. “Get him a gift.”
“Get him a gift,” Zane repeated.
“It’s a good idea.” Elliot stabbed at his eggs with his fork. “Gifts can say a lot of things. They can say I love you, I miss you…”
“I told you it’s not about that. We just got in a fight, that’s all. I just want to find a way to make it up to him.”
“They can also say I’m sorry,” Cristiano said gently. “If it’s the right kind of gift.”
Zane considered his words. He took a drink of his coffee, staring at the table, brow furrowed.
“What kind of gift would I even get him?” Zane asked.
Elliot swallowed and looked at Cristiano. “There’s only one way to decide.”
Cristiano smiled and folded up the paper. “Let’s go to the souks.”
They went to Khan al-Khalili in the Islamic district, a sprawling maze of a market roughly the size of a small town, bustling with people and offering for sale any item one could imagine. The heat and humidity were intensified there. Zane looked around at all the people, some in modern dress and others in traditional garments. Every race and ethnicity seemed represented.
Elliot had a map.
“It’s divided into s
ections, see?” He showed Zane. “If we decide what we want, we can go there.”
“I have no idea what we want,” Zane said.
“Let’s browse a little,” Cristiano suggested. He wore jeans and white button-down shirt, sunglasses perched atop his head — yet another pair, this time with stylish red frames, and Zane wondered if he collected them. “Maybe we’ll get an idea.”
They browsed, but Zane realized quickly they weren’t going to cover any substantial area very fast and would wear themselves out in the heat if they tried.
“All right, let’s start thinking here,” Elliot said. He walked on one side of Zane, Cristiano on the other. “We’ll name some things. How about jewelry?”
Zane made a face. “Too girly.”
Elliot paused. He looked Zane over, eyeing the necklace around his neck, the layers of wrist gear, the rings on his fingers.
“I mean giving him jewelry would be girly! You don’t give a man jewelry. If you’re another man, I mean.”
Cristiano frowned and looked at the slender gold bracelet on his wrist.
“No jewelry!” Zane waved his hand, bracelets rattling. “Something else!”
They walked on, gazing into and pausing at various stalls. Zane listened to all the haggling going on, the voices talking a mile a minute, reminding him of Davey at the market in Marrakech.
“What about pottery?” Elliot asked. “Nothing says ‘I’m sorry I was an insufferable bastard’ like a good piece of pottery.”
“That makes no sense,” Zane said.
“Oh, but it does.” Cristiano smiled sweetly. “He can bust it over your head, then he’ll feel better.”
They moved on, Elliot and Cristiano presenting various ideas and Zane shooting them all down. No clothes, they were worse than jewelry. Flowers were insipid, along with candy or any other sort of food. Cologne, while sophisticated and interesting, usually remained a personal preference. Zane started to run out of creative excuses.
“You know, I’m reminded of something my father once told me,” Elliot said, when they stopped to get drinks in a little coffee house. “He said, when you give someone a gift as an apology, it should not only fit the crime, but give them back what you took from them.”
