by Rhys Ford
I knew the first word, no, and the second one only vaguely. It hovered in my mind for a moment then clicked into place. His mother.
It was hard seeing him curled up onto himself. His shoulder blades jutted out from his back, framing the line of his spine. The sheets were tented from his knees being pulled up against his chest, and his free hand gripped the linens, kneading them between his fingers as he spoke. I had no way to understand what he was saying, but the thin tightness in his voice hurt me deep. His body was screaming at me, his pain leaking out of every rigid line of his limbs and torso.
Everything inside of me wanted to touch him, to reassure him.
Everything I knew about him told me not to.
I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Two months of drive-by Korean wasn’t going to give me any understanding of what his mother was pulling out of him. Every time he stopped to listen, he flinched. Her words stabbed him, sharp barbs hooking into his heart and pulling out chunks of his soul. Jae became smaller with each moment, the sheet winding about his fingers and wrist until his knuckles were white and bloodless.
Nearly as bloodless as his face.
He stared through me, his cheek on his sheet-covered knees and his hand nearly invisible as he cradled it against his face. The full mouth I loved to kiss was a flat line, pressed tight against words he didn’t want to say… words he couldn’t say. His eyes were stones, hard and glittering, with all of the honey gold leeched from them.
It was over before I could think of anything to say or do. One moment he was a porcelain statue and the next a crumbling, fragmented thing full of fury and loathing.
Putting my arms around Jae was like trying to hold a hurricane. He was off the bed, fighting to loosen his legs from the sheets. Clutching the phone, he turned and shook, gulping in large mouthfuls of air to calm himself down. I waited. I had to wait. I’d been with him for two months, and he always needed time to work through his emotions, to find something to grab onto to drag him out of the panic and anger built up inside of him.
“Fuck. Someone told her something… about me… about us,” Jae said. The phone flew onto the bed, and he began carding his hands through his hair, pacing alongside of the bed. “My aunt. She speaks to my aunt… maybe….”
“Jae, take a breath.” I came up behind him, catching him before he made another circuit of the room. He fought me. I didn’t expect him to come to me easily. He never did. I was stronger and calmer, wrapping my arms around his shoulders to pull him tight against my bare chest. “What did she say? What did she want?”
“She needs more money,” Jae mumbled. His fingers were cold, nerveless, and still on my skin. “I told her I would try to get her some, and she said… I should ask my rich friend for it. My hyung.”
Other than Scarlet’s lover, I was probably the only one of Jae’s friends that could be considered rich. My wealth was hard-won: a city payout for the murder-suicide of my lover, Rick, and my partner, Ben. Six months ago, I’d have said I’d trade the money to have them back alive. Now, I would trade the money to give Jae a little bit of peace.
“She knows about Scarlet. She could have been talking about Scarlet or… shit, Seong.” I leaned back and drew my hands up to cup his face. My thumbs smeared the trace of wetness over his lower lashes. He sniffled, but he tilted his chin up. “What about your brother? Can he help?”
I mentioned his brother as a diversion. It didn’t work out so well.
“Jae-Su? My brother?” Jae spat. His soft accent grew with his anger and fear, rounding out his words. “If he knew I… how I was, he’d use it to get money out of me. Right now, he takes from her. My hyung… takes from our mother like he’s still a little boy. And she gives it to him. She’d starve my sisters so he can have something new to play with.”
“How much does she need? I can….”
“No.” It was firm, both his pride and his refusal to let me help him. I understood it. I didn’t like it, but understood it. His hands clenched, becoming fists on my chest. The anger inside him begged to be unleashed. I expected him to punch me when he gritted his teeth and shook his head. Jae pulled back, shoving me away with a single push. “No. I don’t want your money. This isn’t your problem. My family isn’t your problem.”
I took a breath, a hissing pull to chill my lungs. Jae stalked to the bathroom, his shoulders shaking as he turned the water on. He cupped his hands under the flow and bent forward, but merely stared down into the sink. His hair hid most of his face, but I could still see his mouth, his pink lips trembling with anger and fear. I couldn’t understand what he was feeling. I’d made my own choices, walking away when my father decided I wasn’t good enough to be his son anymore. Jae didn’t need me pushing him.
So of course, that’s exactly what I did.
I didn’t say anything. I kept silent as I walked over to the open bathroom door and leaned against the door frame. The twisting in my chest bloomed into a fear he’d walk out the door. It was too soon for me to lose him. I hadn’t had enough time, not nearly enough time to persuade him that I would catch him if he fell from his family’s grace. It hadn’t been enough time for me to accept that he might never be mine… not openly… perhaps not even behind closed doors.
Jae shut the water off and rested his palms on the marble counter. Lifting his head, his eyes flicked toward the mirror, momentarily meeting my gaze before dropping back down to study the dark speckles in the stone. The tension bled slightly from his spine, and his hips moved forward, relaxing the line of his body.
We hadn’t reached forever then. Not the forever of him walking out of my front door or the forever of our last kiss. My heart lurched and began beating again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His face was shadowed, shuttered off, and closed. “I’m… tired. I just… fuck.”
He let me hold him this time, sliding into my embrace with his usual liquid grace. We’d met halfway. The cold bathroom floor was a shock to my bare feet, but his too warm body more than made up for it. He didn’t cry, but I could feel him struggling to keep himself together. I cupped the back of his head and slid my other hand across his shoulders then down his back, stroking away the tension in his body.
“It’s okay, baby.” When he looked up at me, the pain deepening his eyes broke my heart. Kissing the top of his head, I murmured and stroked him again, “It’ll be okay. I’ve got you.”
“I hate wanting you,” he said. “I hate wanting… this.”
This could have meant a lot of things. I knew Jae well enough to know he meant being happy… being gay… being with me, someone who struggled daily to understand him. I couldn’t talk. My nights were still filled with memories of blood, gunpowder, and sightless green eyes going dim. We both had our albatrosses. I had Rick’s ghost shoveling guilt into my soul like it was feeding a coal furnace, and Jae dragged his family behind him, their claws stuck deep under his skin. He was unable to loosen their grip any more than I could loosen Ben’s and Rick’s.
It was unfair of me to think that.
I knew that.
Didn’t make me hate our baggage any less.
I wanted my fucking forever. My forever. Not the one that seemed laid out for me. Certainly not the one laid out for Jae. I just had to have the patience and the strength to fight for him, even if he was the one I was fighting with.
“How about if we get some sleep and talk about this shit later?” I rocked him gently, more of a swaying motion than anything else. “About the money… about this.”
“The money thing… it’s not going to change,” Jae warned me, but let me guide him back to bed. He dragged his feet, exhaustion drawing purple shadows under his eyes. The bed dipped when he climbed onto it, and again when I dragged myself up against him.
“Well, this isn’t going to change either.” I covered us, letting him get settled onto his stomach. One of his legs crept over mine, and his arm slid over my chest, his hand resting lightly on my ribs. His breathing slowed, and he shuddered, letti
ng go more of the tension racking his body. “It will just get better, Jae. We’ll get better. I promise. We will work this out.”
“Getting better is still change,” he mumbled into my chest.
I contemplated an argument or two, then went with my gut response. “Shut up and go to sleep.”
Chapter Four
HITTING the bag felt good. The slim gloves were new, a present from Bobby. More like an incentive to get my ass back into the gym. I needed to work out the muscles injured in the shooting, strengthen my arm back up some. It also helped me forget I’d woken up to an empty bed and even emptier house.
The gym was a bare-bones hole-in-the-wall run by Floyd “JoJo” Monroe, an ex-boxer who’d had the bad luck of being a black gay man in the ’80s. His career was brilliant… and cut short when, after a match, he’d been discovered in the locker room, getting a blow job from one of the referees, a white man. A few days later, the guy giving the blow job was found floating off the Santa Monica Pier. JoJo didn’t fare as well. There wasn’t much left of the man who’d pummeled his opponents to the mat. His legs shook as he walked, and his remaining eye was milky from age, but his voice was strong as he yelled at the men in the ring.
I didn’t need JoJo yelling at me. Usually Bobby took care of that. I didn’t need taking care of. Today was different. I was… different.
The bag jerked with every punch I threw. I didn’t hear Bobby’s grunts at first, but after a few minutes they grew loud enough to distract.
“Pissed off a bit, Princess?” Bobby was breathing hard when I pulled away from the bag. My T-shirt was soaked with sweat, and I stunk, but I wanted to go another five minutes, maybe even five hours. It felt good to work my body into an aching mess. It matched my insides. “Want to talk about it?”
Even though Bobby was almost twenty years older than me, he was a muscular, beefy guy. The brush of silver at his temples only drew the twinks to him. With a handsome, lived-in face and cut body, he was popular at the bars we went to. He could also beat the crap out of me in the boxing ring, and wiped the ground with me when we went jogging. Except for the liking dick and ass, Bobby was the epitome of an all-American male. Definitely not someone who wanted to talk things out.
“Never thought I’d hear that come out of you.” I hugged the bag, peeking around the side to stare at Bobby’s rugged face. “You want me to talk it out?”
“I’m trying to save JoJo’s bag. You’re fucking pounding the shit out of it.” He let go of the bag and came around to help me with the Velcro on my gloves. “Is this about Jae? Was he pissed off about Trey?”
“Shit, don’t get me started about Trey. Did he call you?”
“Yeah,” Bobby grunted again, this time with disgust. “Asshole said he wanted his money back.”
“What money? I was doing it for free.”
“I reminded him about that. Trey uses his brain less than he uses that dick of his. And that he only uses for pissing and blow jobs. He likes getting fucked. Not the other way around.” He tugged on his own gloves and jerked his chin toward the bag for me to hold it. Waiting until I braced myself against its heavy weight, Bobby gave the leather a few jabs.
“Jae caught some shit from his mom this morning,” I said. “I don’t get why he takes it. It’s like they dump all of their crap on him and expect him suck it up.”
“I’ve gotta ask you, man. Jae, is he worth what he puts you through? Not to sound like some emo hipster, but I don’t want him to break your heart.”
I had to think about it. After losing Rick to whatever demons Ben had chasing him, I drifted around. I didn’t like the club scene. Jumping in and out of different guys’ beds tired me out more than any pleasure I got from fucking them. Jae did something to me. He touched something inside of me that I thought was dead.
“Jae kind of made me realize I still had a heart. Guess it's his to break.”
Bobby stopped hammering at the bag long enough to stare at me, and then he shrugged. “Fair enough.”
I switched topics before we started hugging and sharing cookie recipes. “Hey, do you have some free time? I think I need some help with a job Scarlet gave me.”
“Yeah, sure.” Bobby shifted his feet, driving an uppercut into the bag. It jerked in my arms, and I had to brace myself to keep it steady. “What’s she need?”
I talked about the case as he punched and weaved, going over the last time Scarlet saw her friend at Bi Mil, and the man Dae-Hoon was supposed to meet that night. He whistled when I got to the part of Dae-Hoon’s former lover now being the father of the woman marrying Dae-Hoon’s youngest son.
“That’s too fucking weird.” Bobby stopped hitting the bag. I was grateful for that. My shoulders were numb from holding it steady. “So the families kept in touch?”
“From what I can see, it’s one big incestuous mess. They all know one another, marry each other. It’s like a damned cabal.” I shook my arms out, hoping to get blood back into my fingers. “I’m hoping you can maybe help me track down any cops who were there that night. Maybe someone saw something.”
“I dunno, kid.” He looked skeptical. “You’ve got to remember, this was after the Riots. The boys in blue were taking a beating from all sides. A lot of us did a hell of a lot of things we weren’t proud of. Guys might not want to talk about a raid on some gay bathhouse. Chances are, it got ugly. LAPD wasn’t known for its tolerance then.”
“Like it is now?” I smirked at him.
We’d both tested the blue line’s tolerance of gays in our own ways. I’d spent my time on the force as an openly gay man. Bobby came out after he’d retired and Rick died. He’d been a rock I clung to as I struggled to find some sense in what happened to me. He’d lost a few friends as word of his homosexuality spread through the ranks, but most cops were more comfortable with Bobby keeping his secrets until he got out. They weren’t all that happy with me when I wore a badge, even less so when the union forced the city to cough up millions in damages, after my suicidal partner shot me and my lover up.
“Let me see who was around then,” Bobby said, twisting his body to work out a kink in his shoulders. “I’ll have to find out who was arrested. Does Scarlet remember the date? That’ll go a long way in locating the records.”
“Yeah, I can probably get you an exact date.” I flexed before my arms could start cramping up. “This guy… Dae-Hoon… he worked for Scarlet’s… husband? Shit, I don’t even know what to call the guy.”
He shrugged and stepped back from the bag, taking off his gloves and tucking them under his arm. “Stick with sir. That always works for me.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. We headed toward the showers, nodding at JoJo as he coached a thin young man on how to keep his elbows in when he punched.
The locker room was icy, kept cold by the gym’s thick cinder block walls. I shivered when I walked in, overheated from the workout. A slender, muscular man passed us, heading for his workout. Bobby brazenly checked him out, eyes raking over the guy’s legs and torso, lingering for a moment on his shoulders before making eye contact. The guy turned slightly and smiled at Bobby, who tilted his head to check out his ass. There’d be an exchange of phone numbers before we left. If he’d been alone, there’d be an exchange of bodily fluids too.
I waited for Bobby to break away from his flirting. “This Dae-Hoon guy was a bit… radical.”
“Radical?”
“He got divorced. Well, he was trying to get divorced,” I said. “So he could go off and be… gay. I don’t know if he was expecting his lover, Kwon, to do the same, or if he just needed out.”
“So he was Korean, but came out of the closet screaming show tunes?” Bobby whistled under his breath. If it was difficult for Jae to be openly homosexual now, Dae-Hoon’s actions in ninety-four were unbelievable. “Seems like every Korean guy you meet is gay.”
“Seems like it,” I laughed. “And that Kwon guy, but I guess I’ll meet him too.”
“Think Kwon had something to do with his disap
pearance?”
“I don’t know. It’s an idea. I think we’ll know more once we chat some people up. Kwon looks good for something. Scarlet and Dae-Hoon’s kid think he’s a douche.”
“We’ll want to circle around Kwon. See where he was first.” Bobby shed his damp shirt and smacked me with it as I went by him to get to my locker. “So where do you want to start? Cops, or Seong?”
“I’m thinking cops, but let’s hit up the storage unit first,” I said, rubbing at the sore spot on my arm. “I’ve got to go back to the office and see if Scarlet had the key dropped off. Wonder if Claudia wants to help us dig through Dae-Hoon’s stuff.”
“Yeah, you bring that up to her.” Bobby snorted. “And when she’s done killing you, I’ll hit on Jae at your funeral. It’ll give me something to do besides drink.”
“Thought Jae was too much trouble.”
“Hey, he’s pretty. I like pretty,” Bobby said, wincing when I punched his arm. “But he’s your trouble, Princess. You’re welcome to him.”
“WANT some coffee?” My office manager, Claudia, held up the glass pot she’d pulled from the automatic drip machine. After years of working in the school system drinking swill, the woman brewed strong, hairy-chest coffee for our office. Just the smell of the stuff kept away rats, roaches, and any other vermin within a five-mile radius.
I nodded and shrugged off my jacket, tossing it onto a hook on the coat tree we had by the door. A pile of pink message slips were stacked on my desk, and I eased into the old-fashioned leather chair I’d found at an estate sale, listening to the pleasant squeak when I leaned back. Claudia put a mug in front of me, swirls of cream still whirling through the dark brew. Tapping a spoon on her own cup, she sipped, and waited until I finally let go of the sigh I was holding in.
“Did too much, boy?” There was no sympathy in her voice. I wasn’t expecting any either.
The woman raised a squillion children and grandchildren in a predominantly low income area, progressively moving them to better neighborhoods as soon as she could. She didn’t entertain any excuses about her boys being poor or black. Claudia had expectations, and woe to the son who didn’t rise to them. Being a member of Clan Claudia was like belonging to a lifelong survivalist camp. Her boys—and there were a herd of them—were expected to cook, clean, and repair things on the fly, and the women, or in Maurice’s case, the man, they brought into the family had better do the same.
