by Mima
“I don’t think my abs as good as David Beckham’s,” Chase added, finally able to get a comment in, unsure of why they were even discussing this in the first place. “I think that guys got a lot more going for him than me.”
Jolene shrugged and Diego seemed to ignore his comment as he read something on his laptop.
“Why are we talking about my abs?” Chase quietly asked.
“Oh, we were talking about stuff to add to parties and Diego thinks we need strippers,” Jolene commented as she leaned in the doorway.
“We’ve done that before,” Chase reminded her.
“I know but I do not know if we needed that, you know? It’s an extra cost.”
“But for this first boy party, we need to go all out,” Diego piped up again as he squinted over the keyboard as he leaned back in his chair. “Why is the print on this laptop so small lately?I can’t seem to get it the right size.”
“You need glasses, the ones you read with, I tell you that,” Jolene sharply reminded Diego and turned her attention toward Chase, as she edged out of the room. “My brother, he does not want to admit he is getting old.”
“I’m not old, Jolene.”
“You need reading glasses.”
“I don’t,” He insisted. “I just need to fix the print size is all. That’s it.”
She didn’t respond but winked at Chase on her way out.
When left alone, the room was suddenly silent. Too silent.
“What’s going on Chase?”
“What?”
“I can tell something is wrong,” Diego said as he looked up from the laptop. “Did something happen? With your kids? I don’t know? You seem unusually quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
“Nah, not this kind of quiet,” Diego insisted, his face twisted into a seductive smile. “You forget, I know you.”
Chase thought about it for a moment before he slid from behind his desk and gently closed the door before crossing the room. “There was an…incident while you and Jolene were out.”
“An incident?” Diego asked, his eyes widened as Chase sat on the other side of the desk. “Like what? I think our idea of an incident might be a little different.”
Thinking about the violent attack on the weekend, Chase grinned in spite of himself and nodded. “This is true. It wasn’t serious but it was….weird and I’m not sure of how to handle it.”
“What?” Diego appeared intrigued. “What happened? Was it something with Gracie?”
“No, not directly, anyway,” Chase said and hesitated. “I’m not sure how to put this delicately….”
“Chase, come on, you know I’m not someone you have to be delicate with,” Diego let out a laugh. “After this past weekend, do you think that anything shocks me? Come on!”
“Ah….Gracie came to get me because she heard some strange noises coming from the ladies room,” Chase started and kind of hoped Diego clued in to where he was going but he continued to look puzzled. “I went into the staff room and it was clear that someone was having sex in the bathroom.”
“Someone was having sex in our bathrooms?” Diego said and although he briefly looked stunned, he quickly began to laugh. “Are you teasing me, Chase? Who was left and you and Gracie had a meeting. Sylvana and Benjamin were gone and…”
“Yeah, it was Deborah and some delivery guy.”
Diego let out a hearty laugh and clapped his hands together. “Well, it sounds like he certainly delivered.”
Chase opened his mouth to reply but wasn’t sure what to say. He had assumed Diego would be mad and wasn’t even sure if he should let him know the truth.
“You will have to point this delivery guy out next time he’s here,” Diego continued to snicker. “I know I’m gay but come on, you’re the straight one here, do you think Deborah…I don’t know, she doesn’t seem like the type.”
“She said she’s a sex addict.” Chase dryly commented.
Diego let out another hearty laugh and leaned back in his chair. “That one,” he pointed toward the general direction of Deborah’s desk. “That one with the glasses and dresses like an old lady? Seriously? Wow!”
“You’re not mad?” Chase was genuinely surprised. “I was scared you would fire her.”
“Nah, that’s Jolene,” Diego corrected him and regained his composure. “Now she would fire her for that and say it’s unprofessional but me, I’m easy. I don’t care.”
“I won’t tell Jolene.”
“Now me, I think when the inspiration hits you, you got to go with it,” He raised his eyebrows seductively and Chase awkwardly stood up from the chair and was about to return to his desk when Diego made another comment. “I know you’re not different.”
The room suddenly felt suffocating, his body tense as he observed the taunting expression on Diego’s face; his eyes were challenging, his lips were tight and the insinuation behind the words could not be missed. Diego entwined his fingers and leaned back in his chair. Chase felt his stomach churn nervously and sat back down.
“I know you aren’t exactly opposed to pleasure at work,” He said with a mischievous grin easing on one side of his lips, almost as if he was fighting it off. “A couple of encounters with a young woman, maybe there was a camera involved?”
Chase froze. His brain rushed through some less than stellar moments from his past when he was full of anger and driven by passion, a bad combination when offered the opportunity to record a quick hook up at work. Bud, his former boss at the bar, had surprised him when confessing that he had a side porn business and offered Chase an opportunity to make extra money through a voyeurism movie that wouldn’t require his face onscreen. He accepted.
Jolene had learned about this shameful part of his past after Kelsey, a friend from Hennessey, allowed the truth to slip out during her visit to their former Calgary office. Jolene hadn’t cared and insisted it had no bearing on the work he did with her; until that moment, he had assumed it was in the past and she hadn’t told anyone.
Feeling his face burning now, Chase took a deep breath and nodded. “Jolene told you.”
“Of course, Jolene, she tells me everything,” Diego smirked and appeared to have a new wave of confidence take over him. “Tell me something Chase, did you think I wouldn’t find out? I know everything.”
“It’s not exactly the proudest moment of my life,” Chase commented in a low voice that indicated his shame.
“No need to be embarrassed. It was a very impressive performance,” Diego replied with a raised eyebrow. “Oh yes, I saw the movies.”
Chase opened his mouth to respond but couldn’t talk. He felt physically ill as his entire body grew warmer, his clothing suddenly felt tighter and yet at the same time, he felt small, almost as if he would sink into the floor. The humiliation was stronger than it had been when Jolene learned the truth; partly because she handled it with more sensitivity while Diego was mocking, appearing to enjoy watching him squirm.
“Don’t be like that, come on,” Diego teased and let out an innocent laugh, eliminating some of the tension. “I’m just giving you a hard time. I thought it would be fun to point out the irony of you coming to me with this story.”
“Diego, I…”
“You regret it, I know I know,” Diego said and waved his hand dismissively. “Look, it’s the past, you wish you hadn’t done it, I know I know…its fine. I just thought I would let you know that I like your little movies.”
“How did you get them, I thought they would be destroyed or hopefully forgotten by now,” Chase asked, immediately feeling incredibly naïve, vulnerable in Diego’s eyes.
“They’re out there, not easy to find, but they’re out there,” His reply was casual as if they were merely talking about Chase’s graduation photo, not a few movies that had him participating in a sexual act.
“How did you fin
d them?”
“I can find anything my friend,” Diego insisted as he raised his eyebrows. “This was before I met you so of course, I was a little concerned especially when you worked so closely with my sister.”
It suddenly made sense. Chase had worked many months with Jolene before actually meeting ‘the boss’, which turned out to be Diego. His surprise appearance in their Calgary office one day months earlier had started off on the wrong foot and now that the truth came out, Chase understood Diego’s original hostility toward him.
“So you came to see if I was a dirty pervert?”
“I was kind of wishing you were a dirty pervert but with me, not my sister,” Diego teased and raised one eyebrow.
Sensing Chase’s discomfort, Diego let out a boisterous laugh and clapped his hands together.
“No no, there were a lot of reason plus I was worried about my sister. She always sounded so stressed and of course, to meet you too,” Diego insisted as he shuffled some papers on his desk, his attention briefly diverted. “You were harmless, I could see that right away. I liked you and here we are.” He waved his arms in the air
“I regret those movies,” Chase continued to feel shame regardless of the fact that Diego was making light of the situation. Although his face wasn’t exposed in the movies, everything else was; the scenes shot through his mind like rapid fire.
“Why? It’s your past,” Diego seemed oddly nonchalant about it. “Who cares? Lot of people make these movies. It’s not like people would know it was you. I only did because I went to this old boss of yours about it.”
“And he gave them to you?”
“They were online amigo, he sent me the links.”
“Great! How many other people knows about them. He didn’t even know you and…”
“Hey hey, calm down,” Diego put his hand up in the air. “He didn’t at first, I gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
“You paid him?”
Diego shrugged, his eyes rolled to the heavens. “Something like that,” he was dismissive and leaned on his desk. “We talked, business man to business man. Don’t worry, Chase, these movies, I can make them disappear if you like.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“On the Internet? Seriously?” Chase asked skeptically.
“It can be done.”
“Please!”
“I’ll take care of it,” Diego replied as Chase slowly rose from the chair, his legs feeling shaky as he crossed the floor to his desk. “But I’m keeping my copies, amigo.”
Chase didn’t reply as Diego laughed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The days flew by, leading up to the night of their first party for gay men. Diego was anxiously fluttering about all week to make sure everything went off without a hitch while Chase felt anxious as the party drew closer. Although he understood why Diego wanted him to take a ‘walk-through’ to get a feel for their sex parties for homosexual men, Chase felt awkward. It wasn’t that he had an issue with gay men or their lifestyle, he just felt uncomfortable viewing it in person. In the end, his worry was for nothing because a last-minute emergency with the scheduled doorman forced Chase to take over his duties for the night.
It felt strange doing the same job he had back in Calgary, when he first worked for Jolene and her skeleton crew. In comparison, it definitely was the busiest party he had ever worked the door for and it went on until past 4 a.m. Exhausted when the party finally ended, Chase was surprised that Diego was hyper, insisting the night had been a wild success.
“Perfecto!!” He exclaimed on his way out the door with an exhausted looking Jesse by his side. The two had overseen everything at the party as the roles of host and organizer to see what did and didn’t work. “Gracie did good with the details, didn’t she?”
His attention turned toward Jesse, who took a minute to reply.
“Yes, she did great for her first, big assignment. I think from this point on, it will be all downhill.”
“Not too downhill, though,” Diego quickly injected. “We don’t want her to get lazy.”
“Oh, of course not,” Jesse replied with a yawn. “But now that we know the perfect formula. You should add a suggestion area to your site to learn what the customers wants and build on it.”
“Ah yes!” Diego agreed enthusiastically as they headed toward their cars in the back of the building. Boldly walking ahead as if he had no worries in the world, despite the fact that they were in a dark parking lot in the middle of the night. “Ah, I’m in the mood to dance or have some fun, are there any after hours clubs around?”
“We were the after hours club tonight,” Jesse said and followed his words with a laugh. “Most of those places are probably about to close if they haven’t already.”
“There must be a place? Maybe someplace that isn’t so known about?” Diego muttered as the two of them walked ahead of Chase, who would’ve been happy to crash at that point but didn’t say anything. “With your connections, if there’s a party, you would know, right?”
“Hmmm….” Jesse stopped in front of his car and started to tap on his phone. “I can’t think of anything but if there is, I know the girl who will know.”
Diego rubbed his hands together excitedly, his eyes sparkled in excitement as he glanced at Chase. Jesse was scanning through his phone when it beeped and he started to nod.
“Yes, it’s not far from here actually,” Jesse said as he glanced at Diego. “Wanna go?”
“Yes please!” Diego spoke excitedly, his eyes appeared to double in size as he turned to Chase and slapped his arm. “Come on Chase, it’ll be fun!”
Before he could respond, Diego was already getting in his car and Jesse was still tapping on his phone. Chase walked around to the passenger side and climbed in.
“This is exactly what I need!” Diego commented as he fastened his seatbelt and stared ahead at Jesse climbing into his own car. After the break lights came on, Diego started his Lexus and followed him out of the parking lot into the quiet Toronto streets. Although Chase secretly didn’t want to go, he knew that it was easier to go along with Diego.
Down the street, through the lights, they continued to drive until Jesse pulled onto a side street and his break lights came on and he signaled right. Diego did the same and they pulled into a dingy little parking lot and drove around for a while until Jesse stuck his arm out the car window and pointed toward the next block. They followed him until they finally found a lot with some empty spots. After parking, the three of them were left walking a bit of a distance before arriving at the back door in a sketchy alley.
A doorman that was substantially larger than Chase opened the door and nodded when he saw Jesse, letting the three of them in without saying a word. His eyes searched Chase’s face momentarily before looking away.
Inside there was a full on dance party with a crowd so thick that Chase could barely move but he noticed Diego slid through with no issue, while Jesse was far ahead and at a small bar, where someone was pouring three shots. The main bar was full of people dancing on it; mostly women around his age while people continually were climbing on the tables and doing the same, as dance music poured through the room, the smell of sweat and alcohol filled his lungs. It probably would’ve been an ideal spot for someone who liked to party all night but that definitely wasn’t Chase. In fact, the atmosphere made him feel awkward and lonely.
As he walked by one of the tables full of women dancing, he was suddenly alerted when one went over her ridiculously high heels and stumbled sideways. Although her friend attempted to grab her, she was already falling to the side and toward Chase. His eyes widened, suddenly very alert and awake, he instinctively reached out and grabbed the screaming woman just as she was about to awkwardly fall to the floor. Thrust into his arms, Chase wasn’t sure which one of them was more surprised as she clasped his sh
oulder in a panic.
“Oh my God!” She yelled, wiggling around in his arms like an annoyed cat, her blue eyes full of panic, as he slowly sat her down. After wobbling in her heels for a moment, leaning up against Chase, she appeared embarrassed as she shared a small smile with him. Pushing a strand of her blonde hair aside, she apologized before rushing off while another young lady followed her toward the other side of the room.
Back at the small bar, Diego was looking in his direction, laughing hysterically. Jesse was also watching with a grin on his face, a drink in hand as Chase slowly made his way through the crowd to join them.
“Chase!” Diego yelled over the music and enthusiastically grabbed his arm. “The superhero! Catching falling damsels in distress.”
Jesse laughed at the comment while Chase merely smiled and shyly looked away, slightly embarrassed by his part in the situation.
“She was cute though, right?” Diego sang out as he glanced toward the table she had fallen from. “You better stay away from over there or all the women will be trying to fall in your arms, am I right Chase?”
Letting out a high pitch, sharp laugh, he turned back toward the bar and held up a shot for Chase. “Here’s one for you, superhero!” His comment was jovial. “We were waiting for you.”
Before he could respond, both Diego and Jesse grabbed their own shots and sank them back. Chase did the same, the bitter taste burned his throat and his face grimaced as the liquor continued to burn all the way down.
“Hope you liked it!” Diego called out over the music. “I had to pay triple since it’s after hours and technically, I think it’s illegal.”
“Thanks,” Chase replied and glanced around the room. “I didn’t need a shot, you know I don’t drink much.”
“Ah, once in a while won’t hurt you, Chase,” He spoke dismissively as if his mind were already in another place. Across the room, a group of men stood together looking in their direction and specifically at Diego. “I’ll be right back, my friend.”
The crowd continued to grow thicker and Chase couldn’t help but feel claustrophobic as he watched Diego get lost in it. Easing back into the corner, he turned to talk to Jesse but he was gone too. Looking around, he realized that he was now alone, in the middle of a party that he didn’t care about after having a shot that he hadn’t wanted in the first place.
