The Companion Contract

by Solace Ames

  I hoped Emanuel was right. I could think of other high-profile transgender women in the media, and it seemed that past a certain level of money and fame, they were armored better, like we all were.

  “I guess you’d know about assassination attempts,” Miles said, his head hung too low to sound bitter. My nice, peaceful feeling disappeared. Why does Miles always have to piss in the champagne?

  “Are you still trying get some digs in? Do you seriously blame Emanuel for any of this?”

  “J’accuse.” Miles flicked his fingers at us like the world’s most decadent judge. “I blame Emanuel for my earthly life in general, at least the post-bus-station part of it. But you’re right, it’s unreasonable.”

  Emanuel shrugged. “I’ve gone past guilt with you, Miles. I’ve gone past everything.”

  “That’s nice. I quit the band for you, by the way.”

  “You told me it was for yourself, and I accepted that.”

  His voice was cold enough to make me shiver. I almost begged them not to fight. Then I caught myself. I’d seen the worst of the violence between them. Maybe they should be fighting. Get the words out. Wipe the slate clean.

  I kept quiet.

  Miles hugged his knee to his chest and leaned back on the black leather seat, rocking himself to a silent rhythm. “I was alone at Eispalast for a while. Someone came up to me. He called himself an investigative journalist. Showed me a photo. A really disturbing photo. From your childhood.” He closed his eyes. His eyelids without makeup were pale and bird-thin, his face drawn into a remote yet vulnerable expression, asymmetric shadows in the hollows of his cheekbones. Like he was busy traveling away from us to a place deep inside himself.

  “The same journalist approached many people I know,” Emanuel said. “Including Amy. You should have told me immediately. The photo itself doesn’t matter. I have an idea what it might be. I remember posing for it, although my memory stretches strangely back then. I lived my life in a fever dream. Was there a hand?”

  “Yeah,” Miles said, his eyes still closed. “There was definitely a hand. I told him to fuck off. Then Xiomara found me. I made a decision later that night. The photo isn’t worth anything to him if Avert doesn’t explode again. But if we end up famous, he could sell it for a lot of money.”

  “You know my position on blackmail, Miles.”

  “Publish and be damned, right. Look, that wasn’t the only factor, okay?” He opened his eyes, and I stared right into them, wondering if Emanuel’s image was burned there, a shining white reflection in two dark pools. “I know you never, ever give in. And I know you’re the cat who always lands on his feet, and you don’t really care about being famous. So canceling the reunion was in your best interest as well as mine.”

  “As for Juan Carlos? Fausto? Amy?” Emanuel’s voice was barely audible over the engine’s hum, and still cold enough to make me shiver.

  “I figured you’d take care of them.”

  “How convenient.”

  “I did it for myself too. I’ve still got a threadbare sense of self-preservation.” Miles smiled crookedly and stopped the weird rocking. “You told me I wasn’t going to make it out alive if we got famous again, but I wasn’t going to make it anyway, so we might as well go for it, if that was what I really wanted.”

  “Yes, I told you that. I wasn’t sure if you listened or not.”

  “Most people start bands so they can dress up fancy, fuck like rabbits and stay high till they die. Your motives, on the other hand...”

  “I’m different,” Emanuel said.

  “After Eispalast, I added up the pros and cons. Your life would be better without an Avert reunion, especially now you have Amy. Without a reunion, mine might be better. The meds cleared my brain up a bit. If I keep taking them, maybe I can finally function and have a normal shitty life, instead of being a glorified human lightning rod. I feel fucked-up things, and then I make large groups of other people feel those things—what the fuck kind of job is that? I think I’d rather be a pool cleaner.”

  Emanuel’s sigh had unmistakably skeptical undertones. “Didn’t you get fired before your first week ended?”

  “That’s only because I called the manager a cunt.”

  Miles had depths of dysfunction trickier than California fault lines. He made me feel like a frustrated geologist, my ground always shifting. I had to speak up. “Wait a second. So you’re telling us—” I almost said Emanuel, but I made myself say us, and Emanuel gathered me closer as soon as I said it, “—you just made a career decision for a bunch of other people without telling anyone why? Did you even tell Xiomara?”

  “No. She was my third reason. Maybe in another five years, I’ll be someone she can respect. I swear to fucking God, that’s all I’m aiming for with her. What happened tonight didn’t change that.”

  “I’m impressed that you’re thinking in terms of five years in the future,” Emanuel said.

  “Beats thinking about Xiomara fucking that guy in the present. I can’t decide whether I want to jerk off or punch myself. It varies from moment to moment.”

  “So your sex drive is back,” I remarked.

  “I wish I could have kept it in the garage.”

  “Don’t confuse denial for discipline,” Emanuel warned.

  “Don’t tell me not to be confused. It confuses me.” He tapped the side of his head to illustrate the fragility of his brain.

  I was still absorbing the fact that in his very own tangled, tortured way, Miles had been surprisingly loyal. “I think what Emanuel means is that you don’t need to hate yourself for being what you are. I struggle with that myself. I win most of the time. Not all of the time.” Every day I looked in the mirror and didn’t hate myself was a victory. Some days I lost, but I’d never, ever stop fighting.

  “Yeah, but you’re not as crazy as I am,” Miles said, stubborn to the bone. As if Miles had ever heard the world screaming in his ear that he was interchangeable, disposable. He’d always been the special one. My frustration chilled to a biting cold anger.

  Then he smiled, leaned forward and tilted his head at a subtle angle that reminded me like a punch to the gut that he was always onstage when he wanted to be. He was the center, we were his audience, he owed us a show and he’d give us one. Against my will, my anger melted.

  “I meant that as a compliment, Amy, not a self-pity contest. Although I’m very, very good at those.”

  God help me, I forgave him again.

  “I never got the hang of self-pity. You’re right.” The heaviness of Emanuel’s arm resting over my shoulders reminded me of contests much more pleasant than self-pity. “But I’m getting good with discipline.”

  “Yes,” Emanuel said simply. I didn’t need to look at his face to tell he was smiling. I heard it in his tolling deep voice, the voice I could sink into like the ocean.

  “You two.” Miles rolled his eyes and flicked us off. “Unfair. And I meant what I said earlier. You’re a good-looking couple. Are you planning on getting married or living in postmodern polyamorous sin?”

  “They’re not mutually exclusive,” Emanuel said.

  I didn’t say anything. I was too giddy, whirling through the night here in my magic carriage, my perfect bubble, my man’s arms. Safe, protected, but still uncaged and free, still moving—God, this was everything I’d ever wanted.

  I couldn’t speak to Emanuel. I spoke to Miles instead, my voice sounding helium-high and blissful to my own ears. “I’m very happy. Thank you.” The closest thing I’d gotten to a commitment from Emanuel, and it was because Miles had jumped into the game as my cheerleader.

  I was fine with that. I liked having a team on my side.

  We talked easily from then on, no more coldness or frustration. I even felt a seed of hope that Miles could get his shit together, that chaos-agent Miles could merge
with noncustodial father, pool-cleaning Miles and form a functional human being.

  Emanuel paused our conversation to take a call a few minutes after the limo turned onto Pacific. He tapped his right hand in the air, almost like hitting pause on a machine, and we immediately stopped and watched him for the next signal.

  I noticed how we fell silent at the exact same time.

  It was kind of hot.

  No, it was more than kind of hot, and I unteased the reason as I shifted restlessly on my seat, my lips pressed firmly closed as instructed. I had an audience too. Not a camera, not a crew, but someone who understood—intimately understood—the dynamics of my relationship with Emanuel.

  Sometimes I liked to be the center, myself.

  “I spoke with SecondJason,” Emanuel said. I recognized the username. SecondJason ran the most active Avert fan group on the internet. “There are fans outside the property entrance. He’s reassured me they won’t cross further than that. If they do, he’ll call the police himself.”

  “I miss El Tigre already,” Miles said unexpectedly. “He’s good at keeping them at a distance without being an asshole about it.”

  We saw them soon, a motley collection of young people. A few of them looked younger than me. They waved and held up a banner with the word Reunion in gorgeous gothic letters. I was glad I didn’t see the girls who’d gone for my throat when I reclaimed Miles. This demonstration was only on the edge of inappropriate, but that pair had gone right over the cliff.

  Miles rolled down the window and waved. The fans made joyful noises, pounded each other on the shoulders, jumped in the air.

  “You should give them something,” I told Miles. “They must have been waiting a while.”

  He took off his shirt in one fluid-as-fuck motion and threw it at them. Well, that was something. They dived for it. Hopefully they’d cut it into pieces and share, not fight over it, but the limo rolled on and their wild, screaming celebration faded into the darkness behind us.

  “I feel sorry for them,” I said. “They want a reunion, and all they’re getting is a shirt that says Fuck Me I’m Irish, and it’s not even green.”

  “I noticed that,” Emanuel said. “I was still too angry at you to mention it, though.”

  Miles shrugged. “The fans know I’m color-blind anyway. And the reunion was never official. I’ll release a video of myself apologizing. We’ll put out some songs for the hard-core fans to download, there just won’t be a tour. I always liked touring,” he added suddenly, and wrapped his arms around his chest. He’d filled out a little in the past few weeks, enough so that I could only see the suggestion of his ribs. The tattoos distracted my eye from their familiar curves. He traced a spiral with one finger in a light rubbing motion, calming himself while disturbing me, because I wasn’t supposed to be looking so closely, was I?

  Well, Emanuel wouldn’t blame me.

  “The tours were good,” Emanuel said. “All except the last. Perhaps it’s better this way. We leave without hating each other, without everything falling apart at once. Fausto has many interests, and you’re right, I’ll take care of Juan Carlos. He and Eliska have a place to stay in Los Angeles until after their child is born.” He’d set the mood to gently nostalgic. I didn’t even have those tour memories, but I could almost warm myself by their glow.

  The limo pulled up to the courtyard. The house was dark, and when Gabriel screamed to welcome us—or warn us not to fuck with him, I was never sure which—the noise seemed to echo at us from everywhere in the night.

  Emanuel told the worried driver it was nothing, and sent him away.

  “We’ll be moving in a few days,” I said as I unlocked the door and flicked the hallway lights on. I hadn’t realized how cold the limousine was—the air of the house felt so much sweeter as it swirled into my lungs. “I’ll miss this place, except for you-know-who.”

  “Want to see some of my old tour photos?” Miles asked. “I just remembered I have a photo album in my bag. If they’re still called photo albums anymore.”

  What an interesting question. He’d never asked me before, but then again, I’d always put on an air of indifference to the past. I cocked my head and made a humming noise.

  “Show us.” Emanuel stepped up beside me, looming large and reassuring. “I haven’t seen them myself.”

  Show us. I was part of an us. I’d never get over that.

  “You might regret it.” Miles grinned and led the way up the stairs.

  Emanuel swore he didn’t know what Miles was talking about.

  We all sat down on the bed, Miles at the center and us at the edge, and he opened a leatherbound album. The room was clean and the bed was made, although I decided not to congratulate Miles for that. Even back when I was his full-time minder, I didn’t like to patronize him.

  The compromising photos of Emanuel got pointed out first, of course. One had him asleep in the back of the tour bus with ASK ME ABOUT VIAGRA lettered on his forehead in Miles’s handwriting.

  “Oh my God, did it wash off?” I asked through the giggles.

  “Not easily. I performed that night in a ski mask.”

  “Yeah, you looked tough as shit,” Miles said, propped up on his elbow and shaking the bed with his laughter.

  “But I always look tough,” Emanuel simply said. He was right. The photos of him ten years ago were intense, like he was really sharper around the edges back then, enough to cut through the pages and jump into the three-dimensional world. It didn’t help that any photo with a flash showed his eyes blazing red, and the ones with relatives, or his ex-wife, had exposures that couldn’t handle the skin tone difference and erased either his features or theirs.

  “I’m a crap photographer,” Miles said by way of excuse. “It was an expensive camera with complicated lenses and I never really figured it out. This is a good one, though.”

  Emanuel and Toni stood looking over a balcony on a seashore cliff that might have been the Mediterranean. It looked too ancient and weatherworn for the West Coast. The sun was setting, the light ideal. She was tall and beautiful, and they belonged to each other entirely in that moment.

  “Yes, that’s a great picture.” I touched Emanuel’s hand. I didn’t know what to feel. I’m not sure he did, either.

  “Now this one deserves a fucking award.” Miles flipped the page, and I screamed.

  Emanuel put his hands over my eyes, mercifully blocking out the sight. “I thought I told you to destroy those.”

  “He dressed up as Elvis for a Halloween show,” Miles explained. “That wig is fucking insane. Look, here I am wearing it.”

  I gasped for breath. The shaggy black pompadour was ridiculous on Miles, but on Emanuel, it looked like he’d come straight from the Twilight Zone to reap our souls.

  “Whatever happened to that camera?” Emanuel asked, letting his hands slide from my face. I leaned into him, sank down, resting against his thigh with my hands for a pillow.

  “You should know better than to ask me that. Nine times out of ten the answer’s going to be sold for dope.” Miles didn’t sound or look angry—he draped himself over the quilt nice and easy, just like me.

  “I don’t know any better,” Emanuel said. “I never will.”

  My breath caught in my throat and a key clicked in a lock. I understood what they had together, at last. Two men who knew each other so well, they knew exactly how to take the other apart...

  And held back. They were always holding back.

  Miles groaned, turned on his back and twisted himself into a sinuous letter, a C or an S, depending on how you looked at him. His body was endlessly expressive, and the joy he took in it was infectious, even when he was groaning and playing the doomsayer. “You’re going to regret believing in me,” he threatened.

  “You aren’t on the list of my regrets. On your own, those
years ago, or now that you’ve led me to Amy.” He stroked my hairline, sending tingles of delicious sensation up my scalp and down my neck.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” Miles argued, the sulky bastard. “I’m glad it happened, but I don’t deserve the credit. I’m still a terrible person. The only thing I’m really good at is singing. And sex, and maybe a little piano, and...help me out here.”

  Emanuel laughed silently. I could feel the vibrations of it. “That’s interesting you put sex on the list.”

  “Ooh, sick burn,” I said.

  “Ask Amy how I was.” Miles was stepping into dangerous territory, or returning to it, like he always did. There was a glint of teeth behind his open smile.

  “I’m not questioning you with women, Miles.” Emanuel neatly sidestepped the question. Not that he was scared of asking it. He was playing. And I liked this game too. “I recall a certain imbalance of experience during our time together.”

  “That was almost a decade ago.” Miles sounded indignant. “For all you know I go down like a champion nowadays, you superior son of a bitch. And I’ve always been more versatile than you.”

  I had to look up to see Emanuel’s reaction to that. Trying to read his face upside down gave me a funny kind of vertigo, light and fizzy and sweet. The twist of his lips and the tilt of his eyebrows both said amused to me, and I loved to see him like this—shouldn’t a man who worked so hard be able to enjoy himself to the fullest?

  “Was he your first man?” I asked Miles. I was curious now, when I hadn’t been before. All the locked doors I’d resolved to ignore had just unlocked themselves and were swinging back and forth temptingly, a whole erotic corridor of the damn things.

  “No.” Miles rolled his eyes. I caught Emanuel’s barely perceptible nod, got confused for a minute—was he lying?—then realized that Miles had been asking permission to continue.

  Oh yes.

  I liked this game.

  “He wasn’t my first,” Miles continued, permission granted. “Not physically. Emotionally, he made me reevaluate certain things about myself.”