Pool Party

by K T Morrison

  Finch: It is.

  She responded immediately.

  MissProust: Are you for real?

  Finch: I am for real

  MissProust: Can we trust you?

  Finch: You can. You will have the best night of your lives.

  He tossed his phone into his leather hold-all and headed through the partitioned area at the side of his workspace. A long, low, half wall in brick. The area beyond was a wet area with drains in the floor and only two feet of glass blocks running along the top of the wall where it met the ceiling that let in the light from the outside. He stripped down naked and threw his coveralls into a bin with yesterday’s dirtied pair.

  He stood under a wide, white-painted, circular shower head that hung straight down from a water supply pipe, also painted white. Everything in his space was given frequent fresh coats of white. The shower head was a remnant of the building’s industrial past. Some previous use where dangerous chemicals were handled and this now-battered shower head, the size of a manhole cover, was necessary to save someone’s skin from caustic burns. It made for a comfortable experience once he’d put in a water heater.

  He dried off and tied his hair back, put on some clean clothes. Stiff denim, button-fly Levi’s from the 1950s, plain white t-shirt and Air Jordan Retro 1s, black toes with the engraved signature.

  He went back to his phone, texted Gretch.

  Atticus: See you at 10

  He was done for the day. He grabbed his things and shut the lights down headed for the battered old door that led out to the parking. He looked back at his work in progress spread out on the far wall behind his hydraulic platform. Low, orange light from the windows cast across it, lit it up in colours never meant to touch its surface.

  He saw it differently. It wasn’t the ocean. It was more than that. A storm coming. Moving across a nameless water in the sliver-moment before the sun came up.

  He locked the door behind him, made sure the battered shutter door was also secured. The building was a long, low bungalow in the Arts District. It had been a warehouse, a factory, at one point they made children’s toys here. Now it was a quiet, chipped and fading Industrial remnant in the heart of a rapidly changing city. Paint peeled from it brick walls, wires were cabled across its surface in unplanned patterns. It felt like it was from another time. But there was something solid and indifferent about it.

  He turned to the lone car in the small parking plot that held ten. Murdered Lamborghini Huracán. Sleek and low, painted a flat black. Nondescript, colourless, revealing only form and deadly intention. Black aluminum wheels with legs like spiders, peach-painted calipers peeking from behind. Total asshole car. He liked it that way.

  He fired up the ten cylinders, revved it until he felt the car want to twist. He roared down the narrow alley that snaked through the old re-purposed factories, chirped on to a side street and made a right on to Alameda as the sun started to set.

  Squatting was important. Built a chassis that he could perform from. Girls liked the abs but that was just diet. He needed muscle underneath it all so when he was lean there was something for them to see. Something for another man’s wife to run her hands over and make herself wet from. He liked the power that the squats, cleans, and deadlifts gave him. He did a lot of high rep stuff too, four days a week, just a fine tuning, pump up the muscle that was there, give it form and volume that reflected light and cast shadows well.

  Hybrid Athletics was a brick walled gym that catered to hard chargers and toned housewives. A new kind of Crossfit for people who hated Crossfit. But it was still just Crossfit. It was in an old firehouse and if he got here late enough he could avoid most of the clientele.

  Today’s protocol: Deadlift, four hundred and five pounds, three sets of three. Then high rep barbell rows, shrugs, some work on the neck harness. Play that by ear. Whatever felt good, whatever felt like a stretch and rushed blood into the muscle. Don’t overdo it. Then conditioning; tire flips. Four hundred and fifty pound tire, one flip on the minute adding a flip every minute. Seventh minute was seven reps, having already done six in the minute before, leaving no time for rest. Made it to eight minutes the first round, seven minutes on the second round. Sixty-four flips in total.

  He was done in an hour and a half. His phone had been dinging.

  He had messages from Suzie Kauffmann at the gallery, another from Gretch, a response from MissProust, and an unsolicited random inquiry coming in from his public listing.

  He went to college with Gretch. Two rich L.A. Kids out east together, hating the weather and the people. She was a fan of his father’s music. Didn’t know he was Ricky Hawke’s son until they’d known each other for two months. He added a reminder to his calendar to: Call dad.

  He left Gretch hanging. He’d see her tonight. She’d had a strange request. She probably had been anxious before asking, not realizing how in line it was with his newest passion.

  Suzie Kauffmann wanted to know if he was free to come by the gallery on Monday night. Wanted to work out his installation for next month. He texted her he would be there.

  MissProust was the wife of a new couple who he’d referred to his private website. They showed promise. She’d sent another picture of her body. It was toned and muscular. She said she loved his pictures. She’d flicked through a library he had of good photos of his body that he had on the private site. She’d clicked ‘like’ on a favourite. Bare chested, abs very cut up and well lit. Jeans unbuttoned and peeled down. His cock was half hard, plumped up and looking very thick. He had a nice cock. It was big. Not the biggest one out there but it was nice. Too thick for some. Six and a half by almost six when he was soft, and eight and a bit by almost seven when he was erect. Uncircumcised, rare on a rich, white kid from Beverly Hills. His mom, Silke, was a model from Norway, married to his dad back in 1986 to 1990. She had a lot of holistic ideas and hated doctors. She wouldn’t let them cut the tip off her little baby’s penis. Good for her.

  He assessed the new inquiry. If they passed an initial meeting he would give them a password to the private website where they could share more freely. Most inquiries came off his twitter page and his forum profile on a site for men with big penises. Most of the requests were junk. Weirdo guys trolling for pictures of his dick for whatever reason. A lot of men who were wondering if he wanted to jerk off with them in a Skype session. But, quite frequently, at least once a week he would get something interesting. A real couple looking for a third party.

  There were things he’d picked up along the way. Like the more pictures they wanted to see of your cock and your body the less they were really interested and the more this was just some sort of play fantasy for them. The more they felt you out and tried to find out if you were an asshole or if they could get along with you the more likely they were to be genuine.

  He went through the pictures the new couple had sent him. He scrolled, growing disheartened. They lacked something. They were a little too old, a little too red-tanned. Hair was bleach blonde and frizzy. On both of them. He didn’t like the man’s arm hair. Too light against the reddened skin. It was garish. There was a certain high-class yet somehow Bakersfield Wal-Mart feel to it. They were artless. He deleted them.

  There were subtle cues he looked for in photos couples send. He needed evidence of class or style, wealth—or something else. People can hide a lot in a photo but he had a telepath’s sense; a flaying tentacle awareness of the intangible. Sometimes it was what they showed, sometimes it was what they didn’t show. The quality of the material, the drape of fabric in the clothes they wore. Expensive lilt or a cheap stiff hang. If it was cheap it could be done ironically so, made exciting in context with another item. Or a sign of health. It wasn’t always money. Sometimes if a man’s wife displayed a particular vigour, that would arouse him. If she had something to claim: youth, vitality, a winning, white-tooth smile...one time it was just a man’s wife’s nipples. They were plump and delicate, raspberry, soft. He knew by sight that the husband loved them. Loved them
in an exquisite way that taking them for his own would damage that man’s soul. Deliver a hurtful knife deep inside his existence. But it wasn’t always to hurt another man. Every couple was a new canvas, something blank which he could make something from. He didn’t know what it would be until it was under way.

  He took an Uber to the club. Kobra Khan on Sunset. Stylish, gritty place. He stepped out onto the walk into a throng of young people, kids really. Backpacks and bright clothes disguising an underlying menace. Crowd seemed a little juvenile for Gretch but you never knew what the current thing was that caught her fancy. One time she took him to a Beanie Baby convention. She just wanted to steal things, though.

  Printed posters plastered the black-painted, faceless, stucco front of the club. Colourful print-outs with a cartoon drawing of vampire teeth. They were disembodied and gold, studded with diamonds, like a gangster grill. They dripped bright red, oxygenated, comic book blood. In a chilling, melting font underneath it said, Blood, Sweat, and Smears Event. There was a list of bands. Dead G, WolfFang, HevvyHidderz, LeMont Cranston.

  Horrorcore. Sixteen-year-old suburban Hollywood black kids who liked to rap about raping and murdering. Harmless themselves. Thug pretenders who’d never see the inside of a prison, probably end up at Google, but the crowd was questionable. There was a bubbling energy, surfaced with high-testosterone tension, something waiting to pop.

  He was on the guest list. Gretch had pull at the club. A bouncer waved him through, didn’t check his list, seemed to know him by description. Atticus didn’t look like anyone else here. He nodded back and passed through the black-painted double doors and went into the club.

  The music was loud, omnipresent. Chopped and screwed. Polyphonic buzzing, like a hive thrum, stuck inside the slowed-down dying heart beat of a metallic insect. Heavy metal sunken battleship doors opening and closing underwater, infinite suction. There was a kid onstage, mic in hand, convulsing, eyes rolled back so there were only whites under the brim of an oversized 50/50. All part of the act. Demonic possession.

  Gretch was ahead, standing at the back of the crowd. The room was blue-hazy, stale remnants of theatrical fog swirling around the first person he ever believed in. She was looking out over the tops of the heads of the drugged-out kids, her hand clasped her boyfriend’s. Mike was with her, side by side, watching the show together. He seemed disinterested.

  Gretch was thin like a model. Long and leggy. She was wearing a ripped and faded Metallica t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her delicate shoulders. Long, heavy honey-blonde hair piled up on her head and spilling down her slender back. She had loose black parachute pants that came to a cuff over a pair of old Kanye x Louis Vuitton high tops; hot-cherry pink soles, brass clamped tassels and thick wide velcro straps.

  Mike had skinny jeans and a denim jacket, all in black, checkered Vans and a ball cap. He was slight and stood artfully hunched, with piercing, dark intelligent eyes. He had a heavy Cowboy moustache and an otherwise short and unkempt beard. It made his chin look short.

  Atticus put his hand on the small of her back. Warm contact, her firm body, images of a better present where they were a couple and tonight wouldn’t be the way it was.

  She turned, the wet flash of her eyes killed his heart, she smiled wide, her eyes went sly and she said his name. He pulled her to him with his hand on her waist. He could feel her reluctance but her long arms went around him just the same and she hugged herself into his neck, kissed a cheek and broke away.

  “Atticus, this is Mike,” she said, forgetting they’d met at a house party in Bel-Air in the spring.

  “Hey, Mike,” he said and they shook hands.

  He met Gretch at Farmingham. They dated off and on for two years. Lots of fights and bed-breaking make up sex. A lot of crying and smashing of lamps. On his part. He might have loved her too much at one point. She never loved him, though she said it once or twice. It was all a long time ago.

  Gretch was smart and cynical. She wanted to be a novelist. When she got back to L.A. she wrote for two years for an MTV series before she was fired. She’d bounced around. Now she was on a writing staff. Token white female writer on a black comedy show for Fox. Someday she’d probably make that novel.

  Mike was a Canadian. Gretch was a good land for him. He wasn’t bad looking but he didn’t command a room. He wrote at Fox too, primetime cartoon. Maybe Family Guy. Atticus couldn’t remember.

  She yelled into his ear, “He wants me to fuck you now.”

  “Now?”

  “He wants me next to him knowing you came inside me.”

  “Okay,” he said into her ear.

  She took his hand.

  She closed the stall door behind them and they were face to face. Gretch was tall, probably five-eight. She didn’t like heels. She looked up into his eyes.

  Looking into them was like looking into his past. A window with a view over two painful emotional years of his life. Classes, learning to paint, learning he already knew how, youthful condescension, his first heroin, his first heartbreak; standing at the foot of something like a grey obelisk on a foggy morning, feeling its static hum, wondering if it was love.

  He kissed her.

  She turned her head, let his lips brush her cheek. She said, “Don’t kiss me. You can kiss me when he’s watching. Not now.”

  She smelled like lemon twist and mint leaves and faint purple indica. His thumb ran over the tattoo on the inside of her right forearm. A stylized, one-colour medieval warrior standing at attention, his sword point in the ground between his chain-mail legs. His face was grim. He had a broad moustache. Very much like Mike’s.

  She asked him, “Like the band?”

  “Very twenty-ten. Thought this was done. People still listen to this?”

  “Ha ha, you don’t like it?”

  “I like it fine. I thought you were cool.”

  She showed him cynical. “What do you listen to?”

  He ignored her, watched his thumb blot out the warrior’s face.

  She said, “I like people who refuse to give up on something. There’s a tragic sort of sadness in their perseverance. That’s what I’m here for.”

  The horde on the other side of the door was noisy. Music pounded under their yelling, inane voices, streaming in through the open bathroom door. They’d snaked their way through the crowd, Gretch leading the way holding his hand. She’d worked them through the crush, got them in the stall and closed them out. He felt alone with her despite the crowd.

  She said, “Take your cock out.”

  He stared at her, put a palm against the dirty, graffiti-scratched, metal door, one on either side of her head. He wanted to kiss her so bad his heart thumped in his chest.

  Her hands went to his jeans. She unbuttoned them roughly, starting at the top and working down the worn brass buttons that had been handled by who knows who over the last sixty-five years. Her knuckles brushed his hardening flesh under the rough denim. He ached to feel her pretty hands caress him. She pulled the fly apart and his manhood tumbled out. No underwear. When her hand touched it, gripped it, his breath caught. He showed no expression. Wouldn’t give it to her. Inside his eyes had rolled right back. Demonic possession.

  She smiled. Her teeth bit at her lip, tried to stop it from happening. Hated for Atticus to see any emotion from her. She turned it into a wry thought. “You do have the best cock I’ve ever had.”

  He moved like he would kiss her, but he didn’t. He respected her wishes, let his breath tickle that long neck of hers, let his lips brush her soft earlobe.

  “I told Mike about it. He likes the idea of me with other men. I told him your cock is so big I cried our first time.”

  She did cry that night. He’d held her. Gretch told him she wasn’t a virgin their first time but he always thought she was. She bled a little on the duvet she brought from home laid over her dormitory single. It seemed special to her too. Emotional. As emotional as something like that could be to a sociopath like Gretch.

 
“I’m just a cock to you?”

  “You’re just a big cock and a fantastic fuck tonight, Atticus. I don’t want to talk about what might have been.”

  He kissed her neck. Closed his eyes and let his lips brush along the long beautiful tendon that dove into her slender clavicle. He kissed her under her ear where he knew she was sensitive. She moaned.

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  “Just because you enjoy it doesn’t mean it’s not for Mike.”

  “I’m going to enjoy it. Don’t try and analyze me. My fucking shrink can’t even figure me out.”

  His hands went under her shirt and then slid into the wide soft elastic waistband of her pants. He felt tremors in her tight tanned belly, she quivered at his touch. She would hate that he felt it.

  Her hand stuffed into a pocket in her soft silky pants, pulled something out. She slid down, her back pressed against the door of the stall. His cock hung in her face as she squat between his legs. Her hands worked on something. The thing from her pocket was a small dark amber glass vial with an airtight lid. She popped it and sprinkled a small hillock of white powder across the top of his cock held out with her other hand. He watched her snort it. She pulled back, her eyes shut tight, her index finger stabbed into the side of her nose at the bridge in the corner of her eye. Her face twisted up. He touched the residue on his cock, rubbed his gum. It burned like bitter copper.

  “That’s not fucking coke, Gretch.”

  She laughed, tucked the vial back into her pocket.

  He wouldn’t ask her for some even when he thought it was coke. That was Gretch’s way of controlling you. Getting you to ask for something so she could say no. He wouldn’t ask. Wouldn’t ask what it was either. Probably oxy.

  Then her soft wet mouth was on him and he leaned forward until his head pressed to the metal. His fingers wound through her silky hair and he felt her lips gently work on him. He was getting hard in her mouth.