It coulda been Dante. What if those assholes had gotten to Dante and I wasn’t there?
Griff leaned over the trashcan and vomited.
Dante rubbed his back in soft circles. “It’s okay, G. You did great. They got him.”
Griff gave Dante a crazed glare.
“Easy. Fight’s over.” Dante held his hands up like a white flag.
“Those fuckers woulda kiled him.” Griff’s voice sounded strange in his own ears, like he was a gigantic ventriloquist dummy and someone else was talking
through him, like someone had their hand up his ass making him say things. “I saw it. He would’ve died. They wanted to murder
—
”
Dante frowned and crossed his arms, unwiling to hear. “But he didn’t. Let it go. You did everything you could and you saved him. Whatsamatter?”
Griff shook his head no, but he didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything. The HotHead scenes were like a fucking bul’s-eye on them.
It coulda been Dante bleeding out in the street ’cause I didn’t speak up.
It coulda been Dante bleeding out in the street ’cause I didn’t speak up.
Around them people squirmed in discomfort under fluorescent light on the patched vinyl furniture. Announcements squawked on the PA system uninteligibly.
Emergency rooms in New York were never exactly cheerful.
Dante shrugged. “Tommy is always getting into scrapes, huh? He just got jumped this time.” He was trying to talk Griff down. Guys got into fights al the time.
Griff thought about the scratches and bruises from the aley fuck. Dante had no idea about Tommy or that other secret life, and no way was he going to be the
one to let that cat out of the bag. “You don’t understand.”
“He got beat up, G,” Dante reasoned gently.
But that wasn’t the truth. Griff and Tommy and the pissbag posse knew that was a fucking lie. This was a whaddayacalit, a hate crime. Tommy hadn’t gotten
mugged or mauled, he’d been gay-bashed. Like anyone was going to report it that way.
Uh huh. Tell me another
.
“I didn’t even know you knew him that wel.” Dante’s forehead was creased with confusion.
“I didn’t. I don’t. They were so ready to kil him.” Griff’s breath caught in his throat as he thought about Dante curled on pavement in a ring of boots.
“For al we know, he banged some dude’s wife.”
Uh. No.
Griff ran a hand over his hair. He needed a shower. “They were al fucking kicking him into mush with boots. For fun. He was unconscious. Al he could do
was curl up and bleed. No one deserves that. It coulda been you or your sister, or I dunno—”
“Hey. Hey! No one wants to kil me. I don’t bang married women anymore. Not my scene. And they’d have to go through you, huh?” Dante was trying to
squeeze a laugh out of him.
“Fucking right.” Griff almost hugged him but didn’t. He looked down at himself and realized how he must look, how crazy he seemed. He thought about the
scene they’d just shot for HotHead. If someone saw Dante sucking….
Dante dropped a hand on his big shoulder and squeezed. “Let me give you a lift?”
“I can drive.”
“You don’t have your truck, man. You came in with the EMS, remember?” Dante held up an extra jacket.
“Oh.” Griff’s brain was cold oatmeal. “Right. Thanks.”
They walked toward the exit.
Dante fished keys out of his pocket. “I caled the station to tel the chief. The guys wil come by tomorrow.”
Griff thought about those attackers again and wondered who they’d be teling. Who else knew Tommy messed around with dudes by now? How many more
would know tomorrow? How many wel-wishers were gonna come by with Playboys and chocolate once they knew Tommy took it in the ass? Somewhere,
someone had told the truth, and Tommy was in deep shit. They al were, only Dante didn’t know it yet. Griff just had to keep it that way.
Fag!
“Griffin?”
Griff realized he was standing in the automatic doors holding the jacket. The air outside was freezing cold, but he didn’t seem to be able to feel anything. He put the jacket on.
Dante nodded and waited for his best friend to catch up, bumping shoulders and heading for his parking place on a side street.
Griff nodded to himself. Loving his friend was bad enough. Losing him would….
Would….
Griff choked and kept walking.
If it kiled him, he would make sure Dante didn’t find out the truth.
GRIFF went to HotHead the next afternoon right out of work, wiling to sel his soul. He didn’t tel Dante. He didn’t even warn Alek.
On the way he caled the nurse’s station on Tommy’s floor. No change; he was stable but stil unconscious.
At the warehouse on Avenue X, Alek was al business from the moment he came down to the street door to meet Griff under low clouds like thick felt. A
gray day for Al Soul’s.
They didn’t talk in the elevator, and Griff was acutely aware of not having the duffel with his turnout gear. He’d worn the kilt he used for bouncing at the
Bone, hoping the necessary ass-kick would come easier. He had to find a way to get pissed at this Russki asshole.
Upstairs, Alek tugged open the freight elevator with a clang and headed back toward the studio in the half light. He spoke at Griff without turning back as he threaded through the boxes and storage crates. Alek looked down at his legs. “I like your kilt.”
Griff looked down at the olive drab pleats. He’d forgotten he was wearing it. “It’s a utility kilt. I’m doing some construction later.”
“Very handsome. But you did not bring your bunker gear.”
“No.” Griff looked down at his empty hands as he folowed. “I forgot. No. That’s a lie. I didn’t mean to bring it.”
Alek unlocked the door and entered the studio. The curtains were al puled back, and chily daylight was strong in the room. “My apologies for the cold. My
landlord is cheap about lighting the boiler because most of my neighbors use this place for storage. Russians!” He checked the computers briefly and headed for the fake sitting room set. “Then I wil assume that you have not come to shoot the solo video we discussed.”
Griff stood empty-handed near the door, ready for the argument he needed to have, trying to work up the nerve to get nasty when Alek had been nothing but
cool with him. He felt like a stone-cold prick.
Alek’s eyes smiled at him. “You look as if you are about to make a scene.” He settled back on the black leather loveseat, waiting.
“Yeah.” Griff entered far enough to stand on the carpet in front of him. “Sort of.”
“What kind of a scene did you have in mind, Mr. Muir?” Even seated, Alek managed to seem like a handsome concierge talking to a ruffled patron at a hotel.
“Is there a problem?”
Griff shifted his weight foot to foot. He took a step closer to the set. “Wel, I came here to be an asshole, but you been nothing but nice to us.”
“I’m glad you think so. I like both you and Mr. Anastagio a good deal.” Alek smoothed his pants, chin out, ready for anything. “You even saved me from an
assault, the night we met.”
Griff had forgotten about that. It felt like a hundred years ago. And he felt weird talking with the whole room between them, but he couldn’t make himself get any closer, and the only furniture was on that side of the studio. “Look, man, those videos are a real problem. For Dante and me. Ya know? The kinda problem
that could get us fired or kiled or worse.”
“Then I can understand your anxiety. You are in a dangerous business.” Alek leaned forward in his seat, looking concerned or faking concern… whichever.
Griff shrugged, powerless and desperate. “I thought… I came here to say I got cops for friends and I could be a prick and shut you down. But I don’t want
this to go public and mess up our lives. And I don’t want to mess with your business.” He took a step. Then another. He closed the distance between them until he was in the HotHead.com set with Alek.
“I appreciate that, but you stil have a problem. Yes? Because of the homoerotic content we shot of you and your friend.” The Russian drummed his long
fingers on the fake coffee table, like he was thinking of a solution, or was pretending to think.
Griff stepped closer, fidgeting. “Yeah. You don’t understand…. The porno thing could get him kiled and I realize that it’s not your problem and I don’t know
how to fix it and I don’t want Dante to know and I don’t want to dick you around.”
“Slow down. It’s al right, Mr. Muir.”
“Fuck, but this is awful.” Griff sat down in the big leather armchair and leaned forward, desperate to make Alek understand what he was saying. “Look,
you’re a good guy, Alek. ’S’weird actualy. I used to think you were a total pervert skeezbag back before I….”
“Ejaculated on this chair.” Alek’s smile spread over his face like syrup. “But I am a pervert. You know that. We are al perverts of one flavor or another,
yes?”
“Yeah. Yes.” Griff knew what he meant. Alek knew he knew. Their knowing slithered between them in the fake porno room where so many things had
changed. His legs were goose-bumped under his kilt.
“However, I am not a vilain.” Arching an eyebrow, the Russian exaggerated the Slavic edge in his accent til he sounded like a cartoon Rasputin. “The evil
Soviet trafficking in innocent flesh.”
Griff nodded again, trying to figure out what Alek was trying to say. It seemed important that he make sense of it. Why did he feel like he was talking with a friend?
Alek leaned back against the black leather and thought out loud. “I wish no harm to either of you. On the contrary, I would much rather find a way to share
some of the good fortune you have showered on my smutty corner of the World Wide Wank.”
Without the camera and the lights, this little sitting room looked like the corner of an office. Griff had the weird thought that they could both be waiting to see a dentist.
For a root canal.Or amputation.
Griff wiped his mouth. He was supposed to threaten this guy, or beg for some kind of reprieve, or try to buy him off. But something else came out entirely.
“I’m fucking terrified.” Griff felt embarrassed as soon as the words were out in the cold air.
“Has someone threatened you or Mr. Anastagio because of the site?”
“No! I mean, not yet. No one knows, and I need to keep it that way.”
Alek’s forehead creased in confusion. “Then may I ask the reason for your fears?”
“A guy got hurt. Beat up real bad.”
“I don’t folow. During a fire this happened?”
“No. Like bashed. Gay-bashed. One of the men at the firehouse. You met him at the Stone Bone. This paramedic who sneaks around to, uh, sleep with
dudes. Have sex. Jesus. You know.” Griff thought of that rough aley fuck. Of Tommy’s sated face and the dark man’s hand on his back after. Tommy calmly
keeping Dante alive at that fire. Tommy curled up on the sidewalk, dying.
“Thomas?!” Alek’s face was serious suddenly. His shoulders bunched and his hands closed into fists. He looked angry, almost as angry as Griff felt.
“Yeah, Tommy. Messes around with men. A lot, apparently. His wife found out, and then her brothers found out, and then I found him getting mauled, and
now he’s in the fucking hospital pissing into a bag with his face held together by staples.”
“But that is terrible.” Alek looked like he wanted to kil someone, the planes of his face rigid. “He was such a lost soul.”
“And, I mean, he knows how to fight, but not al of ’em at once. Ya know? And sure he cheated, but al those fucking guys cheat on their wives ala time!”
Griff rubbed his face and closed his sore eyes, trying not to lose it. “But not with guys. You see? Not with guys. So he’s a filthy
fag
. They almost kiled him. They pissed on him. His family. His family.”
Alek’s mouth was open in shock. He realized and covered it with his shaking hand.
“I watched him in the ambulance dying. Almost dying. Blood came out of his ears.”
Behind his fingers, Alek cursed in Russian, then cursed again.
Griff shook his head and rubbed an eye. “They’l get away with it. He won’t press charges. Sixty-something stitches. Three ribs. Concussion. Dislocated
shoulder. His face was like a goddamn eggplant.”
Alek’s face was granite. “You helped, though. You were a hero. And he wil get better.”
“Wil he? I feel fucking awful. Because I knew. I saw him one night, down in the Vilage with a guy. Humping some big guy, I mean. Not even Dante knows
that.” Griff wiped his nose and made a fist. “But I never said nothing. Maybe if I had, he’d’a been more careful.”
“Or maybe not.” Alek didn’t rest a hand on him for comfort, but Griff could tel he was trying to be gentle. “Perhaps Thomas made sure he got caught.
Perhaps he wanted that poor wife to find out and hadn’t the words to give her. Perhaps that was his way of punishing himself. Masochism. People torture themselves more terribly than anyone else could. Yes?”
Griff nodded.
Alek nodded. He hadn’t forgotten what he’d seen.
Suddenly they weren’t talking about Tommy. Sirens went off in Griff’s head, but he slid right down the pole into it, unable to stop himself….
Griff’s voice was low and he spoke to the floor, unable to look at anything. “The lying is awful. The hiding.”
“It is.” Alek shrugged a shoulder and frowned at the studio around them. “But common. Look at HotHead. Many of our members are closeted men in bitter
marriages. ‘Curious’, these men cal themselves. The fantasy is how they survive. This place is a dream for them.” He looked around at the three-waled sitting
room set. “The world is built of lonely people.”
Griff grimaced. “How can you be ‘curious’ if you know? I don’t get how people can hack it. I mean, I know they do, but I can’t imagine doing it for your
whole goddamn life. ’S’like being burned alive, lying to people you love. No wonder people become drunks and hide and hit each other. Truth. Easier to be dead inside.”
“There are so many better ways to kil yourself.” The light from outside silvered Alek’s stern face, making him look older, his eyes paler. “You drink.”