Sanctuary (6 page)

“How many times?”

“Every few days since we met,” Brandon said. “Sometimes more often.”

“When was the last time?”

“Earlier tonight. Check the sheets if you want.”

“And it’s always consensual?”

“Yes.”

Cole nodded, turned, and spoke firmly. “Don’t you ever do this to me again.”

Brandon stood, but was unsure whether to leave or to give Cole a conciliatory embrace. Having to lie to his friend like this made him uncomfortable, and his usual charm failed him.

Cole spoke first. “Send her in.”

When Crystal entered Cole’s spacious bedroom, he was standing by his nightstand, his back to her, running his fingers over the braille in the book she’d given him. She couldn’t guess what he wanted, but since Brandon had come to get her instead of Cole himself, it had to be bad. Had Heather been right? Was he leaving her now, and her lack of a backup plan would send her back to joblessness? To her mom’s dilapidated house?

“Hi,” she said guardedly.

“I want you to get rid of it,” Cole said.

“Get rid of what?”

“Of the baby.”

Whoa.
Speechless, Crystal took a few more steps toward him, her shoes clacking against the wooden floor. Cole had never been excited about the baby, but this?
No. Please, no, no, no, no, no.
The baby was the one promising thing she had in her life right now. Getting rid of “it” was not something she’d be willing to do.

She sidled up behind Cole and wrapped her arms around him. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Then you’re out of a job.” He didn’t even hesitate before saying it. That hurt.
Please, no. How will I take care of a baby on my own?
She didn’t have enough money to be a single mom—not by a long shot.

Cole slammed the book shut. Then he turned and held it out to her, returning her gift.

A painting hung above the sofa in the living room. Reds and yellows streaked from wide bases at the bottom up to points at the top, presenting the distinct appearance of a raging fire against a black background. Cole had painted it.
Pretty good for a blind guy.

Brandon sat beneath the flames, gazing up at them. He’d forced Cole to dispose of all his other paintings because they made the house look unprofessional in the backgrounds of Brandon’s videos… but he liked this one. It reminded him that everything was chaos, and that trying to assert order was a futile act. Other, lesser people feared chaos, but Brandon enjoyed it. He’d always felt out of place in Cole’s spotlessly clean, perfectly ordered condo unit.

As a small retribution for Cole’s recent rebellion, Brandon stood to move a coffee table out of its usual symmetry with the rest of the furniture. He pulled it in front of the sofa, then arranged some cards on it for a game of solitaire: a fine way to occupy his time while Cole finally told Crystal off in his bedroom. Seven stacks of cards facing upward, one stack hidden.

“The security guard looks fucked up.”

Brandon glanced over at Heather, who stared down through the expansive window near the kitchen. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s soaking wet, just standing there looking up at me.”

“Well, he’s a weird fucker. Who knows what he’s up to.” Brandon flipped over the first card in the deck and began his card game, quickly freeing up several kings. Luck was on his side tonight.

In his peripheral vision, he noticed Heather discreetly removing a fifty-dollar bill from her pocketbook, then approaching Crystal’s purse on the countertop. Her eyes lingered on Brandon the whole time, no doubt hoping he’d ignore her in favor of his solitaire game. As she inconspicuously slipped the money into Crystal’s purse, her gaze briefly left Brandon, and he chose that moment to strike.

“What are you doing?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the cards.

Heather exhaled sharply. Her voice grew defensive. “Helping her out.”

“Why?”

“Because she needs it.”

“We all need it. Why give it to Crystal? What extenuating circumstances cause
her
to be the beneficiary of your generosity?” Heather opened her mouth to answer, but Brandon continued before she could speak. “Because I’m pretty sure she does drugs. She’s all about that instant gratification, you know. It’s like giving money to a homeless man.”

“Then I guess I’m just a little less selfish than some other people.”

Brandon chuckled. “Bullshit. You’re just doing it so you can pat yourself on the back, get that feel-good buzz from imagining you’ve done real good in the world. Your altruism is just as selfish as my self-interest. Don’t kid yourself.” He lined up his last ace above the rest of the cards.

“Hmm.” She thought for a moment. “So spending a night throwing up after partying too hard is basically the same as spending years curing cancer? Raping someone is on par with giving food to a hungry kid? Nah, I think I’ll pass on that.”

Raping someone?
Brandon finally turned from his game to meet Heather’s gaze.
Does she know?
Her eyes were harsh, but revealed nothing about what she might know. Brandon countered with a smile.

“All I’m saying is that it’s human nature to seek pleasure for yourself. Keeping that money would give you greater pleasure than giving it to Crystal.”

“Fuck you. It’s my choice.”

Brandon’s grin grew wider. She was a troublemaker who never agreed with him—and probably hated his guts—but Brandon liked Heather. Her viewpoints were off-kilter, but unlike Cole and Crystal, she had a brain, and she used it. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, even to her boss.

He readied himself for another philosophical debate. Maybe tonight he’d finally win her over. “Heather, you know what? All thought and action—all of it—is just a physical and chemical process that started at the big bang. We’re all just clumps of atoms, playing out their scripts. None of us are free. Choice, morality… they’re just evolved mental constructs. Illusions.”

“Well, then I’d rather live in an illusion that’s nice instead of an illusion that’s mean. What’s the point of your philosophy if it just makes you an asshole?”

“Philosophies don’t need a purpose. They’re about what’s true. And alas, mine is.”

Heavy, muffled sobs suddenly emerged from behind the closed doors to Cole’s bedroom.
Oh, sweet victory.
If Crystal had broken down in tears, all was going well. Brandon felt all his problems slipping away.

Heather turned back from the noise. “Regardless, Brandon, other people besides you
do
have lives and purposes, however arbitrary you may think they are. People like Crystal and Cole. And your actions affect them.”

Oh, she was good! But Brandon, as always, was a little better. “I don’t
think
their purposes are arbitrary. They
are
arbitrary, objectively.”

Heather raised her arms in a flustered gesture. “Okay, try this then. Everything is meaningless to you, right? All beliefs are illusions? But you believe in… what? Nihilism? That’s a belief. That’s meaningful to you.”

“Damn, it really threatens you that I’ve renounced all value systems, doesn’t it?”

“It’s hypocritical.”

“Is it? How?”

Heather rolled her eyes in that vaguely sexy way she did sometimes. “I can’t even argue with you about it because every time I make a point you just say that there
is
no point. You just avoid the argument and say you’ve won.”

“Hey, I’m arguing now. Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“And you always make fun of religion for being a closed system that keeps people from asking questions, but isn’t… whatever you believe… isn’t it the same thing?”

Brandon inhaled deeply and sighed. Heather and he had these discussions twice every month or so (once even while shooting a porn video), and they always ended with Heather oblivious and Brandon bored. He often wondered what it would take to make her finally
get it
. As he turned over the jack of spades, a flash of insight came to him.

“I had a friend once,” he said. Crystal continued blubbering behind the doors while he stood and sauntered toward Heather. “He was a cop. And not one of the douchebag ones. This was a really, really righteous dude, fighting for justice and all that. But alas, he fell victim to that infamous kryptonite that slays all heroes: he fell in love. With a woman from the streets. A prostitute. They met surreptitiously, and he hid their romance from his buddies. He gave her his time, his money, his adoration, his friendship. They had a child together.”

Brandon paused next to a recliner and tapped his fingers on it. He nearly decided to just sum up the rest of the story and sit back down, but no, Heather needed to hear this. She needed to grasp the emotional impact. “But my friend’s sergeant found out and wasn’t too fond of this relationship. Kicked my friend off the force. With no job, he lost his house, his car.”

“That sucks.” Despite all the videos they’d made together, Heather seemed to grow uncomfortable as Brandon drew close to her. She broke eye contact and stared at the ground, and he knew he was winning, even before finishing his story.

“Yeah, it did suck. I let him stay with me for a while. Even gave him some money to start a business. But then there was a drug bust, and his lady friend was involved. He got there just in the nick of time, but she got caught in the crossfire between the cops and the dealers, so my friend jumped in to protect her.”

Brandon paused for emphasis.

“His sergeant shot him twice in the back.”

Heather glanced toward Cole’s room as if hoping the lovebirds would exit and save her from this conversation. But he had her cornered: a captive audience.

“Did he make it?” she asked uncomfortably.

“Nope.”

“What happened to the woman?”

Brandon grinned deviously. “She couldn’t stand what happened to him, so she got deeper into drugs. She died from ’em after too long. I don’t know what happened to that poor kid. But my point is
why
. Why did my friend do that? Everything he had he gave to her, because it made him happy to see her happy. But there was no purpose in the end. He lost everything, and so did she.”

Brandon’s long, slow walk to the kitchen ended. He arrived at Heather and reached his arms around her to lean on the countertop. As their bodies pressed together, he removed the fifty from Crystal’s purse and dangled it between their faces. “You do this—giving—over and over, until eventually you have a revelation. There is no justice. There are no rules. And at the end of the day, without exception, everything burns.” He slid his hand lazily down Heather’s cleavage and tucked the money into her bra. “So I’ll ask you again. Before the flames consume what little you have, why would you squander it on anyone but yourself?”

Heather nodded solemnly, pondering, and for a few seconds Brandon tasted victory. But then she looked him in the eyes and plucked the fifty out from between her breasts.

“Because she needs it,” Heather said, and dropped the money back into Crystal’s purse.

Before Brandon could retort, Cole and Crystal entered the living room, Crystal wiping off tears and making a beeline for her purse. She had some kind of big red book under her arm. Heather turned to Crystal to offer some comforting words, so Brandon backed into the shadows by one of the deactivated studio lights.

As Cole stomped through the room, he bumped his shin into the coffee table Brandon had moved for his card game. “Fuck!” Cole yelled, and shoved it out of his way, scattering cards across the floor, ruining Brandon’s game. He proceeded to the sliding glass doors by the balcony and brooded there like he always did.
Feel sorry for me, Brandon
, his whiny expression seemed to say.
I’ve had a rough life, and now I have tough decisions to make.

Get a life, pal
, Brandon thought. He glanced past Cole at the spectacular view beyond the condo. The Port Bridge was lit a deep blue from underneath, the MacArthur Causeway purple next to it, snaking out toward the glittering bustle of South Beach. Brandon wished he could be out there tonight, getting hammered and chasing tail instead of dealing with the fallout in here.

“Cole, we’re gonna take the rest of the night off, okay?” Heather said.

Cole raised his hands in defeat, then leaned against the glass.

“You can spend the night with me,” Heather whispered to Crystal. “I’ll drive you.” Of course she would, because Crystal was a lowlife who couldn’t afford her own car.

“Give me a minute,” Crystal said. “I’ll meet you down front.”

Heather’s gaze swept from Cole to Brandon, then back to Crystal. She reluctantly left for the elevator. Before long the doors closed over her wary gaze, freeing Crystal to approach Cole again. Brandon watched every step as she shuffled up to him, hopefully to say goodbye forever.

Instead, she softly kissed him on the lips. “Thank you for reconsidering,” she said.

What?
Brandon’s heart skipped a beat.

“No promises,” Cole said.

No, buddy. This was supposed to be all wrapped up! What are you thinking?
Brandon had framed Cole’s choice as a choice between Brandon or Crystal. And if Cole had chosen Crystal… if Cole was even
thinking
about choosing Crystal…

Crystal exchanged a glance with Brandon as she walked to the elevator. As she waited for it to come back up, Brandon quickly went to Cole and whispered to him. “So what’s the verdict?”

“Jury’s still out,” Cole said.

DING. The elevator opened, and Crystal left.

Brandon rushed to Cole’s bedroom. This was very bad. Brandon’s job, his status, his security were at stake because of one dumb little bitch and the larva she was about to pop out.
Chaos
, he realized. But this wasn’t chaos he could manipulate. This time, the chaos was manipulating
him
.

He wasn’t about to let Crystal beat him. Brandon grabbed the putter off Cole’s bed and dashed into the service hallway, toward the service elevator inside it.

Behind him he heard a series of loud
clinks
as something clattered on a countertop. “Brandon!” Cole’s muffled voice came from the kitchen. “Brandon, did you move these bottles?”