31
The Renegade
“Do you mind if I wash up?” We were passing a bathroom, and I needed a moment to collect myself.
“Go ahead,” Lucas said. “You want a drink?”
“Sure. Water’s fine.”
I closed and locked the door behind me.
The bathroom was chicly high tech. All polished aluminum and glass. The toilet was one of those tricked-out jobs with a built-in bidet, warming seat, and automatic disinfection. It made me wish I had to pee. Across from it, a fifteen-inch LCD screen was built into the wall. I guess reading on the john was passé.
The linen wallpaper, marble floor, and assortment of expensive, hand-shaped soaps spoke to excess wealth. Even the towels were designer, the letters KLN embroidered across their bottom. A play on “clean,” I supposed. For what they cost, I thought they could have spelled out the whole word.
I opened the medicine cabinet. No medicine, but as vast an array of cleansing, moisturizing, and toning products as I’ve ever seen. All of it was labeled as “anti-aging” formulations, or “youth serums.” Skin tightening creams, under-eye revitalizers, wrinkle reducers . . . if this stuff didn’t work, the only thing left was embalming fluid. I wondered just how old Lucas’s patron was.
I could handle myself in a fight, but I was glad I’d avoided one with Lucas. Still, I was flushed with adrenaline and my heart pounded alarmingly. I splashed my face with cold water and took a deep breath. I looked at myself in the mirror. My cheeks were blazing and my nostrils flared.
A few more deep breaths. Better.
Lucas seemed crazy enough for the both of us. I had to stay calm.
“Over here,” Lucas called when he heard me close the door as I exited the bathroom. I followed his voice to the impressive living room.
Although it was early afternoon, Lucas had gotten himself a can of beer. He handed me a bottle of Evian.
When Lucas asked if I wanted to hear his “whole story,” I didn’t know he meant “from birth.” Yet, here I was, half an hour into Lucas’s recitation and he still hadn’t entered his
Degrassi
years. Nor was anything he’d shared—from the town in which he was born to the name of his best friend in the fourth grade—at all relevant. The only mildly interesting thing I’d learned was that he was an army brat, raised by a strict, commanding father of high rank.
I could probably tie that to his fetish for submissiveness, but it wasn’t a subject on which I wanted to dwell.
What was going on here? Why this diarrhea of the mouth?
He’s lonely,
I realized. I looked around the room in which we sat and admired the Scandinavian furniture, the thick carpets, the original Rothkos and Mirós that hung on the walls. All this staggeringly expensive modernity was almost made moot by the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, which opened the room up to the most amazing view of New York City. A constantly changing, living tapestry of life in the world’s greatest city. I imagined it must be even more spectacular at night.
It was, I thought, the most beautiful cage I’d ever seen. Coming into the building, I’d been struck by how the redundant security measures made me feel like I was visiting a prison. Sitting with Lucas, I wondered if that’s how he felt, only from the perspective of the prisoner.
Here he was, ensconced in luxury, but unable to share it with anyone. I was willing to bet his mysterious sugar daddy didn’t encourage Lucas having friends over. Assuming he had any.
I bet Lucas rarely left this apartment. His patron wouldn’t be taking him on dates. At least, not anywhere there was a chance they’d be seen together. I had no idea how old Lucas’s supporter was, but if Lucas was an anonymous face, he might have been able to explain Lucas as an employee or nephew or something. But Lucas had a face recognizable from hundreds of pornographic movies. I didn’t know anything about his patron, but in my experience these men tended to be closeted or even married.
Did Lucas go out on his own, then? Probably not. In my previous line of work, I’d dealt with a lot of very rich men. I learned that most of them got that way partly because they never shared their toys. Whoever was keeping Lucas in this kind of style probably expected not just exclusivity, but for Lucas to be here and available at all times.
Would Lucas even
want
to go out or talk to old friends? He couldn’t discuss his work, as he didn’t have any. He couldn’t share anything about his living arrangement, as that would likely be the end of it.
What did he do all day, every day? Who did he talk to? I assumed no one. Which explained, at least partly, this unendurable outpouring of his heart to me. He was bored, lonely, and taking advantage of the opportunity of an audience.
I’d seen firsthand how much he liked to put on a show.
Was it worth it? I wondered. Sure, it kept him off the streets and surrounded by beautiful things. But was the price Lucas paid for being a rich man’s plaything worth the paycheck?
I couldn’t stand that Tony didn’t shout our love from the rooftops. But at least we could go for pizza together. What must it be like to be not just a secret lover but a hidden one?
These were the questions running through my head as Lucas droned on. I thought of asking them, but Lucas was in the middle of some long story about trying out for his school’s seventh-grade production of
West Side Story
. At least we’d made it to junior high school.
Besides, while I felt badly for him, I didn’t know that Lucas’s job satisfaction—or lack thereof—was of any more relevance to Brent’s disappearance than whether or not the thirteen-year-old Lucas wound up cast as a Jet or a Shark. I had to move this along.
At least I didn’t have to be subtle about it. Lucas liked it when someone took control.
“Enough.” I cut Lucas off just as he was about to launch into a monologue about how his father took the news that his son was joining the Drama Club rather than the football team. “I think we’ve covered enough of your origin story for one episode. Let’s fast-forward, okay? What do you think happened to Brent?”
Lucas slumped in his chair and took a long swig of his beer. He crushed the can in his hand. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “He said he needed a break. Just for a week or two, he said. But that was two months ago. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“A break? From what?”
“From me. From us.”
What “us” was Lucas talking about? From everything I’d heard, it was over a year ago that Brent had complained to people about Lucas’s overeager pursuit of him. He’d cut off all contact. Why would he have been in touch with Lucas as recently as two months ago?
I could have asked a question, but I seemed to get better responses from Lucas when I framed them as commands.
“Tell me what was going on between you and Brent that he wanted to get away from.” But even as I said it, I knew what the answer must have been.
“He never said anything? Not even to you? I thought you said you were friends.” His voice quavered and his eyes watered again.
I knew what he was thinking. Lucas had no life. Whatever was going on between him and Brent—and what else could it be than the obvious, I realized—was the center of his universe. Lucas didn’t know I’d only met Brent once—he probably assumed we were very close. After all, look at all the trouble I was going to to find him. If Brent hadn’t told me what was going on, then maybe Lucas wasn’t that important to him after all.
At least, that was what I assumed was going through Lucas’s mind.
“Of course he did,” I gambled. “He told me you and he’d became lovers. It meant a lot to him.”
Lucas buried his face in his hands. “Thank god. I was afraid . . . after all this time . . . that he just didn’t care.”
“I’m sure he did,” I fibbed.
“It was hard for him, I know,” Lucas said. “He still had . . . feelings for Charlie. He didn’t want to hurt him. He also wanted to get away from SwordFight. Like I did. That’s what got us talking again.”
“Explain.”
“There was a time—I’m sure Brent told you—when I was kind of . . . obsessed with him.”
“I heard.”
Lucas blushed. “I was. But it wasn’t just him. There was a lot going on in my life at the time.
“My kid brother. He wasn’t like me. I broke away from my father at an early age—I think back when I decided to take the role of Tony rather than join the football team, my dad kind of wrote me off.”
Wow. Who’d have thought
that
story would turn out to have been relevant? Maybe I should have been paying more attention. I didn’t even remember Lucas mentioning a little brother, although I’m sure he must have during the ten-minute discussion of his family tree.
“I was born a rebel. Never did a goddamn thing I was told to do. Even if it was what I wanted, too, I’d do the opposite just to piss people off.
“But my brother, Colin, was a daddy’s boy. Followed orders like a good little soldier. Did everything my father told him to, including enlisting in the army on his eighteenth birthday. Just like dear old Dad.”
Lucas lifted his face to me. It was pale and stricken, a mask of tragedy. “He was killed in Iraq within a month of his deployment there. His convoy ran over an IED.” Fat tears ran down Lucas’s face but he made no sound. He wiped at them like you wave away flies at a campsite—as if they were pests you expected, accepted, and learned to live with. He was quiet for a minute before saying “And that, as they say, was that.”
He reached for his can of beer and grimaced when he found it empty and crushed. I thought he might get up for another but instead he just scrunched the corpse he held into a smaller and smaller ball.
“I loved that kid. So much. Despite our differences, we were always thick as thieves. I don’t know, but maybe if I wasn’t such a fucking hardass, if I’d
listened
more, I’d have gone overseas, too. Joined the army like my father always told me to. Maybe I would have been there with Colin. I could have protected him. Saved him. If only I’d followed orders like a good boy.”
Holy Freudian minefield, Batman. I suddenly had a pretty good idea of how Lucas developed his desire to be submissive. Somewhere in his unconscious, he was making up for past sins. He was finally
listening
.
I wondered earlier if Lucas realized he was living like a prisoner. I bet he couldn’t have articulated it, but some part of him knew that’s
exactly
what he was doing. It led him here, to the most glamorous solitary confinement in the city. Part of him thought he deserved to be punished for his crimes that led to his brother’s death.
I wanted to give him a hug. I wanted to carry him out of there and get him on the couch of the best therapist I could find. This boy I thought might have hurt Brent was turning out to be the biggest victim yet. The lostest of the Lost Boys.
“When he died, there was a hole in my heart I was sure could never be filled. For a year, I felt empty inside. I’d come to New York to be a real actor, you know. Only, I didn’t have the talent. And I knew it. But I had the looks.
“So, it turned out, did a couple of other thousand guys. Before Colin . . . died, I’d been approached about doing porn. I always turned it down. I had . . . hope I’d make it as a legitimate actor.
“Once he was gone, though, the world was a lot less optimistic. The next time a sleazy guy offered me his card, I called. A month later, I made my first film for SwordFight.
“I liked it. I liked the attention, the sex. I started to feel alive again. When some of my co-stars taught me their tricks, I took their advice.
“I also took their pills. Then, their needles. Turns out I couldn’t fill the hole in my heart, but I could numb it out real good.
“And then, I came across the most dangerous drug of them all. Love.”
“Brent,” I said.
“You got it,” he said. “The boy I was meant to love. The boy who’d been made for me.”
Lucas’s eyes strayed to a framed photo on the grand piano across the room. I hadn’t noticed it before. Strange, because I should have—it was one of the only personal items in the whole place. And the only one that obviously belonged to Lucas.
He looked as adorable in the photo as he did in every other. Younger than in the other pictures I’d seen, but unmistakably Brent. I was surprised Lucas had it out like that. I couldn’t believe his sugar daddy appreciated having a picture of his boy toy’s ex around.
Unless that was part of the appeal. Having not just your own live-in porn star, but one who was connected to another. Acquisition by association.
Brent stood in front of a typical suburban home. It could have been anywhere. The sun settled against his yellow-blond hair like the heavens were kissing him with light. Even though he squinted against the glare, you could see the affection in his eyes for the person taking the picture.
Lucas saw me catch what he was looking at.
“Did you take that picture?” I asked.
Lucas nodded. I suspected it would have been hard for him to talk at that moment.