you lie to everyone, don’t you? You really are a
money-grabbing prostitute and nothing more. Here,
have a fucking tip!”
Leon throws some notes at Chris that land on his
lap. The soon-to-be-lost client might as well have
shot a spear at his pride.
“I’ve got to go. I’m sorry.” Chris stands, letting
Leon’s tip fall onto the floor. Leaving the upset
client, he steps outside to face the chilly, dirty
streets of London. He turns up his collar against the
wind.
“Well, that’s that, then,” he mutters to himself
and pulls out his phone to arrange a taxi.
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I don’t love you. I don’t want you.
Evenings that ended with Chris being made to
feel cheap and unworthy. Names that the men like
to call him in bed. They play out their fantasies of
power while Chris goes along with the role of the
subservient, his insides hollower every time
something like this happens. His job is to bring
them happiness and fulfilment for a short time, and
Chris believes he’s good at his role. He’s not the
future or the long-term solution. That’s all.
The job of an escort isn’t glamorous or at all
exciting despite the number of literary pages and
feature films devoted to it. Most of the time Chris
feels adrift, and lately, he’s been thinking a lot about
quitting. If only he had actual job-worthy skills and
career options.
Chris prays Alex is at home.
He finds Alex in bed and collapses into his arms.
Alex stirs and mumbles, “Hey.”
“Hmm. I feel like shit. Give me a hug, will you?”
Alex does, wrapping his massive limbs around to
comfort Chris. “What’s the matter? Did something
happen?”
Chris sighs. “The client asked me out. I’m okay.”
“What? Why? Does he know you well?”
Alex sits up, and Chris follows suit, covering his
knees with his arms. In that gesture, he hides his
vulnerability.
“No one knows me well.” Chris is not including
Alex in this, but even Alex. Even Alex. Chris shakes
his head to get rid of the thought. “He got angry
when I said no.”
Chris doesn’t like that nasty taste in his mouth.
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There are times when deeply hidden emotions
bubble up and make him go back to being a little kid
before he was forced to grow up and face the
contempt of the whole world. This kid would sit in
his classroom among other shiny happy children
and feel a jealous rage. His mother stole years from
him, and he couldn’t bear to see the innocence and
naivety of the other children. Leon’s hurt little face
reminded Chris of his classmates: entitled kids
thinking about their future.
What are his classmates doing now? In their
regular jobs, having romantic nights in with their
partners? Fuck knows. If he hadn’t been trading his
body, he might be one of those regular people
worthy of someone. Not Leon, though. Not a client
who has only ever seen the façade.
“Wanker. Did he hurt you?” A deep V forms in
Alex’s forehead as he considers Chris’s face.
“Nothing like that. He shouted abuse. The usual—
that I’m a greedy whore. Don’t worry. Let’s get back
to sleep.”
“How dare he!” Alex’s indignation on Chris’s
behalf cheers him up.
“I’ve heard it all before. You win some, you lose
some.”
Alex pulls him into a hug. “There are some
wackos out there. I’m worried about you getting
hurt.”
Chris gazes at him. “It’s part of my job. I can take
care of myself. Public workers get shouted at,
verbally abused, don’t they?”
Alex shakes his head. “But you’re not a public
worker. You’re in people’s private homes and hotel
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rooms. He could have murdered you then. How do I
know you’re safe?”
Chris knows the bad times, too, and wicked
violent people. He’s vulnerable to their slurs and
attacks. His head never clears of the memories of
footprints
raining
down,
moments
before
everything fell silent and dark.
But he smiles. “Don’t be dramatic. I’m safe, okay?
I’ve done this for long enough to know. I share my
schedule with another escort and we look out for
each other. I have a pepper spray. I don’t ever drink
on the job, et cetera. Plus, this guy was a regular. I
should have seen it coming, but I hadn’t paid
enough attention.”
Chris blames himself for growing too complacent.
He sighs, betraying weariness.
Alex opens his mouth to say something but then
shuts it.
“Now, I am knackered. Can I sleep, pretty
please?” Chris grins, flashing his teeth, and lies back
down. He feels much better after seeing Alex’s
reaction. Someone cares. Isn’t life tolerable?
As Chris falls into a slumber, he finds brief
happiness in his colourful, scattered dreams.
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CHAPTER 8
DRAG
A LOUD THUMP and the sound of breaking glass cut
through the quiet afternoon.
“Fuck!” Alex has been in the bathroom for a
while.
Chris knocks on the door. “Alex, what are you
doing in there? Everything all right?”
“Uh, okay. I’m…fine,” comes the muffled reply.
Chris hears him moving about. More expletives
seep through the gap at the bottom of the door, like
an involuntary SOS.
“Chris, is there a first-aid kit in the flat?”
“Shit. Have you hurt yourself?” Chris tries the
door handle but it’s locked. His chest tightens.
“Open the damn door, Alex.”
He’s not dumb, not really, despite what everyone
thinks. He is quite aware of Alex’s mental health,
and he could be in there slitting his wrists.
After a few beats, there’s a click and Alex opens
from the inside. Chris quickly assesses the damage.
Blood has splashed all over the sink. Pieces of the
mirror from the bathroom cabinet are scattered
around like shards from a broken heart, and there
are white tablets amidst the carnage, as though Alex
has sprinkled snow on the red and silver.
Alex holds his bleeding left hand up and looks
away in embarrassment.
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Chris urges him out of the bathroom to the
kitchen area. “I think there’s a first-aid box under
the sink. Someone left it. Now, run your hand under
the tap. The cold water will sting a little.”
Alex does while Chris holds Alex’s forearm
steady.
“It’s starting to feel numb.”
“Go and sit down on the sofa,” Chris directs when
he’s satisfied the bleeding has slowed enough.
He finds the kit under the sink. Fuck knows how
long it’s been there. He rummages further in the low
cupboard but can’t find any clean cloths. Armed
with the first-aid kit and a roll of paper towels, Chris
sits next to Alex and dries his hand, dabbing it with
care. It’s not as bad as the amount of blood
suggests. It’s only a gash on his palm that will heal.
Chris pats the cut dry with a towel soaked in
saline solution. Then he finds the gauze and wraps
up Alex’s hand. As he tends to him, he can feel the
man’s breaths on his neck, their faces close
together. He loves the callus on Alex’s hand and
imagines how good it’d feel on his own skin. A
lover’s touch, not strangers’ need, on his body. Heat
rising inside of him, Chris shakes his head to clear
his wandering mind.
“Take the gauze. You’ll need to change this if the
blood soaks through later,” he tells Alex after taping
on the bandage.
Alex takes the pack. Chris gazes at him and comes
face-to-face with his own features reflected in Alex’s
dark eyes, flinching from Alex’s intense look.
“What were you doing to cause such chaos? Do
you need to be bathroom-trained?” Chris smiles to
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show he’s joking, anything to distract Alex from
peering into his soul.
“I…lost it.” Alex blinks and sulks.
“So, you fought with a bathroom cabinet?” Chris
chuckles.
“I’m glad you find it funny. I always forget my
own strength.” Alex shifts in the sofa. “The cabinet
door wouldn’t shut. I dropped my bottle of pills and
got frustrated. I tried pushing it shut, then the
stupid mirror fell out.”
Chris stares at Alex, returning a look so
penetrating that Alex can’t hide from it and moves
to stand. Chris stills him with a hand on Alex’s
thigh.
“Where are you going?”
“To sort out the mess in the bathroom.”
Chris stands up, too. “I’ll do it. How are you going
to manage with one hand?”
“But…” Alex looks up, but he has no argument for
refusing Chris’s offer of help.
In the bathroom, Chris crouches to pick up the
broken mirror. Luckily, they are rather large pieces.
“Be careful with that. You’ll cut yourself,” Alex
tells him.
He turns to see Alex leaning against the door
frame, watching him while he picks up the glass
fragments with a towel and then gathers the white
diamond pills; some are in the sink, more on the
floor. The small, white bottle lying empty shows a
brand: Prozac. He puts the tablets back in the
bottle.
“You can’t take these now. They’ve been on the
filthy floor. You’ll have to get another prescription.”
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“They’ll be okay. I don’t think the doc would give
me more of them in case I overdose.” Alex takes the
bottle from Chris. Their fingers touch.
“They’re for depression,” Alex explains.
Of course, Chris knows they are antidepressants,
given his mum’s history of taking prescribed and
over-the-counter drugs. Annette used to take them
all the time as though they were bloody love hearts.
Chris is not around to see her on drugs anymore,
but he suspects little has changed. To show his
defiance, he hasn’t followed his mother and
descended into drug and alcohol abuse—part of his
inverse control mechanism.
“I know. Still.” Chris finds a bottle of cleaning
stuff and an old sponge and starts to mop up the
blood.
“Why are you cleaning my shit?” With his good
hand, Alex takes the sponge from Chris and wipes
the sink himself.
Chris’s face is so close to Alex’s, again. He shrugs.
“I don’t know. Because there’s blood and glass in
the bathroom?”
He watches the pink water disappear down the
drain hole, the little eddy like the stirring in his
heart. “It’s okay. I know you’re depressed. It doesn’t
make you a lesser man,” Chris whispers. “Look, it’s
done already.”
Alex steals a glance at him. “Thank you.”
Alex might mean Chris’s comment on his
depression, for wrapping up his hand or the
cleaning. Chris gives him an eye-roll anyway.
“I won’t say ‘anytime’, cuz I’m not that fond of
gore fests.” He flashes his bright white smile at Alex.
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Alex coughs. “Well, I’ll get a new cabinet to
replace this one.”
Chris stands, distancing himself from Alex. “Just
as well. We’ll have years to wait if we ask the
landlord. And I want to see myself when I shave.”
In the naked light of the bathroom, Chris
imagines a world more perfect than theirs. “Magic
mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?”
Just like that, Chris drops Alex’s hand and
sashays back to his room, hoping Alex knows the
answer to that question.
Chris, of course.
~~~
Since the day Chris had a fight with his last
boyfriend, Alex and Chris have cuddled up and slept
together most nights. A couple of times, Chris
worked till two or three in the morning and woke
Alex up to go to his room. They still haven’t done
anything sexual, but Alex doesn’t mind. He worries
about his libido, which has been affected by his
depression and the medication, and he wonders
what their relationship means, whether they’re
officially together. Chris is everything to him right
now, but they may also be nothing. He’s supposed
to be a man of the world, and yet he is confused as
hell. Whatever they are, Alex can’t help but smile
when he thinks about Chris.
Alex hasn’t slept at all, and it’s about two thirty in
the morning when Chris comes home. He stares at
the door in the dark, waiting patiently for Chris to
wake him up like he’s done often lately.
Hey, Big Blue.
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Alex listens to the faint noises of Chris using the
bathroom, but he is not coming for Alex tonight.
Chris has not refused him so far, so why shouldn’t
Alex go to him instead?
Alex puts on a T-shirt and a pair of boxers and
opens the door to Chris’s room. In the darkness, he
can work out Chris’s shape in bed.
“Don’t come in. I want to be alone tonight.”
Alex doesn’t know what he’s done wrong, but if
there’s one thing he’s guaranteed to do when Chris
tells him not to it’s to behave in the exact opposite
way. Alex approaches Chris, sits on the edge of the
bed and puts his hand over the lump.
“What’s the matter? Did I do something? Are you
ill?”
“I’m not ill. Fuck off.”
Alex remains.
Chris switches on the desk lamp and sits up in
bed, pulling the cover over his body. Alex glimpses
the marks on his neck.
“What’s that? You’re hurt.” Alex tries to pull the
duvet away.
Chris holds on to it and scowls. “Alex Whale, if I
tell you to move, can you do it? I want to sleep. I’m
knackered.”
“No, I won’t leave. What are the bruises on your
neck?” Alex demands again.
Chris lets the duvet drop a few inches. “It was the
collar. I was in a scene.”
Alex is confused, as though Chris is talking in
another language. “Your client put a collar on you?
What the fuck is that?”
Chris sighs. “That’s what he asked for, among
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other things. That was the job tonight. Can you
leave me alone now?”
Alex squeezes his nose bridge. “No, I’m not
leaving until you tell me what’s going on. Where
else did he hurt you?”
He yanks the duvet away and takes a look at
Chris, who struggles to pull the bedding back. Chris
always sleeps only in a pair of knickers so Alex can
see there are other faint finger marks. He turns
Chris around roughly. Chris fights back but Alex is
stronger.
“Shit!” Alex can’t believe the angry lines on
Chris’s back and the patches of dark bruises on his
arse, his perfect skin marked by someone who paid
for this kind of shit.
“I thought you only have sex with them. Why did
you do that? Did he force you?”
Chris turns back, quite nonchalant. “No, and it’s
not as bad as it looks, okay? I know what I’m doing.
He’s a regular. Can you please forget about this
already? I’ll speak to you tomorrow.” He starts to
push Alex out of his room, but Alex wouldn’t budge.
“No, I don’t understand. How often do you see
this wacko?”
Chris deflates. Alex won’t leave him alone until
they’ve had a conversation about it.
“I see him every few months. He pays well and he
wants kinks. I don’t need to work for a week or two
because he pays good money for a session. We do a
scene, and we fuck. Do you want more details? It’s
only an occasional special request. I’m not going to
explain myself to you.” Chris’s voice cracks as
though his anger is bubbling.
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“I can’t believe you’d voluntarily get cuffed and
flogged for money. It just seems dangerous to me.”