3. Dan Ashcroft
Vince’s boots were amazing, but he’d lost the feeling in his toes before he made it to the tube. He was worried about making it through the night. He’d spent hours on his hair, in hopes that it would distract everyone from the pain in his face.
When he saw the line outside the club, his heart sank. His feet were going to fall off before he had a drink.
He was trying to figure out a way to lean against the wall without snagging the material of his jumpsuit when he heard someone yell, “Are you fucking kidding me!”
He turned to look at the motley crew approaching the club. They looked like they’d all just woken up in a pile in a gutter. Vince could feel in his soul that they were Very Important People. No one went to a club in Shoreditch in dirty trainers if they weren’t Important.
Vince couldn’t help but openly stare as the group walked by. A young, dark-haired girl with the group stopped in front of Vince.
“Oh my god! How are you standing in those boots?”
Vince shrugged. “Used to it. I don’t even notice the pain anymore.”
She was a pretty girl with luminous eyes.
“Don’t talk to them!” a man yelled. “Don’t encourage the rabble…”
Vince watched a man amble towards them on unsteady feet.
“Stitch?” Vince asked. He knew Stitch’s hair would never be so artfully mussed nor his t-shirt so ironic, but the resemblance was uncanny.
“Stitch?” the man returned his query.
“He’s a mate of mine,” Vince explained, but he was pretty sure the man didn’t care, as he threw his arm around Vince and pulled him into the group.
“YOU,” the man said with far too much emphasis, “look like my flat mate. Except you’re taller and better for leaning on.”
“You are so pissed, Dan,” the girl said in a lecturing way. She looked Vince’s age, but she had an almost maternal tone. “How are you going to write about this club? You aren’t going to remember it.”
Dan rested his head on Vince’s, thoughtlessly crushing his hair, but Vince didn’t dare protest, as he was only feet from being inside the club.
“I don’t have to remember it,” Dan murmured. “That’s why we take pictures, Claire. That’s why we take pictures.”
Xxx
As soon as they were through the door, Dan yelled, “Drinks!” and charged towards the bar, like a warrior going into battle.
“Your boyfriend seems nice,” Vince yelled at the pretty girl. “Very, um…”
“He’s my brother, and he’s not usually like this,” the girl yelled back. Vince could barely hear her, but her lips were easy to read. “At least, he wasn’t like that. I don’t know what he’s like anymore.”
Vince pointed at himself and yelled his name. The girl yelled back, “Claire!”
Dan returned and put beers in Vince and Claire’s hands. He put his arm around Vince and squeezed before yelling directly into his ear.
“If you touch my sister, I will actually kill you. I will punch into your chest cavity and pull out your heart and show it to you before I…”
Vince didn’t think it was worth quibbling when Claire got between them and yelled that Vince was “clearly gay.” His terror turned into a different kind of excitement when Dan gave his arm another squeeze. Death threats aside, Vince liked having Dan’s hands on his body.
“Clearly,” Dan repeated.
Dan gave him a wolfish smile, and Vince felt unsteady on his feet. He leaned heavily on Dan and repeated, in what he hoped was a sexy tone, “Clearly.”
Xxx
Dan put a small brown bottle under Vince’s nose and told him to sniff, so he did. He then rested his head against the men’s room stall so he wouldn’t fall over. He heard himself saying, “Fuck me, please,” but he felt like he had no control over what he was saying. He felt empty and needy, and Dan’s hands were everywhere. When he felt Dan’s cock against his arse, Vince was surprised to realize his jumpsuit was down around his knees.
“How’d I get naked?” Vince asked, causing Dan to laugh uproariously. Vince groaned as Dan stroked Vince’s cock while fingering his ass.
“You are something else,” Dan murmured.
Vince groaned and pushed himself into Dan’s fingers. Like getting naked, his arse seemed to be stretching with little to no effort. Stitch usually spent ages getting Vince ready, but Dan had at least three fingers inside of him in what felt like no time at all.
Dan covered his mouth, but Vince could still hear his moans echoing through the bathroom as Dan entered him. Dan shushed him, but his cock felt insanely large inside of Vince.
“You really love it, don’t you?” Dan whispered. “You can’t get enough of my cock, can you?”
Vince whimpered and came as soon as Dan gave his cock another stroke. Vince desperately grabbed on to the wall and reached back for Dan in a vain attempt not to fall over as he was fucked into oblivion. Vince was confused when Dan suddenly pulled out and he felt a warmth trickling down his rear end.
“Fuck,” Dan whispered. “What the fuck did I just do?”
Vince had a similar question in mind. Stitch had always worn a condom. Vince had never had to ask.
“I need a drink,” Dan said before stumbling out of the stall. “I’ll get you a drink. A big, big drink.”
Vince was torn between trying to clean himself off and just getting dressed when a strange voice said, “Well, well, well.”
Vince jumped and scurried to cover himself. His limbs were rubbery and hard to control as he pulled the jumpsuit back into place.
“No rush, beautiful,” the man said, and multiple unseen people laughed. Vince panicked and felt the simultaneous need to run and vomit, but he couldn’t decide which to do first. He was too drunk and high and post-orgasmic to make decisions.
“Calm down, beautiful. You won’t even notice a few more…”
Vince kicked the man in the shins and screamed, “Don’t touch me! Don’t you fucking touch me! Go away!” He kept screaming until the man had backed away enough for Vince to make an escape. He barely registered the demeaning comments he left in his wake; he was too busy running for the door. He pushed through the door and stumbled back into the club and into Claire’s arms.
“Oh my god, Vince! Are you all right? Why are you crying?”
Vince touched his numb face and felt tears.
“I don’t know!” he yelled honestly.
“Was it… Dan?” Claire looked so sincerely worried that Vince swore up and down that Dan had had nothing to do with it and that he was a good person, bordering on a veritable Prince Charming.
When Dan reappeared with drinks, he gave Claire another beer and a glass of amber liquid to Vince. It burned, but Vince felt better. It felt like the kind of poison that could make everything okay.
xxx
Vince was covered with sweat. He’d never been whiskey drunk before, and his body smelled strange and unfamiliar.
“Are you okay?” Claire screamed over the music. Vince nodded vigorously, but a fit of vertigo nearly brought him to his knees. He was surprised to suddenly find himself sitting on a leather sofa with something cold against his neck.
“Can you hear me?” Claire asked loudly. She was kneeling on the floor in front of him.
“Course I can hear you,” Vince laughed. “You’re yelling in my face.”
Claire rolled her eyes and flopped onto the couch beside him. Vince looked around the room. It appeared to be the office of some kind of fifties playboy. Everything was leather and mahogany. Dan was lying on the ground, looking like he was sinking into the deep shag carpet.
“Where are we?”
“The club owner’s office,” Claire explained with undisguised enthusiasm. “Some girl just gave Dan the key.”
Dan waggled his eyebrows, and Vince again felt woozy. His memory of the bathroom was hazy, but he could still hear Dan groaning in his ear. Dan looked like he’d been to hell and back, and it suited him. Vince wanted to curl up next to him on the floor and bask in his unfettered hedonism.
Vince was curious as to how he’d ended up in the room, when seconds ago he’d been on the dance floor with Claire, but he was certain asking the question would only lead to embarrassment.
“You scared me out there. You were dancing and then your eyes rolled back in your head like a fucking horror movie.” Claire’s tone was angry, but her eyes were full of concern.
“What did you take other than poppers?” Dan asked from the floor. “Did you do any coke?”
Vince giggled at the idea. His experience with drugs included smoking pot twice, taking some diet pills his mate’s mum had had to sneak into the country, and (more recently) doing poppers with Dan before having unprotected sex in a public bathroom.
“I’m serious,” Dan said, raising himself up onto his elbows. “You could have a stroke or a heart attack. Poppers and coke are a bad combo.”
“You didn’t do any coke, did you?” Claire asked Dan. Dan was laughably transparent as he shook his head no. Vince had always wanted a sibling, and he enjoyed watching Dan and Claire interact. They had an odd relationship, but they clearly cared about one another. Vince imagined having a bossy little sister or a brooding older brother to worry about him. Perhaps someone to keep him from doing poppers and having unprotected sex in a men’s room, in a pathetic attempt to be cool.
As Claire rinsed the flannel from the back of Vince’s neck in an ornate marble basin, Vince looked at himself in the mirror. His make-up was a disaster, and his hair was limp and soaked with sweat. His jumpsuit was stretched out and hanging all wrong on his body. Only his boots still looked good. When Claire returned, she scrubbed his face and made a fruitless attempt to fluff his hair.
“I think you need to slow down, Vince,” Claire said sweetly before glaring at Dan. She was a truly beautiful girl with apparently no artifice. If he’d met her at the zoo, Vince would probably have awkwardly flirted with her and been blown off. It was like he was a different person when he went out at night. With the right outfit, it didn’t seem to matter that he was shy or weird.
Dan certainly wouldn’t have given him a second look in the light of day.
“I’m going to take a cab back to Dan’s. Do you need a ride somewhere?” Claire asked after she’d done her best to make Vince look human.
Vince glanced at Dan, whose face was distant and unreadable.
“I think I’ll stay here a bit longer. Until I’m back on my feet.” He flushed at Claire’s knowing look, but the idea of having to stand up in his precarious boots seemed like a Herculean task, and the couch was very comfortable. And Dan was still there - within reach, and yet completely unreachable.
Xxx
Vince was spared the awkwardness of trying to initiate small talk when Dan launched into a speech.
“You have to be careful, Vince. This lifestyle will chew you up and spit you out, kid. You think you have it under control, and then suddenly you don’t. You want to be with the beautiful people, behind the velvet ropes, in the VIP rooms, doing lines with models and rock stars and being a big shot, but then what? You’re still the same asshole you were before. No matter how many pictures you have of yourself looking cool, you still know who you really are. You wake up, hung over and wishing for death, and you’re still just some fucking nothing. Christ. If I could stand, I’d get another drink.”
“But you are cool,” Vince argued. “You get all those things because people want to be around you. Isn’t that…”
Vince stopped himself from saying ‘everything.’
“I’m just a writer for a shitty magazine, Vince. I don’t even write good articles. I write shit because that’s all my editor wants, and now that I have written all these shitty articles, no one will ever take me seriously as a writer…”
“Lots of people start out doing shit then go on to do something great. It’s better that way than the other way round, right?”
Dan rolled onto his side and gave Vince a weak smile.
“You really do look a lot like my mate, Jones,” Dan said with a far-off look in his eyes. “He said… He told me… hmmm.”
“He’s in love with you.”
Dan looked comically startled by Vince’s observation.
“How did you know?”
Vince shrugged. “You seem like the kind of guy that guys fall in love with.”
Dan sat up and looked Vince straight in the eyes and asked, “Why?” He vaguely gestured towards his face and body and repeated, “Why?”
Vince stared at his boots and blushed. He felt sick and exhausted and his feet were killing him, but he still wanted to be on the floor with Dan. He wanted so badly to make a connection.
“You have nice eyes,” Vince answered truthfully. Dan’s handsome face and big hands (and bigger cock) and his deep and sonorous voice made him attractive, but it was his eyes that made Vince drop his guard. He had smallish eyes like Stitch, but while Stitch’s eyes were unfathomable, Dan’s eyes were full of vulnerability. It was his eyes that had made Vince forget the lessons he’d learned young about staying safe.
Dan smiled and his eyes crinkled in the corners.
“Like that. That would be easy to fall in love with,” Vince explained, as he gestured towards Dan’s face.
“I don’t think I fancy men,” Dan whispered though they were not completely alone in the room. “I’m not totally against the idea, and if a guy is…” Dan silently gestured towards Vince, “I can get into that, but…”
“I didn’t think I was into guys until the first time I got off with one,” Vince offered in an effort to be helpful. “Life is weird like that. You don’t know who you are until you’re that person.”
Dan laughed ruefully and said, “You don’t know who you are until you’re off your tits and fucking a drunk little boy raw in a public toilet,” before collapsing hard onto the ground. “That’s when you realize you’re a fucking piece of shit.”
Vince instinctively adopted his schoolboy-waiting-to-be-scolded-by-the-headmaster stance, with his shoulders hunched and his feet pigeon-toed.
“I’m seventeen. I’m legal n’all.”
“I’m twenty-five. Doesn’t mean I’m grown-up. I have a job and a flat and my parents are considering letting Claire move in with me next year. They still think I’m the old Dan Ashcroft.”
Vince slid off the sofa and onto the ground.
“Who was the old Dan Ashcroft?”
Vince wanted to know something personal about Dan, something real. When he’d giddily followed Dan into the men’s room, he’d expected to come away feeling special for having been allowed into Dan’s exclusive and enticing world, but he’d ended up confused, crying, and terrified. The fact that he still desperately wanted to be close to Dan triggered the Howard-like voice in his head that usually warned him away from anything fun or exciting, but Howard was no match for Dan Ashcroft. Howard liked jazz and tea without sugar. How could he understand what Vince needed from Dan?
Dan leered and patted the floor next to him. Vince scooted closer.
“The old Dan is dead,” Dan said with mock sadness. “But new Dan still has the rest of this bottle.”
Vince’s stomach twisted at the sight of the brown bottle Dan produced from his front pocket, but he didn’t hesitate for a second when Dan offered him a sniff. He gave himself over to the dizzying want and to Dan’s hands and mouth. He could only watch and giggle as Dan struggled to remove Vince’s boots. His hands felt weightless and useless at his sides. He was dimly aware of the carpet tearing up his back as Dan fucked him hard and fast, but he felt no pain. He heard himself moaning about Dan’s big cock, but the voice sounded far away. Vince felt like an observer, watching himself get shagged on actual shag carpeting.
Xxx
Vince woke up with a pounding headache. After throwing up, taking some painkillers, and then throwing up some more, he stepped into the shower and cried out as the water hit his back. After arranging his mirrors to give him a good look, he saw that his back looked like someone had gone after him with a cheese grater.
He tried putting medicine on his back but ended up crying and taking everything he could find in his paltry medicine cabinet that might help him sleep before going back to bed.
Xxx
Vince woke up confused and still in pain.
“Vincey!” his landlady called through the door. “Your boss is here to check on you. I told him you’ve been terribly ill.”
Vince’s eyes filled with tears for several reasons, not least because his landlady was trying to protect his job. He wiped his eyes and staggered to the door, grateful to see Howard and not Bob Fossil on the other side.
Howard winced at Vince’s appearance and took a step back.
“It must be the flu,” Mrs. Anders said in her squeaky little voice. “He’s been sick all night and all day.”
Vince nodded. “You probably shouldn’t be around me, Howard.”
“Nonsense. The Moon men are known for their vigorous immune systems,” Howard announced. “And I brought soup.”
Vince reluctantly allowed Howard into his room, and Mrs. Anders gave him a wink behind Howard’s back. She loved all her tenants, but Vince had barely turned sixteen when he’d moved in. She always insisted she needed to care for him for his mother’s sake (and they never discussed the fact that his mother never visited or called).
“Quiet night in?” Howard asked with a laddish wink before smacking Vince on the back. Vince dropped to his knees like a ragdoll. The room was spinning as Howard pulled up the back of Vince’s shirt and gasped. As the pain receded, it occurred to Vince that he would have to explain the injury to Howard. The shame he felt was overwhelming.
“No crying, Vince,” Howard tutted as he carefully pulled Vince off of the ground. “Stiff upper lip. Now, where do you keep your first aid supplies?”
Vince pointed towards the left of the two cabinets in his room. The one on the right held his plate, cup, and two mugs, as well as any food items he might have, and the left served as a medicine cabinet/overflow for his hair care products.
Howard kept up a running commentary about all the things that were wrong with Vince’s flat and lifestyle as he gathered supplies.
“There’s nothing but junk in your cupboards,” Howard scolded. “Have you heard of rice?”
“I’ve heard of Rice Krispies.”
Vince felt warmed when his joke got a laugh. Then he began crying as Howard carefully pulled up his t-shirt. Howard was blathering on about infection when it occurred to Vince that Howard was touching the open wounds on Vince’s back.
“Howard, you should be wearing gloves or something,” Vince whimpered through the pain as he tried to pull away from Howard’s firm grip on his arm. “Wash your hands.”
“I am wearing gloves,” Howard snorted. “I am never without a pair of latex gloves. Not since Bob Fossil made me massage his… Hang on. Why are you worried about me wearing gloves?”
Vince tried to think of a clever lie, but he was too tired and scared, so he stayed silent.
“Little Man,” Howard asked in his nicest tone, “is there something you want to tell me? Off the record, of course. Just between us. Don’t think of me as your supervisor, think of me as your older, wiser, worldlier, far more intelligent workmate.”
Vince tried to smile, but Howard’s kindness was his undoing. He sobbed into his pillow, and every effort to pull himself together was thwarted by Howard’s gentle reassurances that, whatever it was, Vince wouldn’t have to go through it alone.
“Have you been to the doctor?” Howard asked during a lull in Vince’s sobs. “Do you know anything for sure?”
Vince shook his head and searched for something to use to wipe his nose before Howard handed him an embroidered handkerchief. Vince looked at the monogram.
“What does the TJ stand for?”
“Tom and Jerry.”
Vince couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not, but Howard smiled when Vince laughed.
“I don’t know if anything’s wrong,” Vince admitted as Howard soothingly stroked his hair. “I just… I wasn’t careful. I think he usually is more careful, but…”
There was no way to complete the sentence. Vince couldn’t tell Howard he’d had sex with a stranger in a toilet and then went back for more. He vaguely remembered Dan tossing a used johnny into the elegant wastepaper basket as they’d exited the office. He hoped whatever girl had let Dan into the office in the first place didn’t get into trouble over that johnny. She’d probably been hoping for time alone with Dan, not to have her boss’s office turned into an infirmary/gay sex club.
Howard took his hand from Vince’s head, and Vince mourned the loss.
“We’ll get you checked out,” Howard promised.
“I’m sorry, Howard.”
“There’s no reason to apologize to me, Vince. I just hope you’re more careful in the future. You’re the only person I can tolerate at that zoo. I need you around!”
Vince reached out for Howard’s hand, but pulled back at the last second. Howard didn’t like being touched under the best of circumstances.
Howard took Vince’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze before scurrying off to prepare Vince’s soup. Vince watched his supervisor heat up a tin of chicken noodle and he felt profoundly lucky to have been assigned to Howard’s department. If he were working under Joey Moose, he’d still be alone and scared. There were so many things he would never be able to tell Howard-how could Howard ever understand Vince’s desperation to simply be allowed into the orbit of someone special and important?-but it was a relief to have someone literally hold his hand. When Howard awkwardly offered to purchase condoms for Vince if Vince was too embarrassed to do so himself, Vince knew that he would go to hell and back for Howard, if such a trip were ever warranted. He hadn’t been blessed with a bossy little sister to look out for him, but he had a kindly old uncle figure willing to buy him johnnies in case he ever got “swept away by passion” again. Vince cringed at the difference between his seedy affair and the relatively innocent romp that Howard seemed to be imagining. Howard still managed to see Vince as a sweet and innocent boy learning about love, and as long as Howard saw him that way, it was at least a little bit true. Vince was either going to have to clean up his act or get better at hiding his trysts from Howard. He needed Howard’s indulgent smiles and paternal lectures. He needed to know at least one person saw him as a person in need of care and support.
When he teased Howard about dating in the fifties, Howard protested at first but then told Vince, “You had to take a girl to two sock hops and a mixer before you were allowed to look her directly in the eye.”
“What did it take to hold someone’s hand?”
Howard shrugged, his cheeks pink, and said, “I never got that far. I’m a gentleman.”
Vince laughed, but he was curious about the blush. Howard was a nice-looking guy, if a bit unkempt, but women didn’t seem to appreciate his peculiar sense of humor or his crazy stalker courting techniques. Vince tried to imagine Howard, red faced and panting, shagging some librarian or elderly jazz enthusiast. It was hard to picture, but once the image was in Vince’s head, it had a certain appeal.
“Someday, we’ll meet a couple of nice girls,” Vince said. “Maybe a mother-daughter or daughter-grandmother team, and we’ll take them to every sock hop in town until they’re willing to put out for a little hand-holding.”
Howard once again blushed. “That sounds like a plan, Little Man.”
Xxx
Howard was as good as his word and got Vince through the arduous process of being checked for STDs. It took months for Vince to feel at ease. He stopped going out and just spent his nights at home, watching telly.
The only person he talked to was Howard, and he told Howard more than he’d ever intended. He kept quiet about his sex life, but he admitted to feeling ashamed every time they went to the clinic. When Howard was invariably mistaken for Vince’s boyfriend, Vince hated that it looked like he’d been cheating on Howard. Everything about it felt seedy and shameful, and it made Vince want to give up on sex for good.
“Yes, Vince is my lover,” Howard told the nurse as she drew Vince’s blood for a second HIV test. “But I made some mistakes. I never meant to be unfaithful, but the Moon men are known for their rapacious sexual appetites…”
Vince struggled to stifle his laughter as Howard played the role of the cad. Howard was incapable of acting normal. He was marvelously weird.
“Thanks for that,” Vince whispered when they were alone.
Howard smiled and ruffled Vince’s hair. “I thought it might make the visit a little less uncomfortable if you knew everyone was judging me instead of you.”
Vince ignored the tension in Howard’s body as he hugged the big man around the waist and thanked him for being such a good mate.
“I’ll be glad when this is all over and I know I’m clean,” Vince said as he tried to get his emotions under control. He didn’t want to start blubbering in public. “I mean, assuming I am clean…”
Howard frowned. “Having an STD doesn’t make a person dirty, Little Man. It’s outdated terminology.”
Vince looked at Howard’s worried face, and his stomach dropped. Normally, Howard was full of blustery confidence. Seeing him looking concerned for Vince’s health made everything seem painfully real.
“What if I have something bad?” Vince whispered. He wasn’t sure he’d ever have enough HIV tests to reassure him that the virus wasn’t just lying dormant in his blood, waiting to make an entrance.
“They have medications,” Howard said softly. “They have treatments. People are living a long time and staying healthy…”
“I always thought I’d like to have a couple of kids,” Vince said, as his stomach clenched with fear. “Maybe I can’t ever meet a girl or have children… and I wouldn’t be able to date guys either… I’ve never even gone all the way with a girl.”
“People with HIV date, they have sex,” Howard said firmly. Vince was amazed at Howard’s ability to say the name out loud without fear. “Even if… If you have it, you’ll meet other people. Maybe you’ll meet someone with kids, or you can adopt.”
Vince suddenly felt sorry for all the people in the world living with STDs. He’d only ever considered the health part. He’d never thought about things like dating.
“And you can still be careful,” Howard added. “I’m not saying you can only be with someone who has the virus. People can be… careful.”
“Would you be with someone with… the disease?” Vince couldn’t say it out loud. “Wouldn’t you be afraid?”
Howard looked Vince dead in the eye and said, “If I loved someone, nothing would change my mind. I would find a way to make it work.”
Vince gave the big man another hug. If he knew a thing about finding ladies, he’d make it his mission to find a nice lady for Howard. He needed someone to look after him, to make him tuck in his shirt and comb his hair. Under Howard’s mustache and ill-fitting clothes, he had a heart of gold, and someone would be lucky to have him.
“That’s enough of that, Vince,” Howard said in his bossiest tone as he pushed Vince away. “I’m playing the role of a Lothario here. I might want to get the nurse’s phone number, and that’s not going to happen if I have your snot rubbed all over my jacket, now is it?”
When he saw the line outside the club, his heart sank. His feet were going to fall off before he had a drink.
He was trying to figure out a way to lean against the wall without snagging the material of his jumpsuit when he heard someone yell, “Are you fucking kidding me!”
He turned to look at the motley crew approaching the club. They looked like they’d all just woken up in a pile in a gutter. Vince could feel in his soul that they were Very Important People. No one went to a club in Shoreditch in dirty trainers if they weren’t Important.
Vince couldn’t help but openly stare as the group walked by. A young, dark-haired girl with the group stopped in front of Vince.
“Oh my god! How are you standing in those boots?”
Vince shrugged. “Used to it. I don’t even notice the pain anymore.”
She was a pretty girl with luminous eyes.
“Don’t talk to them!” a man yelled. “Don’t encourage the rabble…”
Vince watched a man amble towards them on unsteady feet.
“Stitch?” Vince asked. He knew Stitch’s hair would never be so artfully mussed nor his t-shirt so ironic, but the resemblance was uncanny.
“Stitch?” the man returned his query.
“He’s a mate of mine,” Vince explained, but he was pretty sure the man didn’t care, as he threw his arm around Vince and pulled him into the group.
“YOU,” the man said with far too much emphasis, “look like my flat mate. Except you’re taller and better for leaning on.”
“You are so pissed, Dan,” the girl said in a lecturing way. She looked Vince’s age, but she had an almost maternal tone. “How are you going to write about this club? You aren’t going to remember it.”
Dan rested his head on Vince’s, thoughtlessly crushing his hair, but Vince didn’t dare protest, as he was only feet from being inside the club.
“I don’t have to remember it,” Dan murmured. “That’s why we take pictures, Claire. That’s why we take pictures.”
Xxx
As soon as they were through the door, Dan yelled, “Drinks!” and charged towards the bar, like a warrior going into battle.
“Your boyfriend seems nice,” Vince yelled at the pretty girl. “Very, um…”
“He’s my brother, and he’s not usually like this,” the girl yelled back. Vince could barely hear her, but her lips were easy to read. “At least, he wasn’t like that. I don’t know what he’s like anymore.”
Vince pointed at himself and yelled his name. The girl yelled back, “Claire!”
Dan returned and put beers in Vince and Claire’s hands. He put his arm around Vince and squeezed before yelling directly into his ear.
“If you touch my sister, I will actually kill you. I will punch into your chest cavity and pull out your heart and show it to you before I…”
Vince didn’t think it was worth quibbling when Claire got between them and yelled that Vince was “clearly gay.” His terror turned into a different kind of excitement when Dan gave his arm another squeeze. Death threats aside, Vince liked having Dan’s hands on his body.
“Clearly,” Dan repeated.
Dan gave him a wolfish smile, and Vince felt unsteady on his feet. He leaned heavily on Dan and repeated, in what he hoped was a sexy tone, “Clearly.”
Xxx
Dan put a small brown bottle under Vince’s nose and told him to sniff, so he did. He then rested his head against the men’s room stall so he wouldn’t fall over. He heard himself saying, “Fuck me, please,” but he felt like he had no control over what he was saying. He felt empty and needy, and Dan’s hands were everywhere. When he felt Dan’s cock against his arse, Vince was surprised to realize his jumpsuit was down around his knees.
“How’d I get naked?” Vince asked, causing Dan to laugh uproariously. Vince groaned as Dan stroked Vince’s cock while fingering his ass.
“You are something else,” Dan murmured.
Vince groaned and pushed himself into Dan’s fingers. Like getting naked, his arse seemed to be stretching with little to no effort. Stitch usually spent ages getting Vince ready, but Dan had at least three fingers inside of him in what felt like no time at all.
Dan covered his mouth, but Vince could still hear his moans echoing through the bathroom as Dan entered him. Dan shushed him, but his cock felt insanely large inside of Vince.
“You really love it, don’t you?” Dan whispered. “You can’t get enough of my cock, can you?”
Vince whimpered and came as soon as Dan gave his cock another stroke. Vince desperately grabbed on to the wall and reached back for Dan in a vain attempt not to fall over as he was fucked into oblivion. Vince was confused when Dan suddenly pulled out and he felt a warmth trickling down his rear end.
“Fuck,” Dan whispered. “What the fuck did I just do?”
Vince had a similar question in mind. Stitch had always worn a condom. Vince had never had to ask.
“I need a drink,” Dan said before stumbling out of the stall. “I’ll get you a drink. A big, big drink.”
Vince was torn between trying to clean himself off and just getting dressed when a strange voice said, “Well, well, well.”
Vince jumped and scurried to cover himself. His limbs were rubbery and hard to control as he pulled the jumpsuit back into place.
“No rush, beautiful,” the man said, and multiple unseen people laughed. Vince panicked and felt the simultaneous need to run and vomit, but he couldn’t decide which to do first. He was too drunk and high and post-orgasmic to make decisions.
“Calm down, beautiful. You won’t even notice a few more…”
Vince kicked the man in the shins and screamed, “Don’t touch me! Don’t you fucking touch me! Go away!” He kept screaming until the man had backed away enough for Vince to make an escape. He barely registered the demeaning comments he left in his wake; he was too busy running for the door. He pushed through the door and stumbled back into the club and into Claire’s arms.
“Oh my god, Vince! Are you all right? Why are you crying?”
Vince touched his numb face and felt tears.
“I don’t know!” he yelled honestly.
“Was it… Dan?” Claire looked so sincerely worried that Vince swore up and down that Dan had had nothing to do with it and that he was a good person, bordering on a veritable Prince Charming.
When Dan reappeared with drinks, he gave Claire another beer and a glass of amber liquid to Vince. It burned, but Vince felt better. It felt like the kind of poison that could make everything okay.
xxx
Vince was covered with sweat. He’d never been whiskey drunk before, and his body smelled strange and unfamiliar.
“Are you okay?” Claire screamed over the music. Vince nodded vigorously, but a fit of vertigo nearly brought him to his knees. He was surprised to suddenly find himself sitting on a leather sofa with something cold against his neck.
“Can you hear me?” Claire asked loudly. She was kneeling on the floor in front of him.
“Course I can hear you,” Vince laughed. “You’re yelling in my face.”
Claire rolled her eyes and flopped onto the couch beside him. Vince looked around the room. It appeared to be the office of some kind of fifties playboy. Everything was leather and mahogany. Dan was lying on the ground, looking like he was sinking into the deep shag carpet.
“Where are we?”
“The club owner’s office,” Claire explained with undisguised enthusiasm. “Some girl just gave Dan the key.”
Dan waggled his eyebrows, and Vince again felt woozy. His memory of the bathroom was hazy, but he could still hear Dan groaning in his ear. Dan looked like he’d been to hell and back, and it suited him. Vince wanted to curl up next to him on the floor and bask in his unfettered hedonism.
Vince was curious as to how he’d ended up in the room, when seconds ago he’d been on the dance floor with Claire, but he was certain asking the question would only lead to embarrassment.
“You scared me out there. You were dancing and then your eyes rolled back in your head like a fucking horror movie.” Claire’s tone was angry, but her eyes were full of concern.
“What did you take other than poppers?” Dan asked from the floor. “Did you do any coke?”
Vince giggled at the idea. His experience with drugs included smoking pot twice, taking some diet pills his mate’s mum had had to sneak into the country, and (more recently) doing poppers with Dan before having unprotected sex in a public bathroom.
“I’m serious,” Dan said, raising himself up onto his elbows. “You could have a stroke or a heart attack. Poppers and coke are a bad combo.”
“You didn’t do any coke, did you?” Claire asked Dan. Dan was laughably transparent as he shook his head no. Vince had always wanted a sibling, and he enjoyed watching Dan and Claire interact. They had an odd relationship, but they clearly cared about one another. Vince imagined having a bossy little sister or a brooding older brother to worry about him. Perhaps someone to keep him from doing poppers and having unprotected sex in a men’s room, in a pathetic attempt to be cool.
As Claire rinsed the flannel from the back of Vince’s neck in an ornate marble basin, Vince looked at himself in the mirror. His make-up was a disaster, and his hair was limp and soaked with sweat. His jumpsuit was stretched out and hanging all wrong on his body. Only his boots still looked good. When Claire returned, she scrubbed his face and made a fruitless attempt to fluff his hair.
“I think you need to slow down, Vince,” Claire said sweetly before glaring at Dan. She was a truly beautiful girl with apparently no artifice. If he’d met her at the zoo, Vince would probably have awkwardly flirted with her and been blown off. It was like he was a different person when he went out at night. With the right outfit, it didn’t seem to matter that he was shy or weird.
Dan certainly wouldn’t have given him a second look in the light of day.
“I’m going to take a cab back to Dan’s. Do you need a ride somewhere?” Claire asked after she’d done her best to make Vince look human.
Vince glanced at Dan, whose face was distant and unreadable.
“I think I’ll stay here a bit longer. Until I’m back on my feet.” He flushed at Claire’s knowing look, but the idea of having to stand up in his precarious boots seemed like a Herculean task, and the couch was very comfortable. And Dan was still there - within reach, and yet completely unreachable.
Xxx
Vince was spared the awkwardness of trying to initiate small talk when Dan launched into a speech.
“You have to be careful, Vince. This lifestyle will chew you up and spit you out, kid. You think you have it under control, and then suddenly you don’t. You want to be with the beautiful people, behind the velvet ropes, in the VIP rooms, doing lines with models and rock stars and being a big shot, but then what? You’re still the same asshole you were before. No matter how many pictures you have of yourself looking cool, you still know who you really are. You wake up, hung over and wishing for death, and you’re still just some fucking nothing. Christ. If I could stand, I’d get another drink.”
“But you are cool,” Vince argued. “You get all those things because people want to be around you. Isn’t that…”
Vince stopped himself from saying ‘everything.’
“I’m just a writer for a shitty magazine, Vince. I don’t even write good articles. I write shit because that’s all my editor wants, and now that I have written all these shitty articles, no one will ever take me seriously as a writer…”
“Lots of people start out doing shit then go on to do something great. It’s better that way than the other way round, right?”
Dan rolled onto his side and gave Vince a weak smile.
“You really do look a lot like my mate, Jones,” Dan said with a far-off look in his eyes. “He said… He told me… hmmm.”
“He’s in love with you.”
Dan looked comically startled by Vince’s observation.
“How did you know?”
Vince shrugged. “You seem like the kind of guy that guys fall in love with.”
Dan sat up and looked Vince straight in the eyes and asked, “Why?” He vaguely gestured towards his face and body and repeated, “Why?”
Vince stared at his boots and blushed. He felt sick and exhausted and his feet were killing him, but he still wanted to be on the floor with Dan. He wanted so badly to make a connection.
“You have nice eyes,” Vince answered truthfully. Dan’s handsome face and big hands (and bigger cock) and his deep and sonorous voice made him attractive, but it was his eyes that made Vince drop his guard. He had smallish eyes like Stitch, but while Stitch’s eyes were unfathomable, Dan’s eyes were full of vulnerability. It was his eyes that had made Vince forget the lessons he’d learned young about staying safe.
Dan smiled and his eyes crinkled in the corners.
“Like that. That would be easy to fall in love with,” Vince explained, as he gestured towards Dan’s face.
“I don’t think I fancy men,” Dan whispered though they were not completely alone in the room. “I’m not totally against the idea, and if a guy is…” Dan silently gestured towards Vince, “I can get into that, but…”
“I didn’t think I was into guys until the first time I got off with one,” Vince offered in an effort to be helpful. “Life is weird like that. You don’t know who you are until you’re that person.”
Dan laughed ruefully and said, “You don’t know who you are until you’re off your tits and fucking a drunk little boy raw in a public toilet,” before collapsing hard onto the ground. “That’s when you realize you’re a fucking piece of shit.”
Vince instinctively adopted his schoolboy-waiting-to-be-scolded-by-the-headmaster stance, with his shoulders hunched and his feet pigeon-toed.
“I’m seventeen. I’m legal n’all.”
“I’m twenty-five. Doesn’t mean I’m grown-up. I have a job and a flat and my parents are considering letting Claire move in with me next year. They still think I’m the old Dan Ashcroft.”
Vince slid off the sofa and onto the ground.
“Who was the old Dan Ashcroft?”
Vince wanted to know something personal about Dan, something real. When he’d giddily followed Dan into the men’s room, he’d expected to come away feeling special for having been allowed into Dan’s exclusive and enticing world, but he’d ended up confused, crying, and terrified. The fact that he still desperately wanted to be close to Dan triggered the Howard-like voice in his head that usually warned him away from anything fun or exciting, but Howard was no match for Dan Ashcroft. Howard liked jazz and tea without sugar. How could he understand what Vince needed from Dan?
Dan leered and patted the floor next to him. Vince scooted closer.
“The old Dan is dead,” Dan said with mock sadness. “But new Dan still has the rest of this bottle.”
Vince’s stomach twisted at the sight of the brown bottle Dan produced from his front pocket, but he didn’t hesitate for a second when Dan offered him a sniff. He gave himself over to the dizzying want and to Dan’s hands and mouth. He could only watch and giggle as Dan struggled to remove Vince’s boots. His hands felt weightless and useless at his sides. He was dimly aware of the carpet tearing up his back as Dan fucked him hard and fast, but he felt no pain. He heard himself moaning about Dan’s big cock, but the voice sounded far away. Vince felt like an observer, watching himself get shagged on actual shag carpeting.
Xxx
Vince woke up with a pounding headache. After throwing up, taking some painkillers, and then throwing up some more, he stepped into the shower and cried out as the water hit his back. After arranging his mirrors to give him a good look, he saw that his back looked like someone had gone after him with a cheese grater.
He tried putting medicine on his back but ended up crying and taking everything he could find in his paltry medicine cabinet that might help him sleep before going back to bed.
Xxx
Vince woke up confused and still in pain.
“Vincey!” his landlady called through the door. “Your boss is here to check on you. I told him you’ve been terribly ill.”
Vince’s eyes filled with tears for several reasons, not least because his landlady was trying to protect his job. He wiped his eyes and staggered to the door, grateful to see Howard and not Bob Fossil on the other side.
Howard winced at Vince’s appearance and took a step back.
“It must be the flu,” Mrs. Anders said in her squeaky little voice. “He’s been sick all night and all day.”
Vince nodded. “You probably shouldn’t be around me, Howard.”
“Nonsense. The Moon men are known for their vigorous immune systems,” Howard announced. “And I brought soup.”
Vince reluctantly allowed Howard into his room, and Mrs. Anders gave him a wink behind Howard’s back. She loved all her tenants, but Vince had barely turned sixteen when he’d moved in. She always insisted she needed to care for him for his mother’s sake (and they never discussed the fact that his mother never visited or called).
“Quiet night in?” Howard asked with a laddish wink before smacking Vince on the back. Vince dropped to his knees like a ragdoll. The room was spinning as Howard pulled up the back of Vince’s shirt and gasped. As the pain receded, it occurred to Vince that he would have to explain the injury to Howard. The shame he felt was overwhelming.
“No crying, Vince,” Howard tutted as he carefully pulled Vince off of the ground. “Stiff upper lip. Now, where do you keep your first aid supplies?”
Vince pointed towards the left of the two cabinets in his room. The one on the right held his plate, cup, and two mugs, as well as any food items he might have, and the left served as a medicine cabinet/overflow for his hair care products.
Howard kept up a running commentary about all the things that were wrong with Vince’s flat and lifestyle as he gathered supplies.
“There’s nothing but junk in your cupboards,” Howard scolded. “Have you heard of rice?”
“I’ve heard of Rice Krispies.”
Vince felt warmed when his joke got a laugh. Then he began crying as Howard carefully pulled up his t-shirt. Howard was blathering on about infection when it occurred to Vince that Howard was touching the open wounds on Vince’s back.
“Howard, you should be wearing gloves or something,” Vince whimpered through the pain as he tried to pull away from Howard’s firm grip on his arm. “Wash your hands.”
“I am wearing gloves,” Howard snorted. “I am never without a pair of latex gloves. Not since Bob Fossil made me massage his… Hang on. Why are you worried about me wearing gloves?”
Vince tried to think of a clever lie, but he was too tired and scared, so he stayed silent.
“Little Man,” Howard asked in his nicest tone, “is there something you want to tell me? Off the record, of course. Just between us. Don’t think of me as your supervisor, think of me as your older, wiser, worldlier, far more intelligent workmate.”
Vince tried to smile, but Howard’s kindness was his undoing. He sobbed into his pillow, and every effort to pull himself together was thwarted by Howard’s gentle reassurances that, whatever it was, Vince wouldn’t have to go through it alone.
“Have you been to the doctor?” Howard asked during a lull in Vince’s sobs. “Do you know anything for sure?”
Vince shook his head and searched for something to use to wipe his nose before Howard handed him an embroidered handkerchief. Vince looked at the monogram.
“What does the TJ stand for?”
“Tom and Jerry.”
Vince couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not, but Howard smiled when Vince laughed.
“I don’t know if anything’s wrong,” Vince admitted as Howard soothingly stroked his hair. “I just… I wasn’t careful. I think he usually is more careful, but…”
There was no way to complete the sentence. Vince couldn’t tell Howard he’d had sex with a stranger in a toilet and then went back for more. He vaguely remembered Dan tossing a used johnny into the elegant wastepaper basket as they’d exited the office. He hoped whatever girl had let Dan into the office in the first place didn’t get into trouble over that johnny. She’d probably been hoping for time alone with Dan, not to have her boss’s office turned into an infirmary/gay sex club.
Howard took his hand from Vince’s head, and Vince mourned the loss.
“We’ll get you checked out,” Howard promised.
“I’m sorry, Howard.”
“There’s no reason to apologize to me, Vince. I just hope you’re more careful in the future. You’re the only person I can tolerate at that zoo. I need you around!”
Vince reached out for Howard’s hand, but pulled back at the last second. Howard didn’t like being touched under the best of circumstances.
Howard took Vince’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze before scurrying off to prepare Vince’s soup. Vince watched his supervisor heat up a tin of chicken noodle and he felt profoundly lucky to have been assigned to Howard’s department. If he were working under Joey Moose, he’d still be alone and scared. There were so many things he would never be able to tell Howard-how could Howard ever understand Vince’s desperation to simply be allowed into the orbit of someone special and important?-but it was a relief to have someone literally hold his hand. When Howard awkwardly offered to purchase condoms for Vince if Vince was too embarrassed to do so himself, Vince knew that he would go to hell and back for Howard, if such a trip were ever warranted. He hadn’t been blessed with a bossy little sister to look out for him, but he had a kindly old uncle figure willing to buy him johnnies in case he ever got “swept away by passion” again. Vince cringed at the difference between his seedy affair and the relatively innocent romp that Howard seemed to be imagining. Howard still managed to see Vince as a sweet and innocent boy learning about love, and as long as Howard saw him that way, it was at least a little bit true. Vince was either going to have to clean up his act or get better at hiding his trysts from Howard. He needed Howard’s indulgent smiles and paternal lectures. He needed to know at least one person saw him as a person in need of care and support.
When he teased Howard about dating in the fifties, Howard protested at first but then told Vince, “You had to take a girl to two sock hops and a mixer before you were allowed to look her directly in the eye.”
“What did it take to hold someone’s hand?”
Howard shrugged, his cheeks pink, and said, “I never got that far. I’m a gentleman.”
Vince laughed, but he was curious about the blush. Howard was a nice-looking guy, if a bit unkempt, but women didn’t seem to appreciate his peculiar sense of humor or his crazy stalker courting techniques. Vince tried to imagine Howard, red faced and panting, shagging some librarian or elderly jazz enthusiast. It was hard to picture, but once the image was in Vince’s head, it had a certain appeal.
“Someday, we’ll meet a couple of nice girls,” Vince said. “Maybe a mother-daughter or daughter-grandmother team, and we’ll take them to every sock hop in town until they’re willing to put out for a little hand-holding.”
Howard once again blushed. “That sounds like a plan, Little Man.”
Xxx
Howard was as good as his word and got Vince through the arduous process of being checked for STDs. It took months for Vince to feel at ease. He stopped going out and just spent his nights at home, watching telly.
The only person he talked to was Howard, and he told Howard more than he’d ever intended. He kept quiet about his sex life, but he admitted to feeling ashamed every time they went to the clinic. When Howard was invariably mistaken for Vince’s boyfriend, Vince hated that it looked like he’d been cheating on Howard. Everything about it felt seedy and shameful, and it made Vince want to give up on sex for good.
“Yes, Vince is my lover,” Howard told the nurse as she drew Vince’s blood for a second HIV test. “But I made some mistakes. I never meant to be unfaithful, but the Moon men are known for their rapacious sexual appetites…”
Vince struggled to stifle his laughter as Howard played the role of the cad. Howard was incapable of acting normal. He was marvelously weird.
“Thanks for that,” Vince whispered when they were alone.
Howard smiled and ruffled Vince’s hair. “I thought it might make the visit a little less uncomfortable if you knew everyone was judging me instead of you.”
Vince ignored the tension in Howard’s body as he hugged the big man around the waist and thanked him for being such a good mate.
“I’ll be glad when this is all over and I know I’m clean,” Vince said as he tried to get his emotions under control. He didn’t want to start blubbering in public. “I mean, assuming I am clean…”
Howard frowned. “Having an STD doesn’t make a person dirty, Little Man. It’s outdated terminology.”
Vince looked at Howard’s worried face, and his stomach dropped. Normally, Howard was full of blustery confidence. Seeing him looking concerned for Vince’s health made everything seem painfully real.
“What if I have something bad?” Vince whispered. He wasn’t sure he’d ever have enough HIV tests to reassure him that the virus wasn’t just lying dormant in his blood, waiting to make an entrance.
“They have medications,” Howard said softly. “They have treatments. People are living a long time and staying healthy…”
“I always thought I’d like to have a couple of kids,” Vince said, as his stomach clenched with fear. “Maybe I can’t ever meet a girl or have children… and I wouldn’t be able to date guys either… I’ve never even gone all the way with a girl.”
“People with HIV date, they have sex,” Howard said firmly. Vince was amazed at Howard’s ability to say the name out loud without fear. “Even if… If you have it, you’ll meet other people. Maybe you’ll meet someone with kids, or you can adopt.”
Vince suddenly felt sorry for all the people in the world living with STDs. He’d only ever considered the health part. He’d never thought about things like dating.
“And you can still be careful,” Howard added. “I’m not saying you can only be with someone who has the virus. People can be… careful.”
“Would you be with someone with… the disease?” Vince couldn’t say it out loud. “Wouldn’t you be afraid?”
Howard looked Vince dead in the eye and said, “If I loved someone, nothing would change my mind. I would find a way to make it work.”
Vince gave the big man another hug. If he knew a thing about finding ladies, he’d make it his mission to find a nice lady for Howard. He needed someone to look after him, to make him tuck in his shirt and comb his hair. Under Howard’s mustache and ill-fitting clothes, he had a heart of gold, and someone would be lucky to have him.
“That’s enough of that, Vince,” Howard said in his bossiest tone as he pushed Vince away. “I’m playing the role of a Lothario here. I might want to get the nurse’s phone number, and that’s not going to happen if I have your snot rubbed all over my jacket, now is it?”