Chapter 6
Dan poured vodka in his coffee and headed to work. He was a surprisingly good shopkeeper. He was rubbish at dealing with customers, but people had started coming specifically to be belittled by Dan or to try and earn his respect by having eclectic enough musical taste. If he were an ambitious man, Dan could have definitely started a cult in Shoreditch. People flocked to him for no reason. It was like the Monty Python film “Life of Brian”; the more Dan tried to chase away his followers, the more devoted they became.
While he couldn’t be buggered with people, Dan liked the mundane chores around the shop and kept everything neatly organized. He remembered how his mother would bake and bake when she was trying to write a book. She’d always said she needed to do something that actually resulted in a finished product to combat the empty void of trying to put together an entire book. It was one of the many reasons Dan had never wanted to write anything longer than a feature article.
But he could see what his mother meant. Dan’s life was a shambles, but every row of CDs was perfectly alphabetized, and all the receipts were in neat stacks. The shop was just small enough to be kept under control.
With Dan’s encouragement, Jones set up an after-hours sale. There were some modest price breaks on the merchandise, but mainly it was an excuse for Jones to DJ. They weren’t legally allowed to sell liquor, but Dan had several coolers full of beer that he was willing to part with in exchange for a donation to the DJ.
To promote Jones’s DJ night, Dan had written a scathing attack on Trashbat.co.ck on the walls of the Trashbat offices. He wrote about the evils of monetizing human suffering and how people like Nathan Barley were cancers eating away at the world’s humanity. At the end, he wrote
“DJ Jones
Sweet Pipes
10pm”
It was surprisingly effective, and Sugar Ape was represented by some tit who tried to interview Dan. Dan would only speak while processing a transaction, so the hack bought fifteen CDs and two posters to get enough from Dan for his article.
Sugar Ape also sent a beautiful woman of color by the name of Sasha to take pictures. She didn’t look like she worked at Sugar Ape, with her classically elegant clothing and perfectly sane hair, but she was all over the shop, taking shots from every angle she could find. Based on the fact that she seemed to be trying really hard and she wasn’t piss drunk, Dan assumed she was either new to Sugar Ape or photography or both. She tried to chat with Dan, offering insightful comments on his “street art” until he wanted to crawl away and hide. Dan Ashcroft could not handle a beautiful woman in an elegant frock telling him his misanthropy was good for Shoreditch. Sasha was the opposite of Claire. She was telling Dan to pull his life together in the kind of calm and rational manner that was hard to ignore without actually putting his fingers in his ears.
When Nathan Barley arrived with his beleaguered colleague, Pingu, he grandly threw his arm around Dan and thanked him for the “Well scathing recommendation.” When Nathan told Sasha, whom he called “Brown Sugar,” to take his picture with Dan, she barely aimed the camera as she clicked away. Nathan threw absurd poses, but Sasha snapped a few shots when Nathan wasn’t looking. Dan was curious about what she was getting, but he wasn’t about to ask her a question. Dan had never been good with women like Sasha. He wasn’t good with sober women in general.
He was saved from more challenging conversation by Jones taking a break and joining him behind the counter. Dan watched Sasha take in Jones and Dan, side by side, and draw what couldn’t be called a completely erroneous conclusion. While Dan had been living with Jones for over two months, there hadn’t been any repeat of their earlier, carnal encounters. Dan was often tempted, but his situation was too precarious. He was not the man who had made Jones’s knuckles go white seven years ago, and he didn’t need a clumsy sexual encounter to throw that into sharp relief.
For his part, Jones kept a polite distance. Although he was a tactile person, he generally kept his hands off of Dan. He only briefly put his hand on Dan’s back while speaking to Sasha, but her knowing expression made it clear that she thought she was looking at a bona fide couple.
The next morning, Dan woke up on the ground behind the cash register. The shop was a mess, but they’d made a lot of money, on and off the books.
The owner of the shop, Craig, told Dan that if he could sober up, he’d be manager in no time. Dan said he’d add it to his “to-do list.” People without crippling addictions always seemed to think it was so easy, like quitting drinking would somehow be less painful than chewing off his own arm, or like Dan could bear being a shopkeeper if he wasn’t half in the bag. With booze to take away life’s sharp edges, Dan just barely managed to get by from day to day by keeping his world small and controlled. If he took up jigsaw puzzles, Dan had a feeling he’d be a respectable, if slightly creepy, member of society in no time.
Xxx
“Jones” got tons of gigs out of their promotional event, and it actually managed to promote the store, which was a bonus. Craig was open to more events, as long as Dan and Jonas were able to keep the chaos under control. Jonas knew the next event would be a madhouse, with the Sugar Ape coverage, and there was a good chance that merchandise would be damaged, stolen, or covered in assorted bodily fluids.
Jonas had an opportunity to raise his profile, but it would probably cause problems between him and Craig, or even result in Jonas and Dan getting canned.
Dan needed his job. He was a different person now that he worked sometimes as much as twenty hours a week. He still drank and smoked like it was the 1950s, but he changed clothes and showered three or four times a week and ate at least one full meal a day. His hair was still long and a bit scraggly, but it worked in Shoreditch.
The first time in a month that Dan drank himself sick and until he passed out was at the party at Sweet Pipes. Instead of the almost measured, consistent intake of alcohol that he’d been quietly using to get through the days, Dan had thrown back shots and downed beers like he was back at Sugar Ape. He’d even chatted up the pretty photog from Sugar Ape. In two months, Jonas had seen no sign of Dan having any interest in sex other than as a commodity to be exchanged for liquor… before the lovely Miss Sasha.
Jonas felt bad about putting Dan in a position where he’d be so tempted to overindulge. He hadn’t really thought it would make a difference, since Dan was always drunk.
So Jonas debated whether it would be wise to have another party. A selfish part of him desperately wanted to finally catapult himself into the sphere of being a DJ who actually made money. Then came the next day he and Dan worked together. The difference was alarming. Dan drank twice his usual amount and awkwardly flirted with some of the female customers. Dan acted like he was at a party. Jonas had a friend who had given up drinking and wouldn’t even go to restaurants because the sound of clinking glasses made him want to drink. He said it was something about the wiring of his brain that, even after two years sober, something small would suddenly send him back to his drinking days and he would feel the cravings as strong as ever. Dan had found a way to give structure to his life and slow his downward spiral, and Jonas had turned his job into very heavily themed pub.
“Hey, Casanova, you wanna ease off the birds? We’re supposed to be workin.’” Jonas tried for a teasing tone but it sounded awkward to his own ears.
Dan narrowed his eyes, and then he gave a wolfish smile. He put one of his big hands on Jonas’s knee and slid it up his thigh. Jonas held his breath as all the blood in his body raced below his belt. Dan hadn’t given any indication that he was even remotely interested in anything physical with Jonas, and until he’d had a long-fingered hand on his thigh, Jonas had been sure he was fine with that arrangement. He was still attracted to Dan, but the man was in such a broken and fragile state, Jonas didn’t want to be another vulture. When Dan ran his thumb along Jonas’s erection, his resolve wavered, and Dan clearly saw what was happening. When Dan kissed him, his mouth tasted so strongly of cheap vodka, there was no way Jonas could pretend that it wasn’t early afternoon and therefore totally fucked up.
Jonas reluctantly pulled away. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said, his words sounding lame and clichéd to his own ears. Dan’s face turned to stone.
“Guess I’ll get back to stocktaking, shall I?” Dan sneered.
Jonas knew working in a shop wasn’t exactly glamorous, but Jonas had never done anything glamorous. Getting fucked by Dan Ashcroft at a Sugar Ape party had been the apex of Jonas being cool. He’d never had money, and Dan was his flatmate and still didn’t know his real name. Jonas only had an inkling of what it was like for Dan to have been such a “someone,” even if it was only in Shoreditch. Jonas wondered how real life could ever compete.
Xxx
Dan tried to help Jones lug his equipment to gigs, but Jones was adamant that Dan needed to avoid “the scene.” While Dan knew Jonas was right, he resented the implication. Dan knew he couldn’t be in that environment and not end up coked up and giving someone a handjob for a beer, but he hated that Jones knew it as well. Dan didn’t want to be the old, hard-partying but miserable Dan Ashcroft of Sugar Ape. In fact, he kind of hated that git and wished he could have a chance to tell Claire she had been spot on about him, he’d been a right prick. He also didn’t want to be Dan the crazy, homeless Preacher Man. The problem was, he didn’t know what he wanted to be. Sad sack at a record shop was a definite improvement, but not what he wanted for the rest of his life. He needed a way to be relevant without being just another oddity for people to stare at and talk about without ever getting to know.
So Dan decided to be helpful. He drank a bottle of vodka and stumbled to Jones’s gig, knowing with absolute certainty that he would find Nathan Barley.
Xxx
Dan was smiling as Nathan practically dragged him to the Trashbat office. He felt his usual revulsion at the sight of the prick, but he was enjoying the lights and being pissed off his tits and barely connected to his body. He was in the sweet spot of being drunk, the place where absolutely nothing mattered. Nathan Barley had a turntable setup that he was going to use for his rap debut at a Trashbat party. He gave Dan a sample of what he’d written so far and Dan nearly pissed himself laughing. Nathan laughed, too.
“It’ll be well ironic, half those idiots won’t even get it,” Nathan said with his usual smug expression, but there was something different about his eyes. Dan knew he was using again. Or still. There were times when Nathan looked like he was on an upswing, but Dan well knew that looks could be deceiving. Dan wondered if he ever looked like he was on an upswing. It was an amusing idea.
Dan didn’t know a thing about DJ equipment, but Nathan’s setup looked good, and Dan knew Nathan cared a great deal about having the top of the line electronics.
“What do you want for it?” Dan asked, trying to imagine a price that wasn’t completely unattainable. He’d be lucky to pull together five quid.
“I was thinking we could work something out,” Nathan said, looking a bit coy. Dan had a feeling he’d be lucky if Nathan only wanted to debase him physically. He didn’t want to end up on the internet, pulling out his own teeth while people bet on him.
Dan pushed Nathan against a wall and kissed him. Nathan loved when Dan kissed him. He was a godawful kisser, but Dan didn’t really care. He needed some kind of leverage, because Nathan was holding all the cards. All Dan had was a vague idea.
Dan turned Nathan around and ineffectively pulled at his ridiculous trousers until Nathan explained there was a double zip. Dan squeezed his eyes shut and thought about Jones to get hard and tried very hard not to think about the fact that he was about to fuck a man who bought and wore a pair of trousers with two overlapping flies.
Dan hadn’t needed to buy johnnies in a while, but he still had some in his coat pocket. He put in the minimum amount of time preparing Nathan before bending him over a desk. Nathan was almost giddy, even as he complained about not being ready. Nathan always acted like sex with Dan was an exciting adventure. He didn’t try to romanticize their couplings in the way Paul did, as meaningful or romantic, but he clearly got off on the sleaziness and plain wrongness of it all.
Dan used some more spit to make Nathan more comfortable, but the more the git spoke, the harder it was for Dan to pretend he was Jones. The mixture of disgust and booze took its toll and Dan wasn’t able to stay hard for long. When he abruptly pulled out, Nathan was naturally confused.
“Did you come already? Is it the double zip? It’s fucking sexy…”
“You are so disgusting, I literally can’t keep it up for you. The smell of your hair gel is making me sick,” Dan snapped. It wasn’t entirely untrue.
Instead of pretending Dan was joking, Nathan’s face hardened.
“Fine, then I’ll fuck you.”
Dan stood passively as Nathan awkwardly tried to undress him.
“Don’t you ever just want to kill yourself?” Dan asked, surprised to hear his voice saying the words out loud. Part of him thought it was too unkind. The rest of him was too drunk and lost to give a fuck.
“Shut up!” Nathan yelled as he tried to push Dan so he was leaning over the same desk Nathan had been clinging to. Even drunk and unsteady, Dan was too solid to be physically manipulated by Nathan, and he took perverse pleasure in being difficult.
“C’mon, Dan. Don’t be a prick.”
Dan didn’t have any romantic ideas about sex. Since the first time he’d awkwardly flopped around on top of a girl to his life as a half-assed prossie, Dan understood that sex was about power. Even with a sincere motivation to put Nathan in a good mood, Dan couldn’t help digging in his heels and trying to keep Nathan from any kind of real satisfaction.
“Bend over, for fuck’s sake,” Nathan whined. “I’m starting to lose wood, here.”
“Even your cock can’t handle how pathetic you are,” Dan observed as Nathan succeeded in pushing him forward until he had to grab the desk to stay on his feet. “Maybe it’s your haircut that’s putting you off…”
“Shut up!”
Dan was caught off guard. Nathan had never yelled at him before.
When he felt Nathan’s cock at the crack of his ass, Dan reminded him to use a johnny.
“I don’t have a disease,” Nathan growled as he tried to enter Dan. He wasn’t nearly hard enough and he hadn’t made any effort to prepare Dan. It was like he was trying to thread a needle with a wet noodle and it made Dan laugh.
“Fuck you!” Nathan yelled, pushing Dan into the desk. Dan stumbled with his pants around his ankles, and it made him want to ring Nathan’s neck. Being fucked by Nathan Barley had seemed like the worst and most humiliating thing possible, but Dan now realized that being pushed off balance by Nathan was somehow worse. The fact that Nathan could see he had an effect, even just in knocking him off balance, made Dan seethe.
“What’s wrong, Nathan? Should I put my hair in bunches so you can pretend I’m thirteen? Would that help?”
“She wasn’t really thirteen! That was just some shit Jonatton started… You’re a fucking homeless male prostitute,” Nathan yelled, his eyes wild. “Why do you think you’re better than me? I can buy you any day of the week, so how do you still think you’re so much better than everyone?”
It was a legitimate question. Dan had never liked himself, and yet he was an undeniable narcissist. He did feel superior to anyone desperate enough to pay to have sex with a scraggly tramp.
“Not everyone,” Dan lied. “Just you, you little idiot. You are everything that is wrong with the world. Your double zip makes me weep for humanity.”
“Tell me what I should do, then, Preacher Man,” Nathan said in a suddenly calm voice. “You have all the answers. Tell me what to do, so that I won’t be a piece of shit.”
Dan was caught off-guard by the sarcasm. Nathan was obnoxious, but he was normally almost deferential to Dan.
“You have all this wisdom, you know so bloody much. Tell me what to do. Save me, Preacher Man,” Nathan continued, his eyes wet with unshed tears. They were both naked below the waist, and it was absurd from every angle, but Dan had an answer.
“Go to rehab. Let your parents help you. Go back to school and get a business degree. Claire saw something worthwhile in you…”
“She wanted my equipment,” Nathan interrupted, not even acknowledging the potential double entendre. “Same as you.”
“No. I will sell myself for stuff, but Claire couldn’t be buggered with someone she didn’t like. Guys tried to give her things all the time.”
“She was well beautiful,” Nathan said softly.
Dan pictured Claire briefly and had to shake the image off. He couldn’t think of her and speak at the same time.
“She had a big heart, and she saw something in…” Dan vaguely waved in Nathan’s direction, “in this. Lots of people do. I’ll never understand it, but people give a shit about your stupid website and your idiotic ideas. You can be someone. Go be someone.”
“What about you? People care about what you say.” Nathan looked deflated, but there was something hopeful in his eyes.
“The difference between you and me is that if you sober up, your life will be better. You have something to live for. It’s worth trying.”
“I have tried…”
“Don’t give up,” Dan said, suddenly feeling very passionate about the wellbeing of Nathan Barley. “Don’t accept failure, don’t settle. Just fucking do something with your life. Get straight, and if you fall off the wagon, get straight again. Spread your idiocy, ruin minds… just don’t give up.”
Nathan pulled his clothes into place, and Dan followed suit. He wasn’t sure why he was encouraging Nathan in his efforts to destroy everything meaningful in the world with his nonsense, but he meant every world. Like Claire, Nathan wasn’t as gifted as Dan, but he was brash and ballsy. While Dan wallowed in self-doubt, Nathan was writing god-awful raps and running a shitty website. He was a cancer on society, but at least he was a part of it instead of a sullen bystander.
“I’ve got some ideas,” Nathan said as he swiped at the tears in his eyes. “I’ll be in touch about the tables.”
“What are you asking for them?” Dan asked with trepidation.
“We’ll work something out,” Nathan said with a forced smirk. “Man-slag.”
Dan looked at the setup and thought about how much it would help Jones to have some good equipment. He’d sought Nathan out for tips on how to get a hold of a good, used setup, not imagining anything nearly as nice as what Nathan was offering. He was sobering up enough to begin worrying about the actual price.
Nathan escorted Dan out of the office and back to the street, chattering about nonsense the whole time. Something about the newest version of his stupid phone.
“I really want to do this for Jones,” Dan blurted out, effectively handing over every bit of power he’d had in the situation.
“That’s cool, Dan,” Nathan said, with a hint of a sad smile. “He must be able to suck a bowling ball through a straw, right?”
While he couldn’t be buggered with people, Dan liked the mundane chores around the shop and kept everything neatly organized. He remembered how his mother would bake and bake when she was trying to write a book. She’d always said she needed to do something that actually resulted in a finished product to combat the empty void of trying to put together an entire book. It was one of the many reasons Dan had never wanted to write anything longer than a feature article.
But he could see what his mother meant. Dan’s life was a shambles, but every row of CDs was perfectly alphabetized, and all the receipts were in neat stacks. The shop was just small enough to be kept under control.
With Dan’s encouragement, Jones set up an after-hours sale. There were some modest price breaks on the merchandise, but mainly it was an excuse for Jones to DJ. They weren’t legally allowed to sell liquor, but Dan had several coolers full of beer that he was willing to part with in exchange for a donation to the DJ.
To promote Jones’s DJ night, Dan had written a scathing attack on Trashbat.co.ck on the walls of the Trashbat offices. He wrote about the evils of monetizing human suffering and how people like Nathan Barley were cancers eating away at the world’s humanity. At the end, he wrote
“DJ Jones
Sweet Pipes
10pm”
It was surprisingly effective, and Sugar Ape was represented by some tit who tried to interview Dan. Dan would only speak while processing a transaction, so the hack bought fifteen CDs and two posters to get enough from Dan for his article.
Sugar Ape also sent a beautiful woman of color by the name of Sasha to take pictures. She didn’t look like she worked at Sugar Ape, with her classically elegant clothing and perfectly sane hair, but she was all over the shop, taking shots from every angle she could find. Based on the fact that she seemed to be trying really hard and she wasn’t piss drunk, Dan assumed she was either new to Sugar Ape or photography or both. She tried to chat with Dan, offering insightful comments on his “street art” until he wanted to crawl away and hide. Dan Ashcroft could not handle a beautiful woman in an elegant frock telling him his misanthropy was good for Shoreditch. Sasha was the opposite of Claire. She was telling Dan to pull his life together in the kind of calm and rational manner that was hard to ignore without actually putting his fingers in his ears.
When Nathan Barley arrived with his beleaguered colleague, Pingu, he grandly threw his arm around Dan and thanked him for the “Well scathing recommendation.” When Nathan told Sasha, whom he called “Brown Sugar,” to take his picture with Dan, she barely aimed the camera as she clicked away. Nathan threw absurd poses, but Sasha snapped a few shots when Nathan wasn’t looking. Dan was curious about what she was getting, but he wasn’t about to ask her a question. Dan had never been good with women like Sasha. He wasn’t good with sober women in general.
He was saved from more challenging conversation by Jones taking a break and joining him behind the counter. Dan watched Sasha take in Jones and Dan, side by side, and draw what couldn’t be called a completely erroneous conclusion. While Dan had been living with Jones for over two months, there hadn’t been any repeat of their earlier, carnal encounters. Dan was often tempted, but his situation was too precarious. He was not the man who had made Jones’s knuckles go white seven years ago, and he didn’t need a clumsy sexual encounter to throw that into sharp relief.
For his part, Jones kept a polite distance. Although he was a tactile person, he generally kept his hands off of Dan. He only briefly put his hand on Dan’s back while speaking to Sasha, but her knowing expression made it clear that she thought she was looking at a bona fide couple.
The next morning, Dan woke up on the ground behind the cash register. The shop was a mess, but they’d made a lot of money, on and off the books.
The owner of the shop, Craig, told Dan that if he could sober up, he’d be manager in no time. Dan said he’d add it to his “to-do list.” People without crippling addictions always seemed to think it was so easy, like quitting drinking would somehow be less painful than chewing off his own arm, or like Dan could bear being a shopkeeper if he wasn’t half in the bag. With booze to take away life’s sharp edges, Dan just barely managed to get by from day to day by keeping his world small and controlled. If he took up jigsaw puzzles, Dan had a feeling he’d be a respectable, if slightly creepy, member of society in no time.
Xxx
“Jones” got tons of gigs out of their promotional event, and it actually managed to promote the store, which was a bonus. Craig was open to more events, as long as Dan and Jonas were able to keep the chaos under control. Jonas knew the next event would be a madhouse, with the Sugar Ape coverage, and there was a good chance that merchandise would be damaged, stolen, or covered in assorted bodily fluids.
Jonas had an opportunity to raise his profile, but it would probably cause problems between him and Craig, or even result in Jonas and Dan getting canned.
Dan needed his job. He was a different person now that he worked sometimes as much as twenty hours a week. He still drank and smoked like it was the 1950s, but he changed clothes and showered three or four times a week and ate at least one full meal a day. His hair was still long and a bit scraggly, but it worked in Shoreditch.
The first time in a month that Dan drank himself sick and until he passed out was at the party at Sweet Pipes. Instead of the almost measured, consistent intake of alcohol that he’d been quietly using to get through the days, Dan had thrown back shots and downed beers like he was back at Sugar Ape. He’d even chatted up the pretty photog from Sugar Ape. In two months, Jonas had seen no sign of Dan having any interest in sex other than as a commodity to be exchanged for liquor… before the lovely Miss Sasha.
Jonas felt bad about putting Dan in a position where he’d be so tempted to overindulge. He hadn’t really thought it would make a difference, since Dan was always drunk.
So Jonas debated whether it would be wise to have another party. A selfish part of him desperately wanted to finally catapult himself into the sphere of being a DJ who actually made money. Then came the next day he and Dan worked together. The difference was alarming. Dan drank twice his usual amount and awkwardly flirted with some of the female customers. Dan acted like he was at a party. Jonas had a friend who had given up drinking and wouldn’t even go to restaurants because the sound of clinking glasses made him want to drink. He said it was something about the wiring of his brain that, even after two years sober, something small would suddenly send him back to his drinking days and he would feel the cravings as strong as ever. Dan had found a way to give structure to his life and slow his downward spiral, and Jonas had turned his job into very heavily themed pub.
“Hey, Casanova, you wanna ease off the birds? We’re supposed to be workin.’” Jonas tried for a teasing tone but it sounded awkward to his own ears.
Dan narrowed his eyes, and then he gave a wolfish smile. He put one of his big hands on Jonas’s knee and slid it up his thigh. Jonas held his breath as all the blood in his body raced below his belt. Dan hadn’t given any indication that he was even remotely interested in anything physical with Jonas, and until he’d had a long-fingered hand on his thigh, Jonas had been sure he was fine with that arrangement. He was still attracted to Dan, but the man was in such a broken and fragile state, Jonas didn’t want to be another vulture. When Dan ran his thumb along Jonas’s erection, his resolve wavered, and Dan clearly saw what was happening. When Dan kissed him, his mouth tasted so strongly of cheap vodka, there was no way Jonas could pretend that it wasn’t early afternoon and therefore totally fucked up.
Jonas reluctantly pulled away. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said, his words sounding lame and clichéd to his own ears. Dan’s face turned to stone.
“Guess I’ll get back to stocktaking, shall I?” Dan sneered.
Jonas knew working in a shop wasn’t exactly glamorous, but Jonas had never done anything glamorous. Getting fucked by Dan Ashcroft at a Sugar Ape party had been the apex of Jonas being cool. He’d never had money, and Dan was his flatmate and still didn’t know his real name. Jonas only had an inkling of what it was like for Dan to have been such a “someone,” even if it was only in Shoreditch. Jonas wondered how real life could ever compete.
Xxx
Dan tried to help Jones lug his equipment to gigs, but Jones was adamant that Dan needed to avoid “the scene.” While Dan knew Jonas was right, he resented the implication. Dan knew he couldn’t be in that environment and not end up coked up and giving someone a handjob for a beer, but he hated that Jones knew it as well. Dan didn’t want to be the old, hard-partying but miserable Dan Ashcroft of Sugar Ape. In fact, he kind of hated that git and wished he could have a chance to tell Claire she had been spot on about him, he’d been a right prick. He also didn’t want to be Dan the crazy, homeless Preacher Man. The problem was, he didn’t know what he wanted to be. Sad sack at a record shop was a definite improvement, but not what he wanted for the rest of his life. He needed a way to be relevant without being just another oddity for people to stare at and talk about without ever getting to know.
So Dan decided to be helpful. He drank a bottle of vodka and stumbled to Jones’s gig, knowing with absolute certainty that he would find Nathan Barley.
Xxx
Dan was smiling as Nathan practically dragged him to the Trashbat office. He felt his usual revulsion at the sight of the prick, but he was enjoying the lights and being pissed off his tits and barely connected to his body. He was in the sweet spot of being drunk, the place where absolutely nothing mattered. Nathan Barley had a turntable setup that he was going to use for his rap debut at a Trashbat party. He gave Dan a sample of what he’d written so far and Dan nearly pissed himself laughing. Nathan laughed, too.
“It’ll be well ironic, half those idiots won’t even get it,” Nathan said with his usual smug expression, but there was something different about his eyes. Dan knew he was using again. Or still. There were times when Nathan looked like he was on an upswing, but Dan well knew that looks could be deceiving. Dan wondered if he ever looked like he was on an upswing. It was an amusing idea.
Dan didn’t know a thing about DJ equipment, but Nathan’s setup looked good, and Dan knew Nathan cared a great deal about having the top of the line electronics.
“What do you want for it?” Dan asked, trying to imagine a price that wasn’t completely unattainable. He’d be lucky to pull together five quid.
“I was thinking we could work something out,” Nathan said, looking a bit coy. Dan had a feeling he’d be lucky if Nathan only wanted to debase him physically. He didn’t want to end up on the internet, pulling out his own teeth while people bet on him.
Dan pushed Nathan against a wall and kissed him. Nathan loved when Dan kissed him. He was a godawful kisser, but Dan didn’t really care. He needed some kind of leverage, because Nathan was holding all the cards. All Dan had was a vague idea.
Dan turned Nathan around and ineffectively pulled at his ridiculous trousers until Nathan explained there was a double zip. Dan squeezed his eyes shut and thought about Jones to get hard and tried very hard not to think about the fact that he was about to fuck a man who bought and wore a pair of trousers with two overlapping flies.
Dan hadn’t needed to buy johnnies in a while, but he still had some in his coat pocket. He put in the minimum amount of time preparing Nathan before bending him over a desk. Nathan was almost giddy, even as he complained about not being ready. Nathan always acted like sex with Dan was an exciting adventure. He didn’t try to romanticize their couplings in the way Paul did, as meaningful or romantic, but he clearly got off on the sleaziness and plain wrongness of it all.
Dan used some more spit to make Nathan more comfortable, but the more the git spoke, the harder it was for Dan to pretend he was Jones. The mixture of disgust and booze took its toll and Dan wasn’t able to stay hard for long. When he abruptly pulled out, Nathan was naturally confused.
“Did you come already? Is it the double zip? It’s fucking sexy…”
“You are so disgusting, I literally can’t keep it up for you. The smell of your hair gel is making me sick,” Dan snapped. It wasn’t entirely untrue.
Instead of pretending Dan was joking, Nathan’s face hardened.
“Fine, then I’ll fuck you.”
Dan stood passively as Nathan awkwardly tried to undress him.
“Don’t you ever just want to kill yourself?” Dan asked, surprised to hear his voice saying the words out loud. Part of him thought it was too unkind. The rest of him was too drunk and lost to give a fuck.
“Shut up!” Nathan yelled as he tried to push Dan so he was leaning over the same desk Nathan had been clinging to. Even drunk and unsteady, Dan was too solid to be physically manipulated by Nathan, and he took perverse pleasure in being difficult.
“C’mon, Dan. Don’t be a prick.”
Dan didn’t have any romantic ideas about sex. Since the first time he’d awkwardly flopped around on top of a girl to his life as a half-assed prossie, Dan understood that sex was about power. Even with a sincere motivation to put Nathan in a good mood, Dan couldn’t help digging in his heels and trying to keep Nathan from any kind of real satisfaction.
“Bend over, for fuck’s sake,” Nathan whined. “I’m starting to lose wood, here.”
“Even your cock can’t handle how pathetic you are,” Dan observed as Nathan succeeded in pushing him forward until he had to grab the desk to stay on his feet. “Maybe it’s your haircut that’s putting you off…”
“Shut up!”
Dan was caught off guard. Nathan had never yelled at him before.
When he felt Nathan’s cock at the crack of his ass, Dan reminded him to use a johnny.
“I don’t have a disease,” Nathan growled as he tried to enter Dan. He wasn’t nearly hard enough and he hadn’t made any effort to prepare Dan. It was like he was trying to thread a needle with a wet noodle and it made Dan laugh.
“Fuck you!” Nathan yelled, pushing Dan into the desk. Dan stumbled with his pants around his ankles, and it made him want to ring Nathan’s neck. Being fucked by Nathan Barley had seemed like the worst and most humiliating thing possible, but Dan now realized that being pushed off balance by Nathan was somehow worse. The fact that Nathan could see he had an effect, even just in knocking him off balance, made Dan seethe.
“What’s wrong, Nathan? Should I put my hair in bunches so you can pretend I’m thirteen? Would that help?”
“She wasn’t really thirteen! That was just some shit Jonatton started… You’re a fucking homeless male prostitute,” Nathan yelled, his eyes wild. “Why do you think you’re better than me? I can buy you any day of the week, so how do you still think you’re so much better than everyone?”
It was a legitimate question. Dan had never liked himself, and yet he was an undeniable narcissist. He did feel superior to anyone desperate enough to pay to have sex with a scraggly tramp.
“Not everyone,” Dan lied. “Just you, you little idiot. You are everything that is wrong with the world. Your double zip makes me weep for humanity.”
“Tell me what I should do, then, Preacher Man,” Nathan said in a suddenly calm voice. “You have all the answers. Tell me what to do, so that I won’t be a piece of shit.”
Dan was caught off-guard by the sarcasm. Nathan was obnoxious, but he was normally almost deferential to Dan.
“You have all this wisdom, you know so bloody much. Tell me what to do. Save me, Preacher Man,” Nathan continued, his eyes wet with unshed tears. They were both naked below the waist, and it was absurd from every angle, but Dan had an answer.
“Go to rehab. Let your parents help you. Go back to school and get a business degree. Claire saw something worthwhile in you…”
“She wanted my equipment,” Nathan interrupted, not even acknowledging the potential double entendre. “Same as you.”
“No. I will sell myself for stuff, but Claire couldn’t be buggered with someone she didn’t like. Guys tried to give her things all the time.”
“She was well beautiful,” Nathan said softly.
Dan pictured Claire briefly and had to shake the image off. He couldn’t think of her and speak at the same time.
“She had a big heart, and she saw something in…” Dan vaguely waved in Nathan’s direction, “in this. Lots of people do. I’ll never understand it, but people give a shit about your stupid website and your idiotic ideas. You can be someone. Go be someone.”
“What about you? People care about what you say.” Nathan looked deflated, but there was something hopeful in his eyes.
“The difference between you and me is that if you sober up, your life will be better. You have something to live for. It’s worth trying.”
“I have tried…”
“Don’t give up,” Dan said, suddenly feeling very passionate about the wellbeing of Nathan Barley. “Don’t accept failure, don’t settle. Just fucking do something with your life. Get straight, and if you fall off the wagon, get straight again. Spread your idiocy, ruin minds… just don’t give up.”
Nathan pulled his clothes into place, and Dan followed suit. He wasn’t sure why he was encouraging Nathan in his efforts to destroy everything meaningful in the world with his nonsense, but he meant every world. Like Claire, Nathan wasn’t as gifted as Dan, but he was brash and ballsy. While Dan wallowed in self-doubt, Nathan was writing god-awful raps and running a shitty website. He was a cancer on society, but at least he was a part of it instead of a sullen bystander.
“I’ve got some ideas,” Nathan said as he swiped at the tears in his eyes. “I’ll be in touch about the tables.”
“What are you asking for them?” Dan asked with trepidation.
“We’ll work something out,” Nathan said with a forced smirk. “Man-slag.”
Dan looked at the setup and thought about how much it would help Jones to have some good equipment. He’d sought Nathan out for tips on how to get a hold of a good, used setup, not imagining anything nearly as nice as what Nathan was offering. He was sobering up enough to begin worrying about the actual price.
Nathan escorted Dan out of the office and back to the street, chattering about nonsense the whole time. Something about the newest version of his stupid phone.
“I really want to do this for Jones,” Dan blurted out, effectively handing over every bit of power he’d had in the situation.
“That’s cool, Dan,” Nathan said, with a hint of a sad smile. “He must be able to suck a bowling ball through a straw, right?”