Prologue: Day Spas and Murder-For-Hire Plots
THERE ARE moments in this life that stick with us for the rest of our days. They are profound and sharp, both good and bad. It’s the people we meet, the experiences we have. Finding out that your parents gave you up because they couldn’t deal is one. Staring in a mirror and realizing it was fractured though no one else could see it is another. Meeting a drag queen who could both threaten and love in a single breath is a third.
I saw a boy on a college campus who looked like he couldn’t breathe, and I sat with him until he realized I would always be by his side.
I made the decision to leave a place where I’d made something of myself to return to a desert that had caused me so much hurt.
I watched as a Queen found her Homo Jock King, even though they were both fucking idiots about it and went about it in a way that should have blown up in their faces.
I stood witness as two men vowed to love each other for the rest of their days, and then one of them tackled the other one and they started macking in front of everyone with an amount of tongues and teeth that was both hot and disgusting. Seriously. I was very confused at my partial erection.
And now, here, was another moment.
So sharp. So profound.
So confusing.
Paul Auster’s grandmother was a groaner when she got massages.
“Ohhhhhh my god,” Nana moaned loudly. “That’s it. That’s the ticket. Sven. Sven. Your fingers. They are magic. Do all Swedish people know this secret art?”
“Um,” Sven said. “My name is Alex? I’ve told you that repeatedly. And I’m from Michigan.”
“Whatever your name is, don’t stop. This is your calling, and I am calling you.”
“What the hell,” I muttered as I lay on my stomach with my face through a rubber hole. I still hadn’t quite figured out how I agreed to this. There might have been a coupon involved. Seeing as how I was a broke college student, I was a whore for coupons. Nana had said it was a gift for finishing yet another year of school (it never ended! Ever! Thank god for student loans, ha, ha, ha), and since I had nothing else going on, I’d graciously accepted.
I hadn’t known it was for a couple’s massage until we arrived at the resort. I’d been brought up to speed when Nana grabbed my hand as we approached the front desk and announced that she and her “young lover” were here to redeem the coupon. The two women behind the desk stared at us. Nana smiled at them. They had no choice but to believe her.
It was too late for me to back out.
(Well, to be fair, it probably wasn’t, but Nana’s grip was stronger than I gave her credit for.)
I was uncomfortable. Not only was someone I didn’t know touching me, Nana sounded as if she was getting to third base with Sven, ah, Alex, even though he’d only started three minutes before. Enya was shrieking through the speakers overhead. The lit candles smelled like lemon-flavored ass. It couldn’t get worse.
“Yes! Yes! That’s it!”
Scratch that. Now it was worse.
Tanya, the poor woman currently pushing against my back with oil-slicked hands, coughed as if she was choking.
“Sorry about that,” I muttered to her.
Tanya was ever the professional. “It happens. Though I don’t know that I’ve ever heard someone so… exuberant.”
That was an understatement. “You have no idea.”
“You carry a lot of stress in your upper shoulders.”
That was probably bullshit, but she sounded earnest, so I didn’t call her on it. “Oh. That’s… a thing.”
“Do you do yoga?”
No. Yoga was for white hipsters who had disposable income. My last meal consisted of four-day-old leftovers Sandy had brought home from a date with the Homo Jock King. “Never thought about it.”
“You should. It can do wonders for the body.”
I doubted that immensely. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She pressed down against my right shoulder until I thought it would pop out of the socket. I closed my eyes as Nana wailed in ecstasy. “Have you two been together long?”
Nana had hissed a warning at me as we’d been led to a room. She said that if anyone suspected we weren’t actually a couple, the coupon would be revoked and we could get arrested and thrown in jail. That wasn’t true, but she believed it so much that I almost believed it. “Not long.”
“You’re certainly an unusual couple.”
Tanya suspected. Damn her and her nosiness. She probably made it her mission in life to ferret out people who tried to use coupons illegally. Images of me in prison orange flashed through my mind. I looked good. To be fair, I looked good in almost everything, so it wasn’t surprising. But still, I’d rather avoid jail. I would be a snack. A delicious, wonderful snack for much larger men. And that… didn’t sound so bad, now that I thought about it. Easier than Grindr, at least. “Our love knows no bounds.”
Sven sighed in despair as Nana instructed him that her thighs weren’t going to work themselves.
“Maybe a few bounds,” I amended.
“She’s a firecracker,” T
anya murmured as Enya screamed incoherently over a flurry of synthesized strings. “How do you keep up with her?”
Wow. I didn’t know massage therapists were also journalists. “Tanya. Can I call you Tanya?”
“Of course. Anything for you, Mr. Ellis.” She started working the muscles in my lower back.
“I’m in it for the money.”
Her hands paused. “Come again?”
Not likely. My balls had shriveled up into my body. “The old broad’s loaded. I have expensive tastes. She keeps me funded. I keep her satisfied. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Oh dear,” Tanya breathed.
“She’s my sugar momma,” I said, wincing as Tanya resumed her ministrations. “And I’m her baby boy.”
“That’s… how nice for you.” She didn’t sound like she meant that at all.
Massages were boring; it was time to up my game. “But….”
“But?”
I turned my head to the side to look up at her with one eye. “Can you keep a secret?”
She nodded furiously. “I’m a masseuse. I keep all the secrets. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve heard.”