“Leave for what?” the kid replies. “If I had better options, I wouldn’t have hooked up with you all in the first place.”
And there it is. The reason we’re all here.
“Boy! Get me another drink,” Snow yells over.
Or most of us.
Mason stiffens slightly at the slur.
I give the kid a bit of free advice. “Snow once bit a guy’s nose off. It was about three years ago and we were moving some prescriptions up to Canada. We’d been on the road for a couple of days—five of us in a semi-tractor trading off driving, sleeping, and guarding the cargo. It was hot in the trailer because it was July. This kid named Rob complained, and Snow said that if he didn’t shut up, Snow’d give him eight inches of winter up his ass. Rob shot back that he didn’t think Snow had more than one ball in his pants, and Snow, well, he leaned over and bit Rob’s nose off.”
Mason turns pale—or as pale as the kid can get.
“Whatcha doing?” Beefer asks, lumbering up before Mason can respond.
“Mason’s getting Snow a drink.”
Mason nods and hops off.
“I like that kid,” Beefer comments. “He’s like you, though. Doesn’t like the girls.”
So Beefer does know.
“Thought that may be the way you leaned,” he adds.
“No.”
The boss rocks back on his heels, tucking his thumbs inside the waistband of his too-tight dress slacks. “That’s right. You like ’em young.”
It takes everything I have not to stiffen like Mason did.
“I like ’em private.”
Beefer smirks. “Nah. I understand where you’re coming from. I’m not a fan of used pussy either. Cesaro has the right idea—take the fresh ones. They’re tighter and hotter. Plus, if you raise them right, they won’t stray. Those used sluts will fuck any dick that waves a few bills in their direction. Look at these hoes”—he waves a hand toward the stage—“they wouldn’t give Snow and PJ the time of day outside this club, but tonight they’re crawling on their hands and knees.”
“They are strippers,” I point out mildly. This is literally their job. They’re trying to earn a living in a more honest way than we are, but Beefer wouldn’t want to hear that, so I keep the thought to myself.
Beefer harrumphs. “Yeah, well, if I don’t get off and good, I’m burning the whole place down.” He snaps his fingers, the rings on his digits clinking together at the base. Mason comes running. “Get me the two brunettes. I want to watch them eat each other out and then I want them to give me a blow job.”
Mason sets off to find a manager as Beefer moves toward the VIP rooms. “Come on,” Beefer tells me. “You can watch.”
It’s not a suggestion.
“After I get something to drink.” I’m going to need a lot of booze to last the night.
30
Leka
The low rumble of the furnace is the only sound in my apartment when I arrive home. In the entry are a pair of black boots, thin at the ankle and chunky around the heel.
I’m an adult now, I can hear her saying. White tennis shoes aren’t the only things I’ve grown out of.
The plastic bag full of yogurt brushes against my leg. Perhaps her shoe choice isn’t the only thing that’s changed. I shelve the dairy and strip out of my stinking clothes, tossing the sweat- and alcohol-drenched items into a heap in the corner of my bedroom. I might wash them in the morning or I might stick them in the trash. I’ll make up my mind later.
In the bathroom, I crank on the shower. Before I step under the water, I swallow four aspirin and stare at my sorry mug in the mirror. An exhausted, frustrated man stares back.
Beefer declared I needed a woman. He’d said that the night I took Bitsy to Vermont. He’d said that tonight after he sprayed his come all over the two girls’ faces and told me it was my turn.
But no one in that club was going to get me hard. Not the one with legs a mile long or the one with the butt that was so round it looked unreal. Not the two girls who looked like sisters that entertained the crew and moved Snow to show a deep reverence I hadn’t realized he was capable of. Not virgins, experienced women, burly men or slender, pretty twinks.
Sure, I get erections. Everyone does. I wake up with one, rub it out, and go on my way. The relief is the same as pissing or eating a good meal. That routine had been enough for me until Bitsy returned. Now it feels as if I’m one exposed, throbbing nerve.
I haven’t felt this weak and out-of-control since that day in the dress store when pieces of Bitsy’s clothing dropping to the floor one by one as she disrobed. I sat there in that chair with growing dread as my pants grew tight and my chest caved in. I couldn’t get out of that place fast enough.