The Boy Who Came in From the Cold (24 page)

No
, he thought, denying the suggestion
.
Then why pay? Haven’t you helped the kid enough?

I’m paying because I can
, he told himself.
Paying it forward. Like Peter did for me.
Still, it’s a lot of money.

Not really. I can afford it. And what is money? Money means nothing if it is not put into circulation. It’s not real otherwise. As Peter taught me, it is nothing but pieces of paper we as a culture have agreed represents gold supposedly resting in Fort Knox. It means nothing unless it is used. And I am using it to help Todd.

That’s when Racine walked back in the room.
R
ACINE’S ass was disgusting was all Gabe could think of as he
followed the plodding figure up the stairs to the sixth (
sixth! and no elevator!
) floor. One butt cheek was easily the size of both of Gabe’s.
And I’ve got a pretty sturdy ass!
Gabe shuddered.

 

Some people do have problems with glands
, a kinder part of Gabe reminded himself.

True. He knew that. Knew more than one friend with such problems. But somehow he knew the only gland
this
particular man had a problem with was the one that controlled his hand slinging food into his mouth.

After what seemed like a mountain climb—the man wheezing alarmingly, his face red and covered in sweat—they reached the top floor. Racine pulled out a ring of keys fixed onto a retractable wire, fumbled for a minute, found one, and pushed into the lock of the first apartment on their right. Funny how fast he found the key. Gabe imagined Racine had had it all along. Why the stonewalling? Was it a power issue, or something worse? Was Racine up to something?

Racine pushed the door open and turned to Gabe. “Go on,” he said with a grunt.
Gabe nodded and entered the tiny apartment, only to face a place worse than he’d imagined. His own bedroom was almost as large as the room he stepped into. His living room certainly was. It was dreary as well, depressing. The ceiling was cracked, the wallpaper faded and ugly—one entire sheet missing—the floor a scarred disaster. He hoped Todd never walked around barefoot; it was a million splinters waiting to happen. The only thing Gabe could say was that the apartment was clean. The furniture was sad and mismatched, but not ugly. It was homey even so, Gabe thought. As he looked around the room—spotted the
Star Wars
toys on a cinder block and board shelf—he found he could imagine Todd living here. He sniffed and smelled incense (Nag Champa?) that had obviously been used to try to hide the smell of human urine in the halls—hell, from the stairs and sneaking from the apartments they’d passed as well.
Gabe walked around, as much as he could in the close quarters. A few books were lined alphabetically on the shelf below the toys. He saw a sad dresser missing a drawer. There was a tiny TV that actually had rabbit ears cocked wildly on top.
Then it hit him. He didn’t see a laptop. Gabe narrowed his eyes and he turned toward the apartment manager. “Excuse me, Mr. Racine. But I don’t see Mr. Burton’s laptop.”

The man shrugged. “Does he have one?”
He won’t meet my eyes. He’s lying. Part of the stonewalling? That he’d stolen Todd’s laptop?
He smiled a big friendly smile. “Ah, Mr. Racine. I bet if you think about it you’ll remember that Mr. Burton does have one. I bet, in fact, you were worried someone might steal it and you have it for safekeeping!”
Their eyes locked and… what was that? Fear? Was Racine afraid of him? By, God, he was.
Gabe did not look away. He held Racine’s eyes with ironlike force. The battle of wills lasted for less than ten seconds before the man looked at the floor. “Yeah. Now that I think about it. Shit. I do have it.”

He grabbed at his crotch for what seemed like the ten-dozenth time, but may have only been twice. “In safekeeping, like you said.” Gabe nodded and smiled. “You’re a good man,” he said and clenched a fist.

“Yeah. I am.”
“Why don’t we get it then?” Gabe asked.

Racine gave a quick nod and turned around and headed back down the stairs. Gabe closed the apartment door and then followed. When they reached the ground floor, Gabe went into the manager’s apartment right after him. Racine went into another room and came back sliding a battered black laptop with a big sticker on top into a carrying case. “You got that check?” he asked, still barely looking into Gabe’s eyes.

“I will write it now,” Gabe answered, resisting the urge to snatch the little computer from the man’s hands. He set his briefcase down, got the checkbook out again, and began to write in it. While he wrote, and without looking up, he very calmly said: “Of course, you will take part of this money, rent a U-Haul or something, and deliver the goods by tomorrow to Alexander Storage on Troost.”

He looked up into Racine’s shocked face.
“What the fuck did you say?” The man’s face grew even redder. Gabe smiled. “By
tomorrow
. If not, I will sue you for every

single thing you have. I know of eight violations you could be charged with already.” Which was another lie. Gabe didn’t know if he could charge the man with anything. “Furthermore, I will make sure you never work another day in this city again. No. Make that Missouri or Kansas. Not only that”—and then he let his voice turn as icy as the streets outside—“I might just have a few men come over here and talk to you about it. Do I make myself clear?”

Racine grabbed at his chest and fell back into his chair. “I can’t hear you, Mr. Racine. Do you catch my drift?” Racine didn’t answer. Only gave a single nod.
“Excellent. And my partners said you would be trouble.” He gave

a little fake laugh. “I knew you would be a sportsman.” Gabe tore off the check and handed it over, careful their fingers did not touch. Funny how fast the man’s hand shot out to take it.

Then Gabe turned and left. He left quickly. The lies had been fierce and not at all how he usually did business. In fact he never lied. But this time the exception was the way to go.

He fled the building before the sights and smells finally overwhelmed him.

 

He couldn’t wait to get home. To clear his head.

 

And to tell Todd the good news.

 

Chapter 13

 

T
HEYwere in Austin’s basement, of course. It was where they always went. It was practically their clubhouse—Todd even had a key to the sloped cellar door—although a few years ago Todd’s friend had moved his bedroom down there as well. They sat on the couch in the dark, the only light coming from the TV. Austin’s bed was behind them, messy and unmade as usual. In fact, the room was a disaster. Dirty socks, underwear, and other pieces of clothing were everywhere. A jockstrap even hung over the bedside lamp. Todd wondered how it had gotten there but didn’t ask, even though he was curious.

Behind them and to the left were some weights and workout equipment, far better than what Todd owned. But then Austin had been raised by well-to-do grandparents—his parents had died when he was very little—and he could afford better than garage sale salvage. Todd loved Austin’s equipment. In fact, the two of them had just finished a pretty extensive workout, and both still wore their sweaty clothes.

“Let’s wait to shower. I like the way we smell, don’t you?” Austin asked, his eyelids heavy, a strange look in his dark eyes. Todd had known his best friend for practically his whole life, and he’d never seen a look like that on his face—in his eyes.

He saw Austin was waiting for an answer and Todd looked away. The honest truth was that he
did
like the way they smelled. He’d certainly liked his own masculine scent—especially after a workout. It was far better, sexier, than the way Joan smelled down there. But that was crazy!
What’s wrong with me?
(
“You a faggot or something?”
)

Lately, in the last year or so, he’d begun to notice Austin smelled good down there as well. Like when they worked out. Todd might be lying on Austin’s weight bench for instance, doing presses, and Austin would be standing over him, spotting him. When that happened Todd could see right up the open leg of Austin’s shorts, see his friend’s underwear-clad bulge—and with it so close, he could smell the musk radiating from Austin’s balls. Sometimes it would be all Todd could do not to get a hard-on, and it confused him.

Why, just this evening he’d gotten hard. He hadn’t been able to help himself. It wasn’t even like Austin was all that handsome or anything. More cute than anything else. But he was skinny (nothing like the men in Todd’s muscle magazines), had a big mouth and a mop of long dark hair that was always a mess. Who grew their hair long anymore? Despite that, something was making Todd horny. Austin’s masculine scent had been particularly strong. Fresh. Wild. And his zits…. They’d been going away lately. Not like they’d been even a year before.

Todd had been bench pressing, nothing abnormal, when he found himself looking right up that opening in Austin’s shorts again and saw the mounds he knew were Austin’s balls. Did they shift? Then, to his horror, he saw Austin looking right into his eyes. He winked at Todd.

Oh, God! He saw me.
Todd felt his face flush. What if Austin thought he was a fag?
(
“You a faggot or something?”
)

But no! How could he be? How could he be the thing his stepfather hated so much? How could he be something so loathsome?

Maybe it’s not loathsome. My stepfather is an asshole. He’s a horrible excuse for a human being. Could anything he hates be so bad? Why, it only stands to reason that something that man hates might be good.

Yeah. But a faggot?
“Want to watch some porn?” Austin asked. “Porn?” Todd’s voice had come out as a squeak.

“Yeah,” Austin said, his voice husky. “I snitched it from my cousin. He brought back a bunch of it from college. All kinds of shit. Want to watch?”

Todd saw the begging in his friend’s eyes and didn’t know what to do. It was crazy to even consider the suggestion. And yet…. He gave a single, slow nod, and a grin fired across Austin’s face. “Awesome, man!”

His friend jumped up, ran to the DVD player, and pressed a button.
The movie opened without preamble on two naked women doing things to each other that Joan harped at him to do to her. Touching down there. Dipping fingers into folds of flesh. Licking. For some reason, nothing he saw turned him on. He looked at Austin, who seemed to be liking what he saw.
What is wrong with me?
There were sonnets written about women’s bodies. The Song of Songs in the Bible praised women. Wasn’t he supposed to feel that way about Joan’s body? Did men really feel that toward what he was seeing on the screen?

Making matters worse was the fact that Austin’s TV always made everyone look overly orangeish red.
How could Austin be turned on?
Todd wondered, as the camera zoomed in tighter.

After what seemed like forever, a door opened and a man walked in on the two women. For all of about ten seconds they seemed upset— apparently his girlfriend was cheating—and then he was diving in and enjoying the “fun.”

Todd glanced at Austin once again and saw his buddy rubbing at his crotch. A furtive glance from Austin and their eyes were locked. “God, I’m crapping horny,” Austin said with a gasp.

But why?
Todd wondered. The women were awful. Too skinny, their breasts immense, bigger even than Joan’s. But where Joan’s breasts sagged because of their size—a size all his male buddies appreciated to no end—these women’s were solid and high and impossibly firm. They barely moved.

The man was even skinnier, his face close to ugly, his hair stringy and starting to recede. The only thing that might be said about the porn star was that his cock was enormous, easily twice Todd’s length. It didn’t seem to get fully hard though, a phenomenon Todd had experienced when he was with Joan.

He glanced over at Austin again and to his surprise saw his friend had unzipped his pants. Austin’s penis was so hard it had his fly gaping open. A small wet spot had formed right at the head. Todd could see the impression of it and his own penis, which had been like a piece of overboiled manicotti, turned almost instantly into an iron bar.

Austin absently began to touch that spot on his cock on the underside just below the head—a spot Todd knew felt good from his own experiences. It was one of the best places.
Austin too, how cool is that,
he thought. As he surreptitiously watched, Austin’s underwear steadily grew wetter right at the same spot.

Todd moaned and Austin turned to look at him, and then down at Todd’s obvious erection straining the front of his jeans. He gave Todd an impish smile. “I know, buddy.
Hot
.”

Todd wasn’t sure what Austin meant. It couldn’t be about the gross things happening on the TV, could it? But he didn’t dare think Austin might be excited about the two of them sitting here, both hard as steel.

“Todd,” his friend said in a rough whisper. “You horny too?” Was he horny? Holy shit—yes, he was horny. He didn’t ever remember being hornier. “I… yes.”

Was that relief on Austin’s face? “Wanna do it?” Austin asked. “Do what?” he somehow asked, his voice quavering. He felt sweat break out in his pits and his stomach knotted painfully. What did Austin want to do?
“Let’s jerk off, buddy.”
“Jerk off?”
Austin nodded. Ran his fingers up and down his erection. “Yeah. You said you were horny.”
“Together?” Todd’s voice cracked. “Now?”
“Why not?” Austin asked. “We’ve done everything else together.”