Archive of Our Own

Jack With the OK Apartment, Whose Boyfriend Is in Vegas

“It was a whole thing but I guess he’s over it now” Jack trails off, but when I don’t immediately take the bait like some sort of starving shark prowling the waters of the bay, he adds, “Or he will be soon anyway. How many people does one guy gotta sleep his way through before he heals his broken heart?” I don’t know, but it hasn’t worked for Louis yet. The confident party boy bit was a thin candy coating over medicinal bitterness. It hasn’t worked for me yet, either. “ha” Jack’s breath is a little puff of warm air, too close to my face. He laughs preemptively at his own joke. “How many kinksters does it take to change a lightbulb?”

“Only one, but the lightbulb has to ask for it,” I oblige him. The question was perhaps rhetorical, but Jack bumps my shoulder all the same. His smile is friendly and warm in the cool night air, like he thinks I’m clever. I blow my smoke away from him politely.

“So what do you want with Louis anyway?” It’s a simple question, but I honestly don’t know. If I were sure what I wanted it would be easy enough to get it. Maybe I don’t want to want anything. Maybe wanting isn’t something I can do right.

Jack isn’t the first of Louis’ hookups I’ve spoken to but he’s the first I intend to follow through on. He’s handsome, long well kept locs, and a baby face under his short beard. I can’t imagine he’s under thirty 30 or over 40, but it’s hard to pin an exact age on him.

“What does anyone want with a man like Louis?” I counter, but Jack is less willing to answer my question than I was his. “He’s beautiful.”

Jack’s smile turns toothy and if it weren’t for the few lines showing around his eyes he would have looked suddenly shockingly young. “You can say that again!”

“I don’t often repeat myself.” Jack doesn’t need to know how this is all a repetition. He doesn’t need to know about the man I met last week who was happy to catch me up on all the most recent gossip, or the one from the week before who laughed at me when I brought up my little crush. I learned plenty from both of them but I needed to know more.

“Is there anything else you don’t do ‘often’?” I let him turn my face with his hand and lower my own, opening myself up to his touch. His hands are small and calloused with unpainted nails that nonetheless show subtle evidence of attentive manicuring. He’s an electrician of some kind. We chatted about his job for a few minutes early in the night, but I couldn’t get much more out of him than that. He says he prefers things in his life to flow in the right direction.

His job gives him an opportunity to put his mechanically minded nature, his attention to detail, and his inclination to work with his hands to good use. His employers don’t need to know anything about where he hones his patient negotiation skills, or the voice he uses on new hires that makes them freeze on the spot and actually listen to why what they were about to do was liable to do more damage than any trainee was worth. The last of Louis’ boys I spoke to was a finance intern. Before that a Cal student.

I drop my cigarette and blink at him. “I do more than you might expect.”

He kisses me. I let him. He has one hand on the side of my neck, long strong fingers, and the other meanders down my body to my belt. Things escalate and soon we’re heading inside. He walks backwards without stumbling and pulls me along, towards him, into his space. His apartment is small but nice.”it’s not much but it’s home” he told me earlier. He splits the rent with his boyfriend and another couple, all out of town. He couldn't get the time off work, but it's ok he knows how to make his own fun.

The night wears on, equipment is produced from seemingly nowhere: scarves, cuffs, implements. Beautiful doesn’t even begin to cover it, I think to myself, bent over the footboard of Jack’s bed and well warmed up. He’s striking at first glance, your eyes linger on him, flow over him, and then move on, better for it. But I wasn’t drawn back to Louis again and again by just his good looks. He has a magnetism to his presence. His gestures, the tone of his voice, posture, motion, movement, expression. When he smiles it flickers for a moment like he’s trying hard at something new, like an engine turning over a few times before catching and rumbling to life.

I’ve seen intensity, plenty of it, this is something else. I watched him talk to a few boys, all younger than him, younger than Jack certainly. Younger than me, too, but not so young I couldn’t pass among them if I tried. He likes college students, maybe: Berkeley, SF State, local community colleges or trade schools. The objects of his attention had few things in common, but they did have commonalities.

Most of them were men, certainly all who went home with him were, but he was generous with his friendship and his conversational partners were more diverse than his sexual ones. Size was another factor. Maybe he needed someone who could back up a threat. Maybe he liked to fight back, and needed someone who could handle him physically, the way he wanted to be handled. Maybe he preferred to be the top dog, and liked bringing a partner stronger than him to heel with practiced experience. Whatever the reason, Jack might be an outlier in age, but not height or weight.

We’re on the bed fully now, fucking in the most literal sense. I brace a hand on each of Jack’s generous pecs for leverage as I ride him. He does another warm-air huff of amusement and arousal when I squeeze down. Bringing my hands lower over his stomach produces a different sound. Puzzled and tolerant, not unhappy but more bemused than amused. “You sure you don’t know the guy already?”

“Louis? We’ve never spoken.” It’s true, I’m waiting for the right moment to make a good first impression. I learned what there is to know about Louis easily enough. It’s not strange really, commonplace in our modern culture. And I was polite about it. No spam likes, no uncomfortable friend requests from a stranger with an off puttingly blank profile. He wouldn’t know that I know him, but I do. Tonight’s event wasn’t advertised but Jack invited me. We met at one of Louis’ more public events and we’ve been talking a little bit from time to time. He speaks well of Louis, most of his hook ups do, but there are very few repetitions. I want to know why.

“Well you’ll have plenty to talk about.” Jack grabs my wrist where I’m pressing my fingers into his side like I’m playing a particularly fleshy piano, not tapping just pressing. I make an appropriately sad little noise at being told no. He rolls his eyes at me. “He wanted the same thing.” Interesting. I think over my options. The pieces are starting to come together to make a pretty damning puzzle.

“Oh? And what is it that I want?” I strain a little against his grip in case he doesn’t get the message. He does another smile with teeth, probably taking himself for the shark by now, and me something small and flighty from warmer waters.

His whole body moves when he flips us, softness straining to cover the firm muscle underneath. I can see what Louis saw in him, but I can’t help but think about my own body. Were my knees, now spread around Jack’s hips, bony in the wrong way? My heels where they dig encouragingly into the back of Jack’s thighs are smooth and soft as the rest of me. My own thighs are strong enough, with well managed hair. It makes me look masculine, I think, not like a little boy. It’s something me and Jack have in common. I’m not sure if it was a perk or a drawback when they slept together, or if it looks the same on me as it does on him.

His stomach hangs down slightly and presses between us on each thrust. He pulls nearly completely out each time. I keep my hands politely to his shoulders and arms and don’t let them stray down his flank. When he bows his head into the crook of my shoulder and comes, I let one hand follow his neck up to his head and cradle him. His breath is still warm, and I’m wet now with sweat and condensation from being put to good use.

We talk in bed for a while but it’s not really about him, or Louis, so I tune it out. His boyfriend, his boyfriend’s girlfriend, a trip to vegas, money problems. Do I want to wash up or have a beer, or a glass of water? Do I need anything?

He runs his thumb over the spot where my shoulder meets my neck and I tell him, no I’m fine, just a moment. We walked through his kitchen on the way in, passed the apartment’s one cramped bathroom. It has a shower but no tub, nothing to write home about.

“I really got you there, you should at least take a look at it. I didn’t break skin or anything, but it’s for sure gonna bruise.” I raise my hand to the tender patch of skin where he bit the hardest and he reaches away just as I reach up so our fingers don’t touch.

“Yes” I say, “I think it will.”

Milo From Nevada, First Year Pharmacy Student

“No it was actually kinda gross, I don’t mean to be mean or victim blame or whatever but I would’ve broken up with him too jesus christ there’s only so much you can do for someone out of the like power of love.” Milo draws a heart in the air with his index fingers and pulls a face. “They were pretty much the worst couple anyway. Shit show of a relationship with an absolute shit tornado of a break up. Oh! –”

“Order for Armand.” The barista pushes two drinks over the counter and Milo hops up to get them before I even have to ask.

“Like I was saying, it was bad, like bad-bad. Like, everyone decides they need to take sides on ‘the serious issues in our community’–bad. But I mean I’m sure they have drama in England.” When I don’t say anything in the 15 seconds provided to me, he rushes to add, “or wherever you’re from.” Another 15 seconds. “Miami,” he offers randomly. Honey pours slowly from the reusable glass creamer bottle in which it is provided. “Florida,” he clarifies and shakes the honey a few times before giving up. “Do you want milk?”

“Thank you, yes. Try the sugar for yours, and cream. We’re very particular about that sort of thing where I’m from.” I’m giving him a bit of a hard time on purpose, but I can tell he likes it. He likes feeling flustered, on the wrong foot. He wants to trip, feel the exhilaration of a moment spent in mid air, and then be caught safely in a strong set of arms. Louis’ for instance. Mine. I’m not one for hometown pride, or city loyalties; I owe my origins to something greater than geography. I let him off the hook anyway. “Portland, that is.”

“Oh! Right for sure. Say when!” Milo avoids sounding anxious only by merit of emotional fatigue. Everything he’s said so far has been a frantic rush of excitement. He pours 2% milk, at least he can make some choices on his own and I don’t actually have a preference, so it goes fine. He must exhaust himself.

“When.” I give the customary response and he stops: attentive. He hands it over. I take a sip and smile appreciatively which is also customary. He stirs a packet of raw sugar into his iced coffee and it sits at the bottom: more obedient than clever. The simple syrup in its reused torani bottle with its homemade sharpie label isn’t technically the same as sugar. He follows it with about a second of cream.

“I didn’t say when.” I tinge my smile with good humor, make it like a challenge. I guess it is.

He gives a slightly surprised laugh but keeps pouring. I let him fill the glass to the top but don’t make him spill it. I don’t really want to be disappointed in him.

“So what brings you to the bay?” Custom and ritual. He sips his coffee and grimaces. The cream swirls through it aesthetically, reminding me of murky estuary waters. Everyone is so very ‘local’ here. He moved from Nevada when he got into UCSF’s school of pharmacy. He would have been ‘local’ in Seattle if he had gone to UW. His mom is a little confused about the program but so excited to visit him this spring in San Francisco.

“This and that. I needed to be somewhere, why not here?” It’s more like I needed to be someone, but that’s the same reason Milo moved. Isn’t it? Why pay out of state tuition at a college that crams a four year masters degree into three if you aren’t in a hurry to be someone new. It’s an urgency I’m more than familiar with, but I’m trying to take it slow this time. I’m testing the waters, checking the strength of the current before I let it pull me under.

“Well, welcome to the city! You know, officially.” I indulge him in a ‘cheers’ with our drinks. “I’d love to show you around the scene, bars, clubs, shops, whatever weird thing you like we’ve pretty much got it.” He gestures around the room at different displays and signs. I’m not sure if I’m meant to seem shocked and impressed or comfortably at home in a fetish themed coffee house.

“Thank you, Milo. I appreciate the offer, but I was hoping to get to know you.” I stick my metaphorical foot out for him to trip over and he does, choking out a few words into his coffee. The stumble, the fall, the gut twisting confused excitement. It’s mundane. I never went in for that sort of thing from his side of it all. I catch him anyway, of course. “I’m afraid I don’t get out too much these days. Maybe I just need a better guide.” Milo all but jumps into my open arms.

“It’s a great place to live! And you fit right in so you’ve got good taste in something, even if it isn’t men.” A cheeky smile quickly drowned in a too-big swallow of coffee. I wonder what he’s trying to swallow down with it. What past version of him was so over eager, or so shy, so unliked that he’s hiding him behind barely humorous self effacement. I try to extend him the respect I want in return, and not dig up his past, but it’s hard not to imagine.

Milo must take my moment of thoughtful silence as something else because the anxious flood of his words picks up pace. “It’s Pricey as hell is the only thing. I mean for me. Maybe not for you. I live with like 5 other students, you could own a house for all I know you like come from money or something old Seattle money. Not that you didn’t earn it!” I see he’s swept up in the same process of imagination I am. Who am I now? Who was I then? It makes me feel better about subjecting him to all this, knowing the interrogation goes both ways.

“Everyone says it’s sketchy how much shit Louis owns around here but I don’t know that’s kinda the best thing about him really. That he worked his way up I guess. I mean, I can appreciate the effort.” That’s Milo, I decide. Effort is the string that runs through him. The shape of him settles in my mind, and I can picture his life so clearly.

An early start to kindergarten, a well meaning gesture by over involved parents, left him always a year out of sync with his classmates. 17 when he graduated highschool, only because they don’t let you skip grades anymore. Thanks to taking summer semesters, he had a college degree before he had his first legal drink. He tries so hard, but no matter how ahead he is he’s somehow always catching up. More effort doesn’t always make for more reward. And so he moved. Whoever he was before, now he’s Milo the pharmacy student: eager to learn, realistically aspiring to be the biggest fish in a modest pond.

“It’s weird like i don’t know is he gonna buy my building? He’d fix the AC, I bet.” Louis does own property, I don’t have to imagine it, it’s true. It took me a while to connect the digital dots but online anonymity isn’t what it once was, I know that well enough. From word of mouth to Fetlife. A repetitive alias, a few matching photos, no exact repeats of course but different angles in the same places. It was impossible to mistake Louis for anyone else once I had the chance to really look at him, free from all the distractions and social pressures of an event. So, from facebook to instagram to twitter, and from there an avalanche. A linktree, a carrd, a local news article. A professional website with property listings and more photos.

It’s mostly residential, a couple divided victorians in the city, an apartment building on the peninsula, seemingly random houses around the east bay. One building that had been rezoned and now houses a few small shops in Berkeley.

He’d ‘fought to maintain ownership of his family home’, and ‘benefitted from a few early investments’ the ‘about me’ on his website said. He makes regular donations to community centers and churches. Remembering his humble origins and all that. According to all records, Louis de Pointe du Lac appears to be a genuine bootstrapper. It’s certainly a more interesting story than the romantic tragedy everyone else seems intent on telling, but it’s not particularly any more believable.

“So you don’t get out too much, do you work from home...?” Milo finally runs out of steam. The way he trails off gives the impression of a long pause between the end of his sentence and the question mark that closes it.

“I work from all over.” I mirror his pause. “Including, yes, the comfort of my apartment.” That’s all it takes to get him started again. To some people it would be endearing. I wonder if I’m that kind of person now, someone who’s charmed by youthful rambling. Someone stable, who isn’t just unlikely to trip, but braced to catch. Someone who plays with their food not in a coy way, not like a girlfriend afraid of being caught out in an unattractively human process, but like a predator confident enough in his hunting skill that even hunger has become a game to him.

“Thats cool like flexible no commute. I don’t work. I mean I want to.” Milo certainly seems eager enough to be my prey. “I can get a job, they just asked us not to so we can focus on our education. It's a pretty a rigorous program?” I let him skitter about in front of me, just long enough for doubt to settle. Has he escaped? Does he want to? “I mean there’s not a lot of breaks so you’ve really gotta cram the fun in where you can get it!” I wait for him to look back over his metaphorical shoulder, and he does. ”Did you say you lived near here?” He’s breathless by the time he finishes speaking. I cut him some slack.

“I live in oakland.” Portland, WeHo, I wasn’t about to repeat my past mistakes. And it’s not like I was moving in with anyone. Still, I could hardly afford for my first apartment to be somewhere that would leave me out of the loop. “Why don’t you come over? We can get dinner. Anywhere you’d like. And you can show me all about how things are done around here.”

“Oh! Yes! Um When is– I can–” Milo scrambles for his phone with long clumsy fingers. He’s tall and it’s all awkward legginess, like the deer in my neighborhood that wander down from the hills. His torso is a short soft milky center. In the night they run along the streets like cars, but Milo jogs in the mornings. He finds the fog romantic. He worries his stomach bounces like the tits of the girl he’s tagging along with, but he’s dutiful in his commitment. He likes the way his hot breath disappears into the cool air. He likes feeling healthy.

“Now would be perfect. If you’re free, of course, I wouldn’t want to interfere with your studies.” All things considered I see less roadkill than you might expect. Maybe it’s just because I don’t drive.

“Yeah. Yes.” he takes a breath and a moment. His coffee is a solid pale brown with a thin crust of dark sugar at the bottom. When he looks up from his hands his eyes are the dark rich brown of cattle. He smiles, nervous but determined, and they flash in my headlights. “I’d really like to go home with you.”

Elizabeth With the Nice Perfume, From Louisiana

“Nice place.” It is nice I’ll give her that. Small, there’s no getting around it, but well decorated. She said on the phone that she doesn’t do in-calls, but she went along with it quickly enough when I asked, that I doubt it’s the whole truth. She probably just said it to see how pushy I’d be. Better to test the waters on something that doesn’t matter too much. If I insist she hasn’t ceded any real ground and if I agree we can meet in a hotel. It’s just how Bianca would have done it, though her advice to me was focused on other things.

The apartment looks tidy and everything in it corroborates her story about herself. She moved from Louisiana as a girl, always dreamed of big cities and big opportunities. Self educated enough to make an interesting partner in conversation but not so much as to be intimidating or bookish. Plants in the windows. Books on the shelves but nowhere else. She’s wearing a dress slightly too light for the weather that just barely shows the impression of a floral lace bra, and thematic perfume.

Her name is Elizabeth Bradley, “Lily” is an affectation. I checked her rental history report against her current address. 3 past evictions before she moved to Louis’ San Bruno apartments, 2 in California. I can’t imagine she has much by way of provable income. Practically a charity case.

“Thanks, it’s a steal, and all to myself too.” Her gestures are elegant but practiced. I let my eyes be guided around the room following her hands mock-casual motion in the air. I take a few extra beats so she can catch me looking at the bed. “I don’t often have guests.” Clean white sheets with a barely there pale pink and green vine pattern. A breeze comes through the cracked open window and moves the charmingly not-quite matching sheer curtains. Everything here is open.

It’s airier than I expected out of 550 square feet. The big windows help. She’s put in shelves with twisting metalwork frames and glass panels. Zillow showed the place mostly empty but the blue bathroom tile is familiar. It’s just visible through the bathroom door that she left a few inches ajar. A wooden framed oval mirror almost too big for the vanity it sits on reflects everything back and doubles the space. Two beds, two Lilies, two of me. It’s a clever trick.

She guides me with her hands now, somewhere between a romantic brush of skin and a tug on the cuff of my sleeve. I go willingly. She’s lucky. I say as much and she smiles in a way that suggests kissing without being kissing. For the rent on the apartment, the flowers on the windowsill, the chance to be Lily who likes big cities, for the world opening up around her. She agrees. How lucky to meet me, how lucky to spend the evening together. But I didn’t give her any of this. Louis did.

He basically gave her the apartment, at no small risk to himself, and with it opportunity. An address in a nice enough zip code that her work more or less flies safely under the radar. A landlord willing to look the other way. A life close enough to the city for easy access to high status clients. Or aspiring business professionals eager to prove their money anyway.

I understand the type of relationship at play here between her and Louis but she denies it. Her landlord is just that, and goes unnamed for our entire conversation. They’re friendly, but nothing more. I wonder who else in the building he’s “friendly” with, how many other girls’ work he’s overlooking. Maybe she’s telling the truth about him. Maybe he’s never pressed her for more than a bit of polite chit chat in the hallway. But he knows, he has to, and knowing means something. It changes things.

“I shouldn’t do this.” I hesitate when she sits down on the edge of her bed, looking down at her. The left strap of her dress has fallen down but her modesty is preserved by a loose tumble of thick curls.

“Why not?” The smell of lilies rises in the room when she throws her hair over her shoulder.

“I have a boyfriend.” I don’t know why I say it, it isn’t true.

It could be. I could’ve gone back to Milo or Jack or any of the rest of them, pressed them for what crumbs of information or scraps of insight they had to give me. But I didn’t. I came here. It’s not an unusual solution for a man in my position.

“And he wouldn’t like to know you’re spending the night relaxed and well taken care of?”

Louis would be happy for me to be happy, but he wouldn’t like to think he couldn’t do it himself.

“He’s jealous,” I say, testing certainty. It doesn’t matter if he would or wouldn’t be, if he is or isn’t as I imagine him to be. How do you get Lily from Elizabeth? Amadeo from Arun?

“Let’s give him a reason to be.”

Informative Jordan

“I’m just gonna say it once, but I’ll be real with you. I don’t know what your thing with Louis is or was or –” Jordan shakes their head, more like a shiver than a dog throwing off water. We’re splitting a six pack in some dusty corner of the east bay shoreline, near the water but not really a beach. The sunset has finished its picturesque dramatics by the time we make it to the end of the paved path and up through the grass to the edge of the cut bank.

It’s dim but not dark, and this is beer three of three for both of us. Jordan tenses their hands, fingers going wide then clenching into fists then wide again, before they continue speaking. “You say you’re friends from way back. Good. The guy could use a friend or two. He’s been through kind of a lot.”

“Like what?” I keep my tone polite and curious. I’m here to talk about Louis, yes, but it will be a short conversation if I can’t hold my present partner’s attention. I must seem engaged, friendly, attractive, not like I’m dwelling on the past.

“The eating disorder for one thing. The divorce. The damn kid running off – you heard about Claudia?” Broken cement walls shield us from the wind, but it’s still loud enough I’m not sure at first if I heard them correctly. I make a pained sympathetic face anyway.

I had not in fact, at the time, heard about Claudia. Even open adoption paperwork is only available by petition to the state court, and I hadn’t dug deep enough yet to notice the conspicuous gaps and references to no one. It seems her presence in Louis’ life had been systematically erased. There had been posts initially, of course, plenty of them. This sort of family shuffle usually ends up more or less a matter of public record, and Claudia’s life was no exception. Louis’ Husband’s brother’s wife’s child from a previous marriage, I would later learn. Lestat must have picked up Claudia on an impulse and dumped her on Louis like some sort of Christmad puppy. Years later great and repeated effort had been taken to conceal her presence in their lives from curious onlookers. Still, I managed.

Claudia was born September 24th 2004 in a hospital just outside New Orleans, and not adopted into the du Lac household until the age of 14. Her and her mother were displaced by the hurricane before her first birthday. She wouldn’t have any memories of her father at all, just stories. The hope her life represented has been so full of tragedy. Triumph and recovery, remarriage and death, despair, rescue.

The orphanhood she so narrowly escaped caught up to her just a year before the first case of covid would be diagnosed. All it takes, apparently, is a few sudden deaths and a little hasty volunteerism and voila a house is a home. What a lucky kind of last resort.

By fall of 2019 she tested into Lowell highschool as Claudia de Lioncourt, where she would have spent the first semester of her sophomore year before they closed the schools in spring. By the time she turned 16, every post about her on either of her guardian’s social media had been taken down. Her previous parent’s accounts exist now only in memoriam, and are difficult to access.

Only a few things were preserved for my eyes: A family holiday card, a senior picture, the sort of thing that gets passed around. It would have been 2020 then, and Louis’ husband was having his first taste of niche popularity turned memetic fame. The newly christened Vampire Lestat, for whatever reason, could not be seen to have a daughter.

His vanity doesn’t concern me. What’s really interesting is that nobody else seems to know or care about her either. No one but Jordan has so much as mentioned her name in passing.

I’m grateful for the insight, really. At least I will be. Half cradled from the wind and not at all from the smell of bay water that it carries, I flounder to find something reasonable to say that doesn’t give away my ignorance. I land on, “Poor girl. But knowing Louis, she was spoiled rotten while he had her. He must be heartbroken.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Jordan sounds offended but I don’t know on whose behalf.

“He always was sensitive.” I take a deep breath, exhale, and smile like I’m letting something go. “But what do I know? We were just kids. I was a menace.” People say that the best lies have a bit of truth in them. I try to stay with the conversation but I can’t stop thinking about Claudia. Louis has a daughter! I wonder how he raised her, if she was as difficult a child as I was, or if she took after Louis: passionate but thoughtful.

“Yeah?” Jordan takes the bait. “I don’t see it. You’re so–” they square their shoulders and do a surprisingly accurate mimic of an expression I recognize from my own face. On them it looks distant and stern. I like to think on me it looks serene. “–composed.”

“How lucky we are to be able to change.”

“Cheers to that.” Jordan raises their beer and I raise mine.

“To growing up,” I repeat myself, “It takes a lifetime.”

It’s a rote line but it’s more truthful than anything else I’ve said so far. Brown glass bottle necks clack together in a universal gesture of shared celebration. Their nails are squared off acrylics with little bits of wet paper stuck under them from picking at the label of their beer. When they’re done drinking, neck no longer tipped back, throat no longer working to swallow, I kiss them. The bit of foam lingering on their lower lip tastes like the bit of foam caught behind my teeth.

It’s what the moment calls for, and I let myself savor it. There would be time later to talk about Louis’ insanity and his boyfriend. Medical records, even or maybe especially psychiatric ones, are beyond my ability to dig through. Arrests and marriages are easy. Their relationship was rife with domestic disputes, but according to the court, not marital ones. Whatever bond existed between them, it was forged and dissolved without the intervention of the state.

I reach for Jordans hip and they catch my hand. Our fingers link and land on my waist. My other hand is in the squared off stubble at the base of their skull. Their hair has been cropped short in the back, but left long and shockingly green in the front. The wind blows the uneven strands around their face and it catches on their lips – our lips, where we’re still kissing.

Two inches or so of dark roots, but the color is recent, not yet faded from eye-catching fluorescent to seasick ambiguity. I tuck it pointlessly behind their ear, and my fingers brush cartilage and body-warm metal. Skin and piercing both show evidence of a home dye job, still stained muddy green. The wind catches on the crest of the hills and the cool fog blowing east off the bay pours back down into the low lamp lit streets of Albany, pools between parked cars. In the morning it will be refreshing, right now it’s just cold.

I wasn’t sure at first what Louis saw in Jordan. I had taken him as having more precise tastes. I had worried over my own hair. Is it the right length? Does it bring out the softness of my cheeks? The sharpness of my features? It’s been well over two years since Santino cut it. Less than a year since I left him. Three years of growth and its solidly shoulder length. My body shows far less linear progress. It’s hard to believe I met Louis Almost 6 months ago. It feels like I’ve known him for so long, and I still don’t know what he’ll make of me.

If Jordan is to be believed, maybe I’m working it the wrong direction. It’s a curious theory but it doesn’t hold water. Louis is perhaps on the slight side of healthy, but there’s nothing in his habits that seems outside the scope of reason. If it looks extreme when you hold him up next to his partners that’s not evidence of anything at all really. He’s boxing outside his weight class in a purely literal sense. I of all people should know size isn’t everything. It’s as possible to lose at an advantage as it is to win with a handicap. Still, I wonder if Jordan knows something I don’t.

That night I would go home, neck sore and face scraped from being pressed against the dirty cement wall, and let the soft glow of my laptop soothe me. Safeway reward points are hardly a matter of national security, and tracking data is available, at a price, to any aspiring advertiser regardless of how niche the market or how small the business.

I compare our receipts. Even if he’s shopping just for himself, even if he eats everything he takes home, it’s half what I go through in a month. 2/3 if he’s paying for meals out in untracked cash. I feel a twinge of leftover guilt at my indulgent lifestyle, but then that’s right isn’t it? That I should be different than him, lower, weaker, more human, that we should be mirror images not perfect matches. No one likes to see too much of themselves in a partner. Me and Louis seem to agree that dissonance is more attractive than similarity.

I gasp involuntarily when Jordan bites my lip. I pull back and make an appropriately offended face instead of giving into the impulse to lean in for more.

“Just checking,” they say. I feel their smile as much as see it. “Gotta know you’re paying attention.”

I pout, but they’re right. My mind was wandering. I need to stay on track. My thumb strays down their face over their cheek, their neck, the collar of their shirt and underneath it the tops of shoulders. Upper back, beer loose muscles, curved spine, scapula, arms, elbows, a couple clever tattoos, a couple bad ones. Give or take a few possible additions or modifications, bodies are more or less the same. I used to think I’d seen enough to have a good grasp of what’s possible, but I’ve been proved wrong before. Whatever it was Louis found in Jordan, maybe I could find it too.

John Chen, Aspiring Billionaire

“Andrew.”

“What?”

“Not Sebastian.” It’s a silly mistake and it shouldn’t bother me but it does.

“Oh, right. You know what I mean though. Looks like a big “X”, holds the legs open. Not exactly a saintly way to go.” John has the same internet I do, and a smartphone released no earlier than black Friday of last year.

“It was at his own request apparently. An act of humility.” Maybe he needs a thread to pull on. Something to jump start his interest.

“Whatever it's called, it sure looked like it could humiliate you.” We’re nearly an hour into our date. John met Louis at a party, but he has three different dating apps on his phone. It was a simple matter of trial, error and swiping to come across his profile. I recognized him from his twitter account. He posted a few things along the lines of “Got invited to an exclusive community event IYKYK ;)” among the more direct and vulgar come-ons that are to be expected. It’s more degrees of separation than I was hoping for, but I was free tonight and all information is good information.

Louis’ newbies munches weren’t exactly “exclusive” but as far as introductions to the scene go they’re as good a place to start as any. What introduction people need, I don’t know. There’s nothing unique about perversion that should render adults suddenly incapable of basic social functioning. As juvenile as Louis’ preschool approach to welcoming fresh faces is, at least it isn’t Roman. Janus is a fine namesake, objectively, but I’ve had enough of the classics to last a lifetime.

“He thought himself unworthy,” I continue. John looks uncomfortable with the concept. “To die as Christ did.” It’s hardly my area of expertise, but I’m well and broadly educated. And curious, by nature.

“I don’t really go in for that religious crap. All due respect to the church and everything” I stop paying attention to what he’s saying and just focus on the tone of it. He talks about the pope like they’re awkward acquaintances. We’re in a nice bar, big windows, enough stories up that they matter. The sun is setting but we’re facing east looking out over the bay, and the long shadows of buildings blur at the edges as the first electric lights of evening come on across the street. “Hell of a hustle and –” He’s having a light beer from somewhere local. I’m having a Manhattan. “– born every minute but I’m not one of them.” It felt suitably ironic. All up and down the west coast but I’ve never seen the sun set on the wrong side of the water. New York was as foreign to me as New Delhi. Or Guangzhou as the case may be. “What about you?”

“Am I a sucker, you mean?” I eat the cherry out of my drink and lick the toothpick. It’s better than it needs to be with whiskey this price. “Or do I believe in God?” John seems taken aback. His eyes flit from my mouth to my neck and then up to my eyes, like he’s consciously reminding himself not to come on too strong. “Everyone’s someone’s fool, don’t you think? Why not serve God?”

“I don’t make shitty deals.” A bartender appears and he silently pushes his mostly empty beer bottle across the counter to be replaced. “And I don’t serve.”

I raise my eyebrow at him pointedly, and he has the good manners to grin at being called out. His cheeks are round under his eyes when he smiles and full where they meet his neck. I wonder if Louis kissed the padded curve of his jaw under his ear. “It’s a better deal than you might expect,” I say. I want to say, “it’s more than I deserve,” but that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing John would find attractive.

“Why don’t I make you a better one?” His voice doesn’t raise for the question, all flat offer and surety. I smile and lean away just a little like I’m suddenly shy. He pushes onwards. “I don’t live far from here. Let me take you home. I’ll tell you all about the Lioncourt parties. You can even correct me about the furniture.”

“And what do you get out of this?” I try to sound like I’m turning his offer over in my mind. Like it’s too good to be true. Lion-Court parties he called them. I know the house in question, one of Louis’ San Francisco properties. A refurbished Victorian, it didn’t stand out on a street of them, except in that care has been taken to paint all the woodwork individually instead of spraying the whole thing down in monochrome. Lestat probably bemoaned the expense. It would sell for easily double what it cost, interior design notwithstanding.

“I’ve got a few things in mind.” I don’t need to be able to read his mind to know what he’s thinking. Mundane, all of it. A leather paddle, a silk blindfold, permission to say all the foul things he usually reserves for people who beat him at league of legends. Maybe even an opportunity to hear them repeated back by someone he finds titillatingly beneath him. He imagines everyone is like him. That the whole world is full of seething men ready to take out their own perceived inadequacies on the nearest available subject.

Every year his office holds a weight loss contest from January to March. A sort of new years resolution thing. Two years ago, he beat the runner up by 10 pounds; the next year they started counting by percentage. It’s more fair that way. It’s April now, everyone weighed in a couple weeks ago. Mark took the day off.

It isn’t that he’s wrong, plenty of people are just like him. Just like him, they’re thinking about their own anxieties, their own shortcomings, their own hard work. They make a little progress here and there and they give the guy on the corner an extra few bucks. The numbers in their bank account go up, the number on the scale goes down. They donate all last year’s winter clothes to the coat drive. It builds and builds. A little at a time, but they’re making progress. Until they aren’t. They short change the barista and they wonder why. Why is their life so hard? What have they done wrong? Who can be held responsible for this great, cosmic, accounting error? Isn’t someone going to reward all their hard work? Everyone else is incidental. Mark hardly stands out from the herd.

He graduated UC Davis at 23 with a carefully selected degree in something profitable, middle of the class of 2006. He moved back to the city with the last of his savings. From 2007 to 2019 he played Magic the Gathering every Friday in the backroom of a brick and mortar game store. He lived on ramen and baby carrots for months before he got hired at a job actually in his field. His boss called him Jackie Chan for the first year and a half he worked there. In early February of 2020 John sent everyone in his department home from the office, policy be damned. By April nearly every employee at the company worked remotely.

In 2022 they hosted a holiday mixer so all the new telecommute hires could get to know each other. His new boss thanked him for being ahead of the curve. “That’s the kind of people we need here: forward thinkers, world citizens with good connections and strong intuition.” The compliment was accompanied by a clasp to the shoulder. It wasn’t much of anything, fatherly, a firm squeeze and quick retreat, but touch had become unfamiliar to John, and the warmth of it lingered.

The game store closed permanently during lockdown, but John filled his post pandemic social calendar with a new hobby. He enjoyed the secrecy of it. He likes teasing people, likes knowing something they don’t. And he was lonely.

He met Lestat first and with Lestat came Louis. An inseparable pair. In those days, Lestat loved to flaunt a garish wedding ring. Louis wore its match on a chain around his neck. He was always watching from some corner or another, always well dressed. Always nearby Lestat, but not too quick to come when called. John had been surprised the first time he came to a party, New years Eve of 2022, and there was Louis in the crowd, drinking and smiling. Holding some young man by the chin and spitting on his face. Lestat was nowhere to be seen.

I got the whole story without hardly prompting for it. A simple question about the best bars, a complaint about the closing of clubs. I barely had to suggest that San Francisco wasn’t all it was made out to be before he started explaining the need for subtlety, word of mouth, private invitations. A little true but hardly the whole picture. He made it sound so clandestine. Of course I could have told a more accurate series of events, John was a tourist at best, but he was there and his account was rich with unintentional detail.

I tip back the last sip of my drink.

Pictures were usually discouraged for obvious reasons, but inevitably they snuck through. There are a few professional shots advertising events, and a few more floating around, of the space actually in use. I mentally cross reference them with John’s descriptions. There is indeed a Saint Andrew’s cross. The wood stained dark brown instead of painted black, with natural leather cuffs hanging from brass fixtures. The whole place has a warmer tone to it than I’ve come to expect from this sort of thing.

John calls it “earthy” but I think it would be more like being below deck on a tall ship than in the dirty basement of some fairytale castle. It looks big emptied for a photoshoot, but fully crowded it would be just cramped enough to make your heart race with instinctual fear. Just the far side of intimate. Few enough people that the eyes of onlookers didn’t blend into one anonymous gaze, but too many to watch everyone back. I could almost feel myself being rocked gently, almost hear the waves just outside.

“There’s a car waiting.” I take the hand offered to me and slip off my stool. Standing side by side it’s obvious I have a few inches on him. I wonder if Louis prefers his men short, if he’s also counting by percentages and ratios.

John’s skin is soft, but so is mine. Hands don’t mean anything about how hard you work. His meaty palms blend into his forearms, delicate bones of the wrist well protected. A thin scar runs from the middle of his right palm to the base of his wrist. Too high for suicide, most likely from carpel tunnel surgery. It’s faded to a few shades paler than his skin with just a little pucker of pink in the corner to draw the eye of anyone looking closely.

It must have healed just a little off, a permanent wrinkle pulling at his palm when he spreads his fingers wide. I wonder if he worked it too hard too soon during recovery. It’s years old, five at least. I would have been in Seattle still when he was diagnosed. They told him to rest, that he only has this one body, but he knows what they meant. He only has this one life, this one chance. And his insurance coverage is good, really really good, as long as he’s employed.

He has his sleeves rolled up shamelessly, and we walk together, my hand on the bared crease of his elbow, down to the curb. His shirt doesn’t fit right, and it makes the way his jeans cling to his thighs look accidental in a bad way. The fabric strains in the front and gaps in the back. It was maybe a nicely tailored outfit once, over a year ago.

I wonder if that’s something Louis looks for, little evidences of insecurity. Marius liked me well dressed. No expense was spared on my wardrobe: formal wear, lingerie, athleisure, leather, pajamas. I could have been a model, but Marius doesn’t care for passing trends or the fashions of the season. He had a look in mind for me, and it wasn’t one likely to appear on the runway.

As promised there’s a Waymo waiting for us. He so clearly thinks he’s being clever, giving us privacy. I just don’t see the point in necking in the back of a cab if there’s not even anyone there to ignore you.

The ride is short, and it doesn’t take us past anywhere of note, though I know the so-called Lion Court is nearby. His apartment unlocks with his phone, apparently a standard option in the building. It makes a familiar woosh along with the typical click of the deadbolt sliding home. It’s a custom sound clip, he’s proud to explain, of the automatic doors on the enterprise. The rest of the encounter is, as I expected, mundane. We linger in his open floor plan kitchen, looking across the livingroom and out the window, half blocked by a flatscreen TV.

He makes small talk, less sure of himself than he was at the bar. Do I watch much sci fi? He’s always more confident when he knows what to expect. I accepted his deal quicker and with more grace than he predicted. Suddenly here in his apartment with the blender and the spirulina powder left out on the counter, I seem like a person to him. He prefers TNG to DS9, but some of the new stuff is actually pretty ok.

I like fantasy, I tell him. I want to feel far away from the world. I ask what he watches when he’s alone, what he fantasizes about. He shows me past the couch and the window and the flatscreen, into a small suite. His shoes are by the closet, not the front door, a neat line of loafers and sneakers. He has a comic framed on the wall but I don’t recognize the cover or the signature. It doesn’t look vintage. His mattress is made of heavy solid foam and his head board is a padded piece of wood and fabric screwed into the wall above his bed.

Whatever the frame is made of, it’s sturdy. It doesn’t creak when he tips me onto my back. I just barely hook the ankles of my long legs around him and try to enjoy what Louis would enjoy: texture, warmth, weight. It reminds me of playing with someone’s balls, not particularly erotic but interesting, intimate. He fucks me to the sound of heavy breathing and skin. The bed still doesn’t creak. I rotate between mean faces and bored ones because I was right about what gets him off. He comes when I call him a bitch and I know he’s going to be useless for the rest of the night. He does offer dutifully to finish me off, and I take him up on a surprisingly skilled blowjob. I also take him up on an offer to get clean. He seems like he needs a minute alone. So do I.

The tub in his bathroom is short and wide. I have to bend my knees up to fit but the water sloshes all around me on either side. I feel horribly small and distantly huge at the same time, like a clumsy overgrown child. When I get back to the bedroom, he’s asleep. I watch over him for a few minutes with an uncertain sort of fondness. He snores in an unpleasant way, choked off gasps and wet throat sounds. When I let myself out, the door is quiet and the deadbolt locks automatically, without ceremony or sound effect.

Mateo, Body Positive Instagram Model

We meet for brunch at a cafe in the east bay. It opened recently in a part of town that isn’t sure if it wants to be Oakland or Berkeley. Most of the shops give the impression of being slightly embarrassed to find that they are more or less in Piedmont. Mateo greets me with a wave from the patio when I arrive. We share mimosas and crepes. They squeeze the orange juice in house and the wine doesn’t matter much, almost certainly a cheap California brut.

He’s shy to speak about Louis. When I first ask if he has any tips on who to know in the scene, he doesn’t mention him or Lestat. I know he knows him. Louis is credited as the photographer at the bottom of more than a few of Mateo’s instagram posts, but he doesn’t bring him up. He has a friend who runs basement shows and events Thursday nights, he says instead. “It’s great fun if you can swing the weeknight. They try to keep it clean and sober; drugs and kink don’t mix.”

“I’m not sure,” I say, “I’m a little new to the scene. My husband. Ex husband –” I break off and let him imagine what he will. “I’m sorry. I just mean, I want to meet people.” The lemon juice and powdered sugar has made a glaze on my plate and I run the tines of my fork through it in a geometric crosshatch. “The right people.”

“It’s hard settling into the community. It doesn’t matter how much private experience you have, doing this kind of thing with new people is new!” He has a rehearsed sort of niceness to his speech, the plastic aftertaste of his support-group smile cut with enthusiasm.

“Thanks for answering my message. It’s good to know at least one friendly face.” I conjure sincerity. I try to mean it when I say things.

“Happy to show you the ropes so to speak.” He winks at me cheesy and amicable. “For real though, I’m glad you reached out. It’s nice to have a hand to hold at parties and stuff. Safer.”

“There’s just so much going on! It’s all ...” I trail off again.

“A little overwhelming?” Mateo offers.

“Yeah,” I show my gratitude on my face and relaxed body. It’s nice to be understood. I’m new to the area, new to the scene, I’ve had some bad experiences. Mateo is a warm presence, but he doesn’t finish my sentence for me this time, or interrupt. He wants me to speak for myself. He thinks I’m shy. I try a more direct approach to getting what I need from him. “I heard about a couple events, mostly rope groups? But I think I want to try one of this guy Louis’ things. There’s an intro series that starts this month. In the city? It seems approachable.”

Mateo grimaces. I rush to speak before he can, like I’m anxious I’ve said the wrong thing. “Or around here would be good if there’s something else.”

“No, that’s not it. I mean it’s San Francisco, so like if you can avoid it. But there’s plenty of stuff over there that’s fine. Great even. Parties or classes. Louis’ just not a guy I’d point out to a beginner.”

“No?” I'm genuinely curious but a bit of my natural suspicion must have slipped past the mask of amateur enthusiasm. “Why not?”

Mateo’s grimace turns to determination like he’s just been asked an inappropriate question by someone else’s kid and he’s committed to not fucking up the answer. “Look, I don’t want to gossip. Lets just say he doesn’t have the best grasp of what’s BDSM and what’s,” he pauses like he very much does want to gossip but wants plausible deniability about it first. “Something else.”

I bite my tongue against rolling my eyes at his phrasing, and let the bloody taste school my face into an appropriate degree of concern. I project an entirely imaginary need for reassurance, and Mateo falls for it. “I really don’t mean to make it sound so scary. Everywhere’s got assholes. He’s just a big time chaser.”

I don’t take the conversational off ramp. I can tell he doesn’t really mean it. Offering me the chance to leave is just part of the script. “Chasing can be nice. Or being chased.” I worry for a minute I’ve played too dumb, that not even the Milos of the world are this oblivious.

“Not like that. Like.” Mateo does a little breath in, chest and shoulders rising with the drama more than the air. On the exhale he says, “I’m a sub. Absolutely enthusiastic about it, talented, experienced.” He makes little gestures with his hands, striking mock poses, teasing himself a little for all the flattery. “I’m also fat, which is, you know, a feature not a bug.”

“Oh! Louis?” I look down at myself with sudden embarrassment. My empty plate, my hand still on my fork like I’m not ready to be done eating. The edge of the table presses into me a little where the person who arranged the patio didn’t leave enough room for the chair to be scooted back without hitting the wall behind me. I let the claustrophobia in, feel the trapped animal in me rise in my throat. Then I say, “He didn’t like you.”

“No. I mean, yes, but no. I’m sure he’d say I was beautiful but I can tell when I’m getting scammed.” Mateo glances at me, checks for my polite expression of confused interest, and continues. “I’d say he liked me a little too much. Which is like, the same problem in a different hat.” He’s on a roll now that I’ve reassured him I’m a safe and willing recipient of his complaints. “Louis has some issues. Which I wouldn’t usually hold against someone, but in this case it’s not just his life that’s getting fucked with. He can’t just get out of his shitty marriage, decide he’s over it because he’s the Dom now, and start doing the same screwed up stuff to the next guy. He needed help, needs help, yeah ok. He won’t make it easier for himself by dragging all of us down with him.”

He gestures between me and him with his fork and out into the world of the cafe around us. “Ugh, it’s just gross. and now people meet me and they think I’m into that feeder shit when I’m not. I’m a perfectly healthy guy who appreciates a little whip cream with a good crepe, that’s all. It’s not a crime, it's not a fetish, and it’s not ‘binge eating’.”

Mateo does big air quotes around the phrase “binge eating”. He’s expressive. He uses his whole body when he talks, big expressions, big gestures. I admit it’s attractive. The late morning light glints brightly off a ring on his pinkie. He takes up space unabashedly, and the world is drawn into playing along. I would be too, if he weren’t shit talking Louis of all people.

“But guys like Louis see it and they get all fetishizing about it,” he continues. “They want to, I don’t know, live vicariously or lord their pants size over me or something. Like damn, we’re both men? I’m not gonna be your salad eating, ice water sipping, morning jogger girlfriend, that’s the whole point. Whatever him and Lestat had going on, that’s between them and God. But Louis should know better. He doesn’t get to just run around, tricking every fat local hottie into eating his lunch for him. That’s not a kink, that’s a symptom of some kind of bigger issue.”

I’m taken aback by how much Mateo doesn’t want to be liked. He’s perfect for Louis: friendly, beautiful, engaged in his community. He moves with his body and his body moves with him. He’s fat in a natural way. Big all over, like he’s just supposed to look like that. Not round only in the stomach like some men are, with skinny calves that show all their muscle. Not temporary.

Unlike John, it looks like he’s dressed for the person he is, not the person he wants to be. He’s wearing cohesive but expressive street fashion. Bright colors, a little jewelry. He seems casually masculine in the way he takes up space. His arms bulk out his wide shoulders. His hair is well styled and cut unselfconsciously short. It shows off a piercing at the nape of his neck, through the meat of him.

Why wouldn’t he want someone who appreciates it all? He should be with a person who indulges him passionately, like Louis would. Someone drawn to the things he’s so clearly proud of. I don’t understand why he’s offended. Anyone would want what Louis offered him. I lose track of what my face is doing as I try to force the pieces of Mateo into a shape I can make any sense of.

My stunned silence works in my favor. “Man, I scared you didn’t I? He’s just one jerk, all the way across the bridge. Come on Thursday, I’ll introduce you to a guy you’ll really like. I’ll link you the event info, it says rsvp but you don’t have to, you can just show up. It’ll be fun, I promise. Only the good kind of scary this time!”

“Fun and scary,” I parrot back, “I like it.” I can’t think of anything less idiotic to say. I’m still reeling.

“Good then! I’ll expect you.” Mateo bounces back to his previous cheer. He changes the subject for us by stopping a waitress on her way back from a table. He wants to order one of whatever she’d just served, some sort of stuffed roll. It turns out the bakery next door makes them. It’s charming, but I decline to stretch out our date. “I have a busy day, it's really nothing personal.” The smile, the hand shake that stumbles into being a hug. No kiss. I never figure out why he still lets Louis take his pictures. Maybe he’s more afraid of being liked than being seen.

Daniel from Modesto, with Experience

“Now you’re just fishing”

“It’s true, I wasn’t much of a star. Nothing you would have heard of”

“Try me.”

“I was never on television.”

“Sick burn. Try me.”

I give him a short list of imaginary but probable titles for films.

“Sounds artsy.”

“So you haven’t seen them.”

“Because they don’t exist? Yeah. C’mon “East is East”?” He pronounces his incredulity. “You haven’t been east of Arizona, I’d put money on it.”

“I was in vermont once,” I say because I’m petty. And technically, its true. Marius traveled and on a few notable occasions was inclined to bring me along. Vermont was, well it’s not quite right to call anything from such a blurry time in my life “memorable” but it stands out.

Daniel looks expectant and I find myself giving in to him.

“But yes, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco” I gesture around the bar “I’m drearily west coast”

“That’s how you got the accent then. Queen’s English by way of the Oregon Trail.” There’s a tone to his own voice that makes his questions not questions. A studied lack of uptalk, an incomplete polish job that hasn’t quite buffed out the San Joaquin dirt. I swallow down the self conscious feeling of artificial lights and cheap cameras. No one here is looking at me but Daniel, and as he has already told me, he prefers to record in audio. People forget they’re on tape more often than they forget they’re on film.

Maybe he senses my discomfort, maybe he’s just heard something in my silence that satisfied his curiosity. Either way, he moves on easily. “I’m more or less from everywhere. American mutt. Too California for New York, too Modesto for San Francisco, Berkeley enough for wherever of course” He pauses and its both dramatic and natural. “if I prove I actually graduated.”

“You did then?”

“Graduate? What you wanna vet me through linked in? Shits like 12 years out of date but go ahead. Just for the record though, I quit, no matter what those assholes at VICE tell you. Nobody’s had the balls to fire me for decades.”

After months of scripted interactions, sleepless nights spent researching and preparing, talking to Daniel is refreshing. He doesn’t matter at all. He could be anyone. It makes me wonder who he is, how he got here, what he wants.

I picture him: young, lost, catching the train in and out of the city, A junior at berkeley and still waiting for his big break. He had been so proud to get into a UC, eager to prove himself to a new city, far enough from his parents to ignore the growing similarities between him and his father, but close enough to home for a discount on tuition. His hair would have been darker, his cheeks rounder. It feels wrong and I realize its because I’m working in the wrong medium. I try again.

I mentally listen back to our conversation. Mateo had introduced him as “Danny” and he’d complained but went along with it, said something friendly and crass. “I was Mr. Molloy before you had your first spanking.” Mateo had teased him back, but I remember that less clearly. Less than an hour ago, but I’ve dismissed him as more or less useless now that I’ve been shown around.

I roll the sound of Mr. Molloy around my head and mouth, tongue tenderly at the feel of him like a loose tooth. His faux-caustic demeanor catches in my throat, barely eased by a classic city slickness. But he would reject that sort of wordplay, I think, as obvious fluff. Distraction. He’s paid to be smart, not clever or pretty, and these days his name pulls substantially more per printed inch than the Berkeley Barb paid him in a year. When he’s paid at all, that is.

“It’s funny,” he told me when I first inquired about his profession, “how similar the start of a career is to its end.” He’s nominally retired now; he only does charity work, small potatoes hobby stuff. If his cutthroat pursuit of that “hobby” raises eyebrows, he says it’s just to keep busy, just to keep his hands and brain working. He can afford his own spaghetti now, and he doesn’t have to sit at any table he doesn’t want to, but he likes to argue anyway. The impulse to bite back is too deeply ingrained in him for a mere 70 years to sand it down. He’s not above raising his shaky right arm to rub the point in, if eyebrows turn to sarcastic accusations.

“No.” I answer belated, and too sincerely. “I’d hire you on the merit of your interview.”

“That what this is?” Another uninflected question.

“You tell me.”

“A little off the record fun” I can’t tell if he’s joking. He has a flippancy to him, earned through time served. A way of sliding past something serious without undermining its importance. I open my mouth to agree or demure or retort but nothing comes out. I’m left to hope the anxious working of my jaw can pass as attractive. He didn’t order a beer when he joined me at the bar, so when I finished mine, I didn’t replace it. That was nearly 20 minutes ago and I’m floundering. There’s nothing for me to do with my hands, so I fold and unfold them in my lap under the lip of the bar. “Jesus, it’s like looking in a mirror.”

“What?” With no drink to interrupt me, there’s no way to reign in my mouth’s frantic desire to speak. I sound like a fool.

“Just get a drink if you want a drink. Light beer, la croix, shirley temple.”

“I’m not.” I stop myself. I’m not what? A drunk?

“Of course not.” He’s quick with the reassurance but it’s pat, the least sincere thing he’s said all night. “Nobody does Anything Anonymous these days.” His voice is a mix of rueful and nostalgic. “My sobriety might be barrel aging but you’re not gonna offend me.” He looks me up and down and sighs. “You’ve got options, is all I mean.”

“I had a –” I pause longer than I mean to and somehow still speak hastily. I know better than to bring up Marius. “– influential sponsor, when I was young.” The urge to take it back comes as quickly as the urge to say it in the first place. It’s not even on topic and I don’t have any reason to trust Daniel.

He doesn’t say anything for a long full minute. I feel him watching my posture for accidental answers to unasked questions. For a moment it’s overwhelmingly familiar. It puts him in sudden and shocking contrast with Marius. I’m accustomed to an intentional and untouchable kind of age. Something that appreciates. He has a lived-in-ness to him that Marius lacks. The worn edges of the valley show themselves in his vowels and pauses. His face is spotted from the sun.

Then it passes.

“Didn’t stick?” his voice swings up and the relief is tangible, like a hand out of cold deep water.

“I got it out of my system the old fashioned way.”

“Private rehab?” he’s back to the flat statements. Assumptions. Questions that presume an answer. Do I still seem so very LA? I smile and my jaw clicks. My feet ache from phantom calluses and my side itches with illusory road rash.

“Kids,” he says and it’s almost physical how he clears the intensity of memory from the air, “You all think you invented the wheel but your brain’s just sponging everything up and squeezing it back out.”

“I’d rather be done sponging if it’s all the same to you”

“Learned enough?

“Mmm,” I agree noncommittally.

“Yeah, I can see it. You don’t smell like college but you got an education one way or another.” When I don’t say anything further, he adds “The hard way then. Well, however you came by it, it suits you.” Another daunting wave of emotion, sincere interest cut with but not diminished by humor. “Do they teach Spanish in Oregon homeschool or did you pick that up on your own?”

I’m taken aback but grateful for the change of topic. He picks up on my momentary confusion, of course he does, he created it.

“You’re pronouncing the names. Vallejo. San Rafael.” He crushes the syllables together into a sharp mash of sound. “Very So-Cal.”

“I also speak French but I’m awful,” I rush to put myself back on familiar ground.

“Uh huh, I bet.” He doesn’t laugh or even really smile, but I can sense the good nature of his jokes. It’s been over half an hour since Mateo introduced us and he hasn’t started rushing our conversation to a close. “It’s catch and release on the compliments around here, by the way. Local ordinance.”

He’s hardly chasing me down but I find myself on the wrong foot anyway, stepping backwards when he steps towards me, hoping the inevitable stumble looks like an intentional tease. I realize what's wrong with me, of course. That I’m too eager to please, pretentious, claiming false glory, educated in all the wrong ways and insincerely self deprecating about it. I’m just too captivated to care, beyond being distantly glad I rounded the language count down by discounting Latin. I like talking to Daniel more than I should. I want him to keep asking questions, to make more assumptions. I don’t know if I’d rather he be right or wrong. That should scare me but it doesn’t. I want to follow and enjoy the dance. I want him to lead.

“Well if there’s anything else about life here you think I should know, I’d love to hear it from a local.”

“Like I said, I’m not really from here.”

“From someone with experience then.”

“Look, kid,” All at once I feel the cold water around me again, “I’m not the guy you’re looking for.” Numb fingers lose their grip on the situation, waterlogged legs fail. “No, don’t. There’s no need to look like a wet kitten about it. Let me introduce you to a friend of mine. He throws parties in his house in the city. Had the whole place redone when he got divorced, bougie bastard. You’ll get along great. His name’s Louis. You might have heard of him.”