Destiny (Waiting for Forever) (9 page)

“I’m just gonna throw my jeans back on and then I’ll be up,” he told us. “Don’t worry, sweet thing, I’ll be… right behind you.” Mike winked lewdly, and I blushed again. Not even Adam or Jamie had flirted with me so blatantly. I wanted to flirt back, but nothing came to me, so I just let Andy lead me up the stairs with my face burning and my head spinning.

The second floor was nothing like the first.

Pete walked in front of us and used a key to open the door at the top of the stairs, which led into a huge room that spanned the entire length of the building. There were a couple of guys lounging on couches watching television and another pair playing pool on a beat-up table off to the right. To my left, just beyond a big, battered dining room table with mismatched chairs, I saw a small kitchen. Aside from the door we’d come in, there were a couple of others in the brightly painted walls.

“Hey, I thought you guys went out?” one of the guys playing pool asked Andy as he closed the door behind us. Dressed casually in a pair of cutoff jeans and a pink ribbed tank top that showed off a number of tattoos, he half watched the table as his partner lined up a shot. The guy playing with him was a dark-haired Latino, shirtless and barefoot with painted-on jeans. It seemed everywhere I looked I saw a beautiful guy, either classically handsome like Pete and Andy or just perfectly built like Mike downstairs. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to live here.

“We found a stray,” Andy said, laughing as he led me over to one of the closed doors. Once we were closer, I saw that it had an old brass plaque affixed to the wood that read Manager. Andy knocked once, and we heard a disembodied “yeah” in response. Andy opened the door and pushed me inside.

An older man with thinning brown hair, maybe in his late fifties, hunched over his desk as he wrote in some kind of book. I couldn’t really see his face clearly, so I waited as he finished writing and then looked up. I relaxed a little when I saw that his soft brown eyes were kind and almost playful. There were small but well-defined laugh lines around his eyes that crinkled when he smiled.

“I see you found your way,” he said, looking me up and down. It wasn’t a look that made me feel uncomfortable, but more like he was sizing me up. “Why was Andy telling the boys that he found a stray?”

“I… I was outside looking for the stairs you mentioned when they came out. When I told them that I was looking for Leo, they brought me upstairs,” I explained, not mentioning what I saw downstairs.

To my surprise, he laughed.

“They brought you up through the baths? I bet that was an experience, cowboy,” he said, and I saw that his eyes were twinkling as much as the naked man’s had been downstairs. More than anything else, I couldn’t believe that the people there were so lax about sex and naked guys wandering around. Not for the first time, I wondered exactly what kind of place this was.

“It was… different,” I murmured.

Leaning back in his chair, he laced his fingers behind his head and relaxed. Leo looked to be fit but not muscular, and completely comfortable in a loose-fitting blue T-shirt with a rectangle in the middle, almost like a flag, which was just one big rainbow. Across the rainbow rectangle there was a logo that read “GLBT Community Center.”

“I’ll bet. Where are you from, kid? Texas? No… Louisiana?” he guessed and then leaned over to fumble in a drawer and pull out a file folder.

“I’m from Alabama, near Mobile.”

He straightened up and laid out a form on his desk. On the top, I saw that it read “Rental Application” and felt a surge of hope.

“Well, Brian from Alabama near Mobile, I’m Leo Horshiwitz. I own this boardinghouse for lost boys like you. Let’s go take a look at the room and see if you want it,” he said, standing up. I backed away from the door to let him open it so I could follow. We walked out into the main rec room again, and a couple of guys looked up from what they were doing.

“Hey, boys, this is Brian. He came to take a look at Julio’s old room,” Leo called to the room at large. Andy, who was sitting in Pete’s lap in an armchair by the television, perked up.

“That was fast. The guy only moved out, what, two weeks ago?” he said, playing with Pete’s short hair. They looked so comfortable, so in tune with each other, that for a moment it made my heart ache for Jamie. It would have been such a perfect place for us to start our lives together. I could see us playing ping-pong or pool here, studying at one of the tables, or just cuddling to watch television. My mind refused to make the leap to taking him to a room downstairs. Again, the guy bent over the cot flashed into my mind, and I started to get warm all over again.

“Hey, what can I say, I’m a boy magnet,” Leo quipped, smirking at Andy, who laughed. “Come on, kid.” I followed him to another closed door near the office, which turned out to be a staircase to the next floor and a long hallway. As we walked down it, I saw five doors on each side and a huge window at the end. The window was made of that same block glass as the windows downstairs, but instead of being clear, it contained the same colors as Leo’s shirt.

“The first four rooms on each side are for the guys. The last room on the left is the john, and on the right are the showers. It’s kind of like a dorm in that way. The rooms all have locks, and only the renter and I hold the keys. I keep them in a locked safe in my office.”

He walked down to the third room on the left and pulled out a key. “The room comes with a bed and dresser. There is also a small closet. I have some leftover bedding if you need it; stuff left over from guys that have moved on.” The door opened, and I saw a small room, which could probably be crossed in four good steps. The stripped twin bed took up most of the space. Stark white walls reflected the light coming from the naked bulb in the center of the ceiling. From the faint lingering smell, it seemed someone had painted it recently. The only furniture aside from the bed with its dark wood headboard was a light dresser. A couple of milk crates were stacked next to the bed like a makeshift table. It wasn’t much, but the price was right and it was along a main bus route so I could get around the city. “There’s a coin-operated washer and dryer downstairs on the second floor. I use the money to keep them maintained. Otherwise, that’s about it. The common room downstairs has a TV and computer. The Wi-Fi access usually makes it up here, but it’s better closer to the router. Heat, water, cable, and Internet are all included in your rent. My apartment is on the fourth floor along with a storage area.”

“What about the first floor?” I asked hesitantly, not sure that I really wanted to know. “Is it… is it always like that?”

“What, the baths? Have you ever heard of a bathhouse before, kid?” Leo asked, heading out of the small room.

Shaking my head, I followed.

“A bathhouse is a place for a guy to find someone to… play with for a while. Two guys hook up, have sex, and go home—no strings attached. Guys pay a membership fee and can rent lockers or reserve rooms to hook up in. There is one huge room with a sauna and Jacuzzi, two specialty fantasy rooms, two small private rooms, and two larger private rooms. The room with the sauna also has a bank of lockers and a couple of shower stalls. It’s really small, but we have free condoms and a good reputation. You get a membership with your rent.” I just stood there looking at him, not quite able to figure out what to say. Not only had I never heard of such a place, I’d never even dreamed that they would exist.

“Do you want to fill out the application and take a chance on us?” Leo asked as we reached the stairs. I didn’t even hesitate.

“Yeah, I think I do.”

Five

“H
EY
,
sexy,” Mike said as we came out of our rooms at the same time. I blushed, remembering the last time I’d seen him, when I had applied last Friday night. He had been naked and fresh from a sexual encounter with twins. It had taken me less than twenty-four hours to check out of the hotel and move everything I owned into my new room. Once I’d deposited my backpack and duffel, I went to pick up bedding because I didn’t really want to sleep on another guy’s sheets. The guys told me about a department store on the bus route that wasn’t too far. I spent the weekend settling in and looking around the neighborhood for a job. That morning, I was up early and ready to start looking for Jamie.

Smiling shyly at Mike, I locked my door and headed to the second floor. I wanted to grab a bite to eat at the coffee shop down on University Avenue before I flagged down a cab and headed out to the Sunshine Center. The address on the envelope had only been their administrative office in the city. A quick call expressing my interest in a cure had gotten me the answers to every question I had. Jamie would have been at their rehabilitation center in La Mesa, which was about twenty minutes outside the city. After asking around, I found out that I was probably looking at around a hundred dollars in cab fare, but I didn’t have any choice. No bus ran to La Mesa, and while renting a car would have cost less, I couldn’t drive.

“Hey, there’s no reason to run, kid. I was just being friendly,” Mike told me when he came downstairs. His brown hair was softer, not as spiky as it had been the night we met, and his eyes were more serious.

“I’m sorry, I just have a hell of a cab ride in front of me,” I said with a sigh and went over to the window that Leo had shown me. The window led off to the fire escape, which I felt more comfortable using, at least for a while, than walking around on the first floor. Mike grabbed the back of my shirt as I pulled the window open.

“You need a ride somewhere?” he asked. I pulled out of his grip.

“Nah, I’ll be okay. I don’t want to be
that
guy, you know?” Since I was on my own now, I had to make my own way. My right foot was on the fire escape when I felt him pull me back again.

“Hey, we’re kind of a family here. I’ve got a car. If you need a ride somewhere, I can take you.” He looked rather annoyed as he explained. “Next week, if Andy needed help moving his stuff or Leo wanted a hand passing out flyers for the center, we’d pitch in because that’s what we do. If we don’t look out for each other, no one else is going to.”

“I… uh… it’s a long drive. Are you sure?” He took a step back so he was no longer right on top of me and ran a hand ruefully through his hair.

“Yeah, I’m sure. You can buy me lunch, and we’ll call it even,” Mike said. Taking him up on his offer would only cost me twenty bucks versus a hundred; it would also be nice to just hang out with someone.

“Deal.”

“You want me to take you where?” Mike asked incredulously when we got into his beat-to-hell Jeep. After storing the duct-taped soft-top and unzipping the windows, he slid a state-of-the-art radio into a space in the dash. Finding a pop station, he turned in his seat to face me, waiting for an answer. The smooth skin of his chest distracted me since he’d tossed his shirt into the back with the Jeep top.

“I…. Sorry, I need to go to the Sunshine Center in La Mesa,” I told him, trying to show him the directions I’d printed from the common-room computer. The thing was ancient, but it could get to the Internet and print in black and white. A fund had been set up to pay for ink and paper, so I had dropped a dollar in it when I pulled the sheets from the tray.

“I know the place you’re talking about. I just can’t figure out why you’d want to go there. You thinking about changing sides, kid?” His face was hard and set, as if it was a personal insult to him if I was thinking about going straight. I think if I’d told him yes, he would have refused to take me and shoved me out of his Jeep.

“No… I…. It has to do with the reason I’m here,” I told him. Then I sighed. “Okay, you drive and I’ll talk.”

I waited until we were away from the boardinghouse and on the road before I began.

“Ever since I was eleven, my best friend in the world has been a guy named Jamie,” I started and couldn’t help the smile that came to my face with his name. “At the end of our junior year of high school, we realized that we were much more than just friends. We had fallen in love with each other. That entire summer we spent being together and happy. To spend time alone, we started spending weekends in his tree house. We hid how we felt from every—”

“Wait, you guys spent the summer screwing in a tree house?” Mike interrupted with a grin.

“We didn’t… it wasn’t…. Do you want to hear this or not?” I stammered.

“Sorry, go on,” he said, smirking.

“Anyway, on my seventeenth birthday, I told him that I wanted for us to… I wanted to… to have sex for the first time.” My face had flushed, and I could feel the heat burning my cheeks. Unable to look at him, I could hear him chuckling under his breath at my embarrassment. Staring at a spot on my jeans, I continued. “His mom caught us,” I said quietly, in almost a whisper. “She’s really religious and, well, to keep us apart, they moved to San Diego.”

“Holy Christ, they put him in that place, didn’t they?” Mike asked, and his knuckles were turning white with the force of his grip on the steering wheel. I heard him mutter something about “goddamn Bible-beaters,” but it was barely audible over the rumble of the Jeep.