Lost Boi (19 page)

“Are you sure, pretty Mommy?” Hook's voice was flirty and low. Wendi looked so proud and grownup in that moment as she straightened herself to her fullest height and looked up into Hook's dark eyes.

“Sir, I am certain.”

I couldn't tell if she was mocking him or employing impeccable manners. Hook cocked his head; he also wasn't certain. “Well, pretty grrrl, you've made your choice, and I wish it were a different one, but I don't force grrrls to do things they don't want.”

All the bois and Pirates had stopped mid-fuck or battle
and were paying attention to Wendi and Hook's exchange. When Hook knew he had everyone's attention, his voice changed, growing cold and serious.

“Wendi, have you learned nothing in your time here? Have you learned nothing about the price of the decisions we make? Did Pan teach you nothing of consequences?”

Pan! I had almost forgotten that he was in the dungeon, for I knew he would never have crept away, especially when he heard what Hook was saying.

“These bois are no longer your responsibility,” Hook continued. “These lost bois shall become my new crew.” At that moment, Hook turned his attention to us. “I know that you have failed your Sir, that you have removed your cuffs and broken your oaths, that you have decided to follow your Mommy to her home. She has tempted you with promises of a home and full bellies. She's sold you cake and clean sheets, but has not spoken much of what will come with those luxuries. You will grow up. You will go to offices and schools. Sure, you can still be perverts, but it will be much harder to stay true to who you are in a world that will want to marry you off and make you nice lesbians.” We all winced. “Stay with me. Become part of my crew. Notice how well cared for they are.” Hook poked Jukes, who had been flogging John Michael, in his round stomach.

“I'm a good Captain, and you will be well cared for if you join my crew. What do you say, bois?”

It was a tempting offer to spend forever with the good
parts of our world, the safe and good parts, but also be able to ignore the painful bits, the ways in which Pan had let us down, the ways that we had abandoned him. The bois all looked at me. Some things don't change—they looked to me as Pan's best boi. I flushed, thinking of what I had thrown away, what I had become, and most of all, how I had let Pan down in ways I could never take back. Hook nodded in our direction, and Smee pulled the handkerchief from my mouth. I ran my tongue across my chipped teeth's sharp edges and looked Hook in the eye.

“No, I will never be yours. I belong to my Mommy.”

I think I surprised Hook there. He seemed confused that we had all turned him down. The lost bois all nodded as I finished speaking. My eyes scanned the room of bound bois and came to rest on John Michael. I was surprised to see her nodding in agreement. I didn't think she would turn down the chance to be a Pirate. I asked her about it later, and she said there was part of her that wanted to join Hook's crew, but she'd been afraid to break rank with the rest of us bois, and most of all, she hadn't wanted to disappoint Wendi.

Hook was used to getting his way, used to unquestioning submission from his crew. To have Wendi and all us bois refuse his offer was unexpected. “If that's what you wish,” was all he replied. He walked to the other side of the dungeon through a small, almost invisible door in the dark panelling, that I'd never noticed. The bois and Pirates returned to their good-natured battling, and Wendi joined Kelpie and some of
the other Mermaids, who had given space to this scene and set themselves up on plush couches and spanking benches.

I walked toward the dark corner where I had last seen Pan. He was still there, pressed between a wooden chest and the wall. He tensed, then relaxed when I approached. Pan whispered, not so much to me but to himself, or perhaps to something, someone much bigger, “It's always just me and Hook.” It was almost an oath, and then a wide smile crossed his face. I had never seen Pan so happy. I didn't know what he had planned, but it seemed he'd already forgotten that I mattered. He had moved on to bigger battles.

15

“It's Always Just Me and Hook”

“W
hy is everyone breaking all the rules?” Pan later recalled having wondered as he quickly made his way to the Jolly Roger. He couldn't shake the memory of seeing Hook in Neverland, where he'd never been before. There were rules in their—not love, not romance—whatever it was, a connection deeper than there are words for. Hook had stood there with that collar, inside Neverland, interrupting all the rules of good form. Pan decided to go to the Jolly Roger to find Hook, to try to make sense of at least one part of his life.

First it was Wendi with her ideas, her goals of growing up, her plans for worldly success and clean sheets. Maybe bringing her to Neverland had been a bad idea, but no—he had wanted a Mommy, and there was nothing wrong with that. The whole point of Neverland was to exist outside the rules, to make new ones and not be confined, like Hook, so bound to his rules of who you had to be in order to live in Leather.
Pan knew that life could be much more complicated than that; life could look different, feel different. That's why he had built his own world, and one of the first rules he made for himself was never to look back, never regret, and never, ever apologize for finding pleasure. No, Pan thought to himself, Wendi had not been a bad choice. But breaking his own rule, Pan regretted not having paid better attention to his bois, to our care, and the way that he had given us freely to Wendi. Pan later told me that he hadn't ever considered the chance that one day she might order us away and that we would follow the sweet lady, her soft voice, her promises.

The front door of the Jolly Roger was open when Pan arrived. There was no need to knock or announce himself. The plush entrance hallway seemed to swirl around his dusty boots. Pan ducked into Hook's living room, but Hook wasn't sitting in his chair as Pan had imagined he would be. He saw a purple rope near the couch left in a messy heap, not nicely coiled as Hook required.

“The accidental carelessness of a lost boi for certain, but which one?” Pan wondered to himself. I'm so grateful that I wasn't there to see his face as he fingered the soft rope, bringing it to his nose to inhale. It wasn't until much later that I had to endure a confrontation. He knew all his bois better than we knew ourselves. Pan could identify which boi had left behind a filthy sweat sock or used rope. Pan rubbed his eyes. “No tears, not now, not ever,” he swore to himself as his nose found me on the rope and he bit his lip and fixed his
gaze on the hooks in the ceiling that had held me not long before.

Pan was about to drop the rope where he'd found it, but instead he coiled it up perfectly. Never let anyone say he was leader of the lost bois for lack of options, skill, or training. This was the right and best choice, he told himself, this life that he had sworn himself to uphold. Pan left the neatly coiled rope on Hook's chair before going in search of the Pirate Captain.

Downstairs, he first saw his bois occupied in deep battle with Pirates, and this made him smile, for the bois all fought well, showing our training to advantage in the way that he taught us to breathe through the pain, to guide another not just through it, but into it. No matter what side of the battle we were on, we were doing him proud. Then Pan remembered that we were not his anymore, and his eyes scanned the room, looking for our Mommy, knowing that she would lead him to Hook. Pan knew Hook might have had a sweet spot for destroying bois, but he lusted for a Mommy.

They had once even talked of it. Hook listened longingly as Pan described the way that Wendi tucked us all in at night and the special attentions she gave him when she reached his hammock. Hook's eyes glistened with desire when Pan said that, afterwards, he had never slept so peacefully. That was the only time they spoke of Wendi, not long after Pan brought her to Neverland.

Pan entered the basement and waited silently until, one by one, we all turned down Hook's offer of a life of Piracy.
Pan was proud of our refusal; if we couldn't be his, if we were going to leave him, then at least we were acting honourably in refusing Hook. Maybe Pan thought we would change our minds, but he knew us better than that, knew that we could not reverse course. But he hadn't come to the Jolly Roger for us; he needed Hook.

When everyone had left or turned their attention back to battle, Pan cracked open the door to Hook's study and slipped inside. The room was dark, beautiful, and filled with antiques. A huge wooden desk carved with ornate depictions of sailors, mermaids, and sea monsters dominated the centre of the room. Hook sat at it, his back to the door, his head resting in his gold-ringed fingers. Pan wasn't certain, but he thought the Captain might be crying.

Pan silently crossed the room on the soft carpet. It was the sound of his gasp that gave him away. Upon Hook's desk lay a used syringe. Pan knew that Hook had long run from the Crocodile, his biggest foe and fear. He'd never forgiven Pan for having fed him to it so long ago—it had changed everything—and Pan now regretted that act. He had not foreseen that Hook would forever find himself chased by the Croc. Hook forbade his crew from going near Gator and had even thrown overboard many a crew member who'd tried to sneak a swim with the Crocodile. Hook said that he had time only for pirates who were committed, who could serve him completely, and who were not distracted by lust for something besides their place in his crew.

Pan now stood directly in front of the desk, and Hook looked up at the boi through his wet, laced fingers. Hook's cap lay among the paperclips and condoms on the desk. Hook's leather jacket hung on the back of his chair, and the right arm of his shirt was rolled up. Pan's eyes rested on his forearm and the old-school tattooed lettering, “D
EATH
B
EFORE
D
ISHONOR
.”

“Have I ever told you about good form?” Hook slurred, eyes fluttering. Pan only nodded.

“Good form is everything. It's all I've ever cared about, all that has ever mattered to me. It's how I was brought out, how I was raised by the great Leathermen who came before. I have tried to guide my crew the best I could, to keep them safe, to give them a home, which they never had before. You've done the same thing for your lost bois.” Hook paused. “But you have always done it wrong.”

Pan bristled but for once bit his tongue and let Hook continue.

“I always thought you were missing something big, something important. You never understood how serious Leather is. I tried to teach you this, to bring you to my side, but you didn't learn!”

Pan could hold back no longer. “If I'm so bad, if I have such poor form, then why do you want me so much?” he asked. “I don't mean all our battles—I'm talking about today! You came to Neverland. You stood before me, offering me a collar. You wanted to own me. Why? Why would you try to
take me and then turn and try to take my bois? I'm the one who should be drowning. My lost bois and my Mommy have all left me today, and now this? What's your game, Hook?”

Hook sat quietly for a long moment, head bobbing. Pan recalled the night many years earlier, when they first battled. He had been so young, so lost, too lost to even take pride in it, too lost to band together with anyone. Pan had gone to the dungeon in search of adventure. He wanted to fly, and the queer at the door pointed him to the man in impeccable leathers with a hook tattooed on his forearm who stood coiling rope beside a package of hooks fresh from the autoclave. Hook put stars of a different kind on Pan's back that night; he took him into the rafters and beyond. Hook hurt Pan, and Pan fell in love, in a way—the closest to love he'd ever gotten. That night, Pan followed Hook to the Jolly Roger and fed him to the Crocodile with no thought of the future, of what might become of this man who had gotten deep into him in a way that no one else could.

Hook looked up at Pan, his pupils tiny pinpricks, and said, “I wanted you because I can't let you have me.”

Pan paled and leaned against the back of an upholstered armchair, steadying himself.

“But I'm a failure,” Hook said. “I've fought for perfect form, demanded it of my crew, and taught workshops about it, but I've never achieved it, never. I've fought it all along, but I can't shake you when I close my eyes. No matter how loyal my crew, I would trade them all to be yours, to feel
your cuff lock around my wrist. To know that you would care for me, could hold and contain all of me. I've tried so hard to hate you, but I couldn't. Even after you fed me to the Crocodile. I tried to collar you because if you were mine, if I controlled you, I could kill the part of me that wanted to be under that filthy boot of yours. I thought, maybe, I could clean you up. I thought I could get rid of the parts of you I want so much.”

Pan focused on his breath as he listened to his most trusted opponent admit this weakness. How evenly matched he had always thought they were. Pan thought of the collar he had turned down just hours before, the way it had glistened in the streetlight pushing through Neverland's dirty windows. He thought with grief how close he had been to letting Hook lock it around his neck. Pan straightened himself and took three steps to the desk, holding Hook's eyes the entire time, not allowing him to look away.

Pan grabbed Hook's wrist. “Let me get you to the hospital. This isn't how it is going to end.” Pan knew what was happening, and he didn't have any Naloxone. Pan swallowed hard, before continuing, looking Hook right in the eye: “Boy, don't make me force you.”