He glances both ways uncertainly, like a lost kid looking for his friends. He pulls out his phone, studies it for a second, bites his lip, then picks a direction and starts walking again.
I glare at the light. Fucking change. Fucking change. Hurry the hell up and change. I lift my chin and stare across the street, trying my best to keep my eye on him as he slowly disappears into the distance, like a lovely dream that drifts away tauntingly as you slowly start to wake up. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon …
“Phew, you’re fast!” breathes Connor, having caught up. “Did you catch him? Oh, there he is! … and there he goes.”
“Fucking lights,” I growl.
Fifteen more seconds on the light. I only wait for three of them before I start across the street. To the annoying tune of Connor calling out protests at my back, I muscle my way around the bumper-to-bumper traffic that crowds the intersection, making my way to the other side of the street.
I spot him halfway down the block as he peers up at the giant sign of a building, back down at his phone, then heads inside.
Connor catches up yet again. “You could’ve been killed, Dante! Wait, did he just go into Manic Men? Yikes, why…?”
My eyes narrow as the understanding hits me. “Because the punk’s actually taking my advice,” I growl before marching on.
At the door, I’m met by the bouncer, who all but flinches before letting me and Connor through. Inside, Manic Men is exactly what I remember it being: a dim, smoky sex dungeon masquerading as an upscale risqué club with a Casino theme, lined with red leather-cushioned seats and tons of doors and hallways leading off to private playrooms.
And of course, the kid is nowhere to be found, which can mean only one unfortunate thing.
“Jaime,” I greet my only contact here, who is by the bar typing on his phone. He looks up. “Did a cute young guy come in here just now? Slender, blue eyes, buzzed head.”
“You expect me to notice someone’s eye color?”
My jaw tightens. “Jaime …”
“I’d be lucky to notice if they’re wearing any clothes.” He’s a perpetually horny forty-four-year-old lawyer who trades his stiff suit for a leather one on the weekends. His curly black hair recedes at the corners of his tanned, freckled forehead, and he seems to squint at everything he looks at. “You on some kinda mission or something?”
“Listen, if you’ve seen him, I’d appreciate you just telling me. I might’ve sent a … potential customer your way.” It isn’t easy saying those words; I half chew them on their way out. “He’s nineteen.”
“So? You only gotta be eighteen to play.”
“Quit toying with me. C’mon, now. You seen him or not?”
Connor, meanwhile, is nearly clinging to my side as he glances around the place. His eyes alone look like he’s forming plans of escape, should we somehow become prisoners of this skeezy place.
Jaime pouts at me. “Really, man. You hoard all the pretty ones for yourself. You can’t let me have just one tiny shrimp for my own pleasure …?”
I get closer to his face. “This guy isn’t a shrimp.”
Jaime doesn’t back down. “Yeah, you’re right. He’s the whole goddamned lobster, huh?”
Connor puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Dante …”
I shrug it off, keeping my fiery eyes on Jaime. But then, quite suddenly, I realize in staring this man down that I have little to no leverage here at all. Maybe I don’t even have any right, either.
Who really is this kid to me other than another lost puppy who ended up on my stoop?
“Hey, look,” Jaime decides, suddenly taking a change of heart, “it’s slow for a Friday night. All of my usual clientele is probably down at Club Spades for their freaks n’ fetish night—or whatever it’s called.” He gives a nod at the first door to his left. “I think he went in there. He didn’t seem so sure of himself or what he wanted. Probably getting eaten alive.”
“He’s stronger than he looks,” I insist, catching myself off-guard yet again tonight by my words, before moving toward the door.
“Hey, Dante, before you go, tell me: are you entering one of your pieces into that fetish gallery all the photographers are talking about?”
I stop at the door, turning my face to Jaime in confusion. “Fetish gallery …?”
“Oh. Shit. Don’t tell me your ‘colleagues’ left you out of the memo yet again.” Jaime scoffs. “Fuckers.”
I file away that nugget of information—as well as suppress the sting of his words—then put on a face. “Nah, I know about it. Haven’t decided.”
“Hmm,” is all Jaime says, and I doubt my tone goes unnoticed.
But I have a more pressing matter right now. I push through the door and make my way down a narrow, dim hall that has an unintended old office building aesthetic. I told Jaime he needs to dress up these drab-as-fuck back rooms to make them more appealing, because I feel like I’m lost looking for my therapist’s office in the back corridors of some defunct mental hospital.