CHAPTER THREE
Truman
I had no clue what I was doing.
What in the fuck am I doing?
Like a nurse, I’d washed peoples’ hair before. Usually only men, so that it didn’t seem creepy with a woman.
But now? I was definitely getting off on this guy’s rounded, plump ass nestled against my crotch as I kneaded the shampoo into his scalp.
His thick, wavy hair ran down his back with rivulets of water as I crunched handfuls of it in my fists.
His torso a perfect V form, legs long and muscular.
At one point he even raised his arms and clasped his hands behind my neck, ensuring his luscious haunches rubbed firmly against my hard-on.
His velvety shoulder blades ground against my chest, sparking my nipples.
Before I could even stop myself, I had soap in my hand, swishing it over his well-developed pec. I’d never done that before with a client! They could—usually—wash their own damned selves. Or the soap did a fairly good job pouring down their bodies to the tiles.
But seriously.
What in the fuck am I doing?
I guess it was Providence that Alessio chose that moment to vomit.
It shook me back to reality, and I tossed the soap bottle onto the shelf.
All you can really do in this situation is hold their shoulders to show emotional if not physical support.
I was an advocate of addicts, and all I could fantasize about was stroking Alessio’s long, thick penis. What is wrong with me?
Quickly shifting into caregiver mode, I turned off the water and held his shoulders.
There wasn’t much to puke, so it didn’t last long, but I could still feel his stomach heaving, empty.
He’d get muscle cramps soon, pain wracking his bones, become weak as a reed.
But he’d still need painkillers for his hip.
Walking him to the sink, my jeans left a creek of water on the floor.
I let him dry heave into the sink while I peeled off my jeans and underwear.
Flipping open the med cabinet, I grabbed the bottle of Advil.
I knew it was harsh on the stomach, but it was a superior painkiller to Tylenol.
Over at the Establishment Club, we had oxy and morphine, so I’d text Gunning or Erin to bring some by later when they brought Alessio’s backpack.
I filled my toothbrushing cup with water and handed him that and three Advil.
“Here,” I said gently. “Advil for your bone pain.”
There wasn’t the tiniest hesitation when he grabbed the things from me and gulped the pills down.
When he tossed his head back to swallow, I fell into a pleasant fascination with his Adam’s apple.
Shaking my head to rid it of fantasies, I snagged a towel from the rack and threw it over his head.
He was too sidetracked with pain to notice I was massaging the fluffy material into his scalp to dry his gorgeous hair.
“We’ll put you to bed. You’ll have a tough night, but I guess you’ve been through it before. The bathroom will be right here. You’ll feel a hundred times better in the morning.”
When he wrenched away from me to heave into the sink again, I kept rubbing his head.
I had a severe urge to comb those beautiful locks so he’d wake up looking like a Roman god.
Why was I so protective of him? I’d had a thousand clients like him.
I’d never had the yen to drop to my knees and inhale their cock down my throat.
I combed my fingers through his damp hair before lifting his shoulder so he stood upright.
He just tossed his head back, letting it loll as he groaned at the ceiling.
“I’m going to get my revenge on those fucking dealers.
If you arrest a bunch of rapists, rapes go down.
Arrest a bunch of violent racists, the attacks go down!
But if you arrest drug dealers, the dealing doesn’t go down.
There are thousands behind him ready to replace him! ”
He sounded like me, he really did. I’d been proclaiming that shit for years. I steered him to my bed, and he stumbled with hand on stomach. “I know, buddy. If all those cops can’t get that one area clean, what’s the purpose of the whole fucking war on drugs?”
The sheets were already peeled back. Why would I bother making my bed when no one ever came up?
So I tossed him onto his back. Sitting next to him, I drew the covers over his feet.
I wasn’t sure how hot or cold he was, so I left them at his waist. He lay with one arm thrown over his head, the other hand on his hip.
What a beautiful chest, buff from weight lifting, the perfect amount of silken hair, a strip running down the center of his ribs, arrowing to . . .
Alessio had been raped. To the point of physical damage. He certainly didn’t need me lusting over him.
Especially not now.
I smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Look. Humans are an animal species. Kids experience this impulse early on, like why they spin around or hold their breath to get a rush.”
Did he grin a little? He needed a shave.
“We knew it’d make us sick, but we have a craving to alter our consciousness. It outweighs our aversion to nausea. It’s the same as wanting drugs.”
“Oh yeah,” Alessio croaked. “Up in the Andes in two thousand BC they toked up with pipes they made. Ovid talked how drug-induced ecstasy was a divine gift.”
We sounded like the same person. The Chinese were growing opium poppies by the year seven hundred.
Hallucinogens were found in a clay pipe in Shakespeare’s house.
I knew then that Alessio had the same need to alter his consciousness—the fourth drive in our minds, after wanting to eat, drink, and have sex. He’d get flashes of release and relief.
Were his eyes sparkling? “Then what do you replace fentanyl with to get the same high?”
My heart thudded. Had it been sounding like I was talking up drug use? Excusing it? In a way, I guess I was. I understood it. I was not for tossing addicts in jail. I shrugged. “Do you like weed?”
“Sure as fuck. I love the smell, the taste.”
I smiled too. “There you have it. But don’t smoke and drive!”
As quickly as it had come, his grin vanished when he whipped his head to one side.
Moaning from deep in his innards, he held his stomach.
Of course nothing came out, but I loped to the bathroom to grab the trash can anyway.
I brought him several towels to wipe any sweat.
And yeah, I did blot his forehead with one.
I felt . . . in love with him already, not to sound insane. I’d been straight, or imagined I was, for most of my life. I’d only messed around with a few men, one night stands. Not even remotely anything like what I seemed to crave now. A deeper, more profound and honest . . . relationship.
It’d been ten years since my wife had died of an OD.
That horrifying event had propelled me out of my county health worker seat and into the Establishment House.
That I’d been unable to save her was my number one MO for helping addicts.
I didn’t want to make the same mistakes I’d made with her.
I was going to get Alessio out of this and onto a new healthy path.
I almost wanted to kiss his forehead. I didn’t want to add to his stress by overwhelming him, so I went downstairs to get him a Gatorade.
Instead, I wound up pouring myself a glass of red wine from nearby Sonoma. I needed the fucking mental break.
My office was on the downstairs entry level, and I wanted to be within hearing distance of Alessio, so I sat at the dining table answering emails on my laptop, drinking wine and chomping deli prawns.
An email from the Health and Human Services director at City Hall already grilled me for the “runaway” parolee, Alessio Messina.
Of course people had told him Alessio was the one orating from the rooftop.
Parolees ran away all the time, but I was a horrible liar.
I’d have to huddle with Gunning and Erin before responding to that one.
Maybe Gunning could answer for me. He was a great liar.
Around four, my front door security camera dinged. Squinting at the screen on the wall, I saw it was Gunning himself, with Erin in tow.
Upstairs, Gunning glanced around with suspicion, as though someone would leap out at him with a cleaver. I understood. His background made him paranoid. With his turned-up jacket collar he resembled a skulking robber.
Erin was half-Native American, half-Swiss, as far as she could recall of her childhood. It was difficult to imagine the pain she’d endured as a hooker, addict, and prisoner because she was so gorgeous, her skin so flawless. She wasn’t missing any teeth. I knew this could be misleading.
No one seemed to wonder why I was shirtless, my hair damp and messy.
“How is he?” Gunning demanded to know before even sitting at the table.
Erin, always more mannerly, elbowed him to shut up. But she also wanted to know, “Is he okay? I was so impressed with his speech.”
I lowered my voice. Alessio could actually be listening from one floor up. There was no door shutting my bedroom off. “The usual. His stomach is empty so he has nothing to puke. He killed some guy in jail who was raping him.”
Erin nodded. “That’s understandable.”
I didn’t mention the foster father. This was enough for now. “He was only in the halfway house for a month, so hopefully it won’t be a bad comedown.”
Gunning asked, “Is he really a composer? That’s what someone told me. He writes this wild, avant-garde kind of . . . rock-n-roll mixed with jazz and classical. Very cool. Some guy showed me a YouTube video. He’s performed at the San Francisco Opera House.”
I tried not to show pride or awe. I certainly didn’t want my co-workers knowing I had a crush on a patient. I figured it’d lower their estimation of me. “Really? He doesn’t play anything himself? Just composes and conducts?”
Erin butted in. “Guitar,” she said with shining eyes. “Gibson Les Paul. He seems to be a master at that too.”