Chapter 8
Chapter eight
“Zara said she can fit us in at two,” Scott said, looking up from his phone.
“We? What do you mean, we?”
“It’s not too noticeable, is it?” Scott asked, blinking until Thomas looked in the right place. His left eye. They were walking side by side through the busy town. Scott kept positioning his hair in front of his eye, only to forget and tuck it behind his ear again thirty seconds later.
“No one is looking at you,” Thomas mumbled.
And it was true. Everyone was looking at Thomas.
“We’ve got thirty minutes.” Scott looked around. “There’s a café across the road.”
He strode over to the crossing with a reluctant Thomas trailing behind. As they waited, a child in a pushchair leaned over to gawp at Thomas. When Thomas looked back at him, he began wailing and tugging on his mother’s skirt, clearly distressed.
“We can wait to cross somewhere else –”
“It’s fine, Scott. I’m used to it.”
The woman knelt down to console her child, but even when the lights changed, she remained on the other side of the road.
“I think I’ll be in someone’s nightmares tonight.” Thomas smirked.
They crossed over to the other side, and Scott pushed into the café with a bright smile, but it was as if he was invisible. Everybody’s head swivelled towards Thomas. Some quickly looked away from him as if the sight was too much of a shock, but others stared.
“You pick a table, and I’ll order us something,” Scott suggested.
Thomas chose the table in the darkest corner of the café. Scott bought two Cornish pasties, and two cokes, then hurried to join Thomas.
“You’d think people have better things to do than stare at you,” Scott said, loud enough the customers on the neighbouring tables heard.
It didn’t stop them from staring, though.
“I’m used to it,” Thomas said. “Remember, I chose to do this to my body.”
“Still…it’s rude to stare.” Scott took a bite of his pasty, then asked, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“The full-body tattoo.”
“I told you when we were inside. This skin feels more real than my other one ever did.”
“But why a snake?”
“I like them. A lot of people would call them ugly, or hideous, but I think they’re beautiful.”
Scott frowned. “So you did it to look more beautiful?”
“There is no more. I was an ugly child. An ugly teenager. And ugly in my early twenties. I continue to be ugly, but now I can say I’m beautiful in a different way. Besides, looking like this has the added advantage of making 90 per cent of people keep their distance.”
“What about the other 10 per cent?”
“They point, shout things, laugh.”
Scott shook his head. “It’s still not nice.”
“Ten per cent with this” – Thomas touched his inked face – “is still better than the 75 per cent who pointed, laughed, shouted, commented, and genuinely made me hate my appearance before I began modifying my body.”
“I bet you weren’t an ugly child.”
“Scott…”
“Or an ugly teenager.”
Thomas looked away.
“Or ugly in your early twenties.”
“If I’d have booked you for a night, you would’ve seen me and been disappointed. You would’ve shuddered at the thought of touching me and the thought of me touching you.”
Scott blinked. “That’s not true.”
“How do you know?”
“The vanity I have for myself does not extend to others. I like all shapes, and sizes. People from all walks of life. I like confident, and I like shy. I want to please whomever has hired me. If they have a good time, they’re more likely to want me again or leave me a tip.
I’m the book they’ve picked up, and I’ll make sure they enjoy me, but it makes no difference who that reader is. ”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover…”
“Yes?” Thomas narrowed his eyes. “I’m familiar with the saying.”
Scott pointed at his face. “I want to be judged by mine. I need to be. It’s the cover that draws people in, and my pages that keep them. I’m a service to be bought by anyone, and I will do my damnedest to give them a great climax and a satisfying ending, no matter who they are.”
Thomas rolled his eyes. “Come on, Scott, there must’ve been someone who made your skin crawl.”
There had been only one. Even the night with the Viagra dick, Scott had been focused on giving his client a good time despite riding himself ragged, and the next morning, he’d been concerned about the blisters and wanted to stay.
“I knew it,” Thomas murmured before downing half of his coke. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, then crossed his arms. “Come on then, Mr Perfect, tell me.”
“There’s only been one night that I wanted to end quicker,” Scott said. “And it had nothing to do with the man’s physical appearance.”
“Was his dick too small for you?”
Scott flinched.
“Bad breath? B.O.? Did he have overgrown toenails or –”
“Thomas,” Scott interrupted. He couldn’t drag his gaze any higher than Thomas’s folded arms. “He scared me. That was the reason I wanted it to be over.”
Thomas relaxed his tightly wound arms. “What did he do?”
“Nothing, not really. I just…” He sighed. “Can we please change the subject?”
“Scott –”
“Please.”
“Sorry,” Thomas murmured. “I didn’t mean to –”
“If you’d have hired me, like this” – Scott gestured to Thomas – “or before, I’d have made sure we had a nice time. I’d have made you feel beautiful just as you are because…you are, and there’s no doubt in my mind that you were before too.”
Thomas shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I do. I have seen an ugly person, a truly ugly person. I’ve had their weight on top of me, their breath on the back of my neck, and their voice in my ear, but if you saw him, you’d never guess how ugly he was.
You’d never see because ugly people hide behind charming faces and enticing smiles.
” Scott looked down at his pasty. “Now…where was I?”
He continued eating in silence. Thomas didn’t ask any more questions, but he did briefly reach under the table to squeeze Scott’s knee.
Zara welcomed them inside the salon with a bright smile. She owned the place and had been working there for almost a decade. Every time Scott went to see her, she’d done something different with her hair.
Today was no exception.
She had a pixie cut and dyed her hair a candy-floss pink. Her lips matched, and even her perfume smelled extra sweet.
Scott tensed, awaiting her reaction to Thomas, but Zara gave him the same big smile and complimented the colour of Thomas’s lime-green eyes.
She leaned up on her tiptoes to stare into them.
“They’re so cool.” She dropped back to her feet.
“Why is this the first time I’m meeting your cool friend, hey? ”
She dug her elbow into Scott’s side.
“We’re not friends,” Thomas replied.
“Ooooh.” Zara winked at Scott, then winked at Thomas.
“We’re ex-cellmates,” Scott explained. “Thomas is letting me stay with him while my apartment gets fixed.”
“Scott managed to bust the pipes with his massive tur –”
“Lashes,” Scott said. He pointed to his left eye, and Zara pulled a face.
“What the hell happened?”
“It would take far too long to explain, but do you think you could apply some fake ones, make them match?”
Zara beamed. “Of course.”
“And my eyebrows too?” Scott asked, picking at the hard lump where the glue had set.
“Certainly.”
“And a back, sack and crack for good measure.”
Zara nodded at him, then turned her attention to Thomas. “And what about you?”
“Come anywhere near my back, sack or crack, and we’re going to have problems.”
Scott snorted. “I was thinking Thomas could try the hot stone massage.”
Thomas swivelled his head towards Scott. His snake eyes were narrowed with suspicion. “Anyone tries to put a rock up my arsehole, I’ll put it up yours first.”
“Eww.” Scott screwed up his face. “I don’t share arse rocks.”
“What?”
Zara held up her hands. “The hot stones are for external use only.” She glanced between them. “Would you like to be done together or separately?”
Thomas drew back. “What kind of question is that?”
“Together,” Scott answered.
“What?!”
“We’ll be in the same room together,” Scott told him. “That’s all Zara means. You get to lie on a bed and relax while Zara tortures me for forty-five minutes.”
Thomas briefly looked as if he might argue, then murmured, “Torture?”
“I’d describe Scott as a hisser,” Zara said, then smiled at Thomas. “You’ll probably like the noises he makes…very snake-like.”
“Treatment room one?” Scott asked.
Zara nodded. “Go right on ahead, make yourselves comfortable.”
Scott had to push Thomas into the room. Scott strolled over to one of the beds and grabbed the folded towel from the top.
“Undress,” he ordered.
“Excuse me?” Thomas asked, glaring.
“For the hot stone massage, it’s better if you take your clothes off, or at the least your T-shirt.”
Thomas looked away. “I’m not sure about this.”
“I promise you will like it.”
Scott strode over and tugged at the hem of Thomas’s T-shirt. He didn’t attempt to take it off, just pulled on it while Thomas stared him down.
“I thought you were proud of your tattoos.”
“I love my tattoos,” Thomas hissed. “It’s not the tattoos that are the problem.”
“Then what is?”
Thomas gestured to himself. “The rest of me.”
“We were in prison together. I’ve seen you naked.”
“I’m not bothered about you seeing me.”
“Zara has quite literally seen my arsehole,” Scott reminded him.
“And I imagine it’s a prettier sight than my stomach.” Thomas stiffened his jaw. “I don’t have a body like yours. You must’ve noticed. You’ve known me for three years, and my size hasn’t fluctuated.”
Scott shrugged. “So what? You’re a little squidgier than me –”
“Squidgier?”
“I like the way you look. You should own it.”
Thomas flared his nostrils. “It’s easy to say bullshit like that when you look like you do.”
Scott sighed. He let go of Thomas’s T-shirt. “You don’t have to take it off. I want you to be comfortable.”
“I’m not comfortable in the slightest. I don’t go to places like this, and the only reason I’ve stayed is to see you in considerable pain.”