Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty two
Asher
“Damn, boy, this looks amazing,” Theo proclaims as I set the dish of veggie chilli down on the table. “I’m fucking starving.”
“Good, because I made way too much. I’m about to be eating this shit for weeks. My poor ass.”
“Speaking of,” Amata gives me a wide-eyed, expectant look.
“It was… intense. He was… well, like having a Diet Coke can pushed up in there. I felt my fucking guts being rearranged.”
“I’m eating,” Theo complains, mouth full.
“Congratulations,” Amata retorts without looking at him. “And he was nice? Treated you right?” she asks me. This has always been super important to her, whether these guys treat me well. She has a castration list ready for anyone who doesn’t.
“He was great, yeah. Total gentleman.”
I hadn’t told them about Christian being there, about him coming with me at all.
I wasn’t sure how they might view something like that.
Amata certainly wouldn’t judge, but she knew the story of the photographer in New York (he was top of her castration list), and I guess I was scared she might assume Christian was of the same sort.
I didn’t want her to think that about him.
“Then I can’t wait to watch.”
Am tells us about an altercation she had with a woman at a beauty parlour the day before.
Am’s trans and has been going to the same place for years, but today, some soccer mom bitch had made a fucking scene over the tone of Amata’s voice.
Since this is something Am already has some insecurities about, by the end of the story, I’m ready to castrate something my fucking self.
“In the end, Krystal told her to get the fuck out of her store and never come back. She refunded her, too, because get this, she’d been having her fucking moustache waxed.
Bitch had more facial hair than me.” Theo and I both burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“Krystal told the entire fucking place, loudly too. So the bitch has gotten all her little Facebook fascists to rate the place one star. So I said I’d ask everyone I knew to leave a glowing review. ”
“Absolutely. We’ll do it tonight.”
By the time we’ve eaten our bodyweight in veggie chilli burritos, Theo and Am’s update well is dry, and the focus is on me.
Theo is lying horizontal on one end of my couch, hands splayed over his stomach and eyes closed as he breathes his way through a food coma.
Am has her head in my lap as I stroke her hair.
I’d just told them Christian promised to take me to Paris.
“That’s so romantic,” she sighs dreamily. “Maybe he’ll propose on the Eiffel Tower.”
“You watch too many films, babe.”
“I’m a romantic, I will not apologise for it.”
“Is that what you want? To be proposed to on the Eiffel Tower?”
“I mean… sure. But I don’t think I’ll ever get married, it’s just not in the cards for me.”
“Why not?”
She cracks open her eyes and smiles a sad smile.
“It’s hard enough for women to find decent men as it is, and then when I tell them—if they haven’t already guessed—the chances of them sticking around reduce dramatically.
Then I have to hope they want to marry me.
It’s just… I gotta beat a lot of odds, you know? ”
“Well, if anyone can, it’s you.”
She looks back at me and smiles. Quietly, she says, “Thanks, Thomas.”
She calls me that now and then, usually when we’re discussing something heavy, like she wants to know she’s talking to the real me when she opens herself up like this. I’ve told her she always gets the real me, but she still does it.
I smooth a hand over her forehead as I smile back. “Love you,” I tell her.
“Love you, too.”
“I need a shit,” Theo declares, springing up from the couch.
We both groan before falling to laughter, shouting for him to open the window in the bathroom when he’s in there. Am sits up too, reaching across for her wine.
“So, will you let him take you to Paris?”
“I would, yeah. But I can’t leave the country until I sort my passport.”
“Shit, I forgot about that. Look, I have some time off coming up, why don’t we drive to Ohio and just get it sorted?”
“I should turn up at Jeremiah’s place with my girl shorts, cami, and my trans best friend and demand that birth certificate.”
“Yesssss,” she sings, snapping her fingers. “Let’s do it, diva. I’m so fucking down, I wanna look this Jeremiah bitch in the eye.”
“You wanna castrate him.”
She hums and takes a sip of her wine. “I wanna castrate a lot of men, what do you think that means?”
“That you hate men?”
“I mean, yes. But I love you. And I tolerate Theodore, I have no idea why.”
“Because he worships you. You should marry him.”
“I’m gonna hold out to see if I can do any better,” she says, and we laugh again. “If he wasn’t such a disaster, he might actually be a catch. Anyway… The daddy. Paris. That’s a positive. If he’s making promises like that, it means he sees this lasting, right?”
“Fuck, Am, I don’t know. He’s been… perfect.
The shit he says, the way he looks at me, touches me, kisses me.
I’d think he was falling in love with me.
” Her eyes pop wide. “But then he’ll make it crystal clear he still loves his wife and that this can’t be anything long-term, and I’m like…
” I gesture with my hands. “The other night, he said he still waits for her to walk through the door.”
Her face creases with sadness. “I mean, it is possible to still love his dead wife and also be falling in love with you? They’re not mutually exclusive.”
“I mean, yeah, I guess.”
“You wish he’d just stop talking about her?”
“No, it’s not even that. It’s just… It’s a reminder that no matter how I feel about him, there’s this hurdle he can’t get past to get to me. Or something. Does that make sense?”
She nods. “And how do you feel about him?”
I’m scared to look at her, scared to meet her eyes, because if I do, I’m sure she’ll know.
So I avoid it for as long as possible. I tell myself it’s because I’m trying to think about it sensibly, strip away all of the mess and emotion from around it so I can get a good look at it. But I’m lying to myself.
I say the words at the same time as I look around at her. “I think… I’m in love with him.”
Her mouth drops open and her eyes round, and then there are tears glistening in the dark chestnut depths. “Fuck, Ash.” She throws herself at me and wraps her arms tight around my middle. Just then, Theo appears, looking more alive than he did when he went into the bathroom.
“What? What’s happened?” he says with concern.
“Asher’s in love.”
“With you?” He frowns. “You’re in love with Amata?”
“No, you idiot. With James Bond.” Theo honestly still looks pretty confused, but seems happier knowing I’m not in love with Amata.
Amata pulls back, wiping her eyes. “Fuck, babe, what are you gonna do?” Theo comes to sit next to her and stares at me.
“I don’t know. If I tell him how I feel, he’ll be like ‘Oh, jolly ho, I’m terribly sorry.
I thought I made it perfectly clear I didn’t want to do that, good day’.
” My British accent is beyond terrible, and Amata has to bite back a laugh, though her nostrils flare.
Theo chuckles. “Or, I don’t say a word and just go on like this in the hope that one day he’s gonna feel the same.
But that might never happen, and then what?
I just waste my good years, my hot years, meeting up in secret with the guy I’m secretly in love with like some dirty little…
secret? I want to live my life! I want to go on dates and travel and buy a house and get a dog. ”
“You don’t like dogs,” they both say at the same time.
“But I should at least have the opportunity to be convinced that I do! To debate whether we get a dog or not, like, that’s a conversation that all couples should have at some point.”
“Does James Bond like dogs?”
“I don’t know! That’s not the point.”
They both nod, fully agreeing.
We’re all silent for a minute while they both look at me with empathetic smiles. “Okay,” Am says at last, standing. “I am going to go get the wine, and then we can make a list or something. We’ll figure this out together.” She shoots me an encouraging smile.
“Can you bring the chips and salsa in?” Theo asks. “I’m hungry.”
??
The following morning, as I’m walking back from the store—I’d gone out to clear my head because three bottles of wine and two lists had not solved any of my problems but had given me a new one—a young guy approaches me.
He’s tall and slim, good-looking in a nerdy college student type way.
Since I look fugly and hungover, I know he isn’t about to ask for my number.
“Hey, you Asher?” He has an accent, one I can’t place at first.
“Who’s asking?” I keep walking, wondering if maybe he’s a ‘fan’, though that has never once happened to me on the street, not even in NYC after the Dazed article was released.
“My name’s Stephen Gardiner, I’m a journalist with The Sunday Times in London.” My steps falter as my knees weaken a little. “I just wondered if I could buy you a coffee.”
“Got one, but thanks, man.” I hold up my cup of coffee and give him a practised smile.
“I’d love to hear about your relationship with Sir Christian Darling.”
“Never heard of him,” I say in a disinterested tone, quickening my step as my throat tightens.
“Is that why you were seen leaving a hotel with him last weekend?” He’s British, that’s the accent, but it’s nothing like Christian’s.
I stop and turn to him, and I’m glad I put on my sunglasses because I’m certain the look in my eyes (terrified) isn’t going to match the tone I’m about to say this in.
“Stephen, was it?”
He nods.
“Stephen, I don’t know what it is you think you saw, but I was at work last weekend. Not hooking up with some… Sir Christopher guy in a hotel.”
“You fuck guys for money, that’s what you do for work, right?” He has a nasty little smile on his face now.
“I’m an adult content creator,” I say as calmly as I can.
Stephen ignores this. “My theory is that Sir Christian Darling paid you a lot of money to fuck him in that hotel last weekend. Maybe you didn’t even know who he was, why would you, he probably used a fake name.
But he’s a respected politician in the UK, and since he could very well be the next prime minister, a story like that would be worth a lot of money, mate.
” My hand is shaking, and this hot coffee is begging to be thrown in this fucker’s face.
“Last weekend I filmed a scene in New Jersey with a guy called Cole Sanders, you can look him up. You can ask him. Hell, you can even watch the video online in a couple days. He didn’t pay me, and I didn’t pay him. That’s not how it works, you clueless fucking asshole.”
“There are pictures of you and Darling leaving the hotel together.”
I scan my memory. We’d been careful, I fucking know we had.
Because I’d lost count of how many times I’d held myself back from touching him, smiling at him.
It was hard that morning because it was the morning I realised that I loved him.
I loved him, and I’d had to pretend that I didn’t, just in case someone was watching.
This asshole and whoever he works for had been watching, and now they want to fucking ruin him for it. My fingers curl into a fist by my side.
“Pictures of two men leaving a hotel at the same time? Slow news day in England, is it?” I laugh as I turn and continue walking. “Fucking loser.”
“I don’t think you understand how much we’d pay for a story like this. You’d be a millionaire.”
“I don’t think you understand how much I don’t give a fuck.
Now get the fuck off my property before I call the cops.
” I’m on the path up to the complex now, and I see Doreen sat in her usual spot.
My stomach drops. Had he spoken to her first?
He’d been waiting across the street for me, near my car, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t come snooping around here first, found my apartment empty, and approached her with some questions.
All he’d need was a picture of Christian and a few words: ‘Hey ma’am, do you recognise this man?
Have you seen him around here at all? Perhaps he came with the guy who lives in apartment 4c?
’ But that would only be feasible if this guy suspected it to be more than just a one-time thing, an escort sort of deal.
I close the gated entrance behind me, glaring at him through the bars. He’d begun walking back to his car. A burgundy rental.
“Morning, honey,” Doreen says. “How you doin’ today?”
“Good, Doreen, you?” I take a seat next to her on the bench, setting down my shopping bag and my coffee. I’m still shaking, and I don’t trust myself to hold it steady.
“Oh, I’m fine, hun. Just fine. That boy botherin’ you?”
“Not really.” Tentatively, I ask, “Did he bother you?”
“No, but I saw him hoverin’, thought maybe he was waitin’ on the agent for 6a.”
My shoulders drop with relief. “I don’t think so, looks to be getting in his car now.”
“You and your friends have fun last night?” she says, turning to me.
“We weren’t too loud, were we? Sorry about that.”
She waves a hand. “Not at all, darlin’. I saw that beautiful girl arrivin’ last night, is all. Then the other one, the boy with the neck tattoo.”
“You just tell me if we’re ever too loud, they can get a little crazy when they’re let loose.”
“You know I will.”
I reach into my bag and pull out the tray of peaches I’d picked up at the store and tear open the packet, offering her one. She takes it with thanks.
“That older looker of yours hasn’t been ’round for a while,” she observes. I almost curse at the close call. If he’d asked her, if he’d had a different theory about Christian, he’d be fucking cooked.
This place wasn’t safe for him, for us, not anymore.
“Yeah, I’m not sure he’s gonna be back around, Doreen.”