Chapter 12. Ford
By the third Sunday, I find myself placing a hymnal on the third pew from the back before rehearsal begins.
Rehearsal begins. The choir files in. The door opens and closes for each of them, and each time it opens, my chest tightens with something I refuse to call hope.
The door does not open again.
I conduct the entire rehearsal without a single error. My baton is steady. My corrections are precise. The Fauré has never sounded better. The choir looks pleased, energized, unaware of how I feel underneath.
The service comes and goes. The third pew from the back remains empty, the hymnal untouched.
I sit in my car afterward. I should go. I should live the rest of my day without any other distractions. But I sit, and I stare at the dashboard clock, and I feel the specific weight of an absence I have no right to feel.
He hasn't shown up. I try to ignore how this makes me feel.
My phone is in my right hand. Jude's contact is on the screen. My thumb hovers over the call button, suspended in the millimeter of air between decision and action.
What would I say?
I noticed you weren't here, and I'm concerned. That sounds parental. Are you all right? I miss you. Absolutely not. I don't miss him. I am experiencing confusion from the disruption of the routine. That's all this is.
I toss the phone onto the passenger seat. It lands face-down on the leather, and I start the engine and drive home.
The week limps forward. Nothing. No texts, no calls. He doesn't show up to any practice that week. My nerves get more and more frayed, and there's no denying that boy will not leave my damn mind.
Angel watches me pace on Friday night. Back and forth. The clock on the mantel reads 10:47. Then 11:03. Then 11:18.
At 11:30, I stop pacing.
The decision arrives fully formed. I don't linger on it, considering the pros and cons.
Fuck it.
I go upstairs. I change, pulling off my sweater and worn sweatpants, replacing them with a white button-down fastened to the collar, dark pressed trousers, my good shoes.
The mirror in the bedroom shows a man who looks exactly like himself and nothing like himself simultaneously, as I'm sure I've lost my damn mind.
My beard is neat. My hair is in order. My eyes are the eyes of someone who has made a decision he can't entirely justify and has decided to stop trying.
I get in the car. I drive south.
I hear the bass even from inside the Mercedes.
The building is unremarkable from the outside, a converted warehouse on a random street.
A small line of people waits near the entrance, their outfits ranging from leather and kinky gear to rock band shirts.
I sit in my car and watch them for a full minute, my hands resting on the wheel.
A fifty-three-year-old man in a button-down shirt, parked outside a kink club at midnight on a Friday because a twenty-eight-year-old brat didn't show up to choir practice. I'm unsure if this can get any worse.
The absurdity of it should send me home. Instead, I turn off the engine and get out.
The bouncer is a broad-shouldered man with tattoo sleeves and a bald head.
He checks my ID without comment. I want to say I'm flattered that he asked, but I know it's protocol.
Everybody gets carded. Inside, the door opens onto a corridor that funnels me toward the main space.
Bass, a deep-house track that vibrates through the floor. Then the light blue and red.
A woman in a latex bodysuit glances at me, does a double-take, and moves on.
A man in nothing but leather shorts and combat boots gives me a look that might be pity or interest. I straighten my shoulders and move forward, because standing at the entrance looking lost is worse than any alternative.
I'm not a newbie. I have experience, despite what people here might think. That's what I tell myself, at least.
The main room opens up around me, larger than I remembered from my single previous visit with Dave, or perhaps it just feels larger when you're alone in it.
The bar stretches along the left wall, different bottles arranged there.
To the right, raised platforms host scenes in various stages of intensity, the crack of leather on skin, the murmured rhythm of someone counting, the specific silence of a submissive deep in space, held there by ropes.
Ahead, the dance floor pulses with bodies.
I scan the room. I am looking for white hair, a big silly smile, chaos in motion.
He's not here.
Of course he's not here. This was always going to be a fool's errand, and I am the fool who ran it.
I'm debating whether to leave immediately or order a drink first, to salvage some dignity, when I see Dave.
He's at the bar, leaning against it. He looks nothing like the financial advisor I know.
Gone are the pressed shirts and professionalism, replaced by a leather harness that crosses his chest. He's holding a glass of something clear and looking across the room, window-shopping.
Then he sees me. His head turns, his eyes going wide. He sets his drink down and moves toward me with a big smile. When he gets close, we hug.
"Well, this is unexpected."
"Don't," I say.
"Don't what?" His innocence is performative and we both know it. He is a brat, after all.
"Don't make a thing of this. I'm just…"
Dave's smirk softens. He tilts his head, studying me.
"Looking for someone specific?" he asks.
My jaw tightens. The music pounds around us and I have to lean closer to speak.
"Jude," I say, and I realize I'm trembling slightly. "Have you seen him?"
Dave's expression shifts. The amusement is replaced by something more complicated, sympathy mixed with resignation.
"Jude isn't a regular anymore," he says.
"I know," I tell him. I hate how sad I sound. "But I thought maybe I could find him here."
"Well," Dave continues. "I'll talk to Glynn. They'll know what to do. They always do." He glances across the room toward the bar's far end, where a figure with ginger hair is managing something on a tablet. "Glynn keeps track of everyone, and they are best friends."
I nod. The word thank you is somewhere in my throat, but it stays there.
I'm standing in a kink club at twelve-thirty in the morning, in my good shoes, asking after a man I have told repeatedly, told him, told myself, told the empty air of my study, that I have no interest in pursuing.
And the lie is transparent now, paper-thin.