Chapter 19 Andre
NINETEEN
Andre
It’s not that I want to leave Elias. I don’t want to—and that’s the problem. That’s why I make myself do it. Because being with him feels so fucking good, so fucking right that it almost feels like …
Like I need him. In a way I don’t understand. In a way that doesn’t fit inside any of my roles.
I’m blurring them. I felt it tonight, like I couldn’t hold up the walls between them, like everything was collapsing into …
Fuck, I don’t know.
A mess.
As I watch Elias from the shadows, I can tell he thinks that I’ve abandoned him, but what I’ve actually done is retreat. Something bad would’ve happened if I’d stayed. To him maybe, or to me. Something we couldn’t have stepped back from.
It’s hard to keep myself at a distance. I can hear him sniffing. He’s upset. Of course he fucking is. I just chased him, dominated him, fucked him, and left him in a cold, dark alley. I hate it. I hate myself for it.
But why? Isn’t that my role?
Fuck, I’m so confused.
Elias gets his clothes fixed. He hunches his shoulders. He starts walking. I shadow him all the way to The Axis. I don’t let him hear me this time. I just make sure he gets home.
When he’s in the building, I bring up the various camera feeds, watching him as I walk back to my car.
My tracking on his phone was spotty when he got on the train. When I realized he was headed to the Bronx, I got on his trail, but before I caught up, he got back on the subway, and I had to turn around. I still don’t know exactly where he was or why. He wouldn’t fucking answer me.
By the time I get to my car, Elias is in his apartment. He pulls two phones from his jacket and plunks them down on the kitchen island.
I didn’t see him getting ready to leave, so I missed the two phones earlier. I’ve been a little fucked up today.
He goes into his bathroom. I hear the shower. He’s in there a long time. I stay in my car. I don’t want to miss anything.
When Elias emerges in sweats and a t-shirt, he goes to the kitchen and checks his phone, the new one.
Is he looking for me?
I try to think what I could text him, but the only thing in my mind is, Are you okay? But I can’t send him that. In this role, I’m not supposed to care if I’ve hurt him.
I need the weekend to get my shit under control, to watch Elias from a distance, to calm down. I’ll stay at my warehouse apartment, well away from him, until Monday.
* * *
I don’t get that time because Elias spends Saturday thinking. I’ve watched him enough to know. I can tell. He’s thinking. More than that—he’s planning something.
It makes me nervous as fuck because whatever this plan is, come evening, it involves him taking a black t-shirt into the kitchen and cutting it into a sleeveless crop top with slashes across the ribs and nipples. What the fuck is happening?
I pace around the living room of my converted warehouse. It takes all my willpower not to text him. I wouldn’t be able to control my questions. I would give away the fact that I can see him.
He tries the shirt with several different styles of pants, ultimately choosing a pair of loose dress pants. It shouldn’t look good, but, god, it does. Why is he so good at this?
It’s not the first time it’s been obvious that he understands style.
The night I let him choose my clothes for the party, he showed a clear, almost practiced eye.
It’s weird. It doesn’t fit with his background or his previous wardrobe.
He’s good with his hair, too, which is also strange given how shaggy and unstyled it was when I met him.
But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I learned all that shit too, and it doesn’t fit with my background either.
Elias fiddles with shit for a long time.
Different shoes, different jacket. He fucks around with his phone.
I can’t see the screen and I can’t track all his activity there, so I don’t know what the hell he’s doing.
At ten p.m., though, he’s fully dressed, his phone and wallet in his jacket.
He takes a deep breath like he’s steeling himself, then he leaves his apartment.
By then, I’m also dressed and have a number of different contingency plans, which means I have a ton of shit in my pockets. By the time he reaches the sidewalk, I’m in my car. I lose my camera views and rely on tracking.
When Elias bypasses the subway entrance, I relax a little. He’s walking. He wants me to follow him
I’ve chased Elias more than once. Even in my other role, as his boss, I’ve herded where I wanted him. But now as I follow him across the city, I feel the reversal—because that’s what I’m doing, following. He’s leading me somewhere.
Where he leads me is Lush.
Fucking great. Lush is about the last place I want to be.
It’s a swanky nightclub, expensive, exclusive, elegant.
But that’s only its surface. Underneath, on its lower level, Lush is a dark, kinky gay sex club—and that’s where Elias goes.
I catch sight of him at the door, waiting for the bouncer’s approval.
Lush doesn’t have a line. Approval and rejection are quick, and the price is eye watering, even by Manhattan’s standards.
Elias looks nervous, like he won’t be let in. Idiot. Of course he’ll be let in. He’s beautiful. And he now has the money for a place like this.
I have to park, which puts me way behind Elias. I hate it, but it’s just as well. I can’t let him see me come in. I have to be smart about this. I can’t be masked in there, and Elias isn’t the only one who knows my face.
When I get to the door, the bouncer takes my money and lets me in.
The tiled foyer is honeycombed with pay-to-play rooms. On the walls between doors hang black-and-white photographs, all of men. They’re beautiful, artful, and very erotic.
I move onward to the main part of the club. This is the moment that could fuck me. I’ll be exposed. If Elias sees me, I’ll have no choice but to switch into my role as his boss and pretend I’m surprised to see him.
But he’s at the bar, his back to the entrance. He doesn’t see me before I slip into the shadows—but Rafael does.
Rafael owns Lush, and he’s the main reason that I don’t want to be here.
Two years ago, shortly before I made Peter Grange kill himself, I met Grange in the upstairs part of Lush.
I needed him in a public place, a classy place, one where he’d have to control his reaction to the images, recordings, and bank statements that I’d collected.
I needed him, with people around him, to think about whether he wanted all of that coming to light.
As I was leaving that night, Rafael intercepted me. I didn’t recognize him at first, didn’t understand him when he asked if I needed help with Grange.
Then I saw it. The silvery gray eyes in that model-perfect face. I saw back fifteen years—and I didn’t fucking like that.
I certainly didn’t like that Rafael saw back that far. At that point, before I had Grange in my cell, I hadn’t even told him who I was or why I was destroying him. I was letting him think it was greed. But Rafael knew that it wasn’t.
I’d like to turn my attention away from Rafael entirely, but that’s not an option while he’s interacting with Elias.
I watch closely to see if Elias stares at Rafael, shirtless under his silver corset vest, his white pants hugging his ass and thighs. But Elias is too distracted, apparently, to notice how outrageously beautiful Rafael is. Rafael always was. All the men fucking loved him.
I have to halt and close my eyes for a second. I have to shove all of that back into the black void where it belongs. It doesn’t exist if I don’t let it.
I open my eyes and focus on Elias. He’s looking around as Rafael mixes his drink.
There’s certainly plenty to look at. Behind him lies a multi-level space with couches and tables. Some nooks are discreet while other areas are made for display—and there’s a lot on display.
Over half the men are shirtless. Many are wearing even less. There are sheer bodysuits, leather harnesses, thigh-high boots and thongs. A few are naked. It’s all writhing, kissing, sucking, and fucking while on the stage beyond a man is being strapped to an x-cross.
Elias pays and takes his drink. He scans the room again. His eyes aren’t as big as they should be. He’s been to places like this before.
I seethe as men stare at him in his cut-up crop top and low-riding pants. He’s gorgeous and everyone knows it. Everyone but him. He doesn’t even notice the attention.
When a couch opens up, Elias goes to claim it. While he watches the room and the stage, I move through the darker parts of the club. Rafael tracks me at first but finally leaves me alone when another man—big, dark, and intense—steps behind the bar and lays a possessive hand on Rafael’s ass.
I find a place deep in the shadows and watch Elias. He seems captivated by the display on stage. The man bound to the x-cross is naked, his cock hard. He cries out and spasms when another man, this one in black leather pants, strikes his inner thigh with a riding crop.
Does Elias like that? Would he want to be bound like that?
His current fantasy is being stalked, but where does he think that ends? He didn’t write enough. He didn’t finish it.
I can’t watch Elias nonstop because I have to keep scanning the room. It’s jealousy, sure, but also paranoia. Places like this are full of monsters like me.
That’s how I catch someone watching Elias. I mean, really watching him. The man looks about my age, around 30. He’s decent-looking, Italian. He gets out his phone. I can’t tell for sure what he’s doing, but I think he takes a picture of Elias.
I don’t fucking like that. I start toward the guy, but he gets up, phone at his ear, and heads to the exit. It forces me to choose between following him and staying with Elias.
I retreat into the shadows—but I’ve had enough.
I get out my phone and text, Did you think this would force me into the open?