The City of Rossford

“I need you to come with me,” Logan said one night when Chay was at the house.

“Okay?”

Logan was well muscled and his arms were tattooed, but there was something about him that reminded Chay of the weedy boy who had been beaten up at school and called a faggot. Maybe it was because his father was the same way. That was the link between him and Logan.

“It’s sort of a risky area I’m going to, and I want back up.”

“Risky?” Chay was about to say: “In Rossford?” but he knew how stupid that was. He just said, “Okay.”

“Don’t be worried,” Logan said, slipping on his black shades and sounding non-chalant. “You won’t be in any trouble. I’ll give you my tazer.”

“Your tazer?”

“You know what I do, right?” Logan said, a little impatiently, while he spiked his hair.

“Of course I do.”

“Well, then you know it’s not the safest thing in the world. And not necessarily in the safest places. But I’m safe as possible. And… I don’t plan to be a dead body on the six o clock news.”

Logan drove them out of town and across the river to the Wooden Indian Motel, which looked just as seedy as it sounded.

“Don’t worry,” Logan said, hugging him quickly as they stepped out of the car and walked across the asphalt, and then up the steps. “You’ve got that tazer on you. You’ll be alright. We both will.”

Chay just nodded, but before Logan knocked he said, “Look. We won’t even need it. I just… I like to be extra protected. This won’t take long,” he said, tenderly. “I promise.”

He knocked on the door and a man much too homely for Logan entered. But that’s when he remembered Logan was being paid. So there it was.

“Hello,” he said, letting Logan in, and raising his eyebrow at Chay.

“He’s my companion,” Logan said. “If you don’t mind.”

At the look on the man’s face, Logan added. “He’s not working with me. All you get is me.”

The man nodded.

“What would you like?” Logan said as Chay looked around, and then went into the next room.

“I… Can I suck your dick?” Chay heard the man say, timidly, as he went into the next room.

He heard Logan speak in a voice filled with a confidence and affection he knew wasn’t there.

“Sweetheart, for the next hour you can have whatever you want.”

Chay heard shifting around, and then he heard the chair squeak. He didn’t know what else he was hearing, and then he heard the pull of a zipper. Next he heard nothing. Then he heard, lightly, slurping. A moment later he heard the stupid voice of the man saying: “Excellent cock.”

Logan said nothing.

Chay sat there for a while before, finally getting up and turning around, he looked into the next room.

Logan’s face was beautiful, his lips parted. His eyes, blue grey, were a million miles away, though. He was the same Logan in his tank top and tanned, tattooed arms. But his cargo pants were down around his ankles, and the man was bent down, sucking him, and it went through Chay like lightning, the revulsion, the desire, and the confusion. It exploded in his head painfully and his face went hot. His eyes watered as he watched and then he thought how embarrassed he would be if Logan turned and caught him watching. So he turned around and put his back to the wall.

A second later Logan groaned, and then it was pretty much over.

A moment later Logan came out of the room with his pants undone and slipped into the washroom. Next water was running.

“I’ll be done in a moment, Chay,” he said from the other side of the door. “Just gotta get cleaned up.”

“Thank you so much, Chay,” Logan said on their way back.

Chay’s dick was hard and he wanted to touch himself. He was hot and confused and couldn’t forget seeing Logan like that.

“Did you…” Chay began. “At the end did you come? In his mouth?”

“That’s what he wanted. And that’s how it could be over as soon as possible.”

“But… he wasn’t. I mean, I don’t think I could. For him.”

“That’s why you don’t do what I do,” Logan said, giving Chay a sweet smile.

“The pay is very, very decent for a few moments of time that are, usually, pleasurable. And if you really kind of hate the guy you’re with, or… aren’t into him, you can always pretend.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Tonight. Yes.”

Logan was quiet for a while, and then he said, “You know, you don’t ever have to do it again if you don’t want. But… here,” Logan kept his eyes on the road and a wad of bills before his face, he squinted as they rumbled over the train tracks and handed Chay:

“A fifty!”

` “Yeah, Little Brother. You’re my wingman. This isn’t gonna be for free. Sometimes, when I go to seedy places, I want you with me. If that’s alright?”

In Chay’s head, all of Rossford was a safe place. It had never occurred to him that bad things happened even here, or that Casey’s guys went outside of town to motels. The idea of his friend being by himself was unbearable. And then, in his head was the picture of Logan with his pants down, pressing the guy’s mouth down on his cock. He was electrified by being so close to real sex.

So as the car rolled into town, coming down Dorr Road, Chay, holding the fifty in his sweaty palm, said: “Yes.”

SHERIDAN BUTTONED HIS PANTS and readjusted his hoodie. He reached for his coat and looked down at Robin looking up at him. They were in her basement, and he stuck out his hand and spread it out, fanning it over the room as if, by some sonar it would pick up anything he might have left on the floor.

“Was it everything you thought it would be?” he said.

“Sort of,” Robin said. “I mean… yes.”

“Good,” Sheridan said. He felt strangely angry.

“Well, if that’s all you needed, I gotta go.”

When Meredith came over that night, Robin was in a strangely happy mood.

“I talked to someone,” Meredith said, wondering if she should.

Robin nodded.

“Kip…” she said. “Kip Danley.”

The look on Robin’s face changed. They were sitting in her room, under a poster, and she looked suddenly gentle.

“What?” said Meredith.

“He… he was the kind one,” she said, dreamily.

“He lifted me. He put me in his jacket. That’s how they found out it was him. He called the police for me. He was there when they found me. They tried to make him leave with them. But he stayed. I remember that.”