The City of Rossford

James Lewis, who had been living with tension in the house and a very upset husband, heard the rap at the door and when, after six knocks, no one got up to answer it, he sighed, threw down the paper and went himself.

“Ron?”

A slightly darker, somewhat older version of himself stood at the door. He waited for no more words, but walked right in, a suitcase in his hand.

“Where’s Noah?”

“I don’t know.”

“Noah!” Ron Lewis called.

“What are you doing here?” James demanded.

“That’s a fine way to greet your brother,” Ron said. “A better way would be to take my coat,” he handed it to James, “and then to fix me something to drink.”

Noah came down the hall and blinked in amazement.

“I got a phone call from my nephew last night,” Ron said. “We need to talk. You and me.”

James, paused at the kitchen door, turned around.

“James, I’ll talk to you later, ” Ron added.

“You,” he said to Noah, “will tell me everything.”

When Noah had told him everything, Ron said, “I’ve said a lot of harsh things about you in the past, Noah.”

“You said I was trash.”

“And I stand by it,” Ron said, simply, taking off his glasses and polishing them. “Only now I add to everything else I called you: coward. To say you’ve dropped the ball in this is….” Ron seemed to be deciding on a word. “Yes, an understatement.

“Where is the boy?”

“Chay?”

“No, Dutch Boy, you idiot. Yes, Chay?”

“He’s with Casey.”

Ron blew out his cheeks and looked at Noah in amazement. “Well, you have completely lost control, haven’t you? How much does my brother know?”

“Nothing really.”

Ron nodded, “He’s almost as stupid as you. Well,” Ron said, getting up, “Give me the address.”

“What?”

“I said give me the address, so I can go over to him.”

Noah blinked. It was so early in the morning, and he had always hated Ron. But he didn’t know what to do, and here was Ron with a plan of his own. So Noah said: “Alright.”

Early that morning they went to the McDonalds on Dorr Road.

“We should have gone to the pancake house or something,” Logan said, looking around as he stabbed the lid of his orange juice with the skinny straw.

There were only a few cars out on the road, and Logan wondered if they were heading back home from a night of parties, or were some returning from being with a lover? Or on their way to breakfast before bed? Where would any car be going or coming from Sunday morning, this early, when the sky was still pewter blue?

“This is good,” Sheridan broke the greasy sausage biscuit in half, and watched some of the flaky crust settle on the yellow paper. “I haven’t had one of these in a long time.”

“And then it’s off to bed with you, young man,” Logan said.

Sheridan chuckled and sipped his juice. He yawned. “I could use coffee.”

“You could use sleeping in.”

“I could,” Sheridan agreed.

“Does your family go to church?”

“That’s odd,” Sheridan said.

“Not really. It’s Sunday. Everyone’s Catholic here.”

“My dad is like half Methodist, half Catholic and we’re something in between. My big brother went to Saint Barbara’s for school, but my parents stopped sending me there after eighth grade. Mom’s Jewish, though. Sort of. Mostly. Sometimes.”

“That’s cool,” Logan said, his eyes lighting.

“I guess,” Sheridan shrugged.

“Ever been to a synagogue?”

“Not really. I saw the one near downtown, though. I’m not really into religion.”

“I…” Logan twisted his hands and thought. “I don’t know. I don’t believe in anything they told me, and I don’t like to go to Mass. But I like to sit in churches.”

“What are you?”

“Catholic. Sometimes.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Sheridan said. Almost everyone he knew was. And only sometimes.

“I like our churches. The priests might ask you to do all this and believe in all that, but the church doesn’t do anything. It just sits there and lets you be. I remember sometimes, when I first came here, maybe after I’d been working, I mean when it was a real hustle, I would go into Saint Agatha’s and just… be quiet. You know? Just be at some peace.”

Logan, who had been cracking his knuckles and staring off, refocused on Sheridan.

“Am I boring you?”

“No,” Sheridan said. He realized that, while he had actually been paying attention, he might have looked a little bored and spaced out.

Sheridan yawned suddenly, and put his hand over his mouth.

“That’s enough,” Logan said. “As soon as I finish this, to bed with you.”

Sheridan grinned at him, almost laughing, and Logan said, “What?”

“All you’ve been doing since about eight o’clock last night is going to bed with me.”

Logan, who was paid to have sex with people, who was so used to the business of sex he took pills to insure erection, went stiff looking at the boy in the open sweat jacket with the cropped hair.

“I love it when we’re together. I didn’t know what it would turn into it. I thought it might even get old quick.”

“It doesn’t get old,” Sheridan said, knowingly.

“No, it doesn’t.”

Logan was in bed, fully dressed in jeans and a wifebeater when his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Can you take a client?”

“Are you serious? It’s like eight o’ clock in the morning?” Logan yawned through his complaint.

“He’s willing to pay an all night price, and how often do you get that?” Casey asked.

“Uh…” Logan put a hand to his face and, yawning again, turned to the alarm clock. “How soon?”

“In about ten minutes if you let him.”

“He’s coming here?”

“I gave him your address.”

Logan thought for a moment, and then he said, “An all night price?”

“Yeah, and considering you spent all night fucking Sheridan and wining and dining-”

“How do you know all that?”

“I have my ways.”

“Fine. Whatever. Yeah,” Logan pushed himself off of the bed. “Tell him to come over.”

Logan looked around the apartment. It was only semi-clean. A lot cleaner than a few weeks ago when Sheridan had first started hanging out here, but no palace. And, of course, he hadn’t washed. He’d flush himself out quick, just in case the guy wanted some of that. A few minutes for an all night price pretty much meant he could do what he wanted and Logan was so used to procedure that he had already filled up the enema bottle with warm water and was dropping his pants and his underwear before he had completed the thought. The priest over at the Episcopal church always gave him ample warning and Sheridan had never been inside of him, which he wanted, but they just hadn’t gotten around to that. He wasn’t used to that feeling he’d had in those earliest of pornos, where he wasn’t comfortable, where he was cleaning himself out too quickly, and a little cramped, and he knew that this was all, definitely work, a job.

Logan was flushing the toilet and hunting for a towel and lubricant when there was a knock at the door.

“Shit,” he said. And then half laughed. The toilet wasn’t clean, so the visitor couldn’t go in and use the bathroom. But one thing Logan realized was some of these guys were creeps and they didn’t want any mystique. For some people the dirtiness was the mystique; he might be turned on by a shitty toilet.

The hammering on the door persisted.

“Hold on!” Logan shouted.

He was coming to the door and the hammering continued.

“I’m coming. Hold on.”

He hated him already, really, and when he opened the door it was to a man a little shorter than him, but wider, with a dark beard and a bit of a belly. No real wonder why he wanted a prostitute.

“I heard you the first thousand times,” Logan said, opening the door.

The man grunted, came in and shut the door, saying: “Well let’s get on with this shit.”

Logan put his hand out and the man blinked. Usually there was a better way of requesting the money, but now Logan didn’t care. The man handed him an envelope, and then Logan walked to his room and came back.

At once the man was moaning and groaning and climbing up Logan, kissing him with his sticky mouth, rubbing his dick, sticking his hand under Logan’s shirt. Logan was keenly aware of not responding, of sort of hating this person. Sometimes the sex was less than great, and he knew he was, after all, a prostitute, but rarely did he feel… disrespected.

The man unbuttoned Logan’s jeans roughly and yanked his dick.

“Chill out,” Logan murmured. And then the guy was sucking on him.

Logan waited for it to end, but his teeth were catching his skin, his mouth was rough and the guy was biting.

“It’s not a hot dog. Chill out,” Logan said.

The guy looked up at Logan, saliva dribbling from his mouth. Logan hadn’t taken any pills, and so his erection was entirely based on his actual excitement, which mean it wasn’t there at all.

“Turn around,” the man said, sullenly.

Logan had never felt so much like this was a job.

“Turn the fuck around,” the man said.

Logan did porn. Guys dribbled over him, wanted to be him, wondered what it would be like to have sex with a hot guy like him, and this man thought he had just bought him and could do anything. He thought that’s what buying sex was like, that you bought the whole person. You could do any fucking thing.

“Look,” Logan said, now upright, “I’ll give you some of your money back. Not all of it, cause I’ve given you some of my time. But I don’t want to do anything else with you.”

The man reached into his jacket, and Logan’s pants were still down. Before Logan could think much, the man had pulled out a knife and it was at Logan’s navel. It was sharp. There was definitely blood. Dizzy, spinning pictures of all those boys who had died, all of those boys who people believed deserved to die, of that poor girl who had been raped and then gone in front of a train filled his head.

“Turn around and let me fuck you.”

When he could master his limbs and not confuse a foot with a hand, Logan slowly turned over.

“I want you on your hands and knees.”

“There’s… there’s lube in the bathroom.”

He heard a hacking, and he felt phlegm on the crack of his ass. A rough finger was rubbing it around in him, sticking its finger in his anus. He heard another hack, felt more phlegm. His face was hot and his knees hurt.

“Just… you should use a condom. I hope you have a—”

Logan’s head went roughly into the kitchen island, and then he felt the man situating himself on hands and knees, grabbing his hips, and he felt that penis inside of him, and then pressing on his anus. It wasn’t large, but he didn’t really know what he was doing. It was probably going to hurt.

And then he was fucking him. Slow at first, and now quick. He had reached forward and grabbed Logan’s shoulders for leverage and was shuttle fucking him, the way Tyler had done in a movie once when both of them had gotten a little high and were totally into each other and the sex had been so hot and the cameras were a turn on. Casey had been filming him then, and he was thinking about a little threeway action they’d all have later. It was the most completely enjoyable dirty sex he’d ever had.

This was not like that. He just waited for it to be over, and stop hurting. And he hoped that this man didn’t have anything, and he hoped he wasn’t some crazy fuck who would kill him, and he was aware that all the working out he did, all the weight lifting, all his good looks didn’t mean anything cause here he was, on his knees, in his house, being raped.

And then it stopped. There was a crash, and a shattering. Logan thought it was him dying. There was another crash, a hard hit. The man slid out of him. Logan’s anus was on fire. He felt ripped open and strange, and the man collapsed on him.

“Logan!” he heard a panicked voice.

“Logan.”

Logan tried to turn around. He didn’t really know what to do. He did succeed, eventually, in half turning, and before his dazed eyes, mouth open in panic, shaking his head was Sheridan Klasko.

They sat in the living room, and Sheridan was aware that he was trembling too. In the distance he heard the train passing. Above the naked brown trees, an orange sun was just beginning to rise.

“I left my phone here,” Sheridan said. “I was coming back and I saw the guy coming upstairs. I waited a while. I wish I hadn’t. But then I came up. I listened at the door cause I had a bad feeling about him, but I didn’t want to bust in and ruin your business. So I just listened.”

Neither one of them spoke. Then Sheridan said, “But when I knew….”

“You saved me.”

“If I had come in sooner…”

On the floor, in the next room, the man moaned.

Sheridan got up. He took the bat and quickly, savagely, hit him over the head again.

“Sheridan!”

“Fuck him!” Sheridan shouted.

Then Sheridan said, “We need to do something.”

“Call the police.”

“Fuck that,” Sheridan shook his head.

He took a deep breath, and then he screamed and punched his fist into the wall. He pulled it away bloody, and his eyes were filled with tears.

Logan got up and crossed the room. He held Sheridan by the shoulders. The boy was trembling.

“I’m fine.”

“I want to kill him,” Sheridan said.

“We need to get him out of the house. And… your hand.”

Sheridan shook it off.

“We can’t… take him to his car. Not like this. We’ll just… You got masking tape? I know you do. I saw it. We’ll just get some of that and put him in that little closet in the outside hall. The one with the padlock.”

Logan was physically much stronger than Sheridan, and it was not much of a problem to lift the man, tie him up and tape his mouth. Sheridan said, “Whaddo you need, babe?”

“Babe?”

“Do you mind?”

“No.”

“Whaddo you need?”

Logan’s apartment and an empty one across the small hallway were the only ones above the bait shop. Logan hugged himself and said, “I need to get in the shower. And… I want you with me. And then… I just want us to go to sleep together. I just want to hold you right now. Alright?”

Sheridan nodded and said, “Go on inside. I’ll lock him up. I’ve got this covered.”

Logan nodded somewhat doubtfully and then went back in.

Sheridan waited for him to be gone, and then he took the knife and, vengefully, sliced at the man’s arm. The man started from unconsciousness, and blood spurted through his sleeve.

“Take that, fucker,” Sheridan murmured. And then he kicked him in the head and shut the door, locking him inside.