Cole's studio apartment was not much, but it was what he could afford. He had blackout curtains over the window, which stayed clouded and grimy no matter how many times he wiped it down and scrubbed the sill with an old toothbrush. The curtains covered it most of the time anyway, so it did not really matter. There were no holes in the wall, although the paint was a terrible decades-old textured beige. The floor was fake hardwood, which meant he could mop it at least. The presence of crummy, stained carpets had been a dealbreaker when he was apartment shopping, even though he could not really afford to be picky.

The only furniture he had was a mattress on the floor and a coffee table - one of the cheap Walmart kinds. Before it fell into his hands, it already had a life in another home where the edges got nicked and someone's kid drew a mural on the underside. In front of it, so he did not have to sit directly on the floor when he ate, were a couple of faded old decorative pillows with torn lace edges that he picked up from the thrift store. His laptop sat folded on the table. It belonged to his dad before everything fell apart and basically did not work anymore since it was over seven years old. A couple of bills were scattered on top of it, and a stack of the many Valentine's cards he had received sat off to the side.

Cole stared at them while he decided whether to get out of bed yet. His phone said it was time to, but that was mostly an arbitrary alarm set by his past self, who cared about things like keeping a consistent sleeping schedule. His present self believed that the more sleep he could get, the better; time be damned. Except his stomach disagreed. The last meal he ate was before he went to work last night, so he was famished enough that his belly felt like it was cannibalizing itself.

He threw the covers back and laid spread-eagle in the chilly air, thinking about how he would have to have to turn on the ancient electric baseboard heaters soon. They had two settings – off and sauna. He should buy a space heater instead. The single line of light that beamed in through the crack between his curtains fell across the kitchen, perfectly highlighting the canister of oatmeal on his counter and making his stomach yowl.

"Jeeze, all right," he grumbled, rolling to his feet. He kicked the blankets and decided to fold them up later. He would thank himself when he got home from the club tonight and did not have to wrestle his way into a tangled bed. But first, he dumped some oatmeal into a bowl, poured water over it, and then gazed through the microwave door as it spun lazily. 

The kitchen had two cabinets, one of which had his bowls and mugs and such, and the other, which he kept stocked semi-successfully with biweekly trips to the Methodist Church's food pantry and weekly trips to the co-op out near the last train stop on the edge of the city, where the produce that was about to go bad was reduced a scandalous amount. Cole discovered it two years ago and thought he was going to cry because he could afford an orange.

He picked at the peeling vinyl countertop and sighed. A lot of dancers made a good amount of money, especially the ones who turned extra tricks like he did. In fact, that was kind of the draw. For single parents, kids who got kicked out onto the streets when they came of age, and the suddenly unemployed, very few jobs paid as much. But all of Cole's extra money went toward paying off his debt to Logan. Usually, he also had a day job, but the restaurant he was working at until a week ago closed. He needed to go looking for another one.

He ate his bland oatmeal mechanically, then perked up when he remembered the extra hundred dollars that he made last night. With that, he could buy some brown sugar to make it taste a little better and maybe a couple of bananas to slice up and put on top like he normally did. After losing the day job, he had been keeping his purse strings tight, skipping the trip to the co-op last week. He went over to his sweatpants, which lay in a crumple on the floor exactly where he stepped out of them last night, and retrieved the bill out so he could carefully tuck it into his tattered, duct-taped wallet.

"Thank you, Gideon," he sang to himself. Maybe tonight he would get an extra tip too, although if that started to become a thing, Cole would end up in trouble because he was going to want to continue keeping it from Logan, and the man would go apeshit when he inevitably found out. Not only because it was money and that was how he controlled Cole, but because it was more evidence that there was something unique going on between him and this client. And Logan, in all of his delusional wisdom, would probably see it as competition. He knew that all it would take to lose Cole was for someone to sweep in and pay off the debt. After all, that was exactly what he had done back in the day.

The very notion of Logan putting his foot down and preventing Cole from seeing Gideon made disappointment strike through his chest. So, Cole should probably just hand over any other tips he might get from Gideon instead of hording them like a special gift. He should not be thinking of anything he did with Gideon as special. He just happened to be one of the few clients that Cole would not mind seeing more than the rest of his regulars.

He kept repeating to himself that it was nothing special, even as he abandoned his oatmeal to go cold and congeal while he sorted through his dance bag to pick out an outfit for tonight. He never had a pre-made appointment with a client before, so it was always just his dance clothes for the night that he wore for them. This was the first time he knew for a fact that he was going to turn a trick tonight. That was the only reason why he was getting worked up and hating every single little strappy piece of fabric, like some teenage kid complaining that they had nothing to wear in their closet, not because it was Gideon specifically.

The clothes did not matter anyway. He was just going to be taking them off. But his mind would not shut up, and his eyes strayed to the little pile of lingerie he kept tucked away in a Tupperware box beside the little piles of clothes folded along the wall. He did not wear lingerie to the club. The black lace booty shorts were about as close as he got to that because anything else was too much effort for that place, and he kind of liked keeping it to himself because he liked wearing it for himself.

He originally bought it just to experiment a bit and see if he could feel sexy without anyone's eyes on him except his own. Take his body back, or whatever. They sat in the little box ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. He had wondered before what it would be like to wear it for someone he genuinely wanted to show it off to. And all the genuine reactions he had to Gideon last night made him curious.

He opened the lid and ran his fingers over the satiny straps and soft stockings. The garter belt felt delicate in his hands when he lifted it out and stood so he could hold it up to his waist and consider his reflection in the bathroom mirror. There was no bra – he was not into trying to feminize what he did not have – but there was a small thong that, unlike his g-string, could barely fit the whole package while he was soft.

Maybe Gideon would like something like that. He had picked Cole with his lacey shorts and platform heels last night over a plethora of other guys in briefs and sneakers. He bit his lip and tilted his head. The bruise on his cheek caught his attention, swollen noticeably around his eye and turning an ugly shade of purple. He frowned at it, then tossed the garter aside. Better not to get caught up in fantasy land.

Before heading out, he pulled on a baseball cap that was once dark navy blue but had since faded to a denim color, frayed at the edges of the brim just like the white logo. Almost everything Cole owned was worn down like that - fitting in with his frayed life. The cap did little to hide the shiner on his cheek and nothing about the bone deep ache in his cheekbone.

"I'd hate to see the other guy," called the man who stood outside their building chain-smoking all day long. He was always in basketball shorts and flip-flops no matter the weather, beer belly stretching his stained t-shirts. Cole did not know his deal. Knew better than to ask. He flipped him off and adjusted the hat to cover his face better.

This was a street that never slept, traffic always rambling up and down the cracked, pockmarked asphalt. Drawn-out horns echoed road rage off the sides of buildings. The suspensions of cars driven into potholes that were deceptively deep beneath a placid puddle creaked loudly. Trucks beeped as they backed up at all hours of the day. Someone was always shouting, either in anger or in joy - it was difficult to tell those apart sometimes. Dogs barked. Kids shrieked. Cole kicked a stone down the topsy-turvy sidewalk pushed up by the roots of trees that were long gone.

He waited at the bus stop, blessedly alone, and watched a gathering of birds flit back and forth on the powerlines. Beneath them lay a cat, sunning itself and flicking its tail back and forth as it watched them. It did not need to eat birds, belly full enough already from all the kibble that a lady in the duplex next to Cole's apartment building put out every evening.

Cole had a couple of resumes printed at the library tucked into his pocket. He handed them out to a few places: a convenience store where the cashier sat behind bulletproof glass and did transactions through a tray; the drugstore, which had surprisingly less security and brand-new self-checkout lanes; a fast-food joint where the employees seemed to know everyone who came through the door by name, except for Cole. None of that boded well for him. He looked up at the menu and knew he should not but ordered a number two meal anyway.

The cashier looked like she wanted to rock his shit when he handed over the hundred-dollar bill. She eyed the bruise on his face with pursed lips, not surprised someone already had given him a shiner. The floor looked like they only ever washed it with dirty water, the greasy scent in the air somehow smelled burnt, and the ketchup was out, but Cole got his meal to eat in because it was better than scarfing down food on the train or the bus.

He sat at a table that had spills permanently encrusted onto its surface, a spill of crumbs scattered over them. The hamburger bun looked soggy, and when he lifted it up, the strips of lettuce were beyond wilted, squiggling around in a sickly mess through bright yellow mustard. A single bite of one of the fries made his stomach flip, so he left the entire meal sitting on the table and walked out.

The museum was a train ride away, past derelict communities and crumbled lots, through areas filled with orange construction, and into the part of downtown with towering high rises, murals, and parking garages. The windows in the bright white side of the building were shiny and reflective, and when he stepped through the heavy glass doors, the street sounds of tires crunching, pigeons fluttering, and rushing traffic fell away. Everything seemed muted here, even though the walls and ceiling and floors were hard, nothing to absorb sound, instead echoing the hushed murmurings of visitors so that it almost seemed like the paintings themselves were whispering in their frames, as they peered out at the gawking visitors.

Today, the receptionist leaned over the desk to organize a pile of red paper hearts, her feet safely hidden behind the desk so that Cole could return to imagining that she wore comfy bedroom slippers or something. She smiled at him.

"Take a heart! Put it with your favorite piece and write why it resonates with you." She smacked a little nubby pencil down on top of a single paper heart. Cole smiled back at her and took the heart and pencil.

He found himself standing in front of the gathering clouds again. The gallery was awash with activity today: couples on dates hanging off each other's arms instead of drifting apart to look at the different pieces that interested them the most. They made a case for each artwork as they decided where to put their hearts, voices coalescing into a rush of sound that, when Cole closed his eyes, could be the wind rushing through the grass, harbinger of the heavy dark clouds rolling across the sky.

Cole slipped his paper heart into his pocket next to his final folded-up resume.

On the way back out, he stopped at the front desk. "Are you hiring?"

"You'd have to check the website, honey."

Back home in his apartment, his laptop refused to load. He was working off the internet from the apartment below him, which meant not only was the laptop a relic, but he was also asking it to reach for success. The poor thing was just too tired. He snapped the lid shut and looked at the pile of Valentine's Cards. He set the heart from the museum beside them, then remembered the cards still in his dance bag and retrieved them as well. The first one he opened begged him to work tonight, promising a dozen red roses if he did. He put it into the pile with the rest.

He dragged the Tupperware of lingerie over and laid out the whole set: wine-red opaque stockings that ended at his upper thigh in a frill of lace, held up by smooth satin straps that connected to a matching lacey garter. He climbed to his feet and held the garter up to his waist again. Then he tossed it onto the table and retrieved his make-up from his dance bag to start dabbing concealer over the bruise on his cheek.