Also, it was broad daylight, so the mood felt entirely wrong. 

“Wait, you didn’t ask anything yet,” one of the other men said.

“Shit, right. I haven’t done this before.”

I tried not to let my face show how stupid that sounded. Take your time, I thought sarcastically. 

“He doesn’t need to talk,” someone behind me said. “Just needs to pass on a message.”

“I can’t believe we have to go this far… the city’s gone to shit,” the first man spoke, rubbing the hand he slapped me with. He grabbed my hair and pulled my face up with it. “Sorry to do this, but it’s nothin’ personal, you understand? You be good and we won’t have to make a bigger message of you than needed.”

I so desperately wanted to ask them (politely) to just kill me anyway. So many times throughout the entire exchange I had with those people, I wanted to chime in and either call them out for being idiots, or stress the fact that I would prefer dying, but I didn’t speak a word.

I listened to so much stuff that didn’t concern or interest me. They seemed to keep forgetting I was even there, and having little conversations with each other. The one that slapped me would switch between trying to look intimidating and being a neurotic piss-baby like clockwork.

“You just gotta tell your boyfriend to meet us at the east shipping gate at eleven tomorrow, and make sure he comes alone.” I knew that by “boyfriend” they must have meant Duke, but it was still a struggle to bite my tongue and not clarify that we weren’t dating.

“Cat got your tongue?” the other man in front of me asked, giving me a succession of light slaps on the cheek. That could have been funny, what with the cat-theme, if the circumstances were different. As it happened, I could feel nothing but anger welling up inside.

I really didn’t like what was happening. I didn’t like that they weren’t going to kill me, I didn’t like that they were dragging me into something related to Duke, and I didn’t like that I couldn’t speak for fear of getting even more beaten up.

From what I heard, they had a small (clearly illegal) business that was taken over by some guy nearly twenty years ago, and even though it was running better, they didn’t like working for someone else. And then recently Duke had taken their business out from under the other guy, and was way more aggressive about it. They wanted to work independently and figured the only way to do that at this point was to kill Duke and the other guy, so they wanted me to lure out Duke so he could be killed.

It didn’t matter to me if Duke got killed… not much, anyway. But I thought that I would like to be totally uninvolved if that happened. This situation would make me a key player, and that didn’t sit well.

“You got it? You gonna pass our message along like a good boy?”

I nodded slightly. One of them laughed, then gave me a really excessive punch that landed on my cheekbone. I made a grunt of pain but managed not to shout out. They dropped me to the floor and scattered.

I was seething.

My breathing was heavy and it felt like my heart was in my ears. I felt flushed and dizzy with the rage.

It really didn’t fit my cool, indifferent look, and I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do with that feeling. It wasn’t productive. It wasn’t going to make anything better if I was angry.

I clenched my fist as tight as possible, and it made some crunching cracking sounds as I did so. The pressure on my fingernails was grounding, but not enough, so I punched the ground with all my strength. It didn’t hurt anywhere near enough, but that was just a delayed response. I gave the gravelled and probably piss-covered floor a round of quick hits until my knuckles couldn’t take it.

Finally, I took in a huge deep breath, pushing through the pain that caused, and by the time I had slowly exhaled it all out I was calm again.

At that point, I was fully over the situation, and no longer even a bit angry. It was my usual method of getting over things.

Finally back to normal, I got to my feet and staggered out of the alley to make my way back to the bar.

Almost as soon as I got back to the street Reggie’s was on, I saw Duke running over to me. His face was at first happy, then confused, then a mix of terror and rage.

“What happened?” he asked, the anger almost visibly dripping from the words.

“I was asked to give you a message,” I told him with a sigh. He held my chin lightly and turned my face into the light, then clicked his tongue.

“Was it four men in their mid-forties? 5’9” to 5’11”?” I nodded. “I’ll take care of this.” He didn’t even ask me what their message was, so it was safe to assume he already knew where they would be.

He took off his jacket and put it over my shoulders. It was warm.

He caught sight of the state my hand was in before I could put it through the jacket sleeve, so took a delicate hold of it. “Did you fight back?” he asked, somewhat sadly.

“No comment,” was all I said to that, because I didn’t want to admit I did it to myself. He made a pained face as he patted my hand. 

“Let’s go back to Reggie’s and get you cleaned up,” he said softly.

His concern was falling on deaf ears, unfortunately, because I’d already gotten over it. Maverick’s concern when we reentered the bar, however, was heard loud and clear. 

Seeing the panic in his face, I felt the need to make sure the kid didn’t worry, so I decided to make a joke out of it. “You should see the other guys,” I laughed, “way uglier than me, so who’s the real winner here?” He seemed to like that.

Maverick insisted he give me first-aid, and I didn’t protest because it would make him feel better if he felt useful. He told his uncle he was taking a break, then led me upstairs to his room. Duke said he needed to make some calls so he stepped out of the bar.

Maverick’s room looked like just as much of a weird hoarder den as Duke’s living-room. It was likely all objects he’d been given or was about to give to others, as part of his bartering. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he somehow paid for university by bartering with the admission staff or something. I asked him about it while he cleaned my bloody knuckles.

“Well, actually, my Sugar Daddy is paying it,” he told me with a coy giggle. I couldn’t help feeling a little impressed.

“So your boyfriend’s rich?”

“Oh, god, don’t even get me started,” he groaned, but proceeded to vent about how his boyfriend seemed obsessed with money. I wondered how they could get along, knowing that Maverick only ever traded and never used money for anything. He spoke quite fondly of him, though.

He gave me one of his shirts to change into, since mine was a bit bloody and also covered in make-up. I changed in front of him, but I wondered halfway through doing that if I’d ever told him I was trans. I figured my sister might have mentioned it. Either way, he didn’t comment on my surgery scars, so it was probably fine.

His uncle opened the door a few moments later. He was a fabulously flamboyant old man, clearly in his eighties at least, who had such a presence of authority that I felt the need to lower my head a bit. I couldn’t help wondering how he wasn’t crushed to death when sleeping with Duke, what with his delicate frame. Really, my brain wouldn’t stop flooding me with images of them having sex.

“One of the boys is on the bar now,” he told Maverick. His accent sounded very upper-class, but that may have just been all the confidence he was exuding. He sighed when he looked at me. “All these young faces are making me feel old,” he lamented.

I cocked my head to the side. “How can you be feeling old?” I asked. “You’re, what, barely fifty-nine? That’s the prime of your life.” I said that because while Maverick was finding his first-aid kit, I saw a birthday card he wrote his uncle that said “happy 24th 59th birthday”

He gave me a very flattered smile.

Reggie sat with us for a little while after that and I think we hit it off. He seemed to think I was underage until Maverick explained that I was older than him, and without thinking I said, “having a baby-face is trans-masc privilege.” 

“Well, you have a point there,” Reggie agreed thoughtfully. He then seamlessly told me about a rather intense sexual experience he had with a trans-man in the mid 80s. I didn’t even have a second to worry about outing myself because he was so unaffected and apparently experienced with the topic. Maverick looked uncomfortable, but only at the graphic parts of his uncle’s story.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” I began, “did you sleep with a man named Duke Peers about a month ago?”

His eyes seemed to laugh, pulling all the wrinkles around them. “Oh, yes, that boy was quite unforgettable,” he chuckled. “What a terrible gag reflex.”

For some reason learning that Duke has a bad gag reflex was hilarious to me.

We chatted a little longer, then walked back down to the bar together. Duke was pacing around, visibly uneasy or angry, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes when I walked over to him. A few other people were watching him like this.

I gave a very long sigh and then lightly headbutted his chest. “Quit pouting. I know our date got cut short but you’re being a pain.” I said, assuming that was why he was so upset.

A silent tear fell down his cheek.

“Are you serious?” I asked, wiping it away. “Calm down. We can just do this another time.”

“That’s a promise, okay? You promise you’ll go on another date with me, right?” He was being unnecessarily insistent. I nodded and agreed, which cheered him up apparently. He started lightly stroking my hair and giving me gentle kisses on the head.

Frank walked in the bar then. “I heard what happened,” he told me as he walked over. “Maybe instead of a collar, you should’ve gotten a leash.” Duke’s face seemed to be saying “good idea” so I firmly told them that wasn’t happening.

“We’re dropping Soot off first,” Duke told Frank as he ushered me out of the bar and into their car. He surprisingly didn’t make me sit in his lap, or even try to hold my hand, but he did place his hand right next to my thigh so only his pinkie finger was making contact.

“Are the lads meeting us there?”

“No. Just you and I are enough for this,” Duke said with a dark seriousness that was a bit off-putting. His eyes glossed over as he stared out the window. He had a “don’t talk to me” air, so, naturally, I talked to him.