Tricks

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Arliss hopped up onto the concrete wall fronting the lake and spotted him right away. He peered over at the guy he had noticed earlier that night, when Arliss had been dancing (if you could call having guys paw at you and stuff twenty-dollar bills up your ass dancing). It was the same guy who had left the bar in haste, and Arliss had been sure he had been disgusted by him.

And yet here they were in the same place once again. What were the odds of that? Here in this teeming city of millions, that the two of them would encounter one another again on the very same night?

The guy was about twenty or thirty feet away from him, oblivious—Arliss was sure—to his presence. Arliss studied him for a while, confirming his earlier thought that he looked sad by moving his hands up to his eyes to angrily sluice away tears.

Arliss had never been one to ignore someone in distress, even if it was simply a stranger he had encountered only once before. What was the guy crying about? Had the same boredom and annoyance with the boisterous crowds of Boystown brought him down here by the lakefront, just as they had Arliss?

He watched silently, knowing the guy was most likely too absorbed in his own troubles to be much aware of anyone around him. Arliss had come down here to be alone, to get away from the frenetic pace of the bar, to escape the confines of the tiny one-bedroom apartment he shared with two other guys.

Should he just leave the guy be? Arliss shook his head, smiling at the impulse that had, throughout his life, caused him to bring home and often try to rehabilitate countless strays, whether they were dogs, cats, or men. The urge usually offered little reward and often caused Arliss to curse his nurturing instinct. It often got him hurt. The stray cats and dogs invariably wandered off, in search of who knew what. And the men? Well, if they didn’t resent him for trying to help, they soon enough got over whatever anguish had visited them and looked for ways they could exploit him for their own purposes—usually for money or s*x.

And so alarms sounded within Arliss. Leave him alone. It’s none of your business. Can’t you see the guy is probably down here because he wants to be by himself? What good can you do him anyway? What does a twenty-one-year-old stripper have to offer?

Even as he thought these things, he was rising and brushing off the back of his shorts. You are such a sucker. Arliss had never been one to heed his own internal warnings, and intellectually, he knew better than to approach the stranger.

But he couldn’t help himself. He pulled off his flip-flops and padded silently over to where the guy sat, staying just behind his field of vision. When at last he stood right behind him, he gazed down on the man, his dark, straight hair cut short and parted at the side like some preppie schoolboy, at the Oxford cloth shirt and the khakis, such inappropriate attire for both the bar and a lakefront stroll. But damn, he was cute! And his vulnerability made him even cuter. A million voices jangled in his head, telling him to keep walking, to head back west to the bright lights and bar-lined thoroughfare, where he was sure to find someone else who would be more welcoming of his company, even if it was only to use his body for the night. He didn’t listen to the voices; he never had. Instead he cleared his throat, and in a tone he hoped was joking, familiar, and friendly, asked, “Excuse me, mister, but is that seat there—the one next to you—taken?”

The guy turned around, and Arliss realized there was no turning back. There was such plaintive raw pain in the guy’s damp brown eyes that Arliss felt the pull of his heart, irresistible and immune to common sense or even fear.

The guy gave him a small, lopsided grin, sizing him up. Arliss wondered if he remembered him from the bar. For a moment he didn’t seem to, and then a glimmer of recognition passed across his features. He looked around him, as if checking to be sure Arliss wasn’t talking to someone else.

He shrugged. “It’s a free country, guy. Sit anywhere you want.”

Arliss hurried to sit down beside him, grinning.

“Weren’t you dancing at Tricks earlier?” The guy looked him up and down.

Arliss nodded. “Yeah, that was me. Now are you going to say something like ‘I almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes on’?”

“No. I wouldn’t say something like that. Too corny. Not my style.”

The pair sat for a few moments, gazing out at the gentle ebb and flow of the lake’s black waters. Arliss leaned over a bit, so his shoulder nudged the guy’s next to him. “I’m Arliss.”

The man smiled, maybe even brightened a bit. “Sean.” He returned to looking out at the water.

“So what brings you down here on a hot Friday night? Don’t you know all the action is up there on Halsted?”

The other man sized Arliss up and gifted him with a big smile. Good God, he’s so adorable when he smiles!

“Apparently not. You’re here, right?”

“Aw…what a sweet thing to say.” Arliss scooted a little closer and reached out, placing a tentative hand on the man’s knee. He waited for a beat, to see if he would get a look or some other indication that the touch was out of line. When he didn’t, he started talking again. “I was watching you for a bit. You were crying, weren’t you? Is everything okay?”

Sean looked at him as if he was seeing him for the very first time. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you? Come right to the point, huh?”

“Look, I can leave you alone if you want. I just saw someone else who looked like maybe they could use a friend and thought I’d come over and say hi.” Arliss stared into Sean’s eyes. “You want me to go?”