Broken Glass
This time, there was no aimless wandering, no motoring without destination. Kel knew exactly where he was headed - the sleepy little beach town of Redondo, where, like Hollywood and Downtown L.A., there were plenty of cheap vacancies and a very accommodating bar scene. What neither Hollywood nor Downtown Los Angeles had that Redondo Beach did was proximity to Rampart - he wouldn't even have to take the freeway to work in the morning if he didn't feel like it.
He picked a place a couple miles inland, right at the edge between the good action and the best highway back to work. The room was a little more expensive than the one he'd taken last night, but the view was worth the upcharge. From the single window in his little square box, he could just make out the hilly terrain that eventually sloped down to the shores of Redondo's hippie little sister, Hermosa Beach. It was prettier than looking out at the flashy lights from the bars and clubs that lined Artesia Blvd. The view was peaceful and serene, and exactly what he'd probably tell someone else in his situation that they needed.
But just as lawyers who represent themselves have fools for clients, doctors who treat themselves have fools for patients. The view was lovely, but it only served to remind Kel of all he'd lost. He'd as soon lose himself in the sleaze of a titty bar or a Crisco club as stay and watch the waves roll by so many miles down the road.
Still, before Kel could do anything at all, he had to tend to his wounds. Adrenaline and alcohol had numbed his pain during the castle storming, but now that he was safely away and had been up and down from the car and up two flights of stairs, Kel was feeling very sore, and a little stiff. He peeled out of his two day old clothes, and vowed no more sexual acrobatics, at least until he was better conditioned. As it was, his hips and thighs ached like someone had been beating him for hours with a heavy cane. He winced at the blood stains in the seat of his tight pants, and sighed in dismay when he saw the wider spread of blood in his briefs. Definitely no more kinky aerobics for a long while.
He took a long shower, hot as he could stand it, and let the spray hose down his muscle aches, and sluice off the dried blood from places he didn't care to see anyone bleed. When he felt like he had the strength to move, he checked himself, probing with questioning fingers. He winced when he found it, the sore, slightly swollen pucker back there. "That's just great," he said under his breath, and then louder, "That's just really fucking great!" Still, the bleeding had long stopped. He was just sore to the touch. Nothing a little aspirin and a little vegetable oil wouldn't be able to help with. That, and time to heal.
He didn't want to take the time to heal. It wasn't a sense of self-flagellation or anything like that - quite the opposite. He needed to get back in the saddle and conquer the rising tide of memories, before they overtook and drowned him. The last thing he wanted to do was remember the one time he'd pushed Stanford too far between the sheets, especially now, after this new understanding of what really made Stan tick. But the memories welled up anyway, shifting and curdling as they did. Stan's annoyance, Kel's persistence, the rough kiss that was really a thinly veiled wrestling match, the won battle. The lost war. Oh, he had gotten Stan to look him in the eye that afternoon, had gotten him to see Kel's nakedness and lust head-on. Kel had gotten his one deep connection, and it had ended with Kelly unable to sit for three days, and with Stan overplaying the part of the nursemaid. Tonight, under the hot spray, Kel remembered the anger in Stan's face, the expression Kel had doggedly told himself was unbridled lust. And he remembered the shock when he'd cried out in pain, rather than pleasure. And he remembered the tenderness, the way Stan just melted, the way he reached out and cradled Kel, the way he petted and cooed and promised to care for his wounds. Oh, how Stanford had kept his promise. Cleaning him up, checking him every night, flipping through Kel's textbooks to be sure they were addressing such a sensitive and delicate problem correctly... Kel had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.
Kel wanted to stop thinking. He needed to stop, and he was beginning to fear that the only thing that would stop him was a bullet through his head.
Distraction. Get out of the shower. Find something to wear. Jeans, save the good pants for work. Leave the room, go do something. Take a walk.
The sun was beginning to set, and a wet chill began to roll in from the ocean. It seeped into Kel's thin cotton shirt and clung to his old weathered blue jeans. He shivered against the sudden cold damp, but he shut the door firmly behind himself and marched down the open walkway to the stairs that lead to what he hoped would be a sufficiently busy night life.
He walked up Artesia Boulevard and pretended not to mind the clamminess of the approaching marine layer. A passing car slowed and tooted at him, but it picked up speed when he scowled at it. He didn't know what the driver could have wanted, but he wasn't in the mood to find out - with the kind of luck he'd been having, he'd probably wind up tied to a water heater in somebody's basement for the rest of his nastily shortened life.
He told himself to stop being so dramatic, but when another car slowed down next to him, and then another, Kel decided it might be a good idea to get off the boulevard for a little bit. He stopped at the first bar he encountered and ducked in, brushing off crumbling bits of stucco and paint as he opened the creaking door. What looked like a condemned dive on the outside was a plush den dripping with rhinestones and crushed velvet on the inside. There was a jerk in a ridiculous purple suit at a piano playing terrible renditions of Broadway classics, accompanied by the ugliest woman Kel had ever seen (and brother, had he seen a lot of incredibly ugly people wheeled in through Rampart). Her purple sequined gown glittered and flashed with every stilted move she made, but the crowd that gathered at her feet seemed to eat it up.
Kel wrinkled his nose and found a booth away from all the action. It wasn't as secluded as he'd have liked - the venue was some kind of supper club, the kind that offered a decent view of the free entertainment from every table in the place. The stage, however, was not a raised platform in a corner of the room, but a flat depression in the middle of the open space. The tables were set on circular mezzanines which surrounded the ugly woman and her idiotic looking accompanist - a fine dining experience with stadium seating. That meant that every table and many of the booths were just as visible as the stage itself, and a good portion of the house was full. Still, there were no invisible motorists leering at him and no wet cold sea air. It would do.
A tall waitress in a shiny leotard, sequined fishnet stockings, and a shimmery and stiff tutu came sashaying towards Kel. "What'll you have, baby," she asked in a voice so deep it made Kel feel positively squeaky. When he looked up in surprise at the waitress, he realized she wasn't a she, but a he in a tutu. Understanding dawned and Kel looked over his shoulder at the sequined singer belting out some horribly butchered piece from Funny Girl to a drunken, adoring audience. He looked back at the waitress... waiter... whoever, and hoped he didn't look particularly shocked. The waiter looked at Kel with a bland little smile that seemed to ask 'first time, eh?' and waited patiently.
"Uh... I guess a whiskey and water on the rocks," Kel finally said.
"Sure thing, hon." The waiter smiled at Kel and nodded towards the stage. "She's a little over the top, isn't she?"
She. So, if the apparently male singer was supposed to be a she, did that make the waiter a waitress after all? Kel shrugged, too tired for the mental acrobatics of playing guessing games and dress up with a bunch of adults. "I never was one for musicals."
The waitress laughed, a deep resonant guffaw was anything but feminine to Kel’s ears. "How'd you end up in here, then?"
"I need to be close to work." The waitress waited, obviously expecting a life story, but Kel just looked down at the table. She eventually took the hint and sauntered off towards the bar.
She returned shortly and set a full tumbler in front of his waiting hands. "One Jack and water on ice." Kel fished for his wallet, but, the waitress put a stilling hand on his arm. "Courtesy of that gentleman over there in the corner." She leaned down to Kel's ear. "I don't think he digs musicals either." Then she gave him a final pat on the shoulder, before leaving him to inspect his drink.
Kel looked at the small, sloppy looking crowd gathered in the corner for whomever had gifted him his drink. In the middle of the throng, yet apart, sat a good looking blond in a rumpled suit and tie. The man smiled, and though there was an entire restaurant between them, Kel felt like the world had narrowed down to just the two of them. Kel raised his tumbler in thanks, and deliberately turned away from the warm smile.
It didn't matter. A moment later the handsome and rumpled man from across the bar was smiling sweetly down at Kel. "Mind if I join you?"
Kel did mind, because there was too damned much water in his whiskey, which meant he was still sober, and therefore still capable of noting the similarities between this young man and his tarnished memories of Stanford. Stan was tall, this guy looked like he wasn't any bigger than Kel. Stan was platinum, this guy was golden brown at the nape and sunbleached on top. Stan had cold ice blue eyes, this guy had warm pale hazel eyes. Stan was rotting in a cell for what Kel hoped would be forever, this guy was right here in Kel's face for what he feared would be forever. Alright, not a lot in common, but even the differences felt like callbacks to Stanford. Kel didn't want the guy anywhere near him, but he couldn't bring himself to tell the guy off while drinking a drink the guy paid for. So he waved at the chair across the table and busied himself with draining his tumbler as quickly as possible.
The golden man ignored the indicated chair in favor of one right next to Kel. He grabbed it and spun it around, before planting himself in it like Kel was the big show of the night, instead of a man in a sequined dress butchering the hell out of Streisand. "Hi. I'm here on business."
Kel raised an eyebrow. "Hi, Here On Business."
The man laughed softly. It was a nice laugh, even and soft, not a jarring cackle or roaring belly laugh. "My name is Scott. What's yours?"
Kel looked at him with narrowed eyes and gestured for the waitress. "I don't do names."
Scott nodded slightly. "Okay. That's alright. I'm not looking for a meaningful, long term connection here. Like I said, I'm here on business. I'd like to have a little fun." He smiled a little wider - too wide really. Like a starving tiger looking at a herd of sleeping pigs.
Still, he was a pleasant enough man, and he seemed to take hints well enough. Maybe he could distract Kel from himself. "What kind of fun?"
The man's smile faltered a little, and his eyes darted around the room. "The private kind," he whispered.
Just what the doctor ordered. "You got a car?"
The man raised his eyebrows. "They don't have rooms for that kind of thing here?"
Kel snorted. "I have no idea, but I've already paid for a room with a view just a little ways west of here. No point in paying for another."
Scott mulled that over for a bit, then got to his feet again. "Okay, sure. The music's getting a little out of hand here anyway," he said with a baleful glance back at Purple Sequins.
Kel got up and smirked a little when Scott tilted his head up to look him in the eye. “So. Car? Or are we walking?"
“Walking in Los Angeles?” Scott’s charming smile deepened. “Surely you jest.” He led the way to a side exit that Kel hadn't seen. It spilled out onto a tiny caged parking lot full of cars stacked together like a 3D-puzzle. One grizzly ape of a man sat by a cash-box and glowered at nothing in particular. "Wait here," Scott said and went over to talk to the ape. Cash was exchanged, and Scott returned with a ticket and a smile. "Come on," he said, and put his hand in the small of Kel's back, to guide him along the wall of the club, to the back of the parking lot. They went through a gate and stood in the darkness of an alley with a handful of other men.
Soon, a pair of cars came whisking into the alley, one after the other, and the crowd of waiting men began to thin out. A boy who didn't look a day over fifteen trotted up to Scott. "Ticket, please?" Scott handed it over, along with a ten dollar bill. The boy's eyes boggled, but he thanked Scott and took off into the lot behind them.
Scott turned and watched the boy hurry away, then looked back at Kel, his nose wrinkled in disgust. "I was studying for finals at his age."
Kel shrugged. "He might have a baby face. I did."
Scott looked at him curiously. "Did? You don't anymore?"
The conversation was skirting dangerously close to personal demon territory, territory Kel had spent the last several trying desperately to avoid. "You said you were here on business. You from out of town?"
Scott smiled. "I drove up from San Diego. I'll just be here the one night." Another pair of cars pulled up. "This is us," Scott said, and trailed through the grumbling crowd to the second car in the alley. Kelly immediately recognized it as the first car that slowed to get a better look at him earlier that night. It was easy to recall because it was a station wagon, a family car - not the kind of car you usually cruise for one night stands in. Kel's misgivings popped up again, but he chalked it up to more dramatics on his part and got in.
The car in front of them shot off like a rocket, and they began to ease forward through the dark alley. "Where am I going?" Scott asked.
"Get to the main drag, the front of the club." Kel directed them to his motel, and to his relief, Scott didn't try to engage him in further conversation for the rest of the short drive.
The silence continued when they were comfortably parked and hiking up the two flights of stairs to Kel's top floor single, but the moment they were behind closed doors, Scott's mouth was running. Was Kel a Los Angeles native, did he visit the club often, how'd he wind up at the beach if he was a Hollywood guy - the questions might have gone on all night, but Kel's patience was shot before he'd ever set eyes on the club, and he knew if he didn't stop Scott's verbal diarrhea, someone was gonna die.
Kel peeled out of his damp shirt while Scott bombarded him with questions, threw it across the room towards the bathroom, and then turned and crushed his mouth to Scott's. It was a hard, painful kiss, mostly lips smashed between teeth, but it did the trick. The questions stopped, and showed no signs of returning when Kel pulled away again. "You talk too much," he growled.
Scott smiled, that same calculated, winning smile, and began to disrobe. "Sorry. I'm a curious guy. I guess you want to get down to business, though."
Kel's answer was to strip in kind and turn down the bedclothes. "No penetration," he said. "I'm recovering from an encounter with an over-excited virgin."
Scott looked surprised, but all he said was, "That's fine. Any other rules?"
Kel wrinkled his nose. "Rules?"
"Preferences, then."
"You'll find out," Kel said, and forced Scott to the bed. If there were any objections to the rough treatment, Scott didn't express them - if anything, he seemed to revel in Kel's manhandling, which frustrated Kel so much that any interest he'd had in his companion shriveled up in the heat of anger. Scott began moaning dramatically about bad boys and firm masters, and Kel almost laughed at the ridiculousness, except it just made him think of Stan's overbearing idea of foreplay, and Stan's questionable taste in lovers, and Stan's ugly deceit. Kel's rhythm faltered, and Scott seemed to take that as permission to release.
Kel reared back, not wanted to get caught in the spray, but he needn't have worried - Scott was a dribbler, not a gusher. Kel grimaced and rolled away with a grunt. Scott lay there and panted for a minute, before raising his head to look around. "Towel?"
"Bathroom," Kel growled.
Scott made a dissatisfied sound, but he got up and disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes. When he came back, the saccharine sweet smile was back on his face. He pulled on his pants and started rifling through his pockets. "Say, do you know the fastest way to the freeway?"
"Back up Artesia, past the club."
Scott nodded and fished out his wallet. Kelly watched in silent confusion as the other man pulled out a sheaf of bills, and began peeling some off. "We never discussed a price, my friend."
Price? "A price for what?"
Scott's laughter was surprisingly sexy, probably because there was a new hint of malice in his voice. "Come on, you can stop being coy now. We've done the deed, and I'm ready to go back to my room."
Kel narrowed his eyes. "I'm not being coy, you're being cryptic, and I'm not in the mood to decipher anybody's magical codes."
Scott hummed appreciatively. "Big words." He winked. "I like 'em smart."
"You also like 'em in control, so get that look off your face."
"Sure, sure," Scott said amiably. "Still, never met one with such a nice vocabulary before. Don't be offended if I say you remind me of my wife."
Kel scowled. "Don't say I remind you of your wife, then." He dragged the covers up around himself. He was tired of having company, and was sorely regretting bringing a strange man to his hotel room. "Besides, what's so impressive about my word choice? You never cheated with an educated man?"
Scott snorted. "Not one I picked up off the streets."
"Well there's a first time for everything."
Scott nodded. "You should have stayed in school."
"Excuse me?"
"You should have stayed in school, I said. Whoever he was that led you down this garden path and dropped you here - he was a fool, and you were pretty foolish yourself for believing in him."
Kel felt the blood drain from his face, and he swayed back against the headboard. "You don't know one goddamned thing about it, mister."
Scott smiled tightly. "Course I don't." He left a thick wad of bills on the far nightstand. "The thing about traveling salesmen is that we see a lot of the land, and we see a lot of the people who live on that land, and we get to having a pretty good eye for what's going on. You think you're the first hustler to tell his trick he don't talk about his tragic past? Sorry babe. You ain't the first, and you definitely won't be the last. That's the hustler's tragedy."
"And the traveling salesman's tragedy is that he blows a lot of hot air, pontificating on things he doesn't know anything about, because he thinks he's so learned, so well heeled." Kel reached across the bed and grabbed the money from the night stand, and shoved it into Scott's waistband. "Like I said, you don't know one goddamned thing about it, mister."
"Sure." Scott finished dressing and went to the door. "You know, you're still young. There's time to turn it all around, make something out of your life. You don't have to keep getting used by well heeled salesmen."
"He wasn't a salesman."
Scott shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe not, but he was a fool. You don't have to keep being one, though." Scott pulled the cash back out of his waistband and dropped it on the floor by the door. "And quit being so proud. You gotta eat." With that, he backed out to the hall and shut Kelly inside a strange room with a street walker's fortune.