Part Four...
Changing into his plainclothes for the evening's assignment, Detective Moretti paused to contemplate his reflection in the mirror above his bureau. Clad only in light blue boxers, the man who stared back was pale-skinned and thin, yet the results of diligently working out were obvious. It was important to him that he was strong. A police officer had to be stronger, smarter, harder. Grant had learned that at an early age. Had heard it repeated at the dinner table on a nightly basis. He ran his hand distractedly over his own biceps, feeling the firm muscle. How hard had he hit that boy? He knew he should feel sorry, knew that had been wrong. Yet all he felt was satisfied, and his stomach flipped with that same anxious excitement he'd felt when he'd awakened from the dream.
Moretti turned back to the mirror, taking in the image of his own face, his brow knit in concentration. Why the fuck did he have to be so pretty? His face had earned him more bullying than his ruggedly handsome brothers had ever received, and he knew it continued to make him a target. Of course, there were benefits. Grant was the first of his crowd to get laid, first by an "older woman" of twenty-five when he was fourteen. And that same year by the exotic dark-haired boy staying at their hotel during the family's annual vacation to the Wildwood beaches. If only his father had caught him with the woman instead of the boy, maybe he would have been spared the beating that left him with two black eyes and unable to sit down comfortably for days. Or even worse, the words hurled at him between blows, the words he'd never forget.
Forcing himself to look away, Grant tugged on a pair of jeans and searched for an unassuming sweater. In spite of his father's putdowns, he'd struggled to put those words behind him. And those feelings too. There had been many many girls since then, and it was never a problem to find another. Lisa was the latest, and he knew she would be pushing for a commitment soon. Wanting to move in, share his bed, share his life. Moretti ran a hand nervously through his short silky hair. He couldn't bring himself to want that, not yet anyway. That would mean tossing the forbidden magazines in his bottom drawer, the few videos he'd bought with cash so nobody could trace the purchase. The furtive couplings he dared when on vacation, anonymous men who smelled and felt and sounded so intoxicatingly different than his girlfriend of the moment, who made his head spin with a dizzying combination of lust and terror and self-reproach. Soon, he told himself. Soon he'd settle down and forget how those young men made him feel. Forget boys like the one in the red leather pants.
The detective pulled the powder blue cable knit over his head and gave one last look in the mirror, shrugging at his reflection. Looked around the sparsely furnished apartment with satisfaction, secure in the accoutrements of his success. He wasn't wealthy, but being a detective had its rewards. The leather couches, the sleek dark wood and torchieres that gave the room a warm ambience. The artwork he'd purchased on a trip to New England, from a young artist with long dark hair and amazing green eyes, whose hand lingered just a little too long on his arm, whose smile was full of warmth and welcome. That night the high four-poster in the seaside bed-and-breakfast had barely held their weight as they rocked its antique wooden headboard soundly against the wall in their passion. The young man had given Grant his card, but he'd never used the number engraved there. Better to keep it a bittersweet memory.
He thought about calling Lisa before he left, but decided that she'd be asleep by now. Flicking off the lights, Detective Moretti shut the door behind him and prepared to hit the streets. Immediately wondering where red leather pants boy might be, and how he could possibly avoid him.
Despite his anxiety about returning to the same dilapidated neighborhood, Detective Moretti had remained relatively calm when the skinny young boy had approached his car only seconds after he'd pulled to the curb. He'd almost breathed an audible sigh of relief that red-leather-pants-boy was nowhere in sight - and that this youngster who stood quietly at his open car window had none of the other boy's swagger or personality. There was no spark in this boy's face, just a dogged determination. No real interest other than the haze of genuine hunger that dulled his brown eyes. Eyes that looked frighteningly large in his drawn face, making the boy appear even younger than perhaps he was. He made no attempt to tame his roughly chopped bleached hair, and the tee shirt he wore hung limply on his scrawny torso, sharp shoulder blades outlined in painful relief. The boy was obviously happy to see the window roll down, his spontaneous grin full of anticipation for what his wages would buy. Drugs? A cheeseburger?
Whatever, Moretti could handle this. He felt none of the disturbing rush of complicated feelings the other boy had stirred in him, only a calm detached sense of duty, as he awaited the response that would provide him with the means to take the youngster in. Maybe he was young enough to change, find another way of...
And then, like out of a nightmare when things happen in such an unlikely sequence that you just KNOW it couldn't be real, there he was. Red-leather-pants-boy, this time in frothy white and tight velvet, full of the same brashness as the night before, once again ruining everything. Making Grant fail.
Moretti felt the composure he'd been priding himself on, exploding in the face of the boy's blatant display of sexuality. And just as before, the detective sat paralyzed, unable to tear his eyes away as he was taunted and manipulated by the despicable little whore. Enraged at the vulgar teasing come-ons directed to both himself and the youngster, who would now return to the streets with his gnawing belly to be filled only with other men's cum. The way the boy pulled up his shirt to display the tight velvet pants and his obviously swollen dick left Moretti overcome with impotent rage, rapidly crystallizing into a desperate need to make it stop. Was the kid always horny for fuck's sake? Filthy disgusting slut!
Grant's hands were shaking on the steering wheel by the time the boy - Paulie, the kid had called him Paulie - leaned into the window to scream a lecture at the cop. A lecture! That was it. The idea of this corrupt, amoral whore criticizing him, accusing him of being in the wrong, it was too much for Moretti. When Paulie inadvertently used the same words his father had spouted so many times to ridicule him -- toughen him up, force him to conform to the macho standards of his profession-- the blow to his barely propped-up ego overcame all good judgment. "Think you're a big man? You sick bastard!" He could hear it plain as day. Every time there'd been a hint of weakness, or god forbid the homosexuality that his father was always on the lookout for, ever since the day his father's eyes had found him bent over that beautiful dark haired boy. Big man? Sick bastard!...Shut the fuck up!
Later he didn't even remember moving, so overcome with rage was he, so desperate to wipe the sneer off the boy's face, stop the words he couldn't stand to hear. One hand grasped Paulie's thin wrist, ripping his hands from the window and pulling hard, the other instinctively using the boy's long hair to his advantage, grabbing a thick handful and tugging his head right through the open window with such force that Paulie tumbled forward, his skinny body feeling almost weightless in the larger man's adrenaline-fueled hands.
Before the boy could right himself, Grant grabbed for the handcuffs on his belt and yanked Paulie's hands to his back, clicking the cuffs closed tightly and leaving the boy half in, half out of the car, his face pressed to the seat and his long legs still hanging out the open window. As soon as Paulie began to struggle to escape, Grant reached for the waistband of his velvet trousers and yanked the rest of his scrawny body into the car, shifting to avoid Paulie's wildly kicking feet. The boy seemed suddenly desperate, his high-heeled boots banging against the car door with such force that the entire vehicle shook. Moretti kept Paulie's torso pressed to the car seat with both hands, putting pressure on his cuffed wrists to hold him prone. He could see the skin redden, knew the metal had to be cutting.
"Cut it out, goddamn it. Lie still!" Moretti ordered, his thoughts still spinning wildly. What the hell was he doing? Arresting the boy for coming on to him? Being provocative? Jesus, this would never hold up. Grant struggled to calm himself enough to think clearly, but the boy's frantic refusal to stop squirming like a fish out of water made it impossible.
"The fuck I will," Paulie tried to yell, his voice muffled against the plush seat cushion. A thin trickle of red dripped from one bound wrist as Grant looked on in dull horror, but still he didn't let go. It wasn't until Paulie finally ran out of breath and energy that Moretti eased up on the pressure with which he held the boy prone. Grant's arms ached from the strain of holding his captive down so roughly. His own hands bore the imprint of the metal he'd been clutching. Now the only sounds were the gasping breaths the boy drew, half stifled against the seat cushion, and the last half-hearted shoves of his feet still seeking a way to open the car door.
Moretti let go, his hands trembling. Slid across the seat to the far door, wanting to be as far as he could from the boy. Disgusted with Paulie. With himself.
Instantly Paulie struggled up, trying to unlock the door with his cuffed hands but unable to work the latch, a volley of inarticulate curses bursting from his suddenly unmuffled mouth. Moretti forced himself to look at the boy, feeling like he might vomit.
"This is harassment, you fucking Pig, I know my rights! You can't do this. I can sue your pathetic pig ass." His words were full of the customary bravado, but Paulie's eyes were wild, desperate. Grant could have sworn he saw hurt there, and his stomach turned once more. Feeling somehow defeated again, he pulled the release key from his belt and held it out, meeting the boy's gaze. Finding it impossible to say anything, he waited while Paulie spat more curses at him. Finally the boy grew quiet too, his full lower lip trembling still with emotion. Rage, Grant supposed. For a long moment their eyes held, both swirling with too much intensity. Too much feeling to sort through. Then Paulie twisted to turn his back to the detective, raising his bound hands. He didn't flinch as Moretti turned the key and released him, despite the raw skin underneath. Grant could feel the moist heat of the back of the boy's wrists as he removed the cuffs, the stickiness of the bit of blood gathered there. He felt his stomach lurch again with what he had done.
When he was free, Paulie pushed the door open with force, then turned back to face the detective. Grant was slumped in his seat, his physically more powerful body spent from the rage that had overpowered him, his expression blank. Reluctantly he turned to look at the boy's face, at his blue eyes so steely cold they were like granite, his jaw set like steel. Paulie's shirt was torn at the chest from being forced over the sharp ridge of the car door. When he spoke this time his voice was low, iced with barely contained fury.
"You gonna have some nice wet dreams tonite, Cop? Picture my ass hung over your couch, my face pressed to the cushion? Make me bleed. Feel like a big man when you hold me down." Moretti's breath hitched, feeling the words cut him like the metal of his cuffs had cut Paulie. The boy leaned in closer, almost whispering to the stricken detective. "You're gonna fuck me like that in your dream, Grant. You know it and I know it."
And then he was gone, walking more slowly than he had before, rubbing his bruised wrists, long hair hanging over one bare shoulder.
The car remained parked there so long that another thin desperate young boy approached the still-open window, knocking Moretti from his shocked stillness. "Looking for some company?" the boy asked hopefully, regarding the handsome driver with interest. Grant stared at his smudged kohl eyes, glossy lips that had probably already seen some action that evening. Say yes, he told himself, trying to fall into professional mode. Bring him in. But before he could answer, he heard Paulie's words ringing in his ear. 'You think kids like Bryan want to be out here?' "No," he heard himself say huskily. "Thanks." The boy shrugged, his expression disappointed but resigned. Grant watched him walk away, hips swaying, to await another car.
All the way home, Moretti chastised himself. For losing his temper with that goddamn Paulie, for failing once again to do the job he'd been assigned. How was he going to face the captain tomorrow, empty handed again? His anger flared each time he thought of it, how he'd been shown up by the boy. Yet he couldn't tear his thoughts away from Paulie either. What had made him go to such lengths to protect young Bryan? Did he see Grant as representative of the law - of anyone who had ever oppressed him? Was that the source of his burning hatred? Or was it, as it strangely felt, more personal?
Moretti found himself wondering what the boy's story was, how he'd ended up on the street. Unlike the other boys on the corner, Paulie was obviously smart, and he didn't seem to be taking refuge in drug-induced stupors either. He kept his wits about him, with the air of a wild animal who's learned to always be on the lookout for both opportunity and danger. There was strong emotion there in those smoky blue eyes, there was passion, even if it exploded at the wrong times, in the wrong ways. Did boys like Paulie want to be there any more than kids like Bryan, Grant wondered. He threw himself across the bed as soon as he'd finally reached the apartment, heaving an exhausted sigh. And why the fuck should he care?
Detective Moretti didn't return his phone calls, falling into sleep with the memory of Paulie's taunting voice in his head, the picture of Paulie's full lips on little Bryan's neck, his hand sliding between the boy's thighs to stroke his hardening cock. Grant felt his own body swell uncomfortably against the mattress. Please, no dreams, he murmured against the pillow.