I've never been rich. I grew up in a small neighborhood in one of the upstate areas of New York, and while our house wasn't a hovel, it wasn't any kind of mansion either.

Neither is my apartment. It's small: barely fits me and Julian, even though it's pretty accomodating. And it's a little dirty, as befits a bachelor's pad, and sometimes the hot water cuts out. But it's livable, and even pretty comfortable.

Which is why I feel so uneasy when Tripper takes me to his place. It's an old, run-down house in the slums: I don't know why it's still standing. It's set deep into a street, practically covered on one side by a seven-story building that's gray where it's supposed to be white, and a small and dirty, but normal-looking, house on the other side. Tripper's place is at the end of a tiny alley, so it's less exposed to the street.

But there's no denying it...the place is a dump. A huge dump, which somehow makes it worse. It's an enormous, unfinished house that looks like the contractors (and the owner, for that matter) ran out of money halfway through building. And this decaying dream of a horror writer is where my small, shy Tripper lives.

All alone.

Rats skitter past as Tripper leads me up to the steps. Yes, the front door actually has steps going up to it, rough concrete steps that were probably meant to be encased in marble. It looks like it would have been a really classy house. Now it's just a shell.

The wall beside the door, if you can believe it, is gone. There's nothing but a trellis-like lattice separating Tripper from imminent robbery or rape. Behind the crisscrossed wood is set up a Japanese folding screen, the type made of wood and paper. But both are old, the paper squares torn, the wood rotten and splintery.

Tripper pauses before the door and pushes it open. It doesn't have a lock...or a doorknob, either. Just a hole where the knob should be.

Then he turns to me and bows. "Please forgive the disgraceful state of my home." His face is tortured.

"Hey," I say gently. "You don't have to bring me here if you don't want to. We could go somewhere else..."

"I have no where else," he says softly, pronouncing 'nowhere' like two separate words as if for emphasis. "I have no money."

I shouldn't have let him pay for his dinner. But something in his eyes is telling me that now is not a good time to mention this. "My apartment?" I suggest. "Julian isn't going to be there until tomorrow, he's going off with the guys..." I trail off, seeing his face fall at the mention of Julian. Is he that ashamed of himself, that he doesn't want any of the band to know he's sleeping with me?

We go inside, my heart seething with questions and secret frustration. Everything Tripper's done so far has been totally contradictory. He wants Gabe, but he picks me. He's ashamed of what he does, but he looks like he enjoys it (of course, that could just be a show). He hates his place, but he brings me here, to a dirty, empty old house that even a dog wouldn't....

Holy shit.

The house is not empty. There are threadbare Persian rugs everywhere, couches and lush armchairs with stuffing leaking from torn upholstery, spotted and age-stained cushions strewn all over the floor, and even a few bean bags covered with duct tape. Off to one side are a few more old screens walling off a small section. Through gaps between the screens I can see what look like giant plastic trash bins, but clean, and a metal pan like you see European housewives in period films using for laundry. A single lightbulb hangs naked by a few wires from the ceiling, casting a dingy glow over everything.

But the big centerpiece, set against the back wall, the focus of the whole big hollowed-out room that used to be a house, is the enormous bed. It's a king-size opium bed--you know, the kind that are a whole room all by themselves: closed in, with a shelf and posts and everything. And it's just made of an old pullout bed with plywood, steel pipes, Formica coated tabletops, and several sheets of corrugated iron added on. It's even got curtains: old plastic shower curtains, but it's got curtains. It's a piece of junk. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I look from the bed to Tripper and back again. "Y-you...."

"I made it myself," he says. "It is not a whole piece. I had nothing to hold it together except the wire at the top. And it is so ugly, but I had no bed and I liked beds like that and I had to stay off the floor, because of rats and co..." He trails off, turning a mortified red.

"Are you crazy? It's fucking gorgeous. I've never seen a bed that cool."

He blinks and stares at me, then at his bed, then at me. "I...I," he says, and then doesn't say anything because by then my tongue is in his mouth.

We fall onto the couch, which makes a big creaking noise because it's probably never been treated like that before. I kiss Tripper and he kisses back, our bodies tangling, sticky from sweat and fastfood grease. His tongue slides around mine like a snake in heat, and I groan into his mouth and push him deep into the couch--

--and break away, because I thought for a minute that I just heard something like a sob. But Tripper gives no sign, his black eyes gazing calmly at me as I stare back at him, panting. He's so beautiful. And he's mine now.

His eyes slide away from mine. "May I take a bath first?" he asks quietly. As if he's not really expecting a yes.

"Huh? Oh--" I scramble off him, and he gets up uncertainly. "Shit, I forgot! I'm sorry--you must think I'm really gross."

He smiles. "No. I am used...." He shuts up then, offers no explanation, goes on to the "bathroom" and pulls the screens shut. I sit back down on the couch, my knees weak.

I bet he was going to say he was used to it. And suddenly things aren't special anymore.

How many guys did he bring back here? How many guys admired his great artwork of a bed, or just pushed him into it without taking a second look, or followed his tempting ass between the curtains? How many kissed him in that same wrecked couch? How many of them were cleaner than I am right now, or dirtier?

Tripper's not really mine. One night doesn't make me special. What was I expecting? That I could just sweep into his life like a big hero and make things all better? I would be his angel, and he'd be eternally grateful and love me forever, was that it?

Well, I know I can forget that. Quite a few guys must have deluded themselves that way over this boy. It's easy to do; I mean, it was for me. It's not like those Julia Roberts whore-with-a-heart-of-gold stories. Tripper can't tell his true love by kissing, because a real prostitute doesn't have that luxury. A picky whore is one who doesn't make any money. So he kisses everybody, makes them all feel special. And he's doing that for me because I was an idiot and practically threw myself at him, and because he couldn't have Gabe.

I am so stupid.

He brought me here to sleep with me, and he's probably embarrassed about the whole money thing, so I should just leave it on the pillow right now and let myself out.

But it was so nice...I mean, just for a while...to be...to think that maybe it would all work out. To think I could be happy, make him happy. To think my dreams were going to...my dreams...my Tripper...it all just felt so good for a while...to love him and--I won't cry, I can't, not here--

And I don't, not really. Just a burning in my eyes, and a few wet spots on my jeans, and it's over. Like the last few drops being wrung out of an old rag. And when I wipe my eyes, there's no sign that tears were ever there.

I sit there for a while before I realize I can hear the sound of water splashing. But I don't even want to look any more; it'd just be another cheap thrill. I don't want to know Tripper that way until he lets me see more than his body and tantalizing little glimpses of his mind. I don't just want sex. I'm not that kind of guy at all, and if all Tripper's willing to let me have is sex, I will get up and walk away and never come back.

A large and final splash, a long moment of silence, and a pale figure slips between the screens.

Tripper is naked, his wet black hair straggling around his face, his freshly-toweled skin glowing deep cream in the dim yellow light. He moves toward me with none of the klutziness he had in the bars or at dinner; he is languid and purposeful and full of a slow grace. And he is not the least bit ashamed.

My throat feels like it's imploded.

Who the hell am I kidding? I will take Tripper any way I can get him. If he's only willing to have sex, I will fuck him all he wants. If he doesn't want to give me even that, I will watch him blissfully and achingly from a distance. I will play for him at our shows. I will dream about him every night. I kinda hoped he'd love me, but I don't really care any more. I'll do whatever he wants. I'd rather be chained to Tripper than free.

He kneels on the old rug in front of me, his trembling, not-quite-erect sex swaying between his slender thighs. "Would you like to bathe too?" he asks me. "I could lend you clothes."

I know his whole wardrobe. And he's offering to lend me stuff? It's almost funny. I take off my backpack--I'd almost forgotten it was there--and hold it up stupidly, indicating I have my own clothes.

His voice slips down a little, so it hums in my bones. "Would you like me to give you a bath?"

I stare at him, at Tripper in slut-mode. All of a sudden it's like he was never ashamed. The clumsy, shy boy is gone, and in the place of the boy I love is this strange animal with hot eyes who makes my cock strain at my jeans like something alive. And I realize that I love this creature too.

Tripper leans forward and takes my still-open mouth, licking and nibbling at my lips, his tongue sliding over the inside of my cheek. His hair drips into my eyes.

I come down off the sofa and take him in my arms. I can feel his young cock writhe as he rubs his hips against me, and it's as if my own recognizes it and twitches in response. I want to push him down, fuck him right now. But the freshness of his skin against the griminess of my own makes me feel a bit disgusted with myself.

"C'mon," I mutter, standing up.

* * *

This is the way Japanese bathe. Shower first, or more traditionally scrub yourself all over, then rinse everything off--dirt, soap, whatever--and only then do you get to soak in the hot tub. This way tub water can stay clean for days.

In this house Tripper does it differently. You sit on a stool in the empty pan and do the wash-scrub thing. When you're done you take the water out back and use it to flush the toilet. And you can forget about the soak, because there's just not enough water.

In my case it's Tripper that's doing the scrubbing. The body's mine. That's about the extent of my participation. Whenever I try to protest, or take the soap, he runs a slippery hand along some crucial bit of me, which always shuts me up pretty quickly.

God, it feels good sitting here, his clever fingers working through my hair or over my body. I watch him working on me, his pretty face calm and betraying no clue as to what he's thinking. The screens make a slanting pattern of shadow and yellow light across his naked body.

This is all I ever wanted. This is more than I ever dreamed of.

So why do I feel like I'm a guest at a hotel? He's acting like my bellboy, except that I'm pretty sure the bellboy doesn't bathe you. Except maybe at the kind of hotel out in the Middle East which is illegal and where you have to be really rich to get in. But that's not a bellboy, that's a...

A slave.

A sex slave.

I look at him. He blinks back at me. I take the pitcher out of his hands and put it back on the lid of the water can. "Can we stop now?" I ask quietly.

The look in his eyes is more resigned than anything else, and that hurts. I want to tell him that I'm not like everybody else, that I love him, that I can make his life better because I love him. But what can I say that he hasn't heard before?

He leans forward to kiss me again. His warm tongue slides into my mouth, and I let him straddle my lap. The water sloshes softly in the pan as he wraps his slender legs round my waist.

Something--the wind, probably--forces the front door back to knock against the wall. Tripper lets out a sort of shrieking gasp and scrambles off me, frantically searching for something to cover himself with. I'm still a little dazed from our kissing, so it's a nasty shock to me to hear someone else's voice in the house.

"Sammy? Baby, it's rent time. You home yet?"

It's not the wind. It's a guy. And he sounds drunk.

Tripper's already grabbing our clothes from the neatly folded pile he set on top of the lidded water can before my bath. He passes them to me, and hurriedly begins putting on his own. I'm a little surprised to see that he doesn't look all that scared, considering he'd been in such a panic before we heard the voice..

And then, to my complete horror, he leaves his little bathroom.

"I'm here, Geddon-san."

* * *

He knows this guy? But the guy's drunk! He could do anything...! I run after him, not even bothering to zip up my jeans or pull on my shirt--well, Tripper's shirt, really.

The guy in the doorway is a kind of skinny man with a beer belly and a dirty mop of hair, in a plaid shirt and rumpled slacks. Not the kind of outfit you'd expect to see on someone still awake in this part of town at two a.m. I open my mouth to tell him to get the hell out of the house, but the guy is already opening his arms for Tripper, who actually walks into them, although reluctantly, and allows himself to be pawed and kissed. "I missed you," the man mumbles, his straggling, dirty brown hair mingling with Tripper's smooth black locks.

And Tripper just stands there, just lets a guy who looks old enough to be his father, kiss him and fondle him like a toy, or a sex doll. And he's actually smiling a little!

I feel like I'm going to choke on something.

That's when the guy--I think Tripper called him Geddon--sees me. I expect him to be mad, but he just squints at me and at Tripper. "Oh, I'm sorry," he blusters. "I didn't know you had a...uh..."

Tripper turns and stares at me. For a moment he looks like he doesn't know what to do, then he swallows and says, "This is...Max, Geddon-san."

"New customer, huh?" says Geddon, nodding. Then he gives me a little frown, and looks at Tripper. "You told him the rates, right?"

Tripper's eyes widen, and he blushes painfully as he stammers, "I--I didn't think...."

Geddon sighs, and shakes his head. "C'mon, Sammy. I know you got a soft spot for this guy, or you wouldn't have brought him home. But he's gotta know the rules. No one sleeps with you for free except me. That was the agreement. Otherwise you might run out of money. You can't eat off charity work, baby."

"Yes," says Tripper, lowering his eyes. He looks completely humiliated.

"Now, kid," Geddon says, slinging a possessive arm around Tripper, "Max, wasn't it?"

I swallow my rage. I want to tear his arm off, to push him away from Tripper. But he's bigger than me. And he could hurt Tripper. I really can't do anything, and it drives me crazy. All I can do is stare bloody murder at him, try to skin him alive with my eyes.

"You can't expect preferential treatment here," he goes on. "There are rates, you know. I know Sammy likes you, but he's too soft-hearted for his own good. You have to pay or he doesn't eat."

"I don't see you falling over yourself to provide for him," I tell him. God, I'm so mad I can hardly talk straight. Where the fuck does this guy get off lecturing me, when he's selling Tripper like a rack of beef at the market? Fucking hypocritical prick!

Geddon's dark eyes--it's too dark to tell what color they are--narrow at me. He doesn't look drunk now, except for a strange look on his face. "Watch your mouth, boy," he growls. "What the hell do you know? Fancy-ass rich brat. I keep a roof over Sammy's head. I give him a means to pay his own way. You think I can afford to give him what I want to? This is all I can do for him, and it's more than you'll ever do. You're all the same--you fuck him and leave. I love this boy. I wish I could give him a better life but I can't. You'll never understand that; you were probably born with a whole goddamned mouth full of silver spoons. But it isn't like that down here. Down here on earth we have to fight."

His words stick in my chest. I don't know what to say, or even what to think. Tripper is looking away, too embarrassed to lift his face.

"It's forty dollars to stay the night," Geddon says harshly. "You're paying him, not me."

"Oh yeah?" I'm snapped out of my shock by his tone. "And what about the 'rent', then?"

Anger stains his sagging cheeks red. "That's none of your damn business." Tripper looks like he wants to kill himself for shame. I think I can guess what form the rent payment comes in.

"You dirty old son of a bitch."

This time Geddon doesn't rise to it, just looks a little ashamed. But he repeats, stubbornly, "Forty dollars. Let me see it."

I shove it in his face. It's actually a fifty-dollar bill, my money for the whole week, but I don't care anymore. "Take it and get out."

Geddon shakes his head and hands it back to me. "Give it to him when you leave." He looks over at Tripper, who's hunched over as if he wants to fold himself up and disappear. For a minute Geddon looks guilty, and opens his mouth as if he's going to say something. But then he shuts it again, turns, and walks a little unsteadily out the knobless door without another word.

God, what an asshole! Is this the only person who looks after Tripper?

Which reminds me--

When I look around--I hadn't realized I was staring at the door--Tripper's already retreated to the bed. I can see his misty shape, curled in on itself, through the plastic curtains.

Ready for me.

Suddenly the thought isn't arousing at all. I just feel sick, and sad. The thing with Geddon has left me drained, and I stare at Tripper's faded body behind the curtain with a weird achey feeling in my throat. I feel like just another trick, another hard-on with money.

Maybe I am, to the boy on that bed. I wish I had my guitar, so I could play his favorite song, so I could remind him that at some point, on stage at least, I was more.

I'm so fucking tired; sick of these stupid mind games, sick of my body and my mind and the hollow space in my chest all fucking around with me, telling me completely different things. I just want to go home. But maybe I could have one last kiss....just to see if he tastes different now that I've bought him.

I go over to the bed and push back the curtain, and Tripper stares up at me. His face is streaked with tears.

"You're not him," he whispers brokenly. "You're just human."

I look down at him, confused, still angry, not the least bit aroused anymore. He just gazes back with this air of hopelessness and terrible disappointment. As if he was expecting somebody else, somebody who measured up.

"What did you expect me to be?" I ask him quietly, too tired to fight.

He smiles sadly. "Somebody I loved."

That is just the last fucking straw.

Something inside me, the little tight part of my chest that always forms when he's around, squeezes hard, and I'm to worn out to try to stop myself. I start crying like I haven't done since high school.

Real alarm comes into Tripper's wet eyes, but I don't care anymore. I'm tired, and sick of playing his game, Geddon's game, whosever fucking game this is. I just wanted to learn about him. And now I've learned too many things too fast, and I still don't know the important things. Like what he's thinking behind his pretty face. What he wants from me. Why I could make him worship me when I was on stage, and yet let him jerk my strings any way he wants when I'm finally with him.

And the most important question.

"Why don't you love me?" I ask him, sobbing, as he pulls me down gently into his soft pale arms. "What's wrong with me? Am I that bad?"

He strokes my hair soothingly, as if I were a fretful pet. "No, Max. You are beautiful."

"I just want to stay with you," I wail softly into his neck. God, I'm falling apart. Good thing Geddon isn't still here. "Please."

"Sleep," he tells me, and I realize he's still crying, too. "Stay and sleep. Stay with me."

He begins to hum, a sort of lullaby that sounds familiar, as we sink into the stained pillows. I'm so tired the humming actually works. I'm sliding into sleep when I realize, fuzzily, that he's humming "Salvation/ Damnation".

Drag me down
I don't care what I lose
Let me stay with you
Take my wings, I won't need them anymore
Take me into the flames
And I'll feed you my soul
Make me a fallen angel...

END PART 3

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