A banging on the door makes us both jump. "Hey Sam! 'Samu, you there?"

Tripper all but tears himself free of me. It hurts me to have to let go of him. It hurts how relieved he seems to get away. I watch him wrap himself in a towel and go to the door.

"Oh, Adrian," he says, in his funny Japanese accent. I can't even begin to describe how he pronounces the name. It comes out of his mouth with a lot more syllables than it's supposed to have.

The boy at the door leans down to kiss Tripper. He looks about seventeen, with short spiky hair that's blond with black tips. He's dressed in a tight black shirt with ripped-out sleeves, and black jeans with a chain dangling from one hip.

They kiss each other's cheeks, as if they were ladies who'd met at a party.

Adrian hugs him after the kiss. "Hi, pretty boy. Ready to go to work?"

Tripper glances back towards me. "I have...somebody," he says vaguely.

"So early?" Adrian laughs. "You're really a good worker, 'Samu. Wish we all had half your energy; we'd buy our way out in no time. Well, that's not the only reason I came by." He hands Tripper a couple of tickets; they look like bus transfer stubs.

"Eh?"

"Party under the bridge. Starts around 9, which means if you come in by 10 it's just starting to rock. I suggest 10:30. Bring your friend, if you like. It's free," he adds in a louder voice, making sure I hear.

"I will try," says Tripper politely, which could mean anything the way he says it. Adrian just shakes his head and gives Tripper a quick smack on the lips before he moves off.

Tripper turns back to the bed. He looks preoccupied. On the way back he bumps into the screen that shields the "bathroom". I sit up in alarm but he just laughs a little and gets into bed with me, rubbing his forehead a bit. He shows me the tickets; they are old transfer stubs, only scribbled over in Magic Marker with a time and address.

"Um..." I look curiously at him. "So...are you going?"

"I don't know." He strokes my hair absently, like I was his cat or something. I wrap my arms round his little waist and nuzzle his neck, undoing his towel. He's so sweet, and soft....

"Would you...like to come with me?" he asks shyly. "Tonight?"

"To that party? The one under the bridge?" My lips close on his neck.

He makes a sigh like the wind through the trees. Oh my God, I sound like a teenage romance novel, even to myself.

"Makkussu..."

I lay my cheek against his collarbone. "Do you like it? When I touch you?"

"Yes. I like to be touched."

Damn non-committal Japanese. "By anyone? Or by me?"

He pulls away to the end of the bed, fiddling with a neatly folded stack of clothes. I hate it when he pulls away. His eyes are angry, but his voice is still soft. It only hurts me more. "What do you want me to say, Max? That you make me feel good when you touch me? Better than other people make me feel? Do you want me to stop selling myself and live happy with you? Like that movie?"

Ah. So he's seen Pretty Woman, too.

He slides out of bed and goes to a small chest of drawers by the bathing area, pulls out a pair of cotton pants fastened by a drawstring. They're worn thin in patches. He puts them on.

"I don't like to be alone," he says, pulling himself up to sit on the chest. "I have not slept alone since he killed Damon, except when I am very tired. I like being touched and kissed. I like having sex with men."

That had honestly never occurred to me. He likes his job? Being pawed around by creeps like Geddon and Leather Hotshot Cheapskate Guy?

He lifts his head. "Sometimes the men are bad," he says stiffly, as if he's heard my thoughts and is offended. "Sometimes the work is dirty. But they pay me, and they are warm, and they do not leave until I am asleep. And I do not sleep with men who do not desire me."

"Big fucking deal!" I yell, reaching for my own pants, which are on top of the pile of clothes Tripper was arranging. I put them on, tugging them up in sharp little jerks. They're kind of gross, but I don't care. "I'm warm. I wouldn't leave, not even after you wake up, not ever. And desire? I desire you. I fucking love you. I play my guitar thinking of you. I write songs for you. I dream of you and wake up crying and covered in come. I would fucking slit my wrists and let you drink my blood to stay alive, instead of letting you sell yourself to slime like your hypocrite landlord. And you'd rather sleep with them instead of me? Are you deranged?"

"Do you want to save me, Max?" he asks. His voice is cool, but his eyes...they're dark, clouded with some strong emotion. Hell if I can figure out what emotion it is. "Do you think you are the first to love me?"

"Fine." Tears are starting in my eyes again; it's humiliating, I'm a complete crybaby. "You know what, I don't--"My voice breaks. I stride past him to the couch, to grab my guitar and backpack. "I don't care. I've had it. You can--you can sleep with--whoever you fucking want." I walk out the hardly functional door, pulling on my smelly shirt, blinking hard. Tripper hasn't moved.

Tripper mine? Who was I kidding? It's not the old days anymore, Max. Fucking does not denote ownership.

Well, maybe it was fucking to him, but it wasn't to me. It was...I slow down a bit, remembering the way it felt, his skin under my hands, his...

No. Take it home, Max, and keep it safe, because that was your lifetime fix. One night only. Like most guys in his life, I'll bet.

Three blocks down I stop, my hands going cold, as something he'd said finally penetrates.

I have not slept alone since he killed Damon.

The lover. The lover that looked like me.

Damon? Or the unnamed he?

Tripper's boyfriend killed someone?

Or was killed.

Jesus.

I turn and run back to the house. I have to know.

But it's empty. Tripper's gone. And I remember last night, Geddon, and the "rent payment", and I feel sick.

In a movie the hero runs up and down the streets calling the name of his beloved until, not really by chance, he happens to spy a graceful shadow gliding down a side street. He calls the name again. The figure turns--it's his love! He manages to gasp out a moving apology. Love interest properly moved. Cue string section. All over but the wedding.

If I ran up and down the streets yelling in this neighborhood, I'd be a red smear on the pavement before anyone even noticed I was missing.

Shit. SHIT. Fuck. Damn. Fucking HELL.

* * *

God, I can't think, I can hardly move. I walk home and fumble with the apartment key, and kind of slither past Julian, who looks up in surprise from his late breakfast, and into my room.

I'm moving like a robot. Dump stuff on bed. Come out again, shedding clothes on way to bathroom. Dump clothes into hamper next to bathroom door.

"Pockets," Julian gently reminds me. He doesn't say anything else. This is another great thing about my best friend.

The last time I dumped jeans in the laundry without checking the pockets we got bits of tissue in everything. I stick my hand into each pocket one by one.

There's a scrap of paper in the front left pocket. I hardly ever keep stuff there--I'm right-handed, I automatically shove things in my right pocket.

It's an old bus transfer stub. I stare at it, at the time and address scrawled on it in Magic Marker.

* * *

So why am I here again? Waiting for him again. Waiting in the heat and noise of a hundred gyrating bodies, for Tripper to come to me. If he comes.

If this is love, it sucks. But I already knew that.

Julian thinks I'm crazy. Tobey thinks I'm stupid. Gabe wanted to come with me, but he also thought I should work this out alone. They'd been worried when I took off with Tripper and didn't come back, but not that worried. I guess they figured they knew what I was doing.

I don't know why I told them everything. It just happened. We went to hang out at Tobey's place, the best apartment among our little circle of friends, near the South Side. It was Julian's idea; he thought I needed cheering up. Naturally, this led to the question of what I needed cheering up for. After all, I'd obviously "bagged" Tripper, hadn't I? (This offensive word appears courtesy of Tobey Klaiman.)

I shouldn't have told them. It wasn't my business to tell them. It was something that should have been between Tripper and me. But I was thoroughly sick of everything just being about Tripper and me. So I told them the whole story, except the part about Damon and whoever killed him. I wasn't sure about that, so I didn't say anything about it. It was giving me enough trouble.

"Dude, that is fucked up," was Tobey's contribution. Everyone pretty much agreed.

None of them think I should be here. I don't think I should be here either, but if thinking was what I'd been doing from the start, I would never have gone after Tripper.

I still think it was worth it. All this shit. His little soft laugh alone was worth everything.

"Who the hell are you?" someone yells. It's a tall kid not much older than Tripper, with scruffy hair that could be red or blond; it's hard to tell in the dark. Nearly everybody here is my age or younger. Mostly younger. The music is younger too, angry and loud. Brat rock.

"I'm waiting for someone," I yell back.

"Specifically?"

"What?"

"Are you just waiting for someone, or are you waiting for someone specifically?" He looks pleased with his own joke.

"His name is Hisamu." It's hard to get the accent right, but at least the name's audible over the music.

"The little Jap slut?" He stops bouncing to the music, looks me over, surprised. "You don't look the type."

"The fuck you have to do with it." The words ring in my ears more painfully than the thrash music. Little Jap slut. I want to stick my fist in his teeth.

"Jake!" Someone peeks around the tall kid before he has any time to do anything but look pissed. It's the boy from this morning, Adrian. He squints at me for a minute, then recognizes me.

"Hey, you're the client from this morning! Got your invite?"

I pull out my bus transfer ticket. "Is Tr...Hisamu here?"

"What the fuck did you go and give a ticket to his client for?" demands Jake, as if I hadn't spoken.

Adrian glares up at him. "It's a free country. He can come if he wants to."

"Yeah, right. Why doesn't he go off to some club like all the other dorks with money? You probably thought it'd be cool to go slumming tonight, huh?" he snaps at me suddenly. "Something to tell your friends. Yeah, I went dancing with the whores and freaks."

I open my mouth to say something angry, but Adrian gets in ahead of me. "Stick your cock in it, Jake. Go get drunk, or high, or something."

Jake moves off, and whatever he's muttering is thankfully lost in the noise. Adrian takes my arm. He looks uneasy. "You, uh, sure you want to see 'Samu?"

Something cold crawls into my belly. "That's why I got invited, wasn't it? Because I was with him?"

"That's what I thought too." The music changes to something electronic and repetitive, but not as loud, and that's why I catch Adrian's tone. I can almost feel what he's going to say next. "But then he--well, he brought someone else." He turns and peers at the seething mass of bodies. "He's over there, if you still wanna talk to him."

The world recedes around me, like water draining away. Through the various moving limbs and heads I can see Tripper, his dark green T-shirt already clinging to his body with sweat, dancing like a snake. He writhes against a broad-shouldered kid about a couple years younger than me, with close-cropped brown hair. The kid is enjoying every minute of it.

"I'll tell him you're here," Adrian says quickly, and disappears before I can stop him.

I turn and walk out of the crowd and the noise. I sit on the curb and try to breathe normally.

God, I feel so helpless. What is wrong with me? Why do I keep coming back? Who cares who Damon was, or whether he was Tripper's old boyfriend, or whether Tripper's boyfriend killed him?

That face, turned up to the stage. Those eyes, gazing up at us--at me--with the naked love of the supplicant for his gods. I want to go back to that. I want to go back to being his god, far away from him and his hurtful revelations.

You're just human, he'd said. And I don't know if I want to be human anymore.

But I can kiss him, when I'm human. At least, I could, even if I never do again.

I stare around, more automatically than out of curiosity. The party is happening under a bridge, just like Adrian said--an overpass, actually, in a part of the city so grimy even New York cops don't like to patrol here too often. I'd heard about places like this. There's some kind of unspoken agreement: cops don't interfere with people here, and people here make sure crime doesn't get too big or messy. Anybody that makes too big a wave gets a taste of the underground's special brand of justice. No appeal.

It sounds like a great idea for a book, or a movie. It freaks the shit out of me in real life.

The party's tucked into the crook of the bridge, where it rises from the street below. They've got everything a normal club has: turntables, a bar (actually one of those trailers with the windows in the side where you can order), strobe lights. Bootlegged, stolen, salvaged from dumpsters. New York is scavenger heaven.

"Makkusu."

He looks unhappy. He sits nervously on the curb next to me, not close enough to touch, unless I reach out. Not that I want to. Really. Not at all.

He fishes in the pocket of his jeans, produces a rather weathered pack of cigarettes. "Do you want to smoke?"

"Do you smoke?"

He shakes his head. His hair is sweaty, and little tendrils stick to his forehead. "No. But many people I know do. I have the habit of bringing cigarettes."

He's stalling, and I know it. "I need to know, Hisamu. Who's Damon, and who killed him?"

The black eyes open wide, and Tripper shrinks back a little. "How--how did you know about Damon?"

"You mentioned it. This morning. It didn't really sink in until I left."

"Sink in?"

I turn away, stare out toward the empty street. Strobe lights from the party cast weird blinking shadows across it. "In my mind. I heard it, but I didn't think about it until I left. I ran back right away, but you were gone."

He lowers his gaze. His lashes are so thick they totally shield his eyes. "I am sorry."

"Me too."

"No." His little white hands reach out and clasp mine. My heart does a riff against my ribs. Whatever happened to being mad at him? How can he make me switch gears so easily?

"No, you must not be sorry." He speaks haltingly, struggling with the words. "I was ... cruel...to you. You never asked from me anything, but I was angry with you as if you were like other men. I hurt you. I am sorry."

I open my mouth, ready to draw on my anger. But it's draining away.

Is he playing with me? He could be playing. He could be lying. He could be doing any of a million things, none of which I could ever hope to deal with.

"I thought you liked me," I said quietly. "You took me home. You let me make love to you. If it wasn't about the money, what was it?"

His eyes are wide, pleading. They fill with tears, as if he's saying, Please, don't ask. But I've never been able to hold myself back when I really want to know something.

"Was it just because I look like your old boyfriend?"

He clutches my hand, and sobs over it. "I...I thought you...were..."

"I'm NOT!" And it's a good thing the music is so loud, because I still don't want to cause a scene no matter what I'm feeling.

don't wanna cause a scene doesn't matter what I feel so angry but still in sweet pain with you

I think in lyrics. It's a disease I caught from Gabe. They're not even very good lyrics.

Tripper shrinks back again, but I hold on tightly to his hand. It's so soft. No streetwalker should have skin this soft.

"I'm not your boyfriend from years ago. I'm not your personal singing god with a guitar. I'm not your angel, or your spirit guide, or anything. I'm in love with you, but that's not very special, now is it?"

"Max..."

The anger's back. Welcome back. "I'm sick of this! I'm sick of chasing you for answers, for attention, for everything. But wherever you are, I want to find you, because maybe I'm just stupid that way. I just wish you'd try and make things a little easier. I'm not a psycho, or even a bad person. I..." Suddenly I drop his hand. I feel so tired. "I watched you when we played. I liked you. I wanted to find out...I don't know. Everything. But you won't trust me with a goddamn thing."

He looks piteously at me, then seems to sink in on himself, defeated. He presses his hands to his eyes. "Damon was my lover."

Tripper is a little hunched figure on the curb, like those little Chinese monkeys with their hands over eyes or ears or mouth. Sometimes I would see a fourth labeled "Do No Evil", with monkey paws crossed over its (presumed) genitals.

"He was killed. It was my fault."

This was not what I expected, but it doesn't surprise me. "Everything always feels like someone's fault. It never is."

He's really crying now, face in his hands. "No, you do not understand. I was the one who was supposed to be killed. Damon stopped the man. Damon was killed, but I ran away." He turns to me. His eyes are black holes rimmed with red. I remember wanting to fall into them, outside the bar when I'd rushed after him. Just last night, so long ago.

I don't want to go into that darkness now. It looks like the special darkness every kid dreads, the one with very personal nightmares just waiting for you to turn off your light.

Tripper's voice falls into a semi-hysterical cadence, as if he's saying something he's said over and over again to himself, in that dark. "It was that man. The crazy man like they make movies about. Who kills boys with nice skin. He was in the newspaper. They caught him, because they heard me screaming, but Damon was already dead.

"He got into our house. It was easy. The lock was not strong. He said he wanted to cut my skin off and line his clothes with it. So he could feel me against him all the time. He had the knife. Damon was hiding. Damon ran and grabbed his arm. Damon screamed for me to run, and I ran, and then Damon just screamed, with no words, and I screamed too, but I could not stop, running, screaming, and Damon stopped screaming and I..."

He throws himself into my arms, and he is screaming, a very soft, thin scream, and then sobbing like he's going to tear himself apart. "I was afraid! I was afraid!" he keeps wailing. "I had no right to be afraid! It was my fault! I am supposed to be dead! Every day I prayed to be dead!"

I hug him close, and he hugs me back, his hands bunching into fists in my shirt, and he cries, and sobs "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" without pause. I don't know whether he thinks he's speaking to me or to Damon. But somehow, I forgive him.

END PART 5