Turning Idolater (7 page)

Thomas smiled. “My book sales are doing just
fine.”

“Gee, I haven’t seen one of them.”

“
Vagrant Hollow
.”

Sprakie flinched. “You wrote that one.” He turned to
Philip. “I take it all back. You’ve hit the mother lode. Sprakie
approves.”

Philip sighed. He hadn’t heard of
Vagrant Hollow
by T.D Dye
, but if Sprakie had, the more ignorant he. He wanted
his roommate to disappear instantly. Another cutting word and
Philip was determined to pull the leg of the chair out from under
him.

“Robert,” Thomas said, his eyes dancing like an
imp’s now. “May I inquire why, with the entire world’s wide list of
nicknames, you would chose such a glottal atrocity as Sprakie.”

Sprakie stood. He suddenly appeared imperious to the
point of demoting
The Imperial Coffee Mug
to a mere
Cup
and Saucer.
“My name is Robert Sprague.” He cocked his nose.
“My Dahddy used to call me the
little sprig
. That became
Little Spraguey
, and that became a
little pukey
. So I
changed it to Sprakie. It stuck. It’s my tiara for mere mortals to
admire from afar.”

Philip laughed. He couldn’t help himself. No matter
how much Sprakie was interfering with the natural flow of this
coffee ceremonial, his natural, sisterly love for this man, who had
ushered him through harsh times, had to be taken into account.

“Be careful,” Sprakie said, “
Little Ishie
can
stick too.” Philip wiggled his nose and twitched. Sprakie
immediately glanced at his watch and feigned surprise. “Oh, shades
of Judy Garland, I forgot. I have a date.”

“A date?” Thomas said, with hope in his voice.

“Yes. Why should that surprise you? I met this
wonderful guy last night and I promised him a blow job at . . .” he
glanced at his watch again, “at ten forty-eight on the dot. And
here it is ten thirty seven.” He winked. Thomas laughed. “Go ahead
and doubt me. If I don’t go now, he’ll start without me. If you
don’t mind, I’ll slip out gracefully. Onward I go.” He stepped
away, but returned just as fast. “I hope this hot date of mine is
not married, but what’s that to me. If you can’t make a new family,
break one up. That’s my motto — break one up.”

Sprakie glided out of the
Imperial Coffee Mug
like the Empress of Russia. He nearly clashed with a man who lurked
in the foyer — a man who sneered at him and hissed like a coiled
viper. But what did Sprakie care. He was headed home as angry as a
plucked chicken that he couldn’t stay and watch the events to their
natural and foregone conclusions.

“Is he always . . .” Thomas asked.

“Always.”

“I mean, is he always with you?”

Philip grinned and shuffled his glance toward the
turnover. “He’s with me a lot. We’re just good friends. He helped
me when I first came out. He’s guided me to better things. I was in
a bad spot.”

“And now?”

“A better spot.” Philip gazed into those brilliant
blue eyes and thought of an even better spot.

“You are not a couple?”

“Me and Sprakie?” Philip laughed. “No, we’re just
friends.”

Thomas blinked. “I thought I saw the comfort of a
couple between you.”

“Comfort? Yes, I guess we mesh well.”

“Do you mesh around?”

“We have, but name me friends who haven’t.”

Thomas sniffed. “You have me there. I suppose if
friends were to keep boundaries neat and square, the soul would not
be capable of reaching a reasonable plateau.”

Philip giggled and fidgeted with his napkin. “And
what is a reasonable plateau?”

“The protection of a family.”

Philip sniffed now. He guessed that Sprakie was his
only family, and he was as protective as any parent in his own
precious way. “He is that, but he’s gone now. Does that mean I’m
exposed to danger?”

“Dire danger,” Thomas said, smiling broadly. “When
the curtain rises beyond the home, danger lies along the path.”

“Do I have anything to fear from you?”

“Do I terrify you?”

“Does it look like I’m trembling, Mr. Dye? Sprakie’s
protection is never that far off that I can’t whistle for him.”

Thomas broke his spell, diverting his eyes to the
pastry. “Do tell.”

Philip chowed down on the turnover. It was sweet and
he hadn’t realized just how hungry he was, only having his hollow
filled with Max Gold’s sandwich.

Thomas watched the crumbs fall, flaking down
Philip’s lips. “Do you know what I like most about you?” he
asked.

Philip stopped his ravenous feed. He looked around
the café as if one of the other patrons would run over and whisper
the answer in his ear. Finally, he set the pastry down on the
napkin and scratched his head. “My eyes, I suppose, although you’ve
seen most all of me.” He clicked his tongue, but it was pasted to
his palate.

“How did you know?”

Philip sighed. “Everyone likes my eyes. I’ve been
told they’re . . . compelling.”

“There is that word again. They told you wrongly.
Your eyes are beyond compelling.”

Thomas reached across the table touching the back of
his hand to Philip’s cheek. Stroke. It felt good, like a soft glove
warming chilled fingers. Still, despite the moment, Philip knew the
maneuver — a gentle, yet foraging introduction to the dance.
How
many young cheeks have you stroked, Mr. Dye?
Philip grasped the
hand, and then kissed it.

“Sweet man. Gentle man.” He pushed temptation away.
“And do you know what I like about you?”

“The business I bring to your little den of
iniquity?”

The moment was broken. Philip felt it slide from the
dry dock into the shallows — beached, perhaps never to be
recuperated.

“How can you say that? I’ve a good mind to leave you
and turn you over to these hustlers.” Philip waved his hands toward
the various disengaged customers. This was
Hustle Central
,
was it not? Of course, Philip couldn’t deny having set this meeting
in a most convenient and incriminating place.

Thomas frowned and looked down, somewhat apologetic,
but not quite. “Philip, you have been honest with me. Since our
Internet contact, you have put it squarely as a client arrangement.
But tonight, the meter was not running, and I wondered why?”

Philip snapped his fingers. “Every once and a while
I like to go beyond the peek-a-boo crap. Sometimes I like to touch.
And I do touch, but it always winds up a business arrangement, as
you put it. Just once I’d like to touch and feel something real.”
His breath hitched and a tear welled up unexpectedly. From the
expression of Thomas’ face, he hadn’t expected it either. Thomas
reached across again, but Philip recovered. “I was about to say,
what I like about you is that you have not asked me
the
question
?”

“What question?”

“You know which question.”

“Trust me; I have not the slightest notion.”

“Notion.” Philip heaved a deep sigh. Perhaps, he had
struck the well of weirdness. Here was a man of letters, one who
didn’t have the common decency to contract a single word — one who
commanded speech like Dickens or Cartland, but one who couldn’t
figure out the question that every oily man seeking a nights
pleasure would ask a fallen fairy.

“You don’t know the bastards I meet in this
business,” Philip said.

“I can imagine.”

“Imagine away then, because in your wildest moment,
you couldn’t do more than scrape the surface.”

“Well, I guess I have been put in my place.” He
stirred.

Philip thought he was leaving. He latched onto
Thomas’ hand and pouted.

“No. Don’t go.”

“I had no intentions of going.”

“Good.” Philip sniffed again. He was trying to hold
back that tear. The last thing he wanted from Thomas Dye was
sympathy. It wasn’t his style and the tearful days were over . . .
or so he thought.

“I do not mean to patronize you, Philip, and do not
misconstrue that word, because although I have been a patron, I am
not a patron now and . . .”

Philip squeezed his hand. “No need to babble like
woodpecker.”

“Babble like a woodpecker? Are you positive you do
not write?”

“Shut-up for a minute. I was trying to explain
stuff. You see, since the Internet’s been around, it’s been a
helluva lot safer for us guys. It’s better when you don’t see the
customer. Safer. Less scary.”

“Like dropping bombs from ten-thousand feet.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ignore me. Go on.”

“Well, I’ve developed a sixth sense.”

“You see dead people?”

Philip just stared at him. The man was impossible.
He just liked to hear his own voice — his own wit. “If you don’t
shut-up and listen, you will never find out.”

“Go on.” Thomas locked his lips and threw away the
key.

“Whenever I hitch up with someone that I feel could
be special, he asks me
the question
. The one about why I
sell myself?”

“How judgmental.”

“Exactly. I like what I do. I can do dozens of other
things, but I like to show my body and let others pay for the
pleasure. I have fun. It gives me a sense of worth.” Thomas was
staring at him now. “I have the same good feeling about you, but
you haven’t asked that question yet.”

Thomas grinned, the space in his teeth filled with
the tip of his tongue.

“What is a girl like you doing in a place like
this?” Thomas finally asked.

“Bitch,” Philip laughed. “You’re catching on.”

“That’s
the
question is it not? How about
another? Why is a man like me looking for a girl like you?”

Philip launched across the table and hugged the
man.

“Exactly,” Philip whispered.

He weighed anchor just as a shadow was cast across
the table.

Thomas tried to ignore the shadow. He knew it well.
It could have been his own shadow, and at times, he thought it was.
He did not need to gaze up to see the gaunt man who owned it.

“Flo,” he said. Philip straightened and reengaged
his turnover.

“Tee,” said the man.

This man griped a brown parcel under his arm. He
wore the remnants of a blue pinstriped suit slouched over a white
shirt, opened at the collar. His sickly Adam’s apple bobbed up and
down with every swallow, and he swallowed often. Lips thick and
pasty. Chin stubbled. Nose hooked and in want of trimming. The man
— this
Flo,
had all the charm of an undertaker, and not a
modern, sensitive gravedigger, but one akin to a grave robber. His
green-yellow eyes darted from Thomas to Philip as if to accuse one
or both of being abroad beyond the limits of regulation. Thomas
ignored these twitches. They were within his acquaintance for
thirty years, as surely as this man who cast a shadow over the
table.

“Philip,” Thomas said, still not gazing in the man’s
direction — up. “This is my agent, Florian Townsend.”

“Glad to meet you,” Philip murmured over the sticky
pastry. He extended his hand. Florian gazed at it as if it were a
cadaverous leftover.

“Flo,” Thomas said, now shifting his eyes upward.
“Philip Flaxen and I are enjoying a new acquaintanceship. It would
not spoil your manicure to complete the gesture.”

Florian sucked on his teeth, and then grasped
Philip’s hand, shaking it with scant motion. “Philip, you say.”

“Yes,” Philip said, withdrawing his paw back to the
turnover. Florian slid into a chair and managed a smile.

“Philip and I were just discussing the pros and cons
of Internet pornography.”

“Oh, we’re still on that, are we?” Flo said.

Thomas gave Flo the
fish-eye
. Although
Florian’s arrival did not surprise him, it was as welcomed as
Sprakie’s. Thomas could see Philip’s gorges rising as he sat beside
the odious Mr. Townsend, but Thomas realized that if he and Philip
were to go beyond mere acquaintance — beyond this coffee
ceremonial, the Flaxen One would need to be exposed to
the
agent
.

Florian slid the parcel across the table. Thomas
ignored it. “As I was saying, Philip, there is another thing I like
about you.”

“I bet,” Philip said, winking.

Florian grunted, but to no account. Thomas leaned
toward Philip with a notion to put Florian still further on the
periphery. “I like your on-line manner. You are courteous, and I
would say exude a certain honesty and intelligence.”

Florian blew an unkind puff through his thick
lips.

“Intelligence?” Philip asked.

“Yes. You do not take yourself so seriously as to
ignore the needs of other people.” He now stared at Florian,
although his remarks were still meant for Philip.
Or were
they?
“When I went into my first
One on One
, I mentioned
that I was a
One on One
virgin.” Florian twitched. Thomas
thought he might leave, and if this were the key to do it, he would
pursue it. “You were gentle — understanding. You guided me through
it step-by-step.” He touched Philip’s hand. “Step . . . by . . .
step.”

“I don’t know, Tee,” Flo said. “How long are you
going to moon around here?” He tapped the parcel. “Business.”

When Thomas moved his hand toward the parcel, Philip
snapped it back. “Business, Mr. Dye?” Philip winked again. “We are
here after hours. Don’t mistake my on-line skills with anything
short of grifting.”

Thomas chuckled. “Grifting?”

“You know, Tee. A con game.” Flo stared at Philip.
“A quick scam. A hand of Three-Card Monte.”

Thomas was sure that Philip was not acquainted with
Three-Card Monte as it might be called something else altogether.
However, Thomas was sure that Flo’s tone would carry the insult’s
full weight.

“Perhaps so,” Philip said. “We’re trained to slow
the customers down.”

“I am sure it is for our greater enjoyment and
pleasure,” Thomas said.