Author: Alexa Land
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/alexa-land/page,13,529414-all_in.html
I took a look at my companion as he led the way into his building. His head was down, shoulders slouched, like he was trying to remain unnoticed. How did a boy like Austin survive in a place like this? It would be so easy for people to hurt him, to rob him, to take advantage of him. Even something as simple as coming and going from his apartment each day must be a lesson in survival.
We entered the lobby of the building. There seemed to be no electricity – the lobby was only lit by the weak sunlight that filtered through a couple filthy windows. A man in a suit was having sex with a woman at the foot of the stairs. She was obviously a prostitute, her short skirt pushed up over her hips as he bent her over. Austin took my hand and led me around the couple and up the steps, and glanced over his shoulder at me as he said, “Sorry about that. The old manager used to keep people from working in the lobby. The new guy doesn’t really seem to give a shit about anything.”
We climbed up four flights of stairs before he led me, still holding my hand, down a long, dark hallway littered with garbage and reeking of urine. Behind one of the doors, a loud argument was taking place. A big guy was weaving down the hall toward us, obviously either drunk or on drugs, muttering incoherently. When the man got close to us, my companion gently pushed me against the wall and put himself between the drunk and me. I realized he was protecting me, trying to keep me safe. The man passed without incident, and Austin picked up my hand again and led me to a doorway almost at the end of the hall.
He pulled a key out of the pocket of his jeans and unlocked the door, and I followed him inside. The room was tiny but clean, the little twin bed neatly made. A clothesline stretched across one end of the space, and a toilet and sink were in the corner. A small bouquet of daisies in a glass soda bottle sat on the sill of the barred window, and struck me as incredibly touching.
The room was fairly dark and cold, and when I flipped the light switch, the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling did nothing. “Power’s been out for a few days,” he said as he checked the clothes on the line, squeezing the fabric to see if it was dry and then pulling down a pair of jeans and some briefs. “The wiring in this place is kind of iffy. But they always get it working again sooner or later.”
I turned away to give him some privacy as he kicked off his sneakers and shimmied out of his tight low-rise jeans, then managed to get his underwear and the new slightly baggy jeans on mostly with one hand. When I turned back around to him, he was slipping his feet into a pair of beat-up Converse.
“Do you go to S.F. State?” I asked as he towed me around the room, gathering a backpack and something that looked like a tackle box.
“No, I go to Sutherlin.”
“That private art college?”
“That’s where all the money goes that I earn by turning tricks. In case you’re wondering why I live in such a shit hole.” Austin fished around in his backpack and took out a little sealed package of square, bright orange crackers sandwiched together with peanut butter. He held the package out to me and offered me some, and when I declined he quickly ate all of them. He was obviously incredibly hungry.
“So, you do eat. I was beginning to wonder.”
I’d said that jokingly, but his expression was serious as he said, “I um…I have a lot of issues when it comes to food. This is the only thing I eat, actually.” Before I could ask questions, he hoisted the backpack onto his shoulder and said, “We’d better get going. I don’t want to be late.”
I carried the tackle box for him, and we left the hell of his building and emerged back out onto the hell of the sidewalk. He visibly relaxed only when he was out of his neighborhood.
We rode another bus across town, and then I watched as another transformation came over Austin. As we walked onto Sutherlin’s campus, his whole demeanor changed. He seemed younger, almost buoyant, as his pace increased and his body realigned subtly, standing up straighter, his shoulders back. As if he was in his element. As if he was home.
“Shouldn’t we be covering up these handcuffs?” I asked. We’d employed the fleece jacket method on public transit, but he was holding the jacket in his hand now, making no effort to disguise the fact that we were chained together.
He glanced at me with a sparkle in his eye. “This is art school, Charlie. Almost no one’s going to bat an eye at something like this. And if they do, we can just claim it’s performance art or something. Let me do the talking.”
“Fine by me.”
When we reached the door of a large studio, he paused and looked up at me. “One thing. Call me Christopher Robin.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s my real name,” he said with a little grin, and pushed the door open.
Several students greeted him as we cut through the large, sunny space to an easel on the far side of the room. “Hey C.R.,” a Goth girl called out. A dozen piercings sparkled from her lips, her nose, her eyebrows. “What’s with the cute brunette?”
Most of the students turned toward us to hear the answer. And Austin – make that Christopher Robin (!) – replied, “This is my friend Charlie. He’s a student at S.F. State, and he’s doing a project for his psychology class. It’s about empathy, about polar opposites – a jock and an art student – learning to see the world through each other’s eyes. We’re spending forty eight hours chained together for his experiment.”
He was one smooth liar, he hadn’t missed a beat. And every single person in the room bought that explanation, a couple of them saying, “oh” and, “that’s cool.”
A woman in a paint-covered smock came up to us. She was slightly older than the rest, and she asked, “Are you going to be able to paint like that, Christopher Robin?” I realized this must be his teacher.
“I think so, Sandra. Charlie will need to cooperate with me in order for this to be successful, so it’ll be an excellent lesson in teamwork.” She nodded at this and crossed the room to speak to another student.
He dragged a stool over for me and set it beside his, and as he pulled things out of the tackle box I whispered with a grin, “Thanks for portraying me as a dumb jock.”
“I never said dumb. And I think they bought the school project excuse.”
“Of course they did. It’s almost scary what a good liar you are.”
“I lie for a living,” he whispered back. “I mean, think about it. How many disgusting old men have I had to lie to over the years, convincing them they were sexy, desirable? Convincing them I didn’t hate every single thing they were doing to me?”
“That’s sad.”
“That’s life,” he shrugged.
I whispered as quietly as I could, “Why do you work as a prostitute, Austin?” I corrected myself and amended, “I mean, Christopher Robin?”
“Long story. Someday, maybe I’ll regale you with the tragic tale of Christopher Robin Andrews, hooker and lost boy. But today,” he said with a grin as he set up his art supplies, “is not that day.”
He settled down on his stool as a young woman in a robe took the small stage in the center of the room, arranging herself carefully on the wooden chair. And I whispered, “Oh no, don’t tell me this is a—” she dropped the robe, exposing every inch of her body, and I blushed furiously as I said, “life drawing class.” I quickly looked away from the model.
“Close. Life painting.” Christopher Robin carefully removed a white drape from the canvas on his easel. And I actually gasped. The painting was nearly complete, and it was absolutely stunning. It was photorealistic, rendered in exquisite detail. Even a dolt like me that knew absolutely nothing about art knew that this was something absolutely extraordinary. I looked at the model again, and looked at the painting. And I saw how he’d perfectly captured the woman’s expression, including a bit of melancholy that I hadn’t seen in her at first.
“Holy shit, Chris,” I murmured.
“I don’t go by Chris, just FYI. You can call me Christopher, if my full name is just too much of a mouthful.” He grinned at me and added, “And once we leav
e here and return to your world, you can go back to calling me Austin if you want.”
He turned his attention to painting, and since he was right-handed – the hand that was chained to me – I tried my damndest to concentrate, to follow his movements as I held onto his arm. I also tried to make sure I didn’t clumsily jar him or hinder what he was doing in any way.
“Don’t try to anticipate where I’m going to move my hand,” he said gently at one point. “Just relax your arm, let me guide you.”
“I’m worried that my arm’s too heavy. I was trying to lighten the weight of it on you.”
He smiled at me. “I know, Charlie. And thank you. I’m a lot stronger than I look, though, so you can go ahead and relax.” I tried to do that.
When the class ended an hour and a half later, the teacher came up to us and took a look at Christopher’s canvas. She was positively beaming. To me she said, “This boy is my star pupil. I’d like to pretend I taught him everything he knows, but that’s not true at all. He’s a prodigy. Did you know your friend can do this?”
“I had no idea. He’s a very surprising person.” And wasn’t that the truth.
After he packed up his supplies, Christopher picked up his canvas carefully and took it over to a long, thin shelf along one wall, where all the students were lining up their paintings. “This assignment’s done,” he explained. “We’re turning them in. That’s why I didn’t want to miss school today.”
I took a look at the other paintings. All of them were good, some of them wonderful. But my companion’s was from a different universe. It looked like it had been plucked from a museum, it was so much better than the rest. And apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought so. As soon as his painting went up, a crowd gathered. “Holy shit,” one guy said, “why do I even bother painting?”
“Damn, C.R., you never cease to amaze,” the Goth girl from earlier said.
“Christopher Robin’s gonna go on to rule the art world,” a skinny kid with wild crayon red hair told me with a big smile. “And all of us are gonna get to say ‘I knew him back at the beginning.’ I just hope that in the art school scenes when they make the movie of his life, I’m played by someone hot.”
“You’re gonna be played by a mop dipped in red paint,” someone told him, and everyone laughed.
“But seriously, Christopher Robin,” a petite blonde girl said, “This is mind-blowing.”
My companion looked embarrassed by all of this attention, blushing shyly. “You guys are too sweet,” he murmured. “Well, we gotta run. Charlie’s got to get to work. See you next week.” He grabbed his stuff, and we took off to a chorus of goodbyes and see yas.
We came in through the front door when we finally arrived at Nolan’s, an hour into my shift. It was actually fairly busy. I apologized to Cole as we hurried past, and he raised an eyebrow at us.
At my locker, my companion put away his backpack and art supplies as I picked up a clean work t-shirt from the shelf and said, “Ok, so how am I going to put this on?”
“You could split it down the seam under your chained arm,” he suggested. “Then I could stitch it back up for you.”
“That’d take too long.”
Jamie came out of the kitchen and said, “Hey Charlie. Who’s your friend?”
I turned to the boy in question and asked, “Are you Austin now, or are you Christopher Robin?”
He smiled up at me and said, “That’s your call.”
“Jamie, this is Christopher Robin Andrews. Christopher, this is Jamie Nolan. It’s his bar.”
“Ah. So you must be the ex,” Christopher said, and stuck out his hand to shake Jamie’s. His right hand, the one that was attached to me.
Jamie’s eyes went wide, but he shook his hand and said politely, “It’s nice to meet you.” Then he looked at me and asked, “Is there a reason you two are chained together?”
“It’s a kinky sex thing,” I told him. Jamie already disliked Dante. I wasn’t going to give him more fuel for his argument that the guy was bad for me.
Christopher giggled at that, and Jamie raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh yeah, you’re totally into kinky sex, Charlie. So what’s the real reason? No, never mind, tell me later. Cole needs help out there. Just tell me you’ll unchain yourself long enough to work your shift.”
“No can do. There’s no key. But I can work like this, with the exception of being able to pull a work shirt on over the chains.”
Jamie was fighting the urge to roll his eyes, I could tell. But he said, “Go ahead and work without it,” and went back into the kitchen.
I tied my black apron around my hips and went out into the dining room and got busy, refilling drinks and clearing a couple plates. I went to refill a beer, and found Dmitri behind the bar. It always seemed really incongruous to see him doing something as mundane as working, somehow. At least to me. A man that beautiful looked like he should be lounging on a Hollywood movie set or something, not serving drinks.
“Hi Charlie. Hi Austin,” he said cheerfully. His cornflower blue eyes were sparkling with amusement.
“Hi Mr. Teplov,” my companion said with a smile.
“It’s just Dmitri,” my ex’s husband corrected. And then he asked me, “Out of curiosity Charlie, why are you chained to a prostitute?”
“How do you know he’s a prostitute?”
“Dante introduced us when I ran into Austin at his house.” I was a little surprised that Dante was that forthcoming about his sex life. And then I remembered how the guy at the door when I’d gone to see Dante had recognized Christopher and let him right in (in a delayed light bulb moment, I realized the guy at the door had thought I was a prostitute as well, there to do a three-way with Christopher and Dante). Man, a lot of people were up in Dante’s business.
“Um, the cuffs are a long story. I’d better give Cole a hand, so I’ll tell you later,” I said.
“I can’t wait to hear it,” Dmitri said with a big smile, dimples out in full force.
A table was seated in my section, and when we went up to them and they gave us a funny look, Christopher told the two businessmen, “We’re on a game show. If we can survive like this for a week without killing each other, we win a cash prize.” They wished us luck.
At the next table, he told a group of college students with long hair and political t-shirts, “We’re doing a school paper on abuses in the criminal justice system, and are learning how a man’s dignity is stripped from him when he’s forced to wear handcuffs.”
“Right on, man,” one of the students said.
For every table, Christopher had a different story, tailored to that particular set of customers. My new friend had some pretty amazing people skills. And also, as noted earlier, he was one hell of a liar.
I went to place an order in the kitchen, and raised an eyebrow at the sight of Jamie behind the grill, flipping a burger patty. “Oh dear God, are you cooking?” I asked him.
“We’re one line cook short because we weren’t expecting a lunch rush, so I’m pitching in.”
“So, you owe me five bucks,” I said with a smile.
“What do you mean?”
“You bet me a couple years ago that you could make it to the age of twenty five without ever actually cooking a single thing. You just lost.”
Jamie grinned and handed over a five dollar bill. “I’d forgotten about that. I probably would have made it, too, if I hadn’t become the owner of a bar and grill.”
“Probably.”
Christopher watched our exchange without comment, his intelligent blue eyes taking it all in and filing it away. And later on, as my shift was winding down and I was cleaning up my station, he asked me, “Are you still in love with Jamie?”
I stopped what I was doing and really considered the question. Then I said, “As recently as a few days ago, the answer would have been yes. And now…I do still love him, but as a friend. He’ll always be important to me. But no, I’m not in love with him anymore.” It was a pretty surprisin
g realization. And kind of freeing, actually.
“Not since you met Dante,” Christopher said happily. “Because you’re falling in love with him.”
“Oh man. There’s the hopeless romantic in you again,” I said as I wiped down a table.
“Not hopeless. Hopeful. I want to believe that love actually exists in the world.”
“Speaking of Dante,” I said, slightly changing the subject, “I want to give his grandmother another call, make sure she’s still ok.” We went in the back and I pulled out my cell phone. Christopher took his out as well, scrolling through some texts as I dialed the hotel.
An accented woman’s voice answered the phone in the suite, and when Mrs. Dombruso came on the line she explained, “My housekeeper Marta is here, she brought me some clothes. And Mr. Mario is here. He’s my hairdresser. You’d like him, Charlie. He’s a gay homosexual, too.”
I grinned at that and asked, “Did the doctor come by?”
“Yeah, an hour ago.”
“What did he say?”
“What I already knew,” she said. “I’m doing fine. Better than fine. He says I’ll live to be a hundred. I said a hundred is for chumps, I’m shooting for one-ten.” I reminded her to call me if she needed anything before I ended the call.
My companion finished typing a long text, then returned the phone to his pocket. “Mind if we stop by a store on the way home?” he asked me. “I’m almost out of crackers.”
“No problem.” I untied my short black apron and pulled a wad of bills from my pocket, then counted out the money and handed half of it to Christopher.
“What’s that for?”
“That’s your half.”
“Oh no,” he said, trying to hand the money back. “You did all the work. I was merely an inconvenience.”
“You did plenty of work, especially in terms of chatting up the customers. They tipped us like crazy because they were all so charmed by your outlandish tales explaining the handcuffs. Keep it, I insist.”
“Well, ok. That was actually a lot of fun,” he said as he slipped the money in the pocket of his jeans.