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Mitchell winced, whispering something over and over.
I hitched my jeans up and quickly knelt down to where his head was still pressed to the floor. His breath came in shallow gasps that I’d taken for arousal, but I now saw they were his attempt not to cry. He shuddered as I bent low to hear what he was saying.
“Poodle,” he whispered. “Poodle, poodle.”
Part I
September 1991
Two Weeks Earlier…
Chapter One
‡
Minty
“You’re going toget yourself killed.”
I poked a straw into the McDonalds’ shake Barry had bought for me after he chased me down on the Strip, determined to convince me to talk with him. Not even thirty minutes ago, I’d run from our local gay club, Tilt-a-Whirl, in a blind rage after being confronted by my so-called friends about my recent romantic and sexual choices, and Barry still thought he could save me.
“Did you hear me? Killed.”
“I don’t have a problem with that,” I said, though it wasn’t entirely true. I was terrified of dying, but now that I was HIV positive, I knew it was just a matter of time until I was worm food anyway. And the only thing that obliterated the fearthatbrought up in me was pain. And degradation. And hard use. And being beaten up.
Allowing me to exchange one kind of terror for another.
“I think you do have a problem with it,” Barry contradicted me, seeing right through my b.s. the way he always did. “And I can help you.”
“Oh, you’ve got a cure for HIV stuffed in your back pocket, huh?”
“No, I have a friend who hurts people professionally.”
I blinked at him. “A Dom or something?”
“A Domexactly.” He ran a hand over his shiny bald head. “Look, I’ve been friends with you a few years now, and I know you pretty well.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of admitting we were close like that, but yeah, my Tilt-a-Whirl gang—Windy, Antonio, Barry, and Robert—were my closest friends. The best person in the whole world, Daniel, would always be mybestfriend, of course, but he’d been busy and distracted lately. His mom’s drinking made his life hard, and there were his little siblings to look after, and now he had his new boyfriend, Peter…
“I think you need pain,” Barry went on. “You always got a lot out of the spankings Renée used to give you on stage in her act. So, I’m not against you getting hurt, if it’s done in a safe, sane, consensual way with someone who gives a shit whether or not you live through it.”
“My current lover gives a—”
“Cut the crap.”
I gazed out the window. The lights inside McDonalds were bright against the night outside, and the cars zoomed down the Strip with little care for the pedestrians around them. I sucked the milkshake in, watching a straight couple cruise down the sidewalk, their hands in each other’s back pockets, looking so perfect it was like they’d stepped out of a hair commercial for gender-neutral shampoo. A fresh scent by Calvin Klein.
“I’m scared,” I admitted when I’d swallowed down half the shake. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Barry said, reaching out to take my hand. “It makes sense to be scared.”
I could feel eyes on us. We stuck out even amongst the college kids who crowded McDonalds every night avoiding their schoolwork. They’d wonder about me being here with Barry simply because he was Black and I was white, and this was the South. Butwith me being dressed the way I was—in a tutu, makeup, and looking femme and glitter-covered—they were going to keep on staring at us for an entirely separate reason too. Several girls giggled behind their hands, and I distinctly heard speculation about how I was a fairy who must like big, Black dicks.
Cool. Racism, stereotypes, and homophobia all for the price of one milkshake.
Though Ididlike big dicks of any color, the bigger the better. I loved it when a dick hurt as it fucked into me, when I was stretched to the point of pain, and how that pain felt like power.
It was difficult to explain, but when a man was inside me, I felt like a god. Especially when they didn’twantto want me, when they hated wanting me. In those moments, I was a beautiful,irresistiblegod who could take whatever those assholes dished out and still make them come harder than they ever had—against their will and despite their self-loathing.
