“Humans are more attentive to light bulbs than they are other humans,” Larkin clarified. “New York City building codes specify every room and every space shall be provided artificial light. The Department of Transportation maintains over three-hundred thousand streetlamps. The Rockefeller Christmas tree has fifty-thousand bulbs on it. Every subway car, elevator, storefront, and ATM vestibule—there’s a light that, if it burns out, is considered a safety hazard and immediately rectified. Every year, we buy two billion light bulbs in this country. If we account for just the population over the age of eighteen, that’s nine point five light bulbs per citizen—over fifty-one million light bulbs purchased just in the city alone.
“A 2014 mental health study conducted on New York City’s adult population found that eight point three percent were suffering from moderate to severe depression, with over half reporting they’d been unable to obtain care.” Larkin was thoughtful for a moment before adding, “Only two hundred thousand people are asking for help, yet we defer to the maintenance of fifty-one million burned out bulbs.”
Doyle admitted, after a moment, “I’m not sure what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I think I’m unaccustomed to being a priority, is all. I’ve never had a partner offer their shirt sleeve in place of an unavailable tissue.”
Doyle didn’t serve up his usual smile in response. Instead, he briefly looked over his shoulder at the open door to the Fuck It, then slipped one hand inside Larkin’s suit coat to hold the small of his back as he pulled Larkin into a kiss. Doyle pressed their foreheads together afterward, and said, “I understand, by their very nature, that associations are difficult for you to talk about.”
Larkin nodded slightly in agreeance.
Doyle leaned back. “But I want you to know that they don’t scare me. If you’re only comfortable explaining with… light bulbs, that’s fine. But don’t feel youhave towith me. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Doyle let go. He jutted a thumb over his shoulder and said, “I’m gonna grab my portfolio bag.” Doyle turned for the door, absently rolling his sleeve again.
Abruptly, Larkin called, “Ira.” His heart was pounding, skin flushed with heat and pricked with pins of cold, ears ringing from the sickening rush of adrenaline in his blood.
Doyle paused in the doorway and turned.
Larkin flexed his tingling hands. He could shake his head, drop the subject, walk away. The festering pain, the unbridled rage, the suicidal guilt of his associations was exactly that—his. Those were his secrets and his thoughts and his nightmares, and just because Larkin recalled those lived experiences differently, more vividly, than quite literally the rest of the world, it didn’t mean he owed his intimate and personal memories to anyone to be studied and dissected.
Not even Ira Doyle.
And yet, in that suspended second, Larkin felt as if Doyle had found where his stitches, red and infected, were fraying, snapping free, and he’d seen the turmoil that churned in the dark—the rusted coffin nails and rings of fungus and mud thick with blood, the reflections of Charon counting his coins, the Reaper sharpening his scythe with his skeletal hands—and Larkin lamented the notion of Doyle believing there was nothing beautiful inside him. Because death and life were an ouroboros—and somewhere, deep down, growing inside that rot were pencil shavings and the glitter of fairy lights and the faces of sunflowers.
In a rush, before he could second-guess this decision to show a pale underbelly of vulnerability, Larkin said, “You said, ‘I’ll do anything for you.’ ‘You’ prompted ‘me,’ and then all I could hear was Noah: ‘I want you to fuck me. Stop ignoring me. You always fucking forget when it comes to me.’ Me, me, me.”
Doyle started back. When he reached Larkin, still at the television, Doyle gently took his hands, sandwiching them between his own.
Larkin couldn’t help it—he pulled free from the touch.
Doyle didn’t seem bothered by the refusal of further physical contact.
“I want you comfortable with me,” Doyle whispered, leaning down to speak beside Larkin’s ear. “If you’re overwhelmed, you don’t owe me an explanation. And if you forget something, I promise it was trivial, because a man whose love language is remembrance never forgets what matters most about me.” Doyle left the room without another word.
Me, me, me.
Larkin blinked owlishly as he realized Doyle had just replaced all of those negative “me” associations with something new.
Somethingbetter.
Chapter Five
According to the Golden Oral, an impressive and comprehensive website dedicated to the self-described “golden age of adult entertainment” in New York City, the Dirty Dollhouse was a peep show that’d been in business on Broadway from 1976 to 1989, at which time the city’s relentless crackdown on sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll had finally shuttered the den of “taboo girls, dirty amateurs, and busty vixxxens.” It’d been owned and operated by Vincent Costa—Larkin made note to look into the potential relation to current shop owner, Sal Costa—the former Costa having had a rap sheet a mile long, most of which were obscenity charges, before passing in 2017 of heart failure.
Retired adult film star Candi Bomb was quoted in an article, a reminiscence lifted from a podcast interview in 2019. “Vinny was a good guy. He gave so many girls their start. A lot of us were ‘discovered’ while working at the Dollhouse, you know? I was making movies full-time by ’79, but I always came back, like, once a year, as a special guest. I could make over eight hundred in tips in just a few hours. Vinny and I would go out for a nice steak dinner afterward. Yeah, he was a real sweetheart.”
Larkin had just reached a grainy photograph of a young, lanky white guy with feathered hair holding a mop and standing in the doorway of one of the former private booths, the description readingEarl: Vinny’s Spunk Cleaner, when Connor shouted from his open office, “IT is calling me saying someone here is accessing porn sites. Who the fuck is busting a nut on my watch?”
“What I do on my lunch break is between me, God, and my data plan,” Porter said.
“So that’s why I couldn’t find you for forty-five minutes yesterday afternoon,” Miyamoto called from her desk on the other side of the bullpen. “Enlarged prostates are a serious thing at your age, Porter. You should talk to your urologist.”
“Fuck you,” Porter answered blandly.
Connor reached his doorway, growling, “Porter—”
