Page 364 of A Matter of Time

“Sure.”

I took off my parka and my beanie, leaving my scarf on, and sat down beside him, a few feet from everyone else.

“So you do what, exactly?”

“As I said, graphic design.”

“Rego.”

He looked over his shoulder.

“I thought you said you didn’t have a blond.”

“I don’t.”

The other man pointed at me. “You can’t get any blonder than that.”

Rego chuckled as the music got louder. “He’s not mine.”

There was a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up at an older man standing beside me and said, “Hi.”

“Hi? I love that.” He smiled down at me before he looked at Rego. “He’s perfect.”

“No.” Rego shook his head. “He’s just here visiting me.”

The guy nodded, then walked slowly away.

“Hey.”

I returned my eyes to him.

“I wanna talk to you.”

“Sure.”

He got up and took hold of the front of my sweater and led me to the dance floor.

I started dancing, and instead of moving with me, he just watched me.

“Come on.” I smiled lazily. “I can look at you and know you can dance.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded, then grabbed me fast. He was bigger than me, stronger, and when I struggled, he got his arm around my neck and my arm twisted up behind me. He dragged me off the floor through a side door that I hadn’t even seen when I came in. I was shoved hard and had just enough time to get my hands up so I didn’t go face-first into the door, and then the wall on the other side. My chest was slammed into it hard as he flattened himself against my back.

“I smell hustler on you, Jory. I think you’d like gettin’ fucked regular.”

I tried to move, but he had me again, my shoulder feeling like it was going to pop out of the socket, his forearm against the back of my neck.

“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long time. You are so fuckin’ clean.”

“I promise I’m not a hustler.”

“But you could be.”

“No,” I sighed. “I don’t have the heart for it.”