Chapter Text
He is smoking idly in the corner of the room. A sequin top is slipping from his shoulder, revealing a rosy nipple. He doesn’t mind. He’s slick with sweat, glistening in the half-darkness of the club; intensely erotic, his revealed chest makes him look like a phantom caught between the strobe lights, a dream too ethereal to remember. He is swaying to the rhythm - sort of. There is a beat inside his head that he adheres to. It’s a mix of aneodic music he overheard in town and of a popular dance song his local radio station can’t get enough of.
There is a boy standing next to him. His name is Renaud, he is a law student, and he has the looks of a depraved aristocrat - with pudgy cheeks, a head full of curly hair and the eyes of someone who only sleeps after he’s collapsed, he is one of the most sought-after boys in their clique. The smoker can see why. There’s something devious about him. It’s the mischievous smile and the charisma required to make a government worker dance all night. He’s had three clients already - and it’s only three in the morning. He would never brag about it though, especially not to the smoker, who at this point comes to the bar recreationally. He doesn’t do much more than smile at his regulars. They know where and when to find him anyways.
They smoke together. Renaud is coughing.
"I just don’t know how you do it, man." He wheezes, his eyes teary from smoke. "Aren’t you ever tired of this?"
The smoker shrugs, amused.
"I’ve simply made peace with dying at forty."
He hasn’t. He would like to be sixty-one day. He would wear white shirts and roll the bottoms of his trousers. Maybe he would finally find enough time for his personal errands - there is a limited number of things one can do when obsessed with being wanted. He barely finds the time for painting - God knows how powerful he’d be if he could fit reading into his busy schedule of studying, prostitution and creating elaborate myths around himself.
"So only twenty more years? Bummer. I like spending time with you."
Fifteen more years, he thinks to correct him briefly. His birthday was last week. He shrugs again, nonchalantly, then gives Renaud a smile. His narrowed eyes gleam in the dark. He is playful as if it was his job.
"It’s almost quarter a decade. You’ll have enough of me by the time I die."
"I guess. Who knows? Maybe I’ll die first anyway."
"Yeah. A bar brawl would suit you." The smoker finds a cigarette pack in his pocket. His throat is raw, but the champagne he had seems to be urging him to smoke just a little bit more.
He bites his lip and thinks about the birthday party he could have at 50. He lights another cigarette. His palms tremble. The air is heavy and leaden – the tension preceding a storm.
The boys lean on the wall behind them. They’re scanning the room, glancing at each other knowingly whenever they happen fix their gazes in the same place.
The club is packed, per usual. Mostly men, which also is not out of the ordinary. They watch the older gentlemen perched up on bar stools, gossiping and gesticulating wildly. They’re always here - the owner, a stocky man in his seventies is sitting among them, laughing. Their teeth clatter: the smoker watches as they talk, their lips blurring in motion and their chatter completely nonsensical from afar. They have a careful relationship - the men shoot the smoker occasional envious looks, knowing that they can neither get with him, nor be him. He can trace similarities to himself in their faces. The eyes, the noses, the mouths, even the way some of them smile - as rare as it is. He knows that most of them have, colloquially speaking, worked the corner in the past. There is a dynamic of dethronement between them and you can’t really nurture a supportive environment when one side is convinced, they’ve been robbed by the other. The smoker doesn’t really want a relationship with them anyway; he finds them crass. They are not the type of old faggot he would like to grow into.
He takes a drag of his cigarette. Ash clings to his exposed arm. Renaud wipes it off him absentmindedly, his gaze still out on the dance floor. Neither of them can really focus tonight.
There’s also the young men dancing. They come from all sorts of backgrounds - he can spot a boy from the harbour in Martinaise next to someone who should consider not wearing a dress shirt to a club. Nobody in particular catches his gaze; there are a few regulars, some of his past - and present - admirers, there are the people who started university when he was graduating. It’s weird to watch them. Men being younger than him - he never experienced that before. He was always the young, charming novelty, the mysterious art student with a boyish charm. Lying - or should he say omitting - about his age has nothing on actually having been the eighteen, nineteen, even twenty-two-year-old.
It is his first week being twenty-five though. There will be time to get used to it.
He watches them dance. Spinning, touching each other, laughing. An art student is improvising some sort of elaborate choreography. Smoke is pouring from their mouths. Their eyes are golden, like lights lining the ceiling. The shadows on their faces are red, purple and blue - they’re disfiguring them like paintings. He thinks of their shabby flats, of their families, who probably can’t even begin to imagine what their sons and brothers are getting up to. He thinks of them returning from the club, completely drunk. The moonlight over their relaxed eyes, the raging Insulindian wind nearly knocking them off their feet. Their laughter ringing out all over train stations, as they raise their heads to the sky to catch the falling rain.
"It’s like they don’t even know." Renaud shakes his head. Dark locks cling to his cheek. "How can they dance?"
"They might not know." The smoker sighs. He is rolling a cigarette around his thumb. "It wasn’t in newspapers. The aunties wouldn’t tell them either."
"Seriously? They won’t shut up about it." His friend scoffs. "Jacques stopped me four times to ask about him. It’s like a murder mystery plateau to them. They don’t really care."
"Did you tell him anything?"
"Yeah, to fuck off. It’s none of his business." They watch in silence as the dancers cheer. Renaud folds his arms, his brow furrowed. "They think we’re scum. If they could, they’d get us all killed."
The smoker doesn’t think it’s true. He simply thinks it’s just what they have come to expect.
He nods thoughtfully.
"You think so?"
"Yeah. They’d finally have some real drama. No more gossip about who is fucking who, no more holidays in fuck-knows-where. A sequence murderer, that would be something." He spits. It looks like someone is defacing a statue. "Faggots."
They stare at the bartender. A Semenese man around fifty, lacking his usual energy. He might’ve known the victim better than anyone really expected - the smoker remembers seeing them talk in hushed tones on more than one occasion, laughing and blushing. If there was anything between them, they hid it well - as people like them are used to, anyway. It wouldn’t be surprising. The bartender, Han, kept close with the escorts. They suspected he worked as one before coming to Revachol and remained cordial, as opposed to their native ex prostitutes. He would help them deter overeager clients, effectively making the club a much safer place for finding nightly friends. The smoker hopes someone had checked up on him; he didn’t want to overstep the boundary. It’s been a few years since he had last worked in that manner; these days he would resort to his established network of men who would jump in front of a moving vehicle for him. Renaud, on the other hand, is a bit too proud to rely on Han’s help, resorting to threatening unwanted admirers with weapons.
Well, everyone has their own way of survival.
The smoker sighs deeply. His throat hurts.
"Are you waiting for anyone tonight?" He asks Renaud.
"Not really. One guy stood me up." The boy doesn’t take his eyes off the odd couples leaving the establishment. "I was hoping I’d find someone else, but you’re deterring them."
The man - because can he really call himself a boy anymore? - laughs.
"Deterring? Darling, they would eat from a dog bowl if I only asked."
"They wouldn’t. You look like you’re being crucified." Renaud elbows the smoker with a mean grin.
"That’s why they would. It’s my brand." He rolls his eyes with a smile. "Don’t blame your incompetence on me."
"Cocksucker."
"Fairy."
They fall silent again. Almost simultaneously, they light cigarettes.
It’s impossible to even joke under these conditions. He barely knew the boy - he was very young, too young to be doing this. Like most of them, he must’ve been kicked out from home. He seemed very nice - pretty enough to reignite the interest of bored regulars, charming them with big and unspeakably sad eyes. Aside from the unpronounceable Zsiemsk name, he had everything going for him - it would take him a few years to build a "fan base", so to speak, like the one the smoker had cultivated. He only saw him from a distance, joking with the customers, piercing men with a look they would be unable to stop thinking about - unless they come to him for relief, of course.
They all had an idea of this not being the safest of jobs - but you don’t really take this sort of risk seriously. One can’t actually imagine getting murdered. The smoker is sure he can’t - in his mind, it’s all too picturesque, too romantic. He is sure that in reality he wouldn’t bleed gold and silver, that roses wouldn’t grow where he would be hit.
He knows that the victim didn’t bleed flowers - he wishes he have. Out of respect, the working boys agreed on not going into the details of the murder. The ones who saw the body would never forget what has become of their comrade - the ones who didn’t were blessed with a poetic vision of his death. It is comforting, he thinks, to imagine him being gently put to rest. Maybe he was in pain - hell, maybe he just overdosed. That happens more often than one would like. Maybe he was lying on a clean mattress, face up, his lips agape, his fair hair a halo around his head, tears of joy streaming from his endlessly sad eyes. Maybe he experienced the most divine serenity in these last moments, something unimaginable, grand and gorgeous.
He likes to think that. It’s naive, but he can’t bear to bring a cruel death upon anyone, not even in imagination.
He looks out a window - the only one in the club, replaced more times than anyone can count. It’s dimmed, but it seems like the cranes of Revachol are starting to reflect the pale rays of the morning sun. His commute to Martinaise is about to become hell - every day, six in the morning, hundreds of workers leave their houses and happen to board the same, notoriously late, ferry. He has two hours, but accounting for a change of clothes and general pleasantries with the clients who managed to spot him in his idling spot, he should be getting going. He looks back at Renaud.
"Do you want me to walk you home?"
Renaud raises his eyebrows. The smoker doesn’t even expect a comeback – he can see his expression change, like ice melting. There’s too much at stake. Not even pride can rid him of visions of an ambush. He watches his head drop in defeat. His hands – well-groomed hands of someone who’s spent most of his life reading and writing – are clenched in fists.
"Fuck. Is it always going to be like that?"
He’s going to find any sort of answer patronizing. The boys lift themselves off the wall, leaving behind damp spots and a few sequins. They move through the crowd quickly, expertly avoiding eager hands and longing eyes. Someone pulls at the smoker’s top, almost ripping it. He sighs, feeling the fabric loosen around his shoulder. He really liked this shirt. He was hoping to wear it for a recital next week.
The door flies open. He can hear someone calling him from the inside – a strained, desperate voice. He thinks he recognizes it – it could be Anton – but he doesn’t have time for pleading clients. He looks back at the perfect moment, right before the door is about to close, and he smiles a mysterious smile, knowing full well that the man saw it. He will cry on his train home, missing the boy, wishing he’d gone out of his way to stop him.
The sun rises slowly. He squints, staring straight at it. It’s pink. It reminds him of a grapefruit, clouds unfolding around it.
"Do you still live with the boys?"
"Above them." Renaud smiles faintly, a tinge of pride at the apparent upgrade. Cold wind is combing through his hair. The smoker feels an awkward absence here – usually, he’d throw in a complaint, moan about how the neighbors make him restless. He’s less worried living close to his co-workers, no matter how infuriating they might get.
"The bus is still bad?"
"Don’t even get me started on the bus. We have to walk. That fucker was on time once since I moved in."
They look around.
They’re surrounded by the towering walls and containers of the Greater Revachol Industrial Harbor. Nobody really knows how the owner manages to run a gay bar so close to the Union, but there’s always been rumors that a high-staking position in the supervision board might have something to do with the placement. It’s one of the least interesting locations for a club in the world, the smoker thinks whenever he visits. The industrial craze should’ve died down many, many years ago – and this isn’t even stylized enough to count as part of the craze. It’s a dirty, shut-down venue, only accessible through a constricting passage reeking of semen; one has to take a right next to the sex shop, then walk alongside a communal housing unit for harbor workers, then duck into a corner underneath a seemingly indestructible Union poster. After walking in the dark for a while – usually running into a couple who just couldn’t muster up the energy for a trip home – there will be a glimpse of the shimmering bay, the sound of the odd fishermen ships. A little plaza adorned with a singular tree, feeding off piss, booze and cigarette butts, somehow still standing. And then, right in the corner, the steel door of a retired storage unit, the entrance to a place straight from a wet dream or a misanthropic nightmare. Depends on your sociopolitical position. SWEET OBLIVION – a sign someone stole from, as speculated, an ice cream store, looks down at any dilettante who happens to frequent the bar. It is located near Terminal M of the Industrial Harbor, making it almost impressively obscure. With a clientele sustained only by word of mouth, it’s doing the impossible, surviving year after year and turning out some sort of profit.
The smoker stretches. Something in his back pops.
"Ow. Let’s go."
They take a dive into the dark passage. A lone moan escapes some young man’s lips as a lover presses him to the wall behind them.
You’d think the police would start patrolling the place, the smoker thinks. No, not think. Hope. Knowing RCM, they couldn’t care less about a murder of a rent boy. He isn’t sure if anyone’s even filed a report – it was probably unavoidable, given the gruesome circumstances. He can’t imagine a human reaction from the policemen – he only knows the overwhelming shame of telling them what happened, of telling them what you do for a living. The disapproving looks and the handwave of degeneracy taking care of degeneracy.
He hates it. He can’t do anything about it.
They’re walking along the waterfront wall. The smell of heavy fuel oil and the creaking of machinery lingers in the air around them. It feels so empty without motor carriages lined up on parking spaces and workers clocking in – a sleeping leviathan. He’s walked this sidewalk – backed right under the wall, completely unsuitable for daytime pedestrians – many times before, but it always feels like an intrusion. This was not designed for humans. This is not a place to visit – much less to live.
It's surprising that there somehow are people living here, against all odds. The boys living in the, as they call it, whorehouse, are some of them. He remembers living in that shitty block of flats, subleased to the sex workers by a head editor of a porn periodical, only partially through monetary means. There was thirty of them back then; they spread across half of the building, crowded in tiny flats, five boys per one master bedroom. Familial and intimate, he wouldn’t exchange the long evenings they spent drinking and talking for anything in the world; some of his fondest memories include smoking Red Astras on the snow-covered balcony while his roommates laugh in the background, concerned only with the newest musical records and dance clubs.
They just sort of dispersed. Some of them graduated college and moved on to conventional jobs – others, like him, graduated and simply changed residences. It’s not easy to live off art. There was an entire room dedicated to easels and canvases back when he lived there – they’d help each other out with assignments and pose for sketches. Some of the well-off art students at the university would call them a collective, a subversive force from the underground – they were really just sleep deprived and making the best out of a dire living situation.
He wonders if the new boys are anything like they were. He is a sort of demigod figure to them – experienced yet ethereal, seemingly around their age but somehow managing a “nightly friend” operation the scale of a small business, surrounded with stories about his exploits and beauty. He can’t really relate to them anymore; he finds that he’d much rather go to sleep early these days, that maybe downing an entire crate of champagne in the afternoon is not the ideal way for him to start the weekend. He’s become boring – he simply has everyone fooled.
It's such a long walk. Instinctively, he reaches for cigarettes.
Fuck.
"Shit. Have you got smokes?" He looks over at Renaud.
"Just ran out." The boy stuffs his hands into his jacket. "I kind of thought you had a bottomless pack. You know. With how much you smoke."
"That would be something." He sighs. Looks like he’s going to have to visit Frittte once he gets home. "They should invent an automatic cigarette. One you’d reload like a gun."
"Maybe you should go into entrepreneurship." His friend puts a mocking accent on the newly fashionable word. "Become a man of business. Sell people on smoking guns. Hey, that would be a great name for it."
The smoker smiles. They keep on walking. He thinks about his journey home. It’s such a long distance. Martinaise is situated next to terminal B – the boys live nearby terminal H. If only he could smoke, it might’ve been a meditative walk. Instead, he’s going to think about how cold spring mornings are. How it’s certainly going to rain and how he’s going to trudge through mud, messing up his leather black boots – a gift from Charles, one of his clients.
The gate of terminal H is emerging from the early-morning fog, droplets of water crystallizing over steel. They’re taking the backroad meant for motor carriages – on the other side, they would behold settlements, grey apartment complexes, pretty much identical to everything in the area. It all looks the same – stretching from Martinaise to the raised motorway, everything sanitized and developed by the same predatory companies. Flats meant for families of workers now overtaken by libertines, the smoker thinks, smiling to himself. That’s the course of nature. Where there are useless and forgotten places, there are his siblings.
They walk through the gate, sneaking past parked vehicles. It’s starting to drizzle – sun is shining through the mist and the apartment windows are lighting up, people getting ready for work. It still feels as if they’re all alone in the face of the behemoth of the harbor. Their footsteps ring out on the pavement, echoing through what feels like the entire district. They pass by a shop. Wilting flowers droop from the shelves.
The lights are on inside the whorehouse. A silhouette of a man leans out the window, long hair scattered by the wind. He recognizes Renaud and waves. A soft glow washes over his body. It’s nearly impossible to make any features out from this distance, but a sparkle at the height of his mouth reveals a shining smile.
For the first time in his life, the smoker feels a tinge of anxiety. He can’t explain it but looking up at the boy – even not being able to teel, what he actually looks like, not remembering him from any of the clubs – it feels like he’s slowly being replaced. Like Renaud, he’s probably nineteen or eighteen and effortlessly energetic, happily losing himself on the dance floor every night. He doesn’t experience hangover and his throat doesn’t hurt from smoking. He’s definitely been described as angelic – there is nothing in his face that he can stare at for hours, wondering, if he’s the only person in the world aware of the vice, if the people who love him think of it as a sad but necessary feature of the man they desire.
It's a new and annoying feeling. He wanted to go upstairs with his friend to ask for a cigarette for his walk home – but the perspective of coming face to face with apparent perfection and comparing himself to that surely white-toothed creature is too much for him to bear.
"You’re not coming in?" Renaud snaps him out of the uncomfortable daze.
He looks up. The entity is gone. He can hear laughter from inside the apartment.
"No, I think I’m going to head home."
The sun keeps on rising; it’s probably around five in the morning already. They look around one last time.
They’re both quietly assessing the possibility of an attack. Saying anything would mark one as paranoid – people are waking up all around them, starting their days. You would have to be a very incompetent murderer to target someone in broad daylight like that. Even next to the motorway, at this hour there’s bound to be some traffic. The killer would have to be desperate to get the smoker specifically if he was to risk something so inconsiderate.
It’s such an uncharacteristic assumption for them both, far from their usual carefree demeanor. However, something unspeakable hangs in the air. A sinking sensation of hopelessness, a bitter sense of injustice, something so frustrating one wants to yell it from the rooftops.
They don’t yell. Renaud takes off his jacket and hands it over to his friend.
"Not in this faggy shirt, you’re not."
The smoker throws the coat over his shoulders. He wants to tell him he loves him, that they are brothers in this rain-soaked hole of a city. He took the longer road home for him. It means something.
"Thank you, Renaud." He says, instead.
Renaud smiles. He looks more tired than usual.
"Give it back to me sometime. You still throwing that party?"
"This is not the greatest moment for parties, is it?"
"Yeah, maybe it’s not." He flinches. "Fuck."
They stand together for a moment. A low hum vibrates through the district. The machinery is coming to life again. The workers are opening their windows, smoking cigarettes in their kitchens.
"I am very angry." Renaud says. "I am so angry you can’t even imagine."
"Yeah. Me too."
Renaud looks up at him.
"They buried him in an unmarked grave. Said he didn’t have a family to identify him."
The smoker stays silent. Renaud nods. His eyes are dark, and he looks so sad, the smoker thinks, it could break a hundred hearts.
"See you at the club, Jacob." He turns to enter the building. "You should give me your real name, by the way. Just in case."
The man smiles faintly.
"I am very good at avoiding cases."
"He thought he was too." Renaud opens the door. "Please don’t let them kill you."
"I won’t. See you."
He can feel his friend watching him as he’s walking away.
He’s tense but not explicitly worried. The possibility of death lingers in the back of his mind, but he doesn’t want to give it a name. Renaud was much more worried than him. Maybe it has something to do with age – he reluctantly admits to himself – or maybe it’s a born-and-raised Revacholian thing, a sort of moralist entitlement to safety. He’s never felt that sort of thing. He remembers his home country vaguely, as a linen postcard scented with mandarins and a warmer sun, but he’s taken with him a certain carefulness. He’s never expected anything but mistreatment – that way being treated humanely comes as a nice surprise. He treads the unknown Revachol with love and attention and he feels that she loves him back for it.
He simply doesn’t believe that people like him can go through life unnoticed or entirely safe. It’s like if he was murdered, it would be understandable – hell, expected. The knowledge that this thought has been injected into him by years of struggling makes him angry and sad – but he can’t do anything anymore. Each time his co-workers voice concerns, he feels the terrible urge to shrug, to write it off as part of the experience. He never had it in him to fight against it. He found solace in the comfortable niche of making men really happy with his company and getting a little thrill from dangerous situations caused by his sexual leanings. There’s something a little fun about it sometimes, a sort of shameful secret society.
Sometimes. Other times, he’d like to catch a fucking break.
Instead, he catches a whiff of cigarette smoke and follows the trail with his eyes, almost feeling caught off guard by how starved he is. A tall man in a coat is leaning against a wall, a pack of Tioumoutiri in hand. The smoker shoots him a bright smile and goes in for the kill. It doesn’t take much charm to mooch off a cigarette, but he exudes his anyway, giving the stranger his prettiest grin as thank you. Maybe it’ll fill him with odd warmth – maybe he’s going to look at his co-workers a bit more closely today, confused as to why.
The smoker marches off, inhaling sweet Tioumoutiri smoke. He never liked them – he holds the firm belief that if he’s going to get throat cancer and die, he’s going to do it with higher quality tobacco, even if it means spending a small fortune. Thankfully, Charles goes on enough delegations to ensure a steady supply of cigarette cases. He works very hard to be the boy’s favorite. It’s not entirely paying off.
He is walking along the artificial water reservoir, spanning from terminals B to H – then merging with the Martinaise water lock. Pale sunlight reflects in the water like ice. His footsteps cease be a disruption; hoarse voices come from various staircases, while machines hum in the background. There’s the quiet rustling of shops being opened and the ringing of alarm clocks. The chirping birds always surprise him – it feels like nature shouldn’t be allowed in places like this one. Like it too gets suffocated by factory smoke.
Nicotine buzzes between his ears. He stops walking, just to try and take in the serene moment. He turns his head towards the buildings, taking a delightful, long drag – and just like that, all color is drained from his face as he gets shattered into a million pieces.