Scott Sherman - Third You Die

Acutely aware of just how bad I must smell, I took the video I’d grabbed from Pierce’s camera and put it on the ground next to me. Everything else, including my pants, sneakers, T-shirt, and socks, I threw into the Dumpster. I opened the package of baby wipes I’d picked up on the way to Mason’s office and used them to clean off as much of the ethanethiol as I could.

I bent over to wash off my feet. As I straightened back up, I saw a tall, muscly guy somewhere in his thirties leering hungrily at me.

“Hey, cutie,” he called. “Looking good.”

Shit. “Um, thanks.” I covered my crotch with my hands.

“ Come here often?” he asked, putting an emphasis on the first word to drive home his double entendre. He chuckled at the cleverness of his own lame joke.

“No, I just had a wardrobe malfunction,” I said, reaching for my backpack. Inside, I had clean versions of everything I’d just thrown away. I had no intention of trying to make it home in my ethanethiol-soaked clothing. “I gotta change and get going. Sorry.”

“Aw, come on, baby,” my alleyway admirer purred. Apparently, the fake scar on my chest didn’t bother him. At least, not enough to deter him from attempting a public encounter that might be hot in the kind of videos Mason made, but would probably get us arrested in real life. He cupped his crotch in case I hadn’t figured out what he had in mind.

“Really not interested,” I told him. “So, if you’ll excuse me.. ”

Instead of retreating, he started walking toward me, rubbing himself. “Please. Don’t play hard to get, you little tease. Standing out here naked like that. You know you want it, baby.”

I’ve taken down bigger guys than him in my life. Part of me would have enjoyed teaching this asshole a lesson with my martial arts.

But I really was not in the mood.

Better to just give him what he wants and let him go for it. I had a feeling it wouldn’t take long.

“You’re right,” I said, squeezing my own junk as his gaze wandered over my body. “I do want it, man.”

Alleyman grinned wolfishly and started unzipping his rapidly expanding slacks. “I’m going to slip it to you so good, sweet cheeks.”

Forget the ethanethiol-this guy’s rap was going to make me vomit.

“Yeah,” I said, “give it to me from behind, lover. It’s so hard to find a real man like you”-I turned to show him my still-illustrated back-“who isn’t afraid to let a little thing like leprosy come between him and a good time.”

His gasp-gag indicated he’d gotten close enough not only to get a good look, but a good whiff, too.

“Uh, look at the time!” he shouted. “I gotta go!”

He almost tripped trying to simultaneously run and zip himself back up.

“Go?” I asked as he recovered from his stumble. “I thought you wanted to come.”

How clever is that joke now, asshole?

Two minutes later, I was dressed and headed home. While my wipe down and change of clothing helped, I figured I was still too stinky to get into a cab or on the subway. It was a thirty-minute walk back to my apartment, but I could use the time to think.

I had to figure out my next move.

Two blocks later, I realized my next move was to go backward.

Crap.

I’d left the videotape Pierce had shot on the ground by the Dumpster.

Crap.

I ran back. With each footfall, I thought the same thing.

Crap.

Crap.

Crap crap crap crap crap.

I turned the corner and spied the Dumpster. No tape.

Crap!

My best guess was that Alleyman came back. Maybe he’d scored some antibiotics and figured he’d take the plunge after all.

He’d probably enjoy the video, the creep. How long before he uploaded it to YouTube, where the whole world would have the opportunity to see me looking like a kinky leper?

My heart pounding, I ran behind the Dumpster and got on my hands and knees to look underneath. There. There.

There it was.

The anxiety flooded out of me like air from a burst balloon. I was deflated with relief.

I must have accidentally kicked the tape out of sight while getting dressed, and then forgotten about it.

It could have fallen into anyone’s hands. What was wrong with me? How can someone be so careless with a sex video of himself?

Well, I answered myself, if it’s good enough for Paris Hilton, Rob Lowe, and at least one Kardashian… and those are just the celebrities we know about.

Times like these I reluctantly wondered if maybe the two men who knew me better than anyone in the world weren’t right: I had no business playing “Kevin Connor: Boy Detective.” I didn’t possess the.. attention to detail the role required.

It wasn’t just a matter of flubbing my lines-I was lucky I hadn’t gotten myself killed.

Although I had come really, really close. At least twice.

But, I thought cheerfully, putting the video into my front pants pocket and patting twice to make sure it was secure, what’s life without a few challenges? It’d be boring if we only did the things that came easily, right?

It was either that, or I was an idiot.

I chose to believe the former.

On my way home, I had an idea.

Everyone I spoke to about Brent suggested it wasn’t atypical for guys in porn to transition into hustling or being set up as a kept boy. If that was what Brent was up to, there was one person I knew who had the connections to track him down.

I called to ask if I could drop by.

“Of course, my sweetest,” she cooed. “Just give me ten minutes to shave, shower, and douche myself up a bit, darling. You know Mama likes to look her best for her favorite boy.”

I told her I’d be there in a quarter hour. Although one of the reasons ethanethiol was used in commercial settings was because the odor dissipated fairly quickly, and I’d also washed up and changed clothes, I was still worried I might be kind of stinky. I stopped into a pharmacy and grabbed a can of Axe body spray. I applied half of it in the store’s restroom and paid for the rest on my way out. I now smelled like something called “Dark Temptation.”

Which made me think of Freddy.

I called to let him know I’d survived my encounter at SwordFight.

“Thank god,” he said. “I was beginning to worry. You’ve been there forever.”

“Actually, I left an hour ago. But I ran into a few problems on the way back.”

“Such as…?”

“Nothing major. Just some guy who tried to sexually assault me when I happened to be innocently naked behind a Dumpster. And I had to go a few blocks out of my way to get some cologne to cover the smell of my imaginary pus. Stuff like that.”

“If anyone else told me these things,” Freddy said, “I’d think they were insane. But, you’re right-on the Kevin scale, that qualifies as ‘nothing major.’ ”

“See?” I said. “You had no reason to worry.”

“Well, when you have time, I want to hear every detail of what happened.”

“Play your cards right,” I promised him, “and I might even show you the video.”

“My darling, darling boy,” Mrs. Cherry gushed as she flung open her door. I was hit by a wave of the Bal a Versailles perfume in which she doused herself, the cloying floral notes fighting each other for attention. It mostly masked the other odors from the apartment-stale marijuana smoke, patchouli incense, garbage that should have been taken out a day ago.

Mrs. Cherry was two hundred pounds and five feet of indeterminate gender. Although she lived as a woman, I was 99 percent sure she’d been born a man. Whether she’d achieved her ample bosom, rounded hips, and other female characteristics through surgery, hormonal supplements, or a wish on a genie’s lamp, I had no idea. She had an air of magic and fantasy about her that made any combination of those seem possible.