Tim Murphy - Christodora

Hector’s cell number was burned into Mateo’s memory, a huge trigger to use just like the sight of a needle. He texted Hector: “Im in LA where r u u fuking freakshow? r u in palm spring?”

The cell in his hand, he crawled on his naked belly across the rug — oh God, all that scratchiness felt good, alongside the scratchiness inside him — and pulled up against Carrie — but wait, was she breathing? Yes, she was breathing. Slowly, but breathing. He held her close, kissing her neck, until his dick was fully erect again. Then he pushed her legs open and eased his way back inside her from behind.

“Mateo,” she mumbled, bucking back toward him. Deep inside her, he nodded again, not reviving until the cell vibrated in his half-open hand. He checked it. “Fuck yeah this is crazy Im in ps,” read the text from Hector. “Address? Ill cum 2 u.”

Mateo smiled. Hector would “cum” and make it all right, take care of him and Carrie. Hector was always going on about how much he loved Palm Springs, the dry air and the sprawling desert-scrub landscapes and the big gay parties. How did fucking destitute Hector even get the money for a flight to Palm Springs anymore, Mateo wondered, or for a rental car? How’d he make it across the country with his drugs without getting busted? Where’d he put the fucking dog? Well, who cared, thought Mateo. He was coming.

“What’s the address here?” he asked Carrie, the cell poised.

“Why?” she mumbled.

“A friend of mine wants to come over.”

She squirmed unhappily. “Why?”

“It’s good,” Mateo said. “He doesn’t really do H so he can watch us while we nod.”

She told him the address and he texted it to Hector, an act that felt like it took an hour. Then, still inside Carrie, Mateo nodded back out.

The door buzzer buzzed. Mateo looked at his cell. It was 3:42 A.M. — more than two hours had passed. It buzzed again. Gingerly, Mateo pulled out of Carrie. He managed to stand and pull on jeans. He shuffled his way to the door, hit the buzzer, looked through the peephole and smiled. There was Fagfunk, dark glasses on in the middle of the fucking night. Mateo opened the door. Hector was with some beanpole, fake-blond, meth-skinned little gay rat, barely dressed in a drooping Lady Gaga tank top and fucking purple leggings under short-shorts. What the fuck? Mateo stepped aside and they hurried in, anxious to get out of the hallway.

“This is fucking crazy, negrito , we’re both on the Left Coast,” Freakshow said, his glasses still on, his fagfunk emanating off his too-tight white jeans and tank top. “Why didn’t you tell me you were gonna be out here? You haven’t come by in a while. Remember I told you I come out here every year for a big party? I got lots of friends out here.”

Hector talked a blue streak while Mateo stared at him, slack-jawed. Hector’s torso was more concave on top, flabbed out on the bottom, than the last time Mateo had seen him. His head was shaved and someone had given him a bad tattoo on his neck — some scary-ass kind of cartoon cat. As for his twitching tweaker sidekick — God, thought Mateo, the kid looked like he was twenty-three going on forty-six. His skin and teeth were a wreck.

“What the fuck are you doing out here?” Hector asked again. But Mateo didn’t answer. He was nodding, his eyes heavy-lidded, swaying on his feet in front of them.

“Oh, shit,” the beanpole tweaker piped up. “They are out of it.”

But Mateo didn’t care. Freakshow was here. Mateo managed to put an affectionate hand on Hector’s shoulder. “Freakshow,” he mumbled. “New York City freak.”

“You’ve gotten worse since the last time I saw you,” Hector observed, guiding Mateo into the room, where the TV, which had been on low for hours and hours, was now broadcasting what looked like a cable-access talk show out of someone’s basement. He dropped Mateo on the futon before he noticed Carrie, naked, legs splayed, barely breathing on the rug.

“Holy fucking shit,” Hector said. “Is she OD’ing?”

Beanpole just stood in the doorway, looking around frantically, while Hector knelt down by Carrie and pulled up her head. Amid his nod, Mateo felt contentment. Freakshow would fix up him and Carrie. Mateo knew Hector was opening up his backpack with his sex toys and his porn and his lube and his cherished little black box with the glass meth pipe inside; he knew Hector was propping up Carrie and putting the pipe to her lips; he knew she was suddenly sitting up in that dazed, buzzing, time-stands-still nexus between nodding and tweaking Mateo had dwelt in a few times with Hector. Mateo knew she wouldn’t OD now. Hector came around to Mateo next, put the pipe to Mateo’s lips.

In a second, Mateo felt alert to the scene in the room. There was beanpole tweaker reaching hungrily for the pipe and pulling off his shorts and leggings, shotgunning smoke with Freakshow, mouth to mouth, back and forth; Carrie, naked, legs spread, looking at Mateo in a stunned, fried daze on the rug. Freakshow doffed his clothes, right down to a black jockstrap, and stroked his nipples, licking his lips and sitting back wide on the futon couch. Beanpole shoved a DVD into the player, then the thirty-two-inch screen exploded with the orange-tan flesh and pounding techno music of gay porn. Mateo’s eyes felt, after hours of heavy-liddedness, like they were widening so fast, they were about to pop out of his head. He was freaked out and horny at the same time; he pulled off his jeans and started stroking his now-limp dick, then running his hands through his hair.

“Holy shit, oh holy shit,” he kept saying. “What the fuck, what the fuck!”

Carrie was reaching for him from the floor, her eyes wide, too. “Mateo, come here,” she said. “Hold me.”

“I can’t yet,” he answered idiotically. He looked desperately at Freakshow.

“We need to balance you out,” Hector said. He went into his little black box and pulled out some tiny baggies, pulled out a key. He gave first Carrie, then Mateo, then the beanpole, and finally himself a giant bump of something — then of something else from another bag. He put them away.

Whatever Hector had given them, Mateo could instantly feel it working; the wild overstimulation was subsiding and he was descending into a semiparalyzed pool of ecstasy. Hector was guiding Carrie and Beanpole toward the futon, doing that tender hush-hush thing he could do so well.

“Let’s all get close,” he said. They were all naked now; the room was spinning slowly into a horny, mellow, gooshy lull. In a second, Carrie was straddling Mateo, holding him so tight, working her way down onto him; right alongside the two of them, Beanpole was doing the same on top of Hector.

Holy shit, Mateo managed to register, they’re gonna fuck right alongside us. His heart was pounding, but pleasurably; his eyes were closed, but when he opened them he realized he no longer had any idea where he was. Freakshow had given them all acid or mushrooms or ketamine or MDMA or some combination; when he looked searchingly into everyone’s faces, he saw only his own and hers. Hers, the snapshot. Ah yes, he thought, he was back in the sweet spot! Carrie had gotten him inside her now. She had her head bowed down around his neck.

“Oh, don’t do that, oh, don’t do that,” Beanpole was chanting as he went up and down on Freakshow, clearly meaning just the opposite, as they were echoed by the men on the TV screen. Mateo had a flickering realization that the night would probably not end well.

“Ysabel,” he said very clearly, right to her face, as she looked down over him. “Ysabel Mendes.”

Usually, he hated to think her name, let alone say it out loud. God, where had it just come from? Well, she was right there in the room, looking into his face! He kept fucking Carrie, his eyes closed. When he opened them, maybe minutes later, he saw that Beanpole was alone on the futon, looking startled, tossed aside. Mateo scanned the room wildly. Freakshow, naked, was standing across the room, just staring at him, horrified, his hands to his face.