Chapter 10 - Another Me.

It was very late when Skinny Boy and Justin finally made it back to the ‘Tarlight Motel. Justin was so tired he could barely see straight and a couple of times he’d yawned so hard he thought he heard the joints of his jaw cracking. It didn’t help that he was bored out of his gourd; watching all the others doing their boyfriend lessons all night long hadn’t been very entertaining. Now, if Brian had been there to give him some lessons of his own, that would have been different. 

As it was, he’d lost interest in the boys’ antics fairly early in the evening. It didn’t help that the boys hadn’t welcomed Justin’s advice on how to improve their blow jobs or his warnings about always using condoms. When he’d confessed that - no matter what Brian said - he still worried his mother might have been right about boyfriend things leading to pregnancy, Beauty and Trey had laughed at him so hard they’d collapsed right there in the alley; which immediately shut Justin up for the rest of night. After that the lonesome blond had mostly kept to himself, standing off to the side and trying to remain inconspicuous. 

When Skinny Boy finally started to leave the stretch of street where they’d all been hanging out, Justin trotted after him. Hunter was counting out a wad of bills he’d pulled out of his jeans pocket, looking satisfied at his nightly take. Pulling off a couple of smaller bills, which he stuffed in his sock, he stashed the rest back in his pocket. 

He looked aside at Justin with a worried shake of his head as they walked. “Hugo isn’t gonna be happy when you turn up without any scrilla, Bruh. Especially not after the shit you pulled with Demarcus. I mean, you could have at least tried to pull a John or two tonight, man. Or are you looking for a beat down?”

Justin scrunched up his nose while he tried his best to get his tired brain to interpret the unfamiliar words. “Scrilla?”

“What the fuck is with you tonight, Stan?” Hunter finally lost patience with his dippy friend. “Scrilla . . . You know, dosh? Chips? Cheddar? . . . Money, bruh. M.O.N.E.Y” When Justin simply kept staring at him like a lost puppy Hunter felt like screaming, but instead he decided to explain it in plain terms that even a concussion patient would understand. “Hugo expects every one of his boys to average $500 a night. If you bring him less than $250 you better plan on getting your ass whooped. And, since you didn’t do a single trick tonight, I’m assuming that your ass is grass, brother.”

Justin was still a little confused but at least he now understood what ‘scrilla’ was. He stopped, pulled the messenger bag he was still carting around off his shoulder, and dug around inside till he found the little zippered pocket where he kept his favorite india ink pens. Brian was always putting money in there, telling him it was for emergencies, and that he didn’t want Justin to ever be without at least a few dollars on him. As expected, there were several random bills stashed in that little pocket. When he pulled them out and started unfolding all the assorted denominations, it turned out he had about $280 total. 

“Will this be enough to make the Big Angry Man happy?” Justin asked, showing off his treasure with a nervous grin. “I don’t want my behind to become someone’s front lawn; not that I understand how you’d grow grass on my bottom, but I still don’t think I’d like it . . .” 

“You had that kind of beans all this time and didn’t say anything?” Skinny Boy replied while shaking his head. “Shit, Stan, and here I was freaking out on your behalf? No wonder you weren’t busting a nut to find tricks tonight.” Hunter reached over to close Justin’s hand around the wad of cash and then pushed his arm back towards Justin’s belly. “Well, that should tide Hugo over for tonight at least. You really do need to step up tomorrow, though, bruh. Hugo’s used to you being one of his cash cows and he’s gonna expect more than that kind of chicken scratch from you in the future.” Hunter put his arm around Justin’s shoulders and gave the other boy a familiar squeeze. “I’m glad that I won’t have to watch you get your ass handed to you, at least. Now, let’s go. If we beat Trey and Lexie back to the motel, we won’t have to crash on the floor tonight.”

Back at the ‘Tarlight, Justin and Skinny Boy filed in behind the other boys, each handing over whatever money they had to their daddy as they entered. Hugo kissed the boys who pleased him and lectured those who hadn’t quite met his expectations in turn. When Justin handed the Big Angry Man the money he’d scrounged out of his bag, Hugo had merely grunted, apparently satisfied but not pleased, and let Stan pass without further comment. Justin got the impression that he still wasn’t happy with him, but was glad he wasn’t going to continue the conversation they’d been having earlier after leaving the Demarcus Man’s apartment. 

All the other boys seemed to be stripping down to their boxers and t-shirts and piling onto the four queen-sized beds occupying the two adjoining motel rooms. There were at least three youths for each bed already and more boys were still coming through the door. Justin was very confused by this arrangement. He’d never slept in a bed with anyone other than Brian, so this situation made him a little nervous. He didn’t think he liked sharing beds with people he didn’t know.

“Stan. Get you ass over here, or I’m gonna let Trey take your spot after all,” Skinny Boy directed, pointing to the far edge of the bed he and Beauty were already stretched out atop. 

“I don’t know,” Justin hesitated. “I’ve never slept in a bed with anyone other than my boyfriend. I don’t think Brian would like me sleeping with anyone other than him.” 

“Enough with the boyfriend shit, Stan. I want to get some sleep already,” Hunter growled and reached over Beauty to shut off the light next to the bed. “Shut the fuck up and get over here.”

Justin looked around but didn’t see anywhere else to sleep. All the other beds were already full and a couple of the boys had even pulled pillows off the beds and started to lie down on blankets spread out on the dirty carpet. He curled his bare toes up, not liking the gritty feel of the unvacuumed carpeting on his feet and even less enthused about sleeping on the filthy surface. It looked like a bed with Skinny Boy and Beauty was the best alternative. It would have to do; at least for that one night. And then, tomorrow, he’d make the Skinny Boy take him home to Brian. 

Reluctantly, Justin laid down on the edge of the motel mattress, without taking any of his clothes off, though, because it wouldn’t be proper for any of these strangers to see him without his clothing on. “You know, my mother always used to warn me that you shouldn’t sleep in the same bed with another person because that would lead to pregnancy, but My Brian told me that wasn’t true. He promised me that you can’t get pregnant like that, but I still don’t think it’s right . . .” he whispered to his bed mate while huddling as far away from the other bodies as he could get without falling off the edge of the mattress.

“Shut the fuck up and go to sleep, Stan,” Hunter ordered, rolling over and ignoring the blather.

“But, Brian said . . .”

“Stan!” at least five voices complained in synch. 

So Justin shut up. But it took him a very, very long time to actually fall asleep, even as tired as he was. And he spent the night dreaming about Brian.

The following morning, the boys of the ‘Tarlight were slow to begin their day. It wasn’t until around 10:00 am, when Hugo came in and dumped off a bag full of bagels, that there was any real push to get moving. Justin, who hadn’t slept well at all, was groggy and short-tempered and not even close to his usual sunshiney self. But at least he managed to grab a bagel and one of the little plastic cups of cream cheese before they were all gone. While he devoured his breakfast, and waited for his turn to use one of the two tiny, not-so-clean bathrooms, he tried to pin Skinny Boy down on when they could go find Brian.

“Shit. You’re still on that kick?” Hunter groused, stealing a second bagel out of Trey’s hands when the other boy wasn’t paying attention. 

“You promised, Skinny Boy,” Justin maintained stubbornly. “You said you’d help me get home today if I didn’t cause trouble last night. You promised!”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Stan?” Hugo interrupted, having just come back inside the room and overhearing the end of their conversation. “You ain’t planning on cutting out without paying your exit fee, are you? Because if that’s what you’re thinking, think again, sweetheart. Because I OWN that sweet, profitable little ass, and you fucking know it.”

The room went deathly silent. All the boys were staring at Justin. Leaving the life wasn’t ever spoken about out loud. For one thing, it tended to make their daddy pissed off, and nobody wanted that. But it was also clearly just too much of an impossibility to attain and thinking or talking about it was depressing. Because the only way out was to pay the exorbitant fees that Hugo and the other Daddies demanded; exit fees that were so astronomical and unachievable for most of the working boys and girls on the streets, that it didn’t even compute. There was just no way any of them could earn enough to pay their way out, so they avoided even thinking about the option. It was a taboo that no one broke unless and until they themselves broke.

“Exit fee?” Justin asked, not understanding why all the tension. “But, I already gave you all my money last night.”

Hugo snorted with laughter. “That pitiful handful of beans? Yeah, I don’t think so, Stan. Ain’t nobody leaving this family for less than ‘fifty k’ and you know it. So, if you know what’s good for you, pet, you’ll shut your pretty mouth, quit talking shit, and get the fuck out of my face before I get REALLY pissed off at you. Again.” Then Hugo turned and stared down all the rest of the silently watching boys. “And don’t let me hear any of the rest of you talking shit about leaving either. You KNOW what I do to boys who don’t keep their mouths shut about crap like that, right? . . .” Nobody had the guts to speak up, of course, which caused Hugo to smile down at them all smugly. “. . . That’s what I thought. So, if you ain’t gonna knuckle up and suffer the consequences, I don’t wanna hear no more about leaving. Now, all of you get the fuck out of here and go take care of the lunch hour rush. And make sure you all bring back some extra sugar for your daddy tonight to make up for Stan here putting me in such a bad mood.”

There was a lot of grumbling, and more than a few dirty looks aimed at Justin, as the boys pulled on their clothing and shuffled out of the room by ones and twos. Even the Skinny Boy started to slink off without a word to Justin. But the brave little blond wasn’t about to give in to the Big Angry Man, no matter how intimidating all his bad words made him sound. Nor was he going to let Hunter go back on his promise. Justin didn’t understand what all that talk about an ‘exit fee’ was, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to stick around with Hugo and his boys any longer. He was going home. 

Somehow. 

Justin grabbed up his messenger bag and followed the rest of the boys out of the motel room, trotting along to catch up to the Skinny Boy who was already halfway down the block. It looked like they were all heading in a different direction than they’d gone for their night-time trolling. Instead of heading south to the seedier areas that bordered I-376 and the Monongahela river, the crew was heading west, into the downtown area. Justin still didn’t recognize any of the streets they were traversing, but he could tell they were getting closer to downtown because the buildings were getting taller and taller the further they walked. 

Justin tried to think through what this new direction meant for finding his way home, but the thinking wasn’t going well; he was hopeless with directions. Which wasn’t really his fault, after all, since until just a few months ago, he’d never gone ANYWHERE. He knew that Kinnetik was located somewhere close to a river, but wasn’t sure which river, exactly, and there were a lot of rivers in Pittsburgh, you know. Most of the buildings near both the loft and the business weren’t skyscrapers, though. They were older and only three or four stories tall. Not huge towers like the ones that were surrounding him as he trudged after Hugo’s boys. But, still, in the back of his mind, Justin thought he remembered hearing Brian saying something about how he liked having his offices close enough to downtown that he could get to client meetings without driving. So that meant they had to be getting closer, right? At least that’s what he hoped.

When they got to a small park, the boys fanned out and took up positions lounging around the edges of the more wooded areas. Justin continued to tag along after Skinny Boy since he didn’t know what else to do. Hunter, though, seemed to have had enough of Justin shadowing him all the time. 

“Get lost, Stan,” he ordered with a shooing motion. “You hovering around all the time is scaring away all my dates and I can’t afford to slack off again today. Hugo’s already in a bad enough mood and I’m not gonna do anything to make it worse.” He pointed across the way to where a few men in business suits were sitting on some benches at the far side of the park. “Why don’t you go work the lunch crowd over there for a bit and leave me alone so I can wait for my Wednesday regular alone.”

Justin looked across the park but was still confused about what Skinny Boy wanted him to do. “What does ‘work the lunch crowd’ mean?”

“Fuck, Stan. I thought your knocked up noggin would be better by this morning . . .” Hunder sighed but, spying the black jaguar of his regular Wednesday lunchtime date approaching, he realized he didn’t have time to mess around with Stan’s nonsense any longer. It was time to just spell it out to the little twerp who seemed to have lost his fucking mind. “Go over there, find a guy you like, and get him to have sex with you. Just make sure he pays you up front so you have enough green to get Hugo off all our backs by nightfall. Got it?”

Justin was shocked. “You want me to have sex with those men? But they aren’t my boyfriend . . .”

“No. They aren’t your fucking precious boyfriend ‘Brian’. But it doesn’t matter because you need to make your quota money for Hugo, just like all the rest of us, or he’s going to blow his fucking top. So stop acting like you’re too good to work the streets, Stan. I’m tired of the fucking innocent act. We all know you take it up the ass for cash just like everyone else here, so stop bitching and get to fucking work!”

Hunter turned his back on a gaping Stan, put on his working face, and smiled as the driver of the Jag pulled over to the curb right next to him. While Justin watched, the Skinny Boy jogged over to the car and got in the passenger-side door with a, ‘Hey, Baby’, and then the car zoomed off. Leaving Justin standing there, feeling lost and panicky. 

And he was still just standing there about five minutes later when Beauty came up to him and asked, “you okay, Stan?”

“I can’t have sex with those men,” Justin blurted out. “I can’t do it.”

“Okay . . .” Beauty appeared almost as confused as Justin seemed to be. “Then how else are you going to make enough money to keep Hugo happy? Cuz you know, if you don’t show up tonight with some serious cash, after all the shit you’ve been pulling the past couple of days, he’s gonna track you down and put a fucking bullet in your ass or something.”

That statement didn’t help with Justin’s burgeoning panic. “But I don’t have any more money. I gave him all the money I had last night.”

“Yeah, which is why you need to turn more tricks today. To earn some more money. That’s how it works, Stan.”

“But I can’t have sex with strange men for money. I don’t know how to do that,” Justin insisted. “And I KNOW Brian wouldn’t like that at all . . .”

“Fine with me, Bruh, but then how ya gonna earn Hugo’s dough for the day? Cuz he wasn’t just kiddin’ about the exit fee shit. Hugo don’t kid about money. Even just bringing shit like that up is enough to piss him off, big time. So you better not try to leave without paying him or he will take you out. Permanently. You get me?” Beauty stared into Justin’s eyes intently, pausing long enough to be sure the other boy understood exactly what he was intimating before continuing. “Whatever you do, Stan, you better come up with SOME way to make Daddy happy. And, if you know what’s good for you, that way’s gonna involve a bunch of cold, hard, green, baby.”

“I don’t . . . I don’t know what to do. I can’t go with those men, Beauty. I can’t. But . . .” Justin looked around himself, finally realizing exactly what it was he’d accidentally got himself mixed up in, and trying to figure out an alternative to prostituting himself. “Maybe . . . Maybe if I just asked people to help me, someone would loan me enough money to make Big Angry Man happy. I could pay them back later, after I get home. Brian and I have more money there.”

Beauty laughed. “You’re never gonna make the kinda bread Hugo expects by panhandling man. Nobody’s gonna give a street boy that much green just for the asking. But you do you, bruh.”

Beauty was still chuckling at the idiotic shit Stan was spouting as he moved off towards a group of suits he saw sniffing around the guys waiting by the trees at the corner of the park. He thought he recognized a date he’d had a couple weeks back; someone he thought he could interest in a second go-round. If he remembered right, the guy had paid pretty decent too. That ought to cool Hugo off.

Meanwhile, Justin had approached a bench where two middle-aged men in off-the-rack suits were eating take out lunches they’d got from the falafel wagon down the block. 

“Excuse me, Sir,” Justin approached the one with the grey hair. “Hi. My name is Justin.” He held out his hand as if to shake and the guy, after hesitating a moment, accepted the offer. “I hate to bother you while you’re having your lunch, but I’m afraid I’m in a bit of trouble. See, I got a little lost last night and I hit my head and then, when I left the hospital I didn’t know which way to go, so I just started walking and then I found these boys, who seemed nice and offered to take me back to the motel they were staying in with their daddy, Hugo, but then Mr. Hugo, who’s kinda big and angry and uses bad words and isn’t really all that nice, he got really upset with me this morning and said I have to bring him lots and lots of money or he won’t let me leave and go back home to my boyfriend, Brian, and I’m kinda scared that he will do something mean to me if I don’t do what he asked, so I was wondering if, maybe, you guys could loan me some money so I could make Mr. Angry Man let me go home again. I promise to pay you back after I get home. My boyfriend, Brian, and I have lots more money at home. I just don’t know where that is right now, and I lost my phone so I can’t call him, you know, but the Skinny Boy promised to help me find him, only he went off with a man in a black jaguar a little while ago, and I don’t know when he’ll be back, but as soon as he does get back I’ll make him take me to Brian so I could get the money from him then to pay you all back . . .'' Justin explained, talking so fast that he barely had time to breathe in enough air to make the words intelligible. 

The two lunching men looked at each other, clearly skeptical, and then looked back at the disheveled young man who seemed to have slept in his clothing and who wasn’t wearing any shoes. It was obvious that the kid was in distress, both from his clothing, which was good quality even if it was a little dirty and wrinkled, and from his demeanor, but still. 

“Sorry, kid,” the younger of the two replied, sounding sympathetic even as he turned him down. “I just spent the last of my cash on lunch.”

“Same here,” the oldster echoed. 

“Oh, well, that’s okay,” Justin replied, a little downtrodden. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice lunch.”

The younger of the two was reluctant to just let the kid leave, though, especially after having heard his sob story. “You sure you’re going to be okay, kid?” he asked with concern. “If you’re in a dangerous situation, we could call the cops for you.” The man started to take his phone out of his pocket. 

“No, thank you,” Justin was quick to protest. “I don’t want to have to talk to any police again. They weren’t very nice to me before, you know. They tried to keep me away from Brian and, if it wasn’t for Ms. Attorney, they would have put me back in that hospital. I didn’t like the hospital at all.” He started to back away from the bench and the two men. “Thank you, but I-I-I’ll be fine . . .”

Justin rushed away from the man with the phone. He barely waited long enough for the light to change before he ran across the street, trying to get as far away from the little park and the man threatening to call the police on him as possible. He didn’t slow down for several blocks. It wasn’t till he came to an open plaza area in the middle of a circle of towering high-rise office buildings, where the crowds of people sitting and standing around provided some cover for him, that he finally started to breath again. 

On the corner of the nearest street, Justin spied a bedraggled older man sitting on the pavement in front of his upturned baseball cap, holding up a sign that read ‘Vet - Anything will help’. As he walked by, Justin noticed a kindly older woman stop and drop a dollar bill into the man’s hat. He’d seen other people doing that kind of thing before but hadn’t ever understood why anyone would need to sit on the dirty ground and ask people for money. It didn’t seem sanitary. But that was before he got lost. Now he understood and, it seemed, that might be the only way he could get more money to give to the Big Angry Man who everyone said would shoot a gun at his behind if he didn’t pay him. 

So, despite how uncomfortable it made him, Justin found his own, unoccupied corner, sat his butt down on the cold, hard cement sidewalk, took his drawing pad out of his bag, and made a very elegant little sign that read, ‘Lost - Need Money for The Big Angry Man So I Can Get Back to My Boyfriend. Thank you!’. Then he took out another piece of scratch paper from his bag, folded it up origami-style into a small bowl-shape, and sat back with his sign and bowl, prepared to get the money for Hugo however he could.