He'd laughed once when a female tourist passing through town told him he had "options" and he could do whatever he wanted to do. Oh, it was a precious little pep talk, indeed. She was a know-it-all "mom" from trendy San Francisco, in Vegas for the weekend. She had no idea Treston had just blown her so-called straight husband while she'd been playing slot machines at a casino on the strip. They were standing outside a smaller casino. Treston was looking for a breath mint. She was waiting for the husband to return from the men's room. At first, Treston did not know she belonged to the man he'd just blown. She started talking to Treston and asked what he did. He told her he was a stripper and she frowned. She put her arm around him and said, "You can be anything you want to be. You have to have hope and believe in change. And I firmly believe in the power of prayer. Jesus loves you, honey."
At the time, Treston smiled and said, "I see." He actually prayed often. But deep down he wondered about how she would have handled the same circumstances. It was easy to tell people they have options when you're being supported by a husband who'd do anything for you except tell you he liked guys to suck him off in public bathrooms. Then the husband came over to meet his wife, looking terrified when he saw Treston talking to her. Treston just smiled and walked away. He knew he could have floored her that day-rocked her world. But he'd never been a mean person. And he did take a certain amount of quiet satisfaction when he glanced back and the husband glanced back at the same time. The wife was still talking and not paying attention. The husband smiled and nodded at Treston, then turned and put his arm around his chattering wife.
When the taxi dropped him off at his apartment, he tipped the driver extra and thanked him. On the way inside, he wondered if maybe he should learn how to drive a taxi. That might be a viable option for him when he got too old to dance.
But he was so tired all he wanted to do was fall into bed. He hadn't eaten all day and he still wasn't hungry. As he crossed to the bed, he removed all his clothes. He climbed under the covers and reached for his phone on the nightstand. After he put the plugs into his ears, he switched off the light and closed his eyes. He reminded himself he had to go to the laundromat the next day, wash the sweatsuit Cooper Boon had loaned him, and return it to the ranger's station at Lake Mead. Within moments he drifted into a deep sleep. And as You Are My Sunshine played on his phone, he tried as hard as he could not to think about what had happened with Harlan Rocks, a man he knew he would never see again.
Chapter Five
Before Treston went to work the following night, he took a cab to Lake Mead and he dropped off the sweatsuit Cooper Boon had let him borrow at the park ranger's station. He'd taken the suit to the laundromat earlier that afternoon and used a special detergent and fabric softener to make it smell especially nice. Then he wrapped it in tissue paper, put it in a pale blue Tiffany's bag someone had once given him a gift in that he'd been saving for the right occasion, and added a small box of expensive chocolate truffles. No one had ever done anything this nice for him and he wanted to repay Cooper with a small gesture to show he knew Cooper had gone out of his way and that he appreciated what Cooper had done for him.
But Cooper Boon wasn't there. When Treston walked into the station, he found the same park ranger sitting behind the same desk eating a box of Oreos Hostess Twinkies instead of doughnuts. He gestured fast and said, "Please don't get up. I just wanted to return the sweatsuit I borrowed yesterday from Mr. Boon. I have a taxi outside waiting. I can't stay long." Then he set the bag on the ranger's desk and turned back toward the door.
The ranger's mouth was full and he made an attempt to speak, but before he could swallow his Oreo and say anything, Treston had opened the door and stepped out. As Treston closed the door, he sent the ranger a backward glance and said, "You will see that Mr. Boon gets this? I left a small gift for him inside." He was talking about the chocolates. After he saw the way the ranger was eating the Oreos, he wanted to make sure the chocolates would be safe.
The ranger swallowed and cleared his throat. "I'll see he gets it. He's out on horseback right now checking a few back trails. But when he comes back I'll tell him you stopped by."
"Thanks," he said, and closed the door. Treston didn't know the rangers rode horses in the trails. On the way to the cab, he had a wicked thought that made him smile. What if Cooper Boon had found him yesterday and Cooper had been on horseback instead of in his park ranger's truck? Treston would have had to ride naked on the back of the horse all the way to the park ranger's station.
When he arrived at the club he paid the driver, climbed out of the backseat, and ran to the back door where the strippers usually entered so they wouldn't have to walk through the main bar to get to the dressing rooms. He was carrying a backpack that evening because he was doing a special show that night that he only did once a week. The backpack contained his costume and a few props he needed. Treston and the other strippers didn't always dance in cages above the bar. That was only part of his job. On certain nights they were required to actually perform real dance routines, sometimes in a group and sometimes alone. And Treston had come up with an original striptease act all his own that no one else in town did or had ever thought of doing before him. As far as he knew, no other male stripper in the universe did this. He'd only seen it done once in an old movie, and even then, it had been done by a woman.
Although he wasn't best friends with all of the other guys who worked there, he was friendly with them in a way he could never quite pigeonhole. He didn't believe in getting too friendly with the other male strippers because some of them were too competitive, some of them could be arrogant, and some were just passing through to make a quick buck until something else better came along. At least, that's what they claimed. The friendship Treston shared with most of them stemmed more from a mutual unspoken understanding than anything else-even with the most arrogant, who claimed they were only stripping until something better came along. They all understood their circumstances, they knew the rest of the world judged them without thinking twice, and they seemed to all find a certain amount of solace in this unusual brotherhood because only they knew what it was like to take off their clothes for men-or do more-to make a living. And even though they would stab each other in the back at any given time, they rarely ever judged each other.
A guy everyone called J.D. was putting on a g-string when Treston set his backpack down in one of the dressing room counters. He was one of the few whom Treston had grown closer to. J.D. stood over six feet tall, had short dark hair, and spoke with a New York accent. Although his nose was a little too large, his chin a little too weak, and his hair way too short for his large ears, he had the kind of tightly defined body and long smooth legs, that brought in more than a few customers. And when J.D. put on a g-string a size too small, the junk he packed into the small pouch between his legs was so ample it took a while to make sure it would all stay in place.
Treston glanced at J.D.'s crotch and smiled. "You'd better duct tape that thing down, bud. It might fall out and knock a customer's eye out." All the male strippers at Chickey's club were well endowed. No one paid to see male strippers with little dicks. But J.D. was so well endowed they always joked about it.
J.D.'s dick was hanging from the right side of the g-string and he was packing his balls into the pouch. "Very funny. But if I don't get this thing in fast Chickey's going to kill me." Chickey would not allow the strippers to show their penises. He drew the line there; for him it was a matter of decorum and good taste-in his own words. They could strip to the most revealing g-string money could buy as long as they kept their private parts hidden at all times. And they were never allowed to converse, touch, or deal with customers in the bar on a one-on-one basis.
Though Treston was still upset about what had happened with Harlan Rocks, he'd started to feel better about it. He even thought he might hear from Harlan again. And he found J.D's g-string dilemma so amusing he couldn't stop smiling. "If you'd wear a decent-sized thong like I wear you wouldn't be having those problems."
Another stripper, a guy who went by the name Lyon Denton, passed by in his jock strap, glanced at J.D's dick, and said, "That's just vulgar. You'd better pack that thing up tight or Chickey's going to fire your ass. If your fucking pork sword falls out while you're dancing he'll come after you with a baseball bat." Lyon was a straight guy working his way through nursing school. He claimed it was better than working at Walmart for "fucking pennies." He was Treston's closest friend at the club. They often referred to each other as brothers.
J.D. tended to push things to the limit, and Chickey constantly warned him about exposing his genitals on stage. "Fuck you, dude. I'm doing my best." J.D. spread his legs and glanced down at his dick. "It's not easy when you're working with something like this." He shook his flaccid dick in Lyon Denton's direction and laughed. "But then you wouldn't know about things like that with your little dick."
Lyon stood in front of a full-length mirror, next to two other male strippers who had arrived and had just begun to take off their clothes. He flung J.D. a sideways glance and said, "Fuck you. I do just fine with what I have and I don't get no complaints from anyone. I can't help it if I'm not a mutant like you. That fucking thing should be in The Guinness Book of World Records."