Shattered Glass(2)

Bunny Slippers had long since grabbed my plate and was making his way back to the kitchen without a single backwards glance. He hipped the swinging door and disappeared into the back. It was only then that I managed to exhale.

Get a grip, idiot. This is a bad time to ogle teenagers.

Is there ever a good time to ogle teenage boys?

All these weird thoughts were giving me a headache. The guy was just interesting. That was all. Like spotting an exotic flower in a field of—

I really needed to stop thinking like my eleven-year-old poetry-writing cousin. Actually, I just needed to leave. Stop thinking about this and leave. After paying the bill, I slid sunglasses over my eyes and pushed out into the summer sun.

Little beads of sweat popped up on the bridge of my nose, tempting me to remove the offending eyewear. But the light bouncing off my side mirror convinced me that dealing with irritating sweat was better than being blind.

Colorado heat didn’t blast so much as bake. It was a deceiving warmth, slowly building like a preheating oven and just as dry. The other trick of summer in the Mile High City of Denver—breezes. They moved lackadaisically, intermittently dying out and then ambling back, providing little in the way of their supposed function: cooling. By the time I had walked across the small parking lot and opened the door to my Jag, my hair was hot enough to fry an egg, and I dearly wished to be wearing shorts rather than full length khakis. I pinched the fabric of my cotton shirt and waved it while the single breeze that rolled through offered only a tumbling brown paper bag and no relief from the warmth. Across the street, a bank marquee announced the date and today’s temperature: ninety-seven degrees.

Ignition on, A/C maxed, I left the door open while waiting for the air to cool. Maybe another breeze would surprise me and suck the staleness from the car. Sitting half-in, half-out, I heard the door opening in the alley beside the restaurant. I saw him in the rearview first, then swiveled in my seat to check the back window.

Bunny Slippers leaned against the wall, dragging a foot up to brace behind him and cupping his hand over his face. I fixated on the tattoo marking the web of his fingers, my pulse jumping. When the hand dropped to his side, he took a long drag of his cigarette. His mouth puckering and blowing a cloud of smoke toward the sky was sufficiently erotic enough to ignore the nag of the tattoo and focus on his lips.

I hated smoking. The smell alone was enough to nauseate me. But right then, more than anything, I wanted to be that cigarette.

I was unsettled by an onslaught of unbidden fantasies, which ranged from pressing my lips against the guy’s neck to grinding our hips together. I wasn't sure how long I watched him, but I knew it was long enough for my neck to cramp. Sweat accumulated under my glasses, spreading to my forehead and upper lip and eventually dripping down my temple. The cool air blowing from the car created a stark contrast to the heat outside, but I wasn’t at all sure it was what made me shiver.

His head swiveled slowly against the wall, turning to my Jag. No smirk this time, but those eyes were no less beautiful for being empty. The pit of my stomach clenched.

I had seen that look before—abuse victims, prostitutes, dealers, pimps, they all carried it. Grief, sudden and powerful, poured over me in waves, making me avert my eyes. Broken boy, was all I could think. Broken people were dangerous. I swung my legs in and slammed the driver’s door, backing quickly out of parking spot. It took every ounce of my will to avoid glancing into the rearview mirror as I pulled onto the street.

I aimed the Jag downtown where my tuxedo was getting fitted.

The tuxedo you’re getting married in, Austin. The tuxedo you’re marrying Angelica in, Austin, I reminded myself.





Not a Cock Sucking Fixation

Downtown was a maze of cross streets which, like slippers-boy, were incongruous with the rest of their surroundings. While most streets across Denver ran vertically and parallel to each other, some cruel genius decided to build downtown streets diagonally. Although I had lived in the city all of my adult life and had been made to study every street when I had patrolled as a rookie, downtown still remained the most frustrating area to navigate. I usually ended up making at least one wrong turn. And since the streets alternated one-way, whenever I missed one, I had to drive a few extra blocks to get back on track; which meant running into a gazillion traffic lights and waiting for the Light Rail trolleys or shuttle buses to pass. Which also meant that today I was later than I otherwise would’ve been, and I had to call my fiancée.

“Mm, you’re late. What have you been up to?” Angelica’s soft voice, filled with amusement, was about the only thing that could make me smile right now.