* * * *
That night after another spectacular dinner, John and I sat on the turret floor, our backs to the wall, and looked at my Christmas tree as Ricky fiddled with my sparse collection of holiday music.
“You really don’t care that you’re short?” John asked me.
“No, not really. It is what it is.” I shrugged. “Some guys are tall, some short. Who gives a shit? It doesn’t change who I am or what I want to do with my life.”
He frowned at the tree.
“I’ve always hated being short.” His voice turned sour.
“I know. I get it. My mom found a doctor who’d give me growth hormones when she realized I was way below average on the growth charts. I was allergic to them, so I was meant to be short it seems. What about you? Didn’t your folks consider giving you the shots?”
His laugh was bitter.
“Maybe they would have if they knew I wasn’t growing like I should. But I was brought up by nannies who didn’t pass along bad news in case they’d be blamed and fired. My folks didn’t really notice until it was too late to do anything. Then they were stuck with a runt.
“My dad left me alone when I didn’t grow in junior high and kicked me out when I was still short in high school, after I told him I was gay. He said I wasn’t trying.” He snorted. “Even getting a spot as a sous for a celebrity chef years later didn’t bring him around. He still won’t talk to me.”
He sighed as “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” piped happily into the turret. I put my arm around him.
“So many strikes against me. I couldn’t play football, his favorite sport. I didn’t live up to his family’s legacy of tall, dark, and handsome men. Then the coup de grace. I told him I was gay, and he kicked me out. Fuck. You would’ve thought I’d told him I was a notorious mass murderer,” he said.
I pulled him closer. I knew I couldn’t hug away his anger and disappointment, but I could show support and recognition of his pain. My dad had been the same. After he and my mom divorced, he’d remarried and got the huge, overgrown son of his dreams in his new family, even if he hadn’t sired the kid himself.
At one time I’d missed my dad like crazy. But not for at least a decade. He didn’t appreciate me, and I felt the same about him. Fortunately, I’d had a supermom who made up for him.
“What about your mother?” I asked quietly as Ricky gave us a tired wave. We watched him put on his coat and hat to go downstairs.
“My mother.” John gave a sad little sigh. “She was no better than my old man. To get me out of the house, she sent me to live with a cousin. But once the cousin saw me, she didn’t want me in her apartment, so by seventeen, I was on the street fending for myself.”
He sighed again and started shaking. In the background, we heard his kitchen door open and close. Ricky’s feet stomped a couple of times, then all was silent downstairs.
I pulled John closer and slid us down away from the wall so we were lying at the foot of the Christmas tree. It smelled a little funky and dusty down there, but the pine scent came and went as if the tree were giving us its benediction.
“What did you do out on your own?” I leaned over him and gave him a kiss. “What happened?”
I knew by the way the ripples ran through his body that whatever it was had scarred him. If he didn’t answer my question, I wouldn’t push.
He turned away. I couldn’t see his face.
“I met Leo at a club.” Another big sigh. “He was looking for short men for a ‘project’ he was putting together. I didn’t know at the time that he was…” His voice faded away. Then he cleared his throat. “He was a pimp.”
Shit. What? A pimp?
I hugged him closely again even though he’d been trying to scoot away. A pimp?
I grew up in a small university town where people were pretty benign, at least the people who lived around me. Sure, I’d been short and skinny, not what anyone would call a he-man or a hunk or anything. I’d been hassled at school until my mom threatened the principal with a lawsuit. Pimps were totally out of my experience. If they operated in Davis, I hadn’t met one, or even seen one to the best of my knowledge.
Until now. Leo was slimy and made me uneasy, but he didn’t strike me as a pimp. Didn’t they wear leather jackets and look more like weasels or rats, all skinny and skanky? Leo looked like a poseur to me, somebody who did things big and bold so people would think he was more than he was. But then, what did I know?
“Huh” is all I said as I kissed him again. “A pimp, huh?”
John turned to me. “You don’t care?” Wonder filled his question.
“Shit, yeah, I care. I care for your sake.” My answer was quick and sure. “You want to tell me the rest of it? Did you work for him? How’d you get away from him? Why was he here? Does he want you back?”
He cringed from my questions, but I held him and gave him another kiss. So much for staying quiet and letting him tell me if he wanted to.
“He’s a specialty pimp.” His sighs just kept on coming. “He has really rich and really picky clients. They don’t want pretty young boys. They want exotic, uh, guys. And they pay him top dollar to recruit us.”
Exotic? This time I kept my mouth shut, but it was like he could hear my question and tried
