A Host: Fiction from CG Inglis, Part 11

Sci-Fi-O-Rama returns with the eleventh and penultimate installment of “A Colour Like Orange: Stories from a Broken World“, our remarkable fiction project from Toronto writer CG Inglis.

This month, we’re taken into one of the Capital’s most unique subcultures – the host clubs of the East Strip. Here, masculine beauty and grace are cultivated as a profession, and offered to the lonely and weary for a lucrative fee. There is little room for love in this world. But what if such a thing could be found in the worlds beyond? What would a host do to keep it?

Find out in “A Host“.

–

They say hosting is a young man’s game. Clients are paying for a fantasy, and it’s one that only the young can provide. Smooth skin, a lithe body, and that first, sweet blush of youth; no one wants their drinks served by some tired old man, with his belly hanging over his belt and a combed-over bald patch. That said, experience counts for something too, and brains. Landing a client for the evening is one thing. Providing that special spark that will have them coming back night after night, willing to become a patron? That’s something else. Wit, humour, the awareness not only of what a client wants, but needs to hear: a good host is part waiter, part therapist, and all entertainer. But just try explaining that to the young. Boys walk into a club fresh out of high school and they think they know everything. Not that I blame them. I was the same when I was their age.

At 18 I had more clients than I had time. Even my regulars had to wait. On Friday and Saturday nights they’d literally be fighting over the chance to drink with me. Back then, it didn’t take much to hook them, just the soft edge of a smile, and a well-placed touch on the back of a wrist. I was beautiful, or that’s what they told me, and foolish enough to believe in pretty words. It never occurred to me that my best quality might simply be that I was new. Novelty counts for a lot in a host, and by the time my shine had worn off, it was too late. The next young thing had arrived and suddenly I wasn’t such a big draw anymore. It wasn’t long before I was relegated to entertaining bachelorette parties and the occasional old drunk.

For some hosts, that’s where it ends. The smart ones get into the game knowing that even the best of us has a shelf-life, and once they hit their expiration date they’re ready to pack up and move on. No hard feelings, and no regrets. Then there are those so saddled by debt that they’ve simply run out of options. For a naive boy with a wallet full of maxed-out credit cards, hosting is his only legitimate means of staying afloat. The next step doesn’t bear thinking about, but I suppose there’s no shortage of broken dreams in the world. Hosting has a way of breeding cynics. In the end, that’s probably what made Seb so special; despite it all, he somehow managed to stay pure.

We worked at a club called Shining Prince. It was located on the East Strip alongside dozens of other places with equally unfortunate names. The door was flanked by a pair of statues: two shirtless, muscular men with their arms upraised, each supporting an illuminated globe. On the right-hand wall our portraits were on prominent display. These were meant to give potential clients a sense of the calibre of men they could expect to meet inside, but they also served as a kind of ranking system. Hosting is an intensely competitive world. Cram a number young, egocentric men into the same space, all of them dependent on commission and tips for their earnings and there’s bound to be some in-fighting. The truth is, most of us were back-stabbing little schemers who wouldn’t think twice about poaching a client. The portraits were the club’s way of letting everyone know how we were doing: the bigger the picture, and the higher its place on the wall, the better the host. Which is to say, the highest earner. As our fortunes ebbed and flowed, so too did the arrangement of our portraits. One week you’d see yourself up in a glossy 5×10 on the second rung, and the next thing you knew you’d been reduced to a thumbnail. It was all very childish, but we took the rankings seriously. Everyone that is, except for Seb. He alone, secure in his position at the top of the pyramid, could ignore the petty gamesmanship. In all my time at the Prince, his portrait never moved. For all intents and purposes, he was the Shining Prince.

The picture itself was a close-up, his face framed by twin locks of perfectly articulated hair. Shot in three-quarters profile, Seb’s dark eyes were downcast, his upturned lashes casting elegant shadows on high cheekbones. His skin was caramel brown, a fact which shocked me the first time I saw it; there were a few smaller places on the Strip that featured hosts from the low continent, banking on a sense of exoticism to entice a certain clientele, but it was almost unheard of for the top earner at a club like the Prince. The truly surprising thing was that in Seb’s case, his heritage was neither a handicap nor a novelty. It was simply a fact, and one that he wore well, as he wore all things well. In the portrait, his expression was serene. There was a softening of the muscles at his lips, and a certain cast to his sculpted brows that suggested a man at peace with the world. He could have passed for a sage, or holy man, but if so, he was a saint with a dark past, or a heavenly streak in bed. From its gilded frame, his picture seemed to be inviting you to share the night with him, to enjoy a moment pared delicately from the fruit of life.

You couldn’t tell from this picture (they were all criminally airbrushed and floodlit), but it was an open secret that Seb was well into his forties. Some whispered that the truth was even worse: the big Five Oh fast approaching, his best years come and gone. Of course, none of us ever said anything to his face, and even when we talked behind his back it was usually with awe rather than malice. He was the only reason Shining Prince was on the map. Even in our jealousy, fantasizing about what it would be like to live the way he did, reeling in the best patrons and the big tips and presents that came with them, we loved Seb, and begrudged him nothing, not even his place atop the rankings. But it was a cool form of love, an abstraction; for all our admiration, I don’t think any of us really knew him. Unfailingly polite, he nevertheless remained at a distance. A man from a bygone era, moving as if behind a sheet of transparent glass.

One morning he surprised me by asking if I wanted to stick around for a private drink. Our shifts had just ended, and most of the other hosts had already left. Obviously, I leapt at the chance; as I said, Seb was a legend, and we all did our best to suck up to him, not that anyone’s attempts to curry favour ever amounted to much. Still, I was ambitious, and more than a little proud of my looks. I sensed an opportunity, and before sitting down with him I excused myself to the bathroom to freshen up and check my hair. It had been a long night, but I found the reflection in the mirror not without its charm. Donning my best smile, I joined Seb in one of the booths near the front window.

In the interim he’d produced a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Despite my objections, he insisted on pouring, and there was genuine pleasure in watching him work; through the window, the clear edge of dawn sparkled in the fall of amber liquid. I was sure Seb had chosen the angle to achieve this specific effect, and when he was finished he set the bottle down and raised his glass to me.

“To your health,” he said, and from anyone else this tired old phrase would have sounded trite, or even cynical, but from him it read as absolutely sincere. I murmured some banal response, and took a sip. I’ve never been a fan of whiskey, but I can recognize quality when I taste it. The bottle was from Seb’s private stock, and it was probably worth more than I could make in a busy night’s worth of tips.

“This is excellent,” I told him. “But it might be wasted on me.”

He laughed.

“Not to worry. The sales rep at the distillery is a friend. Every year for my birthday he sends a bottle. By now I’ve got more of them tucked away behind the bar than I care to admit.”

It was very skillfully done; to have acknowledged the gap in our ages and swept away any fears I might have had about repayment in a single response. Everything about him was casual and collected. The way he leaned against the booth, lightly toying with his glass as he spoke, it was as if we had been sharing drinks together for years. The distance I’d always perceived between us was gone: suddenly he was as open as he was generous. Although I could tell he enjoyed looking at me, it was also clear that seduction was the furthest thing from his mind. Somehow, I found that I wasn’t in the least disappointed.

The light from the window edged his profile as he turned for a moment to gaze out at the street. He brushed a loose strand of hair from his face, the movement as graceful as that of a dancer’s. He was everything a host should be, and more. I began to wonder why he’d bother wasting his time on a kid like me. If his motives weren’t sexual, what was I doing there?

“I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to speak before now,” he said, as if reading the doubt in my mind. “I try to make a point of getting to know all the younger hosts. How are you finding the place?”

So that was it. I supposed the rumours I’d heard about his stake in the club were true. Perhaps I’d passed my probation, and could think of this as a kind of informal review. I decided to be honest with him.

“I’m glad to be here,” I told him. “But I think some of our regulars are getting bored with me.”

“It’s hard in the beginning,” he replied. “It can be an unforgiving game. Don’t take it too personally. You should enjoy this time, before things get too serious.”

“Revel in your youth?”

He laughed again; the sound was rich, and entirely without affectation.

“You’re right. We old timers can be arrogant, can’t we? Looking back at everything through a rosy haze of nostalgia. It’s ridiculous, of course.”

“I can’t imagine you ever struggled with popularity.”

I said this without thinking, and watched as Seb inclined his head.

“Well,” he said, for a moment examining the back of his hand. “You might be surprised.”

A stone dropped in my stomach; I was mortified. Of course it hadn’t been easy for him. Being from the low continent, it was a minor miracle that he’d succeeded at all, and in the years since it wasn’t as if racism or bigotry had suddenly disappeared. I stuttered an apology, but Seb forestalled me with a brief wave. The warmth of his smile did something to relieve my embarrassment.

“I’ve been blessed to know good people,” he assured me. “None of us succeeds alone. Even in the hard times, we managed to have a lot of fun. Back when I got started, most of the clubs along the Strip were just opening up. The competition was fierce, but there was also a real sense of camaraderie. It felt like we were all in it together, carving a place for ourselves out of the world, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. Call me naive, but I’ve always believed in human nature.”

If this was a performance review, it was a remarkably casual one. Seb seemed to have no clear agenda, and his rich voice was easy enough to get lost in. My mind set at ease, I made a point of observing him as we spoke; up close, it was possible to glimpse his age. A few fine wrinkles stood out next to his eyes, and his hair had lost some of its lustre. No longer strictly beautiful, he was still a handsome man, and immaculate in his dress. Some of the older hosts are forever updating their wardrobes, but Seb’s look was timeless: a well-cut suit, and a tailored shirt so white it almost shone. On his wrist was a precision timepiece, not flashy by any means, but obviously expensive. The gift of a well-connected patron, a man high up in the government, or so I’d been told. Watching him from across the table, it was hard to believe that Seb had been up all night entertaining. He could have stepped out of the pages of a magazine.

It’s hard to describe what that first drink meant to me. I am an only child, and I never had many close male friends at school. To that point, the older men I’d known had only been interested in my body. Seb took an hour out of his day and showed me something different. For the first time in months I allowed myself to relax.

Even so, I assumed that would be the end of it. After doing his bit as a manager, it was only natural that Seb would withdraw, returning to that rarefied air he occupied at the pinnacle of our little world. To my surprise, he made a habit of inviting me out at least once a week. When I asked why he bothered with me, he told me that I made him laugh. I’d never been called funny before, but I wasn’t about to argue. More than anything, I was grateful for the chance to get to know him.

Sometimes we stayed on at the club, though more often than not we took a bottle of wine and walked along the canal in the first hour after dawn. We spoke about everything and nothing. Not one to offer unsolicited advice, Seb nevertheless answered any question I thought to ask. He taught me a lot, maybe more than he knew, but the relationship was never one of master and disciple; even if he’d wanted to take me under his wing, I would have made a terrible student. We had fun together, and although neither of us ever acted on it, the obvious attraction between us added a delicate spice. In short, we grew close, and I knew our bond was an established thing when he began to share his drugs.

We were all using, of course. Pills, coke, finely rolled joints laced with all manner of interesting things. Hosts keep late hours, and the work itself is draining. No matter how sweet the client, when it comes down to it they’re all leeches, paying for your energy as well as your time. These are men and women who put in long hours themselves, and when they arrive at a club they expect to be taken care of, and entertained. A host’s first duty is to uplift: through the judicious application of alcohol and sheer force of will, we work to pull a client out of themselves, to help them for an hour, or for a night, to forget their troubles. All that takes its toll on a person, so it was no great shock to learn about Seb’s habit. The strange thing was his choice of drug.

“Have you ever tried rind?” he asked me. We were in the dressing room, putting the last touches on our hair and makeup before the start of a shift. We’d been discussing our vices, none of which were very interesting, and I thought he was trying to impress me.

“Never heard of it,” I told him. He raised one sculpted eyebrow in mock amazement.

“So you’re saying I might know something you don’t.”

“I imagine that as a man gets on in years he picks up a few things, sure.”

“The wisdom of age. Observe.”

He removed a plastic vial from the inside pocket of his blazer. Unscrewing the lid, he tapped a small, orange mound onto the back of his hand and moved close enough to allow me a better look: a million fine grains, crystalline, and as brilliant as cut stones beneath the vanity lights. I have to describe the colour as orange, knowing full well that it isn’t the right word. Rind was unlike anything I’d ever seen.

“What is it?”

“Uptown, they call it powder,” Seb answered. “It’s some kind of mineral I think. Anyway, they’re digging it out of the ground. A client of mine who works for the Tanning Corporation introduced me to it. In most things, I’m all for tradition, but this is a lovely drug.”

He raised his hand and inhaled. The little orange mountain was sucked into his nose, and when it was gone he passed me the vial. As I tapped out a bump of my own, Seb dabbed the tip of his finger on his tongue and began picking the few remaining grains from his skin. I blocked one nostril and snorted.

The scent was overwhelming: rotten, as the liquid that pools in the bottom of a garbage can is rotten, but thread through with the purity of metal, freshly cut steel, sparks sent flying by a buzzsaw. I waited for something to happen, some change or alteration in my perception, but there was nothing. No release, no wild spike of adrenaline. The room carried on as before. Seb was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his slim chest, smiling.

“You’ll feel it shortly,” he told me. “And it gets better the more you use.”

“Feel what?”

“The eyes,” he said, indicating the back of his head. “Right here. It’s like being watched. Rind is the perfect drug for hosting. Taking this is like having a spotlight pointed at you. Helps me feel I’m worth looking at.”

My brow tightened; I was honestly confused.

“You need to be reminded?”

His smile changed then, and he looked at me with something like gratitude.

“I hope you like it,” he said simply. “There aren’t any side effects, or at least nothing like a hangover, and I’m tired of taking it on my own. As with anything else, it’s better to have company.”

I returned the vial to him. On his way out, he gently squeezed my shoulder; it was a friendly gesture, a confirmation that the exchange had meant something to him. But there was a sadness in it too. In all our conversations, Seb had never talked about his love life or family, and I’d never seen him go home with a client. If he’d wanted, he could have had his choice of men, but maybe all that was behind him. I sighed, wishing he’d been carrying coke, or ecstasy, or anything other than that rotten, ineffectual stuff. Something to have lightened the mood. It must be terrible getting old, I thought. Not even their drugs are any fun.

But as I finished up in front of the mirror, turning and tilting my head to examine my reflection, a creeping sensation overtook me. Nothing dramatic; nothing intense. Only a few hairs standing on the back of my neck, and a prickling along my spine. The intimation that I was no longer alone.

Turning, the room was as empty as it had appeared in the mirror. Still the feeling persisted: someone, somewhere, was definitely watching. It wasn’t unpleasant. A part of me even enjoyed the sensation. It was like Seb had said: I was at the center of something. Not a star exactly, but someone worth watching.

That night I did very well in tips, and the hours drifted by like swift moving clouds. When I had a spare moment I pulled Seb aside and thanked him for the rind. He clasped my arm, and smiled.

“I thought you’d like it.”

“Introduce me to your contact sometime,” I said, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He took another vial from his pocket and pressed it into my palm.

“I have more than enough,” he insisted. “Another perk of the job.”

I thanked him again, sincerely, and from that night on I started to take rind regularly. Seb supplied me with as much as I needed, and he never asked for anything in return. That alone should have given me pause; even a child knows that every gift has its cost.

The Prince did the bulk of its business on the weekend. Come Monday, things tended to slow down. Cocktails were nursed, and conversations drawn out. If you were lucky enough to land a client or a party on a weekday, you made sure to milk it. On one such night, I was standing at the bar. Half the booths in the club were empty, and several other hosts were killing time along with me. Naturally, Seb was working. He had a small party in his usual booth, a group of lawyers by the look of them. I recognized the principle as one of his regulars. Balding and bloated, the man was seated at Seb’s right, holding forth on some topic or other, laughing loudly and pushing drinks on his friends. It was an easy enough gig for Seb. Some clients are just happy to have you as a part of the audience.

From down the bar came a loud snort.

“At least our golden boy is having fun.”

That was Billy. He was fairly new at the Prince, though apparently he’d been working on the Strip for years. In his early 20s, he had a long fall of brown, shoulder-length hair and a smile as thin as a blade. We didn’t get along.

“Making money is fun Billy,” I said. “You should try it some time.”

He laughed shortly.

“That’s right,” he answered. “I forgot who I was talking to. Seb’s little protege.”

I rolled my eyes, unwilling to be drawn into anything with him. Instead, I took the vial of rind from my jacket. The action was deliberate; I wanted Billy to know how little I cared about his opinion. Tapping a bump onto the back of my hand, I bent down and inhaled. The rancid, metallic odor shot though my skull. Billy eyed me, his smile sharpening.

“You take too much of that shit you’ll wind up like him.” He nodded in Seb’s direction.

“Beloved and successful?”

“He talks to himself, you know. I’ve seen him do it. It’s sad really, what age and drugs can do to a person. Messy combination.”

“Oh Billy,” I said. “How did someone as pretty as you wind up so bitter?”

He laughed again as a group of female clients arrived at the door. Billy was on deck, and he winked at me as he escorted them to a booth. The exchange had left a bad taste in my mouth, most of all because I knew Billy had a point: Seb did talk to himself. More than once I’d found him seated in front of the mirror in the changing room, deep in the middle of a one-sided conversation. He’d claimed the drug had no side effects, but how sure could he be? It’s not like there was a wealth of information on the subject. In my lowest moments I wondered if the only reason he’d adopted me was so he’d have someone to use with. Maybe I was just an excuse. Sucking on my teeth, I glanced back at Seb’s booth.

Like a wavering tumour of light, the air next to him was ballooning; the distortion hurt to look at, and I blinked as heavy drops of water sprouted in my eyes. Worried about my makeup, I tilted my head back and dabbed at the tears with the tip of my finger. When my vision cleared I dared a second look. Seated at Seb’s left was another man.

I hadn’t noticed him before now, but I knew he was there. Frowning, I struggled to wrap my mind around the contradiction: the man had been there all night, and had only just appeared. He had one arm draped along the top of the booth, his hand upraised, fingers idly playing with a lock of Seb’s hair. Around him, the light continued to waver, though the tension in my eyes had eased somewhat. From where I stood, the man was in profile. It was hard to place his age, but he couldn’t have been much more than 40. Dressed simply in a blazer and slacks, he had closely shaven hair and wide shoulders. Then he looked at me, his full face coming into view.

I released a breath: from forehead to cheek and straight through his right eye, a line had been cut out of the man’s head. A thin line, violet-hued, and inside it something was moving.

“An outsider.”

I said the words out loud. A few of the hosts at the bar looked at me. Across the room, Seb’s clients were laughing, all of them pink-faced and tipsy, and appeared not to notice the outsider seated in their midst. As I watched, the man with the line cut out of his face turned to whisper something into Seb’s ear, and then slowly extricated himself from the booth. No one but Seb watched him leave. Casually, the man crossed the room.

He spoke to me. At least, I saw his mouth moving, and I was aware of the sound of his voice. It was lower than I’d expected, and hollow, as if he was speaking to me from the opposite end of a phone line. The effect was jarring, so much so that I completely failed to register what he’d said.

“I’m sorry?”

The outsider smiled kindly. Inside the line cut from his face, a wave pulled back from some distant, unfathomable shore.

“Let’s find somewhere we can speak more privately.”

The words arrived in my ears in an odd tumble; struggling to fit them together, I followed in a kind of daze. Like a plucked string, the air around his body continued to vibrate, but at least the tension in my eyes had eased somewhat. He took a seat at the end of the bar. The line in his face pulled at me; it was all I could do not to be dragged in. The outsider was speaking again.

“Are you mixing?” he asked.

“Mixing?”

“You can see me, and you can hear me, so you must be taking rind. Do you take it straight, or are you mixing it with something?”

I blinked again, terribly aware of the heat that had risen in my face; I was standing in front of a visitor from another world. Everyone knew about the outsiders, even if most of us had never seen one. It had all been scientifically verified, or that’s what they kept repeating in the news: invisible people living right under our noses, only perceptible with the most advanced technology. Or, as it turned out, through rind. But that one of them would wind up here, in a club on the Strip? There was an outrageous glamour to the idea, and to top it off, this particular invisible man had been sitting with Seb, playing with his hair, as casual as any lover. I did my best to calm down, telling myself that whatever else the man might be, he was still a guest in my club. I decided to treat him as one.

“Straight,” I said, only moderately successful at keeping my voice steady. I cleared my throat and continued. “I didn’t know you could mix it.”

The outsider was nodding.

“Rind pairs with anything. Booze, weed. Something harder. They say every combination has its own effects.”

I was still having a hard time following him; I had to concentrate on each word, my ears straining to separate one syllable from the next.

“You’ll have to educate me sometime,” I managed. “I guess Seb knows all about it. He might have informed me, but he keeps things close to the vest, doesn’t he? I mean I assume you’re aware of his quirks, given the way you two were sitting together. You know Seb, obviously.”

I was babbling. I knew that. A basic rule of hosting is to listen more than you talk. Deep down, everyone longs to be heard. With a delicate question or an appreciative murmur, a good host can draw out even the most reticent client, and there I was running my mouth off in front of an outsider. But the man seemed to be enjoying it. He laughed, and placed a hand on my wrist.

“You’re funny,” he said. “No wonder Seb likes you. He told me you were funny.”

I managed to exhale. The outsider’s hand felt incredibly light. When he removed it, the place where he’d touched my skin tingled slightly, as if under an electric current.

“Would you care for a drink?” I asked him. “It’s not every day we get a guest from another world.”

“Another universe,” the man replied. “Same world, more or less. And I’d love a drink. Bit of a bore to sit with Seb while he works, no matter how nice the view.”

I slipped around the bar. It felt good to move, and to be doing something as familiar as preparing a drink. As steadily as the fading memory of a dream, my initial shock began to ease.

“What can I get you?”

“Surprise me,” the outsider said.

He was looking at Seb. As I threw together a cocktail of whiskey and cherry bitters, Seb flashed a smile. Offering some polite excuse to his guests, he made his way towards us.

“I was beginning to wonder when you’d hit your saturation point,” he said to me. I cocked my head to one side, still struggling to keep up.

“How’s that?”

“Saturated with rind. The necessary amount seems to be different for everyone. I’m glad the two of you are finally on the same page, so to speak. I’ve been looking forward to introducing you.”

He spoke sincerely, as he always did. The words were genuine and heartfelt, as if my meeting the outsider had been Seb’s only desire. I knew the type of unforced charm he was capable of, and still I found myself touched by his consideration. I handed the cocktail to the outsider, who by now had one arm around Seb’s shoulders.

“Cheers,” he said, raising the glass.

“This is Emery,” Seb informed me, leaning into the man’s embrace. They looked completely natural together, or they would have, if I could have ignored the line cut out of the outsider’s head. Seb murmured something too low for me to hear and Emery smiled. Again, all perfectly charming. They seemed very much in love.

“It’s a pleasure,” I said.

“Would you do me the favour of keeping this one company for awhile?” Seb asked. “At least until I can wrap up with my guests, and then, if you’d like, perhaps we can all enjoy something to eat together.”

“I’d be delighted,” I told him. Emery practically beamed.

“Do you always talk like this when you’re together? I thought it was just an act for your clients.”

“Well, the world can be a hard place, don’t you think?” remarked Seb. “Our words are one of the few things we can control. Why not put a little effort into making them beautiful?”

The outsider kissed him.

“Fantastic,” he said.

Beaming, Seb returned to the booth, where he was loudly welcomed by his guests. Emery watched him with an appreciative eye. He sighed lightly, and drank.

“I didn’t know what to expect when I came here,” he said. “But it definitely wasn’t him.”

“Would you mind,” I started, unsure of how to continue. As a host, I knew very well not to get too personal too quickly. Beginnings are fragile things, and a light touch is often the safest bet, but my curiosity got the better of me. “Would you mind if I ask how you came to be here?”

“I took the red line,” Emery said, his face set, but I could see he was playing with me.

“They say there are holes between the worlds. Or between our universes, if you like.”

He nodded.

“More than you’d expect. Keep taking your rind and you’re bound to stumble across one or two. Gaps, or fissures cut through the fabric of things. Some of us simply fall in. I chose to jump.”

He finished what was left of his drink and set the glass down on the counter.

“For a long time I thought I’d made a mistake. No one knows what to expect, crossing over, but I never thought it’d be like this. Always standing on the outside looking in. Present and absent at once. And then I met him.”

Seb wasn’t looking at us. He was busy with his guests, refilling the lawyer’s glass with wine. The outsider turned to me.

“You think your boss would mind if we took a walk?” he asked.

“Is that what he calls himself when I’m not around? My boss?”

The outsider laughed.

“He never calls himself anything other than a host. At first I thought it was false modesty, but now I’m not so sure.”

“It’s sometimes hard to tell with him,” I said. “Come on. Let’s stretch our legs.”

I led the way out of the club. I couldn’t help but be aware of the outsider behind me, and the soft prickle of apprehension at play on the back of my neck. I remembered the feeling I’d had the first time I took rind, the nagging sense that I hadn’t been alone. Had Emery been in the room with me then, existing just on the edge of perception? Or was it only some kind of premonition? I didn’t know. Maybe the question itself was meaningless. This was the world as it was, broken and full of holes, and I was a part of it. So was the outsider, in his own way. Stepping out into the humid night, none of it felt real to me, and yet everything was just as it had always been: the glow from the illuminated bulbs held aloft by the statues at the door, the cracked pavement and the bags of trash humped by the curb. The Strip wasn’t busy, but there were still a number of gawking tourists and the inevitable hosts on their way to or from a private engagement. The touts were out in force, attempting to entice the passersby with wild claims of the beauty and elegance that awaited inside each club, or with their own bright smiles, with lies. At my side, the outsider took it all in, his hands in his pockets, a half smile playing around his mouth.

“Are there host clubs where you come from?” I asked him.

“I suppose beauty is a commodity in any universe,” he replied. “But not like this. The Strip is a celebration of a certain ideal. Masculinity as art. It’s invigorating.”

“Well, Seb is certainly an artist. I’m not so sure about the rest of us. We’re all such children, playing our little games, constantly scrambling to get ahead. It’s exhausting.”

“I’m sure it is. Giving is taxing work, making room for another person, sublimating yourself to meet their needs. Even if you are compensated, hosting is a generous profession.”

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”

By that time we’d reached the canal. The outsider stopped. He placed his hands on the rail and peered down into the water. The ink-black surface was streaked with reflected light.

“How long have you and Seb been seeing one another?” I asked him.

“For a little more than a year now,” he answered. His eyes were still on the canal. He seemed preoccupied, and I decided to change the subject.

“He’s from the low continent isn’t he?”

“His parents were. He was born here.”

“He doesn’t talk much about himself. At least not with me.”

“There’s been a lot of sadness in his life,” the outsider said, and he turned to me. “His father ran out when Seb was a kid. He’s never said so outright, but I get the sense that his mother didn’t take it well. She got into drugs, or maybe it was simply alcohol. Seb wasn’t really clear on that point. Substance abuse, he called it, always so careful with his words. Then there’s the fact that he’s the wrong colour, and gay. He hides the scars well, but I don’t think he’s ever felt at home. Which is probably why he’s such a good host. Being unwelcome himself, he understands what welcome means.”

“I’m sorry.” It was all I could think of to say. “I didn’t know.”

“I’m only telling you this so that it will make some kind of sense.”

“So what will make sense?” I asked, but the outsider was no longer looking at me. Once more he was in profile, the line in his face hidden from sight. He could have been anyone, just another middle-aged man on his way back from the Strip. He raised a hand, and as he did so his expression softened; Seb was crossing the road.

“Sorry to keep you waiting!” he sang, and leaned in to kiss the outsider.

My expression froze: in that kiss, it seemed to me that the soft flesh of their lips melted into a single, unbroken mass. I opened my mouth; just then Seb took a step back, and the moment passed. The two men were separate once more. Inside the outsider’s line, a violet ocean was churning.

“Are you hungry?” Seb asked me. “I’m ravenous.”

I was still shaken by what I’d just seen, or thought I saw, but if Seb noticed my discomfort, he chose to ignore it. Instead he put his arm around me and led the way up the block. In what seemed like no time at all, we had reached the Wine Seller’s bridge. Smoke billowed from the dining skiffs moored along the canal’s banks, and with it came the scent of grilling meat. As we walked, Seb launched into a story of how he and a few other young hosts had rented a skiff for a private party, years ago, making a mess of the food and laying waste to bottle after bottle of wine. Then, once they were all ruinously drunk, the skiff’s real owner had shown up in a rage; it turned out the man they’d “rented” from was his competitor. The young hosts fled, laughing and tripping over themselves, followed by the curses of the cook.

It was an amusing story. Well told, as Seb’s stories always were, but I knew him well enough to know that his heart wasn’t in it. For all his apparent cheerfulness, he was holding something back. I wished the two of us had been alone. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, foremost among them why he’d felt the need to keep his relationship with Emery a secret. I knew I was young, and that I had nothing to offer him in the way of advice, but at least I could have listened. It hurt that he’d kept this from me, and spoke of the gap that still existed between us. He would always be the elder, the more experienced, the most secure in his position, both financially and socially; he could afford to have secrets. Or was there more to it than that? Nothing about his interaction with Emery suggested he might have been embarrassed by the relationship. Could it have been fear then? Fear that I wouldn’t understand, or that I might reject the outsider? It was hard to imagine Seb being afraid of anything. He was always so in control, so quick to navigate any current, but perhaps that was it: here was a situation he couldn’t control, one in which his considerable social gifts would make no difference. He was in love with a man who only half-existed. A man who lived on the far side of an invisible wall.

The outsider became a fixture in our shared existence; by the time I arrived at the club Emery would already be there, sitting in a booth in the back with his head in a book, or else talking quietly with Seb. Of course, I was jealous. I’d grown used to having Seb to myself, and I’ve never been one to share. To me, it seemed as if a cloud had passed over the sun: half the light was swallowed, and life was that much duller as a result.

Rationally I could overlook all this. For one thing, the man was an outsider. It was a strange sensation, to talk with someone about themselves and to know that all of their experiences had taken place in another world. If our interactions were mundane, sitting and sharing a drink as I would have with anyone else, the line that was cut from his face made it impossible to take him for granted. His very presence spoke of a journey that I could never comprehend, a startling leap into the unknown, the abandonment not only of his home, but of an entire universe. He was a brave man, and I discovered that even in my jealousy there was room for admiration.

He was easy enough to get along with. Infinitely curious, he peppered me with questions, and I did my best to answer them as honestly as I could. He wondered if it caused problems that the Prince catered to women as well as men. Given my own sexuality, how did I manage the expectations of my female clients? Wouldn’t a bisexual host have a certain advantage over one who was “simply” gay or straight? How often did patronage relationships become genuinely sexual? He listened to everything I had to say, nodding along even as I fumbled through another half-baked response. If he was trying to get on my good side, he knew what he was doing. Nothing stokes a young man’s ego quite like asking him for an opinion.

Then there was the fact that Seb was happy. Every host knows what it means to wear a smile as a mask, but the way Seb looked at the outsider was no act. He was in love. Who was I to judge him, or to stand in his way? He had always been generous with me, and now the time had come to pay him back. I could only assume that this is what he had been aiming for all along. By introducing me to rind, he’d succeeded in making his relationship visible. If he needed me there as a kind of witness, I could stomach playing the third wheel. I only wish I’d known how little time we had left.

About a month after I first became aware of Emery, the three of us went out for dinner on the canal. Seb was in high spirits, and he insisted on treating us to a meal. From the bank, we descended a ladder to the deck of a dining skiff. Seb seemed to know the cook, a young man with brown skin and somber eyes. The fried noodles and grilled beef he prepared were excellent, and for once Seb even permitted himself to drink a beer. As we ate, I watched the lights of the billboards and entertainment towers at play on the water’s surface. The night air was as warm as a blanket, and the soft creaking of the wooden skiff could have lulled me to sleep. It was a lovely meal, and when we were finished, Seb left the young cook a generous tip. Limbs heavy, I followed Seb and Emery up the ladder and onto the bank. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed.

“Thank you for dinner,” I said. “But I think I’ll head home. I’m sure the two of you would like some time alone.”

“Not at all,” Emery replied.

“Stay,” Seb insisted.

I had no choice but to give in; I was powerless against him. Seb was the best and most complete man I’d ever known, and even now the thought of him is like a ray of light or a knife in the chest and all I can think is how lucky I was to have known him when he was still truly himself.

He took out a vial of rind and passed it around. All of us took large hits, and within a few minutes the vial was empty. I’d never done so much at one time before, and I wondered how much Seb had been taking over the months, how large a dosage was required to be with an outsider full time.

As we walked, the line cut out of Emery’s face grew livid, its colour streaming whenever he moved. Trails of purple light blurred his nose and cheek, and passed like a momentary stain over his tall forehead. Seb walked with his arm draped around the outsider’s shoulders. The drug coursing through my system, I let the two of them go ahead. As if in a dream, I watched their bodies bleed together, the flesh fusing where the skin met. I remembered the kiss they’d shared on the night Emery and I had first met, and a shudder passed through me.

“What’s going on Seb?” I asked. My voice was shaking, but I already knew the answer. Seb’s arm had flattened atop Emery’s shoulders. Together they turned to face me. Seb kissed the line in the outsider’s face, and for one heartbeat, and then another, his mouth sank into the outsider’s skull, swallowed by the purple light. When he at last pulled away, he smiled.

“I wanted to thank you for indulging me as you have. It must have been incredibly dull spending so much time with an old man like me.”

“Shut up Seb,” I said.

“No, I know I can be hopelessly dramatic at times, but this is how I feel. And we needed you here. Both of us. We thought someone should be here, to see it.”

“To see what?”

There was a sweetness in Seb’s expression as he answered.

“Emery can’t stay like this forever. Trapped between two worlds.”

The outsider wouldn’t meet my eyes; he gazed at the pavement, the line of his body wavering, leaking into Seb.

There was a sudden rush of anger, and I rounded on Emery, on what was left of him.

“It’s not right,” I spat. “You can’t ask this of him. It’s too much.”

“He didn’t ask,” Seb went on. His voice was soft, and he spoke as if explaining things to a child. “I offered to act as a host. What else has my life been for, if not this?”

He was still smiling. He touched the other man’s hand, and their fingers melted, along with their wrists. Their arms now formed an unbroken line.

“Don’t do this,” I pleaded, but it was like begging the tide not to rise. I was already too late. Their bodies had started to merge. The two men stood before me like conjoined twins, fused at the shoulders.

“You’ve been a good friend,” Seb said. His voice was strained, and beads of sweat were standing on his brow. I could hardly bear to look at him. He leaned into the outsider, and the two men brought their remaining hands together. I could only watch as the light rushed like a violet stream from the outsider’s line; noiselessly, the outsider slipped inside my friend’s body. A gasp was torn from Seb’s throat: cut from forehead to cheek, a dull line like an old scar now showed on his face. He shuddered, and sank to his knees. I rushed to help him up; his hand was cool against the flat of my palm. When he looked at me he did so with strange eyes.

“I’m here,” he said in a voice that was both like and unlike his own. “I’m home.”

–

Visit us again next month for “The Director’s Voice“, the final, concluding installment in “A Colour Like Orange: Stories from a Broken World” by CG Inglis.

Follow CG Inglis on Twitter @viscereal