Quentin wandered around the periphery of the room, where black curtains partitioned off smaller, private areas. He peered through the gap between one and saw a pile of men, five, maybe six, fucking each other. It reminded him of the inside of a beehive, all that swarming activity. Peering into the next area, he locked eyes with a thick-necked man fiercely pumping at a hooded figure beneath him on all fours. He held Quentin’s gaze for a long, ferocious moment before rolling his eyes back into his head.
Quentin was just wondering if he should leave—he didn’t feel nearly uninhibited enough to join the dance floor, let alone one of the private areas—when he saw a tall boy moving with great speed and deliberateness toward him. He was smiling in a way that seemed to suggest he had been expecting Quentin.
“Zdravstvuyte,” he said, putting a hand lightly on Quentin’s shoulder.
Quentin stared back at him mutely. He was very striking, with a freshly shaved head that gave his skull a vulnerable, newborn look. His face was full of contradictions; pale, sensitive eyes set above a crooked boxer’s nose, feminine bow lips and a strong, square chin. Quentin let his gaze drift down his sinuous torso to his long straight cock, nestled in a bed of dark hair.
“Are you the one who put the note in my locker?” Quentin asked, feeling ridiculous.
“Note?” The boy’s smile faded into confusion. “I’m sorry, no. It’s just that I was certain you were Russian.”
“No,” said Quentin. Then, sensing that he was disappointing him, he added. “Polish. I’m Polish originally.”
“Ah!” The boy’s face lit back up. “That is why then.”
“Why did you think I was Russian?”
The boy flicked his eyes lightly up and down Quentin.
“Your eyebrows,” he said and laughed.
It was a glinting, surprising sound, like water springing suddenly from a tap that appears dry. Quentin’s eyebrows were, in fact, often commented upon. Velvety and dark, with long, thick eyelashes to match, they were one of the few benefits he could think of from being Eastern European.
“I’m sorry I’m not Russian,” Quentin said, desperately thinking of something to say.
“Polish is better,” the boy said and shrugged. “You have less problems.”
He grabbed Quentin’s hand in his and shook it. His hand was both soft and rough, like a cat’s tongue. Quentin could feel his own cock stir at the touch of him.
“I’m Alex,” the boy said.
“Quentin. Can I get you a drink?” he asked.
“Yes,” the boy said, still smiling. “And I get you one also. I hear they’re free.”
Alex guided Quentin to the bar, which was a piece of plywood on two crates, behind which another impossibly buff man, this one wearing antlers, was serving drinks in little plastic cups.
“It’s a dry bar, boys,” he yelled across the table. “You want a soda?”
Quentin and Alex looked at each other.
“I know somewhere very cool we can go if you like,” Alex said. “Just across the bridge.”
Back outside it was like being exiled from Eden; both were suddenly aware of their nudity. They reclaimed their clothes from the bald man, who took their bracelets with the same blank inscrutability as before, and dressed quickly in the hallway. Quentin watched Alex out of the corner of his eye. His clothes were very simple, a white T-shirt, loose jeans, sneakers, and a faded denim jacket. They seemed almost deliberately chosen to reveal as little as possible about the wearer. Once fully clothed, they both stared at each other, as if for the first time.
Alex laughed. “You are dressed for a different party.”
The bar Alex took him to on the Lower East Side had no sign and was at the bottom of a cracked, unlit stairwell that no longer looked in use.
“Careful,” Alex said, turning to offer his hand.
Inside, the space was small and cavelike, diffuse red light pooling on the sticky mahogany bar top and smudged mirror behind. Arranged on the shelves above the glowing liquor bottles was a collection of samovars. Squat round tables and spindly wooden chairs faced a slightly elevated stage. Men sat slumped around the tables, and Quentin had the sensation that they never left, were as permanent to the place as the chairs and the samovars. Alex greeted the elderly bartender and chatted easily in Russian while he poured three tumblers of vodka.
“Nostrovia!” they said.
Each downed his glass in one long, luxuriating gulp, gesturing for Quentin to do the same. The bartender was already refilling his and Alex’s drinks as Quentin choked down his.
“Another,” said Alex. He affected his thickest Slavic accent. “Tonight, you drink like Russian.”
“I have to go to the bathroom,” said Quentin.
“Okay. Hurry, there is also a performance starting now.”
In the bathroom Quentin tapped the remainder of the vial onto the metal toilet paper dispenser, an object seemingly designed for this very activity, and slid out his credit card. There was enough for two short but decently plump lines, not ideal but enough to form a break in the clouds of vodka already overcasting his mind. He took a short straw out of his wallet and snorted the first line. Delicious. He briefly considered saving the second line for later, then immediately hoovered it up through the other nostril.
When he reappeared, the performance had started. On the stage, in a silver pool of light, a woman was singing. She was sinuously thin in a strappy gold dress plunging low between her small breasts. Her bony knees and ankles protruded from beneath a pair of fishnet stockings. Alex gestured for them to take a seat at one of the tables closest to the stage and brought a carafe of vodka and two tumblers from the bar. Spotting him, the singer blew a kiss in his direction. He nodded and covered his heart with his palm. She cast her long, dark eyelashes down and swayed slightly from side to side, singing in a low voice that sounded like a needle ripping through silk.
Alex poured each of them another glass and downed his in one smooth, practiced movement. Quentin drank his down too as Alex nodded approvingly. At this distance, Quentin could see that the singer’s complexion, despite the white powder she’d caked on, was the sour color of white wine. Along her chin the dark shadow of stubble was beginning to show, and Quentin felt, in spite of himself, a shiver of horror. Not being able to pass, that was his greatest fear.
They sat drinking without speaking as the singer performed. She swayed and the men swayed too, mirroring her, and soon the room was swaying, the walls and the floor and the little army of samovars, and Quentin had the sensation that they were all being pulled, back and forth, by that constant rocking motion of the singer’s hips. He wondered what Cleo would think if she could see him here. She would never find herself in a place like this with a person like Alex—itinerant, mysterious, perhaps a little dangerous. Or maybe at one point she would have, but not now, not after meeting Frank. Her marriage had given her access to a world he would never know. She would not admit it, perhaps would never consciously know it, but she had left him behind. She had become acceptable.
Finally the singer spoke softly into the microphone and pressed her palms together. Quentin understood that it was her final song. As the first notes played, a murmur of recognition rippled through the bar, and the men began to clap steadily in time.
“Ah!” Alex said, clapping too. “This is very famous Russian song. From the gypsies.”