Chapter One
When the taxi dropped Luis off at 95th Street and Riverside Drive, the sun had just begun to rise. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his white dinner jacket, handed it to the driver, and took a quick look at his face in the rearview mirror. Though his dark beard was beginning to show, his green eyes were still wide and clear and his short brown hair was as neat as it had been ten hours earlier. If he hadn’t been wearing a formal tuxedo, it would have looked as though he’d just had eight solid hours of sleep and he was on his way to the office. At twenty-one years old, he could get away with staying out all night.
He told the driver to keep the change, and jumped out of the taxi with a spring in his step and carefree smile on his face. He jogged across the street without looking both ways and ignored the honking horns, as if the passing cars were merely an inconvenience. When one car screeched to a stop avoid running him down, he didn’t even turn his head. At the edge of the park, he walked up to a food vendor who was setting his cart up for the day. He bought a hot pretzel and a small bottle of Virgin Alaskan Spring Water, his favorite brand.
He took a large bite from the pretzel and walked over to an empty park bench with a view of the river. Before he sat down, he checked to be sure the seat was dry. It was one of those dewy mornings in early May, without a cloud in the sky or a breeze in the air, and he didn’t want a wet stain on his tuxedo. He suspected that by noon, it would be warm and sunny enough to wear shorts and a T-shirt. The joggers and power walkers had already begun to infiltrate the park.
While they passed Luis on the bench, with their arms bobbing and their red faces pinched and sweaty, Luis pulled out his iPhone and opened his bottle of water.
Then he crossed his legs and shifted his weight to the right. He lifted the phone, pressed an application, and sighed out loud. When his favorite Web site appeared on the small screen, he smiled and held the phone closer. There was a brand-new post on his favorite blog that would help him get through the rest of the day. This particular blog, for Luis, was like a dose of medicine. All he had to do, whenever he felt jaded or disappointed, was to look at the familiar banner at the top of the Web site and his heart stopped racing.
Elena’s Romantic Treasures and Tidbits was a web site created by a beautiful young woman in France named Elena who had a passion for artistic photos of handsome gay men.
Some of the photos were nudes; others were either partially or fully clothed. But they all had one thing in common: a dramatic, imaginative flair that couldn’t be reproduced anywhere else.
Whether it was vintage or brand new, each photo was one of a kind. There were days when she posted three or four new photos, and each one had a short, but inspiring, blog post to accompany it. Sometimes she even posted reviews about gay books she’d read, with unusual book covers.
Though she was a straight woman, everything about the blog was oriented toward gay men and the people who loved and appreciated exquisite photos of gay men. Luis had been following Elena’s blog for two years, and he’d never been disappointed by anything she’d posted.
This particular morning, Elena had posted a photo of a handsome young man on a long white leather lounge chair. His muscular arms were up over his head, there was a straightforward—almost enticing—half grin on his face, and he was wearing only a loose pair of gray boxer briefs that looked as though he’d been wearing them for a couple of days. He had a rough goatee and serious furrowed eyebrows. But his dark brown eyes were wide and innocent, as if he wasn’t sure why he was even posing this way. The briefs were bunched up between his hairy legs and the tip of his thick penis was sticking out of the right leg opening. He wasn’t erect, but the head of his penis was larger than most. Below the photo, there was a nice little post about the model, explaining where the photo had been taken and some basic information about the photographer.
Luis adjusted his body and read the post slowly so he wouldn’t get confused. French Elena wrote all her blog posts in broken English that was just as endearing as her soothing comments. Some sentences were difficult to understand; she had a tendency to use the English words in the wrong places, throwing the sentence structure into a wild tailspin. But with each comment she made, in spite of the way it was written—or perhaps because of it—the world seemed like a much nicer place to be.
Luis didn’t visit Elena’s blog site just to see naked men. Actually, there was very little about the site that aroused him sexually. He went there for the beauty and the truth, and to admire the artistic qualities other Web sites about gay men couldn’t seem to capture. Even the overall design of Elena’s site was different from others. Her banner was robin’s egg blue, the color of a Tiffany’s shopping bag. There were tiny, ornate golden scrolls and Florentine patterns surrounding the blue background that created a classic, sophisticated look. The name of the blog was done in gold script, with large wispy letters that had soft round curls and wiry turns. The understated elegance and simplicity combined with a formal, classic approach created a feeling of hope and stability Luis couldn’t seem to find anywhere else in his life.
He read the blog post about the young man in the creased underwear three times without looking up from his phone once. While he finished the pretzel and the water, he stared at the photo until he knew every detail about the model and the setting. Sometimes Luis even left comments on the blog thread, thanking Elena for writing a good post, and she always replied to all her comments later in the day with a gracious note of thanks to each individual person.
But that morning he didn’t leave a comment. It was getting late. When he was finished reading, he put the phone back into his pocket and yawned. Then he stood up, adjusted his jacket, and started walking back to Riverside Drive. He had an appointment later that afternoon and he wanted to go back to his apartment for a few hours’ sleep. It was almost seven in the morning. If he went home now, he could get at least five hours’ sleep.
A few minutes later, he walked up to the front door of his building and searched his pockets for his key. While he was looking for the key, he glanced across the street and noticed a familiar man sitting in a dark car. Luis bit his lip and lowered his head, then he stepped to the side so he could lean against the wall. He didn’t want the man in the car to see him going into the building.
Luis lived in one of those older apartment buildings, where you could either enter through the front door with a key or press the buzzer so someone inside the building could unlock the door and let you in. He checked his jacket pockets first, then his pants pockets, but he couldn’t find the damn key again. So he shrugged, rolled his eyes, and pressed the button below his landlord’s name a few times.