Page 6 of What I've Tasted of Desire

“He’s gonna hurt him again…”

The voice was as strong and as clear as if someone was standing beside me screaming it into my ear. I took one step forward, and then another. Once I reached the corner, I stopped and crouched down behind an unwieldy bush jutting out between the fence and the street corner. I could barely see the two of them walking half a block ahead. They had crossed the street and were headed towards Fifth Avenue. The neighborhood only got worse from here. When I was growing up, I was forbidden to go past Fifth.

The area wasn’t as awful as my mother thought, but it was far from the best. The gangs mainly stayed towards the south end of the city. The people down here were just, well, poor. There were a lot of homeless and some drug addicts, but there weren't shootouts every night. Not that I had ever heard about, anyway.

I kept myself low, and towards the back of the sidewalk as I closed a little bit of the distance between the two boys and myself. I crossed the street and stood behind the metal dumpster at the mini-mart as the taller boy boosted the shorter one up and over the chain-link fence towards the woods.

Once they had disappeared past the treeline, I approached the fence. It was at least eight feet tall, and the top had already started to cave in on itself. There was no way I was getting over it without the whole bar collapsing. Even if it would hold, I probably didn’t have the strength to pull myself up and over.

“Fuck!”

Chapter Four

When I walked back through the front door of the house, it was still empty. Not surprising—Dad didn’t even get off work for another two hours, and then he’d reward himself for a hard day’s work for three or four hours sitting at the bar.

I called his cell shortly after mom took her last breath, but it had gone straight to voicemail. One would think that your wife being on her literal deathbed would be reason enough to keep close tabs on your phone… but, what the fuck did I know?

The sight of that piece of shit assaulting the boy played across my mind like a film screen, followed by another burst of fury.

You should have protected him! You’re weak and pathetic…

I balled my hand into a fist as blind rage took over and tears pooled in the corners of my eyes, threatening to fall free.

I never could have protected him, anyway. “Look at yourself, you pathetic fuck…” I whimpered aloud, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirrored panels at the back of mom’s china cabinet.

That was the moment that everything changed. Something inside me had galvanized; changed on an alchemical level by the boy on the sidewalk. His honey eyes swam in my vision; my angry heartbeat throbbed in my throat. I pulled my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans, and, after a quick Google search, I pressed the call button.

“Emberford Family Fitness.”

“Uhh… hi. I was wondering if you guys had personal trainers.”

“We sure do! Can I have your membership number so I can pull up a schedule for you?”

The girl sounded nice, A little ditzy, but nice.

“I’m not currently a member,” I admitted, discomfort burning my gut.

“Oh, well, wonderful! Thank you for giving us a chance. My name is Monica. Have you ever visited any of our facilities in the past?”

“No.”

“No worries. Can you tell me a little about your fitness goals?”

“I’m gay and fat, which is a bad combination,” I blurted out. “There’s nothing I can do about the gay part, so the weight will have to go.”

“Oh, don’t say that.” Her voice was like hot chocolate, warm and sweet. “Everyone is different, and everyone has things about themselves they want to work on. We also don’t like mean self-talk. We like to say, for example, that someone is just starting their fitness journey.”

The snort came out faster than I could stop it. “Uhh… okay.”

After a moment’s pause: “I’d love the opportunity to show you around the facility and have you meet some of our trainers and staff. I can do 3:30 this afternoon.”

I still had to deal with my father once he finally stumped in the door.

“Today’s not great for me, actually. Do you have anything available tomorrow?”

“9 AM?”

“I’ll see you then.”

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