Page 7 of Dark Passion

In between guzzling down my soda and reaching for a warm open beer, Mason managed to talk to me without choking. “I couldn’t change. You see you caught me by surprise... I didn’t expect to see anyone from my past.”

He was driving a cab in Manhattan for fuck’s sake. What the fuck was he talking about? Maybe he thought no one would recognize him, but I did, and if I knew who he was under all that filth and beard, then others probably had too, but didn’t say anything. Perhaps they didn’t want to get involved. I got involved out of need and because I knew how far Mason had fallen.

I almost didn’t offer any help because I didn’t want to shame him. When I turned to talk to Mason, he was standing at the door of the restroom. “Can I take a shower and crash here a few nights until I get myself together? I’ve got a few days off—”

“You don’t have to ask me twice. Of course you can. I remember the times when I showed up at your door looking for a place to hang out after I couldn’t take Julian any longer.” I lowered my head and raised it after considering what I was about to ask Mason. “Look, Mason, I need a favor.”

“Anything.” That was how I remembered that cute shy guy, always offering to help someone.

“I need help finding a dude. This is for my fiancé. The dude is one of his clients. Before you agree to this, you need to know his background. His name is Charles St. John.” Mason’s hands shot up covering his mouth. When they came down he had this stunned look on his face.

“No. You must be shitting me. Charlie?TheCharlie St. John?” Yes, that’s Charlie. A pain in the ass and a sexual manic. However, I didn’t tell Mason the full story. I left out a few details, not because he wouldn’t believe me, but he’d be the few men who would, and he might want to run because Charlie was no walk in the park, unless he was looking for adventure of the sexual kind. And that was him.

“You don’t have to tell me more. I’ll contact some of my friends I met at work, and ask them if they know where he’s gone off to. They’d know if no one else would. Let me take a shower and a shave, and—”

“And help yourself to those clothes in my closet. I’ve never worn them. Didn’t have the time nor the inclination.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course.” He picked up his backpack, walked behind me, and turned on the shower. Since I’d completed my shave and cleaned up, I closed the door and readied myself to see Julian. I leaned and glared into the mirror, and murmured, “Are you ready to see the man who you’ve always been afraid of? I can do this. Walk in there, and demand that he back off. Do you expect him to?” I murmured and answered my own question as I glared at myself in the mirror. “Hell no.”Then you’d better have a plan B. I thought. I glanced around and Mason was standing in the doorway looking transformed. “Wow, that was quick.”

“Yeah like a teenager going to the prom with his favorite guy.” I saw a sad look cross his face and his eyes fell, but when his eyes rose they met mine and a beautiful smile tugged at his lips.

“Now you look like the cute guy I met years ago.” He placed his palms on his hair and smoothed his shoulder-length hair down. He looked much younger all cleaned up, and after a shave and new clothes. He glanced down at the dirty boots he’d set to the side.

“Now all I need is a pair of shoes. I guess these will have to do because we’re not the same size.”

“Go in there and clean them up. I bet you’d be surprised how they look once you get all that crud off. You know everyone’s wearing scuffed-up boots.”

He grinned, but that was what he needed.

Mason returned quickly, pleased with the way he’d attended to his shoes, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and said, “I had to learn to do things fast. I had a quick shower, and I was eager to try on those clothes,” he said,” I saw the guy in the mirror I knew years ago. “I haven’t worn something like this since...” He paused to remember when. “I was kicked out of my mansion. You left yours out of your own volition, but I was thrown out with nothing, and to this day I still don’t know why.” The small bright smile disappeared from Mason’s face, replaced by a sadness in his eyes, one I’d seen before when I glanced in the mirror then and now.

“You knew what it was, Mason, because you told me a few years ago. Your boyfriend had gotten tired of you because he wanted someone younger—”

“And what I revealed was partially the truth. He wanted me to accept another man in our bed. I’d done and been everything to him. I did all he asked of me because I wanted to make him happy, but that wasn’t enough. I couldn’t accept someone else when he declared I was his true love when we first met, and I’d given everything I had to him. Then he treated me so loving, but he turned on me when I wasn’t expecting him to behave the way he did.” Mason stared at me, but he wasn’t seeing me. “You were able to get out without scars,” he said.

What Mason didn’t understand, didn’t want to admit, or if he did, he didn’t say. There were scars that weren’t seen. They’d hide like a thief and steal your soul, and that was what I suspected had happened to Mason. Something took everything from him, and left him empty, probably without even his dignity. But I’d give him credit, because he did try to work, even if it was forced, and he hadn’t given up from what I could see of him, and he hadn’t yet given in to life’s uncertainties.

Finally I got around to tell Mason what it was I wanted from him. “The favor I need is for you to drive me to Julian’s, and wait for me however long it takes for me to come out of that place. Can you do that?”

“Absolutely, because like I said, I pull a twenty-four hour shift most days, and you’re my friend. All I have to do is call in and tell them I’ll need the car for another day. They have plenty of cars sitting in the garage with no drivers. They’re giving the cars away, not the medallions of course, those cost more than I will ever be able to afford. That’s a great business to get into if I had some money and you’re looking to make an investment. I missed my chance when my father offered to cosign for me and I had money to burn, but that’s another story, my friend.”

He called me friend several times, and I believed him, because I needed a friend now as much as he wanted one. “I’ll pay you, of course, and give you a bonus and overtime for the time you lose doing this.”

Mason just listened, and on the surface it looked like a good deal, but sometimes everything that looked good wasn’t always good for you. I hoped for my sake and his it wasn’t true.

“Just tell me what I have to do, even if it goes beyond dropping you off and waiting. I’m your guy.”

“Help me find St. John and I’ll see what I can do for you.” Mason had been a first generation American of Russian descent, and began working in his father’s garage around cars, but his father and mother sold out earlier and left the country, returning to their home.

Because he didn’t want to return to Russia, because he was born and raised in New York, and still had a job as a mechanic in that garage, he opted to stay in the US alone without family.

When I first struck up a conversation with him at a club, he explained his love of cars and repairing them, and why he didn’t leave to go with his parents. Then that night when his life changed and so did mine had been an unexpected night, and the beginning and ending of our youth. We had stumbled on to a couple of predators, and because neither Mason nor I knew what to look for, because we were looking to be used and abused and loved, we found two men who made it a science in abusing young men, leaving out the love part.

I thought love could coexist with pain, and sexual pleasure, and it did, but apparently Julian did not think the way I had, or his friend, because Mason was evidence of that.

Looking at Mason, I said, “Do you have your cab parked nearby?”

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