I LAY NAKED in the dirt next to the gravel drive. My eyes fluttered open as Scamp sidled up against me. His three legs quivered while he licked my face. I was covered in sweat, skin hot from the morning sun. It was then I realized that I’d spent the night outside. Unconscious, naked, alone.
Richard’s BMW appeared on the driveway in the distance. Scamp sprinted into the brush. I stayed motionless in the dirt. The engine’s purr quieted. Richard stepped out.
“Are you all right?” he asked, helping me to my feet. His index and middle finger were tied together in a splint.
I felt sick.
“I was so worried about you,” he gushed, clearing a strand of oiled hair from my face. “No one could find you last night. You just vanished.”
“I . . . I . . .” I was exhausted, disoriented, unable to make sense of Richard’s effusive concern. Why this sudden kindness?
“Let’s get you back inside, get some clothes on you.”
“No.” I recoiled. “I’m not going back inside.”
“Jonah, you’re not making sense,” Richard said, concerned. “You’ve been lying out here all night. It’s not healthy.”
“Open the gate.”
“You’re scaring me, Jonah.”
“I said, open the gate.”
“But you’re not wearing clo—”
“Just open it.”
Richard punched the code into the box. The iron gate shuddered to life. “No one’s keeping you here, Jonah. If you don’t want to stay the summer . . .” Richard trailed off, his gaze shifting to the road beyond the compound.
I looked out at the empty lot across the street. Its summer-scorched desolation stood in contrast to the lush wildflower fields behind Richard’s iron walls. Earlier in the week, Richard mentioned that a developer had been sitting on the plot of land for over two years, her plans for it thwarted by the 2008 recession. Ground had been broken and left abandoned; weeds now sprang from the churned soil. My gaze extended farther, about half a mile down the road, where the lot gave way to a thick forest. There, among the trees, stood a quaint home, a Hamptons classic, with gray shingled siding and a screened front porch.
A light flickered on in the living room. Someone inside.
My legs stiffened, ready to run.
I felt like I was in the third act of a horror film, the part where the final girl emerges from the clutches of the monster and stumbles toward freedom, toward that house on the horizon, toward the strangers who will aid her escape, who will put an end to this nightmare, who will give her shelter and dress her wounds and call the police and wait for the sirens to wail.
The end.
Except it wasn’t. I put myself in the final girl’s blood-caked Keds. After the credits rolled, where would I go? Back to the city? In just two days, Ghost Dick would return and I would be forced to find a new sublet, an undertaking made nearly impossible by the fact that I had fifty-six dollars in my checking account. I would have to earn money, but how? I’d need a job, but the idea of procuring employment in four days in New York City seemed highly unlikely. Even if a miracle occurred and I found a job immediately, I would still need to work there long enough to accrue sufficient funds for the first month’s rent plus, possibly, a security deposit. There was the option of finding a street corner or a park bench—it was summer, after all; I wouldn’t freeze, and I had just one duffel bag, a light load to carry for a few nights. But what if those few nights turned into a whole string of nights, which turned into a month, which turned into permanent homelessness?
My mother. If I could just get her on the phone. Get her to send money. If I could somehow repair the torched bridge between us, build something new from the ashes. But that too was a risk. My every attempt at communication had been thwarted by her impenetrable silence. I could perhaps grab her attention with the truth, recount the awful events of the summer via text message, but then I would be forced to confront something more dreadful than her silence: her judgment. Surely it was my sin, the shameful fact of my sexuality, that led me to the exact place promised in the ex-gay books we’d read together as a family. It always started with gay sex, these Christian authors warned, and soon devolved into rape and bondage and pedophilia and bestiality. She would demand that I return to Illinois, stay with her, attend conversion-therapy sessions. Maybe we’d even try that camp she’d heard about; maybe she’d send me away until I was finally fixed, until the sin had been beaten out of me once and for all. Suddenly, my fantasies of reuniting with my family, the manic surge of hope I’d experienced while running for my life the previous night, seemed preposterous. My mother would never change.
And my father was a ghost. Because of what I’d done to him.
The sun vanished, blocked by a cloud. I shivered, remembering my nakedness. I would, what—show up on this random Hamptons doorstep wearing nothing, coated with dirt and blood, and practically scare an innocent family to death? They’d more likely call the cops on me, not for me. There’s a naked man trying to break into our house! the father would shout into his phone as his young daughter cried on the couch and I pounded on their front door. Send someone quick, Officer. He seems dangerous.
I stared out at the open field.
Richard’s voice brought me back. He’d been speaking, though I hadn’t heard what he’d said.
“What?” I managed dumbly.
“I said I’m sorry.”
I turned, was shocked to see him crying.
“I . . . I thought you’d have fun. I thought you liked it rough.”
“That wasn’t rough, that was . . .” I stopped myself, afraid to say something I would be unable to retract. I took in the stunning expanse behind Richard. “Our little slice of gay heaven” he’d called it while cradling me in his arms during our first night here, his embrace a promise of protection. Gay and heaven were two words I’d never believed could exist in the same sentence, but anything felt possible in this magical setting. Healing felt possible. As I looked at Richard now, it seemed inconceivable that I’d been raped here, among the wildflowers, surrounded by people I trusted, my new family. I couldn’t say rape because naming it would make it real; Richard and I would never return from that word. I’d be banished forever from this compound, from the man I adored.
“Jonah, I would never hurt you,” Richard whispered, stepping closer. “I . . . I love you.”
His words made my head spin, as competing realities fought for space in my brain. Richard wouldn’t rape me. Richard loved me. The words I’d wished for all summer.
“I love you too,” I murmured, collapsing into his arms. It was a phrase I’d never uttered to any man but my father.
“So you’ll stay?”
“Yes, I’ll stay.”
Gay heaven again. That night, Richard made spaghetti alla Norma with fresh eggplant from his own garden, a sauce he’d learned to make under the tutelage of a private chef at the Italian villa of one of his friends, an eccentric baroness he’d known for ages who often hosted famous authors and screenwriters and movie stars at her crumbling Tuscan paradise, and Oh, we should travel there this fall, Richard insisted as the pasta boiled, fall is the best time to visit Italy, the time when the crowds vanish and the temperature cools and the grapes are ready for harvest, yes, that’s it, Italy in September and then somewhere tropical for Thanksgiving, maybe St. Barts, and then of course we’ll do Paris for New Year’s, it’ll be fucking freezing and the crowds will be a nightmare, but, oh, Paris at New Year’s is worth it, we’ll stay at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée, but any of these plans can be altered should you finish your play and should Charles select you for his Lincoln Center workshop—which he almost certainly will—and we’ll simply adjust our vacation plans accordingly. I listened to Richard and swooned, so glad I’d stayed, giddy at the prospect of our life together. The events in the basement seemed so distant, so impossible, so foggy, like a long-forgotten night terror.
“I have a surprise for you,” Richard said the following morning, grinning from the driver’s seat of his BMW as we sped down Montauk Highway.
You sat in the back seat, Mace, silent next to Sandro.
What were you thinking that morning? Did you know about my night spent outside? Had Richard told Sandro of my attempted escape? I have so many questions, questions I didn’t dare ask that morning. I chose to interpret your presence as proof that what happened was normal. There you were in the back seat, smiling at the green expanse speeding past your window. Unfazed. Content, even. You’d been to the basement before and you’d emerged unscathed. You were happy to be here, and if you could be happy, then why shouldn’t I be happy? I remembered the words you’d offered as you opened the basement hatch that night: It’s a little strange at first. That’s all it was, strange. A strange little episode.
“Here we are!” Richard exclaimed as he pulled into a parking lot.
It was a church. A small brick building with a steeple and a circular stained-glass window above its wrought-iron doors. My pulse quickened. I had not stepped into a church since leaving Illinois, since destroying my family. I did not want to enter one now.
“A church?” I asked. Richard turned to me, registered my frown.
“Oh, honey, no.” Richard laughed. “My poor little ex-ex-gay. This is a former church and a current clothing store. We’re treating you boys to a little Sunday shopping spree.”
The interior had been converted into a stunning boutique, the pews removed and replaced with racks of high-end clothing. The stained-glass windows were preserved, with the stations of the cross illuminating a new crop of saints: McQueen, Gaultier, Prada. I was filled with relief. It was as if religion had been rendered powerless by commerce—holy shrines removed by enterprising architects and replaced with rows and rows of new things to worship. Things to buy. Things much easier to obtain than God’s forgiveness.
I loaded my arms with jeans and T-shirts and button-downs and floated toward the fitting room. You have no power over me, I screamed to God in my mind. Our Father failed to retaliate—no plague of locusts descended on Southampton. I didn’t turn into a pillar of salt. Proof that I was free from the wrath of His judgment. Free to do whatever I wanted with Richard.
“I’ll wait by the register,” Richard announced after I’d modeled my final look.
“Hey,” you said minutes later, stopping me as I emerged from my fitting room. “That stuff looked great on you.”
“Oh, thanks,” I replied. I was surprised by your warmth, given how cold you’d been toward me. “You too.”
“Just wanted to make sure you’re . . . okay.” Your voice diminished to a faint whisper.
“Yeah . . .” I hesitated. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
We paused, both afraid to summon memories from the basement.
“Sandro is so good to me,” you said abruptly, an answer to a question no one had asked. We watched him from afar as he dug through a pile of T-shirts. “I’d be no one without him. I mean, he’s the one who got me the role in his superhero movie. And it’s not just Sandro—everyone on the compound is so generous.”
“I know, Richard’s been wonderful,” I agreed. This was a much safer topic: the sugar our daddies supplied. All that uncomplicated sweetness.
“You’re a part of the family now.” You said family with surprising warmth, like you wanted this just as much as I did. “Wanna be my big brother?”
“Sure.” I laughed.
“We’re so lucky.”
“So lucky,” I echoed, grateful to have you as my mirror. You provided a reflection that was easy to look at, a reality I wanted to believe in.
I’ve found my new family, I thought. And they’ll keep me safe forever.
“That’ll be three thousand, four hundred, and sixty-seven dollars,” the cashier said after ringing up my purchases. I looked to Richard, worried he would berate me for the shocking sum. But he just smiled and swiped his credit card.
“How about that total!” He chuckled. “We did some serious damage.”
“All sales are final,” the cashier continued. “Our summer-clearance items can’t be returned.”
“Oh, not to worry, these are definite keepers. Keepers for my keeper.” Richard planted a kiss on my forehead.
I turned and looked back to where you stood with Sandro, the two of you locked in hushed disagreement behind a rack of leather jackets. You shoved the rack in anger, the punctuation to a furious whisper. The jackets crashed to the floor. You stormed out, and Sandro followed. I turned to Richard, who just rolled his eyes and laughed.
“It’s always something with those two,” he said.
Later, I unwrapped my bounty in Richard’s bedroom. Torn tissue paper sat in a delicate dome on the mattress. I shuttled back and forth from the bedroom to the walk-in closet, where, thirty minutes earlier, Richard had cleared a vast swath of space for my—really, his—purchases. “Your own little section,” he’d cooed as he tossed an armful of his dress shirts to the ground. “In our closet.”
He watched from the bed as I ripped the last item from its swaddling: a simple black Alexander Wang T-shirt that cost $270.
“It’s too much,” I’d said, reexamining the price tag.
“No, it’s just enough,” he said, watching me wriggle into the shirt. “It’s gorgeous.”
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. It was my phone, buried beneath the tissue paper.
“Someone’s eager to get hold of you,” Richard muttered, tension creeping into his tone.
“I have no idea who it could be.”
“Maybe your other boyfriend, coming to rescue you from my clutches.” He forced an edgy laugh.
“I’m sure that’s it,” I joked flatly.
“Let’s find out.”
Richard brushed the paper onto the floor. He picked up my phone, frowning.
“‘Dad’?” he said, reading the caller ID, then holding it out for me to see.
“I . . . I . . . that can’t be . . .” My mind spiraled into oblivion. What could my father possibly want? I stared at my phone. Its glow was menacing.
“I thought you said your father was dead. Brain cancer?”
“I . . . I lied.”
Richard pressed Decline. “Perhaps you should explain yourself.”