I WAS IN the basement again.
Tied to the leather sling. Naked. Gagged. But the dim red bulbs were gone, replaced by a searing floodlight. Its blinding white glow nearly erased the room. I squinted in the direction of the glare, unable to determine its source. A masculine figure stumbled in front of the harsh beam. I couldn’t make out his face. In his hand, a blunt instrument. He stumbled closer.
And then he was on top of me, his body pressed against mine, his face still impossible to see. He raised his instrument to the sky and then brought it down with terrible force. But instead of thrusting it into my stomach, he gored his own, screamed, then collapsed onto me.
His face. So close. The figure gained definition—it was Richard. His dying breath brushed my lips.
But wait. No, it wasn’t Richard. It was Ira. No, it was Sandro. No, it was Ethel. No, it was Charles. No, it was my father. No, it was Richard.
Yes, it was Richard. I felt him shudder. Grow heavy. He was dead and I was stuck here forever. Tethered, forgotten, alone.
I screamed.
Suddenly, I was back in Richard’s bed. It was morning and I was fine. Just another nightmare.
Shaking, I turned to my right. Richard was gone. I stumbled into the living room searching for him and found a note on the dining table next to an open box of granola and a pot of lukewarm coffee.
At the farmers’ market. Be back soon.
Love you,
R
RAYMOND: Why don’t you spend the summer here, Jacob?
JACOB: But what about my job in the city?
RAYMOND: What about it? When you’re here with me, everything is taken care of.
JACOB: Including me?
RAYMOND: Especially you, Jacob.
It sucked. Of that much I was certain. I slumped over my laptop, defeated. Nothing could fix this shit play. Raymond and Jacob felt as false as their pseudonyms, like two-dimensional cutouts with cardboard hearts.
Richard was still at the farmers’ market. Three cups of cold coffee did nothing to erase my hangover from the previous day; beach rosé had turned into dinner rosé had turned into late-night rosé. I’d been trying to drink enough to black out, hoping that obliterating my consciousness would stop my recurring nightmares. It hadn’t worked and now here I was, struggling to scrub another horrific dream from my memory. Every time I attempted to write a line of dialogue for Raymond, I saw Richard’s agonized face, saw his mouth dripping with blood, saw the dream basement drowned in white.
Which reminded me of the real basement.
And then my thoughts abandoned fantasy for reality. I was back in the actual sling, in the actual basement, with actual bodies circling my own. It was worse than a nightmare because it was real. The stuff of snuff films.
I could have died that night.
I attempted to suppress my rising panic. But once the phrase lodged itself in my brain, it was impossible to remove. I could have died that night. The more I tried not to think about the basement, the more I thought about the basement. I could have died that night. That one thought put an end to the intricate narrative of denial I’d constructed, the delusion that allowed me to believe that I was safe, that Richard loved me. Richard didn’t love me, Richard raped me, watched as his friends raped me, heard my screams and did nothing. I felt so stupid, so ashamed that I had somehow allowed him to seduce me in the aftermath, that I had believed him when he told me he loved me, that I was so desperate for love that I would forgive everything after a fucking shopping trip.
I could have died that night.
Wake the fuck up, Jonah.
Before I knew it, I had erased the scene on my laptop, erased the entire play, deleted Raymond and Jacob, and written the real story, the one I’d pushed to the back of my mind. This scene wasn’t good either, there was no poetry here, no dramatic arc; it was nearly incoherent, but somehow it contained more truth than the bullshit I’d labored over that summer. I typed without thinking, typed the things I should’ve said when I was at that gate, when I faced freedom and flinched.
JONAH: Let me go, you fucking asshole. I deserve more than your abuse, you sick fuck, let me go let me go let me go
RICHARD: But Jonah, I love you—
JONAH: You don’t fucking love me. This isn’t love. This is abuse, this is a sickness that’s infected my fucking mind and my heart and I will never forgive you for what happened in that basement, you sick fucking joke, you twisted fucking monster, you deserve to die die die DIE DIE DIE
I stopped typing. I was exhausted. My mania receded; my temples pounded. I needed sleep. I slid from the desk chair onto the floor and nestled into the thick shag at the foot of Richard’s bed, too drained to climb onto the mattress. I was gone in an instant, fading into uninterrupted darkness. For the first time that week, the nightmares did not arrive. I drifted somewhere deep, somewhere safe.
Peace at last.
I awoke disoriented. It was evening. Richard sat at the desk reading something on my laptop. A small frown cracked the lower half of his face. I watched him for a moment, panic rousing my body. He turned and jumped when he saw me.
“You’re awake! Couldn’t make it to the bed?”
“Sorry . . . I just . . . fell asleep here.”
Richard smiled strangely. “Well, you better shower quickly. We don’t have much time.”
“Much time?”
“Before our reservation!” he said with forced cheer. “Nick and Toni’s. Remember?”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“You’re going to love it.”
“So good to see you again, Richard,” the hostess gushed. She was a handsome woman, late fifties, with a wispy brunette bob that contrasted with her tough demeanor. Her slight Boston accent was the only echo of whatever working-class pit she’d clawed her way out of to arrive here, queen of the most coveted tables on Long Island. She beamed brightly at Richard’s entrance, but I could tell she was not to be fucked with. She clocked my presence with a short, steely wince. Richard did not attempt to introduce me.
“Hello, darling. How has the season been so far?”
“I’ve missed you, Richard! Where have you been?”
“I’ve been a busy boy, but I’m here for the rest of the summer.”
“I’ve heard marvelous things about the new play; I simply can’t wait to see it,” she said, pulling two menus from the hostess stand.
“Where are we sitting tonight?”
“I have a table in the front if you’ll just follow me.” She led us into the dining room. Dusk filtered in through the windows that lined the restaurant’s perimeter, casting a purple pall over the bone-white interior. The cottage-like comfort of the room did little to ease my nerves. Richard had remained oddly upbeat throughout our car ride to the restaurant, keeping the conversation fixed on the weather, never once mentioning what he’d discovered on my laptop. I was too fearful to broach the subject myself, and I nursed the faint hope that he had somehow not read what I’d written earlier that day. Regret, stronger than the rage that had inspired my tirade, consumed my thoughts.
How can I have been so fucking stupid?
“Enjoy,” the hostess said as she sat us. She beamed at Richard, frowned at me, then vanished.
Did I even mean the things I wrote? Or was I just exhausted, cranky, not thinking straight?
“That is the most powerful woman in the Hamptons.” Richard shook his head in admiration. “Trust me—we wouldn’t have gotten this table if my play had been a flop.”
I perused the menu, feigning interest in food. Panic ballooned in my chest, making it difficult to breathe. Maybe he didn’t actually read it.
“You want the chicken,” Richard decreed. “It’s everyone’s favorite.”
“Okay,” I murmured.
Maybe I woke up before he had a chance to scroll through the document.
“Well, hello, Richard,” our waiter said as he approached. “It’s been a while.”
“Yes, I’m finally home,” Richard cooed.
He would have brought it up by now if he’d read it.
“Your usual?”
“Times two,” he said, motioning toward me. “It’s his first time.”
I’m surely in the clear at this point.
“Well, lucky for you, you’re dining with the expert,” our waiter chirped in my direction. I felt a sudden urge to pulp his face with my fists.
“Lucky me,” I managed.
“Jonah, we need to talk,” Richard said once the waiter had left. My rib cage tightened.
Fuck—he did read it. “About what?”
“About us.” Richard sighed. I gripped my napkin, forced myself to breathe.
“Okay . . .”
“I love you, Jonah, I really do. But sometimes love isn’t enough.”
“What . . . what do you mean?”
“We’re in such different places in our lives. And sometimes it’s hard to bridge that gap of experience. I mean, I’m old enough to be your father. I just feel like there’s a bit of a disconnect because of our age difference.”
“So this isn’t about . . . my play?” I ventured tentatively.
“You mean that thing I read on your laptop today?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course not. Though I don’t know that the revisions you made were quite”—he paused, teasing me with a patronizing grimace—“successful.”
“So you’re breaking up with me?” I took a giant breath, exhaled. At last it was over. My body relaxed.
“I’m so sorry, Jonah.”
But then a realization obliterated my calm: I had no money, no home, no family, no friends, no phone, nowhere to go other than back to Richard’s compound. “I totally understand . . . it’s just . . . I was planning on spending the summer with you . . .” Tears slid down my face.
“I know . . .”
“I could maybe stay with Rashad in Montauk for the weekend, at least . . . do you still have his number in your phone?”
“I’m so sorry. I deleted it back at the beach, remember?”
“That’s . . . okay.” I sobbed in short, hushed bursts, trying not to attract attention. “Maybe I could . . . go down to Montauk. Walk around and try to find Rashad or—”
“That’s the other thing we need to discuss, Jonah.”
I wiped my cheeks and waited for Richard to continue.
“I think you should stay at the compound for a while longer.”
“That . . . that would be amazing,” I stammered. “Just for a couple weeks while I get back on my feet, figure out what I’m gonna do—”
“I think you should stay longer than a few weeks.”
“Oh . . . really?”
“I hate to do this.” Richard sighed. “But there is the issue of the money you owe me.”
I stared at him, baffled. “The money I owe you?”
“Ugh. I’m sorry, this is so awkward.”
“But I don’t owe you any money.”
“Excuse me, but you owe me a great deal of money,” Richard insisted, his tone sharpening.
“But—”
“Two months rent—twenty-two hundred dollars. The clothes I bought you—three thousand, four hundred, and sixty-seven dollars. You owe me a total of five thousand, six hundred, and sixty-seven dollars. Were you really planning on just never paying me back? Are you truly that selfish? I thought you were better than that, Jonah.”
“No . . . no . . . I . . .” Vertigo seized my skull. The room tipped.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.” Richard sighed. “But there is a way you can pay me back.”
“How?” I gripped our table for balance, bunching the white tablecloth in my fists.
“You could join our waitstaff. You’d stay on the property with the rest of the boys. There’s an extra bunk now that Evan’s gone. We pay two hundred dollars a week.”
I wanted to hurl my bread plate to the floor. Watch it shatter. Run into the night.
“We’ll put your initial salary toward the money you owe me, of course. At two hundred a week, you’ll have paid off your debt in, what, about seven months? Then, once that’s taken care of, you can start saving to make a move back to the city. It’s a pretty good deal, all things considered. Not everyone in my position would be so generous.”
“Generous?”I snapped. “This is totally fucked.”
“Jonah, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take that tone with me. I’m offering—”
“You aren’t offering shit.”
“I’m offering you a job, Jonah. Jesus.”
“What you just described is indentured fucking servitude.”
“Perhaps you’d prefer to live in the Southampton homeless shelter?”
“It’s fucking medieval, Richard.”
“Though I’m not sure the gruel they serve would satisfy your rather expensive tastes.”
“Fuck off.” I slammed my fists on our table. My fork flew to the ground.
“Is there a problem here?” the hostess barked from behind me.
The restaurant fell silent. Diners stared at me. Richard stared at me. The hostess stared at me. Her pursed lips a warning: I will fuck you up, little boy.
“No,” I mumbled, shame flushing my cheeks.
She picked up my fork. “I think you dropped this,” she hissed in my ear.
“Thank . . . thank you,” I stammered, my indignation curdling into embarrassment. I realized why Richard had brought me to Nick and Toni’s: so I wouldn’t make a scene.
“I think we both got a bit overheated,” Richard cooed after a brief silence. “I’m sorry if I was overly harsh. I know this is a lot to take in . . .”
I said nothing. Sudden fatigue turned my limbs to lead.
“But I’m only trying to help. I think this job would be good for you.”
“Sure,” I managed.
“It’s your decision, of course.”
“Of course,” I echoed numbly.
“Though I’m not quite sure what other options you have at the moment.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Wonderful! I promise it’s a great gig, especially off-season. The winter months are much less busy for the staff. We come out only about every other week or so.”
“Right.”
“So glad this all worked out. It’s a win-win for everyone, really.”
“Your chicken, sir.” A food runner placed my meal in front of me. “Excellent choice.”
The sight of the steaming carcass turned my stomach.
“And don’t worry.” Richard winked. “Dinner’s on me.”