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  “Yes. Be afraid,” he said, “be very afraid.”

  They both howled with laughter.

  “So tell me stuff. How is work?” She sobered.

  “Work is…frustrating and exhausting.”

  “And you love it?”

  “I’m a glutton for punishment,” he replied. “What about you? How’s the legal stuff?”

  “Tough, but I really like it. Don’t tell Dad but I think I’m going into Civil rights law.”

  “He’s going to blow a gasket,” Gian laughed. “But I think it’s great.”

  “He tells me there’s no money in it. He is talking like…corporate law.”

  Gian stuck a finger in his mouth like he wanted to vomit and Kayla grinned. “My sentiments exactly.”

  “Do what you want.”

  “I plan to. How come you didn’t bring anyone to dinner this year? Was it because of Grandma Smith?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “That would have been a good reason to bring someone to dinner, the most flamboyant gay boy toy I could find. I would have done him right at the table or on the table.”

  Kayla howled with laughter. A few minutes later, she sobered and met his eyes, “What about that hunky fire fighter guy, what was his name?”

  “Jeremy?”

  “Yeah. Um…he was nice.”

  “He was too nice to have to sleep alone all the time.”

  “I would have devoted some attention to that one.”

  “Believe me, I wanted to, but we had shifts from hell. We were lucky to see each other once a month. He’s living with a city counsellor now, quite a step up from a street cop.”

  “Sorry.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not ready to settle down anyway.”

  “Too much fun playing the field, eh?”

  “Don’t have time to do that either,” Gian laughed. “I did go to Fire Island last summer,” he raised his eyebrows comically.

  “And?”

  “I’ll tell you about it when you turn fifty.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  An hour later, they left the coffee shop and headed home. Sam had dinner waiting for them. They all sat down to leftover turkey.

  “Gian, I’m having a party for some of the brass tonight,” Clint told him. “You’re going to be here, right?”

  Gian made a face at Kayla who hid a smile. “Well…ah…as much as I would hate to miss such a fun filled evening, I can’t, I’m working three to eleven today.”

  “Oh.” Clint muttered. “Forgot. You’ll enjoy it, Kayla,” he added.

  “She will, she will,” Gian nodded. “She was just telling me how much she is looking forward to it.”

  Kayla hit him under the table and they both erupted into laughter.

  “Funny,” Clint clicked his tongue, looking at his wife who was grinning as well.

  Sam’s father looked over at Kayla and winked at her. “Maybe Kayla will meet a nice guy.”

  “Yuck, I’m not marrying any cop, Grandpa Smith,” she said, looking at her father and brother. “Sorry,” she added.

  “Don’t blame you there,” Gian said, getting up from the table. “Sorry, guys, I have to get ready for work.”

  By two o’clock, Gian was putting his bag into his car. “I’m sleeping at my place tonight, Dad,” Gian told Clint when he came back inside. “I’ll be in late anyway. I’ll come by tomorrow.” He came into the living room and adjusted his gun in its holster. He leaned down and kissed Sam’s mother on the cheek. “Bye Grandma Smith,” he said.

  She patted his arm. “You be careful.”

  “I will.” He went over to shake Grandpa’s Smith hand. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

  “Okay son,” he replied. “Go and give them hell.”

  “I’m not going to war, Grand Dad,” Gian laughed.

  Kayla gave him a big hug and a kiss and so did Sam. “Bye mom,” he said.

  “Thanks for the DVD player, your father and I love it.”

  “Good. I’ll rent a DVD before New Year’s and we’ll watch it together.”

  “That would be lovely.”

  “No cop movies,” Kayla called after him as he headed to the door.

  “Okay, but no cheesy love movies either.”

  She laughed. “All right and by the way it’s your move again.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he waved at her and went outside. “You can say that now since you stole my damn queen.”

  As he drove along in his car, he turned on the radio and listened to Hotel California by the Eagles. With all the snow, it didn’t feel like California. He pulled up outside of the building where he had picked up Mark Taylor the other day. It wasn’t officially three yet so he really wasn’t on duty. He had a half hour to talk Mark Taylor into doing probably the first decent thing he’d ever done in his life.

  * * * *

  It was three in the afternoon at Beaconsfield and it was the day after Christmas. Cory sat in the Television room watching some mindless Christmas show. The three rancheros, as Cory liked to call them, didn’t come on until almost midnight tonight so they were safe for the time being. This was his favourite time of day. It was quiet and they got to do what they wanted. There was no school or counselling sessions today.

  Daniel was playing ping-pong in the other room with some of the other boys. He seemed to be a very strong kid in spite of the abuse he had suffered. After it was over, he would almost seem like a normal kid in the daytime but as the sun went down, Cory could see the panic set in.

  It was a Friday, which meant there would probably be guests tonight down in the room. Paying customers that would come in for a little fun sometimes requested specific boys. He never knew a weekend of peace. He was always in demand. He couldn’t figure it out really. He wished he could because he would do something to make himself less appealing.

  When he looked in the mirror, he saw an unhappy young man with long dark curly hair and sad eyes. He didn’t think that he was especially attractive, but many men had told him he was.

  Anyway, right now, he wasn’t going to think about later. He was appreciating the moment. That’s how he lived in here, moment to moment. It’s how he’d always lived. It had been just him and his mother when he was a kid. She was a junkie and, try as she might, she just couldn’t seem to kick the habit. He was prostituting himself at twelve, trying to earn some money to buy food and pay the rent. They had been kicked out from almost every apartment his mother rented. Then he’d been arrested and when he first came to Beaconsfield, he was almost relieved…then the abuse began.

  * * * *

  Mark answered the door with a huge smile on his face. “Couldn’t stay away, eh baby?”

  Gian scowled. “Right. Something like that,” he muttered, his voice heavily laced with sarcasm. “And don’t fucking call me Baby.”

  “Sorry, … Well come in Stud, Mi Casa e Su Casa.”

  Gian walked in and looked around. It was a small crappy place with old furniture and pictures of naked men on the wall. Tacky. “Who’s your decorator?”

  Mark laughed. “Want his number?”

  “Yeah, so I can advise him to go into another line of work.”

  “You are so cute,” Mark told him. “You sure you don’t moonlight as a stand-up comic?”

  “No, I’m too busy dealing with the scum of the earth. And you can call me, Detective…my name isn’t Stud either.”

  “Ah.” Mark replied, sitting down on the sofa. “So, since I imagine you didn’t come here to ask me to dinner, what can I do for you?”

  Gian walked over to the window, “I think you and I want the same thing, even though it’s for different reasons. We want to see those guards behind bars, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Gian turned around and looked at him. “But you got to give me more to go on.”

  “I’m not making any statement to incriminate myself.”

  “What if I was able to get some sort of guarantee that you wouldn’t be prosecuted?”

  “You
could do that?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh God baby, so powerful, you’re giving me a hard on now,” he rubbed his thigh and winked.

  “You do realize,” Gian said, “that you came to a police station and confessed to a cop that you had sexually abused boys in custody?”

  “I…I never said I…and I told you I’d deny it.”

  “My word against yours. Anyway, I could arrest you right here if I wanted to.” He unhooked the cuffs from his belt.

  “For what?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “If I gave a statement, you could guarantee I wouldn’t go to jail?” Mark stammered.

  “I don’t know. That depends on how much you’re willing to tell me.”

  “What do you want to know exactly?” He looked nervous.

  “I want to know how they solicit clients for the purposes of prostitution. I want to know names of guards, of clients, of boys. That’s a good start. Then I want you to describe to me exactly what is going on in there, what you witnessed.”

  “In detail?”

  “In detail,” Gian replied.

  “All right. Sit down and I’ll…”

  Gian shook his head. “Not here, downtown. Come on.”

  Mark sighed. “Damn, there goes my chance at seduction.”

  “Maybe you can track down a pedophile and tell him your stories, I’m sure he’ll be jumping you in no time.”

  “Ha, ha, funny guy,” Mark said and they headed to the car.

  * * * *

  Tonight, they were all brought downstairs as soon as the shift changed. It was Tim with the big earring that came and got them tonight.

  They were all stripped naked before they entered and paraded in front of four men, all over fifty. One man was smoking a big cigar. He went to Daniel and pulled him around so his back was facing him then dragged him into the other room.

  Cory closed his eyes as he heard him scream. After a few seconds, he made a move toward the closed door but, Ace put a hand on his arm. “Don’t, Cory, it will be worse for you.”

  “Someone has got to do something,” Cory insisted.

  “You got a lot to say over there sweetie,” another man said, standing up now. “Come here,” he demanded. The man had handcuffs. He handcuffed Cory’s hands together. “Get down on your knees and crawl,” he barked.

  Ace was being brought over to him now. One of the men spanked him with a paddle. He was blindfolded, a steel bar placed in his mouth.

  As Cory performed fellatio on the man, he felt Ace enter him.

  “That’s it,” the stranger cooed to him. “You like that…now for some real fun.”

  Cory moaned in pain as Daniel screamed in the background.

  * * * *

  Gian placed a hand over his eyes as Mark described some of the sexual torture that took place in the bowels of the Beaconsfield institution. “It was stimulating. No taboos, you know. You would have been getting off yourself,” Mark told him.

  Gian reached over the conference table at that point and grabbed Mark by the neck. He pulled him halfway across the table. “You son of a bitch.” He yanked him closer, shaking him as two other cops in the room tried to pull him off. “You stood there and let this happen. You fucking piece of—”

  “Take a break,” one of the cops told him.

  Gian’s chest was heaving. He quickly left the room. He paced for a while outside the interrogation room, swearing. How in hell could someone do these things? He had nothing against kinky sex if it was consensual, but this was not by consent, this was imposing your will on helpless children, forcing them to do sex acts with complete strangers. Most of these men were just brutal animals. His uncle had never done things that bad to him.

  Mark Taylor was as despicable as all the rest of them as far as he was concerned and for him to suggest that he might be turned on by it, made him feel like ripping his heart out.

  He took a breath and went back in. “Okay,” he said, glaring at Mark Taylor. “I’m working on immunity for you, but I’m warning you, save your comments about what you imagine sexually arouses me because I swear to God, these guys here won’t be able to stop me from beating the crap out of you.”

  Mark grinned at him.

  “I’d listen to him if I were you,” one of the other cops told him.

  “Maybe he turns me on when he gets that look in his eye,” Mark teased, fluttering his eyes at Gian.

  Gian sat back down across from him and gave him a meaningful look, “Guess you’ll be the only dead man with a hard on.”

  The other two cops laughed and then began to fire questions at Taylor again.

  Gian was still there in the morning when Clint came in. Mark Taylor had signed a statement.

  Clint sighed after he read it. “It’s disgusting. It reads like pornography.”

  “Tell me about it. Think it’s enough to open an investigation?”

  Clint looked at Gian. “You haven’t slept.”

  “I’ll sleep later. Never mind that, what do you think?”

  “I’ll do what I can. No guarantees.”

  “I want to go in now, damn it, not tomorrow. Can’t you see what these kids are living?” Gian slammed his fist on the desk.

  “I don’t know about the immunity for Taylor.” Clint sighed.

  “Look the guy is a shit, but I kind of promised him.”

  “How are they getting the men to go there?”

  “Internet.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yeah. They have a private chat room that appeals to men who like boys. They give them a location, then go meet them and bring them there blindfolded so they don’t know where it is. After they become regulars, doesn’t matter if they know the location.”

  “You want to go as a client or a guard?”

  “A guard.”

  Clint nodded and got up out of his seat. “I’ll talk to some people. Go home and sleep. I’ll call you when I get some news.”

  Gian went home, but he couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking of the things Mark Taylor said about the abuse that went on in that basement. It brought back memories of when his uncle would come into his room at night. He sat up in bed. That feeling of fear, trepidation, of counting hours, then minutes and finally seconds. It made his heart pound like a drum in his chest. He hadn’t felt like that in a long time. He got up and washed his face, then looked at himself in the mirror.

  What looked back was a man, not a boy, a man who had broad shoulders and a smooth well muscled chest, a man who was handsome and still felt cursed by that. He closed his eyes. He hadn’t seen his uncle for years, but he could still picture his face and sometimes feel his hands on him.

  He opened his eyes again. It was gone, the fear, the image in his mind. He lifted his long hair from his neck and leaned down to splash water on his face. He walked back to bed naked, not pausing to see himself in the full-length mirror. If he had, he would have seen a well-toned body, a beautiful man, but then he rarely stopped to look.

  * * * *

  New Year’s came and Gian went to a party given by one of his friends. There were a lot of good-looking gay men there, but Gian wasn’t very interested. His mind was elsewhere.

  Clint had promised him some progress on the Beaconsfield investigation, but so far the department was dragging it’s heels.

  Patrick O’Reilly, a young lawyer who he had gone to college with, came to stand beside him. He handed him a glass of champagne, then nudged him with his elbow. “Hey, handsome, are you here at all or off in crime story land?”

  Gian laughed and gave him a hug. “Hey, cutie, where’s your ball and chain?”

  “He’s flirting with every guy he comes across,” Patrick grinned with that sweet smile. He had fire red hair and freckles.

  Gian laughed. “I see.” He envied Patrick. He seemed to have it all, a regular nine to five job and a live in partner that he adored.

  “That’s what you should be doing,” he told him. “There are gorgeous men he
re, undressing you with their eyes, and you’re ignoring them.”

  He finished his champagne. “I’m preoccupied, that’s all. So how is life?”

  “Not bad, busy. We never see you anymore. I left one hundred messages for you on your machine, you don’t return them.”

  “I hate those things,” Gian replied.

  “Then why do you have one?” Patrick shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” Gian replied, lifting his eyebrow. “My mother would kill me if I didn’t.”

  Patrick laughed. “We miss you. Come to dinner next week.”

  “Okay. I think. Call me.”

  Patrick gave him a doubtful look.

  Gian laughed. “Call me at work,” he handed him his card.

  “Detective Davinci. I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “Since when do you have cards?”

  “Since the department tells me I have to have cards.”

  “See that guy over there,” Patrick pointed to a gorgeous looking African guy.

  “Yeah. Cute.”

  “Cute? He’s beautiful. His name is Liam. He is successful, sexy and really nice. He asked me about you tonight…several times.”

  “Several times, eh?” Gian smirked. “Did you tell him I’m a cop? That usually makes them stop.”

  “No,” he punched him. “I didn’t want to make him run away,” Patrick teased. “Why don’t you go talk to him?”

  “Talk to him about what?”

  “About…I don’t know…something…or…don’t talk at all,” Patrick winked.

  “Sounds good. I’ll just go over and jump him.”

  Patrick smiled. “You’re not still moping about that fire fighter guy, are you?”

  “God, no.”

  “That’s good because he’s here somewhere with his boyfriend.”

  “Great,” Gian replied, swallowing.

  “So you are…still hung up on him.”

  “I just don’t need to see him in his perfect little domestic situation, that’s all. Introduce to me to Liam over there.”

  “That’s my boy,” Patrick slapped him on the back.

  Liam turned out to be a really nice guy. He was an architect who worked for city planning. They talked for quite awhile, but Gian didn’t feel any spark between them. And then he saw Jeremy with his boyfriend. For some reason it made him feel like crap.