hold my heart in two

He’s done his fair share of fucking up in this line of work, but this might be the worst he’s ever done it. His client’s a street kid, or used to be, he’s done God-knows-what with God-knows-who even before Rushman got to him. He’s been abused, he’s been exploited, all his life, and now — Vail’s just another sleazy prick to him now, somebody who wanted something out of him and was willing to pay for it.

At least he’s over eighteen. There’s that.

First night out of detention, nowhere to go. Vail could have have gotten him a hotel room. Could’ve given him fifteen bucks and sent him to a hostel, if they wouldn’t have eaten him there alive too — soft face, hurt eyes, hick voice. And Martin had been drinking — not really celebrating, letting the pressure ease off, letting his nerves settle. He’d been alone. He could have found a woman. Instead he found Aaron, practically on his doorstep, still institution-pale, still skinny, pleading: I did-didn’t know where else to go.

And he made a mistake. He’s made them before, just not like this. Maybe this was how Rushman felt — sick with sin, full of worthless remorse.

The kid can’t even look at him. Aaron sits there on the edge of the bed, narrow and naked with the bedsheets spooled around him. He has a beautiful back; the soft hairs are sticking to the nape of his neck, and there at the top knob of his spine is a smudged white scar, like the tip of a cigarette.

“Hey,” Martin says, setting down the water glass and approaching with soft steps. Doesn’t want to startle him, doesn’t want to make it worse. Aaron turns his head to look him in the eye.

“You are some fucking lay, you know that?” Not sick, scared, small. He sounds thrilled with himself, joyfully arrogant.

“What?”

“You know, I wondered about you. You did come on kind of queer, but now I figure you’ve been screwing that blonde bitch. Bet you lost your shot there, didn’t you.”

No stutter. Don’t be defensive; be rational. Stampler’s angry with him now; he feels betrayed, he feels used. But he can’t let himself feel angry. He needs Roy to do that for him. Martin can’t help taking it personally.

“I’m sorry if I upset you. I shouldn’t have done what I did.” Martin crosses the bedroom floor like one of those guys on the bomb squad they send out to cut the wires.

The kid is still incredibly volatile. The last guy to try and screw him ended up with all his fingers chopped off — or did he screw him, Martin wonders now in plummeting horror, is there a videotape somewhere where the old bastard does to Aaron Stampler what he did to him just now? In that tape he’d looked miserable, but obedient. Tonight Martin had let himself think it wasn’t the same.

He’d seemed — more willing. Pliant, at ease, a little flirtatious — like glimpsing the bright young man behind the brutalized kid, like seeing who Aaron might have been if he hadn’t been battered into vacant silence. Still a little dangerous, but a hell of a lot more stable. Who was it who made the first move? Martin can’t remember.

The kid stretches out his legs. “You mean, screwing me?”

They hadn’t used a condom. Another mistake. Martin grimaces, shouldering deeper into his robe. “Yes, that’s what I mean. I think you ought to leave.”

“Relax,” Stampler says, “I kind of liked it. Honest, m-mister Vail.” And for a second his face is Aaron’s again, the hurt boy, and Martin feels a pain like an electrical shock.

The boy’s plenty bright. The IQ tests all show it, the doctors all say it, even the kids’ teachers knew it back in Creekside, Kentucky — it’s not that he’s slow, it’s that he’s scared. Maybe it’s easier for him to let on like he’s stupid than let anybody get close. Then there’s Roy.

Shoving the pillows back onto the bed, turning on the lamp, all while the kid watches him with reptile eyes. “That doesn’t matter. I’m not the kind of lawyer who has sex with his clients.”

“But I’m not your client any more, Mr. Vail, I’m not really anything. Six months in the state psychiatric hospital, we got a change in venue, you did your thing, and I walk. We did good together, Marty, didn’t we?”

One of those once-in-a-lifetime things, like a lightning strike — and it almost makes up for all the ones who ended up in Joliet, the ones who ended up dead. For the bleeding-hearts it’s a miracle. Every Catholic in the country wants Aaron Stampler skinned alive. If he’d have been a young girl, would it be different? If he’d been a young girl, Martin would never have let him in. He’d never have touched him. Not a hand on the shoulder, not a hand on the back of his neck.

He’d bought the kid his first suit. The shirt he’d bought him to wear in the courtroom is lying on Martin’s bedroom floor. Vail’s spine stiffens.

“Six months,” Martin says, “change of venue, then Stampler walks. This city isn’t a safe place for you to be right now. People want you dead. You need to make up your mind where you want to go.”

Vail will send him there himself — he’ll buy the bus ticket, he’ll drop him off at the airport, whatever it takes to bury this. To bury tonight. The morning hasn’t come yet; tomorrow’s a Sunday.

“Maybe I like it here. Maybe I like the way you work with me.” The kid unfolds, drawing up to his full height like he’s measuring against him, one wild animal sizing up another.

Martin reaches for his arm. “Am I talking to Aaron right now, or Roy?”

“Why don’t you choose what you like best?” A sleepy smile, lightheartedly devilish, knowing. Aaron leans forward and kisses him on the mouth.