The Most Dangerous Place on Earth(82)
Ryan turned to the dugout, but Coach Gifford wasn’t watching. He stood with his back to the diamond, and laughed at Ryan did not know what, and slapped the skinny ass of Grayson Paul.
—
When Ryan’s parents sent him to his room each night that summer, still stubbornly punishing him for the function and the crash, they didn’t think to take the laptop out. So he was never really alone at all.
He met Martin Cruz online. His Facebook picture was a Hollywood abstraction, a profile obscured by square black Ray-Bans and bleached by sunlight, a convertible Infiniti with a teal smear of ocean in the background, a thick, tanned thumb on the wheel. His location: City of Angels. Occupation: Starmaker.
He sent the friend request to Ryan just before school let out for summer, with a brief message attached:
LIKE TO GET TO KNOW YOU BETTER.
THINK YOU COULD BE SOMETHING SPECIAL.
—M.C.
Ryan thought, Fuck this fag, this perv, this pathetic lurker. His cursor moved to the “Ignore” button and hovered there. But at the last moment he shifted over, and clicked “Accept.”
A queasy thrill turned his stomach. Some hidden chord within him strummed, sending low vibrations through his body. These things were sometimes as simple as this: he wanted to see what would happen.
—
The first messages between them were short and friendly, with a competitive sheen that made them feel familiar and fraternal and benign: NorCal versus SoCal, Giants versus Dodgers, Tyler versus Earl. After three such exchanges, Martin changed the subject.
YOU KNOW THAT YOU COULD BE A MODEL? he wrote.
Naw I’m not a homo, Ryan wrote.
JUST SAYING. THERE’S TONS OF $$$ OUT THERE FOR A GUY THAT LOOKS LIKE YOU.
Ryan paused. Then: Real?
YEAH DUDE. YOU COULD BE DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW. LIVIN THE LIFE.
Yeah.
To bad I got school tho.
SUMMER JUST STARTED, DIDN’T IT? THREE MONTHS OF FREEDOM.
More like 2.
NOT MUCH TIME.
Nope.
BETTER MAKE THE MOST OF IT.
—
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Martin said, midway through their first video chat. His face filled the screen of Ryan’s MacBook. Dark-chocolate eyes. Tanned skin wrinkled in the soft spots: eyelids, neck. A broad, clean smile. At his edges were generic slices of room: dull white walls carved by vertical shadows, a black plastic floor lamp, a flat-screen TV. “Why don’t you let me see you?”
Fine needles pricked Ryan’s spine, climbing upward, groove to neck. “See me how?” he said.
“Stand up, stand back from the screen a little bit.”
“Like this?”
“That’s good. That’s good.”
Ryan waited for more. “This is fuckin’ weird, bro.”
“It feels that way at first. You’re doing great. Now just—”
“Yeah. I dunno.”
“You want to be a model, right? Start stacking those bills?”
“I guess.”
“Well, this is what models do. I pegged you for the kind of guy that could handle it. Was I wrong?”
Ryan shook his head. “Naw.”
“Awesome, man. I didn’t think so.” He paused. “Want to keep going?”
Ryan shrugged.
“Okay. Cool. Now, just go ahead and pop your shirt off. So I can make sure if you’d pass.”
“You want me to take off my shirt?”
“To see if the agency would take you. Standard stuff.”
Ryan hesitated.
“Look,” Martin said. “Let’s forget it. It’s not that big a deal. I don’t want you doing anything you’re not ready for.” He leaned back, hammocking his head in his hands, and his dark gaze flickered from the screen.
Ryan closed his eyes. He took a breath and released it. Then, swiftly, before he had a chance to change his mind, he pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped it on the bedroom floor.
“Look at me,” Martin said.
Ryan looked.
The man’s face zoomed closer to the screen. There was the tiny square of light reflected in each iris. The pink bulbs in the corners of his eyes.
Ryan’s heart hurled itself against his ribs, a desperate prisoner. “What now?” he asked.
Martin grinned. Drew a slow circle with his finger on the air.
Ryan nodded. He clenched his fists to keep them still. Cleared his throat and started turning, looking back over his shoulder to see what Martin was seeing, his body small as a doll’s, glowing in the inset square in the corner of the screen.
Martin nodded, pleased. “Like I thought, man, you’re a natural,” he said. Almost whispered: “Man, that is so, so good.”
—
That night, stripped, Ryan locked the bathroom door and stepped into the crash of shower water. Slid the glass door shut behind him. Turned the tap till his feet screamed and steam billowed at his ankles. Gasped but kept it up as hot as he could stand it, arching under the furious stream till it soaked his hair, then closed his eyes and gaped his mouth, the hot water pooling in his lashes and gums.
He spat. Stepped back. Water drilled his chest. He pumped satiny soap into his palm. Lathered the soap over his torso, reloaded and scrubbed his pits, his belly button, the tapered trail of dark blond hair, and continued moving down.