Exposure Read online

  “What’s this?”

  “Whaa?”

  “What are you watching?”

  He struggled into wakefulness to find Em, turning her head from him to the computer. He jumped and caught her from behind. He locked his arm around her neck and threw her onto the bed. Then he was on top of her, choking her. Everything seemed to be shadowy, her face distorted. He lifted her and dropped her, her head lolling like a doll’s. Then he realized it was Em.

  “Jack!”

  He lifted a hand to his forehead and gripped it, staring at Em, who struggled to sit up. She heaved, coughed, and then glared at him.

  “Sorry.”

  She shook her head.

  “You startled me.”

  “Once upon a time you would have smiled if I woke you. Now you’re like a bear.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  She nodded.

  “Sorry.” He glanced at the computer. At some point the film had frozen on a single image. Rafe’s face and neck. She hadn’t seen anything.

  “You know this boy?”

  He turned to the screen, turned back to her. “I found it on the internet.”

  She nodded. “You need to see that doctor again. You were never violent … and now …” She raised her hands.

  He sighed.

  “Go and see him tomorrow.”

  “Did you want something?”

  “Carol.”

  Carol’s front porch was cool and damp, darkened by the kaleidoscopic shadows of a frangipani tree.

  “Who’s that?” her mother cried from the front bedroom, her voice heavy with sleep.

  “Em. I’m looking for Carol.”

  “I’m here,” a voice said from behind the screen door. Then it opened. Carol in a slinky green dress. Her hair looking like Marlene Dietrich’s. Em was dressed in a flannelette shirt and jodhpurs.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Hey, Carol,” Jack said.

  She smiled and nodded.

  The car was in the front drive, the engine turning over with a rhythmic ticking.

  “You think we could go to Denny’s for breakfast?”

  “Denny’s?”

  It was four a.m.

  They pulled into the lot fifteen minutes later, and Jack parked the huge old Lincoln across two bays. He figured it would be okay. The place was practically empty. Two F50s and a Honda.

  The foyer was brightly lit with recessed spotlighting. Em’s face looked dark. They settled into a booth overlooking the river, Jack on one side, Em and Carol on the other. Jack felt like eating pancakes. Em and Carol wanted bacon and eggs, the smell of which he wasn’t sure he could stomach. At the counter, perched on a stool and facing them from a ninety degree angle was a young man with orange hair. It was the color of orange rind. Under the recessed spotlighting his skin looked clear and free of blemishes. Jack caught sight of him and startled. He was extraordinarily attractive.

  “That’s one of the Jameson twins,” Carol said.

  “Caleb.”

  Jack nodded.

  “Or if it isn’t him, then it’s his brother, Judge.”

  “Judge?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s an odd name.”

  “Odd now,” Em said, “but not so odd fifty years ago.”

  Jack studied the menu. He watched Caleb Jameson from beneath hooded lids. Caleb was eating potato chips desultorily. His thighs were splayed a little. Between his legs was a large, soft package, straining beneath pale blue jeans.

  Jack swallowed, glanced at Em and Carol and then back at Caleb. A moment later, Caleb spied Em and got up. He walked toward them, his shoulders broad and wide. He was a big guy, over six foot and built a little better than average. A farmer, by the look of it. He approached the table.

  “Hey!”

  “Hi. Caleb? is it?”

  The boy nodded. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen, and wasn’t terribly sure of himself.

  “Jack is a friend of mine,” Em said.

  “Jack?”

  “That’s right. And you know Carol.”

  Jack got up. He’d been travelling the country since he’d first left home at fifteen, looking for somewhere to settle. He’d been to school with Em down here in Texas, but they hadn’t lived in Elisville. They’d lived across state in Dallas, or on the outskirts there. Now he was back in Texas.

  Caleb stretched out his hand.

  Jack took it. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

  “You want to take a seat?” Carol nodded at the opposite side of the booth, where Jack had been sitting, and Jack imagined his shoulder rubbing up against Caleb’s.

  But Caleb said, “I can’t. Work.”

  On the farm, Jack imagined.

  “Where’s Judge?”

  “Back home. I’ve been staying in town for a few days, trying to get a handle on what happened to Sissy.”

  “She’s left town?”

  “That’s the story.”

  They were silent for a few moments.

  Caleb suddenly nodded. “Well, I’ll be going.”

  They said their goodbyes and Jack took a seat again. The waitress came. Took their orders. Then Carol said she needed the bathroom.

  “Jack. I didn’t want to tell you this before. But that young man—on your computer—he’s a local boy. I wouldn’t go showing anyone that, even if you did find it on the internet.”

  4

  Jack woke with a headache. Bright sunlight was streaming into his room through a gap in the curtains. Em was in the kitchen. It was past ten a.m.

  “You want some cornflakes?”

  He nodded and groaned.

  “You gonna make an appointment to see that doctor today?”

  The doctor was in Winkler. He didn’t feel like driving all that way. “Perhaps a local doctor.”

  She nodded. “Doctor Varley’s very good.”

  “Varley?”

  “I’ll get you the number.”

  He made an appointment for one forty-five. He took two aspirin and went back to bed. Set his alarm for one-fifteen. He wanted to watch the film again, but felt bad about it with Em in the house.

  Varley was situated at the local mall. He’d only been in town for five days and so hadn’t been down there yet. There was a Kmart, a supermarket, a few specialty stores. Doctor Varley’s rooms were on the upper level. The receptionist looked like a female impersonator, like the kind you’d find in a gay club. Her blond hair was teased into a fairy floss sphere, her face heavily made up. She looked fifty if she was a day.

  He had to wait. The receptionist’s perfume clawed at his throat. It made him feel sick and heady. Then the doctor appeared. A man in his thirties with dark hair.

  “You’ve been in a wreck?” the doctor said. “When was this?”

  “Back in September. Last year.”

  “So it’s nine months on now?”

  Jack nodded.

  “And you’ve been feeling what?”

  “Pain and disorientation. And anger.”

  Varley frowned; his dark brows formed a “V” and for a moment he looked comical.

  “I’ve been seeing a specialist. In Winkler. He says it isn’t brain damage, but that my brain did get a serious knock.”

  The air conditioner whirred behind him. It blew a steady stream of cold air onto his back.

  “I really just want something to help me sleep. And something for the pain.”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “Kansas.” But Jack wondered how this was relevant. Was Varley simply making small talk?

  “And what? You collided with another vehicle?”

  “A truck. I pulled out onto the highway, but he was going a lot faster than I thought.”

  “So you were hit from the side? From the left-hand side?”

  Jack nodded.

  “And your face hit the window there?” He raised his hand to his cheek.

  Jack nodded again. “The window broke. The window in th
e door.”

  “That would mean the left side of your brain,” Varley muttered.

  He’d heard that before, in the hospital. He pictured himself there, propped up in bed and surrounded by doctors. Then he saw Em’s face, arriving with flowers. She’d been to visit him, he remembered, and had suggested he come to live with her, which was where he was now, though he didn’t know if he’d be staying.

  Varley began writing something on his prescription pad. Diazepam and codeine, it turned out, but only enough codeine for two days, and after that a moratorium on it.

  Jack had never taken an opioid before, and wondered if it was enough to kill him, the total dose. He asked. It wasn’t. He considered taking all the codeine and getting high on it this afternoon. He could go out to Rafe’s again.

  He left the doctor’s office feeling a lot better. He walked down to the drug store and then back up again to the food hall. In the Asian place they sold satay sticks with rice. He bought a serve of those, turned, and spied an orange head. It was Caleb, he guessed, sitting opposite a boy with his back to Jack, a boy who as Jack approached, turned out to be Rafe. At least it had to be, though he couldn’t see his face.

  The family at the table behind Rafe got up as Jack approached, and though their table was littered with empty cartons and cups, he sat down. He stared at Rafe’s back. He was dressed in a tank top, his shoulders bare. Caleb was facing Jack. He guessed all he had to do was make eye-contact to be asked to join them, or at least to get an hello.

  “That’s what Sissy was like,” Rafe said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Stupid like that.”

  Jack coughed loudly. He lifted his eyes to Caleb’s and stared at him for moments. He expected a shock of recognition, but after watching him steadily for seconds, Caleb glanced at Rafe again.

  Was it Rafe? From behind, Jack couldn’t be sure. Then Rafe turned his head and looked across the food hall. Jack felt his heart leap at the sight of his familiar profile. Rafe was wearing lemon shorts with a white tank top and leather sandals, all of which seemed very gay for Texas.

  A third boy approached the table, a boy with short, spiky hair. He was pale-skinned and had a mole, a Marilyn Monroe mole, a beauty spot, set at one side of his lips. His eyes were pale and gray and contemplative. He appeared very calm. But his first words to Rafe were:

  “Hey, killer.”

  It was said jokingly, but Rafe drew his head back, then glanced around quickly. His eyes met Jack’s, his watery blue eyes. Jack’s heart flipped in his chest, or it felt that way.

  “Hey, Judge,” the new boy said, and Jack realized that the orange head was Judge’s, Caleb’s brother’s.

  Rafe leaned forward. “I didn’t kill her, Mike,” he said. “She’s disappeared.”

  “Conveniently,” Mike said.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You were the last to see her,” Judge said.

  “That isn’t the point,” Mike said. “He’s a fag, and he didn’t want her around.”

  Jack listened closely.

  “I’m not a fag.”

  “What do you think, Judge?”

  “Shit, I don’t know.”

  “I’m not,” Rafe said, “and anyway, I have to go.” He got up quickly and turned in Jack’s direction. Their eyes met again, Jack’s, he imagined, impassive and dark, Rafe’s, bright blue and frightened.

  Was it possible he’d killed this girl?

  He got up and followed Rafe. The boy walked quickly, his sandals slapping the polished concrete floor. Jack followed him down to the parking lot and all the way to his car, but as Rafe turned toward it, he continued on. The boy glanced at him again, or did he imagine it, a look of confused interest as Jack passed him.

  Jack sat in his car and jerked off. The lemon shorts were so short and had apparently been worn without underwear.

  5

  That night, around eight-thirty p.m., Jack arrived in Sebring Lane again. He parked his car beneath the tree and walked toward the house. Rafe’s car was in the drive. A light was on in a window at the side, but to see, Jack had to walk up and onto the veranda. The old boards creaked as he put his foot on the first step. He had to make his way carefully, keeping his back against the house. When he arrived at the window he found that the room, the living room, was empty. The only other light on was a light upstairs, on the other side of the house. Was that Rafe’s bedroom?

  He circled the house in an anti-clockwise direction. Beneath the mango tree he lit a cigarette. He smoked it, crouching in the shadows. Then he decided to climb the tree. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. Getting into the crook of the tree was relatively simple, but then he had to shimmy out along one branch, aiming his hand at the veranda railing. Just as he gripped it, he became aware of Rafe, standing in his bedroom beyond the foliage of the tree.

  Jack climbed over the veranda railing and set his feet on the boards. He trod carefully across them. The French doors were spilling light onto the veranda, and onto the tree. If they’d been open, it would have been too risky, but he figured the boy wouldn’t see him with the glare on the glass. He turned his head quickly and caught sight of Rafe, standing in front of his bedroom mirror, dressed in the tank top, his sandals and a thong, a white one. He had his hands in the air and was twisting his body from side-to-side, admiring his abs, his hairless torso. The pouch of the thong was tented a little, but the boy wasn’t hard. His ass was a perfect squodge, not merely round, but somehow square.

  Jack gripped himself and put one shoulder against the house.

  Rafe turned and put his back to the mirror. He set his feet wide apart and then leaned forward. He gripped his knees, and looked through his legs at his open ass. He reached up, pulled the strap of the thong away, and then let it snap against his hole. A moment later he was standing again. He paced the bedroom, looking for something.

  Was that what he’d been wearing today, a thong beneath his shorts? Jack guessed he had been, because the lemon shorts were sitting on the floorboards.

  Rafe stood with his hands on his hips by a shelf that contained a collection of sporting trophies. He selected one, a basketball sitting atop a long pole. He turned it over in his hands and then moved away. Back by the mirror, he tapped his cock and balls with the rounded end of the trophy, teasing his cock into rigidity. Soon it was hard.

  Rafe turned toward his desk, reached for a tube, and Jack realized it was the gel. He squirted a line of it onto the head of the trophy, and then began to coat it with his finger. He turned to the mirror again, stood with his feet together, and then plucked the cord of the thong out of his crack. He held to one side as he worked the trophy into his butt, his mouth open wide.

  Jack cleared his throat, watched carefully for a reaction, but saw none. Then he thought of his phone. He slipped it quickly from his pocket and began filming.

  Rafe turned, set his legs apart again. He watched from between his legs as he worked the trophy in and out of his hole. Then he collapsed to his knees, gripped his cock and came.

  A few moments later, he got up and undressed. Then he opened his chest of drawers. He pulled a pair of satin boxers out, a pair with a green and white pattern on them. He disappeared into the hall. A moment later, a light came on at the back of the house, the bathroom, Jack supposed. He walked carefully around the corner to the window, heard the shower start, and then sighed. He stopped the video and slipped his phone back into his pocket. Then it occurred to him that the boy’s bedroom might be unlocked, that the French windows might be open. He made his way quickly back to them and gingerly turned the handle. The window was unlocked. He pulled it toward him. Then he stepped into the boy’s bedroom.

  The thong had been discarded. It lay on top of the shorts. The room was long and wide, with polished wooden floorboards and a mainly red rug. The bed was made. The shelves and desk were tidy, with everything neatly arranged. Jack figured the boy was a clean freak. He’d been cleaning like mad yesterday. That really wasn’t healt
hy.

  He caught sight of himself in the mirror and winced. So dark compared to the boy. He turned away and locked his eyes on the corkboard, where a group of fifteen or twenty photos were arranged. The first that caught his eye was a photo of Rafe in water polo gear, in the speedos and cap. He figured it was something he’d done at school and wondered if it was last year or the year before. He wasn’t at school now, he knew, because he hadn’t been there today, and either had his friends.

  One photo showed him between the Jameson twins, and another with Mike, the boy he’d seen today. There were photos with two people, who seemed to be his mother and father, though where they were now Jack didn’t know. Rafe was younger in these, maybe fifteen. The most disturbing photos were the group of five to seven that showed Rafe with a girl, a girl with sandy hair and freckles. In one, she was kissing his cheek, and in another they were holding hands. Was this Sissy, the girl who’d disappeared?

  The water came to a sudden halt in the pipes, and Jack’s heart rocked. He glanced at the floor, at the white thong, and knew he wanted to take it. But wouldn’t Rafe notice? He knew he shouldn’t do it, but at same time bent forward and picked it up. He lifted it to his nose, inhaled deeply, and then thrust it into his pocket. He’d only just managed to get the French window closed when Rafe walked into the room again, now naked, but with a white towel around his waist.

  Jack backed away from the window. He skirted sideways and then watched as Rafe removed the towel. The boy had shaved his pubes.

  6