Once again, the servants meekly clamored about, knees hardened and sliding against fine carpet, picking up fine shards of glass. The rich man and his wife had once again been fighting. The walls themselves whispering the vicious knives thrown verbally between the ancient couple. Their mistress sat in her room, stewing in the aftermath, her sobs almost shrill in desperation to be heard to be comforted by the arms of the man she had given her love and life so many years ago. But the house had fallen silent, the rich man escaping to the city in the fastest car he owned, with only a single glance of regret, without his chauffeur and even bodyguard while the servants continued cleaning, their hands staying busy to off-put the turmoil.
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The fighting happened often these days and their master stayed at his office more and more to escape from his wife's drunken wrath. Soaked in hubris, the blond yet greying haired man scavenged anything to regain his wife's favor, for the public's favor. New York City Mayor Impregnates Young Woman. The news was unrelenting and ruthless and he had been disgraced fully.
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He did right by the young woman and offered publicly and privately his full support of her, impoverished that she was, and offered to take the baby and raise it. A mild light shone in his eyes then even with his wife's increasing displeasure of him. The two were childless and the most savvy and tenured of servants knew how much he wanted a child, the gender of which not mattering to him at all. It was a bitter pill to swallow and his wife raged about the gilded cage of her dreams and nightmares drowning them both in various swills of alcohol from their liqueur cabinet and crushed pills.
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Sweet wines, bitter whiskeys, and tricolored powders kept her docile for a time until her husband arrived back to once again grovel at her feet to accept the child. She damned that infant and cursed his name, leaving him to return to his office once more and slowly but surely transforming to a broken man with a broken wife to match. Was it pity that kept the two so high in the servants' eyes, or was it the juicy gossip which fueled their nightly talks as the two previous lovers walked down the road to divorce?
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Broken glass now cleaned with only the faint remains of blood appearing on the carpet, they headed to their mistress, knocking meekly on her door for a sign of life. The sobs had descended into a childlike cry before disappearing into the atmosphere leaving a sense of foreboding. That had been an hour ago and they had been far too frightened to check on her during the mania, lest they get caught in her swirl of anger.
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Opening up the door, they tip toed themselves around the door frame, seeing and hearing nothing before their eyes caught the empty bottle rolling hollowly on tanned ceramic floors. Her body laid itself askew from the side of her bed to the floor and puffed eyes from tears lay peacefully closed, deceitful in her seeming serenity. A Basquiat hung inconspicuously and observed the scene as cold as God, as screams echoed off rapturous paint strokes and phones rapidly dialed.
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The press arrived before the ambulance, their cameras rolling and taking in the beautifully gruesome scene at the manor. The police and EMT's fought against the rancorous mob to the victim and the growing blue tint of her skin told all that they needed to know. Suicide, but an investigation was sure to follow in the coming days. The rich man was oddly absent from his own wife's passing, the press observed smugly. His phone was shut off and only the brisk and business-like voicemail tone remained, reminding all whose hand's the victim's blood was on.
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A fool and his money sat parted in a rundown bar and stared glumly at an empty dancefloor. There was a beer that was warming up in his hands, it's ice mere slivers of the cubes they once were. A total of 20 people, mostly little friend groups, gathered around a miniscule bar stage waiting in anticipation for the guitarist that was said to be their entertainment. Gary had no need for such a thing. He had sped here on a whim and picked it out from the plethora of low starred reviews on Yelp.
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It would seem odd to go to a bar of such low quality for most people, but most people were not Mayor of New York City. Low quality bars offered him solitude in a city with millions of souls. He was too well known and attention was suffocating. Not as a bird in a cage but of a whale trapped behind platted glass to watch as humanity passed him by and indulged themselves on his misery for their enjoyment.
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How could he blame them? An adulterer, a fool more like. He downed the beer as the stage hand gave the gleeful audience 5 more minutes before the start of the show, regretting that he had left his cellphone in the trunk of his car.
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He had not planned on the affair, hell he didn't think anyone did besides psychopaths, but the kind arms of someone, anyone was better than the loneliness that awaited him at home, no doubt still ranting and drinking up all that she could get her hands on. Her only solace had been that he chose a woman close to his own age, a healthy 38-year-old whose youthful looks had the press slam her as a young girl when she was anything but. The woman had been working with him for quite some time, a decade almost, as a secretary and then his certified adviser in office. The sly looks, curvaceous body, and hair almost the color of fire made it easy to fall and fall he did down the pit to oblivion.
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The pregnancy had surprised the two of them however, and it was not as if they had been foolhardy. He had been called infertile by his doctors after so many years of him and his wife trying for child that he had given up on that aspect of his life years ago but, he still carried with him condoms and her birth control. Hell, he remembered her saying that she had never wanted kids at all. He worked his jaw, staring at his reflection in his empty glass. A pathetic forty-year-old stared back at him, black and blue bags from lack of sleep framed reddened eyes from unshed tears. A fucking mess.
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Energetic clapping put a muffle on his misery and he glanced up at the stage his eyes now taking in a new sight. A young man, looking to be no more than twenty or so at the most, bounded on stage and settled upon a stool. Long fingers, well-manicured no less, held a roughed-up guitar in a strong but delicate grip. The instrument had seen better days with the strap leather picked to the bone and the body itself smothered in scratches. Gary knew an heirloom when he saw one and silently found it somewhat adorable in its own quaint way.
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He did, however, had to laugh to himself as the crowd began to grow restless. The singer had not begun to sing, nor had they even seen his face. A curtain of raven hair shrouded his face and his head hung low as those fingers glided themselves up and down the rundown instrument. He had the hands of a pianist and he plucked each string as though it was made of the finest gold. Gary involuntarily shivered, whether from the coldness of the bar or expert playing he did not know―but soon he did as the singer opened his mouth and let forth the first notes.
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The lyrics were simple, a tale of a love gone wrong, of lovers broken beyond repair it hit almost a bit too close to home for the man dressed in black, but it was the voice that sent him to heights far beyond the dingy bar where he sat. The young man sang with such ease and finesse as blue eyes peeked out at the crown from the black curtain from which they had hid. A heavy heat seemed to take him over and the curtain-like hair was pushed away with a one-handed push and the full singer was revealed.
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Gary was not gay, his father had beaten it out of him at a young age, but the creature that stood before him was vastly superior to any woman he had seen in his life. Soft, youthful, and energetic eyes gazed out and scanned the club excitedly as a slim body swayed to the melodies of his guitar as flowers in a spring wind. For a moment, the middle-aged man felt alive, more than he ever had even with that ill-advised affair.
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Almost hypnotized, he moved up to the stage and stood about the other sparse groups in the bar , sitting down in a lone chair as the young man moved on to the next song, a cover this time of a rock and roll classic and the crowd sang along, drunkenly as they pleased and Gary found himself doing the same, albeit much quieter than the rest, and put what cash he had with him in the young man's tip jar. The hour passed him by in a golden rhapsody and the raven-haired singer took a humble bow to the small crowd and headed back stage. The groups dispersed and went back to converging at their tables and he found himself alone with his thoughts.
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He thought of his beguiled wife, of his pregnant mistress, of his life constantly pushed in multiple directions, neither of which he wanted it to go but most of all he thought of himself, and the way his legs moved so swiftly to join the mysterious singer backstage.
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The tips were sparse and the crowd had been even smaller but Lyle had enjoyed their vibe. It was only Tuesday and 11 o'clock no less, who the hell goes out to drink on a Tuesday? He preferred them to the weekend crowds however, who hardly knew boundaries and got too handy for Lincoln's liking. Pulling his hair up into a messy ponytail, Lyle poured the tips out on his dressing room vanity, physically taken at back by the few hundreds that laid neatly in a small bundle. This was outrageous, Lyle hadn't even put on his best performance, usually those were saved for the weekends, yet here he was, drowning in more money than he had ever seen in one weekday's night.
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Eight hundred dollars. Eight fucking hundred dollars. That was more than enough to pay their part of the rent for the month and maybe even a little more. Who could have even given them so much? Guilt dropped hot lead down into Lyle's stomach. There was no way he could keep all this cash. He had to find the patron who gave it to him. It must have been a drunken mistake by someone too high or too drunk to even think about what they had been given.
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A hesitant then sure fist rapped at his door and he got up expecting someone different than the one who stood at his door way. It was the man who had shyly sang along to his songs yet had boldly walked up to the front that even he had been taken aback and weary that he was going to be one of those. Yet, he had been proven wrong and looking up at the blond man, who was far too tall to be fair, he was much more interesting than what Lyle had expected.
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It was the damn mayor for one, Gary Stafford, once the house representative then shot up quickly through the ranks to mayor in a landslide. Lyle had even voted for him, with mild regret afterwards. Second, it was clear he had been the one to give him the bundle of cash that now sat prettily by his guitar and third...he was much better looking in real life than on the television, the whole cheating on his wife thing and getting the other woman pregnant thing aside. Ruggedly handsome was what he was, the kind you'd see in those old westerns that played idly at your grandparents' house on an orange afternoon.
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The bags under his eyes did take off some points, and again the whole affair thing, but Lyle could see why anyone would choose to get pregnant by him. He was nice to look at. A silence stretched out to uncomfortable levels before he awkwardly stepped to the side and let the other one in, making sure not to get too close to the other.
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"Why are you here," he asked.
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"Your voice is...is magic," Gary replied back, his back completely to him.
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The man was drunk off his ass and Lyle was not in the mood to deal with a drunken man in his dressing room. Not after the last time. He had learned his lesson.
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"Look dude, I appreciate your praise and all but it's all too much here-,"
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He went on over to his tip pile and attempted to hand back over the hundreds. Gary stared at the bundle and slowly grinned, his dimples as deep as the ocean. His hands, a lot softer than Lyle had expected, folded over his own and he shook his head in almost bemusement. It pissed the raven off; he was young but he wasn't some child to be placated.
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"I mean it, I don't want your damn money. If you think I'm some kind of cheap floozy you can shove your dick into because you toss a few bands my way you're fucking wrong," he told him spitefully and the other flinched back, steps as light as a feather.
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"That's not why I'm here," Gary replied miserably, almost as though he was going to cry. Just what the hell was this guy?
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"Then what―,"
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"I wanted to hear you sing. That is all. I know like most people you think I'm disgusting and maybe you're right, because I disgust myself, but you were the one light of night, hell maybe even my damn week, and I just wanted to hear more of your voice."
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Lyle was still hesitant but, he kept the rest of his negative thoughts close to his chest and took back the money, shamefully staring down at it as opposed to the man who he had just insulted and called a whoremonger in less than kind words. He had been practically kicking the man while he was down and the other appeared more and more as a drowned kitten than a man accused of adultery.
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The hands of the clock sat comfortably on the midnight hour and he reached over kindlier, placing his palm on Gary's upper arm.
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"Let's get out of this bar first. I think it's making us both miserable. It has only two stars for a reason," he said.
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The other did not voice any disagreements and showed him his Camaro that sat in the parking garage surprisingly untouched by the gangs that patrolled the area. Gary held back a yawn and stretched his arms over his head before sliding in and opening the door on the other side.
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"If it smells weird in here it's the Wendy's I had earlier, sorry about that," he said, pulling at his right ear.
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Lyle hated that he was like this, so relatable. He could feel the walls he had put up at the beginning of their conversation steadily being destroyed and it left him vulnerable. He hated feeling vulnerable, it meant he could be taken advantage of. He didn't want that, especially since he knew the type of man he was dealing with.
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"If I tell you my address you won't come over to kill me or anything will you?" he asked.
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"I'm not that kind of politician. An adulterer yes, a murderer no. I save that for the Republicans, besides," Gary glanced at him sideways in a way that sent pleasant shivers up Lyle's spine.
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"You're far too pretty to kill. Now what's your address?"
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And he told him as they sped off into the night, his ego too big to acknowledge that he did it a bit too eager for his own liking.
