Second You Sin by Scott Sherman Page A

to go now.’
    “I liked Ansel wel enough as a client, but I liked those hundreds a lot more. So I said, ‘Sure,’ and we go outside where there’s this big stretch limo on the corner and, of course, it’s his. I get in and it’s the cleanest, quietest, most comfortable place I’ve been in weeks, man. I’m so relaxed I don’t even realize it, and Ansel , who’s looking at me real close now, says, ‘Why don’t you close your eyes for a minute?’
    and I do.
    “The next thing I know I’m waking up in a padded white room. I thought I died and went to heaven. Then I saw lettering above the door that said ‘The Gateway Clinic.’ I was in a freaking psycho ward, man.
    “I just about went crazy. But they’re used to that there. I knew I couldn’t be held against my wil , so I started screaming to be let out. I could feel that scratchy hunger building. I wanted another hit. But the doctors showed me papers I signed saying they could keep me for seventy-two hours. I didn’t remember signing anything. Stil don’t know that I did. But when you’ve got Ansel Darling’s kind of money, you can make things happen.
    “An hour after I woke up, Ansel showed up. I was cursing him, screaming, but he had the doctors bring another bed into my room and that crazy-assed white boy stayed with me for the next three days. He held my head while I puked, he listened to my shit when I screamed, he even changed my sheets when I sweated them through, which was about every twenty minutes.
    “Trouble with Ansel ?” he asked. “I have no trouble with Ansel . Ansel ’s my angel. He got me clean.”
    “You stil clean?” I asked.

    Ansel held his arms out for inspection. “As mother’s milk. I’m not going near that shit again. Not even a joint. Believe me.”
    I did.
    “Ansel saved my life, Kevin. If not for him, I probably would have wound up like Sammy White Tee.”
    Sammy White Tee was another working boy who Rueben and I knew through that invisible network that links New York’s most successful and exclusive male prostitutes. I don’t know how we al got to know each other, but somehow we did. Sammy was one of the shyest of us—hence, his nickname. No one knew much about him except that he always wore blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt. In the fal , he added a dungaree jacket and in the winter its leather twin. In every season, he looked like James Dean at his most breathtaking and most innocent.
    “Sammy White Tee?” I asked. “What happened to Sammy White Tee?”
    “You didn’t hear, papi? ”
    I shook my head.
    “Sammy White Tee es muerte, chico. Dead.” 12

    Putting It Together

    “Sammy White Tee is dead?” I asked. “What are you talking about?” I felt the blood drain from my face.
    “Sí,” said Rueben. “Yes. I know, it’s hard to believe.”
    Sammy had been such a sweet kid, so ful of life.
    “What happened?”
    “Died in the bath. They think he tripped on a bar of soap, hit his head on the side of the tub, and drowned. I heard about it from Corbin Fitzer, who told me he heard it from that boy who used to dance at Rumors. Dalon.”
    OK, the network between rentboys in this city may have been loose, but it wasn’t unreliable. At least I didn’t think so.
    “Is it true?” I asked.
    Rueben shrugged. “Yeah, I think so. Nobody’s seen Sammy White Tee for weeks, so it makes sense. I heard he was high on something when it happened.”
    I shook my head.
    “I know,” Rueben said. “It’s hard to believe.”
    “Actual y,” I said, standing up, “not so much. Come on, we have to find Freddy.”

    Freddy was stil on the dance floor, sandwiched between a heavily muscled black guy who gyrated against him from behind and a Justin Timberlake look-alike who Freddy held in his arms. I’ve seen less explicit three-ways in pornos.
    “Now, that is hot,” Rueben observed.
    “Not anymore,” I said, grabbing Freddy by the arm and pul ing him away.
    “Are you crazy?” Freddy asked.
    “Hey!”