I started at Empire. It was the most logical place to find him.
"Hey." I leaned over the counter in the entryway. "Is Eric here?" I asked the door girl.
"Eric who?" she replied, slightly annoyed.
"Tall, dark and Gothic."
She rolled her eyes. "Honey, you just described half the people in here."
"No. Like really tall. Six-six barefooted. Hair down to his waist."
She thought for a second and shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Thanks."
I nearly ran from Swiss to Elm and slowed when I got to Sambuca. The door guy was still there.
"Calvin! Have you seen Eric?" I asked, craning my neck back to look up at him. Calvin was a huge guy. He stood almost seven and a half feet tall and was built like a brick wall. He would have been terrifying except for the fact that he was one of the nicest people that I had ever met.
"Not tonight." His deep, deep voice rumbled through me. "Have you tried Empire?"
"Yeah. Thanks man. If you see him will you tell him that I'm looking for him?"
"Sure, man."
I walked up the street trying to figure out where he would be. 2826 was too preppy. Tommy's was too rock. Clearview was closed. That left me with Industry, all the way at the end of the street. When I got all the way up the street to the warehouse turned dance club, he wasn't there. Dejectedly, I strolled back down the street. I knew where he lived and it was a lot closer than my place but I couldn't get in. He lived in a converted warehouse just on the other side of the highway but it had a gate. In fact, it had a 12' chain link fence, topped by barbed wire, topped by razor wire. It required a garage door opener or a code to trigger it. I didn't have either.
I got more than half-way back down the street and sulked my way into Starlight Café. I still had most of the money I'd made that night, minus the cab fare I spent to get across town before the clubs closed. I decided to get a cup of coffee before heading home. I had a long walk ahead of me.
"Hey Rain, have a bad night?"
I threw myself into a chair at an empty table. I was gearing up for quite a fit. The waiter looked at me with something akin to sympathy. "Hey Jeff. I was trying to find Eric but I guess he's at home."
"Nah, man. He's upstairs," Jeff told me.
"Seriously? Fuck!" I bolted from the chair and ran up the stairs along the far wall. There were a few people that I knew on the balcony but not Eric. I crossed through and went up the back stairwell to the roof. He was at a table for four that had six chairs pulled up to it with people in all of them. I didn't care about any of them. I only had eyes for Eric. I didn't go over. I just pushed my jacket back, slipped my hands in my pants pockets and waited at the top of the stairs for him to notice me. I didn't wait long.
He was leaning back in his chair with his eyes narrowed in that deceptively bored look he got when he was irritated. His eyes widened when they locked with mine. His lips turned up just slightly and he dropped his hands into his lap and crossed his legs at the knee. I smiled at him and he arched one eyebrow. He'd said that he wouldn't come to me and he meant it. He was going to make me come to him. I pulled my hands out of my pockets and crossed the small rooftop terrace.
I stood next to his chair but didn't say anything. He reached up and pulled me into his lap amidst clapping and catcalls from the group at the table. I smiled and wrapped my arms around his neck.
"Take me home, Eric," I whispered into his ear.
"No," he smirked. "You made me wait now you can wait."
I grinned at him. I was happy that he wasn't going to make me beg in front of everyone.
It was nearly 5:00 am before he took me back to his place. Eric was an artist and his place was always scattered with various pieces in partially completed states. He was popular and he did a lot of commission work for clubs and private collectors but his passion was the macabre. There were times when his place resembled a ghoulish scene straight from one of the latest slasher films. There were frequently miscellaneous body parts lying around in graphically rendered states of decomposition. In the year that I had been seeing him I had learned to judge his state of mind by the pieces that he was working on. Based on the fact that he'd murdered quite a few mannequins, there was a great deal of gore, and he had nothing in the works that I would consider lively, he was upset.
He slid the warehouse door closed, turned to me and uttered one word. "Beg."
I shook my head. "I'm not here for that, Eric. I'm here to talk."
He scoffed. "Talk? We never talk."
"I know," I smirked. "I think it's time we started."
"I'm not paying you to talk, Rain."
"You're not paying me at all, Eric. I'm here by my own choice."
His eyes widened for a bit as he registered what I'd said. It was the third time I said it but it was the first time he'd caught on. "You called me Eric."
I smiled. "Yeah."
His eyes narrowed into slits. "What do you want?"
"What do you want?" I retorted. "What do you want from me? I need to understand what we're doing here. I need you to tell me."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
I crossed the floor to where he still stood by the door. I got close enough to him that I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "Do you like me?" I whispered.
He cocked his head with a sad sort of smile and ran his hands down my arms. "Don't you know that already?"
I shook my head.
"Yes I like you, Rain. I more than like you."
"Do you want me, Eric?" I backtracked when I realized how that sounded. "For more than this. Am I just a whore to you? I need to know. I'm not trying to-"
"I know you're not," he interrupted. "I thought that you knew this. I don't... I'm not good at this, Baby. This..." He swept his hand indicating his work all around us. "This is how I communicate. I'm not good at the talking and sharing thing."
"You're doing fine," I assured him. "Just stay with me for a little longer. I just need a few more answers. Ok?"
He nodded.
"Do you want to be with me? Like, a couple? Like my boyfriend?"
"Fuck," he groaned and looked up at the 20' high ceiling. "I'd love that, Rain but I can't. I want to but I'm not good at that either. I will fuck you over. It's what I do. I always fuck up everything that I care about."
"You care about me?" I squeaked.
His chuckle was hardly more than a breath. "More than you realize, obviously." He reached up and combed his fingers through my hair. It was the first time that I could remember him doing anything that could be considered sweet or loving. "Yes, I want you. Yes, I care about you. Yes, I would love for you to be my boyfriend."
"But?"
"But... I'm seriously fucked up. Look at my life, Rain. I'm a disaster. I don't want to drag you down with me."
I laughed. "How much further down can I go? I'm a prostitute, Eric. I sell my body. I have no other skills and no prospects. You can't seriously be worried about lowering my standard of living."
He chuckled for real that time. "We're quite a pair, aren't we?"
"What do we do now?" I asked. "Do we try to make it as a couple or do we go back to being John and trick or do we end the whole thing and just walk away from each other?"
"I don't want that," he replied. "I don't want to stop seeing you. The last few weeks have been hell on me. I nearly went bat-shit crazy when I heard that you were working the hotels."
"So what do we do?"