Streetlights and Starlight

Author's Notes: Okay, I know this chapter is choppy. I apologize. Really. I just have so much going on right now that it may actually be impairing my writing ability. I'll try not to let this happen again.

"Roger, meet Maureen," Mark rehearses to the bathroom mirror. "Maureen – this is Roger. Roger, meet my girlfriend, Maureen. Maureen, this is Roger, my fucktoy. I wonder if Collins and Benny's bed can hold three people…"

"It can barely hold two," Collins volunteers, sneaking up behind Mark. Mark jumps, and the skin beneath his razorblade tears.

"Thanks a lot, Tom," Mark drawls, patting the injured area with his thumb. And something (possibly similar to madness) suddenly takes hold of Mark, and before he knows what hits him, Mark blurts out, "Look, I'm having a problem, all right? And I need help." That last sentence, brought on by Mark's suspicions that Collins knows everything – which he probably does – and hangs in the air as both of the bathroom's occupants wait for the other to speak. Mark breaks first, of course, because he always does. "I… I have a girlfriend," he says slowly. "Maureen. She's great, really. We get along, the sex is awesome, and… well, you know. It's just great."

Collins stills his ever-tapping foot and gives Mark a prodding look. "Yeah?"

"And the problem is, then there's Roger. The thing with Roger is that I hate him – I hate him – and then I don't. Well, I hate him almost all the time, except for last night when he was sucking me off. That's basically it. With Maureen, you know, it's this healthy relationship, but with Roger, we're not equal, you know? I get to be in charge, because he likes me more than I like him. A lot more, obviously. So I get to tell him what to do, and he does it."

"Uh-huh." Collins nods. "So… you're having a problem choosing between them?"

Mark's head bobs up and down.

"You're screwed," Collins says after a long pause. "You're basically trying to figure out if you want to be "normal" – have a straight, no-strings-attached, perfectly "vanilla" relationship, or basically fuck this guy every night, a guy who'd do whatever the hell you told him to do, no question. So of course you like it with Roger obeying your every whim, but what you need to figure out is whether you value that more than your relationship with Maureen. I know it sounds personal, but I can pretty much tell you don't love Roger – that's obvious – so if you love Maureen, there's your answer."

Mark shakes his head. "I don't. I mean, not like that. She's like a sister most of the time."

"Then I advise you prioritize," Collins says, and ruffles Mark's hair before leaving the room.

Mark sighs. Knowing all that he knows, one would think that Collins would be able to offer Mark better advice than that. Or maybe Collins's advice isn't quite as good at eleven-thirty in the morning, when he hasn't had the chance to get high yet. Perhaps Benny will offer a better solution, Mark suspects, and so he seeks out his other loftmate. He finds Benny sitting on his bed, reading a book.

"Hi, Benny," Mark says brightly. "Don't worry about your sheets, Roger's gonna wash them as soon as he gets his ass off the couch." Mark speaks especially loudly so that Roger, all the way over in the living room-slash-kitchen area, hears and responds by bustling into the room.

"Do you – you want me to do that now?" Roger asks tentatively. His hands reach to the sheets hanging off the bed, and Benny shrugs and stands up so as to give his loftmate easier access.

Mark turns to Benny. "Come onto the fire escape for me, I wanna talk to you." He takes his friend by the hand and leads him to said fire escape, leaving Roger to strip off the sheets, eyes downcast and feet shuffling across the floor. He does not watch Mark and Benny as they depart, fully focused on the task at hand.

Upon Mark and Benny's exit, Collins joins Roger in the bedroom and plops himself down on an already-bare corner of the bed. "Hey, Rog," he greets his friend. "What's on your mind?"

Roger simply shakes his head. "I don't know," he admits. "I just know that I like Mark – I always have – and I loved last night." After another moment of speculation, Roger adds, "And I – all right, I know this is gonna sound weird, okay? Just… I know he's treating me kind of strangely, and I sort of… I don't mind it. I like it." He takes a deep breath. "Does that make me a freak?"

God. There are some things Collins never imagined himself doing. Explaining a dominant-submissive lifestyle to a sixteen-year-old kid from Scarsdale happens to be one of those things. Gay and anarchistic, Collins never once considered fatherhood as a possible path for his future, and here he is, sitting on the bed with a teenager who requires advice on his unbalanced relationship with an adult male. It's not as though Collins thinks that any of these things are wrong or immoral or anything unnatural – it's only that the sheer irony of the situation, the fact that all his favorite unconventional elements of the bohemian lifestyle are now coming to hurt him, simply stings him a bit.

"No, Roger," Collins explains firmly, "it does not make you a freak." He pauses. Exactly how much detail does the kid need? After a moment's thought on Roger's probable future, living with bohemians in an East Village loft, Collins continues. "Well, see, Rog, there are a lot of people like this. We call them submissive, where they like their partners to take more control. You know, they like pleasing their partner." Collins does not mention his brief dip into this lifestyle in adolescence. He figures the fewer mental images Roger has, the better. "Mark is what we'd call dominant, which is basically the opposite of submissive – they like controlling their partner."

"Well, that's Mark," Roger drawls.

"Yeah, exactly." Collins, irked at having been interrupted when it is taking him such an unbelievable amount of willpower to say all this, plows on. "People who are into this kind of thing, there are clubs and bars and stuff for them to go to. One favorite pastime of this submission thing – bondage – is featured in a club right around the corner from here. Called the Catscratch. I'll take you there sometime. Oh, and there's a bar with stage acts, that'd be good. I could get you some videos on this, too…"

Roger, up until this point, believed that Tom Collins was unflusterable, untouchable and poised and collected. Here and now he sees a new side of his friend, who apparantly has some nervous habits after all. While Collins does not fidget, bite his nails, twirl hair around his finger or stutter, he here proves that his one nervous habit is babbling. It's exactly what Roger might have expected. Collins is not a physical person, so it would be strange for him to let out his nerves physically rather than verbally, because Tom Collins is, if anything, a talker.

"Collins, it's okay," Roger says hurriedly. "You don't have to. I was just wondering, you know, if there are other people like that. If it's not just me. It's not just me?"

"No," Collins says, and his voice is very strong. "In fact, there are all kinds of things that are way weirder that tons of people are into. Like bestiality. I mean, really. As if petting animals isn't bad enough, now they want to fuck them?" He laughs, and suddenly Roger and Collins are back to their little world, no longer in serious-mode, no longer obliged by any means to discuss important things, because most of the time, there are very few (if any) things to discuss in Bohemia-Land.

Roger nods and slips into a cheerful conversation with Collins about some inane thing or another. He of course folds the sheets as he does so, and when he finishes, he and Collins head to the loft's main door so that they can walk to the laundromat. Collins doesn't bother to grab his wallet – he knows that this, probably like many future things, is on Roger. In fact, it is a mystery to Collins how Roger ever managed to acquire money, but decides that if some sort of thievery is involved, he'd rather not know. Ignorance has never once been bliss to the anarchist, but it would upset him to know of a sixteen-year-old stealing now just as he did months prior while living on the streets. He thought Roger was improved or changed somehow by moving into the loft with Collins and Benny, and now Mark, but apparantly not.

The laundromat is, as always, full of people with all sorts of odd stains that couldn't be explained away to a real dry cleaner. That, Roger suspects, is the reason why people prefer to do their own laundry, so semen-splattered sheets and blood-spotted panties don't have to be exposed to anybody. He himself would never allow anyone to see his clothes or sheets, and isn't entirely sure why anyone else would. It's a strange sort of voyeurism, he believes, to want to see someone else's laundry. Unconventional and innocent at the same time.

Coin slots have always irritated Roger and Collins. It always seemed like a very close call to freedom – like a teacher carrying around an answer sheet while students take a test, scanning the aisles to make sure nobody is cheating. So it is a very signature bohemian move when Roger, rather than placing coins into the slot one-by-one, places two quarters in at once, side-by-side. Of course, this prevents the coins from processing, and so the slot is broken. So what is there to do? The machine is already running, and oh, well. Anarchy smells sweet even in a laundromat.

The sheets are clean and unstained when Roger empties the machine, and so he swings the laundry in a bag over his shoulder and begins walking with Collins back to the loft. Dull conversation ensues, of course; Roger disdainfully discusses the horrible music that had been playing in the laundromat, while Collins reminisces of the look on the laundromat's manager's face upon his discovery that the slot was jammed. Both bohemian boys are delightedly caught up in their own murmuring, and so they completely miss the glance offered to them of Mark and Benny standing on the fire escape. Had Roger seen, he might have wondered what they were discussing, but he does not see, and so it is with blissful unawareness that he ascends the stairs leading to the loft, and in it, the comfortable couch on which he would love to take a nap.

But by the time Roger and Collins slide the door open and collapse against said couch, Mark and Benny are already back inside. Both look exhausted and tense, yet cards are laid out on the table, and two chairs are left open for Roger and Collins. Roger waves a hand in thanks but no thanks, but Collins accepts the offer, hopping onto the stool reserved for him and asking gruffly, "What game?"

Mark answers, and Collins nods curtly before scanning his cards. He doesn't get much farther than that, however, before the phone rings. Mark gets to his feet, but Benny shoves him down. "We screen," he, Roger, and Collins explain in unison, and before long, a shrill female voice makes its way over the answering machine. Collins and Benny turn aggravated looks to Roger, suspecting that the speaker is Mrs. Davis, having found out the loft's number at last – but no. Mark walks to the answering machine and listens as the voice of Maureen Johnson bounces off the walls.

"Hi, Mark," Maureen chirps, "it's me, baby. I just wanted to say me and Cindy got to the city, and we're gonna meet you at this really cute little café we found – what's it called, Cindy? Oh, it's called – Memba. Yeah. What street is this, Cin – Third street, she says." With that, Mark grabs the phone and puts it to his ear.

"Hey, Maureen," he says, sounding apologetic, perhaps, for not answering the phone faster. "What's up? Oh – third street? Third and what? Okay, third and first. Yeah. You sure?" He pauses. "Yeah, okay. Can I bring the other guys, if they wanna come? Great. Okay. See you in twenty minutes. Bye."

Mark turns to Roger, Collins, and Benny. "Anyone up for meeting my sister and my girlfriend?"