2009 - 31 years old - Lima, OH

Will sat on the edge of the toilet in the dark. For the third time he pressed Toby's speed dial, and for the third time he cancelled it. He sat there another four minutes before he was willing to try again.

This time he let it ring, listening in the dark with tired, anxious thoughts crawling through his brain. Toby is probably asleep. This is a bad idea. He let it ring anyway.

"Hey, this is Toby," said his voice mail in a sweet Kentucky drawl. "I'd really like to talk to you. Leave me a message." When the beep sounded, Will only got out the words "Toby, I'm –" before the screen indicated there was another call for him. It was Toby, calling him back. He pressed the button to cancel the current call and switch over.

"Toby," he said.

"What the fuckin' hell, Will," Toby snapped. "This better be life and death, because I'm running on empty here."

"I needed you," Will insisted. "Thank you for picking up."

"Don't thank me yet." Toby sighed. "One of the johns threw up all over my favorite shoes. I don't think I'm fixin' to smile any time tonight."

"You don't have to smile. Just – be honest."

"Honest? You want honest? You're a fuckin' hypocrite, Will. You say you can't give me up and then you don't call for a week. You make me beg for something any other guy would die to have. And fuck me, Will, but I want to give it to you."

"This isn't what I wanted," Will said, shaking his head. "I'm hanging up."

"Don't you dare," Toby said, shrill and demanding. "You're getting exactly what's coming to you. It's time to pay the fuckin' piper."

The sweat on Will's brow was cold and damp, and he futilely tried to wipe it off with his hand, but all he managed to do was spread it around. "I know," he said, his voice equally cold.

"So how do you want it, Will? How's it going to be? What kind of a pitiful fuck are you tonight?" His words cut, like a lash, and Will welcomed the pain. His head swam.

"You – your mouth," he whispered, and already he was hard, desperately so. Will dug his hand under the elastic of his shorts and squeezed his shameful erection.

"Where do you want me to put that mouth, Will?" Toby snarled. "You want it so bad, you'd better be fixin' to tell me what you want me to do with it."

"Suck me," Will said, stroking hard and fast, panting into it. "Suck my cock, Toby."

"You want me on my knees, don't you." It wasn't a question. "You want to be balls-deep in my throat, making me take it."

"No," he whimpered, squeezing his eyes against the searing image. "No, I –"

"Yeah, you do. I know what you like, Will. I know you. You need it more than any man I know." He laughed, cruel and quick. "Grab my hair. Come on, wrap your hands around my neck and fuckin' do me."

"Toby," he groaned, gripping himself harder, thrusting into his fist. It wasn't Toby's mouth, but if he reached for it, he could almost pretend it was, almost get what he needed.

"You know I love it." Toby's sweet voice sliced into him, laid him bare. "Anything you want to do to me, you know I can't get enough of it. I'm your fuckin' whore, Will."

"No," he protested, even as the words drove him closer to the edge. "Toby… I love you."

"You love what you can get from me. You know I can't ever say no to you." Will could hear the tears creeping into his voice, as they often did when Toby was close to coming. "You're fuckin' using me, Will. And I love it. So come on, give it to me, hard and fast, just how I like it – you owe me, Will."

"Everything," he said, with a gasp like a sob. "I owe you everything."

"You better believe it," Toby hissed. "Now come for me – come in that precious mouth you love so much."

Will muffled the sound of his cries in the crook of his elbow, his hips lifting off the edge of the toilet seat, and he shot his load into his boxers. The sound of Toby's own desperate orgasm came hard on the heels of his own. He was moaning Will's name, and Will started to cry.

"Toby, I don't – I want –"

"I know." Toby was subdued now, his voice tinged with regret. "It's just a game, Will. I know what you need. I'm just giving it to you. It doesn't mean anything."

"I love you," Will whispered, broken.

"I know," Toby repeated, annoyed. "Don't worry about it. Just – for fuck's sake, Will, call a little earlier next time, okay? I'm a bitch when I'm tired."

"Yeah, you are," he smiled, wiping the tears away and sniffing. "You need your sleep."

"I'm going to be useless as tits on a boar hog tomorrow." Toby snorted delicately. "Anything else I can do for you, darlin'?"

"Don't – don't call me that," Will said, stung. "Not like this."

"I'll still mean it tomorrow," said Toby. "Nothing's changed. You're still my darlin'."

"Please." Will was begging him. "I can't hear you say that right now."

Toby laughed scornfully. "Nothin' shameful in wanting this, Will. Don't make this about your fuckin' issues."

"I can't help it." His voice was a thread of remorse. "You know me too well."

"I know you just well enough. And I still love you, you fuckin' idiot. Now get back to bed before Terri wakes up and comes looking for you."

Will slipped off his soiled shorts and dropped the whole sodden mess into the hamper. He'd do the laundry tomorrow morning, so Terri wouldn't find them. She was bound to get on his case about it, if she did. "Can I call you tomorrow?"

"Not before noon, unless you have a fuckin' death wish," he said. "I've got senior studio until 2:30, but then I'm free. Call then. I can guarantee I'll be in a better mood."

"I – " Will let his eyes close. "Good night, Toby."

"Good night… Will." Will heard him relent. "Don't fret this, really. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last either. Just accept yourself, for once. I do."

"Yeah," he said, and smiled, a painful, honest smile. "You do."


2009 - Denver, CO

Toby did lots of things to exorcise thoughts, feelings, and memories of Will, but dancing had always been the easiest and most effective. That's why he started working with an escort service all those years ago. He let Will believe it was something he's done since college, but the reality was that the thought never even occurred to Toby until that first hard year after Will married Terri. In the beginning, the approval and unmasked desire on the faces of strangers lifted Toby up, got him through the long nights alone. Now, all of it just made him feel slightly ill, but it eased the hurt he carried every day and it pissed Will off.

Toby knew his reasoning was flawed, but he figured that if he couldn't have what he really wanted from Will, he'd settle for pissing him off.

At least it was something.

That morning, after Will called him, desperate and aching, Toby was antsy. It hadn't been the first time, and he knew it wouldn't be the last, but Toby still felt used. He muddled through his late-morning routine of coffee-walk Annie-drive to school, and calmed himself with some stretches in the studio before his seniors burst through the door. He was especially fond of the group; he'd been with them since they were frightened 6th graders in his Basic class. They greeted him, like always, with hugs and smiles and excited chatter as they tucked their dance bags along the edges of the studio and took their places for warm-up. He lead them through a modified ballet barre, more for his scattered brain than their own benefit, since they'd already had their daily ballet class. His stars, Hannah and Lucas, raised eyebrows in question, and he just smiled and continued on with plies as he encouraged them. "I know, kittens, but it's good discipline. You'll thank me someday."

He was a little more centered when he released them to the floor for stretches, and by the time they gathered in the corner for turns he was back on top of his game. He was feeling particularly devilish, so he worked up an impromptu routine to rival the best of Bob Fosse, and he was so thrilled with the way the kids take to it that when they begged for fifteen minutes of tap at the end of the period, he couldn't say no. He waited while his tappers, the ones who studied outside of school, switched their jazz shoes and the studio was awash in the jangling of metal. The ones who didn't tap, the ones who fancied themselves serious ballet dancers and only took jazz because the school required it, arranged themselves underneath and on top of the barres to watch while Toby lead the rest of the class through the first three LeTang routines. They finished just before the bell, a pile of laughing bodies sprawled breathless on the floor. It made Toby ridiculously happy to see them like that. It made him think of dancing with Laurie back at B-W.

They scattered to the locker rooms at the bell, and Toby lingered behind, taking advantage of the empty studio to work through some things he wanted to try with his senior tappers for the holiday showcase. When his phone rand out the faint sounds of Prince's Kiss, signalling a call from Will, Toby ignored it.

He also ignored the insistent trilling of his voicemail notification.

Instead, once he was safely ensconced in his car, he put his phone on speaker and called Brad, who answered on the third ring.

"Tobias." Toby could hear music and laughter, and the familiar sounds of teenagers talking.

"Bradley. I'm interrupting. I can call back later." Toby really didn't want to do that, because talking to Brad would be the only thing to keep him from calling Will back.

"No, hold on." Toby waited through footsteps and the gentle clicking of a door closing, and then there was blissful silence. "Okay. Sorry. Will called an extra Glee practice, and now he's late."

"I think that might be my fault. I told him to call me, and then I didn't answer." Toby ran a hand through his hair as he merged onto the highway and promptly slid to a halt in a sea of tail lights.

"Are you also responsible for the foul mood he's been in all day?" Brad's tone was lightly teasing, but Toby could hear the serious underneath.

"He didn't help my mood, either, just to be fair." Damn traffic. Toby tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.

"I'm not going to ask what happened." Brad never asked, never pried, never passed judgment. He just listened, and offered only solicited advice. Never mind the way he had of always turning the conversation around so that Toby asked for advice even when that wasn't his intent, but whatever.

"More of the same. I'm in a right mess out here." Toby inched the car forward a scant few inches, and then dropped his head back against the headrest.

"When was the last time you took class?" Brad was treading carefully.

"A few weeks back." Toby was almost ashamed to admit it. He reminded his students that the most important thing they can do for their technique and their bodies and minds was to take class regularly, but there have been too many thoughts of Will to erase lately. Toby had been escorting more and more, which made Will sullen and irritable, which in turn sent Toby back into the gazes of other men.

"I don't care what your plans were for the night. Get out of your head. Maybe you'll find some clarity." Toby could hear mild banging on Brad's end of the phone, so he sighed and nodded.

"Okay. I'll take a class. Sounds like you're needed. Thanks, Bradley."

"I hate it when you call me that."

"You secretly love me, don't lie," Toby laughed lightly. "But seriously, thanks."

"No problem. Just . . ." Brad sighed.

"What?"

"Take care of yourself, okay? I worry about you." Toby could hear what Brad wasn't saying, that Will worried too.

"I will. I know." Toby disconnected the call, and swiped at unexpected tears at the corners of his eyes. He didn't even know what he was crying about.


Ballet had never been Toby's favorite, thought he appreciated the tradition and the history. That said, when he needed to clear his head rather than dance to exhaustion, he picked ballet over tap or jazz. There was just too much to focus on in ballet; he couldn't think about anything beyond his body in space, and in those moments of losing himself in the routine of barre work or the balance and extension of adagio, he occasionally connected with the brilliant truths of his life.

So that night, he picked a ballet class, the advanced adult class at the arts complex where he sometimes performs. The teacher, Ellie, was an old friend from his early days in Denver, back when he was diligent and took class regularly and Ellie was another struggling dancer trying to make a living, teaching baby ballet in exchange for her own class fees. Toby loved that class, and Ellie's unique perspective, an incongruous combination of ballet and something that always felt wholly more holistic.

The class was small, a handful of women around Toby's age, and a younger girl, tall and slim and barely out of her teens. Toby took his place at the barre and waited for Ellie to start the music, and then she turned out the lights.

Toby closed his eyes and let his body relax into the plies and port de bras; he had to juggle his body a bit on the left when he switched from second to fifth position, and Ellie was on him in an instant, her small hands gently guiding his hip and back into the right placement. She stayed with him through the next movement, sweeping stretches facing the barre, and back to first position on the other side.

"What's going on?" She whispered in his ear over the shifting of bodies and the lilt of the music.

Toby just shook his head and leaned over, touching his nose to his turned-out knees. Ellie swept her palms over the curve of his spine, and he relaxed down another fraction of an inch. The stretch felt blissful, and before Toby even realized it, he was crying. Not the barely-there tears from his car earlier but full-on rolling down his cheeks tears. Ellie tugged on his arm once he was upright and nodded to the young girl. "Everyone follow Adele through tendus and petite battements. I'll be back."

She guided Toby into the hall and over to the broad stairs that led upstairs to the gallery space.

When they were both sitting, she leaned into him and he leaned back.

"What's wrong, T?"

Toby started to say that he didn't know, but the words got caught. He just shook his head instead.

"Boy troubles?"

"We haven't been boys in years." Toby watched understanding creep into Ellie's eyes.

"Oh. Your man. The one back in Ohio, right?" Toby thought it was odd that Ellie remembered, because he hadn't talked about Will with her in years.

"Yeah. It's just complicated." He sighed, and leaned back on his elbows on the stair behind them.

"Always is, when it's love. Why hasn't he moved here? Or you there?" It was a valid question; Toby just dried his eyes and blinked in surprise because nobody had ever asked him that before.

"The complicated? He's straight. Or so he maintains. He's married, in any case." He shook his head.

"And you just let things be the way they are, taking what you can get?" There was no judgement in Ellie's voice, just curiosity.

"That's just the way it's always been. I don't know how to be any other way with him." Toby knew, deep in his core, that he could never walk away from Will. So he just kept hanging on, chasing the breadcrumbs Will kept leaving for him and moving forward on blind faith that Will was always going to be a long-distance part of his life. But what if the only distance between them was emotional rather than geographic? He gasped at the thought.

Ellie shifted next to him. "What's keeping you here? In Denver, I mean."

Toby closed his eyes and thought on it. Even though he'd lived here for better than a decade, most of the trappings of his life were transient, and had been since he was 14 years old. He felt weak with the realization. "Nothing."

"So go to him. You've stuck with him this long. If you love him, if he's worth it, you need to force his hand. Don't choose for him by doing nothing. Make him choose." Ellie patted him on the arm. "I think maybe class isn't the place for you tonight."

"I think you're right." Toby stood and wrapped Ellie up in his arms. "Thank you," he whispered into her hair.

"Did you get your clarity?" She smiled at him as they walked back to the studio so he could get his bag.

"No. But I'm closer than I've been in a long time."