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With respect to Daniel’s life, pain in the ass is spelled A-R-M-A-N-D.
He’s expecting all kinds of problems when he gets back to his apartment. The thick pile of mail in his box isn’t a surprise. Neither is the ride in the elevator, still as disgusting as he remembers it. His bedroom, his living room, his bathroom, none of them are a surprise.
What is a surprise is Armand, sitting casually at his kitchen counter with a phone in his hand and—by the sound of it—playing Candy Crush.
Daniel drops his bag.
Armand looks up. “Hello, Daniel. How was your flight?”
*
A smarter man would’ve walked back out the door and never come back, or maybe found the closest rooftop and gotten it over with. Daniel did neither. Instead, he asked, “How did you get past the doorman?” to which Armand responded, “Jorge is alive and well if that’s what you’re asking,” and that had been that.
The first month of having Armand around is difficult. Daniel hasn’t lived with anyone since Gabi, not that Armand exactly lives with Daniel. He fills the apartment with the smell of his cologne and something underneath that it can’t quite mask. A smell like water left to stand too long or flowers left too long in a vase. When he isn’t playing lab experiments in Daniel’s kitchen, he’s picking through his bookshelf and probing at Daniel, the very picture of a bored twenty-something poking at a sleeping animal to see what it does. Then he leaves for hours at a time without a word, though where he goes and what he does is a roll of the dice.
Daniel thinks he’ll never get used to it, that you really can’t teach an old dog new tricks. He should try to find a way to get Armand the hell out of here. Call Louis, maybe, though he’s heard absolute fucking zilch from Louis since Dubai. He doesn’t know where he’d even start to get a hold of him. Anyway, he doesn’t think Louis would much care what Armand does if he’s here alone. Lover’s spat or whatever. (Daniel is too fucking old for this.)
But after four months, Daniel stops hoping that every time Armand leaves he’ll stay gone this time. He stops noticing when Armand comes back with plump cheeks and warm hands. The restless discomfort of having someone in his space is replaced with an easy acceptance. Armand becomes a constant, as reliably there as the sunrise.
That’s when shit really hits the fan.
*
Daniel comes home one day to find the kitchen bursting with a feast fit to feed an entire army. Steaming food laid out on plates Daniel didn’t know he owned, food that he dimly recognizes from his time in Dubai. A hearty bowl of red-orange stew; basmati rice sprinkled with spices and chunks of meat; some kind of fish Daniel’s pretty sure is shark; and fried pastries smothered in syrup. The next time it happens, they’re dishes from his childhood, topik and manti and lahmacun with kefir.
Armand, like a freak, enjoys watching. He stares as Daniel lifts each morsel to his mouth, unblinking as Daniel chews and swallows. The first time, Daniel doesn’t taste a bite of any of it, too preoccupied with the look of intense hunger on Armand’s face.
He puts his foot down exactly once.
“I’ve been assured it’s a delicacy,” Armand says.
In front of him is a whole fish submerged in multi-colored gelatin. The fish is open-mouthed and positioned so its dead-eyed stare is pointed directly at Daniel. “I’d rather walk through a furnace in a gasoline suit. Thanks but no thanks.”
“Don’t be a child.”
As if he was serving Daniel the human equivalent of whatever counted as a luxury for vampires. Headless orphans or 1934 vintage blood bags, bottled in Tuscany. “How would you feel if I served you pig blood mixed with warm milk?”
Armand doesn’t do anything as uncouth as roll his eyes, but he gives the impression that he’d very much like to. “Try it.”
“No, you fucking sadist!”
“Dad?” A voice calls from the door. He hears the lock turn, heavy footsteps coming down the hall, and Andi meerkats her head into the kitchen. She has a box in her arms. “Uh, who are you talking to?”
Daniel casts a glance at the other end of the table. He’s completely alone.
“Hey, honey. No one.” He gets up and kisses her forehead before taking the box from her arms. “What is this?”
“Your publisher sent it to Mom’s again. You know, it would be so much easier if you just updated your address.” She looks around the room. “Were you on the phone or something?”
“No.” He moves to set the box down to buy himself some time. “I was talking to the cat.”
“You have a cat?” she asks, then stops short when she catches sight of the fish jello from hell. “What the hell is that?”
Daniel bullshits something or other, hoping Andi will let it go. Instead, he suffers a 20-minute interrogation on how he’s feeling, and she tells him she’ll come to visit after his next doctor’s appointment to see how he’s holding up. Fucking fantastic. She probably thinks he’s developing dementia.
He waits a minute after the door closes, making sure she’s gone, before Daniel calls out, “If anyone asks, you’re a cat named Dick. You have orange fur and like to bite."
"How kind of you to tailor the role to my specifications," Armand says. He pauses, staring at the closed door. “She takes after her mother.”
Daniel snorts out a laugh. “Oh, yeah? How do you know that?”
“Because she doesn’t take after you.”
“Small mercies.”
Armand smiles. “Shall I buy a collar?”
“If you’re into that shit.”
*
He starts leaving gifts at Daniel’s bedside. Lumbar support pillows, the expensive kinds Daniel could never justify spending so much money on. Sateen sheets, black and cool to the touch. An admittedly very nice Tuscany leather bag in cognac to replace the ratty backpack Daniel’s had since the early 2010s. Alongside his button-ups and tees, silk shirts pop up. A dark blue peacoat, a cashmere scarf, and hand-tooled Italian leather shoes.
One random weekend, Armand drags Daniel out of bed and stuffs him into his car, Armand at the wheel. He’s wearing a white, billowy linen set with a wide neck that shows off the delicate cut of his collarbones. He retracted the roof as soon as they left the city. His curls dance in the wind like hair only does in Hollywood rom-coms. He looks good enough to eat.
Armand catches him looking and grins. He lifts his sunglasses away from his eyes—brown—with a gloved hand and says, “Are you alright? You’ve been uncharacteristically quiet.”
“I’m trying to figure out where you’re gonna dump my body.”
“What makes you think I would dispose of your corpse so readily?”
“So, what? You would stuff me, mount me on your wall?”
“Perhaps. Such a pretty face,” he says, reaching out to brush a finger over Daniel’s cheekbone, the ghost of a touch, leather whispering against skin. Daniel controls a shiver by the skin of his teeth. “I would be reluctant to part with it.”
“Nice.” Daniel briefly considers flinging himself out of the car, but New York has notoriously shitty roads. That and Armand drives like a blind dog ripped to the tits on ketamine. “Are you taking me to a taxidermist?”
“This car ride would be much more enjoyable,” Armand says, “if you stopped talking.”
They drive until they hit a podunk well outside the city. It isn’t the kind of place Daniel was expecting Armand to take them. Sometimes he’ll wrench Daniel away from his work and toss him into a private jet on some remote airstrip for a night out at the ballet or the opera or a show that’s been sold out for weeks; or, once, inexplicably, the aquarium, walking between families and children peering into tanks and watching sharks swim overhead. Daniel had pointed at the anglerfish, with its gaping mouth and hypnotizing bioluminescent lure, and said to Armand, “At least you’re not the biggest freak on this planet.”
Armand pulls off a country road into the driveway of a light blue house. There’s a woman kneeling over a garden on the front lawn. She looks up at the sound of gravel crunching under tires and rises to her feet, waving a hand.
Daniel whirls on Armand. “What are we doing here?”
Steady, Daniel. We aren’t here to kill anyone. Armand unbuckles his seatbelt and steps out to meet her. Daniel, unsure what else to do, follows.
“Hi there. You must be Armand.” Her eyes dart to Daniel. “And Daniel. I’m Consuela. It’s nice to meet you. How was the drive?”
“Very pleasant, thank you,” Armand says.
“You got here faster than I was expecting,” she says, leading them behind the house toward a garage. She unclips her keychain from her belt loop as she goes, flicking through the keys. “The city is a long way away.”
“He has a lead foot,” Daniel explains.
Consuela laughs as she unlocks the garage door. The lights sputter to life as they step inside, at which point Daniel immediately notices the 1969 Firebird beside a beat-up minivan. It has a layer of dust over it. The paint is faded, gone almost pink in spots, and thick scratches scar the passenger’s side door like stretch marks. She’s the most beautiful thing Daniel has ever laid eyes on.
“Oh, hello, gorgeous,” Daniel says, running a hand over her hood.
“I’ve had her locked up in here for years. When my kids were born, it didn’t seem like a good idea to put a car seat in the back, you know? It kills me to see her rusting up in here.” She tosses something at Daniel, whose hand-eye luckily isn’t fucked up enough yet for him to fumble. The sharp bite of a car key digs into his palm. “You wanna take her for a ride?”
Daniel does.
He eases the Firebird out of Consuela’s driveway out of respect, but as soon as the house goes tiny in his rearview, he leans hard on the gas. She kicks forward like a horse let off the reins and they whip down the country road at a speed Daniel hasn’t felt in decades, not since he was a kid in his dad’s garage. The car rumbles under him, 365 horsepower under his hands, and Daniel thinks this is better than food, better than sex.
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Armand says beside him.
*
Daniel isn’t an idiot. He knows the game Armand is playing, and he knows he’s falling for it. It pissed him off a little, the first few weeks of it. He’d tossed a lot out and ignored most of Armand’s calls during that time, just to spite him, but Armand kept on, undeterred. Daniel was the mouse being played with, and any minute, Armand would snap him up whole.
The breaking point is the necklace.
For his birthday, Armand buys him a choker of rubies, two inches wide. Daniel finds it on his bedside table inside a velvety box and a note with his name written in Armand’s elegant script. After the Terror, in the early days of the Directory, the aristos who escaped the guillotine took to tying a red ribbon around their necks. It makes sense that the image would have stuck with Armand, and why he would gift this to Daniel to clasp around his throat. When it catches the light, the crimson jewels flash, bright as arterial blood.
He’s still wearing it when Armand shows up at his door, carrying a paper bag. He walks into the kitchen and sees Daniel there at the counter, wearing the Burberry suit he bought him sans jacket, which Daniel left draped over the back of a chair. He doesn’t miss the brief flare of Armand’s nostrils when he first catches sight of him, a beast that’s caught a scent. An animal consumed and defined by want. His eyes lock on Daniel’s throat.
“Happy birthday, Daniel.”
“Seventy years. Yahtzee.” Daniel puts out the cigarette he’d been smoking. “Alright. Let’s cut the shit. What’s your endgame?”
Whether the question surprises Armand is impossible to know. He sets the bag down on the table. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh. That’d be a lot more convincing if I didn’t already know you could read minds. What are you playing at? What do you want?”
Armand takes two bottles out of the bag and decants them with a swift motion of his hand. He walks over to the cabinets and takes out two wine glasses. He turns his head as he passes by the microwave as if to catch his reflection—and Daniel’s reflection. Gauging.
He pours out a glass and slides it in Daniel’s direction without looking at him, and pours himself something red and chilled that Daniel isn’t stupid enough to think is wine. Armand wraps one hand around his middle as he sips from his glass. It’s the most on-guard Daniel has ever seen him, which is how he knows he’s doing it on purpose.
“What is it you think I want?” he asks.
“Gee, I don’t know. My head on a stick?”
“If I wanted you dead, you would be dead by now,” he says. “But you know that. You’ve known it for months.”
Daniel grinds his teeth. “That could be something you planted in my brain, Inception-style.”
“The mind gift doesn’t work that way.”
Lie. One that Daniel can’t prove or disprove, only something he can turn over and over in his hands without reaching any concrete conclusion.
“You’re thinking very loudly.” Armand sets down his glass and comes around until he’s standing right in front of Daniel. That still-water, green-sweet rot smell fills the room. His face is flush with color, and Armand quells any questions of whether he’s as warm as he looks by pressing his thumb into Daniel’s chin. What do you think I want? Armand’s voice rings softly inside Daniel’s head. Then Armand’s mouth brushes Daniel’s, more of a caress than a kiss.
He leans back. Daniel can’t help but follow, wanting more, but Armand’s hand on his breastbone keeps him still. “Does that bear further explanation?”
“You’re such a pretentious asshole.” Daniel licks his lips, chasing the taste of Armand’s mouth. Sharp and metallic. “Is that what all this has been about? You wanted in my pants?”
“You make it sound so vulgar.” Armand traces the choker with his finger. He looks enraptured. “I want you completely. You’ve captivated me.”
Daniel swallows. Armand’s finger rides with the motion. “Must’ve been my charming personality. You know, you could’ve just said so.”
“I did. Just now.”
“I mean, before all—whatever this is,” Daniel manages. Armand’s fingers haven’t left his neck, and his thoughts scatter every time Armand brushes over his jugular. He keeps losing his train of thought. “The car, the clothes, and this stupid thing on my throat.”
“Don’t act like you don’t like it.” Armand noses at the spot that makes Daniel shiver, licking a hot stripe there. The hands at Daniel’s hips pull him in closer, possessive. “You look ravishing.”
It all happens too fast. Daniel’s hands come up to Armand’s hair at the same time that Armand grabs him by the ass and lifts, and Daniel opens his legs to let Armand crowd him against the counter, clearing it with a sweep of his hand. Daniel’s glass falls and shatters somewhere behind him; he doesn’t look to see where. He’s too busy saying, “Come on, do it, just do it,” and then Armand’s biting into him and Daniel’s entire body jerks in surprise.
Hot blood pours out of Daniel and into Armand’s open mouth. Panic beats its wings in Daniel’s chest, urging him to elbow Armand in the face and get the hell out of there. Daniel squirms—but not away. He throws his head back and drags Armand closer, panting, and begs him to keep going. Armand makes a small, pleased sound low in his throat. His thumb rubs soothing circles behind Daniel’s ear, a juxtaposition to the delicious hurt of his mouth, and just as Daniel thinks he’s going to die if this goes on any longer, it goes on and gets better.
“Take me to bed.” He can feel Armand against his thigh, the unconscious, desperate rocking of his hips. “Please, baby, you’re killin’ me here.”
Armand wrenches his fangs out, teeth and mouth stained red. A thrill kicks up Daniel’s spine. “I would never do that to you, Daniel.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve bewitched you, body and soul, whatever.” He reels Armand in for a biting kiss before pulling Armand’s head back to whisper into the shell of his ear, “Now take me to bed.”
The journey to the bedroom takes longer than it should. They keep getting distracted along the way. Armand pressing him against the wall to take off Daniel’s shirt, then spending a small eternity mouthing at Daniel’s chest and stomach when Daniel feels a pang of embarrassment. Daniel trying to unzip Armand’s pants as they walk and failing miserably, making them stumble.
By the time they fall into bed, they’re naked but for their socks, which neither of them is willing to pause long enough to take off. “Fuck. I don’t have any lube.”
“I suppose we’ll have to improvise,” Armand says, at which point he gently presses Daniel’s thighs apart so he can settle his weight into the cradle of Daniel’s hips. He grabs a handful of Daniel’s ass and encourages him to move. Every slide of their cocks shocks Daniel speechless. The pleasure builds hot and liquid in Daniel’s belly as Armand pants into his ear—not because he needs to breathe. A psychosomatic response, sheer sensory overload, rendering Armand breathless.
“Next time.” He moans as Armand picks up the pace, tension at the small of his back. “Next time, I want you to fuck me. I want you to ride me into the mattress. I want—”
“Beloved,” Armand says, hips stuttering out of time, breathing snatched ragged.
“Come on. I got you.” He kisses him hard and a little dirty, hooking his ankle over Armand’s thigh to urge him on. “Come on—”
Armand comes. Daniel follows not too far behind, Armand getting a hand around him to stroke him so ruthlessly that Daniel’s climax hits him like a punch to the gut. Armand collapses next to him and cleans them off with something soft he throws to the corner of the room. Daniel lifts his head to see what it is.
“I liked that shirt,” he says.
Armand lays a lazy kiss on his shoulder. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
Daniel flops closer to him, away from the wet spot, and realizes that he never took the rubies off, and Armand never mentioned it. A thought occurs to him. He nudges Armand with his foot.
“Hey. Did you buy me this as a collar?”
“No,” he says, though after so long of a pause that it’s one-hundred percent a lie.
“Jesus Christ, you actually are into that shit.” Daniel can’t help it. He laughs. Armand probably commissioned a jeweler from Europe to make this, and then—possessive and controlling as he is—instead of wearing it himself, he gave it to Daniel.
“I don’t see what’s so amusing,” Armand says but twinkles, mollified, when Daniel plants a delighted kiss at the seam of his mouth. “Should I call you Dick now?”
“Not if you expect me to answer.”