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Lukas accidentally meets the love of his fucking life under the glow of a neon pink sign shaped like the mudflap girl.
It’s only midafternoon and Lukas is only there for the noise. It helps him concentrate. Sort of like the sound and feel of popping a sick extended wheelie. And he’s bullshitting with some reports for school on his laptop, turkey-picking at a basket of potato wedges that set him back $7 of daddy’s money when a big interruption plops down on the purple pleather couch beside him.
The love of his fucking life is long-legged and wearing a shreddy croptop tee the color of oriental lilies. It matches the raspberry shade of his lips.
Lukas has shied away from a Kitty, a Kandi, a Baby and a Sasha and he’s part ways into his polite-ish “no thanks, really, I’m good” when he glances over to a big fake sunshiny grin on the face of a boy who looks like he oughta be wearing a backpack and zooming past on a huffy.
Big, dark doll eyes; limbs like a willow tree.
Rule 1:
Do not engage.
“Let me guess—Bambi?” Lukas tries, not frostily, but not altogether gracious either.
“If you want,” the boy says, and scoots in closer next to Lukas anyway, Lukas’s hostile air and all.
~
The love of his fucking life is actually named Philip and Lukas finds him to be a film noir kind of gloomy. The anti-stripper. Like he knows Lukas isn’t interested, won’t be buying, and doesn’t have to use his retired salesman voice.
“Philip, huh?” he says, dead-hollow, more occupied with unsticking the caps lock key.
“You don’t believe me?” this Philip says, like a dare, like Lukas cares at all. “Here. I’ll prove it.”
He’s maybe expecting the guy to flash his labeled money clutch or whatever, something, but he doesn’t plan for Philip stretching back and pulling down the little black strap of his y-back thong – the one that’s creeping up out of his tattery shorts – to just below his (gaunty, protruding) hipbone.
“Well that’s stupid,” Lukas says, unfiltered. “Why would you get your own name done on your body?”
It’s not even in smooth script or graceful swirls. It looks like a third grader’s handwriting.
Philip shrugs, and tucks the little curls peeking around his cheekbones back behind his ears. “It’s a good name.”
And a good body, Lukas thinks miserably. But it is. From what he can see just sitting here, Philip is flesh and bones in a belly quivering way.
“Not just young but also dumb,” Philip goes on, daintily looking at his chippy black metallic nails. His fingers are so long, like elegant spiders. Lukas rolls his eyes, mostly at himself. “I got it back when I was seventeen.”
And – Philip looks like he’s skirting the toe of 12 right at this moment. He must be really good at languages, though, because he interprets the lingo on Lukas’s face fast.
“Eighteen now,” Philip says, scooting closer to Lukas’s thigh. It’s a three year age gap, theirs, that Lukas only accidentally maths in his head.
Lukas is unimpressed and says so. “Oh, sweet. Wisened to grey-hair heights in three hundred days.”
“Sure I have,” Philip says on a slightly gap-toothed smile, just a tiny little slot, princess cute. And he’s a comedrip away from straddling Lukas’s lap. “I can also predict future occurrences.”
Whatever face Lukas makes, Philip giggles. It’s not a laugh. There’s too much paid flirt in it to be just a laugh. Vixenish. “Just like I know that you’re gonna turn me down when I bat my eyes and offer a dance—“
Lukas had always been under the impression that this was a girls-only strip club. He’s been coming here long enough. But maybe he’s wrong about that. Maybe he’s wrong about a lot.
“Wow, you are good,” Lukas says, goes back to his computer screen. The webcam hole up top has a swipe of thick black tape pressed over it courtesy of the door guy. He fiddles with it now, unprecedentedly nervy.
“—but before you know it,” Philip talks over him, now onto sugary sweetheart tactics, “I’m gonna have to be tearing your hands off’a me and, oh, too late, you’ll have fallen in love with me.”
With a pig snort and a sneer, Lukas says,
“Well we may as well say our goodbyes now, spare me the heartache.” He keys a few more half-thought numbers into a column. “Hit me with a real good breakup speech though, ‘kay?”
Philip clears his throat, inchworms a sneaky finger threateningly close to Lukas’s mostly disinterested crotch. Mostly.
Pretty little Philip’s got a Lana Del Rey mouth. It’s aggressively hard to ignore.
“Hey, it’s been fun, hasn’t it? And look, we had some good times, some great sex…”
“Yo, that’s true,” Lukas agrees. “Except that annoying thing you always did where you kept trying to put your pinky up my—“
“Oh, fuck,” Philip laughs, faltering in his seduction & selling technique. “That does sound like me.”
Lukas clicks save on the report that’s 23% of his grade and closes his laptop. He’s obviously getting fuckall done. “Well, maybe you’ll treat your next husband with a little more dignity, bitch.”
Philip gasps, shrivels. “Ohmygod. We were married? I’m a fucking crumb. I think I’ve made a mistake, baby, maybe we—“
“No,” Lukas sniffs, like it’s real, puts a palm to Philip’s (thinly, firm at the press) chest. “Don’t baby me.” And then, because it seems like a good time to reiterate, “I’m still not buying a dance either.”
“Damn, cold.” But Philip smiles and shrugs easily, the blush pink of his loose tee slipping off an angular shoulder. “Well, whatever. Maybe I’ll tattoo your name on my other hip. Lost lovers and all that.”
Lukas points a potato wedge in the air like a finger. Says, “savage,” and takes a bite.
“So what is it,” Philip says, studying the movement of Lukas’s lipchews as the DJ starts calling for the house boy, calling for Philip, and Lukas for sure isn’t looking to be a rain god here. He keeps his wallet and his eyes to himself, starts packing up his laptop and crossbody to head back to his 14th floor apartment. Sometimes he really misses the country sunshine like an allover ache.
“What’s what?” he says, stumblingly, when Philip stands up and Lukas stands up and the dude – not even in platforms or anything – is nearly as tall as Lukas is. ‘Oh my god,’ he almost says, but instead just thinks it.
“The name I’m putting on the hip you used to lick.”
But sometimes city life can be nice, too.
“Oh,” Lukas says, hand on the thick strap of his bag, deciding. “Um.” Rick, his brain says helpfully, a years old memory, phony stats. It was just a joke in high school. And Philip might be really, really beautiful. “Lukas.”
~
“You’re back,” Philip says three days later, cat-cream pleased.
“So are you,” Lukas says, and Philip shoves him over a little, makes room for himself in the little hidey hole area Lukas has chosen for himself today. His dad had this crummy little cabin that Lukas loved tucking away in as a child. Isolation can be a comfort. And because Lukas is curious, “why are you here anyway? In the daytime, I mean. Isn’t that—“
For the ugly ones, he doesn’t say. Lukas used to be a real asshole. Sometimes he still can be. But maybe he doesn’t wanna be, not today. Not right now. And Philip really isn’t that anyway. Not anywhere close. His face is– And he’s got this beauty mark right below his–
“I’m new.”
Lukas picks up a champagne flute, wishes he’d ordered whatever shit’s on tap.
“Bougie,” Philip says, watching him sip. “Not new new like I don’t know my way around a cock.” The bubbles burn on Lukas’s urge to choke like a bitch. “Just new to this club in partic.”
Philip’s shirtless in a way that makes him seem topless, like Lukas should cover his exposed bits with the cheap satin tablecloth. Tiny little denim cutoffs closer to booty shorts, a pair of shredded and fucked to hell high-top black chucks on his feet. Chucks. A club dancer. And that kind of only makes him hotter.
If Lukas was into that sort of thing.
Good thing he’s 100% not. Like, laughably not. He’s got better taste than that, c’mon.
Long waterfall hair, lipstick mouths, heart-shaped purses all cute and feminine – not sulky boys with tongue rings and glitter dusted cheekbones. Truth told, Philip looks more ‘90s club kid than poledance porny. He isn’t Lukas’s type at all.
Lukas finishes off another shimmery drink and forgets that that’s not what he wanted either.
~
“So,” Philip says the next week, specific, drawn out. Lukas fidgets, knowing and dreading. “One of the girlies had a little gift waiting for me when I clocked out the other night.”
Lukas nods, faux-interested in the other dancers, scans the main floor to see if anyone’s looking at them. No one ever is. Here, he’s another John Smith. Maybe a John Doe, too. Here, he can be anyone. Philip sometimes makes him feel like he can be anyone.
“An anon angel, she said. Three-hundred bucks, no reason. Wild, huh?”
“If you’re into that.”
“What—money?” Philip pffts stupidly. “Uh. For the right amount, I can be into anything.” He licks the heart-point side of his mouth. Lukas refuses to flutter. “So. You know anything about that?”
“Why should I?” Lukas says, and wishes he’d brought his laptop this time. “I’m sure someone like you’s got lots of admir—“
“Oh except Rose said this one had ice blonde hair, skittery eyes,” ticking a list off on his fingers, “and a face like ‘how seeing God must feel’. Real Kurt Cobain vibes. And I can only think of one person that day who remotely fit that—“
“Ugh, stop,” Lukas says, feeling his milky pale skin rosy up.
“So what was that about? Not that I didn’t shoot my shorts a little when she gave it, but.”
Lukas shrugs, decides to lean on statistics. “I read somewhere that a dancer’s time is worth something like twenty for every two minutes.” He needs a refill.
“But you didn’t even get anything out of it,” and it sounds like he’s pouting but Lukas opts to avoid any confirmation. That dollboy mouth would probably look really – Anyway, no. “You said you didn’t want a dance.”
“I didn’t. I don’t.”
Rule 2:
You don’t go to a strip club and fall hard for a stripper.
You don’t. Lukas can’t. He doesn’t.
He might be.
“Shit, why? I’m real good at it,” Philip says, quieted, letting one long stemmy leg drape over Lukas’s knee. And Lukas believes him fully. “Tell you what. Give you a freebie right here, right now, and we’ll call it the ex-husband discount. I’ll even—“
“I’ll give you five fat ones if you leave it alone,” Lukas blurts, flagging down the shot girl a little desperately.
And surprisingly, or maybe not so, Philip lets it go. Later, way later, Lukas will learn that Philip’s got a mom that he loves who loves her bad habits.
~
Philip sits with Lukas through four more songs, pointing out regulars and weirdos, occasionally putting some fives in the asscracks of his friends shimmying by. He tells Lukas about the guys that beg to sniff his panties.
Philip says Lukas’s name at the end of each breath, like punctuation. Like it’s a special thing to say, like he has to say it as much as he can before it runs out.
He gives a couple of lapdances – and Lukas watches comfortably, not jealously, from afar. Lots of thigh moves and child charm. Philip does artfully complicated pole tricks to grunge music stuff loud in the ears and when Lukas goes he leaves $750 at the door for ‘the guy with the Hollywood face’. The pink pout, he restrains himself from saying, too, unhelpful and redundant.
Everyone knows who he means.
In another coincidental statistic, Lukas has heard it said that lip color is often also cock color.
~
On Lukas’s eighth trip to The Purple Parrot since meeting him, Philip rolls his eyes, pecks him on the cheek like a gran, and spends half the night halfway seated in Lukas’s lap.
“What’s up boo boo?” Dry.
“No,” Lukas says, rejecting that shit right off, and orders something green in a science beaker tube thing while Philip arranges his lotioned limbs all over Lukas’s favorite jeans. Apple scented smooth.
~
Pathetically, he becomes a regular. But one of those ones.
A there-for-one-dancer, same spot, same time regular, three times a week. Some of the other performers still hit him up occasionally, but they know it’s mostly hopeless. That he’s mostly hopeless.
He tips DJ Tommy to make Philip dance to certain songs. Like a game, because Philip likes it. And Philip has once or twice introduced him to the crew, poodle girls at the entrance, rottweiler boys in back.
“This is Lukas, my ex,” he’s said, and Lukas has had to mannequin grin and scramble away when Philip tried to pinch his butt.
He always tips tellingly large and he always, always thinks about Philip’s rare but real smile.
It’s a month in before he wonders if he hasn’t become a weirdo too.
~
When Philip moves to the night shift hustle, Lukas goes with him.
He isn’t there for the noise anymore. Hasn’t pretended to be for a while now, since it stopped being true.
Since the time Philip laid his head on Lukas’s shoulder and started whispering about an old dreamworld of his, wanting to go to vet school, or maybe something artsy, photos and scenery studies, when he admitted that it was actually his mom who wrote his name on a birthday card during one of her better years, so Philip got it inked so he’d never forget that nice picture-pretty memory.
But more likely, truthfully, it probably all started the very first time Philip sat down next to Lukas – waify, wonderful.
~
It’s on some kind of theme night, the night Philip tries to kiss him for the first time. Some of the dancers have little rainbow temporary tattoos on their cheeks, on their asscheeks, colorful mismatched glow-in-the-dark hearts for nipple pasties. The lights go off in every color: electric blues and pastel pinks, green, purple, orange. It’s a theme night and it makes Lukas uncomfortable immediately.
He’s got a film of salt stuck to his throat and a swimmy feeling between his temples. And Philip is draped all along his side, saying things in his ear: wasn’t sure if you’d come tonight and maybe you want that dance now? and he’s wearing lipgloss and apple spray and a shirt that says DADDY’S GIRL and it feels like they’re having sex. It doesn’t matter that they’re not, because to Lukas – they are.
His fidget is misinterpreted. Philip must think he’s adjusting his pants, or reaching for some bills, or – or his phone to get them digits finally finally, because when Lukas opens his mouth, Philip tries to put his tongue in it.
~
Lukas almost hits him. And the almost is so almost that Philip has to signal to one of the guard doggies that it’s cool, it’s alright, he’s okay. Something sick unspools in the shadow of Lukas’s heart and it’s an immediate thing, this soulsucking feeling of regret. For a split second mighthavebeen.
He goes to pull Philip in again, just a small thing by the ditch of his elbow, before he remembers that he can’t touch. That only Philip can.
“Look, it’s not. I’m not.” Philip says, not looking at him. “I thought. I didn’t think – I’m, yeah, I’m sorry.”
There’s a veil about Philip that Lukas wonders if only he can see. He always gives the impression of having just been crying. It’s strangely lovely. And Lukas wonders if Philip would sob pretty sitting on a dick.
More than $1k fattying up his wallet and he means to apologize also, say something really special, say no it’s okay, I wanted it, I still want it. But instead what falls out is, “Can we go to VIP?”
Philip holds his hand the whole walk through the club; Lukas lets him. It doesn’t make him feel as violently squeamish as he thought it might. When the other patrons watch them pass, Lukas feels prideful. The model boy walking him to the back is something to be proud of, and not just for his face.
~
His body seems made entirely of paperclips.
Philip is sturdy and small-waisted and when he sits down atop Lukas’s crotch in lapdance room #4, he says, “touch me, do it” and Lukas does. He does, right away. Touches a bare thigh, touches the small of Philip’s back like this is a honeymoon, tender but full of little stresses.
Philip Shea has skipped-meal starvation written all over him, all feather bones and knee knobs and he’s the most exquisite thing Lukas has ever had looking at him. He’s a poetic sort of loss.
Rule 3:
Never have sex in the club. Even when it feels die-worthy.
The room smells like leftover blown wads, and the black and purple damask wallpaper looks expensively cheap but when Philip finds the right rhythm on the stroke of the song, Lukas decides it’s a palace, a place of only riches and nirvanas. Philip feels so good, the fragility of his movements.
He feels like pornography that Lukas always promises himself he won’t watch again.
And Philip’s the kind of boy that even sensible men leave their families for, drain the ATMs over, just to have him for a few minutes, to have the idea of having him for longer, warm and wet in their beds, blinking up at them and saying shy, “i’m yours, i’m yours, come hold me”, like a needle in the arm, like a violent ruinous addiction–
Lukas swallows. Philip blinks. And they both feel Lukas’s pervert wetness.
His erection is teenager huge.
“I’m–”
“Tell me,” Philip says, and goes back to what he was doing, but more, somehow. Closer, sweeter. He clutches Lukas’s head with skinny parallel forearms, drops his handsome whore mouth to run it against the heartbeat at Lukas’s throat. Leaves a kindergarten kiss right there. And Philip says, “Tell me I was right. Say it.”
But Lukas can’t, so he doesn’t. He nods once instead, scared, trembling, and then trembles more when Philip breaks club rules and puts Lukas’s hand on the shape of his young cock, and Lukas has a thousand dollar orgasm.
Philip was right. Lukas did fall excruciatingly, obsessively in love.
~
Some boys look like angels when they’re getting fucked cherry raw.
Lukas hadn’t known that before, but he does now. Radiant, serene. On Lukas’s big luxury bed Philip is almost saintly in his sluttiness, with his dreamgirl eyes closed and his hungered little hips chasing more dick, more dick, more dick.
So Lukas was wrong about a lot of things, but he’s right about some stuff too. Philip is bubblegum flavored everywhere and just as prettily pink. In his mouth, between his legs, and right where Lukas is pushing himself inside, too.
“I think,” he says, right after he’s left a love note in Philip’s body for the first time. “I think we should get back together.”
Philip might smile like a little boy but he kisses like a deeply contented wife.
~
Rule 4:
Get married really, really young.