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“...Then you’d have seen the artwork I do is not of men who are muscle queens but are simply well-built. With hair on their chest, legs, arms and belly. Between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. Good strong features and a thick mane on their head. Paley is a juice junky, and not once in all of my artwork have I ever drawn someone like that.”
“He’s well-built.” Now it was snottiness from Elissa.
Simon cast her a cool glance. “He shaves the hair off his body. Including his pubes...”
“How do you know that?” Dillon asked. “Are you going to claim he exposed himself to you?”
Despite himself, Simon’s expression became incredulous. “I showed you the photo I took, of him. He was dressed in a white wife-beater. One that was probably a size too small for him. It was easy to see the stubble on his chest and no hair under his arms so...”
Elissa cut Simon off with, “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“His beard does. It was dark scruff. And what hair was on his head was thick, except for that little tuft he has in the center. He also has some on his shoulders...the trapezius, I think it’s called...and at the nape of his neck, where he can’t reach with a razor. There was more stubble on his forearms. I despise that. It’s as if he wants to be seen as a little boy instead of an adult.”
“Then why did you bother taking a photo of him?”
“Look at the shadows. They hid a lot of that. I only saw it when I approached him.”
“But you did approach him.”
“Is it illegal for one adult male to approach another adult male in public?”
Dillon shook his head. “Simon, you called him a juice junky, which he does not look like. And besides, steroids are illegal, for muscle enhancement...”
“Oh, I am certain the law will stop it.”
Elissa circled around in front of Simon and...
And Doyle was doing the same in his dangerous mode, just before lashing out, and...
Simon jolted, shaken. He hadn’t thought about that time in years and to have it slam headlong into him, now, when...
“Why do you think he uses them?” It was Elissa talking, and her voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere as she continued to move around him in that way Doyle had...
Simon had to close his eyes so he couldn’t see her. In his mind he knew it was nothing deliberate on her part, but he was still falling into a growing sense of panic remembering...
Arriving home...
Doyle knowing he liked to keep an extra key taped on top of the door frame, just in case and...
And then he...then he...
No! Simon, no!
But how? How had he found his Houston address? Had he followed him? Had someone at the bookstore given it to him? It made no sense that Doyle was there in his apartment grabbing at him but...but...
No!
Fucking no!
Simon fought the memories. He could not let himself be kicked off center, not at that point in time. No way. No!
He forced his eyes open, pulled a ballpoint pen from his backpack, pulled the cap off with his teeth and dug it into the palm of his left hand. It hurt like hell...and it was still a fight to kick away that chaos...but it jolted him enough to where he could let himself breathe, again.
Let himself breathe...
Finally, he looked at Elissa. She had seen it all and was studying him. Like he was a insect. He shifted his gaze to Dillon and found an expression of wariness and some confusion. An odd notion slipped into Simon’s mind...that neither of these people saw him as human. That he was just some mongrel they had to deal with. As if he were wild or rabid and needed to be put down. Which almost made him smile.
Because at that particular moment, he couldn't swear that he wasn't...and didn't.
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