Canadian Nights: The Story of the John Who Was Punished Chapter 5 by Mo
Disclaimer: The X-Men and Alpha Flight belong to Marvel. The movie belongs to Fox. I do feel like Scott and Logan are a little bit mine since I've been borrowing them for so long.
"Logan, it's Scott."
< click >
"Logan, please don't hang up on me this time."
"Why not?"
"Well, for starters, you told me to call you. You said you wanted to talk about the Montreal trip."
"I changed my mind." < click >
"Hi, me again. Please, listen to me. I'll come up with a better reason to stay on the line, okay? It doesn't have to be because you said you wanted to talk to me. Okay,this is progress, you haven't hung up yet. You're not talking to me or anything but you haven't hung up. Logan, I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry for, Scott?"
"Sorry for hurting you. Sorry for disappointing you. Sorry for trying to be a fucking Boy Scout when I'm thirty years old."
"So, you're sorry. You gonna stop trying to be a fucking Boy Scout?"
"I don't know. No, don't. Don't hang up. Please. Logan, come on, can't you be a little bit patient with me?"
"I'm not a patient man."
"Well, you know what? Neither am I. But I've tried to be patient for you. I have been patient with you. You wouldn't even touch me for weeks and I put up with that. Pushed you a little, but put up with it. I put up with you running out on me without even saying goodbye. Twice. I put up with a lot from you."
"You saying I need to put up with a lot from you, too?"
"No, I'm not saying that. You don't need to put up with anything from me. You can be a fucking island again. But if you don't want to be an island, you need to accept that people aren't perfect. You want to have friends, you put up with some stuff from them. You help them get over some stuff. Help me, Logan."
"What kind of help do you want?"
"Well, first of all, can't you tell me if something's bothering you before you're at the point where you're homicidal about it? I mean, come on, Logan. I didn't even know this marriage thing bothered you so much."
"I thought I made that clear in Winnipeg."
"Yeah, well I thought that was mostly because you didn't know or something. The amnesia and all and me not being honest with you. And also, me saying I wouldn'thave sex with you any more. Big resolution which lasted all of three hours, I think, and only that long because you walked out. Anyway, I've tried to be honest since. And before, too - maybe I didn't tell you everything, but what I told you was the truth. Hey, you're the one who joked about being my best man."
"You're an English teacher, Scott. You never heard of gallows humor?"
"I've heard of it. Okay, Logan, I understand. It bothers you. And it's not just because you're jealous. I'm getting that. It's because of this whole wanting to be respectable thing, wanting to be accepted. I'm sorry. It's part of me. It's part of who I am. I'm the guy who doesn't dare disturb the universe. I'm trying not to be like that, not to let it rule my life, but I'm not always successful. Can you relate to that at all? Is there nothing in your life that you'd like to get over?
"Okay, I'm taking not answering but not hanging up as an affirmative answer. You're saying you can relate a little. Correct me if I'm wrong. Preferably with words,rather than hanging up. Okay, this is good. You're still on the line. I can sort of hear you breathing.
"Logan, it's a hard thing for me. It's something I need to work on, okay? It's something I am working on. I never questioned conformity before. I never questioned control. I just assumed they were good and right. You're helping me question. Please keep helping me."
"I'll try, okay? It pisses me off no end... But, I do want to help you. You've helped me a lot. I want us to help each other."
"That's good, Logan. See, there's common ground. We both want us to help each other. Look, I really need to talk to you, to see you. Can't you come to Montreal next week? We'd have time to talk. It wouldn't just be meetings."
"I don't know. I don't want to see you when I'm this mad. I'm not safe to be around."
"Well, I want to see you when you're this mad. I want to try to work things out with you. There has been too much running away. I love you, Logan. I'm not scared of you."
"Well, you should be. I'm telling you - I'm not safe."
"Maybe I don't want safe. Maybe I just want you - warts, homicidal tendencies, lack of subject lines and all. I love you, Logan."
"You keep saying that."
"Yeah, I keep saying it because it's true. And you know what? I even think you love me. I think you just don't know it yet or can't say it or something."
"So, now you're a telepath?"
"No, just a perceptive kind of guy who knows you well. You said I know you well. You think I just know how to turn you on? I know more than that, Logan."
"I know you do, Scott."
"Logan, can I tell you a story? And then we could talk some more about this Montreal thing?"
"You trying to get back in my good books with phone sex?"
"No, not that kind of story. A story from when I was a kid, when I was on my own. It's not a happy story, Logan, not like the Scheherazade 37-night one."
"I didn't think that was a happy story."
"Well, it was to me. Happy by my standards at the time. And this one isn't, by anybody's standards. But it's got sex and violence in it. Two of your favorite things, right? Okay, that's good. It's good to hear you laugh. Almost as good as it was to hear you come the other day. I don't want to just hear you come, though. I want to see you come. Want to feel you come, taste you come."
"I thought this wasn't going to be phone sex."
"Yeah, you're right. I got off on a tangent. Will you listen to my story? And then talk to me a little more?"
"Okay."
"Alright. Here goes. As I said, it's from my I Was a Teenage Mutant Prostitute time. We've talked about that a bit, but I think you need a little more background to get this one.
"First, you have to understand, Logan, the worst was having to do it outside. On my knees in some filthy alley for a few bucks or just for a hot meal in a cheap diner. And the best was if they took me home with them - took me back to their apartments, let me stay the night. In between? In a car - better than outside,anyway. Hotel rooms of various descriptions. Usually pretty cheap and awful ones but even the best ones weren't as good as an honest-to-goodness apartment, with a kitchen where I could get something to eat in the middle of the night - I ate whenever I could, Logan. And, I don't know, just knowing that it was somebody'shome and I was just in a home, in somewhere where somebody lived, for a few hours. I could pretend that I lived there, pretend I had somewhere to live. So, that was the best kind of john - the ones who took you to their apartments. Does that make sense?"
"It makes sense. I hate it - hate that that was your life - but it makes sense."
"So, there I was on a Saturday night, hanging out, hoping for work for the night and worrying a little that I wouldn't find any - it was kind of a cold night. Then I hear footsteps and this guy comes up to me and I hear a familiar voice greeting me. He wasn't really a regular or anything, but I'd been with him a few times before. He had an apartment near there and he'd taken me back there and let me stay the whole night. I was really excited to hear his voice - it was getting late and I hadn't had any other options yet - but tried not to let it show. Didn't want it interfering with the compensation negotiations. So, we agree on a price and we go back to his place. Only I knew something was wrong as soon as his key turned in the door. Too much noise in what should have been an empty apartment. Well, he's got two friends in there. One of them - it was his birthday - I guess they were having a little party. Turns out I'm supposed to be the entertainment. I was so pissed off."
"I'll bet. I would have killed them."
"Yeah, well that's your answer to most things. Now, Logan, let me make this clear. I wasn't mad at the idea of having to do three men in one night or the idea that the other two were going to watch while I'm sucking each one off or anything. I was mad because we agreed on a price for one and here he was doing abait-and-switch and expecting me to do three for the same price. But I didn't know if I should let on that I was mad - what if he kicked me out? Where would I be then? But I guess what was left of my dignity wouldn't let me just shut up about it so I start complaining. And he's sounding amused while he argues back with me, tells me it's the same amount of time - what do I care? But then he agrees that they'll each give me $20 - hey I thought that was great, would have settled for less. And they each hand me a bill and I put all three bills in my pants.
"Well, I earned it. They were awful to me - treated me like a thing, like I wasn't human at all. Kept talking about me to each other like I wasn't even there, calling me a 'boy toy'. One of them - the birthday guy - even called me 'it' - 'It has a pretty mouth,' he said. And my semi-regular guy says, 'Wait 'til you see what he can do with it.' Well, at least he said 'he'. Anyway, with three of them it was a long night - they took turns resting. But sometime, real late I think, the other two leave and it's just my semi-regular guy there and he's asleep on the bed. So, I go to the kitchen and make myself a sandwich and there's a washer/dryer closet in the kitchen, too, so I take off all my clothes and wash them. I'm holding my twenty-dollar bills the whole time the clothes are in the washer - didn't want to lose them. And I took a shower and got dressed again and then I fell asleep in a chair, my twenty-dollar bills deep in the pocket of my clean, dry, warm jeans. And then he wakes up and tells me it's time for me to leave, so I do."
"Oh, Scott. I hate them for what they did to you."
"Thanks, Logan. I appreciate that. It's good to have someone to tell it to, someone I trust, someone who can hate them for what they did. But, it gets worse. I went round the corner to get a cup of coffee and a bagel and when I'm paying for it I find out - they cheated me. They were dollar bills. I have three lousy bucks for that whole night. They must have been winking and laughing silently about it the whole time. Great joke - make a sixteen-year-old blind boy do you all night for a dollar a head. I was so mad I could have killed him right then and there."
"What did you do?"
"I went back to his building. It was Sunday morning. You know about the Sunday New York Times, Logan?"
"I know it's a big paper."
"Yeah, and it's kind of a New York ritual - people go out Sunday morning and get the Times and bagels. So, I get to his building and I can hear this woman struggling with the door. She's got her huge Sunday Times and her bagel and a coffee cup and she can't juggle it all and manage the key to the building, too. So, I pretend like I live there and offer to help her. Carry her stuff for her and get in that way. And I go back up to his apartment and just stand there for a while outside the door."
"I would have broken it in."
"Well, you would have been proud of me, then, because I blasted it open. I hadn't used my eyes in months but I used them then. Felt for the lock so I could try to aim well. But, Logan, I had absolutely no control back then - didn't know what I was doing. I was trying to just get the lock, like I did on your room that one time, remember? But I opened my eyes too far. When I was done there was no lock, no doorknob and a hole in the door the size of my fist. Well, anyway, I could go in. So, I did. He was in the bedroom, had gone back to sleep, didn't even know I was there."
"What did you do to him?"
"Beat the shit out of him. Broke his nose at least - I could feel it break. I don't know what else I broke. Just pummeled him, screaming the whole time. He must have been scared out of his mind to wake up to that. He barely fought back - I don't know why. Maybe he didn't know how, maybe he was just too shocked, maybe I was just so crazy he thought it would make it worse. And I'm screaming at him that he cheated me and that I should kill him. 'I should look at you - that's what I should do!' I kept yelling. I'm sure he thought I'd lost my mind. Anyway, I told him I wanted all the money he had in the apartment. He just handed me his wallet and I took the money out of it. And he had pictures in his wallet - of course I have no idea who or what they were, but I tore them to shreds. And took the light bulbs out of all the lamps and smashed them. If I couldn't see why should he? And then I left, with his money in my pocket. It was a pretty good haul, much more than the sixty bucks I was supposed to have gotten, but I still felt like shit. I think that's the last time in my life I was totally out of control."
"But you weren't. You didn't look at him, didn't kill him."
"No, you're right. I had some vestiges of control, but that's pretty much the most out-of-control I've been."
"What did you do then?"
"Went to church. That was a good thing about Sundays - you could find a warm church to sit in and just hang out and be unnoticed for a while. Oh, churches are open during the week but if you're kid - particularly a blind kid - without anyone with you, they start asking questions. Nobody notices on Sunday.
"So, I'm sitting there in church and I hear this voice in my head, telling me to come to Grand Central Station. I swear, Logan, I thought it was the voice of God. Did what it told me - went to the train station, bought a ticket for Salem Center and waited by Platform 17. And then the same voice talks again but it's not in my head - it's right in front of me, but too low for somebody standing in front of me. This wonderful voice. This kind-sounding, understanding-sounding man. And he says, 'Rough night, Scott?' And I didn't know what to say, or what to feel. I started crying - the first time I cried since I'd come into my powers, tears leaking out of my shut eyes, falling down my cheeks, my nose running. I must have looked a mess."
"What did he do?"
"Handed me a handkerchief. Introduced himself. Told me I'd never have to be on my own again, that I'd always have food and a warm bed. I thought he wanted sex- I had no idea what he was going to do for me. I didn't care, though - it was the best offer I'd had in over a year. And then he said, 'I'll teach you, Scott. We'll learn some way to control your powers'. So I realized he knew I was a mutant and I just couldn't believe he was still being nice to me. He must have heard me think that, because he said 'Me, too, Scott. There are lots of us. We'll take care of each other.' I thought it was a dream, Logan. I was so happy to be here, and so scared, too, you know? It just took such a long time before I believed it was going to last. And then I did believe it and I wanted it and I wanted to make a life for myself and for others of our kind. I never, ever wanted to go back to blowing men to survive."
"So, was that night the last time with a man? Until me?"
"No, not by a long shot. I gave up on sex for money, but not on sex. I used to sneak off and pick up some guy whenever I could. Never anyone at school, never anyone I got to know or care about. I thought nobody knew, but Charles knows everything. It went on like that for a few years. I stopped when Jean and I became lovers. Didn't even think about men for years. Well, at least consciously. I think I was probably hot for you from the start, but I didn't know it."
"I'm not like those guys who hurt you, Scott. I haven't always treated you well, I know that. But I'm trying. I care about you. I want to be your friend."
"I know you do, Logan. I'm just so fucked up."
"Yeah, it's a fucked up world and we both have the scars to show for it. We've both been misused, Scott. We've both been out in the cold at night."
"I'm trying to rise above that, really. I need your patience, your tolerance. I do love you. I'm trying to be good and strong and brave for you. Hey, we're supposed to be staying in a safe house in Montreal, some place the Alpha Flight people have there. They asked me what kind of accommodations we'd need. I told them that you and I are together - told them to give us one room. I told them to give us a room with a big bed. And a desk - said we'd need to do some work while we were there. Does that count for something?"
"Yeah, it counts for something."
"So, will you meet me there? I don't think 'Ro's going to be thrilled about sharing a room with me if you send her instead."
"I'll meet you there. We'll see where we go from there... Hey, take care of yourself. Don't get yourself kidnapped or anything before the meeting next week. I'm here in fucking Saskatchewan - I'm not around to save your sorry ass."
"Okay. I'll save my own sorry ass. I'm saving my sorry ass for you, Logan. Or at least trying to. I'm working on this. Is that okay?"
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