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Ed doesn’t go for men. That’s not the kind of thing that wets his whistle, so to speak. Men don’t get him off. He’s never had a problem talking to men. All men want to do is talk, tell their stories, talk about this girl or that one, the one that got away.
Ed is used to men. For a long time, before he got the nerve up, he lived vicariously through them. Guys he’d meet at The Jury Room would tell him all sorts of sordid stories. They say cops always have the best dope, but Ed doesn’t know from dope. What he does know is women. And cops—boy, seems like every guy he’d talk to was knee deep in pussy.
Now, if Ed were the jealous type, that might piss him off. But he’s not. He’s just interested, which is how you get them talking in the first place.
He doesn’t need the stories as much once he gets his own thing going. Used to think he’d maybe just find a nice girlfriend. One who looked nothing like his mother and who liked him, respected him. But every time he’d see a pretty girl, even on the cover of a magazine, his third thought was always “what would her head would look like on a stick?”
He’s not marriage material. Is the point. And he’s feeling riled up tonight. None of the cool quiet that usually takes over after he’s been with a new one has set in. He can still hear her screaming, way back in the woods and it’s doing nothing to keep the edge off.
Just Ed’s luck, that there’s another fine-looking creature walking up ahead.
But shit, he doesn’t go for men.
This one, though, piques Ed’s interest right away. Maybe it’s his gait, which has something awkward about it, like he tried to force the sway out of his hips. Could be his slightly longer hair. Not the first time some flower child with flowing hair and tight jeans caught Ed’s eye and turned out to be nothing more than a skinny, effete man.
But this one, walking along the side of the highway, gingerly holding his thumb out every few feet like he’s not quite sure if he’s decided to hitch, has Ed easing up on the gas to get a closer look. He’s got a garbage bag full of cooling body parts in his trunk but that doesn’t feel like a deterrent so much as a dare. He hasn’t picked up in rapid succession before, that’s not really his modus operandi. He likes to take his time with his girls, with his spirit wives. Honor each of them in his own very special way.
Sometimes fate has other things in mind. Ed can appreciate that.
He slows his car to a halt and rolls down the passenger side window with his foot on the brake, ready to peel out if this doesn’t go the way he hopes it might. He’s an intimidating guy; he’s not about to let some vagrant hippie call him a faggot if it seems like he’s serving up the wrong intentions.
“Going my way?” Ed asks, conscious of how stilted he can sound.
The man, more of a kid really, gives him a curious look. A puppyish head-tilt. His eyes are very, very light. Somewhere between grey and blue. He blinks at Ed, wrinkles his nose. He paints an innocent picture, an appealingly innocent picture.
Right on the money, as usual. He can pick them.
“Headed to West Hollywood,” the kid says after a moment.
Ed grunts, unsurprised. Maybe even pleased. “I could give you a lift that way.”
“Why, that’s mighty nice of you.” The kid turns a big, weird cookie-cutter smile on him like something out of a demented Rockwell painting, and for a second Ed has some regrets. Then he’s unlocking the door, reaching across to flick up the lock, and letting him into his car anyway.
Ed’s the one with skeletons in his closet and a claw hammer under the driver’s seat. There’s not a thing this kid could do to him that wouldn’t end in Ed standing over his corpse and wondering which bit of him to fuck first, so.
“No trouble at all,” Ed says. He turns down the radio some. “New to these parts—”
“It’s Holden. And yes. Just here on business for a few days.”
“Business?”
Holden shrugs. He has dimples. “I could tell you,” he says, real airily, “but I’d have to kill you.”
Ed glances at him. Then he really looks at him. “Ha,” he says. “Ha-ha-ha.” And then he’s full on laughing. “That’s—that’s a good one. That’s very funny. People don’t often make jokes around me.”
“That’s too bad. You have a nice laugh. What’s your name?”
“Edm—it’s Ed. Nice to meet you, Holden.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Holden says. He’s sort of smiling again, those tempting dimples tucking into his cheeks. Ed could skewer him right through there, right through his mouth. That would be an interesting way to keep a talkative person quiet. Does Holden seem talkative? He does, Ed thinks. He seems like he could really have a motor mouth on him if the right topic got him going.
Ed decides to bypass West Hollywood and head back to Burbank. He can take Holden home, figure how to get him talking so that Ed can shut him up. It won’t be like it is with his girls. He’s heard homosexuals are different. They don’t expect you to be nice to them, don’t even want you to be nice to them. Some of the guys down at the Jury Room told him about this spectacular murderer out in New York who spent all of last summer picking up men and putting them down. Sounds like Ed’s kind of guy. He always knew there were more just like him, maybe with different taste, sure, but like him all the same.
Yes, he’ll take Holden back to his place. Leave what’s waiting in the trunk for later. It’ll be a cool night, it’ll keep. Maybe he’ll even get a taste of what a real, living mouth feels like.
Wouldn’t that just be keen?