Don't Look Straight At It

confabulation, hallucinations, and psychosis: multiple substances known to cause

The memories come in bits and pieces, sometimes hazy as morning fog, sometimes with crystal clarity. With dream-like disconnection and lucidity, the memories haunt Fraser late at night when he can't sleep. With half-forgotten nebulousness, they dog Ray early in the morning when he has given up trying to sleep, but won't get out of bed.

Recall of events is compromised when high levels of circulating stress hormones shut down short-term memory. When short-term memory is impaired, an event may not be transferred to working memory or eventually stored in long-term memory as it normally would.

This is why two eyewitnesses to the same crime—even those whose physical positions gave them perspectives from the same vantage point—may recall the same events with critical differences.

This is why eyewitness accounts of crimes are often inaccurate, non-sequential, or both.

Fraser would liken it to naked eye stargazing. In order to see one of the dimmer stars in the night sky, you don't look straight at the dim star in question. Your focus must be oblique, off to the side of it. Only then does it appear in an otherwise blind spot of your vision.

Ray admits, if only to himself, that he just doesn't want to look—or remember.

Fraser considers sometimes that he may have a mild form of shell shock. In his dark heart of hearts, Ray believes it is survivor's guilt.

Neither Fraser nor Ray tells his superior officers, or the official investigators, certain things they do recall. These intentional omissions—not discussed or agreed upon by either man prior to his individual interview—are designed to protect each other. These omissions are consistent and nearly exactly the same in both men's individual interviews, despite the lack of pre-arrangement.

These omissions are contradicted by the statements of other witnesses—the band members.

Although hypnotism can occasionally yield greater detail in witness recall, its use is controversial. Some researchers using small groups of participants have found that hypnotism may instill false memories or encourage confabulation. No large, double blind studies have been done to verify or disprove this limited research.

Lieutenant Welsh has not requested a specialist or outside psych consult for the CPD Office of Professional Conduct investigation. Ray remains on medical leave with pay until the OPC investigation concludes. Fraser is on administrative leave from the Canadian Consulate in Chicago pending the outcome of the OPC investigation and its determination of his role in the events. It remains to be seen what the OPC will recommend.

Given the OPC's lack of teeth, thanks to the FOP union's strength, and the fact that Da Mayor will pressure the Chief to make this go away as quickly as possible, it's possible there will be no lasting damage to the professional records and reputations of the involved CPD detective and the Mountie who functions as liaison to the CPD's 27th district. The City of Chicago's way is to settle out of court for large sums of money, with binding non-disclosure agreements about the terms of settlement. Many a wrongful death suit against the CPD has ended this way. In fact, just about all of them have. City attorneys have wisely—and cynically—realized that even people who were terribly wronged—or their survivors—and who initially (and quite vocally) demand justice can be silenced by substantial financial compensation.

(This is why parking meters in the Loop charge twenty five cents per five minutes—quarters only, thank you—and, if your car ever gets booted and towed to the city auto pound for unpaid parking tickets, you won't get it back for less than $500.)

Welsh has personally warned each and every involved IA and OPC investigator that if he hears anything in any cop bar, or in any squad room or men's room in any precinct, ever, about Ray's and Fraser's personal lives, he'll inform Fraser and Ray of who said what, when, and where, and he'll put them in touch with attorneys known for successful—and lucrative—slander litigation.

After all—who, Welsh argues, are they gonna believe: two members of law enforcement, one Canadian, and one American, both with multiple commendations and a stack of solved cases they worked together, or some stoned, druggie rock band whose hedonistic lifestyle includes multiple substances known to cause confabulation, hallucinations and ultimately psychosis in excessive amounts?

stop fucking with the square: he can't help it, he's a cop

Jane and Sherry smiled at each other. They smiled at Ray and at each other and at Trevor and Jimmy, passing the joint between the each other, practically in each other's laps.

"Quit hogging the joint," Trevor complained quietly. Jimmy nodded his assent, slurping microbrew beer from a brown bottle.

"You know," Sherry began, "You and Trevor would look good together."

She leaned over quite far, across the large interior expanse of the limo, to pass Trevor the shrinking joint. In the process, Ray got a glimpse down the V of her cleavage. The pale curves of her tits were creamy, white. Soft-looking.

In a delayed reaction following that distraction, Ray thought—what? me and Trevor? Look good together? Ray opened his mouth and then shut it quickly.
"You know what the Go-Go's used to do?" Jane asked Ray.

Oh, thank God: the short attention spans of the young and stoned. A change of subject.

Trevor took a huge hit from the joint and passed it to Jimmy, who took it, but didn't smoke it, and offered it to Ray.

"Last good hit, buddy," Trevor said, speaking in gasps while holding his breath.

Ray shook his head, annoyed, at the offered roach. "I said, I'm working! Uh, you mean, 'We Got The Beat' and 'Our Lips Are Sealed'? Those Go-Go's?"

Jimmy stretched across the limo to pass the remains of the joint to Jane. Ray tried not to notice and compare the glimpses of Jimmy's more muscled chest and back through his torn T-shirt to Trevor's scrawnier build. Like Fraser's build compared to Ray's—no, erase that.

Jane put the roach in the ashtray near her.

"Yeah, those Go-Go's," Sherry agreed.

Ray smelled a trap, but he'd already begun to ask. Damn. "No, what did the Go-Go's do?"

Jane smiled. "They had a lot of fan boys, y'know? Male groupies. They'd make them perform for them. Jack-off and stuff. So they could see how hung they were before they fucked them."

Ray smiled thinly. "Bullshit."

"It was in 'Behind The Music.' There was a video that got out, of Belinda totally trashed, getting a fan boy to jack off for her, and talking about how girls jack off, too. Watch the 'Behind The Music' episode on the Go-Go's, if you don't believe me."

"There's a rumor," Sherry added in a purr, "that, sometimes, they used to make the fan boys do each other." She paused. "You know, suck each other's cocks." She sounded delighted.

"Bullshit," Ray said, his voice tight. He refused to turn and look at the guys, although he swore he felt a warm curiosity coming from them. No—no—the pot smoke—could they open a fucking window?

Sherry raised one shoulder and then dropped it. "I'm just telling you what I heard."

Jane nodded. "We've tried like hell to get our hands on copies of that tape. You know, now that we're big, got money, got connections. But so far, no luck."

Sherry eyed Ray and Trevor speculatively again, shifting her eyes back and forth between them.

"We've got our own fan boys," Jane said, with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin.

I bet you do, Ray thought.

"You wouldn't believe what they're willing to do," Sherry murmured. "Every bit as slutty as the best seventies girl groupies."

Jane nodded. "Sluttier, even." She paused. "We can show you, if you like."

A disturbing and arousing blend of imagery swirled in Ray's head, mixing together that long ago nightclub visit, the band members of Jenifur, and the concept of slutty fan boys. His chest felt tight; the smoky air in the limo was heavy and hard to breathe. He tugged at his pant leg again, and worked hard at ignoring the younger men sitting near him.

Focus, he told himself. Focus on the girls.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Trevor and Jimmy exchange a look. Trevor put his hand on Jimmy's thigh. Ray scooted nearer the door and cleared his throat. It sounded strained and scared, even to him.

"Uh, how do these buttons work? Which one opens the window?"

Trevor smiled. Jimmy grinned. Jane smirked.

Sherry had the decency to give Ray a pitying look.

"The bottom one on the door side," she said, raising her glass of red wine to her lips.

He pressed the button and held it down until the window opened as far as it was going to, which was about three-quarters of the way. The air that came in was cold and smelled of CTA bus exhaust and he inhaled lungs full of it anyway.

You're a fucking cop, he thought. Focus on the girls.

"Stop fucking with the square," Sherry scolded the others, half-smiling but trying to be serious. "He can't help it; he's a cop."

it creeps me out: the suicide scene

Ray wanted to skip everything except the last scene, which they'd been told had the filmed footage of the suicide. Fraser had tried to scan-rewind through the scenes preceding the suicide, and Ray had gotten irritated.

"We don't have time to watch the whole thing, Frase," he said, "not if the band gets here in a few hours. We got other things to do."

Fraser agreed, but he had his reservations. "But viewing the documentary in its entirety might yield more information and background."

"Yeah, if we had time. Which we don't."

It was most definitely suicide, as portrayed. Ray, however, was skeptical.

"Think that could've been faked?"

Fraser was surprised. "I suppose it could have been—modern special effects being what they are. But why?"

"Oh, c'mon, Frase. Publicity stunt."

"To what end?"

"To sell more records."

"But if the band played only five cities in the entire country of Canada on their reunion tour—none in large venues—and none in Toronto or Montreal—they probably weren't selling many records to begin with."

"My point exactly."

"It. . . seems unlikely. Perhaps if they had been a very popular band at one time, best selling. But apparently, that's not the case. There seems to have been no best-selling status to reclaim. Perhaps a sort of cult status."

"Either way, it could've been faked. You got connections up there, don'tcha?"

"Not really," Fraser replied. He could not seem to dissuade Ray from the idea that everyone in Canada knew each other. "Why?"

"See if you can verify that this Joe's body was actually interred and then stolen."

"All right. But shouldn't we consider the possibility that the suicide was real?"

"I am." Ray scratched his chin speculatively, staring off into the middle distance.

"All right. What then?"

"Say it was real," Ray snapped his eyes back to Fraser's. "This guy Billy obviously didn't do it; this guy Joe shot himself. Must've had the gun in his pocket the entire time he was sittin' there and sharing the liquor." Ray kneaded his brow.

"Plus he was probably drunk," he continued. "Even cops know that's stupid." Ray paused thoughtfully, his expression darkening. "Especially cops, not that it stops them. Drinking alone, with your gun nearby—it happens, not only to dirty cops: suspension, an accidental shooting—or your partner gets shot—or divorce—" He broke off.

Fraser hesitated, watching with concern as Ray wiped his hands over his face. "Ray?"

"All I'm saying, Frase, is—if he was half in the bag, which it looks like he was, he wasn't in the best state of mind."

"Yes, but we won't know why unless we watch the narrative—at least, I hope it's narrative—leading up to the suicide."

"He wasn't in the best state of mind because he was drunk. And he was drinking alone."

"There may have been other mitigating factors."

"We don't have time to watch the whole thing."

"I think it would prove helpful. The letters' content—the repeated 'you killed Joe' and the most-recent 'you killed Joe and now it's your turn'—make no sense, based on what we've seen," Fraser said to Ray. "Since it's clear that this Joe shot himself, how can this fan accuse Mr. Tallent of having killed him?"

"I dunno, Frase, but they're arriving at O'Hare in less than three hours and—fuck, I'm tired. I been up since five on that pointless stakeout, and I didn't go to bed 'til after midnight last night, anyway." Ray yawned an enormous yawn and stretched. The chairs in Interview Room Three were not supposed to be comfortable, and they weren't.

"Perhaps you should take a nap," Fraser said, eyeing Ray carefully.

"Yeah, maybe. Anybody in lockup?" Ray looked hopefully at Fraser as he stood.

"I don't know, actually." Frase looked up at his friend, his partner, met his eyes, kept his eyes on Ray's eyes, did not allow his eyes to stray from Ray's eyes.

"I'll go see. If not, I'll catch forty winks down there. Review the movie if you want, but we got bigger fish to fry," Ray said.

"Well, perhaps it will provide some insight into the stalker's motive," Fraser pointed out, as Ray yanked the door open.

"Maybe. Let's hope so." Ray paused in the doorway. "Maybe it's all a joke, a prank." He shook his head.

Fraser used the opportunity to ask one more question. "Ray, why don't you want to watch the rest of the film, really?"

Ray rolled his shoulders and then tugged self-consciously at the shoulder holster around his t-shirt. "Seeing that, uh, that Billy guy—it creeps me out. He looks a lot like me."

"He looks disturbingly like you," Fraser murmured.

"Yeah," Ray said, meeting Fraser's eyes. "I don't like it. It's like watching me, but it's not me."

"I see."

Ray shrugged again, his eyes getting that far away look as he thought. "Watch fan scenes: concert footage, meet and greets, that kind of thing. Must be someone who was at those. I'll be back."

He turned and walked swiftly out. The spring-loaded mechanism shut the door automatically behind him.

His departure left the task at hand to Fraser.

He made careful note of male audience members in the concert scenes in the film, especially those who appeared enthralled by soon-to-be-dead Joe Dick. But Fraser did not neglect to consider female fans. He felt the time pressure forcing him to narrow his focus, although certain aspects of the... relationship between Joe Dick and Billy Tallent made him plan for a future viewing of the documentary, in its entirety. It looked... intriguing.

He was just watching the scene in the bar between Billy and Joe, after the Rock Against Guns concert, when Ray walked back in to Interview Room Three, yawning.

Ray yawned again, standing over Fraser. Fraser looked expectantly up at him, but did not pause or stop the film.

"Thought you were gonna wake me," Ray said.

"Was I supposed to?" Fraser asked, not recalling Ray asking.

"I'll go, go, go, if—" Billy said to Joe on the film. Joe made strange noises and a weird expression in response.

"What the fuck is he doing?" Ray asked.

"I don't know," Fraser replied honestly, focusing on it and wishing they had more time to spend reviewing the documentary.

Billy continued to talk to Joe in the movie. "Slow down. Freak."

"He sounds like a dolphin," Ray scowled.

"A dolphin?" Fraser asked, baffled.

"A dolphin, or, you know, like one of those performing seals, that toss the balls on their—you know what I mean, Frase!" Ray said, exasperated.

"I'm not sure that I do."

"We're risking our lives because of dolphin boy over there and his living ex-band mate, is my point," Ray grumbled.

"Well, Ray, dolphins may be as intelligent as humans. And they are mammals." Fraser tried for levity.

"Dolphins don't get shot at for a living," Ray said morosely. "Cops do. And we're mammals, too." He sighed. "Let's go."

"All right." Fraser pressed Stop on the remote, and rose to his feet.

a false sense of freedom: Billy's limousine

Champagne chilled in an ice bucket sunk into a perfectly fitted recess, should the limousine hit any bumps.

Two champagne flutes also rested in perfectly fitted recesses, for the same reasons.

Tiny lights dimly glowed along the long walls of the big car, illuminating the interior as if by candlelight.

The window between the back and the driver was up, and it was tinted almost black. All the windows were tinted. The effect was that you were cut off from the rest of the world, even while you were stuck in traffic.

Billy smiled, and Fraser realized with apprehension that Billy had planned this time alone with him.

"Nice, huh?"

"It's... very luxurious," Fraser mumbled, full realization beginning to dawn on him. Billy had mentioned wanting a post-concert cruise of Lake Shore Drive, from the north end all the way to the south end, and back north again. It would take who knew how long in Chicago Gold Coast traffic on a Friday night to even get to, and then get on, Lake Shore Drive—let alone reach their destination. They would now have quite a lot of time together to accomplish this capricious rock-star demand, while Ray posed as Billy with the rest of Jenifur.

Fraser still couldn't quite get over the bizarre aspects of dealing with a completely different person in Ray's body. Well, in his own—Billy Tallent's—body. Which happened to be nearly identical to Ray's body (as far as Fraser knew—not that he knew much of Ray's body—a thought that made him blush).

He rather thought the experience bore similarities to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except for the fact that—as far as he knew—Billy Tallent was not a member of an alien race seeking domination of Earth, but merely a fellow Canadian transplant to American soil. One who, it must be acknowledged, had done rather well for himself of late.

"It's nice to enjoy what money can buy, occasionally." Billy sighed, and remained silent for a time.

Fraser nodded. There didn't seem to be much need to reply. He looked out the window. The headlights and brake lights of the other cars in the slow moving traffic around them were barely visible through the tinted windows, appearing as if viewed through the densest of fogs off the lake they call Michigan.

"This is a pretty nice city. Way better than Detroit," Billy added.

"Is it?" Fraser asked, not trying very hard to participate in the conversation, now that he felt—cautious.

"Look, Fraser—can I call you Benton? We—you and I—we can help each other," Billy finally murmured.

Had he moved closer while Fraser looked out the window, judging the darkness of the tint?

"I'm not sure what you mean," Fraser stated doubtfully, nevertheless feeling his heart begin to race.

"Do I really have to spell it out?"

"Perhaps that would be best, so there is no misunderstanding," Fraser said faintly, his voice trailing off.

Billy leaned closer to Fraser, drew his face nearer. They were Ray's eyes, the eyes that pinned Fraser to the spot. "It's all over your face. It's all over your body."

"What is?" Fraser's mouth went dry.

"You want him, but you won't do anything about it. And he doesn't seem to want you back," Billy stated matter-of-factly, then shrugged. "Not that way, anyway." He paused. "Or not enough."

Fraser sat back, hard.

Billy tilted his head, gazing at Fraser. "You okay?"

Fraser said nothing, but his heart beat wildly.

"Say something," Billy said. "Or have some champagne."

He took the bottle from the ice bucket and poured some in each flute, handing one to Fraser. Fraser held the flute but did not drink from it. After swallowing several times, Fraser's throat began to work again. Barely.

"Is it that obvious? Does, does everyone see what you see?" His voice sounded rough, unused, even to him.

"I doubt it. I can see it because—because—I been there. Shoe on the other foot, though. Sort of. But, if you mean, do chicks see it? Don't think so. His boss? Doubt it."

"Were you," Fraser asked bitterly, "the one who wanted, or the one who didn't want back?"

Billy shut his mouth and his gaze turned cold. He turned away from Fraser.

"Both. Neither. Depends when you're talking about," Billy said, low. "It's complicated."

"I should think it's..." Fraser began, then stopped. "I don't see how complicated it could have been," he finally said morosely. "You've just very succinctly stated my situation."

"Hindsight is—twenty-twenty," Billy mumbled, his back still to Fraser. "I see it with you and him—because it's not me. Not me, not Joe, not us. When we were—I couldn't see it. Couldn't say it. It wasn't—'succinct' to me. Then."

Fraser said nothing. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Before he could open them, he felt the Ray-like hand on him, gently gripping, squeezing the muscles there between shoulder and neck.

It was excruciating—he hadn't been touched by anyone in so long—it was lovely. It was—oh, God—so much of exactly what he needed, except that he needed so much more than Ray could—would?—ever give; needed Billy to be someone he only superficially resembled.

"You're so stiff," Billy said quietly. "I can—do this for you. Let me." Billy's whisper came from some vague location in front of him.

The hand on his shoulder slid down to Fraser's upper arm. "You can't do—be—like Joe. For me. I know. It's okay. No one can. No one," he sighed heavily, "should."

"I—I—the liberal use of vulgarities, the frequent spitting, certainly not the cigare—" Fraser began.

But then he felt the hand leave his arm. A hand took the champagne flute from him. He heard both flutes set into their slots.

Then Fraser felt fingers at his buttons, unbuttoning.

The obedient, traitorous throb rising was embarrassing, exhilarating. He kept his eyes closed. But when he felt the hands on his thighs, patiently waiting for a sign from him, he put his hands over those hands, and then slid his hands up to the shoulders of the wiry man leaning towards him.

"I can't," Fraser whispered.

"Why not?" came Billy's ragged reply.

"Because you're not my Ray."

"Your Ray," Billy's voice said clearly, "won't do this." One of Billy's hands on Fraser's thigh ghosted up to cup and stroke Fraser's erection through his jodhpurs.

"Your Ray," Billy continued, more softly, "doesn't want this." And his hands, those hands like Ray's, those slender, elegant Ray fingers, slid up under Fraser's red serge, tried to undo Fraser's pants and free his imprisoned erection.

"Why would you do this?" Fraser asked Billy.

"Because I can. Because I don't care what people think anymore. Because, as Dylan said, when you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose. Because I didn't do it enough before, when I could have. And now I—he—"

It took every ounce of self-discipline Fraser had acquired over years of self-denial to grasp Billy's wrists and physically remove his hands before things went any farther. Fraser's hands trembled even as they took Billy's hands from his pants. His organ throbbed; he felt his heart pounding in it; every beat resurrected his yearning for a mutual—not solitary—erotic life, doomed now as it was so long ago with Victoria.

"Billy—William—please—don't."

"Why?" Billy argued in a fierce whisper. "Why not?"

"I—"

"Or haven't you noticed your partner's homophobia? Did you think he was just going to magically come around one day?"

"No, but he—I—"

"You sure it's not your problem, too? Because why else don't you just do what you want, what you feel? Look at me. Just look at me."

With that, Billy took his hands back, yanked them away from Fraser. He sat back and began unbuttoning the shiny-sexy black silk shirt he wore, with vertical metallic threads every quarter inch or so.

"Please, don't," Fraser said quietly. Strange hands on his own member, Fraser could resist, could push away. But the slow reveal of another's flesh—so tantalizingly close—so identical to Ray's—

"I will," Billy said defiantly. "This is—Can be—yours. If you take it." He switched gears. "I'll shut up, I won't talk. I'll be more like him that way—"

"Please—" Fraser shut his eyes, the only avoidance method left to him.

"Open your eyes," Billy Tallent whispered.

Fraser unwillingly opened his eyes, not wanting to see that which had for so long existed only in his mind, in his fantasies, played like a movie in his head. Of course, he'd had much more explicit fantasies. But somehow, a simpler, more sensual reality was even more unbearable.

It was Ray with his shirt unbuttoned and open, naked to the waist, opening his own pants, shoving them partly down, down to the thin trail of hair that led to the thatch around an erection which was concealed by the briefs and the folds of pants, but obviously revealed the level of his arousal.

But it wasn't Ray.

That didn't seem to matter to his body. In a very strange way, Fraser could almost feel—animus—taking over, pushing reason and logic roughly aside, subordinating thought to the much more tactile and immediate call of warm, naked, exposed flesh.

Billy touched the length of his erection through his pants. He closed his eyes, and lay his head back. His shirt slid off one shoulder. His neck, his Adam's apple (cricothyroid cartilage, Fraser's not entirely silenced reason informed him), were exposed.

The palpable vulnerability and trust (and self-effacing recklessness) this revealed aroused Fraser's sense of protectiveness, which fused peculiarly with arousal and desire into an intense ache that felt both familiar and terrifying.

"Ray," Fraser breathed, unaware.

Billy didn't correct him. He just raised his head and stared at Fraser, his lovely Ray face expressing a mixture of hurt, longing, and defiance.

It was awful, and terribly wrong, and yet he was being invited to, so Fraser leaned toward the tawny expanse of flesh that ran from Billy's neck to his pubic hair and... stopped short, just a few inches from Billy, feeling the warmth emanating from Billy's naked skin.

The moment seemed to slow down in exact proportion to how much Fraser desired—and feared—to take the next step. To get closer.

As Fraser's approach towards Billy slowed, Fraser turned his head obliquely away, as if shying but still wanting to be near.

Billy ever so slowly moved forward towards Fraser.

They hung there, inches apart from each other, one fully clothed (to the neck), the other half-naked (to the waist) like an arrow at the apex of its trajectory, weightless before succumbing to gravity.

The fall was exquisite.

Fraser trembled, sensing rather than seeing Billy's hand. It came up, hesitated, and touched his jaw. He leaned into it, like a cat seeking only to rub its head. The delicate fingers touched, then stroked through his hair. They were Ray's fingers. No. Yes. No. They were calloused. From playing stringed instruments.

And, like a cat, he found that one touch irresistible; he had to feel it down his entire body; the sharp intake of breath he heard when he leaned the rest of the way into the man touching him was Ray's—yes. The fingers that stroked through his hair—over his shoulders—the hands on both sides of his jaw, stroking down his throat, fumbling with the Velcro collar fastening, slipping into the serge, tangled in his Sam Browne—Ray's, Ray's, Ray's.

Even though they weren't.

Fraser pushed, pushed against, fell onto Billy Tallent, whose initial resistance gave way deliciously to a sensual surrender. Billy lay back and Fraser's body covered his. Billy's nimble musician's fingers slowly and patiently unbuttoned brass buttons, unhurriedly attempted to peel back layers of Fraser's clothes.

It was not right. It was not Ray. Perhaps that was why Fraser could only lean heavily on Billy like a dumb animal, receiving caresses, but not giving any; the recipient of attempted disrobing, but not reciprocating—not that he needed to, not that there wasn't an achingly, tantalizing expanse of warm Ray-flesh under him.

This Billy was smart. Smart to be quiet, smart to talk only with his hands, his arms, his body—arching up under Fraser, pushing his chest against Fraser's, thrusting his hardness against Fraser's—this was, this was, terrible, and wonderful; shameful and shameless.

Fraser found it impossible to stop. He more or less knew that Ray would have stopped him—wouldn't he have?—But Billy, the pod-Ray, the Ray-facsimile, didn't.

And what was Fraser's excuse? Fraser didn't understand how he'd just moments ago removed Billy's hands from him, and now here he was throwing himself on Billy—and getting nothing but the warm reception he'd barely let himself fantasize about in those hopeless, helpless sleepless moments deep in the night. Deep in the night, in the dark, then his desire for Ray escaped his usual iron control enough for animalistic self-stimulation—but never enough that he could act on it with Ray.

Fraser told himself this was Ray. The musky scent and the tawny skin and the wiry thighs now under the grip of both of Fraser's hands—all Ray's, he told himself.

It wasn't.

When their legs twined together and they mutually thrust against each other—like dogs, Fraser thought, the way dogs hump anything: other dogs, other animals, humans—Fraser didn't stop himself.

When his arms slid around Billy's—Ray's—Billy's body, found Billy's—Ray's—buttocks to grip and hold for stability of thrusting, Fraser didn't stop himself. When their mutual frenzied movement reached a climax of panting and gasping and choking-off of louder sounds and convulsive movement, Fraser still didn't stop himself. The pleasure that erupted—ah, ah, ah!—through his body as he rubbed and thrusted and was met by reciprocal thrusts and rubs—was so wrong, terribly wrong, wrong to Ray.

It was wrong to settle for Billy—cowardly!—rather than disturb their equilibrium and expose his more than heterosexual side to Ray. But Ray's rejection as a friend Fraser feared almost more than rejection as a significant other.

When the guttural groans had receded back into panting and catching his breath, Fraser lifted his head only slightly from where it had landed between Billy's head and shoulder. Before he could catch his own breath, Billy twisted under him, Billy kissed Fraser—deeply—and Fraser helplessly opened to Billy's ardent tongue and submitted to the fierce grasp of Billy's tough, guitar-playing fingers in the flesh of his upper arms.

Gratitude, and longing, and reciprocity, were all rolled into Billy's desperate kisses. Even if it was the wrong person, Fraser let it wash over him, let himself be pushed and prodded, kissed and nibbled and licked and bit. It was excruciating and embarrassing and exhilarating and it had happened so fast because this never happened to Fraser—because he never let it.

This tinted window anonymity was dangerous, some part of Fraser's mind concluded; lent itself to a false sense of freedom.

He felt foolish for having such a hair trigger, a grown man well into his thirties. But Billy didn't seem to mind, didn't seem to care.

The timing, of course, could not have been worse.

"Fraser! Fraser! You in there?" Came a familiar voice from outside the limousine.

Panic rose in Fraser's throat.

Had the limousine stopped? When? Was the rest of Jenifur following in their limousine? Why?

Fraser could hardly have thrust himself away from Billy faster if he'd been on fire. Fraser moved swiftly and guiltily from twisted and entwined with Billy, to the opposite side of the seat. Billy's scowl at Fraser rapidly segued into hurt.

"Ray?" Fraser called, wondering which of the array of buttons in the door controlled the power locks, and desperately trying to refasten everything Billy had undone. He automatically tried to smooth his hair down as he desperately tried to lock all the doors. There was a solid metallic sound, multiplied by four, throughout the limousine. The window between the driver and the passengers had thankfully not opened once, so far as Fraser recalled seeing or hearing.

Billy, in diffident lassitude and hurt petulance, did nothing to redress, refasten, cover-up or close any part of his clothing. He lay back against the seat, a light sheen of sweat over his tawny skin, his Ray-like spikes in disarray, his shirt having fallen off both shoulders, his chest and stomach bare, pants open to the thatch of hair at the root of his shrinking erection.

The close air in the limousine carried the distinct scent of semen.

"Fraser, open up," came Ray's voice again.

Then the door did open, and Ray ducked his head part way in, just in time to see Fraser trying to simultaneously untangle his Sam Browne, rearrange the serge and button it, tuck his Henley back into his jodhpurs, and smooth down his impossibly tousled hair.

Billy, lifting his chin defiantly, slid over to the champagne flutes slowly, like a lazy dog, and stretched out suggestively, still half naked and smelling of sex.

Ray was speechless. His mouth opened, worked, said nothing, and shut.

"I'm sorry, R-Ray, I—we—the limousine was taking rather—" Fraser tried to speak and button the top button of his pants.

"No prob, Frase," Ray's voice came, calm, icy, and backing quickly out of the limo. The door slammed with rather too much force.

"Damn it!" Fraser said.

"Oh," Billy said quietly.

"What?" Fraser said severely, turning on him.

"I thought you never swore."

Fraser looked for the sarcastic expression, the mean tone, the smirk on Billy that he'd seen in the documentary.

None of them were there. Just a sad, dreamy expression.

"I'm sorry," Billy murmured. "I didn't expect him to open the door."

"You also didn't need to stretch out half naked like a, like a—"

"He would have seen what he saw even if I didn't." Billy paused, then added quietly, "He would have smelled it."

Fraser cursed himself silently, each hand behaving as if it had five thumbs, none of them helping refasten his buttons or untangle the Sam Browne.

He slid to the other side of the limo, to the door Ray had just slammed, about to jump out.

"What," Billy spoke to him quietly, "can you say to him?"

Fraser paused, his hand heavy as lead on the door handle.

"I don't know."

"I don't think he'll want to hear any explanation you've got."

Fraser wanted to tell Billy, yes, yes he will, Ray can be quite reasonable some times.

But he didn't know that for certain. And Ray's homophobic comments—an uncharacteristic new development—made Fraser hesitate, his heart thudding darkly and slowly, tamping down a panic that ought to be rising, that ought to be telling him that he'd ruined the last of his chances, as if Victoria hadn't been bad enough, as if Ray Vecchio's departure hadn't been a second blow—

As if he'd ever have pushed for anything more with Ray Kowalski, even though that was what he wanted, needed, desired, most.

No, fear of one more unbearable loss—an avoidable one—kept Fraser from doing anything.

And the temptation of Billy—Ray's physical mirror—had proved too great to resist. And for what? Just to accelerate that loss, that final straw—

Fraser yanked the door open, desperation now propelling him.

cuz they haven't pissed me off, yet: Jenifur's limousine

"Get the fuck out," the two girls said, speaking and grinning simultaneously.

They weren't girls, Ray supposed, but they were so much younger than him that they felt like—girls.

"Sorry—isn't this—?" Ray said, still standing in the open door of the limousine.

"Hey, no," said the blond one. "It's an expression." She smiled again and waved him in.

I knew that, Ray thought.

"Because you look so much like Billy," the brunette added.

"Right—I mean, I thought—" Oh, shut up, Kowalski, he thought. He got in the limo and sat on the girls' side.

"Detective Ray Vecchio," he said, settling in.

The girls' clothes revealed and yet concealed essential parts of their anatomy. The brunette's outfit was basic: tight T-shirt, black jeans. The blonde's was more alternative art-school girl: threadbare, filmy, thrift store dress over black tights. The girls were... enticing. And, okay, a little intimidating. One blond, one brunette. Drinking red wine.

And the two guys. Who, Ray could tell from the smell, were drinking beer.

How hard could this be? Ray asked himself. He referred to his mental cheat sheet: blond = Sherry, brunette = Jane. He wasn't sure about the guys. One, he knew, was named Trevor; the other, Jimmy.

The girls were practically in each others' laps, it seemed, crammed right next to each other, and fairly far from Ray's seat by the door—despite the large interior size of the limousine. It was—pretty fucking cool, Ray decided. He pulled on his pants leg at the knee to give himself a little more room in the crotch.

The guys sat on the other side of the limo, farther apart and leaning leisurely back. Ray looked over at them and got one sympathetic and one bemused glance. They seemed to be about halfway between the girls' age and Ray's, with that fashionably grunge look—ripped clothes, just-got-out-of-bed hair.

"So, Detective," began the blond girl—Sherry—coyly. "If you're a cop, does that mean we're going to have to be law abiding all night while you're with us?"

"I, I—uh—uhm—I won't bust ya for doing what you do," Ray began, irritated. "That's not why I'm here."

"Or," started the brunette—Jane—pulling a joint from behind her ear, "if you're undercover pretending to be our guitarist, does that mean you'll join us in our hedonistic rock 'n roll lifestyle? Because that would be more authentic."

Ray scowled. "I'm on a job, here. This is work, for me. And if it's illegal, of course I'd never do it," he added flatly.

"This is work for us, too. It's our job," said Sherry, firing up a lighter and lighting the joint, chuckling. "Well, job hazard."

"If we smoke enough," the other said in an obvious and too-loud whisper into the first girl's ear, "he'll get a contact high anyway."

Ray sighed. It seemed like it would be a very long night.

The guys chuckled, one less than the other.

"Well, we're not drinking and driving. Just, uh, drinking," the skinnier one said. "That's legal. Maybe we should let him stay straight."

Ray gave him points for that.

The stockier one said, "Yeah. That's not buddies. He's keepin' Billy safe."

Score one for the guys.

Ray tried to look out the windows, but they were tinted so dark, you could only see headlights and brake lights. It was like a cocoon. He scooted across the broad expanse of the limousine to sit on the guys' side.

The taller, skinnier guy extended his hand first, leaning over the stockier guy. "Trevor," he said, adding, "Thanks, man, for lookin' out for Billy." Ray shook his hand.

The stockier guy offered his hand next. "Jimmy. Ditto," he said, clearly the less verbal of the two.

Ray shook his hand, too. "Ray," he said. "No problem."

"How come you're 'Ray' to them, but 'Detective' to us?" one of the girls asked through the growing haze of smoke.

Cuz they haven't pissed me off yet, Ray wanted to reply. But he didn't.

"Okay, just call me Ray." He tried to make his smile genuine, although it felt phony and like it would crack his face.

Sherry?—yeah, Sherry—winked at him. "You know," she said, "we've all slept with him."

"Slept with—oh."

Apparently Trevor, or Jimmy—Ray wasn't sure which—was quite the stud. You never can tell, Ray thought. He looked critically at the guys, thinking neither of them was particularly movie-star good looking. Which would have given him hope—if he knew how to play guitar. Seemed like chicks would sleep with anyone with a guitar. Look at the Ramones. Sheesh.

"No, not Trevor or Jimmy. I mean, yeah, we've slept with Trevor and Jimmy, too." Sherry smiled impishly. "But I meant, we all slept with Billy."

"Huh. That's nice," Ray commented. "Nice for him."

He tried to seem nonchalant about it, but inside, Ray seethed. What a prick, he thought—women throw themselves at you, but you gotta go after my partner, too? What an asshole. Pick a side and stick to it.

Then he wondered, did she mean that they (she and Jane) slept with Billy together, simultaneously? In a threesome? He coughed to mask his envy. One fantasy he'd never had the nerve—or the luck—to act out, with or without Stella.

Directly at Ray, Jane exhaled a huge cloud of pot smoke inhaled from the joint between the two fingers of her right hand. She turned her head to speak to Sherry.

"I don't think he gets what you mean."

Trevor shifted slightly, a small private smile on his face. Jimmy and he exchanged glances, Jimmy's smile becoming wolfish.

Ray looked from Jane to Sherry to Trevor to Jimmy and back to Jane, wary.

"We all slept with him," Jane enunciated and emphasized carefully, punctuating the statement with a circular hand motion encompassing herself, Sherry, Trevor and Jimmy. It made a ring of pot smoke in the car that spread and dissipated in Ray's general direction, the way a cat always goes towards the person with allergies.

Ray coughed and looked at the two girls, then the two guys.

"All of you?" Ray asked, looking from Jane, to Sherry, to Trevor, to Jimmy.

Trevor shrugged and nodded, with an unapologetic close-mouthed smile. Jimmy grinned shamelessly.

"Yep," said Jane. She leaned halfway across the limo to pass the joint to Trevor, who leaned halfway across to meet her and get it.

"Why?" Ray asked before he realized it.

"Why not?" said Sherry.

What the fuck had he gotten himself into? Ray wondered. He wanted to wring Welsh's neck right now. The only reason Welsh had picked him was because of his startling resemblance—make that identical appearance—to the one who got the death threat. And now, come to find out Billy's gay? Or bi, he supposed. Technically.

A rising unease stopped his heart and then kicked it into double time. What if Trevor or Jimmy comes on to me? Ray wondered anxiously. What if both of them come on to me? He was suddenly mindful of the fact that he was outnumbered.

He never understood things anymore. The last time he'd gone to a club—what, a year ago? with a female beat officer ten years younger than him, he'd been confused, turned off, turned on. His body couldn't seem to make up its mind.

Is this a gay club? he'd shouted in her ear over deafening, thumping dance music on the dance floor.

No, she'd yelled back.

Then why, he yelled in her ear, are girls wrapped around girls and guys hanging all over guys?

They do that in all the clubs now, she answered.

Ray had concluded he was officially getting old. In a strange way, he longed for the days of gay clubs and straight clubs. There was no confusion, then; no tempting blurred lines. No uncertainty. With himself or with others.

Now it turns out that Sherry and Jane—and Trevor, and Jimmy—all slept with Billy. And he looks exactly like Billy. That was alarming, because, because—

Because he might not—Because Trevor—Because Jimmy—

No. That was nuts. If Trevor or Jimmy touched him, he'd clock 'em. Just like he'd meant to clock Billy earlier for his obvious intentions towards Fraser.

Ray was making a mountain out of a molehill.

There were two girls sitting across from him, after all. Two. Girls.

He wiped his sweating palms on his tight black jeans, and smiled at them. He very carefully did not look at Trevor or Jimmy.

Definitely suicide: Welsh's office

The promoter and 'some record company asshole'—as Ray later termed him—were in Welsh's office when Fraser and Ray arrived.

"Holy shit," said the record company asshole when Ray walked in after Fraser. He wore a collarless pinstriped suit, double-breasted.

"Damn," said the promoter, a too slick and portly, balding man with a thin, greasy ponytail, wearing a black leather vest over a paisley long-sleeved shirt.

The two men stared open-mouthed at Ray.

"Detective," Welsh said, in his you'll-do-as-you're-ordered tone. "Constable," he added rather more cordially. "Meet Ivan Jeffries, Jam productions," he gestured at the man in the vest, "and Robert Kline, of, uh, InnerDope Records," that last spoken rather disdainfully.

Fraser extended a hand to each man, ever the polite representative of Canada. "Gentlemen," he added, noting that each shook his hand rather distractedly, their attention focused on Ray.

Ray jammed his hands in his pockets and grinned. "You gotta be kidding me, Lieutenant," he began. "I mean—paisley and leather? And whose retro-80s closet did this guy—"

"What Detective Vecchio means is that he'd be delighted to learn the particulars of the situation," Welsh interrupted smoothly, gesturing for Fraser and Ray to sit on the couch and for the two money men to sit in the chairs facing his desk.

As all four men sat, Ray whispered to Fraser, "Fucking bean counters," not quite quietly enough.

Welsh removed from his desk and passed first to Fraser a CD, then a publicity photo, and then finally several hand written letters.

Fraser looked at the CD and noted that the band's name was Jenifur, not Jennifer. He wondered if their name choice had anything at all to do with female surrealist artist Meret Oppenheim's 1936 work Object, a fur covered tea cup, saucer, and spoon. He passed the CD to Ray after examining the song titles and finding nothing particularly remarkable about them except that a number of them were alliterative and every other song of the thirteen began with 'A' or 'The.'

Fraser froze as he examined the publicity photo of the band that the CD had covered . The man in the back of the photo was clearly older than the two women and the other young man. He was the spitting image of Ray (Kowalski) Vecchio.

This was why the promoter and company man had been open-mouthed. Fraser noted the silence in the room as he passed Ray the publicity still. Welsh and Fraser and the other two men waited for Ray's reaction.

A sharp inhalation informed the room that Ray had noticed the similarity between himself and the male band member. He was immediately working the case.

"What's the threat?" Ray said tersely, tossing the photo and CD back on Welsh's already too-full desk.

"Stalker, possible killer, maybe a fan, maybe not, with a grudge," Welsh speculated.

"Content of the communication?" Ray barked.

"See for yourself."

Fraser, who'd just finished skimming through the handwritten letters, handed them to Ray.

"These, uh, these have been faxed to the hotels where the band has been staying," the suit said. "One on each concert date. They used to arrive after the shows, and, uh, Billy would get them in the morning before they checked out. Then they arrived during the shows. Then before the shows."

"Total number?" Ray queried, handing the copies back to Fraser for a closer look.

"The tour's only on its eighth date, they had a couple days off last week. They got a total of eight. Today's was faxed to the hotel before the band even arrived," the suit guy said.

"When did they arrive?" Ray narrowed his eyes.

"That's the thing—"

"They haven't, yet," Welsh stated, rather ominously, Fraser thought.

"Who is Joe?"

The promoter and the record company suit exchanged glances.

The promoter began. "Well—" He stopped abruptly.

"Joe, if I understand this correctly," Lieutenant Welsh picked up the story, looking for confirmation to the suit, "was the lead singer of this guitarist, Billy Tallent's, previous band. He committed suicide about a year ago."

"How?" Ray asked flatly.

"Shot himself in the head," the suit said faintly.

"On film," the promoter added solemnly, casting his eyes down and wiping an imaginary piece of lint off his leather vest.

"On film?" Fraser asked doubtfully.

"They were—a documentary filmmaker was following them on their reunion tour."

"We can messenger you a copy."

This was how a copy of the documentary Hard Core Logo got into Fraser and Ray's hands.

just by looking at him or her: not that there's anything wrong with that

"Who?" Ray snapped, annoyed, as Fraser jumped in the front seat, sans Dief.

"A member of a rock band, apparently." Fraser shut the door, and the GTO jumped forward in first, but without the tires squealing or leaving black marks on the pavement. For once.

"What band? What's their name?"

"Jennifer, Lieutenant Welsh said."

"Never heard of 'em," Ray said dismissively, and then just as suddenly added, "A chick band?" His voice got husky. "Oh. Hey..."

"In actuality, Ray, I believe there are two female members and three male members."

Ray squinted through his sunglasses. "With any luck, the guys'll be fags."

Fraser cleared his throat, rubbing a thumbnail across his eyebrow.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," Ray added smoothly. "I just meant—y'know, um, lucky for me if the guys aren't, uh, into women."

"Of course, Ray. Because your efforts in that area turned out so well the last time," Fraser added mildly, and Ray shot him a glance.

"Sarcasm, Fraser? Was that sarcasm? Cynicism, maybe?" He returned his attention to the mid-afternoon traffic, grinning. "Next thing you know, you'll be competing with me for least likely to be out with a woman on Saturday night. Cuz obviously, you been spending too much time with me."

Warmth was evident in Ray's tone. Fraser was unable to keep an affectionate smile from reaching his lips as well.

"Much too much," he murmured, his smile fading slowly.

"Welsh give any reason why he pulled me off a stakeout for this?" Ray asked, oblivious to Fraser's diminishing smile.

"He hinted that you might look similar to a band member," Fraser said, shaking off his momentary mood, and hoping to stoke his own enthusiasm for the new case.

"Me? I look like a band member? Shit," Ray scowled.

"That's not a good thing, I take it?" Fraser said, after a pause wherein Ray seemed to begin brooding.

"What if they're fags?"

"Ray—"

"I mean, gay." His expression soured. "Damn."

"But you just said that with any luck, the male members might be—"

"Yeah, but that was when I was worried about them as competition. But, me? If I look gay, that can't be good."

Fraser, his voice suggesting he was reaching the limits of his patience, said slowly and distinctly, "Ray, homosexuality isn't a visible difference. You can't tell a person is homosexual, just by looking at him or her."

"Yes, you can." Ray nodded emphatically.

"No, Ray, you cannot," Fraser stated flatly, hoping to end the discussion there.

"Well, I can." Ray muttered. "Been in this city long enough, 'gay mecca' that it is—"

"Can not."

"Watch me."

You, Fraser thought stubbornly and with a familiar sinking feeling, most certainly cannot. But he did not say that.

Instead, Fraser said, "Do you think you can tell who's bisexual, just by looking?" He paused, feeling his own cheeks flush with heat at his boldness.

"Because, you know, Ray, according to Kinsey, much of human sexual behavior occurs on a spectrum that includes sex acts with both genders."

Fraser kept his eyes front and center, but from his peripheral vision he saw Ray look over at him with an intriguingly frightened yet flustered expression. He heard Ray sharply inhale, and Ray's mouth opened, said nothing, stayed open a few seconds, and then shut.

Fraser tamped down an excited spike in his heart rate, a small thrill of hope that fluttered in his chest like a fledgling.

The silence in the car lengthened tensely, but Fraser stubbornly refused to break it.

Finally Ray heaved a very great sigh. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough and he stammered slightly.

"F-Frase. I'm—I'm not as good of a person as you are." He paused, and sighed again. "I'm a cop. It's—we're—You're right. I shouldn't—It's judgmental, and h-homophobic, and I—I—I'm sorry."

Fraser hesitated, feeling the anticipation in him ebb away. "It's all right, Ray," he said, his voice tired.

"It isn't, I know it isn't," Ray said urgently, his voice raw. "It's—I can accept that—other guys—I mean, look at Giannis, and Reilly—and they're, y'know, they're good guys—"

" 'Other guys?' " Fraser interrupted, frustration leaking out and replacing the anticipation and hope he'd had such a tenuous grasp on moments before. "What it is you're—"

"Frase, let's just drop it," Ray interrupted Fraser's interruption, a tone of finality and warning in his voice. "Before this gets—bad."

"As you wish," Fraser replied stiffly, after a long pause.

They spoke no more for the next twelve blocks, until a homeless person almost pushed his cart into the GTO, at which point Ray exploded with considerably more fury and vulgarity than was necessary.

Then again, it was his GTO.

our guy pretends to be your guy: nullified by the death threat

Fraser stood at parade rest in front of Welsh's desk, while Ray lounged on the sofa.

"Cancel tonight's show? No way," the pony-tailed promoter said emphatically, shaking his head.

"Then how can our guy pretend to be your guy?" Welsh asked, exasperated.

"They don't want our help, Lieutenant; let's let 'em handle it privately," Ray said disgustedly from his seat.

"I got it," said the suit guy, swinging around to face them and snapping his fingers.

"This should be good," Welsh muttered, meeting Fraser's eyes.
"We'll get Billy and your detective to both wear slings. Make up some story about an injury, say Billy can't play, get someone to stand in, a studio musician or something. Billy can make appearances in the sling, sign autographs, even if he can't play. Or rather, your undercover guy can."

"Could work," Welsh considered, scratching his chin, oblivious to Ray vigorously shaking his head 'no.'

The promoter, though, was doing the same thing: vigorously shaking his head 'no.'

"Why not?" said the record company guy.

"The contract—" began the promoter.

"The specifics of the contract referring to Billy Tallent are nullified by the threat to Billy Tallent's life," smirked the suit.

The promoter scowled, his oily pate gleaming. "That's in the fine print?"

"Did you read the entire contract?" the suit asked. "It's eleven pages."

The rising look of ire on the promoter's face gave his answer.

Ray smirked. Fraser stood at parade rest, calmly awaiting Lieutenant Welsh's response.

"All right, an injury," Welsh said, resting his fist on his desk. "Now let's get some slings." He walked to his office door and opened it. "Francesca!" he yelled.

faggot, fart-hammer: cruisin' for a bruisin'

"Ray Vecchio, Mr. Billy Tallent. Mr. Tallent, Detective First Grade Raymond Vecchio."

The two of them said nothing while they regarded each other, each trying to hide his fascinated and curious expression from the other.

"You don't look Italian," Billy observed.

"And you don't look talented," Ray snapped.

Billy's expression steamed up into anger almost as quickly as Ray's. Fraser stepped between them.

"Call me Bill," Billy said sarcastically over Fraser's shoulder.

"I'm gonna clock ya, faggot," Ray snapped, and tried to edge around Fraser.

"Gentlemen. Shall we?" Fraser, ever the diplomat, tried to smooth ruffled feathers, pushing the men apart and inclining his head towards the door.

"Keep him away from me," Ray whispered, leaning towards Fraser. "The little fart hammer—"

"Because otherwise he won't be able to resist me," Billy chipped out.

"You're really cruisin' for a bruisin', pal," Ray snarled. "You're just lucky we'll both have our arms in slings up to the end of the concert."

"Wanna put your hands on me that bad, huh?" Billy smirked.

If Fraser had not held both of Ray's shoulders then, Ray would have gone around Fraser to pound the crap out of Billy. Ray glared at Fraser, and stomped out of the room.

"Mr. Tallent, that was uncalled for," Fraser found himself saying.

"Uncalled for? First, he insults my talent. Then he calls me a fart hammer. And you do and say nothing. I don't have to take his shit, even if he's supposed to save my life," Billy said, his voice tight to mask the post-confrontation adrenaline jitters.

Fraser sighed. "Yes. You're right. I should have corrected him. But you exacerbated the situation."

"Fuck you," Billy said, and stomped to the other side of the room for another beer.

Fraser sighed.

in all sorts of ways, before he was ever ready: dead man's float it was

"So lemme get this straight, Frase. I go in the first limo with the band, pretending to be him. He goes in the second limo with you, pretending to be me?" Ray paced away from Fraser, who stood quietly outside Billy's dressing room at parade rest in his civvies.

"Well, no, Ray, he won't be pretending to be you. He'll just be in the second limo which hopefully won't be followed because the first one with you as decoy will already be away." Fraser's typical oh-so-reasonable tone and attitude irritated Ray beyond all reason now.

"Sitting duck, you mean," Ray muttered, scowling.

"Ray. You'll be wearing a Kevlar vest. I hardly think that a psychotically obsessed fan will also be obsessive-compulsive enough to plan to use hollow-point ammunition—mainly because I doubt such a psychotically obsessed fan would consider the level of police involvement that Jenifur has sought out."

"Oh, really."

"Yes," Fraser said, as if it were all very self-explanatory.

"Frase, you drive me nuts, sometimes. You're so—so—calm!" Ray said, pacing back up to Fraser until he was within that unacceptable three-foot radius of North American personal space, until they were dangerously face-to-face.

Slightly disconcerted, but also stubborn, Fraser did not step back. He calmly accepted Ray's statement. "I know, Ray."

Ray felt the slight breeze of Fraser's breath on his upper lip as Fraser spoke. The man's breath smelled of Earl Grey tea.

Their eyes locked on one another; the moment swelled. Fraser smelled faintly like—some kind of lye soap Ray's grandmother had used—

What Ray wanted to say was, don't go with him. Stay with me, with the rest of the band. Where you'll be safe.

In all sorts of ways he knew must be wrong, Ray wanted to be with Billy Tallent and Fraser in their limo tonight. As a, a—chaperone. To protect Fraser, he told himself. From—a man who wasn't even a man, he was more—a boy. Maybe a talented boy, but still—a boy.

In all sorts of ways he knew weren't true, Ray told himself it was only Billy who wanted Fraser.

In all kinds of ways he knew were cowardly, Ray couldn't let himself get that close to Fraser's desires, because, because—

Because what he knew about Fraser was that there were too many things he didn't know about Fraser. Things he wanted to know, but also didn't want to know. Did Fraser like—if he liked men, would he like boys better?

Ray knew there were too many things he might discover about himself if he got to know those parts of Fraser. And once he knew them, he couldn't un-know them. Not unless his mind was wiped clean as a slate.

Ray just didn't want to go there.

He dropped his eyes, could no longer meet Fraser's open, sympathetic, steady gaze—he had to look down, at Fraser's brass buttons, the leather Sam Browne belt—how had they gotten so close together? Had Fraser moved towards him while he hadn't been paying attention?

He didn't want Fraser to go there with another man, either. Especially not another man who looked nearly identical to himself.

They were so close, so close together now, that Ray felt the heat coming from Fraser's cheeks, still smelled the fucking Earl Grey tea, the lye soap, the wool of the red serge—

And Ray smelled something subtler, not sweat, but a human smell of Fraser—a masculine scent of a man, a maddening, infuriating, intriguing, fucking attractive man who was right now letting Ray invade his personal space. He let Ray invade his space without moving back, without slapping his back, without a light punch to his upper arm, without any of that American "we're not gay, we're guys" bullshit—just accepting it, in a way that was—so European, so I don't care, so very gay—

Why couldn't things just stay the same? Why did everything have to change, before he was ever ready?

Ray wanted Fraser to stay oblivious to all the women who threw themselves at him, and to keep busting or blowing it with the few women who got past his obliviousness and armor. Ray wanted to keep trying, to keep getting shot down by women and occasionally sleep with one who'd never want to see him again, just so he could remain on the side of the line that let him stay with Fraser but not be with Fraser.

That way he and Fraser would still always have each other, and things would never have to change, and they'd never cross that bridge because they'd never come to it.

He'd never be ready, Ray secretly admitted. He didn't want Fraser to be ready, either.

But what if Fraser was?

What if Fraser wasn't—until Billy Tallent came along and got him ready?

Ray knew how that kind of thing went. How constrained, how restricted—how terrified—you could be with someone you really cared about, a relationship worth saving from your usual fucked-up attempts at emotional contact.

How free you could be with someone you knew you'd never see again.

Did Fraser know how that kind of thing went?

All sorts of images blazed through his brain—some which Ray had already imagined, very late at night, barely awake, usually drunk enough to not care that he was thinking about his partner, his (to the best that he could determine) nearly monk-like partner in this way (and drunk enough to try to, and mostly succeed in, forgetting later)—and some which were terrifying, hedonistic, decadent, arousing visuals of Fraser with Billy Tallent, doing things Ray had tried to forget that he'd ever imagined doing with Fraser, and a number of things he hadn't had the nerve to picture himself doing with Fraser.

He kept his gaze on Fraser's brass buttons and spoke, low.

"Fraser—this, this is—I am, too close. Why—why don't you—push me away—?"

Begging, practically.

"Ray, look at me," Fraser whispered.

He raised his gaze, unwillingly, slowly, ashamed, feeling the heat in his cheeks, seeing it mirrored in Fraser's as he looked first at Fraser's lips, then cheekbones, then met those true-blue eyes.

"Because, Ray," Fraser answered quietly, moving only his lips. "I don't want to."

Ray stilled, let it sink in, tried desperately to fit what Fraser just said, how Fraser looked, into something he understood, something that fit in a box labeled friendship, a box labeled partners, a box labeled buddies.

It was like swimming at the dunes when he was a kid, where the lake bottom just suddenly dropped off. One minute you're walking in rib-high water. The next minute, there's no bottom—and there's an undertow current. What do you do?

You can panic. And flail uselessly, exhausting yourself. You can think. And swim parallel to the shoreline, back and forth, zigzagging like hiking a switchback up a mountain. You can do the restful dead man's float if you're exhausted and you're too far out and the undertow prevents the lifeguards from getting you, and keeps pulling you farther out. With the dead man's float, you might get your strength back enough to attempt the parallel swimming.

Ray waited for Fraser to throw him a rope, but Fraser didn't move forward or back; he just kept his eyes on Ray's.

That had better not be pity on his face.

Dead man's float it was.

the fine spray of blood: intersection of Lower Wacker and Lower Grand Avenue

Ray stalked up to Billy and growled at his guitar-playing look-alike. "Just keep your hands off him!"

"Last I heard, your hands weren't on him, so I don't think it's any of your business," Billy snarled back.

"He doesn't want you!"

"You don't know what he really wants. You don't want to know."

"Ray—William—" Fraser began.

"He's William now?" Ray hissed to Fraser.

"You guys, shut up," Jane said, walking up to them from where she and Sherry and Trevor stood by their limousine. "Chill the fuck out," she continued.

The timing was perfect. It was just as the nine o'clock fireworks began at Navy Pier, and both limousines had pulled over on lower Grand not half a block away. The popping sounds of the fireworks camouflaged the gunfire as the first shot missed them all and buried itself in the asphalt of the street.

The only ones who noticed at first were Fraser and Ray. Ray knew that whining sound of bullets passing too closely. He hunkered—and, since Jane was closest to him, he grabbed Jane by her shoulder and threw her to the ground.

"You fucking asshole!" Jane yelled at him from where he'd thrown her. The pop-pop-pop-boom of the fireworks continued.

"Shit!" Ray yelled, jerking forward at the shoulder and stumbling.

The blood spray from his shoulder across Jane's face didn't stop her, at first, most likely because she didn't realize what it was. "I can't believe you fucking did that!" she yelled at Ray, right before he fell on top of her.

"What the fuck, you guys," came Sherry's voice as she began to stroll over to them, exasperated. Trevor still stood by their limo. Jimmy wisely sat inside the limo with the door still open, watching the scene, but he might have been more drunk and stoned than the rest, and more disinclined to get up or get out.

While Ray had grabbed Jane and thrown her down, Fraser crouched and shoved Billy down. Their limousine door was still open, so Fraser dragged Billy bodily behind the cover of the open door.

When he saw the blood spatter across Jane's face and her open, yelling mouth, however, Fraser stopped.

"You," he pointed his index finger directly into Billy's face. "Stay down behind that door, and don't move."

He pointed at Trevor and Sherry. "Get down, now!"

Fraser fell to his hands and knees and crawled to Ray, who lay on top of the struggling, swearing Jane.

"Get off me! Fucker!" Jane swore and fought.

"Shit! Fuck! Shit, ow!" Ray said, gritting his teeth, trying to keep Jane down and staunch the blood flow from his upper arm, simultaneously.

Trevor and Sherry watched the bloodstain spread across the upper arm of Ray's left sleeve. When the blood began to drip onto the pavement, Trevor sank to his knees next to the limousine and pulled Sherry down with him. "Oh, my God," he muttered. "Oh, my God." That was pretty much all he said for the next hour.

Jimmy said, "Get in. Get in the limo. Get in the limo now, you guys. Come on!"

"Ray, Ray!" Fraser shouted at Ray, whom Jane was still trying to throw off. He reached Ray just as Jane succeeded.

"You fucking asshole!" she raged as she sat up. Then she looked down at her shirt, which had large splotches of Ray's blood on it, and shrieked.

The sound of not-too-distant sirens was nearby and growing louder.

"What the fuck! What the fuck?" Jane's voice rapidly switched from anger to panic. "Where's all this blood from?"

"Ray," Fraser yelled. "Did you wear your vest?"

Pop-pop-pop-pop, boom, boom, boom.

Two more holes studded the pavement in a diagonal line from Ray to Billy Tallent's limousine.

Billy didn't get it.

He stood up from his crouch where Fraser had dragged him behind the open limousine door.

"What's going on?" was all he said.

They all heard two more pop-pops, which they could now distinguish slightly from the fireworks in the background half a block away. Billy crumpled behind the limousine door. The sirens grew louder.

"Fuck!" Ray writhed on the ground, swearing and grabbing his left upper arm over the deltoid muscle.

Jane screamed incoherently.

Sherry was silent.

Trevor muttered, "Oh, my God," incessantly.

Jimmy kept saying, "Get in the limo, get in the fucking limo!"

Fraser hesitated a split-second, looked toward Billy, then threw Ray on his back and swiftly palpated Ray's body above the waist. "You wore the vest, oh God," he breathed. "We're near Northwestern Memorial—call 911—"

"Fuck! Fraser—look—" Ray, still gripping his own arm, gestured with the hand of the shot arm towards Billy. His blood ran between the fingers of his gripping hand from his wounded shoulder.

Blood pooled quickly under Billy and ran in two thick rivulets towards the sewer. Blue lights began to not far away. The sirens' sound became deafening.

Fraser crawled over to Billy behind the limousine door.

Jane still screamed. Trevor still muttered. Sherry shivered violently but silently. Jimmy had shut up.

Fraser felt the thick wetness of blood soaking Billy's entire shirt and much of his pants.

He yelled, "Billy! Billy!" a number of times, as he checked Billy's head and quickly examined Billy's body. There was so much blood, however, that finding the entrance wounds on cursory examination proved impossible.

Billy's eyes were glazed. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He was very pale and suddenly covered in sweat. He tried to focus on Fraser, but his eyes kept slipping up under his eyelids.

Fraser kept nattering a mantra to Billy: Stay with me, I'm here, you're going to be all right, everything will be all right, we're four blocks from a major hospital, nationally renowned, blah, blah, blah. It was really just to try to keep Billy focused. Conscious.

When he turned Billy over on his lap, Fraser saw the exit wounds. Bone slivers and raw meat blossomed out of the left shoulder blade and the lower thoracic spine, just above the lumbar area. The blood in the lower thoracic wound spurted in rhythmic intervals. The pool of blood under Billy—under both of them, now—was enormous, growing and flowing.

Fraser covered the wound near Billy's spine with both hands and applied pressure. But it bled profusely under and through his fingers.

Ray winced as he dug for his cell phone. He looked around, made sure Jane, Trevor, Jimmy and Sherry were all okay. Then he scrambled, crab-like, to Fraser and Billy behind the limousine door, still trying to apply pressure to his bleeding upper arm.

Ray got there just as the deafening sound of the sirens suddenly stopped. Huey erupted from an unmarked, gun drawn, and two uniforms in a blue-and-white followed.

"It's spurting. Arterial," Fraser said numbly to Ray. "Not flowing. Not venous."

Dewey reached Trevor and Sherry first, covered them. Huey grabbed Jane and dragged her to the side of the limousine for cover.

The uniforms got to Ray, Fraser and Billy at the same time. They looked from the pale, limp Billy to the pale, tense Ray, and back again.

Fraser's pants were soaked through with blood by the time they pulled the lifeless Billy Tallent out of his arms.

most disconcerting: Billy's hotel suite

"So you're him," the guitarist Billy Tallent said, cigarette smoke exiting his mouth as he spoke, punctuated by a final two plumes of smoke from his nostrils.

It was most disconcerting to look Billy in the face, he being a virtual doppelganger of Ray. Yet that also made it maddeningly impossible to look away from him.

The guitarist switched his lit cigarette from one hand to the other, and extended one for Fraser. "Billy Tallent."

Fraser shook his hand. "Constable Benton Fraser."

"You are him."

"Him, who?"

"The Mountie. They told me they had a Mountie on the case. 'Course, I thought they were joking. Messing with me. But you really are, eh?"

That little 'eh' made him even more unlike Ray—more like everyone Fraser had grown up with—yet, visually, Fraser's brain chanted 'Ray, Ray, Ray' in the background. Except for the accent, the cigarettes, and a more carefully cultivated outward persona, this guitarist was remarkably like Ray, down to the smallest details. Even down to the peculiarly curved thumbs.

"Yes, I really am. I first came to Chicago on the trail of—"

Billy nodded. "He told me. Your—captain? No, wait, the other guy's. The guy who looks like—" He cut himself off, then continued. "Anyway. Trail of the killers of your father."

Fraser eyed him closely, wondering if Billy was being sarcastic. Apparently, he was not.

"Did you catch 'em?" Tallent asked before another sharp, deep inhalation of cigarette smoke.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The killers of your father."

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Good," Billy-not-Ray nodded, exhaling smoke all over his clothes and Fraser's. "That's good to hear."

"Will you," Fraser found himself asking, "be smoking the entire night? Because, if so, I may want to change into different clothing—"

"Wouldn't you wanna do that anyway?" Billy said, taking a large swig of beer from the bottle in his other hand, and swallowing several times as he tipped it up. "I mean," he added, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "you're a little conspicuous. In all that red." He paused, serious. "I thought we were going, uh, incognito."

"In point of fact," Fraser began, a hint of irritation in his voice, "incognito isn't exactly the right term, so much as using the distraction of a decoy."

"A decoy."

"One who bears a remarkable resemblance to you. Or to whom you bear a remarkable resemblance."

Those Ray eyes were on Fraser, and Fraser's eyes were on Billy, helpless to look away. Yet Fraser began to resent the different personality, the cool detachment coming from this, this, Ray facsimile. It was almost as if the man didn't care about the threats to his life—or about the men protecting him from them.

"You care about him," Billy Tallent said tonelessly.

Fraser's mouth froze. He swallowed dryly. Billy continued.

"You don't want him to do this because you don't want anything to happen to him. And you don't think I'm worth something happening to your partner."

Fraser ceased convulsively swallowing and merely looked at Billy Tallent, looked him in the eye. Fraser said nothing; did not deign to respond. But his heart pounded wildly over his shame at having been caught thinking what he'd been thinking.

"You watched the film, didn't you?" Billy asked. Sudden dark sorrow, then anger, then guilt flashed in his eyes. "You think I'm an asshole," Billy said, eyes narrowing, sharply observing Fraser for any minute change in posture, in attitude, in expression.

"You think what he thinks. What so many of them think," Billy finished bitterly. He barked a short, humorless laugh, then.

Fraser took an almost imperceptible breath to calm himself, and shook his head. Once.

"I don't think what they think."

"That's okay," Billy said, turning away, fishing in the hotel suite fridge for another beer. "Half the time, I think so too." He withdrew a bottle and opened it. "And, yes, I'm gonna be smoking. All night. And drinking. And I can play better shit-faced than anyone else in the band can play six days sober."

He turned back and looked Fraser up and down. The slight hollows at his temples and of his cheeks, and the movement of his adam's apple as he swallowed more beer, gripped Fraser. Fraser turned away, but when he turned, he realized he now faced the mirror over one of the dressers.

He locked eyes with Tallent in the mirror.

"I know it was a year ago," Billy Tallent said quietly. "An' sometimes it seems like a million years ago. But other times—it seems like yesterday."

Fraser merely continued to meet his glance.

"You're freaking me out," Billy Tallent said quietly. "Why're you so fucking calm and non-judgmental? People either hate me or love me—based on, based on my old band, my new band, new videos, the old documentary. You, I don't know what you're thinking."

His cadence, his words, his accent were all nothing like Ray's.

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the music of either your old band or your new band," Fraser said regretfully. "Popular culture is not my forte, although I find studies of popular culture—"

"Y'know, it's not just groupie girls that wanna sleep with me," Billy's voice interrupted roughly, changing the subject abruptly.

Fraser felt a terrible twinge deep within his chest. It knotted there and twisted down to his gut, down to—

"That doesn't surprise me," he found himself saying, quite calmly.

The slowly dawning Ray smile that greeted that statement, that turned away from the mirror as it became a sheepish grin, paralyzed Fraser with its familiarity.

"With that uniform," Billy tossed over his shoulder to Fraser as he threw the bottle cap in a wastebasket, "I bet you got women and men all over you, all the time."

"You might be surprised," was Fraser's simple, self-deprecating reply.

"Let me guess," Billy said, turning back again to face Fraser. "All but the one you want, right?"

Damn you, Fraser thought.

But he merely gave the guitarist a strained smile.

more of his life lay behind him than before him: a Greek town SRO

Fraser had put a pot of tea on—again—after tossing and turning in the dark, without sleep, for hours. Well, perhaps not entirely dark. He had taken a room in a Greek town SRO ("transients welcome") after Billy Tallent's death and during the investigation, the better to distance himself from the Canadian Consulate until he and Ray were officially cleared. The intersection it overlooked never seemed to sleep. The gyros place on the corner was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week; and the taxis and buses that ran down Halsted seemed to be, too.

Inspector Thatcher had advised him in ambiguous but nonetheless perfectly clear terms, that if he didn't stay away from Ray (Kowalski) Vecchio during the OPC investigation, his administrative leave from the consulate might be considered permanent.

Long (especially intimate) telephone conversations for him had always been awkward. All right, long, especially intimate, conversations had always been awkward for him. He was much better at having short, factual conversations. He also didn't have a phone at this SRO.

So he and Ray had only had a couple of short conversations in passing as they brushed past each other in the halls downtown, being hustled from interview to interview with investigator after investigator. And a couple short, factual conversations on the pay phone in the lobby, which consisted largely of,

"You all right?" "Yes, Ray." "You got my message, right? "Yes." "You holding up okay?" "Yes. I'm 'holding up okay.'" "You need anything?" "No, Ray, I'm fine." "You'd let me know, if you did—right?" "Yes, Ray, of course." "You need any money?" "No, I'm all right for now." "Okay. Well. Just let me know if you do. Okay. So, I guess I'll go now. ...You sure you're all right?" "Yes, Ray. I'm fine." "Okay." "All right." "So, I'll let you go then." "Okay, Ray." "I'll be in touch. Um. Let me know if you need anything." "I will." "You got my number." "Right." "Okay then." "All right." "Bye, Frase." "Good bye, Ray."

The kettle screamed with its powerful whistle, so Fraser went to his hot plate and turned it off, and removed the kettle with an oven mitt. He poured the water over a tea bag.

The quiet knocking on his door must have been obscured during the kettle's shrieking.

The tea steeped. Fraser hesitated. It was nearly 3 AM. There was only one person it could be, but he went very quietly to the door, and looked through the peephole.

Yes. Ray. Or, rather, Ray's spikes of wheat-colored hair, tilted. He seemed to be looking down at his shoes.

"Frase?" Ray called softly, cocking, but not lifting, his head.

Fraser thought how considerate it was of Ray to knock quietly and call softly when the other SRO residents were probably sleeping. Well, some of them, at least. Many of them weren't even home.

Saying nothing, Fraser unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. He met Ray's uneasy glance for a split-second, and then their gazes skittered in opposite directions away from each other.

Fraser stepped aside, giving Ray plenty of room to come in.

After the tiniest hesitation, Ray stepped inside.

It was basically a tiny studio apartment with a kitchenette and shared bathroom, not unlike (but much smaller than) his first apartment in Chicago. It had come furnished, which was just as well. Dief lay in the threadbare, overstuffed chair. His tail thumped happily and his ears twitched in Ray's direction, but the lazy wolf didn't get up to greet him.

Fraser went to the counter to steep his tea and try to wait for Ray to speak or act or do something.

Ray sighed. The only other places to sit were Fraser's bed, and one beat-up, solid wooden chair at the tiny Formica kitchen table.

Ray sat in the wooden chair. He didn't remove his jacket.

Fraser stood at the counter, half-turned away from Ray, uncertain, shy, and using the tea as an excuse for not facing Ray.

"Ya okay, Frase?" came Ray's worried query.

"I'm fine, Ray." Fraser tried not to sound as troubled as he felt.

"'Cause I haven't heard from you." Was that—a hurt tone in Ray's voice? Fraser couldn't be sure.

"I haven't needed anything," Fraser said quietly.

"You sure you're all right?" Ray repeated.

"I've been all right." Fraser hadn't been, but he felt it best to leave that out for the moment.

"Frase—" Ray began, then broke off. Fraser heard him shift restlessly. The chair creaked.

He thought he knew what Ray meant to say. "I understand, Ray."

"No, ya don't."

"I do. It's better if we don't see each other. Inspector Thatcher has made that clear, as I'm sure Lieutenant Welsh has. I truly do understand."

"Would you just—can I just get it out, Fraser, what I came here to say?"

Fraser looked over his shoulder at Ray from his tea bag in hot water, and realized Ray was very awkward in his presence, too. He sighed.

"All right, Ray. Say what you came here to say."

"Okay." Ray paused. "Um, it's about, um, how I was—how I behaved—about you—and, and, um—Billy."

Fraser inhaled sharply.

"I know, I know—you think I hate him. I don't. I didn't. I mean, not like hate hate. I just—you were—and he—"

He broke off, with a short bark of an uncomfortable laugh that he stifled quickly.

"I guess you, of all people, wouldn't understand that I get how—liberated—you might've felt with someone you'd probably never see again."

unexpected yet somehow perfect: the courage to do even this much

Fraser sat passively and let Billy lean in to him and press his lips to his mouth.

He knew it was Billy, yet his body reacted as if it were Ray. Which raised a number of philosophical questions—

Oh, God, why couldn't he get out of his head and simply let go?

"Please, Mr. Tallent—"

"Billy. Or Bill. Or William," murmured the lips at his own.

"William—"

The hand that came up to caress his neck and the stubble on his jaw line was unexpected and yet somehow felt perfect.

But, no—this was not Ray.

Fraser's hand reached up to take Billy's hand away, even as his lips parted and let Billy's tongue-tip in, let Billy really kiss him.

Instead of taking Billy's hand away, Fraser wound up with Billy's hands cradling both sides of his jaw. Fraser's hands held onto Billy's wiry forearms, as if they wanted to drag his hands away—but couldn't.

The kiss was feverish, deep, and breathless. Their lips parted, their foreheads touched, Fraser smelled the beer on Billy. It evoked vivid memories of Ray taking him along on multiple invitations to drink, wherein Ray got inebriated, and Fraser wound up driving Ray's car home and putting him to bed, ever mindful of the temptations, and stalwartly incapable of taking advantage of Ray that way.

The intermingling of such strong memories with Billy's sensual attempt at seduction was intoxicating. Fraser felt Billy's mouth take his lower lip in and nibble it.

"Please. I can't—" Fraser began weakly.

"You can..."

"But—"

"It's okay—"

"No, it's—"

Billy pulled back, but kept their foreheads touching. Fraser was not panting, but breathed heavily. He felt the roominess of his jodhpurs shrink as his erection throbbed to life.

"Benton—we're just kissing."

Put that way, it didn't seem like so much.

"Why can I do this with you and not with—"

He didn't mean to sound as frightened, as panicked, as he sounded to himself. Billy's hands stroked through his hair, firmly, strongly, soothingly.

"Shhh."

Fraser felt Billy's hand, strong on the back of his neck. It pulled him, pulled his head, and he let it. But all Billy's hand did was pull Fraser's head into the nook between his head and shoulder.

He rested it there, and waited for the guitarist to push him to go further, to do more.

But all Billy did was hold him, hold his head in the nook, hand cradling the back of Fraser's head, and let Fraser rest and wait.

It felt right and good, though he knew it was not. Fraser knew Ray would not be happy if he knew what they were doing right now. Even though, right now, they did nothing; one man rested his forehead on the other's shoulder. And that was all.

Fraser wished he had the courage to do even this much with Ray.

"I want—" Fraser murmured into Billy's collarbone. He couldn't finish what he'd begun; he wanted too many things; and from someone else Billy only happened to look like; and he wanted nothing bad to happen to anyone.

"Shhhhh. Just—" Billy kept that hand on the back of Fraser's head, petting him, and slipped his other arm around Fraser.

Fraser slowly, ever so slowly, leaned in to the wiry Ray-not-Ray body that welcomed him.

His arms went around the lean Ray-not-Ray chest. His breath made a warm, moist spot in the shoulder of Billy's shirt, but Billy said nothing more, didn't move, didn't change anything.

Fraser shook, clasping Billy to him, fully clothed—clasping him to him, and loosening his grip, and then clasping him again, as if somehow the situation were going to change radically in between holding and loosening his grip. But it didn't. It just felt... good. He pulled Billy close and didn't let go.

on the cusp, filled to the brim, ready to spill over: the growing emptiness—wisdom from a dead man

Fraser sighed. Actually, he did see. That perhaps the vast majority of men and women his age around him in North America—all right, perhaps in the western hemisphere—viewed things this way meant nothing. It wasn't something that came naturally to Fraser; it wasn't in his nature.

It had taken a certain core loneliness. It had taken the knowledge that if he kept living the way he lived, kept pursuing justice at all costs, taking risks the way he did, then perhaps more of his life lay behind him, now, than before him. Look at his own father. And how would his life feel to him, when he reached the end of it?

It had taken a kernel of desperation, of knowing that not moving forward to try new things was comfortable, was safe, was—God—livable; but that not moving forward meant not growing, not learning, stagnation. It meant missing out on—things. Fraser had no idea how to do these—things. But he felt that if he died without having given it at least one more real, genuine try, he would feel he'd died without really living.

He lived so much in his head, it was true. He lived in his head, in books, and manuscripts; in his fathers diaries; in musical scores; in poetry; in research quarterlies and journals. But he also lived in his body. He walked, he did calisthenics, he ran, climbed trees, and had even rowed with one of the rowing teams and rented kayaks at one of the north side beaches. Fraser could sketch and carve wood. He took Dief with him for long explorations of beautiful Chicago parks that were part of the city's plan in the 1800s, and along the walking/biking path—sometimes along the beaches—on the lakefront, to see the lake, which was ever-changing and yet always the same, and so very restorative. Fraser knew all the free days of every museum, zoo, botanical garden, historical society, and architectural society in Chicago—and frequently visited them. The docents at many of them already knew Dief, and some saved up little treats for him to snack on while he waited outside places dogs (and wolves) weren't allowed.

Every May Fraser awaited the calendar of free outdoor classical concerts in Grant Park (at which the opera house orchestra often played and had recitals of opera excerpts) and free outdoor film festivals in Chicago Park District parks all over the city. He knew which rock bands would play the free fourth of July concert with fireworks (even if he wasn't familiar with their music)—and which Sousa marches would be played at the free classical concert the day before (with fireworks). He took the el to various ethnic neighborhoods to try various ethnic foods and to the various street and neighborhood festivals and block parties. Fraser even went out to some near suburban attractions—such as the stretches of contiguous county forest preserves, once called a Midwestern "biogem" for providing unbroken habitat for countless species of wildflowers and plants, as well as migratory birds and small mammals.

He sang in the shower some times, old Irish and English ballads. Other times, he sang hearty sailing songs until he was hoarse with the joy of it. He saw people and buildings and greenery; he listened to symphonies, operas, rock bands, street musicians, even to the deep bass from people's car stereos as they passed and rattled store windows. Fraser could hear and distinguish countless calls and songs of migratory birds passing through on their way north or south. He enjoyed marking off with sticky notes those he heard and saw in his large field guide to North American birds, and carefully noted whether they were male, female or immature.

He smelled flowers, and foods, and perfumes and colognes on the women and men rushing busily past him downtown; he tasted cuisines and clues and unusual fruits he'd never seen before but grocers who knew him gave him for free. Fraser felt the sun, the wind, the rain; the night, the cold, the snow; he felt the damp in old bone breaks and scars when the wind was off the lake; he felt the dry air when the wind blew off the land onto the lake; he knew the difference between a wet cold and a dry cold—in Chicago and in the Yukon.

He felt rough fabrics and beach sand and many different kinds of bark; snowballs and cold water from the free fountains in the park; and he felt Lake Michigan's water get warm enough for most Chicagoans to swim in right before the beaches closed after Labor Day. Fraser touched the harsh roughness of old poured concrete and the smooth blocks of deteriorating and patched sea walls built by Roosevelt's WPA in the '30s; the soft feel of sod, the sharpness of saw grass in restored dune habitat, the velvet of giant pansies in large planters around the city; the fine mist of automatic watering systems for those planters and boulevard flowers and landscaping.

Fraser missed many things he had known in the past—skies full of stars, for example; buffalo berries—but he knew where to go to see them once again, and his friends and acquaintances accommodated with occasional trips out of town, or at least dropping him off and picking him up at train stations and airports.

But there were large parts of Fraser that touched and were touched by nothing. Large parts of his body, of his soul—the division being, he had decided, an artificial and unnatural separation instilled by Descartes and the Christian underpinnings of Age of the Enlightenment—almost never were touched (except by him, in ways that still heated his cheeks after all of these years, and after all that he had told others about the beauty and naturalness of the human body). Large parts of him—the totality of him—almost never felt anything, because he didn't let them. . . and he didn't know how to start.

And so though it was not in Fraser's nature, and though it had taken some explaining and convincing and (more than anything) reassuring, he had come to understand this theory of the disinhibiting effects of anonymity—because he had been on the cusp, ready to do so. He had been filled to the brim, ready to spill over with the growing emptiness he felt and feared might over take him with things unfelt, unexperienced, unknown—and yearned for perhaps all the worse for not knowing them, and not knowing where or how on earth to begin to try.

Billy had explained it. Simply, straightforwardly, succinctly: When you got nothin', you got nothin' to lose. This is why, sometimes, people can be freer, less inhibited, with someone they'll never see again than someone they must see every day—see, and care for, and fear losing.

Wisdom, from a now-dead man. A dead man who looked exactly like his cherished, infuriating, flawed, imperfect, troubled, beloved, desired partner Ray. One of the "good guys," but unable to untangle his more traditional upbringing from modern masculinity and marketing.

he himself wasn't sure what his own answer to this question would be

Fraser hesitated. "I don't know if I can explain it, Ray. But I will try.

"I didn't see, at first. But I came to understand how someone would view it that way, Ray." Fraser said slowly." He hesitated. " 'When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose.' Or, in other words, nothing ventured, nothing gained."

Ray sighed, picking at the edge of the Formica table.

"I been a real jerk, Frase." He paused. "I'm... really not proud of myself. I wouldn't blame you for telling me you're done with me."

He waited for an answer, but Fraser merely finished steeping his tea and then took the tea bag out to save for another cup later. He blew on the tea in the chipped mug.

The space between them seemed infinite. The silence expanded like white noise slowly filling the room.

Ray's body vibrated with tension. He couldn't bear it anymore and jumped up. Dief twitched and yelped in his sleep.

Ray pushed his sleeves up and paced. Finally, he stopped short before Fraser's front door, his back to Fraser.

"Fraser. . . Please. Give me an answer. Tell me I'm wastin' my time, or tell me I came here for a reason, and not just to get Welsh and Thatcher on our asses if they find out."

"Ray... I'm thinking. It's... difficult for me to put things into words, sometimes."

Ray paused. "Sorry. I... would never have guessed."

"Please. Sit down."

Fraser crossed the room to the only other place to sit—besides the overstuffed chair on which Dief currently snoozed—his bed. He sat on it, cupping the mug in his hands. The bed was pushed up next to the window, which looked out onto a view of Jackson and Halsted, with a 24-hour gyros place on the corner.

Ray stepped gingerly to the wooden chair again, and sat.

"I think," Fraser began slowly, "I think you want to know something you have every right to ask, and for which you've received only half an explanation."

Ray looked at Fraser, and their gazes met and then flicked apart nervously.

"Okay," Ray replied cautiously. "I'm not that sure what you mean, but, you're probably right. You usually are."

"What I mean is—and forgive me if this seems crude or simplistic—you only received half an explanation because you've only asked half the question." Fraser paused, listening to Ray's intake of breath and trying to judge if it was preparing to burst out in swift denials. When it didn't, he continued.

"You don't just want to know, 'why Billy Tallent.' I think what you also want to know is, why not you."

The rush of Ray's exhalation was loud and sharp. But he held his tongue. He put his face in his hands. For a moment Fraser thought Ray was weeping. But when Ray's voice came, it was exhausted, not tearful.

"Yeah. That's true. But I think I know the reason. Or reasons."

Fraser was a bit surprised. "You do?"

Ray snorted. "I, uh, I said a lot of stupid shit. I—it was homophobic cop shit, and—and—I was scared—and—"

"I think you were jealous," Frase interrupted calmly. "But you couldn't acknowledge that fact." He was quietly amazed that he could speak this, so plainly.

Ray sighed, slapping his hands over his face again. "God, I'm such a miserable shit," he murmured through his hands. "I was—"

"'The lady doth protest too much, methinks.'"

Ray paused. "I know what that usually means—but how does that relate to—"

"It's a quote from—Hamlet—usually misquoted as 'methinks thou doth protest too much'." Fraser took a sip of tea to have something to do other than continue to point out to Ray what was wrong with Ray, in a way he really didn't want to do, but in a way Ray basically asked him to do.

"You kept proclaiming your disdain," Fraser continued softly, "...a bit too vehemently, frequently, and pointedly at your potential rival."

"Fraser..." Ray trailed off and remained silent a moment, still fidgeting with the edge of the table where the Formica top was coming a bit loose.

"Ray, please don't. That table isn't mine. It came with the room. I'll have to give it back when I'm done, and if they charge me for damage—"

"Frase, they're not gonna—Sorry." Ray clasped his hands together, leaning over, elbows on his thighs, looking at the floor.

"You were saying?" Fraser held the tea mug by its handle now, because it had become a bit too hot to hold any other way. He half-turned to look out the window, seeing a couple people walking down Halsted, probably from the twenty-four hour pharmacy half a block away. In the years he'd been in Chicago, it had never ceased to amaze Fraser that you could still find people awake and doing apparently daytime activities in the middle of the night. Close to the Arctic Circle in the summer time, when the sun remained above the horizon for a month, that made a kind of sense. But in Chicago... after September... it was so very... urban.

"Uh..." Ray hesitated, rubbing his forehead. "Yeah. What you said. I suck. I keep saying I'm sorry—and I am sorry. But I can't unsay the things I said. They're... said, they're out there. If I could take 'em back, I would! But all I can do is... try not to say 'em in the future."

He scrubbed his jaw, the three day stubble growing there, then slid his slender fingers over his mouth. Through his fingers, muffled, Ray mumbled.

"At first, when you were getting on me about my homophobic crap, I thought you were just trying to get me to be a better person, Frase. You do that, you know? You do that... to everyone, really. And even though half the time I'm trying to convince you my cynical view of the world is more realistic—sometimes I think to myself, so what if I'm right? I'm not happy. You seem a lot happier than I am. You don't expect the worst of people. You don't have low expectations of everything. You take things as they come, you take people as they come—you took me as you found me, and you let me be who I am. Whoever that is." Ray paused, his voice rawer and rougher.

"You must think I'm the biggest ass—" He stopped himself, squeezed his eyes shut, then continued more quietly. "You must hate me. I didn't realize when you were trying to get me to stop with the fag shit that you were telling me something about... at least, I think you were..."

Ray sat back in the wooden chair, crossing his arms over his chest, still not looking at Fraser.

"I mean—all that stuff about Kinsey—first I thought you were trying to tell me something about you. Then I thought about myself and... some things I've done, uh, uh, an' the people I did them with, and, and, I realized that what you said—what he said, Kinsey—must be true. About me. I just never—I never looked at it that way before. I tried to forget that stuff, shove it into the past, blame it on Stella, when we were broken up, and she went with—so I—anyway, I just—forgot all that. I didn't think about it again until you mentioned it. But it... kind of...explains a lot..." Ray trailed off, pressing the palms of his hands over his eyes.

"Both, Ray," Fraser said after it became apparent Ray was finished, for the moment. "I tried to tell you both. Or rather, all three. I tried to tell you—s-something about myself." He swallowed and continued. "And I tried to tell you something about—about yourself. But I was also trying to get you to see—to see that... things aren't only black and white. Sometimes there are shades of gray. I'm afraid I didn't do it very effectively. Not very—not as clearly as—now."

Something fell away as Fraser said this; the weight on him lessened.

Fraser sipped some more of his tea, but somehow, he didn't want it anymore. Making it had really been a way to pass the time while he knew he wouldn't, couldn't, sleep. A last ditch effort at something domestic before he did something that most people would consider foolhardy but which, for him, never failed to soothe: walking around Chicago at night, when most normal people were in bed asleep. Once he had walked 'til dawn, left Diefenbaker grumbling, refusing to go on, in a city park where he later found Dief lazing in the shade on his way back.

Ray finished rubbing his eyes, and for the first time in the conversation cautiously shifted his gaze across the narrow room to Fraser. "That's... that's kind of funny, coming from you, Frase. Shades of gray? I thought everything was just right or wrong, to you—good or evil. What about that? There's no room for shades of gray if there's just right and wrong and good and bad."

Fraser hesitated, thinking that he himself wasn't sure what his own answer to this question would be. "Do you think there is—something inherently right and wrong, or good and bad, as regards certain kinds of—sex, Ray?"

"What? Hey—No, Frase. Hey, I'll try anything once. Twice if I like it. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with any kind of sex. I mean, long as it's between consenting adults. And, um, nobody's getting hurt who doesn't want to get hurt."

Fraser arched an eyebrow at Ray. Ray shrugged, his face coloring a bit.

"I worked vice a little, Frase." He looked away, looked down. "For some things, after a while, I wondered why we busted people. What was the point? They never stopped doing it. We had frequent flyers. I just—I got tired of busting the same guys—and women—again and again for, for, kinky things that only hurt people who wanted to be hurt, so actually—it, uh, pleasured them.

"It was like we just did it for the revenue. It didn't stop it—an' no one was getting hurt that didn't want to get hurt, I mean, who wasn't a consenting adult asking to be tied up or whipped or caned or—" He stopped abruptly. "You get the idea."

"Were there... did you work with people who were judgmental about it?"

"Hell, yeah. Lotta guys in vice started out with that attitude: 'Those people are sick, they're perverts, they're warped!' Few years down the line, I find some of these same guys in the places we're shakin' down. It was a farce."

"Ray," Fraser began quietly.

"Yeah, Frase?" Ray looked up, almost hopefully.

"If you could be that open-minded about that, why couldn't you—about this?"

"I guess—I guess I could be that open-minded about—other people. Y'know? But not—myself." Ray shook his head. "How fucked is that? So, so, really—I was putting all that on you, and—and—on him—ah, shit.

"I'm fuckin' sorry, Frase." Ray slumped back in the chair and let his head hang back, looking at the ceiling.

"I'm... really quite tired of hearing you say you're sorry, Ray." Fraser cleared his throat.

Ray slowly raised his head and met Fraser's gaze, searching for the condemnation that must have seemed like it should come with those words, but didn't.

It occurred to Fraser that things had shifted.

What Billy had done for him, he might now be able to do for Ray.

"I don't know what else to say, Frase, besides 'I'm sorry'—"

"Say nothing. Come here."

"There?"

"To this bed."

Ray's eyes widened slightly and a deep flush almost instantly hit his cheeks.

"Fraser—I—"

"Ray," Fraser asked, humbly, simply. "Please. You talk about yourself and Stella, as if that were—as if it were somehow abnormal or extremely dysfunctional to be your age and divorced, when in fact it is quite typical where we are, when we are." He swallowed.

"I have... I have never even gotten that far. With—anyone." He stopped and shook his head, once, to get back on track. "Ray, you—are the closest I have come. But—but—I've never held you."

Ray shivered. "I know."

"I want to. I don't know how to do this. Any of it. But I want to."

Ray hesitated, feeling burning heat in the skin of his face, his chest—the surface of his entire body.

"I want you to, too. But, Frase?"

"Yes?"

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, either." He laughed a short, almost hysterical laugh.

"Ray?"

"What."

"I don't think it matters. If we want to, we should be together, here. Not at opposite sides of this room." Fraser cleared his throat. "It's—just us here. No one else will know. The rest—we will figure out some other time."

Ray stood, took off his jacket, hung it over the back of the wooden chair, and looked at Fraser. His balance didn't seem quite right.

Fraser looked at Ray, and then dropped his gaze and patted the bed next to him.

Ray came slowly, in hesitant steps, and sat gingerly next to Fraser—close, but not touching. They didn't look at each other, but slowly, in tiny increments, their bodies came together, leaned against one another along their arms.

Fraser felt Ray shaking and wondered why he was not shaking himself, as he had in Billy's arms.

It seemed somehow important to explain to Ray—

"Ray—Billy and I—"

"You don't have to tell me," Ray began, but his shivering became more pronounced.

Fraser put an arm around Ray's shoulders and squeezed. He felt Ray's trembling subside somewhat.

"I want to tell you. We—he never even got all my clothes off me. He disrobed himself, only partially. My clothes never actually—they stayed on. We kissed, we held each other. We—" He blushed furiously. "Even though we kept our clothes on," he continued, his voice low, "we—"

"Came in your pants. I know. I could—tell."

"Oh." Fraser paused. "You're not angry?"

"I was, then," Ray sighed. "I was pissed as hell. But, I'm not now. I mean, no one deserves to—like he did. I mean, if this whole clusterfuck hadn't happened, maybe if I'd met him a different way—I might've liked him. He seemed—a lot cooler than me, actually." He sighed again. "Besides—if, if that never happened, if you guys never did that—maybe this wouldn't be happening, either. You know?"

This seemed very charitable of Ray, and Fraser warmed to realize his instincts about his partner were spot-on.

"It wasn't intentional—he didn't seduce, and I didn't pursue—it was—"

Fraser searched for the right word.

"He calmed me. That's all."

Another weight lifted from Fraser as he spoke.

He squeezed Ray around the shoulders, and Ray curved towards him, turned towards Fraser's chest, Ray slid his arms around Fraser, and then they were falling backward on the bed together—

"Ow!"

"Ouch."

They both rubbed the tops of their heads ruefully, sitting up on their elbows.

"That window sill's a lot closer than it looks. Or the bed's narrower than I thought."

"I think I spilled some tea. But I'm afraid the bed is narrow, Ray."

Ray sighed. "We really don't know what the fuck we're doing."

Fraser slid sideways and backward onto the bed, unmindful of spilt tea.

"I don't think it matters." He hesitated, and then reached for Ray's upper arm.

Ray felt Fraser's grip on him, gentle, not coercive.

"I guess not." He slipped sideways too, and then they were lying side by side, fully clothed, in Fraser's narrow bed in his furnished fleabag SRO room.

They turned to face each other.

"God..." Ray closed his eyes, his fingers—the right fingers—seeking Fraser's jaw. "I never thought—I could do this."

Fraser smiled, although he knew Ray couldn't see it, and moved his hand from Ray's upper arm to Ray's rib cage. "How is your arm?"

"It's pretty good. Got lucky. Real lucky."

Me, too. In more ways than one, Fraser thought. He closed his eyes, too. He let himself feel Ray's touch. He touched Ray.

"Frase—" Ray's fingers felt Fraser's jaw, stroked down to Fraser's neck.

"Hmmm?" The space between them was narrow, warm, electric.

"There was—I was hitch-hiking once—" Ray's hand stroked down Fraser's Henley.

"Yes?"

"The trip to Buffalo, 'member I told you about it? During the case with Ladyshoes?"

"Yes..." Fraser felt very warm and relaxed. He just held his hand on Ray's ribs and felt the rise and fall of Ray's quickening breathing.

"I had to hitch-hike back, because she took me for all my money, and I didn't want to tell my folks and have them Western Union me money."

"Did something happen to you?" Fraser asked, worried.

"Nothing bad," Ray said quickly. "Nothing bad. But, um, this guy who picked me up—he drove me all the way from Buffalo to Detroit—"

Fraser waited for Ray to finish. When nothing was forthcoming, he shifted his hand lower down, to where Ray's rib cage ended and the softening of his abdomen began. Fraser still felt it through Ray's shirt—not naked flesh. The rising and falling of Ray's breathing. "Yes, Ray."

"He kind of—blew me." Ray's hand was halfway around to the back of Fraser's neck.

"I see."

"Like, more than once."

"Really." Fraser was starting to feel rather envious. And aroused. He found it curious. Had anyone told Fraser ahead of time that he'd be listening to Ray's stories of his sexual history with other men, Fraser would've assumed that he'd have been jealous and upset. But he wasn't.

"Yeah. Like, um, he kind of blew me a lot. And I was all 'I'm not gay'—though, obviously, getting blown by another guy was pretty gay—but I didn't blow him. I thought, if I didn't do it—it's nuts—if I didn't blow him, if I just let him blow me, then he was the gay one."

"I told you, Ray." Fraser's hand slid a bit lower, to rest on Ray's hip. "It's a spectrum of behavior."

"Yeah, I see that now. But, I mean, from what I've read, you're more, uh, at risk if you give rather than get the blowjob. And this was while I was broken up with Stella. And when she and I—well, I was afraid I might've caught something, y'know? And I didn't want to give it to her. So I got all checked out before me and her—and I was clean."

Fraser's hand slid lower. He curled his fingers into Ray's front pocket and tugged ever so gently. Ray shifted closer to him. Not close enough to press against each other, but narrowing the distance quite a bit.

Fraser heard something crinkly in Ray's pocket. He opened his eyes, just as Ray opened his eyes, and they looked at each other.

Ray looked apprehensive. Fraser couldn't be sure, but it seemed Ray might have shrunk away from him, just slightly.

He felt further in Ray's pocket. Ray didn't resist. Fraser fished it out carefully, noticing how difficult this turned out to be with Ray's growing erection poking up towards the pocket.

It was a condom.

"You're much more self-assured than I am," Fraser said, arching an eyebrow.

"No," Ray said, chewing a thumbnail anxiously for a moment. "I just—I knew if you tried something? I wouldn't say no to anything."

Fraser considered that, and had to smile. "I wasn't going to try anything, really," he murmured, and put the condom back in Ray's pocket. Ray's erection was still there, tempting, but Fraser felt... shy. "Let's keep that there, just in case."

"Yeah?" Ray looked somewhat relieved.

"We'll make it up as we go along," Fraser nodded.

"Okay." Ray's brow cleared and he stopped biting his thumbnail. "Could I—could we—just lie here together?"

"Of course," Fraser said, controlling the tremble he felt just under his throat. "I thought that was what we were doing."

"I dunno what we're doing, but—" Ray rolled over on his other side, and pushed back into Fraser.

It could have been wanton and needy. But Ray pushed his back into Fraser's chest, and when Fraser's arms came around him, Ray clasped them to his own chest, being spooned.

They both felt Fraser hard in his pants, up against Ray's buttocks.

Ray relaxed slowly, and Fraser felt each one of Ray's loosening muscles as it let go.

"I'm so fuckin' tired," Ray murmured warmly.

"I'm exhausted, too," Fraser whispered in reply.

Ray was snoring by the time Fraser realized his own tension was relaxing, finally, some of it for perhaps the first time in—years. By the time he was relaxed, he was asleep.

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