Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance
Ain't No Rest For The Wicked
8 reviewsWhen times are desperate, Gerard does what he knows best: He sells himself.
5Moving
A/N: Hey guys, this is for the anon request where Gerard's a prostitute. I hope I did it right, but I have to ask you guys to let me know if you want your requests to be A/U or not. Because if you don't specify that you do, I'm just going to do what I always do and stick to canon, building from there. Thanks!
Ain't No Rest For The Wicked
Gerard Way had learned three things during his time as the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. Number one was that small and naive though they were, teenagers were scary as hell. Once they formed any sort of union, they could accomplish great feats which could either work for or against you. Number two was that sometimes, you had to be an asshole. Whether it was a matter of business or an encounter with fans, it is simply impossible to please everybody. Sometimes, for the sake of your own sanity, you just had to be a tad bit selfish. Number three was a rule of survival -- what Gerard did to put bread on the table for his wife and daughter:
He learned how to sell himself.
Gerard had been no salesman to begin with. As a kid working in a comic shop before the band started, he had a hard enough time informing customers of current deals, feeling heavily burdened when they came to him with simple questions.
But the band changed all that.
It changed him.
As a celebrity Gerard had to learn how to act, how to carry himself. How to force smiles and pretend to love and care for people he had never met before. He had to swing his hips on stage, moan into microphones, because nobody just wanted to watch someone just stand there and sing. You had to have a gimmick.
You had to sell yourself.
He had done great, the first few years. Always hugging and greeting fans, always seeming happy to be there even if he really wasn't. Drugs and alcohol helped, of course. So did their managers, their "PR people." They dressed his hair in zany colors, they set up photo shoots and introduced him to every kind of cosmetic, they coached him on how to act -- they made him stay young. Stay sexy.
The only thing they never managed to fix was that humpback of his. That slight hunch that served as a reminder of who he really was, no matter how much they molded and shaped him.
Just a shy kid who worked at a comic book store.
"Stand straight up, Quasimodo." Frank would always have to remind him.
Still, other than that, Gerard was easy to sell for quite some time. People marveled at how young he looked for his age, how gorgeous those forced smiles were. Gerard was a cooperative puppet, letting them pull his strings any way they needed him to go.
But as he got older, it got harder.
It gets difficult to keep up acts after five, ten years. And after the birth of Miles Iero, Frank's son, they had all seen it coming. Family, the thing they had all been missing out on for most of their time in the band, finally caught up to them.
The band ended around the middle of 2013.
Frank expanded his Skeleton Crew clothing line, fulfilling his goals of leasing and opening a few stores in New Jersey and Hollywood.
Ray went on to work on audio for an independent film company. He had gotten many connections in both the film and music industry over the years, and he was more certain about his career in film than ever.
And Mikey --- Mikey should have been writing comic books with his brother, fulfilling the rest of his days in art studios, drinking coffee and brainstorming with Gerard.
But he got into a car accident and became a vegetable instead.
That was the point.
There was that turning point that changed everything.
His wife, Alicia, wanted to cut the cord right away. Take him off the machines. Give up. He wasn't coming back, and it's what he would want anyway, she had said. But the one thing that Gerard could never forget was what Mikey had always told him, "You understand me more than anyone else in the entire world."
And what Gerard understood was that Mikey wanted to live. For Gerard had always said that he and Mikey were pretty much the same person, and that was what Gerard wanted, so it must be what Mikey wanted to.
After all, the doctors had said that there could be some chance of him waking up. There always is that small chance, small though it is.
He had understood why Alicia was quick to turn away. Medical bills were expensive. Without her husband, on her own, Alicia did not make much income, and she would struggle as it was to continue living in the home they had purchased, making payments on time.
She was thrilled when Gerard announced he'd cover Mikey's expenses.
However, his own wife wasn't.
Without the band income, without having found a new stable job, and with having to support a family and pay for Mikey to stay even somewhat alive, a strain began to grow between Lindsey and Gerard.
Gerard needed more money, much more than he was getting. But the other boys in the band had moved on, and he had no spirit to draw. It didn't feel right without his little brother by his side. The comic books he already had out experienced a dramatic drop in sales less than six months after My Chemical Romance disbanded. Proof that likewise, Gerard's status as a celebrity had dropped off the face of the earth.
So he turned to the only other thing he knew how to do.
He sold himself.
"Gerard." A tall man walks in his room, a red bathrobe covering his muscular build. "You have another client in ten."
Gerard glares at him, his hands busy with wiping himself off from the last client. "I thought I was done with my shift!" he growls, glancing at the alarm clock on the night stand.
"Sorry man.", is all the man says, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "This'll be the last one tonight, and he only paid for an hour."
Gerard grimaces at the word 'he'. A man is the last thing he needs, with his body already aching from a long day's work. He glances at the clock again and reads the big, red digital numbers: 1 AM.
Yes, it was only another hour, but with the drive back home, that extra hour meant he would have to explain to Lindsey why he was only getting back at nearly 3 AM.
But what else can he do? It's not like he has the choice.
"Okay, send him in."
Around six minutes later, a real fat lad comes in, the type of man you have to dig through, pushing away folds to find his dick. He waddles inside, wheezing from the exertion of his journey from the door frame to Gerard's bed.
And Gerard lies ready, poised in a provocative position. His legs stretched out, one slightly crossing over the other -- but just enough so that a good bit of his lacy black panties can be seen. His head propped up by his hand, while elbow sinks into the worn mattress. Gerard forces a playful smile.
It's no different than before, really.
It's no different, the way Gerard grins happily through the sweat and exhaustion that follows straight after the stage is set. How he groans with pleasure while this complete stranger shoves chubby fingers up his loose ass, it's just like it used to be. It's no different, how he tells the customer what he wants to hear.
How he acts like there's nowhere else he would rather be.
"Come at me, big boy." Gerard rubs his hand through the man's blonde stubby hair, trying not to focus on that irritating wheezing. He's on his back, his panties off. His legs are being pressed down from their backs, causing the top of his knees to nearly touch his shoulders. The man pushes his erection into the waiting hole, and Gerard lets out a moan that was so desperately trying to be a scream. But Gerard twists it fast, using those handy vocal talents of his.
Maybe he could have made it as the singer in another band, or even in a solo career, but not even leading one of the most popular bands in North America paid as much as this did.
"OOooooOOOOOO! Fuck!" he groans as he's pushed into repeatedly.
Gerard sings for his clients every day. Just like before, the same damn lines every fucking night.
The hour passes, and Gerard goes home with this used up feeling, and knows he faces more of it the day after.
Lindsey is suspicious, of course. Suspicious, but she can't even begin to imagine what Gerard has been doing. As far as she can think, he's been having an affair with another woman. Gerard sees both resentment and hurt in her eyes when he comes home and it's as late as the clock announces.
"Sorry if I woke you up." Gerard says as he gets in bed with her. "Lenny had us working on sound mixing pretty late, and we had a bite to eat after."
It wasn't a complete lie. Lenny is the man who had gotten him into "the business". The man who suggested it on a drunken night after Gerard had another nervous breakdown.
"Life's a dick." He had said as he had held Gerard, both men resting their heads on top of each other. "When it gets hard, the only thing left to do is fuck."
Obviously, Gerard hadn't told her that.
He had told her he was working on a friend's project with him. A side project that might pull in a little extra cash. He didn't tell her it was a permanent job, because it wasn't permanent either way. Because either way, he was just earning enough money until Mikey woke up, and he didn't have to cover all those medical bills anymore. And it would happen soon, Gerard promised himself, without any real basis for that claim.
Of course, he knows Lindsey doesn't believe him. What kind of music project could ever make him smell the way he smells when he gets home? What kind of music project could give him a hickey, like the one he got stuck with a few weeks back? He had tried to cover it up with makeup, but he knew that she saw. He knew that she knew, when after leaning in to kiss him good morning, she traced that exact spot with her finger --- gently, lovingly, and knowingly.
He wasn't sure why she didn't leave him. Or at least say something.
Maybe she didn't feel she had enough proof. Maybe she was too tired from taking care of Bandit to care about anything else. This would remain a mystery to Gerard for some time.
The next day is just the same thing. Moan, smile, and suck. On average, Gerard sees twenty clients a day. Sometimes, he makes house calls. They're more dangerous, but they pay plenty more than the jobs at the brothel house.
As he licks an older woman's pussy, she stops him by tapping the top of his head, a shiny black ball between her legs. When he looks up at her, she begins a question that he hates hearing.
"You're awfully familiar, boy. Haven't I seen you fr -- "
"I used to do commercials." Gerard answers quickly before burying his face back into her shriveled vagina. He tries to do an extra good job to distract her from anymore attempts to put a name to his familiarity.
He has yet to be totally recognized, but clients sometimes comment that certain things about his face resemble some ghost of the past. Someone they've seen before.
In times like those, Gerard just takes on a shy character, and tries to hide his face for the rest of the session. No one's questioned it yet, and he thanks the heavens for that.
By the end of the week, he's making his usual visit to Mikey, talking to him about everything except what he's really been up to.
He talks to him about the latest comic news, what he's last heard of Alicia, of all the friends he still keeps in touch with. He watches as Mikey responds to him in monitor beeps, lying in the hospital bed. He looks dead except for the rise and fall of his chest. But Gerard still pauses between subjects, to let Mikey have a word in.
As desperate as he is to vent to someone about his real troubles, he's too afraid Mikey will actually hear. Even when Mikey wakes up, Gerard isn't planning on telling him. He's too afraid Mikey will hate him, perhaps be too disgusted to even talk to him.
He supposes that this is the same reason he doesn't tell the other guys -- his "other brothers". But he easily dismisses the thought of those two. They never call, nor text, nor email, not since Mikey's accident. They've forgotten him in the chaos of suddenly having normal lives.
Lucky them.
It's Monday, and Gerard is pretending to writhe in ecstasy as some Asian fellow sucks on his nipples.
"Ooooohhh..." Gerard groans, as the boy reaches down to stroke his dick at the same time. He looks disappointed slightly, having expected Gerard to be harder by now. Gerard's mind quickly works to get himself more aroused.
The girls who work here have it so much easier. All they have to do is lube up their vagina to make themselves seem soaking wet from the get go.
Gerard has to use his imagination, but once you've had so much sex, it's difficult to imagine having anymore of it and having that tickle your fancy.
He imagines a certain someone is fondling him instead of this stranger, and he feels his dick expand in the boy's palm. Amidst his moans, he breathes a sigh of relief.
The last guy he couldn't get it up for kicked him in the balls.
The boy asks for a blow job, and Gerard gets on his knees, enveloping the salty worm in his mouth. He caresses the boy's pelvic area and gropes his buttocks as he moves his mouth in, and out, in and out. All the while, he struggles to keep up the erection. At least until they actually get to the fucking.
There are some with strange tastes. Shit fetishes. Golden showers. Bondage.
And if they hurt you, who are you going to call?
The police?
No, never. The customers that come here don't just buy an hour of sex, they purchase an hour of secrecy... for both the client and the whore. They hand over the money, and whatever happens after the door is closed... happens.
On a Christmas Eve in 2015, the whores of Lenny's brothel are asked to line up for a client. It's just about to be Christmas morning, but Gerard is under no pressure to go home. Lindsey has long gone, having taken Bandit with her. He hadn't even been home, the day she just packed her bags and left -- gone without so much as a note. She vanished for a long time before they even got to file an official divorce.
He might see them later tomorrow night, if he's lucky.
He puts on pair of white lace panties, a white bra, and some lacy gloves. Wardrobe wise, Gerard keeps things simple during line ups --- he attracts enough attention by his looks alone. Plus, the color complimented the red in his hair. He had redone it, just the way it had been before. It was even longer now, making him look more like a girl than some of the women that worked here.
He has to look pretty. It's all he has to sell himself, now.
He goes downstairs to join the line-up, and as usual, stands just a little behind it. Trying to be unseen, unnoticed.
He was just so tired.
He doesn't even look up to see the client, and the client doesn't seem to see him.
"That one." the client calls out, and the sound of their voice does make Gerard look up. A girl is going forward, Clarissa, one of the chubbier whores at the brothel. She walks to the client, who is eyeing her hungrily with large irises of green.
A scorpion tattoo stretched out on one side of his neck.
"Frank." Gerard whispers, his tone that of someone awed by what he was seeing. His eyes wide, reflecting the same expression.
Frank and Clarissa, who Gerard only now realizes looks like a scantily clad Jamia, they begin to walk off into a room. As they do, the line up disperses -- and Gerard is so shocked and confused, he forgets to move along with it.
Frank glances at him, just for a second.
Just for one second, their eyes meet. Frank's face passes through a couple of expressions --- first like he's surprised, and then he's suddenly very focused.
And they almost seem like they're going to pass him, to go into their room, without saying a word. Gerard begins to doubt that Frank recognizes him at all. But then, just before Frank is gone, he hears him mutter low and soft:
"Stand straight up, Quasimodo."
Gerard obeys like it's a reflex.
Before Frank is done with Clarissa, Lenny is pushing Gerard to go home. They didn't like whores lingering after shifts. Once you've been sold enough for one day, met your qouta, they have no use for you anymore.
There's tears in Gerard's eyes as he drives home that night. And it's no different from before, really.
No different at all.
END
Ain't No Rest For The Wicked
Gerard Way had learned three things during his time as the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. Number one was that small and naive though they were, teenagers were scary as hell. Once they formed any sort of union, they could accomplish great feats which could either work for or against you. Number two was that sometimes, you had to be an asshole. Whether it was a matter of business or an encounter with fans, it is simply impossible to please everybody. Sometimes, for the sake of your own sanity, you just had to be a tad bit selfish. Number three was a rule of survival -- what Gerard did to put bread on the table for his wife and daughter:
He learned how to sell himself.
Gerard had been no salesman to begin with. As a kid working in a comic shop before the band started, he had a hard enough time informing customers of current deals, feeling heavily burdened when they came to him with simple questions.
But the band changed all that.
It changed him.
As a celebrity Gerard had to learn how to act, how to carry himself. How to force smiles and pretend to love and care for people he had never met before. He had to swing his hips on stage, moan into microphones, because nobody just wanted to watch someone just stand there and sing. You had to have a gimmick.
You had to sell yourself.
He had done great, the first few years. Always hugging and greeting fans, always seeming happy to be there even if he really wasn't. Drugs and alcohol helped, of course. So did their managers, their "PR people." They dressed his hair in zany colors, they set up photo shoots and introduced him to every kind of cosmetic, they coached him on how to act -- they made him stay young. Stay sexy.
The only thing they never managed to fix was that humpback of his. That slight hunch that served as a reminder of who he really was, no matter how much they molded and shaped him.
Just a shy kid who worked at a comic book store.
"Stand straight up, Quasimodo." Frank would always have to remind him.
Still, other than that, Gerard was easy to sell for quite some time. People marveled at how young he looked for his age, how gorgeous those forced smiles were. Gerard was a cooperative puppet, letting them pull his strings any way they needed him to go.
But as he got older, it got harder.
It gets difficult to keep up acts after five, ten years. And after the birth of Miles Iero, Frank's son, they had all seen it coming. Family, the thing they had all been missing out on for most of their time in the band, finally caught up to them.
The band ended around the middle of 2013.
Frank expanded his Skeleton Crew clothing line, fulfilling his goals of leasing and opening a few stores in New Jersey and Hollywood.
Ray went on to work on audio for an independent film company. He had gotten many connections in both the film and music industry over the years, and he was more certain about his career in film than ever.
And Mikey --- Mikey should have been writing comic books with his brother, fulfilling the rest of his days in art studios, drinking coffee and brainstorming with Gerard.
But he got into a car accident and became a vegetable instead.
That was the point.
There was that turning point that changed everything.
His wife, Alicia, wanted to cut the cord right away. Take him off the machines. Give up. He wasn't coming back, and it's what he would want anyway, she had said. But the one thing that Gerard could never forget was what Mikey had always told him, "You understand me more than anyone else in the entire world."
And what Gerard understood was that Mikey wanted to live. For Gerard had always said that he and Mikey were pretty much the same person, and that was what Gerard wanted, so it must be what Mikey wanted to.
After all, the doctors had said that there could be some chance of him waking up. There always is that small chance, small though it is.
He had understood why Alicia was quick to turn away. Medical bills were expensive. Without her husband, on her own, Alicia did not make much income, and she would struggle as it was to continue living in the home they had purchased, making payments on time.
She was thrilled when Gerard announced he'd cover Mikey's expenses.
However, his own wife wasn't.
Without the band income, without having found a new stable job, and with having to support a family and pay for Mikey to stay even somewhat alive, a strain began to grow between Lindsey and Gerard.
Gerard needed more money, much more than he was getting. But the other boys in the band had moved on, and he had no spirit to draw. It didn't feel right without his little brother by his side. The comic books he already had out experienced a dramatic drop in sales less than six months after My Chemical Romance disbanded. Proof that likewise, Gerard's status as a celebrity had dropped off the face of the earth.
So he turned to the only other thing he knew how to do.
He sold himself.
"Gerard." A tall man walks in his room, a red bathrobe covering his muscular build. "You have another client in ten."
Gerard glares at him, his hands busy with wiping himself off from the last client. "I thought I was done with my shift!" he growls, glancing at the alarm clock on the night stand.
"Sorry man.", is all the man says, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "This'll be the last one tonight, and he only paid for an hour."
Gerard grimaces at the word 'he'. A man is the last thing he needs, with his body already aching from a long day's work. He glances at the clock again and reads the big, red digital numbers: 1 AM.
Yes, it was only another hour, but with the drive back home, that extra hour meant he would have to explain to Lindsey why he was only getting back at nearly 3 AM.
But what else can he do? It's not like he has the choice.
"Okay, send him in."
Around six minutes later, a real fat lad comes in, the type of man you have to dig through, pushing away folds to find his dick. He waddles inside, wheezing from the exertion of his journey from the door frame to Gerard's bed.
And Gerard lies ready, poised in a provocative position. His legs stretched out, one slightly crossing over the other -- but just enough so that a good bit of his lacy black panties can be seen. His head propped up by his hand, while elbow sinks into the worn mattress. Gerard forces a playful smile.
It's no different than before, really.
It's no different, the way Gerard grins happily through the sweat and exhaustion that follows straight after the stage is set. How he groans with pleasure while this complete stranger shoves chubby fingers up his loose ass, it's just like it used to be. It's no different, how he tells the customer what he wants to hear.
How he acts like there's nowhere else he would rather be.
"Come at me, big boy." Gerard rubs his hand through the man's blonde stubby hair, trying not to focus on that irritating wheezing. He's on his back, his panties off. His legs are being pressed down from their backs, causing the top of his knees to nearly touch his shoulders. The man pushes his erection into the waiting hole, and Gerard lets out a moan that was so desperately trying to be a scream. But Gerard twists it fast, using those handy vocal talents of his.
Maybe he could have made it as the singer in another band, or even in a solo career, but not even leading one of the most popular bands in North America paid as much as this did.
"OOooooOOOOOO! Fuck!" he groans as he's pushed into repeatedly.
Gerard sings for his clients every day. Just like before, the same damn lines every fucking night.
The hour passes, and Gerard goes home with this used up feeling, and knows he faces more of it the day after.
Lindsey is suspicious, of course. Suspicious, but she can't even begin to imagine what Gerard has been doing. As far as she can think, he's been having an affair with another woman. Gerard sees both resentment and hurt in her eyes when he comes home and it's as late as the clock announces.
"Sorry if I woke you up." Gerard says as he gets in bed with her. "Lenny had us working on sound mixing pretty late, and we had a bite to eat after."
It wasn't a complete lie. Lenny is the man who had gotten him into "the business". The man who suggested it on a drunken night after Gerard had another nervous breakdown.
"Life's a dick." He had said as he had held Gerard, both men resting their heads on top of each other. "When it gets hard, the only thing left to do is fuck."
Obviously, Gerard hadn't told her that.
He had told her he was working on a friend's project with him. A side project that might pull in a little extra cash. He didn't tell her it was a permanent job, because it wasn't permanent either way. Because either way, he was just earning enough money until Mikey woke up, and he didn't have to cover all those medical bills anymore. And it would happen soon, Gerard promised himself, without any real basis for that claim.
Of course, he knows Lindsey doesn't believe him. What kind of music project could ever make him smell the way he smells when he gets home? What kind of music project could give him a hickey, like the one he got stuck with a few weeks back? He had tried to cover it up with makeup, but he knew that she saw. He knew that she knew, when after leaning in to kiss him good morning, she traced that exact spot with her finger --- gently, lovingly, and knowingly.
He wasn't sure why she didn't leave him. Or at least say something.
Maybe she didn't feel she had enough proof. Maybe she was too tired from taking care of Bandit to care about anything else. This would remain a mystery to Gerard for some time.
The next day is just the same thing. Moan, smile, and suck. On average, Gerard sees twenty clients a day. Sometimes, he makes house calls. They're more dangerous, but they pay plenty more than the jobs at the brothel house.
As he licks an older woman's pussy, she stops him by tapping the top of his head, a shiny black ball between her legs. When he looks up at her, she begins a question that he hates hearing.
"You're awfully familiar, boy. Haven't I seen you fr -- "
"I used to do commercials." Gerard answers quickly before burying his face back into her shriveled vagina. He tries to do an extra good job to distract her from anymore attempts to put a name to his familiarity.
He has yet to be totally recognized, but clients sometimes comment that certain things about his face resemble some ghost of the past. Someone they've seen before.
In times like those, Gerard just takes on a shy character, and tries to hide his face for the rest of the session. No one's questioned it yet, and he thanks the heavens for that.
By the end of the week, he's making his usual visit to Mikey, talking to him about everything except what he's really been up to.
He talks to him about the latest comic news, what he's last heard of Alicia, of all the friends he still keeps in touch with. He watches as Mikey responds to him in monitor beeps, lying in the hospital bed. He looks dead except for the rise and fall of his chest. But Gerard still pauses between subjects, to let Mikey have a word in.
As desperate as he is to vent to someone about his real troubles, he's too afraid Mikey will actually hear. Even when Mikey wakes up, Gerard isn't planning on telling him. He's too afraid Mikey will hate him, perhaps be too disgusted to even talk to him.
He supposes that this is the same reason he doesn't tell the other guys -- his "other brothers". But he easily dismisses the thought of those two. They never call, nor text, nor email, not since Mikey's accident. They've forgotten him in the chaos of suddenly having normal lives.
Lucky them.
It's Monday, and Gerard is pretending to writhe in ecstasy as some Asian fellow sucks on his nipples.
"Ooooohhh..." Gerard groans, as the boy reaches down to stroke his dick at the same time. He looks disappointed slightly, having expected Gerard to be harder by now. Gerard's mind quickly works to get himself more aroused.
The girls who work here have it so much easier. All they have to do is lube up their vagina to make themselves seem soaking wet from the get go.
Gerard has to use his imagination, but once you've had so much sex, it's difficult to imagine having anymore of it and having that tickle your fancy.
He imagines a certain someone is fondling him instead of this stranger, and he feels his dick expand in the boy's palm. Amidst his moans, he breathes a sigh of relief.
The last guy he couldn't get it up for kicked him in the balls.
The boy asks for a blow job, and Gerard gets on his knees, enveloping the salty worm in his mouth. He caresses the boy's pelvic area and gropes his buttocks as he moves his mouth in, and out, in and out. All the while, he struggles to keep up the erection. At least until they actually get to the fucking.
There are some with strange tastes. Shit fetishes. Golden showers. Bondage.
And if they hurt you, who are you going to call?
The police?
No, never. The customers that come here don't just buy an hour of sex, they purchase an hour of secrecy... for both the client and the whore. They hand over the money, and whatever happens after the door is closed... happens.
On a Christmas Eve in 2015, the whores of Lenny's brothel are asked to line up for a client. It's just about to be Christmas morning, but Gerard is under no pressure to go home. Lindsey has long gone, having taken Bandit with her. He hadn't even been home, the day she just packed her bags and left -- gone without so much as a note. She vanished for a long time before they even got to file an official divorce.
He might see them later tomorrow night, if he's lucky.
He puts on pair of white lace panties, a white bra, and some lacy gloves. Wardrobe wise, Gerard keeps things simple during line ups --- he attracts enough attention by his looks alone. Plus, the color complimented the red in his hair. He had redone it, just the way it had been before. It was even longer now, making him look more like a girl than some of the women that worked here.
He has to look pretty. It's all he has to sell himself, now.
He goes downstairs to join the line-up, and as usual, stands just a little behind it. Trying to be unseen, unnoticed.
He was just so tired.
He doesn't even look up to see the client, and the client doesn't seem to see him.
"That one." the client calls out, and the sound of their voice does make Gerard look up. A girl is going forward, Clarissa, one of the chubbier whores at the brothel. She walks to the client, who is eyeing her hungrily with large irises of green.
A scorpion tattoo stretched out on one side of his neck.
"Frank." Gerard whispers, his tone that of someone awed by what he was seeing. His eyes wide, reflecting the same expression.
Frank and Clarissa, who Gerard only now realizes looks like a scantily clad Jamia, they begin to walk off into a room. As they do, the line up disperses -- and Gerard is so shocked and confused, he forgets to move along with it.
Frank glances at him, just for a second.
Just for one second, their eyes meet. Frank's face passes through a couple of expressions --- first like he's surprised, and then he's suddenly very focused.
And they almost seem like they're going to pass him, to go into their room, without saying a word. Gerard begins to doubt that Frank recognizes him at all. But then, just before Frank is gone, he hears him mutter low and soft:
"Stand straight up, Quasimodo."
Gerard obeys like it's a reflex.
Before Frank is done with Clarissa, Lenny is pushing Gerard to go home. They didn't like whores lingering after shifts. Once you've been sold enough for one day, met your qouta, they have no use for you anymore.
There's tears in Gerard's eyes as he drives home that night. And it's no different from before, really.
No different at all.
END
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