Chapter 4
Frequently, people asked Dan Ashcroft how he had ended up living on the streets. His standard answer was, “How the fuck should I know?”
In reality, he was a bit blurry on the details. He very clearly remembered coming out of a hospital bathroom after shagging a man he had known for a couple of hours to find his parents waiting for him. They’d held him tightly, clearly grateful to have at least one child safe and sound. For a week, they had waited, hoping for a miracle but knowing it was just a matter of time. By the time Claire had actually died, Dan had run out of emotions. He drank and smoked and waited for the worst. He had thought the worst would be hearing Claire was gone, but the emptiness stayed. He had thought the funeral might give him the closure to grieve, but the nothingness continued. Seven years on, Dan was still waiting for something to break.
It didn’t break the day he was asked to resign from Sugar Ape to protect his “dignity” and “iconic status.” It didn’t break when he was finally, officially homeless. Two Christmases with his parents, seeing the sorrow in their eyes that - of their two children - Dan was the one who had survived wasn’t enough to break through the numbness. He knew he was a poor consolation prize. He’d been a golden boy, but Claire was their feisty princess who had wanted to change the world (and who might have given them grandchildren).
He barely remembered the first time he’d had sex for money, so that clearly hadn’t changed him in any meaningful way. He was the same, sorry husk of a man he’d been the day Claire had been hit. The husk was just getting a bit more worn and brittle.
Dan remembered the first time he’d wondered if he was a prostitute. For nearly a year, Dan had been homeless without it being much of an issue. He drank until he passed out and then woke up wherever he’d fallen. Having a bed would have been wasteful. He slept on the floors of his friends’ flats or in pub bathrooms. Sometimes he had sex with people, but one night, a man he did not find attractive put his hand on Dan’s thigh. It was a man who did PR for a handful of the celebrities that frequently appeared in Sugar Ape. He and Dan had been at the same parties and had the occasional conversation, but Dan didn’t know anything about the man. Normally, Dan would have casually shaken the hand off and pretended it never happened. If asked direct questions about his sexuality, Dan would give yes or no answers, but he rather preferred to keep his cards close to his chest on that subject. He wasn’t bothered by men hitting on him, but he was attracted to fewer men than women. It had never felt like a big deal.
But he didn’t shake off the hand, because the man had bought him dinner, several pints, a bottle, and a pack of fags. How could he reject someone who had been so generous? Dan was used to people buying him drinks, but now he needed drinks, and there was no chance he would ever buy the next round. Dan closed his eyes while a man he’d known for years but didn’t know anything about gave him a blowjob. Dan got hard in the man’s mouth, but he was too drunk to come. In all likelihood, Dan had passed out mid-blowie, but he could not remember for sure. He was a piss-poor rent boy, but that night, Dan Ashcroft had realized he was literally for sale.
After his first ever unwanted blowjob, Dan considered the disaster that was his life and tried to weep. He thought of every horrible thing that had ever happened and waited for a strong emotion to arrive. What he felt was a dull pain and a distant shame.
The one encounter that actually made a dent was being fucked by Nathan Barley. The little prick was running a website that was stirring interest, and he had tried to interview Dan. Dan wasn’t going to talk to anyone about his shit life, certainly not some pissant website, but he was willing to accept free food and booze.
When Nathan had kissed him, Dan was disgusted. The little shit had been chasing after Claire the night she’d died. That Nathan would put a move on Dan was the behavior of a psychopath for sure.
Eventually, Dan pinned Nathan’s skinny body down and fucked him, while Nathan dug his nails in Dan’s hips and cried out like he was having a religious experience. Dan had made no effort to make it a pleasant experience for Nathan, but the boy didn’t seem to care. Whatever he’d wanted from Dan, he’d apparently gotten it, and when Dan was down and out, he knew he could always count on Nathan Barley for a few quid.
Sometimes Nathan tried to talk to Dan about Claire, but Dan didn’t want to hear her name in his idiot mouth. He felt a distant kind of pity for Nathan as the boy began to change. Once the track marks were visible and his suspicions were confirmed, Dan felt something like compassion for the sad little twat. He had daddy’s money and a following of morons, but Nathan was a closet junkie and on his way down and out. The nice thing about booze was that it was a social vice. Strangers bought Dan drinks and cheered for him when he puked in the streets, as though his excessive drinking were an accomplishment. Dan had seen plenty of kids like Nathan end up on heroin. It was the irony of having money. They started out being able to afford the good pain medicines, but developed a tolerance quickly and then there just weren’t enough pills to kill the phantom pain. Dan had considered heroin, the ultimate pain killer, but a perverse part of his brain felt he didn’t deserve the sweet high of opiates.
Nathan’s baby face thinned, his pouty lips became perpetually chapped, and his eyes were those of an old man. Dan couldn’t fully enjoy watching his decay. Nathan was a cretin, but he was a kid - probably the same age as the kid Dan had been fucking when Claire was hit. He hated Nathan for a variety of reasons, mainly for continuing to be in his life, but he occasionally felt a twinge of pity because he knew that things would only get worse for the young idiot. He was never nice to Nathan, or even polite, but he didn’t seem to mind. He sought Dan out over and over. Sometimes there was sex, but after initiating it, Nathan would usually let Dan call the shots on the specifics. He’d suck Dan off or accept a handjob, rarely pushing for more than what Dan was finding the least reprehensible at the moment. It felt less like prostitution than being in a marriage that should have ended long ago. The sex was perfunctory, and any pleasure was outweighed by a general feeling of disgust. It was loathsome, but familiar and easy.
When Nathan was using, he was often impotent, and Dan hated the evenings where Nathan asked for conversation in exchange for booze and shelter more than the baser exchange of goods. The way Nathan hung on his words made Dan irrationally angry. Who looked up to homeless drunks? Idiots did.
One night, he’d run into Nathan Barley (while scratching the word “dick” into the paint of Nathan’s bike) and the kid was sporting a black eye and a busted lip. Dan hesitated to take Nathan up on an invitation to stay at his flat, but it was a cold night and Dan should have secured a place to stay earlier, but he was feeling antsy and in a combative mood. He didn’t want to be around people, and Nathan Barley did not count as people.
Dan was on his first drink when Nathan climbed on top of him, kissing him on the mouth. Dan tried to give Nathan a handy and get it over with, but Nathan had decided to fuck Dan, and that’s what had happened. It had hurt like hell, because Dan couldn’t relax and Nathan had clearly based his understanding of anal sex purely on pornos. Dan gritted his teeth and hated himself for what he was allowing from a little shit trying to build a dot.com empire.
When it was over, Nathan had cried for twenty minutes while Dan drank and smoked Nathan’s weed until self-loathing turned into numb indifference. He had considered asking Nathan about the black eye and the busted lip and the anal and the crying, but he didn’t. He didn’t want Nathan to confuse his idle curiosity with actual interest. Dan didn’t have the energy or resources to deal with anyone else’s pain, and he certainly wasn’t giving an ounce of himself to the little fuck who had stood next to Claire when she died and didn’t get so much as a goddamn scratch.
Xxx
Paul was a different story altogether. Paul was a builder with a wife and children who gave Dan money for a handjob and then had apparently fallen in love. Back when he’d had a libido, Dan had spent plenty of time wanking and knew for a fact his handjobs were nothing special, and yet Paul not only continued to seek him out, but he tried to have some kind of relationship with Dan. He brought him flowers and invited him to his home. Paul insisted his wife understood that he needed to be with Dan in order to be a good husband. Dan couldn’t imagine any woman wanting her husband to bring home a hobo prostitute. While she had apparently gone with Paul to bars when he “strayed,” she was never present during Paul’s encounters with Dan. Paul said that what they shared was too special.
Dan didn’t feel bad about himself when he was with Paul. In fact, Dan felt pretty well put together next to the married builder. He’d take his shit life over Paul’s domestic bliss any day. Dan knew how to fix his life. All he had to do was take Jonatton Yeah? up on his offer of putting him through rehab and then returning to Sugar Ape. The magazine was utter shite, worse than when Dan had worked there, but he’d have a regular income again. Jonatton wanted the story of bringing one Ashcroft back from the dead and to have a triumphant story to balance the general depravity of his magazine. Jonatton would have free publicity and a touch of credibility, and Dan wouldn’t have to suck cock for food. All Dan had to do was be sober. He just had to learn how to live his life without constantly having the edges blurred with booze. Maybe he’d have to suck Jonatton’s cock once in a while, but no one else’s. He just had to open his eyes in the morning, remember the life he was living, and not get plastered.
Dan had done his research when he’d realized he was probably moving from abusing alcohol to being dependent. He had even done one of his best pieces for Sugar Ape on the topic. While Doug Rocket was in court-mandated rehab and writing a new album to capitalize on suddenly being famous again, Dan had interviewed drunks and junkies and heard the same tale over and over: no consequence of using was worse than trying to stay sober. People talked about being sober for years before falling back off the wagon, but the pull of sobriety was a rustle of leaves, while the call of addiction was a car alarm. Sometimes you could block out the noise of addiction or grow accustomed to the howl, but it was always there, making you tense and unsettled. The noise of addiction overtook everything else. A moment of peace from a screaming mind was worth losing a few friends or a job or self-respect or everything.
Dan could see a therapist and go to rehab and work through his demons and go back to being a useless but properly housed member of society, but Paul could never be the person he wanted to be. Dan wasn’t sure if Paul was gay or bisexual or some other term meant to quantify and qualify fucking, but he was not a straight and happily married husband and father, and he never would be. When Paul declared his love for Dan after sucking him off in a parked car, Dan felt sorry for him. Dan had never experienced anything he’d call ‘real love,’ but he surely didn’t think it was something he’d get in a rent-man-of-a-certain-age in Shoreditch.
In reality, he was a bit blurry on the details. He very clearly remembered coming out of a hospital bathroom after shagging a man he had known for a couple of hours to find his parents waiting for him. They’d held him tightly, clearly grateful to have at least one child safe and sound. For a week, they had waited, hoping for a miracle but knowing it was just a matter of time. By the time Claire had actually died, Dan had run out of emotions. He drank and smoked and waited for the worst. He had thought the worst would be hearing Claire was gone, but the emptiness stayed. He had thought the funeral might give him the closure to grieve, but the nothingness continued. Seven years on, Dan was still waiting for something to break.
It didn’t break the day he was asked to resign from Sugar Ape to protect his “dignity” and “iconic status.” It didn’t break when he was finally, officially homeless. Two Christmases with his parents, seeing the sorrow in their eyes that - of their two children - Dan was the one who had survived wasn’t enough to break through the numbness. He knew he was a poor consolation prize. He’d been a golden boy, but Claire was their feisty princess who had wanted to change the world (and who might have given them grandchildren).
He barely remembered the first time he’d had sex for money, so that clearly hadn’t changed him in any meaningful way. He was the same, sorry husk of a man he’d been the day Claire had been hit. The husk was just getting a bit more worn and brittle.
Dan remembered the first time he’d wondered if he was a prostitute. For nearly a year, Dan had been homeless without it being much of an issue. He drank until he passed out and then woke up wherever he’d fallen. Having a bed would have been wasteful. He slept on the floors of his friends’ flats or in pub bathrooms. Sometimes he had sex with people, but one night, a man he did not find attractive put his hand on Dan’s thigh. It was a man who did PR for a handful of the celebrities that frequently appeared in Sugar Ape. He and Dan had been at the same parties and had the occasional conversation, but Dan didn’t know anything about the man. Normally, Dan would have casually shaken the hand off and pretended it never happened. If asked direct questions about his sexuality, Dan would give yes or no answers, but he rather preferred to keep his cards close to his chest on that subject. He wasn’t bothered by men hitting on him, but he was attracted to fewer men than women. It had never felt like a big deal.
But he didn’t shake off the hand, because the man had bought him dinner, several pints, a bottle, and a pack of fags. How could he reject someone who had been so generous? Dan was used to people buying him drinks, but now he needed drinks, and there was no chance he would ever buy the next round. Dan closed his eyes while a man he’d known for years but didn’t know anything about gave him a blowjob. Dan got hard in the man’s mouth, but he was too drunk to come. In all likelihood, Dan had passed out mid-blowie, but he could not remember for sure. He was a piss-poor rent boy, but that night, Dan Ashcroft had realized he was literally for sale.
After his first ever unwanted blowjob, Dan considered the disaster that was his life and tried to weep. He thought of every horrible thing that had ever happened and waited for a strong emotion to arrive. What he felt was a dull pain and a distant shame.
The one encounter that actually made a dent was being fucked by Nathan Barley. The little prick was running a website that was stirring interest, and he had tried to interview Dan. Dan wasn’t going to talk to anyone about his shit life, certainly not some pissant website, but he was willing to accept free food and booze.
When Nathan had kissed him, Dan was disgusted. The little shit had been chasing after Claire the night she’d died. That Nathan would put a move on Dan was the behavior of a psychopath for sure.
Eventually, Dan pinned Nathan’s skinny body down and fucked him, while Nathan dug his nails in Dan’s hips and cried out like he was having a religious experience. Dan had made no effort to make it a pleasant experience for Nathan, but the boy didn’t seem to care. Whatever he’d wanted from Dan, he’d apparently gotten it, and when Dan was down and out, he knew he could always count on Nathan Barley for a few quid.
Sometimes Nathan tried to talk to Dan about Claire, but Dan didn’t want to hear her name in his idiot mouth. He felt a distant kind of pity for Nathan as the boy began to change. Once the track marks were visible and his suspicions were confirmed, Dan felt something like compassion for the sad little twat. He had daddy’s money and a following of morons, but Nathan was a closet junkie and on his way down and out. The nice thing about booze was that it was a social vice. Strangers bought Dan drinks and cheered for him when he puked in the streets, as though his excessive drinking were an accomplishment. Dan had seen plenty of kids like Nathan end up on heroin. It was the irony of having money. They started out being able to afford the good pain medicines, but developed a tolerance quickly and then there just weren’t enough pills to kill the phantom pain. Dan had considered heroin, the ultimate pain killer, but a perverse part of his brain felt he didn’t deserve the sweet high of opiates.
Nathan’s baby face thinned, his pouty lips became perpetually chapped, and his eyes were those of an old man. Dan couldn’t fully enjoy watching his decay. Nathan was a cretin, but he was a kid - probably the same age as the kid Dan had been fucking when Claire was hit. He hated Nathan for a variety of reasons, mainly for continuing to be in his life, but he occasionally felt a twinge of pity because he knew that things would only get worse for the young idiot. He was never nice to Nathan, or even polite, but he didn’t seem to mind. He sought Dan out over and over. Sometimes there was sex, but after initiating it, Nathan would usually let Dan call the shots on the specifics. He’d suck Dan off or accept a handjob, rarely pushing for more than what Dan was finding the least reprehensible at the moment. It felt less like prostitution than being in a marriage that should have ended long ago. The sex was perfunctory, and any pleasure was outweighed by a general feeling of disgust. It was loathsome, but familiar and easy.
When Nathan was using, he was often impotent, and Dan hated the evenings where Nathan asked for conversation in exchange for booze and shelter more than the baser exchange of goods. The way Nathan hung on his words made Dan irrationally angry. Who looked up to homeless drunks? Idiots did.
One night, he’d run into Nathan Barley (while scratching the word “dick” into the paint of Nathan’s bike) and the kid was sporting a black eye and a busted lip. Dan hesitated to take Nathan up on an invitation to stay at his flat, but it was a cold night and Dan should have secured a place to stay earlier, but he was feeling antsy and in a combative mood. He didn’t want to be around people, and Nathan Barley did not count as people.
Dan was on his first drink when Nathan climbed on top of him, kissing him on the mouth. Dan tried to give Nathan a handy and get it over with, but Nathan had decided to fuck Dan, and that’s what had happened. It had hurt like hell, because Dan couldn’t relax and Nathan had clearly based his understanding of anal sex purely on pornos. Dan gritted his teeth and hated himself for what he was allowing from a little shit trying to build a dot.com empire.
When it was over, Nathan had cried for twenty minutes while Dan drank and smoked Nathan’s weed until self-loathing turned into numb indifference. He had considered asking Nathan about the black eye and the busted lip and the anal and the crying, but he didn’t. He didn’t want Nathan to confuse his idle curiosity with actual interest. Dan didn’t have the energy or resources to deal with anyone else’s pain, and he certainly wasn’t giving an ounce of himself to the little fuck who had stood next to Claire when she died and didn’t get so much as a goddamn scratch.
Xxx
Paul was a different story altogether. Paul was a builder with a wife and children who gave Dan money for a handjob and then had apparently fallen in love. Back when he’d had a libido, Dan had spent plenty of time wanking and knew for a fact his handjobs were nothing special, and yet Paul not only continued to seek him out, but he tried to have some kind of relationship with Dan. He brought him flowers and invited him to his home. Paul insisted his wife understood that he needed to be with Dan in order to be a good husband. Dan couldn’t imagine any woman wanting her husband to bring home a hobo prostitute. While she had apparently gone with Paul to bars when he “strayed,” she was never present during Paul’s encounters with Dan. Paul said that what they shared was too special.
Dan didn’t feel bad about himself when he was with Paul. In fact, Dan felt pretty well put together next to the married builder. He’d take his shit life over Paul’s domestic bliss any day. Dan knew how to fix his life. All he had to do was take Jonatton Yeah? up on his offer of putting him through rehab and then returning to Sugar Ape. The magazine was utter shite, worse than when Dan had worked there, but he’d have a regular income again. Jonatton wanted the story of bringing one Ashcroft back from the dead and to have a triumphant story to balance the general depravity of his magazine. Jonatton would have free publicity and a touch of credibility, and Dan wouldn’t have to suck cock for food. All Dan had to do was be sober. He just had to learn how to live his life without constantly having the edges blurred with booze. Maybe he’d have to suck Jonatton’s cock once in a while, but no one else’s. He just had to open his eyes in the morning, remember the life he was living, and not get plastered.
Dan had done his research when he’d realized he was probably moving from abusing alcohol to being dependent. He had even done one of his best pieces for Sugar Ape on the topic. While Doug Rocket was in court-mandated rehab and writing a new album to capitalize on suddenly being famous again, Dan had interviewed drunks and junkies and heard the same tale over and over: no consequence of using was worse than trying to stay sober. People talked about being sober for years before falling back off the wagon, but the pull of sobriety was a rustle of leaves, while the call of addiction was a car alarm. Sometimes you could block out the noise of addiction or grow accustomed to the howl, but it was always there, making you tense and unsettled. The noise of addiction overtook everything else. A moment of peace from a screaming mind was worth losing a few friends or a job or self-respect or everything.
Dan could see a therapist and go to rehab and work through his demons and go back to being a useless but properly housed member of society, but Paul could never be the person he wanted to be. Dan wasn’t sure if Paul was gay or bisexual or some other term meant to quantify and qualify fucking, but he was not a straight and happily married husband and father, and he never would be. When Paul declared his love for Dan after sucking him off in a parked car, Dan felt sorry for him. Dan had never experienced anything he’d call ‘real love,’ but he surely didn’t think it was something he’d get in a rent-man-of-a-certain-age in Shoreditch.