Tay Jay circled the room. Plasma TV, view of the park, Mardi Gras tiles on the kitchen floor, custom made cabinets, large walk in closets in the bedrooms. “This has everything,” he said, trying not to emphasize his astonishment. “I like it.” The penthouse had a large open living room that felt like being inside a menagerie. The private pool reflected blue shards of white light into the east side windows. The motion was close to the rippling of a man's back in the way of passion. But the place wasn’t about passion. It was about working to get a nut. At least, that’s what crossed Tay Jay’s mind.

Dinner yachts could be seen from a telescope. The night visor kicked in at the flip of a button. High tech shit as some called it. Dwight nervously surveyed the man in the room with a poker face and calculated precision, too afraid to show that he was uncomfortable. Tay Jay had worn his hair in true thug fashion, plaits hung from all sides weighed down by bullet barrettes that made little metallic clinks when he moved. He looked like a comic book vigilante that would reload his pistols by drawing ammo from his head.

Dwight was a frat boy ‘could have been’, only his slight off center kept him from fitting the mold. He liked it that way most of the time. It was how he stayed comfortable in his own skin. He’d never considered that it might have had something to do with his sexuality until that night high above midtown where he let another man’s cock inside his ass as part of the obscure bargain.

“So we go’n do this or what?” Tay Jay seemed to be on edge. The state prosecutor had told him he was looking at five to ten. What choice did he have? Freedom came at a cost he might have paid a hundred times over behind bars. So when the attorney came to him talking about an alternative, he listened. All he had to do was spend the night with a client. Five to ten defending his ass or a single night giving it up to some rich white dude and walking out of the penthouse a free man the next day.

“You’ll be back with your girl as soon as tomorrow maybe, simple as that, no one will be the wiser. Just do this one thing for my client.” The words were sardonic. The representation was needed. Sleep with the man and freedom was just six inches and ten minutes into an uncharted future. Do whatever he says. Sell out. Sell it, or go to prison and have it taken from you. That was the counter point. A second arrest for possession, more than 15 grams, the choice was simple, sign up for the alternative. Sleep with the faggot.

He kept wishing he was high. “Of all the nights to be fucking level,” he thought. He wanted to go into the bathroom and take a hit from his stash, but remembered he left it in the car. Too much confusion. Tay Jay looked from Dwight to the attorney sitting at the bar stirring a cocktail pretending that nothing was going down.

They were waved away. “You can fuck in the bedroom.” The words tore at the poker-faced man calling himself Dwight. Still he walked toward Tay Jay with an extended hand. Thoughts went through Tay’s mind while looking at that hand, the palm turned slightly upward, the ease in which