Pussyboy

Art Nouveau

I had a little lay off from Zayn. About a week and we avoided each other. Pretty much ignored us being in the same house.

Besides, I had a new customer.

His name was Louis Tomlinson. He was a weird fella. He hired me through a friend and at first, I was really unsure whether I'd meet him but a feeling made me.

As I walked through the busy neighborhood in the South Side, I saw dozens of children playin in the snow. It was mid-November but the snow fell early. Weird climate.

I saw 3 to 7 inches of snow in the sidewalks. The windowsills covered and fluffed by snow. Alleys were snowed too. Garbage bins by brick walls were covered in snow giving them an eerie yet somehow pleasant look even if they were fuckin disgustin.

The concrete was slightly slippery. Some of that glorious snow has turned into sludge. But most of it was still good ol' snow.

I started counting the apartments when I reached Canal St. The apartments were Victorian. Grotesque in their state now but as I looked into far - gentrification was coming.

These monolithic beauties would become futurist modern apartment complexes or luxury high-rise condominiums. The old South Side would be long gone. The coloreds and Latinos that lived here for generations would have evaporated.

It's sad to say that beauty was like that. You have your own. I have mine. The problem only comes when we try to dethrone each other. When we use the other's aspects for ourselves' benefit. I mean, life was such. Survival of the fittest. The old motto that made living in this country great and shit at the same time.

I couldn't have said until I came to Mr. Tomlinson's building.

I came up the steps and pressed the buzzer. Waited and waited. It was almost 9 minutes when I was going to give up when the intercom talked.

"Wait!"

It was hurried. It was embarrassed but not unesteemed. It was Louis Tomlinson.

The door opened and I saw a man shorter than me and definitely girlier than me. He was pixie and didn't really look like he was from here. He looked European.

God, snotty Europeans. He was flushed when he opened the door and revealed himself.

"Hi!"

He smiled.

"Hello."

I schmiled.

"Come in. Just follow me to the apartment," he told me smiling shyly. He went further inside and went up flights of stairs.

Usually, someone who meets someone at their house or the place would normally ask who the hell is ringing them outside. But as a professional sex worker protected by unvoiced contracts and routine etiquette, I beforehand showed him my picture through e-mail. We chatted there and he already kind of tested the waters there. All-in-all, he sort of knew me but at same time - not really.

I went inside the dusty and tacky apartment. The wallpaper was a sickly green with faded gold embroideries. Fleur-de-lys, flowers, and maple leaves were the staple.

It was ripping itself off the walls already. As I ascended some flight of stairs, I saw cobwebs on the corners between two walls and the ceiling. I noticed holes with mysterious pitch blackness in the ceiling. Hopefully, those holes extended till only itself and not a hole in the floor upstairs.

The railing was wood, specifically Oak wood. It was varnished and furbished but faded like the rest of the house.

As I went up the 3rd floor, I saw a child playing in the floor by herself. She was playing with a doll outside the open door of her, I assumed, apartment. She was quietly humming to herself as she played her doll.

It wasn't creepy or anything, just curious. Curious why the parent or -ents weren't letting her or accompanying her outside to play like the other kids in the block.

I disregarded that when I walked up again and saw that Mr. Tomlinson has stopped in front of a door and was picking a key from what was hundreds on a single ring.

As he did, I noticed the wallpaper here was grey but featureless. No leaves. No fleurs. No nothing. Just plain old fading grey wallpaper pasted on the wall.

He opened the door.