Dirty Kiss (9 page)

“Hyun-Shik’s father was okay with him spending money on that?”

“Maybe he thought if Hyun-Shik had a place to… dabble.” She paused, thinking of how to phrase something. “Dabble is a good word. If he dabbled upstairs, he wouldn’t be out cruising like some of the others his age. No one sees what happens upstairs. No one comments. Everyone’s reputation is safe, and everyone is happy.”

“Hyun-Shik couldn’t have been too happy,” I commented. “He killed himself upstairs.”

“Most men come here because they’re sad inside, and for a little while, they can pretend that loving men is normal. In here, it is normal.” The brush stilled, caught in the length of her hair. “I am so lucky, honey. I have a man who loves me, but he cannot love me in the sunlight. Not if others are around. Most of the men here don’t have that kind of freedom. They cannot even love in the darkness. Hyun-Shik was one of those men.”

“But in here, he was normal,” I murmured. The walls held too many secrets, hidden things that crackled over my skin. To me it was simple. I was going to be who I needed to be to survive. Not being gay wasn’t an option. It wasn’t easy, but it was better than living a lie.

“Why get married if you’re—” I was cut off by Scarlet’s trilling laugh.

“Ah, so easy for you, honey. Everything is black and white.” She worked at the hair at her neck. “Asian men have to get married. It’s what they do. You are born, go to school, then you get married. Next, you have children, then take care of your parents while you bully your children through school. After you are done with that, it’s your time to be taken care of. Everything is a cycle.”

“So he got married and kept coming back to get himself off? Maybe just enough to blow some steam?”

“It’s common. Usually after the first child, maybe the second. It depends on the man.” Her shrug was a practiced, elegant lift. “Some men never come back. Duty to the family comes first for most Asian men, and shame can make a man go against what he wants.”

“Did he have a regular? Did Hyun-Shik see someone here all the time?”

“He came to visit Jin-Sang Yi.” She spelled it for me as I took out my notebook. “Hyun-Shik didn’t visit as much after he got married, but when he did, he usually had Jin-Sang sent to him.”

“Any of the other boys get jealous about that?”

“No, it’s very… practical upstairs.” Scarlet moved on to another section. “Well, sometimes. I think Jin-Sang would be upset if Hyun-Shik didn’t send for him, but that’s probably because of the money. I can’t say it was for love. Upstairs boys make a lot of money, baby.”

“How much is a lot of money?”

“The popular ones can make about five thousand a night, depending on what they’re being paid for.”

“Five grand?” I was in the wrong business. Catching a glimpse of my face in the vanity, I didn’t think I could pull in that kind of cash. “Jin-Sang is one of the popular ones?”

“Popular enough, I think.” She shrugged. “Sometimes a new boy comes, and one of the favorites goes away. It’s how these things are. Like I said, dongsaeng, I don’t pay much attention to what goes on up there. I’m an entertainer. I don’t do those things.”

“Did he kill himself before or after he saw Jin-Sang? Do you know?”

“Had to be after. I think the upstairs manager refused the payment in respect to Mr. Kim,” Scarlet murmured. “It would have been bad to take money for Hyun-Shik’s entertainment.”

“So Hyun-Shik went upstairs, had a little fun, then killed himself?” I sat back in my chair. Stranger things had been known to happen. Some suicide victims killed themselves after a good meal while others were too distraught to think beyond doing the act. People were crazy things, but paying for sex and then taking a handful of pills seemed strange. “You mentioned drugs upstairs. Is that where Hyun-Shik got the pills?”

“Oh no, honey.” She shook her hair out, setting the brush aside. “Upstairs doesn’t do pills. Mostly jutes or sometimes nga nga. Pills take too long, and they’re not good with whiskey. That would be too many problems.”

“He had to have brought them with him, then.” Things were getting complicated. “The biggest question that I can’t seem to answer is, why? And why here?”

“That I don’t know, honey,” Scarlet said with a shrug. “His note said what? He was ashamed? Of loving men? Then why kill himself here? Pfah, your questions make things worse.”

“That’s why I’m asking.” Her cell phone rang, a snippet of a song I didn’t recognize, vibrating the tiny silver device across the vanity table. “You want some privacy?”

“No, stay there,” she ordered, poking at my chest with a sharp fingernail. Answering, she sighed, hearing someone’s voice on the other end. “Hyung! Yes, I am done. Just one show tonight.”

The rest was in Korean, a bubbling flow of words that I didn’t have to understand to know what was being said. Cooing was universal, and Scarlet’s coquettish laughter made me smile. It’d been a long time since I’d sat and chatted someone up on the phone, not since Rick and I were first dating.

I stood, stretching my legs. The drive up and down the coast was hell on my belly, the scar tissue knitting together the nerves of my abdomen muscles. I was beginning to cramp up, and reached around to work the kink loose. Twisting around, something caught my eye, a familiar face smiling back up at me from a silver frame.

Sneaking a peek at Scarlet, I made sure she was still deep in conversation before I walked over to the tall dresser sitting in the corner of the room. Many of the photos were of Scarlet, some vacation shots with a solemn-faced, older Korean man and others with young men who were obviously entertainers. The one that caught my eye was larger than the rest and placed to the side with the smaller shots around it.

I knew the honey-brown eyes that stared up at me, and seeing his face hit me in the gut. Jae-Min was younger in the photo, a few years maybe, at the most. His hair was longer, fringed around his face, making his features nearly gamine, but the sensual pout of his mouth was the same, a hint of a smile dimpling his cheeks.

Cracking the back of the frame to see if there was a date on the back of the photo probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Scarlet sounded like she was wrapping up her call, a final coo into her phone and then a throaty tenor sigh. In that small exclamation of passion, I heard the man Scarlet hid inside, so proud of the love he shared with another man.

Scarlet came up behind me, her chin resting against my upper arm to see what I was looking at. I tilted the frame so she could see the picture I was looking at. There was another whispering murmur, lighter and sweeter this time.

“Ah, my musang.” She touched Jae-Min’s face with the tips of her fingers. “He’s Hyun-Shik’s cousin. Is he on your list of people to talk to?”

“We’ve had our talk.” I put the picture down. It was hard. For some reason, letting that piece of time go made me shake. “I saw him at the Kim house this morning.”

“Aish! Hard to believe that he was there. That woman treats him so badly.” Her disgust was palpable, nearly sticky with distaste. “I wouldn’t have gone back there.”

“Looks like you know Jae-Min well.”

“Ah, our Jae.” Scarlet smiled as she took the frame from me and put it back on the dresser. “He’s one of my favorite people. Have you seen his photographs? I have some he took of me at home. You should see them. They are beautiful but so very raw. He’s very good.”

“How did you meet him? Did Hyun-Shik bring him here for an evening?” I had a tickle of jealousy in my chest. Somehow the thought of Jae-Min coming to Dorthi Ki Seu for a round of sex and games while his cousin watched disturbed me, and I couldn’t figure out why.

“For an evening?” Scarlet padded away, bending over to retrieve a pair of bright red pumps from under the chair I’d been sitting in. “Hyun-Shik didn’t bring Jae-Min here as a guest. He brought him here to work.”

“What? Jae-Min worked here as a waiter? He didn’t tell me. For how long?”

“A waiter?” She was an elegant line, graceful as she slid her foot into one shoe. “Oh no, honey. Jae-Min wasn’t a waiter.”

My chest constricted, and a numbness crept over my jaw. I didn’t want to hear what she was saying. The rush of blood in my ears was like a tidal wave, blocking out my senses. I needed to ask Scarlet to explain, but I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer. “What did he do, then?”

“Jae is much too pretty to be a waiter. No, honey, Hyun-Shik brought him to work the rooms. That’s how I met my musang,” she replied, checking her appearance once more in the mirror and patting at the edge of her lush mouth. “Our Jae-Min became one of our upstairs boys.”