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94 Jack Fritscher

mercy. He looked directly out at Robert. He was erect and Robert
knew he faced the powerful, inevitable Face of God.
“I must,” he said to Floyd, “have this.” He rose out of the barber
chair. “Ask any amount, anything. Only let me buy this from you.”
Floyd thought to press the trade for sex, but the young man
seemed too volatile. Besides, a quick flash of looking down the bar-
rel of a handgun made him think better of it. “That one you can
have,” he said.
“I can’t just take it. I learned my lesson about that the hard way.”
“Then trade me something, anything,” Floyd said. “I won’t take
your money.” He stared into Robert’s ecstatic wild eyes and suddenly,
more than he wanted him, he wanted him gone.
“I don’t have anything,” Robert said.
Floyd laughed nervously at him. “Everybody’s got something.”
Robert mentally searched his car. He had his clothes. He had
the loaded handgun. “Nothing,” he said.
In the room, he seemed volatile.
In the mirrors, he looked vulnerable.
Floyd, fighting his rising lust, chided himself for being a cau-
tious old fool. He threw risk against the wind. The boy was right.
Danger was aphrodisiac. He put his hand on Robert’s knee and slowly
smoothed his palm up the inside of his thigh.
“Not that!” Robert watched the hand slowly advance up his leg
like a giant spider. “Not that!” Robert said.
Floyd’s heart jumped with a rush of adrenaline. “Then what?”
Floyd stood straight up. “You said I could have anything for the
picture.”
“Not that. Not here. Not now. Not you.”
“See what I told you about your car and my pianos?” Floyd
worked the only logic he knew in situations like this. “What if I
pay you?”
“For what?”
He thought to say for sex, but he said, “To take the picture. I’ll
give you money to take the picture,” Floyd said, “and then you can
leave.”
©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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