“My name is Mr. Mercier,” said the trick when he saw me. “We spoke on the phone.”

He was an older guy—my clients usually were—a real daddy type with wispy hair just starting to recede and a pinched and sallow face. In his bespoke Italian suit and expensive Louboutin loafers he looked stiff and ill-at-ease alongside the lively tourist bar crowd. I figured him for a closeted professional type—a mid-tier bank exec or something. Not someone you’d expect to find trolling Craigslist postings for some late-night boy pussy.

The trick waved me to an adjacent stool and lit himself a thin Toscano with a chunky gold lighter. An untouched glass of milk sat perspiring on a napkin in front of him.

“So,” he mused, “you’re the toy boy? I must say, you don’t look much like your pictures.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and tried to look bored and sexual. “I can be whatever you want me to be, baby.”

He exhaled thoughtfully, warm tendrils of sweet-smelling smoke clawing free from between his lips and drifting into my face. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four,” I lied. “Did you wanna get out of here?”

He shook his head. “First, I want you to drink this,” he stroked the side of the milk glass suggestively with the tip of one long finger.

I stiffened slightly, a knot of hot suspicion coiling in my belly. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Call it a fetish. Maybe it gets me off. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

I picked up the glass and took a careful sip. The milk was warm and slightly sour in my mouth. Mr. Mercier watched dispassionately as I emptied the cup.

“You do what you’re told. I like that.” He took the glass back and began absently wiping it down with the edge of a damp napkin. “I’m going to ask you a couple questions now, toy boy. Nothing complicated. Just try and answer honestly.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “You a cop or something?”

“I’m an attorney,” he said, removing a fat leather billfold from an inner-jacket pocket and flashing a pair of crisp green hundred-dollar bills which he sat squarely in front of me. “Think of it as a foreplay.”

My eyes followed the money carefully. “Okay,” I said.

“We’ll start with an easy one. How many times a day do you lie?”

“Uh, I, I’m not sure. Eight or nine? Maybe more.”

Mr. Mercier nodded as if I’d said something profound. “I see. Yes, that’s good. Number two. Do you prefer to face the harsh realities of the world or ignore them?”

I frowned. “Ignore them, I guess. What kind of questions are these?” I was feeling less comfortable with this situation by the second.

“Just humor me. This is the last one. Is free will real or just an illusion?”

“Uh, I don’t know. An illusion?”

“You’ll do,” he said, stubbing out the corpse of his cigar and pushing back his chair abruptly. “You’ll do just fine, I think. Come on, my cars out front.”

I hesitated a moment; watching him weave his way through the crowd. I could have left right then—could have grabbed his money and run. He probably wouldn’t have tried to stop me. Instead, I stuffed the cash into my jeans and followed him out the door.

<>

His car was already idling at the curb when we approached—a gleaming black SUV with Louisiana plates, supple Corinthian leather and its own nondescript chauffer. I figured the trick was just waiting for the relative safety of the SUV’s dark tinted windows to whip his cock out, but Mr. Mercier kept his hands primly on his knees, watching the city slide past outside.

“Where we going?” I asked at length, noticing we’d into merged into the heavier traffic of the French Quarter.

“We’re going to meet your date,” said Mr. Mercier, plucking some imagined lint from his lapel. “It’s not far.”

“But I thought—”

“You thought you were for me?” He snorted dryly. “I don’t want to fuck you toy boy. I’m just the delivery man.”

“Oh,” I was quietly gauging the distance to the polished steel door handle. “Just so you know, travel time is extra.”

Mr. Mercier shrugged, snipping the end off a fresh cigar with his teeth and spitting it to the floor. “You’ll get your money.”

The SUV rolled deeper into the maze of the Quarter. Crowds were thinner here—the lights and noise of Bourbon Street siphoning people up toward the busier blocks. Mr. Mercier directed the driver toward the mouth of a narrow alleyway between a couple of dilapidated buildings and told him to park.

“We’re here,” he said. “You can get out now.”

“Here?” I glanced out the window uncertainly.

“At the end of the alley is a little door. You can’t miss it. Your date’s waiting inside.”

I shook my head. “Nah, I don’t think so, man. This is getting too weird.”

Mr. Mercier sighed and fumbled for his billfold. “This is a thousand dollars. See? You can count it. All yours if you just walk through the door at the end of the alley. There’s more to be made inside.”

“And then what?”

“And then that’s it,” he shrugged. “Stay inside with your date for, oh, call it fifteen minutes and, if you don’t like him, you leave. Money’s yours free and clear either way.”

I hesitated. “That’s it? For real?”

“Easiest money you’ll ever make,” he said. “What do you say? We have a deal?”

I reached out and took the money.

<>

The buildings on either side were weathered redbrick—the walls leaning drunkenly inward as the alley sloped down; creating a narrow channel for all the stinking piss and brackish garbage-juice runoff that my sneakers squelched through. A rusted-out chain link fence closed off one end of the alley from the next street over—a carpet of broken glass and discarded condoms leading me nowhere.

I didn’t see the door at first.

About thirty inches tall and painted a peeling dull red, it was wedged almost out of sight in a shallow recess between the fence and an overflowing city dumpster. Crouching, I ran my hand slowly across the arched jamb, feeling bits of grime and paint flake away beneath my fingers. The knob was small, egg shaped—old brass made an ugly blackish green by age and oxidation—and fit snug and cool against my palm when I reached for it.

La Maison Du Soleil Levant

I traced the cluster of well-worn letters crudely hacked into the brickwork lintel above the door and wondered about their meaning. Had I seen them somewhere before? A vague familiarity danced tantalizingly out of reach.

“Bet you a cigarette I know what you’re thinking,” croaked a mound of festering rags heaped against the far side of the dumpster.

Startled, I jerked back from the door. “Huh?”

An emaciated hand slithered from behind the dumpster, pulling after it a filthy arm in a ratty tweed blazer connected tenuously to a toothless old bum with rheumy eyes and a wild fringe of matted dark beard.

“Yessir. See, bet you’re thinking how ain’t no way you’re fitting through that little hole,” the bum shuffled unsteadily in my direction. “Right? I mean look at it. But you’ll fit alright, buddy. Seen bigger’n you wriggle through that little door. Might be a tight squeeze but you’ll fit alright. Yessir.”

“You—you’re telling me you’ve actually seen others go in there?”

The bum’s head bobbed on his shoulders. “Yessir. Quite a few over the years. They crawl in they crawl out. Some, anyway. Mostly men—fellas like you, I mean. So, a cigarette—you got one?”

I shook my head. “I don’t smoke. Dirty habit.”

The bum smiled, his teeth a rotten collage of brown and yellow crags. “No dirtier than whatever goes down on the other side of that door, I reckon,” he tapped the side of his nose knowingly. “Me, I wouldn’t go in there myself. But most of ‘em that go in—you see ‘em come out okay.”

Digging in my pocket for one of Mr. Mercier’s crumpled hundred-dollar bills, I held it out to the bum. “Here. Go buy yourself a couple of cartons.”

“You’re alright, buddy,” he slurred, vanishing the money into the void of his blazer and slouching off back in the direction of the bars. “Knew it the minute I saw you. Knew you were an alright guy. I hope you’re one of the ones who comes out alright. Yessir.”

I stood in the shadow of the dumpster and watched until he'd rounded the corner and vanished from sight, and I was alone with the door.

Here was another chance to call it a night—to just wipe my hands and walk away from this weird fucking trick. I’d made enough to pay my rent and spend the rest of the night over at Sazerac or somewhere getting drunk off my ass. I mean, no dick was worth this hassle. But for some reason my feet stayed still—Mr. Mercier’s fat lump of bills sat like a stone in my pocket, pinning me there. He’d said there was more to be had inside, hadn’t he?

Fuck it, I thought, dropping to all fours and grabbing for the doorknob.

It was my job, after all.

<>

It was dark across the threshold. Darker than any dark had a right to be. An inky sort of deep loamy dark pooling out in all directions from beneath my knees and palms like some horrible endless sea. For a minute I hung back, frozen half in and half out of the door. Afraid to crawl further. Afraid a single twitch might tear me loose from the earth and send me spiraling uncontrolled into the dark.

I let out a slow ragged breath. I inched forward.

The rough broken asphalt of the alley peeled back—I felt is slither away beneath my fingers as I moved—replaced immediately by something smooth and uniform. Slightly warm to the touch. Granite or some other kind of stone, maybe.

And then the darkness lifted and there was light.

I was standing at the far end of a long, magnificent hall—a gleaming acre of polished, black-veined marble and dainty gilt-edged Biedermeier furniture unfurling forever—it’s walls heavy with huge Regency mirrors, climbed miles overhead before crumbling away; leaving the room open to a vast lip of muted bruised sky lightly dusted with stars. The sun a fiery burst of pulsating ochre, just starting to glow low in the east.

I squinted upward. Blinked slowly.

Just a fresco, I realized

A painting.

I stood still and stared; held my breath. I could almost feel its warmth.

“C’est tres jolie, non?”

I swiveled to face the shrill falsetto voice, exhaling in a heavy rush of air.

He was the fattest man I’d ever seen. Easily over six hundred pounds, his massive girth spilled over his gut and filled the hallway on all sides like some sort of natural barricade. Porcine and bald, with the fresh scrubbed raw look of someone just out of a hot bath, his eyes were small and round and close-set in a jowly thin-lipped face.

He wore a diaphanous white silk robe and matching harem pants that whisked whisked softly with his approach. He moved quick and light despite his immense size.

“You’re admiring my moment,” the fat man pointed with one huge sausage finger and smiled. “The sunrise. July of 1607. Or maybe it was June? Anyway, I was there—watching it rise over the Pont Neuf—I’d never seen such glorious color. Took quite a bit of doing to catch that sliver of time and snick it off the day unnoticed, let me tell you. But here it is. Ex oriente lux. Sometimes I half think about letting it go but one gets attached after a few hundred years, you know?”

“Oh,” I said uncertainly. “Sure.”

The fat man swooped in and linked his arm casually through mine. Up close he smelled funky. Like moldy baby smell and heavy aftershave. His arm beneath the silk robe felt mushy and hot. It was almost enough to make me sick.

“And aren’t you just a pretty boy, too?” the fat man set off at a brisk waddle down the hall, dragging me in his wake. “Mr. Mercier said you’d be pretty. I hope he wasn’t too hard on you. Lawyers—blah. A necessary evil. But I’m glad you’re one of the pretty ones. Being young is wasted if you aren’t pretty. Don’t you think?”

I told him I guessed so and he laughed a frilly feminine giggle.

We walked in silence for a while—the length of a football field at least. The only sound the soft rhythmic slapping of the fat man’s bare soles on the marble.

I cleared my throat. “What is this place?”

“My house,” said the fat man. “I’ve always been here.”

“And who are you?”

“Oh, let’s not spoil it with dirty little details like names,” he said. “Anonymity is so much more erotic. Come on, this way.” He steered me through an arched doorway so wide I couldn’t have touched the sides with both arms outstretched.

We were in another large room, this one empty except for two identical sagging red leather armchairs facing each other across a cavernous Oriental rug thicker than a snow drift.

“Have a seat,” the fat man said, plopping down with a sigh. The chair groaned.

“So, it’s seventy-five for hand and mouth stuff”, I said, leaning back and crossing my legs; relieved we’d come at last to familiar ground. “Two-fifty for a half hour and an even five for overnight. I don’t do shit or piss play. Anything else is up for negotiation. Okay?”

The fat man smiled so hard his eyes almost disappeared down into the fat folds of his cheeks. “Of course. Though I have a very particular set of desires.”

“You have to wear a condom, dude.”

“A condom.” His mouth moved distastefully around the word as he stroked the fleshy wattle under his chin. “I see.”

He rose smoothly then; unfolding himself from the chair and padding softly on the balls of those pale little feet to stand over me. I tensed, thinking he meant to take a swing at me or something, but he just stood there. One warm finger reached out and probed the curve of my cheek and jaw. There was no sex behind it. No passion or lust in his touch. It was clinical—an assessment.

“So pretty. One almost sees the appeal.” He let his hand drop and returned to his seat. “But shame on Mr. Mercier—not letting you in on how our game works."

“A game?”

The fat man rolled his head slowly from side to side. “Oh, don’t look so nervous. This is an opportunity.”

I absently fingered the cash in my pocket. “What did you have in mind?”

“I’d like to know what it is you want most in the world?” He leaned forward conspiratorially.

I shrugged. Said I didn’t know.

“Liar,” said the fat man. “I’m someone who specializes in Need. That’s Need with a capital N, dear. And I pride myself on being able to sniff out Need in others—knowing all the dirty little things you simply can’t do without.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “See, Need sits inside you like so many hard calcified stones—right there. You feel them? I target those little stones of Need and longing—pluck them out of your chest—and I trade you for them.”

“And, uh, you think I have a—a Need?”

“Oh, I can smell it on you,” he draws the word out seductively. “You’re oozing with it. Everyone wants something. And your Need is practically screaming. And I want it. It’s synchronicity, really. You know synchronicity? Here in my house everything joins just so.” He laced his fingers together and held them up for me.

“Look,” I said, glancing at the door, “I don’t get what you’re hinting at, but I came here to get fucked so is that what this is or not?”

“My interests lie elsewhere,” said the fat man. “I’d like to discuss a trade of sorts. How would you like to have everything you’ve ever wanted? Have all that horrid old Need satisfied? I wouldn’t even take very much in return.”

“I think I want to go,” I said.

“This isn’t an offer I make to everyone; you know. I’ve had kings and popes in this room—sitting right there. Presidents have begged me to do for them what I’m offering to do for you. Everyone wants what I can give. Just take a look. First one’s always free, anyway.”

The fat man dug into the folds of his robe and came out cradling something small and golden in his palm that he pitched lazily in my direction. It was a numbered brass tag. Slightly dented with dull rounded edges; it was maybe half the size of a post-it note and stamped slightly off-center with a sharp number 1.

I turned it over between my fingers. It was cold and heavy. “What’s this?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” he said. “So, I’ll ask again—what is it you want most? Fame? Money? Money beyond anything you’d make in a lifetime of sucking off old perverts in dark alleys, I mean. Maybe you want to be powerful? Get your parents love back? It’s all right there in your hand.”

I closed my fist around the tag. Felt it dig into the skin. “I’d just like to go home.”

The fat man’s smile slipped fractionally. “You don’t believe me. Of course not. Why would you? So, let me show you how it works. Just hold that little plate and ask for something. Anything you want. Just say it out loud. And if you still want to go after that, I’ll have Mr. Mercier’s car take you home or wherever you want to go. No strings.”

I looked down at the scratched face of the little brass plate and chewed my bottom lip. “Okay, I’ll play along. I want a million dollars.”

Unmoving in my palm the brass plate snapped cleanly in half with a discordant chime.

Shocked, I let both pieces drop to the rug. “What the hell was that?”

“Magna servitus est magna fortuna,” sighed the fat man. “But it’s done. Wish granted.” Bending at the waist as much as his belly would allow, he pawed around blindly under his chair and slid out a bulging black duffle which he pushed toward me with a smooth motion of his heel.

Had the bag been there when we sat down? I couldn’t remember seeing it.

I pulled back the zipper.

Bundles of hundred-dollar bills stared up at me. Neat stacks—all crisp and new—about an inch thick and tightly bound with mustard yellow and white bands. Gently, I lifted one out and held it in my lap. Then another. And another. And another after that.

“It’s ten thousand to a bundle,” giggled the fat man. “But really, it’s unseemly to count it like that in front of me. I assure you it’s all there.”

I held one of the bundles up and studied Ben Franklin closely. “H—how did—these are real, man.”

The fat man sat picking at his nails. “Oh, I could try to explain it, I guess. Walk you through my animus contrahendi and *animus spoliandi *. But, res ipsa loquitur, eh? Call it science. Call it magic.”

The fat man was holding out another identical brass tag.

“Shall I call for Mr. Mercier? Or do you want to go again?”

<>

“So, you’re a genie or what?”

The fat man was watching me closely, fingers steepled across his belly. “Something like that.”

I held up the other brass tag and studied it in the light. This one was stamped neatly with a small 2. “You mentioned a trade. Taking something in return?”

“Just a little trade. I think it’s only fair. After all, I’m giving you everything you want. And anyway, the things I take—you won’t even miss them. “

Feeling jittery, I stood and paced the length of the rug. “What kind of things.”

“Small things,” said the fat man sounding bored. “Unimportant things. Make another wish. Let me show you.”

My fingers flexed around the brass tab. “Will it hurt?”

The fat man shrugged. “No. But would you care if it did?”

I took a deep breath. “I want a house. A big one. Something in the mountains.”

The fat man smiled. His teeth were small and white and worn down. “Done. And I’ll take—mmm—your first memory of the color blue.”

The brass tab snapped in half.

I watched the pieces fall to the floor as the fat man reached into his robe and removed a thick manilla envelope containing the deed and keys to a house somewhere in Tennessee. I stuffed it into the duffle bag on top of the cash. I silently appraised myself. I didn’t feel any different.

“See,” said the fat man. “Wasn’t that painless?”

I nodded eagerly. “Can I have another?”

He handed me a number 3 tab.

“I—I want jewels. Diamonds. A lot of them.”

“And I want the tears you shed over the loss of your first pet.”

Another duffle bag appeared from under the chair. I hugged its glittering contents to my lap.

I asked for a black Ferrari Monza and gave away my first kiss. I asked for a closet full of Gucci and lost the name of my eighth-grade best friend. I asked for a trip to Italy and said goodbye to a single day of summer vacation when I was twelve. I asked for beautiful works of art and traded the smell of fresh made coffee. I asked for perfect health and handed over my first wet dream.

The tabs flew through my hands.

More.

More.

Always more.

When I finally looked up, the floor was piled high with broken shards of brass in every direction. Mounds of numbered plates that clattered and clanged beneath my feet as I moved. Money and gold and sparkling gems of every size and cut spilled off every surface. Across from me, the fat man sat slumped in his chair; skin flushed and slick with perspiration.

“My God,” he moaned, dabbing at his forehead with one sleeve. “You’re so broken inside. It’s so good.”

“Can I go?” I asked, fidgeting with the heavy new Rolex on my wrist. I felt wrung out. Spent.

“Already?” The fat man pulled a pouty face. “You haven’t even finished me off yet.”

“I don’t know what else to ask for,” I said. “I feel funny.”

The fat man licked his lips. “Oh, that’ll pass in time. Just a side effect of my extractions. Nothing to worry about. ‘Cmmon, dear—I’m so close—ask for something else.”

I sat and thought awhile. Eventually, I said a name I hadn’t spoken in years.

“Who’s that?”

“The first man to pimp me out,” I said softly. “I was just a kid. I didn’t know any better.”

“And what—you want to punish him?” The fat man’s smile filled his whole face.

I looked down at the brass tab in my hand. Number 351. “I want his dick to rot off.”

The fat man shuddered, his eyes slipping back in his head. “Oh, yes.”

“I want him to lose everything he cares about,” I said.

“That’s it,” wheezed the fat man, letting out air in quick little chuffs.

“I want him sit on a bladed dildo.”

“Yes,” wailed the fat man, writhing in his chair. “Almost there. Keep going.”

“I want him to kill himself,” I said.

The brass tab shattered in my hand and the fat man spasmed wildly in some sort of invisible climax. I sat there feeling used and disgusted.

“That was wonderful,” said the fat man after a while. “Thank you.”

“That’s it? We’re done?”

The fat man nodded. “That’s it. I got what I needed. You can go.”

“But what about—”

“Everything will be waiting for you when you get home, I promise.” The fat man was up and moving lithe as a ballet dancer; herding me business-like back the way we’d come. “Can’t thank you enough. Really, you were wonderful. I’d love to stay and chat but pressing appointments—you understand.”

We were standing back besides the small red door.

“What was it?” I asked, at the end of the great golden hallway. “What did you take—you know—for the last thing? You never said.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” The fat man looked thoughtful. “I took a little piece of your darkness. A little piece of your soul.”

The old red door slammed shut on me.

<>

Mr. Mercier found me at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.

I’d taken to spending most of my days there, walking in the shadows of the obelisks and mausoleums; watching the clouds and birds and clumps of tourists parading through.

“Usually, you have to buy a ticket for the tour to get in here,” he called, tromping awkwardly toward where I sat leaned up against the side of a vault.

I shrugged. “I gave a couple million to the Archdiocese and another million to City Hall. They let me come and go as I please.”

Mr. Mercier eased down beside me; his legs sticking straight out in front of him. His shoes were Louis Vuitton today. “You’ve come up in the world since our last meeting.”

“Your boss is generous guy,” I said, running my fingers through the scrub grass.

“Indeed, he can be. How are you feeling?”

I tilted my head back to catch the sun and closed my eyes. “Fine, I guess. I mean, it doesn’t hurt. He said it wouldn’t. But he didn’t—you didn’t—nobody mentioned how you’d feel so—so—”

“Empty?”

“Used and sort of pulled apart inside. Little holes torn in you—little wounds that won’t heal where something’s been ripped out. You keep trying to fill it but—”

“It gets easier,” said Mr. Mercier, gazing at the tombstone opposite. “Trust me.”

“So, what do you want?” I asked.

Mr. Mercier cleared his throat. “I’m here because he sent me. He wants another session.”

I felt my heart fighting its way into my throat. “He’s had me already. There’s nothing left for him to take.”

“For people like him there’s always more to take.”

“Go find another toy boy.”

Mr. Mercier climbed to his feet, dusting the legs of his pants fastidiously. Digging in a hip pocket he produced a handful of familiar numbered brass tabs.

“Just think about it, huh?” He dropped them one at a time into the grass at my feet where they pinged and thunked, kicking up delicate tufts of dirt.

“I don’t want anything else,” I said, kicking at the nearest tab. “I won’t go back.”

“Oh, I think you will,” Mr. Mercier said over his shoulder as he sauntered in the direction of the gate. “For people like you and me there’s never enough to fill those holes inside.”

After he’d gone, I picked up one of the brass tabs and held it against me. Felt it’s cool familiar weight.

Number 375.

I felt the tears start to fall warm and salty and hopeless down my cheeks.

Because I knew Mr. Mercier was right.

It was my job, after all.