20,328 Words

Chapter Ten
And it was a squeeze, but Fleurelaine Weatherby wasn’t about to pass up the chance to have the popular Mayor and her two celebrity escorts front and center to be espied by all comers on this, the biggest night in the Left Bank Supper Club’s brief history. Apologies were made, extra chairs were dragged and scraped, cocktails were fronted, and the It Crowd was shortly ensconced in the scalloped lavender crescent-shaped booth at the front table. Fleurelaine had heard that the young one had pits that could drop a grown man in his tracks, but when he glided into the club in a midnight blue tuxedo, she figured he’d be worth a risk or two.
A sentiment apparently shared by Handsome Man himself, she noticed. Hands lightly entwined in casual intimacy, the boys effortlessly parted the sea of merrymakers between the front door and the front table, alighting first at this clique and then at this one to kiss cheeks, shake hands, and generally amaze. When she heard the clattering CLANG of a dropped tray of dishes, she spared only a glance in the direction she had last seen Bracy and Kansas drifting; predictably enough, it was her new young waiter Flip who had lost his composure. She had heard that accidents tended to trail Bracy, and had accounted for a certain amount of broken glassware. She hired only the tallest and handsomest of applicants, and most of her waiters were twenty-one and boy crazy—a certain amount of slack needed to be cut. She was mildly surprised to see no less a figure than the sequin and feather-clad Mayor of Our Fair City stoop to help Flip collect pieces of dishes, but she accepted this auspicious omen gratefully from the Universe; where mayors and waiters crouched laughing together, good things would come.
Evoking as it did a bygone era of good time glamour, the Left Bank Supper Club was one of the new additions to Our Fair City’s nightlife that Troy longed to see succeed. The food was good, the drinks were strong, and the wait staff was delectable—a Mayor’s gotta eat, and this was Troy’s kind of place. Bracy had never been one to shy away from V.I.P. treatment, and she’d banked on his sourpuss anti-Fatbutt attitude improving once the liquor started to flow and the throngs began to admire; by the time they sat—front and center, she couldn’t help but notice, practically on stage themselves and visible to every eye in the room—Bracy was aglow.
“This place is great!” he enthused. “We should come here more often.”
Troy simply smiled, glad that in a life full of wildly unpredictable variables, the inner workings of her best pal’s heart and mind could always be counted on to function according to their design.
Across the table, Kansas’s head panned the room like a lawn sprinkler; first a long uninterrupted sweep across the club to the front door, then a choppy return of his focus back to Bracy and Troy, stopping to admire and exclaim over every detail that snagged his eye on its homecoming. A laugh at an offhand remark, a sip of his gin, and then he was off in the other direction, a smile on his grill like you could push a pizza through. Bracy was enjoying being the center of attention as he always did, but Kansas would have been as enthralled by the atmosphere of the club from a folding chair in the corner; he couldn’t wait for the music to start.
And soon after dinner was served and wine was poured, it did. The steady stream of well-wishers and hangers-on past their table slowed to a trickle when Fleurelaine lowered the lights, and by the time she appeared on stage in a circle of light in front of a red velvet curtain, the only sounds in the club were of knife clinking against plate and wine splashing into glass. Never one to hog the spotlight, Fleurelaine kept it short and sweet.
“Rio de Janeiro begged them to stay,” she said into the art deco-style capsule microphone. “Their fans in Buenos Aires blocked the roads to the airport. Just the memory of their shows in Cartagena still has people dancing in the streets. But they missed American food, and let’s face it, nobody does food like we do here at the Left Bank Supper Club. So eat up, and please welcome Spanky Fatbutt and the Buffet Boys!” She swept her hand towards the curtains as they glided apart and scampered from the stage to a smattering of polite applause.
The stage was vast and dark, and from the blackness at first came nothing but a couple of loud snaps and a quick counting lesson. “One, two, one two three.”
And then the stage burst into life in a flash of light and a blare of horns, the huge band blasting, balls to the wall, from the first note of Henry Mancini’s Meglio Stasera. Kansas nearly dropped his drink, desperate to take the whole scene in, not knowing where to look first. Horns flashed and wailed, the drummer’s sticks were a blur, and the strings were singing—there was even cowbell, a nod to the song’s 1963 Pink Panther debut.
None of the boys in the band appeared slender, but if the man crooning into the old radio show-looking microphone was in fact the band’s leader, it was easy to see whence his stage name had derived its inspiration; swarthy and heavily browed, with a snow white dinner jacket and a voice as smooth and rich as European chocolate, Spanky Fatbutt had wider hips than Kansas had expected to live to see on a man. Colorful as it was, and as evocative as it had at first seemed, the name “Fatbutt” seemed somehow insufficient, given the size of the actual butt in question. Kansas was astounded.
And entranced. Spanky Fatbutt sang with abandon, clutching the microphone stand with his left hand, waving, pointing, and otherwise gesticulating wildly behind him with his right. He soared through the song in spicy Italian and gravy-heavy English, the band on top of his every cue, every exultant note out of every exuberant instrument a celebration, and Kansas was clapping and giggling like a toddler under a Christmas tree, bouncing up and down in his seat.
To the delight of Troy, who smacked Bracy on the arm and jerked her chin in the direction of his boyfriend across the table. “Kid’s in Heaven!” she shouted above the ruckus. Bracy took stock of Kansas’s enthusiasm, then of the cut of Spanky’s prodigious dinner jacket, and smiled wanly.
For Handsome Man’s alter ego was unimpressed. He guessed that the music was OK—the joint was jumping, that was for sure; he imagined that viewed from outside, the club itself would be bouncing around on its very foundation like something from a 1930’s Disney jazz cartoon—but the band was certainly nothing that would have him jumping out of his seat.
For one thing, as he assumed their name was meant to intimate, every one of the so-called Buffet Boys, from the beer-bellied frat boys flashing their synchronized horns to the comically elephantine piano player spilling off of both sides of his bench, looked like maybe skipping the last couple of buffets would have been a better idea. And for another thing… well hell, they were all fat; there didn’t need to be another thing. He knew handsome when he saw it, seeing its pinnacle as he did in the mirror a thousand times a day, and did not understand what everyone was whooping and hollering about. What was the point of live music if there was no one over whom to drool in the band?
Spanky Fatbutt didn’t care who was drooling over him and who wasn’t, as long as he had the evening-attired audience on its feet, and the band sailed right into another high-octane number, whipping through What A Little Moonlight Can Do, horns ablaze, at a tempo that would have impressed Betty Carter herself. No novice on the supper club circuit, Spanky clued into Kansas’s enthusiasm in pretty short order, and dropped a couple lyrics when, scanning the table, he first beheld Bracy’s mug. A quick glance around the room confirmed his suspicion—half the audience seemed to be looking to the front table for permission to enjoy the show—and it seemed as good a focal point as any. “He’ll get bored,” he sang, gesturing to Bracy, who quickly rearranged his face, winning a smile from Spanky. “You can’t resist him. And all you’ll say,” he warbled, pointing at Kansas, “When you have kissed him is Ooh Ooh Ooh, what a little moonlight can do.” Applause from all, much louder this time, and Spanky led his band into one more roof raiser, delighting Troy and eventually winning over even Bracy by changing the words to the Manhattan Transfer hit and singing, with the heavyset string section as his pitch-perfect doo wop backup singers, all about the Boy From Our Fair City. “Every time he says he loves me, chills run down my spine. Every time he wants to kiss me, oh he makes me feel so fi-i-i-ine.” From onstage, he knew that leaning into the table was enough—the whole audience would naturally assume that he was singing to Bracy—but when he was singing the song out, “Ooh girl, he’s fine. Shore wish that he was mine…” it was at goofy grinning Kansas that he winked.
Bracy grudgingly got into the spirit of the affair, infectious as Kansas’s enthusiasm could be, but Spanky had the rest of the room eating out of his hand long before he launched into his first ballad. Lights low, band on break, stand-up bass on call for atmosphere, he leaned against the piano while its vast virtuoso summoned the intro to Calling You, and then showed the audience just a smattering of the desolate places—“A desert road from Vegas to nowhere”—that an impassioned voice could take them before promising them, “It’s coming closer, sweet release.”
As the last note faded, there was time for the chirp of maybe two crickets, the audience too enthralled to clap, before the lights came back up with the first key plinks of Brown Eyed Handsome Man, which Spanky, knowing a fan when he saw one, sang directly to a delighted Kansas. Blushing and giggling, Kansas tugged on the corners of his eyes and yelled, “They’re blue!,” squealing with delight when Spanky corrected himself with a wink. “Milo Venus was a beautiful lass, she had the world in the palm of her hand,” he sang. “She lost both her arms in a wrestling match to meet a brown eyed handsome man—she fought and won herself a BLUE eyed handsome man.”
For two and a half hours more, the band cooked with grease, swinging, stomping, and occasionally bringing it down for a heart-wrenching slow song. The band was tight, the Buffet Boys were all smiles, and the audience was in a frenzy when Spanky launched into the grand finale. “Well I wanna tell you about a place, put a smile upon your face. We open when the sun goes down, always plenty to go around. All you can eat,” he sang, locking eyes with Kansas, “and you can eat it all night long.” Reinterpreting the Candye Kane classic, he regaled a whistling and catcalling audience with a saucy string of comparisons between his body—part by part—and an all-night all-you-can-eat buffet. The band whipped the song to a crescendo, and the piano player and the drummer with both on their feet for the Big Finish, which met a wall of applause from an ecstatic audience. The entire room leapt to its feet save two people: Kansas was on his back in the booth, kicking the air with more excitement than two mere clapping hands could ever have mustered, and Bracy, though he clapped politely, made no effort to disguise his longing to be elsewhere. A band of fat men as entertainment was enough of a stretch, and now they’re singing about being proud of it? Kansas was embarrassing himself—to say nothing of the way he was embarrassing Bracy.
The Mayor seemed to have gotten swept up in the wave of fat boy frenzy, Bracy observed with annoyance, as Troy was on her feet whistling away with the best of them. She hailed a passing waiter—she and her new buddy Flip were thick as thieves by the end of the evening—and summoned Fleurelaine, who hastened to the Mayor’s table. She said something into Fleruelaine’s ear—she must have been shouting, although from two feet away Bracy heard nothing—and shortly the hubbub subsided and the three friends, along with the rest of the room, resumed their seats.
“What was all that about?” Bracy asked.
“I ordered us a bottle of champagne,” Troy explained.
“Oh, goody,” exclaimed Kansas, flushed and smiling. “What did you guys think?” he asked. “I thought they were amazing!” he crowed without waiting for an answer. “Such energy!”
“They were terrific!” Troy agreed. “Who knew there were still bands like that? I kept expecting Ella Fitzgerald to saunter out for a duet. What fun!”
“What did you think, Brace?” Kansas asked when no opinion seemed to be forthcoming.
Bracy shrugged. “They had a lot of stamina for a bunch of fat guys, I guess.”
Troy laughed. “That they did.”
Directly, handsome young Flip approached the table with a magnum of champagne and a fourth glass, which he set on the corner of the table to Bracy’s right.
“Are you expecting someone else?” Bracy asked Troy, eyebrow arched.
“Well, I thought it only polite to extend an invitation to the bandleader to join the Mayor at her table, seeing as how he’s new in town.”
“And it was his pleasure to accept such a gracious invitation,” boomed the now-familiar baritone of Spanky Fatbutt as he hove into view from the direction of the kitchen.
Kansas commenced jumping around in his seat again like maybe Elvis was about to pull up a chair, and Spanky laughed. “You… you… you’re HIM!” Kansas exclaimed, on the verge of a swoon.
“I am me,” the bandleader teased. “My name’s Spanky,” he said, extending a hand for Kansas to shake. Kansas clutched it with both of his and shook it until Bracy worried it might come off. Kansas’s eyes were riveted to the singer’s, and though his mouth opened and closed, no further sounds emerged.
The Mayor stepped in. “This is Kansas,” she introduced.
“One of your new fans,” Bracy pouted.
“Of whom you have dozens more after tonight, I’m sure,” Troy redirected.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Spanky said to Kansas, who blushed, giggling.
“He’s ordinarily quite articulate, of course,” Troy said, indicating with a sweep of her hand that Spanky should sit.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Bracy snarked, dodging the kick that Troy aimed at him under the table.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Spanky intoned. “Shove over, would ya?” he asked Bracy, attempting to slide into the booth. Adjustments proved necessary, Bracy’s eyes rolling away while Spanky scooted the table far enough away from the booth to allow him to slide his whopping namesake behind it.
“My name is Troy Dirk-Nowitzki,” Troy told her guest, “and I’m the Mayor of this little burg. This is my oldest and dearest friend, Bracy Hollander.” Bracy smiled and allowed a small wave, which Spanky returned. “Kansas here is Bracy’s boyfriend and business partner.”
“Yes, we met,” Spanky teased, setting Kansas to giggling anew.
Troy took it upon herself to pour champagne around the table, serving their new guest first and herself last. She set down the bottle and picker up her glass, encouraging the men at the table to follow suit.
“To new discoveries,” she said. Glasses were clinked around the table and Kansas drained his, giggling all the while.
“So, you’ve just come from South America?” Troy enquired, sensing that it would fall to her to carry on polite, coherent conversation.
“Nine cities in eleven weeks,” Spanky replied. “We had a time.”
“Which city was your favorite?” Troy asked.
“Buenos Aires had the best boys and the best food by far,” Spanky declared.
“Well, what more could you want?” Troy asked with a smile.
“Any plans to go back?” Bracy asked. Aiming for subtlety, he landed quite wide of the mark.
“We can’t wait to go back,” Spanky assured him. “But won’t be going back anytime soon.”
“No?”
“Another Tour?” Troy asked.
“Quite the contrary,” Spanky said. “We’ve been offered a gig as the house band here⎯”
At this bit of news, Kansas found his voice. “Here?!” he interrupted. “In Our Fair City?”
“Here,” Spanky affirmed, tapping the table for emphasis. “At the Supper Club.”
“Delightful!” Troy crowed. She loved this place, and with a band like this packing em around the tables, it would never close.
“Well, we are considering it,” Spanky said. “It seems like a nice little place you’ve got here.”
“We think so,” Troy said. “Don’t we, boys?”
Kansas nodded furiously, eyes gleaming, smile bright.
Bracy was more reserved. “It’s great,” he intoned. “If it’s your kind of town.”
Spanky winked at Kansas before he turned his gaze fully on Bracy. “Meaning?” he prodded.
“Nothing,” Bracy said. “It’s just, we’re a bunch of health nuts here, always on bikes or at the gym.” Kansas bit his lip and bade Bracy do shut up with his eyes, but Bracy sallied forth. “There’s not a lot of call for, let’s say, plus-sized politics.”
“Bracy!” Troy cried.
“Give me a couple of months, Sport.” Spanky said, setting his empty glass on the table with a thud. “I’ll get that turned around. Madame Mayor,” he said, nodding his head towards Troy as he slid from the booth, “Thank you for coming to catch the act. I look forward to getting to know your town.”
He stood, and Kansas grabbed for his hand. “Don’t go,” he implored. “All Bracy meant was⎯”
Spanky smiled and turned to Bracy. “We understand each other,” he said. Bracy looked away, and Spanky laughed. “Don’t fret,” he said to Kansas, patting his hand. “We’ll meet again.”
“I hope so,” Kansas muttered, watching Spanky waddle off to greet another table of admirers.
“Can we go home now?” Bracy asked no one in particular.

17,237 Words

Without emphasizing the ways that Handsome Man and B.O. Boy had been kneecapped by a pair of congested lesbians, Troy was nevertheless happy to include Ryan Seacrest in the splashy press conference that was hastily convened on the front steps of the Museum the following morning. Mercifully, the thieves had been carted off to jail just after midnight, leaving plenty of time for Bracy and Kansas to rest up; even had it been publicized, looking at him in his designer jeans and a pair of thousand-dollar sunglasses standing next to the Mayor, no one would have believed that Bracy’s good looks could have failed to debilitate even the most hardened criminal.
And Troy felt that Ryan Seacrest added a touch of Saturday Morning Super Friends nostalgia to the proceedings. The Wonder Twins had had that monkey, those Teen Angels had had Captain Caveman—or maybe that was the other way around. Still, the notion of a crime-fighting animal mascot appealed to Troy, and she was sure it would appeal to Our Fair Citizens.
The Museum abutted a vast and verdant park, and the plaza around back would ordinarily have made for a more scenic setting, but Troy had been hanging around Bracy for a long time; the Main Entrance to the Museum was on one of Our Fair City’s broadest and busiest boulevards, and she knew that with him prominently displayed on the front steps, all smiles and sunglasses, a crowd would quickly gather.
And thus it was in front of a veritable mob that she delivered her remarks. She had risen ahead of the roosters to tend to her own hair and make-up, devoting enough attention to the details of her wardrobe and her own sunglasses to ensure that at least most of the cameras and TV viewers could tear their gaze from Bracy for at least as long as it took her to take credit for helping to stem the flow of crime in her town, but she knew her heroes would gobble up most of the attention, which was, after all, kind of the point.
“Fellow Citizens,” she intoned, blocking her stylishly windblown hair from her telegenic face with a carefully placed, tastefully bejeweled hand, “Last night, at this very museum, a scandalous crime was nearly perpetrated.” In the event that she had not managed to whip up enough public interest in the Cub Scout Rocks, she felt that use of words like “scandalous” would help keep her audience focused. “Had the literally priceless Jewels of Mary Magdalene been stolen, Our Fair City would have become an international laughing stock. The perceived lack of security and competence would have done untold harm to our reputation, and therefore also to local business and industry. Instead,” she said, taking one emphatic step to her left to allow Bracy to dazzle from center stage, “thanks to these two men and their adorable and devoted dog, two criminal masterminds were thwarted and an important piece of the world’s cultural heritage was preserved. The Jewels of Mary Magdalene belong today to the people of the world rather than to a pair of unscrupulous scallywags, and the people of the world have two Fair Citizens to thank for that.” Here she paused for dramatic effect, allowing the camera flashes to slather herself and the strategically positioned Dynamic Duo behind her with affection before she launched into the Big Finish. “Criminals and scheming thieves, take note,” she warned, wagging a manicured finger. “Our Fair City should no longer be considered a soft target. Our Citizens are resolved to enjoy all that life in Our Fair City has to offer in security, and any criminals that dare to darken our streets will be ushered into our jail by the worst thing to happen to lawbreakers since Hammurabi chiseled his Code. People of Our Fair City,” she invited, placing a hand on one of Kansas’s narrow shoulders, “please help me show my appreciation to B.O. Boy…” Hold for applause, followed by, “and his crime-fighting partner and mentor, to whom even Mary Magdalene owes a debt of gratitude, Our Hero, Handsome Man.”
Bracy stepped modestly forward with a wave of thanks, and held his hand out to Kansas, who joined him center stage. Troy signaled with two discrete fingers that Bracy should ratchet up his smile, and when he did, the crowd went wild. Flash bulbs popped like strobe lights and a smitten busker blared his trumpet with impromptu fanfare, although it could barely be heard above the din of applause. Troy was only too happy to leap back into the spotlight and pose playfully between her two friends, forging an indelible link in the memories of every voter, campaign donor, and potential investor who saw the local news or the front page of the morning paper between her and the Saviors of the City.
Basking in the glow of the new era of citywide prosperity and growth that she had promised, Troy was only too pleased to run for her second term as mayor without the distracting nuisance of an opponent. Locally owned shops peddling locally produced wares opened in neighborhoods both swank and spare across the City; sidewalk cafes and happy hour patios overflowed with patrons and laughter; businesses boomed, the City’s coffers bubbled over, and roads, parks, and city services were polished to a gleam. Handsome Man and B.O. Boy were embraced by the rich and the poor and the young and the old as celebrities, and moved through the streets of town like floats in an endless parade, congratulated and cheered everywhere they went. Worshipped by all walks of life for his arresting looks, the line of skin care products that Bracy discovered in a small local boutique, embraced and eventually came to publically endorse naturally sold like hotcakes. Admired in the media and in local lore for his courage in triumphing over what was rumored to be remarkable olfactory adversity, every scented candle, powder, or oil that Kansas even considered putting in the condo immediately became the must-have item of the moment.
With unsubtle urging from Troy, the local media and Bracy himself harped sans cesse on the crucial roles of Handsome Man and B.O. Boy’s physical attributes in the City’s remarkable turnaround. It was therefore a perfectly natural progression for Handsome Man to open first one, then a series of spas and wellness centers, and from them to launch a panoply of products and programs promising to improve the appearance, odor, and physical fitness of all and sundry who crossed their thresholds—wallets open, naturally. Skin cleared, bellies retreated back behind beltlines, and the money rolled in. The benevolence of her rule assured Troy adoring constituents and a compliant City Council, and as her faithful friend and merry mascot, Handsome Man was quickly ensconced at the Top of the World. Bracy had never looked better, had never felt better, and had the world in the palm of his hand. Life in Our Fair City was good, and Bracy’s life got better every day.
Until the day Spanky Fatbutt came to town.


Part Two

Chapter Nine


Years passed, as they will, and, speaking generally, Life in Our Fair City outstripped even the most optimistic expectations. Grass in the parks glittered like acres of green carpet samples, birds in the trees chirped in harmony, and the lion at the zoo lay down with the lamb. Well, next to the lamb, ever since Troy had orchestrated having their habitats moved one next to the other to mirror the bucolic splendor that her administration—with help from Bracy and Kansas—had wrought upon the town.
It’s not like nothing bad ever happened. There was still the occasional car accident or long illness, and the weather went to shit in January no matter how desperately Troy wished it wouldn’t. But, after shelling out substantial amounts of money, time, and energy to follow Bracy and Kansas’s photogenic example, huge swaths of the populace glowed with health, smelled like warm spices or sunkissed flowers, and strolled the avenues hand in hand with smiling loved ones.
There is of course no such thing as a zero per cent crime rate, and Bracy and Kansas were occasionally called upon to intervene at a mugging or a robbery (Handsome Man’s spas didn’t come for free, after all), but there wasn’t a crook in town whose eyes could withstand Bracy’s grin and Kansas’s aura; all but the slipperiest criminals were easily apprehended, and there was more than one baddy bragging around the jailhouse lunch table that he had masterminded this or that crime just so he could see Handsome Man from up close.
In the weeks and months before the Grand Opening of Handsome Man’s latest and greatest Midtown Getaway Spa, in fact, the criminal element had been laying exceptionally low, and Troy, as a not-so-silent partner in the venture, thought it would benefit all concerned if Handsome Man was fresh in everyone’s mind. So she recruited an old flame from two towns over to knock over a series of much-beloved malt shops before succumbing to Bracy’s charms on the five o’clock news two days before Opening Weekend, over the course of which they naturally raked in a fortune. No media outlet was on hand when the miscreant in question was quietly chauffeured out of town on the night of the Spa’s Opening Gala, and Troy was firm in her belief that what people didn’t know about what went on behind the scenes of running the Happiest City in the Country (three years in a row, thank you Life & Style Magazine) wouldn’t hurt them.
Fighting crime had never been a particularly time-consuming pastime of Bracy’s, and he did very little of the day-to-day running of his spas, gyms, boutiques, and wellness centers, so he was left to divide his time as he saw fit between romancing Kansas and luxuriating in spa treatments. He naturally combined these two activities as frequently as possible, which suited Kansas fine, and the two spent much time lolling on the lanai at a Handsome Man Spa wrapped in robes, nibbling sushi rolls and sipping champagne.
Excepting two particularly stubborn scars on his forehead, for the first time in his life Kansas’s skin was the approximate color and tone of cream in a pitcher and, while his hair persisted in presenting a windblown bedhead style, it felt like silk between his fingers and shimmered in the sun like caramel enrobing a Halloween apple. Steadily advancing through his thirties, he cut a less waif-like figure than he had in B.O. Boy’s early days, but his lopsided smile and world-weary eyes continued to enchant, and his underarms were more dangerous than ever. A stack of specially treated robes awaited his arrival at every Handsome Man facility, the custom “BOB” monogram on each a signal to the laundry staff that, when used, it should be incinerated as speedily as practical.
Under the almost constant care of a massage therapist, two estheticians, two nail techs, a nutritionist, a hair stylist, an aromatherapist, a personal trainer and an Official Photographer, Bracy had elevated Handsome to a level rarely seen outside of photoshop, and Kansas still marveled at the almost mythological way Bracy’s body rebuffed the notion of imperfection. They were naked together (or, in Kansas's case, real close to it) most of the time they spent at home as well as being pampered by every willing hand in town, and occasionally just to pass the time, Kansas would scrutinize Bracy’s body for even the soupçon of something that could be considered a flaw. By somebody somewhere, for heaven’s sake. But the harder he looked, the more elusive any such flaw became. His ass was plump, but mouthwateringly so; his nose turned up at the end, but in an irresistibly cute way; his eyes were of an indistinct color, but this only served to make them harder to climb out of. His chest was expansive, his waist was sturdy and snug; his hair shone as though he wore extensions made of sunshine and his tight, tanned, unblemished skin glowed from within as if he’d eaten a nightlight. Consequently Kansas could still spend hours doing little more than beholding Bracy, in which pastime he was fervently engaged this particular afternoon as the two lovebirds sprawled on an oversized divan on the rooftop lanai high atop Handsome Man’s high rise Midtown Getaway Spa, snacking on seafood cakes and prosciutto-laced macaroni and cheese and gossiping the afternoon away with the Mayor.
“Wait, so what are they called?” Bracy asked, leaning forward to refill Troy’s champagne flute, then Kansas’s, then his own.
Troy referred to the neighborhood newspaper open on her lap. “Spanky Fatbutt and the Buffet Boys,” she re-read. “Under ‘style,’ it says ‘Big Band, Swing, and Here We Go!’”
“Ooh, that sounds fun,” Kansas declared.
Troy had brought the latest copy of CitySheet to peruse the review of the Spa’s opening weekend—which: raves—and had since fallen back into the depths of her papasan chair, flicking through the paper page by page and reading aloud whatever snippets snagged her eye.
Troy shrugged and read from the article. “’The Left Bank Supper Club opened a few weeks ago to rave reviews from this and other reporters, but has since proved to be somewhat sleepy on weekends. Big-boned bandleader Spanky Fatbutt and his brash Buffet Boys are fresh off a whirlwind South America tour that, by all accounts, had them dancing in the streets, and The Left Bank Supper Club’s maitre d’, Fleurelaine Weatherby, assures us that their swinging sound is just the groove to get you to move.’” She tapped the paper with a newly polished fingernail and said, “Friday’s show is sold out, tickets still available for Saturday.”
“Ooh, we should go on Saturday,” Kansas proposed, draining his glass.
Bracy wrinkled his nose. “What’s with that name? Who wants to go see somebody named ‘Fatbutt’ do anything?”
“I dunno,” Kansas said, “They sound kinda fun to me.”
Bracy arched a meticulously plucked brow. “Yeah well, you want to watch out,” he snarked. “If your butt gets any fatter, nobody’s gonna want to spank it.”
Kansas smirked and stuck out his tongue. He hadn’t gotten fat by anybody’s definition, but there were challenges when one’s boyfriend had built a career as a super hero around his looks. Like Bracy’s, Kansas’s power was undiminished with the passing of time, but he didn’t have to look like a million dollars to smell like a million burning tires; he had rather hoped that the fact that Bracy still wouldn’t be in the same room with him after all these years if he wasn’t wearing at least a t-shirt would conceal the few extra pounds that he knew he had added lately. Annoyed that his butt had betrayed him, he popped another seafood cake in his mouth in an effort to show Bracy that he was unconcerned and held out his glass for more champagne.
Troy leaned forward and filled it. “Don’t be churlish,” she scolded Bracy. “Kansas is a lovely boy and he’s filled out nicely.” She’d noticed, too, but when a “boy” is closer to forty than he is to twenty-one, these things happen, and if Bracy ever left town on vacation without him, Kansas wouldn’t even have competition for the title of Hottest Guy Left. “And he’s right,” she went on to declare, “We should go and see the show. It’s not like you, Bracy, to want to sit out of the Hottest Ticket in Town.”
“What do I care?” Bracy waved her off. “If you two want to go, of course we’ll all go.”
“Saturday night, then?” Kansas enthused.
“Oh no,” Troy scolded him. “We’ll go on Friday.”
“But it said they were sold out.”
Troy smiled and, raising her glass, slid her twinkling eyes from Kansas to Bracy and back again. “They’ll squeeze us in,” she predicted.

14,590 Words

Indeed, Ryan Seacrest loved the museum, although the game of dinosaur bone fetch that Kansas had envisioned never came to fruition. Mostly Bracy brought the mutt along because she was unused to spending nights alone and his condo was starting to reflect her displeasure at being left to her own devices. With Kansas spending more and more time at Bracy’s, he secretly figured the place could use a night (or two) to air out, and he’d flung wide the French doors to the balconies before the happy clan had piled into his faithful Jeep to head for Super Hero Stakeout Number Five.
Never famous for her patience, Troy had spent the better part of the last two days parading groups of schoolchildren and spry nursing home residents to and fro in front of television cameras as part of her campaign to encourage all citizens—law-abider and jewel thief alike—to visit Our Fair City’s Museum. “I’m tempted to prop the damn doors open with a cinder block after closing time,” she’d confessed to Bracy and Kansas that morning over coffee and leftover pizza.
“I don’t know,” Kansas joked. “On the news last night it looked a couple of those old ladies you brought in had a gleam in their eye. If any of the jewels do go missing and we’re not there, I’d search the nursing home first.”
“Kid’s got looks and jokes,” Bracy cracked, jerking his thumb at Kansas.
“I hate that combination,” Troy muttered.
The cinder block in the door would have been a wasted effort, as it happened, because when the Museum was invaded that night, it was by a pair of black denim-clad scofflaws in balaclavas who threw first a rock, then a rope, through one of the Museum’s signature skylights.
Handsome Man and B.O. Boy were in the thrall of the game of Uno on the table between them in the Museum’s broom closet when they heard the tintinnabulation of a violated pane of glass followed shortly by the echoing thud of rock on marble in a vast atrium. Ryan Seacrest chuffed in her sleep, but Bracy stayed her with a gentle scratch between the ears and, never one to doubt her master, she graciously accepted his permission to stay put in doggy dreamland.
“What was that?” Kansas asked, pushing back his chair.
“Our cue,” Bracy surmised, rising from the card table. Kansas opened the zipper on his hoodie about half way and followed Bracy out into the Museum. Bracy checked his reflection in the glass cases of several Museum dioramas as they scurried past to ensure that his irresistibility was at Maximum Volume, and when Kansas had to double back and tug him away from his own reflection, he knew he had these bad guys in the bag.
Per Troy’s instructions, however, the loverboys laid low behind the duck-billed platypus habitat, watching and waiting until the crooks had at least breached the protective glass case around the jewels. It was indeed illegal to break into a Museum via skylight and rope ladder, but Troy had been very clear in her desire to see any eventual thieves apprehended with the reddest possible hands.
The crooks that eventually tiptoed across the Museum into view could have come straight from the set of the latest Scooby Doo movie. While Bracy and Kansas cut a fitting Super Profile—Handsome Man broad-shouldered, tall, and white of teeth and golden of hair, B.O. Boy presenting a similarly clean-cut if narrower-hipped version of the same character, just a few bowls of Wheaties shy of the very same ideal—their new nemeses, like any Diabolical Duo worth a super hero’s time, proved to be a study of physical opposites. One tall, one short; one heavy-hipped, one slight; one leading, the other dutifully following, they crept up to the lavish display of polished rocks and took pause.
“Are you sure these are what we’re after?” asked Short ‘n’ Slight.
“It says right there, ‘The Jewels of Mary Magdalene.’” replied Tall ‘n’ Tanklike, pointing to the exhibit’s enthusiastic signage.
“Some jewels,” Shorty observed. “No wonder she donated ‘em to the Museum.”
“She didn’t donate them,” Tank said, exasperated. “They’re millions of years old.”
“Like fossils?”
“I guess so.” That the historical provenance of the stones in question fell somewhere in between each crook’s understanding of their target seemed unimportant to either of them, and Bracy wondered what in the world two people were doing breaking into a Museum to steal something they knew so little about.
“You know how Mrs. Morganstern is,” Tank said. “She collects all kinds of these dusty doo-dads. All I know is she said they’re worth a ton and there’d be big money it in for us.” The large criminal unsheathed a hammer from somewhere and handed it to the smaller sidekick, saying, “So let’s get to smashing.”
All the prompting the little one required, apparently, as soon there was another tinkling smash and another shower of glass. Kansas looked at Bracy, who, winking broadly, stepped out from behind the platypuses. “Now look what you’ve done,” he called. “There’s glass everywhere.”
The crooks jumped at the sound of Bracy’s booming Handsome Man Voice volleying around the atrium and swung around to face him.
“Who are you?” Tank demanded, yanking the hammer away from Shorty, the better to wield it in a threatening manner.
Traditionally rather beside the point at this stage in the proceedings, Bracy couldn’t help but notice, but he did not fluster. With the supreme confidence of the supremely handsome, he held his ground, arranging his pleasing body for maximum effect. He planted his feet wide, knowing that this particular pair of cargo shorts showcased the power in his thighs as well as the sinewy grace of his perfectly plumped calves. He planted his broad, manly hands on his narrow, muscle-swathed hips to highlight both the veins criss crossing his forearms and the mighty bulge in his biceps, and he puffed up his broad, brick chicken house chest, knowing that the overhang of his impressive pecs had caused more than one lookie-loo-related traffic accident in their day. He tossed his head back so that the coppery threads of glittery orange in his sunshiny hair could not fail to sparkle, and he flashed a smile that he hoped the ne’erdowells would not look at directly, lest his conscience be burdened with their blindness. “I,” he boomed, “am Handsome Man.” Keeping his broad stance, he thoughtfully took a step back, knowing that the fainting of both thieves must surely be imminent and not wanting to impede anyone’s flop onto the floor.
“Meh. You’re alright, I guess,” said Tank, failing utterly even to flinch in the face of Handsome Man’s beauty. Bracy was confused, but he persevered.
Shorty shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.” Bracy tossed a smug smirk at Tank, before Shorty continued, “I’ve seen better.”
At which Bracy’s jaw dropped. “You have not seen better,” he insisted, tossing his bangs again for emphasis.
“You’re not really my type,” Shorty said, turning back to flick some of the larger shards of glass from among the jewels.
“Um, excuse me,” Bracy said, now advancing on the shorter, slighter partner in crime. “But I’m everybody’s type. What could you possibly be looking for that I don’t have?”
“Well,” Tank weighed in, “you got a dick?”
Bracy scowled. “It’s not just ‘a’ dick. It’s long, it’s thick, and it does exactly what I tell it to do.” He reached for the fly of his shorts. “You wanna see it?”
“God no,” Tank said, holding up both gloved hands. “That’s my point, dumbass—we’re not into dudes.”
Bracy was flummoxed. The two criminals looked at each other and, though they were wearing snug-fitting ski masks, there was no disguising the roll in their eyes. “Full of yourself much?” the short one asked. “We’re lesbians.”
"What, both of you?”
They laughed. “It is more fun that way,” Tank affirmed.
Bracy stood for a second, one hand still on his zipper, which had never before failed to entice. What now? If his zipper, of all zippers, wasn’t going to distract these thieves, then what would?
From his niche behind the platypus, Kansas could see on Bracy’s face that the mind of the hunky hero was slowed by a combination of surprise and conceit, so he unfolded his knees and, after taking a second to shake the pins and needles out of his lean legs, advanced on the deadlocked trio.
His appearance blew the cobwebs from Bracy’s brain, and he rallied. “You’re for it now,” he crowed in triumph. “B.O. Boy is here.”
“B.O. Boy?” Tank parroted.
“Dude, do you even know what a lesbian is?”
Bracy smiled his best smug I’ve-got-you-now smirk and said, “Go ahead, B.O. Boy. Let ‘em have it.”
Striking a heroic stance similar to the one Bracy had assumed on his entrance, Kansas yanked the zipper of his hoodie wide open and flung the sweatshirt to the floor, raising his hands high above his head to form an exultant ‘X.’
Bracy was flung to the floor as if from a bomb blast, scrambling to pinch his nose closed, crying and cussing at the unbelievable onion tang that emanated from under Kansas’s rope-muscled arms. He choked and gagged rather more theatrically than Kansas considered strictly necessary, but the diabolical dykes seemed unimpressed, barely looking up from the task they had set about of scooping The Jewels of Mary Magdalene into a canvas sack.
“He’s alright,” Shorty said. “He’s got pretty nice abs. May I?” she asked, holding one hand out to hover over Kansas’s exposed and extended midriff.
“Um, I guess so,” he said, twisting to get his peach fuzzed pits closer to her face. He knew he hadn’t undergone any mystery cure; Bracy was crawling away from him, frantic to get out from under the toxic cloud, and he could hear Ryan Seacrest off in the broom closet snuffling and sneezing in the face of the stench, but Shorty just ran a hand up and down his stomach.
“He’s a little skinny for my taste,” Tank weighed in, “but I guess I see the appeal. You can put your arms down, son. It’s like we were telling your boyfriend over there⎯”
“Is he quite alright, by the way?” Shorty asked.
“What’s he got asthma or something?” Tank chimed in.
“You mean you can’t smell me?” Kansas asked, slowly lowering his arms.
“I mean, a splash of cologne probably wouldn’t hurt,” Shorty said, “but I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Seriously?!” Bracy cried, still staggering under the stench, unable to rise any higher than a genuflection in front of the platypus habitat. “’A splash of cologne?’ He killed that plant over there!” He pointed to a drooping palm across the atrium that, it pained Kansas to realize, had looked rather healthier at the outset of the episode. He stooped to pick up his sweatshirt, his lean torso chilly in the atrium, unsure of how to proceed.
The jewel thieves laughed. “What, he stinks? That’s his power?”
“He doesn’t just ‘stink,’” Bracy started to explain, but Tank cut him off.
“Hate to break it to you chowderheads, but we’ve both got the worst flu we’ve ever head. Can’t smell nothin’, can’t taste nothin’. Been like that for almost a week.”
“I’m sick of it,” Shorty griped. “I wish I could smell you,” she told Kansas. “At least maybe then I’d be able to breathe.”
Bracy and Kansas traded a glance. “Now what?” Kansas asked, shrugging back into his sweatshirt. He heard Ryan Seacrest’s collar jangling off towards the closet, but knew that with the sweatshirt on, his stink would dissipate soon enough and give the puppy some relief. Still venturing only shallow breaths, Bracy shrugged.
“Well,” Tank chimed in, “you two see what you can cook up. Meanwhile, we’re going to get on with the heist here so we can clear out.” The two set about clearing the display case and then made for the rope ladder dangling from the ceiling to make good their escape.
“I mean, like, should we stop them or something?” Kansas ventured.
“I guess we could have at least pulled the ladder down,” it occurred to Bracy.
“Oh yeah, they coulda done that,” Shorty said to Tank.
“Aren’t you glad we got the pretty ones and not the smart ones?” Tank cracked, readying herself for the climb to the roof.
When Ryan Seacrest jogged into view, Bracy patted his chest. “Come ‘ere, girl,” he beckoned. He hoped that having both his beloved boyfriend and faithful canine companion by his side would at least temper the humiliation he expected to feel watching two crooks get away with insulting his intelligence and a sack full of jewels, and he slumped to the floor feeling something very like defeat.
Ryan Seacrest gamboled up to him when prompted and happily set about licking his face, sparing a small woof of thanks for Kansas for putting his armpits again under wraps. The noise snagged the attention of Shorty, who wobbled her task of steadying the ladder for Tank’s climb, and when Tank looked down to scold her, she halted her ascent.
“Is that your dog?” she called out to Bracy.
“Yup,” he said, ruffling the fur on the puppy’s neck while she licked away.
“Are you seeing that dog?” Tank asked Shorty.
Quite unnecessarily, as Shorty was already halfway across the atrium, her hands out in dog-friendly greeting, “ooohing” and “awwwing.”
In her scramble back down, Tank twisted the ropes of the ladder, and fell to the floor of the atrium with a smack.
“Yikes,” Kansas said, sucking his teeth. “Are you alright?”
Tank jumped to her feet and limped across the floor towards the heap of Bracy and his dog. “I’m OK,” she said. “What a cutie-pie that little puppy is.”
“What kind of dog is she?” Shorty asked Bracy, stooping to pet Ryan Seacrest.
Bracy shrugged. “Some kinda mutt. I got her at the pound when she was just a puppy.”
“Aww.”
“You probably saved her life,” Tank said with some admiration.
“Well, look at her,” Bracy said. “If I hadn’t adopted her, someone else surely would have. She’s a great dog.”
“Yes she is,” Shorty said, kissing Ryan Seacrest on the snoot and scratching her sides. “Yes she is a good dog. Are you a good dog?”
“Shove over,” Tank said, squatting gingerly to get closer to Ryan Seacrest. “Let me pet her.”
“You can pet her in a second,” Shorty fussed. Still she scooted to make room for her partner to cuddle the puppy too. Ryan Seacrest wriggled and wiggled and licked every face she could reach, basking in the attention.
From his perch outside the pile, Kansas sought Bracy’s eye and, when he snagged the big blond bumpkin’s attention, he held up his cell phone. Bracy winked his understanding and started down a list of distracting dog-lover questions, tickling Ryan Seacrest under her scruffy chin to keep her at her wriggliest. “Do you have a dog? What’s his name? What’s he like?” Both Shorty and Tank leapt at the opportunity to share puppy stories, and when the police that Kansas slunk away to call arrived with a canine unit in tow, both thieves surrendered their sacks of loot without hesitation, begging to ride downtown to jail in the backseat with the department’s sad-eyed Alsatian.

12,025 Words

He leveled his gaze at Bracy. “What did she just call me?”
“I heard all about what just went down with that pizza delivery driver!” Troy exclaimed by way of explanation. “Randy Marquez said those guys were leveled by the time he got there—the driver didn’t come to for fifteen minutes. He said whoever you were, you must be pretty ripe.” She wrinkled her nose, sniffing around her office, following her nose right up into Kansas’s face. “You smell fine to me.”
Kansas stiffened his arms to position Troy at something of a safer distance.
“What if we try this from a different angle,” Bracy suggested, gently guiding Troy back to her desk. He took Kansas’s hand; Troy could be a tough first meet, Bracy knew, especially if she was gnawing on a bone like this one. “Troy, this is Kansas. Kansas, meet Troy.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Kansas murmured.
Troy waved off this pleasantry. “Why is he acting like he doesn’t know what’s going on?” she asked Bracy.
“What is going on?” Bracy asked her back.
“Well, I thought you said you’d found Handsome Man a sidekick.”
“Well, we talked about it, yeah. He’s open to the idea. We hadn’t necessarily landed on a name. We were hoping maybe not to emphasize the b.o. angle quite so heavily.”
“Nonsense,” Troy declared. “Randy Marquez said those muggers got what for. He said they were still crying when he got ‘em down here to book ‘em. B.O. is the angle.” Kansas blushed, and Troy dialed down her Bossy Best Friend voice by about one degree—the most Bracy had known her to dial it down in her career. “Don’t worry, sweetie,” she told Kansas. “You’re going to be famous! You’ve even got a catch phrase.”
“I do?”
“Natch. ‘Crime is the pits!’ Ha! Do you love it?”
“I don’t have to actually say that, do I?”
Troy dismissed those concerns with a wave, too. “Say it, don’t say it, I don’t care. As long as we can attribute it to you in the press, do what you want with it.”
“Well…” Kansas said, “I do kind of like the idea of using my smell as a ‘power.’ It’s always been a problem; I’ve always been so ashamed of it. I kind of like the spin, like maybe I can be proud of it instead.”
Troy stuck her tongue out at Bracy, who rolled his eyes. “You’ve already put two crooks behind bars, and you haven’t even really started yet,” Troy told Kansas. “Darn right you can be proud.”
“Do I get like an outfit?” Kansas asked.
Now it was Troy’s turn to roll her eyes. “Bracy’s anti-outfit. There were a couple… let’s say ‘false starts’ around outfits.”
“The hoodie’s perfect,” Bracy said. “It’s quick release, and you look super cute in it.”
Kansas grinned.
“Well, he’s got you there,” Troy agreed. “So you’ll do it?”
Kansas looked at Bracy, who nodded encouragement. The sun through Troy’s window refracted off of Bracy’s hair in such a way that he seemed to literally glow approval, and Kansas saw no reason to disappoint such a radiant face.
“Truthfully,” he said, “I think the name B.O. Boy is the pits. But how many more chances will I get to be a super hero? Call me whatever you want; I’m in.”
Troy stood and held out her hand to shake, but Bracy swooped in and planted a big welcome kiss on him, and a brief tangle ensued. Troy extracted herself as gracefully as possible and sat back down, steepling her hands on the desk in front of her, the better to get down to business.
“Excellent,” she said. “So B.O. Boy it is. How old are you, sweetie?”
“Twenty-six.”
She shook her head. “Bracy’s barely thirty, twenty-six won’t do. We’re calling you B.O. Boy, after all.” She appraised Kansas like a cut of meat, dragging her eyes up and down the length of him two, then three times. Then a fourth time, with a wink of approval at Bracy. “This kid might be a keeper,” she said to him as an aside, then addressed Kansas anew. “With those hips and enough makeup,” she mused, “you could pass for seventeen. But that might make Handsome Man come off a little pervy.”
“A little?” Bracy and Kansas chorused.
“What if we say nineteen?” Troy suggested.
“That’s still a little young,” Bracy feared.
“But at least it’s not illegal,” Troy said. “We wanna work the young protégé angle.”
“Can I at least be twenty-one so I can go out and have a beer?” Kansas wondered. “I got a hunch I’m gonna want at least one by the time we’re done here.”
Troy laughed. “You and me both, baby. Fine, twenty-one. But just.”
She sifted through the papers on her desk and pulled a memo to the top of the pile. “Well, so, now that you two are officially a Super Duo,” she said, “let’s get down to business. Next week I’m hosting a gala at the museum, to which you are both of course invited, to kick off—not to mention highly publicize—the opening of a big exhibit. The Jewels of Mary Magdalene has been in some huge museums—Chicago, New York, San Francisco—and it took some doing to get it to swing through our little burgh.”
“Mary Magdalene?” Kansas asked. “As in, Jesus’s friend? They had jewels in those days?”
“Well, from what I can tell, they mostly look like polished rocks. And of course it’s been a million years, so they don’t look all that polished. Basically it’s a bunch of rocks in a glass case that look like something the Cub Scouts dragged home from a trip to the river.”
“I see.” Kansas said.
“And what does this have to do with us?” Bracy wondered. “Sounds like you’re gonna need more than super powers to get people to come and see an exhibit like this.”
Kansas laughed.
“Ha ha,” Troy said. “Frankly, I don’t care if anyone comes to see it.”
“Then what’s with the gala?” asked Kansas.
“She loves having galas,” Bracy explained.
“Right, and you hate coming to them. We all know how you hate the attention you get in a tux.”
Kansas sat up quite straight in his chair. “Ooh, I bet you look dynamite in a tux.”
“He looks alright,” Troy said, rolling her eyes. “He’s right, though: I want to have a gala because it’s an excuse to have the City pay for the champagne. But I also want everyone with a TV, a radio, or a newspaper stand up the street to know this exhibit’s in town because someone has tried to steal Mary Magdalene’s jewels from every museum they have been exhibited in in the last thirty years.”
“And you’re looking for a security headache?” Kansas asked.
“No.”
“You’re wanting us to steal a pile of rocks that the Cub Scouts could get you?”
“No.”
“You want⎯”
“I want to finish telling you my plan,” Troy declared. “Pipe down. You’re cute, but you’re new here. I’ll do the interrupting.” She smiled to show that she was teasing, but she kept talking. “What I want is for someone else to try to steal the Cub Scout rocks, and for Handsome Man and B.O. Boy to help the police apprehend them. Look,” she continued, leaning across her desk and assuming a confidential tone, “no offense or anything, Bracy’s been working hard at the whole Handsome Man thing—the last three days notwithstanding, although now that I meet you, I get it and I’m gonna let him off the hook.” Kansas smiled and Bracy seized another opportunity to lean in and kiss his craggy mug, and Troy sailed on. “But saving gas station clerks and delivery guys isn’t News. It’s great, and gas station clerks and delivery guys especially love it, but if we’re gonna try and sell Handsome Man as some kind of Savior of Our Fair City, he’s gotta save something a little more…”
“Important?” Bracy posed.
“Let’s say ‘glamorous.’” Troy corrected him.
“I get it.” Kansas said.
“You do?”
“Kinda.”
“Good,” said the Mayor, rising from behind her desk. “Now, if you boys will excuse me, I’ve got a four thirty with the delivery drivers’ union. And thank you for giving me some good news to take to them. Now Bracy,” she said, hugging her pal, “this kid’s a cutie, but please try to keep your hands to yourselves for at least the time it takes to rustle him up a tuxedo. The gala is Tuesday at eight.”
“We’ll be there,” he assured her.
“Good,” she said again. “Kansas, it was a pleasure. You’re gonna be perfect.” She held up a manicured hand for a high-five, which Kansas raised his arm to meet.
“Whoa,” Troy said, taking a step back. “Now I’m getting it. Bye, Boys. See you Tuesday. Amanda!” she called to her assistant, who dropped her People magazine in a drawer.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Bring me some air freshener.”
Kansas’s jaw clenched, but Bracy took his hand and guided him firmly towards the elevators.
“Better make it extra strength,” Bracy heard Troy say as the elevator doors whooshed closed.

Chapter Eight
The Mary Magdalene’s Jewels Gala was a success from every almost every angle. Bracy had a ball, as he always did when the food and the champagne were free and he didn’t have to go thirty seconds without hearing someone say, either to him or sotto voce to a companion, how amazing he looked in his tuxedo. Kansas was in seventh heaven on the occasion that marked his public debut as the Luckiest Man in Our Fair City, Bracy Hollander’s boyfriend. He received an intoxicating combination of hearty congratulations and thinly veiled death threats as Bracy squired him from clique to clique around the Museum and, adding authenticity to Troy’s falsified claims about his age, he drank way too much champagne, like maybe it was his first time; when it came time to Do the Hustle, he was roundly applauded as the Life of the Party. And the Mayor, who did not herself exactly come off as a slouch in formal wear, dazzled both Honored Guests and, more importantly, the media. With her photogenic hairdo and a flawlessly on-topic sound bite—“Let he who is without sin be the only one who stays home and misses these stones!”—she was assured a video clip on every news cast on every channel for at least the next three days, and, flanked by the two grinningest men in town, she was splashed across the front page of the newspaper in a photo almost large enough to be advertised as a Souvenir Poster. That two thirds of the people that bought the paper would be doing so for the opportunity to clip and save a snap of Bracy’s face mattered to her not a whit; word had gone out to relic thieves across a five-county area that the Cub Scout rocks had come to town and were up for grabs.
The only problem, Handsome Man mused to B.O. Boy on their fourth night in a row camped out in a Museum broom closet, seemed to be that relic thieves were apparently not huge fans of Local News. Night after night they had slipped into the Museum minutes before closing through a long-forgotten delivery entrance, and night after night, if you didn’t count late-night reruns of The Golden Girls or forbidden sex in the mouth of the Museum’s humpback whale skeleton, nothing happened.
“Is being a super hero always this boring?” Kansas whined late one night, walking the plank in the Pirates! diorama.
“Well, this is my first super hero stakeout,” Bracy reminded him from astride a dodo bird sculpture. “But I mean, I can’t fly or anything. I don’t have X-ray vision or a magic lasso, remember.”
“So it is boring,” Kansas teased.
Bracy shrugged. “For the most part there hasn’t been a whole lot to it.”
“Tomorrow night we should at least bring Ryan Seacrest with us,” Kansas opined. “All these bones? This joint’s Doggie Heaven.”

10,007 Words

The sun was making preparations for its daily departure, infusing the air with a light in which Kansas practically shimmered. Bracy’s tastes ran neither towards the rapier slender nor the impressionably youthful, but the pull he felt towards wheat-colored Kansas was almost magnetic. Bold facial features—the unusually sharp jut of his chin, the electrifying blue of his eyes, the ripe juiciness of his raspberry lips—vied for attention, so that Bracy’s gaze refused to settle, wanting to drink in more of this—no, of that! He was acne-scarred and over-toothed in a way that would have been repellent on a grouch or a sulker, but the light in his eyes beckoned so invitingly that Bracy couldn’t help but wade into them. Bracy was not particularly inquisitive by nature—his great good looks had brought him nothing but luck and adoring fans, and the motives of his admirers and the provenance of their good deeds seldom required investigation—but Kansas’s was a hard-worn face, and he was swamped by curiosity; surely each cranny and crag on such a mug had a story, and Bracy knew he wanted to discover the surprise in each one.
For hours they walked. Through the gauzy orange glow of the sunset along the river, through the lavender twilight under sussurating trees, from one to the other of which Ryan Seacrest scurried, nose to the ground, tail wagging, leg, from time to time, lifted. Kansas was an eager, easy laugher, and Bracy wobbled on unfamiliar ground alongside someone who actually expected him to have something to say, and then had something to say back to him other than “Gee, you’re handsome.” Seldom chartered territory that he was emboldened to explore with such an intriguing and seemingly able guide.
An empathetic and eminently fair-minded man who valued substance—witness the unselfconscious stains and frays of his sweatshirt—as well as style—a more figure-flattering cut of trouser than the pair of jeans he inhabited no magic tailor could devise—Kansas easily saw past Bracy’s dazzling exterior. But the treasure trove of relics deep within a gothic French cathedral does not preclude its visitor from standing slack-jawed in awe and admiration of the painstaking artisanship invested in its radiant stained glass rose window. Intelligent, witty, and deep, Kansas was also a man, and when Bracy inquired whether he might like to come up for a glass of wine, Kansas fairly sprinted for the elevator.
Wine was even poured, but it was scarcely quaffed. Kansas set down his glass after a first tentative sip, and Bracy was utterly unable to resist the suggestion of the droplet of red wine glistening on them that he nibble on his lavishly plumped lips. And Kansas knew he was kissed—he clambered up the monolith of Bracy’s torso like a monkey up a tree the better to climb deep into his embrace, and they drank lustily of each other until their foreheads clunked together like coconuts and Bracy had to stagger to the couch and prop the smaller man up on it. Kansas smiled, rubbing his forehead, and brazenly wondered aloud if the view from Bracy’s bedroom was as spectacular. He gasped and floundered on the arm of the sofa when Bracy stepped unhurriedly out of his clothes, assuring him with each sybaritic bounce of his voluptuous butt as he sauntered to it that what there was to see in the bedroom would indeed enchant the eye. Ripping his trusty and treasured hoodie in his frenzy to be free of it, Kansas leapt from the arm of the couch and fairly flew into Bracy’s bedroom.
In nothing but what God gave him, Bracy was indeed a sight to behold, and Kansas stood momentarily mute, gaping at the anatomically elucidating specimen before him. His long, lean body was opulently upholstered, the lines of every obedient muscle clearly visible in relief against its opposition. His stomach was narrow and tight, his chest expansive and full; his legs were smooth and muscled, his ass round and proud; his eyes were hooded, and his desire to see more of Kansas was plain.
And still Kansas stood, compelled to find fault with Bracy’s figure, frustrated in every attempt by its Michelangelesque perfection. Even as it advanced on him, he found himself unable to do more than ogle Bracy’s body, and when Bracy grabbed the waistband of his jeans, Kansas was nearly floored by the shock.
“Your turn,” Bracy murmured, tugging on the younger man’s pants. With two frenzied men in it, the room was abuzz with pheromones, and the smell of hot, horny body was thick in the air, but when Kansas tugged shyly at the hem of his t-shirt, Bracy tuned out all distraction.
He lifted it slowly, the brazen tease, revealing the marbled plank of his abdomen inch by inch. The tight button of his navel nestled among unexpectedly stark ridges and Bracy was breathless with anticipation as the worn cotton met Kansas’s crossed forearms just underneath two promisingly square pecs. Kansas took a deep breath and met Bracy’s eyes. “I hope this is OK,” he said, suddenly self-conscious.
Bracy’s body was humming, hovering rather than standing, and he placed a reassuring hand against Kansas’s flat belly. “It’s amazing,” he assured him.
Kansas dropped a grateful smile and lifted his arms over his head.
Bracy’s knees fell out from under him and he reeled as if he’d taken a bowling ball to the face. No question of rude or polite occurred to him; the swear words spilled out of him like water out of a jostled bucket as the overripe, overpowering stank of Kansas’s armpits knocked him flat on the floor. Kansas ran from the room, and Bracy could do nothing but gag and let him go.

Chapter Six
When at last it happened, Bracy cleaving Kansas at the precise moment the dawn rent the distant sky with the pink slash of sunrise, the sex shook Bracy’s high rise condo like Taipei 101 in an earthquake; the keening, the moaning, the heedless and hyperbolic declarations of passion and need imbued with the tenderness that can only follow a nightlong, wine-fueled confessional bonding Iditarod.
As befits a man whose fortune rests wholly on the radiance of his appearance, Bracy’s dressing room was better stocked than a small town pharmacy with unguents, tinctures, crèmes and essential oils. Fearing that Kansas would beat a hasty retreat, and having no way to get a hold of him again if he did, Bracy scrambled to his knees and then to his feet as soon as he was able. His head still spinning from the oniony ammonia assault, he tore through his aromatherapy drawer until he unearthed a tiny jar of lavender oil. He slathered his fingers in the pure plant extract and jammed one up each nostril, then hurried back to the living room in time to see Kansas shrugging into his sweatshirt on his way out the door.
“Kansas, wait!” Bracy called.
He didn’t look up, but Bracy could see that his sweet face was wet and red. “Don’t worry, I’m going.”
“Don’t leave.”
“Why not? Now you know; you reacted just like everyone else. I was hoping it wouldn’t matter to you, but it did.”
“Kansas, don’t leave.”
“Good bye, Bracy.”
Bracy was unaccustomed to not getting his way, and it took him a second to devise and execute the exactly right plan. Kansas was in the hallway pulling the door shut when Bracy urged him, “Please.”
Kansas hesitated, and Bracy sped to the door to usher him back inside. “Kansas, it doesn’t ‘matter’ to me, necessarily. I just wasn’t ready for it. You have to know, it’s pretty⎯”
“Disgusting?”
“Pretty strong, is all I was going to say.” Bracy softened his tone. “Please stay. Can we at least talk about it?”
More wine was poured and they adjourned to the plushly padded wicker sofa on the balcony. Out of doors, with a large glass of wine and a snoot full of lavender oil, Bracy was able to open his arms to young Kansas, who curled up inside them with his own glass of wine, sniffling away the last traces of the self-pitying tears that had sprung hotly to his eyes unbidden while Bracy was sprawled, stunned, across his bedroom floor. “I’ve had it since I was a kid,” he eventually disclosed.
“And what is ‘it,’ exactly?” Bracy gently inquired.
Kansas shrugged. “I don’t know. My doctor says he’s not sure it has a name. He’s never heard of anyone but me having anything like it.”
“And what can your doctor do for you?”
“Nothing,” Kansas practically whispered. “I’ll probably always smell like this. If anything it’s getting worse as I get older.”
Bracy sipped his wine and tried to absorb this news item. He liked this kid. A lot. He wanted this kid. Real bad. And he was typically very shallow where men were concerned, sometimes appallingly so. There were several ways, each immediately obvious, for this night to end badly; he wanted a way for it to end awesomely, but had to cast about for some idea of how to facilitate that outcome.
In the meantime, he asked, “How come you don’t smell like that all the time? I mean, why didn’t I notice it before?”
“You mean why wasn’t there warning so you could leave me at the park?”
Bracy jostled his lap mate’s narrow shoulders. “Come on, don’t. Is that what you heard me ask?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just used to having to be really defensive about it.”
“Well, I’m just trying to talk to you,” Bracy scolded.
“OK, well, I wear these shields in my shirts. There’s no soap, no cologne, no deodorant—at least not that I’ve found—that can do anything for me. I wash my clothes with this special ionized detergent that my sister makes for me, and these shields absorb most of it. I only stink if I don’t have my shirt on.” Kansas laughed. “For want of a less embarrassing way to say that.”
Bracy shook with a supportive chuckle and stroked Kansas’s hard, narrow chest reassuringly. Annoying, to be sure, as the boy’s torso tantalized, and Bracy was dying to see, feel, and taste it, but it sounded like these ionized t-shirts could pry open a loophole. They sipped wine and cuddled and traded secrets and sweet nothings on the lanai through the night until Bracy could restrain himself no more.
“So, you were saying… if you kept your t-shirt on…”
For his part, Kansas had had a crippling hard-on for the last hour and a half, and he almost came just with relief when Bracy broached the subject. “If I kept my t-shirt on,” he said, “we’d probably bust your bed.”
“I’ve been wanting a new one for a long time,” Bracy said, practically flinging Kansas to the floor in his haste to leap from the couch.
Kansas’s t-shirt fit him nice and snug and hit his waifish little waist right at the hips. He proved to have a round, ready rump and, for a skinny guy, a surprisingly hearty appetite. Bracy was in lavender-laced heaven, and Handsome Man fell right off the radar in Our Fair City, the better to enjoy a long and lusty hiatus.
*
Three days passed, most of which were spent in the arms or ass of his fragrant new boy toy, before Bracy was able to turn loose the bed one afternoon and answer his insistently blaring phone. Troy had taken it upon herself to program the theme from the Greatest American Hero as the custom ring from her office phone, so she was calling specifically for Handsome Man, and Bracy prepped for a verbal onslaught before he picked up. “Hell⎯” was all the Mayor let him utter before she dug in.
“Never mind ‘Hell.’ Don’t you ‘Hell’ me! Where in the hell have you been for the last three days, that’s the ‘Hell’ I’d like to hear. I’ve seen Randy Marquez, so I know you’re not with him, and pizza delivery drivers have been getting rolled like dice all across town, so I know you haven’t been handling Handsome Man’s business. What’s going on?”
“Actually⎯”
“Never mind ‘Actually.’ ‘Actually’ nothing! It doesn’t matter. You can catch me up this afternoon.”
“This afternoon?”
“Never mind ‘This afternoon.’” Troy cried, but then backtracked. “Actually wait, do mind this afternoon. Come down to my office, would ya? I have some downtime between meetings, and I think I may have a plan. There’s an exhibit coming to the Museum that could be a big moment in Handsome Man’s career, so I need you to get out of bed⎯”
“How did you know?”
“What am I, new here? There’s only one reason you don’t answer my phone calls, Bracy, and it’s not cuz you’re on the toilet. Although, off-topic, it would be fine if you wanted to add that to the list. You sound like a damn fire hose, Bracy—do you think no one can hear that? And when you’re taking a⎯”
“Right, then,” he cried, damming her stream of consciousness. “This afternoon, you say? Around what time?”
“Let’s say three.”
“And what time is it now?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
“Check,” Bracy said. Then, scratching his head, he ventured, “And what day is it?”
“Damn,” Troy cackled, so loud that Bracy had to pull the phone from his ear. “He must be something else.” She signed off from her desk phone with a clang.
“He is,” Bracy muttered, pulling Kansas close.
After three days in bed, from which he had risen only to answer the door to the Chinese delivery guy and to huff lavender oil like it was spray paint, even Bracy’s pits were pretty ripe. Kansas’s t-shirt was a surprisingly effective b.o. blocker, but he’d been sweating in it for three days—it was agreed that showers all around was the order of the day.
Bracy wanted to shower together—not having done so since their meeting, he couldn’t imagine spending fifteen minutes apart from Kansas—but even in a soapy shower stall, Kansas’s musk proved prohibitive. So they dressed separately, Bracy in shorts and a pec-hugging t-shirt, Kansas in his second-skin jeans and his dutifully-shielded hoodie, and hopped into Bracy’s Jeep for the trip downtown, Bracy dropping the vial of lavender oil in his pocket just to be on the safe side.
En route, while navigating a four-way stop in the pancake house district, Bracy noticed a pickup truck up a side street hemming in a weather beaten LeCar that sported “Ravinder’s Indian Pizza” signs on its sides and roof. Troy had mentioned a string of pizza driver robberies, and so Bracy couldn’t resist easing around the corner and pulling over.
“Whatcha doin?” Kansas asked, sensing, as Bracy had, the malice on the wind.
“Here’s the thing,” Bracy said. “I do some, um, consulting for the police department, right?”
“Yeah, you mentioned that,” Kansas affirmed.
“Well, so Troy—that was her on the phone earlier. Well, of course you know that, cuz we’re on our way to meet her. Anyway, Troy mentioned something about pizza delivery drivers getting stuck up the last few days, I just wanna make sure everything’s cool.”
“Bracy, I can tell from here everything’s not cool.”
“Well, right. So can I,” Bracy said. “So I’ll be right back. Maybe stay in the Jeep?”
“What kind of ‘consulting’ is it you do, exactly?” Kansas wondered. “This seems kind of dangerous.”
“Maybe just call 9-1-1.” Bracy suggested. “Everything will be fine,” he assured, hopping down from the Jeep. “Just tell them to hurry.”
“Will you at least be careful?”
Bracy nodded as he stalked up the street. There seemed to be two muggers and a driver—piece of cake, as long as the cops didn’t lollygag. “What’s goin on here, fellas?” he shouted, invading the space the thieves had staked out in the middle of the street.
“Who wants to know?” said one of the bad guys, not tearing his attention away from his cowering victim.
“Call me a nosy neighbor.”
“We’re about to call you ‘collateral damage’ if you don’t move along,” he said, turning to level his gun at Bracy. He hadn’t even turned fully around, though, when his gun clattered to the pavement. “Good Gravy, who are you?” he asked, eyes wide and mouth agape.
“He said he’s a nosy neighbor,” griped the partner in crime who seemed to be doing the actual sticking up of the driver. “Get rid of him. Was that your gun I just heard break apart in the street?”
“Of course not,” the first crook said. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Bracy, so he didn’t know if he was lying or telling the truth. His gun could have been in a million pieces or about to go off, what did he care? The handsomest man he’d ever seen was staring at him. Pizza delivery drivers are all over town—guy like this noticing a shlub like him was a once in a lifetime. If that.
“Hey Mister!” the driver called out, sensing a turning of the tables. “Help me! These guys are trying to rob me. I got kids at home. These assholes might think they need the thirty-five bucks more than I do, but I’m here to tell ya, they don’t. And another thing⎯”
“No!” the non-distracted thug shouted. “No other thing. Goddam, I know your life story and this is a stupid two-minute stick up. Hand over the money. You!” he hollered, turning in Bracy’s general direction without registering any recognition. “Get out of here!”
“No, wait!” the first crook hollered. “Don’t leave,” he begged Bracy, who hoped that Kansas had dialed the cops already—this wasn’t going exactly as planned. Why was the robbery still in progress? “Lex, you should see this guy,” Crook 1 called to Crook 2. “He’s crazy hot.”
“I should see him?” cried Lex. “Should I see him? OK, let me just make myself unblind real quick! God, is every accomplice in this town simple?”
“Wait,” said Bracy to Crook 1. “He’s blind?”
“Yeah,” said Crook 1, wiping a trail of drool from his chin. “Tough luck, huh? You’re not one to miss.”
“Well, thank you,” Bracy said, flashing one of his more high-voltage smiles to keep at least one of the baddies on the sidelines. What the heck do I do now? he wondered.
“Mister!” The driver again. “Still getting robbed here. You wanna help me out?”
“I wonder if someone wants to help me out!” cried a frustrated Blind Lex. “Idiot, please tell me you’ve at least picked up your gun.”
“Yeah, right,” muttered the Idiot, tearing nothing away from Bracy. “Just a sec, Lex.”
Not wanting to stand around in the street all afternoon, and really not wanting to have to intervene physically—which was never part of the deal with Troy—Bracy looked back over his shoulder to see if Kansas was on the phone or on the lookout for a police car or what. One look at the kid, of course, and the plan popped into his head fully formed.
“Kansas!” Bracy hollered. The kid looked up from tuning the sattelite radio, and Bracy yelled his name a second time. “Kansas! Come ‘ere, would ya?” A blind bad guy might be immune to Handsome Man’s particular powers, but what if Handsome Man’s sidekick had the power to drop him in his tracks? Troy was gonna love this!
Kansas climbed cautiously down from the Jeep, squinting into the sun to get a better idea of Bracy’s position. Was he calling for him with a gun to his head? Kind of didn’t look like it. In fact, it looked like one of the crooks was up to nothing more sinister than gazing at Bracy with stars in his eyes. He started hesitantly down the street.
“Hurry up!” Bracy hollered, adding “Please!” as an afterthought.
Kansas looked around for the cops that the operator had assured him would be “right out,” and, seeing none, trotted towards Bracy.
“What’s going on?” he asked when he was close enough. The delivery driver seemed to be struggling with a blind man over possession of a cash bag, but Bracy had his back to that scene. With his fingers up his nose, Kansas couldn’t help but notice.
“Kansas, do me a favor would ya?” Bracy called.
“Whatever you need, Brace.”
“Come over here and take off your sweatshirt,” Bracy directed.
Kansas was flummoxed. Now he smelled the lavender, which explained Bracy’s fingers up his nose, but what was he up to? Involuntarily, Kansas blushed hot with shame; did Bracy think it would be funny to showcase Kansas’s b.o. in public like this? Bracy had seemed uncommonly understanding and sensitive in the face of Kansas’s issue, but was he really just some kind of exhibitionist dickhead?
“Um,” Kansas started, trying to give Bracy the benefit of the doubt, and therefore keep the anger out of his voice. “Why?”
Glimpsing Kansas’s flushed face, Bracy sensed his apprehension and met his baby blues. “If I tell you I’ll explain later, could you trust me?”
Kansas hesitated, but with one hand on the zipper of his hoodie. Bracy carried on confidentially, “I’m gonna plug my nose, OK? I don’t want that to hurt your feelings, but if you could lose the sweatshirt and put your hands up, it’d be a big help.”
Kansas shrugged and unzipped his sweatshirt. “Damn,” whistled Crook 1 when the sweatshirt fell open. “He’s super hot, too. Are you guys like⎯” Brothers or what? died on his lips when Kansas dropped his sweatshirt in the street and put his hands over his head, and Crook 1 dropped to his knees in tears.
“God damn!” yelled Lex, trying to jump away from the source of the odor, turning in circles, confused by the notion that he was suddenly swimming in stink. He dropped the money into the car and stumbled away gagging, eventually falling into the street. “What the hell is that?” was all he could cry until the squad cars pulled up, all sirens and screeching brakes.
“Come on,” Bracy said to Kansas through his pinched nose. Kansas shrugged back into his sweatshirt and Bracy put an arm around his shoulder as they walked back to the Jeep. “There’s something I want to ask you.”
The delivery driver had passed out with one whiff, but would be pleased to wake up with his money in his lap. When he sought Bracy and Kansas to thank them for rushing to his aid, though, they were long gone. “My goodness,” he told the police officer who took his report once he came around. “He was one handsome man.”
Officer Randy Marquez smiled nostalgically. “I bet.”


Chapter Seven
“Mayor Dirk-Nowitzki,” Bracy crowed when he barged into the office with a giggling Kansas. “Meet⎯”
Handsome Man’s sidekick, he had been about to say, but Troy interrupted him. “B.O. Boy!” she cried, jumping up from her desk and rushing to hug a now-flustered Kansas.

6,161 Words

Chapter Three
“So, thanks for the backup last night, by the way,” Bracy cranked. He and Troy were out for one of their regular runs along the riverwalk, Bracy powering through the pain in his lower back from all the falling down at the jewelry store the night before. And maybe a little bit from picking up where he’d left off when he at last returned home to the hunk in his bed, as promised.
“Sorry, Bud,” Troy tossed out breezily, not sounding sorry at all. “I’m not trying to get my fingerprints all over this mess until we work out some of the bugs. Once you’re doing some actual hero-ing, we’ll have a press conference, all that. Last night, though, all we did was give those jewel thieves enough warning to clear out with about seven hundred and fifty thousand bucks worth of merchandise before the cops showed up. You understand that the Mayor’s not exactly going to take credit for that.” Her ponytail flopped rhythmically back and forth as she matched gazelle-legged Bracy stride for stride. Her boy had an incredible gym-toned body and his muscled legs were smashing in his short running shorts, but of the two, she was the more natural athlete, and kicked Hot Boy Butt during their habitual Sprint across the Bridge at the end of almost every run. “How bad could it have been, anyway? It’s not like I had to post your bail on my way in to work this morning.”
Bracy could have done without the adrenaline spike brought on by the click of the city-issued Glock being cocked at the base of his skull, but once the dust settled—and some quick-thinking flatfoot silenced the ear-splitting siren of the alarm—he had been able to extract himself from a potentially complicated situation with only a modicum of embarrassment.
His first instinct had been to call out for Troy. “Whose that?” grunted a gruff cop voice from behind him, “your accomplice?”
Yes. “No, she’s my⎯”
“Never mind!” the cop cut him off. “You wanna explain what you’re doing in a jewelry store in the middle of the night? In your—what are these, your tights?” The cop was astride Bracy, still with the gun to his head, and he kicked at Bracy’s orange-clad leg. “Don’t you criminals usually wear black? You don’t exactly blend in in this get-up.”
“See, about that…” The cop was well into his mocking guffaw when Bracy turned around to explain, but the laugh died on his lips.
“Shit,” the cop whispered, lowering his gun. “You… you’re gorgeous.”
Bracy smiled a modest thank you and the cop teetered on his suddenly weak knees. “Dang, dude, doesn’t seem like you’d have to resort to stealing jewelry,” the cop said. “I’d figure you could get a guy to buy you whatever you wanted.” He looked around the ransacked shop. “Is there anything in here you didn’t get? Cuz, shucks,” he blushed, “I’d be happy to buy you something. It might be a little early for a ring—not that I wouldn’t, mind you—but maybe a nice bracelet? A paperweight?”
“I’m not a big jewelry guy,” Bracy explained. “But you could get your knee outta my back and help me up if you wanted.”
“Oh man, yeah, of course,” the cop said, standing back and reaching for Bracy’s elbow. He helped his captive stand, but kept hold of his elbow. “No sudden moves, you understand,” he told Bracy by way of explanation. Bracy understood perfectly that few men voluntarily broke physical contact with him once it was established, and he just smiled again. Sweat beaded across the officer’s rather lush hairline, but Bracy resisted the temptation to reach out and wipe the other man’s brow.
Which shortly furrowed. “If you’re not much of a jewelry guy,” the cop wondered, “what are you doing robbing a jewelry store?”
“I’m not robbing a jewelry store,” Bracy explained.
The cop looked around, taking in the glass cutters and the holes in the counters and the empty display cases. “Well, someone was robbing the jewelry store.”
“I know,” Bracy said. “That’s why I’m here.”
The cop raised an eyebrow, again taking in Bracy’s shimmering second-skin outfit. “OK, what are you, like private security?”
“Kinda.”
“So, what, are you new? Or just not that good at it? If you’re not the thief, where is he?”
Bracy explained as best he could. His plan to arrive on the scene and distract the thieves until the police arrived, the clumsy execution of said plan that gave the thieves a warning and enough time to escape, the rope he’d seen slithering through the skylight. The cop knew a bill of goods when someone tried to sell one to him, but there was a hole in the skylight, and the big blond with the slammin bod was decidedly short of a big bag of jewels or other loot. “You’re not… what I mean is…” the cop had a hard time framing such an absurd question, but the guy was wearing sparkly orange Spandex and matching boots; eventually he spit it out: “You don’t think you’re some kind of a super hero, do you?”
Bracy could still hear the cops laughing as he drove away, whipping around the corner in the red Jeep. He felt like a jackass, but whatever—better a jackass in a Jeep than a jackass in jail.

Chapter Four
“What you need is a sidekick,” Troy declared. She was sitting with Bracy in her City Hall office, gazing out at Our Fair City sprawling below her panoramic window. After a recent spate of small successes, she was tinkering with Bracy’s Super Hero image, fine tuning in anticipation of an upcoming press conference.
The larger wardrobe issues had been ironed out through a process of trial and error. After the cape was rejected, Bracy thought maybe he’d try a mask, but these proved to be hindrances, too. The first attempt garnered way too many Lone Ranger jokes, most of them from a knee-slapping Mayor, and it turned out that the second, by obscuring his cheekbones of iron and his glittering copper tresses, rendered him essentially powerless, and it was only by ripping it dramatically away from his face at the last second that he had managed to save the life of a grateful gas station clerk whose knife-wielding assailant shredded nothing but air before he let his weapon clatter to the floor and jumped the counter, accosting Bracy with something very like awe. Gripping great handfuls of it, he found himself powerless to do anything but repeat, “I’ve never seen such incredible hair,” until the police arrived to haul him away.
“You have the right to remain silent,” the senior officer informed his prisoner while folding him into the backseat of his squad car.
“I cannot remain silent!” he cried. “Did you see that hair? Like spun gold, it sparkled.”
“Well, so, thanks for your help, I guess,” said the second cop to Bracy, who acknowledged the praise by tossing his bangs out of his eyes. “It is pretty shiny,” Bracy heard him say to his partner as he slammed the door.
So, while disaster was averted, the gas station robbery was the end of the mask trial period. It was the clerk who was nearly stabbed, however, that unwittingly gave wing to Bracy’s super hero identity for the first time that night on the local news.
“He pulled a knife, I was mostly afraid of how bad it was going to hurt,” she told local reporter Chubby O’Flynn. “Then this crazy man came in dressed like a luchador, I remember thinking ‘One robbery at a time, please.’ But he saved me. He pulled off his mask and he saved me. My, but he was a handsome man.”
“Did you hear that?” Bracy had cried, turning off the TV. They had ensconced themselves in his high-rise condo with wine and cheese to see how the afternoon’s drama would play in the press.
“I sure did, Handsome Man!” Troy replied, gleeful that a name for her hero had presented itself. Thanks to Chubby O’Flynn, it would rattle around in the public imagination with no effort on her part, and she could unveil Handsome Man to an adoring throng after his next, hopefully more high-profile, success.
“Not that,” Bracy scolded. “She called me a crazy man.”
“Well, you see a guy stalk into a gas station all in Spandex, what are you gonna think?” Troy laughed.
“My point exactly. The cops laughed at me that first night, now she’s making fun of me on the news. I keep running around in Spandex, you’ll be lucky if they don’t start calling me Crazy Man. Good luck selling that at a press conference.”
Troy was rather attached to the idea of Bracy—of Handsome Man, she reminded herself—in a visually arresting, comic book-inspired costume that emanated Hero at even a casual glance; a constant and colorful reminder, not as much to local bad guys as to the Citizenry at Large, that she was getting a grip on crime in Our Fair City and that any resulting expansion of prosperity could rightly be credited to her office. But Bracy had a point—if the Crackpot-in-Spandex angle stuck in the public’s craw, it would be curtains for the entire plan.
“Fine,” she said, pouring herself another glass of wine. “We can try it your way.”
“Then put down that glass of wine,” Bracy told her, gleefully slipping into a pair of picturesquely broken-in Sperrys.
“How come?”
“Cuz you’re taking me shopping!”
*
Anyway: “What you need is a sidekick,” Troy declared. Days had passed, and Handsome Man in jeans and a t-shirt was proving to be the ticket. Ditching the Spandex outfit had allowed the introduction of the Element of Surprise, and the jarring nature of Bracy’s beauty could be exploited to its full potential. Crooks saw the nut in Spandex coming from up the street, but the strapping figure in the expensive dress shirt was able to sneak right up on them, and the glare of his smile was all the more blinding when it appeared at full wattage as if from nowhere.
Handsome Man had foiled two pickpockets, a shoplifter, and a car thief in recent days, and it pleased Troy to see her plan take a more robust shape. But in the absence of a shiny skintight costume and a cape to flutter in the wind, she was still seeking a more graphically “super hero” element of Handsome Man’s image, and what super hero didn’t want to take a young, eager, plump-rumped partner under his wing? Yes, she decided, a sidekick would complete the picture, especially if she could cook him up a clever catchphrase.
The cop from the jewelry store had responded to more than one of Bracy’s intercessions, and Bracy was impressed both by his professionalism and by the tantalizing chocolate promise in his brown eyes. His was the first name to spring to mind when the specter of a partner was raised, and he said so. “What about Marquez?”
Troy wrinkled her nose. “Officer Marquez, you mean?” Bracy nodded with some enthusiasm. “He’s got a job. He’s your ally on the Force. Every super hero needs one of those.”
“I guess…”
“Plus he’s old enough to be your—well, to be your brother, anyway.”
“What does that matter?”
Troy shook her head. “Nobody wants to see a forty-year-old protégé tailing you around town. I’m thinking puppy; an eager young do-gooder who you can, you know, show the ropes.”
“But I was kind of hoping…”
“Don’t sulk,” Troy commanded. “I’m not saying you can’t sleep with Randy Marquez—hell, take him away for the weekend if you want to, I’ll approve his vacation time. I’m just saying, I’m not sure he’s sidekick material.”
“Well, who, then?” Bracy asked, brightening at the prospect of a weekend getaway.
Troy narrowed her eyes and surveyed her city far below, as if the perfect sidekick might meander across the park in front of City Hall. When he did not, she said, “I don’t know who. Yet. But he’s out there somewhere.”


Chapter Five
“Somewhere” turned out to be Bracy’s favorite dog park, but, while Bracy’s attraction to Kansas Burlingame was immediate, intense, and irresistible, the kid’s destiny as Handsome Man’s go-to guy took its sweet time revealing itself.
Bracy never had to wonder whether he might be noticed at the dog park. Of course he was the cutest thing that ever donned a ball cap and a pair of aviator sunglasses, and his feet in flip flops were unrivaled in terms of size, shape, and smoothness of heel, but he was almost outshone by Ryan Seacrest, his adorable, outsized mutt of many colors.
Days after his return from an athletically passionate getaway with Randy Marquez and his bottomless brown eyes, Bracy was charging across the riverside dog park in pursuit of an off-leash Ryan Seacrest when his path was crossed by a scraggly-haired vision in skinny jeans and a coffee-stained hoodie. Accustomed since his toddlerhood to rubber necked gawking and cartoonish double takes from passersby, he himself seldom succumbed to the siren’s song of the Second Glance, and he tumbled rather unhandsomely ass-over-teakettle down the hill when his feet failed to keep up with the urgent pirouette his head and shoulders made to follow the hotty’s trajectory.
He was more embarrassed than hurt by several degrees, an experience that intensified when the only person to gallop to his aid was the skinny-jeaned moppet himself. Coffee sloshed from his travel mug as the guy careened down the hill, splashing across Bracy’s face when he dropped to his knees and slid into Bracy like he was stealing third. “Are you OK?” he hollered repeatedly, shaking Bracy the way he had apparently learned in some kind of community CPR class.
Which made Bracy laugh. “I’m fine. Or I will be. I feel like kind of a klutz.”
“Kind of a klutz?” the guy teased. “You seem spectacularly uncoordinated.”
Bracy resisted the urge to refute this description, especially sputtering as he was under the exceptionally enthusiastic First Aid tongue of Ryan Seacrest. Still laughing, he giggled out, “Get off me, boy.”
“Oh, sorry,” said the hotty in the hoodie, retracting his hands from their exploration of Bracy’s shoulder and chest.
“Not you,” Bracy chuckled, wrestling his concerned dog’s face away from his own. He felt the absence of the guy’s hands and wished he had been more clear. “Ryan Seacrest, stop licking me! I’m OK, buddy, I’m OK.”
“So I can keep touching you?”
“We’ll get to that,” Bracy assured him. He thought he detected a pretty ripe body odor, but the dude had just run across a park in a sweatshirt, and Bracy had a face full of coffee and dog spittle—it could have been any combination of aromas. Propping himself slowly up to test the state first of one, then of the other elbow, he said, “You wanna help me up first?”
Amid awkward laughter, anxious doggie licks, and much extraneous torso groping, Bracy was helped into a sitting position knee to knee with his new friend.
“Thanks,” he said. “My name’s Bracy.”
“Very nice to meet you,” said the hotty, gazing goofily into Bracy’s face.
Bracy waited a beat, then two, before he prodded. “And you are?”
“Oh sorry, right,” said the hotty, giving his shaggy head a quick shake. “I’m Kansas.” Bracy caught another pit whiff and hoped it wasn’t him. He didn’t feel particularly damp, but who knew, maybe somersaulting down a hill like a bale of hay falling off a truck triggered a physiological response with which he was hitherto unacquainted.
No matter. Kansas’s friendly face quickly regained his full attention, and the smile it brought out of him he knew was a killer. “Charmed, I’m sure.”