Free Pent Up by Damon Suede Page A

rich, and too brainy to be normal. Personally, Ruben thought Andy had suffered from too much education and not enough life. Boarding school, fancy college, all kinds of shit that obviously kept him rich but made him no friends that Ruben could see. He sympathized; they were both private people, holding cards close.
    A leaper and a looker. They made a good team.
    Maybe loneliness and boredom did strange things to his imagination, but Andy began to live rent-free in his head.
    The long shifts with Andy left Ruben no time for a life. His best window for meeting some rich nymphomaniac was in the twenty-two minutes it took him to walk down Park Avenue in the morning, but Park Avenue at dawn proved to be sadly nympho-free.
    Ruben got in the habit of taking a scalding shower every night before crashing on his couch. The hot water wore him out, and he’d struggle toward sleep while the cat glared at him, waiting to be overfed. At least he managed to hit a couple AA meetings, but in this neighborhood, most were packed with old-timers and in Spanish.
    Still, tonight was Saturday and he’d hoped he might be able to go out, maybe a movie or dancing. Anyplace where he might be able to hook up, because these days his balls throbbed like a fucking root canal.
    As soon as Ruben got downstairs at the Iris, he texted his brother that he was homebound, and a few blocks later he got a reply. “GIMME THIRTY” which meant Daria was over and Charles was getting busy.
    Whenever his brother entertained the girlfriend, Ruben took a walk around the block for a couple hours. Stations of the cross for losers. Here is the pizza parlor, here is the free clinic. Wasn’t Charles’s fault. Tonight Ruben opted to hit the grocery.
    On the way he dug out his phone. “Peach?”
    All the way to Ninty-Sixth Street, she golfed and he griped. She kept asking about his social life and he shrugged it off. He was grateful for the friendly ear but conscious of the lonely box he’d built around himself. His weird fixation on Andy didn’t come up and he was too ashamed to spill the beans. Him, as a guy, having a female sponsor was really unorthodox, and for once he understood why. Her Sondheim quotes didn’t teach him anything, but they calmed him down even as he was surprised by how tired Peach sounded.
    Finally, Ruben hung up and wandered into Associated Supermarket. Paying rent, he couldn’t afford, but since moving in four weeks ago, he’d helped his little brother out by covering groceries and meals.
    Charles lived up on 109th in Spanish Harlem, so a lot of the locals and signs used language Ruben couldn’t understand. He tended to nod and glower so no one asked him questions. Scary mug to the rescue, again.
    The grocery store still seemed like an alien planet to him. Marisa had done the shopping, always. He cooked sometimes, but mostly she’d been a housewife and happy about it. Standing by the baskets, Ruben fished the list out of his pocket: Fanta, Wheaties, pasta, chips. Nothing green, nothing fresh. Charles still ate like a teenager because Daria did most of the cooking. For the past month, Ruben had fought his gut with crunches and push-ups.
    Ruben headed down the first uncrowded aisle and realized he was standing in a narrow aisle of wine and beer. What motherfucker had decreed that supermarkets could legally sell booze? He nodded to himself and avoided that landmine, knocking out the whole list in about twenty minutes.
    The air conditioning inside the store chilled him so much that the swelter outside felt refreshing when he emerged. Taking his time to waste another ten minutes, he trudged back to the apartment, balancing the bags, praying the stretched plastic would survive the journey and that his brother had put on pants.
    He took the stairs slowly and made noise with his key in the lock just to be safe. “S’me.” He ducked into the tiny kitchen.
    The cat showed up expecting a snack, but settled for dry kibble, crunching at him with bored