Sway by Zachary Lazar Page A

could see was the vague red light, faintly throbbing like the membrane of a cell illuminated
     on the stage of a microscope.
    “Go ahead,” the man said. “What did you come here for?”
    He took Kenneth’s hand and placed it on the inside of his thigh. Through the coarse fabric, Kenneth’s fingers gathered in
     the length and presence of the man’s erection, the delicately curved head poking up at an angle above the elastic band of
     his underpants. Then the man put his hand on top of Kenneth’s and pulled it away.
    “Go ahead now,” he said. “Kneel. Get down on your knees.”
    His belt buckle jangled at his waist. Kenneth pulled the man’s stiff briefs down to reveal the muscles of his upper thighs.
     He was almost hairless, only a tight clump of red fuzz above the bland shock of his erection. It was pale and smooth, almost
     colorless. When he guided it carefully into Kenneth’s mouth, cupping Kenneth’s chin in his hand, it tasted faintly of milk,
     or like the faintly sour smell of milk when you first open the carton. It probed his mouth like a bodiless thumb.
    The man took a step back for some reason. He inhaled deeply through his nose, his eyes half-shut. His cock jutted out to the
     left, faintly glistening with the thin coating of Kenneth’s saliva. He shook his head as if to clear it.
    He wedged his stiff penis back beneath the waistband of his underpants. Then he hoisted up his pants, working them from side
     to side over his hips, softly grunting with the effort. “That’s what I thought,” he said, looking down at Kenneth. He buckled
     his belt. Then he told Kenneth that he was under arrest.
    The creases between his close-set eyes were almost sarcastic. Kenneth was still kneeling, then he sat back on the floor, his
     eyes on the row of urinals to his left. The man’s taste was still in his mouth, stale like the pages of a long unopened book.
     Then the man said, “Let’s go,” and Kenneth felt the jagged grip just above his elbow, pulling him upright, and he moved sightlessly
     forward, letting out little rabbity breaths of something like laughter.
    There was another cop — in uniform — waiting up the road in a marked sedan pulled up to the sidewalk, the same path Kenneth
     had seen in mirror image on the white table of the camera obscura. It was chalk-bright in the sunlight now. The second cop
     cuffed Kenneth’s hands behind his back. A pair of teenage girls rode by on a tandem bicycle, a smear of yellow and green that
     gave way to the raised, violet-budded arms of a coral tree.
    They took him to jail. There were actual bars, like in the movies, but nothing had prepared him for the full-color gloom of
     the chipped tile floor, stained and crusted with lime, and the dented black drain with its orange scabs of rust. When his
     father arrived, distracted and out of context, the office was still in his face. He stood up in the precinct lounge with his
     hat on, his hands in the pockets of his baggy suit, as they led Kenneth in from the cell with the cuffs still on. His voice
     was flat, faintly sardonic, as he spoke to the cop. “All right,” he said. “That’s fine.” Then he looked at Kenneth, his mouth
     tight, and without saying a word turned toward the door.
    They didn’t speak on the ride home. His father drove aggressively, then absentmindedly, refusing to look at Kenneth, whose
     wrists were scored pink from the handcuffs. His father would only nod his head occasionally, as if working his way back through
     the past to the various clues.
    At dinner, he was still wearing his suit and tie, though he had spent the intervening hours working in the garage. He helped
     himself to bread, setting three slices on his plate and methodically smearing them with butter, then making a stack. He asked
     Kenneth’s mother how her bridge game was. Then he asked Kenneth if the food was all right, if it was refined enough for his
     delicate tastes.
    “Will,” said Kenneth’s