Chapter Text
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It's a Wednesday. Wade knows this because, when he steps into the sheltered atrium of the bathhouse, cap pulled low, he can see that Dopinder has put out a bowl of mints on the counter. Mints happen on Wednesday. There's chewing gum on Thursdays, and these little mini toffee things on Fridays, and Wade's never visited over the weekend, so he doesn't know what the fuck goes down then.
Pulling up to the counter, he rubs a hand over the peak of his cap to get rid of the rain, shaking his hood down and then pulling it back up again.
“Hi there, big guy.” He greets Dopinder, across the counter.
“DP!” Dopinder leans up out of his seat to great him, reaching across the counter to bump fists; because they’re two guys in their forties, and there's not much youth left open to them apart from fist bumps. From here, it’s just the inevitable slide into prostate enlargement and heart disease, Wade thinks, leaning against the countertop. “Welcome, buddy, welcome.”
Dropping back into his seat, Dopinder swivels around to tap out a few lines into an open twitch stream, then to face back forwards. He's got a couple of screens open on the little reception station. Wade spots his favourite trading platform and one of those radar apps for planes. The middle aged man trifecta.
Wade met Dopinder five years ago, on a peaceless peacekeeping operation in Helmand. Dopinder had been a master gunnery sergeant for the sixth marine regiment, specialising in aviation cybersecurity. Wade had been one of a small outfit of mercenaries, subcontracted by US special forces. They’d worked a couple jobs together and bumped into one another a couple times at the NATO base, but had only really got to know one another properly in hospital, afterwards. They might have some limb and skin behind, Wade likes to joke, but they took away something far more precious.
And since he can’t actually trade Dopinder for the top three layers of his skin and Dopinder can't trade him for his left leg, they're willing to take the friendship.
To be honest, ‘friendship’ feels like an overused term, these days. Wade’s got a couple dozen friends who only visited once, after he was in hospital - a couple dozen more who fell out of touch after he was shipped home. He can understand it must have been difficult. He can’t imagine turning up, week after week, to watch someone’s life fall apart in slow-motion against the backdrop of a tertiary burns unit, but it had still stung when the calls had stopped coming. And then the messages. And then the social media comments.
Dopinder had been one of five people who stuck with him, through all of that. He had his own demons and his own VA hospital experience, but he never stopped checking in on Wade. And he didn’t forget to look him up, once they were both back in civilian life. And he never forgot to drop a message on birthdays, or at Christmas. And it was Dopinder who reached out a hand to establish more than virtual contact when they were both living back in the city.
He’s a good guy. One of the best. So Wade is willing to overlook his criminal interest in online gaming, and the endless talk about stock prices, and his terrible choice in music.
“You in for the night?” Dopinder asks, as Wade slides his membership card across the counter.
It’s a massively subsidised membership - last year’s birthday present - because there’s no way Wade could afford to pay for this place himself. He suspects Dopinder would have just continued letting him in for free, like the first couple times, but there’s a tiny matter of pride at stake. (And Wade doesn’t have much of that left, so he’s kind of clinging to it). Plus, there are other guys who work at the bathhouse, besides the son of the owner, so he wants to keep up appearances. So Dopinder’s dad doesn’t fire him as front of house.
Taking his card, Wade eyes the doorway through to the interior of the building.
“Yep. Pulling the late shift, today,” he tells Dopinder. “Anyone I know in?”
It’s a coded question. He means ‘is there anyone in who is going to give me trouble?’ - which Dopinder gets. He’s the world’s greatest backup dancer for this little show.
And that’s why it works, Wade figures. Before Dopinder’s father had bought the business over, it had been a struggling day spa with little foot traffic. After a makeover and a bit of marketing to a different audience, however, (and in no small part due to New York City’s legislation against cruising sites, which meant that bathhouses in Manhattan couldn’t operate legally), the place had not only crawled its way back to solvency but become a popular after-hours destination for guys who wanted a chiller time than the clubs allowed, but still a little contact. (Or just a sweat. There were still a few guys who came here just to sweat).
After eight, twice a week, Wade puts on a show for all of them.
“Bill is in the back,” Dopinder tells him, grabbing a mint from the bowl.
Bill was about a hundred and three and, every time Wade saw him, he felt both a rush of affirmation that a queer guy could make it to old manhood, and also a deep sense of fear that the heat of the sauna and watching the action there might be what finishes him off. The guy’s blood pressure could not be above double digits. One surprise boner could take him out.
“Man…” Fucking on front of Bill makes Wade anxious.
Dopinder knows this.
“He passed his medical last week,” Dopinder shrugs at him, chewing on his mint. “I cannot just ban the man because he is older than Vishnu. The doctor signed off. Fair is fair.”
“Never mind Vishnu, he’s older than time,” Wade grumbles, shoving his card back in his bag, fingers brushing over the mask and towel there. He throws Dopinder a look. “If he dies watching me suck off some twink from Bedstuy, you’re coming to my next therapy session. I’m not explaining this shit on my own.”
“Good luck in there, buddy.”
“Fuck you.”
“Stay safe.”
Dopinder reaches under the desk and buzzes the gate open.
Wade walks through it, flipping him off as he goes. Because that’s brotherhood. You have to give your brother a hard time, even if he’s doing you a favour. Even if therapy hadn’t done half as much for Wade as getting his ass off the sofa and down to Dopinder’s father’s bathhouse, to ritually expose himself to a bunch of strangers.
And it’s not like Dopinder doesn’t benefit from the arrangement too, Wade thinks. Managing the bathhouse is what had got Dopinder back on the straight and narrow, after coming back from deployment, and new customers are what determines his yearly bonus. And, looking at the numbers for the last six months, visits on Wednesdays and Fridays are well up, so Wade likes to think he’s playing his part. He’s pretty popular.
Smiling, he heads down the long glass hall towards the changing rooms. The inside of the bathhouse is markedly different to the outside. The beige concrete front of the building is marked only with a couple frosted windows and the word ‘SOAP’ inset in narrow dark letters over the door. If you step inside, the concrete gives way to glass and a bright, foliage-engulfed atrium. Beyond that, past the gate, the lighting grows dimmer and dimmer, all the way along to the changing rooms.
The pale shapes of people are visible behind the frosted glass on the right, along with the faint turquoise of the pool. It’s a transitional space, Wade thinks, walking along it, tracking the dark shape of someone walking across the pool room. A smart setup. A chance to reset from the outside world.
He pauses at the door to the changing room, breathing in the faint scent of chlorine and eucalyptus.
Okay. Game time.
He pushes open the door.
The changing room is empty, all pale wood benches and dark tile, all wipe clean. Narrow strips of neon under lighting make the whole place look like Swedish Tron, which is a statement, Wade supposes - though what statement he hasn’t figured out yet. (Maybe it’s Dopinder’s father’s interpretation of a European bathhouse. From what Wade knows about the guy, he did significant market research).
Throwing his bag into one of the lockers, Wade lets his eyes travel over the handles, counting how many are locked, which lets him know there are about twenty guys inside - not a busy night. SOAP is a pretty big place, when you take into account all the little steam rooms, and private rooms, and the area around the pool. You can easily have forty guys inside without it feeling busy, and Dopinder flips over the closed sign at fifty.
Wade’s eyes sweep the room from under his hood. He can hear someone next door, washing their hands, and somebody else in the showers, but there’s nobody here to watch him change.
Wade has a set of rules for delineating between the outside world and the bathhouse's dark inner sanctum. The changing room is a staging zone. He tries not to interact here, without the mask. He tries not to make eye contact. He barely exists.
It’s a liminal space.
Grabbing a towel off a pile by the lockers, he makes his way to the woodstrip-lined changing stalls, head ducked low to hide his face from anyone who might walk in. Inside, he pulls the door to and shakes off his hood and cap. He slips the sweatshirt over his head and folds it on the floor. Then does the same with his sweats. Then he strips out of his boxers and socks and rolls them army-style inside.
Wrapping the towel around his waist, he takes a moment just to stand there, staring at the wall, running his fingertips over the fabric of the mask in his left hand, working up to it - not because he doesn’t want to wear the mask, but because he really, really does.
And that’s a whole thing.
He’s barely raised this thing he does, at the bathhouse with his therapist, but what he has said made her stare at him for a full three seconds and then raise an eyebrow, before saying ‘okay… do you want to talk about that?’
So, yeah. Wade suspects it might be kind of weird.
There’s no roadmap to learning how to cope with being turned into human barbecue, though, so Wade figures he should cut himself some slack. And this has to be safer than mindlessly fucking his way through the club scene. At least, here, everyone has to use protection, and sign a waiver, and provide regular screening letters from their local sexual health clinic. It’s a private space, members only, and that gives a certain degree of control. Or, at the very least, the impression of control.
And - fuck - it’s nice to be wanted, okay? It’s nice to escape from the reality of his life, for a while. Fucking sue him. The mask helps.
He pulls it on, adjusts the fit around the back.
When he’d first come here, a year ago, he’d barely made it past the glass corridor. He’d taken one step inside the changing room and looked around at the guys wandering around there, barely dressed, miles of perfect skin on show, and he’d turned and walked straight back out.
The second time he’d come, the club was almost empty, but he'd still only made it ten minutes before heading back home, throwing his clothes back on as quickly as he'd stripped them off.
The third time, he’d come late, when the lights were already low and the music was loud. It had been a three day circuit party, with a leather theme, so everyone was wearing masks, and gear, and the whole scene was a lot more anonymous than it was during the day. It was dark and steamy and Wade could blend in.
Turns out, the gentle intro wasn’t for Wade. He kind of needed to be thrown in at the deep end, to learn how to swim. There was plenty of staring at his scars, that first night, but it wasn’t all negative. There was fascination, too. And it had been easier, letting it all play out from behind the mask. The evening crowd didn’t mind not being able to meet Wade’s eyes. So he kept coming. Twice a week. In the evenings. And he kept wearing the mask. Nobody's ever complained.
In the half light, bathed in neon, Wade can almost convince himself that he looks good. Or, if not good, at least impressive. He’s a big guy. Years of training, followed by years of rehab, have left him stronger than most guys, and he’s already well above average height. He’s got a good body, underneath the surface. And, in the dark heat of the bathhouse, he can almost convince himself that his skin looks like some cool art installation, rather than horror show prosthetics; not normal, but not frightening.
(And, okay, maybe he's still a little frightening, but the crowd here know him, now. He’s a regular. A feature. And they kind of like that he’s frightening. That’s what gets them off, offering themselves up to him. Which Wade’s willing to accept. He’s willing to be their monster, in exchange for a bit of human contact).
Taking a slow breath, he makes one final adjustment to the mask, then steps back into the changing room, clothes in hand, and carries them over to his locker. He sets them inside and turns the handle to set the code.
The guy in the shower has finished, now, and has wandered through to towel off his greying hair over by the mirrors. He’s one of the older regulars, a long-haired guy Wade thinks might be called ‘Brian’ or ‘Toby’. He’s always leaving as Wade arrives. They’ve never fucked. Never even talked.
They exchange a little nod, though.
Wade feels Brian/Toby’s eyes linger on his belly as he passes. Feels the accompanying dopamine rush as a direct hit, somewhere above the solar plexus.
Okay.
Okay. Better.
Wade makes his way through to the showers, stripping off his towel and throwing it over a rail. He flicks the water on and stands underneath for a while, wetting his skin, rubbing soap over his scarred sides. He rubs his hands up over his head and neck last, making sure the fabric of the mask is fully saturated so it doesn’t get clogged up in the steam, inside. He closing his eyes against the strange compression feeling of it, breathing slow as the airflow to his mouth is restricted, then slowly eases off.
It had felt like being waterboarded, the first dozen times. Now he’s used to it. It’s a small cost for a greater freedom.
Shaking his head, he flips the shower off. Grabs his towel. Takes the left towards the dark interior of the building. He walks past the pool area where a few guys are gathered at the far end, talking amiably. There’s a young guy stretched out on a lounger, an enormous bottle of water at his side, one leg cocked up and his towel thrown over his dick. He’s cute, in a nymphlike, waifish sort of way. Not Wade’s usual type, but he’s going through an experimental phase.
Their eyes connect as Wade as he walks back. He feels a little rush of interest and mutual understanding.
It’s kind of impossible to throw someone an effective ‘come hither’, while naked in flip-flops, so Wade doesn’t stop. He heads through to the back, instead, making sure the younger man sees him go. He takes the darkest of the corridors - the one that turns into a maze of corridors and little steam rooms, curled around a central space with absolutely no light. He casts an eye down all the blind ends, to see if there’s anyone he recognises. This part of the building is designed to be disorientating, designed to remove you from reality, and Wade likes that. Likes the liberation of it. Today, though, he’s setting up shop in the hotter of the two saunas. Because he’s here to get off, but he also did a pretty heavy set, yesterday, and his left shoulder is sore. Because he’s forty fucking seven and that’s how life is, now.
He grabs a bottle of water from a box on the floor, before slipping inside. Grabs two condoms and a sachet of lube, (because he’s a man of endless optimism), and throws his towel down at the far end of the room.
The only person inside is a older man, maybe fifties. Beer gut but well built beneath it. He looks up when Wade comes in, gives him the once over and a nod.
“Hey Wade.”
“Hey Mike.” Wade nods back. Mike’s a regular, too. Fairly tolerant of Wade’s presence. Definitely a little disgusted by the skin, but always polite about it. They crossover on Wednesdays and some bear nights, where Wade likes to come to lurk in the shadows, and miss having body hair. “How’s it hanging?”
“All good, man.” The older man runs his hand over his face and leans back, resting his head against the wooden panelling. “It’s all good.”
Mike isn’t a talker. Which is fine.
Wade stretches his shoulder out and keeps his eyes on the door. Waiting.
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