Garner working as a waiter at an upscale restaurant with a growing attraction to a man named Alonzo, who always asks to be put in his section for dinner. One night after work, the man is assaulted while trailing Garner. Garner goes to his aid, but is shot for his trouble.<br><br>Taking time off from work to recover, Garner is resting on a park bench when Alonzo suddenly appears at the other end of the bench. Garner never saw him approach. He asks why Alonzo is trailing him.<br><br>After some hesitation, Alonzo explains he wants to recruit Garner to help fight against others who systematically hunt people like himself. Garner isn’t inclined to get involved in anything dangerous, but he does finds Alonzo more and more attractive, so he agrees to consider the idea. As he learns more about Alonzo’s bizarre and dangerous subculture, what Garner really wants to know is whether Alonzo is romantically interested in him at all.

Call to Love

He felt like he had discovered a whole new aspect of—the world, and himself.


Part of him tried to sell the idea that what had happened had been a coincidence, nothing to do with that. But he didn’t believe that explanation, and the idea that he haddone something, that he could do that sort of thing—Alonzo had called it influencing, hadn’t he?—made Garner’s head swim with heady triumph.


Momentarily he fantasized about reaching in and changing people—attractive men, that is—so that they were interested in him. Thisidea, while intoxicating, was deeply troubling.


This is the road to hell, he told himself with sudden realization. This is how power corrupts.


And the worst thing about the fantasy, he thought, was that it stillfelt exciting, and arousing—so much so that he had to adjust himself in his pants.


Chapter 34