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

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” Alonzo murmured.


Garner turned and looked at his companion. He was still slightly taken aback by the purple tendrils, but he could still see the immense beauty in Alonzo. And—he blinked several times, trying to take in what he now perceived. What was it?


Alonzo continued to look out and up at the night, his face a study in pleasurable contemplation. But, though he saw this, Garner was struck by howhe saw it, and other things about Alonzo. It was—what?—like he was seeing Alonzo, his being, his person, in a somewhat more structural manner, atomized as it were, the actual nuts and bolts of things open to his perception.


Chapter 65