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

Further conversation was silenced by the rising moon, which just then showed its first sliver over the horizon to the east.


The moon was—Garner really didn’t know how to describe the experience. It was so intoxicating! The best word he could find was—magical. The moon seemed to pour magic down on them, on the city, the entire world below. And Garner simply had no clue as to what that was all about.


After a few minutes of the feeling, he decided not to ask, simply to be. And when he looked over at Alonzo, he saw the Vee smiling at him, and nodding approval. A wash of liquid communion came over Garner, and with it—the return of what he had felt earlier. Arousal.


Alonzo didn’t say anything. He just got up, and stepped down from the wall onto the roof proper, leading Garner by the hand around the various structures that populated its surface.


Chapter 66