Aria told him every last detail, down to revealing the fact that Omkar had been the one leaving the things they had found on the hood of the car. When she had dispensed every detail, Taylor’s expression had gone from cocksure to adoring. Words could not describe how happy he was for her. Still, deep down he envied her.

Taylor had abandoned the path toward his dreams because in many ways, through Dan, he had already manifested them. As dramatic as he was by nature, his pull toward the stage and toward the big screen was really just the desire to “make it big.” He wanted to be significant. He wanted a lifestyle that would take him far away from the poverty and insignificance he had experienced in his youth. He had found both significance and wealth through being with Dan.

Still, his life with Dan was not all gifts and glamor. Taylor was embarrassed to admit to being a sugar baby. People who had money or who’d grown up with it just didn’t understand the idea that people like him came from less than nothing. Without the proper support systems, people like himself were forced to consent to extraneous means of digging themselves off the street.

Taylor was not naive enough to forget that for many gay men, the kind of relationship that Dan and he had usually lasted for only one night. For others, a week or a month at best. Unlike many other sugar daddies, Dan was monogamous and therefore committed to Taylor. But even so, he knew that even if they were together for years, it could end at any moment. He had become the male version of a trophy wife; only he had no marriage license to ensure his security. His significance and lifestyle came with the expectation of keeping himself beautiful at all times. It came with the expectation that he would never resist sex whenever Dan wanted it. It came with the expectation that Taylor would be a slave, at his beck and call. It was a price he was willing to pay.

Before their visit was over, Taylor drove Aria around in the flamboyant car that Dan had bought him. He told her to pick a song and blared it to show off the impressive sound of its speakers. “Don’t be a stranger!” he yelled, when she got out to walk toward the store.

“Don’t worry, you’ll always be my Boo,” she yelled back, waving.

As Taylor drove away, he watched Aria through the rear-view mirror. The envy that he felt for the love that she claimed to have found made him resent the circus of his life. Even though some form of mutual caring had grown out of the life that he and Dan were forming together, it was not love. It was not the love that Aria had found. It was a relationship of mutual use and transaction.