PH24

This is my confession…

Cristian Sands: Doorman at Gramercy Place on the Upper East Side

My first love died in her sleep, and I ask forgiveness every day from a God I struggle to believe in. I write poems in a basement, keep my failures and secrets to myself, and live a life that feels like a lie. A life I owe to a man I barely know.

Gibson Hayes is married, wealthy, powerful, and the man who gave me my job when I came to New York. He’s the most generous of billionaires and the most mysterious of men.

When he wants to promote me from his doorman to his personal assistant, curiosity and loyalty tempt me to say yes. I don’t expect to find a sudden, deep connection with a man old enough to be my father. As the mystery of him unravels, and he seeks to ease my pain, I become a willing victim of his own suffering. When being bad feels this good, it’s hard to care about one more black mark on my soul, even if the price we’ll pay for our sins will break us both.

Drew Riley: Night Doorman of The Eastmoor on Park

I'm stuck in an uptown lobby while my dreams of making it as a model in New York hang by a single thread. Meanwhile, Olivier Arnaud lives his best life as a useless socialite, flaunting his wealth, his looks, and his privilege. His gaze taunts, and his nightly, condescending smirks burrow deep beneath my skin where I simmer with bitterness and hate.

The day he asks me to deliver his mail directly to his 12th floor penthouse, he makes it personal, and the thread snaps—violently. With my hand around his neck, I feel alive for the first time in months. Though my frustration may have found the outlet it craves, my body's response causes everything I thought I knew about myself to shift.

Faced with vastly different but equally uncertain futures, our baser needs align, turning our increasingly heated encounters into a reckoning—both sexual and shockingly emotional. I know I have to stop. The last thing I can afford to lose in this heartless town is one more piece of myself to a man who already has everything.

What if this is the worst idea?

I may be struggling as an artist in New York, but I'm a great doorman. Is it the easiest job in the city? Probably. And it gives my mind all the time it needs to wander. Sometimes to my current project or muse, but more often to the one who got away.

I was the one he used to reach for in the middle of the night when the nightmares came. My adopted brother, once not much more than a stranger, became my closest friend during one of the most difficult times of his life.

Now home from years overseas as a journalist, Fischer is back in his apartment on the Upper East Side where I man the door most evenings, adjusting to his life as a single dad. I've missed him, and at least that feeling is mutual.

The other feelings I have for Fischer aren't something we talk about or even acknowledge. No. He only rubs my back to help me sleep. We cuddle up to watch TV. We touch because he needs it, and I crave it. Then, with a single kiss eight years in the making, we unleash a love that could grind both our lives to dust.