1970.

The package arrived at Finn Manor on a Monday. Inside, it bore a manuscript of a little over two hundred pages and a note that read:

Dear Eddie,

Please read at your earliest convenience. In a week, I will come to talk about it in person. Hope we can come to an agreement about this.

Sincerely,
Thomas James

As promised, the following Monday, Tommy appeared on the front steps of Finn Manor. He wore a suit and tie, the same as Eddie had seen him wear to his college graduation just a couple of years before. Like the rest of Tommy’s wardrobe, Edward had bought it for him.

“Hello, Tommy,” said Edward.

Tommy nodded, “Eddie. You’re answering the door yourself now?”

“I gave the staff the day off. Wanted to make sure we have some privacy.”

“Oh,” said Tommy. Edward saw a flash of fear.

“Please come in,” he said. “We can speak in the study.”

On the table beside what he knew was Edward’s favorite reading chair, Tommy saw his manuscript. The pages still looked neatly stacked together. “Have you had a chance to read it?” he asked.

“I’ve read enough of it,” said Edward, opening the drinks cabinet. “Do you still drink rum and Kola?”

“Actually,” said Tommy, “the wife doesn’t like me drinking.”

Edward pretended to look around. “Well, I don’t see her here.”

“Just the Kola,” said Tommy, “please.”

“Suit yourself,” said Edward. Still he placed ice cubes in a tumbler for Tommy, popped open the can, and decanted the Kola over them before handing it to him. There was an air of formality in the gesture, as if they had been business partners and not lovers.

As Edward poured his own drink, bourbon on the rocks, he said, “The writing is exceptional. Your professors would be proud. That is a very well-constructed narrative you’ve laid out.”

“That’s nice to hear,” said Tommy.

“And how do you feel about what you’ve written?” Edward turned to face the young man he had trusted with his life and welcomed into his bed. Just behind his veil of formality, the hurt and anger burned, revealing itself in a tightness of lip and a crinkling of brow, details for which Edward had taught Tommy to look when assessing an adversary.

“Good. I think it’s good,” Tommy sipped at his drink. “You know, I think I will take that rum after all. If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” said Edward, taking back the drink and adding the liquor. “And what sort of title do you have in mind for this story of yours?”

“The agent I’ve spoken with was helping me with that. We came up with something he thought would help it sell — Seduced by the Mask.”

Edward snorted a laugh into his drink.

“You think that’s funny?” asked Tommy.

“Well, a little, yes. It sounds as if you’ve written some sort of tawdry paperback romance. But, no, the title isn’t what I laughed at. What I laughed at was the thought of you publishing this. Tommy, you can’t.”

“You don’t think so?” said Tommy.

“A tell-all about your career as the Wily Wisp and as my… No. Goodness, no. I appreciate the vagaries and misdirections you used to conceal my identity and the location of our base of operations, but, Tommy, you have a wife. Probably, you want to start a family. The notoriety this would bring is not a burden you want.”

“We need money, Eddie.”

“Most people do.”

“And selling this book will make us that money.”

“What will that money cost? These are criminal activities to which you are confessing. And I don’t just mean the sex, which you do a fantastic job of detailing. I’d almost forgotten that night on the rooftop of the Dionysian. 

“But there are violent crimes described here. Law enforcement may have turned a blind eye in the past, but if you placed this on a bookshelf, I think they would feel compelled to prosecute. 

“That’s to say nothing of the criminal element. Some of those we put away won’t be fully reformed once they return to the streets. They may have revenge in mind. Do you want that target on yourself and your loved ones? 

“And we haven’t cleaned up the streets entirely, you know. That’s not how crime-fighting works. There will always be new rogues appearing, hungry and ambitious, looking to give themselves a name among their kind. They would come looking for you, Tommy, looking to make a name for themselves. You’ve suffered enough already because of that, haven’t you?”

A tremor in Tommy’s voice suggested that visceral memories of his capture were returning at Edward’s words. “My agent says we can keep it all anonymous. It won’t have to be in my name. The author will just be W. W.”

“W. W. For Wily Wisp…” The anger that had been brewing in Edward since reading Tommy’s manuscript began to break through his veneer of civility. “You would do this to me, expose me for profit, and not even have the decency to use your own name…” Somewhere inside the veteran vigilante was still a little boy, longing to join his father on adventures, and creating his own alias with crayons. “You’d take the name that I gave you? You would take my name?” Edward hurled his glass into the empty fireplace where it shattered brilliantly against the stone. “How dare you?”

From his training under Edward, Tommy readied his stance. His grip around his glass adjusted to hurl it as a weapon if needed. “It’s my story, Eddie. I have a right to it. I lived it. I suffered for it. And I did it under that name.”

“Of all the selfish, stupid…”

“I’m not stupid, Eddie. I know what this story is. I know how much people would pay for it. The Crimson Wraith means a lot to Titan City.”

“Is that all this means to you? Money? Is this all I ever meant to you?”

“I’m not a kid anymore, Eddie. I’ve got a family now, someone to look after.”

“I used to have a family,” said Edward. “You were my family. And together we looked after all of Titan City. That’s why the Crimson Wraith means so much to them. I thought you understood that. I thought you believed in our mission. I even thought you might take on that role yourself someday.”

“I never wanted that,” said Tommy.

“That’s fine. I wouldn’t have made you. I never made you do anything, did I?”

“No, but…”

“There you go. You chose this — all of this. Everything you wrote down here in your book, you chose. And now, you are choosing something different. So be it. I could never bring myself to marry a woman and make a charade of romance, but if you think you can…”

“My marriage isn’t a charade, Eddie. I love my wife. I’m not… like you.”

Edward shrugged. “My mistake. But don’t publish this, Tommy. If you can’t see the risk it brings to you, think of the harm you might be doing to others. What will people think of the Crimson Wraith afterward? By focusing on the salacious details of our relationship, you make him sound like some sort of deviant. This book reeks with page after page of filth. And that’s not how I remember it, Tommy. There was nothing dirty about the way we felt about each other, not for me.”

“So, you did read it…”

“I did,” said Edward. “And it broke my heart.”

Tommy appeared to consider this. “Maybe I don’t have to publish it.”

“There you go. Now you’re thinking clearly.”

“But,” said Tommy, “I need you to make up for the money I’d get from it.”

“What?”

“Five hundred thousand dollars.”

“Five…”

“Half a million in total. Think of it as backpay. A hundred thousand for each year I was the Wily Wisp. It doesn’t have to be all up front. Over time is fine. You could place it in a trust..”

Edward slapped Tommy across the face. “I took you into my home!” he roared. “I fed you, clothed you, supported your education! I gave you my heart! I gave you my trust!”

“You trusted me?” Tommy shouted. “I trusted you! How many times was I captured, beaten, tortured? And Doctor Oblivion… the things he did…” Tommy clutched the side of his head and seemed to suddenly be fighting back tears. “He’s still in there, Eddie, there, in my mind. I can’t sleep hearing his voice. Please, Eddie. Please, I need this. You can’t say no. Not after all we’ve been through, after what I went through…”

“No,” said Edward. “I am saying it. No. Because if you ever had any real feelings for me, you could not threaten me with blackmail like this. And let’s be honest, if I were to pay you off now, could I trust that would be enough?”

“You can trust this,” said Tommy. “I will publish this book. And it will sell. And then everyone will know. They may not know who the Crimson Wraith is, but they will know what the Crimson Wraith is.”

Through gritted teeth, Edward spat, “So be it.”

“You don’t think I will?” said Tommy. “I will, really.”

“Yes, go on then. Do it.” He nodded. “Show me what a man you’ve become. Show me you aren’t afraid of what will happen.”

“I’m not.”

“And neither am I.” A laugh burst out of Edward. “Do you know how long… But no, you don’t. You can’t. Your generation doesn’t know what it’s like, the hiding, the secrets, the lies. That’s what it meant to be a homosexual before all this liberation you’ve come to enjoy. It meant knowing the world hates you, hating yourself just that much, maybe more. And why? Because of some injury you caused another? No, because your heart was just shaped that way. And you would rip it from your chest with bare hands if someone told you they could replace it with a heart that’s ‘normal,’ a heart that wants all the things every other heart wants.”

Edward poured himself another bourbon and drank deep. “Go on then, Thomas James. Unmask the Crimson Wraith. I won’t stop you. Let’s find out if everyone likes what they see.”