“Just answer my question. Did we fucking do anything to scare you?”
The words barely got through to him. Could he run again? What did this guy want? Goddamn it, why was it so dark? Why was nobody else out on the street?
“What do you want?”
“Well, Jesus! I want to have a reasonable conversation if that’s not too much to ask.”
“Look, mister, I do not want to have a conversation with you. You do not know me. You are not going to get—” He fell silent as he heard the flick of a knife at belly height.
“Yeah, that’s right. That’s better. Now, I’m not gonna have to get all nasty and use this, am I?”
“Look…look man, I ain’t carrying much money, but you can have it.”
“You keep your goddamn money. I said, why the fuck you—”
“No,” he got out. “No, I don’t think it does.”
“You don’t think what does what? Go on, Princess. Tell me what you don’t think.”
“I don’t think it makes you a faggot if a trannie sucks you off. Now please, just—”
The guy’s eyes went wide as he turned around full circle, palms out, waiting for the applause of an audience that still hadn’t fucking deigned to turn up. “Oh! Well, thank you very much. I’m glad you chose to clarify that, though it still don’t answer my current, most pressing question.”
“Yes. Yes, I did!”
“…which is, ‘Why the fuck you running?’ Or did you just forget I asked you that?”
He shivered, the ache in his stomach rising as the guy drew closer. Hunger. Fear. Arousal. Disgust. “What do you want?”
Rum was on the guy’s breath as he pulled his lips back to reveal his flawed teeth. “Let’s ah…step inside here for a minute.” The guy nodded at the rusted gate to nowhere in the middle of the fence.
He watched as the creep, knife still open and shining in the moonlight, broke open the gate with ease and beckoned him inside.
Once they were both off the street, the man turned him once more. “Hey, ah…Sorry I got a bit carried away out there. I’m not gonna lie to you. The other guys? They wanted to mess you up some. Especially Lou. Man, he’s got this thing about certain types of people.”
“But you don’t? Despite, you know, holding a goddamn knife on me?”
“Total contrary.” The guy raised his hands, making a show of tucking the blade away and pocketing it. “And you’re right, that was rude. I’m sorry. That was not worthy. Hell, I was just trying to get your attention. I’m just out for a little fun, same as everybody else. I don’t care what business you got going on. You sure are pretty enough, if you don’t mind me sayin’ that.”
“Whoa, whoa.” He shook his head. “Listen, you got the wrong idea. I don’t do that.”
The man’s hands were on his shoulders, shoving him to his knees before he could dodge or fight them.
“And why the fuck not, huh?” the guy demanded, yanking off his t-shirt and slapping a row of smooth, hardened abs.
In that moment, all he could do is stare at the piece of ripped trailer trash taunting him. The drum-tight shape of the body, the smell of it, the tattoos, the tilted hips as the man pulled down the lip of his jeans. He hated the sick feeling slowly invading his stomach. He hated the guy’s handsome face and his stupid grin.
“Ain’t nobody gonna know but us, Princess. You say it don’t make me a faggot? That’s good enough for me.”
“I’m not—”
The man’s hand stung his cheek. He choked, straining to keep his temper as the guy opened his jeans. He stared at the long appendage that rose from a mass of tight, blond curls, a grinning death’s head clumsily inked just above them. It mocked him, dared him to lick precum from the ugly, swollen organ before taking it wholly in his mouth.
It was stupid, vain hope to think this would be over quickly. Or that Kyle wouldn’t taste him. Then Kyle would know and never want to touch him again.
“I....I can’t!”
“Yes, you can, bitch,” the man barked, grabbing the back of his head and forcing the hard head against his lips.
“Fuck off!” He closed his lips tight, until the hand stung his cheek again, releasing a faint gasp that might as well have been an invitation to the thug’s hungry sex. He took it in smooth, fast strokes, hoping with each one that the man was close. That it would be over in seconds. Then he could spit it out like a bad, rancid dream.
A minute dragged into two, then three. Stroke, stroke, lick, lick. The bitter salt of the bastard’s precum bubbled at the back of his tongue. Hurry up. Jesus, fuck, just hurry up already. Why did the prick want this if he wasn’t gonna come? He pushed his tongue out farther, stroking the intruder’s flesh right down to its musky hilt. The creep praised his efforts with an appreciative moan. His tongue, his secret weapon. He worked it along the entire length of the man’s shaft, expertly edging down the foreskin, trying not to gag as the fresh sourness of the man’s uncovered head scraped his throat. With his talented tongue, he returned the flimsy sheath to its former position. Then rolled it back again, arching the back of his tongue to scrape along the slit.
“Oh, man! Where the...oh fuck! What are you—Oh, Oh!”
The man had already pulled away before Antoine realized what he was doing. The creep’s cock erupted not a half second later, sending sour, white rivulets over his face. He felt it drip from his lips as more landed on his eyes and cheeks, across his lips. Bleeding down his face, pearly white seed now stained with ruined makeup. A brown and white swirled mess came away in his hand as he tried to wipe it away. One eye was stuck shut and stung from the wayward load. The other was blinded only by rage.
If only he’d been stronger or faster or...fuck! How could he have been so stupid? The anger went through him as he slowly rose to his feet. Fuck it all. He was strong. He was fast. A fearsome electric charge went through him as he flicked away the mess from his hand. Prick. You fucking bastard asshole. I. Am. Fierce.
“How do you like that, Princess? Gotta say, you got some mighty fine ski—”
The thick wad of spit, makeup, and cum smacked across the thug’s face with a wet plop.
The man stood there at first, staring at him with nothing to conceal his disbelief. He had no makeup to ruin. No mask to shatter, except the asshole’s pride. All his dignity was now destroyed, leaving them equals.
He raised his arms up in front of his face as the man cursed him, jumping back as the first blow glanced off his arm. The second was less forgiving. Driven harder this time by the man’s rage, it collided with a soft spot right below his eye, snapping across his nose with a pain that exploded through the side of his face, all the way to his jaw. He could no longer tell where the thug had hit him, now barely able to distinguish one punch from many.
He staggered, legs failing as a hard shove unbalanced him. The dust of the vacant lot swirled up into his nostrils and mouth, mingling with spit, snot, cum, and yes, of course, blood now. Had he really expected anything different? Why the hell had he not just swallowed his damn pride with a mouthful of makeup and bolted?
“You just gonna lay down there? On the ground, useless faggot bitch?”
He barely heard the thug’s words. The steel toe of the man’s boot hit his side before he could move an inch. He buried a scream in his filthy sleeve, trying to ignore the blood he’d already coughed into it.
“You want to fight me? Come on then, get up. Get the fuck up and fight me! Stupid cocksucker!”
Pain tore through him as he tried, as if his rib cage was splintering beneath his skin. With an effort that felt like one of his shoulder blades was tearing loose, he steadied himself on one elbow, as far from the ground as his aching limbs would allow, before focusing on his breaths. In, out, in, out, He tried to slow them down, each one like a knife through his gut. In, two, three, four, out, two, three...Slave to the Rhythm.
“I said, do you want to fight me?”
He had just enough time to wonder if one of the kicks had dis
located his shoulder before seeing the final, fatal blow come right at his head.
MARC
Marc’s head felt like it had gone under the propeller of an outboard motor. His gut didn’t feel much better, and the flesh below the decorative scarring on his chest ached a dull throb. He forced one eye open, still trying to shut out the mercifully dim light that surrounded him.
Where the fuck was he? Had he blacked out again? He couldn’t remember drinking so much. Now, staring into the grinning jaws of a stuffed alligator’s head perched atop a mannequin, decked out in a top hat, a skull clutched in its dark hand, he could smell the incense and pepper. A Voodoo shop. He’d gotten pissed out of his fucking mind and staggered his way into one of the Voodoo joints that clipped tourists who came looking for ‘the local culture.’ He squinted at the dark, musty portrait that stared down at him. Some crazy-ass faggot dressed in… Fuck. Panties? He looked away, rubbing the bridge of his nose and easing up onto his feet. He picked his shirt up off the floor and slipped it over his head, dismissing the passing realization that it wasn’t his usual style. He couldn’t even remember buying it. Or stealing it. Why he’d taken it off was anyone’s guess.
“Yes, that’s right, Officer,” he heard a faint, cranky-ass voice croak outside. “Dumaine. No, I don’t think he’ll give you any trouble. But he’s locked himself in there, and I can’t… No, I’m not looking to press charges! I just want my goddamn… I’m not shouting, Officer.”
Shit! Where was he? What had he gone and done?
Marc padded as quietly as he could to the door. He put a hand on the knob and opened it as slow as he could manage, hoping no creak or latch would give him away. But the man outside seemed far too engrossed in his phone conversation to hear much else. Marc couldn’t remember how he’d gotten in there, but if he could creep quietly enough around this corner…
“Goddamn it!” the man shouted, ending his call and turning to look Marc full in the face.
The two of them stood in silence for a moment. Marc guessed the man at fifty, maybe sixty, and though he clearly moved about with the aid of a shiny black cane, the glint in the old guy’s eyes gave no hint of time having slowed or confused him. He looked Marc over from top to bottom, very, very closely.
Marc opened his mouth to say something. Apologize? Ask for the bathroom? Fuck!
“I think it’s high time you left, son,” the man said at last, leading him with a slow step to the main door and turning the lock. It swung open to reveal a darkening sky, with heavy storm clouds chasing any persistent traces of sunlight.
Marc nodded, trying to pass nervousness off as respect as he again straightened his clothes and made for the door.
The old guy arched an eyebrow at him as he passed. “Hope you found what you were looking for.”
As the first drops of an evening downpour hit his face, Marc picked up his stride and ran.
KYLE
Alien. That was the only word for it. As alien a place as Kyle had ever seen in his life, from the lurid colors of the drinks to the shirtless guys doing the pouring. Their hard stomachs, strong backs and powerful arms rippled under the dim lights as they effortlessly mixed the cocktails, strong hands moving faster than Kyle could follow. Four bodies too built to be real. All part of the fantasy the bar used to loosen a few more dollars from its guests.
Several small gangs of girls were each crowded around one in a two-dollar plastic tiara, fairy lights blinking on and off as they stared into the dim blue light of their cell phones. A cute, but cocky-looking blond guy with tattoos and a weird tooth kept smiling at him, not to mention the elephantine drag queen fresh off the stage and now sipping a bright pink cocktail at the end of the bar, in between jokes with one of the bartenders.
The sound system boomed with some hideous pop song that sounded much like the one before it, and the one before that, and the one the drag had synched to. He couldn’t remember any of their titles, or the names of the singers for that matter. He’d made himself a promise to check out every gay bar in the Quarter at least once to get a good feel for the place. Maybe find his little piece of it. But he’d soon given up on trying to find a place that played his type of music. New Orleans might have been a haven for every kind of weirdo and freak, but he guessed a gay dive bar that played punk rock might have been a stretch, even for the famously eclectic tastes of the Crescent City.
He looked down at the rapidly approaching bottom of his beer glass, then scanned the gyrating crowd again. A skinny black guy stood out half a head’s height above the throng, pushing his way through the crowd of twinks and tourists. At last, the stranger reached the bar, where Kyle could get a good view. The man looked around his age, give or take. Twenty, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. But he might easily have been a few years older, especially with what he was wearing.
Kyle’s eyes widened as he had a good long look at the stranger’s deep purple blazer. Ass-hugging pants were stretched tight over his long, sinewy, athletic legs with decent-sized feet encased in a low pair of black heels. The guy was wearing a girl’s belt, too. As the lights flashed over the stranger’s hands, Kyle was sure his nails were painted the same shade of purple. Now that he noticed it, the blazer was also meant for a girl.
The stranger waved his long, bony hand to get the bartender’s attention, shouting just loud enough for Kyle to hear over the din. He’d braced himself for a braying, high-pitched whine like the drag queens he’d seen on TV. Instead, he heard only a polite, “Another one please, Miles,” in a clear, well-bred voice. The voice of someone way more refined and educated than he’d ever be. With a nervous swallow, Kyle realized it had given him an instant hard-on.
“Well? What are you drinking?”
Kyle struggled for breath, realizing the striking creature had just addressed him. His mind struggled to keep up, trying to match the voice he’d just heard to the drag and makeup the guy had on. Most of the queens he’d seen at least tried to sound like women when they dragged up. Not this one.
“You…you look real pretty,” he got out at last.
“Well thanks, but that wasn’t my question.”
“Oh! Ah…just Bud.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no, that cat piss is what I’d order if I hated you.” The stranger turned his attention back to the muscular bartender he’d been talking to. “Miles, can we please get this boy a Heineken, at least?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to, ah… That is, I wasn’t…”
“On its way, handsome guy. The least you can do is share in some conversation. You don’t object to being seen with a pretty boy, do you?”
Kyle took several deep breaths, hoping the queen wouldn’t notice. “Well, no, of course not. Thanks. You’d be…more of a pretty girl though, wouldn’t you?”
The stranger stood deathly still, eyeballing him, a bright green cocktail in one hand, and a nowhere near as bright green bottle with the familiar label in the other. “Now why would you say that?”
He shrugged. “Other queens I met, they all call each other ‘girl,’ ‘her,’ ‘she,’ or whatever.”
“My friend, I’ve been called a great many things. What I am not...” He set down the beer emphatically. “…is a drag queen.”
“I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t.”
“But still—”
“Forgotten.”
“I just—”
“It’s fine.”
“So,” he began again, only now realizing the stranger’s lips were also painted purple. Was there a non-insulting way to finish?
“So, why all this?”
Kyle nodded.
“Because I like how it feels to know I make this look good,” he said, pushing back his shoulders within the blazer. “And because once in a while it’s nice to hear some handsome stranger tell me I look pretty. Someone I just happen to spy across the bar whose name is…”
“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry. The name’s Kyle.”
“Antoine Lavolier. Enchanté,�
� the man said, extending his bony hand with the palm down.
Kyle stared at it a moment before taking gentle hold. Then, feeling clumsy as a horse in football cleats, he pitched forward and kissed the back of Antoine’s fingers.
Antoine grinned, taking another sip of his drink. “Was that as hard as it looked?”
“Pretty much.” Kyle lifted the familiar green bottle he’d seen and ignored countless times in bars back home and took a long pull. Though he screwed his nose up at first, he had to admit it went down easy.
“Dare I ask, Kyle, what godforsaken town spat you up?”
He offered up a small shrug. “Not a town, exactly. More like about fifty miles out of Shreveport.”
Antoine stared at him. “That’s it? Outside of Shreve-port? That’s all I’m getting?”
“Close enough.”
“Well, all right then, Kyle from fifty miles out of Shreve-port.”
They sat in silence and near perfect stillness for a moment, watching the crowd. A trio of two boys and a girl scowled at another girl in a twinkling plastic tiara as she pushed them aside on her way to the bar. In the darkness of the upstairs balcony, Kyle spied two guys exchanging a blowjob where they thought they couldn’t be seen. He caught the blond guy scowling at him before the man turned his back and moved away.
“Hey,” Kyle said at last. “I don’t want to keep you from your friends.”
“I’m here alone,” Antoine replied. “Unless, you’d rather be alone.”
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean that.”
“Ahah, that black cloud over your head’s just a freak weather accident, huh?”
Kyle offered up a grim flick of a smile. “The music kind of sucks.”
Antoine nearly choked on his cocktail with laughter. “What would you prefer?”
“I don’t know. I guess the gays ain’t much into metal and punk.”
“Sure they are. Just not the gays who come here.”
“So, what do you like? Beyoncé and stuff, I guess?”
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