by Willa Okati
“Fuck, yeah. You shoulda seen your face. Come on, now, don’t get mad. If any man ever needed a drink, you did.” Lily tossed the emptied cone on the ground and looped her arm through Harrison’s. “All right. Let’s follow the yellow brick road.”
Despite fuming internally about how some people deserved a proper spanking no matter how old they were, Harrison let himself be tugged along. He got so lost in thought he failed -- almost -- to notice how, though the statue of Bastet was large enough to almost completely block the service corridor, they slipped past with ease.
I wonder if they pump some sort of mind-altering chemical into the air? Harrison pondered. He’d been stoned once or twice in college, and this felt about the same as those experiences. A narcotic compound not yet available on the streets. A dirty trick courtesy of the management to trip the clients out and make them lose control. ‘Nights never to be forgotten’ -- oh, absolutely. Shameful.
“You think too damn much,” Lily informed him. “Noodle any harder and you’ll make my own head hurt. Keep walking.”
Harrison sighed and did as he’d been told, having come to terms with Lily as a woman from the breed of She Who Must Be Obeyed. Resistance was futile.
They turned into a walkway that looked to have been lifted directly from a medieval castle, all but dripping rough-hewn rock and empty, soot-blackened torch holders. Lily seemingly fell in love. Harrison... didn’t, though he couldn’t have said why.
Should he try to warn her about Martin? He cleared his throat. “Lily, vodka aside, I am enjoying your company, so please don’t take this the wrong way. I’m planning to meet someone down this corridor, and I’m not sure how he’ll react to you.”
“Worry, worry, worry. Ease up, Hal. He’ll love me. Everyone loves me.”
Harrison had his doubts, but after a moment’s deliberation decided to save his breath. Lily might be digging her own grave, but it’d take bigger balls than he had to stand in her way.
“Why do you come here, Doubting Thomas?” a sepulchral voice demanded, apparently from nowhere, gravelly as stones in a tumbler. “This is the road to the Magician. Why do you seek him? What makes you worthy of his august presence?”
Oh, now, really. Enough was damn well enough. “Who’s speaking?” Harrison demanded.
“Take it easy,” Lily chided. “They’re just gargoyles. Guardians of the path. Cool, huh?” She let go of Harrison’s arm and danced nimbly over to chuck a carved stone demon under his beaky chin. “There’s a boy. Good boy. Quack for Mama.”
The gargoyle’s awkward mouth flapped. “I... Mama?”
Lily laughed with the sheer abandon of a child. Harrison eyed the sculptures, amused himself. Although he wasn’t close enough to tell for sure, he suspected they were ordinary foam puppets that were spray-painted to look like stone. A simple trick.
“Road to the Magician, you say?” he asked, humoring both Lily and the orchestrator of this flight of fancy. “Sounds like the man I came to meet. Would his name be Martin?”
“Sing out loud for Mama,” Lily crooned, still tickling her gargoyle.
The gargoyle coughed with a sound like pebbles in a blender. “Er... yes. Martin is the Magician here.”
“Good gargoyle.” Lily petted its flaking head. “Gargoyle wanna cracker? I’ve got a packet of saltines around here somewhere. You go on ahead, Harry. I’m gonna hang out with these guys for a while.”
“Oh, no. You are?” the gargoyle blurted in dismayed tones.
Harrison almost chuckled out loud. Poor bastard, whoever operated the thing. Yeah, whoever pulled the puppet’s strings had most likely never dreamed about anyone like Lily. “I’ll be on my way, then.”
“He wants Martin,” another gargoyle piped up, this one damnably un-shy with its information. “Really wants Martin. He’s hard for Martin. Wants to use his cock, dirty cock, dock the cock the way Martin likes. Dirty boy plus dirty boy equals two dirty boys.”
“Watch your mouth.” Lily clipped that gargoyle across its muzzle. “Don’t mind these guys, Harry. G’wan, get outta here.”
Cursing the deep red blush he could feel staining his cheeks, Harrison got out while the getting was good. Fortunately, he found that he had another long corridor to travel down, still made of rock but blessedly free of any puppets or toys, and he was able to pull himself together before he reached the end, where a door stood slightly ajar. He would have gone in, but voices he could hear told him the space was already occupied.
“...don’t understand. Mikey’s never been unfaithful, never, but one look at this boggart and he turned his back on me. I thought I’d die.”
“There, there.”
Harrison had been about to turn around and back away until the room emptied -- eavesdropping was the height of bad manners -- until he heard the second person speak.
He knew that voice. Had heard it in his fantasy. This was the voice his mind had given that nebulous “Master.”
Impossible. Couldn’t be. Merely his imagination.
Damned if he could move away, though.
“The cards don’t lie, darling.”
God almighty, such a sexy voice. Harrison’s hard-on grew stiffer. He’d heard the expression “he could fuck you with his voice,” but never before had he experienced listening to one that measured up to it.
This man’s voice could not only fuck you, it could make you come and then gladly lie in the wet spot.
“See?” the fellow went on. “This is Mikey, moving away. Bye-bye, Mikey. And good riddance, the cheater. Now, now, don’t cry. Clean that pretty face up. These cards here say you’re going to meet someone even better, and soon. There, that’s the smile I wanted to see. Forget about the past and move on with the future. Dream. Believe in your dreams, and it’s just like magic. You’ll see.”
Harrison heard sniffling, then rustling, as if the one Mikey had betrayed had thrown himself into the other man’s arms for a hug. “Thank you,” he said, voice raw probably from crying. “I didn’t know what else to do, and I never thought someone like you would have time for someone like me, but thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The fantasy man chuckled. “You’re welcome. Now, why don’t you go back down to the dance floor? Take a few turns around and see who you find. And if you get the chance, stomp on Mikey’s instep for making you upset. As for me, I believe I have another visitor.”
“Oh. Oh, sure. You must get a lot of them. I’ll go. But thank you. Thank you.”
“Yes, yes.”
Harrison stepped back as a surprisingly young man stumbled out. He was almost androgynously pretty as a girl, with long silver hair and a pointed chin. For some reason the youth had also chosen to wear prosthetics on his ears, which made them pointed as well. Heaven help the current generation; those Lord of the Rings movies had done strange things to young folk who wanted to be just like Orlando or have Orlando when they grew up.
The boy glanced up at Harrison. Harrison could only imagine what he must look like to the lovely young thing -- a tall, bulky, scowling man -- but surely not so frightening as to elicit the response he got, which was a squeak and a hasty “’Scuse me” before the lad darted out of his way and went from zero to sixty running down the hall.
Harrison stared after him, baffled.
“Oh, don’t mind Kells,” his fantasy man drawled. “He’s a bit shy. Actually, no, he’s not. He’s a bit of a seer, although not when it comes to himself, more’s the pity. He’s also smart enough to get in out of the rain, or out of the eye of the storm, whichever you prefer.” The silky, sexy voice dripped with amusement. “Well? Aren’t you going to turn around and meet me face-to-face? I know what you look like, of course. I think you know what I look like, too.”
Harrison’s hands tightened into solid fists, neatly clipped nails pressing into the skin of his palms. “Stop playing games.”
“Who said they’re games?” the Magician taunted.
Pivoting, Harrison glared down at a blond man with one blue eye and
one brown, resplendent in his astoundingly gaudy purple cape with its high starched collar. Damn it all, he was the one Harrison had seen earlier.
“Martin, I take it?”
“One and the same.”
“I assume you’d prefer to call yourself the Magician?”
“Whichever. When we’re just being casual, Martin works fine. Good to meet you in person at last. C’mon in.” Martin flashed Harrison a look comprising equal parts sex, mischief, and cunning. “I know you want to.” The Magician licked his lips. “I know you want me. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. And, if he’s very good, he’ll be allowed to come again. Get it?”
Chapter Four
Harrison’s heart started hammering as the Magician spoke his innuendoes. He felt the need to loosen his collar so he opened two buttons and then shifted from one foot to the other in an attempt to adjust his cock. “You know I want you? Really?”
“Really and truly.” Martin was proving as hypnotizing a personality in the flesh as he was in e-mail. Harrison could hardly take his eyes away from the man, who was as gorgeous as he’d been in Harrison’s strange dreams and in the window trick, golden and lithe. Tempting as forbidden fruit.
“Truly and really.”
An attack of shyness overcame Harrison as Martin stared him over with no-holds-barred smoldering sexual interest. He hid his nerves behind stilted speech he might have given during a lecture. “An interesting statement, given we’ve only now introduced ourselves in person. I might be gay, but I am not one of the subset who immediately falls into bed after one look from, as I think you intended, a pair of ‘bedroom eyes.’”
Martin laughed, apparently tickled pink. “You’re as good as I thought you’d be. Come in, why don’t you?”
“Not yet, thank you.” Harrison folded his arms across his chest and stood firmly in the doorway, refusing to move until he was taken seriously.
He looked around, assessing the Magician’s chamber. If Martin had been the one to decorate his quarters -- if they were really his own and not borrowed for the occasion -- he certainly did take his “Magician” persona seriously, didn’t he?
The walls were made from roughly carved stone blocks plastered together by an oddly gritty mortar. A bare stone floor was partially covered by a ludicrously elaborate Hindi design rug (meant to be a flying carpet, no doubt). There was sparse furniture in a carved wooden medieval style. Shelves decorated with the sort of tacky bric-a-brac that cried cliché -- candles, skulls, worn leather books, et cetera, et cetera. A single window with an arched top and a fine view out into a curiously purple night sky. Torches mounted the walls, blazing cheerfully, the only other source of light besides the dimmed illumination of Charleston’s nightlife coming from the window.
Harrison supposed the whole rigmarole was meant to impress. On the contrary, the room bored him. He’d expected something a little more original from Martin than a prefabricated “abracadabra” style.
“Bedroom eyes. Mmm,” Martin commented, his voice laced with deeply sexual interest. “Pity you didn’t fall into them. They usually work. I’ve asked you twice, but I’ll ask a third time. Come in, won’t you?”
Martin entered the chamber ahead of Harrison, not even waiting to see if he was being followed. His air of smug self-confidence made Harrison’s teeth itch, while the rest of Martin’s demeanor jangled Harrison’s nerves.
“I came here to meet you for a face-to-face interview,” he said woodenly. “No more. No less.”
“Interview with the Magician?” Martin winked as he reached a low table made of some shining dark wood and ran his fingers over the glass top. Despite himself, Harrison couldn’t help noticing how long, delicate, and beautiful the man’s digits were. The hands of an artist, a musician, or... a skilled trickster. A thief.
Martin picked up what looked like a deck of cards. He palmed them to and fro; then he winked at Harrison as he did a Vegas-style shuffle, sending the cards in an arc from hand to outstretched hand. Harrison couldn’t quite tell for sure in the torchlight, but he would have bet money the cards were a Tarot deck.
Before Martin could offer, Harrison headed him off at the pass. “Thank you, but I’m not interested in having my fortune told.”
“Who said I was going to tell your fortune? The cards can show us ever so many things.”
“The Tarot is a mysticized remnant of card games first developed in the fourteenth century,” Harrison recited on autopilot. “According to many reliable records, there is no mention of the cards being employed in so-called arcane usage until the 1800s.”
“Who told you that? You never heard of Hebrew Kabbalah divination? Egyptian Senet? Nordic runes? Celtic ogham? The I Ching? Fortune-telling cards were all the rage in the Middle Ages, too. Don’t trust everything you read on the Internet. Records can lie, you know. Ever heard that history is written by the winners?”
Harrison rattled on over Martin’s teasing question, trying at the same time to ignore the effect Martin’s tantalizing voice was having on his cock, now fully hard and insisting on being paid some attention. “Tarot decks are fanciful and attractive playing cards. Nothing more.”
“If you think they’re such a hoax, why not let me read your fortune and see what I can See?”
“I’ve heard the practiced spiel about mysteries and the unknown from plenty of others.” Harrison shook his head. “I don’t need to hear this particular speech again.”
Especially not in your voice. Your voice might make me want to believe. Which would be bad. Very bad. Listen here, body. I am not led around by my cock, understand? Martin might be beautiful, but he’s not someone to go and get all jolly over. Behave.
“You’re not the slightest bit interested in watching me work the hoax in person so you can point and laugh and take notes on where I go wrong? No?” Martin clicked his tongue. “Honestly. You’re as rude in person as you always are in e-mail. Ill-mannered as a peasant. Fortunately, I’m willing to overlook your lack of training because you’re just too tasty not to indulge myself.”
“Should I thank you?”
“It’d be a start.” Martin licked his lips suggestively. “Do enter. It’s a harmless invitation. Come.”
Harrison felt a firm pressure at his back, as if some unseen presence was pushing his body forward. He took several startled, stumbling steps inside. The door slammed behind him.
Wonderful. Done with strings, I’m guessing. And of course it’ll be locked from the inside. He probably has a deadbolt, too. Harrison sighed and resigned himself to being the Magician’s “prisoner” until Martin got tired of playing games.
“Nice trick. Am I supposed to be amazed?”
“I’d be awfully flattered if you are.”
“Then I regret to tell you your attempt to astound me has failed. I don’t impress easily, particularly not over penny-ante stage tricks.”
“Darn. And I really was going to read your cards, too. It would have been ever so interesting. Oh, well.” Martin tossed his Tarot cards aside onto the nearby table. He dropped gracefully into a wooden chair decorated in once-bright paints, now fading, and the gleam of gold. Good Lord, was that real gold?
Harrison stopped looking when he noticed Martin watching him with a grin.
“Always analyzing every little doohickey you run across, eh? I figured that’d be your thing. As for calling my command over the elements stage tricks, you would, wouldn’t you?” Martin’s smile lines crinkled with teasing good humor. “Tell me, Harrison,” he said, drawing the name out as if he were running his tongue along Harrison’s dick, “what do I have to do to get you to believe one single word that comes out of my mouth?”
“You might try telling the truth.”
Martin’s bi-colored eyes widened with childlike innocence. “Is that all? Then, how’s this? I am not a Magician. I am a fake. I surround myself with trinkets and toys and capes and gargoyles and skulls and the special kind of drippy candles that Italian restaurants like to pu
t in wine bottles because that’s what fakes like me do. I’m smart enough to fool almost everyone, but I can’t pull the wool over your eyes, you clever thing, you. Woe, for I am discovered!” He threw a hand across his forehead and sagged.
Then, he glanced up, sparkling with mischief. “Did it work?”
Harrison counted to ten. Slowly. “I can see this is going to be a long night.”
“We can only hope.”
“And please stop flirting,” Harrison begged. It makes me want to run and hide or tackle you to the floor. I don’t know which. Don’t make me have to choose.
“Stop flirting? Can do. Why would I play around with words when I finally have the chance to get my physical hands on you?”
Harrison blinked. He hadn’t seen Martin get out of his chair, much less dart around, but the man’s slim hand was suddenly on Harrison’s shoulder, pushing him into an opulent seat.
“Delicious,” Martin approved, running his beautiful hands over Harrison’s upper back. “I love a man with a neck like a bull’s. Mind you, the girth must make finding collars that fit a real bitch, but you can only ask so much from stores. Frankly, I like making my own gear.” He pressed hard as Harrison tried to resist him. “Sit down.”
Harrison sat. The chair, apparently unaccustomed to anyone his size, creaked a bit under his weight.
“There,” Martin crooned, leaning forward to pin Harrison in place. Standing in the position he was, Martin kept Harrison unable to move out of his seat unless Harrison was willing to get rough.
It seemed Martin knew him too well. Harrison would never hit anyone, no matter how tempted. Too reserved, too clumsy, too easily trapped, and Martin somehow knew it was so. Harrison had no choice at all but to remain still when Martin lightly touched two fingers to both of his temples.
“Let’s see what’s inside, shall we? Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails, since that’s what little boys are made of?” Martin pressed in close enough for Harrison to catch his scent of rosemary, pine, patchouli, and smoke. Intoxicating. Close enough to make Harrison uncomfortably hard, desperate for release. Tempting. Very tempting. Deliberately tempting.