Deconstruction

by Kit Zheng

  Vic looked good, all dusky olive skin, soft black hair dusted over compact, wiry muscle and framing his heavy, fat cock. His grin was triangular, so open it offset the permanent lines between his thick, black brows. He could shave as often as he liked and he still seemed to have a five o’clock shadow, gift of his Mediterranean heritage.

  Tomas thought he was going to die if he didn’t touch Vic, immediately.

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  He crossed the room in a couple of easy strides, fell to his knees. Vic sat on the edge of the bed and rested his boot heels on Tomas’ shoulders, nudged him forward. Tomas reverently cupped each of Vic’s feet, turned his head, dragged his mouth over leather, inhaled. The sweet-dark smell made him groan; Vic digging his heels into Tomas’

  shoulders so that he could feel every ridge and scuff on the bottom of the boot made him nearly come. But he moved his grip upward, pulled Vic’s feet beyond him until they were crossed behind his neck, and he buried his face at the base of Vic’s cock, feeling the booted heels dig into his back, urging him higher and harder and faster.

  Vic’s natural smell was something like the leather, but spicier; Tomas dipped lower, tasting Vic’s asshole, tonguing him as Vic stroked himself above. Tomas rubbed the calves of the boots like he wanted to touch his cock, squeezing, stroking.

  Vic startled him by suddenly lowering one of his legs, the rough soles of the boots coming to brace against his collarbone, against the thick muscle of his pecs. They slid downward, over Tomas’ thighs, kicked gently between his legs to spread them apart.

  Tomas looked up into a suggestive grin, groaned as the booted feet came together against and around his cock, shiny leather calves squeezing his straining erection. He lost it then, fucking between sheathes of skintight leather, toes of the boot digging into his balls and ass. Didn’t last long, that slippery, tight euphoria, coming all over the glossy black leather, Vic watching him.

  Tomas laid his cheek against Vic’s knee, catching his breath. “Do you want—?” he started, but he didn’t finish, because Vic was shaking his head already.

  “Nah,” Vic said, standing and unzipping the boots, tugging them off. Tomas reached for him, rubbed one lean-muscled, furry thigh. Started to offer again, but then Vic threw a look his way. It wasn’t the satisfied, affectionate look Tomas expected.

  “I gotta clean these off.” Vic lifted the boots, half grinned and then hurried out of the bedroom. Tomas crouched on the floor, confused, but then he got a whiff of himself, of someone else’s cologne, not his and not Vic’s. Jon’s.

  “Wait— Vic—crap.”

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  He felt like shit, but he couldn’t think of anything to say, and Vic was long gone. He picked himself up, headed toward the bathroom.

  * * * *

  “Tomas. Hey, Tomas.” Tomas startled when Teddy, one of the other dancers, laid a hand on his arm.

  Teddy gave a small chuckle.

  “Can I go wherever you’ve gone? Gotta be better than this.” Smiling a little, Tomas shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Teddy had a hint of a long-lost accent that made his words come out in a slow drawl, like a trace of honey in his voice. He arched an eyebrow as he dragged a palm over his forehead and back into his hair. The lights were hot, the club verging on stifling with the Saturday night crowd. But crowded or not, the demand for private shows—and with it, the money—was low. Tomas had too much time alone with his own thoughts, and not enough energy to invite a change to his situation. Guilt devoured his attention.

  “Better watch out, Benny catches you in orbit you know he’s gonna have a ‘talk’

  with you.” Teddy leaned up against the wall next to Tomas and lit up a cigarette.

  Tomas had a strange, odd desire for a cigarette, too. He didn’t smoke, never had.

  “Not ‘the talk,’” Tomas said, with even less gusto than he felt. Mostly the talk was horrifying because of its unmatched ability to send you into spasms of boredom with the first three words. Benny pretty much repeated himself every time.

  “‘This club doesn’t need your ass! You’re just some beefcake in a thong! You think you’re irreplaceable? Ass like yours is a dime a dozen!’” Teddy flattened out his honey voice into a good approximation of Benny’s Midwest snark.

  “‘You better get your act together, mister,’” Tomas chimed in, but he just said the words, didn’t really mock Benny’s voice.

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  “You sound like my momma,” Teddy laughed.

  Tomas grinned wide and felt some of the weight lift off him. He liked his job, the club, the other dancers. The thing with Vic had to pass, he told himself. Vic was having a rough time at work, and Tomas didn’t exactly make things better. Might even have fucked it up a little. But if they couldn’t make it through a few rocky periods, then they had a lot bigger problems than his forgetting to shower. He had faith that they would make it through those rough spots.

  He thought about Vic above him, about the tight, leather calves sandwiching his cock, warm with Vic’s body heat. Suddenly the club wasn’t hot at all.

  “Now, can’t be such a bad place you’re in with a look like that on your face.” Teddy elbowed him.

  Tomas just laughed and avoided answering.

  “Well, I suppose it’s full of the wrong gender for me anyhow.” Teddy turned and waved at the bartender. Tomas wondered if Benny was out—he saw a couple of the other dancers with drinks, something Benny declared against house rules. Everyone danced sober in Benny’s club. Teddy procured a couple of bottles of Guinness and handed one to Tomas.

  “So you hear about that guy on Seventh Street?” Teddy asked before taking a good slug off his beer. “Fourth one like that. They say it may be a serial killer.” Tomas nodded. He saw the article in the paper, even though it was just a little paragraph in the Local section. “Poor kid.”

  “You scared?”

  Tomas shrugged. “I don’t work like that.”

  They watched Kevin on stage for a while. Kevin was an expert, probably the best of them all at stage work and they were an elite, hand-picked crew, but even he was having a hard time with tonight’s crowd. Tomas watched him pause by an older gentleman, allowing the man to whisper something in his ear and tuck a card into the pouch of his G-string. Absently, he wondered exactly how many of them were sleeping 27

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  with clients after hours.

  After a while Teddy said, “Some of the boys are really losin’ their shit ‘cause of that kid in the dumpster.”

  Tomas nodded. “Makes everyone a little nervous, I guess.”

  “You gonna cool it for a while?”

  Tomas looked at Teddy, with his model-good-looks and his vague arrogance. Knew he’d never understand. Teddy didn’t do escort work, never would. He just hated not knowing what was going on in the club.

  “I’ve got a mortgage payment coming up,” Tomas said, and smiled. Teddy laughed.

  “Don’t you make enough for that on stage?”

  “Not with the house I bought.”

  Teddy just shook his head. His eyes left Kevin, tracked something across the room.

  He finished off his beer and then bumped Tomas in the arm with the empty bottle.

  “You noticed that man over there hasn’t stopped staring at us? I’m hoping it’s you he’s interested in. Don’t feel like going another round of ‘why I work here when I’m straight’ tonight.”

  Tomas sipped his beer, trying to follow Teddy’s casual head-tip. He almost choked when he made out who Teddy meant—austerely handsome, tall, dominating even in this shadowy crowd. Wearing his old college letter jacket like a crisp, navy uniform.

  Tomas made himself swallow.

  Jon Newman never came here, except when he was doing work for Benny. And when he did work for Benny, he did his best to show up in official capacity, so no one went around making the mistake o
f thinking that he might be a fag. Speculating what he was doing here incognito made Tomas’ stomach twist.

  Their eyes met for a moment, and then Tomas looked away. He could feel Jon still watching him.

  “You should ask him if he wants a dance. You’ll probably get a good tip,” Teddy 28

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  was saying. “He looks pretty hooked up.”

  Tomas knew, without looking, the gleam of the club lights off Newman’s heavy gold watch, the band of it interrupting the dusting of curly brown hairs that trailed over the backs of his hands and down his forearms. He knew the dark eyes watching him, knew the worn, leather wallet full of well-circulated twenties and fifties. Wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with Jon Newman right now, after he’d brought the man home with him and pissed off Vic.

  “He looks like a vice cop.”

  Tomas looked up sharply. Kevin had joined their little slacker’s corner, dark skin still gleaming with sweat from his stint on stage praying to the money gods.

  Kevin and Tomas traded a look that Teddy would never understand. Robbie was on stage at the moment, grinding his hips to a souped-up club remix of “Sexyback” while a wide-eyed trio of college boys offered him dollar bills and puppy-dog admiration. A few older men sitting at the other side of the stage looked annoyed. Jon Newman was no longer watching Tomas. He had worked his way to the edge of the stage and was gazing at Robbie with open invite, a promise of mucho dinero. Tomas saw the trap closing. He had fallen for it once himself. Was maybe still caught in its jaws.

  Kevin had an angry look on his face and started to move forward. Tomas put out a hand, stopped him. Shook his head, silently.

  “I’ll get him out of here,” he said, voice low and almost lost in the music.

  Kevin and Robbie had been planning for weeks to cut and run, set up their own business, do private dances mostly. Not really even threatening Benny’s cash flow.

  They’d kept it low, but somehow Benny must have gotten a whiff and set his pet hound after his prime suspect to teach him a lesson.

  Tomas moved through the crowd with the ease of someone who’d worked the club scene for too many years. He never took his eyes off Jon, the navy-on-white stripes his target. Robbie’s song was ending and he was smiling, coming off the stage toward what looked like a promising private and maybe more. Tomas made sure he got there first, 29

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  laid a hand on Jon’s shoulder and leaned forward, smiling, whispering.

  “Hey, you.”

  Newman stiffened under Tomas’ touch. But when he turned he was as natural and confident as ever. “I was hoping you’d come over.”

  Tomas smiled a smile that suggested he was hoping the same thing. He tipped his head a little, toward the door. “I’m just getting off, and I thought…” Newman’s eyes flashed toward the stage, toward where Robbie had been cornered by the three college boys, and then back to Tomas.

  “Unless you had other plans,” Tomas said, stepping back a little, shrugging. He fell back and Jon moved forward. He knew this dance intimately. Felt the flat of Newman’s hand graze his naked belly, snag on the waist of his leather pants. Felt a brief, wretched guilt, and strangled it. Tomas grabbed Jon’s wrist and guided the man’s hand to his crotch and lost himself a little, as if this were all real.

  Jon turned the move on him, twisted his right hand to seize Tomas’ and with his left gripped Tomas’ neck, jerked him into an embrace like a cage.

  “I’m working,” Jon said. “Don’t distract me, or I’ll take you down instead of your buddy.”

  Tomas felt his mouth go dry, but the dizzying rush of blood was not to his head. He couldn’t help himself; he breathed out hard, just once, almost a pant. It surprised Newman almost as much as it surprised him. “Fuck,” Newman laughed against his ear.

  “Is that what you want? And this morning you were refusing a tame little tie-up?” The fingers on Tomas’ neck moved down, caressed the bumps of his spine and the tight, hard planes of muscle on his back. Newman guided Tomas’ hand into one of his jacket pockets; Tomas’ thumb brushed cold, smooth metal. He jerked away involuntarily.

  “Tell you what. You let me use these on you—” Newman pressed the cuffs into Tomas’ fingers, “and I’ll let your buddy off the hook tonight.” Tomas was frozen. Knew what he should do, what he needed to do, and what he wanted. They were all the same thing. But he couldn’t do it—couldn’t say yes, couldn’t 30

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  give in. Shame, or something like it, settled over him like wet blanket. At last he managed the barest hint of a nod.

  So quick Tomas had no time to register what happened, much less react, he was spun around and stumbling. One knee cracked into the hard cement floor and his captive wrist was already behind him, braceleted, the second cuff dangling while Jon found and maneuvered his other arm. He was all too aware of the eyes on him—he could feel them, like the heat of the lamps on his skin. His cheeks were hot, the flush spread over his ears and down his neck, and he ducked his head, as if trying to curl in on himself and hide. But his trousers were too skin-fitting to hide everything; he was all too aware of the obvious shape of his cock trapped against one leg. Aware that everyone nearby was aware, wondering if this was another show. “You have the right to remain silent,” he heard Jon say, as he was jerked to his feet, “right to an attorney—” There was anger, suddenly, along with the shame and arousal. Tomas tried to turn enough to talk to Jon, tell him this was too far. But he only managed, “I didn’t—” before Jon said loud enough for everyone to hear, “Your first mistake was to attempt to solicit an officer of the law, Mr. Suullinen. Don’t make another by trying to argue the issue.”

  “But—” Tomas said, feeling his face burn. He knocked into a couple with their back turned, earning hard words from one. They were almost to the exit now; he saw Hennessey working the door, looked away before their eyes could meet. He just wanted out of the club as quick as possible, away from all the prying eyes, the questioning looks, the deliberate shame. When the outside air hit his face, it was sharp as winter, and he exhaled, hard, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Jon maintained his act, dragging him toward the gated lot across from the club, but Tomas couldn’t keep pretending any longer.

  “That wasn’t—”

  “Wasn’t what?” Jon turned; his face was all seriousness, and Tomas had a gut-wrenching moment of wondering if Jon was really going to arrest him instead of Robbie. They passed the lot booth. Tomas stared at the ground until they reached Jon’s 31

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  car. He was shoved into the passenger seat with about as much care as a sack of potatoes.

  Jon climbed into the driver’s side and closed the door behind him. The act melted away—Jon laughed, reaching over, squeezing Tomas’ leg, his bulging hard-on. Tomas felt another rush of heat start in his crotch and race upward. He kept his eyes forward, mouth tightening.

  “I’d like out of these now, please,” he said softly, twisting to reveal his cuffed wrists.

  “I don’t think you do.” Jon’s hand was sliding up and down Tomas’ leg. Tomas clenched his jaw and stared into the dark outside. But his breathing was sharp, arrhythmic, betraying him.

  “We had a deal.”

  “We still have one.”

  “I don’t work in trade.”

  “Fine,” Jon said. He produced his wallet from his jacket pocket, counted out the usual fee. His fingers trailed over Tomas’ side, along his hipbone; tucked a wad of bills hand-held so long they had become suede-like, soft against Tomas’ skin. “Now you can’t say no.”

  Tomas was firm. He was always firm on this point with clients. “You know I don’t work that way, Jon.”

  “Your cock says otherwise.”

  Tomas didn’t reply. Jon was right, he was horny as fuck—wanted Jon’s hand on his dick, Jon’s mouth, Jon’s fucking tongue, boot, cock, ass, glove, belt…Jon’s anything… He shifted restlessly in the seat, straining agai
nst the seat belt.

  “This new side of you I’m seeing is pretty fucking hot, Tommy-boy. Half thought you were gonna come in your pants while I was dragging you out of there.” Tomas closed his eyes; made himself breathe. He was so hard it hurt, constricted by tight leather and laces. Jon seemed to know it—rested his hand right over one of the 32

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  cleverly concealed breakaways built into Tomas’ pants. They were meant to come off easy, with one good jerk. Earlier, Tomas had changed for the full-nude portion of the show, so he wasn’t wearing anything under the tight, soft leather.

  “Please,” he breathed. Fought to keep his voice level and soft, to keep the desperation out.

  “Please what?” Newman’s body heat soaked through the leather, made Tomas’

  cock throb. Newman gave it a deliberate, slow caress.

  Every muscle in Tomas’ body was knotted, coiled, straining. Sweat trickled down his neck, down the pinched cleft his backward-drawn arms made of his back. “I need—I need to come.”

  Wordlessly, Newman began to rub Tomas’ leg, to rub the bulging shape of cock trapped against his thigh. The motion was strong, firm, regular; Tomas bit his lip, fought to keep still. The slow movement and his confinement were frustrating, agonizing—the seatbelt against his abdomen and shoulder, the cuffs on his wrists, the sheath of leather crushing and containing his cock.

  He didn’t notice Newman start up the car until they were moving. Even then he couldn’t focus on much more than the infuriating motion of Newman’s hand; he strained uselessly against the cuffs, wanting to reach around, to urge the touch faster.

  He was clenching his teeth so hard his jaw hurt and he was about to break and finally beg for it when the caresses suddenly became a frenzy—hard, precise, pausing in the right places. The tight sheath of his pant leg became a second foreskin, sliding and rubbing and almost too much, he tipped his head hard back against the headrest and opened his mouth noiselessly and—