by Willa Okati
Collin let out a tremendous sigh. He took another gulp of sake. The scorching tingle shot down to his balls, warming them. They felt heavy and full. Oh, yes. His cock liked the sake, too. Made it want to play. All by itself, with no help from his hand, the organ swelled and rose, eager for action.
Another swallow of sake, and Collin decided he didn’t care if anyone happened to be looking. He chortled. Let Li Hsien get an eyeful if he glanced in Collin’s direction. Let everyone take in the show. Collin’s gears were greased. Time to party.
He unzipped his fly and pulled out his erection.
His dream man gazed at it. Hungry. “Want,” he whispered. “Mine. May I? Please?”
Collin grinned lazily. He squeezed the solid weight of his prick in one hand. “Are you man enough?”
“Maybe.” Dream Trick’s tongue snaked out to flick at the tip of Collin’s cock. “I can handle you.”
“Can you?”
“Oh, yes. But there’s just one problem.”
Collin rolled his eyes, annoyed. “And what would that be?”
Dream Trick looked up.
Shimmered into sudden reality.
There in the flesh. Seriously solid, scary flesh. His pupils had shaped into ovoid slits. His skin, once smooth, was covered in hundreds of tiny, glittering scales.
He flickered his pink tongue out again. It was forked. “I’m not a man,” he said.
Then hissed.
And dove for Collin’s cock, fangs bared to strike.
Chapter Six
Know how you can tell it just isn’t going to be your night, no matter what? When an imaginary pick-up comes to life, turns into a scaly ... thing ... and almost takes off your family jewels with one bite. Meanwhile, no one notices, looks up, or even seems to care. There’s your clue.
Of course, in the plus column, this also means no one sees you scream and run like a little boy, dick flapping in the wind, either.
Lying on the bar’s warm floor, gasping for breath, Collin stared at where he’d been moments before. Where the fantasy creature had appeared, then disappeared after Collin had yelled and flung himself automatically away from its fangs. A flicker of the eye, a wicked grin, and poof -- gone. Oddly, Collin could still feel his presence. As if he’d really been there, whatever he -- it? -- was. A tickle from the brush of curly hair on his inner thighs. A damp streak where the forked tongue had licked his erection.
Speaking of which, it appeared to be set in a stubborn mood. Still full and throbbing, he’d swear the traitorous thing had liked being attacked! His cock all but pouted up at him for bringing the fun to a screeching halt halfway through.
Blow-job, good. Stop, why? More, please. Now!
“Fangs. Do you remember fangs?” Collin snapped. He glared at his swollen cock and heavy-hanging balls. “No more playtime. Not here. You don’t lead me. I show you where to go. Am I clear?”
Please?
It occurred to Collin he was in the middle of a conversation with his penis. He shook his head, groaning. Yes. You truly are losing your mind, big guy.
As if to confirm the supposition, or mock the remains of his sanity, images flashed through Collin’s mind. Visuals of the curly-haired man sucking him down. Lips pursed tight. Licking. Cheeks puffing, hollowing. Tongue flickering up and over. Forked tongue, yes, but still hotter than the fires of hell. Ovoid-pupiled eyes glittering into his own. Hypnotic.
Magical.
Collin squeezed his eyes shut, but couldn’t stop his hand. The traitorous appendage strayed down to grip his cock and roll his balls. Squeezing, enjoying the pain. He imagined fangs tickling the sac and spasmed with an alarming thrill of anticipation. He couldn’t believe his own twisted desires, but he found he wanted it. Craved the rough tongue, the flickering flame, the scaly hands kneading his thighs.
Damnation! He burned to have that dark freak sucking him off, real or imaginary.
Needed it. Badly.
But it had been a dream. A boozy fantasy. Wasn’t real. Couldn’t be. What kind of idiot got hot and bothered over a hallucination? Collin snorted. Be realistic. He’d probably have just as much of a hard-on if he’d seen pink elephants waltzing instead of enchanted men with sparkling dark eyes.
Eyes that swallowed him whole from the soul on out.
Collin’s cock twitched rebelliously. An unwanted thrill shot up his spine. Insistent.
“Not tonight, I said!” he growled, no longer caring what anyone thought of the crazy man talking, literally, to himself.
How did the old song go? Know when to hold ’em; know when to fold ’em; know when to walk away; know when to run? Well, in Collin’s opinion, it was definitely time to run. Either Li Hsien mixed heavy doses of opium in his drinks, or Liam’s little treat had taken some nasty turns as it worked a path through his body. Whichever. He wasn’t sticking around for any lizard-man figment to try another lunge.
Time to get out while the getting was good.
Collin glanced up. Amazing. Again, still, no one had bothered looking away from their papers or glasses. Not a soul reacted to his nervous breakdown playing out in center stage. He felt like he wasn’t there at all, at least not to their eyes.
Was he?
All right, mark that down on the list of “things I don’t need to think about.” Not yet. Maybe never. My first priority: running. Now, for preference ...
Collin scrambled to his feet, stuffing his erect cock back into his jeans with some difficulty and doing up the zipper with fingers that shook and trembled. They didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the escape.
Tucked up safe and sound, Collin half ran, half stumbled out of his dark corner. He didn’t know where he was going. Anywhere would do. Just ... away.
As he passed the bar, he shot Li Hsien a suspicious look. Wait -- was he smiling? Prick. He was! A tiny smirk, a smug “you should have taken my advice” grin.
Collin growled low in his throat. He did an about-face and slammed his palms down on the bar. “You!”
“Sir?” No expression in the dark eyes.
“What’s in those drinks?”
“Nothing but the best quality vintages, sir.”
“No drugs? LSD? Ecstasy?”
“Sir!” Li Hsien looked offended. “We do not use such things here at Amour Magique. Synthetic chemicals are an insult to the body temple.”
“Yeah. Sure,” Collin muttered. He rubbed his forehead. “Did you see ...”
“No, sir,” Li said smoothly.
“I didn’t finish.”
“I saw nothing, sir.” Li Hsien picked up a spotless glass to polish. “It is not my job to see anything besides that which I am told to look for.”
Collin ground his teeth. He’d just bet. Lizard men, living dreams, who cared? Li Hsien had his own set of orders. He’d follow them, letter perfect, and happily ignore the rest.
“Fine,” he said, gritting the word out between clenched teeth. “Is there another bar in this club?”
“Amour Magique has many bars. I do not recommend your visiting another.”
“Why not?”
“You are expected here, sir.”
“I’m what, now?”
“Expected, sir. Here, or close by. I recommend another glass of something warm while you wait for your party.”
“I. Have. No. Party.” Collin felt his blood pressure ratchet up. “I want to be left alone. A-l-o-n-e. Got it?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Of course, of course,” Collin mimicked. “You’re going to do whatever you feel like no matter what I say, aren’t you?”
“I would not presume to put words in sir’s mouth.” Li Hsien looked down. Obedient, servile. But not before Collin caught a twinkle in his eye.
He shook his head. Half-wondering, half-impressed at the bartender’s nerve, plus a touch of the creeps. “Fine,” he said, letting his inner bastard show. “Fuck you, too. I’m out of here.”
Li Hsien nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be followed,
won’t I?”
“I suggest you draw your own conclusions, sir.”
“Right. Followed.” Collin dropped his expensive crystal glass on the floor, disgusted when it bounced instead of shattered. Figured. “Good luck. But by the bye, if anyone comes after me, tell them to wear a sports cup and bring a lawyer. I’ve had enough fun and games.”
“Sir.”
“Sir, sir, sir,” Collin mocked. He stalked away, mumbling angrily under his breath. “Going crazy ... Liam’s fault ... shouldn’t have come ...”
In fact, he should leave. Really should.
He paused at the door to the pub. A sudden dizziness swam over him, leaving him dazed and wobbling.
What ...?
“I did advise you otherwise,” he heard Li Hsien murmur.
Collin shook his head, trying and failing to clear it. Uncertain as to whether or not he’d actually gotten so far as an assault on these particular gates, he tried to grasp the knob and turn it.
Huh.
He ran down a checklist. Feet itching to make tracks. Heart pounding. Mind chanting, run, run, run. Blood pressure boiling. Skin hot. Sweating. Ridiculous orange silk shirt soaked beneath the armpits and at the collar.
He shuddered with disgust. He hated getting too warm. Didn’t he? The bar had been cold; now it was hot. Furnace-heat hot.
So, go, moron. Scram!
The problem seemed to be Collin’s body turning against him, refusing to obey any directives coming from his brain. The green lights said “go,” but internally, something had stalled at red.
“Wrong,” Collin muttered. “Really, really wrong.”
“Sir?” Li Hsien volunteered, polite and expressionless as ever. “If you seek relief, may I suggest you take the door to your left instead of the main exit?”
Collin barked a laugh. “Of course. What’s in there? A lake of fire?”
“Of course not, sir. I believe, though, you will find what you seek within. That which seeks you, too.”
“Right. And how, exactly, do you know anything about me not covered in a basic dossier?”
Li Hsien tilted his head. “You have drunk from my bottles,” he said. “I see inside you. Take the left-hand door, sir. This is my advice.”
“And always remember, no matter what you do, don’t get mogwai wet. Sure.”
“Cultural slurs are not necessary, sir.”
Collin sneered. He reached for the doorknob to open the portal and let him back into the noisy safety of the club’s rainbow heart.
And his hand froze. Again.
No matter what, he couldn’t make himself touch the knob. And he tried. Man, did he try. Felt like repelling magnets. A half-inch separated his hand from the metal and sent his fingers sliding over, under, around, sideways, but above all, unable to make contact.
He swore under his breath.
“Sir? I do advise the left-hand door.”
Collin shot a glare back at Li Hsien. “I’m sure you do.”
Fine. Fine! Collin knew a good part of strategy was choosing your battles and making sure they were ones you could win. So he couldn’t go out the way he came, eh? He’d been left with no choice but to go on. One more turn into the labyrinth.
Game, set, but not the match. Not yet.
Collin stalked to the small door Li Hsien kept pointing out. Looked just the same as the main entrance, only made of rosewood, not mahogany. Glossy finish, silver knob.
Struggling to hide his anger, Collin reached out. He cursed his hand for shaking, but to his partial amazement, he managed to grip the doorknob.
It turned, smooth as silk. The door swung open on soundless hinges.
Collin counted to ten under his breath. Then, out loud: “Are you satisfied?”
“Sir.”
Collin sighed and rubbed his temples. When this night was over, his foot had a date with Liam’s ass. As in kicking it. Hard. Repeatedly. Hopefully leaving bruises. Big ones. In the meantime, though ... He took a deep breath and walked through the left-hand door.
Into another world.
Chapter Seven
Am I dreaming? Have to be. Places like this room don’t exist. Maybe in fantasies. Crazy, purple-pen, sci-fi novels. Fantasy epics. Tolkien’s discarded rough drafts. Not here on Earth. Can’t be real.
Maybe it’s bottle hallucinations from the Scotch -- no, the sake? I don’t care what Li Hsien says; he must have slipped me a few tabs’ worth of disco pharmacology. A man like him most likely figures delivering a sure-fire buzz is part and parcel of showing the customers a good time. As for the synthetic chemical crap? Even I know there are dozens of purely natural herbs capable of sending a man drooling his way down Stoner Lane.
I know I’m caught in a dream. So why can’t I wake up? Why don’t I want to? I should, but I don’t, not deep down where the rubber meets the road. I’m stalled in neutral, motor turning over, but wheels at rest.
I don’t understand any of this. What kind of place is Amour Magique?
Standing in the room adjoining Li Hsien’s bar -- a room only by loose definition, given how the chamber had walls, a floor, and a ceiling -- Collin couldn’t believe his eyes. He shook his head hard, rubbing his temples to clear his vision. No good. The landscape he’d stumbled into didn’t change, didn’t disappear, and didn’t vanish into an alcohol- and drug-induced haze.
It looked ... real.
Once more down the rabbit hole, then, because there’s just no way any of this can exist. This is Charleston, not the Ivory Coast! It’s the club playing tricks again. I’d bet my life. Even thinking the words sounds insane.
But, as folk say, when in Rome ...
Collin inhaled slowly, settling his expression into comfortingly familiar, blank lines, while he tried to force the world around him to make sense. Any kind of sense. Which it didn’t.
First off, the antechamber was cavernous. Tilting his head back, Collin tried to get a measure of how high the ceiling stretched. Ninety, a hundred feet? Higher? Yet Amour Magique wasn’t more than three stories high as seen from the outside.
The club wasn’t half as big, either, not even close to a fraction of this bizarre inner section. Impossible, illogical, yet his eyes insisted in believing what he saw as real. Three of the main dance club could have fit in this one room.
He’d thought at first it was a cavern, but as he glanced around, Collin wasn’t sure about the comparison’s accuracy. The walls were definitely hand-crafted -- smooth stone bricks, perfectly aligned in diamondback patterns reminiscent of the ridges on a rattlesnake’s hide. Made a man dizzy if he looked at them for too long. His eyes wanted to follow the interlinking zigzags up, down, and around, never stopping before zooming on to the next set. Collin suspected if someone let themselves get drawn in, they could stand in one spot for years, hypnotized, swaying like a drunkard.
Better not to risk testing his theory. Collin looked away hastily, taking in the rest of the place. Well worth looking at, he had to confess, especially if one enjoyed his creature comforts. Thick carpets of intricate Oriental design, blazing with rich jewel colors, padded the floor. Underneath, it felt hard. Stone, packed earth, or more bricks? Collin would have believed anything by then.
While he saw no lounge chairs, no couches, no bar, and no TV, he did spy abundant blocks of granite and marble scattered around, smothered in fat pillows. Possibly arranged in a pattern. Collin wasn’t sure what sort of design and didn’t care about looking close enough to discern the scheme.
The air bothered him. Damp as fog, it felt thick and sticky. Polluted. What had this sort of atmosphere been called, a century or so before? A pea-souper?
Disgusting.
Collin tugged at the neck of his stupid orange shirt with a sudden urge to rip the thing off and throw it away. Maybe toss it into the fire and let it burn ... burn ... fire ...
He took a step forward, swaying drunkenly. How had he missed the ...? He stood within singeing distance of a massive hearth, a huge fire roaring inside. The blaze put off
enough heat to warm three city blocks, devouring logs the size of redwood trunks and crumbling their red-hot coals into clouds of ash. Smoke snaked out in hypnotizing coils mimicking the pattern emblazoned on the cavern walls.
Ten times out of ten, there was nothing Collin hated more than fires. Loathed them with the quashing depth of a thousand oceans. He’d do anything to avoid getting overheated.
But this blaze ... he couldn’t look away. The sparks pulled at him. He could hear them singing.
Singing? Yes ... a crackling melody. Hissing, popping, almost chortling.
Come here, little boy. Come and warm up. You know you want to. Want me. Come, come, come ...
A hand landed on Collin’s arm. “Hey, wake up!” a man’s voice said, pitch squeaking up and down the scale like an insane clown. “It’s a good fire, but it likes to play tricks on newbies. C’mon, now, snap out of it!”
It wasn’t quite a slap of cold water, but it worked just as well. The hypnotic doze Collin had been floating in snapped like a soap bubble. Surrealism vanished, replaced by something not much better, but at least not the product of an opium dream. Still in the cavern, yes, but no longer alone. Men surrounded him, every age and build, milling in small crowds and chattering with voices kept too low to overhear.
“Come on, buddy,” the man who’d woken him encouraged. “Step away from the dreams, huh?”
Collin dragged in a sharp breath and coughed, his lungs full of chokingly humid air. “What ...” he wheezed. “What happened?”
“Take it easy.” The stranger thumped Collin’s back. “Hey, you really are new around here, aren’t you?”
Collin stared at his rescuer. Just an ordinary guy. He looked like an accountant. Short, mousy brown hair. Wire-rimmed glasses. Weak chin. A satisfy-the-customer smile. Creepy Uriah Heep voice. No clammy hands, though. Warm palms. Warm and dry.
“Who ... what ...?”
The man peered at him over his glasses. He blinked. “Oh, wow. It’s you. Collin, right? I heard you’d be coming tonight. Didn’t think I’d get to meet you, though. Gosh, what an honor!”