10. An Uninvited "Appraisal of the Goods"
I went back to that liquor store parking lot where I almost got assaulted. I still had my fake ID, so I bought a pack of wine coolers. What a girly, fruity, and immature drink, I know, but I didn’t have Heather to impress by choking down straight vodka. I could be as pathetic as I wanted tonight, and I was feeling particularly self-destructive, as I replayed every detail of that unnerving parking lot encounter in my head. “Who are you really, Luscious?” I slurred. It’s such a bizarre, old-timey name. He may go by Luc nowadays, but he was clearly not from this country, not originally. I still didn’t know his last name, but I was thinking it was probably Cacciatorre or something. Something from the old country in Sicily, or Greece… He looks like he could be Greek. He looks like he could be a Greek God. A murderous Greek God who kills his own men… to protect someone he’s interested in, to protect me...
I head back to the bus stop, but the driver makes me leave my booze outside before he’ll let me board. What a waste of half a cooler pack, not that Heather would care about the wasted couple bucks. She probably gets an allowance of hundreds for jewelry and Prada bags. Like I ever could have impressed her. She’s been laughing at me this entire time, embarrassed to be seen with me at that country club in my worn, borrowed suit…
Luc called that suit adorable. Atrocious, but adorable, which is still demeaning, but… I could not seem to resent him for it. I wasn’t even resenting him for those men he killed. They were probably criminals anyway. Just as potentially dangerous as he is.
I stay on the bus line way past my neighborhood. I take it all the way downtown, and I get off at a street corner, knowing I can’t afford a taxi to take me the rest of the way.
I manage to find my way there anyhow. Sunday night in May and the club is packed with a line-up stretching right around the corner. “Looking for an in?” a voice sounds right in my ear, and I jump, whirling to face--
Not Luc. I don’t know why I thought it might be. This guys sounds nothing like him. He’s older, maybe thirty, with a too-clean shaven face and that same piercing look in his eyes that the now dead liquor store thug had. I make a closer study of him, but he is definitely not the same guy, I assure myself. “I’m Mike.”
“Julian.”
“Let’s skip the line,” he entices, waving me forward, past the dozens of waiting patrons.
“That’s not fresh meat, Michael,” the bouncer laughingly informs him the second he sees us. “Returning visitor, one of Luc’s.”
Mike frowns. “Didn’t see him down below, so--”
“So nothing,” the bouncer shrugs. “It’s none of my territory. You hear what happened to Sven though?”
“A warning to us all about treacherous dealings with the other clans. Had little to nothing to do with this boy.” My tipsy mind had no idea what they were whispering about. I could barely even focus on the words over the pounding music pouring out through those doors, though I figured out later that Sven was my ‘problem-causing’ assailant, the one Luc just had killed.
“Whatever. I’m just letting you know. You can both go right on in.” The bouncer’s eerily bright blue eyes lock with mine, sending a shiver up my spine. “I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“First round’s on me,” Mike insists, steering me over to the bar.
I let the pounding beat wash over me and look lazily around the room…
Luc’s not on the dance floor, and I feel my heart sink. I don’t know why I’m so disappointed. I should not want to see him. I really aught to be frightened of him, not actively seeking him out.
“So how’d you meet the all important Luscious?” Mike speaks into my ear, folding a cocktail right into my hands.
“I don’t really know him,” I excuse. “He just… He scouted us, like invited me and my girlfriend… Probably more so my girlfriend…”
“But no girlfriend tonight?” he observes, and I flush, taking a long swig of cold, hard liquor.
“That’s… a long story.”
“Hmm. I’ve got time.” He pushes a hand through my curls and I flinch back, finally cluing in to what’s happening here and what that look in his eyes is inviting.
“Shit. I don’t… I mean… You’ve got the wrong--”
“No I don’t,” he laughs, smoothing his hand over my ass. I reach for his wrist to slap it away, but somehow I miss.
I’m drunker than I realized, the ground tilting beneath me and the image of the man before me splitting into two--no four, four blurry, swaying images, shattering in the strobe lights.
Those hands close tighter around my back, and he drags me away from the bar, carrying me with a casual arm around the waist as if I were light as a feather.
I tell him to stop, back off, but it emerges as a slurred, nonsensical whimper, lost in the noise of the crowd. Before I know it we’re in some private backroom, approaching a set of elevators. The glowing eyes of the bouncers pass us by as if it’s nothing. This happens all the time – this older man carrying off some kid too drunk to stand...
“I’ll wait for you to sober up before I take a proper taste, don’t worry,” Michael laughs against my ear, pressing his lips to my neck with his fingers already down inside my jeans. “Otherwise it taints the vintage. Keeping you nice and limp is best when doing a full appraisal of the goods though.”
Something reached in and cut my mind right away from my body. I can’t think, and I can hardly feel anything but fuzzy warmth pounding through my head, but I still flinch at the feel of that finger dipping right inside my anus, letting out another gasp of reeling protest.
“Nice and tight. You’ve never had a cock before, have you?”
I don’t want one, not from him, but my body keeps reacting like I do, as one finger becomes three, digging deeper inside with every press.
The elevator doors ding open, and it comes to me distantly that my first feeling should be shame, with my jeans already down around my ankles and some stranger’s fingers working their way uninvited around inside my underwear. As that dark haired figure catches my spinning eyesight though, all I can think is… Beautiful.
“Luscious. You’re interrupting my audition for a new prael--”
“A prael must be willing,” Luc cuts him off coldly. “You know the rules of this coven.”
“Oh, he’s more than willing,” Michael claims, puppeting me from the inside with another curl of those digits and making me jerk and pant, as the tingling heat invading my body continues to rise.
“Looks drugged out of his mind, actually. Rohypnol or aphrodisiac? Bit of both I’m guessing.” Those cutting green eyes stroke my body in careful evaluation, and I feel myself shiver. “Either way, that is the opposite of consent. You’re as bad as Sven, though at least you’re smart enough to keep it all inside the nightclub and out of the public eye. Still, you don’t let him go, I am going to need to tear your head off,” Luc cheerily concludes, seeming almost excited at the prospect.
Michael scoffs, pulling his hand from my ass just to place it possessively against my chest, pinning me tighter against him. “We all have our preferred methods of hunting--”
“Did I mention I already began my own audition, seeing if I wanted him for a prael?” Luc rebukes, right up against us suddenly. I find my fingers picking fascinated at the silky surface of his dress-shirt. “You are the one stepping in uninvited and interrupting that most sacred process.”
I hear something snap. I’m not sure what it was, but Michael’s hands aren’t on me anymore. He’s screaming instead, keeled over on the floor with so much red…
Luc’s leading me out of the elevator, and all I can focus on is the line of his jaw… I press my lips to it. I’m not even sure what I’m doing, but I feel the press of his body against mine, and I need us to be closer. I need to taste him. He’s-- “None of that now.” He turns up my chin, prying my lips from his invigoratingly chill flesh. I can hardly even hear the rebuke, sinking lost into those eyes. “I don’t do sloppy seconds. Especially not sloppy, drugged seconds. Still, we really must do something about certain compelled responses, now mustn’t we? You’ll hardly be able to relax tonight with it sticking straight up like this.”
I follow his gaze to my rock-hard dick, pressing right against his leg. The feverish warmth that fills my body is concentrated there, painfully throbbing. “A little less blood-flow might help.” Luc’s fingers hover so tantalizingly near that engorged penis, those slender, perfect-- Sharp points of pain sink into my throat and the world lights up as if set afire, a fever far more potent than the dull, drugged haze of seconds past. My eyes fly wide and I moan my delight, clutching at his back. My engorged and uncontrollable appendage fires off like a rocket within seconds, spewing wetness out across the floor.
“Well shit,” he laughs, withdrawing. “That indulgence did the opposite of help it seems. Utterly delicious though. I knew you’d be sweet,” he breathes against my ear, and I swoon into his chest with vision spinning. “And now that we’ve shot our load, your breath does seem to be calming…”
I couldn’t process anything else he said. I blacked right out within seconds, my clutching hands dropping limp to my sides, as the world spun away in swirls of heart-pounding blackness.