Black Market Blood

by Francis Gideon

  Chaz watched as Sully took him into his mouth before he allowed himself to fully feel it. Warmth surrounded his cock. He twitched, and Sully responded by sucking him harder. Chaz groaned as he combed his hands through Sully’s hair; he latched on harder when Sully hummed around him, almost commanding Chaz to take him rougher. Sully bobbed around Chaz’s dick, taking him deep into his throat and swallowing. Chaz lost all control of his movements. He leaned back on the bed, groaning and mumbling.

  “Nat, Nat….”

  “Yeah, baby,” Sully murmured. He pulled his mouth away and used his hand, slick with spit, to keep Chaz going. “Call me Nat. Tell me what you want.”

  “Fuck, fuck.” Chaz hadn’t even realized his slip. He wanted to cross out the name from his mind and memory. Nat’s a ghost now; he has to be a ghost. But Sully is warm and here and very, very real.

  “Sully. Fuck. Keep going.”

  Chaz swore he felt Sully smile against his thigh as he kissed and sucked the area. He took Chaz back into his mouth and swallowed around him. Chaz raised his hips, insistent and impatient, to meet Sully’s open jaw and wet throat. He bucked, he breathed, and he thought he would lose it until he stared at the mirror. Chaz watched as their bodies worked in tandem. Sully became something new to Chaz, something he wanted to keep as long as possible.

  Sully arched his back before he licked up and down Chaz’s shaft. As Sully worked, his ass parted and his hole became visible in the mirror. Chaz lost himself then; his mind filled with thoughts of entering Sully, bending him over the bed and fucking him the entire night like Sully had probably been fucked a dozen times already. He spilled into Sully with only a groan as warning. The condom provided a barrier, but Sully kept his mouth immobile around him. After Chaz was spent, Sully kissed his thighs.

  “Fuck.” Chaz touched Sully’s face to be sure he was real. Sully kissed his thumb and sucked it into his mouth.

  “Good?”

  “Y-yes. I’m barely coherent.”

  “I’ll take that as a good sign.”

  Sully crawled onto the bed and Chaz noticed his straining, pink erection. Chaz reached out and brushed his fingers through Sully’s trimmed pubic hair around the base of his cock, before stroking his dick in his fist.

  “Yeah?” Sully asked. “You want me to come?”

  Chaz nodded, too focused to speak. Sully lay on the bed, arm above his head. Chaz kissed Sully’s chest, rubbing his stubble against Sully’s hair and pale white skin. He soon lost his focus on Sully’s cock but was brought back to it by Sully’s hand joining his.

  “Like this. Let me show you.” Sully directed Chaz. They worked together for a couple strokes before Sully pulled away and spilled on his chest. Chaz fought the urge to lick up every last drop. He kissed Sully, hard and fast.

  “You can, you know.” Sully gestured to the come on his chest, mixed in with chest hair. “You can touch me. Or lick me. Whatever you want.”

  “Yeah?” Chaz was ravenous all of a sudden—worse than blood-sickness.

  “Oh yeah. I’m giving you permission. Just this time, though.”

  Chaz nodded. He licked Sully’s hip bone, his navel, tasting every last inch. He made sure to commit all the fragmented details to memory—just in case it truly was his last time. When he was done, Sully kissed him lazily before allowing Chaz to rest against Sully’s collarbone. He pressed several more kisses to the crown of Chaz’s head.

  After what seemed like seconds later, a soft knock sounded. No one would be there if they answered, but Chaz was well familiar with what it meant.

  “Do you want another hour?” Sully asked. “We can stay like this and sleep. Or you can wait a little while and I can get you off again.”

  “I don’t need to sleep. Not really.” Chaz worried his lip as the outside world came back to him. He wondered if his car was being towed. If his office cell phone was being called. If Katja was in the morgue again, with Melinda, and if they got a hit off the body’s prints. If, if, if…. He kissed Sully instead. “Yeah, sure. I’ll stay. But I think I’ll just rest. No need to go again. I think I’m spent for a while, anyway.”

  “You were fun,” Sully said. “But I’m glad you decided on rest. I’m exhausted.”

  “Then sleep. It’s fine.”

  Sully kissed Chaz again without prompting. It turned to slow making out, then nothing more as Sully closed his eyes and drifted off. Since there was nothing left to do, Chaz did the same.

  Chapter 4

  WHEN SULLY woke, the sun was already low in the sky. Afternoon, maybe early evening. The heat from August hung in his room like miasma. So did the smell of sex. After a client he usually opened the small window above his desk, but he’d apparently fallen asleep right then and there. He was still naked too, which was another thing uncommon for Sully.

  He rose from his bed and gathered his clothing. His phone said it was four in the afternoon. There were already several messages from Trinity (writing as Tom) and Artie about the upcoming schedule for the weekend and his chores.

  “Shit.” Sully threw on a new T-shirt and some jeans and opened the damn window before he ran down the stairs.

  Artie was behind the counter, wearing a blue dress that displayed her strong arms and brought out the violet in her eyes. She merely shook her head and gestured to the basement when Sully arrived.

  “Go. You still have time before the rush.”

  “Thanks. Sorry. Won’t happen again….” His excuses disappeared as he bounded down the stairs and grabbed the two laundry baskets full of clean sheets. He used the elevator at the back of the house to take them up to the fourth floor and stepped out. Lisa and Cecil were the only people who shared the floor with him. Since they were elementals who could conjure fire, water, air, or water power, they needed to be as far away from the public as possible and to keep a ready store of patchouli plants that would dull their scent by their rooms. Sully was the easiest person to have around their rooms—the fairies like Brandy and Michael who were sensitive to elementals powers needed to be kept as far away as possible.

  Sully knocked on both of their doors. There was groaning from Lisa but not the kind that meant fuck off I’m with a client. Lisa had been at the house for years. She had no excuse for always missing the laundry runs. Artie’s schedule needed to be followed to a T.

  “Hey, hey,” Sully greeted her. “Wakey-wakey. Time for laundry.”

  When he got no response, Sully moved on to Cecil’s room. Artie would speak to Lisa later, or Lisa would rush in a mad dash to get her sheets cleaned. Either way, it wasn’t Sully’s problem anymore. He knocked once before Cecil, a young man with flat brown hair and a narrow nose, appeared and handed over a bag of sheets without a word. When Cecil picked up his phone and started to talk as if Sully wasn’t there, Sully tried not to be bothered by the rudeness; Cecil was still getting used to Artie’s. At eighteen and a half, he was the youngest person currently working in the house. By the time Sully stripped the sheets of his own bed, Lisa’s old ones were out by her door. Figures. Always in by the last dash. Sully left them both stacks of new sheets without bothering to knock again.

  After gathering his laundry inside his room, he was about to bring it down to the basement when he noticed something along the side of his bed, wedged under the box spring. He lifted the futon mattress and shimmied it back. There was some struggle as he tried to reach behind and under the mattress, but he eventually pulled out a belt.

  “Who the hell…? Oh.” Sully smiled, remembering Chip the cop from this morning. Chip had taken off his belt when Sully was going down on him, but the belt must have gotten twisted in the sheets, then under the mattress itself, after the two of them came and fell asleep. Either Chip didn’t notice his missing belt… or he knew it was stuck, but he let me sleep.

  Sully’s heart warmed. The guy was a sweetheart, but now Sully liked him even more. He added the belt to his desk drawer and made a note to tell Artie to get Chip back here. If he’s a vamp, though, he’ll be in again. The
thought made Sully breathe a little easier.

  Sully took the dirty laundry to the elevator and stepped inside. The machine made awful noises sometimes, like never-ending creaks, but Sully was sure it would never break down. The house had been around since the 1800s and survived through a couple prohibitions. During the transition period when Canada became known as New Canadiana, the Victorian house had been put to the test in terms of safety, and all the technology had been updated numerous times since then. Sully had never heard the entire story from Artie, but if they ever had time, Sully was sure she could fill in the blanks about a lot of its history. When the elevator stopped on the second floor, Tom was waiting to get on.

  “Hey, man!” Sully pressed the elevator door buttons so it would stay open.

  “Hey, hey,” Tom said, his voice low and gravelly as if he’d only just woken up as well. He wore loose blue jeans and a white T-shirt with a cigarette package in the front pocket. His dark hair was combed back, but clearly unwashed. He gave Sully a high five when he stepped inside. Then he saw the baskets. “Shit. It’s laundry day, isn’t it? I should have brought my sheets out.”

  “I’ve only done the fourth floor, so you have time.”

  “Cool. Been one of those nights. And days, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You were busy, so much so I got one of your clients.”

  “What? Who?” Tom’s tone was more playful than mad. Tom—and Trina—often had more clients than they could handle.

  “The cop. Chip, I’m pretty sure, though he doesn’t look like a Chip.”

  “Oh, my Chocolate Chip! That’s how I remember him.”

  Sully chuckled. “When you put it like that, maybe the name does fit him.”

  “Uh-huh. How was he? Okay?” Tom’s brow was quirked like it had been a shifter or a changeling meeting, not a vamp cop as passive and pliable as Chip had been.

  “Yeah, he was fine. Should I be worried?”

  “Depends. Sometimes he’s a fucking mess.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. He’s just… really clingy. Always wants me and always wants the same damn thing. Boring, honestly, even if it’s my standard bread-and-butter kind of shtick. I don’t always want to be Trina the housewife or therapist, though, you know?”

  “You want to be Tom? Who… rides fast cars and gets fucked on the hood?” Sully asked, making a face that was part in jest. “Sorry, I don’t remember this persona’s kinks that well.”

  “The car sex is one of them, sure. Being Tom is a lot more exciting, especially because he brings in different clients.” Tom smiled as he recounted the night he’d spent with a bachelor party. Sully felt sore just hearing about it. “All five guys. All me. Long, long night.”

  “Really? You don’t mind stuff like that?”

  “Well, let me remind you, being a witch means I can heal myself pretty quickly. These guys weren’t bad, but they wanted to get a bunch of stuff out of their system, so I provided the body to do it in. And it’s just physical. I can’t do the emotional labor that comes with being with Chip, I think. Because he wants to talk and talk and talk. He doesn’t get to connect with many people, I think. So when he comes he just won’t stop.”

  “Because he’s a vamp?”

  “Because he’s a cop too. Like, man, that’s gotta be the worst job to transform in. How could you keep something like that from them? Every day he probably thinks people are going to find out.”

  Sully shrugged. He knew, from one session together, that Chip had been a vamp since he was young and somehow managed to get his hands on “normal papers” to enter the force. Tom either was mistaken or had never listened in the first place.

  When the elevator doors pinged for the second time, Tom huffed. “Damn. We’ve been talking too long, and I didn’t mean to go so far down. I wanted to get out at the lobby, say hi to Tabby at the front desk for a bit, then go grocery shopping. But you always get me, Sullivan.”

  “Sully, please. You know you can just take the stairs after you hang out with me. And you should hang out with me, rather than just loitering in an elevator.” Sully shoved the laundry basket between the doors, blocking them so they’d stay open. “Please?”

  “Oh? You miss me?” Tom batted his eyes. They both laughed and moved into the basement laundry room.

  “Maybe. But I’m also curious: You planning on staying Tom for longer?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I mean, I thought I was some neutral gender-fluid being when I manifested my magic, but being a dude has its perks. And I feel like enjoying them for the time being.”

  “So would you mind, then, if I took over as Chip’s major worker?”

  Tom walked over to the laundry machines and sat on one of the dryers. Sully added the sheets to the washer, a lump rising up in his throat. He didn’t know why he wanted Chip as his client so much. And he wasn’t sure if he could ask again.

  “You serious?” Tom finally said.

  “About fabric softener? Always serious about fabric softener.”

  Tom chuckled. “You know, I thought fabric softener was detergent when I moved out. I kept washing my clothing with that and only that.”

  “Oh, precious. I was told how to do laundry when I was five.”

  “I know, Mr. Oliver Twist. But seriously. Answer my question. You serious about Chip as your client?”

  Sully was glad he was staring at the washing-machine keypad so Tom couldn’t see his blush. He took a long time to figure out whether or not he needed cold or normal cycle before he answered. “Maybe. He was nice.”

  “He is that, but I feel the need to also repeat: the boy’s a mess.”

  “Yeah, but I’m used to messes.”

  “Oh no.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t do this.” Tom tsk-tsked from the side of his mouth. “Don’t fall for him.”

  “Oh my God. I’m literally asking to take over a client who gave me the easiest second hour of my life. He let me fucking sleep, Tom. Can you imagine just sleeping? I mean, bachelor parties aside where you get five guys to have fun with—sleeping is amazing.”

  “Yeah, but I bet he wanted to cuddle and ask a zillion questions about you.”

  Sully considered this but shrugged off the concern. The cuddling wasn’t bad at all—in fact he was sure he started most of it—but some of Chip’s questions had gotten under his skin. Do you have a sibling? Are you sure? Even a half sibling? “Maybe he’s a little intense at times, but he was easy enough to say no to and move on. In this business that’s something you need a lot.”

  “Fair enough. I guess he always was a sweetheart about things. Remembered my birthday, which I always thought was nice. Especially since I lied and told him the wrong date. So always, on March first, there’s a cake for me. Red velvet. Nice.”

  Sully didn’t even want to comment on Tom’s games. It was common to lie to clients if they were too insistent. All personal information could be used against you at any point. But Chip had sent Tom—rather, Trina—a cake. He remembered birthdays, not fears or boundaries to push the session to something darker. Every single one of Sully’s prerequisites for a good client was being checked.

  “Which was an odd cake flavor, you know. You’d think he’d bring me chocolate chip!” Tom guffawed, and though it wasn’t that funny, Sully laughed too.

  “You’re already speaking about him in the past tense. Does that mean I can have him?”

  “Ugh.” Tom jumped off the washing machine and folded his arms across his chest. “Whatever. Fine. It’s gotta be up to him, though. You know that, right? And you gotta start getting your blood taken for him.”

  “Right.” Sully considered this a moment before he nodded. “That’s not a big deal.”

  “Really? You were… upset at the last mention of the blood business.”

  “That was a long time ago. I’m so much better now.”

  Tom looked at Sully with a glint in his eyes that made him seem more like Trinity. He ran a hand over Sully’s
ear, tucking his hair behind it. “Well, good. I’m glad you’re a lot better. But I’d talk to Artie soon about the blood, since you’ll want to have it drawn before he comes here next. And you with your human body makes that difficult.”

  “Right, of course.” Sully remembered his first aid training in a rush. It had been so long ago that he knew the science on supernaturals was well out of date, but Tom still made a point. Drawing Sully’s human blood could only happen every so often—fifty-six days if he recalled correctly—unless platelets would do. “Do vamps still need once a week?”

  “At least,” Tom confirmed.

  “Well, then I guess I better get started. And talk to Artie.”

  Tom’s gaze narrowed. “Yes, but remember—it’s not a guarantee of a switch. And she’ll tell you the same thing I am: don’t fall for him. Don’t fall for anyone. If they buy you now, they’re always going to think they can.”

  Sully wanted to argue, but he knew there was no point. Everyone was bought and sold and traded. It was how the world worked, how capitalism worked, and even friendships like this one between himself and Tom were no different. Sully did his laundry, even on days Tom was assigned, and Tom always gave Sully a couple of extra tens or twenties to do it because he hated soapsuds so much. At least now, with the fabric softener story, Tom’s aversion made sense.

  “So, I’m gonna get some food,” Tom said, heading toward the stairs and signaling an end to their client negotiation. “You want anything?”

  “The usual, please.”

  “Ah yes. Goldfish crackers and Kit Kat bars. The breakfast of champions.”

  Sully blushed. “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s cute. Little kid food. I’m going to get you a proper lunch while I’m at it, though. Not the PB and J you always make and then bury yourself in your books afterward.”