Septima Luna
Copyright 2013 Gabbo de la Parra
Published by Kidwell-Lovely at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition License Notes
Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.
This ebook is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
This ebook contains sexually explicit scenes and language and may be considered offensive by some readers (M/M foreplay and intercourse).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Comments
Glossary
About Gabbo de la Parra
Other books by Gabbo de la Parra
Get in touch with Gabbo de la Parra
Acknowledgements
To Fangtasia and Susan for encouraging me to expand a 4K story and their wonderful ideas for this expansion. To Viv S. for her incredible support as Beta Reader, I’d be a mess without your input. To Maurizio Z for helping me with the Italian Headline, bellissimo!
CHAPTER ONE
It is only great souls that know how much glory there is in being good.
Sophocles (496 BC-406 BC)
Septima Luna was the hottest club in the hottest side of the city. A small club by the standards of any metropolis: five hundred people fitted comfortably any given day, and a thousand in a Vienna-sausages-mini-can-attempt on holidays. Nevertheless, this appeared to be all Chico, the six-foot-four owner, wanted to be happy. Expansion seemed unnecessary.
But Chico took very good care of his patrons. Three bars strategically located (ten bartenders per bar) to handle the thirsty men looking for more than a Slurpee. Angel was one of the thirty bartenders of the club.
Well, actually, Angel was a bartender slash go-go boy slash escort.
Bartender during regular days, go-go boy on holidays and in his fifteen-minute breaks, if taking a tinkle wasn’t an emergency. Escort if he liked the man. Not because Angel needed the money— nah, he charged (after the debacle that brought him to the big city) to keep his heart at bay and to avoid people thinking him easy
He didn’t care if people judged him as a whore; the idea of profit would distract them enough to prevent too many questions.
“Why does he have to do that?” Jack, a fellow bartender asked to no one in particular as Angel gyrated over the bar, while patrons cheered his progressions.
“Don’t be a sourpuss, girl. He likes the attention, besides that brings more customers and tips to our side of the club. Be grateful.”
Angel squatted a little for a patron to plant a tip in his short-shorts and checked who had vouched for him. Of course, Hugo.
Hugo had rescued him from the metaphorical ditch where he was, after so many days in the big city without knowing anyone or a place to go. Angel had been assaulted, and with a black eye and torn clothes, people were scooting around him like he had the plague.
As tall and dark as Hugo was, Angel would have gladly paid with his body after the second night he spent in Hugo’s flat (since he didn’t have anything else to offer). It was a spacious accommodation in a remodeled warehouse, and Hugo had offered it to Angel with open arms and a fridge full of delicious food.
Hugo just uttered several tsks and shook his leonine mass of curls when he found Angel spread on his bed with an “I don’t have anything else to repay your kindness.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’m flattered, though.” Hugo smiled, eyeing Angel in the way any normal red-blooded man would look at a hot guy spread-eagle and willing. He turned to leave the room, throwing like an afterthought over his shoulder, “I spoke with my boss, and you can start at the club tomorrow night. If you feel better.”
Two years later, they were still roommates, Hugo had a sleek short haircut now, and Angel went to school during the day and shimmed his ass at the club nightly. They had found each other naked in the way brothers would (in embarrassing moments), and nothing had ever happened between them.
Angel winked at Hugo, mouthing a “Thank you” and looking at his watch. The break was over, and he jumped behind the bar and donned his red tank top again, after wiping the sweat covering his well-defined muscles with it.
Jack twisted his mouth in a silent “Gross.” With all the mischievousness of the world, Angel blew a kiss in Jack’s direction as soon as the man looked his way. A raspberry was the response from the blond bartender. A cute boy. If he weren’t a royal bitch ninety percent of the time, Angel would totally hit that. No charge, just to shut him up.
A couple of times, Angel had been tempted to investigate the origin of Jack’s animosity toward him, but the right moment had never truly come about.
When the second break of the night arrived, his bladder made a number on him, and he missed the opportunity to dance over the bar. Sometimes, as he danced between the glassware and beer bottles, Chico encouraged him to bring patrons up to dance with him. Close to his third break (around 3:00 a.m.) his boss told him, “Pick the craziest looking guy by the bar and pull him up to dance with you, I need some pictures for the website.”
Septima Luna had go-go boys only on holidays, and one night bored to death, Angel climbed the bar and began dancing. The bartenders around him were shocked for five seconds and, when their bar started to fill up, they urged him to take his tank top off. But no one else followed the initiative; thus, Angel remained the only bar-boy allowed to do it now.
So, by the time Angel was dancing on the bar with the Tim Burton version of an emo-vampire, something that hadn’t happened in a long, long time came about. You know the story about Moses parting the Red Sea? Well, in the exact moment Angel gyrated his hips toward the entrance of the club, and the fortunate crazy-of-the-night ground behind him, it happened.
The bodies contorting on the dance floor opened a gap that expanded by the silent command of the man moving the mass of dancers with the sheer force of his striking presence. The man looked at Angel, above the writhing revelers, and smiled.
His consciousness faltered and his boots slipped on the wet bar, the emo-vampire behind him caught him by the arms. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Stepped on water, that’s all. Thank you.” Angel gave a sexy smirk. The guy winked an eye covered in black eye-shadow.
Angel zoomed in on the tall man again.
I mean, what the fuck? The man is wearing a fedora for crying out loud.
The waters kept receding as the man approached his bar. Angel’s break neared its end, and for some insane reason (he couldn’t begin to analyze in that second) he didn’t want to go back to serve drinks. He wanted to jump into the man’s arms.
I’ve heard of insta-lust before, but this is ridiculous.
Angel gave a resounding peck
to his dance partner, helping the guy off the bar and wondering if the fangs in the wicked smile were real. As he composed himself and put his tank top back on, one of the other bartenders approached the man with the silliest smile and adoring eyes Angel had ever seen before.
Bitch, I saw him first.
Whoa, what was that?
To his utter enjoyment, the man politely refused (slow motion head shake) and pointed in Angel’s direction, mouthing “I want him.”
If for some bizarre reason you had the opportunity to see a drowning puppy, you would understand the expression of the fellow bar-boy as he walked toward Angel and smacked him on the ass, growling “Lucky whore.”
Instead of doing a couple of somersaults, Angel steeled his body. This wasn’t right; he was oblivious to attraction and satisfied the needs of his body through paying customers, keeping his feelings in the proverbial filthy third drawer. A man giving money would not take him seriously enough to think of something else than a quick fuck.
No. Angel was going to fight the tingling and all the fuzzy bullshit warring inside him.
He planted himself in front of the man and nodded, as much business-like as his betraying body allowed him in that moment. Dammit, he was getting a fucking hard-on right there—a true feat to hide in short-shorts.
“Are you an angel?”
Oh shoot, that sounded too much like an intergalactic movie he loved, and the quote unquote angel ended really fucked up.
“My name is Angel, but I’m the farthest thing from a cherub.”
“Cool, my name is Malachi. I’m an astronomer.” The charming stranger tossed the info like a crisp one hundred dollar bill and didn’t try to shake Angel’s hand. Most customers did.
His voice sounded like a caress, and it surprised Angel how easily he heard the man despite the booming music as background. “A teacher?”
That explained the fedora.
Thanks to his hillbilly ancestors, Angel had a fair complexion and even now living close to the ocean, he’d never been a fan of a permanent tan, neither of tanned men. Nevertheless, there was something in the caramel complexion of the obviously Caucasian man urging Angel to lick his neck to find out if it tasted as tropical as it looked. And the darn burgundy neo-Guayabera with so many open buttons wasn’t helping his effort to resist the temptation.
“No. A scientist,” the man said with a stunning smile.
“Huh. Ok. What can I get you?”
“What’s your favorite drink?”
Yeah, Angel knew this drill too.
“I don’t drink.”
The man, Malachi (Angel didn’t know why he felt compelled to use the man’s name) arched an eyebrow. “Problems with it in the past?”
“Nope, I just have better things to do with my liver. You like it stiff?”
Wrong choice of words.
“Is that an invitation?”
“A. Stiff. Drink.” Angel shook his head, embarrassed without reason.
“Surprise me,” Malachi offered, using that disarming smile again.
Angel made the strongest cocktail of the house, Sodomized Zombie, to get rid of the guy and save himself before he did something really stupid. “Here you go.”
Malachi, the astronomer (in a fucking fedora), drank the toxic concoction as if it were tap water. He licked the sweetened condensed milk off the border of the tall glass and from his lips as he finished.
The motion stirred something Angel wasn’t aware he had inside, lurking, waiting. Now, the fuzzy feelings were butterflies or praying mantis or swarming African bees. Who the Heck knew?
“Another.” Malachi beamed.
“You sure you want another? That’s a very strong one.”
Malachi made a puzzled face. “Really? It didn’t seem strong to me.”
If Malachi hadn’t mentioned he was an astronomer, Angel would have thought he was an archeologist instead and could totally envision him drinking fermented firewater with some lost tribe; not many people can handle a Sodomized Zombie effortlessly and ask for another right away.
He made another and presented it to Malachi, but before he could draw his hand away from the glass, the astronomer featherly caressed his fingers, shocking Angel. It wasn’t the intimate gesture but all the reactions of his body to that slight touch. Even his nipples stood alert after that.
“Tonight is the seventh moon,” Malachi commented after finishing the cocktail in two gulps.
“What’s that, some kind of newspaper horoscope mumbo-jumbo?”
“Nah. It’s just a good day to fall in love.”
“I thought you said astronomer not astrologer.”
“I’m a scientist, but I believe in love.” Malachi winked.
That undid Angel, but he recuperated quickly. “Really? Well, I charge, darling.”
“Fine with me. How much? Wait a second, what time do you finish here?”
“My shift ends at five, but I help with the cleaning afterwards.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“I haven’t given you my price.”
“I’m sure you won’t find the need to charge me.”
“I charge upfront, darlin’.”
“Well, by the end of our date, you will give me the money back.”
“See the sign behind me? No. Refunds.”
“You’re funny. We’re going to have a great time.”
Angel twisted his mouth. “We’ll see.”
Malachi asked for another of the same. After that, he just turned around to watch the people mingling and flirting. Now and then, though, he would check on Angel as he moved about the bar.
Hugo watched Angel with the same face a friend would have when he found you spending all your money in a slot machine hoping for the jackpot. For whatever the reason, customers kept them at opposite sides of the bar, so Angel didn’t have another option but to mouth, “I’m charging him.”
Hugo’s arched eyebrow was Morse Code for “Yeah, right.”
Closing time came. “Go. The hot man is waiting for you.” Hugo playfully patted Angel on the ass, then chanted in a very out-of-character singsong, “He’s waiting in a limo.”
How the Heck Hugo knew that? The sneaky bastard had been snooping. And that reinforced all the alarms already ringing amok inside Angel. Hugo rarely paid attention to the men around Angel.
The only solution here was to go outside and tell the man to fuck off.
Nah, Angel couldn’t do that, Malachi had been a complete gentleman. Besides, he was stupidly easy on the eyes. Angel changed to his street clothes and (with all the bugs in his stomach mimicking the Cirque du Soleil) went to confront the mysterious, fedora-wearing astronomer.
There was something about a white Hummer limousine that screamed anything but scientist, and when Angel was about to do a one eighty and run for his life, Malachi lifted the door and stepped out of the square monster. “Please, Angel.”
The tug to his cock was stronger than if Malachi had actually had his fist around it, more like an octopus tugging at cock, legs, arms and neck. Angel was so fucked up, he felt like going to his knees and start sobbing. What was this man doing to him?
“Please, Angel,” Malachi repeated, taking Angel’s hand. “It’s not even about sex, just let me buy you breakfast.”
“It’s too early for breakfast.” He knew he sounded more childish than a kid with a freshly scraped knee.
Malachi chuckled softly. “Well, It’s Sunday, would you rather go to church?”
Snorting, as his defenses wore thin, Angel murmured, “You aren’t seriously inviting me to church.”
“I’ll take you wherever you wish to go.” Malachi interlaced their fingers, and it felt so right, so perfect.
“Breakfast’s alright.” Angel drew his hand off Malachi’s.
“Excellent, we can buy it on the way and eat at the beach. What do you think?” Malachi beamed with that disarming smile, making the invaders in Angel’s stomach do somersaults and cartwheels.
“I lik
e that idea very much.” As Angel entered the limo he blurted, “You aren’t tricking me into an orgy, are you?” The space was so large it was ridiculous.
“No. it’s just you and me.”
Drive-thru magic was bestowed upon them, and they were on their way to Una Beach. Malachi was simply holding Angel’s hand and humming to himself, and (strangely enough) Angel was content with the unobtrusive atmosphere.
However, Angel wanted to know more about the astronomer, who now sans fedora sported an incredibly appealing shaved head. The perfect shape was turning on all kinds of fantasies in Angel’s mind, and he needed to talk before he went daft. “Where do you do your astronomy thing?”
Yeah, like that question didn’t sound moronic. Astronomy thing? What?
“I work at the observatory on Mount Pumpernickel.” Malachi offered without patronizing him. “Oh, here we are.”
The limousine stopped, and Malachi lifted the door facing the ocean. If they lifted both doors, it would look like the simple bird of a child’s painting.
The sun was already up, but the beach was blessedly deserted. The saline breeze tickled Angel’s nose, making him scrunch it.
Malachi chuckled softly beside him, stealing a peck from his cheek, even with his hands fully busy. “You’re adorable.”
Well, that was definitively new territory. Angel had been called sexy, hot, smoking and every other frisky endearment in the book but never adorable. The silent fact that it touched him deeply than previous words didn’t go unnoticed. Being all awry as he was, he was only able to come up with the sappiest response in the history of first encounters. “I like your shaved head.”
This, in turn, brought color to Malachi’s tanned face, and his nicely shaped ears turned slightly red. Then Angel realized that a head was a head after all, and maybe Malachi understood it as innuendo. One way or another, all that redness told Angel that he wasn’t alone in his confusion.
“You know, I’m not really hungry.” Malachi commented leaving most of his breakfast untouched. “But having all the beach for us makes me want to swim. Would you like to swim with me?”
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