by AM Riley
“Whaddaya mean he’s not available?”
The girl at the desk, eyes heavily outlined in kohl with dark maroon eye shadow on the lids, glanced up at him briefly with a startlingly alive set of blue eyes. Then back down. “I’m sorry, sir. He has a special party. Perhaps one of our other specialists?” She flipped open the heavily laminated book.
Seamus wavered. “I don’t know any of the other ‘specialists’.”
The girl perused the book, flipping the pages as casually as if it were a menu for Chinese take-out. She rested one long black shiny nail on a picture.
“Master Caesar is free. He’s a special service, you know. Usually only here by appointment.”
Caesar, thought Seamus. Sheesh. The man in the portrait had long black hair laced back in a braid. He wore a black mask and had a heavy black mustache. Not his type, normally, but what Seamus was looking for had nothing to do with sex…
“Special service, huh?” he cleared his throat. “What’s that mean, then?”
Little missy rattled as from a list. “Domination, bondage, punishment…”
“Okay, yeah.” Seamus fumbled for his wallet, taking care not to let her see his shield. The place was totally legal, he’d taken pains to assure himself of that, but he didn’t want to spook anybody.
“But, does this mean I’m gonna have to go through the whole interview again?”
The girl actually looked embarrassed. “That would be between you and Master Caesar,” she said primly as she rose to show him to his room.
As he followed the receptionist, Seamus left behind the world where he had to pretend to not give a damn. Where he had to be a mountain of stone.
The girl stopped before a door and pressed a pass to a sensor there, and the door opened into a world where Seamus wasn’t a cop.
It was a cliché of course. Red carpet, black accoutrements, a wall of black leather and silver buckles. At the center of the room, astride a black leather weight bench, sat the Master. He slapped the thick handle of a black cat-o-nine-tails in one hand and frowned at Seamus as he stepped in and the door snicked closed behind him.
“Take off your clothes.”
It was corny and trite and exactly what he’d expected. Seamus was infinitely relieved. He quickly pulled off his sweater, t-shirt, and belt. Unbuckling and setting down his gun felt like a hundred pound weight being removed.
“There.” Master Caesar indicated the St Andrew’s cross with a flick of his whip. Seamus stood still while the master buckled his wrists to the restraints, looping a belt around him so that Seamus stood snug against the cross, his cock pressed into the leather bolster there.
“Safe word?”
“Marmalade,” said Seamus immediately. He hated the stuff.
The whip just touched his hip. A gentle caress. Seamus looked back and behind him. Master Caesar regarded him with sleepy eyes.
“I don’t need you to take it easy on me,” Seamus said, a little testy. “I just need…”
“I know what you need, sweetheart. If you speak again, I will gag you.”
Well that was more like it. Seamus closed his eyes and waited.
The first whistle and sting made him jerk and shout, as it always did. The subsequent blows fell all over his skin then gradually began to slice across the initial marks, increasing the heat, the pain. Seamus howled and cried out in an endless stream of profanity and pleas. But at no point did he utter his safe word.
It seemed to last forever. Until Seamus brains were bright and spinning, completely outside himself, completely unable to feel anything but the pain across his buttocks and upper thighs and the singing endorphin high in his brain. His mind lifted and wandered.
Seamus let it wander to his stock of erotic fantasies, shuffling through them like an old LP collection. He selected one and set the needle on the track so to speak. Hips pumping, pushing his cock into the leather against which he was restrained. The need swelling his balls until they were tight. So tight. Warm and building just like it was supposed to. And then the fantasy turned a corner and it was Riley. Riley sitting next to him in the basement den at his folk’s house that last Thanksgiving. Drunk and leaning over on the sofa, looking up with those black black eyes. “Hey, Seamus. Watchya got there?” Hand on his crotch, kneading.
Seamus whimpered. His hips twisted against the warm leather, as if trying to escape. The whip hissed and struck hard just across his thighs. Riley in the dark of an alley. Smelling of whiskey and whatever the fuck he’d just fallen in. Hands on Seamus, pushing him into a wall, trashcan clattering sideways as his mouth bruised Seamus' lips. Hips grinding into his. “Give it up for me, buddy” hoarse whispers in his ears. “That’s it, yeah, you like that don’tchya?”
His ass burned and his cock was feeling raw and was shrinking. “God.” Seamus ground the word out. “Jesus Christ.”
Riley in the squad locker room, stuffing his patrol jacket in and slamming the door. Hard. “I ain’t queer, Brady. You got that?” Marching out of the room.
“Goddammit,” Seamus groaned. “Goddammit, I can’t. I can’t do it. Marmalade,” he whispered. “Shit.”
The whip stopped.
Citizens screaming, the spinning wheels of a fallen bicycle, the rancid smell of spent cartridges, Seamus flat on the pavement behind a mailbox, screaming into his phone: “code eight, officer down, code eight code…” Riley laying on the ground, blood everywhere, his eyes staring into Seamus’, fading…
“Riley. Riley, you asshole,” Seamus leaned his forehead against wood and sobbed his rage, gasping for breath. “Fucking goddammit,” sobbed Seamus.
Silently, Master Caesar released him. Seamus wobbled, knees shaking, grabbing hold of the cross to keep from falling. “I’m sorry,” said Master Caesar. And he really sounded like he was.
“Not your fault,” said Seamus, dragging huge sobbing breaths into his lungs.
“There’s lotion, bottled water and a towel on the table. Take your time leaving,” said Master Caesar in a friendly civilized voice, completely unlike the one with which he had commanded Seamus.
“Yeah,” said Seamus. “Thanks.”
***
O’Neill’s was a traditional Irish establishment. They served home cooked meals as well as beer on tap, and Irish whiskey. They left out a bowl of milk for the little people, as a respectable place ought. And there were rumors amongst the humans that corners of O’Neill’s Bar and Grill didn’t quite meet where one would expect them to, given the size of the pub from outside.
The Folk would have explained that that was because they had their own bar within the building that humans couldn’t usually see. But on occasion, a particularly sodden human might fall across the barrier. Perhaps his liquor softened brain performed some magic. He would wake the next day with tales of leprechauns stealing his money and pretty sprites covering him with kisses. Of course his wife wouldn’t believe him.
Lyre sat at the end of the Fey bar, getting the lay of the land before he approached anyone.
The Folk of New York City were, much like the human citizenship, an amalgam of many different Fey from many different places. The political atmosphere amongst them was sophisticated and hard for outsiders to see. Lyre sat observing for a while, until he thought he had spotted the hub of influence, and then he drew out the locket and made his way slowly across the bar.
“Have you seen this Fey? His family is worried.” He got shrugs and blank looks. “His name is Maeebsef, he is Gianes.”
A black-eyed elf snorted at that. “Best go to where there are fat humans, then.” And one beside him laughed.
“The Gianes no longer feed on humans,” said Lyre stiffly.
And the elf’s eyes rolled up, narrowed, seeing what Lyre was for the first time. “My apologies,” he leapt to his feet gracefully and bowed to make his sincerity clear. “But you don’t look like a Gianes male…”
Elves were the most tactless creatures there were. It was their nature, Lyre had to remind himself. One couldn
’t call them to task for it. “Have you seen him?” he asked, showing the portrait again.
Elves and Leprauchauns were also the ones among the Folk truly adept at not telling the truth without actually lying. The dark eyes blinked once at the portrait. The elf shrugged, but Lyre saw something glittering in his glance.
“I am here to help him,” said Lyre.
“Good luck to you,” said the elf, casually. “I am called Daer.” He bowed again. May I buy you a drink?”
Lyre followed Daer to a private corner of the bar.
“How would you help your lost boy?” Daer asked after he’d ordered their drinks.
Lyre looked him over. Daer was slender and dark and very attractive, even for an elf. His eyes danced with perpetual mischief, his mouth tilted up in a mocking smile. He might just be having a joke at Lyre’s expense, but Lyre thought not. Daer looked as serious as Lyre ever had seen an elf look.
“The Gianes can not live long outside the Grove,” he said, “without madness following.”
Daer’s eyebrows rose cynically. “Madness? Really?” His lips opened in a mocking smile.
Lyre sighed. “I myself once tried to stay for more than a moon. I became quite ill.”
“Ill?” Daer’s smile did not falter. He turned himself toward the bar, a graceful dancing move, and rested one well-shod boot on the railing there. “What kind of illness did you have?” he asked, studying a shot glass as he turned it slowly in his long fingers.
Lyre pressed his lips together. “It is a hunger.”
Daer’s fingers stopped turning the glass. “Hunger?”
Lyre sighed. He could feel the burn of shame climbing up the back of his neck. “A sexual hunger.”
Daer stared at the shot glass for a breath. Then slapped it on the counter, standing abruptly and spinning to face Lyre. “Well, I hope you find him soon,” he said, and made as if to walk away.
Lyre stepped into his path. “Wait.”
Elves were also very dangerous. Daer eyed Lyre with the look of a master fencer about to draw his sword. “Excuse me,” he said, coolly.
Being an outcast had its advantages. Lyre had learned long ago how to protect himself. But he knew he’d never get these people to help him if he fought with one of their leaders. He bowed and stepped aside.
“My apologies.”
He moved on down the bar, approaching a knot of tipsy sprites, and only noting from the corner of his eye, Daer’s exit through a door at the back.
“Excuse me, have you seen this boy?”
***
Many hours later, Lyre gave up questioning the Folk. It was clear that a mass decision had been made to not cooperate with him. Well, he’d expected as much.
Lyre left the bar and took another of the trains to an apartment complex farther south. The building was very close to the water and the breeze coming from that direction was like ice piercing Lyre’s long coat. His outerwear resembled that of a woman of the Gianes. The leather pants and dun-colored long coat. The soft, suede boots. But underneath he still wore the sheer woven shirt of his kind. The cold cut right to his bones.
He entered the elevator, the chill now coming from within, looking up at the ceiling as if he could see the shaft rising above him. From a chain around his neck he drew a small brass key and fit it, after some difficulty, into a tiny filigreed lock just under the emergency phone.
The doors opened sooner than they had in the past, but Lyre supposed the humans had made improvements in these things. He walked down the long hallway, feeling the metaphorical brushing aside of cobwebs as he did so, noting the familiar lily wallpaper, faded now, so that the graceful cascading flowers barely stood forth from the pale green background. The carpet was lush, still, but dusty, its deep green faded to gray.
There was only one door in the hallway. Hands shaking, Lyre found the other key on his necklace. He opened the door and, like an encaged genii, the memories rushed out and assailed him.
“Don’t move. Let me turn on a light.”
“Lyre!” Joseph stood in the doorway, eyes tightly closed, hands out in an exaggerated gesture of helpless blindness.
Lyre turned up the remaining lamp. “Open them.”
“Oh.” Joseph removed his glasses; rubbed them with a handkerchief and placed them carefully back on his nose as he stepped inside, turning slowly to take in the room. “What? Is this yours?”
“Ours.”
“Hmmm.” In two strides, Joseph had him in his embrace. Nose to nose, those bright eyes twinkling behind the glass, looking into him in that way that always made Lyre gasp. “How did you come by this, my one? Some more of your faerie magic?”
“It’s not a glamour,” said Lyre. “It’s real.”
Joseph laughed. It was his little humor that Lyre was his muse, one of the Folk. It was Lyre’s greatest grief that he allowed Joseph to jest without telling him the truth. It was the last of the taboos. He couldn’t bring himself to break it.
Now Joseph was holding him close, nibbling at his lips, his teeth sharp and hungry. Lyre melted into him, feeling the warm skin under Josephs starchy, pressed shirt, his fingers reaching easily to slide under the back of Joseph’s waistband, finding the little leather loops that held up his braces and popping them free.
Clothing slid to the floor and they laughed into each other’s mouths.
“I chose the bed with you in mind, Joseph,” said Lyre. “It’s very wide, to accommodate, your… athleticism.”
Joseph chuckled and demonstrated some of that athleticism, pushing Lyre over with him and straddling him immediately. Wiry, muscled arms, speckled with freckles, brown nipples in peaks, cock filling and red. He removed his glasses and stretched to put them on the side table. Lyre took advantage of the proximity of those needy little nipples to reach up and give one a bite and the other a twist.
“Oh.” Joseph squirmed on his lap, cock jumping. Leaned down and devoured Lyre’s mouth. “Those teeth,” he hissed against Lyre’s lips. “You’ll eat me alive.”
“I will,” said Lyre, hips arching rhythmically to rub his cock up and down against Joseph’s backside. He reached between them and squeezed Joseph’s cock, pumping it with the slow rhythm he’d learned Joseph loved. His lover moaned and arched.
“Where is the oil?”
“Wanton,” chuckled Lyre. But he reached for the drawer next to him and extracted the bottle of oil he’d put there. “I’ve not even shown you the bathroom and you already…”
“Prepare me,” demanded Joseph, bossy and dominant in his need as always. “Put your fingers there, Lyre. Please, my one, I need you.”
Lyre had no words. He pushed one then two oily fingers into Joseph’s hole, still stroking the thickening cock, watching its red head swell as he opened the ring of muscle.
“Now,” said Joseph, and raised himself and lowered himself and shivered all over as Lyre slid right up into him.
They both groaned.
Joseph didn’t move immediately, though Lyre could tell by his shaking, the sweat dribbling down his stomach, the throb of the organ in Lyre’s hand, that he needed to.
“Look at me Lyre,” Jospeh said, one hand touching Lyre’s face, cupping his chin.
Lyre looked. How could he not?
“I love you.” Said Joseph. “I always will, my one. Always.”
***
Lyre let himself in with the key. Joseph was in the bed, still. Lyre wondered if he ever rose, anymore. He seemed to be deeply asleep.
Lyre turned up the gas, the room seemed so cold. “Lyre?” the whispered word was hoarse, but Joseph’s smile was wide when Lyre sat next to him.
“Did I fall asleep again? I’m sorry. I must not be good company.” He started that shuddering coughing again, the one that brought up blood. Lyre held him through it, smelling his skin, his sweat, his blood.
“I missed you,” Lyre whispered against his hair.
Joseph took in deep wheezing breaths, he could hear how dry his throat was, feel the illnes
s on him. “Why did you stay away then? My love. I need you so…”
Lyre closed his eyes. In his mind the parade of bathhouses, seedy bars, the docks. Men in alleys, in filthy corners.
“I’m bad for you. I make you weak.”
“Never.” Joseph looked up at him, his soul in his eyes. “I want you to be happy, my one. When I’m gone…” the coughing began again.
Lyre felt his heart actually tearing. “Joseph.” He held him as tightly as he dared.
