There was no magic bullet, no epiphany as I got into my newly disguised car. When I tried reaching back to Kutkha, it was like trying to grab at a shadow through a field of snow. At a loss, I touched the wires to start the engine, and considered where to spend my night. I wanted my bed, familiar smelling blankets, my cat sleeping behind my knees, and a chance to rest. What I needed was a place where no one would find me, where I could hide from the unholy trinity of the TVS, the police, and the Organizatsiya. Somewhere like... A gay bar?
I tensed in my seat as a thrill passed through my nerves. My mouth went dry, my pulse lifted, and suddenly I remembered that I was thirsty: very thirsty, and hot. I slowed for a red light, looking around at where I was. Still in Manhattan, headed south. I fumbled across the seat for my water bottle and took a swig, trying to clear the nasty antibiotics-and-pus taste in my mouth.
No one would think to look for you in a gay bar. Alcohol, cigarettes, sex... who’d think to search there for someone like you?
The water did nothing to ease the parched feeling in my mouth and throat. This was the Yen talking—it had to be. I tried for Kutkha again and slipped, unable to focus on anything as the light changed, drawing me toward Lower Manhattan, Greenwich, and East Village. I knew them by reputation. East Village was where the Organizatsiya went gay-bashing—or went to find dick, because who knew? My understanding of how my people worked had been crushed up and thrown away, like a dirty tissue. Maybe my fellow Slavs were all self-loathing, hypocritical pieces of shit.
When I squashed down the flash cravings for alcohol, different cravings surfaced. The taste of ash. The salt on Christopher’s throat. Now that was a bad idea. If I went to a gay bar, I didn’t have to do anything but get a drink, placate the Yen, and cool my heels until I figured out what how to play this. Try and contact the Tigers, flee the city… I was too tired to think about it. My head pounded. Without any idea where I was actually going to go, I headed for Greenwich Village. Tonight was a Tuesday, and it was cold and wet... there wasn’t going to be anything too crazy happening.
Traffic leading into the village was backed up, not that unusual in Manhattan. It wasn’t until I found myself in total gridlock that I realized what I’d gotten myself into: a riot. Gangs of people surged and ebbed around each other on either side of the road, neither side willing to give up turf. On the left, there were furious, sign-and-baseball-bat waving protesters. The signs they carried left no illusion as to why they were here. ‘HOMOSEXUALS ARE POSSESSED BY DEMONS!’ screamed one. ‘AIDS, Hell, Salvation!’ screeched another.
On the other side of the road—and on the road, in places—a motley group of teenagers, men in leather, men without shirts, women in overalls, women in tutus and Bohemian flowing clothes and sequined frocks, punks, and a mixture of other people were trying to get the protesters to back off by throwing bottles and cans at them.
“You made the plagues come! You made them come!” A woman’s furious voice broke through the racket as I rumbled past down the road. She sounded like Ayashe when she was angry, the same jagged candy-cane red spike of noise. She kept shouting as the crowds drowned her out. The police were slowly making their way up toward the nexus of the fight, but with the people spilling out onto the street like this, no one was going anywhere fast.
When I found a place to pull over, I got out and walked back down toward the angry, chanting mobs, moving to join the crowd of counter-protesters. They admitted me without so much as a sideways glance. I fell in beside a pair of men holding hands, giving their fingers up and over to the zealots challenging their existence. The religious were blaming them for… what? AIDS? The Philimites? Dead, hacked-up bodies falling out of the sky?
Movement ground to a stop somewhere on West 10th Street. The pavement was full up, and I was half-blind from the noise, unsure of where to go. Wincing, I tried to piece together the signs through the television-snow effect of my synesthesia, and pulled around with a cocked fist on reflex when a loud squeal erupted by my other ear. I turned in time to see a tall, bearded nun go stumbling past me, knocked off her spike heels by a tubby, balding man in a ‘JESUS SAVES’ bowling shirt. She—he?—caught themselves on their hands before their face hit the pavement. The old guy was sweating, looking for a way to run. I jerked my shoulders and stalked forward at him, reaching under my jacket, and he backpedaled.
“You some kind of fucking coward!?” I dialed up my accent, but didn’t pull anything out except my hand, fisted around an imaginary weapon. He didn’t wait to see if I was holding anything or not: scrambling, thick lips quivering, he fled to the safety of his pack.
“Khuy tebe v zhopu!” I shouted after him. “That’s what I thought, suka!”
“Oh my goodness, thank you so much.” The nun had recovered, frantically smoothing her—his?—dress down. They wore screaming scarlet robes, a habit, sequined gloves, and makeup straight out of a Coney Island funhouse... but they were clearly a nun. “I usually see that sort of thing coming. Ugh, what a mess.”
“No worries.” I stared, trying to make sense of exactly what I was seeing. “Do you... do you know where’s a good place around here to get something to eat? Maybe a room? I’ve never really been here before-”
“Oh! First time in the Village? Well, didn’t you just pick a wonderful night to visit!” The nun leaned toward me in a wash of perfume, reached down into her collar, and pulled out a pink and white brochure with the aplomb of a magician pulling a card out of their sleeve. “Try the Ninth Circle or Uncle Charlie's, honey. And take this.”
I did, too startled to argue. “Thank you, Miss… Mister..?”
“Sister, and I’m spreading the good news about the Rubber Habit!” She reached out, and before I could stop her, cupped my hand with both of her gloved ones. "Now, you make sure you have a read of that before you go trading, alright? And thanks for standing up for me.”
“Uhh...” I took it, glancing down at the cover image: a conga line of nuns, some with mustaches, habits drawn up above their waists, feather dusters jammed up in... yes. “No problem.”
Sister Ruby leaned in, mock-kissed me on the cheek, and sashayed back into the fray like some kind of strange Valkyrie. I watched her leave, blinking, and then down at the pamphlet, Play Fair.
Numb but curious, I found a wall, leaned back, and opened it up. A pair of condoms in silver packets tumbled out from inside. My face flushed hot, and I furtively picked them up and shoved them in a pocket out of sight before I began to read. About three pages in, I realized that the Sister hadn’t been a nun at all—she’d been an angel. Every uncomfortable, humiliating question I might have had for Zane had an answer here.
It was like a studio light fading in. Gay people had... literature? Policies and procedures? Community information? Community? Nuns? Bearded nuns with glittery red eyelashes, sure, but they seemed to perform the same role as educators. Suddenly, it was me who felt strange, because I was less normal than what was written about in Play Fair, and less prepared for the maelstrom of Lower Manhattan than a man in six-inch heels and a wimple. But at least I had some rules to follow, some guidelines to stick to. The very last paragraph was about guilt, and seeing it written somehow made me feel better about being here.
Head pounding, I glanced at one sign down the road. At first I thought the place was called ‘Ooo ooo ooo-9’, until I saw the part above that read ‘Ninth Circle Steakhouse’ and the name clicked. A steakhouse. That had to be a gentler entry into this world than a bar. There’d be tables, food, a place to sit down and think about what I was going to do.
My illusions were quickly dispelled on entry. The Ninth Circle did not smell like steak. It smelled like beer and vomit and male sweat. It was painfully loud and painfully crowded. The bouncer didn’t even notice my arrival, probably because he and everyone else were watching a naked man with a jockstrap on his head mixing a drink with his cock on top of the bar.
Right. Not a steakhouse. I turned around and barreled straight into the broad chest of a very dr
unk man who had tottered in the door behind me. He put his hand on my shoulder to steady himself, and by the time I recovered from the accidental shove, the riptide of people going in and out of the narrow, dark room had almost dragged me to the bar. As soon as the smell of alcohol hit me—really hit me—I felt my whole body yearn toward it.
I battled my way to edge of the counter, some distance away from the cock-tini party, and stood up on the rail so I could be seen. A dark, curly-haired man came bustling up, but instead of asking me for my order, he grinned. “Meow meow, fresh meat. You cross the street to join us tonight, church boy?”
“No,” I said. “Can I-”
“You wanna Virgin Mary?”
The only way I could hear him was because his words were a different shape to the deafening background noise. Eyes closed, I held up a ten. “No. I want something very sweet, very sour, very strong. Lemon. You got anything like that?”
“Sugar, I will blow your fucking mind.” The bartender plucked the note from my fingers.
He’d barely moved away when someone bumped into my right hip. I cracked watering eyes, squinting at a man who could have walked straight out of a Hitler Youth poster. Blond side-part, blue-eyed, clean-cut, in a beige greatcoat, polished high boots, and an armband with a pink triangle on it instead of a swastika. He flashed a grin and said something I didn’t catch. I grimaced, shook my head, and tried to ignore him while I waited for my drink.
The bartender brought back something icy cold and bright yellow, and the vivid blue smell and taste of lemon cut through the musk of the bar and gave me something to focus on that wasn’t the pain in my ears. I ignored Nazi Boy and pushed off, shouldering through the forest of taller men toward the back of the room.
Across the room from the blaring jukebox was a staircase leading down and to the left. It opened into a smoky lounge that was quieter and less crowded than the upstairs. The crowd was diverse, and when I found a place to stand, I could readily identify the different cliques. There were pretty boys, preppy boys, blue collar toughs who looked almost exactly like the dock workers and auto mechanics I’d grown up around, and barflies with sweaty untucked button-down shirts and gold chains. All of them seemed profoundly uninterested in me. I found myself feeling both grateful and increasingly self-conscious as I searched out a dark corner to hide and furtively drink my lemon mystery drink.
The bartender had done what I’d asked him to do: strong, sweet, and sour. I was shaking with a revolting amount of need as I sucked it down and the muscles along my spine unknotted. Some clarity returned, briefly, before the alcohol hit and I flushed with heat from my socks to my collar. The drink didn’t last long, and I knew, with a sinking feeling in my chest, that this time, one wasn’t going to be enough to make the Yen recede. It wanted more, and it knew I was injured, stressed out, pent up, and now, homeless. It was going to get what it wanted.
The guy behind the bar down here was a heavyset, bearded man with no shirt and a permanent pout. He looked at me quizzically when I slunk over.
“Stolichnaya,” I said, reluctantly, thumping the glass onto the bar. It was the strongest, nastiest thing I could think of, the one most likely to make the Yen screw off for the night. “Two over ice.”
“You’re new,” he replied, moving to the shelves. “What’s your name?”
“Konstantin.” On the occasions that I’d gotten magic work outside of the Organizatsiya, that was the alias I’d always used. “And not much of a conversationalist.”
“Ooh, is that Russian? You sound kinda Russian.”
“Ukrainian.” While he poured, I glimpsed my reflection in the mirror. The gray hair made me look old, which was probably why I wasn’t going to get much attention. Even as I thought it, though, I saw Nazi Boy cruise down the stairs and circle around behind me like a shark nosing its way toward blood in the water. He had a riding crop tucked up under his arm. I kept half an eye on him as the bartender brought me my drink.
“Well, I’m Paul. You may not be chatty, but let me tell you—I could listen to that accent of yours all night. You get beaten up out there? You look pretty rough.”
“No.” As Nazi Boy came to close in, I sighed, and braced to be hit on.
“Isn’t it illegal to let old guys in here, Paul?” he said, wrinkling his nose as he pulled in beside me. “I thought there was a rule about that.”
“Hah! There should be a rule about letting your loose ass in here, Troy. Age is in the miles, right Kon?”
Insults it was, then. I ignored them both, and threw back the first shot of vodka. It was sour and tasteless, made drinkable only by the ice, and I shuddered my way through the swallow.
Troy wasn’t the type to give up. “Why do you have your shades on in the dark? Are you blind, old man?”
“I can see you wear your dick size on your armband.” I swirled the ice around in my glass.
Shirtless Pete barked a derisive laugh. “Quit trying to hustle the new guy, Troy. Jeez.”
Troy giggled, and melted into a sensuous, hip-jutting pose against the edge of the bar, bringing the riding crop around onto the counter with a smack of leather on wood. “Hey, I’m young enough that I can still get it up. Can you?”
I was beginning to reconsider my burgeoning sense of self-identity. If boys were this annoying, then I was less interested in men than I thought. “Not for you. Go away.”
“It’s okay. We’re all twenty-three here, right? Right, Paul?” Troy looked to Paul for approval, but he was studiously washing an already-clean glass and leaving us to one another. There were people behind us watching from the pool table.
I shook my head, resolving to finish my drink and leave, when I felt a hand slither down my back and over my ass. I reached back and grabbed the boy’s pinkie. His eyes widened in the second it took me to yank him around by it, use that one finger to torque his entire arm as I turned, and put him to his knees in front of me. He blinked, stunned, but not as stunned as he was when I took the riding crop that he’d left on the bar and cracked it across his face.
The sound cut through the music and plunged the room into sudden stillness. Troy looked up at me with naked shock, blue eyes startlingly bright against the red welt spreading over his pale cheeks. He hissed and fought to free his hand, so I cranked the finger lock harder, making him bend forward at the waist with a stifled sound of pain. “Look at me.”
“Agh! Let go!”
“Look at me, you little shitwipe.” I didn’t raise my voice above what I needed to, jerking him against the joint. He finally peered up at me, eyes watering, and I jammed the crop up under his jaw, leaning down. “Don’t touch me. No one touches me unless I say so. Do you understand me?”
He snarled. I let go of his finger and shoved with the crop at the same time, throwing him off balance. He sprawled on his ass, the long SS-style coat tripping him up, and awkwardly clambered to his feet.
Like most men, Troy was taller than me, a fact that seemed to occur to him as he put a gloved hand to the welt on his cheek and looked down at me.
“You hit me in the face!” His eyes narrowed. “Bitch, I have to work.”
“You should have thought of that before you went for my wallet, Princess.” We were drawing a small crowd—all the blue-collar guys in their coveralls and jeans and a couple of older barflies. I snatched my vodka and threw it back. Diluted and very cold, it was slightly more tolerable.
The boy clearly didn’t know a thing about fighting, because he came at me while I still had the glass in my hand. I dodged his swing and clocked him with it, then followed up with the crop as the circle of men around us cheered lustily. I beat him with it all the way to the edge of the pool table. He got in one good kick: the polished spur on his boot caught me in the side of the knee and almost put me down, but I hopped through it, huddling close and fast, and smashed him across the jaw.
“Yeah! Get him, shorty!” someone called out.
“Get him! Put him on his knees again!”
It wasn’t a
fair fight. It ended when his wobbly fist clipped my cheek and I weaved in under his guard, slamming my knuckles up under his sternum. It drove the air from his chest and bent him double. He gasped as he slid into a loose-limbed kneel and clung to the front of my slacks. I reached down and thrust my fingers into his thick hair, pulling his head back so he could see my face and cocked fist.
“Do it! Smash him!”
“Hahaha, oh man, look at that guy...”
The boy’s eyes were dilated and hazy. His face was flushed, bottom lip swollen. He licked his mouth, choking back a short, hysterical laugh. It took me a moment to realize why. He was hard, cock straining against the front of his riding breeches. He was much, much larger than Christopher. I felt his girth pushing against my ankle as he ground forward.
“You like it.” The blow he’d taken to the mouth—I didn’t remember hitting him there—slurred his words. “You like it, don’t you?”
My fist shook, and my jaw wound taut.
“Hit me.” His eyes were half-lidded, like he was drunk or high on more than just pain. “Please... Sir?”
Sir. The word was like a shot of adrenaline straight to my cock. The foreskin was trapped over the glans, as usual, burning and tearing every time the exposed tip jostled against the inside of my clothes.
“Yeah! Do it!”
“Fuck his mouth!”
“Do it!”
My blood surged, and before I knew what I was doing, I reached down and jerked my belt forward and up, undoing it one-handed. The men around us bayed encouragement, and I felt Nazi Boy melt against the front of my thighs. His mouth was wet, banged up and swollen, lips an inviting crimson cupid’s bow. I pressed a gloved thumb over his bottom teeth, sliding it into his mouth, and felt him moan and sag into the grip I had on his hair.
The Yen was leering at me from behind my eyes, feeding off the hot, Red energy of the men behind and around us, a shield wall of grins and hard, eager bodies. I’d never realized that lust had a smell. It was exactly the same as the way a man smelled in the moment before you pulled a trigger between his eyes.
Zero Sum: An Alexi Sokolsky Supernatural Thriller (Alexi Sokolsky: Hound of Eden Book 3) Page 27
