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Chapter 2 - Club Lights.
By the time we get to Babylon it’s less than a half hour till closing. I feel really unsettled as we pass through the front door. My stomach lurches uncomfortably and, for half a second, I feel like I’m going to puke. I tell myself that it’s just a reaction to all the drugs that are still not completely out of my system, but in the back of my mind, I know there’s probably more to it. I don’t let myself think about it though, I just concentrate on following Emmett’s back as he weaves his way through the guys standing around at the edges of the dance floor. There’s not that many people left in the club. Which, I suppose, is a good thing since we’re able to just walk right up to the bar and get the bartender’s immediate attention.
“Hey, Emmett! What can I get you?” Matt, the lead server for the club, asks as soon as he sees us.
“Sorry, Sweetie, but we’re not here for drinks tonight. Just information,” Em replies with his usual flirty smile before launching into the purpose of our visit. “You were working last Friday night too, right?”
Matt nods and adds, “Yep. I work pretty much every weekend. Why?”
“Well, Brian here is having a bit of a substance-induced memory problem and he can’t remember the name of the guy he left here with last week. It’s really important we find him. You wouldn’t, by any chance, remember seeing Brian that night, would you?”
“Yeah, I remember seeing Kinney around that night,” Matt smirks at me, not all that nicely either - he’s probably still pissed off at me for the time I threw him out after fucking him. “I also recall he was pretty soused, too. I had to cut him off.”
That wasn’t a good sign. I generally had a pretty high tolerance for alcohol, so if I had been drunk or stoned enough to get cut off, it was no wonder that I didn’t remember leaving that night. It wasn’t going to help us find my missing blond boy, though.
“That doesn’t surprise me. He was already flying pretty high when Michael, Ted and I left around two,” Em explains, turning to confirm with me. “Michael wanted to wait around and make sure you got home okay, but we talked him out of it since you were already headed to the backroom with another trick and we were all hungry. I’m sorry we didn’t stick around and wait for you, Bri.”
I wave off the apology, trying not to think about what might have been. “Did you see who I was with that night?” I ask Matt, trying to refocus the discussion.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to point out who you WEREN’T with instead?” Matt snarks and I shoot him with my most withering glare. “Sorry, guys. I wasn’t really paying any attention. I work the bar, not the backroom.”
“Good point. Thanks, Matt,” Emmett agrees and then grabs my arm, towing me towards the back of the club with him.
“Fuck. Now what?” I grumble, feeling like this was an impossible task.
“Now we talk to Todd. I should have thought of him in the first place. He knows everything that happens in the backroom.”
“True,” I concede the point and follow Emmett into the humid fug that is the backroom of Babylon at the end of a long, busy, Friday night.
We find our quarry right away. Todd’s leaning against the wall just inside the entryway, his pants sagging down around his knees as a huge gym-bunny pounds into his ass with obvious enthusiasm. Todd is moaning and bucking his hips backwards, meeting every thrust, doing his usual power-bottom thing. It wouldn’t be Babylon without Todd haunting the backroom.
“Hey, Todd. How’s it going, Honey?” Emmett asks congenially, leaning against the wall next to the man and looking on as if he was enjoying the show - which he probably is, knowing Honeycutt.
“Fine,” is the laconic and expected response.
“No rush or anything, Sweetie, but when you’re done, I need to pick your brain about something,” Emmett interjects, a lot more politely than I would have.
“Sure thing. I’m . . . Almost . . . Done . . . Anyway . . .” Todd grunts out, then gives a resounding groan, arching upwards while he decorates the wall with several, rather impressive, streamers of jizz. “Ahhhhh! That was nice. Thanks, Spike. I really needed that.” The backroom’s favorite bottom gives his partner a kiss goodbye and then turns his attention back to Emmett. “What can I help you with, Em?”
“Well, to start with, you can give me ‘Spike’s’ phone number, Honey. I think that man and I might have a lot we could talk about . . .” Emmett looks at the retreating back of the big, muscle-bound top with evident lust.
“Not now, Emmett,” I growl, trying to bring my friend’s attention back to the immediate business.
“Oh, yeah, right.” Em looks at Todd again, this time with a determined air. “So, Brian’s trying to find a guy he was with last Friday night but he can’t remember the guy’s name. Did you see who Brian was with back here last week?”
“I’m not sure . . . From what I remember, it was just the usual parade of hotties. You were a busy boy that night, Kinney - it was a nice selection, though,” Todd smiles up at me admiringly.
“Well, that goes without saying,” I reply, my usual bravado surfacing for a moment.
“Anybody that stood out, though?” Emmett presses. “Maybe somebody near the end of the night? Somebody that Brian might have gone home with?”
“Hmm. Let me think,” Todd replies, leaning back against the cum-splattered wall without concern. “Yeah, now that you mention it. There was one guy. I remember him because he wasn’t your usual type; he stood out.”
“I don’t have a ‘type’,” I start to argue, only to be stopped by Em putting a hand on my arm.
“Sure you do,” Todd reasserts. “You usually prefer guys just like you - tall, nicely built, dark - which was why I noticed when you brought that young blond kid back here with you. I mean, you almost never go for blonds, let alone chicken. If you did, maybe I’d finally have a shot?”
“A blond?” That immediately gets my attention, enough so I’m able to ignore Todd’s insane comment about the two of us possibly hooking up.
“Yep. It was that new go-go boy - can’t remember his name . . . He’s a total cutie, great ass and really sweet too. It’s not really a surprise that you’d break out of your usual rut to give him a go. I’d even switch it up for a chance to get into that ass, although I hear he’s versatile . . .”
*****Flash*****
I’m dragging the blond off the dance floor by his shirt tail, heading for the back room, so horny that I’m practically running and the kid has to trot along behind me to keep up. It’s not fast enough for me, though, and I actually shove aside a guy that gets in our way. The guy I shove lands on his ass and curses at us. The blond giggles in response; a liquid tittering that goes straight to my already rock hard dick. And then we finally make it to the corridor that leads to my favorite place in the world - Babylon’s back room.
“So, are you a top or a bottom,” I ask the blond teasingly, because just looking at this kid the answer is pretty obvious . . . Or at least I think so before he answers.
“Top . . . And bottom,” the blond answers cheekily, smiling up at me with those lips that make me want to taste him again.
I make it to my usual spot along the rear wall and turn to look back at my companion. “Ah, so you're versatile then? Good to know. Not that it matters, though, since I’m one hundred percent top.” The blond kid smiles again - that damn, huge, brilliant smile that seems to almost blind you when it hits you dead on - and shrugs agreeably. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, I think you were just about to get down on your knees and worship my cock. Right?”
“It’ll be my pleasure . . .” He fucking purrs the words, as if he really truly believes that sucking my cock is the only thing he’s living for.
“Trust me, it’ll be MY pleasure.”
He sinks gracefully to the floor and reaches up to unzip my jeans as I relax back against the wall behind me. A minute later he’s licking at my cock like it’s a drippy popsicle and I’m already in heaven. But when he finally wraps those plush lips around my rod and sucks me in as deep as he can take it, I have to struggle not to shoot right that second. He’s a fucking natural. His mouth is made to suck cock. He’s just that good.
I reach down and grab hold of a handful of the thick, silky blond hair, causing the boy to look up at me from under the dark blond of his lashes. How the fuck can he still manage to smile with his mouth full of my dick. I find myself thinking the word ‘beautiful’ - a description that I wouldn’t normally use for another man, but which seems to fit this kid in some inexplicable way - at the exact same moment the stimulation to my cock reaches that critical point. I can’t hold back even a second longer. I feel my dick pulsing in the warmth of his mouth as I shoot.
And it’s so good. I feel my knees getting weak as the bliss washes over me.
*****Flash*****
When the flash of memory passes, I’m almost surprised to look down and find the blond is no longer there. And, while I find myself still in the backroom, I’m standing next to Emmett and Todd, not my luscious blond with the talented lips. It makes me want to find him even more.
“A go-go boy? Really? I gotta agree with Todd - not your usual, Brian,” Emmett seems fascinated by that factoid. “This guy working tonight by any chance? I don't remember any new blond dancers.”
“Sorry. I haven’t seen him tonight. If I do see him, though, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him, Kinney,” Todd promises before standing up straighter and starting to look around him at the increasingly slim pickings in the backroom. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to figure out who I’m going home with tonight. Talk to you later, gentlemen.”
“Later, Todd. And thanks,” Emmett waves a cheery goodbye to his buddy and we make our way back out to the main floor. “Okay, so we’re making progress at least. We know your blond was a go-go dancer here at the club. That’s a start, right?”
“Not much of one,” I answer. “All we know is that I was with some blond go-go boy. We don’t even have a name. How the fuck does that help me find where he is right now?”
“Patience, Brian. Patience,” Emmett advises, just pissing me off even more. He starts to walk towards the exit and, since I don’t know what else to do, I follow him. “So, from what Todd said, this blond was probably your last trick of the night. And, if you stayed true to form, you would have probably taken the kid home with you - that’s what you usually do with the last trick of the night, provided he can give a halfway decent blow job. Right? And I’m assuming the blond wasn’t lax in that department?”
“He wasn’t too bad,” I grudgingly agree.
“High praise indeed, coming from you,” Emmett concludes as we dodge around a gaggle of club boys waiting in line to pick up their jackets at the coat check. “But I don’t think you ever made it to the loft. When you didn’t show at the gym on Saturday, Michael told us he went by your place to make sure you were okay and said it didn’t look like you’d been there. Which makes sense since you’ve been missing in action all week. So our next step is to figure out where you went instead.”
“Great. And how do you suggest we do that, Detective Colombo?”
“We ask the doorman, of course,” Em asserts as he drags me towards the two security guys manning the front door as the crowd trickles out. “Hey, Ducky. Got a sec?” Em asks and the man nods, gesturing for us to wait for him a little ways away, then leans in to say something we can't hear to the second guard. “Ducky is kinda the patron saint of all Babylon twinks. He looks out for the younglings and makes sure they aren’t going off with strangers that are too sketchy. I’m sure that he would have noticed if a pretty little blond go-go boy was leaving with a known reprobate like Brian Kinney.”
“Ha, fucking, ha!” I gripe, but don’t have time to take Emmy Lou to task for his sniping as the gargantuan bouncer walks up to us.
“Emmett. What’s up? Problem?” the guy asks in a deep bass voice as he eyes me judgmentally.
“Not exactly. It’s just that Brian here is trying to hook up again with a guy he met last week, but we don’t know how to find him. We thought, maybe you could help?”
Ducky - the most incongruous name for a bouncer ever - looks at me again as if something Emmett said doesn’t compute. “I thought you didn’t do repeats, Kinney?”
“Normally, I don’t. But I need to find this one,” I answer.
“The problem is,” Emmett helpfully jumps into the conversation, “Brian doesn’t exactly remember what happened after he and the guy left here. We were hoping you might remember something? It was last Friday night and the guy we’re looking for is a sweet little blond . . .”
“Justin,” Ducky supplies the name we’ve been looking for without any further prompting.
*****Flash*****
“Sorry, but when I’m not on the clock, I don’t dance with anyone whose name I don’t know.”
The blond is standing there, in the middle of the dance floor, refusing to move until I introduce myself. For some reason, I find this intriguing. This kid’s got spunk.
“Brian Kinney, at your service.”
The blond holds out his hand in an almost formal way, offering to shake. “Nice to meet you, Brian. I’m Justin.”
I take his hand in mine and use the grip I have on him to pull the younger man’s body closer. “Care to dance, Justin?”
“I’d love to, Brian.”
*****Flash*****
“Justin . . .” Emmett looks to me for confirmation and I nod. “Yay! We finally have a name. Thanks, Ducky. Now, you didn’t, by any chance, happen to see Justin and Brian leaving together last week, did you?”
“I did. And I tried to warn him against it, but he obviously didn’t listen,” Ducky glares at me. “Sweet kid like that had no business messing around with the likes of you, Kinney. So, are you the reason he didn’t show up for work the next night and ended up getting fired?”
I don’t bother answering. The bouncer’s accusation confirms something I’d hoped wasn’t true. If Justin had shown up for work as expected the next day, then maybe all these flashes, these gruesome images, could be explained away as drug-induced delusions. Unfortunately, it seemed like I was out of luck; Justin appears to have gone missing the same night I did. Which makes it all the more likely that my nightmares aren't just in my own head.
“Well, that’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Emmett explains, using his patented southern charm to placate an irate Ducky in an effort to pump a little more information out of the man. “You see, Brian doesn’t exactly remember what happened that night. We’re hoping maybe you saw something or heard them discussing where they were going when they left?”
“You did seem pretty fucking wasted, Kinney. You were stumbling around and glomming all over the poor kid. I even offered to call you a cab but you turned me down, handing over your keys to the kid and telling him how this was the only time he’d get to be in the driver's seat when it came to you, so he better make the most of it. Justin only laughed and told me it was too bad he had someplace he had to be, otherwise he might’ve taken Kinney home and shown him how good of a ‘driver’ he really was. I got a kick out of that. But I remember Kinney here getting a little annoyed and complaining about the fact that he wanted Justin to go home with him.”
“That explains why you guys never made it back to the loft,” Emmett deduces, seemingly pleased that he’s uncovered yet another piece of my personal puzzle. “So, did Justin say where it was he was heading?”
Ducky doesn’t even have to think about it, he just nods. “Yep. He said he had already promised to dance at the boss’ after-party and would have to take a rain check on the visit to the Legendary Loft. Of course, when Kinney heard the word ‘party’ he was all over it and told the kid he’d go with him. Knowing how crazy some of Gary’s parties get, I figured it’d be right up Kinney’s alley, too - not that I’ve been myself, you know. That’s not really my scene.”
*****Flash*****
“You have no idea how tempting that sounds, Big Guy,” the blond says, batting his eyelashes at me like some femme fatale of old. “But I already told my boss that I’d come dance at this party he’s throwing tonight and I really need the money, so I can’t blow it off.”
“Your boss is paying you to go to a party? That’s the most desperate thing I think I’ve ever heard,” I comment, still trying to distract the boy with kisses in the hope that he’ll forget about this stupid party.
“Yeah, well, for $200 bucks I’m not going to judge. From what I hear, he almost always asks a few of the dancers to come to his parties. He says we’re there for ‘decoration’. Whatever. Since I’m sort of between stable living arrangements at the moment, and I’m trying to save up enough to get my own apartment, I’m not going to look a bonus like this in the teeth. So, I’ll just have to take a rain check on that visit to your legendary lair.”
I’m not giving up that easily, though. Not until I’ve had my way with that plump-looking ass. “How ‘bout this - I come with you to this party, you shake your booty for the boss-man for a few hours while I party crash, and then when you’re done, we resume where we’ve left off? That way we get the best of both worlds.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Come on, kid. I love a good party. Or a bad party. Or any party at all, actually,” I tease him, enjoying the return of that gorgeous smile again. “Besides, who wouldn’t want ME at their party, right?”
“I can already tell you’re going to be a REALLY bad influence . . .” I love that he’s bold enough to tease me back. “But, what the hell. You’re at least as decorative as me, so the boss can’t be too angry, right? Let’s do it.”
*****Flash*****
“That sounds like our Brian,” Em is remarking when I tune back into the present again. “I saw his high school yearbook once, and I can confirm that he was voted, ‘Most Likely To Be Invited To An Orgy’, all four years.” That gets Ducky laughing, despite the death ray look I’m shooting at the two of them. “But you can’t blame Brian for your go-go boy not making it into work after a party like that, can you? What did your boss say about it?”
“Gary didn’t say anything much. He just told Alex to find a new dancer. Not a problem - twinks that like to dance are a dime a dozen on Liberty Avenue. It’s a shame though. Justin seemed like a real sweetheart. And I know he really needed this job. I can’t imagine what could have convinced him to just walk away like that.”
“And you said you don't know where Justin lives? We’d really like to get in touch with him. I promise it’s not for anything hinky,” Em pries, making a show of crossing his heart like some high school girl.
“Sorry. I’ve got no idea how to find the kid.”
“What about your boss?” I interject, finally speaking up for myself. “We could ask him.”
“Gary left early tonight, I’m afraid. Maybe he wanted to get this week’s party started early or something? He and Alex were out of here before midnight, though. If you want to talk to Gary, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“He does these parties every week?” That seems excessive even to a party boy like myself. “Fine. Just tell us where tonight’s party is happening and we’ll track him down there.”
“No can do.” Ducky shakes his head. “Like I said, that’s not my scene so I’m not in the loop. Besides, from what I understand the boss and his buddies take turns hosting, so the parties move around. There’s no telling where they’re at tonight.”
Em and Ducky continue to chat for a minute or two while my mind wanders. Something about all this talk of ‘parties’ has my guts roiling again. I have a really bad feeling about this. I’m also getting antsy about how long all this is taking. Somewhere out there my blond boy is still lying in a pool of his own blood while we’re farting around blindly. Time is running out and I don’t seem to be any closer to finding him.
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