Blood Dance Read online

  “Like I said, I’m not in the market for a boyfriend.” If he were, there was a clear candidate, and it wasn’t Val. A vision of Alex’s violet eyes conveying a surprising amount of worry popped into his head, as did the memory of a bulge behind the man’s tailored slacks. Was that for me? An intriguing—and disturbing—shiver ran down his spine.

  He focused his attention back on Mackie. “I’m just grateful to have a job and a place to stay, even if it’s temporary.” He also had two hundred dollars in his wallet, more than he’d ever had in there at any one time. Knowing that he had the means to feed himself for a while relieved him of the anxiety he’d been living with since his parents had kicked him out of the house.

  Standing, he slid his backpack off his shoulder and put it on the deep pile carpet. “I’d really like to start work tonight, but I don’t have the appropriate clothes.” He couldn’t hold back the blush. God, I need to get over my shyness if I’m going to be a go-go boy.

  Mackie sighed and pushed away from the jamb. “No worries. We have lots of stuff you can use. I suppose I should give you a tour. Come on.”

  Quinn followed the boy out of the room and to the elevator bank, although they didn’t enter there. Instead, Mackie pushed an exit door that opened into a staircase. They went down one flight and into the third floor. A series of open doors lined the hallway.

  “This is where we keep the playrooms.”

  Stretching his neck to peek inside the first one they passed, Quinn saw a plain bed and what appeared to be a padded wooden sawhorse with a bunch of cuffs—everywhere.

  “What kind of games are played in there?” His voice kind of squeaked with the question.

  Mackie giggled. “The sort that you probably couldn’t handle.”

  “And you can?” Quinn couldn’t resist taking a quick glance at each room during their journey.

  Mackie flipped his hair out of his eyes and gave Quinn a mischievous grin. “Let’s just say I’m a natural. But, don’t worry. This floor is totally optional for employees, even the go-go boys.”

  They hit an open staircase that led to the second floor. The walls were lined with plush couches and the inside contained a rectangular balcony from which one could watch the dance floor below.

  Mackie leaned against it, his slender hips jutting out in a provocative pose. “Patrons can come here and relax with a drink, get a lap dance.”

  Shoving his hands inside his front pockets, Quinn hunched his shoulders. “Oh, is that a thing? Lap dances?”

  “Sure. You charge twenty bucks a song and you get to keep it all. Alex doesn’t take a cut. He charges like a huge annual fee for membership and he’s not exactly giving away the drinks, either.” He looked away. “Any other deals you want to strike with the patrons are purely your choice. Alex doesn’t want to know and doesn’t care, so long as you’re discreet.”

  A knot formed in his full stomach. “You mean I’m not just hired to dance? I’m supposed to whore, too?” Shit, out of the frying pan and into the fire. If that was the job, he’d have to give the money back and leave, except what difference did it make? He’d be back to Plan B, and at least here, he’d be safer.

  Mackie grunted. “No, dummy. I said you make your own deals—or not. Some of the boys fuck for money. I don’t. Val would redden my ass if I did, after he ripped out the guts of the other guy.” The boy sounded quite smug in describing his boyfriend’s jealousy. “A lot of the members bring their own dates or hook up with each other. The rooms on the higher floors do see a lot of action, regardless. Come on.”

  Quinn followed the boy down another staircase that led to the main floor. They walked the length of the bar. A tall, bald black man stood behind it, stocking bottles on the shelves.

  “Hey, Kitty,” Mackie called out in greeting.

  Quinn was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that the guy was called Kitty when the bartender turned around and flashed them a smile. That was when Quinn started trying to wrap his head around the fact that Kitty was a woman.

  “This is Quinn,” Mackie said with a jerk of his thumb in his direction. “He’s our new go-go boy.”

  Swallowing past his surprise, Quinn nodded at the bartender. “Ma’am.”

  Kitty’s smiled widened. “What a nice, polite boy. So unlike some people,” she added with a nod at Mackie. “I’m pleased to meet you, too, sweetie. Don’t listen to everything this one has to say. He’ll lead you to the wrong path, given half the chance.” She blew a kiss toward the boy to show she was only teasing.

  “Ugh,” Mackie scoffed, but he blew a kiss back. The two of them were obviously fond of each other. “I’m only getting him settled, per the boss’s orders. Quinn’s going to start dancing tonight.”

  Kitty placed another bottle on the shelf behind her. “Well then, break a leg, as they say. And I’m going to assume you aren’t twenty-one.” She gave him a look that warned him not to even try lying.

  “No, ma’am. Eighteen.”

  Kitty tsked. “Too young to be shaking your mostly naked ass in front of strange men, but I don’t make the rules around here, except for the bar ones. If I catch you sneaking drinks, I’ll have Val bounce you and that mostly naked ass out of here. Got that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Quinn put as much sincerity in his voice as he could because he wasn’t going to lose this job that he desperately needed over something so stupid.

  With a nod, Kitty went back to what she was doing. “Good. ’Cause that’s what happened with the last one.”

  Mackie tugged at Quinn’s arm. “Come on. I’ll take you to the changing rooms. See you, Kitty.” The bartender waved at them. “It wasn’t just the booze,” he added. “The kid was doing heroin and came into work high every night.”

  “God.”

  “Yeah,” Mackie agreed with a heavy sigh. “It was a real mess.” He stopped short. “Not surprising, though, given that lots of gay kids turn to drugs to ease their pain. It’s tough being bullied in school and at home.” Mackie appeared pensive and a flash of misery crossed his pretty face. “Alex tried to help him, paid for rehab and everything. But…” With a shrug, he kept walking.

  He led him past the elevators and down a hallway. To the left was a large kitchen, already bustling with activity. Mackie pointed in that direction. “So, the kitchen is open almost twenty-four seven. A great perk as an employee is that all food is free.”

  “Really?” That sounded too good to be true. “There must be a cost.”

  “Not to us, and because you’ll be living here for a while, you can eat all your meals. Just ask Emil and he’ll set you up. He’s the head chef and another cousin or something. The family connections are hard to keep straight.”

  Beyond the kitchen was a large dressing room, complete with a long mirror on the far wall with a narrow counter covered with brushes, curling irons and various beauty products. The rest of the room had a couch and a few overstuffed chairs. To the right was a bathroom with at least one shower.

  Standing in the center with his hip cocked, Mackie flicked his hair and did the Vanna White thing with his hand. “And this is where the magic happens. We come in as ordinary boys and leave as sin personified.” He blew Quinn a provocative kiss.

  Quinn took in the room where he’d be spending a lot of time. He wandered over to the counter and poked at tubes and discs and bottles with a frown. “Do we have to wear make-up?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He’d known for a long time that he was gay, but he wasn’t a drag queen or transgender. He wanted to look like a boy, not a girl.

  “Only if you want to.” Mackie wandered over and grabbed a tube of glittery blue stuff. “Sometimes a little sparkle adds to the allure. And the lights in the club can be kind of dim, so I like to use some liner and mascara to make my features stand out. Your choice,” he added with another flip of his hair.

  Mackie went over to a drawer at the end of the counter and opened it. “Here’s where we keep extra thongs.” He pulled out one and dangled it by
his finger. It was very shiny and a red-orange color. “This would be fabulous with your blond hair.”

  Quinn took a few steps forward and reached out tentatively to take the offering, as if it could bite. The tag was still on, so that meant no one else had worn it. Thank God. Because…ick. “It’s so small.”

  “Yeah, well, so’s your ass, honey. And, the more the rest of what you’ve got struggles to stay in that thing, the better. Tips are the name of the game.”

  Quinn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re right.” He gave Mackie a determined look. “Will you show me how to put gunk on my face to—you know—accentuate my features?”

  Mackie smiled. “Sure thing. Let me finish the rest of the tour first. Over here, we have a bathroom with a couple of showers, washer and dryer, toothbrushes and paste, razors—everything you need to stay fierce and fabulous all night long.”

  Quinn rubbed at his smooth face. “I don’t really need to shave, unfortunately.”

  Mackie rolled his eyes. “The razors aren’t just for your face.” He flicked his gaze to Quinn’s crotch. “You have to make sure there’s no hai-er down they-re.”

  Once again, Quinn’s cheeks flushed. “Oh.”

  Mackie smirked. “Yeah, oh. Welcome to the glamorous world of exotic dancing, sweetie.”

  * * * *

  “Oh, honey, you are going to be the belle of the ball for sure tonight. The other boys and I are going to be fighting for pocket change once the patrons get a look at you.”

  Leaning forward, Quinn studied his kohl-rimmed eyes and glossy lips. He frowned and ran his fingertip across his glittery cheeks. “It doesn’t make me too girly, does it?”

  Mackie tossed the tube of mascara on the table and crossed his eyes at Quinn through the mirror. “No. It highlights the beautiful boy that you are, except, you know…better. Trust me. Your G-string is going to be bulging with money before your first shift is over.”

  “She’s got that right,” chimed in another boy, Shawn, who was putting on his own finishing touches a few seats away.

  Mackie grunted. “I told you not to use female pronouns when referring to me.”

  Shawn huffed as he stood and perused himself by turning this way and that. “I would think an ass that takes Val’s big dick every day wouldn’t be so tight.” Then he blew a kiss in their direction before adding, “Good luck, Quinn.” He sauntered out, swinging his impressive bubble butt.

  Mackie glared at the boy’s back for a few seconds before turning his attention to Quinn. “Come on. It’s showtime. Don’t worry. The patrons are going to be so excited about seeing a new boy that they won’t care how well you dance.”

  Standing, Quin inspected himself in the mirror. He hardly recognized the boy he’d been his whole life. The image he projected was of a male siren, a little slutty and way too young. Although his thong just covered his junk, his ass didn’t project the kind of sexy invitation that Shawn’s did—or Mackie’s, for that matter. He wasn’t even sure he wanted it to, except for it adding to his income. The plain truth was, his ass was cherry. Other than in the locker room at school or the doctor’s office, no male had seen it bare since he’d hit puberty, let alone touched it. Would a mature male find it enticing?

  Would Alex?

  Shit, where did that stray thought come from? The last person he needed to attract was his boss. Lux might be a sex club, but it was still a business and dancing was his job. Sleeping with the owner could end in disaster. Quinn needed the work too much to risk losing it over something like a bad hook-up. Besides, the guy scared the crap out of him.

  “Hey, is this the new boy?”

  Quinn glanced at the doorway from where the question had come. A lanky boy with the same coloring as all the Stelalux men, plus an Asian appearance to his face, came sauntering in. He gave Quinn the once-over before heading to the make-up counter and picking a tube of lip gloss.

  Mackie sighed. “Demi, you know you’re not supposed to be here.” When the boy just shrugged and proceeded to dye his lips, Mackie grunted. “Fine. Don’t listen to me. Your fathers will find out, anyway. They always do. Don’t come crying to me when they take away your electronics as punishment.”

  The boy, Demi, straightened and preened in front of the mirror. He was gorgeous and undoubtedly knew it. “Two more years and they won’t be able to stop me.” He patted his somewhat-flat ass. “By then, this will have filled out and the world can see how fabulous it—and I—am.”

  “Oh my God!” Grabbing Quinn’s arm, Mackie fled the room. “That’s Harry’s son. He and his husband Lucien used a surrogate to make him, and I swear he’s been giving them fits since he came out of the womb.”

  Because focusing on someone else helped ease his jittery stomach, Quinn gave that bit of news some thought. “Is Lucien Asian?”

  “Yup. Thai, I think.”

  “They must have used an Asian surrogate and Harry’s sperm, given how much that kid looks like a Stelalux.”

  Mackie shrugged. “I guess. Never really thought about it, to be honest. I just try to keep him out of the dressing room as much as possible. Harry and Lucien have big plans for that kid because he’s off the chart intelligent and being a go-go boy is not on their agenda.”

  The reminder of their job brought Quinn back into his own current circumstances as they entered the main floor. It was a few minutes before nine, the time when the dancers started the first of their two-hour shifts. Shawn and another boy, Kenny, had already started gyrating to the song playing. There weren’t more than a dozen patrons milling about, but Mackie had told him that things started to get swinging by eleven. That was when more boys would come in to mingle with the crowd and take over at the stages when the first shift ended.

  Quinn would have two hours off to either mingle and give lap dances or join a patron in a private room. Otherwise, he’d take another turn on the stages at one. Being a private club, it could stay open as long as the owners wanted and was available twenty-four seven, but the boys only had to work until five a.m. Quinn hoped he’d be able to last that long. Despite having eaten a couple of times and even taken an afternoon nap in his very comfortable bed, he still felt a little weak and tired. Alex had given him a pass about working that night and he’d been tempted to take him up on the offer. Fear drove him, though. He needed to prove that he was capable of doing this job that he needed so desperately.

  Mackie squeezed his arm and whispered into his ear, “Good luck and don’t worry. You’ll be fabulous. You’ll see.”

  Mackie sauntered to one of the free stages, giving every man he saw a sexy smile. The boy reached for the pole and twirled himself around to stunning effect. Knowing he could never match that kind of skill, Quinn nevertheless squared his shoulders, put on what he hoped was a mirror image of Mackie’s expression and propelled himself onto the one remaining stage.

  * * * *

  “The new boy seems to be settling in okay.”

  Alex didn’t spare Val a glance. His attention was entirely focused on said new boy, as it had been since the moment he’d stepped into the main room. Hell and damn, as the humans would say. At this rate, he’d get nothing done all night.

  He took a deliberate sip from his tumbler of Maker’s Mark before answering. “I suppose, although his dancing technique is a bit pedestrian compared to the others.”

  Val snorted, one of the many human mannerisms they’d acquired over the centuries, whether they’d intended to or not. “Nobody seems to care about that. They’ve been three-deep around his stage since he started.”

  Indeed they had. The way they kept groping the boy in the guise of stuffing bills into what there was of his thong set Alex’s teeth on edge. One man in particular, a member named Crowell whom Alex heartily disliked, kept circling like a carrion-eater eyeing roadkill. Alex’s grip tightened around his glass.

  “That’s good. Poor boy needs the money.” He took another sip of his drink and fought against his fangs’ sudden desire to descend. Crowell ha
d slid a finger down Quinn’s crack at the same time that he tucked yet another bill inside. A human eye wouldn’t have detected it. His did. A low growl rose. That was a sound they tried to suppress, not being one humans typically made.

  Val chuckled and put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “You’d better hurry and fuck the guy before you give us all away.”

  Annoyed, Alex shrugged off the touch. “I don’t dally with employees. Unlike you,” he added in a biting tone. “And speaking of which, you’d better make a decision about your boy. Either commit to him or cut him loose. He’s the one most likely to discover who we are. Your dithering puts us all at risk.”

  As soon as the harsh words were out of his mouth, Alex regretted them. For the first time in the last hour, he peeled his gaze away from Quinn and focused on his comrade. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so blunt. I understand why you hesitate, but it doesn’t have to end badly this time. Mackie’s a strong boy, fortified by modern medicine and nutrition. He’s not like—”

  “Don’t say it.” Val gave him a shuttered look. “Please don’t say his name.”

  Alex struggled to think of a suitable reply, knowing that he’d left this old wound festering in his subordinate and friend too long, the same as he had his own, so perhaps he had nothing to offer the man after all. Before he could say anything, however, Val’s expression changed. He morphed into head bouncer mode.

  “The new boy has attracted too much attention.”

  Alex followed Val’s gaze, and their conversation was instantly forgotten in the face of what he saw. Crowell had wormed his way in even closer to Quinn and now had a grip on the front of the boy’s G-string. Alex zeroed his sight to the spot where the man’s fingers held onto the thin fabric. He could see how tightly he kept the boy in place. For his part, Quinn was trying to pull away to free himself while still keeping a smile on his face.

  With a heavy-lidded gaze, Alex watched the tug of war and filtered his hearing until he homed in on the boy’s heartbeat. It was easy enough to do. He already knew what it sounded like and its rapid hammering told him all he needed to know.