Chapter Twenty-three – Jack
Chapter Twenty-three
Jack
As a vampire, I could grift enough each night from tourists and talk my way into a late room at any hotel downtown—the kind of places that you could be sure that housekeeping wouldn’t come into your room to see what you had to steal during the day if you put the ‘do not disturb’ sign up.
I changed rooms every other night, always worried that Tamo would find me—or that Rosalie would get peeved and tell him.
The nights in between I made sure to feed.
Being with Paco had opened up a world of possibilities.
There were just as many women in Vegas looking to hook up as there were men—but in general, men were a more certain thing.
And as people like me—people who wanted to top, but were also intently focused on making their bottom come, no matter what, and repeatedly if possible—were apparently something of a rarity, within a few weeks I’d gained a certain notoriety.
Was I happy? It was hard to say. I didn’t have anyone else’s blood on my hands, or in my mouth, which was good. I derived a certain satisfaction from using my powers as benignly as possible, and having a certain rep amongst that crowd wasn’t a bad thing.
But…it wasn’t fulfilling either. I turned, as I so often had in my past, to my art—but it was hard to get supplies when I lived an all cash lifestyle, after most stores were closed, and everything on the internet required bank accounts and credit cards.
I thought I was getting ahead, while in reality I was in denial.
Nothing impressed that on me more than waking up dead-er one day.
I opened my eyes. The world stayed dark, and for a horrifying moment I thought Tamo had found and blinded me. But I started moving a moment after that, and found myself constrained by plastic, which would explain the chemical smell.
I brought my arms up alongside my body, reached up, and found a zippered seam.
I was in a body bag. Wonderful.
I heard breaks squeal as the table beneath me shimmied.
I was being transported—to where? I couldn’t hear anything but muffled sounds of traffic.
Better to be loose out here on the highway, then wheeled into an actual morgue.
The zipper didn’t have a tab on my side of things, but I was plenty strong—I tore the thing open like a trash bag, birthing myself into the ambulance.
“Hey—hey!” shouted a very startled EMS tech sitting nearby.
“You didn’t see me,” I growled at him with my whammy. I was shirtless, but there was no time to steal his—I ran for the door, opened it up, and leapt out into traffic. I dodged honking cars until I lunged into the bushes at the side of the road.
I found out later the floor of the hotel I’d been in had had a fire requiring an evacuation, which was when they’d found me and assumed I was already dead from inhalation. My only saving grace had been that it’d been near sundown, and they’d put me in the bag before they’d taken me outside.
And now I was just how I was when I’d left Rosalie. All forward momentum—all my cash, my scrounged art supplies—gone.
“What the hell happened to you?” There was irritation in Bruce’s voice—along with an aggrieved parental fear.
“I’m sorry.” It’d taken me a few weeks to get back to where I’d been before the fire—but I was all too aware of how quickly another quirk of fate could knock me down.
I was managing to live from night to night, but I needed something to live for.
“I kept meaning to call, but….” I said, remembering when Thea had told me much the same thing.
Inertia was a steep slope, especially when you knew you were wrong.
“Leaving me hanging was an asshole move.”
“I’m so, so sorry, Bruce,” I said, hoping he could hear it in my voice. He sighed into the receiver on his end, his disappointment palpable.
“I thought you were dead.”
I frowned into the middle distance, wishing I could explain to him that I mostly was. “I know.” I was using a cheap phone I’d bought at a store, sitting on the ledge beside one of the fountain shows behind me.
“So what the hell happened?”
I gave him a fairy-tale version of events, how Thea and I were getting along, we’d moved in together, but it was time for me to earn my keep so she could get off the pole—and asked if he’d mail me my guns.
“You think you deserve them?” he said.
They were mine, I’d bought them free and clear—but I’d left him hanging for rent on the studio above his shop, and he’d probably had to pack all my shit up, even if it was to take it out to the curb. “I hope I do,” I said, sounding truthfully contrite.
Bruce snorted on the far end of the line. “Gimme an address and we’ll see.”
I was nervous about staying at the same hotel for so long, but I wanted to give Bruce enough time to mail me my things.
Each night when I woke up at my new and hopefully less flammable hotel I asked the front desk if they had any packages.
They didn’t—until a week later, when I’d almost given up, and they did.
It was a big box with a Dallas PO stamp. I ran back to my room with it almost shaking before opening it up.
Inside, Bruce had stowed my guns away in their small foam boxes, carefully coiled up all the cords, and had lined the bottom of the box with all my paints, even though the USPS asked you to not mail them. I pulled each one out, setting them in a rainbow in front of the TV.
And last, but not least, Bruce had done me the biggest favor of all—he’d thrown in my color portfolio. Now I could prove that I knew what I was doing, if anyone would listen. I’d still be starting over—but I was getting used to that.
I flipped through the pages, remembering the times, the people, the places. Everything in the box echoed back to a simpler, earlier life, back when daylight was still in my vocabulary, and Thea was in my arms.
But now that she wasn’t—I still needed to go out.
It was Friday night and a new club had opened last week.
I thought I’d take my chances there before I wound up someplace I already knew, just to see.
All the clubs had started blending together, darkness, light shows, fog, mirrors—whatever thematic differences they tried to have, most of them had very similar layouts and décor.
I whammyed my way to the front of the line, peeled off enough cash to make a hooker blush and got myself table service, so that I and a very large bottle of high end vodka could sit near the dance floor, alone.
Between my vampirically enhanced natural charisma and the lure of free booze, something always broke.
Women would notice me watching them eventually, and I could tell by their reactions what they wanted—if they talked to their friends in an alarmed fashion, my gaze moved on, whereas if they were shy and gave me tentative looks—or better yet were boldly interested in dancing for me—I would invite them over.
One such woman was dancing for me right now.
Short and brunette with high heels and a higher skirt, every time she tossed her head her hair swung, showing me her delicate neck beneath.
At the thought of fucking her my cock throbbed—at the thought of biting her, my fangs pulsed down.
I took a swig of a vodka tonic, feeling it lightly burn.
And then my view of her was interrupted by someone both familiar and un. Paco, from a month ago, in the bathroom stall. “Jack?” he said, as surprised to see me as I was him.
“Hey—Paco,” I said slowly as if I didn’t remember his name, on purpose.
He looked like he was about to say something else, then went with: “Mind if I sit down?”
“Not at all,” I said, gesturing to the couch I sat on.
He took a seat, far but not too far away, and his eyes ran over me like they liked what they saw, but then he shook his head deeply. “And to think I figured you for a tourist.”
“I used to be. Then some stranger fucked me gay and I decided I couldn’t go home again.” I gave him a teasing grin.
He laughed. “You’re not gay—I saw the way you were looking at her.”
I looked back out on the dance floor where the girl was a little confused but still lovely. “You’re right. I’m definitely equal opportunity.”
“So I’ve been hearing these crazy stories about some guy named Jack—about him jerking off people in the corners of clubs, him fucking DJs silly inside their booths, and you don’t want to know what he’s done on top of bars after close, and I thought, that couldn’t possibly be my Jack, could it?”
I let my head tilt. “Your Jack?”
Paco ignored me, looking me up and down again. “Nah. Definitely some other Jack.”
“Probably. Sounds like some kind of fish tale.”
“Yeah, because his cock gets longer with each one.”
“What am I up to? I mean, if it were me?” I asked, taking another sip.
“A Louisville slugger.”
I snorted, and vodka tonic came out my nose. Paco laughed, and I laughed too, and the girl on the dance floor was gone.
“Well if only someone who had intimate knowledge of my cock could correct them. Someone needs to set the record straight—factual accuracy is important.”
Paco acted concerned. “I agree—but—it’s been awhile. I wouldn’t want to get anything wrong.”
I was already imagining all the things he and I could do—I leaned in and gave him a sly smile. “Then maybe I could arrange another viewing?”
“I’d like that,” he said, leaning in too.
Without thinking, I kissed him. He tensed up for a millisecond, then relaxed into me and it felt right. I pulled back and found him beaming, so I kissed him again, cupping his head with my hands—as someone behind us shouted out:
“Take it someplace else, faggots!”
I whirled and saw some well-dressed asshole pointing both his finger and his beer at me. I stood without thinking, reaching him impossibly fast, and he drew up, some wiser part of him frightened.
“What did you say?” I asked him with my whammy.
“Take it someplace else, faggots,” he said, in a much smaller voice, only able to change his volume, but not the words, no matter how much he might like too.
I leaned forward, my eyes narrowing. “Where do you suggest I take it?”
“Outside?” he guessed, terrified.
A girl appeared on his arm, trying to draw him back, just as Paco appeared at mine. A bouncer rumbled up and noticed I’d come from the table behind me. “You’re a good customer—we don’t want any trouble—"
“Come on, come on, let’s go.” His girlfriend hauled him away, back into a pack of his preppy friends, while Paco quietly stood at my side. I turned toward him.
“Are you used to that?”
“No. But it’s happened before.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Well, yeah,” he said, glancing down.
I stepped up to him and kissed him again, surprising him. He tensed, and I could feel the bouncer hovering. I rocked back and considered starting shit just because I could, then reconsidered.
“We’re going,” I said, leaning in to snatch the bottle of vodka up off of my table.
“Where?” Paco asked.
“Away from here,” I said, giving the bouncer a look that dared him to try and take the bottle from me.