Chapter One I Wanna Be Adored
Chapter one
I Wanna Be Adored
Exactly ten years later, September 21 st , 2024
The thumping bass reverberated through Aaron’s bones as he weaved onto the dance floor, a sea of bodies rippling with pulsating energy.
He couldn’t quite call it his happy place. He was rarely happy. Yet over the years, it had become exactly that. Probably because of the anticipation. The potential . And there wasn’t a single place in the entire world he’d rather be on his birthday than here, the central London basement nightclub, dancing within a throng of sweaty, male bodies. Despite how he was supposed to be hundreds of miles away, preparing for yet another transition. Another stage of his so-called life. Another personality to maintain.
But this was his last chance.
The fusion of house, pop and electronic dance melted into remix after remix, each track blending into the next with euphoric drops, high tempo rhythms, and bright synths causing him to move. To dance. To fill the surrounding space and meld into the throng. A slave to the music, he was a solitary figure amidst the crowd, able to switch off.
This was his me-time.
The irony of that hung heavy.
Cause who the fuck was he?
Club management had asked him once if he fancied a job in their cages. He didn’t have the heart to tell them they’d been asking a minor back then, having been scoping out this place since he was sixteen. He wasn’t a minor anymore. At nineteen— today —he could probably take them up on their offer. Fuck knew he needed the cash, and getting paid to relieve his dark soul was a definite bonus. But he didn’t come here to be on display, though. He came to dance among others alone.
Came to try his luck.
It was running out.
Aaron ruffled his hair, the dusky pink he’d died over the white-blond a bright flame under the pulsating strobe lights. The hair alone caught enough attention, but it was his body, slender and gyrating, with tight jeans hanging low on his hips, T-shirt clinging to his trim frame, drawing every eye to him. No one came close to him, though. His electric fence kept the beasts at bay. A bloke he’d used to give favours to in return for a few quid alluded to him having a ‘ touch me and die’ sort of vibe . The bloke hadn’t been wrong.
He was still alive, though.
But no matter where he went, men tried to get near him. Touch him. Desperate for his attention, they all vied for a tiny piece of his acknowledgement. They couldn’t help it. He didn’t blame them, either. He was a catch. For the men who were slaves to the sweet, sultry, and psychotic, that was. But the invisible fortress built up around him years ago left nothing for anyone to hook onto. He was impenetrable .
Unless he wanted to be penetrated, that was.
Today?
Not today, ta.
He scanned the room languidly, checking if there was anything out there worthy of his consideration before leaving all this insanity behind for good. Inferno had been his temporary haven, where the pounding music drowned out the incessant whispers following him around like spectres. He’d found a semblance of peace here. The ability to lose himself on the anonymity of the dance floor.
Pink hair aside, he didn’t like standing out.
As the beat dropped, a shift in the atmosphere tugged his senses. He had an innate knack for picking up on the emotions of strangers. As though he sought feelings from others to make up the shortfall of his own. He studied them, wondering why he didn’t feel them. And there was something right then. Something calling to him across the club. Through the frenzy of gyrating forms, a face shrouded in shadow caught his attention.
Intense. Familiar. Like the remains of a dream.
Without a drop of alcohol having passed his lips, he couldn’t blame the haziness on substance abuse. There’d be another reason. And it could be the reason. The reason he’d been coming here for three years. Hoping. Wondering. He knew most of the regular men who came cruising in Inferno. And they all gawked at him from the sideline, too, wishing they knew how to capture his attention. He never cared to look back, though.
But there he was.
Aaron’s breath hitched.
Raucous noise faded to a distant hum, and the connection to this bloke wrenched. As if he’d thrown out an invisible thread, infiltrated the sliver of space between the crowd, and latched it onto him.
Hooked .
The man emerged from the shade, dipped forward, resting his elbows on the railing separating the elevated bar area from the dancefloor, and stared at him.
It was him. Most definitely him .
Late thirties. Or was he forties, now? Thick mound of dark hair speckled with hints of grey, too long to be a short back and sides, too short to be working a cool, artistic looseness. A style that hadn’t made it into the barber’s chair for a while, maybe for years. Down to his jawline, where he maintained a tightly trimmed beard. His face, handsome for sure, but weathered as if he’d seen some atrocities in his lifetime—Aaron knew he had. And his figure hugging suit trousers and tight white shirt clung to a mature body holding onto the vestige of a once-health conscious youth.
He didn’t look the type who roamed the basement bars of central London’s gay district on an average Saturday night. Because he didn’t live in London. He roamed somewhere much further away. He was here on business . A conference. And as he had before, he’d taken the opportunity to let out his wild side and slink into the shadows unnoticed.
Aaron had noticed.
Because he’d been waiting for him.
At first glance, he might not appear any different to the other men who sipped their drinks ogling him on the dancefloor. Getting off, getting high, getting their fill before heading back to their wife and child, or the city job where no one suspected that their deepest darkest desire was to fuck a twink on the dancefloor while everyone watched. But this one wasn’t that basic. He was distinctive . Had an air of illusion. Kept people guessing.
Aaron couldn’t look away.
The man watched him right back. Only him. As if for the first time, he’d finally noticed. Did he know? No . There was no recognition. There was just…attraction. The pink had worked. No longer fishing, he’d caught Aaron in his net. Trapped and ensnared, he didn’t even attempt to escape, waiting for him to decide when to drag him out. When to be his saviour.
Or his executioner.
The spell was fleeting, though. Broken by the surge of dancers as they reclaimed their territory. Aaron blinked, the connection severed, leaving him with a lingering sense of loss, like when his dreams dissolved upon waking.
Dream a little dream…
The beat picked up, and the music reclaimed him again. Swaying, he attempted to get back to what he’d come in here for. To dance. Because he knew it would be foolish to try for anything else. He’d seen him. That’s all he needed. But a hand grasped his hip from behind, followed by a groin nestling into his arse, thick hardness within, rash and probing and pissing him the fuck off. Incensed, Aaron twisted to inspect the man brazen enough to put his hands on him. Early twenties, exceptionally hot, no doubt a gym queen, gave him a sultry look as if unaware of how rejection could sting.
First time for everything.
“Fuck off.”
The bloke ripped his hand away as if Aaron were on fire. Another man came over, tapping the gym queen’s chest and urging him away before he did something stupid. Which would be to remain anywhere within Aaron’s proximity. Because Aaron didn’t need height and bulk to warn people off. Didn’t need friends waiting in the wings to rush to his aid. Didn’t need backup.
He had the devil watching him.
The throng moved, creating a line of sight to the bar, and the shark he’d snagged came back into view again. Sipping on whisky, leaning over the barrier, a smirk dancing on his face as though he’d watched that scene play out, and it amused him. So Aaron spiralled to face him, gym queen now lost at sea, and cocked his head.
Did he dare try?
Dare play ?
“You want this?” he mouthed, gesturing to his entire body.
The man sipped on his whisky.
Involuntarily— yeah, right —Aaron merged into a solitary sultry dance. The rest of the echelons rutting against him were merely his backing dancers. And the others coating the edge of the floor had pirated the show. Aaron rarely gave anyone the time of day, but it was his subconscious that had him gravitating toward the embodiment of dark eyes lost in plain sight. The man was almost painful to look at. Aaron had nursed himself happy in here many times. He knew the telltale signs of someone else doing the same. And, for a reason he only talked about in therapy, the man had him hard within seconds of him gazing at him as though he’d paid for his services.
He should have taken the cash and run.
Consciously. Unconsciously. Who knew? Aaron ended up right underneath him. A step and a barrier away. Sweat, musk, and sandalwood hung thick in the air, but it was the sharp tang of anticipation filling his gut. Taking a leave of his senses, Aaron couldn’t shake the conviction that what he was about to do wouldn’t kill him in the end.
Curiosity killed the cat, didn’t it?
And he had sharper claws.
With a boldness foreign yet somehow predestined, Aaron reached out, brushing his fingers against the man’s clutching the glass of whisky. An electric charge crackled. Like lightning. Thunder. A storm of memories flicking before him, masked by searing strobe lights. Tension swelled in his gut, about to burst, but Aaron curbed it by snatching the glass, tipping his head back and downing the lot.
It burned, spreading fire into his throat, his chest, his cock .
Recollection rung hard in the man’s dark eyes. Aaron could feel it written in the lines of his face, in the set of his shoulders, in the unwavering scrutiny and their exchange became a standoff without words, a duel where the prize was knowledge, and the weapon would be who asked first.
Whisky drained, Aaron held the glass above his head, swaying to the pulsating rhythm, giving the man a show. The man took the glass from him, discarded it, then watched.
Brazen.
Then, slowly, Aaron lifted his gaze. Game over. He parted his lips, and the question slipped out like a dare: “What’s your name?”
He already knew the answer, of course. Had known it for years. Every syllable carved deep into the recesses of his mind. He wasn’t asking for confirmation, though. This was about seeing if the man knew him . If he recognised the ghost dancing for him.
Man pushed away from the railing and disappeared within a sea of bodies.
Aaron’s gaze followed him like his mesmerised prey, left wondering why the beast had set him free, now desperate to add Stockholm syndrome to his list of diagnoses. See, rejection did sting. Maybe he’d figure out why that was later. Maybe this bloke would help him with that. But his congenital hedonism had him squirming beneath the metal railing, leaping up to the bar level and squeezing through the throng, sliding away from the potential of a healthy courtship with those grappling for him to stay dancing, to follow a man so far out of his comfort zone, he might as well have been a woman.
He wasn’t, though.
Aaron discovered that after all of five minutes.
He followed him. All the way to the winding corridors of the backroom. Which was empty. Perhaps it was still too early for others to seek solace in hands and mouths, and the passageway swallowed him whole, darkness enveloping him like a blanket. He’d always found small, confined spaces comforting. This was exactly that. With sparse bulbs hanging from the low ceiling and the muffled bass throbbing through the floorboards, letting him know there was life outside.
A life he didn’t want to be part of.
He met the man’s gaze, and his heart, usually so guarded, raced. Not with fear, but with a burning connection he’d convinced himself he wouldn’t ever have. He inhaled. The man smelled of cyanide. Ash. Ethanol and regret. And it fizzed on Aaron’s tongue as if he wanted to lick him and die.
With him.
Because of him.
It was ridiculous. Because this would be where it all ended. His stupid, unhealthy obsession.
Except, it didn’t.
The man’s first touch had Aaron gasping. He gripped Aaron’s hips, a sigh escaping from honey-whisky breath, and it was as though he might understand the same loss carving hollows in Aaron’s soul too. He might be half a man. Half a thing. Half a nothing .
God . He didn’t know .
He thought Aaron was just a fuck.
The man tightened his grip, digging fingers into Aaron as if he would flip him around. Probably his preferred way of conducting these liaisons. Aaron had watched him once. Come in here with a man, then leave again as if hard, fast, and without eye contact was his MO. But Aaron remained where he was. Facing him with laboured breaths, heightened senses and a deep longing to be seen . He wanted to ask him who he was again. But that might mean this didn’t happen and, shit , he hadn’t realised until right then how much he wanted it. Needed it.
In his years of waiting for this moment, to look this man in the eye, he hadn’t accounted for this deep, burning attraction to follow.
His bad.
But there was a silent understanding, as they stood breath to breath with the man’s hair falling to hide one side of his face, that neither would seek answers to questions that might tear their tiny worlds apart.
The man hovered closer, a whisker away, and Aaron hungered for those tantalising, rough lips. Yearned for them. Burned for this man to rip out his soul. To hold him down. Suffocate him. Tear him apart, inside and out.
How was he doing this? Why was he doing this?
“Are you gonna just stare at me?” Aaron threw out to curb his thudding heart. “Or use me?”
The man narrowed harrowing dark eyes, and his hand, gliding over the contours of Aaron’s body under his top, had a hesitance he could sense in his parting lips. As if he wondered, too, what all this was. But then, without warning, he splayed his other hand around Aaron’s throat, slamming him against the wall and crashed his mouth onto Aaron’s. Tongue fierce and demanding, he sought entrance to his mouth as if it was the balm to his severed mind. Aaron hadn’t expected the force, and he wasn’t a virgin, far from it, but he rarely handed himself over freely either.
Yet here he was, strangled into a kiss by him .
Willingly .
Fingertips raged over his skin, rough and grazing, and Aaron grappled for the man’s belt, looping it open and unzipping him with haste. Clutch around his throat loosening, Aaron wrapped his hand around the man’s cock, tugging it out, and peering down to catch a glimpse of his birthday present.
Nice.
Very nice.
Aaron must have let his reaction show on his face, because the man edged back. Looked down. Then back up. Aaron licked his lips, taking a deep breath as if ready to blow out the flickering candles on his cake. The man then twisted them both around, slamming his back on the wall, and Aaron was on his knees with his mouth around a thick ten inch cock before he could protest.
The man closed his eyes, screwing them tight as if he couldn’t bear to watch. To know. To witness what he so desperately needed. Aaron gave it to him, anyway. Sometimes, he was nice like that. To a kindred spirit. Someone who deserved it. And this man was both. So he went to work on him.
He sucked on him, humming, guzzling, gagging and ruffling his trousers down to get to his balls. Full and heavy, they needed some attention too, and he gave them a tug, earning a hiss from above, before fondling, then smoothing his fingers along the delicate skin beneath, causing a moan.
Fingers raked into Aaron’s hair and the man thrust his hips, watching his cock slide in and out of Aaron’s eager mouth.
“You’re good at that.” His voice was a revelation in itself.
Multi-layered. Deep, but not too sonorous. Authoritative but not too forceful. As though he could use it to command, perform , but could bring it to an intimate level when necessary. And there was a hint of an accent not native to the inner confines of the M25, either. He could tell, because he, too, wasn’t the born and bred Londoner people expected, despite the latter half of his life bearing a multi-cultural upbringing he’d slipped into with ease. Somehow, the voice in his head that he couldn’t quite place who it belonged to kept telling him to pronounce . The result: a blend of muddied elocution. This man was similar. As if he’d spent years masking a midlands accent that didn’t fit in the circles he roamed. Or he wanted to roam.
“Yeah. You’re fucking good at that. That’s it. Good. Real fucking good.”
And he knew the right words to get Aaron gasping for more, along with a sweep of his hand over his head. Not clutching. Stroking.
Aaron gorged on him, taking him so far inside his throat he could feel his tip grazing his tonsils. The air cloyed with the scent of sweat and sex and something more elusive, and each suck on this man’s cock had the walls constructed around Aaron’s heart quaking, bricks loosening.
It wasn’t possible for them to collapse.
Was it?
The man tightened his fingers in Aaron’s hair, straddling the line between pleasure and pain, and Aaron’s gluttony hit a crescendo.
“You like that?” Hands gripped Aaron’s hair harder, and he responded with a resounding moan vibrating his cock. “Like sucking my cock. Course you do. Good boy.”
He then backed off, too far in his own pleasure and with a groan from above, visceral and elusive, he came, Aaron desperate to consume all contents to fill his empty stomach. But he hadn’t even swallowed before the man yanked him up, thrust him against the wall, and buried his face in his neck. Undoing Aaron’s button fly with a frantic rip, he pulled out his leaking, desperate cock and jerked. Furiously. No care. No attention. Fisting him as if he wanted to hurt him. Maybe he did. Certainly with how his teeth bit down on the tender skin on his neck, sucking on his tattooed symbol of Mars, unleashing a gasp of fragile pain. There’d be a bruise there tomorrow. Not a great start to his new life. But it would fade.
This memory wouldn’t.
“Fuck, fuck!” Aaron grasped his shoulders, the man’s hair tickling his face as he drove him closer and closer to his end, erratic and untamed. “Faster. Fuck, faster!” The man obliged, and Aaron bit his lip, curtailing his need to cry out.
“Like it fast, huh?” the man said, deep and rumbling, but also a little too pacifying for Aaron’s liking. As though he knew Aaron was trying to hold back from bursting free and he was offering him a safe place to do it. Especially when he followed it up with, “Go on. Let go. Wanna see you fall apart.”
So Aaron immediately obeyed, spilling his load to a string of garbled expletives. “Fuck, ohmyfuck. Jesus. Fuck. Yeah .” He then clamped down on his tongue so as not to spill anything else.
Like how fucking great that was. How unexpected. How he’d never known that would actually happen. Nor say anything that he couldn’t take back or have to pay off or have the authorities remove him from. And the man held Aaron, allowing him to fall into him, collapse against him and, for a fraction of a tiny moment, allowed him to be .
To exist.
The aftermath was an awkward silence of breaths clouding breaths, heavy with the depth of what they’d done. This wasn’t flippant. Forgettable. Disposable.
Not for Aaron.
Whoever Aaron was.
Eventually, the man stepped away, refusing to look at him. Those eyes that had been stanch and persistent now dulled with regret as he popped his limp cock back in his pants, zipped up his trousers, neatly tucking his shirt in with a finality sounding unbearably like a locked door.
Aaron buttoned his jeans, slipped out a vape from his back pocket and offered it to him.
“That’ll kill you.”
Aaron snorted. Took a drag. “This?” He blew out sweet menthol flavoured vapour to cloud around them both. “It’ll have to get in line.”
“You have other preferred methods of self-destruction?”
“Strange men in back rooms.”
“You should avoid them, too.”
“Tell me about it.” Aaron took another lungful and blew it out. Then watched him walk toward the exit without so much as a second glance. “You seriously not telling me your name?”
The man turned back. “You going to tell me yours?”
“Aaron.” It was easier to throw that out when he knew it wasn’t his real one.
The man looked at him. Really looked at him. All the way inside him. “Aaron?” He laughed as if he’d called him out on the lie, then sauntered off through the tunnels toward the bar.
“Psycho!” Aaron called after him for no other reason than he hated things coming to an abrupt end.
Man chuckled, deep and resonant. “You have no idea.”
Aaron swallowed. Because yeah, he did. So did that man.
And he’d learn all about it soon enough.