CHAPTER FIVE
Truman
A musician died at The Establishment Club.
Gunning knew the guy from hanging out at various nightclubs south of Market.
Kermit Staggers probably didn’t want a mainstream hospital noting his “accidental overdose” of fentanyl, oxy, and citalopram.
He quickly went into cardiopulmonary arrest, and Dr. Hawk and I leapt into action resuscitating him, but the load of drugs in his system was way too dense, and soon he was dead as leaves on a painted canvas.
Gunning had to leave the room. He’d seen too much of that shit, but usually only with strangers. “He had a fractured hip, emphysema, knee problems,” he muttered.
We knew the unbearable pain behind these deadly traumas. Holier-than-thous looked at these addicts like someone who had their legs cut off in a car crash. “I would never have my legs amputated.” Well no, because they hadn’t been in a car crash. Most of those addicts had been in pileups of the soul.
I’d been utilizing the Club as a way to put Alessio out of mind.
My work was an amazing method of placing lifesaving action first and foremost, shunting the boring details of my real life into the background.
I even had a cot in the storage area that I utilized more than I could admit.
Now, though, I couldn’t separate Alessio’s travails from Club life. He was an addict.
And a musician.
Erin approached me kindly when I meandered to the backyard to pet the employee dogs. Her warmth bathed my back as she approached. That’s how I knew it was her.
“Tough code event.” She even put her hand on my shoulder. “But I wouldn’t compare Kermit to Alessio. Alessio is hard to categorize. He’s a great rock innovator. A sort of provocateur. Kermit is straight metal rock. Alessio used to tour the world. Kermit did a tour around Reno.”
Her attempt to cheer me up almost made me sob. I rubbed my face with my palm. “Kermit had tranq in his system.”
There was a brief pause. “Oh.” Sighing, Erin continued. “Haven’t seen any of that in months.”
Tranq was xylazine, which had been ruining communities. “Hey. Do me a favor. Ask Gunning where Kermit got that idea. Let’s follow the path. Run down these guys.”
Erin was always telling me to stay in my wheelhouse. “You don’t want to get involved in that shit. You’re asking for trouble.”
I snorted. “Hell. This entire universe of ours is trouble. I don’t care anymore.”
She folded her arms and regarded me. I didn’t like what she’d concluded.
“It’s Alessio, isn’t it?” Stepping closer, she lowered her voice.
“Tru. We know you went overboard with that guy. Can’t say as we blame you.
You need a partner in your life. Fuck. We all do.
” Erin had been holding back from getting involved with anyone.
Gunning was just plain terrified of intimacy.
“Yeah. Maybe. But not an addict, right?”
She shrugged. “Alessio fits the mold of the former addict. He’s got a lot to live for.”
I didn’t tell her he’d gone to break out a road dog. She might not be so fond of him then. “Just ask Gunning about the tranq, all right? I’m going home.”
I jingled my keys and beeped my Volkswagen Taos in the tiny parking lot.
Maybe later I could tell my roommates that I had fallen for Alessio because I felt a kinship with him.
His rapes, my mother’s rapes, we were both of the same tribe.
We’d spent our lives being run off or belittled by our own families, or people who posed as our family.
People who drained our spirit or wrought pain.
Our childhoods had been horribly ripped to shreds, defined by violence and assault.
Once you survived, as we physically had, it just didn’t stop because you recovered from being tased, or flushed gasoline out of your eyes. Simply because we’d made it through the experience didn’t mean we were done with the natural survival mechanism.
We still had to act it out.
Alessio
Bone-weary but oddly exuberant, I clambered the steps to Truman’s front door.
I had no idea if he’d welcome me, especially after I’d admitted I was going to help Denmark.
What else could I have told him? Honesty breeds honesty.
Normally I wouldn’t give two fucks, but my relationship with Truman—whatever it could be called—was already elevated into the sacred realm.
Still, my heart thudded when I heard someone jogging down the inside stairs. No doubt Truman—his car was on the street—had seen me through his Ring. Whether he raced with joy or anger was debatable.
But when he flung open the door, I knew.
His face shined with bliss.
Reaching out to me, he cried, “Aless—” But he didn’t make it very far.
Striding into the vestibule, I slammed the door behind me and smashed Truman against the wall.
Taking his jaw in my palms, I covered his lush lips with my mouth.
Licking his mouth, the tips of our tongues entwined.
I pinned him to the wall with the force of my hips, grinding my erection against his.
Holy Mother, I wanted to feel that big dick in my hand. Sliding in and out of my mouth as I teased him to orgasm, if only I wasn’t such a diehard Dom.
Who would dominate became the overwhelming test as we snorted against each other’s faces, fought for supremacy as we kissed, as we cupped each other’s asses in our hands, squeezing and humping each other.
Breaking away a few inches, Truman panted, “Here.” Grabbing my hand, he whipped me into a nearby room. He banged me up against a low dresser, forcing me to put my hands behind myself to balance.
“I’ve been waiting my whole life for you,” he muttered against my mouth. Something surged in my chest. I later realized it was love. Like fire, it couldn’t exist without constant motion. If I stopped hoping and fearing, love would cease.
Running his mouth over my jaw, my throat, nibbling my earlobes and chin, he yanked down the neckline of my muscle shirt and took my erect nipple between his teeth.
The shock. The intense pleasure that caused a few drops of come to spurt out the tip of my cock. Casual lovers never did this. It was so unexpected I gasped, utterly torn between pulling him closer and shoving him off me.
After hugging his face to my chest for a few split seconds, I chose to push him away. I couldn’t let him think he ruled me.
Clasping his shoulders, I switched our positions. Now Truman was the one slapping his hands onto the surface of the dresser, covered in mismatched socks and hopefully dry men’s underwear. The surprise on his face made him even more handsome, if such a thing was possible.
I rubbed my nose against his. “I know I’ve been waiting forever for you,” I muttered in between sucks to his lower lip. “But there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
Truman grinned salaciously. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
Now we stared into each other’s eyes, panting. How had such a down-to-earth, practical guy decided he wanted me? The most unstable fiend who ever existed. He sure was getting himself into a shitload of trouble, but there was no turning back.
Bracing his shoulder in the crook of my hand, I forced him to his knees so suddenly he had to grip my hips to keep from toppling over.
“I’m the conductor. The Dom, your master, your ruler.
” To enhance my command, I cupped the back of his skull in my hand and angled my hips toward his face, cock to mouth.
My jeans were so tight I felt my member throb against the fabric.
I was so shocked when he opened his mouth wide, encircling my pulsating cockhead, I had to place my fingertips on the dresser’s surface as he munched on my covered dick until my full balls were pressing for release.
I now had a reason to live another day.
Truman
I was dizzy with hunger.
The events of the past ten minutes were so unbelievable, my brain couldn’t process it all.
This was not one of the hundreds of scenarios I’d dared to envision in the few days since Alessio had been gone.
Mostly I’d imagined him dead, or at least on a sidewalk with men injecting women straight into their jugular vein, as if trained to be brutal.
Oh God, did I tell Alessio I loved him? What were the odds of him sticking around, not relapsing, getting his career back in order? Well, whatever I’d said, it must’ve been good, because Alessio came back with, “I know I’ve been waiting forever for you.” And my voracious kisses sealed our passion.
When he shoved me to my knees, I knew the shorthand.
I’d sucked a few cocks in my brief time as a gay man, and had the same done to me.
I wasn’t sure yet whether I was what they called a Dom—with a capital D—or a sub, a submissive who existed to pay homage to his Dom.
Alessio rubbing my face against his bulging crotch, my hot mouth open against his cockhead, gave me my answer.
I loved being on my knees. I loved worshiping his prick. My mind was so numb I could’ve been sleepwalking into disaster, but it didn’t matter. I could give a flying fuck less about anything in the universe as my fingers scrabbled to undo his belt buckle, the buttons on his jeans.
And his voice, this telegenic talking head! His arrogant confidence! He’d commanded orchestras, entire bands, and now me.
“That’s it, Truman. Yeah. Do it. Show me how much you worship me. Show me how you love to suck cock. Do it. Yeah, that’s it. Take my big cock into your hand and—ah!”
I had swiftly yanked his pants down to his knees, my fingernails digging into the sinewy muscles of his luscious ass. Sperm squirted from the hole in the crown of his dick, and I wasted no time in inhaling the mushroom head, flicking the salty semen with my tongue-tip.
I knew I had him then. When he gasped, his knees went weak.
With my thumb sliding up and down the underside of his prick, I felt the come pulsating urgently.
Just a few more strokes and licks, and this seductive, smooth-talking conductor melted in my hands.
I started humming and groaning, the vibrations echoing up and down his length, and he lost it.
Gush after gush of come shot into my mouth, nearly choking me. I swallowed frantically to keep up—it wouldn’t look properly submissive if I didn’t. Alessio’s hips shuddered, his fingers against my skull skittering around, his muscular thighs quaking as he spewed hot jizz down my throat.
Even when drained, he still clutched my skull to him, panting slower and slower until at last he released me. I collapsed onto my calves, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand. My head spun for a few moments, and when I opened my eyes, Alessio was gone. What the…
Oh. He’d crashed onto the unmade bed. All I saw were the bottoms of his thick-soled boots sort of twitching as he breathed, laying on his back. I crawled to join him, flinging myself over the edge of the mattress.
We lay on our backs gasping, arms slung above our heads. Alessio hadn’t even bothered to stuff his cock back into his jeans, and it throbbed against his hip.
He turned his head to me and asked huskily, “Whose room is this, anyway?”
“Gunning.” His Army discharge papers were framed on the wall, but no other sign of his year in some literal hole in Afghanistan that he wished to forget. He was just glad he’d made it out of there alive. I changed the subject. “You didn’t relapse?”
What a smile! Hypnotic and seductive above that soul patch.
Now I knew how eyes could twinkle. I felt like in one of those four in the morning dreams that are usually a horror show with rubber-faced beings popping out from behind fences.
Except once in awhile, you got a dream that was sublime in its holiness.
Elevated above all else, even if a devil or two tried to stick his head in.
“Nope. Denmark didn’t want to either. He’s more interested in hitting back at his dickwad doctor who wouldn’t give him any Oxy.”
Despite feeling like I was swaying on a hammock in Hawaii, I raised myself on my elbow with a slight frown. “Alessio. You know I don’t want you—”
Dragging himself to a half-sit against a crushed pillow, Alessio held up a calming hand. “Truman. Don’t worry. I’m clean, but we did need medication to continue. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that people with physical injuries still need meds.”
I couldn’t resist forking my hand through his slick black curls. His hair was down around his shoulders today, and squeaky clean. Smiling, I was compelled to lean in for a deep sniff. “Yes,” I murmured. “I agree. But it should be monitored by a prof—”
We froze when the front door creaked open and banged shut.
As we were on the same level, Alessio barely had time to stuff his penis into his jeans before Gunning Vaghti barged on into his own bedroom.
Spinning his notebook onto the cluttered dresser, he only saw us when we put our boots on the ground.
Of course, his automatic reaction was to reach for a nonexistent gun at his hip. We’d been over and over whether to arm ourselves at The Establishment Club. Eventually we decided not to, as we could easily become disarmed ourselves, the weapons used against us.
“Holy mother!” shouted Gunning, frozen solid in a comical open-mouthed way.
Alessio held his palms toward my roommate. “Not like it looks, Gunning.”
“Wait!” I yelled. “Yes. Yes, it is like it looks. Sorry, Gunning. We got carried away a bit.”
Alessio looked at me as if to say, “A bit?”
But Gunning was already calming down. He waved a dismissive hand at us. “No big deal, you guys. I’m just glad you made it back, Alessio.” He turned his shaded eyes to me. “I’ve got news about that tranq.”
It was Alessio who responded. “Tranq? That shit makes BB fillers.”
I frowned. “BB fillers?”
Gunning explained. “Body bag fillers. Dead people.” He tossed his head. “Cumon. Let’s go to the kitchen.” He must know more prison lingo than me.
We all filed out of there almost eagerly, like fans rustling into a Foo Fighters concert.
“Yeah,” I said, clutching Alessio’s sizzling shoulders. “Let’s get some coffee.”
“Fuck that,” said Gunning. “I’m having me a beer.”