Notturno (15 page)

When they arrived back near Alamo Park, Adin was left in

the backseat alone to weigh things in his mind as Edward

skipped lightly up the steps to his painted lady–style Victorian

home.

“You should go back to the hotel now, Dr. Tredeger, all

right? I’ll bring you what you like for dinner. Just…find

something on television and stay out of things for a while. Mr.

Edward is right. Things have changed.”

100 Z.A. Maxfield

“You’ve got that right,” muttered Adin resentfully. “They

sure
the fuck
have.”

Adin checked his watches again. In the darkness, the

illuminated markers on his Rolex glowed faintly, telling him it

was half past eleven. The television was still on, recapping the

news of the day. Adin had screened two pricey pay-per-view

movies and eaten the steak dinner Boaz brought him. He hadn’t

ordered it, but apparently Boaz didn’t feel compelled to listen to

him when he said he wasn’t hungry. It turned out that as soon

as he smelled the food, he was ravenous anyway.

Turning off the television, Adin opted for music on the

clock radio. It had an iPod docking station, and Adin placed his

player in it and cued up his classical playlist. He sighed as he

sank deeply into the pillows, punching them around to make

himself more comfortable. The truth was, he didn’t want to be

lying in bed. He wanted to be anywhere else, preferably

forgetting he’d ever seen that
fucking
manuscript, and that called for drunken anonymity and men. Adin rolled over onto his dick

as it came to life. Finally he threw the covers aside.

“Fuck this.” He lurched out of bed and dressed in his club

clothes, low-slung jeans that were indecently tight in all the right places, but loose in others so he could dance. He threaded a

too-long, wide leather belt through the loops, pulling the end up

through the belt itself and then down through its excess. He

slipped a lightweight olive cashmere sweater over a tight T-shirt.

In the bathroom, he messed up his hair and brushed his teeth,

then added a dab of cologne at the last minute. Adin stared at

his reflection in the mirror, liking what he saw.

When he was ready, he put condoms in his wallet and dialed

Boaz. “Yes, Dr. Tredeger?” Boaz answered. At least he didn’t

just ignore him like a jailer when a prisoner rattled the bars with his tin cup.

“I’m going out. You can drive me, or you can watch me

leave in a cab,” Adin growled.

102 Z.A. Maxfield

“That’s not strictly true, sir, as I’m not near the hotel at this

time. I’ll be there in twenty.”

“To drive me or to watch me leave?”

“Once again, so droll, Dr. Tredeger.” Boaz hung up.
What

the hell did that mean?

Adin was out in front of the hotel, chatting with the

doorman, when Boaz arrived with the limousine. Its size

required that he park it on the street, but Adin saw him pull up,

so he murmured his good-byes and went to meet it. When he

got there, Boaz was holding the door open and only looking

slightly reproachful.

“Good evening,” he said, as he took in Adin’s clothing. “I

see it’s hunting season.”

“Yes, Boaz. I’m particularly fond of the sport.” He gave

Boaz a defiant look as the man closed the door.

When Boaz entered the vehicle, he turned to Adin. “I take it

it’s futile to try to talk some sense into you?”

“It is.”

“Where to, sir?” Boaz asked, all business.

“Take me to The Bar on Castro. I’m going dancing.”

“Would it do any good to mention that Mr. Fedeltà would

prefer it if you—”

“Is there no ‘food’ to be had in Los Angeles? Did he miss a

meal?”

“Dr. Tredeger.” Boaz sounded disappointed in him.

“I’m going dancing,” Adin repeated. “I doubt there will be

many ancient-manuscript enthusiasts there. I will be perfectly

safe.”

In answer, Boaz raised the privacy partition and headed to

the Castro district. Adin looked out the window. A little

dancing was just the thing to pull him out of his mood. If he

could get his swerve on and get laid, maybe he could sleep.

The place was as packed as he remembered, an eclectic

group of men and women from the young and hung to the

straight and curious. The Friday crowd was well ahead of him,

NOTTURNO
103

the drunks loud and the bodies rocking. He got himself a beer

and waded onto the dance floor with it, not caring that he was

alone. He didn’t stay alone for even the length of the song, a

number of other bodies joining his, some guys, some girls, all

pressing and groping in the tiny space until he’d finished his

dance and his beer and was flushed and shiny with sweat.

“Hey, pretty.” A man behind him snaked a hand over his

shoulder to rest on his chest. Adin looked down and saw the

hand had neatly trimmed nails. He turned to find a reasonably

good-looking, dark-haired man with a tattoo of an eye on his

neck standing behind him. Adin smiled. He continued to dance

to the throbbing beat, not knowing and not caring whom he

danced with, content to brush and touch and work his body

hard. The other bodies, most of whom Adin never actually

looked at beyond ascertaining what space they occupied, began

to exert a soothing kind of pull on his senses, like the ebb and

flow of waves when he swam in the sea, lifting him, pulling him

down, challenging his equilibrium, and lulling him into a kind of

transcendent euphoria.

It was within this space that he first heard the hissing

sounds, like the slithering of hundreds of snakes beneath his

feet. It began as part of the music, the noise, and—much like

the sweat that dripped from his face and caused him to remove

his sweater and tuck it into the back of his jeans—it wasn’t a

distraction. The hand that now caressed his chest pulled him

closer into a solid, muscled body, its contours and valleys

brushing Adin’s like hard wind. Adin felt the man’s erection and

deliberately rocked into it, taking pleasure where it was offered,

indicating he could give pleasure if he chose. The man slid his

hand down to Adin’s waist, pulling him back flush against his

cock, grinding a little, and Adin expelled a sharp breath.

“Pretty,
pretty
.” The man spoke into his ear, causing the hair to tickle the back of Adin’s neck.

Adin sighed and leaned back against him, putting a hand up

to caress the stranger’s hair. Another man moved up beside

Adin, also touching him, running a finger down Adin’s face and

taking his hand; the new man joined the erotic dance with them,

finding new places to graze a hand or brush a body part. The

104 Z.A. Maxfield

three of them swayed there, under the hot strobe light, with the

bass thumping inside and outside their bodies. A fourth man

came to join them then, another tall man, who brushed and

touched and bumped until Adin was breathless with wanting.

He swayed and moved, rubbing up against the first, who held

him flush against his body as the others groped him.

The hissing in Adin’s head turned to whispers, then strange

words that soothed and excited him, as his arousal numbed his

brain and turned off his other senses. He heard Spanish words,

under his skin, like crawling, predatory insects that burrowed

deep within and moved about in a parody of the dance the five

men did on the dance floor.

“Who?” asked Adin, unable to move away, unable to feel

the fear he
knew
should be making his heart race and his mouth dry.

“
Querido mio,
” said one, “
que guapo.
” He lifted one of Adin’s hands and, turning it over, took a sharp, stinging bite out of his

wrist, lapping at the immediate blood there and, just as quickly,

closing the wound with a sensuous lick of his tongue.

Adin reacted to the pain, now stirring from the drugged

stupor of the dance, when the man who held him bit his neck.

Again, he delivered a bite and a lick so quickly that Adin hardly

knew what was happening until it was over. He craned his neck

to see the man behind him and was appalled to see a gleam of

amusement in his eyes. That’s when the truth clanged into place

as irrevocably as if it were the vault in a bank crashing to a

close. He was a toy. They were out there, everywhere; he was a

pretty bauble for them to play with, and it amused them.

Adin tried to shove the men surrounding him away, but they

held him, and it seemed so easy for them it made him sick

inside. He could no sooner free a limb or pull a small distance

away than one of them would catch it again and pull him closer.

He fought, but it was like a rip current: the more he struggled,

the stronger their holds on him became.

The three men continued to bite and lick, tormenting him

with pricks of their teeth so sharp they slid into his skin like hot knives through ice cream. In the shifting anonymity of the

NOTTURNO
105

crowd, it looked like they were just dancing. When they licked

his wounds closed,
dear heaven
, he couldn’t help the pleasure that gave him, the feeling that they weren’t licking the tiny punctures

they put into his exposed skin, but that they swirled those

exquisite, slick tongues right over the head of his cock, up and

down under the crown, along the vein… He thought he’d die of

ecstasy.

One second the pain would sear his skin; the next pleasure

would engulf him. He still fought to break free, fought their

holds on him, but they were much stronger, and fighting only

brought him a different kind of pain, as they weren’t above

ruthlessly jabbing him with their bony elbows, hard enough to

bruise or even crack a rib, or pulling his head down below the

sightline of the sea of bobbing people and giving it a sharp,

shocking pop with a fist that he was sure would show up as a

black eye the following day. In the end, they bit, licked, and beat him until, just as suddenly, they left, throwing him to the

ground and delivering a few vicious kicks to his hips and thighs,

making him weak and dizzy. He was crawling to the side of the

dance floor when several pairs of hands lifted him up, patting

him and pushing him away.

More than once he heard what sounded like, “Fucking

drunk, ought to know better.”

Adin made it as far as a wall against the patio, where he

leaned hard, catching his breath, and called Boaz on his cell

phone. The noise was impossible, and he didn’t know whether

Boaz even heard him before he hung up. He stumbled his way

to the exit, to Castro Street, and into even more people who

took his staggering and the torn and dirty state of his clothing as one more example of simple inebriation and shockingly bad

taste.

Eventually Boaz arrived with the car, his dark eyes

unreadable as he opened the door. Adin crawled into the

backseat. Boaz didn’t meet his eyes after that, which didn’t

surprise him. Adin’s humiliation was complete. Men like Donte

could use him. They could play with him; they could eat him or

fuck him or tear him apart like fresh bread. He
had
known it but
106 Z.A. Maxfield

hadn’t let it sink into the part of his consciousness that knew

without thinking that fire was hot and would burn you if you

touched it.

Now he knew.

They drove through the night in silence. Adin tried to read

his watch, cursing that he’d chosen to wear only the one, his

father’s. By the illumination of a reading light, he saw the crystal had been cracked during the scuffle. He turned the light off and

slumped in his seat, trying hard to comprehend what had

happened. Every part of his body hurt, and he was so exhausted

he’d begun to drift.

Only a week before, Adin considered himself a capable man,

good at his job, certain of his life. Only a week before, the

things he dreamed about were just that; he’d known his

nightmares were an illusion, and he’d always known he’d wake

up sooner or later.

Only a week before, Adin had dared to believe that
he
was

the top of the food chain.

Adin’s mind drifted lazily away from his body as Boaz

drove. It began to occur to him that the trip back to the hotel

was taking a great deal longer than the trip to the bar. He

opened his eyes to look around and realized they’d been driving

for some time, probably over the bridge into Sausalito. He knew

he’d probably slept; that soon the sun would begin to glow on

the horizon, but nothing he saw was familiar to him.

“Boaz?” he asked, suddenly startled out of his dreamlike

state. “Where are we? Where are you taking me?”

“I’m not allowed to say, sir,” Boaz replied. “I’m very sorry

for the inconvenience.”

“This is more than inconvenient, Boaz. It’s kidnapping. It’s

a criminal offense. Please take me back to the hotel. I believe

I’ve quite learned whatever lesson you wanted to teach me.”

Adin felt his throat tighten.

Boaz looked at him in the rearview mirror, and Adin caught