Nightmare Messiah

Monday

Day One

         A little girl in a pale white dress stood in front of a box made of gold. She held a dirtied porcelain doll by the hand; it dangled limply at her side. The girl reached out with her other hand, palm up as an invitation to be taken. She looked so sad and lonely, lost. She wanted someone to take her hand. She wanted to lead them somewhere. But there was only the girl, the box, and the doll. There was no one else around, and nowhere else to go.
         Tick, tick, tick. There was that sound again, a slow and repetetive sound that echoed in the ear as if he were laying on a watch. It woke him up every morning, had awakened him for the past several yeas. He couldn’t even remember how long it had been. At first, as always, he thought there was a watch on his wrist. He thought he was laying on it, and that the sound reverberated loudly against the hangover he immediately realized he was suffering.
         How much had he had to drink last night? He couldn’t remember that either, but he felt a beer bottle roll away from him, off of the bed, and heard it clatter against the floor. The bottle had rolled away from him when he shifted with a groan and pressed a palm flat against his forehead. He had a splitting headache, the kind that throbs in the front of the skull as if a sledgehammer had been planted in his brain and some little man inside suddenly decided to do some renovating by taking out a wall.
         When he rolled, he realized also that he wasn’t alone. Whose arm was that draped over his waist? God. If only he could remember what had happened last night? He could never remember. It was nearly the same scenario night after night, party after party, drunken stupor after drunken stupor, and almost every morning he woke up with a stranger in the bed with him. It was also always a strange bed, never his own bed. Gage didn’t have a bed he could call his own anymore. He had given up that luxury years ago as well.
         Gage Sterling. At least he remembered his own name. That was something. With an irritated grunt, he rolled over onto his back and tipped his head to take a look at the stranger who was curled up in the bed with him under the sheets. Some blonde haired beauty with milky white skin, a woman by the looks of it. Most of the men he had awakened with had always been burly, muscular sorts. More often then not, those men were also horrendously pimpled, sweaty, and overbearing. For once it was a relief to wake up next to a woman. Then again, it was always a relief to wake up next to a beautiful person, especially a woman.
         He carefully moved her arm aside, pushed it off of his waist and let it fall onto the mattress. For only a moment he pondered on who she was. Finding himself entirely nude, even with a hangover, it was fairly easy to deduce what they had done the night before. But at least this time he hadn’t woken up with the aching pain that often shot through his rectum whenever he woke up with a man in the bed with him. No matter how many times he had been subjected to it, he never got used to it. They were always so rough with him. But he only had the one agony to deal with, and that was the hangover. It left him wondering, however, even more, who this strange girl in the bed with him was. Even the women he had slept with before had always been rough. There weren’t any scratches or sores this morning. Smoothing a hand over his chest, he rolled to sit up on the edge of the bed and examined himself fully. Apart from the headache, he actually felt good.
         The girl mumbled something incoherrantly as he shifted, and she rolled onto her other side, still fast asleep. Gage had no intention of disturbing her too much. It wasn’t really worth bothering trying to puzzle out who she was. That would likely only increase the intensity of his headache. So instead he reached for his pants. What had Isaac put him in last night? He grimaced at the sight of what couldn’t be mistaken for anything else than cheap black pleather. Had the man even bothered with underwear? Sifting through the piles of clothes, he wasn’t too surprised to find none that matched a man’s pair of undergarments. With a sigh he tugged the pants on and cautiously worked to resituate himself into them before pulling up the zipper and buttoning the fly. Pleather. God. He hated pleather. It made his skin sweat and stick to the material, but Isaac insisted that it made him look more available or something. So he always wore tight pants despite the lack of comfort.
         He also found a tight mesh shirt with long sleeves, looked more like a fishing net than a shirt. He knew that was his. Ah, and there was the black tanktop that went underneath. He tugged those on and pushed off the bed to get to his feet. Somewhere in the mess there had to be a pack of cigarettes. The pockets of the pants were too tight to fit them in, but regardless of that he found a crushed pack of Basics in the back pocket. “Huh.” It was the first thing he had said since waking, and the sound of his own voice only increased the throb of his headache. Digging out a bent cigarette from the back, he pressed it between his lips and discovered a book of matches in the front pocket of his pants, probably the only type of ignition he could fit in them.
         The cigarette only helped dull the pain to the point of distraction. Smoking kept his hands busy, and it also ruined his lungs, but Gage didn’t care. His life, for the most part, was a waste anyway. He found a half empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the dresser and lifted it to chug half of it down. The quickest way to cure a hangover was to start all over again, drown it in more liquor. He spent most of his time during the days drunk. It was the most sane way to go about things.
         Once he had emptied the bottle to a quarter full, he lowered it and took a look around. Through a haze of cigarette smoke he could decipher the details of a hotel room. This one wasn’t as cheap as some of the sleazier hotels he had spent nights in. There wasn’t a foul smell in the air, the reek of day old sex from other guests. He smelled liquor, and perfume. What was that scent? Jasmine? He suspected it probably was the perfume the girl had been wearing last night. He lifted an arm to sniff it and realized he was coated in that scent, her scent. It was actually a rather soothing scent. Not too over-bearing. It was a more subtle and captivating aroma. Staring at the sleeping form of the girl, he wondered again who she was.
         Bah. When he realized he had been thinking on it again, he turned back to the mirror and scowled at his own reflection. Make-up. Black eyeliner and face paint. It wasn’t Halloween. No. Isaac insisted he wear make-up. He said it made Gage more pretty and invited better paying customers. Gage was a pretty boy. He knew that much. He despised the fact that he was pretty. At some point his hair had been naturally brown, but Isaac dyed it every month a different color. He raked his fingers through it and scowled at the roots that were starting to show through the obviously fake bright red that it was colored now. Isaac would likely insist on dying it again very soon, and he didn’t even want to imagine what color he’d choose next time.
         Gage had high cheekbones and a frail yet beautiful body. Sometimes Isaac had mentioned that he would make a beautiful woman, and on those occasions the man had always managed to get him to cross-dress. Some clients liked a boy who wore women’s clothing. “God,” he grumbled at his reflection. He breathed a cloud of smoke at the mirror as well, to distort the image, and then he stabbed half the cigarette out into the ashtray provided by the hotel. He snatched up the bottle of whiskey, decided to simply take it with him, and hopped into his boots. He made one last pitstop at the girl’s purse, dug through it, and grabbed whatever cash he could find in it. It might have been considered theft, but that was what he was expected to do. If he didn’t return to Isaac with money, there would be hell to pay. Likely he had told the girl that it wasn’t a free night of sex. He was pretty certain he always told them that. With one last glance over his shoulder at the mystery girl in the bed, he pulled open the door and stepped out into the hall. He had no idea where he was, what hotel he was in, and needed to get his bearings straight. He focussed on that while wandering down the hall and emptying the bottle of whiskey of the rest of its contents.
         While wandering through the hall toward the elevator, he passed by a maid. Maybe it was the hangover and the new addition of more whiskey into the equation, but he could have sworn that he saw a porcelain doll in her cart. He turned to walk backwards and nearly tripped over his own laces before stumbling to a stop and planting his hand against the down button. The maid gave him a strange look, and he grinned at her goofily in return. “What?” She shook her head and kept on walking with her cart. Likely she thought it wasn’t worth her time and realized her work was more important than dealing with a random drunk guest of the hotel.
         A slim cellphone that had been wedged into the back pocket of his pants started vibrating when the elevator door opened. Sucking in a phlegmy breath through his nostrils, Gage dug out the phone and stepped into the elevator while flipping the phone open. He pressed the button marked L for the main lobby. After clearing his throat, he pressed the button to accept the call and almost coughed into the receiver while speaking. “Yeah?”
         “Gage, baby,” crooned the voice on the other end. Inwardly, and almost outwardly, he groaned. He did, however, grimace at the sound of the voice. It was Isaac. He knew that man’s voice better than any other, sometimes even better than his own.
         “Yeah?”
         Anyone listening to the entire conversation might have suspected that Gage was rather dim-witted. Truth was he just wasn’t much for talking, and at times he had a tendency to repeat himself, almost with a touch of impatience. “Aw, baby. You sound hungover.” Isaac still spoke in the most cheerful and erotic voice ever. It irritated him to hear the man, because he always spoke that way when dealing with Gage, except when he was angry.
         “That’s because I am.” He bit back a yawn with that monotone response and tipped back to lean against the elevator wall. He hadn’t even checked to see what floor he had been on, but the trip down seemed to take longer than he might have preferred. “Whatta ya want?”
         He heard silence on the other line, and he knew that Isaac had paused to recover from the abrupt and disrespectful inquiry. If they were face to face, Gage would have never spoken to him like that, unless he was drunk. Fortunately the effects of a half bottle of whiskey were starting to kick in, so he could use that as an excuse. “Gage, baby.” Isaac always called him that, always added on the baby part. “I’m worried about you. I always worry about you. It’s almost noon. Where are you?”
         Almost noon? Hell. It must have been a wild night. Usually he was up and out at the crack of dawn. For a moment, again, he found himself wondering about the mystery girl he had awakened with. “Some hotel,” he finally managed to say. The elevator stopped with a deafening ding and the doors slid open. He was praying that the whiskey would smother the hangover any minute now, soon.
         “Just some hotel?” Isaac sounded a little astounded at that confession. “You didn’t bother to get the name of the place?”
         “No.” Gage stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby with a squint. Right about then he was desperately wishing for a pair of sunglasses. He could detect the sun outside was going to be very bright even from the distance across the lobby to the main doors that he could see. So he decided to make a pitstop in the gift shop when he passed it by. He considered the possibility that this was one of those hotels right on the interstate, then, because it actually had a gift shop in the lobby. Fancy place. “I’m spending some of this on sunglasses,” he informed the man on the other line.
         “That bad, baby? All right. How much did you get from her?” Her. So Isaac knew that Gage had slept with a woman last night. He should have expected as much. Isaac always knew whom it was that Gage had slept with before, during, and after the fact.
         Gage thumbed through the wad of cash he had pulled out of the girl’s purse while browsing the selection of sunglasses. None of them looked much in the style that Isaac would have picked for him, but he found a pair of simple black ones that looked to be fitting for the occasion and the outfit. “Looks to be about five hundred here,” he confessed. In fact, he was a little surprised at the amount, and again found himself wondering just who that woman had been. A debutante? A senator’s wife? She certainly had to be someone rich. The smell of her perfume still lingered on his skin. Even that smelled rich. Out of curiosity, he lifted the wad of cash for a whiff and was not too terribly surprised to discover that the money smelled like her as well.
         Isaac whistled appreciatively into the phone. “Good job, baby. You comin’ home?”
         Home. What a joke. Isaac lived in an old house in the less respectable part of town. On the outside it looked like a dump, but the money the man brought in with all his illegal business ventures had turned the inside into a fortress palace. It was a seventies style bilevel house with the old wood siding that had needed painted for a decade if not longer. A chain link fence barricaded the yard and protected the property from the outside world, but the other houses to either side had been abandoned for just as long as the house needed painted. The inside looked like it still belonged in the seventies. It still had the old shag carpet, but well taken care of. Isaac even decorated it to resemble a hippie’s haven. Gage despised the place, but he always went back to the house every morning. It was the only place he could call home with any semblance of meaning, the only place he could always return to. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I’m probably going to blow some of this on a cab ride, but I’ll be there.”
         “All right, baby. I’ll see you when you get here.”
         He listened for the click that signified the end of the call, and then he flipped the phone closed with a resigned sigh. Isaac had sounded far too cheerful this morning. Something must be up. He suspected that the man, his pimp it should be said, had some sort of grand scheme in the works, another plan for the evening. He also suspected that it wouldn’t be anything favorable.
         Gage paid for the sunglasses, stuffed the money into his pocket, along with the receipt, and ripped off the tag. The cashier gave him an odd look, as if he didn’t quite belong in the hotel wearing the getup he was dressed in. Gage was used to that sort of attitude from people by now. He’d been subjected to it for years. Stuffing the sunglasses onto his face, he turned without comment and proceeded toward the exit doors. Not for the last time he found himself wondering about who the girl had been in the room upstairs that he had woke up with. It likely wasn’t going to be the last time he thought on her either.
         Outside the hotel, he flagged down a cab and slipped into the back. He only realized then that he had ended up in a more rich place. It was probably the first time he had ever been in the nicer parts of town, at least as far as he could remember. The city was quite large, but divided as most major cities were. Gage spent most of his time in the slum areas, scraping by on cheap tricks and deals. He couldn’t even recall the last time he had made this much money in a single night.
         He gave the cabby directions and settled back to watch the city speed them by as they drove. Just how far from his usual haunts had he managed to travel? Where had Isaac met the woman he had slept with last night? When had they even been introduced and the arrangements made? He couldn’t remember any of it. He must have been totally shit-faced last night. The hangover had dwindled into a dull throb at that point. The rest of the whiskey that he had downed had helped in eradicating that problem, just as he predicted it would.
         As the cab trundled down the city streets, he thought for a moment that he had glimpsed a familiar vision out of the corner of his eye. It was just his luck that the cab had stopped at a street light, far enough back in the line, in front of an old stone house. The houses in this part of the city were all crammed together, and often they looked to be part of the same building. There on the front stoop he saw what looked to be a tattered old porcelain doll, sitting all alone, propped against the low wall of the steps. The cab lurked, and he blinked, and when he looked again the doll was no longer there. Weird, he thought. He must have imagined it. Maybe he’s been drinking too much lately.
         The cab moved on. They left the abandoned house, the steps, and the imaginary doll behind. Gage idly watched the active city life pass him by. The liquor had settled into his stomach and was already starting to work through his bloodstream. It was a beautifully quixotic feeling, not feeling anything at all. Neon lights were a blur of colors marking the passage of ages, of minutes in time, the slow decline of businesses that likely wouldn’t be there in a year or more. They’d be lucky to last an entire year.
         Gage lost concentration on the world around him and slouched in the back seat of the cab as it drove through the streets. He sighed in relief at the feeling of complete and total numb that consumed his nerves and warmed his veins. He hated going through a single day without feeling that careless comfort. Life was just too complex and chaotic to suffer without an addiction. Gage had many addictions: alcohol, drugs, sex, affection. None of it made him feel alive. He hated feeling alive.
         He reflected again (again!) on the girl he had left behind in the hotel room. It dawned on him that he hadn’t even bothered to check the name of the hotel. That wasn’t important anyway. Hell. The girl wasn’t important, but for some reason he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He didn’t know her name. For the first time ever he wished he had learned her name. He never bothered to learn any of their names, because it shouldn’t be important. They were just people, marks, money in the bank.
         The cab lurked to a halt. Gage nearly slid off the seat and onto the floor, he had been that dazed in wondering, and frankly he couldn’t precisely recall what he had been wondering about. That was the beauty of liquor. It clouded his mind to the point that it was far too easy to forget things. “Hey, man,” he heard the driver say. “This is it, right?”
         Gage pushed himself up in the seat and leaned to peer blearily out the window. “Yeah,” he coughed. He had a suspicion that he hadn’t been clearly heard, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah. This is it.” He dug the wad of cash out of his wallet and thumbed through it for a twenty. “Here, man. Keep it.” He wasn’t even sure how much the ride cost, but he had an idea that it couldn’t have been any more than twenty dollars. After dropping the bill over the seat to the front, he opened the door and slid out into the noonday sun with a groan. He had wanted to stay in the back of the cab and soak in the feeling of complete numb that the whiskey had given him. Now he had to walk.
         The cab drove away and left him standing on the curb, staring at the house and the creaking mesh gate. If he were any less liquored up, the squeak of the rusted hinges would have given him a headache. Still, looking at the house was dizzying. It gave him a sense of forboding just standing there and seeing it again, though he saw it every single day and spent the same amount of time every single day just staring at the house. Isaac was probably inside, possibly even looking out the window at him. He wasn’t likely to notice anyway. Isaac had an uncanny ability to sneak about and always catch him off guard, particularly when he was drunk. He could probably manage more before blacking out, maybe even another entire bottle of whiskey, but that might be overdoing it.
         With a resigned sigh, he pushed through the gate and stumbled to the front door. He half expected Isaac to pull the door open before he even got his hand on the knob, and was actually quite surprised to find that wasn’t the case at all. The door was never locked. The outside was a ruse. Besides, none of the local gangs had the balls to fuck with Isaac Delaney. He might not have personally been much of a formidable man, but his connections were intimidating enough for most people to avoid. Inside, as mentioned previously, was a completely different world in the Delaney House.
         Immediately there was the overpowering scent of incense, musk. Isaac filled the house with sexual scents, erotic scents, aromas that were intended to put people in the mood to engage in hedonistic activities. There were candles, incense sticks, and even the occasional spray that layered the atmosphere heavily. The front room was rather sparse. No criminal in his right mind ever conducted business in the front room of the house. No one ever gathered in the front room, despite the leather couches and leopard print throws. There was just no sense to it, drunk, stoned, or otherwise.
         There was a closet to the left immediately when walking in the front door. Directly past that there was a set of stairs leading up to the bedrooms and bathroom, then another set of stairs leading down from there into what Isaac called the lounge. That’s where most people that lived in the house (and there were quite a few) spent their time. Though for more important matters and parties, Isaac invited people down into the parlor, which was little more than a converted basement that resembled a dimly lit hippie sanctuary straight out of the seventies. Isaac favored that style for some ridiculous reason. That style and the more modern goth style were his favorites. He alsways dressed Gage up to look like a pretty little goth boy. It earned him more clients than he could have ever counted.
         The kitchen was a mess, connected to the dining room and littered with dirty dishes and other assorted trash (beer cans, liquor bottles, needles, you name it). It was the only room in the house that was not spotlessly cleaned up and taken care of, but there was always food in the house. Madeline, one of Isaac’s more important whores, spent a lot of time cooking for the rest of the house. She liked to cook. She said it kept her busy, kept her from worrying about what was going to happen next. Only Isaac and his clients, those who intended on purchasing her for an evening, called her Madeline. Everyone else called her Maddy. Gage wasn’t surprised to find her in the kitchen cooking lunch. He decided she should be the first person he say hello to.
         Digging the cellphone out of his pocket, he dropped it on the table between a plate crusted in tidbits of week old Chinese, and a bowl that probably had some cereal in it once upon a time. “Hey, Maddy.”
         Likely she heard the clunk of the cellphone before his voice, but Maddy never let random noises bother her. She tried to block them out. In a neighborhood full of gunfire and shouting, it was safer on her sanity not to listen to the world around her. But whenever Gage spoke, she always heard him.
         Maddy was a pretty girl, nothing near being fit for a supermodel runway, but she was definitely a prize piece of feminine anatomy. She was probably the best girl that Isaac had under his employ, or as they all liked to joke around saying, property. Everyone in the house, everyone who worked for Isaac, tried to joke about their plight. They all agreed that the man owned them. There was no easy way of getting out once you were in. Some of the newer girls sat up at night crying into their pillows. Maddy and Gage were usually the ones that tried to comfort them. Afterall, they’d been part of Isaac’s business the longest. Gage had been owned by him ever since he was ten. So many years had passed since then.
         Maddy was tall and she was thin. She hardly ate as much as she cooked, despite how good her food always was. She had joked with Gage once about having dreams of opening a restaraunt. He always encouraged it. She usually walked the house in a silk robe, and hardly anything more than that underneath. She tanned every day. Isaac insisted on it, said she needed to defeat the soft Northern skin with a little radiation every now and then. She had gone from pasty white to an enticing milky bronze over the years. Even Gage couldn’t help but fantasize about her every now and then, but Madeline was off limits to everyone except for Isaac and whatever client he hooked her up with. The same went for Gage and any of the other whores in the house.
         She turned when she heard him, and she smiled. Maddy had a smile that could light up an entire room. Her lips were always painted, usually pink or red. She never wore more make-up than was necessary. She hardly even needed to wear make-up. “Afternoon, Gage,” she said. There was a touch of fatigue to her voice. Gage suspected she had had a long night. Immediately he noticed a blemish, a bruise on her cheek that resembled a hand print. He frowned. “I’m making alfredo for lunch. You want some?”
         Gage suspected that it was Isaac that had hit her. Like most pimps, he had a penchant for violence in dealing with unruly whores. Maddy and Isaac had a tendency to argue that none of the other girls (not even Gage) could fathom. None of the rest of them were as brave as Maddy was. In some ways everyone looked upon her as a mother figure, the protector. Though she might have had dreams of leaving the life she was living, it was probably everyone else that kept her here. She couldn’t leave them. Neither could Gage. “Yeah,” he said. “That’d be great.”
         “It’ll be done in an hour,” she told him.
         “Great,” he repeated. “I’m gonna go check in with Isaac.”
         “Okay, sweetie.” She turned back to the pot to stir the sauce, and that was that. Gage was a little stunned. Maddy hadn’t warned him of any impending doom. Could that mean, for once, that Isaac was actually in a good mood? That was definitely a relief. It meant he wouldn’t have to deal with any punishment today. Fortunately, he was too buzzed on liquor to care either way.
         Having nothing further to say to Maddy, Gage turned out of the dining room and the conjoined kitchen to take the stairs down into the lounge. He stepped over and into the storage room which lead to the stairs that lead down into the basement. That’s where Isaac spent most of his time when he was awake. Sometimes he even slept down there. So that’s where Gage headed. Predictably, he wasn’t surprised to find Isaac through the beaded curtain that marked the entryway off of the landing and into the furbished basement parlor. Plush carpet squished under his booted feet. The scents of musk and incense, marijuana smoke and beer, were stronger in this room than they were in any other room of the house.
         There was Isaac, reclined on the plush velvet chaise with a half-naked girl sprawled across his lap. He smiled instantly when he saw Gage step into the room. He even shoved the girl out of his lap carelessly and let her tumble to the floor. She didn’t feel it anyway. It was Ruby, he noticed. She was likely doped up on sedatives to the point of being nearly comatose.
         Like most people are prone to do, when Gage Sterling first heard the word pimp associated with the name of a stranger he had never met, he imagined a greasy and balding man dressed in a gaudy leisure suit with a wide collar dress shirt. He imagined snake skin cowboy boots and a velvet fedora with a bright and fluffy feather sticking out of the side. Gage had been a homeless boy of ten years of age, desperate to find a warm place to live and food for his stomach. He had stumbled upon a kind-hearted hooker who had felt pity for the reaggety, abandoned child. Her name had been Delilah, and she had once worked for Isaac Delaney, until she died from a tragic accident three years after taking Gage in under her wing.
         “I’m goin’ to innerduce you to Isaac, sweetie,” Delilah had said with a reassuring smile. “He’s my pimp.” She must have seen the frightened and wildly imaginative expression on his face then, for she put her hands on his shoulders and knelt down in front of him with that same permanently warming smile on her lavishly painted lips. “Now don’t you worry none, darling. Isaac’s a good man for a pimp. I wouldn’t dream of working for anyone else.”
         Delilah had saved the boy’s life and delivered her promise that there was nothing to worry about. Gage grew up around drug dealers, pimps, hookers, and all the people that lived secret livers and indulged in what Isaac Delaney had to offer. For a price. But none of them ever dreamed of harming Gage. In fact, they all protected him as if he were part of some glorious family. He was a part of a family, but he wouldn’t have exactly defined it as glorious.
         Seven years after his introduction to the man that now ruled his life, owned him, Gage realized that nothing had changed. Isaac Delaney had been twenty-three then, new into the world of black market satisfaction by only five years. In seven years, now at thirty years of age, he remained an intimidating beauty of height and grace. He was tall and thin, but not grotesquely gangly. For a man he was quite beautiful, irresistably alluring, but still maintained a threatening masculinity that not many people dared challenge. Isaac Delaney had a charisma unlike any other man or woman that Gage had ever known. The other whores and dealers that worked for the man even whispered about how Isaac had an uncanny ability to always get what he wanted with the least trouble imaginable. Gage had yet to see any evidence to prove otherwise. In seven years, even he had always been incapable of saying no to Isaac Delaney, his pimp, the man that ruled and owned his life.
         Of all the men and women who worked for Isaac Delaney, Gage Sterling was his favorite. Everyone knew it. The fact that he pushed a girl out of his lap and rose languidly to his feet to greet the boy, disregarding his previous company entirely, spoke volumes. Ruby didn’t notice, however. She only moaned and rolled onto her stomach to resume indulging in her drugged stupor. She may have even been sleeping by that point.
         “Gage, baby,” Isaac said in an erotically pleased tone of voice. He almost always spoke to Gage that way, and every single time it sent a shiver down his spine. Isaac had even used that tone as a weapon to dissuade the boy into thinking he was in a good mood, disguised his true temper until the very last minute, when he was close enough to strike as the cunning predator he truly was. Isaac spread out his arms, stepped over Ruby’s prone form, and crossed the distance to envelop the shorter boy in a warm embrace.
         Gage smelled the incense, the booze, and even the marijuana on the man. Clearly he had started early on indulging in the finer yet illegal things in life. Their life was hardly fine, but they all seemed to think so. Drugs and alcohol had amazing powers to fool people into thinking that life was beautiful and brilliant, when in all actuality it was wasteful and abhorrent. Gage tried as often as possible not to think on any of that. He learned early it was safer not to argue. Arguing only got him hurt. “Hi, boss,” he replied quietly, submissively.
         Isaac grinned like a cat who was keeping a secret and leaned back a moment to examine the boy’s face. He lifted one hand to sift his fingers through the fading color of false red hair. “Darling. Sweetheart. You did good last night. I’m pleased to see you. Very pleased. Let’s see it.”
         He knew exactly what that meant. He had been trained for seven years to know what simple and somewhat cryptic statements meant precisely. Isaac kept one arm looped around his waist, the fingers playing absently along his hip in an affectionate manner. With a dispirited sigh, Gage twisted in his grasp to dig the wad of bills out of his back pocket and slap them into the man’s hand. “The sunglasses,” he said, verbally indicating the accessory he still wore on his face. “And a cab ride. I spent about thirty of it already.”
         “Such an honest boy,” Isaac cooed cheerfully. He folded his fingers over the wad of cash and Gage’s fingers, and lead him over to the sofa. When he flopped to have a seat, he took Gage down with him, and the boy practically landed on his lap. That was precisely what Isaac had intended. Gage shifted to lay across the man’s lap and lay his head back on the armrest. He was feeling too good from the numbing buzz of a half bottle of whiskey to protest, not that he would have anyway. It was safer to give into the whims of his pimp, and anyone else who took a fancy to manipulating him in any way they may have seen fit. Isaac counted the money absently and tucked a twenty into the front of the boy’s pants afterwards. “You did very good, Gage. That’s for you. I think it’ll get you buy on smokes for the week, don’t you?”
         “Yeah. Probably.” He sucked in his gut when the bill was tucked into the waistband, and held his breath. Isaac had not removed his fingers from that area. In fact, he kept them there purposely to tease at the smooth flesh beneath, sensitive flesh. Gage had been cursed in growing little to no body hair. Well, he considered it a curse. Isaac considered it an asset. It made the boy more alluring and desirable. Made him seem weak and easily manipulated, which is what he was.
         One fingertip brushed across the tip of his penis. He shivered at the feel of it and sucked in a sharp breath. Isaac only grinned wolfishly, paused for a moment, and then quickly withdrew his hand to comb his fingers through Gage’s hair instead. “We’ll need to fix this today,” he said.
         Great, Gage reflected. Just as he had thought. Just as he suspected before leaving the hotel room this morning. “I figured.” It never occurred to him how easy it was to predict what was bound to happen. Despite the fact that he’d had a gift for predicting the future from an early age, he always wrote it off as having adjusted to this lifestyle as opposed to some arcane ability. Different people might have argued over the entire concept, dependant on viewpoints and beliefs. Gage just didn’t care enough to think too much on philosophy. He had learned to stop caring long ago.
         “We’re going to a party tonight,” Isaac informed him cheerfully. Isaac sounded more cheerful today than he had ever sounded before. Perhaps it was on account of how much money Gage had earned last night in sleeping with that mystery girl. Or maybe he was just excited about this party he mentioned. For only a second he found himself thinking again on the girl, but that was quickly interrupted by the wonder of being taken to a party.
         Isaac pulled his hand away from the boy’s hair and danced his fingers down along his chest and stomach toward his crotch tauntingly. “Yeah?” Gage said. He feigned disinterest, even though his body responded with another shiver and a reflexive closing of the eyes.
         “Yes,” the man replied. At that point his fingers had reached the button of cheap pleather pants and he smoothed his palm down against Gage’s groin. “I had the pleasure of meeting a man by the name of Gideon Langston last night.” While speaking, Isaac rubbed his palm forcibly against the boy’s penis, through the fabric. Gage moaned and tried his very best to pay attention, but being half-drunk and teased into sexual arousal made it difficult for him to focus. “He happens to be a rich man, baby. He owns a big house, a mansion across town. A private estate that could only have been handed down to him or procured through a great deal of wealth. I think he’ll make our finest investment yet.”
         When Isaac said the word private, he emphasized it intensely and with expert ease unbuttoned the boy’s pants using only his thumb. After carefully working down the zipper, he slipped his hand inside to resume rubbing his palm against the boy’s arousal. Gage gasped and arched his spine into the feel of flesh against flesh. Though he tried to insist to himself that he preferred the touch of a woman to the touch of a man, there was just no denying how good it felt either way. Over the years he had simply become accustomed to being touched by either gender. Isaac insisted on reminding him that there was no difference in the end. Money was money, and it should be acquired in any way conceivable. Isaac played with Gage in this manner often, just to remind him not to be picky. Just to remind him who was in charge, who owned him, and sometimes to prepare him for the inevitable.
         “I’m taking you and Maddy with me tonight,” Isaac said. He continued talking even as he worked his magic. Gage moaned, gasped when he felt fingers curl tightly around his dick and squeeze. Then the man continued by kneading the wanton flesh, held his thumb firmly against the tip and stroked the length with his fingers and palm. “I’m not certain what Mr. Langston’s preferences are, darling. So, to be safe, I’m taking you both with me. You’ll have to be on your best behavior. Don’t speak unless spoken to. You know how it works. And we’ll have to dress you in something more ... fitting.”
         How was he supposed to respond to that? Did Isaac actually expect him to? Oh yes. Even he knew that the man expected him to speak. That was part of the game, part of the training. Speak when spoken to. A response was expected. “Y-yeah?” he gasped. It was all he could manage to say, and it probably made him sound completely stupid.
         “Oh yes,” Isaac purred. He slid one arm underneath Gage’s shoulders and lifted the boy to cradle him against his chest, just so he could tip down his chin and let his lips brush against the shell of an ear. “We’ll put you in something more sophisticated. Which means we’ll need to visit a nicer store today and get you fitted in a proper suit. You don’t have any, and it’s about time we start improving your wardrobe, don’t you think?” He tightened his grip around the boy’s penis, expertly working the flesh with kneading ministrations, and as he did so he let his tongue slip out to caress the interior curve of his ear.
         “Y-yes,” Gage hissed.
         “Yes what, darling?”
         Gage moaned still, again. Isaac was working him to the brink masterfully with only his hand. God. It felt so good, but in the pit of his stomach it felt horrible. With the haze of whiskey smothering his awareness like a security blanket, he barely felt the sickening reminder that this was a man touching him. He only felt the pleasure of the touch, the warmth of a hand wrapped around his dick and stroking it lovingly, coaxing it to ejaculate. He was almost ready to surrender to that release, which was not a good sign. “Y-yes. That ... mm ... it feels good.”
         Isaac clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and immediately stopped toying with the boy’s dick. Gage whimpered like a scolded dog. It was a trained reaction that he didn’t even exhibit consciously. He was barely aware of being shoved off of the man’s lap and onto the floor until he actually landed on his hands and knees by reflex. He stayed there with his head hanging low, pants clinging to his ass by the adhesive that sweat and leather created together. He’d been sweating? Of course he had. Alcohol and foreplay had mixed together to cause that likely. Isaac lifted his feet and stretched his legs out to rest them on Gage’s back, crossed at the ankle. His arms almost gave out of him with a quiver, but he quickly locked his elbows to keep himself up. “Clothes, darling. We were talking about getting you some nice clothes. A few suits. What do you think?”
         Think, Gage. Think! What had Isaac said? Something about a party. A man he was supposed to meet. It flooded in like a splash of cold water, threatening to sober him up. He didn’t want to be sobered up. “For the party, right?”
         “That’s right.” Isaac pulled back his legs and dropped his feet to the floor. “Sit up,” he instructed, and without hesitation Gage pushed back to sit on his knees. “Good. I see you’re still remembering your place. Now turn around to face me.” Silently, as commanded, Gage turned to face the man. And he lifted his chin to look at him. Isaac lifted one foot, a bare foot, and settled it on the boy’s thigh. He slid his foot up to the boy’s crotch and let his toes tease his penis in place of his hand and fingers. “Unzip my pants.”
         Oh, Jesus. Gage almost frowned. He did, at least, hesitate, sucked in a breath when he felt more chilling digits touch against his dick. He wants me to suck his dick, he thought. This was likely a test. He’s making sure I’m going to be able to perform. All right. Gage slid his hands up along the man’s thighs from the knees and splayed his palms against the crotch with a completely conjured smile, entirely fake but one that he had practiced. It looked, for all Isaac knew, that he was actually thrilled by the idea, when in all actually it made him sick to his stomach. It always did at first. He hated the feeling afterwards, of having actually enjoyed being a part of such a carnal act, of having actually got off on it. He knew he would again. Isaac would make certain of that.
         “With your teeth,” Isaac said.
         Inwardly, Gage cussed. Outwardly, he only grinned wider and leaned forward to catch the corner of fabric near the button with his teeth. Whenever he did this, he always reflected with some touch of amusement that it had been Delilah that had taught him out to do this with expert ease. His top teeth hooked around closest to the actual button on Isaac’s tailor-made slacks. With his lower teeth he worked the button through the slit and in only a second separated them. With his nose, he brushed the fold open, licked his tongue slowly up the length of the zipper, until he caught it under the tab. “Good,” he heard Isaac say, quiet praise. Capturing the tab between his teeth, he pulled down on it slowly, cautiously. He wasn’t at all surprised to feel the warmth of Isaac’s flesh slide out to rub against his face. The man was already partially aroused. “Now suck it,” he said.
         Gage restrained a desire to sigh dismally. The last thing he wanted to do was suck Isaac Delaney’s dick, but he knew if he didn’t there would only be a world of hurt to follow. Shifting somewhat uncomfortably, distractedly under the feel of a foot caressing his own penis, he spread Isaac’s pants open further and tugged them down just enough to expose that mildly erected flesh to the open air. He slipped his hand under it and traced a path from base to tip with his tongue slowly. It throbbed to life, pulsed against his mouth, and he inwardly chided himself when he heard himself moan. God. He was actually getting off on this. He always did. He hated it.
         Delilah had been the first to teach him how to suck a man’s cock. He had only been thirteen years old, shortly before the girl had died from being beaten to death by an overzealous customer. It had been a bloody mess, complete with the mess brought in by crime scene investigators. Gage was forced out of the house that day, told to hide. But that was then. This was before Delilah had died, of course, that she took him into her room with her one night and laid him out on the bed. “You’re likely gon’ be workin’ for Isaac some time soon, baby doll,” she told him. “You’re sproutin’ up into a fine an’ pretty boy, an’ there’s some sick-minded men an’ women out there who like spendin’ their time with pretty young boys.”
         He remembered feeling instantly nervous and suddenly afraid of the woman for the first time in the three long years he had ever known her. Some of the placed he had sheltered in before had people talking about how he was lucky some sick pervert hadn’t snatched him up already. Though it had been a sick pervert that had chased him out onto the streets to begin with. At thirteen he was instantly aware of a fact of life when Delilah said those words to him. It was a fact of life that sex was just expected and acceptible, as far as he had been taught by the world around him. He’d been afraid to sleep alone most nights, and sometimes crawled into Maddy’s bed. She was only a little older than he was and safe enough to sleep with. She never expected anything out of him. But he always suspected that Isaac watched him sleep some nights, woke up with a chill feeling that he was being watched, or had been watched the night before. Now that he was older, he was certain of it.
         Whenever Isaac was in a mood, he had Gage sleep with him. Sometimes they simply slept together. Other times he made Gage peform. Over the years he had refined the art that Delilah had taught him all those years ago. Maybe it was morbid to think it, but in a way this act was a tribute to her memory.
         Any other civilized and law-abiding person would have looked upon Gage Sterling’s life as a horror. Even now at seventeen all those he shared his life with would have been arrested on charges of child endangerment and abuse. According to the world at large, he was still a child. He only had one more year to go before he’d surpass that mindset of the masses. In body and in knowledge, Gage was most assuredly a man. Mature at least physically, and certainly mature in knowing what to expect out of life. In his case, the only thing to expect was sex, drugs, and violence. That was his world. He had adapted to it rather well in the past seven years.
         Isaac reclined on the couch and spread his legs to give the boy a space between. He stretched out his arms over the back of the sofa and smiled. The man released a satisfied sigh but kept his eyes on the boy, watching him work. Gage looked up with a devious smile, a completely false expression that was ingeniously realistic. It was a practiced smile, one that had become second nature over the years. He nudged his pimp’s penis back toward himself, better to keep eye contact. Delilah had taught him to always maintain eye contact, always let his partner see him enjoying what he was doing. Though inwardly he argued about that, outwardly he displayed something else entirely.
         He started by moistening his lips and the exterior flesh he held gently in his grasp with his tongue. Isaac moaned appreciatively and slipped his fingers into the boy’s hair, holding him affectionately. He teased the very tip with a flicker of his tongue and grinned in pause, a dramatic pause to intensify the desire. Delilah had taught him never to take it in his mouth immediately unless it was forced upon him. Sometimes it was forced into his mouth. Some men were impatient. Isaac was never impatient. This was an exercise and a test of Gage’s abilities. They both knew that, but that didn’t mean they also couldn’t enjoy themselves.
         He placed gentle trace kisses all the way down the length of the front, stopping at the base. There he slipped his other hand underneath the man’s testicles and gently teased the malleable flesh there with his fingertips. At the same time he spread his lips apart and wrapped them around the front of the penis, pulling them together slowly in a slightly suckling manner. Deliberately and achingly slow he continued that maneuver all the way up the length to the tip. He took only an inch into his mouth and swirled his tongue around it teasingly. Isaac’s fingers tightened in his hair, gathered up a handful, and he moaned again to emphasize his pleasure. With that simple act Gage had managed to significantly increase the hardness of the man’s penis. And he was only getting started.
         Isaac must have felt the boy’s own growing excitement. “Do yourself too,” he instructed. Gage whined a bit, muffled a discouraged groan against the man’s penis, but let his other hand fall away from underneath the testicles and grabbed hold of his own erection. Masturbating while giving head at the same time. Isaac might have been cruel for making him do all the work, but it actually helped intensify the enthusiasm and enjoyment of the act.
         Whiskey and sex. Two elements combined that had his mind distracted. This practice, as it were, would last a few hours. Gage had no doubt in his mind that Isaac intended on playing with him to the fullest extent. Ruby mumbled something on the floor in her drug-induced sleep and rolled over, blissfully unaware of what was happening around her.