Private Show
Title: Private Show
Author: jaune_chat
Fandom: Heroes
Characters/Pairing: Sylar/Luke, Claire, Monica, Elle, mentions of others
Rating: NC-17 for sex
Word Count: 3,649
Spoilers: If you know who Sylar and Luke are, you’re good.
Warnings: Slash, rutting, some voyeurism, Stripper!AU
Disclaimer: Heroes is owned by Tim Kring, NBC, et al.
Notes: This is an AU where everyone is working at a strip club! Yay! I also am playing fast and loose with people’s ages, so just assume everyone is at least of consenting age. Written for perdiccas' day of power as CEO at heroes_exchange.
Summary: Luke just wants to earn some extra money as a stripper, but ends up with a much better job offer.
“I don’t think so, kid.”
Luke saw a slender, dark hand descend on his shoulder before it jerked him back from the entrance into the club proper. The owner of the hand was a short, fit black woman who looked like she’d book no excuses from him. The red and gold logo of The Stud Farm, the best all-male stripper club in town, glittered on her jacket.
Crap, he’d just run into a bouncer.
“I- uh,” he stammered, trying to explain.
“Don’t care. Get out, and don’t let me catch you in here again before you reach puberty,” she said dismissively, and shoved him back towards the back door he’d tried to sneak into.
“I’m twenty-one!” he protested, digging into his jeans for his driver’s license. The bouncer plucked it from his fingers, snorting in disbelief. She examined the plastic card minutely, and finally ran it under a bluish light. Reluctantly, she nodded.
“Ok, I stand corrected, Luke. Give me the cover charge, and you can go on in,” she said, waving him through.
“Hey, uh,” Luke lowered his voice to as low as he could, given the thumping music in the air. “I’m looking for try-out room?”
To her credit, the bouncer didn’t laugh in his face. Instead she just looked sympathetic. “You in college?” she asked.
“Yeah, NYU. Theater,” he added. “Look, I really need the extra money and I thought-.”
She looked at him with pity. “Honey, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know if you’ll even get past Claire. She passes judgment on all the potential new guys, and I-.”
“I can show her! I’ve been practicing; I can do this!” Luke pleaded, so focused on getting past the bouncer he couldn’t pay attention to anything else.
The bouncer shook her head and pulled Luke off to the side, where he could peak into the main room and get an eyeful of what was going on on stage.
“Luke, take a look out there for a minute. That’s Mohinder on the stage right now. Gabriel is right after him. Do you think you belong up there? Honestly?”
Luke barely heard her as he caught sight of Mohinder athletically hanging from the pole with only one leg, swiveling down its length to land on the floor on his knees. His mostly-naked body looked like an oiled wood statue, it was so perfect. As Mohinder arched his back, letting his dark curls touch the floor behind him in an obscene display of flexibility, the thumping music ended. The crowd of women (and those men that swung that way) showered him with cheers and money, which he accepted with a winning smile at each and every one of them.
Luke felt his jaw dropping open as Mohinder left the stage, only to be replaced with a taller, more robust man, pale-skinned, dark haired, and with almost menacing features. He looked… dangerous. Rugged. And damned sexy.
As the announcer introduced him as Gabriel, the music started up again, and he began to move. Luke hadn’t seen someone in a lumberjack outfit before, but Gabriel pulled it off (in both ways) with style. As the flannel shirt was ripped open and thrown into the crowd, Luke tried to keep himself from drooling. Gabriel’s chest was well defined and looked completely natural, covered with an enticing pattern of dark hair. As the pants came off, Gabriel turned to touch his toes, presenting the adoring crowd with a fantastic, muscular ass only enhanced by the thin, red lines of the g-string…
“Uh… wow.” Luke heard the bouncer mutter behind him, and blushed furiously when he realized he’d popped a boner watching Gabriel on stage. Flicking his eyes over to her, he was surprised to see she wasn’t watching Gabriel. She was watching him. Or, to be specific, she was watching his crotch.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean, I mean, I guess it, I-,” Luke flailed, covering himself with his hands.
“Oh no, don’t be sorry. Uh, say, you go on back down that hallway on the right, and knock at the red door. Tell Claire Monica sent you,” the bouncer said, licking her lips slightly.
“Is, um, there a bathroom?” Luke asked desperately, not wanting to go into a job interview with his pants about ready to explode.
“Trust me sweetheart, go in there just like that. You’re a shoo-in.”
Blinking in bewilderment, Luke trotted down the hallway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This was the strangest job interview Luke had ever had in his life. He’d had several as a teenager, and this didn’t match any of them. When he’d knocked on the door, a stunning blonde woman had answered, looking like she could break him in half without even working up a sweat.
“Monica sent me?” Luke asked tentatively, hoping he wasn’t about to get laughed at. Or killed. The blonde looked him up and down, mostly down, smirked, and waved him in.
“Claire, honey, Monica sent us a tree for the lumberjack!” she called over her shoulder.
“Elle, this better not be a joke, or I’m going to get Maya to scratch your eyes out!”
“As long as it’s in the Jell-O pits, not a problem sister,” Elle said with a laugh.
Another blonde, this one looking somewhat less dangerous, walked into the room and stared at Luke.
“Huh. Ok, Monica gets that raise she was asking for,” Claire muttered. “Kid, come with me.”
Luke had followed her down the hallway, answering a few basic questions along the way. Name, school, major, where he lived, the usual. Then the hallway ended in a small room, a stage and pole at one end, and a few chairs at the other.
“So Luke, you were watching Mohinder and Gabriel?” Claire asked, waving him down into one of the chairs.
Luke settled himself carefully, shifting to try to avoid trapping his swollen dick in his pants. Claire had kept sneaking looks at his junk the entire time, and it was starting to make Luke nervous. “Uh… yeah. They’re really good,” Luke said quickly, eyes mostly glued to the floor.
Claire reached out and put her fingers under his chin, urging him to look into her eyes. “Keep eye contact sweetheart. The audience wants to believe you’re looking at them. People come in here to pretend one of my boys is her or his boyfriend, stripping just for them. You have to sell yourself like every person in the room is important to you, got it? The shy thing is cute, don’t get me wrong, but if you have a room full of people waiting to be entertained, you have to engage them!”
Luke swallowed and held her eyes, smiling a bit. Claire nodded.
“Better. I like it when my boys can take direction. Now, personal question, and don’t be afraid to tell me to go to hell if you don’t want to answer, but what team do you bat for?”
Luke’s mouth went dry, and he must have looked like a deer in the headlights, because Claire took sympathy on him.
“Do you like girls? Boys? Both? Neither?”
“I guess- I mean- I just wanted to-,” Luke sputtered, blushing, not able to articulate when asked so baldly.
“Boys?” Claire guessed, easily plucking the truth out of Luke’s mangled statement. “Guessing by how much you liked Gabriel.”
Luke nodded miserably, wondering if she was going to throw him out. Ninety percent of The Stud Farm’s clientele was female; why would she want to hire a gay man to dance for them?
“Good,” Claire said, sounding relieved.
Luke blinked in astonishment. “Good?”
“Honeybear, when I first opened I tried straight strippers. Ended in complete disaster. Have you ever heard of Nathan? Nate the Great? Nathan the Godfather?”
Luke nodded again with more enthusiasm, eyes wide. Nathan was big name in the porn industry, one of the most prolific porn stars of all time. He had done all sorts of films, from simple hetrosexual to group orgies to bondage to gay porn. Luke had nearly all of his films.
“Well, he’s catnip to almost everyone he comes across. But when he knocked up Meredith and Heidi, two of my best bouncers, I knew I had to switch how I did things. Every man on my staff now is as straight as a doughnut, and I like it that way. Keeps complications to a bare minimum.”
Luke couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So, you’ll really let me…?”
“Maybe,” Claire said sharply. “I don’t hire every boy that comes in here. You need to prove you can work a tough crowd. I need to see you dance.”
“Right now?”
“You have anything else better to do today?”
Luke shut up, handed Claire a CD for his dancing music, and made his way to the stage.
“Do you have an outfit you want to change into?” Claire asked, waving at his baggy shirt and jeans.
Luke felt blood draining out of his face. How could he be so stupid? He’d practiced dancing in front of the mirror nearly every night, but he somehow had neglected to think about a full stage outfit. Claire sighed in exasperation.
“Luke, you said you were in theater, right? How the hell are you passing your classes?”
“I’m in set construction!” Luke protested, trying not to let himself get choked with disappointment.
For some reason, that made Claire go silent and look very thoughtful.
“Ok, ok, just kick off your shoes and show me what you can do,” Claire offered.
“Shoes?” Luke repeated, confused.
Claire closed her eyes and seemed to count to ten. “Sweetie, girls can look sexy dancing around in high heels and a thong. A man dancing around in sneakers and a g-string looks ridiculous. You either wear slip-ons and no socks, or nothing on stage, ok?”
With a tight smile, Claire put Luke’s music into the stereo and turned it up. Luke quickly kicked off his shoes and leapt to the stage, turning and grinding as he undid the buttons on his shirt. There were mirrors everywhere, not just on one wall, but all along the back wall of the stage, and behind Claire as well. Everywhere Luke turned, he was confronted with himself. It was disconcerting, and Luke kept stumbling over parts of his routine.
His overshirt came off with minimum problems, and stripping off his t-shirt went ok too. He tried to display what he had to his best advantage. Luke knew he was nowhere Mohinder or Gabriel’s league, but he wasn’t a weakling either. Lugging around all the timber, paint, and tools for set construction for the past two years hadn’t all been for naught. But when he went to slowly unbuckle and peel off his jeans, the denim seemed to fight him, and Luke actually tripped, crashing to the stage.
Mortified, Luke glanced up, expecting Claire to yell at him to leave. But instead she just clenched her teeth shut and waved at him to continue. Striving to control his blushes, Luke struggled out of his pants and caught up to his routine, trying to arch and display himself for the crowd. He’d actually remembered to buy a g-string for this, and Luke thought the black satin looked pretty good, even if he didn’t. Remembering Claire’s instructions to maintain eye contact, he looked up at her and smiled, even if he felt like an idiot.
He managed to strike his final pose without falling off the stage, and could feel himself blushing to the roots of his hair as he rapidly gathered up his clothes.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, eyes fixed to the floor as he tried to find his socks. “I know I screwed up. I’ll just go.”
“Hey, don’t leave yet,” a new voice said. It was low, masculine, and amused, and Luke snapped his head up to meet Gabriel’s dark eyes. He was wearing a loose, dark blue robe, and was smiling at Luke. Luke straightened up in shock, dropping his clothes, and then blushed hard enough to set his ears buzzing as he felt his body suddenly grow extremely interested in Gabriel.
Luke quickly tried to cover himself with his hands again, having only limited success. The g-string hid almost nothing, and Luke knew he had an embarrassingly large junk. Sure, all men thought they wanted a huge cock, but they didn’t bother to think of the problems it created. Finding pants that fit was difficult, underwear always seemed too tight, and it sometimes scared the hell out of potential partners. No one wanted to choke on him, or be split around him. Luke had had to be satisfied with his hands alone.
Gabriel only smiled a little more, seemingly pleased, and bent down to whisper something in Claire’s ear. She nodded in return.
“Luke, I have to tell you, that routine was-.”
“Lame. Crappy. Horrible. Take your pick,” Luke muttered.
“Amateur,” Claire corrected gently. “Gabriel was watching you from behind one of the mirrors, and he thinks you have potential. So do I.”
“Y-you do?” Luke asked, unbelieving.
“I have a little project I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but I haven’t had the right employee come my way. A little something extra for paying clients in the private room,” she explained. “It’s a little more hardcore than simple stripping. It would be full nudity, with a partner.”
“Live porn?!” Luke almost yelped.
“Not quite. You see, ladies sometimes like seeing hot men make out, like men like watching lesbians kiss,” Claire said. Luke snickered, knowing damn well it was true. He was around divas all day long, and they talked plenty. “So I thought I’d offer that for playing clients. A two-man show, stripping, kissing, making out, possibly fondling, if both employees would be up for it. The pay for that would be a cut above the normal rate, plus tips.”
“She’s been trying to get me to do it for months,” Gabriel said. “But I said I wouldn’t do it without my choice of partner.”
“Y’see, Gabriel has a huge ego,” Claire said, smirking as Gabriel preened at her backhanded flattery. “He’s one of my best earners, and he has earned his right to pick who he wants to work with.”
“Everyone else here had their own style, and I’d hate to try to fight them on-stage, artistically speaking. Mohinder has this acrobatics routine, Peter does this ‘little lost boy’ thing that brings out the mamma in everyone, Alejandro does this salsa dancing, Lyle we keep around for the cougars, West has his trapeze show, and Ando does his muscle-man routine. I’d rather have someone I can train up myself.”
Luke couldn’t believe his ears. “Me?” he squeaked.
“Well, how about we give it a try? I’ll get some of the girls in here to make a little crowd, to make it more real, and then you can give us a show,” Claire said.
Luke’s brain abruptly shut down as Gabriel walked towards him. He barely heard Claire talk into a phone, calling in Monica, Elle, and Maya.
“You ok?” Gabriel asked, tilting Luke’s chin up. Luke felt an almost physical shock from Gabriel’s touch. He couldn’t do anything more than nod quickly in response. “You ever done anything like this before?” Trembling from looking into Gabriel’s eyes, Luke shook his head. “Do you want to? Honestly? It’s ok if you don’t. Not everyone’s comfortable with this.”
“I don’t know even what we’re gonna be doing,” Luke whispered.
Gabriel gently brushed Luke’s hair out of his eyes. “I’d be leading. You’d just have to do what I do. We have to make this as real as we can, so I want this to feel good to you. I want you to like it.” Luke felt his heart start to pound as Gabriel leaned into talk directly into his ear. “I’m going to touch you, make you feel me. I want you to kiss me like you want me, put your hands on me. Then I’m going to stroke that fucking beautiful cock of yours until you come for me. That’s what we’re gonna be doing. Are you up for it?”
Luke’s mouth opened and closed a few times in shock, and then he felt himself nodding. Gabriel was everything he’d ever envisioned in a partner, and Luke would not pass up an opportunity like this, even if it were essentially a sham.
“Damn, did they start without us? No fair!” Elle announced as she entered, trailed by Monica and another girl with long, dark hair that had to be Maya.
“Angel, we’re just beginning,” Gabriel promised, and nodded to Claire. She started some different music, slower and more sensual, as Gabriel led Luke to the stage.
“Don’t look at them,” Gabriel murmured as he put Luke’s hands on the sash to his robe. “Normally you’re supposed to look at the crowd. Don’t. Look at me.”
Luke didn’t think that was going to be a problem. He didn’t think he could take his eyes off of Gabriel. Under his direction, Luke slowly pulled the sash free on Gabriel’s robe and slid it off his body. He smiled at Luke’s stunned expression, and ran one hand up Luke’s thinner chest, skimming over a nipple. Gasping, forgetting about the audience, the mirrors, the music, everything, Luke leaned in to run his face over the dark hair on Gabriel’s chest, sliding his fingers through it, lost in a mental fantasy.
Gabriel’s hands delved through Luke’s hair, encouraging him with sensuous-sounding moans. Finally he tugged Luke up and kissed him, warm lips teasing and wet tongue probing into Luke’s mouth. Luke gave himself up to it, knees feeling like jelly as Gabriel swirled his tongue around Luke’s and began to suck gently. Gabriel held Luke up when his knees went out entirely, strong arms circling his shoulders in a protective cradle.
Luke felt himself grow harder even as his body collapsed, and didn’t fight when Gabriel pulled away from Luke’s mouth and turned him around in his grasp, pulling him tight against his body. Luke could feel Gabriel’s arousal against his ass and gasped. It wasn’t just the feel of that hard shaft thrusting against him, but the knowledge that Gabriel had been turned on by Luke that made him shiver.
Lolling in Gabriel’s grasp, Luke reached back to caress every part of Gabriel he could reach as Gabriel fastened his lips on Luke’s neck, making him moan. When Gabriel’s hand began to slide down Luke’s thigh to untie his g-string, Luke’s moans became more urgent. When the black satin fell away, Luke heard feminine gasps and faint applause in front of him, and abruptly remembered he was on display.
Gabriel suddenly slapped a hand over Luke’s eyes and whispered in his ear. “You’re gorgeous to me. Beautiful. I want to feel you. I want to see you let go. Let me free, come on…”
Dredging up his courage, Luke slid a hand back and ran it down Gabriel’s thigh until he found the slender string that was holding Gabriel back from full contact with Luke. A horrible thought crossed his mind just as he was about to pull it free, and he froze.
Gabriel seemed to understand instantly. “I’m clean, I swear.”
“Me too,” Luke whispered, relieved, and decisively pulled the string. When the red satin was pulled free, Luke moaned loudly in both arousal and relief. He’d wanted something like this for so long…
The moan turned into a gasp as Gabriel closed a hand around Luke’s cock, and murmured in appreciation as he began to stroke. “This is so nice. Yeah, just like that, long enough for me to do this-.” Luke gave a surprised yelp as Gabriel gave a little twist with his wrist near the top, adding a bright spike of pleasure that made Luke buck into his grasp. Gabriel’s hips followed Luke’s every move, and Luke’s eyes started to roll back into his head as he felt wetness from Gabriel’s hard cock dripping into crack of his ass.
Luke started to lose control, getting embarrassingly vocal as Gabriel pushed him higher and higher.
“Oh, Gabriel, please, Gabriel, please, Gabriel, Gabriel!”
“So pretty, Luke. So pretty. Come for me, so close, come on!” Gabriel commanded. Luke keened as he felt Gabriel suddenly let go, hot spunk hitting his skin, and came, fountaining over Gabriel’s hand.
In front of them came thunderous applause and cheers. Gabriel lifted his hand from Luke’s eyes to see the four women on their feet, clapping enthusiastically. Oddly, Luke didn’t feel too embarrassed, not with Gabriel still holding him up.
“Holy fuck,” Elle said, as the applause died down. “I’ll be in my bunk ladies. Catch you later!”
Elle dashed out of the room as Maya, Monica, and Claire wiped the sweat off their brows.
“Damn,” Claire said, staring at Gabriel. “Never knew you had that in you Gabe.”
“Me neither,” Gabriel said, sounding surprised. He dropped a soft kiss on Luke’s neck, and Luke turned to catch his mouth shyly. “I haven’t lost control like that in years. You’re special.”
“I’m not-,” Luke almost automatically protested.
“You are,” Gabriel said firmly. “Believe me. I want you. I am not doing this thing again without you.”
“Seriously?” Luke asked, eyes wide.
“Gabriel is always serious,” Claire said. “But he does like to beat around the bush. Luke, do you want to work for us? You’d be exclusively with Gabriel; he doesn’t like to share. If you think you can stand doing this a few nights a week.”
“Hell yes!” Luke said, the words coming out before he could stop himself. Cringing a bit, he looked back at Gabriel, who pulled him into a hard embrace, smiling widely enough to erase all of his fears.
“Trust me. I think you and I are going to go a long way together,” Gabriel promised, and Luke smiled.
---------
There's a sequel: Very Private Show
And another story in the same AU: Nathan Petrelli, Sex Machine
Author: jaune_chat
Fandom: Heroes
Characters/Pairing: Sylar/Luke, Claire, Monica, Elle, mentions of others
Rating: NC-17 for sex
Word Count: 3,649
Spoilers: If you know who Sylar and Luke are, you’re good.
Warnings: Slash, rutting, some voyeurism, Stripper!AU
Disclaimer: Heroes is owned by Tim Kring, NBC, et al.
Notes: This is an AU where everyone is working at a strip club! Yay! I also am playing fast and loose with people’s ages, so just assume everyone is at least of consenting age. Written for perdiccas' day of power as CEO at heroes_exchange.
Summary: Luke just wants to earn some extra money as a stripper, but ends up with a much better job offer.
“I don’t think so, kid.”
Luke saw a slender, dark hand descend on his shoulder before it jerked him back from the entrance into the club proper. The owner of the hand was a short, fit black woman who looked like she’d book no excuses from him. The red and gold logo of The Stud Farm, the best all-male stripper club in town, glittered on her jacket.
Crap, he’d just run into a bouncer.
“I- uh,” he stammered, trying to explain.
“Don’t care. Get out, and don’t let me catch you in here again before you reach puberty,” she said dismissively, and shoved him back towards the back door he’d tried to sneak into.
“I’m twenty-one!” he protested, digging into his jeans for his driver’s license. The bouncer plucked it from his fingers, snorting in disbelief. She examined the plastic card minutely, and finally ran it under a bluish light. Reluctantly, she nodded.
“Ok, I stand corrected, Luke. Give me the cover charge, and you can go on in,” she said, waving him through.
“Hey, uh,” Luke lowered his voice to as low as he could, given the thumping music in the air. “I’m looking for try-out room?”
To her credit, the bouncer didn’t laugh in his face. Instead she just looked sympathetic. “You in college?” she asked.
“Yeah, NYU. Theater,” he added. “Look, I really need the extra money and I thought-.”
She looked at him with pity. “Honey, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know if you’ll even get past Claire. She passes judgment on all the potential new guys, and I-.”
“I can show her! I’ve been practicing; I can do this!” Luke pleaded, so focused on getting past the bouncer he couldn’t pay attention to anything else.
The bouncer shook her head and pulled Luke off to the side, where he could peak into the main room and get an eyeful of what was going on on stage.
“Luke, take a look out there for a minute. That’s Mohinder on the stage right now. Gabriel is right after him. Do you think you belong up there? Honestly?”
Luke barely heard her as he caught sight of Mohinder athletically hanging from the pole with only one leg, swiveling down its length to land on the floor on his knees. His mostly-naked body looked like an oiled wood statue, it was so perfect. As Mohinder arched his back, letting his dark curls touch the floor behind him in an obscene display of flexibility, the thumping music ended. The crowd of women (and those men that swung that way) showered him with cheers and money, which he accepted with a winning smile at each and every one of them.
Luke felt his jaw dropping open as Mohinder left the stage, only to be replaced with a taller, more robust man, pale-skinned, dark haired, and with almost menacing features. He looked… dangerous. Rugged. And damned sexy.
As the announcer introduced him as Gabriel, the music started up again, and he began to move. Luke hadn’t seen someone in a lumberjack outfit before, but Gabriel pulled it off (in both ways) with style. As the flannel shirt was ripped open and thrown into the crowd, Luke tried to keep himself from drooling. Gabriel’s chest was well defined and looked completely natural, covered with an enticing pattern of dark hair. As the pants came off, Gabriel turned to touch his toes, presenting the adoring crowd with a fantastic, muscular ass only enhanced by the thin, red lines of the g-string…
“Uh… wow.” Luke heard the bouncer mutter behind him, and blushed furiously when he realized he’d popped a boner watching Gabriel on stage. Flicking his eyes over to her, he was surprised to see she wasn’t watching Gabriel. She was watching him. Or, to be specific, she was watching his crotch.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean, I mean, I guess it, I-,” Luke flailed, covering himself with his hands.
“Oh no, don’t be sorry. Uh, say, you go on back down that hallway on the right, and knock at the red door. Tell Claire Monica sent you,” the bouncer said, licking her lips slightly.
“Is, um, there a bathroom?” Luke asked desperately, not wanting to go into a job interview with his pants about ready to explode.
“Trust me sweetheart, go in there just like that. You’re a shoo-in.”
Blinking in bewilderment, Luke trotted down the hallway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This was the strangest job interview Luke had ever had in his life. He’d had several as a teenager, and this didn’t match any of them. When he’d knocked on the door, a stunning blonde woman had answered, looking like she could break him in half without even working up a sweat.
“Monica sent me?” Luke asked tentatively, hoping he wasn’t about to get laughed at. Or killed. The blonde looked him up and down, mostly down, smirked, and waved him in.
“Claire, honey, Monica sent us a tree for the lumberjack!” she called over her shoulder.
“Elle, this better not be a joke, or I’m going to get Maya to scratch your eyes out!”
“As long as it’s in the Jell-O pits, not a problem sister,” Elle said with a laugh.
Another blonde, this one looking somewhat less dangerous, walked into the room and stared at Luke.
“Huh. Ok, Monica gets that raise she was asking for,” Claire muttered. “Kid, come with me.”
Luke had followed her down the hallway, answering a few basic questions along the way. Name, school, major, where he lived, the usual. Then the hallway ended in a small room, a stage and pole at one end, and a few chairs at the other.
“So Luke, you were watching Mohinder and Gabriel?” Claire asked, waving him down into one of the chairs.
Luke settled himself carefully, shifting to try to avoid trapping his swollen dick in his pants. Claire had kept sneaking looks at his junk the entire time, and it was starting to make Luke nervous. “Uh… yeah. They’re really good,” Luke said quickly, eyes mostly glued to the floor.
Claire reached out and put her fingers under his chin, urging him to look into her eyes. “Keep eye contact sweetheart. The audience wants to believe you’re looking at them. People come in here to pretend one of my boys is her or his boyfriend, stripping just for them. You have to sell yourself like every person in the room is important to you, got it? The shy thing is cute, don’t get me wrong, but if you have a room full of people waiting to be entertained, you have to engage them!”
Luke swallowed and held her eyes, smiling a bit. Claire nodded.
“Better. I like it when my boys can take direction. Now, personal question, and don’t be afraid to tell me to go to hell if you don’t want to answer, but what team do you bat for?”
Luke’s mouth went dry, and he must have looked like a deer in the headlights, because Claire took sympathy on him.
“Do you like girls? Boys? Both? Neither?”
“I guess- I mean- I just wanted to-,” Luke sputtered, blushing, not able to articulate when asked so baldly.
“Boys?” Claire guessed, easily plucking the truth out of Luke’s mangled statement. “Guessing by how much you liked Gabriel.”
Luke nodded miserably, wondering if she was going to throw him out. Ninety percent of The Stud Farm’s clientele was female; why would she want to hire a gay man to dance for them?
“Good,” Claire said, sounding relieved.
Luke blinked in astonishment. “Good?”
“Honeybear, when I first opened I tried straight strippers. Ended in complete disaster. Have you ever heard of Nathan? Nate the Great? Nathan the Godfather?”
Luke nodded again with more enthusiasm, eyes wide. Nathan was big name in the porn industry, one of the most prolific porn stars of all time. He had done all sorts of films, from simple hetrosexual to group orgies to bondage to gay porn. Luke had nearly all of his films.
“Well, he’s catnip to almost everyone he comes across. But when he knocked up Meredith and Heidi, two of my best bouncers, I knew I had to switch how I did things. Every man on my staff now is as straight as a doughnut, and I like it that way. Keeps complications to a bare minimum.”
Luke couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So, you’ll really let me…?”
“Maybe,” Claire said sharply. “I don’t hire every boy that comes in here. You need to prove you can work a tough crowd. I need to see you dance.”
“Right now?”
“You have anything else better to do today?”
Luke shut up, handed Claire a CD for his dancing music, and made his way to the stage.
“Do you have an outfit you want to change into?” Claire asked, waving at his baggy shirt and jeans.
Luke felt blood draining out of his face. How could he be so stupid? He’d practiced dancing in front of the mirror nearly every night, but he somehow had neglected to think about a full stage outfit. Claire sighed in exasperation.
“Luke, you said you were in theater, right? How the hell are you passing your classes?”
“I’m in set construction!” Luke protested, trying not to let himself get choked with disappointment.
For some reason, that made Claire go silent and look very thoughtful.
“Ok, ok, just kick off your shoes and show me what you can do,” Claire offered.
“Shoes?” Luke repeated, confused.
Claire closed her eyes and seemed to count to ten. “Sweetie, girls can look sexy dancing around in high heels and a thong. A man dancing around in sneakers and a g-string looks ridiculous. You either wear slip-ons and no socks, or nothing on stage, ok?”
With a tight smile, Claire put Luke’s music into the stereo and turned it up. Luke quickly kicked off his shoes and leapt to the stage, turning and grinding as he undid the buttons on his shirt. There were mirrors everywhere, not just on one wall, but all along the back wall of the stage, and behind Claire as well. Everywhere Luke turned, he was confronted with himself. It was disconcerting, and Luke kept stumbling over parts of his routine.
His overshirt came off with minimum problems, and stripping off his t-shirt went ok too. He tried to display what he had to his best advantage. Luke knew he was nowhere Mohinder or Gabriel’s league, but he wasn’t a weakling either. Lugging around all the timber, paint, and tools for set construction for the past two years hadn’t all been for naught. But when he went to slowly unbuckle and peel off his jeans, the denim seemed to fight him, and Luke actually tripped, crashing to the stage.
Mortified, Luke glanced up, expecting Claire to yell at him to leave. But instead she just clenched her teeth shut and waved at him to continue. Striving to control his blushes, Luke struggled out of his pants and caught up to his routine, trying to arch and display himself for the crowd. He’d actually remembered to buy a g-string for this, and Luke thought the black satin looked pretty good, even if he didn’t. Remembering Claire’s instructions to maintain eye contact, he looked up at her and smiled, even if he felt like an idiot.
He managed to strike his final pose without falling off the stage, and could feel himself blushing to the roots of his hair as he rapidly gathered up his clothes.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, eyes fixed to the floor as he tried to find his socks. “I know I screwed up. I’ll just go.”
“Hey, don’t leave yet,” a new voice said. It was low, masculine, and amused, and Luke snapped his head up to meet Gabriel’s dark eyes. He was wearing a loose, dark blue robe, and was smiling at Luke. Luke straightened up in shock, dropping his clothes, and then blushed hard enough to set his ears buzzing as he felt his body suddenly grow extremely interested in Gabriel.
Luke quickly tried to cover himself with his hands again, having only limited success. The g-string hid almost nothing, and Luke knew he had an embarrassingly large junk. Sure, all men thought they wanted a huge cock, but they didn’t bother to think of the problems it created. Finding pants that fit was difficult, underwear always seemed too tight, and it sometimes scared the hell out of potential partners. No one wanted to choke on him, or be split around him. Luke had had to be satisfied with his hands alone.
Gabriel only smiled a little more, seemingly pleased, and bent down to whisper something in Claire’s ear. She nodded in return.
“Luke, I have to tell you, that routine was-.”
“Lame. Crappy. Horrible. Take your pick,” Luke muttered.
“Amateur,” Claire corrected gently. “Gabriel was watching you from behind one of the mirrors, and he thinks you have potential. So do I.”
“Y-you do?” Luke asked, unbelieving.
“I have a little project I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but I haven’t had the right employee come my way. A little something extra for paying clients in the private room,” she explained. “It’s a little more hardcore than simple stripping. It would be full nudity, with a partner.”
“Live porn?!” Luke almost yelped.
“Not quite. You see, ladies sometimes like seeing hot men make out, like men like watching lesbians kiss,” Claire said. Luke snickered, knowing damn well it was true. He was around divas all day long, and they talked plenty. “So I thought I’d offer that for playing clients. A two-man show, stripping, kissing, making out, possibly fondling, if both employees would be up for it. The pay for that would be a cut above the normal rate, plus tips.”
“She’s been trying to get me to do it for months,” Gabriel said. “But I said I wouldn’t do it without my choice of partner.”
“Y’see, Gabriel has a huge ego,” Claire said, smirking as Gabriel preened at her backhanded flattery. “He’s one of my best earners, and he has earned his right to pick who he wants to work with.”
“Everyone else here had their own style, and I’d hate to try to fight them on-stage, artistically speaking. Mohinder has this acrobatics routine, Peter does this ‘little lost boy’ thing that brings out the mamma in everyone, Alejandro does this salsa dancing, Lyle we keep around for the cougars, West has his trapeze show, and Ando does his muscle-man routine. I’d rather have someone I can train up myself.”
Luke couldn’t believe his ears. “Me?” he squeaked.
“Well, how about we give it a try? I’ll get some of the girls in here to make a little crowd, to make it more real, and then you can give us a show,” Claire said.
Luke’s brain abruptly shut down as Gabriel walked towards him. He barely heard Claire talk into a phone, calling in Monica, Elle, and Maya.
“You ok?” Gabriel asked, tilting Luke’s chin up. Luke felt an almost physical shock from Gabriel’s touch. He couldn’t do anything more than nod quickly in response. “You ever done anything like this before?” Trembling from looking into Gabriel’s eyes, Luke shook his head. “Do you want to? Honestly? It’s ok if you don’t. Not everyone’s comfortable with this.”
“I don’t know even what we’re gonna be doing,” Luke whispered.
Gabriel gently brushed Luke’s hair out of his eyes. “I’d be leading. You’d just have to do what I do. We have to make this as real as we can, so I want this to feel good to you. I want you to like it.” Luke felt his heart start to pound as Gabriel leaned into talk directly into his ear. “I’m going to touch you, make you feel me. I want you to kiss me like you want me, put your hands on me. Then I’m going to stroke that fucking beautiful cock of yours until you come for me. That’s what we’re gonna be doing. Are you up for it?”
Luke’s mouth opened and closed a few times in shock, and then he felt himself nodding. Gabriel was everything he’d ever envisioned in a partner, and Luke would not pass up an opportunity like this, even if it were essentially a sham.
“Damn, did they start without us? No fair!” Elle announced as she entered, trailed by Monica and another girl with long, dark hair that had to be Maya.
“Angel, we’re just beginning,” Gabriel promised, and nodded to Claire. She started some different music, slower and more sensual, as Gabriel led Luke to the stage.
“Don’t look at them,” Gabriel murmured as he put Luke’s hands on the sash to his robe. “Normally you’re supposed to look at the crowd. Don’t. Look at me.”
Luke didn’t think that was going to be a problem. He didn’t think he could take his eyes off of Gabriel. Under his direction, Luke slowly pulled the sash free on Gabriel’s robe and slid it off his body. He smiled at Luke’s stunned expression, and ran one hand up Luke’s thinner chest, skimming over a nipple. Gasping, forgetting about the audience, the mirrors, the music, everything, Luke leaned in to run his face over the dark hair on Gabriel’s chest, sliding his fingers through it, lost in a mental fantasy.
Gabriel’s hands delved through Luke’s hair, encouraging him with sensuous-sounding moans. Finally he tugged Luke up and kissed him, warm lips teasing and wet tongue probing into Luke’s mouth. Luke gave himself up to it, knees feeling like jelly as Gabriel swirled his tongue around Luke’s and began to suck gently. Gabriel held Luke up when his knees went out entirely, strong arms circling his shoulders in a protective cradle.
Luke felt himself grow harder even as his body collapsed, and didn’t fight when Gabriel pulled away from Luke’s mouth and turned him around in his grasp, pulling him tight against his body. Luke could feel Gabriel’s arousal against his ass and gasped. It wasn’t just the feel of that hard shaft thrusting against him, but the knowledge that Gabriel had been turned on by Luke that made him shiver.
Lolling in Gabriel’s grasp, Luke reached back to caress every part of Gabriel he could reach as Gabriel fastened his lips on Luke’s neck, making him moan. When Gabriel’s hand began to slide down Luke’s thigh to untie his g-string, Luke’s moans became more urgent. When the black satin fell away, Luke heard feminine gasps and faint applause in front of him, and abruptly remembered he was on display.
Gabriel suddenly slapped a hand over Luke’s eyes and whispered in his ear. “You’re gorgeous to me. Beautiful. I want to feel you. I want to see you let go. Let me free, come on…”
Dredging up his courage, Luke slid a hand back and ran it down Gabriel’s thigh until he found the slender string that was holding Gabriel back from full contact with Luke. A horrible thought crossed his mind just as he was about to pull it free, and he froze.
Gabriel seemed to understand instantly. “I’m clean, I swear.”
“Me too,” Luke whispered, relieved, and decisively pulled the string. When the red satin was pulled free, Luke moaned loudly in both arousal and relief. He’d wanted something like this for so long…
The moan turned into a gasp as Gabriel closed a hand around Luke’s cock, and murmured in appreciation as he began to stroke. “This is so nice. Yeah, just like that, long enough for me to do this-.” Luke gave a surprised yelp as Gabriel gave a little twist with his wrist near the top, adding a bright spike of pleasure that made Luke buck into his grasp. Gabriel’s hips followed Luke’s every move, and Luke’s eyes started to roll back into his head as he felt wetness from Gabriel’s hard cock dripping into crack of his ass.
Luke started to lose control, getting embarrassingly vocal as Gabriel pushed him higher and higher.
“Oh, Gabriel, please, Gabriel, please, Gabriel, Gabriel!”
“So pretty, Luke. So pretty. Come for me, so close, come on!” Gabriel commanded. Luke keened as he felt Gabriel suddenly let go, hot spunk hitting his skin, and came, fountaining over Gabriel’s hand.
In front of them came thunderous applause and cheers. Gabriel lifted his hand from Luke’s eyes to see the four women on their feet, clapping enthusiastically. Oddly, Luke didn’t feel too embarrassed, not with Gabriel still holding him up.
“Holy fuck,” Elle said, as the applause died down. “I’ll be in my bunk ladies. Catch you later!”
Elle dashed out of the room as Maya, Monica, and Claire wiped the sweat off their brows.
“Damn,” Claire said, staring at Gabriel. “Never knew you had that in you Gabe.”
“Me neither,” Gabriel said, sounding surprised. He dropped a soft kiss on Luke’s neck, and Luke turned to catch his mouth shyly. “I haven’t lost control like that in years. You’re special.”
“I’m not-,” Luke almost automatically protested.
“You are,” Gabriel said firmly. “Believe me. I want you. I am not doing this thing again without you.”
“Seriously?” Luke asked, eyes wide.
“Gabriel is always serious,” Claire said. “But he does like to beat around the bush. Luke, do you want to work for us? You’d be exclusively with Gabriel; he doesn’t like to share. If you think you can stand doing this a few nights a week.”
“Hell yes!” Luke said, the words coming out before he could stop himself. Cringing a bit, he looked back at Gabriel, who pulled him into a hard embrace, smiling widely enough to erase all of his fears.
“Trust me. I think you and I are going to go a long way together,” Gabriel promised, and Luke smiled.
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There's a sequel: Very Private Show
And another story in the same AU: Nathan Petrelli, Sex Machine