I had a baby! (not personally, I am newly an aunt. AGAIN! :D) Anyhoo, hence my distraction... As soon as I get settled into baby-mode, things around here will return to machine-like normal. (at least the fiction parts.) However, I am really behind on comments/emails and what not... I'll get to it soon! ♥
-Mink
Title: Last Call
Author: Mink
Rating: PG - Gen - Alec & Cindy
Spoilers: General (for all aired episodes)
Disclaimers: DA & characters are owned by their various creators.
Beta: Thank you
Kat!
Summary: Trolling the bustling den of the city's nightclubs didn't exactly guarantee an absence of itchiness the morning after but it was considerably more fun than paying.
Alec was a big fan of being naked with others.
Lots of people called it lots of things:
The Horizontal-Barn Dance. Bumping Uglies. Beast With Two Backs. The term 'pork' certainly never failed to bring a smile to Alec's face. Doctors had a sterile word like 'intercourse' and Priests liked the way 'sin' rolled off the tongue. Some assholes drew pink hearts around it and called it something else entirely.
Making sweet magical love.
With a sigh of disgust, he spit the watered down whiskey he 'd sucked into his straw back into the glass. He was for all for calling a spade a spade but even he had his limits. Growing up reading colossal amounts of literature Alec had often stopped to wonder why that particular mammalian activity inspired so many brow raising metaphors. Until he had gotten down into the proverbial trenches himself he hadn't really understood what all the hype was about.
Crammed next to each other at the packed bar, Cindy was staring over his shoulder towards the dance floor.
“Now that over there could be art.” She said. “Maybe one of them statues. Like an Egyptian Queen.”
Alec gnawed the frayed plastic straw and took a covert look.
While at Manticore, he was kept too calm to be able to grasp the drama. With a few trays of colorful pills a day, they kept 494 chemically castrated and made sure his real worries were focused elsewhere.
“You should go talk to her in an hour.” He eyed the tall woman with the long graceful neck and cheekbones of long gone royalty. “Then she'll be wasted enough that just about anything will seem like a good idea.”
Cindy responded to his smirk with a shrug.
“Did I mention how the ladies love a man that drinks Johnny Walker out a straw?” She asked. “Nothin' says hot like slurpin' if you ask me.”
Alec reconsidered the pretty pink swizzle stick before returning his gaze to the Nubian Goddess busy losing a pool game.
X5-494's official status as virgin had been self-removed less than a year ago.
The event hadn't exactly been in his mission parameters but like most of his introductions to reality, it had arrived out of left field and crashed into him traveling at the speed of sound. Alec couldn't remember the woman's name and even less of the physical details. His mind tended to shed the less important in order to retain all that was necessary. It didn't matter what shade of brown her eyes were anyway, all that had mattered was what she could do.
A life time of bioscience texts prepared an X5 for a lot. However, what he'd learned observing choreographed pornography served him a lot better.
He could still feel the clench of thighs and shaking hands grasping at his shoulders. Crushing him and pushing him away all at the same time. The shiver of another body connected to his own with all that adrenaline fueled desperation. Nothing short of some righteous violence had ever gotten him that kind of ear ringing high before. He'd come so hard and so fast the first time that he had gone momentarily blind. Forget his trusty senses, he hadn't been able to even move.
Alec's shoulders hitched as he laughed softly to himself.
He hated to use a little word like 'stunned' but that pretty much summed up his state of mind after stumbling away from that extraordinary revelation.
“How 'bout that one?” Cindy had directed her radar to the opposite side of Crash towards the stairs. “She keeps lookin' over here like she lost her dog.”
“I tapped that already.” Alec shook the slushy ice that was melting at the bottom of his tumbler. “Thirty-one days ago we hooked up in a cab outside of that restaurant down by-- I can't remember the name of it but you know the joint that serves those omelets with chocolate syrup--”
“Remember our little discussions about having a point during story time--”
“Oh, I told her I'd call her back as soon as I could.” He finished off his drink and flashed Cindy the special smile that always made her cringe. “But then guess what happened?”
She appeared vaguely sympathetic at the dire implications behind such a grave decision. Choosing to cut off a chick willing to spread for a complete stranger in a taxicab was no small feat.
“That bad, huh?”
“Kinda noisy.” His glass was sloppily refilled by the bartender. “Hey, have you ever had a girl start hummin' nursery rhymes while they're--”
“Yer in the clear, sugar,” she sucked on a lemon wedge stuck on her cocktail glass before biting into it. “If thirty-one days don't give a girl a hint than nothin' will.”
Alec nodded absently in agreement.
“Check her out.” Cindy idly sorted through the shifting crowds. “Nice legs.”
He had to admit, the girl had a good eye. You needed one with any serious hobby. Recreational sex had been one of the few things he'd figured out in the world and he embraced any opportunity that presented itself. Within reason of course.
With all things there was a learning curve.
When he had first gotten started he had immediately contracted a traumatizing rash. That crap had made him gun shy for a while before he finally decided caution was for the weak. Handing over an negotiated sum of cash was a lot simpler a procedure, but he quickly figured out there were plenty of other less risky fish in the vaccinated sea. Trolling the bustling den of the city's nightclubs didn't exactly guarantee an absence of itchiness the morning after but it was considerably more fun than paying.
“I think that one over there in the purple halter top might be my second cousin twice removed.” Cindy frowned. “Is that illegal?”
Alec thought of the logistics of the bloodlines and was faintly aroused.
These people were so much more interesting than the staunch professionals that stalked the streets above. The variety of them made Alec eager to talk to each one just to find out their names. It was amusing to find the occasional wealthy kid slumming it for thrills. Some were street trash that had just enough credit on the cards for some fun. Most were lost between a buzz and a crash. Whatever and whoever they were, what they whispered drunkenly into his ear didn't really matter. He was humbled each time by their hapless and immediate trust in him. He felt like a tamed monster every time he was lead by the hand up the stairs into a tidy safe apartment.
They sometimes asked him if he'd like something to drink or eat.
Alec tried not to laugh out loud again.
“That over there?” Cindy wasn't shy about pointing. “Don't let it fool ya, it hasn't even seen sweet sixteen yet.”
He made an appreciative face towards the jail bait just for the disgusted punch he'd get in the arm.
“I bet the boob job standing next to her is of age,” he guessed. “At least her hair dye is a couple years older than I am.”
“The boob job is Lolita's mama.”
Cindy always had the good gossip too.
Before the novelty of his freedom from Manticore had waned, he hadn't thought much about the process of getting laid. Like any trained operative you made your messes far away from your own base of operations. After cultivating a strong dislike for the sight of their smiling faces afterwards he made sure never to stick around. Some of them noticed the bar code on the back of his neck, but most of them never said a word. Alec wasn't sure what he hated more. He'd perfected an excuse that included a promise to return real quick with a pack of smokes.
Shutting the door behind him always felt good.
However, he did enjoy some moments between the fall to the bed and the awkward pull of clothes during the haste to take what he wanted. It comforted him to think of the warm dark when a body lay so fragile and unwitting in his cautious grip. He liked how the weak arms wrapped around him, the soft sighs against his cheek as he was held and touched as if he was just like anyone else. Every one of them forced him to reign in all his clumsy needs, his precision biology held in check over these delicate forms of flesh and bone. Every time he caught himself with an overwhelming urge to protect what lay underneath him; A strange surge of possession over something he could destroy as easily as he could kiss.
Alec swallowed another mouthful of single malt.
“Argh.” Cindy sighed as the midnight crowd started to jostle for the 2-for-1 nickel shots. “I'm so done.”
She stretched as she slid off the barstool, her skirt riding up her thighs in a messy but pleasing sort of way. Alec suddenly didn't want to be here any more than she did but he wasn't ready to call it a night. Studying her tired annoyance carefully, he tried on a hopeful smile with a suggestion that might benefit them both.
“You maybe wanna hit the strip club?”
He watched her consider the easy way to gratification for a few moments before she shouldered her purse. Sweeping her money and cell phone into its glittering confines, she gave him a grin and wet her lips.
“It's a date,” she said. “But remember, I know those girls like the couples and I am very willing to play that unfortunate role for cheaper lap dances, HOWEVER--”
“I know, I know...”
Alec tossed down a few bills to cover the damage and started clearing a path for her towards the exit.
“If anyone asks, I took your last name.”
cross-posted to
jam_pony_fic