Testosterone Boys and Harlequin Girls - 8
Title - Testosterone Boys and Harlequin Girls
Author - consistant
Rating - NC17
Pairing - Frank/Mikey (and other random pairings)
Status - Chapter 8
Summary - A twisted Moulin Rouge, a Glitterati crowd and a whore on a swing.
POV - 3rd person
Disclaimer - Don't own, don't know, don't sue. This is completely and totality fictional.
Author's Note - I know how to spell Michael, don't worry i'm not that stupid! Michel is Mikey's stage name, NOT Michael.
Chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
_________________________________________________________________
Testosterone Boys and Harlequin Girls - Chapter Eight
Adam circles his eyes around the room, taking in its grandeur and impressive size. Like the corridor outside it is dimly lit and Victorian, the original William Morris wall paper pealing away slightly from the high walls. Wooden panels run up one side of the room, a door artfully concealed along it. Adam makes a mental note to investigate that secret passage later, before moving his intrusive gaze onwards to the little French dressing table in the corner and the rest of the European styled décor. The floor beneath his feet is laid with richly embroidered carpeting, the pattern portraying faded flower arrangements and other nature inspired decorations. Gas lamps burn dully on each wall, their semicircles of light barely reaching into each shadowy corner. The four poster bed is a deluxe double (as Adam expected) and the sheets are made of fine material befitting their surroundings, hand stitched with pretty and colourful designs.
However Adam isn’t overly concerned about the state of the bed itself, and instead devotes all his attention to the person sitting on it.
Away from the wildly dancing lights of the hall below, Sale Jésus looks just as normal as any other recovering junkie. He’s pale, skeletal and dark circles lay beneath his eyes. Just as you’d expect from a person with such a turbulent and disrupted background. He’s surprisingly petite up close, Adam notes, and his complexion (though a little rough and gagged in places) is pleasing to the eye, as is the rest of his ravaged body. Matt must not have told our young charge about Adam’s plans, for upon his pale face is an expression of utmost confusion. His baby blue eyes are very big and very bright, his pink lips pursed in a worrisome fashion. His long fingered hands are gripping the edge of the mattress he’s perched upon and the way he’s arching in on himself suggests a pang of fear and also a suggestion of acceptance. His long matted hair is hanging in his face, but Adam doesn’t feel the need to ask him to brush it aside. He rather likes this alleyway reject, just the way he is.
“You must be Sale Jésus,” Adam says, feigning an oily politeness as he strides forward to stand before his unsuspecting victim. The boy looks up at him, unfazed and expectant. “My name is Adam Lazzara, lovely to make your acquaintance.” Adam smiles a pointed, toothy grin and extends a hand to Sale Jésus, who at first looks at it blankly, before taking it silently barely meeting Adam’s gloating eyes.
“Pleasure to meet you…” The boy says quietly, his voice sounding small and insufficient.
“No, no, the pleasure is mine.” Adam says darkly, not letting go of the boy’s hand but lifting it instead to his lips, brushing the soft skin delicately with a closed mouth kiss.
The boy blinks up at Adam for a second, then looks at their joined hands, his expression oddly empty and void. He cocks his tousled head to one side, rumpling his nose as though in thought then he takes in a slight breath that sounds loud in the sudden silence.
“Sir,” he says just as quietly as before. “Why are you here?”
The question is innocent as well as completely ignorant and causes Adam’s lip to curl with satisfaction. He likes them this way, totally helpless and unknowing of their fate. Adam looks at his victim contemplatively, rubbing his trigger worn thumb over the boy’s hand, then he dips down quickly and plants a soft kiss upon the boy’s forehead. Sale Jésus’s eyes glaze over with understanding.
“I think you already know the answer to that.” Adam says, gazing into those emotionally scarred blue eyes with a sick sort of malice.
The boy nods, his body trembling ever so gently under Adam’s scrutiny.
“Yes,” he says, taking his hand away from Adam’s and placing it once again at his side. “I think I know.”
Adam sighs contentedly, shrugging off his suit jacket and folding it over the back of one of the antique chairs. He sees Sale Jésus’s eyes stray momentarily to the gun strapped to his side, but the boy's expression of blank dullness never wavers. Adam loosens his tie, undoing the top button on his collar with a grunt of relief. This thing is too damn tight.
“Sir,” the boy says yet again, peering up at Adam questioningly.
“Yes?” Adam asks as he unclips his golden cufflinks and rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt.
“I want to know…” the boy mumbles, a note of anxiousness in his voice now. “ I want to know if you’re going to…going to…”
“Going to what?” Adam snaps testily, annoyed slightly by the boy’s blatant shyness.
The boy takes in a slow, rattling breath, then bows his head, his face hidden by his hair. Adam barely catches his next words.
“…hurt me…”
Adam considers this for a second, stuffing one hand in his pocket while the other strokes his stubble prone chin. Well, there’s a question and no mistake. The boy seems submissive enough, there’s no real cause for violence at this stage in the game, and yet…
He looks sharply at the huddled figure sitting before him, and comes irrevocably to his decision.
“Yes.”
The boy flinches as though the promised pain has already begun. Adam smiles, loving this cruel torture.
“That is…” he continues slyly, catching the boy’s attention and making him look up hopefully. Adam’s smile turns catlike and cunning. “Unless you do exactly what I tell you to do, and do it without arguments.”
The boy’s face falls and suddenly that blankness is replaced by a great wash of sorrow. He knows now that this man, this stranger, will show no mercy. And it’s mercy he depends upon.
“Oh Sale Jésus,” Adam says silkily, reaching out and placing a long finger beneath his victim’s chin, tipping the boy’s face up so that they’re looking into each other’s eyes. Terror meets triumph and all hope of escape is lost. “Don’t be scared.” Adam continues, his face contorted with something beyond evil. It’s diabolic.
“Please Sir,” the boy murmurs, shivering a little as Adam’s fingers sweep across his flushing cheek. “Don’t call me that.”
“Alright,” Adam agrees, deciding the name is a mouth full anyway. “What would you like me to call you?”
“By my real name, if it pleases you.” The boy says, a flicker of anxiousness flitting over his features.
“Bert?”
The boy nods pleadingly. Adam considers this, then nods back, shrugging.
“Okay, it makes no difference to me.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Adam continues to stroke Bert’s cheek, letting his nails drag over the sensitive skin so that they leave pink scratch marks behind. Bert doesn’t even flinch. His body language suggests a strong sense of apathy, yet within his head he’s screaming desperately in protest and longing for release. It has always been this way. He has always been silenced.
I think now would be a good time to look back a little. Bert is a naturally quiet lad, out of place and a total misfit in the real world and no one but Gerard knows why. Bert doesn’t like to share too much about his past, and we can’t exactly blame him. It’s a past of turbulence, mistrust and self-hatred. Have you ever wondered what would happen to a person if they just stopped talking? How would that feel? An overwhelming feeling of suppression no doubt, a weight upon already heavy shoulders.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Bert didn’t utter a single syllable. There was a time when he wouldn’t even move for days, so strong was his dependence upon lethargy. There was a time when he was close to dying on the streets of this dirty little city, and only one person pulled him back…
Since the very day of his birth Bert McCracken has been living like a mute, a person without a voice of their own to shout or laugh or scream with. As a child his parents didn’t listen, didn’t bother to ask why he came home from school with bruises on his body and bite marks on his neck. They didn’t know Bert’s gym teacher abused him in the boy’s locker rooms. No one did. Bert never told anyone, and never has. There seemed no point in trying to change what was bound to happen.
When people pushed him over in the playground, he’d stay quiet and pick himself back up without a word. He’d limp to the nurse’s office, let her clean him up with stinging iodine but he wouldn’t cry out or complain. He saw no need. It wouldn’t change anything.
If the other kids laughed at his second hand clothes and long, unkempt hair, he wouldn’t answer back, choosing to ignore the ridicule and just get on with life. Shouting back wouldn’t make them stop. Screaming at them wouldn’t make a difference. Some days he’d talk, but people didn’t listen, so gradually his voice faded away into his memory and he forgot how to use it. Like he needed to anyway.
And so he passed through teenage life without speaking a single word, never asking out the people he liked or explaining to those around him why he kept turning up to school late, why his clothes looked different to everyone else’s, why he wrote poems in class instead of copying from the text book. And no one noticed. No one cared. It was as though he didn’t exist; like his seat in homeroom looked empty to others, even though he could feel himself sitting in it.
In the light of all this, he started to abuse his body with pills and needles, stuffing his nose with substance to block out the emptiness inside, the place where his voice used to be. He spent every cent his parents gave him on new drugs, new injections, and of course, new sanity. And they never suspected a thing. They didn’t ask why his arms were riddled with holes, or why his skin stretched over his bones like netting. They didn’t pay attention to his ashen grey features, his broken body, or his quietly locked bedroom door. Sometimes he felt like he wasn’t even their son.
When he finally ran away from home one rainy February evening, they didn’t wonder why he wasn’t at the dinner table, or why his bed was unmade and his satchel missing from the bottom of the staircase. Bert was dead to them already, and had been since day one. Mommy and Daddy had had an accident on Prom Night. Bert wasn’t meant to be there at all.
Living on the streets nearly killed the boy. He had to steal money to feed his ever-growing drug addiction, and robbed what food he needed from the local grocery store. But sometimes even that wasn’t enough, and he was reduced to selling his body on the freeway. He slept on an old mattress in a dank alleyway behind a tacky beauty salon. People didn’t see him lying there, or if they did they might have just thought, He’s probably dead already. In some respects they were right, but in others they were grievously wrong. Bert’s body might have been battered and broken, but his mind was forever ticking with thought. Everything his mouth refused to say, his brain repeated. Everything his body wouldn’t do, his brain enacted.
In all undeniable truth, Bert McCracken was living in his head.
Then one day, oh, about a year ago now, Bert was shaken awake by a shadowy figure. Their touch was soft and their voice reassuring, a stark and friendly contrast to just about everything else. In spite of this however, Bert struggled away from the stranger and huddled himself against a dumpster, staring intently at the person kneeling before him. He was older than Bert, and handsomer by fair, his pale complexion and inky black hair looking oddly ethereal under the light of the crescent moon. His gleaming hazel eyes were full of a gentleness Bert found both endearing and unfamiliar to the extreme. He was dressed in a sharp, modern way, like a business man but cooler, and Bert wondered madly what this important looking person could possibly want from scum like him.
“Are you okay?” the man asked, his voice effeminate and kind to the point of overbearing.
Bert was stunned. Someone was talking to him. Someone was talking to him. And not only that, they were enquiring after his welfare. Such a thing had never happened before. In that moment, Bert had wanted more than anything to speak, to explain, to confess to everything. But when he opened his mouth, he couldn’t. He tried again, but nothing happened. His voice was lost. He’d locked it away for so long that he had completely forgotten how to use the thing.
Frustrated with himself, Bert shook his head frantically from side to side, gazing imploringly at the stranger with his wide, baby blue eyes.
“You look half starved,” the man had said, looking at him with a great deal of concern etched across that beautiful face. “Would you like me to buy you something to eat?”
Again Bert tried to say something, anything, but no, it wouldn’t happen. He couldn’t speak. So instead he nodded wearily, tears pricking behind his eyes as the man reached out and stroked his cheek affectionately, his expression curious.
“Why are you here?” he asked, “Such a pretty boy like you should be at home with their loved ones, not sitting in some God forsaken alley.”
Bert closed his eyes and sunk his head on his knees, thinking about how true this simple statement was. But he’d never had a home, not really, so he couldn’t have gone back to it even if he’d wanted to. The stranger sighed and stood up, looking down at his new companion with poignant pity.
“You don’t talk much do you?” he said, and Bert shook his head. “Oh well,” the man shrugged. “I guess that’ll improve with time.”
Bert wanted to laugh. If only he knew.
“Come on young man,” the stranger said, extending a hand to Bert who took it gingerly, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. His legs felt wobbly and weak from lack of food and drug use. Sensing this the stranger allowed the delinquent teenager to rest against his side and drape an arm about his well-dressed shoulders. “My name is Gerard,” he said cheerfully as he walked the pair of them out into the city streets, “I’d ask for your name, but you can’t give it to me so I won’t bother.” He smiled at Bert who smiled back awkwardly, sagging against his companion's middle with sudden fatigue.
The next few hours were the most memorable of Bert’s entire life. Gerard took him to a diner downtown and ordered practically everything on the menu, allowing Bert free rain to eat, drink and swallow whatever his miserable heart desired. Heaven couldn't have tasted better.
But still he couldn't talk, couldn't muster the memories of speech to thank this mysterious benefactor for all the kindness he was showing him. However it seemed Gerard already knew everything Bert longed to say. He watched the street urchin over the rim of his coffee cup, his eyes skimming across his companion's pallid complexion and dark sunken features, his gaze lingering on the small injection holes in the teenager's arms.
“You've been on the streets for a long time, haven't you?” he asked after a while.
Bert pushed his side salad around the dinner plate and nodded, not looking up from his food, too ashamed to even try and answer. Gerard made a sympathetic noise and set the now empty coffee cup back in its saucer, crossing his legs under the table as he watched Bert shift with discomfort.
“But you're so young.” Gerard went on, “It surprises me that you'd want to run away from home at this unruly age. You did run away I presume?”
Bert nodded again, biting down on his bottom lip, his blood pounding loudly in his ears. How he craved to speak now, to shout at Gerard, to yell at him, to scream about everything that had forced him to leave his parents. He wanted ardently for Gerard to simply understand how bad it had really been, how lonely he'd felt, how everyday was like a never ending torment of neglect.
“Can you write?” Gerard asked suddenly, an eyebrow raised suggestively.
Bert nodded slowly, frowning as Gerard fished a Biro from his jacket pocket and passed it to him, closely followed by the dinner menu. Bert gazed at the pen, holding it tightly in a curled fist, then he looked up at Gerard who smiled encouragingly.
“If you can't talk, write.” Gerard said, refilling his coffee cup and adding a shot of milk as he waited for Bert to catch on.
Write what? Bert thought madly, scowling at the blank side of the menu sitting before him expectantly. What could he possibly want to know?
“Your name would be good.” Gerard interjected helpfully.
Nodding yet again Bert scrawled his full name across the menu, underlining it with a flourish. When he looked back up at Gerard he found himself grinning, happiness spreading through him as he thrust the menu towards his doting companion.
“Bert McCracken?” Gerard read slowing, “What a wonderful name!” he exclaimed.
Bert beamed.
Over the course of the next hour they sat head to head at the tiny table, swapping the menu back and forth between them. Gerard asked what felt like enumerable questions and Bert, still grinning like a lunatic, dashed out his answers with the Biro. And as the questions grew fewer he found his shoulders baring less weight, his problems dissolving away as Gerard learned of his turbulent past, his drug addiction, his descent into silence, his all round miserable state of affairs.
“So you have nowhere to go?” Gerard asked sometime later, reclining back in his chair and watching Bert intently.
Bert nodded, glancing around the diner in the hopes that his new friend would drop the subject and move onto something else. He didn't wanna be a burden to anybody...
“And no one really knows you're here?” Gerard continued unabashed, an eyebrow slightly raised as Bert shook his head, biting his bottom lip. Habit.
There was a pause of maybe three seconds before Gerard spoke again and they were the awkwardest three seconds of Bert McCracken's life.
“Live with me.”
Bert's eyes widened and he shook his head frantically from side to side, starting to silently panic, his hands gripping themselves obsessively under the table. Gerard waited for him to calm down, his brow creased and his eyes dazzling with amusement. He took a sip of his lukewarm coffee, grimacing in distaste before beginning again.
“And when I say that I don't mean the domestic approach,” he said airily, as though this was the most normal conversation in the world. “I have a club,” he went on, warming to his theme. “A rather successful club as it happens, but I'm short on staff.”
Bert stared at Gerard blankly, his head inclined to the side so that his filthy hair hung down to partially obscure his eyes. Gerard couldn't help but smile. Cute.
“And when I say staff, I mean strippers.” he grinned, “And when I say strippers, I mean prostitutes.”
Bert sat there, dumbfounded, simply gazing at Gerard in a world of his own; a world of infinite possibility. Gerard gazed back, his expression impassive. He'd made this offer to many a young lad in his time. He knew how to play it. Though within he was congratulating himself heartily - he knew he'd already won the kid over.
“You'll take up residence in the establishment, earning your keep in whatever way you can, and you'll do as you're told. You'll pander to the needs of the clients, bending to their every whim if needs be, and you won't sell yourself cheap. I won't allow it. You'll obey, but you won't be a captive. You'll be treated like an equal. I'll keep you safe and I promise you a good living. As long as you maintain your end of the deal I'll stick to mine and make sure you're healthy, happy and receive the perks of the job such as drugs, alcohol and a steady supply of sex whenever your pretty little teenage heart desires it.”
Bert can't quite remember agreeing to the terms and conditions of selling his body to the night - all he remembers is the taxi drive to the 'establishment' when Gerard pressed him into the cheap leather seats and crawled on top of him, his lips eager and soft as they ran persistently over the boy's quivering mouth. They didn't settle, not even when Gerard slipped him the tongue. Bert recalls clawing desperately at the window and leaving smeary streaks across the misty glass as Gerard's mouth busied itself at his neck, one hand creeping down the front of his worse for wear jeans to cup and stroke him through his boxershorts. He can still see the top of Gerard's tousled head as it bobbed up and down over his erection, teeth grazing and tongue curled - the best fucking blow job of his life, just another perk of the trade. But what he really remembers is his shriek of 'HOLY FUCK!' as he reached his climax just as the taxi pulled up in front of the club - the first words Gerard ever heard him say, the first words Bert can ever remember saying. If only they'd been a little more eloquent.
“You'll do just fine.” Gerard had said slyly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he gazed hungrily at the panting teenage dirt bag beneath him. “But you gotta show me your skills now. Don't wanna be rude do you?”
And then the devilish entrepreneur was sitting up with his back resting comfortably against the window of the taxi cab, his legs spread wide to show a definite hard on, one finger beckoning enticingly for Bert to oblige him.
It was the most intense experience of Bert's life, as he crouched awkwardly between his benefactor's legs, his mouth working in a way that'd make his Mormon mother faint. Gerard was swearing and cussing loudly, his fingers tangled in Bert's greasy hair, his bottom lip bitten bloody as his teeth raked the skin over and over...
When L'Elf Noir eventually came he was a panting, moaning mess of sweaty hair and too tight clothes, his hands maintaining a death grip on the back of Bert's neck forcing the adolescent to swallow it all. Which he did, gagging on the bitterness.
Once Gerard had regained his composure and the traumatised taxi driver had stopped berating them and let them leave the cab in peace Bert found himself being held close in front of a tall, grubby looking building with the words Pierre Précieuse scrawled above the entrance in large silver letters. It was raining heavily, the polluted sky emptying itself above their heads as though it were crying. Bert remembers the feeling of filthy water soaking him to the skin, his clothes sticking to him as Gerard wrapped comforting arms around him. He remembers feeling small and childish, clinging to Gerard like a frightened animal as thunder ripped through the clouds. And as they'd stood there, more father and son than hooker and trainee, lips grazed his ear and a breathy voice whispered gently Forget the name Bert McCracken my child, you're Sale Jésus now...
And that my friends is how Bert McCracken came to be here, a caged bird in a den of sin - a sweet food for the evil and a willing body for the fuck. This is why he finds himself in the position he's in now, cowering against the bedpost as a menacing mob boss glares haughtily down at him, a six-shooter pointing squarely between the eyes of this dirty fallen angel.
“I'm a sadistic fuck when I wanna be,” Adam hisses, his eyes demonic as he glares down at his frightened plaything. “So you better do what I say.”
“Yes, of course Sir.” Bert mumbles, rubbing his palms flat across his thighs, trying to lessen the tremors washing like cold ice throughout his entire body. No such luck.
The look Adam throws at him is full of steely contempt.
“Scared?” he asks, his voice as sharp as a razor as it cuts through the air. “Frightened?”
And all Bert can do is nod blandly, not knowing what to do, say or think. But really, how can one react when a sex crazed gunman is about to rape them through and through? It's a difficult thing for any man to accept, least of all this little jaded runaway.
“If you have any mercy in you you'll do it now...for the love of God please...” Bert murmurs, letting his eyes fall shut as his captor strokes his cheek with the very tips of his fingers. “Let it be over...Sir I beg of you...”
“Begging is for children,” Adam whispers coldly, glaring. “Are you a child?”
“Sometimes I think I might be...” Bert says, shooting a furtive glance to the gun at Adam's side. “Sometimes being vulnerable and alone makes me feel so childish I just wanna scream. Like now...”
“The only screaming you'll be doing is when I have you on your back.” Adam snaps, eyes glinting like twin fires. “So don't say I didn't warn you.”
“Oh I won't...” Bert bites his lip and frowns. “How could I ever be so brazen as to defy you, Sir? I'm just a rent boy, nothing more.”
“You've got so much fucking tongue in cheek.” Adam snarls, reaching out to grab a fist full of Bert's hair, yanking the poor boy to his feet. Bert can't help but cry out as he feels strands of greasy hair part ways with his scalp. It feels like his head is aflame - searing with agony.
“I'm sorry!” he gasps, staring wide eyed at Adam who stares back manically, his eyes ablaze with tyrannical fire.
His breath catches in his throat as Adam leans in threatening, his face a mere inch from Bert's own. The stench of cocaine and whisky burns beneath Bert's nose as Adam begins to talk slowly and calmly, his fingers tugging harshly on Bert's hair all the while.
“When I let go of you I'm gonna take off my pants, flip you around and fuck you so hard against that bedpost you won't be walking for weeks.” he pauses to smile in a disturbingly sweet way, his teeth too many and his lips too wide. “And you, my sainted little saviour, are gonna like it. You're gonna moan and groan and ask me for more. You're gonna yell my name at the top of your voice as I slam into you again and again - and when I'm through I'll put this gun to your head and if you're lucky you'll see tomorrow. If you displease me however...tonight will be your last. Got it?”
And he does get it. He gets it as he's thrown flat on his stomach, the edge of the bed digging into his gut. He gets it as Adam swears and cusses and slaps the poor boy's backside. He gets it as he's beaten to the ground and violated to the point he can barely see straight, so much is the pain of having Adam inside him. But he gets it most of all when Adam let's loose all hell and brings the gun down to collide with the side of his crown, cracking the bone and letting the blood flow down...
-
I apologise for the lateness of this chapter, and for it only being based on one character but i can explain! The lateness is because of - school work, no time, lack of inspiration. And for it being focused on Bert, well, i needed to let you all know Bert and Gerard's history because it comes into play later on when Gerard finds out about Adam's crime...
Author - consistant
Rating - NC17
Pairing - Frank/Mikey (and other random pairings)
Status - Chapter 8
Summary - A twisted Moulin Rouge, a Glitterati crowd and a whore on a swing.
POV - 3rd person
Disclaimer - Don't own, don't know, don't sue. This is completely and totality fictional.
Author's Note - I know how to spell Michael, don't worry i'm not that stupid! Michel is Mikey's stage name, NOT Michael.
Chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
_________________________________________________________________
Testosterone Boys and Harlequin Girls - Chapter Eight
Adam circles his eyes around the room, taking in its grandeur and impressive size. Like the corridor outside it is dimly lit and Victorian, the original William Morris wall paper pealing away slightly from the high walls. Wooden panels run up one side of the room, a door artfully concealed along it. Adam makes a mental note to investigate that secret passage later, before moving his intrusive gaze onwards to the little French dressing table in the corner and the rest of the European styled décor. The floor beneath his feet is laid with richly embroidered carpeting, the pattern portraying faded flower arrangements and other nature inspired decorations. Gas lamps burn dully on each wall, their semicircles of light barely reaching into each shadowy corner. The four poster bed is a deluxe double (as Adam expected) and the sheets are made of fine material befitting their surroundings, hand stitched with pretty and colourful designs.
However Adam isn’t overly concerned about the state of the bed itself, and instead devotes all his attention to the person sitting on it.
Away from the wildly dancing lights of the hall below, Sale Jésus looks just as normal as any other recovering junkie. He’s pale, skeletal and dark circles lay beneath his eyes. Just as you’d expect from a person with such a turbulent and disrupted background. He’s surprisingly petite up close, Adam notes, and his complexion (though a little rough and gagged in places) is pleasing to the eye, as is the rest of his ravaged body. Matt must not have told our young charge about Adam’s plans, for upon his pale face is an expression of utmost confusion. His baby blue eyes are very big and very bright, his pink lips pursed in a worrisome fashion. His long fingered hands are gripping the edge of the mattress he’s perched upon and the way he’s arching in on himself suggests a pang of fear and also a suggestion of acceptance. His long matted hair is hanging in his face, but Adam doesn’t feel the need to ask him to brush it aside. He rather likes this alleyway reject, just the way he is.
“You must be Sale Jésus,” Adam says, feigning an oily politeness as he strides forward to stand before his unsuspecting victim. The boy looks up at him, unfazed and expectant. “My name is Adam Lazzara, lovely to make your acquaintance.” Adam smiles a pointed, toothy grin and extends a hand to Sale Jésus, who at first looks at it blankly, before taking it silently barely meeting Adam’s gloating eyes.
“Pleasure to meet you…” The boy says quietly, his voice sounding small and insufficient.
“No, no, the pleasure is mine.” Adam says darkly, not letting go of the boy’s hand but lifting it instead to his lips, brushing the soft skin delicately with a closed mouth kiss.
The boy blinks up at Adam for a second, then looks at their joined hands, his expression oddly empty and void. He cocks his tousled head to one side, rumpling his nose as though in thought then he takes in a slight breath that sounds loud in the sudden silence.
“Sir,” he says just as quietly as before. “Why are you here?”
The question is innocent as well as completely ignorant and causes Adam’s lip to curl with satisfaction. He likes them this way, totally helpless and unknowing of their fate. Adam looks at his victim contemplatively, rubbing his trigger worn thumb over the boy’s hand, then he dips down quickly and plants a soft kiss upon the boy’s forehead. Sale Jésus’s eyes glaze over with understanding.
“I think you already know the answer to that.” Adam says, gazing into those emotionally scarred blue eyes with a sick sort of malice.
The boy nods, his body trembling ever so gently under Adam’s scrutiny.
“Yes,” he says, taking his hand away from Adam’s and placing it once again at his side. “I think I know.”
Adam sighs contentedly, shrugging off his suit jacket and folding it over the back of one of the antique chairs. He sees Sale Jésus’s eyes stray momentarily to the gun strapped to his side, but the boy's expression of blank dullness never wavers. Adam loosens his tie, undoing the top button on his collar with a grunt of relief. This thing is too damn tight.
“Sir,” the boy says yet again, peering up at Adam questioningly.
“Yes?” Adam asks as he unclips his golden cufflinks and rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt.
“I want to know…” the boy mumbles, a note of anxiousness in his voice now. “ I want to know if you’re going to…going to…”
“Going to what?” Adam snaps testily, annoyed slightly by the boy’s blatant shyness.
The boy takes in a slow, rattling breath, then bows his head, his face hidden by his hair. Adam barely catches his next words.
“…hurt me…”
Adam considers this for a second, stuffing one hand in his pocket while the other strokes his stubble prone chin. Well, there’s a question and no mistake. The boy seems submissive enough, there’s no real cause for violence at this stage in the game, and yet…
He looks sharply at the huddled figure sitting before him, and comes irrevocably to his decision.
“Yes.”
The boy flinches as though the promised pain has already begun. Adam smiles, loving this cruel torture.
“That is…” he continues slyly, catching the boy’s attention and making him look up hopefully. Adam’s smile turns catlike and cunning. “Unless you do exactly what I tell you to do, and do it without arguments.”
The boy’s face falls and suddenly that blankness is replaced by a great wash of sorrow. He knows now that this man, this stranger, will show no mercy. And it’s mercy he depends upon.
“Oh Sale Jésus,” Adam says silkily, reaching out and placing a long finger beneath his victim’s chin, tipping the boy’s face up so that they’re looking into each other’s eyes. Terror meets triumph and all hope of escape is lost. “Don’t be scared.” Adam continues, his face contorted with something beyond evil. It’s diabolic.
“Please Sir,” the boy murmurs, shivering a little as Adam’s fingers sweep across his flushing cheek. “Don’t call me that.”
“Alright,” Adam agrees, deciding the name is a mouth full anyway. “What would you like me to call you?”
“By my real name, if it pleases you.” The boy says, a flicker of anxiousness flitting over his features.
“Bert?”
The boy nods pleadingly. Adam considers this, then nods back, shrugging.
“Okay, it makes no difference to me.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Adam continues to stroke Bert’s cheek, letting his nails drag over the sensitive skin so that they leave pink scratch marks behind. Bert doesn’t even flinch. His body language suggests a strong sense of apathy, yet within his head he’s screaming desperately in protest and longing for release. It has always been this way. He has always been silenced.
I think now would be a good time to look back a little. Bert is a naturally quiet lad, out of place and a total misfit in the real world and no one but Gerard knows why. Bert doesn’t like to share too much about his past, and we can’t exactly blame him. It’s a past of turbulence, mistrust and self-hatred. Have you ever wondered what would happen to a person if they just stopped talking? How would that feel? An overwhelming feeling of suppression no doubt, a weight upon already heavy shoulders.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Bert didn’t utter a single syllable. There was a time when he wouldn’t even move for days, so strong was his dependence upon lethargy. There was a time when he was close to dying on the streets of this dirty little city, and only one person pulled him back…
Since the very day of his birth Bert McCracken has been living like a mute, a person without a voice of their own to shout or laugh or scream with. As a child his parents didn’t listen, didn’t bother to ask why he came home from school with bruises on his body and bite marks on his neck. They didn’t know Bert’s gym teacher abused him in the boy’s locker rooms. No one did. Bert never told anyone, and never has. There seemed no point in trying to change what was bound to happen.
When people pushed him over in the playground, he’d stay quiet and pick himself back up without a word. He’d limp to the nurse’s office, let her clean him up with stinging iodine but he wouldn’t cry out or complain. He saw no need. It wouldn’t change anything.
If the other kids laughed at his second hand clothes and long, unkempt hair, he wouldn’t answer back, choosing to ignore the ridicule and just get on with life. Shouting back wouldn’t make them stop. Screaming at them wouldn’t make a difference. Some days he’d talk, but people didn’t listen, so gradually his voice faded away into his memory and he forgot how to use it. Like he needed to anyway.
And so he passed through teenage life without speaking a single word, never asking out the people he liked or explaining to those around him why he kept turning up to school late, why his clothes looked different to everyone else’s, why he wrote poems in class instead of copying from the text book. And no one noticed. No one cared. It was as though he didn’t exist; like his seat in homeroom looked empty to others, even though he could feel himself sitting in it.
In the light of all this, he started to abuse his body with pills and needles, stuffing his nose with substance to block out the emptiness inside, the place where his voice used to be. He spent every cent his parents gave him on new drugs, new injections, and of course, new sanity. And they never suspected a thing. They didn’t ask why his arms were riddled with holes, or why his skin stretched over his bones like netting. They didn’t pay attention to his ashen grey features, his broken body, or his quietly locked bedroom door. Sometimes he felt like he wasn’t even their son.
When he finally ran away from home one rainy February evening, they didn’t wonder why he wasn’t at the dinner table, or why his bed was unmade and his satchel missing from the bottom of the staircase. Bert was dead to them already, and had been since day one. Mommy and Daddy had had an accident on Prom Night. Bert wasn’t meant to be there at all.
Living on the streets nearly killed the boy. He had to steal money to feed his ever-growing drug addiction, and robbed what food he needed from the local grocery store. But sometimes even that wasn’t enough, and he was reduced to selling his body on the freeway. He slept on an old mattress in a dank alleyway behind a tacky beauty salon. People didn’t see him lying there, or if they did they might have just thought, He’s probably dead already. In some respects they were right, but in others they were grievously wrong. Bert’s body might have been battered and broken, but his mind was forever ticking with thought. Everything his mouth refused to say, his brain repeated. Everything his body wouldn’t do, his brain enacted.
In all undeniable truth, Bert McCracken was living in his head.
Then one day, oh, about a year ago now, Bert was shaken awake by a shadowy figure. Their touch was soft and their voice reassuring, a stark and friendly contrast to just about everything else. In spite of this however, Bert struggled away from the stranger and huddled himself against a dumpster, staring intently at the person kneeling before him. He was older than Bert, and handsomer by fair, his pale complexion and inky black hair looking oddly ethereal under the light of the crescent moon. His gleaming hazel eyes were full of a gentleness Bert found both endearing and unfamiliar to the extreme. He was dressed in a sharp, modern way, like a business man but cooler, and Bert wondered madly what this important looking person could possibly want from scum like him.
“Are you okay?” the man asked, his voice effeminate and kind to the point of overbearing.
Bert was stunned. Someone was talking to him. Someone was talking to him. And not only that, they were enquiring after his welfare. Such a thing had never happened before. In that moment, Bert had wanted more than anything to speak, to explain, to confess to everything. But when he opened his mouth, he couldn’t. He tried again, but nothing happened. His voice was lost. He’d locked it away for so long that he had completely forgotten how to use the thing.
Frustrated with himself, Bert shook his head frantically from side to side, gazing imploringly at the stranger with his wide, baby blue eyes.
“You look half starved,” the man had said, looking at him with a great deal of concern etched across that beautiful face. “Would you like me to buy you something to eat?”
Again Bert tried to say something, anything, but no, it wouldn’t happen. He couldn’t speak. So instead he nodded wearily, tears pricking behind his eyes as the man reached out and stroked his cheek affectionately, his expression curious.
“Why are you here?” he asked, “Such a pretty boy like you should be at home with their loved ones, not sitting in some God forsaken alley.”
Bert closed his eyes and sunk his head on his knees, thinking about how true this simple statement was. But he’d never had a home, not really, so he couldn’t have gone back to it even if he’d wanted to. The stranger sighed and stood up, looking down at his new companion with poignant pity.
“You don’t talk much do you?” he said, and Bert shook his head. “Oh well,” the man shrugged. “I guess that’ll improve with time.”
Bert wanted to laugh. If only he knew.
“Come on young man,” the stranger said, extending a hand to Bert who took it gingerly, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. His legs felt wobbly and weak from lack of food and drug use. Sensing this the stranger allowed the delinquent teenager to rest against his side and drape an arm about his well-dressed shoulders. “My name is Gerard,” he said cheerfully as he walked the pair of them out into the city streets, “I’d ask for your name, but you can’t give it to me so I won’t bother.” He smiled at Bert who smiled back awkwardly, sagging against his companion's middle with sudden fatigue.
The next few hours were the most memorable of Bert’s entire life. Gerard took him to a diner downtown and ordered practically everything on the menu, allowing Bert free rain to eat, drink and swallow whatever his miserable heart desired. Heaven couldn't have tasted better.
But still he couldn't talk, couldn't muster the memories of speech to thank this mysterious benefactor for all the kindness he was showing him. However it seemed Gerard already knew everything Bert longed to say. He watched the street urchin over the rim of his coffee cup, his eyes skimming across his companion's pallid complexion and dark sunken features, his gaze lingering on the small injection holes in the teenager's arms.
“You've been on the streets for a long time, haven't you?” he asked after a while.
Bert pushed his side salad around the dinner plate and nodded, not looking up from his food, too ashamed to even try and answer. Gerard made a sympathetic noise and set the now empty coffee cup back in its saucer, crossing his legs under the table as he watched Bert shift with discomfort.
“But you're so young.” Gerard went on, “It surprises me that you'd want to run away from home at this unruly age. You did run away I presume?”
Bert nodded again, biting down on his bottom lip, his blood pounding loudly in his ears. How he craved to speak now, to shout at Gerard, to yell at him, to scream about everything that had forced him to leave his parents. He wanted ardently for Gerard to simply understand how bad it had really been, how lonely he'd felt, how everyday was like a never ending torment of neglect.
“Can you write?” Gerard asked suddenly, an eyebrow raised suggestively.
Bert nodded slowly, frowning as Gerard fished a Biro from his jacket pocket and passed it to him, closely followed by the dinner menu. Bert gazed at the pen, holding it tightly in a curled fist, then he looked up at Gerard who smiled encouragingly.
“If you can't talk, write.” Gerard said, refilling his coffee cup and adding a shot of milk as he waited for Bert to catch on.
Write what? Bert thought madly, scowling at the blank side of the menu sitting before him expectantly. What could he possibly want to know?
“Your name would be good.” Gerard interjected helpfully.
Nodding yet again Bert scrawled his full name across the menu, underlining it with a flourish. When he looked back up at Gerard he found himself grinning, happiness spreading through him as he thrust the menu towards his doting companion.
“Bert McCracken?” Gerard read slowing, “What a wonderful name!” he exclaimed.
Bert beamed.
Over the course of the next hour they sat head to head at the tiny table, swapping the menu back and forth between them. Gerard asked what felt like enumerable questions and Bert, still grinning like a lunatic, dashed out his answers with the Biro. And as the questions grew fewer he found his shoulders baring less weight, his problems dissolving away as Gerard learned of his turbulent past, his drug addiction, his descent into silence, his all round miserable state of affairs.
“So you have nowhere to go?” Gerard asked sometime later, reclining back in his chair and watching Bert intently.
Bert nodded, glancing around the diner in the hopes that his new friend would drop the subject and move onto something else. He didn't wanna be a burden to anybody...
“And no one really knows you're here?” Gerard continued unabashed, an eyebrow slightly raised as Bert shook his head, biting his bottom lip. Habit.
There was a pause of maybe three seconds before Gerard spoke again and they were the awkwardest three seconds of Bert McCracken's life.
“Live with me.”
Bert's eyes widened and he shook his head frantically from side to side, starting to silently panic, his hands gripping themselves obsessively under the table. Gerard waited for him to calm down, his brow creased and his eyes dazzling with amusement. He took a sip of his lukewarm coffee, grimacing in distaste before beginning again.
“And when I say that I don't mean the domestic approach,” he said airily, as though this was the most normal conversation in the world. “I have a club,” he went on, warming to his theme. “A rather successful club as it happens, but I'm short on staff.”
Bert stared at Gerard blankly, his head inclined to the side so that his filthy hair hung down to partially obscure his eyes. Gerard couldn't help but smile. Cute.
“And when I say staff, I mean strippers.” he grinned, “And when I say strippers, I mean prostitutes.”
Bert sat there, dumbfounded, simply gazing at Gerard in a world of his own; a world of infinite possibility. Gerard gazed back, his expression impassive. He'd made this offer to many a young lad in his time. He knew how to play it. Though within he was congratulating himself heartily - he knew he'd already won the kid over.
“You'll take up residence in the establishment, earning your keep in whatever way you can, and you'll do as you're told. You'll pander to the needs of the clients, bending to their every whim if needs be, and you won't sell yourself cheap. I won't allow it. You'll obey, but you won't be a captive. You'll be treated like an equal. I'll keep you safe and I promise you a good living. As long as you maintain your end of the deal I'll stick to mine and make sure you're healthy, happy and receive the perks of the job such as drugs, alcohol and a steady supply of sex whenever your pretty little teenage heart desires it.”
Bert can't quite remember agreeing to the terms and conditions of selling his body to the night - all he remembers is the taxi drive to the 'establishment' when Gerard pressed him into the cheap leather seats and crawled on top of him, his lips eager and soft as they ran persistently over the boy's quivering mouth. They didn't settle, not even when Gerard slipped him the tongue. Bert recalls clawing desperately at the window and leaving smeary streaks across the misty glass as Gerard's mouth busied itself at his neck, one hand creeping down the front of his worse for wear jeans to cup and stroke him through his boxershorts. He can still see the top of Gerard's tousled head as it bobbed up and down over his erection, teeth grazing and tongue curled - the best fucking blow job of his life, just another perk of the trade. But what he really remembers is his shriek of 'HOLY FUCK!' as he reached his climax just as the taxi pulled up in front of the club - the first words Gerard ever heard him say, the first words Bert can ever remember saying. If only they'd been a little more eloquent.
“You'll do just fine.” Gerard had said slyly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he gazed hungrily at the panting teenage dirt bag beneath him. “But you gotta show me your skills now. Don't wanna be rude do you?”
And then the devilish entrepreneur was sitting up with his back resting comfortably against the window of the taxi cab, his legs spread wide to show a definite hard on, one finger beckoning enticingly for Bert to oblige him.
It was the most intense experience of Bert's life, as he crouched awkwardly between his benefactor's legs, his mouth working in a way that'd make his Mormon mother faint. Gerard was swearing and cussing loudly, his fingers tangled in Bert's greasy hair, his bottom lip bitten bloody as his teeth raked the skin over and over...
When L'Elf Noir eventually came he was a panting, moaning mess of sweaty hair and too tight clothes, his hands maintaining a death grip on the back of Bert's neck forcing the adolescent to swallow it all. Which he did, gagging on the bitterness.
Once Gerard had regained his composure and the traumatised taxi driver had stopped berating them and let them leave the cab in peace Bert found himself being held close in front of a tall, grubby looking building with the words Pierre Précieuse scrawled above the entrance in large silver letters. It was raining heavily, the polluted sky emptying itself above their heads as though it were crying. Bert remembers the feeling of filthy water soaking him to the skin, his clothes sticking to him as Gerard wrapped comforting arms around him. He remembers feeling small and childish, clinging to Gerard like a frightened animal as thunder ripped through the clouds. And as they'd stood there, more father and son than hooker and trainee, lips grazed his ear and a breathy voice whispered gently Forget the name Bert McCracken my child, you're Sale Jésus now...
And that my friends is how Bert McCracken came to be here, a caged bird in a den of sin - a sweet food for the evil and a willing body for the fuck. This is why he finds himself in the position he's in now, cowering against the bedpost as a menacing mob boss glares haughtily down at him, a six-shooter pointing squarely between the eyes of this dirty fallen angel.
“I'm a sadistic fuck when I wanna be,” Adam hisses, his eyes demonic as he glares down at his frightened plaything. “So you better do what I say.”
“Yes, of course Sir.” Bert mumbles, rubbing his palms flat across his thighs, trying to lessen the tremors washing like cold ice throughout his entire body. No such luck.
The look Adam throws at him is full of steely contempt.
“Scared?” he asks, his voice as sharp as a razor as it cuts through the air. “Frightened?”
And all Bert can do is nod blandly, not knowing what to do, say or think. But really, how can one react when a sex crazed gunman is about to rape them through and through? It's a difficult thing for any man to accept, least of all this little jaded runaway.
“If you have any mercy in you you'll do it now...for the love of God please...” Bert murmurs, letting his eyes fall shut as his captor strokes his cheek with the very tips of his fingers. “Let it be over...Sir I beg of you...”
“Begging is for children,” Adam whispers coldly, glaring. “Are you a child?”
“Sometimes I think I might be...” Bert says, shooting a furtive glance to the gun at Adam's side. “Sometimes being vulnerable and alone makes me feel so childish I just wanna scream. Like now...”
“The only screaming you'll be doing is when I have you on your back.” Adam snaps, eyes glinting like twin fires. “So don't say I didn't warn you.”
“Oh I won't...” Bert bites his lip and frowns. “How could I ever be so brazen as to defy you, Sir? I'm just a rent boy, nothing more.”
“You've got so much fucking tongue in cheek.” Adam snarls, reaching out to grab a fist full of Bert's hair, yanking the poor boy to his feet. Bert can't help but cry out as he feels strands of greasy hair part ways with his scalp. It feels like his head is aflame - searing with agony.
“I'm sorry!” he gasps, staring wide eyed at Adam who stares back manically, his eyes ablaze with tyrannical fire.
His breath catches in his throat as Adam leans in threatening, his face a mere inch from Bert's own. The stench of cocaine and whisky burns beneath Bert's nose as Adam begins to talk slowly and calmly, his fingers tugging harshly on Bert's hair all the while.
“When I let go of you I'm gonna take off my pants, flip you around and fuck you so hard against that bedpost you won't be walking for weeks.” he pauses to smile in a disturbingly sweet way, his teeth too many and his lips too wide. “And you, my sainted little saviour, are gonna like it. You're gonna moan and groan and ask me for more. You're gonna yell my name at the top of your voice as I slam into you again and again - and when I'm through I'll put this gun to your head and if you're lucky you'll see tomorrow. If you displease me however...tonight will be your last. Got it?”
And he does get it. He gets it as he's thrown flat on his stomach, the edge of the bed digging into his gut. He gets it as Adam swears and cusses and slaps the poor boy's backside. He gets it as he's beaten to the ground and violated to the point he can barely see straight, so much is the pain of having Adam inside him. But he gets it most of all when Adam let's loose all hell and brings the gun down to collide with the side of his crown, cracking the bone and letting the blood flow down...
-
I apologise for the lateness of this chapter, and for it only being based on one character but i can explain! The lateness is because of - school work, no time, lack of inspiration. And for it being focused on Bert, well, i needed to let you all know Bert and Gerard's history because it comes into play later on when Gerard finds out about Adam's crime...