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Merlot was in a mood tonight, Troy mused. She scowled as she mixed The Cure’s A Forest with a creepy-frenetic industrial track on vinyl, pumping angsty, weirdly danceable gloom through the club, as Troy mixed his fourth espresso martini in a row. Maybe he was the one in a mood. He longed to serve something, anything else, a less trendy cocktail or even a nice pretentious IPA in a tulip glass. He knew how to pour that shit. Well, he knew how to pour (and craft, and flirt while presenting with a flourish) just about anything, and that was the problem, wasn’t it?
He paused, taken aback at the thought. Did he have a problem? He had no issue with his job; he enjoyed it, it paid his bills, and when he was being honest with himself (no negative self-talk, Troy, we agreed on this) he knew he was the best at it. He gave people what they came for—all part of the Sacrosanct experience. He wasn’t leading anyone on, he told himself as he pasted on a cheeky smile and handed over the latest martini to the college girl he should probably stop serving soon. She was definitely going to ask for his number, (and how did that happen? Besides the most broken or absent gaydar ever.) but he risked a wink anyway, feeling a tiny bit cheap even as he resolved not to turn her down until after she paid the group’s tab.
“Well, hello, gorgeous,” an insidious voice purred at his elbow as he turned away from the girl.
Oh right. Here was his problem.
Ziggy was looking impossibly, ridiculously hot. Only he could pull off that outfit. A vest made of ropes of gleaming silk in myriad shades of blue-black and silver was draped over his otherwise bare, stupidly chiseled torso, grazing the top of a pair of shiny, gunmetal leather leggings that laced on the sides, patterned with midnight-blue roses. They were so tight Troy could practically see inside the miserable little lothario. His hair was perfect. His body was perfect. The glitter dusting his gorgeously cut cheekbones—perfect. Even his ludicrous, thousand dollar boots were perfect. Troy hated that he’d seen those exact boots in a catalog last week and wished he could justify the expense.
He gritted his teeth, annoyed that Ziggy had managed to sneak up on him again, catching him off guard and exposing that unshakable flicker of attraction—unwise, involuntary, and impossible to shake. A wild, reckless part of him whispered that maybe he deserved something that easy, that hot, that uncomplicated. Just for a night. Just once. But he knew better. He was too damned upstanding to cross that line—too smart to trade the solid reality of a job he loved for a fleeting taste of fantasy.
And suddenly, Troy was done. Done with Ziggy, this game and all the fakery and how good this guy got to look while being nothing that Troy actually wanted or needed, while hurting good people like Ella who deserved so much better, and when Ziggy leaned forward coyly to deliver his nightly tired come-on, Troy curtly held up his hand and turned away, cutting him off.
As Ziggy stared, speechless, Troy grabbed bottles of blue curacao and peach schnapps and sloshed them carelessly into a shaker. He stared coldly at Ziggy as he snatched the other ingredients, threw them in, shook and poured, all in less time than he had ever taken to make a drink at Sacrosanct’s famous high end bar.
He plunked the Blue Balls down in front of Ziggy with a chilly smile, staring him dead in the eyes, and waited.
Ziggy broke first, looking down at the drink, calculating. For a moment, Troy almost thought he saw a glimpse of vulnerability, but it disappeared into Ziggy’s cool smirk as he murmured, “This is what you’re serving me?”
“Yep,” Troy snapped over the end of the sentence. “That’s what you get. Bottoms up.”
He winced internally at his phrasing when a gleam lit Ziggy’s eye and he grinned, delightedly mouthing, “Bottoms.”
Troy sighed, rolling his eyes. Fortunately, he was saved then by a minor ruckus at the other end of the bar, where the college girls were cheering the declaration one of them made that she was done with that man-whore Avery, and with all the hot guys here tonight she didn’t need him anyway, and the group moved toward Ziggy, who was all too willing to be swallowed up by them. So to speak.
For the moment, he was blessedly alone. That never lasted long behind the bar, but soon enough, his relief showed up in the person of the darkly gorgeous Lucinda, all in black tonight, cleavage out and garnet-colored rhinestones threaded through her locks, ready to take over the heavy flirtation for a bit. He let her know he was going for his break after she settled in, mixing the first of what would surely be many more espresso martinis.
“Take your time, my little fashion plate,” she assured him in her thick Jamaican accent (rather thicker than natural, Troy thought, because that helped with the tips also). She snapped him lightly in the ass with a bar towel and said, “I can collect just fine from this crowd.”
“They’re all yours,” Troy murmured. He retreated, looking for a peaceful corner where he could enjoy his break—and winced as he glimpsed a couple slipping into the stairwell. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He’d already wasted too much angst over his accidental voyeurism—catching Ziggy hooking up with Ella in that stairwell, using her as a prop to seduce Troy. He considered taking his break in his car, but decided to sit down at an unoccupied table and watch the action on the dance floor instead.
He’d sensed all night that someone was looking at him. That wasn’t unusual—they should be looking at him, with all the time and money and expertise he spent on his appearance. But it felt different from the looks he got from the college girls, or Ziggy’s greasy ogling, or even the smiling glances from his friends and colleagues who admired his fashion sense and skill behind the bar. This seemed… both more and less interested. Friendlier and softer, but assessing in a way Troy wasn’t used to. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but it didn’t go away when he left the bar are as he’d expected, so he looked around the club, trying to locate its source.
Eyes flicked his direction now and again, between gleaming lace-and-leather clad bodies, but none of the glances stuck, until Troy found his own gaze captured—by a man who definitely wasn’t his usual type.
He’d seen him around Sacrosanct a few times, and he had become a mystery that niggled at the back of his brain. For one, he had never ordered a drink, at least when Troy was behind the bar. A closer look might have told him what he needed to know, but instead, the man was a figure that danced, literally, at the edge of Troy’s awareness, teasing him for attention.
Troy wondered at the anachronism of him. His New Romantic look might have fit in an early 80s club, but it would not have been out of place in a Romantic poet’s salon in the early nineteenth century. A slightly femme, slim twink with a penchant for poet’s shirts and eye makeup too delicate to be truly Goth, he never stayed in the club for long. Troy had observed him drifting in during Merlot’s set, dancing by himself, and exchanging a few pleasantries with other clubgoers, without ever seeming to belong with anyone.
He was an amazing dancer, though. Merlot’s “in a mood” vibe tonight seemed to be right up his alley. He had a lithe grace that was both shy and heavily embellished, like Rococo lace. His movements were small and intricate, and they should feel too romantic for the music, but instead, they made Troy hear a romance in the music that he otherwise might not have. He was somehow… enthralling. And, as the song ended, he was coming over.
Troy sat up and looked away, pretending he hadn’t been staring. Was this nervousness? He, toned and perfectly coiffed, the best dressed queen in about four stylish districts, did not get nervous around attractive men.
Besides, was he really attractive? He was undeniably pretty, but if anyone was going to be the pretty twink in a hookup, Troy preferred that it be himself. He felt manly—even downright burly next to this little slip of a thing, whom he guessed topped out at a couple inches over five feet and barely a feather over a hundred pounds.
But the way he moved… right up to Troy’s table, edging unapologetically into his personal space.
“Hello, handsome bartender,” he said.
Troy blinked and sat up straighter. “Hello, pretty dancer,” he blurted. It tripped out over his tongue before he could stop it, and he winced internally—not every guy liked to be called pretty.
This one apparently didn’t mind, because he gave the sweetest, brightest smile and held out his hand with a gesture so courtly it should be cheesy, but wasn’t. “Dance with me? That would make it even prettier.”
Troy took his hand automatically; it seemed rude not to. It was cool and soft in his. “Oh… ah…” he stuttered briefly. “I’d love to, but I have to get back behind the bar in a minute—”
“For a minute, then,” said the man lightly, drawing Troy after him. “I’ll dance you over there.”
Troy let himself be tugged along, pleasantly helpless. Merlot was spinning something dizzy and light now, perfect for the pretty dancer’s movements. It felt nice, easy and natural, when he reached up to drape his wrists elegantly over Troy’s neck. Up close, Troy saw that he was even more doe-eyed than he’d looked from a distance—eyes large and luminous in his pale, heart-shaped face, almost like an anime character made real.
Troy shivered a little at the light touch on his neck. The guy danced with him… politely. Close enough that he sensed his warmth, but with enough distance to seem almost chivalrous—an odd thought, considering he looked like the kind of person who should be receiving such old-fashioned courtesy. Like Troy, as the larger and more masculine one, ought to be tossing his jacket on the sidewalk to keep him from walking in a puddle.
As the song ended, they reached the bar. The man drew his hands away with a whisper-light caress at the edge of Troy’s loosened collar and said, “You’ll be here tomorrow night, magic bartender?”
Troy’s mouth was dry. He wasn’t quite sure what was happening, or why there were so few words in him tonight. “I will,” he managed as they stepped apart. Troy stood stock-still in contrast to the frenetic movement, the sub-neon susurrus of lights and twining bodies of the club, at the edge of it all as the man glided back into it, a reaching finger of tide drawn back into the waves, leaving Troy standing on the shore.
***
The next night was too busy—packed with trademark Sacrosanct intrigue and well-heeled patrons with money to spend and a buzz to get on—for Troy to think much about his almost-encounter with the attractive dancer. Yes, he’d upgraded him from pretty—which seemed a bit dismissive—to attractive. Just as, when they parted, the dancer had upgraded Troy from handsome to magic. He might not be Troy’s usual type, but that might only be because he hadn’t known this type existed. So as his tips that night had him reconsidering some ludicrously expensive boots, he wasn’t watching for him. Or ignoring the latest Alison-Orlando gossip to eavesdrop on the conversations of people he'd seen him with, to see if they mentioned him. Or craning his neck to see over the top of Nina’s fuchsia-streaked head—
“Helloooo, Troy! Are you looking for someone?” Nina pouted prettily at him as she tapped the bar with her blue-black nails. “I am spilling some top-quality Oolong here and you’re acting like it’s stale, bagged Lipton.”
It took longer than it should have to parse this tea-spilling metaphor. “Sorry,” he chuckled, and gave her a charming grin as he placed the preserved flower on the half-salted rim of her hibiscus margarita. It shimmered a deep purplish crimson that matched her hair nicely. She oozed goth elegance as she delicately sipped it. “No, I’m just hoping not to—”
Run into Ziggy, he was going to say, but he was cut off by a serendipitous cacophony as several things happened at once.
It was one of those rare, unforgettable moments sure to go down in Sacrosanct history. The club’s ultra-competent DJs were unlikely to make a mistake that would result in, of all things, silence, but that was just what happened, after an eardrum-needling electronic squeal. Rain’s outro track fizzled out and he could be heard cursing quietly, just as a shout of “Eww, NO!”, pitched to be heard over the delirious cacophony of Rain’s beats, cracked the club’s atmosphere like a stone shattering a window.
The man—Troy’s dancer!—did not trouble to lower his voice much among the ensuing startled murmurs, in the ringing echoes of the absent music. “No, no, and no; not enough no in the world. I dance to Merlot, not Rain, and with people, not overpriced mannequins. Your pick up lines are tired, your pec and ass implants are offensive, and you mix metaphors as easily as Troy mixes drinks. You are a walking cliché. Walk that cliché away.”
He made an elegant shooing gesture at a startled, red-faced Ziggy and marched toward the bar, a hint of color appearing in his own porcelain cheeks as Nina stared openly at him, a smile of maniacal glee growing on her face.
Ziggy stood in the space that had suddenly cleared around him looking shell-shocked, his perfect features spasming briefly with humiliation. “I don’t… have implants,” he muttered to no one, then, looking up as if he saw someone he just had to talk to right then, he strode away with expertly-feigned purpose. The music, which had given a few quiet sputters as Rain and Merlot conferred and made adjustments, finally started again. Rain exited the booth with an expression of wounded male ego not unlike Ziggy’s, and Troy, reflecting on the scene he’d just witnessed even as he patted his pocket to feel the fat wad of cash there, wondered if this night could get any better.
Spoiler: it could. He was still grinning broadly when the dancer appeared under his nose, taking the place Nina had vacated when she spotted Zoe coming in and ran to serve her some rare, extra fresh tea.
“Hello,” said the dancer, not quite meeting Troy’s eye. For someone who had made such a splash moments before, his tone was rather subdued.
“Hello!” Troy answered with all the enthusiasm the guy lacked. “What can I get for the absolute star of the evening?”
Unaccountably, the guy blushed deeply, giving a wry half-smile and looking down even further. “Sorry about that. I swear I didn’t mean to make a scene. I just… can’t stand that guy.”
“That much is clear, and don’t apologize. In fact, let me make you a drink on the house; whatever you like. Because you made… not just my night. My month probably.”
The guy perked up, so prettily Troy almost sighed. “Really? That sounds nice. I usually just come to dance, but I’ve been looking for the right moment to get my first taste of something crafted by the legendary Troy.”
Troy knew he had a million-dollar smile, and hoped he wasn’t imagining the sparkle of interest in the guy as he gave him one. “First taste coming up,” he said, arching one eyebrow flirtatiously. “What should that taste be? Something sweet? Or something with a… bite?” He risked a wink, much more heartfelt than the ones he doled out for tips, and was gratified when the guy sat forward with bright eyes.
His voice was a velvet-smooth murmur; Troy had to watch his lips to be sure of what he said over the music, which was no hardship. They were lovely and plush, shaping the words with an unexpectedly erotic warmth. “Make me the drink you always wished someone –the right sort of someone—would order.”
He leaned closer, and Troy finally caught the color of his eyes in a flicker of the dance floor’s lights, reflected in the bar mirror behind him: a warm amber-mahogany, like Amontillado in the sunlight that should never touch it. His hair was a similar color, but a darker, plummy shade, the glossy waves just touching his shoulders.
Troy didn’t move back, letting the space between them become charged, intimate. “I have just the thing,” he murmured, reaching beneath the bar to bring out his heirloom silver jigger. It gleamed exquisitely in the dark lights that rose with Merlot’s latest moody track, the engraved scrollwork adding an aura of old, rare ritual. He measured everything precisely, pouring and stirring smoothly, not a drop out of place. He had never served this cocktail at Sacrosanct, or thought he would have the chance. He wasn’t sure what was more enchanting: the subtle lilac glow of the drink as he stirred in the crème de violette, or the avid interest in the lovely doe-eyes that tracked his every movement.
Troy couldn’t help a surge of professional pride at the perfect clarity and color as he poured the finished cocktail through the strainer into his favorite crystal coupe, normally reserved for Jade’s fancy closed-club gatherings. He delicately placed a candied violet on the rim and presented it with a regal gesture, inviting the man to take in its perfection.
“Wow,” the man murmured, barely brushing the violet with the tips of his long, elegant fingers. “It’s almost too pretty to touch, let alone drink.”
“I disagree,” said Troy, figuring it was time to express some of his hopes for the evening. “Such beauty is meant to be enjoyed with all the senses. Touch, scent, taste…”
Had he overdone it? The man looked down, thoughtful, but after a moment looked up again to meet Troy’s eyes. Troy’s breath caught. The look was almost dangerous.
“Well then,” the man said, and lifted the coupe delicately. He touched his nose to the violet for a moment, then closed those sinful lips over the brim of the glass. He closed his eyes as he sipped, and kept them closed for a long moment after setting the coupe down carefully. Long dark lashes brushed his cheeks like butterfly wings. The barest hint of tongue ghosted his lips as he contemplated.
“I have no words,” he said quietly. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. What is this work of spirit art called?”
“Love in Idleness,” Troy answered. “Herbal-noted floral, with a hint of silky sweetness, and a faint shimmer of danger hiding behind sunlight.”
“You have the words, if I don’t,” said the man. His sweetly enigmatic smile was breathtaking. “And here I thought I was the poet in the room. What would a rare prize like this go for on the open market?” He reached for his wallet, which made Troy frown.
“Oh no, I told you it was on the house.” Truthfully, he’d have no idea what to charge—only way too much would feel like enough. “All it will cost you tonight is your name.”
“How rude of me not to introduce myself, especially since everyone knows who you are. In an old novel, you might have said ‘you have the advantage of me, sir.’ My apologies.” He held out his hand. “Troy. My name is Thren. It’s wonderful to make your acquaintance.”
Troy took his hand and squeezed lightly. That one casual touch was enough for him to know: he was absolutely going to invite Thren home with him, sooner than later. He needed to know one thing first…
“You don’t have anything to do with the business of Sacrosanct, do you?” he blurted, and Thren’s eyes widened slightly at the shift in mood. “You don’t know Jade? Orlando? Have you worked with either of them, or our DJs?”
Thren shook his head, suppressing a growing smile. Somehow he seemed to understand why Troy was asking. “No,” he said slowly. “Never met either of them. Is Orlando the Mad Hatter guy?” There was a flicker of interest in Thren’s eyes that Troy didn’t like.
“He’s straight,” Troy snapped before he could stop himself.
Thren smiled wider than ever. It made him look less like the Romantic poet he usually resembled, and more like a mischievous fae creature, with Troy in its sights. “There’s only one person here whose orientation is of interest to me,” he said, leaning forward and setting his hand on the bar in easy reach of Troy’s. “And I’m pretty sure I know what it is.”
“I’m gay,” Troy said quickly. “100% gay, not a mannequin, and Merlot is at the decks. I’ll do my best to keep my pick-up lines original and not mix any metaphors. I’m also… implant-free, if that matters.”
Thren’s eyes widened as Troy went down his implied list of criteria for dance partners. By the end of it, he was laughing. He touched Troy’s hand in reassurance. Troy grinned in relief.
“Can you give me ten minutes?” he asked, catching Lucinda’s eye as she pulled taps halfway down the bar.
“I’ll be here, magic Troy.” Thren raised the exquisite cocktail for another sip, regarding Troy under lowered lashes.
Troy made tracks to confer with Lucinda at top speed. She was amusedly unsurprised when he asked if she could cover him for a longer break than usual.
“Why don’t you take the rest of the night off?” she teased, her teeth very white against her garnet-black lipstick. “A lot of these deep pockets will be back tomorrow night, and you know, I think little Bart can handle some real time behind the bar. He’s been begging to be scheduled for more than clean-up and bussing, and he’ll be here any minute.”
Troy snorted. There was nothing little about 6’4, Viking lookalike Bart. Troy also worried about whether he was charming enough for Sacrosanct’s discerning patrons.
“He’s doing better,” Lucinda answered his concern before he could voice it. “What he lacks in words, he makes up for in muscles, and he’s even been smiling lately. His pours are actually really good. I’ll text him and suggest he wear something sleeveless; the ladies will eat him up. I’ll take care of the gents. You go get laid. It’s about time.”
Troy needed no further assurance. He dashed into the back room, took off his apron, and clocked out. He checked himself out in the little mirror over the sink, tugging a magenta tress out of the slicked-back blonde to fall over his forehead. He couldn’t decide whether he wished he’d shaved or not—perhaps the wheat-colored stubble added a rugged, masculine appeal? That’s what he’d been aiming for, and he thought it accentuated his cheekbones. He knew the outfit was perfect—Ella had designed it for him, after all, and she would stand for no less. The dramatically vivid carmine color of his shirt was echoed in the metallic embroidered details of his deep black vest, and the shirt, with stylishly tab-buttoned roll-up sleeves, was tailored to fit close enough to look slightly strained over his muscles, and unbuttoned just enough to hint at sensuality without making him look like a tramp. He took a deep breath. He knew he was attractive, and Thren was obviously interested, so there was no sense getting self-conscious now.
It was a little odd, meeting Thren in the open club, with no bar between them and no one waiting for him to go back behind it. He felt a thrill of nerves, quelled when Thren lit up as he walked up to his barstool.
“There’s my handsome, implant-free real human!” he chirped, and Troy laughed, offering his hand.
“There’s my lovely, bird-named dancer,” Troy answered as Thren’s hand slipped into his. They eased onto the dance floor as a new track rose, a mix on the sunnier side of Sacrosanct’s usual angsty shadow play, with an infectious beat that Thren took up immediately. Troy marveled that his faster, light-hearted moves were as skilled and graceful as his slower ones, and did his best to keep up.
“Thren is not a bird name, though,” Thren said, twirling close to brush imaginary lint from Troy’s shoulder. “You’re thinking of Wren. If we get to know each other a little better, I’ll tell you the rest of it, and what it means.”
“I look forward to it. Troy doesn’t mean anything particular. But it does conjure images of shirtless Brad Pitt with a sword, in a leather skirt.”
“I don’t hate that,” Thren grinned at him. “I might have spent some quality time with that DVD as a teenager.”
“Might’nt we all have,” Troy said, catching Thren around the waist as he danced closer.
“How long do I have you for?” Thren asked, looping his arms around Troy’s neck.
Troy hemmed Thren in the circle of his arms. “Well,” he said, pretending to contemplate as if striking a bargain. “I have a dentist appointment Monday morning…” It was Friday night.
Thren laughed. “Perfect, that should be just about enough time for what I have in mind.”
Recklessly, Troy drew him against him in a rhythmic glide, letting the contact linger for just a moment. Thren encouraged it, pressing against him with lithe willingness.
Troy lost any doubts he ever might had in Merlot’s expertly woven rhythms and Thren’s eyes sparkling like heady liquor. They danced close, closer, moving apart when faster tracks demanded, but always back together. A longing threaded through Troy not just for sex, but for connection, touch, words, poetry even. Whether it was his mood or something else, Merlot’s track choices seemed to grow ever more sensual, a gritty eroticism swirling in the darkly receptive Sacrosanct aura.
A song Troy vaguely recognized thrummed between them, a gorgeous, pulsing heartbeat of a mix: Nocturnal Me by Echo and the Bunnymen. Had he ever really listened to the lyrics before? When I’m on fire, my body will be/ Forever yours, nocturnal me… As the heady voice pled take me internally, Troy felt it as his own longing given voice.
Thren grew sexier by the moment, until it Troy found it almost unbearable. His fair skin glimmered under the pulsing lights, strands of dark hair sticking to his forehead and neck. His gauzy-thin poet’s shirt clung to his lean torso, and Troy skimmed the back of his hips with his hands, lifting the shirt to caress his bare skin. Thren leaned into the touch like a cat in a sunbeam, arching toward him, sliding one slim, calf-leather-clad leg between Troy’s. They were recklessly close now, and Troy couldn’t think of one good reason why he should wait even a second longer to taste that lovely, decadent mouth. He cupped the fine-angled jaw to draw Thren’s face to his, but found it was already there, arms curving around Troy’s neck to pull him down.
There was no awkwardness, no uncertainty, no need to find their rhythm together, as their mouths merged as easily as their steps on the dance floor. Thren’s lips opened sweetly beneath Troy’s, tasting of floral liqueur and hazy sleep in the heat of summer.
The kiss was both sweetly poetic and shockingly erotic. Beneath his instant, irresistible arousal, Troy had strange impulse, at odds with some of the very intimate behaviors he’d witnessed in Sacrosanct’s hallowed halls, to worry that they could be arrested for doing this in public. Before this fear could take root, he found that Thren had drawn him off the dance floor, backing himself into a shadowed corner where Troy pressed him against the wall, kissing him deeply and urgently.
Troy felt like the fittest, strongest man in the world as Thren’s hands quested over the muscles of his back and shoulders, squeezing appreciatively, until Thren broke the kiss to gasp, “My place is nearby. Want to head there now?”
“Yes,” Troy hissed as Thren slid his hand over the front of his hip and down, boldly and suggestively, and he tugged Thren toward Sacrosanct’s back employee entrance. They stumbled into the alley together and Thren, looking around to orient himself, pointed over Troy’s shoulder. “I’m parked up this street.”
Troy took the hand Thren offered and followed in a haze of lust. He had just enough bandwidth to notice that the car Thren ushered him into (opening the passenger side door for him with a gentlemanly flourish) was huge—a veritable land yacht half again as long as a modern sedan, with big tail fins like an ancient 60s relic. It was on his lips to ask what kind of car it was when Thren, having hopped nimbly into the driver’s side and shut them in, stopped Troy’s lips with his own.
“I—oh,” Troy murmured. “Mmm.”He leaned into the kiss, which rocketed from hot to blistering. Words became difficult as Thren crawled directly into Troy’s lap, mouthing impatiently at his neck as he pushed Troy’s collar aside to reach it. Troy jolted as Thren straddled his hips, squeezing them with his thighs, then glided down, rubbing the bulge in his pants against Troy’s answering one.
Troy grabbed Thren’s hips, attempting to still him. “If you… keep that up,” he managed between Thren’s insistent kisses, “This will be—oh!”
Thren slipped from his grip to kneel on the floor in front of Troy’s seat. He rubbed his cheek over Troy’s erection and pushed up his shirt to place a kiss below his belly button, trailing downward with his tongue as he unfastened Troy’s pants.
Troy tried to speak as Thren took out his cock, holding it with both hands and gazing at it almost reverently. “You don’t… I’m… if you… oh God,” he moaned finally, and gave up, as Thren wrapped his beautiful lips around his cock, his elegant fingers toying with Troy’s balls, parting and tugging them, while his other hand grasped his shaft, guiding it into wet, warm, indescribable sweetness.
Troy threaded his fingers through the satin of Thren’s hair and tried to last, but Thren’s forceful, elaborate sensuality was far too powerful. All too soon, as gloriously overwhelming pleasure built in him like a capped volcano, Troy made one last gallant effort, tugging at Thren’s hair.
“Thren! I’m… close…” His words were lost then as a voice he barely recognized as his own cried out, a growling wail as orgasm fired every nerve in his body, whiting out the streetlight above the car as his hips bucked helplessly, and Thren, mouth clasped ever tighter around him, rode it out with him, wringing every drop of ecstasy from his body until Troy bolted forward and grabbed his shoulders, begging him to stop.
Thren parted his lips and released Troy’s cock in a suave manner bizarrely incongruous with such a lewd act, gently tucking Troy back into his briefs. He wiped his mouth delicately with the side of his hand, like a cat licking cream from its paw, and gave Troy’s stomach a sweet kiss before crawling up to rest against his side. Troy looped his arm over him and tried to get his breath.
Once the sound of Troy’s panting subsided, Thren said, in a politely inquisitive tone. “How rude of me to interrupt you. I believe you were saying something?”
It startled a genuine belly laugh from Troy. Thren joined in as Troy grabbed him, pushing him against the seat back so Troy was on top. “You little minx,” Troy said. “Now I have to come up with an answer for that rudeness.”
“I will meekly submit to any censure with which you may wish to address me,” Thren said, batting his superb eyelashes.
Troy shook his head. “You… seriously talk like that? I feel like I just got unbelievably mind-blowing head from a character in an Austen novel.” There was a moment of comfortable silence as he snuggled Thren a bit closer, settling him comfortably at his side. “It… reminds me of a book I’m reading right now, actually. Well, re-reading. It’s a comfort read for me, and that’s what it’s like: these courtly characters using very haute language while doing really dirty things to each other.”
Thren laughed softly. “Sounds intriguing. What’s it called?”
“Service at Old Raenshire. It’s M/M, has a master-servant theme, but it’s actually really dark and angsty in parts, and kinda deep. Like… mixing romantic poetry and literature with BDSM and lots of orgasms.”
“Like Austen, but with far more cock.” Thren smiled, and thought for a moment, resting his head on the seat back and looking up at Troy in a way that made Troy’s heart squeeze unexpectedly. “Talking that way… it’s a little bit of an affectation in me, for fun. I don’t always, as I think you’ve heard. But I do like it. Um. I don’t have to do it. It turns a lot of guys off.”
“Not me, obviously,” Troy said. “I like it. You do you. Though I’m also hoping you’ll let me do you.”
“Now that’s a punishment for rudeness I can get behind. Or in front of, more likely. Possibly under?” He ran his hands down Troy’s sides suggestively, and Troy groaned.
“You’re killing me,” he said. “But that does remind me of what I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted. That was that if you kept up that outrageous behavior, we’d never make it to your place. And I was right.”
“True. Despite being more spacious than the average dorm room—” He gestured at the yawning interior of the car. “—this is not, in fact, my apartment. But never say never. If you’re still up for it, I’ll drive us there now.”
“I expect I’ll be up again soon enough,” Troy answered.
Thren gave him a lascivious grin and scooted away to start the car. Troy was impressed at how well he steered the behemoth sedan through the city streets, with their tight lanes narrowed further by cars parked in every available spot.
They only drove a few minutes, to a neighborhood of charmingly old, weathered buildings. The place Thren parked in front of and led Troy into didn’t look like an apartment building. When he said so, Thren answered, “It wasn’t, originally. It’s an old office building from the twenties. Isn’t it amazing? My uncle bought it decades ago and converted it into apartments—just three in this whole building.”
“Wow, they must be enormous.” Troy gazed around at the faded art deco glamor as he followed Thren up the wide staircase of chipped marble.
“They are. Mine especially; I have what I guess you could call the penthouse.” He chuckled. “And I’m the only resident right now. Two apartments on the first floor, then mine is the whole second floor. My uncle used to use one of the others as his pied à terre, but it’s been closed up and covered with dust sheets for a while now. I pay him rent, but it’s not nearly what a place like this is worth, and I just keep hoping he doesn’t realize how much money he could be making if he fixed up the other two places and rented them out. Maybe he does realize, and just doesn’t care. He’s an eccentric. Travels the world, and he’s on his… seventh marriage, I think? He’s got a good heart though. I’m really grateful to him.”
Troy realized, as they reached the doorway at the top of the stairs, that Thren was chattering nervously. “Hey,” he said, stopping Thren with a hand on his shoulder before he could unlock the door. “Whatever you’re worried about, I promise you needn’t be. I don’t have any expectations, and I won’t overstay my welcome. If you want me to go at any point, just say the word.”
“It’s not that,” Thren said, twisting his hands together around his keys. He really was nervous. “It’s just that… I’ve never brought a guy here before. I don’t bring many friends here even; it’s kind of my sanctuary. A lot of guys don’t really want to know that much about a person they hook up with, in my experience, but you’re a really observant person, and I guess I feel like… seeing my place, you’re going to know a lot about me. Maybe more than you want to.”
Troy snaked an arm around him, rubbing his back. “Well,” he said, trying for a lighter tone. “Do you have a collection of… let’s say, severed doll’s heads, or animal skins drying in a closet somewhere?”
Thren laughed, and relaxed a little under Troy’s touch. “Nothing like that. I just hope you like what you learn.”
“I like everything I know so far, and I want to know more. We never know how someone else is going to react to what’s inside us, do we? But whether we like the same sorts of things or not, I won’t be a judgmental bitch, I can promise that much.”
Thren nodded, and with a small smile, unlocked the door and led Troy inside. Thoughts of a tour quickly fled Troy’s head when Thren kissed him eagerly as soon as the door closed behind them. Troy had no attention to absorb anything as Thren led him through the apartment, walking backward while kissing him and unfastening his clothing. It was as if no time had passed since their first feverishly sweet kiss on the dance floor—the same ravenous electricity surged through them, utterly unsatisfied. The difference was that Troy now knew some of what Thren was capable of erotically, and it ramped up the anticipation even further as he found himself naked and falling with Thren onto a wide, soft bed.
“Not fair,” Troy said as Thren mapped his bare back with his hands. “Here I am in all my glory, but I haven’t seen that hot little body of yours yet.” He tugged impatiently at Thren’s clothes, which had far too many buttons and odd, indecipherable closures.
“It’s all yours,” Thren breathed, as Troy struggled with the laces of Thren’s thin calf leather pants. “Allow me to assist you, sir.”
Troy liked the sir rather more than he should. Thren made quick work of the laces, stripped off his pants and pulled the shirt Troy had half-unbuttoned over his head, tossing it carelessly on the floor, and Troy stared, taking him in.
Troy had always thought he liked big, muscular men. A pair of brawny arms to hold him down, iron pecs to run his tongue across… Ziggy’s chiseled form had pretty much been his ideal. But looking at Thren, he thought he might never chase after a muscle man again.
Not that Thren didn’t have muscles. They were beautifully defined under his largely hairless porcelain skin, fluid and graceful, lean and not bulky. A dancer’s body, unsurprisingly, one so lovely that Troy stopped dead and stared, breathless. He had time to notice that Thren wasn’t small in every way before Thren, after digging around in his night stand for a moment, tugged at him impatiently, laying them down together.
“I hope this isn’t turning into a ‘look but don’t touch’ scenario,” Thren murmured, lips against Troy’s ear. “I assure you that this exhibit is meant to be very hands on. And interactive.”
“Sorry, I just… somehow didn’t realize how perfect you would be,” Troy answered. “You really are gorgeous, Thren.”
“Back at you,” Thren said, breathless. His enchanting eyes were dark with lust, pupils blown, narrowing sensually as their bodies slid together. “You are terribly handsome, and I want you inside me. Now. Don’t make me wait.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Troy said, and took the bottle of lube Thren handed him.
After a few minutes, Thren breathed, “Liar.”
Troy chuckled sensuously. He was taking his time prepping Thren, massaging him open with his fingers, warming the lube in his hand before applying it. If Thren hadn’t taken his edge off earlier, he doubted he could be so patient, but he knew it would be worth it, and he worked his fingers deeper, until Thren writhed and gasped, “Troy! Please! Now!”
Troy positioned Thren face down, helped him brace himself on his forearms, and lifted his hips up. Thren keened urgently as Troy knelt behind him, and eased himself in.
“Yes, yes, oh God, Troy,” Thren chanted, pushing back against him, and Troy felt like a sex god, holding Thren’s hips in place and thrusting into him, teasing him by moving in and out slowly. He kept his own lust firmly leashed as Thren writhed beneath him, until Thren was begging incoherently, struggling against Troy’s hold, trying to force him to move faster.
Troy lifted Thren’s hips and leaned forward, thrusting harder, and, urged on by Thren’s sweet, plaintive cries, finally pounded into him, letting go of control. He reached around to seize Thren’s cock, squeezing and tugging in rhythm with his thrusts. He recklessly drove Thren over the edge, and they fell into ecstasy together, tumbling unchecked in glorious abandon, until their bodies came to rest at last, in a sweet satisfaction Troy wished would never end.
***
The morning after wasn’t like others Troy had had—no putting wrinkled, smoke-smelling clothes on sticky skin, no walk of shame. He awoke in Thren’s wonderful, cloud-like bed to the scent of coffee brewing and a note on the bedside table in elegant, embellished cursive:
Gone to grab breakfast. Back in 15! Clean towels and some clothes that might fit over those gorgeous muscles on the towel rack in the bathroom.
Troy wandered into the bathroom and blinked in disbelief. It was a study in art deco luxury. Though everything was old—tarnished fixtures and chipped tile—it was certainly aging gracefully. There was an enormous soaking bathtub and a separate waterfall shower, more modern plumbing disguised by the 20s décor. He found the clothes Thren had mentioned—a T-shirt that would be ridiculously oversized on Thren, but that should fit Troy nicely, and joggers that would be tight and show most of his calves, but be comfortable enough. He showered, noting that Thren had excellent taste in skin and haircare products, and got dressed.
He followed the scent of coffee through the gigantic apartment to find Thren in the retro, chrome-accented kitchen. His eyes brightened when Troy came in.
“Hello, handsome bartender,” he said, echoing their first greeting with a hint of self-consciousness. He moved close to Troy without touching him or meeting his eye. “I’m glad you stayed,” he said diffidently, lifting his hand toward Troy’s face. He stopped and half-lowered it before making contact, and Troy, seeing his own worries reflected in the hesitation, couldn’t bear it.
Feeling a rush of tender affection he refused to question, Troy seized Thren’s hand and pressed it to his cheek, turning his head to kiss his fingertips. “I’m so glad I did, too.” He pulled an unresisting Thren into his arms and cradled him, kissing the lop of his head. “Your place is amazing. Thanks for lending me the clothes. And you bought breakfast? You didn’t have to. You’re the most… considerate morning after host I’ve ever had.”
Thren brightened, relaxing in Troy’s embrace. “Well, I figured I should make the first time in my home a memorable one. I just tried to think of things to make it more comfortable, so you might want to stay a while. And… hopefully come back sometime.”
“You didn’t have to do all that just for that. I’ll come back. I hoped you’d want me to.” It was less than Troy wanted to say, but he was afraid that his inner romantic would push for too much, too soon.
“I do,” Thren said simply, and tilted his head for a kiss, which Troy gladly gave him. Then gave him another. Then pulled him closer, moving his hands down to squeeze Thren’s pert ass as he captured his enticingly plump lower lip between his own lips, teasing it softly, feeling Thren’s body arch and respond heatedly.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more of you right now,” Thren breathed into Troy’s ear, flicking it with his tongue. “But the food will get cold.”
“A hot breakfast is overrated,” said Troy, seizing the back of Thren’s thighs and hoisting him up into his arms. Thren squeaked in surprise, but then wrapped his legs willingly around Troy’s waist. “Besides, I’ve got some catching up to do.” Not that Troy was keeping count, but he’d given Thren one orgasm and received two, so he meant to address the deficit.
He carried Thren around the corner to a vintage chaise lounge he’d seen and sat him on it, unfastening pants that were fortunately much simpler than the ones he’d worn last night.
“Troy,” Thren murmured sweetly, stroking hair still damp from Troy’s shower out of his face. “You don’t have to.”
Troy knelt on the chaise between Thren’s legs. “I really want to, though,” he answered, cupping Thren through a pair of dove-gray boxers. The hardness under the thin silk was deeply arousing. Troy mouthed it and drew the shorts down, freeing Thren’s cock before adding, “What kind of host would deny his guest any measure of hospitality?”
“Not this one,” Thren breathed, then lay back on the chaise like a fainting heroine. He was beautiful in surrender, a flush rising to his porcelain cheeks as Troy teased him with lips, fingers and tongue. He was exquisitely reactive, decorating the air between them with soft, musical moans, writhing in a slow, erotic dance under Troy’s guiding hands. Troy could resist nothing about him. He explored, edged, teased and indulged, every sense engaged, every nerve lighting with Thren’s intricate responses. He brought him near orgasm and pulled him back several times before heeding his pleas for release at last, taking him in deeply, aiming to give Thren all the sweetness he felt from him, returning every impulse of generosity and affection and turning it into ecstasy.
Thren was the perfect model of debauched innocence afterward, splayed across the chaise with his arm flung over his forehead, clothing askew, vulnerable and lovely. Troy gazed at him, taking it all in, before crawling up to lie beside him.
“So gorgeous,” he said, cupping Thren’s cheek. “Look at you. I could stare at you all day.”
Thren didn’t answer for a moment, and Troy got a thrill of anxiety. Too much? But then he realized that, flatteringly, Thren couldn’t speak. He was trying. Troy chuckled, kissing him. Thren struggled to kiss him back, reaching up belatedly to hold him, then letting his arms fall back when they didn’t connect.
“That… was… ahhh, Troy, I think I want to keep you.”
“I always kind of wanted to be a kept man,” Troy said lightly, even as his heart soared. Did this mean Thren might want a relationship? Troy knew it was soon to be thinking of that, and he couldn’t hold Thren accountable for anything he said in a post-orgasmic daze.
“I will have to keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed. All the finest…” He paused and gestured helplessly, words still beyond his grasp.
Troy decided to take the humor in a different direction. “Tuna? Wet food? A nice bowl of cream now and then?” He rubbed his head against Thren’s shoulder, then shoved it under his hand, and Thren chuckled, threading his fingers sensuously through Troy’s hair.
“Mmm, and all the petting you could possibly want.”
“I’ll even let you pet my belly. And I promise not to put my butthole in your face unless explicitly requested.”
Thren, already laughing, guffawed at this, almost rolling off the narrow chaise. Troy caught him, but nearly fell off himself in the process, and ended up sprawled half on top of Thren with one foot on the floor for balance.
The near-tumble made them both laugh even harder, with Thren barely managing to gasp, “Butthole,” in between gleeful cackles, which sent Troy into hysterics, bracing on his forearms while tears streamed down his face.
Finally, gasping for breath, he paused and clutched his stomach. “Oh my God. I feel like I just did a couple hundred crunches. It’s better than CrossFit.” He scooted Thren’s hips over so he could sit beside him on the chaise.
Thren wiped his eyes. “I think laughing like that is my favorite thing in the world,” he sighed. Then he peered up at Troy and gave a sly, lascivious grin. “Well. One of my favorites. You’ve given me some new ones.”
He sat up, which pushed Troy off the chaise onto his feet. “This lounge is absolutely aces for blow jobs,” said Thren, “but not so great for fits of hysterics.” He gave Troy his hand, and Troy pulled him to his feet. “Breakfast now?”
“Sounds great,” Troy answered. “Then maybe you could show me around a little? This place is really cool.”
He glanced around, taking in the vintage furnishings and worn-yet-elegant art deco touches, punctuated by curious little objects scattered throughout the space. He couldn’t tell if they were decorative or functional, but they tugged at his attention and made him want to look closer. Maybe he could get a little closer to solving the mystery of Thren.
Thren agreed, and led him back to the kitchen. He had been setting out plates and mugs when Troy came in, and now he grabbed the mugs and moved toward the coffee maker. “How do you take your coffee?” he asked.
Troy came up behind him and snaked one arm around his waist, taking the mugs out of Thren’s hand with the other. “How do you take it?” he asked, kissing his jaw. “I’ll pour the coffee. I’m a professional.”
Thren nodded. “OK, I’ll cut up the strawberries and serve us, then. You aren’t vegan or gluten-free, I hope? I should have asked. Do you like pan au chocolate?”
“Nooo, and yes! Who doesn’t?” Troy gazed appreciatively at the spread Thren pulled out of the bakery bags: decadent, flaky pastries, the buttery scent of which drifted to his nose as Thren plated them, and neat little mini-quiches of several varieties.
He poured the coffee as carefully and precisely as any cocktail, adding a little cream and sugar to Thren’s specifications. They sat down at the little table in the breakfast nook, just large enough for two people. Late morning sun poured in, platinum-clear and dreamlike. Troy held a strawberry up to the light, its sweet, summery scent filling his nose. The color was so rich—magical, almost—it made him feel like he’d never really seen red before. He bit into it and glanced at Thren sipping his coffee, looking like some fae creature pausing in the mortal world for breakfast before vanishing back into the sylvan wilds.
Troy shook himself mentally. What was he thinking? This level of whimsy wasn’t like him… usually. How could Thren be changing him so soon after they met? He didn’t even know his last name.
They ate together in companionable silence. As Thren met his eyes over the last bite of what might’ve been the best pan au chocolat Troy had ever tasted, he looked fully human again—eyes a little puffy from their late night, squinting slightly in the sunlight. The warm daylight lit his irises to mahogany-gold, like autumn leaves seen through glass-still water. He gave Troy a sleepy, sweet smile that went straight to his heart.
Oh no, Troy thought. I’m in trouble…
Thren pushed back his chair and stood, placing his napkin delicately on the plate. “I can show you around now if you like.”
“Please!” Troy stood and offered his arm like a proper gentleman. Thren took it almost solemnly. There was a hint of tension in his touch, perhaps a shadow behind his eyes.
Troy glanced at him questioningly and he shrugged, offering him a half-smile. “I, um… haven’t offered the tour to everyone. Only a couple of my oldest and closest friends have been here. I’m not the average twink a guy can pick up in a gay club and take to the latest trendy brunch spot or flashy day spa.”
“No facial dates, got it,” Troy said lightly, and squeezed Thren’s arm. “Why do you think I would want you to be like that? And honestly, I’m really flattered you chose to bring me here. I told you I wouldn’t judge.”
“You did, and I believed you, but some things can be a little… eclectic. My style isn’t for everyone.”
“I’d be sorry if it was. Nothing is that weird so far.”
“Let’s see if you still say that after the taxidermy raven and the antique boot stretcher.”
Troy grinned. “Now you’re just trying to impress me.” Thren laughed, and Troy jostled him playfully. “C’mon, I really want to see what makes you tick. For instance, what do you do for a living? You already know all about my job.”
Then relaxed visibly, brightening. “I do love my work, and I’ll show you where that magic happens. I design specialty clothing for cosplayers and ren fairs. I have an online store, and once or twice a year, if I have enough pieces and I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll set up a booth at a fair.”
“That’s amazing!” Troy said. He thought of Ella, and found it interesting that his new lover and one of his best friends should both be in clothing design. “Do you make those stunning outfits you wear to the club? I wondered where you got them.”
“I do. I make most of what I wear, besides basics like this.” He gestured to his long-sleeved gray tee and joggers.
“Looks like I’ve got competition for most stylish queen in the land, now! I love how... not-trendy you are.”
“You’ve got plenty of unique flair yourself. I’d love to design something for you.”
“Oooh, that would be amazing! I’ll have to be careful though. Ella will be terribly jealous.”
As Thren led him through the apartment, Troy explained who Ella was and told him some of his history with Sacrosanct, his friends there, and the intrigues that pervaded its shadowy corners. He realized that Thren was encouraging him to talk more so he didn’t have to speak about himself as much, but Troy, as a bartender, was an expert at teasing out secrets. He turned the conversation to Thren’s work and his hobbies—contemporary dance (“I almost became a ballet dancer, but I don’t have the right build”), collecting and writing poetry, and upcycling unique objects he found, on nature walks or at garage sales, into decorative pieces that shared shelf space with his many, many books.
He showed Troy his costuming studio—an enormous room that, he explained, had originally been two bedrooms in his uncle’s renovation plans. He’d convinced his uncle to leave it as one open space with two big walk-in closets to house his sewing and embroidery machines, bins full of cloth, fabric cutting tables, dress mannequins, and racks of in-progress and finished clothing.
Troy was admiring an exquisitely detailed women’s pirate costume—apparently based on an anime character’s and bedecked with miles of antique lace and dozens of brass buttons—when Thren glanced at his watch.
“I’ve got to go soon,” he said, his expression a mix of regret and anxiety. “I wish we could just stay like this all day… or go back to bed,” he added, with a wistful, sensual smile. “But there’s a big cosplay convention in town, and I’ve got to throw on something fabulous and go hand out cards.”
“You’ll be the toast of the con,” Troy said, sweeping him close with an arm around his waist, like a pirate seizing his damsel. “Everyone will want one of their own.” I know I do.
Then smiled, a little shyly. “I’m not really in the mood, but I can’t pass this one up. Last time this con was in town, I made enough commissions to keep me busy for a year—including this one.” He gestured at the pirate costume. “I’ve got to deliver it in a couple of hours. And the afterparties are where the real action is,” he said, looking up at Troy with an oddly vulnerable, winsome expression, “so I won’t make it to Sacrosanct tonight.”
“That’s OK. Saturdays can get a little crazy, so I expect I’ll be really busy,” Troy said, hiding his disappointment.
“Serving genius cocktails and impossible good looks, making bank and breaking hearts. I get it,” Thren said playfully, and Troy wanted to be complimented, but… was this a brush-off? Surely not, after all they’d shared, and Thren certainly acted reluctant to let him go. He held onto him as they walked back to the kitchen.
“Well,” Troy said, after a silence, “I’ll go get dressed. I guess I’d look pretty funny going home in this.” He gestured down at himself in Thren’s old T-shirt and too-small joggers.
“You look like you’re wearing Capri leggings, but it works for you,” Thren said, grinning. “Your clothes are in my steamer cabinet in the bedroom. They should be steamed and dry now.”
Troy was so impressed he couldn’t answer for a moment. It felt like he’d stayed in a five-star hotel with valet service, instead of going home with a stranger from a club. Before he could formulate a reply, a phone rang—an art-deco styled landline phone on a stand, of all things, and Thren said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve got to take this!” and hurried over to pick up the handset. A handset.
Troy stared for a moment as Thren said “Hello?” while giving him a regretful smile. He went into the bedroom and found his phone on Thren’s nightstand, called a rideshare, and got dressed in a daze. The situation, Thren’s place with its anachronistic décor and stylishly outdated technology, and Thren himself were so far outside Troy’s experience that he honestly wondered for a moment if he’d gotten some bad liquor, or slipped into a coma somehow, and this was all one long, strange, wonderful hallucination.
He laid the clothes he’d borrowed on top of Thren’s hamper and glanced at his almost-dead phone. Just enough charge to get home and pay for his ride. The driver was two minutes away, so there was no putting this off any longer.
When he emerged into the main room, Thren was still on the phone, and the conversation seemed a little intense. “That price includes hand stitching, and it’s not negotiable,” he was saying. He glanced up at Troy and smiled distractedly, blowing him a kiss.
Well, I guess that’s it, Troy thought. There was no reason to believe this was goodbye, he reminded himself. Surely, he would see Thren again soon. He shut the door behind him and trotted down the broad marble staircase to catch his ride home.
***
That night at Sacrosanct, Troy immediately saw evidence of Nina’s usual stellar work as cruise director of Sacrosanct’s luxury gossip-liner. Everyone knew that he had gone home with a handsome mystery man, although a lot of people also seemed to think it had been a threesome including Ziggy. Troy shut that one down, though he simply raised his eyebrow, made innuendos, and dodged questions about all the other rumors. His love life was his business, which he had ensured would not overlap with his literal business at Sacrosanct. People could fantasize about it all they wanted; it had nothing to do with him.
He couldn’t get Thren off his mind, though. He did his job with all the usual panache, cheerfully mixing amazing cocktails and serving them with a cheeky smile, but he did it all from miles away. He felt like he was looking at all the sexy, exotically dressed patrons of his own little goth utopia through smeary, bubbled glass.
Everything was going fine, though, until he sat down for his break and took out his phone, wondering if it was too soon (or too late at night) to text Thren… and realized he’d never gotten his number.
Horror and dread disproportionate to this oversight filled him. He shoved it aside impatiently—he wasn’t some nineteen year old fresh from his first adult sleepover, deciding he had a boyfriend now because they’d made each other come. Was he?
He flirted harder and performed more flamboyantly than ever behind the bar, and persuaded Ella and a couple others to stay after closing for a couple rounds of shots, a “taste test” for a new brand of mezcal he was trying out. He didn’t want to go home to his sleek, modern, empty apartment, but eventually, glum despite the celebrative atmosphere and his slight buzz, he did.
Even with said buzz and two late nights in a row, he couldn’t sleep. How could he have forgotten to get Thren’s number? What if his neglecting to do so made Thren think he didn’t want to see him again, despite how their morning after had gone? Even if he didn’t think that, Sacrosanct was the only place Thren knew to find him, and Troy wouldn’t be there again until Tuesday night. The club was closed Sundays, and Monday, as the slowest night, was Troy’s night off. Troy wasn’t sure he could bear the suspense for a full two days.
He managed to doze off sometime after dawn, but woke after a couple of hours with a panicked jolt of fear that he was late for something, or had forgotten a vital task. He gave up on more sleep, got up, and tried to eat breakfast, but it tasted like sand. He attempted his usual workout, but no matter how many tracks on his playlist he skipped trying to find the right one, the music seemed shrill and off, the movements incredibly boring, and his usual pride in taking care of his body was missing. He gave up on that, too, and got in the shower.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered to himself as he dried his hair, and then it hit him—he knew where Thren lived! He’d had to give the address to the rideshare driver, and it was still in his phone. He was dressed and out the door before he could overthink it.
The drive, however, gave him ample time to question himself. People didn’t just show up at each other’s houses anymore. He could come off like a major stalker, scare Thren, and ruin whatever chance he might have had for a deeper connection. What if Thren wasn’t even home? What if he was, and someone else was with him? He could have hooked up with someone at the convention afterparty, and be enjoying pain au chocolat with him now. With a guy as hot as Thren, Troy could be old news by now.
He groaned as he parked his car a little down the street from Thren’s place, and banged his head on the steering wheel. He thought he’d outgrown this—in too deep, too quickly, leaving himself open to ridicule. He had learned to be the first to declare any rendezvous no strings, the first to creep out a stranger’s door in the wee hours, holding his breath and carrying his shoes, the first to leave the gay club’s back room, sometimes without even a name to remember. But this name he couldn’t forget. Thren. He needed Thren to make good on his promise to tell him what it meant.
He glanced at his phone. Not quite eleven a.m.—too early to bother Thren if he’d been out late. He shouldn’t get out of the car. He should turn around and go back home, wait until Thren showed up at Sacrosanct, and if he did, give him a cool, sexy smile, just enough to suggest he might be open to—
Fuck it.
He got out of the car and strode toward Thren’s building. He trotted up the stairs and rang the ornate doorbell decisively, but then he fidgeted self-consciously, looking around. It wasn’t the type of building, and Thren wasn’t the type of person, to have a doorbell camera, but he might have seen Troy out a window, and—yet another what-if—what if Thren just didn’t answer? What if he didn’t answer because he saw Troy, and then never came to Sacrosanct again? Having third, fourth, and fifth thoughts, he had almost decided to turn tail back to his car when the door opened.
“Troy?”
Thren had never seemed so small and soft. Despite his stature, he usually had a grand presence—at Sacrosanct, and even during their intimate moments, he had worn a cloak of confident glamor, all gorgeous bespoke clothing, a grace both studied and natural, and a quick-witted sass that Troy suspected was armor around a tender heart. Now, in a faded, oversized T-shirt with a frayed neckline that slipped off one slim, pale shoulder, with enormous doe eyes almost too large for his face, tousle-haired and wearing a startled expression, he looked painfully fragile.
Troy swallowed, gathering his courage, and tried to make his voice gentle and unassuming. “Hi. Um, sorry to intrude… I hope this is OK. If it’s weird I promise I won’t do it again. I just realized I never got your number. And I won’t be back to Sacrosanct until Tuesday, and I didn’t know if you’d be there then, and… God, I’m sorry; should I go?” He pushed his uncharacteristically unstyled hair back from his face, gripping it in humiliation.
“No,” Thren said in a soft, surprised murmur. He was looking at Troy with… what? He looked almost stricken, near tears, and Troy, concerned, took a breath to say something, anything to break the tension, but could find no words—until Thren threw his arms around him and hugged him tightly.
“I can’t believe I didn’t make sure you had my number,” Thren said, his voice strained and muffled by Troy’s shoulder, where his cheek was firmly pressed. “I’m so terrible with my smart phone—I forget it exists, honestly. I’m so glad you came over. I just got up, but I haven’t stopped thinking about you. You saved me from panicking when I realized I didn’t have your number. I would have shown up to Sacrosanct with my tail between my legs, hoping you didn’t ‘forget’ on purpose and would be glad to see me. That I didn’t imagine there was more than one night between us.”
“Thank God it’s not just me,” Troy said, rubbing Thren’s back. “I was panicked, too. I know I should be—I’m supposed to be—cooler than this. You know, not too needy. I am usually. But with you—”
“Don’t be,” Thren said, loosening his hold and leaning back to look into Troy’s face. “Please. I just want to be real. I don’t want to be scared to say what I feel, or for you to be. I worry that it’s too much—that I’m too much; I’ve been told that—but…”
“It’s not. You’re never too much,” said Troy, pushing the strands of hair that had escaped Thren’s messy ponytail out of his face. He couldn’t resist a brief, soft press of his lips to Thren’s, who closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss so sweetly that Troy sighed.
“I hope you ignore anyone who ever tells you that,” he continued. “I want so much more of what you are. I want to know everything about you. We’ve barely scratched the surface. But before either of us forgets, let’s start with your number. And your last name.”
He took his phone from his pocket, pulled up a new contact, and handed it to Thren. “Can you put it in? Then I’ll text you so you have mine.”
Then smiled, taking the phone, and slowly poked at it, backtracking and retrying a few times. It was the least competent Troy had ever seen him; he really must not use a phone much. Even this anachronistic clumsiness was charming.
He handed it back to Troy, who read, “Threnody Ashcombe. Wow, that’s so lovely and you. And it fulfills one part of your promise.”
“My promise?” said Thren, drawing Troy inside and shutting the door behind them.
“To tell me the rest of your name, and what it means.”
“Oh, yes. That’s a story for… if we’ve got some time. Are you staying?”
“I’ll stay as long as you want me.”
“Careful,” said Thren, pausing in the hallway and pulling Troy’s head down to his. “I may never let you leave.”
At the moment, Troy could hardly think of anything better.
***
Troy wondered, when Thren invited him in so warmly, if sex was imminent, and he probably could’ve made that happen, but found himself more eager for knowledge of everything to do with his new lover.
They roamed Thren’s apartment, and Troy looked more closely at its mysterious contents, like a goblin market merged with a 1920s bazaar. Thren wandered with him, encouraging him to look at whatever he liked, answering his questions and asking several of his own—how had Troy started at Sacrosanct? Had he always wanted to be a bartender? How had his parents taken it when he came out? The conversation never stopped flowing.
The books were the most stunning part. On a restored gilt-and-walnut bookshelf beneath the promised taxidermy raven, Troy found several beautiful old volumes of poetry. One sat on a stand in pride of place: The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the title barely legible in faded gilt. It was bound in dark green cloth, worn so thin at the edges that the boards peeked through.
Thren had excused himself to the bathroom, so Troy gently took it down. To his astonishment, the copyright page listed the publication year as 1891.
Inside the front cover, scrawled on the blank endpaper in slightly messy cursive, was a note:
For my hyacinthine boy on his 18th birthday. You’ll never stop being my child of paradise. Love, Mom.
Troy stared, hesitating to page further in the book for fear of hurting it, then started when he heard Thren’s voice inches from his ear.
“And so we come to the story of my name,” he said, smiling gently at Troy’s surprise. He put an apologetic hand on Troy’s shoulder. “Sorry. You don’t have to be afraid to touch it. I’m always careful with it, but books are meant to be read. My mom always said so, too.”
“I… OK,” Troy said, but held the book out to Thren anyway. “I didn’t mean to intrude. It seems very… personal.”
“It is,” Thren said, taking the book with a smile, “but I want to share it with you. Let’s sit.”
They sat on the elegantly curved, velvet sofa, and Thren paged carefully though the book until he came to a page entitled Threnody.
“My parents named me for this poem. A threnody is a song for the dead. Emerson wrote it for his son who died young; that’s the hyacinthine boy. Believe it or not, it gets even more goth than that. My full name is Threnody Dirge Ashcombe.”
“Wow.” Troy cleared his throat. The dramatic elegance of the name, combined with Thren’s light-hearted tone, should make him smile, but instead, he felt an odd moisture behind his eyes, as if they knew they were about to leak before he did.
When Thren said nothing else for a moment, Troy ventured, a little haltingly, “Is your mom… still alive?”
“Oh, yes,” Thren said, smiling warmly. “Both she and my dad are alive and well, happily complaining that I don’t visit enough. The Threnody was for my sister… and for me. You see, for the first minute or two of my life, they thought I was stillborn.”
Troy blinked. The breath caught in his throat. “Holy shit,” he murmured. “That’s… quite a name to carry around. How do you feel about it?”
“I love it, actually.” Thren tilted his head, his eyes glinting as if he peered with pleasure into long-familiar shadows. “Hard to say if my love of all things goth came from the name, or if I brought it into the world with me. My parents didn’t tell me what my name meant until I was eight or nine. When they did, I was sad about part of it—the part about the sister I never met—but otherwise frankly overjoyed. I leaned even harder into the black-wearing, skull-art side of my personality."
Troy smiled faintly, picturing a tween Thren in messy eyeliner and combat boots.
“I was full goth as a teenager. I discovered my penchant for New Romantic fashion and 1920s décor later; my uncle was a big influence there. My parents are very progressive and artsy. They met at Brown University, where they were both professors—Dad in art history, Mom in poetry and lit.”
Troy raised an eyebrow and grinned a little, his heart lightening. Of course they were.
“I was the first full-term baby my mom had. She had several miscarriages when she was younger, but she and Dad really wanted a child, so they tried everything under the sun, and with hormone therapy and some other things, she was finally able to have my sister. But she was born really early, with a lot of health problems, and she didn’t make it to her first birthday.”
Troy’s heart twisted. He reached out instinctively, his fingers brushing the back of Thren’s hand. Thren turned his hand over to clasp Troy’s gently. His smile now was distant, his eyes glimmering.
“Oh my God, Thren, that’s… I don’t know what to say.” Troy’s voice was low. “I don’t know how your mom found the courage to try again… though I’m so grateful she did.”
“Well,” Thren said, turning sideways to look up at Troy, leaning across him to rest his head on his shoulder. “She didn’t, actually.”
Troy gave a surprised huff, not quite a laugh. “But you happened anyway?”
“Yep. Nine years after my sister died. Just as you suggest, my parents didn’t want to risk that kind of heartbreak again. They used birth control until my mom was in her forties, and perimenopausal. They figured it was safe to stop worrying about it then.”
“But surprise! It wasn’t,” Troy said, risking a mood-lightener. Thren chuckled softly, cuddling closer. Troy held him tightly.
“Right,” Thren continued. “When she found out she was pregnant, she and my dad were really worried, but my mom… she says spirit guides, and the muse of her poetry, told her what to do. She went really mystical after my sister died, and… well, it worked.”
“What did the spirit guides tell her to do?” Troy asked curiously.
“Essentially, nothing. They said to just follow her instincts and be happy. Do the things she loved best, take care of her body, get plenty of rest… and most importantly, don’t get attached to any particular outcome. My mom…”
Here, at last, the emotion of it seemed to overcome Thren. His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. Troy said nothing, just stroked his hair lightly and waited.
Thren sniffed, then continued. “Mom says she talked to me every day. She told me all the time that she loved me, and would really like to have me in the world with her, but that it was my choice. She wouldn’t hold it against me if I chose to leave. She promised that if I did stay, she would help me become whatever I wanted to be, and that she and Dad would love me every day of my life, no matter how long it lasted.”
Troy’s chest ached with the beauty of it. Most kids—especially gay kids—could only dream of parents that loving and supportive.
“They never really got over my sister,” Thren continued. Troy’s quiet, warm acceptance seemed to encourage him to keep talking. Troy got the sense he rarely said so much, on such intimate topics. He felt more human all the time in Troy’s embrace, the lovely, seductive exterior peeling away to reveal something even more beautiful.
“It was especially hard on my mom,” he said. “She went into a depression and had to stop teaching. She leaned hard into poetry then, and one good thing was that she published a collection during that time that put her definitively on the map in literary circles. It won lots of awards, and I think it really helped her to write it. She wrote full-time after that, though she still occasionally teaches a poetry class here and there.”
They were quiet for a few minutes. Troy finally said, “I really like knowing all this about you.” Maybe he should have tried to shift to a lighter tone, offered comfort, or even flirted, but only simple sincerity felt right.
Thren smiled. “I like telling it. Strangely, a lot. I rarely say so much. Maybe it’s the bartender in you—always ready with a listening ear.”
“That’s me. No imbibing required, even.”
“Speaking of, are you hungry?” Thren perked up. “I skipped breakfast and it’s way past lunch time. There’s a Thai place nearby that I really like; they deliver.”
“Sounds great. My treat,” said Troy, taking out his phone to order.
After the food arrived, the conversation continued. Troy lost track of everything they talked about, but their interactions flowed like a river tumbling over rocks, swirling out into slow, deep pools before plunging over the rapids again, crisscrossing through the timelines of their lives, from birth to the night before. A sharp flicker of jealousy hit like a static shock when Thren described how the convention had gone. Apparently, these things were basically the hookup Olympics.
“No, seriously,” Thren said with a laugh. “The woman I made the pirate costume for? We’re kind of friends, and she was headed to her third, um, liaison of the weekend when I left. Some people go just to get laid. One of the house parties had a literal bowl of condoms and lube packets by the front door.”
When Troy didn’t reply right away, Thren peered at him across his plate of pad Thai. “Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I didn’t take part. I wouldn’t. I used to, sometimes, when I was younger. But the last time was a year and a half ago. I’d already started feeling like it wasn’t really my thing anymore. And then… something happened that made it quite clear I was done.”
"What happened?" Troy asked softly, after a moment.
“Well…” Thren hesitated. “I sort of… fell for someone. I thought there could be something longer-term between us.” He shifted slightly. Troy, giving him space to express without pressure, wasn’t looking directly at him, but he felt him looking at him, gauging his reaction. He did his best to radiate acceptance, and Thren went on, reassured.
“We saw each other a few times after the con was over—he lives within reasonable driving distance. But when I asked if he might like something more… real, he told me he was polyamorous, and part of a quad.”
“Wow. That sounds… messy.”
“Yes,” Thren said, “that’s a good word for it. He said they might be open to adding me, but that definitely wasn’t going to work for me. And… it’s silly, maybe. But I was a teeny bit heartbroken. He hadn’t said anything that indicated that was who he was, so I felt a little betrayed. I probably had no right to, since we’d been clear it was no strings, at first, but…”
Thren trailed off, and for a moment the only sound was the soft rise and fall of their breathing.
Troy, sensing a bit of humor was called for, reached across the table to tweak Thren’s chin and said, “Well. Good news. I’m not in a quad, I’ve never been polyamorous, and I love strings. Tie me up, baby.”
Thren chuckled, a little nervously. “I don’t really know how to navigate this,” he confessed. “Working in costuming, and dance, I’ve learned that image is everything. I can look pretty, flirt, be seductive. I can bait the hook and reel you in, but when I decide I don’t want to catch and release anymore…”
Troy tried to keep a straight face, because Thren was being so beautifully vulnerable, but a snort slipped out. He covered it with his hand and tried to look serious when Thren looked sharply at him, but when he saw the humor dawning on Thren, it was all over.
He burst out laughing, relieved when Thren joined in. “You… don’t know how to clean and eat me?” he said, prompting fresh gales of laughter from both of them. After it subsided, wiping tears from his eyes, Troy said, “Actually I disagree… you’ve got the eating me part down pat. Listen,” he said. “Fishing metaphors aside… I don’t really know how to navigate this either. It’s been a couple of years since I had what I’d call a boyfriend. Shall we just… spend time together, be honest with each other, and see where this goes?”
“OK, magic Troy,” Thren murmured, squeezing his hand.
“OK, Lord Threnody Ashcombe. I’m going to call this place Ashcombe Manor. And get a frilly white nightgown and a candelabra to carry around when I stay over.”
“I’ve got at least one candelabra, and I can make you the nightgown.”
“Perfect, my lord.”
***
Late that night, in the soft shadows that draped Thren’s quirky-romantic bedroom, Troy held Thren close in a haze of bliss. The sex this time had been long, slow, and intense, an all-consuming erotic entanglement that left him more satisfied than he could ever remember feeling. Echoes of ecstasy played softly along his limbs, which felt boneless, made of weighted silk, and Thren was more silk wrapped around him in the sensuous cocoon of his bed. The rest of Troy’s life seemed far away, a distant rosy picture dappled with watercolor and filtered sunlight. A nice enough place to return to when he was ready, but for now, all he wanted was here in his arms.
When he woke, he no longer questioned whether he was in love, or if what was between him and Thren was real. Whatever uncertainties it had to weather, Troy knew he would do everything in his power to keep vulnerable, unique, sharp, lovely little Thren. And be kept by him, in a manner even more lavish than that to which he was accustomed.