|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:00 pm
The night started at 7. It dredged on, dredged slowly, dredged thoroughly. He and the bar staff played cards together. Over the course of 45 minutes, Ebon learned how to play Uno and Crazy 8s. At 7:45, Jean came in and told them to find something else to do with their time. They backsassed her, of course, but everyone there needed their jobs, so they each begrudgingly found something to clean.
Then eight came. A smattering of patrons rolled through with more interest in each other's work stories than in the establishment. Kandi called them tech bros. Said they worked for some banking outfit where they made disgusting amounts of money using a crew of maybe ten at most. She ragged on them the way they ragged on AI together — Kandi always taking the environmentalist approach while Ebon went philosophical. She teased him about being a poet, as usual, but it was her turn to go up on stage.
Ebon didn't care much for Kandi's playlists, though. Too upbeat, too sweet. Saccharine and empty-headed, he thought they did a disservice to the girl under the makeup. Big tits, blonde hair, bundles of energy. Ebon followed Rose outside.
Rose smoked like cigarettes were oxygen on event nights. Ebon liked to keep her company while the air cooled. If he didn't, she'd work herself up until she had to take one of her pills, and she wasn't much good after that. He liked that she didn't expect him to respond to anything she said. She liked that he listened to her unsolicited advice and smiled at her whenever she checked if he was listening. And sometimes, particularly on nights like tonight, she rewarded him by teaching him how to smoke. That night, she lit another cigarette off of hers and handed it to him. She laughed when he choked and started coughing.
8 bled into 9. Rose was up. Kandi came out. She always took calls, so Ebon stubbed out the remainder of his cigarette to head inside and help with the bar.
There was no helping with the bar. They didn't want his help with the bar. In fact, they had everything so perfectly under control that Laszlo raised his voice and cursed at him(? praised him?) in his mother tongue until Ebon put his hands up in surrender and left the bar. From then on, the final hour before the event passed too quickly and torturously slowly. It was too soon to prep but too late to engross himself in something more enjoyable than waiting. He went back outside.
Kandi wasn't on the phone. She was smoking, but it smelled different. He didn't think she smoked. When he joined her, she offered it to him. He obliged her. After a few minutes, he didn't feel so nervous anymore. Kandi even gave him a pat on the back, one of her too-firm hugs where she held his farthest arm hostage at the bicep, then asked him if he was alright. He nodded because he should've been. Because the audience shouldn't matter at all.
9 became 9:30. The stages emptied. Everyone changed while Ed (whose real name was Davis) went onto the floor for his most important task of the night.
Beyond its black glass storefront, Starlight's layout made use of its namesake in a very straightforward manner. The location housed six stages in total, each circular in form, each with a pole in the center, each arranged along a greater circle that was mapped by floor lights. These stages featured circular bar space with attached stools surrounding them, hooks mounted beneath the bars for purses and coats. The floors were painted black. The stage floors were plexiglass, which Davis took advantage of for his characteristic lighting setups. It was at each of these stages that he would stop and run a last tech check via the panel mounted to the side of the stairs. When turned on, a clean and brilliant underlighting illuminated the dancers, and as he cycled through all of the functions, that lighting shifted color and luminosity until it was left at a warm glow.
In the center of the circle of stages was the bar, itself a perfect circle, fashioned after the moon, with modular seating and more space for those who only cared for food or drink. This was where the regulars (otherwise known as Laszlo's fans) liked to throw their roots down and share their war stories like it was a therapy session. They came for the happy hour, not for the girls or the boys on display.
The clock struck 10. The lights dimmed. Laszlo's thick accent erupted over the speakers as he announced the occasion: six stages, six dancers, and sixty minutes. The theme: the wilds. Davis queued up a looping intro as background to the introduction and each dancer found their way to their stage for the night.
First was Kandi, dressed in an unsurprising and entirely too flattering jaguar motif. Her bottle blonde hair was plaited back to showcase meticulously painted eyes that echoed her patterned furs. Her outfit design harkened back to the 80s, as did her overly enthusiastic hissing and clawing motions as she made her way toward her stage. Her regulars had already filled every seat around her stage and greeted her appearance with a gusto that often hurt Ebon's ears.
.
Second was Rose, who played much more reserved and mature. She entered with a pout that she learned from modeling in her teens, though she wore a brilliant half-mask of startling plumage that echoed a macaw. Her designer was one of the more talented of the bunch, who always evoked asymmetry and delicateness in such a manner that every piece somehow enunciated Rose, down to the hand-painted feathers that lilted down to her ankles. Her stage had also been filled with her regulars, plus a few newcomers who didn't mind standing room.
Then came Ebon. Dressed as a vulture, his outfit was rendered in characteristic feathers, leather and metal. Latex gloves that took too much lube and too much time to don had sported black talons at the fingers, those talons then studded with rhinestones. A mask with plumage of black and striking red easily covered half his face. Black mesh hid his eyes. A tight collar of dusky orange plumage feathered across his shoulders and prominent collar bones, accentuated by strips of black leather that were stretched over repeating rings. He spared no greeting for the crowd, nor did he look at them, though the butterfly beat in his chest asked him to look for a boy with black hair and too much money. He approached his stage in heels as studded as his taloned fingers and took the pole in hand, waiting, head bowed as the rest would claim their places.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:01 pm
Armani Acqua di Gio. Dark blue Versace briefs. Hair up in a casual bun that was anything but, a few strands escaping. A restrained hand for the eyeliner, framing a normally sleepy gaze into something more wide-eyed, a little innocent. Diamond studs, set in white gold, Cartier. Balenciaga white cotton tee. Close fitting black jodhpurs, midnight calf panel, personal tailor. Valentino bomber jacket in custom colorwave, hand embroidered floral motif. The black on black on black Rolex should have read a little after half past 9 as studded Jimmy Choo’s stepped out onto the cracked pavement.. Locking the Miura (the first time it’s been driven by anyone but staff on grocery runs in over a year) the boy sighed at his reflection in the window. He shifted a piece of hair, rings glinting like stars against pale knuckles and decided it’d do.
What stepped into the club was a fat black sheep, crying to be fleeced with every inch of his pampered body for those with eyes to see it. Uncertain but still trying to posture with the confidence of one who belonged there. Curious, unable to keep his eyes still while he looked from the bar to the stages to the staff, then the patrons, the sheep tried to shake the paralysis, tried to saunter up to the bar like a wolf. He asks for something that belongs in a climate controlled cellar, beyond the top shelf and looks startled, then put out when it’s not simply at his convenience as everything else in life so clearly was. Swallowing back the need to make a scene, he accepted the bartender’s suggestion (along with a discreetly applied a*****e Tax) with an awkward attempt to be gracious and pleased.
Drink in hand he needlessly prowls to take a seat at a stage, shifts in it and eyes the other patrons. He sees the way they lounge and smile and look and makes a clumsy attempt to once more look like he absolutely belongs here, even if he’s by himself. He’s suddenly aware that he’s maybe too by himself. An attempt to chat with a neighbor is made, but it's the wrong starter and they both realize to such an uncomfortable degree that both leave their seats and move to different stages at opposite ends of the floor. Fidgeting and restless, he drums his fingers along the plexiglass, looks around, a little worried, then changes to a different seat. Then another until the place had filled in enough to choke off the attempts at finding the right seat, the best seat. He seems almost relieved for it, a little tension easing out as the crowd made his choices for him.
The show was starting and the sheep faded into the crowd, just one of many here to watch and enjoy. And then a dancer in black, glinting leather stepped out onto the neighboring stage. His head jerked toward the sight of the ill omen among birds of paradise and he was fixed, then tugged closer, until he was at the base of the altar, ready to behold and pay tithe.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:01 pm
Eles knew Malory to be smart. More importantly, he knew that boy to be clever. He could read people, he could ******** with them, he could decide how little their opinions meant and how best to manipulate his enemies into resentfully stewing on him in their late night hours. All of these, he thought, were good things. And with all that time he spent on acting, on learning a character and all their intrinsic motivations, Eles thought it meant that Malory could read rooms. He thought it meant Malory would do his due diligence, learn a little about the location, the patrons, the area.
And Eles was mortifyingly, dreadfully wrong. Malory stood the ******** out, as he oft liked to do, but in a way that said take me out back and shoot me for your chance at half a million dollars. If the crime breaks enough headlines, then the price goes to a million for all those nihilistic tech moguls that want to collect their murderabilia. Malory made himself into a fat ******** target.
Eles hadn't realized how tightly he gripped the pole until he let go enough to shift his hand farther down. The other three were making their entrances; there wasn't time to drag Malory into the staff lounge and shove him through a mirror before he got his a** broken in half. For those few moments, he was at a loss of what to do: while Malory wasn't actively getting beaten in a manner he deserved (and it soon occurred to Eles that Malory could have done this intentionally, just to be transgressive, just to tease Eles with the fact that he let strangers break six of his ribs when he bargained only two with his fresh blonde), there were also the beleaguered college kids who poured their time and attention into outfits and scripted dances that were here to watch the payoff. If he stepped away now, that would crust Christie's hopes and dreams. And it wouldn't do Sakura any good, either.
But it wouldn't do him any good if the boy he lived with became a red stain on someone's white-walled tires. Or disappeared in the trunk of a car. Or —
No more of this, he told himself. He could keep an eye on the boy so long as he stayed put. Malory wasn't actively being beaten (though the more he had to look at the boy, the more he wanted to actively beat him and call that the show). This had to be a ******** punishment, right? It couldn't be anything else.
You. Stupid. c**t. Eles mouthed at that boy.
But the set started. Music blared over the din, insisting any side conversations ravel out for the better fruits of the hour. Bass shuddered through the floor, through the poles, and Ebon began to move. Each movement practiced — a raised knee, the slide of a foot across the stage, a hand stroking upward on the pole — trained ad nauseam to the point that he resented about half the playlist for the evening. But while he memorized the coached steps so thoroughly that he could dance to the tunes in his sleep, the spectacle he provided lacked the flair of the others. It was why Kandi and Rose had such followings, he knew — they made their performances their own. They put their personality into it.
How Ebon glided across the circular stage was functional, unbothered, uninterested in the world. Rose smiled, she engaged her clientele. Kandi liked to reach for the ones most drawn to her, to fabricate these brief seconds of intimacy with her viewers, though she was constantly at odds with her choreographer for it. Ebon didn't have any such tricks. He was more likely to step on someone's hand for daring to reach than reward such boldness with his skin.
Enough drops were built into the second half of the song that Ebon was getting his squats in, with or without the pole. He kept to breathing through his nose, daring not to break the uninterested mask. Particularly when a certain vulnerable little ******** lingered nearby.
One of the girls near him, who looked like she'd been dragged along with her much more boisterous and outgoing friend, tentatively reached out with cash in hand. He paused just long enough to let her stuff the bill into a garter, but he couldn't hear anything she said through the earplugs or the rampant bass. He wouldn't know what to say back to her regardless, so he picked up his next steps as instructed.
When the first song closed, everyone was still fully clothed. However, after the opening to the second song, which was much more interesting to him, it was time to pitch the feathered collar. All the better, too, for the lights and the packed room and all the careful rotations on the pole left him much too hot. With another glance spared for Malory, he kicked the discarded collar toward him when he next passed it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:01 pm
Tension stroked along the dancer’s body like a finger sliding down a bowstring. There and then gone, nothing left in the wake.
Malory didn’t have to read lips to know exactly what Ebon had mouthed. He’d had it directed at him often enough, a small smile slipped past his chosen role, cheek dimpling slightly before turning into vapid excitement, a subtle preening in his posture, for the brush of attention. And attention seemed to be the cachet sought (and denied) on Aphelion’s stage. The dancer held it just beyond their reach, he moved and stretched, and bent (oh how he bent) for their eyes. For their enjoyment. But his own eyes were hidden and the tilt of chin and bow of his mouth withheld acknowledgement and didn’t seem to care for admiration, you could want him or you could ******** off. Make room for the next body drawn to colder enticements.
The expensive boy leaned back and then forward in his seat, attention focused on teasing expanses of skin, head dipping and angling whenever the dancer bent over enough, as if peering up at that mask would allow him a peek beyond it. For a moment his hand started to reach out and then pulled back, unsure of what he wanted, and if it, like the drink he’d tried to order, would be laughingly denied. The girl with her money got a look that was at first envious, then considering.
A flush rising up his face, the expensive boy sipped his drink as the first song faded out. A flush that spread from ear to neck as he found himself picking up the feathered collar with an eager, almost protective hand. He held it up to his face and inhaled deeply…
Eyes briefly closing, Malory took in the familiar scent of wardrobe. Of costume. The powder and product scents of makeup and hair, the sweat of the work and the often punishing lights needed to frame its dimensions. And, as it happened, his own closet. Eyes opening, he looked up, calm and dark and thinking.
Growing hot himself the expensive boy slipped out of a jacket that could change someone’s life and let it hang from the back of his chair, looking thinner without it. Younger. More vulnerable. But he didn’t seem to feel it in any way, in fact sat a little prouder and preening. A wallet slid out and the less optimistic might find its lack of thickness disappointing. The expensive boy hid a smile behind it as his eyes traced along the dancer on high, stopping with bright consideration at ankle and knee, thigh and hip, at strap after strap after strap of leather. Wherever fingers might slide across and leave an offering.
Finally, still so new and still figuring out the means to some desirable end, the expensive boy simply copied the shy girl and reached out, a single, extremely crisp bill in hand.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:01 pm
Look at you. So bold.
Blacks and liquid shine wound round the chrome pole. Skin flecked with the barest sheen of work. More a confession for the heat radiating from the lights, but Ebon was unbothered.
Following someone else's lead. Like it was your idea. But you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me.
And that was the worst of it. Knowing that this utter ******** of a child only put himself at risk of being mugged and shot because of him. Because of Eles, who couldn't keep to a stupid story about why he died his hair. Who couldn't say that he just did it to feel more connected to his looks. Who couldn't say that all these slutty-looking outfits in the closet were just experiments. Like he was playing at being a fashion designer. If he'd said anything other than the truth, he wouldn't be watching Malory out of the periphery of his mask while wondering what was going to go down first.
Because something would, he knew. That thought sat ill with him as both hands gripped the pole, as belted and rhinestoned legs tucked up beneath him as he trusted all his weight to his arms. As his revolutions slowed, as he neared the floor, the beat-heavy song began to decompose. Unraveled into its constituent parts in its tapered ending.
When he touched down on the ground, he froze for a moment. Two. Three. Long enough for Malory to admit that one bill into the top of his boot. Ebon didn't even look at it. Didn't take heed of that tip or of anyone else's.
It was time for a water break, regardless. Jean would be hocking her subscription bullshit over the next five minutes, chatting up happy hour prices, bundling whatever the ******** she wanted to devalue in order to squeeze more money out of these events. Sometimes the customers bitched about them, but the smart ones either stepped out back for a cigarette or popped into the restrooms to let off a little tension. For the dancers, it was a minute to smoke or drink. A minute to share stories about the outrageous horseshit their drunken regulars did during the last dance. A minute for complaints about how leather thongs and thigh sweat got on like gas and fire.
Ebon rose and started down the stage steps. Expression middling between neutral and nonplussed, he made his way around the bend in the stage toward the back door that admitted into an alleyway. Kandi and Rose were already halfway out the door. Ebon simply took that overpriced jacket off the back of the chair, hoisted it over his shoulder by the hanging loop, then made to follow the other two dancers without looking back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:02 pm
The expensive boy watched the Aphelion leave with a clinging, longing gaze and didn't bother to say anything about the coat. The hands flexing and pressing at his thighs spoke loudly enough as to their frustrated emptiness for what was not only out of reach but now no longer on display. The desperation wasn’t quite there yet though, but it was enough.
As he listened to the woman in the tidy, fitted suit who talked like she should have a cigar in hand, Malory found himself looking forward to what was to come well beyond what he’d been anticipating. It wasn’t simply the theatrics, or the prospect of nudity, fully sexual and on semi-open display. Those were enjoyable, but he found himself being coaxed into a state deep want and sweet frustration purely through those ******** straps. Those horrible gloves. They teased and denied him the sight of that flex and play of muscle, the taught stretch of skin across the constellation of Ebon’s joints. And while he’d certainly enjoyed the views he’d been treated to since the kismet of a first encounter that needed no second…
He wanted this dancer, framed to incite and entice, apathetic to the intrigue and desire he dragged out with every push pull thrust of his body. Malory found himself longing, maybe even pleading, for Ebon to take off another piece of clothes. A logical inevitability and yet, in the midst of wanting him, of this drawn out anticipation of him, it was something that could only be hoped for, never taken for granted.
When the women walked away, it was with a year’s subscription for a membership level that he wasn’t sure existed but sounded very nice, and left behind a club branded VIP jersey several times too large for him.
When Ebon took the stage once more, there was an empty glass in front of a dazed expensive boy, and next to it, the Rolex.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:02 pm
The three joined each other outside, each gathered under the perpetually buzzing flood light. On that night, a single firefly beat itself hopelessly against the burning bulb, its green flicker glowing before guttering while it added to the noise.
The girls were unfazed and Ebon only followed its trajectory as something of a distraction. All the while, Ebon shifted the coat back into his grasp and patted down the pockets until he felt something promising. For all that the girls stared, Ebon was unbothered. He dug around in the pocket until he could grasp both objects in his latex clutches and withdraw them without crushing the box or breaking any seams. Or, most importantly, marking the latex.
"Wait. Hold on," Rose put her hands up, gesturing for Ebon to stop his pilfering. "is that a Valentino? May I look at it?"
Ebon shrugged as he watched her shock and disbelief slowly temper as she reset her expectations. He offered her the jacket by the hanging loop, then turned his attention to his ill-gotten gains. Frowning, he sighed through his nose. Newports again? He was hoping for those clove ones.
Kandi showed interest in generally making sense of the scene — she was in classes to become a structural engineer, not a fashion icon — but she was curious nonetheless. She and Rose worked well together both on the stage and off, so if Rose was interested, Kandi was drawn in by the infectiousness of Rose's excitement.
And ********, was Rose excited. Ebon didn't watch her closely, too busy lighting a cigarette, but he assumed she was ransacking that jacket with a touch of reverence as she looked for tells that set the fakes apart from the genuine. It must have passed muster, for her voice grew shrill with glee and she hopped in place with a stream of deliriously exuberant invective. "Holy s**t, I'm holding a real ******** Valentino Garvani! Kandi, babes, can you believe this?! Ohmygod, take my picture with it! s**t, can I wear it? Where did you even get this, anyway?"
Recognition hit right after Ebon's first drag. Dumbass patron left it hanging off his chair.
Rose's venomous judgment was piqued. She slipped the jacket over her shoulders and it fit while it was open, but anyone with eyes could tell that it wouldn't zip closed over her respectable rack. "Wow, what the ********. They deserve to lose it. Hey, let's back up a little bit. Do you think it'll look super chic if I pose by the dumpster? That's a decent dichotomy, right? It'll say a lot about the arbitrary values our society places in brands and their history, versus the things we discard as valueless that are used far more ubiquitously."She crossed her arms over the dumpster bar and bent at the waist, flashing Kandi's phone a keen smile while she lifted a leg behind her. She spoke through her smile. "But I still ******** love Valentino."
"You know him, right? I saw that kid walk in. He doesn't have any idea what he's doing here. Nepo babe, I'm guessing?" She spoke around her phone while Rose redirected her religiously.
Ebon nodded. He signed to Rose with his free hand and she passed the translation on to Kandi.
"He says they know each other. And the kid is rich — new money rich. Hey, over here for a sec. Get my good side. Anyway, he's never worked a day in his life and can get whatever he wants. And — aww, Ebon, you do have a heart! Ebon's worried for him because he'll probably get beaten, shot, and mugged. He took the jacket hoping that kid would follow us out here and Ebon could send him home before he got hurt. He definitely didn't take the bait."
"It's his mistake." Kandi squatted down for a worm's eye view of Rose. "Instead, he gets to listen to Jean rattle off her spiel for the nth time. Pretty sure that's a punishment they implemented in the seventh circle. Probably had to spend Mommy and Daddy's rolls of cash to shut her up.
"I've gotta say though: I'm surprised, Ebon. You give off so much ruthless top energy, I had you figured for a ladykiller. You'd rather raise his pole than dig our holes, huh?" She smiled up at him easily, knowing he'd recoil at such a prospect. "Relaaaax, I'm just teasing. I bet you two would look cute together, though! Plus? If you land someone with that much money to throw away, then you'll never have to work another day in your life, right? You could, like, retire at 21 or however old you are."
"I'd love to marry into wealth," Rose added as they wrapped up their impromptu photoshoot.
"I couldn't do it. Here, this one looks super cute. You should put it on your Insta! Anyway, I'd rather be the one giving my girlie a cushy lifestyle. Plus I want to do something meaningful, you know? Like, this country's got a staggering number of failing bridges…"
Rose threw off the jacket at once and handed it to Ebon. "******** that noise, I'm going back inside." And she yanked the door open, trying so very hard to smother her smile as she stomped back inside to rejoin the stage.
Kandi, who she left behind, just rolled her eyes. "As I was saying…"
But Ebon was putting the cigarette out on the wall, then he, too, opened the door to follow Rose. He heard a plaintive you guuuyyyyssss trail after him before the door — and the music — shut it out entirely. After replacing the Newports and far too expensive Hermès lighter in the jacket pocket, he banished it to sprawl across Malory's lap. Malory, who looked as though the alcohol was hitting already. Like he might be having a blue day tomorrow.
But that was tomorrow's problem, Ebon decided. Tonight's problem was getting through the performance. A few songs remained and the next one was the hardest. Not because he shed more clothes for it, but because those clothes had a role in some technically exacting moves that Chrissie all but beat into him.
So he stepped up to the stage, mouth set in concentration. Hand on the pole again. Encrusted nails glinting with their rhinestones set over nailcaps so black that they looked wet. He waited. The glint of Malory's overpriced timepiece kept catching his eye and he wasn't alone at that; a frat boy who couldn't hold his beer feigned a stumble into the bar, cracking against it hard enough to rattle the empty glass to cover his deft little theft. Better the Rolex than the ******** boy, Ebon thought.
This one began with a strong beat, fed slowly by layered synth and some foley room samples of a revving motorcycle and a tiger. Recorded with such precise tools and mastery of sound that the tiger's inhaled growl raised gooseflesh along his biceps and exposed strips of thigh for how the whole building sounded caught in its throat. Piano and synth crept around the thinning rumble. Ebon's motioned slowed as the melody wound down, as stark boots stopped and he dipped low, with one leg lock-straight and the other bent as a perfect elbow rest.
He didn't see the hand that reached to feed him money, but he caught sight of a crumpled bill fluttering to the ground. There it would stay, then. His timing had to be perfect.
The beat dropped as he through the complex weave of leather and metal wide, expression unchanged. Here, the tempo shifted, the vibe grew more obscene, more sultry as the revving motorcycle mated with the tiger's throaty roars. The rings scraped clangorously against the pole while Ebon used the leather straps to leverage himself for dips and bends beyond what he should be able to balance. Pulled those straps taut and crossed them at the base of his neck, drawn across his body, hip jutted and skin painted in the rusty, feathered plumage of the marrow-eating vulture.
Nothing about that song was safe, or easy, or clean. Even the underlighting shifted between orange and red as the music built to its strange crescendo. Bodies twisted and turned, sweat papered over unmoving body paint. His breaths came in quick huffs, but he kept up with the demand. The predator's nocturnal dance sped up until it reached that stultifying whimsy from its opening, where Ebon tried to hide the tremble in his tired ankles. Eventually one betrayed him when his foot slid just slightly underneath him.
Thus did the next song come to a close — with Ebon silently castigating himself about never getting that one quite right.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:02 pm
He didn't make it look easy. Ebon worked the pole and stage with power, agility, and focus, but there was no weightless grace and ease that other forms of dance strived for. And it suited. His body pushing further and faster until even further meant slowing down, straining against the inevitably of gravity in a show of hard won control.
The expensive boy marveled, fed several more bills to a dancer too focused to give a s**t, was served a new drink, and didn't notice the missing watch.
Sipping the drink to wet an increasingly dry throat, Malory's other hand pressed down briefly at jacket in his lap and shifted in his seat. He got what he wanted, at least in part, in getting to see full swathes of Ebon's body working, straining, and sweating in this intensifying theatrical performance of You Want to ******** Me. The dancer made it hard to look away, catch the expressions on the other patrons faces to see how much they wanted to ******** him, to be ******** up by him. Choked by the leather straps, or maybe gagged, mouth forced open against one of those metal rings. Left and ignored until the Aphelion finished his dance.
As the dance wound down, Malory caught that little give, the shaky bit of imperfection in the performance and an involuntary grunt hit the back of his throat. Palm pressing against the embroidery of the jacket, he belatedly noticed that the vapid, enthusiastic expression he'd been maintaining had long slipped. Annoying. A point to Eles.
Bending down in his seat, the expensive boy shifted and rustled about until the overpriced T-shirt had been replaced by the too big VIP jersey. He looked around, amused with himself but there was a sense of hopeful pleading each time he looked at the dancer. The discarded shirt missed the hook and ended up on the floor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:02 pm
Ebon was proven the fool for doubting that Malory could look like any more of a ********, dressed as he was. When he'd circled back around from the end of the last dance, he watched the boy from the edge of his mask. Off went that ridiculous chip bag of a shirt. On went the equally ridiculous jersey that looked far more like a dress on him. A dress that Eles wanted to
Ebon's gaze traveled up the pole as he traced the unyielding steel with a gloved hand. That boy, always daring him to look this way. Like they were in a competition. Like he was on display.
The music shifted. Ebon's head tilted down, guided by the slow plodding of the austere drop. The desperate violin. The minor key. The last song of that night for Ebon Aphelion.
This one — it lilted, it swayed, trembled toward danger. Like power lines crossing over and under. A wind come begging thunderstorms. Ebon followed the rhythm, felt the feathers in his mask flicker and sway while he moved. The song destabilized on its own, corrupted by a throaty hum and buzz that stalked the melody. Long, singular notes that dropped almost imperceptibly. The pluck of notes so harsh that the strings yearned to snap. An impatience, a rattle, a viper's nest. The world as it felt in a prodrome of insensate madness.
Ebon tried to follow it all. Kept his mouth locked in concentrating disdain. Every meandering note demanded another curve in his body, now traced with beads of sweat. The narrative of a voiceless song darkened and he shed yet more belts, yet more straps, showing the plumage that painted his sides down to his hips, down past his thighs. All that remained were his rhinestoned boots and a strict black thong held in place by two metal clasps at his hips.
This song reminded him of something that could only feel hate. No one played those instruments with love in their hearts. No, they misshaped the aural world. They corrupted it to hurt people, and it suited him perfectly.
It suited him so well that he cared not to look at the flutter of worthless paper that went with the last of his outfit. That fading marks left on his body were covered up by clever paint, as if to say that no one had ever touched Ebon Aphelion in a way that mattered. In a way that lasted. The way he bent and slid with the low hum of a rattle felt almost predatory. Venomous, even.
But that song — the strangest song — was over all too quickly. Ebon made no move to wipe the rolling beads of sweat from his chest or arms. Those speakers faded to silence and he stepped off the stage, heels announcing his departure with derision. He rounded the bar just so, neared the boy, and bent at the hips to pluck that too-expensive discarded shirt from the floor. Balenciaga cast aside like an empty wrapper. Ebon wiped the sweat from his neck, from his body, then dropped it on the floor again.
Nothing was worth anything. No one mattered at all. Ebon departed from the floor.
As did most of the other dancers. Tonight, their second newest boy would perform the finale solo to a song that was little more than a shitpost. Some old song coined from before he was born, belonging only by band name and thematic music video, to which the surprisingly talented boy would dance. Such a performance blended satire and silliness together so perfectly that it was difficult to say what, if anything, such a finale meant. Normally Ebon would stay to watch it, but tonight, he needed to starve away his dread.
Ebon emerged minutes later wearing a black tank top that was long enough to cover most of his a**. Still wore the same mask, the same shoes, and those gloves were tossed over his shoulder much like the jacket from earlier. As he rounded his stage again, he reached out to catch the most expensive ******** by the back of his disappointingly purchased jersey and kept walking for the door.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:02 pm
The more Ebon took off, the less he deigned to acknowledge the onlookers and their ever rising want for more of him. The more they see, the more they want, the less they may have. On stage is Aphelion transforming, and they were privileged to witness the process that left him gleaming, panting, and bare above them. Malory traced the painted on plumage with his eyes and wondered where the now unbound dancer would go, if there was anything Ebon Aphelion wanted or sought after this point of becoming so much himself.
Absently he lifted a hand to tuck a few pieces of hair behind his ear, and seeing Ebon near him, gave another hopeful smile, only this time there was a trace of nervousness as well. The shirt on the floor was picked up, used, and discarded like nothing and his expression turned to confusion. Not happy, but the gaze at Ebon’s retreating back was still plain with its slick and sticky sort of longing.
Putting his hand down, the expensive boy didn’t seem to notice the tiny piece of starlight that dropped from his ear. One of the diamond studs falling out and onto the ground. Glancing at his wallet, he noted with a bit of dismay that he seemed to have spent it all, slipped into those boots that always felt like they might aim a kick at him if the dancer had deigned to notice, politely left on the floor when the dancing hit the more technical points.
Should he have spared some for any of the other dancers? The closer who would be going on next? Well, he didn’t really care about them, he wasn’t here for them. But was it rude or normal to fixate on a single dancer? Or did it give Ebon extra value, prestige of sorts to collect another obsessive? Malory rather hoped so, that was the whole po-
Tugged by the back of his jersey, he turned to see it was Ebon pulling him along and thankfully not an attendant reporting that his car had been stolen, or that the owner had devised a new VIP tier for the ultra desperate sucker that Malory felt he’d done a rather nice job of presenting.
Following obediently, jacket still held in front of him, Malory began, “Are you always painted underneath? How long did it take?” Can I wash it off you? I’ll be nice this time?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:03 pm
Oh, the urge to look that boy in the midnight eyes and slander him. Vomit derision all over his perfect face for all his stupid ******** transgressions that would have — should have — gotten him dead. But Ebon set his jaw until his teeth ached for it and clutched that boy along in his white-knuckle grip. Even if he felt like he was a thousand miles away from the unassuming entrance to the mediocre club.
Far from his mind was the smattering of bills he left on the floor alongside most of his outfit. Like everything else in the club, they wouldn't matter. Some of the patrons would walk away feeling richer for it. Those patrons would cause a small uproar, get one of the bouncers involved, and if they were particularly unlucky, get Laszlo involved. Then, after the blood and teeth were mopped up and ambulances were called, some of those patrons would be banned forever and Rose would quietly collect all those bills that were once touching Ebon's skin. She had a habit of it. Then he would find a simple black jewelry box sitting at his station in the back, filled with every bill that fell off of him.
Maybe he'd find an earring, too. A overpriced shirt. Certainly no watches.
Ebon kicked the door open without answering his question. Outside, the night's heat felt as oppressive as the stage lights blaring up at him. Like the concrete polluted the air with the absent sun's sear. Ebon walked farther from that door, waited til it closed without any footfalls following them.
Then he let go of the jersey that he stretched in his grip. Turned around. Struck the boy across his smug face with an open palm.
"What. The <********>. Were you doing," Ebon asked through gritted teeth. Then he pushed the mask up upon his sweaty brow and stared the boy down with a pained rage. "Do you want to get shot, beaten, and mugged? Because that's what could've ******** happened with you dressed like a ******** yuppy!" He gestured at Malory's entire being, certainly worth many fold more than what Ebon pulled in that night.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:03 pm
The slap rocked Malory back, his head snapping sharply to the side because the dancer really, and truly meant it. Not a bit of play, petty revenge, or enticement to be found. Lifting his hand slowly, as if not to startle any further action, Malory carefully touched his cheek, the pain blooming across it like a rose to Ebon’s feathers. Pressing up to burst out the tight confines of his skin. When he finally looked over at Ebon, expression dangerously mild, he saw the other boy’s face, and his own immediately turned to soft shock.
“You were worried about me?” The confusion was clear, no games or teasing to hide, to play keep away with whatever truths threatened to spill at this boy’s feet.
It wasn’t that nobody ever worried for Malory, even when he was Hybris, plenty of people worried about him. He preferred for people to worry about him, to think he was one or two hits from a hospital stay or better, death. He liked people to worry about him and protect him. In fact, did his utmost to ensure it.
But never with Eles.
The problem with Eles, right from the very start, was that Malory hadn’t needed or wanted anything from the boy, since he had nothing to offer besides the very unique circumstances of his current situation. So he hadn’t tried to get more out of the boy than was offered, hadn’t tried to convince him that Malory Medraut needed to be cared for lest he perish under the cruel weight of whatever reality was at his doorstep, deserved or not.
There was no need for anything but the most playful and idle sorts of manipulation and Eles had, very often, given him his bullshit back in either kind, or sideways in some sneaky way that never failed to bring some kind of delight even if it was obnoxious to deal with.
And yet here he was, angry and upset because he thought Malory had put himself in danger. Taking the hand that had just slapped him, Malory pressed it against that cheek, jaw tightening a bit from the pain, but it wasn’t the pain that had him swallowing hard. “Simp,” he corrected. “I thought it’d be, at worst, a little embarrassing by association.” But ultimately beneficial in terms of…stripper clout?
Doing nice things for people had never been his strong point unless he'd been given a role and a typical script to go along with. Otherwise his generosity came in the form of paid tabs for people who should have stopped drinking hours ago. In a ride called for his victims. In a rolex left out for anybody willing to take the risk of being a thief.
But this had been a more intentional sort of nice, without the barbs and traps he always enjoyed. It shouldn’t be surprising it hadn’t gone very well. Or that Malory was, in his own ******** up way, happier with these results anyway.
“What should I do?” Malory looked at Ebon with soft dependency, obedience entering his quiet tones.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:03 pm
Eles swallowed against his rancor, though it dug its hooks into his throat on the way down. His hands quaked in a manner too useless for the occasion. His heart ran at such a pace that it tripped over itself, as if recoiling back against itself, as if he might drop dead the way runners did in the middle of a marathon.
And, for the moment, he wanted to drop dead. He wanted all the world to drop dead. If everything was dead, he wouldn't feel this way. Actions, reactions, emotions, consequences, choices — they would all cease to be. Cease to have meaning. And that, he decided, would have been the purest heaven for how he clutched so much undefined, concentrated feeling underneath his own sallow skin. It hurt in a manner that he hadn't felt before. Worse than cutting himself open and looking for the ghost inside his body. Worse than that inky poison seeping over his starseed.
Malory took up his hand and he felt the heat beneath that cheek. A reminder that, for the barest moment, filled him so full that he paralyzed him. A single breath, a single swallow and
the sun was fractured, scattered, peeling on the sinusoid like a petulant laugh and he kept sinking, staring up, the clutching fingers of water dragging him down, down, down and he tore at the water while he wondered when he would
With a clarion brilliance framing flame-orange eyes, Eles signed with his free hand.
Hammer or hands.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:03 pm
Looking into those eyes, Malory felt, for the thinnest sliver of a moment, a brief eclipse passing over the dark star in all its hungry, crushing glory. A small puff of breath escaped him and then he was thinking. Because he liked hands very much, and hammers very little. But he had so, so compellingly upset his boy tonight, that Malory felt that maybe it was time for a bit of penance. Something to make up for tonight’s many sins, as big or small as Eles felt them to be.
“Hammer.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2025 7:04 pm
"Good." He blinked, jaw still tight, chest still crushing in on itself. He dreaded to know what it felt like to burst. Wiping a bead of wet from the base of his jaw with a knuckle, Eles pressed it firm into that ugly ******** jersey.
"Then take me home."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
