"Circle, circle, dot, dot, now you"ve had your cootie shot. We"re both safe."
Harrisongave up. "Fine. Fine! Don"t be surprised if Liam stops you. You"ll only have yourself to blame."
"Liam. Is he the short one with curly hair? Nah, he won"t stop me. He"s way too busy riding herd on the rest of you guys. No one but you will know I"m here. You can call me Lily, by the way. Like Lily Munster, get it?" She twinkled atHarrison .
"It"s a pleasure. Oh!Harrison . I"mHarrison ."
"Gotcha the first time." The woman dropped her cigarette and crushed it efficiently with one thick boot sole. "Put "er there, Harry."
Coming off Lily"s lips, the nickname gaveHarrison a strange chill that turned into a tingle when he took her hand for a shake. On an impulse he didn"t understand,Harrison shifted his grip so that he could lift her knuckles to kiss them.
"Very nice. Very, very nice. I like you, Hal."
As a rule,Harrison disliked nicknames. Hearing them fall casually from Lily"s lips should have annoyed him; instead, they gave him an unexpected shiver and produced more of the d.a.m.nable deja vu. He tried for a smile and ended up with an uncomfortable grimace. "Thank you."
Well, this evening certainly isn"t proceeding as intended, is it? What did the philosopher say... life is a series of coping with unplanned events? Something along those lines.
The cultural scientist inHarrison lit up with a new idea.Now, seeing how a woman reacts to this sort of environment, that sounds interesting. Good idea for a case study. If she makes it inside, I"ll call this night"s observations preliminary results .
"Hey! Hey, you, Mr. Head in the Clouds." Lily jabbedHarrison again. "Looks like your group"s taking off. And I"m right behind you."
Harrisonreally did have his doubts about Lily"s probability of success at entering the club, but to hissurprise she hid neatly behind him and breezed past the bouncers with their ropes, right into a deafeningly loud lobby. He couldn"t hear what Lily said over the blast of techno music, but he could see her laughing as she twirled in a circle.
Giving him a wave, she jerked her thumb toward the dance floor he could just see opening off the foyer and dove inside.
d.a.m.n. So much for studying her. Well, unless someone kicks her out, she shouldn"t be hard to find -- a hen among all the, no pun intended, c.o.c.ks. I"ll catch back up with her later.
Harrisonglanced around to get a bead on the group, figure out their game plan, but -- poof! The Brothers had all scattered like dust in the wind.Harrison would have expected them to hang together in a clump, but apparently not.
The only one left was Liam, hands in his pockets, head tilted to a side, an annoyingly gentle smile curving his lips.
"You do not wish to go and celebrate with the others?" Liam asked.
d.a.m.n you. I know you"re making fun of me somehow. Just nothing I can call you on.
"Soon,"Harrison lied. With relief, he remembered his promise to Martin. "I have an appointment to keep first."
"With the man you saw earlier when we stood outside the walls of the club?"
"What?"
"Do not play coy,Harrison . I saw you, and I saw you see him, this man. See-saw, saw-see. Is he the one you intend to meet?"
Harrison"s temper sparked. "I get it. A little joke on your part. I don"t know how you managed to pull it off, but I"m not amused, Liam."
"Neither am I, and I had nothing to do with the hidden window opening. I am intrigued, though. I ask again: do you intend to meet with this man?"
"I have no idea,"Harrison replied through gritted teeth. "I"ve never seen a picture of him. The sleight-of-hand figure I saw might or might not be him. Probably not, but I couldn"t say for sure."
"A pity. Would that your intended looked like the oneI , too, saw in the window. Young and pert, golden and athletic as Apollo himself... a delicious dish."
"You saw? I mean, I didn"t notice what he looked like." Like h.e.l.l he hadn"t. The man he"d either seen or been tricked into believing he saw was one of the best looking he"d ever laid eyes on.
Where had he seen that face before...?
Harrisontouched his forehead to the floor. Cold, made out of stone blocks, it felt good against his overheated skin. He had long since shed his clothes, but he was on fire with l.u.s.t, feverish in hispa.s.sion for the man at his back and the promises of what he could deliver ifHarrisonbehaved.
"Put your hands behind you," a smooth voice dictated. His Master"s voice.Harrison.o.beyed immediately. "Good, very good. I knew you could learn. Ah, ah, ah -- keep your a.s.s raised high, remember? There, that"s better. Now, I had mentioned giving you a treat. I"d like you to beg for what I can offer."
"Please, Master,"Harrisongasped, trembling. He could hear the soft whish of whiptails as his Master drew them through his fist.Harrison"s skin ached for the lash. He needed the pain. Needed the peace. Needed the love -- and the proof of love -- written on his flesh. "Master, I will beg.
Please, please, please." His c.o.c.k was so hard it hurt, but he knew better than to touch himself, much less come before he had been given permission. "Use me."
"You learn very, very well, I see."Harrisonsensed his Master raise the whip. He envisioned the man, slim yet strong, golden as a G.o.d, one eye blue and one eye brown. They had come so far from whenHarrisonhad first seen him outside Amour Magique. "Since you ask so nicely, pet."
The flogger came down acrossHarrison"s back in a fiery burst.Harrisonraised his voice and howled with both agony and ecstasy.
Harrisongasped as he shook himself and returned to reality. What on earth had just happened? Dream -- hallucination -- vision? How had it all felt soreal ? How had he let himself slip like this? He wasn"t a daydreamer by habit, and he didnot indulge in fantasies about strangers. Not even p.o.r.n stars. It seemed like an invasion of their privacy somehow.
"Is something the matter?" Liam inquired placidly. "You look quite as if you have seen a ghost."
"No! I -- I"m fine."Harrison cleared his throat and forced the vivid images out of his mind. "Enough is enough. Who was he, Liam? Some other friend of yours?"
Liam chuckled. """Tis strange... that these lovers speak of.""
"Excuse me?"
""More strange than true: I never may believe these antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.""
"A Midsummer Night"s Dream?"Harrison said, recognizing the source of Liam"s burst of quotation.
"I"ll take reality over fantasy, Liam, which I think you know, or should know by now."
""There are more things on heaven and earth... than are dreamt of in your philosophy.""
Harrisonfavored Liam with a stony stare. "I have other things to do besides listen to you quoting the Bard. Are you finished wasting my time?"
"Bah, you old stick-in-the-mud. You almost make me despair. Yet I vow Amour Magique will have its way with you despite your mulish temper. You will be singing love songs before morning"s light." "No,"Harrison said with exaggerated patience, "Before morning"s light, I will be safe at home, sound asleep. By myself."
"Just the way you tell yourself you like it. Ah, you lie so well you convince yourself such things are truth.
We will see, we will see." Liam glanced at the dance floor. "I had best attend to my own affairs. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Tally ho!"
The little man strode into the seething throng of club-goers and disappeared.
Harrisonrolled his eyes. Alone at last. Now, where had Martin said they"d meet? Cat... something about a cat... a statue of a cat?
"b.i.t.c.hin"! Check it out, it"s Bastet. And there"s a service path behind her."
Lily?
Turning, where he could have sworn there was nothing before,Harrison saw a narrow hallway blocked by a statue of the cat G.o.ddess in full Egyptian regalia. Lily, looking as disheveled as if she"d danced her way through half the club floor, pale skin aglow with perspiration, waved cheerfully at him from beside the sculpture.
"Service path. A trail into the belly of the beast. I"m gonna see where this leads. Wanna come?"
Yes. Martin said he works here; he told me about the Bastet path. He said... he said...
l.u.s.t began to burn in the pit ofHarrison "s stomach. If his slacks hadn"t been loose, he would have found himself with the sudden uncomfortable need to adjust them. Thankfully, his blue shirt hung untucked over the whole of his groin. He had a definite feeling Lily would have found his arousal seriously amusing.
For his own part, he was perplexed. Why on earth was he developing an erection?
Martin. The name chimed in his mind.Martin. Martin. Martin .
What the h.e.l.l?Harrisonwiped his forehead. Although he tried to push them away, he continually saw flash visuals of the blond man with mismatched eyes every time he thought of Martin.
"Lily, I"m sorry, but I think I need a drink of water," he confessed. "Did you see a fountain anywhere?"
"Wha.s.samatter? Dizzy?"
"Sort of."Harrison shook his head, repeatedly squeezing his eyes shut and then opening them, over and over. "I feel somewhat... I need to get my bearings."Get my control back .
"d.a.m.n. Sorry, man. You think water will help? No prob, I got you covered." Lily darted away, quick as a blackbird. While she was gone,Harrison rubbed his temples and tried his hardest to reorganize his thoughts into orderly patterns. The harder he tried, though, the less linear they became.
When Lily finally returned, bearing a small paper cone, he was fit to be tied.
"Drink up," Lily chirped with an encouraging slap to his back. Harrisontilted the cone and drank without a second thought. When he tasted the clear liquid, or rather, when it burned a path over his tongue, he nearly choked. Vodka! Strong, searing vodka. He swallowed with an effort, coughed, and glared at Lily. "I suppose you think that was funny."
"f.u.c.k, yeah. You shoulda seen your face. Come on, now, don"t get mad. If any man ever needed a drink, you did." Lily tossed the emptied cone on the ground and looped her arm throughHarrison "s. "All right. Let"s follow the yellow brick road."
Despite fuming internally about how some people deserved a proper spanking no matter how old they were,Harrison let himself be tugged along. He got so lost in thought he failed -- almost -- to notice how, though the statue of Bastet was large enough to almost completely block the service corridor, they slipped past with ease.
I wonder if they pump some sort of mind-altering chemical into the air?Harrisonpondered. He"d been stoned once or twice in college, and this felt about the same as those experiences.A narcotic compound not yet available on the streets. A dirty trick courtesy of the management to trip the clients out and make them lose control. "Nights never to be forgotten" -- oh, absolutely. Shameful .
"You think too d.a.m.n much," Lily informed him. "Noodle any harder and you"ll make my own head hurt.
Keep walking."
Harrisonsighed and did as he"d been told, having come to terms with Lily as a woman from the breed of She Who Must Be Obeyed. Resistance was futile.
They turned into a walkway that looked to have been lifted directly from a medieval castle, all but dripping rough-hewn rock and empty, soot-blackened torch holders. Lily seemingly fell in love.Harrison ... didn"t, though he couldn"t have said why.
Should he try to warn her about Martin? He cleared his throat. "Lily, vodka aside, I am enjoying your company, so please don"t take this the wrong way. I"m planning to meet someone down this corridor, and I"m not sure how he"ll react to you."
"Worry, worry, worry. Ease up, Hal. He"ll love me. Everyone loves me."
Harrisonhad his doubts, but after a moment"s deliberation decided to save his breath. Lily might be digging her own grave, but it"d take bigger b.a.l.l.s than he had to stand in her way.
"Why do you come here, Doubting Thomas?" a sepulchral voice demanded, apparently from nowhere, gravelly as stones in a tumbler. "This is the road to the Magician. Why do you seek him? What makes you worthy of his august presence?"
Oh, now, really. Enough was d.a.m.n well enough. "Who"s speaking?"Harrison demanded.
"Take it easy," Lily chided. "They"re just gargoyles. Guardians of the path. Cool, huh?" She let go ofHarrison "s arm and danced nimbly over to chuck a carved stone demon under his beaky chin.
"There"s a boy. Good boy. Quack for Mama."
The gargoyle"s awkward mouth flapped. "I... Mama?"
Lily laughed with the sheer abandon of a child.Harrison eyed the sculptures, amused himself. Although he wasn"t close enough to tell for sure, he suspected they were ordinary foam puppets that werespray-painted to look like stone. A simple trick.
"Road to the Magician, you say?" he asked, humoring both Lily and the orchestrator of this flight of fancy. "Sounds like the man I came to meet. Would his name be Martin?"
"Sing out loud for Mama," Lily crooned, still tickling her gargoyle.
The gargoyle coughed with a sound like pebbles in a blender. "Er... yes. Martin is the Magician here."
"Goodgargoyle." Lily petted its flaking head. "Gargoyle wanna cracker? I"ve got a packet of saltines around here somewhere. You go on ahead, Harry. I"m gonna hang out with these guys for a while."
"Oh, no. You are?" the gargoyle blurted in dismayed tones.
Harrisonalmost chuckled out loud. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d, whoever operated the thing. Yeah, whoever pulled the puppet"s strings had most likely never dreamed about anyone like Lily. "I"ll be on my way, then."
"He wants Martin," another gargoyle piped up, this one d.a.m.nably un-shy with its information. "Really wants Martin. He"s hard for Martin. Wants to use his c.o.c.k, dirty c.o.c.k, dock the c.o.c.k the way Martin likes. Dirty boy plus dirty boy equals two dirty boys."
"Watch your mouth." Lily clipped that gargoyle across its muzzle. "Don"t mind these guys, Harry.
G"wan, get outta here."
Cursing the deep red blush he could feel staining his cheeks,Harrison got out while the getting was good.
Fortunately, he found that he had another long corridor to travel down, still made of rock but blessedly free of any puppets or toys, and he was able to pull himself together before he reached the end, where a door stood slightly ajar. He would have gone in, but voices he could hear told him the s.p.a.ce was already occupied.
"...don"t understand. Mikey"s never been unfaithful,never , but one look at this boggart and he turned his back on me. I thought I"d die."
"There, there."
Harrisonhad been about to turn around and back away until the room emptied -- eavesdropping was the height of bad manners -- until he heard the second person speak.
Heknew that voice. Had heard it in his fantasy. This was the voice his mind had given that nebulous "Master."
Impossible. Couldn"t be. Merely his imagination.
d.a.m.ned if he could move away, though.
"The cards don"t lie, darling."