Everyone Has Secrets

Chapter 2-2

It was purely by chance, and luck, that I ran into someone who had gotten to know Saunders—in the biblical definition of the word. After a hard day’s work at my office—yep, sarcasm there—I’d decided to stop in at a private gay club I belong to. It’s one of those where the drinks are worth what you pay, the food is primo, and the company—if that’s what you’re looking for—is always amiable and amenable to suggestions of the s****l kind. There’s even a private entrance, with stairs leading directly to the second floor, for men who don’t want to be seen coming and going.

I found a seat at the bar, ordered a scotch on the rocks, and then checked out the other members. I spotted Alan, a man I sometimes hook up with, sitting alone at a table across the room. He saw me at the same time and waved me over, so I joined him.

“It’s been a while,” Alan said as I sat down.

“It has. How’s the world treating you?” I replied.

From there, it was the usual shooting the breeze that goes on between two guys who suspect they’ll end up together in one of the rooms on the second floor before the night is over. Yep, it was that kind of club. The waiter arrived with Alan’s dinner, asking if I was going to be eating, too. I was, and ordered a sirloin steak with all the extras.

Alan was a born gossip who knows I don’t have a jealous bone in my body, so it wasn’t long before he began telling me about some of the other members of the club he’d taken upstairs. I listened, amused at some of his comments.

“You will never believe who else…” He grinned, leaning in, keeping his voice low.

I lifted an eyebrow. “Not if you don’t tell me.”

“True. Okay, one night, maybe a month ago, I was here, all by my lonesome and bored because there was no one interesting around. So I went upstairs to talk to Marcus while he manned the desk.”

“Hoping to get lucky with a special member, if one showed up all on their lonesome?”

Alan smirked. “You know me well. Anyway, we were chatting when I saw this dude come into the lounge from the private entrance. He looked sort of familiar but I couldn’t place him. He wasn’t happy to see me standing in the foyer, although it seemed as if he was expecting to see someone, other than Marcus. Since Marcus trusts me to keep my mouth closed, he hadn’t shut the lounge door the way he usually does when a special member buzzes to say they’re arriving. Either that, or—” Alan grinned, “—I distracted him enough that he forgot.

“Anyway, this guy kept coming to the doorway of the lounge, peeking out to look at the stairs to the first floor. That went on for maybe ten minutes. Obviously, whoever he was waiting for was a no-show so I started chatting him up after Marcus decided to introduce us. Of course he gives me the dude’s club alias, not his real name, but that’s okay. A body is still a body and I was horny. The guy was too, from the way he was acting, so I asked him if he wanted to share his room with me. Long story short, he did. Talk about hungry. You’d think he hadn’t has s*x since the turn of the century.”

“I take it you learned who he was during this encounter.”

“Nope. Not until a couple of days later. I saw his picture in the paper. Some charity event. You know who Franklin Saunders is?”

“You’re serious? It was him?” I resisted cheering. I now had my next target.

“In the flesh, and there’s a lot of it. That man needs to go to the gym.” Alan grinned broadly. “He wears a corset to hold in his gut.”

I laughed, because I knew I was supposed to. “You’re sure it was him? I mean he’s so straight he squeaks when he bends over, from what I’ve heard. And he hates anyone who doesn’t believe in the same things he does.”

“Believe me, when he bent over there wasn’t even the smallest squeak. And, yeah, I’m sure it was him. First and last time I’ve ever seen him here, which doesn’t mean he’s not a regular upstairs. I sort of asked Marcus but you know him. He gets paid to well not to give up any info on members.”

True, and I knew it. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t do a little hacking to see what I could come up with. “What name does Saunders go by when he’s here?”

“Cass Cassidy.”

I nodded. That was what the club did when assigning aliases. I knew one man who went by Jeff Jefferson when he visited.

After that, we dropped the subject of Saunders, a.k.a. Cassidy. We finished dinner, and another drink, after which we retired to a room on the second floor before going our separate ways.