A Dangerous Game

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Dave stepped outside Tricks. While he was in the bar, the day had wound down into dusk, and now the sky to the west was an amazing mélange of lavender, orange, and at the top, midnight blue. Just beneath the smell of exhaust and smoke in the air, he could detect a sweet, cool breeze hitting him from behind, pulling the smell of Lake Michigan off the surface of the water. Dave breathed in deeply, watching Wren’s progress west to the “L” stop at Belmont, Dave presumed.

The boy was a diamond in the rough. He was a delightful combination of bad boy and nurturing man, and he didn’t even know it. His lack of self-awareness made these charming qualities all the sweeter. Dave’s clientele would love someone like Wren. He knew several would want to treat the young man like a son. Others would want to flip the paradigm and have the boy treat the man like a thing to be dominated. It was all good. The one thing Dave knew with certainty was that Wren could quickly become a very popular option in his stable of young men, one that could earn Dave a lot of money.

Dave needed to infuse some fresh blood into the business. In spite of the line of bull he fed Wren, his customers weren’t looking for love. First they were seeking to fulfill baser needs, to have their semen worked out of them by someone good-looking and without an agenda. No strings, except perhaps for the one attached to a pair of metal balls some of his customers liked to have inserted up their bottoms.

Oh yes, Dave knew all the disgusting flavors his clientele favored. He’d made it his business to know; it was how one succeeded. And even though he acknowledged the business of sucking and f*****g and the kink variations like water sports, scat, bondage, domination, pain, and more, he had no intimate—pun intended—knowledge of such things. No, Dave preferred to keep his soul as clean as his person. s*x was dirty, and not in a good way. It was also fraught with all manner of diseases—which Dave had also acquainted himself with, as Bette Midler once sang, from a distance—none of which he planned on acquiring.

At forty-seven years old, Dave Chillingsworth was still a virgin. He intended to keep it that way.

One thing Dave knew was that men—other men, not men like himself—tired quickly of the same old, same old. Which was why they cheated; which was why they were continually on the hunt. Not for him, of course, but for many men it was practically a biological imperative.

Variety was a very powerful and alluring spice.

Thus he needed to keep the stable of prospects at À Louer fresh and ever changing. He chuckled as he recalled telling little Wren that the name was French for some kind of love connection, when in fact it meant “For Rent.” Dave’s renters wanted options. Some of them wanted a different boy every time they called. And Dave worked hard to meet that demand.

Yet he would not meet the demand with cheap quantity like the boys who could be found in an establishment like Tricks. Those boys had a sleazy, brassy kind of sensuality that was unpalatable. They just were not up to À Louer’s standards, which required boys just like the one he watched disappear into the crowds moving west on Belmont Avenue.

“Wren, you little charmer, you will call me.” It had been a bonus to hear the boy had lost his job. Dave thought he had done enough to set the stage for feeling strapped for cash as he pulled the boy’s wallet from his own front pocket, flipped through it, and extracted a twenty and some ones. He thought it was good to have some older men on the payroll to handle jobs like discreetly picking the pockets of young men Dave wanted to feel destitute. It provided a good opening for Dave, allowing him to step in, in a small way, as a hero, a savior. Dave smiled.

He walked south for a bit on Broadway and handed Wren’s money to a homeless person in an apartment building doorway who asked for spare change. Today was that homeless woman’s lucky day.

“Thank you, baby,” she called after him.

He tossed the wallet into a trash bin and paused at the corner of Broadway and Diversey, pulling his cell phone out. He leaned against a wall as he listened to the ringing. He expected his calls to be picked up by his boys within two rings. Consequences would occur if that arrangement were breached.

Dave was not disappointed.

“Yes.”

A young man’s voice came through the line. Dave shuddered. He wished this one could get rid of that small trace of effeminacy that lingered in his speech. This one’s esses were too hissy, too prolonged. They would have to work on that. Dave’s clients were not paying top dollar for nancy boys. If not for this one’s ten-inch p***s, he probably would have let him go.

“Hello, Evan. How are you this evening?”

Evan didn’t say anything, as though he were considering how to respond. “I’m well, thank you, sir. Just waiting to hear what might be on my agenda for tonight.”

Dave chuckled. “Well, it’s Friday, so we’ll be busy. You’ll have multiple encounters to handle tonight. I hope you’re up for the challenge.” Dave shook his head. He usually didn’t like to stoop to bad s****l innuendo.

“Yes, sir. Usually not a problem, but the Cialis you keep me on is good insurance for busy nights.”

“Perfect.” Dave explained that Evan would soon be visiting a businessman from Salt Lake City who was staying downtown at the Four Seasons. “You should be able to get some nice wine and a room service dinner out of this one.” Then he described a couple who lived along the part of Lake Shore Drive known as the Gold Coast, in a vintage five-bedroom condo with city and lake views. One was an older man who enjoyed watching his younger lover get serviced by someone equally young and hot. And finally Dave said, “And then we have our Mr. Williams. You remember Mr. Williams, don’t you?”

Evan was quiet. “Yes,” he said very softly.

“Speak up. I can barely hear you.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I remember Dan.”

Dave smiled. “Of course you do. The two of you are becoming thick as thieves. What is this, your fifth encounter with him?”

“Seventh, actually.”

Dave paused. “You haven’t been seeing him outside of work, have you? You know that’s expressly forbidden.”

“Of course not,” Evan replied.

“Very good. Tonight I’d like you to put the plan we discussed into action. I think Mr. Williams is good for a bit more income than we have been getting from him thus far. You recall the plan we discussed, Evan?”

Again Dave was met with a long silence at the other end of the phone. Dave prompted, “Evan?”

“I heard you.” Evan sucked in a breath. “Do we have to do it with Dan? I mean, how about Chuck Parelli or Manny Blake? Either of them would be easy for me.”

“Are you balking? Are you trying to usurp my leadership? I’m sure neither of those things are true.”

“No, no, of course not. I was just thinking—”

“Don’t think, Evan. Just do. You are not paid to think. You are paid—and paid handsomely, I might add—to use your manly charms to bring pleasure to our clients. And to take my direction. Tonight you will have a discussion with our Mr. Williams, and I fully expect a positive outcome.”

“Okay,” Evan said softly.

“I know this is difficult for you, but it’s best for the business, and what’s best for the business is best for you, my dear. You see that, don’t you?” Dave grinned. “I only want to take the best care possible of my boys.”

“Of course,” Evan said, but the implication was just the opposite.

“So, around midnight, you hightail that sweet little bottom of yours up to Kenilworth. The wife is traveling this weekend, in San Francisco, I believe.” Dave chuckled. “Oh, the irony! I will phone you in the morning to discuss how the night transpired.”

“Okay.”

“Enjoy yourself. I know you care about our Mr. Williams, in spite of my very good and common sense advice to not become emotionally involved with our clients. But the heart does not always listen to the head. And what you’re about to do, Evan? It’s in his best interests.”

Dave couldn’t help but detect a note of acid in Evan’s voice when he replied, “If you say so, sir.”

Dave ignored it. “I do. Now, good night.” Dave disconnected.

Night had come on, full force.