Here's a snippet of my tale:
He leaned against the brick wall. The sidewalk thudded under our feet. He was my height, which meant I could look right into his eyes while I stood in front of him. Those eyes weren’t interesting at all, placid and brown with short lashes, but his mouth made up for that. He had lips that curled perfectly around a cigarette, the slow upturn that came from a pout. They were soft and supple and kissable, even here in the glow of the neon light. Those lips would have been perfectly at home on a young woman in a glossy magazine.
Those lips were made for sucking on things.
“You got a name?” I asked. The surprise flickered across his face.
“Yes.”
That was the best I was going to get, and it was good enough. More than good enough, actually. He just seemed like a Yes. He seemed like the kind of man who had heard that word more often than he had heard his given name. For a brief moment I toyed with the idea of testing him, of telling him to drop to his knees right there, but I didn’t, not only because I wasn’t brave enough to come out with such demands, but because I knew damn good and well he would do it.
In the moment of silence he pushed off the wall and moved toward me until we were mere inches apart. He was thin and lanky and hot. The heat from his body breached his thin t-shirt and my polo and went straight to the center of my chest, a burning ember that slid all the way down to where he wanted it to be. He smelled like cigarettes and whiskey and the slightest hint of sweat.
He waited until I shifted my weight and looked away. With a sly smile and not a single word he turned away from me and headed into the crowd. Only the merest tilt of his head told me to follow.
I did as I was told. I studied him from behind as we walked down Fourth Street and toward the river. He was thin but solid, his shoulders not all that broad, his hair a little too long in the back. He walked with a swagger, the only thing about him that suggested he was younger than he looked. A tattoo of symbols ran up the side of his neck, ending at that sweet spot right underneath his ear.
He led me down the street, then suddenly cut into a small alley. At the end of the alley the street rose and narrowed into a catwalk. The river rushed below us, and for a moment I was dizzy. I grabbed the railing and the whole catwalk chattered in protest.
“Don’t look down,” he called over his shoulder. “Look straight ahead.”
I focused on his hips, where the tapered curve of his back disappeared into the too-tight jeans. We crossed the grate and went up a fire escape. He took a running start, snatched the ladder with one hand and swung. He climbed it like a monkey up a tree.
I followed, the old paint chipping off against my hand, the metal burning my skin even in the cool of the night. I stumbled twice before finding my rhythm, swing and up three, swing and up four, swing and three, over and over and up and up until we came to a door that wasn’t locked and a room that was lit by a small table lamp.
“My place,” he said.
What happens at his place, you ask? You can get your copy of the book here.
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