“You’re into the S&M scene?”

“Naw, I just have a regular who pays me to do nothing but tie him up and beat the shit out of him. Seriously! I’ve never fucked the guy; he just wants me to beat and humiliate him. He travels a lot, and he calls me whenever he’s in town. I go to his hotel room, truss him up like a turkey, and smack him around while calling him a dirty cocksucker.” He grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter, along with his cell phone. “You know how weird it is to show up in the lobby of a Best Western or a Sheraton - someplace sedate and normal like that - with a backpack full of whips and restraints? He’s married too; he wears a wedding ring. Sometimes when the session’s over and I’m untying him, he tells me about his wife and kids, and about somebody at his church he really likes - he’s a big time Catholic, apparently. Big shock, huh? Anyways, he always says his wife wouldn’t understand - isn’t that always the way? I don’t know how breeder marriages ever work since the wife never seems to understand.” He paused briefly on his way out the door. “I think he’s an airplane pilot. I’ve seen the cap in his luggage.”

Roan frowned. What a frightening thought. Then again, a pilot into pain probably wouldn’t fear a terrorist pistol whipping him - he’d probably look forward to it. It’d be like a little bonus.

Roan thought about taking his own car and following him to the club, but Holden smirked and asked him what he was afraid of, making him feeling a bit stupid. Was he actually afraid of being alone in a car with Holden? Why? So he got into Holden’s car, a sleek black Mitsubishi Eclipse with some minor body damage on the side, although the engine purred in a way that would have pleased Paris.

They were quiet for a while, the local college radio station filling the void, but after a while the silence became awkward, almost vaguely hostile. Roan finally asked, “What kind of web thing are you involved in with an S&M guy?”

Holden’s almost ubiquitous smirk reappeared. “Soft core porn.”

“Of course.” Why had he bothered to ask?

“But we’re also trying to get this charity going.”

Was this the set up to a joke? “What kind of charity?”

“To help out homeless gay kids. It’s a growing problem, although you’d never know it through the mainstream media. And the majority of these kids aren’t white, so that just makes it more of an invisible problem somehow. But it’s gettin’ really bad out there.”

He was actually serious. This was weird. “I had no idea you cared about things like that.”

He gave him a sidelong glance. “What, ‘cause I’m a whore I’m a heartless bastard?”

“No. It’s just it seems … noble. And you’ve never struck me as the noble type.”

That made him snort a laugh. “’Cause I ain’t, Officer Roan. But even I know I can’t be a whore forever, and Jesus fucking Christ I hate seeing fifteen year olds out on the boulevard. They should be in school or skateboarding or some shit; they shouldn’t be peddlin’ their ass. I mean, I was seventeen when I started and I made a deliberate choice; I could have done other things, other avenues were open to me, but I had a game plan and I knew what I was doing. I was not an innocent, and while I was doing it to survive, I wasn’t gonna starve if I didn’t do it for a night or two. I always knew the game, I knew the risks and the price. These kids are too fucking young, and they end up too fucking dead way too soon.”

Normally Roan wouldn’t buy that Holden was so sophisticated that he knew even at seventeen what prostituting himself was going to be about, but in his case he could almost believe it. It wasn’t because he graduated high school at sixteen, although he did, and had just started college at seventeen before dropping out due to the fallout over his sexuality with his parents, although the fact that he went to college at all, however briefly, was more then most hustlers in his age range could say. No, it was simply because of his personality - Holden did seem to be the perfect manipulator. He was always thinking of how something could benefit him the most - he never went into anything if there wasn’t more in it for him than anyone else. It was why Roan couldn’t completely trust him. Oh sure, he wanted him to find his long lost sister, but he didn’t believe that was all there was to it. He was up to something, he just wasn’t sure what yet.

Holden drove them to the warehouse district, which seemed kind of odd, but it turned out the Dungeon was in a warehouse. It was just a normal looking tin sided affair, a squat rectangle amongst a sea of other rectangles, but up close you could feel music starting to throb through the walls. The door was unmarked. Holden just opened it and walked right into what appeared to be a small foyer lit by a red light bulb, showing a single stool, a heavy black leather apron (?) hanging down over the inner doorway, and a rather large man sitting on the stool. He was, in gay parlance, a bear - well over two hundred pounds, with a massive chest that was so thick with dark curly hair he could have actually looked like he was wearing a shirt from a distance. His chest was crisscrossed with a leather harness, and he wore black leather chaps, black leather boots, a black leather cap and absolutely nothing else. He had a handlebar style black moustache that hid his upper lip in its entirety. “Hey, Fox, long time no see,” the man said, in a painfully scratchy voice. Did he have a sore throat, or did he just always talk like that?

“Rocky here, Yogi?”

“Yeah, I think he’s in the break room.”

Yogi?

“Great, thanks.” Yogi got off his stool - all six five of him - and stood aside so Holden could go through the leather curtain. Yogi eyed him warily as he followed, but he didn’t say a word; being with Fox was enough to get you a free pass.

The club wasn’t as noisy as he feared, although Roan couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult playing anywhere. It was lit in even more red lights with just an occasionally pale white one, leaving the entire space cloaked in bloody shadows. There was a conventional style bar and leather stools off to one side, while what may have been a small dance floor - currently empty - led off to four closed doors and a single beaded curtain. He was afraid to know what was going on behind those doors. “So this is an active sex club?” Roan asked him. An S&M club was one thing, but sex clubs, gay or straight, were illegal. No wonder the club wasn’t marked in any way.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Holden replied, as Roan could just make out the sounds of what sounded like whips barely audible under the music. The place smelled like sweat and booze and wet leather and sex, with just a hint of blood. In other words, it could have really used some air freshener.

“Is that guy out front actually nicknamed Yogi Bear?”

“Yep. Well it’s perfect for him, don’t you think?” Holden stepped up to the bar, and said, “Troy, is Rocky accepting visitors or not?”

“I’m not sure,” Troy replied. Troy was the most aggressively androgynous person Roan had ever seen. He - she? - was bald, but fine boned and very pale, wearing a tight leather vest that could have concealed small breasts (or not), and was wearing a heavy grey utility kilt with Doc Martens, while he/she had a chain connecting his/her earring to his/her nose ring, and tattooed on the back of his/her perfectly rounded head was a tiny rose. The eyes were small and pale blue, but the lashes were long … although not so long that you’d think female. He/she also wore a thick spiked dog collar around his/her neck, right where an Adam’s apple would be, if he/she had one. The voice, which was light and slightly feminine, still could have gone either way. Damn it! This was going to bug him.

“Fine,” Holden sighed, sitting on one of the stools. “Can I have a gin and tonic?”

That made Roan stare at him. “You drink gin and tonics?”

“Yes. So? What’ll you have?”

“Nothing thanks, I’m good.”

Holden just smirked at him again. “I bet you are.”

He rolled his eyes as he took the stool next to him. “Make that the last cheap innuendo, all right?”

He raised an eyebrow at him. “Who said it was innuendo? Boy, do you have a filthy mind.”

He shook his head and looked around. You’d have thought they were all alone here, save for the gender neutral bartender and a woman down at the opposite end of the bar, a hard faced brunette dressed in black vinyl, with a scrawny guy on a leash. He was on all fours, drinking out of a dog bowl by her feet. He liked to think of himself as open minded, but exactly how was that erotic? Wouldn’t that collar chafe?

The music hit a dead spot just as there was a rather loud noise - whip lash? - from the back, followed by a yelp that was part pain and part pleasure. Just the noise of the hit made him start, and he rubbed his nose, covering his face in an attempt to hide the discomfort. The faint smell of blood was doing him no favors either. “You okay?” Holden wondered.

“Can we just find this guy and go? I really don’t want to stay here longer than I have to.”

Holden studied him for a moment, then got wide eyed. “Oh shit! I knew those scars were too old to be from your cop days.”

Roan glared at him, afraid he’d already guessed and loathing him for it. “What? What the hell does that mean?”

Holden grimaced as he slid off the stool. “You got knocked around as a kid, right? Man, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t tryin’ to be insensitive. I’ll just barge back there and see if I can get Rocky out for a few minutes.”

“That’s not - that has nothing to do with anything,” he protested. “It’s the smell of blood. It’s putting me on edge.”

Holden’s look turned from worried to puzzled. “Blood? What are you talking about? I don’t smell blood.”

“I’m infected, remember? I smell the slightest traces of blood.” And it always disturbed the beast within him; he could almost feel it pacing, not sure if it wanted to attack or feed. Or both.

“Weird,” Holden said. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.” He disappeared behind the beaded curtain, which clacked like dry bones, and Roan rubbed his eyes, once again avoiding his surroundings.

Was that it? Was he so “damaged” by his childhood that he couldn’t stand this? It seemed too glib, too simple an explanation for what was almost knee jerk revulsion. He liked to think, as a gay man, he simply couldn’t be uptight, but that was as much a bullshit stereotype as the limp wrested queen. He’d met gay guys so fucking uptight he had no idea how they could stand themselves. God knew he couldn’t.

He was trying to figure out what his problem was - maybe it was just the blood - when a woman’s voice asked, “Hey honey, you okay?”

He looked over as she took the stool on his left. She was an overweight woman, but had managed to work that into a certain voluptuousness that was appealing, even though she was dressed in a black leather corset and what looked like leather shorts, although her thigh high black leather boots made it hard to determine that. She was showing off an impressive amount of cleavage, as well as a tiny red heart tattoo on her left breast that almost appeared to be a mole, and she had her artificially red hair tied back in a high, tight ponytail. She also wore a leather eye mask, making him think bizarrely of Zorro, and her long fingernails were painted the same wine bright color as her lips. She’d put her riding crop on the bar, shoved to the side. “I’m fine, thank you.”

She grinned at him, her eyes bright behind her mask. “You’re a newbie.”

“I’m just here to talk to Rocky. I’m not staying. I’m not … into this.”

“That’s okay. It takes all kinds.” She signaled for Troy, and said, “Set me and my shy friend here up with Sweet Sidecars.”

“Thank you, but -”

“Don’t refuse a drink, that’s rude,” she chided. She then held out her hand, and said, “Bellatrix.”

Oh, that certainly wasn’t a fake name. “Roan.” He shook her hand, which was so dry he suspected it was powdered.

“Nice. Is that a reference to your hair color? That’s a great color. Where’d you get it done?”

“Nowhere. It’s my natural color.”

“Cool. So, if I may be so nosy, why are you seeing Rocket J. Squirrel?”

He looked at her in surprise. Oh please, let her be kidding. “That isn’t his actual nickname, is it?”

“Oh yeah. Although since he got his teeth fixed, it doesn’t seem so appropriate anymore.”

Holy shit, this place was an S&M cartoon zoo. “Unbelievable. Well, I’m here to talk to him about a guy who was thrown out of the club a week or so ago.”

“Oh, you mean that pig faced bastard who blackened Velvet’s eyes?” Troy brought their drinks over, and Bellatrix gave her a polite nod as she did so.

“You saw him?”

She made a noise that was probably a small, dark laugh. “I clipped that fucker in the ear with the handle of my crop to get him off of her. I heard her scream and I knew it was wrong - I was the first one in. He was just lucky I didn’t have my steel tipped bullwhip with me. That thing cuts aluminum siding.”

To avoid commenting on that, he took a sip of his drink. He’d never had a sidecar before, but it wasn’t bad considering he’d braced himself for the worst. He could tell it had some powerful alcohol in it, though. “Why do you call him a pig faced bastard?”

“’Cause he looked like a pig. I mean, his eyes were small and too close together, which I never trust, and his nose seemed kinda … flat. Well, no, not flat, just … weird.” To illustrate, she pushed back the tip of her own nose with her finger, making her nostrils flare.

“Pug nose?”

“Yeah, like that.”

“Can you describe him?”

She considered that a moment, taking a swig of her own drink. She belted it down like she had a bus to catch. “I guess so. He was about five nine, two hundred pounds, brown brush cut that made his ears stick out, probably in his mid-thirties. He must love The Gap.” She then tilted her head at him curiously, making her long rope of red hair swing to one side. “Why do you want to know?”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out one of his business cards. “I’m a private investigator, I’m looking for this man as a possible suspect in some beatings of some hustlers on the boulevard.”

She took his card with a big smile. “A private eye? Oh cool! Just like in the movies. Ever shoot a guy?”

“Not as a private investigator. Do you think you’d recognize this man if you saw him again?”

“Absolutely.” After reading his card, she tucked it into her cleavage. “Shouldn’t this be a police matter?”

“I’m working with the police. The victims have been unwilling to talk, so they don’t have much to go on.”

She reached into the top of her leather boot, and pulled out her own business card, which she handed to him. It had her name and number on it in thick black font, with a tiny drawing of a cartoon dominatrix with a whip and devil horns drawn on the side. “Oh wait a minute,” she said, plucking the card out of his hand. “Troy, you gotta pen?”

The androgynous bartender reached under the bar and tossed Bellatrix a Bic, which she grabbed before it hit her. She then scribbled a new phone number on the back. “This is my home number,” she said, giving him the card back. “Don’t share it with anyone.”

“Scouts honor,” he promised.

“You can call me if you need me to identify the guy. I’ll bring my bullwhip and peel him like a grape.” She pushed her mask up to her forehead, revealing a friendly, almost maternal face, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Name’s Fiona.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, tucking her card in his inner jacket pocket.

As she secured her mask back over her eyes, she said, “Or you could call me for whatever. It might be fun to hang out some time.”

“I’m sorry, I’m gay.”

“Oh sweetie, I know. You came in with Fox. Also, this entire time you haven’t once looked at my tits.”

He smirked. “That is a giveaway, isn’t it?”

“With me, oh hell yeah,” she said, pulling up the top of her corset and making her ample cleavage shift ever so slightly. “I’m lucky to get three seconds of eye contact from straight men.”

Feeling he should say something, he said, “Well, they’re very nice.” Oh god, could he possibly be more gay? Maybe if he was in full drag and waving a rainbow colored dildo around.

She looked down at her own boobs, and said, “Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. Straight guys just like boobs - all boobs are good with them.”

“Except for man boobs.”

That made her laugh. “Okay, yeah, nobody likes those.”

“Is there any way Velvet would speak to me?”

The dominatrix mulled that over as she tapped her empty glass on the bar, signaling for another sidecar. “You know, she probably should. She’s not here tonight - she hasn’t been back since then; it really freaked her out - but I can call her. Troy, can I have my purse?”

The bartender reached under the bar, and produced a brown suede bag that sagged like it was heavy. She/he dropped it on the bar with a thunk and a rattle, suggesting she was carrying around a lot of spare change … or maybe just chains. Fiona unzipped it and groped through it for a moment before pulling out a Motorola and flipping it open.

Holden wasn’t back yet, but he didn’t much care. Who knew a friendly professional dominatrix would give him a better lead?