WICKED BOY (Preview) M/M

(CHAPTER (9): Patreon-Exclusive Story)

Daphne says that The Huxley Goules are trouble, and Ez' is the worst of them all.

She says he's wired for destruction, a cloud of cigarette smoke that travels behind his slinking shadow — a slant to his inherited grin that makes him look like a predator who's cornered prey.

An escort.

She's used the words, hedonist, playboy — and thief in my short seven-day stay. Her disdain of him runs deep, and to me, it sounds like there's a million and one whips of penance Ez's shoulders, and he doesn't regret a thing. A shark, Daphne calls him; and he's always surrounded by those just as desperate for belonging and material wealth as he.

This is Huxley.

We all want something.

Daphne says it's the perfect place for an escort service. Rumors don't spread much, and if they do, they're not worth anything. She says in Huxley all you come to know is tidbits of warnings, just the facts of who you need to watch your back around, where you need to lock your door,

and the universal truth here is, she says:

That The Huxley Goules side-show as rent-boys, as escorts, but become something more sinister when they aren't faced with a rich face — when they aren't being propositioned by money and material items,

And they are best left alone when they aren't wearing their charm. They might not own much, but in almost every sense of the word — they own the economy of Huxley, and they own this town.

But I know men who have 'owned' towns before.

I watch the bar lights off the corner of The Rest Stop flicker and dim, spring back to life with a jolt and a hum from the open motel door. I squint when my head throbs, and I step out onto the sidewalk.

One of them is my father.

I hear another car pull into the only open parking place with the sound of tires rolling rocks beneath them, the silky black of the motorcycles next to me reflecting both it's the arrival and the lights near perfectly.

'Goules'

The building reads, in a specific stretch of the motel rooms, with a sickly neon yellow. Beneath it, are a small group of men and women — all beautiful and leering, cigarettes between their fingers. There's a bat threaded onto their leather jackets' back, red wings spread above the same lettering,

Goules.

They're laughing, jeering at each other — but they stop as the engine next to me turns off, and their attention turns towards me.

I guess a lack of self-preservation is what happens when you don't get out your rebellious side as a teenager. I think, although it's groggy and muddled with vodka. Otherwise, what in the hell would I be doing here?

I just need to ask them to be a little quieter.

My palms are sweating, but I'm more bothered, distracted even, by the fact that it's so cold in the parking lot.

Politely. That's all.

I barely have time to shut the door to my room before cigarette smoke wafts into my breathing space. I wave at it without thinking, sputtering a bit,

"Who're you?"

The tone is light and heavy all at once, a floating quality to it — but buried under a weight, like a voice heard underwater.

"... And what're ya' doing here?"

I turn slowly.

"Um — I'm Milan," I say it simply, at eye-level with a neck that's printed with the thin and spidery word, Sinner. I wrinkle my nose as another bellow of smoke blows down and across my face. I cough, throat irritated, "and I'm — I'm trying to sleep."