The shadows were longer on this end of town, Dougal thought as he drove through the dead warehouse district. And he wouldn't have this area any other way than shady. He was here as much for the dark as for the blowjobs. He didn't want to be seen dumping his loads down the necks of low-cost crack whores, but his wife kept a tight grip on the family finances and would know immediately if he was courting pricy call girls in expensive hotel rooms. These receptacles for his lust were cheap enough he could pay out of his Starbucks budget.
When pressed, he'd admit he loved his wife, but if she'd just put out a little more, skip a few desserts and drop a few pounds, there'd be no need for him to put his cock in other mouths. He was a good enough husband to be ashamed of seeing hookers on the side, but he deliberately prided himself in only using their mouths. He never fucked them. In addition to the greater risk of disease full-on sex entailed, or so he assumed, it felt less unfaithful to his wife somehow to just face-fuck these whores.
And the women that he found on the streets? Well, they were going to do it anyway, and if he helped them score some food or the next hit of whatever they were on to make their lives bearable, it was almost a good deed.
Okay, he knew that was all bullshit. The truth was he needed them as much as they needed him.
He slowed his truck down as he approached the alleyway between two seemingly derelict warehouses. The black hole seemed to vomit its darkness out onto the sidewalk. He shuddered to think what happened in that deep, dark hole, but some of his best cocksuckers had been found standing around the edges of that cavity. And one of the worst too, he remembered.
The last time he'd been in this district, he'd been blown by a woman who wept her way through a sad blowjob, smacking and grinding her near-toothless gums on his needy cock for what seemed like forever before finally forcing his release. She'd slobbered all over his underwear and he'd had to sneak the briefs through the laundry without his wife seeing the tell-tale cum stains. For that, the women tapped him for fifty, and he paid it more out of pity than satisfaction.
He stopped the truck in front of the impenetrable darkness of the alley. The street light glinted off ghostly white hair as a figure emerged from the gap between buildings. Fuck, it was the toothless whore. Screw that, Dougal thought. She was making her way toward the passenger side of his truck, and Dougal made ready to fish in other waters. He'd been half-a-second from shifting into drive when he saw her turn as if someone forcefully told her to leave. She slipped back into the shadows.
Dougal hadn't decided on what to do yet when there was a decisive knock on the driver-side window. He jumped in his seat in surprise, always afraid of an overzealous cop on patrol or an aggressive pimp pushing his wares on him.
Instead, there was a young man with a pale face under a tousled mop of short black hair. His eyes were set deep in their sockets, shaded under well-defined black eyebrows. He had a straight nose and wide lips curled into a slight but reassuring smile. Strange to think, but he was handsome in a dark way. He looked about twenty.
Dougal stared at him a moment, meeting the stranger's eyes, before pressing the button to lower his window.
"I know what you want," the young man said. His voice was soft, but it carried confidence.
"Oh, uh, what do you mean, you know what I want?" Dougal heard his own voice and it sounded high and weak.
"Do you think I don't know what you want?" The young man looked amused. "You'd better tell me why you're here then."
This could be an undercover cop. Dougal needed a plausible story. Instead, still caught in the young man's glare, he babbled out the whole truth.
"I'm here to get a blowjob."
Dougal turned crimson. He'd never told anybody that he came to this end of town, not his best friend, not his brother, and he certainly didn't tell anyone that he paid for oral sex. Now, he'd just admitted it to a complete stranger who seemed able to compel the truth out of him just with a look.
"Exactly what I thought," the young man said. "Do you have twenty dollars?"
"Sure," Dougal said, reaching for his wallet without thinking.
"No. Wait. That will come later. Can I join you in your truck?"
The truth was that Dougal had paid a male junkie to suck him a few months before when, after an hour, no woman had come out of the alley. There had been nothing wrong with the blowjob, but the experience had been uncomfortable for him. He felt physically threatened by having another man in his truck and feared being overpowered, robbed, carjacked, maybe even raped. In this district, where the police seemed to have abandoned all semblance of involvement, who would help him? Then there was the matter of embarrassment. If he survived, how would he explain being in the area in the first place? His wife would and it would be that much worse if the offence was committed with another man.
"Yes," Dougal said to the young man. "Please get in."
A voice inside him screamed. What was he doing? This man was no giant, but he looked wiry and lean under that black pea coat. He could be strong and fast.
The slim man crossed in front of the truck, momentarily illuminated in the headlights, casting a long shadow in front of the vehicle. Dougal toggled a button on the inside of his door to unlock the passenger side. The young man opened it and seemed to glide inside. He did not fasten his seatbelt and Dougal didn't ask him to, even if there would have been a small comfort to be had knowing that the stranger was secured to his side of the truck.
"Uh, where to?" Dougal asked as if this was his first time doing anything like this.
"Three blocks down, there's an abandoned department store. Turn right. Two blocks over, there's another warehouse block. Behind the buildings, there's a narrow service road nobody uses anymore. We can park there."
The confidence of the voice was strange to Dougal's ear. Such a young man just didn't usually command such a tone with someone older. Most people desperate enough to give blowjobs for drug money were usually subservient, almost eager to please if eagerness would get them a fix. Something about this man was different.
Dougal eyed him uncomfortably out of the side of his eyes. He should have noticed straight away that his passenger was actually well-dressed and clean. His coat and pants were spotless. His hair was neither matted nor greasy. His face was not just clean, but almost luminescent in its pallor.
"You're going to miss the turn."
Dougal returned his attention to the road, catching his turn by making a manoeuvre that would have been dangerous if anyone else was on these roads, but hardly anyone was.
"Don't do that again," the young man said. There was no anger in the reproof. It was simply an order, and Dougal detected that it was given by one accustomed to obedience.
He even found himself muttering an apology, but there was no response from his rider.
