"Oh, come on, Rob. Come with me," Josh had said. "What's the worst that could happen? You could get laid. So what? It's about time. We've never been to a gay bar before—at least I haven't. And I hear Gustaf's is a gas. All made up in Transylvania style and everything. It's Halloween. They're sure to have pulled out all the stops for the occasion."
No, I'd never been to a gay bar before. In fact, I hadn't been to anything gay—that I knew of—or had even thought of doing so until Josh and I had drawn each other as college roomies. I think being around him for three months so far had bent me. I was beginning to have strange thoughts and urges—ones I'd never had before. All because of how Josh looked and what he did with girls and guys alike.
"Aren't you worn out from the football scrimmages today?" I asked. "Don't you have too much homework to do?"
He was standing at the sink in the bathroom, with only a towel draped around him, having just showered. He was leaning into the mirror, using short scissors to trim his eyebrows. He always wanted to look good. And he always did look good. Two hundred and twenty pounds and nearly six and a half feet of solid fullback muscle; built like a tank.
"Naw. Tonight I feel like something new; something a little wild. You know, give the girlie boys something to gawk at. It's Halloween, man. We need to howl."
"I don't know," I mumbled. I liked him like this, though. He got my juices going when he was being a bit wild. But I really didn't know. Being in a gay bar with him when he was in this mood. Who knew where it would lead to? I was scared and jacked up at the same time.
"Is OK," Josh was saying. "If you don't want to go, I'm sure Scott will go with me."
And that pushed me over the edge. Scott would go with him for sure, and Scott would probably wind up doing things with him after going to the gay bar that I'd only dreamed of doing with Josh myself. Scott had hit on me more than once. I couldn't think of anything worse than Scott getting something on with Josh that I was too shy and scared to attempt myself.
"OK, then," I said. "I'll go with you."
"Great. And wear that black net muscle shirt you have and the tight black jeans. You'll be a smash there. We'll really knock 'em dead."
Gustaf's—really Gustaf's Castle—was all it was rumored to be. The entrance foyer was five steps down, under the stoop of a massive brownstone townhouse in a quiet street off the main drag in Old Town.
The bouncer who answered the door was a regular Egor right out of a Dracula movie, and after giving both Josh and me the once over and being satisfied, he opened a heavy, steel-spike-studded door in the stone-floored foyer we first entered, and we were descending again into a dimly lit, rock-walled, cool, subterranean chamber, complete with vaulted ceiling, thick cobwebs, an armory of medieval weapons and chains hung on the walls, and raucous male noise rising above the eerie sounds coming from a small band. I couldn't tell what instruments were being played or even what style of music; I just know it sounded a little creepy and dissonant.
The room wasn't all that big, and the temperature increased as Josh and I descended the curved stone staircase into the pit, no doubt heated up by the tightly encased swirl of manflesh in high heat.
I immediately felt out of my element and sensed my throat constricting, and all I wanted to do was turn and flee back up the stairs and out into the night. But Josh didn't seem to be perturbed at all. He just kept walking—no, strutting—down the stairs, as faces lifted to take in our arrival and opened up into wide smiles. Cat calls and whistles floated above the sounds of a male crowd on the make, and a corridor was opened between Josh and me and the bar.
Everyone made way as I followed Josh into the crowd and places opened up in the center of the long bar, with men pulling off to the side to give Josh and me space—all except for one man, who would have stood out from all the rest even in the center of the crowd.
He was well over six and a half feet tall and had a dark, glowering aspect about him that exuded domination and control. As tall as he was, he was also a mass of muscle, which made Josh look almost stunted as we approached. He had marble-white skin and black, piercing eyes that both repelled and enticed me as they took both Josh and me in in one, long, languid sweep from toe to head. It was impossible to determine his age. I would have gauged him at more than fifty if it hadn't been for his excellent muscle tone. His face had the craggy appearance of long years of experience without making him any less handsome and arresting in appearance. His silky silver hair stood out wide from his angular face and tumbled down to his shoulders. He was holding up a glass of red wine in long, elegant, strong fingers, the backs of which were covered with curly black and gray-peppered hair.
He was dressed for the locale and Halloween theme: tight, fawn-colored britches rising out of high-top black leather boats, stretching over heavily muscled legs, and ending in a low-rise waistband, with a pouch for his privates jutting out provocatively at his basket. A white, diaphanous cotton shirt floated above the tight riding pants. This was open at the neck and half-way down his sternum, to reveal a gold medallion on a thick gold chain nestled in a matting of silver and black curly hair. All very B horror movieish, but on him, very arousing.
"Ah, fresh prey," he said in a rich, silky baritone as we approached. His broad smile was one of simultaneously open and challenging welcome. "My name is Gustaf. Welcome to my castle. I don't think you have been here before, so please accept the first drink as my guests."
Somehow the way he said "prey" sent shivers up my spine. I maneuvered so that Josh was between me and this very disturbing man. For the second time, all I wanted to do was leave—but Josh was already deep in conversation with the bar's owner.
Standing there, watching them, I couldn't help but be taken with the contrast between the two men. It was the personification of good and evil in my mind, although I chastised myself for rushing to this conclusion. It probably was only their coloring. They were both magnificently built, although the much older Gustaf was an exaggeration of power and manhood that eclipsed young Josh in size and presence, even though Josh was no slouch in that department himself. But Josh's Nordic blondness, with his blue eyes and a body that I knew was smooth and hairless and only lightly tanned, contrasted starkly with the dark, mysterious, almost gypsy-like presence of Gustaf. And Josh's smile was entirely open, honest, and fun-loving. Gustaf smiled, but it went to something like a sneer at the corners, and his eyes blazed and darted in a way that you felt was penetrating to the very center of you and pulling at every evil and dark thought that you had.
