Day 01

[This is a completed four-chapter story that will post within ten days]

*****

He should have known. He should have known that Hal Etheridge wouldn't have had him brought to a fleabag hotel like the Downtowner on 14th Street. Etheridge wouldn't be in a place like this. Chaz and Fred, two of Etheridge's minions—goons, really—had met Jason at the elevators on the 12th floor and virtually frog marched him down the corridor to a room off the back of the hotel.

"Is he here? Is Etheridge here?" Jason asked with a shaky voice. He didn't like it that it was Chaz and Fred who had picked him up. They'd always leered at him when he was brought someplace to service Etheridge.

"What d'ya care as long as you get paid?" Fred asked. "You don't care who uses you as long as you're paid."

"Shh, keep your voices down in the corridor," Chaz admonished. Chaz was the leader of the two. Neither of them was really bright enough to be considered a leader. But they both were just the type of muscle a politician like Hal Etheridge needed to do his dirty work and cover it over, when needed.

Jason only now was getting the idea that maybe he'd been moved to the "cover-it-over" phase. Maybe he'd gone too far in his snit with Etheridge the last time they'd trysted. He didn't know then, though, that a candidate likely to get a party's nomination for president had already named U.S. Senator Hal Etheridge as a vice presidential running mate.

They stopped by a door at the end of the hall next to a window with a fire escape outside it and the brick wall of yet another building, probably built in the thirties as this hotel had been, across the alley. The neighboring building probably was as dreary and outdated as this hotel was.

"Inside," Chaz growled as he turned the lock of the door to a room with an old-style key. The door swung open, and Jason saw a smallish sort of hotel room with scruffed up furnishings, a window overlooking yet another solid brick building wall, and a tired-looking bed with a brass head and footboard and a yellowing white chenille bedspread.

It wasn't the sort of room vice-presidential contender Hal Etheridge would pick for a sex session with a regular servicing rent-boy like Jason Stuart. He didn't go in for hotel rooms at all. He required special equipment to scratch his itch—and insulated walls. Jason was trained to serve these needs. The young blond was a real looker—a male model, minor porn star, and barista in a trending coffee bar. With blond hair, a small and perfect body, and boyish facial features, he didn't have any trouble keeping his dance card filled in. Hal Etheridge might be his most prominent client, but he wasn't the only up and coming politician Jason serviced.

"Where's Senator Etheridge?" Jason asked in panic, well knowing the answer to that.

"Inside, I said," Chaz repeated and pushed Jason inside the room, making the young man stumble forward. "And I said no talkin' in the corridor."

As the door clicked shut, Fred voiced the obvious. "The senator isn't coming. He's busy with more important matters. We're taking care of this for him. We're your clients tonight. Who's first, you or me?" he said, turning to Chaz, who had Jason contained with one arm around his neck and the other around his waist, holding Jason into his body. Jason could feel that the big bruiser was hard.

"Show him the cash. My back pocket."

Fred pulled a wallet out of Chaz' back pocket while Chaz was working Jason's belt buckle and zipper. Jason moaned, but he didn't struggle. He did it for money and they were talking money. Fred fished four fifties out of Chaz' wallet and went over and slapped them down on the top of a scruffed dresser.

Quickly making Jason naked, Chaz draped him bent over the back of an upholstered, low-backed boudoir chair, on his belly. Fred stood in front of the chair, holding Jason's wrists captive and face fucking Jason with a meaty cock he'd pulled out of his unzipped pants, while Chaz knelt behind Chaz and ate his ass out while pulling on his own cock.

When he was ready, Chaz did a circle of the room holding Jason in front of him, Jason's knees hooked on his hips and Jason's fists locked behind Chaz' neck, while the big bruiser crouched a bit, held Jason's slim waist between his hands, and bounced Jason's channel up and down on his hard cock until he'd ejaculated. Jason had come first.

Jason was calming down. This was his world, what he did for men. He even fell into the "Yes, yes, you're so big. Give it to me; be good to me, daddy" routine he used to inflame johns. His eyes were on the money on the dresser. They had shown the money. Everything was going to be all right. They'd shown the money.

Chaz then dropped Jason on the bed on his belly, and before Jason could respond—even if a response were possible with these two muscle men manhandling him in the small hotel room—he had been trussed up with three pairs of handcuffs—two on his ankles, chained to the corners of the brass foot rail, with his legs spread, and the other pair handcuffing his wrists behind him. Chaz stuffed the young rent-boy's mouth with his own briefs.

Jason started to struggle with Fred when he was handcuffing his wrists, but a fist to chin had sent Jason sprawled with an "ooff." After that lashes to his buttocks and back again and again and again with Jason's own leather belt subdued him to whimpers and ended any fight he had in him. Even this wasn't beyond the zone yet. The fetishes Jason served—indeed what he took with the senator—included the lash and a bit of beating.

"You love the strap," Fred hissed at him. "Almost as much as you love the fuck."

"Your turn. I'm gonna take a shower," Chaz said.

"Where do you think . . . afterward? Down river or a public dump near Baltimore?"

"Shut your yap," Chaz admonished. "He's still got ears."

"Won't do him much good though, will they?" Fred asked. They both laughed. "So, you wanna do him again, or—?"

"Naw. No time for that," Chaz responded. "You can finish him. I'm taking a dump and then a shower. Nothing we have to clean up later, or you have to do the cleaning."

Now they were beyond the zone.

Jason, paralyzed with fear, heard the door to the bathroom close and Fred's belt buckle thump on the threadbare carpet. Then Fred, all 230 pounds of him, was on top of Jason's hips, his knees gripping Jason's thighs and the palms of his hands pressing down on Jason's shoulder blades. He was thicker than Chaz had been, so it took him a minute to bury his cock in Jason's ass, but once saddled, he began to ride Jason hard.

Jason's moans and groans from the thick, deep fuck were drowned out by the mechanical scream of the shower being turned on in the bathroom. After a few minutes of pumping him from behind and above, Fred wanted to change position. Jason felt the big man pull out of his ass, lift his weight from Jason's buttocks, and move off the bed. The handcuffs at Jason's ankles were undone and removed, and Fred came back up on the bed on his knees. He obviously wanted to do Jason in a missionary for a while. Surprisingly, he unlocked the handcuffs imprisoning Jason's wrists as well.

Jason's head was turned to the side and he could see a garrote strap laying on the bed. He no longer was paralyzed. There wasn't any doubt what these two goons had in mind—or why. Now that Etheridge was a national candidate, it was cleanup time on his background. Jason gathered all of the adrenaline that he could to unleash in one stroke. It was now or never.

With only one wrist out of the handcuffs and heavy metal handcuffs hanging from the other wrist, he now had a weapon of his own. He swung the loose cuffs at Fred's head in a desperate lunge that, nonetheless, worked a charm. Fred's eyes went large in surprise and pain as the metal of the free cuff slammed into his temple with the sickening sound of crushed bone. He toppled off the side of the bed and onto the floor with nothing louder than an "Ooof," which was covered from the bathroom with the grinding noise from the shower head.

Jason walloped him again on the side of the head for good measure, but the goon was already down for the count. Jason scrambled around on the floor, finding the key to the handcuff and freeing his other wrist. It was only a matter of seconds before he'd pulled his clothes back on, grabbed up the money from the dresser, and scooted out into the hall.

He couldn't chance the elevator and the lobby. Who knew that these two goons were the only ones who had been sent to capture and eliminate him? He had seen the fire escape through the window at the end of the corridor when he'd been shoved into the room. The window didn't want to cooperate on opening, but, feeling infused with superhuman strength fueled by the survival instinct, Jason muscled it open and scrambled down the fourteen stories of metal scaffolding before Chaz turned the shower off in the hotel room.

Did he dare go back to the apartment on R Street in Northwest D.C., near Logan Circle, that he shared with three other rent-boys to at least gather his shit together before he escaped town? Had he ever told the senator or any of his goons where he lived? He didn't think so. The goons had always picked him up on the street—on 13th Street—when the senator wanted to be serviced—just like they had tonight.

Yeah, he thought he could chance it. He'd been stupid, though. In that last argument he'd had with Etheridge, he not only had revealed that he knew who Etheridge really was, but that this gave him some form of control over Etheridge. But he'd never have snitched on Etheridge—not that the senator could or would count on that, Jason now realized.

* * * *

Hardesty was cruising the old Impala along 14th Street in the Logan Circle gay district, his eyes peeled for trade. Despite what he was out here for, he was looking for something special—in size and type. He was always on the lookout for something special in that regard. He had the tape recorder attached to his wide black leather belt on the driver's door side. He was dressed the part—black jeans and black leather boots and a black leather vest over a black muscle T, showing off his bodybuilder musculature. A black knit stocking cap was pulled down over his buzz-cut hair, hiding the gray that was starting to show here and there.

He was forty and would have looked it if he wasn't so muscled up. He had a close-cropped mustache and beard too, but the gray there didn't show in the not-long-past twilight in his dark Impala out on the street, as he pulled over by a group of young men standing near an alley entrance—one that opened at the other end for a quick getaway, as needed. He knew he looked like a thug, which he could easily be, on demand or when he got wound up. His gray eyes had a steely, piercing look to them and the nose had obviously taken a few too many off-center hits. Otherwise he looked good—if what you were looking for was a little danger and more than a bit of the rough.

It was hot enough that he didn't really need the vest, but it hid the tape recorder and the piece in the holster in his left armpit. He was right-handed.

A couple of the rent-boys moved away, either down the dimly lit street or into the alley, when he pulled the Impala over to the curb. Maybe some of them recognized him or the Impala. The guy who had caught his attention hadn't. Young and short, but very well formed. A look of innocence and nervousness. Hardesty hadn't seen this one before. He wasn't blond—he was at least partly Hispanic—but he was a pretty boy and looked like he'd be fun to break, and Hardesty knew he couldn't have everything. He turned the recorder on, hit the roll-down button for the passenger door, leaned over, stared the young Hispanic down, and called out, "You. Come here."

The young guy jerked, turned his full attention to the Impala, squinted, and squeaked out a "Me?"

Neophyte, Hardesty thought. Think I caught this one early, on the rise.

"Yes, you. Come here."

"Yes, sir, can I do something for you?" the Hispanic said as he came, leaned an arm on the sill of the passenger door window, and got the front of his face into the car. His arm was trembling and the expression on the young guy's face went through a couple of permutations, like he wasn't quite sure the look he should be taking on.

"You just loitering with friends or are you looking for company?" Hardesty asked.

"What did you have in mind?" the Hispanic asked. He'd obviously been told he shouldn't bring up the deal—like that would give him some protection or anything.

"What services are you offering? You look pretty green. You sure you're—"

"I'm old enough," the guy said.

There, the first barrier crossed. Hardesty had asked and had received the claim. "And experienced enough?" That, legally, could mean just about anything.

"Yeah, I can do it all."

Pulling him out—like taffy. There wasn't much question what that meant.

"What's it all? You take it or give it?"

"I can give a good BJ and can take a big cock."

Bingo. "How much each way?"

"Twenty and thirty. Best on the block. Just see if you can get better."

Proof he was new to it. Hardesty and any other john certainly could get better. "Get in." Hardesty switched off the recorder. He'd gotten what he needed and he wasn't that wild about recording any of the rest of what was going to transpire here.

He got onto P Street headed for 16th. The guy really was small. He was dressed in short shorts, sandals, and a tight T-shirt. As Hardesty got the Impala back onto the street, the guy turned his torso toward him and reached over and palmed Hardesty's crotch. "Holy moly," he mouthed breathily. Whether he'd say that to any john or not didn't bother Hardesty. Hardesty knew he was packing.

"You said you could take it big, kid. And old Dick here has been cruising around looking for it." He dipped into his pocket and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill and slapped it down on the dashboard. "Just so you know I'm good for it," he said. As he'd fiddled around with his pocket, he'd unstrapped the recorder and let it slide down between the seat and the driver's door. Chances were good he wouldn't be using it. He'd be using something, though.

There came a decision time for a guy like Hardesty—either to do strictly what he came out here to do or to approach it from another angle and get his enjoyment out of it too. This guy wasn't what he normally liked, but he was liking what he saw anyway. And he was in the mood. He'd include doing what he came out here for, though. A lot of the guys wouldn't do that. They'd just take advantage of the situation to get their rocks off.

"So, like, you want me to blow you now, while you're driving?" the young guy asked.

"First, what's your name? I don't like just anyone sucking my cock. I like to know who they are. I'm Frank." Of course he wasn't Frank at all—in much of any sense of the word when he was working the street like this.

"Raul. My name is Raul. So, you want me to suck it now?"

"Be my guest. We're headed to a hotel up the road. I have a room there. But if you want to get a head start, go ahead."

The guy seemed to be anxious to get at it. He kept eyeing the fifty on the dashboard like it was some sort of lifeline. He already had Hardesty unzipped and had a hand inside his pants. Others on the street must have told him to get right to it. That, if it was a cop, he'd have to back off at that point. Hardesty didn't play that game.

"Holy shit," Raul exclaimed when he'd unrolled the cock. "It's big, really big."

"It'll get a lot bigger. And it's been needing attention. Take it in the face when it gets there."

Hardesty pulled over into a gas station that looked like it was closed forever, not just for the night, and stopped by the pumps on the station side, the pumps blocking good observation from the street. He reclined his seat and put his hands on the back of Raul's head as the young guy bobbed his mouth up and down on the cock. The mouth was soft and Hardesty decided to get the full value out of it. Raul wasn't intending on taking it deeply, but Hardesty used his hands to make sure that the Hispanic did just that, gagging and gurgling as his lips tried to get to Hardesty's short hairs. Part of Hardesty's plan was for it to bother the guy.

"Now, pull off now," Hardesty commanded, releasing Raul's head, and the young guy managed to pull back up just in time to take a thick wad on his cheek and nose. He started to sit up, but Hardesty grabbed the back of his head and held him there to make sure he took the second, and third load as well.

"Do you always . . .?" the guy said, with a voice of awe.

"Always. Multiple times. You're not bad. Here's a Kleenex," Hardesty said, reaching down between the seats to pull one out of a box. "Clean it off." It wasn't a bad blow job, but it wasn't anything close to the most professional one Hardesty had had, which was further evidence that he had caught the guy early. He had a soft mouth, though. That would harden up in time if the guy kept at it.

Hardesty nosed the car back on the street and drove the three last block to the Downtowner hotel on 16th Street, in the close-in northwest of D.C., above Union Station. He pulled up in front of a dark clothing storefront several doors down from the hotel's front entrance. "You get out first—yes, you can take the twenty that you've already earned. Go over and stand just inside that alley over there and wait for me. I'm going to repark the car."

The Hispanic docilely did as directed and Hardesty parked down the street where the curb was clear next to a fire hydrant. He walked back to the mouth of the alley, where Raul stood, hunched over on himself and looking very nervous.

"Down the alley," Hardesty said.

"Why?" Raul asked. "Thought we were going to the hotel."

"We are. But you don't want them to see you taking a john into the hotel, do you?"

"Suppose not."

Hardesty went back into the alley, followed, not too closely, by Raul. He opened a door and light tumbled out into the alley. "Come on then," Hardesty said, and Raul caught up with him to find they were entering a back hallway, some sort of employee's entrance. There was a service elevator too that took them up to inside a storage room on the fourteenth floor.

Down a narrow hallway, Hardesty turned at one of several doors along the corridor, used a key to open it, stood aside, and ushered Raul inside.

It was a small room on the back of the hotel. A double bed, brass headboard and foot rail, covered in an off-white chenille bedspread. A threadbare and stained gray carpet, a nightstand with a lamp with a torn shade on it, a scruffed-up dresser, and a writing desk, with a boudoir chair pushed into it. The bathroom, which had seen better days two decades earlier, opened off to the left. The one window, bordered by gauze curtains that probably wouldn't meet over the window, overlooked a blank brick wall across the alley. They quite evidently were close to the street front, as the on-off glow of a green neon sign filtered in from the right of the window.

"Strip and go down on your belly on the bed," Hardesty commanded.

While Raul did so, Hardesty stripped too. Out of the corner of his eye, the young Hispanic saw Hardesty place a tube of lube and three condom packets on the nightstand.

"Hey, man," he started to say, and he sat up on the bed. But then he saw Hardesty put two fifties down on the top of the nightstand as well, and they choked off anything Raul had to say. But Hardesty did see the young man shudder. More evidence he was a neophyte.

"On your belly, on the bed," Hardesty growled again, and. with a low moan, Raul complied. He groaned as Hardesty saddled over his buttocks, embracing the young man's thighs on either side with his knees. Raul murmured in surprise, though, when Hardesty began to massage his back muscles.