“Come on, baby, you can go deeper. The surgeon gave me the Grade A nine-inch-deep special. Oh, fuck baby. Yes, baby!”
It was the dark hour of 3:00 a.m. on Hardesty’s bed. Angelique had agreed to go into the unit and give a deposition on her encounter with the creep if Hardesty fucked her one more time. He was complying. Her wrists were still restrained at either side of the headboard, but Hardesty had freed her ankles and her legs were raised and spread, her booted feet daintily posed in the hollows of Hardesty’s broad shoulders. Her weight was on her shoulder blades, as Hardesty was raised, in his knees, between her thighs, bringing her pelvis up to his groin, her butt raised off the mattress.
“Oh, yes, baby, baby. There, rub the end with that big dick of yours. Cream me. Oh, shit, BABY! There too. Take it all, baby. And keep workin’ them tits.” Hardesty had pulled out of the new cunt and entered more familiar Angel territory. The fit was tighter up the anal canal, but neither Hardest nor Angelique were going to complain about that. Angelique moaned deeply as Hardesty continued the thrust in her ass.
Hardesty was more comfortable in this territory.
Hardesty’s cellphone rang and he fumbled around on the nightstand for it, holding Angelique in place with his other arm around her waist, holding her up.
“No, baby, leave it. Finish me,” Angelique whimpered.
“Speak,” Hardesty growled into the phone, still slow pumping Angelique, and then, after listening for a moment, said, “Turkey Run Park. I’ll be there in a half hour.” He clicked off, replaced the phone on the nightstand and, “We’ve got to finish this fast. Duty calls.”
“I’m your duty now if you want my deposition . . . oh, shit, baby. Yes, back in the cunt. Fuck me like that, stud. All the way in. Shit, I should have gone for the eleven-inch cunt. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Cream me, baby. Give me your cum! YESSS!”
Hardesty did and was quickly out and headed for the shower. When he came back, half dressed and working on getting it all done, he leaned over the bed and released Angelique’s right wrist. He moved around to the other side of the bed and did the same to the left. Angelique was lying there, her eyes following Hardesty around his bedroom. She was purring.
“Don’t go anywhere while I’m gone,” he growled. “Stay right here.”
“You’ll find me right here in your bed with my legs open for you when you get back,” Angelique purred. “Thank you for respecting me and finishing in my cunt.”
“No, I mean in the apartment. I’ll take you in to give your information and then we’ll find somewhere safe for you to stay until we have this guy in cuffs.”
“I can stay here with you, in this bed.”
“No, too obvious a place. I have someplace else in mind. And, no, you don’t have to stay in bed. Just don’t leave the apartment and don’t answer the door. Toby should be here sometime, if he isn’t here now. Tell him I told you to stay put until I got back. Don’t fuck around with this, Angel. This is serious business.”
“Angelique wants some more serious business from you, Mr. Vice Cop,” she murmured from the bed, but Hardesty was already out of the bedroom and on his way to the scene.
At 3:30 in the morning it was a smooth sail west, up the George Washington Parkway, following the southern bank of the Potomac River up to the Turkey Run Park, once famous for spy encounters, as the CIA’s Langley headquarters was just over the treetops to the south of the small riverside park. Hardesty was met as he drove through the cordon of policemen at the entrance to the park’s parking lot, and held for an ambulance to pull out of the entrance, by his detective partner for the last year and more, Glen Whitehall, who had been the one to call him in on the scene. Whitehall was a strapping, young, athletic all-American-looking blond, who stood in contrast to Hardesty’s “been through the ringer” forty-year-old scruffy—but sexy—thuggish look. Still, it obviously was Hardesty who was the senior partner. The two actually worked out well together, making the most of their contrasts, which included them both being prisoners of the sexual vices that they encountered in their work. Whereas Hardesty worked over male prostitutes in his pursuit of keeping them alive and prospering, Whitehall took on the female prostitutes. Together, they knew everything and everyone to know in the red-light district world of Washington, D.C.
When Hardesty exited his twelve-year-old Hummer H3 and approached Whitehall, who was standing with another detective from the city’s vice unit, Maurice Stiles, a Virginia State cop, and a Fairfax County of Virginia vice detective, Brandon Baines, Hardesty did some liaison work with, all of whom were drinking coffee from Dunkin Donut cups, Whitehall handed Hardesty a cup of coffee and gave him a “walk carefully” face signal.
“That’s another one,” Baines said, gesturing to Hardesty. “Crane coming too?”
“He’s been notified. He’ll be here in a few minutes,” Whitehall said. “So, who is taking this one? I was just talking to Baines here about that, Hardesty. What do you think? The vic falls into the profile of the serial assaulter we’ve been working on and the ID has him living in the District—small, blond, androgynous, a known male hooker. He pole dances at an Alexandria gay bar. Fits our case.”
“Let’s wait for Crane,” Hardesty said. He’d counted noses and figured that their side could use greater strength in this if it came to a vote. It was a chore when the scene of the crime was outside the District. Washington was surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. Crimes didn’t contain themselves well in these close quarters. He turned and looked at the Virginia State cop. “Your oar in this is . . . ?”
“The park is state property—Virginia,” the trooper said. “And one of our guys found the victim. We cruise into here regularly at night. We don’t have any interest in leading. We’re just here to provide information. This isn’t our favorite kind of case. Any of you guys want to take it, that’s fine with us.”
“Good to know,” Hardesty said. It was very good that the state cops wouldn’t be making a grab for this too.
Baines interjected, “The scene is in Fairfax County and, according to what we found in the guy’s wallet, he works at a club in Crystal City. Freddie’s Beach Bar.”
“Know it well,” Hardesty said. “It’s near my place. A gay bar. Maybe some information until Crane gets here,” he asked, turning back to the state trooper. “Was that the vic in the ambulance that just pulled out? Dead or alive?”
“Alive,” the trooper said. “But messed up bad. I’ve never seen a case like this. Not beaten up, but tied up and his pecker’s been carved up.”
“A jealous boyfriend case?” Hardesty asked. “Off with your cock if you’re going to dip it somewhere other than in me?”
“Not this one,” the trooper answered. “Carved up from the inside.”
“Ouch,” Hardesty, Baines, Whitehall, and Stiles responded almost in unison.
“The vic was babbling about steel rods, a crazy john, and a big white truck,” the trooper continued.
“Ah, a white truck,” Hardesty said. “That sounds like it might be the case we’re already working.” Whitehall gave him a surprised look, but Hardesty muttered. “I’ll tell you later. Developments.” He was about to ask the trooper another question, when another police car—a District one—pulled up and out stepped his boss, D.C. Vice Squad Captain Crane. The big, imposing black took command as he strode up to the group. He was the tallest and most muscular of the lot. He could have been a double for a Marine Corp general—or master sergeant—cut physique, buzz cut, piercing intelligent stare and all.
In short order, he’d gotten the D.C. unit’s control established, barring determination that this wasn’t the case they already were working on, with cooperation from the Fairfax police, through Brandon Baines, who would be kept so close in the loop that he could take the investigation over smoothly if it didn’t pan out as the continuing D.C. case.
Crane quickly directed everyone to their individual slot, and Hardesty, telling Crane, Whitehall, and Stiles that he had a witness on ice who had good information, he thought, on the case and would bring her in to the unit, was cruising back up the George Washington Parkway in the early morning rush traffic to do just that.
“Her?” Crane had asked.
“Her now—post-op transvestite,” Hardesty had said. “Name was Angel. Now it’s Angelique. Small, blond, street hooker—and quite possibly an escapee from our twerp.”
At the apartment, he found Toby and Angelique having breakfast at the kitchen island. Hardesty briefly filled them in on the scene of the Turkey Run Park attack and the similarity between the two of them and the victim of a particularly nasty assault.
“Ron Dunne? Yes, I know him. A dancer at Freddie’s Beach Bar. I saw him, dancing the pole, just yesterday.”
“And you saw that he was quite similar to you and Angelique,” Hardesty said. “Small, blond, available for a price. You two are in danger until we button this one up. So, Toby, you will call your escort agency and tell them to refuse any appointments that aren’t your long-standing regulars. While you’re talking to them, get a list of everyone who has requested your services, including those who got them, for the last three weeks. Tell them the list is for Hardesty and, if they provide an accurate list, they won’t be made any part of what I’m investigating. When I get home again, we’ll go over the list.”
“Yes, sir,” Toby said, saluting.
“And you,” Hardesty said turning to Angelique, “are going to go under wraps after our visit to the police unit. You can’t stay here, but I have someplace else to stash you.”
“Paul’s?” Toby asked.
“Yes,” Hardesty answered.
“I don’t know why I can’t stay here, with you,” Angelique said to Hardesty.
“Trust me, you’ll like Paul just fine,” Toby said. “And you’ll be just down the hall from here.”
Then Hardesty and Angelique were off to the District police department and the vice unit. Angelique entered the unit apprehensively, but Larry, the unit’s research clerk, and of a flamboyant and flaming disposition, took her over immediately and had her comfortable in an interview room.
After describing the physical characteristics of the man who had engaged Angelique’s services, had wanted to fist her, and had gone ballistic when he’d learned he was now a she, they got down to the most helpful information.
“He said he was from Baltimore—that he worked security in office buildings during the day and as a bouncer at gay clubs at night.”
“Did he say where the clubs were in Baltimore?” Glen Whitehall asked.
“The Block. He called it The Block. East Baltimore Street.”
“And he was driving a white truck?”
“Yes. A newer one. A Dodge Ram double cab. My brother has one like it.”
When Hardesty drove Angelique back to Crystal City, he took her down the hall in his apartment building and rapped on a door. Toby had already made the arrangements.
Paul, early sixties but a very well-preserved former male model, tall and trim, opened the door. Paul was a personable, rugged Western type, having starred in a series of TV cigarette commercials in the 60s, and still alive because he’d never smoked. Most notable about Paul, though, was that he had a ten-inch dick with which he drove the boys wild.
“My, isn’t this one a cutie?” Paul said when he opened the door and took the figure of Angelique in. “Won’t we have fun?”
“You’re old,” Angelique blurted out.
“Old enough to know all the positions and I’ve got ten inches that still can get hard,” Paul said, pulling Angelique into his apartment and closing the door on Hardesty’s grinning face. Paul would indeed keep Angelique occupied and out of trouble, he was thinking as he walked back up the hall to his apartment. He was contemplating next steps. He saw a trip to Baltimore in his near future.
He hadn’t forgotten what he told Toby they’d do when he got back to the apartment, and Toby had been good about getting a list of everyone who had engaged his services—or tried to—over the previous three weeks from the escort agency. Hardesty then called Larry, the vice unit’s research clerk.
“I have a list of men I’d like you to run through the systems on the quiet—discreetly. Nothing is to come back at them from this check. Can you do that?”
“For you anything,” Larry said. Hardesty had taken Larry around the block a couple of times and the openly gay bottom melted to him. It was no surprise he’d do whatever Hardesty wanted him to do if it could physically happen.
To ensure he’d be thorough and private, Hardesty said, “If you find a connection from one of these guys to anything I’m interested in, I’ll take you partying.”
Larry nearly melted down in his desk chair.
* * * *
“This isn’t the police station,” Davey had said as he was being hustled upstairs. He gave a wary look at what one of the cops was carrying in his hand—what looked like leather handcuffs and a bar.
“No, it isn’t, Sherlock,” the white cop said. “You’re selling yourself on the street, so don’t do no choir boy routine with us. You can either take us here, or we can take you into the station house and a couple of bruisers can share you in the pen. They love doing scrawny pretty, blond boys like you. Which do you think would be best for you? You’re a pretty little thing—prettier than some girls I know. Even if we took you in and put you in the tank, you’d probably wind up rough fucked. Put out for Tyrone and me here and we’ll let you go. No official cop stuff. It’s the way of the street, dude. You’ve got to pay your dues to hold your place on the curb. Which is it?”
Davey didn’t think long on that. They were going to do him here anyway. He knew that for sure. They already were stripping, and both sported erections—Tyrone hugely so. Davey had called it on that guy being a hung bull. After everything was off, they tied their utility belts back on.
“Give you a thrill here,” Ernie said, as he tied the butt end of his holster off at his thigh, “and our guns—the ones on our belts and the ones swinging between our legs—will be close by then in case you resist.”
Davey didn’t resist, but in the end he nearly fainted.
They took the cuffs off long enough to strip him down, but they recuffed him, this time using the restraints Davey had seen the white cop come in with. One of the leather restraints locked his right wrist to his right ankle. The other did the left. The bar attached between them spread Davey’s legs. His cheek and chest were pressed into the thin mattress on the cot, with his tail raised high. He was effectively hogtied and immobile.
“You know what we do to a guy when we spread his legs, don’t you?” Ernie asked. Then he laughed. “You first, Tyrone.”
Davey whimpered as Tyrone mounted him and fucked him in a doggie. Davey nearly died and went to heaven. So much did he love the thickness, length, and backstroke of the big black that he felt the gates of his soft core open to the cock and hungrily suck it right in, the muscles of his walls caressing it and undulating over it. The big black shaft reached deep into his softness and breeded him. The black bull grabbed his hips and pumped him and pumped him, lathering him deep with his cum in multiple releases. Davey lay under him, panting hard, and not able to keep himself from murmuring, “Yes, yes, yes.”
The black bull was only in Davey’s soft core for some thirty seconds but it was then when the beleaguered circumstances and the fear and the dingy room and rickety cot melted away and the young man was gliding on the clouds, a man making love to him, caressing him deep, Davey’s legs trembling and the big black moving a strong forearm under his shimmering belly when the pumping became intense. More than ten seconds went to the big black cock pumping its prodigious, warm cum deep inside, with Davey moaning “fuck” with each release. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Davey had been breeded.
When the big black bull was done, opening Davey up like he’d never been opened before, Ernie, the white cop sat beside him and, with a smile, waved his Billy club in front of Davey’s face. He’d greased the club up. Davey gasped and arched his back as Ernie pushed the end of the Billy club into the young man’s ass and fucked him with it. The saving grace was that Tyrone had just reamed Davey’s channel gaping open with his shaft, which rivaled the Billy club in circumference. Also, Ernie didn’t try to get too much of the club inside Davey’s passage. Ernie continued club-fucking the young man, rocking Davey’s pelvis up and down with the strength of the club and beating off Davey’s cock, until the young man came.
This was the central passage in his story. Kit rechecked it one more time before pushing the submit button. He’d like to go through the whole story again, but he needed to put his rear in gear and get over to the National Art Gallery, where he was supposed to give a visiting German artist a full tour of the what went on behind the scenes.
Before he went, though, he decided to check the e-mail account he had through that Internet story site. Once again there was an e-mail from that crazy Danny dude:
Really, Sandman, if you’d just tell me where you are we can hookup to do some of that shit you write about, and this other shit wouldn’t be happening. You write about it, so you must know how to do it right so that it’s sexy and we both would get off on it. If you’d just tell me how we can get together. I’ve seen you. You’re really something. All I’d ever want. And we’re getting closer to meeting. I’m with your sounding boyfriend now, getting him to help me get closer to you, but he’s not much help. Not anymore. If you’d just stop being coy, we could be together and none of this other shit would be coming down. Let me know. I’ve seen you. I don’t know quite where you live, but I know where you roam. Don’t make me wait too much longer. Getting closer Danny.
What sort of shit is this? Kit thought. I have no fuckin’ idea what this dude is talking about, but it doesn’t sound good. That guy Toby is living with. He’s a vice cop, Toby says. It might be time that I show him this. Or maybe I should just stop posting the stories.
Something to think about some other time, though. If he didn’t get a move on, he’d be late meeting up with this German artist. Kit powered down the computer and went in to decide what a guy wears to meet a German artist whose paintings were really wild, but, in some ways sexy, especially the male nudes.
I wonder how we gets his models? Then Kit did a little wondering what the German artist did with his models.
* * * *
“Oh, honey baby, keep pounding that wall. Give it all to me. Kiss that end of my new pussy! Put it all in. Silver fox me, you stud.”
“I can’t give it all to you. You told me you were only given a nine-inch one.”
They were in Paul’s bedroom. Angelique, naked save for her knee-high black boots, was kneeling on the edge of the bed, facing the mattress. Paul, behind her, completely naked, had one hand palming one of Angelique’s melon-sized, store-bought breasts. The thumb and forefinger of the other hand had what was left of the T-girl’s penis between them and he was rubbing that out and causing Angelique to squirm, pant, and moan. Paul wasn’t unusually thick, so he wasn’t taxing Angelique’s new cunt in the stretch, but he was magnificently long and his thrusts were pounding against the deepest end of surgically provided sac and sending the T-girl over the moon.
“All of it! Give me all of it!” Angelique cried out. “You . . . are . . . THE STUD!”
Paul gave her all of it.
* * * *
His name was Todd and he worked for a high-class escort agency. He was a male whore. He deserved to be used hard and he was there to be used hard. Ian had the number of the escort agency. It had been rough getting just that much information, but he was a bit closer to Sandman. He had seen Todd going into a couple of apartment houses. One of them must be where he lived. If Marcus could just get inside these buildings when Todd was there, maybe he could find out where, specifically, Todd lived. If he could get Sandman alone in his apartment . . . or, better, if he could get Todd alone in an out-of-the-way place of Marcus’s choosing. There was so much to try: sounding, fisting. Maybe a good whipping. Make him sob.
Ian Marcus was crossing the Potomac from the District side back into Virginia. He felt like he’d been flipping back and forth over the river for hours. But he was getting somewhere at last. It was time to set up for Sandman’s visit.
He drove into the Virginia suburbs down Lee Highway and into Falls Church, an old Virginia town going back to the time of George Washington that had been swallowed up by the suburbs of the nation’s capital in the 1950s. He had a small house there at his disposal that couldn’t be traced to him—a house he’d heard about from a guy in a bar in Baltimore that wasn’t occupied at the moment because some old queer guy was down in Florida for some time taking care of a sick mother down there. The guy in the bar had said the old queer guy was a recluse and everyone else in the neighborhood stayed away from him. Marcus had found that the house was set in an overgrown yard, wasn’t in line of sight from the neighboring houses, and he could park the truck behind the house, all of which was good as gold for what he wanted. And the basement of the house was easily set up for his purposes. He’d had no trouble getting into the house to use it—just one pane of glass in that basement door smashed in.
As he pulled the truck behind the house and turned the ignition off, he grabbed his cellphone and the piece of notepaper where he’d written Todd’s name—just his first name; he didn’t know the guy’s last name—and the phone number of the escort agency. He called the agency to put in an assignment contract with a small, pretty, platinum blond by the name of Todd, who had been recommended to him. He had trouble not laughing about the recommendation part. He’d ask that they meet at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Crystal City. He’d already seen the little honey there, so he knew the whore did business there.
* * * *
“In the end we were the only ones who would hire him for the evening work. He did very well by us. In contrast to what some of the other clubs and houses had to say about him, he didn’t ruffle the goods here and he was quite effective as a bouncer. He was all muscle and mean looks. He didn’t seem all that bright, but it doesn’t require a genius to do the job. In some ways it’s best not to hire a deep thinker to be a bouncer.”
“Did he taste the goods?” Hardesty asked. “Knock any of them around, did he?”
“Not when he was here,” came back in answer. Hardesty mulled that one, wondering if he should ask about rumors of behavior on another job, but he decided not to ask. The club manager had alluded to problems elsewhere and Hardesty thought he’d expand on that on his own without being prompted to. This would be the best way to get the information.
Hardesty was sitting in the office of Del himself in the Deloitte House on East Baltimore street in Baltimore, west of the larger inner city Patterson Park, which had been a major pickup venue for gay boys back in Hardesty’s younger days when he had just started as a policeman, beginning his career here in Baltimore. As far as he knew, Patterson Park was still a hookup venue. Deloitte House was just one of several gay clubs and brothels near the park on East Baltimore. It was the only one that was blacks only on offer, though, and its madam, a handsome, trim black guy in his late twenties—the third generation of Dels to own and manage the house—was about to give Hardesty the reason why Ian Marcus had done well at this brothel while he’d had trouble at other clubs and male brothels on the street. With luck he’d be able to give Hardesty a reason why the man had moved on to Washington, D.C. It was quite clear, though, that Ian Marcus was the man for the case in the District.
Hardesty had called the vice squad in Baltimore on the basis of Angelique saying the man who had assaulted her said he was from there. The guys in the Baltimore unit allowed as how they had had a case similar to that and even had the Ian Marcus name to attach to it, but nothing had happened in the previous three weeks and, in talking around, they’d heard the guy had moved on, so they’d put the file on a back burner.
“If you have him there in Washington, you can keep him,” the Baltimore detective had said.
“You don’t sound surprised that he may be in Washington now.”
“I’m not,” the Baltimore detective answered. “According to the computer file I have here, Ian Marcus isn’t his only name. He was adopted. His original name was Danny Smith, and we found he kept and used credit cards in both names. The Smith card, according to this file, is currently being used in the D.C. area. We don’t have enough on him to make a move. But there’s enough smoke there to keep track of where he is.”
“What were you looking at him for?” Hardesty had asked. He hadn’t mentioned the MO of the perp in Washington, but he was thinking “Bingo” when the detective said there had been problems with a certain type of gay male prostitute on East Baltimore street. Small, blond, and feminine looking.
“Could be the same guy,” Hardesty had said, not interested in sharing all that much with the Baltimore detective if Baltimore vice was happy with giving up any claim to jurisdiction.
“The problem for us—other than getting the brass’s interest in anything involving hassling male prostitutes in this town—was that everything was minor or not carried through—more that it was building and we were afraid the guy was going to go all the way with someone.”
“Who would I talk to on East Baltimore Street to get more background on this? I’m familiar with The Block, by the way. I started off on the Baltimore force.” Hardesty didn’t get into what his more significant connection to The Block was—which was as a player himself—and the reason why he was nudged by the Baltimore brass, the detective mentioned, to take his career elsewhere. Hardesty had used Patterson Park as a pickup venue himself—and he’d gained quite a reputation for how he used the young men he picked up there—not that they avoided him, once used.
The detective mentioned several clubs and brothels that this Marcus had worked at as an evening bouncer and/or there had been trouble reported with him.
“Do you mind if I come to Baltimore and talk to some of these folks?”
“Not at all. As I said, if you have a case to work on this guy there in D.C., be our guests working it. The brass here aren’t anxious to have this sort of case on our books at all.”
So, Hardesty had come to Baltimore and moved from clubs to brothels on East Baltimore Street, being stonewalled until he’d gotten to Deloitte’s House. Once he’d told those he first saw that he was from the Washington, D.C., vice squad and, with permission from the Baltimore police, was interested in talking about Ian Marcus, everyone had clammed up. He’d felt he had to be straight up with them, especially since he hadn’t been the Baltimore force’s favorite cop when he’d worked here. Only a few of them claimed to know Ian Marcus and fewer of them admitted he’d worked in their business. Even those who admitted that, though, weren’t willing to discuss what had gone bad—why Marcus no longer worked for them.
At the front door of Deloitte’s House, when the house manager himself, Del, was summoned to the door, it had looked like Hardesty would be stiffed here too, but someone Hardesty recognized, a prostitute named Arch who Hardesty had known—and had relations with when they were both younger—had appeared over Del’s shoulder. He’d seen Hardesty, flashed him a smile, and whispered something in Del’s ear. After that the house manager was all “Welcome, come in, and come on back to my office. We’ll see what we can do for you.”
Hardesty knew Del had a different idea why he was there than Hardesty did, but Hardesty used the misunderstanding to get to the guy’s office and then just launched into his real reason for being there.
“I wonder why Marcus bombed out everywhere else on The Block but was OK here,” Hardesty asked near the end of the discussion in Del’s office.
“That’s easy,” Del said. “We’re all black here. Marcus’s fetish was little blond guys. He couldn’t keep his hands off them, and he wanted to do kinky sex with them. They ran from him—not because he wasn’t a hunk in his own way, but he seemed too crazy and because of the stuff he wanted to do. He wanted to try new, complicated and physically dangerous stuff he wasn’t experienced in. He got hooked on some Internet story site where some writer was writing all sorts of kinky sex stories. Marcus wanted to replicate the stories. Here, I think I can bring up the site on this computer.”
Del turned to a laptop on his desk and keyed in a Web site and then a screen within the Web site. “Here. Here’s the site and I found a story by the writer. His name is Sandman.” He turned the screen around to where Hardesty could see it and gave Hardesty a little knowing smile.
“A story Web site, you say?” Hardesty said, looking at the screen and noting the Web site name, but not looking closely at the story. “I Wonder why he left here for D.C.”
“That’s not a headscratcher either. This Sandman wrote a lot about small, blond, pretty guys in his stories, which mated up with the fetish Marcus already had, and he got it in his mind that Sandman was small, blond, and pretty and would be delighted to play with him. Marcus seemed to realize he didn’t have the experience to safely try what he wanted to do. Sandman wrote like he knew how to do it. A lot of the stories were set in D.C., and Sandman had let slip that was where he was—so, off Marcus went. At least that’s what we’ve decided here.”
“Thanks, that clears a lot up,” Hardesty said. “That leaves why you were so willing to talk with me when everyone else slammed their doors to me.”
“Baby, it’s because I wanted to have you here with me to look at,” Del said, with a laugh. He reached over and put a hand on Hardesty’s thigh. “My boy Arch, who is lurking on the other side of that door, waiting for us to move on to some fun, told me you were a player—and a player as we like it. Arch says you’ve been naughty with him before in special ways. Here, look at this story I brought up on the screen. See what Sandman is writing about here.” He gestured for Hardesty to take a closer look at what was written there.
He turned me on my back again, and I spread and bent my legs and lifted my pelvis to him, willingly, offering myself as a sacrifice, a sacrifice he accepted. He fisted me. Now I could take it after the reaming of his cock over the previous hour. I would give him anything, and he wanted—and took—it all. I panted and groaned as he penetrated me with a greased hand up to his wrist, taking his time.
“We have all the time in the world,” he murmured to assure me that I was completely in his control.
“Be good to me, Master,” I begged.
“You wish me to stop? You wish me to withdraw?”
“No. Have me as you like.”
Del smiled. “I’ve scratched your itch. You can scratch ours now. Let us give you a tour of our place.”
The tour ended in the fully equipped basement room, where Hardesty was encouraged to relive old times with Arch, who Hardesty found strapped to an X-frame. Afterward Hardesty drove back to Washington in his Hummer humming. At the Maryland rest stop on I-95 between Baltimore and Washington he stopped and made a phone call.
“Larry. Add a name to that search you’re doing for me, please. Danny—or Daniel—Smith, of Baltimore.” That was the name on the credit card Marcus was using in Washington, D.C.
* * * *
The German artist, Helmut Stern, was not what Kit Helms had been expecting, and Kit could have kicked himself for not having checked his profile entries on the Internet. He’d assumed from the German’s reputation and the number of works Kit had seen photographs of and references to that the man would be ancient. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be more than in his late thirties, and he was robust as hell. He was very Germanic—tall, big boned, with one of his biggest bones, Kit hoped, hanging between his thighs, blond, ruddy complexioned, and boisterous. He also was touchy feeling, touching Kit and walking close to him while Kit was giving him the behind-the-scenes walking tour of the National Gallery of Art. Obviously, someone had told him that Kit took cock.
In a dimly lit storage room housing the German Renaissance art period, Stern came in close behind Kit, put his arms around the young man, and whispered, “You smell bezaubernd—lovely. Ich will dich ficken.”
“What?” Kit asked in surprise and shock. He knew what ficken meant in German.
“I want to fuck you. I’m horny. I was horny when Hopkins and I talked about who would behandlen—handle me—who I would handle—on this tour. He told me you take cock and that you’re an easy lay. You take cock, Ja? I was even more horny when I saw you. I am a männliche—how do you say? Virile?—man. I must have it regularly. My art come from the lust—the same as you say it, Ja?—for young men like you. You take a big cock, I hope.”
Kit groaned. William Hopkins had been telling tales. Willian Hopkins, the curator who had given him the internship job here—who had hired him at least in part because Kit had let the man pick him up in a Georgetown bar and fuck him. He couldn’t deny he took cock, no. He couldn’t say he hadn’t been an easy lay for Hopkins. And he’d been thinking of this robust German artist in those terms during the tour.
“And Hopkins says you are lüstern—wanton, lustful—too. He says he’s seen you take three men in a night.”
That was true too. That damned New Year’s party.
“You take my cock, Ja?”
“Ja,” Kit answered, with a sigh, but trembling from the prospect. The man was a hunk and Kit had been told to make him happy and to keep him happy. “Not here, though. There must be someplace—”
“You take a big cock, Ja?”
“Ja, OK.”
“I am booked at the Alexander Hotel. Hopkins tells me there is no trouble—”
Kit laughed. Everything was the Alexander Hotel these days. That was where gay guys with money did it.
Stern fucked Kit in an upholstered chair in the man’s hotel room at the Alexander. Kit’s butt was scooted down to the front edge of the chair. his legs were draped over the arms, and the German had methodically opened his hole with his tongue and lubricated fingers. The man hadn’t been able to wait to get them into bed. He had bunched up the fingers and gone in to the knuckles, with Kit opening to him and panting at the prospect of a cruel fuck, crying out in his mind only, Yes, yes. Fist me! Make me feel it. Make me scream! Kit had been fisted before; he’d never had as intense a fuck as this.
But the man didn’t fist him. That didn’t mean he didn’t take Kit completely.
Stern crouched over him, his thumbs on Kit’s throat, forcing Kit’s head to arch over the top of the back of the chair. As big as the man was, his cock didn’t match in proportions—that had been a somewhat empty boast and a disappointment for Kit, who had mentally prepared for it—but he was large and thick enough to get the job done. What he lacked in size, he made up for in stamina. Kit dug his fingernails into the man’s shoulder blades and went with the ride. The ride wasn’t wild, though, it was just rhythmic, the sheathed cock moving in and out in unvaried speed and rhythm, seemingly taking forever for the man to work up to an ejaculation, with Kit panting and moaning in low tones and the German crying out “Ja, Ja! Nimm es! Nimm es!—Take it! Take it!” as if he was taking Kit with wild abandon and a really, really big one, which he wasn’t.
The most arousing part came after the first fuck, when Stern came in his condom, pulled away and said, “Bleiben Sie dort, so. Das muss ich festhalten—Stay there like that. I must capture that,” and went off to retrieve a sketch pad and sticks of charcoal. As Kit remained stretched out and all askew in the chair, legs over the arms, in a pose exhausted more by the time the fuck took than the vigor with which he’d been screwed, a naked Stern—looking hunky enough to keep Kit interested—quickly sketched Kit in the postcoital nude. It was then that Kit remembered Hopkins had shown him a closely held portfolio of similar sketches Stern had made. What was lost on Kit at the time was that Hopkins had probably been signaling what was expected of him on this tour. A little late for that. But Hopkins had been right that Kit would be an easy lay for the man.
After the sketch was done, they fucked again, Kit on his back on the bed, holding his legs raised and spread, as the German hovered over him, fists pressed into the mattress on either side of Kit’s biceps and thrusting and thrusting and thrusting—slow, methodical, a never-changing rhythm and pattern, building up to his ejaculation, marking it only by a sharp intake of breath and a long exit slide.
Afterward, when Kit was driving back to his apartment, he tried to figure out what had been wrong—unmoving—with the fucks. They had been fine. But just fine. His cock hadn’t been as advertised but that wasn’t all that was a little “off.” They’d been very Germanic, though. Organized, methodical, getting the job done—the trains running on time—but little excitement.
Stern obviously had been pleased with them, and he’d made two sketches, giving Kit one and thus making the afternoon quite profitable if only after the German died and his art had appreciated significantly. And, at one time the screwings would have been enough for Kit. But since he’d been fucked more cruelly, more passionately, with more pain, demand, and abandon, by a few men, he realized that that was what he needed to reach the heights of pleasure and satisfaction—at least a bit of pain helping him to break through to the ecstasy and passion. He wanted to be punished a bit in the process.
Pain, ecstasy, passion. Even fucked with a fist if that helped get it “there.”
* * * *
Hardesty wasn’t back at his desk at D.C. vice any longer than to call out, “Where the fuck’s Whitehall gone at?” when the unit research clerk, Larry, was standing in front of him with paper in his hands.
“You seen Whitehall?” Hardesty asked.
“I know where he is. He’s at a house up on MacArthur Boulevard getting in on a homicide call. You’ll want to be up there yourself.”
“Why would I want to get in on a homicide?” Hardesty asked. “I’ve got a lovely vice case of my own.” He laughed. Hardesty was in a good mood.
“The victim is one of the names you gave me on a list to check out this morning.”
“Fuck you say. Which one?” Hardesty was all business again. That list was names from Toby’s recent contacts. Hardesty didn’t fuck around when it came to Toby.
“Jason Jarvis.”
“Fuck.” Hardesty stood up from his desk, ready to be on the move again. He looked at his copy of the list. Toby had serviced that guy just the day before. “OK, give me the address of this place on MacArthur.”
As he did so, Larry said. “The name you just gave me has come up on the screen too.”
“Danny Smith? The one I called in while driving back from Baltimore?”
“Daniel Smith, yes. Confirmed because of the credit card number you gave me. That escort agency called in just before you arrived back. The name and card number tried to book a session with Toby.”
“What the fuck? They didn’t make a booking, did they?”
“No, sir. But, like they say you asked them to do, they strung him along until they’d gotten a name and credit card number.”
“Thanks, Larry, you did great. Call the agency back and thank them for me. Say I own them one. Keep working that list. We’ll party when this is all over. You and me.”
Larry nearly melted on the spot. He lived for attention like this from Hardesty. He also was delighted to be the one to give praise to the escort agency. He’d die to be listed with them and there always was the chance that contact like this could lead to getting on their list. As he was returning to his desk at the entrance of the unit, Hardesty took out his cellphone and called Toby. “Toby, this is Hardesty. Get yourself over to Paul’s and stay there until I come home. Don’t answer your phone for anyone but me.”
“What’s happening?” Toby asked.
“Your john from yesterday on MacArthur Boulevard is dead. At the place you did him on MacArthur. I don’t know how, but I’m on my way up there now. Whitehall is there and said I need to come.” Toby almost always sent Hardesty a “just in case” address where he was being sent to a client. He’d done so in the previous day’s assignation with Jason Jarvis.
“Shit.”
“And our Number One suspect just tried to book you through the escort agency.”
“Double shit.”
“That’s right, so go over to Paul’s. And don’t do anything with him I wouldn’t do.”
“You’ve fucked Paul,” Toby said.
“So, I have. I’m not claiming you can turn down a ten-inch dick.” He disconnected and Hummered his way up to the Potomac Palisades. He indulged in running the siren he attached to the roof of the truck.
Jason Jarvis was strapped to a chair in a bedroom in the MacArthur Boulevard house. He had a red velvet cord from the drapes at the window to the balcony on the second floor wrapped tightly around his throat. He was facing a computer monitor, which was on. After taking a look at the body, Hardesty’s gaze went to the computer screen, drawn by the familiar background of the Web site. What was showing were paragraphs of a story with the by byline “Sandman.”
He turned me on my back again, and I spread and bent my legs and lifted my pelvis to him, willingly, offering myself as a sacrifice, a sacrifice he accepted. He fisted me. Now I could take it after the reaming of his cock over the previous hour. I would give him anything, and he wanted—and took—it all. I panted and groaned as he penetrated me with a greased hand up to his wrist, taking his time.
I had been determined not to scream, but I did scream for the fist.
It was the same fisting story Hardesty had been shown earlier that afternoon at the Deloitte House male brothel in Baltimore.
Chances were very good that Ian Marcus, alias Danny Smith, had been here. But what the fuck, he wondered, does this story site and this author have to do with Toby? Why does this guy seem to be obsessed by Toby?
Glen Whitehall gave a laugh from across the room where he was standing next to the body of Jarvis.
“Hilarious, isn’t it?” Hardesty called out.
“Come look at what this forensics guy found, Hardesty,” his partner said, drawing Hardesty’s attention over to where the homicide team was working on the scene. “I thought this stuff went out with the Hardy Boys, but I guess anything that works.”
Hardesty went over to Whitehall. The forensics guy was holding up a notepad that had been on a side table next to the murder chair. He’d taken a pencil and rubbed over the top sheet and a name and address had appeared.
“It says Ted Franklin and Kit Helms and there’s an address on 19th Street in the District.”
“I know the Helms guy. He’s a friend of Toby’s.” Hardesty didn’t also say that he’d power fucked Kit Helms the previous day. “The other name’s familiar too,” Hardesty said. He consulted his copy of the list of Toby’s recent johns and contacts that Larry was checking out. “Holy shit,” he said. “That’s the name of one of Toby’s clients from yesterday. What’s the address again? Call a unit to get over there as soon as possible and hold that guy down, if he’s there, until we can get there.”
He and Glen Whitehall hauled ass out of the house and roared off in the Hummer.
Meanwhile, down river and across town, in the apartment down the hall from Hardesty and Toby’s apartment, Toby, naked, was lying on his back at the bottom edge of Paul’s bed. He had his legs raised and spread. Paul, naked, was standing between Toby’s thighs and feeding his thick ten inches into the small, platinum blond’s ass. Toby was panting hard at the taking. Angelique was sitting off to the side, fingering herself, and watching the action.
Paul had one of the longest cocks Toby had ever taken—he thought the man was undervaluing it at ten inches—and Toby needed to practice taking the biggest ones from time to time to keep up with his training. Hardesty had said not to do anything with Paul that Hardesty wouldn’t do. But Hardesty and Paul had fucked in the past, so this was just fine.
* * * *
“Look over there,” Glen Whitehall said as they double parked in front of the apartment house on 19th Street. “That white truck, with the Maryland plates parked over there. Double cab. A Dodge Ram.”
“Shit,” Hardesty said as he grabbed a notepad and jotted down the license number. “Call in backup.”
Then he was out of the Hummer, followed shortly by Whitehall after making the call, and the two of them, badges and guns drawn, entered the lobby of the apartment house. After confirming the number of Ted Franklin’s apartment with the woman on duty in the lobby and telling her to make sure their backup knew where to go and then find something to do in a back office until the smoke cleared, they were taking the elevator up.
Hardesty rapped on the apartment door with the butt of his gun and called out, “Ted Franklin? Kit Helms? Either one of you in there? It’s the police. Kit, it’s me, Hardesty, Toby’s guy. If you’re in there, open up for us, please.”
His callout was met with the sound of broken glass from inside the apartment. Hardesty drew back and nodded to Whitehall, who hit the door with his shoulder and drew back so that Hardesty could come in behind him and do the same. It took a couple of heaves by each of them before they were in. The living room was clear. Ted Franklin was in his bedroom, bound to a desk chair that had turned over. He had a scarf tied around his throat. Both Hardesty and Whitehall dove for him and Hardesty pulled the scarf away. Franklin gasped for air. It was more than a minute before he could get enough oxygen to croak anything, during which time the cops saw that a window had been broken and a fire escape descended from there on the outside of the building.
They heard the approach of sirens down on the street, but they knew they’d be arriving too late to catch Marcus. Hardesty and Whitehall had, however, arrived quickly enough to save Ted.
Ted was conscious and able to respond when they righted his chair up and started taking the bindings off, but he’d been beaten as well as choked and stayed with them for less than a minute before blacking out until the medics arrived and were able to revive him. Hardesty and Whitehall couldn’t stay around that long, though.
“Kit. He’s after Kit,” Ted had croaked. “Kept asking me where Sandman was—and where he kept his computer. I pointed to Kit’s room. He left me. But he came back to choke me out.” At that point they lost Ted again.
Hardesty went into Kit’s room, following the direction in which Ted had gestured. Kit’s computer was on, with a chair facing it. There wasn’t any trouble in getting it open or passworded into the Sandman account on the gay male story site because all the information Marcus needed to get there was on a paper right there next to the monitor.
The screen was open to one of Sandman’s stories. “Shit,” Hardesty said when he scanned what was on the screen.
He didn’t make me wait. His hands went to my thighs, coaxing them apart, pressing my legs to bend, my feet to go flat on the surface of the bed, and my pelvis to roll up, as, hovering over me and holding my eyes with his, he entered me with three fingers. I ached for more. Sensing my need, he gave me more—all of the fingers, bunched together, up to the knuckles, and slowly pumped me to shuddering and begging for his cock. And then he withdrew the hand, murmuring, “Later,” rolled over on top of me, entered me strongly, deeply, thickly and took me quickly and efficiently.
After we had rested, he held me close into his body, with a towel-covered bolster under the small of my back that elevated my pelvis. He whispered in my ear, “Now I fuck you with the fist,” and I moaned for him. My right leg was bent and pressed into his chest. His left arm was embracing my torso; his lips possessed mine in a tongue-down-the-throat kiss. I gripped his left shoulder with my right hand and beat myself off with my left. He had four fingers and the thumb of his right hand inside me, moving them in and out, searching for, finding, and giving attention to my prostate.
He asked no question about what to do to arouse and please me. He’d obviously fisted men before.
“Please be careful,” I murmured. “I want it, but I have my limits.”
“Limits we must both respect and challenge,” he whispered, “for therein lies the pleasure for us both.” He pulled his hand back and then pressed in again. I arched my back and moaned.
I jerked my mouth away from his, arched my head back, and gave a little cry of “Shit!,” then “Fuck!” and then another and another, as the knuckles of his slender hand breached my rim and his fist was inside me and bunched to stretch my passage to the limit. He expanded and contract the fist, a knuckle pressed into my prostate. Expand, contract. I dug my fingernails into his biceps. “Oh, god,” I moaned, as he fucked me with his fist. “Yes! Yes, yes!” I cried out.
This fucker is really into it, Hardesty thought, then feeling guilty because he’d just been into as good as fisting in the Baltimore male brothel, also loaded up by one of Sandman’s fisting stories. He turned to go back across the apartment to check on Franklin when he saw that the e-mail message button was flashing. He clicked on it.
Gotcha, Mr. Sandman. I know where you are now, blondie. I’m coming to get you and then we’re going to have fun. Ready or not. Coming for you. Danny.
The medics had brought Ted around when Hardesty got back to his bedroom. The young man was rubbing his neck and had trouble speaking, but the detectives got a bit more out of him.
“He kept asking me where Sandman was—where he worked,” Ted said. “I’ve seen him someplace else before, but I can’t remember where. Funny thing, though. He kept saying Kit was blond and he got mad when I said that, no, he was redheaded. He hit me then and I thought he wouldn’t stop. But then he asked where Sandman kept his computer. I told him to get him to stop hitting me. The computer was on and open to Kit’s Web site, so he wouldn’t have had trouble getting into it.”
“Where does Kit work?” Whitehall asked.
“The National Gallery of Art. On the Mall,” Ted answered.
“Should he be at work now?”
“As far as I know. He said he was giving some German artist a tour there today.”
With that, Hardesty and Whitehall left the medics to work more on Ted and they departed, headed for the National Art Gallery. They weren’t the least bit surprised to see that the white Dodge Ram truck was gone when they got back down to the street.
* * * *
Most of it was falling into place, Ian Marcus thought, as he drove back down 19th Street toward the Mall where the National Art Gallery was located. He’d cut his hand a bit on the window glass—he had no idea how the police had gotten so close to him—but sucking on the wound calmed him down and helped him center. He’d met this Franklin guy at Freddie’s Beach Bar the other night and the guy then had said he was Sandman’s roommate. Marcus had followed him here that night, so he knew where the apartment building was. So, finding the guy on MacArthur Boulevard—and what he’d had to do to him there—was almost unnecessary. Almost. That guy had provided the details of which apartment to go to.
Marcus had thought the guy he choked out had provided a direct route to the blond, who he called Todd because Todd was a male whore, he’d said, and he’d had him the day before, contracting for his services with an escort agency. This Todd was a real promiscuous piece of ass. What he needed was a real man, someone who would take the little fucker the distance—and beyond. What he needed was a fist up his ass.
Marcus had gotten the phone number of the agency, but when he’d tried to contract for the blond’s services, they’d given him the runaround and eventually told him Todd wasn’t available for the foreseeable future—and this only after he’d given them his alias and credit card number in that name. No big deal there. He was Ian Marcus for real. He was only Daniel Smith for expense accounting. And nobody from his past knew he was here anyway.
That only left the part where this Franklin guy kept insisting that Sandman was a redhead. He’s a blond. Small, pretty, blond, Marcus thought, repeating it out loud and thumping on the dashboard. Just what Sandman writes about in so many of his stories who give themselves—totally to guys like him, Marcus, in the stories. A nasty little whore who needed a real man to do him—to make him feel it. This Todd was going to cry for Marcus. But what he actually looked like wasn’t clear anymore. The main character in the stories so often was a young, small, blond cutie that Marcus thought that must be Sandman writing about himself.
But now he wondered. He’d seen who he thought was Sandman twice—in Crystal City in a red Lexus and then in Freddie’s Beach Bar with this Franklin guy. But there had been a cute redhead in Crystal City too. So, he was confused who Sandman was. He wanted him to be the blond and it was the blond he wanted. But if Sandman was the redhead, he’d just have to lead Marcus to the blond.
That didn’t mean that Marcus couldn’t have fun with Sandman too if he turned out to be a redhead.
Kit Helms was walking down the outer walk of the Mall from the subway toward the National Gallery of Art when Marcus, cruising along in the white truck saw him. He recognized Kit immediately and became resigned to this being the Sandman. But the redhead could lead him to the blond. And the redhead was cute enough to have fun with too. It was just too bad he wasn’t blond.
Marcus maneuvered the truck to be running at Kit’s pace beside him. There weren’t any other pedestrians nearby. He rolled the passenger window down.
“Sandman,” he called out and, startled, Kit responded, turning toward the truck beside him. The passenger window was down and the guy at the wheel, a big bruiser of a thug, was pointing a gun at him.
“Get in the truck, Sandman,” Marcus said. “Don’t cause trouble and no one will get hurt.”
No one but you, Marcus mused.
To Be Continued.