Notes from Tumblr: This was a short story done back when ITW was being conceived. The club setting itself will show up as part of the novel somewhere down the line, although we won’t say to what capacity. This is really done as a side-story of sort for ITW with Jo doing one page illo for it over a year ago when G|P premiered at Yaoi-Con.
Read the story for what it is and that it is just a twilight-zone kind of short.
-K. Neko
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He had been there since he left his last client in Shinagawa. Although it had been at least two hours, the overwhelming irritation that he had left with from the difficult client was still seething in his chest. It was the kind of slow burn that reminded him that his feelings or thought didn’t matter – as long as the client’s kept happy and continued to renew contracts. Even if he had to pretend not to understand the unwelcomed remarks or advances, and dismissed them with a practiced smile he slips on with ease.
The sum of it had always been – he didn’t matter.
He had been sitting in one of the hard plastic seats on the train platform, staring at the flurry of people and train coming and going. He barely felt the cold anymore – the tips of his fingers and his cheeks only tingled with numbness of the cold.
His cellphone rung again with its cheerful melody. He paid it no attention. The ringtone ceased and moments later, a simultaneous chime and vibration told him he received another text message. It was likely his work again. Probably his supervisor asking when he’ll return to the office, just so he can be sent out again.
Two more trains would pass by before another message page made him pluck the phone from his coat pocket and look at the screen. He had six missed calls and ten messages. He scrolled through the call log and the messages. He didn’t even look to see who had sent them. Any mention of work and its address pained him. One by one, he deleted them. Somehow, it made him a little better that those messages were gone, forgotten.
Yukimura paused on the last message; the pad of his thumb circled the button to delete it but he hesitated. The time stamp of when the text was left was almost the time when he had left his last client. The sender block was “unknown”. The two lines of text listed an address.
What….is this?
The place wasn’t anywhere he had been before. If anything, it was out of the way – almost at the metro-limits. Yukimura couldn’t even recall if he had ever ridden on the train that would pass through that part of Tokyo.
Although he told himself it was stupid and perhaps the address sent to him was a mistake, Yukimura stood up. He discarded his coffee cup into a receptacle on the way down the steps of the station to change the train line.
It took him twenty minutes to arrive at the closest station. From his phone’s GPS, he learned the address was blocks away. Instead, he slid into a waiting cab and told the driver the address. In a few minutes, Yukimura was let out in a quiet business complex.
The complex looked new with its glass and metal frames towering over each other, as if the builders competed. The ramps down the garages were closed, shuttered. The lights were dimmed inside the buildings. The bike racks and the sidewalk parking spaces were empty. Being there alone and looking around while the winter chill crept through his coat, made Yukimura feel foolish. There’s only an odd sense of resolve that he has to find out what the address meant. He fished out his cellphone and checked the address again.
He walked through the emptied lot, looking to match the building number. The tip tap of his shoes on the concrete echoed.
Is this …. It?
A small gray building, insignificant and old compared to the others that seemed to have swallowed it in their midst. It could have been easily missed, wedged sideways between two of the tallest buildings. There was only a small brass plate bolted to the top corner, barely noticeable. A raised lettering with a “6” in italics confirmed the address.
Yukimura stared up at the brass plate, suddenly curious why he cared. He had never been to that place before and the building held no meaning for him. He felt like laughing; calling himself an idiot in his mind. Yet, he could not deny there’s an energy to the place that stroked more than his sense of interest. There’s a pull from it and it became stronger as he looked down at the flight of steps that led him into the underground of the building.
One step first, careful and tentative. Then another. Yukimura walked down, one hand still clung to his briefcase while the other braced against the side wall. The cold numbed his fingertips.
As he descended, the light dimmed and dimmed until he was blinded by the darkness. Yukimura slipped his hand downwards until he found the brass railing and held to it, using it to guide his steps. He nearly lost his footing when the steps were gone and he was at the bottom of the stairs. The railing had also come to a finish with its end curled inward. Yukimura looked back and was startled to see all traces of outside light gone. Just nothing but black behind him, and before him.
What is this place…?
Yukimura’s fingers felt along the wall, trying to picture the shape of the space in his mind. The cold stone had disappeared after a few feet and squared off to something metallic….and warm. It took Yukimura a few more moments to gather the metal had been a door, and the heat from inside the structure had warmed the door.
He was hesitant; conflicted. Something inside made him want to run, escape from that place and re-emerge into the light – forget everything he had seen or felt. Then there’s something else in him that was filled with a need to know. Of what, he wasn’t sure. He stood there, long enough for his eyes to adjust to the dark and to see the door take shape.
Yukimura pushed the door inward, and it opened with surprisingly little effort. Almost instantly, loud music with heavy bass seeped out from the opening. There was a stifled heat that also came, making his cold fingers tingle with warmth instantly. He pushed the door further open and stepped in.
It appeared to be a night club. The kind that he had seen on the television but would never have the nerve to go to. The kind of place for the young who were truly uninhibited and drawn to physical pleasures. The kind of place that usually made Yukimura uncomfortable even at the mention of it. Yet he stood there, entranced by the dancers on the dance floor with the only light shining down on them a dizzying display of rotating colored beams from the ceiling.
He was noticed but most people didn’t react to him. They Looked at him and then back at their partners and continued to dance. Some wore elaborate masks – the kind Yukimura had seen in pictures from Venice. Some wore cascading dresses with beads that glowed under the light. Some wore almost nothing at all – just barely pieces of misshapen cloth that somehow defied physic and remained on the moving bodies. Most people he can’t see – tucked away in the further side of the dance floor and shrouded by shadows made by the revolving lights.
Yukimura didn’t know what to feel, even when two men had pressed against him on either side. Two muscular men, their thick chest bared and oiled, with their leather pants clung snugly at their waist. Both wore similar larva masks with its curves covering the cheeks and bridge of the nose.
“I…shouldn’t be here…” Yukimura said. His words were unheard, drowned out by the music. Nor did Yukimura meant it. He didn’t sound a protest as his briefcase was taken by one man, and his coat was slipped off his shoulder by another.
“I really….shouldn’t….”
A hand cupped his chin and held it. Yukimura stared into the white mask – the expressionless stare from it frightened him. As if he was suddenly awakened from a sleep-walk.
“I want to go –“
His words were cut off, smothered in a kiss. Yukimura writhed, pulling himself any way he can to free himself even though the grip on his jaw had tightened. It hurt. The second man took his time to slip his arms around him from behind and pinned his arms to the side.
“It’ll be fine, we’ll take care of you,” the man behind Yukimura said into his ear. The voice was gentle; contrary to what he was doing.
There’s a pause, a break in the kiss. And when it came again, Yukimura felt something small – a vial or pill slipped onto his tongue. The kiss broke off and a hand pressed over his mouth before he could spit it out.
“It’ll make you feel very good, very soon.”
The vial dissolved on his tongue, breaking it open. The serum that was in it was bitter as it made his way down his throat. It took little time for Yukimura to feel the effects of it. The ground beneath his feet swayed and strength left his limbs. His weight sank against the man who held him.
Yukimura had only vague awareness as his jacket was undone and taken off. The man who had drugged him picked him up, cradling him against his chest. Yukimura couldn’t even find the strength in his neck, as his head lolled backwards – staring at the dancers who continued their party upside down. The scene before him left behind as he was carried through the dance floor, through another crowd that was a mass of silhouettes. He was being taken somewhere else, away from the dimly lit dance floor and into bright lights that hurt his eyes. The music faded. Then his consciousness too, diminished with it.
OOOOOOOO
He was cold. The side of his face and body that had been resting against the stone floor made him shiver. His body curled inward instinctively, trying to warm itself. His teeth chattered. He couldn’t understand why he was so cold.
A sudden blast of hot water startled him. The cold was gone, replaced by the heat that pelted his backside. Yukimura sat up quickly with a gasp, and turned slowly toward the source of the heat. It was a shower head, set high up in a wall. Yukimura scrubbed the water that dripped from his wet hair into his eyes with the back of his hand. Then the realization came.
His unbuttoned dress shirt was all he wore. On his left ankle, a thin silver cuff was wrapped around it. A chain led from it to an eyebolt near the drain that was in the center of the room. The steam had risen from the hot water, clouding the little room that he surmised was no bigger than his apartment’s bath room. White tile floors with small laminate squares – he could feel them under his fingers.
The shower shut off abruptly and the water drained noisily. The steam lifted and Yukimura could see in the four corners of the ceiling, boxed into plexi-glass, were cameras.
“Awake, Yukimura-san?”
A voice and a face that wasn’t familiar to him said from the opened frosted glass door. Dark hair with striking gray eyes, framed in a pair of silver glasses. He wore an expensive fitted black suit with a dark red tie. He was handsome, with foreign facial features. Almost like a picture from a fashion magazine. Yukimura had no memory of this person.
“What….?”
“Poor little thing. This is the kind of fate you are resigned to after being seen by the devil.”
The words didn’t make sense to him. Yukimura’s mind was still immersed in the fog to ask.
A towel was thrown to him, landing in a shallow wet spot at Yukimura’s fingertips. The towel dampened, soaking up the water.
“Where…is this place?”
The man shook his head, exaggerating his look of disappointment.
“You came here, Yukimura-san,” he said. “All by yourself.”
“The cellphone…” Yukimura said. “I received an address on my cellphone.”
“And?”
“I only…” Yukimura trailed off, finishing the sentence in his head.
Stupidly followed it although I didn’t know who sent me the message nor where the place was.
“It was a mistake,” Yukimura finally said. “I don’t mean to be here.”
“Yet you are.”
“I want to go home.”
A smile answered him instead.
“I think this is a better life for you, no? There’s no pressure of a need to please demanding clients or have a constant pressure to perform well so you and your colleagues can cling onto a meaningless cycle of existence.”
“It is not meaningless!”
“So you say,” the man said and laughed. “Regardless, a life here is a better fit for you. You exist to give pleasure and perhaps sometimes, you will be rewarded with some in return.”
“I don’t want it!”
“I think you should realize by now, Yukimura-san…it never matter what you wanted,” the man said, his smile widening. “There’s a lot of eager customers waiting for you since last night.”
“Let me out of here!”
“I promise they won’t rape you.”
Yukimura shook his head.
“You can’t…do this – “
“But we have.”
The man’s smile broadened – the meaning of it poison.
“You do have to be a little cooperative. Some of the customers react badly when they feel mistreated after paying for your company.”
“You can’t keep me here!”
“Be nice to the customers,” the man continued. He stepped to the side, widening the glass door until a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and thick belly stepped through.
“This is a fine looking one. A little older than the usual but prettier than the last few.”
The customer stepped on the towel, his shoes dirtying it. Yukimura stared in muted horror as the belt was loosened and the button and zipper on the pants was undone. Yukimura crawled backwards away until his back was flat against the wall and his left leg was stretched outward by the length of the chain.
“He certainly is, isn’t he?”
The customer closed the distance between them.
“Nothing to be scare of,” he said and laughed. “I’ll give you something nice.”
Yukimura was pulled up to his knees by a handful of his hair. The limp, worm-like cock pulled out from the opened trousers and held up to Yukimura’s lips. Yukimura grimaced, clamping his mouth shut.
“Do as you are told, Yukimura-san,” the man in the glasses said cheerfully. “I am not very kind to willful toys.”
With those last words, the glass door shut.
