Motorbike

He was tied, hand and foot when he came around fully. It wasn’t the most comfortable of arrangements, and he certainly didn’t like the way the guys around him were leering. Yeah, he’d come looking for some action, but ‘action’ in his book didn’t include being gang-raped in any way.



“Watcha lookin’ at, pretty boy?” one of the men asked, lifting his eyebrows in a lewdly suggestive way.



Alex blinked and looked away, focusing his eyes on the ground. Well, if he hadn’t landed himself in a pretty pickle. Briefly, he considered yelling for help, but then squashed that thought. Even if he did manage to make a loud enough noise to attract attention, he was in the city district – anyone hearing yelling ignored it. Sometimes there were things you just didn’t want to walk in on.



The three men crowed closer, cooing obscenities at him, but stopping short of actually touching him, for which Alex was grateful. He didn’t feel like being mauled by dirty paws.



However, their seeming reluctance to actually touch him made him wonder if perhaps there was a ‘boss man’ of sorts who had wanted him around. Maybe some guy at the nightclub had seen him, and decided on bribing the bartender to slip a little date rape drug in his water. It would fit the personalities of some of the slimier inhabitants of the place, he thought, remembering some of the leering faces he’d purposefully avoided after his first partner had left. No advances after that, but plenty of rebuked attempts.



The thought made him cringe a bit inside, but if it was the case, then he might be able to worm his way out of the situation relatively unmolested. Relatively being the key word. It wasn’t going to be easy by any means, but he thought he might have a small plan, a slight idea that could work. If he was given use of his feet, that was.



“Watcha tie m’up fer?” he slurred, surprised at how hollow his voice sounded. I sound dead drunk, he realized, thinking his words over.



They laughed a little, tittering to themselves and amongst themselves like the overly ornate songbirds of the morning hours.



“Wants t’ know why ‘e’s tied up?” one of them asked, saying it too loudly.



They all have the same voice, Alex noted coolly, someplace in the back of his mind jotting down the information in case it might play a part later. Any part. The same voice I do. Is it whatever I drank? Or is it something else?



“Yea, wassup wit tha knots, man?” Alex ground out, trying to sound more serious despite the lack of coherency he was experiencing.



“Schee, ‘e’s talkin’ like ‘e wuz king o’ dat shit stuffs,” another guffawed.



Okay, now they’re just not making sense.



“Take ‘em off,” he ordered. “Tha feet, tha feet!” when they didn’t move at all.



Still they didn’t make a move towards helping him at all.



Ah, well. Should have expected that. Now the thing is, will they let me untie my own bonds? If any of them tried to stop him, they’d end up with a nasty surprise, courtesy of a few kicking classes Dad had insisted on him taking. All stuff designed to inflict damage during an actual rape, not to deter people from attempting to touch him. Whatever, though. If it worked, great. If not, then he could think of other things to do.



Alex curled himself up into a ball and started working at the knot around his ankles. The three stared at him, but none of them made any moves to stop him. His hands were still bound when he succeeded in getting the rope off his feet, and there was nothing he could really do about that. He supposed he might have been able to untie the knot with his mouth and tongue, but the slippery feeling of the cord around his ankles had told him that whatever this was, he did not want it in his mouth. No way.



Someone walked into the darkness of the alleyway then, and the four of them all looked up at the same time.



An imposing figure, cut in leather bike gear, holding a helmet under one arm, his face cast in shadow. “Get out of here,” he ordered softly, his voice catching Alex by surprise. It was slightly higher than he thought it should be. He wondered frantically if this was the ‘boss man’ that the three could have been waiting for or if it was all coincidence.



The three scattered like chaff on the wind, leaving Alex alone with the stranger.



He tried to appear defiant, glaring, though his face was probably just as obscured as the stranger’s.



“Get up,” the stranger ordered.



Alex hesitated for what must have been a fraction of a second too long. The stranger thrust the helmet onto his own head and then caught Alex around the middle with a single swipe of his arm, wiping the boy clean off his feet and over the other’s shoulder.



He coughed hard a few times, feeling his eyes tear up a bit at how ungentle the other had been, but really, even with a shoulder digging into the pit of his stomach, it wasn’t all that uncomfortable to be riding on the shoulder of someone a little taller than he.

Dammit – they’re all taller than I am.



The stranger carried him a short distance, then plunked him down on a motorbike, climbing on behind him.



“Hold on,” was his only warning before the bike revved into gear and sped away, carrying the two of them with it.



What the hell is going on? Who is this?



Once he might have considered the stranger a rescuer, but that would have implied he needed rescuing, which he certainly hadn’t. Not from those three freaks, anyway. They had all been so preoccupied with something else that they hadn’t even touched him. Not directly anyway.



And not in that way at all.



“Who are you?” he managed to choke out.



His answer was a heavy slap to the back of his head, carrying the weight of the leather gloves his kidnapper – rescuer? – was wearing.



He growled, annoyed that this guy would do something like that. Although it may not be out of character for him. This might actually be his nice side. Gods, I hate not knowing about people.



The streets were blending together in a rush of speed. He certainly seemed to be going somewhere. But where?





“Where are – ” was all he managed to get out before another heavy cuff to his head made him dizzy to the point where he almost fell off the bike. The arms on either side of him were all that kept his body up. Alex gulped slightly. At such high speed, falling probably wouldn’t be fatal, but it would hurt like hell and rip his clothes up even more. Maybe if he was unlucky, it could kill him. Not the fall itself, but rolling and other peoples’ tires.



He got that his captor didn’t want him talking, so he just let himself relax, and watched the street signs zip by, giving up on reading them after his first few failed attempts. The biker certainly seemed to be going somewhere…



The bike pulled up short and stopped, sending Alex forward with enough momentum to have him hit his chest on the handlebars. It nearly knocked the wind out of him. It hurt, too, which was worse.



The biker picked him up off the bike, holding him like he was a girl – bridal style – and walked up a set of stairs to what looked like a decently decorated house. It was hard to tell the color in the light, but it looked like it was a tan color, maybe with mottled designs on it.



The biker put him down then, letting him take his feet and rang the doorbell. Alex just blinked, feeling confused and wondering what the hell was going on. He could have made a run for it, but the city street kid in him was too eager to find out what was going on to ever think about making a getaway. Not to mention the fact that the biker was standing in the way, and he wasn’t sure he could get by him even if he wanted to. So he stood and waited, wrapping his arms around himself, trying not to get too cold.



Finally the door opened and Alex’s jaw dropped.



“You!” he exclaimed before he could restrain himself.



It was the man who had been his dance partner at the night club and bar and who had walked out on him.



The man looked just as surprised as Alex felt, looking back and forth from Alex’s captor to Alex himself for a moment. Then, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”



“You don’t,” the biker hissed. “You’re taking him in tonight. I’ll do what I can tomorrow.” He shoved Alex between the shoulder blades, none too gently, into the other man’s arms.



The dancer caught Alex before he fell, surprised by the push. “What?”



“Just do it, Ace,” the biker growled, walking away from the gaping dancer. “I’ll be by sometime tomorrow to pick him up if you can’t deal. Good night.”



Then the biker was on his bike and took off roaring down the lane. Alex thought to himself that he hadn’t noticed just how loud the bike actually was while he was on it…



“So are you gonna tell me what the hell’s going on?” he asked, crossing his arms and looking up a little to stare his dance partner in the face.



The man looked slightly uncomfortable. “Come in, okay, and I’ll tell you, I guess.”



Considering the fact he’d tried to seduce this guy, Alex didn’t think his chance of getting raped were very high. He went in, letting his dance partner close the door behind them.



The entryway was fashionably done, looking like a mini version of an Egyptian temple.



“Nice place,” he commented, wiggling his feet out of his boots and leaving them on the rug. He figured if he was going to be staying, he might as well try to keep from ruining anything, especially something as lovely as the floor. Dang, but the floorboards were tight!



“Thanks,” the man answered, sounding very distracted to say the least. He looked at a loss, so Alex simply migrated from the entryway further into the house.

Man, I guess he’s got an ancient history fetish or something. Greece, Rome, Egypt. It’s all here. Freaking amazing stuff, too. I wonder if he’s got any Asian stuff lying around? Or Japanese. The samurai were pretty damn cool. Of course, Greece would have been my fave hometown. Guys all sleep around.



In what looked to be the living room, Alex selected a seat at random and plunked down, sitting across from a slightly bigger chair made in marbled brown leather that the dancer took.



“Kay, so here’s the deal,” Alex said, taking charge right away as if he weren’t a captive. Really, considering everything, maybe he wasn’t. “I don’t know why the hell I’m here. I don’t even know your name. I don’t know what the hell that biker guy was doing when he pulled me out of trash scum, but whatever, right? So, you’re going to tell me what the fuck’s going on, savvy?”



The dancer raised an eyebrow, leaning forward so his elbows were resting on his knees.



Damn but he looks hot like that.



“What makes you think I have to tell you anything at all?” he questioned, and the query sounded so innocent that Alex blinked in confusion for a second.



“’Cause if you don’t I’m going to disappear sometime between now and whenever the hell the biker dude gets back,” he said matter-of-factly.



The dancer sighed. “Okay, here’s the quick then. In order, your biker is Corbette, I’m Ace and I have no idea why he dropped you on my doorstep.”



“So you still won’t fuck me?”



Ace raised his eyebrows again, sending a shiver down Alex’s back. “I thought I made that clear earlier. Two days, you said you’d be eighteen. I’m not exactly a law-abiding citizen, but I’d rather not end up on the wrong side of legality in a matter like that. Two days, and I’ll screw your brains out, kid.”



Alex whistled, impressed. “You’ve got control, man.”



“I work on it,” Ace answered, settling back.



“Are we just gonna have a heart to heart session then?” Alex asked, pulling his feet up under his body in a more comfortable position. “’Cause I can think of more productive ways to pass the time. Sleep, for example.”



“Sleep? Oh – yeah…”



Yep, he wants me. Hell, I’d want me.



“Um,” he seemed to be thinking quickly. “There’s an empty room upstairs if you want to take it. Or I can camp out down here and you can sleep in my bed. Or you could camp out or whatever…” he trailed off, looking slightly lost. Okay, more than slightly lost.



Alex took pity on him. “I’ll camp out,” he decided. “It shouldn’t be too bad, as long as you keep all the ancient artifacts under wraps at night. Not like that Ben Stiller move, what was it? Night at the Museum? One freaky hunk of crap.”



Ace didn’t seem to have followed his circular thinking. “Okay, then if you want to stay here, fine. I’m going upstairs. Um…” He looked around as if hoping for some sign to simply pop down and say something. “Did you need anything to eat or whatever?”



“Nah.” Alex rolled over onto his back, letting his feet hang off of one side of the chair and his head off the other over the armrests. “I’m good.”



“Okay then. See you, then.” Ace started upstairs.



“What makes you think I won’t just leave?” Alex asked, stopping the dancer in his tracks.



“Are you going to?” Ace inquired.



“Well, I wasn’t planning on it,” Alex intoned, “but I still could. What’s stopping me from it?”



“The birds,” Ace answered, covering a yawn with his hand. “And the gerbil.” Then he swarmed up the stairs and disappeared from sight.



Alex watched him go.



Well, I wanted a comfortable, cozy place to stay and I wanted to get to this guy’s home, so I guess it all worked out mostly as planned, even if the roundabout way I got here wasn’t exactly all that fun. I’ll have a headache tomorrow for sure from those cuffs. Man – he sure hits hard. I wonder why?



Alex drifted off, letting his head think of stupid brain things and twisting them until logic defied reason and became little trails of fluffy pink powder clouds.