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ELI PULLED IN BY THE nondescript warehouse at the edge of the Strip District in his beat-up white Toyota. Only nine, and the parking lot was full already. Had it not been for the cars and the steady thrum of music that threatened to shake the walls apart, he would have never guessed this was a party hotspot.
He got out, locked his car, and slid the keys into a magnetic metal container on the inside of the front left fender. This way he wouldn’t lose them. Besides, the keys ruined the outline of his skinny jeans. He checked his phone in the back pocket. It sat nice and tight, enclosed in a sleek case that had a special opening for two cards and a fifty-dollar bill.
He tucked the back of his slinky, black mesh shirt into his pants, ran his fingers through his hair one more time, and tugged on the black blazer. He’d found the ancient thing in a thrift store back in Jersey and couldn’t resist the shoulder pads that made him look a little bigger. The lapels and the collar were shiny, plastic vinyl embossed with a croc skin design that matched his belt. He loved his vintage find as much as he loved putting on just a hint of smokey eye shadows and a bit of eyeliner. He didn’t trust not having his pockets picked – that’s why his phone was on his body – but the blazer pockets were still useful as storage for his condoms and lube.
“Hey! Eli!”
He turned, searching the poorly lit parking lot for the source of the familiar voice.
“Jeff?”
“Here.” Jeff giggled, and Eli soon saw him with his arm over Matt’s shoulders. He also saw a small glowing spark come to life in the dark and sputter into the night again. The rancid, fruity smell that drifted closer to him drew a grin on his face. “You guys got started without me?”
“You don’t smoke weed anyway,” Matt said. Then he giggled again. “I scored ya some E, if you want it.”
Eli paused. His new employer tested for pot and opiates, but Ecstasy wouldn’t show. And it would wear off by tomorrow. He’d be more than safe to mess around hot glass and heavy machinery by Monday. “Thanks,” he nodded. “I can do a bit of that.”
He took the folded glassine paper with one pill in it and tucked it in his blazer’s breast pocket. “Thanks, man.”
“Y’know how you can repay us, handsome,” Matt growled, but the way he artificially deepened his voice and tried for menacing seriousness made them all crack up.
“It’s not a payment if I want it,” Eli quipped, throwing his arm over Matt’s shoulders from the other side. “And now that you two morons convinced me to move to Pittsburgh, you better treat me right!”
They stumbled toward the steel double door with three round lamps over it, arranged in a triangular design.
“Can’t be worse than Cambodia, dude. No mosquitoes.”
“And no monsoon season! Just storms and traffic and shit. An’ we’re together again.” Jeff’s voice turned soft and laid back, letting Eli know he was at that chemically altered state where pain perception was a relative concept. His inhibitions, too, would soon be a thing of the distant past.
“But we went into all this effort to keep our old Peace Corps team together, an’ you ain’t livin’ with us no more,” Jeff drawled on. “An’ that sucks, bro. Can’t believe you sprung for an apartment. Furniture and shit. It’s all so... so...”
“Grown up?” Eli leaned into Matt, catching his stumble.
“So establishment,” Matt mumbled instead of thanking him. “Just ‘cause you like it pretty. That’s just so wrong. You better make it up to us.”
“So sorry,” Eli said as he opened the door, not sounding sorry at all.
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EVEN THOUGH ELI HAD never been here before, he reached for the door first and opened it. They entered the small, crowded vestibule. As he fished his ID out of his phone case, he scanned the crowd around them. Mostly guys. Some women, and those tended to arrive either in pairs, except for the perky blonde surrounded by two very protective, tall and handsome guys.
A threesome?
The deep bass thrum shook the dark, wood-paneled walls around him, and Eli regretted that he didn’t think to bring hearing protection. Not that his orange ear plugs on their neon green cord were much of a fashion accessory, but still. This band was loud.
They shuffled along the concrete floor until it was their turn to show their IDs, pay their one-night membership fee, and get a purple-glo bracelet.
The vestibule spat Eli into a cavernous space with a bar on the right and a series of tables and booths to the left. The lighting was low, colorful, but not intimate. All the way across the warehouse was a stage with a band playing some throbbing techno beat. A crowd writhed on the dance floor right beneath them.
Eli narrowed his eyes. The dance floor was elevated and light in color, reflecting the rainbow swaths and pools of light that splashed across it.
“Is that a real dance floor?” Eli yelled, craning his neck toward Matt.
“Yeah!”
“Can we put our shit somewhere?”
“There’s lockers!”
Matt led Eli and Jeff behind the bar and up the industrial, steel staircase. The management must’ve taken pity on the high heels some of the guests wore, or they just didn’t want anyone falling on the rough metal surface when they covered the treads of the stairs with vinyl tile. It still echoed under every step like a drum, announcing their arrival on the second floor.
Eli stopped and took his bearings. Small dormer windows were blocked with black roll-up shades. The walls were all gray with swirls of aqua and black, like a far-away galaxy gone wild. The space before them was full of padded gray cubicles.
He turned to Matt. “What’s here? Offices?” His voice came out louder than he intended – the band didn’t sound nearly as deafening through the floor.
“Nah,” Jeff replied instead of Matt. “This here’s the play maze. Don’t worry, it’s cooler than it looks. There’s a wall of lockers on the other side.”
And there was. The lockers were right above the front entrance, with benches in front of them, like at the gym. As Jeff snagged an empty one and stashed his jacket and phone inside it, Eli turned to examine the airy space. It wasn’t exactly empty – structural supports arched over the leather sofas and padded sitting benches nestled under them. Leather below, all steel and old wood overhead, and...“Hey, are those hammocks?”
“Yeah,” Matt said, grinning. “That’s for resting up. Or, y’know. Some guys like fucking in them.”
“And over there – is that the john?” Eli asked, nodding in the direction of the tiled, doorless entrance.
“Yeah. And showers. They’ll sell you a cheap towel down at the bar.”
“Oh.” That made Eli pause. “I wanna see the maze.”
“You will, Grasshopper,” Matt crooned in his ear as he grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “First we drink, then we dance. Only then we party.”
Eli fished out two condoms and two packets of lube and carefully arranged them in the front pockets of his tight pants. There was just enough space. He looked up, meeting Matt’s eyes, then Jeff’s. “Ready?”
“Readier than ever, dude. It’s been a while since we got to play with you.”
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ELI PLACED A WHITE, solitary pill on the tip of his tongue, feeling his saliva accumulate and dissolve its edges. It had a butterfly imprint in it before, but that was now probably gone, receding, disintegrating like a sandcastle on the beach. The pill got too tacky to swallow, so he let it sit, yielding to its temper, awaiting its effects.
He leaned into Matt, feeling Jeff’s pressure against his other shoulder.
“Here!” Matt passed them each a plastic cup of beer. They started out with Iron City Light, a local brew that wouldn’t take him for too much of a spin.
A sip. Cool, effervescent bubbles attacked the sticky pill on his tongue. Another sip, another swallow, it was gone, and Eli was free to speak again. “Thanks!”
“Let’s mingle,” Jeff yelled, tugging the elbow of his free hand into the dark space under the stage.
The heads he saw all looked alike in the cobalt blue glow of the spotlight. They bobbed up and down, keeping the rhythm of the music. Some local cover band – Saltpeter Fluxx? – was holding court on stage, backlit with pink and indigo blue. The music wasn’t bad, Eli realized halfway through his drink. He knew it was too early for Ecstasy to kick in, but the beer was cool, and his friends were there. Their presence relaxed him, had him forget about his work stresses, and put a smile on his face.
Hell, he deserved a wild night out.
When they finished their second beer, Jeff tugged Matt closer and draped his arms around his neck. Eli saw him say something in Matt’s ear right before Jeff latched onto the base of Matt’s neck, right above the neckline of his cut-off white T-shirt. The way Matt wrapped his arms around Jeff’s back, running his hands up and down, gave Eli a shiver of pleasures remembered.
The time the three of them couldn’t sleep, cowering in a Peace Corps issue tent on the outskirts of a village while the monsoon rains raged on. That first time they all shared body heat – and more – and made good use of the condoms they were supposed to hand out as part of their health education campaign. They were there to dig ditches and lay pipe for clean water, sure, but the anti-AIDS campaign extended to everyone.
They had spent the second year of their stint together, working as a seamless whole. The guys wanted to keep it that way here in the States, but it didn’t sit well with Eli. He loved them, naturally – they were his best friends and the benefits were fun, but he didn’t see them as a triad forever.
Eli wanted more. He wanted to live life on his own terms for a while. His own pad, his own stuff, his own music. A job away from these two for the last four years convinced him he was on the right track. He’d had enough time for himself, with just occasional visits between Pittsburgh and a small, high-tech oasis of ceramics and metallurgy research in the otherwise blighted Camden, New Jersey. He got to know himself better, found out about his preferences and oddities, about what kept him happy and curious and alive.
He wanted a special guy all to himself. Twue wov, totally head over heels, a man who’d cherish him and worship the land he walked on – and Eli would feel honored to reciprocate.
A man who’d respect him, cherish him. Someone Eli could love back – and not in a group setting.
Despite Matt and Jeff’s excitement, he'd ended up in Pittsburgh by sheer coincidence. The city was nicer and the cost of living was lower than anywhere in New Jersey, but Pittsburgh was also also alien, almost mid-western in its values. He was happy to be shown around. He’d never have found a place like this on his own, whereas clubs with raves were a common facet of the LGBT scene closer to the Atlantic.
He’d always enjoyed getting off with the guys. They always had pot or E on them, and especially the latter gave him the best kind of warm fuzzies.
He wondered if that was what true love felt like.
This time, they dragged him out with a promise of something really special. Eli wouldn’t have minded researching the gay scene on his own, but... Matt and Jeff. They’d been his best friends four years ago, and they were the only friends he had in Pittsburgh. Between that and their mysterious promises, of course he was going to come along.
“Hey, come dance!” Two pairs of hands grabbed his arms, and Eli broke into a relaxed grin as he let his best friends tug him up a small step and onto the crowded dance floor.
The surface was just thick vinyl tile polished nice and smooth, but it was sprung from underneath.
Eli sucked down the last few drops of his beer and tossed the cup in a nearby trash can.
Another tug, and he was on the dance floor, feeling it bow and flex under the rhythmic pounding of the crowd. He raised his arms, canted his hips, and just let it rip.
Dance had been his first love. Ballet, jazz, tap, musicals, ballroom. He’d done it all, classes and lessons and community theater performances, but when it came time to select his major, common sense prevailed. He was amused by his parent’s relief when he announced he was going for a material science engineering degree, and was teaching at a local dance studio on a strictly temporary basis.
Now he danced, feeling the pulse of the crowd, the throb of the music, and the sense of well-being that came with the onset of his high.
He felt everyone around him.
He was one of them, and they were one with him.
He was one with the music and the ebbs and eddies of its flow.
A pirouette, few fancy steps, and he was three feet from the stage. Away from the speakers – that was on purpose – but still near, with them, one of them.
Saltpeter Fluxx.
The name sounded familiar. It should’ve been obvious. Its meaning teased at the edges of his memory, but he batted it away, welcoming the front edge his euphoric high.
Hands. Hands on his waist, a cock against his ass. He turned his head and grinned at Matt. Their pants were still on – but that could change. A wave of affection for Matt flooded him right then and he craned his neck and pulled him into a deep kiss.
Hands on his chest. Leg between his thighs.
He turned toward Jeff, homing in on his touch like a long-lost lover.
Which he was.
They rutted, exchanging sloppy kisses, synchronized in movement that used to be so natural few years back. Eli’s eyes were rolling back in his head with pleasure as he let his body loose, letting it decide whether to thrust forward or to the back.
He’d needed this.
A deep, vibrant riff split the air as the music changed from thrumming techno rock to Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir. The crowd roared its approval so loud, the three of them stopped moving. Eli wasn’t the only one who turned his attention to the musicians giving it their all on the stage.
The lights changed with a flicker, and small fireworks fountains went off on the sides of the stage. They lit the guitarist, the bassist, the singer and the drummer from the front with a warm fire glow.
Warm, like the glory hole of a glass furnace.
Maybe that’s why Eli recognized the bassist. There he was, tall, broad-shouldered, his developed, tattooed arms working his black and shiny instrument with virtuoso precision. His face was scrunched with concentration as he changed chords and time signatures, making one of the best-knows pieces of music come alive.
Eli kept swaying in place, happy and one with the music, back to full contact with Matt and Jeff. He never turned back to kissing them, though. His eyes were on Bo Bartowski.
The song ended and, inexplicably, even in that whole big crowd, their eyes connected.
Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe it was just the E. Eli recognized he was flying high, horny as hell – much harder than usual, what the hell? - and as he thought getting off would be great just about then, his eyes didn’t leave Bo as the band broke into another piece.