Only One Draw Ch. 08

The last show at Martina's had gone well. Pammy was sitting in front of her dressing room mirror, deciding what she wanted to do now--who she wanted to be tonight. Where did she want to go, what did she want to do, and who did she want to do it with? She was a T-girl in high demand at the peak of her profession. Getting herself fully transformed had been a good move for her career. The modeling session with that hunky artist, Griffin Gould, two days earlier kept coming up in her mind. She had enjoyed being Marilyn Monroe for him. Maybe that's who she'd be for the rest of the night. It was well after midnight, but it had been a good show and she was feeling frisky.

There had been one dude at a table just below the stage who couldn't get his tongue back in his mouth while she had been doing her strut. He had practically fallen out of his chair when she went into her Sally Bowles Cabaret stance, perching backward on the bentwood chair and flashing her snatch at the audience. He'd looked like money.

Tico, one of the stage hands, helped her make a decision when he appeared at her door with a dozen roses and a note that said, "2 a.m. at the Topper Club and good times afterward?" It was signed by "the fan, front row center." That had been the money guy with his tongue flapping, she was sure. Pammy wondered how much money he'd be willing to transfer to her. She was between sugar daddies at the moment, having made the mistake of trying to juggle two of them before. There were limits to what even Pammy could manage.

That was the what and the who and the where--cultivating a new sugar daddy. The Topper Club was just a couple of blocks up on Q Street. She could walk it. She wouldn't need a cab. No, she thought, giving a throaty little smile--she could strut it.

That left the how to dress. What did Pammy want to do tonight? Would the money guy be into Marilyn Monroe and multicolored boas? He looked a little more conservative than that, but he dressed well. Maybe he was conservative and would appreciate something less flashy in public, while still being flamboyant. Then again, he'd nearly passed out from want during her sexy and flashy Sally Bowles routine. Her Sally Bowles was hard butch. She looked to the roses he'd sent for guidance. They were yellow. That settled that.

She dressed in the yellow "I'm a boy, transformed into a girl, dressing like a boy again" suit. Underneath it all--and she did hope they'd be getting her down to the underneath it all--she was wearing lacy black panties and bra and black mesh stockings clipped to a garter belt. She couldn't resist black spike heels. While looking into the mirror to perfect her makeup, her eyes went to the gold, broad-band choker collar she's brought back from her modeling session at Gould's art studio. She hadn't really taken it accidentally. She wanted an excuse to see him again. And if she didn't see him again, it would make a good memento of their times together.

The choker had gone beautifully with the yellow suit the other day. It would go beautifully with the yellow suit tonight. She slipped it on, took one last look in the mirror, and, rising, put the black cape on over her suit, picked up her walking stick, and tap, tap, tapped down the backstage corridor to the stage door opening onto the alley off Q Street.

She was halfway between the stage door and Q Street in the nearly dark alley, when she was attacked from behind. Someone came down on her back, taking her to the ground. A wire was thrown over her head, slipping down to her throat, and she suddenly was in a struggle for her life.

Pammy was a lady, but Peter Drexall had been a competitive wrestler. He fought for his life, surprising his assailant that the wire hadn't made all of the difference to begin with. But the wire couldn't get purchase because Peter was wearing a thick-banded gold choker collar.

The battle was brief, and Peter was able to turn full front to the attacker. He knew exactly who it was. He had his walking stick and he had a spike-heeled shoe in his hand. The beatdown of Pammy turned into a beatdown on his attacker, who only barely managed to pull away and run out onto Q Street, nearly being wiped out by a cruising limousine on the street at the mouth of the alley.

Pammy didn't follow. She had recognized her assailant. She pulled herself together and went back to the stage door of Martina's and beat on it for entry. In her dressing room, she called 911 and reported the assault.

"Can you provide any sort of description of your assailant, Ma'am?" the dispatcher asked after leaving the connection briefly to set response into motion.

"I can fuckin' do better than that," Pammy barked into the phone. "I know exactly who it was. It was that little Italian fairy, Luigi, who lives with the artist Griffin Gould. Send someone over to Gould's art studio to grab that jealous little prick. That fucker's lost his chance with me--no, Gould, not Luigi. Probably sent the little prick to get his gold chocker back. No, I don't fuckin' know the address off the top of my head. It's a brownstone row house somewhere near Dupont Circle. No, wait, I have his card here."

The address given, she decided there still was time to meet the heavy breather at the Topper Club. If he had any brains, he would expect her to be late. She turned back to her mirror and began to repair the damage.

* * * *

All the time on the flight in business class from Washington's Dulles Airport down to Miami, Sam Shaffer acted like he had a secret that he was busting to tell but Toby Drake wasn't bugging him about. It was in Toby's training not to ask clients any more about an assignment with them than what to wear so that they'd look good wherever the client took them and could dress appropriately to the activity. Other than that, the general activities and the sexual favors contracted were given to the escort agency up front. Toby knew they were flying to Miami and going directly to the Bahamas by yacht for three days and nights and then back to D.C. Other than the flights, for which Toby should dress business casual style, he could dress Caribbean beach casual. The sex was for two clients--whatever they wanted.

Shaffer said no more during the two-and-a-half-hour flight other than that he had a deal in the works for an artist client to supply thirty or more works of art for the walls of a new resort hotel opening in the Bahamas, that he knew the hotel owner's tastes in sex, and he expected Toby to help in the entertainment while the deal was being negotiated. Toby wasn't stupid. He had some idea what this entailed.

Thus, he wasn't taken completely by surprise when Erick Royal, who he knew was putting together an island resort in the Bahamas because he had offered Toby a job there, was waiting for them in baggage claim at the Miami airport.

Shaffer asked Toby to watch for their bags to come off the conveyer belt and he went over to talk to Royal, who was standing near the exit door. Out of the corner of an eye, Toby watched them talk while he kept his other eye on the baggage carousel. The two men weren't screaming at each other, but Shaffer obviously wasn't pleased with their discussion. As Toby pulled the man's suitcase off the carousel, Shaffer was there, grabbed the bag, and told Toby in a tight voice, "I'll see you back in Miami in three days. We'll overnight in a hotel here before going back to Washington," and then he was walking past Royal without more than a nod, and out to the taxi stands.

Royal came up to Toby as the young man was pulling his own suitcase off the carousel and said, "Welcome to Florida. Onward to Royal Isle. I assume Sam told you I'd be meeting you."

"No, he didn't, and it wasn't my place to ask," Toby answered.

"You don't seem surprised, though."

"I guess I'm not, although it all came together just now. Sam Shaffer is Griffin Gould's agent. You yourself told me you are developing an island resort down here and also that you wanted to commission Gould for artwork from his trans series. Mr. Shaffer told me enough that I should have put it together. He doesn't seem pleased, though. Has he gone to get us a cab?"

"No, he hasn't. What Shaffer isn't pleased about is that he isn't coming with us out to the island. The boat isn't big enough for three of us. He'll be staying here while we're on Royal Isle and I'll bring you back."

"I guess he wouldn't be pleased," Toby said. "He's set all of this up to sell you artwork."

"He didn't set all of this up. I did. And I just now told him I'd buy forty or more of Gould's T-girl drawings to decorate the hotel rooms with--it's an exclusive resort. There will only be thirty-five rooms. So, he has no kick on what he wanted to sell. No, he's displeased because he thought I'd be sharing you with him for three nights, and now he'll only have you for one night."

"For what he's paying the escort agency--"

"He isn't paying the escort agency a dime. This is my program on my schedule. I want to show you what we'll have on the island. Do you--?"

"No, everything's fine then," Toby said, giving him a smile. He couldn't kick about spending the time with a movie-star-handsome billionaire like Erick Royal instead of middle-aged art agent Sam Shaffer as long as all of the arrangements are in order. Toby wasn't the one making the decisions or paying the fee.

Royal had a chauffeur-driven black Mercedes waiting to take them to a marina, where they boarded a yacht that was long but looked a bit worse for wear. What it didn't look like was too small for three. In fact, there were two squared-away men in white shorts and T-shirts standing at the gangplank.

"The crew," Royal said. "And sorry about the condition of the boat. It was built in 1972. It's a Bertram 63. It's what we'll use to ferry hotel guests out to Royal Isle. It's being reconditioned before we open for business."

"It looks larger than you indicated it was," Toby said, putting a diplomatic spin on his statement that it wasn't large enough for Sam Shaffer to come with them too.

Royal laughed, knowing what Toby was saying. "Only the master stateroom has been refurbished as yet, and that's where we'll be riding it out."

"How far is it to this island?" Toby was wondering why they needed a stateroom at all. He didn't think it was very far from Miami out to the Bahamas.

"It's a two-hour sail from here. My island is in the Berry Islands chain, between Freeport and Nassau."

"So, we need a stateroom?"

"As I said, it's the only refurbished area of the boat--and I like to get my money's worth. I'm in the mood to make a sport of it."

Ah, now Toby understood. Royal fucked him all the way from Miami to Royal Isle on the bed in what was, indeed, a very nicely refurbished teak-lined master stateroom with a queen-sized bed. He didn't go rough, being in the phase of trying to employ Toby rather than conquer and destroy him, but he did go very athletic.

The hotel magnate put Toby in a position Toby knew of as the Wheelbarrow, Royal on his knees on the edge of the bed and Toby's torso suspended out from the bed, on Royal's cock, Royal holding Toby's legs bent and up like they were the handles of a wheelbarrow. Toby's arms were extended down to the carpet, holding his body steady while the man fucked him in the ass. Royal was thick and long and stretched the high-end escort out good.

When Royal got bored with that, he pulled Toby up onto the bed to where he was lying across the bed, on his side, and Royal was behind and on top of the rent-boy. Toby's right leg was bent across his body, and his ass was in the position where Royal could pump him with his shaft. Toby was fully open to the hotel magnate, all of his senses focused on the cock churning inside him. From here it was another variation of the Wheelbarrow, with Toby on his stomach, and Royal riding the young man's ass and holding his legs bent and raised on either side of Royal's hips. Toby came a second time in this position.

Royal moved on in the two-hour fuck fest into a close-embrace missionary, Toby on his back on the bed and Royal on top of him, between his thighs, Toby's knees rubbing against Royal's hips, while the moved his cock in and out, in and out, deep, in long, slow slides. Toby sucked on Royal's nipples and moved his hands from clutching the man's biceps to grasping his butt cheeks to holding him close against him as Royal fucked him. As the boat pitched a bit in the waves, setting a rhythm that Royal fell into, the fuck picked up speed and intensity. Toby arched his back, head arcing over the side of the bed, his eyes wildly picking out the cut of the teak paneling of the cabin and its built-in cabinets and drawers, and whimpered, "Yes, yes, yes."

Royal tensed and jerked and came, repeatedly, filling out the bulb of his condom, as Toby pressed into the man's shoulder blades with his fingernails to the rhythm of his thrusts. Toby came again then too, a draining dribble, but the sensation of a release nonetheless. The two held there, both focused on Royal going flaccid inside Toby's channel, both panting lightly, neither of them thinking of this as just a male whore servicing a randy john. Royal would, of course, have liked to go even deeper into his fetishes, to use the young man cruelly and to the limits. But that could wait. That could wait until Toby lived here, in isolation, and was completely at Royal's mercy. For now, he had to make Toby agree to live here.

As the Royal Isle came into sight off the bow of the Bertram 63, Toby collapsed under Royal. "Oh, fuck, yes," he murmured.

* * * *

"What do you think of this cottage?"

"It's magical, of course, just like the rest of the buildings you're putting in at this resort." Toby and Erick Royal were standing outside yet another of the buildings, most either finished or nearing completion, that were strewn artfully, and with a focus on giving them privacy, across his private Royal Isle on which he was developing an exclusive resort for men wanting to play with T-girls.

"I like how the windows of this one look directly through that thin line of palm trees, across a sandy beach, and to the sea," Toby said.

"Yes, this house was oriented to maximize the view. If you came to work here to organize and run the hospitality staff, this would be where you lived. You'd have both privacy from the rest of the resort and a great view of the sea."

Toby was amused by how Royal referred to him being a pimp and madam for a stable of T-girls maintained here for rich male guests to fuck in the privacy of a paradise. Still, with everything going on back in Washington, the offer was tempting. The developing resort was everything Erick Royal had boasted it would be. Toby had felt the tension of working and living in Washington, D.C., especially in the teeth of a murder spree in which he somehow was taken up, flow out of him these two days on the tiny isle being introduced to the isolated, sensual world Royal was building here. All of this despite--or maybe because--Royal had bedded him in every bed they'd come to in their inspection of the place. Royal was being a sensual lover. Toby discerned that there might be another side to Royal in engaging in sex too--a rougher, crueler side. But Toby wouldn't shy away from that either.

"There's another cottage over there, I see," he said, pointing to a higher elevation peninsula of land jutting out into the sea in the near distance.

"That's where the manager of the hotel and island will live," Royal said. "Your duties would be split. You'd only have to worry about the entertainment staff. The resort manager would handle the rest. I have someone in mind for that position. Shall we go inside this house. I'd like you to see the view from the bed in the master bedroom. There are two master bedrooms, but only one with a view from the bed of the sweep of the sea through that line of palm trees."

Ah, a bed Royal hadn't fucked him in, Toby thought, knowing that the invitation to see inside the cottage revealed Royal's intention to rectify that--which he proceeded to do.

When Royal, rolled off of him and to the side away from the window, not pulling completely away, still holding Toby's legs bent and spread with his roaming hands, Toby turned his view to the large picture window looking out toward the beach area. Royal was right. This was a view to delight in waking up to every morning before taking the short walk to work.

"So, what do you think?" Royal murmured. "Isn't this an opportunity you wouldn't want to miss? Wouldn't you love living here--working at this resort?"

"There are entanglements," Toby said, at length, with a sigh. "I have a life in Washington."

"Ah, yes, so I understand. There's a policeman you are living with. Hardesty. Isn't that his name? Just the one name?"

"Yes, there is... Hardesty." And that's what Toby had been agonizing about--for longer than the last two days. There was Hardesty. And he was afraid--afraid or happy, he couldn't decide which--that Hardesty had become a much more permanent part of his life than he'd ever intended.

"Bring him. Don't miss this opportunity. I could use a chief of security on the island as well. If he's a policeman in Washington, he must know how to be diplomatic. That will be needed by someone who keeps the peace between and among guests and staffs in a resort like this. You can both have jobs here."

Toby almost snorted at the mention in one sentence of Hardesty and diplomatic, but Royal was making this very hard to turn down. Toby would have to think long and hard about this offer and about where he was in life--and he must do that before talking to Hardesty about any of this.

* * * *

Hardesty and Whitehall didn't get informed of Luigi Finelli's attack on the Martina's T-girl show topper Pammy until 10:00 in the morning. Sometimes information traveled slowly in the Washington police department, especially in the early morning hours. But by the time they heard of the attack in the alley off Q Street, they'd already decided themselves to arrest Luigi. Thanks to the original background material on Luigi they'd gotten from Italy, they'd had his fingerprints and DNA data--and the lab had matched that to the back of Dexter Johnson's cab and to his body as well. They'd also gotten augmented background reports on Finelli. Yes, he'd claimed he'd fought off a rapist in Milan and killed him, but he also had a rap sheet of attacking his boyfriend's other lovers in fits of jealous rage.

They'd already filed for a priority arrest warrant to go with the warrant to collect DNA from him and Griffin Gould, which had languished in the system. With the arrest warrant request, that no doubt would be expedited as well.

"Look at this," Hardesty said, as he read the statement Pammy had given only a couple of hours earlier. "The officer asked her if her attacker had said anything while he was trying to strangle her," and she answered, "He was talking nonsense about leaving 'him'--I'm sure he meant the artist he's living with, alone, that one sitting was tolerable, but the T-girls would be allowed only one draw with Grif.' That's it, Glen. That's the motive for the killings. Luigi is jealous of whoever Griffin Gould takes a renewed sexual interest in. It wasn't the initial interest and fuck; it was wanting to continue with it. All of the victims had modeled for Gould more than once. More than once was too much for Luigi Finelli."

Toby immediately came to his mind. How many times had Toby modeled for Griffin Gould? Just the once, he thought, but Toby said he had another sitting with him scheduled for when Toby returned from Florida. Shit. Toby had come that close... again. Toby was coming entirely too close to danger, Hardesty thought. There would have to be some sort of change in their world.

They, of course, got to Griffin Gould's brownstone near Dupont Circle too late to arrest Finelli.