***

Hudson took in the big sign over the large doors. It all looked so legit, right? He had seen enough in his life to know that it wasn’t enough to prove Watkins and his business as being clean as a mountain spring. The young people waiting in line were dressed in hip clothes and the sounds of laughter and carefree banter filled the evening air. Definitely, this crowd didn’t appear to be the kind to attend extreme porn shows. He moved along the red rope until reaching one of the bouncers keeping the crowd at bay at the entrance. “Vegas, for Mr. Watkins,” he said.

It looked like the bouncer didn’t need to check his name on a list and let him in right away. There was no servility in how he did that, which meant that Watkins hadn’t advertised him as some big shot visiting. If anything, the bouncer appeared to scan him head to toe as if he wanted to make sure he’d be able to identify Hudson in a lineup. Okay, that was fair. To these people, shady or not, he was an unknown quantity at the moment. That meant that the moment for weighing and measuring was upon him.

The somewhat gaudy neon lights from outside didn’t do justice to the interior. The inside lights, switching gently between sexy crimson and aquamarine blue, enveloped everything in a soft blanket. There was a dance floor in the middle, redolent of late seventies discos, surrounded by tables and what looked like plush sofas. As expected, a pair of stairs, opposite facing, led to a higher floor where more tables and sofas could be seen at a glance. That was where the big guys usually sat, from what Hudson knew of night clubs.

The few patrons already inside were migrating between tables and the dance floor, and that provided no justice for the people waiting outside. But it was, again, something natural for that kind of place. Until a certain hour, when the real fun began, people had to be made to wait so that they didn’t notice the expensive price tag on the drinks or the simple fact that they could dance with their friends anywhere else.

He noticed Watkins at one of the tables on the upper floor right away. The man was dressed in a dark suit and had one arm resting on the frosted glass bannister that separated the table area from the open space below. Hudson would bet that the man was waiting for him, hence his very insistent invitation from earlier.

He hopped the stairs two by two, and winced at the top, as if he had strained himself too much. Watkins turned and took him in with a thin smile on his face. “Mr. Vegas. You found your way.”

“Your club is one of the hippest at the moment. It wasn’t hard,” Hudson offered. “I’m eager to see what kind of entertainment is available. However, I must say that I’m a bit surprised. I was expecting young men in leather, ready to ignite the senses.”

Watkins laughed, but the amusement didn’t reach his cold eyes. The soft lights of the club, along with the music thumping through the walls, like the beating of a heart, appeared to not touch the man. In that environment, he seemed alien to his surroundings, a preamble to a horror movie, a foreshadowing of dark things to come.

“We offer special entertainment to special guests.” Watkins didn’t invite him to sit. Instead, he gestured at him to follow as he got up from his seat.

Hudson threw another cursory look around and walked behind his host. As he suspected. The soft-lit nightclub for the hip generation served as nothing but a front for something a lot less legit. At least, the signs pointed in that direction so far.

Soon, they were walking down a corridor painted in red appointed with a long plush carpet in the same color. The music from the club was slowly fading; even the air appeared to change, a bit cooler. Hudson shrugged his shoulders for a moment.

“You might be willing to change your mind about your little protégé,” Watkins commented.

“What protégé?” Hudson asked, feeling a cold snake coiling in his gut. He absurdly thought of Otis and his beautiful eye. “You mean, Jasper?”

“Yes. The boy is quite a natural,” Watkins said. “And he’s the main dish tonight. Ah, one more thing.” He turned just as they were about to enter a door with a keypad to the right. “You won’t mind a little frisking before entering, right?”

“No, of course not,” Hudson replied. He looked away as Watkins punched in a code. He had other means to get through that lock if need be.

A bouncer stepped outside on cue and patted him down without a word. Hudson held his arms up, allowing the man to feel his body for any concealed weapons. When the bouncer inspected his left calf, he held in a breath although he knew the very thin blade he had wrapped around it was impossible to detect unless someone intended to undress him completely, and not even then quickly enough.

The man gave him a short nod and turned toward Watkins to do the same. Then, he stepped away and put his hand on the door knob. As soon as the door opened in front of him, a different kind of music hit Hudson’s eardrums, a mix of punk rock with modern elements, sounds made by a machine, not an instrument. The interior design of the room also appeared industrial in inspiration from which it must have been taken. The scene in the middle had metallic structures in the corner, seemingly much needed for sustaining the ceiling from which different devices hung.

They weren’t in use at the moment. Jasper, who Hudson immediately recognized by his pale skin since his face was turned away from the door, was wearing nothing but a black harness, and a buff man in his late twenties was holding him by it while thrusting into him with what seemed like erotic abandonment.

“Real sex,” he commented, while Watkins guided him toward one of the tables.

Hudson had to blink to adjust his eyes to the darkness engulfing the entire space around the scene. In contrast, the place where Jasper and his partner were putting on their performance was so harshly lit that it made it all look like a strange hospital room mixed with the elements of a BDSM dungeon by a weird interior decorator.

As he looked around, he could tell there were other customers already at their tables, protected by the darkness. He couldn’t stare openly, because Watkins was surely watching his every move and would quickly assume the worst of him. He pretended to focus on the sex scene in front of him, leaning forward and pursing his lips, as if he were a professional plumber examining the work of an amateur. “I had no idea he would be up to something like this,” he said.

“He told us about you. The man without a cock,” Watkins said, without commenting on his remark at all.

Hudson turned his head toward his host abruptly, mimicking surprise. “That’s not very nice of him.” He couldn’t see Watkins’ face, but he didn’t need to while his other senses were on high alert.

Watkins laughed. “Don’t worry. I never trust the word of a whore. Especially when it’s not what I’m looking for when I’m interested in a man.” He paused for effect. “What I’m interested is whether or not he has a good pair on him. So, my question for you this evening, Mr. Vegas, would be this: do you have big balls?”

“Don’t tell me you want me to show them to you,” Hudson replied. “I only undress others for a living, not myself.”

“Don’t take it so literally, Mr. Vegas. For now, let’s enjoy the show. We’ll talk about things later.”

Hudson leaned back into his seat, pretending he was satisfied with that enigmatic reply. The buff young man pulled back, apparently finished with Jasper. Cheers and whistles erupted from the audience. All in good fun, it seemed. Hudson frowned as he watched Jasper, who seemed to be breathing hard after his earlier exertions. His skin was covered by a sheen of perspiration, and even his hair was wet. What he noticed as he moved his eyes downward made Hudson frown even more. “No condoms in the house?” he asked directly after a short, thought-out, grunt of disbelief.

“We test our models regularly,” Watkins offered affably. “Now watch, Mr. Vegas, how real money is made.”

A muscular man dressed in nothing but a skimpy jock strap jumped into the scene and grabbed a mike hanging from the ceiling. He played at the impersonation of a commentator at a sporting event as he brought the mike close to his lips. “A round of applause for our young novice, gentlemen,” he called out. “Now, who wants to see him get fucked by an even bigger cock? Place your bets, gents, place your bets.”

Hudson set his jaw hard but angled his head toward his host. “That’s quite an interesting concept. How far does it go?”

He didn’t need to see Watkins’s face in the dark. He could bet the scumbag was grinning. “As far as our dear customers still have money in their pockets. We don’t do credit cards.”

No wonder there. Was Watkins showing him something illicit? He had either done a background check on Hudson and bought into the fake persona, or he intended to intimidate him or worse by the end of the performance.

He could wait. Not an easy thing to do while watching Jasper getting straddled by another muscular man and hear him gasp and moan, not entirely sure that it was pleasure he was seeing and hearing. In the meantime, his brain was working in overdrive as he took in everything there was to glean from his surroundings.

***