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Chapter One
Late
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I cursed as I gripped the metal handle by the folding doors, mentally chastising the bus for taking so long to brake and let me off. I hated being late. One of my most valued traits was my punctuality. Everyone said so. What would they say now?
The bus finally screeched to a stop, and the doors parted with a swish. I stepped down into a huge pile of slush.
“Fuck,”I cursed.
I waded through melting snow on the sidewalk, wondering for the fortieth time this season why I didn’t live somewhere—anywhere—else. Someplace warm, where they didn’t get snow or slush or freezing rain or any of the other things that assailed this godforsaken city between the months of November and April.
Icy water seeped into my leaky boots, and for the umpteenth time this winter, I told myself I needed to get new ones. I was saving up for quality footwear. Sure, I could buy a pair of supposedly waterproof boots at Walmart, andmaybethey would work until the end of winter…but maybe they wouldn’t. I could wait another month until I had the money to buy half-decent boots that might last me three winters.
I liked my job, which was why I was pissed off that I was late. Sebastian would wonder where I was and might not have enough servers to manage the patrons who tended to fill the place on a Friday night.
I trudged down the sidewalk, shivering, although the temperature was mild, passing an imposing and ancient stone church, a boutique hotel and some small apartment buildings. The wind was picking up, and the temperature was falling now that dark had descended. When the front lights and imposing signage of Maverick Molly’s came into view, I sighed with relief.
Maverick Molly’s would be warm. It would be full of soft lamplight and Victorian ambience, and I couldn’t wait to get there. I could already smell the wood fire burning in the massive hearth in the gaming parlor.
I’d been lucky enough to get a job at Molly’s, serving snacks and beverages, dressed in a corset and pretty underthings like a Victorian molly boy. It was a goddamned dream job for someone like me, who didn’t mind getting dolled up for the particular clientele that Molly’s attracted. Plus, it was advantageous to get in on a good thing early on.
Jacob Moriarty, who ran the place, was a visionary. He’d gotten the idea for Maverick Molly’s while researching the Victorian sex trade for an article he’d written, and his partner, Sebastian, had done the hiring for the first group of servers.
I knew Sebastian from an acting gig we’d done together. He’d told me I’d be perfect, if I was willing to don some bloomers and a corset and bring food and drinks to kinky men who would rent the Bordello—the spacious and beautifully decorated back room filled with vintage kink furniture and accessories—to engage in X-rated games with their partners or hookups. We were also encouraged to perform in short burlesque skits or sing bawdy songs in front of the clientele in the public room where men gathered at tables to play cards and old-fashioned board games.
Molly’s didn’t run a sex trade. The servers were there as titillating décor and entertainment…and also as practical employees. We helped to create the ambience of a different time, when being gay was truly a counter-culture, and safe spaces were scattered through the underground for men to meet and enjoy each other. It probably wasn’t very romantic, especially when molly houses were raided and the men inside them taken by the police for having the audacity to be true to themselves and each other. But now that homosexuality was considered, by most, to be a part of the great quilt of human sexuality, the costumes and accouterments of the Victorian gay underground provided a change of pace to men used to meeting in modern hotels or bathhouses—or living their domestic married lives together.
It was a kink club, a cabaret and a gaming parlor, and Jacob and Sebastian raked in the cash most evenings. I was proud to be a part of that. But tonight, I was fucking late, and that wasn’t like me. I didn’t usually jaywalk but, fuck it.
I ignored the red light and dodged across the street, narrowly avoiding a tragic incident and causing one driver to yell out a curse as I ran in front of his car.
“Sorry, sorry. Shit, fuck, sorry,” I said, waving a vague apology as I made it to the sidewalk, my heart beating in my chest like a rabbit’s as I ran up the steps of the ancient stone building, pushing the heavy wood door open and slipping inside.
A plump young man with dark skin and deep brown eyes in frilly Victorian bloomers and a chemise with a vintage corset over the top, turned to me.
“Where the fuck have you been, then?” Robin asked, reducing the harshness of his words with a saucy sway of his substantial behind.
“Sorry, sorry,” I mumbled, taking off my coat. “Family issues.”
“Yeah?” Robin took a piece of half-eaten fruit cake off the plate he held in his hand and popped it into his mouth, chewing while giving me a fake look of sympathy. I was used to that, though. It was part of Robin’s schtick.
“Yeah. My mom’s on a rampage. I need to find a place of my own.”
“Bad luck,” he said, with mock gravitas.
I cackled at the look on his face as he attempted real sympathy. Robin didn’t have a sympathetic bone in his body, but he kept trying.
“Yeah, well, I’m here now,” I said.
“Better get changed. Can you check on the new guy? He’s been back there for ages, probably stuck in his corset.”
“Sure, sure. What’s his name?” I asked.
Robin’s face relaxed into an expression of genuine delight, and his eyebrows waggled. “Patrick.” Then he narrowed his eyes. “Hands off. He’s mine.”
“What the fuck? What gives you first dibs?” I asked. Kid must be something to get Robin all possessive on his first day.
Robin’s smile vanished. “Iwasn’t late, was I?”
