Slasher

Prologue

I spotted him instantly. I always know the look I'm after; know what image I need to project in each production. This one was perfect. Young without being jail-bait. Pretty without being effeminate.

Perfect body for the perfect shoot.

Now, could he play the role?

I watched him from the dark booth at the end of the bar, studied the way he played the lightly packed room. He was familiar here, but not a regular. The bartender watched him closely as though not quite trusting him.

For his part the actor kept his eye on each newcomer and almost seemed to be waiting for someone.

Of course he was. He was waiting for me. When he glanced my way I signaled him to come over. Curiosity brought him to me. What would make him stay?

I saw his brilliant blue eyes appraising the rings on my fingers and raised one beringed finger to my lips, wiping the moustache I was currently using to conceal my mouth and studied him from under the brim of my hat. In turn I knew he studied me. Aside from the expensive-looking jewelry he would see a middle- age, nondescript man in very costly, designer clothes who clearly had a good deal of money. His eyes lit up and I almost felt disappointment.

So shallow, these pretty would be actors. So shallow and so empty. Simpering seekers of fleeting fame.

Well tonight was his lucky night. He was about to find the starring role he had been seeking all his life.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

"Depends what you want." The actor smiled.

So like any good Hollywood player, I produced my card. It had the desired effect and the actor's eyes widened before he clamped down on his excitement and played it cool.

"Casting anything interesting these days?" he asked, oh so calmly.

"Always," I said. I made as though studying him for the first time. "I've been looking for new faces. Lucas has a new project and you know how he loves new faces. What kind of credentials do you posssess?"

The actor's own face lit up. He rattled off half a dozen straight-to-video gigs he'd had bit parts in. Oddly enough he left out his starring role in Angel Boy and its charming little sequel, The Devil's Own.

I indicated the chair closest to mine and offered him my warmest smile. "Come, sit. You interest me, young man. Perhaps we can consider doing some business together."

He sat, his lean, jean clad leg brushing mine. Testing my interest? I briefly cupped his tight basket in my hand and squeezed it.

"What's your name?"

"Bobby." He leaned forward eagerly. He delicately traced the outline of my own swelling cock, which knew perfectly well what was coming soon.

"Do you want to go someplace and talk about this, Bobby?"

"Sure. Do you want my agent's name? I usually let him do all my negotiating."

"In good time." I smiled again and stroked his eager cock. "I like to get acquainted first, before we bring in the big guns. If that's okay with you?"

"Sure," he gasped when I squeezed him a little harder, testing his tolerance. He rubbed against my hand, rocking his hips greedily.

"Meet me outside in ten minutes. I have some private business to tend to quickly." I showed him my cell phone so he would understand what I meant. "In the alley you'll see a Porsche Boxster. Stay by it. I'll be out as soon as I possibly can."

I watched him disappear out the door and slid the phone back into my jacket. Then leisurely I got up and strolled into the club's washrooms ignoring the inviting look a couple of inebriated patrons gave me. They didn't have what I was looking for tonight. Perhaps some other night they might meet my needs but for tonight I had my star performer.

The alley was dark and empty, just as I had known it would be. My car was parked at the end and as I neared it I could make out the slumping figure of Bobby, the actor trying to look nonchalant as he leaned against the fender. In the dim light of a nearby window he looked exquisitely formed. Perfect.

I was going to preserve that perfection forever.

When Bobby leaned into me and tried to kiss me I turned my head aside. I touched his perfectly formed mouth with my finger and smiled. I unlocked the car and told him to get in. I started the car and drove east toward Western then north to Los Feliz. I reached into the glove compartment for my digital camera.

"I was not completely honest with you," I said showing him the camera. "I have seen some of your work already, Bobby. Or should I say Bobby Starrz?"

A look of panic flitted across his face and was quickly squelched. I could tell he was about to deny the accusation. Again I silenced him with my hand on his basket. I pointed the camera at his face.

"This will not prevent us from working together. The role I have in mind for you is so perfect, your past is immaterial." I leaned in close to him. My breath fanned his flushed face. "You will be a star despite your past. And once your fame is so great, no one will care about what you did as a starving actor."

I could tell he was mesmerized by my words. Desperately wanting to believe.

"What do you want from me?"

"I want to possess your perfect body." I moved closer, letting him feel the heat and hardness from my body. I began to take pictures, capturing his face, his lean, harlot's body.

"Here? Now?" He looked around. I had pulled into the park, past the empty picnic tables and off the road, away from prying eyes.

"Yes!" I let him hear my urgency. "Do you remember the scene in Angel Boy where the two meet and fuck on the car? I have dreamed of that moment. Would you fill an old man's fantasy?"

His gaze skated to the hood of the Porsche. Then he looked at me. "You're not that old."

I shrugged. My hands exposed my rapidly hardening cock. We both got out of the Porsche. I slid a condom over myself then glanced at the bulge in his jeans.

"Take those off and bend over the car."

He does as he was told and his perfect, pale ass soon lay exposed to my hungry eyes. Once his back was to me, I cover my hands with the latex gloves I had brought for this purpose. Then I stroked one round globe of his buttocks and pushed it open to my eager gaze. The camera captured it all.

I eased my swollen cock into his tight fuck hole and before he can do more than grunt I slammed myself all the way in.

"Hey, not so rough," he yelped, but now I ignored him.

Once I start pounding away at his ass he shut up and began to writhe under me. The perfect whore. As I pounded my flesh into his, I withdraw the silk tie I brought for this moment. While he grunts and slavers under me I slip the tie around his white throat and with strength born of lust and need I instantly tighten it. His hands fly to his throat but he is too late. I cry out as I come, even as I throttle the life from my perfect actor. He struggles but his fight is pitiful and soon it is gone. When he goes limp I let him fall, being careful to remove my used condom and wrap it in tissue. After I have shoved the damning evidence it holds into my jacket I bring out the blade I carefully honed only that morning. But first I must make sure this moment is mine forever. The camera is my gift to the future.

The camera glittered sweetly in the low light and I bent down to ensure the job was done. But even as I slashed Bobby's perfect throat I heard a sound.

Someone was coming! I stepped clear of the still warm body and shoved my shriveled cock back into my pants then I slid behind the wheel of my Porsche and started the engine. No time to move the body as planned. I will have to leave it there for the incompetent police to discover. Never mind, it will do them no good.

Without turning the headlights on and attracting unwanted attention, I spun out onto the Hollywood streets and raced west toward my hideaway. There I will be able to examine my trophies in private. I grow hard again at the thought of what they will reveal to me.

Chapter 1

I went to bed alone. It was past eleven but there was still no sign of David. Pulling another all-nighter? The news at eleven hadn't mentioned any major homicides but that could change in the blink of an eye and David would be pulled into the center of it with a single phone call. With a sigh I crawled under the covers and pulled out my newest technical journal and started reading an article about the latest incarnation of UNIX and whether it was relevant in the twenty-first century. I had barely gotten into the author's argument that UNIX was more relevant today than ever when I heard the front door slam shut.

I looked up when David entered our bedroom and immediately notice how tired he looked. I tossed the journal onto my side table and scooted over to make room for him on the side of the bed. He slumped down on the comforter and wearily reached down to remove his shoes.

"Tough day?" I murmured, sitting up behind him on the bed. "What happened?"

"Stupid day. It must be the idiot's time of the month. Either that or it's a full moon and I didn't notice."

I started undoing the buttons on his shirt and he sighed when I began to massage the knotted muscles on his back and shoulders.

"God, that feels good." He rotated his head and leaned back into my hands. "Can you imagine some guy from Kansas City comes to town for a business meeting and, don't ask me how he did it, but he ends up in an alley on Sunset after flashing a wad of cash at some fast food stand where he's asking for directions to Doheny. Now he's a stiff on the M.E.'s table down at the morgue and I have the privilege of calling his widow to tell her that the guy she married twenty-three years ago isn't coming home."

I slid around to sit directly behind him, my hips, clad only in boxers, pressed against his backside. I continued to massage the tight muscles of his shoulders.

"Why do people think they can leave their common sense behind when they get into a strange city? I'm sure he never would have done the same thing in downtown Kansas."

"Some people just let their guard down." I slipped my fingers between the last buttons of his shirt and one by one opened them. He flexed his arms and the shirt fell off him. I tossed it to the floor. "Maybe he was looking for something more than fast food. Long way from home, some guys like to play."

"No evidence of anything, but you're right. He might have been in that alley pursuing something he couldn't get at home."

I sensed a change in his demeanor and felt a new tension enter his body. I pressed my open mouth to his back and inched my hands around to encompass his nipples, feeling them stiffen into tiny knobs of hardened flesh. Then I slid my hands over the soft mound of his stomach where he carried the ten or so extra pounds he could never seem to get rid of.

I moved my mouth to his ear and bit the lobe softly. "Is there something you can't get at home, Mr. Laine?" I whispered into the warm flesh of his neck. He shivered. "Is there anything you'd like to go after somewhere else?"

"Not a thing." He gasped when my teeth went to work on his other ear. "Jesus, baby."

I slid my hands down the sides of his hips. Easing open the zipper to his pants I teased my fingers inside, wrapping around his swollen ten inch cock that was already wet with pre- cum.

"Stand up," I said.

When he did I skimmed his pants and briefs down and before he could move parted the cheeks of his ass with my hands and planted my hot mouth against the tight pink rosebud between his round cheeks. He cried out at the sudden invasion and his hips moved back to engulf my face.

I stabbed my tongue into him, digging into his dark channel and tasting his unique male scent. Loving him with my mouth, and driving him toward the brink. With one hand I probed the crack of his ass, with the other I squeezed his balls and smeared his rigid pole with his love juice.

He pulled away from my mouth and turned with a growl. Before I could speak he had yanked my boxers off and jerked my legs open. He fell between them, savaging my mouth with his lips and his tongue. When I reached to guide him into my waiting hole he grabbed my hand and held it over my head. Then he gently inserted the tip of his massive cock and flexed his hips, teasing me with the promise of filling me with all ten inches.

I groaned and tried to lunge up under him, but he held me in place with his greater body mass and I couldn't move.

"Damn you, David," I whispered as his mouth came down on mine and sealed off any further cries of need or protest.

He rocked against me, barely breaching my tight hole. His tongue ravaged my mouth, plundering me with his lips and teeth even as he refused to plunder me with his cock. I was panting, my rock hard cock bobbing against my stomach, leaking copious amounts of pre-cum as I got ready to blow my load.

He sank his lips into my throat and I cried out his name, "Fuck, David, for God's sake. I can't - oh, baby. Please!"

"Tell me what you want," David growled against my mouth. He inserted his fat cock another inch into my begging channel. "Tell me, Chris."

"Fuck me, baby. Now! Fuck me hard. Oh please --"

He flexed his hips and sank into me more. I groaned and tried to rise under him. He slammed further into me, until his balls came to rest up against the walls of my ass.

"You are so tight, so fucking hot," he panted. "Oh, baby. Yessss."

He stopped playing and released my hands. Then he grabbed my legs and drew them up over his back, ploughing into me harder and deeper. His naked cock stroked my prostate rapidly, his breath came in quick, guttural pants. He pounded into me, rocking me so hard the bed under us bounced against the headboard. He was moaning my name now, his breath hot against my face. I captured his mouth again and dove for his tonsils even as he slammed his massive cock toward my stomach.

My balls tightened and my cock throbbed in release. I shot load after load of hot cum across my rock hard stomach and abs even as I felt his orgasm deep inside me. He froze, his back bowed as he drove his ten inch pole into me. His cock grew thicker and harder and pulsed in time to his explosive release. White hot jism poured out of him into my tight channel, filling me with his essence.

David collapsed on top of me. My arms snaked around him and I layered his rough face with air-light kisses. He returned them then grabbed some tissue from the bedside dispenser and wiped us both clean of cum. Finally he sagged into my arms as sleep overcame him. I barely had enough presence left to pull the light comforter up over our shoulders before sleep claimed both of us.

The ringing phone jarred us awake. The room was still dark. I peered bleary-eyed at the bedside clock. Four o'clock. David was already sitting up, reaching for the handset.

His gruff, sleep-addled voice barked his name into the phone. I waited to see if he would hand it off to me -- sometimes I got middle of the night emergency calls when one of my servers went down or someone's network didn't behave properly. But he didn't so I knew something bad had happened to someone in our fair city. When it's time to call in the homicide detective things have gotten very bad for someone.

Finally he dropped the phone back in the cradle and reached for his pants.

"A body?" I asked as he pulled a clean pair of white briefs out of the top drawer then grabbed a shirt from our closet.

He shook his head. "Assault. Left for dead. Looks like another one of those gay slasher hits. Only this vic is alive. Maybe it's the break we need."

The so called gay-slasher had been plaguing L.A. for nearly six months now, claiming seven victims so far. All young, gay males picked up by someone who nobody else ever seemed to get a good look at.

So far all the victims had been killed, throats cut after being raped and strangled. It was a grisly case and one the LAPD brass seemed to think was right up David's alley.

David hadn't ever intended to come out on the job, cops were, on the whole, a more conservative bunch than the average citizen, but the circumstances behind our meeting and falling in love had forced his hand. Now, though he never actually acknowledged it, it was common knowledge within the department that not only was Detective David Eric Laine gay, but he was living with another man.

The brass paid him back by giving him every gay homicide the city saw. As though his life-style made him an automatic expert on why gays got killed. Like they died for different reasons than straights did.

But David was good at his job and took it seriously. Sometimes too seriously. I know it bothered him that he couldn't get a handle on this gay slasher.

Maybe now he'd get the break he needed.

I sat up in bed while he finished dressing. His service weapon, a nine millimeter automatic was the last to be strapped on under his jacket, a dark grey Hugo Boss I had bought him for his last birthday. The man might not let me support him, but I could buy him nice clothes that he couldn't refuse. He looked good in it, too. Hell, despite the extra weight he carried around and the acne scars on his plain looking face, David Eric Laine was sexier than a dozen GQ studs in my book. I'd given up trying to figure out what I saw in him, I only knew he did for me what no one else did and I loved him more than I had ever thought possible.

I was so glad he felt the same way.

He leaned down to kiss me, letting his mouth linger briefly over my open lips.

"Take care, now," I whispered. "Will you be home for supper?"

"I'll try."

"Let me know early enough and I'll cook up something. Otherwise it's TV dinners, mister."

He made a face. "I'll do what I can."

Then he was gone. I heard the front door slam several minutes later and lay back down on the rumpled bed. I sighed and rolled over onto his side, pressing my face to the pillow his head had been on only minutes before. Inhaling the achingly familiar scent of him I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep again.

Chapter 2

I got into work just before 9:00. Petey waylaid me at the door to my cubicle. Some days you just get lucky.

"I was looking for that report on the Kincaid Project on my desk this morning," Petey said without preamble. But then Petey probably thought preamble was something you did before a walk. "I was rather surprised when it wasn't there."

"Were you? Why?"

Petey goggled at me and I relented, slightly.

"Why would you expect it on your desk? It's on mine." I swooped past him into my cubicle and grabbed the file. "Right here, in fact. All ready for Mr. Kincaid himself to put his hot, sweaty little signature on."

Petey clutched the report to his Brook Brothers suited chest.

"They've already agreed in principal to everything in that report," I said. "If they have any questions when they're signing, let me know. I'll go over it again with them. Unless you'd rather I be in on the signing..."

I started counting to three and Petey came back with the answer I expected before I got through two.

"No, no, that's okay. I'm sure everything will be all right. There's no need for you to involve yourself any further. You've done a brilliant job, as usual, Chris."

"Right," I murmured. No reason to have the company faggot pissing all over the parade. Petey only involved me in the planning process because I'd consistently proved to be the best at it over the years. I had the ability to make our clients understand what they were buying into while making them see that our way was the best, and it was worth the hefty fee Petey charged for DataTEK's services. "In which case, I have other projects I should get to..."

Petey waved me into my cubicle. "Don't let me keep you."

Like you ever do. I wished the damned cubicles had doors so I could slam it. Instead I slumped into my swivel chair and stared balefully at the locked screen of my desktop. After I unlocked it I saw I had a dozen new email messages; several of them red flagged.

I scanned the headings then opened the first flagged message. It was about a meeting I had promised I would attend that started in forty-five minutes. I groaned when I saw the list of other attendees. Time wasters, the lot of them. The day promised to be long and unproductive one.

I printed off the documents I would need for the meeting and got up to retrieve my print job from the Lexmark down the hall. A figure blocked the entrance to my cubicle. At first I thought Petey had come back, then I saw the uniform.

He was young, barely into his twenties but he wore the uniform of the LAPD.

My heart slammed into my throat. I thought for sure it was one of those duty calls that cops had to make on family after there had been an 'incident' -- I was the only one David had listed as his emergency contact, so like it or not the LAPD had to respect his wishes. Now were they going to repay that by sending this wet-behind-the-ears rookie to tell me David was hurt? Or worse.

I grabbed the side of the cubicle to steady myself. I felt light-headed.

"What -- what is it? Is David --"

"David? Oh, you mean Detective Laine," the young cop said. He frowned. "Detective Laine requested I bring you down to the station. He said to tell you it's police business."

"Police bus- I don't understand. What's going on?"

"I don't know, sir. I was only told you bring you down to the station. Will you come?"

Was he telling me the truth about David being okay? I knew I'd go with him just to find that out. Maybe David had known that too.

"Just give me a minute." I spun back to my computer, sent a quick email saying I would be unable to attend the meeting, then logged off. No telling when I'd be back. I grabbed my cell and pager and clipped them to my belt then followed the cop out to the elevators.

One thing I'll give him, he didn't spend his time eyeing me like I was some strange bug he had encountered, like so many of his brothers in blue did when they first met me. Everyone knew David was living with a man, when they actually met that man they usually studied me as though I had horns. This one just ignored me. It was actually refreshing.

His partner was an older guy who did stare at me all the time it took me reach the car and climb into the back seat of the black and white. It felt strange sitting where so many criminals had sat and I found I was antsy to get out of the vehicle. As though if I sat in it too long I'd find myself in cuffs, being Mirandized for some crime I had no recollection of committing. Not a sensation I enjoyed. It didn't help that the rookie's senior partner kept looking at me in the rear view with barely disguised disgust. In the good old days he probably would have been in the front line to break faggot heads open in the bar raids the city used to encourage back before Stonewall. He had me feeling guilty just for being.

So it didn't surprise me that the young cop was given the task of leading me into L.A. West station where I fully expected to meet David -- though I couldn't for the life of me figure out why.

Instead I was led to a small, cramped room littered with cigarette burns and graffiti. The rookie motioned to a battered wooden chair that was one of four around an equally abused table. The room smelled of sweat and urine and bad coffee and one whole wall was taken up with a large pane of scratched glass. I knew enough about the inner workings of the station to know it was two way glass and I was in an interrogation room.

"What gives?" I asked the rookie.

He shrugged. "You'll have to ask Detective Gutierrez that."

"Gutierrez?" David's partner. Now I was really confused. "What's he got to do with this? Where's Dav-Detective Laine?"

"We'll get to that in good time." John Gutierrez, David's partner slipped through the door and the rookie vanished. Glad to have made his escape? "Morning, Chris. How are things today?"

"Up until I got dragged down here, lousy," I said. "Since then it's all gone downhill. Want to tell me what's going on? Where's David?"

"He's working on another aspect of this case." John slid a battered leather briefcase onto the scarred table top. He opened the case. "He asked me to talk to you."

"Why?"

Rather than answering John flipped several eight by ten photos onto the table and watched me sit back while I examined them.

The photos were all of one man. At least I could tell that much -- that he was a man. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but it wasn't that which had me studying the images so closely. The guy was a mess. Whatever had been done to him had left him with massive bruising on his swollen face and bloodshot eyes. At first I wondered if he was even still alive, but the pain in those eyes was too strong to be coming from a corpse. Whatever shape he was in now, this guy had been alive when these shots were taken.

"Who is he?"

"We were hoping you could tell us that."

"What? Why would I know this guy?"

No answer. Instead John picked out the clearest shot of the bunch and slid it over to me.

"Take a close look. You sure you don't recognize him?"

I took to studying the photo closely, trying to see beyond the injuries. He looked familiar yes, but who --

Then it came to me. "Jesus, it's Bobby."

It came back to me. A bar in West Hollywood, a would be actor with the looks and body of a young Vin Diesel. I'd taken him home. I couldn't remember the details of the night. At that time, before I met David, there had been too many incidents like that. One night stands where the sex was forgettable and even the faces were vague memories a year later. I stared down at the once beautiful face and frowned.

"What the hell happened to him?"

"So you do know him?"

"Like I said, his name was Bobby. He claimed he was an actor. I had no reason to doubt him."

"Bobby? Last name?" John was writing in one of the ubiquitous notepads the LAPD gave all their detectives. "Where'd you meet him?"

Jesus, did I have to recount the whole ugly sequence? "No last name; he never gave me one. It was over a year ago." I'd been living with David for eleven months. I'd met Bobby before that. I hedged. "I'm not sure I remember the details."

"Try," John said flatly, clearly unimpressed with my equivocating. "Where'd you meet him, Chris?"

"A bar called the Railhouse. I think it's changed names since then. I'm not sure, but it might be called The Trou-"

"The Troubadour," John finished. "We're acquainted with it."

Great. What did that mean?

"When did you meet him?" John was nothing if not persistent.

"When? Maybe twelve months ago." I scoured my memory. "It was before I met David... I went out to the Railhouse for a drink. He was there and we started talking..." Another lie. I'd gone out to get laid and Bobby had fit my wish list. We'd hardly exchanged more than thirty words the whole night. I'd bought him a couple of drinks and we'd gone back to my place. I'd like to be able to say a night of wild passion ensued, but the truth was until David came along I'd long forgotten what such a beast was. I'd gone through the motions because my body demanded it. Bobby had delivered the goods; I'd never seen him again after that night.

"And?"

"And he came back to my place. He spent a few hours there then he left. I never saw him again."

"Could you explain why this Bobby would have your number on his cell phone?" John kept scribbling away, never meeting my eyes.

"Number? I don't - you mean he had my phone number stored in his cell?"

"Yes. Yours and, I might add, Detective David Eric Laine's phone number. On his cell."

My throat went dry. "What happened to him, John? For God sake, tell me --"

"Bobby Crystal A.K.A. Bobby Starrz A.K.A. Robert Allan Dvorak was sexually assaulted last night in the Los Feliz park and left for dead. His throat was cut, Chris. Now do you see why I need you to answer my questions?"

[More to come]

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