“They can’t do that, you know,” said Mathieu.

Evan sipped his cosmo and looked out over the club floor. “When my dad passed away, he gave the keys to the company to Uncle Archie.”

“But it’s your money! Your dad meant it for you.”

Of course Evan knew what Mathieu was really talking about: Your dad meant the money to finance our nights out. That mai tai slush that Mathieu was drinking, the champagne that would show up at the VIP room later, the boats and the private jets that all Evan’s friends enjoyed, all had come from that trust fund.

Even his apartment here in the city depended on the trust fund. If he took the job his uncle was offering (or, rather, when he was forced to take the job his uncle was offering), he’d have to move down to Cray’s Quarry. Goodbye city; goodbye clubs. Goodbye friends who relied on him.

Evan didn’t think of himself as a particularly generous person—when he thought of himself at all, it was usually seeing himself through his uncle’s judgmental eye (or worse, and more sorrowfully, his late father’s disappointed gaze), but his friends had come to depend on him for a good time, and life would be different when he joined the 9-to-5 world, with a paycheck and responsibilities.

He drained his drink and set the glass on the bar. “I suppose I’m meant to grow up,” Evan said.

“There’s the trip to Goa for Jessica’s birthday,” Mathieu said. “She’ll be crushed if you don’t get to go.”

Evan was feeling pretty grim, but what was on his mind right now wasn’t Jessica or Mathieu or Goa. He wasn’t particularly interested in the club either, for that matter.

He had to break the news to Reg and Maura. That was going to be difficult. Painful. More than anyone, Reg depended on Evan’s trust fund. Now the money was going to evaporate. How could he explain it? He had an obligation to Reg.

He got a whiskey from the bartender and downed it quickly. Not tonight. He would tell Maura tomorrow. Or the next day.

Wait, wasn’t that the exact kind of irresponsibility that had gotten Evan into trouble? Reg and Maura deserved to know that the money had dried up.

“Where are you going?” asked Mathieu.

“Dance floor,” said Evan. To escape for a little longer. To get away from thinking about what’s about to happen to me.

He didn’t dance here often. It was more fun to be up in the lounge, staring down at the pulsing mass of people, strobes playing off their extended arms and rapt faces. But the lounge wasn’t an escape, not the kind he needed. He needed bass pounding in his ears, in his chest, the DJ at the raised altar at the other side of the hall forcing all Evan’s thoughts out of his head.

When he did dance, he danced alone. This wasn’t where he liked to meet people, not like the banquets and dinners and cocktail parties where he could talk to someone, which was always what drew him in. He used to say he was more attracted to conversations than bodies, but he wasn’t sure if he said that to sound more intelligent than he really felt, or if it was true. Conversation had run dry for a while now. His last relationship was a distant memory. Nothing meaningful in a long time, and now any hope for that was foreclosed on, because the sharp wits on their second scotches at the cocktail parties didn’t shine for people who worked jobs at an uncle’s business.

He was moving to the music, letting the rhythm rock him, but it wasn’t letting him escape. Not like this guy nearby him, whose eyes were closed, hands in the air, his mouth not quite a smile, moving his lips slightly as though he knew the words to the song but didn’t want to sing them just yet. That guy was managing an escape. He’d jumped the fence and was far away from the real world by now.

Evan moved a little closer to him. The guy didn’t seem to mind, or even to notice. There was something attractive about the ecstasy of the guy’s face. Attractive, that was the exact word. Evan felt pulled toward him, a pin tumbling towards a magnet. Tumbling, oh, that whiskey may have been a bad idea, because Evan brushed the guy with his shoulder.

His large eyes opened, and he focused on Evan immediately. His face didn’t lose the ecstasy; if anything, he looked grateful for Evan’s arrival, and edged towards him, so that they were facing one another.

This guy knew how to use his hips; they rolled like tides, like the ocean, like he was using hypnosis on Evan, offering up something drowsy and deep and utterly without strings. Maybe it was the music, the strobes, the atmosphere, maybe it was the world weighing on him, but Evan found himself wanting this guy, wanting the body hidden under those clothes, the body that was able to move and twist like this.

Evan reached forwards and put his hands on the guy’s hips. Come closer, he whispered, and even though he couldn’t possibly have heard, the man got closer, closer, until they were pressed together. His new friend put his arms over Evan’s shoulders and looked him steadily in the eye, a heavily-lidded gaze that was an open invitation Evan could not pass up.

The back hallway of the club was deserted and dark, the music muffled by the wall, the strobes unable to reach this deep. Their lips met, and it awoke the hunger inside Evan. He pressed the guy against the wall, pinning him, Evan’s hands on his wrists as though the guy might try to escape, but no, his new friend was happy to be pinned, to be kissed on the mouth, on the cheek, on the throat.

Evan had to let go of his wrists eventually, though, because he needed his hands to reach under the guy’s shirt, to feel the hot drenched skin, to feel the sheath of muscle underneath. The guy put his hands on Evan’s face, pulling him close again, another kiss, hard and passionate and somehow understanding. That was the thing. He seemed to know what Evan needed it, without Evan having to signal a thing. Knew that Evan needed comfort, but also to feel in control, and so he let Evan work his hands over his torso, let Evan slip his hands down. Evan was reaching for the stranger’s pants now, finding his hardness, stroking through the fabric. In the back of his mind was a fear that someone would come down the hall, someone would catch them and see. More scandal, more disaster more ruin. He wanted it that way. The danger of it only made things hotter.

He unzipped the stranger, slid his hand into the gap to discover the stranger’s cock, stiff and ready. Evan gave him one more look, locking eyes, a last kiss, before sinking to his knees in front of the man.

The muffled bass shook the walls around them, as though the very structure of the building was pushing him forward. He pulled the stranger’s cock out of his pants, letting it hang before him. This wasn’t the time to pause and admire. Cock-worship was for times of leisure, for sunny mornings waking up next to someone in bed. Right now called for urgency.

He licked the man’s shaft, from its base down where his sack began, all the way up to the little line of flesh where the shaft met the cock-head. He lingered there, wondering if the stranger was as sensitive at that spot as he was, and the shudder that went down the man’s spine confirmed it. Evan stroked it with the tip of his tongue, then softly bit it with his teeth. Not hard, a puppy-bite, but it made the guy put his hands on Evan’s head, pressing him forward, ready for more.

The stranger’s heavy cock was a good fit in Evan’s mouth, nice and thick, super-heated from the dance floor. Evan took it in, licking, flattening his tongue to stroke its underside as the stranger thrust into his mouth. He let the cock-head hit the back of his throat, and he swallowed to let even more of it in.

His hands cupped the stranger’s muscular ass, bringing him forward, urging him on. The stranger didn’t require much convincing; he began to shove his cock into Evan’s mouth, now in time with the music, a pulsing fast beat that left Evan feeling totally out of control, dizzy with desire. He left one hand on the stranger’s ass, and reached around with the other to stroke his base, to jack that cock into his mouth. Come in me, please, he begged silently, his eyes cast upward to find the stranger staring down at him, face full of wonder.

Evan realized in that moment that the stranger hadn’t done this before, that this was uncharted territory. Something about the surprise and delight on his face. Something about the way he had to be urged to fuck Evan’s mouth. He went down even harder on the stranger’s cock, swallowing and sucking, while his own cock strained against his pants, wanting desperately to come out, to fuck, to be stroked or sucked or buried to the hilt inside the stranger’s ass.

A loud, long groan came from the stranger, and he thrust forward hard, harder than before, to the point that Evan would have lost his balance had the stranger not been grasping the back of his head. Evan obediently swallowed as the stranger came, tasted the cum as it shot out of him, a mouthful, more, too much to hold, and he swallowed and swallowed, but there was so much it dripped from his lips, which drove him crazy with desire, and without even touching himself, he found himself coming too, a spontaneous orgasm that seemed to spark everywhere in his body all at once.

The stranger slumped against the wall, face pressed against the cool surface, panting, eyes closed. Evan sat back on his haunches, the heavy cock falling from his mouth. He reached up and wiped off his mouth.

He tried to think of something to say. Something clever, something that would signal that he was back in control, to get a little distance from the force of the desire he had just felt.

The stranger looked down at him, and now worry creased his features. He zipped himself up. “I…I don’t usually do this,” he said, the first words Evan heard him speak. “I have to go.”

There was no time for witticisms or banter or anything. Evan rose slowly from the floor, his cum cooling quickly against his skin inside his clothes, watching the stranger hurry down the hall, not sparing him a look back.

It was hard getting to sleep that night, in his apartment all alone. Evan stared at the ceiling. Why hadn’t he gone after the stranger, gotten the guy’s number? Or at least his name?