He had been taller than Danny. Six feet to Danny’s five-feet-nine and when he danced up behind him, Danny had felt nestled against the other man’s body, lost in the music with another soul even if he hadn’t yet seen his face. A hand had settled on his hip and when his crotch ground against Danny’s backside, blood had rushed to Danny’s cock, giving him a hard-on.

“You like dancing up to random strangers?” Danny had asked. At least, that was what dream him filled in as dialogue, dragging his subconscious along for the ride.

The man had laughed. “You looked like you were waiting for someone to,” he said. The hand that had settled on Danny’s hip slid down to cup his ass. “I can stop if you want me to.”

“If I wanted you to stop I would’ve already asked you to.” Danny pushed back against him deliberately, looking upward to immerse himself within the moment. Lights flashed in an array of colors, and though the DJ had gotten liberal with the smoke machine, it made Danny feel more at liberty to push the envelope. The scent of stale cigarettes lingered in the air, and while Dior wafted from his new dance partner, it didn’t carry its normal unpleasantness. “What do you want?” Danny asked.

“To dance. For now,” he said, though Danny heard the beginnings of strain in his voice. His other hand settled on Danny’s chest, arm wrapping around him from behind and hips swayed, beckoning Danny to match their rhythm. “Are you alone?”

“Why? Are you going to kidnap me?”

The man breathed a chuckle. “No. Only curious if somebody is going to get jealous, seeing me.”

“No.” Danny fought to control the cadence of his breathing, which had since turned shallow. “Even if there was someone who’d be getting jealous, I don’t think I’d care.”

He turned around and as he did, the hands on him relented. When he looked up, he found himself peering inside chocolate irises, a closed-mouth smirk curling the lips of the other man. Their bodies gravitated together, hips grinding again, and as Danny felt the obvious bulge in the other man’s pants, he mirrored the smirk. “Do I get your name?” Danny asked.

“Does it matter what my name is?” When Danny raised an eyebrow, he laughed, his arms draping around Danny’s shoulders. “You can call me Liam,” he said, leaning enough to close some of the distance between their faces. As he did, Danny saw the longish hair he kept tied back, tempted to play with an idle strand of it before something about their closeness brought Danny’s attention back to Liam’s face.

“And yours?” Liam asked.

“Danny,” he said. He became transfixed on Liam’s eyes and even through the fiction of dreaming, Danny still felt something preventing him from taking a better look. His mind had filled in his build, and the sensation of the arms that kept him pressed up against Liam. When the first kiss touched his lips, a set of familiar tingles raced up and down his spine, though time felt like it suddenly jumped forward.

He remembered his back hitting a wall, the scene shifting from the inside of the club to the alleyway behind it. When Liam rushed upon him again, their mouths collided with hungry, manic urgency. Dancing had been a slow burn and by the time Liam reached for the closure of Danny’s pants, Danny would have begged for Liam to fuck him there or anywhere. “Do you…?” Danny fought to say between kisses, finally managing, “… Protection…” as a means of clarification. His head swam and Liam’s response blurred out of his thoughts.

He remembered it, though… his pants falling to his ankles as Liam turned him to face the wall.

Danny’s hands lifted, clutching onto concrete while fingers thrust inside of him. Face clenched in both discomfort and surprise, he eased into the finger-fucking and though he couldn’t remember when Liam replaced them with his cock, by that point he had entered a state of sheer euphoria. Liam could have never known and would have never thought to ask about how closely Danny usually held this sort of thing to his chest. How few people in his life truly knew where Danny spent some of his nights. Each time his body surrendered, though, felt as good as the time which preceded it.

As such, it didn’t take long for Danny to come.

Liam groaned and thrust forward as Danny’s toes curled. When the coil in his groin snapped, and release rushed over him in waves, Danny dug into the wall in front of him that much harder, trying to keep himself upright with Liam assisting. Pain met with pleasure and joined hands, but even climax couldn’t compare with the sudden onslaught of bliss that overwhelmed him. Something about it was strange. A surge that felt like it should have been as the result of a narcotic. Danny felt too sleepy to question it however, and with that, the dream faded to black.

* * *

The sound of his alarm clock roused Danny back to the waking world. Blinking away sleep, he held onto the last fading embers of the dream, clutching onto them while staring across the room. Thinking about the night before last didn’t inspire the same headache any longer, but the absence of memory still felt odd, like it had been taken away and not merely forgotten. “Maybe there’s time to pop into Nocturne after work,” he said, lifting himself out of bed and grateful not to be stumbling around his apartment again.

For now, he thought, there was coffee to make and laundry to do. Since he hadn’t done it yesterday.

Danny sighed, opting to shower first, then turning on the coffeemaker. His body still felt lethargic, but what he’d managed to hold onto from the dream piqued his curiosity enough to postpone his normal ritual. With water spilling over his body, Danny reached back as much as he could, inserting the tips of his fingers into his ass to feel around. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d bottomed during anal but considering how careful he’d been about who he let fuck him in recent days, something told him he should know if he’d had sex the day before last.

He didn’t feel as tight, though the characteristic aching which should have been there failed to assert itself. Taking a deep breath, he pulled out his fingers and cleaned himself up, taking an extra few moments in the effort before giving up. His clothing from the last few evenings found their way into the laundry bag and, once he’d swallowed down a bowl of stale cereal and strong coffee, Danny wandered to the laundromat.

A slim, older man named Jerry waved at Danny when he entered. Danny worked on filling a washing machine and though he heard the footfalls of the attractive owner, he failed to meet the other man’s gaze, even when he felt it settle on him. “Hey,” Jerry said in his quiet, demur way. “I missed you yesterday.”

“Yeah, I know,” Danny said. “Sorry about that. I had a rough night and got my days all screwed up. Now, I’m playing catch-up.”

“That’s alright.” When Danny glanced at Jerry, he saw the solemn, somewhat nervous way he eyed him. Jerry flashed him a quick smile. “You had me worried. There’s been a lot of talk lately about things being rough in the neighborhood. If you know what I mean.”

“I do. I’m sorry.” Danny flashed a smile, pausing his effort to shove as much as he could into one washer. Still holding onto his shirt, he draped it over the machine, glancing around to make sure they were alone before gesturing Jerry closer. “Here I thought you just sit in the back and play around on your own whenever I’m not visiting.”

Jerry blushed and for a moment, the fifty-something year old looked ten years younger. “You say that like you picture me doing that.”

Danny hummed, shrugging with feigned innocence. “Maybe I do.” He dared a step closer and another until he reached close enough to lean forward and whisper toward Jerry’s ear. “Maybe I think about that when I’m alone and my cock is really, really hard.”

A hitched breath drawn inward, Jerry exhaled it in staccato and looked flushed when Danny stepped back to take in the effect of his words. As Danny had expected, Jerry looked ready to crack, even if it would be in public. “I-I-I might do the same thing,” he countered. “You know.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Danny cast a quick glance at the half-filled washing machine, then looked at Jerry. “I take it this means that your kids aren’t helping you work the shop today.”

“No, they’re away until Thursday, visiting Shirley’s in-laws.”

Danny nodded. The quick, deliberate flick of his eyes toward the back room told Jerry all he needed to know and as he nodded, Danny chuckled and turned again to finish loading the machine. Whistling, he had almost resolved to put the strange series of events behind him, grateful for the journey back into what felt familiar. When he picked up his shirt again, however, he paused, feeling something strange near the collar. Danny shifted the fabric in his hands, so he could study the hard, crusted-on patch.

“Must have spilled something,” he said. The moment he did, however, he knew this wasn’t true.

The patch of fabric would have been on the left side of his neck, had he been wearing the shirt again. And as Danny scrutinized it, it looked as though something had indeed dried into the shirt, after spilling down his back and not dribbled along the front. Brow furrowed, Danny sniffed it, then took it to an adjacent sink and ran water over it.

Danny almost dropped the shirt when the water which trickled down ran red.

It thinned into a light pink within seconds, prompting him to shut off the faucet, but as the trickle ran down the drain, it left behind some residue. Danny flicked a thumb across the red which remained before rubbing the now-damp fabric with his fingers. The light staining which resulted brought him back to the cut on his neck and as he looked up, he wished for a mirror, so he could study it again.

“The bathroom,” he said. Throwing the shirt in the washing machine, he didn’t pause to start it before storming in the direction of the back room. Jerry jumped as he entered, standing beside the television with a video cassette still in hand and watching Danny bypass him, in favor of walking into the bathroom. Danny heard him set down the cassette and became aware of the small man’s encroaching presence as Danny turned on the light and examined his reflection.

“What is it, Danny?” Jerry asked.

Danny glanced at Jerry’s reflection before focusing on his own again. Tilting his head, he craned his neck to study the cut and, once again, realized it didn’t look recently-inflicted. “You ever feel like you’re going crazy?” Danny asked.

“I survived the war, Danny. You’re asking the wrong guy.” He flashed a small smile when Danny glanced at him again, then sobered immediately, walking to the side of the younger man. “How’d you get that?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.” Danny relented when Jerry handled him, offering his neck for examination and wishing like hell he could light up a cigarette. He sighed as Jerry leaned closer. “I don’t remember that there at all. Ever. My memories from Saturday night are spotty. I had a weird dream that I think might be a partial memory. And now, I found blood on the shirt I wore on Saturday.”

“Blood?” Jerry asked the question, but let it hang, rhetorical, as he continued examining. Once he pulled away, he scratched at his head. “Maybe someone at the club has some idea what happened. Did you take something while you were there?”

“No, I make it a point to stay away from drugs,” Danny said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. Instead, he took a deep breath and turned to face Jerry. “I’m sorry to tease and run, but…”

“No, I understand.” He flashed his timid smile again and as he glanced back toward the machines, he cocked a thumb in their direction. “Leave me your money and I’ll work on your wash. You can come by tonight or tomorrow to pick it up.”

Danny nodded. Guilt surged to life within him, prompting him to glance toward the couch where they usually sat. Images of the two of them making out – laughing while masturbating to silly porn movies Danny had purchased at one of the local queer shops – flitted through his mind. As if reading his mind, Jerry closed the distance between them, leaning in to kiss his cheek, and gathered Danny in his arms.

“You’ve been the closest thing to a friend I’ve had since Estelle died,” Jerry said. He kissed Danny’s hair as he leaned into the embrace. “I’m not going to take it personally if you don’t stay.”

“Confidentially not in the mood now, to be honest,” Danny confessed with a laugh. He nodded, accepting the kisses and walking out of Jerry’s arms once he relented in holding onto him. “At the same time,” he said, looking Jerry in the eyes, “Once I figure this out…”

Jerry lifted a hand. “You don’t owe me anything. We’re not going steady.”

He did everything but shoo Danny out, and after he had left, Danny lit the coveted cigarette and wondered if Art might have been right; if him residing with one foot in the closet, constantly seeking the next gay thrill he could capture, had led him to this point. Walking away from the laundromat, Danny headed in the direction of his apartment and considered the resolution he’d been avoiding since moving into the city. Find someone to love, he’d thought. Let himself make that person special. Settle down, however that looked when you were nothing but a queer on the cusp of thirty.

“Or maybe I need to figure out what the fuck is going on and sleep for a week,” he muttered to himself on the steps leading up to his apartment building.

Either way, once he’d figured out what happened at Nocturne, something would have to give.