The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,77
had been so relieved about not being paraded in front of reporters on the way to jail for degenerate disorderly conduct, they’d left Carmine smiling until dawn.
Tonight, if there was an agent among them, he was subtle enough not to be noticed. Carmine wasn’t worried for his own benefit—he’d greased enough palms in high enough places that no vice agent or reporter was letting it slip that he came to places like this. But he still didn’t want them here at all because he hated when bathhouses and such were shut down, and it disgusted him when innocent men were humiliated and punished over it. A few more greased palms kept the vice agents busy investigating tips about prohibition violations and prostitution at restaurants and hotels where none of those things were actually happening. He had nothing to worry about tonight, and neither did anyone else in this building.
Some men came to these places to socialize. Others, like Carmine, came for physical pleasure. As he strolled through the dimly lit room, the murmur of conversations punctuated by moans and skin slapping skin, he gazed from one man to the next and took a deep breath of the steamy air. One whiff of the humid bathhouse always made the rest of the world vanish outside, and tonight was no exception.
Almost no exception.
Because from somewhere in the steam came the amorous sounds of two men, and the voice of one sounded faintly like Danny’s. Even the lyrical—if strained and breathless—Irish brogue came through.
Was… Was it Danny?
Was it possible that he was here tonight? Here in this bathhouse in a passionate embrace with a man Carmine would have sold his soul to replace? What would Danny think if he saw Carmine here? Would he be embarrassed that he’d been spotted here? Think Carmine might try to blackmail him? Think he could blackmail Carmine?
Whatever the case, Carmine couldn’t resist moving a little closer and finding a bench near the amorous pair. From where he sat now, he could see the two men, but he couldn’t really see them. Such was the erotic mystique of the bathhouses—delicious voyeurism of men shrouded in semi-opaque tendrils of steam, which blurred features and turned men into shapes. Moving shapes. Rutting and groping shapes. Shapes without faces or homelands. The man on top was too tall and heavy to be Danny, but the other? The slighter frame, the fairer skin—Carmine’s heart went wild as he surreptitiously watched and listened to them. As he imagined himself in the larger man’s place, imagined that really was Danny breathlessly murmuring over his shoulder, “yes, more.”
Carmine could barely breathe, and it wasn’t from the thick humidity. It was like being in a dream, being outside himself, watching himself with Danny. He’d never been particularly drawn to watch, not like other men here often were, but tonight he couldn’t resist. Not when he was almost witnessing what it would be like to have Danny.
Somewhere, a door opened, and the resulting breeze parted the steam between Carmine and the amorous couple enough to show him unfamiliar features—eyes too dark, chin not quite right—and the spell was broken.
Danny wasn’t here, and suddenly Carmine wasn’t so sure he wanted to be either.
Except yes, he did. He hadn’t been here in too long, and maybe a few minutes or even the whole night in the arms of another man might finally pull his focus away from the beautiful young Irishman who was never far from his mind. If nothing else, it would soothe this ache for touch and release.
He wandered away from the man who wasn’t Danny, and he found another place to sit. Before long, he caught the eye of a dark-haired young man across the room. That face was familiar, and Carmine realized they’d met at this place and others like it before. He was one of the flamboyant performers who sauntered across stages in bawdy burlesque shows and traipsed between tables in women’s clothes and rouge to sing, dance, and pointedly mock delighted audience members. This man in particular was wildly popular—the Acid-Tongued Pansy, the marquees all read—and people flocked to his shows night after night.
Carmine had pleasant memories of thrusting against that perfect round ass, of biting a smooth shoulder as he spent deep inside the moaning, trembling entertainer. For months after that, he’d enjoyed plenty of nights alone in his own bed, carrying himself to toe-curling climaxes while he imagined smeared kohl around wide eyes as the man begged Carmine for more.