Becoming, Ch. 01

Gaudy pink neon flooded the inside of the car. Cigarette smoke twisted through it like dispossessed spirits trying to find their way home, wore the vulgar lighting like brief flashes of embarrassment as it faded away.

Scott took another pull from his smoke, then sipped from the stale coffee that'd been sitting in his cup-holder for too long. If the smoke was embarrassed and the coffee stale, well, Scott was both of those things himself.

Being parked outside a tacky gay bar squatting in a cul-de-sac in the ass end of Vegas was bad enough, but having to be here for almost three days straight was worse. He'd been treated to the sight of leather-clad musclemen leading smaller men in masks around on leashes, men dressed in entirely too tight clothing, drag queens, people in dog masks... the works.

He didn't have a problem with gays, but he always wondered why they had to let their sexual orientations take over their entire lives. He'd mused on it being some form of membership in a group being taken too far but refused to spend too much time dwelling on it.

Fact is, no matter where else he was? He was also very close to the end of this case. The kid, some nineteen-year-old math, chess, something prodigy, was being held in the bar somewhere. He'd been able to scam some financial and zoning records from the local city hall by hooking up the secretary in the records office with a baggy of coke and a very expensive whiskey. Then he'd hooked up with her.

The memory tugged at the corner of his lips. Been a good night, that.

He pulled the photos out of the glove and glanced at them for what felt like the thousandth time. An older man featured on the first. Looked to be about sixty, big gold earrings in nose and right ear., head shaved smoother than black ice. Bright blue eyes on him, strange for a Black man. He'd be easy to spot, since he was also apparently something like six and a half feet tall and if the rumours were true, still into body-building at his age. Ran the club, always wore Armani. Name of Bobby.

The second guy had long, stringy hair that looked like he washed it in lard every day. Big nose, pointed features, and a sort of rabid intensity that told you he'd probably try to bite you in a fight. Supposed to be some sort of muscle for the big guy, which was weird. He wasn't supposed to be that big. Went by Paul, but they had some sort of nickname for him.

The third photo was the kid he was being paid to find. Small, thin, slim little guy, thick glasses, pimples. Some features proportionate, others strangely large--ears and nose, mostly. Dull brown eyes. Scott had never liked nerds, but hey, if someone paid enough then he didn't mind pulling out of wherever he was.

He put the photos back into the glove and took another drag from his dying smoke before casting a hazel eye out toward the club again. He had to blink several times to adjust to the flashing neon signs which pulsed in an oddly rhythmic way. He was conscious of the time, as anyone on a prolonged stint of waiting tended to be. It was nearing 2330hrs and that meant things were about to get busy.

Indeed, a lineup was starting to build at the entrance as a collection of freaks filtered in from the early fall night. Scott saw some costumes he wasn't sure had any place under an open sky, but he supposed that the cool weather allowed your average weirdo some freedom with what sorts of things they could put on. Shiny, almost garbage-bag-like material on some. Head to toe leather on others. Dog masks, horse masks, things swinging from people's arses, fishnets, too much skin showing, high heels on feet that shouldn't be in heels... his lip twisted in mild disgust.

He was scanning the slowly accumulating group when he saw a figure that had him sit up like a cord had yanked his spine straight from on high. His divine intervention.

A kid was standing at the rim of the crowd, back pressed against a nearby brick wall. (S)he? It? Them? Were smoking a cigarette in a long, elegant holder. The thing was, the kid didn't look like the photo... but at the same time, they did. Scott tried to focus against the lurid lightning that kept trying to drag his attention away and succeeded for a moment. The shape of the face was the same. Ears and nose a little too big, but better now. Problem was, the rest of his body bore no resemblance to the description he'd been given.

That kid was maybe five foot six, thin, pale, freckled, pimpled, bespectacled; your basic television sitcom nerd in high def and the third dimension.

This kid was at least six inches taller, and that's before you counted the massive baby pink ankle boots that looked to have at least an eight-inch heel, one pressed to the pavement and the other knee bent, with the boot resting against the wall behind about knee-height. Body was perfectly smooth, fishnet stockings covering everything from the boots to the high chest. (S)he wore a tight pair of ultra-shiny, spray-on hotpants, a bright glint of metal shining at the navel, and boy did (s)he fill out those hot pants. Despite himself, Scott stared at the hips and butt that looked like they'd been carved out of a wet dream before shaking himself out of it, mild sense of shame and distaste at the back of his throat.

Smooth, flawless skin in an hourglass shape (or as close as a male frame can come to it) stretched up into a spray-on crop top like the hot pants covered by a little leather biker jacket that actual women only wore around this time of night to this type of club. Formerly dull brown hair had been coloured with crimson highlights, with the left side of the head shaved, but a full foot and half of length drifting down the right in an oddly alluring, punk-rock type of vibe.

There wasn't, in other words, a whole lot of resemblance between this person and the one he'd been sent for. However, there was enough. The face was almost identical. It was as though the kid had had a lot of work done in the last few weeks, which was impossible. The kid was on the run. No money, no resources, and no previous inclination for anything like that.

Well, anyway. If he could quickly grab the kid and get... him? home, that was a payday and he could take a couple weeks vacation before starting to look for another client. So, he popped the car door, stubbed out his cigarette, and climbed out of the vehicle. He attracted immediate attention from a few of the freaks. The kid, too, gave him a stare as his worn white running shoes contacted the concrete of the sidewalk.

What an odd reaction. He was the normal one, after all. Shrugging it off, he made his way toward the kid, who pensively inhaled smoke from their cigarette still elegantly shown off by the long, lacquered holder in which it rested.

As he got into hailing range, the kid beat him to it. "What you looking for, buddy?" The voice was... odd. It had a feminine quality but was not a female voice.

Scott blinked. What an odd thing to ask as an initial greeting. He shrugged it off again. "You," he said. "Alexander Levitte? Your dad wants you back home, son."

The kid's eyes scanned him head to toe, from his worn shoes, cheap brown cotton suit, haphazardly done tie, stained white dress shirt to his cheap haircut. The weight in his gut, the folds on his legs, the arthritis in his hands--it was like the kid was scanning every detail. Scott was a bit taken aback. He'd never felt so thoroughly inspected before.

"Sure," the kid said vaguely, "But I'm Alexis, now, and I sorta came here for a drink. I'm getting," the kid emphasized almost syllabically, "my damn drink." The second pink heel came clicking down onto the sidewalk as though for emphasis. Slim leather arms folded, cigarette smoke curling up from behind one shoulder.

Scott considered his options. Obviously a stall, but the kid's dress, stance, everything about... him? told the investigator that the best way to handle this was going to be to play along and wait for an opening. And truth be told, he was a perversely and morbidly curious about what was going on in that club. It wouldn't even be the strangest place he'd found himself in in a couple decades on the job. The pink neon light continued to pulse in the periphery and had now had been joined by a bass-heavy techno-house mix that seemed to emphatically echo the timing of the lights.

"Alright," he said. "One drink."

The kid gave him a smirk. "I'll lead you in. Got a pass. I know some of the bouncers." There was an odd stress on the word "know."

They stepped forward, almost graceful on the stilts they were calling footwear, easily navigating pits and cracks and the uneven terrain. Scott followed behind, mostly glancing around at the collection of weirdos that seemed to be waiting to get into the club... but occasionally finding his gaze drawn to the smoothly shifting, high-shine latex-clad ass leading his way forward. Kid might as well not have been wearing anything at all.

From behind, he could also see what were very obviously some new additions to the kid's skin. Hamstring tattoos in a drippy, angular tribal black stretching from the bottom of their ass cheeks down to the hollow of the knee. His lower back held what seemed to be the bottom part of a snake with a rattle, thin and minimalist in design, but weaving hypnotically back and forth to each side of the kid's back in a wide, flattened and endlessly repeating S-shape as it stretched up to hide behind the leather and latex.

Fact was, he often watched pornography of women dressed almost exactly like how the kid was dressed. The thought was giving him a bit of a hard-on, but Scott was adapting quickly. He always had. If you were going to pop a boner in public, this'd be the place to do it without anyone minding. Might even help him fit in.

Of course, the hard-on was over the memory of porn. This transgender business didn't interest him in the slightest, though he wished them all well, and whatever. Just had nothing to do with him, was all.

Alexis (might as well practice the new name so he didn't accidentally offend and therefore push the kid away) was leading him to a smaller, less well-lit doorway at the side of the building. Someone behind yelled, "Lucky!" as they approached an immense human specimen standing just beside that door. The kid stepped right up to the mountain of human flesh and... kissed him on the cheek.

"Goin' in, Hank," was all the kid said.

"Sure, Lexi. You have fun," the man said in a deep, cheerful baritone. "Chuck's at the chessboard again. Might need a... hand." The man's face curved into a grin.

Alexis threw her head back and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. "Losing again?"

"Ain't heard of him doin' anything else," grunted the big man.

"Well, hopefully his bets are more reasonable this time."

"Yeah, reasonable. That's definitely Chuck's whole thing."

Alexis giggled. "Thanks Hank," and opened the door. Without waiting, the kid went through. Hank looked at me for a moment then seemed to lose interest, grin fading almost instantly. Scott followed through the door with no incident.

The inside of the club was the auditory and visual equivalent of a violent revolution. Bright pink, bright purple splattered the brick walls. Laserlights flashed and spun. A fog machine somewhere obscured parts of the room, clouds of haze moving at random. Shadow and light played like teasing lovers, touching, melding together, then separating again.

The furniture itself was shockingly upscale. The wood of the bar, covering the entirety of one side of the large room, was a lacquered, almost vinyl-like black. Four bartenders worked frenetically behind it, whom could be seen as the floor behind the bar appeared to be elevated by a foot. A massive shelf of every sort of liquor covered the wall above the bar, with a library ladder hooked to the top shelf allowing a fifth employee to slide back and forth, handing down and replacing requested bottles in turn.

About the size of a small warehouse, the side of the room opposite the bar was also slightly elevated with a single, enormous silver ball suspended over what appeared to be a dance floor. Against the far wall, a DJ in cybergoth gear--what appeared to be a seven foot tall, impossibly lithe woman in a tight vinyl dress that left massive breasts kept in check only by a fishnet top completely pushed up and exposed. They swayed and jiggled hypnotically as she bobbed to her own beat, a large crowd around her moving to the music. A spiralling staircase in the very center of the room led up to a series of balconies on a second floor above, though Scott could make out little of what was happening up there.

On the bar side, there were a series of tables on the floor, and along the walls, two curtained enclosures each and two booths with black leather couches.

Lexi's voice penetrated his observations. "C'mon. Hey, what's your name anyway? Kidnappers should be polite, no?"

"Scott. It's not a kidnapping. Your father... thinks... you were..." Scott trailed off. It was fairly obvious that Alexis had not been kidnapped.

As (s)he swayed their way through the crowd, Alexis seemed to consider that. "I suppose I was, in a way."

Scott found it odd he could actually hear the kid quite easily over the music but put that aside. Maybe he was just very focused. Had every goddamn right to be, this close to the goal after the last couple weeks. He wanted to know more but didn't press. Didn't seem time for it.

As he followed the kid through the crowd of freaks, he saw a particularly large group gathered around a table. Alexis turned their head to look, so Scott followed suit. He saw something he would not, in any number of years, have expected to see in a club like this, with people like this. Two probably men sat across from one another. One was large, bulky, sweaty, pale, and upset.

The other was Paul, from the photos. Paul's gaze was focused directly on the eyes of the other man, and he seemed to be drinking in the obvious agitation with what approached ecstasy.

In between the two men was a fucking chess board, pieces caught in mid-dance, an elaborate and elegant call back to warfare that had not existed for millennia. The last memory of a failing art. Amidst the lurid lights, the bass-heavy music yanking and pushing on your testicles, and the sheer amount of leather and piercings in the room should have made it look ridiculous, but it didn't.

The whole thing looked almost too perfect to be real. In front of him, just as they had begun to enter the shoulder-to-shoulder human atmosphere of around the bar, Alexis shook their head. "Paul's almost got him. The next two moves are important. Gotta get there before anything weird happens. What do you drink? You're paying, obviously."

Scott had seconds to consider. There was some money in his wallet, but that wasn't all that important except for accessibility. The paycheque he was going to make delivering Alex to their home was more than enough to cover expenses, and he'd made sure to word things so that he could add some small money to the final invoice in just this case. Standard clause, really. Especially when you liked whiskey as much as Scott did.

"Double Jack, neat."

Kid wrinkled their nose. "Eighteen," they said, holding out a hand. Scott placed a twenty in it, noticing for the first time the inch-long scarlet lacquered fingernails. His hard-on intensified slightly. Something about cheap-looking women. He shook his head fractionally. Damn placed was getting to him.

The kid caught one of the bartenders' eye and mouthed something. The bartender, a small woman who appeared to be wearing feathers and face paint, nodded and rapidly produced two small glasses. Some of the customers seemed annoyed until they turned around and saw Alexis. Their expressions changed quickly, a couple giving me envious looks.

The kid quickly swung me around with a no time to explain look and strode--on those heels, somehow--toward the chess game. Scott's gaze kept sliding down to the kid's ass, the slutty tattoos, the leather... and now there was no hiding it. His cheap brown pants were tenting around a full-on erection.

Scott decided not to think of Alexis as a kid. That was becoming rapidly uncomfortable. But then what could I think of them as?

"Just ask," they said.

"What?"

"I identify as female," Alexis said briskly, as though trying to shortcut a conversation they had been having forever.

"You're not female," Scott said, blankly. Alexis pulled up short and turned slightly to catch Scott's gaze with one eye.

"I am going to bet you that you will have changed your mind by the end of tonight," they said, a smile beginning to leak across their lips. For the first time, Scott noticed that those lips were painted. Bordered in black, with a subtle metallic crimson underneath. Then he noticed the blush, the eyeshadow, thicker eyelashes, plucked brows...

Scott shook his head again, just fractionally, trying to clear the cobwebs. "Bet me what?" he asked, trying to sound bored as a cover while he sipped his whiskey. He'd watched the bartender carefully. No chance for contaminants to have been introduced, and no obvious reason to introduce any.

Alexis raised plucked, shaped eyebrows fractionally herself. "Everything you are."

Scott tried not to grin. There was no chance he was going to think of a boy as a woman. "If I win, what do I get?"

"I'll let you take me home."

There was a long, thoughtful pause, and then Alexis's grin widened like a crack in a pane of glass. "To my father's home, I mean."

Scott released a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding. "Done." Why was I holding my breath?

But they were already moving off, pink platforms clacking against the floor. Scott followed in their wake. As the night deepened, people seemed to be getting more and more uninhibited. The booths, where up to eight people could sit, seemed to have far too many people sitting at them. People were sitting in one another's laps, others were sitting on the floor in front of spread legs...

Scott did his best to ignore the details. He did notice that there was a lot of cocaine, organised into neat lines on several of the lacquered tabletops. Hashish machines. Pot was everywhere. The denizens were trading pills in the open. This was clearly a free-for-all zone in terms of drug abuse.

Could be useful if he ever had to file a police report. He'd gotten himself off the stuff a decade ago, but that temptation was always there. Had to find ways to justify it.

His attention cut back in just as the clacking of Alexis's big pink heels stopped. They glanced over their shoulder at Scott, winked, straightened their legs, and bent over at a ninety degree angle, their leather and latex chest just brushing the top of Paul's left shoulder.

Scott blinked. The most perfect ass in the world covered in what appeared to be shiny black paint. Fishnets. Ink. Legs that went all the way to down to the floor, and what he was now convinced were the single most attractive pair of heels on the planet were literally presenting themselves to him.

He had to shake himself out a daydream involving his hands, that ass, his pants around his ankles...

His cock ached, imprisoned behind his cotton underwear and cheap pants, but were screaming for escape. There was no porn on Earth that rivalled this moment. He drained his whiskey in a single pull and forced his gaze elsewhere. The music kept hammering at him, the lights continued to pulse, and over it all he heard Alexis say, "Oh, Paul. He's been warning you. How many times, sweetie? You can't just do that. The stakes aren't even allowed to be that high here."

"He agreed," came an almost monotone, hollow voice. It was a voice like a rock bouncing down a metal tube. Grating, harshened and almost hoarse.