Ozzy (Such a Colorful Feeling Book 1), page 1
OZZY
Such a Colorful Feeling
Book One
Such a Colorful Feeling Book One: Ozzy
Copyright © 2019 by Rowan Massey
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact : RowanMassey.com
ASIN: B07W6625J3
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Chapter One
I stood on the street in front of Barkley’s club, Red House, massaging the tension from my forehead and watching the mess of depravity in the small courtyard. Dancers kicked up mud, sex was provided to customers against the red walls of the alley, and dealers hawked their drugs in loud voices. The only reason the dealers would be outside was because there was a lack of space for their services indoors. Lively shadows of crowded scenes could be seen through the frosted downstairs windows. I could feel the shitty, loud music in my teeth.
Once a month or so, the news would be sent out all over the town of Emporium by word of mouth, just in time to create an influx of tourists before the doors of the club were unlocked. Trash day at Red House! Everybody welcome at our notorious little town’s most exclusive club! “Trash” as in, any old trashy person could afford to get in because there was a steep discount.
It meant a more difficult day for me, but it didn’t matter. Maybe my favorite shit was on sale. That would mean some kind of break for me along with everyone else.
My eyes went to the shiny, black front doors of the club where two bouncers were on duty. I didn’t want to go in, but I worked there every night as what Barkley liked to call a “handy man”, or “party favor”, or “cum spittoon”. He thought he was funny. But if he made a joke, you laughed.
I’d skipped out two nights in the past seven days. He’d called me to go to his fancy loft in the historic district where he’d simply said, “Sit, Ozzy. Hold still.” I’d sat in a leather armchair and held still like a good boy, watching his tall and muscular form mosey slowly across the room. He took a small vice like you’d see in a wood shop down from a bookshelf. Who knows why I distinctly remember his dark hair being especially slick that day, as if he’d put too much hair goo in it by accident. I was frozen even while he leaned down and took my ankle in his thick-fingered hand, lifting my leg until it rested on his hard stomach. I got confused and worried while he ripped my shoe and sock off. Was he going to punish me with a rough fuck? Would he stick my dick in that vice and put me out of business permanently? It wouldn’t be like him. He never fucked his guys, only his girls. And I’d never heard of him doing much worse than the few whacks with a phone book I’d once gotten.
People everywhere valued their jobs, no matter what that job was. He didn’t need to beat us to keep us. Having even a job as a mid-level prostitute put me in only forty percent of the population with any kind of income.
He put the vice to my toes, situated it around my pinky toe, and twisted the screw.
My eyes refocused on my wild, trash day surroundings when I was grazed by a stumbling group of women. The scent of multiple cheap perfumes wafted past me. Time was running out for me to avoid showing up late. I ran my hands over my pockets to recheck the supplies I kept there. Ready to go, but I’d known that. It was just a way to steal one more precious second outside of Red House.
I wore black pants and shoes with a red shirt every single night. We had to wear the colors no matter where we were in Emporium. The bad part was that, while I was at Red House, I was forbidden from wearing clothes made for men. I was forced to wear skimpy and gaudy items. Trying to avoid looking completely feminine, I ended up wearing lots of vesty tops and plain pants. If I had known how soul sucking that aspect of the work would become for me, I would have starved instead, but Barkley dictated what I wore, not me. Not even when I was on the college campus. Everything was tight to show off whatever assets you could say I had, which I didn’t think was much, but customers seemed to disagree.
My hair was freshly cut by my best friend, Ruby, who was tasked with making sure I always looked as good as possible. I had to make sure she was fixed up too. If we didn’t take care of each other’s appearance, we both got a nasty pay cut. Earlier that year, I’d had an emotional breakdown and refused to wear women’s clothes or put on the makeup for a few days. It had taken us a while to repair our friendship after the repercussions of that episode. Now I really owed Ruby and did my best to take care of her.
Nothing about my appearance or surroundings said anything about me though. I was different from the thugs and working girls around me. Nothing could shake me from that belief. I would be very far away in a matter of months, living a decent and lucky life with a steady job, hard won and well deserved. But living the low life for years on end had me feeling like I could barely keep myself from crumpling to the ground and staying there. My pain was becoming incredibly heavy.
I was almost done with college, and Barkley had told me he’d let me leave Emporium and live my life as long as I met certain conditions first; mainly, finding my replacement.
The radiating pain of my broken pinky toe was close to unbearable, but even that was somehow kept at a mental distance. I tried to turn my limp into a swagger. Despite the jarring reality trying to puncture the barriers of my mind, I was in a detached bubble. My body wasn’t mine and the world wasn’t for me. Detachment both made me feel worse and kept me from ending it. Was I completely numb or completely aflame? Sometimes I couldn’t tell.
I steeled myself, forced my shoulders back from a hunched position, and went up the short driveway, through the rowdiness, towards the front door. A dealer I’d seen, but never talked to, whirled around in front of me and threw his hand up in the air.
“Hey!” He shouted in my face. To be fair, there was no elbow room for anyone on the property. “Heeey-Oh! Got ashes for two! As for two!” He waved a little baggie of the goods in the air.
Shit. That was my drug. Thank fuck for trash day. When I could afford it, any A-type drug made for a better ending to my night. Most days had me taking Fs—or “flowers”—with customers. It made dicks harder for longer, and I could put up with a lot more when I was all hyped up on that shit. But then I had to come down and get some fucking rest, which was why I needed A in my life. I wasn’t about to make an effort for trash day, so I just wanted the ashes.
I got the cash out of my pocket for him, and he gave me a gray tablet. The stamp was a familiar lowercase A, but I didn’t remember seeing any oblong ones before.
“Latest?” I asked.
“Nah, this is like, A182? 184? The latest is past 200 now. That’s why it’s cheap, buddy.”
I gave him another two bucks so I’d have two pills. Fuck it if it was a questionable batch—the next night could be more bearable too. I walked past the bouncer in the doorway, and as I pushed my way into the crowd, I made a snap decision and popped one of the pills into my mouth, chewing it. It had a bitterness that was like a slap—like drinking strong black coffee first thing in the morning. I’d developed a real taste for that bitterness.
I tucked the other pill into a loose plastic baggie among my supplies. The drug would take a while to kick in, then make me drowsy, but anything anyone decided to do with me while I was rolling would be fine by me.
I made my way through the thick crowd. I’d go to the balcony of the old lecture hall, but slowly. The fact I’d showed up on time could be verified by the guy at the door. I didn’t have to worry about a few wasted minutes.
Although Red House was marketed as some sort of special place that the locals would rather keep secret, I usually only saw tourists there. Only tourists had money to pay that kind of cover charge, and still shell out big bucks for the latest versions of the drugs, and buy time with a prostitute.
The building had originally been an art school lecture hall with a small theater and a lot of small classrooms. It was run down like everything else. Things had been fixed up enough that the roof wasn’t in danger of falling on people’s heads. I knew big metal braces had been installed all over the place to keep the ceilings up. They were concealed by heavy red curtains. Every black-painted plank of wood secretly bowed under the weight of humanity.
The ground floor had been gutted to leave room for dance floors and small bars, which mostly sold drugs, not alcohol. The bar had a lot of glass bottles of pills on display to look fancy. Some of them just had old acetaminophen in them. I’d dipped into that a handful of times. Black or brass-colored paint embellished some of the decorative wood and plaster, trying to create a classy vibe.
Customers were allowed to party in some of the more wrecked rooms on trash days. Low lighting kept them from seeing the real state of the nooks and crannies, which provided a sample of every kind of filth civilization could offer.
I wove my way upstairs, hoping some tricks would be ready so I wouldn’t have to mill around trying to flir t. Every night, I got fucked in little rooms created solely by red velvet curtains with gold tassels. Sometimes, if business was slow, a manager would have me out back putting on a sordid kind of pretend-private show against the wall or fence. Usually, that scene could be avoided.
Barkley wasn’t the worst when it came to pimps, if you could even call him that, since he was the mayor. We didn’t usually deal with him at all; we talked to his bouncers, thugs, and managers. He was more of an eccentric political figure who had somehow turned our town into an oasis away from a lot of the things that afflicted the rest of the world. He protected our borders, marketed our attractions, and managed the small city. At the same time, he enjoyed getting his hands dirty with the smaller details like our clothes. Nobody else did things the way Barkley did. It made him a mystery—unpredictable—and maybe that was part of why people allowed our tiny corner of the country to stay out of the wars and power struggles that everyone else had to suffer through.
Among the curtains, I heard the slap slap of people fucking, the choking of a girl giving a blow job, the usual. Two bouncers wearing black shirts and red arm bands were pacing, peeking in whenever they wanted under the guise of checking up on the girls. One of them saw me and shook his head. There were no tricks looking for male company. I turned and went back downstairs, trying to work the loose confidence into my bones that had been working for me ever since I’d given up trying to fake friendly flirtiness. I had been making dark and slinky work for me for a few years.
The red arm bands were the signature of Dread Red, the local gang, home grown and extremely resistant to outsider involvements. Ten Block, our biggest current rival, had taken over half the continent, but somehow, Barkley had worked his magic and kept them out for the most part. It meant our town was full of exclusive and heavily defended resources. Our drugs didn’t come from a bigger city or a giant, remote lab—it came straight from five streets over, down on the river, or over the burbs. Not to mention, Barkley had somehow attracted some of the best chemists in the world, and some of the most extreme drug subcultures called the place home.
I walked to the keg behind the bar to steal a beer. I sat on a wobbly stool, trying to look like I was just leaning against it for only a second, not settling in. I finished half of it, washing the pill residue out of my teeth. Not stupid enough to linger—the bouncers and managers kept us working—I left the safety of the bar and squeezed into the warm crowd, keeping an eye out for anybody who might be leering in my direction. I was trying to relax, but I was cringing against the hot and acutely physical feeling of strangers on my skin.
A heavy hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed. I knew from the smell that it was Barkley—BO covered up with bad cologne. His thick fingers massaged up to my throat.
“Hawaiian shirt,” he said in my ear and pointed a finger across the room. I spotted the man in question and nodded, moving to get over there, but Barkley didn’t let go. “You should have been here an hour ago.”
“Sorry.” He was wrong. He’d never told me to show up earlier than usual, but there was no point in making my excuses because he wouldn’t give a shit. I hung my head and stood there, waiting. He wouldn’t do anything in front of people. He might punish me somehow later. Maybe nothing would happen at all. He was unpredictable. I’m sure he knew how much scarier that made him.
“So go. Get fuckin’.” He gave me a little shove, and I moved through the crowd with my hand over my beer. When I got to the guy, I downed the drink and crumpled the cup before dropping it on the floor. I took the twenties the man was waving in my face and led him upstairs. The only space without the curtain drawn was small with only a scratchy yellow armchair in it instead of a cot or bed. It was covered in a thin sheet for sanitary purposes. There wasn’t a real curtain acting as a doorway like the other rooms, just red hanging beads.
I never had any chance at privacy. Not in Red House, not on the streets, not at school, and not where I lived. It was always safest to assume I was being watched. Someone was always pacing the hall upstairs by the curtained areas, and that kept me safe, but I was watched by Barkley’s men everywhere I went, or by the other working girls and guys, most of whom didn’t like me, considered me stuck up, and had no problem ratting on me. In some ways, the place was run like a communist country. There were no secrets left to me, and my life felt like a raw, open wound for everyone to gawk at.
My john was a thirty-something, average guy with a little gut and a lot of body hair. His name was Manuel. I knew him and liked him, so I didn’t feel quite as much dread right before. And yeah, it still gave me dread after years of doing it. Life and dread felt like the same thing.
I took out a condom, and he undid his pants, letting them fall to the floor. It was all so routine, we didn’t discuss what he wanted to do. I faced him and took my pants down. I was thinking about how long it might take for the A to kick in. Almost every new version was faster, stronger, cheaper. I didn’t know how far back the gray pills were from, so I couldn’t guess what the timing would be.
He spanked my thigh hard, bringing me back into the moment, and then rubbed the spot. We had a small audience, which was how it always was in that particular room. They were allowed to look. The audience got us more tricks.
He didn’t take long, and when he finished, got dressed, smiled, and walked away, I looked around at the spectators. It was just a small group of people who definitely didn’t have any money, unfortunately, and they were already wandering away. I needed to make two hundred and give it to a certain bouncer before I could go home. I used a wet wipe on my ass and got my pants up.
I ended up back downstairs, wading around the edges of the crowd. Some guy stopped me by slinking an arm around my chest and handed me a wad of cash. I sorted it out, counting it. When he saw I was satisfied with it, he grabbed my hand and led me through the building to one of the larger rooms away from the crowd that wasn’t usually open except for on trash day. It was always used by people who had treated themselves to trash day but wanted a much more chill scene where they could lounge on old sofas and mattresses. There were a lot of drugs that could make that a more attractive option than anything wilder the house had to offer.
He took me through the low-ceilinged space to where two naked couples were going at it with bloodshot eyes and languid movements on a mattress. The vibe was so different from upstairs that nobody was looking at them. He went to the empty walk-in closet.
I went to the closet with the man and shut the flimsy door, which had a lot of broken slats, and got out a condom. But he told me he wanted to suck my dick, not the other way around, and without a condom. He seemed embarrassed about not wanting to be the receiver. That was why he wanted the privacy. I told him to give me a few extra dollars to lose the condom even though I didn’t care about it much. I had a guess he would give it to me, and he did.
After he left, I decided the closet was a nice place for a break. I went to the back corner and rested my back against the wall. I secretly had a thing for cheesy love songs. Fingers in my ears to block the awful blaring music, I sang Cyndi Lauper to myself in almost a whisper.
“If you're lost, you can look and you will find me…Time after time. If you fall, I will catch you. I'll be waiting…Time after time…”
I’d barely taken ten seconds to myself when a body crashed through the folding door of the closet. The guy barely managed to open it instead of breaking it down. Make that three guys, one unconscious and thumping to the floor in front of me. His hand weakly grabbed at my booted ankle before falling limp to the concrete floor.
“He’ll be fine,” the other guys were saying, but they didn’t seem like they cared if he was. They were laughing.
“Sweet dreams, asshole,” one of them said.
And they were gone, except the guy on the floor, who must have been around seventeen, if that. He was pale to the point of looking too much like a corpse for comfort. I wondered if that meant he was dying. The thought gave me a chill, and I wanted to run right out of there and pretend I never saw.
