Clipped (The Clipped Saga, 1) by Devon McCormack (6 page)

The bartender slid a glass of Jack across the counter and

handed Kinzer a wad of ones. Kinzer curled the cash up and slipped it in his back pocket.

Kid rocked his head to the pop beat. He smiled. “This is

kinda fun.”

He scanned the pack of trim bodies that pranced around the

room in just jeans.

A pretty-faced brunette, his chest pushed forward, his abs

sucked in, approached Kinzer.

“Wanna lapdance?” he asked with a wink.

Kinzer shook his head.

The brunnette frowned. His chest sank in. His abs pushed

out. He moved along.

“So,” Kid began, “how will I know when I see one of these

guys?”

“Don’t sweat it. I got this.”

The song faded out. An awkward silence fil ed the room,

fol owed by the sound of a toilet flushing.

The two roided dancers hopped off the stage.

“Dillon and Aaron on deck.”

The orange stage lighting shut off, and two dark lights

flipped on, il uminating both poles.

CLIPPED 52

At the back of the bar, a door opened. Two glow-in-the-dark

thongs, green and pink, floated out and approached the stage. As the light il uminated the physiques they were affixed to, Kid’s

mouth dropped.

The guy in the pink-thong had a flawless body. Two, thick

veins crept like vines up to a deep rift that jetted from either side of his bel y-button, which was so shal ow it was nearly flush with his flat stomach. Kid wondered if the guy’d ever had a carb in his life.

Two locks of his thick, blond, spiked hair curled inward like

devil horns. As the music started back up, he grabbed the pole and swayed his hips—embedded with a deep V, a seeming invitation to

savor his package, which was so enormous that it was dangling out of the far-too-smal thong. Kid was sure that it had to have been two feet long.

Narrow eyes and crinkled temples made the stripper appear

to be perpetual y wincing, lost in some deep thought, even while he was shaking his ass and wrapping his leg around the pole. Indented around his lips were two sickle-shaped dimples that were so defined that they were visible even as he stood there, expressionless.

His knees jirated. His juicy, round ass jiggled. He was hotter

than the other two dancers Kid had seen on the stage. But even

more than that, there was something different about him. He

appeared to actual y be feeling the rhythm, caring about the beat, enjoying what he was doing.

He closed his eyes, massaged one hand down the pole as his ass

dipped to the floor. He stroked his other hand across his thick pecs,

53 Devon McCormack
which protruded so far from his chest that the dip between them

had to be several inches deep.

“You like what you see?” Kinzer asked.

“Mmm hmmm.”

“Fol ow me.” Kinzer stepped toward the stage. As he

approached the stripper in the green thong, Kid found himself

inching toward the other.

“Kid, take a seat. I think it’l be easier if I talk to him one on one.”

Ok, crazy
, he thought. But he appreciated Kinzer’s

suggestion because it gave him an opportunity to be closer to the other stripper. He made his way to a table between the two poles, so that he could keep an eye on his favorite dancer and favorite hero.

Kinzer approached the green-thonged stripper, who was shaking his cheeks in the face of a bone-thin corpse-of-a-man. The man eagerly stuffed a dol ar bill in a glow-in-the-dark strap around the stripper’s thigh.

He was much shorter than the other stripper, and his

muscles were less bulky, less defined. But it was stil a hel of a body.

His dark-brown hair fel just above his shoulders, fanning out at the bottom. His plush face was speckled with tiny hairs, indicating a fresh beard. And where the other stripper seemed confident in his place on the stage, he seemed awkward, out of his element.

He finished entertaining the older man and returned to his

pole. He grabbed it, tossed his legs up, and gripped on with his calves. He threw his body back, arching his torso so that his abs

CLIPPED 54

pushed forward, tense, rigid.

~

Not gonna make any fucking money tonight
, Dedrus thought as he arched his back as much as he could.

He’d just finished entertaining one of his regulars, a nasty

old man who was very generous with ones, but never paid out

enough to make it worth his while.

He couldn’t complain, though. While he’d been working the

regular, he’d seen a young guy out of his peripheral. Maybe
he
had some cash to spare. He’d made his way over to the pole and done his money-maker move.

He tossed his head back and threw the guy a seductive glare.

“What the—”

His calves lost their grip. He plummeted to the floor.

“Shit!”

The stripper at the other pole, Treycore, threw him a

concerned look.

Dedrus couldn’t believe it. Kinzer? That could only mean

one thing. Bad news.

“Dedrus, you okay?” Kinzer asked.

Dedrus shook out of his confusion.

Don’t be obvious
, he thought. He pushed his ass in the air and crawled toward Kinzer. As he reached the edge of the stage, he groped his hands along his fuck-me lines, raising his torso til he was

55 Devon McCormack
face to face with Kinzer. He didn’t say anything. Just stared at him.

“That looked like a pretty serious fal ,” Kinzer said.

“Had worse.” He flicked his nipple with his thumb, doing

his best to be inconspicuous, although he could only imagine what Treycore was thinking.

Kinzer tucked a dol ar in his thigh strap.

“You know why I’m here.”

Dedrus looked around uneasily and lifted his knees til he

was crouching. He twisted his ass toward Kinzer, continuing to

grope and shake to the beat.

“Hey,” the regular cal ed from the other side of the stage.

“Come back here, Aaron!”

Now is not the fucking time
, Dedrus thought.

Kinzer’s eyes drifted for a moment. As they returned, he slid

another dol ar into Dedrus’s strap. “Janka’s dead.”

Dedrus froze, stopping mid-stroke.

“Someone has names.”

Dedrus nodded. “I don’t want to be the one to tel

Treycore.”

Kinzer threw Treycore a look. Dedrus checked to see how he

was reacting.

Treycore stared Kinzer down, but he continued dancing, just

like Dedrus, wrapping a leg around the pole and whirling around.

~

CLIPPED 56

Kid had been eavesdropping on Kinzer’s conversation with the

stripper he was cal ing Dedrus. Who was Janka? And what kind of

names were Dedrus and Treycore?

He didn’t question it too much, because he was still trying

to keep his peripherals on Treycore.

Treycore faced his ass toward Kid. He bent backward till he

was facing him, his skin tight against his abs, stretching out his shal ow bel y-button.

“Hey, you!” Treycore cal ed.

Kid looked around to see who the stripper was talking to.

Surely, not him.

“You. Come here.”

Kid stood up and approached the stage.

“You got any money?” Treycore asked.

Kid shook his head.

“Then scram! I don’t do this shit for free.”

He nodded and snuck over to Kinzer.

By now, Dedrus had pul ed down his thong and was

twirling his foot-long dick in Kinzer’s face.

“Dedrus,” Kinzer said, slipping another bill in the strap.

“You’re the only one I can trust right now.”

“Hey! You!”

A tal man with fat, hanging cheeks, but a fit form, came up

beside Kinzer.

Dedrus slid his thong over his dick.

“You gonna just keep putting out ones, or you wanna get a

57 Devon McCormack
deal for the VIP?”

Dedrus mouthed, “VIP.”

“How much is it?”

“For Aaron here? Two hundred for thirty minutes.”

“For thirty minutes?!” Kinzer exclaimed. “That’s not a

fucking deal!”

The man glanced Kinzer over. “You gonna be stingy, or you

want a good show? You’ve seen this ones dick. Pretty impressive.

Now sit on the pot or get off the can.”

Kinzer threw Dedrus a shocked glare. “You worth it?”

“Am I ever.”

Kinzer slipped the wal et out of his back pocket and sifted

through the bil fold. “What can I get for twenty?”

“I’l show you where the cigarette machine is,” Dedrus’s

pimping boss said.

“Whatever.” Kinzer slipped the wal et back in his pocket.

“Tel you what. Fifty for fifteen minutes.”

“What if I want the other one, too?”

Dedrus and Treycore’s boss thought for a minute. He threw

Treycore a glare. “You know,” he said. “That ones our little show stud. I’l throw him in for another seventy five.”

“I’l take them both for a hundred or walk.” He motioned to

Kid. “And my friend comes, too.”

The man held out his hand.

After the song was over, Dedrus and Treycore’s boss led

them al back to a closet-of-a-room in the back. The room was

CLIPPED 58

il uminated by a dim, blue-bulbed lamp. It had a thin sheet for a door. A couch with foam pushing out of its edges was tucked by the wal . Event posters covered with pictures of wel -endowed go-go

dancers were carelessly taped al around.

As the boss was leaving, he pul ed Treycore back out

through the side of the sheet. “Remember, no bjs,” he snapped. “I don’t run that kinda place.”

“Fuck off,” Treycore said, slipping back inside.

Kid made himself comfortable on the couch.

Dedrus peered out the side of the sheet.

Treycore stared at Kinzer, his narrow eyes disapproving,

stern.

“This ain’t—” Treycore began.

Dedrus tapped him on the shoulder.

“Quiet...wait...and...okay. Go ahead.”

“This ain’t fucking happening!”

“Quieter,” Dedrus insisted.

“Fal en,” Treycore hissed, “you better have a fucking good

reason for being here. And what the fuck are you doing with this mortal. He smel s like shit!”

Kid was glad that the light was dim, so no one could see

him blush.

“Janka’s dead. Someone ratted us out. That means they have

names.”

“And you came to us?” Treycore asked, his expression tense.

“Why the fuck do you think you’re stil alive? They probably have a

59 Devon McCormack
Tracker keeping an eye on you. For al we know, they didn’t even know about us. Fuck!”

“I didn’t have anyone else to go to. Janka’s my only contact

here. They clipped me, so I can’t cross realms anymore. Dedrus is the only one I knew I could find...or trust.”

“Couldn’t have cal ed?” Treycore asked.

“Total y,” Kinzer said facetiously. “Let me just run and grab

my cel from Hel ! Treycore, I don’t give a shit how pissed you are that I’m here. I just need you guys to warn the others. We al need to get our asses into hiding.”

“Treycore,” Dedrus said, nudging him. They exchanged a

knowing glare.

“I know what you’re thinking, Dedrus. You want to bring

this shit in, and I’m tel ing you that’s a real y shitty idea. You don’t think it’s a little odd that The Raze would just let him go? Why just kill Janka? It doesn’t make any sense unless they’re using him to get to the rest of us. The Raze thinks that if the wounded, clipped

Kinzer comes running for help, dumbasses like you wil take him in and then they’l hunt the rest of us down.” He shook his head,

tossing Kinzer a foul glare. “As far we know, you’re the rat, and you are responsible for Janka’s death.”

Who the fuck is Janka?
Kid wondered.
And are these guys
actual y drinking the angel/demon Kool-Aid?

Kinzer rushed at Treycore, getting in his face.

Treycore stood firm. They stared each other down. “Be

careful,” Kinzer said.

CLIPPED 60

Treycore’s biceps tensed, a thick vein curling as he bal ed his

hands into fists.

“This is not the time,” Dedrus said, pushing between them.

“Treycore, do you real y think Kinzer would’ve ratted out Janka?”

“I
think
,” Treycore said, “you need to stop making decisions with your dick.”

Dedrus’s glanced at Kinzer meekly and looked back to

Treycore.

“Please,” Dedrus said.

Treycore folded his arms. His bulbous pec muscles pushed

forward.An erection stirred in Kid’s pants. Seeing Treycore and

Dedrus’s pulsating muscles as they argued in their skimpy thongs was wildly erotic.

“We can’t risk this,” Treycore said. “Not right now.”

“What do you mean?” Kinzer asked. “What is it?”

“He could help,” Dedrus said. “And you know we’l need

any help we can get.”

“What are you talking about?” Kinzer asked.

Kid was asking the same question, but about so many more

things. “If this blows up in our face,” Treycore said to Dedrus, ignoring Kinzer, “it’s on your head.”