Regardless of my frequently low opinion of the place, I never tire of Babylon. Then again, so many memories, good and bad, have been made here--most of them with Brian. I've come here without him, left without him, left him in this place...but it's never right, never comfortable or fun, when he's not with me. Absent Brian, my time at Babylon is a desperate quest for mindlessness and escape--from what drove me to Babylon as well as the place itself. I thrust myself into a crowd of skin in the vain hope that for a few minutes, my mind will dance along with my body and I won't have to think. It doesn't work very often, much to my chagrin.

With Brian, Babylon becomes a vaguely seedy playground--not unlike the ones you see on made-for-TV movies where drug dealers skulk behind trees and used hypodermic needles poke out of the sand. The toys are fun, the people colorful, but don't turn your back and for god's sake, don't pick anything up. Brian and I slide, swing, twist and spin our way through the amusements, ignoring the go-go boys and most of the flesh shows in favor of doing a little performing of our own. We have paid memberships, but they really should be paying us for our presence. After all, we keep the attendance high and the bar popular. And that's not even getting into what we bring to the backroom.

We're royalty here, Sad King Brian and the Twink Who Would Be King. When we arrive, the crowd parts like one of us is Moses. I'm guessing that's Brian, which makes me the burning bush. After all, I am more of a flamer than he is...most of the time, anyway. And he is an old man, compared to me.

I'd like to continue ruminating on the State of Babylon, but as the royal couple we have duties to fulfill. The DJ's putting on something he thinks we'll like, and in truth it's not a bad choice for this place. After throwing back whatever Brian ordered for me--Jim Beam again, the man is nothing if not consistent--I'm off to the dance floor. Brian's right behind me, close enough for the hair on the back of my neck to prickle but not quite touching. It's the position I prefer--him towering over me, staking his claim. When he's like this, me and everyone else, including him, knows that he's here with me tonight. The tricks will just have to get their jollies vicariously, wishing they were me. They aren't me, they could never be me and they know it. I'm sure it makes their dicks shrivel.

I'm dancing before we make it to our spot in the center of the dance floor, my hips twitching in concert with a thumping bassline. Brian's arms wrap around my waist, the fingers of his left hand hooking in my waistband while his right hand balances on my cock. The pressure and seeping warmth make me hard, like they always do, giving him something more substantial as a handhold. We're molded together, ass to groin and back to back and he's shifting the hand on my cock in time to the music. My dick is throbbing like the bass is pumping out of it and I can't breathe from the heat wrapping around us.

That flashfire heat works perfectly to annihilate everyone around us. Faces disappear in a haze of strobing lights, their anonymous bodies nothing more than interruptions in the flow of music. Right now, this Babylon is that Babylon; skin and bone and sex and blood churning together in a mélange of discordant voices, nightmarishly garish faces and confusing noise. We've come together to share water, but instead we find ourselves wading in sweat. We came to dance, but we're not floating across a ballroom; no, we're rutting ourselves through an abattoir. It's not that there's no grace to what we're doing, because there is, but it's the cracked, leaden grace of grenades and not the feathery, translucent beauty of fencing. There is no honor in this dancing, but there is power to spare. Force, might, and a high body count.

Brian's out-and-out jerking me off now, abrading my dick with each harsh stroke as we deftly twist our way around the garbled words someone's singing. The material of my jeans feels like gravel and it almost hurts, but I keep thrusting into his hand, my shoulders hitting his chest and my ass cradling his cock. I've got my arms pinning his, just in case he thinks he should stop. He can't stop until the music does; I'm sure my body would come apart at the seams if he did.

Our bodies are plastered together by sweat and sound, nearly as close as they were this morning when we were lost inside each other and couldn't find our way out. I can't hear the music anymore, not that I need to with the sound-feel-taste of blood rushing out of my heart straight into my cock and Brian's body's staccato backbeat thumping along my spine. Yeah, this is why we come here, why we endure sticky floors and expensive booze and the clammy stares of desperate, lonely men. We come here because we can, and because we can do this, to ourselves and to them. When I come back down from wherever Brian's sent me, I'll collect up the mountains of deliriously sharp gazes like so many roses thrown at our feet and know that we've done our duty. We've shown the seething masses that, in fact, there is a god. That I also prove to them that their god is taken, well...that's something I do for me.

But now the lights are changing and Brian is stroking less and pressing more. When I blink, our admiring audience's faces return to their natural resting places and music once again pounds against my ears. I can't quite catch my breath, though, because my body is still making its own music, perfectly in time with Brian. I need either a drink or Brian's cock, whichever one presents itself to me first. Something, anything to still what's thrashing about inside me. I know where my preference lays, but tonight I'm willing to abide by whatever Brian chooses. So long as he chooses quickly, because tonight's floorshow does not include me melting to the dance floor in an orgasmic seizure. I'm saving that for the backroom.

Judging by the way he's clawing at me, I'd say we're thinking the same thing. Again.