THE STARE

CHAPTER SIX : THE STARE

Leon stood outside the club for exactly four minutes.

He knew because he counted every second, one hand crushing his laptop against his chest, the other pressed flat to the cold brick wall. Holding himself up… Just breathing… Just trying to make his damn legs work.

“Homosexuality is a sin.” The old man’s voice sliced through his skull again. “Desire is a bottomless abyss, Leon. You understand me? Bottomless.”

He understood. He’d spent his whole life understanding.

And still he pushed the door open.

The music hit him like a fist — bass so heavy it lived in his sternum before it reached his ears. His eyes adjusted fast and immediately spotted two men just inside the entrance. Kissing like nobody existed but each other.

Leon stopped walking.

He forced his gaze away, but it only landed on the stage. 

A boy… no older than him… danced under the spinning lights, makeup flashing every color in the room. Hips rolling like he was born for it. The crowd groped and cheered; he laughed and let them, red marks blooming across his skin like badges.

The raw freedom of it hit Leon like a drug. Terrifying and intoxicating. 

His own novel… sixty thousand words of what he’d once called bold… felt suddenly pathetic.  

“Hey, boy.”

Leon turned before he could stop himself.

The man at the bar leaned there like the world had never told him no. His eyes dragged down Leon’s body… collar, chest, waist… and stopped lower. 

Leon’s jaw locked.

He wasn’t wearing underwear. Specific instruction from that hateful, anonymous bastard, and he’d had no choice but to comply. Now every shift of air through his trousers felt like a fresh humiliation.

“Looking for a good time?” The man actually whistled.

Leon turned and walked away without a word.

He pressed deeper into the crowd. The fever had been climbing since morning… joints aching, throat raw, the edges of the room starting to shimmer. He kept his grip on the laptop and kept moving.

His phone buzzed.

He looked down: Second floor. Room 201.

He lifted his head toward the second floor balcony, scanning the railing. For a split second, he thought he caught a glimpse—blond hair catching the neon glow, and a flashy varsity jacket. 

Damian?

It couldn’t be Damian. 

The idea that he could be behind this cruelty felt like a knife twisting in his gut. 

“Damian?” he shouted, but the music swallowed it whole.

The figure pushed off the railing and slipped back into the corridor, gone in a blink.

Leon was already moving, pushing toward the stairs.

The climb punished him. Each step dragged. The fever had sunk into his lungs now, turning every breath into heavy work. He gripped the handrail tight, knuckles white, and kept going.

The corridor was empty.

Leon stood there breathing, hand still on the door, scanning both directions.

Nothing.

He balled his free hand into a fist.

It can’t be him. The thought tasted like desperation. Damian’s kind. He’s never—

But the same kind person had ordered him here without underwear. Had known exactly where he stood in that crowd. Had vanished the second Leon looked up.

His head swam. He couldn’t tell anymore if it was the fever or the panic.

Room 201 waited at the far end.

He walked toward it, steps unsteady on the thick carpet, neon from below pulsing pink and blue through the floor.

He turned the corner.

Damian’s back filled the doorway of Room 201.

Leon stopped dead.

The fever chose that exact moment to spike… hard, white-hot, right behind his eyes. He put one hand against the wall. His vision tilted.

He wanted to call out. Wanted an explanation, a denial, something… because if it was Damian, if it had been Damian this entire time, then everything Leon had believed about the last six months was wrong. All of it. And he didn’t have the strength to rebuild it right now. He didn’t have anything left.

The dizziness didn’t build.

It just arrived… total and immediate, the floor gone from under him without warning.

As the darkness rushed up to claim him, one last mortifying thought cut through the fever and fear:

If Damian wants to fuck me… I’d let him.

Then everything went black.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

***

Leon woke to the sound of his own ragged breathing.

“Ah… ow,” he croaked. His voice sounded strange, rough and broken, like it belonged to someone else. He blinked slowly, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar room. Soft lamp light. Heavy curtains. The faint smell of sweat and cologne still hanging in the air. His head felt full of static.

He sat up too fast and immediately regretted it. The room tilted. He pressed his palm flat against the mattress and waited for the spinning to stop, breathing through his nose until the nausea passed. 

Then the pain crept in, slow and unrelenting. Every part of him ached. Especially between his legs. And around his waist. A heavy, throbbing soreness that wouldn’t let him ignore it.

 He pushed the sheets down with shaking hands.

He was completely naked.

The cool air hit his skin and he froze. No clothes. No underwear. Nothing. Just the dull ache reminding him what had happened while he was out cold.

“I was… I was raped.”

The words slipped out in a whisper. They felt wrong in his mouth, too ugly, too real. His stomach twisted hard. For a second he thought he might be throw up. He sat there, breathing fast, trying to hold himself together.

Slowly, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. The movement sent another sharp sting through his body. He stood up on unsteady feet and walked to the mirror on the wall.

The reflection staring back made his breath catch.

His chest and collarbone were covered in dark hickeys. Messy, overlapping marks like someone had been greedy. Finger-shaped bruises gripped his hips waist, and inner thighs… angry red and purple.

Leon reached out and touched one of the bruises on his chest. The skin was tender. A small jolt ran through him. He pulled his hand back quickly.

Damian.

That was the last face he remembered seeing before everything went black. Could it really have been him? Kind, smiling Damian who always spoke so gently?

The thought made his knees weak. Part of him wanted to scream. Another part felt a strange, guilty heat at the idea… the kind of heat that made his cock twitch slightly against his thigh.

“Stop it,” he told himself. “You’re disgusting.”

His phone chimed on the nightstand.

Leon jumped at the sound. Pain flared again and he hissed through his teeth. He grabbed the phone staring at the short and cruel message: You got the wrong guy, babe. Consider that a little punishment.

The phone slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor.

Leon stood frozen, staring at nothing.

It wasn’t Damian. Yh yh