Rising to his feet, Vic clicked off the three-waylamp. Darkness enveloped the room, as if a candle had been snuffedout. Vic skirted the coffee table and lowered himself to the couchagain, eyes slipping shut. Much better. He could alreadyfeel his mind expanding into the night. Taking a deep breath, heclenched his hands into fists, then held his breath as he relaxedeach muscle individually: his fingers, his arms, his shoulders, hisneck. When he exhaled, a slow, measured breath, he felt the tensionthat had been wound so tightly in him disperse. He took anotherbreath, held it, felt his mind open even farther to the worldaround him. Another breath; his whole body loosened as his thoughtsextended out.
The city lay beneath his mind’s eye like a map, thestreets clearly defined right where he sat in the center ofeverything and unraveling into nothing where his mind couldn’treach. Each human soul was a spark in the darkness, a smallflickering light like a beacon guiding him on. Vic relaxed, and thepsychic web he had spun out over the city began to descend. As ittouched the lights, thoughts whispered by him, snatches ofconversations, secrets and longings and half-remembered dreams.Like distant signals on a radio dial, they came and went, filteredthrough his mind as he searched for someone somewhere who mightknow something about his lover. Several times he’d hear the name,Matt or Matthew, and once a sharp reprimand,Matty, no! Each time he chased it down, followed the thoughtas it meandered along in the thinker’s head, where he searchedthrough memories to see who that particular one referred to, but itwas always someone else with the same name, not hisMatt.
Vic moved on, glancing over unsuspecting minds in hissearch for his lover. Like the faintest breeze, he stirred throughthe city, Matt’s name a sigh he left in passing. Quite a few peoplefound themselves suddenly thinking the name—a poet scribbling notesin his journal in a café downtown wrote Matthew instead ofhis girlfriend’s name and had to scratch it out; a young womanhaving sex cried out his name when she climaxed, upsetting both herhusband and herself. A new puppy was christened Matty; so was anewborn baby boy. So many strangers heard Vic’s mental search thatthe name began popping up everywhere, clouding his senses, blindinghis mind. With a grunt of disgust, Vic started to reel in hispower. He’d never find Matt this way.
Then it happened. One moment Vic was drawing back tohimself, extracting his mind from the others he’d touched; the nexthe felt a click that seemed to lock his mind into the blackconfines of a small prison cell. He could see nothing, and allthought disappeared. The only things that existed were the drycloth that choked his mouth, silencing him, and a steady hum thatvibrated somewhere between his legs. A dull sound rose around him,holding back the darkness, a sound that came from a torturedthroat, in an effort to cancel out the hum that threatened to shakehim apart.
With an instant of clarity, Vic realized thatsomehow, someway, he’d managed to get inside Matt’s head.
The cloth was a gag over Matt’s mouth; his eyes wereeither closed or blindfolded, Vic couldn’t tell which. Though hishands and feet were tied, Vic sensed that Matt was no longerperched on the stool but lay on the floor—hard carpet pressedagainst the left side of his face, and the musty smell of mothballstold him this was probably a closet somewhere. ::Where,Matty?:: Vic prodded. ::Where are you hiding?::
But his lover’s mind was blank. Vic suspected it wasa defense mechanism, a way of blocking out the world around him,much like the tuneless sound coming from the back of Matt’s throat.The vibrating hum bothered him, though. Where did it come from?What did it mean?
Miles away in his own house, on the couch in hisliving room, Vic felt the stirrings of an erection press againsthis work pants. Suddenly he knew—he felt the tight silicone squeezeof a cock ring as if it were around his own shaft, not Matt’s.There was a bullet vibrator built into the ring, nestled in thespace between Matt’s cock and balls. Vic felt its unceasing shudderagainst his own nuts. Two heavy, weighted beads hung from thebottom of the ring; the silicone attaching them had been stretchedand the first large, vibrating bead was now wedged in Matt’s anus,where it jittered away in the heated folds of puckered skin. Thesecond, smaller bead jittered along his perineum, exciting thedelicate flesh between his balls and his ass to an almost obscenelevel.
Wherever Matt was, he had been stimulated past thepoint of arousal. The constant reverberation of the vibrator hadleft him desensitized, almost deadened. He’d burrowed deep withinhimself to shut out the sensations, leaving his hollow bodybehind.
::Matty.::
The name was a sob that tore at Vic’s heart as hishands clenched into fists of rage. When he found Matt, wherever hewas, oh, sweet Jesus but he was going to kill the personresponsible for this…this disrespect, this degradation. Hewas going to throttle whoever had done this to Matt, just close hisfingers around Jordan’s fat throat until he felt that spinelessbastard’s neck snap in his hands.
Jordan.
Jordan.
With a jolt, Vic sat upright. The connection betweenhimself and Matt broke with an almost physical pain, but Vic didn’tneed it to find out where his lover was. He knew…who was hekidding? He knew who had to be behind this. Who else knew ofthe powers that Matt’s semen granted? And who else would try tomilk Matt for those powers?
That man was so dead.
* * * *
Chapter 23
Vic’s first instinct was to tear over to Jordan’s andsave Matt. He knew where the bastard lived. What harm was there ina little vigilante justice? He stormed down the hall, shucking offhis work clothes as he went, intent on changing into something morecomfortable for a night spent kicking ass. But as he passed thekitchen doorway, the newspaper clipping Matt had stuck to therefrigerator caught his eye. He stopped in mid-stride, steppedback, and frowned at the front page of the morning paper. Whatwould tomorrow’s headline be? Sometime Superhero on MurderousRampage? Superman Gone Mad?
Fuck it. He didn’t care what
