[Photophobia]: A Crime Story Noir [Short]

Story by BeaverReturn on SoFurry

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With his jacket turned up, a cougar passes over a bright neon display that reads "The Balltease Falcon." The smoke that once rested on his lips now sits in front of the old-cinema's door like a crumbled worm turned in on itself. As it dies away, flying a single thin line of smoke, the cougar wonders if he could have gotten another puff from it before he spat it away. The jobs don't pay as well as they use to-- he curses himself for not being more conscious towards his monetary constraints.

Rolling deeper into the sprawling mess of a forgotten part of the city, he passes by prostitutes, drag queens, and leather junkies with nothing better to do then stand at light posts starring suggestively at passerby's. The cougar could go for a spout, but the jobs don't pay as well as they use to--and as he draws an eye over one exceptionally tempting bull, he curses himself for not being more conscious towards his monetary constraints.

The cougar reminisces his past, for him Nostalgia is a drug whose high never leaves but fades from time to time. When his life was drawn into chaos, there was money to be found at every corner of this city, but now, as he walks the shoes of a henchman working for low-time pimps this life of wealth is well gone. Now, he's left with only his dreams of a better, more chaotic life, a life once suited for what pulp magazines would call, "A Crime Story Noir."


Photophobia: A Crime Story Noir

"Late night grime fest presents, a very special Crime Story Noir."-The BeaverReturn Broadcast Radio, 101.55

** From the streets I hear an orgasmic cry as it screams out from an open apartment window. It's a usual sound in this part of the city. The air around me is heavy, it's about to rain, and yet by the slight charge that tickles my light-brownish fur, I also know that a storm is coming; there is electric currents looming in the air. Advertisements light up the streets, and even though rolling clouds make the night darker, shines of neon brilliance seems to never let the streets slumber. As I stroll along the grimy pavement, passed a collection of graffiti tags, stepping over a spill of dirt refuse, the cries from the open window diminish but yet it does not fade. This district is a district of echoes, a crypt of sounds; a hall of phantasmal spirits that haunt block to block.**

** As I slime around the streets with the brim of my hat slouched over my cougar face, the collar of my long jacket pulled upwards like a shield, and my tail slightly swishing behind me, I imagine myself a fade, a ghost of the night, my presence not seen, but rather felt like a cold hand of death as I pass by. Sometimes the male-walkers will holler at me, but often they let me pass, there's plenty of more interesting clientele surfacing around. I'm a creep to them, I hide too much of my body to be sane, and they are right to assume this, because I've got secrets under this jacket no one wants to imagine true. Around these parts, they tell stories of the boogey man, because I'm the one who makes people disappear.**

** Back in the day, during the gang-wars, I found my fortune in running between turf borders. You didn't need allegiance in those days, because everyone was out to get everyone, and if you knew how to keep your nose down and get the job down then people didn't care who you previously had worked for. Besides in those days everyone was killing everyone, didn't matter who you friends were. They were rich times for low-scum like me, dangerous times, sure, fun times, most definitely, but rich times all the same.**

** But then the streets started to clean up, desk-jockeys stopped hiding behind bureaucracy, cops stopped accepting bribes, and before we knew it the gangs were weakening, borders were falling, and the city started becoming sparkling bright yet again.**

...Or so the mayor would have you believe.

But under his promising smile, his new-future ideals, crime wasn't being stopped but shoved into a dark pocket of the city known as The Village. And even though the big gangs all seemed to have diminished, The Village still had its warlords. But The Village is a queer place, it's got its own ideas and where people use to find their fortune in drugs, smuggling, or murder, The Village only had one real concern and that is sex. Pimps run The Village, and The Village runs the crime, and crime runs me, so now in the depths of this dump do I work.

I find it all so small here. The gangs brought excitement, deceit, and tales of backhanded foolery; in the old days people were murdered and the news loved every story. But now in The Village, a district gone lethargic, people disappear everyday and it's shrugged off as though it's all nothing but passing wind. I guess no one cares about hookers, those boys are already lost, and no one cares if another one ends up in a dumpster. It's all so small here, it's all so easy.

Skipping along the outskirts I come along a sparkling tower of ivory. An upmarket hotel, it is unfittingly elegant within this district like a tower of gold around a village of soiled poverty. This is where my target will be tonight. I approach the tower, thumbing the pistol within my pocket. I'm eager to shoot today, my reminiscing nostalgia has awoken within me a hungering violence and although it'll be a simple job, an in and out kind of job, I can't wait to get it done.

"Has it started raining yet?" A man asks me from his welcome desk.

"Not yet." I growl in a low voice, a sadistic grin on my face as I ride the elevator to the penthouse floor.

The elevator splits and two bodies fall at the sound of my whisping pistol. Their guns weren't drawn, mine was, advantage: Me. I thumb a quick paw through the jacket of one and find the penthouse door's key. I press the key into the lock, it clicks letting me know it's open and I push forward hoping there aren't any more guards inside.

** No luck! But I'm drawn, they aren't, I still have the advantage. Wild like a kid of the west my pistol sparks three times and each guard falls immediately. The school of hard-knocks trained me in the old days, it was impossible for me to miss.**

*As I make my way through the spacious rooms of the penthouse a guard emerges from the bathroom shocked to see me stalking around the luxurious home. He moves to grab me from behind, but I duck, turn around, and then butt my pistol into him three times till his nose is broken and he's on the ground in pain. I don't want him getting back up so a few more bullets put him down for good. As I continue on, I think about his suit, it was a nice suit, probably would have fit me well until I filled it with bullet holes and stained it with blood. Stupid cougar, money is tight, gotta learn how to realize a chance when I see 'em. *

Two glass doors lead me out into the penthouse's stretched balcony. At the edge of the balcony railing, the boy is watching the rain pelt down onto the city below from under the shield of an open umbrella. I throw my pistol up ready to deliver my final bullet, but then the boy turns around, and I just can't find myself able to pull the trigger.

I guess what got me first, was the fact he was so young. Questionably, I found it hard to classify him as even barely legal, but I knew the pimp that this kid worked for, and I knew he wasn't into selling pups. Still, the kid was young, too young. A lion, the kid was, but hardly would I call him ferocious. His mane had just started growing in, in height he was no giant, he was just some kid. Yet as I come closer to him, gun still drawn, I suddenly recounted him- as young as he looked, his blue eyes were dim, like a bulb burned out, I then saw that there was age in his eyes, too much age.

"Kid?" I grumbled, the rain dripping off the barrel of my pistol, "How old are you?"

"Eighteen." The young lion closed his umbrella, the harsh rain drenching him immediately. "You are here to kill me aren't you? I knew I was marked for death the minute my boss called me top-quality; the minute he gave guards to protect me. End the game now if you please, I've had more than enough time to consider this moment, this moment that would eventually come, and I just don't have any more thoughts in my brain to think."

Thunder clapped, but neither of us jumped.

"You are so young. They didn't say anything about you being so young. What are you doing out here--Why are you doing this?" I put another paw forward, old fool, I thought to myself, this is not the time for morale reconsideration. Pull the trigger. Get the job done. Get paid, and fuck some young lad till you stop feeling guilty.

"I guess I just decided to walk my own road for a while. Looks like that road led me here. Now please pull the trigger, I've got nothing else to say."

"You stupid kid!" I lowered my pistol, dropping it into a puddle beneath me, "How am I suppose to be expected to kill just some young scrap? Is this what my job has been reduced into? Putting bullets into young-bloods? They could have gotten any stupid ole' thug to do this job!" Annoyed I turned around, walking back towards the penthouse, "I'm giving up on this one, I feel no reason to waste a bullet on such a scrawny prick like you." I debasingly commented with a deep scowl on my face.

"Hey--!" The boy screams, "Come back! You can't just walk away!"

As I came back into the penthouse, my jacket and fur drenched miserably in a cool drip, I stepped over the bodies I had previously and pointlessly laid waste to. Still wasn't my fault they were guarding some kid. Sorry folks, I think to myself, just a bad draw for you I guess.

I make my way to the door but just as I leave I hear a gun click from behind me. Rolling my eyes, I predictably see the young lion over my shoulder, the pistol I had dropped now within his paws and pointed directly at me. I don't even give the kid mean eyes, I'm not scared of him, instead I turn around, raising my paws,

"Give me the gun back please. They are quite expensive these days."

*"I'm going to shoot you!" The kid warned nervously. *

"Okay. Easy does it kid..." I slowly approach him with hands in the air, "What's your name kid?"

"Ganymede!" He growls, "Get the fuck back!"

As soon as I'm in close-enough I dive forward, the kid pulls the trigger but the gun is waterlogged, it's useless, it just repeatedly clicks as my arms come to grab his midsection and push him to the ground. We struggle around along the floor for a bit but soon I'm able to wrestle the gun free from his paws. But now I find that our muzzles have come to face each other. There's a pause, we catch each other's scents, things start hardening and then I turn on a dime, pushing my face forward to kiss him.

At first, I'm intruding into him, and he's resisting, trying to escape me, but I'm bigger, I'm stronger, and I'm one hell of a good kisser. He struggles, but soon I force him to realize that this would be a lot nicer if he would just submit to me. Eventually he turns his sails, starts to ride the same breeze as me and begins to return the kiss.

Our exchanging of tongues continue as I push his wet shirt upwards exposing the sight of his tight and fit body beneath it. Blonde and pristine fur, there's a sense of cleanliness to his body, a sight not often witnessed with the other the boys of the night. I see him as virginal, truth or not, the way he shakes at my touch, the way he smells, it's enough for me to make myself at least believe he's virginal--corruptible rather, I decide to believe with a shining toothy grin. He is so young, so delectable, that I can't help but draw my tongue over his chest fur and around his nipples. The kid enjoys it enough, whimpering in slight mews that fill the expanse around us as I notice the hardening in his pants.

I dive my paw to free the erection from his pants. Grabbing his shaft with the intent of giving the boy a few good pumps, I am stopped in mid gesture by a sudden paw on my wrist.

"It would be wise kid for you not to interrupt me." My low voice delivers the message clearly.

"I was told, I'm not, I mean, it would be wrong for me to accept any pleasure from you."

With a strong arm, I reverse his grasp and pull his arms up above his head where he can no longer bother me. "Kid, don't treat me like a customer." I ordered him and his blue eyes responded by averting himself away from my cold dimension.

I give passionate taste to his virile youth as my mouth dances along his exposed pole. His slight mews, adolescent as they once sound, grew into grunts as I consummated my need in a tongue to dick tango of various oral techniques. His enjoyment arouses me, my eyes are bent on watching the boy wince, to see him crawl-- to me, it's the same as watching a man writher as you squeeze his neck tighter. It's intoxicating, the control he grants me.

"Ah--" The boy gasps, his breathing youth summons his orgasm quickly and I am forced to stop before I find myself with a mouthful of boy-jizz.

"You ever been fucked before, boy?" I grunt as I rip off my jacket and shirt, exposing my bodily museum of mercenary muscles and scars for the boy to see. The sense of lingering danger I seem to wear as cologne excites him; the way the returning light seems to flicker within his blue eyes tells me this is so. His eyes are electric, sparking like neon advertisements; they bring brightness to the cold alleyways my veins had seemingly become.

"Well, I mean, my job--"

"Second thought, I don't want to know." I play with my belt, my erection's imprint firm along my pant leg. The boy before me is getting unclothed as well, shedding his layers of clothing as though their damp wetness had become all too burdening; all to constricting against the building lust I was inspiring within him. But admittedly, he's got a spell on me too; it makes us like two wizards crossing wands and now both us had become hexed by the mystic presence of each other.

*Like snakeskin we leave our clothes behind and they become the only relics of whatever we had been before our meeting. Hunter and prey? Thug and Prostitute? Man and Boy? We shed away each layer until we were none of that anymore. The crispness of such sexual desire demanded such borders fell, and fall dead they did. *

I carry him over my shoulder towards the bedroom, I'm a candle with quick burning wax, and as I shrug him down onto the bed, I see he too is alit, droplets of pre decorating his full-manhood with a slight shimmer.

"Where's the lube boy?" I point towards my dick, its swollen presence throbbing in a penetrative creed.

The boy crawls to a bedside table and crawls back with a tube in hand. It's like snow on fire, it's chill does nothing to kill my erection. The boy too feels it as I lather it over his opening. He shivers, but it's just like snow on fire, aint it boy? Like snow on fire, tell me you want it, boy.

*"I want it." He cries and I push myself forward, my force in his field as I strive to reach the deepest point of our intimacy. I hug my arms around him, taking in his sub-real presence, from inside out he feels like a dream, and when I begin rocking my hips I realize I may never want to wake up. *

Heaven's ribbons wrap to bind us in strands of light as we vocalize sub-primal regressions. We are trapped into each other's beings like incestuous microcells attempting to sew our split back together. I urge my body to sink into him deeper and deeper as though with every penetrating inch I am only a second's-reach away from an even more glorious treasure then the bits I already had. It was greedy to want this boy so much, but I wasn't born an angel, I was born a man of sin.

Our mouths meet in another exchange of hot tongues and even as I feel elder pains, this old man still manages to keep up with the boy's pace. The boy's giving me energy; I think to myself, he's a thunderstorm with hell-fury lightning, the whole room is charged with his static. After all, it was not just pleasure that seemed to keep my fur at a standstill. Moving my paw over his back, he's white hot, a nuclear sun, a powerhouse generator of energy and electricity. I'm galvanized by his brilliance, stimulated to a point where reality is but a melted clock dripping off the branch of a tree.

I taste the fur on the back of his neck and inhale the scent of his blood as it wells out from the wound. The sound of his cries for more, the sight of his perfection, the smell of his musk, and now the taste of his young blood, combined every sense together till they joined in a hedonistic orgy within my conscious. It confused my brain, I could touch the sound of his gasping breath, I could smell the taste of his soft fur, and I could especially sensed sight within our feelings as it filled my eyes with rose-colored lenses; everything becoming drowned by liquid colour.

Deeper our figures intertwined within our resonating romance. The room fills with the glories of our sex, the bustling dance of our aggressive, desiring aromas make drunk the logics of time. My deep thrusting impacts echo the sound of smack, smack, smack, through-out each corner of the room, maybe into the hallway, maybe even over the expanse of the whole fucking city. We're as mighty as god trapped within this legendary bubble of sex and yet, free within our passions we are also both clay to each other's will.

Flow after flow I spurt myself into the boy's hungering anus as a tide of orgasm comes to wash over us both. On the sands of our passion we have become beached together as the ceiling above fades away until all I see is sparkling stars within its black expanse. In the endless night of our joined minds, we imagine ourselves far away from this city. Lying on the bed, panting from the labor of our own toils, the young lion curls into me, his head rubbing along my chest as he deeply purrs. I can't help but once again eye his curved nude form. The contours of his shape would make beautiful art one day. It made me feel like his beauty was so misplaced within my world, and yet like a flower growing along the grimy streets I walked, he offered redemption in just his sight alone. I'm a violent animal, I've done bad things, but even I'm half-human somewhere down inside.

** "What happens now?" He lightly coos, his voice gasping for breath still.**

** "I suppose I have to kill you." I growl, "I made a promise."**

** "What? No!" The boy protested pulling his body away from me. But I just grab his light body inward and pull him back into a forceful embrace. He wiggles in a desperate attempt to get free and then the jokes up, I can't help but laugh.**

** "But I can't kill you now." I tease as the boy looks at me questioningly, "You are too young, too easy of a target to kill." The boy is unsure of how to act, so I continue, "But know this, I've made you my target, and my target you will be. I'll be close, always reeeaaal close, 'cause I'll always have my protected eye on you. And I won't let anybody but me come to harm a pretty little hair on your head. So know you'll always be safe. But know one day, you'll be old enough, and then I'll come after you. You are my target, and I will keep that contract to my grave."**

** "So." The boy ponders, "I guess I ask again, what happens now?"**

** "That low-scum Pimp you're working for. He 'aint your boss anymore, I'll make sure of that. I've got ways of making people give up quality merchandise. I'll give you to a close friend of mine. It'll be easier to keep my eye on you that way. Know this, kid, by the promise of the Boogeyman: wherever there's a shadow I'll be there. Whenever there is a feeling of darkness to be unsure about, I'll be in it. I'm at every corner, I'm watching you from every angle, and I'll be your guardian until come that final day when I am ready to strike. Let this arrangement be our promise to keep."**

** "I hope you will then find me a worthy adversary..."The boy comments.**

** "I'm sure I will little boy, I'm sure I will..."**

** Macabre tails continue to unroll themselves out in the city beyond the elegant room of the penthouse. The screams I hear become indistinguishable between sounds of eroticism and sounds of terror, but I suppose in this dump they are all the same. Beside me the young boy has fallen asleep, reassured that for now I was to be his protector. Feeling drowsy, I too would soon drift off to sleep, and I too would come to dream. I would dream of the past where I once prospered in chaos, but also I would dream of the future, when chaos would come back to me again. But--as I yawn--for now I dream in sweet pleasantries just like the boy does now in my arms, but someday I'll come back little boy and when I do, be afraid when you see that eyes have become wide awake.**

--

After reading the first 8 (?) issues of Constantine my desire to write a noire story had come back again. I had a few ideas, one would be more related to Constantine but also more a parody of the "High school lover" story so common among writers, another would be an attempt at writing another 2 stories for a Detective Story Noir (written a while ago-you can find it on my profile), and another a shorter story but still noire all the same. Finally I decided to do a shorter story but then halfway through decided to write it in the same universe as a Detective Story Noir. I guess I was going for the whole Sin City/Pulp Fiction way of storytelling?

I'm going to try to write quicker and shorter stories since right now my focus as a writer beyond the fandom is based primarily on short story writing. Not only will this help me in my outer-fandom works but also I'm honestly hoping shorter stories will seem less daunting to read and help me gain some more followers who might be interested in reading longer works. Also, with my last semester of school coming up I should realize my writing time available will be sufficiently diminished.

In future planning, I plan on returning the Boogeyman in the sequel to Detective Story Noir that may never come. Really I have an idea of what the story would look like it's just finding time to write it between everything else going on in my life. August is seriously going to be a BUSY month. But essentially I'm thinking the Boogeyman will return, and a gesture of thanks for saving Ganymede in the first story, will warn Archer that he plans on killing Ganymede. Of course this will bring Archer back into the depths of the Village where he and Ganymede will be reunited once more. Ooohhh--Sexy, Pulpy, Fun!

Maybe even a threesome between The Boogeyman, Archer and Ganymede? No? Yea, I don't think it'd work either. Anyways, comment, favourite, watch, whatever you do to show the love makes me a happy beaver. And happy beavers will always write more. Haha!