M7 Rec: Room Key to Paradise

[wordwitch]

This is great stuff; not guy-safe, but worth it nonetheless. It's the basic story of through necessity, our heroes must blend in with the gay scene, and learn that they may be more a part of it than they had thought. Specifically, the ATF's Team Seven has been sent down to Florida for a conference - and the only hotel with any rooms is a gay resort, clothing-optional, over-eighteen only.

Here is a lovely taste - poor Nathan!

This must be where S&M fetish toys go to die, Josiah thought as he walked through the door to room 214, Nathan crowded closely behind him. Well, that would explain why it was one of the few rooms with two double beds. If you discounted the name of the suite itself, one look at the Mapplethorpe reproductions interspersed on the walls with a variety of sex toys, whips and chains certainly pushed that logic over the top. Of course, other than that, this could really be any other hotel room in any hotel in the country.

If you overlooked the fact that the walls seemed to be covered in what looked like purple shag carpet.

And of course the burgundy satin sheets were probably only available in the San Francisco branches of the Holiday Inn.

And well, maybe it didn't pay to think too closely about the purpose of the sling dangling ominously from hooks in the ceiling or about the leather cuffs attached to the headboards of the beds.

Aw get real, Josiah sighed. The room screamed gay dominatrix whorehouse circa 1970, and from the look on Nathan's face he pretty much thought so too.

"I don't think I can sleep in here, Josiah," Nathan said, his face turning the most fascinating shade of eggplant.

"Come on, Nathan," Josiah rumbled softly. "It's just a place to lay your head. Try to tune the rest of it out and just concentrate on the bed."

Nathan's eyes drifted to the Queen size bed with its noticeable hand grips in the headboard and metal loops at each edge and wondered if Josiah had completely lost his mind. Nonetheless he nodded reluctantly and threw his hold-all onto a sea of shimmering satin. The hold-all landed with a distinct thud, and for a moment Nathan wondered if they would find spikes in the mattress if they looked hard enough.

"At least the mattress is firm," he muttered, sitting down next to the pillow. A small clinking noise had him investigating in spite of himself, and the discovery of a pair of pink-fur-lined handcuffs tucked under the pillows as they dangled from their hook in the center of the bed. "Hope there's a way to keep these from makin' noise all night," he sighed.

Josiah breathed a sigh of relief. For a minute there he'd thought his teammate would opt to sleep in the van for the next five days.

Josiah carefully placed his own hold-all onto the other bed and began to unpack. He heard Nathan pull the drawer to his bedside table open and exclaim, "Holy mother of God." Josiah glanced over and watched as Nathan gingerly extracted a hardcover book from the drawer and turned it to face him. The Joy of Gay Sex.

"Don't suppose that's the King James edition?" Josiah deadpanned.

Nathan's slack-jawed expression wavered for a moment before his scowl dissolved into a broad grin. "Well, I guess it's a kind of bible for the usual patrons of this hotel," he joked weakly and began to flick through the pages, stopping every now and then to examine the diagrams.

"That just doesn't look humanly possible," he squeaked, turning the book from left to right, obviously trying to work out the configuration. Josiah looked over his shoulder and it took him a moment or two to figure out who was doing what to whom.

"That looks like something Buck would attempt after a couple of margaritas," Josiah said.

"Remind me to stay clear of him when he starts drinking," Nathan muttered, turning another page. "Oh come on now! That's definitely a position only a contortionist could pull off."

Josiah reached out and gently pried the book out of Nathan's hands before he got too carried away. Nathan grinned up at him sheepishly and turned back to his bed to unpack his bag. He walked to the closet and pulled open the door, and stopped dead in his tracks.

"I really don't think I can sleep in here, Josiah," he repeated.

Josiah walked up behind him and glanced into the closet. A black leather mask with a zippered mouth swung on a hanger, and two riding crops dangled from hooks drilled into the back of the closet.

"I saw Pulp Fiction, man. I know what this is," Nathan said, his voice an octave or two higher than normal, just shy of outright panic.

"Nathan, they're just props, just part of the decor," Josiah soothed. "Like the moose head hanging on the wall in that hotel in Orillia when we went to the Canadian conference."

Nathan looked at him dubiously, then peeked back into the closet. "Like the moose head," he said firmly, and sounded almost convinced although Josiah noticed that he hung his clothes as far away from the 'decor' as he could in the tiny closet.

The two men eventually unpacked and showered and climbed into bed without any further complications, except for the 101 times Nathan checked the locks on their room door. As he gently settled into his sheets, Josiah heard Nathan sigh heavily.

"What do you think 'clothing optional' means?" Nathan asked.

10 chapters and an epilogue. Go wallow.