Chapter Text
March 1928. Tianjin French Concession.
Billy Butcher stood for a long while outside Number 113 Rue Saint-Louis, staring at the freshly hung wooden signboard. The lacquer still hadn't dried; he had traced the characters himself — Becca Investigative Agency.
"You planning to stare at it all day?"
Hughie Campbell walked over from the alley, carrying a stack of old clippings he'd dug out of the scrap heaps of the Beijing-Tianjin Commercial News. He was twenty-three this year, his hairline already receding two inches, the remaining curls piled atop his head like an untidy coil of hemp thread.
Butcher ignored him. He shifted the cigarette in his mouth from the left side to the right and pushed open the office door. The room smelled of damp. The sizing stains left behind by the tailor shop that had occupied the space before still marked the walls. He pulled a Vought Trading Company shipping chart from Hughie's arms, pressed it against the wall, and pinned down all four corners with thumbtacks. The chart mapped the route from Tianjin Port to Tanggu Dock. He then fished out a clipping from the society news page of the Beijing-Tianjin Commercial News, bylined Judith Zhang, headline: Vought Shipping Monopolizes Tanggu Dock Warehousing: Municipal Council Board Vote Under Suspicion. Butcher pinned this next to the shipping chart and circled several spots with red ink.
"Who is she?" Hughie dumped the remaining scrap paper onto the desk.
"Another madman." Butcher pulled open a drawer and took out a tin ashtray, placing it at the corner of the desk. Stamped on its base was Tianjin Police Department, Thirteenth Year of the Republic — he had pocketed it when he left the force.
Hughie was leafing through a sheaf of yellowed manuscript pages, the edges so brittle they crumbled at a touch. The masthead on the first page read Greater China Press · Society News Department. The title on the second page had been blotted out in black ink; beneath it, the first line of body text still held half a legible phrase — "In the three years since the implementation of the orphanage child registration numbering system..."
Hughie's hand stopped. He looked up at Butcher.
Butcher came over, took the stack of pages from his hands, and laid them on the desk. He turned them one by one. At the sixth page his finger paused, pressing down on a line of minuscule, faint pencil script in the lower right corner. The line said: Tang.
Butcher knew Becca's handwriting. She had copied several hundred pages of his case notes for him in the Police Department archives when she was alive — if he couldn't recognize it now, that would be his own failing.
He assembled the pages on the desk. Eleven surviving fragments, missing the beginning and the end, three pages in the middle water-damaged. What could be pieced together told roughly this: Vought Trading Company operated an orphanage near Tanggu Dock. The children taken in there were not registered in any official ledger, but at regular intervals a horse-drawn cart transported some of them to the docks. Folded into the manuscript was a hand-drawn chart. Becca had listed seventeen child identification numbers she'd been able to track down, each with an annotation. The notes grew more and more illegible line by line; the last three rows held only two words — transferred out.
Outside on Rue Saint-Louis, a horse-drawn carriage passed. The iron horseshoes struck sparks against the cobblestones. Butcher gathered all eleven fragments, placed them into an archival envelope from his drawer, and wrote two words on the cover: Tanggu.
That same afternoon, John Gillman sat in the chairman's office on the third floor of the Vought Trading Company building, leafing through the registration copy of Butcher's agency. The document had arrived three days prior, a routine duplicate from the Municipal Council's Commercial Registry, tucked among a stack of new-business filings. John was drinking the warm water Erwin had brought in while he flipped through it.
"He's opened shop again," he said. "Does he think his life's not hard enough?"
John set the copy on the desk, took up a freight manifest awaiting signature, and turned to the signing page. He wrote two characters, tossed the pen down, and leaned back in his chair.
"Leave me the window tonight."
Night fell, and the wind rose. Fog from the Hai River rolled in from the direction of the docks. John had bathed and changed into an old, loose-collared pajama shirt. Madelyn had brought it back from London. A cuff button had fallen off — Erwin had sewn it back on for him.
He turned the bedside lamp to its dimmest setting and lay on his side in bed. The blanket pulled to his waist. He slid his hand under the covers.
His fingers parted two folds of petal flesh. The pearl had already half-emerged from its hood. The moment his fingertip pressed down against it, a flush of aching heat shot up from deep in his belly. All afternoon, while signing those freight manifests, his head had been filled with the memory of the first time Butcher had ever grabbed him — that evening when Butcher pressed his thumb against the artery at the side of John's throat, his cunt had begun to slick itself without preamble. In his mind he placed Butcher's hand on his own throat, and at the same time laid Erwin's palm on his chest. Every time Erwin entered him from behind, he would brace his hand against John's chest. Then there was Kevin's mouth. The sensation of Kevin's nose brushing bone as he licked John's ankle — warm, his lips pressing down and slowly grinding. Benjamin's liquor-breath hot against his ear — *blond whore* — that old bastard's thumb grinding against John's pearl as he spat the words.
He blended all four of them together in his head and used himself. His thumb rubbed the pearl faster and faster. Three fingers worked in and out of his rear hole. The fingertips of his other hand pressed into the mouth of his cunt and sank inward. He fantasized about being filled by all four men at once. In reality, he had only his own hands. The walls of his cunt began clenching uncontrollably; his rear hole spasmed at the same moment. He bit down on the pillow to muffle his voice and came apart, honeyed fluid spilling between his fingers onto the sheets.
He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, waiting for his breath to settle.
He didn't know how long had passed. The draft through the side alley behind the courtyard never came. Someone was blocking the airflow.
Butcher climbed through the window without a sound. He stood by the sill. John didn't move under the blanket, his face still half-buried in the pillow. The pajama shirt had bunched up to his thighs beneath the covers. The bedside lamp caught the sheen of a still-wet trail down the inside of his thigh. Butcher took the cigarette from his lips and stubbed it out on the nightstand. He pulled the blanket aside. John was curled there, eyes half-open. Butcher reached down and pried apart John's just-closed knees. The petals were still swollen; the pearl half-hard and exposed outside its hood. The honeyed fluid stretched from the entrance of his cunt to the bedsheet in a fine thread. His entire inner thigh was wet.
"What were you doing just now."
"Waiting for you. You didn't come."
Butcher bent over him. His thumb found that still-firm pearl and pressed straight down. John's hips jackknifed off the mattress. A body fresh from orgasm is unspeakably sensitive. The moment Butcher's finger ground down, a jolt of near-pain and pleasure detonated from that single point, shooting up the spine to the back of his skull. John's knees tried to clamp inward. Butcher used his other hand to pry them open again.
"From now on when you wait for me," Butcher said, working his thumb against him, "you keep the window open. Let everyone see what a whore you are."
His thumb slid down from the pearl. Two fingers pushed into the cunt. The inside was all wet heat and slick from the first round, the inner walls twitching faintly and uncontrollably around his fingertips. He sank his fingers in to the knuckle and pulled them back out, drawing a thick gush of clear fluid that dripped onto the sheets in a string.
Butcher lifted his slick-coated hand. The web of his thumb met John's lips. John opened his mouth and licked across the web with the tip of his tongue. That old scar across Butcher's thumb-web — cut by a broken bottle during a gambling-den raid back in his police days, healed into a raised groove of tissue. John's tongue traced the channel from end to end, from web to heel of palm, then sealed his lips around the web and sucked.
Butcher looked down at him, pulled his hand free. The web of his thumb was slick with John's saliva and skin ridges.
"That mouth of yours," Butcher gripped his jaw and made him open up, glanced at the molars, "is so goddamn practiced. Ought to pull every tooth out and lend it to everyone." He let go, stood up from the bedside, and unbuckled his belt. "I'm going to use it in a minute."
John lay on his side at the edge of the bed, his face level with Butcher's already-hard cock. Butcher gathered his blond hair into a fist at the back of his head and guided him forward. The glans touched his lips. John took the head into his mouth, circled his tongue over the slit, then swallowed a little deeper. Butcher was simply too large — even after all this time, John still had to adjust by slow degrees each time. Butcher's hand tightened on his hair roots and pulled his cock out of John's mouth just before his throat began to contract. A wet thread of saliva stretched between lip and glans, shimmering in the lamplight from the bedside.
"All right. Told you to take it in and you really try to swallow it." Butcher swept the blond hair back from his forehead. "I've got other uses for that mouth."
He pressed John back down onto the bed. John's legs were spread to either side; Butcher's hips wedged in between. By the time the glans pressed against the petals, the lower mouth was already soaked through — honey fluid mixing with the leftover saliva from the blowjob. The entrance was slick and wet, convenient for Butcher to bury himself in one thrust. As he sank to the hilt, his thumb never left that swollen pearl. John was wetter tonight than usual. The channel was hot and soft, the inner walls gripping his cock from base to tip. Butcher's pace was unhurried but deep — each stroke pulling back until only the glans caught at the entrance and ground a circle before ramming all the way in again. The bed frame gave a muffled thud with each impact.
John was arching his head back, moaning, thoroughly enjoying himself, when he felt Butcher stop — halted just at the point of withdrawal, the glans still pressed against the petals. John's hips lifted of their own accord. The sudden halt displeased him deeply.
"Don't move." Butcher pressed a hand against John's belly and forced him back flat on the mattress. "Did I say you could move?"
John stared at him. He could feel the deep channel still spasming, just a little more, just that little — and this damned ex-cop was parked right there.
The muscles of John's inner thighs pulled taut as bowstrings. The tender flesh at the mouth of his cunt clenched around the glans in waves. A suffocating burning spread from deep in his cunt through his entire lower belly. Hanging in midair, neither here nor there — the asphyxiation made him restless. His fingers clutched the bedsheets.
"You want me to move?"
"... Mm—..."
"Say something nice, Chairman Gillman."
John's lips moved. The words stuck at the base of his tongue.
More silence. The spasms deep in the channel were coming faster now. He wanted to lift his hips himself, but against Butcher's hand, he could not fight back at all.
"... please, just move... I can't take it anymore..."
Butcher drove home on the words. The moment the glans slammed into the deepest place in his cunt, John's entire lower body arched off the mattress. His cunt clamped down on Butcher's cock at once. The inner walls, from cervix to entrance, convulsed in a rolling wave. Honey fluid squeezed out from the seams of that tight fit and splashed against Butcher's pubic bone. As climax hit, John sank his teeth into the old scar on Butcher's hand. Butcher cursed *fuck* as he spilled inside John teeth-locked at his thumb-web. After letting him bite his fill, he pulled out, seized John by the throat, and slapped him across that pretty face.
He withdrew from John's body, sat at the edge of the bed, reached into his coat pocket for his cigarette case, and drew one out, sticking it between his lips.
John lay on his side on the bed, a mixture of white seed and honey fluid trickling between his thighs. He turned toward Butcher, pressed his cheek to the outside of Butcher's thigh.
Butcher looked down at the way his blond hair fell across the pillow. He pulled Benjamin's old army blanket from the back of the chair and draped it over John. John gave it two shoves of distaste. "You're just going to watch me lying here covered with someone else's things after we've finished?"
Butcher ignored his whole theatrical display. He stood, shrugged on his coat, and walked to the window, ready to leave.
"You're still going?" John's voice came muffled from under the blanket.
"Going." Butcher took the cigarette from his mouth. "Coming back tomorrow."
He climbed out the window, lit the cigarette, and headed back toward the French Concession.
Early next morning.
Erwin came in with water while John was still sleeping. He walked to the bedside, about to set the glass down, and glanced down. There was a dried white trace in the hollow of John's collarbone. The night before, Butcher had smeared his come-slicked fingers there and not wiped it away. A whole night later, the body fluid had dried into a thin film on his skin.
Erwin set the water on the nightstand, fetched a damp towel, and wiped him clean, then pulled the blanket up a little higher.
As he turned to leave, he ran into Kevin at the doorway. Kevin stood at the far end of the hallway. He had come to deliver the morning paper and the previous night's dock unloading manifests.
"Is Mr. Gillman awake?"
Erwin did not pause. He walked past Kevin, his shoulder brushing loose the top sheet from the stack in Kevin's hands.
That same afternoon. Tanggu Dock. Kevin was crouched on a concrete bollard outside Warehouse No. 7, checking the cargo lists, when someone kicked him from behind into the harbor basin. Saltwater flooded his nose. Before he could react, his head was shoved underwater. The person holding him down was immensely strong — one hand clamping the back of his neck, the other bracing his waist. When he was dragged back up, he coughed out a mouthful of water, vision going dark. And then he was shoved under again.
John was in the study that afternoon, flipping through an account book. Erwin came in with water. John did not look up.
"What did you go and do today?"
"..."
"My informants told me. You went to teach that fish another lesson?" John turned a page of the ledger. "I still have use for him. Know when to stop. This temper you're letting off on my behalf — how do you intend to collect payment from me?"
Erwin said nothing. He came over, closed the ledger in John's hands, and then shoved him into the bookshelf. First, he tied John's wrists loosely to the shelf crossbeam with his necktie. The knot was light; John could free himself with a single tug. Erwin stepped behind him, lifted the hem of his long shirt, and let his fingers linger a long while between John's rear hole and his cunt. He wet his fingertip with the honey fluid seeping from the cunt, drizzled it onto the rear entrance, and waited for the ring of muscle to loosen before pushing in one finger. He pressed the pad of his finger repeatedly against the same spot along the inner wall until John's knees began to buckle. By the time he worked in a third finger, John had collapsed forward entirely against the shelf ledge, the side of his face pressed to the spines of the books. His breathing stirred the cover of the volume in front of him, lifting it faintly.
When Erwin entered him, he did not push all the way in at once. He stopped at the depth where just the glans had disappeared. John's cunt, by contrast, clamped down harder the moment Erwin stopped — nothing entering it, yet it was sucking at itself all on its own. Honey fluid dripped down from the front, tracing along the inside of his thigh to his knee.
John's hips pushed backward. He wanted more. Erwin held him still.
Today it's me.Erwin gestured. His meaning was perfectly clear: *Today is not Butcher. You take what I give you.*
His thrusts were very slow. Each stroke pulled back until only the glans circled at the entrance and ground a full revolution before sinking completely to the root, each time grinding over the same spot along the inner wall. The pleasure was pressed out inch by inch. John, wrists bound to the beam, gave a jerk; his thighs began to tremble. Thin, broken gasps leaked from his throat. Erwin's thumb rounded from behind and pressed down on John's lips.
No sound.
There were footsteps in the hallway.
Steady, unhurried footsteps passed the stairwell, turned a corner, and approached the study. Kevin, back from the docks and changed into dry clothes, reached the study door. He heard no sound from inside. A sliver of light showed beneath the door. He paused a moment, then continued on his way.
Erwin's thrusting quickened precisely as those steps passed the door. John was fucked forward with each stroke, his whole body lurching, face pressed against the book spines, unable to draw breath. His wrists gave another jerk against the necktie binding. His mouth was sealed tight by Erwin's thumb; he could only gasp rapidly through his nose. His cunt, completely empty and untouched, clenched and convulsed — honey fluid flowing from the front, mingling with the juices from behind, dripping onto the study carpet.
After the footsteps receded, Erwin bent low and pressed close behind John's ear. He never spoke in John's presence. He traced the contour from the earlobe upward with the tip of his tongue. His fingers circled from John's waist to the front and dipped into his cunt. The cunt clamped down on his knuckles at once, the inner walls convulsing. John came apart from both openings simultaneously. His rear hole clamped around Erwin's cock in spasms. His cunt gushed honey fluid into Erwin's hand. The tendons along his inner thighs jumped beneath the skin. He hung limp in Erwin's arm, cheek pressed sideways against the book spines, panting. The cover of that volume was soaked through in a wide patch from the heat of his breath.
That same night, Butcher sat in the hard wooden chair of his agency. The shipping chart on the wall had gained two new red circles. The eleven manuscript fragments lay spread across the desk; he had pieced them together from start to finish again tonight. The red pen had circled a second lead — the first had been Tang; the second was a line of text on the final page, almost dissolved by water damage, the strokes barely holding. He angled it toward the lamp. The line appeared to be June 1924.
He stood, took a fresh archival envelope from the drawer, and noted the discovery on the inside of the flap. Then he put on his coat and locked the door. Tonight he would go first to the Japanese Concession. He knew Benjamin was holding case files on the *Jinhai*. Whether that old bastard would open his mouth, though — that was another question entirely.