The lead singer of BioHazard Horse was screaming the lyrics of a song. Behind him, the drummer and guitarist joined in to create a chaotic mélange of noise. The nearly naked singer’s long, greasy hair was limp one minute, soaring around his head like some hairy halo the next. He looked and sounded more like a madman raving than a singer. Such was the punk scene in OldTown.

My attention was focused on a Black woman dancing in front of the stage. Somehow, the woman managed to be both energetic and graceful at the same time. She wasn’t wearing much, just a fishnet bodysuit overlaid with a black leather microskirt and vest for a bit of modesty. Not that modesty was much of a requirement in this joint. The nameless basement club was pretty much a free-for-all of sex, drugs, and punk rock.

Not much of a dancer myself, I just stood on the sidelines sipping a Coke laced with assorted stimulants as I watched the crowd and listened to the music. Eventually, I hoped to pair off with someone for the night. Maybe even several someones. This woman intrigued and attracted me, but she looked like she might be a cut or two above my usual.

After a while, I realized my glass was empty so I turned to the bar. It was really not much of a bar, just a long tabletop on trestle legs. Beat-up old fridges and shelving units behind it held the booze. A filing cabinet nestled between two fridges held an assortment of drugs. Stuff to snort, stuff to smoke, stuff to put in your drink, you name it.

Behind the bar, a tall, slender person with a Mohawk and heavily tattooed face and body tended bar. Sharm was non-binary. I had never slept with them so was not even sure what biological parts they had. They did a bang-up job of running the parties and tending the bar, which was what mattered.

“Who’s that woman by the stage? The Black chick in fishnet?” I asked Sharm.

They smiled.

“No fucking idea. She’s been around the neighbourhood for a week or two with some other new arrivals. Some claim she came from UpTown.”

UpTown was what we called New Eversham City. That’s where the fucking rich and powerful, and those who worked for them, lived in gleaming towers and mansions. OldTown, our home, was the rundown remnants of the original city. It had become home to the outcasts, criminals, destitute, and those who no longer gave a shit. As a thief and drug courier, I fell into multiple camps.

The cops made sure we kept to our side of the river and otherwise did not bother with us much. Those who lived in UpTown seemed to pretend OldTown did not even exist. Well, until they needed something we could provide. There was a good reason most of the illicit drugs in UpTown flowed through OldTown.

I snorted and snarled, “Fucking uptowner living among us scum of the Earth? Yeah right.”

“It’s happened, man. Remember Shaban?”

“Very much. Still had a lot of uptowner superiority in her attitude but she was a good lay. Why do they come here, anyhow?”

“Freedom is one reason I have heard. Sounds like things are pretty uptight across the river. Not everyone over there enjoys the puritan lifestyle, I guess.”

“That’s why they keep us over here, eh. So we don’t pollute their lives with too much fun and sex.”

We both chuckled, the Sharm turned serious again.

“Some pass through on their way out, too.”

“To the mythical fucking North?”

“Not sure they need to go that far. I’ve been a few days out  of town and the farmers and farm towns barely know that Eversham or any of the city-states exist. It ain’t an easy life, though. Subsistence agriculture, even some hunting. You have to look after yourself in general.”

“So? That’s largely how we live here in OldTown, too. Looking after ourselves without much help from the fucking uptowners. Save the agriculture part. Anyhow, I’ll take another Coke and a couple Dream Buttons.”

Turning from the bar, I found myself face to face with the woman I had been admiring. Up close, I found myself less sure of her gender. She had nice big tits and her body had a somewhat feminine shape.

However, her face had a vaguely masculine look to it. She was also shaved bald with a tracery of lines tattooed into her scalp. I always found that look kind of masculine, though not sure why. I knew a lot of women in OldTown who partly or wholly shaved their heads.

Not that a person’s gender or biological sex actually mattered much to me that night. Any set of organs would do for my pleasure.

“Hey there, you got some real moves,” I said as I stepped aside to let the woman pass.

She smiled and walked towards the bar. Her hand briefly pressed against the crotch of my faded, tattered blue jeans. Was that a sign of interest? Or just checking to see what I was packing downstairs?

The woman ordered a Blue Maldoon, which was beer of a sort. Maldoon had something besides alcohol in it that disagreed with me. The one time I tried it, I had regained my senses wandering naked through one of the few parks left in OldTown. She seemed to have little difficulty with it, though.

“So, you like my dancing, do you?” the woman asked after a sip of her drink.

Her accent screamed “UpTown”. Which again raised the question of who she was and why she was hanging out in a dirty, noisy underground club on the wrong side of the river.

“I do. You look pretty smokin’ hot even just standing still. You seem a bit too classy for this joint, really,” I commented.

She chuckled.

“If you mean, I sound like I am from across the river, I am.”

“At least you’re upfront about it. What brings you here?”

“I love the music. And it’s much more fun in general. I mean, Blue Maldoon is strictly underground stuff across the river.”

There was more. I could hear it in her voice, see it in the haunted look in her brown eyes. But I decided not to pry. I was out to get laid, not hear her life story.

“I suppose for someone used to luxury and cleanliness, OldTown could seem amusing,” I remarked, still a bit skeptical of her.

She snorted.

“You think UpTown is all fun and games? God, what a horror show life can be over there.”

I noticed that haunted look again, though. She is running from something, I figured, and not just boredom.

“So, do you always feel up strange guys as you pass by?” I asked, changing the subject.

She grinned.

“If I think there might be something in there worth feeling up.”

She winked, a flirtatious wink that suggested there could be more than feeling up coming soon.

The singer let out a roar, then the band launched to a hard, fast banger of a song. It was more metalcore than punk, but the crowd did not seem to give a shit. They surged in and went wild.

We both moved closer so we could hear each other over the music and made small talk. Finally, the woman put down her drink and put a hand on my crotch. She slid in so close, I could smell her perfume. The woman gave my cock a squeeze, then massaged it through the denim.

Locking eyes with the woman, I put a hand on the inside of her thigh. I slid it up under her skirt, enjoying the contrast of smooth skin and nylon fishnet. Then I reached her loins and found myself fondling a very masculine cock and balls. The woman leaned in and gave me a long French kiss as we groped each other, swaying to the music as we did.

“What’s available?” I called out to Sharm. The bartender had been watching our little grope-fest with an amused look on their face.

“Red room was just cleaned and has fresh sheets,” they responded, “Fifty per hour, one hour up front.”

They did not really need to tell me the pricing. I had used the club’s private rooms enough times.

“I’ll take it,” I said, passing them a fifty. Fortunately, I had made a big score the previous week and was flush with currency.

Sharm smiled and gave me the key. They likely knew I would not need more than the hour.

As we headed to the Red Room, I noticed that my companion winked and nodded to two men in leather nursing drinks at a back table. One was bald while the second sported a rather weird brush cut that had patterns shaved into it. They nodded back, grins on their faces. Clearly they knew what we were up to. I wondered, though, who they were.

The Red Room merited its name. Red wall hangings covered the crumbling plaster. Red sheets covered the queen-sized mattress. There was even a red bulb in the overhead light for “mood”. Guess Sharm figured red was a sexy colour. Or maybe the colour was one of their kinks.

As soon as the door was closed and locked, the woman shed her skirt and vest. Her tits were big and firm, stretching the fishnet to its limits. Given her junk, I figured they were implants. UpTowners could afford shit like that, though I had also heard that trans folks got a rough ride in that world. I unzipped and dropped my jeans, then tossed my black t-shirt on to the pile. We embraced and kissed, our cocks pressed together between us.

The woman slipped from my embrace and gestured to the bed.

“Let’s get horizontal, big boy,” she cooed.

Smiling, I lay with my head on the pillows. She mounted my face, cock dangling over my mouth. I wrapped my lips around it and sucked. The woman did the same to mine, demonstrating expert skills with both lips and tongue. So it was to be a sixty-nine. I could handle that.

There’s nothing, I would contend, quite like a mouthful of cock. Having my cock buried in a tight pussy or ass was up there in the right circumstances. Somehow, though, giving oral to a cock is Heaven for me. The taste, smell, and just the feel of hard flesh between my lips drives me wild.

I pulled my mouth off of the woman’s cock and sucked on her large, dangling balls for a bit while stroking her wet penis. Then I rimmed her little rosebud asshole with my tongue before returning to sucking. She was giving me similar treatment. We edged each other, too, easing off each time things seemed to be coming to a climax, then pushing ahead again.

Finally, the woman pulled her hard cock from between my lips. She turned to straddle my hips, then put my cockhead against her anus and slid down on to it. Her tight back opening squeezed my thickness. The woman closed her eyes and rode my cock, her expression somewhere between pain and ecstasy.

It did not take much of that tight hole to send me over the edge. I thrust up against her and groaned as I blew a load into her tight bum. As I did, the woman was jerking her own cock. Her ass spasmed around my cock as her cum sprayed over my belly and chest.

 We had just got up and were cleaning ourselves off when there was a knock at the door. Three taps, a pause, then two taps. Puzzled, I went to the door. It had a peephole for situations like this. Outside were the two men that the woman had signaled earlier outside.

“It’s for you,” I quipped, heading over to my clothes, “Your leather boys. I saw you sending signals.”

I figured if she knew that I knew, it might be safer for me. I was still unsure of who her companions were. For that matter, I had no idea who she was beyond her being a hell of a good fuck.

The woman smiled. She was already dressed so she opened the door a crack. They chatted for a moment. I heard the dreaded words “special security detail” mentioned. Those were the most vicious and hard-nosed of the city’s Enforcement Division. It was the unit used to root out activists and other possible threats to those in power.

“Does the club have a back door or anything? There’s watchers out front and I can’t have them seeing me,” she asked.

I wondered why she was attracting this kind of attention. However, I did know the back way out of the club. I had needed a quick exit myself once or twice.

“Yeah, I know the way. But what the fuck am I getting myself into by helping you?”

“I am the daughter of a member of the elite but I fled. A friend who is in The Movement helped me across the river. Those guys with me are a couple of her crew.”

“The Movement?”

“It’s a secret society in UpTown seeking more freedom and helping those who need to get out of the city. I am not a member, just a supporter and someone they are helping at this point. Look, my name is Shan. I really enjoyed tonight. Can you help me find my way out of here and to someplace safe?”

I nodded.

“Folks just call me JK. Let’s get going. Your friends coming?”

“Part of the way. They have errands to run for Dari. That’s why I would like to stick with you.”

“Dari is the friend?”

“She is,” Shan confirmed.

“Okay, let’s go. Once we are outside, we can figure out where to go. Helden Tower probably wouldn’t be a bad start. Cops won’t go in there without a hell of a good reason and there’s lots of nooks and crannies to hide out,” I told her.

With that, we slipped out into the club. Shan’s escorts joined us and, after getting a high sign from Sharm, I took the trio into the next room. Erik, one of Sharm’s crew, helped us move a shelving unit to reveal a narrow hallway. We headed down it. Behind us, Erik and another guy slid the shelves back into place.

We emerged into a narrow back alley and quickly headed down it into the maze of streets and alleys between the club and the river. With no sign of followers, we finally stopped to catch our breath.

“So where is the Helden Tower?” asked Shan.

I smiled and pointed.

“That big one over there. Tallest structure still standing in OldTown. Probably was an office tower sometime in the past but it’s just a residential collective now. I don’t live there myself but I know a lot of folks who do.”

“It’s so tall. How do you get up?”

“Last working elevator in OldTown. Well, it works a lot of the time, anyhow. There’s actually a guild or something who teach each other and their children how to maintain it.”

“Can you see across the river?”

“Yep. Best view in OldTown is from the roof. I can show you.”

“Please. I’ve always wanted to see what it looks like from over here.”

The elevator was working that night. I was thankful. The building was eighteen fucking stories so climbing the stairs would not have been fun. Not to mention the staircases were often filled with a stinky mess of garbage, shit, and humanity. I’d even found a rotting corpse or two in there.

We reached the top floor and I quickly guided Shan to the rooftop exit. The top couple floors were the home of a large, multigenerational family. They defended their claim to it rather vigorously. However, I had worked with members of the family and helped them out a couple times. The two young folks on guard, twin siblings, knew me and let us pass unchallenged. They grinned and winked in unison, knowing full well why I usually took a guest to the roof.

Across the river, the myriad tall buildings of UpTown were mostly visible as patterns of light and shadow in the darkness. The tallest stood high over the others. That was the Greater Eversham City Center, home to the government and bureaucracy. I had heard that some of the most senior leaders even had their own multi-level condominiums right in the tower.

“Oh wow, this is a great view. Do people come up here often?” Shan said when she looked out towards the river.

“Not really. No one here cares much about seeing UpTown. Just reminds us of how we are treated by them. I only come up here to get some privacy with a date.”

Shan looked at me and smiled.

“You fuck people here on the roof?”

I shrugged and blushed a little.

“As I said, no one really comes up here. There’s zero privacy on most of the floors inside.”

“Shall we?”

“Shall we … fuck on the roof?”

Shan just grinned and slipped off her vest in response. Her skirt followed as I unzipped my jeans.

Shan walked up to me. Putting a hand behind my head, she pressed her mouth to mine. Her tongue slid in while her other hand fondled my balls, then caressed my cock. I took her cock in my fingers and massaged it, getting her hard remarkably quickly.

“Over there. Where we can see the skyline,” Shan said.

I kissed her, then I walked over to the railing around the edge. Leaning on the railing, I bent over with my legs slightly parted. Shan moved in behind. She licked a finger, then slid it along the crack of my ass to my hole. She rimmed me, then pushed the tip in a bit. Slowly she worked the finger inside.

There was a punk band rocking out somewhere below. They were probably in the building’s old annex. Some residents operated an anonymous club similar to Sharm’s there. The music would make a nice soundtrack to our fuck.

“How’s that? Ready for the big one?” Shan said, twisting the finger around inside me. She found and massaged my prostate.

“Fuck, yes,” I gasped, surprised by how badly I wanted her cock in me.

The finger slid free. Shan rubbed her cock head along my crack a few times, then pressed it against my sphincter. I closed my eyes and tried to relax. Truth be told, I had not bottomed in a very long time.

“Take me,” I said, “Please, Shan, take me.”

She slid in fast and hard. The initial pain and discomfort passed quickly. Shan began to slide her hard cock back and forth inside me. It was an amazing feeling and I wondered why I had let myself go for so long without a cock in me.

I found myself captivated by the lights of the high rises reflected in the river. They bounced off the dark water in a way that was quite beautiful. If only there was not so much ugliness inside them.

Even more beautiful was the woman fucking my ass. Shan had my cock in one of her hands, jerking it at about the same pace as her fucking. My past times as a bottom had been short and rough. This was the first time a top had made love to me, rather than just fucking the hell out of me.

When Shan let go of my cock and held on to my hips, I braced myself. I knew she was probably ready to pick up the pace. My lover went rapidly from slowly fucking to pounding. I was not complaining. The long, slow start had let me get used to the penetration. Now, I took delight in being fucked hard, in her cock moving rapidly back and forth within me.

“Oh fuck yes, baby,” Shan roared aloud.

I felt her cock pulsing inside my ass. My own was almost ready to go but it could wait until my lover was sated.

Finally, Shan slipped out. I straightened up and turned to face her. Smiling, she wrapped fingers around my cock and began pumping, eyes locked with mine. In no time, I came hard. My seed poured out onto the roof, making a nice creamy mess on the gravel.

We stared into each other’s eyes for a moment longer, then we kissed. It was a fierce, almost frantic kiss, born out of need as much as love. And, yet, for the first time I sensed that love might be there.

The explosion made us both jump and turn. We probably missed the initial flash, being caught up in each other. But then the sound reached us across the river as a thunderous crash.

Across the river, a fireball rose above the tallest building. Smoke and flames poured out the windows of the upper floors. As we watched, there were a couple more explosions in that building, then some on the ground and in neighbouring buildings.

“Fuck,” I gasped, shaking my head.

We had all thought of revolution at times, of getting rid of the authoritarian regime that ruled the city. But most of us just settled for the relative freedom that the squalor of OldTown provided. Revolution was running drugs under the gaze of the cops or other acts that the rulers would see as criminal or immoral. Seeing the explosions, realizing that they must be the start of an actual revolution, was stunning.

“Oh fucking hell, Dari, you did it,” Shan muttered, “You fucking did it.”

Her face had turned as pale as her dark skin allowed and she was shaking like a leaf.

“You think your friend’s bunch did this?”

“She hinted that something was coming, but I never conceived of it being this big.”

Something clicked in my brain.

“Fuck, Shan. That’s why you’re here. She wanted you out of the way, somewhere safe.”

Shan looked at me in surprise, then nodded.

“I guess you’re right,” she said, “Dari never said as much but she seemed rather eager for me to get out of Uptown.”

“Good friend, I guess.”

Shan looked thoughtful, then said, “Or she felt it better to have me not be a player in what’s coming. JK, I need you to know the full truth now. I am not just one of the elite. I am the elite. I am The Mayor’s daughter. Not that he wants a daughter. He much prefers me as a son. That’s why I fled. If Dad had his way, my implants would be removed without anesthetic.”

I was silent, digesting her words. This was getting very big, much bigger than petty crime and drug running. The Mayor led the Council, the oligarchy that ran the city. Getting caught helping his child escape her world would likely not end well for me. Of course, the authorities would have to find out and catch me first.

Sirens filled the night across the river. There was a strange crackle that I suddenly realized was probably small arms fire heard from a distance. The shooting was punctuated by some small explosions, maybe grenades or something. Then came another massive explosion, as several stories of a building next to the first one became engulfed in flames.

“What do we do, JK? Where do we go? This is insane,” Shan stammered, “I thought I was just getting away, not getting caught up in a revolution.”

I thought for a moment.

“Look, the family on the top floor of this building are friends and owe me a favour or two. I’ll bet they can give us a room for a few nights. You stay put there while I make some arrangements.”

“And then?”

“Sharm, the club owner, talked about people like you going North,” I said, “She said that even just a few days away there are places where the cities have little influence or power. But I don’t really know much. It was just something she talked about.”

“Dari said if you go far enough, there’s the Homelands, where the free indigenous nations welcome those fleeing the tyrannies of the South,” Shan said.

I nodded, telling her, “I’ve always taken stories like that to be shit. But based on what Sharm said, maybe going North is our best chance of escaping this madhouse. Even if we just get out into the rural areas away from the city, we might be able to hunker down for a while.”

Another blast echoed across the river. With it came more sirens and gunfire. Then there was an explosion close by. I remembered that her companions had been from her friend’s group.

“Shit, your buddies must have started something on this side. Maybe an attack on the enforcement and administration center down the road. Let’s get inside.”

That night, we shared a room three floors below that was not much bigger than a closet. Unable to sleep between our own nerves and the constant racket from outside, we fucked some more. That seemed to settle our nerves. And the noise seemed to lessen as the night wore on.

On the third night after the uprising began, we quietly left the city in a beat-up old utility truck. I had called in favours right and left to get the truck, some jerry cans of gasoline, and some supplies. By the time we left, I had a few days of rations, some changes of clothing, and sleeping bags. I had also settled a few old debts and scores.

Through the whisper stream, I learned that Enforcement had abandoned the gateways that one normally had to pass to leave on the major highways. Those had been my biggest worry. I had assumed that The Mayor would have Enforcement watching for Shan. Of course, maybe The Mayor was dead. Shan told me her family had lived in the upper stories where the first explosions happened.

I also learned that UpTown was a battle zone. Enforcement’s paramilitary tactical division was at war with people loyal to The Movement day and night. I was not sure if that worked in our favour. However, I hoped that it would keep the government forces distracted until we were a long way away.

Moving slowly through streets that were less congested than usual, I drove towards the highway 4 gate near what had once been a thriving university. There had been some fighting in OldTown, but not much. Most OldTowners were just watching events unfold across the river rather than getting too involved. Still, I had my old 9mm pistol and a newly obtained automatic rifle in the truck just in case.

The gate was unprotected as I had been told. The guard booth was burnt out while the physical gate lay on the ground, torn from its hinges. That suggested we were not the first to leave this way.

Once clear of the gate, I floored it. The highway flew past in my lights as I plunged into the darkness beyond the city. Now and then, I could see lights in the sky, maybe helicopters. However, they were always headed to or from UpTown. None of them came near or seemed interested in a lone vehicle heading North.

By dawn, we pulled into an old farm. The barn still stood, providing a place to hide the truck. We camped out in the former hayloft and cooked a simple meal using a little gas burner on the back liftgate of the truck.

Once settled in the hayloft, we frantically pulled each other’s clothes off. I pinned Shan to her sleeping bag and rubbed my cock alongside hers until we were both hard and dripping precum. Then we switched to her on all fours with me behind. I drove my cock into her, fucking her with joyous abandon. We both came fairly quickly.

As we dozed off in each other’s arms, I felt free and happy in a way that I had never felt in OldTown. I kissed Shan, then closed my eyes. Perhaps, I thought, the city was not the only thing having a revolution.