Page 7 of Dream a Little Dream

Not for Aaron.

Whoever Aaron was.

Eventually, the man stepped away, refusing to look at him. Those eyes that had been stanch and persistent now dulled with regret as he popped his limp cock back in his pants, zipped up his trousers, neatly tucking his shirt in with a finality sounding unbearably like a locked door.

Aaron buttoned his jeans, slipped out a vape from his back pocket and offered it to him.

“That’ll kill you.”

Aaron snorted. Took a drag. “This?” He blew out sweet menthol flavoured vapour to cloud around them both. “It’ll have to get in line.”

“You have other preferred methods of self-destruction?”

“Strange men in back rooms.”

“You should avoid them, too.”

“Tell me about it.” Aaron took another lungful and blew it out. Then watched him walk toward the exit without so much as a second glance. “You seriously not telling me your name?”

The man turned back. “You going to tell me yours?”

“Aaron.” It was easier to throw that out when he knew it wasn’t his real one.

The man looked at him.Reallylooked at him. All the way inside him. “Aaron?” He laughed as if he’d called him out on the lie, then sauntered off through the tunnels toward the bar.

“Psycho!” Aaron called after him for no other reason than he hated things coming to an abrupt end.

Man chuckled, deep and resonant. “You have no idea.”

Aaron swallowed. Because yeah, he did. So didthatman.

And he’d learn all about it soon enough.

Chapter two

Bad Romance

Dr Kenneth Lyons was an idiot.

An idiot with a PhD.

An idiot with a PhD on his way to making professor.

Yet he’d made an undeniable error in judgment that could cost him his entire tenure.

Leaving his semi-detached home in the leafy suburbs of Ryston, a university market town sidled within the West Midlands, on Monday morning, Kenny hoped his pounding along the mud track would wipe away the sordid memories clinging to him like the stench of stale smoke on fabric. Having spent Sunday mostly nursing a hangover, he hadn’t rid himself of the flashing images of nightclub strobe lights, writhing bodies, and a stranger’s face obscured by intoxication.

Nor ofpinkhair.

A tattooed Mars symbol on a tasty neck.

He shook his head, clasping his hair up into a knot, attempting to dislodge the recollections of having been utterly out of his mind. Psychologists also had moments of insanity. He was just able to pinpoint all the whys and wherefores about it. It had beenthe date. Fresh in his mind, hoisting the ghosts of his past on his shoulders, whispering for him todosomething. Being far from home on a weekend and immersed in a big city had provided him with the opportunity to disappear for a while. To drown the ghosts out by indulging in something hedonistic. Something visceral. Something forhim.

And not for her.

But the figure promising oblivion only delivered regret.

The September morning chill nipped his arms and legs. He was fairly certain there was a suit left at his office, or his new students might have to suffer their lectures with him in shorts and tee. It wouldn’t be the first time. Nor the last. He’d become known asDr Legsover the years.

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