Page 1 of A Mistake of Identity
Ellis
Ellis had perfected the art of looking available, but not desperate.
The sheer fabric of his crop top taunted as much as it covered, drifting away from his torso with every movement, only to settle back against his skin. Each slow turn or stretch sent the flimsy material dancing, teasing glimpses of muscled chest and dusky nipples before hiding them again. The contrast with his briefs was deliberate—while the top played coy, the skin-tight black fabric below left nothing to the imagination, cupping his cock and barely covering the top curve of his ass. Years of experience had taught him that the mix of revelation and mystery sold better than blatant display.
He shifted his weight, letting his hip cant to one side in a practiced motion that drew the eye. His body moved through the familiar choreography without conscious thought: subtle flex here, a languid stretch there, the occasional brush of fingers along the floating hem of his top that made the fabric flutter against his abs.
Eight businessmen had hurried past Heart Court’s “display case” in the last hour, all trying not to stare and failing miserably. Dark suits, every one of them. Ellis amused himself by imagining them in hot pink instead—serious-faced men power-walking past in fluorescent formal wear.
He had to get his kicks somehow.
Above him, the neon heart pulsed, casting waves of pink and red light across his skin. “HEART COURT” blazed in cursive letters, turning another abandoned warehouse in Port du Coeur’s industrial sprawl into something more sinister or inviting, depending on who you asked.
None of it mattered tonight. He’d be at the Lumière in two hours, meeting a mystery client who could make or break his future at Heart Court.
The display case’s heavy glass door opened to Heart Court’s lobby, separating the merchandise from the customers. Ellis knew the door’s weight intimately, had felt it slam shut behind him more than once when Donovan was in one of his moods. The thick metal frame could only lock from the outside, ostensibly to keep patrons out of the windows rather than workers in, though Kevin Donovan, owner and proprietor of the Heart Court, had been known to forget that distinction when he was angry.
“Get your ass in back here, Anouilh.” Donovan bellowed from a back room. Of course, Donovan butchered the name again—Uh-nule instead of Ah-new-ee. Ellis had given up correcting him after the hundredth time. Like his refusal to learn French, Donovan took pride in mangling anything that wasn’t pure American English.
The display case’s heavy glass door opened with its familiar pneumatic hiss. Caleb Winters slipped in, already untying his robe. “Here,” he said, draping it over Ellis’ shoulders with a whispered, “good luck.”
The kid was barely five-foot-five, with platinum blonde hair and doe eyes that had clients falling over themselves to book him. Like Jean, he played up the innocent act perfectly, even down to his signature outfit. The pure white corset hugged his slim torso, strategic lacing revealing teasing glimpses of bare skin, while the matching white thong left little to theimagination. Virginal fantasy with a promise of corruption. It was a look that worked. Even now, as he took Ellis’ place in the window, his movements had that practiced hesitation that drove the regulars wild.
Ellis slipped his arms through the sleeves and pulled the robe around himself, trying not to notice how the soft fabric barely reached mid-thigh on his taller frame. He padded barefoot across the lobby floor, cinching the belt tight around his waist. No matter how obsessive the cleaning crew was, he could never quite shake the skin-crawling feeling of bare feet on these tiles, knowing what happened in the adjacent rooms.
A snicker from the front desk caught Ellis’ attention. Jean Devereaux bent over the appointment book, blonde curls falling forward to hide his grin, but when he peeked up to meet Ellis’ eyes, they shared a familiar eye roll. The kid spoke perfect Parisian French—he knew exactly how wrong Donovan’s pronunciation was.
Unlike the barely-there outfits required in the display case, Jean’s front desk uniform was a subtle tease: tight black shorts that rode high on his thighs paired with a crisp white button-down, sleeves rolled precisely to his elbows and open just enough to show his collar bones. His shirt was perfectly tucked, creating the polished look of an upscale maltreat d’ who just happened to be showing a bit more skin than usual.
Behind the welcome desk where Jean worked, the hallway split. To the right, private rooms lined both sides; each door was numbered in peeling gold paint. To the left, the employees-only section began, marked by a change from decorative wallpaper to bare walls painted in cheap beige.
Ellis followed the left corridor past the supply closet, where shelves held everything a client might need. Each item meticulously inventoried and charged to their bill. His bare feet made soft sounds against the tile as he approached the employeelounge. The smell hit him first: stale coffee and the sharp tang of industrial cleaner, a far cry from the subtle perfumes that filled the front.
The lounge hit him like a slap of reality after the pretense up front: a tattered couch worn to some forgotten shade of blue, a mini-kitchen with its humming refrigerator and temperamental microwave, mismatched chairs around a folding table.
They kept the linoleum floor spotless—Donovan’s one consistent rule. But no amount of scrubbing could hide its age, just like the fluorescent lights couldn’t conceal the pallor they cast on everyone’s skin.
Meaty fingers dug into Ellis’ shoulder, spinning him around. Donovan might be pushing fifty, but regular gym sessions kept him fit enough to manhandle his employees when he wanted to. He shoved Ellis onto the couch, looming over him with his tablet in hand. The man’s patchy beard did nothing to hide his pockmarked skin or the sneer that twisted his face into something even uglier than usual.
“‘Lackluster.’ ‘Unsatisfying.’ ‘Just okay.’” His thumb scrolled with sharp, angry flicks. “And one complaint I had to have translated, fucking Paw-Paw, but trust me, it wasn’t flattering.”
Every child in PDC grew up speaking Paw-Paw French, the Missouri French. Ellis had learned its history during those long days in the Fourth Cat’s libraries, where warmth and kind librarians had been as welcoming as the books. They’d let him wash in their bathrooms, never minding his shabby clothes as long as he treated their books with care.
Like its cousins Quebecois and Southern Creole, Paw-Paw had evolved in isolation. The dialect twisted European French into something new, borrowing freely from German traders, Spanish merchants, and English settlers. Words mixedand merged in the mouths of people too busy surviving to care about proper grammar. The result was, like a particularly poetic book wrote, a language that flowed like water over rocks—familiar in its movement but shaped by everything it touched.
That Donovan, a Chicago transplant, still refused to learn it, said everything about why Heart Court struggled. The man was unadaptable.
“You have one more chance.” Donovan’s face flushed red in anger. With thick fingers, the proprietor jabbed at his tablet, its dull glow highlighting every scar and blemish. The device chimed with each aggressive tap until Ellis’ phone buzzed in response.
The client profile was heavy on kinks and light on description: late thirties, brown hair, blue eyes. “How am I supposed to recognize him without a picture?”
“Black suit. Maroon shirt.”
“At the Lumière? That’s First Cat. You just described half their clientele.”
The backhand caught Ellis by surprise, the force of it sending him sprawling across the tattered couch. His tablet clattered to the cushions as pain bloomed across his cheek. Before he could recover, Donovan’s meaty fingers twisted in his hair, yanking him upright. Ellis’ right hand flew up instinctively to grip Donovan’s wrist while his left braced against the couch cushion, steadying himself as the proprietor hauled him back to sitting. He knew better than to actually fight the hold. His scalp burned, neck wrenched at an awkward angle as Donovan used his grip to force Ellis to look at him.
When Donovan’s grip loosened slightly, Ellis let go of his wrist to gingerly touch his cheek, already feeling the heat of what would become a nasty bruise. He’d need to raid Jean’s makeup stash before heading to the Lumière.
