They called it the city that never slept, the city of a thousand dreams, the city where hopes went to die; all I called it was 'home'.

It was stormy that night in the big city, because hell, even nature seems to have a twisted sense of humour, and no-one within their right mind was outside. Those who had the intelligence to recognise a storm had battened-down the hatches, locked the shutters, and barred the doors. Those with marginally less intellect had merely thrown on their most waterproof outfit, and had headed off down the road. Yet more just huddled together, outside, exposed to the elements, gaining shelter from whatever they could.

Past the groups of sodden sods, was the river which separated the city from the outskirts. More of a moat, it skirted the city completely, creating a ring of water; a ring which, in times of flood, proved a ring of death. It was a halo, a halo for the head of Mother Earth. No-one knew why the city was built in such a location. Nor, with the craziness of the world, did anyone care. It was a pity, really- it was something I’d always wondered about; why people lived right next to it, when they could just as easily have lived in other places. It wasn’t like the goddamn city didn’t have any space, either. It was like...like the city had some kind of narrative it was going to stick to, come hell or high water.

Move over the river, and you’d find yourself in the red-light district (a place I’d practically grown up in. Jesus, no wonder I’d turned out like I had). This place was the end-of-the-line; the final resting place for the worn-out city. All around, as far as the eye could see, there were flickering neon lights, proclaiming “Naked Girls! 5 entry fee.” And “Big Breasts inside”. There was even, on the side of a building, tucked away a sign that told the world that there were “Real Live Shemales. Guess the Tranny and win 500”- a contest anyone had yet to win; not because people couldn’t guess, but because every single one of the girls was an actual girl. It was a sneaky trick, but I had to admire the cunning bastard that came up with it. Everywhere around were bars, clubs, night clubs, strip joints, brothels, massage parlours, and every kind of sordid, sleazy establishment imaginable. However, hidden away in a side street, between the “Lesbians Fantasy Nightclub” and a five-storey building that declaimed itself to have “Beautiful girls of every age, colour and gender” was a small, almost-missable building. Grey, grubby, with darkened windows, a sign proclaimed it as the office of ‘Nick Nocturne, Private Investigator’.
This place of magic and wonder was, naturally, my office.

Inside, the ceiling fan turned slowly, the only sound breaking the silence of the otherwise still office. A slight rustle of paper followed soon after as I turned the page of the newspaper,. A ring of cigar smoke rose to the ceiling, disappearing as it was ripped by the fan.
I reached up, took the cigar from between my lips, and dumped it into an ashtray, eyes never leaving the page.
I’d just finished a case, and was, in my own way, celebrating.

Couple of weeks ago, some dame had sauntered into my office, her eyes like diamonds, her lips like rubies, and sat down on my desk. She’d blubbered like a seal into a handkerchief, pausing only to look up at me with wide, round eyes, staring at me with big blue peepers. ‘Please, mister’, she’d begged, her voice like oil over water ‘please, mister, you’ve gotta help me, you just gotta. My husband took off with some floozy, and he took all my money. I need that money, mister, or I’ll have nowhere to...to l-l-l-live. But that’s..that’s not the worst part, mister, no sir. He took my momma’s locket, too. She gave me it as a wedding gift, and her momma gave it to her, and..’ She’d started sobbing again, then, trying to wear down my defences like a kid with a shovel battering at a snowman.
‘Relax, toots’, I’d told her, switching my cigar from one side of my mouth to the other, narrowing my eyes a little as I watched her ‘I’ll get the wiseguy who took your money, and his little whore on the side, too. I’ll even get your locket, too. What did you tell me? Silver, shape of a heart, little ruby jewel on it, just like your lips?’ (She’d laughed at that, and I’d marvelled at how beautiful she looked. Tch, right. I’d just wondered how much more I could get out of her if I flirted a little more) ‘ Sounds to me like you want to get the hell out of there, though; something tells me you ain’t his main squeeze any more, doll’. She smiled at me, then, those lips parting in a smile that sent a shiver right down me, and headed out; I made sure to watch her as she went, slipping my eyes over her curves- the way her hair fell over her shoulders, the swell of her hips, the smooth length of her legs. Jesus, those legs- they went right down to the ground and back up again. This was a class A dame, and no mistake.

I stood from my desk, stretching, running a hand through my hair as I smiled at the memory. The case had been all too easy, obviously- I’d tracked the husband down to some seedy mote, burst in to find him all shacked up with the flapper. They’d been surprised to see me- sure, who wouldn’t be?- and he’d protested his innocence, said the girl with the ruby red lips was some girl he’d met in a speakeasy, said she was after his money. I’d cold-cocked him, then, putting out my cigar on the back of his woman’s hand ‘til she told me the truth.
It was strange, but I couldn’t stop thinking back to that day. Couldn’t stop thinking back to the way his big blue peepers had widened, how he’d begged like a bum for his life, falling to his knees, wringing his hands like a churchyard bell as he asked me to ‘please, buddy, please, don’t hurt me. I gotta wife, see, and a, a coupla kids. You know what I mean, right? Kids, wife..’
‘Little house on the prairie?’, I’d interjected, smirking at him as I pulled out a pistol, casually aiming it in his vague direction, pointing it in a way that quite obvious showed I could stop him ever having his hypothetical little bastards. ‘You wanna tell me the truth, slim, or do I have to beat you like the pathetic little sonofabitch you are?’
‘What do you want? Tell me, and it’s yours. Money, power, dames, it’s yours, I swear. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a gang who know some fence who can get anythi-‘
‘Shut up’. Just two words, spoken softly, but they worked as well as though I’d slapped him in the face. His head whipped back, and his eyes widened as they fixed on mine, as he seemed to suddenly realise that yeah, I meant business. ‘Your wife, says you took her locket. She wants it back, plus the money you took from her. Do that, and you’ll live to be scum another day, capische?’
‘Sure, sure. Here, take it. I never wanted it for nothin’ anyway, but Sally, she said she wanted it, and I wanted to give it to her, so I took it. Tell Alice I’m sorry, mister. Tell her I love her’
‘I’ll tell her you begged for mercy with your last breath, and as I’m not in the business of giving bad news, I decided to spare your miserable little life, so long as you split like a banana right now, and get the hell out of my city’.

That was the last I saw of him. Alive, anyway. But that’s another story, altogether.
His girl, though? After I’d burned the confession out of her, and left her, I saw her always hanging around my office like some cast-off, like by burning the scar onto her hand, I’d marked her out as mine, and she’d somehow decided that I’d have to accept her.
Well, hell, that was one special delivery I didn’t want to sign for.
The wife, though, had been suitably happy when I’d given the locket to her; she’d smiled that smile at me, kissed me like a brand-new bride, and shown me pleasures I was pretty sure were illegal in most states; sometimes twice a night.

I was snapped from my memories by a knock at the door, and turned to see my secretary, Genevieve, sauntering in. She was the kind of woman that could drive a man to do unspeakable things, and no mistake- she had the kind of mind that even Einstein would have wanted, and the kind of body to make a man weak at the groin. I’d had a fling with her once, but we’d promised never to do it again- she was too much for me- though I'd never tell her to her face. Her ass, maybe her chest, but never her face-, and I’d never been one to muddy the water I drank from. She smiled at me, handed me a note, and I took it, fixing my eyes a couple of inches below her chin. She turned and swayed out, and I found myself thinking of an excuse to fire her.

I read the note- something about a couple of mysterious murders down the old Wellman hotel on the corner of fifth and Kojak- and decided I’d head down, see what the case was. Wandering over to the mirror, I stared at myself, moving my hands to fix myself a drink as I studied myself; same old steel-blue eyes, bloodshot from too much nickel-and-dime coffee in two-bit diners, mixed with too many sleepless nights with too many variations of little miss round-heels in sleazy hotels; same old black-turning-to-grey-at-the-temples hair, scruffy from where I ran my hands through it as I thought; same old stubble; same old scar above my right eye, reminded of a fight long ago. Some jealous boyfriend with a quick temper and a quicker knife.

I finished mixing the drink, and downed it in one shot, grimacing at the sharp bite of the alcohol as it slid down my throat, burning my stomach like a cheap chilli. I shook my head, moved over to my hatstand; after a pause, I shrugged on my jacket, pulled on my fedora, pulled it low over my head. I straightened my tie, and headed out of the office, grabbing my equipment as I left. As I headed past Genevieve, she parted her lips in another of her smiles- maybe I could find myself too hurt to work? All I’d need would be a couple of boxers gone to seed with hot tempers and fast fists, and I’d have a hell of a nurse from her- and spoke to me in her sweet voice.

“You splitting for the day, then, boss?”, came the dulcet tones of her indescribable accent. I never could place where she came from, except that it was someplace where, evidently, the women sounded like they could bite the balls off a lion, and get away with it. Every time she spoke, I thanked whatever God I believed in that day that I wasn’t a lion.
I sighed, but nodded, smiling back at her as I replied “yeah- splitting like a headache, doll. Looks like another case for Nick Nocturne, toots. If I’m not back by tonight, don’t call the cops- get right in touch with O’Mealey. If she whines like a vineyard, tell her she owes me for the MacReedy case”
“The hell are you on about, shamus?"” she looked at me like I’d grown another mouth and started speaking bullshit in stereo; but the only part of me that caught any of it was my back as I sauntered down the stairs.

Joe's was the kind of grimy place a man went to if he wanted cheap scotch and cheaper women; neither the glasses nor the bar was clean, which suited my dirty mood just fine. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, alone with my self, and while usually I'd have been allowed to do that, it seemed tonight was ladies' night- or maybe just 'ladies who want to bother a man who just wants to get drunk' night. Either way, it didn't take long for the first dame to slink her way to the bar next to me.

“Pretty sure a crystal glass ain’t nothin’ like a crystal ball- you won’t find anything in there by lookin’, you know”
I felt her slide in next to me, taking her time to sit in the stool; I felt the warmth of her body, the swell of her breasts brushing against me. I could feel the ice in my glass burning my fingers as the moment stretched on, almost forever. Finally, I wrenched my eyes from the amber liquid, up to the mirror behind the bar. For a moment, steel-blue met steel-blue, and then I looked away, glancing over at her. She was pretty, no doubt about it, but she was young, too; maybe twenty, twenty-five years younger than me. Probably old enough to have her own home, a good job, whatever else- she was maybe mid to late twenties, but to me she might as well have been fresh out of school, for all the good it was going to do. She was far too young for a man of my age, that much was for sure, which meant one of two things- she was either harbouring some serious daddy issues, or her affections were as negotiable as her rates. Either way, I wasn’t in the mood for paying, or playing.

“You don’t want me”, I replied softly, mirror-me talking to mirror-her.

“I’m only bein’ friendly”, she replied, pouting, her voice slipping into a tone that wobbled along the tightrope line between flirty and defensive, somehow making her sound both ridiculously sulky, and utterly sultry, at the same time. It was funny- she almost sounded as though she thought she still had a chance with me.

“You’re lookin’ for a bed-warmer, right?”, I glanced over at her properly, and saw her head bob just a little, though her eyes widened in a perverse parody of innocence, like she knew she’d been caught but still wanted to play anyway. I took a moment to take a sip of my drink, grimacing as it burned my throat, baring my teeth against it for a moment, before replying.“Then you really don’t want me, kid. It’d be like fucking a snowman with an icicle for a cock”.

“Fuck you”, she shot back, but there was no venom in it- it was more like some reflex action brought on by consistent rejection. Her eyes narrowed, though, and her face flushed in anger, and weirdly, it made her look all the sexier. Hell, maybe after a couple divorces and a dozen failed relationships, I’d developed some sort of Pavlovian response to anger; out come the narrowed eyes, up pops the erection. Wouldn’t have surprised me, really. Nothing much did at that point.

After a moment, she slid out of the stool- faster that time, like she couldn’t wait to be away from me- and then she was gone. And there was nothing but me, and the bartender, and the sound of soft music, interrupted by the blades of ceilings fans whirring lazily.

I took another sip of the drink, grimacing again as the booze burned my throat on the way down, frowning at the ice still burning my fingers. I didn’t let go yet, though- just kept on holding that glass in my hand, cradling it as though it were something precious and wonderful. And I guess, in a way, it was, right?

"Hey, Joe", I murmured, and the man looked up at me, the cloth in his hand doing nothing but spreading the grime around the glass. I tapped mine on the bar, then pushed it towards him with three fingers, holding them up for a lingering moment. "Same again, and keep 'em coming".

He grunted at me- he'd always been the talkative type- and glanced down the bar meaningfully, before turning away to get my drink. I copped a look in the direction he'd peeked, and found myself face-to-breasts with the tightest dress I'd ever seen. Facing in my direction, too, with an unmistakeable come-hither look pasted across her nipples. I took a moment to consider my option- I woulda thought options, but it was clear there was only one thing to do, and it sure as hell didn't involve sitting my ass in one goddamn spot. After all, I'd been in this situation one too many times to know nothing good would come of it.

But then, maybe I was tired of good.

So where do you come in? Maybe you're the girl with the burn; maybe you're an innocent little ingenue, come to hire him for the next case; maybe you're the femme fatale with private dick on the brain. Maybe you're a barfly hoping she can heat that snowman's cock.

You tell me.

In advance, this'll probably end up being fairly vanilla, and very heavily plotted; if you're looking for a fantasy fuck, then is this the wrong one for you.

I don't have any limits beyond the usual scope of bodily fluids, death, terrible injury, maiming, corpse-fucking, animal-fucking, or underage shit. Other than that, in the words of Cole Porter, anything goes.

If this is up, I'm still looking.

If nothing else, this is just a good bit of writing to enjoy, right?