Belhue Press is proud to announce that WARLOCK was the winner of a 2002 IPPY Award from Independent Press Magazine for best Gay and Lesbian Book. This is one of Perry Brass's most compelling stories, about love, surrender, and the magic of overwhelming needs being met. It's about our sweetest dreams and worst nightmares coming true . . .  and the hard work of warlocks.

    Allen Barrow’s friends are polite, shy men like himself who gather to eat in affordable restaurants and recognize each other as refugees from their own families. He's a forgotten clerk in a bank, dresses out of discount stores, with a small penis that embarrasses him. One night at a bathhouse he meets a man whose presence rivets and intimidates him. Destry Powars—commanding, vulgar, mysterious, ugly in his behavior and yet seductive—has suddenly pulled Allen into his orbit and will not let go of him. Destry lives in a closed, monied world that Allen can only dream about; a world that he can only glimpse at a distance. From generations of  drifters, Powars has been chosen to learn the secret language of money, a language based on force,  deception, and nerve. But who chose him and taught him these “arts”—and what does he really want from Allen?

    What are the strange Mr. Powars's dark powers? These mysteries Allen will uncover in Warlock, a novel both as paralyzing in its suspense as it is voluptuously erotic.

    He was wearing a leather suit, but not what you'd think. No garden variety S & M gear. No, this was gorgeously, artfully tailored. Beautifully cut, black leather pants whose side pockets flared out deftly, like a well-cut English suit would; with a fetally soft, anthracite-black, leather sports jacket, to match. The jacket draped fluidly, like another skin. It made my herringbone tweed look like a piece of dreck from the Salvation Army. His was maybe Armani; who knows? With it he wore a simple, very fine, white cotton T-shirt; its simplicity, I realized, only called attention to its expense.
    "You look good," he said. He kept smiling at me. But the smile had a funny quality. It was stiff. "I didn't want you to get so dolled up, but you look good. Hey, y'know, it's good you could do this. I thought we'd just go and have some fun. Kick back maybe. Know what I mean?"
    I nodded. I did not know what he meant. At all.
    He pulled me to him. It started to rain more outside, but next to him I felt this incredible security and the headiness of his smell—his leather, his muscular skin; the subtle, spicy cologne that he wore that I could not place—I'd never smelled anything like it—and then the smell of the car: clean, marshmallow-soft leather; gleaming polished wood; his breath, that scotchiness with a slight, distant hint of garlic, maybe. Something in his mouth, something in him. I wanted to fall all over him. What could I say? He kissed me. His cheeks slightly scraped me. I loved their slight bristle. I felt overwhelmed and yet definitely, sadly, awfully apprehensive. "You like me, don't you?" he said.
    I nodded.
    He pressed my crotch, then rubbed the khaki. "I like that," he said in a low voice. "I wanna take you away. Wouldja let me?"
    I tried to smile. "Where?"
    "Why ask? When you trust someone, you don't ask questions. You're like me: I know it. You're gonna trust me, Allen. You're gonna give me everything. Please, I'm asking you, will you?"
    "But I don’t have anything," I protested.
    The rain got harder, and the car glided through it like a black swan. I felt like I was no longer in New York. I was in another place, one of those places you read about in the "Style" section of the Times, where people are beautiful and life is effortless and no one ever thinks about the right-hand side of the menu, where the hard prices wait with a coy wink. He pulled me to him and started kissing my neck. His tongue rolled over my Adam's apple and he softly sucked on it. This little arpeggio of coolness rolled down the nerves of my spine. My neck prickled as he sucked delicately at me, then bit lightly, creasing the skin. Yes, I thought, I will give him everything . . . but what does he really want?
    The car was now on the East Side and we were going all the way up Madison Avenue. The temperature in it was perfect, not a drop lower or higher than comfortable. I heard the driver's voice ask, "The same place, Mr. Powars?"
    "Yeah," he said, drawing away from me. “Y'know, my club!" he started laughing. "Wait'll you see this place. It's such a hoot! It's called Toyland. It's fun. Just like the song, 'Toyland, Toyland, little girl and boy land!'—I take guys from Europe there all the time. Europe. South America. Hong Kong. You won't believe it. They got good steaks, too. Wait'll you taste 'em."
    The car stopped in front of an anonymous commercial building on a side street off Madison, somewhere in the blocks above Central Park, in a neighborhood of bodegas, take-out joints with flickering signs in Spanish, housing projects, and tenements. It was dark, wet, with big cars around, looking like sullen whales at a feeding ground. The driver parked, then got out with a large black umbrella to open the door for us.
    "Thanks, Winchell," Powars said. "I’ll call you when we're through. Go get yourself a pizza or something. Just don't get out of range, okay?"
    "You got protection?" Winchell said in the rain.
    "You think I’m gonna carry protection in there? You think I’m nuts?" He smiled coyly. "Sure, I got it."
    He opened his jacket and I could see a slight budge in it, hardly bigger than a child's hand. I swallowed hard. Winchell escorted us with his umbrella to a canopy, where a group of doormen, dark-skinned with very dark glasses waited. A small sign with discreet white letters said, "Private Club." I wondered how the doormen could see anything, but they smiled at Destry Powars and then ignored me, like I was just a little tail that had been attached as an afterthought to a powerful dog. As soon as the black door began to open, Winchell disappeared. I looked out into the rain as the big car turned and neatly cut a slice of water in its wake.
    "You're gonna like this place, Allen," Powars promised me. "It ain't got the kind of stuff you probably dig, but once you get into it, you’re gonna think it's—"
    Inside, it was very loud; we were in a huge room filled with tall poles and suspended catwalks and almost naked women. About a dozen of them were either strutting on the walks or churning around the poles. They were dancing, gyrating, bending way over, bouncing up and down, or were on the floor. Some were crawling around down there, or kneeling. Men would pet them like dogs, and stick wads of bills into their bikini bottoms. The women wore pasties over their nipples, but sometimes even those were transparent. "They keep trying to clean this place up. The girls used to be—well, you could see everything. Pussy, the whole thing. But now it's a bit more wholesome." He laughed.
    "How you doin', Mr. Powars?" A big man with a tiny, smooth, dark olive complected face, wearing a baggy Italian-style suit that still looked like a stuffed duffel bag on him, approached. "Nice outfit you got on tonight. It's—" The big man placed his forefingers and thumbs together to form neat little circles. I noticed that his small hands had several large rings on them. His bejeweled pinkies were extended. He could not quite find the words.
    "Thanks, Baby. Allen, this is Baby Zoula. He runs the place. Baby and I go back—not a lot go back, but, hey, nowadays, you know, go back can mean something like a year. I love you, Baby. You got a good crowd tonight."
    Baby beamed and rocked on his heels as he spoke. "Sunday here is good for us. Nobody likes t'leggo of the weekend. The Wall Street dudes, they gotta work their butts off, so they wanna come up here, eat good, drink good, have some fun. Some action, maybe. A guy needs his right t'do that, don'cha think? The guvment always wants to watch ya ass. But a man's gotta have that right, ya know?"
    "Sure," Powars said seriously. "I booked a table. Is it ready?"
    Baby led us into an adjacent dining room. It was low-ceilinged and intimate and smelled of thick cigars from a bar and hefty, char-broiled steaks from the kitchen. We sat down at a table on the side that seemed to have been made for the two of us, or three of us. I noticed there was an empty chair. We had menus, but Powars ordered for us. Two large rare Angus steaks, baked Idahos, salads, blue cheese dressing. He ordered a single malt scotch for himself and I had a red vermouth with a twist. The drinks came. They looked as if each should have had a couple of goldfish swimming in it, they were so big. Along with the drinks, and later the food, came a line of girls. They would come up and smile, and ask if they could sit down. Powars would pat them and kiss them, feel them up a bit, give them a squeeze, then they’d leave after being tipped.
    He cut into his steak and forked off a big red chunk of it that he stuffed into his mouth, while drinking scotch and talking. "I love women," he said, swallowing.
    "You do?"
    "Sure. Who doesn't? They're fun. They never ask as much from you as guys. You give 'em a little squeeze and a hug and they're happy. I mean I could fuck 'em, but no girl wants to get fucked if she can get the dough without getting fucked. That's a universal law, don'chu think, with girls."
    I shrugged my shoulders, and then ate some of the steak. It was actually very good, but why not? The place was expensive, despite its location and the sleaze factor. But expense and sleaze seem to go together now. I tried to smile at him and not hear a word he said. The cigar smoke was bothering me. I wanted to get the hell out. I hated the way he talked about women. It upset me. Did he talk about me that way?
    Suddenly, a tall, drop-dead gorgeous young woman breezed up to us. She looked like she'd popped out of some big Las Vegas revue (all sequins, ostrich feathers, and bleached, beefy gay boys who do magic) and had very dark black skin that shimmered with a tawny-red North African glow. She had long, perfect legs, like a dancer, and perfect breasts, too. They reminded me of lustrous little crème brulées, but black-licorice flavored. I could imagine them glistening, standing up neatly by themselves, on white French café saucers.
    Her little nipples, like candy flower buds, peeked out of the narrow silver halter top she wore. She had on a black leather microskirt—and had amazing hair. It cascaded down her sylphic neck to her shoulders. It was sable-black with real, sparkling highlights, like something Diana Ross would have envied. In Miss Ross's photos, her hair always looked too chemical, but this wasn't. She was young and fetching. Okay, she fetched me. She shot a porcelain-white smile at Powars. "Bambino! Comè sta?"
    "I'm good," he said. "How 'bout you, Felicia? You're the prettiest girl in the world. Allen, this is Felicia, the Queen of Sheba. I mean it. She's African. And from Italy, too. She's from all over the darn world. She's special, really!"
    "Tu è kind, bambino." She made little kissing noises as she spoke, stringing her consonants together so that they became extra hard. "Noi faciamo bella," she cooed. "I leev once in Rome. I make friends weeth a nice Ee-talian count!" She giggled and ran her long fingers through her hair, like she was untangling wet spaghetti. Her supple neck seemed to have about fourteen vertebrae in it, and she had gorgeous wide shoulders, like a channel swimmer. Okay, she was boyish, but also girlish. She had a tiny purse. She took out a mirror about as big as a teaspoon and looked at herself. Destry watched, mesmerized. He winked, all grizzled dimples, at me.
    She smiled at her reflected face. Her large, almond-shaped eyes were outlined in lapis blue. When she smiled, her face lit up; the light extended all the way to the ends of her hair. Baby Zoula came up to us. "Hi you, boys? Is Feleesh givin' you a good time?"
    "Baby, she’s my girl," Powars said. "I could eat her pussy right here."
    Felicia pretended to be embarrased. "Bambino, tu è bad!" she pouted. She demurely dropped her mirror into her purse, then covered her face with her slender fingers.
    "You want your private space, Mr. Powars? I could arrange that. You know we allow the lap dancin' and stuff like that all out at the bar, but we got our private spaces. You'd like that, right?"
    "Sure."
    "You want any other entertainment for your friend?"
    Destry Powars looked at me. His eyes twinkled. "I told you you'd have fun here."
    "I’m okay," I said. "I’ll just—"
    "He’ll come with us!" Powars insisted, when what I'd wanted to say was that I'd just leave. I was out of my depths. The money. The cigars. The sleaze. Of course, was it any different from God-knows-what on Christopher Street, or in Chelsea? Here it was straight men with too much money. There it was gay boys with too much time. I looked at Felicia, and she looked at me and then winked. She smiled as if we had a secret together, just the two of us.
    Her long fingers ventured to my face. She brushed my nose coyly. "I know what you want, bambino. I do."
    I felt the color rising to my cheeks. "You do?"
    "Sure, Baby," she turned to Zoula and said dryly. "The three of us are gonna go up t' have some fun. Just let us have Room B and shut the door for 'bout a hour. Okay?"

Warlock, A Novel of Possession, that is as paralyzing in its suspense as it is starkly insightful.

228 pages, $12.95, ISBN 1-892149-03-6
trade paper.

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