I blamed my uncle. Grygoriy had moved to America a few years prior and spoke of the promise of her cities in a way that made it nearly impossible for my widowed father to resist. I was a boy then, but as a man now, I understand how seductive the song of temptation can be. Though I became adept at avoiding the draw of sin while being thrust into the world of pansy parlors, I knew there was a weakness in the mind of desperate men. After all, I wrestled with it too, and sometimes I lost, even though in those moments it felt like a triumph of sorts —until the shame set in, which it always did.

The belles in Towertown would have thought of me as green, but I knew I was one of them. From the moment my dick could function it had chosen sides, and as much as I fucking hated it for it, it didn’t stop me from getting sucked off by a bitch on his knees in an alley. Temptation.

While America found herself in the midst of boy-on-boy revolution, the Russian mafia held tight to its macho patriarchal disposition, shunning the progress of their new land in favor of the conservatism of their homeland. My outfit wanted nothing to do with the belles unless there was a fiscal benefit. Lucky for me, there was.

Since I was the youngest in the outfit, at the ripe age of twenty-one, I was tasked with running booze to the Towertown crew, forging working relationships with the aunties who ran the clubs while engaging in physical dalliances with those who frequented them. Still, I was discreet. I wanted them to believe they disgusted me. I needed them to fear that I would turn on them so they would pay my fees on time and give me the reverence a man in my position deserved. If they had known who I was, they may have refused their dues and used my weakness for male flesh against me. I could not afford it and neither could they. The racket the pansy clubs had going was epic. With their crowded dance floors, drag shows, and continuous flow of liquor, they represented a shift in values, but above all, they were a profitable endeavor. None of the businessmen I dealt with were naive, even if they were queens.

Instinctively, I picked up my pace while crossing the intersection of Dickens and Clark, venturing a glance toward the warehouse where seven men affiliated with Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang had met their exceedingly bloody demise a month earlier. Word on the street was that it had been guys from Capone's Chicago Outfit handling the Tommy guns that shot their bodies full of holes. It was a blatant message to any gang trying to take a piece of the underworld pie that the Italians intended to indulge in it all and then wipe their plates clean.