Gilles

I don't look like too much, not bad and not good. I'm ordinary looking; a little bit short as I'm only 5'7" and a little bit stocky but not fat. I've got this light brown hair with just a tinge of red in it so that some people say I'm ash blond and some people just say I have brown hair. I've got an ordinary face, regular not very memorable features.

Sometimes I think I have the ugliest cock in the world because it's uncut, so the skin comes down around the glans when I'm soft, and it looks short and stubby. But this one time I measured it, wondering was I really that much under-equipped in the jock department, and it turned out when I'm hard my cock is eight inches long, eight and a quarter if I cheat and pull it towards me to make it longer. It's just that my cock is fat and thick, it makes my dick look tiny when it isn't.

I'm a bit on the dumb side of average, sometimes the last guy to get a joke, but not the guy who is always the butt of a joke. I get by okay. Usually. I didn't have too many friends in high school just one guy who went to college and moved away and Henry Scott who still lives in town. Henry was one of the popular kids and he had lots more friends than I did, but he put up with me okay. Sometimes we studied together or tossed a ball back and forth together when he was training for baseball.

After I got out of high school I got a job at Home Warehouse and they put me on a forklift course, so now I'm a glorified stock boy - I drive the machines, I check the paperwork in receiving and I put stuff out on the shelves. A lot of the stuff is reasonably heavy, paint cans and plywood and cartons with china sinks in them, and you can't rearrange it all with a forklift, so my job is mostly manual labour. The result is that I'm more fit than I used to be in high school. I never had any gut then and now what I have is built abs and build shoulders and my legs are reasonably muscular from walking up and down in the warehouse. I work on my feet you see.

I used to think I had an okay life, except that I had never got laid. I was wild to get laid when I was in high school, and there were a couple of girls that I used to follow around hoping I could get them to go out with me. I think I creeped them out. Because I was too shy to really talk to them. And even now I'm still too shy to talk to the girls, or anybody outside of the people I know real well for that matter. A couple of times I went to bars and it made me sick because the idea that the only way I would ever get laid would be to score with a girl that was so drunk she didn't care who was doing what to her confirmed in my head that I was a real loser. So I gave up thinking about getting laid and just went on living.

One thing I do is make models of things, models of airplanes or boats, or Vietnam War dioramas. I'm good with my hands that way. Somebody once told me I should have gone to art college, but I just wasn't art college material you know? I'm not arty, just good with my hands. The other thing I do is take my dog Jinks out running. He's a medium sized brown mutt that I inherited from my older sister when she got tired of him. We go out running a lot.

Well, it was four years after I got out of high school and I decided to do something more with my life, so I started taking trades training part time at the community college. Of course they didn't like that too much at Home Warehouse and they started moving my shifts around so I couldn't make it to class all the time. But that was okay. I'm stubborn. I got to all the classes I could and did some make up work, and maybe I had to take some parts of the course over, but I was nine-tenths of the way through to getting my masters certificate in plumbing.

Between getting the dog out of the house, working, and the courses at community college, I probably didn't have time for any more friends but at that point the only friend I had was Henry Scott. Sometimes I would go over and have a beer with Henry and sometimes he would come over and make cracks about my models and we would watch a DVD or we'd go out and shoot some pool. I didn't go out with Henry a lot, since he would end up getting drunk and then I'd go home. Three beers is around my limit. I dunno what's wrong with me. I just never understood why getting drunk was supposed to feel so good. Truth is, once I get a few into me I get to feeling all melancholy. I'm a sad drunk. Well, I'm smart enough I know I didn't need to be any sadder than I have to be, so as much as possible I don't drink.

One night afternoon Henry called me up and he asked did I want to come over and see this DVD he had picked up. And to be honest I figured his other friends stood him up and I was his last resort, but I said sure. I had no class that night and had time to take Jinks out for an hour and a half before he wanted me to turn up. So home I went, got a good long run in so Jinks was exhausted and then I took a shower, hopped into my car and went and bought a six pack to bring along with me.

Henry was bright eyed and cheerful that evening. He invited me in and waved me down to his den where he had a great big wide screen TV that he was paying for through some finance company. He'd moved the furniture around a bit to make a clear wide space in the middle of the room like it was a theatre and he'd supplied him self with a case of twelve of his own, even though he knew I'd bring the six pack. That was the way it was with Henry. I'd drink three beers in three hours and he'd have seven or eight and be starting in on his ninth when I was heading home. It meant he was a lot more relaxed most evenings than I was. He teased me a bit. He already had one or two beer in him by the time I came in.

He gave a wide sweep of his arm showing me the new furniture set up in his den. "Ta da! A great evening awaits your viewing pleasure, courtesy of Scott Entertainment! We have popcorn, pretzels and peanuts. And... should you get tired of Matt Damon, we have Scott's Adult Entertainment!"

Henry had a porno and he waved the DVD under my nose. There was a picture of two blond chicks with big bubbies with their tongues in each other's mouths and I gave him a grin but I said nothing. I can't quite keep up with Henry. He's this jokey, fast talking guy, never serious but a bit of a quick temper. So all I did was smile because most likely I didn't want to watch no porno with him. He'd be one lewd crack after another and probably sound pretty witty if I had more than three beers in me, but I also had to get up at six the next morning for class on spot welding.

"Man, wouldn't you love to fuck this baby?" He shoved the DVD up close.

I just gave a nod.

"Yeah, you could fuck this one and I'd do the other one..."

I nodded again, "Cool," I agreed. But meanwhile inside I was thinking, what's wrong with me that I don't want to see the chicks make out together? I didn't, that was all.

So we settled down to watch Matt Damon wreck cars and dangle upside down off buildings and every now and then the screen swelled orange with the massive explosions and I sat nodding at Henry's commentary.

By and by there is this short-haired blonde she-Nazi type coming on to Matt Damon and Henry starts crooning, "Come onto me, Baby. Come and sit on my fuck stick, come on, see what Daddy's got for you here, little girl."

I'm thinking the girl in the crew cut is probably the bad guy, double agent in the action flick and she's not in love with Damon's character, she's trying to get him in her power, so I look over at Henry because honestly what I'm thinking is that chick would be bad news. She looks hard, man. And Henry sees the look. And this is one time that it gets Henry pissed off because he wants me to agree with him so suddenly he flares with the temper.

"Fucking Faggot, don't you ever get hot for a girl? You're such a fucking fudger you don't want her, you want Matt Damon."

I just give him another look. It's the same look and it means, shut up, Henry. But he glares at me and I think he stays a bit pissed for the rest of the movie. He's looking at me sideways. It doesn't help when the Nazi-girl tries to choke Matt Damon to death. At the end of the action movie when the credits roll Henry looks at me sideways resentfully and says, "You wanna see this porno or not?"

"Not," I say. And then I add. "I'm not watching a porno unless I get to beat off and I'm not going to beat off while there's another guy in the room."

So that was that. I'm going to leave, but Henry gets the idea I should drive him off to this bar where he wants to go on drinking. I don't particularly wanna drive him. He could always take a cab. Only I know Henry might not take a cab. He might drive himself. A guy watches out for his friends, right? He's too drunk to drive now and sure to be much too drunk to drive back. But if I drive him there his car will be at home and he'll have to take a cab back.

And Henry argues that he owes me money and if I take him to the bar he'll see his buddy there and his buddy will give him the money that Henry owes me. The money is just thirty bucks which is not a lot, especially since Henry is usually good for the money he sponges off me. But in this case it's been nearly two months which is a long time for a casual loan like that to go, and it would be real convenient for me to get the cash so I don't have to hit the bank machine on my way into class tomorrow morning. But most of all I'm thinking if it's Henry's idea to pay it back this way I ought to be grateful and just drive the guy where he wants to go.

Besides by now Henry is over being ticked off at me and chuckling a bit to himself over the jokes he makes. So I say I'll do it.

Henry and I get in my car and he tells me where to go to get to this place. It's on Clayborn Street. Now there are parts of Clayborn Street which aren't so bad, being just kind of industrial and other parts that are really sleazy. The part where Henry wants to go is so sleazy it's full of crack whores, lingering on the sidewalk and kind of showing their arses in short skirts to all the cars that drive by.

He wants to go into a brick building that is the back of a lot behind a couple of other buildings, one of them a check cashing joint which is closed at this time of night. It's all steel bars. So I'm half thinking Henry, you don't have the smarts to even pick a bar to drink in where you're not going to get rolled, and half thinking what's the matter with me, I'm such a tight ass prude. I figure he's safer if I go in with him than if I stay behind. So I go into the bar with Henry. There's a big sign up top the building and the name of the bar is Dicks. But there's no light on the sign.

Inside it's practically empty, just a couple of really brawny types like longshoremen sitting at the bar, and the bartender a skinny guy with way too many piercings. It's still really dark. I sort of stop short thinking, huh, not much chance of either of those two solitary guys being the one friend Henry is sure of meeting... And I'm right, but Henry just leads us through the bar to the back, goes past the pool tables and there's a room there where a big guy with a bald head and biker boots is smoking a cigarette and four other guys with leather jackets are seated around a table looking stoned, even though the smoke only smells like tobacco. One of them has a tattoo that says Fuck Jesus. Wonderful. A biker bar.

I look about me warily, trying not to look like a woos while Henry goes up to the big bald guy and begins explaining himself real fast in a low voice. "If you'd just give it to me, we'll be right and square. You know I got it for you before. Can't you just do this for me this one time...?"

None of this is making me comfortable, but then one of the guys in the leather jackets turns around and glares at me, so I know I'm crowding him standing so close to his shoulder behind Henry. So I take a few steps back. I know you're not supposed to show you're intimidated, but frankly I also know I'd be an idiot to pick a fight with this guy by crowding him. So after that I don't get to hear the rest of the conversation, but what's thinking is, oh Lord, what kind of business does Henry have with this guy? And my thought is that maybe Henry is dumb enough to have been getting crack off this guy or something like that. I didn't think Henry did drugs but now I'm not so sure.

Also, it looks like the big bald guy is wondering if I am learning too much about his business because he flickers his glance at me across the room a couple of times. He's not just looking at me, if you see what I mean; he's looking at me and he's thinking about it. So I'm thinking, Henry, fucking give it up and let's go. Only of course Henry doesn't get my telepathy.

But by and by the guy fishes out a wad of bills and he gives that to Henry, which flusters Henry because he sorts the bills counting them and nearly dropping them. This makes me feel a huge amount of relief. It's not a drug score. I am being paranoid. Then big bald guy is not a dealer and Henry is not buying or pleading for drugs off him. He's just getting some money, which is what he said the guy owed him.

So I restrain myself from saying out loud, Henry, let's go, like a nervous wife, and showing all these tough dudes how spooked I am. And I think we're about to leave anyway. It turns out Henry has other ideas. He goes back into the bar at the front of the building and says, "Give us a couple," to the bartender.

I keep my voice down, "I'm not drinking here!"

"Whatsamatter? You're not so drunk you can't handle another one," protests Henry.

"I don't want another one," I say.

"What, you're such a fucking pussy you're scared of a guy 'cause he shaves his head?"

"I'm not drinking here!" I say. And then the bartender with the piercings in both sides of his nose, and the piercing in his forehead and the row of studs in his lower lip comes with a couple of open bottles.

"You'd better drink it," I say.

"Come on," says Henry.

Against my better judgment I sit down for a few minutes. After all, though the place looks tough the joint is almost empty, and Henry didn't get in trouble. The bald guy gave him cash. So maybe I am just a bit too jumpy.

Henry has to count his cash again, to sort my thirty out of the about three hundred bucks that the guy has given him, though he doesn't give it to me yet and then he has to complain that I haven't even tasted my beer yet, so I take a sip. And then three of the biker types from the back room including the bald guy are standing behind us leaning over the table, and I couldn't get up without pushing my chair back into one of these guys. He's standing so close to me I can feel his body heat and smell the sweat on him.

"I can give you another five-hundred," says the guy to Henry, "But if you want more you have to come in on Monday. Monday or Tuesday."

This is not what you call a threatening conversation, since the guy is offering Henry money. I just sit there stiffly. One of the bikers, to the left of me speaks up, "Hey, are you a new face here?"

"I'm just with him."

"What's your handle? What do you go by?" he pursues.

"Gilles" I say.

"Jill??" says the biker.

"Gilles," I repeat. "It's a French name. Starts with a G."

He's incredulous. "Szeel? Sounds like Jill to me. You sure you're not one of those tranny boys?"

He's not like rumbling menacingly, he's just saying it like he doesn't believe it. "I'm sure," I say. Or maybe he's dissing me, but he's not scaring me, so I just deny what he asks. But it kind of is funny the way they are looking at Henry and me so fixed and thoughtful. This is not our territory, I think, and that's what they are telling us. But maybe not because Henry's big bald friend is taking on about Bill not coming around much lately, and has Henry seen Bill, and maybe Bill is working on a special project doing some training of some kind, that's why he doesn't come around lately, because Henry has seen less of whoever-the-fuck-it-is than Big Bald has.

Big Bald is just telling Henry to tell Bill that he can help Bill train his boy, when Henry starts to get nervous and tells me, "Drink up."

I pretend to take another drink of my beer. Now I can see that Henry is getting nervous but I can't see why. He keeps darting glances at me. The three guys standing over us are just talking. But I am feeling mighty crowded, so I shift my chair a bit, then shift it again and finally look the leather jacket dude on my left in the face and say, "Move over will you? I want to get up."

"Where you going, Peaches?" asks Big Bald.

"Just to the can," I say, although that is not where I want to go. I want to leave and I am trying to signal that to Henry without letting it show on my face.

So Leather Jacket number two, the one who didn't think my name was Jill steps aside and I get up and head for the can. At least it's a chance for elbow room, even though I don't want to go. I am getting a pretty heavy vibe here, but I am thinking no, this is just a regular biker bar, just a regular place...

I stop telling myself that when I wake into the men's room. First of all there are these great big holes drilled in the side walls of each and every cubicle. These are glory holes, I know. They are just at crotch level if you stand up. And then there is this young guy covered in tattoos wearing some kind of a leather harness just standing in one of the cubicles. I blink twice because someone has chained him to the toilet. He has nothing but leather chaps and his leather harness on so that his dick is hanging right out like he is showing it to me. The young guy looks at me, steady and I look at him, not so steady and then I turn around and go down and stand by the urinal for a minute and a half. I don't get my dick out. I'm in a fucking gay leather bar.

Henry is out of his mind. How could he be so stupid??

I have just flushed trying to make it sound like I maybe really had to take a whiz when Henry comes into the room, saying, "Hey Gilles..."

"This is a fucking gay bar!" I say in a whisper.

"What?" He doesn't hear me.

I say it again, just as quiet but pulling him close to me so I can still whisper, "It's a fucking gay bar, Henry."

"So?" says Henry, not lowering his voice. "What do you care? You don't go for girls anyway."

That, as you might say, is enough of that. No, it's more than enough of that. I come out of the washroom, walk across the bar and head straight out the door with every bristle cut head in the place turning to look at me.

Henry catches up to me in the parking lot just before I reach the car and for once he seems to be hurt feelings instead of ticked off at me. "Why are you going?"

"I don't hang out in gay bars, Henry," I say, which is when I get a sudden thought. I told you I'm not the brightest crayon in the box. But if Henry is known to Big Bald and if Henry knows Bill-whoever-the-fuck and if Henry brought me here, then surely Henry knows it is a gay bar. So maybe Henry swings a little bit both ways!

"What about the cash I was going to give you?" He's still upset.

"Okay," I say.

He reaches into his pocket, hesitates and then says, "It's back in the bar,"

"What?" I say.

"It's back in the bar."

"How could it be?"

"I gave it back to Chet again," Henry stammers.

I just look at him. I don't know what he's doing. Of course this isn't totally unusual for me. I'm too fed up to wait around for thirty bucks I don't really need that badly anyway. "That's okay," I say, keeping my voice patient. "You can pay me back next time we see each other."

You know how confused I am now? The only thought I can keep straight in my head is that maybe Henry is bi, and don't want to hurt the poor bastard's feelings right then by being too gay-negative. So I don't flare at him that he's a jerk and a cunt for taking me into a bar like that one and not even giving me any warning. I just tell him stiffly that I am going to go.

"Gilles," says Henry pleadingly.

Which is when Big Bald and his two friends, Leather Jacket One and Leather Jacket Two, come out of the bar and aim for my car. I get into my car, but Leather Jacket One is standing in front of the front bumper and Henry is standing where I can't close the door. And anyway at that point Big Bald Chet takes a black jack out of his pocket and takes me by the collar and pulls me out of the car.

I'm about to get myself stomped, I think. I've never been stomped not since junior high and it's not the same thing when it's only kids doing it to you, kids your own age. Guys this size are going to put me into the hospital So I twist and I manage to get myself out from under Big Bald's arm and I manage to spin Leather Jacket Two around so that I get past him. And then to hell with the car, I make it into the other end of the parking lot, which admittedly is a small one. Then I turn around to see how Henry is doing and I see that Big Bald has him by the arm.

Shit.

Not a thing I can do because I know I'm nowhere near as tough as Big Bald and his buddies. I'm no fighter and I don't know if they're packing anything worse than a black jack but it's not going to be me winning if I come running back to rescue Henry.

"Gilles!" says Henry and he has got these big eyes, and Big Bald gets his head tucked up under his arm like you might carry a football.

Big Bald holds the black jack up in the air and says, "Better come back here and talk to me, Peaches, or Queer Harry is going to start to cry."

I just freeze. I have to make up my mind. My mind says, sorry. If I come back then Big Bald and his pals are going to stomp me into the parking lot ground and I'll be very lucky if I can take Jinks out for his walks again in less than a week or two. It might be a question of never. If I come back Henry and I will both get stomped. But if I run for it I can get away, Henry will get stomped but maybe I can get the police here in a few minutes, stop some portion of it, though realistically if they keep stomping him long enough for the cops to get in, then chances are they'll be stomping a corpse with a broken neck long before that time. Either way I'm still not going to be any help to Henry if I stick around.

But it's one thing to think of it and another thing to act on it so I freeze. Maybe I freeze for three seconds, maybe it's for five seconds. Anyway, Big Bald and Leather Jacket One and Leather Jacket Two are not moving towards me so I freeze while I think about it. And then a voice comes from behind me, "I got him, Daddy," and I feel a big hand take me by the back of the neck.

This time I don't get to twist out from under the grip on my neck. This time in fact I get a bloody nose as a reward for twisting. There wasn't just Leather Jacket One and Leather Jacket Two, but Leather Jacket Three, one of the men from the back room was standing in the shadows in the parking lot and has come up behind me.

Happily and unexpectedly I only get that one crack in the nose. I don't get stomped. The punch in the nose is bad enough that I see a big flash of light and it really hurts a lot. I have to stagger a bit. Then I'm leaning forward with my head tucked under the asshole's arm and one of my wrists twisted up my back a bit. He makes me walk forward and the blood comes in a stream down my upper lip.

"Good Boy," says Big Bald to the man who captured me. He makes them bring me and he leads Henry around to a side door of the building and we go inside. I am thinking, and oh fuck, I have nothing but my wallet in my pocket not even any cash in my wallet, oh fuck they will not be too impressed when they see that I have nothing worth stealing on me.

They let go of my neck when we are in the place. Big Bald kind of tosses Henry into me so that we collide. But I am alright on my feet by then, only a real mess is pouring down my upper lip. I try to hold it back with my fingers.

"Did you break it, Boy?" asks Big Blue.

"No, Sir, I don't think I broke it, Sir," says Leather Jacket Three and I realize they are talking about my nose.

"Your pretty little looks are still intact, Little Boy," says Big Bald to me.

I am heaving for breath and I don't say anything, but Henry says. "Why are you keeping us here?" He's talking in a shrill artificial voice like he's pretending he's not scared into a higher register.

"You slipped out on me," says Big Bald reproachfully. "I ain't done talking to you two worms yet."

"I'm sorry, Sir," says Henry nervously. "Please don't do anything bad to us, Sir."

"I don't know about that," Big Bald rumbles. "You gonna play ball with me?"

"Yes, Sir, we're going to play ball with you, Sir," says Henry.

I notice that he is sounding kind of like Leather Jacket Three but I don't realize why yet. I think they are both kind of intimidated by Big Bald, which is nothing compared to how I feel about him. I am scared shitless.

I take my wallet out, "This is all I have," I say faintly.

They are going to force me to give them my pin number I figure, and then they are going to take my bank cards and try and go get some cash. But I have only about a hundred bucks in that account because I've got a paycheck, the old fashioned paper kind to take to the bank. So they aren't going to get anything out of me that way.

Big Bald takes the wallet away from me and opens it. I busy myself with trying to keep from bleeding all down my shirt and only succeed in getting my hands bloody to the point where they are dripping too.

Big Bald examines my wallet with interest but he doesn't get mad at how little money there is in there. "He spells it G-I-L-L-E-S," he reports.

"I spell it J-I-L-L, Jill," says Leather Jacket One and that raises a laugh.

"Okay, Jill-Girl," says Big Bald to me, "Are you ready to show me you can be a brave little boy? Or are you just a sissy little girl cunt?"

"What do you want?" I say.

"I want your cherry, Little Boy," he says. "You ready to give that up to me?"

I look up at him in horror. I realize he is talking about buggering me and he means it for real. So before I can stop myself, I spit out curse words, "Fuck you, Cunt! No fucking way you are going to..." And this point I am turned all the way around and Leather Jacket Three has got a grip on me "...take my cherry! I'll fucking kill you! I'll..." And then I've gotten half way across the room and gotten away from Leather Jacket Three as far as Leather Jacket Two who has put me on my knees. He knows just how to do it. I can struggle if I want and if I do I will break my arm. I stop talking right in the middle of the yelling because I realize that they can take my cherry. They will if they want to.

"Don't make them mad, Gilles," says Henry nervously. "There are real tough guys. You don't know how mean Chet can be. He'll punish you if you fight."

"That's right," says Chet coming in close to me. "You ain't being exactly respectful, Little Boy. Did I hear you calling me a cunt?"

I pant. I am in so fucking much trouble.

"You're going to get a beating for that, Little Boy," he tells me.

"Oh, you fucking asshole," I say softly. "Oh, you fucking cunt." Even though he just told me I am about to be hurt for mouthing off to him, I have no sense to stop myself saying it. I am just too stunned on it yet to think I might lessen the trouble for myself by watching my mouth.

So in a minute they have me down over a chair. When Big Bald says he'll give me a beating he means that the way he says it. I have been put belly over a chair with my arms threaded through the rungs, and then hand cuffed them to my ankles. But before they did the handcuffing bit they have pulled my pants and my briefs down so that my naked ass is jutting right up in the air.

Now it's not like I can't move at all. I might not be able to walk being chained up doubled up like that but I could get myself spinning across the floor taking the chair with me. And the truth is being in a vulnerable position like that I am going to. I am too spooked to stay still. I want to scream and run and fight somehow.

"Now you come here, and you hold that chair steady," says Big Bald to Henry. And Henry holds the chair by leaning on the back of it while Leather Jacket One takes off his wide leather belt.

"You're going to count each stroke, Little Boy, and you're going to say thank you," Big Bald informs me.

I don't say anything. Leather Jacket One sends his belt cracking through the air and it bites me hard, a shock of white pain flaring across my naked ass. I open my mouth real wide as if I am screaming but I don't make a sound.

There's a second's pause and the belt comes flaring down again, crack! I jerk in the chair. In fact it is taking all of Henry's strength to hold it down to keep me in place. Again I just let my mouth open wide in a silent scream but I don't make a sound.

The belt comes down again and again. I have a fuzzy thought that this is going to look really funny when I turn up in emerg but I don't scream and I don't have anything to say for myself. I feel the heat on my ass like I'm sitting on a stove now. It really hurts. I think maybe I got hit nearly ten times. It's pretty close to that many when Big Bald speaks up. He says, "You know it doesn't count unless you say thank you and say the number, Little Boy. We can go on whipping you long as it takes to make you say what I said."

That's when I realize that he has some kind of a ritual going. It's a gay sado thing. He wants for me to count them and I have not. But even when the next one comes down I just make a kind of a gagging noise.

There are two, three sharp cracks whaled viciously across my butt before Henry speaks up. He's kind of choking a bit. "Come on... Come on Gilles. You got to count."

"Oh my God," I think. I say it out loud. Could they even maybe whip me to death like this? How long is it going to take? But then the pain gets so bad that at the next crack I heave over sideways, wrench the chair out of Henry's grip and make it fall over sideways to the floor. I'm still stuck on it and the impact when my side hits the floor makes me know that my ass has become one big hot welt. "Uhhhaaahh," I say. I can't bear it at all.

It's Big Bald who sets the chair up again, and sets me up putting me up in smacking position again. He sets me up so I can see his motorcycle boots. They are right near my bloody nose. And he says to me, quite kindly and persuasively. "You better start counting, Little Boy. You were only supposed to get twenty and you've had at least that already."

So the next time the belt comes down, sharp smack sound resounding in my ears and lance of pain where my ass is a throbbing mess of pain, I gasp up some air and I make the sound they want to hear. "One..." I say faintly. "Thank you."

I hear Henry give a kind of a smothered squeal and I know he's glad I started to count. Of course the beating goes on. The strokes are worse even than when they started. I lurch with each stroke and I choke but I get the words out. "Two... thank you.....Three. Thank you."

It seems to me they are not as loud at the end as they were when he started. That might be because my skin is getting soft or something or swollen. I know it's pretty swollen back there. It's twenty full strokes from when I start to count. I have my eyes closed and my body vibrates with every crack. At last it's done.

"You look a mess, Little Boy," says Big Bald.

This is when Henry surprises me. He speaks up in a meek little voice. "Can I go now?" He quavers. And then adds, "Sir?"

"Now why should I let you go?" I see Big Bald's boots go strolling over towards Henry. "You're a part of this, you are," he says "You're going to put this toy up your friend's ass."

I look up. It's a rubber or plastic prick, probably life sized with a handle on it molded in the shape of a pair of balls. It's a completely obscene looking thing. God, I want to die, I think. I don't know where Big Bald picked up a thing like that, seemingly out of the thin air in this shabby little room, but then he's a gay pervert and they maybe keep things like that around.

Henry takes the dildo and brings it around be hind me. I feel him put the tip of it into against my asshole, where at least my crack seam was a bit protected from the welts. Then he gives it a shove and I give a grunt. The pain makes spit come from my mouth and makes me really, really have to hang on to keep from moaning.

"Please," I say and my voice has a quaver like Henry's did. "Please don't do this to me."

"But you called me a cunt, little boy," says Big Bald. "You called me a cunt twice and an asshole."

"I'm very sorry," I say humbly. It's not even the fear of being buggered now. It's the amount of pain I am in. If this is what they've done to me getting me ready to be buggered it's going to be far past my tolerance for agony before they time they're done.

"Want a popper?" Big Bald's voice is soft, almost helpful. He holds something up in front of my bloody nose.

"What?" I focus on it. It's some kind of a bottle and dimly I remember that was something I had heard about. Drugs. "No."

"Feel way better if you do," he coaxes.

"No," I say

He takes it away. In fact, I think that maybe he holds it up in front of his own nose and inhales on it. Either way, it sounds like he and the other guys are rustling around a bit. My own pain has me dazed and very self absorbed but I twist my neck and get a look at Henry. After all, he's in as much trouble as I am.

The guy is just standing there, staring at my ass like he doesn't believe it.

In a few minutes Henry gets ordered to pull the dildo in and out of my ass which is what he does. And Leather Jacket Three comes over with a big handful of wet paper towel which he uses gingerly to wipe up all the blood that has now formed some drops on the floor as well as coating my lip and chin. I held my chin still stiffly while he wipes my face.

"Pull your pants off," I hear.

I'm not surprised when a man with bare legs and a naked cock comes in front of my face and kneels down on the floor in front of me but I am surprised when the man turns out to be Henry. Big Bald is steering him by the shoulder and Henry looks shell shocked. He also has a partial erection. I look at that in disbelief but the pain in my butt is such that I am sort of swimming over details. It just hurts bad, the dildo going in and out. I guess someone else one of the Leather Jackets got delegated to take over from Henry.

"How good are you a cocksucker, Little Boy?" says Big Bald.

"I don't know how," I say.

"I'm going to train you," says Big Bald. "Put it in his mouth."

Now I understand why they are putting Henry's cock in my mouth. They are afraid I will bite and they don't care if I bite him. Henry, being obedient, bumps the tip of his cock against my lips. I keep them sealed but mentally I am getting so dizzy that I feel sick. The dizzying thought is, they can whip me into doing this.

They don't whip me. Big Bald takes my jaw in his two big hands and pries it open pressing on my teeth from both sides and prying, and Henry shoves his three-quarters hard dick onto my tongue between my teeth. "Ooh," says Henry. "Oooh."

If I could back up to get off Henry's dick I would. I can't. So I take it, his curly pubes against my recently bloody mouth and the head of his cock triggering my gag reflex until I'm starting to make gulping sounds.

"Rock it," says Big Bald and Henry, keeping his crotch mushed up into my face, begins to rock it a little bit so the cock in my mouth is moving. That is bad. It's not getting any smaller and it goes so deep into my gag reflex that I puke. It's hard not to bite when the bile suddenly splats up my gullet, hits the dick that is corking me so I can't breathe and subsides burning. I get a quarter-breath as Henry rocks back a bit and the same thing happens.

I'm drowning! I want to say. I can't say it. Instead I'm being smothered on cock. Only a tiny bit of sound comes out because I have only a tiny bit of air. If I had enough air I wouldn't have to try to scream for it. But I can't scream and I go, "Uggmm... mmmh!" Then Henry pulls his cock back enough that I do puke and it all goes splat, the popcorn I ate scratchy on the way through, warm disgusting and yellow. I even manage to barf partially on Henry's cock.

This puts a temporary stop to what was happening to my ass. I'm pretty sure the dildo was gone and it was something smaller, fingers that were ass raping me. But it just hurt enough that I didn't want to think about what I was feeling and the imperative to breathe was much stronger. I gasp and the motion in my butt stops and Big Bald comes to inspect the mess I made.

They're going to kill me, I think, deliberately choke me to death. I turn up my eyes to look at Big Bald's enquiring face.

"Naughty," he says and then shoves his finger down my throat. I am so shocked I don't bite it. I gag up another mouthful of bile with a painful cough.

"This one has an over active gag reflex," Big Bald reports. "Put it back in his mouth, Henry, but not so deep."

I cough and find that this time I have a semi soft cock poking down my throat and moreover Henry is a little bit back so that he doesn't block my breathing altogether. Apparently getting his cock puked on seems to have wilted Henry's erection a little bit.

"Take it slow," says Big Bald.

That's when I realize that Big Bald is peeling a condom down his cock and I know my anal virginity -what was left of it after the dildo and the fingers- is about to go. Henry fucks my mouth slowly while Big Bald levers my ass up higher and places the rubbered tip of his prick at my hole. There is something cold and smooth. He has lubricant on the cock. Otherwise I don't think he could get it into me. The pain is enormous. He bores down until I am split wide, wide open.

"Ooh," says Henry and I realize that his cock in my mouth is three quarters hard again.

I'm in real trouble. The distension in my ass and the constant smack of Big Bald's hips against my raw welted butt makes me want to scream and thrash. The cock in my mouth is threatening to choke me again. But luckily I have nothing much left to puke so I'm not drowning in my own vomit again. Somehow I control my gag reflex so that at least sometimes I can breathe.

Big Bald has a monster cock. It has wrecked my sphincter. I am round open wide and trembling with the pain of it. I make a few gagging noises and survive the rape.

"Are you a little pig?" says Big Bald. "Are you my sow, pig fuck sow? Take it, you squealing little boy. Squeal for me."

I don't squeal, not so much because I am resisting him as because I am too stupid and slow to obey and besides I don't think he means it other than to taunt me. He changes his angle as he fucks me making the pulling stretching pain worse and then he gets an angle that goes so deep I whimper way deep down. Something weird is happening to me and the pain is not just pain but a sensation a bit like warmth. I suddenly wonder if I am going to piss myself but it is out of my control. I suffer it and it doesn't make me piss. It's a weird kind of a pain, and not the strongest sensation by any means.

"Sir... sir..." Henry pants. "May I cum?"

"Yeah, boy, you can come. Give your load to your cherry friend," Big Bald pants.

He's going to be able to cum? I think. I'm in complete disbelief when Henry starts fucking my throat hard on purpose. I can't believe it and try to scream at him to stop. But at that point I don't have the air to breath and then a minute more I start to black out. That is when I feel it surging. He holds his cock in as deep as he can and cums in my throat.

Then when Henry is starting to pull his cock out of me again, I puke once more, this time mostly Henry's own cum mixed with some bile. He doesn't pull out fast enough and I puke on his prick for a second time. I am stunned on it and no more stunned when Henry's hand comes glancing in and smacks me hard on the face. I wheeze and whoop just trying for air. My dangling head rolls side to side as I try to get more breath in. Big Bald is pumping deep in my ass. He gives some kind of a laugh and he starts to come.

Shot after shot of his hot cum goes into me. I feel his cock pulsing. I don't feel the cum because it's in his condom. He pulls out, brings the condom to my mouth and puts the rolled rim of it into my lips. He starts to squeeze the blobs of white salt cream out of the condom into my mouth. "There, boy," he says. "You took it like a man, boy. You get your reward now."

I've forgotten to fight, to try to resist him, to spit or turn my head. So when I taste the bitterness of cum I swallow it gagging only slightly.

They unfasten the handcuffs from my wrists and ankles now and make me stand. But they peel my pants off my legs and my shirt off my body leaving me naked. They hold my shoulders to steady me and show me how to stand as they do this. My eyes roll around. More bad stuff is coming. I find Henry. He is re-zippered and watching me a look of weird fascination on his face.

Naked I see where the handcuffs have drawn blood on my wrists and ankles when I pulled. I didn't even feel it so I don't know if I did it during the beating or the raping or both. I don't give them any trouble when they put me on my back on the hard wood top of a dresser. They don't tie me they just hold me there. My legs are in midair and my head is dangling back off the side of the dresser. I see Big Bald take a big swig of scotch straight from the neck of a bottle and hand it to Leather Jacket One. He hands it to Henry holding it up to pour it and Henry takes a big swallow. Then they bring it to me, poke the glass into my mouth two inches and tilt it until a quarter of a cup of scotch goes into my mouth and then runs down my upper lip because I don't drink it.

Something painful is being done to my nipples. Clips are being put on them. This is not a bikers stomp ordinary white guy scene; this is a gay pervert scene. The clips would ordinarily make me yelp but not this time. A third clip goes on my scrotum and that does make me yelp. The yelp is the moment when they put the neck of the scotch bottle into my mouth and pour out another quarter of a cup full. This time while most of it goes flooding back out and some of it runs down into my nostrils I actually swallow a large mouthful involuntarily. But that doesn't matter. I instantly gag on it and a cough sprays it back out again before it comes near reaching my insides.

Something leather is fastened around my neck. There are chains on the leather. They go to leather cuffs which are put on my wrists. I don't know what the point of this contraption is because it doesn't tie me down in the least, not like the handcuffs before. But perhaps they mean to grab the chains that link the collar to my wrists and control me that way if I struggle. I don't struggle. There are four men taking turns holding me down and getting me posed for another mouth fuck and anal rape session.

This time Big Bald controls it more. He feeds a Leather Jacket's cock into my mouth and gets the other Leather Jacket to put a condom on to put it in my ass. My butt cheeks are spread wide and the prick starts pushing into my sore anus. It pushes until it pops and meanwhile I am getting dick fed down my throat.

Leather Jacket fucks my face a lot more skillfully than Henry ever did. That is, by now I am actually sucking and trying to bring the guy off so that he will stop and go away, and he isn't just hitting the back of my gullet wham, wham, wham triggering gag reflex after gag reflex. I can see the four leather guys one on each side of the dresser, holding my knees wide and back, and feel them gripping by shins and my shoulders and arm. But I can't see Henry and I think, maybe he could get to a phone... If he tries I assume they will kill him.

I get my ass fucked and my throat fucked until both those men come. While they are doing it they hold poppers up under their noses pausing between strokes. I hear one man chuckle deep with the pleasure he is feeling. My ass has given up somehow and there is less pain because it is no longer clamping down on the invasion any more. But now I am raw with it and my ass is raw from the beating and my nipples and scrotum have those clips on them so I am just one sea of pain and now I am trying only to breathe around the cock in my throat and to ride on that sea of pain, to blank my body and my mind out. It's hard to do because they touch me and talk to me and Big Bald says, "Cum- slut, you're getting enough cock now," and I have to answer him. I say, "Yes, Sir."

That's because every one of them, everyone in the room calls Big Bald Chet sir, even Henry does so I do it too.

And then when they finish fucking me they bring Henry in between my legs. They tell me I'm going to suck the last guy's cock, the cock that belongs to Leather Jacket Three. But they pour some scotch down my throat and some scotch down Henry's throat and they tell him he's going to suck my cock.

"Me?" he says. "I don't suck cock. " He adds, "Sir," hastily.

"You're going to suck this one," says Big Bald, and then Henry argues with him.

"I won't suck him. What's he going to think of me if I suck him? Anyway... anyway he's soft. Sir. How'm I going to get a condom on with him soft like that? Sir." I realize that Henry is very drunk, drunk enough that he is starting to have trouble talking. But Big Bald doesn't hit him or do anything like I might have expected to punish him for defiance. Instead he takes Henry by the back of the neck and forces his face down to my crotch.

I look at it in disbelief as Henry takes my soft prick into his mouth, grimacing and grinning all at once, weird in the eyes and yet nuzzling into me. I stare at him though it hurts my neck to hold it up like that. I just can't figure it out. And then Leather Jacket Three, the man who gave me a bloody nose takes my head in his two hands and starts to guide a latex covered prick into my mouth.

So I suck again, while Henry sucks on me. The cock sliding into my jaw is rock hard, big and swollen. I mouth on it when he draws back trying to convince him not to ram into my gag reflex. He fucks my mouth, drinks scotch, pulls his cock out of my mouth, pours scotch into my mouth and then when I let it all slop back out of my mouth again and run down the side of my cheeks and face, he puts his cock back in again. They are trying to make me drunk and I think they are all quite glazed or stoned themselves. That doesn't seem to be a help, since them being drunk like that doesn't mean I'll get a chance to escape. It just means that they don't feel pain very much and don't care much about the consequences of what they do to me.

"Aww... he's still not hard," Henry complains.

"Get him hard them," Big Bald orders.

Henry tries. It's warm and it doesn't feel bad but what chance I might have had of getting turned on by my first blow job ever is taken away by the miserable pain I am in from everything else they have done to me.

Eventually, Leather Jacket Three cums in the condom in my mouth. And then Big Bald and Henry get into an argument about making me hard. It's Henry whining to Big Bald, who is telling him off "I told you to make him hard."

"Nobdoy could. Nobody could," Henry says.

And then Big Bald takes Henry by his shirt and jacket at the front and shoves him away from me. He stands close, talking harsh to Henry. "No fucking use, are you, Boy?"

Unbelievably Henry gives a giggle.

""When I give an order I expect to have it obeyed, Boy. Would you like a beating like we gave him?"

"Didya like him?" says Henry. He giggles again. "Did ya like him?" He pushes at Big Bald to make him back off. Big Bald doesn't raise his fists and smash Henry. He just puts him back against the wall.

"You pathetic worm," says Big Bald.

And Henry giggles again, which is when I realized that I was set up. Suddenly it all comes clear. Henry really knows this guy and Henry is not afraid like he's being mugged. It's a gay pervert scene and Henry knows it. He's not supposed to be the bottom boy in this. I am. That's what Henry set up with Big Bald, that they'd get a chance to attack me. I don't understand it. I don't know any of the details yet, but I do know that Henry not only knew Big Bald from before, but he brought me over to the bar and to meet the guy for the purpose of setting me up.

I don't say anything. What I do is hiccup some foul air that tastes of cum and scotch. I'm sick from being abused and the mouth fucking forced air into me. I can't get off the dresser because they are still holding me there. I can't do anything about knowing that my friend betrayed me.

But Big Bald takes Henry into the next room and I can hear them talk. "Ya did. Ya did," says Henry. Big Bald is not really mad at Henry, but I hear Henry pleading. I think they are in the next room because Big Bald doesn't want me to know that Henry set me up. "Aw, you can fuck him again before ya let him go. I don't want none of that shit," says Henry. "Give me another popper."

"Sir," says Big Bald warningly, loud enough that I can hear him.

"Give me some more booze then, Sir," giggles Henry.

Henry comes staggering back into the room with another bottle. This one is not scotch, it's clear, like vodka or gin. Big Bald comes back into the room and they take me off the dresser and put me on the floor on my knees. Leather Jacket number Two puts his knee on my spine and pulls on the two chains so that he pulls my wrists back against my sides. Big Bald puts his motorcycle boot on my head and forces it down to the ground. I don't resist him at all.

"You're a worm, Boy." He says. "You've just begun your cock training. How do you like a man's cock?"

I'm supposed to answer his question. I puke instead. I'm not exactly liking the game he is playing with me.

"Too big for you, huh? You'll get used to it," says Big Bald. "You want another few smacks on the butt? What are you supposed to say now?"

I think I know the answer to that, so as I grovel there with his boot on the back of my head and my nose almost in the puke spot of bile on the floor, I say, "Thank you Sir."

He gives me a contemptuous little spurn with his boot. And then amazingly, they are done with me. They let go of me and just leave me there while they go into the other room with Henry, laughing.

At first I stand up. Then I look at the door and the other room where I can see them. Then I look around and see my clothes just thrown bedraggled on the floor. Nobody stops me when I bring the cuffs up in front of me and unbuckle them. I unbuckled the collar from my neck. It is made of black leather and has three buckles on it. I pick up my pants slowly and nobody stops me.

So then I step into my pants and yank them up, grab my shirt and yank it down over my head, step into my sneakers. From the weight in my pocket I know my keys are still there. I leave my socks, my briefs and my jacket. I go at a run for the door. I hear voices, murmuring conversation as I race for it. They are ignoring me. They are done.

I get the door open and run for the car. I am staggering. I get the car door open and sit down and howl with pain. It hurts too much to sit. I twist so I am only sitting on one buttock as I fit the keys into the ignition. I am writhing in pain as I start to drive. I drive badly. I yank the clips off my chest from under my shirt. I turn a corner, rip open my fly, scrabble and tug the clip off my scrotum with a groan. I clutch my scrotum one handed. I turn another corner, come to a light and rock in my seat with the pain, moaning. I drive home.

Jinks meets me at the door, sniffing, moving back as he sees me lurch. I am whimpering now that there is nobody there to hear me. I strip off my clothes in the hallway, not caring that there might be someone seeing through the window. I go into the bathroom. Twisting I can see that my ass is covered with welts and the welts are spotted with blood oozed out of the crossing of the weals. I have other bruises on me I don't remember getting. I have a big pink mark on each nipple. Moaning I try cold water for the pain. It doesn't much work. I gulp down two Advil tablets and limp groaning to my bed. Then I get up, grab a robe and run to the doors. I double-lock the doors. I can't even let Jinks come near me when I lie down on the bed, face down on the bed to keep my ass from any kind of contact pressure. He jumps on the bed and lies down along side of me keeping a space between us, eyes on me mystified.

I was set up. I was sold. Oh my God, the money that Big Bald gave to Henry, that was for me. And the drink... I realize the drink the bar, the beer Henry bought me that I wouldn't drink -that had probably been drugged. Rohypnol. My head tosses from side to side and I make no sound of moan. My friend. My friend. I had thought the asshole was my friend...

I am not a happy man. I am a man who is very sore, so sore I can hardly move. The next morning I miss my welding class. I miss work that day and the next. I move around the house gingerly, either standing with my robe on so that nothing is held firm around my ass, or lying down, face down. I don't want to lie face down because it was face down that I got the beating and first got raped. It reminds me of that. I think about Henry and I think about what a dumb piece of shit I am.

How could I have not realized what Henry thought of me? I thought because he would call me, because he seemed to want me hanging out with him that I was his friend. All that stuff about friends looking out for their friends. That was just me being too dumb to live. God, I am dumb. I went into a gay bar with a friend who hated me and let him set me up. How could I have been so dumb that I went in there?

I'm kind of angry at Henry too, but most of all I am angry at myself and I punch the pillow wishing I could just somehow punch myself, punish myself for being so dumb and somehow maybe knock myself unconscious so that I don't feel the pain anymore. But I don't sock myself. I just grit my teeth and go through with it.

The first two days I still have to look after Jinks and take him for his walks, so I am functioning. The third day I go back to work although it sure hurts to sit. My ass is one big bruise. But the open broken skin is sealed and the weals have gone down so I just grimace a bit when ever I have to put my butt down into a chair.

Meanwhile I am doing a bit of thinking and the thinking I do I don't like. The first thought I have firm in my head is that I am going to stay clear of all gay guys, always and forever. I don't want a repeat of what I went through that time. No. It's real plain. If I even think a guy might be gay I'm going to walk right away from him. This time no hanging around to be polite, to make it look like I'm not homophobic.

And the funny thing, the thing that makes it really pathetic is that I decide I probably am mostly gay. That's why I never went with a girl. There's a part of me, a hidden small part deep down that says male cock and male bodies are what I go for. But not now. I wasn't sure of it before. I was actively being as straight as I could before, to hide the gay part of me that was hidden to myself underneath. But now I got a really good look at all that stuff. I know girl stuff is boring and gay stuff is... too big a thing for me to want it. It's a horrible thing.

So I don't go on being as straight as I can any longer. I stop trying to be interested in girls. I go around being not gay, instead. I look at the guys I work with, Marco on the forklift, and Tino telling a customer where to find varnish and paint stripper and I think, could they be gay? So I keep a distance from them, more than I did before.

Jinks is my only friend. He's a good friend, for a dog. He's dependent. I take him out for his walks and I look after him and I talk to him sometimes and I tell him he's a pretty decent dog. I don't see Henry. I don't call Henry and he doesn't call me.

Then it's four months later and I sit for my written test which is easy after I passed my practical and I have my plumbing certificate and I get a check and write it to pay my union dues, and I put my name in with a plumbing business to do subcontract work for them. I do all that stuff. Of course I can't go out and start my own plumbing business. I don't have the tools for it.

Pretty soon I have a second job working construction, and the plumber I know calls and asks me can I go unblock this woman's toilet, go this evening as a favour to him because he has too many other jobs. Plumbing is probably a stupid job to get into because it involves doing people's toilets for them. But the pay is really good, better than Home Warehouse so within a couple more months I give that up and work mostly in construction. It's decent pay, long hours starting early and not a bad job where it's doing installation of new stuff.

Of course this means I meet a bunch of new people. I have new co-workers and sometimes some of then get friendly. I have no trouble giving them the brush off. Whenever they say to come and have a few beer with them I tell them that I don't drink and when they press me I say that I can't drink, which means that a few of them get the idea that I'm going the AA route but I don't care. I don't care what they think about me so long as they don't think about me like a guy they can fuck around with.

Now it happens in the winter we are doing a job at a condo site and then my fucking car won't start. It's too cold and there's a line frozen, something like that I'm sure. I'm way out, fifteen miles out in Rowling Park and I have to get home, so I want to call a tow truck but my foreman says hell, I can grab a lift with him. It's about seven at night and I am fool enough to do it.

The foreman's name is Jeff. He has nice teeth, a square chin, an easy quiet grin and lots of dark hair, badly in need of a comb. It's the hair probably that does it for me. He's not bald and bristly like that crowd at Dicks. So I get into his truck with him late at night and Jeff drives me home.

On the way he's driving, and it's bad driving, icy so he is taking it slow, Jeff asks me a bunch of questions. He tells me he is single but he's not giving me details of his life he asks me where do I live and then do I live alone and stuff like that. He's just calmly asking questions so I am answering them hesitating a little.

I tell him I live alone but for Jinks and I have no girl friend. I tell him I have an older married sister who lives in Fairborough and a couple of older parents who are retired to a gated community in Florida. I tell him I used to work at Home Warehouse and that I have welding, and a pile of carpentry experience as well as plumbing. I tell him I had adequate grades in high school but that I wanted to go for manual trades. I tell him I have a hobby of building models because he asks, specific what do I do for a hobby. And he doesn't laugh at that the way Henry did. Of course he hasn't seen my models. I even tell him I lift weights down at the Fitness Factory, and it turns out Jeff does too.

And then he is pulled up in front of my door so I get out.

The way I saw it I had to answer his interrogation to be polite to get the ride I got, but I also figure he's being polite to me, thinking making me talk about myself will set me at ease. Either way I figure he'll never talk to me like that again.

But when we are back on the job it turns out Jeff remembers the stuff I said, because he gives me the job of putting in some ductwork and some interior framing, putting in some wainscot moulding in a pricy home we were doing. He says he likes my work. He says in fact, that I am better with my hands than any other guy on the crew and when he gives me a job he knows I'll do it real neatly and efficient.

I'm okay with getting praise from my foreman. It's okay to talk about the job, right? But I feel a little bit funny inside myself for liking it.

And Jeff says, "When are you going to the gym?"

"Saturday morning," I say, thinking he is setting up a weekend job for me.

"What time?"

"I was going at ten," I say, figuring how I could rearrange it which is no problem.

"Good," says Jeff. "I'll see you there."

Well, I don't know what to say to that but there is no harm to seeing a guy around, some of the same places you go. I'm at the gym doing squats when Jeff comes wandering by and he nods at me and he does some bench presses on a machine near me. Then presently he asks if I'll be a spotter for him because he wants to use the free weights instead, so I'm cool with that. I do the job for him. When he offers to do some spotting for me I say no. It's my habit to stick to the machines, you know.

It's all cool, casual, doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything when I see him in the grocery store either, pushing this cart. We live pretty close, no surprise we'd be shopping on the same time off at the same store. And all he does is nod at me.

But the problem is I am starting to feel weird in my stomach, low down in my belly about Jeff. What's that in aid of? I don't know what it is. At first I say, yeah, maybe I want a raise too bad, I want his recommendation, the jobs that are going to pay more. So I'm nervous about him, he's practically my boss, I'm going to be nervous. I'm nervous about everybody.

Then I know it's not that. He couldn't possibly be gay, I think to myself. It's not that I want his approval; it's just that he couldn't possibly be gay.

By and by I realize the weird sensation down in my stomach that I get around Jeff is thinking that I maybe want to feel at ease with him. Just because I'm fucked up and gay in some ways doesn't mean I don't want a friend. All it is, is that I want to feel comfortable around him count him, kinda, if not as a friend but as a dude I'm comfortable with.

So by and by I talk a bit to Jeff and he talks a bit to me and I'll maybe say Hey to him, more than just take the job he gives me and do it silent. While Jeff for his part asks after Jinks and he tells me what weight he's pressing when it goes down because he has a wrist strain. What I like about Jeff is he doesn't boast. I mean he's doing some heavy weights. He has a much bigger build than me; his height is five eleven or six foot and he can take more on the machines. But he talks like what I press and he presses are the same, easy. I don't know how to explain it, but there's a part of me comfortable about Jeff and a part of me that still has this little bit of a stomach ache.

The stomach ache gets worse when Valentine's Day comes around and a couple of the guys are shooting the shit when we get called together for coffee time and a round of instructions. This one is saying he's bought a couple of dozen roses for his wife and that should get him some decent pussy tonight. And that one is bitching that his girl expects the earth from him, cards and shit he doesn't know how to give her. It's like there's this brief exchange how soppy the day is, but girls like it so what can you do? Jeff is trying to give instructions so he breaks the conversation up, by saying it's time to give the jobs out, so a guy named Vittorio says, "Yeah, Jeff doesn't have a girl. He don't get no pussy even if he does buy a ring and some roses."

I'm thinking... yeah, Jeff doesn't have a girl but he's not gay. He's no more gay than I am, just because I don't have a girl.... There's this kind of double think in my head where I'm not being gay so in my head it makes me straight, only my thoughts pull up short and I think, any guy who doesn't have a girl, he must be gay.

"I'll pick you up Saturday morning, take you to the gym," says Jeff

"No thanks," I say.

"Why not?" he says.

"I like to drive my own car," I say.

"I say something?" He looks startled and I realize I must have sounded crisper than I meant.

I want to say, I don't take rides from guys but that's not true because I have taken rides from him, I have to sometimes in the back of the crew cab when we're transferring from site to site. And he is looking at me mildly, so I don't know what to say. "I like to drive myself," I repeat.

Now most likely Jeff doesn't give as much as a moment's thought to this stuff but I do. I'm thinking I'm acting like an asshole, looking stupid. I don't agonize over it or anything, but I just wish I wasn't such a dumb ass, that was all. I come to the conclusion that Jeff thinks I'm a surly dumb ass, but he doesn't mind.

It's probably the last week in February when I go to the gym real late one night, after eleven o'clock. You see Jinks has a hurt paw from getting some ice in it, so I couldn't take him out for a proper run. I knew if I went out for a run without him he'd be all sad, so instead of putting on my running gear I take my gym bag and I go out. I need a work out. Jinks settles down with a sigh but he's not broken hearted.

The gym is fine and it's midnight before I'm ready to leave. I come out into the main entrance with my hair wet from showering, my body tired out and relaxed from working it hard, and my gym bag in my hand. And there is Jeff at the front desk. He's wearing a leather jacket. He's with another guy and that guy has a leather jacket and his head shaved -no, I'm not saying he's one of the fucking creeps who raped me. I'm just saying it's the same style.

I stop so short that Jeff can't help but see me. And he walks towards me starting to talk, "Gilles..." But then I see what I didn't see before because he was in front of the desk, that he has black jeans on and some kind of a black leather belt with studs and a fancy metal buckle on it. It's the whole costume, right?

I don't say a word to him. I take off through the side door so hard and so fast that I break the top pane of glass in it as I go.

You are such a dumb ass, I tell myself. You are such a dumb ass. You have fallen for a gay guy... I lie on my bed and I pet Jinks' head in the dark and his tail thumps as I scratch his head. The look.... Jeff has the look. I seal my eyes up tight but I still can see it.

That doesn't mean I don't go to work the next morning. And Jeff is there in his dark green work pants and his oil stained brown work jacket so I don't say anything. Like what is there to say? He doesn't say anything either. None of my business if the fucking asshole is gay. He can be gay if he wants. I don't care if he's gay. Why the fuck should I care if he's gay? I'm gay too.

So I don't talk to him all that day and the next.

It's Saturday and I'm at the Gym and Jeff comes over to be casual in his working out shorts and a towel around the back of his neck and he says, "You want to spot for me?"

For a moment I look at him, just look at him real hard and then I say, "Sure," and get up and come over. I spot for him and while I am a bit gruff at first we talk like everything is normal.

The only thing that maybe gets said about it at all is when I am whaling away at a punching bag and Jeff comes up behind me and says, "You trying to kill that punching bag?" Which doesn't sound like it was saying anything about my freaking out at the sight of him in gay gear, unless you're in my head. There's a part of me that says come on, not every guy who wears a leather jacket is gay, and not every guy who is gay is a rapist out to get you, but I won't buy it. I am convinced that Jeff is gay and I am as mad as hell about it. If he were straight you see, I could pretend to be straight and then we'd have had the potential to be friends. But he's not so we're not.

But I forget to tell Jeff that we can't possibly be friends and his slow amiable courtship goes on. He knows what I like in my coffee -one milk and no sugar -and he knows that I don't want to work more than a twelve hour on account of Jinks and he lets me go after ten hours. And he nods at me and he smiles easily and he comes and asks me to spot for him. He even asks me if I like to take in a game and when I admit I'm so much not a jock the only game I play is pool, he invites me to play pool with him like I used to do with Henry.

"No," I say. "No. Thanks."

One morning, it's April and it's a weekend and I am running along the sidewalk with Jinks. It's an easy steady run with his tail flying out like a flag and him loping and me not sprinting but taking it steady. It's about seven o'clock in the morning. We've only been running for ten minutes, we're half a mile from the park and it's a good day. I mean I am not feeling too fucked up about the world nor the way I feel about Jeff nor what a dumb asshole I am.

Then there is a man on the sidewalk walking towards me and the closer I get the angrier I feel in the pit of my stomach because the man is a guy I haven't seen since it was last spring, nearly a year ago. It's Henry.

He gets this flat non expression on his face as I run towards him, eyes go narrow and shoulders hunch up a bit. I have nothing to say to Henry any longer, not ever again, so what I do is just run past him. But I am maybe three steps past him, three strides and going fast when I remember that little giggle he gave when he asked Big Bald "Didja like him?" In fact I think I heard it, that Henry has given a nervous giggle because I have just run by. So then I go insane.

I turn around and punch Henry in the back. He turns around so I punch him in the front. He punches me so I keep punching him. I have this idea in the back of my head that Henry is more of a jock than me like he was when we were in High School. So I think I won't really be able to make a mark on him. I won't really be able to wipe the giggle off his mouth. But that was then and in a minute my knuckles are really gashed and bleeding where I hit them off his teeth. In another minute we are both staggering because he goes into the street to get away from me. A horn blares and a car veers sharply. The gust of it passing by eight inches from us blows us back onto the sidewalk, but only for another minute because Henry keeps backing away from me and he backs into the street again.

I am red mad, blind mad, not seeing what I see except what I see is a target so I keep punching smashing blows to get him. I hit Henry real good. I know he hits me but I don't feel it. All this while Jinks is going mad with confusion, jumping up and down, running around us in a circle, yelping and not knowing what is happening. Of course he's never seen me hit anyone before and he wants to help. Only he's a good dog; he would never bite anybody. So he's just circling, terribly distressed. I such a dumb shit I don't see what I'm doing to my dog.

There's a horn blowing again, a meaty thonk, and Henry sinks down, knees folding, waist folding and rolls on the sidewalk. I'm going to start stomping on his face but I think, Jinks, and I turn around.

Jinks is in the gutter by the curb. He's been hit by a car. There's a little bit of blood on his muzzle and he rolls his dark eyes. He's wet himself, his belly fur smells like pee and his eyes are looking dazed but there's no bark and no whimper. I sink to my knees on the sidewalk and I bend over him with a moan.

You see what a dumb ass I've been, I've killed my dog.

So Jinks is not dead yet and I am kind of rocking back and forth. I pick him up in my arms so I can hold him and I rock a bit and I put my face down to his muzzle so we are touching nose to nose, which is when I realize that we both have bloody faces but of course I don't care about my own. Henry is flat out of it, not going to be able to sit up for awhile, he probably needs an ambulance, I've committed an assault but all I care about is my dog. Jinks. Oh God, Jinks is maybe dying.

That's when somebody's hand comes down firm onto my shoulder and it is Jeff. I don't know what he said. He must have said something, but I stagger up holding Jinks and he holds my arm and steers me over to his truck which is parked in the lane with the door standing open so nobody can come by so close that another car might hit Jinks or me as we huddle together on the edge of the road. Jeff gets me to get into his truck with Jinks on my lap and I wail when I see the way Jinks' leg is trailing. Jeff gets into the driver's seat and he drives.

All I can think is that I've killed my dog. I don't care that I'm about to get arrested for beating the crap out of a guy. All I can care about is my dog. So I don't know what I'm doing and I don't care either.

When I hear Jeff on his cell phone talking to a veterinarian, telling the person that he's coming in with a dog that was hit by a car I realize what he's doing. But all I do is just groan, "He's going to die!"

"You don't know that," says Jeff. He keeps driving pretty fast. He has to talk to two veterinarians on the phone because one of them isn't open yet and can't meet us fast enough, but the second one does. He goes through yellow lights, cuts through the corner of a gas station and he gets us to this low house with a big board showing cartoon kittens playing in front of it. "Animal Luv Animal Hospital" it's called. I go staggering in with Jinks who is now crying in pain.

"Oh my God," says the woman in the white lab coat who meets us halfway across the linoleum. "Why didn't you take him to the hospital?"

"He's not hurt as bad as the dog," says Jeff, and then he says, "Save his dog."

So the woman vet does. She puts Jinks on a metal table and a moment more she's got an IV run into him just like he was a person. But then she looks at Jeff and he knows what she means is your dumb ass friend is holding onto my table, falling onto the dog he's killed and he's in my way so get him out of here. So he takes me out of there into the waiting room. We're surrounded by glossy magazines full of show Pomeranians and Lhasa Apsos and I'm in one seat and Jeff is in the next. He's holding my wrists so I won't fall down.

I curl up and rock some more. I've killed my dog. Or maybe.

When I get over that little bit of hysteria Jeff levers me out of my seat and takes me into the bathroom. Here he cleans me up with a bit of paper towel. While he's doing this I remember how they wiped spit and blood off my face so they could rape my mouth and I look at him but he doesn't know why I'm looking at him like that. Probably I already look just too crazed to make any sense. Anyway, when he gets the bit of blood off my chin and off my two hands and wraps my hands in some gauze the women tells him that he can take out of a drawer I don't look so bad. My hands are oozing but I still don't feel it. I don't look like a guy who has been in a fight, I look like a guy who has just about killed his dog.

By and by Jinks lies completely still and the woman comes out to us in the waiting room. I can see Jinks lying on her table and I think she is coming out to tell us that he's about to die. It turns out that they are going to do an operation on Jinks and they think he may lose a back leg, that is if he survives at all.

"Do what you can," I say. And then I remember all the money that I had saved up meaning to start my own plumbing business in a couple more years and I add, "It doesn't matter what it costs."

Jeff takes me home after a couple more of the vets arrive. I can't stay with Jinks and given the way they look at me and the way I looked all messed up when I came in there they don't want to let me stay, so Jeff drives me back to my apartment. He even goes into the place with me.

I stand there with my hands kind of dangling like paws in front of my stomach, vaguely realizing that they are starting to hurt a lot. I am incredibly, incredibly sorry that I attacked Henry, only because Jinks got hurt. Otherwise I might not have minded if I'd killed him. Jeff makes himself at home in my kitchen. He makes me a coffee, one milk and no sugar and steers me into a chair and he says, "How are we going to find out about that guy?"

"What guy?" I say.

"The man you beat up," says Jeff.

"Do you know who he is?" asks Jeff.

"Yeah," I say. "He used to be a friend of mine."

"Shit!" says Jeff.

I look up and he explains. "That means they're going to know who you are, and most likely you'll have a couple of cops at the door in a few minutes."

"Oh," I say.

I drink coffee and wait for the vet to call and say if Jinks died on the operating table or not, or for the cops to come in at the door. I shake a very little bit and I think I should have kept on hitting Henry because once Jinks was hit by the car there was nothing else I could do. Jeff stays with me. He makes coffee for himself and he inspects my apartment and he inspects the little models that I have made, the dioramas that I have all on a set of shelving in a display case I made for them.

"Whew," says Jeff. "You really do fine work. How come you didn't get into making models for the movies?"

I look at him in amazement. I am just a plumber for Christ's sake. It occurs to me after nearly an hour that I don't know why he is there but then again I don't particularly want him to leave. But he seems to know about it so I ask, "How much trouble am I likely to get into for beating Henry up?"

"That depends on if he fingers you or not," says Jeff. "Have you ever been arrested for getting into fights before?"

I shake my head.

"And it depends on if he's hurt too bad," says Jeff. "Depends on a lot of things. Is he going to finger you?"

I think about that. It seems to me probably he would. Why would he care if it came out that he set me up to get gay raped? His word against mine, and who is going to believe me? So I just hunch my shoulders in a shrug.

"Why'd you do it?" asks Jim.

"I hate his poisonous ass," I hiss.

It's not too much longer before the vet phones to say that Jinks is out of surgery, that he he's doped up so he has no pain, in fact he's not conscious and that it is fifty-fifty whether he lives or not. But on the plus side she thinks the might well have saved the leg, assuming he lives.

"What a stupid dumb ass thing to do," I say.

"You couldn't know your dog would jump in traffic," he said.

"Yeah, but I knew he was freaked out. I knew he was jumping around," I said.

Around noon Jeff says he better go, but if the cops come and if I need anything I can call him. I write his cell phone number down because he insists and then he goes.

Jinks is out of the hospital in four days. He is not on his feet yet, in fact I have to bring him into the vet once each day and he has to have his food put right in front of him, so he can eat it while lying on his side. Mostly he just drinks a bit. He's not hungry. I'm supposed to put him on paper in the house to let him pee but instead I carry him outside and put him on the grass so he can pee there. He's a good dog and wouldn't piss or crap on my newspaper if I left it on the floor so of course he doesn't understand unless I take him outside. Jeff lets me run home from work two times during each day so I can look after Jinks and I am only working a eight or nine hour shift anyway.

After a couple more days Jinks gets up unsteady on three legs and just lets his back leg drag a bit. He's putting no weight on it. He totters about on three legs, very slowly and he still needs me to carry him down the back step so he can go outside. But it is definite that Jinks is going to survive and be a gimpy dog, limping along wherever he goes for the rest of his life.

So I've lost my running partner but I've sort of, kind of got a friend. The thing is Jeff is no different than he used to be, coming around the gym and looking over my jobs at work. But I'm thinking about what I used to believe when went out to the gay bar with Henry. If you're a guy's friend you stick with that guy and you don't leave him alone in trouble. That's what Jeff did with me, taking my dog out to the vet when I was a crumpled heap of useless on the sidewalk, and then waiting around to see if the cops would come. He might only be a guy I know and not my friend at all but he treated me like a friend.

So without making up my mind to, I'm a lot less wary about Jeff. I come around and let him talk to me and of course he asks how Jinks is doing so I describe it and he asks did I ever hear anything at all about the cops and I tell him no. It looks like for whatever reason Henry is not going to finger me as being the guy that beat the piss out of him.

I feel okay, but not when Jinks comes hobbling along. When I take him out that summer he limp-lopes slowly a few feet, stops and limp lopes a few more. He just can't run. But he can nose around in the bushes and cock his hind leg to piss on things although he does it at a different angle now and only the right leg, and he can bark at squirrels, and he can play fetch, provided I don't expect him to go diving out pow, quick as he used to be. I tell myself his quality of life is alright and I just don't take him running any more. We go out for lots of short walks and some medium sized walks. What I do a lot is drive him out to the park so we can roam around there and he's near to the car if he gets tired and I have to drive him home.

He's a good dog.

This one day we are doing a job overtime, on the weekend, and I bring Jinks with me in the car so he can wait for me in the shade and he at least gets out of the house. I am meaning to take him out for a walk in the park after I am done. And Jeff is there. When he hears I've got Jinks in the car he wants to come and see how he is doing, and how well he can get around. So after we finish the work, it just takes four hours, Jeff and I go over to my car and Jinks gets out to run around and piss and look at the area that is going to be a lawn someday. Jeff gets down squatting and rubs Jinks' head and Jinks sniffs his hands. I'm pleased to show Jeff my dog and not feeling out of sorts in anyway until this guy drives up, waves his hand in the air and then comes over to Jeff talking real fast, "So why didn't you have to work today, and we tried your cellular, couldn't you bring the truck over for one o'clock if you can't make it for noon," and some other kind of stuff like that. But what I see is the guy has both ears pierced and he's kind of shrill, swish with his voice going up excited like that. I don't say anything, I just move back a bit.

The new guy is named Ned and he's organizing some construction on an apartment for another pair of guys name Kyle and Brennan, and he is just insisting that Jeff is going to help him, Jeff's help will be invaluable. But could Jeff get someone to put the new sink in? They're having a carwash to raise money for the supplies bill, and it was wonderful that Jeff helped them with all the windows..." Jeff can barely get a word in, but he nods amused and says yes, he'll come around with the truck later today, yes, he'll get someone to help with the pipes and the renovations in the hall. I notice Jeff glance at me but I go away and throw a stick for Jinks.

Ned goes away calling cheerful thank yous, blessing Jeff and saying he's a hero. Jeff comes back to me and says, "You seem to be a bit homophobic."

Now he's not talking shit when he says that. I am and it shows that I pulled away from Ned and probably got a look like I thought I'd be bitten. He doesn't bother asking could I tell Ned was gay and I don't bother denying it.

"Yeah, I am," I admit.

"Why's that?" he says.

I just look at him, stuck, stymied, no idea how the fuck to say it.

"You know I'm gay," he says.

"Yeah, but you're different," I mutter.

"Not so different," he says. "Ned is a good guy."

"Yeah, but gay guys -most gay guys scare the piss out of me," I mutter.

He doesn't say anything to that, though he raises an eyebrow, he just says, "So how about you volunteering?"

"What?"

"Did you hear Ned?"

I had to shake my head.

"He was loud enough," Jeff grins. "He's looking for someone to move some pipes around, take an old sink out and put a new sink in. We're renovating an apartment for a couple of guys and it's all volunteer labour."

I give him a suspicious look, "Couple of guys?"

"Yeah," says Jeff. "Gay guys. One of them is just coming out of the hospital and the other one is his lover bringing him home to look after him."

I shake my head. Jeff doesn't ask me for much and somehow I'm not surprised to hear he would get into doing a thing like this himself, volunteering, but I'm not ready to put my head into the trap so easily.

"Why not?" he says.

"I'd be too damned uncomfortable around them," I say.

"If that's all it is we can go over on Sunday and get it done. There won't be nobody in the apartment. They're not moved in yet."

"Are you sure?" I say.

"Yeah, I'm sure. It'll just be you and me there."

So that is how I end up volunteered to help fix the plumbing in an apartment on my day off. Not that I mind working the day because there's a limit how many movies a guy can watch, or how often he can go to the gym, and Jinks isn't taking up my time with long walks any more. By now I'm pretty comfortable around Jeff, gay or not, so I say I'll be there. He writes down the address for me and I show up at nine.

The place is a real dump. Apparently they are getting the place for free. And one of the guys is dying so the other one has to be a full time caretaker for him and doesn't have time to hold down a job. Their friends are helping out by getting the place fixed up so it will be livable. The kitchen is done already and glossy with paint but the bedrooms have the wallpaper half stripped off the wall and in the living room a cast iron fireplace insert is leaning against the wall where the hearth stands crumbly with rotten mortar. There had used to be a sink in the hall. My job is to take the old pipes out and put a new one in, but put the new sink in the bathroom. Jeff is there with me to help, but most of the time he is going to be working on the fireplace.

That is okay. Ripping stuff out doesn't take too much time and once I ascertain that for a miracle the water shut offs really do work, I am able to get down to the job. I make a great heap of debris where I pull down rotten plaster along with the copper pipes. Someone is going to have to put new gyproc up here.

By noon I have the old pipes out and the basic part of the new pipes in. It is just going to be the fiddly work of connecting the new sink to the new pipes and making it all fit. I am banging around feeling okay, since the apartment is empty except the pair of us and anyway Jeff is in the other room.

He comes in and says, "Can you help me put the fireplace back?" The sucker is heavy. By the time we have it eased in amid the new bricks he's put in and made sure it would fit and measured and then taken it back out because Jeff needs to put some tiles in along the top and he can't until the mortar is dry, it's afternoon so Jeff says to me, "You want some lunch? I'll order it."

"You don't want to go out?"

"Naah, I'll order it."

Jeff gets us a couple of pepperoni pizzas. There's no place to sit in the apartment so we stretch our legs out on the bare floor and eat together companionably. And he says, "I couldn't have asked any of the other guys, you know. They'd have said fuck this, if they're not getting paid."

"I didn't have any plans for today," I say shrugging. Then I feel I should add, "I don't have nothing against gay guys. They just make me uncomfortable."

He gives a nod.

Then I say, carefully, "Most of the time you dress ordinary. I only saw you in that leather jacket type of gear once. You dress up like that too often?"

"Sometimes." He measures me with his eyes. He knows the time I mean. "That night I was cruising."

"Like, doing pick-ups?" I say. "You do that?"

"I've got a couple of friends I go with mostly," says Jeff. "I don't need to do any pick-ups."

"But you've done it?"

"Yeah," says Jeff. "Why are you curious?"

I hunch my shoulders. "The look. I don't like the look."

"You don't like a gay guy to look gay?" he says.

"Hell, I wish they came with a sign on them, like a great big red G on their chest so you could know anytime you see them right away."

He's got his eyebrows lifted like he's not approving of what I say, but I don't care. "Like a pink triangle maybe?" he suggests.

I'm pretty sure I understand the reference. It's something about the way gay guys got marked in Nazi Germany or something. I just shake my head. "No, I told you, I'm fucking scared of gay guys. I'd want them to have a big red triangle saying 'danger" or something."

He laughs. "Come on. We're not that dangerous."

"You're not maybe," I say. And then I say, "That guy I beat up, he was gay and I didn't know it."

"That's why you beat him up?" Jeff's eyebrows still didn't approve of me.

I shake my head. "He got me beat up, him and four other guys, beat shit out of me a year ago. First time I saw him alone since then. He fucked me up bad, I had to take a couple of days off work. I had bruises for weeks."

"What did they do that for?"

"I guess it was my fault," I say.

"I guess you got to be careful what you say," Jeff suggests.

"You think I said something?" I say. "Hell, I didn't do nothing to bring them down on me. Only after they started beating on me I called this one guy an asshole, that's why they kept on hurting me so bad."

"What did you do?"

"I went into a gay bar,"

"What did you say?"

"Nothing 'til after they hit me. I was in the bar to get thirty bucks Henry owed me. He was supposed to get it from a guy there. Instead the five of them, Henry too lit into me. Just for thirty measly bucks."

"Which bar was it?"

"Dicks," I say.

"Yeah, that's a bar to stay out of unless you like it rough. They're pretty crude there," he allows.

"I had no idea it was a fucking gay bar when I walked in there."

"So do you swing bi?" Jeff asks suddenly.

"Me? No," I say. And then I say, "No, I don't do girls."

Now he looks at me with his eyebrows raised way up under his hairline.

"I thought you knew," I say.

"You gave me an idea..." he says. "I mean I couldn't tell how much you were this way. I just figured you had to be some."

I say nothing. I'm not eating the pizza any more. I look away across the floor. Hell, I don't care if he knows or if he suspects or what he thinks. He is Jeff and I don't figure he'll fuck around with me.

"Let's go back to getting the sink installed," I say.

Thursday night I'm over in Kyle and Brennan's empty apartment fixing the woodwork, and sanding it, and I work with Jeff like that. I don't mind. There's a fair bit of woodwork to be done in the bathroom. I put in built in towel bars and a heater. I'm over there a couple more times. But before the apartment is finished, it's only about a week and a half later when Jeff gives me a call. He knows my phone number from work but he's never called me unless it was a job before. He says, "Hey Gilles."

"Hey Jeff," I say

"You wanna drop by my place and check a movie out?" It is the new Jim Carey comedy. I'd said I was going to rent it. "You ain't seen it yet?" he continues.

"Yeah," I say.

"You wanna come over now? I've got it rented. I'm on East Fourth Street. It's number 214. You know where it is? And you can bring Jinks. Give him a change of scene."

So I bring Jinks along. Luckily Jeff is on the ground floor or I might have to carry Jinks up some steps. I find Jeff's apartment, no problem. It is a guy's apartment for sure, but not the apartment of a total slob and there is this big print of a guy in leather boots and not much else on the wall, a great big blown up black and white shot. I look at Jeff and it's my turn to raise my eyebrows. But he just grins, "Tom of Finland," he says.

The guy in the picture is dark haired. "He doesn't look Finnish," I say. For some reason this cracks him up. He gets a big grin on.

So we settle down to watch Jeff's movie but I can't say I am feeling comfortable. I have Jinks up on the sofa beside me with his head in my lap so I can rub his ears and I am feeling really weird. I am horny but still I think, you are so stupid, going to some gay guy's place; you even know this guy is gay. And on the pretext of watching a movie, the same fucking thing you did with Henry. One thing that scares me was how in the hell am I going to get limping Jinks out of there fast if it all turns sour on me.

So I don't laugh at the movie much. Jeff does laugh, and he doesn't give me a running commentary the way Henry had used to do.

After the movie Jeff switches the player off and then he goes into the kitchen and he says, "You want something?" I hear his glass.

"I don't drink," I say.

"I know that," he comes out of the kitchen again, momentarily. "I don't mean booze. I'm having a ginseng drink."

"Ginseng?" I say "What's that?"

"Sort of like ginger ale with out the fizz," he says. "It's healthy for you." And he brings one out for each of us and a little piece of pepperoni so I can have something to give Jinks.

He sits down again and I say, "Aren't you going to lay a pass on me?"

That stops him cold. "I didn't figure you were ready for one yet," he says with his glass in midair halfway to his mouth.

I make a joke out of it. "I want to know so I can run out of here screaming."

"How about if I don't lay a pass on you?"

"Alright," I say, still bravely quipping, "But I'm going to be disappointed."

So then he comes over and sits on the couch with me so the dog is in between us and he rubs the dog's head and looks at me. Jinks kind of likes the attention as he'd liked the pepperoni, being simple he is easy to bribe and sure that Jeff is a good guy. So for a minute or three Jeff sits just opposite me talking about the dog and the he leans in, real slowly and puts his hand up on my shoulder.

If he were a guy in a movie he'd be about to kiss the girl so I lean over a little bit towards him and he knows I'm putting up with it, so he put his lips against mine. They are cool from the ice in the ginseng drink and warm and he parts them. We kiss.

"What do you want me to do, Gilles?" says Jeff.

"I dunno," I say. "You're seducing me, right?"

"Right," he agrees, "But I don't know what you'd like."

I grimaced. I am that nervous I don't have the words to say it. I don't really think I'd like anything, but then there is my hard on. I have a stubby stiffie in my pocket swelling up hard as I could need. There is half of me thinking right, this is quite enough of this, stop it now, and another half of me thinking I'm alright, I'm with Jeff.

"How about you show me your meat?" he says.

For that I have to get up and move the dog off my lap, so I do that, but Jinks doesn't mind. He just lays down on the rug in front of the TV and watches us. I un-zipper and get my porky little cock out and show Jeff.

Jeff doesn't say it is runty looking. He reaches out his fingers and gives my meat a bit of a stroke and I sigh and spread my thighs a bit. He rubs me. "You're pretty nervous," he says.

"I've done it before." I deny being nervous, but of course I haven't actually done what we are doing. "Something like this before," I amend.

So he moves in beside me until the warm length of him is pressed all along my side and he rubs on my cock. I didn't mind so much when he kisses me but mostly I am not into that. I like it when he rubs on me. He tells me to pull my pants down to my knees so it is easier to get a grip on my prick and I do that. He opens his pants up too. He has a great cock, tall and long and circumcised so there is none of that wrinkly skin on it to peel back. Of course my skin is peeled back now with my hard on straining upwards so he doesn't have to deal with it and anyway it doesn't seem to bother him. To a gay guy, a cock is just another cock, right? They gotta like them all, I figure. So anyway I let him jerk me and I jerk me a bit and then he has his cock out of his pants and he was using one hand on me and one hand on himself.

I come with a groan and a sigh. He keeps rubbing his own self really hard but it takes him quite a few minutes more than me. By then my prick is getting limp and I think it might gross him out getting all the skin back so I push it back into my pants still slimy. Jinks watches us through out all this not bothered at all. Jeff shoots and wipes and tucks himself away about six minutes after I am done.

"That wasn't so bad," I say when he is tucked back in, but my voice comes out a croak.

"That was kind of fun," he say.

I look down. "I guess we better go," I say.

"If you want to," he says. So I leave.

That is my first time doing anything voluntary other than just kissing a girl, with anybody. It isn't so monumental. Anyway it doesn't leave me feeling weirded out or overwhelmed or nothing. I jerk off sometimes and this is pretty much the same as that. And besides when I see Jeff at work he is just the same as he ever is.

But a few days after that he asks me if he wants me to drop by my place with the specs for a job we will be doing, or if maybe I would like to come by his place. "And if I'm coming over to your place I can bring some take out."

"Sure," I say.

"Which?" he says.

"Either," I say.

He decides he is coming to my place. That is fine. I look around my apartment. No pictures of buff Finnish leather boys, just lots of models of war planes and things. Jeff is there about forty-five minutes after I have got home from work, which means just five minutes after I have gotten back from walking Jinks. He has brought an array of Mexican and he spreads it out on my kitchen table and we dive in. But of course I am looking at him and he is looking at me. So when he has finished the last bit of hot sauce he licks his fingers and looks at me and he says, "Want to jerk each other off again?"

"Sure," I say.

We retire to my bedroom and he begins to peel my clothes off. I am not sure I like that. He is so much in control. And I am not sure I would like to rip all his clothes off, but I think to myself, I trust this guy, this is alright, I trust this guy, so soon he gets me undressed completely and he is running his hands all over me. But he is completely dressed. He cups my ass and he cups my balls and he jerks my cock slowly and runs his hands over my pecs and my back. It all feels good, so I try to get into the sensations of it, which is working as I have a pretty good hard on sticking up.

He likes that and pulls me so that I am backing up into him up against his hard canvas work pants and his work shirt, the buttons all down my spine and his belt buckle at my waist and the lump at his crotch into my bare butt. It actually feels real good, enough that I wriggle some in his grasp to get more sensation.

So then he turns me around onto my back and comes down on top of me and says, "I'm gonna suck you!"

That is what gay guys like so I know he means it; it's what he wants to do. I lie back on the bed and groan. He takes my stubby dick into his mouth and sucks on it like he's a hungry kid and it is a lollipop. He runs his tongue up and down on my dick and then sucks and he varies that between sucking and licking and then bobbing up and down. Pretty soon I am saying, "Oh fuck... oh fuck... oh fuck, Jesus, Jeff, it feels good. Oh fuck..." and I see him. He is grinning over my cock. While he is sucking he has wrestled his own pants down to his knees and his tall red cock is sticking out of his shirt tails. I am completely turned on and mind blown even more when he sucks me so hard that I start to cum. He takes my load into his mouth and sucks every drop out of me.

Afterwards I am damp with sweat, sand-bagged lying back and he is kneeling over me with his erection still unsatisfied. I struggle to sit up and I look at his dick.

Oh. I had my turn and now I suppose it is his turn. I think about it. He didn't just jerk me even though he said that is all we were going to do.

"Do you want to fuck my butt?" I ask slowly.

It's his turn to look real surprised. His eye brows go right up.

"I'm not a fucking virgin," I say.

"Well, alright," Jeff replies slowly. "I love ass fucking guys. I just thought you'd maybe feel more comfortable with a hand job or sucking me or something."

"There's no way I'm sucking you off," I say. "It makes me puke. But you can choose which you like, fucking my butt or me using my hand on you."

"Let's try your ass, if you're willing," he says, and then he starts feeling over me, rubbing his hands on my ass. I know, even if it is monstrously bad and uncomfortable and painful there is no way it will be as bad as when I lost my cherry with my ass cheeks whipped to oozing blood. And I am right. First of all Jeff begins with a bit of finger work and a lot of KY jelly. I'm not too uncomfortable with that.

But Jeff says, "You sure you're up to this? You seem pretty tight assed to me."

"If you wanta you can try," I say. I hesitate. "I didn't like it too much the last time I got ass fucked. Maybe you can do a better job of it than the last guy did."

I think maybe Jeff takes that as a challenge because he starts really working at my ass, massaging the cheeks of it and playing with my balls and working his finger carefully and then his two fingers. And by and by I brace with my head down and my ass up and again it's not so bad. It hurts like fuck, nothing like when I got my ass raped, but he gets it inside and rocks in me slow and careful. Jeff is breathing deep like the sensations are real good.

"Fuck man, are you ever tight," he says. And a few minutes after that but before the pain is bad enough to make me start struggling, he comes inside me.

It's over, I think. Thank God. So he pulls out of me. I get out of the undignified position and he fusses with the condom. It just happens that I'm still on the bed sitting and he is kneeling so he takes it off near my face and it comes off into the air right near my mouth and I spring off the bed like he just belted me. I am remembering the condoms they squished out between my teeth. I even feel a big gurp of bile come up into the back of my throat. But I just stand there by the wall and Jeff just looks at me.

"What?" he says.

Obviously I can't tell him what. I go over to the dog and pat Jinks and I look at Jeff and I kind of shrug and then I put my pants on.

After that I am kind of Jeff's fucking shadow, waiting for him to call me and if he doesn't call me for a week or so I call him up and we get together pretty often. Sometimes we jerk each other and sometimes he fucks my butt or he sucks me. I get better at having my butt fucked. It gets almost good sometimes when the guy gets the right angle so he is bumping it into my prostate, but it never gets really good, if you see what I mean. What I like most is when he takes my clothes off and handles me, before he puts his dick inside.

And Jeff kinda is the man in the relationship. Like, not only does he call me and I wait around for the call, but when we get together I wait for him to start things, to decide if this time we are just going to j/o or if he wants to get his hands on me. I notice that, that Jeff is the one taking the lead. He likes to get me out of my clothes and him still have his clothes on and he likes to look at me, stand over the bed when I'm stretched out not wearing nothing. But he is never rough or pushy and any time I flinch a bit he just stays still to wait and see how far I'm going to back off. So I have to admit I am really getting attached to Jeff and to the cock sucking he does for me.

"You don't never cock suck, do you?" he asks me one time when I am lying on his bed. I feel guilty because I know how good it feels and I never do that for him. But I mean, I don't ask him to suck my cock neither. It just happens when he does it which isn't too often. Mostly I jerk myself off with him watching me and playing with his own prick. I never suck his cock.

"My cock grosses you out?" he says. I can tell he wants it.

"I've got an overactive gag reflex," I tell him.

"Well, how about you get on your knees here and rub it?"

I get off the bed, kneeling on his round brown and green carpet while he unzips. Now I can tell how submissive that is, me naked and kneeling for him, and him standing there with just his hard on jutting out. But I don't mind so much because he not making me do it. It's just something I'm doing because it turns him on. In my head I am convinced that if I stand up and say it's not happening Jeff will let me walk out of his apartment.

So for awhile I jerk his cock for him while he stands there with his legs spread and him looking down his chin at me. "Touch it," he says.

My both hands are pretty busy at that point so I look up at him to see what he means.

"Can you touch it with your nose?"

"With my nose?" I repeat. I guess I can do that. I lean in and pull the smooth round head of the thing forward so that I touch his dick to the bridge of my nose. I hear him breath. It's not like a nose is an erotic thing or my nose is sexy at all, but there's something about the intimacy of that which Jeff likes. I can smell him as clear as clear.

"Do it some more," he says.

So by and by I am touching his prick to my nose and my cheeks, and kind of rolling it around on my face, but to my lips never, and my lips are tight. Jeff is breathing pretty heavy. He says, "Good boy."

I drop his prick and scowl. "I'm not a boy. Jinks is a good boy. Don't talk to me like I'm your dog."

Jeff pauses. He's grinning at me. Clearly he must like talking down to me because right away he asks, "How about I call you soldier and bark out a bunch of orders here?"

It's a dominance thing. Jeff really likes being a boss to me somehow, for him that's a real turn on. I'd say that was a stupid game but then again, there's a part of me likes to kneel down for him, and likes to wait for him. I like knowing I'm going to get my cock sucked but not when and I like the way he postpones it for me, makes me bring him off first. I like it when he controls me. I just don't like it when he takes me someplace I'm not ready to go and being called 'boy' like Big Bald called me boy. I am not ready for.

"Aww..." I say, "Look, I'm not calling you Sir. You can be Master, but you can't be Sir."

He laughs. "You fucking topping from the bottom?" he says.

I'm not a hundred percent sure what that expression means, but I shake my head. "If I got to call you Sir or let you call me Boy I am walking right out of here," I say.

He gets an odd kind of an expression and puts his hand on my head. "Gilles," he says. "You mean you'd like to call me Master?" It's not a sneer kind of an expression. It's a kind of a wry look half amused and half sad.

"Sure," I say. "That turns you on, doesn't it?"

"Yeah." His fingers are soft in my hair.

"Okay, I'll be Igor and you can be the master," I say, and I rub his prick on my cheek again.

"It's not a game, Gilles," he says seriously.

"You want to be my master or don't you?" I ask.

He doesn't say he doesn't. He just looks at me kind of crookedly and I go back to rubbing his prick against my face and cranking it up and down smoothly. So he lets me do that for him. By and by I am rubbing him real hard and fast and I put some spit quick on my hand to keep it going smoothly. And then when he cums I point it away from me and I catch it in a bit of rag to clean it up.

Afterwards he gets me to lie out on his bed and I jerk off while he watches me doing it. He tells me to pinch my tits while I am rubbing my cock and to make pelvic thrusts, not just to rub my hand on it. His eyes follow me closely while I do it. I cum pretty good, it's a big wet one and I feel great.

"You know," says Jeff. "I think you're a born bottom. You're such a natural submissive you even do part of the talk without knowing anything about it."

"I'm not stupid," I say. "I've heard about some of it."

"What do you know?" he asks.

I hesitate. "Well, it's kind of sick thing. Guys that want to wear leather and beat up on each other. Like I'd take..." I hesitate. "Amyl nitrate and I'd let you whip me until there was blood all over my butt. And you'd have piercings, lots of piercings. But I'm not like that at all. Pain turns me off completely."

"Why do you think it's sick?" he says.

"I dunno," I say with a shrug. "I can't get into it. I don't like pain."

"But you like me telling you what to do here."

"Not like that." I said. "You don't fuck me up."

The more often Jeff I get together for sex the more of a lead he takes. Pretty soon he's making me wait for it. We get together after work in his apartment and then he tells me take all my clothes off and if I don't have a hard on as soon as I do that, he gets me to work it up until I do have one. But I normally do have a hard on and he tells me to stroke it, just enough strokes that I'm real eager, and then he tells me to stop. He likes me to go around in his apartment with my hard-on sticking out. He makes me wear only my work boots and my heavy canvas jacket, the one I wear on the work site. When I wear that my butt and my cock are all bare.

I remember the picture of the Finnish guy on his wall pretty quick and make the parallel. See, I'm dressed almost the same as Tom is, just boots and a bit more. Only Tom is wearing leather and I'm wearing my work stuff, so I don't mind it. The leather would just creep me out. Truth is wearing only my boots and jacket for Jeff creeps me out a little bit too but I also like it. This is because I know Jeff likes it and because I know once he gets me to peel all my clothes off I am going to get my butt fucked and then he is going to let me cum.

So I spend the whole evening just in boots and jacket and maybe Jeff gets me to lie down belly over his hassock, this leather ottoman thing he has, and he strokes on my butt and my balls while we watch the movie. Of course when he does that I don't pay much attention to the movie. He keeps playing away with me, hardly touching my cock at all, enough that I am hard, hard. He makes me wait until the whole movie is over.

And then he wants me to worship his cock, which is the part I am not good at, but getting better. I do a hand job on him and I rub his cock against my nose and my cheeks and sniff that funky sweat smell. He makes me beg him to put it in my butt. "Are you going to fuck me soon? I want you to put it up my butt. Yeah, I do. I want you fucking my ass soon. You're the master, you decide. But I want it soon."

I even kiss him on the cock. I don't mind kissing his balls -in fact that feels kind of silly, so I want to chuckle about it when I do that, but I don't like kissing him on the cock. I do that because Jeff tells me to, and I trust Jeff. If he were going to put it into my mouth I'd fight it. I wouldn't do that. I'd try and punch him to make him stop it. But he never goes so far that I have to fight him to get away. Instead I get to feel real good.

Since he gets me ready first, ready so I am dying for it, it feels really good to be fucked in the butt. Now, the porn movies make out that a guy getting fucked in the but feels like he's in heaven, it's going to make him cream and he can't help cumming from being fucked in the butt. It's not like that with me. The truth is it feels kind of comfortable, once I get used to it, and my prostate prickles in a good sort of way, but it doesn't get better than real comfortable. I feel like Jeff is so much bigger than me when he is on top of me like that. I feel like he is a ceiling, some kind of a shield on top of me so that I'd be safe if the real ceiling fell in on me. He hooks his two hands on the top of my shoulders and I tilt my ass back and up for him and I just relax and let it stroke in and out of me, solid strong cock sliding in and out and fucking me good.

Then towards the end of the evening when I know I have to go home to Jinks, have to go home to him soon before he ends up whining at the back door for me to come home, at that point Jeff finally says that I can have my own orgasm. He lets me beat my meat, kneeling at his feet and him showing me his cock. Or he lets me beat it kneeling down when he stands behind me and I know his cock is at the level of the back of my head and maybe he puts his knee on my bare back and makes me lean a bit forwards while I stroke it. "Alright, Gilles, You can cum now; you've been good. Yeah, you can have it."

Of course, I know what a sorry excuse for a real man that makes me, wanting to wait for my cum until he says so. It's pretty pathetic really, being such a loser and a wimp that I want to wait until another guy says I can cum. But it feels really good when I do that and the thing is, it is Jeff telling me if and when I get to cum. And I trust him. I really trust him, like with my life.

In fact, Jeff doesn't always want to see me. It's only maybe two or at most three times a week that he comes over to my place or calls me and tells me to come over to his place and get fucked. So I save my cum up for those times and I don't do it to myself when he's not there, not giving me permission to do it.

I'd like to get my electrician's certificate but I don't have time. I am working so much, and a lot of overtime. Of course I have to pay the vet bills for Jinks which are kind of shocking, being so high, but I paid for all of them with my savings and I save up some more. I'm socking away a prodigious amount of money because once the vet bills are paid I don't buy nearly anything.

Everything is going just swimmingly, I have a happy and restful life, I feel like I am being pretty successful and my sex life is working out so that I have a lot of great times, when one day Jeff says to me, "I'd like you to learn to cock suck."

We are lying out on my bed after I finally got to cum and it is late one night and the only light in the room is the blue from the TV screen after the movie has stopped. I am so comfortable I am almost asleep. But then he says what he says.

For a few seconds I say nothing, and then I give a great sigh and role over on my side. "You know I can't do that," I say. "You mean I've got to learn it?"

"You got to learn it for me now," says Jeff. "It's time for you to suck my prick."

Now I know he's been real patient with me, and letting me go slow and learn everything. And he's experimented with me to see that I find out what I really like. So I know he means not this very minute, he isn't demanding I give him a blow job. He means that somehow, over the next few days or maybe even weeks he means to cock train me. So I say, "Alright. It's over."

That was maybe not the response he was expecting. I sit up and he is looking at me. But he knows I mean what I say and maybe he can see how much it hurts me to say it from the look on my face, because he just looks at me for a little while and then he goes and puts his clothes on and goes away.

I find out within a couple of days of him going that beating my meat by myself on my own time doesn't feel so good anymore. It's not nearly like it was with Jeff. I do it the first time and I say to myself well maybe I just have to adjust and get used to. But then I hardly want to any more at all because I miss Jeff so much.

I miss him more because I always see him. Nearly every day at work we are on jobs together and he doesn't say anything companionable to me. He doesn't grin. He just looks at me somberly and he turns his face away. I couldn't do it. I turned him down. I told him that was enough. But I knew he meant to cock train me, we couldn't have gone on like we were. He took that possibility away from me. And I can't. I just can't. A couple of times I think about it, late at night, lonely, trying to fit my mind around how I am going to live without Jeff. And when I think like that hard enough, trying to convince myself that I could learn to suck cock, then I have to get up, quick and I puke to the porcelain god. It's bad for me because whenever I resolve I will learn, I will go to Jeff and I will learn, then I find myself having to puke right away.

He could never train me with a gag reflex like that.

It goes on into the end of the fall and into the winter. And then one day, finally Jeff does come to me and he does talk to me about something other than the work that he has to talk to me about on the job. He comes to me and he says, "Kyle died."

I'm so self-absorbed at first I don't know what he means. And then finally I think after a few beats have gone by, of course, Kyle was the terminally ill guy, the one whose apartment we renovated together.

"Too bad," I say.

"I'm going to the funeral parlor," says Jeff. "Do you want to come?"

I mean, I never even met Kyle. I'm sure he doesn't know who I am, nor the surviving lover, Brennan, I think it was. There is no reason for me to go to the funeral parlor. I don't know the people at all. But Jeff is going. And Jeff is asking me to come. The last thing I really want to do is go to some dismal place like a funeral parlor, see a bunch of people I don't know and awkwardly tell them I'm sorry. But Jeff has asked me to come. He is letting me know that I can still have some of his life.

"Alright," I say and my voice is so soft it is like I just croak the word out. Also, I feel like I am buckling at the knees. I get to see Jeff. I'm not happy to see Jeff, I'm really, really sad. I want to go away somewhere by my self but if Jeff is going to let me see him then I am going to see him the way he says.

He tells me to be waiting out front of my apartment at five thirty tonight and to be wearing a suit. I have to go home really early and go buy a suit because I don't have one. First I rush home and shower, then I rush out to a men's fashion store and I try black suits on. They find one that fits me but the pants that go with it are too long. So then I wait in the store while they shorten the trouser legs, which they do for me right on the spot because I explain I have to go to a funeral right away.

But I am in front of my house, wearing the suit in time when Jeff's truck comes swinging along. He barely stops. I hop in and then he drives off with me. I see that he is wearing a suit too which looks not quite right on him. He looks best of all in his work clothes or maybe even in that black outfit I saw him wearing that one night long, long ago at the gym. Because even while I couldn't stand the sight of him wearing the leather jacket, I know that it looked good on him.

Jeff is maybe angry at me. I feel good about that. I let him down so he should feel angry at me. It is better than him just looking away from me. I don't say anything. In fact I concentrate on breathing as softly as I can so I don't fog up his truck windows because it is getting very cold.

By and by we pull up in front of a white building with pillars and flood lights on it, looks something like Tara out of Gone with the Wind. There are a lot of cars in the lot. We go inside and the first thing I see is a fat woman wearing a tuxedo, with black spots on her nose showing where she took her piercings out. Then we see a middle aged man in a suit, he looks kind of normal, and there are a whole throng of people, milling around and not saying much. There are some of them look a little outr‚, I mean, flaming gay, when I use that word, like the skinny young man in a lavender satin shirt. But most of them look like ordinary people. The place smells of flowers really strongly, that sweet, stiff smell of carnations. Jeff walks around talking to people, just greeting them and I follow him lock step.

He hangs around there for about twenty minutes greeting a whole lot of people, most of them male. I am feeling awkward and I try to distract myself by figuring out who are the boy's family but I can't because there is no normal looking middle aged woman and middle aged man with ravaged faces. I know people are looking at me. There are quite a few guys with goatees and not nearly any normal looking women so I know the crowd is mostly if not all gay. Jeff doesn't introduce me to anyone, not anyone that he greets like acquaintances, but they mostly all look at me after he talks to them, so I meet their eyes. I'm at my very first gay party. The casket is a black one with silver handles and it is closed.

Finally Jeff takes me over to meet a guy; there is a kind of a receiving line. The guy is much older than I expected. I had a vision that Kyle and Brennan were these two young lovers, but maybe not because it turns out that Brennan is this exhausted looking man of about sixty. We shake hands and I tell him, "I'm very sorry for your loss."

It turns out it isn't the funeral, it is just visitation, because after that Jeff is ready to go, instead of us all going to sit down for a service. So he leads me out again and it is really cold. I feel my ears turning pink from the cold before we scrunch through the snow to the bottom of the parking lot and get into his truck.

It has fogged up white so no one can see through the windows and it is tomb cold in there. Jeff starts the engine but we are not going anywhere until the truck warms up. And he says to me, "What did you think?"

"I'm sorry." I say. "Was Kyle a particular friend of yours?"

"Not really," he says coolly. "I know Brennan better. Weren't you scared to be in a crowd like that? Everyone was gay."

"Yes, I know," I said. "But everybody was there to pay their respects, and not going to rape me."

Jeff looks at me, and I think most likely he is fed up with me and wishing he hadn't brought me along. Then he sets down the rules.

"If you're going to be my bottom then you are going to have to meet my friends."

"Okay," I say.

"And you're going to have to get used to me wearing leather, even maybe wear some of it yourself to make me happy."

"Okay, but I'm going to look dumb."

"That's for me to decide," he says.

"Yes, Jeff," I agree. He can dress me however he wants to if he wants to go on seeing me. I'm lonely enough that I don't care about that. What does it matter if I look ridiculous? I don't mind looking ridiculous if it turns him on.

Then he takes a little package out of his pocket and gives it to me. It's the last thing I have to do so I can have sex with him again. It's a little flat pink and white box with the word "Gravol" printed on it.

I take a little pink pill out of the blister and swallow it. I take another. When I am swallowing number four Jeff stops me and holds his hand out. "No more or you'll get a buzz on."

I hand him back the packet. We both sit and watch liquid crescents of melted frost begin at the bottom of the windshield as the blower thaws out his windows.

"How is Jinks?"

"He's fine. He's learning to get on better. He can climb up things now, even steps. He's always climbing up steps by himself," I say.

Then Jeff drives me to his place. We go up inside. I feel out of place in my suit. I look at the familiar picture of Tom, the familiar narrow galley kitchen, the flat expanse of the bed where I hope I will be getting my ass fucked again. Jeff hangs his jacket up and looks at me.

"May I get out of my clothes?"

He gives a nod. Standing there just in his front hall I take off the new suit jacket and then the trousers and then the rest of my clothes. I get naked and I go down on my knees for Jeff. He gets a faint twist of a smile on like he's going to laugh at me.

"I'm really sorry, you know," I say. "If I could do this easily for you, I would."

"You can do it," he says "You're just being a wimp."

He doesn't just cram his cock into my mouth and work on cumming himself. The first thing he makes me do is lie down, face down on his hassock and he rubs me on the ass to give me a real big hard on. Then he gets me to worship his cock a bit, rubbing it and sniffing it. It almost feels good to be doing that again, but the back of my throat is closed. Jeff wants me to tell him what I think of it.

"It feels okay," I say obediently. "I can do this. I want to suck your cock, Jeff. You can make me suck your cock."

"Are you scared, Gilles?"

"No, Jeff. I'm not scared of you."

I say I can do it, but what I am thinking is that he should have a basin ready and some paper towel. I'm thinking maybe it will work, that it should work. But I'm also thinking no way in heaven is it going to work because my throat is tight. And my hard-on flags a bit on me too, so Jeff goes back to turning me on.

He makes me lie down on his bed face down for awhile and he humps my butt. "Were you scared the first time I fucked your ass, Gilles?"

"Yes, I was scared."

"But you like it now, don't you? You'd like me to fuck your ass, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Jeff."

"Say it."

"I'd like you to fuck my ass," I say. "Please."

Finally when he figures I am ready he gets me to open my mouth. First he gets me to kiss his cock and then he gets me to open my mouth. I take his cock inside on my lips and the tip of my tongue. The front of his glans is resting in my mouth. He doesn't push it roughly all the way back. He just lets me take the glans into my lips.

"What does it taste like, Gilles?"

I look at him sideways over the mouthful of cock and I say, "It tastes okay, Jeff." Only I don't take it out of my mouth to say it, so what I say is "Ih ay-oh-ay, ehh." He can tell what I am trying to say and he laughs.

He puts his two hands on the back of my head holding me so that his prick stays in my mouth. "Run your tongue around on me, Gilles."

I do that. I taste more salt. He hasn't showered in at least a couple of hours and there is some crotch taste once I start licking it.

"I'm going to move it, Gilles," he tells me. "Keep your head steady while I move it."

He gives a stroke and his cock slides across my tongue.

So we go on like this, with him telling me instructions and me doing what he tells me to. His cock is going slowly in and out and I am using my lips and my tongue and sucking. He tells me to swallow when he thrusts in towards the back of my mouth and I do that. I get used to swallowing every time he does a deeper stroke. He is doing it really slow and patiently with me. I am kind of tense, in fact I am real tense, although he is going slowly like that. It is really the hands clamping down on the back of my head not the cock probing into the back of my gullet. I haven't gagged yet. I have my eyes steady on his bush because I can't see his face.

Oh, Good, I think. I'm not going to puke. It's just like he said and it must be the Gravol helping.

So then when he sees that I can take it slow he starts to speed up his stroke a bit. I suck and I swirl my tongue around on him and I wrap my lips tight so that I can feel his tight skin moving on his cock. He goes faster and faster and deeper and deeper.

He's not going to cum in my mouth, I think. He'll take it out before he cums. But I am starting to get alarmed wondering if really he is going to squirt it in my throat. And I am getting tenser the faster he goes.

He can feel me getting tense, but he doesn't let up. He keeps his hands firmly clamped holding my head steady and thrusts his dick faster and faster. "Keep swallowing, Gilles, he says, and he is a little bit out of breath. "Swallow it, swallow it..."

And then he says, "Take it, boy," which is when I panic. I don't just panic. I try to get it out of my throat. But his hands are clamping the back of his head so it is just a few split seconds before he can release me and in that time I scream and I gag hard and I bite.

I feel the sensation of my teeth clamping down hard on his stiff prick; feel my front teeth setting in deep into the solid flesh. He lets his hands go, I pull my head back and Jeff gets his cock out of my mouth. For a wonder I don't spew but I do yowl like dog that's been kicked and go scuttling backwards on all fours across the floor.

"Get the fuck away from me! Get the fuck away from me!" I strangle hard, gagging so hard I can't breathe. There is bright red blood on Jeff's cock and he is giving grunt, an exhalation like he's taken a body blow.

He leaves me coughing and snarling on the floor while he goes into the next room, and I hear him making a sound of pain. I stop snarling and cough some more and then I say, real softly, "Jeff? Jeff?"

Jeff has gone into the bathroom. I realize he has his dick in the sink and is washing it. He seems to be washing it vigorously not carefully and not gently the way you would wash your dick, especially if it was injured.

I go and get my clothes and climb into them. I am listening hard to the rushing water in the sink and hoping that something can undo what I just did but all Jeff is doing is ignoring me and doing first aid. All I have is the brand new suit to climb into, so I climb into it and then I go to the bathroom doorway.

"I'm really sorry," I say to Jeff. There is no blood in the sink at least, only soapsuds.

I go home, walking without noticing the cold.

The next day I think about if I should go into work or not. If I go to work I have to see Jeff, and seeing Jeff is not what I want to do right then. So I fail to show up in the morning, and instead I make up some resumes and take them around to a couple of different construction companies. But while I am doing this I realize I really do want to see Jeff again. I might just as well see him even if we are not friends anymore after what I did. Clearly I can never suck his cock and clearly he is not going to be very happy with me after I bit him. But it still doesn't mean I can't go on working at the same place and anyway, I need to say I am sorry to him some more.

So I go to work in the afternoon and for a wonder Jeff is there. He has not taken the day off sick, which I would have had to do if someone had nearly bitten my cock off. Instead he is standing there with his hips held kind of still and stiff and holding a clipboard, walking around slowly but showing nothing if you don't know what to look at. When he sees me he gives me a nod. He doesn't ask me where I've been. He asks me to get to work on sealing the vents around the heating ducts as quick as I can because the job site is cold and we all want the heat on.

It's evening before the work is done, five o'clock and dark because it is the winter and Jeff comes around and beckons to me. I follow him out the door.

"You want to come around tonight?"

I look at him stupefied.

"I don't mean for a fuck," he says coolly. "I shan't be fucking anything for a day or two. But it's customary to hold a post mortem when a scene goes wrong."

"I'm really sorry I did that, Jeff," I say humbly. Apparently he is still willing to hang out with the loser with the gimp dog.

"That's alright, I'm sorry too," he says. "Come around six thirty and we'll watch a movie and I'll have some Mexican take out."

I'm there at the right time, thinking what can I do to make it up to Jeff. I'm thinking perhaps he might want to whip me as a punishment, which would be fair, so maybe I could offer that and if he whips me I am damn sure I would lie there and take it and still tell him how sorry I am at the end of it. It's not just that I bit him, but rather that I woosed out and panicked completely like a weenie. I have no excuse for panicking.

But Jeff takes it rather differently. When I start by apologizing we get into our post mortem conversation right away instead of waiting until after the movie. He tells me that it is his fault.

"Your fault?" I echo in disbelief.

"My fault," he repeats. "I was trying to expand your limits. You told me you were not ready for sucking cock and I put pressure on you to be ready before you really were ready. You were only saying you would do it because I told you, you had to say it. I was pushing you too hard."

"I'm really sorry I did that."

"Did you think you were strangling? I was being careful you could breathe through your nose."

"No, I..." I stammer. "I thought you were going to hurt me, Jeff."

"But you trust me," he says. "In fact you trust me too much. You went with my judgment when your own told you, you couldn't handle it. What is it about cock-sucking that scares you so bad?"

"I guess we can't ever do that again," I say.

"No." He surprises me. "As soon as we both feel up to getting it hard together we are going to try it again, but much more slowly. I thought it was just your gag reflex. I didn't realize you were also afraid."

I think it is a completely bad idea, but I can't say no to him either, so instead we watch the movie. It is a French movie, and with subtitles, a little bit above my level, but I think Jeff enjoys it. And while we watch it he gets me to lean back against his chest and links his arm around me. "Next time you come bring Jinks so he can watch the movie with us."

Life is back to being wonderfully good again. I take Jinks with me to visit Jeff. I take Jinks to an indoor dog walking ring at the mall. I go to work every day and work on carpentry and pipe fitting. And a couple of times a week Jeff lets me masturbate on my knees after he has finished fucking my butt.

Of course he hasn't given up on his project of cock training me. But now he doesn't clamp my head to hold it steady and he just gives me short commands. "Kiss it again, Gilles," or "Lick me and get it wet so I can fuck you." Sometimes he tells me to take his prick in my mouth and sometimes he tells me to lick it. There is a black scar, the imprint of my four teeth on the top of his cock just at the base. I can see it when he has a hard on. There is also another scar on the bottom of his cock but I only see that if he lies on his back and lets me play with his prick that way.

I'm always able to woos out when we do this, he lets me time it and force myself to do it, not forcing me himself. And it isn't too hard to force myself to lick his cock a little bit. For one thing I feel so guilty about biting him, I hope that I am making good feelings for him to feel better about it.

He also makes me go out with him. First he gets me to dress casual and takes me out to meet a couple of friends of his. We go to their house for coffee. Daniel and Corey are both gay, although they don't have the picture of Tom or anything else in their apartment to show it. Mostly Daniel talks to Jeff and they talk about pick-up trucks and when we are leaving Daniel thumps Jeff on the shoulder so that I can see he likes Jeff and admires him very much.

"What did you think?" asks Jeff.

"Yes, they were gay and it didn't scare me too much," I say.

I get to meet more of his friends and Daniel and Corey again after a fortnight until one slushy spring day he sends me to go to the hardware with Corey to show him what to buy to fix a leaky sink tap. I end up going back to their apartment and walking Corey through the whole procedure so that he fixes it himself, replacing the tap unit. I feel the short hairs prickle on me creepily when I am alone in their apartment without Jeff, but of course they don't rape me or force me to suck their cocks. Corey accidentally gives himself a milk moustache when he is starting his lunch just when I am leaving. There couldn't be anything more innocuous than that.

"What do you think of Daniel and Corey?"

"They seem like okay guys."

"What would you think about a foursome?"

I give Jeff such a look of horror that he gives a shout of laughter. "It's alright, Gilles. I was trying one on."

Finally we go to a gay dance one night at the University Student Union. It is a fund raiser with a twenty dollar cover charge. Jeff comes over to my house and puts me into a pair of rather tight jeans and a rather tight t-shirt which hasn't fitted me so well since I gained an inch and a quarter on my biceps. He picks what I have to wear. He is wearing his own leather clothes which I've seen before, only this time there are leather pants instead of black jeans.

It is already midnight and Jinks bites off a big yawn before settling down on his mat by the door. You can tell that he is surprised that we are going out so late, and it is so late he is sleepy and doesn't mind not getting to go with me.

The dance is very loud. They have orange spotlights going up the back walls and Jeff is one of only a few wearing leather. Once again I stay lock step close to Jeff. "I should have put you in a collar," he shouts at me over the din. "Then nobody would hit on you because they'd know you're my property." I think he is probably joking again.

But we have a beer each and then we want to dance. Jeff tells me so. I get up on the dance floor all awkward. I just stand there and kind of stamp one foot and then the other, jigging and trying to stay on the beat. Jeff thinks this is funny, or else he finds the music exhilarating because he grins at me. He also keeps yelling greetings at other people who yell greetings back. We dance. I like dancing. I feel like a fool but I am not the worst dancer there. There are some people drunk and they are dancing really badly. Besides, nobody is looking at me. They look at each other, or at Jeff who dances calmly and confidently, almost automatically moving to the music as if he doesn't notice that his body has started going.

By and by I see that some of the dancers have started freaking, and then Jeff does that to me too. He comes up behind me and gets in position like he is going to fuck my butt standing and he humps me hard. I can feel the lump he has there so I am lifting my ass, tilting it back a bit while I move in time to the music. He brings his hands around in front and pinches my nipples through my t-shirt so they stand up. And all the time the music is pounding really loud with sometimes spot lights moving through the crowd. I hear some guys whistling hard when the spotlight passes over the two of us.

Then we go and sit down again and get another beer. Jeff throws his arm casually over my shoulder and a man comes along, with his sweating shiny chest visible through his leather vest. This guy has probably been dancing since he is panting, but he says to Jeff, "This your new boy you're training?"

I think Jeff must have given a nod behind me. Anyway, I think I blush although it might be the flush from the alcohol, since as I mentioned I really don't do any drinking to speak of.

"He's a cute little fireplug," says the guy, "Build short and solid. Are you working him out?"

"He works out himself," says Jeff. "I don't supervise too much."

The guy is gone a couple of minutes later, but it is clear he knows home much of a bottom I am to Jeff. I turn around sharply. "I'm your boy?" I say.

But Jeff just nods. "That's what he calls it. You and I don't use that word."

I am too fussy, I think. I must make Jeff frustrated, all the time topping from the bottom. I am a rotten bottom. Whatever we do I keep having my own agenda and imposing it on him. I should be more grateful because of all the time he spends on me.

But Jeff gives my shoulder a rub and then we hang out and listen to the music for awhile before we leave, a round about two a.m. We go to Jeff's place and he strips my clothing off, peeling them off me himself. I mouth on his prick and lap at it without taking it more than two or three inches into my mouth and then he fucks me up the butt, face down on his bed. After it is nearly three in the morning and I fall asleep before I can get up and find my clothes.

I wake up to find myself lying in Jeff's arms, with his me nestled up against him, back to him. Just like I was his boyfriend, I think. I look up at the window, it's about six a.m. and getting light out and Jeff is sound asleep hugging me. I have to get home to give Jinks his walk.

Just like a boyfriend, the thought goes through me. I'm almost his boyfriend. I'm such a bad bottom I'm more like we're a couple than that he's like my top. And does Jeff mind that? I mean, would he be almost as happy with a boyfriend as with a bottom?

It doesn't matter. I am being the best bottom that I can be. I wriggle out of his arms and leave him sleeping and go home to Jinks.

"Are you a top?" I say to Jeff. I say it at work when we are out of earshot of the other guys.

He just grins. "Yeah, I'm a top."

"I mean, are you like, really into the dominance and submission thing? Do you have any other bottoms than me?"

He looks at me more thoughtful now. "Not at the moment, I don't. I have had before."

"What happened to your other bottoms?"

"Well, one of them moved to Boston so he could take a post graduate course," he pauses. "And there was another one of them got a bit too bitchy for me so I send him packing. He was kind of a mistake."

"Do you do the topping thing seriously?" I say. "I mean, do you have a lot of leather friends and guys know that you top, other tops know you're a master the same like they are?"

"I suppose so," he says.

"Who else do you know that's a top?"

"Fuck, dozens of guys top, more or less seriously," he says.

"Who do you know that's serious?" I press.

"I dunno," he says. He doesn't know what I am driving at so he looks at me a bit uncertainly. Hell, I don't know what I am driving at or what I am asking.

"There's Eddie Morales, and Richard Robinson, and Wolf the Tracker, and... Peter Albright..." he gives a shrug.

"You know a guy named Chet?" I demand.

"Chet?" he says. "Charles Saul?" Someone starts up hammering then so I can hardly hear the name.

"A big bald guy," I continue. "Has a couple of other leather jacket guys that call him Daddy and Sir?"

"Yeah, that would be him, I guess," says Jeff.

"Fuck," I say and turn away.

Jeff and I are out walking Jinks in the park, down by Reunion Lake when he asks me, "So how do you know Chet Saul?"

"He's the only other guy I had experience with," I say.

"And it wasn't good, huh?" Jeff raises an eyebrow. "He went a bit farther on you than you were ready to take?"

I nod.

"Chet's not my idea of safe sex," says Jeff. "Maybe he wasn't a good guy to start out with."

I nod again. "You're telling me."

He looks at me speculatively, but he doesn't say anymore.

We take Jinks back to Jeff's place and instead of ordering in, he fries sausages at a high heat with lots of smoking in the pan. I sit on the bar stool in his kitchen and tear up lettuce. Jeff wants to eat nutritiously so we are having a side salad. He stands and stirs the sausages with a spatula so they won't burn.

"Tonight I want you to try sucking my cock again," Jeff says. "What do you think about that?"

"We can try," I say.

"I'm going to pull out if I start to cum," he says. "I'll cum in my handkerchief."

"I don't mind if you cum on my face," I say.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure," I say.

So we try it. We get pretty nearly through it this time. We are getting really close. This time he is rocking back and forth and I am controlling the stroke and there had only been a couple of gulps out of me, and I know he is almost there. But then I get scared he will grab my head again, so I slow down the stroke and ease back. Jeff takes over right away whipping on his dick, stroking it hard, while I stay with my mouth near the little lips of his red and swollen cock. I stick my tongue out and lick him. He shoots on me, on my cheek because he turns his cock to one side. The white goop dribbles down my cheek and I touch it with my fingers. I take it onto my two fingers and touch that to my lips, swallowing and get it down. It isn't bad really, just kind of salty, the same kind of flavor as my own.

One time Jeff and I sit on his couch, he's sitting behind me and I'm sitting in front of him. And he hooks his arms around my chest under my arms and back up behind my neck. He holds me like this so we are pressed together and he rocks a bit side to side making me rock a bit with him. He is not butt fucking me or pretending to butt fuck me, in fact I don't think he has a hard on even. But we are pressed very tight and he is holding me very tight making me move when he moves. Don't ever let go I think. It feels really good. Don't ever let go, don't ever let go.

But he does let me go, he changes his grip on me and rolls me over so I am lying on my back over his leg and he bends down and kisses me. Now I am not a one for kissing, but that one spontaneous kiss, that doesn't mean anything, that kiss is important to me.

One night Jeff and I go out. We don't go anywhere special, just to the Student Union building at the university where they held the dance. They are not holding a dance there tonight. It is an envelope stuffing session, because they are mailing out thousands of flyers for the gay positive candidate, the one who is backing the same sex marriage bill. Frankly the way people get divorced all the time nowadays, I don't see the point of getting married, gay or straight. But this is another thing that Jeff supports. He is very political and has been telling me that I will have to march in the gay pride parade with him. So supporting the gay positive candidate is no big deal. If Jeff says stuff envelopes I am going to stuff envelopes.

It is a busy evening and a busy place with lots of people going back and forth and all these bony women in crew cuts ripping open boxes of fliers and handing out fliers and envelopes. It is faster if one person folds fliers and one person stuffs envelopes and one person seals envelopes so we do it that way. I fold flyers. We sit on folding metal chairs at folding tables while throngs of people edge behind us with the boxes of stuffed envelopes and there is free coffee.

After a couple of hours Jeff says he is ready to call it a night, although it is early and I am happy with that because it means we are going back to collect Jinks and give him his walk and then we are going over to Jeff's place where I will get to have my ass fucked. We don't make a big deal about leaving. We go down onto the sidewalk.

By now it is dark and the streetlights are making everything quite bright but with that bluish light they have. And we walk along until I notice there are four guys in leather jackets coming along the street toward us. I don't say nothing. Jeff notices my steps slow right down.

He looks back at me encouragingly and then he looks forward and sees who it is, so he says, "Hi, Chet."

Big Bald Chet looks at him -he's taller than Jeff although Jeff is not short. But he kind of looks down at him, and he says, "That your boy you asked me about, Jeff?" He shakes his head. "I don't remember him at all."

Big Bald may not recognize me at all, but of course I do remember him. First I feel kind of woozy, light-headed. That's just for an instant when I think I'm about to buckle at the knees or bawl or something like that. But the other thing I feel is rage and that kind of feels like I've been dumped into a hot shower. There is this wave of heat comes into my head. No, I'm not light headed at all. I've brought my hands up and they're clenched. My head is red hot and pumping with blood.

"Easy, Gilles," says Jeff.

Maybe it is true that Big Bald doesn't recognize me. He stands there with a smirk on his mouth and his boys stand there with him looking like they think I'm a big joke. Every one of them has at least part of a smile on.

My rage is burning. "They raped me!" I say, hot with frustrated fury. Not so frustrated. I don't care that it's their four against our two. I think I am about to try to kill Big Bald maybe.

"Raped you, Gilles?" says Jeff.

"He fucking took my cherry. They robbed my wallet and whipped me and raped me."

"You did it to him without his consent?" says Jeff.

"He don't need to give consent," says Chet. "He's a sub and he's asking for it. Get back in the gutter, little boy. You need to learn a lesson. Don't you know how to keep your subs in line, Jeff?"

Which is when Jeff strides three steps forward and plants his fist in Chet's face. Chet falls over backwards. There is only the one punch. Chet makes a whimpering kind of noise; same like Jinks makes when he gets hurt, like he made the first few times when he forgot his back leg was broken and tried to put weight on it to run.

The three boys just stand there. They don't even bring their fists up. They are all startled I suppose. Mostly they look at Big Bald and they looked shocked.

"Come with me, Gilles." Jeff has his teeth clenched. He takes me by the sleeve and I follow him. We go back down the sidewalk again, back the way we came. I am breathing like I just had a big fight. I look back behind me. I am almost bewildered. All I can see is Big Bald Chet sitting on the sidewalk holding his face.

Jeff is in a rage. By and by I look at him and his teeth are clenched and he is glaring. "Tell me exactly what happened, Gilles. Did he really rape you? How did you get into a scene with him?"

"My friend Henry Scott lured me into a bar," I say. "Lured me to come in for some money he owed me. But then he met Big Bald and Big Bald gave him five hundred dollars so he could take my cherry. At first I thought Henry and I were both being raped. But Henry..." I start to breathe in deep gasps. "Henry knew Big Bald. He laughed. They got drunk together and I got..." My fists are clenching and unclenching in time to my breathing. "I got fucked."

"Jesus, Gilles! Why didn't you tell me?" Jeff snaps. He is striding fast.

"Why did you want me to?" I say.

"You should have told me. I would have known why you..." Jeff breaks off short. "No," he is calmer. "I should have figured it out. You were homophobic enough. What a way to lose your cherry..."

"I'm alright, Jeff," I say. He gives me a nod and then we just walk along the sidewalk together.

We walk about six blocks. It is a very quiet residential neighborhood, with the houses right up against the street, and each one having about six steps up from the sidewalk to the brick faced front door. There are little saplings planted in metal grilles in the sidewalk. There is nobody on the sidewalk except us and it isn't pitch black or anything. There are street lights every few yards.

I am saying, "I'm sorry, Jeff," and he is saying, "I should have figured it out. It's alright, Gilles," when this dark passenger van, shiny black comes up the street very fast and stops just opposite us. The side door slams open and someone in a leather jacket points a shotgun at Jeff and me.

It is Big Bald and his three leather jackets again. Jeff steps one step over so that he is between me and the gun.

Big Bald is in the driver's seat. He is holding a bandana to his face and glaring at us through the window. "You fucking slug!" he says. "You'll pay for that, Jeff. You don't hit me in front of my subs."

Curiously I don't feel very much of anything at the moment. Everything goes slow motion for me. I wait for the trigger to be pulled, calculating that I can't run in either direction. Either way I would still get shot.

This is between Jeff and Big Bald. It is Jeff that Big Bald is angry at. They tell us to come on and climb into the van.

"I'll gut shoot your fucking sub, Jeff," Big Bald threatens. His leather jacket boy is holding the shot gun so he means he's going to make the sub do it to me, but either way, we can't do very much.

"You're making a mistake, Chet," says Jeff. "Keep the guns out of it. Someone might get killed and it might not be us."

"Get in the van, you fuckers, or die!"

So we get in the van. There are all three leather jacket boys in the back. When I climb in one of them takes me by the jacket and he shoves me into the back corner of the van. The gun is pointing at Jeff which means I still can't do anything. I might be able to wrestle with Leather Jacket, but I might make them pull the trigger and then Jeff would get a bullet in the chest. So I don't do anything. The van doors are slammed. Jeff keeps his hands up at shoulder level. Chet drives and he curses us.

"Don't you think you can fucking take me down in front of my subs. You'll pay. Asshole!"

I look at Jeff for instructions what to do but he is just holding his hands up high and listening to Chet.

"Fucking slug!" said Chet.

They take us to a house in a not so good neighborhood. There are pizzerias on the street corners, and pawnshops. The house is a big one, painted a light color so it looks ghostly in the dark when they get us to climb out of the van with our hands raised and take us into a door in the back. There are steps and there is a cellar. In the cellar there is a vaulting horse with most of the stuffing coming out of it and a sofa and a weight bench. It's not a finished basement. The walls are cinderblock. Chet gestures so Leather Jacket puts the gun up under his chin. It makes Jeff tilt his head back. Chet puts his face in close.

"You fucking think you can show me up..."

Jeff says nothing. He knows we are in bad trouble, I think. I look about the cellar carefully. I am wondering if they will kill us, but to be honest I don't think so. I know what kind of violence Chet likes.

Chet comes up to me, takes me by the front of the shirt and pulls. "Your hero's not going to help you now," he says. "Get your clothes off, you worm."

Wordless I tug all my clothes off. I pile them so I am standing on them naked. I keep my eyes on the Leather Jacket who is holding the gun on Jeff.

Chet gives commands. The two other Leather Jackets take me by the wrists and lead me over to the weight bench. They get me to go belly over it. I make no sound when the belts come off.

"How do you like this, Maggot!" Chet yells at Jeff.

"You can do anything you want to, to him while you've got the gun on us," Jeff says, "But you're making a mistake."

"You made the mistake, Worm!" Chet whirls around mad. "Beat him, Boy. Beat him until he's scarlet!"

They beat me. They lay the leather down over and over and over. Each time the leather flogs me incandescent heat flares on my butt and my back and leaves a fiery glow of pain. I keep my head down and hunched. I think I squirm a bit, but I keep my head down and my eyes on the gun.

Jeff, get us out of this, I think.

By and by when they have me blazing with pain, Chet comes along and gives me a kick up the backside. That hits me more in the back of the legs than in the balls but it makes me grunt and curl up tight around the weight bench anyway.

Jeff is saying nothing. When I look at the gun I am looking at him. He is staring at what they do to me with hard and terrible eyes. I see he is just as angry as Chet but he is not showing it by screaming and cursing. Pretty soon, Chet pulls the fly of the second leather jacket boy's trousers open and cranks at his prick.

"Get that miserable dick of yours ready, Boy!" Chet says. "Get it up!"

"Yessir," breathes Leather Jacket Two. "Yessir, I'm gonna, I've got it. I'm gonna." Apparently he's not allowed to touch his own dick, but pretty soon he has a red hard on sticking out and pretty soon Chet is rolling a rubber down the length of it.

Not my mouth, I think. And then I don't care if it's going to go in my mouth or not. I'm going to try to bite it off. I turn my head sideways looking. Chet points at my butt so Leather Jacket Two goes there. In another moment I'm getting fucked. The swollen welted skin on my butt is feeling the man's groping hands and flanks as he gets his cock lined up with my seam. My butt hole feels the fat rubbery mushroom head put weight on it.

But I have been fucked a lot before. I am not the least bit cherry anymore. For a moment I contemplate tilting and making it hard for him. Only I think he will probably stab something into my butt if I do that, something other than a prick with latex on it, like maybe the barrel of the shotgun or something that will be hard enough to rip my tissue inside and not just at the ring. So I relax my butt muscles and open my ass up. His head pops through the ring and presses in hard and dry. It hurts quite a lot. He saws. I brace and take it. It hurts nowhere near like it did when they took my cherry. I know exactly how to ease it up and while I am so frightened that there are damp patches in my armpits and my chest and my palms, I am not so frightened I can't do it. Mostly I am waiting for Jeff to rescue us because he has to. He just has to do it soon.

"Your fucking sub is just a hole to us," Chet snarls. "You can't protect him can you, Jeff? You can't stop us doing anything we want to, can you?"

Jeff meets my eyes while I get raped. His are vacant, softened for a moment, pained as he looks at me. Then he looks at Chet and his eyes blaze with patient brilliance again. The shot gun is pointed at his head.

Leather Jacket Two is sawing away when Chet orders him to cum, so he does that, speeding up his stroke. In a couple of minutes he quivers and he's done. They take the condom off his prick and put it against my lips.

"Suck or your top gets wasted, Boy,"

So I suck it out of the condom which stinks of shit. And it tastes grossly strong salt and I dribble it out of my mouth. A great gag works up but I don't think he sees it. He slaps me in the face hard, and then again, and by and by my lips are smashed and bleeding and my nose is blazing pain too. He takes me by the hair and tries to pull it out and succeeds. He gets a palm full of the light brown strands. Jeff is quivering a little bit through this.

"You can't protect him, can you? You're helpless, you slug. I'll show you!" says Chet.

And then he gets Leather Jacket Three to come around to my mouth and he has a hard on too. But he sees what's on my mind from the clench in my bloody teeth and the eager rage on my face so he leans in close and whispers. "Bite my boy and your top gets one of the shells in his kneecap, Bitch."

I don't bite. The wide rubbery thing goes into my lips and onto my tongue. He doesn't care at all for my breathing. He puts it down my throat and everything seals up, almost slamming shut. I can't breathe. I have a face full of black leather trouser fly and a mouth and throat full of prick. He rams it back and forth hard and I start to pass out. First the oxygen hisses in my head and then I go dazed and it all swims out of focus. And then I do start to pass out, but I also puke. Somewhere far away Jeff says, "You're choking him to death, Chet."

When I swim back into focus there is puke coming out of my nose, mixed with blood from my mouth like the worst runny nose you ever had. And all of my dinner has come up, quite a lot of it and flooded down over my lower teeth. It keeps coming and I keep coughing. All I can do is cough. I have puked on the prick too.

"I think I do remember him," says Chet, with the first loosening up of the rage that was in his voice. Now he sounds disgusted and amused too. "It's the boy with the overactive gag reflex."

It takes awhile before I can stop gagging and coughing. The Leather Jacket with the prick in my face is not looking too happy and in fact he has wilted. "That's gross, Daddy," he whispers. "Daddy, do I have to?"

In answer Chet slugs him but not so hard. Even I can tell he's pulled the punch. He sends him around to my asshole. Now I'm shuddering quite a bit so they lean on me, one on my shoulders and one on my butt and I get raped again. The coughing reflex doesn't go away. I am still more than a little bit strangled.

"How do you like that, Worm?" says Chet to Jeff. "Thought you'd show my subs you could best me, didn't you? How do you like seeing what I can do to you now?"

When the guy cums they bring the condom around to my mouth again. But by then I am such a mess with snot, bile, blood and puke liberally dribbling off my cheeks, so the guy with the condom holds his hands back, like ugh, he can't bring himself to bring the condom near to me. Instead of squishing the spunk into my lips, since Chet snarls at him, he just stuffs the whole condom between my teeth and of course I let it drop out. I think they are going to belt me some more but apart from a punch or two to the ribs they let me lie there, and anyway Chet is more intent on trying to get a reaction from Jeff.

"Fucking maggot!" Chet is working himself back into a rage. "Alright! You fucking maggot! You're fucking next, Jeff."

Then he glares at the Leather Jacket boys almost wildly. "Get that asshole's pants off. My prick is going up his ass!"

This is not exactly easy. Jeff is not like me. He doesn't drop his pants on their say so. He stands hostile and resistant. So Leather Jacket One backs up a bit with the gun so he can't grab it, and the two remaining Leather Jackets leap on him. They begin to wrestle together and it is a serious wrestle since Jeff is now fighting them struggling and throwing punches. He is good at throwing punches. He keeps one of them busy and the other one punches him. He staggers side to side. Soon I see bright scarlet blood on Jeff's face, but I also see red bruises forming on the cheek of Leather Jacket Three.

They struggle ferociously. While they struggle, Chet urges them on, "Break him!" he says. But Chet stays out of it, and Leather Jacket One stays out of it. He just tries to keep the shotgun pointed at Jeff. And I stay out of it, staying where I am on my belly, coughing for air, watching that shot gun.

They get Jeff's pants down but his shorts are stuck at the bottom of his butt and they throw him face towards the vaulting horse. He bucks. One of them grabs his head, the other one skins his pants down so they are down at his knees too, and now his pale brown butt is visible for all of us to see. But then Jeff gives a violent heave. He uses the horse for leverage and lurches off it. The horse scrapes over the floor with the force of the heave that he gives and Jeff throws himself back. He gets the guy with the shot gun by the waist.

Leather Jacket One falls down sitting with a shout of anger, but he doesn't lose the shotgun. I'm pretty sure one of the other guys manages to bunt Jeff in the balls because they drag him back. But now the shot gun isn't pointing at Jeff. It isn't pointing anywhere. It's pointing at the ceiling, so I throw myself on Leather Jacket One.

He is trying to get up when I hit him. I move fast, but that one spring has told me something. I am not in great shape. In fact the leap forward makes me hypoxic and I strangle for air. I have not got control of my coughing yet, and my ass is wrecked and not able to use my muscles. Add to that that the guy I am leaping on is four or five inches taller than I am and maybe an inch or two broader and what I did was stupid indeed. But he is not stronger than I am, and I am fighting for Jeff and for my own life, so I use all the leverage I have and all the force I have.

For a moment we grapple. The shot gun is down between us and we are fighting for it. I manage to get my grip wrapped around the trigger, over his hand. He tries to get the weapon pointed at me, but instead it is sandwiched between our chests. And then I get it tilted towards him, so I squeeze hard. I pull the trigger by crushing his fingers. I am trying to point it at his head.

But he jerks just before it goes off and I miss. The shotgun shell goes through his face. For a moment I see red chewed up mess and then he falls back limp. I fall with him because I can't let go of the gun. I land on his belly, rip the gun out of his slack grasp and whirl around. I think I am about to get a man land on my back, pinning me down but nobody hits me.

The two Leather Jackets are standing on either side of the vaulting horse with their arms spread like they don't know which way I am coming from. Jeff is staggering back up to his feet facing me and I see his dark prick dangling under his black bush and his shirt tail. Big Chet has his face screwed up in a scream, but making no sound. It's a silent howl of anger. I fumble with the shot gun, getting my fingers on the grip and the trigger and I turn to Big Chet.

One down, and the odds are more even and one more shell left and Big Chet is the one giving orders... I pant. I have the idea that if I shoot Big Chet it may be that Leather Jacket Two and Three are not going to be very effectual without him but I can't waste the shell by missing. So I move on Big Chet. I have almost all of a room between him and me, so I move in close, shotgun level. I'm going to kill him. He starts to back around the room.

"Jeff! Call your boy off! Jeff!" Big Chet's eyes are wide and white.

"Don't do it, Gilles. Wait!"

I stop following Chet when Jeff calls.

Jeff staggers sideways until he is beside me. He looks down at the guy I shot. He is panting too. We are all breathing like there is not enough air in this grimy concrete lined cellar. I keep my eyes and the gun muzzle on Big Chet. I am not experienced with guns so I am holding it rock steady, ready.

"Don't let your boy pull the trigger, Jeff." With an effort Chet is keeping his voice normal but his chest is expanding big, in and out. I have the gun trained on his chest, on the middle of his body.

Jeff takes a few deep breaths before he does anything. Then he hauls his pants up and then he says, "You got a cell phone, Chet?"

"Give him your cell phone, Chris," says Big Chet quickly.

One of the leather jackets has a cell phone hooked on his belt and he takes it off and tosses it to Jeff. Jeff starts to punch numbers. He punches in a very short number.

"Don't call the cops!" the man cries.

"He needs an ambulance if he's not going to die," says Jeff.

At that I look around at the man I shot. He is missing his chin and his nose is sideways and there is something floppy where his eye is supposed to be, maybe a flap of skin laid open on the cheeks. The blood is forming a wide red shiny pool. But Jeff is right, the guy is not dead. He is shuddering and his fingers appear to be scrabbling against the concrete floor. I look quickly back at Chet.

We stand there like that and wait. Jeff sends Leather Jacket Two to unlock the cellar door so the cops can come in. He tells him to leave it open. I stand there holding the shotgun. "Don't put it down until I tell you to," says, Jeff. He waits until the wailing sirens have stopped on the street.

"Put it on the floor. Put it on the floor now!"

I am confused but I do just what Jeff says and then some cops burst in with guns level and their chests wide and shiny for the blue bullet proof vests they are wearing. In another moment there is a cop for each one of us and they have us in a row standing by the wall.

"Get an ambulance, please hurry," says Jeff.

"There's one coming," says the cop.

I am stark naked of course, which nobody especially looks at. They put everybody but me against the wall and pat them down. I am the only one of us who doesn't get searched because of being bare naked. In fact in another moment the cop near me hold up my jeans and says, "These yours?"

He passes them to me and I put them on. I give a sissyish yowl when I feel them drag up the back of my legs. The cops are demanding questions of all of us and of course the Leather Jacket boys tell them that I am the one who pulled the trigger when the gun was pointing at Leather Jacket One's face. So the cops put my clothes on and put me into a cop car and take me away. I never have a chance to ask Jeff to make sure he gets someone to look after Jinks.

They take me to the police station where they ask me some questions. They let me stand up and put my back to the wall when they ask me the questions. They even let me take a mass of paper towel and wash the blood and puke off my chin. It's not much like a formal interrogation so I don't think to refuse to answer questions or to ask for a lawyer. I tell them that Chet got mad at Jeff and they pulled the shot gun on us and forced us into the van and I tell them that I got ass raped and mouth fucked. They don't seem too much interested in this, it's more like they say, oh yeah? And they want me to tell them the names of Leather Jackets One, Two and Three and I can't.

They ask me what happened before the gun went off and I explain that they were about to rape Jeff and he knocked over the guy with the gun in the struggle. He found the opening we needed. And I perfectly freely admit that I struggled with Leather Jacket One, got the gun pointed at him and deliberately pulled the trigger. You see I am not thinking at all about what it looks like. I can tell the cops think the whole scene is disgusting but it is not until after that, until after I had the whole story of the fight come out of me before I think that these are cops and maybe I am going to be charged with murder or attempted murder, supposing the guy I shot lives.

After that I clam up. They ask me if I want to take a shower and get cleaned up. >From that I know they are not going to take me to the hospital and get evidence that I had my butt fucked. They just don't care about that. They are going to go on with booking me, clean or dirty, so I say yes, I want to take a shower. And one of the cops leads me downstairs to their basement where there is a locker room and a tiled room for showers.

He stands in the doorway nonchalant while I wash all the crumbs and mess off me and hold myself stoical and not whimper at the pain of the water running over my bloody welts. My hair is wet and plastered down to my skull when I put my old dirty clothes on and they take me upstairs.

I should have shut my mouth, I think, when they take my finger prints. And I should have made arrangements for someone to take care of Jinks I think, Jeff, unless Jeff is going to be arrested too. But I seem to be the only one of us six guys at the police station. I'm wrong about that. They just don't let me see the other guys.

After they take my photograph they offer to let me sleep in a cell, so I say yes, I do want to lie down. It is just like in the movies a small cell with a plastic bunk like a shelf stuck to the wall and a toilet underneath the sink. I have to lie on my face here when I lie down.

But it is not too much longer, between waking and aching and sleeping before one of the cops comes down and brings me out to the offices again. It is about seven in the morning. He gives me back the envelope of personal effects that they seem to have taken away from me, and I say, "Do I have to go to court?"

"Yeah," he says. "You'll have to go to court." But apparently they are going to send me a subpoena or something. Apparently, maybe they have to wait and see if the guy without a face is going to live or not. But they let me go and without bail.

I find Jeff in my bed at home. First Jinks comes scuttling out to meet me at the door and then Jeff stands up when I am in the bedroom doorway. He looks haggard, like he was beaten up more than I remember. He is barely awake, woken up by me coming in.

"Sorry," he says.

I let Jinks sniff my hands. "Is Jinks alright?"

"Yeah, He's fine. I took him out in the yard and I fed him."

"Poor old dog," I get down on my knees -oh, my knees are scabbed raw, I discover -and I pet Jinks. Jeff gets down on the floor beside us.

"Gilles, I'm sorry," he says.

I look up at him. I don't know what he has to be sorry for.

"It's alright, Jeff." I say. "You found us an opening. You got the guy with the gun knocked down. I think it might be alright now."

He puts his hand on my arm, very warm and just lets it rest there.

"My butt hurts like fuck," I say.

"Did the cops arrest you?"

"No, they let me go again," I explain. "They just wanted to make sure I didn't have a criminal record for this kind of a thing, I think. They made me stay at the station overnight while they made checks."

"I'm really sorry, Gilles," he says.

"You keep saying that," I say. "But you were the one got us out of it. You knocked him down so I could get at his gun."

Then he wraps his arms all around me and I let him hold me. It feels good to let him hold me, to be holding on to him, even though to tell the truth I am so sore that being squeezed like that is no picnic.

By and by he looks up and starts to run his forefinger over my face. He runs it under my eyes and then down around my chin. It feels good so I close my eyes.

"Gilles," says Jeff softly. "Your face is all swollen."

"Is it?" I say. "It feels like it is, but I can't see."

He just holds me in his arms sitting on the hall floor like that. Jinks has his head on my knee and Jeff is holding me up, so I just let my eyes stay closed. He keeps holding me like that, and I keep letting him hold me. I figure it's going to be alright. Why not? Neither of us has been arrested so probably nothing more bad is going to happen. Anyway it doesn't matter because I am safe home with Jinks and Jeff is nearby.