This story is fictional and intended for adults only.
Copyright, Boy Mercury X, 2024.
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Man on the Moon
The teens pair off two by two, like animals boarding Noah's ark, all but for Jim, the sole solitary figure in line for the sideshow. And like those dumb beasts, he thinks, they're as unreasoning about what draws them to the traveling amusement park, as it does every year. They attend on instinct, the girls with their sticky pink bubble gum and the boys with their tawny arms, like Jim's tan and muscled from their summer farm work outdoors.
He can practically feel the heat coming off their bodies, standing impatiently in the crowded line for the lunar display. It's the new feature, added since President Kennedy's promise to go to the Moon, and the only reason Jim is there at all. He doesn't care for the tired exhibits or the rides, and especially not the freak show. The two headed calf and bearded woman and the rest fill him with unease for the singular creatures without a kind of their own.
He'd read about Disneyland's Rocket to the Moon exhibit, but California is so impossibly distant it might as well be the actual Moon, so the amusement park would have to do. But when the doors open and the crowd moves into the display area and the dumb teens gasp, Jim sighs. He didn't expect Disneyland, but this is far less even than he'd anticipated.
The display is a darkened room, the floor covered with gray sand and gravel. There are boulders made of chicken wire and spray painted tarp, Jim guesses. The flimsy walls are spray painted indigo to simulate the night sky, with tiny white lights twinkling through them. A sad excuse for distant stars.
Worst of all are what Jim assumes are plastic plants, spray painted gray, with pointed leaves and curling fronds. As if the Moon would have vegetation. The diorama he'd made for the science fair was far more accurate, if a fraction of the size, and no further than his own bedroom.
The other teens stand by, dumb and unthinking. The girl nearest him chews cotton candy, her hand snaking around the firm arm of her boyfriend. He's the type who wears his white t-shirt with the short sleeves half rolled up, so at ease in his own body.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the guide announces, "you are looking at the surface of the Moon, or our best approximation of it!"
A speaker crackles, and plays President Kennedy's words uttered just a year earlier.
This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth.
"But what will we find there?" the guide asks. "What new life will we encounter? What wonders? What... menaces? What of the Man on the Moon?
On cue, one of the manufactured boulders nearest Jim shifts as something - someone - lunges out of hiding. It's the same gray as the surroundings, but it has arms that are ribbed and its fingers are dull talons, reaching out at the girl beside Jim. She shrieks and folds into her boyfriend who pulls back an arm to throw a punch, his elbow hitting Jim hard, knocking him to the floor.
Curled up on the gray gravel, blind in one eye but for the stars that flash in it, he sees the boy throwing the punch spun away by something - or, again, someone - stronger. Girls scream, and red, white and pink sneakered feet stomp around him. Jim hears the guide say "What the --- Jesus Christ!"
Among the chaos, Jim with his one good eye he can see only two feet moving with clear intent, but unlike the others they're dark and scaled, reptilian, making their way purposefully to him. The Man on the Moon.
"Kid," he hears a muffled voice say. "You okay?"
Cold rubbery hands pull Jim up off the floor, where he can better see the alien - or the alien costume. It's ridiculous, more of a sea monster, with big fishy eyes and gills, spray painted gray to match the cheesy display.
When let go to stand on his own, Jim's legs go wobbly. As he drops, the monster catches him and lifts him in its arms. As it walks away, carrying him like the Creature From the Black Lagoon, Jim can hear, as if very far away, the voice of the guide saying "What a mess. Take care of this shit."
And then even more distantly, the recorded voice of the President on the crackling speaker.
We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
In a cooler, quiet dark room surrounded by cardboard boxes and wrapped supplies the monster gently sets Jim down on a workbench, helping him sit upright. His head aches and his eye still struggles to see right, but he manages to sit up.
The monster crouches at his feet, and begins to grasp at its neck with its webbed clawed hands. It twists its neck side to side, and its head comes off in its hands, revealing under it just a man - of course.
He's a rough looking guy, maybe five years or so older than Jon. Free from his costume, he shakes a spray of sweat from his head, just a trace of it misting Jim. His lips are full and his jaw is covered with the short scruff of a dirty blond beard.
"You okay kid?" he asks again. His eyes are cool blue and squint when he breaks into a full smile.
"I..." Jim sputters, holding a hand to his head, to cover his hungry stare. He feels something wet at his fingertips, and when he looks at them he sees blood.
"Oh boy," says the man in the monster suit, bending at the waist and cocking his handsome head to assess the situation. "That's gonna be a shiner. Maybe a stitch or two." He grazes Jim's forehead with his rubbery hand, and the boy winces. "Oh yeah.
"Let me get out of this damn thing," says the man. He pulls at the arms of the monster costume, and it sways side to side. "God damn it. Kid, would you unzip me?"
Jim is unsure of what he's being asked, but the man turns around and points with a gloved thumb at his back. Jim can see a sturdy looking zipper running down the back of the monster costume, from the top of his back to the small.
From his position seated up on the workbench he grasps the zipper, and with one hand still on his aching eye, he wrenches it down in a series of jerks. As he does, the sides of the rubbery suit divide, parting to reveal the man's flesh beneath, tan and sweaty. He lets his fingertips trace the perspiration, and as they do, tiny blond hairs spring up after his touch.
The man turns to face Jim, and pulls at one side of the collar and then the other, the tip of his tongue jutting out between his teeth. When the costume is loosened it exposes his muscled shoulders. Not like the boyish muscles of the teens he knows, including his own, not even after the summer's work, but dense and manly.
"They didn't make this damn thing for one man to get in or out of," he says with a smirk, pulling his arms out, one and then the other. They're inked with tattoos, which Jim has never seen in person before, like a sailor in Moby Dick or Treasure Island.
The costume falls to his waist, exposing the broad V shape from the man's brawny shoulders to his slim hips, and more tattoos there too. His chest muscles are squared off like a movie star, with pink nipples and sparse blond hairs that run in a nearly invisible trail running down his belly.
He slides out of the bottom of the costume, standing there in just a pair of boxers, His bare legs look form, and more hairy than his torso, but the same dull blond, and there are yet more tattoos there.
He shudders to shake off more sweat, and wipes it off his chest and belly with his bare hands, rubbing them on the rear of his boxers in a futile attempt to dry them to shake hands.
He asks Jim's name and then trades his own.
"Orville," he says, his hand damp in Jim's. His voice is thick and warm, with just a bit of a twang, like Elvis Presley. "Let's see about that eye."
Orville gingerly peels Jim's hand aside to inspect his forehead, his eyebrows knitting and the tip of his tongue between his lips.
"We can put in a couple of stitches," he says.
Jim's never had stitches before, and is surprised at the news.
The man hoists a metal toolkit from the floor and retrieves from its contents a spool of thread and a needle. Jim gulps, realizing that by "we '' Orville means he will take care of it, there, in the filthy backroom behind the lunar display.
Jim asks if that's wise, if they shouldn't get a doctor, or at least a nurse.
"Oh," says Orville, feigning lightness, "there's no need to make a fuss. The bosses won't like that." He turns to Jim and smiles in a way that makes the boy's balls pull up tight. "I'll take care of you."
Orville takes a bottle from the toolkit, twists it open and offers it to Jim. He knows it's some kind of booze, but not which, owing to his family's disposition against it. It's one of the many things his parents disapprove of.
He'd say no from habit, but he's anxious about the stitches, and he wants to seem cooler than he is to Orville. But mostly because he wants to put his lips to the same bottle where the man's were.
The liquor sears his mouth when he drinks it, and he has to fight to not spit it out, But he gets a mouthful down, and then a second.
"That's a good boy," says the tattooed man, beaming that smile again.
He licks the thread with his wet tongue and then loops the thread into the eye of the needle. When he approaches Jim, and pierces the skin of his forehead, all Jim can think of is of his spit on the thread becoming part of his body.
"Ow," Jim says, involuntarily.
"I know, I know," Orville answers in a hush. "It'll be over in a minute."
As he does the job, the tip of Orville's tongue juts out from his full lips and teeth.
True to his word, it's over quickly. When it is, Orville cuts the end of the thread with utility scissors from the toolkit. He picks out a little jar of some sort of greasy salve and scoops some out on a finger and applies it gently to the stitched gash, making Jim wince.
"`S'okay, this'll help keep it clean," he says, jutting out his scruffy jaw and cocking his head to admire his work."That'll heal up just fine. Just three stitches, right at the hairline."
Jim reaches up to touch the area around the stitches.
"You'll look like a real tough guy," Orville smirks. "Still pretty enough though. Have the... girls after you like flies on honey."
No one ever commented on Jim's looks before much less called him pretty, and the words catch his breath, and he feels a sudden hot wet streak on his cheek.
"Girls aren't my problem."
"Well what is?" Orville asks.
"Never getting out of this place." Jim answers. He doesn't mean the backroom, and he's surprised to speak so honestly for maybe the first time ever.
"Oh, oh, oh," says the tattooed man, catching the tear on Jim's jaw.
Jim is shocked, but feels his underwear contort at the sight of the good looking man, licking his tear from his thumb.
Orville cocks his head and smiles. "You're a sad boy, just like me."
Jim snorts a laugh. "You don't look so sad."
Orville shakes his head and chuckles.
The tattooed man props himself up beside Jim on the workbench, so close the bare skin of his arms rests against Jim's. He keeps the hand with the greasy gel almost closed to contain it.
"I grew up just like you, I figure," he says. "Couldn't wait to get off the farm. Everyone said I was kinda pretty - like you too - so I went to California to get in the movies."
Jim perks at the mention of California. "You look like you could be in movies."
"Well, jokes on us, kid. There's a hundred guys on every block like me in Hollywood. Working at gas stations, waiting tables. Other things too, to get by. And I didn't have the money to wait it out."
The idea of a hundred handsome boys like Orville doesn't sound so bad to Jim, but he gets the point.
"That's why...?" Jim looks around the improvised storage room.
"It's work," he answers. "The movies was never gonna happen. And I like to travel. Do different things. Sometimes I'm lubing up the Tilt-a-Whirl, sometimes I sing. Sometimes I'm the Man on the Moon." He nods at the discarded monster mask on the ground. "Sometimes a bandit for the wild west show. I can be whatever they want me to be."
He picks up a black mask and holds it up, covering the top half of his face, his blue eyes visible through the cut out slits. Oddly enough it makes him even better looking.
"And... these?" Jim asks, pointing to, but not touching a big tattoo in the shape of a bull on Orville's thigh.
"Just picked em up along the way. After the first you get a taste for em." He touches the bull Jim's pointing at. "That was... that was Bill. Just a roustabout, like me."
"And that?" Jim asks, pointing to a pair of dice inked into Orville's side.
"Didn't know his name, but he gambled."
Jim points to a lion head on his thick bicep. "Leo," Orville says.
There are dozens more, Jim notes. "Are they each for a... man?"
Orville shrugs. "Reckon so."
Jim reaches closer, his fingers nearing the dark green pigment. "Can I...? I never..."
Orville holds his arm up to flex slightly, and as Jim's fingers make contact, he rests a hand over Jim's to press it down. "You can touch anything you want, buddy."
Jim traces his fingers over the man's hard bicep, and then over his shoulder, noticing all the tiny blond hairs and freckles. He touches his thick neck and collarbone, and Orville leans back to give him access. Then - heart pounding - he touches the plush muscle of the man's chest, stopping at the burning heart inked there.
"I don't like to talk about that one," Orville says, with a soft smile on his handsome mug. His eyes water up like Jim's did earlier. "See?"
Jim is so close now he hardly has to lean in at all to butt their noses together and then their lips, kissing the Man on the Moon, as his hand sinks down to the firm mound in the man's crotch.
Orville sinks down onto his back and Jim jerks down his boxers, his pale hard cock rising in Jim's hand, and then in Jim's mouth as he licks and sucks it. "Oh buddy," whispers the tattooed man.
It's more than Jim thought would ever happen already, but there's so much more he's thought of and wished for.
He kicks off his red hi tops and wrestles his legs out of his jeans and white cotton briefs, while the man slides his own boxers off. His own dick is hard and stiffens yet more as he straddles the tattooed man, aiming the towering erection at his own butthole.
"Whoa buddy," Orville smiles, catching Jim's waist in one rough hand.
"I want to," Jim says. He's played with his butt before, with fingers and other... things. And he can't die a virgin, not now that he's so close, he tells.
"Okay," Orville chuckles. "But hold on."
His hand with the gooey salve on it pries between Jim's butt cheeks, finding his hole and pressing into him, with just a fingertip and then two. They slide up into the boy, gentle but firm, easing him up and smearing his hole. Jim gasps as his insides are opened, and the man's free hand runs up his chest and into his mouth, letting him suck his fingers.
He pokes his fingers into the salve jar again to scoop up more to smear it on his erection, guiding it by feel to Jim's hole, and nudging in. He lets Jim manage from there, letting the cock sink into him, slowly, till he's all in, to the furry base.
Orville starts to thirst up into Jim, and all the boy can see are stars, like when he was knocked down, but in both eyes, and beautiful this time. It's not like he ever knew he could feel, and his breath comes in quakes.
"You like that?" the man asks. His hands run over Jim's torso, under his white t-shirt. "Let me see you."
Jim awkwardly pulls off his shirt. He's gotten stronger in the last year or two, built some muscle. But he's smooth, and not built like Orville.
"Beautiful," the man says, his grin more handsome than before.
His big hands run over the muscle of Jim's chest and belly, wrapping around the slim waist to pull him down to match the thrusts entering his rear. And when the salve smeared hand wraps around Jim's dick, greasing it, Jim quivers.
His pumping into Jim increases in speed and seems to hit new depths. He doesn't have to jerk Jim's dick, his thrusts push the boy's hips forward so his dick fucks the greased fist. He can hardly take it.
"I can't... I can't," Jim moans, and Orville thrusts into him harder, taking his measure and pleasure of the boy's ass until Jim's dick stiffens harder and shoots hot white streaks out onto Orville's belly and chest.
"Fuck, FUCK," grunts Orville, as the boy's twitching hole triggers his own load, pumping it into the boy. As he does, Jim drops at the waist to cover the tattooed man, kissing him again and again, and then rolls onto his side.
"Whooo," the tattooed man. "Here all week, if you want to come back."
"Yeah?" asks Jim. There's nothing he wants more. More than California or rocket ships or the Moon.
"Only next time," Orville says, "I want you in me."
Jim's dick stirs at the prospect.
"Or maybe we don't have to wait."
They lie on the workbench together, their sweat cooling as their breathing eases up.
"You gonna get in trouble for being here so long?" Jim asks.
"Nah. Maybe get chewed out. Not too bad." The man grins and raises an eyebrow. "Errybody likes me pretty well."
Jim can see why.
He's surprised at how much he likes just lying there together. He'd thought about the rest, the sex, so much he'd not considered the pleasure of just being beside a man, especially one so good looking. Just being together.
He finds himself talking without his usual restraint. He talks about the planned Moon mission, and how the rocket has to break free of the earth's gravity, and how it won't be anything like the amusement park display. He talks about the relative weightlessness on the Moon, with its lesser gravity, only one sixth or so of Earth's.
Orville raises his arm and points to the bare interior of his bicep. "Was just thinking of gettin a Moon inked right there, or maybe a rocket ship, to mark the day. You think?"
Jim asks "Really?"
"You got that scar on your noggin," says Orville. "Seems like a fair trade."
Jim says he'd like that a lot.
He'd like to stay there with the tattooed man, but they both will be missed soon in the outside world. It's hard to clean up the greasy salve from their dicks and butts with just rags, and they're slow to do it.
Orville has Jim go first, staying behind to put things reasonably in order.
When he exits into the cool gray of the lunar display, Jim nudges a gray boulder with the toe of his sneaker, and it rolls away, nearly weightless. From there he emerges into the hot late afternoon sun, and the clamor of the amusement park.
He ambles through the amusement park, vaguely aware of the screams from the rides, the scent of buttered popcorn and butter and fried dough, the sight of fluffy clouds of cotton candy, the screeching and grinding of the rides. The other teens seem distant now, childish. He's mindful of the slick feeling in his underwear. He's been fucked and fucked too. He's never going back. Permanent as the scar he'll have from the hastily stitched gash on his forehead, he's changed.
Striding down the side of the road home he kicks some sandy gravel and skips over a stone, and then another. He begins to trot, and then runs, in leaps and bounds, jumping over rocks and other obstacles, as if gravity has loosened its grip on him. He feels as if he could run all the way to the Moon.
- END -