Sweet Passion of the Idle Heart

When I got out of high school the only plan I had was to get a job. They told me at school I shoulda tried harder and got better marks so I could get into the plumbing program at community college, but fuck them. I'm the only one in my family ever got out of high school with a diploma. So I wasn't too worried about where I would find a job and sure enough, the end of June I got a non-U job at Portland Box and Fiber Company working night maintenance.

The only other guy on the night crew with me was a skinny guy from High Meadow Park who was working nights to put himself through university days. His name was Ethan and he was about six foot one, two inches taller than me and fifty or sixty pounds lighter than I am. When he stood up on a ladder in a sweat soaked t-shirt I could see his ribs sticking out. Nor he didn't have too much muscle on him, only a little bit, though he got stronger while he was working. Mostly we pushed mops, but we also had to shift a fair number of boxes.

Now as soon as I traded ten words with Ethan I decided he was a fruit. I don't mean I figured he liked to suck cock or take it up the ass. I mean he talked the big words, and he wasn't so much of a man. He would have had a bad time at my high school. They took him on at the same time they took me on, and it figures that they made him lead on the crew and me the bottom man. If there was every anything to report he got to do the reporting and he carried the keys and the cell phone around in his shirt pocket.

My Mom promised to wait until I quit high school before she kicked me out, which is one of the reasons she wasn't too impressed about me graduating. I was already nineteen. To be fair the main reason she wanted me out was because my younger sister Ashley was having a baby and they needed the space. Soon as I did finish I had to get out and I took a room on Water Street. I took the cheapest room I could find because I wasn't sharing with no other guys. I had a few offers to split an apartment with some of the guys I knew and I turned them all down. The reason was that I was hoping to have a place I could bring guys where I could screw them.

I knew I wanted to try out screwing other guys way back and I even tried it when I was just about starting middle school. I tried it with girls too, and the girls were bad because they want you to talk to them and the one thing I can't do is talk. So when I was in high school I tried to have a girl to fuck on the side, and got myself three or four over the years. But when I was feeling, you know, that tightness in my lower gut and my body felt loose and rangy and my balls got feeling full, then I would go down to the dumpsters behind King of French Fries and if I was lucky some guy would turn up and give me a blow job, and if I wasn't lucky the cops would come by with the searchlights on their car and I'd have to go hide in the cemetery behind the headstones. But most of the time I wasn't neither, I just waited a few hours hanging out by the dumpster with the smell of old grease and old ketchup and nobody came by at all.

Like, when I was in high school I didn't tell nobody I liked fucking around with guys. There was, you know, a guidance counselor who put a poster up saying there was a gay and lesbian youth group at my high school and they had meetings, but it was a secret who was in it. You had to come to him to find out where the meetings were. I never had no wish to go to a gay meeting. I wasn't so gay I wanted to hang out with a bunch of pansies. The only thing it would have been good for was to find out who was going so I could out the bunch of them. But that wouldn't work neither, because then they could have outed me.

But I sure looked forward to having a place of my own, because I thought I could get some first class fucking. I made sure I had a bed and I made sure I had a good lock on the door and I bought a real good Yamaha CD player from a guy I knew that was ripping stuff off, and I had some CD's to go in it and fuck, I had the coolest place in the whole city. What I didn't have was a whole lot of money. And it turned out I needed money to meet the guys. Like, I went down to the gay bar, Rainbows, and they carded me at the door. I didn't like that shit! I was going to gay joint to be anonymous. And the drinks in a bar are real expensive and there was no fucking way I was gonna get into being a drinker, my dad had done that. So I found myself working a ten-hour night, paying for this room and not getting much fucking.

It wasn't for the want of me thinking about it. I thought about it all the time. I thought about cock and ass and blowjobs, and asshole only about every two minutes every day. I thought about it and I looked at the guys I saw on the street and in the burger joint where I usually ate, and the guys on the bus and the guys hanging out in front of the buildings. I thought about it down at the gym where I went to work out. It was a cheap gym and a lot of gang members went there, and they looked me over, kind of sizing me up so they could decide to kill me or not. I never laid a pass on any of them there. But I looked. I was looking so much I even started looking at Ethan.

For a start Ethan had a small tight looking ass, a prominent package in the front when he wore sweats and his pants were floppy, and he had a cute mouth. His upper lip had a kind of a shape to it that wasn't flat and that made me think of getting him to blow me. So he didn't have the same kind of shoulders on him that I did? That was alright. He had a dick. But the thing was, Ethan was as bad as a girl. He was a talker.

Early on, maybe even the first night we were working he asked me a bunch of shit, like had I finished high school and where did I live and did I have any interesting hobbies and had I ever gone skiing up at Mount Tarenton? Like, he talked and I grunted. Because no, I didn't have an interesting hobbies and no I had never gone skiing up at Mount Tarenton. They were fucking dumb questions. Besides I was still learning the job and I had to figure out doing that. I couldn't see what I was supposed to do with him talking at me like that.

So by and by he wasn't talking to me so much. He would go up his end hauling a bucket on wheels, those long linoleum corridors, and I would go down my end, under those long rows of fluorescent lights hauling my bucket on wheels. And then I would start mopping and far away, looking between the machinery I would see him mopping his way towards me. We started at ten o'clock and round about one or two a.m. we'd have the mopping done and meet in the middle. There might be a job list for us, like put new bolts in the number eight threader to fix it tighter to the floor, or fix the john in the girls' room that was dribbling in the place where it joined the wall, or wash all the windows in administration, but the job list never took us all the night, so there was a two or three hour bit of time every night with nothing to do but sit and stare at each other.

Ethan asked me, "Hey Brutus, what do you read?"

I just looked at him. I read lots of stuff. I read the ads on the bus and I read the headlines on the magazines at the check out and I like to read what it says on people's clothes, check out their brand names or best yet if they have something smart-ass printed between their nipples. But I knew that wasn't what he wanted me to say. It wasn't what he was asking. I was thinking about telling him and wondering if I would tell him or not, and Ethan gave up waiting and asked, "You read the sports section in the paper? TV guide?"

I shook my head.

"You read any books? Comic books? Cowboy novels?"

I shook my head again.

"Don't you read anything?"

"No." I said. I did have a few jerk-off magazines I'd picked up, but you couldn't call that reading. It was more looking than reading.

"You watch a lot of TV?" Ethan asked with a shrug. When he shrugged he bought his shoulders up and I could see the bones in them and the round part of his muscles, the tendons in his neck pulling. He had good little shoulders, not soft at all, just not big. I got to looking at his shoulders so I didn't answer him straight off.

"You watch Survivor? You watch the games...? What about Bad Boyz? You watch that?"

I didn't watch any of that so I shook my head.

"Decorating shows? Queer Eye? X-Files? Motocross racing?"

"No." I said.

"What do you watch?" He said.

"Don't got no TV." I said. Now that wasn't true. I had a little black and white, just ten inches, that I didn't watch so much because the picture was small and only black and white. I said that to see if I could make his shoulders go down. And sure enough they came down, sagging.

So Ethan had this pile of books he brought to work with him, and at the end of the first week we were sitting there, him not trying to talk to me just then and me looking at him from time to time but mostly thinking would I go out to the dumpster behind King of Fries on the weekend. And he says, "You mind if I read?"

I gave a shrug but he didn't see it, so then he says, "You don't mind, huh?" And he picked up his book.

So that was fine, he could read and he wouldn't be talking at me so much and I could sit and think about how I was going to get the broken bolt out of the bottom of the number six threader that had snapped off just at the level of the concrete. And I could look at him and he wouldn't see me looking at him because he was reading.

Most of the time I finished my half of the floors maybe ten minutes, maybe even half an hour before he did, so I got to sit down and wait for him to come along with the job list. And when I did that I turned over the stack of books he'd left on the table in the break room. There was one book called "Linguistic Evolution" I opened that up and it was all full of squiggles, like it had twice the alphabet of a normal book. And the words in it: diphthong and phoneme and morphologic! There wasn't no way to read that book at all.

Then there was another book called "An Introduction to Economy", which might have been readable, because it was about money but it wasn't readable either, because it was full of formulas and used words in it like counter-intuitive. Then the last book was the worst of all because it was called "Critical Analysis of Selected Literature" and that one was full of poems.

Fuck, I thought to myself, Ethan is such a big faggot he reads poetry.

He didn't give up talking to me entirely, since we had to talk to each other, working. He asked me what I did on the weekend and sat there staring at me with an exasperated look on his face, not saying nothing and I could tell he was going to wait until I answered him no matter how long it took. So I did answer him. I told him I went to the gym and worked out.

"Right." said Ethan.

Now there was never nobody in the plant until seven-thirty at the earliest and we could go then, but in the meantime we had to stay there. Like it was in the rules we couldn't even go out for coffee, we had to get it from the vending machine. So it was a long shift and it was real quiet. Another guy woulda probably snuck in a TV or gone to sleep but I liked the night and I liked the still and the quiet. I was content to do a lot of thinking, and that left poor old Ethan kind of stuck with his studying, which is what he wanted to do anyway. Even mopping I could do a lot of thinking and then sitting there with Ethan silent turning pages I could do some more.

One day I was doing the mopping and had to shift a couple of thousand pounds of boxes so I could do the floor under them, and so it took me longer to get back to our break room. When I mopped my way in sight of the door I heard Ethan. He was talking. Well, I thought that was pretty curious. Who would be talking to? But I kept right on mopping and the closer I got the better I heard him, until I realized he was the only one talking. He was saying some dumb poem out loud.

Ethan looked up with just one eye when I came in, but I didn't say nothing, so he didn't stop his reading. He just kept on with it until it got to the end, something about this green pastoral landscape were to me more dear. Then he lowered his book and looked at me carefully, but I just looked at him back.

"It's easier for me to remember it if I read it out loud." He said.

It must've been, because a couple of days later He had his books out, dark head bent as he looked down at the big book on his knees and he looked up at me and said, "Mind if I read out loud?"

I didn't say nothing. I couldn't believe he was really reading poetry. I wanted to see if he would again. And sure enough he did. He started in about some tree that didn't have no leaves on it, so it was all bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. I didn't say nothing. But by and by after the next couple of nights when he read his poems out loud I figured out the guy was trying to get a rise out of me. I don't know why. It was something on account of me not saying much, he figured the poems would piss me off and maybe he was trying to fill the silence, like he felt it too empty on his ears.

Now lots of times in school guys had tried to get a rise out of me, sometimes saying my sisters were sluts, or sometimes saying how I was a dumb asshole, or sometimes, you know, just kidding around, saying they could take me in a fight. Sometimes I'd fight them and sometimes I'd just grin, depending on what kind of a rise they were trying to get out of me. If I fought them I'd pick a time they weren't expecting it or anyway, some ground where it was quiet to have a fight so we wouldn't get caught at it. So I wasn't too thrown off by it being Ethan trying to get a reaction outta me. I just sat quiet.

And the truth is I didn't mind him reading that shit out loud. He had a kinda nice husky voice and I liked it. The words didn't make too much sense, but that didn't matter. Lots of stuff don't make too much sense if you think about it.

Meanwhile I got a hard-on for Ethan. It was being with him so often in the quiet with my thoughts on sex, I guess. He had this narrow, long body, a flat belly that moved when he breathed deep, a small square ass... Well, he wasn't butt ugly, and even if he were I wouldn't have cared so much. I started thinking it would be good fun to fuck Ethan. I thought about it this way: If one night we didn't mop the floor that would give us some six hours, maybe to let me screw him. And nobody would notice, for sure if we didn't do the mopping just one night.

But Ethan, of course, was only interested in his books and getting as much time as he could in the night to do his studying so I wasn't going to get any more luck with him than if I'd got a hard-on for one of my teachers at school. After one long week of watching him turn pages in "An Introduction to Economy" I went home and gave my wall a kick. The plaster dented right in, a big oval with a crack in it. I scowled.

Like yeah, I could have just jerked off. I did that a few times a week. But it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted some fruit like Ethan wrapping his lips around my prick and sucking me in so hard he got his nose in my curlies. So fine, the next night I had off and I went down to Rainbows. But I didn't try to talk my way in there this time, I just went down to the alley mouth, two buildings over and I waited there. I kept my eye fixed on the door to see who would come out. For sure I could stop some guy and get him to come with me, and if he didn't want to go all the way across town to my room, well the dumpster in the alley didn't smell any worse than the one behind King of French Fries.

But you know just about every guy that came out of the bar that night turned around and went the other way. They all headed for the corner and the traffic lights except a few who cut across the street straight away. The only time some guys came past me was when the bar was about closing, past midnight, around one when a who mob came out at the same time at least ten guys and they walked past me. I spent that whole evening there with a hard on and no faggot came by to ask me if he could suck my dick.

One time Ethan wore shorts to work and his knees were bony and hairy and they weren't skinny, they were good solid knees and I spent a lot of that night looking at his knees and thinking about them. I could make a real good guess how they would feel if I put my hand on one of them, hard in the palm of my hand and his skin would be warm, and that alive feeling against my skin, that you only get touching a living thing and a person most of all.

If I touched his knees I could touch him higher, I could take his shorts off him, and fuck him. I could do it easy. But I didn't touch him that night, and he didn't wear those shorts again. Most times he didn't wear the sweats that showed off his bulge either. Most times it was a pair of dark workpants, with pockets and a zip and you couldn't see so much through them. I could look all I wanted when he wore the black pants and I wouldn't see nothing much.

And then Cristylle -- that's my youngest sister, got her arm broken by her boyfriend. He wasn't the father of her baby, but the guy she'd gone out with most of the time when she was carrying the kid. And I never knew if the guy thought he was the father of the kid or not, but he broke up with her before Kyla was born. One day I came over home and there she was in the kitchen, trying to hold the baby and the bottle both with her arm all in plaster from the wrist to up around the elbow. Cristylle told me it hadn't hurt so much as she had been pretty drunk when he did it.

"You going out with him again?" I asked carefully.

She took to swearing at him, calling him a fucking asshole, and I listened carefully and by and by I understood he wasn't going out with her, but he didn't want her going out with anyone else either. That was fine. I didn't have to keep my hands off of him on because she was going out with him, so all I had to do was find a time to do it. "Next time somebody does that to you, you send Mom to tell me right away." I told her. Not that I needed to know right away though, because I wasn't doing anything about it right away.

So that was one of the things I thought about mopping my way up the hall. Back when Cristylle and Ashley had been in school and I had been in school there hadn't been any too many people willing to mess around with them too far. Even the other girls didn't mess around with them too much. One time a girl named Cassie put some scratches on Ashley's face. The scratches still show there and always will, though that all happened the year Ashley started middle school. I went around and I kicked the balls in on Cassie's boyfriend and I kicked the balls in on her two brothers who were both in school with me, one of them younger and one of them older, so I made it plain that Ashley could say any fucking thing she wanted to Cassie and Cassie wouldn't touch her. A few times I had to do stuff like that. Now I wasn't around the girls much, so people must have thought they could get away with shit again. But they couldn't.

So I had three things to think deep about. One of them was finding a way to put Orville Coleman in the hospital, one of them was getting some guy, any guy to go ass up for me and one of them was Ethan's stupid fucking poetry.

"Every woman adores a Fascist,

The boot in the face, the brute

Brute heart of a brute like you..."

Yeah, Cristylle would still have gone out again with Orville if he would have had her, so even though his words were nonsense there was something real in them. But there's nothing touchable in words, nothing but sound that disappears. If I sometime think I found a meaning in words, I didn't. Once the words are said they're gone and they don't mean the same thing to nobody anyway. Ethan would look up from his poems look at me to see if I was listening but I never told him his fucking shit didn't make any sense, even though he wanted me to.

"I knew a woman, lovely in her bones..." He read and then I didn't hear the rest of the poem because I got to thinking, yeah, a woman could, in theory, have lovely bones. But it was a guy's bones, the way Ethan could bring his shoulders forward, and the way when he was on the ladder going up I could see the lumps of his spine behind him and the shape of his skull, flat above his ears, a strong curve to his big smooth flat forehead, the long jaw, the roundness of all the rest... Guy's bones are something strong so when I looked at good bones like that I could feel it down in the top of my chest, below my swallow where my own bones are thick on top of my heart.

And the job list said we had to change all the fluorescent lights in the plant, every one of them, even the ones that weren't burnt out. Ethan read that from the job list and then he said blankly, "Shit, this is going to take days."

There were boxes and boxes of the bulbs in the storeroom. There were two ladders so we tried it out that way first. I went up my ladder and took the four long skinny tubes out and put four new bulbs in, and then I moved the ladder eight feet down the hall and did it over again. And Ethan on the other side of the building did the same thing. It took me eleven minutes to change four fluorescent light bulbs and I hadda go up and down the ladder eight times. Working I got in a rhythm so I could think and I did the math. There were four and a half main plant work areas with twenty by ten light fixtures in each one. That's four times two hundred is eight hundred. And then there were the corridors and the admin area and the cafeteria and the warehouse. There were 1802 fluorescent light fixtures in the building.

When I met Ethan at the break room the next night he said. "I've been thinking. It'll go much faster if we work together. You see last night I was up and down and up and down that ladder, once for every single bulb. What we need to do is have one guy on the ladder and the other guy hand him the bulbs from the ground."

I didn't say nothing to that, so he looked at me again, and he hauled one of the ladders way down to roller section two, where he had left off last night, and he told me to come down after him with as many boxes of bulbs as I could carry. Then he went up the ladder while he wanted me down on the ground handing the bulbs up. That figures. He was the guy holding the chore list, so he thought he could say how we would do it. I took a look at one of the plant clocks again, and watched the red second hand sweeping around. Doing it his way took three minutes per fixture. No question it would be much faster.

Now it seemed to me it would be better to have me on the ladder putting the bulbs into the ceiling, because when I figure out how to do a thing I can do it smooth and fast and get it done quick. And that was the hardest part, having your arms in the air half the night. But it was Ethan went up the ladder and I let him. I stood under him and I handed him the bulbs ready to put them in his hand the second he was ready to take them. And while I stood under him on the floor I looked at his ass.

His ass was just a little bit above my eyes. His ass was round and tight and not so high up that I'd have to lift my hand much to take a grab of it. Or if I wanted to bite it I'd just have to lean up to it, maybe put one foot on the bottom step below it. If I bit his ass there would be bits of broken fluorescent light bulb all over the floor. Of course his ass had those black pants on them, so I'd be getting a mouthful of cloth if I bit him. It was more the cloth that kept me from biting him than the idea of all that broken glass.

It didn't matter to me. I enjoyed standing there looking at his ass. I thought I could take him by the leg and run my hand along the inside of his thigh and he wouldn't be able to back down the ladder with me standing there below him, nor would he be able to get away any higher. And my hand on his leg would find it hotter between them where the heat stays with the parts of his body close, and all the way up at the top as I pushed my hand up, his balls would be soft and pouchy on my finger ends. It would feel good to take his thighs like that.

Ethan kept looking up at the ceiling, into the lights, not looking back at me. It got so he would just hold his hand out backwards and I'd have the light bulb into his hand, long and slim, in that same second he opened his fingers to take it. I could stand close to him, under him ready doing my work, one hand on the ladder to steady it, if I wanted. And I could see his crotch if I stood beside the ladder, again just above eye level, a foot and a half away. I could have reached through the ladder, under the metal A and got my hand on his crotch and copped a feel and confirmed just how big a prick he had, although by now I knew because I'd been looking at it so much.

One night with my hard on solid and seeping inside my jeans I did reach up and touch his crotch. My hand did it. Most times I don't do nothing without thinking about it real carefully, but sometimes when something is possible I just do it, it happens. So I guess I had thought about doing it before, and then I realized he wouldn't feel it if I reached up and took his zip down. He was having trouble with a bit of the fixture that was twisted and the bulb wouldn't go in right. He didn't feel me take the tab of his zip and pull it down all the way.

Then I had something to look at. I could see his shorts, white in there and a bit of darker skin. I could see the wrinkly side of his dick. I could stand there all night, patiently handing bulbs up and you know what? Ethan didn't have a clue his zip was down.

Well, that night I looked at a tiny bit of his cock for about four hours. And then when we were putting the bulbs and the ladder away, Ethan looked down. He was on the floor and I saw his neck curve, as he caught a glimpse of the gape in his pants fly. A moment later I saw him straighten his back up sharp with his hand in front of him and I knew he had fixed it. He looked around kind of nervous so I made sure not to smile. I kept myself from giving him a grin. He was embarrassed thinking he'd been going around like that.

The next night he was up on the ladder again, the same pants again, and me in the same position again. So of course I did it again. I waited until the job got a little tricky, one of the old fixtures were a bit bent, and his hands were up like a man at gunpoint and he was twisting a bit and saying, "Fuck...Get in there, you." My hand got that zipper tab again and drew it down.

So Ethan went around for another three hours with his shorts showing, this time blue not white, and not knowing about it. This time the fly of his shorts didn't gape so much so I didn't see his dick. But the other thing was there were times when Ethan got a little bit hard. Not all the time, but he did bulge a bit more sometimes when I was standing there close to him. So I got to see that trouser fly widen a bit and then when what he was doing frustrated him, the swelling would go down again and the gap would get smaller. I was used to looking at Ethan and liked doing it. There might not have been much to see I have to admit, but all the same I thought it a bit hot to be looking at him with his fly open. And it beat just standing there handing the bulbs up and down, while his fly was zipped.

He was up on the ladder when he noticed it that night. He gave a bit of a jerk and got his hand down and he turned away from me, like he was hiding fixing his fly. It was way late on his part of course. I'd been studying what I could see for hours already.

The next night he had a different pair of pants on but that pair had a zip too so I pulled the tab down. Didn't that make me grin! I spent another night getting these glimpses of his cock. It made the night go easy. I don't know if the best part of it was seeing that slim little line of skin in there, or if it was the moment when he'd realized he'd been standing on the ladder all night with his crotch at my eye level and his zipper down.

The next night was our night off, so I went and hung around outside of Rainbows close to closing time. There was no point me hanging out behind King of French Fries no more. Any time any guy came around there he took off again quick before I could ask him if he wanted to give me a suck. And a lot of the guys hanging out there were just kids. Now I hadn't got a blow job there since I was seventeen and I hadn't been as big as I am then, so what I figured was my size was scaring them off. I figured they wouldn't be coming around to look for a kid over at the bar so I'd have a better chance to get lucky.

But I know a lot of the time they guys had to be getting scared of me, even there, because of the way they stopped outside the door at the sight of me and went the other way. There was this one group of three guys that came out together, turned to walk towards me and stopped all short together. There was this one tall bald guy, and this skinny guy beside him and a third guy a step away talking. You wouldn't think that three guys together would be scared of me, but I'm wide and somehow when I smile it doesn't look friendly. My jaw is wide. But it's just a face. Three guys shoulda taken me on no problem. They could take me. Anyway, I was ready to take them: One to suck my cock, one to plug my butt hole and one to give me a cock to suck. I gave them the eyes telling them to come on over to me. They didn't. The guy that had been talking hissed, "Fucking straights!" and they turned around and went the opposite direction looking over their shoulders.

I guess I looked like I was lying in wait for some trouble because I spent a lot of that weekend looking for it. I looked for Orville, checked out the street he lived on and the bars I thought he might go to, and the guys I had heard he hung out with. I walked through their neighborhoods thinking of a plan to hurt him bad. But I didn't see Orville though I spend awhile looking at his battered old orange Trans Am.

So it was back to work and the pleasant game of playing with Ethan's fly zipper. Only this time the guy was wise to me. He was wearing his sweats.

I didn't mind so much. The thing was, they were thin sweats and baggy, so I could see the shape of him real clear. And while he was up on the ladder with me admiring his cock and admiring his ass, he must have felt my eyes on him because that day his cock went hard more than a couple of times. It got big and stuck out good. But you know when he got a hard on he tried to stand with his back to me. And he wasn't acting like he wanted me looking at him. He was ignoring me, hard as he could. I had to wander round the ladder, side to side, bring the bulbs in from his other side, to keep getting a look at him.

Did Ethan want me fucking him or not? He sure as hell was trying to tell me not from the way he kept turning away from me. Maybe he was just getting the hard on from nervousness. I mean, he couldn't like having his zip open if he had switched to sweats? He was trying to keep me from seeing his dick.

So at the end of that night when we were putting the ladder away and he had his arms full of boxes of bulbs I pointed at his dick. "You got a wet spot on your crotch." I said.

He did have. He'd been seeping from the five or six hard-ons he got that night. There was a round wet patch where the head of his dick, now gone soft, was held in by the gray fabric of his sweats. Ethan turned bright red. He looked down but he couldn't see for the boxes he was holding. For a guy that liked to talk he lost his voice real quick. He couldn't even toss a quip off at me. So I just grinned at him and as soon as he could he got the boxes out of his arms and fled away to the washroom.

I kind of liked picking on Ethan like that. When I jerked off I thought about Ethan more than I thought about other guys. I wondered how hard it would be to get it up his ass, if his muscle would clamp down on me and I'd have to push it in real hard, and if he'd flinch when he felt the round head of my cock pressing in on him. I thought maybe he'd push back at me and sigh, trying to get me into him. And I thought if he liked cock he'd like mine. It's not so big, like I'm not so big as people seem to always act. It's only about eight inches long. But it's wide. I got a thick cock and the head of it is real big, so if a guy liked a big cock he might like mine.

But then maybe Ethan didn't like cock. That was the most likely thing. I made him so nervous that he got those hard ons and he didn't want them. Most likely when I made Ethan get down on all fours so I could fuck him he'd kick and he'd curse me. Yeah, He'd tell me to fuck off, in a voice that was choked like he was crying.

"You are the brave who do not break in the grip of the mob when the blow comes straight..." Ethan read. I went home and kicked the plaster in my wall again. This time a chunk of it fell down, gray and gritty and left a big blank space where I could see the lathes.

I thought about torching Orville's car, which I could do easy and not the least bit of risk to me. But his car was a piece of junk and if I did that he wouldn't know it was me that nailed him and paid him back for what he did to my sister. I did it anyway. One night I filled a cardboard box full of gasoline and rag and pitched a book of matches, flaring orange like the color of his car, into the box before I kicked it under his gas tank. Then I went down a block away and the flames made the side of the house yellow in the dark. I heard yelling but I came away before the fire trucks got there.

I went on playing the zipper game with Ethan, pulling his tab down and getting a good look in. Just the one time I got the button undone too, but I didn't try that more than once because when he caught me then I'd have to make a move on him, follow up on what I was doing. And if he wasn't going to let me fuck him, it would be a fuck up. I mean he wouldn't be reading poetry out loud any more.

But I sure enjoyed the game anyway. It got so he knew his zipper was going to be down and he'd be nervously checking it all the time. And then he'd be working and he'd forget and I'd get it down and it would be gaping wide open. There was one time he got a hard on and his shorts were placed just right. I saw the pink round head of it in the fly slit come slowly swelling out. I was just about ready to choke. I kept those light bulbs going up and down as smooth as smooth so he wouldn't look down and my eyes going fast from the long light bulbs to his cock, watching it jut further and further. The whole head of his dick was out of his fly before he noticed. I went back to put a bulb down and he looked down and saw himself or maybe felt it. He gave strangled noise and I couldn't turn around, knowing he was wrestling his prick back into his pants and if I did turn around I'd probably grab at it to stop him.

Saturday morning with the sun coming up and the day watchman running late, Ethan sat on the break room table with his legs on the seat reading, "Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight and learned to late they grieved it on its way, rage, rage against the dying of the light." And the sun was coming in whiter and whiter, as the sound of the traffic got louder outside. On the weekends I didn't see him.

Saturday night I went out trying one last time -- yet another one last time, hanging around outside of Rainbows. It was a wet night and shiny and I was hunching under the rain in my collar, big fists curled lightly, waiting for the feel of a cock in my fingers. But nobody walked down in my direction and let me catch his eye. At least nobody came until this one guy came out of Rainbows and turned sharply towards the traffic lights, back to me. He was gone a full minute before he came pelting back, running hard with three other guys right behind him. He was trying to get back to the door. They were like, young guys, not so much different than me; only they were in a group, three guys running faster and a couple more running after the three laughing.

The guy that had come out of Rainbows ran up against the door and he banged it, but the door is big and heavy and they keep it locked. So he didn't get inside before the three guys had him and they took his head and their arms were swinging. "Hey asshole! Fairy cocksucker!"

But then I was out of my alley mouth. They weren't too bright if they didn't see me coming and they didn't so I got one of them, booted him balls up his ass from behind and I piled another one into the wall before they even felt me on them. I was just swinging my fist, hard, hard, two, three, four, hard, hitting and leading with my shoulders. I took a couple of hits on my face, but all that did was give me the wide-awake to hit harder with. So I got a couple of them punched up good, the blood just gushing out of their faces before the bar door was open and the bouncer was out and a couple more guys came out and it was kicking and punching and guys staggering hard into each other. I started punching guts then, not faces, so pretty soon the five guys were staggering all into traffic with a wall of guys punching at them and you know, they'd stopped laughing. I think I broke one guy's jaw, and there was another guy I hit just lying on the wet sidewalk, belly on the toes of my boots, making a spitting noise down deep in his throat as he tried to get air in. And then he curled up chin between his knees and there were gay guys from out of the bar all in the street, so I knew the fighting is over.

That was when I took off. After a fight you don't stick around for the cops to come or for anybody to recognize you. I pasted a couple of guys hard enough most likely they would press charges if they got me. I didn't know if the guy they had attacked was going to be alright or not, but as I took off I was pissed off, thinking there's not enough fucking faggots on the world, so I can't even find a guy willing to blow me, and those assholes had to go hurting one, maybe making him too scared to come out any more. Like it was a good thing I knew I had to run off and disappear right then or I would have wanted to stomp their faces, the two guys that I had hit bad enough they couldn't run away. I would have broken every bone they had in their faces.

Come Monday Ethan took one look at my face, because my eye was a little black and my eyebrow was twice the size of normal, which is pretty big to begin with, and he sucked in a breath and said, "What the fuck were you doing, Man!"

"I got in a fight." I said.

"Where?" He said. "What happened? What was it about?"

I just gave a shrug. I didn't want to tell nobody, and sure not Ethan, in case it got back to the cops.

"Where?" He said again.

"I beat up some faggots." I said at last. "Uptown on Saturday night."

Then Ethan didn't say anything and he kept a lot of space between him and me that night. In fact, though we only had the light bulbs about three-quarters changed he didn't even have us get the ladder out that night. He sat on the table and read his linguistics book and looked at me real quick a few times. I sat with my elbows on the table patient until he started reading the poetry junk, which he still read out loud because he always read it out loud.

There was this one poem about a kid coming home from college for a funeral and he says how I was embarrassed by old men standing up to shake my hand and tell me they were sorry for my trouble. I thought it was kind of a dull poem until he got down to the last line of the poem, where the kid is looking into the coffin. And then Ethan read the last line, "A four foot box, a foot for every year."

Then it hit me hard, like a punch to the stomach that the person dead was a little kid and I got up real sharp, like I didn't plan to and I got out of the room. I was that pissed off. It was a poem about a dead kid, practically a baby. It cut too deep. He shouldn't read a poem like that. Go lovely rose, that was the right stupid stuff for poems. Not stuff about a kid killed sudden like that. I was so fucking mad. There are some poems even more stupid than the stuff about a rose telling her that wastes her time and me, how sweet and fair she seems to be.

When I came back Ethan had finished reading and was just sitting, so I just sat opposite him too until the sun was up and we could go. I went home and I picked up my TV and heaved it at the hole in the wall. Busting a TV is always worth the trouble. They explode with a grand little bang and this one did, so then it was true like I had said to Ethan earlier, I didn't have a TV.

I made up my mind then that I'd see if I could get Ethan to go ass up for me. Maybe he wouldn't want to and it would lead to a bunch of words, yelling and cursing and names coming too fast for me to follow, but what I figured was if I took it slow most likely I could get him down under me. Because I couldn't stand not doing it anymore. Even if it made a fuck up of things, I didn't care. I needed to get laid. So that next night Tuesday I went to work as usual and after he'd read Economics silently for a while I went and got the ladder out.

Ethan went up it and I held the ladder and passed him bulbs. This time I didn't reach out and get his zip. Instead I held the side of the ladder and this meant the side of my arm was against the side of his knee. I started touching him just the side of my arm like that. The guy worked silent, looking down at me a lot, gaze dropping sharp and I worked silent, handing him the bulbs up. We were working real smooth together.

For a while I did like that, just touching him with the side of my arm, and letting him look me in the face. I knew I didn't want to startle him. I was behind him not circling around so I couldn't see if he was getting those hard-ons still, but I could sure tell he was pretty tense. He didn't shake me off or come down the ladder and refuse to go up again. He didn't squeeze away, lean away from the ladder away from me. He just took it, letting me lay my arm so close against his leg.

Then after awhile of touching him like that, making sure he knew I was moving in on him, then I put my hand on the back of his thigh. Under the black pants the muscle was taut and firm, and I could feel the warmth through it. I held it like that and Ethan breathed deep so I could hear his breath clear while he passed me the four bulbs down, one by one. I let go of his leg to take up the first new bulb and pass it to him, but as he lifted it over his head I put my hand back on him again, only this time higher.

I took his ass in my hand. It was just as firm as I thought it would be. Ethan started panting. I felt his body vibrate. But you know what? He didn't reach back and knock my hand off and he didn't start cursing me to get my fucking hands off him. Yeah, Ethan was a faggot and he wanted to be fucked.

So after that I didn't hold back. I put my mouth up against the ass of his pants and I took a bite out of them biting the muscle and cloth together and squeezing tight with both hands, pulling him back against my mouth. And I pushed my nose up into the crack of his ass, with his pants there so he must have felt my breath through the cloth, coming hot at him. This time I didn't have to be sneaky at all pulling his zip down. I got it open, popped the button, got my fingers in to where there was cotton, warm and worn and full, and there was bulging, stiff skin and scorching hot skin and softness and wiry hair. I dug my fingers in, got them into his fly and got my fingers around his hard on. He had a nice solid cock, longer than it was thick, smooth headed, silk skinned and then the skin below mobile against the solidness of his shaft. I had my face into his butt and his trousers starting to fall down and my hand working his cock. And I was starting to hump the calf of his leg without knowing I was doing it.

So then I took him off the ladder and I got him on the linoleum. For a few moments he was on his back. That way I got his pants down to his knees and I got my mouth on his mouth. His lips were open but not a word coming out and his eyes were big and glazed and I sucked his lips and his tongue hard, and I put my tongue into his mouth, eyes closed, leaning down on him while I ripped at his clothes. His t-shirt came up onto his throat and his hands were on my shoulders, and then I was kissing his neck, sucking hard as I kissed down. Ethan was so warm it was like a furnace. I found the sweat on his body, faint sparkles on the smooth brown skin. I found his chest, not with big built muscles so the pecs were immense, but flat pecs solid and fine, and small wrinkled nipples that I made him give a little yell when I bit them and sucked them.

Then I bit his belly, find the rippled shape, the blocks of his muscles, mobile and panting so hard his belly was going in and out. And he was moving under me heaving up and his cock was jutting up, so when I put my hand in my mouth and licked it and smeared it wet on his prick he was thrashing, thrusting into my hand.

I had Ethan's pants below his knees, so it was time for my pants. I got them yanked open, dropped and my cock was sticking up. I dived over him and got my mouth on his butt. I didn't bite so hard as suck, but I struggled him around, got him with his knees bumping the tiles, until he was on all fours. That way I could reach in front and take his cock in my hand and I could get the thick log of my cock up against those tight pale ass cheeks. My own cock looked immense to me against the cheeks of his butt. He has such a tight hot butt, with hollows on both sides making it almost square as he clenched his ass cheeks in.

I worked his prick and the pre-cum made my palm slimy. I worked it harder, one hand squeezing him up and down and the other hand deeper taking his balls, cupping them, hairiness in my palm, the full weight of them as I cradled them. When I sucked and bit his back he shuddered and he was thrusting into my hand like he was fucking. I felt my own sweat between us as I ground myself up against his fantastic fucking ass and my chest was on his back. Ethan was moaning. I humped him like that before I moved back.

I kicked my trousers off before I remembered the condom, so then I kicked them back again, closer to me, but I kept touching him instead of digging for it. I kept working his cock and the guy was just shaking. I wanted my body hot and firm against his, fused with the sweat, but I wanted my cock inside his ass, not just in his crack.

So I moved back, still pumping his dick in my hand, still letting him fuck my fingers, until I got my face on his ass again. He gasped frantically. I let go of his cock long enough to take his ass in both my hands, fingers digging into the split, prying him open. There was his pucker, pale, tight and perfect. It took spit and muscle to work my finger in, to probe in deep in that tightness, but he groaned again and when I brought my free hand onto his cock he was doing pelvic jerks and there was so much precum that my hand was slick with it. He kicked and slithered on the floor and I finger fucked his ass, pushing hard to get that finger in. Ethan groaned and groaned.

By the time I started pushing more spit into him to get my second finger up we had slithered eight feet down the hall floor away from the ladder. I had his back and butt covered with the red bite and suck marks. My cock felt like a red-hot poker. It was burning to get inside him. He yelled when I got the second finger up and the jerk he gave made me think he was cumming. He was trembling all over. I was pretty near cumming myself. I thought once I had it in him I'd be like a pile driver, just hammering into him until I came. There wouldn't be no more accommodating him. I was going to ream his ass real good. But I had to get a rubber and I wanted a look at his face, to see that mouth crooked open when I fucked him, so I flipped him over and hauled him up so his knees were way up on my shoulders. I was going to fuck him from the front.

I flipped him and then I saw his face. He was all flung back, arms wide and crooked by his sides, fingers clutching the smooth linoleum as if he could get a grip there. His t-shirt was twisted like a rope around his throat. His eyes were the size of coffee cups. And even though the guy had a hard on that was creaming out fat drop after fat drop of pre-cum into my hand the look on his face was sheer terror. His mouth was open, not in a pant and not gasp, but the lips drawn back so that it looked like a silent scream. All those gasps -- well he was turned on alright, but he was scared so fucking shitless by me that he was gasping in fright. He was too scared to even fight me. He was cringing to get away from me.

If I had fucked him I would have been raping him. I don't know how he would have remembered it, because he probably would have come. He was that turned on. And I couldn't stop. I couldn't go on, not with my guy looking like he was about to be murdered, and I couldn't stop, not with my dick so hard it was about to make my balls explode. So I just froze there over him.

I took my prick in my hand and I jerked it. Stroke, stroke, ten strokes, my own chest working in hard big breaths: ten strokes and then I was cumming. My balls clenched. My cum came up. I felt it rise, almost an explosion. The spurt jetted, one pulse after another. The first shot hit him in the neck, then another one hit his chest, another one hit his belly and somehow a drop got up on his forehead. I kept squirting. It went on his belly coming out in a glaze. It got on his crotch. I shot my cum all over him while he cringed back with his eyes so big and round.

When I finished cumming on him Ethan brought his hands up to protect his face. He got his arms around his head and he got his knees closed and up to protect his crotch. He thought I was going to beat the shit out of him. So I stood up. That put me standing over him with him on the floor. It wasn't any better. For all those words he sometimes had, he didn't have a word then. My cock dripped.

I stepped back and then Ethan rolled over convulsively and crawled away from me. His mouth worked like he was going to try to say something. He got up and stood behind the ladder like it was cover. I told him I wasn't going to hit him by not hitting him. I got my clothes and started to dress. I felt my heart thudding. I felt good. I'd cum really good. I'd cum incredibly good and yet I hadn't even fucked the guy or got sucked and he hadn't cum at all. He was shaking like an old guy with Parkinson's when he got dressed.

"You asshole." Ethan said, and his voice shook like the rest of him. "You total fucking asshole!"

It was almost the end of August. I didn't have the words to say to Ethan what I wanted. I could say hey, you wanted it just as much as I did. You were creaming into my hand, Faggot. I mean, if the talky guy wouldn't talk to me no more, how was I going to talk to him? I couldn't say, Hey, I would have like it better if you had cum. Because there was this wary, angry stillness about him. He didn't come anywhere near me. He kept ten feet between us. He didn't try and get a rise out of me, saying something at me to try and make me talk. He didn't read out loud at me. He just kept his back against the wall, and it was two days later I heard that Ethan was quitting the job, going to stop working at night so he could do more studying, starting the weekend of Labor Day.

Ethan, I thought. When we were both at work I was careful not to stare at him. I stared at the wall. Now, how do I tell him that I'm fucking pissed off at him for getting so scared? Like, I beat up guys if they ask for it, but he should fucking know I wasn't going to beat him up, the same as he knew he wasn't asking for it. I looked at him sideway and his eyes were on me and he almost backed up when he saw my look. I'm not finished, I wanted to say. I still want to fuck you. I'm not finished. I never got my cock in your mouth. Ethan, don't pretend you didn't like it. You were just as fucking turned on as I was.

But if I yelled at him I'd lose the words I wanted to say. And even if I didn't lose them, all he would hear was the yelling.

I wondered had been maybe planning all along to take off on me, and he had been about to sneak off not telling me? Or had he suddenly that night made up his mid to take off. Both ways it was fucking wrong. I needed him. I didn't want Ethan to go. Who would read the dumb poetry to me?

It was the next Saturday I was in a pool hall waiting for Cristylle who had been supposed to be there at seven-thirty when Orville came sauntering up to me where I was bumping the balls across the green felt.

"Hey, Brutus."

I looked over at him. A pool hall, of course was the wrong place to punch his fucking guts out. So I didn't say anything. He came over under the bright light that shone of the table and leaned his elbows on the rim. He looked over at me sideways.

"I hear the guy you work with is leaving at the end of this week." He said.

"How'd you hear that?" I said.

"I asked around." He said.

I lined up another shot and sank it, two balls in the pocket before I looked at the guy again. Inside I had gone patient. Orville, interested in my business? I had to find out what this one was about.

He leaned in close again. "How'd you like to make a eight-hundred bucks for doing nothing?"

The deal was pretty simple. The last pair of guys on the midnight crew had got sacked for something similar. They'd let someone in and that someone had made off with a truckload of fiberboard and strap. It was pretty heavy stuff to swipe, but there was a market for it in the construction trade. Orville had a couple of friends who were doing non-U construction work under the table and they had a place they could sell the materials if I could let them in the plant. The way Orville figured it was, with Ethan on his way out and him the guy carrying the keys, I could let them in and it would look like it was Ethan did it when they found the materials gone.

"You're not a buddy with him, are you?" Orville asked.

"Not anymore." I said.

"You think you could get the keys?" Orville asked.

Ethan left the keys with his pile of textbooks on the table every night. I could get the keys easy. I gave a nod.

"You want in?" He said.

"How did you hear the guy was leaving?" I asked.

So Orville told me about the guy that got Ethan his job, who worked in the management at the plant. He was Ethan's next-door neighbor out in High Meadow Park. His name was Mickey Manville and he had got the same job for his own son the year before. The son was named Wendy, short for Wendell. The son was one of the guys got laid off after materials had got ripped off last summer. Wendy lived with his dad, right next door to Ethan. He was Orville's lead into the whole business. He was even going to be one of the guys doing the midnight loading, him and Orville and another guy if I either got them a key or let them in.

"Better I get you a key." I said slowly. They had Ethan and me working over night during the week and they had some security guard in days, during the weekend, but they didn't have nobody in the plant weekend nights. If I got Orville a key they could do the break in then.

Orville thought that was a great idea, and he gave me his phone number on a bit of paper so I could call him once I had the key cut. And it was lucky Cristylle never showed up at all or Orville might have remembered it was my sister whose arm he had broken. She was still in the cast. But I don't think he would have. He knew Cristylle still wanted to go out with him, so I think maybe he thought he was my brother-in-law.

The next night I worked steady fast at my mopping, so I was done at twelve-thirty and I had most likely an hour before Ethan was done. The guy was doing his mopping real slow the last couple of nights, like he was taking his time getting down to the break room with me. That was real stupid shit, because if I wanted to rape his ass all I had to do was walk over to where he was working and do it to him. But I didn't go after Ethan. I went to where he had the pile of books and the keys and the cell phone on the table.

I thought of it like this. There was no way I could talk to the guy, right? I didn't have the right kind of words to tell him. For a guy that talks poetry maybe you have to talk poetry back at him for him to understand you. So I picked up "Critical Analysis of Selected Literature" and I looked for a poem to say what I wanted. Well, hell, there were a couple of hundred poems in that book. You'd think there would be one that would say it. I flipped through them slowly, recognizing some poems he had read and finding others he hadn't, new ones. I read some of the new ones slowly.

"How do I love thee, let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach." Well, fuck! The first five words I thought maybe that one could say it for me. But what a crock of shit! It was all just drivel, not stuff that you could make a meaning out of, no matter how you thought about it. How far can a soul reach? Twenty feet? Two inches? A soul doesn't have fingers. The poem didn't say anything, not anything real.

I tried another one "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars." Because I was looking for a poem that said don't go away. But that one was another piece of crap. I kept flipping pages. Roses and myrtle and what the fuck is myrtle anyway? Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss. Wrong. Not what I wanted to say. Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me. Shit. Shit. Shit. The fucking poems didn't say my thoughts. Cocksucking book! I sat there an hour and Ethan wasn't come yet.

When I heard him in the hall, coming along with the bucket on wheels, the soft faint swish of his mop and the dribble of water. I knew I had no time left to look at his book without him knowing. I had a poem, but it wasn't right. It was one of the poems that he had read to me before. But I read it over, two, three times quickly and by the time Ethan put his mop away and came into the room I had the book back on the table beside the keys.

Ethan looked at me very quiet and went and sat down on his side of the table and he shuffled around and picked up "Introduction to Economics." He was right near the end of the book. He read it, eyes flickering up to me from time to time and I looked at him, that mouth with a crook in the upper lip and those shoulders, pulled in tight with my eyes on him. One time he looked up and me and I looked back at him, but he didn't say nothing, he put his shoulders up and looked back down into his book again.

So finally it was time to get some of the chore list done and he hadn't read me no poems. He put his economics book back on the pile and drew a breath in. I knew he was going to stand up. So then I spoke to him.

"Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at the end know dark is right, Because their words have forked no lightening they Do not go gentle into that good night."

He sat silent while I said it through. Maybe I mumbled it, said it too quiet so he didn't hear it. But it was the wrong poem anyway. I told him not to go and of course he didn't understand it. There were too many words in the poem that said things I didn't want to say and not enough words saying what I wanted to. He listened to me until I said it all. He sat there a few seconds more looking at me like I had grown two heads, and then he gave a sigh and stood up.

"I figure we'll leave the fluorescents alone again tonight. We've got to see about hauling all that scrap beside cutter number six down to the dumpster." Said Ethan.

I called Orville on Saturday afternoon, after Ethan was gone for good. "I got the keys." I said.

"Fuck yeah!" His voice was hard and bright. "You wanna meet us, down at the plant round about ten-thirty?"

"No." I said.

There was a bit of a pause. "What do you wanna do?"

"I ain't letting you into the plant. I told you. I'm just bringing you the keys."

"Way faster if you meet us down by the plant. We can bring the truck, do the job right off. And fuck, if you load with us maybe I can give you a couple of hundred more. We'll get more on, get out faster." Orville told me.

"No." I said.

"Shit, Man. You're stupid, make a bit more money if you help us." He protested.

"I get eight-hundred dollars, you get the keys." I said.

His voice changed. "I don't have eight-hundred dollars yet. You get the money after we get paid for the board."

"No money?" I said. "No keys."

"Wait! Don't hang up you big stupid asshole! I don't have the money. We'll sell the shit this weekend; Monday I'll have the money. You'll get your eight-hundred then."

"No." I said.

"Ah, shit!" he said. "Don't hang up! Don't fucking hang up, Man! I'll get you the money, okay? Gimme a chance. I'll get it this afternoon. Wendy'll get me the money. Fuck, you're a retard. It's a sure thing. You don't need your money in advance. But I'll get it for you."

"Wendy?" I said.

"Yeah, yeah. He can get it. We'll have it for you, maybe nine o'clock. How's that? You call me again, about eight o'clock? Then we'll come out where ever you are, meet you. But you better have a good copy of the key. You know, you're asking me to trust you but you don't trust me. You don't do good in a deal, Brutus. You're too fucking mean about it."

"I'll call you." I said.

So I called him and this time Orville told me to come out to High Meadow Park. "Come up here." He said. "You don't got a car? Grab a taxi. We'll meet you here. Come up to the Green Bank subdivision. It's all the ranch style houses, up on the right above the highway. 136 Myrtle. You got that?"

"Yeah." I said. I figured it was his friend Wendy's house. Well, that made sense. Wendy had got the money for them. I knew it had to be Wendy's house. He told me Wendy was the next-door neighbor to Ethan, and Ethan lived at 140 Myrtle. I'd seen it on his student card.

"Is it quiet up there?" I said.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want nobody to see me meeting with you." I said.

"Yeah, it's quiet." He gave a laugh. "It's suburbia. Whattya think? More trees than people walking by. It don't even got no sidewalks."

"Good." I said.

I went up to High Meadow Park on the bus. I'd gone by it before but never walked around. It was like Orville had said. The houses were all ranch style, split level with evergreen shrubs outside them. They had lawns in the front and garages with driveways that slanted down sharp because the garages were in the basement. All the streets had names like flowers; Rose Alley and Lilac Lane and Peony Place. But Myrtle was just a plain street. Number 140 had a red brick foundation with shrubs around it, and white aluminum siding above that. Number 136 was two doors down and pretty much the same; only it had light blue aluminum siding. There wasn't nobody out walking around. I looked all around at the dark lawns and the houses with outside lights, and here and there a window bright behind curtains, maybe flashing blue with the light of TV. One car went by in all the time I was walking up Myrtle Street. It was quiet enough for what I wanted. I rang the door buzzer at 136.

Orville came out in the front, and two guys behind him. "Hey Brutus!" He started.

I said, "I'll meet ya down there." I pointed. There was a playground down on the corner lot, the opposite way up from Ethan's place. I walked right off from him down the street, down where there the grass was flat and dark without lights. After a moment the three guys came after me. I heard Orville curse and I heard the door bang.

I walked all the way down until I was in the darkest place, under the swings, standing on the sand. And the three guys came trailing after me. They stood in a row. Orville had a bit of a nervous chuckle in his voice. "This is Wendy, Brutus, and this is Doug. They're in on this thing with us. Gonna help with the loading and unloading. Doug's gonna get a good price for us..." Orville was nodding.

The other two guys looked at me kind of wary. One of them said, "You got the keys?"

"You got the money?" I said. I put my hand down in my pocket.

"You really sure you don't want to make a bit of extra money getting in on the load and unloading, Brutus? I could maybe go as high as five hundred for your help. That's not too bad for half a night's work." Orville said. He was talking fast, still on that, wanting my help.

"No." I said. Then I took him by the arm and I said. "Remember what you did to my sister Cristylle last month?" and I broke his arm bending hard against the slanted metal pole of the swing set.

Orville gave a scream and he fell off his feet. He swung a punch at me that didn't hit. One of the guys, I think it was Doug swung a punch at me and it did hit. It connected good. But the last guy, Wendy started to dance and he yelped, "We're going to get you the money!"

Orville was down on his knees, so I put my boot into his belly. Then he wasn't going to go nowhere until I'd had time to come back to him, so I went after Doug. Doug was still jabbing punches. I got one in under his throat, lower than I wanted so that he staggered back. It was three against one, but that was nothing. Already Wendy was streaking back to his house running as fast as he could go yelping, "Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!" like he was chasing a dog had that name.

So I punched Doug around, just hitting him so long as he was staying up on his feet hitting me. I didn't want to kill the guy. He was just some fucking loser going into business with Orville, so all I had to do was hit him until there was blood all coming down his face and he was staggering back from me with his arms up. He wasn't going to stop me doing my work on Orville.

Now Orville was on his feet and he was weaving around, trying to take off, going around me, but I went after him and got him again, and I bunted his balls up into his belly before I caught him and pulled him up to look at me.

"You hurt my sister." I told him. Then I hit him some more, breaking his nose. I wasn't meaning to kill him any more than I especially wanted to kill Doug. It was just making sure he got real intimate with my fist. I took my time, looking in at the big round rolling whites of his eyes, letting him get a breath back, a few seconds between every time I hit him.

But then I heard Wendy running back, the grit scritch of his sneakers as he skidded on the sand on the concrete. He was coming back fast. I looked up and seen through the corner of my eye he was alone, coming back as fast as he took off. I knew right off what he had brought.

I could have run myself. I saw the gun in his hand, small and black and his first shot went wild, shooting while he was running. The loud crack made the playground shake. There was a red flash of flame in his fist. I didn't think about running away. I grabbed Orville by the shirt and swung him around in front of Wendy and me. I just did it, it happened. The next shot came from just fifteen feet and it hit Orville in the chest.

The man's head went back smack against my shoulder. I held him up as a shield. Wendy stopped running and the noise he made was a gabble, something like a turkey makes, urk-urk-urk when he seen he shot his friend. He couldn't stop running right away he was going so fast, so then I was charging, pushing Orville forward, his legs sliding limp between mine as he became a dead weight. I threw Orville into Wendy, kicked Wendy and then took off myself.

I went straight for the playground fence, hopped it and then I zigzagged. Wendy had time to bring the gun up again, but I didn't hear another shot. He only fired them two. Shooting was more than I planned for, so it was time I took off. Anyway, I didn't think Orville was dead. His arms had been moving, and now I could hear a man screaming, a high rasping shriek, meaningless. I thought it was most likely Orville because I hadn't hit Wendy so hard his voice would have gone animal like that. I took into the trees.

But then I found myself in a backyard, and there were lights in that house, so I turned left sharp running along there. I hopped another fence. Get me the fuck out of here! I wasn't so scared, though I was wide-awake enough. But I had to be long gone before the cops got there. With shots fired, a man got a bullet in their chest the cops would be on their way fastest car they could get there. If all I'd done was beat up Orville he would have crawled off to the hospital, and no cops involved. He wouldn't want to say my name or the business about the key and the business about what he done to Cristylle would have come out. But Orville was shot so it was time to make myself scarce.

I took it running for only two houses. Then I slowed down and walked. A running man stands out clear. And that was the problem. Up in High Meadow Park I didn't look so right. I didn't dress right. I didn't look like I was the same type as lived there. Back uptown I coulda slipped into an alley, run just a block or two past enough guys that looked enough like me the cops woulda had to check them out if they thought I'd run that way. Or I coulda found one of my cousins' places not far off and gone to ground in his apartment. But here in suburbia I was going to stick out like a stripper at a Pentecostal Meeting Hour.

There was a lotta cover in the trees and shrubs, sure, but it was all in people's backyards and doors were opening and people were coming out. I couldn't skulk in people's backyards or I was going to run into a dog. I saw them on their front steps moving out into the middle of the road, craning their necks to see down the street. A neighborhood like this one didn't hear shots being fired too often. I needed a place I could lie low.

That was how I ended up behind the tall shrub right beside the front door at Ethan's house. I rung his buzzer. Now I was thinking some woman would come out, Ethan's mother or else his dad, so I was behind the tree and if it was an old man or an old woman, anyone but Ethan I'd have just take off. But when I heard the door open it was Ethan came uncertainly three steps out on his concrete patio.

A moment later I was standing beside him and then I was inside his door. My arm brushed up against his chest as I squeezed by. I didn't have to grab him. He stepped back with me and I got his door closed. It was a white clean hall, smooth vacuumed pale green carpet and pictures hanging on the walls. Ethan was chest to chest with me with his eyes flashing dark. I was the one breathing real hard. Just for one moment he stared at me, and from the wideness of his eyes I knew he'd heard those shots outside.

So I kissed him and he put his arms up tight around my neck grabbing me. And he said "Jesus!" and kissed me back real hard. I didn't expect him to kiss me back.

We didn't kiss but one minute and then he had a hard on riding up on my thigh, but Ethan broke the kiss. "You got blood on your hand!" He groaned. "Brutus, what are you running from? What's going on?"

"They missed me." I said, and then he kissed me so hard, tongue in my mouth I couldn't tell him any more. I was going to tell him I wasn't just running from the guy that had the gun, I was hiding out from the cops, but I guess he knew that. A moment more and he let go of me and took my hand.

"You're alright? You didn't get hurt?" He took me after him. There were narrow green-carpeted stairs going down. He took me down to his basement. There was a couch there, a carpet and a TV, a box of videos and a musty smell.

"You're alright?" He said. "You need a place to hide out, right? Down here. But keep it quiet. My mom's upstairs."

I gave a nod.

"Be quiet!" He said, half laughing and half choked up. "I'm telling you to be quiet. As if you ever would make a noise!" He put his hands on me, on my sleeves, up and down, eyes going over my body, quick checking from my feet up. It was like he was expecting me to be shot. He had to check again. He brought his eyes back up to my face. "Brutus!" he said.

And I said, " I will make you brooches and toys for your delight."

"What?" said Ethan.

"I will make you brooches and toys for your delight." I repeated. "Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me, of green days in forests and blue days at sea."

"Oh poetry!" He said. "Use your own words. You don't have to say it in poems. Don't you know how to say it?"

I shook my head.

Then he took my face in his hands, both of them on either side and he kissed me again. So I kissed him and pulled the buttons of his shirt open. He gave a groan. I didn't have the words to say what it was. I had only the feeling in the palms of my hands wanting to touch him, only the feeling of my cock wanting it inside the heat of his body. I could feel what I wanted.

In another minute I had his pants down all sagging at his knees and my hand on his hard on again, pumping it and I was pulling him up close against my body while I worked his cock. He put his mouth on my neck and I worked it, then I dragged him over to the couch and he kicked his trousers off.

"Don't fuck me without taking your own clothing off." He said up at me.

I stood over him, ripping my shirt off, up over my head, pants down, stepping out of them. "Fuck!" said Ethan, as I got naked. He grabbed his own cock and clutched it. I got on top of him. His skin writhed electric warmth under me. He grabbed my ass and pulled me in tight to him so I was humping him, riding his legs and then he was leaning up and kissing and nipping at my chest. We writhed and squirmed and struggled so much against each other's bodies it was like we were wrestling. But I was wrestling to make him feel good, putting my mouth on his mouth, on his skin, on his belly, on his cock, anything to make him feel good and he was humping me and sliding his hands all over me. He was groaning again.

After a bit I got on my back on the couch. I was heavier. I got him on top of me and his thighs clamped on me, riding me as he rubbed his dick against me. I squeezed his ass, urging him to ride harder. His eyes were wide and his lips were open like he was in awe. But he wasn't looking blind scared this time. He was riding me. He was in control. So that was how I told him I wasn't doing it to scare him and I wasn't doing it to hurt him. I just wanted to fuck him, that was all.

I did fuck him. I got him on his side and me behind him and I got lower, guiding it up into his ass, prying him open. But his asshole was tight and it made him choke so I slowed down, kissing and biting his back. "Use some more spit, please, you're killing me." Ethan moaned. I kissed his back and took it out. I got more spit on it. I got him on all fours, so I was behind him sitting and I guided him back.

"Ah, ow, fuck, ow..." Ethan said. I coaxed him, pulling down just a little, not enough to make him sit down on my dick, just enough to tell him I was ready. He slid his ass down on me myself. "Uh... Owww. It's too fucking large! Uh!" He said and he stopped and then he pushed down again and he stopped again and then pushed. All the while I was burning, my cock inside his body going into that heat, feeling the throb of his pulses. It was good so I was groaning.

I didn't do so much thrusting like I thought I would. I couldn't do it. Ethan had such a tight ass. I just did it slow, let him do it slow, only a few strokes. And then he got off me and he was laughing and groaning all at once. "It hurts, Brutus. I'm sorry. I don't have the experience for this. It feels good but it just hurts!"

So I kissed him and he turned around to face me and let me kiss him and hold his ass.

"I don't know how to take your cock." He said.

I put him on his back. I picked up his knees and held them leaning down, leaning forward between his legs. His cock stuck out stiff and again it was gleaming with the pre- cum that he seeped. I licked the shaft of his cock. I licked up and down it and he whimpered. "Uh... " I took his cock in my mouth, firm and smooth and just the right size and shape for my mouth, sucking and bobbing up and down. Ethan blew out air he was panting so hard. I sucked his cock a bit, tasting that salt, sucking hard and slick and wet.

He didn't know what I was doing when I stopped. I guided him up. I got my knees rolled back into my chest and him on top of me. Ethan had pretty big eyes again as I guided him down. "Je... Jesus." I lined his dick up against my ass, held my own cheeks open.

"Oh..." He let me guide it in. The thickness of his cock opened me and he shuddered. "Oh!" and then he started fucking me, stroke after stroke and he could lean in, I could pull him down and kiss him. I kissed him while he fucked me. I pushed back, rocking with him his heat inside me, thick and probing in my asshole.

He kept fucking me. Down in the basement we couldn't hear nothing outside. It was him and me and the sweat smell of his skin and the soft wiriness of his hair and that cock, going in and out, slick, steady, fucking me, fucking me emphatic hard. He started grunting, pushing to get it. I clutched him. His tongue started moving in my mouth, as automatic, uncontrolled as his driving prick. Then he was grinding, not thrusting, making a strangled noise, cumming inside me. I felt him cum but the jerking of his body and his rolled back eyes would have told me even if I didn't feel it.

I didn't push him off. He got back himself and then he got down between my legs and put my cock in his mouth. He took it all in, pretty much, taking it deep and I saw his eyelids as he started his head bobbing. He had closed his eyes. He knew how taut my balls were drawn up, knew how close I was already. So he sucked me good and hard and fast. I pulled my hands back. If I grabbed his neck and dragged his head in deep I'd scare him. I might choke the guy. I couldn't grab his shoulders and pull him down. I couldn't fuck his face. I had to let him do the sucking, so I knotted my fists and flung my head back. And he kept on sucking my cock in deep, swallowing so he could get it down his throat, working his lips tight on me.

I felt the first spurt, felt it, rocked with it. I shot my spunk in Ethan's mouth. I shot it in his gullet and on his tongue and I kept spurting while he sucked and rocked.

Afterwards my crotch was a slimy mess. Because he swallowed some of it but more he didn't swallow, so my dick was slick and white with cum blobs. Ethan sat up out of breath looking at me and I lay back out of breath looking up at him. Presently he moved in a little way so I lifted my arm up and he lay down in my arm.

"I fucked your ass." He said talking slow with surprise.

That was right so I didn't say anything.

"I thought you hated gay guys." He said.

I looked at him for a moment and then I kissed his forehead because I couldn't reach his mouth.

"I guess you don't, huh?" said Ethan.

I shook my head.

So he'd figured out I wasn't fucking him because I hated him and he figured out he could tell me no and I wouldn't hurt him. And I didn't figure out how to tell him what I did feel about him, but I guess I didn't have to tell him. I was getting to fuck him, getting to see him cumming, which was what I wanted. And he must have wanted it pretty bad too, because he didn't even suggest me leaving, not that whole night. He was just glad to lie out on his couch, naked with me.

"I'm gonna miss reading poetry to you." He said.

I stroked his shoulders.

"I'm gonna miss you fucking around with me." He said. "You were pulling down my zip, weren't you? Right?"

I gave a nod.

"You fucking asshole!" He said laughing. "I paid over a hundred dollars buying new pairs of pants."

"I can give you a hundred dollars." I said.

He gave a snort. "I don't want your money. I just didn't want to be scared of you any more!"

"You still scared?" I asked.

He gave a kind of grin. "You think I shouldn't be?"

It seemed to me maybe he should be. Like, I'd been involved in the shooting and just beaten Orville up bad. The guy would have been in the hospital even if he hadn't been shot. Ethan was a guy going to university, and I wasn't much more than a hood. Like, how could two guys so different have any kind of a thing together? I was too dumb to talk and he was going to graduate university, be some kind of a professional, a lawyer or a chartered accountant or something.

But he gave a sigh and lay down alongside of me again. "Any time you want to come around here, I mean, even if you're not on the run with guns going off and the cops after you, I'd be real glad to see you. You don't talk much, but you listen real well."

"Any time?" I said.

"Well, I mean you'll frighten the bejeezus out of my parents if they see you." He said. "But if, you know, I didn't disappoint you by being too much of a weenie to take you up my butt. I'd really like to see you some more -- and do this, if you wanna do this."

I gave a nod.

"You going to come?" He said with a grin.

I gave a nod again.