Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 12:16:52 -0300
From: Ruthless <ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca>
Subject: "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.