Dr. James Macklevan is a pulmonologist. He is divorced.
He was a doctor, a pulmonologist, and he lived in a nice house at the end of a long driveway. The house was big, and the lawn was manicured. But you could see signs of wear and inattention. The mulched areas around the house were overrun and untended. One shutter was missing. The paint was peeling in parts. A bucket of children’s toys lay on the lawn and had been there long enough to have faded from the sun and grown green from algae. The car in the driveway had dents and rusty patches.
“I got no math skills, okay? Ya daddy, he tells me the figgahs to collect, but sometimes he gets aftuh me, I vexes him fer sho’, on account of me not exactementay doin’ it right. Addin’ it up, or like…” He paused and bristled. “You’d think he do be saying, oh go rassimble ten dollah from Monjwa Prêteur. But it ain’t, it’s more go get ten pehcent of this or get five pehcent of it wort’ outta sugah from de mill, and ya gotta convuht between dollahs and pounds of sookuh,” Buck said. “And sometimes folks be payin’ in fuckin’ bushels of cohn or automo-bile ti’es or some shit, and I ain’t… Numbuhs ain’t my strong suit, Simon.”
Simon ain’t never seen Buck blush before, but beneath his scruffy chin and cheeks, rouge deluged his skin. Simon patted him on the arm, clad in cotton and with palpable hairs beneath the fabric. Simon smiled too, because he liked hearing Buck swear — Simon was still young, and men often didn’t swear in front of him. Additionally, Simon enjoyed hearing Buck say ‘tires’: tiha’uhz. He fit a universe of vowels into that word.
A man who couldn’t pay his debt ain’t enough of a man to defend his wife either.
Rocky wasn’t like that. He was no rapist.
And Mister Gregarian done made it clear that Rocky could turn the wives out on their backs, legs spread for whoever could pay the debt. That was a consequence of deadbeatery. A man who couldn’t pay his debt ain’t enough of a man to defend his wife either. Rocky wasn’t like that. He was no rapist. If a woman had gotta sell her cherry pie, he wouldn’t stand in her way, but he wouldn’t make her do it. He done explained that to Signor Caraldo, and he explained it today yet again to Signor DeSantos.
Doing decades inside for a gang gave Thumper lotta respect. He ain’t know none the niggas in the Baltimore Bloods these days. But Carson set Thumper up and kept him happy. Every single nigga in the organization was watching close. They all knew there was a good chance they’d be locked up at some point. Nobody wanna rely on they parole officer when they graduate outta the iron college. So Carson set Thumper up with employ as a bouncer at that strip club, Lipsweet. But Thumper ain’t allowed to work there cuz the club got a liquor license — the terms of his parole forbidded him to work anywhere they serve booze — so Carson arranged for Thumper to hire on at a private security agency. It was owned by Mr. Gregarian, the same man who own Lipsweet, so he was working at Lipsweet but for a different company, a company that ain’t got no liquor license. Thumper was glad to work a proper job. That road-crew nonsense trifled more than a overflown tub of nobody’s farts, and Thumper bin looking forward to something more his style. “You gotsta wear a clean shirt and pants e’ry day,” said Tyrell Brickley. He was another thick-through Blood who worked for Mr. Gregarian, and he showed Thumper the ropes around the club. “Mistuh Gregarian get a mad curl if you show up lookin’ trashy. He want you wearing clean shoes too. No boots, no sneakers. Jeans is okay. But don’t sag ’em too deep, if he see drawers he get steamy, and he do monologue about it.” Thumper nodded. He could do that. He done rub noses with Mr. Gregarian decades ago, when Thumper was a regular at Lipsweet. Thumper got respect for him. Mr. Gregarian was a long-finger pinkie-ring honky, not some slop-pie hickpile like most the white whombodies Thumper met in lockup. The bar was smoky and lush tonight. Bundles of blunted niggas mumbled luscious words on the underhush as womens juggled they abundant stuff on the stage. Thumper wanna watch too, but he gotsta man the front door, collecting cover charges and checking IDs. He couldn’t catch more than a glimpse of girlbits now and then. He was hoping to peep that Sherry girl again, but she weren’t dancing tonight. Midway through the evening, he got to crack slaps at a couple skulls, after some suited honkies stayed groping upon one of the females. That felt damn good. Thumper ain’t never get to punch a white man in a suit. He could get used to that. “You done good, you knocked them fellahs out cold,” Tyrell said when Thumper got back to the door. “Mistuh Gregarian know lotta cops. If a fellah need a punch, don’t worry, Mistuh Gregarian won’t let’chu get in no kinda trouble for it. He can make shit like that go away, so long as you keep the peace in his club right.” He paused. “And wear clean shoes. He real particular about shoes.” Thumper nodded. “Is my clothes okay, nigga? I know it’s old-fashion. I don’t own lotta options.” Thumper kept it to hisself that he ain’t know how to buy clothes no more. He ain’t find nothing in Baltimore that he considered a normal men’s clothes store. If he asked, Carson would tell him to google it. He did google it, and the only stores he could hoof it to was a place just for tee shirts with dirty jokes on ’em, a “antifascist surf and skater joint” and a store that sold nurses’ scrubs to plus-size ladies. He ended up in a thrift shop buying the kinda clothes he wore before, which was then retro but now was fossils. He might as well wear a dinosaur. Where did a normal nigga buy new rags nowadays? Tyrell waved him off. “Mistuh Gregarian is old-fashioned. I bet he likes yo’ clothes,” he said. “He prolly say you dress classy.” Once Thumper washed the blood off his knuckles in the sink behind the bar, Tyrell bade him back to the door. A line done develop as the nocturne progressed. Couple crackers scattered in alongside some Lay-Oceans and ashamey Arabs, but most the Lipsweet-goers was niggas, who sneaked looks through the doorway even before they paid they cover charge. But mostly all them leery lusters in line stayed nose-deep in they phones. One those sneaky-peekers caught Thumper’s eye. Rashid Somebutt. He couldn’t remember his last name, but he was Rashid. He was in prison, in 19C with Thumper, weren’t he? He was a roundbody darkskin bullethead nigga with dappy eyes, gappy teeth and a fatty neck, steady slapping his belly and laughing with machine gun lungs. But Rashid Somebutt ain’t notice Thumper, or if he did, he hid it good. He was drunk in line, wobbling his thicknesses like jello, talking with volume, deep on the slur. So maybe he really ain’t recognize Thumper. On the other hand, Thumper only bin out a couple months. He ain’t look no different. Rashid Somebutt looked the same too. He was always thick as a dick, lifting mad weights with the big boys, but he ain’t never work out in a organized way. He ain’t never do no cardio, so he got that stout-nigga booty, and his belly ain’t never go away. Rashid sat at the bar, nursing a whiskey and a phone, after his niggas was gone. Lipsweet emptied into quietude, and the only sound in Thumper’s ear was the smell of hungry pussy. Rashid be staring at them remnant females on his lonesome but ain’t none them give Rashid no mind. He only got a lapdance earlier when his niggas paid for it — he was a ghetto-nigga’s nigga, and them strippers and whores could smell his dollar-poor dick. They stayed away. That was prison life sticking to him, Thumper reckoned. A free man can splurge on urges. A prison nigga hoards like a stingy dragon. “Yo, how was yo’ first night?” Tyrell Brickley asked when the bar was damn near dead, just a few minutes before close. They weren’t to let no one else in this late, so Thumper was done doormanning. They was giving the drunks and solos time to down they dregs — Teddy the bartender done last-call a minute ago. Thumper nodded. “Fine,” he said. He motioned to Rashid. “You recollect that nigga?” “Rashid Jenkins? Yeah, he was in 19C wit’ us,” Tyrell said. Thumper licked his teeth. “Hell yeah. I knew it was him. Rashid Jenkins! Couldn’t remembuh his name,” he said. He kept his salty eye on Rashid. “He come here a lot?” Tyrell shrugged. “Yeah, think so. He got prison-brain. He stuck in that cell, nigga, he be getting violent at the drop of a hat, talk too rough for the girls, even the ghetto bitches. That dancer Ebonette say he lick pussy like it was a lollipop that slapped his mama.” Tyrell laughed as he went to assist some drunken lugnuts in wobbling out the door. But Thumper’s brain wrinkled on Rashid, parked at the bar, a-poking at his phone like a lazy baby. Frowning his brown, Rashid phoned down and stood up to peace out, only to see he got no niggas about. “Yo, Rashid?” Thumper said, coming up close as clothes to that jiggity nigga’s crunk mug. He squinted at Thumper like he was far away. “Thumper?” His hips swayed, but he kept his head still. “Hell yeah, nigga!” Thumper said. He patted hisself on the chest and beamed brightly. “Rashid, you son of a bitch, c’m’ere, homeskillet!” He hugged Rashid tight. That nigga was thick and soft like a mushy pillow, and he smelled like a crowded barbershop. That reminded Thumper why Rashid stuck to his mind as fresh as yesterday’s tossed salad. For most his prison sentence, Rashid owed the Bloods big blocks of cheddar. Rashid ain’t never was good at resisting drink, smokes, and dice, and he stay mad underwriting checks his cabbage couldn’t cash — he owed dollars with a profusion. And in prison, there’s rules about that shit. If a nigga owe money, any other nigga is allowed to repay a part of that debt, and that nigga who owe gotsta do what that other nigga say. There was a mountain of rules about what was permissible. Ain’t none those rules suggest they stop applying when that nigga get outta prison. “C’mon, lemme show you this female in the back. She a real eager skeezer, no diggity,” Thumper said. He motioned for Rashid to follow him into the back, and then he headed back there without waiting to see if Rashid would follow. Thumper was glad to get away from the music, which was a threesome of sedated white girl rapping like dreary puppies. “Hell yeah,” Rashid said. “My friends all went home with that bitch Caitlin Smiles. She be chargin’ per head though, and I can’t afford even a handjob from her. Bitches be trippin’.” He followed Thumper into the back hallway and then into a tiny office. Rashid faced the desk, but Thumper stayed behind him to shut the door. Then Thumper grabbed Rashid’s pants and boxers and pulled them down before Rashid could respond. Then all that came out was a discomfitted grunt. He ain’t try to pull away from Thumper. His thick brown asscheeks was bare and soft, and Thumper groaned with desire. His thick fingers gripped Rashid’s buttcrack beneath his pants and drawers. He got one thick booty, enough to make Thumper whistle and smile. “Nah, no nigga, nah, nah, I ain’t locked up no more,” Rashid said. He moved away, towards the desk in the office, but Thumper followed and pushed him over the desktop. That swole booty aimed up, and Thumper bared it thoroughly. He kneaded the flesh of both buttcheeks. “Hmm-hmm, hush up. I’s allowed in you still. Ain’t I pay for booty buncha times on the upfront and you still owe me one?” “No! I done all that! I gave it up e’ry time you paid for, nigga!” Rashid said, squealing like a sweetened seal. “You on that booty bandit trip! We ain’t inside no mo’.” He turned around, but Thumper forcefully shoved him to face the back of the office. Rashid weren’t a weak man, but he ain’t work out on the reg like Thumper neither. Thumper was a semi-pro boxer before his arrest, and though his body got older, it ain’t get a lick weaker. And Rashid got his pants around his ankles, his flop-a-doodah flipping this way and that, so he ain’t got leverage to pull away.
In seconds, Thumper pulled his pud out too, and he be jabbing it into Rashid’s thigh and buttcheek. His skin was hot and soft, and it got Thumper’s limpen meat throbbing. Thumper kept on the stroke to get it hard, but he ain’t stop ramming it.
“Nah, Thump, you can’t-” Rashid tried to shove him off, but all he could do was shuffle forward with his pants around his ankles. There was a wall afront him. He bent his knees to lean over and pull his pants up. “Sssssh…” Thumper grunted and pistoned his hips. His dick rammed into Rashid’s asshole. In most men, Rashid’s clenching woulda kept Thumper from penetrating him. But Rashid done took it up the butt enough that Thumper could push the tip in. He was just barely firm enough to do that. Rashid gritted his teeth. “Ow, shit, nigga-“ “I’ll lube it up,” Thumper said. “If you co’op’rate, nigga.” He ain’t stop drilling it in, pushing Rashid head-first onto the desk. Rashid almost fell. He got a good inch and a half in before the pressure from Rashid’s sphincter, as he tried to repel Thumper’s cocktip, was enough to give him a full-on erection. “Ow, nigga, Thumper!” Rashid gritted his teeth. Thumper’s rod was stiff as sticks now, and it rubbed in harshly. “Fine, shit!” “You co’op’ratin’?” Thumper asked. He stopped thundering his shaft in, but he kept swaying it left and right, just teasing Rashid. He ain’t take none of it out neither. Just an inch or two was in his guts, but that was enough for Rashid to grimace and nod. “Yeah, nigga, I’ll — shit!” Rashid grunted. “Shit, Thump, c’mon, nigga!” The office was Haykh Gregarian’s — Mr. Gregarian’s son — who pimped the bitches out here, so Thumper was sure he had some lube in the desk. Sure enough, there was a big tub of some fancy-looking lube with French on the label. He smeared a fistful on his cock without taking it outta Rashid’s booty, then worked it into the hole by oozing his dick back and forth. He almost lost his hardon as he went, but then the lube got warm and made his ramrod easy to slip in deeper. Finally Rashid just gripped the desk, bent his knees a little and let Thumper at it. He’d learned it was best not to fight it. “C’mon, nigga, make some them noises, you was good at that,” Thumper said. “Nuh-uh-“ “Yeah, like moanin’ like a female. Don’t grunt like that, it’s nasty-“ “Wasn’t me! Shit, nigga!” Rashid gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. His hands snaked to his buttcheeks to spread ’em. He kept grunting and seething with each thrust of Thumper’s cock into him. “You thinkin’ of Banter.” “What? Who?” Thumper stopped moving and cocked his head to the side. “Banter. Remembuh that nigga Banter? Short skinny slimfire, he moaned like-“ “Aaaaaah, shit yeah, got you and him mixed up,” Thumper said. He laughed and rubbed Rashid’s back. “Still, don’t grunt like you takin’ a nasty dump. Make some sounds like a girl.” Thumper moaned like a female then, still laughing, as he resumed humping his cock in and out of Rashid’s ass. Ain’t no feminine sound come outta Rashid, who did try — he got a much deeper voice than Banter. Rashid’s attempt at a feminine moan sounded more like a dying loudspeaker than anything else, but it was better than his dirty-dump grunting. It was enough to get Thumper good and hard, sending shivers of pleasure through Thumper’s body. The muscles of Rashid’s backside clenched hard. Thumper groaned and leaned on Rashid’s shoulders, pinning him onto the desk. “Shit, nigga, you feel better ‘an I remembuh…” Thumper rammed at his asshole until it was fulla his dick, and he plowed him hard, making Rashid’s whole thickness jiggle and press against the desk. Haykh Gregarian’s papers was scattered all over, prolly soaked in Rashid’s painsweats now. Hopefully Haykh would think a dancer brung a john in here. “Here I go, nigga, just like old times,” Thumper said, lowering his head to whisper into Rashid’s ear. “Love you…” Cum spurted into him, a tight little load at first, then a big thick creamy one. Then more jissom flowed into Rashid’s guts. He hated this part. Rashid closed his eyes and tried not to think about the cum filling him up. It was hot and gooey, and some leaked out and ran down his thighs. He wished he done sprung for a handjob from Caitlin. But it was too late now. Just when he thought it was over, another multi-second long flow of jiss seeped into him, then another, and Thumper moaned like he was truly in love. Rashid cringed. He kept his teeth and his legs clenched the best he could, until at last Thumper’s cock softened inside him. Thumper pulled it out with a moist splattering sound. “Goddamn, fuck, nigga, c’mon…!” Rashid sputtered. “Shit!” “Hell yeah, nigga,” Thumper said. He smacked the sweat off his chest, then pinched Rashid’s plump asscheek. “I bet Caitlin Smiles don’t give it up that good.”
Buck Sampson steered the Jaguar into a parking spot. He done squash his hillbilly ass into the driver’s seat, his giant frame not fitting without lotta effort on his part. Mistah Gregarian slid graceful as a weasel out from the backseat b’fore’n Buck could heft hisself outta the front. Putting on his sunglasses, Mistah Gregarian scowled at Buck. He preferred Buck to open the door fer him. Classier. But he ain’t wanna sit in the backseat and wait fer the galoot to get in gear. “C’mon, you moron, hurry up,” Mistah Gregarian said. “You could be less oafish, Buck. I have an image to maintain.”
“I’s tryin’, Mistah Gregarian,” Buck said. He lowered his bass-booming voice. Buck was a chambery hulk of a man, damn near seven feet tall and as broadly muscled as a ox. He got a thick, unkempt mullet the color of a new moon at midnight. Buck’s scruff covered up his ruddy cheeks.
Wrinkling his nose, Mistah Gregarian said, “You might have to threaten him. If I give you a signal, give him what-for.” He motioned fer Buck to go ahead — t’was classier fer the lackey to go in front. Buck was more concerned ’bout an attack from behind though. This was a rough-side homeboy neighborhood, and the locals was more dangerous than the Koreans they was here to visit. But Mistah Gregarian wanted his bodyguard in front, so’n Buck hopped to position. He ain’t know where they was going though, to the front of the shop or the back or maybe the Kims’ apartment. Buck walked a few feet then hesitated. “Suh?” “It’s down there!” Mistah Gregarian spat. He glanced at Buck’s hillbilly mullet. “Come on!” Mistah Gregarian weren’t a hillbilly ‘t all. He was not the kinda man who’d ever set foot in the trailer park where’n Buck lived. He’d curl his lip driving past it. He done do precisely that on numerable occasions. But Buck was strong and tough and loyal, and he was a rely-able bouncer at the strip club Mistah Gregarian owned. Sometimes, he accompanied Mistah Gregarian on missions like this one, collecting a debt. They went into the Korean drycleaner’s, and the chemical smell made Buck wrinkle his crooked-cartilage fist-shape nose. He breathed loud cuz he was a amateur boxer and his nose done got broke buncha times a couple years back, in the early 90s. He tried to breathe normal, cuz Mistah Gregarian scumbled on another one his looks. Buck straightened his tie, which looked too short. Buck was so big most clothes ain’t fit. How far down was a tie sposedta go anyways? Buck ain’t know, and Mistah Gregarian’d scold him silly if’n Buck axed, so’n he ain’t ax. Inside the drycleaner’s, Buck stood up on a somber face. Mistah Gregarian do admire Buck to look good — tie, shirt buttoned up, slacks, whole nine yards. He wanted Buck looking like a goon, cuz Mistah Gregarian fancied hisself a mobster. If’n Ann Arbor had more Armenians, he prolly woulda made up a mafia. “Mister Kim, Mister Kim, so good to see you.” Mistah Gregarian cleared his throat when the spindly Korean man came out and bowed o’er and o’er. “I haven’t seen you this month.” “Yes, sih, yes, sih, I sowwy, I sowwy,” Mistah Kim said. He got a politely nervous way of talking. Buck zoned out. He got confidence Mistah Kim weren’t gonna stab nobody. The two mistahs slapped noses, but they both bowed and apologized and got respect in they voices. Ain’t no blowup like when they did deals with Señor Delgado the Cuban, he a fiery sort. Mistah Kim was calm as a pickled peach. And his missus was purdy and petite, Buck peeped her in the backa the shop. “Buck?” Mistah Gregarian elbowed him. “Oh. Uh-huh. Yeah,” Buck said. He ain’t know what Mistah Gregarian was signaling. He raised his eyebrows at Buck. “Do your thing,” he whispered. Buck cleared his throat. “You, uh… You admire me to heeit him?” Buck ain’t been paying attention, but he thought the tone of the conversation was cordial. Mistah Kim done agreed to sump’in, Buck was sho’re of that. They shook hands. The face that Mistah Gregarian put on suggested Buck was indeed sposedta hit him, was sposedta have done hit him, was a goddamn gorilla-brain goombah fer not knowing it, was in trouble fer making it look like Mistah Gregarian be hiring retards as muscle and was gonna be on the sorry end of a long monologue after this. But how hard to hit? Buck advanced upon Mistah Kim, who was a whimpery old Korean feller. Buck could knock his head clean off if’n he admired to. That’d likeish reduce his debt repayments though. Who redds a drycleaner’s when it gets gommed up? “Prease, sih, sih, sih-“ Buck smacked him, closed-fist but hard enough to knock him down. Blood spurted from Mistah Kim’s nose. He shouted and squirmed and collapsed ‘gainst the wall of the dry cleaner. “Don’t try my patience, Mister Kim,” Mistah Gregarian said. “You- — … Buck? Did you knock him out?” “I ain’t know how hard to heeit him!” Buck threw his hands up. “Not that hard!” They both peered down at Mistah Kim, who was curled up by his counter. Buck looked round to see if’n anyone done witness that. The good lady Missus Kim weren’t visible, and the drycleaning shop weren’t open yet, so’s the curtains was drawn and ain’t nobody could see in.
After just a second, Mistah Kim gasped hisself wakeful, and both Buck and Mistah Gregarian brightened up. Mistah Gregarian looked at Buck like a cockroach, and Buck threw his hands up again. Mistah Kim groaned and moaned, while Mistah Gregarian gave him another minute to recover. Finally, Mistah Kim stammered, “I — I — I can not- I haff no mon-ee!”
“I’s sawry, Mistah Kim, fer knockin’ you out-” Buck said. “Don’t apologize!” Mistah Gregarian hissed. He shoved Buck, who was mountainous as a unmoving wall. Mistah Gregarian shoved him harder, and Buck obliging-like stepped back as though he got shoved. “Prease, I have no mon-ee-” Mistah Kim said. Mistah Gregarian looked down at him. “You had better be grateful I don’t take your store. We’ll be back in one month, and we’ll have paperwork to transfer ownership. If you don’t pay in full, I’m exercising the possession clause.” “Yes, prease, sih, prease,” Mistah Kim stammered, holding his bloody nose. Mistah Gregarian stalked out, and Buck followed. Once they got onto the street, Buck hurried to walk afronta him and open the Jag door fer Mistah Gregarian, then scurried to the front seat and hefted hisself in with as much as grace as a barrel of a man could muster sliding into a car made fer the diminutive hunchbacks of inbred British dukes. He gotta crane his head to the side. “You made me look like a moron in there. You threw me off my game. I had him eatin’ outta the palm of my hand,” Mistah Gregarian said. “Weren’t you paying attention?” “Yessuh,” Buck said. He nodded ‘long as Mistah Gregarian ramped up a monologue. As always, he ain’t stick to the pertinous subject. He lectured Buck on focus, men’s fashion, finesse versus tact, class and etiquette, diction and articulation, Korean cultural appreciation, comparative advantage, the looseness of women these days, state taxes, Aztec prophecies related to the upcoming millenium shift, the environmental consequences of the drycleaning industry and considerations on how far down “yo’ boys” sag they trouser-pants. Buck nodded and apologized and promised to do better on all those topics as he drove the Jag back to Lipsweet — that was the nightclub Mistah Gregarian owned. T’was only noon, so’s nary the girls done arrive, just the janitor Ernie mopping the floor. Teddy’d be here soon to open the bar. Buck followed Mistah Gregarian into the backoffice, cuz his monologue was ongoing and Buck knewed better’an to walk away till t’was done. “Get outta here,” Mistah Gregarian eventually said, when he sat down at his desk. He done pause amid his monologue like he forgot what started it all. He waved Buck off. “You’re working tonight, right? Wear a clean shirt. There’s blood and pitstains on that one. And get ridda that stiffy before you come in.” He stayed casting aspersions upon Buck and t’other bouncers, claiming they got stiffies that made ’em dumb and gropesome. He discottoned to bouncers getting freebies with his girls, and if’n he let ’em have stiffies, that’d prolly be what happened, Mistah Gregarian do say. Buck couldn’t argue with the logic. But he ain’t have no stiffy at the moment. He knewed better’an to try and convince Mistah Gregarian that that was true. Buck got a hefty slab of foot-long meat, and as far as Mistah Gregarian was concerned, t’was always hard. He’d grab it thru them slacks and declare it a stiffy. T’wasn’t fair. Buck’s dick was big, and Buck’s body was big, so’s he ain’t fit in his slacks, his dingdong don’t fit in his tight-whites, and Mistah Gregarian be frowning at Buck’s bulges. Couldn’t argue ’bout the blood and pitstains though. B’fore’n Buck headed to his pickemup in the parking lot, he went thru the bar and caught that janitor Ernie sniffing ’round the rail liquor. He was looking demure as a daisy, moving a mop round and putting on a thirsty face. “You sneakin’ drinks, Ernie?” Buck axed. “No, Buck!” Ernie said. He was a helter-skelter kinda homeboy, all ropy limbs and taut muscles. He was skinny as diet pie though. “I’s moppin’, whiteboy!” “Why you moppin’? Bar ain’t even open yet, reckon,” Buck said. “You mopped it aftuh close last night, and ain’t nuttin’ happen since then.” “Floor’s sticky. Mistuh Gregarian get hot about it-“ “Shuddup,” Buck said, clucking his tongue. “You sneakin’ drinks. Mistah Gregarian’d het up ’bout that fer sh’ore. He’d blame me. He be sayin’ I gotta watch you.” He put one hand upon the back of Ernie’s neck and pushed him towards the backdoor. “There’s a mess in the back you gotta redd up.” “Done did the back, Buck, nuh-uh,” Ernie said. But he ain’t fight back. “I don’t steal drinks. It’s just rail liquor. I don’t steal it.” Buck pushed Ernie into the back hallway, past the waitresses’ changing room. It smelled like women in there. The stink of they lingery perfume and fragrant ladyparts got Buck’s cock throbbing good. Ernie scampered afronta Buck, who said, “Don’chu even try and run, Ernie.” “Shuddup, Buck!” Ernie was looking round fer a chance to run. Buck got him blocked from the backdoor though. “You is dumb as a goat, hillbilly!” “You gotst to redd up the mess-“ “Ain’t no mess! And ‘redd up’ don’t mean nothin’-“ “Yes, the’uh is, and yes, it do!” Buck said. He opened the door to one the storage closets, where’n the stink of spillt wine was overwhelming. “Teddy dropped a bottle of wine in he’uh. You gotst to mop. It done bring in ants.” The walk-in closet was mostly tablecloths, cups and couplea cooking implements Buck’s hillbilly ass ain’t reckonize, like a French press. A line of ants crawled o’er the floor. “See? Li’l black ants.” “All ants is li’l and black,” Ernie said. Buck sucked upon his teeth. “No they ain’t! You gotsta mop to get ridda ’em!” “Make Teddy mop! He spilt the wine!” “Teddy ain’t he’uh yet, and when he get he’uh, he gonna be busy openin’ the bar,” Buck said. “Tha’ss why Mistah Gregarian hired a janitor. His name is ya hobo ass, Ernie.” He grabbed Ernie by the nape. “Now bend ovuh. I got sump’in else fer you to do fuhst.” Ernie’s bony spine bristled ‘neath Buck’s burly fingers. “Nah, whiteboy, get off me! Quit playin’! You retard!” Buck shoved Ernie ‘gainst the wall by the door to the hall, where’n bunchesa waitresses was coming thru to start they shift. Lipsweet was due to open in fifteen minutes. They gabbed on in tight tee shirts in the breakroom across’t the hall, and Buck could smell they hungry pussies o’er Ernie’s knappy ass. The door was shut tight, and Buck could hear ’em giggling and going on, and he could smell they perfume. He could hear ’em hum along with a TLC song, but they couldn’t hear him. Now, Buck did got a stiffy. T’was Caitlin’s voice that did it — she was purdy as peace, and she got a voice that was nice and soft like a ripe melon. It got Buck’s cock throbbing even b’fore’n he freed it from his overly tight slacks. But first, he ripped down Ernie’s trouser-pants, exposing his firm asscheeks. Ernie was taut as tight rope. He got a wiry old-head body, and he ain’t eat much food — Ernie preferred a liquid diet, supplemented maybe with occasional crack. He done swan he quit the rock, but Buck got low expectations. His callused fingers spread Ernie’s cheeks.
Buck knewed that booty well. Him and Ernie done share a crowded prison cell couple years back. Ernie was a cell girlfriend — that meant he gave up his ass fer hootch and smoke money — he let men use his hole as a makeshift pussy. Ernie claimed he done quit rock when he left prison, but he still drank like a fish. He worked fer Mistah Gregarian in exchange fer minimum wage, a closet to sleep in and plentya cheap booze.
Plus skimpy girls to peep at. Lipsweet was mostly a college-student bar. The GHU campus was o’er on down the street. Aside from the loose women, Lipsweet’s only attraction was that they didn’t check idees at the bar — they only let eighteen-year-olds in, and they marked the hands of them under twenty-one, but neither Teddy nor the waitresses refrained from serving folks too young to order alcohol. The lights was dimmed such that they could plausibly claim they ain’t seed the marked hands, if’n the police ever got involved. But Mistah Gregarian got connections in the city council, and Lipsweet was ne’er cited. “Nah, Buck, no way,” Ernie said, but he ain’t fight back much. Buck done overpower him plenty in the past. He knewed better’an to make it difficult fer hisself. He closed his eyes, gripped the wall, lifted his ass and his head but lowered his back. He sucked in his breath when he felt Buck’s meat poke at his buttcrack. With a powerful heave, Buck rammed his erect cock into Ernie’s asshole, watching the waitresses check they makeup in the breakroom across’t the hall. Ernie grunted and clenched his teeth. Buck cut the lights off, so’s it felt just like prison again — Ernie mainly did his cell-girlfriending after lights-out. “Shit, Buck, c’mon! Spit on it!” Ernie muttered. His neck got taut, and his back arched. His asshole clenched the best it could — not much, cuz he got run up by plentya homeboys and more’an a few whiteboys in prison. “Fine, fine, shuddup,” Buck said. He spat upon the palm of his hand and smeared it upon his dick. Then he spread Ernie’s cheeks with that hand, his other arm wrapping ’round Ernie’s neck. “Don’t choke me, whiteboy! I’m doin’ it-“ “Shush, I won’t choke you,” Buck said. But he did tighten his arm muscles, just enough to make Ernie work fer air. That helped him unclench his asshole, and that let Buck ram his foot-plus dickshaft into Ernie’s reluctant booty. A warm melting sensation enveloped Buck, who sighed. A narsty, knappy ass like Ernie’s stayed gross till he got into it, then Buck forgot what turned him off. Even a shattered prison-ass like Ernie’s got enough friction and grip to get Buck’s blood flowing, and goddamn did those girlies giggling help too. Ain’t have sounds like that in Cell 19C. Ernie squirmed like a worm, but he was swallowed up by Buck’s giant body. “Gimme a bottle. You owe me a bottle!” he hissed. Buck scoffed, his breathing growing heavy as he rammed at Ernie’s ass. He pounded good now, back and forth, each time sending a heightened wave of pleasure thru his body. “Fine. Not a full bottle. Like a half-bottle.” He knewed Ernie was expecing like whiskey or sump’in, but Buck was gonna give him a half a five-dollar bottle of wine. “Fine, fine, fine,” Ernie said tautly. After a few seconds silence, he said, “Them girls in the dressin’ room is fine indeed. Is that Caitlin?” Buck nodded. “Think so. Love her booty.” He rammed his meat deep and held hisself in there. “Why you call it a dressin’ room, Ernie?” Ernie furrowed his gravely eyebrows. “What? That’s what it is, retard. Says it right there.” He grunted and twitched, a spasm of pain hitting his rangy limbs. Each room back here got a li’l placard beside it naming it. That “breakroom”‘s placard called it the dressing room, cuz this place usedta be a strip club. City council was full of finger-wagging bible-thumpers nowadays. Buck grunted his acknowledgement, but he ain’t say nuttin’, both cuz he was fitting to cum and cuz anythang he might say was gonna make him seem more like a retard to Ernie. Ernie closed his eyes and clenched his teeth again anyways, as Buck got deep in his guts and shot a thick wave of jizz inside him. The heat of his cum seeped into Ernie, who usually complained ’bout fellers cumming inside him. He do tell ’em to pull out. Only milkweed fools listened to Ernie’s demands though, so Ernie ain’t bother saying nuttin’ to Buck. He just grimaced and ignored the rolling moans emanating from Buck’s equine chest. Anoter fat load of cum spurted into Ernie, a long flow of it that kept on coming and coming. His whole body clenched ’round Buck’s shaft, and he sucked in his breath. “Ewhhhh-” Ernie bit his lip. Buck’s ramming at his ass got too hard to take, and Ernie clawed at the wall. His forehead banged into it, and he growled. “Dammit, Buck!” An orgasm ran thru Buck, whose meaty hands pawed at Ernie like he was hoping to find tits somewhere. Ernie twitched, and Buck did too but fer opposite reasons. If’n Ernie’s trouser-pants weren’t ’round his ankles, he’d-a scampered off, but he’d just trip over hisself. All he could do was cringe and take it. Cum ran down Ernie’s legs. A long stinking flow of it that turned to a flood when Buck finally let his cock plop out. Ernie danced back and forth, then wiped his ass off with a paper towel he found in the closet. Gobs of jizz bubbled outta his ass. Ernie done race to get the paper towel into his buttcrack in time, but he couldn’t clench enough to keep it in. All Buck’s nut ran out in big bubbling wads. The cloying smell of it filled the storage closet. “Nasty ass ign’ant hillbilly,” Ernie muttered. He wiped his ass off the best he could, while Buck simply tucked his shaft back in his Korean-blood-splattered slacks. Ernie was still muttering when Buck walked out. “You a dumb shit, Buck.” Buck said, “Shut the fuck up, Ernie,” as he left the room. “Get this floor mopped.”
Buck got outta the Jag, which he done park in a lawny neighborhood with bunchesa young homeboys riding round on bicycles. He snorted and rubbed his nose, then opened the door fer Mistah Gregarian in the backseat. Mistah Gregarian took it that Buck delayed opening the door cuz he forgot, whereas in fact Buck remembered, he admired to keep eye upon them homeboys. Security was his job, after all. But Mistah Gregarian sucked on his teeth when he got outta the Jag, and he said, “Can’t you remember anything, you ape?” All Buck said was, “Sawry, suh.” Seemed easier to go ‘long with it. If’n Buck said anythang about homeboys or tried to pronounce s’cuh’ty, Mistah Gregarian’d have words to say.
He followed Mistah Gregarian o’er on up to the run-down house. Buck hadta step ’round a bucket of children’s toys and generic-brand cabbage-patch dolls that musta sat there fer a coon’s age, judging from the moss growing upon ’em. The paint on the house was fading.
The man hisself opened the door — James Macklevan was his name. He was sump’in called a “pullman-ologist”. It seemed to be a doctor, but Macklevan ain’t got no money. So’s maybe he was like a charity doctor or some shit, or maybe Macklevan weren’t very good at it. “Mr. Gregarian! I was going to call you,” Macklevan said. “Hmm-hmm.” Mistah Gregarian waited, then motioned fer Buck to go in as though Buck shoulda knewed that. Buck walked past him and barreled into the house. “Please, wait-“ But Buck knocked him out with a fist to the side of the head-noggin. Macklevan crumpled to the ground like a snotty tissue. “Goddamnit, Buck,” Mistah Gregarian said with a sigh. He checked Macklevan. “He’s unconscious!” “Oh. Sawry, suh,” Buck said. “I thought I was sposedta heeit ‘im.” “You were!” Mistah Gregarian said. “Sawry.” Buck looked down at his feet. “H’ain’t mean to heeit him that hard.” Mistah Gregarian scowled. T’was unfair — Mistah Gregarian thought Buck oughta know what he wanted without saying so. That’s how it worked in the movies. The boss clucks his tongue or sump’in, and his lackeys know whether that means ‘kill this dude’ or ‘close the door’ or ‘punch him hard enough to hurt but not knock him out’ or whatever. Outside the movies though, Buck got no way of knowing what Mistah Gregarian wanted unless’n Mistah Gregarian say so. T’ain’t classy to give direct orders. How does the mafia do it? Buck don’t know — as a general rule, Buck don’t know thangs — and Mistah Gregarian was too small-potatoes to find out. With a light slap upon his face, Macklevan roused. He stumbled to his feet. He was only unconscious fer a minute. Not really a big deal, Buck thought, not that Mistah Gregarian would treat it that way. “You owe me money, Dr. Macklevan,” Mistah Gregarian said. He had to repeat it a couple times. Finally Macklevan nodded his understanding. “I… I do,” Macklevan said. “I owe you money. I’ll pay, I really will. I’ve got a divorce lawyer, you see. It’s expensive. I-“ “So you’re paying your lawyer and not me? Is he more important than me?” “Well, well, Mr. Gregarian, it’s complicated. If he can get my payments down, I’ll have more money to pay you,” Macklevan said. “Almost all my income goes to my wife right now.” “You got anything you can sell?” Mistah Gregarian said. He motioned fer Buck to do sump’in — Buck woulda assumpted that meant ‘punch him again’, but he done got that wrong once, and he ain’t wanna do it again. Mistah Gregarian turned to him and scowled. “Go look for stuff to sell.”
“Yessuh,” Buck said. He went off to the kitchen first. Mistah Gregarian musta forgot Buck done scour this house fer pawnable items couple months back. Buck weren’t gonna point that out though, or Mistah Gregarian’d snap at him. He ain’t find nuttin’. Last time they was here, he even took the icebox. Macklevan done found or maybe bought a mini-fridge, but Buck figgered t’weren’t worth much. He ate a cooked sausage outta it though, real quick so’s Mistah Gregarian wouldn’t see. He ain’t like Buck eating during missions, or even ‘tween missions.
When he came back to the front hall, Mistah Gregarian scowled in Buck’s direction. “Where have you been?” “Lookin’ fer shit to sell,” Buck said. “He got nuttin’ in the kitchen.” Mistah Gregarian shook his head like he was ashamed. He shoved Macklevan ‘gainst the wall. “Do it, Buck.” Again, Buck hesitated. He ain’t know what it was. He got the notion Mistah Gregarian been threatening the doctor, but Buck ain’t know what the threat was. Mistah Gregarian done aim Macklevan at the wall, so’s t’ain’t seem like hitting him was the goal. Buck raised his eyebrows at Mistah Gregarian. “Ramrod him, Buck,” Mistah Gregarian said with a vituperative slit to his eyelids. That made Buck frown. He admired not to get a reputation as a booty bandit. As a man who done went to prison, which e’erybody knewed, and a man who done bandit buncha booties behind bars, which lotta fellers knewed, Buck was sensitive to a reputation. He done told Mistah Gregarian b’fore not to plan on him cornholing men to get ’em to pay back they debt. Fer one thang, it don’t work. Don’t nobody keep money up they butthole. At least there wasn’t no witnesses this time, and Buck done got on Mistah Gregarian’s bad side, so’n he ain’t complain. But he side-eyed Mistah Gregarian as he grabbed Macklevan by the pants, and the doctor’s cloudy eyes ain’t realize what was happening. Macklevan squirmed and squealed. He got no clear words to say though, he just looked at Buck like a lost puppy. He pulled Macklevan’s sweatpants down and bared his ass. He squeezed Macklevan’s cheeks. They was plump, strong fer a middle-aged doctor — maybe pullman-ologists was like… the gym teachers of medical school, Buck thought. Or maybe he been living rough since he was on the feud with wifey. In a’ry case, Buck lowered his own workpants just enough to get his dick out, and he thwacked it upon Macklevan’s buttcheeks. They rippled, and Buck chuckled. He stroked hisself hard. Macklevan weren’t even trying-a run away. Do doctors know ’bout cornholing? Prison doctors do. But prisons don’t got pullmanologists. Macklevan grunted and stayed stoic like he thought the punishment was getting thwacked on the buttcheek by a hillbilly dingdong. That was just Buck getting hard. So maybe doctors don’t know about cornholing, or at least pullmanologists don’t. Regardless-like, Buck rammed his hardon into Macklevan’s butthole. Macklevan cramped and cried out, cringing and whinging. “Hey, hey…! Hey, shit, what’re you doin’?!” “Shuddup,” Buck murmured. He rammed a li’l harder. His cock slipped into Macklevan’s ass, and Macklevan’s eyes bugged out. He was intact, so’n Buck hit resistance right away. Mistah Gregarian done left the room — he don’t wanna watch — and he ain’t see Buck struggling to get his dick in b’fore’n he lost his hardon. Macklevan’s booty was too tight, and Buck got no lube but his own spit, plus he was too tall, so’s he gotta bend his knees. And Macklevan be making all these pained noises and panting and wordless begging, all of which Mistah Gregarian could prolly hear. Buck kinda wanna stop, as he weren’t ‘specially horny. Macklevan even done took all the photo-pitchers off the wall, so’s Buck got no females to look at it. The rectangles of faded paint showed where’n they usedta be. “Ow, shit, c’mon, c’mon, Buck, c’mon…” Macklevan panted. Despite not wanting to go thru with it, Buck weren’t gonna stop. He got a hardon. A man gotta blow a nut, or the stuffed-up juices in his balls gonna get him in trouble. And with a l’il spit, Buck got his shaft working back and forth in Macklevan’s grippy butthole. T’ain’t feel good. It felt fine, Buck could get thru it, but this ain’t like t’was in prison. Ramrodding don’t feel the same out in the real world. He wouldn’t ne’er-a did it if’n Mistah Gregarian ain’t tell him he had to. Coulda drug it out fer hours too — Buck gotta close his eyes and concentrate to blow a nut. He was going back and forth fer a couple minutes b’fore’n he realized he gotta work at finishing up. By then, Macklevan was wincing, weak-kneed, panting and clawing at the wall of his own unkempt house. Buck closed his eyes and remembered the last time he was with a beautiful woman, one the waitresses who spread her legs fer him couple nights ago. That got his manhood throbbing, and it got him pumping his hips powerful enough to make Macklevan cry out again and again. Buck’s neck and face ruddened, and his cheeks grew taut. The vein upon his forehead throbbed. It took all his concentration to send him o’er the edge. Then, like a dam was burst, he let out a long moan and thrust his meat deep into Macklevan’s guts. “Ow, fuuuuuuuuuuck-“ “Goddamn, doc…” Buck’s voice broke and his knees buckled, but he stayed upright and slamming. A massive flow of jizz spurted outta his cock and spread thru Macklevan’s guts. A long wave of it kept on coming. The fact that Buck hadta work at it meant he shot a big load, big even fer Buck, who’s muscles all tensed up like it took e’ery ounce of strength he got to shoot his jizz. “Daaaamn…”
He filled his ass with cum, a great creamy wave that flowed thru Macklevan’s body. He grunted, and Buck did too. Another spurt of jizz seeped into Macklevan’s ass. Finally, Macklevan sensed Buck was done, and he winced. He wriggled, only fer the motion to make the pain worse.
He stayed still, letting Buck grind his sensitive cock in the soup of Macklevan’s booty. Spasms of pain ran up Macklevan’s spine, while Buck shuddered with spasms of pleasure. Now that he’d done it, Buck was glad Mistah Gregarian made him do it. He’d needed that. But he was still gonna hafta remind Mistah Gregarian that he wasn’t a booty bandit. “Ewwh, uhcckk-” Macklevan grunted. He wriggled the best he could in Buck’s grip. “You bettuh pay ya debt,” Buck said as his cock slipped out to dangle ‘tween the good doctor’s cheeks. “Or Mistah Gregarian gonna make me do that again.” Macklevan darted away. Cum dribbled down his legs. He sneered at Buck. “That was gross,” He winced, wiping cum off his thighs. “And unsanitary. You’re a barbarian.” Buck shrugged. “I is what I is, mothahfuckah, and you is a deadbeat.”
This skier, Rob thought, had better be worth it. He wished he had stayed in Stockholm until the weather changed, so he could fly. But after a week in that dismal, gray little city, he was ready to move on. Sweden, thus far, had been a bust. He thought he would find the studliest Swede in the country. But the studliest Swedes thus far had all eluded him. Oh, there were hot Swedettes a plenty: blondes with blue eyes and alluring grins, Saami babes with thickness in all the right spots, even a bubbling squadron of soccer-playing ladies in skimpy garb (who had filled up the Pressbyrån convenience store that Rob was trying to get gas in at the time). The men, however, had been a milquetoast collection of duds, sour-faced and scrawny for the most part. He’d seen a few cuties, but Rob hadn’t traveled to Sweden for a nice-looking dude. He’d come here for the studliest hunk Sweden had to offer. That was why he decided to find this supposedly handsome skier. He wasn’t technically Swedish — the skier was actually Norwegian. But even that trek to the other side of the country had turned boring and banal. Rob just wanted to go back to his hotel; this whole mission was getting boring. Sweden was a drab green, cloudy, full of emotionless skinny men who made Rob’s dick shrivel up at the sight of them. They all appeared to be sucking on a lemon, Rob thought, but that couldn’t be true because there were no lemons here — that would have been too much flavor for Swedish cuisine. This was a country of heavy, dull carbs with the taste cooked out of them. Here, porridge had been the most delightful thing Rob had yet eaten. He was driving through Västergötland in the southwest when his car stalled. It happened suddenly, as he was coasting to a stop near a farm. There was a stop-sign for no obvious reason. The car emitted a dull wheeze like a dying reindeer, then shuddered to a complete stop. Rob tried the key a few times, but it was dead. As if to punctuate the point, there was a cluddy thunking sound and then all of the lights on the dashboard turned on. After a moment, they all turned off. The car had never been more silent. “Fucking damn it! Sweden is the worst!” Rob got out of the car and muttered obscenities to himself. There was mud and mire everywhere, the ground a soggy, grass-dappled wasteland. He could either call for an Uber or a tow or call the car-rental company or walk to the farmhouse he saw just over yonder. He figured this area was so rural, he’d probably be waiting awhile regardless, so he headed towards the farmhouse. He called the car-rental agency, and they said they’d send him a replacement car. What were they growing here? Rob couldn’t tell. This was some sort of root vegetable, he suspected — though not potatoes. The leaves looked like marigolds, he thought, but were much too long and bunchy, and there were no flowers that he could see. Maybe kale? It looked vaguely kale-esque. Were kale roots edible? The door to the farmhouse opened well before Rob got there. Out walked an incredible man. Rob stopped short, both because his eyes opened wide and his heart skipped a beat, and because he wondered if he was in trouble. Would he be perceived as a trespasser? Was this man the studliest Swede? He very well might have been. The man stood solidly in front of the farmhouse. He wore a ruddy brown and orange shirt under a navy blue coat and black trousers that ended at the knee, his ankles covered by long white socks. Though his clothing was ill-matched and rough, he was the most arousing man Rob had seen in weeks. He was tall and broad, muscular like only a farmworker could be, with layers of heft upon muscle upon brawn. His hair was long and scraggly like a Viking, and it extended well past his shoulders. “Hallå,” he said gruffly when Rob was close enough to hear him. “Hej,” Rob said, in his rudimentary Swedish. He blushed a little, nervous because the farmer was so arousing and intense. “My name is Rob.” The farmer grunted, eyeing him suspiciously. His gray-blue eyes reflected the limpid white clouds behind Rob. “Uh, well, sorry for just barging in on your farm. I’m having car trouble out on the road over there — see, you can see my car from here-“ “I know.” Rob’s face bloomed red, and he scratched his chin. “Ah… You… You already knew I had car trouble?” “I witnessed it.” His deep voice boomed in Rob’s ears. He sighed as though surrendering to unseen forces. “You may come in. Do you wish to use the telefon?” “Uh, no, my cell phone is fine, I just called the car rental company,” Rob said. “Thanks though.” He came in and instantly winced at the foulest odor he’d ever had the misfortune of smelling hit his nose. It was like a fish farted out a different, deader fish in an ocean made of skunk-spray. It smelled so bad, so strongly, that it had a physical presence; Rob had to walk through it like it was a rank cotton ball in the air; it seeped into his pores, and he doubled over. “Oh god-“ “Yes, it is bad. I am sorry, I did forget du är amerikan. That smell is surströmming.” He pointed to a can open on the table. Inside was some goo Rob couldn’t bear to look at more closely — it was fish. Was the farmer really eating that stuff? Had Rob interrupted the world’s most disgusting lunch? The farmer waited for a moment, and when it became apparent that Rob was not going to acclimate to this smell, he rolled his eyes and motioned for Rob to come with him. “It is a smell you must get used to.” “Not with this nose!” Rob said, still gagging even when he finally got out into the fresh air. “Oh god, that was nasty. You eat that stuff?” He nodded. “It is a Swedish custom.” “That is a terrible custom,” Rob said, “absolutely terrible.” He straightened his back. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude-“ “No, not at all, I do not eat it around outsiders because they react as you do. Even most Swedes do not eat it these days,” he said. He sounded mournful, and he looked down at the ground as he led Rob towards a barn. “The old traditions are dying, gentle Rob. They die not like the turnip, which sweetens and grows in quality as it lays dormant in the winter, but rather like the gray clouds themselves, which dissipate into gentle rain and then… nothingness.” He scoffed. “Bah. It rains again.” Sure enough, a fine mist was starting to fall, and a chill was in the air. “Always it is rain. Regnet är ett lager av död på mig.” “Oh.” Rob was overwhelmed by the dour man’s aura of angst. Was he suicidal? Another chill ran up Rob’s spine at the sight of a small gravestone near the barn. It read min älskade Elsa — my beloved Elsa — but had nothing else, no date of birth nor of death, nor any symbols or markings. It was a smallish gravestone, making Rob wonder if it was a child’s. But the look the farmer gave it as they passed was more one of intimate love. Rob could see sweetly summer nights reflected in his eyes, and he knew then that it was no child: It was a wife. “Yes, that is min älskade Elsa. It is her loss that makes the summertimes so gray. Light itself mourns her,” the farmer said. He looked to Rob and sighed again as though even sighing was an imposition. “I am sorry in my apologizery, I forget my manners. My name is Olle.” “Hej Olle. It is nice to meet you.” “You can wait for a new car in here. This barn is very nice, there is water and a toilet,” he said. He pointed to a long trough-like sink, presumably for washing the turnips that were heaped up along the wall like forgotten orphans. A door in one corner presumably led to the bathroom. Aside from smelling earthy and turnipy, it was indeed nice in here. The smell was pleasant in comparison to the surströmming that lingered in Rob’s nostrils. “I’ve never been in a barn this nice. I like it, it’s homey and cozy, and-” Rob said. “It will be gone soon.” “Oh.” Rob was beginning to get depressed too. Olle’s mood was catching. “The bank is foreclosing on my farm. They will replace it with an electrical substation. I am but the tracks upon which the train of time progresses,” Olle said, his voice flat and squalid. He grabbed a hacka and hung his head, leaning on it. His grim mood had almost made Rob forget how arousing he was, but when he lifted the hacka off its spot mounted on the wall, he had to raise those beefy farm-working arms. Rob saw them bulge against the stiff fabric of his shirt. “Bah! Bättre brödlös än rådlös.” “How much do you owe the bank?” Rob asked. “Because I have ten thousand krona in my pocket, and I’m looking for someone who can do something for me.” For the first time, Olle looked genuinely interested in Rob. His eyebrows raised. “Giving me money would be a waste. I have no skills but the growing of turnips.” He picked one up. “Like my beloved Elsa, this turnip is hard and rough to the touch but beautiful and nourishing to the soul.” He bit into it, through the dirt that clung to the skin, his massive teeth tearing into it — were turnips even edible raw? Rob hadn’t thought so, but Olle didn’t seem to mind — and chewed on the bit of turnip in his mouth, clumps cascading out and clapping moistly onto the ground. “But I am, unlike the lowly turnip, worth nothing. I am best replaced by an electrical substation.” “Oh, no, Olle… You are, uh… Not… Don’t be, uh… sad,” Rob said. He wasn’t very good at cheering people up, and the more time he spent with Olle, the more depressed they both became.
“Bah. I shall stoically surrender to the maw of progress. Let time devour me like so many salted herring,” Olle said with a dismissive wave of his giant hand. He sat and leaned against a mound of turnips. “I will not do your work. Ten thousand krona is not enough to save the farm. It can only buy me a few months, perhaps, at best. Life is an exercise in grayest futility, a sisyphean chore with neither end nor beginning, only an enduring middle. Do not bother to help me. I am strong but dumb like a getabock.” He tapped himself on the skull. “I don’t have all my horses in the stable.”
“That’s fine. I don’t need brains,” Rob said. “Will you cornhole me?” Olle looked up after a few moments of pondering his words, like it took him that time for Rob’s meaning to sink through the fog of his mind. He grunted. “What?” “I want to jack your dick, and I want to feel you inside me. Is that okay? Can you do that? I’ll give you ten thousand krona. Actually, I’ll give you all the cash I’ve got in my pocket. That’s ten thousand krona, and some Canadian dollars and like two hundred euros. I don’t even know what it all adds up to.” “And you will… jack on my penis? Why?” “Cuz I’m horny.” Rob shrugged. He actually intended to say more — he wanted to taste Olle’s dick because he needed an affectionate touch, because Olle seemed so down, because it was the only spark that could lighten such grayness as hung over Sweden’s much today. But Olle’s sadness had caught, and Rob had not the energy nor the vitality to explain himself more fully. Olle furrowed his thick brow again like this didn’t compute. “Are you aroused by turnips?” He picked one up. “Riken är en sexig grönsak. Det påminner mig om Elsa. Turnips smell of her delicate womanhood, and I do miss it so.” “No, Olle, I’m aroused by you. You’re really intense. You-“ “False.” Olle stood up and sighed. “Fine. Yes. You may do it. It is, at least, more pleasant than washing turnips and praying for the sweet release of death.” “Yeah… Yeah, that’s… true. It is better than that,” Rob said. He giggled, feeling like a moron because Olle was so sullen and aloof, making Rob seem like a giddy idiot. Olle stood still in front of him. Rob was much shorter than he was, so he started by having him shrug off that coat, and then he lifted off the shirt. Olle stood there, his big broad chest gleaming a porcelain vitblek — obviously he rarely went shirtless in the sun. A layer of blond hair covered his massive pecs, and his fleshy belly was flat, another layer of hair leading over it to his crotch. “Damn, Olle… No one ever told you you’re handsome. Not Elsa?” “Bah! Yes, of course, she did say it, but she suffered from the cruel illness that the Danes call true love,” he said. “It blinded her to the truth. Oh what a fool she was. A lovely fool, perfection incarnate, now swallowed by gray nothingness.” “Okay, Olle, relax,” Rob said. He clutched his chest, kneading the meaty part of his belly — he very nearly had a six-pack, but had just a bit of thickness there, probably, Rob thought, because he ate a ton of carb-heavy turnips. His pecs were nice and heavy too, radiating power even as Olle frowned and ignored Rob’s touch. They weren’t like hard and unyielding stones either, they were booming and manlig and hairy and Rob could feel Olle’s powerful heart beating beneath them. He jacked on Olle’s nipple, while one hand snuck under the waistband of his trousers. Olle twitched like this had only just now become real, like he had barely noticed until now, as Rob’s hands slipped into his crotch. Rob gripped his cock and squeezed. It was just as big as he was, Rob though, as wide as a turnip but still soft. He’s not too depressed to get hard, is he? Rob hoped not — antidepressants could cause erectile dysfunction, he remembered reading that somewhere. But before Rob even got those trousers down, Olle’s cock twitched once more, pulsating under his grasp. Olle let out a moan that somehow sounded both pleasurable and sad, som början till en sorglig sång. Rob wanted to sing along with it, but the tune, he suspected, would make Olle cry if he heard another voice sing it. “You touch me like Elsa…” Olle wiped a single tear away. “Uh-huh.” Rob decided his best course of action was to just plow forward. Olle obviously was going to continue to pine for Elsa and bemoan his various fates as long as Rob listened. So he just stroked Olle’s manhood as he kissed his way down Olle’s torso. It popped out, fresh from the dark and damp of his pants but smelling of stale sweat and old turnips, with a bit of that rotten fish-smell to provide a bit of funk. It wasn’t exactly a good smell, of course, but Rob inhaled it deeply as he lowered his head and got to work. “Her soul lingers here,” Olle said as his dick stiffened up. He turned to face the turnips instead of Rob. “I tell myself that she would have me live on, to endure despite the unbearable grimness of being. But I do not believe it. I am a liar. I can feel her judgments upon me. Oh, my American friend, how I wish I could be carefree as you are.” He plopped back down on his ass on the floor, sprawled out on a bed of turnips, which rolled over the barn. “I’m not that carefree,” Rob said him, before he went right back to Olle’s cock, which flopped free and slapped against his belly when he laid down. Rob licked him from root to tip, and a shudder of visible pleasure ran up Olle’s spine. At last it was as firm as the uncooked turnips that filled the barn. But he only moaned as though sad still, even as his dick leaked precum onto Rob’s tongue. Rob deep-throated Olle to the root, his nose nuzzling the warmth and the light brown hair of his crotch, som smakade av ren mark och natt. There, at the base of his dick, was where the earthy soil smell was greatest, and it finally wiped away the last of the surströmming from Rob’s nose. “This pleasure is a curse. Må min förmögenhet slå mig död, for I can not take this any longer.” Olle’s baritone voice resonated in the high-ceilinged barn. Rob lifted his head. “Sorry… are you…? Did you want me to stop?” Olle frowned at him. “No. Do not stop-“ “Oh. You said it was a curse, I just thought-“ “It is utter torture that I should feel pleasure without my Elsa. I am not worthy of it. Min älskade Elsa, how I crave you instead of this wanton lust! I should burn this money and let the bank take my farm, they can sell my battered corpse to the electric company,” he said with an air of resignation on his squarish face He looked back down at Rob and thwacked him across the face with his dick. “Why did you stop?” “I, uh… You said…” Rob shrugged. He kissed the tip of Olle’s cock. “Are you ready to cornhole me?” “Yes. You must ride me. Standing is such sweet sorrow. I do not wish for min älskade Elsa to witness me standing for such perversity — I-” He paused and looked at Rob, who used Olle’s thick body for support as he mounted him. Olle cleared his throat. “It is perverse to bring pleasure into a world so saddened by the relentless onslaught of time-“ “Uh-huh.” Rob had to spread his legs wide to fit atop Olle, who continued, ignoring Rob and gesticulating wildly upward, as though he blamed his barn’s roof for all of his misfortune. Rob didn’t mind having to ride him. Olle’s dick was thick and knobbly like a turnip, and it could easily hurt if he didn’t take it gently. Rob always carried lube in his pocket, so he got his ass good and slick before sitting on Olle’s shaft. “-Att skiljas är att dö en smula!-” Olle shouted. But Rob had stopped listening as he strained to accept that massive cock. Olle didn’t seem to notice that no one listened but the turnips. Only when Rob had it in and had sunk down a few inches did Olle stop wailing. Olle’s muscles lay limp, like he was too tired already to even raise his head and look at his dick sliding upwards into Rob’s ass. Rob had to lean on his chest, kneading his muscles as he sank lower and lower. “Goddamn…” Rob grunted and took a deep breath. At last he felt coarse pubic hairs scratching at his ass, and a moan of unadulterated pleasure escaped from Olle’s lips. Rob kept his hands on those bulging pecs, which flexed as Olle twisted back and forth without lifting his head up. His arms flailed among the turnips piled around him. Rob played with the sweat-dappled blond chest hairs too, giggling at the sight of Olle groaning and showing a little emotion, just a fleeting bit of bliss visible on his face. Then, at last, Olle actually gripped Rob’s waist and helped him ride his cock up and down. Rob sighed and moaned along with Olle — adding a sweeter, more mellifluous sound than Olle’s dirge-like wail — as he squeezed his ass on Olle’s cock. It was as good as Rob could ever have expected. He didn’t know a depressive man like Olle could even cornhole half as good as this. His dick raged inside Rob, finding his prostate and stimulating it until Rob couldn’t take it anymore. His dick was everywhere inside him, and Rob felt his precum flow freely. Rob stroked himself off, but then found that Olle took his dick in hand. Rob was shocked — he hadn’t asked for that, but Olle, it seemed didn’t mind. He stroked Rob with his big meaty hand, caked with dirt from the turnips. He stroked it furiously, in sync with Rob’s rising up and down on his dick. It felt like they continued forever, but Rob knew it couldn’t have been very long because his phone didn’t ring to tell him the car rental agency had sent his replacement. It simply felt like a long time because it was the most potent orgasm Rob had experienced since beginning his trip. “Oh god, Olle!” Rob’s orgasm began at both ends, with cum spraying into his ass and coating his prostate, just as he reached his own climax in Olle’s hands. Rob cried out and buckled when sheer pleasure washed through him and wracked his body. He gulped, biting his lip so hard he drew blood. Olle’s squarish jaw clenched shut, and he didn’t even seem to notice Rob shooting his load all over Olle’s bear-like paws and onto his hairy chest. Still more came, wad after wad of creamy juice that coated Olle’s broad body in Rob’s sticky warmth. The load in his ass was huge too, flowing into him like a river, more and more, gobs of it until Rob could feel it throughout his body and dripping out onto the dirt floor of the barn. That single glorious moment seemed to last forever. Rob wanted to beg for more, but at the same time, this was too intense to endure. At last, he could take it no longer, and he lifted his ass off Olle’s cock, bit by bit, inch by inch. Olle showed no emotion, even as Rob panted with anticipation, until Rob’s ass finally slipped off. Then Olle grunted and his whole body writhed. A second little mini-orgasm hit Rob like a steamship as his sensitive asshole adjusted to being empty, and Rob knelt in front of Olle’s still-prone body. He licked up all the cum that clung to Olle’s big bear-like chest, savoring the sticky-sweetness of his own load. Then he curled up next to Olle, pushing aside turnips to make room. He nuzzled Olle’s bicep. “Thanks, Olle. I’m glad you’re, you know… slogging through, despite all that… woe you’re experiencing.” But Olle just nodded. “You will have to go soon. Darkness will fall, and then, I must be alone to experience… myself. Do not return, for I shall be replaced by a power line.” Rob sighed. “Okay. I won’t be back,” he said.
Knuckle fat-lipped in the doorway, speaking only when he gotta. Knuckle liked working the door. It was liminal, and he hovered neither inside nor out but in the middle like a child hiding in scattered shadows. The sky drizzled lightly tonight, and his right shoulder got wet, but his left shoulder remained dry. He done confiscated a greaser’s switchblade. But the crowd lusted quietly tonight. He knew his scarred face scared men into submission and prevented brouhahas. As far as he was concerned, that was a good thing. Mr. Gregarian said it was a double-edged sword — no rowdiness, so no fighting, but no rowdiness, so no overdoing it on overpriced drinks either. Knuckle ain’t know if Mr. Gregarian told him that because he expected him to fix it or not, but Knuckle ain’t savvy changing how he got perceived, so he never did nothing about it. The switchblade still sat hotly in Knuckle’s pocket. “Hey, scarface, is Caitlyn Smiles working tonight?” “-got a pussy on his neck.” “Sssssh, ssh, ssh, he’ll hear.” The men all fell silent as sand before they shuffled up to the doorway where Knuckle stood, basking in the luscious leather napkin of the West Virginia night while being buffeted by the overwhelming warmth and wafts of cigarette smoke pluming out from the club’s insides. He checked IDs and sent them in. No cover charges on Sunday, only Friday and Saturday nights and some holidays, Mr. Gregarian said, because otherwise the place got too crowded and the men focused on tipping dancers instead of ordering drinks from Teddy. Teddy has very soft fingers. Ever since that night when Teddy jacked him off in the weight room, Knuckle thought about those fingers and returned to the weight room to see if Teddy might meet him there again and touch him with those fingers that were soft like a kitten’s tail. Those fingers had danced and teased his skin, caressing, affectionate, warm, inviting like a hot stove heaping out heat. And that mouth was soft and warm too, and Knuckle craved it. Lips. Tongue. Teddy said nice words. Knuckle ain’t recall them, but he remembered the tone and timbre, which resonated in his ears and remained there like resounding church bells and made his toes tingle every time he thought about them. He snuck drinks from his flask as he worked tonight. The vodka in the flask was thinly redolent of sun-baked plastic. It probably came in a plastic bottle, but he ain’t remember the bottle. Just before midnight, Knuckle had to go in and lay hands on a black fellah who was getting garish and jagged in the mouth, cuz he done grabbed Caitlyn Smiles’s tits, and she looked at Knuckle with a ruddy face and a puckering pair of eyes and a torn bra, and she said, “You better wreck that bastard, Knuckle!”, and so Knuckle grabbed the man by the neck and dragged him into the back alley like a outside dog, and he punched him and kicked him behind the dumpster and left him there sputtering and bathing bloodwise in moonlight because tonight a full moon splashed effulgence through the clouds, and Knuckle liked that he could see so clearly, even in the alley where there ain’t no streetlight. The black man had a gold crucifix with a ruby at the base. Knuckle took it. He gave it to Caitlyn Smiles later, and he wanted to tell her so many things that were true both inside the club and out, that the necklace was pretty like her, that Jesus would protect her, that Knuckle would protect her, that no man had the right to treat her like that or to paw her like a possessive puppy. In his mind, Knuckle thought all those things, but out loud, he croaked in a bumpy baritone, “Here. I’s givin’ this to you.” She took it and popped a tit out of her dress as though the necklace was a tip and she needed to earn it, but Knuckle ain’t even look at the naked breast. She stood there for a second with her tit out, realized Knuckle had no intention of groping it, then she screwed up her pretty face and scuttered away like she done see a ghost. She blushed. Caitlin Smiles never blushed except deliberately to seduce a man, but Knuckle made her blush by not looking at her bare tit. Later, Knuckle saw her whispering about it to Teddy with the soft fingers and the lime-slicing knife in one hand. She said “he’s such a freak!” with a giggled-up laugh, and Teddy nodded grimly. They both took a shot of cinammon liqueur and scrupulously avoided looking in Knuckle’s direction. But Knuckle ain’t let on that he heard. He stood in the doorway. Nobody thought he was where they were when he was in the doorway — Teddy was inside and treated Knuckle like he was outside, so Teddy and Caitlyn could share snickers about him in private, while the men approaching the door outside nervously talked about how to get past the scary-looking bouncer as though he was a statue who couldn’t hear what they said from a few feet away. That was why Knuckle liked liminal spaces. “Hey, Knuckle, is the shower in the back nice? Plenty of hot water?” Teddy asked a few minutes after close that night. The last of the men done skedaddle before Knuckle could tell them to leave. The dancers left in a big group because nobody wanted Knuckle to escort them one-on-one through the parking lot. Knuckle plopped down at the bar. Teddy slid him a cheap drink, while he finished closing down and locking up the bar. Knuckle downed it in one gulp. “No,” he said. Teddy looked at him like that hadn’t answered his question. He shrugged. “Oh. Okay. Well, I don’t wanna use all your hot water.” “I do not shower a lot,” Knuckle said. “Uhhhh…” Teddy stammered and blushed. “Yeah, the dancers complain about that, and… Nevermind. Knuckle, I, uh…” He thought for a long time, then broke eye contact with Knuckle. “Nevermind,” he said again. “I’m having trouble with the shower at my place. There’s this bum who keeps squatting there.” Teddy lived in a ratty old apartment building down the street, and it came with a group shower. Teddy said, “It’s fine. He’s usually passed out cold this late. It just makes the shower seem dirty, and I thought I could shower here before I leave for the night. But I know you’ve been staying here, so-“ “Let’s go,” Knuckle said. He stood up as though to leave, while Teddy was still closing down the bar. Teddy paused. “What?” “I will slit his throat if he does not leave,” Knuckle said. He walked to the door. Teddy had to race after him. “Who? The hobo! Wait, Knuckle! That’s… a little extreme. Wait!” Knuckle stopped by the door and stood motionless. It took Teddy a few seconds to realize that was Knuckle waiting — he just stopped in the middle of Lipsweet like a robot whose off-switch had gotten flicked. “Wait, uh… don’t kill him. You don’t gotta kill him.” After a pause, Knuckle said, “yes.” “Okay, just… Talk to him sternly, maybe. Thanks for helping. Don’t kill anybody,” Teddy said. “Lemme just get the bar shut down.” He paused and said again, “Don’t kill anyone.” He raced to finish closing Lipsweet, then he and Knuckle piled into Teddy’s four-door to head to his building. It was a square building with cardboard replacing most of the windows on the first floor. Teddy lived on the third floor though, which was the top floor. Knuckle saw a row of windows with blinds and curtains and flickering TV screens visible through them. One of those windows was Teddy’s place, the thought of which made Knuckle’s heart tumble over its beat. Teddy followed Knuckle up the stairs to the third floor. The stairwell was a cold concrete column with spraypainted graffiti scrawled on every surface. The dancers would be shocked and exhilarated to learn Teddy had invited Knuckle to his home — it was an accident, but still, Teddy was going with Knuckle to a second location. The dancers wouldn’t even go with Knuckle into the next room. Knuckle done took off his shirt and his wifebeater because it was a warm and humid night. His chest cooled, and the nasty burn scar on his shoulder heaved up and down with every breath. Teddy kept sneaking glances at his broad, powerful muscles. Those scars were stark in the dimly lit arteries of Teddy’s building. Twenty apartments lined the central corridor of the third floor, and they all shared one group shower with just two showerheads. Teddy showed Knuckle to his apartment and pointed out the shower, but Knuckle went straight there, not into Teddy’s place. Teddy followed him, key in hand, into the shower. The hobo, Bax, sprawled on his back, bugging out in a nest of rotting old clothes and scraps of cardboard. He lay in the middle of the shower area, so he ain’t gonna get wet even if both showerheads was running. That was rare though, as usually men showered alone here. He ain’t move until Knuckle picked him up by the throat, smacked him in the face and growled. “You don’t live here! You-“ “Aaaagchk!” Bax’s eyes opened wide — he had been awake for days, on a meth binge, but he was unaware of Knuckle until he started hitting him. Knuckle slapped him again. Bax barked, “Git off me!”
When Bax peeped Knuckle’s scarred face and murderous mein, he squealed and squirmed. He clawed at Knuckle’s chest. His feet kicked the cold floor, but Knuckle brought him outta the showers and ignored his blows and cries. Knuckle dragged him down the stairs and out into the West Virginia night. “If you come back, I will slit your throat,” Knuckle said. He tossed Bax like a sac of seed towards the road.
Then he turned around and came back inside with Teddy, who crouched by the door with wide eyes. Knuckle stood there as though waiting for another assignment. “Thanks,” Teddy said, blushing. Bax stumbled off into the night, blood trickling from his nose. “You wanna come into my apartment? We could have a drink.” Knuckle nodded. They went into Teddy’s apartment. Knuckle stood there like a gravestone, while Teddy fixed them both a quick drink. Then Teddy saw him standing blankly and motioned to the couch. Knuckle sat down. He gulped his drink down in one motion. Teddy sat on the back of the couch, spreading his legs so he could rub Knuckle’s shoulders. “Tell me about Emma,” Teddy said when he saw that tattoo again on the nape of Knuckle’s neck. His fingers hesitated before touching the burn scar on Knuckle’s neck, but Knuckle’s whole body relaxed at his touch, so he gathered Knuckle liked it or at least tolerated it. He wondered what kind of a woman would love Knuckle. Had Knuckle said she loved him? He definitely said he loved her, but had it gone the other direction? Teddy couldn’t remember. Knuckle nodded. He waited for Teddy to pour him another drink, then he described the traveling carnival he had joined when he was a mere teenage runaway. He traveled all over the country with that carnival. She was a glittering blonde beauty when Knuckle first saw her, swathed in bulb light from the carnival. She glid like a galleon through the crowd. She was accompanied by a boyfriend, Tom, but Knuckle ain’t clock him. The world parted like clouds around the sun, so nobody else existed, just her, serene and curving to forever, making Knuckle’s knees go weak. The Sammy Smack-It Strength Meter dinged and belled behind him, but Knuckle couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. “Mister! Mister! You s’posed to gimme them tickets!” said the old man who had just scored nearly top marks on the Strength Meter. Thirty tickets had been dispensed from the machine behind Knuckle, so he tore them off the roll and gave them to the wiry old man. When Knuckle looked again for her, she was gone, lost in the crowd of Indiana appleseeds. They were in Peoria. It took Knuckle a few minutes to remember that — all these towns looked the same to him, the same people in the same clothes, speaking the same words as they lifted the same hammer and brought it down on the same strength machine. The one thing different here was her. Knuckle’s eyes opened wide when he caught a glimpse of her again later. This time she was swathed in swimming darkness, just outside the well-lit carnival grounds. Children streamed past in front of Knuckle, running outta the carnival with caramel apples and sacs of Candy Annie’s home-made sweets. Knuckle pushed past them to get close enough to hear the pretty blonde lady, whose face was pursed tight, her lips bloodless, glowing when she passed under a streetlight, where she stopped to snap something harsh to that man she was with. “You are such a asshole!” she said to him. It was only when she said that that Knuckle finally saw she was with a man. A boyfriend. Of course a woman like her wouldn’t be single. She probably had a line of suitors trying to meet her, Knuckle thought. He went back to the strength meter. That was it. She was gone. He might see her again before the carnival left whatever dipshit town this was, but probably not. He could have talked to her. But he didn’t, and that was that. The carnival shut down at ten-thirty, but Knuckle was already done by then. Nobody came by the strength meter that late. He went to the tent he lived in and sat in the lawnchair he done place out front. The sky was dappled with stars overhead, and the night was cool and calm like that woman’s eyes. But inside, Knuckle was afrenzied, with desire and with rage, and he soon got overwhelmed by the feelings coursing through him. He stood, as the other carnies came in for the night, and he spat curse words. He formed a fist with one hand and punched his other hand in palm hard enough to hurt. He kept doing it, stalking and pacing afront his trailer. “What’s wrong with you?” asked Pavel when he walked past. He was the horse-tamer and expert for the carnival, and he set up people — mainly little girls — with horseback rides. He always smelled like a barnyard. “There’s women here, Knuckle, don’t make ’em uncomfortable.” Knuckle nodded. His face was grim and ruddy. He stood motionless, unsure what he could say or do that Pavel wouldn’t think made the lady carnies uncomfortable. There weren’t even any women around, most likely. The handful of female carnies were probably in their own tent by now. “Let’s go for a bath,” Pavel said. That was where he was headed when he saw Knuckle. He always bathed first because he smelled so much like a horse. He ain’t like laying in bed in a cloud of horsehair and straw. As he led Knuckle into the bath tent, Pavel listened to him talk about the girl he done saw. Pavel was older than Knuckle, and wiser, so he just smiled and patted Knuckle on the back. “You’re getting this worked up over a girl you ain’t even talk to yet?” Pavel asked. Knuckle nodded. “I guess it is kinda silly.” He blushed. His face ain’t riddled with scars then. He had a strong, straight jaw with a masculine jawline and a shaggy mane of jet hair. Pavel filled up two wooden tubs with hot water, then he hurried to rip off his stableboy clothes. He was lean and ripped, powerfully built on his own merits, though he looked skinny next to Knuckle’s barrel-shaped body. Knuckle was slow, his eyes still dreamy and far away. By the time Knuckle was done, Pavel was already sighing and sinking into the warm water. He leaned back in the tub and sighed. “C’mon into the water, Knuckle. Don’t get’cha hopes up about pretty nice girls. Set your sights on a carnie, most likely. Caroline Nazzir likes you.” She was a carnie, a mermaid in the Hall of Wonders, as well as a pickpocket. She done made it very clear she would sleep with any man, more or less. But Knuckle never liked her. His hardon jutted against his briefs when Knuckle dropped his pants. He ain’t even realize that until he took his underwear off and saw it. He covered it up with both hands, not because it would be scandalous for Pavel to see him sporting a stiffy but simply because Pavel would make of him being smitten when he did see it. And Knuckle had to admit, he was smitten. He couldn’t stop thinking about that girl, Emma, as he climbed into the tub and sat across from Pavel. Their legs were intertwined. Since Knuckle was bigger, his legs were on the outside, pressed against the sides of the wooden tub. “I see that, you horny dog, you sportin’ wood,” Pavel said with a baritone laugh. “You still thinkin’ about her, ain’cha?” Knuckle nodded. He got an awkward grin on his face. “She was so pretty, Pavel…” One of Pavel’s big knobbly feet gripped Knuckle’s dick under the water. He rubbed it up and down and laughed at the look on Knuckle’s face — Knuckle’s eyes lit up with surprise, then disgust, then a long slow melting bliss as his half-hardon turned into a full-on. Pavel grimaced and laughed at the same time, and he put his other foot on it too. Knuckle’s dick throbbed under Pavel’s callused feet, softened by the water. Knuckle twitched. Pavel was jacking Knuckle off with his feet for two reasons. The first was that it was funny. The second was that it would mean Knuckle ain’t gonna make Pavel use his mouth or even butt later. That was an option because Pavel owed a lot of money to this carnival, and he had to pay it by giving up the butt to any carnie who needed it. That mattered because a horny carnie was liable to start trouble in the small towns they visited. But his plan backfired — Knuckle stood up, and, in one smooth motion, bathwater still dripping from his cock, Knuckle slipped his dick into Pavel’s mouth. Knuckle bent his knees, his eyes still upcast and dreamy, like he was moving on autopilot. Pavel made a sourpuss puckering face, but he ain’t refuse. He been taking dick for years in this carnival, and it was better than starving to death in Poland. At least here, the food was plentiful. He slurped spit up and down Knuckle’s shaft. A baritone grunt came from Knuckle’s mouth, and he pistoned his hips. His dick rammed into Pavel’s throat. Pavel was a tall man, so he managed to swallow almost the whole thing, until his nose was nestled in Knuckle’s pubic bush. “Ooooohhhhmmmmm…” Knuckle moaned. He thought getting hard and blowing a nut would make him forget about that blonde woman, but it didn’t. He kept thinking about her anyway. She was too pretty to imagine himself fucking her, so he pictured her talking to him and touching his arm and giggling when he spoke — giggling with her eyes too, not just her mouth. Sour, salty precum coated Pavel’s tongue. A moist gurgling sound came from Pavel, who patted Knuckle’s big asscheeks to signal he needed a break. Pavel spat a mouthful of prenut and wiped pubic hair off his lips. “Gimme a sec,” Pavel said. He clutched his belly with one hand, his face tense and queasy. He held back a gag and pursed his lips shut tightly. But Knuckle kept humping, his hips gyrating, his cock jabbing back and forth, without Knuckle paying any attention. Knuckle’s mind was fixated on her. He ain’t even notice at first that his dick moved through the air, not Pavel’s mouth. It poked Pavel in the nose when he was trying not to gag, and that caused him to retch violently. “Uaaaaggghhhhk…!” Pavel held his stomach again and spat outta the bathtub. He intended to keep spitting until the eye-wateringly salty taste of precum vanished, but Knuckle’s dick kept poking him in the face like it was trying to find his mouth. “Gimme a sec, Knuckle-“ But his mouth opened to speak, and Knuckle — his eyes still closed — aimed his rod right for it. Pavel’s whole body buckled as Knuckle’s knob invaded his mouth, instantly filling it again with precum. Pavel ain’t try to spit it out, though his wiry chest muscles all flexed as he held back a gag. Knuckle’s pecker pulsated like an alien beast in his mouth, and Pavel’s tongue slathered spit up and down the shaft. Cum flowed into Pavel’s throat. Knuckle grunted again, and he pounded on his chest. Pavel winced, scrunching his eyes shut. The taste was intensely salty and powerful. He held back a gag. Finally, Knuckle let go, and Pavel pulled off. He simultaneously gasped for air and spat jizz onto the ground outside the wooden tub. He paused for a moment. “Ecchk, your jizz tastes awful, Knuckle.” He spat again, as Knuckle sighed and wiped his dicktip off on Pavel’s cheek. “Thanks, Pavel,” Knuckle said. His nostrils flared, and he sat back down in the spermy water of the wooden bathtub. “But I still can’t stop thinking about her.”
Thumper recognized the humpty-dumpty nigga who came into Lipsweet late on Thursday night. It was only a half-hour till close. The sky done gone dark like it might rain, but it never did. The stars hid like shy cockroaches. “Yo, Thumper? That you?! Aw, hell!” said that nod-happy nigga who approached the door. His name was Rashid Jenkins. He was cold-shouldering the couple niggas he lined up with, and he gave Thumper a pip and a dap when they gazes met. “Oh, shit nigga!” Thumper’s eyes opened wide, as him and Rashid hugged it out. Thumper stacked lips at them other niggas waiting in line. Back inside, couple years ago, him and Rashid was in the same cell for awhile. Rashid was a top-heavy nigga, squishy and dense like overstuffed pillows. Thumper ain’t see him in years, and he recollected hard with his arms around Rashid. His fingers gripped that nigga’s thickness. “Goddamn, I ain’t know you was still kickin’ around Bangor. What’choo bin up to, Rashid?” Rashid scoffed and sucked on his teeth. “J’st keepin’ it real, holdin’ it down, Thumper. You know how a nigga do.” He sucked on his teeth again. “That’s all. You ain’t go back to Baltimore?” Thumper shook his head. “Parole officer won’t lemme leave the state.” A harsh air spilled between Rashid and his niggas, plus the dozen or so lippy whiteboys and one Asian impatient-waiting in line behind Rashid. They all finna see some dancers in the club, and they dim-eyed Rashid and Thumper chopping it up. They mumbled on the underhush that Rashid shouldn’t be slowing the line down and that Thumper was a doddery old nigga who dresses like a fossil. Thumper woulda told them to spit and sit, and he’da flurried up a couplea fisty cuffs if they ain’t show the proper respect with a quickness. If Thumper was in prison still and some young cats fussed at him to hurry, he’d correct them kittens sans mercy. Sans mercy as hell. But the owner Mr. Gregarian was in the club tonight. He was at the bar drinking something tasteful and tasteless. He want Thumper to behave, and Thumper gotta do what he say. So Thumper gave Rashid a hug and a shrug and said he’d talk to him later. Rashid got entranced by a tangerine-cream bitch with tits like sharks. He floated after her like a tasty surfer, and Thumper proceeded to check the idees of them dour niggas, whiteboys and that one sunnyskin in line. When the tide of hungry horndogs dwindled well into the early morn, Thumper took a break and let Davon watch the door, while he rushed off to piss. He went up to the floor his apartment was on though, rather than use the club’s bathroom. He was self-conscious of how long it took to get a flow going. The prison doctor said he got that old-nigga bladder. His “bladder neck” be bugging. He don’t want Davon to know it took him awhile. But he ain’t dawdle in the bathroom. He wanna get back down there so Davon don’t fuss. Thumper ain’t trust hisself to react like a outside nigga if that young-body pretty-face jive-white smile-hard nigga Davon tried to correct him. Davon wore a lor band-aid on his cheekbones. Nigga musta got a rainbow of band-aids cuz he steady wore one to match the drawers he displayed under his sagging jeans — Mr. Gregarian was mad on the “trousers” trip and curled his lip at sagging, but Davon could smile through any of Mr. Gregarian’s tut-tuts. So Davon rumped pink drawers tonight and a pink band-aid to match. Thumper ain’t even got the words to call that out. When his old-nigga bladder done empty, Thumper hustled to the stairwell. A glossy piece of paper was on the floor on the stairs. It caught Thumper’s eye cuz it couldn’t-a been there when he went up the stairs. He woulda noticed it for sure. He prolly woulda done slip on it. He picked it up. It was a playbill for a show called “The Invocation”, and the picture on it featured a familiar woman wearing a barn owl mask. It was that woman, Delsinerr. That woman he dreamed of, with the dress of screams and beaming tresses of horrid hair. He was gonna recognize her forever.
He ain’t know how long he stood there, eyes agogging that playbill. He was roused only when he heard some hubbubery in Lipsweet. He hustled hisself down and stalked into the backa the bar. He hushed up a heap of honkies, and he made sure to do it loud so Davon would hear. That way it looked like he be working, not shirking.
But before Thumper made it back to the front door, a storm of shouting kicked up. Couple clumps of niggas was standing off at each other, and Rashid was involved. Rashid done step to some slimfire kitkat, and both him and he got posses at they back. Both niggas and both they posses was fronting and saying all the shit niggas and they posses do say. “Fuck this shit, nigguh!” “You wanna step?” “Come at me then-“ “Shit, nigga, I will end you-“ “Fuck that, fuck — fuck — fuck this shit, nigga-“ “I’ll go backta prison, I don’t care-“ “Who the bitch now?!” Classic nigga shit. Ain’t even much point in saying it out loud. Might as well skip straight to holding a gun sideways and firing into a crowd. Thumper was glad he was a nigga with class. If everybody knows your lines, you might as well leave ’em unsaid. “C’mon at me, nigguh!” “Step to me then!” “You best come correct-!” Thumper put the fight down before it began. He slipped between them chin-to-chin niggas, finna slap the belligerence off they faces. “Simmuh down, you two-“ Before Thumper could finish, Rashid threw a fist at the slimfire kitkat, knocking him down like a disrespectful domino. Gravity hit him hard too, and the kitkat staggered around on the floor doing his best impression of a spreading piss-stain. “Settle yaselfs, niggas, why you gotta act like that?!” Davon said, smiling handsomely into the club, laughing all along like he was a joke-a-day nigga and ain’t nothing in the world really matter. He ain’t risk his precious mug by getting between Rashid and the kitkat though. “You can’t be like that,” Thumper said, pulling Rashid away with his shankin’ hands on Rashid’s jelly. Rashid do be like that though, always was. Thumper hugged Rashid close and talked straight into his ear. Rashid stiffed up like he ain’t notice Thumper, but he ain’t fight against him neither. He kept eye contact with that slimfire nigga and his posse until Thumper had him out the backdoor and into the corridor behind the club proper. “Nigga, slow yo’ roll!” He pulled down Rashid’s pants and drawers in one quick motion. Rashid got a big pair of juicy brown orbs. Thumper recollected slamming into them on the regular while inside — Rashid got self-control troubles, and he put hisself in big-time debt throwing dice, drinking hooch and smoking cigarettes he couldn’t afford. Thumper ain’t mind forgiving that debt in exchange for breaking a nut off. “Ah, shit, Thump, you into that booty bandit trip, we ain’t inside no mo’. E’rrybody alway knew you was gonna stay a ramrod, old head. That ain’t how a modern nigga act-“ “Shut up, nigga,” Thumper said. His hands ran up Rashid’s back and front, underneath his shirt. Rashid was one them niggas who get chunky in prison — he ain’t got the will to work out on the regular or to stop scarfing down commissary honey buns. He do buy what the candy folk sell him on. Now that he was out though, he be dropping his dollars on calorie-free blunts and nibble-size sluts. Tale as old as time. Even slimmed down, he was still thick as alfredo though, and you know Thumper love a high-carb booty. Now that they stood in the cool and the still of the corridor, Rashid stayed calm. He was mad on a reluctant front, all lifting hisself up and sucking on his teeth like he was too good to let a old head knock on his backdoor. He weren’t too good for nothing though, and under his gotta-fight shell, Rashid was cool as hot oatmeal. “Shit, Thump, shit…” “Why you gotta go after that slimfire nigga in there?” Thumper asked with a cluck of his tongue. “Mistuh Gregarian curl lip at niggas who start fights. City council expect him to keep peace.” He scoffed. “Mistuh Gregarian — that that cracker who own this place? He a damn fool, Thump, he was steppin’ to me couple weeks back. I was ’bout to lay him out like Thanksgiving dinner, somebody gotta do it, shit…” “You bettuh not, nigga. He keep it real,” Thumper said. “He will dig you a very shallow hole to lay down in, and he won’t think twice about it. Might make me dig it, and I dunno if my back can take that, nigga.” Thumper weren’t sure how much he was exaggerating that honky’s proclivities, but he ain’t want Rashid testing his ire. Mr. Gregarian got a gangster in his mind to live up to, and he seen some violent gangster movies. “Don’t go ruckusin’ in his club.” “Aw, shit, Thump, shit…” Rashid bristled, as Thumper’s hands spread his buttcheeks. Thumper kissed his meaty shoulders too, over the shirt and then under it when he took Rashid’s shirt off. Rashid stood there with a glumness, pants around his ankles, his jelly browns jiggling beneath Thumper’s firm fingers. “You ain’t in prison no mo’, you can’t be actin’ like a cast-iron nigga,” Thumper said. “How long you been out?” “Like six months,” Rashid said. His head hung weary on them shoulders. Rashid stay submitory when he got to. He know how to say ‘yes, nigga’ when the proper kind of nigga was behind him. “You havin’ trouble cividatin’?” Rashid shrugged. “Don’t go up my backdoor, Thumper. Be cool,” he said. “C’mon, nigga. You can just stick it ‘tween my thighs. Do that, feels damn good. That’s what-“ Thumper chuckled. “Nah, nah, nigga. I’ll use buncha spit. You know I got good spit. Know that!” He spat on the palm of his hand, then resumed stroking hisself off. One finger on his other hand jammed into Rashid’s asshole. “You done tighten, nigga. I like that.” “Ain’t nobody do that booty bandit shit on the outside, Thumper,” Rashid said. “You on the ramrod trip, that’s whack, that’s crackerjack-“, then he sucked his breath in as he felt Thumper’s knob touch his asshole. Rashid bent forward and leaned against the wall. Thumper rammed his cock into that paira roundnesses behind Rashid. His buttcheeks dimpled bright despite the dim light of the back hall. Rashid threw his head back and looked this way and that, his hands fluttering fast behind hisself. Rashid winced and grimaced, but he ain’t struggle. Even when Thumper’s cock slipped outta Rashid’s hole, he ain’t try to get away. He let Thumper jam it right back in. “Sssh, take yo’ dickload, nigga,” Thumper said. “Don’t play wit’ me.” He pushed it in deeper, and Rashid’s butthole spread open like a wedding invitation. It sucked Thumper’s shaft right back in, like his booty and Thumper’s manhood was best friends. “Ow, shit, Thump, c’mon, go gentle…” Rashid gulped. “Relax, I’mma nut real quick, relax, nigga.” Thumper clucked his tongue and plowed hard. His orgasm was coming on swift — something about the smell of Rashid’s backsweat gave him fond memories of prison, and it got his motor going good, like Thumper made a turn and was now driving on a road he recognized. Rashid was a well-trodded road, with little resistance left in his butthole, so Thumper could drive in and out with powerful thrusts. “Aaah, shit, see, already done…” A fat load of cum sprayed into Rashid’s booty. He hung his head low but took every bit, wincing only when Thumper rammed his meat in deep. A long hot flow of jizz filled Rashid up, while Thumper’s moans echoed in his ear. “C’mon, Thump…” Rashid muttered. He leaned his face against the wall. He shuddered and shimmied like a shameful snake. When Thumper was done, he ain’t pull out right away. He let his wang marinate in the warmth of Rashid’s guts. His breath condensed on the backa Rashid’s neck. Finally, his dick plopped out like a greasy sausage. Thumper swang it between his legs and rubbed the goo off in Rashid’s buttcrack. The last couple drops of cum dripped there between his cheeks. “Hmm, lemme see ya gape, nigga,” Thumper murmured. Rashid’s asshole did gape, whether that was cuz Thumper told him to or if it just happened, Thumper ain’t know. It was a satisfying sight regardless. When Rashid pulled his jeans up, Thumper was still playing with them buttcheeks. Then he wiped his dick off with paper towels from the janitor’s closet, and they both went back out to the club. Davon was shooing niggas out the door, so Rashid went out to the parking lot too. Thumper helped Teddy shut down the bar and watched Davon get in one the dancer’s cars, then Thumper went up to his apartment on the second floor. He got a shower and a snack. Thumper microwaved a brick of frozen broccoli and cheese, cuz he was pretending to like broccoli, cuz the world was like that these days, cuz Obama ain’t do nothing! Then he laid his weary head down on his bed. Moonlight shined through the window, and Thumper was glad to bask in the nighttime’s rays without trying to slumber.
The door to his apartment opened with a slow creak, and Thumper rose to stand upon his old feet. He wanna take a shank and shiv whichever nitwit just did strid into his crib unbid.
But no more sound was to be found, and Thumper done dumbfound, dumb as a mute tongue or a brainless hound in a pound of sin. With thin skin, his breath sucked in and ceaselessly spinned, cuz the air did unfold, as dead and cold as a mortician’s walk-in. That Bitch in White Delsinerr, it must be, cuz of the grim air and his mind behampering, she do be doing that to a nigga. His pot of cheese got the unfriendly gollygees. “I wholeheartedly offer the sincerest of apologies, Mister White,” she said at her best, looking unlined in a new right-fright dress. She took Thumper’s find, the glossy flier, from his pants pocket. Her dashing socket then faced his dismay like a twist of fate. “This got mislaid, I’m afraid.” Her words clotted and clogged her wave, hobbling wakes and gobbling up meaning. Thumper nodded, agoggling at that fiend steaming, his noggin beboggling by notions dropped in, misbegotten, stuck in a war he forgot to have foughten in. Layers of bog, his thoughts was tucked in, like befuddled puddles fog goggles — shit! — he was too rotten-hot fried to toggle his hide-or-fight side or even to think and blink when she pried and whitened his wrinkles, too lightened to abide. She did ride astride his brain a-sprinkling pain, and she tightened her ugly head. “You ain’t frightened of me,” she said. Thumper again slightened a nod. “I… I… can’t think when you’s around.” “My words finely decline, making humankind ruint like by fumes, by the tombs of time, by the climb of crime, by a broken rhyme, by plumes of foul weather. Y’all’s cries is all mine.” The gray owl feathers that lined her scowl splayed out like a rainspout, as she peered fears and doubt into him deep as a well. “I hope to see you in hell when you die. Or before, for I like a bride will wait forevermore in store.” “Why do you talk like that?” he asked like a unironed sheet. “I don’t speak,” she spoke like a freak. Her mask’s beetley bug scuttled sleek as a sulfury lugnut in the sea of time. “I hammer seeds into yo’ mind. The grammar is your’n that you cling to like a daft raft in a slammer of slime.” The leathery feathers of her mask then did retract, unfit, and drift together into a rift. “I wish to give you a gift, He Who Thumps, a token of hope unsunk.” Thumper was stumped as oaks. What kinda gift would a goat like this rhyme a nigga like him? “The gift I chime is time. You had thirty-four years to deplore, but now, with the price of gore, you can go back to before. Be a young nigga again,” she said, her words singing bigger than laws or figures. A long pause came up like the claws of riffing wiggers rilling open flaws upon prison lawns. Thumper narrowed his paws and stiffened ’em into fists like kisses by his side. “What?” Looking snide, she unsheathed mist for miles beneath that mask of denial. “Just a fact to flout and file, Mister White. I do offer to undo yo’ last bout in style. You can tout thirty-four vile years of bother and clout. Fear not a rout.” She slipped out like a fatherless shout, leaving Thumper aloner than ever to ramble and pout and fail at draining the heeby-jeebies all the way out.
