Tag: working the door at a strip club

Chapter Eleven: A Sweet Release

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.”

The Scarred Bouncer: Chapter Four

Chapter Eleven: A Sweet Release

On Friday night, two bouncers worked after nine o’clock. One worked inside, the other worked the door. Tonight, Knuckle kept the peace inside the bar. He preferred working the door. Inside, there was too much going on, too many spinning plates to take care of, lights flashing on and off, music booming boisterously, waitresses coming and going and dancers in and out of the champagne room and the dressing room and the back closet where they snorted drugs with men. Men ain’t allowed to touch the dancers, but the dancers could touch the men and even put the men’s hands wherever they wanted. Men ain’t allowed to be drunk, but they was allowed to get drunk. Men ain’t allowed in the back unless a dancer was escorting them to the champagne room. Inside the bar was a night stuffed with inconsistencies and unpredictable decisions. Knuckle hated it.
Not that any of that showed on his face. He was placid and firm, and his staggering stare stopped baddies from trying any tricks.
Knuckle stood by the bar, arms across his chest, legs slightly spread. He ain’t put on a tough face like the other bouncers, like Chuy, who worked the door, and he ain’t put on his smiling-brah face like Davon or his burly-daddy face like Wayne.
Conversation was subdued when Knuckle looked over the bar, and nobody sat at the tables nearest him.
Sanders Clampett sat closest to him. He was a regular, a middle-aged black man who often chatted with Teddy. He liked a couple of the girls enough to stare mouth agape every time one came near, and the girl he fancied most was Lace Laceright. She was big, buxom, heavily tattooed.
Tonight, she waitressed, so Sanders nursed his beer and flirted with her every time she passed him.
“Hey, baby, love ya top,” Sanders said when she came to the bar with orders from a table. It was obvious he been brainstorming ways to start a conversation with her. He flashed a grin at her.
“Thanks, sugah…”
“Hey, baby, you busy tonight?”
“Sure am, sugah…”
“Hey baby, you look thirsty. Wanna drink?”
“Hmm, I’d love a Sweetlips Sour,” she said. That was a mostly-water cocktail that the girls were encouraged to order. They got a bonus for it. Teddy made it for her, with the extra shot of tequila Lacey Laceright always requested.
As she bent over the bar to take it, Sanders looked at the tattoos on her back. “You got a redhead whiteboy tattooed on you, sweetums. That ya boy?” It was on her left shoulder. Teddy had noticed it too, but he’d never asked after it. Lacey Laceright had a lot of tattoos.
“That’s Skinny Malinky. He’s from a children’s book I like,” she said. She giggled and took a sip from her Sweetlips Sour. “Gotta take that table’s order, sugah.” She kissed Sanders on his cheek. “Thanks…”
“Hmmm… Hmmm…” Sanders let out a little moan and licked his lips when she kissed him, but then she was gone.
That night, hours later, Teddy was again closing down the bar. Arthur the bouncer at the door walked the girls to the parking lot, while Knuckle drank at the bar. Knuckle’s broad shoulders stretched his too-tight shirt. He gulped from the whiskey drink Teddy made him, so Teddy made him another one.
When Lacey Laceright walked by, her purse in hand, Knuckle looked at her and said, “The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids.”
Lacey Laceright and Teddy both looked at him with questioning eyes. Teddy stayed shocked — both by the bizareness of Knuckle’s words and the fact that he spoke without a direct question to respond to — but Lacey Laceright’s eyes lit up.
“Yes, oh my god, you’ve read that, Knuckle?!”
He nodded. “I read it a long time ago. I ai’t recognize the name when you said it, but I remember it…” He blushed and took a step towards her. “I like your tattoo a lot. Ma’am.”
She patted him on the chest and said, “You’re like maybe the third person I’ve ever met who’s read that. Thanks, sugah, have a good night.” And she walked out. She didn’t wait for Knuckle to escort her to her car, and Knuckle’s knees were weak, his teeth nervous, so it didn’t occur to him to go.
Teddy was impressed. That was the most personal thing Knuckle done ever said to anyone in Lipsweet, and it was the nicest any of the dancers done ever treat him. Knuckle hurried into the back — he was still living in the backroom next to the gym.
But he didn’t go straight there.
He went down the corridor behind the dance room, and he checked in the utility closets. He looked in the alley out back and behind the dumpster. He went to the champagne room and to the private spot where you could peep into the champagne room. He finally went into the “pantry” — that was what they called the room full of unopened liquor.
And there was Ernie the janitor. He was sweeping, singing softly to himself.
Ernie was in the pantry in hopes some shelf might be unlocked. He done tried them all — he did that every night because once, two years ago, he’d nabbed an entire shelf of fancy tequila that way. He’d been drunk for a month straight.
But when he heard someone in the hall, he got to sweeping. He assumed it was Teddy the bartender, here to get a new bottle of something, and Ernie needed an excuse to be in here. So he swept the floor of the tiny closet.

And he looked nonchalant at the sight of Knuckle. Ernie ain’t care about Knuckle — sure, he was ugly, even for a honky, and he was weird. But Ernie was a crackhead who done spent years behind bars. He done met more ugly, weird honkies than normal men. Knuckle was quiet, and he ain’t never told nobody nothing, so Ernie ain’t pay him no mind.

So Ernie shrugged and stopped pretending to sweep when he saw it was Knuckle. “Bottles is all locked up good,” he said. “Sometimes up at the bar there’s some rail liquor that-“
But Knuckle paid not a lick of attention to Ernie’s words. He strode into the tiny closet, shut the door behind himself and pulled down Ernie’s loose-fitting jeans. His other hand was in his pants, stroking his rock-hard dick.
“Hey! Honky-ass bitch!” Ernie yelped. “Git-“
But then Knuckle ripped Ernie’s tight white briefs apart to bare his bony asscheeks. Ernie squirmed and dropped the broom, then tried to pick it up to use it to fend off the giant bouncer behind him.
If it ain’t happen so fast, Ernie woulda realized bending over to pick up the broom was a bad idea. His yelp turned into a howl as Knuckle’s cock sank into his loose asshole.
“Shit, honky! Quit it! You gotta use some damn lube!” Ernie panted and clawed at Knuckle’s powerful chest behind him.
“Sssssh.” Knuckle ain’t get why Ernie was fighting him, but he ain’t care, he just sunk his dick in deeply. Ernie was a crackhead and a prison punk, and Mr. Gregarian was always making Knuckle cornhole him — any time he saw Knuckle (or any bouncer) with a stiffy, he told them to cornhole Ernie. Mr. Gregarian was worried a horny bouncer would get fresh with the dancers. Mr. Gregarian also found Knuckle just as creepy and offputting as everyone else, so he sometimes pretended to think Knuckle had a hardon to have an excuse to tell him to go away, to cornhole Ernie, so Mr. Gregarian wouldn’t have to endure Knuckle’s intense silence.
“Why you gotta rip my drawers?” Ernie said through gritted teeth. He spread his legs the best he could, and he grabbed the bottle of lube he kept in here. He still wore his underwear, but Knuckle done ripped the back of it in half to bare his butthole.
No answer was forthcoming. Knuckle grabbed Ernie by his knappy-ass hair, and he held on tight. That had the effect of making Ernie struggle with the lube — Knuckle ain’t trying to stop Ernie from lubing up, he done simply forgot that that was normal.
By the time Ernie got his hand down to his backside to smear some lube on, Knuckle was already pumping him full of cum. Great creamy gobs of it jazzed into Ernie’s butthole with such sudden energy that Ernie jerked and twitched.
His dick slid out. A couple cumwads sprayed over Ernie’s dark, gray-haired buttcheeks and dripped down his ropy thighs.
Knuckle sighed and pulled his rod with one hand. He drained the last couple drops of jizz out and flung them onto Ernie’s legs.
Ernie scowled and slipped away. “You a shit, honky,” he said. He wiped cum off his butt and ropy thighs. “Goddamn…” he pulled his pants up, torn briefs as well, and walked away muttering to himself. “Crazy-ass honky mothahfuckah…”

The Scarred Bouncer: Chapter One

Chapter Eleven: A Sweet Release

It was a quiet night at Lipsweet, but Teddy was terrified. That was because the peace was kept by the bouncer Knuckle, and Knuckle was terrifying.
Teddy worked the bar at Lipsweet, a rough-edged strip club on the outskirts of Martinsburg, West Virginia. Knuckle was the bouncer there. Like all the bouncers at Lipsweet, Knuckle was big and strong and tough. Unlike the other bouncers at Lipsweet, Knuckle was also badly scarred, bizarre and scary. He was scary-looking enough that nobody tried anything while Knuckle was on duty. Nobody groped the dancers. Nobody tried to get free drinks. Nobody got loud or obnoxious. Nobody picked fights.
So it was a quiet night at Lipsweet.
It was hard to finger exactly what was scary about Knuckle. Part of it was obvious: his badly scarred face, with a thick cheek scar that gave him a permanent sinister smile visible from one angle, a burn scar that spilled like lava from his shoulder to the side of his face, a long beheading-type scar on his neck, a cut running from his sideburn to his forehead as though an eye was almost sliced open and a constellation of pinprick scars and marks all over his bare arms when he wore a sleeveless shirt.
And aside from the scars, Knuckle glowered and stared with flatness, his face unreadable, his voice low and growling, without emotion, and a lot of what he said was just plain weird or incomprehensible. Nobody liked talking to him.
One benefit of Knuckle working was that folks always left promptly at closing time. The other bouncers had to drag the drunks and the sticky-peepers away from the dancing ladies. There were usually a couple brawls — not serious, as anyone left by then was too drunk to fight effectively, but most nights, somebody refused to leave.

Not when Knuckle worked the door. He gave one glowery look at the last couple drunks, and they hightailed it outta there. The bar was empty before Teddy even put the pre-sliced limes away.

After that, the dancers and waitresses left one by one. Knuckle escorted each of them to their cars in the parking lot. In between that, he sat silently at the bar and downed a drink Teddy poured for him, while Teddy added up the day’s receipts and shut the register down for the night.
He was always nervous on a Knuckle night, so Teddy was glad when Knuckle disappeared. Teddy finished with the receipts, totaled up the cash register and locked the booze cabinet. Then he poured himself a cheap drink of whiskey, soda water and the last of the apple juice — the only juice in an opened bottle besides cranberry juice, which Teddy didn’t drink this late because it would keep him up peeing. He was past the point in his life where he could drink cranberry juice late at night.
Before leaving though, Teddy went in the back to do a final check — to make sure the dancers were all gone, that none of them had been attacked by a “boyfriend” in their dressing room, that no drunks were passed out in the bathroom, etc.
Plus he was curious where Knuckle went. Lipsweet had a large back area, including dressing rooms, champagne rooms, a locker room and gym for the bouncers, a couple offices and storage spaces for the Gregarian family (who owned Lipsweet) and a locked warehouse that Teddy was pretty sure was full of guns. He didn’t ask about that door though.
“Hello? Knuckle?” Teddy called out before the flickering hall light turned on. The bathroom was deserted. The dressing room was empty — the dancers had left it a pigsty, with clothes and makeup detritus strewn about — Mr. Gregarian was gonna get het up about that if he saw it, Teddy thought.
But there were no signs of Knuckle. So Teddy ought to just go home. He was only supposed to check for drunks passed out by the toilets, and he’d done that. Now he could go home.
Yet the more he thought about it, the more Teddy wondered about Knuckle. Why was he so weird? Why did he act like that? Where did he go? Knuckle had come in after escorting Caitlin Smiles to her car — she’d called him an “ugly ape”, and Teddy distinctly remembered Knuckle coming back in after that; he’d finished his drink at the bar, and then he’d come into the back as though to escort another dancer to the parking lot. But Caitlin was last to leave, so there were no more dancers.
Knuckle was in the gym.
Teddy scampered to hide next to the door into the gym so Knuckle wouldn’t see him. He didn’t know why; Teddy was allowed to be here. Knuckle was just off-putting and odd, and Teddy’s first reaction was to avoid talking to him. Teddy stayed beside the doorway into the tiny gym.
Mystery solved, he thought. Knuckle was working out. That wasn’t so strange. Mr. Gregarian put the gym behind Lipsweet so the bouncers would use it. Knuckle was doing bicep curls. It was a little weird to work out at four o’clock in the morning, but that was hardly the weirdest thing about Knuckle.
The “gym” was a glorified closet with a couple weight machines and a treadmill in it, and he was on the bowflex in the center of the room. His big fleshy arms were sturdy, dotted with sweat. On his left bicep was that burn scar whose edges stretched up onto his neck and cheek, and since he had taken off his button-down shirt to reveal a raggedy wifebeater, Teddy could see now how big it was. He had been very badly burned at some point, it seemed.
There was a bandage on his side, near his back. It looked fresh — from tonight? — because it was still pale white and clean around the edges but soaked in crimson right above the wound. He must have struggled to put the bandage on, because it only partially covered the wound. Where it stretched onto his back, the bandage didn’t quite cover it. That made sense, because Knuckle was so muscular and thick-chested that he probably couldn’t reach that section of his lower back.
“The dancers is all gone,” Knuckle said. His voice was grim, flat, emotionless, like a deflated balloon, but scratchy like his lungs were made from sandpaper. It sounded painful for him to speak, and his voice made Teddy’s hair stand on end.
Why did he say that? Nobody else was in the room. It took Teddy a few seconds to realize Knuckle said that to him. Knuckle knew he was there.
“The dancers is all gone,” Knuckle said again with stopping his bicep curls. “I made sure they left okay.”
Teddy went into the gym-room then, since apparently hiding hadn’t worked. Teddy was just a bartender — he wasn’t in charge of ensuring Knuckle escorted the dancers to their cars, boyfriends or johns, but Knuckle had said that as though proving to Teddy he had done his job. It wasn’t even Knuckle’s job — Mr. Gregarian never said the bouncers had to do it. The other bouncers generally only did it if the girls said they were worried about a stalker. Teddy said, “Oh. Okay. Cool. Thanks, Knuckle. I just wanted to make sure no one was in the backrooms. I gotta lock up.”
“Yes.” Knuckle kept doing bicep curls. The bandage came unstuck from his bare side, which was slick with sweat. He didn’t seem to clock it. The bandage dangled from his muscular back.
What on earth did “yes” mean? Teddy hadn’t asked a question. See, this is why, Knuckle, everyone thinks you’re creepy. Teddy couldn’t tear his eyes away from the thick scar bisecting his neck. Did Knuckle survive getting his throat slit?
“I, uh… Okay. You have your key, right? So you can leave-“
“Yes.”
There was a long pause. Teddy normally liked the bouncers and their muscles. He often rubbed their shoulders when they were done with their shift.
But not Knuckle.
Not that Knuckle didn’t have nice muscles. Mr. Gregarian only hired large men with powerful bodies as bouncers. Knuckle was a muscle-hound and tough enough to have done years in prison. His shoulders were as thick as volleyballs.
A weak sigh came from Teddy’s chest. “Let me help you with that bandage. What happened?” Teddy said. He felt bad about Knuckle apparently unable to take care of his own injury. Teddy inhaled the gloriously zesty scent of Knuckle’s workout sweat.
“A knife.”
What about the knife, Knuckle? Did it come alive and stab you? Did you fall on it? Did Freddie Krueger attack you in your dreams last night?
But Teddy didn’t ask those questions. He went back to the bar to get a first aid kit. When he returned to the gym, Knuckle was still weight-lifting, like he didn’t think Teddy was going to come back to help.
“Who stabbed you? When?” Teddy asked as he disinfected the cut. It didn’t look like Knuckle had cleaned it. He had just slapped a bandage halfway on the wound. Why? What on earth was the point of that? Dried blood had trickled down the side of his back and stained his workout shorts, which looked to be decades old — the kind of basketball shorts they wore when professional basketball players were mostly white. The shorts were too short by modern standards. Knuckle looked ridiculous in them.
And now, they were blood-stained. Knuckle had cleaned off the blood on his skin, so he knew the shorts were bloody. Why hadn’t he changed them?
And this is why the dancers think you’re a creep, Teddy thought but didn’t say. You’ve been working this whole shift, presumably, wearing blood-stained shorts.
He had to admit the scent of Knuckle’s sweat made his dick twitch. He didn’t mind the extensive burn scar on his shoulder, neck and cheek either. It wasn’t classically handsome, of course, but it gave him a certain simmering intensity that Teddy found arousing.
“The man with the whiskey stabbed me,” Knuckle said, his voice rugged with rasps.
“That man who wanted Jim Beam tonight was… Wait, tonight? You got stabbed tonight?” Teddy’s hands stopped when they gripped his shoulder, which was firm like rock. His skin thrummed and buzzed beneath Teddy’s touch.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say? Why didn’t you call the police? That man — wait, you mean the man in the suit? The one who raised a fuss about me being out of Jim Beam and-“
“Yes.”
“And then came back to the bar and settled on vodka?”
“I dunno what he drank after.”
“Knuckle…” Teddy sighed. That man had been drinking at the bar right in front of Teddy. Teddy had no idea he had just stabbed the bouncer. He simply filled the man’s orders. The man went into the champagne room with Caitlyn Smiles! “That man could have been waiting in the parking lot with the knife for you to get off work! That’s dangerous, Knuckle-“
“I’s stayin’ here. In the backroom. Not leaving through the parking lot.” That flat murder-hobo voice made Teddy’s spine quake. Knuckle was still doing bicep curls, having not missed a beat.
Knuckle’s claim didn’t solve the problem Teddy had pointed out. At all. The man still had a knife in the bar all night. He could have been waiting for Knuckle in the parking lot. If Knuckle didn’t come, he could have stabbed one of the girls. Or Teddy. He could have been too drunk to know who he was stabbing. He could have had a gun as well. He could have raped Caitlyn in the champagne room. Somebody else could have taken the knife off him when he got drunk. He could have gotten furious when Teddy cut him off for being too drunk. He could have stabbed another customer for looking at Caitlyn.
He hadn’t been banned from Lipsweet! He could be back tomorrow with a bigger knife!
But Knuckle had apparently not told anyone he was stabbed. He just half-bandaged-up and resumed bouncering. He hadn’t even taken a break tonight — had he bandaged himself standing at the door?
He must have guessed what Teddy was thinking because Knuckle said, “Mistuh Gregarian don’t like it when the cops come.”
“He doesn’t like it — that doesn’t apply if you’ve been stabbed, Knuckle,” Teddy said. “You could at least kick the guy out.” Teddy’s hand lingered on Knuckle’s belly, next to the stab-wound from tonight. There was an old puckering circular scar there. “Is that an old stab-wound?”
“That’s a gunshot.”
“You poor baby…” Teddy said, more out of a desire to suck up to the scarfaced weirdo than because he really pitied him. Knuckle was too intimidating to arouse much sympathy. He patted Knuckle on the biceps in lieu of hugging him — Teddy didn’t know if he avoided hugging Knuckle because Knuckle seemed like he might not like it or if Teddy was too intimidated by him. Knuckle was still doing bicep curls too, so it would be awkward to hug him.
But the dancers did treat him badly. They treated all the bouncers like shit — the dancers mostly had high-class boyfriends who were bankers, coke dealers, heirs, etc. The bouncers were a bunch of ex-cons, boxers and freaks like Knuckle. The dancers treated the bouncers like insolent ponies.
And Knuckle wasn’t a jerk like some of the bouncers, like Davon, a prettyboy who seemed nice but never wanted to get his face mussed up and had a side-hustle as a pimp. Teddy didn’t like him.
“Who’s Emma?” Teddy asked as he washed dried blood off Knuckle’s back. EMMA was tattooed on his nape in small Gothic lettering.
“She was a girl. I loved her. That was a long time ago,” he said, and for the first time since Teddy had known him, there was a trace of emotion in his voice. “That was before I looked like this.”
“Oh, Knuckle… Knuckle, I’m sorry — did she…?-“
“She married someone else,” he said.
Teddy hadn’t meant to start rubbing Knuckle’s shoulders and chest like he did with the other bouncers, but as Knuckle talked, that was what he did. Knuckle was tall and thick-bodied, and Teddy had to strain to reach around his thick barrel chest. His pecs flexed, and Teddy found himself hugging Knuckle’s sweat-dappled chest from behind.
“I worked for a traveling carnival when I met her,” Knuckle said. “She had a nice boyfriend even then.”
“You were a carnie?”
Knuckle nodded. “I ran the strength-meter, the one with the hammer.” He paused. “I miss her.” He sounded like he was getting drunk now, his words a little sloshy, and he swayed even though he simply sat on the edge of the bowflex.
His dick twitched in his shorts, and Teddy was glad to see it was huge. He stroked it through the fabric. He was about to ask if Knuckle wanted to be jacked off, but before he could, Knuckle said, “Yes.”
There was no need to ask which question he was answering. In moments, Teddy had Knuckle’s hot, foot-long cock in hand and stroked it slowly. It was even bigger than the other bouncers, he thought. He spat on his hand, then Knuckle grabbed him by the wrist, hocked up a thick loogey of snot and put it back.
Well, that was weird, Teddy thought, but slimy and soft and warm, and he nuzzled the sweaty meat of Knuckle’s scarred shoulder as his hand wrapped around Knuckle’s dick again. The burn-scar was partially orange down the back, and then green towards the spine, the shape distended because it used to be a tattoo — maybe a dragon breathing fire? Teddy didn’t ask because Knuckle leaned his head back, then chugged the last of the liquor in the drink Teddy gave him.
He took his flask out from the pocket of the shorts he had pulled down to bare his cock. He guzzled the rest of that liquor too, as both of Teddy’s hands brought him to orgasm.
A huge wad of cum sprayed over Knuckle’s chest. He moaned — a creaky, flat moan like a malfunctioning grandfather clock — and Teddy licked a few drops up where they landed on his shoulders.
Knuckle groaned like he was either sleepy or drunk or both. He grunted and burped, the sound cavernous to Teddy because he was still behind him on the bowflex. Knuckle pushed back to signal Teddy to leave. His jizz dripped over his chest muscles. Some had gotten all the way up to his chin and lower lip, but Knuckle ignored it.
“I’ll pass out here,” Knuckle said. He glanced up at Teddy, his soulful eyes peering into him. His words lumbered out like a distant volcano. “Thank you, Teddy. For being nice.”
“You’re welcome,” Teddy said. Knuckle was already half-asleep, it seemed. He wasn’t going to wipe the jizz up off his chest or put his dick away. Teddy found a towel in one corner of the gym.
“You can nut on me. Hump my dick, or my chest if you want. Or my mouth when I pass out,” Knuckle said. He shrugged and closed his eyes. “Not when I’m awake.”
“Really?” Teddy furrowed his brow. He often jacked off with the bouncers. They sometimes let him frot their dicks or hump their muscles, as they worked out or drank their post-shift liquor.
But not when they were passed out. And not their mouths.
“Knuckle?” Teddy said softly, his hands rubbing Knuckle’s shoulders lightly. He said it a few more times, then poked Knuckle’s scarred cheek to see if he was awake.
He was out cold.
Teddy giggled and touched his scarred face again, gasping like he was getting away with something. Knuckle’s jizz clung to his chin. Teddy leaned in and sucked it up. The taste was salty and bracing, and when Knuckle didn’t react, Teddy did it again. Then he kissed a trail up Knuckle’s face.
Teddy took out his own dick and frotted it with Knuckle’s giant limp member for a few minutes, until he was sure that Knuckle was fully unconscious. Knuckle snored as Teddy mounted the bench and rubbed his dick on Knuckle’s chest.
He had massive pecs the kind only men in movies had, Teddy thought with a grin. He leaked precum all over those pecs. He found that, when his balls dragged over a nipple, both pecs twitched. He did it again and again, massaging Knuckle’s scarred shoulders.
Then he slipped his dick in Knuckle’s mouth. A hoarse choke came from his throat, but if he was awake, he gave no sign. His mouth was warm and wet, and the sensation sent a shiver up Teddy’s spine.
He moved his dick in and out, rubbing it over Knuckle’s tongue. He twitched a couple times but otherwise didn’t respond. Teddy pushed all the way in, until his balls slapped against Knuckle’s chin.
An intense orgasm overwhelmed Teddy, who moaned out loud and gripped Knuckle’s head. Cum sprayed all over Knuckle’s chin, mouth and neck, but Teddy stuck it back in his mouth, in time to fill it up to overflowing.
A retch and a shake came from Knuckle’s body, but he spat up all that cum, as Teddy’s dick still jizzed, and moistly sputtered, but he didn’t wake up. His big square face was coated in creamy white cum.
“Thanks, Knuckle,” Teddy said softly, still not wanting to wake him up. Teddy dismounted him and pulled up his pants. He was about to leave, but he saw Knuckle sitting there with his pants down, dick out, face and chest dripping with cum.
It seemed undignified, Teddy thought. He wiped off Knuckle’s dick, face and chest, then put his dick away and did his fly back up. He couldn’t put a shirt back on without lifting Knuckle’s giant chest up — an unrealistic proposition — so Teddy left him like that, snoring soundly.
“Have a good night, Knuckle,” was all he said before walking out.

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter One

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Inside the bar was smoky and slow like a steamed cigarette. Thumper White got there just past five o’clock, and the jawn was quiet. He worked the door at the strip club Lipsweet. Outside, it looked like it might rain. Thumper hoped it did, as he wanna feel rain upon his brow. He spent thirty-four years in prison, where the screws canceled outside time if it might rain — they thinks rain might help a nigga escape — or “abscond” if you a prison guard. He bin waiting to get rained on.
But his dome stayed dry all night as he worked the door alongside this statue-shape nigga Davon. They mostly checked idees, but Thumper saw some nice titties too. After so much time without women, that was a perk that got Thumper reeling.
The lead-up to Thumper’s release was intense. His world opened up again and seemed as limitless as the teeming night sky. A nigga don’t see many stars in prison. But now he was out, and he relied on the club’s owner Mr. Gregarian for a cheapy-deapy place to sleep above the bar and for the job he needed to keep his parole — he gotsta work forty hours or go back to prison, even if he ain’t need all that to pay the bills. He got mandatory therapist appointments and narcotics anonymous meetings even though he never been a mental nor did he ever get accused of using narcotics anonymously. He gotta answer his goddamn phone anytime day or night in case his parole officer called. No excuses. Fucking phone was like a manacle.
A manacle that beeped unscrutable-like. If anybody reading this know how to make a whoopy-doopy-whoop beep stop, let a nigga know. Any nigga wearing red will do. Word’ll get back to Thumper.
His schedule was just as determined on the outside as it was on the inside. He got more privacy on the outside, and his apartment was nicer. But he had homies and choices and free backrubs from the reverend at chapel every Sunday on the inside.
Out here, homies was scarce. Every nigga he knew before his arrest was outta his life now. World was never smaller than now that he was free to walk it alone. Shoulda “absconded” when he was young enough that living free was worth it. Now he ain’t even allowed to leave the state of Maine, so he couldn’t go home to Baltimore and dip his toes in the mighty Chesapeake again.
Thumper was sposedta start bouncering tomorrow night, but the bouncer who was scheduled for tonight done bounce without telling nobody. They was surmising he quit cuz he ain’t show up. Just gone, like a ghost. Maybe he was dead, ain’t nobody check. Cuz he wasn’t around, Mr. Gregarian brought Thumper in tonight to work alongside Davon, who was the head bouncer.
“A’ight, old nigga, we comin’ up on the night proper,” Davon said around nine o’clock, shattering Thumper’s nod. Davon grinned ear to ear. “They be bustling in now. You ready?” A foursome of cars was pulling into the parking lot, each of ’em plum with hipstering honkies lashing on liquidishly like they done start they drinking back home.

Folks did that now. It was trash-high behavior back before, but nowadays every whombody did it. Drinks was expensive for real.

“Hell yeah, Davon, I bin waitin’ for this day for thirty-four years.”
Davon nodded, with a smirky grin like he ain’t get why Thumper said that but ain’t wanna listen to any clarification. He knew Thumper was a ex-con, he just don’t care enough to think about it. Davon was a Blood, same as Thumper. Unlike Thumper, Davon was also a mud-color darkskin prettyboy with teeth like a skeleton and lips made for kissing buttflaps. He was a jubilous talkalot who pretended to pal with people like a pushy puppy. Already he be pimping palms with honkies and addressing ’em like he knew ’em. “There you is, welcome back! Love to see ya, sohn! You keepin’ it real… Scott.” He got they names off they idees as he checked ’em, but he pretended he remembered ’em. In return, they all pretended to be charmed by him. Thumper done hung out with farts that was more interesting than that nothing-muffin. His forgettable six-pack and baby-clean name-brand jeans stretched a teaspoon of charismatic gravy over two hundred fifty pounds of that nigga’s salisbury steak. If niggas was books, Davon’d be a romance novel that was ten pages long but fulla correctly spelled words. Davon was a sea of smiles and dimples, the velveeta of niggas, like a cushion and a cloud didn’t bake a cake, and that cake was sugar-free, fat-free, declawed, defanged and stuffed with puffs of nothingness. That nigga gladhanded every one them no-hoot pecker-toters who lined up to exercise they stiffies in Lipsweet.
The difference between Thumper and Davon — aside from the obvious ones — was that Davon got no problem saying all the fool-ass shit the world want him to say. He do stick to the lines he been given, and he wanna be nice to everyone in case they got more lines to give him in the future. Thumper got no choice to follow Davon.
Well, not true. He could beat that handsome nigga into a ugly stain. Doing so might be preferable one night to pushing obedience at a smooth sac like Davon.
But for now, he do what Davon say, at least as it relates to bouncering.
Not much happened, even when the club filled up. Thumper was hoping for more excitement. Prison was buncha boredom, but at least there was chances to stab a Mexican. The one time a trio of numptious niggas nipped at a dancer’s derriere without proffering payment, it was Davon who brung them a basket of dimple-fried smiles to tell ’em to lay off — nigga was smiling! Seemed nuggety to Thumper, but it worked. Davon smiled more than every nigga Thumper met in prison combined.
Eventually, as time do be doing, it went on, and night’s close drew near. This was it. Thumper was a free nigga, and he got a job, and here it was. This was freedom. He bin imagined hisself living like he did when he was nineteen and a champion boxer and got a coach and high-quality knees and a posse of niggas with plans and he couldn’t swing his dick around without knocking down a white bitch flinging her pussy at him. Now, he gotta speak up to get any fool to pay him mind. He was just another nigga, not in charge of shit, not even within earshot of being in charge.
And, as Teddy the bartender did his last-call bit and Davon began hustling drunks and skunks out the bar like it was his job, Thumper ain’t like it that he was the low soul on the totem pole here. He was twice the age of Davon and Teddy, but they was calling his shots. Shit’s bullshit, nigga.
In prison, Thumper was the nigga who did and everybody knew it. Here, he was just the creepy old head, the new nigga, nobody’s uncle, the graybeard whoever over there.
Ain’t neither of ’em, Davon or Teddy, pick up any what Thumper was putting out. That was good, cuz Thumper need this job. He be simmering though.
He was still simmering when Lipsweet finally closed, and Teddy locked the door. Davon told Thumper to take this unconscious ruddynut to the alley out back and slap the drunkness outta him. Thumper just dropped him by the dumpster and went back in, more outta desire to be disobedient than cuzza mercy. The door back into Lipsweet done lock when it slammed shut, so Thumper gotta rattle his key in the knob to open it up. He ain’t tell Davon he left the ruddynut drunk unsmacked. Davon’s prettyboy mug was putting on a show for the girlies, who watched him tell a story like they worshipped him. Thumper wanna make a shiv, stab his bitch-ass and rip the smirk off his face.
But thirty-four years of prison ran through his old-nigga mind. Thumper fights mean, but he fights clean. So he ain’t do jack shit to Davon. He helped Teddy put the chairs on the tables, so the janitor Ernie could quit spinning his wheels in the backcorridor like a haunted car and come up front to mop.
While Ernie pretended not to steal drinks from behind the bar, Davon disappeared, so Thumper escorted the dancers out to they cars by hisself. When Thumper saw him later, he got the impression Davon got sucked off by one the dancers. Prolly this fiery chowder-white Cherry. None the dancers gave Thumper a second look. Half them ain’t give him a first look.
Looks is scarce for a old nigga outsidea prison.
Thumper overheard the dancers whisper about him as the uncool old nigga, as out-of-touch as a frozen caveman. Davon too, he was joking earlier with Bud the club deejay that Thumper was “old-school but not the cool kind of old-school, he’s old-school like an abandoned orphanage”. They all looked at him like a car nobody makes parts for anymore. Thumper pretended not to hear all them all badmouthing him. That was easy cuz they thought he got old-nigga ears.
When the strippers was all gone home to they coke dealers and/or the highest bidder — they gots expectations to fill, and they fills ’em good — Davon and Teddy dipped. Thumper went upstairs. The apartment Mr. Gregarian gave him was on the second floor.
This whole jawn, the Gregarian building, was a ratmaze of renovated hallways and uncomprehendable architecture, hallways to nowhere, lor tumor-like spaces that done pop up in corridors, scatterings of solitary steps and three-stair staircases. It prolly started off as a mansion. But it done got scrambled and scattered since then, and Thumper got lost when he went looking for the laundry room or Rajesh’s office (Rajesh was the computer man for the club, and he fixed Thumper’s phone when he got a undismissable storm about a missing Spanish girl named Kia Sorento).
He stopped short at a ruffle of fabric, a off-white like light bone, billowing just outta sight to the right atoppa the stairs. “Who’s’at? Yo, uh… ma’am?”
A old-fashioned dress, he thunk, but its tail was all he saw. No way, nothing the strippers at Lipsweet would wear. Them’s the only women he got a expectation to see here now. But outfronts was all over the block in this building, so getting lost and wandering up here was plausibility for a female.
Mind ain’t working right? Wonderment on whether he was having a stroke tolled within Thumper’s mind.
The ruffling sound stopped like a timeless clock. From bottom to top, Thumper got blocked. “You — ain’t — s’posed-ta — be — up — here…” Stumbling short to cork his lungs, Thumper de-posed and unbeckoned like a unloaded weapon, unable to reckon the undead howls afronta his face and bowels.
Beneath a lacy hood like a owl’s head, battle-spike leather and satellite dish feathers surrounded around her mask. A porcelain corpse, she stood like a goblin, in a necklace of coffins, dress waffling in a breeze Thumper ain’t feel. Buggy-mugging, Thumper’s stout mouth and burnt tongue crowded about curtly, but no words emerged to be heard. She silently brayed like birds and bees. Fabric faded like a murky wheeze, silent as a lady’s pleas, lined with lace from rusty seas, the musty dress must be dusty like shaker cheese. Her flaky bust squeezing together with the mask and the ghastly dress made up a way Thumper’s brain couldn’t grasp.
She slid like dead flowers fading fast past showers of parchment in this petrified hall of broken doors in rows run nigga run dead light flowing like salted moths. His boots got rooted soft, and his broth froze awful in the cold wafting off her. He wanna go run leave flee sprint depart, but he couldn’t start, stuck tucked in to unlucky skin. Something missing within, felt like prison again, boxed in like a outfoxed hen, a would-be has-been with a fist-free tin chin who spent his ever-lasting hell in a thin cell of superlative sin. He be dropping nocked wins and bleeding blistered insight.
“Indeed, Mister White,” she said kiss-tight, voice skin-deep and slight, flinty as blight and thick as grout. “I done lost my route in this labyrinth of drought.”
At a standstill-turnt-rout, Thumper was cloudy and stout like a landfill of doubt, crowded with the devout, and his will filled without tingles at all, leaving him small and unshingled. His brain dewrinkled. Self-caging, Thumper felt hisself aging. “Wha… What’cha lookin’ for…?” Enraging in stages, Thumper face to face with her, her lacy grace hurt like a basic church.
A racing lurch under that mask was, like a bug on her face, scuttling like gutter butter into her gullet. Thumper bugged up bullets, agasp at last, after thirty-four years of crafting sass at white crap.
Her voice done did clasp tight as a flask, highly muffled and slightly rasped. “My vast dear, I did dash here to bask in the theatre of fat and fear.” Her mask skittered still as her head cocked aside like a lizard in a rancorous blizzard. Her words set off one and two thoughtful missiles. “You a actor? You come new to the Bangor official, yes?”
“I just moved in. There.” His regret at saying that rumbled soon as spores of doom, but that score was all he got in store. His point was one finger at the door above the floor. He got wishes galore he ain’t spill which apartment was his. This was one white bitch he don’t want dropping by. “The theatre — the movie theatre is closed down. It’s on the other side of the building. It outfronts on Stranger. It’s down those stairs I think.”
“No, Mister White, it ain’t closed, but thank yo’ bones.” She spoke dank as hoes.
“Who… is you?”
“I’s only the bereft wedge of empty woes,” she said, after laughter bounced her dulcet hair. “But you may call me Delsinerr.” A blot of a nod did crest her croney pall, and her blunt cunt glid smooth as a fall down the hall as though she floated above the floor, yet the clogs she wore clicked like clomps on blocks of gore. A stompy rhythm bore her stepless tour, and the wetness of her necklace did clink more and more in sync with the swirling squall of her furious footfalls, hauling gall down Thumper’s maw, for She is They, a slay-bent cabal that shall rend and maul to the end of it all.

When she was gone, Thumper’s mind cleared swift as bisquick, and he breathed normal again. Reality reordered.

Thumper scurried into his apartment and locked the door. He dragged the couch to block the door too. Only then did he start pacing and peeping through his peephole until dawn.
He was lucky the next night was a night off, cuz he ain’t sleep a nickel. He decided to move out, to go to the homeless shelter until he could find a new apartment. He ain’t wanna spend another night in that building where She might come by again, and he sat by the window until daylight flooded his room.
Seeing the sun rise made him think of prison and getting up early as roosters to start work detail, him and bunchesa niggas and Aryans bleary-eyed watching the horizon from the prison bus. He liked seeing the sun rise. Makes a nigga feel human, and watching it now made that crazy Woman in White feel like a dream.
So, in the warm light of day, Thumper decided he musta hallucinated. That was some crazy nightmare or something. She weren’t real. He peered in the window of the movie theater that afternoon, the one on Stranger Street, and it was dusty as a sneeze, unused in years, just a empty lobby and ticket window, one overturnt chair the only furniture. Scatterings of tarnished pennies dotted the counter where the concession-stand register woulda been.
It was just a dream. Thumper weren’t gonna tell nobody about it, cuz if he did, they’d make him for a notiony nigga telling tales. Maybe they would be right.
Somehow, after a full day of sunlight, he did sleep that eve. He thought he’d lay awake again, trying not to think of that masked woman whose presence broke his mind. But he did eventually drift into a fitless sleep and awoke even more tired than the night before.
Then Davon came by after noon, arriving without warning, like a bland tornado. He came to take Thumper to the private gym in the building, outfronting near that movie theater on Stranger. Thumper bin meaning to get down to the gym, but he ain’t do it till Davon brung him there. Davon gave him a doodad to wave around another doodad on the door to make it open. Doodad magic, look it up.
Inside was battle ropes, dumbbells and medicine balls, plus treadmills and one them home bowflex sets. Davon went right to the bowflex and got to flexing, while Thumper walked slow and steady on the treadmill. Felt good to exercise his lungs — not lotta chances to ambulate in prison. The sunnyskin prison doc said to go easy on his heart though, cuz he got a rhythm, so Thumper kept the treadmill turtley.
“Man, my girl sucked me off last night so much my dick hurts,” Davon said between sets. He bin talking about his girl like he expected Thumper to care and be jealous and wanna know the details, but Thumper weren’t gonna give him the satisfaction. Davon done pause his lifting as he raised his eyebrows at Thumper. He was muscled, but he was polished like glass — you could tell he never used them muscles for nothing but impressing females. If a nigga gonna lift, he oughta lift proper. Be the nigga you is pretending to be. Davon said, with a snorty laugh, “Nutted like a dozen times. She got down to the root.”
“Which one?” Thumper asked. “A dancer?”
“Not a dancer. Got sucked off by a dancer too, the other day, but Cherry ain’t my girl. She just a side thang,” Davon said with a laugh. “That side thang keeps it real too, on the downlow. She know what she is.” He resumed lifting intermittent-like, stopping every couple words to look dreamy like a disney stallion. “Shit, my girlfriend is white. Not trashy neither. She nice white, and her mama got a hunk of butt.”
While Davon bothered on about his girl, Thumper got off the treadmill. His old-nigga meat was flopping up and down as he ran, and he wanna put on a jockstrap before he got back on there. Imagineering Davon’s female made Thumper wanna bust a nut, so he took his dick out and gave it a stroke.
In prison, that weren’t no thing. Nobody complained when Thumper let his pecker swing free. That’s cuz Thumper was the complaints department for his cell block, and he do regulate complainers. No room for whining, cells are too cramped. A nigga gots to maintain.
When Davon saw Thumper’s plonker plonking in the cold light of day, he wrinkled his nose — which you could tell never done got broke. If you never broke your nose, you never said nothing pointy, so you either never noticed nothing or you did but kept your pussywillow shut about it. Either way is bad news for a nigga. Both prolly apply to Davon’s buttery mug.
“Shit, you ain’t in prison no mo’, old man. Outside niggas don’t drop dong,” Davon said. “Put’cha drawers on.”
“Nah. You ain’t the boss of me, nigga,” Thumper said. Davon bin acting like he thought maybe he was the boss, and perhaps he was — in the club. But the world outside Lipsweet was vast, and Davon was nothing in it. Thumper let his dingadingdoo jiggle near Davon’s face.
“Man, Thump-“
“Shut up when a old nigga is talking to you. You is in charge of the bouncers, Davon. You tell me how to bounce, you tell me how to clock in at the pill-” That made Davon suck on his teeth — the time-clock for the bar was on a “tablet” — which was a big phone — Thumper don’t like phones and he don’t like tablets — but a tablet was also a pill, so Thumper called the tablet a pill — Davon was too cute for wordplay. “But you don’t tell me how to do nothing else. Is there any female back here? Or kiddies?”
“No.”
“Then I’mma take my dick out when I feel like it. Get to liftin’, nigga. You ain’t big enough yet.” Thumper gently pushed Davon to lay down and do some bench-presses.
Davon turned up that perfect nose that never got broke. “Don’chu — this is a Gregarian gym, nigga. I work for Mr. Gregarian.”
Thumper scoffed. “Mistuh Gregarian work for the Bloods.” He pretend-rammed his dick at Davon’s face, but he ain’t touch Davon’s lips. Yet. Davon did look sickly at the smell of Thumper’s sweaty old-nigga balls dangling in the direction of his handsomeness. “And I did thirty-four years for the Bloods. You ain’t been alive thirty-four years. Lift, nigga. Use them muscles.” Davon did a benchpress, but he did it with a snort like he weren’t doing it cuz Thumper said so.
Looming large as a barge, Thumper remained overtop Davon’s crotch, straddling him now like a conquering colossus and slapping his stick on Davon’s six-pack. Davon kept his too-good face stoic as he lifted. Thumper pulled down Davon’s shorts.
“Whatchoo doin’, nigga?”
“Just playin’, don’t be squeamish,” Thumper said. Davon’s smooth cock spilled out, and Thumper gave it a stroke. Davon kept doing his bench presses like a smile-hard nigga who wouldn’t never challenge nothing. So he just lifted weights and let Thumper frot they wigwams together.
A hard sigh came from Davon, and Thumper felt the sigh rattle up and down Davon’s smooth shaft. Davon rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a freak, Thump. Get with the times,” he said softly, like he don’t expect Thumper to respond. Thumper got no response to that. He was getting with the times. He stepped outta time for thirty-four years, that was all. Thumper weren’t sure yet he even wanna catch up.
Thumper liked the feel of Davon’s prettyboy meat, limp as lips, rubbing on his shaft. Soon enough Thumper was firming up. He humped his erect cock onto Davon’s softness. Felt good to touch tugboats with another nigga again. Thumper ain’t done that since prison. Davon ain’t never been locked up, so he weren’t used to it and he ain’t get hard. That was fine. Made his dingaling squishy and moist and warm and fun to rub up against, like humping pudding.
“Yo, Davon, you know a masked woman? You seen her around this building?” Thumper asked. Davon looked at him like a crazy old fool, and Thumper added, “She like… wearin’ a dress, got a mask like a owl. She… weird. Weird as hell, nigga.”
Davon shrugged. “Maryanne wear a mask when she dance sometimes.”
“I met Maryanne. It weren’t Maryanne,” Thumper said. Precum oozed outta his cocktip and soaked Davon’s shaft. “Does that theater ever do plays?”
“The theater? On Stranger? That’s a movie theater,” Davon said. He stopped doing bench presses. “And it don’t even do movies no more. Shut down years ago. Nothing in there.” He looked down his body at his own cock, which was fat and juicy, glistening with Thumper’s precum. Thumper be stabbing his own manhood atop Davon’s over and over, like he was fucking a invisible pussy.
Thumper nodded. “Thought so, nigga,” he said like that was the answer he was expecting. He threw his head back as he orgasmed all over Davon’s limp meat. Thumper do love frotting with a squeamish nigga like Davon, who screwed up his face like a screwdriver, as a long flow of jizz sprayed atop his chest.
He got them perky chest muscles that girls love, pecs that’s big but never see no use aside from flexing to impress the females. Thumper’s first jizz was a big-ass splat of nut that went all the way from Davon’s shoulders to his glamorous six-pack — shit, don’t that nigga ever eat a carb? Then it puddled in his sternum, and Thumper scooted forward to aim his spasming pecker for Davon’s mouth.
That jizz only reached to his chin and lower lip though. It was enough to make Davon sour up, and Thumper shot yet another burst of cream onto Davon’s soap-opera jawline. Davon’s eyes wrinkled. Cum roped over his cheeks and nose.
“Ewwhhh, ni-hha!” Davon clenched his mouth shut.
All that cum lay congealing in a soup on Davon’s stomach and face. Big creamy wads of jism kept on coming out, until Davon’s entire face gleamed in the dim gym light. Davon twitched and writhed like he ain’t never before struggle to show off his nonchalance. Thumper chuckled and kept on humping Davon’s shaved cum-splattered chest till Thumper’s dick was just as soft and spongy as Davon’s.
That nigga weren’t so clean no more. That was good to see. Thumper do enjoy making clean niggas dirty.
Thumper got off him, and Davon sat up. He wiped nut off his nose. “You is one nasty old nigga-” He stopped to gag cuz some salty cum slipped into his mouth. “Be cool-” Another gag rippled through him, and he spat up jizz like a burping baby. “Nigga, be cool, shit, Thump…”
“Never forget, Davon, that you is only in charge of my bouncering,” Thumper said. He flicked his dick in Davon’s direction, making a few drops of jizz splatter over Davon’s shoulder. “In e’rrything else, this nasty old nigga do pave his own road.”

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter Two

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

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.

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil: Chapter Six

Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last

Thumper held a towel around his waist when he walked from the shower to his apartment. It was right down the hall, no turns, no curves, no stairs. But somehow he got lost.
His sandals flip-flopped on the mildewy rug. Soon as he stepped onto the soggy carpet of the corridor, Thumper sensed unease. Something felt wrong. He stopped short.
His apartment was there, or it should be. Ain’t nobody use none the rooms on this level, ‘cept for him. So why done his belly gone wibbly?
Something was wrong. Something done change, maybe. The peeling wallpaper was the same, the smell of the decrepit wood and crumblesome brick of the building remained. But Thumper still felt wrong.

He padded to the left. That was correct, wasn’t it? Thumper couldn’t remember. It ain’t feel right. None these rooms looked right. There was numbers on a placard on the door. His apartment ain’t have a number placard, it had separate numbers, like on a mailbox.

And none these doors looked right — the frames had changed, maybe, the color, the peepholes, something he couldn’t quite place. Awful sounds boomed outta the shut doors he passed. Screams, whimpering, the whir of some motor, a moist splash like blood splattering on the wall.
That Woman in White popped up in his mind, but Thumper dismissed that. She made it hard to think — he ain’t struggle to think right now, he thought fine. What he saw looked wrong. He stopped outside the door closest to where his apartment should be.
But growling emanated through the door, some kinda simmery growl more human than animal. It was fierce, and it sounded like viscous goo dripped from the teeth of whatever was there, so Thumper left the door shut.
Then to his left, Thumper saw a big-ass powerhouse nigga, as high yellow as sunshine.
It was him — Thumper recognized that young cat, it was Thumper hisself, Thumper from thirty-four years ago. He got a handsome mug and just a couplea tats. His skin was taut, and his bladder neck ain’t gone batty yet — couldn’t see that, but Thumper could tell. This nigga, this cheekbone-laden young-nigga Wendell, he got the swagger of a man who do piss a reasonable number of times a day.
Thumper could tell from the tattoos that that young-nigga Wendell was from right before his prison sentence. He got them dice on double sixes on his shoulder. Thumper got that tat couplea days before the unlicensed boxing match that led to his arrest. Young-nigga Wendell ain’t got none the prison tats that present-day old-nigga Thumper got.
“Hey, nigga, hey!” he called out, but that young-nigga Wendell ain’t pay him no mind. He walked down the stairs, the stairs that shoulda led to Lipsweet. “Hey, Wendell! Wendell, hey! Hey, nigga!”
His voice ain’t seem to carry though, and Thumper weren’t sure if he was making noise at all. Young-nigga Wendell ain’t respond. He went down the stairs, and Thumper followed.
Ain’t none of it made sense, but Thumper weren’t cogitating upon reason right now. Young-nigga Wendell was from Before. Back when the world ran proper, before Thumper jumped outta the progression of time and sat in a box getting old, watching his bladder neck go buggy. Young-nigga Wendell was basking in glorious ignorance, and he don’t even know it.
At the bottom of the stairs shoulda been the backrooms behind Lipsweet. When Thumper got down there though, the back corridor was wrong — a hard marble floor, not the grimy linoleum that he recollected. There was paintings hung on the wall, ain’t no paintings in Lipsweet. They was awful abstractions of things but you could tell what they was, like one was a car, kinda, a tortured twisted car that looked haunted in every meaning of the word, like if a car could have a thousand-yard stare, this was it, even without eyes. Looking at it depressed Thumper, who forced hisself to look away.
Young-nigga Wendell done gone through the double doors into Lipsweet proper, or the place that shoulda been Lipsweet. But before old-nigga Thumper could follow, some thing walked past like it ain’t see him.
It was a horrid stack of flesh — arms and legs like flayed limbs, flaps of skin flopping as it moved, and its center was a wheel-shape, like a man mated with a rack — the torture device — as it moved, the wheel turned. The turning of the wheel caused a horrid grinding, squishing the flesh of the wheel itself and the limbs and the headless neck into a bloody paste. The wheel seemed to be what powered it too, rolling atop its legs to force them up and down.
Thumper was glad it ignored him, and he waited for it to pass. When he followed far behind through the doors into Lipsweet, the bloody-wheel fiend went to the bar and furtively swiped a bottle of liquor.
On the other side of the room stood young-nigga Wendell, addressing a crowd of reporters with microphones and cameras and notepads. They was notating every damn thing he said. Thumper recollected doing press conferences from back in his boxing days, but this weren’t one of them. This was later. He never did a press conference after getting the dice tat. It was just two days afterwards that he went to the underground boxing match, and it was only two days after that that he got arrested.
This was a press conference that ain’t happen cuz Thumper was in prison.
“Uh, yeah, yeah,” young-nigga Wendell was saying to one them reporters, who just asked some dumbass reporter question. “I been the Chesapeake champion for three years in a row, and nobody go’n take that crown away from me.”
“Do you have a strategy for tonight’s match?” asked a paltry honky with a tape recorder and a snooty nose.
In the real world, tape recorders and cameras and cameramen and microphones and boom mics and sound guys and producers and tittyfucking and factcheckers and journalists all done got replaced by a phone. But this was Before, when all them things existed.
“Uh-huh, sure do, strategy is to punch hard and punch far, baby!” Wendell pointed at the crowd of reporters who all went laughy-taffy. Youngish-nigga Wendell was like that. Thumper missed it. Everybody made fun of him now for saying that kinda shit. When you’re young and handsome, you can be silly and everyone assumes you making a joke and they sposedta laugh. When you’re old and got rickets in your knees, they assume you gone daft and they sposedta issue a corrective statement about your comments — seriously, that Davon nigga done “say a corrective about Thumper’s comments” during a all-bouncer meeting the other day, cuz Thumper said something about planking knuckly niggas out.
“Do you have a comment about the underground boxing ring broken up in Baltimore this week?” asked one the reporters. “Did you know about it?”
“Uh, I heard rumors, that’s all,” young-nigga Wendell said. He flexed a bicep, which stretched the sleeve of his button-down shirt. “They ain’t invite me cuz they knew there’d be no contest.” A tittering of polite laughter underhushed the crowd of reporters. He flexed the other bicep, and he laughed out loud like a charismatic donkey.
A long plonderous sigh came from Thumper. He wanna be this young nigga so bad he could taste it. Shit, if only young-nigga Wendell knew how good he had it. Thumper got lost in his notions until he saw young-nigga Wendell getting hot under his collar at some numptious honky.
“He don’t wanna say that to my face though, do he, you lor bitch?!” Young-nigga Wendell said. “Come up at me and say it, don’t pretend you concerned ’bout some Russian boxer, bullshit, bullshit, nigga, bullshit! I will rock that Bent-Dick Ovaltine honky any day of the week and twice on Sunday-“
“I’m just reporting on the comments, Benedikt Olvyntilvich said you will fold like an accordion-” the journalist was quaking like shake-n-bake, and maybe that was what set young-nigga Wendell off. He punched the fear offa that journalist’s mug.
The whole crowd of them burst into gasps and clicking cameras, as some couple of ’em ran off to find a phone — this was before cell phones, mind you. Blood poured from the journalist’s fist-snack of a nose.
Thumper stood in the back of the crowd, still holding a towel around his waist, shower water evaporating off them double-size shoulders he shared with young-nigga Wendell. His heart sank like this was happening to him, and it was, even if it was a different him, and he could feel that young-nigga Wendell’s world darkening as the cops arrived and put him in handcuffs. They dragged him outta the room, and again Thumper followed. The journalist with an eternal smear where his face usedta be lay on a stretcher, paramedics buzzing around him like officious bees.
In his bones lingered the same feelings as young-nigga Wendell — not just the dark ones about getting arrested but the victorious ones too, the feelings that told him he gots to punch out a journalist, that ain’t nobody gonna talk shit without getting that shit knocked outta him. Ain’t none the journalists or the cops or the paramedics act surprised. None them knew Thumper, but they expected it of him. Hell, Thumper expected it of himself. Young-nigga Wendell was default as hell.
That was the same part of him that signed up for that underground boxing ring. He couldn’t stand the fact that somebody else might win — would win obviously, if he ain’t fight in it — and then Thumper wouldn’t be the undisputed champion no more. There’d be somebody disputing. Thumper gotta be the toughest nigga around.
In prison, it’s easy to be the toughest nigga around. Easy for a tough nigga anyway. There’s a limited pool in the first place, and guards mostly keep him and his from them and theirs.
The door outside led to a parking lot spilling forth with the sound and smell of rain — actual rain! Thumper eager as a beaver followed the journalist on a stretcher and the squad of paramedics accompanying him outside.
But when he passed the doorway, he weren’t in no rainy parking lot. He was in Lipsweet, or a hellish copy of it. The layout was right, the bar, doors, tables, chairs, all that looked right. But it was filled with more of them horrid creatures, like that wheel-of-flesh thing he done saw. In fact that wheel of flesh was right over there, drinking from the bottle of bourbon it stole, the liquor dripping visibly down its open tract and lubricating the wheel grinding its flesh into loosemeat.
The fiends looked at him, or at least they shifted bits of theyselves so as to aim in his direction, since most of ’em ain’t have apparent eyes. Aside from the wheel of flesh, there was a pair of skeletons — not hollywood skeletons neither, these had rotting bits of organs attached, shattered teeth and discolored bones — some kinda reddish dragony thing and a cartoonish vampire straight offa cereal box. All them stared at Thumper like he was the weird one.
There was a young nigga Wendell again, sitting free — no cops to be seen — at one of the tables, like he ain’t notice the demons all around.
This youngish-nigga Wendell was older than the one at the press conference. He got lines on his face and one streak of gray on his temple. He was still younger than Thumper though. He swigged outta a bottle of beer, then murmured something at one hideous creature walking by. She gurgled, blood splattering out her mouth like she was chewing on glass, and then she mounted youngish-nigga Wendell’s lap so that her bare tits dangled afronta his face. Them tits was long and saggy and steada nipples at the end they both got jaws with double rows of sharp teeth, and they snapped at youngish-nigga Wendell who kept playing like he gonna suck on ’em.
Old-nigga Thumper watched for awhile. His young self laughed and flirted like he ain’t see the tit-jaws or the blood spilling outta that female’s throat. Thumper came up closer to him then, but youngish-nigga Wendell paid him no mind at first.
You know those posters that look like nothing but if you unfocus on ’em, you see a picture? Thumper saw that on youngish-nigga Wendell — he looked like the young handsome nigga he was when Thumper looked at him, but when he looked beyond him, at the demonic lady behind him, then outta the corner of his eye, Youngish-nigga Wendell looked different.
He looked like Rico.
He was wearing Rico’s soul like a suit, that was why. Youngish-nigga Wendell done will have murdered Rico thirty-four years from now. Rico weren’t even born yet.
Youngish-nigga Wendell noticed Thumper eventually and scoffed like he don’t talk to old niggas. “Whatchoo want, old man? I’m mackin’ on this female, don’chu see?”
“Yeah, yeah, I see.” Old-nigga Thumper wanna say so much more, but the demon woman made him wrinkle his nose, and her tits aimed they sharks in his direction. He wanna tell his young self to stay away, that his demon woman was trouble.
But youngish-nigga Wendell wouldn’t never listen. Never could tell that nigga nothing. Not like Thumper now, who takes in feedback and adapts to change readily. That’s on the parole checklist.
A tear-streaked young woman came in then, a real human — stall-blonde, pretty as pink but sob-a-lobbing out loud. She was followed by couple cops in plainclothes — detectives — and she pointed at youngish-nigga Wendell. “There he is! That one!”
Youngish-nigga Wendell jumped to his feet. “That bitch — you can’t trust that bitch!” Youngish-nigga Wendell squared up at the cops, and the demon-tits lady slinked off. “That bitch threw herself at me, she was into it the whole time, swear to God!” He ain’t fight back, but he ain’t cooperate neither, as the cops put him in handcuffs.
Again, old-nigga Thumper felt his heart sinking. Youngish-nigga Wendell was going to prison for sure. The plainclothes detectives said they was arresting him, and he struggled hard like a nigga should, but they got him, sure as sugar is sweet. They dragged him out the door, to what shoulda been the parking lot.
Thumper had enough of this. He ain’t need to watch hisself get arrested bunchesa times. Maybe that was his fate. Delsinerr said she could make him young again, let him live a life without being arrested that time thirty-four years ago, but what if that only lasted a couple months? What if Thumper got arrested again?
He went into the backroom and upstairs to where his apartment shoulda been. He ain’t need none this. Just got him upsetted.
You could keep your nose clean. Just follow the law. Stop wilding out. You don’t needta act that way.
But Wendell of all ages ain’t never see it like that. All-ages Wendell don’t like folks telling him what to do. He don’t like journalists and they bitch-nigga questions. He don’t like teasing young bitches who get him hard and then fuck off, leaving him with a angry dick and hyperactive fists.
Old-nigga Thumper do plow a nigga up the booty when he get a hardon that won’t go soft. Young niggas ain’t learn how to do that yet.
Since Thumper’s release, he bin focusing on how flawed the world was. Ain’t nothing work right, niggas was all tapping and dapping on they phones steada doing real nigga shit, and females was basically phones with tits attached, damn, they can’t stop facebooking long enough to suck a nigga dick.
But maybe it was Thumper that was flawed. He was flawed when he was young but was too strong and too handsome for anyone to tell him. He gotta learn that by stepping outta the world for a couple decades.
When he went upstairs, Thumper walked into a unmarked room, not the hallway he was expecting. This ain’t right at all.
In the unmarked room sat not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell — he was maybe late thirties now. Across from the table was a white man in a cheap suit. Another cop. Actually the same cop who arrested him downstairs, same hunk of honey shithead. Older now though, couple wrinkles on his jaws. Looked like he bin couching down, on the feud with the missus.
“You’re badly in debt, aren’t you? Is that why you needed money? The boxing money dried up, so you decided to rob a couple drug dealers, right? The Seventh Street Playas have gone to war with the Bloods anyway, so you might as well go in guns blasting, right?”
Not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell scoffed. “Boxing money ain’t dry up, jackass! I — I — I got surgery on my knees — my knees is rickety, but in a couple months I’ll be back in the ring-“
“So you just needed some cash to tide you over?” the detective said.
“Nah, bitch, nah, nah, I ain’t shoot no nigga,” not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell said. It ain’t sound believable though. Sounded like he was putting on a show for the detective and the camera and the inevitable judge and jury, and old-nigga Thumper could already tell where this was going.
Boxing don’t last forever. Not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell was kidding hisself if he thought he was still a contender at fortyish-years-old. What else was he gonna do? Coach some younger, handsomer boxer? Do a color commentary for some cutrate teevee channel? (or internet channel, whatever, old-nigga Thumper got no time for “streaming teevee”) After so many years boxing, not-so-youngish-nigga Wendell prolly got concussions on the brain and would make a fool of hisself getting on teevee.
So it made sense to rob some drug dealers. Coulda made enough to retire on. Instead, not-so-young-nigga Wendell was gonna go to prison and turn into old-nigga Thumper, who want nothing to do with this.
When he turned around to leave, there was the door to his apartment, right afronta him, like he done walk past it before. He opened it and scurried in before he could lose it again.
Inside at last, he sat by the window and watched the sun come up without a trace of tired in his bones. He craved the comfortable confines of a prison cell, where at least he could sleep. A prison cell was cozy, crowded in a good way. The apartment was cold and helpless. He felt like the last orphan in a abandoned orphanage.
It felt good to watch the sun rise. It all felt less real in the daytime. He went about his business as though ain’t nothing happen last night.
And maybe nothing did happen. He weren’t tired. He recollected being awake all night, but he weren’t tired his morning. His old-nigga body couldn’t stay up all night and not be sleepy the next day, so he musta slept. Maybe that was all a dream.
Or maybe his dreams was real, and the daylight was a fantasy.
Regardless, night came along at night-time, and Thumper found hisself back at Lipsweet manning the door. The joint was jumping from a early hour tonight cuz some husky lumberjacks from central Maine was drinking, having done finish they six-month contract. They was on the rugged for sure, and they smelled like a pine tree’s armpit. They got boku dollars to spend though. They was young and vigorous, and they looked at Thumper like he was old and uncool and he oughta be embarrassed to be so damn old and so damn uncool.
One them in particular catched Thumper’s ire. His name was Alain, and he pronounced it in the French fashion like he was too good to end with a consonant, but he spoke with a whole rack of trashy yuppers in his voice. He was a well-tanned straightlane with a face like a kick to the balls, and he was loud and pinchy upon the dancers.
“You best slow yo’ roll, Alain,” Thumper said when he bodied hisself to the lumberjacks’ table. A mountain of empty beer bottles peaked high above they table, and they was now mad onto the whiskey train. The dancer Alain pinched done curtsy away, and the lumberjacks was hooting for another one to come near.
“Yes, sah. Yesssah, yessah,” Alain said with mock obedience. He was sloshed as hell, and moving his head made him dizzy. He shrugged it off though, and he shrugged off Thumper too — a fateful mistake for Alain. Then he guffawed and slapped his knee and grabbed the ass of a woman walking by.
Another fateful mistake. Alain be piling up blunders like firewood.
“Hey, you honky shit!” Thumper punched him right across the face, knocking him to the ground amid sparks of blood from his nose. The other lumberjacks jumped back, but one leapt at Thumper. He was too drunk to do more than bump into him though, and Thumper shoved him to the ground alongside his buddy. Thumper mounted Alain and punched his dazed and bloody face again. “Don’chu grab a woman here!” He was really more pissed that Alain did it right afronta him, afronta Thumper, who was in charge here, like Alain got no idea he was just some fucking woodcutter like from a fairytale, he ain’t jack shit in Lipsweet. Thumper ran this jawn on point, and honkies got a role to fill like everywhom else. That role don’t include disrespecting Thumper.
Or pinching dancers without paying first.
Taking a step back, Thumper’s blood boiled. Every nobody in this bar stared at him, none them listening to the disappointing rock music that dribbled out the speakers like a pansy’s nut. Music was awful nowadays. Thumper’s hands balled into fists at his side, flurrying to fly.
But Thumper couldn’t get the police called on him, or his parole officer’d find out. If Alain went to the hospital, Thumper’d be charged, he’d get his parole revoked. He’d be like that young-nigga Wendell, fated for jail, destined to become old-ass Thumper with the wonky bladder neck.
So Thumper let his blood run cold, and he stone-faced the mean-mugging lumberjacks.
That ain’t mean he was gonna let Alain get away with it. A man shouldn’t go groping no female, that was wrong, and that was a lesson Thumper wanna teach. So he grabbed Alain by the nape and dragged him outta the bar. Ain’t nobody like him much or lumberjacks in general, so that was fine, and they all assumpted Thumper was gonna deposit Alain in the alley like a unwanted infant.
“Oh, you are gonna treat me like that, eh?” Alain said as he swaggered free. Thumper let him go in the corridor behind Lipsweet. Alain both stood aggressively at Thumper and inched back, finna go out the backdoor to the alley. He was too drunk to realize that weren’t the backdoor. Instead, he inched hisself to the door to the stairs that led up to Thumper’s apartment.
Thumper gave him a shove, and Alain toppled to his ass against the door, which opened, and he toppled his ass further, onto the floor by the stairs. He rollicked around, trying to get up, but he was drunk as a punk. Thumper pulled his pants down to his ankles.
“You intact, you honky shit?” Thumper asked, as his plan finally formed — all he was thinking up till now was to get Alain away from witnesses without committing a felony, then do something that ain’t murder.
Alain guffawed. “You never met a lumberjack before, huh?”
Was that a yes or a no? Prolly a no, Thumper thunk, but Alain was right, Thumper don’t know any lumberjacks.
Thumper separated Alain’s meaty sscheeks — he was definitely not intact, Thumper saw that clear as mud. He slipped his dicktip right in, couple inches making it before Alain twitched into a flexed stack of hairy muscle. Thumper leaned on him for support and to keep him in position.
His clenching turned his butthole into a stop sign, but Thumper weren’t taking no for a answer right now. He slapped Alain hard across the face, the sound ringing out like a angry church bell. Alain whimpered and sneered his nose, and the tension in the resta his body made his booty open up.
That was enough for Thumper to plump his dick up Alain’s guts. Alain twitched in pain, and he clawed at the ground under his back.
A burst of pleasure shivered up Thumper’s spine, as his cock got deep enough to stick. Alain’s booty gripped it tight, despite his grimaces and his clenching. Thumper kept a good hold on him. The angle was awkward, Thumper sorta draped over his muscley back at the bottom of the stairs, but at least Alain weren’t gonna escape. Thumper held his place until Alain’s breathing slowed and he relaxed.
“Who done wreck yo’ booty, honky?” Thumper asked. He ain’t really want a answer, but he wanna wait for Alain to relax enough to answer. Then Thumper was gonna plow him good.
“My boss, Mr. Chambreux, he-” Alain winced and clawed at the wall. “Owww! Shit! Get off me!” He fell limp again, as Thumper smacked him in the head. He began pumping his dick in and out, Alain’s tightly-muscled booty squeezing his shaft the whole time. It sent pangs of pleasure up Thumper’s body.
“Mistuh Chambreux?” Thumper frowned. “I rec’nize that name.” He stopped moving. Damn did Alain’s booty feel good. Thumper do enjoy a honky who ain’t intact but ain’t loose yet neither, a nice muscley honky who got tightness for days. But the name Chambreux got his wrinkles wrinkling. “You know Mistuh Chambreux?”
“He owns the lumber company I work for, eh! He owns a lot around here,” Alain said through his panting, seething jaws. He sucked on his teeth and again stiffened up, trying to crawl up the stairs. That made his butthole squeeze tight around Thumper’s dick, which he inched bit by bit deeper into Alain’s booty.
“Hey, is he a actor? He do plays?” Thumper’s voice broke cuz he was nearing his orgasm despite hisself — he wanna keep talking, to find out more about Mr. Chambreux — but if he pulled out, Alain would skedaddle for sure. Thumper’s lower half kept humping on its own accord, and Alain’s guts kept sending a wave of pre-orgasmic bliss through Thumper’s frame.
“What?” Alain wrinkled his nose.
“Does he do plays? Like a actor? Theater, not movie.”
Alan shook his head, then shrugged and nodded. “Kinda. Owww, shit!” He threw his head back, then down, making it bang on the stairs. “Goddamn-“
“I’ll finish quick if you answer my question. Is he a actor?”
“What, no — he — well,” Alain said, squinting and squirming. “He told me once he had an audition to get to.” He craned his head up and whispered to Thumper. “He said it like it was a secret.” He laughed but he sounded serious too, and he groaned as he felt Thumper orgasm inside him.
“Huh…” Thumper’s voice wavered — he both considered what Alain said and orgasmed at the same time, unable to resist hisself any longer. His muscles spasmed and rippled, as he grunted up a sound that echoed in the cozy stairwell.
Thumper rammed his dick in and out, moaning into the muscled meat of Alain’s back. He got that hairy-honky back that Thumper found both disgusting and hilarious, but it took more than some furry shoulderblades to hold him back. He grunted and shot a thick jizzwad deep into him, then another, then another, and he filled Alain’s guts with creamy cum.
A long sigh came outta his lungs as a spurting flow of jizz came outta his cock. Thumper felt a potent release, all the tension of the day draining away. Ramrodding a man, he thunk, was less pleasurable but more relaxing than fucking a woman. He ain’t even gotta hold Alain down as his last couple cumdrops drained up his guts.
As he finished, Alain ain’t resist no more. He knew better than to blueball a nigga, or at least this nigga. He let Thumper spew nut up into him, and Alain fell limp until Thumper’s cock finally plopped out.
Wiping his dingdong clean with Alain’s flannel shirt, Thumper screwed up his eyes. “Shit…”
Alain stayed soft, both too drunk and in too much pain to move. He groaned. “I dunno if he got the part from the audition though, he never said that. He said earning an audition was hard enough. He had to sell his soul just to get an audition.” Alain laughed like he believed it but wanted Thumper to think he didn’t. “I’m sure he was pullin’ my leg. He musta been.”