Cleanness

by Garth Greenwell

  Everybody thinks they’re good at sucking dick but they’re not, usually, they don’t cover their teeth or they make the same single motion again and again or they can’t take it deep enough or there’s something half-hearted about it, even guys who claim they love to suck, who pride themselves on it. But he was different, he was the best I had ever had, and I gave myself over to it, over to him, I forgot the role I was supposed to play and let him do whatever he wanted. I thought suddenly of a girl I knew when I was a kid, a very large girl who was my friend, unpopular except that she was famous for being easy, for letting anybody who wanted to have a go. I hadn’t thought of her for years. The same boys who called her names at school would fuck her at night, fuck her or ask her to suck them, so that she had a public life where she was humiliated and a private life where she was desired. It was a kind of power, I suppose, or what felt like power, to both of us, we would talk on the phone and tell each other our adventures, hers in a boy’s stinking car or bedroom, mine in the toilets or the park; you slut, we’d say to each other, laughing, you dirty whore. She was two years older than I was, sixteen, a junior at our school, and she liked to call herself my teacher, though by that time really I think I had had more sex than she had; in a single night at the park I could have three or four guys, it didn’t take long for me to catch up. But it was the form our friendship took, that I was her student, that she would teach me how to be a whore. You have to be in love with them, she told me once, each one, you might hate them other times but you have to love them when you’re giving head, you have to imagine that you can never tell them, that the only way you can say it is by how you suck them. You have to give everything, she said, that’s the only way to give a blowjob. I hadn’t thought of her for years but I thought of her now, because that was how he sucked, taking me as deep as he could and then kissing the tip, taking my balls in his mouth, rubbing his face against me until it shone with his own saliva. It was a kind of love, or what felt like love, reverence maybe, worship, and it filled me up with something like pride, though that’s not the right word for it, something like arrogance or aggression, maybe that’s the way to put it, I felt myself becoming what he wanted. I urged him on, I said That’s right, suck that cock, the language of porn that’s so ridiculous unless you’re lit up with a longing that makes it the most beautiful language in the world, full of meaning, profound, do you like that cock, I asked, but it wasn’t really a question, or it was a question he had already answered, show me how much you love it. And he did, he wasn’t just using his mouth, he was using his hands, too, rubbing my balls and stroking the shaft slick with his saliva, he was learning what I liked.

  He couldn’t quite take it all, the position wasn’t right, he twisted his head to come at it from different angles but the bend in his throat blocked it. Finally he stopped trying, he sat back on his knees and then stood, a breach of contract, which he acknowledged by saying Sorry, and then, can you lie down, he asked, it will be better that way. He took me by the arm and turned me toward the makeshift bed against the wall. I did as he asked, feeling how thin the little mattress was, less a mattress than a pad of some sort, like the mats laid out in a gym; later I would think about the uncomfortable nights he must spend there. I lay on my back, bunching his pillow beneath my head, and he climbed up next to me. He got on his side in the opposite direction, his head toward my feet. He half straddled me, placing a hand on either side of my waist but keeping both knees to one side, not quite the position Whitman says the soul assumes in relation to the body (I wouldn’t be sucking him, I still hadn’t touched his cock), and then, in a single quick, almost violent motion, he swallowed me. He had been right to move us, he could take it all now, and I groaned at the sensation of entering his throat, the tightness of the passage there. He forced himself down, pressing his chin into my pubic bone, his nose into my balls, and then put his hands on my hips and pulled me toward him, urging my pelvis up. I had been too passive, I realized, it wasn’t really what he wanted, he wanted me to act. And so I took his head in my hands and started fucking his face, pulling him toward me and lifting my hips, taking all his art from him, all or nearly all. When you’re being used like that you become an object, which is the pleasure of it, your only role is to be the best object you can be, to keep your lips wrapped around your teeth, to curl your tongue to make the right aperture, now tighter and now more ample; you have to become a hole, which was what he had said he wanted. I went easy at first, since most men say they want it but they don’t really, they gag or choke and they’ve had enough; it’s another fantasy of themselves, what they think they want they don’t actually want. But he was different, he took it without complaint, and so I fucked him harder, I gripped him more tightly and bent his neck this way and that, trying different angles. Finally he did gag, for the first time, not just in his throat but deep in his abdomen, and I let him go. But he didn’t want to be let go, he grabbed my knees with both of his hands and locked them around his head, not letting me pull away. Something came over me again, that intensity or aggression I had felt earlier, a kind of cruelty, and I said Take it then, almost spitting the words, gripping the back of his head and fucking it hard, in short savage thrusts as he gagged, take it, and then I held it in place, pulling him against me as his body jerked, and I took pleasure in his suffering, in his willingness to suffer. It was the pleasure of being a man, I think, I’m not sure I had ever felt it before. I luxuriated in it, I didn’t want to let him go, I held him even after he motioned for me to stop, I let go only when he started slapping at my thighs. He took great gulps of air, hanging his head above my cock, threads of saliva still connecting us, viscous and heavy, until he used one hand to wipe his face. So good, he said then, his voice thick, so fucking good, and he smiled at me before he started sucking me again.

  I dropped my head back on the pillow, letting him work. He spread his legs a little, revealing his asshole, which was hairless and clean, beautiful, and which moved gently, maybe he wasn’t aware of it, it tightened and relaxed like the mouth of some primitive creature, all appetite. I placed my thumb over it and he moaned again and tightened it more, so that it kissed me, almost, or made as if to swallow me, it invited me in. Even without lube it was easy to enter him, he relaxed and took my thumb to the first knuckle without any strain at all, and then he tightened again around me. He pushed back, tilting his pelvis slightly. But I couldn’t go deeper, or not easily, I could only apply pressure in and out, encouraging his own movement, his rocking back and forth. But it wasn’t enough, for him or for me. He stopped sucking me when I pulled my thumb free, raising his head and looking back, and then opening his mouth for my thumb, which he sucked at eagerly, as he did the first two fingers of the same hand when I presented them, taking both at the same time, moving his head to take them deeper, as far as they would reach. I lifted my head to spit on his hole, rubbing it in a way meant to give pleasure, and then gave him my whole thumb, to the second joint, and then, since he had taken it so easily, immediately starting his back and forth motion, I inserted my first two fingers at once, together, not quite gently, pressing them in a single motion to the base.

  This gave him pause, he arched his back, taking a moment before he began to fuck himself again, fucking himself at both ends, pressing back on my fingers and then diving down on my cock. I pressed forward as he moved back, withdrew to the second knuckle or even the first when he moved forward, each of us meeting the other in our movement until it became a single movement, a movement meant for his pleasure though there was something savage in it, too, the way he moaned when on every third or fourth thrust I twisted my wrist, stretching him; he made a sound that wasn’t as sharp as a cry but that wasn’t entirely of pleasure, I liked making him make that sound. I could feel him moving against me, not just forward and back but pressing around my fingers as well, making himself tighter and then giving way. He was showing me what he could do, I thought, how good he was at getting fucked. He had meant every word of it, what he had said abou
t himself online, I wasn’t sure I had ever met anyone who embodied so fully his fantasy of himself. I thought of all the men who had fucked him, adding a third finger to the two already inside, feeling again that strange tenderness for him, even as I twisted my hand to give him the pain he wanted, as I thrust my hips up to gag him. Why should I care who fucks me, he would say to me later, why should I say no to anybody, I don’t want to say no. Why shouldn’t I give it away, his body, he meant, what could I do with it that would be better? I like for guys to fuck me, who cares if they’re ugly or old, I hate all that, people who think they’re so special nobody deserves to fuck them. Why should you have to deserve it, he would say, his head on my chest, who doesn’t deserve a little fucking? I think we should all give it away, wouldn’t it be wonderful, everyone fucking all the time, everywhere, I would love it, and I laughed, I said I would too, it would be my version of heaven. And when I asked him if he worried about disease he said Fuck worrying, I hate it, I don’t want to worry. I don’t want to live forever, I’d rather live ten years the way I want than live forever and be miserable, I want to be happy. I don’t care about being safe, he said, I don’t care if I get sick, why should I be special, and I wondered what feeling he was speaking from, whether it was joy or defiance or despair, I wanted to know where one ended and the others began. I wanted to argue with him, but I didn’t argue, what would have been the use, and anyway to argue with him would have been to lay claim to him somehow, to violate his ethics of claimlessness. Because it was an ethics, I thought as I lay with him, it was more coherent than my own life, with its alternating precaution and risk; I tried to imagine his life of wholeheartedness but I knew it would never be mine.

  It was about joy, the story he would tell me, but it wasn’t joy I saw as he moved back and forth between my cock and my hand, or not only joy. I had the sense that he was looking for something and not finding it, making his movements sharper and faster; he was asking a question I didn’t know how to answer, that I tried to answer by jabbing my hand and twisting it with each movement he made. But he was frustrated, I thought, and finally he stopped his motion, he forced himself down on my cock, taking me as deep as he could, shaking his head a little as if to work me in deeper, like a dog worrying a toy. I used my free hand to grab his head and fucked him as hard as I could, savagely, in a way meant to hurt him. I tilted slightly on my side and wrapped my legs around his head, trapping him and moving my hips very fast, as hard and as fast as I could, an uncontrolled motion, a kind of spasm to echo his own spasm as he choked on me, though even as he choked he locked his arms around my ass, to keep me from pulling away. I made a sound then too, loud and guttural, almost a shout, and it was only when I heard it that I realized it was anger I felt, hot and eager, I didn’t know where it came from but I would make him feel it too, I thought. I held him in place even as I felt him try to pull his head back, even after he started slapping my thighs again I held him down. I wanted to frighten him, I think, I wanted it not to be a game. You want it, I said as he struggled, you want it, take it then, I said, take it, you fucking whore, and it was the shock of the words that made me let him go, the words and what I felt as I said them.

  I pulled my fingers from him (slowly now, gently), and he grabbed my hand and brought it to his mouth, cleaning it though it wasn’t dirty, he was immaculate, he had cleaned himself out before I arrived. As he lay on his side gasping he said again So fucking good, not smiling now, and I thought I had satisfied him. But when he stood I saw he wasn’t satisfied, his cock was still hard as he stepped across the room and bent over to pick up the coil of my belt. I sat up as he held it out, and when I didn’t take it he said I want you to beat me, his voice neutral, matter-of-fact, I want you to whip me with it. I swung my legs off the bed but didn’t get up, I hesitated before finally taking the belt from him and standing. This hadn’t been part of the scene we had planned, he hadn’t said he wanted it, I wasn’t sure it was a scene I liked. He knelt on the bed again, on his hands and knees, presenting his ass. I stepped to the foot of the bed, letting the belt unroll from my hand, then taking the tip again to fold it, I would strike him with half its length. I had never whipped anyone before but that was how my father had done it, taking the strap to us, as he said, that was how he punished us. I took the folded belt in both hands and brought my hands together, making the halves bend out like wings, and then snapped it quickly twice, the noise loud in the small room, making me flinch. That too was what my father had always done, frightening us to double our punishment, I guess, to make us fear the belt before we felt it. At the sound of it he shifted his position, he lowered his torso, dropping to his elbows and resting his head on his clasped hands. I delayed a little more, I rubbed his ass with my free hand, gripping the flesh. Then I struck him, not gently but I knew he could feel my reluctance, and after a second and a third time he said Harder, his voice muffled against his hands, and then again, harder, and I obeyed, striking him each time with greater force, warming into it. But still he said Harder after each stroke, almost like a taunt, and I didn’t know whether it was in response to his voice or to my movement that I became cruel again, became all acquiescence, I would punish him if it was punishment he wanted. I would tan his hide, I thought, which was another thing my father said when he beat us, I’ll tan your hide; he said it with the voice he used only when he was very angry, the voice of his childhood, his country voice. Maybe it was the same anger I felt, that hot thing that filled me up as I struck him again and again, I would shut him up, I thought, though I didn’t shut him up, he still spoke as I beat him, saying Yes after each stroke, yes, yes, and this made me angry, too, I can’t say why, it stoked the hot feeling that made me strike him harder. Shut up, I thought, though I didn’t speak the words, shut the fuck up, and it made me glad when he stopped saying yes, when he made other noises instead, inarticulate, animal, when he stopped giving me permission; maybe that was it, I didn’t want his permission, we had gotten past permission, I thought. I was hard again, beating him had made me hard; I didn’t know I could enjoy someone’s suffering that way but I did enjoy it, I wanted him to suffer more. When my arm was tired I raised it above my head, my right arm, and brought it down harder, not on his ass but on his back, which I struck three times very fast and with all my strength. He cried out sharply, a cry of real pain, pinched and high-pitched, but he didn’t break his position, he stayed crouched with his hands clasped beneath his head. Nor did he move when I dropped the belt and climbed onto the bed behind him. I had thought I wouldn’t fuck him but I wanted to fuck him now, I had to do it, it was a kind of compulsion, a necessary conclusion to what he had made me feel, I needed to be inside him. His ass was red from the beating, it was hot to the touch when I smacked him, which elicited another cry, more of surprise than of pain, I thought. I spit into the same hand and slicked my cock with it, just a little; I knew I was close, if I stroked myself too hard I would come too soon, and also I didn’t want to be too slick, I wanted him to feel it. I had opened him up already, he would still be wet from my hand, but I didn’t want it to be too easy for him, I wanted it to hurt.

  I lined myself up and then hesitated, remembering my earlier worries about disease, the men who had fucked him and me, it was a stupid risk; but then he leaned back until he touched my cock, his hole tightening like a mouth again, and I didn’t care about disease, about disease or anything else, if there was a risk we would share that too, and in a single motion I made him take it all. I held still for a moment, waiting for the pleasure to dull. When I pulled back he tightened against me, his body straining to hold me in, and then I took his narrow pelvis in both hands and fucked him hard. Yes, he said again, yes, but it didn’t annoy me now, it had become sweet to me, I liked it when he said Fuck me, when he said fuck me harder, that inane dialogue; I’ll fuck you, I said, I’ll fuck you hard, take it, I said, pulling on him as I thrust forward, slamming him against me. He had lifted himself onto his hands again, and he arched his back, pushing into me. Like that,
he said, like that, make me your whore, and I laughed a little, I said Is that what you want, you want to be my whore? I slapped him then, hard on his ass, and he groaned, Please, he said, his voice electric with need, please, fuck me like your whore, I want to be your faggot whore, and at the sound of it I felt something move in me, like a shifting of gears. That’s right, I said, you’re my faggot whore, and then I shoved him down, hard, and fell on top of him, pinning him beneath my weight. I hooked my arm beneath his neck and pulled his face close to mine, choking him, You faggot, I said, fucking him more slowly but more savagely, digging into him, you worthless faggot. My voice was low now, I was speaking into his ear, You know what you are, I said, you’re a whore, this is all you’re good for, I said, this is all you deserve. Maybe they had always been there, these words, maybe once you have heard such language it infects you, that was what it felt like, like something bursting free in me, corrosive and hot, without end, I had been waiting my entire life to say those words. I lifted my head and spat on his face, twice in quick succession, saying Faggot each time, you dirty faggot, and he cried out again, his eyes clenched shut. I smeared the saliva on his face and left my hand on his head, leaning on him, forcing his face into the thin mattress, against the hard wood beneath it. Please, he said again, his voice muffled, please, I’m nothing. He repeated this, I’m nothing, I’m nothing, and I echoed him, I said That’s right, I was fucking him with my whole body, lifting up and falling back on him, you’re a faggot, I said, you’re nothing, you’re a faggot, you’re nothing. I hammered into him as I felt it rise in me, that cruelty and rage, that acid grief, and when I came I felt him come beneath me, his body shaking, I heard him give a cry of joy.