Queer Ulysses

by Guy Willard

  Desire emboldened me to a reckless degree.

  I turned the lights out and cautiously slipped into bed next to him. He was turned onto his side now so I touched him lightly on the shoulder to test his wakefulness.

  No response.

  My nerves were tingling as I lowered my lips to his skin. It had a salty taste. Reassured by the sound of his light snoring, I used my tongue to trace delicate arabesques on the surface of his back.

  Still no reaction. I wondered if he was out cold. If so, I could take my time and enjoy myself without worrying. My head felt light. Desire combined with danger is a heady combination. At that moment I didn’t care if I was killed. My lust had blotted out every other thought from my mind.

  Gently I eased him onto his back and slipped over the side of the bed so I could kneel on the floor and bend over him. I traced my kisses down his chest, over his stomach which rose and fell like a wave in time with his breathing. Nestled in the bushy patch of his pubic hair was his limp penis, dwarfed by his massive body. I lowered my face over it, breathing in its spermy smell.

  Ever since I first saw the gigantic figure of Andrews towering over my shipmates, I’d felt the instinctive thrill of wanting to drop onto my knees before him, to pay him the tribute due to a natural monarch. And now I longed to be crushed and squeezed in his massive arms, to press my face against his chest and give myself up to his savage thrusts.

  I lowered my face until I was within kissing distance of his dick.

  He didn’t know it, but he was about to have a good dream.

  Curling my tongue under his balls, I lifted them away from their sticky contact with the thighs. I felt his dick stir but continued to toy with his balls, rolling their softness around with my lips and putting them into my mouth one at a time. Then I used the crook of my finger to lift them up so my tongue could wriggle under them, tracing a route along the prickly perineum where I caught a briny tang and a musky, spicy aroma. There could be no mistake now: he was coming erect. I felt the hardness of his growing dick slide past my chin and caught it in my fingers, letting it blossom against my cheek. When it was fully erect I kissed the side of the shaft and flattened my tongue against the underside of its length.

  I wanted to make it last as long as I could. Gripping the shaft in my hand, I pushed the moist tip of the head against my upper lip, then moved it around and around my mouth without putting it in.

  Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I took the head into my mouth and savored its salty tang. My tongue played with its moist hotness for a while before I let the dick slide in all the way to the back of my mouth. It felt like a dream come true.

  I had the feeling that wings were sprouting, unfurling at my shoulder blades. With their aid I was about to leap into the night with feverish abandon, sailing over a bottomless abyss, freed from every restraint.

  I was about to suck him off in earnest when the breath suddenly left my body. I gasped. The back of my head flashed in pain and my whole back was tingling.

  I was lying on the floor looking up at a furious, wide-awake Marine.

  “You filthy little faggot.” He spat out the words like venom, and I could all but feel the spray of spit from the violent explosions of those F’s.

  At that instant I knew I would die. I thought of home, I thought of my childhood.

  Andrews towered above me, a glowering wrathful god, a statue suddenly come to life, back from the dead. The threat of imminent violence sent a flurry of chills through me. His fists were balled, ready to smash into my face. The neon lights from outside the window were turning his body orange, then green, then blue.

  “Goddamn faggot. I oughta kick the shit out of you.”

  His face showed his disgust. I knew he loathed the very sight of me, cringing before him like a sickeningly repulsive insect.

  My body was tensed from head to toe, waiting for the blow which would free me.

  It never came.

  He began dressing. Only the awkward way he fumbled with his jeans as he put them on betrayed the fact that he was still quite drunk. He yanked savagely at his belt to tighten it, then buckled it up. As he slipped into his shirt and put on his socks and shoes, I crumpled back weakly against the wall and closed my eyes, drained of everything.

  The door slammed shut, and in the sudden silence after, I heard for the first time the familiar harbor sounds: a foghorn, the chugging of fishing boats putting out to sea...and from somewhere nearby, the delicate tinkle of a wind-chime.

  Tokyo

  I was someplace in the heart of Tokyo, in a whirlwind of tumult and pandemonium. The name of the train station meant nothing to me; it was several stops past Tokyo Station, and I’d gotten out to try to get my bearings. I wandered around slightly dazed, gazing at all the people around me who seemed to be in such a hurry to get someplace. This was going to be much harder than I’d expected.

  I’d come up here from Yokosuka Naval Station—located on a peninsula south of the capital—where my ship was tied up for four days. Luckily I didn’t have duty this weekend so I’d taken advantage of that fact to look for some fun. I’d gone straight out the main gate and asked around for directions to Tokyo because I knew that that was where everything would be happening. Also, I wanted to get as far away from the ship as I could; I needed a change of air.

  But now that I’d finally gotten here, I was left without the faintest idea of where I was going. I’d started out with the vague intention of going to an entertainment district called Shinjuku, but now I was completely lost.

  I found myself being jostled as I moved with the crowd, feeling like a piece of driftwood being pulled from an eddy into a rushing stream. Bewildered, I let myself float along, following a large group of people up some steps and onto another platform. Apparently this was a major trunk line for commuters. It was just my luck that my arrival had coincided with the chaotic evening rush hour. Everyone looked in such a hurry that I hesitated to ask for directions, and I couldn’t quite work up the nerve to ask one of the busy-looking station employees.

  What to my unaccustomed eyes was absolute chaos gradually assumed some semblance of order. I saw that people were lined up in neat rows at the places where, presumably, the doors of the arriving trains would stop. Quite as if I knew what I was doing, I joined the tail end of one of these. As a foreigner, I stood out a head taller than everyone else there. Most of the commuters appeared to be businessmen dressed in an almost uniform gray or dark blue. I felt conspicuous in my jeans and T-shirt.

  Some kind of announcement was made over the loudspeakers and I heard the rumble of an approaching train. The line of people stirred as the train slowed to a halt. I couldn’t believe how crowded it was. Passengers were pressed against the glass of the doors as if they might burst it open from sheer pressure. When the doors slid open, they tumbled out and flowed down the nearby stairs like a torrential river of bodies. Meanwhile, the waiting passengers had parted to either side of the doors and were waiting for their chance to flow into the half-emptied car. Stationed along the length of the platform were uniformed attendants whose job, I discovered, was to push and shove the boarding passengers from behind so that as many people as possible could be crammed into the car before the doors slid shut again.

  Inside, the bodies were pressed against each other literally like sardines in a can, but despite the crowdedness, the people were taking the ordeal calmly. Of course they were used to such a crush—for them it was an everyday thing.

  But for me it was something quite new, and I felt claustrophobic. The only saving grace was that I towered above most of the people; at least I could breathe some fresh air.

  The train lurched to a start and the sea of heads swayed as people shifted to maintain their balance. Once the train was underway, they maneuvered to positions which allowed them to regain some semblance of human dignity. Newspapers and magazines inched up to cover faces which retreated behind spontaneous walls of anonymous privacy.

  When I got my bearings, I found t
hat I was pressed tightly against a schoolboy in a black uniform with double rows of shiny silver buttons down the front. He was clutching his leather satchel against his chest to keep it from getting crushed in the throng. From where I stood, I could clearly see the shaven hairs on the back of his neck, a tiny black mole, and a vein pulsing. Down below, I could feel the rounded curve of his firm butt imprinted against my pelvis. The phrase “nut-to-butt” floated into my mind and I couldn’t help smiling. In boot camp, the phrase had been shouted at the recruits lined up for chow outside the mess hall as an order to close up ranks. But it had never resulted in a literal nut-to-butt situation like the one I was in now.

  Maybe it was the faceless, impersonal environment, or maybe it was the knowledge that I’d never ride this train again. Or maybe it was the reckless feeling of release I got whenever I was in a foreign country. Whatever the reason, I now made no effort to hide the evidence of my excitement fattening hard against the boy.

  To my surprise, he gave no indication that anything was amiss. Perhaps he was used to accidents like this, unavoidable in the pressing intimacy forced upon commuters. It must happen quite often—how could it be helped? Finding an excuse in the gentle sway of the train and the movement of the people behind me, I began to rock surreptitiously back and forth. The boy’s ears reddened, and a flush spread down his neck. I knew that he knew, so I stopped, a little afraid. But the boy made no movement, not even to turn around in irritation. I could feel the heat of his neck against my cheek. Perhaps he didn’t mind it? I resumed my furtive rocking, feeling dizzy from excitement and the close air of the crowded car.

  The train slowed suddenly and I saw that we were already pulling into another station. We slowed to a stop and the doors slid open. Heads milled and the tumultuous exit began. To my chagrin, the boy joined the flow. As he moved out with the crowd, I turned away so he couldn’t look back and see me.

  For a moment the car was half-empty and I saw the seats lining the side of the car, but the incoming crowd poured in and I was jostled unceremoniously almost all the way to the end of the car where a sliding door led to the next car. I heard the rubber-lined doors slam shut. This time I found myself pressed against a middle-aged woman who kept twisting her head and half-turning around with a suspicious look on her face. She had no reason to be irritated at what wasn’t a tribute to her, but to the departed boy. This time it was my turn to be embarrassed. The next time the train pulled into a station, I took advantage of the general evacuation to shift my position away from the woman.

  I started to wonder how much longer I should stay aboard the train. To tell the truth, I was beginning to enjoy the experience of riding in a packed train. Since I had no definite plans anyway, I thought I might as well stay where I was for a while, at least until the novelty wore off. I gazed out absent-mindedly at the sea of roofs, shops, apartment buildings jammed helter-skelter every-which-way as far as the eye could see, a vast sea of humanity. So this is Tokyo, I thought, one of the largest metropolises in the world. I felt cramped, suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness, completely lost in this strange land. Toward the horizon, the sun was beginning to tint the gray haze a pinkish orange, and the sight filled my heart with homesickness for a land halfway around the world.

  It was then that I felt the brush of a hand against mine. Though my first thought was that it had been accidental, I perked up. I decided to wait a while to see if it would be repeated. Sure enough, like a fisherman who feels a faint nibble on his bait, I felt the hand brush against me again, this time along my thigh. I gave no indication that I felt it, though I surreptitiously searched the faces around me wondering who it could be. All I saw were rows of impassive faces, even after the exploratory brushes emboldened into an unmistakable groping.

  I still had no idea who it was, for every time I looked down, the groping stopped, and the hand disappeared. I glanced around at the people near me. Some were reading newspapers or the ads posted on the walls; others had their eyes closed as they took catnaps standing up.

  It became like a child’s game: Find the Groper. Standing to my right was a rather unattractive middle-aged businessman who was staring absently at a wall advertisement opposite. Was he the one? At my angry questioning glance, he quickly feigned a sudden sleepiness, closing his eyes. I had to smile at the comical shift. I pointedly moved away from him.

  By now the sky outside was darkening and the train windows had turned into dim mirrors in which I could see myself reflected. Over to my left was a rather attractive boy with longish hair, wearing an American-style football jersey. He must have noticed I was staring at him for he glanced up and our eyes met for a brief moment before he glanced away.

  Was he the groper? But there was another person standing between us. I pretended to ignore him until I felt the brush of a hand against the front of my jeans. By now I was sure it was him.

  I waited for his next move with my eyes on the reflecting glass. It didn’t take long for him to go into action, and this time there was no mistaking it. I saw him actually reach around behind the other passenger’s back in order to get at me. His boldness amazed me, for we were standing right in front of the seated passengers. I glanced down at them, but they all, without exception, had their eyes closed, their heads nodding drowsily as they napped at the end of a hard day’s work.

  Apparently the boy was used to the situation, for his explorations soon became quite audacious and frenzied. Though I allowed myself to be caressed, I was scared to death that one of the passengers might suddenly wake up and see the action. At the same time, I knew it was this very fear which enhanced my pleasure and heightened my excitement, for I was swelling up hard at the boy’s skilled coaxing. His fingers teased and stroked my erection over my jeans. It was the complete impersonality of the caresses, added to their boldly public nature, which was driving me crazy. I tightened my grip on my passenger strap.

  Suddenly a blur of faces was swimming by outside the window. We were pulling into the next station. The hand disappeared as the train slowed to a stop. The doors slammed open and people began surging out. It was a major station. I spotted the boy’s maroon and white football jersey among the leaving passengers. Without hesitating, I joined the exiting crowd, slipping out the door just as a surge of new passengers piled in.

  A river of human bodies was flowing down a wide stairway; at the corridor below, it split to the left and right. I pushed my way down to the corridor where I hurriedly scouted about. My eyes easily caught sight of the football jersey disappearing into the crowd toward the right. I raced past people, never taking my eyes off the boy in front of me. He was just exiting a ticket gate through which the commuters were funneling out, two by two. It was there that I was brought up short: an impassive station employee sat there overlooking a rain of used tickets which he occasionally scooped into a box at his knees, one eye on the blurring rush of train passes held out for his split-second perusal. I knew I had only paid the fare to Tokyo station, but hoped the confusion here would allow me to slip through. If I took the time to pay up the difference, I might lose sight of my prey.

  Without slowing down, I dropped my ticket casually onto the counter and walked through. I felt a hand grasp my T-shirt. It was the ticket-taker, of course. He glanced at me, then at the ticket, trying to explain something. Meanwhile, the people continued to flow past me, jolting me in the narrow space. Feeling panicked, I began explaining rapidly, waving my arms around to make my point. I prayed it would work. Finally, with a look of exasperation, the station employee shook his head and waved me through, saying in English: “Okay, okay.”

  Relieved, I dashed out into the street, just in time to see the boy turn and disappear behind a vending machine on the corner. Apparently he had no idea he was being followed. I tailed him down a shopping street lined with storefronts, where multi-colored streamers hung down from lampposts and telephone poles. My ears caught the exotic sound of wooden clogs scraping along the pavement, immediately drowned out by the loud bl
are of pop music from a record shop. All around me I heard the sound of a completely alien language, and wondered how strange I must look to these people, a foreigner dodging down these streets. I’d seen very few foreigners once I’d left the vicinity of the Navy base, and none since getting off at Tokyo station.

  There seemed to be no system at all to the maze-like network of narrow streets and alleyways through which we were threading. Not once did my quarry look around. He was evidently intent on reaching his destination.

  Finally he turned aside before a wooden two-story building just across from a railroad overpass. I stopped and half-hid behind a telephone pole to watch him ascend a narrow metal stairway which led to the doorway of one of the upper rooms. To the right of the door was a small washing machine. Apparently the boy had led me to his home. I saw him take a key out of his pocket, open the door and enter.

  Now that I’d gotten this far I suddenly felt an incredible sense of letdown. I’d followed him on an impulse, perhaps half-hoping to be led to a gay bar. But he’d only been on his way home. For a moment I felt angry at having my prey slip back into the camouflaging cover of his own society. But then I realized how unreasonable I was being. The boy hadn’t the faintest idea that he was being followed by the stranger he’d fondled on the train.

  Now what? I gazed at the shut door and felt at a complete loss for what to do. I probably couldn’t even find my way back to the station, much less the gay district of Tokyo. I was lost, all alone in this huge megalopolis, and the boy was really the only person I knew—to stretch the definition of that word—in this whole city. If nothing else, perhaps he could tell me where the gay district was. I really had nothing to lose.