Homeboys

by Shane Allison

  “I’m in,” Pecker said.

  “If you betray me, I’ll cut your ears off.” Life on the street wasn’t all that different from life in a stock brokerage. It was purely dog-eat-dog, and in the end, the whole gang went on the raid.

  The Gyno were a group of man haters who occupied a warehouse along the old fish wharf. Each of them had been cruelly treated by some man, and they singly and as a group desired revenge against all males.

  The wharf had once been a thriving group of working canneries and fish-packing plants as well as being a tourist trap. Why did the tourists of old gravitate toward the most horrendous odors? They’d gape at the barking sea lions and netted crabs while the stench of shrimp heads and rotting crab shells filled the air.

  Back in the old days, before the dollar died, I’d toured Bay Boulevard with my lover Simon. We’d gone to Ripley’s Believe It or Not, the Waxworks Museum and the Undersea Gardens. The tourist traps were gone for good. We weren’t going to the Waxworks; we were going to hijack a single toothbrush from a group of young women who’d been abused, beaten, humiliated and sexually molested by their boyfriends, fathers or husbands.

  Of course, I’d worked for a stock brokerage in Portland, but after I found Simon dangling from a lamppost, lynched because he’d been a bank teller, I had wandered over the coast range and ended up where he and I had once vacationed.

  Bay Boulevard was no longer open for business. A couple of the boats still went fishing during the hours of daylight, and one cannery was still struggling for existence. Hired thugs armed with shotguns guarded the cannery and the fishing vessels. The bark of sea lions rent the thick fog.

  The Gyno’s headquarters appeared to stand unguarded.

  “That’s not a good sign,” I whispered.

  Toes agreed. “Yeah. They’d have guards. Something’s wrong.”

  “Sure is, Toes.” Figures rose from the shadows around us. The Horn were surrounded. Knives and chains glinted through the fog.

  “It’s the fuckin’ Gash,” Pecker said.

  I wanted to deny that the Gash would threaten us, but the evidence was there. Nor was Grank leading the warriors. He was a prisoner of his own gang. A pair of brutes thrust Grank forward.

  “What do you want, Klak?” Toes asked. His switchblade was open, but his arm hung at his side in a non-threatening way. If they wanted to wipe us out, then we were in for it. We were surrounded and outnumbered.

  “We found out that our war chief likes to fuck boy ass,” Klak said.

  “He’s queer? What’s that to us?”

  “Cause he’s been fuckin’ one of yours, Toes.”

  A hard hand clamped onto my arm, while other arms secured me. Someone hit a nerve just right so my open switchblade hit the decaying asphalt. Pecker wound an old seat belt around me.

  I didn’t bother to protest. It had been a setup from start to finish with Grank and me being the goats. The pair of fools.

  Two circles formed around us, the Horn forming the inner circle, and the Gash forming the outer. “Now, we’re gonna watch you two faggots fuck,” Klak said. “Strip ’em both bare.”

  “We’re dead either way, Boats,” Grank whispered. He was shaking.

  “Do what they demand, Grank. It’s not over yet.” A sexual heat was rushing through me. Somehow, I didn’t mind Grank taking my ass in front of two street gangs. Somehow, I knew that if we did it okay, then we would be all right in the end. There was one more factor in this game, which neither the Horn nor the Gash had figured in.

  “You’re gonna get fucked now, Boats,” Toots said with a perverse leer.

  I sneered at him. “Just wait, Toots. I’m gonna watch you take it too.”

  “No fuckin’ way, Boats,” he said, but his face was ashen. Pecker was helping undress me, and I could see that he too was afraid.

  When we were naked, I grabbed Grank and kissed his lips hard. Our kiss went on and on. My tongue met his, and as our tongues played, our cocks arose.

  “The fags are getting hard,” Klak said.

  “So are you, Klak,” Booger jeered.

  Pecker was sporting a woody too. It was obvious through his stained shorts.

  “You’re gonna get fucked, Pecker,” I said after I pulled my mouth from Grank’s. “Come on, Grank. Fuck my ass. Show these pussies how it’s done.”

  Grank spit into his palm and lubricated his cock. He spit four times, and then he pushed his slick cockhead against my asshole.

  “Shove it in, Grank. Do me.”

  The Horn were jeering and hooting. The Gash was staring as if they’d never seen a cock before that night. Those hard boys were giggling like schoolgirls. They’d held their secret mock trial, their kangaroo court, and condemned Grank and me. But they’d also condemned themselves, even if they didn’t know it yet.

  Grank’s cock was in my ass, and I was riding back to take him. His big cock stuffed me, and I loved it. I rode it, thrusting my butt back and rocking on it. The Gash were howling with desperation and forbidden lust. The Horn were erect in their pants and shorts. Every man in both gangs lusted to stick his hard cock into a willing asshole, and every man wished that he could be the horny butt slut taking the cock.

  “This isn’t how it ends, faggots.” The voice was shrill, feminine, cruel. The extraordinary exhibitionism sent Grank over the edge. He gripped my hips with both hands as he shot his cum into my ass. “Oh, yeah, that’s your destiny, man-seed bastards. You fucking child molesters, rapists, thieves in the night, comers in the dusk, darkeners of doorways. Every one of you is going to know what it means to take a cock in your ass or your mouth.”

  Then there were three circles, the largest being outside and surrounding the rest. The thousand abused women of the Gyno surrounded Horn and Gash alike, and each woman held a weapon capable of immense destruction, be it knife, handgun, rifle, crossbow, sword, rock and sling, spear, shot gun or machete.

  “This is what you were counting on to rescue us, Boats?”

  “Shit, yeah, Grank. Every one of these assholes forgot about the Gyno.”

  Grank pulled his cock from my ass. It made a popping sound as it cleared my tight asshole.

  “Strip naked, you fuckin’ males!” Chelsea Pleeth, the Peacemaker of the Gyno, shouted. Her voice bounced off the broken walls, the chipping red and pink paint of the former Republic of Candy, the Rogue Gallery, Kathy’s Deli and Saffron Salmon.

  In terror, the former stockbrokers, real estate salesmen, bureaucrats, state office workers, county judges, shopkeepers, pet-food distributors, hair stylists, and tenders of gay bars tossed off their clothing. Despite their fear and loathing, their cocks were flying high.

  Without warning, both gangs fell into a cluster fuck. Guys were fucking guys. Guys were taking it up their asses. Guys were sucking cocks, and guys were getting sucked. The Gyno had opened the door into something long repressed.

  “That’s it, boys. Fuck each other. Pussy is not for you. Ass and mouth will suffice.”

  And so, under the low sky, amid acid fog and stinking garbage, two rival gangs fell into a congress of lust. Grank and I watched our fellows, and we knew that in the end, we would walk away cleared of our own transgressions.

  Fat Faggots Offer Drugs for Sex

  Thomas Kearnes

  “What took you so goddamn long, boy?” Margene demanded. “I been calling your name since the commercial.” On the big-screen television, a perky blonde with dazzling teeth cooed about the efficacy of scented douche. Whenever Margene needed another wine cooler or wanted to empty the ashtray, she wailed for her son, Dewey, to leave his computer and assist her. He shuffled from the back of the mobile home, past all the piles of cardboard boxes lining the hall, and into the living room where Margene held court. Cigarette dangling from her lips and remote control clenched in her grip, she growled for Dewey to complete the tasks her sloth made untenable.

  “I was chatting with someone,” Dewey answered.

  “You shouldn’t talk to people that don’t exis
t.”

  “Whaddya need, Mama?”

  Margene was little more than a skeleton gloved inside pore-ridden flesh. Her ribs, her shoulder blades, and her hips realigned as she looked at her son. Why was it so hard to label her as frail? “The methadone ain’t kicking in like it should,” she said. “We got Xanax left, right?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Well, shit, take a look,” she said.

  Dewey bowed his head. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt brave enough to openly glare at his anorexic, needling mother. Knowing each day brought nothing but more demands, more game shows at thundering volume, more Virginia Slims—the concept of future was too painful to contemplate.

  The tiny bathroom shared a wall with the living room. While scanning the medicine cabinet, Dewey heard a huckster bark about his batch of used Fords, little kids orgasmic over fruit punch and finally a plea for those who’d taken a growth hormone to join a class-action lawsuit.

  He found the bottle of Xanax behind an empty jar of Oil of Olay. Three or four pills rattled. His reflection in the glass of the cabinet confronted him. His mouth grew long, the corners turning neither up nor down. Fat fuck, he thought. Not fat like your daddy in heaven, but give it time. It’s a slippery slope, little pig.

  “Goddammit, boy!” Margene cried. “You get lost in there?”

  “Just a second, Mama.”

  Dewey had tricks, maneuvers to make himself more appetizing to the men he approached on the hookup websites in his room. Most ignored him or wrote nasty replies to his lame attempts at introduction. He pressed his hand beneath his jowls, momentarily mashing his double chin. Relieved that this ruse provided hope, he cupped his hands over his two drooping pecs. No, that asshole kid down the road was right: they were bitch tits. He lifted the sagging flesh of each breast up and to the side. What if his pectorals bulged with firmness as they did in his fantasies?

  There were other attempts at self-deception. It was an elaborate series of gestures, rehearsed like a stage soliloquy. In less than a half hour, Christopher would arrive. Tall, lean and smooth Christopher with his eight-inch cock. It had taken three weeks of explicit text messages and online chatting to convince Christopher to drive to the mobile-home park outside Longview. That, and Dewey promised to provide him with an eight ball of crystal meth for the privilege of sucking that long, thick cock.

  The Xanax tablets rattled in their bottle, reminding Dewey he still held it. He planned to persuade Margene to take all the pills. While he wouldn’t entertain Christopher in his bedroom, he wished to neutralize his mother to be safe. Christopher knocking on the door and waiting would allow plenty of time for Margene to humiliate her son. When Dewey offered her the pills, she stared at him as if he were a stain.

  “You trying to knock me out silly, boy?” she asked, eyes narrowed to slits.

  Dewey shuffled his feet, stared into a far corner. He could hide nothing from her. “Someone’s coming over,” he muttered.

  “You ain’t got no friends.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You never bring ’em here.”

  “I don’t wanna bother you.” He gestured toward the television. “Judge Judy is coming on.”

  Margene lit another Virginia Slim and took the Xanax bottle. “Is he one of those faggots?” she asked, her voice low and froggy, as if the word were difficult to pronounce.

  “No!”

  “The government ain’t paying me to run some queer whorehouse, boy.”

  “Take the pills, Mama. Don’t get excited.”

  After more pleas to Dewey not to disgrace the Langtree family name, Margene dismissed him. He sprinted back to his bedroom and checked his cell phone for text messages. Nothing. “Don’t panic,” he told himself. Christopher was on his way. Maybe he didn’t text when driving. Dewey lay atop his bed knowing rest was not in his future. He’d smoked some crystal meth an hour ago. Without it, he would’ve canceled, certain that humiliation loomed. He waited for a knock on the door.

  Too wired to sleep, he went into a sort of trance, so fixated on the wheeze from the air-conditioning unit outside his window he failed to register the quick trio of knocks at the front door. Another three knocks followed. Christopher was nearly an hour late. Dewey didn’t care. He was thrilled the young man had come at all. Men had flaked on him in the past, even after his promise of crystal meth.

  As Dewey dashed to the front door, he caught a glimpse of his mother motionless on the couch. Even Xanax didn’t hit that fast. Maybe it was all the wine coolers she’d guzzled since “Good Morning America.” If she hadn’t taken the Xanax, maybe he could sneak one himself. He didn’t want Christopher to detect his deep-rooted conviction that something would go wrong, and soon.

  The vision that revealed itself once Dewey opened the creaky screen door filled the fat young man with hope. Suddenly, his sad and sordid world seemed alive with possibility, with the knowledge that this gorgeous man would surrender to him as he pleased and flattered his guest. Dewey had already decided he would swallow Christopher’s load if given the chance. He muttered hello, asked if Christopher had any problems finding the place. Dewey rambled about the hardships of living in the backwoods, how grateful he was for company.

  “You got diarrhea of the mouth, big boy,” Christopher said, laughing. Dewey stopped at once. The biggest disappointment he’d experienced hooking up with other men was how none of them were witty and charming like in sitcoms and frothy romantic comedies. Instead, they spoke in a primitive language of veiled insults and sexual commands. Christopher, however, possessed a true wit. Better yet, he assumed Dewey must possess one, too.

  “I’m sorry, cutie,” Dewey said, gripping the door frame as if he might topple. “I always get so nervous, and my hands sweat, and it feels like I haven’t eaten in a fucking week, and—”

  “How are you gonna suck my dick if you can’t stop jabbering?” Christopher said, and slipped past Dewey into his home. While he passed, his hand grazed Dewey’s love handle. Dewey wasn’t sure how to interpret the gesture. This was the worst time to be reminded of his weight…but beautiful Christopher had touched him! The contact hadn’t repulsed him. Christopher flashed his host a megawatt grin and casually gazed about.

  Dewey fought the urge to drag him out the front door; at the same time, he was too dazzled by his guest to move an inch. Of course, he’d gazed obsessively at Christopher’s array of photos on the hookup website, especially the one of his long, smooth body utterly nude, the image cut off at his neck. Dewey marveled at any man with the discipline—and optimism—to work out.

  Even though the age Christopher gave on the website was a mere twenty-two, Dewey believed his guest could pass for a high school senior. An unkempt bush of rust-colored curls drifted atop his head like low clouds at dawn. One of his eyes was a bright hazel while the other was a pale blue. He moved with the staccato rhythms of a tap dancer, all seductive excess motion. His only flaw was that his front tooth was chipped. Dewey’s own mouth was full of neglected cavities and rotting teeth stained yellow from his daily pack of Salem cigarettes. He’d lied online when Christopher asked if he smoked. He chastised himself for forgetting to gargle with Listerine before admitting Christopher.

  Christopher drifted toward the living room, but kept his head tilted upward, as if waiting for Dewey to begin a proper tour. Margene let out a low grunt. Dewey prayed it wasn’t a sign her stupor was lifting.

  “You don’t wanna see this dump,” he said, sliding past Christopher to block his entrance. “I set up the perfect place.”

  “You put mucho effort into silly things, big boy.”

  “We have the whole afternoon,” Dewey breathed.

  “Actually, I only have an hour. My girlfriend needs me to pick up a dime bag. The weed they sell in Tyler is crap.” Christopher went on to explain his visit was the product of pure coincidence—and past experience. “You fat boys are expert cocksuckers,” he muttered, smiling so wide that Dewey started counting his teeth.

&nbs
p; Too much information and too little self-worth led Dewey to panic. Christopher had stopped by for a blow job and some dope before returning to his girlfriend and pretending her talent for sucking dick came anywhere close to Dewey’s. The host rubbed his bulging belly without at first realizing that Christopher was watching him. Why draw his attention to that shameful spot? It only mattered how Dewey could please him.

  “I picked up the dope this morning,” he announced.

  “Is it good stuff?” Christopher asked.

  “I haven’t tried it,” Dewey replied, the lie coming easily. He knew these hookups were games of deception and concealment. Each man wielded a carefully orchestrated image for the other’s enjoyment. There was no shame in this charade. Dewey had joined the website three years ago, not long after his twentieth birthday. His late father had bought the computer years ago hoping to interest Dewey in Tetris and other math-based video games.

  “You have a pipe?” Christopher asked. “My roommate always asks all sorts of questions if I borrow his. You’re discreet, right?”

  “This afternoon is just between you and me,” Dewey promised, thrilled to hear those words aloud. Finally, he summoned enough courage to physically guide Christopher toward the screen door still hanging open. He kept gentle pressure at the small of Christopher’s back, noticing how tightly his guest’s simple black T-shirt wrapped.

  “Good. I like boys who keep their traps shut,” Christopher muttered, ducking his head to avoid the door frame. “You let some faggot suck your dick and next week the whole fucking town knows.”

  “I hate guys like that,” Dewey said quickly. “I got a pipe waiting for us.”

  “Where the fuck are we going?”

  “There’s a trailer down the street. No one’s lived there since Mrs. Zuckerman died last month.”

  The two young men walked with purpose across the mobile-home park. Some of the trailers featured scattershot attempts at decoration or comfort—a wobbly wooden deck, garden gnomes with evil faces, wind chimes that hung uninspired in the still, humid afternoon. Dewey risked a glance through a particular trailer’s window as he and Christopher walked past. He wasn’t surprised Professor Pete glared back as if waiting for Dewey to see him. That morning, Dewey had struggled with his gag reflex while sucking Professor Pete’s spongy, uncircumcised cock, pubic hairs breaking off inside his mouth. Professor Pete didn’t accept cash for his dope. Dewey didn’t have the cash anyway.