For Love and Forever (A Collection of Short Stories)

by Sloan Parker

  The guy who’d walked out of the open door had stopped. “You looking for something?”

  I just kept on staring at the kid on the couch.

  This wasn’t me.

  I was just so cold and tired. The high of the warm food filling my belly hadn’t lasted long. I wanted to forget that I was alone for another Christmas, forget what I’d been doing to survive, and most importantly, forget the memories that stupid string of Christmas lights had brought out.

  Just for a little while.

  “Come on. You deserve some relief.” He tilted his head to the room behind him where the others lay on that couch completely unaware of the snow blowing in through the open door. “I’ll show you how,” he added.

  “Don’t.” Biker Boots was walking toward us from the end of the alley. He was staring me down as he’d done when I’d first seen him in the shelter. He was taller and broader than he’d looked earlier. He had a strong, solid appearance despite his lean frame. Although, that could’ve had something to do with the determination in his stride as he advanced. “Don’t do it,” he said, his gaze still locked on mine.

  “Fuck off,” the other guy said. He’d taken a step away but wasn’t backing off completely.

  Biker Boots gestured toward the street. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I didn’t think. I just nodded and followed him down the alley.

  When I’d lost my apartment and had spent the first night wandering the city streets, I’d made myself a few promises. The first…no matter how bad it got, I’d never give in and get fucked up.

  Now, four months in and I’d almost done it.

  We neared the end of the alley, and my new friend—if I dared call him that—didn’t even stop, just kept on moving along the sidewalk until another guy stepped into my path.

  “Hey, cutie.”

  Biker Boots came to my side. “Don’t.” Apparently, his favorite word. He grabbed my arm and dragged me with him, trudging forward faster than before. When we reached the next block, he finally let go.

  I stopped to catch my breath. “What’d you do that for? I might’ve gotten enough for a room. It’s practically a fucking blizzard out here or haven’t you noticed?”

  One side of his mouth lifted in an amused smirk. “You would’ve been spending the night someplace warm, that’s for sure. He’s a cop. And not one that wants a free blow and will let you go.”

  I jerked around to look back the way we’d come. I’d almost gotten my ass thrown in jail for the first time.

  Merry Fucking Christmas.

  Biker Boots tilted his head in the opposite direction. “Come on. I know a place.” He continued walking at a quick pace, his hands shoved into his pockets, and I followed.

  The abandoned warehouse sat along the docks. With the river so close, the wind was even colder, the snow now coming down harder. Inside, the building was divided into several large rooms. Men and women were lying on the floor everywhere. A child cried near an open window, and the smell of urine and rank body odor filled the air. We headed up a flight of stairs and walked past several rooms that looked like they’d been offices at one time. We entered the last room on the left. There was no door, no furniture. Just a couple of empty crates and a thin mattress, so small it had to be for a little kid’s bed. A man with a full beard lay on his side on the mattress and three others were curled up at other spots on the floor. They didn’t stir as we stepped inside. The room wasn’t warm by any stretch of the word, but we were out of the snow and wind and that alone was a real gift, more than the baggie of soap and shaving cream.

  Biker Boots didn’t say anything. Just pointed to the far corner with an empty space behind two crates. He pried back a loose board on the floor and pulled out a sweatshirt. He tossed it to me, then took out another he wadded up into a ball and used as a pillow. He lay flat on his back staring up at the ceiling.

  I lowered myself to the floor and lay on my side, watching him for a while. I was just starting to relax, to think about closing my eyes when he spoke, his gaze still locked on the ceiling like he was talking to it instead of me.

  “It can get kinda rough here when it’s this crowded. Some guys’ll do anything for a fix. Or a fuck.”

  So much for relaxing. I’d managed not to get beaten or raped for the past four months. I sure wanted to keep that record going.

  He spoke again in that calm, low voice he’d said everything with. “We could take turns sleeping.”

  “Okay.”

  “You first.” He sat up and leaned against the wall behind him, his arms folded over his chest, his long legs crossed at the boot-clad ankles as he watched the open doorway across the room.

  “Thanks.” I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure why I trusted him, but I did.

  “What’s your name?”

  I opened my eyes at his whispered words. He was still staring at the doorway.

  “Sean. Yours?”

  I didn’t think he was going to answer. Then he finally said, “Gavin.”

  And with that one name, I was no longer alone.

  * * * *

  Almost a year later…

  “Disgusting little faggot.”

  I shifted on the cold tile floor, searching for a spot on my kneecaps that didn’t already feel sore as hell, and tried to shut down that voice inside my head repeating those hateful words from three years ago.

  “Don’t you ever bother coming back.”

  Even after all this time, they were the same words that seeped into my mind whenever I found myself on my knees in a public men’s room.

  The man standing over me grunted, and I finally sank into that space between reality and illusion where I always let myself go in moments like these, as if I were witnessing another guy do the things I did in those restrooms, parked cars, and adult bookstore basements.

  I wasn’t the one selling myself for money. It was someone else.

  Guys who carried a 4.0 GPA through three years of high school didn’t end up on their knees with a stranger’s cock shoved to the back of their throats for some cash. They worked hard and studied and went to college. They got jobs that offered retirement plans and dental benefits and whatever other shit people who didn’t live on the streets considered important.

  The man above me let out another grunt, and I barely heard it that time. I was too far away, suspended in that space between that bathroom stall and anywhere else. Where I couldn’t hear my mom’s words. Where I was warm and fed and doing something mundane and foreign to me now, like reading a book or playing a video game. Where Gavin’s touch was the only one I knew. Where I made love with him every night in our own bed, our own home.

  Even if that last bit was a fantasy that might never come true, the rest would soon.

  If I could just float above that homeless guy on his knees who looked like me a little longer.

  Then the moment changed. The stranger pulled his dick out of my mouth and started jerking off. The illusion was broken. Shattered.

  It wasn’t some other guy in that men’s room. I was the one on the floor, my knees digging into the stained gray tile, a puddle of some guy’s piss beside me, a stranger’s hand fisted in my hair, my head yanked back as I waited for him to finish so I could grab the cash and get the hell out of there.

  Just fucking come already.

  The small bathroom stall filled with the slick sound of his hand moving over the moist skin of his dick I’d just had crammed into my mouth. I reached into my coat pocket and clutched the folded up piece of paper, holding on to it like it was all that would keep me from floating away completely and never being me again. I closed my eyes and tried to let the sound of that hand caressing flesh fade from my reality.

  No such luck.

  I let up on my grip, not wanting to rip the paper in my pocket before I could show Gavin later.

  Such a fragile thing, paper, and yet this one held the key to everything. At least for me. Because printed across the top was my name.

  After two years
barely scraping by on whatever jobs a high school dropout could get and more than another year selling myself on the streets, I was on my way out of this life. And I was taking Gavin with me.

  Another groan, and a spurt of the man’s release hit my cheek. He jerked my head back farther. More splashed onto my chin and my other cheek.

  “Fuck yeah.” Those grunted words were said in appreciation for his own efforts, not mine.

  The odd silence that followed made it seem like nothing had happened in that bathroom stall.

  A dream. A nightmare.

  The man standing over me closed his pants and threw two bills at my face where they stuck to his cum for a second. No hesitation. He took off, and the stall door banged shut behind me. When the outer door of the bathroom followed suit, I got off my knees and exited the stall. Stopping at the row of sinks, I rinsed out my mouth and scrubbed the evidence of what I’d just done from my face. My hands shook as I ran my fingers through my hair. All this time, and I never could stop that reaction when it was over.

  I clutched the edge of the sink in both hands and bent forward. The rank stench of shit and cum filled my next breath, and I swallowed down the gag. Using a paper towel, I dried the cum from the cash and washed my hands again. I gave another attempt at smoothing the unruly dark hair. I hated the fucking curls, but haircuts weren’t high on my priority list.

  The facial hair made me look five years older, which I both liked and hated. I didn’t get as many tricks when I didn’t shave. Everyone loved young dick.

  Well, practically everyone I’d ever met.

  I’d need to get cleaned up before I could do what the social worker at the shelter had said came next. A shave. Haircut. New clothes. I’d have to transform into someone presentable. Become my old self?

  I stared at the pale, dirt-streaked face in the mirror, the moist, swollen lips, the blank eyes looking back at me.

  Nope, the young man I had been was long gone.

  Wiping my mouth with the frayed sleeve of my coat, I left the bathroom and glanced at the clock over the ticket windows.

  I wasn’t sure if the time Gavin had yelled out the car’s window as they’d pulled away seven days ago was an estimate or not, but I wasn’t about to be anywhere else, even if I had to wait all night.

  A cop rounded the corner that led to the bus station’s security office. He paused and got a good look at me. I wasn’t there to catch a bus, and we both knew he got that as he headed my way. I took off and didn’t let up until I exited the alleyway four blocks from the bus station. I raced around a pile of snow the city plows had dumped at the end of the alley and jerked to a stop in front of the coffee shop, all the while scanning the packed crowd on the sidewalk and the traffic crawling through the intersection.

  No sign of Gavin or the car he’d left in.

  I made my way through the crowd pushing past me and went to the street vendor working the corner, steam rising up from his open cart until he caught sight of me and slammed the lid shut. I ordered two loaded hot dogs. He gave me a look that said he wasn’t touching the dogs until I showed him the cash. He’d been around long enough to know better. So had I. To him I looked like exactly what I was.

  Homeless. No job. No cash. No future.

  Just a guy with a mouth that was made for sucking. That’s what one of my cop tricks Mitch always said. He never could resist testing that theory whenever he spotted me during his shift. At least he paid me.

  I handed over the money and was awarded my first bite of anything to eat in two days. Scarfing down the dogs, I eased my way through the crowd to stand near the brick wall of the coffee shop and tried to blend into the background. That corner was one of our favorite places, which was why he’d chosen there to meet. When we stood on that sidewalk, talking, laughing, we could pretend we were just two normal guys, a part of the crowd of shoppers, not one more thing that could be bought and paid for, and not like we were waiting until it was dark so we could head to River View Park or Sycamore Street with its line of adult bookstores where we’d do whatever we had to do for a few more bucks.

  Five minutes went by, the dogs long gone, and I was still alone, waiting.

  I tried to ignore the never-ending chime of the bell from the volunteer soliciting donations in front of the coffee shop. Christmas carols poured out from speakers outside the department store across the street. So loud there was no way I could pretend I didn’t hear that odd mix of overly cheery and depressing songs.

  All those men and women, carrying their shopping bags overflowing with packages and buying their tiny coffees that cost more than I’d ever pay for something that didn’t include an entire chicken dinner on the side, amazed me.

  Didn’t they see me? Didn’t they get how some of us lived?

  Or maybe they did, and that’s why a few didn’t just stride by that little red bucket and the bell-ringing man in the Santa hat. Maybe that’s why they slowed enough to flick in a few coins or bills. To ease their conscience before they stuffed themselves with Christmas dinner and all the trimmings, before they opened a shitload of gifts they didn’t need or want, before they spent the day singing carols and spent the night making love to someone special they’d kissed under the mistletoe.

  I laughed. A week ago we’d stood at that same corner, and when Gavin had seen me watching people walk by, he’d said, “Fuck them. Fuck Christmas. And fuck that bell, that bucket full of guilt, and their happy, safe lives.”

  He had a thing about not taking a handout, and he never asked anyone for help. That night we’d met at the shelter had been one of the rare times he’d come inside. Since then, I had to be very specific with him about how cold and tired I was to get him to consider taking two cots at the shelter. And he never accepted any of the donated clothes or hygiene products. He’d rather suck an extra cock to buy a coat or pack of condoms. I’d done my best to try to convince him taking a free damn condom didn’t make him weak, but I hadn’t been successful yet.

  I shifted on my feet where I waited by the brick wall. A half hour crawled by. Then another.

  The falling snow swirled around my ankles, and a gust blew the whirl of wet flakes into my face. My gut chose right then to make that gurgling sound I’d grown accustomed to over the past year. Like a monster from one of those alien movies was trying to claw its way out, even with the two dogs I’d just fed it. My knees still stung from where they’d been pressing into the tiled bathroom floor and my jaw ached. The fucker hadn’t bothered to tell me he couldn’t come from a blowjob, just let me go on and on.

  Despite all that, a smile hit my lips and time no longer mattered. Neither did the cum I could practically still feel on my face, or anything else I’d done in the past seven days. I could breathe again without the constant ache in my chest.

  The black SUV with gold trim he’d left in had pulled up to the curb.

  I let out a long exhale and leaned back against the brick wall.

  I couldn’t tear my gaze away from that black SUV. I imagined him strolling toward me, tossing back the bangs of that brown hair with a tip of his head, those green eyes focused on me, along with the rare smile he never shared with anyone else.

  A part of me hadn’t really believed I’d see him again.

  Offers like the one he’d gotten to spend a week at a house in the country with some old fart for the kind of cash the man had promised didn’t happen for guys like us. Not where you didn’t end up dead before the week was up. That shit was for the movies.

  Not that movies were a part of my everyday life. I’d seen a ton of movie posters on the sides of buses and buildings, even caught a bunch of trailers in the motel room Mitch always took me to. He liked to leave the preview channel on. Maybe so he wouldn’t have to lie when his wife asked what he’d done on his break that day. But a real movie? The last one I could remember was a superhero flick I’d gone to three years earlier with my grandpa.

  Another lifetime ago.

  The door on the black SUV opened and out came the pa
ssenger’s right leg. He slid halfway out of the car and stopped so only his ass and legs were visible. It didn’t matter. I had all the proof I needed. I’d spent the last year dreaming of that body.

  A week ago, when he’d made his decision and I’d watched him climb into that SUV, I had panicked, wanting to haul him back out the minute the door shut. I had wanted to do anything I could to get him to stop, but I knew he’d never change his mind. No one turned down that kind of money. Even if there was a chance he’d end up floating face down in the river and become some cautionary tale I’d hear one guy telling another at the shelter on Madison late at night as we lay on our cots, each of us under a thin blanket, our shoes still on our feet because no one took their shoes off, even at the shelter. You might as well toss them to the first guy you passed by with bare feet or holes in the soles of his pair.

  I couldn’t stop staring at those scuffed black boots paused on the curb before me, and the long legs that led into the car where he was probably collecting the rest of the cash.

  Gavin was alive.

  I wanted to sprint across the sidewalk and drag him out of that car, money or no money. How crazy was that? He’d already done whatever the old guy wanted, and we needed the cash.

  Despite that, I was about to rush toward him when he finally stood, stuffing an unbelievably large wad of dough in the front pocket of his jeans. Gavin scanned the crowd of pedestrians scurrying by on the sidewalk as the SUV took off behind him. He spotted me, and he didn’t hesitate. With a tilt of his head as he approached, he flipped the hair off his forehead and threw me that smile. “Hey.”

  And just like that, life was bearable again. The shitty fucking blowjob from earlier, the guy’s cum on my skin, and the feel of those two sweaty, crumpled bills sticking to me were gone.

  Those green eyes and that smile never failed to make the reality of my life fade away. No one but him made the dark, frigid nights not so long or so lonely, or made me laugh. Before him, I’d forgotten how good it felt to laugh, to feel anything.

  “Sean.” He snapped his fingers in front of my face. “You okay?”