by John Rechy
“No, not here,” Nick said. “Drive a couple more blocks. Yeah. Here. Let's do it here.”
The man parked under an arcade of trees. He opened Nick's pants, lowered them, bent down, sucked his cock while jerking himself off.
“Here's the money, I'll drive you back.”
“I'll just hang around here.”
Clint
EARLY NIGHT
That exultant day with Troy was transformed now, the memory of desire linked with death. Had the man beaten in Sag Harbor survived? Clint felt the presence of death within the night as he walked back into the darkened strip of alleys and garages. More men—dozens, more—were joining the cruising dance, men melding into crushed shadows.
The wind had stopped. Dark heat remained, so hot it seemed to pulse, as if the night itself was coming.
This is all there is—just sex and more sex and still more sex—
No, that wasn't all, but it was what you attempted to stop terror with, and Clint felt it now, terror, a desperate, mournful yearning aroused by the specter of death, a rage to live during the short time allotted.
A man motioned with his head toward a garage. Inside, he blew Clint. Clint coaxed him up, knelt before him, and sucked him until he drew cum into his mouth. Moans floated over the muffled night. Two men fucked within deeper shadows in the same garage. Out of a car paused in the alley, a head protruded toward a body pressed against an open window. Materializing out of shadows, another mouth took Clint's cock. Clint came as the man jerked himself off. Still coming—urgent desire unabated—Clint bent to take the other's jetting cum into his mouth.
—the only thing that blocks it all out—
Sudden motion. People walked away, cars drove off. Two squad cars, lights flashing, entered the cruising strip from opposite ends. One car stopped before a garage. Two cops, one a woman, jumped out. They rushed into the garage. They emerged with two handcuffed men.
Desire growing, Clint drove away
Where had the motorcyclist pointed to earlier? That park? He saw men moving into its shadows. When he had first noticed the biker earlier, Clint had thought he was the man who had followed him throughout the night in the Mineshaft last weekend. But he wasn't. What had that beautiful kid been doing with him? So incongruous, those two together—and so sensual in their disparity
Clint made a U-turn and parked.
With his undershirt, he wiped perspiration streaming down his chest as he made his way into the small park in West Hollywood.
Ernie
EARLY NIGHT
Ernie walked to a private cubicle he'd rented at the baths. He left his clothes in the locker room by the entrance to the popular bathhouse. He wrapped a towel about his waist, not too high. Getting lots of looks already. It would be a good night at the baths.
Too bad about that old guy trying to get in earlier. He hated to see people hurt. But, hey, didn't old guys like him know this place let in only hunky young guys? When he got old—which was years and years away—and maybe by then they'd have a pill or something—he wouldn't want to bust in where he wasn't wanted, right?
Gorgeous bodies, stripped and almost stripped—everywhere. The odor of amyl and butyl wafted, steam coiled about halls, into cubicles.
Ernie peered into the steam room, a dark red light allowing only silhouettes within the vapor. Arched bodies, bent heads, the usual sucking and fucking, shifting partners. Ernie didn't want to join that mess, not now, although he had once or twice.
He left the door to his cubicle open. He lay on a white sheet over the small cot, towel bunched over his cock. He put his arms back, stretched his body. He imagined how he would look to someone passing by—and stopping. Wide lats tapering, pecs outlined, round biceps, flaring thighs, full calves—
He was already hard.
Good as he looked, he hoped he wouldn't have to wait long for someone terrific. You never could tell. Sometimes you just lay there and lay there, even working yourself up, and people you would've made it with would pass by, look, move on—only God knew why—and sometimes people you didn't want came in, but—
Ernie heard footsteps approaching.
A cute guy walked in. Ernie didn't move, just flexed on the cot. Removing Ernie's towel and letting his own drop, the guy licked Ernie's arms, under them, his pecs, down, around his cock, down, down to his thighs, around his calves—great body-worshiper! Ernie still didn't move, continued to hold his flex. Now the tongue brushed around his cock, then under, licking his ass, staying there—and then the mouth moved to his cock and the lips opened and the mouth sank down—
Ernie eased the head away He didn't want to come yet. The cute guy understood, reached for his own towel and walked out.
More footsteps.
Hey! He'd try this. Leaving the towel off, he turned over on his stomach. He closed his eyes.
Someone entered the cubicle, waited, waited—Ernie raised his ass. Legs straddled him.
Keeping his eyes shut, he imagined what the guy looked like—great bod, lots of muscles, tousled hair—brown hair—body gleaming with clean sweat—he felt drops of it on his bare buttocks. A big cock lingering over his opening—rubbin’, teasin’ around—hands spreadin’ his ass—large hands. Thighs brushed with hair—he felt the furry flesh—flanking him. Fingers parting his ass, one finger poking in. Now the muscular body—terrific pecs, look at those deltoids, got a small tattoo there?—would be about to enter, the guy staring down at the rounded ass waitin’ to be fucked—yeah, and he wore cowboy boots and nothing else. No, a cowboy hat and nothing else. A cowboy hat and boots and nothing else—lookin’ great with all those muscles, cowboy! He felt the cock at his opening, and he girded. Go! What was the guy waiting for? Oh, sure, uncircumcised, like him, peeling the skin back from the shaft, head emerging, a dot of moisture at the tip, cock throbbing over puckered asshole—workin’ it good for ya—yeah, shove it in—feel it, ya feel it?—hold it—okay, go in. The cock slipped out. Hands—muscular arms, triceps really cut, veins stark—clasped it, aiming in, the guy's butt raised, ready to hump down—ah!—cock buried into hole huggin’ it, releasing it, hugging tighter—
Ernie's eyes remained closed. The body over him would be preparing to arch, long leg muscles stretched, feet clamped down to push in harder—in!—up, down, up, down, bare butt hunched over bare butt—fuck me, fuck me—cowboy with boots comin'—head flung back, great ass, great fuck, hold it, go—Ernie heard a groan, and felt hot cum filling him, way in.
Then the guy walked away—Ernie heard the muffle of bare feet—no boots?—but the sculpted torso—wearing boots—would pause to look back at the great ass he'd just fucked, ass shiny with clean male sweat, a dot of cum squeezing out.
Someone else came in.
Ernie did not turn around—did not open his eyes—lay there.
The new guy would be real handsome, dark hair barely receding, that studdy macho look that went with his square jaw, didn't smile big, only sideways. Hairy guy, a dark T on his chest trickling down to his crotch, heavy triangle there. Ernie felt matted body hairs sliding back and forth. What was—? Oh, yeah, the guy was wearing a jockstrap—snap it, jock—round beer-can cock poking out of the pouch to probe the hole, entering—I wanya to feel it, ya feel it?—yeah, jam it in—one heavy ball popping out of the strap. Fuck me, fucker, fuck me deep—
Feet. Someone else entering the cubicle. Ernie shut his eyes tighter and raised his head, mouth open, over the edge of the cot. A cock brushed his lips, college-wrestler's cock. Bulky guy, great neck, butch haircut, like that since high school. Cock teasin’ open mouth—wrestle ya for a blow job—slapping around his face—ya wannit, ya wannit?—while the guy with the hairy chest and the jockstrap just barely on fucked the hell out of him, and Ernie clasped his butt, let go, pulled the cock back in, and the hairy guy put his hands behind his neck, showing dark pits, smudges of hair—lick ‘em—a trickle of sweat running down his chest—follow it with your tongue, lickit—while the wrestler's cock poked about his face, thick th
ighs against his head—muscular thighs, almost too big—head-lock, headlock, whoa—wrestler's hands guiding his mouth to heavy balls—great balls, round balls, bounce them in your hand, stud, got one in my mouth, gimme the other one. His tongue flitted out where it was moved by the tattooed arm—got a panther there?—moved under his legs, to his ass, a brush of hair along the parting—rim my hole—yeah, lickin’ the champ's ass—whoa!—champ turning around to shove his cock into my mouth, one stroke, in, in—choke on it—whoa, buddy—gag—shove it in all the way in, deep throat, deep throat.
The hairy guy with the jockstrap—he tore it off before he came—spurted inside his ass just as the wrestler's cock—he lit a cigarette at that moment and let it dangle from his lips real tough—jetted into his throat, and—
Hey, Lars!
Ernie lay there until he heard feet moving out. He didn't open his eyes for long seconds.
When he did, he sat up. Great! Three—four!—ideal guys! Perfect. He dressed, walked back into the night.
Christ, it was hotter now that the weird Sant'Ana had stopped.
Damn! He hadn't come.
Mitch
EARLY NIGHT
Mitch looked at his bruised hand. In his urgency to find the entrance to the park, he had clenched the bordering wire so tight that a piece of his skin had torn off. He'd returned to his car by the wired fence. He'd pressed his palms against his handkerchief. Now the handkerchief lay, bloodied, next to him as he waited. Did he want to join the shadows in that park?
No.
He started his car.
Yes.
He turned off the motor. He got out. When had the Sant'Ana blown over, leaving the night drenched in heat?
This time he found an entrance easily. Of course, it faced the street. He moved in. There were even more men cruising the shadow-splotched park than he had determined from the alley. It was suddenly familiar, this new world, as if he had walked through it in a dream, along these paths, or others like them, had seen these strangers, or others like them, and, like in a dream, everything, even what he saw move, seemed to have halted. The Sant'Ana had left not even an echo of its fading howls.
Dave
NIGHT
“Him!”
“That's enough,” Dave told the kid as they rode back onto Santa Monica Boulevard. “We gotta start, dude.”
“Wild!”
Dave could feel the kid's excitement, could feel his stiff cock behind him—and the kid had a real good one—and his own cock hardened, even more, if possible, considering that it had remained at least semi-hard throughout the hours he and this goddamned sexy dude had driven around the City collecting guys for his celebration. Crazy, yeah! Oh, man, real crazy!
In minutes, they were back at the park in West Hollywood, in the lot adjacent to it. In one parked car—Dave rode right beside it—there were three young dudes. With the kid holding on to his waist, Dave paused his bike beside them. The three guys were tense—maybe here for the first time, waiting to join. That excited Dave, and this did, too, that the dudes in the car were already trying to appear tough, to assume the kind of look that took years to perfect, a look like his. They stared at him from within the shadows of the car. Admiring him, yeah—and intimidated. Yeah!
Dave found a space a few cars away and parked his bike.
The kid hopped off. “Comin’ with me?”
“Sure, kid.” Dave dismounted.
They made their way across the small park—past men already cruising around—past the bleachers, the baseball field, along shadowy paths, past the basketball court.
The kid stopped before the merry-go-round. No one else there yet. He put his hand on its railing, as if to spin it about and hop on it.
“Don't fuck around!” Dave warned.
The kid smiled at him, and they moved toward the toolshed.
Removing his shoes, the kid almost ran to the mouth of the open corridor between the squat building and the wire enclosing the adjacent field. There, he stood under a shaft of light, darkness pushing at its edges.
“Remember, dude,” Dave whispered into his ear—not wanting to incite anyone yet—and he heard his own heart pounding, “I'll be the last.”
“O-kay! Hot and wild and lust-ee!” the kid said.
The kid faced the wall and leaned his body, hands out, against the bricks of the toolshed. Dave took the tank top the kid had carried draped over his shoulders. Reaching in front of him, he unbuttoned the kid's cutoffs. He could feel the kid's perspiration and stiff cock against the cool brick wall as he slipped the cutoffs down, exposing the kid's bare buttocks. The kid raised one foot, then the other, and Dave flung the cutoffs aside on the dirt. Cracking an ampule of amyl, which in the stilled night snapped like a tiny bullet, Dave held it in the kid's nostrils. The kid inhaled, inhaled.
Dave shoved the ampule into his own nose. Keeping it there, he bent down before the kid's buttocks. Then he pushed his tongue deep into the hole, moistening it in round, jabbing licks, his mouth adding spittle.
“You're ready,” he said to the kid, and stood up. “Now you'll have some of me in you all night.”
“Wild!” the kid said, excited.
Before he moved away, as they had planned—he would return only for the last of the celebration, the best, him and the kid—Dave looked back.
Under the wedge of light abandoned there, the kid's naked body—beautiful, Dave thought, Jesus, what a beautiful kid he is—leaned at a slant against the wall, and waited.
Ten
NIGHT
Everything—palm trees, distant pines, litter—was locked in the stilled night. Discarded by the Sant'Ana, dark heat lay on the streets like a festering corpse.
He was alone now. Jesse's throat tightened with anticipation. Leaning against the wall of the toolshed, he felt hotter than the night, hotter than desire, hotter than lust, as if it was all one. He was aware—because his ears strained to hear every sound—that forms were beginning to stir, footsteps closer. Once they moved past the knot of darkness, seeping light would reveal him, and his celebration would begin.
Mitch passed cruising shadows in the park. His steps slowed to meld with the stirred silence. He felt eyes on him. He made his way toward the merry-go-round, a slide, swings—idle props that deepened his sense of waking into a dream.
A patch of dirt, a bench under a hovering tree—
The toolshed a few feet away—
The place the biker had indicated—
But where was—? Mitch heard breathing from a hollow of darkness. He moved in closer.
Jesuschrist!
Within a smear of light, a naked young man faced the wall, hands against the toolshed. Mitch gasped, but he heard no sound.
The naked body turned.
The handsome kid he'd seen with the biker, the kid he'd been looking for.
Jesse saw the man he'd chosen in the alley next to the abandoned field. The guy looked hot but unsure. His first time at wild stuff? Great! Just right to begin the celebration with. Jesse reached back with his hands and parted his own buttocks.
Footsteps! Mitch turned toward the sound. A shirtless, muscular man had emerged out of encircling darkness. Mitch ran—no, felt himself running out of the park, but he had not moved, was stalled within a real dream—in which he moved now—felt himself move—saw himself approach—knew he had approached—the naked body, close, closer—
Jesse guided the hard cock into him.
Mitch felt himself enter the young man.
Ernie watched as the clean-cut guy fucked the kid against the wall.
Mitch jerked, spurting inside the young man.
Jesse held him, tightly, to draw out fully the night's first burst of cum.
Mitch withdrew, feeling a surge of exhilaration, as if this orgasm had been accumulating for years.
His celebration had begun! Jesse looked back. The shirtless muscular guy was readying his cock, spitting on it. Him, yes. Wild!
Ernie approached the naked body. A few drops
of the other guy's cum had moistened the crack, but there was much more inside, hot cum. That aroused him more. Damn, this was a real fantasy! But was it enough yet?
Mitch hurried along shaded paths. Exhilaration was punctured by panic, which grew into greater exhilaration, greater panic, greater excitement—So many men here, all available, so many men, but would there be enough time to make up for all those years before? So many men, so much desire—He fused into other shadows roaming the park.
Ernie saw two hunky guys watching him and the naked kid. If those guys—look at their mean cocks ready—if they fucked the kid first, there'd be even more cum in him to mix with his. Nothing wrong with helping a fantasy along when what was going on wasn't enough. He spread the kid's ass, inviting one of the two aroused guys to enter the kid. One did—in one sure jab—while the other bent down and blew Ernie, and he let him for a while.
When the first guy gasped and pulled out of the kid, Ernie eased away the guy blowing him, raised him up by the shoulders, bent down and sucked his cock a few strokes, then stood up and turned him around, leading the stiff cock to the kid's ass.
Jesse reached back and took the other guy inside. Great—even the night was contributing its heat. At the end of it, he'd be ready for the biker, the wildest!
Ernie stood next to the guy fucking the kid, stood there prodding him forward and back, adding to the awareness he needed for his fantasy, lots of fuckin’, lots of cum. The guy bolted, came, pulled out, still spilling. Ernie fingered a few drops of cum that had remained on the kid's ass, and he wiped them onto his own cock. All those cocks shootin’ jiz into the ass he was gonna fuck, all that cum in there waiting for his—He'd get this fantasy goin’ even better. He looked around—two other guys there. He'd let them shoot before he went in. His cock brushed the kid's flesh, and he spouted clumsily all over.
Jesse reached back, pushing the cum into himself. He coaxed another cock in—
Shit. Ernie wiped cum off his pants, wasted cum. His terrific fantasy had been ruined before it had shaped. He wouldn't let it be ruined. He'd hang around, get hot again, come back—mix even more cum. Fantasy gettin’ better all the time.