Like Light for Flies

by Lee Thomas

  The rippling and pulling intensified. The reflection of this unnatural intercourse filled my eyes as I watched her skin creep along my shaft and then drag backwards revealing the entirety of my erection. Soon I became aware of another sensation—I felt what Sylvia felt, an intense tingling in the lips of skin that eagerly stroked my cock. She willed my hands to her nipples, forced them to squeeze and pinch, dragging the empty sacks of her breasts away from our body. Sparks of pleasure shot like dry lightning through a desert, alighting the tissues and skipping off to some equally sensitive destination. The act repulsed me, and it excited me. Climax burst on us so quickly I cried out, or she did.

  After, we stood breathless, staring at ourselves in the window. She spoke to me, moving my lips and forcing air from my lungs through the vocal chords and over my tongue.

  “We’re very good together,” she said. “We can accomplish so much.”

  I asked her what it was she hoped to accomplish, and she showed me the face of a bucktoothed man named Toady. His expression was tense and hateful. He drew back his fist and punched us in the cheek, and Sylvia’s loathing of the cretin became mine.

  “There are others,” she said. “So many others. All we need are the icons.”

  “And each other,” I said.

  “Of course.”

  We stand at the window, observing the crude bumps and tightly stretched plains of skin, and we whisper back and forth—plans and dreams and longings so deep we have never spoken them aloud to another soul. The words spill quietly from my lips and I observe their formation in the pane and in one heart stopping moment we fall silent.

  I find us so beautiful I can’t speak another word.

  The Butcher’s Block

  Ian walked through a chill and misty rain, head down with eyes alert for movement. To either side, buildings of eroded and chipped brick rose toward an overcast sky. Glazes of filth covered windows—some whole, some cracked. Other panes were shattered completely leaving black holes in the weathered walls. The warehouses and factories stood long closed in the crumbling ward. The operations had gone bankrupt or company owners had moved manufacturing overseas, their textiles now produced by impoverished women and children.

  Alleys, not yet dark, separated the dismal structures. Low creatures scurried in the corridors, raced through the litter and around the trash bins over the wet ground, seeking food or shelter. Maybe they just wanted a mate for the night. They were certainly in the right neighborhood for it: no love to be had, but plenty to fuck.

  The area was known as the Butcher’s Block, a name likely coined by some irreverent queen, speaking to the volume of meat that cruised the area on any given night. Throughout the dismal district, the lonely sought their hits of flesh. Anonymity implied discretion, but this merely appeased the male ego; indifference was the genuine promise of confidentiality.

  As for Ian, he was glad to be on the street and away from his desk. At work, his office had begun to close in on him. The air there was recycled—the atmosphere dead. Late in the day, the numbers on the spreadsheets had blurred and taken on a foreign quality as if he’d been staring at hieroglyphics and not calculable numerals. Even with the drizzle, outside was preferable.

  The first man he passed was sitting in a pricey sedan parked at the curb. Ian saw the shadow of the driver through the back window and slowed his pace as he came alongside the car and peered in. The guy wore a crisp pinstriped blue suit. A slick wave of gray hair rolled over his scalp, held in place with glistening oil. A closet case, Ian decided. Just another Suburban John, looking for a spark of fire before returning to the slow burn of his family. The guy was kneading the fabric at his crotch. With his other hand he pointed at the door. An invitation.

  Ian kept walking. The man was attractive… for his age. But seeing him brought an uncomfortable ache to Ian’s stomach. He couldn’t help but see himself in the man. Ian wasn’t old, but he felt old wasn’t far off. A few years. Hardly a rustle of the calendar. His hair would go white. His skin would crepe like scrunched linen. Negative empathy for the driver fueled his steps and drove him around the nearest corner.

  He clipped the shoulder of another man as he took the turn. The guy was leaning against a wall, posing like a tough from a fifties biker film. Three days’ stubble covered his jaw. He cast a glance at Ian and then looked away dismissively.

  Across the street, two young men in tight jeans and Lycra tops smoked cigarettes and laughed like they were guests at a cocktail party, rather than simply a couple of twinks cruising the block. They were buffed. Muscular arms tested the confines of their snug shirts. Their hair jutted away in calculated tufts. They looked up at Ian and squinted to bring him into focus. One ran a hand through his mist-wet hair. He licked his lips and turned back to his buddy.

  Ian continued down the street. Men sat in cars. They stood in doorways, sometimes two or three of them huddled on stoops to get out from under the rain. Most ignored one another in a show of cool detachment. Ian didn’t care about a little moisture. In fact, he enjoyed the way it felt on his face after having spent so many hours in the lifeless air of his office. Amid the suits and skirts in the corporate kennel, he’d felt trapped, his mind and body numbed by repetitious tasks and the pretense of good nature he had erected like an electric fence to keep his coworkers at bay.

  Usually The Block energized him, brought his system awake with expectation. Tonight though, his insecurities worked against him. More than usual, he noticed the dichotomy of age, seeing no gradations of maturity but rather observing only old men and pretty young boys. And unfortunately, Ian could no longer fit himself into the category of youth.

  He was thirty-three years old. In a week, he’d be thirty-four.

  Distracted by his thoughts, Ian didn’t reply when a man asked, “How’s it goin’?” Only when he was several steps farther down the block did he register the question. He paused to look over his shoulder.

  The guy was at least ten years older than Ian and not the least bit his type. Cool interest pooled in the man’s eyes; his cheeks were ruddy and rough; and the corner of his mouth arced in a fractured smile. In his plaid shirt and snug blue jeans, he looked like a misplaced farmer, who somehow managed to appear completely content amid the urban squalor. Why this middle-aged Jethro thought he could play in Ian’s league was beyond him.

  This was going nowhere. The only offers of action came from the trolls, and they were out in droves tonight. Ian turned away from the Jethro and continued to the corner. He considered leaving both gray evening and gray men behind and going home. However, what waited for him at his apartment was no better. Rooms brimming with the inanimate miscellany of his life would bring no comfort. He needed skin and spit; these things the Block could provide.

  He couldn’t even call the tingling urge that drove him lust. That emotion, that need, was mindless and searing. What Ian felt was cold, like a floe of fear, and a litter of mental effluent rode it.

  The streetlights flickered on above the sidewalk. At the next intersection, a young man in tight black jeans leaned against the corner of a dilapidated shoe factory. The kid’s hair was bleached, stripped white, and his cheeks were as smooth as cream. The face of a growling tiger was tattooed on the rounded muscle of his shoulder. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. He was hot, this Tiger-Boy, and he knew it, wearing the pride in his splendor like a gold medal. Ian’s steps slowed as he approached the kid, who stared at him with ferocious intensity.

  He’ll want money, Ian thought. Are you willing to step into that wretched frontier? Do you need to be touched that badly?

  “Hey,” Ian said. His throat was sticky with phlegm and his mouth was dry, so the syllable broke in half.

  “’Sup?” the Tiger-Boy asked, shifting his position on the wall to give Ian a better view of his crotch.

  “Not much. How’s it going?”

  “I need to get fucked.” The kid studied Ian’s face, perhaps searching for shock or gratitude. For all Ian knew, the ki
d found both.

  “You work around here?” Ian asked, trying to ascertain if he’d need to spend for the pale young man’s company.

  “Nah. This is where I play.”

  The cold disquiet drained from him. Some level of ease returned, and he slipped into a more confident demeanor. He stepped closer to the kid and caught a thin scent of cologne.

  “Maybe we should get out of the rain,” Ian suggested.

  “Cool,” the pale kid said, pushing himself away from the wall.

  “My name’s Ian.”

  “I don’t care,” Tiger Boy replied

  “Fair enough.”

  Ian followed the kid around the corner, his gaze tracing a line from the nape of the boy’s neck to his rounded ass. There was an entrance to the shoe factory thirty feet down the block. The hasp of the lock had been pried open, so the vast shadowed caverns within were available for brief passions.

  He’d been here before. On different nights. With different men.

  Further down the block, Ian saw the Suburban John he’d first noticed sitting in a car at the edge of the Butcher’s Block. Two men, easily half his age, flanked the distinguished businessman. Both wore smiles on their pretty faces as they led their elder down the sidewalk. Ian’s Tiger Boy paused.

  “Wait here,” Tiger Boy said before running down the sidewalk toward the approaching men.

  “What the…?” Ian began, but the question died in his throat as the kid raced away from him.

  Shit, he thought. Frustration blossomed as he watched the kid come to a stop before the Suburban John and his escorts. Ian tried to hear what was being said, but he only caught a single word: “Party.”

  “Hey” Ian called. What the hell was going on? Had this twink just thrown him over for some old fuck?

  “Catch you later,” Tiger-Boy called back.

  “The fuck you will,” Ian muttered.

  A moment later, the small group, including Suburban John, crossed the street to the far sidewalk. Ian watched the group turn into the darkness and disappear around the front of a deserted warehouse. Furious that he should have been so easily and rudely dismissed, Ian stepped off the sidewalk to follow the group. He walked quickly, dodging the glances of cruising men. Suburban John and his entourage were already well ahead of him, crossing Wilson Drive into the last unlit street of The Butcher’s Block. There the road dead ended at a field of jagged earth that climbed to a blunt ridge of dirt. A freeway onramp rose high above it like a great gray sickle, glowing against the plum colored sky. On Ian’s side of the street, a single building occupied the entire block. Once a textiles mill known for its cotton weaves, the enormous structure was now abandoned.

  Ian never walked this far down the block. Busted streetlamps provided too many shadows for the truly unwholesome—the junkies, the thieves—and most of the guys out cruising knew better than to cross Wilson Drive.

  But curiosity drove Ian forward. Not only did he see Suburban John and his boys turning into the doorway of the cotton mill, but he noticed other young men, emerging from the darkness to converge on the place. One of the boys had said something about a party, but he hadn’t meant a private gathering sponsored by the old closet case. No this was something different.

  Suddenly, Ian wasn’t worried about the snub of his Tiger Boy. From what he could see, the building would soon be swarming with potential tricks.

  A hand fell on Ian’s shoulder, startling him. He turned quickly, shaking the grip from his shoulder.

  “You don’t want to go with them.” The Jethro in the plaid shirt said.

  “How do you know what I want?” Ian countered.

  “It’s not for you.”

  “What’s not?” Ian asked, increasingly anxious to see what was taking place in the building.

  “Just let them go.”

  Ian was about to protest further when the dark street lit up with the lights of a police car. The sight of the emergency lights startled him, and he pushed his back to the chipped brick of the building. The car raced down the block, painting the grim buildings in a wash of flashing blue.

  “Come on,” the Jethro said. “It’s already started.”

  “Thanks,” Ian said, following the man back to the well-lit portion of the street. He looked over his shoulder and saw two policemen emerging from their cruiser in front of the cotton mill. Their hulking shapes lumbered over the sidewalk and through the mouth of the building.

  He’d never heard of raids on the Butcher’s Block. Years ago, undercover cops had patrolled the area and occasionally busted a few guys to bump their quotas, but over the years, the police department had decided their manpower could be used in a more productive way. An all out raid was unheard of, but then again, so was a gathering in a deserted cotton mill. The Butcher’s Block wasn’t known for its social events.

  “What was going on back there?” Ian asked.

  “The Party. Happens every few months.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Ian admitted.

  “You wouldn’t have. It isn’t for you, or for me.”

  “But you knew about it.”

  “Only by reputation. I’ve never been.”

  “So what is it? A rave of some kind?”

  “It’s not what you think, okay? Just leave it at that.”

  But this mysterious element of a place he knew so well intrigued him. He saw how his interest aggravated the man before him, and Ian said nothing more on the subject.

  They stopped walking on the same corner where Ian had met Tiger Boy. “I’m Rob,” the man said.

  I don’t care, Ian thought. “Ian,” he said.

  “Good to meet you, Ian.”

  Now what? he wondered. He had no interest in tricking with the guy, so how did he get rid of him? The problem was Ian had let his guard down. A veil of indifference was fine to keep people away. Every guy on The Block wore some facsimile of it, but once that veil was pierced a needling sense of obligation sank inconvenient hooks. Knowing the man’s name made it far more difficult to just walk away.

  “So what brings you to the Block tonight?” Rob asked.

  It was, of course, a stupid question. Rhetorical at best. There was only one thing that brought anyone to this decrepit part of town, and Ian didn’t want it from this Jethro. His urge to be away from the man intensified. Sure the guy had kept him out of the warehouse before the cops arrived, but it wasn’t like Ian owed him a blowjob for it. “Just hanging out,” he said, looking at some indistinct point over Rob’s shoulder.

  “Feel like getting out of the rain for a bit?”

  Hearing a variation on the line he’d fed Tiger Boy and thinking it ridiculous, Ian shook his head. “Just got here,” he said, as if some undefined period of time needed to pass before he could commit to an assignation.

  “Okay.”

  Rob made as if to leave and then paused. He turned back to Ian and put a hand on his shoulder. The touch annoyed him inordinately.

  “Be careful,” Rob said. “The Block is changing. Every night there are more and more kids out here.”

  And that’s a bad thing? Ian wondered. “I think you’ve saved me enough for one night.”

  “I’m serious, Ian. Youth isn’t simple. It has to be tended, and it’s cruel.”

  He had no idea what Rob was talking about, and didn’t really give a shit. Ian didn’t know what response was expected of him, so he just said, “Okay. Take it easy.”

  Ian watched Rob’s diminishing form, a sad old man amid many wandering filthy streets searching for something that resembled affection. The rain had stopped while the Jethro had been wasting Ian’s time, and now, the dark stretch of the Butcher’s Block was crawling with men, but this familiar terrain wasn’t what interested Ian; it certainly wasn’t the cause of his loitering outside the shoe factory. What interested him was the block north of Wilson Drive, the cotton mill and the party within.

  He took one last look to make sure Rob was truly gone for the night, then set off. Though rational
ly he knew the police had aborted the party, Ian thought he might find something—a flyer, a poster, a ticket—outside the building that would offer a clue to the mysterious event. Rob had said it happened every few months, so it was organized and probably had a committee, a website, a newsletter; it must have some established communication loop, and Ian wanted in.

  Crossing Wilson Drive onto the darker side of the street, Ian noticed the police car still parked out front. In fact a second cruiser had joined the first at the curb. It too sat quietly. No lights. No commotion.

  If they had raided the party wouldn’t the cops have been escorting people out by now? Arresting them?

  More interesting to Ian was the sight of two slender figures entering the building heedless of the official vehicles. A sliver of anger slid into his chest as he watched the two shadows vanish into the deserted mill, because he realized the Jethro had played him.

  The police weren’t busting up the party; they were joining it, or at the very least, providing security for the event. What else explained the lack of panic on the sidewalk? Rob had used the appearance of the police cruiser to unsettle Ian, so getting him alone would be easier. Son of a bitch.

  Ian walked the remaining distance to the entrance. He opened the door of the mill and paused, listening for music or the telltale cacophony of a police raid. He heard neither, and he stepped over the threshold into a vast warehouse. No lights burned within. On his right, he made out a row of glass walls, likely the mill’s business offices. Ahead, large black shapes sat on either side of a concrete walkway like prehistoric giants, squatting in the cavernous space.

  Ahead, an excited whisper crept through the gloom. Ian walked forward, his eyes adjusting to the diminished light with each step. He passed towering cylinders of raw, rotting cotton, left behind when the mill closed, and then massive looms with thousands of tiny teeth for weaving. He counted eight rows of the machines. A clicking sound made Ian’s heart skip, but when he turned to locate the source of the noise, he saw nothing but oily shadows. At the end of the corridor, Ian found himself amid a series of fifteen-foot tall vats, once used for dyeing fabric, but there were no further sounds or signs of the great event.