The Light in Your Eyes has been published as Pick Up the Pieces and its follow-up, Foolish Me by Dreamspinner Press. For anyone who's interested, here are the original first two, uncensored chapters.
The Light in Your Eyes
Prologue
As much as the Greek girls of our community in Tarpon Springs had their lives mapped out, so had the boys.
Once I grew up, I’d become a fisherman as my father was. Eventually I’d marry a nice Greek girl, and we’d give our fathers a new grandson or granddaughter every year.
That was the way it was supposed to be, only….
When I was fifteen years old, my father threw me out for being gay.
I knew what my father thought of homosexuals, had heard him and his friends, the fishermen down at the docks, sneer and tell coarse jokes about them.
But he was my father. He was supposed to love me, just as I loved him.
Instead, and as I probably should have expected, he shouted, “Teodore Bascopolis, you stop being gay right now, or else you get the fuck out of my house!”
Ma cried and wrung her hands, and my little sister threw herself at me and held on, but Poppa just stood there with his hands clenched into fists, his face set.
I had no choice. I couldn’t obey the one, so I obeyed the other, and I got the fuck out of his house.
Since that time, I’d been a rent boy.
But it didn’t start out that way.
Chapter 1
It was getting late, and it was starting to drizzle, unusual since this was the dry season in Florida.
Was this God’s way of punishing me for being gay?
I sat on a park bench trying not to cry.
“Whatsa matter, kid?”
Before me stood a man. The rain didn’t seem to bother him. He must have been about twice my age, but he was wearing jeans and a white tee-shirt and Reeboks. He had a tattoo of coiled barbed wire around his upper arm and numerous piercings—along the cartilage of his right ear, along his eyebrow. Through the dampness of his tee, his nipples were prominent. The one above his heart bore a ring.
He looked so sexy that in spite of my predicament, I felt my dick hardening.
I shouldn’t have said anything, he was a stranger, but he also looked so sympathetic that I found myself pouring out the story of my plight.
“And… and then Poppa told me to get out.” I sniffed hard.
“That’s tough. You’re a sweet-looking kid. What’s your name?”
I glanced away, reluctant to tell him in case he was a social worker or something and was going to take me in to the cops, who’d put me into some kind of juvenile home after they called my father and found out he didn’t want me anymore.
He laughed softly. “Well, I’ll call you Sweetcheeks. My name is Franky. How old are you?”
My birthday had been a few weeks before. “I’m fifteen.” I bit my lip. I hadn’t even thought of lying to him.
“Yeah?” His eyes were hot as they ran over my body. “Sweet fifteen.” I blushed. “You’re getting wet. Why don’t you come with me, Sweetcheeks? I’m pretty sure I’ve got some leftovers in the fridge, and I’ve got a bed you can use.”
“Sure.” There was a tingling sensation in my groin, and my asshole clenched. I wouldn’t mind sleeping with him, if that was what he wanted in exchange for a place to stay. I’d fooled around with some boys in the men’s room at the multiplex, and I’d liked it, but I’d never done much beyond mutual hand jobs.
We had to walk a bit to catch the trolley that would take us to where he lived. “Cabs won’t go there,” he said, his smile apologetic.
I guessed it was a good thing that Poppa that thrown me out on a Friday, when the trolley ran until midnight.
The trolley driver gave us a bored look. Franky showed the driver his pass and gave him the fare for me without even asking if I had the money, which was a good thing, because I’d used my last couple of dollars at McDonalds.
I walked ahead of him to the back of the trolley.
“Hey! You're a redhead! I just noticed! It was too dark to tell before we got on the trolley, and I guess your hair was too wet.” Franky tipped his head to one side. “Are you a natural redhead?”
“Excuse me?” Was he flirting with me? I liked the thought that he was.
“Are you a redhead… all over?”
I realized he meant the hair that covered my groin, and I blushed and nodded. I got the deep mahogany coloring from Ma's side of the family. There was at least one redhead in each generation. I would have preferred to have brown hair like Poppa, but my sister Casey got that.
“Cool.” He winked at me.
I opened my mouth to tell him about Greeks having red hair—not many people knew that—but he started talking.
I sat beside him and listened while he talked about the cities he’d lived in: New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles—the exciting, glitzy cities that I’d read about and wanted to see myself but knew I never would. There was little chance I would ever get out of Tarpon Springs.
I hung on his every word, at first barely noticing that the trolley driver was watching us through the rearview mirror.
But then I did notice, and I began to worry that maybe he would call dispatch, and dispatch would call the cops, who would call my father…
No, that was dumb. Poppa didn’t care. Why would anyone else?
“Something wrong, Sweetcheeks?”
I shook my head.
“Well, as I was saying, in Vegas I had this fantastic run of luck. It would have lasted longer, but… “
The driver pulled up at a stop and opened the door. A bunch of people came on, showing him their passes, and when the trolley started off again, I was relieved to see the driver was no longer watching us.
After about another ten minutes, Franky pulled the cord that let the driver know a passenger wanted to get off, and reached up for the overhead strap. “This is our stop.”
Our stop. I liked the sound of that. We got off the bus.
“We still have a bit more to walk, Sweetcheeks.”
Fortunately, it had stopped raining. “I’ve never been in this part of town.” I looked around.
“It is kind of shitty, but don’t worry about it. I’ve got street cred.”
Street cred? “Are you in a gang?” I didn’t know whether to be terrified or gratified.
He just grinned, rested his big hand on the back of my neck, and gave a slight squeeze.
The neighborhood was run down, rusted trailers, houses missing roof tiles or slabs of siding. In one front yard I could see the mangled corpse of a small animal—a cat maybe, someone’s pet?—and I shivered and forced myself to look away from it.
“Why do you stay here?”
“Oh, I’ll be moving soon. I’m just waiting for some money to come in.” He turned up a cracked and broken walk. “This is my place.”
It was as shabby as its neighbors. The St. Augustine grass in the front was overgrown, and the streetlight glinted off hubcaps and abandoned bikes.
He led me into his kitchen and opened the small, dingy refrigerator. “Guess I don’t have as much as I’d thought.”
“That’s okay. I’m…” I licked my lips, unable to take my eyes off his body, off the way it was bent, his butt stretching tight the material of his jeans. “I’m not really hungry.”
“No?” He straightened and glanced over his shoulder. When he saw my eyes on him, the corner of his mouth curled into a grin. “Well, maybe I can offer you something that you will be hungry for. Come on.”
He caught my wrist and pulled me along after him, leaving the fridge door hanging open.
His bedroom wasn’t very tidy. Ma would have been mortified if any of the rooms in our… her house looked like that.
But then his hands were on my clothes, stripping them off me. Before I knew it I was on my hands and knees on the mattress, a pillow under my hips.
“I’ve… I’ve never done this.”
“What, never?”
“Not this.”
Franky’s breath hitched, and his hands flexed hard on my hips. I knew in the morning there would be marks. Did the idea of taking my cherry excite him that much? My dick gave a little jerk at the thought. It excited me.
“You’re gonna love it, you sweet thing.” He pulled my butt cheeks apart, and his tongue licked a path to my hole, teasing it, pressing against it, and…
I came.
I was so embarrassed that I started to cry.
“It’s okay, Sweetcheeks.” Franky stroked my butt. “Oh, I named you well, you do have such sweet ass cheeks.” He ran his fingers down the crevice between my cheeks, then rolled my balls and tugged gently on the sac before moving on. His calloused palm closed around my dick, and it grew hard. “See? I told you it was okay. One of the good things about being your age is your recovery time.” A slicked finger was prodding at my hole. It slipped inside me, and before I could decide whether I liked the full feeling or not, he rubbed against something, and I knew I liked it.
“What… what was that?” I asked, breathless.
“That’s your hot spot, Sweetcheeks.”
“Do it again!”
By the time he had three fingers in me I was whimpering and moaning and ready to come again. This time he squeezed the base of my dick.
“Not yet, Sweetcheeks. The next time you come, I’m gonna be buried inside your sweet ass.” He nipped a butt cheek, and then the fingers were gone, leaving me empty and writhing and wanting—needing—more. “Okay, now here we go.”
He’d loosened me enough so that there was no resistance at all. His dick slid right past my sphincter and brushed against my hot spot. He pulled almost all the way out, until just the flared head of his dick remained in me, and then shoved all the way back in. That set up a rhythm that had my balls tightening in a few strokes, had me coming in a few more, but which also had me hard again after a barrage of thrusts that nailed my hot spot and left me howling.
It was only as I felt the gush of hot liquid fill me that I realized he hadn’t used protection.
“Franky? Shouldn’t you have used a… a condom? Mr.… The phys ed teach talks about it all the time.”
“Ah, I’m sorry, Sweetcheeks. It’s your fault, though, baby. You’re just so hot, I lost my head. But it’s okay. I’m clean.” He petted my hip. “If it will make you feel better, next time I’ll use a rubber.”
“There’s… there’s gonna be a next time?”
“Oh, yeah. You took to this like a duck to water. There’s so much more I can show you. That is… if you want me to show you?”
“Yes!”
“Good. You’re my boy, from now on. Okay?”
“Okay.” I loved the idea of belonging to this sexy man. And I didn’t object when he took me a second time, even though he forgot about the condom again.
**
Over the next week or so, he taught me to deep throat him, to rim him, to do lots of other things. Some of them I didn’t really like, but if I tried to tell him no, he would look sad.
“Don’t you want to make me happy, Sweetcheeks?”
“You know I do.”
“Then do it.”
And I did it, because it pleased him, and I wanted to please him.
**
I knew Franky cared about me. He bought me clothes that I’d wanted; Poppa had said he didn’t intend to pay good money for underwear some guy put his name on, but what did Poppa know about what the guys were wearing?
Franky bought me McDonalds whenever I felt like it and didn’t rag me about eating vegetables. I didn’t have to go to school any more, and he didn’t mind if I stayed up until one or two or three in the morning playing video games until he came home from his job, whatever that was. He shared his joints with me, although he’d never let me do even one line of his coke, and….
And he made love to me every night.
One night he came home with a video camera. “I’m gonna film us. I want you to see how hungry your hole is for cock, the way it swallows it. Your mouth is almost as good.”
And I let him film us. When I watched it afterwards, it made me so hot that I pushed him backwards on the bed, squatted over his groin, and sank down to take him inside me. My thighs and calves tensed and flexed as I bounced up and down on him.
“That’s right. Fuck yourself on my cock,” he ordered, his voice harsh with passion. I was barely aware that he had the camera running again. “Jerk yourself off. Use both hands.”
“I’ll… I’ll lose my balance.” My dick slapped against my belly.
“I won’t let you fall.” His hands came under my butt, and secure in the knowledge that he would keep me safe, I took my dick in my hands, smeared pre come over the shaft, and did as he said.
One of his fingers stroked the spot where we were joined, and suddenly it was in my hole beside his dick. Another, and then another joined it.
“Want more, Sweetcheeks?”
The pressure was becoming too much, but Franky always wanted me to say yes when he asked me that, so I said, “Yes.”
“Keep jerking yourself off, baby.” A finger of his other hand slid into my hole beside his dick, and again another, and another. “A little more of this, and I could fist you!”
“Huh?”
He flexed his fingers. “I bet you’ll even be able to take two cocks in this sweet ass of yours.”
I could see the words made him hot, and yeah, if I was watching a porn movie I would have thought it was pretty hot too. I didn’t like the idea of having anyone else fuck me, but again I said, “Yes.”
“I knew it! My good boy!” Franky was happy. He came deep inside me, once again having forgotten the condom.
**
I’d been with him for almost two months when he came home one night with another boy. The boy was shorter than me. He had dirty blond hair and light brown eyes, and the clothes he wore were ragged and dirty.
“This is Jaybird. He’ll be staying with us.” Before I could object, he said, “He needs a place to stay, Sweetcheeks. You remember how it was when your old man threw you out, don’t you? Be nice to him.”
“Okay, Franky.”
“Tomorrow we’ll get him some clothes.” His eyes went from the boy to me, and he nodded and muttered something to himself, something about doing it in the fitting room?
No, that couldn’t have been right, although he had made me go down on him once in the fitting room when we were in Kmart. I’d been a little uncomfortable, but it had been what he’d wanted. And thinking about it afterwards, it had been hot, with the possible danger of getting caught.
“Meanwhile, show him where the bathroom is. He needs a shower.”
“It’s this way.” I walked toward the back of the house. The boy looked around but didn’t say anything until we entered the small bathroom.
“You been wit’ Fast Franky long?”
Fast Franky? “Uh… a while.”
“How does he treat you?” He took off his shirt, and I was bothered to see track marks up his arm.
“He’s good to me. He’s my boyfriend.”
Jaybird laughed. “Yeah? That’s a good one.” He pushed his pants down his legs. He wasn’t wearing underwear, and I jerked my eyes away from his dick. “You can look at me. I don’t mind.”
He was thin, with a narrow chest, a sparse growth of pubic hair, and a small, uncut dick.
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen.” He leered at me. “I been thirteen for four years now.”
“Huh?”
“Men pay more if they think they’re fucking a kid.”
“Huh?”
“You ain’t too bright, are you?” He laughed, not a nice sound, and turned on the shower.
“Uh… I’ll get you a towel.”
“Sure. You do that.” He was in the tub when I got back. “Wanna join me?”
“I already had a shower.”
He laughed again. “You really ain’t bright.”
I ran out of the bathroom. “Franky…” I found him in the bedroom. He was lying on the bed, naked and stroking himself. “He… Jaybird made a pass at me!”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah. I want you two together.”
“But…”
“Take your clothes off.”
Automatically I obeyed him. “Franky…”
“You want to make me happy, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but…”
Jaybird walked in, drying himself off with the towel. “How do you want me?”
“We’re gonna have us a sandwich. You’re the filling. Sweetcheeks, you’ll be on the bottom, sucking him off, and I’ll be fucking him.”
“But… but… Franky, you’re my boyfriend. How could you want to fuck him?”
“I do what I want, and what I want right now is some change.” He rose from the bed, barely giving me a glance. “Now, lay down in the middle of the bed. No, the other way.”
Numbly, I changed positions so that I lay with my head toward the foot of the bed. Jaybird straddled my head, his dick nudging my lips. It felt huge. And in spite of the shower he’d just taken, it smelled, as if he hadn’t cleaned the cheesy gunk out from under his foreskin.
I felt Jaybird’s jerk and heard his grunt as Franky slammed into him.
“Open wide, Sweetcheeks.”
This would make Franky happy. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened my mouth, and let Jaybird slide his dick past my lips.
He tasted worse than he smelled, and for the first time in weeks, my gag reflex kicked in and I started retching.
Jaybird pulled out of my mouth. “You ain’t pukin’ on my dick!” His movement dislodged Franky.
“Son of a bitch!” Franky shoved Jaybird aside.
I scrambled to sit up, swallowing frantically so I wouldn’t puke.
“Goddammit, I thought you were gonna be nice to him!” And Franky hit me. He’d never hit me before. Even Poppa had never hit me in the face, not even when he’d found out I was gay.
“But… but…” I held my hand to my nose. Blood dripped through my fingers onto my chest.
“Get the fuck out of here! You can sleep on the sofa!” He turned to Jaybird. “C’mere.”
Jaybird sent a triumphant sneer my way and rolled onto his belly. Franky hoisted his butt in the air and shoved back into him again.
I ran from the bedroom to the bathroom. It took a while for my nose to stop bleeding. It took a longer while for me to stop crying.
**
I was making a pot of coffee when Franky came into the kitchen the next morning. I was naked—my clothes were in the bedroom—and his eyes grew hot, but then he saw my bruised face, and his mouth turned down.
“Ah, Sweetcheeks, I’m sorry. I never meant to…” To my horror, his eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll never do it again, I swear!”
I threw myself into his arms. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have gagged. I don’t know why I did.”
He held me, petting my back. The strokes went lower and lower until his hand reached my butt and his fingers made their way between my butt cheeks and breached my hole.
“You like him, Sweetcheeks?” He nuzzled my ear as he finger fucked me.
It was uncomfortable—I was dry—but I spread my legs and rocked back onto his fingers. “He’s okay, I guess.”
“He’s a tough kid for thirteen.”
“He’s seventeen.”
“What?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Motherfucking cocksucker!” He yanked his fingers out of me, causing me to yelp, and stalked out of the room.
I could hear the sound of a slap.
“Ow! Hey! What the fuck…”
“Lying little motherfucking prick!”
The front door opened, slammed closed, and Jaybird was gone. I shouldn’t have, but I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m sorry, baby.” He came back into the kitchen. “I thought he’d make a nice little brother for you.”
“I don’t need a brother, Franky. You’re all I need.”
“Yeah? Come in the bedroom, Sweetcheeks, and show me how much you need me.”
I went with him, and even though I could still smell the other boy on him, I swallowed Franky’s dick and went to work giving him a blow job he would never forget.
Franky was happy. I was happy. It was just me and him, and he was never going to hit me again.
**
The second time Franky hit me, he cried and begged me to forgive him. “I’m just so stressed, baby. The landlord’s after me for the rent, and since you’ve come to stay with me, I have barely enough money for groceries. All the clothes I bought you, and there’s the electric bill… You do like to play a lot of video games.”
“I’m sorry, it’s my fault.” I cradled him in my arms and stroked his hair. “What
can I do to help?”
“Ah, Sweetcheeks, you’d really help me?”
“Franky, you know I’d do anything for you. I’ll stop watching TV and playing video games. I’ll get a job at McDonalds. Or Arby’s. Or….”
“Well… they really don’t pay too much.”
“I know.” I sighed. “I’d need a diploma to get a better job, though. I could go back to school. Do you want me to go back to school?”
He shook his head.
“So there isn’t much else.”
“There is one thing you could do. If you really want to help me, if you’re serious about it. And if you do this for me, I’ll never, ever…” He scattered kisses over my face. “… hit you again.”
“You know I’ll do anything for you, Franky.”
That night I turned my first trick.
**
Franky lied. He did beat me again, and I knew I had to work harder so he wouldn’t keep beating me. Only sometimes it seemed that nothing I did was enough. If I didn’t bring home enough money, if he found out I had my john use a condom—I always made my johns wear them, because going without was just for Franky. After the first couple of times, when he slapped me when I said yes, I began to lie to him.
I couldn’t understand why he didn’t feel the same way, unless he thought they would pay me more.
The nice clothes he’d bought me were gone. I woke up one morning to find he’d pawned them. Not that I begrudged him the money he was able to get for them. I just wished he’d used the money for something other than cocaine.
He replaced what he’d pawned with clothes from Goodwill that were a size too small. “These are perfect. They’ll show your customers what you’ve got.”
And then one day he cut me, drawing random patterns on my abdomen, and I was too terrified to move. The cuts weren’t deep enough to leave any but the faintest scars.
Sometimes I’d think of leaving him, but then he’d spend the day making sweet love to me, telling me what a good boy I was, how much he loved and needed me, and I’d stay.
Besides, where could I go?
**
It had been raining all day and most johns seemed to have decided to stay at home with their families. I came home early that night to find Franky high as a kite on heroin. He smelled of sex and his lips were swollen.
“Franky? Are you okay?”
“Had a vis’tor.” He peered up at me, a weird look in his eyes. “What’re ya doin’ home so fuckin’ early? Never min’, don’t matter. Ya ain’t gonna be my worry no more.”
“What are you talking about?” I’d never heard his speech so slurred.
“I sol’ you.”
“You what?”
“I’m speakin’ English, ain’t I? I sol’ ya. To Haskell.”
“No!” I felt myself turn cold. I’d been on the street long enough to have met some of Haskell’s boys. They were all crack-addicted. It was the only way they could deal with letting man after man after man fuck them.
“I treated ya too fuckin’ good. Let ya have my weed. Not the coke though.” A furrow appeared between his brows. “Cos’ too mush ta share.”
“Please… Please, Franky. Call Haskell. Tell him it was a mistake. I’ll do whatever you want. I won’t ask my johns to use a condom. Please…”
“Ya will. Gonna fuck ya one las’ time…” He reached for the waistband of his jeans and slid the zipper down. He took his dick out, but it was limp, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t get it hard. “Suck me!”
For the first time ever, I said no. I backed away from him.
He stumbled to the silverware drawer and pulled out a knife. “Ya gonna learn who’s the boss ’round here! Gonna cut ya nose jus’ like Jack Nicholson’s in Chinatown! And then ya gettin’ the fuck outta here!”
I didn’t know how it happened. One minute he was waving the knife in front of my face, and the next he was lying on the floor, the knife sticking out of his ribs and a pool of blood spreading out under him.
I couldn’t stop shaking, but I knew I couldn’t stay there. Haskell would be coming for me any time now.
There was no money in Franky’s pockets. He must have spent whatever Haskell had given him on the junk.
I had twenty bucks, all I’d been able to earn that night. Franky kept some cash in the bedroom—I’d seen where he hid it—and if I was lucky, it would still be there.
I stared down at the five and three singles. “Son of a bitch.” I scooped up the bills, folded them, and stuffed them into my pocket.
And then I ran.
Chapter 2
I’d killed a man.
Were the cops looking for me? Did every cop car that went past have a picture of me on the dashboard?
I had to get away, get out of Florida.
I was afraid to turn any tricks in case I was recognized, and the twenty-eight dollars didn’t last very long. By the time I reached the truck stop off I-95 in Jacksonville later that week, I was down to a couple of bucks.
I ordered a small bowl of soup, which was all I could afford, and as many packets of crackers as my puppy dog eyes and the sad story I’d spun about a sick grandma could persuade the waitress to give me. I was lucky there were thick pieces of ham in the soup.
As I ate my soup, I kept my ears open and my mouth shut, and listened while the truckers talked and joked. None of them were going in the right direction; they were either heading south or west across the Florida panhandle.
A trucker walked in, and I paused in my eating and watched him. His walk was limber. He was good looking, younger than Franky, I judged, and a little taller than average height. A baseball cap sat back on his dark hair, and work boots were on his feet.
“Hey there, Luke.” The waitress grinned at him and sashayed to the table he’d taken, just across from me. “How you doing, sugar?”
“Doing good, Belle.”
“Glad to hear it.” She fluttered her lashes at him, but it was as if this was routine for them, nothing serious.
“Where you headed this time, Luke?” one of the truckers asked, and I could have kissed him. It was what I wanted to know.
“Up to DC.”
“Another one of your mystery runs?”
He grinned but didn’t answer.
“What can I get for you, sugar? Some pea soup like this young man is having, or some pot roast like Abe, or…”
“I’ve only got time for a cup of joe and a slice of your fabulous Key Lime pie, angel eyes. I need my thermos filled up too.” He handed it to her.
“You got it, handsome.”
“Belle, if you’re thinking Luke is handsome, you better get yourself some glasses, honey,” one of the other truckers called out. Everyone laughed, and again it was as if this was routine for them, as if they’d done it so often they could do it by rote.
Luke snorted and started to say something to him. His eyes fell on me, and he saw me looking at him. He raised a questioning eyebrow.
“I haven’t seen you here before.”
“No, sir.” I gave him a little smile, then dropped my eyes and went back to spooning the thick pea soup into my mouth. When I thought enough time had passed, I peeked at him from under my lashes.
“You looking for a ride, boy?”
“Yes, sir.” One thing I’d gotten good at was being able to tell if my advances would be accepted. That and being able to spot a cop at twenty paces.
“Where’s your family?”
“At home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Oh,” I waved my hand vaguely, “South.”
“South, hmm? And what’re you doing here, all by yourself?”
“I’m on my way North to see my Granny.”
“I suppose your granny is doing poorly, and that’s why you have to get to her.”
“How did you know?” I gave him the big eyes that usually got me an extra ten bucks, especially if my lips were around some john’s dick when I gazed up at him. “She lives up in Philly.”
I’d never been much good at geography, the extent of my knowledge being that New York City was North and Los Angeles was West, and Las Vegas somewhere in between, but I’d heard one of the truckers talk about coming from Philadelphia on the run he was just finishing.
“How do you expect to get there?”
“I was supposed to take the bus, but I lost my money,” I lied easily. I’d gotten good at lying since I’d lived with Franky. “Poppa finally thought I was mature enough to go by myself, and if he finds out I was that careless, he won’t let me go again.”
“Yeah?” He stared pointedly at the side of my face that still bore a fading bruise, and then at the jacket sleeves which didn’t cover my wrists, which had been all I’d been able to scrounge in the used clothing bin. He lowered his voice. “I know a runaway when I see one. Your father do this to you?”
“Oh, no! I swear Poppa never… My father didn’t hit me.”
“I’m not….” He fell silent when Belle brought him his pie and a big mug of coffee, continuing once she left. “I’m not supposed to pick up hitchhikers, you know. Especially not when I’m hauling… Well, I’m not.”
“No, sir.” It was the rainy season now, and if I didn’t cage a ride from him, I could look forward to getting drenched.
“I’m going to DC.”
I nodded. “I could really use the ride.”
“How do I know you wouldn’t stick a knife in my ribs?”
I felt myself turn cold. It took me a moment to force an innocent smile to my lips. “You could search me if you like.”
From his expression I could see we were imagining the same thing: him running his hands from my armpits down my sides, hips, legs, maybe gently cupping my crotch. At least I hoped it would be gently.
“Well, unless you’ve got a knife up your ass, I’d say you weren’t carrying anything,” he’d say. His hand would still be on me, rubbing lightly....
Color rose in his cheeks. He looked down at the pie, almost as if he was wondering how it had gotten there, then shook his head and began digging into it.
“I’m not gay, boy,” he said, his voice very low. He meant it.
“No, sir.” But I didn’t believe I’d been off in my reading of him.
“Why did your family throw you out?”
“They didn’t. I told you, I’m going up to Philadelphia to see my Granny—”
“Boy…”
I bit my lip, then decided to take a chance. “I’m gay.”
Luke’s mouth tightened and I was afraid he was going to get up and hit me. The bruise he had seen hadn’t been from Franky for a change, but from a john who hated the fact that he used male prostitutes. Luke glanced down at his hands and sighed.
I sighed too and pushed away from my table.
“Where are you going?”
“It’s a long walk. I’d better get started.”
“Hold on a minute. I didn’t say I wouldn’t take you.”
“But—”
“I’ll take you as far as I go.”
Would that be far enough? I wasn’t going to question my good fortune. “Thank you.”
Belle came to us. “Anything else I can get for you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Just my thermos, Belle. It’s gonna be a long haul to DC. There’s a tropical depression out in the Atlantic, and they’ve predicted rain the whole way.”
“Well, it’s only fair someone else gets some of what we’ve been having.” She put my check down on my table and handed another to Luke. “When’re you gonna take me away from all this, sugar?”
“Ah, honey, these good old boys’d have my hide if I tried to carry you off. You’re the best darned waitress this side of the Georgia border.”
Again there was laughter. Belle went to the kitchen to get his thermos.
“My rig is the black and red one out by the diesel pumps,” he said softly. “I’ll meet you there in five minutes.”
I stuffed the last two packets of crackers into my jacket pocket, got to my feet, and walked to the cash register. A bored cashier sat listening to the transistor radio on the counter behind her, next to bags of potato chips, pretzels, and Cheese Doodles.
I handed her my last two dollars just as Belle came out of the kitchen with Luke’s thermos.
She paused and asked, “How was your soup, sugar?”
“It was very good, thank you.”
“I’m real sorry to hear about your grandma, and I hope she gets better soon.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, you come and see us again on your way back home and let us know how she’s doing.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I’d never be back this way again. “Thank you for being so kind to me.” I smiled and gave her the change as a tip.
“Oh, baby….”
Luke came up to pay his own check, and Belle forgot about me. I saw her nostrils twitch. He did smell good. She gave him the thermos.
“Thanks, Belle.”
I walked out, sure no one was paying much attention to me.
I hovered in the shadows by the eighteen-wheeler, turning my collar up against the rain, but before I could start worrying that maybe Luke was calling the cops, he sauntered out of the restaurant holding his thermos and a bag of chips. He opened the cab’s passenger door.
“In you go.”
It was a big step up, and I made more out of it than it really was. As I’d hoped, his broad palm on my butt gave me a boost.
He went around the front of the cab and climbed in, nodding in approval when he saw I’d already buckled my seatbelt.
“Two rules, boy.” He grimaced. “I can’t keep calling you ‘boy.’ It makes you sound like Tarzan’s kid.”
“Frank.” I blurted out the first name I could think of. “My name’s Frank.”
“Good enough, Frank.” He turned on the ignition, switched on the windshield wipers, and put the truck in gear. “Now, as I was saying. Two rules. You don’t ask me what I’m hauling, and you don’t play with the radio. I like country music. If you don’t…”
“Country’s fine, sir.”
“Call me Luke.”
“I really appreciate the lift, Luke. Thank you.”
A woman singer came on, begging some girl named Jolene not to take her man.
“That Dolly Parton sure does have a nice set of … pipes, doesn’t she?”
“Luke, I’ll do anything you like. I won’t ask what you’re hauling, I won’t complain about the music you listen to, I’ll even give you a blow job.” I gave him a little smile so he could think I was kidding if he wanted. “Just please don’t make me talk about Dolly Parton’s… pipes.”
He burst out laughing. “Fair enough, Frank.”
**
Luke was a decent guy. He shared his coffee and the chips, and woke me from a nightmare of blood and knives without asking me what it was about.
I offered him a blow job as we pulled into an all-night greasy spoon just south of the DC/Virginia border. “You’ve been really nice to me, Luke, and it’s the least I can do to repay you.”
“I’m not gay, Frank.”
“No, but a dick doesn’t much care what it shoves itself into.”
“Damn, you’re so young.”
“I’m older than I look.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen. I can’t wait to get my driver’s license so people will believe me.” I gave him the big eyes and the smile again.
He chewed on his lip, then nodded and followed me into the men’s room.
It was empty. I thought about turning the lock, but decided against it. It would seem even more suspicious if anyone tried to get in, and if anyone did come in and realized there were two guys in a stall, well, I was pretty good at faking dry heaves and making my eyes and nose run, and I’d tell them my big brother was holding my head while I sicked up something that didn’t agree with me.
“I’m… uh… I’m really not gay, Frank.” Luke seemed a little nervous.
“I believe you.” I petted his chest and arm, then pushed him into a stall, unzipped his jeans, and gave a quick glance at the floor before dropping to my knees. It was a good thing it was dry, otherwise I’d have had questionable stains on the knees of my jeans.
I deep throated him, and he didn’t have anything to say after that beyond a few stifled moans and gasps.
After he came, I spat into the toilet, dried him off with some toilet paper, and put his dick away.
He blinked at me, blinked again, and shook his head. It took a few minutes before his eyes seemed to regain their focus.
“Wow! That’s one amazing way you have of casting bread upon the water.”
“Huh?”
“Paying me back.”
“My pleasure, Luke.” I smiled at him.
He blinked again. “Come on. I’ll buy you dinner.”
I wasn’t too proud to accept a last meal from him. I was flat broke, and I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to eat again.
He ordered meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and broccoli for both of us. “And you’ll eat all your vegetables, young man.”
“Yes, sir.” I grinned at him. I’d missed having someone other than myself make sure I ate right. I’d grown tired of fast food, and for the past couple of months had used some of the cash Franky doled out to me to buy groceries and cook up whatever of Ma’s recipes I could remember.
Luke talked about other runs he had made, of convoys he’d driven in, and before I realized it, my plate was clean.
“How are you boys doing?” our waitress asked.
“Could we have another basket of rolls, please?” Luke smiled at her. His smile was almost as good on women as mine was on men. “And a couple of slices of apple pie?”
“You got it, honey.”
He waited until the waitress brought them and then went to another table before telling me, “Take the rolls, Frank. Put them in your pockets.”
My eyes started to burn. “Luke…”
“I wish I could take you with me, but—”
“You’ve done a lot for me, Luke. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Eat your pie.”
“Yes, sir.”
**
After we finished eating, he settled the bill, and I walked with him back to his rig. I hadn’t known him very long, but he would leave an impression on my life forever.
“Thank you again, Luke.” I held out my hand, and when he didn’t take it, I wondered if he was ashamed of what he’d let me do for him, if he no longer had any use for me. I couldn’t stop myself from flinching when he raised his hand, but it was just to stroke my hair.
“Get in.”
“But….”
“I can drive you a little further, Frank. Get in.”
I climbed into the cab and buckled up. Another woman singer came on the radio, singing about being a coal miner’s daughter.
We crossed the Potomac into DC.
“This is as far as I can take you, Frank.” He held out his hand.
I took it, frowning when I felt something pressed into my palm. It was a folded up bill.
“Luke, you don’t have to pay me—”
“Frank, just take it, okay? I’m gonna be worrying about you as it is. That nightmare….”
What had I said? Had I revealed what I’d done? In the safety of the rig’s cab, I’d been able to forget that I’d killed a man. I closed my fist on the bill.
But Luke didn’t look as if he knew he was sitting beside a murderer.
“Thank you,” I choked out. I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached for the door handle.
“Stay safe, okay, Frank? Or whatever your name really is? Stay safe.”
I nodded and hopped out of the big black and red rig. “Goodbye, Luke.”
“Take care of yourself, kid. So long.”
I slammed the door on whatever else he might have said and walked away. It wasn’t until later that I realized he’d given me not a five or a ten, but a couple of twenties. They wouldn’t last me very long, but with them I wouldn’t have to seek out a shelter and maybe walk right into the arms of the cops.
**
My meeting with Luke must have signaled a change in my luck.
I walked the streets of DC for hours, not knowing where to go, trying to think what to do, scared spitless and trying not to show it. I turned down what happened to be a blind alley and found myself on the fringe of something bad.
A kid about my age was facing off a gang of street trash. “We been watching you, pussy boy!” one of them yelled. “And we don’t want your kind in our neighborhood!”
“Grab the little queer!” “Get his pants off!” “We’re gonna fuck his faggot ass!” They goaded each other, obviously trying to work themselves up to committing serious mayhem.
There was something about the dark-haired kid’s determination to stand strong against them, and I decided to try to help. “The cops are coming!” I shouted. “Somebody called the cops!”
They were stupid—even I could tell that no one in this part of town would lift a finger to help someone like this kid. But they believed me, and they broke and ran.
“Come on!” I called softly to the kid. “We gotta get outta here too.”
He grinned at me as we raced in the opposite direction. “No one called the cops, did they?”
“What do you think?” I threw him a hesitant grin back.
We rounded a corner and ran straight into another group of older boys. They didn’t look stupid. “Oh, my God, we are so fucked!” We were gonna be beaten, raped and left for dead.
“No, no! It's okay!” The kid with me hurled himself at the leader, babbling in relief. “Oh, geez, Tim! You found me! It’s a good thing you make us carry cell phones! I never would’ve gotten a message to you otherwise! I was so scared!”
I stared at him in confusion. He hadn't looked frightened to me.
“Pretty Boy, are you okay?” The oldest of the group checked him out to make sure he wasn’t hurt, tipping his head back to study his face, patting him down, running his hands over chest and back, and Pretty Boy—he really was a pretty boy—seemed to wriggle like a puppy being petted.
“Yeah. They woulda had my ass for sure if it wasn’t for this dude!”
“And just what the fuck were you doing down here? You know this part of town isn’t safe.”
Pretty Boy frowned at him. “My john drove to a deserted area a few blocks over. He turned out to be an off duty vice cop, Tim,” he complained. “He told me he was going to book my ass for soliciting, unless I put out for him whenever he wanted. Professional courtesy, he called it. Shithead. Of course he didn’t tell me this until after he’d had me. The son of a bitch! I had to duck out of his car and run for it. Lucky I was able to get my pants up, or I’d have fallen on my face for sure!”
“Fuck!”
“Not if I could help it! And what are you guys doing down here?”
“Mustang recognized him. He’d been busted by him a couple of times and knew what a shit the pig was, but it was too late to stop you. As soon as he got your message, he rounded us all up, and we came hot-footing it after you. We couldn’t let anything happen to you.” Tim ran restless fingers through his hair. “We’ve got to get a better class of johns. He didn’t hurt you, did he, Pretty Boy?”
“Nah. But it was a good thing I prepped before I left. And it was a better thing you taught us not to trust them from the get-go!” Pretty Boy bent over, and when he straightened, he had a wad of bills in his hand. He waggled it complacently. “The bastard thought he could have my ass and then take his money back. He didn’t want me touching his dick,” he shrugged at the anomaly, “so while he was busy putting on the condom I gave him, I tucked the money away in my sock, and he didn’t see what I was doing.”
“Way to go, kiddo!” Tim ruffled the midnight-dark hair. I couldn’t believe the relaxed attitude these rent boys had toward their occupation. Maybe it was because they had each other to fall back on. Tim turned back to me. “Who’re you?” he asked.
“I’m… Sweetcheeks. Who’re you?”
“I’m Tim. Sweetcheeks, huh? That’s a hustler’s name.”
“You got a problem with that?”
“No. Do you hustle?”
“Not much else for me to do. My old man threw me out when he found out I was gay.” I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d fallen into Franky’s hands like a ripe plum. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that I’d killed Franky.
He looked me over. “You saved Pretty Boy, and we owe you. If you want, you can stay with us for a while.”
“Thanks,” I said gruffly. “I appreciate it.” It gave me a respite.
“Tim, now that the excitement’s over and Pretty Boy’s okay, Bud and I’re gonna head out.” The two boys looked enough like each other to be twins.
“Okay, Mick,” Tim said. “Keep a low profile. If that pig knows Pretty Boy’s with us, he may go after you all too.”
“Will do, boss man.”
“All right.” He turned to me. “Come on. We’ll catch a bus and get out of here. This neighborhood sucks.”
I went with them to the apartment they all shared.
“I’ll give you a quick tour of the place, but then me and Mustang…” He nodded toward the big blond who hovered around him; tall and muscled, he didn’t look like someone to screw with. I saw the way he looked at Tim, and I wondered if they were boyfriends. “… have to get to work too.”
The front door opened directly into the living room. There was a small television on a wooden box. A game system was hooked up to it, and cartridges were on the floor. Comic books—Superman, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four—and magazines—People, US Weekly, and surprisingly Time and Newsweek—were scattered around on a sofa and the chairs.
Tim frowned. “The maid is runnin’ late today, Ah see.” The South was suddenly thick in his voice.
My mind boggled. “You’ve got a maid?”
“I was kidding, Sweets.”
“Oh. I knew that.” I offered him a smile.
“Sure you did.” He ruffled my hair. I liked the feel of it. I hadn’t been touched like that in a long while.
I took off my jacket and looked around for someplace to hang it. It was still damp from the rain.
“I’ll take it.” He hung it in a little closet that only had a couple of hangers in it. “Come on.”
The kitchen was a matchbox of a room with a breakfast bar that separated it from the living room and had a small alcove for a stacked washer and dryer. There was a bathroom with a shower/tub combination, and three bedrooms. One had twin beds, one had a double, and one had a king size bed.
“For when we have guests over.”
“You need a bed that large?”
Pretty Boy poked me. “Guests.” This time I heard the emphasis. I’d never heard that euphemism before.
“Wow.” I’d only been in a couple of rundown motels. Mostly I got fucked in the back seat of my john’s car, or I sucked him off in an alley.
“Sometimes they like to play with more than one of us.”
I thought of the time Franky had brought Jaybird home, and then shrugged. I didn’t have a boyfriend anymore, hadn’t really ever had a boyfriend, and while I hadn’t had to do threesomes yet… I wondered if I ever might have to.
“Okay, time for us to get going. Not you, Paul.” I looked around for ‘Paul,’ and realized Tim was talking to Pretty Boy. “You’ve had enough excitement for one day. You and Sweetcheeks stay put. We’ll see you later.” And he and the big blond left.
“Are you hungry? I can order a pizza if you like.”
“I never say no to pizza.”
“Cool. What do you want on top?”
“Whatever you’re gonna have is okay.” It was his house, he was buying, and Ma had taught me to be polite.
“Even if it’s anchovies?”
“Uh…”
“Okay, so no anchovies. Pepperoni sound good?”
“Um… could we have it with artichoke hearts too?”
“Ick! You like artichokes?”
“Yeah. My mother… she makes great stuffed artichokes. I haven’t had them since…” I looked away.
“I was only kidding, Sweets.” He patted my shoulder. “Artichoke hearts and pepperoni it is.”
I waited until he got off the phone before asking, “Is Tim your pimp?”
“What? Hell no! You saw. He goes out to work, just like the rest of us.”
“I didn’t mean anything, Pretty Boy.”
“Paul.”
“Huh?”
“When we’re home, we go by our real names. I’m Paul.”
“Oh.”
“Mustang is Cris, Bud and Mick are Tom and Mike. They’re brothers, by the way.”
“I thought so. And Tim?”
He grinned. “He’s Tim. So, what’s your name?”
I looked away from him. “Sweetcheeks.”
He sighed and patted my shoulder again. “Okay, Sweets. Why’d you think Tim was our pimp?”
“Well, he just looks like he’s running things.”
“I guess he is. But he’d not a pimp. If he ever heard you call him that—”
“He’d hit me?”
“No! He might yell, but he’d never… Geez, Sweets!”
“I… I ran away from my pimp.” It was the first time I thought of Franky that way, the first time I said it aloud.
“Did he hit you?”
I couldn’t meet Paul’s eyes.
“Wanna talk about it? I’m a good listener. Even Tim says so.”
“Like I told Tim, my father threw me out. And there was Fr- this guy, waiting for me. I was so stupid.”
He put an arm around my shoulder. “No, you—”
“I was. I didn’t get it. I thought he… he fell in love with me at first sight. I thought he was my boyfriend. Even when he brought another boy home and wanted the three of us to… to fuck, I didn’t get it. And after Fr- after he hit me…. He started crying. He said it was just because we were so broke.”
“Let me guess. And then he said that if you loved him, you’d do one little favor for him.”
“Yeah. How did you… oh. See? Stupid.”
“Not stupid, Sweets. He just got you when you were vulnerable. Pimps can be bad news. I know, I had one too. Tim got me away from mine. And you were smart enough to get away from yours. What made you run?”
“He sold me to another pimp, a really bad one whose boys didn’t live very long.” I shuddered, but what I was picturing was all the blood on the floor. “Please, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Sure.” The doorbell rang, and he went to answer it. “Dinner! Come on in the living room. We can pig out on pizza and watch TV.”
“Okay.”
He put the box on the floor. “Turn on the TV, okay? I’ll get us some soda.”
I found the channel MTV was on in Washington, then sat on the floor and opened the box. Pretty Boy… Paul … returned with two cans of Coke. He sat beside me, and we set to work demolishing the pizza. We watched Madonna and Culture Club and Bon Jovi, and drooled over Rick Springfield.
“I’d do him in a minute!” I said around a mouthful of pizza. “And for free!”
“Yeah. Me too. I used to watch General Hospital just to see him. Hey, it’s time for Entertainment Tonight!” He changed the channel to CBS, and we listened to Mary Hart and John Tesh banter back and forth for a bit.
The last few days caught up with me, and my eyelids began to droop.
“Sweetcheeks. Sweets.” A light hand shook me.
“I wasn’t asleep.”
“I noticed. Come on. You can sleep in my bed.”
“Uh…”
“Just sleep.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“This is the room I use.” He led me to the small room with the double bed. “Reno used to stay with me, but Tim found out he was using coke, and that for an extra ten bucks, he’d let the johns fuck him without wearing a condom, so Tim made him leave. Boy, was he cheesed off at Reno! Health is an important thing for him. He makes us see the Doc every month.”
Paul didn’t notice I’d grown quiet. I hadn’t seen a doctor since my physical just before I’d started high school. My johns had been willing to use a condom, because how would they explain to their wives bringing home an STD? But Franky always .. forgot... to use them.
“Sweets!”
“Huh?”
“I said do you want pajamas?”
“When I was at home, I used to sleep in sweats.”
“We’re about the same size.” He was about five feet four, and I wasn’t much taller. He went to the dresser and took out a pair of navy blue sweatpants and a sweatshirt.
“You know where the bathroom is. You can get changed in there. Take a shower if you like. There are towels on the shelf in there.”
I closed the bathroom door, stripped, and studied my body in the mirror, but couldn’t find any sores or marks beyond the scars Franky had put on me and the velvety brown birthmark the size of a half dollar on my left shoulder. I turned on the water and stepped into the tub.
By the time I was done, I felt a little more human. I put on the sweats and went back to Paul’s bedroom. He wasn’t there, but he’d folded down the covers on the right side. I lay down and was asleep before I had a chance to pull the covers over me.
