Funny Bone

by Daniel W. Kelly

  “It’s footage,” Turvy said. “I installed this little nanny-cam in here several years ago when I began to find supplies missing.”

  “Oh,” Aaron said flatly as he recognized the bodies raiding the cabinets on screen.

  “Recognize them?” Turvy asked.

  “Um…”

  “Of course you do,” Turvy said, and suddenly, he was standing right next to Aaron’s face. “Those are your buddies, aren’t they? Stealing my—let’s see. This time it looks like a box of exam gloves.”

  “Can you take that thing out?” Aaron asked, his face sweating.

  “Not done yet,” Turvy said shortly. “It’s amazing. That was the same night I got jumped in the shower, tied to a bed in a dorm room not too far from the one you share with that Neanderthal friend of yours, and was sodomized.”

  “I—” Aaron tried to come up with something to say, feeling about ready to puke. He wanted so badly to jump off this table, but he feared causing damage to himself with that thing sticking out of his asshole.

  “You know.” Turvy grabbed Aaron’s chin and leaned down. He stared right into Aaron’s eyes. “If your friends had anything to do with that, they could be in a whole lot of trouble. This is a serious crime.”

  “They didn’t!” Aaron exclaimed.

  “They didn’t what?” Turvy asked.

  “They didn’t do it,” Aaron insisted. “Please, just don’t get them in trouble. I’m sorry.”

  “See. Now I think we’re getting to what’s making you feel so sick,” Turvy said, circling the table and finally patting Aaron’s ass. “You understand, it wasn’t that I didn’t like what happened to me. Otherwise, I would have reported it already. It’s just that it would have been nice to have consented to it. Sometimes, all you have to do is ask, and someone will consent. Consent to something as simple as a beer. Or a soda if you’re only eighteen.”

  Aaron began to choke with tears of fright as words spilled from his mouth. “Please. Just take that thing out of me! I’m sorry! It was me. I did it. I mean—they tied you up, but I did the stuff after. They just wanted me to lose my virginity and they knew I had a crush on you! I’ll do anything! PLEASE!”

  Turvy was now holding Aaron steady and actually stroking his back. “Wait a minute. What? You had a crush on me? And you were a virgin?”

  “YES!” Aaron let the confusion come out in a flood of tears.

  “Then why didn’t you just tell me? I asked you out. You could have just told me,” Turvy said, scratching the bristle covering his buzzed head.

  “I was scared!” Aaron blubbered. “I wasn’t out. And then they found out. And they were cool about it. And they wanted me to have sex. And I’d told them how I thought you were hot—”

  “So go to dinner with me,” Turvy said, pulling the device carefully from Aaron’s shaking ass.

  “Wh-what?” Aaron stammered, frozen in position.

  “Go to dinner with me. Now. Tonight. Are you hungry? Do you still think I’m hot?” Turvy asked, and now his demeanor was casual.

  “Y-yeah. And yeah.” Aaron wiped tears from his eyes as he flipped over and landed on his butt, not even worrying about his erect cock at this point.

  Turvy handed Aaron his clothes and a tissue to wipe the lube from his ass crack. “Well then, let’s get dressed and go. I’ve been waiting a year and a half for you to come and tell me the truth.”

  “Th-that’s it? But…what about my friends?” Aaron expressed his concern, sliding off the exam table as he sucked in some sniffles, his face still red and streaked with drying tears.

  “Well. In a really twisted kind of way, they sound like a well-meaning bunch.” Turvy shrugged. “I’ll just never really understand jock mentality.”

  “So you won’t do anything to them?” Aaron asked as he dressed, completely confused at the easygoing demeanor of the scary hot professor.

  Turvy grabbed the remote and punched a couple of buttons. “There. Erased.”

  Aaron felt boyish excitement as he realized he and his friends were off the hook—and all it was going to cost him was a date with the man…well, to whom he’d lost his virginity. “I’ve dreamed about this.”

  “Well, I’m really glad to hear that.” Turvy smiled, his rugged face softening.

  “But…is there somewhere we can go that’s out of the way? My friends went to town,” Aaron said as Turvy led him out of the exam room.

  “But you said they’re okay with you being gay,” Turvy said.

  “Well, yeah. But I lied to them tonight and told them I was sick and didn’t want to go out so I could sneak over here to see you,” Aaron said. “And I’m afraid if they do see me spending time with you, they might be jealous.”

  “JEALOUS?” Turvy asked as he grabbed his bag in the waiting room. “I think we’re definitely not going to run out of conversation at dinner, huh? You better tell me everything.”

  “Okay. I will. But you can’t get jealous either.”

  “Well, I’m no saint myself. I do stick my fingers in the ass of every male student that sets foot on this campus,” Turvy said. “Even though it meant your buddies stealing tubes of lubricant from me on a regular basis, I’ve always appreciated them sending new meat down there for me. I hope that doesn’t make you jealous.”

  Aaron became playfully pensive. “Not sure.”

  “Okay. Then let’s set some parameters for this relationship now,” Turvy said. “I get to continue my ‘practice’ and you and your dorm buddies get to have your fun until you’re released from prison.”

  “WHAT?” Aaron said.

  Turvy was about to push the building’s double doors open to step outside. “Come on, Aaron. I want to live happily ever after with you, but you need to grow up before you can handle a mature relationship. Which means learning the consequences of your actions. Like kidnapping and raping your teacher. The police are waiting for you.”

  “Wait!” Aaron cried as Turvy threw the doors open to reveal…

  All Aaron’s buddies were standing on the front steps of the building: Rocky, Lonny, Chul, Justin. And they didn’t look happy.

  “You cheatin’ on us with this guy?” Rocky growled.

  Aaron stepped back, wanting to retreat into the building, completely confused. Turvy blocked his escape.

  Suddenly, everyone started to laugh, including Turvy.

  “You’re so cute when you’re scared shitless I almost want to go totally gay for you,” Chul said through his chuckles.

  Aaron was swarmed by his buddies and would have been squeezed breathless by the group hug if he weren’t already hyperventilating.

  “What…I don’t…get it,” Aaron stammered.

  Justin rubbed his head playfully. “We hooked you up with the man of your dreams.”

  Aaron looked at Turvy. “What’s he talking about?”

  Turvy smiled. “I really wanted a date with you. Caught these guys in the act on my videos, so I confronted them.”

  “Bitch blackmailed a black man,” Lonny grumbled. “The only way he wouldn’t report us for breaking into his office was if we helped get you two together.”

  “And, when we told him how much you had the hots for him and what a big virgin you were,” Rocky said, putting a thick arm around Aaron, “Pervy—”

  “I love that name,” Turvy muttered.

  “—came up with the idea of being your first.”

  Aaron’s mouth dropped open as he turned to Turvy. “The kidnapping was—”

  “My idea,” Turvy said. “I planned it all. They just executed it.”

  The group of guys began to laugh again.

  “How…why…what would make you guys agree to that?” Aaron asked.

  “Fear of expulsion!” Chul said.

  “But you kept it secret all this time,” Aaron said. “How?”

  “You think only you gay guys know dramatics?” Justin said. “We can act, too.”

  “But what about when we left you there?” Aaron asked Turvy. “Tied up for
the holiday break?”

  “We didn’t,” Rocky said. “He was freed before we left for our ski trip.”

  “They made me go back up and untie him,” Ronny grumbled. “And made me clean up the nasty-ass gay mess you left.”

  Now Aaron finally laughed, until he cried. Part out of the humor of it all, and largely from relief that none of the terror he’d been experiencing was real.

  “You gay guys sure have some fucked-up ways of scoring a date,” Rocky said.

  “Don’t look at me!” Aaron said. “It was this freak!”

  He couldn’t resist dropping his head onto Turvy’s chest and hugging him.

  “Aaaaaaaw,” the guys crooned.

  “You guys have given me a college experience I’ll never forget,” Aaron said.

  “Yeah. Well, your college experimenting days with the straight boys are over,” Turvy said. “Unless, of course, you boys want to—”

  “Don’t push it, Pervy!” Rocky said. “No more of this gay shit. Things go back to normal from now on. You want a piece of our asses, you gotta wait until we get an earache.”

  White Meat

  Here it was Emile’s birthday and he was—as usual—spending it alone with his also single best friend, Morgan. Morgan didn’t mind because he liked to refer to himself as Morgan Free-Man, a man free to be with whomever he wanted. But Emile, just turning thirty-two, was tired of the dating scene. More often than not, it only offered him the opportunity for a one-night stand with a younger guy, either black or white, who was really just hoping to bottom for a man who looked like the love child of Rent cast members Taye Diggs and Jesse L. Martin. Morgan often referred to Emile as the jungle fever reducer.

  Emile wasn’t picky about race, but the few relationships he’d been in had been marred by limitations—in the sense that he always played the butch, black, and beautiful role to a softer man who wanted to be dominated. And despite an upbringing that strictly reinforced dominant male roles, he wanted to step out of the black box and into the gay box. He wanted cocks in his box.

  The only person he could talk to about these feelings was Morgan, a friend for years who totally embraced his own passive tendencies—and who had initially opened lines of communication with Emile because of his natural instinct to play the role Emile was tired of satiating. So their relationship had gone straight into the friendship realm. Emile had been able to tell Morgan his deepest, darkest desire. Well, not quite a dark desire. Emile actually fantasized about bottoming for a good old pale and pasty white guy.

  Emile preferred chocolate cheesecake (that’s not a euphemism), and was holding one from their favorite bakery in his hand as he knocked on Morgan’s apartment door. He was dressed in a sweater and slacks that perfectly hugged his muscular physique without looking painfully tight. Even if it was just the two of them, he wanted to look special on his birthday.

  As the doorknob turned, Emile’s penetrating black eyes sparkled with warmth and his bright white teeth shined, but his smile completely faltered as the door opened. He quickly turned back to check the apartment number on the closest door across the hall.

  “You must be Emile,” a burly white man with short brown hair and a beard said as he reached out his large hand.

  Emile gripped it, taking in the man’s sports team sweatshirt, faded jeans, and worn sneakers.

  “I’m Charlie. I work at the office with Morgan,” the man said in his rich and husky voice as he ushered Emile in.

  “Oh, right. He talks about you all the time,” Emile said. “He wasn’t kidding. You are a big, scary-looking white guy.”

  Charlie laughed as they walked through the small entrance hall. “That’s me. And he describes you as the best-looking brother he knows besides that guy from Anacondas.”

  “Morris Chestnut.” Emile felt his face turn a hint darker as he laughed inside at how white it sounded when Charlie said the word “brother.”

  “Yeah. That’s him,” Charlie said. “I’d like to get a look at his anaconda!”

  Emile got a nagging itch in the pit of his stomach looking at Charlie’s warm smile.

  Charlie led him to the dining area of Morgan’s beautifully decorated apartment. “This is my husband, Larry.”

  Scratch that, Emile thought of his nagging itch upon hearing the “h” word.

  Larry rose from the table. He was shorter than Charlie, but just as rugged. A thin layer of scruff ran around his almost bald head and over his strong jawline. His compact build was beefy, stretching against the material of his button-down shirt. He wore baggy cargo pants and brown boots. He shook Emile’s hand firmly and pulled him in for a quick hug and pat on the back. “Happy birthday.”

  Emile’s legs felt weak. His mouth was drying out, so he ran his tongue over his lips. “Thanks. Uh…where’s Morgan?”

  “Here. Let me take that.” Charlie reached for the cheesecake in Emile’s hands and took it over to the refrigerator.

  “He had to go back to the office. Big account,” Charlie said as he came back into the room. “That’s why I’m glad I work the computer help desk and not in marketing.”

  “Big account? That means he could be out all night. He doesn’t get home until like two in the morning sometimes,” Emile said, heading to the fridge for a bottle of water.

  “Yeah. He asked us to hang around and wait for you to get here because it’s your birthday and all. He said we can still all have dinner if we want,” Larry said as he sat at the table sipping a Diet Sprite. “You want me to fix you a drink?”

  “I feel bad.” Emile returned to the dining table and sat with them as he wet his whistle with the water. “I don’t want you to have to babysit someone you don’t even know.”

  “I feel like I know you already,” Charlie said. “Morgan talks you to death. He constantly tells me we need to meet, that we’d get along so well because we both love horror movies, and that you’d love Larry, too, because you’re both into all that dance music stuff.”

  “Yeah,” was all Emile could think to say. “Um, maybe I’ll have one of those drinks now. Maybe a White Russian?”

  “Coming up.” Larry smiled, rising.

  Charlie stood, too. “Morgan put out appetizers in the living room. He said we could pop in a movie, that you’d know where they all are.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Let’s see what he has.” Emile moved to a tall cabinet with double doors that stood beside the entertainment unit in the living area.

  Just as he was swinging the two doors open, Larry stepped into the room with the White Russian. A DVD case flew out of the cabinet and landed face up in the middle of the room. All three men’s eyes were drawn to the cover image, depicting a black man bent over with a white man behind him and a white man in front of him—and a white prick stuffed in each end.

  Cream in Your Coffee. The title on the case screamed out in big letters, with a slightly smaller tagline that read, “Sometimes light just tastes right.”

  “Whoa!” Larry exclaimed automatically at the vision. He bent to pick up the getaway DVD as his blue eyes lit up.

  Unexpectedly, Emile snatched the case from him instead of the drink and stuffed the DVD blindly into perfect rows that lined the shelves of the cabinet. “Sorry about that.”

  “Morgan keeps his porns stashed in there?” Charlie asked, rising from the sofa.

  “No. He doesn’t,” Emile grumbled. “He doesn’t even buy porns anymore.” He scavenged for a mainstream movie to draw attention away from the situation.

  Charlie had moved to his side to glance through the spines of all the DVD cases, taking in the names of numerous commercial films, from black and gay favorites to musicals and some horrors. There wasn’t a single other adult film in the bunch.

  “That bitch set this up,” Charlie mumbled, more to himself than to Emile.

  The two were so close Emile had to look away to avoid staring into Charlie’s eyes as he muttered, “If that bitch wasn’t black, I’d fuck him with my big black dick to teach him a lesson.”
r />   Larry was trying to glance over their shoulders since he was the shortest. Charlie had reached his hand into the cabinet and pulled Cream in Your Coffee back out and was now staring at the box. The silence was seductive.

  “What’s the deal?” Larry asked, trying to slip between them.

  “Um,” was all Charlie could manage.

  “I’m sorry about this.” Emile nervously licked his lips.

  “What’s going on?” Larry asked.

  “Um…you know…our fantasy?” Charlie asked and Larry nodded. “Morgan knows about it. Looks like he set us up.”

  “Your fantasy?” Emile cut in. “What do you mean?”

  Larry started to giggle. “Oh, man. You gotta love Morgan.”

  “This is weird. I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to embarrass you,” Charlie said.

  “It can’t get much more embarrassing than being the only black guy at my own birthday party,” Emile tried to joke, but he felt burdened by the closeness of the two burly white bears.

  “Well, we’ve been a couple forever.” Larry was grinning. “Totally monogamous. But we always imagine what it would be like—”

  “Larry, no.” Charlie attempted to stop him by placing a hand over his mouth.

  Larry playfully pushed Charlie’s hand away. “We’ve always wanted to do a threesome with a hot black guy.”

  Emile’s jaw dropped. “I’m—”

  “A hot black guy.” Larry winked. Still holding Emile’s drink, he took a sip of it, his penetrating blue eyes looking over the rim. “Here. Have some White Russian.” He lifted the glass to Emile’s lips.

  Emile reached both hands up to grasp it, and his dark hands landed on Larry’s white hand as it tilted the liquid back into his mouth. He accepted the offering. When Larry brought the glass back down, Emile could feel the pearly liquid on his upper lip. Larry grabbed the back of Emile’s head and pulled him closer. Then the tip of Larry’s tongue was tracing the line of white on Emile’s plump lip, washing it away.

  “Gives a whole new meaning to vanilla sex,” Emile said.

  “Larry—” Charlie began, but then Larry was bringing the White Russian up to his lips to shush him. Charlie drank without further word.