by Rick R. Reed
On the screen in front of him was a raceway and it came to life once he dropped his token in the slot. He put his hands on the steering wheel, watching the blur of motion as the road opened up before him, curves and obstacles coming up quickly. He turned, “Okay, so what’s the best…”
Dwight’s voice trailed off as he noticed how close the boy had moved to the opening of the car. He virtually blocked the entrance. His crotch was thrust out toward him and Dwight immediately noticed the bulge in the faded denim. The fabric was worn so thin that Dwight could make out the head of the boy’s cock, straining upward. The boy’s hand moved down and quickly traced the outline of his dick through the denim.
Oh, God, I should have known. There are no more innocent children.
Dwight’s mouth suddenly felt dry. He reached over and gingerly touched the bulge in the boy’s pants.
No! This isn’t part of the plan. Dwight yanked his hand away from the boy’s jeans as if they were hot, scalding him.
The boy scooted back a little, so he could bend down and poke his head in the race car. “I ain’t never done this before, okay? My buddies told me about it.” His blue eyes searched Dwight’s dark ones. “You ain’t a cop?” “What? Oh, no, no.”
“So you interested? Remember, I ain’t never done this.”
Sure you haven’t. “Yeah, maybe I’m interested. Wanna come to my house? Maybe we could get to know each other better.” Dwight felt slightly out of control; this wasn’t what he expected.
“You gotta car?” the boy asked. He looked down at the floor, digging his toe into the worn blue carpeting there. “I’m not really into goin’ to a guy’s house.”
A true professional. Dwight’s mouth was poised to begin whispering, calling the little slut the names he deserved. No, he had to get this one home. The innocent facade couldn’t hide for long the filth that lay beneath. “Yeah, I have a car, a truck actually,” Dwight said.
“I can take care of you real good right there.” The boy looked at him, smiling, his blue eyes bright with promise.
Filth. Vile. He needed punishment, needed to pay the price more than almost anyone Dwight had seen. An image of the boy, naked, flashed before him. The boy’s eyes were red from crying. Crying from the pain. “I’m not into cars. Too easy to get caught. Aren’t you worried about that?”
“Nah. It’s safe. In the dark.”
Dwight shook his head. The boy had tried hard, hard enough for Dwight to believe there was some desperation behind his proposition. He climbed out of the race car and started to move away, saying, “I think I’ll find someone who’s interested in going home with me. I’d like it better that way.” Dwight started toward another part of the arcade.
It had the desired effect. The boy followed after him. “I could do that.”
“Well, let’s go then.” Dwight stopped, waiting for the boy to come abreast of him. The boy was still grinning at him, looking like Dwight just decided to pay him to mow his lawn, instead of to suck his cock.
“Um, sir, we need to take care of a little business first.” The boy made a gesture, meaning money, with his hand.
“Oh, oh, of course. Would twenty be okay?”
“Sure, but I need to have it up-front.” The boy smiled and Dwight could imagine what he looked like when his front teeth were missing, which couldn’t have been that long ago.
Dwight looked around and quickly fished a bill out of his pocket. Holding it low, he let the boy take it from his hand.
They started out. Dwight asked, “So what’s your name?”
The boy giggled, skipping ahead, then turned and looked at Dwight. “Theodore. But everybody calls me Little T.”
*
It was six o’clock. Friday night. Little T stood outside Super Powers Arcade, rubbing his arms. Chicago winters were cold. Little T had to make some money tonight. He was hungry and sick of staying in that crappy apartment building without any heat. Maybe if he managed to turn enough tricks, he could eventually set himself up in his own place. Find a sugar daddy.
It could happen.
Miranda, Jimmy, War Zone, Randy, and Avery were okay, like, more than okay…they were the only family he’d ever had.
But the cold! Even though they all bedded down under coats, newspapers, and old blankets, using these things and each other, it was never warm enough. The biting wind (he’d just heard how Chicagoans called it The Hawk) always managed to get through, pulling at him, awakening him.
Making him have to piss.
And that was a whole different ordeal, since there wasn’t any plumbing in the building either.
The wind picked up, lifting his red curls, making the snot in his nose crackle. Damn, maybe West Palm wasn’t so bad.
It seemed like the life before he came to Chicago on a Greyhound bus six months ago had happened to someone else. He remembered a big cream-colored stucco house with a red tile roof. A bedroom with a view of the Adantic. A yard where hibiscus, bougainvillea, orchids, plumaria, jasmine, and azalea bloomed. A strip of white sand beach, bordered on one end by grey boulders and on the other by a row of mangrove trees, dark against the buffeting turquoise waves. Springtime brought the scent of Valencia oranges in their windows; fragrant nighttime winds, salt and sweet.
Little T looked around him. A Coke can skittered along the dirty sidewalk, lifted by the wind. The air was filled with the smell of exhaust from the unending flow of traffic moving slowly by the road, clogged by CTA buses.
Little T thought of his three brothers and two sisters. He imagined them now, probably decorating the house for Christmas, drinking eggnog, gathering around the Steinway for carols, while Mrs. Andrews, the kindly housekeeper, looked on with a smile.
Right. The truth was, his father, a divorce lawyer, was probably still down at his office and his mother was in her room, asleep, fumes of Tanqueray and Chanel surrounding her.
There were no brothers and sisters. No kindly housekeeper. It seemed no one lived in the house, so big, so perfect.
Little T hadn’t been able to bear wandering through its perfect rooms anymore. One morning, instead of leaving for school, he’d stolen $ 150 and some change off his father’s dresser and headed for Chicago.
He would be a gangster. Or he’d find some inner city family, Polish or Irish maybe, with eight, nine, ten kids and they would adopt him. See him for his true worth.
All of it shit.
He knew he’d better be getting inside. At Super Powers, the competition was keen. And there was a guy inside Little T just knew would go for him. Trying to look younger, the guy was the perfect John. Guys like him, Littie T knew, were married and had the money and the need to hide their true identity, even though no one down here gave a flying fuck who they were, as long as they had the cash.
*
The black Toyota pickup moved through the night, heading west along Foster Avenue. The Friday night traffic was stop and go, and it seemed like the guy was really impatient to get him home.
Little T, his legs drawn up under him, Indian style, looked over at the man who had bought him. “So, what’s your name?”
“I’ll ask the questions.”
Little T rolled his eyes. What’s the guy think I’m gonna do? Blackmail him? “Sorry, just thought I’d make a little conversation.”
The man looked over at him; there was no expression in his eyes. They looked dead. “Dwight,” he said.
Dwight’s gaze returned to the road in front of him.
“Got any kids? A lotta the guys I meet, they tell me I look like one of their kids. You got any?”
“I had a little girl once,” Dwight said. “She’s dead now.”
Little T didn’t know what to say so he stared down at his hands and began twirling his left forefinger around his right. “How ‘bout some music?” Little T reached for the radio controls. “Maybe a little Killer B…yeah.” He punched the buttons until 96.3 came up on the digital display. A heavy beat blared out,
with a male voice rapping: “Here is the dome…” Little T sat back. “C & C Music Factory. You like rap? I didn’t used to, but it seems like it’s gotten better, you know?”
Dwight turned the radio up. He smiled and bobbed his head. The smile was all wrong, looking twisted and forced. And the dude had no rhythm.
Little T turned to look out the window. There was a school playground and a few kids, some not much younger than he, playing on the swings. Little T considered for a moment hopping out of the car at the next light and running to join them.
But what would he talk to them about? How he sells his dick? What it feels like to hunt for a meal out of a Dumpster behind McDonald’s? Those kids looked normal, and Little T would never be normal again. He turned back to Dwight.
“You got a job? My father’s an attorney.”
Dwight smirked. “I’ll bet. You just making a little extra for college someday?” Dwight snorted.
Little T looked out at the night sky once more. “You got a job?”
“What do you want to know for? Honest work is most likely a foreign concept to the likes of you.”
Little T shrugged. He turned to the guy and said, “You just want me to shut up?”
“I want you to show some respect.”
Little T sat up straighter in his seat. “Gotcha,” he said. He paused for a moment, then added, “Sir.”
“That’s better.”
*
When they got to the house, Little T was eager to go inside. He was always interested in seeing how other people lived.
“Wow. What happened to you?” Little T asked, once inside the virtually empty house. His voice echoed; the dust in the air made him sneeze.
“What do you mean?”
Little T laughed. “I mean, look at this place. It’s like a friggin’ tomb. Empty. Somebody clean you out?”
Dwight frowned at him. “I suppose you could say that. You talk an awful lot, you know that?”
“Sorry.” Little T wandered around the living room, turning the one floor lamp in the room on. Its bright light flooded the room, making it even more barren.
The fear hit him all at once. Something was not right about this. This man and his home were not what he had envisioned. He had seen some family man, an accountant with a fat wife and a couple kids, somebody who’d want a hand job or a blow job, and then would feel guilty afterward, maybe even cry. He’d been through it before. Little T realized he almost enjoyed their guilt.
But he didn’t know about this guy, didn’t know what he really wanted. Jimmy and Miranda had been through it all and had told him, in detail, about the guys who got off on kink, about how you always had to keep the upper hand. He’d heard about the handcuffs that bite into your wrists, the cock rings so tight you felt your balls were gonna pop, the hot wax, the ice, the stuff up your ass. He had thought none of it could ever happen to him. He just went with the nice guys, the ones who wanted a quick blow. He thought he was a good judge. Little T had been lucky so far.
Maybe his luck had run out.
*
This one tempted him. So what? Temptation wasn’t evil in itself, just acting on it. Of course, sex with this boy would not be pleasurable for him; it could only be a means, a lesson.
He must make it hurt; that’s the only way he could justify it. Salvation through pain.
It would be doing the boy a favor.
Making the boy’s innocent outside match his dark, evil inside.
The boy’s body was lithe, smooth. Dwight imagined the smell of his clean white skin. He conjured up baby powder. He envisioned the boy’s skin, smooth and unblemished as alabaster, the gentle rise of his buttocks, the lean arms and legs, the muscles still undeveloped, coated with just the beginnings of a downy fuzz.
He walked toward Little T and reached out.
*
When Little T felt Dwight’s hand on his shoulder, he tightened up inside…for just an instant. The man squeezed his shoulder and Little T thought, I just need to get through this. Soon, it’ll be over and maybe I can sleep here tonight. The guy should at least have a bed in this place. Little T turned to him, trying to stay calm, the tough guy that all of his friends in the business told him he needed to be to survive. Go along with it. Do it. He reached up and placed his hand on Dwight’s cheek.
*
Dwight recoiled. The thing touched him! He took a step back, breathing a little heavier now. “Now,” he said, flustered, “you listen here, young man. I’m paying you. I make the moves. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered, his voice barely above a whisper. He dropped the offending hand to his side and stood silently, waiting.
“I don’t know if this is going to work out.” Dwight hurried out of the room and went into the kitchen. He walked over to the sink and stared out the window above it. He could see across the driveway and into the kitchen of the house next door.
The Hales. Fat Mike, fat Jeanine, and their three fat kids gathered around the old supper table. Feasting. Dwight couldn’t bear to look at them. They were pigs. All of them. He stared down at the chrome of the double sink and watched a cockroach scurry across its surface, heading for the garbage disposal.
Why did one little touch affect me so much? Maybe I should take him back, maybe I should just take him back. This boy wouldn’t stay in the life long; he was too good, he’d get out of it, go home. Or he’d find his way out of it through school.
Or someone would kill him.
Take him back, Dwight. No, he couldn’t. Dwight thought of Jimmy, the little bastard, and the one slip he’d already made with the boy, worried that that one slip would be enough to ruin him. He couldn’t make the same mistake. It would ruin his plan. A plan that would really be a boon for everyone.
Take him back. You’re just one trick of many, he’s not going to tell. He’s probably not even going to remember.
That’s right. That’s it exactly. Don’t let that innocent facade fool you. In the arcade, the boy had thrust his crotch at him, touching himself, tracing the outline of his erection through the denim.
The cockroach rushed down into the gaping hole of the disposal. A dark feast awaited it there…earlier he had scraped his Swanson’s TV dinner into the disposal and not turned it on. He waited until the bug had made its way down into the hole, waited until his little cockroach gullet was getting its fill, then reached up and flipped the switch.
*
The front door beckoned. Little T had heard the whir of the garbage disposal a moment ago and wondered what the guy was doing. He was weird, really weird. Little T told himself he should just walk right out that door. After all, he had the guy’s twenty-dollar bill in his pocket. The worst that could happen now would be trying to find a way back to the north side.
Hell, he could hitch. Easy.
Little T stared at the door. The man was in the kitchen. He wouldn’t even hear him go, if he was quiet enough about it. Free and clear. Made the money without having to work for it. Go, just go.
The guy could come back into the room and find it empty. He’d be disappointed.
Hadn’t he said something about having a daughter?
Of course, Dwight’s family probably left him. That’s why the house had hardly any furniture.
And that was why he probably picked me up. He was just lonely.
Why didn’t any of his thoughts ring true? Why did he stay rooted in this one place, like an idiot?
*
Dwight switched the water off and pulled the mini-blinds so he couldn’t see into the Hales’s house anymore. He started when he heard a footstep behind him.
The angel was there, staring at him. He had some big, goofy smile plastered on his face and he was switching his weight from one foot to the other. Trying to look like he was innocent. Dwight knew better.
“I thought I told you, I make the moves.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Little T answered. “I…”
“Just go on out of here. I’ll be in in just a minute.”
Little T turned and started out of the room. He stopped when Dwight spoke again. “Better yet. Why don’t you just get out of those clothes and hop up on the table over there.”
Little T looked into his eyes for a long time, a minute or more. First, he squatted and undid the laces on his hiking boots and pulled them off. Then he reached down and unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans and wiggled out of them. He crossed his arms and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He looked at Dwight and gave this brave little smile, then crossed to the table, hopped up on it, and lay back.
Dwight felt nothing but the pounding of his heart as he undressed, staring at the boy lying naked on his kitchen table, his legs up and bent at the knees, waiting.
Why was Dwight finding it so hard to breathe? He struggled to get out of his pants, yanking them off. His erection slapped against his stomach when it caught on the fabric of his pants. This must be a lesson. That’s all: some punishment.
He looked at the boy, then pulled the sweatshirt over his head. He was shaking.
He did not want this child. No, not in any sexual way. This was for his own good.
The child brought this on himself.
Dwight felt the rage inside him stir. It was only what the little tramp deserved. Dwight whispered, “For your own good, little stinking piece of shit, we’ll see who’s in charge here now. You’ll learn from this, this will give you new light, you piece of garbage, dirty filth, I hate you, hate you and always have, we’ll see that the Lord loves you though, gotta see to it, gotta see to it.” Dwight moved toward the table, stopping on his way to turn off the light.
The room had a silvery glow and the boy and the man became shadows in the glow of the moon. “Close your eyes,” Dwight said, louder, so the boy could hear.
He slid his hands quickly up Little T’s chest and stopped at the boy’s nipples. With his thumbs and forefingers, he pinched a nipple in each hand, twisting until the boy at last cried out. He continued to twist, wondering how much pressure would make the sensitive flesh separate, until the nipples came off in his hands.
