A Nap
“Why don’t you come up?” David asked when I parked in the surface lot behind his hotel. “There’s two beds. You could have your nap here and then you don’t have to waste time going home and coming back.”
David’s idea sounded reasonable, but I hesitated. I worried he would try to seduce me again. The way I felt about things just then, he wouldn’t have had to try very hard.
David noticed my reticence and guessed the reason. He held his hands up with their palms toward me in a pose of surrender. “I won’t try anything.” He promised. “You’ll have your own bed, and I’ll have mine.”
I decided to accept David’s offer. I got out of the car and followed my friend into his hotel. We rode the elevator up to the eighth floor and found his room. Inside, both of the twin beds were made up. David stood at the foot of his and started to remove his clothes. He hung his borrowed jacket in the narrow closet and draped his pants over a convenient chair. He laid his pants carefully, so the straps of his suspenders didn’t dangle onto the floor.
David’s obvious care for the gift I’d given him so long ago made me feel good. I felt like the care he lavished on the suspenders somehow extended to me. The feeling was similar to the way I felt when Walt demonstrated his affection. Walt was very good at the small gestures which mean so much.
I never liked big, theatrical displays of affection. I preferred small acts; a book of matches when I was in need, a ‘good morning’ kiss, or a shoulder to rest my head on when I was tired. Those were the things that daily reminded me of Walt’s love. The trouble was, he hadn’t taken the time for those gestures of late. I missed them.
I wondered if Walt had started to resent me. I wondered if he’d resented me for a long time. When he shouted at me in the alley behind the restaurant, he made some very serious accusations. He said that I was getting old. He said that he was in charge. He said that I’d be in the gutter without him.
Walt’s words hurt. He and I were supposed to love each other. I had a ring on my finger to proclaim Walt’s love. I wondered if the ring had become a lie. If it was a lie, I wondered how long it had been one. My stomach clenched as I thought of Walt. I pressed my right hand against my belly to try to quiet the spasms.
David waved to me and called my name. I realized I’d been lost in thought. My old friend was undressed down to his shirt and his boxer shorts. His polka dot bowtie was draped over his left hand. He waved it at me again. “I said there was a spare hanger in the closet for you.” David announced for what I guessed was the second or third time.
“Right, thanks.” I acknowledged him absently.
I turned my back to David and started to undress. I slipped my jacket off and held it while I checked the pockets out of habit. My hand found Larry’s quarter in the inside pocket next to Ted’s letter. I took the coin out to look at it for barely a second. The worn face reminded me of all David had told me about his son, the young man we were trying to save.
I stowed the quarter back in my pocket and hung my jacket next to David’s in the closet. I hung my pants on the same hanger by one of the belt loops over the hanger hook. I slipped my tie over my head and threaded the wide end through my fingers. I didn’t know what to do next.
I wanted to take my shirt off, but I didn’t see how I could. David didn’t know about my scars. He’d never seen them. I didn’t want him to see them. I worried about how he’d react. I worried that he’d see me as less of a person because of them. Since he’d arrived back in my life, David had uttered a stream of continuous praise for me. I worried about what he’d think if he knew how damaged I was underneath my clothes, underneath the actions he praised.
“Law?” David said as a question. His voice was low and very close to me.
I spun around to find myself face to face with David. He was dressed only in his boxer shorts. The white fabric stood in sharp contrast to David’s perpetually brown, deeply tan skin. My breath caught in my throat as I admired his powerful body.
David looked almost the same as I remembered him, but in many ways, better. He was even more masculine than he’d been when I knew him as a youth. He had broad, muscled shoulders and long, strong arms. His pectorals were like square plates of armor over his deep chest. His stomach was flat with a small navel. The tops of his hip bones were plainly visible through his taught skin. His small, dark nipples stood hard and erect in the cool air of the room. A smattering of blond hair ornamented his chest and tapered to a narrow treasure trail that disappeared into his shorts.
“My God.” I said when I found my voice.
“What?” David asked as he stared with his piercing hazel eyes.
“You’re still the most beautiful man I have ever seen.” I admitted before my better judgement caught up with my words.
David smiled bashfully and turned his face away from my admiration. “Thanks.” He said.
David’s embarrassment over my praise faded quickly. He brought his gaze back to mine with a question. “Is there something wrong? Do you not want to take your shirt off?”
My stomach lurched at David’s question. I rubbed my knotted guts and wished they would settle down. I mentally cursed Walt for his angry words which had awakened my dormant pain. I tried to explain my hesitance to David without giving the reason for it. “I was wounded…in the war. The way I look, it’s another of those things you can’t unsee.”
“You mean the scars?” David asked.
I stared at David, stunned that he knew exactly what I was worried about. “How do you know about them?” I asked.
David cocked his head to the side and explained like the answer was obvious. “Kualana told me about them. So did some of the others. Black Brandon told me the most. Do you remember him?”
I remembered the man vividly. We’d called him Black Brandon to differentiate him from a white whore with the same name. Sometimes White Brandon and Black Brandon worked together. Mitch dubbed the pairing her ‘salt and pepper special.’
Black Brandon had been my regular whore before K. Brandon wasn’t a tall man. He was a couple inches shorter than me, but his body was massively muscled. Brandon would have made heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson look like a flyweight. His skin was the color of varnished mahogany, and his smile was bright enough to light a room. He’d been a versatile lover, as comfortable in command as he was in submission. I enjoyed him thoroughly and often. I nodded to David to show I remembered.
David explained why he’d brought the man up. “Brandon saw how much time you spent with me. He assumed we’d eventually have relations, so he warned me. He said you were sensitive about your scars. He said I shouldn’t say anything about them. He told me that you’d hurt one of the whores who wouldn’t have relations with you because of them.”
The story which Brandon told David was true. There was a whore at Mitch’s who I’d beaten because he rejected me when he saw my mutilated torso. The incident wasn’t one of my proudest moments. I’d almost lost my position as Mitch’s Errant Hero of Law and Order over the indiscretion. I guessed Brandon had wanted to prepare David for what he would experience if he ever decided to give himself to me.
“You don’t have to worry.” David went on. “I could never judge you for wounds you got in the service of your country. You should be proud of what they represent.”
My stomach clenched over David’s misplaced admiration of my war wounds. I didn’t argue with him over any of what he said. I decided to let him see. I turned away from David and unbuttoned my shirt. I slipped it off and hung it in the closet with my tie draped over its shoulders. I turned to face David. I kept my eyes low because, despite what he’d said, I still expected a negative reaction from my old friend.
David gasped when he saw what I’d been hiding. “Holy Mary, mother of God.” He said, both as an exclamation of surprise and a quote of the first line of the Hail Mary prayer. “What happened to you?”
I didn’t feel up to the task of answering that question. I told David as much. “I don’t want to talk about it. The story is too long, and I’m too tired. Let’s just get some rest.”
David agreed. He turned off the lights and each of us laid down in our separate beds. I rolled away from my friend and shut my eyes. I held my eyes shut for several minutes. My eyes didn’t want to stay shut. They wanted to be open, so I let them open.
Memories flooded my mind and refused to let me rest. All the uncertainties I thought I’d buried in the past came back to haunt me like angry spirits. They demanded I give tongue to their stories. I started to speak, to tell the tale of my misspent youth and the horrific scars I wore, both the visible ones and the invisible.
“I learned about men when I was an apprentice in my father’s tailor shop. I got to see their bodies, all kinds of bodies as my father fitted them for clothes. I also got to smell their scents. Did you ever notice how every man has his own, unique scent? I did. I discovered that men, both their bodies and their scents, attracted and fascinated me. For some time, I didn’t know what that meant. When I was fourteen, I found out.
“I forget what year it was, whether it was late 1914 or early 1915. Doesn’t matter, I guess. Whatever year it was, my father had accepted a contract to provide the suits and other clothes for the men in a musical review that was being staged at the old Shubert Theater on Broad Street. My father brought me with him to help take the measurements of the actors and chorus men.
“The theater, not just the Shubert but all theaters, were notorious for being peopled with homosexuals. My father warned me before we went inside. He cautioned that the theater men were faggots, unnatural perverts who liked to corrupt young boys like me.
“What I saw at the theater that day opened my eyes. In the wings of the stage, on the men’s side of the building, I saw decadence for the first time. Fit young men; dancers, actors, and chorus men, lounged in the big, common dressing room. They sprawled together on worn sofas, two and three at a time, or sat as couples in upholstered chairs. They smoked scented cigarettes and strutted for each other. All of them were naked, or nearly so. My father was disgusted, but I was enthralled.”
“What did you do?” David asked to my back.
“I tried to do my job.” I explained. “I tried to ignore the gorgeous male flesh on display, but it was difficult. I had an erection the entire time. Luckily, my father took all the measurements, and I recorded them. The arrangement allowed me to hide my erection behind my clipboard. That day, I knew what I desired. That day I discovered what I was.
“I wrestled with my desires for more than three whole years. I tried to be attracted to women. I tried to be a real man like my father. I couldn’t. For all my trying, I desired men, not women. I tried to keep it a secret, but I couldn’t. I’d never hidden anything from my father. As gruff a man as he was, I’d always shared everything with him because I loved and respected him.
“When I was seventeen, almost eighteen, I told my father my secret. I wanted him to understand. I needed understanding, but I got none. He tossed me out. I was crushed, utterly destroyed. The safety of my childhood and the anchor of my family were ripped away from me with one cruel action.
“I spent the night wandering the city, lost, confused, scared. When the sun rose, I found myself in front of an army recruiting office. I enlisted as soon as they opened. I explained my situation to the sergeant who filled in my paperwork. I told him I didn’t have anywhere to go. He made special arrangements for the army to take me right away. By that evening, I was on a train to the Fort Dix Army Base over in New Jersey.”
David spoke to remind me that he was listening. “That’s awful.”
I agreed. “It was awful, but it wasn’t much different than the cruelty you suffered at the hand of your father. Now, my brother, Georgie, wants me to believe my father had second thoughts, that he tried to find me. Even if it’s true, should I forgive how easily he threw me away? I was his son, his own flesh and blood. He pushed me through the shop door without a penny in my pocket or even a coat on my back. He put me out and locked the door between us. What the fuck should it matter to me if he was sorry afterwards?”
I’d sat up in bed to rant directly at David as I railed against my dead father. David remained in his original position. He faced me from his bed with his head sunk into the overly soft hotel pillow. He stared with nervous eyes as I spewed my festering hatred across the room at him. I realized I’d raised my voice too loud in the darkened room. I held my palms up to rub my face in frustration, but my stomach clenched from strong emotion. The pain called my hands down to hold my crawling belly.
I pressed my hands into my stomach and leaned over them to try to force the cramps out of my insides. “Why should I care?” I muttered into my lap. “Why should it matter if he felt bad later? If a man severs his hand from his arm, can he stitch it back on because he thinks he made a mistake? No. That’s not how life works. If a man casts his son out of his warm home into the wide, cruel world, the two are just as separate as if they shared no blood between them. That’s how it fucking works.”
The memory of my father made me wonder about what David had said about God visiting the sins of the father upon the son. My life had been pretty fucked up since my father’s sin of tossing me out on my own. Recently, even the joy of being married to Walt felt like it had tarnished like old silver. I wondered if God was punishing me for what my dad had done. I wondered if he was punishing David for what his father had done. ‘No,’ I mentally insisted to myself, ‘that’s not how things work. That can’t be how they work.’
David forced me to set those musings aside. He added his thoughts to the end of my treatise on life. “As a father, I can’t imagine how either of our fathers did what they did. I love my children. I love them more than anything in this world. I would do anything for them. When I told you that I would die in the electric chair if it would save Larry’s life, I meant it. Even if I found out that Larry really did kill Ted, I would still offer myself to save him. No one is more important to me than my children.”
David’s words of love for his family brought a tear to my eye. I wished my father had felt about me the way David felt about Larry. “You’re a good dad.” I said to praise David.
David deprecated my praise. “I did the best I could.”
“You did better than my father and yours.” I said to reinforce my praise. As I made my statement of support, I wondered how David and I had even arrived on the subject. I realized the point of my story had been lost in the discussion of my brother and my father. I tried to get back to the original story I’d been trying to tell. “None of that is the point. The point of the story is Peter, dear, gentle, terrified Peter.”
“Tell me about him.” David urged.
I laid back down in bed and composed myself similarly to David but with my face toward him this time. “I spent six weeks in basic training at Fort Dix. I took my anger over being disowned and applied it to my training. I used my anger to sharpen my focus and increase my drive. It helped, especially with the hand-to-hand combat training.
“During that time, I gained a reputation as a ruthless fighter. The men who trained with me were the first to call me ‘Law the Animal,’ or just ‘Animal.’ Those men learned to fear me. That’s why when I was on the boat to England, and I saw four bullies picking on a defenseless redhead, the others backed off as soon as I intervened. The green-eyed, redhead turned out to be Peter.
“With that first intervention, I became responsible for Peter. He was too gentle to be a soldier, too gentle and too small. He was as tall as me, but much smaller, thinner with fine bones. He had pale skin, so pale, it was almost translucent. Peter was beautiful and quiet and thoughtful and kind. He was everything I wasn’t. I admired him. Later on, I would come to desire him.”
“What happened to him?” David asked.
“The inevitable.” I said and shook my head against my pillow. “I tried to keep him safe. I did everything I could. I spent all my time with Peter. I protected him from the other men and from the danger of battle. He was too scared to fight. Eventually he would be too scared even to move.
“The arrangement worked for a while. I looked out for Peter’s physical wellbeing, and he looked out for me. Peter kept me from being consumed by the pacing, caged animal that lived inside me. He read poetry aloud from a book he carried in his pocket. I didn’t understand a word of it, but his reading made me feel peaceful. His reading soothed the angry beast of my violent temper.
“Disaster struck on the day I tried to make more of our friendship than Peter wanted. He was always so kind to me, and I misunderstood his kindness. I came to believe that Peter loved me. I convinced myself that I loved him. I declared myself to him, but he rejected me. He called me a faggot. He used the word I hated. The sound of the ugly word kindled the anger of Law the Animal. Peter cowered away from my rage. I raised my hand to strike him, but I couldn’t follow through. I drove my angry fist into the black dirt of the trench wall and walked away from the man who used to be my friend.
“I wasn’t far away from Peter when the barrage started. Cannons boomed and shells fell. The tone of the howl of the falling shells told me that the enemy had the range correct. I knew the shells would strike our position. I ran back to protect Peter. I saw him, frozen with terror as he stood in the middle of the trench. He was so scared, he couldn’t take cover. He couldn’t do anything. I ran at him to tumble us both down together. I was about to collide with him when a fragmentation shell landed in the trench behind him. The sound of the exploding shell is my last memory of The Great War.”
David drew a logical but incorrect conclusion from my story. “The shell is what wounded you. It exploded and caused your scars.”
I shook my head against the pillow again. “The shell exploded and shattered Peter’s body. The force of it drove his bones out of his flesh and into mine. None of the wounds I suffered were from the shrapnel of the shell. All of them were from the splintered bones of my friend.”
David was horrified that such a thing was even possible. “Mother Mary.” He breathed.
When he didn’t say anything else, I took a breath and tried to finish the story. “I barely survived. I went through hours of emergency surgery, infection, more surgery, more infection. I wished for death so the cycle would stop repeating. I had more surgery when I was on a hospital ship on my way back here and even more surgery when I arrived in Philly. I was in one hospital or another for more than six months.
“Ever since then, I’ve been in pain. My insides spasm and cramp whenever I feel bad. The doctors said it was in my head. I guess maybe it is. I’ve been free of pain only twice in the years since that shell went off. One time was when I first met you. The other time was when Walt asked me to be part of his life, and I accepted.”
“And now,” David said, “you’re hurting again because you fought with your husband.”
“Yes.” I admitted, then I shook my head again. “That’s not for you to worry about though. The problem is between me and Walt. We’ll solve it, somehow. You asked about my scars, and I told you. The scars I wear are the only monument to a man who was kind to me when I was badly in need of kindness. I don’t wear them gladly, but I wear them willingly because the kindness Peter gave me saved me from myself, at least for a little while.”
I yawned and decided I’d talked for long enough. I rolled away from David as a way to end the story. “Get some sleep.” I counseled. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
I shut my eyes again, but my overwrought mind and my tortured guts refused to let me rest. I opened my eyes to stare at the wall. I heard the bedsprings of David’s mattress squeak as he shifted upon it. I wondered if he was restless as well. Suddenly the blanket which covered me was lifted and the mattress under me shifted as David climbed into my bed beside me. He spooned his body against mine, the bare, hot skin of his front pressed to the bare skin of my back. He wrapped me in his arms, and his huge hands spread out over the no-man’s-land of my navelless belly. His lips placed a soft kiss on the back of my neck.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Trying to comfort you.” David answered. “I know you’re doing your best to help me. I know you don’t need me and my problems in your life right now. I think I know how hard you work to keep your past in the past so you can be a good husband. I know how hard it is to live with secrets and pain. Let me protect you from it. Let me hold you and keep you safe while we rest.”
A lump of emotion filled my throat and choked the words of thanks I wanted to say. Grateful tears streaked my face and soaked my pillow. I blinked them away. “Tell me…A-HEM…tell me about your life.” I asked as my voice broke halfway through the question.
David spoke softly. His words drifted to my ear as his breath warmed the back of my neck. He told a story of a big farming family who worked to cultivate their living from the fertile soil of the Montana plains. David told of spring plantings and summer growing seasons. He told of asking God for rain in dry years and of asking God for dry in wet ones. He told of the grinding long hours during harvest, of bumper crops in good years and of barely breaking even in bad ones.
David tried to convey the love he had for his wife and his children. He tried to explain the love he had for his land and the sinful pride he took in the life he earned. He told of the slow winter months when the family would draw close together to pass the time. David sounded especially fond of the stories of when he would hunt or go ice fishing with his oldest boys, Larry and Eddie. He even revealed his decision to name those boys after me.
By the time David made that secret clear, I was too close to sleep to be surprised. His soft words and protective embrace had soothed me almost all the way to dreamland. I finally drifted off around the time Larry ‘bagged his first elk.’
..........................................................................................................
I woke up while I was still wrapped in David’s warm embrace. I felt good. I felt safe. I felt like I used to when I woke up in Walt’s arms. I missed that feeling.
David stirred and kissed the back of my neck. His hips moved and I felt his erection press against the left cheek of my ass. I tried to judge its size. From what I could tell, it seemed big. My cock inflated to match David’s.
Once upon a time I would have turned to face my old friend and initiated a session of lovemaking which would have left us both satisfied and out of breath. Because of the ring on my finger, I hesitated. David took the initiative. He slid his left hand down along my stomach and into the waistband of my briefs. He gripped my hard cock and squeezed it.
I gasped from the attention, but I objected to it. “David, please! I can’t”
David kissed the back of my neck again, then craned his head so he could nibble my ear. I squirmed in delight as his lips and teeth sent fluttering ripples of pleasure through my body. “It’s not cheating if you don’t participate.” David whispered into the same ear he chewed. “Let me make you feel good. You don’t have to do anything.”
I didn’t object. David took my silence as permission. He pulled his hand from my underwear and used it to throw the covers off of us. He shifted his body until he knelt behind me and rolled me to lay flat in front of him. He peeled the front of my briefs down and hooked the waist under my balls. Without another word, David leaned down and took my cock in his mouth. He sucked hard and swirled his tongue over the head.
I cried out in pleasure. “OH FUCK!” My hands gripped the sheet beneath me and squeezed handfuls of it into my fists.
David sucked me like he was a professional. He bobbed his head up and down and worked his tongue over the sensitive head. He used his hand to stroke the shaft and to keep my foreskin peeled down. His other hand massaged my balls and pulled them away from my body to keep me from climaxing too soon.
I sank into the pleasure and let myself enjoy David’s work. I only gave one instruction. I told David to squeeze my balls. He did so gently, too gently. “MORE!” I cried. “Squeeze them tighter!” David did as I asked until the exquisite pleasure-pain flared deep down inside me. “Just like that.” I hissed to let him know he had the pressure right.
As much as I wanted to last so I could enjoy the first and likely the only blowjob David would ever give me, I was too pent up. Walt and I were usually good for at least two sessions a week. Since he’d gotten his Firestone letter, I hadn’t had any. I warned David that I was close. My warning didn’t change anything he did.
I cried out as my orgasm slammed into me. I tried to raise my hips off the bed, but David held me down. He swallowed the huge load I shot into his mouth. He kept sucking until I pushed him off my overly sensitive cock. David rocked back on his hips to grin at me while I caught my breath.
I was stunned by the quality of the blow job I’d received. “Where’d you learn to do that?” I demanded of David when I had enough breath in my lungs to speak.
“Brandon taught me.” David announced through his proud grin. “When he warned me about you, he asked me if I’d ever done anything. I told him that I’d fooled around a little, but I wasn’t experienced. He offered to teach me in the afternoons before he started work for the day. He said I was a natural.”
I was dumbfounded. “You practiced so you could do that for me?” I asked, and David nodded.
His nod made me wonder about the past. I asked myself, ‘what if I’d known he cared about me that much? Would I have gone with him? Maybe I should have.’
I shook my head because the past was past and couldn’t be changed. The only thing I could change was the future. I took the opportunity which was presented. I put my deflating cock away and sat up.
I pushed David back on the bed and pulled his boxers down to his knees. His cock stood up proud, thick, and circumcised. The tip glistened with precum. His balls were big and heavy looking, and his groin was decorated with straight, blond pubic hair. I licked my lips and slurped David’s huge cock into my mouth.
David objected. “NO, LAW! You shouldn’t!”
I took my lips from around David’s cock long enough to say, “should or shouldn’t, I’m going to.”
I let David straighten his legs from the way they’d been folded under him, then I pushed them open and knelt between them. I looked into David’s piercing hazel eyes as I slurped the head of his cock back into my mouth. Even with the mushroom head at the back of my throat, I had less than half of David’s impressive manhood in my mouth. I held David’s gaze with my own as I relaxed my throat and took his entire, throbbing length into my mouth and swallowed around it.
David’s eyes tried to roll back in his head. He groaned while I deepthroated his cock. I swallowed again, then let his cock flop out of my mouth. David stared down at me. “How’d you do that?” He demanded. “Brandon tried to teach me, but I couldn’t get it.”
I slapped David’s wet cock against my face and rubbed it across my cheek to let my beard stubble tease his sensitive head. “You practiced for a week or two more than twenty years ago. I’ve practiced my whole life.”
I lapped my tongue over David’s balls and sucked them. I pulled them down and used them to aim David’s cock at my lips. I slurped him down again. I sucked and worshiped David’s hard cock with all the skills I’d accumulated over the years. I wasn’t as good as some, but I knew that I was a better cocksucker than most. When I felt he was close, I deep throated him once more, then backed all the way off his shaft until just the head of his cock was between my lips.
I stroked David’s spit-slicked cock as hard as I could until he filled my mouth with his creamy, bitter load. I held his cream in my mouth as I rocked back in my hips. I made sure David watched as I opened my mouth to roll his load over my tongue before I swallowed it.
David enjoyed the blowjob and the little show at the end. “HOLY FUCK!” He cried. “That was the hottest fucking thing ever!”
I tilted my head in a little bow. A tender impulse struck me, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I decided to take the risk. I leaned down over David. I laid my body on top of him, so my face was even with his. I turned my head just enough so our noses wouldn’t hit, and kissed David on the mouth. His lips opened and our tongues played. I held his head in my hands, and he held mine in his.
We kissed and tasted each other until we both needed to breathe. I broke our kiss and rolled away from David to lay next to him. “Thank you.” I said to my friend. “I’m glad you did that. I’d love to do more, but I have to hold onto something of the promise I made to my husband.”
“You didn’t have to do anything for me.” David started to say.
“Yeah, I did.” I said to contradict him. “I couldn’t let you do what you did and not reciprocate. You practiced for me. That was incredibly sweet. I should have made love to you before. I should have gotten over my worship of you and enjoyed you as a person. Instead, I had this image of you like you were an angel. I thought I would soil you with my touch. I was wrong back then, and I just made up for it. As for my commitment to Walt, I’m going to pretend all this happened twenty years ago when it should have.”
David agreed with my idea.
He and I rested together for another few minutes. When we could delay no longer, we got up to clean up and dress. There was work to be done.
