— originally published in Honcho Magazine - March, 1993 issue —

— Hot, sweaty glistening muscles... —

So what if I've taken four finals in three days and haven't slept for two nights? So what if I'm living on coffee and cigarettes and pizza?

I've got a six good hours' worth of work to go on the best damned English term paper anyone's ever read. Hell, Last Minute is my middle name. I've got my notes and outline and underlined passages, my smokes and my ten-cup Krups--now all I've got to do is *write* the damn thing.

And hell, what I *don't* need is some yahoo blasting country music right outside my window at nine in the morning while I'm trying to think. But there he is, right there on the roof, scraping and mortaring while some poor gal's carrying on at the top of her lungs about dirty dishes on the breakfast table and her man's cheatin' ways. No. Not now. Not right this minute, thanks.

So I heave the window open, climb out onto the roof, and saunter over to where Bubba's hacking at the bricks. "'Scuse me," I say.

He wheels around, looks me over, and grins. "Hey, brother," he says, his deep voice cutting through the country-music wail.

And I look him over, too. Him in his cut-off shorts and undershirt, with a faded blue bandanna tight around his skull and big, hair-covered muscles as far as the eye can see. He's tall, a good half a head or so taller than my six feet, and he's maybe ten years older than I am. Maybe a little more, from the sexy crinkles around his eyes.

"Umn, I don't want to be a pain or anything ..." and I just stop talking for a minute, because I'm too busy looking into those glinting dark eyes staring out from his scruffy, bearded, handsome face. "I mean, I live right in there," and I cock my head toward my window.

"Penthouse suite," he says, "hey."

"Well, not quite." It's just a studio that happens to look out onto a stretch of tar-papered roof that wraps around the fifth story of this building from my rearview (make that no view) apartment to the street side; there are a few more stories going up until you get to the really fancy digs. "You see, I'm just trying to get some work done in there. Finals, you know."

"School days," he half sings, and he raises a hand to stroke his beard, his biceps bulging up, and there's this dark patch of hair under his arm and smooth white skin all around it.

"Yeah," I say, glancing at my watch, "school days for just about six more hours of my life. And I've got this paper, see, and ... "

"Oh, you mean the music," he says, and he turns around and bends over to switch off his cassette player, a sort of baby ghetto blaster, which gives me the chance to check out his muscular butt and a pair of strong, thickly furred thighs that each look to be about the size of Delaware. And he turns back to face me, and I raise my eyes fast, but maybe not fast enough, because the grin fades from his face and he looks at me real hard for a second.

"I mean," I say, "I like Loretta Lynn as much as the next guy--"

"Patsy Cline," he says.

"Patsy Cline. Sure."

"No, man, I understand, I did a little schoolwork myself, once. Wasn't so hot at it, truth to tell. Better at this," he says, gesturing toward the brick wall behind him. "Tuck-pointing."

"Tuck-pointing?" I repeat, and I'm beginning to feel like a parrot.

"So no, we'll lose the tunes. You do your work. What're you workin' on?"

"The decline of heroic imagery in late Crusader verse," I say, and I laugh, partly out of nervousness and partly because it suddenly sounds like a pretty dumb thing to be spending a fine, hot spring day laboring over. What I'd like to be laboring over, I think, is him; I just want him flat on his back while I pleasure him from one end to the other with my tongue. But I know how dangerous it is to get worked up over big, good-looking, good-natured straight men. They'll break your heart, a friend of mine says, or they'll break your arm.

"Well, whoosh," he says, jutting his head back suddenly. "Went right over my head." And I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes on his when I'm trying to get a look at what he's packing in those faded, frayed blue shorts.

"I'll tell you what," I say, "I've got this Walkman you could use, and then you can do your work and be happy, and I can do mine. And be miserable. How would that be?" And then we just stand there, and a breeze comes up, filling my nostrils with the scent of the Hudson River two blocks away and the smell of him: bleach from his undershirt and some kind of flowery cologne he's wearing and, under it all, this deep musk that must be his naturally. And my cock gives a little jump in my gym shorts.

"So OK," he says. "Go get it."

- - -

So it works out just fine, and I pound away at my PC, keeping my back to the window so I won't get distracted by the sight of him, but I notice that every time I stop typing, my hands slip into my shorts, cupping my cock and balls. I'm so damn tense from all the work and all the coffee and not having been laid in a long time. Hell, I've even been too busy to jerk off.

Once, about noon, I turn around and there he is, with my Walkman hooked over one hip and his T-shirt tucked into his skimpy shorts, and the bands of muscle in his back and his heavy arms are shining with sweat and the bright sunlight.

"Fuck," I mutter, and turn back to my keyboard.

- - -

It's ten to four when I get back to the apartment, a six-pack in my hand and not a worry in the world beyond what I'm going to do about getting a job and paying off my college loans. But hey, worry can wait.

I set the six-pack down on my desk and go right to the window, and, well, there's nothing there. No tuck-pointer, no tuck-pointer's gear, no boom box, and, shit, no Walkman. Just a wall. "Goddamn shit-kicking son-of-a-bitchin' thief," I mutter under my breath, but just as I'm about to offer a few more well-chosen curses, he comes strolling into view around a corner of the building, brandishing my Walkman in front of him like a bouquet of flowers.

He sees me leaning against the window and smiles. "Bet you thought I was runnin' off with your little stereo. Hey, I was comin' to tap at your window right this minute." He's in just his shorts and sneakers still, his massive body coated with dust and sweat, little patches of mud where the salt water's drained over him. He yanks the kerchief from around his head, revealing a full crop of inky black curls, and wipes down his hairy chest, then runs the cloth up into his armpits and down his smooth sides. "Batteries about to go, I think. I'm done, anyway."

"They're rechargeable," I say. "And I'm done, too."

"Congratulations. Welcome to the real world, brother."

I don't even think about it before I ask, "You want a beer? To help me celebrate?"

"Sure thing," he replies, sounding maybe a little doubtful. "But, uh, I've got a buddy who's come to pick me up." He calls over his shoulder: "Charlie!" And then to me again: "He's hired a boat out at Freeport or some such. We're going deep-sea fishing tonight. Deep-sea drinking's more like it, I guess."

Charlie comes around the corner. He's big, blond, not quite handsome, and not very friendly looking. The sort of straight guy, I think, whose every other word is "fuck" (and whose every other word, I'll wager, is "faggot").

"Charlie," the tuck-pointer says to his friend, "My little buddy here's just finished bein' a college student today, and we're gonna have a beer on it."

"He got more'n two beers?" Charlie mumbles, looking at me suspiciously.

"He's got *six*," I reply.

"Well, then," Charlie says, "let's get at 'em. How's about we get in out of the sun." It's not a question, and I'm pretty sure I don't like Charlie.

"I'm Ray." The tuck-pointer extends a hand through the open window.

"I'm Tom," I say, taking his callused hand and helping him squeeze through--he's a lot bigger than the window opening. As he steps down into my apartment, he's no more than a few inches from me now, and the cock-raising closeness of him, and all the coffee I've drunk today and the no sleep--my heart is thumping away in my chest.

"I don't want to track all over your nice place," Ray apologizes. He crouches down just inside the window, unlaces his sneakers and pulls them off, then strips off his socks. He uses the socks to wipe off his long feet, around the heels and between the hair-flecked toes. His shoulders are like big, freckled hills, I notice.

Meanwhile, Charlie lets himself in and looks around. "Kinda small, you know. But it's all right." And he grins at me, an almost pleasant grin, except that the corners of his mouth don't turn up.

"You got a rag or something, I could wipe myself down?" Ray asks. "I guess I'm kinda grimy."

"Bathroom's down that way," I tell him, pointing. "Help yourself to a towel."

"Thanks," he says, reaching over and mussing my hair. A shiver goes through me as I get a good whiff of him. Sweat's never smelled so fine. "You're a good kid," he says, handing me my Walkman. He pads through my place--doesn't take that long, actually--and heads into the bathroom. In a second, I hear him pissing, a long, steady stream, and then I hear the sound of water running in the sink.

Charlie takes one of the beer bottles and opens it, then sits himself down in a corner of my foldout couch and takes a long, draining swig. He's in jeans and a T-shirt, and I can see that he's almost as muscular as Ray, but leaning a little toward the heavyset, heavy-drinking side. His hands are wide and short-fingered, his eyes are a cool blue color, and his blond hair is close-cropped. Marine-style. His skin is pinkish, as if he'd been in a hot shower too long. I open a beer and park myself at the opposite end of the couch. We sit there silently, drinking and staring into space.

After a minute or two, Ray comes into the room, toweling off his damp black hair. He's still seven-eighths naked, his T-shirt dangling from the back of his cutoffs. He gets a beer and, instead of taking my desk chair (it's the only other place to sit, if you don't count the floor), he perches on an arm of the couch, just to the side of me, inches away, one foot resting on the cushion next to my thigh. Every time I take a breath, I can smell him; the sweet cologne's been washed away, and his own scent is getting to me, getting into my bloodstream just as surely as the beer is. If I turned my head, that sleek, hair-covered stomach of his would be within reach of my mouth.

We finish our first beers, swapping a word or two between slugs. Charlie gets up and opens the second three; he hands one to Ray, takes one for himself, but then, leaving the last one on the desk, he sits himself down again. But this time, he's a lot closer to me on the couch.

"I think," he says, setting his beer bottle on the floor, looking over my shoulder at Ray, "I think having two men being so close to our little friend here is giving him a big ol' hard-on." And he grabs my crotch, yanking roughly on my cock through my gym shorts and Jockeys.

I'm too stunned to move, or to let out any sound but a surprised "Hey!"

"Aw, knock it off," Ray says, and he reaches over me to push Charlie away, but Charlie grabs Ray's wrist--"C'mon, man, check it out"--and yanks it down toward my groin, pressing it against the cotton. Taken by surprise, Ray is pulled down toward me, and his chest is against my face now, his fur against my cheek. And after a moment's hesitation, he stops struggling to get his hand away from my cock, which is, I have to admit, rock-hard at his touch.

"Well, I guess it is, isn't it?" he says, and taking a last, draining swallow of beer and letting his bottle clank to the floor, he takes hold of the back of my head with his free hand and turns my face so I'm looking right into those shiny dark eyes of his. "I guess it is," he says again.

As I'm trying real hard not to kiss that beautiful bearded face, I can feel his hand, not rubbing, but just sort of pumping down on my hard-on, pressing and releasing, and he's stroking the back of my head, and a little embarrassed grin flickers over his lips.

Hearing the whooshing sound of a zipper, I look away, and I see that Charlie's on his feet, and he's got his jeans shoved down to his thighs, and his cock, red and truly fat, too wide even for its impressive length, is standing straight out from his golden crotch hair, inches from my lips. "How's about you suck my dick?" he says, slapping the engorged muscle against my face.

"How's about you let the fella decide for himself what he'd like to do?" Ray says, and he's right on the couch next to me now, his hand shoved deep into my shorts, and he's stroking my stiff dick, his rough fingers sliding up and down the shaft of it.

"Aw, fuck you, man," Charlie says, and as Ray takes my aching balls in his grip, I let out a low groan, and in that moment Charlie grabs the side of my head and presses my lips to the wide round head of his cock, and I don't resist, I don't want to resist, I actually *want* the asshole's cock in my mouth, if only to show him how good it can feel to have a man suck his dick for him, and I start to lick at his piss hole, circling it with my tongue and lapping at the juice that's already beginning to seep from it, and then I open up and let him shove the wide shaft to the back of my throat in one spearing thrust, and he lets out a yelp as my face is buried in the wiry yellow hair at the base of his dick.

"Shit, that's good," he says, and starts to fuck my face, pistoning away at me as Ray, from behind, gently pushes my head against his buddy's dick with one hand and jerks me off with the other. And as I cover Charlie's cock with my spit, I start to stroke his fat balls with both hands, then yank roughly at the tight sack, which only makes him ram his cock harder into my windpipe.

I'm up on my knees on the couch then, slurping away at Charlie's dick as Ray keeps a steady rhythm on my cock and reaches his other hand up under my T-shirt, stroking my chest, kneading my tits, and he's pressing his hairy chest against my back, pumping his denim-covered crotch against my ass.

"How's about lettin' me have some of that sweet mouth, little buddy," he rasps in my ear, and he eases me off Charlie's cock, spins me around, and presses my head against his shorts. I'm soaking the cloth with my spit as I'm blindly working at the buttons of his fly with my fingers. Finally, I get my hands into his shorts, and his cock, knotted up in his underwear, is thick and long and hot. I pull it free and start to lick the beautiful dark shaft, worshipping it with long strokes of my tongue, tracing the lines of the pumping blue veins as I run my hands over Ray's hairy body, the heavy round plates of his chest, the wide, flat nipples half-concealed under wiry coils, his powerful smooth back and silken sides.

I take the head of his prick in my mouth and suck my way down, inch by inch, until the whole thing, even bigger than Charlie's fat pole, is filling my throat, and the warm, sweet-smelling dampness of his crotch is driving me as crazy as the wonderful bitter taste of his leaking cock juice.

Charlie's yanking my gym shorts down over my upthrust butt, and I feel his hands at the neck of my T-shirt, and I hear it shredding as he rips it down the length of my back. As I bury my face in Ray's crotch, deep-throating his big, delicious dick, Charlie shoves a couple of his squat fingers into my sweaty asshole.

Charlie finger-fucks me roughly as Ray sits himself up on the arm of the couch, opening his thighs and guiding my mouth down to his furry balls. Then he growls at Charlie: "And you suck this, asshole." And I can feel him yank Charlie by the neck toward his crotch, impaling the struggling blond's slack-jawed face on his dick. Charlie fights for a long time--I can feel him angrily trying to pull away with all his strength even as he continues to ram my ass with his fingers, three of them now pressing into my guts--but Ray is far stronger, and after a while Charlie's furious grunting snorts turn into reluctant but hungry groans, his head bobbing clumsily but eagerly up and down the length of Ray's prick as I continue servicing Ray's big, hair-covered nuts.

I slide back up onto Ray's cock, Charlie's tongue and mine swooping and gliding over it, our lips competing to swallow the head as Ray arches his back, letting out animal-like whoops of pleasure as his buddy and I take turns devouring his pole. For a moment, Charlie's tongue slides off Rays' dick into my mouth, and in that moment I grope between his legs, and his cock is hard as granite and leaking pre-cum like crazy.

In a flash, Ray is on his feet. Freeing my ass from Charlie's thrusting fingers, he shoves me off the couch onto my back, then kneels down, one massive thigh on either side of my neck, and feeds me his cock, fucking away at my face as he reaches behind himself to work my aching, blood-filled hard-on with his hand. I can feel Charlie settling in between my legs, shoving them wide apart, and I hear him spit into his hand; then, before I can even think of resisting, he lifts my butt up and I feel his dick-head pressing into my asshole. My roar of shock as Charlie's prick rams into me is muffled by Ray's long, thick cock filling my mouth.

The fiery pain quickly dissolves into burning pleasure as the two men jab into me, Ray now bent over me in push-up position, sliding his oozing pole in and out of my mouth, and Charlie rutting his prick deeper and deeper into my asshole, his hand now stroking my cock, his touch surprisingly tender, as my butt muscles clench eagerly around him.

Ray eases out of my mouth, and holding his hairy cheeks apart with his hands, lowers himself onto my face, aiming his puckery pink asshole straight at my lips. My tongue spears out of my mouth to get at it, and the taste is salty and delicious as the broad muscles of his meaty butt cover me, smother me, his fur caressing my face as I lap at his smooth, slick insides.

I can feel my cock beginning to throb and twitch, swelling as it gets ready to shoot its load, and my fists batter the floor on either side of me. As Charlie pounds away at my burning asshole, Ray lifts himself up, kneels beside me, and covers my mouth with his, his beard scratching at my cheeks, his big lion-like tongue swooping into my mouth, washing out the taste of his cock and his asshole, as my dick blows, squirting my jism into the air as Charlie, with one last plowing push, yowls and fills my ass with his juice as Ray swabs my mouth with his spit.

Panting, Charlie pulls out of my asshole, and Ray, not lifting his mouth from mine, slides his big body over me, positioning his cockhead against my ass.

"Yeah?" he says.

"You gotta" is all I can say.

Charlie's juice has lubed my aching butt real good. Ray's massive dick slides into me as easily as my tongue slipped into his asshole. He's got both his powerful arms wrapped around my back as he begins to fuck me, easing his cock in and out of me in slow strokes, just an inch or two at first, then the whole length. I groan with delight as I feel the head pass even the deepest point Charlie had reached with his powerful thrusts.

I feel Ray lifting me, and suddenly he's on his knees, his butt resting against his heels, and I'm on his lap, with his cock pointed straight up into my guts, halfway to my heart it feels like, and he's got me circled in his arms, my smooth chest pressed against his hairy one. I squeeze his narrow waist with my thighs and work his cock with my asshole, easing myself up until only the head of it is still in me, then lowering myself till he's filled me again and the thatch of his crotch hair is scratching at my ass cheeks. My cock is rock-solid, and as Ray smashes me close to him, our tongues rolling over each other, my dick rubs against the solid walls of his belly, and I fuck myself against his fur and wrap my arms around his shoulders, trying to force him deeper and deeper into me.

"I'm gonna--" is all he says, and I can feel his juice flooding me, squirting up into me, and then running down over his shaft until it spills out my asshole in a warm, thick river. And I shoot again, the spray splashing his chest and belly with droplets of thick whiteness, dots of my juice all over his shiny, sweaty pelt.

With Ray's cock still in me, as comfortable as a sword in its hilt, I glance over to the couch, where Charlie, just a foot or so away from us, is working furiously at his dick, his big hairless thighs spread wide, his smooth ass cheeks exposed. "Fuck, that was hot," he grunts, working his spit-slimy shaft with both hands.

"You want some?" Ray says, grinning, and his cock twitches in my asshole. "You want my big ol' dick up your chute, Charlie?"

"Just try it, you fucking asshole," Charlie says, or tries to say, because his breath is coming out in heavy gusts, and his face is reddening, which makes his cool blue eyes seem even cooler, and just as he's about to shoot, Ray reaches over and rams a couple of long fingers right into Charlie's unprotected asshole. Letting out a howl, Charlie lets go of his cock, which sprays a jet of spunk over his stomach, his chest, up onto his lips, where he licks at it like a man crazy with thirst.

"Nice hole," Rays says, pumping a few times at Charlie's butt. "Some other time, I guess."

"I guess" is right, because, withdrawing his fingers from his buddy's asshole, Ray lowers me back to the floor, runs his tongue over my lips, and starts to fuck me again, in and in and in, and just as I close my eyes, the better to concentrate on the excruciating pleasure of it, I hear Charlie let out a sigh that sounds, to my ears, like the sigh of someone who needs a good, steady fucking, just like the one I'm getting.
 

THE     END