Flea Circus

R came up behind me and pressed his erection against my right buttock. Then his arms encircled me, as he shifted left, and his penis pushed deep within the folds of my pale ass. "Come back to bed," he urged.

I said nothing.

"What are you doing?" R asked.

I sighed. "[I] couldn't sleep."

"I can see that, but what are you looking at? The black-out curtains are down."

After a pause I replied: "I peeked out a little while ago."

"You opened the curtains?"

"And I think one of the buildings downtown has been hit by a drone. There's this bright orange gash in the sky and I think it's in the downtown area."

"You opened the curtains?" R repeated.

"All I did was peek out. A quick peek."

"There's, like, a five hundred dollar fine for opening a black-out curtain."

"I didn't open it. All I did was peek out."

R's circular grip around me tightened, like a noose. "You shouldn't be looking out the curtains," he advised.

"All I did was lift it a little and peek out. No one could see. Besides, it's, like, three in the morning. Who would be watching?"

"They have cameras everywhere."

I fell silent and R tugged at me. Tried to tug me backwards. "Come back to bed. I'm horny for you again."

"I can tell."

"No, I'm serious. Come back to bed."

"I won't be clean," I protested. It wouldn't be like yesterday, when I douched myself, twice, before we had sex the first time. And then, a couple hours later, a second time. And a third time late in the evening, before we went to bed.

"I don't care," R claimed, his arms cinching me tightly once more. "We can jump in the shower afterwards. Better yet," he went on, "we can do it in the shower. And then rinse off afterwards.

"Come on," he again urged, this time tugging me to the left, toward the bathroom. My bare feet remained fixed in place on the parquet floor, however. The fake wood.

"Not everybody gets horny when there's a war on," I protested, awkwardly. Perhaps, in place of "when," I should have said "because."

R's grip lessened. "Look. You said you saw a drone hit a building downtown. Well--"

"I said I saw a building on fire downtown. Probably hit by a drone."

"Whatever. Up high like we are? A drone could hit this building [at] any moment. It could hit this window you're looking out of and we'd both be dead."

(I wasn't looking out the window.)

"I say," R went on, "until that happens enjoy yourselves. Relax. Have fun."

R jostled me.

"[And] don't be a prude," he added.

My head snapped to the left. "I'm hardly a prude. Was I a prude all those times yesterday?"

"I don't know. All you did was kneel there. And moan."

"I'm a bottom. What was I supposed to do?"

"Show some emotion? Something. Tell me you love me afterwards..."

I couldn't bring myself to say the words. Then or now.

R's right hand drifted down to my penis, which stood erect. "What's this?" he said. He almost laughed.

"I can't help it."

"There you go again...," his hand commencing a slow stroking motion. "Denying yourself pleasure. Did you cum once yesterday?"

"Inside? Many times."

"Did you let me stroke you? Give you pleasure?"

R answered his own questions. "No. You just pulled your little panty back on and pretended it [my penis, my erection] wasn't there. You're a selfish prude."

My head snapped left again. "How can you call me selfish [and a prude]?"

"Selfish toward yourself I mean. You're always denying yourself."

"Maybe I get off [on] denying myself," I said. Nearly adding: "Maybe you should try it sometime."

R let go of my penis. "You're weird." His encircling grip on me had gone slack.

A blessed moment or two of silence passed. We'd only been together a few months. And things were already starting to unravel.

"You--"

"We're getting low on food," I told him.

"So?" R shrugged. "We'll go out tomorrow and get some. Or rather you will. I have work to do."

"If the all-clear's given," I pointed out. I hated it when R made me feel like his wife. His housewife. My mother had been a housewife. And nothing more. It was the life she wanted.

"Why wouldn't it be?" R asked. "We're not in any imminent danger."

"Downtown's only, like, twelve miles away."

"Well, that's twelve miles."

"They're getting closer."

"Well, you can go live in the basement if you're [that] worried [about it]."

After a pause I said, "I'll go early in the morning. That way the lines [at the grocery store] won't be so long."

"Go whenever you like," R said dismissively. "I need to get up early too. I've got work to do. We can fuck again in the afternoon," he added.

Subtext: I have a job; you don't. I support both of us. You do the shopping; the cleaning. And you bottom for me whenever I want it. Like now. R's arms tightened around me once more. I could feel his warm breath on my nape.

"We could do it right here," he suggested, somewhat maliciously. "You wouldn't have to move an inch. I could fuck you and you could stand here staring at the [black-out] curtains. You wouldn't even have to do anything except...take it. I'll get the lube."

"I'm not in the mood."

"That's what I'm saying. You don't even have to be in the mood. All you have to do is stand here, and take it. I'll do the rest. Then we can jump in the shower and [then] go back to bed. I have to get up early. So do you."

R released me. His erect penis left my crack. He retreated.

When I was younger, about R's age, my uncle (great-uncle technically) on my mother's side left me his famous (infamous) flea circus. I would have preferred money--cash--like some of my other relatives got, but I had no say in the matter. I had to borrow a friend's SUV to drive across state and pick the thing up.

It was about three feet by four feet and consisted of a flat wooden surface with a short wooden skirt on all four sides. On one long side, the operator's side, was a [hidden] button. On top of the table was a miniature amusement park for the [imaginary] fleas to perform their [imaginary] tricks upon: a see-saw, a ferris wheel, a merry-go-round with tiny horses...other devices.

Underneath the table, in its middle, was the motor, the deus ex machina, that operated all these things. It ran on batteries. The diodes, if that's the correct term, were badly corroded. My uncle, it seems, hadn't operated his "circus" for years, if not decades. I had to hire an electrician to fix the thing.

Actually I ran an ad in the M4M sex personals. In between running back and forth to The Home Depot the electrician fucked me, several times, obsessively, as payment. But he did get it [the circus] running again. After that he disappeared, thankfully, from my life. I think, possibly, it was he who gave me Herpes.

At any rate I invited some friends, as well as one relative, a distant cousin, who was also gay, to my apartment for a demonstration [of the circus]. After serving drinks I stood on the button side and opened a glass jar and pretended to dump fleas out onto the circus. A moment later I pushed the button with my right knee and the glorified miniature amusement park came to life. The fleas appeared to jump and spin and circle and whirl like infinitesimally tiny, happy children.

"Wow!" more than one of my amazed friends said. "Unbelievable! Fleas! Look at 'em!"

"Who'd of [have] thunk it."

My obnoxious cousin demurred. "I don't see any fleas."

"They're tiny," I insisted.

"Not that tiny. I have a cat--two cats--and they have fleas. I know what a--"

"Well you should treat your cat[s]."

"It's not that simple," he protested. "Fleas are...insidious."

"They're nearly invisible."

"Not if you look hard enough. Fleas are like...God."

"What's god got to do with it?"

"God created the flea."

"What kind of god would infest his creation with fleas?"

"All living things have a purpose in life," my obnoxious cousin theorized. No, stated as fact. "Frogs eat bugs, snakes eat frogs, et cetera, et cetera."

"And who eats a flea?"

After a telling pause my cousin replied: "Cats eat fleas."

"No they don't. They scratch [at] fleas. That's it. A flea has absolutely no purpose in life except to torment. It's like, I don't know, war."

"What do you know about torment [and war presumably]?

"I've had it. I'm leaving...," my cousin announced. Actually he was a first cousin, now that I think about it.

Meanwhile the other men I'd invited over had turned to one another. Two stood kissing on the far side of the table, where the fake fleas cavorted. Two others were on the couch, on the far side of the coffee table, half-undressed, doing 69. It was good to see that my uncle's circus had had a positive effect.

At the apartment door I trailed my cousin. He turned back.

"I'll fuck you for a hundred dollars," he offered.

I blanched. "That would be incest."

"It's not like you can get pregnant," he smiled.

"I don't have a hundred dollars. I'm flat broke."

"Not so broke you couldn't get your uncle's flea circus back up and running."

"It was gifted to me." (I left out the part about the horny electrician.)

"It should've been mine."

"He gave it to me," I insisted.

"He barely even knew you."

"I spent a week with him when I was, like, ten."

My first cousin laughed. One note. "Give me the flea circus, turn it over to me, and I'll fuck you."

"Now?"

"Now. Afterwards you help me load it into my car [SUV]."

I offered my cousin a condom but he insisted on barebacking me. Perhaps it was from him I got Herpes. He seemed to ejaculate four of five times in me. At least that's the number of times his diminishing pleasure cries rang out, in a duet with mine, as he inseminated me.

Afterwards I helped carry the flea circus, sans fleas, out to his SUV. It barely fit. I wore nothing but my panty. I didn't give a shit what my neighbors thought, or said. I was about to be evicted anyway. Fuck 'em.

My cousin used to invite me to his soirees, at his relatively palatial house, where he showed off "his" flea circus. But I never went. Why should I? I already knew the trick.

These things, and others, I thought about as I stood in place staring at the black-out curtains, and the fire beyond, and the doom to surely come...