Published in Stallions and Other Studs, Scott O'Hara (ed), 1995
Posted to Internet circa: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 [Usenet]
Stored on The Nifty Archives
* * * * *
The band plays on the stage. The air is blue with smoke, hot, and reeks of Miller and Budweiser. The kids cluster round the stage. The typical crowd -- jeans-clad, long haired, leather-jacketed, tattooed, dancing to the music. Wild. Pretty. I lean against the bar. I'm finishing a beer. And I'm watching him.
He doesn't dance. He thrashes.
I don't know what his pretty blue eyes see; they're clenched shut. He doesn't seem to care what's around him anyway. It's the music that holds him -- the roaring guitars, the throbbing bass, the wolf-like howl of the long haired lead singer.
He twists and turns in his thrash, carving a path in the crowd like a knife slashing into flesh. He doesn't care about the dancing crowd. He's a tornado, caught up in the wild jetstreams of the atmosphere around him: amplified, magnified, intensified. A young bundle of muscle and jeans.
His hair, if it hadn't been soaked with sweat, might be wheat blond. It's now the color of wet khaki. It's long, full. Wet strands of it reach out like the arms of a huge octopus. In quiescent moments between songs I see it hanging lank and exhausted between his heaving shoulder blades. Drops of sweat like little diamonds fly from it when he thrashes.
His face isn't pretty. It's beautiful. It's a man's face, softened with an eighteen-year-old's beauty. Eyes bright like crystals in the hot light. Pretty pink lips pouting when in repose, snarling when not. Strong jaw.
His shirt is gone. His torso tapers ever so gently down to his waist. Big pink nipples on a slim but well- muscled chest. No hair nestles on his nipples or between his pecs; even his flat belly is bare. A small, wet tangle of hair, looking like seaweed spit up on a beach, shows when he raises his arms. The muscles in his back cord and knot like mating pythons.
His jeans cup his beautiful ass like a hand holding an egg. The seam rides high up his crack. The legs of the jeans are ripped, torn up into white strings. Wide swaths of smooth flesh peek through. There are two big rips right under his cheeks.
He isn't wearing underwear.
I drain my Bud. It's warm, but I don't really care. My ears ring from the music. I slam the bottle down. The bartender -- a tall amazon, black haired, her left arm thrust through a spiralling snake tattoo -- brings me another. I give her money.
The music stops. The silence is painful. Blood hammers in my ears.
The lead singer is named Wad. He screams into the mike, "
Youfuckershadenough
?
"
The reply is primal and comes from many throats: "Fuck no!"
"
Whatthefuckmoredoyouwant
?
" The words bleed together as Wad rams them out.
"Fuck you!" a solitary voice rings out, snarling like a lion.
I know it's him.
"
ShityoufuckerI'llbeatyourgoddamnedfuckingass
!
" Wad's eyes are wild, his hair is a phosphorus explosion centered on his face. He's flying on coke, meth -- but they're just the sweet notes of the symphony, not the blistering theme.
"Play some fucking music!" Him again.
Fuck
is the dominating word of this conversation, and it is always shouted at a roar.
"What do you want to hear, fucker?" It's the guitar player. Wad's got a temper, goes off like a premature ejaculator in a porno shop. The guitar player is the peacemaker.
"Play some fucking music, asswipe!" A one track mind.
Wad snarls, throws a bottle into the crowd. Graceful as a stalking leopard he turns, spits something to the band, and the music explodes again. There are reasons that heavy metal bands are fascinated with nuclear weaponry -- the volume of both cannot be believed until heard.
The thrashing starts again. All rationality surrenders to the throbbing power of the music. I rest the cold bottle of Bud against my crotch. The coldness wars with the raging bulging heat straining to escape from that prison.
I want him.
I take a deep slug of Bud. I slip my right hand into my pocket. There's no lining in it, and I'm not wearing underwear -- I haven't worn underwear since I was twelve.
My cockhead is hot under my palm, like a hot coal or a sizzling chunk of beef. I work the foreskin a bit. A dribble of precum leaks out. It starts to run down my leg. I slip my finger under the skin, dig out some cheese.
I leave it on my fingertip for a moment. Some bimbo is looking at me. I don't know how old she is. Younger than him. She's in full regalia -- three nose rings, seven ear rings of silver daggers, jeans on her fat thighs like thin paint. Her Megadeth T-shirt's been ripped. You can see her bloated boobs. Her eyes are bright as she watches me finger my hardon. Her lips are parted.
I spit at her.
She scurries out of her chair like a startled crab. She vanishes.
I pull the cheese out of my foreskin, smear it along the underside of my cock. I can smell the rich odor even in the bar's reek. My cock throbs in my jeans. I always do that, my private ritual I make to the wild gods of lust, when it's time to fuck.
The band thunders into a new song. I recognize it. It's the song I came to see them for. The music vibrates the concrete, rattles my boots, quakes the big bones in my thighs, stirs the hot semen in my balls. This is the song I live for. It's about stalking through the woods with a feral gleam in the eye. It's about raising a sharp sword and smashing it downward in the fury of war. It's about erections and sweat and tongues and muscles. It's about tilting one's head back and roaring at the sky.
This is the song about being male.
I down the beer. As I gulp little rivulets escape and run down my chin. I slam the beer down. A rush of liquid flame boils up from my crotch, pours up my spine, explodes into my brain.
Maybe I howl. I rip my shirt off, and I thrash to the music.
Hot, sweaty bodies collide against mine. There is energy in the collisions; I am gripped in the power, and I buck like a horse being broken. I don't see anything. The music doesn't require sight, it's a universe complete in itself. You can discover the texture of the song's reality as you ride the red waves behind your eyelids, as you feel the lightning erupt deep in your chest. You can feel your internal organs throb, pummeled by the sound.
I think,
Civilization sucks
. It's an instant of crystal clear thought. Then it's gone, tossed away in the torrent of noise.
The song rises. The guitarist break free, soars into his solo. The drums hammer. Did the gods in the old days have music like this? Did they trip on the glorious high of sound?
Then it ebbs, dies. That incredible universe fades around me. I open my eyes.
It's him.
His eyes are fixed on mine. I notice, for the first time, that his eyes are green. The green that's the color of one of Captain Kirk's old uniforms. The green that's the color of sunlight on spring leaves.
He grins. "Bad song, dude, ain't it?"
His jeans are wet with sweat. Looking down, I can see his bulge. I think his cock is hard. Music does to him what it does to me. I've stopped with my legs spread. He's between them. The insides of my knees are a half inch from the outside of his.
I encompass him.
Sweat glistens on the expanse of his chest like a polish. Streams of it pour from his underarms like little Niagras. His pectorals swell ever so gently, and sweat's beaded on his nipples. A pool of it has collected in his navel. He is smooth. Not the slightest hint of hair on that tanned torso.
We are two males, crotch to crotch.
"Ain't it, man," I say. I lift my eyes from his crotch to his face. His odor is incredible. Everyone in this fucking crowded bar has got to be able to smell this man. It's testosterone perfume. Ripe testicles dissolved in man sweat, sweetened with semen, steeped in jeans and jockstraps and jockeys. "Like your moves," I say. "What's your name?"
He grins easily and slowly. Pretty lips. I want between them. "What the fuck do you care, man?" He's dangerous. He starts to turn away.
I grab him. I seize the top of his pants, hook my fingers into the waist, swing him around. The knot of the top button presses against my palm. The blood is pounding in my crotch. The backs of my fingers are pressed against his groin. I feel muscles and smooth sweaty flesh, but still no hair.
"What's your name, man?" I demand. Another song has started.
He shifts his weight. If I hadn't been holding him by his wet jeans he'd have fallen. His eyes are hooded, like a wary snake. His face is stony.
Something is stirring down there.
"Name?" I demand.
"Josh." His voice is raspy.