Cruising

This is a completed four-chapter novella that will complete posting by mid-June 2018.

*****

"You mean like tying me up?" I asked.

Though he was sitting across from me at the table in a shadowed corner of Merry's bar, the round table was very small and he was pressing his knees into mine under the table and gripping my forearm firmly in a strong hand. The sleeve of the overcoat was pushed up his wiry-muscled, shaved, and colorfully tattooed forearm, giving me goose bumps from knowing already what was underneath the coat. I wasn't going anywhere until he released his grip. As far as customers went, this one was a scary one.

"No, I mean trussed up—more than just tying." When he said this, he took an object out of his coat pocket that, at first glance, looked like those attached plastic rings that came on six-packs of soft drinks to hold them together from store to home. But these weren't plastic. They were a black material, thicker than the plastic rings and probably stronger, and there were only four round openings. They looked more like two attached pairs of handcuffs. He laid them down on the top of the table and I let my eyes stray to them on and off for the rest of the conversation.

I felt a shudder travel down my back, from fear, certainly, but also from something else. Something more arousing and provocative. It was the old groove thing I had been conditioned to. By Zack. I had learned that scary could be enticing and that pain could be pleasure.

"One hundred dollars," I said, naming a price that I thought would not be me saying no, but one that gave the conversation a chance of ending without it being my fault that I'd lost trade. I was enticed—that groove thing—but I also was scared witless.

Part of that was the man himself. He seemed so intense, and he was totally hairless. He had what I thought of as a death's head. Gaunt, almost emaciated, the skin tight over the high, pronounced cheek bones. A sneery smile. His head was bald and he had no eyebrows. He was tattooed, though. There was a design on the side of his neck disappearing down into the collar of the heavy black overcoat he was wearing. The tattoo wrapped around his neck and came up to under and around his left earlobe. He could have been anywhere from his mid-forties to early fifties. But an athletic forties or early fifties. Or he could be one who hadn't seen more meals put before him than absolutely necessary.

His stare from out of cold, steely, washed-out blue eyes was intense. I felt like they were boring right through me.

But he didn't flinch at the price. "Have you taken it rough?"

I just looked back at him. Would I be in this neighborhood, in this bar, if that wasn't the norm around here?

"And have you ever been sounded?" he continued, when I hadn't answered other than the look I gave back to him, which was enough of an answer.

I paused, shuddering again, with the tremble going through my body. He surely could feel it in the forearm he was gripping. "I've had it rough, yes. And I've heard of sounding—only heard of it," I managed to choke out. I waited for him to say it wouldn't be necessary, but that's not what he said when he next spoke.

"You're a sweet little piece," he said. "Don't look like you've been broke bad yet. I want to do you. Want to do you my way. Can't place what you are, though. Some black in you?"

"A little," I answered, not wanting to discuss this, but glad to move away from the topic of sounding so that I'd have time to adjust to it if I was going to. By the old 1 percent rule, one drop of black blood was enough; I was black. There were guys who wouldn't touch a black and others who wanted to punish a black. No telling if this guy was either of those.

He hadn't flinched at the quote of a hundred dollars. I had to pay Demont five hundred a week regardless—one hundred dollars each working day, he said. He claimed he gave us weekends off, but it usually took the whole week, seven days, down here in South Philly to feed both his demands and our needs. A hundred dollars went a long way for one trick.

I already knew that he'd fuck rough. He hadn't had to mention that. But at least he was being honest, laying everything on the table. Well, maybe. You never could be sure.

"A bit of black, yes. My father's mother, or so I'm told. He didn't stick around to welcome me. But my mother's Thai."

"So that's probably where much of the dark skin and small size comes from," he said. "Even the slight girly look."

I didn't respond to that. I was a mixed breed; anyone would say that from looking at me. And that's probably why I was here—in South Philly. On 10th Street in the Moyamensing area that once had been an Italian-American village south of Philadelphia and now was inside the city limits, near the Navy shipyard. It wasn't an active naval base, but there were Navy guys stationed here. The Navy Yard was really a holding pen for decommissioned naval vessels that were in reserve for the next sea war or were in limbo, waiting to find out if they were going for scrap or being sold to some third world country.

That was me too—in limbo in South Philly—barely existing, working at losing myself in a mixed-bag, almost-slum population that had widened out from Italian-American to black, Hispanic, Indian, Pakistani, Thai, Cambodian, and Vietnamese. And those had been here long enough for the nationalities to have broadened out to every mix you could think of.

I fit in here like I'd fit in nowhere else.

Even the proximity of the Navy Yard fit my profile and my comfort level. My father had been an American Navy man, so my mother had told me. That's who she went for in Bangkok's Patpong red-light district—American sailors. Even Zach, who had come much later, and who, for some unknown reason, considering how he treated us, had brought my mother and me to the States, was an American sailor.

Zach. The Zach of the groove. Zach, who kept my mother in the groove and who put me there too—and who caused me to leave home right after graduating high school and disappear into the mixed world of South Philly. But not before I'd been put in the groove.

Here I gravitated to sailors too. I wouldn't deny that that was what brought me here from Norfolk, where I'd settled in to letting sailors do me and got the hang of making them pay for it before I came up to Philly for more of the same. With more of the same without Zach being nearby being what kept me here in Philly.

So it was natural not only for me to be in this neighborhood but also to be near the Navy shipyard. It wasn't just the groove. It also had become my comfort zone—where I hid behind shields against any emotion when I let sailors get their dicks inside me. The sailors were easy pickings, really. Always randy; usually with cash to burn when they managed to get out of the base—if you could catch them soon enough. Often ready to do it with men, because men were all they saw for months on end at sea and they had to do it regularly.

"The sounding too," he said. "For a hundred and twenty-five." The mention of such a large sum brought my attention back to the table at Merry's.

I still hesitated, though. "And I'll pay for the room," he hastily added. "You have somewhere close we can go, don't you?"

"Yes," I said.

"Yes to the price or whether you have a room?"

"Yes," I repeated. Of course I had access to a room. Just two doors down from the bar, on 10th, was what looked like a duplex with a single front entrance up six steps from the sidewalk. No markings outside. It, in fact, was a by-the-hour flop house. There was no way I was going to take him to my own room, which was in the basement of a row house over in Packer Park, with its own separate entrance. There was no way I intended to tell any john where I lived. Demont didn't even know where I lived. My mother and Zack certainly didn't have the address. They didn't even know I was in Philadelphia. All my bridges burned. I assumed this was where I'd burn out—and alone.

The man I'd agreed to go with wasn't a sailor, I didn't think. More like a machinist, or maybe one of those mad small-flock preachers, sermonizing from a store front, trapping everyone with the strength of his stare. He wasn't anything like any of the men I'd gone with before.

I'd picked him up in the usual way—by walking the nearby Marconi Plaza park. I'd go to the park and walk the pathways, waiting to see what would happen. I didn't want there to be any misunderstanding here, so I dressed male. I only tricked out female when I went clubbing for something special. I was what they called androgynous, so I could go both ways.

I was small—but I was well formed enough. Have to say my dick wasn't small, though—not thick, but hanging low—which could be a problem when I tricked out. And my features were delicate—johns often told me I was beautiful rather than handsome, even when I wasn't tricked out. I wore my straight, glossy black hair to my shoulders and could just let it hang or I could style it when I went clubbing. My skin was a creamy brown and my features enough Oriental so that men looked at me twice, initially trying to figure out what I was, but more often than not going on to showing interest—and then want.

I didn't want trouble later when I cruised the park, though, so I was careful to dress male, as I did the day I hooked up with the man I thought of as the ghoul. Neither one of us shared names—even fake names. No name he had given me, though, would override my thinking of "ghoul" whenever I saw him.

I wore a tight athletic T that showed that I had hard pecs, rather than breasts, and short nylon running shorts cut up to the sides almost to the waistband that showed a bulge rather than a curve in the crotch. Just sandals on my feet. I didn't overdress. I needed to be in and out of clothes quickly.

He was sitting on a bench, swathed in a heavy black overcoat reaching almost down to his ankles. He had combat boots on his feet, the black, shiny leather tops disappearing up into the hem of his overcoat.

The first time I passed by I slowed down and smiled shyly at him in passing, making sure he saw me and giving him time and opportunity to speculate. I could tell he was interested, but I wasn't sure. There wasn't anyone else in the park showing interest, though, or I probably would not have worked him. There was something about him that was off-putting. He had the look about him of more trouble than I wanted to handle. Zach came to mind as I passed by this guy on the bench and then the groove came into mind too. And, as always, I was juggling the sensations of fear, dread, arousal, and enticement.

As I came close to the bench on my second pass, the man jammed his hands into the pockets of the overcoat and pulled the coat open from either side.

He flashed me, making me pause in shock, my eyes bugging out. He was completely naked underneath and hairless. It took a moment to realize he was naked, though, because he had full-body tattooing. His body was thin to the point of gauntness, but he was rock-hard muscled, wiry. And he was in erection, his cock not long, but unusually thick, the dickhead bulbous and a raging purple. He had what we in the trade called a fireplug dick. He smiled wickedly as I regained my composure and walked on by. He closed the coat only when I turned my head away.

I did two transits of the park before passing him again, looking for any other possible prospects. But there were none. With a sigh of resignation, I passed by him again. This time, after he flashed me a second time, I gave an almost imperceptible nod of my head. He had evidently been waiting for such a signal, because he rose from the bench after I passed and followed me at a distance. I walked out of the park and three blocks east on W. Oregon Street and then north two blocks on 10th Street.

Merry's, a hole-in-the-wall gay men's bar that few knew of and few were meant to know of, was in the basement of an end-unit row house, the first floor of which had been turned into a bodega. You had to go around to the alley and walk down some steps to get into Merry's. The sign over the door wasn't conspicuous and wasn't lit up at night. You either were a regular here, you were brought here, or you had been explicitly told what you could get here.

The ghoul followed me all the way into Merry's and sat across from me at a small, round-top table in the shadows. He ordered beer for both of us, pressed his knees into mine under the table, reached across the table and gripped my forearm, and asked me that first question: "You gonna let me truss you up when I fuck you?"

* * * *

I got flipped into the groove immediately upon entering the flop house room. We were barely inside the door and he'd let his overcoat hit the floor when he turned and surprised me with a vicious uppercut with his right hand to my jaw, followed immediately by a left to my solar plexus.

I fell to the floor and went into a reflexive fetal position. I'd been beaten running into sex before. Just like Zack. Just like Zack would do before taking me. And the ghoul kicked me where my hands were covering my belly and genitals, just like Zack would do. Already in the groove. He bent over me and, with rough hands, pried me straighter from my fetal position and started pulling at the few clothes I was wearing.

I was still moaning, seeing stars, waiting for the next blow when I realized that he had my shorts, T, and sandals stripped off me, had lifted me up by a grip in my hair, and was tossing me on my back on a sagging three-quarters bed with a brass-rung headboard and, because I knew this bed well, bedsprings that would scream and screech in the rhythm of the fuck.

There was no foreplay or preliminaries here. While I was still fighting for the breath he'd knocked out of my solar plexus, he had both my wrists and my ankles bound together on one knot in that double-handcuff contraction, with my legs and arms extended up and meeting above my chest. I thanked the gods that I was young and flexible enough to handle it, which wasn't to say that the position was comfortable for me.

So, this was what he meant by trussed. I was both fearful and curious.

He was on the side of the bed above my head, gripping me under my armpits and pulling me to where my head dangled over the side. His hands briefly ran over my chest and belly and then up my legs. His thick, erect dick was poking at my face.

"Nice. Very nice," he murmured. "You got it all. Nice long dick too. That'll be fun."

He proceeded to force his dick between my lips, cupping my chin with one hand and forcing my head back and holding his dick steady at the root with the other to give himself a straight shot. I opened my mouth as wide as I could and took his face fucking, which didn't reach the back of my throat, although I did gag a bit, but that threatened to unhinge my jaw.

Holding my head between both of his hands, he fucked my face, grunting and groaning, and continuing to whisper, "Nice, nice, nice," until, with a jerk and without vocal warning, he ejaculated down my throat. I gagged on his wad of cum. Before I could even lick the cum off my lips when he withdrew, he was there with a ball gag, which he forced into my mouth and tied off behind my head.

I was completely at his mercy now.

Then he went over and picked up his overcoat; moved to the only straight chair in the room, which was positioned beside a low dresser; and sat down, He was directly in my line of sight when I turned my head—and not more than six feet from where I was trussed up on the bed, my head still hanging over the side and my hair almost touching the floor. Despite my situation, I found myself trying, with little success, to make heads or tails out of the patterning of tattooing that covered his body. It did look like professional work.

Maybe that's what he was, a tattoo artist. But as quickly as that thought surfaced, I was pushing it to the back of my mind. I didn't want to know what my johns did for a living—unless they were sailors. I got an extra jolt off of being done by a sailor.

"Nice, very nice," he said again, as he stared at me with those steel-blue, lifeless eyes. He rummaged around in his coat and came up with a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. He also came up with a couple of condom disks, which he placed on top of the dresser next to him. He took several drags off a cigarette and then reached into the coat and pulled out a thin, oblong metal box, which he also placed on the top of the dresser next to him.

"This is gonna be real nice," he said.

I thought I was going to go mad if he didn't stop overworking the word "nice."

Another couple of drags on the cigarette and then he unlatched and opened the metal box. He took a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and fanned it out on the dresser. He took a thin metal rod out of the box, lifting it up, looking at me, and saying, "One," and laid it out on the handkerchief. This was followed by a second, longer and slightly thicker metal rod. "Two." And then a third. "Three."

I winced and writhed a bit, but I didn't want to do too much writhing in case I pushed myself off the side of the bed and onto my head. The floor was worn wood. There was no cushioning carpeting. I moaned through the ball gag. Now that it was here, I didn't want this. But now that it was here, there wasn't a damn thing I was going to be able to do about it. Unless, of course, he showed me mercy.

"Very nice," he said. "Gonna enjoy this a lot. You got it all. It'll be a long drive down into your nuts."

I couldn't help but moan at the sound of that statement. I was shaking my head back and forth, and turning it back in the direction of the chair, I found that he was gone. So was the handkerchief and the three sounding wands. Yes, I knew they were sounding wands. Yes, I knew what sounding wands were used for. Yes, I knew what he meant about driving them down into my nuts.

He pulled my trussed-up body across the bed until my head was back on the mattress. I felt my cock being pulled through my legs, and his mouth on that and on my balls. And finger or thumb, I knew not which, at the opening to my channel and then pushing in. I moaned at the invasion and at the moist, warm feel of his mouth enveloping my cock. I engorged for him—involuntarily, because I knew what he'd do when my cock was hard. But I couldn't help it. His lips and tongue were at my rim—and then the tongue was inside me.

I writhed against him and tried to curse at him, but he was holding my hips steady between his hands and the ball gag muffled anything intelligible I could be saying.

"Nice," I heard him say. "Yes. Fight me as you can. But once the sounds are in, you'll want to hold very still. It's a long drive down into those nuts."

He was exactly right about that—that I'd want to hold very still when a steel rod was being pushed down my piss tube. When my cock was hard, he started to work the first of the sounding wands into my urethra slit, slowly sinking it in and twirling it now and again to hear my deep moan and to meet that with a deep laugh.

"Hold still with that," he said, "Makes you wanna cum, don't it? If you can wait for the bigger one, you'll have one heck of a jack off. But now I'm gonna give you something else to think about. Woowee. Don't know as how I've ever buried this wand so deep. Little guys like you don't usually have anything to be proud of, and it's got to be a little guy with me. Perfect. You're just perfect for me."

I was quaking, hyperventilating, trying to keep very still. Feeling every inch of the thin alien metal running down inside my cock. And, yes, I was crying. But I was in the groove. This was new, a new experience. I had been bred for this, and I felt the cum rising deep in my balls—almost touched by the end of the rod, I thought. God, this was getting it all. The dark side of me was humming happily. If it was just this . . .