Slice

“Yeah. Lot of guys wanted to give me, you know, blowjobs.'

“No shit.” The big man appeared incredulous at the possibility of such a thing.

“Yep.'

“How many fags have you run into?'

“Oh, I dunno, I guess about half or maybe three-fourths of the guys that pick you up want to give you a blowjob.'

“Jeez, really? I can't believe there are so many faggots, eh?'

“Yeah.” The kid laughed.

“What do they say to you? I mean, how do they, uh, ask you ‘n that?'

“I dunno. They just say ... oh, different stuff. Sometimes they just come out and ask me if they can suck my cock. You know.” Like he was talking about the weather.

“How do you handle that?'

“Huh?'

“Well. You know. A young man like you, fifteen—almost sixteen like you say—and a grown-up guy ‘n all, but still, by yourself. What do you say to these faggots when they want to suck you or whatever?'

“I'—he shrugged with his face and arms and shoulders all at once—'uh, just let ‘em blow me, I guess.” A little pause. “I mean it's THEIR MOUTH, ya’ know?'

“Yeah. Right.” Their mouth. What a punk.

“But that's it.'

“Mmmm?” Eyes on the Interstate, waiting for the exit road.

“Nothing else. I mean I'll let ‘em give me a blowjob but that's it. Nothin’ else, ya know.'

“Right.” And then Daniel blinked and looked over at the boy and asked “What else do they try to do?'

“Some of ‘em'll try to fuck me in the butt if I'll let ‘em but I don't go for that shit. No fuckin’ way.” He shook his head. The driver said nothing. “For one thing I don't go that way, ‘n another thing, you know, you got to be careful now.'

“Izzat right?'

“Oh, yeah, that AIDS ‘n shit, man.'

“Oh, yes.” His mind had drifted elsewhere as he was watching for that road.

“This one kid I know in Lincoln, he's eighteen. He was getting guys to take him to the fuck movies, ya know, ‘n he'd let ‘em suck him off and butt-fuck him ‘n that, an’ like—onna weekend he'd make like three or four hundred bucks easy.'

“Really?'

“Yeah, an’ this one guy they found out, this guy was stickin’ him in the asshole alla time, he's got AIDS, man!” The kid laughed. It was funny to him to think about it.

“What's the wildest thing you've let a guy do to you?'

“The WILDEST thing?'

“Yeah,” he said with a dimpled smile. “Just curious, ya know?'

“This one guy'—the kid started to laugh but he changed his mind and said seriously—'he jus’ wanted to stick his tongue in my ass.'

“Jeezus.'

“Yeah. Crazy son of a bitch. You know, I go, Well, it's your tongue, man.'

“You let ‘m?'

“Yeah.” Shrugging again. “I let him eat my asshole out, what the fuck do I care, man? If he wants to stick his tongue up my ass that's cool.'

“What did it feel like?'

“Nothin'. You can't hardly feel nothin'. Just a tongue in your ass. That's about it.'

“Wow. That's pretty freaky.'

“Back home I'll make a couple hundred in two days just letting these three guys suck me off all weekend.'

“Two hundred bucks?” As if he were interested.

“Really. These same three dudes jus’ wanta suck my cock over and over. An’ they'll be beatin’ off or whatever, and I just let ‘em suck me and then another one'll start. And I don't have to do nothin'. I'll just mellow out, you know, an’ smoke or whatever, and just kick back.

And these three guys'll blow me over and over all weekend long. And they...'

Chaingang tuned out on the boring story of the kid's sex life as he planned what he would do next. He was pulling over onto a service road that ran parallel to the busy traffic.

“You a real-estate salesman?” the boy asked, snapping him out of his reverie.

“Right. Yeah. I'm a developer.'

“We gonna go look at a development?” the kid asked, not even knowing what he was talking about. He was hungry.

“Yeah. Well, no, not exactly. A land site. I'm considering developing the property.” There was a gravel road and he eased the car off the service route. A pickup zoomed by him, the driver in a hat with an ad on the front, and Chaingang saw the man lift a finger from the wheel in the universal rural motorist's greeting. Chaingang automatically smiled and lifted one of the fingers of his left hand from the wheel. There would not be much traffic along a road like this.

He drove about three miles along the gravel, the kid talking about blowjobs or whatever as Chaingang took the winding curves slowly. Cottonwoods and towering hackberries and maple, choked with weeds of every description, hung out over the road ditches that flanked the twisting gravel road, and you couldn't see opposing traffic until it rounded the curves and was right on top of you.

After three miles or so he came to a county blacktop and he drove slowly across it and up a mud road set into the face of a steep levee. It felt like he was standing the car straight up for a minute and the kid said, “We're out in the boonies.'

No shit, the man thought. Brilliant, punk. But he grunted noncommittally.

“Yep,” Chaingang finally said after they had eased down through the dark barrow pit, pronounced “barr pitt” by the people who lived there. “But this is potentially good property. You can still buy it right.” He mumbled some nonsense about land.

They drove slowly through a field that appeared to be maybe eighty acres or so planted in beans. And Chaingang stopped in a small access path that ran adjacent to a tractor turn row. He got out and the springs of the car groaned in relief. For the first time the boy got some idea of the bigness of the driver of the car.

“Let's go over and look over there. That's the part that I'm considering buying.” He intuitively knew that the kid had just felt a quick stab of uncertainty when Chaingang had gotten out of the car, and smoothing those feelings over now as he talked reassuringly of land and profits and business deals, popping the trunk and taking a blanket and some other things with him, and they began walking.

“All right,” the kid said as they walked through a crowded stand of willows and they saw the river for the first time.

“Man, it's hot,” Chaingang said to the kid as he pulled his huge shirt off.

“Right,” said the kid as he shook his head in agreement. Chaingang threw the old army blanket down on the bank under the willows. “We gonna stay here awhile?” the kid asked somewhat rhetorically as the huge man lowered his bulk onto the blanket and patted it for the kid to sit.

“Might as well be comfortable, right?'

The kid was relaxed now that he knew what the score was. He'd been down this road before. Big dude was all right. He'd get a ride and a blowjob and a big meal out of it, just like always. He sat very close to the big man.

“Man it's hot, ain't it?” the huge man said as he laid a gentle paw on the kid's Levi'd leg beside him. The boy seemed to move imperceptibly closer as he whispered, “Yeah. Really hot,” very softly.

“Slide outta those jeans. Let's see what all those fags have been sucking on,” Chaingang said to him, and the boy shrugged slightly and obediently began unbuttoning the fly of the bleached and faded Levi's. He wore cotton shorts and the big man said, “Take those off too.” As the boy was complying he felt something encircle one wrist and then another and his hands were suddenly behind him and there was a click as the steel bit into his wrists and