Dhalgren

Kid shook his head. 'No.'

'Then how'd you know?'

Kid shrugged. 'You just looked like you were somebody who might.'

'What's that mean?'

'I don't know.' Kid squeezed the tight muscle under the tissuey skin of Denny's arm. 'Maybe it's because you're strong. Like they said.' He put his leg over Denny's, then suddenly sat. He felt his hair brush the ceiling and hunched. 'You like that, hey?'

Denny grinned again, and held Kid's cock in his slick hand. Kid started to rock. Denny said, 'You like girls?'

Kid was surprised. 'Yeah.'

'You wanna fuck a girl?'

'Why don't you just open your mouth? Or turn over, huh?'

'Just a second. Lemme up—'

'Hey, look, all you gotta—' But Denny struggled up. Kid let himself be pushed away, annoyed and curious.

'I'll be right back,' Denny whispered, dropping over the edge of the board. Kid sighed and pushed his hand down between his legs. I may be crazy, he thought, but this one's nuts! He reached under his shoulder and pulled flat a fold of blanket. Look over the edge…? No. He stared at the ceiling that had brushed his head. Former owners had painted the cracked plaster white without spackle.

People came into the room.

She said, 'Where?'

Denny said, 'Up there, on my bed. Go on.'

The platform shook as someone started up the ladder. Kid looked. Her curly hair, confused with sleep, her astounded eyes, her smiling mouth cleared the edge. She said, 'Um…' then giggled, and then, 'Hello.'

'Go on up,' Denny's voice urged.

She looked back down. 'I am.' She came over the edge and crawled forward, breasts swinging out against her arms, in against one another.

She had once brought him whiskey in the bathtub when he had been fouled with blood. 'Hey!' Kid said, 'how're you?' She smiled again and pulled herself to sit cross-legged, with lots of dark hair in the triangle of heel, heel, and groin.

Denny came up too, leaned on his forearms, grinning.

I am being used, Kid thought. For what, I am not sure.

'So what are we supposed to do now?' Kid asked.

'He likes to get his dick sucked,' Denny said.

The girl reached out, with the tip of her tongue in her teeth.

'Hey!' Kid said to Denny, 'You get on up here!'

Denny's expression went momentarily blank. Then he scrambled up onto the platform. The girl giggled again, and suddenly fell against him. 'Hey…' Kid caught her, and while she laughed, he scraped his shoulder on the wall and hit his elbow. She didn't let go his penis.

Denny tried not to giggle and was saying, 'Come on now. Be quiet…' He had scooted to the corner, and rocked and hugged his knees.

'Hey…' Kid said again and moved a boot (Denny's) from under his shoulder. Something in the midst of the pressure tickled his chest. He looked down. She had her face against him: it was her eyelash opening and closing. 'Hey,' he said a third time, and caught his hands in her curly hair and pulled her head back.

She just said, 'Annnn…!' He kissed her. She grabbed his shoulders up near his neck and pushed back with her tongue. He held himself up with his left hand, mashed the softness of her shoulder with his right, of her breast, of her belly. When he pushed his middle fingers against the flesh folded in her cunt, she swung up her knee, with shaking calf and thigh. The entrance was soft, Inside his fingers found a sloppy firmness that slowly gave and grew softer. She made lots of little noises, and her hand on his penis became maddening as feathers. Trying (and succeeding) not to take his tongue out of her mouth, he moved around her, crawling over her large thighs, and wedged himself between them. He pulled out to go in again, and opened his eyes to find hers wide and staring toward Denny. But they came back to his, and at the same time she swung her legs up around him like hot pillows. He dug in her with penis and tongue, yet something changed gears inside him; he let it slow, and from the slowness build. Curious himself, he looked up with jogging sight. Denny, moved forward to his knees, with cantilevered cock, his mouth slightly open, and closing — mumbling things too soft to hear.

Kid turned his face against hers and momentarily saw himself surrounded by soft, by wet, by warm. He thrashed out in it, and came; a single, intense spasm that left her rolling under him and sucking at his mouth, the hard place between the mashed breasts pressing against his. Not felt since sometime far back in adolescence, he wanted violently to be free of physical contact. He rolled from her, feeling silly, while she caught her breath and the cold slapped his sweaty thighs and stomach — as he knew it had slapped hers. That wasn't it either. On his back he worked himself against her again; she made no protest, but turned to push her face against him. 'Hey…' He raised one arm to slide it beneath her head. 'Hey, come here.' With the other, he motioned to Denny.

Denny stretched his legs out and slid over. Kid caught him around the shoulder. Denny lay down, put his leg over Kid's, his cock a small bar across Kid's hip. 'You didn't come, did you?' Kid asked her.

'Um,' she said, surprised, and blinked at him.

He tugged at Denny without looking at him. 'I shot my load and your girl friend hasn't had hers yet. Get down there and do something about it.'

'Huh?' He felt Denny push himself up on one elbow.

Kid licked her nose. She squinted. 'I want to watch you eat my come out of her pussy,' which was patently untrue. That's what I'm being used for! He wanted to watch her face; her eyes were half-closed, glistening slivers between the lashes. Her upper lip brushed and brushed the lower. Denny's neck was two hard bands with a valley between. Kid pulled it forward. 'Go on, do it.'

Denny grunted his protest. The girl suddenly looked surprised.

Kid clamped his hand on Denny's neck, in time to see fear below the protest. 'Go on, motherfucker. Or I'll bust your head open!'

Denny swallowed and dropped his face.

Kid closed his fingers in the yellow hair, pushed the bobbing head and rocked it, less roughly than he thought he should.

She said, 'Oh…' once and moved her leg. He looked at her: she kept the surprised expression. Inches away from her face, he questioned her with his eyes (she wouldn't answer), kissed her gently, harder, till at last she closed her eyes — tight — and began to gasp. He felt her hand touch and avoid his in Denny's hair, so let go (but pressed his leg against the boy's back) while he kissed her. He caressed her limp, long breast, rolling on her ribs. A heavy girl of… seventeen? Eighteen? Older than Denny; still a child. Her soft tongue blunted on his hard one. He held himself away from her, touching her only with hand and mouth. Once her hands hit his at his arched belly, returned to Denny's hair, and he heard the boy gasp. Denny was flexing on the wrinkled blankets as his head rocked and wobbled. 'Unn…' she said, 'Unn… Unnn… Unn…' Then she squealed and clutched him.

Kid dropped on her, gathering what was soft about her sides between his hands and elbows.

'Get your fucking knee off my head,' Denny said.

With the tips of her fingers, she climbed Kid's back, and sighed, and tightened her hands in their climbing.

Denny pulled free of their legs and flopped against Kid.

'How you, sloppy-face?' Kid put his arm around Denny. The boy buried his chin, already cold, in Kid's shoulder. 'Do you do this to everybody who drops by for a blow job in the morning?'

'It's her idea,' Denny said.

She giggled and said, 'It is not!'

Kid felt the boy's groin against his hip, 'Denny's still got a hard-on,' he told the girl. 'You want to take him on front and center?'