Broken Glass
The beer was too warm to drink, but the mug was too full to ask for a replacement. He sipped at it again and grimaced. Nothing worse than warm beer. No, that's not true, there's plenty worse than that. But in a situation like this one here and now, warm beer had to be the worst.
The situation here and now was this: Kelly Brackett, M.D. was technically drinking alone in the middle of the day in a tight, dusty, enclosed booth in the back of a disgusting dive miles from his given address, miles from his hospital, and miles from reality. The 'technically' was because he was also miles from actually drinking anything at this point. The alone part had been easy to arrange, because he'd made damn sure no one he knew or cared for could get anywhere near him before he was good and ready. It was the actual drinking part that was proving to be a challenge - it's hard to drink warm beer, and harder still when the reason the beer is warm is because you've been holding onto it for too long, warming it up with palms so pink from boiling blood that they make an amber lager look like cherry soda.
So he was poised to drink alone, but unable to drink a drop because the damned beer was too warm. And he couldn't bring himself to just pour three whole bucks down the drain to ask for a colder beer, when he knew his hot hands were just going to get the fresh mug boiling all over again.
Kel forced himself to sip at the the lip of the glass despite his disgust, and grimaced some more. Now it was beginning to go flat. "Lovely," he said under his breath, and slumped back in his booth. He looked at the rest of the bar from his hidey-hole, and grimaced. Nothing much had changed in the half decade since he'd last set foot inside the place. Everything was covered in dust. Even the pool table had a thin film on it, though he'd just seen a couple of guys having a friendly game a minute ago. Now his eyes scanned the room, and he found the pair on the split-level balcony across the room, near the fire exit. The game had apparently gotten too friendly for the wide open space of the pool table, and needed the semi-privacy afforded by a table for two.
Hurt and rage boiled just under the surface of Kel's skin, and he found himself wanting to hurl the glass at the pool players. Don't do it, he wanted to call across the dingy room. It never ends well, he'd say. But they looked genuinely happy in one another's company, the way he once had, before he'd decided there was no reason to come to the bar at all. In those days, no one could have convinced Kel that it would all come to this, no matter how inauspiciously things had started. There probably was nothing he could say to the two men playing footsie with each other that would convince either of them, either. He idly wondered which of them was the rough-necker, cattle-rancher type they were costumed as, and which one was the quiet tenderhearted cerebral type. The older one was probably the more bookish of the pair, he decided. There was no reason, really, except that, before last night, he'd have assumed it was the younger, because Kel had been the younger, and now Kel was older than both of them, and he was still quiet, tenderhearted and cerebral.
He tore his eyes away from the pair and looked around the rest of the cobwebbed space. It was practically empty, and most of the guys in the place were comfortably paired up. Not surprising, this early in the day. The hustlers and prowlers wouldn't show up until late, after work and dinner, after the kiddies were all scooted off to bed and the wives and girlfriends were happily catching up with their best girlfriends and grateful for a night off. They'd wait until the city was sleeping and the emergency rooms were quiet save for the most dire and surprising cases. Then the freaks would come out to play.
Kel didn't want a freak. He just wanted someone to scratch an itch for him. It didn't have to be a big deal. A lunch break tryst was about as risky and risque as he was feeling at this point. He was raw, wounded and oozing, and he didn't need the added complication of drugs or toys or sick fantasies. He just needed to erase that feeling, the flesh memory on his skin, his face, his legs, his belly, his ass. His hands. He had to wash his hands clean.
The main door swung open, and all Kel could see from his hiding place was a wedge of bright sunlight sparkling with dust. A man shaped hole cut through the wedge for a moment before the chunk of light slid away and left the bar swathed in dusty darkness again. Kelly expected to hear someone order a drink, or the joyous sounds of friends meeting up for a bite to eat, but there was no such change in the bar's background noise. After a moment, he realized he was straining so hard to hear this anticipated noised that his teeth were grinding together. He leaned back and forced his mouth open and huffed a breath. "Must be losing my mind," he muttered into his warm mug.
"Need some help finding it, partner?"
Kel looked up at the source of the voice so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. "Excuse me?"
The handsome stranger smiled down at Kel and tipped his felt cowboy hat in greeting. When Kel continued to stare in astonished and angry silence, the stranger leaned just the tiniest bit into the booth, pricking Kel's bubble of space with a wide, toothy grin. "You can't find your mind. Maybe you want a little help finding it." He licked his lips and canted his head just so.
Kel wasn't one to be charmed on a good day. This definitely wasn't a good day. He frowned deeply and pointedly looked away from the young man leaning over him. "You're trying too hard, and you're too damned young," he growled.
The stranger laughed easily and slid onto the bench across Kel, uninvited. "Too young for what? Not you," he said. Kel just frowned harder and kept his eyes on his lukewarm beer. "Hmm. Guess you're kinda babyfaced, then?"
Kel looked up slowly at the young man across from him. "What?"
"Well, I'm not exactly jailbait here, but you sure are acting like I am." He chuckled lightly. "Or is it that you just like em kinda... silvery?" The stranger twisted in his seat so he could slouch in the corner and watch the rest of the bar. "Well, you can just pretend I color my grays," he said and turned to lean his elbows on the table. "I'm Har-"
"I don't wanna know your name," Kel snapped. He ground his teeth and waited for the stranger to take the hint. There was no movement across the booth. Finally, Kel groaned and looked up. "What do you want?"
"I should think that would be obvious," the stranger said, though it was spoken without heat. "But maybe you don't know what kind of bar this is."
The corner of Kel's mouth twitched up. "Oh, I know exactly where the hell I am."
The stranger nodded slightly and sat back. "Well okay then. Then you should have a decent idea of what it is I want."
Kel glowered at him. "I'm nobody's daddy."
The stranger's eyebrows went up. "Really, partner, I'm no child. Let me assure you, I'm old enough to be sitting in this bar."
Kel grimaced and huffed an impatient sigh. "Congratulations."
The stranger nodded again, almost imperceptibly this time, and began to slide out of the booth. "I hope you get what you need," the stranger said quietly.
Kel knocked his head back against the high back of the booth and screwed his eyes shut. "You never answered my question," he said, though he was sure the young man was already gone.
He wasn't gone. "I want to get laid," came the quiet answer from over Kel's head.
Kelly opened his eyes and looked at the stranger, who was no longer full of sweet charming smiles and quippy one liners. He still looked young, but there was a seriousness to his countenance that made him a little easier to bear than this giddyup cowboy act he'd been trying. "When," Kel rasped.
The stranger shrugged. "Now'd be nice. I need to get back to work soon."
Kel narrowed his eyes at him. The guy was definitely doing a cowboy shtick if ever he'd seen one. Where in the hell in Downtown Los Angeles could you find a genuine cowboy that took hour long lunch breaks in seedy gay bars? "Where do you work, Knotts Berry Farm?"
The stranger cracked a smile - not the silly fake thing he'd been sporting when he first approached the booth, but a wry, self depreciating little grin. "No, actually, I work at a hardware store."
Kel looked at the hat. "They make you dress like that?"
The guy bristled a little. "It's casual Wednesday. I get to ditch the store uniform and wear what I want. I thought I'd put on my native attire instead of slicking it up like you airheaded jerks."
Kel raised an eyebrow. "Not from around here, huh?"
"No."
Kel nodded. "Thought not. You seem like you'd be more at home in Compton, or Palos Verdes. Maybe the valley."
"What?"
"That's where we airheaded jerks go to ride horses, cowboy."
The stranger rolled his eyes. "They're just clothes. I don't ride."
"Pity. They make your thighs stronger. Makes for a more interesting fuck."
"Hm." The guy stepped back from the booth, but he still didn't leave. "Do you ride?"
Kel glared at him. "Yes, actually." He took a sip of his beer and grimaced. He'd forgotten how warm it was.
"I wanna see."
"See what? Me on a horse?"
The stranger laughed. "No. I wanna see this interesting fuck."
Kel looked at him for a long moment. The guy was good looking, even if he was over doing it with the whole Bonanza/Gunsmoke thing. Maybe he'd do for a decent distraction... "How much time you got left?"
The stranger eyed him warily. "About forty minutes."
It wasn't much time, but the deed wouldn't take much time anyway. "Well, I'm free now, so -"
"Hold on." The stranger squatted next to Kel and looked up at him. He was definitely young, with soft, unlined skin. "Listen, when I was trying to pick you up-"
Kel held up a hand to stall what sounded like might be the stranger's whole life story. "Look, buddy, if you want a quick roll in the hay, that's fine, I'm all for it. I'm not interested in conversation, I don't really care about the history of your particular choice in hat, habitation, or inclination to traverse gay bars. You're here, you're alone, you want an itch scratched. Well, the same here, mister, so lets cut the crap and get on with it. Or you can try to find someone else a little later when you've got a little more time. Maybe I'll be here, maybe I won't. Either way, I'm not gonna wanna talk about a damned thing then either."
The stranger continued to peer up at Kel with wide eyes, eyes that looked like they'd never seen a rainy day, like the whole world looked to him like a beautiful endless blanket spread out into infinity. Kel wondered what this stranger, this kid saw in his own tired eyes, wondered if he could see the cesspool at the end of the rainbow. Whatever it was the stranger saw, it didn't scare him off. He got to his feet, took a step towards the nearest exit, and held his hand out to Kel. Kel sighed, pushed his warm beer away, and got to his feet on his own. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed the young man out of the darkness of the bar, into the bright heat of Downtown.
The cowboy's one-room apartment was in an old, rickety tower in the Diamond District. Kel decided there was no point in moving his car from the all day paid parking lot he'd chosen near the bar. The closest lot to the apartment was still four blocks away, which only cut the walk time in about half, plus the parking fee in the Diamond District was even higher. Twenty hours ago, Kel might have been concerned about following a strange man to a dingy fifth floor walk up seven blocks from his car, but twenty hours ago, Kel wouldn't have dreamed of eschewing work in favor of that particular bar in the first damned place. He followed the stranger up the stairs and waited patiently for the young man to fumble with his keys and allow them entry.
"Excuse the mess," the cowboy said, and kicked at a pile of papers near the door. He pulled his hat off his head, revealing a nest of fine blonde hair that had been combed over to unsuccessfully cover a bald spot. Kel didn't try to reassure the young man about the sanitary conditions of his apartment (or lack thereof), nor did he politely avert his gaze from the stranger's Achilles' heel. He just stared openly at the shiny spot that caught the glint of thrice reflected sunlight from the hi-rises that lined the blocks in this neighborhood. The stranger stilled, suddenly aware of Kel's very particular attention, and he colored, a deep, vibrant red. "Told you I wasn't so young."
Kel closed the space between them and tore his gaze from the young man's head to sneer in his face. "You're balding. That's not age, that's alopecia."
The young man snorted bitterly. "Give me a fucking break - you're not a doctor."
A glimmer of humor threatened to break through Kel's rage and despondence, but it died before he could do more than snort. "No, doctors have to be imported from other places. Too many airheaded jerks around here."
The stranger glared at Kel. "Look, are we gonna do this?"
Kel looked up at the young man's head again. He raised a hand and placed it gently on the crown, right over the the smooth center of the hairless patch of skin. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, he could almost pretend that last night hadn't happened.
Except it had, and there was no changing that.
Kel opened his eyes again and moved his hand quickly through the baby fine hair on the back of the head, to the strong, youthful neck and shoulders, over and down to the chest, to rest on the sternum. He could feel the power there, the thrumming of the young man's heart, the hard, supple flesh of baby smooth breast unmarred by hair or gravity's effects. Maybe this way he could understand. Maybe he could see how - no, don't dwell on it. Kel brought his other hand up to join the first, and slowly he gathered a bit of the young man's button down shirt in each fist. He held the young man's confused and wounded gaze in his. He took a steadying breath, and yanked the shirt open, sending buttons flying everywhere. Kelly closed the last of the distance between them, clamping his mouth on the young man's. He forced his tongue between soft lips and hard teeth, seeking out the thrill of an unfamiliar mouth, an unfamiliar body. He wrapped his arms around the young man and crushed their bodies together, grinding roughly. Finally, when he could feel the young man's surprise ease and his body yield to the contact, Kel pulled back and stared into surprised green eyes. "Yeah, we're doing this."
He pulled back roughly to wrestle with his belt buckle. The young man hesitated, but he began to undress quickly when he saw Kel bouncing from foot to foot in an effort to toe off his own leather boots. The young man paused and stared at Kel's boots as one went flying after the other - they were beautiful rich leather cowboy boots, the color of dark chocolate, and covered with intricate stitchery. He looked up at Kel, opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it as if he thought better about his chances of finishing this transaction, and disappeared around a corner. Kel ignored him and finished ripping off his jeans and boxers. He crushed them into a ball and threw them towards the door, grabbed his boots and threw them on top of his discarded pants, and stood in the middle of a stranger's tiny living space in open shirt tails and trouser socks. He turned towards the bed that took up most of the floor space in the cramped apartment and saw the mess for the first time. The dirty dishes and empty food containers all over the place didn't bother Kel, because he had no intention of putting anything in his mouth anyway. His main concern was the converted sofa bed: the covers were rumpled and cast every which way, but the sheets looked clean enough. He wasn't going to be touching much of the bed, anyway.
"Okay," the young man said breathlessly, returning to the main room with a jar of vegetable shortening. He opened his mouth again, and stopped, again. He stared at Kel, gaped at him, obviously stupefied. "Um."
Kel jerked his head in the direction of the bed. "On your back."
"Um?"
"On. Your. Back. Now."
The stranger nodded vaguely and shuffled towards the bed. "My back? You sure? It might be easier to get to me-"
"Anybody ever tell you you talk too damned much?"
The young man clamped his mouth shut and frowned slightly, but he lay back obediently, and popped open the shortening.
At this, Kel began to smile. It was a bitter, ugly grin. It was the kind of smile that contorted his face until it looked like a rage mask. The young man froze, eyes wide. He was probably wondering how good an idea it was to bring this mad man back to his nest. Kel did nothing to ease the young man's fear. He stalked towards the bed, his grim smile frozen in place. He climbed into the bed, crawled over the now shaking limbs of the terrified bird underneath him, and straddled the boy. That's what he was, for all his drama about a few shed hairs. A damn boy.
Kel reached into the jar of shortening and scooped up a healthy handful. He crushed his fist closed, warming and melting the stiff whiteness in the heat of his hands, hands that were too hot to hold onto a three dollar beer in a chilled mug in an air conditioned bar. The fat began to melt and drip down onto the boy's fluttering belly. "Have you ever been inside someone before," Kel asked. His voice was rough and almost unrecognizable to himself.
The boy shook his head slightly, but his breathing began to slow, and the tremors lessened. Still, he watched Kel warily, watched Kel's hand move down, to his tender manhood, watched while Kel touched the still pliable flesh lightly, and began to smooth shortening over him.
Kel reached for another handful, and arched obscenely, so that the boy could get a good look at his flexibility, so he could see Kel reach back and slip fat slicked fingers deep inside himself. For a moment, Kel forgot about his pain, forgot the humiliation and the shock, forgot the tatters of his private life - there was just this brief moment of half pleasure. But it wasn't enough. His hand couldn't reach that deep, raw itch inside himself, couldn't find the place that would blot out all the memories, all the everything. If he could do that, he wouldn't be straddling this insolent child.
Kel looked down at the boy, and was mildly surprised to see that he was being leered at. "What the hell are you staring at, boy?" He crawled up a little further, until he could reach back and line himself up with the now firm flesh that would relieve the ache in his mind and heart. "This ain't no fucking peep show," he said through clenched teeth as he leaned back and struggled to take the intrusion into his hot, sweat slicked body. He rasped for air, and everything dissolved except for the pleasure-pain that split him in two. The boy squirmed underneath him, eager to pump, but Kel twisted and held him down, one hand on a thigh, the other hard on his gut. "Wait."
"I can't," the boy said breathlessly.
"You will wait, or we're not doing this." The boy stilled, but he ground his teeth. Kel ignored him and waited for the pain to settle. Finally, his hips began to grind of their own accord, and he righted himself, turning and bending until he was staring at the boy's mouth, tight with tension. "Giddyup," Kel said quietly, and bucked. The boy hollered under him, and thrust. Kel straightened up, clamped his legs around the boy's hips, and rode it out. He pounded back with the boy's every upthrust, head thrown back, concentrating on nothing but the feeling of being fucked to within an inch of his life. The boy said something, but Kel didn't hear it. He was busy rocking, trying to position himself until -
-there! A hoarse cry ripped through Kel, as the fullness inside him hit his sweet spot, over and over and over again. Suddenly, he erupted from deep within, splattering his belly and chest, ruining the front of his already day old dress shirt, covering the boy underneath him in his spray. His whole body spasmed with the effort to process pure sensation, and then he collapsed over the boy.
A moment later, he felt himself filled with a wet warmth, and he vaguely understood what the boy had been trying to say. He wished he'd understood sooner - he hadn't meant to let the boy come inside him. It was too similar to - never mind. It was done. Kel pulled up, grunting, and rolled off the boy, eyes downcast. He felt a little sick. The boy was too young. Too young.
Kel staggered to his feet and went around the bend where the vegetable shortening had been procured. He found a little kitchenette tucked away in the alcove. He washed up quickly at the sink, using a towel he found hanging near the dish drain. He tossed the now damp towel at the bo- at his host, and walked stiffly to the door.
"Hey," came a weak voice from the bed. "I don't have to be at work for twenty minutes."
"Then take a shower."
The b- stranger gulped audibly. "Why don't you join me?"
Kel tugged his last boot on. "Because I'm leaving." He reached behind himself, yanked the door open, and turned his back on the fucking child in the bed. "Thanks for lunch, pardner," he growled, and slammed the door shut behind himself.