Dhalgren

  Leaning against the water tank, Kid saw the splotched dummy looped in chain-before the door swung to.

  "I'm in here."

  Which is where the Harley had been moved.

  "How come you get a room all by yourself . . . ?" Kid asked, realizing with the last word that three of the bundles among the shovels (why shovels?), pipes, lumber, and canvas, were people in sleeping bags.

  Someone had built a loft.

  Three steps up the ladder, Denny looked back over his shoulder. "You come up."

  Denny's boots went over the edge. Kid climbed. The planks (they gave some with his hands and knees) were strewn with blankets. The size of a double bed, the platform was without pillow or mattress. "I keep all my shit up here," Denny explained, pushing himself back among wrinkled cloth. By his left hand was an army compass, a green shirt (with gold trim) fresh pressed and wrapped in plastic, a dagger whose handle was a ball-in-claw, and a gaming case on whose outside were long, alternately black and black-outlined triangles for backgammon.

  Kid crawled forward through army drab and a weave of paler green rippled through with an electric-blanket cord. In the window that rose above the platform, a mottled shade let tan light on the tangle. He pulled his feet under him to sit and realized his arm was shaking. "How come you don't have half a dozen people sleeping up here with you?"

  "I tell 'em to get the fuck out." Denny's hands lay knotted in his lap.

  A zodiacal poster hung on the wall: Scorpio. And another of Koth, the Dark Angel. "It's sort of nice up here," Kid whispered. His throat was tight. I'm scared of him, he realized. And I like him. "Get the rest of your clothes off."

  "Why?"

  Kid let out a breath. "Nothing." He thumbed open the top button and tugged down his zipper. "Go on." He pulled his penis and testicle free of the closing V of brass teeth and let his shoulders relax against the plywood wall.

  The ceiling would not let Denny stand. With hunkered back and crouched knees, the boy walked across the bedding, his arms swinging like a skinny blond ape. And fell. Kid flexed his knee under Denny's hand. Denny's hair swung forward, brushed Kid's belly.

  His mouth is cold! Kid thought, and pulled his hand away a little sharply. Then he realized that it was only that the boy's lips were wet. Heat covered his thickening penis. He bent his knees and clamped them on Denny's thin flanks. He pushed his hand down his stomach, through moving hair. Saliva in his wiry groin was already cool. "That's good. Make it wet." His fingers butted the base. He pushed back Denny's hair, suddenly bending (and failing) to see the flattened cheeks, the distended mouth. The hair fell back. He cupped the back of Denny's neck. An image of the corpse in the shaft made him let his breath; he wished it hadn't. An equally surprising urge to smack the bobbing head away. Kid grunted, "Unn . . ." and then again, "Unn . . ." and had to close his eyes at the sensation. He pressed his palm against the warm ear. The head moved up and his penis was cold.

  "Is it okay?" Denny asked.

  "Yeah . . ."

  Heat fell down it like a loose ring. His scrotal sack loosened between his thighs, then shriveled when spit ran down his leg, inside his pants. The moving head shook Kid's arm to the shoulder. He reached for Denny's shoulders. Denny tightened his fingers on Kid's thigh, let go, let himself be pulled up to lay with his chest on Kid's, a clutch of chain and crushed vest between them.

  Denny's face was hard and amazed. "What you want?" All the small muscles of chin, cheek, and jaw were visible.

  Kid rubbed Denny's back. "I want you to take the rest of your fucking clothes off." Denny's skin was hot and dusty dry.

  With his other hand, Kid reached between them to move his cock, caught between creased denim.

  Denny jerked back to his knees, took a breath, and began to unzip his pants. Kid thought: he doesn't want me to touch his dick. Something like anger gathered in his stomach.

  Denny said softly and hoarsely, "You don't have to take yours off." He worked his jeans back beneath his knees, stopped to pull handfuls of chain from his neck.

  Kid scratched his belly. Denny stopped all motion, his eyes caught Kid's groin. Something happened in Kid's throat and to his mouth that it was easy to think was fear, was easier to think desire.

  Kid's cock, hardening, rolled up his thigh.

  Denny's throat released the little air he tried to hold.

  "Take your pants off . . ." Kid checked anger against desire. Checking only spilled the anger into his voice. "Go on . . ." Desire remained, a heavy heat under his stomach.

  Denny sat back to pull off his boots. On the right, the outer half of the heel was worn to the leather. He pulled the left off more quickly. Loops of chain fell around his ankle. The knob of bone divided three strands from four: a dog's choke collar, wrapped several times. Denny leaned back to pull his pants off.

  Kid looked at Denny's hands, Denny's feet, Denny's groin. His own back, against the wall, was slightly stiff. Denny, changing the texture of his movements, now began to fold his jeans, not looking at Kid. To relieve his shoulders, Kid sat forward. Then he reached out and pulled the jeans out of Denny's hands and tossed them in the corner with the boots and blankets. Denny's expression, as his eyes sought something other than Kid's, moved from confusion to belligerence.

  Kid smiled, and the smile became the soft laughter for a house full of sleepers. "Come on."

  Denny pushed himself forward. Then he said hoarsely: "That's pretty funny I should freak out now, ain't it?" The dry, hot skin brushed Kid's, pressed Kid's, a hand between their shoulders: heel hard, four light pressures and the length of thumb. Kid looked down at where the black-lined nails touched him. He reached around Denny's shoulders to cover the boy's fingers with his own. Child's? he thought. And then, with concern: Why has this child brought me here? He tightened both arms across Denny's back: Denny was shivering. "Hey . . ." Kid rubbed the boney stalk of Denny's spine down to where the flesh thickened and became soft. Then up. Then down. "Hey, cut that out. What's the matter?"

  Denny still shook. "Nothing."

  I'm afraid. And I want to stop this. Shit, no! "Come on, then. You try to relax." Kid worked further from the wall across the piled blankets. Holding Denny on top, he made a rocking motion. Denny turned his face away so that the side of Kid's face was all a-brush with yellow.

  "If we just lay around like-"

  One of the people under the loft turned over. And Denny stopped breathing for the count of three; then went on:

  "-like this, we ain't never gonna do nothing."

  Go on and do what you want then, was anger. With the sentence in his mouth unsaid, Kid realized: I'm twelve years older than him. He said, "Get down there and suck it," which, at the scrambling over his chest and stomach and the welling heat in his groin, he knew was lust. He reached for the hair and hunched shoulders between his legs. With his leg, he rolled Denny over on his side, pushing and pushing. Denny held Kid's thighs. Their congress was intense and diligent, till Denny, not holding him, was hammering near Kid's hip. "Okay . . ." Kid panted, and let the boy go. A quarter toward orgasm Kid hunkered down to press his hard groin on a hip, a thigh, something.

  "Hey . . ." Breathing hard, Denny lay on his back. He raised his hand, glistening knuckles, strung with grey mucous. "I guess I came." He grinned. "What am I gonna do with this stuff?"

  "Eat it," Kid said. "That what you usually do?"

  "Yeah." Denny looked back up at the ceiling and put his fore knuckle in his mouth, turned his hand to lick the heel.

  Kid put his arm, moist with effort, across Denny's thin, hard chest, still dry, and rubbed on the bony hip. Denny took his two middle fingers out of his mouth. "You didn't come yet?"

  "Nope."

  "Go ... go on and do what you want."

  Yeah, Kid thought, that's anger. He laughed.

  "When I was little," Denny said and pressed the back of his hand against his open mouth, "there were these two brothers who were the strongest kids in my neighbor- hood. I used to want to be like them. And on
ce they told me they were so strong because they used to eat each others' come. I didn't even know what they were talking about then. I hadn't even ever jerked off, you know?" Denny turned to look at Kid. "I guess it's protein or something. You do it too?"

  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, "Urn . . ." 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.

  ï "Urn," 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 ï 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, mother-fucker. 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 hardon," he told the girl. "You want to take him on front and center?"

  She raised her hand and laughed again. "Sure. But he won't do that."

  Kid turned to Denny. "You don't like to fuck?" He was thirsty. But you have to ask for something to drink later . . .

  "I guess no
t," Denny said. "I mean it won't stay up . . ." It came out with sudden, adolescent gravity. ". . . see?" And it was softening.

  "His tongue sure stays up, hey?" Kid said. The girl rubbed the side of his knee with hers.

  Kid rubbed back, reached between Denny's legs.

  "Hey, what are you . . ."

  "Woops!" Kid said. "It's up again. Come on, I want to see you try."

  The girl rolled on her back. "He won't do it."

  "You shut up."

  "I think he should." She folded her hands under her breasts. "But he keeps saying he's gay."

  "Why don't you lay off me?" Denny said.

  "I got a hand full of your dick." He moved his fingers so that Denny's crotch hair rubbed the ring of knuckle, forefinger, and thumb. "It's hard now."

  "Denny . . . ?" the girl said and uncrossed her hands.

  Wrapped between ham and heel, Denny's cock bobbed but did not wilt. "Don't worry," Kid said, "I won't let go of it."

  "Shit," Denny said and pushed himself up. "Okay, but it won't work." Denny's knee hit Kid's stomach.

  "Uhhh ..."

  Denny's hands landed on Kid's chest. "Hey, you let go!"

  "So? You still got a hardon. You sure that's the only thing you're worried about?" Kid sat up and put one hand on Denny's hip, and rubbed the boy's buttocks with the other, moved his hand between them, to hair and loose scrotal flesh. Denny's skin was still brick dry. His own and the girl's (one soft thigh spread under his calf) were moist. She moved and made a sound like moaning; could have been mouthed laughter; even protest.

  Kid put one hand on her belly, pressed a finger in a crease. He moved his hand onto her hair and mirrored her moan with his voice.

  A muscle in Denny's thigh moved on Kid's wrist. The testicles lay on his palm. Kid brushed the undershaft with his fingers. "You like that?" He held the penis, moved his hand out to cover the circumcised head, back so that thick flesh moved under innards rigid as dry sponge. "You just think about the rest of my load in there, what you ain't got on your face. You won't lose it ... yeah!" because his other hand, spreading the third and fourth finger, pressed and she gave, wet with mucus. "Go on . . ."