Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

  “What you doin’, Al—?”

  And the other driver said, “Nigger, you gonna kill that boy—he can’t take that thing like Ted!”

  Al said, his voice like something way under the ground, “Why the fuck not…?”

  Eric wondered if Ted had gone when his own attention had been elsewhere. (He hadn’t heard the door springs.) How had he left such a small space without Eric hearing—even if Eric was sucking someone off?

  Apparently, though, Ted had.

  “Least I’m gonna try—” which was Al’s voice lowering behind!

  Reaching for his own waist with one hand, Eric thumbed his jeans’ button out of its hole.

  “See, dere—he don’t min’. He wan’ me to.”

  Someone—Al, on his knees behind him—tugged Eric’s loosened pants back below his buttocks. Already Eric could smell him, adding to Jay’s, the black driver’s, Dynamite’s automotive odors. It was not the smell of the black homeless men Eric had gotten used to in Atlanta. (The plastic road vest had its own odor.) It was the smell of a man who’d been working hard outdoors, like the smell of some odd wood, sawn fresh—cedar or sequoia—that Eric was not familiar with but wanted to smell again. He pushed as if he were taking a crap—the way, just two weeks ago (De firs’ time or so, da’s de only way you gonna get it all in, bitch. So push, cocksucker!) Frack had taught him. Al entered him. “Yeah—hey, da’s goin’ in jus’ as easy…I thought it might…”

  “Goddam…!” Shit whispered above them.

  Al’s arms gripped him—whatever wood it was ripsawed end-to-end, yielding its intense smell—and he no longer had to work at sucking Dynamite, because Al’s rhythm moved Eric’s head in and out. All he had to do was hold himself up.

  “Jesus, boy—what, you come in here already greased, too? Da’s fuckin’ sociable!” Since Al was supporting his own weight, it felt pretty good. “I thought it was jus’ niggers who was supposed to be so greasy. Not all you nasty white fucks.” Eric heard Al’s grin and—still sucking—grinned with him.

  No, Al’s cock was not as big as Frack’s, but it would have poked from a ripped pocket by two or three inches. And did he care about the difference between fifteen and seventeen?

  Three minutes later, Dynamite came.

  Five seconds after that, Al grunted, “Oh. Shit…I love dese fuckin’ nasty white holes.” (Jesus, Eric felt really low and really good…) Then the warmth pulled from Eric’s back.

  He flinched, because, yes, KY or no, Al’s pullout stung.

  “Jesus, that looked fuckin’ great…” someone said; it took a second for Eric to realize that, over Dynamite’s shoulder, it was Shit.

  Dynamite had taken seconds to harden—and took seconds to soften. Eric sucked the firm cock as deep as he could and wallowed cum around it, even prizing his tongue beneath the foreskin to let some liquid in, till the man’s hands halted his head.

  The muscles at the back of Dynamite’s cock tightened—familiar from Pickle—as a spurt of salt urine flushed Eric’s mouth…surprising him (Pickle primed or not). Eric sucked deep again, swallowing. He kept at it, ten, fifteen, twenty seconds, hoping for more, even as he stilled his tongue. Finally, looking up, he saw the man grinning down. (Eric patted Dynamite’s leg, squeezed it.) But that was all that happened. Dynamite’s grip loosened around his head and he let Eric back away.

  Sitting on his heels, Eric worked one foot and another under himself to lever upright, losing Al’s hands from his flank. “Oh, fuck…!” He glanced back, to see Al, buttons opened around the latex sheath. “Hey, thanks,” Eric said. He was breathing hard. As with Frack, he thought: How did I get all that in…? “That was…good!” Maybe I’m learning…

  Or just stretching…

  Al drawled, “I know damned well it was.” Chuckling at Eric, he moved back toward the urinal. “I don’t bother fuckin’ nobody ’less I do it good.”

  Eric looked again at the garbage man—

  “Ain’t no point to it.” Al bounced his sheathed cock on his palm.

  Penis sagging, Dynamite stepped back; he grinned at Eric, too. Shaking his head, again he began to drag up his pants, then pushed himself into his overalls.

  Eric managed to stand and, looking around, saw Shit coming back, over uneven concrete, edging between Jay and the driver Eric had sucked off, leading the other black driver, a solid, dark fellow in a blue T-shirt, in his late thirties or early forties.

  Shit held the man’s cock—pulling him by it, it looked like.

  As he followed, the second driver smiled, looking somewhat embarrassed. (Dynamite had stepped over to Al. They were whispering about something.) Eric was slightly confused. But Shit reached out with his free hand and—now—took hold of Eric’s cock. The driver Shit led stepped up to Eric and as Shit positioned himself before both of them, smiled at Eric, and put his arm around Eric’s shoulder. His dark face was further shadowed by bushy brows.

  Eric smiled back, curious.

  Holding both penises, Shit dropped to a squat and, in his large, heavy hands, pulled Eric and the driver’s penises together, both—one dark, thick-veined, and uncut, the other a heavy pink over an ivory skin, circumcised, and bullet-headed. The black one straight, Eric’s slightly up-curved, both were erect.

  Eric looked down at Shit’s mustard nap. Already the rough hair had a thinning spot, though he’d have been surprised if the kid was twenty. Behind him, Eric could see his wide, bare feet, his cracked blackened soles, the toes of one propped up and turned under, the pads of the other stretched behind, dirt gone shiny from walking.

  Shit put the black guy’s cock in his mouth. Eric felt Shit’s beard against his own dick. Then he came off and took Eric’s cock in his warm, warm mouth.

  Eric’s smile became a grin.

  Shit’s thick-fingered hands—bitten nails and big knuckles, both lined with black—were grubby from his work. His mouth went back and forth. Looked at from above, his nose seemed particularly broad and Negroid, and—hell—sexy.

  Now Shit glanced up. He chuckled. “I wish my dick was more like one of these or the other. But it’s just in the fuckin’ middle.”

  Eric was surprised—because Shit’s generously uncut cock was between half and three-quarters of an inch longer than either. It had never occurred to Eric someone could want a cock smaller than his own.

  Shit went back to sucking them both.

  The black driver beside him smiled at Eric. As Eric looked at his face, the full mouth opened and came forward. The broad lips kissed Eric, who opened his mouth to receive the driver’s tongue, which went no further in than Eric’s lips. His unshaven face turned against Eric’s.

  The driver closed his eyes—then opened them; and pulled his mouth away.

  Eric blinked.

  The driver looked stern.

  (Shit’s mouth came back to Eric’s cock. His hand moved around to Eric’s leg, where, as his mouth went in and out, the fingers flexed on the denim.)

  Softly, the driver said to Eric: “Did that man you was suckin’ off before piss in your mouth, boy?” He nodded over toward Dynamite.

  Momentarily, Eric was flustered: “Uh…Yeah. A little—I guess.”

  The driver’s body stiffened. Without dropping, his arm loosened. He moved back a chilly inch. “Dat’s the third time that cracker sonofabitch done that to some good lookin’ fella what come in here in the last two months—it jus’ messes it up for the rest of us. You’d think he was a damn tomcat, markin’ his territory. And Jeb—my partner over there—still likes ’im.” He nodded toward the taller, better-looking driver. “But then, Jeb is strange.” Now he gave Eric’s bare shoulder in its tank top strap a consoling pat, then dropped his hand. “Well, I guess it ain’t your fault. I just gotta get to you guys a’fore he do.” Shaking his head, he turned away, wiping his wrist across his mouth.

  And Shit rose before Eric, a hand either side, his chest and then the waist of his pants dragging over Eric’s cock. Shit’s green eyes, his wonderfully broad nose,
his mouth were against Eric’s face. Eric’s eyes were open to see both of Shit’s, equally wide. Then Shit’s tongue probed and rolled and wrestled around Eric’s.

  Seconds later, Shit pulled back to whisper: “I like how it tastes. It ain’t bad—it’s real nice. It’s just regular redneck cracker piss. That nigger’s crazy!”

  Eric was glad of the reminder different people liked different things.

  Shit’s hard hand holding Eric’s shoulder moved to Eric’s back. At their groins, in an all-but-uncomfortable position, in which the pleasure of excitement turned into something interesting, their cocks crossed. Their scrotums hung against one another’s.

  With one hand, Eric held the back of Shit’s neck and, with the other, the small of Shit’s back. He could feel Shit’s body, breathing, against his, even as he smelled him.

  And breathed, thinking, for all the fucking around he’d done with guys he didn’t usually get this close to them. This was really…nice.

  Shit whispered, “You okay…?”

  Eric whispered, “Yeah.”

  “Good.” And Shit released him, and stepped back. “I hope he pisses in your mouth some more. Go on, try somebody else now.”

  Not sure he wanted to, Eric watched Shit back up against the wall, where, again (as though he had backed outside the circle of perception of all other eight men in the room, so that the aura of isolation made Shit even sexier), the kid dug his middle finger in one nostril, sucked it clean, dug in the other, sucked it, digging and sucking, digging and sucking—

  Surprising himself, Eric stood, stepped up to him—Shit blinked his green eyes—and opened his mouth as if he was going to tongue wrestle Shit again; but Eric took in the forefinger, with its salted crust. Shit’s hands were as big as Dynamite’s, with the same teeth-tortured nails. Eric saw—and a moment later felt with his tongue—the gritty forefinger. Again the kid hugged Eric—with one arm, this time, and kissed him.

  The finger was now back in Shit’s mouth—

  Till it reversed to push into Eric’s—

  Then back.

  Then back and forth…

  Finally, smiling, Shit whispered, “You taste good.” Nodding toward Dynamite, he moved his face away, grinning. “It’s nice lickin’ piss outta somebody’s mouth or asshole. You go kiss on Mex. He always drinkin’ somebody’s piss—Jay’s or Jeb’s or some other nigger’s. Hey—I wanna shoot, now—I’m ready. You want it?” His jeans were up, but his cock—hard—and balls were still loose.

  “Yeah…!” Eric dropped again to the tile. One of Shit’s pants legs was torn, and his knee’s smudged geometry showed through the rip. Since he’d have eaten out Dynamite’s ass out in a minute, Eric was not going to die from sucking Dynamite’s crap off Shit’s dick.

  He took Shit in his mouth.

  Shit grunted, caught Eric’s head, and, propping the toes of one foot on Eric’s knee, began to pump. Eric hugged his legs. The cloth was some sort of brown corduroy, Eric saw—but it had been hard to recognize, because so much of the wale had worn away.

  In forty seconds, Shit shot, too.

  It was thick and nut like. Eric swallowed…a third of it.

  Lingering, Eric sucked, hoping for piss from this one.

  None came.

  Then Dynamite was beside him, tugging him up to cover his mouth with his own—stubble ground on Eric’s face—and plunged his own tongue as far in as he could.

  Eric held to his hard shoulders, a head higher than Shit’s, wondering at having so quickly gotten five loads.

  When they broke for breath, Dynamite stepped back, breathed in deeply, one strap fastened, one hanging. “You know—” Dynamite grinned—“I was serious about what I was sayin’ before.” Their uncut cocks—Dynamite’s and Shit’s—were the same size, with the same down curve, same thickness. Eric held one in each hand. He rubbed the hooded heads together. “About that job—when Jay was introducin’ us.”

  Both of them smiled, missing their different teeth.

  Was Shit’s a hair’s breadth wider? Or maybe it only looked so because Shit was a hair’s breadth shorter…

  Reaching down, Dynamite gripped loosely and supportively the complex construction the two—then three, because Eric pushed forward with his own—cocks had become.

  Eric was about to answer—

  —when, with his blond beard and missing incisors, towering Jay (as tall as Al) stepped up beside him, a hand again on Eric’s tank top shoulder, and pulled him away. “You know, you ain’t come yet yourself, puppy. Get on over here. We gonna fuck Mex’s face some—so you can get off and get outa here. Let’s stick some dick into this spic cocksucker and finish you up.”

  “Huh? But I don’t—” Eric gasped in a breath, looking for a sink or something to lean on, and settled one had on the urinal’s rolled metal upper edge—“know if I really have to…” Protectively, Eric reached down with the other to hold himself. Probably it was time to put it away—

  “Hey, don’t worry.” Jay rubbed his own tattooed arm. “I’ll make you.”

  The heavy black trucker said, “Yeah—Jay’s a good guy. He gets all concerned over that stuff.”

  Al was looking thoughtfully around the room and shucking on himself—still in his condom, its front inch full and sagging and ballooning another inch-and-a-half around the head, its liquid the color of pus.

  …Flosh, flap, flop, fluffle—

  —on its timer (another five minutes…?), water flushed the urinal’s bright back.

  Across his lighter palm, Al bounced his cock—or the half of it his hand held. On the urinal’s back plate, distorted to unreadability, mangled and mingled reflections—of his black arms and their blacker marks—moved in the same rhythm.

  “I guess Ted was in a rush—” Dynamite glanced at Eric—“but, then, he pretty much always is, ain’t he? Hey, Al? How’d you know you wasn’t gonna kill this boy here with that damned cattle prod? I mean, Ted’s one of your regulars. But ain’t that dangerous, stickin’ so much into somebody you ain’t gone into, a little more slow, before? I mean, careful, like?”

  Chuckling, Al reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar tube: KY Lubricant. “Well—” Al shrugged—“this done fell out his pocket when he reached in to get that paper you was writin’ on.” (Eric looked over, surprised…) “So I thought it was worth a try. It didn’t feel like he was having a whole lotta trouble takin’ my ol’ phone pole, any more than he had suckin’ on Dynamite’s ol’ pig fucker. Hey—” Al grinned at Eric; no, they weren’t all there. But he had more teeth than either Dynamite or Shit—“you want this back, boy?”

  “Oh…!” Reaching over, Eric took the tube. “Eh…Thank you!” No, feeling his pants he realized it wasn’t in his pocket—!

  Eric pushed it in.

  “’Sides—you muscle boys is always real nasty. Least ways, the good ones I know what come in here is.” Al grimaced. “Like Jay here.” He nodded toward the boatman, with his brilliant arms, bulked like some wrestler’s.

  “Come on,” Al said. “Gimme a hand with this.”

  Below Al’s T-shirt sleeves, the black etchings caught the light with a different reflective index than the rest of his dark, dark skin…though still unreadable.

  Again, Al bounced his own—yes—massive dick on his palm. (Two of those in one week, Eric thought. Is that luck, or…?) Eric stepped over to him; both looked down at what he held. “Ted run outta here ’fore I got a chance to shoot. Since I spilled this up yo’ butt instead, dis heah is for you, now. Help me get dis fuckin’ raincoat off…” Eric reached out and they slid the condom, yellow like dried airplane glue but wrinkly as Saran, from his penis.

  With one hand, tall Al held the condom, bloated with what had to be four or five tablespoons full. The supersized rubber was almost a quarter full! With his other, Al knotted its upper end. “Now, see, you got somethin’ to remember me by. A big ol’ load o’ prime nigger jizz—you carry it on home: dat can be yo’ dessert tonight!”

  “I swe
ar,” Jay said, “I seen horses what didn’t come that much. Al’s really half horse—everybody down here says that about ’im. Don’t they? Hey, Al—you ain’t gonna give that to Mex?” (Al shook his head.) “Fuck it, right now he’s sittin’ there grinnin’ and tryin’ to look big and brave for you guys in here, but unless I do sumpin’ special for ’im, later he’s gonna be cryin’ in my arms.” One hand on Eric’s back, one on his arm, Jay moved Eric toward the stall.

  Some of them laughed—including the broad faced Mexican on the commode. His cheeks and neck were like raddled leather, with pits and indentations from long-healed acne. A fold of flesh along one side of his jaw half hid a dozen craters, which Eric had an overwhelming desire to finger.

  Knees wide apart, Mex sat on the stained, seatless enamel, cradling his own cock in a red-brown palm.

  Mex’s wide feet were as far apart on the floor as the black jeans around his ankles allowed. With thick fingers he lifted his cock now and again into sight.

  Al said, “Maybe he can look up da kid in town at da Harbor dis evenin’. Dey can share it, ’fore you guys go on out to Gilead. Hell—dere’s enough in dat thing for three cocksuckers! You always sayin’ dat about my loads, Jay. I’m supposed to be a fuckin’ horse, ain’t I? Hey—” he gestured with the long latex tube to Eric—“slip dat horse rubber in your pocket, boy—and don’ let it bust on ya’.”

  Eric took it. “Thanks—I…I guess.” Surprised at how proud he suddenly felt he pushed it, flopping over the ham of his thumb, yielding under his poking fingers, into his pocket beside the returned KY tube. “Thank you, sir!”

  Others laughed.

  Flat on the tile, Mex’s wide feet were as grubby as Shit’s. They looked as rough and as hard. Inside the doorless stall, with one hand, Mex beckoned Eric—and opened his mouth…

  Eric stepped forward.

  Jay gripped him, pushed Eric within as Mex closed mouth and tongue around him, and moved his hand away.

  His cock the center of it, heat engulfed him, rushed up Eric’s belly, into his chest, down his thighs, pooling at the backs of his knees.