The north loop bathrooms were a rumor I had been circling for a month.
I told myself I was walking. Twenty-three. Hoodie two sizes too big. Hands in the pocket so nobody saw them shake. The path lights were half-dead. The playground on the other side of the trees looked like a broken jaw. I could hear a zipper somewhere in the dark and then nothing, and my mouth was already wet from the nothing.
I didn’t go in the stall.
I stood at the edge of the trees like a coward and watched a guy in a suit come out fixing his belt. He didn’t look at me. That was the MO. I took two steps toward the door and a flashlight hit my chest.
I had been on this path four times and turned around four times. Once because a dad with a stroller showed up at 9 p.m. like the park still belonged to daylight. Once because I saw a man I recognized from the coffee shop and my stomach dropped so hard I walked all the way to the avenue. Twice because I stood in the trees and listened to the wet sounds from the stall and couldn’t make my feet do the last twenty yards.
Tonight I had told myself I would go in. Hoodie. No names. Knees on tile. Home by twelve. The rumor on my phone had a map and a time window and a warning about cops after ten. I had read the warning and come anyway, which was the whole problem with me.
The flashlight made my hands look guilty before I had done anything with them.
“Don’t.”
The voice was bored on purpose. Low. A little gravel. I froze with one foot still on the path.
He came out of the dark like the dark had been holding him. Navy uniform. Utility belt. The flashlight in one hand and the other resting on the butt of the nightstick the way some guys rest a hand on a girl’s waist. Late twenties, maybe thirty. Short black hair. An almost curved mustache. The collar of the shirt was open one button too many. Chest hair showed. Thick. Dark. He was built like he lifted things that didn’t ask. Tan even at eleven at night.
The nameplate said VEGA.
“Hands where I can see them.”
I put them up. The hoodie sleeves slid. I felt twelve.
“I was just—”
“You were just.” He ran the light down me and back up, slow enough to be an insult. “You were just walking. You were just looking at trees. You were just about to put your knees on that tile.”
My face went hot.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Not yet.” He clicked the light off. The dark came back thicker. I could smell him when he stepped in — leather, sweat under the vest, a cologne that had given up around hour ten.
“ID.”
I fumbled the wallet. He didn’t take it out of my hand. He looked at the picture and at my mouth and at the path behind me.
“Daniel. Twenty-three. You live six blocks from a park with a gloryhole in it and you thought tonight was the night you grew a spine.”
“I—”
“Don’t talk.” He hooked the nightstick free with two fingers. Black. Scarred. Longer than it looked on the belt. He let it hang by his thigh like it weighed nothing. “You know what I can write. Loitering. Public indecency if I wait five more minutes. Your name in a system. Your mom finds out her quiet kid likes dirty bathrooms and strangers cocks.”
I swallowed. He watched the swallow.
“Or,” he said, “you get on your knees and you learn something.”
The woods had gone very quiet. A car on the loop. Then not.
“I’m not—”
“You’re not what. Straight? Brave? Good at lying?” He tapped the nightstick once against his own palm. The sound was small and ugly.
“I asked you a question without asking it. You stay, you do what I say. You walk, I write. What’s it gonna be, Daniel? Choose wisely. You want to serve me?”
I should have walked.
“Yes, officer Vega.”
I went to my knees in the pine needles because my body had already picked, weeks ago, in my room, with the rumor of this bathroom open on my phone.
Officer Vega made a sound that was almost a laugh.
“There he is. Shy until he’s not.”
He didn’t take himself out.
He put the nightstick in front of my mouth like it was the other thing. The rubber-coated shaft. The weight. A faint smell of belt leather and hands.
“Open.”
“That’s—”
“I said open. You want the real one, you prove you can take the one I carry. Lips. No teeth. You treat this like it’s mine. If you perform decently, you get the real one.”
I opened.
He fed me the first four inches of the stick. It was harder than a cock and colder and wrong in a way that went straight down my spine. My lips stretched around the black. He watched my face like he was scoring it.
“That’s it. Suck it, faggot. I want to see you work for a piece of plastic like it’s going to feed you.”
I did. Wet. Embarrassed. Hungry in a way I hated and didn’t. The stick bumped the back of my tongue and he held it there.
“Look at you. Quiet kid. Hoodie. You came out here to be used and you still need to be guided by a proper man.” He twisted the stick a quarter turn.
“Deeper.”
He didn’t give me the whole stick. He gave me an inch at a time, the way you feed something to a dog you’re training not to lunge. The coating was slick with my spit by the second inch. The third bumped my teeth and he clicked his tongue.
“I said no teeth. Image it’s a stranger’s cock. You chip it I take it out of your mouth.”
“Sorry—”
The word came out around the black and sounded filthy. He liked that. I saw it in the mustache.
“Don’t be sorry, fag. Be useful.”
He rested the flashlight against his thigh and used the free hand to hold my chin. Thumb on one side, fingers on the other, steering.
“You ever sucked a cock you weren’t supposed to. Don’t answer. I can tell. You’re sloppy and you’re starving and you’re still trying to be polite. Polite doesn’t work in this park.”
He pushed.
The stick hit the back of my tongue and stayed. My throat fluttered. I made the noise he wanted and hated that I made it for plastic.
“Hold. I want to see how long the quiet boy lasts when it’s not even warm.”
He counted under his breath. Not loud. Not for me. For the drill. Four. Five. Six. My eyes ran. Spit sheeted off the black onto the needles. Seven. He twisted the stick again, slow, and my gag turned into a cough I swallowed because he hadn’t said I could come off.
“Eight. That’s better than half the guys I pull out of here. They bite. They talk. They say officer I swear I was pissing. You just take it.”
He eased back an inch so I could drag air.
“Again. Deeper than that. You want the real one you earn the real one.”
I took it deeper. He was so masculine, I was salivating for him and scared at the same time. Chest hair in the open collar. The vest made his shoulders look bigger than they already were. He looked like a man who should have been laughing at a table with a beer, not teaching a twenty-three-year-old how to suck a nightstick in the pines.
“Good. Off.”
The stick left my mouth with a wet sound that made my ears burn. He held it up between us, shining, a string of spit still connected to my lip until it broke.
“That’s the warm-up,” he said. “You did fine. Don’t get proud. You still have a lot to prove.”
I took more. My eyes watered. Spit ran. He let me gag and didn’t pull back.
“Good. That’s the noise. You make that noise when it’s me, I might not arrest you.”
A radio cracked on his shoulder.
Two, status.
He thumbed it without taking the stick out of my mouth.
“Two. North loop. Warning. All good.”
Copy.
He looked down at me.
“You hear that? Warning. That’s you. You’re a warning with a wet mouth.”
He pulled the stick free. A string of spit followed it. He wiped the black on my lower lip like a signature.
“Shirt up.”
“What—”
“Chest. I want to see if you’re shaking.”
I dragged the hoodie up. The night air hit my stomach. I was shaking. He saw it and his mouth ticked under the mustache, pleased.
Then he popped the belt.
Not the whole production. Button. Zip. He shoved the navy trousers down just far enough. He wasn’t wearing anything under them. The cock that came out was thick, already hard and heavy, a wet bead at the head from standing there watching me suck a stick. Hairy at the base. The same dark as the chest. He tapped my cheek with it once, the way he’d tapped the stick.
“Now you know the difference.”
I knew.
He didn’t ask again. He put the head on my tongue and the heat of him replaced the cold of the plastic and my brain went quiet. Musk. Skin. A long shift. I made a sound I had no right to make on a public path. A slutty sound. I was hungry for that cop cock.
“There,” he muttered. “There he is. Cruising slut. That’s the word. You don’t get to be shy with a cop’s dick in your mouth. You suck.”
He set a rhythm that had nothing to do with me and talked over it like I was the radio.
“Shift started at three. Two domestics. A kid who stole a bike he couldn’t ride. Shitty coffee.” His hips gave a short punch. I gagged. He didn’t pause. “Partner’s on a family thing. I’m flying solo, which is how you get stupid ideas in a park.”
I looked up. The mustache. The dark chest in the collar.
“Eyes. I didn’t say look at the trees.” He pushed to the middle and held. “Girlfriend’s in Tampa for a wedding. Bridesmaid. She texts goodnight and I text goodnight and then I drive the loop because I know what this bathroom is.”
Another stroke. Deeper. The musk of him filled my head. Salt. Heat. A body that had been in a vest since afternoon.
“This doesn’t make me anything,” he said, quieter, like the trees needed the disclaimer. “You on your knees doesn’t make me anything. It’s a mouth. It’s a warning. It’s eleven-forty and I still have two hours on the clock.” His hand tightened in my hair. “You tell anybody I used the stick first I will find the building. You tell anybody my name I will find the building. You swallow and you walk and this stays a warning. Copy.”
I hummed around him.
“Copy is a word, Daniel. Try.”
He pulled back enough that I could use a mouth.
“Copy,” I got out, wrecked.
“That’s it.” He filled me again. “That’s the shy fag who heard about a cruising spot and showed up anyway. You come back this week I skip the lecture. I skip the stick. I put you in the back of the unit and I take my time and you still say copy. You understand the upgrade.”
I understood.
He fucked my throat like the upgrade was already happening and the radio on his shoulder stayed quiet long enough for him to forget he had a partner at all.
I sucked.
He used my hair, not kind, not cruel yet, just sure. The mustache was a dark line when I looked up, the nightstick shining with my spit on his thigh.
“Deeper. You took the stick. You take this.”
I took it. He hit the back of my throat and held, the same count he’d used with the plastic, and I gagged and he breathed out like that was the point.
“Attaboy. Quiet. If somebody walks the loop you stay on it and I talk. You understand.”
I hummed.
“Words later. Mouth now.”
He fucked my face in short strokes that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with a man who had been on shift since three and had found a solution in the trees. Spit sheeted off my chin onto the needles. My knees hurt. My cock was a problem in my jeans I was not going to touch unless he said.
He didn’t say.
“You come here a lot?” he asked, almost conversational, hips working. “Don’t lie. I know the bathrooms. I know the hours. I know the suits and the runners. I haven’t seen you. First night?”
I tried to nod on him. He felt it.
“First night and you’re already on your knees for a badge. That’s a talent. You’re a lucky whore.”
The radio again, farther, another unit. He ignored it. His hand tightened.
“I’m going to finish. You’re going to swallow. Then you’re going to stand up and walk home like you were looking at stars. If I see you in this stall this week I am not going to be this nice. Next time I will destroy your shy pussy.”
I should have been afraid of next time but I super was hard about next time.
He pushed to the root and came with a sound he swallowed against his own teeth, thick pulses straight down my throat, a lot, the smell of him suddenly everywhere. I swallowed because he’d told me to. He held me there through the last twitch, thumb on my jaw, checking the work.
He pulled out. Tucked himself away with the same bored efficiency he’d used on the radio. The nightstick went back on the belt, still wet. He didn’t wipe it. He looked at my mouth.
“Get up.”
I got up. Legs wrong. Hoodie down. He clicked the flashlight once at my chest, a punctuation mark.
“Daniel. Six blocks. I know the building now.”
He tapped the nameplate. “You see the car, you keep walking. You see me without the car—” He let that hang. The mustache moved. “We’ll talk about your warning.”
He stepped back onto the path like he had never left it. The flashlight painted the trees, then died. I heard the cruiser door. The engine.
I stood in the needles with the taste of his milky cum. The cold of the stick still in the shape of my mouth.
I walked home the long way.
I left the bathroom for tomorrow.
Cruising was fun after all…
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