Bird Came Down

I CAN'T REMEMBER POSTING THE LAST SECTION TWICE, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE I DID. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

“Whatever happened to Tom?” Felix asked Joey a few mornings later, when he had invited him over for coffee.

Joey raised a finger and took a sip of coffee.

“That is for later.”

He looked at the clock on his phone.

“I need to get back to work.”

Felix opened his mouth and Joey said, “Thank you for the note, and I’m really not angry at you. And maybe you’re even right.”

Heading to the door, Joey suddenly stopped and said, “Can I come by later?”

“I guess,” Felix said.

“And hang?”

“I’m too old for us to hang.”

“That’s crazy. You’re not old at all,” Joey had said. then he left.

The Monday after Scott had returned from his trip to Fort Atkins, Felix sat on the couch with Joey Flowers who said, “You’re not telling me something.”

“Cause you know me so well?”

“Don’t make fun of me, Felix. You’re… different. Scott was right.”

“Whaddo you mean Scott was right?”

“He told me he talked to you, and you weren’t yourself.”

“Maybe.”

“Is it Scott?”

“Yes. Partially.”

“What about the other part?”

“I don’t want to talk about the other part,” Felix said. “But I will tell you about Scott.”

“Is he… is it about the black eye?”

“He didn’t tell me how he got it. He just had it when he came over here Saturday night. And he wouldn’t say anything about it. I let him stay with me and didn’t ask any questions.”

“It’s so cool that you know my brother,” Joey said.

Felix nodded.

“You know what he needs?”

“Huh?”

“A good girlfriend. A nice woman to take his mind off of Kim.”

Felix looked at him with mild irritation and Joey said, “What?”

“You all really don’t talk. Do you?”

Felix stopped writing and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Ey, Scott.”

“Are you excited?”

“About what?”

“About our date, goof!”

Felix didn’t feel anything like a goof, but he said, “Yes, I am.”

He had been about to say, “I forgot,” but didn’t think that was a good answer.

“Are you staying the night?”

“I could,” Scott said.

“What are you doing right now?”

“Writing. Trying to finish an article.”

“I shouldn’t keep you.”

“No,” Felix said into the phone, his palms resting on the hot keyboard, “You shouldn’t. But I don’t really have the heart to stop you.”

Tom Frushour’s housewas about four blocks from school, a large red brick Colonial with classy furniture out of a magazine, and he was an only child. His mother was relaxed.

“I’m just going to give you boys a twenty,” she drawled almost like a Southern belle. “You can order what you want from the pizza place.”

“How’s that sound, Joe?” Tom asked.

Joey nodded. “That sounds cool.”

“You know what I was thinking about?” Tom said while they were watching porn on his computer.

“When the pizza guy was here?”

“There was this one porn I saw, where this redheaded pizza guy comes to the door, and he just gets on his knees and starts just like, sucking the man off, like going at it like a fucking pump, just sucking him. And then the guy jizzes all over the pizza guy’s face. And I thought... fucking hot. That would be fucking hot. To do... You know?”

They watched a little porn where this body builder, who in a way reminded Joey of Tom, had this little watermelon. He was sitting there just smoothed over in oil, completely naked, completely hot, Joey thought, and there was a little hole in the watermelon, and so he started fucking it. He was doing it slowly, moving the fruit up and down on his dick, and his eyes went all stupid. His jaw got slack. And then he put it on the floor and slowly, he began to fuck the watermelon. Tom kept on rewinding it as the guy was about to come, as his hams went taut, and he shot into the fruit.

And then his hand was in Joey’s lap, and he started to stroke him. Joey had been waiting for this to happen, and Tom rewound the video to the beginning, to the naked man masturbating, and then getting down to fuck the watermelon, and then ejaculating inside of it. And then the man on the video was eating out of it, and digged out of the watermelon, licking his own semen, and then he was fucking the fruit again, and by then Tom had Joey’s shorts off, and his underwear around his knees and he was the same and then, just like that, Tom said, “I’m gonna fuck you now. Alright?” more like he was clarifying a fact than asking a favor.

He put Joey down on his knees, and then Joey heard a squirt of something, and a click from the computer and voices from a new porn. And then Tom caught him by the hips and he felt Tom’s penis at the crack of his behind. It felt so good. It pressed in and tried to find the hole and still it felt good and it felt good pressing in a bit, and then Joey gasped. Tom squirted some more... lotion he hoped, and slid in, making the walls of Joey’s anus burn. He wanted to catch his breath, he’d never felt such pain. But he moved around it, fitting Tom in, and then, with a rhythm, Tom Frushour began fucking him.

ONCE Joseph Flowers had read a blog where a man was describing the first time he’d been fucked in the ass. When it finally happened to him, Joey remembered that it had been happening a while before he knew it was going on, and then it had been hurting a while before he knew that it hurt. Tom had gone further than he needed to, not knowing what he was doing, not using enough lube, not trying to hurt him, but not really knowing any better, enjoying the unexpected pleasure too much Joey imagined.

But then the truth was, even when it was uncomfortable, even when it was too much, in a way he not so much enjoyed it, as needed it. Needed the on-his-hands-and-knee-ness of being bent over and fucked in Tom Frushour’s room. He needed the right-now-ness of it. There was no past, no consequence, no reflection. Just the moment right there where Tom was pressing into him, harder and harder, and then the grunting, and Tom cursing, and Joey knew Tom had ejaculated inside of him.

When Tom pulled out of him, Joey went to his side on the floor, feeling a burning deep inside of him, squeezing himself together, feeling weirdly opened and strangely exultant about it.

“You all right, Joe?” Tom said.

Joey didn’t say anything. He just lay on his side, and Tom said, “I’ll jack you off. Suck you off. Make it worth your while.”

Apparently Tom felt guilty.

“I’m gonna suck you off, Joe, all right?”

And he did. Joey was already erect, and he was burning down there, a little raw. Tom’s mouth was on him, sucking him. He could hear Tom gulping and swallowing on his cock.

Joey was in the opposite place of Tom. Joey, who could admit that he had been afraid of many things, was afraid of nothing right now.

Here he was, on his side, jeans and briefs pulled down, Tom sucking like someone starving for that last bit of nourishment, and Joey was giving it to him in a body twist of orgasm, flooding his mouth. And how come it felt so good if it was a sin? How come this openness in his ass despite the ache and the burning, felt good too?

For that moment there was only feeling, throbbing, aching, pleasure without consequence or question, future or past. Just being.

“Guess what I’m on my way to do?”

“See your kids?”

“See my kids. And Felix, I’m bringing them down here next week. Do you mind meeting them?”

“Scott, I think they might mind meeting me.”

“Nonsense. Kids love you.”

“How would you know that?”

Scott suddenly sounded cross and he said, “Do you not want to meet my kids?”

In fact, Felix did not want to meet Scott’s kids. But the tone in Scott’s voice made him say, “Of course I do. I just… I tell you what, We’ll watch Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea.”

“The who in the what?”

“You’ve never heard of it? Spartakus and Arkana? It was on Nickelodeon. They lived under the earth. Arkana had a big crazy ass hat—”

“I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about.”

“I don’t know if I can be with a man who doesn’t know who Spartakus is.”

“You’re kind of fucked up, you know that?”

“Well…. Thank you.”

“I gotta go. And… when I get back—”

“When are you getting back?”

“I’ll be back tonight. I want to learn more about this Spartakus.”

“Um,” Felix murmured, “if you didn’t know about him by the time you’re twelve, it’s probably too late now.”