1.
The teens pair off two by two like animals boarding Noah's ark—except for Jim. And like those beasts, he thinks, they're as unreasoning about what draws them to the amusement park each summer. They come on instinct: girls with sticky pink bubble gum, boys with tawny arms, like Jim’s, roped with muscle from hauling hay and fence posts all summer, skin tanned deep from the sun.
Jim’s eyes catch on Bobby Johnson’s throat as he throws his head back laughing. Bill Rogers’ shirt stretches across his shoulders when he wraps an arm around Patty Evans. Jim drops his eyes to his shoes whenever he senses someone might look his way. Or, if he’s caught, shifts his gaze to something else in the same line of sight—the ticket booth, the moon display sign.
He can practically feel the heat coming off their bodies as they stand impatiently in the crowded line for the lunar display. It’s the new feature, added since President Kennedy’s promise to land a man on the moon, and the only reason Jim is there at all. He doesn’t care for the tired exhibits or the rides, and especially not the freak show. The two-headed calf, the bearded woman, and the rest fill him with unease for the singular creatures without a kind of their own.
He’d read about Disneyland’s Rocket to the Moon exhibit, but California is so impossibly distant it might as well be the actual moon, so the amusement park has to do. But when the doors open and the crowd moves into the display area and the dumb teens gasp, Jim sighs. He didn’t expect Disneyland, but what he sees is not just inferior—it’s altogether wrong.
The display is in a darkened room, the floor covered with gray sand and gravel. Boulders made of chicken wire covered in gray tarp, Jim guesses. The flimsy walls are painted indigo to simulate the night sky, with tiny white lights twinkling through them—a sad excuse for distant stars.
Worst of all are the plants—plastic, Jim assumes—spray painted gray, with pointed leaves and curling fronds. As if there could be vegetation on the airless moon. The diorama he’d made for the science fair was far more accurate, if a fraction of the size, and no further than his own bedroom.
The other teens stand by, dumb and unthinking. The girl nearest him chews cotton candy, her hand snaking around the muscled arm of her boyfriend. He’s good-looking, with a cowlick at the crown of his sandy hair, and the short sleeves of his white t-shirt rolled halfway up his shoulder. He’s that type, so at ease in his own body.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the guide announces, “you are looking at the surface of the moon, or our best approximation of it!”
A speaker crackles and plays President Kennedy’s words, uttered just a year earlier:
This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth.
“But what will we find there?” the guide asks. “What new life will we encounter? What wonders? What… menaces? What of the Man on the Moon?”
2.
On cue, one of the constructed boulders nearest Jim shifts as something—or someone—lunges out of hiding. It’s the same gray as the surroundings, but it has ribbed arms and dull talons for fingers, reaching out for the girl beside Jim. She shrieks and folds into her boyfriend. The guy pulls back an arm to throw a punch, but his elbow hits Jim hard, knocking him to the gravel floor.
Curled up on the gravel, blind in one eye except for the stars flashing there, Jim makes out the boy throwing the punch being spun away by something—or someone—stronger. Girls scream, and red, white, and pink sneakered feet stomp on and around him. Jim hears the guide say,
“What the—Jesus Christ!”
Amid the chaos, with his one good eye, Jim sees only two feet moving with clear intent, but unlike the others, they’re dark and scaled, reptilian, making their way purposefully toward him. The Man on the Moon.
“Kid,” a muffled voice says. “You okay?”
Cold, rubbery hands pull Jim up off the floor, where he can better see the alien—or the alien costume. It’s ridiculous, more sea monster than spaceman, with big fishy eyes and gills, painted gray to match the cheesy display.
When let go to stand on his own, Jim’s legs go wobbly. As he drops, the monster catches him and lifts him in its arms. It walks away, carrying him like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, as if Jim is as weightless as the chicken wire boulders.
He can hear, as if very far away, the voice of the guide saying, “What a mess. Take care of this shit.”
And then, even more distantly, the recorded voice of the President on the crackling speaker:
We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
The Man on the Moon carries Jim to a set of doors, backing into them to open, bringing him into a cooler, quiet dark room filled with cardboard boxes. As the door closes behind them, the monster gently sets Jim down on a workbench, helping him into a sitting position. His head aches and his eye struggles to see right, but he manages to stay upright.
The monster crouches, grasping at the gills on its neck with webbed, clawed hands, twisting side to side. "God damn it," it says, and its head comes off in its hands, revealing underneath just a man. Of course.
He’s a rough-looking guy, with a blunt nose and short-cropped blond hair. His lips are full, jaw covered with dirty blond scruff. Free from his costume, the man shakes a spray of sweat from his head, just a trace of it misting Jim.
“You okay, kid?” he asks again. His eyes are cool blue and crinkle at the corners when he breaks into a full smile.
3.
“I…” Jim sputters, holding a hand to his head, trying to cover his hungry stare. He feels something wet at his fingertips and, looking, sees blood.
“Oh boy,” says the man in the monster suit, bending at the waist and cocking his handsome head to assess. “That’s gonna be a shiner. Maybe a stitch or two up there.” He grazes Jim’s forehead with his rubbery hand, and Jim winces. “Oh yeah.”
Jim feels a little queasy, but he’s not sure how much is from the sight of his own blood and how much is being so close to the handsome carny with the deep voice.
“Let me get out of this damn thing,” the man says, tugging at the arms of the monster costume. It sways side to side, loosening but not much more. “God damn it. Kid, would you unzip me?”
Jim is unsure what he’s being asked, but the man turns around and points with a gloved thumb at his back. Jim sees a sturdy zipper running down the back of the costume, from his shoulders to the small of his back.
Still seated on the workbench, Jim grasps the zipper with one hand—his other pressed to his aching eye—and pushes against the man’s sturdy back. With some effort, he yanks the zipper down in jerks, the rubbery suit splitting to reveal the man’s flesh beneath. He’s tan and sweaty, and when Jim lets his fingertips run down his spine, tiny blond hairs spring up after his touch.
The man turns and pulls at one side of the collar, then the other. The tip of his tongue juts between his teeth as he concentrates, and Jim feels a stirring in his underwear, swallowing down a gulp.
The costume loosens and slowly peels off the man’s muscled shoulders—not boyish muscles like the teens Jim knows, not even after summer’s farm work, but dense and adult.
“They didn’t make this damn thing for one man to get in or out of,” he says with a smirk, twisting his arms out, one and then the other. They’re inked with tattoos, which Jim has never seen in person—like a sailor in Moby Dick or Treasure Island.
The heavy costume falls to his waist, exposing the broad V from his brawny shoulders to his slim hips. His chest muscles are squared off like a movie star’s, with pink nipples and sparse blond hair running in a faint trail down his belly. More tattoos: on his arms, his flanks.
Jim is tempted to count them—there must be twenty at least—but between the ache in his head and in the crotch of his jeans, he’s not so concerned with the number as he would be otherwise.
The man slides out of the bottom of the costume, pulling out his legs one at a time. Standing in just a pair of boxers, his bare legs are firm, hairier than his torso but the same dull blond, and there are more tattoos on his thighs.
He shudders off more sweat, wipes his chest and belly with his hands like windshield wipers, then rubs them on the rear of his boxers before extending one to shake.
He asks Jim’s name and then offers his own.
“Orville,” he says, his hand still damp in Jim’s. His voice is thick and warm, with a lazy Southern twang, smooth as Elvis on a late-night radio. “Let’s see about that eye.”
4.
Orville gingerly pries Jim’s hand from his forehead to inspect the damage. His brows knit, and again the tip of his tongue juts between his lips as he focuses, head cocking side to side.
“We can put in a couple of stitches,” he says.
Jim’s never had stitches before and is surprised at the news—but mostly at the word “we.”
Orville hoists a metal toolkit from the floor and rummages inside for a spool of thread and a needle. Jim gulps. He realizes the man means to take care of it himself, right there in the filthy backroom behind the lunar display.
Jim asks if that’s wise, if maybe they shouldn’t get a doctor, or at least a nurse.
“Oh,” Orville says, his carefree tone sounding more feigned than genuine to Jim. “No need to make a fuss. The bosses wouldn’t like that.” He smiles in a way that makes Jim’s balls pull up tight. “I’ll take care of you.”
Orville takes a flat glass bottle half full of amber liquid from the toolkit, twists it open, and offers it to Jim. He knows it’s booze, but not what kind—his family’s strict about alcohol.
Drinking is one of the many things his parents disapprove of.
He’d say no reflexively, but he’s anxious about the stitches, and he wants to seem more worldly to Orville. Also—maybe mostly—he wants to put his lips to the same bottle, to share even a trace of the man’s spit.
The liquor sears his mouth when he drinks, and he has to fight not to spit it out. He’s pretty sure he’s not fooling anyone. But he gets a mouthful down, then a second.
“That’s a good boy,” says Orville, beaming that smile again.
He runs the thread over his tongue to hone the tip, then loops it into the eye of the needle. When he approaches Jim, he grimaces. “It might hurt at first,” he says, rough finger on Jim’s forehead. Then it pierces him.
“Ow,” Jim says, shuddering.
“I know, I know,” Orville answers in a hush. “It’ll be over in a minute.”
As he works, the tip of Orville’s tongue juts out from his full lips and teeth, and Jim tries to think about how his spit was on the thread and now it’s in him. He’s the most handsome man Jim’s ever seen, and it might be worth a scar to have that.
True to his word, it’s over quickly. When it is, Orville cuts the thread with utility scissors from the toolkit. He picks out a little jar of greasy salve, scoops some out on two fingers, and gently applies it to the stitched gash, making Jim wince.
“‘S’okay, this’ll help keep it clean,” he says, cocking his head to admire his work. “That’ll heal up just fine. Just three stitches, right at the hairline.”
Jim reaches up to touch the area, feeling the salve.
“You’re a real tough guy,” Orville smirks. “Still pretty enough, though. Nice shoulders, slim hips. Must have the girls after you like flies on honey.”
No one ever commented on Jim’s looks before—much less called him pretty. The words catch his breath, and he feels a sudden hot wet streak on his cheek.
“Girls aren’t my problem.”
“Well, what is?” Orville asks.
“Never getting out of this place,” Jim answers.
He doesn’t mean the backroom or the amusement park, and he’s surprised to speak so honestly for maybe the first time ever.
“Oh, oh, oh,” says Orville, reaching out to catch the tear on Jim’s jaw. His thumb is rough, but his touch is gentle.
Jim’s breath catches as the man brings the tear to his face and sucks it from his thumb.
Orville cocks his head and smiles. “You’re a sad boy, just like me.”
Jim snorts and sniffles. “You don’t look so sad.”
Orville shakes his head and chuckles.
5.
The tattooed man hoists himself up beside Jim on the workbench, the muscles in his arms and chest swelling as he does. He sits so close Jim can feel the hair on his arms against his own. Jim sees the tattoos and the blue veins running through the man’s forearm and wrist, down to his hand, the fingers loosely curled, still slick with greasy salve
“I grew up just like you, I figure,” he says. “Couldn’t wait to get off the farm. Everyone said I was kinda pretty in the face, like you, and fit, so I went to California to get in the movies.”
Jim perks up at the mention of California. “You look like you could be in movies.”
"Well, joke’s on us, kid. There’s a hundred guys on every block like me in Hollywood."
Jim’s eyes trace the intertwined masks—comedy and tragedy—inked on Orville’s bicep. A hundred men like this, walking down real streets. The thought makes his underwear feel tight.
"Working at gas stations, waiting tables. Other things too, to get by. Waiting for a big break. I didn’t have the money to wait it out.”
“That’s why…?” Jim looks around the improvised storage room.
“It’s work,” Orville answers. “The movies were never gonna happen. And I like to travel. Do different things. Sometimes I’m lubing up the Tilt-a-Whirl, sometimes I sing. Sometimes I’m the Man on the Moon.” He nods at the discarded monster mask on the ground. “Sometimes a bandit for the wild west show.” He picks up a black mask, covers the top half of his face, his blue eyes visible through the cut-out slits. He points a finger like a pistol. “Yippee ki yay.”
Oddly enough, the mask makes him even more arousing. “I can be whatever they want me to be.”
“And… these?” Jim asks, pointing to, but not touching, a big tattoo in the shape of a bull on Orville’s thigh.
“Just picked ’em up along the way. After the first you get a taste for ’em.” He sets the mask down and touches the bull Jim’s pointing at. “That was… that was Bill. Just a roustabout, like me.”"This one?" Jim asks, touching the dice on Orville’s ribs.
"Never got his name. Card sharp at a fairground. Kansas."
Jim’s finger finds the lion on his bicep. "Leo," Orville says, voice going soft.
There are dozens more, Jim notes. “Are they each for a… man?”
Orville shrugs. “Reckon so.”
Jim inhales. So many tattoos. So many men.
He reaches closer, his fingers nearing the dark green pigment. “Can I…? I never…”
Orville holds up his arm to flex slightly, and as Jim’s fingers make contact, he rests a hand over Jim’s, pressing it down. “You can touch anything you want, buddy.”
Jim traces his fingers over the images inked onto the man’s firm bicep, then over his shoulder, noticing all the minuscule blond hairs and freckles. If his eyes were closed, he couldn’t tell the skin was inked at all. He touches his thick neck and collarbone, and Orville leans back to give him access. Then—heart pounding—he touches the plush muscle of the man’s chest, stopping at the burning heart tattooed there.
“Did they… did they hurt?”
“Just the one,” Orville says, with a soft smile, tapping the heart on his chest. His eyes water up like Jim’s did earlier. “See?”
Following Orville’s example, Jim reaches out to catch a tear on his finger and puts it in his mouth. It’s salty, just like his own.
The workbench creaks as they lean in close enough to butt noses. Jim’s imagined this a thousand times, quick and guilty under his bedsheets, but never thought how loud his heart would pound in his ears when it happened. Still, he inhales deeply as he presses his lips to those of the Man on the Moon, and his hand sinks down to the solid mound in the man’s crotch.
6.
Orville sinks onto his back, the workbench creaking beneath him. Jim’s hands tremble as he pulls down the man’s boxers, but steady when he wraps them around Orville’s cock—thick and hot in his palm, bigger than he’d imagined. When he takes it in his mouth, Orville’s whole body tenses. “Oh, buddy,” he whispers, voice rough.
The taste is sharp, salty. Jim feels the strength in Orville’s thighs under his palms, his own cock straining against his jeans. He works it with his mouth and hand, feeling Orville’s hips jerk in response, until Orville lifts his face with just a finger.
“You like that?” Orville asks, his hands running up Jim’s torso, slipping under his t-shirt. “Let me see you.”
Jim awkwardly pulls off his shirt. Orville’s eyes linger, a slow smile spreading across his face.
“Beautiful,” he breathes, voice rough and low—the Elvis drawl unmistakable. His thumb traces the muscle along Jim’s arms, chest, stomach—all the work of long days in the sun. “Goddamn. You really don’t know how good you look, do you?”
Jim flushes, heart pounding. He kicks off his hi-tops, fumbles out of his jeans—he doesn’t care how eager he looks. He’s been waiting his whole life for this.
He straddles Orville, pulling the heavy cock to rest against the tender spot in his rear, more ambition than experience. Orville’s hands grip his hips, strong and steady, thumbs pressing deep into Jim’s flesh.
“Whoa, buddy.” Orville’s palms slide up Jim’s ribs anchoring him. “Easy. Let’s take care of you.”
“I want to,” Jim says, voice trembling with need. He’s played with himself before, with fingers and other things, but nothing like this—nothing so real.
“Okay,” Orville chuckles, his drawl soothing. “But hold on.”
The salve is cold at first. Orville’s thick fingers circle Jim’s hole, slicking him up, then gently pressing inside—one, then two, twisting and opening him. The stretch makes Jim gasp, but Orville’s other hand is always there—stroking his thigh, rubbing his belly, grounding him as he opens. Jim rocks back, greedy for more, the ache blooming into pleasure.
His voice sounds different, deeper. “I want to.”
Orville’s eyes darken. “Take all the time you need.”
When Jim finally sinks down, he feels the blunt head of Orville’s cock push against him, stretching him open. The pressure is sharp, overwhelming, but Orville’s hands never leave his hips, holding him steady as Jim breathes through it, inch by inch, until he’s full.
“Oh, fuck,” Jim groans, sweat prickling his brow. Orville’s hands are everywhere—thumbing the hollow of his hips, stroking his belly, sliding up his side to cup his jaw.
“Breathe,” Orville whispers, the syllables deep and humming. He thrusts up slowly, letting Jim set the pace, hips rising to meet him.
“I can’t... I can’t,” Jim chokes out, breath hitching, the sharp pain threatening to overwhelm him.
Orville’s hands don’t falter. His thumbs rub slow circles on Jim’s hips, steady and sure.
“Breathe,” he whispers.
Then, just as Jim thinks he can’t take another second, something shifts deep inside him—a warmth spreading, softening the ache, turning it into a wave of pleasure that crashes through every nerve.
Jim gasps, eyes fluttering closed as the sensation blossoms, and he begins to move—slow at first, then surer, faster—guided by Orville’s steady hands and whispered encouragements.
The workbench creaks beneath them; sweat slicks their skin. Jim’s thighs burn, but it’s a fire he welcomes, each thrust pulling him deeper into a place he never thought he’d reach.
Orville’s hand slips down to stroke Jim’s cock, smearing the leaking head with leftover salve. His cock drives up, hitting something that makes Jim see white. Jim’s cock stiffens and shoots hot splashes marking Orville’s chest, streaking his tattoos.
“Fuck, FUCK,” Orville growls, pulling Jim down hard, hips snapping up. Jim feels him pulse inside, filling him with heat, each thrust slowing but deepening until finally he collapses, boneless, on top of Orville.
The room smells like sweat and sex. Outside, the carnival music plays on, but in here there’s just their breathing, gradually slowing. Jim’s thighs shake. His ass aches. He’s never felt so good.
“Whooo,” the tattooed man.
They laugh together and lie there, looking up at the drab ceiling as if it’s the nighttime sky.
Jim finds himself talking. He says things he’s never said before to anyone else. He talks about the planned Moon mission, and how the rocket has to break free of the earth’s gravity, and how it won’t be anything like the amusement park display. He talks about the relative weightlessness on the Moon, with its lesser gravity, only one sixth or so of Earth’s.
Orville pulls him down, kissing him hard. When they stop, Orville grins. “Here all week, if you want to come back.”
“Yeah?” Jim asks. There’s nothing he wants more. More than California or even the moon.
“Only next time,” Orville says, “I want you in me.”
Jim’s dick stirs at the thought.
Orville raises an eyebrow. “Or maybe we don’t have to wait.”
7.
Afterwards, they lie side by side on the workbench together, cooling as their sweat evaporates.
“You gonna get in trouble for being here so long?” Jim asks.
“Nah. Maybe get chewed out. Not too bad.” Orville grins and raises an eyebrow. “Errybody likes me pretty well.”
Jim can see why.
Orville lifts his arm and points to the bare skin inside his bicep. “Was just thinking of getting a rocket ship inked right there, to mark the day. You think?”
Jim asks, “Really?”
“You got that scar on your noggin,” says Orville. “Seems like a fair trade.”
Jim says he’d like that a lot.
He likes being here. He’s never felt like himself with a man before. He wants to stay, but soon they’ll both be missed in the outside world. They both know it, and without saying more, they rise to clean up and get dressed. It’s hard to wipe off the greasy salve from their bodies with just rags, and awkward to use a bucket as an improvised toilet. They’re slow about it.
They part with a kiss, and a last invitation from Orville: “I’m always down for hanging around.”
Orville has Jim go out first, staying behind to put things in order.
When Jim exits into the cool gray of the lunar display, he nudges a gray boulder with the toe of his sneaker and it rolls away, nearly weightless. From there, he emerges into the hot late afternoon sun and the clamor of the amusement park.
He maneuvers through the crowd, vaguely aware of the screams, the scent of buttered popcorn and fried dough, the sight of fluffy clouds of cotton candy, the screech and grind of the rides. The other teens seem distant now. Childish.
His lips are tender from kissing, and his hips will be bruised in the shape of Orville’s hands. There’s a slickness in his underwear, temporary. But permanent as the scar on his brow, he’s changed.
Striding down the side of the road home, he kicks some sandy gravel and then a stone, watching it skip to its next destination. Another follows, and he jumps the next one, then a larger one. His pace picks up to a trot, and before he knows it, he’s running. Bounding over the earth as if gravity has loosened its grip on him. He feels as if he could run all the way to the moon.
END
