So he lights a joint and we smoke it, pass the stick back and forth. The shit hits me hard since I haven’t smoked in months. Dizziness soaks my skull. My mouth goes dry. My stomach immediately turns. I forgot about these personal side effects, but I don’t care, enjoying my Tool time and his wacky tobacky.

  Behind his uncle’s Nova, sitting across from each other, our knees almost touching, getting high, we chuckle and talk about the neighborhood. Tool might be new to the block, but he knows everything. He fills me in: Mrs. Hinderson is a mean bitch, threatening to kill anyone who crosses her; Paul the Postman is dating Rob Neilson, a fireman, the two like to make movies while they play together with their hoses and upload the flicks on PornHub; Honey Hertzer flaunts her big boobies (among other body parts) to every available guy on the block; she invites men into her flat to lick whipped cream off her breasts and call her Momma, among other naughty sexy tricks and treats; Pastor Bob at 438 Brecker is being questioned about kiddy porn; Angela Dodson just married her long-time lover, Becky Hill after sixty years; and slumlord Paul Godden got arrested for having cameras in all his female tenants’ bathrooms.

  Following another beer, stick of Jane, and neighborhood gossip/chatter, I ask, “How’s your uncle?”

  “Thanks for asking. Right now he’s taking specialized drugs to reduce pressure in his eyes. They’re drops. I believe in the fall he’ll have an operation.”

  Our knees finally touch, grazing. It’s about time. Thank God.

  He locks eyes with me.

  I become nervous and ask, “What kind of operation?”

  “It’s called MIGS. Minimally invasive glaucoma surgery. They are implants, or tools, designed to effectively restore fluid in the eye. It’s like cataract surgery to help reduce eye pressure. It might prevent him from going blind.”

  “You’re pretty special to take care of him. He probably doesn’t realize what a wonder you are.”

  He chuckles, and admits, “I’m pretty drunk and high right now is what I am.” I don’t know if he realizes it or not, but he reaches forward and touches the exposed, blond hair on my inner, right thigh. He fingers the thigh and asks, “What do you do for a living?”

  “I help design surgical tools. Scalpels. Blades. Retractors. Needle holders. I went to Carnegie Mellon here in Pittsburgh and have a degree in engineering.”

  He pulls his invading hand away from my thigh. Too bad. I rather liked his fingers touching my bare skin. Sometimes a man wants to be touched. “Sounds elite.”

  “Not really. I sit at a computer and look at drawings and numbers all day. My job is to piece the shit together and help make it work. It’s all about diagrams and figures.”

  He tells me he’s an electrician for the city schools, but I already know this, among other intricate details about his life. I want to know something I’m not privy to about his life and ask, “Your Uncle Craig never mentioned you. How are you related to him and where are you from?”

  “He’s my mother’s brother, and I’m originally from Erie. There’s a small town called Templeton where I grew up. It’s next to Erie. My parents own a log cabin in the woods there. Lots of wildlife and beautiful sunrises. They rent the place out now. When I lived there, it used to leave me feeling blessed to be alive every day, it’s so beautiful. Think of the most extraordinary landscape painting you can dream of. One that literally gives you shivers in your toes and shoulders. That’s what it felt like to me.

  “My parents separated when I turned fifteen. I moved west to Phoenix with my mother. My father went to Palm Beach. My mom has a sister who lives right down the street from her. I rent a flat near the university.”

  “So you’re not sticking around here in the city for long, are you? You’ll help your uncle through his surgery and you’ll head west again? The city isn’t for you?”

  “Depends what I could stick to while I’m here, and if it’s worth staying or not. The city isn’t a bad place to live. I can get used to it.” His comments don’t come across as flirtatious, ambiguous, or as sexual innuendos. I’m really not sure what he’s saying, but I’m open for wherever our conversation goes, or whatever they do or don’t hint to, mostly because I’m high and because the cheap beer tastes good.

  I want to ask him if he’s into dudes instead of ladies, but I think I already know the answer to my question because his fingers discover my bare thigh again, and travel northward bound, to my private parts. Instead, I ask him, “This Nova’s been sitting here for the last ten years. Do you think you’ll get it running?”

  “With the right tools I will.” He sounds confident. “It’s all about the tools, Lance. In every situation. At all times.” His hand climbs higher and higher up my thigh, teasing me, turning me on, and causing a number of emotions to turn and twist in me: confusion, hardness, trepidation, excitement, bedazzlement, overzealousness.

  I lose air, becoming breathless and light-headed. I’m almost incapable of saying, “Marcus and I know nothing about cars.”

  “Is Marcus the dragon slayer?”

  “He is.”

  He…He caresses my thigh. One stroke. Two strokes. Three strokes. “You two boyfriends or do you just fuck around with each other?”

  “No. No. No.” My voice cracks. “Never. We’re just friends. He’d drive me crazy if we were boyfriends. And we never fuck around. No handjobs or anything like that. I like a guy who’s more balanced. Dragon slayers are off limits. Sometimes he’s off the charts when it comes to keeping his composure together. He’s totally not my type of guy.” I basically out myself with these statements, but whatever. Again, it’s the pot and beer. Oh well. He’s the one touching my thigh and making me hard.

  “Where is he at tonight? He’s usually at your house.”

  “I know he’s there a lot, but he has his own place. Marcus is on business in Silicon Valley the next few days. He makes computer chips for video games.”

  “Gotcha,” he says. “It all makes sense now. He’s a computer chip slayer then.”

  I laugh.

  He laughs.

  Unfortunately he slides his hand away from my personal parts. Too bad. Damn.

  The both of us become somewhat loaded on beer and we continue to talk for the next two hours. Time passes with such ease; I enjoy myself without overthinking. I learn so much about the man, I can’t even digest it all. A friendship blooms easily between us, without conditions. He flatters me because of his openness. I relish the facts I learn about him. Lists of likes and dislikes.

  His likes: the color yellow; South Dakota (he’s visited there twice); French, although he speaks very little of the language; Batman over Superman; horror novels by Peter Straub; game shows; cowboys; Matchbox 20 (he’s seen the band in concert three times); kittens over puppies; the movie The Shape of Water; algebra; beer over cocktails; football over baseball.

  His dislikes: cell phones and technology; pollution; Republicans; anything related to racism and discrimination of any sort; how time unravels so quickly and is unstoppable; the destruction of human rights; Mother Nature’s fury; innocent prisoners; humans traveling in space; clowns; Botox; skinny pool boys; unsharpened knives.

  Close to midnight, our evening eventually comes to an end. The moon sends shards of harmless and magical silver-white rays of light into the garage. I tell him, “I have to work in the morning.”

  “Me too.”

  I stand.

  He stands. “I’ll walk you home.” A short and abrupt laugh escapes him that sounds like a boy’s. “Or at least to the end of the yard.”

  Such a gentleman. I don’t object.

  We squeeze through the narrow space between the Nova and the workbench. Near the end of the garage, facing my living room and the window from where I watch him, I feel one of his palms against my hip. He gently touches my ribs, abs, and chest hair. I don’t move away from his caress. Never. Not tonight. Not anytime soon.

  Nervous, I mutter, “The moon is beautiful tonight. It has so many emotions in its face.”

  “So human-like. Similar to us on many levels.” He adds, “Be careful. It’s dangerous in here. If you fall, you’ll slice your head open, or something. I don’t want that to happen. No emergencies tonight. Okay?”

  I don’t pull away from his touch. Nor do I act surprised by it. In fact, it’s pleasurable and—I won’t lie to myself, never, at least not under tonight’s crisp moonlight, no way—I want him to seduce me here in the grunge and grime of his uncle’s garage, and take advantage of my skin, any way he wants to. Against the Nova. Over the workbench. Standing up. On one of the chairs where we sat and discussed our lives. Over a chair. Because I desire him. Because Sir-Lance-A-Pot has needs and desires. Because I want him inside me. All of him. The two of us pressed as one. Some way. Somehow.

  Unfortunately he drops his hand from my hip as we exit the small brick building and silver moonlight cascades down and over our partially naked bodies. At the edge of the two properties—his back facing the front of the Nova, and my back facing my living room window—we face each other. Our chests almost touch, as well our crotches. Thick heat rises between us, smolders. I feel as if I’m going to fall to the pre-summertime grass. My stomach jolts. I honestly think he’s going to take me in his arms and hug me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he simply says, “See you around.”

  “Around,” I reply, barely capable of speaking because I am drunk, dizzy, horny, and lost among the folds of night.

  The moment ends as I head to the front of my saltbox, nervously trot into the quiet and dark house, and begin to think for maybe the first time: He might not just be a tool after all. There’s more to him. Someone I can like. For me.

  * * * *

  Two interesting things happen when I become settled inside my saltbox this late evening:

  One: I realize I’d forgotten the wrench Tool lent me. What was I thinking? Why did I do that? Did I have too much to drink? Was my head screwed on too loosely?

  And two: I hear grunts and growls echo from the rear of the garage. I take an extended gander from my living room window, spying on him.

  What I witness just about blows my world apart. Boom! Tool sits in one of the chairs behind the Nova; I can see a sliver of his silhouette in the glow of his cell phone’s light. His jeans are bunched around to his Nike shoes. A shadowy erection stands upright between his legs: veined, pulsing. The man’s nipples and pecs are about as hard as steel. He spreads his legs ever so slightly and works the staff between his thighs up and down, up and down, up and down with both palms. I hear the familiar grunts and growls escape his mouth, throat, and the garage, and watch him thrust his hips upwards, into his fist, one pummel after the next, after the next, after the next. He arches his back, murmurs something I can’t make out, gurgles, gargles, mumbles, and continues to play with himself, thrust his hips upwards, and upwards, heavily pants and…

  An animalistic growl echoes in the night and throughout the neighborhood—it’s deviant, guttural, and monstrous, yet sexy at the same time—as a glowing arc of thick ejaculate spirals out of his sweat-slick post and splatters against the man’s chest and chin. The goop clings and hangs on his glossy, perspiration-covered skin until he wipes it away with fingers, post-sexed, exhausted, and he wilts in the steel chair; the sexy and naked neighbor spent from jacking off.

  Both of us heavily perspire. Both of us are exhausted. Both of us are deflated.

  I feel thick lust within the summertime heat between my legs; a burst of sexual delight—pure stickiness.

  The night wears on.

  * * * *

  The next morning, before I rush off to work, before my day starts and I turn moody because of the monotony of the world, I find the crescent wrench on my front stoop. The tool causes my morning frown to turn upside down. There’s a piece of notebook paper tied to its handle with rawhide. The paper reads: left this behind. I bring the wrench and note inside and place both on one of the end tables next to my sofa and forget about them. Tool is more important than the wrench, right? Right.

  As I drive my vintage Rabbit to Spectrum Tools on the other side of town, I wonder if the night before was nothing more than my mind playing tricks on me: intimate, one-on-one time spent with Tool; our in-depth conversations about each other’s lives, becoming friends; learning about each other; hints of flirting; the beer drinking and pot smoking; the somewhat naked doppelganger of me on his cell phone; the way he touched my inner thigh (more than once) with his fingertips, maybe turned on by me, maybe not; the way he touched my hip when I was leaving the garage. It all had to be a head game of sorts, teasing at its best; something I only dreamed of, wishing for, wanting from him; a deep desire. None of it was reality, of course. Not a minute. Not a second. All of it was a dreamy state of exhaustion because of the heat and the humidity that mixed and caused a hallucinogenic state.

  The evening was too hot.

  I was drugged.

  My mind had played tricks on me.

  It had to be that way.

  Had to be.

  “I can’t think of any other way it could have been,” I say to myself in the Rabbit, driving…driving…driving. “No way. No way at all.”

  Of course.

  How ludicrous of me to think something different.

  * * * *

  Trouble when I get back to Brecker Street after work and settle in. When Marcus is out of town, I follow a routine after my work day: shower, change into some comfortable clothes, eat a salad, and cook a portion of protein on the grill for dinner, have a cocktail after dinner, and watch something on Netflix or Hulu. Lately I’ve been indulging a series on Hulu called A Teacher and absolutely love it. I’ve told Marcus about it, but he’s far too busy playing video games in his spare time.

  Anyway, I do my deed and shower, dress in a pair of shorts and nothing else because Mother Nature is still persisting with her heat wave. I cook dinner, eat, and enjoy my chosen cocktail, a single Kamikaze, which goes down smoothly. I’m just about to find pleasure in a few episodes of my chosen series when the front door of my saltbox bursts open and a pissed off Ricky Starr, my ex-boyfriend, shows up out of the blue.

  The door slams closed behind him. Starr looks good in a pair of snug shorts, sandals, and nothing more. Always did. Probably always will. The black hair on his chest is covered in a thick evening sweat, and his robust muscles look fully pumped with testosterone. Unfortunately, he’s high on something from the city streets; just one of the many reasons why I dumped him three months before. I’m thinking it must be one of the newest sniff-drugs: Raw, Bent, or Calypso. Who knows? He’s wired, on fire, and his eyes are about as open as the three major tunnels in the city. Plus, his lips are chapped, dried, and cracked; a sure sign he’s been hooked on the sniff for a few weeks, even months.

  “No. No. No.” I shake my head and freeze on the sofa. My gut turns. “Starr, what are you doing here?” I say, shocked to see him. I don’t want to see him. Never. Ever. Again.

  He rushes toward me, jumps on me, straddles me like a bull, presses me into the sofa with his massive muscles and weight, and gives me a hard slap to my left cheek, and I taste blood in my mouth. He repositions himself, spreads my legs open, and slaps my bare pecs with one of his palms. He laughs, “I came to get busy with you, motherfucker. A man needs some fun. A man needs to slip his dick into things.”

  “No! No! No!” I try to push him off and away from me, but he’s large, almost twice my size. Too meaty. Too massive and muscular. The man is huge. The guy is rugby- or American football-large. Not fat. Just all muscle. “This isn’t happening! Get off me! You’re hurting me!”

  And this…this is the horrible life I remember with him: the drugs and alcohol and physical abuse and his problems, addictions, pain and how I suffered with him and became miserable and unhappy and someone I didn’t want to be. I freed myself from him. I flew away. I became myself and whole again. I’m a butterfly now: changed and distant from him. Floating away from him. No longer trapped.

  “No…No…No,” I grumble, and push him away with all my might. Tears grow in the corners of my eyes. My heart thuds and my brain swells to twice its size as fear disables every thought.

  His lips meet my neck and one of his hands roll against my dick and balls, which doesn’t turn me on. Not in the slightest. When he comes off for air, he laughs and says, “Come on. What about for old time’s sake? Don’t you want to be a couple with me again? Let me get inside you. I want to bury your face in the sofa and fuck you. You used to like that. No. Wrong. You used to love that. You couldn’t get enough of my dick inside you. What do you say?”

  “There is no old time’s sake with you. Get! Off! Me! Now!”

  He doesn’t listen. He dry humps my middle, hard against me, attempts to pull my shorts down at the same time, and goes at my neck as if he’s a vampire, sucking at its corded veins.

  I try to push him away with my fists. “Off, Starr!…This isn’t happening!…Get off me!…Now!”

  And this, ladies and gentleman, is why I cannot fall in love with Ricky Starr and live happily ever after with him. This is why we are no longer coupled. This is why I think: Where is Marcus when I need him? He usually protects me with his presence. Doesn’t Marcus keep the fire-breathing dragons away from my life? Isn’t he a knight in shining armor of sorts? Why can’t he be here this evening and defend and protect me? Isn’t he always here at my place?

  Where is he?

  Where is he?

  Where is he?

  Just as I’m about to punch Starr in the nuts to defend myself and send him flying off me, the front door busts open—honestly, it almost flies off its hinges and snaps in two—and Tool comes to my rescue. He crosses the room with superhuman speed like Flash, pulls Starr off me, and tosses the man to the living room floor.

  Bump!

  Thud!

  Crack!

  Opportunity knocks. Starr conks his head off the leg of an end table. The wrench I borrow from Tool tumbles off the table and falls. It hits Starr in the left temple. I’m sure he sees stars, birds, planets, go-go dancers, and whatnots. He mumbles something, holds his head. The guy can barely stand, but he does. And he finds the strength to crawl to my front door, attempts his exit, and prattles things over his right shoulder like: “Who’s Superman?…Where’d Joe Strong come from?…What happened?…I only wanted to get inside your asshole like old times, Lance. You were always a prude. A fucking prude. Jesus Christ, what’s your problem?”