“I was just having a pizza and beer with my neighbor. You know Lance Baye, right?”

  “Of course. Of course.” She waves a hand at me, disregarding my presence, ignoring me. Lack of My Presence 101 in action. “We’ve met a few times. The homosexual on the block.” She giggles rather rudely, her tone losing excitement. “Every city street has one. Unlike you, Mike, he does nothing for me. I’ve never been into queens. Their beef just doesn’t mix well with my body parts.”

  She makes a tee-hee sound that causes me to roll my eyes. I’m flabbergasted and shake my head. I swallow a hostile reply. Tool makes wide eye contact with me. Maybe he’s just as confused and irritated by her as I am. Or maybe he’s surprised by her insipid chatter; I’m not sure. He doesn’t stay quiet, though, and tells her, “Honey, that wasn’t very nice to say about Lance.”

  “What?” she says. “The truth? He likes dick. He can’t do anything for me, sweetie. We know that.” She rolls her busy hand down the center of his chest, between his legs, and grabs the mound of his beef, provides it with a squeeze, two squeezes, and three squeezes. “Oh my. You are quite the man. Such bounty I’ve found. What a meat-man you are. Honey likes. Yum. Yummy. And yummer.”

  Tool jumps where he sits, and laughs.

  She says, “It’s time to make you hard and happy, sweetie. Honey wants a taste of your ruggedness. Honey needs you.”

  I’ve seen and heard enough. It’s time to leave. There is no reason for me to stick around a second longer. I get what’s going on between the two of them. Wink. Wink. Boy meets girl. Big-boobed girl hits on tool-boy. Girl does boy. I get it. I’m not a fool. I’ve seen it a million times before. Who hasn’t? It’s in every relationship handbook between men and women that’s ever been written.

  Politely, I tell them both, “I really have to go. Goodbye,” and I slip away.

  Honey makes a tsk sound.

  “Lance…Wait,” Tool calls out to me.

  “Oh, sweetie, let the fag go. He has nothing to offer us. Let him go find a dick somewhere. You have me. And I have you.”

  I look over my shoulder at these comments. I honestly don’t want to see what I do: Honey on Tool’s lap. She has her half-tank pulled up and her breasts are exposed, nipple-hard. She attempts to cover Tool’s face with her breasts and says, “Honey wants you to properly lick these. Have at them.”

  * * * *

  On my short walk home I call myself a stupid fool under my breath. Frustrated, touched by the moonlight, I add, “You never had a chance with Tool. Never. Of course you’re a stupid fool, Sire-Lance-A-Pot. Marcus was right.”

  My bestie’s words surface inside my head: Do. Not. Fall. For. Him. He’ll hurt you. Every guy has hurt you. You’re not meant to fall for a guy. Never. At least not in this lifetime. Don’t follow your heart, and mind, and cock. Run. Run as fast as you can. Stop the bullshit now. Just stop it.

  Reality is sometimes easier to understand in its cruel beauty. I know this first-hand now. I feel it. The sting is tough to handle. The burning saliva it offers is steaming hot. Undeniable pain. Grief of sorts hits me. Death at my center. Breathlessness in my lungs. I no longer feel alive.

  Once at home I close all the windows, pull all the blinds, and block out the city and the rest of the world, particularly what’s happening next door. I put on the air conditioner for the first time this season and watch TV until I fall asleep on the sofa. I don’t dream of Tool or Honey or a vintage Nova that needs repairs. I don’t think about tools or pizza or beer. I don’t imagine men smoking pot together or fingertips touching a thigh. Sleep finds me. Hard and long sleep. I’m alone. My days from now on will always be like this. Always.

  * * * *

  It’s the next day. Saturday, May 29. Memorial Day weekend. I have a three-day weekend off from work. Rain beats down from the gray heavens and the day becomes soggy. Not that I mind, since I’ve always loved the rain. Besides, every man needs some soggy in his life, right? Not a lot, just some. I spend the morning reading the latest Robert Riley mystery called Mischief Challenged when the front doorbell rings on my quiet saltbox. Still seated, I set the hardback aside and look up, across the room. Tool stands at the screen door in too many clothes: snug jeans that outline his manly package, a wet T-shirt is like plastic wrap on his chest, and Adidas running shoes.

  He smiles.

  I don’t, still affected from the night before in his uncle’s garage and the reality that he has a thing going on with Honey Hertzer. I’m not exactly what their relationship entails, but I know I don’t like it, and don’t want to be in the mix of it. I just know I don’t trust Honey. So I’d rather break off whatever I have with Tool and slide back into my still life without him. Case closed. Or in this case: close the living door and window, pull the blind down on the window, and forget that he exists.

  He doesn’t say, “Hello,” through the screen door. Instead, he says, “I need a tool from you, Lance.” He stutters: “A screwdriver…A hammer…Something…I see my pile of tools on the floor next to the end table behind you.”

  “You have a bunch of tools in your shed, Mike. You can use one of them. I don’t have any to lend out to you today. Go away.”

  I go to the door and begin to block him out of my world forever. I’m just about to close the door on his face and wet-sleek-muscled frame when he says, “Don’t close the door on me. Fuck the tools, Lance. I think we need to get to the point and talk about last night. That visit Honey made. You’re totally reading into it wrong.”

  I push the screen door fully open and don’t move. I look at his wet chest—no, I can’t prevent his good looks from drawing me in. Forget the hardback novel and my day off reading and relaxing. A tempered and heated day with a sexy Tool is the best day ever! Nervously, I bite my lower lip and eventually find the courage to say to him, “Honey was grabbing your dick and had her breasts in your face. I don’t think I’m reading anything wrong about last night. It’s obvious the two of you have messed around. You’ve fucked her once and you were going to fuck her again, Mike. I don’t want to get involved in that. You like her. She likes you. It’s a match made in straight heaven. I saw what I saw.”

  “Wrong,” he says, hanging his head low. “I never had sex with her. Never. She doesn’t have the tools I want or like.”

  “Could have fooled me. She was on your lap and had her tank pulled up. Her breasts were in your face. I saw everything I needed to see when I was leaving. The two of you are clearly a couple. You obviously have a sex-gig with her going on, or whatever you want to call it.”

  He sighs, lifts his head, and shakes it. Brown, wet strings of hair hang over his left eye. “See, that’s the thing. You’re wrong. We’re. Not. Lovers. I’ve never diddled Honey. No way. You didn’t see anything real at all last night. Honey and I are not a couple. Let me make this clear to you, Lance Baye…We’re not a thing or lovers. She threw herself at me and…and things got a little crazy when you were there. If you stuck around for a few minutes longer you could have seen the ridiculousness that followed. The woman tried to take advantage of me. I could have called the cops on her, but didn’t. I wasn’t physically forceful with her, but did tell her to stop what she was doing. I told her nothing was going to happen between us and…”

  I let him inside, out of the rain. Face to face on the small, rectangular shag rug next to the door, he stares deep into my eyes. He doesn’t touch me, keeping his distance, respecting my space. I’m too transfixed by his stare to admire his wet handsomeness. Instead, I take in every word he says to me: “Honey was looking for something I couldn’t give her…Something I wasn’t about to give her. Never. She had never been so forward with me like that before. Starr did the same thing to you the other week. Remember? He pushed himself on you and I came to your rescue. Well, Honey did the same thing to me last night, but in a different way.”

  He pauses, wipes rainwater away from his eyes and cheeks. He pushes the strand of wet, brown hair away from his left eye. “It’s not what you think it is between Honey and me. Honestly, it’s not. She’s the neighborhood floozy, looking for the next guy to sleep with. I’m just the newest dick for her to ride. You know that. I know that. Everyone on this block knows it. And she’s not who I want to kiss, hold, or be romantic with. I’m not that kind of guy. I’m not a tool, even if people think I am. I have more integrity than that. I’m not easy like that, guy. Hell, I can’t even tell you the last time I’ve been intimate with, or attracted to someone. Honey does nothing for me. Nothing at all. That’s why I stopped her advancements last night, and told her to pull her tank down and cover her breasts. And then I told her nicely to please get off my lap, and that she had to leave. She wanted to know why. So I told her…I told her…I told her…”

  “You told her what, Mike?…What did you tell her?” I ask him, still caught in his creamy brown eyes, listening to fresh thunder boom behind him in the distant heavens and echo lethargically over the neighborhood, above Brecker Street. Frustrated, nervous, half out of my mind, I reach forward and press a hand to his chest, between his firm and wet pecs. My pinkie finger grazes a nipple. Just right. My face moves closer to his face. My lips almost touch his quivering lips. And I whisper to him, repeating myself, “You told her what, Mike? Tell me. I want to know. What did you tell her?”

  “That…that I think I’ve fallen in love you, Lance Baye, and you have the tools I want in a relationship, and you drive me sexually mad, and I can’t stop thinking about you, and…”

  I pull him towards me by his wet T-shirt and kiss him. My world spins. What happens? Everything scientific that I can’t begin to understand, but my heart feels otherwise. The kiss is: the catena effect, a gravitational pull, a conjunction, an accretion, a synchronous rotation, resonance, and a quadrature. I can barely move, motionless in his arms. Paralyzed. His. Only his.

  And he kisses me in return: powerfully, open-mouthed, without any pulling back whatsoever. He wants to be kissed, hungry for me, obviously into me, and seals our frames, causing a relentless collision of bodies.

  We tangle together as lightning and thunder dance in a magnificent storm above us in the darkening and threatening clouds. We become one, locking our arms and chests tightly together for the very first time, unable to pull out of this unbreakable, heated, and steamy embrace. Our hearts beat together as we kiss and hold each other next to the screen door. The temperature rises in my saltbox.

  When the kiss ends, I see that he is excited, steel-hard, proof that he truly isn’t into Honey Hertzer. He pants like an animal. His chest rises and falls, unstoppable. He steps deeper into my home, pushing me backwards with one hand, and sweeping the door closed behind with his other hand. He has my spittle on his lower lip from our kissing-lust: a mix of tongues and lips. Hunger beads in his eyes, turning them glossy-brown as he continues to push me backwards, near the sofa. And he growls, “We’re more than friends now. You know this. I know this. We’re lovers. And I’m going to have you, Lance. All of you.”

  At the sofa, I’m abruptly spun around and my shorts are dropped to my ankles. I hear his belt buckle on his jeans being loosened, jingling. I feel his lips against my spine, from my neck down to my bottom…and…and…

  There’s very little foreplay between us, I confess, not that I mind or it matters. There are no licks to pecs or nipples. There is no kissing against navels or abdominals. There are no tongue-laps to arched necks. There are no strong sniffs to V-patches of pubic hairs or blowjobs. We do not manhandle each other’s tools with long and smooth strokes. Inner thighs are not swabbed with wet tongues. Nor are they bitten. Nothing like this happens. Rather, Mike gets down to business after licking my spine and bottom. Positioned behind me, the length of his hard dick rubs against my ass-slit once, twice, and three times. And he asks me, “Do you want me inside you?”

  “Yes,” I practically beg for his firm tool to punch its way between my ass-orbs. “Please.”

  He finds a condom, rolls it down and over his joint, adds lube, and growls, “It might hurt. I can’t promise that it won’t. Something tells me you want it to hurt.”

  I don’t object. I won’t. I’m just about to tell him when it happens: one inch turns into six inches, thus seven as they enter me. It’s a relentless and brutish thrust that I’ve desired since he moved in next door. I buck forward because of the immediate and abrupt surprise and a grunt escapes both of us, but for different reasons; his because of pleasure, and mine because of the forceful pain.

  “Christ!” exits my throat and lips. “It does hurt.”

  His perspiration flings off his forehead and chest and burns against my spine. He says behind me, “Try to enjoy the ride,” and clamps his palms against my hips. Mike begins to ride my bottom slowly, faster, in and out. He becomes a pump behind me, overworked, non-stopping, and very much like a machine.

  “Enjoying,” slips out of me, just as his dick does the same thing.

  My bottom burns: I don’t mind; truth is, I find much pleasure from his speedy, chaotic, and hurtful action. I’m arched over and my head is literally pushed into the sofa’s cushions as he throttles himself inside me, pulls out, and throttles inside again and again. I can barely breathe, but manage. The stinging feels great; everything I want from him; everything that I’ve desired from the stud. I become one with him for ten, thirteen, seventeen minutes, connected the way I’ve always wanted to be connected to him (romantically, physically, emotionally, sexually), sealed together by our hearts and other devices. My ball sack swings to and fro: hastily, slapping against my thighs in frenzied motion, dripping with sweat.

  “Mine,” he whispers. “I wasn’t going to let you get away from me. You’ve always been mine. I’ve been waiting for this since I first caught a view of you.”

  “You had me from the start. Always. I wasn’t going anywhere.”

  Hereafter, a wraparound occurs. I can’t remember the last time this has happened to me. His right hand lifts from my right hip and rolls down to my center and discovers my extension of hard meat. His fingers and palm wrap around the stick and he begins to milk the shaft up and down, which causes my balls to swing to and fro. In doing so, he calls down and over my back, “Taking care of you. Maybe we can come together.”

  We…We…We move together; simpatico at its finest: I back into his tool and he rushes forward; I pump his right fist with my dick and he yanks on it numerous times, pleasuring me: tugging on the meat, squeezing its mass, rolling his appendages against the beef’s hard-lined veins. We gyrate and move and glide and swing together, just as I always thought we would. How perfectly combined. How breathtaking, maddening, pulverizing, blissful, and just right.

  “Smooth and tight,” he whispers behind me. “This is what I’ve waited for, Lance.”

  As heat rises inside my living room and the storm outside intensifies, I can’t breathe with my head pushed…pushed…pushed…into the puffy cushions. Honestly, I don’t mind—I want this to occur. Elation surfaces throughout my entire body. Euphoria. Bliss encompasses me as we sexually communicate and become one—us.

  “Exploding,” he informs me. “Can’t hold it in. Come with me. Come with me now.”

  Mike doesn’t have to tell me twice as he continues to manhandle the flag between my legs. Jolts of electricity zigzag through my core as he does some hardcore action on my bottom. Fire burns me from the inside out. Like the lover behind me, I can no longer hold my own load and…

  “Shooting,” I moan, and douse the sofa with my white and creamy seed, decorating the material: splotches and strings and dots and zigzags; I’m a lover-artist at work.

  “Coming…inside you, man. Only you. Only you,” he growls behind me, banging me one last time, pressing his pelvic bone to my bottom, holding it there, emptying his cargo inside the plastic that separates us. Unloading. Coming. Firing. Discharging.

  Depleted.

  * * * *

  After our round of heated sexual exploration, we sit on the living room floor in front of the sofa and kiss. Naked, our arms entangle. One of his legs slides over mine, affectionately. We huff and puff. As our mouths connect, the storm outside rumbles and roars and cracks, growing into an angry fit. Both of us stink of sweat and man-jack-goo, but neither of us cares as we continue to kiss and hug.

  When our kissing ends, he pulls away from me and says, “You blind me.”

  “I tend to do this to men. You’ll get dizzy and sick and long for my love more and more,” I tell him.

  He chuckles. “I won’t be going back to Phoenix unless you come with me. You’ve caught me.”

  “I expected this to happen.”

  “Arrogance is sexy on you.”

  “You’re sexy on me…and inside me.”

  He kisses me again: sweetly, bites at my lower lip, slides his tongue inside my mouth. When the kiss ends, he says, “I do love you, Lance. I wasn’t just telling you that to push your head into the sofa. My heart is right here if you want it.”

  I don’t have to think about his statement. Not for a second, or longer. A smile comes to my face. My heart skips a beat. My chest trembles like the storm outside. I found him, and intend to keep him in my life. He’s not going anywhere if it’s up to me. I reply, “I want it, Mike. All of it. All of you.”

  Thus, the reason we kiss again, and begin another stormy session of lovemaking with our tools on the living room floor, during the beating storm and our continuous heartbeats.

  * * * *

  “You should be ashamed of yourself. It smells like sex in here,” Marcus tells me the following day. He wants to stick around at my place and play his dragon/knight video game. I don’t mind since I’m getting ready to leave. Mike and I are planning to have lunch down by The Point and three rivers. It’s almost noon. I have just climbed out of the shower after spending the night and morning with Tool. He asks, “Did he really bang you over the sofa?”

  I won’t lie, and blush. “He did take advantage of me, but I wanted him to. Truth said, it was more like in the sofa.”