There was only one more boat after that, and nobody was on it. But empty docks went on aways. So I kept walking. The brush and weeds and trees between the docks and the old warehouses were higher here.

  About twenty-five, thirty yards on, in the gravel behind me I heard steps.

  I didn't turn, but when I slowed, the steps slowed. When I stopped, they shushed off into the bushes. I didn't look back, but I was pretty sure it was the nigger who'd hoisted his meat at me when I'd tasted his pee down by the first boats, come up after me now, here beyond the end.

  Well back in the brush, two, five, three at a time, with pauses in between, the steps came closer.

  I turned and pushed into the brush too.

  Leaves slapped at my face. Twigs caught on my shirt. Then, three or four yards in, I found a clearing where the stuff wasn't even up to my knees. The steps came on, slowed—perhaps he wasn't sure I'd come in, though I couldn't believe he hadn't heard me. Some more steps came closer. Then I realized: it was more than one person. It was two people, together.

  I turned and started away again. One time, about a year ago, on Federal Street over by the University, two guys together caught me and took me to some burned-out building. (The young one, I think, was from the college.) Most of the things they did with me I didn't like at all. And it took me three days before I got away. The brush here was so loud, there wasn't any hiding. But I moved toward where it got thicker and higher, going beside the docks, in the direction I'd been going before. My steps quickened. Their steps quickened. So I stopped and turned around, ready to run off. Outside and over some warehouse door, a bulb in a wire cage was burning, its light all splintered through the leaves and branches. Really, you couldn't see much by it.

  They stopped, first one, then the other—right next to him. "Hey. That's you, ain't it, white boy?" It was a nigger's voice, calling softly; but familiar. "You out here lookin' for somethin'?" "We got somethin' for you, if you want it." That was a white man's, also quiet, also familiar. "You like black cheese? I got a whole handful of just what you want." The nigger laughed, low and rough. I took a couple of steps forward. I could just make out where they were. I took a couple steps more. Then I smelled them.

  "You just come on over here, boy," Red drawled. "Yeah, you'll like this, cocksucker. If you Big Sambo's boy, I know you gonna like

  this."

  Like something happening in an underground cave, Rufus

  chuckled.

  "Right in my hand here I got a big piece of funky nigger meat," Red went on. "Here it is, right here. Got this big black nigger bastard partner of mine's big old black dick right in my fist. You see what's in my other one—workin' on old red-capped leaky? Both of 'em big, both of 'em juicy. But I guess you can see that from where you are already." (Through the brush I couldn't see much of anything.) "Which one you want? You like cheesy nigger meat? You like smoked salmon? You can have 'em, one at a time or both together, in whichever hole you want—anyway you want 'em, cocksucker!"

  "Come on, boy." Rufus's voice came, just as smooth, from out his chuckle. "I wanna see my partner Red here feed my dick into your little honky blond motherfuckin' face!"

  I took another couple of steps forward. Only four or five feet in front of me, I could make out Red and Rufus, standing next to each other. A little light picked out where Red's sleeve was rolled up on his forearm; his arm slanted down across Rufus's belly. And was moving. I could see the strap of Rufus's tanktop over his big shoulder, moving when he breathed. But there wasn't enough light to see any of Red's freckles—or, really, to guess Rufus wasn't white if you didn't already know it.

  One of them took a step. The other came with him. And Red's hand, shifting on a big, sideways-curved dick, slipped into some glow that got through the brush. (I felt a lot better, 'cause they weren't like the guys on Federal Street at all.) Red had some big hands on him, too! But even pulling on it like he was doing, he didn't come near to covering Rufus's cock.

  Rufus asked, serious and deep-voiced: "You think that's big enough for him to see it, now?"

  Red chuckled this time.

  "Come on, you hungry little son of a bitch." Rufus said. "Let my man here feed you some nasty black dick. I wanna see you lappin' an' a-lickin' on it, white boy!"

  I stepped up and squatted in the leaves.

  Red left off Rufus's cock—which bobbed half an inch higher,

  with its funny side curve. He put his palm on my face; it was horny and rough. Red slid his thick fingers into my hair and pulled me forward. The blunt, night-black shaft butted my cheek and left a wet spot.

  "Go on." Red tugged me forward. "Suck it." I did.

  "Yeah...," the nigger whispered. He pushed forward. It was real salty. And his lap heated up my whole face when I went into it, with the smell of grimy cloth and nigger crotch.

  Red turned loose my head, took hold of Rufus's cock again. He slid his hand along the part I didn't have in my mouth yet. A few times, his walnut of a knuckle beat my face.

  "Get on his ass," Rufus said. "Go on, Red. Get his ass up and fuck 'im."

  When Red took his hand away, I went down on the nigger till one side of his zipper and, on the other, stiff hair tore at my mouth.

  Red got behind me, stooped, got one hand in the back of my pants, and yanked me up. He was still jerking his own cock with the other—I could feel his rhythm in the fingers splayed on my butt. He had to yank me a couple of times—my pants waist pulling and pulling under my belly. Without loosing Rufus's cock, I held onto the nigger's pockets. One was ripped; and each time Red yanked me, it ripped more. As I got my feet under me, Red found Big Chico's tear—"Oh, shit!"—and got his other hand in through that. He dug two fingers between my buttocks. Like I said, his fingers were big.

  "Go on, fuck his ass!" Rufus hissed. "I wanna see ya'! Go on!" He shoved his cock deep in my face, grabbing my head and leaning forward. (Though I didn't know how he could see anything.) "Go on. Fuck 'im!"

  Red held my hips now, positioning them—and shoved in. "Oh, shit!" I heard him catch his breath—and heard the grin in it, too. "The kid's got one of them assholes that wets up like a pussy, Rufus! When Big Sambo gets 'em, he gets 'em good." Red moved his hands up the small of my back, rocking and leaning. "Nigger, this is a fine fuck. ..." He went in again. "A fine fuck, nigger!"

  "I wanna see ya' in his face, Red." With a few tight-curled hairs on it, Rufus's ball sack hung warm against my chin, his nuts swinging under. "Come on, Red. You gonna have to dick this white

  boy's face. He take it all the way down in his fuckin' belly!"

  "From either end, too!" One of Red's hands moved up my back, over my shoulder, around to my cheek. He fingered Rufus's wet cock slipping in and out of my mouth.

  I remembered how Hogg liked his fingers sucked. So, alongside the nigger's dick, I sucked two of Red's. They were sandpaper hard, hammer-haft thick, and tasted of machine oil, with salt under it. Red seemed to like it, too.

  "Come on," Rufus was saying. "Come on! Turn him around!"

  Red's fingers in my mouth hooked up my head. Rufus's cock slipped loose. Red's dick slid out my ass. I stumbled in the long grass but they both held me up. Red laughed while they turned me.

  The nigger was panting. "Let's do him this way awhile," Rufus said. "We'll do him this way, then we'll do him back the other."

  Though I had my nose full of its stink, I couldn't see Red's cock very well: but it looked like the last inch or so bent straight down in an L! I went lipping after it when the length of it slapped my cheek. "Yeah, eat that pig fuck, cocksucker!" The stink was my shit.

  And Rufus was pushing at my asshole. When his dick had been in my mouth, I'd felt the curve. But I couldn't feel it at all up my ass.

  Red got my head in one hand, pushed his dick in my mouth with the other. It was real fat, with an unholy lot of foreskin off the end. (It wasn't bent, I realized; that was just his goddamned curtains hanging down!) Under the shit, it tasted about like his fingers, only a little less oil, a little more salt. He'd been joking about the nigger's cheese, but when I tongued inside Red's long, leathery cuff, I swear, it was like he'd sat down earlier with a half pint of Breakstone and packed a tablespoon of smallcurd in there around the head. The only way I know a guy can raise that much dick cheese is from something the super I stayed with showed me a couple of times, back when I was first with Pedro and Maria: he'd only had about two-and-a-half inches of cock, even hard. Red had more like nine. But they both were guys with two-inches of skin overhang; and sometimes, when he'd beat off, the super would keep the scum inside it, tie his foreskin in a knot, and let the stuff stay in there five or six hours, with a little piss. (If you only had as much skin as the wop or Denny, say, I guess you'd have to use a rubber band to hold it to cover the cum.) Inside, it would ferment. After half a day, it was as thick and curdy as you could want. He'd untie the skin and make me suck him off that way—till

  he realized I liked it. Then he wouldn't do it for me no more. I think he wanted to eat it himself—'cause I caught him doing that, once, too. But that's the only way I knew Red could get up that much cheese. Even if you never washed it, it just couldn't get that way without some help. Or he took half the nigger's and put it in with his own—once I knew some guys who did that, too. I tongued out Red's crusted sleeve, the soft stuff and the harder stuff under it, went down to the hilt, came back, turned his curtains just about inside out and shoved hard with my tongue, on one side, on the other, then around the top, getting off what was stuck there, peeling it loose, holding the haft in my teeth. (Cheese tastes awful good!) I went down again, then came back to clean the last curds from either side the skin holding his foreskin to the underside of his dickhead. "Nigger," Red said, and I could hear his grin was even bigger, "this cocksucker likes me!"

  Behind me, Rufus went in, and Red grunted; he could feel it all the way up in my face. Red went in too, and I put my arms around his hips. I held my wrists around under his ass so that he pulled at them each time he went back.

  Rufus grunted out, and shoved: "His little honky ass—" and shoved—"sure seems happy with—" and shoved—"my big black dick!"

  Red chuckled. Grunting, Rufus held my hips, leaning harder, pumping faster.

  When Red went in this time, he halted, laid a fart—and laughed again. At least at first I thought it was a fart: something like ten inches of broom handle fell down into the seat of his pants, over my wrists. "What'd you do?" Rufus asked, without letting up on my hole. "Shit in my fuckin' pants!" Red laughed out. He started humping my face again. "Oh, Jesus . . . !" I heard him shit again—and felt another three-incher fall. When he went out this time, he tried to wiggle his ass as though he wanted it smeared around. I spread my hands, moved them up the gritty cloth and mashed. Inside, I felt the turd squash against his hard buttocks. "Oh, fuck, yeah—" His pants seat, first under one wrist, then under my fingers, then my palms, wet through.

  "Goddamn, Red," Rufus got out between humps. "You never smelled exactly what I'd call sweet. But—oh, man."

  I took one hand away from Red's ass—the cloth of his seat was all stuck to him—reached around the front and into his fly, back

  under his balls. With his hip movements, his nuts drew back and dragged, real sweaty, beside my wrist. " Huh...? What you... ? " When Red opened his legs wider, zipper teeth scraped my forearm. "Hey ... !" His cock came out of my mouth, but his hips were still going. The thick head kept butting my cheek, the wrinkled hose again hanging off the end. His work-hardened palms still clamped my ears.

  The hair of Red's legs was very long. I felt around between, got to his ass where it was all pasted with shit, and scraped as much as I could from his matted buttocks and out from the seat of his pants. Red even squatted a little so I could get some more. "Nigger, you can tell he been down there with Big Sambo. You know what he likes...."

  Rufus chuckled now.

  With one hand, I held Red's belt. The other loaded with crap, I came out of Red's fly and grabbed his cock. Red drawled: "Oh, yeah . . . !" I rubbed and rubbed it, back into his hair and up over the loose, long nozzle, and back down on his balls, and up again. Then I got his belt in both hands; and started licking at his dick like I was going after the drippings on a sausage. "Oh, man," Red said. "Goddamn, cocksucker, you're too fuckin' much!" He got the head in. And went home. This time he locked his hands behind my head and held me close while he humped. "Nigger, he got a mouth full of my shit! An' I'm fuckin' it, you black bastard! I'm fuckin' it!" I slid my hands around to his wet backside again. My mouth filled up with crap every time he drew out. Red went in, and got it all mashed around. "Rufus, you got to try this—"

  "He Big Sambo's boy," Rufus said, "an' you know he like shit!" He worked the small of my back with his broad, rough fingers. My ass turned up like a cat's pussy. One spot about five inches up my asshole, each time when his dick rubbed over it, all I could do was squirm and drip. "Yeah, that sounds fine, Red. Maybe it's gettin' 'bout time to turn him around again and see what fuckin' a mouth full of your shit feels like—"

  "Well, you got a shitty dick, nigger. And shit is sure what this cocksucker goes for." Red laughed down at me, and pressed my face—like we had a secret between us. Maybe it was all his cheese. "I ain't never seen a cocksucker this young who went after shit as much as—"

  Then the flashlight beam hit.

  Red staggered. Rufus stopped.

  "Now what the fuck you bastards think you're doing!"

  Rufus's hands tightened on my back. Red's belly moved against my forehead. I could hear them both breathing.

  "Hey, stop workin' your face on that dick! And keep your ass still, I say!"

  Which was hard, because Red and Rufus were too—even though they'd stopped moving.

  "Come on, cocksucker! Calm your ass down, now, and let Rufus go. Red, get your fuckin' dick out of his face—now!" Footsteps came through the brush.

  "That you, Whitey ... ?" You could tell Rufus was squinting in the flashlight glare.

  "I'll let him go," Red ventured, "but it sure looks like he's still hungry. ..."

  I felt Rufus shift inside my hole.

  Then somebody yanked me up by the hair. Red's cock slipped free. I staggered. Rufus's dick came loose—and that time I did feel the curve. It kind of hurt.

  "What kinds of sons of bitches are you, both fuckin' the little bastard at the same time?" Even with just the flash, the ice-colored eyes going back and forth between Red and Rufus looked like they had bulbs on inside. The way he held me, my arm was rubbing against his cartridge belt. "Shit!" With the jerk, his blue cap had gone crooked on all the nigger-tight, ash-pale hair. He looked awful angry. "You are two low motherfuckers!"

  I opened my mouth wide and let my tongue slop back and forth over my lower lip. Spit and shit ran down my chin.

  The policeman looked down at me, frowned, and said, "Jesus Christ. . . !"

  "I tell you, Whitey," Red said, a little warily, "I think the cocksucker's still hungry."

  Suddenly the policeman shoved me. I fell back into the brush. "What'd you do to him?" The policeman raised his flashlight to move it back and forth between the two garbagemen. "What kind of little freak is this?"

  Bits of light slid on the leaves beside my face, caught on the side of Red's torn pants—I could see a stretch of hairy, freckled shin as the light shifted—and I could see the shadow each hair cast. I looked up at Rufus; the flashlight made the torn, greasy tanktop,

  which had been green out under the dock lights, look gray. His shoulder gleamed with sweat. So did Red's grinning, spotted jaw.

  Then the light swung down, so that for a moment, with it in my eyes, I couldn't see.

  On my back, I lifted my legs up in the air, reached between them, opened up Chico's tear and dug into my asshole with my fingers. There was still a lot of shit on my other hand, so I put it in my mouth and started to eat,

  "Jesus," the policeman said. "Is the little fucker crazy?"

  Rufus's low, rumbling chuckle grew and fell. "That boy just need his pussy pumped a little more, Whitey. You see how he tryin' to do himself like that?"

  I stuck my tongue out between my fingers. I rocked harder and tried to get my hand up far enough to reach that spot the nigger's cock had made feel so good.

  The light stayed on me.

  The policeman said: "He's fuckin' crazy . . . !"

  "But he got a sweet ass," Rufus said.

  "Shut up, nigger," the policeman said.

  Still sucking, still digging, I raised my head.

  Behind the flashlight, I could see the policeman's other hand hooked to the bullet belt by his thumb. He dropped it to scratch himself between the legs. His hand sort of stayed there a little too long, started to raise again, then went back. He had on a wedding ring, I remember. And his hands were very short and wide.

  I had my thumb and three fingers up to the knuckles in my ass. My forearm rubbed my balls. I kept grunting and pushing harder.

  Suddenly the light swung away. "Shit—!" the policeman hissed. He just dropped the light in the brush; I heard the batteries clunk together.

  His zipper rasped. His shoes crashed up in the leaves. He grabbed me by one leg and squatted. I heard him spit on his hand.

  "You don't need no spit for that pussy," Rufus said. He squatted beside me.

  Red, still standing, put his hands in his pockets shifted his weight and cocked his head.

  The policeman jerked my hand out, set his cock in my asshole, shoved, and nearly fell on me.

  Where the flashlight was laying on the ground, it caught Red's dirty ankle under the frayed cuff. Red squatted.

  My face was almost under the policeman's shoulder. Rufus squat-walked around to get closer to Red. Red just sort of slid his hand into his fly to play with himself. Rufus had his out already and was shucking, his thumb on the top, fingertips underneath, like he liked the feel of his nails—which were pretty workworn and short; they were dirty, but he didn't bite them, it looked like. I wondered if his foreskin was long enough to make the same kind of cheese Red's could. His dick was as long as Hogg's, I couldn't help thinking; and thicker.