Selected Transcripts from the "Hard Time Chronicles" of "Billy Budz"

Section 3 (19Mar2034)



3.01 (From Billy's "blog")


Slavery is still against the law, so the conservatives had to make up new names for it. Most of it is the same old wage slavery -- only worse, because jobs are so hard to find. Anybody who finds work is glad of it, doesn't complain about starvation wages or abuse, and does what he or she is told. They tell stories about diligent workers who are promoted to management, a step below the ruling class, but I never actually heard of anybody who made it into management without either being born into it or paying a large bribe. There are not many ways somebody from the working class can get the money for a large bribe except to steal it, so it follows that management is heavily populated with thieves and the children of thieves.


On the big farms and plantations, the need for seasonal labor is met by "roundups" of people from the squatter camps. Those farm laborers are paid a "wage," officially, but the wage is "withheld" to offset the costs of scant food and inadequate shelter provided by the "employer." Armed guards discourage those who may wish to move on to other "employment" -- that is, until they no longer are needed. Then, armed guards encourage all of them to move on. In terms of cost effectiveness, it's a lot more efficient than traditional slavery, which requires that slaves be fed even when not actively employed.


The notorious "dingos" capture attractive young women and children for the sex trade. Since the dingos prey on the very poor, nobody seems to pay them much attention. The demand for children -- especially those who can be passed off as virgins -- has grown greatly since the breakdown of the public health system, and there are large numbers of feral children prowling the dumps. The real virgins, of course, are sold by their parents. A healthy child can be sold for enough money to pay the bribes needed to move out of the underclass and into the working class. With the right connections and two or three especially beautiful children on offer, a working man might even make it into lower management.


The purchaser, of course, cannot be identified as a "purchaser," per se. The new education law -- the same one that put an end to public education -- provides for "apprenticeships." The child's parent or parents and the child's new "master" enter into a contract: the "master" agrees to "educate" the "apprentice" in exchange for the child's "services" for some agreed upon period of time. You have to hand it to those conservatives -- they always were good with words.


Later today, I doubtless will be offered the "services" of the "apprentices" of a long-term customer. While I am largely retired from the drug trade these days, I continue to provide product for half a dozen old acquaintances. They all are ruling class, and their patronage still comes in handy from time to time.


I have known Conrad (not his real name) for roughly forty years. We both were participants in the club scene in lower Manhattan back in the good old days. Now he uses the heroine I sell him for pain relief. He was rich before the collapse, and he's even richer today. But he's still dying.



3.02 (From Conrad's narrative )


This shit really takes the edge off. It's not like I can't feel the pain, y'know, but it's like it's not really my pain. It's some other guy's. Good shit, Billy. You always got good shit.


So it's history you're into now. Well, that's an old man's game, y'know. Me, I couldn't be less interested. (laughs) Yeah, that's pretty funny. Pretty soon, I'll be history. History. We've got some history, Billy. Where did we meet that first summer? Roxy, maybe, or the Factory? The nineties. Who knew back then, right? Who knew? Two young hot shots, the Wall Street lawyer and the guy with the pocket full of MDMA. And you saw me giving the eye to that underaged kid who came in with that fag hag, what's her name, and you knew. Right off the bat, you knew.


And a half hour later, we're on the West Side Highway headed up to Washington Heights to pick up those Dominican boys. Jaime and... uh, I don't remember the little brother's name. Jaime, my first houseboy. Shit, he was hot. Remember?


Yeah, this shit really takes the edge off...



3.03 (From Billy's "blog")


Conrad got pretty much incoherent about then, so I won't bother transcribing any more of his rambling, but I do remember when we met. The boy he was slavering for was seventeen, at most, but had arrived with a minor celebrity who was in fashion at the time. If they were aware of Conrad's sexual appetites at his law firm, they probably didn't care, as long as he put in his seventy or eighty or ninety hours a week and earned his extremely large bonuses. I didn't know his line of work that first night, but he had money written all over him.


I got up next to him at the bar and yelled in his ear so he could hear me above the music. "Nice, huh?"


He snapped his head around to look at me, and I could see him running through some kind of mental file of faces, trying to decide if I was someone he knew from the Street. I wasn't. Just the same, he said, "What?"


"The kid," I answered. "Way too hot for that skanky bitch."


And, as Conrad said, half an hour later we were in his Jag, headed up to Washington Heights to pick up Jaime and Rolando. Their mother, Teresa, sold some coke and smack for me on consignment. She was all business, that woman, and more trustworthy than most. Usually, she came through with the cash just fine -- but if she happened to put a little too much of my product up her nose, she didn't mind sending Rolando along to my place to make up the difference.


I'd talked to Teresa from the club, and when we pulled up at the corner of 178th and Broadway, the boys popped out of the doorway of a bodega and jumped in the back seat. Jaime was fifteen then -- almost sixteen. He was one of those light skinned Dominicans, with a creamy complexion, straight, dark hair, and classical Spanish features. Rolando was 13, with a tawny brown complexion, giant brown eyes, and an amazing smile. As you might have guessed, they had the same mother but different fathers. Both boys were dressed in satin running suits, Rolando in violet and Jaime in blue. It was 3 AM, but they looked wide awake.


"Man, this some slammin' set of wheels," Rolando exclaimed as he bounced up and down on the leather upholstery. "Where we goin', Billy? Your place?"


"Nope," I replied. "You guys are about to see how rich people live."


Mind you, Rolando thought my big old apartment in Hell's Kitchen was how rich people lived. It had fresh paint, new furniture, and no roaches -- a far cry from Teresa's place in Washington Heights. Conrad, though, was in a luxury loft conversion in Soho. He'd described it to me on the drive uptown. "Yes," I'd assured him, "I think the boys will like it a lot."


We parked in his basement garage, and rode a private elevator to the top floor. It was definitely impressive, but I've never had much interest in architecture or interior design, so I'll only describe the parts with a direct bearing on what happened there. There was a remote control on a small table next to the elevator door, and Conrad used it to turn on some soft lights and soft music, and to drop curtains down over the 20 foot wall of windows that faced the street. We started at a long marble table, where Conrad snorted a few lines of coke to perk himself up a little, and all of us dropped some Ecstasy. Ecstasy, or MDMA, was very popular back then, especially in the club scene. People said it made sex better, but I never noticed that much -- possibly because sex was always good for me back then. Ah, to be young again.


Okay, I said I never did any of my own product, but to me, "product" was coke and H. A little E, a joint, maybe a little speed or a hit of acid from time to time... that didn't count.


There was a large hot tub in an area screened by a wall of glass bricks. "Oh, wow," cried Rolando, "let's go swimmin'." Conrad flipped on the jets, and we sat on a bench and smoked a joint while the water came up to the right temperature. Jaime took an especially deep toke, then put his lips against Conrad's to exhale. A few seconds later, Conrad's Armani jacket lay on the floor behind him, and his hands were inside Jaime's satin track suit. Rolando took the joint from Jaime's hand, and came up behind me. He put the joint in my mouth, and twined his arms around my neck. Closing my eyes, I inhaled as he undid the buttons of my shirt, my belt, and the front of my pants. I stood, and let him finish undressing me. My shirt fell away, and my slacks fell to my ankles. His hands reach into the front of my shorts, and he gave my hardening dick a squeeze before he pulled the shorts down to my ankles. I sat down again, and he deftly removed slacks, shorts, and sandals in one motion.


Then he stood in front of me, so I could return the favor. I unzipped the jacket of his track suit, and touched my lips to his pale brown chest. The jacket slipped from his still narrow shoulders as my hands pulled him closer and my tongue circled his cocoa brown nipples. He squirmed a little, and giggled. "Naw," he said, "that tickles."


I let my hands drop down to his slender ass, and stroked it through the smooth satin of his running pants. Enough satin. My thumbs caught in his waistband and dragged his pants down to his ankles, revealing tiny white nylon panties so thin as to be semi-transparent. I started salivating so hard, I had to swallow several times in a row.


Rolando had a big smile on his face. "Mama said you'd like those. Pretty sexy, right?"


Oh, yes. I lowered my face to his crotch, where four inches of uncut stiffie was held against his belly by the thin cloth, angling up to the right. My hands found his tender bottom, only semi-enclosed in nylon, and I pressed him against my face, rubbing my mouth and nose and cheeks and eyelids against his boyish bulge, making it strain harder against the restraining panties. When I pulled forward on the elastic band, his cocklet shot straight up, its head popping halfway out of his foreskin. I moistened my lips, and kissed it, right on the end, before I pulled the panties down and helped him pull his feet out of his crumpled pants, his sneakers, and his socks. He dropped into my lap, wrapped his arms around my neck, and kissed me, shooting his tongue into my mouth. I detected a taste of Juicy Fruit gum, and a juicy little fruit he was indeed.


Just past Rolando's head, I could see Jaime sitting on the bench naked, knees apart. Conrad knelt between those knees, sucking intently at Jaime's happy hardon. It was a nicely formed dick -- at least the part not hidden in Conrad's mouth. It was not particularly thick, and somewhere between six and seven inches, which was pretty impressive for a teen whose pubes resembled nothing more than a little Hitler moustache perched over his shaft. Watching Conrad on his knees made me think that the very aggressive Wall Street lawyer might be a bit more submissive in bed. It turned out I was not quite right. It wasn't just a bit more submissive, it was a lot more submissive.


Rolando, looking past my head in the other direction, saw the steam rising from the tub. He broke off tongue wrestling and chirped, "Hey, I think it's ready! C'mon, let's get in!"


My little brown buddy and I lowered ourselves in slowly, letting our bodies get used to the heat. I was feeling very mellow, thanks to the Ecstasy, the late hour, and the steamy bath. I pulled Rolando back onto my lap, his back against my chest. I wrapped him in my arms, and let my stiff dick pop up between his legs. He grasped it between his thighs, and I hugged him harder. It was kind of like drifting in a womb, I imagined, but with warm currents surging all around and a hot boy melting into me so I didn't have to be alone. I guess that was the smoke imagining, or the Ecstasy, or the two of them together, or the two of us together, or all four, or whatever, I don't know. Hell, I was stoned.


Jaime and Conrad entered the tub quite a bit more abruptly. Rolando and I were just appreciating all our body contact when Jaime and Conrad tumbled into the water, raising a wave that slapped Rolando in the face and made him sputter, then laugh. "Look at them assholes," he said.


I looked. They were wrestling, sending waves in all directions. Conrad must have had forty or fifty pounds on Jaime, but Jaime seemed to be having his way. Conrad was emitting little squeals, probably intended to sound like squeals of distress, but which could not have been interpreted as anything but squeals of pleasure. It took about a minute before Conrad was bent over the edge of the hot tub, his hairy ass in the air, with Jaime behind him. Jaime's cock rose from the surface of the water like a dolphin at an aquarium show, ready to dive through the hoop. Well, make that the ring. Jaime's cock plunged into Conrad's ass, all the way to the little Hitler moustache.


"Oooh!" exclaimed Conrad, "oooh, oh, aaahhhh!"


Jaime proceeded to give Conrad a proper reaming, his wet crotch and balls slapping against Conrad's wet ass -- schluss, thwapp, thupp, over and over, faster and faster, harder and harder. It was kind of exhausting to watch. It occurs to me now that boys usually have to take it when they're with men, rather than give it out, but Jaime caught on immediately. I returned my attention to Rolando, whose thighs were gripping my cock with intense nervous energy. What was going through his young brain as he watched his brother punish the rich man's hole?


I'll never know. I closed my eyes, and caressed his chest, his belly, his thighs. He pulled up a little, raising his shoulders out of the steamy water, and positioned the end of my hard rod against his tight little pucker.


"It's okay," I whispered. "You don't have to do that tonight if you're not in the mood."


"Nah," he said, "I don' mind. I like you."


Maybe it was the Ecstasy. Whatever. It was not your usual assfuck -- not even your usual underwater assfuck. He sort of -- well -- drifted down onto my cock, then gently rose and fell on the waves generated by Jaime's vigorous buggering of Conrad on the other side of the tub. I ran my hands up and down his thin little body -- his cock was three quarters hard, and it stayed that way the whole time. With one hand, I moved his head to one side, so that I could rub my lips against one of his eyes, one side of his nose, one cheek, and half his mouth and chin. Then he lay his head back against my shoulder, and smiled.


I came slowly, languorously, luxuriantly. The satiny smoothness of his inner passage caressed me, milking me dry in drifting clouds of lilac lust. I emptied myself up his ass, and it seemed that it was not just my cock up there, but all of me, engulfed in his warm heat. At the same time, though, I was stroking him, rubbing him, trying to pull him inside me, even as I was inside him. It's a cliché, but had I died then and there, I would have died knowing that life had been worth living.


You know, maybe there's something to that Ecstasy stuff after all.


I should have kept that boy. Really, I should have kept him. I didn't know it then, but now, forty years later, I think that I loved him as much as I've loved anybody in my life.


Or maybe it was just the best orgasm of my life. Or maybe it's just the best memory of an orgasm remaining to me at this point in my life. Sometimes I just analyze the shit out of things. There's no stopping me.


He's in his fifties now, if he's still alive. The boy, of course, is dead. Boys -- boyhood -- can't survive more than a few tender years. It's not easy loving boys. Somehow, it always hurts.



3.04 (From Conrad's narrative )


Billy, you still there?


I just zoned out there a while. Where was I? Did you remember? Those were the days. Jaime was really something. He was with me, what? Three years, maybe. He was hot.


I miss New York. Never really wanted to come out here, y'know, but the City just got too hard to live in. And everybody was coming here after the Street came apart. Action came here, and you and me, we came after it. Gotta have that action.


So, you remember Jacques, the kid from up north? Took off on me. Not even a year left on his contract, and y'know I'd of been good to him at the end, give him a nice bonus to get him going. Always give 'em a nice bonus at the end.


I didn't set the cops on him. What the fuck, not worth the money, not even a year to go.



3.05 (From Billy's "Blog" )


Always give 'em a nice bonus at the end. That's right, Conrad.


He couldn't get enough of Jaime. Jaime totally suited his rich, perverted need to be dominated. When Jaime turned sixteen that September, he dropped out of school and moved into Conrad's loft. It was an easy enough job for him. He didn't actually have to do any houseboy work, just be around to ram his dick up his boss's ass when Conrad was in the mood -- and since Conrad worked crazy long hours for all that money he made, that wasn't as often as you might think. Jaime mostly hung out in Soho or the Village all day, with all the spending money a kid could want.


Sometimes he took the subway uptown to see his mother. I know he was giving her money, because she was using a lot more than before. When she started shooting up, I couldn't let her deal for me anymore -- she got too undependable.


Me, though, I was doing better than ever. Conrad knew a hell of a lot of young lawyers and brokers who used a hell of a lot of coke, so my stash of gold coins just kept growing. I still did business uptown, but the real money -- for a drug dealer as much as for anybody else in those days -- was on Wall Street.


Jaime stayed with Conrad for a little over two years. Then Conrad found himself a younger boy. I found out about it when I met Conrad for lunch and some business one day.


"So what did you do?" I asked. "Just tell him to pack his stuff and get out?"


"No," Conrad told me, "I gave him a nice bonus. Twenty grand."


I remember the sinking feeling I felt in my stomach. Jaime, who was a much better son than Teresa deserved, would have given a big chunk of that money to his mother. He wouldn't have known that you don't ever give a fat wad of cash to a junkie. After lunch, I headed up to Washington Heights.


I met some people I knew at the McDonald's on Broadway. Sure enough, Teresa had O-D'd a couple of days before. Nobody knew where Jaime and Rolando were, but one guy thought they might have had a grandmother in the D.R.


I never saw them again.



3.06 (Henry's narrative)


I'm Henry. I'm sixteen, and I'm senior apprentice here now, since Jacques ran off. I been here about two years now. The other kid is José. He wasn't here that long, just a couple months. He's fourteen, I think.


Master got a lot worse since I came here, but you know that because you known him a long time. You won't tell him what I said, will you? You gotta promise. I don't wanna get in trouble.


Thing is, I think he's gonna die soon, and I don't know what happens to me if he dies. He says he'll give me some nice money when I turn eighteen, but I don't think he's gonna make it til then. It's not like he's always so weak like today -- sometimes he even gets out of bed and walks around, but -- well, you know, he... well, he smells like he's dying. I hate that smell. My mother had that smell before she died. And then my old man sold my contract to Master. I don't know what he got for me.


Even when I first got here, Master couldn't do much. Once in a while he'd get me up on my knees over his face, in the bed, and he'd just suck my cock for a little while. Then he'd get tired and stop. I don't think I ever actually came in his mouth. You know, it's that smell. He still likes to watch, though. When Jacques was here, he liked to watch Jacques fuck me sometimes. He wanted me to fuck Jacques too, but I just can't stay hard when it's a guy. You know, I'll close my eyes and try to think of this girl I knew before I came here, but it don't work for long. It used to make me wish I was gay, sometimes.


Now José gets to fuck me. That kid could fuck anything, he's hard all the time. That's why Master makes him go around naked all the time except for that little apron he wears. The apron's always sticking out in front, and Master thinks that's funny. At least I get to wear these shorts and t-shirt. The shorts are loose so Master can stick his hand up if he feels like it, but usually he doesn't feel like it lately.


Before you got here today with his medicine, Master was hurting pretty bad. But, just the same, he saw José's dick tenting out that little apron and decided I had to give José a blow job. I don't mind that. He keeps himself real clean, and he doesn't have a lot of hair down there. I think that's because he's Mexican, with a lot of Indian blood. Indians don't have a lot of hair, do they?


I'll admit it, though, I like his ass. It's just this cute, round little ass, almost like a girl's. That's probably another reason Master likes him dressed in that little apron, because you can see his ass poking out under the bow of the apron strings, and it's really cute. Really, the best thing about sucking him off is that I get to hold his ass, and squeeze it, and play with it. His cock fits in my mouth really well, because even if it's hard all the time, it's not all that big. So when I'm sucking him off, I can squeeze his ass and push on it all I want, and even if his cock goes all the way into my mouth I don't choke on it.


José came here from another master, and he had another one even before that. He can't even remember his mother.


When I was a kid I had it pretty good. I had a mother and a father, and they both had jobs. My mother did bookkeeping, so she made even more than my father. They even had money to send me and my sister to school. I didn't much like school, but my sister did. She's smart.


Then my mother got sick, so it was no more school. Whatever they saved, it went for the doctor, but he didn't do shit. Once the money was gone, that was the end of it. She got that smell, that dying smell. And then she died. And my father didn't do nothing but go to work and come home again, and sit there looking at the bills and looking at us. Then he decided. I would go be an apprentice, even if I was fourteen and kind of old to start out. Whatever money he got he would use to pay for getting my sister a job. She was seventeen, then, and smart.


So here I am. I just try to do what I'm told, and take care of Master so maybe...



3.07 (José interrupts Henry's narrative)


Oh, shit, Henry, you gotta come with me! That little kid, there somethin' wrong, and I don't know what to do! Please, Henry, come on! Hurry!


billy_budz@hush.ai