Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:41:38 EST From: Cojonudo52@aol.com Subject: Huge: Chapter 1 Disclaimer: I haven't written this kind of story before. So to those of you who have spent too much time sifting through this site, it may seem a little off-center. Too self- consciously literary; too slow to get down and funky. Believe me: eventually, there's plenty of sturm und drang. Lots of sex for the patient reader (or the aggressive scroller). The usual caveats, therefore, apply: don't read it if you're supposed to be doing your Geometry or you've got a homily to write for Sunday meeting. And remember, please, that it is a fiction, which basically means it describes things that should only happen in the imagination. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think, thumbs up or down, blessing or curse, spicy or mild. That's why we do this, I suppose. Huge One January day, he was there. Of course, in the post- holiday rush, nobody noticed. And why would they? Daly had been to St. Lucia, and Radford skied Vail; Lynam was circulating photos that seemed to suggest he had made quick work of the Congressman's daughter. The boy just wasn't cut from Carswell cloth. There wasn't anything golden about him, no shimmer of wealth, no air of privilege. His blazer hung on his thin shoulders like sackcloth, and he walked through the halls with the miserable eyes of a condemned man who has yet to figure out why he is being executed. Fifteen years old, already asking God: why hast Thou forsaken me? He had been assigned to my third period Brit Lit class. Dalton Myers. The new boy. 72 hours later, he had yet to utter a complete sentence. He had muttered the requisite, `here, sir,' when I had called roll, then retreated behind his Norton's. Later, when I had made my Wednesday dorm check, I had stopped by his room to ask after him, to invite him to play pool, to encourage him to join in the bedtime madness. "I'm going to read a little, sir," I think he said. I offered a smile, said something like, "sure, whatever," and continued on my mission. I looked at him, the duckling in my little trumpet of swans. Dalton Myers. Dark eyes trapped behind wire-framed glasses perched on a nose too big for such a thin face. Swollen lips, almost obscenely purple. A mat of thick brown hair that looked three days removed from shampoo. He had spots, too - nothing hideous, mind you, but one more genetic sucker-punch. Maybe on the street he might have passed unnoticed, but here at Carswell, where Adonis himself would feel outclassed, Dalton was an aberration. What a fucking snob, I can hear you say. Shallower than the pretty boys he teaches. Who appointed him the arbiter of loveliness? You're absolutely right, of course, but what you don't know yet is that I can't shake him, this Dalton Myers. I have the terrible sense that some day soon our lives will collide, and one or both of us will be changed forever. "Mr. Hendricks, we've got a problem." Jonathan Parker, wearing only a pair of mesh basketball shorts over boxers, has awakened me from a tenuous sleep. It's my duty night, Wednesday, and I usually spend it in a little modified dorm room at the end of the hall on the third floor. The digital clock reads 1:13. "What's up?" I ask, calm, despite the intrusion. "It's the new kid. He's flippin'." "What do you mean, Jon?" We're headed downstairs. Boys peer out from behind dorm room doors. They've heard something. "Just come, please." Now that my head is clear, I know that something is terribly wrong. This is no joke. Jon leads me to Room 208, one of the singles in the older wing. He pushes open the door. What I think I'm seeing terrifies me. "Oh God, Mr. Hendricks. Oh, fuck. He's fucking gone, Mr. Hendricks." Daly's hysterical, shaking the new boy, who's sitting on the floor with his head between his knees. "I didn't know he'd do it, honest. Oh, shit." I push Daly away and grab the boy by the shoulders. He looks up at me, but his eyes aren't focused. He's breathing, but it's a harsh, asthmatic wheeze. His face is a mess of tears and snot and black powder. Black powder. "What is it? What the fuck is it?" I ask Daly, who has joined Parker by the door. He points to a canister on the desk: photographic developer. "I was just goofin' on him, Mr. Hendricks, honest. He's so weird and all. I didn't think he'd do it. Damn. We were just messing with him." Now I understood that Dalton Myers, the new kid, had snorted the black chemical powder. "Jon, call 911. Kevin, don't move. And the rest of you, get in your goddamn rooms." They take him to North Shore. Clean him up, flush him out, medicate him. By 6:00 AM, he is out of immediate danger, and they wheel him into a little holding room off the ER. I wake up the Headmaster, then his mother in Georgetown. I tell her everything I know, and ask when she will be here to see him. "He's all right?" she asks, as if he has just skinned his knee falling off a bicycle. "Yes. He'll be fine. He's sleeping." "I can't make it. I really can't. I've got a flight to London tomorrow . uh, tonight. My daughter has an opening. Mr. Hendricks, is Dalton all right?" "He inhaled photo developer, Mrs. Myers. Poisonous chemicals." "Oh my God. Why did he do something so stupid? "We don't know. We don't really know." "Well, talk to him, please. There's a counselor at Carswell, isn't there? I don't understand what gets into him sometimes. He won't talk to me." I hear abdication, not love. She is desperate to hang up and get on with her plans. I know as certainly as I have ever known anything that she has long ago given up on her son, that he is ours now, and more likely, because everyone seems to be running as far from the boy as possible, he is mine. Young Thanatos. To have and to hold. To save. Dalton is back in the dorm the next evening, back in class on Monday. To the best of my knowledge, he has not offered much in the way of explanation to the adults whose job it is to piece together the facts. And as soon as the word comes back to them that he is physically fine, the others, Daly, Lynam, Parker, stop talking, too. Wednesday night's fiasco will be swept under the rug with two centuries' dirt. Dalton Myers has told them with his silence that nothing happened, and that nothing will ever happen again if everybody just keeps his own counsel. We drag ourselves through February, the cruelest month at Carswell. Dalton appears without fail in my class and at all the designated checks. He still has no friends that I can ascertain, but he seems more relieved than distressed by this fact. Sometimes I catch a couple of freshmen staring, whispering, perhaps even conspiring, but that's the end of it. They won't get too close. He reminds them of death. Spring Break. For the most part, Carswell empties. The boys head home. My colleagues fly south. I'm staying around, this time. I'll drink wine, watch a few movies, and catch my breath. If I get restless, I'll go to Boston for a couple of nights. There's Felix the Cat, my bohemian friend. He likes to fuck to Great Speeches on CD; Dr. King makes him hard; Mr. Churchill gets him off. Different strokes. Any port in a storm. Then, there's Harvard Square. We're all looking for the same thing: a hard body; a helping hand. In the alley off Brattle, behind the dumpster. In my room at the Ritz. It's all the same, really, when you're hungry and lonely. Well, I'm not alone. The Venezuelan twins will be on campus until their uncle comes from New York. Suleiman from Brunei has to finish a paper. He's chartered a flight on Monday. There are a few others. Mrs. Dodswell, the nurse, watches after them during the break, shuttles them in and out of town, ignores the smoke clinging to their sweaters and the cheap beer on their breath. The first Saturday of Spring Break I get up preternaturally early. Force of habit, I guess. I'm headed to my car in the parking lot by way of the Henderson wing of the Dorm. I hear music - unexpected, of course - coming from upstairs. Curious, I take a detour to the source. Room 208. Dalton's room. We had not been notified that he'd be around during the break. The door is open a crack, but I am careful to knock and count to three - a nod to privacy in a dorm without locks. No answer. I push open the door and take a deep breath. The room has bad memories. Nobody. A pile of clothes on the floor, a suitcase half- packed, the bed unmade, a roach-clip in the ashtray, and Nirvana, Lithium, pouring out of the boom box. It's 7:15 AM, the sun is bright and warm outside, and I feel zero at the bone. I leave the room to check with Mrs. Dodswell. He's probably joined the holdovers for breakfast. Then, in the break between songs, I hear it - the answer. The faint roar of a shower in the bathroom at the end of the hall. It must be Dalton. I walk into the bathroom. To my left, eight mirrored sinks stand against one wall. Eight urinals hang from the opposing wall. There are six stalls in a little cul-de-sac around the corner. Your basic communal space. I turn right, into a foyer with wooden benches for changing. Then through the portal that opens into a massive room, 20 nozzles at least. And there he is, luxuriating under the spray, oblivious to the world and to the man watching him. The boy is all bones. His ass cheeks are only a little whiter than his back. He's massaging his scalp, and I catch a glimpse of the tufts of black hair under his painfully thin arms. He looks fragile, almost breakable from behind. I'm thinking of Buchenwald or Biafra, not the North Shore. Still, he's gloriously, immaculately alive, and for reasons I cannot fathom, I feel like scooping this broken child up soaking wet into my arms and smothering him with kisses. Then he turns around, sees me standing there, staring like an idiot stalker who's been caught for the tenth time. He starts - obviously shocked at this invasion. I make a motion of apology, to back away, but he freezes me with a myopic stare. His mouth opens to say something, but nothing comes out. We're both paralyzed, caught in the amber of an impossibly long moment. His skin looks like white marble after summer rain. I cannot fathom what I am seeing. All I know is that I've traveled all over the world, at least in my imagination, and I've never seen anything like it. It's not of this world, then, not as I know it. Not in the magazines of my youth; not in the hardcore of my adulthood; not even in my midnight fantasies, where anatomy and gravity do not figure. I cannot blink it away; it's there now, and it will be there forever. Dalton Myers has the biggest dick I've ever seen, and I've spent thirty years surveying. Quite blameless, it arcs out from a freakishly thin pubic bush, over a hefty ball sac, then down into the well between his legs, ending in a pucker of foreskin clutching a plum-sized glans at the level of his knees. My eyes go from this splendid animal to its master. I cannot make them fit; I'm not only speechless, I'm confused. This pale child, gaunt and unhappy, has me trembling with something a lot more like desire than anything I've felt in half a lifetime. "Uh, would you like to join me for breakfast?" I manage to say. I can't believe how stupid I sound. Then I turn around and walk out of the shower room. I'm back in my place across a little quad. Half an hour has passed, and my heart is still pounding. I've run through a dozen scenarios, some of them absurd, many of them illegal, and all of them unprofessional. I'm finally at the point where I'm telling myself I'm going to wipe away the imagery and get back to my safe little life, when there's a knock at the door. "It's open," I yell. Dalton appears, wearing baggy khakis, a black sweater, and unlaced sneakers - the uniform. With his wire-rim glasses, he looks like an anorexic Harry Potter. "Good to see you, kid. You must be hungry." "Yeah, I guess I am, Mr. Hendricks." "You know that Mrs. D.'s in charge during Break. She's feeding the guys who're staying over." "Yeah. I know. I didn't think I'd be here, so I never got around to telling her. My mom's in London with Catherine." His voice is kind of smoky, much older than the boy who's speaking. "Well, whatever. I'm starving. Have you ever been to Nick's?" "No. I've heard about it from some of the guys, though." "It's a classic. Out of a book. Let's go." I don't even think we talk about the weather. I whistle to the radio, and a couple of times Dalton starts to say something, then stops. I think to myself how good I usually am talking to the kids, how comfortable I usually am with their language and their imagery. With this boy, I am lost. Breakfast is good. Dalton eats ravenously, grateful for both the nourishment and the silence. Nick's is awash in smells. The waitresses bark at the cooks. The laughter is familiar. Check your anxiety at the door. The ride back to Carswell is a little better. We are both full. The pancakes and coffee have smoothed some of the edges of the morning. "Where's your dad in all this, Dalton?" "I don't know. I think he's back in Manhattan with his wife. I hardly ever see him, anyway. Mother hates him, and he's kind of hesitant to look us up." "Oh. Not good, then." "Not good." "You were listening to Nirvana this morning. Rough stuff for 7:00 A.M." "I know. It's perfect. It's the first CD I bought myself. Mother hates it." "I didn't like it when it first came out. But it's grown on me. It reminds me of a time when.." I realize then that I'm talking about Kurt Cobain, the prince of self- destruction. Two months earlier the same boy sitting next to me had tried a new variation on an old theme. "It's O.K., Mr. Hendricks. I wasn't trying to kill myself. No I don't have a gun." "Oh, I know. I was just. whatever." "They didn't mean it." "Who?" "Those guys. That night. They always think I'm weird, then I guess I just try to fulfill their expectations. It was a dare. I took it. I don't really care, you know." "We don't have to talk about it." "I know. But we can't talk about anything else until I tell you that I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to see me that way. Until today, I haven't even been able to look at you. I love your class, and I can't even look at you. I'm sorry. Thank you for saving me." He's shaking beside me, and I can hear tears. "Hey, that's why they pay me the big bucks." I let him off at the dorm. I'm not sure it's the smartest thing I've ever done, but I ask him to join me for dinner. He hesitates for an instant, then gives me a look that says, "what the hell." I swear he's smiling when he turns and walks through the door. I waste the day in reverie, afraid to break the spell. The image from the shower-room is burned onto my retina. When I turn on the TV, that's what I see. It blocks the print on the Pelecanos novel I'm halfway through. Dalton Myers, the skinny, sad-faced boy, his pale skin shiny with shower-mist, that massive cock like a stupendous joke between his legs. At about 5:30, I make a fire, even though it's been unseasonably warm. I pour myself a glass of wine, and leave the bottle on the coffee table. I put on Dvorak, the String Serenade. If I weren't so desperate, I'd have to laugh. I've built a seduction scene from the compost of a hundred bad movies. Who the fuck am I kidding? I take a long hard look at myself - literally. I stand before the mirror in my bedroom and make faces. I like what I see: splendid genes, a lively metabolism, and the best smile orthodontia can create. I take off my shirt. I gaze upon an almost hairless chest - I've never lifted anything heavier than a Tolstoy novel, yet it has definition and the threat of mass. Off go my britches, then my plaid boxers. There's the little tiger swallowtail tattoo on my left thigh. There's the treasure trail snaking down to my cock. It's hanging limp, now, though there's a bubble of pre-cum at the tip, the issue of my fevered daydream. I poke my index finger under the foreskin and pull out a strand of the pre-cum. It reminds me of okra slime - the texture and the taste. I pull on my dick a bit, stretch it out to respectability. It's quite nice, I tell myself. I've always wished it were a little thicker, but it's long and tapered. It has served me well for the thirty years since I first taught it tricks. After a quick shower, I put myself back together - for Dalton. I've convinced myself that he'll notice my efforts, know that tonight, they're all for him. Now it's Vaughan Williams, the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. Nirvana for a gentle man. I'm making a soundtrack for this strange day. The Prurient Professor's Erotic Mix. He arrives on the dot, which isn't all that surprising that his room is less than a hundred yards from my front door. He's dressed just as he was earlier, but his black hair is combed, and he seems, well, relaxed. "Hey, come on in." Come as you are.as you were. "Thanks." "Can I get you a Coke or something?" He's looking at the bottle of wine. "Sure. What are you listening to?" "English composer: Ralph Vaughan Williams. All right, so it's not Kurt Cobain." "I like it. Sounds like church. Or a movie." "Look, would you rather have a glass of wine? School's not in session, so I guess it's cool." What next? Do I offer him a peppermint stick? "All right. Mother has a wine cellar. She's always bringing back bottles from Europe." He sips his wine in silence. I can see from the kitchen where I'm chopping stuff that he is studying the teacher's living room for clues. He checks out my art - prints, mostly. He thumbs through my magazines. Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly - no Architectural Digest. He spends a couple of minutes with my CD's. The polite would deem my collection eclectic; I know it's neurotic. No clues there. Then, he stands in the little hallway that leads to the master bedroom. He wants to know where the teacher sleeps. "Dalton, there's a bathroom at the end of the hall there," I say. "Oh, that's OK. I was just looking." The non- sequiturs are flying. Then I rejoin him in the living room. I put on Kind of Blue, a clich^Â, I know, but I'm feeling muted like Miles' trumpet, and it's easy to talk around - if I could say what I felt. "You've got all kinds of music, Mr. Hendricks. I want to have a collection like yours. In the dorm, I think I hear the same three songs over and over. Or Eminem. Is that a song?" "I guess. He's like Whitman or Ginsburg on speed. I mean, it's not music, really, but I guess it's like a pulse or something." I don't know what I'm saying. The little silences are beyond awkward, nine and a half months pregnant. "Mr. Hendricks, what's wrong? Is it me?" He knows. "No, no. Of course not. I've been a little off my game all day. It's not you." "It's me." There's that quaver again. It breaks my heart. "I have that effect. I don't know why, but I drive people away. Even my mother is afraid of me." "I asked you here, Dalton. I want you here." Now I'm the one who's quavering. "Mr. Hendricks. You saw me this morning. You saw it. It scared you, didn't it? Just tell me. They laugh. They all laugh. You all think I'm a freak." The tears have started. I'm going to let them flow. "I'm not good at anything. I'm ugly and I'm a freak, and I hate it. Mother sends me away so I can be a freak by myself, so she can hang with all her perfect friends and my perfect sister and be all charming. And she doesn't have to lock up the freak, hide the freak in the basement, be the Mother of the Freak. It's O.K., Mr. Hendricks. You don't have to be nice. You know I'm a freak, too." "Come here, freak," I say with a smile. "Come sit beside me. We've got to talk." When he is next to me, I grab his bony shoulders and shake him gently. I look right into his sad eyes, wet with tears and rage. I let him see that I am crying, too, then I give voice to the only honest thoughts I've had all day. "Dalton, you are not a freak. You are beautiful. If anyone's a freak, it's me. Do you know why I asked you here tonight? Do you know why I stood and watched you for a minute in the shower? Do you know why the most articulate man on the face of the earth can't think of one meaningful thing to say? I'm the freak, Dalton. I'm a forty-year-old man who wants to make love to a fifteen-year-old boy, and everything I've done today is about just that. I'm the one who's scary, boy; I'm the freak." The two freaks just sit there, once again suspended in time. I'm not exactly hugging him, but then he's not exactly letting go. I know we've both crossed some kind of line here, and I don't think either of us wants to cross back, and I know that neither of us wants to take the next step. As it turns out, he is the first to speak. "You're gay, Mr. Hendricks?" "I guess so. It sort of explains things, doesn't it?" "What do you mean?" "I'm forty. I don't have a wife. I don't have a girlfriend. And I'm not dead." "You like men?" "I like men. I have sex with men. I dream about men. Now I'm dreaming about you." "That's really weird." "That's what I was trying to tell you. That I'm way off course, here." His smoky voice is more of a whisper now, but he's thinking clearly. "I didn't mean that kind of weird. I mean, I dream about you, too. We're not doing sex or anything, but you're my friend, and you like me. We go to the movies and stuff. We talk about books. I don't scare you." "That's different, Dalton. That's great. I've been that friend for a while now, even if you didn't notice. But I'm afraid that I need more from you. More than you can give, probably." "No, Mr. Hendricks. I understand. You buy me breakfast. You want to have sex with me. Because I'm a freak. Because I've got a big freak dick. It's O.K. I understand." He starts to rise from the couch. This is bad. I've ruined things. I've hurt a kid whose whole life has been a beating. "No, Dalton, no. Please stay. I want to make love to you because you are beautiful. You can't believe that, I know, but you are more beautiful than anyone I've ever met." "You mean it? Tell me you mean it." I lean forward and pull him into my arms. There is no resistance. For the moment, this is all either of us needs. I don't know how long we stay like this, but it's long enough that I can smell the heat and the sadness generated by our bodies. I start to kiss him, then pull back. "It's all right, Mr. Hendricks. Please kiss me." He places his long fingers on my cheeks, and guides our lips together. Oh well, whatever, nevermind. In the bedroom now, the light from the hallway casting shadows. Dalton stands before me, stone still, awaiting direction from his bent Pygmalion. "Pull off your sweater." He complies. "Now your shirt." He unbuttons it and tosses it on the floor. I devour him with my sculptor's eye. He stands about 5' 10", but I doubt he weighs 125. "You are perfect," I whisper, and he is. His ribs stand out on his hollow chest. I touch each of the hardening nipples. I pat the curious tummy, rounded like a little boy's. On my knees, I kiss this belly, then run my tongue lightly to the button of his trousers. I can feel him shiver. I unfasten the top button pull down the zipper. He freezes, whether from the thrill or the chill, I'm not sure. I tug at the khakis, and they fall unimpeded by hips or ass. Then, ever so slowly, I remove his boxers, looking straight into his eyes, trying to tell him that I want all of him. Now he is naked. And there it is again. When I reach for it, he suddenly pulls back a bit. "Nobody has ever touched it before." "It's all right, Dalton. It's all right." I'm swooning like a Victorian maiden before its magnificence. Now his hands are on my head. I've gathered his cock in my hands. It's hard and thick, but sheer weight and gravity pull it down. I give it a few preliminary tugs. The foreskin stays over the head; he winces a little when I try to retract it. I lift his dick up, then tickle his balls, which have withdrawn into the tautened scrotum. Then I run my tongue up the underside, toward the swelling at the tip. Dalton is no longer nervous. I know these are moans of pleasure. I've sucked a hundred anonymous dicks in my day. Each had its charms. I've placed my lips around stubby ones with flared mushroom heads, and long ones like pencils with enlarged erasers. I've drained cum from uncircumcised grandfathers and tightly cut drill sergeants. I've sucked for 30 seconds and I've sucked for half an hour - anything for the flower to bloom. But never have I relished this gift more than I am now. I've managed to accommodate half of the prodigious creature in the hollows of my cheeks. The rest I am wanking with both hands. My tongue swirls around the hooded glans, stiffens, then probes for the pee slit, oozing salty pre- cum. It doesn't take long, at this point. Dalton's legs go rigid. He bucks and shoots, one two, three, four, blasts into my cheeks, then a fifth and sixth straight at my tonsils, and before I drown, I pull out his dick and let the milky syrup dribble over my lips, licking each last shuddering drop like a delirious kid with a vanilla cone on the hottest day of summer. Looking up, I see that Dalton's eyes are closed. I give his wilting cock a few grateful kisses, and I think I see the faintest outline of a smile. Still fully clothed, I gather him up again in my arms and carry him to the bed. I lay him down on his back and sit beside him, stroking his cheeks, brushing the shock of black hair from his forehead. I think to myself that this child has never been caressed in any way. He's a love-starved orphan knowing for the first time his birthright. "Stay with me tonight, Dalton," I whisper. "Yes." "You are beautiful, you know." "Yes. I think I am." I take off my clothes with much less ceremony. I know that he is watching. I lie down next to him, also on my back. He puts his hand tentatively on my chest. I pin it up against my beating heart. We are both staring at the ceiling, both wondering what next. We've broken our mirrors.I hum to myself. Sunday is every day for all I care, he hums back. I'm leaning over him, now, drinking in the wonder of it all. My blind man's fingers trace the ridges of his rib cage. Then, again, they find their way to his dick, still swollen from my ministrations. It comes alive at my touch. He is 15, after all. "I want to touch you, Mr. Hendricks." "Adam," I say. Pretty late for first names, I think. "Adam. My first man." "Don't forget the feet of clay." Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden. Exploring, that's what he's doing. I am his Adam, his first man. I give him free reign over my body, nodding approvingly from time to time when he touches a part of me that sings to be touched. My dick is completely hard, flush against my belly, nearly touching my navel. He handles it gingerly, like a baby brother just home from the hospital. He slides my foreskin up and down over the bright red crown, playing silent scales along its length. "Yours is like mine pretty much," he observes. "If only," I mumble. "No. You're not circumcised. Most of the guys here are." "Probably," I say, though I've never really thought about it. Until today, that is. "It's pretty big, too. Or pretty long, anyway. It gets harder than mine." "This may sound strange, but I've never measured. I just eyeball things. I'm happy with it. It's big enough for rock and roll. It's normal, I guess." "God, I'd give anything to be normal." "I didn't mean it like that." "It's true, though. You wouldn't want everybody staring at you, at least not because you're ripped or pretty or drive a Boxster. I'm a spectator sport." "I'm staring at you now because I've never met anyone like you." "With a mutant penis." At least he's smiling now. I hold a finger to my lips, the universal request for silence. Again, I pull Dalton into me and my hardness. This time we're kissing for real. He's learning fast how to duel with his tongue, how to draw the life out of me. He's biting me, teasing my earlobes, my nipples, thirty erogenous zones I doubt he's studied in Biology. Then he's sitting astride me. Our cocks are juxtaposed, each distended with desire. I've never measured . but he's got me by six inches. So we rub and mash and squeeze, until I'm starting to feel ready. Dalton is enthralled by our synchronized rhythms, and I sense that he knows I'm going to blow. He starts jerking me at warp speed, and I tell him to slow down, but it's too late now, and then he slows down, sliding the skin ever so slowly over the engorged knob, and he's going so slowly it's killing me, killing me, and I emit these animal cries, and it's too late, way too late, and he leans over to kiss it, and just then it geysers like Old Faithful all over his face, but he doesn't stop squeezing, and the pain is excruciating, and my dickhead just wants to go home, and I think with the last spurt I use God's name in vain because, goddamnit, goddamnit, I am Adam, feet of clay, and I wonder how anything so wrong could feel so right. He's asleep beside me, curled up into himself like the fetus he once was, snoring lightly. I won't be joining him any time soon. My conscience never gives up. What was it Fitzgerald said? In the dark night of the soul it is always three in the morning. I've had hangovers without being drunk. We never ate dinner, I think to myself. It is dark, of course, but there seems to be a halo of light around the sleeping boy and the restless man. I notice a few more things about the boy in my bed: he's sucking his middle finger like a napping infant in a crib; he's got long eyelashes, obscured during the day by his glasses; a faint mustache dusts his upper lip - he'll be shaving soon. What have I done, God? Whatever have I done? Note: For the moment, I've run out of gas. I think these two misfits have a lot left to do before I kill them off. Do you agree? But then, you may be weary of my self- conscious narrator and his endless rhapsodies (it's just how I understand him.); you may want a little more of the ol' in- out, in-out. I figure I've just broken the Nifty record for most words without anal penetration. Now there's a thought...