Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 15:05:38 -0800 (PST)
From: 13greengrass <13greengrass@ziplip.com>
Subject: Sweet Gibberish

This story is completely fictional and any similarities to actual people
and events are strictly coincidental.  I wrote this story for the
entertainment and enjoyment of boylovers and the boys that they love.  I
welcome all feedback from my readers and endeavor to answer all.  Peace and
love to all.


Sweet Gibberish


	The first time I ever saw Devonay, it was a warm afternoon in early
June and he was beating the shit out of a kid a head taller than him.  He
was dressed in a large red football jersey and baggy blue jeans that sagged
well below his hips.
      I was walking up the driveway of his house in downtown Philadelphia
when I saw him in the front yard delivering blows to the other boy's head.
A group of boys were standing around them.
      I had come to see a room for rent that I had heard about while
smoking a joint with a guitar player named Raga in a club in New York.  Our
bands were playing on the same bill.  Raga's band played smoking reggae and
my band played a funky rock that sounded like a bastard child of James
Brown.  Raga wore roach clips on the ends of his dreadlocks and a gold
tooth gleamed from between his lips.  I took a deep toke and held my
breath.  The walls of the club were shaking from the ska band that was
playing upstairs.
      "Why Philly?" Raga was saying.
      "Our manager knows a guy there," I explained.  "Has a great studio
for a great deal.  We wanna do another CD."  I took a deep toke of the
joint and spoke while holding my breath.  "Besides, most of the band has
family there."
       We were getting hip in New York but were virtually unknown in
Philly.
      "I need to find a cheap place to stay for a couple months," I went
on.
      Raga grinned and his eyebrows popped into arches.  "I gotta buddy
there!" he said.  "You'd dig him.  I'll call him."
      We walked outside the club and he pulled out a cell phone.  "Name's
Clarence," he said.  "He and his ma gotta place downtown."  He squinted at
the phone and punched some numbers with his long thumb.
      "Sounds perfect," I said.
      I spoke with Clarence.  On the phone, I could hear him sucking on a
joint and talking like he was trying to hold his breath.  "Yeah, we got a
room," he said.  "You can have it for a couple months."
      "I can send references," I offered.
      "If Raga says you're cool, it's cool."
      I wrote the address down on a napkin and told him that I'd see him in
three days.


      Now, standing in the driveway, I checked the numbers above the front
door.  This was the place.
	The group of boys in the front yard scattered as if they thought I
was the police.  They were all black boys between the ages of ten and
fifteen, moving away with quick, stiff-legged walks, glancing at me over
their shoulders.  Devonay delivered three more punches to the back of the
other boy's head and then danced away.  He noticed me, but didn't react.
He looked down at his crumpled foe.
	"Faggot," he spat.  "Get the fuck outta here."
	The boy on the ground looked a bit disoriented and he struggled to
get up, holding his stomach, blood streaming from his nose.  He coughed and
spit blood on the ground.  Devonay made a threatening step forward.  "Get
the fuck outta here, nigga!"
	The wounded boy stumbled to his feet and limped away.  The other
boys were watching from a distance.  They looked at me uncertainly.
Devonay watched the bloody boy retreat and I watched Devonay.  Absolutely
beautiful, probably eleven years old, large dark eyes, brown cocoa skin, a
red headband over his braids that lay flat against his head.  An absolute
beauty.  I wasn't impressed by his temperament though.  He caught me
looking at him.
	"What?" he said, jutting his jaw at me.
	"I'm looking for 1429," I said, and we both looked up at the
numbers above the door.
	"Well, that's the fuckin' place," he sneered.  "Shit."  He looked
down at his sneakers and shouted at the retreating boy.  "Mother fucker!
You got blood on my new sneakers!"
	"Animal," I thought immediately.  "The boy's an animal."  I walked
past him to the front door and rang the bell.  The door opened almost
immediately and Clarence was standing there.  He was a tall black man with
dreadlocks and a pierced nose--handsome with a friendly smile.  We
introduced ourselves with a handshake.
	"I'm Jacob," I said.
	"Dude!" he said brightly.  "C'mon in!"
	As I entered, Clarence looked over my shoulder at the boy in the
red jersey.  He was wiping his sneakers off on the grass, cursing to
himself.  "Devonay, whatcha screamin' about out here?"
	"Nothin'."
	"You fightin' again?"
	Devonay grumbled something and shook his head as he started up
toward the door.
	"Yes he was," I said.  "Bloodied some kid in the front yard."
	I had put myself in the middle of this and wasn't sure how this was
going to play out. Clarence seemed like the kind of guy I would get along
with, but as Devonay entered, I realized that the boy and I were about to
get off on the wrong foot.  Devonay pushed his way past us and went into
the kitchen.
	"You been fightin' again," Clarence said, following him.
	Devonay looked at Clarence, then looked over at me.  He spoke to
Clarence but looked at me.  "Who you been talkin' to, Clarence?"  He ripped
off a square of paper towels from a rack on the wall above the sink.
	"Me," I said.  "He's been talkin' to me."
	The only way to deal with the situation was head on.  I didn't want
the punk to think that I was intimidated by him.  The boy put his foot up
on a kitchen chair and dabbed at his sneakers, wiping the blood away.
	"Who the fuck are you?"  Devonay said to me.
	Clarence burst out, stepping toward the boy.  "Watch your mouth.
He's a friend of Raga's.  He's gonna stay here in Marcus' room."
	"Maybe," I added.  I hadn't seen the room yet.
	Devonay grimaced.  "Why you want this white dude to live here,
man?"
	Clarence grimaced and mumbled, "Man."  He was embarrassed. "Shut
up, Devonay."
	"That's all right," I said steadily, touching Clarence on the
shoulder.  "Let's go look at the room."
	I liked the room very much.  It was at the top of the stairs of a
large Victorian house.  There was a dresser and a closet and a small desk.
A large bed sat in one corner.  "My brother, Marcus, built that bed,"
Clarence told me.  "Now we can't get it out of here.  It don't fit through
the door."  He chuckled at that.
      "I like it," I said.  "I'll take it," and Clarence clapped me on the
back.
	"Cool," he said.  "We'll party every night!"
	When we came back downstairs to the kitchen, I met Clarence's
mother, who owned the house.  She was in her mid-forties and all smiles.
There were several suitcases on the floor by the back door.  "I'm Gwen,"
she said, shaking my hand.  "This is Candice and Leah and Dionne."  She
pointed at three girls, ranging from twelve to eighteen, standing shyly
behind her, giggling into their hands as they stared at me.  I said hello
to them and they all smiled and waved back.  "They're my daughters!"
      "They look like you!" I said.
      She laughed and waved me away.  "Shooooot."
      Clarence poked a thumb in the direction of the suitcases and leaned
over toward me.  "Tomorrow, her and the girls are going to Mobile to stay
with her sister for a month."
	Devonay entered, not looking at any of us, opening the fridge and
peering inside.
	"This is my nephew, Devonay," Gwen said.  The boy didn't turn from
the fridge.
	"We already met," he said.
	"Not officially," I said, and I extended my hand to him.  He looked
at me and at my hand suspiciously, then reluctantly shook it.
	"Nice to meet you," I said.
	He grunted and nodded, taking a carton of orange juice from the
fridge and reaching for a glass.
      "He'll be going to camp next week," Clarence said.
      "No I ain't," said the boy.
      Clarence looked shocked.  "What?"
	"He's a bit moody," Gwen said.  "He'll go."
      Devonay shook his head firmly.  "No I ain't."
      "Yes you are!" Clarence snapped.
      "You can't make me."  He poured himself a glass of orange juice.
      "Boys," Gwen said, waving an arm between them.  "Stop bickering."
      "I can make him!"  Clarence said to her.
	"No you can't," she said.
	Clarence and Devonay scowled at each other.
	"But you can make the rules if he stays," she said to Clarence.
	Clarence gave Devonay a villainous look that made even me nervous.
Devonay walked out of the room and the girls laughed and drifted out as
well.  Gwen chastised Clarence with a motherly slap on his beefy bicep.
"Be fair," she said.  "He's just angry about things."


	I moved in the next day.  Gwen and the girls had left early in the
morning so the house was still neat and clean when I arrived at two.
Devonay wasn't there but Clarence greeted me at the door with a fat spliff
dangling from his lips and a bottle of Hennessy in his hand.  "They all
gone!" he grinned.  "Let the party begin!"
      At twenty eight, my years of hard liquor were behind me.  It addled
my brains and made me stupid in the studio.  We were paying a lot of money
for the studio time and I wasn't going to waste it with a hangover.
Clarence was twenty-three and apparently about midway through his hard
liquor years and he frowned distastefully when I refused the bottle.  I
was, however, always ready for a fat spliff.  I took it out of his mouth
and stuck it into mine and he lit it. I took a deep toke from it and
smiled.
      Clarence took to the Hennessy like it was afternoon tea and between
that and the smoke we were soon lazing on the front porch watching with
peculiar interest the neighbor cutting his lawn.
      I asked Clarence what he did for a living, that he still lived with
his mother.
	"I do construction," he said.  "Business comes and goes.  Ain't no
work right now."  He took a deep drag on the joint.  "Next week, maybe."
	In that first week, Devonay interested me for reasons I didn't
really understand.  He was rude and foul-mouthed most of the time. He was
particularly rude to me, making comments under his breath that only I could
hear.  "White boy," he would say derisively.  "Honky faggot."  He used the
word faggot all the time now that Gwen wasn't there.  Apparently, according
to Clarence, the first and last time Devonay used that word in front of
Gwen, she hit him upside the head with a spatula so hard that it left a
mark on the boy's forehead.
      "Boy had to go to school with that on his head," Clarence snickered.
"Ain't no lyin' about what happened there.  You could see the shape of the
spatula on his fuckin' head!"  We both laughed hard and he passed me the
joint.
	Nevertheless, despite Devonay's animosity toward me, I found him
outrageously attractive.  He was twelve years old with high cheek bones and
a cool swagger to his walk.  Although he was usually dressed in baggy
clothes, I saw him from time to time coming from the shower in the morning
with nothing but a towel around his waist and appreciated his slender hips
and strong, straight legs.  He had a well-developed chest for his age and a
flat belly.  At first, I purposely averted my gaze, but after a while, I
started to let my eyes linger on that brown boy, skin glistening clean from
the shower, as he moved through the house toward his bedroom on the second
floor.  His bare feet left wet prints on the polished wood.  One day, he
stared back at me, watching me watch him, and then stopped.  "Whatcha
lookin' at, faggot?" he asked belligerently.
      I shrugged and didn't answer him.  But as he walked away, I stared at
his ass, shifting beneath the wet towel, and when he reached his room and
had turned around to shut the door, I was still staring at him.
      Clarence said that Devonay came from Chicago where he was involved in
a lot of gang activity until his single mother, Gwen's sister, got busted
for heroin possession and intent to sell.  She had been in prison for nine
months already and would be in prison for the next two years so Devonay
would stay with Gwen.  "Dat boy's got a serious chip on his shoulder," he
said.
      At the recording studio, things were moving slowly. The band seemed
distracted.  We'd all meet at the studio at around eleven in the morning
and usually work until eleven at night, often times earlier.  Three out of
four of the other guys in the band were spending a lot of time catching up
with family and friends.  The fourth guy was staying with an old girlfriend
who, in his words, was "an electric clitoris".  I lost interest before he
had a chance to explain that.  I took the bus every day to and from the
studio and after a week, it was second nature.  Clarence and I smoked every
night, sitting in the living room or the kitchen.  Devonay was often there,
watching television, playing with his X- Box, watching us out of the corner
of his eye.  Since he was on summer vacation, Devonay would be up late.  He
seemed to enjoy our company on some level, but he seemed unable to admit
it.  He was always distant and occasionally, I would try to entice him into
a conversation.
      "What's your favorite basketball team?" I asked him once.
      The boy shrugged.  "The 76er's," he said.
      "I'm all Knicks, man," I said.  They were my hometown team after all.
      Devonay snorted with disdain.  "They're fuckin' faggots."
      Another time, I noticed his sneakers.  "Nice shoes, man."
      He gave me a measured look.  "How would you know, dude?" he said.
"With those faggy-assed shoes you got on?"  He laughed into his hand and
shook his head at my Converse All-Stars.  Clarence looked at me and pointed
at Devonay.
      "You see?" he said to me.  "That's why I wanna kick the little punk's
ass."
      "Fuck you," Devonay sneered.
      I had allowed Clarence to talk me into partaking in some Hennessy
with him so I was high and drunk and my tongue was loose.  I emptied my
third glass and said, in a very patronizing tone, "He's just a little boy,
Clarence.  He's obsessed with what he calls `fags' and uncertain of his own
sexuality.  He's trying to prove his masculinity by being belligerent and
aggressive."
      Clarence nodded slowly.  "Ah, yes.  I can see that."
      "Shut the fuck up," Devonay grumbled at me.
      "See?" I said to Clarence.  "See, there he goes again!"
      "I'll betcha he couldn't say a nice thing to you if he tried,"
Clarence said.
      I extended my hand to Clarence.  "You're on," I said.  "How much?"
      "Ten bucks," Clarence said, his eyes red and squinting, and he
giggled.  "Ten bucks he can't say one nice thing to you."
      "Ten bucks," I agreed, and we both turned and looked at Devonay.  He
was silent, uncertain how to play this.
      "Shut the fuck up," he said.
      "Told ya."  Clarence nudged me.
      I waved him away.  "Hold on, he's just warmin' up."
      Clarence was wise, I found.  He had ways of figuring things out and
playing people, and while he was set to lose ten bucks, it seemed worth it
to needle his cocky little cousin. He smirked at the boy.  "Go ahead, you
little pussy.  Earn me my ten bucks."
      The words sounded harsh to me.  I could only imagine how they
affected Devonay.  He stood up, fists balled.  "Fuck you, faggot," he
scowled.
      Clarence nudged me again.  "You got that ten bucks?"
      "It ain't over yet," I slurred, looking up into Devonay's eyes,
waiting.  The boy's jaw tightened as he stood there, unable to move.
Clarence poked again.
      "C'mon, bitch," he hissed at the boy.  "C'mon.  Stomp out the room
and earn me my dime."
      Devonay clearly wanted to stomp out of the room, but he didn't want
Clarence to earn anything for it.  He looked me over quickly, shifted on
his feet, then put his hands on his hips.
      "I like your shirt," he said.
      Clarence and I burst into laughter so hard that Clarence tumbled from
his chair onto the floor, spilling his drink, and I fell backwards onto the
couch.  I looked up at Devonay and saw him smiling slightly.
      "Thanks!" I said.  I was wearing a plain blue tee shirt.
      "Naw, naw," Clarence objected from the floor.  "He didn't mean that!
Ain't nothin' special about your shirt!"
      "Bullshit," I said.  "You meant it, didn't you Dev?"
      Devonay was smiling now but he looked embarrassed by it.  He nodded
and looked at his cousin.  "You owe him ten bucks, dickwad," he said, and
he turned on his heel and left the room.
      Clarence and I drank enough that night to immobilize a small platoon
of marines and at around two in the morning, we stumbled up to our
respective rooms.  Clarence's bedroom was in the attic so outside my door,
he said goodnight to me and I mumbled the same back to him and went into my
room, closing the door behind me.
      I undressed and tumbled onto my bed, very drunk and high on too much
pot.  As my thoughts wandered away from me, I thought about Devonay and
that smile he had favored me with and I rubbed my cock through my boxers
and started to drift off.  I was imagining what his body would feel like in
my arms when the sound of someone moving in my room caught my attention.
When I turned my head, the room swirled above me and I squinted in the
darkness at a figure, moving around in my room.  There was enough light
coming from the hallway for me to see that it was Devonay, slowly opening
my dresser drawer and reaching inside.  I could see his head swiveling back
and forth, looking into the drawer and looking at me then back into the
drawer.  I suddenly raised myself up on my elbows and looked at him and he
jumped and dropped something on the floor.  His body froze, silhouetted
against the lit doorway.  He backed up and muttered, "fuck", then turned
and ran out of my room.  I heard his door slam from down the hallway.
      I clicked on the light and looked on the floor.  My wad of money was
lying there.  There wasn't much there, only about forty bucks, but it was
all there.  I was too drunk to go after him, too drunk really to even think
to close my door and put the money back in my drawer.  I turned off my
light and plopped back onto my pillow.  Strangely enough, I wasn't too
drunk to recognize that this incident might be used in my favor--that if I
manipulated things just right, things with Devonay might become much more
interesting.


      The following morning, while in the shower, I hatched a plan that was
so manipulative and so conniving that I felt ashamed of myself for even
considering it.  Nevertheless, I figured Devonay had blown the clarion for
war long ago and, I reasoned, all is fair in love and war, and this, I
hoped, could be both.
      He was sitting at the kitchen table eating his cereal when I came
down, rubbing my head and squinting in the sunlight, feigning a hangover.
Clarence was on the phone in the other room.  Devonay's spoon froze midway
to his mouth and he gave me a hard look, almost a scowl, then went back to
eating.
      "G'morning," I said.
      He grunted and chewed.
      I plopped down in a chair at the table and gave a deep sigh.  This
would be a delicate operation.  I rubbed my eyes and rested my elbow on the
table, my chin in my hand.  "Hey, Dev," I said.  "About last night..."
      I stopped there, letting everything hang, and studied his face.  He
chewed faster and shook his head.  "Your door was open, man," he said.
"You must've been drunk if you don't remember that.  I just went in because
I thought I heard something.  When you turned on your light, I knocked the
money onto the floor, by accident."
      It was an absurd alibi, to say the least, but I let him go on.
      "I wasn't tryin' to steal it, man, so don't even start with me about
that.  You don't know me!"  His voice was approaching a shout.
      "What the hell are you talking about?" I asked.
      "That ain't your room anyway!" he said loudly, getting ready to
fight.  "That's my cousin's room.  Your door was open!"
      It was the sort of alibi a twelve year old boy might come up with.  I
kept myself from snickering with some effort.  He frowned at me.
      "You're probably gonna tell Clarence, huh?" he said defiantly, then
he shrugged.  "Go ahead!  I don't care!"
      "You were in my room last night?" I asked.
      He froze, baffled.
      "I was gonna apologize for teasing you last night," I said.
      He was speechless, mouth hanging open, staring at me.  After a few
moments, he swallowed and licked his lips and cleared his throat.  "Oh," he
said, then shrugged.  "Whatever."
      "You were in my room last night?"  I asked.  I acted as if I was
trying to remember.  "I got up in the middle of the night and I noticed the
money on the floor."  I shrugged.  "And you're right, the door was open."
I chuckled and shook my head.  "Man, I was pretty drunk last night.  I'm
sure you wouldn't steal from me, Dev.  No worries."  I leaned closer to
him, even tapped him on the shoulder.  "That happens when I mix alcohol
with pot.  I sort of check out.  I had a girlfriend who used to take
advantage of me when I was like that."  I smiled, insinuating.  "She said I
could get it up and everything."
      He shook his head and blushed at my forwardness but I acted as if I
didn't notice.  "The first time it happened, she thought I was awake.  She
said it always started with me talking complete nonsense--total gibberish.
That's how she knew." I laughed slyly.  "She used to say that my mouth was
useless for making any sense, but was really good for other things
like...well....ya know...."  I tried to look embarrassed and sheepish.
"All she had to do was get in the right position, if you know what I mean."
I gave him a sly look.  Devonay looked interested but reluctant to look so.
He had stopped eating and wasn't looking at me, but he was clearly
listening carefully.  "But next morning," I went on. "I didn't remember a
thing.  She used to get such a kick out of that."  I laughed and shook my
head.  "I didn't mind, but it can be a problem sometimes when girls want to
come home with me.  I could get myself into a lot of trouble, ya know?"
      "You don't remember anything from last night?" he asked.  "Not a
thing?"
      I shook my head.  "No," I said.  "Why, did something else happen?"
      Devonay looked thoughtful, biting his bottom lip. I could tell that
he was going to test me. "Well," he said.  "You....um....threw a book at
me.  Then you grabbed my wrist and I had to pull real hard to get away."
He was a miserable liar.  I would have been able to tell that he was lying
even if I truly hadn't remembered anything.  I put on my best apologetic
face.
      "I'm sorry, Dev," I said.  "Like I said, I don't remember a thing."
I heard the phone ring in the other room.  "I don't usually get violent."
      "It's all right," he said with a new sense of generosity.
      "I need a fuckin' babysitter," I said.  "I need someone to take care
of me when I mix pot and alcohol, that's what I need."  I shook my head and
looked disgusted with myself.  "I'd pay money for someone to do that."
      His eyes brightened.  "Really?"
      I nodded.
      Clarence came into the kitchen with a bottle of Hennessy in one hand
and the phone in the other, extended out to me.  "It's your manager," he
said.


	Our manager told me about an arts festival in downtown Philadelphia
that he was able to sign the band up for if we were interested.  We were.
It would be nice to perform after two weeks in the studio and a great way
to promote the new CD and sell the old one.  The streets had been blocked
off for a mile and venders, artists, and performers set up shop along the
street.  There were two stages on either end of the street where bands of
different flavors performed.  We were slated to perform after a salsa band
and we sat and ate tacos from a stand while we waited to set up.  Clarence,
with a fat bag of Jamaican, had volunteered to be a roadie so we were
pretty baked by the time it came time to go on.  It was nearly nine o'clock
when we heard the announcer introduce us.  The night was hot and humid.
	My band and I have a way of kicking off every gig with a funky
number called "Blue Smoke," a tribute to herb and the pleasures of it.  I
like to open with it because I find it impossible to sit still through that
infectious groove and funky guitar riffs and it seems to have that same
effect on audiences where we play.  We drag out that addictive groove for
as long as ten minutes sometimes, just to capture the audience and keep
them entranced.  That night, out in the open air, the song seeped out from
the stage like blue smoke and enveloped nearly everyone who was going by
like sirens at sea.  When we finished the first song, we had a large crowd
pushing toward the stage, trying to dance and get closer at the same time.
We had arrived in Philly.
	We played only songs from the first CD, hoping to boost sales.  On
the third song, while I was dancing through a refrain, I spotted something
on the periphery of the crowd.  A face.  I looked again to see if it was
really him.  He was standing behind the gaggle of dancers, gazing up at me,
smirking, bobbing a little on his right foot, his arms folded across his
chest.  Devonay.  He looked like he was studying me.  I caught his eye from
the stage and he gave me a smile.  One of his friends was bobbing manically
beside him, shaking his rump, waving his hands, bumping up against all the
other dancers, bumping shoulders with Devonay to try to get him to dance
too.  Devonay kept his eyes on me and looked too surprised to dance and not
quite ready to like me quite yet, even though he had discovered at least
one good reason why he should.  My body moved differently with his eyes on
me.  I felt pleasantly naked and as I shrugged my shoulders and strutted to
the music, I was aware of the slight bulge in my jeans as if Devonay had
touched me there himself.  Looking down into the audience, I could see a
line of girls right in front, gazing and smiling, goosing each other in the
ribs, giggling about my slightly swollen jeans.
	Even the hardest, coldest boy can't resist a rock star.  Make no
mistakes, being a rock singer is an aphrodisiac in and of itself.  It
usually doesn't work just to tell someone that you're a rock singer, but
once they see you in action, see you performing with the band and see the
audience surrendering to the groove and pushing to get closer to you,
they're hooked.  It's like shooting fish in a barrel.  The problem, of
course, is that the vast majority of the band's performances are in bars
and clubs where boys can't go, so aside from the occasional college
freshman gay boys, I got very little real action.  If we could have played
the junior high school circuit, I would have been in hog heaven.  But now
here I was, out for general public consumption, and I was being pleasantly
consumed by the likes of Devonay.  There were several boys there, dancing
to the music and watching.  Their adulation wasn't lost on me, but I seemed
to only have eyes for Devonay, standing there with his pants slung low on
his hips, a Phillies cap cocked backwards on his head, his bare shoulders
and ribs showing beneath the 76'ers jersey two sizes too big.
	We only performed five songs and were called back to the stage for
one encore.  Afterwards, the band broke down our gear and sold CD's
backstage to college kids, most of which were girls who laughed at all our
jokes.  The guys in the band, heteros all, loved this part, but for me it
was all theater.  I flirted and acted like I enjoyed their advances and
eyeballed some of the young college guys who couldn't hide their
attractions.  If I was particularly horny, I might avail myself of one of
them, but often I left alone.
	Devonay stood at a distance for a while with his friends, watching
me schmooze and shake hands.  Then, after a while, when I looked over
toward them, they were gone.  I heard Clarence inviting a bunch of girls
out for drinks, his arm slung over my shoulder as he pulled me away.


	When I got home late that night, walking in the door with Clarence,
Devonay was sitting there in the living room playing his X-Box.  He hit the
pause button and turned and looked at me in a way that I had never seen him
look before--as if he were studying me.  I knew then that something had
changed.  Clarence was talking about the girls he'd met at the gig.  He
didn't see Devonay there and he was talking to me and planning a party at
the house.
	"Tomorrow night," he said.  "We'll get started at around nine.  I
got a buddy who can get us liquor wholesale."  He chuckled then stopped
suddenly, noticing Devonay.  He scowled at the boy.  "Whatchoo still up
for?" he snapped.  He looked around for the clock.  "It's two o'clock, boy,
get to bed!"
	Devonay didn't budge.  "When's the party?" he asked.
	Clarence rolled his eyes.  "Ain't no party," he said.  "You're
goin' to Auntie Dee's house."
	"No I ain't."
	"Yes you are!"
	They were starting again and it was just too late for that shit.  I
went straight upstairs, a little sad that Devonay was going tomorrow, a
little happy about it too.  I was stoned and tired and went straight to my
room.  I heard Clarence yelling at Devonay, his speech slurring with
whiskey.  "You're goin', buddy.  Believe me, you're goin'!"
	"Shut up."
	"Don't you tell me to shut up!" Clarence said.
	There was a sudden silence, then I heard Clarence say, "What?"
	I heard murmuring from downstairs--voices low like they didn't want
to be heard.  Devonay was saying something to Clarence.  I went out to the
top of the stairs and leaned over so I could hear them.  Clarence
responded, angrily but strangely softly, unsure of why Devonay was
whispering.
	"'Course we've been drinking," he hissed.  "What the fuck's that
got to do with anything?"
	I heard Devonay speaking softly, but I couldn't hear what he was
saying.
	"We always smoke," Clarence growled.  "Why are we whisperin'?"  I
heard footsteps suddenly and Clarence's voice grew louder.  "Hey, where are
you goin'?  I'm talkin' to you!"
	I quickly ducked back into my room and heard Devonay's feet
climbing the stairs.  I thought he'd go straight to his room.  I pulled off
my shirt and kicked off my shoes.  When he came barging into my room, I was
stepping out of my pants.  I was startled to see him but too stoned to jump
so I just stood there in my boxers.  It suddenly dawned on me that Devonay
was making a move to scam me, but I wasn't sure how.
	"Hey," he said shyly.
	"Devonay!"  Clarence yelled.
	I mumbled something unintelligible and plopped back onto the bed.
I murmured some gibberish to bait the hook.  "Turn the volume down," I
slurred.  "Those Doritos are all gone."
	I could hear Clarence, rambling to himself, stomping through the
kitchen.  "I'm callin' Auntie Dee tomorrow and you're goin'.  You sure as
hell ain't stayin' here!" he shouted at one point.  Devonay didn't seem to
hear him.  He was mustering all his strength to speak to me.
	"Um...I saw you...at the....," he stammered.  "...at the...whatever
you call it..."
	I acted as if I was trying to speak, passing out mid-sentence.  "No
phone calls right now.  I'm too tired..."  I closed my eyes and lay still
on the bed.
	"Devonay!" Clarence was shouting from the foot of the stairs.
	Devonay ignored him.  I could hear him breathing and when I peeked
at him through my eyelashes, he was standing there, gazing at me as I lay
there in nothing but my boxers.
	"Devonay!" Clarence was coming up the stairs.
	I heard Devonay turn and walk out.  Damn Clarence.  What would he
have done had he not been interrupted?  Devonay had apparently gone to his
room because I heard Clarence pass my room to go toward Devonay's.
	"Devonay," I heard him say. "You have to go to Auntie Dee's
tomorrow.  No bullshit."
	Devonay sounded uncannily calm. "I ain't goin'."
	"Yes you are!"
	"No I ain't."
	"I'll make you miserable if you stay!"
	"I'll call Auntie Gwen and tell her about the party if you make me
go," Devonay said.
	Clarence was exasperated.  He tried to say something but only
sputtered.  "Goddammit!" he finally said.  "I can't wait `til you go to
camp!"
	Devonay shrugged.  "I ain't goin' to camp."
	"Yes you is!"  Clarence sounded more desperate than angry.
	"No, I ain't.  Auntie Gwen said I didn't have to, so I ain't."
      Clarence stomped down the stairs, his grumbling trailing behind him.
I lay there on my bed, passively waiting for Devonay's return, and moments
later, I heard him in my doorway.  I watched him sleepily from my bed as he
entered, looking at me and walking to the center of the room.  I was pretty
sure he had a scam in mind, but this was going to be a test.  He lifted my
pants from their place on the floor, smiling at me, and reached into the
pocket.
      "My buddy, Andre wants to buy a CD," he said, pulling out my wad of
money.  He leafed through the bills and pulled one out, replacing the rest.
He crumpled the bill in his hand and put it on top of my dresser.  "Here's
his money," he said.  "Right here, okay?"
      I smiled blithely and produced complete gibberish for effect.
      "Um...what...what...it's all over now...but...where is my amplifier?"
      Devonay seemed to buy it.  He snickered to himself and shook his
head.  I closed my eyes and tried to look like I was passing out.  He stood
there looking at me for a while and I hoped he would do more.  Peeking at
him, I could see his dark eyes traveling up and down my body and I knew
that he had other designs on me if I passed this test. He left the room
without another word and I heard his door close.  I rolled over and fell
asleep, smiling to myself.


	I got out of bed in the morning intending to jump head first into
Devonay's trap.  He was obviously a streetwise kid but pretty naïve at the
same time.  The next morning when I came down, he and Clarence were at it
again.  Devonay was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal and
Clarence was pacing around the kitchen, shouting.
	"You gots to be in your room by nine o'clock," he was saying.  "And
you gots to stay up there the whole night, you hear me?  The whole night.
And..."
	"I ain't doin' that," Devonay said calmly with a mouthful of
cereal.
	"Yes you are!  I'm makin' the rules, remember!"
	"Fuck that."
	Clarence was livid.  He grabbed Devonay by the back of his jersey
and lowered his face to the boy's ear.  "I'll make you miserable, son!"
	"I ain't your son," Devonay growled.
	"If you was my son, I'd whup ya!"
	"You ain't whuppin' no one."
	"Boy!"  Clarence was pacing again when he noticed me standing in
the doorway.
	"Wha'sup?" he said, smiling.
	"You two are not going at it again, are you?"
	"Boy needs his ass kicked!" Clarence scowled, and stormed from the
kitchen.
	Devonay just shook his head and tipped the bowl up to his lips to
drink the milk.  I sat down at the table across from him.  He lowered the
bowl and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  "Hey," he said,
uncharacteristically friendly.
      "Hey yourself," I said.
      With the bowl empty, he stood up and dropped it into the sink.
"Gotta go," he said.  "Don't forget the CD."
      I looked confused.  "What?"
      "The CD," he said.  "My buddy Andre wanted a CD, remember?"
      "What are you talkin' about?"
      "I gave you the money last night, remember?"  He smiled and wagged a
finger at me.  "You must've been mixin' your pot and alcohol again."
      "I was," I said sheepishly.  I shook my head and rubbed my forehead.
"I hate when that happens."
      "The money's on your dresser," he said.  "Twenty bucks.  You said
you'd give me the change today."
      "On my dresser?"
      He nodded and walked over to the table.  "Hey, you remember what you
said yesterday about paying someone to kinda watch over you--make sure you
get to bed all right?"
      "Sure," I said.
      He thumbed his own chest with his thumb.  "I'll do it," he said.
"You got a party tonight and you're gonna need it."
      I gave him a cautious look.  "You think you can do it?"
      "No problem."
      "Five bucks?"
      "Ten."
      "Ten bucks?  Jesus..."
      "If you think Clarence can do it," he shrugged.  "But I don't think
he'll be in any condition to..."
      "What about me?"  Clarence came into the kitchen and walked directly
to the sink.  He pointed at Devonay's bowl.  "Wash that," he said.
      Devonay looked over at me.
      "Ten," I said, nodding.
      Devonay stood there for a moment looking at Clarence with Clarence
looking back at him.
      "Wash that damn bowl," Clarence said firmly.
      I watched the two of them for a long moment as if they were a freeze
frame from a movie.  Then Devonay dashed away, out of the kitchen, hitting
the screen door and launching himself outside into the back yard.  Clarence
tried to catch him but didn't even come close.
	"Get back here and wash that bowl!  Devonay!  Devonay!"  He stuck
his head out the door.  "Devonay!  Get your ass back in here!"
	Devonay was gone.  I knew he wasn't coming back to wash that bowl.
Clarence fumed around the kitchen, cussing and shouting.  They had the most
dysfunctional relationship I had ever seen.  "That boy is a sneak!"
Clarence said.
	He didn't know the half of it.


	That night, Clarence was in a better mood.  He had started drinking
at dinner time and when Devonay walked in a little before nine, he was
convinced that the boy was finally falling in line.  In fact, Devonay knew
that the party started at nine and he didn't want to miss any of it.  I
snuck in and washed the cereal bowl while they were both out of the kitchen
so when Devonay came in to get some dinner, he smirked at the washed bowl
in the drainer, thinking Clarence had relented and done it himself.  When
Clarence came in and saw the bowl there, he gave me a wink and nodded
knowingly, feeling like a successful disciplinarian.  They weren't talking
to each other and were each convinced they had won that war.  Clarence only
broke the silence once to tell Devonay to go to his room.
	It's twenty past nine," he said, pointing at his watch.  "Get up to
your room."
	"I ain't goin'," Devonay said, and he went and plopped down in the
living room in front of his Xbox.
	I had thought about it all day and decided that I was going to
purposely fall for Devonay's little trap.  I would be a willing sucker (in
more ways than one, I hoped).  I handed him the CD and the ten dollars
change and he took both of them without as much as a thank you, stuffing
the bill into his pocket.  He stuck out his hand again.  "Plus ten bucks
for tonight."
	I shook my head.  "You get your ten bucks if I wake up alone
tomorrow morning," I said.  "Earn it and you'll get it.
	At nine thirty, people started to arrive.  There were several
friends of Clarence's there, but mostly, they were people that Clarence had
met at the festival after the performance--college kids who were there to
see the members of the band.  I was the only band member there so I quickly
became the nucleus of a circle of smokers and drinkers, the sweet aroma of
pot swirling around us.  The bulk of those around me were girls between the
ages of nineteen and twenty three, but there was one freshman named Eddie
who sidled up next to me, his shoulder against mine, and talked to me about
how much he liked my music until I was sick of hearing it.  He gave me a
look at one point that told me that he would have been game for a tumble in
my bed upstairs, but I noticed Devonay sitting in the corner in front of
the TV, watching me out of the corner of his eye.  Eddie would have to wait
for another time with that watchdog on duty.  Devonay was sipping something
out of a glass and munching on Cheetos.
	At around midnight, Clarence convinced one of the college girls to
go up to his room and they disappeared for the rest of the night.  Eddie
got tired of his unreciprocated advances toward me.  He wrote his number
down on a piece of paper and slipped it into my hand as he was leaving.
"Call me!" he said.
      A half hour later, I got cornered by a girl named Debra who pressed
her breasts up against me in the kitchen while I was in to get another
drink. "I love singers," she cooed.  She was pretty and shapely and, had I
had an interest in women, I would have been happy to have a go with her.
She toyed with the collar of my shirt and leaned toward me, her lips so
close to my ear that I thought she might leave lipstick on my earlobe.
"You're so sexy!" she gushed drunkenly.
	Where the hell was Devonay when I needed him?
	"Thanks," I said uncomfortably.  "Want another drink?"
	"Oh, I better not," she said.  "I'm so drunk right now that you
could do anything to me and I wouldn't remember a thing!"
	I gave her an odd look.  She was trying to use my own scam on me
and, oddly enough, I found myself resenting her for it.  She ran her finger
down my chest, down my belly toward my very flaccid cock.  I stopped her
hand before she got there.
	"Um...er..."
	"What's the matter?" she asked.
	Devonay appeared suddenly in the doorway, seeing her pressed up
against me.  I pretended I didn't see him.  I smiled down at Debra and
slurred my speech.  "Yer kinda cuuuute," I said to her.  "Whatcher name
again?"
	"Debra," she said, and she kissed my cheek.
	I exaggerated my slurred speech so badly that Debra gave me a
quizzical look.
	"What did you say?" she asked.
	I emitted noises again.  It vaguely resembled English and Debra
gave a little giggle.  Devonay suddenly appeared over her shoulder.
	"Jake," he said.  "I gotta talk to you, man."  He had taken to
calling me "Jake" as I had taken to calling him "Dev".  I regarded it as an
unacknowledged expression of affection.
	Debra turned around and looked at Devonay, then at me.  "Who's
this?" she asked.
	"My brubber," I grunted and smiled, playing the adorable drunk.
"Das my lil brubber."
	Debra laughed.  "No he's not!" she said.
	"You gotta go now," he said to her, and he pointed.  "There's the
door."
	"But..."
	"Jake," Devonay said, stepping up and taking my arm.  "Come on.  I
gotta talk to you."  I could smell alcohol on his breath but he didn't seem
particularly drunk.  He pulled on my arm.  I pretended to protest but went
with him, waving at Debra as we left the kitchen.
	"See ya later!" she said in a lilting voice.
	At the bottom of the stairs, Devonay stood on the bottom step to
bring himself up closer to my height and looked into my face.  He looked
very serious.  "You gotta go upstairs now."
	I waved him away.  "But who's gonna drive?" I slurred.
	He rolled his eyes.  "You're gibbering," he said.  "Come on."  He
pulled on my arm and I acquiesced, pretending to object slightly but happy
to have him leading me away.  Most of the remaining people were in the
living room, laughing and drinking.  At the top of the stairs, he led me
into my bedroom and closed the door behind us.  It was very quiet in there
with only the vaguest muffled sounds of the party coming from below.  I sat
on the bed and pulled off my shoes and socks, jabbering all the while about
absolutely nothing.  "I shoulda done laundry," I said.
"Abso-fuckin'-lutely."  I giggled at myself.  "Where's the newspaper?"
	Devonay giggled at me, amused despite himself.
	I pulled off my shirt and struggled to my feet, messing with my
belt buckle.  Devonay stood there watching me.  I pulled and yanked on the
belt, acting like I couldn't get it undone, then finally stopped and sighed
and looked down at the buckle.  "Stuckin' fuck or sumfin."
	Devonay stepped closer to me.  The movement was so anticipated, so
desired, that he seemed to move in slow motion, his small hand reaching for
my belt, his eyes focused.  He undid the buckle with relative ease, trying
to be nonchalant about it, but I realized that if he didn't have plans for
me this night, he would have tossed me onto my bed, completely dressed, and
left me there to sleep it off.  Instead, here he was, pulling the belt
loose and standing there as if he were hoping he could go further.
	"Thanks," I burbled.  I fumbled with the button at the top of my
pants and managed to undo it, but acted unable to find the zipper,
teetering where I stood, my eyes at half-mast, hanging onto my dresser to
keep from falling over.  Devonay didn't wait long before he reached up and
pulled the zipper down.  The noise sounded so exciting to me in the quiet
of the room.  I pushed my pants and boxers down to my knees, stumbled and
fell back onto the bed and lay there, looking up at the ceiling.  I could
feel Devonay's eyes on my half hard cock.
	"Whoops," I said.
	Devonay didn't hesitate to grab my pants and boxers and pull them
off the rest of the way.  I struggled to crawl up the bed and laid my head
on the pillow, lying on my back, a screaming invitation to Devonay to take
advantage of me.  It was a moment of truth.  All of my planning and
conniving and plotting came to bear at this moment.  If Devonay was going
to do anything, this was the time he would do it.  I lay with my eyes
closed, trying to look as helpless and oblivious as possible, aware of
Devonay's eyes staring at me as he stood next to the bed.  I could hear him
breathing in the silence of the room.  Then, I felt him sit on the side of
the bed.
	My cock began to grow under his gaze, even though my eyes were
closed and I couldn't see him.  I peaked through my eyelashes to see him
staring at my dick as it swelled and jerked to attention.  He looked so
close to reaching out and touching it.
	"You awake, man?" he asked.
	I said nothing.  I let my breathing fall into the steady, even flow
of one who sleeps.
	"Jake," he said.  "Are you awake?"
	My cock sure was.  It was twitching like it was dancing a jig.  I
didn't answer, acting oblivious to everything, playing my part.  I felt
Devonay's hand on my chest, pushing, shaking me slightly.
	"Jake," he said.
	I opened my eyes and babbled for him.  "Where's the bridge?
Where's that confounded bridge?"  I looked around the room, then let my
head plop back onto the pillow.  "I need a new microphone, man.  This one
is made of styrofoam."
      I felt his hand flatten on my chest, rustling the hair, running his
small finger over my nipple.  Then it traveled down over my belly, lower
still, and took hold of my cock.  I let out a small, involuntary moan but
didn't open my eyes.  I just lay there, inviting him to do with me what he
wanted.  He gave my cock a few tugs, then slid his hand over the entirety
of it, from the head to the base.  I could hear his breathing quicken, then
he let go suddenly and stood up.  I thought for a moment that he had
chickened out, but then I heard the lock on the door click and realized
that he had only just begun.  He returned to me on the bed and climbed on,
lying beside me but with his head down near my hips, his one leg over mine.
He took hold of my cock again, stroking it with a gentleness that I didn't
expect from him.  He took my balls in his hand and juggled them tenderly,
breathing heavily now.  I looked through my eyelashes at him again just in
time to see his head move closer and down.  I felt his tongue touch my cock
and slide around the head, then down the shaft toward my balls.  I groaned
softly.  He flicked his tongue over me for a while as if he were taste
testing me, then took my cock in his hand with a firm grip and held it
upright.  I felt my head slip in past his lips, into his mouth, his
talented tongue lapping at the underside as it slipped through his lips.
	Devonay proceeded to bob up and down on my cock, breathing heavily
through his nose, cupping my balls in his hand.  His teeth banged against
my dick a couple of times, but overall, he seemed to know what he was doing
as he slurped and sucked.  The whole time, his own little body was pressed
against mine, his hard cock humping against my knee with slow, deliberate
gyrations.  I wanted to reach down and touch his head as it bobbed up and
down, but I worried that it would startle him, so I lay passive to him, my
hands limp at my sides.  Devonay quickened his pace on his sucking, moving
faster and heightening my pleasure, his fingers stroking my balls, tugging
at them in their sac.  He seemed to be enjoying it a great deal and
definitely wasn't a beginner He had to have done this before.  How else
could you explain his talented technique?
      My cock slipped and slid between his sweet lips until I felt my
orgasm arriving, rumbling in the distance like thunder.  I let out a deep
groan and began thrusting my cock into his mouth, flexing my hips toward
him, fucking his lips and tongue, and he held onto my nuts and kept his
head still.  I thrust my cock deep into him, so deep I thought I would
choke him, but he held on, breathing huskily through his nose, aware that
my end was coming.  Suddenly, without thinking, I reached down and put my
hand on his head and held it still as my cock exploded into his mouth.  It
seemed to be an endless flow as rope after rope shot into him.  I grunted
and groaned and tossed my head on the pillow until the last explosion, then
I lay still, letting my hand fall limply onto his back.  He spit the sperm
out onto my belly and I felt him lay back on the bed.  He was suddenly
working madly at undoing his pants.  I heard his belt buckle jingle and the
zipper, and as I peeked down at him, I could see him shove his pants and
underwear down his thighs and grab his small, stiff cock in his hand.  He
jerked it maybe five or six times before I heard him cry out softly and
felt his body jerking on the bed.  From his lovely little penis emerged
three or four drops of sperm, shooting out onto his ebony belly that heaved
with his passion.  I lifted my head and opened my eyes to get a good look
at it as he was lost in his ecstasy.  His eyes were closed.  As his orgasm
subsided, I lay my head back down and closed my eyes.
	Devonay yanked his pants back up and crawled off the bed.  I heard
him yanking tissues from the box on my dresser and heard him dabbing his
belly dry, then he used the same tissues to wipe up the puddle on my belly,
taking care to dip into my belly button to wipe away all evidence of his
transgression.  Then he pulled the blanket up over me and left, taking the
soiled tissues with him.


	I would have to play it very cool in the morning, which I imagined
would be difficult given what I knew about Devonay.  The tough little thug
was an avid cocksucker.  Sitting at the kitchen table in the morning, he
didn't look at me.  He just stared at the bottom of his bowl, spooning his
Raisin Bran into his mouth, chewing madly.  He glanced at me a couple of
times out of the corner of his eye.  I was watching his hand, small and
slender, that had stroked me so tenderly and held my hard cock, now holding
onto his spoon.  I was watching his mouth, where my dick had slipped in and
out and shot a load, as he chewed his cereal and licked the milk from his
lips.  He noticed me looking at him and slowly met my eyes with his.  He
looked guilty and scared and nervous, wondering if I had remembered
anything.
	"Wha'sup?" I asked.
	"Nothin'," he said quickly.
	"Devonay!"  Clarence was yelling from the other room.  We both saw
another collision coming and he jumped up from the table, pouring his milk
into his mouth as he headed toward the sink.  I watched his slender throat
as he swallowed it down.
	"Devonay!"  Clarence was climbing the stairs, thinking he was still
in his room.
	Devonay shook his head and dropped the bowl into the sink.  "I
ain't up for that shit," he said and he started toward the back door.
	"Hey," I said.
	He stopped suddenly, nervously, and looked over at me, trying to
look nonchalant.
	"Your money," I said, waving a ten at him.  "Thanks for your
services last night."
	Now can you think of a more loaded comment than that?  It wasn't
lost on him.  He looked a little uncertain, embarrassed, then nodded and
came over to me, taking the bill from my hand with cautious fingers,
suddenly not completely sure what he was being paid for.
	"No problem," he said uncomfortably.
	"Did I make a fuss?" I asked.  "I don't remember anything after
that dude Eddie gave me his number."
	He snorted and shook his head.  "That faggot?"
	For a moment, I wondered how he could say that after what he had
done, but then I realized that I was talking to a twelve year old American
thug who was able to deny anything that his ego needed him to deny.
	"He looked like he was ready to take you upstairs,dude," he
laughed.  "I saved you from him!  And that Debra chick too!"
	I shook my head and shrugged, threw my hands up, sighed.  "I don't
remember anything."
	"Devonay!"  We heard Clarence's feet coming down the stairs.
Devonay pocketed the money and dashed toward the door.
	"Gotta go!"
	"See ya later, Dev," I said.
	He was gone just before Clarence stormed into the room.


	  I was an idiot in the studio.  My brains were addled with alcohol
residue and all I could think about was Devonay.  I couldn't stay focused
on the music. The other guys noticed my distraction.  I was usually the
most focused one.
	"What the hell's the matter with you?" my manager had asked.
	I shrugged it off and worked harder to concentrate.  At one point,
I had to slip out to the restroom and take matters in hand, jerking off
into the toilet as I thought about Devonay's mouth on me, his soft hands
grabbing me, his lovely little spurting dick.  I thought it would help me
refocus, and it did for about a half hour, but then my mind was back to
wandering in and out of the folds of Devonay's warm clothes.
	When I left the studio, I went straight home, walking in the door,
scanning around for my lovely little bratty boy.  It was about nine thirty
and Clarence was sitting on the couch, a quarter of the way toward the
bottom of another bottle of Hennessy.
	"Hey!" he said brightly.  "I got started without you.  Hope you
don't mind."  He waved the bottle at me.
	I thought I was too tired to drink.  I plopped down in a chair and
gave a deep sigh.  "No problem," I said.  "I don't think I'll drink
tonight."  Still no sign of Devonay.  I kicked off my shoes and stretched
my legs out.  I was trying to think of a way to bring him up so that it
sounded natural when he came bounding down the stairs and into the living
room.  He greeted me in a way that was meant to look completely
nonchalant--a casual nod as he headed toward the kitchen.
	"How's it goin', Dev?" I asked, eager to hear his voice.
	"Awright," he mumbled.
	Clarence started into his plans for the next party. "We fixin' to
have a dinner party day after tomorrow!"  That would be Saturday, when he
knew that the band wouldn't be in the studio.
      "A dinner party?"
      He nodded.  "A barbeque," he beamed.  "Sunshine, Hennessy, ribs,
beer, herb.  That girl from last night is gonna come over with some
friends!"
	"'That girl'?" I said.  "You don't even know her name?"
	He frowned, thoughtful.  "Carrie or Cathy or Karen...something like
that."  He laughed and shrugged.  "Hell, she called me `Lawrence' all
night.  It don't matter."  He rubbed his hands together.  "They all pink
inside!"
      The idea was so unappealing but I smiled and nodded and rubbed my
temples.
      Devonay came out of the kitchen and handed me a cup.  It was such an
odd gesture, completely out of place, and Clarence looked as surprised as I
was.  Devonay looked like he had noticed, as soon as he had handed me the
cup, that he had done something peculiar and conspicuous, and he stood
there awkwardly for a moment.  Then he sniffed and tried to look tough.
      "There's a cup for ya," he said.  "So you can...have...a... drink..."
His voice trailed off.
      Clarence laughed out loud.  "That's uncharact'ristic'ly polite of ya,
Dev-oh-nay," he said.  "Lookie that!"  He leaned toward me.  "`Cept ya said
ya ain't drinkin' tonight."
      Devonay looked at me.  I held up the glass.
      "What the hell," I said to him.  "Hit me."
      For the first time ever, Devonay poured me a drink.  He loaded me up
well and then, when Clarence held his glass out to him, Devonay curled his
lip and snarled, "Pour it your damn self," and turned to his Xbox.
      Clarence scowled at him, confused and offended.  "Ya lil shit," he
said.  "Yer supposed to go to camp day after tomorrow."
      "I ain't goin'," Devonay said.
      "'I ain't goin'!'" Clarence mimicked Devonay's defiant tone, then
glared at him.  "You'll go, damn it!"
      I took a swig from the drink that Devonay had poured.  He was
orchestrating another late night encounter.  He was doing so with all the
subtlety of a twelve year old boy, but he was definitely arranging things.
I sat there with my full cup, in no mood to drink it as tired as I was.
Devonay was engrossed in his game already but he snuck a look my way a few
times to make sure that I was drinking.
      I got up to use the bathroom at one point and took my drink with me,
pouring the bulk of it out in the sink.  I returned to the living room
draining the last drops from my cup, acting as if I had chugged the whole
lot.  I smacked my lips and set the cup down on the coffee table.  Clarence
pointed and laughed.
      "Dude, you just drained that whole thing?"
      I nodded and wiped my mouth.  Devonay watched carefully as Clarence
poured me another, which I deposited into one of Gwen's large houseplants
when no one was looking.  When Clarence got up to use the bathroom, I
dumped another drink into his glass and was begging for more when he
returned, slurring my speech just a bit to get Devonay's attention.
Clarence was stoned, and as we reached the bottom of the bottle, I poured
the last from my cup into the houseplant which, I was sure, would be dead
by morning.  It was nearly one thirty and I was genuinely tired and wanted
to go to bed.  While Clarence sunk into a stupor on the couch, I launched
into my gibberish like I was sending up a flare.
      "You got ants?  Huh?  You got ants?" I said to Clarence.  "Ants are
strong little fuckers.  Hard to get rid of."
      Clarence laughed sleepily.  Devonay's head jerked around and he
looked at me as if that was the cue he had been waiting for and, of course,
it was.  He hit the pause button on his game and stared at me, waiting for
the next words out of my mouth.  I pulled out a gem from seventies rock.
      "Ziggy really sang.  Screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo, like
some cat from Japan."
      When I first heard Bowie sing that, I thought it was complete
gibberish.
      Devonay smirked at me and saved his game, then shut it down.  He put
the controls away and stood up.  Clarence was snoring softly.  "Clarence,"
Devonay said, bumping Clarence's foot with his own. "Dude, go to bed."
      Clarence opened his eyes and winced, struggling to his feet suddenly,
groaning.  I pretended to make an attempt at getting up, then let Devonay
pull me to my feet, holding on to his hand a little longer than usual,
looking into his eyes and saying, "Someone left the cake out in the rain.
I'll never have that recipe again."
      He chuckled and nodded.  "Whatever, bro."
      I'm not sure how Clarence made it up to his room, he was so stoned.
Devonay went into his own room and I to mine and I made sure to mumble to
myself loudly enough for him to hear me through the wall.  My gibberish was
now like my mating call and I knew Devonay was listening.
      "I am the Walrus," I said seriously, dropping my clothes in a pile on
the floor.  "Koo koo kajoob.  Dead dog's eye."  I climbed naked into bed,
excited and horny already, and turned off my light.  "Goodbye, Ruby
Tuesday.  Who could hang a name on you?  Huh?  I wanna know, who?"  Then I
was silent, sober, waiting in the darkness for the sounds of his footsteps,
the creak of my door on its hinges.  I lay there waiting for about five
minutes before he arrived, poking his head in the door and whispering to
me.
      "Jake, you awake?"
      "That deaf dumb and blind kid," I mumbled.  "Sure plays mean
pinball."
      That was all he needed.  Those strange words were the equivalent to
"come on in, baby, and put your mouth on me."  He slipped soundlessly
inside and in the light, I could see that he was wearing only his boxers.
He closed the door and I heard the lock click and suddenly the only light
in the room was what came in from the window from the streets below.  I
felt Devonay climbing onto the bed from the foot, crawling, breathing
quickly already.  He fumbled around in the dark and found me under the
blanket, yanking it off to expose my naked body.  His hands were all over
me, skittering up to my chest, down my belly, down my thighs, in between
and up to my balls.  I was taken again by the incredible sensitivity with
which he handled them, stroking and fondling them with one hand and petting
my throbbing cock like it was a friendly snake.  I let out a moan.
      "Ooooooh," I said.  "Honey, put out that cigarette."  More gibberish
to get him going, I figured.  He tugged on my cock with one hand and found
my nipple with the other, then I felt his wet, warm tongue on my nipple,
lapping at it, sucking with his soft lips.  He mashed his face into my
chest and belly, inhaling me like a fine fragrance which, after ten hours
in the studio and three hours of drinking, I couldn't have been.  Then I
was aware of his body shifting on the bed, moving over me so that his mouth
was on my cock and his legs were straddling my face.  He kissed and licked
my cock as he maneuvered his hips and legs, lowering his stiff little
pecker down at my mouth, bumping my chin, my nose, my eye with that rampant
little tool.  I finally captured the velvet rod between my lips and sucked
it in and Devonay stopped breathing, stopped kissing and licking, probably
stopped thinking, as my tongue swirled around his little rod and my lips
caressed it.  Finally, he seemed to gasp for air.
      "Fuck, yeah," I heard him whisper.  "Oh, shit."
      He bobbed his hips up and down, fucking my face with those slender,
sinuous hips.  His balls kept plopping onto the bridge of my nose.  I made
a noise with my mouth full and reached up to grab him by the hips.  I
raised my head and engulfed his cock and balls altogether in my mouth, my
tongue softly laving them.  He nestled his nose next to the base of my
cock, in the bush of pubic hair, humming softly in his throat as I savored
my mouthful of Devonay.  I released him at one point and shoved my nose
into his crack, licking his perineum and dashing toward his hole.  He held
his breath again until my tongue collided with his asshole and shoved
inside with a quick poke.  He stood up on his knees and sat on my face and
while I could hardly breathe, I thought to myself, "What a way to go!"  I
fucked his ass with my tongue, elated at how much he was enjoying it,
pulling his ass cheeks apart to give me easier access.  He was moaning out
loud, grabbing at breaths.
      "Ah!  Ah!  Ah!" he panted.  "Damn!"
      Damn indeed.  This little ruffian was ass hot and I was eating like a
king.  I slathered his crack and his hole with my tongue and reached up and
put my hand on the back of his head and shoved his face down to my raging
cock.  I did it without thinking.  I was just desperate to have his soft
mouth on my dick again, but it was very forward, very assertive, very
conscious.  Devonay didn't seem to notice, or maybe he didn't care, because
he dove back onto my cock, slipping it all the way into his mouth and
grabbing my balls with his other hand.  I worked on his ass, sucking,
kissing, licking it.  I reached around with one hand and found his stiff
poker.  I gave it several steady jerks and heard him breathing heavily
through his nose, groaning into my dick as it slid in and out of his mouth.
With my tongue up his rear, I jacked him off.  Devonay sucked on my cock
more vigorously, his lips and tongue working frenetically as his own sexual
excitement heightened.  My balls tingled and I knew that I was coming soon.
      I pulled my tongue out of his hole and licked my finger, still
jerking him with the other hand.  I rubbed his little bud with my wet
fingertip, then pushed in gently up to my first knuckle.
      "Augh!" he grunted, surprised, taking my cock out of his mouth, much
to my dismay.  I wiggled my finger, pulled it out a little, then pushed in
further.  Devonay seemed lost in his own gibberish suddenly.
      "Oh, man.  Shit, that's...that's...ooooooh!"
      I pushed my finger in and out until it was sliding easily, at the
same time, jerking his cock with even strokes and sucking his balls into my
mouth.  I tickled his prostate and he mashed his face into my cock, panting
and gasping, his breath crawling around my balls and wet dick.  He took to
whimpering as his orgasm approached.  I jutted my hips forward, mashing my
dick against his face, and he got the hint.  He pulled my cock into his
mouth and sucked, his groans now muffled by his mouthful of dick.
      "Mmmmph...ahhhh grrrrrr..."
      It was all it took for me.  My legs straightened suddenly and my cock
throbbed and off it went like a firecracker, exploding into Devonay's
mouth, causing him to choke for a moment until he pulled his head off of
it.  I was spurting then, into the air, onto his face, and he was grunting
and shooting his warm seed onto my chest while my finger poked at his
prostate.  We were a writhing mass of legs and arms and mouths, wet with
sweat and cum and saliva, and then suddenly, he collapsed onto me, his face
on my prick as the last few spurts subsided.
      He seemed immobilized at first, as if he might lose consciousness
right there lying on top of me.  He was struggling to catch his breath.  I
pulled my finger out of him and released his cock.  Would he still believe
that I was "unconscious"?  Had I given myself away?  I let my arms plop
onto the bed beside me as if I had just passed out and lay there, savoring
the moment, my face nestled against his nuts and wet asshole.  I felt him
shift above me and he rolled off of me slowly and collapsed on the bed
beside me, his head on my thigh.
      Truth be told, I wanted so badly to reach down right then and take
him into my arms and snuggle him against me under the blankets.  I wanted
to kiss him and nuzzle his neck and whisper to him close to his ear.
Instead, I lay silently, feigning sleep, with sperm in the hair on my chest
and my belly.  Devonay recovered then and climbed over me and off the bed.
I heard the "thwik thwik" of tissues being pulled out of the box on my
dresser and heard him wiping himself off, his square shoulders silhouetted
against the light from the window, his lithe hips and slender thighs.  I
could tell that he was wiping his dick clean and running the tissues into
his ass crack.  I heard the tissues again and felt his small hands on me,
wiping away the sperm from my chest and belly, breathing normally now.  I
knew it was all over, but my cock was still stiff, ready for more.  I saw
him pull on his boxers.
      Then he did something that completely surprised me.  As he was
pulling the blankets up over me, he leaned over and I felt his lips on my
cock again, dry and tender, kissing it just once on the underside, making
it jump like it was begging for more, then he pulled the blankets over me
and tiptoed to the door.  He opened it just a crack, peeked out into the
hallway to make sure it was clear, and then disappeared from my room,
pulling the door shut behind him.
      I lay in the darkness, changed.  That kiss, so sweet and well-placed,
lingered still on my cock.  It was that night that changed my opinion of
Devonay forever.  I started seeing him less like an arrogant, defiant thug
and more like a tender little lover, yet tomorrow morning, at the breakfast
table, I would have to act as if none of this had happened.  Any change of
attitude on my part would give it all away and ruin a very good thing and I
worried about that--could I keep my distance without betraying my tenderness
for him?


      As Devonay spooned his cereal into his lovely, talented little mouth
the next morning in the kitchen, I sat looking at him with different eyes.
I wanted to steal him away to my bedroom and take him back to bed with me.
I wanted to plant kisses along his jaw line and down his neck.  I wanted to
have my breakfast in his ass.  All I could do was sit there, sipping my
coffee, taking quick little glances toward him, while Clarence stalked
around the kitchen lecturing him.
      "Camp starts tomorrow, little man," he was saying to the back of
Devonay's head.
      Devonay didn't respond.
      "You gotta be up early to catch the bus at the Y by nine."
      "I ain't goin'."
      "Stop sayin' that!" he barked.  "You're goin' and that's final."
      Devonay didn't reply.  His luscious lips closed over the rim of the
bowl and he tipped it back to drink down the milk.  He caught me looking at
him and I looked away.
      "Clarence..." I started.
      "You gotta pack up your shit tonight," he said.  "And Auntie Dee has
agreed to let you sleep over there tonight and take you to the Y in the..."
      "I ain't goin'."
      Clarence sputtered and pulled at his own hair.  "You got to!"
      "Another party tomorrow?" he asked.
      "Yes!" Clarence gasped.  "I mean, no!  Damn it, it don't matter.  You
gotta go!"
      Devonay shook his head.  "Tomorrow's the fifteenth," he said with
great resolve.
      Clarence was frozen where he stood for just a moment, as if he was
weighing those words, troubled by them.  Then he gave an exasperated huff
and spoke in a tight but quiet voice.  "Boy, ain't nothin' gonna happen
tomorrow.  Just...just..."  He shook his head like he was throwing off
water.  "You gotta go!"
      "I ain't goin'."
      I was suddenly curious.  What was important about tomorrow?
      Devonay finished the last of his milk and stood up from the table.
He walked over and dropped the plastic bowl into the sink, then stood there
looking at Clarence.
      "Well?" he asked.
      "Well what?"  Clarence looked ready to fight.
      "Ain't you gonna tell me to wash that bowl?"
      Clarence barely breathed, his eyes on Devonay.  "Wash dat bowl."
      There was that pregnant silence again, the moment just before shit
happened.  I was getting used to it.  They both sprinted toward the door at
the same time and I thought that Clarence would catch Devonay this time,
but the boy narrowly escaped, slipping out the door and stumbling just out
of Clarence's reach into the backyard.  He regained his footing and vaulted
away and Clarence slammed the door in frustration.
      "Damn that little shit!" he bellowed.
      I listened to him rant for the next few minutes, sipping my coffee,
watching him pace around the kitchen, pointing at the bowl.  "I ain't
washin' dat!"
      "Clarence," I said.
      He was pacing back and forth the back door, mumbling to himself.
"Can't do a thing with that wicked boy!"
      "What's the deal with the fifteenth? I asked.
      Clarence looked at me, then out the door.  "Nothin'," he said.
"Nothin' at all"
      "Then why...?"
      "His mama is supposed to call."  Clarence spat out.  "When she went
into prison, she promised to call him on the fifteenth of every month."  He
looked tired suddenly, as if he were surrendering to everything.  "She did
for the first two, three months but...then...nothin'."  He shook his head.
"She ain't called for the last six months or so but he still waits every
time." He shrugged.  "I was hopin' he'd forget but...he don't never
forget."
      I felt my heart suddenly swell and open and take Devonay in.  I had
no idea at the time how permanent that would be.
      "Let him stay," I said. "He doesn't interfere with the parties and I
think he's starting to come around.  I think he's getting to like me."
      Clarence snorted. "Dude don't like no one."
      "Besides," I said.  "If you send him to camp when he doesn't want to
go, you know he's only going to get into trouble, get kicked out, and
you'll have to make the drive all the way to camp to pick him up.  You'll
be stuck with him anyway and you'll have to dish out some sort of
punishment for doing whatever he did to kicked out."  I shook my head and
took a sip of my coffee.  "Ain't worth it, if you ask me."
      Clarence thought about that, then stomped his foot and plopped into
the chair across from me.  "Shit," he said.  "You're right.  You're totally
right."  He drummed his fingers on the table.  "He'll wait all day and mope
all night.  My mama says he's like a constipated bear."
      Devonay was like a complicated painting that gained depth and meaning
the more you looked at it.  You noticed something different every time and
after you heard the story of how it came to be, you never looked at it the
same way again.


      That night, Clarence almost looked benevolent as he told Devonay that
he didn't have to go to camp and Devonay looked indifferent, as if the
prospect had never been a serious one anyway.  He shrugged when Clarence
finished his little speech and said, "What's for dinner?"
      We ordered pizza delivery at six o'clock and sat around smoking a
joint while we waited.  Clarence yawned and scratched himself.  "We outta
Hennessy, dude," he said to me.
      Devonay gave him a quick look, then looked at me.  He suddenly looked
nervous.
      "No Hennessy?" I asked, then shrugged.  "Could be a good thing.  I've
been drinking too much anyway.  I don't remember anything at night anymore.
Nothin'!"
      Clarence laughed at that but Devonay grew even more nervous.  "You
got that wine up there above the sink," he said to Clarence.
      Clarence clucked his tongue.  "Dat's my mama's wine," he scoffed.
"She'd have a bird if I drank that."
      The room was silent and I was acutely aware of what was going on.
Clarence was out of money and was waiting for me to offer to pay for the
Hennessy.  Devonay was suddenly fidgeting in his seat, wringing his hands,
trying not to look nervous as he also waited for me to offer to buy the
Hennessy.  To be honest, the very idea of drinking Hennessy turned my
stomach. I had been drinking it, more or less, for the past week and I was
sick and tired of it.
       "We can skip the Hennessy for one night," I said, just to play with
Devonay.
      Clarence moaned and Devonay looked suddenly miserable.  Clarence went
off on how much he loved his Hennessy and how he didn't get paid until
tomorrow, otherwise he'd buy the Hennessy, but tonight was tonight and he
wished the pizza guy could deliver Hennessy too and how much he appreciated
that I was buying the pizza.
      "Dev," I said.  "Don't you think Clarence here could do without
Hennessy for just one night?"
      There was another loaded comment.  If he wanted me to drink, he was
going to have to support Clarence in this venture, but Devonay was in the
habit of going out of his way to disagree with Clarence.  He looked
cornered, like he didn't want to answer at all, then smirked and shrugged.
      "Dude needs his Hennessy," he said.
      Clarence looked stunned.  He gave Devonay an uncharacteristically
gentle look and said, "Hey, thanks, dude!"
      Devonay looked embarrassed.  He rolled his eyes and shook his head
but it was too late.  He had touched Clarence with his support.  I got a
kick out of the whole thing and, of course, ended up buying the Hennessy.
As we drank that night, Devonay sat nearer to us, warmed just a bit by
Clarence's slight change of demeanor toward him, even enjoying a few jokes
that they exchanged.  Clarence even poured a small glass of Hennessy for
Devonay, who sipped at it, wrinkled his nose and proclaimed that it tasted
like motor oil.
      "How the hell you know what motor oil tastes like?" Clarence
chuckled, and Devonay favored us with a little laugh.  He and Clarence took
to teasing each other-- swapping insults and such--but it all felt like it
was in fun, even a little affectionate, and as I sat there watching Devonay
giggle at Clarence, I realized that I was falling for him.  He wasn't only
changing, he was changing me.
      I suddenly noticed that he was looking at me, smiling, reaching over
the coffee table with the bottle and pouring more into my glass.  His eyes
sparkled with a light I'd never seen in him before and I knew right then
that I had it bad.


      "He got juju eyeballs," I slurred.  "He one holy roller."
      Clarence snickered sleepily.  "He got hair down to his knees," he
said, then faded back out.  I felt Devonay's eyes on me.  He didn't seem to
connect what Clarence had said to my classic gibberish.  I looked him in
the eye.
      "He one spinal clacker," I said very seriously, letting my eyes cross
just a little.  "He got feet down below his knees...or somethin' like
that."  I could never keep those lyrics straight.  Devonay was looking at
me like I was crazy.  He gave me a little smirk and pulled on my elbow,
trying to get me up.
      "C'mon, Jake," he said.  "Time for bed."
      I struggled to my feet while Devonay roused Clarence.  I don't know
if Devonay was thinking the same thing, but I knew that it was important to
get Clarence up to his own room where he could pass out and not happen into
my room on the way up later.  Devonay yanked at his sleeve and Clarence
stirred to life, waving him away.
      "I'm goin', I'm goin'."
      I really was a bit drunk, but nowhere near as much as Devonay
imagined.  I played at a spaghetti-legged walk up the stairs with Devonay
and Clarence behind me.  "What time is it?" I asked.
      "Two ten," Devonay said.
      Clarence laughed.  "The party starts in just..."--he counted on his
fingers-- "fifteen hours!"
      I went into my room and dropped all of my clothes onto the floor and
hopped into bed naked.  I was actually wide awake as I lay between the
sheets, waiting for my little Romeo to call.  Clarence's footsteps seemed
to take forever to mount the stairs to his room, but soon it was quiet.
About five minutes passed before I heard Devonay's door open and his
footsteps in the hallway.  My doorknob squeaked and the hinges moaned as
the door eased open and Devonay slipped inside.  When he crossed the room,
the light from the street spilled across him and I could see that he was
only in his boxers.  He leapt onto the bed, confident now in this
operation, and pulled the blankets off of me.  His hand found my cock and I
felt his nakedness against my side.  I felt his nose bump me gently on the
chin, then my chest and belly, inhaling me again, even kissing my nipple
and giving it a quick licking.  His breath was suddenly in my ear.  His
hand was tugging on my root and his own cock was pressed up against my hip,
humping and poking.  I lolled my head toward him, moving my face into his.
He stopped breathing suddenly when he noticed that our lips were nearly
touching, as if he were hesitating, then he tenderly touched my lips with
his.  At first it was just a touch, then he pressed his lips against mine
and breathed suddenly through his nose.  Holding his breath, he delivered a
sweet smack which sounded loud in the silent room.  Then he kissed me again
and again.  They were like the first pangs of passion in his twelve year
old libido, consuming him and, in my proximity, me as well.
      He was suddenly squirming uncontrollably against me, trying to pull
his boxers off with one hand and finally rolling up onto his back, feet in
the air, and yanking them off.  Naked, he threw himself back against me,
climbing on top of me until our cocks were pressed together and he was
kissing my neck and shoulders.  My body felt like it was glowing in the
dark.  Every nerve seemed to be buzzing and snapping and sending out
sparks.  His hand nearly brought me to an orgasm but he stopped suddenly
and crawled up my body to sit on my chest.  His stiff pecker poked me in
the neck as he inched himself over me, bending over with his hands on the
bed above my pillow.  I fragrant, silken head of his boyhood bumped against
my cheek, then my lips, then in between and into my mouth.  He pumped his
hips, gasping for air, as he fucked my mouth.  I savored that precious gem
on my tongue and sucked it sweetly.
      "Oh, oh, oh, oh," he said with every thrust.
	He pulled it out suddenly and repositioned himself so that he was
lowering himself onto me, sitting on my face, my tongue slipping in between
those soft, smooth buns.  I poked my tongue out and found his hole and I
heard him stop breathing again.  My ass games from the night before had
definitely captured his imagination.  He seemed satisfied to remain that
way for a long time, pulling on his own cock, squatting over my face as I
kissed and sucked and licked his ass.
	Very suddenly, he stood up on the bed and took a few steps back,
straddling me as I lay submissively on the bed.  I heard him spit in the
dark and he bent over and slathered my cock with his saliva.  What was
this?  Was he really going to...?
	He tried to sit on it and impale himself with one movement, but he
was way too tight and as he tried to lower himself onto it, it didn't seem
ready to fit.  I could hear him grunting in the darkness above me, hanging
onto my cock, his target, holding it to the quivering little bud, pushing
down, pushing down.  The head popped in and he gave out a cry that made me
jump.
	"Christ!" he hissed, and sat there for a moment with my dick just
inside his back door.  His breathing was erratic and it almost sounded like
he was crying.  He tried to lower himself some more but without any
preparation, and without ample lube, I knew he wasn't going to be
successful without hurting himself a lot more.  He gave out a low moan in
his throat that sounded like all pain and no pleasure and he stopped again,
lowering his forehead down to my chest, trying to take deep breaths.  After
a short rest, he made one more valiant effort to accept my cock into him,
but he whimpered and finally pulled it out of him entirely, defeated.
      "Shit," I heard him say.
	I rubbed my slippery cock against his crack and moaned a signal to
him.  It slipped against his eager hole a few times and Devonay made noises
of sheer pleasure again.  With him squatting over me, his knees on my ribs,
I humped his butt as the bed creaked beneath us.  He tugged on his own
cock.  I could hear the movement and feel his body shaking with the
rhythmic movements of his hand.  His soft lips played on my nipples.  The
saliva dried on our points of friction and I heard him spit again and felt
his hand encircle my dick, wet and slippery.  I lapsed into delirium and we
resumed our slippery humping.
	Devonay was making noises like many different birds in a
jungle--high pitched squeals, low murmurs, cooing, panting.  I could hear
the slimy sucking noise of his wet hand on his own cock as he worked on
himself.  Before I knew it, I was tumbling into my climax, moaning like a
rutting lion as I thrust myself against him.  My cock went off, and I
thrashed on the bed beneath the boy, spurting my seed onto his balls and my
belly, jerking from head to foot with his lips locked onto my nipple.  Then
I felt his warm spurts on my chest, two or three quick ones that racked his
whole body and had him collapsing down on top of me, capturing my spent
cock against his asshole and balls.  He grunted with each spurt and then
lay silent that way for a few moments, catching his breath, clinging to me
with his legs and hands.
	He got up and got right to his cleaning up.  As he dabbed my belly
and cock with tissues, I wondered how long it would be before we no longer
needed this game, this illusion, to make love.  Maybe he already knew
somewhere inside that this was all pretend, that I was awake and tacitly
agreeing to not recognize this tryst in the light of day.  In the darkness,
we were not the same people who sat together in the sunny kitchen in the
morning.  In the darkness, under the guise of this absurd game, we were
lovers, as if in another world.
	He limped a little as he slipped out of my room that night, his
anus sore from his aborted attempt, the wad of tissues in his hand.  He
stopped in the hallway, looked back at me, then stole back inside very
quickly to the side of my bed.  He leaned over and kissed me on the
lips--three quick pecks, soft and sweet--then tiptoed back out into the
hallway and closed the door behind him.
	I lay in the silence, smitten, and fell asleep with the smell of
him on me.


	Devonay was hunched over his cereal in the morning per usual and I
plopped down across from him with my coffee per usual, however when he
noticed me there, he gave me a smile and jerked his head to say hello.
	"G'mornin'," I said.
	Clarence was bustling through the house, setting up for the party,
and when he entered the kitchen I expected him to start yelling at Devonay,
per usual.  He seemed preoccupied with carrying several liquor bottles out
into the living room where he was setting up a bar on the coffee table.  I
seemed far too early to be preparing for a five o'clock party and Devonay
and I watched him curiously as he rummaged through the kitchen fishing
paper napkins out of the kitchen drawers and hunting for plastic cups.
	"They're here somewhere," he mumbled.
	It was the fifteenth of June.  I had known Devonay for two weeks
and had gone from disliking him intensely to falling slightly in love with
him.  Clarence had gone from bitterly feuding with the boy to a sort of
truce--a pause in the war to observe this special day.  Devonay had gone
from mumbling epithets in my direction to jerking his head to say hello.
It was the fifteenth and I knew that Devonay had a vigil to tend to on this
day.
	"Whatcha up to today?" I asked him brightly.
	He shrugged.  "Nothin'," he said.  "Just hangin' out."
	"Wanna play a game or somethin'?"
	It was too much too soon.  He looked at me out of the corner of his
eye as if he were suspicious that Clarence had told me everything, then he
rolled his eyes and went back to his cereal.  "No."
	When he finished his cereal, he walked over and slipped the bowl
into the sink and walked wordlessly from the room.  I quickly washed the
bowl before Clarence came breezing back in, looking for the ice bucket.  He
and Devonay were getting along so much better.  I didn't want there to be
another cereal bowl battle.
	I helped Clarence set up for the party but didn't feel much like
attending it.  My thoughts were with Devonay, who I found sitting in the
living room, engrossed in cartoons while Clarence and I cleaned the house.
I mentioned my concerns to Clarence as we got the fire started in the grill
on the patio.  He waved me away.
      "Maybe the party will distract him," he said, then he brightened even
more.  "That's what this party is for, man.  To cheer the little dude up!"
      I knew that wasn't true.  The party was to get Clarence laid.  This
was just an afterthought, considerate as it was.  When five o'clock rolled
around, and the first of the guests arrived, Clarence put music on the
stereo and Devonay withdrew to the kitchen to sit by the phone.  He leaned
his chair back against the wall and crossed his arms on his chest.  I went
in and sat at the table near him, drinking orange juice and eyeing the
telephone impatiently, and it wasn't until nearly seven o'clock, when all
sixteen guests were in the living room or on the back patio, drinking beer
and eating ribs, that Devonay looked over at me and said, "What are you
doin'?"
      "I'm waiting," I said.
      "For what?"
      "For that fuckin' phone to ring," I said.
      "Why?"
      "'Cause you are."
      He frowned at me.
      "Dev," I said softly.  "Clarence told me about...what you're waiting
for."
      He turned away and looked down at the floor.
      "And I figured that I'd wait it out with ya," I went on.  "If you
don't mind."
      He snorted and looked angry.  "Naw, just go out to the party.  I
don't need no one."  He gave a sad laugh.  "Ain't gonna make the phone ring
none."  He gave me a suspicious look.  "Why you wanna wait with me?"
      I shrugged.  "I don't know.  I don't think I'll enjoy the party much
knowing that you're sittin' in here waiting.  Might as well sit here with
ya."
      He gave a bitter laugh and shook his head.  "Just go," he said.  "I
don't need no one to wait with me, ya fuckin' freak."
      I didn't reply.  I didn't say or do anything.  I didn't leave.  I
just sat there with my chin resting on my hands folded on the table in
front of me.  I gave a deep, impatient sigh.  After a few moments, Devonay
glared at me, then rolled his eyes and shook his head.  "You're pathetic,
man," he snickered.  "You gonna sit here waitin' on my phone call?  You're
stupid, man. I swear."
      I was unresponsive.  My expression showed no signs that I had heard
his hurtful words.  People streamed through the kitchen, dug through the
fridge, gave us strange looks, brought us food, asked us what we were
doing.  A couple girls came in, giggling drunk, and attempted to talk me
into a drink.  I politely declined.
      "We're all gonna go skinny dipping later at Maria's pool!" one of
them said.  "You want to come?"
      "No thanks," I said.
      Devonay ignored them.  I explained that we were "waiting for the
fuckin' phone to ring," which made Devonay smirk despite himself, and the
girls finally left.  Devonay was looking sadder and sadder as the day
rolled on and he became more and more irritable, getting up and walking
silently and sullenly around the house a few times, grabbing a plate of
food only to return to the kitchen to find me sitting in the same spot,
eating a plate of ribs, looking like I was trying to will that fuckin'
phone to ring.  It didn't.  Clarence's cell phone was tweeting every ten
minutes but that phone in the kitchen remained stubbornly silent.
      "C'mon, man!" Clarence would say from time to time, sticking his head
into the kitchen.  "There's someone I want you to meet!  You'll like her!"
      "No thanks," I said.
      "Dude, I set this party up for today because I knew you didn't have
to work!"
      "I know," I said.  "And I appreciate that, but I'm gonna pass."
      "Why?"
      I felt Devonay's eyes on me, wondering the same thing.  I shrugged.
"I'm waitin' for the fuckin' phone to ring."
      As it neared nine o'clock, Devonay turned to me and asked, with an
edge of irritability, "What are you doin', man?"
      "I'm waiting for the..."
      "Why?" he snapped.  "It ain't your mama s'posed to call!  Why you
here?  Huh?"
      He was clearly mad at the phone or his mother or both, but he was
sneering at me.
      I put my hands up and spoke softly.  "I just figured that..."
      "You think you're gonna talk to her when she calls?" he clipped.
"Shit, you don't know her!  Go to your fuckin' party!  Leave me alone!"
      "I don't want you to wait alone," I said.  "So I ain't goin'."  I
tried my best to sound like Devonay in his usual state of defiance and
apparently Devonay recognized it because he chuckled a little and wiped a
smile off his face with a sweep of his hand.
      "You're stupid," he said, half-heartedly, but he didn't tell me to
leave again.
      "I care about you," I said.  "And I'm sorry she didn't call."
      He scowled at me and looked at the clock, then back at me again.  He
looked like he was going to say that it wasn't too late, but we both knew
that it was.  She was going to miss another month.  He bit his fingernails
and chewed them anxiously, then sighed heavily and bit his lip.  "She don't
never call no more," he said, not looking at me.
      The kitchen was silent for a moment, then Devonay got up and walked
out of the kitchen, looking like he was giving up.  The noise of the party
had died down and several people had left, leaving a small knot of drinkers
sitting on the patio.  I could see Clarence from where I was sitting,
talking in the living room to the leggy lady from the previous party.  He
was whispering into her ear and moving his hand up her skirt while she
giggled drunkenly.  I was just going to get up from my chair in the kitchen
when Devonay came back in and placed a cup on the table in front of me
without even looking at me.
      "What's this?" I asked.
      He sat back in his chair, leaning it against the wall,
straight-faced.  "Hennessy."
      This was an unexpected signal.  Devonay had waited all day for a
phone call that never came.  He looked miserable and must have felt worse.
Was he really up for another rendevous?  I drank down the Hennessy over the
next several minutes and he refilled my glass three more times before the
clock in the living room gonged seven times.  When Clarence, stumbling
drunk, came into the kitchen, he was all smiles with the girl on his arm.
      "Devonay says you're ready for a smoke," he said.
      "What?"
      "He said you wanted to smoke," Clarence said, pulling a fatty from
his pocket and sticking it into his mouth.  "Let's burn one."
      Devonay came back in and sat on the counter, watching us smoke.  He
looked down at the floor like he was about to cry, but he was steering me
in that direction again and I willingly complied, taking in deep tokes that
made my head light and my belly growl for food.  By eleven o'clock, the
party had made an inebriated exodus to another house where there were fresh
bottles of beer and a swimming pool.  All but Clarence and the girl
remained and they walked, with some effort, up the stairs to Clarence's
room, giggling and kissing at intervals on their way.  Devonay sat at the
table, looking depressed, not talking pouring more Hennessy into my glass
every few moments and I struggled to stay sober enough to really remember
the encounter that was about to happen between us.


      "They paved paradise and they put up a parking lot," I said after I'd
had enough Hennessy.  "That's one big fuckin' yellow taxi."
      Devonay gave me a hard look.  He sat there looking at me as if he was
waiting for another line of gibberish to confirm that I was ripe for
picking.  I happily obliged.
      "The Hendersons will all be there late of Pablo Fanques Fair--what a
scene," I said sincerely.  "And of course Henry the Horse dances the
waltz."  The Beatles were a treasure trove of gibberish.
      Devonay stood up and sighed tiredly.  His voice sounded weak and
lifeless.  "C'mon, Jake," he said.  "Time for bed."
      It was an eerie walk up the stairs with Devonay turning off lights
behind us and me weaving up to my room and improvising absurd ideas from my
inebriated head.  "A horse is a horse, of course, of course, even Henry the
Horse was a horse, of course."  I peeled off my clothes and dropped them in
a heap on the floor, per usual, and Devonay disappeared into his room
without another word.  It was such a solemn withdrawl that I wasn't sure
that he would make his usual appearance.  I would have been disappointed
but not surprised.  I crawled naked between my sheets and lay there
waiting.
      About five minutes later, the door squeaked on its hinges and opened
slowly and Devonay stepped inside.  By the light of the street I could see
that he was completely naked.  He closed the door, locked it and stood
there for a moment and I could barely hear something in the silence.  His
breathing was irregular and punctuated by sniffs.  I strained my ears to
hear.  He was crying, quietly, standing at the door way in the light.  I
could see his shoulders shaking.  Then he moved stealthily to the bed and
climbed on, crawling up to the headboard, slipping in under the sheets.  I
felt his soft and smooth nakedness press against the side of me all at
once, his head on my shoulder.  He wrapped his arms around my neck and
pulled his face into my throat and sobbed.
      I rolled onto my side, our stiff dicks bumping into each other, and
pulled him to me, engulfing him in my arms, holding him, comforting him.
The closer I held him, the more he wept and I held him that way until I
fell asleep, his tears on my chest.
      We didn't have sex that night.  Hours later, I awoke to him stirring
against me, rolling over and climbing out from beneath the sheets.  He had
fallen asleep as well and was now making a hasty retreat to his room before
the Hennessy wore off and I became conscious.  I didn't want him to leave
and held him gently by the arm, inviting him wordlessly to stay, but he
pulled away and slipped out of my room without looking back.  I lay there
with my arms feeling empty, longing for him to return and, when he didn't,
I rolled over and fell back asleep.


      Devonay was quiet and hunched over his bowl of cereal in the morning
when I came down.  He looked so sad.  He ate more slowly and looked
disinterested in nourishment.  "Hey!" I said brightly.
      He looked up at me then down into his bowl.  "Hey," he said,
unenthused.
      "Got plans today?" I asked.
      He shrugged and shook his head.
      "How `bout going to the arcade with me?"
      He gave me a half-interested look.  "Don't you gotta work?"
      I scoffed at that.  "It's Sunday.  I can call in sick today."
      He studied me for a while, then shrugged.  "I don't know..."
      "C'mon," I said.  "It'll be fun!"
      Clarence buzzed into the kitchen dressed in work clothes, grabbing a
bagel from the bread box and pouring coffee into a mug.
      "Got a call this morning for some work!" he said.  "I'll catch ya'll
later!"  He rushed out of the kitchen without another word.  Devonay was
stirring his cereal disinterestedly.  He gave a big, tired sigh.
      "Well?"  I asked him.


      He agreed to go with me with a complete lack of enthusiasm, but once
we were on the bus, he favored me with a few smiles and told me about the
virtual reality games at the arcade with some excitement.  By the time we
reached the arcade, he was talking animatedly an shouting and pointing and
running ahead of me into the arcade.  I surrendered to him and to the
arcade, for that matter, as it was the only way to enjoy it.  I had to
become a kid again to appreciate the flashing lights and the noisy din of a
hundred machines begging for our attention.  Devonay took charge, leading
me from one game to another, persuading me to play.  I only beat him in
Skee Ball, the most old-fashioned game in the place.  Otherwise, in all
other pursuits, Devonay beat me to dust and laughed good-naturedly at my
frail attempts to keep up.  We ate at a hot dog stand for lunch and he
teased me about losing every game we played.
      "Hey, I got you in Skee Ball!" I said.
      "Skee Ball is for old men," he snickered, and I attacked him and
drove my fingers into his ribs, pulling his body back against me.  I didn't
know what made me do it.  He and I had restricted our physical contact to
that unconscious region of my bedroom which neither of us acknowledged in
any way.  It was just an impulsive thing that I did.  To my surprise,
Devonay yielded to me, letting his small body fall into me, laughing and
wriggling from the tickling but not trying to get away.
      "Old men?"
      "You an old man," he said impishly, and I played his ribs like a
piano.  His laugh was absolutely melodious, as enchanting as a symphony to
my love-struck ears.
      We played in the arcade until I ran out of money.  I had spent a lot
on this excursion.  At four o'clock, as Devonay and I waited for the bus to
take us home, he stood very close to me and I slipped my arm around his
shoulder.
      "Why did you take me out today?" he asked.
      He was starting to trust me with these open-hearted questions.
      I looked hesitant, then shook my head.  "I better not tell you."
      "'Cause you felt bad for me `cause of yesterday?"
      "No."
      "Why, then?"
      I looked like I was about to tell him, then stopped and shook my
head.  "No, I better not."
      "C'mon," he whined, pulling on my arm.
      I looked pensive, as if I was weighing this carefully, then I gave a
deep sigh.  "All right," I said.  "I'll tell you."  He stood there, looking
up into my face, his mouth slightly open.  He was so beautiful and I wanted
to kiss him right there in front of God and everyone, but that was
impossible.  He waited curiously for my answer.
      "Because I really like you, Dev," I finally said.  "I mean, you can
be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but I really like you."
      He smiled and blushed and looked down at his feet.  He didn't reply,
but he stayed there close to me with my arm around his shoulder as we
waited for the bus.



      When we got home, Devonay couldn't wait to go tell his friends about
our afternoon and he left the house, leaving me alone to my thoughts and
yearnings.  The house was still a mess from the night before with bottles
and plates and cups lying around and while I was cleaning it up, Clarence
came home, dusty and tired, and helped me with the last of it.  He had
picked up a video on the way home so while he showered, I made some dinner
for us and we ate and smoked and settled in the living room to watch "One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".
      Clarence was too tired to drink that night and I was thankful for the
break. The pot was enough.  Clarence sat on the couch for fifteen minutes
before noticing that he was sitting on an empty Hennessy bottle that was
lodged in the cushions of the couch.  He pulled it out and placed it on the
coffee table and said, "Look what I just pulled outta my ass!" and we both
practically fell over laughing.
      Midway through the video, Clarence fell asleep on the couch and I
watched the rest of the movie alone, worrying about Devonay, wondering
where he was.  I waited and watched the movie, listening for the door, and
when the final credits were rolling, I clicked off the TV and headed for
bed, leaving Clarence asleep on the couch.
      I had been in bed for about a half hour when I heard footsteps on the
stairs.  They stirred me from my half-sleep; my clock read ten minutes to
midnight.  Was it Devonay?  I listened to the footsteps as they neared,
turned, and went down the hallway to Devonay's room.
      He was home.
      I lay in that bed thinking that I should go and tell him the
truth--that I had been feigning forgetfulness all this time and that it was
all a ruse to fool him.  I felt guilty about having deceived him.  I turned
on the lamp on the bedside table and lay there summoning the strength to go
to him.
      Then the door swung open and there he was, stepping silently into the
room, peeking out to make sure he hadn't been seen.  He was naked and
beautifully lit by the soft light from the lamp and I couldn't speak.  He
had something in his hand.  This time wasn't waiting for the gibberish.  He
scrambled onto the bed, his little cock jutting from between his silken
thighs, and pulled the covers off of me with a desperation that I hadn't
seen in him before.  As his naked body covered mine, my cock stirred to
quick attention and my body sang with pleasure.  The passion rose off of
him like a vapor, intoxicating me, as he took to kissing my neck and ears
and cheeks and finally, my lips, lying his body fully on top of me.
      I didn't hesitate to put my arms around him, reaching around and
squeezing his ass gently.  He was panting and gasping into my face, kissing
me and poking his tongue into my mouth, hanging on to my shoulders as my
hands traveled up and down his smooth, lithe body.  Every part of him was
like silk, mysteriously soft and smooth, exotically sexy.  I rolled over on
top of him, something I didn't normally do in my Hennessy stupor, and he
welcomed me, opening his legs, wrapping them around my waist, reaching down
between us to take hold of my cock.
      "That bottle was under the couch," I heard myself whispering to him.
"Clarence...um...he knocked off... `One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'..."
      It was honest-to-goodness gibberish.  All the blood had rushed from
my head and gushed to my aching hard on, where his soft hand was stroking
and tugging. He covered my mouth with his as if he were shutting me up.
      He fidgeted beneath me suddenly, squirming around so that there was
space between us.  I saw that he had a tube of Vaseline in his hand.  He
squeezed a fair amount onto his fingers and reached down between his legs,
slathering his hole with Vaseline.  His eyes showed an intense
concentration on the task.  Then he coated my cock with it as well--just two
or three quick swipes.  I was inflamed.  I reached down to find his cock,
stiff and throbbing, and stroked it from head to base, swirling my fingers
around his nuts, then down to where his fingers were embedded in his ass.
Two of them.  They were sliding in and out and his jaw hung open as he let
out a long sigh, relaxing into it.
      I resolved to tell Devonay the truth first thing in the morning.
      The boy was lost in his excitement, delirious with passion, pulling
the head of my cock to his willing hole.  I lowered my hips to the cause,
feeling my cock press against his slippery chute and, with very little
effort, slip inside.  Devonay gasped and held onto my dick, holding it
still until he could adjust to the intrusion.  He took small breaths into
my mouth, then, after a moment, he relaxed and released my cock to slip in
farther.  He gave out a low, satisfied moan and I felt confident pushing
ahead, sliding my prick deeper into him, feeling my balls already starting
to boil.  Devonay reached up and wrapped his arms around my neck, pulling
me even closer until there was no space between our bodies and my dick
finally slid in to the hilt.  I pulled his legs up farther, resting his
ankles on my shoulders, bending him in half, allowing a little more
penetration.  Devonay had surrendered entirely to me.  I could feel every
muscle in his body yield to me, accepting me, pulling me closer until I
felt like we were merging.
      "Oh, Jake," he hissed into my ear, electrifying me.
      I began to fuck him.  My cock pumped in and out of him slowly at
first, well lubricated by the Vaseline, sliding easily in and out of his
little ass.  Devonay began to moan so loud that I worried Clarence would
hear him.  It turned me on even more and I quickened my pace, fucking him
furiously with long, deep strokes, grunting with every thrust.  He let out
a high-pitched yelp, and I felt his cock twitch, pressed against my belly,
and the warm spurts of his orgasm between us.  It was the longest orgasm I
had ever seen in him and the whole time, his body trembled and shook in my
arms and he buried his face in my neck.  I felt his slimy fingers digging
into my back until the last of his sperm was expelled and he took a deep
sigh into my ear like an exclamation point at the end of his orgasmic
sentence.
      I came then, deep into his ass, with a moan much louder than I had
ever intended.  My hips quivered with ecstasy and I made several quick and
violent thrusts at the peak of the orgasm.  While I was in the throes of
this delirious fit, Devonay kissed me tenderly on the cheeks and chin and
rubbed his face against mine like a kitten.
      I finally collapsed on top of him, panting and feeling happier than I
have ever felt in my life.  My lovely brown boy, wrapped around me like
ivy, my cock still buried in his ass, held me tenderly, stroking my hair
with the gentleness of a lover.  He had lowered his legs from my shoulders
and we lay there until our breathing returned to normal.
      "Jake," he whispered into my collarbone.  "I kinda wish you were
going to remember this."  I could tell he was smiling.  "It was just too
good to forget."
	I couldn't have agreed more, and I should have told him the whole
truth right then, but I lay mute, holding his sturdy body in my arms,
feeling my still hard cock in his ass.  He reached down and squeezed my
ass, pulling my cock deeper into him and moaned.  "You're my boyfriend," he
snickered.  "And you don't even know it."
      His boyfriend.  I was convinced in that moment that I would have
ruined everything if I had told him the truth right then.  After all, I had
my cock inside him.  Not a good time for him to come to grips with the
facts of the situation and, at the same time, perhaps a critical moment for
just that.  I pulled my cock out slowly and rolled over, lying beside him,
pulling him to me.  I nuzzled his ear with my nose and nibbled on his neck
and he giggled and rolled into me, cuddling up against my chest and giving
a melodic little sigh.
      His boyfriend.  I was his boyfriend and I was drunk on the idea, and
I'd remember that moment for the rest of my life.  All that I desired, all
that I wanted, was contained within my arms.  I was saturated with the
smell and the taste of him.  I was deliriously happy.


      I woke up to Devonay sliding away from me, moving out from my arms
like a swimmer from a pool, causing me to ripple with the loss.  I nearly
cried out to him I was so sad that he was going, but I pretended to be
sleeping.  He was a bit spastic in his efforts to clean everything up.  He
reached below the covers to wipe away the sperm from my chest, but it was
dried on and caked into my hair, and when he saw the Vaseline stains on my
sheets, I heard him gasp and say, "Shit, shit, shit," so many times that I
thought was going to do just that, right there on the floor.  He did the
best he could, then hurried from the room, closing the door behind him.


      At the breakfast table the following morning, Devonay gave me a
measured, sidelong glance and he chewed his cereal a little faster.  I was
finishing my cup of coffee, hurrying to the sink.  I was completely
showered and dressed as I was expected at the studio in twenty minutes.
      "Wha'sup?" he asked, jerking his head in my direction, smiling.
      "Hey," I said.  I smiled as naturally as I could.  "I'm running
late."
      Clarence came into the kitchen then, dressed in his robe and
scratching himself, yawning.  "Workin' today?"  he said to me.
      I nodded.
      "Sorry `bout last night," he said.  "I didn't mean to fall asleep.  I
was just so tired."
      "No problem," I said.
      "Don't ya mean `passed out'?" Devonay said snidely, his mouth full of
cereal.  Clarence shook his head.
      "Naw," he said.  "We didn't drink last night."
      "Yeah, right," Devonay chuckled.  "I saw the empty Hennessy bottle on
the table."
      "That was an empty from the party," Clarence said.  "I found it in
the cushions of the couch.  Swear to God."  He waved his hands before him.
"No drinkin'."
      I was halfway toward the door, trying to get out before the shit hit
the fan.  I had no idea what to expect.  Devonay was frozen in place, just
about to swallow, spoon poised above his bowl.  He turned quickly then and
looked at Clarence, gulping his mouthful with what appeared to be great
effort.
      "Are you serious?" he asked.
      Clarence laughed, assuming Devonay was teasing him.  "Shut up," he
said.
      Devonay looked over at me and our eyes met.  He looked a mix of
scared and confused, almost as if he were going to ask me if it was
true--was it all true?  It looked like he was still putting many of the
pieces of the puzzle in place in his head.  I smiled, which I knew
immediately was an insufficient response.
      "It's true," I said.  "We didn't drink last night."  I smirked at
Clarence.  "Seems a full day of work takes too much out of ole' Clarence."
      Clarence laughed.  "And I'll be home late tonight," he said.  "Me and
Karen are going out when I'm done with work."
      "Sure you won't be too tired?" I teased.
      Devonay was still staring at me, figuring some things out, wondering
about others.  His spoon was still poised above his bowl and a dribble of
milk ran down his chin.  Even after Clarence walked out of the kitchen,
coffee in hand, Devonay still sat there like a statue.
      "You okay?" I said.
      "You didn't drink?"
      I shook my head.  "No."  I noticed the clock.  "Look, I gotta go.
I'm pretty late."  I opened the door and gave him a wink.  "I'll see you
later."


      It took me a couple hours to put Devonay out of my head.  Every love
song was about him, every upbeat song was about him, every thing anyone
said was about him.  He was in my clothes, in my hair, in my ear, his soft
voice, "You're my boyfriend."
      "Pay the fuck attention!" my drummer, Nick, shouted at me through the
glass of the vocal booth.  It was the thirty-third take, the thirty-third
time I'd fucked up, the thirty- third time I had thought of Devonay.
"What's the matter with you?"
      "I'm all right," I said.
      We settled with the fifty-sixth take.  "I think you've gone retarded
or somethin', man," the bassist remarked.  "You can't remember your own
damn lyrics."
      "You in love or what?" asked the guitarist.
      Nick raised his eyebrows.  "You got a boy on the side?"
      He meant `man'.  He always referred to the guys I picked up at gigs
as `boys', regardless of their ages.  In my way of thinking, a college
freshman was no boy.
      "Jacob," my manager said.  "Someone's here to talk to you."
      I turned to see Devonay standing in the booth, hands shoved into the
pockets of his baggy denim shorts.  He looked nervous and scared.  I
glanced around at everyone in the room but no one seemed to make the
connection.  He was just a boy to them.
      Devonay and I stepped out side onto the sidewalk.  It was a quiet
little street so we had some privacy.  We exchanged small talk for a while
and sat down on the curb, then everything went silent.  He sniffed, I
cleared my throat.  "Um...," he said.
      "Yeah...look...um...," I said.
      "Um..."  He bit his lip and crossed his arms, resting his elbows on
his knees and drumming his fingers on his cheeks.
"Um...you...um...remember last night?  I mean, after you went to bed
and...um..."
      "Yeah."
      He shuddered and lowered his head, rubbing the heels of his hands
into his eyes.
      "Not just last night, Dev," I said.  "I lied to you.  I lied to you
when I told you that story about mixing pot and liquor."
      He looked at me in shock.
      "I've remembered every night," I said.  "Every wonderful night."
      "Shit."
      "I'm sorry," I said.  "I just wanted to see what you'd do if you had
the chance.  I thought maybe you'd steal more money from me or something.
I had no idea..."  I shrugged.  "I dreamed about it, but I had no idea
that..."
      "You dreamed about it?" he asked.  "Whatchoo mean?"
      "From the moment I saw you," I said.  "I thought to myself, `what an
asshole'."
      He favored me with a snicker but gazed at me in disbelief.
      "I didn't much like you," I went on.  "I'll be honest."
      "I didn't like you!"
      "I know.  Anyway, despite that, I've come to really...love you."
      He leapt to his feet as if I had burned him, turned around with a
graceful spin, and scowled down at me.  He jutted his jaw out toward me,
then turned and walked in a quick circle and stopped to glare down at me.
      "You fucker!"
      I snickered at that.  "Yes, well...I am that...but..."
      "That's not funny!" he said, clearly angry now.  "You bastard!"
      I didn't touch that one. I shrugged and was about to say something.
      "The gibberish..."
      "Lyrics from pop songs from the sixties and seventies mostly," I
said.
      "And that night...when...aw, man!  How embarrassing!"
      I knew that he was referring to the night when he came to me, naked
and vulnerable and fragile, and bared his soul to me, crying into my chest.
"Don't be embarrassed," I said softly.
      "How could you do that?"
      The boy had some nerve.  "How could I do that?"  I asked.  "The same
way you could have ripped me off for that CD, and the ten bucks to boot!"
      He stopped talking.
      "And," I said.  "I was trusting you to make sure no one sexually
molested me after I mixed my pot and alcohol and you accepted payment for
that...after you molested me!"
      "Yeah, but..."
      "And every night afterwards!"
      He looked thoughtful for a moment, smoothing the braids down over his
head, his lips taut, breathing through his nose.  He scratched his chin and
opened his mouth like he was going to protest, then smirked, shook his head
and looked down at me.  He gave out a little chuckle.
      "You remembered every night?"
      I smiled.  He sat back down on the curb and shook his head.  "I can't
believe it."
      "Jacob!"
      It was my manager, impatient and standing in the doorway.  "We're set
up for the next number," he said.  I stood up and brushed off my pants.
      "I gotta go," I said to Devonay.
      "Hey, kid!"
      It was Nick, smiling wryly, leaning out the door and looking at
Devonay.  I shuddered to think what he was going to say.  Devonay gave him
an innocent look.
      "Do you know who it is?" Nick asked.  "Huh?"
      Devonay looked utterly confused.
      Nick pointed at me with his thumb.  "Do you know who he's in love
with?"
      Devonay looked like he was going to pee his pants.
      "He's lovesick on someone.  You know who it is?"
      "Jesus, Nick," I sighed.
      Devonay recovered quickly and smiled.  "Yeah," he said.  "As a matter
of fact, I do."  He gave me a sly grin, then looked over at Nick.  "But I
can't tell ya."
      "If he tells you, he'll have to kill you," I added.  I spoke to
Devonay in a low voice.  "Will I see you tonight?"
      He grinned warmly.  "Oh, yeah," he said.  "Call me when you're on
your way."


	With everything out in the open now, I had no idea what to expect
when I returned home, but I spent the rest of the day in the studio
thinking about it.  The guys in the band were patient with me, poking me in
the ribs, asking questions about who I was thinking about.  I neither
confirmed nor denied their suspicions but smiled blissfully throughout the
session until we finally stopped at around ten.
	"We'll try again tomorrow," our manager said.  "Jacob, can you get
your head outta your ass by then?"  I was on the phone, waiting for Devonay
to answer.
	"Um...er...sure," I said.
	"Who are you calling?" Nick asked, smiling, his voice full of
innuendo.
	I rolled my eyes at him.  "The kid," I said.
	Nick nodded and winked, "Sure you are."
	He was clueless and I was thankful for that.  "I'm supposed to be
watching him tonight," I said.
	The guys all laughed as if they knew that I was making all of this
up--that I had some cute little college boy across town waiting for me.
Devonay answered after two rings.
	"Hello."
	"It's me," I said.  I noticed that my voice involuntarily took on a
romantic tone and Nick cocked his ear toward me.
	"Okay," he said.  "I'll see ya in about twenty minutes."
	Nick was nodding at me and snickering as I hung up the phone.  "I
know the voice of love when I hear it," he said.  "Go get him, Tiger."
      I bounded out of the studio before anyone had the chance to follow.
The wait at the bus stop felt interminable and the ride dragged on until
finally, unable to sit down, I stood at the door of the bus as it pulled up
to my stop.  I vaulted out the door and up the street toward the house.  My
stomach was doing little flips and I could hear my heart beating in my
ears.  By the time I reached the door, I was panting with the effort and I
took a few deep breaths before stepping inside.
	The house was completely silent and dark except for a light coming
from the living room.  There was no one in the living room but when I
looked up the stairs, I noticed that my door was open.  I heard music
softly lilting from the doorway and saw soft lights flickering, undulating
in the darkness like so many flickering flames.
	"Dev?" I said out loud.
	"Up here," came his boyish voice.
	I walked up the stairs slowly, savoring the moment and excited to
see what he had in store for me.  I recognized the music--Luther Vandross'
sultry and sexy voice.  I stepped into the doorway and took it all in.
There were about twenty candles positioned around the room, all lit and
flickering softly, and Devonay's boom box was on the table beside my bed.
Devonay spoke from the bed, his naked chest gleaming in the candles' glow,
the sheets pulled up to his slender waist.  "Hi," he said softly.
	One arm was back behind his head and his other hand was beneath the
sheets, stroking himself slowly.  I could tell by the way the sheets hung
on him that he was naked.
	"Hi, Dev," I said.  I looked around the room.  "This is beautiful."
	"I saw it in a movie once," he said.  "Only they had wine, and I
ain't go no wine."
	"No need for it," I said.  "I'm already drunk just looking at you."
	He snickered at that and shook his head.  "You don't need Hennessy
tonight," he said, stretching his arms above his head, his torso arching up
from the bed.  His small nipples winked at me and the sheets fell a little
lower on his waist.  "Take off your clothes," he said.
	I was happy to oblige.  By the time I dropped my boxers on the
floor, my cock was up and throbbing as if it was trying to stretch from
between my thighs to Devonay's sleek little brown body on the bed.  He gave
me a sly look.
	"You already hard," he chuckled.
	I closed the door behind me and stepped to the foot of the bed.  I
reached down to the sheet, pulling it slowly back, uncovering my lovely
boy's body.  He spread his legs and put his heels together, stroking his
stiff cock with his hand, rubbing his own balls, sticking his fingers down
between his legs to poke at his anus.  The whole time he was smiling at me,
strangely shy and seductive at the same time, and I got dizzy from the
vision of him.  I let out an involuntary murmur.
	"Er...um...oh, God, you're just...well...I mean...oh my God..."
	"Gibberish!" he said.  "You must be ready."  He put his arms out to
me, inviting me, and I was taken aback for a moment.  Was this Devonay, the
tough boy who held the whole world at arms length, inviting me into his
embrace?  Was this the same thug who beat up neighbor kids and raised hell
in the house?  I crawled onto the bed slowly, into his arms, into his legs.
Our cocks seemed to embrace each other, soft and silken.  He moaned as I
lowered my body onto him.  We kissed and held each other with a passionate
madness like we were trying to merge our bodies, to climb inside of each
other.  We made love slowly, spending a long time stroking each other,
kissing, licking, pressing our bodies together.  My head swam with the
sensation of his smooth, slender curves and angles, his supple flesh and
small fingers, his strong feet and delicate toes.  I was intoxicated by the
feel of my fingers on his ribs, his hipbones, his knees, scuffed and
scabbed.  I was drunk on the smell of him--the mix of soap and cheap cologne
that he had put on for my benefit.  I was stoned on the feel of his lips
against mine, searching, sucking, his honey breath in my face.  By the time
he maneuvered around on the bed so that we lay in a sixty nine in the
candlelight, my cock was ready to boil over and, as it would turn out, so
was his.  Only moments after we both started sucking, we were both bucking
wildly and groaning and shooting our loads into each others mouths.  I held
onto him, my fingers poking at his asshole, while his body shuddered and
shook.  He raised his head and spit my sperm out onto my hip, but I
swallowed his with a grin.  He watched me with a wrinkled smile.
	"Gross," he said.
	"Yummy," I countered.
	He hesitated for a second, then lapped at the puddle on my hip,
swallowing a bit of it with a huge gulp and smiling at me.  He shrugged.
"Okay," he admitted.  "It's not that bad."
	The rest of the night was filled with savage fucking.  After
spilling my balls, I was up for the long haul, and as I crept in between
his legs, lifting and spreading them, Devonay grinned knowingly and pulled
his legs up with his hands behind his knees.  I wiped the sperm from my hip
and applied it to Devonay's luscious little hole, then spit on my hand and
rubbed it on my turgid cock.  Devonay seemed mesmerized by the feeling of
my cum on his back door.  He reached down and rubbed his fingers in the
mess, then poked his middle finger into his hole.  It slid in easily.
	"Dis make me gay?" he asked.
	I shook my head.  "Only makes you horny."
	He laughed and stuck in another finger.  "I don't think I'm gay,"
he said thoughtfully, sliding his fingers in and out of himself.
	"Okay," I said.  I was delirious with the sight of him beneath me,
readying his hole for me, lost in deep thought.
	"No, seriously, bro," he said.  "I wouldn't like Tyra Banks if I
was gay, right?"
	Tyra Schmyra, I thought.  "Right," I said.
	Devonay gave me a wrinkly-nosed smile.  "But I sure do like this,"
he admitted.
	"Me too."  I pushed his fingers away from his hole and nuzzled the
head of my cock into it.  He moaned and took hold of his own cock with his
slippery fingers.  He gave it a few slick strokes and I felt his sphincter
relax and allow my cock in.  It entered slowly and steadily, moving into
him like it was going home.  About halfway in, he gasped and tightened and
I stopped and waited, stroking his thighs gently, his silken balls, his
erect nipples.  Devonay groaned and tossed his head on the pillow, then
took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  His ass opened up to me and I
went in all the way.
	I fucked him then as I fucked him all night--with kisses and nibbles
and the most attentive strokes and caresses.  I fucked him with loving
words, whispered into his ear, and with smiles overflowing with love and
affection.  And this sensual boy tumbled around in my arms as my cock
slipped in and out of him, his talented fingers pulling on himself,
spurting his seed out onto his tight tummy.  He smiled up at me, into my
face, as I shot my load inside of him, every time.
      "Fill `er up," he joked when I collapsed on top of him.
      We fell asleep connected, woke up and did it again and fell back
asleep with me still embedded in him.  We opened our eyes at the same time
when we heard Clarence come home with Karen at around three in the morning.
The music had ended long ago, but the room was still full of the swirling,
jumping lights of the candles and both Devonay and I both seemed to realize
this at the same time.  They would be visible through the space at the
bottom of the door--sure to attract Clarence's attention.  I pulled my cock
out of him and we both jumped up and leapt around the room, blowing the
little flames out, stifling our giggles until the room was dark except for
the streetlight coming in from the window.  By the time we heard Clarence
and Karen's footsteps at the top of the stairs, we were huddled in the dark
of the room, laughing into each others mouths, curling into each other and
falling back onto the bed.


	The following morning, at about eleven o'clock, Clarence came into
the kitchen rubbing his temples and squinting into the sunlight.  Karen had
left earlier in the morning.  We heard her tiptoeing down the stairs at
around eight, whispering to an objecting Clarence.  "I gotta go to work!"
	"Just one more time!" Clarence begged.
	Devonay had giggled into my chest and crawled on top of me.  "Just
one more time!" he said softly, reaching down to my cock and leveling it
toward his hole.
	Now he sat across from me at the table, stealing little smiles my
way from time to time, bumping my foot with his beneath the table as he ate
his cereal.  I sat with the newspaper in front of me, trying to read, or
rather trying not to stare at Devonay.  It was useless.  Every time he
stole a glance my way, I was gazing at him.
	"G'mornin'," Clarence yawned, and he poured himself a cup of
coffee.  I feigned interest in my newspaper.
	"G'mornin', Clarence" Devonay said dreamily.
	Clarence looked at him suspiciously and sat down at the table next
to him just as Devonay lifted the bowl up to his mouth to drink down the
milk.
	"Boy, you gotta cut the grass today," he said.  "It's almost up to
my knee."
	"Awright," Devonay said wistfully.
	Clarence looked like he was burning a hole in the side of Devonay's
head with his leery stare.  "What's with you?" he asked the boy, frowning
at him.  "Whatchoo up to?"
	I kicked Devonay beneath the table and gave him a hard look.
	We had talked in the shower that morning.  Devonay was so happy and
giddy, rubbing soap into my chest and belly.  His whole demeanor had
changed.  Gone was the sullen and angry little boy and here, in my arms,
was a boy glowing with happiness and satisfaction.  It emanated from him
like a cozy fire.  This, I decided, would be noticed by Clarence.  While
Devonay was pleased with his own sudden transformation, Clarence would be
suspicious.
      "Our behavior can't suddenly change too much or it'll look fishy," I
said to him, lathering his back tenderly and rubbing my stiff dick between
his soapy buns.  "Business as usual."
	"What do ya mean?"
	"I mean," I said.  "That you have to be the same pain in the ass,
but a little less so with each day so the change is gradual.  You
understand?"
	He nodded but looked doubtful. "I don't wanna be a pain in the
ass."
	I pointed at him.  "That's exactly what I'm talking about," I said.
"C'mon, Dev, for me.  For us.  Be a pain in the ass."
	So Devonay caught my kick and my hard look at the breakfast table
and eventually understood it.  "Nothin'," he muttered to Clarence from the
corner of his mouth.  He stood up, tipping his bowl back as he finished the
last of the milk.
	Clarence wasn't convinced.  He watched Devonay cross the kitchen to
the sink.
	"You're up to somethin'," he said.  "I can tell.  Yer actin'
strange."
	"Yer actin' stupid," Devonay said, and he dropped the bowl into the
sink.
	"Hey!" Clarence snapped.  "Shut up!  And wash that damn bowl!"
	There was another of those moments--the two of them, staring at each
other like gunfighters waiting to draw--then Devonay took off toward the
door.  Clarence saw it coming this time and hurled himself at the door, but
he slipped and fell, sprawled on the floor as Devonay escaped.  The screen
door slammed shut behind him.
	"Devonay!"  Clarence shouted, jumping to his feet. He stuck his
face against the screen.  "Devonay!  Get back here right now!"
	I smiled to myself.  Smart boy.  Clarence turned from the door and
slapped his own thigh with his hand.  "Shit," he barked.  "That boy ain't
never gonna change!"
	"He'll come around," I said, smiling, and went back to my paper.