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One of Harry’s many problems is that he always seems to want what he can’t have.
Like Kim.
Like alcohol.
What goes on inside his mind can’t hurt anyone, though, so when it is time for Harry’s nightly jerk-off session, he puts down his logic and lets his wandering soul take the wheel, putting the full force of his imaginative power into pretending he has alcohol and Kim—at the same time, since no one can stop him in his mind. He even gives himself some pyro in the fantasy, to give the drink that funny wavy edge that sometimes makes it become transcendent. It’s important for Harry to feel transcendent when he approaches sex, or, alternatively, for him to feel nothing at all.
His body is at home in his rickety bed, but Harry is at a bar—The Empty Lung, the one with all the sacrilegious art of Dolores Dei with her tits out and smoking blunts and whatever else the owners could scrounge up to create a wholly lewd and fun atmosphere, which two days ago made Kim react hardly at all the entire interview. Harry knows him well enough to know that it was a suppressing-his-laughter silence, and so here, in Harry’s mind, when they are off the clock and able to point at the paintings and laugh, Kim is smiling and making the soft snickering sound under his breath that Harry loves, and the aftertaste of alcohol, heavy and grainy and perfect, is deep in the back of Harry’s throat, which is where he’d like the head of Kim’s cock to be.
But for it to feel real, Harry must play the whole scene out—the music, the frying food popping and blowing off steam behind the bar, all the funny dangling neon Chi-Rhos spinning from the air currents the dancing crowd’s created. Kim is there in civilian wear, the racing t-shirt he’s never worn in public but has worn with Harry, and the pair of jeans he adjusted himself, the pair with a tantalizing tiny golden KK embroidered on his back left pocket that always begs Harry to touch it, encouraging him to lean close and admire Kim’s delicate handiwork—
—and Harry must have imagined too hard, because he is no longer in bed. He has teleported.
(He must have walked in a daze through the late night summer crowds, up Boogie Street, starving and desperate, and his mind must have blinked its inner eye when he stepped through the door—voila! Teleportation!—Harry the miracle worker, Harry out of control, Harry heartbroken because Kim will never go further than teasing because Kim is a consummate professional, because Harry has been sober for two and a half months and it isn’t worth it, because he still can’t sleep and he's still in pain every hour of every day, because he still can’t love or fuck or exist without the craving. The black hole in his soul has acquired its tastes. Who is Harry to deny it?)
And Harry is at the bar, gazing at the huge cartoon-ish painting of Dolores Dei with her tits out and a secretive half-smile curving her perfect lips. Harry is tragically yearning for her brown nipples, or the mole on her right breast, the one that is hotly debated by historians.
And the bartender is growing impatient, so Harry apologizes for staring and orders a drink.
Kim is not here—but there’s plenty of second-bests to choose from.
It takes Harry half the drink to spot him: dark-skinned, Mesque most likely, stocky, clean-shaven, in a denim jacket with a yellow mesh shirt underneath. Black ink tattoo on his chest, difficult to parse from this far, some kind of bird. He’s drinking a blue cocktail and watching Harry, and Harry’s soul must still be picking up the shortwaves in the air because Harry knows immediately that this is the man who is going to fuck his face and make him feel whole for a little while, at least until he’s come and realized Harry is pathetic trash and not worth keeping around.
But Harry doesn’t remember the last time he had sex. According to Jean, it was a few weeks before Martinaise. He’s regained some memories of having it—with the apricot-scented one, and with two other women he remembers even less—but the closest he’s gotten to fucking anyone since Martinaise is his dildo, and the knowledge he has of gay sex is limited to what he’s read—voraciously—and watched, also voraciously, always seeking Seolite videos, learning all the ways the world finds them mysterious and exotic, struggling to fit Kim into the mold the porn’s created, always veering off-script in his mind.
He knows with one-hundred percent certainty that the dark-skinned man is going to fuck him tonight, and yet the knowing terrifies Harry more. He nervously downs his beer and orders another one. He wants to fuck so bad. Is he actually here, or this just too vivid? Harry tentatively touches his barstool, trying to decide if he’s actually feeling the scratchy thin fabric of his bedsheets, instead. No. Just the stool. This is happening.
The third beer is the magic beer. It’s his inspiration. It tells him, buddy, if you want to seduce someone, you gotta show them what’s on offer. Harry brings the beer with him, since it’s at least trying to think of advice unlike the rest of him, which is chiding and quarreling and generally making him want to hang himself from the exposed rafters, just another twirling neon star to add to the collection.
The dancing works. The stranger in denim watches him, and is still watching him every time Harry spins and checks again. When Harry casts an invisible line at the stranger, the man breaks into a lovely crooked grin and gives his yellow mesh shirt a yank, as if Harry’s hook has caught him there. He’s funny! Harry can’t believe his luck, watching the man play and stumble and let Harry weave his line way and another, closer and closer, until finally Harry gives one last jerk and the man pretends to stumble face-first into his chest.
“Hey,” the stranger in denim says. Pinprick-pupils, on speed or something cheerful besides. He smells like he’s been drinking and dancing all night—emanating, therefore, some of Harry’s favorite smells. On closer inspection, the tattoo is of a skua; she is flying toward a Chi-Rho which appears to be dripping blood. A besmertie symbol, Harry thinks, the memory wriggling uselessly in the back of his mind. Or some offshoot of a religion—which one? It’s not a dangerous group, whatever it is, or not one dangerous to someone like Harry. The stranger’s hair is thick and graying, normally slicked back, but made wild from his night. The errant tufts make him look younger, or like he’s just been fucked. His hair is thick on his chest, too, and a wide trail leads down his belly, into his jeans. He’s wearing bright yellow boiadeiro boots, and Harry thinks—I will love you. “You’re a pretty good angler,” the stranger says. Harry had expected his voice to be deeper— of course, expectations this early in the game are a fool’s errand.
Then again, Harry is a fool. He opens his mouth, and words come out. “Can we have horny?”
The stranger laughs and laughs. The song changes—they remember that they’re on the dance floor, and start to move at the same time. The answer is yes, Harry thinks. The answer is yes!
“Let me buy you a drink,” the stranger says, right up into his ear, his bottom lip brushing Harry’s ear lobe. It is enough to make Harry shudder.
“Please,” Harry says. Immediately after he’s ashamed of how desperate he sounds—but the stranger licks his lips and winks, and loops his arm around Harry’s waist to walk them to the bar. Harry can’t believe his luck. What happens next is a bit of a blur: Another drink, the stranger’s body pressed tight against Harry’s side, wandering hands, cigarette smoke and alcohol and—yes, yes, underneath that—the stranger’s cologne! He is truly the universe’s gift to Harry, because it is Kim’s cologne. Harry is powerless to stop his abrupt return to begging. “Please,” whispering it into the stranger’s ear, “please, please, please, let me suck your cock, I’ll do it right here, right now, please, jefe, please.”
“Yeah, you will,” he says. Harry drops to his knees—or tries, because the stranger catches him with his arm round Harry’s back before he can. More laughter, rumbling from his body into Harry’s. “Not here, stupid. Come on.”
Harry lets himself be led, obedient as a dog. There is a door behind a beaded curtain that leads outside, into a small fenced-off smoking area behind the bar. It must be where the staff take their breaks. There’s enough room for a picnic bench, a few stacks of milk crates, and a couple of coffee cans on the ground, overflowing with cigarette butts. Small blue string lights ring the fenced-in area; some ambient light from the city and stars has found its way in despite the buildings crowding the bar. Still, it is incredibly dark back here. The surrounding buildings loom very close; their roofs take up most of the sky, so that the area feels like a closed room. Two men are welded together on the picnic bench already, making wet sounds. They don’t look up when the door opens. The stranger in denim only glances at them before leading Harry to a corner.
Harry manifested this. All of this is for him. Special order. That is the only explanation for why the stranger in denim has brought him here, is turning Harry around, is saying, “Well? You were the one begging.”
Harry drops. The man is wearing Kim’s cologne; in the dark, he could almost be Kim. Almost. If Harry were a little more drunk—but it doesn’t matter, because he’s encouraging Harry to fumble with his jeans, his thick fingers are sliding up Harry’s scalp, scratching a little. His fat cock gives a happy little bounce when freed from his underwear, already half-hard for Harry. When Harry leans up open-mouthed to suck it, however, the stranger tightens his grip and yanks Harry’s head back.
“I liked it when you were begging,” he says.
“Please let me suck your cock,” Harry says. The stranger’s grip doesn’t change, firm, withholding, though Harry can see even in the dark how he’s begun to smile. “Please? I might be terrible at it but I’ll learn.” Still nothing; Harry slaps the ground with his hands and tries to lower into a bow, making the man pull his hair, harder, harder. “Please. Please, sir, let me suck it. Please-please-please—please, fuck, I can’t—it’s getting so big, please, I need it in my mouth.”
“I think he wants to suck your cock,” one of the men on the bench says.
“Sounds like it.”
“Sounds like he wants to suck a lot of cock.”
“Yes,” Harry moans, “fuck, please, both of you, yes, please, I’ll suck everybody’s cock, I’ll suck every cock in this god damn bar, please, please…”
“I don’t know,” the stranger in denim says, “it’s not as special if you want to suck every cock in the bar…”
Harry is going to cry. He is legitimately going to start sobbing in this dingy back patio, because he’s drunk and stupid and wants Kim, and Kim would’ve given him his cock by now, Kim would stroke his mutton chops and his mouth and give him what he wants, because Harry’s been a diligent boy, a good boy, a perseverant boy, Harry has been patient, Harry will worship every inch of Kim’s body—but Kim is not here, though Harry manifested the bar, the alcohol and all the rest. Maybe he can make Kim appear, too, through sheer force of will; maybe the city has heard him and is bringing him on delay.
Or—Harry is alone, and prepared to do anything these men ask, because he is pathetic. And tomorrow he will wake and return to the case—perhaps return to this very bar with Kim at his side.
“Okay, okay, god damn, I’ll let you suck me off.” He’s laughing as he says it; it’s a luxurious sound, one that makes Harry want to kiss him. The stranger’s grip in his hair eases; he scoops the base of his cock in his free hand, lifting it a little for Harry, as if in offering. “Here.” The door is opening, but Harry’s world has condensed entirely to the stranger in denim. This beautiful creature. This heavy beer-can cock with its foreskin still hiding the head, its long vein that Harry should like to tongue, following its road. “Open up.”
The door is opening and shutting, a series of three clunks each time as the latch catches and the door fits its way into the frame again. A tear winds its way down Harry’s cheek, before disappearing into his beard. He lets out a great sigh of relief as the stranger slots the head of his cock into Harry’s mouth. Harry keeps the tips of his fingers on the ground. He shuts his eyes. Kim’s cock might feel like this, might stretch his jaw and lips this wide. Yes, yes, this is Kim after all, though the voice is all wrong when the stranger starts to grunt and moan in encouragement. This is how it would be—concrete and all, Harry finally kneeling in supplication in an alley or parking lot or garage—please, Kim, let me—please—
“Hey,” someone says, to the left of the stranger. Harry opens his eyes. “You’ve got two hands.”
So he does—though there are four men standing in the area, making it seem quite crowded. Their silhouettes block out the blue lights. It’s impossible for Harry to make out anything about their features, and very little about their dress; he knows only their vague shape. Harry is surprised—shocked, really, because it was amazing enough that one man wanted anything to do with him, much less four of them. They’ll have to wait their turn for his mouth. As he reaches for the two nearest men, the door opens again, chunk-click-chunk,, letting out subdued light from the bar and two more men. Harry whines.
“You’re not very good at this,” the stranger in denim says.
“Give him a chance.” Yes—yes, from behind and to the right, that man has the winning accent, thick and mellow, like honey, like a ceiling-fan halo, like Kim. Is it him? Harry doubts he would even know if it was. It’s a doubt he wants to encourage. It’s not fair that his isn’t one of the dicks in his hands—but how like Kim is that, to wait, to be patient, to give Harry time to gather his body’s knowledge? Harry can’t see the man but he already loves him.
Harry releases the stranger’s cock with a slick-sounding gasp. “Yeah, give me a chance,” he pleads. He squeezes his hands, drags them simultaneously down the length of the men’s cocks. As he does, he opens his mouth and extends his tongue, eager.
“Here it is,” the stranger in denim says, laughing again. Harry leans in, slides his fat cock into his mouth. Forget the door, forget the lights and the patio and the case and the way the alcohol is making Harry feel like himself for the first time in two and a half months, truly Harry Du Bois at last, having shed his polite skin. This is who he is at his core; this is where he belongs.
Life would be simpler like this, anyway. Harry knows how to work a cock with his hands. He knows how to pay attention to a person’s body, is quick to adjust his technique as the stranger in denim moans and rocks his hips. His thick thighs shiver; his balls lift up, up, eager, as Harry takes more of the man into his mouth.
“Shit, someone get this guy a beer,” a voice says. Not the honey-voiced one, not Kim. The door opens and swings shut; it’s a wonder the beads aren’t catching every time. More hands are starting to touch Harry, his hair and face, his neck—hands coming from beside him, men crowding him now. The space is becoming an oven; Harry is sweating through his clothes.
When a hand cups him between his legs, the man who’s done it laughs. “He ain’t even hard.” He’s right—Harry hadn’t noticed, too preoccupied, but he’s still flaccid, fucking whiskey-dick.
“Nobody’s sucking his dick,” someone else says—but it’s too late. Shame has found its way into Harry, pricks at his eyes as his mouth falters on the stranger in denim’s dick.
The stranger in denim lets out a frustrated sound and grabs Harry’s head in both hands. “C’mon, man, I’m so fucking close.”
“So fuck him.”
The door opens and closes. The stranger in denim starts to fuck Harry’s mouth—hands are undoing Harry’s pants, tugging his hips up. Someone comes on Harry’s face, in his hair, splattering hot and slick on him; Harry can’t breathe; voices are arguing over who should be next, people are grabbing his free wrist and yanking it one way and another—someone’s pushing two wet fingers into Harry without warning and his yelp is muffled around the stranger’s dick, which is thrusting faster now, his hips snapping erratic and brutal—Harry is just a hole—
“Fu-uck,” the stranger gasps, and comes down Harry’s throat. People are laughing. Someone turns on a flashlight and points its beam right into Harry’s face, blinding him. When he flinches and tries to pull back, the stranger tightens his grip.
“Yeah, hold him, hold him,” someone says. A few seconds later, another streak of come on Harry’s face, dripping down his mutton chops onto his rumpled shirt, which no one’s bothered to remove. The fingers are pumping inside of him, steady; a hand is still trying to work his useless prick, which hangs oblivious between his legs.
“Here, here. He deserves a beer.”
“Fine,” the stranger in denim says. He pulls out reluctantly; he keeps one hand on the back of Harry’s head, keeping him in place.
As soon as Harry’s mouth is free, someone holds a bottle over his head. “Open wide,” he says, and starts to pour. Another cup joins it—pouring all over his face and shirt, spilling on the ground—and then a glass of wine—Harry swallowing as fast as he can, his stomach churning.
“How about some of this?” the stranger in denim says. The flashlight beam catches his hand gripping his spit-slick cock—pointing it at Harry’s mouth, where wine and beer are still messily trickling in—catches, too, the first spurt of piss that catches Harry square on the chin. More laughter as he starts to piss in earnest—some hands leaving, but not all, because his aim is clear, and Harry is not trying to duck away. No. He is drinking it, leaning into it, moaning, wishing he could see the stranger’s face, to know if he’s looking at Harry with disgust. He hopes so. Fuck, he hopes everyone is disgusted by him.
Something close to silence passes through the crowd as the stranger finishes pissing, and the wine runs out. By the time he’s done, Harry thinks, I’m going to puke. Maybe—not yet, anyway, but he’s learned over the years how to pace himself, and he knows he is no longer going to be in control. He’s going to puke and pass out in a gutter somewhere. He’s going to forget, again.
Harry swallows every last drop. The man behind him removes his fingers.
A new stranger steps forward to fill Harry’s mouth. Harry starts to suck, though his jaw is already growing sore. He works his hands, a diligent boy after all. And he listens for the honeyed voice, the one that has been so silent, listening for Kim, who he knows is here, waiting his turn.
“Okay,” the honey-voiced stranger says. It’s him! Harry is so shocked by it that he stops what he’s doing and turns, trying to look at the man—but the light is still shining right in his face, and the man at his head yanks impatiently at his hair. “I’m going to fuck you, now.” It’s such a Kim thing to say—so straight-forward and blunt. “It’s going to hurt.”
“Please,” Harry says; a cock shoves into his open mouth, silencing him. The honey-voiced stranger takes Harry’s ass in his hands and shifts him. He uses his thumbs to spread Harry’s cheeks and open his hole, then presses the head of his cock against him. Pauses. Then, with one slow movement, he enters Harry, deep, deep, until his pubic bone is resting neatly against Harry’s body. The man at Harry’s head is face-fucking him; his cock is longer, or he’s less polite than the stranger in denim, because his cock-head is rubbing and rutting against the back of Harry’s throat, forcing him to focus on repressing his gag reflex—not now, don’t puke now, but the thought has seized him, and the wine and beer and piss are churning in his empty belly, and he’s been sober for a long, long time.
The honey—no—Kim, it must be Kim who saves him from making a fool of himself, because he feeds one of his hands up Harry’s back, under his shirt, stroking him with firm pressure. A sufficient distraction. “You’re made for this, aren’t you?” he says. Someone comes on Harry from the left side. Hands are unbuttoning his messy shirt, petting his belly, his thighs. He still isn’t hard; they have given up on his useless cock. Someone starts to piss on him—a playful arc that keeps jumping up and down Harry’s body and waving back and forth, across his nipples, his neck, his hair.
Kim—no, that isn’t right, because it’s apparent that he isn’t wearing gloves—not-Kim, then, wasn’t lying when he said it would hurt. When he begins to fuck Harry, it is with vigor, rough arrhythmic thrusts that make Harry’s whole body rock. His knees scrape the concrete; they’re what hurt the most, to be honest, scraping and scratching, barking at the mistreatment. Even a jacket under him would be better, but it’s too late for that now—he’s being fucked on all ends. He’s been made into a toy, just like he wanted.
The alcohol’s effects hit him in dizzying waves, stronger, stronger. Another pint of beer is poured down Harry’s throat, then a new cock is in his mouth. Shuffling hands. Not-Kim is still fucking Harry when this new cock makes him puke from trying to fuck his throat too rough, too fast. The man at his mouth jerks back and makes a disgusted sound, but not-Kim stays where he is, calm as ever, gently massaging Harry’s left shoulder. “Better?” he says, and when Harry nods, he starts again as if nothing has happened.
Someone wipes Harry’s face off with a warm wet towel, a mercy so unexpected that Harry starts to cry again; a glass of water is tipped against his bottom lip, which he drains. The next body takes more care with him, rocking shallow and unsteady into him, patting his damp cheek, tweaking his ear affectionately. When he comes, it’s not down Harry’s throat—rather, he pulls out, dots Harry’s face and chest with his spend. Admires him, afterward, tipping Harry’s chin up. “Atta boy,” he says, praise powerful enough to make Harry float.
And then: More hands, more men, more, more. Harry is too drunk, the world all spinning, rooted in place by not-Kim’s cock and hands. Nothing else is real. Not even Harry is real.
Again—again—again—the door opens and shuts. Skin and laughter and voices, and among it all, Harry, whimpering, helpless in the dark.
x
When they’re done, it is very, very late. Harry is incoherent. He can hardly walk, yet somehow he has made it to a telephone booth. His blind and numb hands struggle to dial. The world spins and spins; his vision keeps blacking out in splotches. “Jean,” his mouth says, to his surprise. “I’m…” The rest, he forgets.
When Harry comes to, he is still slumped in the phone booth. Kim Kitsuragi is crouched in front of him, and holding out a bottle of water. His nose is crinkled. But his expression is one of concern, not disgust. “Drink,” he says. Harry would put anything of Kim’s into his mouth, and so he obediently lifts the bottle and drains it. When it’s empty, Kim says, “Can you stand?”
Harry tries to answer, yes, of course, look. He stands. But then Kim is there, one hand braced on his chest, one on his back. “Easy,” he says, and then sighs when Harry has to lean away from him to vomit. “God, Harry, you reek. What did you do? No—maybe I don’t want to know. Come on. Don’t pull on my shirt, please.”
Harry tries to say, I love you, Kim, I love you more than anything. I love you more than the sun, than the stars, than this magnificent city. I love you. And maybe he succeeds, because Kim sighs, and says, “I know, Harry,” and puts him in the tank without another word.