Henry's End (4 page)

“Come dance with me.” The guy grabbed his hand and pulled him to the center of the patio, “I’m David.”

“Henry,” he yelled over the music, immediately taken away by the beat, as the undeniably masculine scent of sweat and alcohol, and of the men dancing irresistibly too close on the packed dance floor, transported him somewhere, nowhere, just where the music was, as the warm San Diego sun beat down on his face.

With eyes semi-closed, his too tight from cycling shoulders loosened as he rhythmically stretched them with the lithe grace of a cat.
I belong
, he thought.
I totally and thoroughly belong
. And he wondered if he’d ever had that actual thought pattern before – that his belonging and acceptance was so total. Only once before in his life, during a magical month freshman year in college, when he’d worked day and night on a project with three friends, was this feeling approximated. They’d lived and breathed in their own cocoon for those four weeks, baring their souls, and irrevocably becoming one, even though missing members were later nowhere to be found.

Lost in the perfect memory and the déjà vu of finding Moksha again, he enjoyed the contact of the hot, sweaty bodies strafing him from every direction. Free and relaxed, with more than a slight Tokyo Tea buzz, the bright San Diego sun warmed his fair skin, and Henry knew that he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Everything had led to this moment in time. His moment.

Prying open his eyes, as if willed by some inexplicable dominant force, and ripping him violently from his reverie, the assault was completed as Henry locked eyes with the aloof Marine. The man’s pale blue Husky-like eyes were trained unwaveringly on Henry, taking a slow, leisurely stroll all over his body, leaving him feeling both assaulted and aroused. Even halfway across the patio, the man sucked the oxygen away, leaving Henry gasping for air. His look was confusing, appearing almost angry, angry that Henry was dancing amongst a throng of boys.

Holding eye contact with the man, meeting the challenge head on, Henry didn’t flinch. He wanted him to know that he was aware that he was being watched. The energy between the two was sharp and direct. There was no mistaking that contact had been made, and Henry could feel his stomach cramping with excitement, and his balls tightening with desire. This was a man he had dreamed about his whole life. He exuded absolute power. Envisioning him in uniform made Henry inexplicably ache even more.

Definitely a Marine,
he thought.
A lieutenant? A captain? This man gave orders and expected them to be followed. He commanded. Demanded. And received.

Turning away, Henry made his way through the crowd in search of the bathroom. Mostly he needed his air back and a moment to process what had transpired. He knew that wasn’t all in his head.

The man hadn’t just cruised him.

He’d claimed him.

Heading into the bathroom, the site of an open stall door felt like an immediate godsend and he needed to get behind it, alone. Quickly.

It happened so fast, he wasn’t quite sure how it occurred. Entering the stall, he turned to close the door but was propelled against the metal stall wall to his right, knocking the air out of him. He heard the muffled sound of the stall door latch being locked. The larger man pinned him with his body, his muscular chest pressing Henry flush against the cold metal. The cool smooth surface felt good against his hot, sunburned cheek. Henry could feel the man’s cock pressed against his ass crack on the outside of his bike shorts and wondered if the guy’s cock was still in his pants or not. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized the man had him in a loose choke hold. He didn’t feel fear, and somehow instinctually knew this guy wasn’t going to hurt him. He was establishing his control and position.

With lips next to Henry’s ear, his voice was little more than a growl. “Is that what you want? Little boys? Little boys that will never satisfy you? Is that what you want?” His sizable cock pressed harder against Henry’s ass. With his free hand, the man reached around to the front of Henry’s bike shorts and found exactly what he was looking for – a hard, excited cock. Giving it a squeeze through the slippery material of his bike shorts, Henry hardened immediately to the man’s touch. Continuing to fondle him through the thin fabric, while simultaneously pressing him from behind, the Marine hissed into Henry’s ear, “I asked you a question.”

Brain cells blown away by the physical assault both front and rear, for the life of him, Henry could not remember the man’s question and answered by pressing his junk harder into the guy’s hand, needing to feel possessed by his grasp. He did not disappoint Henry as he squeezed his balls tighter.

“You still want little boys?” he growled, his arm tightening around Henry’s neck.

The moment Henry felt the crook of his arm squeeze his neck, he began to pump himself into the man’s hand, “No. I don’t want little boys.”

“Then what is it you want?” The man had Henry by his cock and was pressing him firmly against his own hard-on, grinding harshly against his ass.

“I want you.”

“Good. And I don’t want you dancing with those boys. Do you understand that?”

Henry nodded his head, yes.

With his hand firmly encasing Henry’s privates, the Marine pressed the smaller man against him and continued to let Henry feel the pressure of his cock against his ass.

Henry leaned his weight back into him, eyes closed. There was nothing in the world except the guy’s hand kneading and pressing his balls. He wanted to stay in the moment forever. Submit to whatever the man wanted from him.

And then he was gone. Leaving Henry against the wall with a raging hard-on and a need to feel the Marine’s hands and cock again, hear his voice, low and raspy, in his ear. Without removing an article of clothing or coming, he had never had a sexual experience that excited him as much, and he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would always remember the sublime feeling of being restrained by this man.

He wanted more.

When he exited the bathroom, the Husky-eyed Marine was nowhere to be found, and a breathless Henry staggered into the daylight and embarked on a stunned bike ride home.

“It was the hottest thing
ever,” he confessed to Edwin, in a hushed tone, three nights later at the laundry. Helping to fold before going out on his nightly delivery run, “He had me immobilized and I could feel every inch of his big, beautiful cock.”

“You don’t know if it’s beautiful. The damn thing could be covered with warts,” Edwin snarked, with a dismissive wave.

“Or sores,” a nearby worker piped in and was met with a chorus of “ewwww”.

“I had warts,” Edwin confessed, as if he were letting the world in on an Earth-shattering secret. “I did,” he looked at them all seriously. “I had to be circumcised at forty-three. I’m serious. It was the most painful thing in the world. And no one threw me a Bris. I didn’t get any presents. Not a single one. But let me tell you, those bandages made me look like I had the hugest package. I’ve never gotten cruised so much in my life. It was fabulous,” he reminisced.

“So why did it take you three days to tell me this?” Edwin finally asked, as he loaded sheets and towels into a plastic bag and labeled them.

“I don’t know,” Henry shrugged his shoulders, “I’ve been processing what happened. Trying to make sense of it.”

“Sister, lust never makes sense,” the older man advised.

“Ain’t that the truth,” another worker chimed in.

With his laundry parcels in panniers on either side of his bike, Henry cycled off for his evening’s deliveries.

His last delivery of the night was Stephen, a former fabric designer. “They misdiagnosed me for nine months,” he confided in Henry, “telling me that it was an ingrown hair, then a mole with an ingrown hair, and then would you believe it, an infected spider bite.” The black lesion on his leg had grown to the size of a half dollar and his once handsome face was marred by at least a half dozen of the irregularly-shaped black spots.

“Is there anything more that I can do for you? Pick up groceries?” Henry realized that Stephen and the other clients were probably venturing into public less and less, when in fact, they needed the interaction and support of community more than ever. “Please tell me what can I do?”

“I was just going to sit down and watch
Beverly Hills 90210
, my secret guilty pleasure.” He smiled with a shrug.

Stephen had been his last drop off of the night, “I’d love to join you.” Henry sat down on the couch next to him and settled in for the hour, watching Dylan and Brandon and Brenda and Kelly and a handful of other characters he didn’t know. As the hour progressed, Stephen explained the doomed love affairs and other trials and tribulations of the teens in a zip code to their north.
Beverly Hills 90210
would become a weekly ritual and a favorite show with Henry and Stephen, always at odds over who was the hotter character, Dylan or Brandon.

Thursday night was the first night that week since “Marine Sunday”, as it was now officially known, that Henry wasn’t on the schedule for the laundry. Arriving home from work, he showered and changed out of his suit into khakis and a tight V-necked black tee.

Every cell in his body was on high alert as he descended the stairs into The Hole. Immediately taking a seat at the bar, he ordered a beer and struck up a conversation with Ryan, the shirtless bartender he had met on Sunday. Henry longed to ask him about the Marine – Did he know who he was? Was he a regular? Did he always come alone? And more importantly, did he leave alone? Henry was dying to see him again. Feel him again.

His concentration was shit at work, picturing the Marine around every corner. He’d been jacking off twice a day in the shower, just thinking about their encounter and what the Marine’s hand felt like massaging his cock through his bike shorts. At night, he’d grind himself into the sheets trying to remember the pressure with which he’d held him against the cold metal of the stall, metal as hard as the cock pressing against his ass had been. He knew his thoughts were becoming obsessive, but he couldn’t get what had transpired out of his mind.

Nursing his second beer, there was no sight of the Marine and he kept his conversations brief with the men who approached him, knowing the Marine wouldn’t want him talking to them. After his third beer, he called it a night.

The next day, after a branch sales meeting up in Orange County, Henry joined his colleagues for dinner and drinks. Laughing and hanging out with the people he’d known for the last five years was the best medicine for getting his mind off his obsessive thoughts of the man with the Husky-blue eyes. As he drove toward San Diego, he promised himself he’d go straight home, get a good night’s sleep and get out early for a bike ride, but as he headed down I-5, he was powerless to stop himself from getting off and heading east toward Portal Loma instead of west toward his apartment.

Still in his suit and tie from work, the charcoal suit accentuated his long, lean stature and classic bone structure. With his wave of ginger hair and intense blue eyes, every head he passed turned to cruise him and he walked a little taller and with more swag than he usually did.

Ryan was at the bar and handed a smiling Henry a beer, “Wow, you clean up really nice. I thought you looked damn hot when you came in Sunday in your bike shorts and gloves, hiding behind those sunglasses, but this – wow! You’re getting me hard, bro.”

Laughing, “Well, tonight might be the night to buy you a shot,” Henry flirted back.

Setting up two glasses on the bar, “Buyer’s choice.”

Henry thought for a second, “Let’s make it simple. Jack.”

“Jack, it is.” Ryan filled the two glasses.

With eyes meeting in a smile, the two clinked shot glasses and threw back the Jack.

Slamming them simultaneously on the bar with a laugh, Ryan picked up the bottle of Jack and refilled the shot glasses.

An hour and three beers later, still no Marine. Henry longed to venture out onto the center of the dance floor, tie loosened and just let it go. Let go of the work pressure, let go of the sadness in seeing members of the community devastated by HIV, let go of the sexual tension building in him, every single day, brought on by this elusive man who he was beginning to think was merely a fantasy he’d created, fueled by a mini-pitcher of Tokyo Tea and the hot sun.

Climbing the steps out of The Hole, Henry swore he would give it until Sunday and then stop his obsession cold turkey. He’d met him on a Sunday and maybe that was his day off, he reasoned. So Sunday was it. If the Marine no-showed on Sunday, that was it, he was going to dance with whomever the fuck he wanted, and he was going to pick the cutest military boy in the place and suck his cock. No more waiting for Mr. I-Don’t-Want-You-To-Dance-With-Them.

Henry was deeply ensconced in his own head, making resolutions about moving on, not paying attention to his surroundings, or seeing the man, as he approached his car. He was leaning against the hood, his thick muscled arms folded across his chest. Calm, cool, collected, in charge and so damn freaking handsome.

“Your place?” was all he said.