“Just for a minute,” he said.
I let him do it for a few seconds but didn’t let him go further. “You have to stop,” I said. “I’m going to put it away if you don’t.”
“Just lemme touch it then,” he said, collecting himself.
I let him. He sighed and moaned looking at it, alternately touching my cock or my balls or my stomach or himself with his free hand.
“You’ve got to stop,” I said. “I’m getting too close.”
“Oh, lemme see it,” he said, jerking at me with renewed fascination.
I was closer than I realized. I pulled his hands off and yanked my underwear over my dick just in time for everything to pulse out. He watched, grinning and enthralled as the fabric darkened and grew transparent.
I did my best to contain the orgasm, and tried behaving as though nothing had happened, managing instead to look like a mental patient stifling a yawn or someone feigning composure after eating something incredibly sour. I was instantly awash in shame, appalled by what I had done and by the figure of the Cyclops in my space. The smell of him seemed stronger than before now that it was mixed with the scent of my cum.
“I’ve got to ask you to let me get out of here, man,” I said, zipping my pants over the growing wetness.
His dick was still out and stiffer than ever. With one hand, he jerked himself, and with the other, he petted the dampening surface of my jeans. I swatted his hand away, checking myself to be sure I didn’t come across as excessively aggressive. I could imagine his hands around my throat if I made the wrong move or said the wrong thing.
For a moment, I didn’t think he would leave, but slowly, begrudgingly, he began to put himself away. When at last he opened the passenger door, it was with great reluctance.
His feet touched the parking lot, and I said, “Okay, man. Maybe we’ll see one another again sometime.” That gave him pause, and he hesitated again, turning to give me a long look with his one eye. I thought for a moment he was going to get back in with me, but instead he stood and shut the door.
I was out of the parking lot before he could open the door to his own rusty heap.
54
I HAD TO TELL SOMEONE ABOUT THE CYCLOPS, AND THERE was no one to tell but Malcolm.
“God, I’m jealous,” he said. “Of course, like any reasonable person, I would have gone to the motel with him.”
I’d left out the part about blowing my load in my pants. The story Malcolm heard ended with the Cyclops sucking me off in the parking lot until I stopped him and the two of us parted ways.
“I don’t know how you resisted. I assume you haven’t gotten laid much lately, though I imagine you haven’t exactly been celibate these past few months.”
“Well, I mean, practically. But, no, I haven’t been celibate.”
“No? Good for you! I’m glad to hear it.”
“Ha. Thanks.”
“So tell me about it. Do you have someone regular you’ve been playing around with?”
“I don’t have a regular person, no. More like a regular place.”
“A place? Oh, Sam, please don’t tell me you’re doing it in parks. Or rest stops. I mean, no judgment, but…”
“No. God.”
“The bathhouse?”
“Are you kidding? I’m terrified of that place.”
“That’s probably good. I haven’t been to that one in years, but it was pretty bleak last time I went.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Sure. It’s right next to the mall, so I used to drop in after buying shoes. But that was ages ago.”
“Have you been to one in Boston?”
“I don’t think they have one here. If they do, I’ve never heard of it. Anyway, I’ve been too busy to look. There’s one in Chicago where I could probably spend a week. I’ll tell you all about it, but now I’m really curious. Where is it you’ve been going?”
“Now I’m embarrassed to tell you.”
“You’re not embarrassed to tell me about the contents of the cop’s emails, but you’re embarrassed to tell me about how you’ve been getting laid?”
“I haven’t been getting laid exactly. It’s not even that big of a deal. It’s an arcade on the outskirts of town.”
“You’ve been going to an arcade? You’re kidding. That’s even weirder than the bathhouse.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t do much out there. Mostly I just watch.”
“Guys let you watch them?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“Do you ever fuck anyone out there?”
“No. Not at all.”
“This is the one way south of town?”
“No, it’s west of the city.”
“Oh, that place. By the time they built that one, I was way past my arcade days. The one I knew was south.”
“So you used to go to one too?”
“When I was a lot younger. Like pre-internet, before there were other halfway decent options. Hey, do they still use the same tokens?”
“I don’t know. What did they look like back when you were going?”
“On one side it had a topless woman and it said, ‘Heads you win’ and on the other side it had her bare ass and it said ‘Tails you lose.’”
“Yeah. They’re the same. But they say, ‘Heads I win, tails you lose.’”
“Oh, right. Pretty fucking iconic actually.”
“Right. Like the Campbell’s soup can.”
“So you go out there a lot?”
“Not a lot, no. But, yeah, I’ve been going out there from time to time.”
“I can only imagine the kind of people going to an arcade now. You’re probably the toast of the town.”
“Hardly. Like I said, I don’t do much out there. I don’t fuck or do oral or anything.”
“Surely you at least let them blow you.”
“I have once or twice, but I’m too paranoid about diseases. I get all stressed out.”
“There’s not much you can catch from a blowjob.”
“People say that, but then you hear horror stories.”
“The arcade. It’s just so…quaint.”
“Quaint might not be the right word.”
55
THE COP AND THE KID WERE TRYING OUT NEW RESTAURANTS. They were having a great time, emailing each other little notes about how they should return to that new favorite place and be sure to remember the name of this server or that one. It seemed like they were having a wonderful, perfect life.
Together they navigated questions from family and coworkers, claiming to most of them that the kid was renting the guest bedroom while he attended the nearby college. They staged the spare room with the kid’s possessions, even leaving the bed unmade to give the impression that the room was in use.
It was nothing like the life I had envisioned for myself. The frozen margarita machine was only the start of it. They also bought a pair of jet skis to use on the nearby lake. They had threeway sex with another of the police officers in town, and then another time with someone they met online. My heart raced and I grew sweaty reading these things. I cried. I logged out of his account, went to the other room, then went back to my computer to log in and read everything again.
They took a weekend road trip, and the kid got some bad tattoos: a series of stars across his chest like the tail of a comet, and his last name in one of those ornate, Gothic fonts some Mexican guys use for that purpose.
They fell asleep watching movies in bed and talked about how much fun they were going to have on the cruise they’d bought tickets for.