I can never remember my dreams, but I awoke early the next morning with sensations of furtive, sweaty, ecstatic pleasure resonating through my body. Whatever fantasies I unwillingly submitted to in my nocturnal journeys had resulted in a sticky patch at the front of my boxers and the sheet around my crotch. The sun had only recently risen outside Darnel’s half-shuttered window. There was still a half hour before his alarm was due to go off and he slept in a heavy lump beside me. I knew he’d be disgusted by the mess. Instead of facing him, I carefully dressed and left quietly so he wouldn’t wake up.
Back at my apartment, I still fully intended to meet up with him that evening to discuss our uneven relationship. But later, when he called me to arrange getting together I didn’t answer the phone or return his call. I didn’t speak to him the next day, either. Or the next. I felt the pernicious urge that had nipped at me so relentlessly when I started college in Boston. Rationally, I knew I should settle down with Darnel, go to that job interview and think about the future. But my body wanted rough contact and a man who found the filthy pleasures sweated out in a raunchy sex session arousing. My instincts told me to escape.
I didn’t make it to the interview for the paralegal position. I didn’t even return to my job as a personal assistant. Instead, I hunkered down in my bedroom, shutting the door tight against my moody roommates, and searched online for free dirty videos to jerk off to. I got off to everything from pervy older doctors examining college jocks to raunchy backroom S/M sex. The only trouble was that it was difficult to find much porn of sexy black guys screwing around with each other. Most gay porn was filled with white guys. Only occasionally was a black dude thrown into the mix for exotic flavoring. The few porn videos that did feature a sexy all-black cast inevitably drew on the most obvious stereotypes: ghetto boys, badass criminals and basketball players. I realized after days of studious jerking off that what I really wanted was a black man who wasn’t some stereotype, but was a real man. But not a man like Darnel, either, who seemed destined to become a mainstream stereotype himself. It didn’t escape my attention how ridiculous it was hoping to find a sexy black man to fuck while living in white-ass backwoods Maine.
My bank account was quickly draining away to nothing. I wanted to move out west, maybe Los Angeles. But first I needed to save up enough to get started out there. I scanned the papers for a job that paid well, but required few qualifications. A warehouse in the industrial area of the city was hiring night-shift workers to shelve goods and transfer them into trucks ready for pickup. I was hired immediately. Somehow I had the strange notion that I could spend all day searching out music on the Internet and jerking off to porn while earning money at night. Sleep seemed insignificant. So when I arrived for work I was drowsy after only an hour of heavy lifting.
That first night was close to torture. I didn’t work out except for occasional push-up sessions in the morning. The crates and containers I was required to shift around in that cavernous, dark warehouse were easy to lift at first. But somewhere between the first hour and the second, the muscles in my arms started to burn and the back of my throat was constricted with dust. I was sweating, grew dizzy and nearly passed out. It took a few weeks for my both my biceps and my sleep patterns to adjust to my new nocturnal existence.
The guys I worked with were gruff, hard-bodied and transient. No one except me worked there longer than a month. The warehouse was always short staffed, so we workers were spurred on to perform more—but this only increased the turnover rate. This was to my advantage, as I was often paid double time for working overtime. We smoked wordlessly in a group during our breaks and drank a few beers before heading home at six in the morning. I was often horny, tackling the repetitive, labor-intensive tasks in a daze while filthy fantasies drifted through my mind; sometimes I jerked off behind huge crates filled with imported goods. Two months went by and I was near-crazed for sex. I had dialed Darnel’s number a dozen times, but always hung up before it rang. I knew that was a dead end.
One night a new guy started. This was no big event in itself. The manager asked me to show him the ropes. I left the manager’s office to find the new guy standing by one of the cargo entrances. He was a tall, muscular black guy wearing dark jeans and a white singlet. His stance had the effortless masculinity of a cowboy in a cigarette advertisement. He was, in fact, smoking a cigarette and leaning against a truck staring into nothing. I approached him and introduced myself. He barely looked at me as he shook my hand with a firm grip and dropped his cigarette butt to the ground while mumbling, “I’m Bryce.”
Taking him around the warehouse, I explained how certain orders needed to be moved from storage units to the loading bay, that sometimes the forklift was necessary and at other times it was easier to carry the items individually. There was a minimum amount of work to be performed, but equally if a warehouse worker did too much, the boss would expect more. It was a fine balance. I gave details about the amount of inventory we stocked and how certain orders were given priority over others.
“Man, don’t lecture me so much. I’ve done this thing before. Just point me out where to get started.”
I was silent as we got down to work. We tackled a new shipment together, stacking large boxes on shelves that stretched the length of the warehouse and up several levels. Bryce twisted his face in concentration as he labored. I found it difficult not to steal glances constantly, but was careful not to let him catch me looking. Now and then thick drops of sweat dripped from his neck and shoulders, like, I imagined, sweet-tasting sap. A diamond-shaped wet patch blossomed on his lower back right above his large meaty ass. We were on a poorly lit level at the back of the warehouse, but I noticed how it swayed from side to side as he clambered up and down a ladder, moving large sheets of Styrofoam up to a high shelf. The fantastic heft of his rear wedged into his tight-fitting jeans was something I could happily bury my face in.
“You keep lookin at my ass, bro. What’s up?”
His words thundered down and his mouth was twisted in an angry-looking sneer. I had forgotten myself for a moment, letting my stare linger too obviously.
“Nothing,” I said trying to shy away.
“Don’t lie. I see you.”
I bowed my head, overcome with shame—and fear. Bryce climbed down the ladder and got in my face. His broad nostrils flared and his deep, dark eyes searched my face menacingly.
“You want it. Don’t you.”
It wasn’t a question. He knew exactly what was going through my head. From this proximity I could see sweat steadily dripping down his face and from the pits of his muscular arms. There was a hard glint in his eyes. His aroma was strong and manly. It was all the more powerful because of the heat emanating off him after all our exertion. I was certain that he was going to beat the shit out of me, but as his stare became more intent I realized he wanted something else. He wasn’t some straight hard-ass. He was just another black dude looking to make his way in the world on his own terms, wanting to satiate his sexual needs where and when he pleased—just like me. The warehouse was steeped in silence. It must have been three in the morning. Two other guys were working through this evening, but I was certain they were lounging near the entrance drinking beer and smoking, goofing off.
Bryce pushed me forward so I was flat against the shelf stacked high with boxes we’d shifted together. He pinned my arms and kissed me hard and deep. The dark stubble on our chins rubbed together as our tongues viciously fought each other. He pressed his face so hard against mine I thought my nose would snap. His body rubbed against me and I was blissfully flattened by his warm sweaty bulk. My breathing quickened as I responded, pushing against him, feeling the bulges in our jeans pressing together. I reached around to grab a big handful of his ass. He pushed me down onto my knees and ground my face into his crotch. I tasted the fabric of his dirty jeans as I tried to open my mouth over the huge hard on contained inside.