The Boy Who Came in From the Cold (3 page)

my eyes, and pretend it’s Katy Perry givin’ me head. Who doesn’t like to get his dick sucked? And get
paid
for it.”

Somehow, Todd doubted Doug’s sincerity. If it was all that great, why wasn’t everybody champing at the bit to be a prostitute?
“Don’t let him fool you, girlfriend,” said Chaz, the second young man, a kid of mixed ethnicity, maybe twenty years old. “Doug here ain’t thinkin’ ’bout Katy. Channing Tatum is his thing. And I tells you this…. We all suck cock at least now and again.” He shifted his hip, rested a hand upon it, and then snapped his fingers with the other. “
Especially
in these hard economic times.”

Todd had shaken his head doubtfully. “I don’t think….”

“You could suck dick? After that first time or two it isn’t a big deal,” Doug said, thereby admitting he did indeed give at least the occasional blowjob. “And if you can swallow, you make more money.”

“Why you guys telling me this?” Todd had asked, as if he didn’t already know.

Chaz took a hit of his joint, apparently not worried in the least about who might see, and passed it to Doug. “Cuz you ain’t got no job, and you’re trying like a motherfucker to get one. Am I right?”

Todd was startled but didn’t answer.

“No need to deny it,” Doug replied casually and hit the joint. “You leave your place all different times, and you’re always wearing a tie.” He reached out and flicked the thrift-store paisley one Todd had loosened but not removed. He held out his joint.

Todd shook his head.

 

“And because you don’t want the grass. You’re studying for a test.”

“A test?”
“A piss test,” Chaz explained.
How does the guy know so much?

“We know all kinds of stuff about you,” Doug said and raised an orange brow.

 

“Like you is from a small town, ain’t ya?” Chaz asked.
Jesus.
Todd gaped at the young man in disbelief. “How do you know all this?”

The boy-men laughed.
“Because we’re
all
small-town,” Doug cried.

“We knows our own,” Chaz continued and snapped his fingers again. “We all comes to the city to get away from a big bad daddy who can’t keeps his hands to his self—”

“Or to make big money or get famous,” Doug added. “Or what-the-fuck-ever, and instead we winds up sellin’ ourselves. Story as old as fuckin’ time, baby.”

 

Todd hadn’t taken them up on their offer. Hadn’t even considered it.
I’ll never get that low
, he’d told himself.

 

But now? He watched the swirling maelstrom.

Gabe would have been better than some old toothless “troll” picking him up off the street. At least Gabe was hot. Maybe he could have laid back and let the man give him some head. It couldn’t be any worse than those his so-called girlfriend had given him back home.

He shuddered at the thought.
Or any more disastrous than….
And Gabe would have given him a place to stay for the night.
What if Gabe wanted the blowjob? Could you do it?
He shrugged.
Memories of a basement…

Hell. Maybe. Didn’t every dude wonder what it would be like once or twice? He remembered a time in the locker room at school. He was sitting down untying his shoes when he realized the penis of one of his classmates was less than a foot from his face. He could actually smell it, it was so close, the heat from the showers bringing out the boy’s natural male musk. Todd had toed off one shoe and as he slowly worked on the other, he was able to look up through his bangs without his buddy knowing he was checking out his cock. Todd found he wasn’t repulsed by it at all, as Joan seemed to be by his own. Why, it was rather handsome. Longer than his, it draped over two largish testicles, one hanging slightly lower than the other in a fleshy, silkylooking sack. The scrotum was hairless, and he wondered if his buddy shaved his balls (
and where that thought had come from?
).

“Hey Burton! Whatcha lookin’ at?”

Luckily his big mouth served him well that day. “I don’t know what the hell it is,” he’d replied rather loudly. “But whatever it is, it’s about the ugliest damn thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

The roar of laughter was probably the only thing that had kept him from being called a faggot for the rest of the school year.
But a few days later, while Joan was making another sloppy and unexciting attempt at giving him a blowjob, gagging like he was twelve inches long or something, he’d wondered what it was like to suck a cock. What if he had been alone with that boy in the locker room and he had just leaned forward and taken it into his mouth? Or his friend Austin. The cute boy’s face filled his mind. The image of him from when they’d gone skinny-dipping over the summer. Evenings at his friend’s house. What would Austin’s cock feel like in his mouth? Taste like? Strange, those were the thoughts that allowed him to finally cum, to his girlfriend’s noisy complaints—“Toddy! You said you’d warn me.”—in a voice like rubbing two balloons together.

So if Gabe had taken him to his apartment, gotten him out of the snow, maybe he could try it? As clean-cut as the man was, Todd was sure he would be clean down there.

Strange also that Todd felt his own cock shift about then. Just in time for a bellow like an elephant that startled him so badly he gave a shout.

“Hey you! Who the hell are you?”

Todd turned to see a huge man descending on him like doom. “Goddamn drifters and hustlers always coming in my building. Get the hell out of here!”

What was he supposed to do now?

 

Chapter 2

 

T
HE elevator doors had barely closed behind him when Gabriel Richards was hit with guilt.
Shitfire. Why did I snap at that kid? What must it be like to be on the streets in weather like this?
He—Todd—had to be cold and frightened.

But dammit, the kid had used the words queer and faggot, and Gabe hated those words. They were ugly. He knew activists said using them took away their power, but he didn’t agree at all. People used those words to hurt. Hadn’t the kid meant it that way?

Gabe let himself into his apartment on the top floor of the Oscar Wilde and threw his mail on the small black lacquered table just inside the door. He paid extra for the larger apartment so he had a bedroom, a study, and a workout room. Having all three was important to him. A bedroom for only what bedrooms were for—sleeping and making love (which he hadn’t done in what felt like a thousand years, surely the reason he’d offered to pay the kid—
Todd!
—for sex.). The study/office, where he could take work home without cluttering up the whole apartment. And his workout room, which was meant purely for improving his body. Each had its place.

Working out had been his plan too—what he was going to do right after grabbing the mail. That’s when he’d seen Todd was still standing there, a good hour after he’d let the young man in. The look on his face, pure desperation, told him Todd must be in trouble. But what could he do?
Well, get the kid something to eat, surely.

Very nice-looking kid as a matter of fact. Creamy pale skin, dark hair with two masculine slashes for brows. He was scruffy, but when had he had a chance to shave last? Besides, it suited him. He looked a little stocky, but it was hard to tell. He had a nice mouth too. Wide. Full.
Kissable
. And then there were those eyes. Deep dark brown. And sad, like deer eyes.

So Gabe took Todd the corned beef sandwich he’d brought home from work and hadn’t had time to eat, and a big mug of coffee. Only to have the kid get rude.

And why wouldn’t he?
Scared. Desperate. Cold. And accused of being a whore? Did he have one shred of proof that Todd was a hustler? No. He’d assumed it. And one thing Gabe never did was assume.

It makes an ass out of me, and forget the you
.
Assumed it all because—no. Don’t go there.

Suddenly, Gabe didn’t feel like working out. It was a big part of his day, but now? How could he run on his three-thousand-dollar NordicTrack treadmill, or work out with his equally expensive Bowflex Revolution Home Gym, knowing there was a young man downstairs who obviously didn’t have enough money to even afford something to eat?

Shower.

That was the ticket. A hot shower, clean off the day’s grime, chase off the chill of the inclement weather, and he’d not only feel better, but he’d be thinking—excuse the expression—straight. Then he could make up his mind what to do about Todd—if anything.

And oh God, he could just hear Tracy, his friend and co-worker, now: “Oh no! No you don’t. Not another stray. And especially not one so young. You know what happened last time.”

Halfway through his shower, he heard someone at the door. Pounding on it, in fact.
Now what the hell?

He stepped out of the shower, wiped his feet on the bathmat (something he hated to do), wrapped a towel around his waist, grabbed a second for his hair, and went to answer the door before someone knocked it down.

When he opened it, Gabe wasn’t at all prepared for what he saw. Standing outside his apartment was Mr. Martinez—a man almost as wide in the middle as he was tall—and Todd, who looked desperate, his pretty, dark eyes wide and pleading.
He wants me to go along with his lie
.

The building manager was holding the young man by the arm, and it looked like he was being quite rough about it. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Richards, but I found this kid downstairs, and he claims to be your boyfriend.”

Martinez’s words startled and amused Gabe. “Oh?” he asked, raising both brows.
Abruptly, Todd shrugged off the fat man’s grip and to Gabe’s complete astonishment, threw his arms around him and pressed his scruffy cheek against Gabe’s bare chest. “I’m so sorry, Gabe,” he said. “Please don’t make me go.”

It was hard not to laugh. Having to hug a big wet gay man couldn’t be easy for Todd. But the devil was in Gabe, and he couldn’t resist teasing him. “I don’t know, Todd.” He pretended to pull away. “You said some pretty shitty things.”

The pleading look on Todd’s pale face made Gabe bite the insides of his cheeks. It really wasn’t humorous. He knew the kid was in trouble. He didn’t want to make Todd feel worse.

“I said I was sorry,” Todd all but whined.

Gabe made up his mind in that second to help the boy, but he was going to get in one last shot, mean or not. He really did hate when people used words like faggot. “Well…,” he said, then paused again. “Oh, all right.” With that he pulled Todd close and kissed him. Really kissed him. Hard. Todd started to struggle but then must have realized how that would look. Todd submitted, even allowing Gabe to ease a bit of tongue into his mouth. And damn! Gabe hadn’t realized how much he must have missed kissing. Heart beginning to race, it was all he could do to stop. He could feel his cock shifting under the towel. Would Todd be able to miss it?