Part 2

hey were both dripping wet and Ryan turned on the heat. “This is so fucked,” Michael proclaimed in a whisper. He shivered and then tilted his seat back to a 60-degree angle and said, “Here.” Ryan heard the boy next to him unzip his jeans and watched him dig out his penis under the green lights of the dashboard. Ryan’s mouth watered like a Pavlovian dog, but he promised himself he wouldn’t do it, shouldn’t do it. He tried to picture Jessie hunched over her purse in the driveway, but when Michael guided him down over his dick, his rationality was blinded by the heavy scent of his pubes and the flesh protruding from wet denim. Michael moaned, “Fuck,” when his moist dick head popped into Ryan’s mouth, then gripped Ry’s wet hair and set a frenetic pace. Michael groaned and doubled up as he pumped Ryan’s mouth full of ropy fluid, then he exhaled slowly and sank down into his seat. “I got to sleep,” he mumbled. He snored a moment later.

Ryan stared at Michael’s cock as it shrank back into his pants, then turned his focus on the boy’s dozing face. He caressed Michael’s leg and beat himself off silently, afraid of waking his partner before he could cum. He ejaculated with a whimper and immediately dug out Kleenex from his glove compartment to dab away the evidence. He tossed the tissues into the parking lot.

Ryan wished that Michael hadn’t converted the last of the vodka into a Molotov cocktail, he barely got to drink any of it. It was a waste of his father’s stolen liquor. The rain counted off ten lonely minutes before Michael sat up suddenly and asked were they were. “At the school,” Ryan said calmly.

“What the fuck are we doing there? What?” He looked down at his exposed dick and shoved himself back into his wet pants, but couldn’t function the zipper. “You do this?”

“You wanted me to.”

“What?”

“I think you drank too much, Mike, I think you should let me drive.”

“You driving?”

“Yes. Why don’t you lie down in the back, I’ll take you home.”

“I have to go,” Mike stated.

Ryan got out and ran around the car, the rain pelted his back and he was aware of how wet and miserable he was all at once. He opened the driver’s side door and helped Michael up and then leaned the seat forward. Ryan lowered his friend into the backseat, but Michael dragged him down. Ryan’s feet dangled outside the door like heavy weights.

Michael kissed him clumsily and said, “Help me, Ry.”

“Mike, I’m gonna drive you home.”

“I lied the whole thing. No one knows.”

“About what?”

“I can’t stay here, I’ll end up like dad. Jessie bitch at me every fucking day of my life.”

“What are you talking about?” Ryan tried to back up, but he was pulled down until his face hovered over Michael’s. He stared into his dark brown eyes.

“Collish, college,” he sobbed. His eyes squeezed shut and tears streamed down his face. “Rosenquist hated me ‘cause my old man is a stupid drunk and she fucked me, Ry. She fucked me and now I’m stuck here just like you and her and all the rest of them. I’m not supposed to be here,” he cried.

Ryan started to speak but Michael quieted down. “She wouldn’t help me, no one would help me ‘cause we couldn’t pay the tuition. She said that it woulda been a waste of time ‘cause I wasn’t gonna be nothing. Said I was nothing but trash like my dad.” He struggled to get up, but Ryan held him down. “Oh, shit,” Michael muttered and rolled Ryan off of him. He leaned out the open door and puked, splattering the car, Ryan’s soaked sneakers and the puddled pavement. He gagged and puked again, then let his head hang in the rain.

Ryan pulled him back in when he thought it was safe. He cradled Michael on his own terms, caressed his face and brushed the tears away. “You can get a scholarship and go later, for the winter semester. We could go together next year.”

“It’ll be too late,” Michael mumbled and closed his eyes. Ryan kissed his forehead and held him as the sky began to lighten. The dawn churned bruised purple and rose behind them. Ryan pictured the two of them together at school, more than roommates, and his penis trembled into a numb erection. He squirmed out from under Michael and crawled back into the rain. He pushed Michael’s feet into the car, then got in and closed the door. The seat was saturated and he sat in a cold puddle. He stretched his body awake, turned to look back at Michael who lay slumped across the seat, then stared straight ahead at the blank wall in front of him trying to decipher the meaning in the patterns of the brick.

He backed away slowly, turned the car around and drove back towards town. He went past the strip malls and Wolff’s Funeral Home with it’s shimmering lights and back down into the Valley. The streets were flooded and he eased his car down into the more rural reaches of Smoke Valley to Michael’s house. He pulled up in front of the gray two-story structure that merged with the clouds and rain. He shook Michael’s leg to wake him.

“Huh?” he sat up, realized where he was and swallowed. Ryan said, “You’re home.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He looked around and stalled for a moment. “What are you doing tonight?”

“I got to help my dad.”

“Yeah? Maybe later then.”

“Sure, later.” Ryan turned around and Michael pushed the passenger seat up and opened the door. “Tomorrow?” he asked.

“Maybe. Call me.” Ryan turned away. Michael got out and ran up the gravel drive to the front door and went in without turning around. Ryan watched his back disappear into the dark behind the gray door and wondered if he would ever see him again. Maybe one day Michael would pull up next to him in the park overlooking the highway, nod cautiously, then leave his car and sit in the passenger’s seat. Ryan would suck him off as if they had never met before. When it was over, Michael would get out without a word, sated and guilty, and drive home to Jessie.

 

yan tooled back through town and was compelled to drive down to the park. He wasn’t horny, but felt a sense of dread that he might miss something if he abandoned his post. He was quietly happy that the parking lot was deserted and he pulled into the back corner facing the highway. He turned off the car and closed his eyes as the charge of rain drummed over his car in a soothing percussion. Beyond that, he could hear the cars moving along the highway below him. He thought about those people driving out of Pennsylvania and wondered how many of them were headed for New York. He would become on of those nameless faces soon, one of the satisfied people. When Ryan finally knocked the dirt of Smoke Valley from his shoes and headed east, then his real life could begin.

He suddenly remembered Michael saying something about what he did here and wondered if he should change his location before he got caught taking care of someone in his car. He didn’t know how the other boys and the men who frequented him would find where he had moved to, but Ryan was confident that they would find him. He didn’t want to give up the view of the highway, though, at least he could see the path he would use to leave Valley. It made everything bearable knowing it was there in front of him, ready and waiting. He only had a year left of school before he could leave and then…

A car pulled up next to his, he was surprised, but not terribly. The man in it sat for a moment before he looked over. Ryan nodded and the man dashed from his car to Ryan’s and let himself in. “Hey, you’re wet,” he said.

“Got caught in the rain,” Ryan said. “How are you, Bob?”

“Just a little tense,” he said.

“We should take care of that,” Ryan said. He leaned over and unzipped the man’s trousers. Bob tilted his seat back as Ryan pushed open the fly and unfurled the rising erection out of the slit in the man’s boxers. “Just one more year.” He brushed his lips over the cock, then engulfed it. The highway was shoved out of his mind by the blinding necessity of the moment, the coppery taste of cock in his mouth, then the eruption into the back of his mouth. The man patted Ryan’s head like a dog, then slipped him a twenty before getting out and driving away. Ryan took the bill, folded it and slipped it in the back pocket of his jeans.

He stretched out and relaxed, alone with his thoughts. “A year, sure I can do a year,” he told the rain. “I can do anything.” He turned his mind to the traffic below him and waited for the moment when he could join them, one body in the stream.

 

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