A gay story: Whiteboi goes to Harlem Pt. 10 Author’s note: Huge thanks to Exluke1 for helping me iron out some parts of a rather complicated chapter.
*
Mitch’s bleary eyes opened on Saturday morning, and he rolled over on his mattress to check the time on his phone. 8am. Too early. He rolled back over and snoozed some more. He finally crawled out of bed just after 9. He took a shower and got dressed before heading out for breakfast at a nearby café. He sat at a window table, waiting for his coffee, eggs and toast to arrive. It was hot out; summer was on the way.
He ate, watching the foot traffic sweep by. He remembered last Saturday when he felt energetic enough to walk the width of Manhattan — today, he decided that, after breakfast, he was going to go for a run.
After leaving a healthy tip for his waitress, he strolled back to his apartment, changed into gym gear, and walked to Central Park. He crossed Madison and Fifth avenues before doing some light lunges and stretches to get the blood flowing. He opened an app on his phone that would track his movements as he ran.
He jogged south, on the western edge of Fifth Avenue, past the Metropolitan Museum of Art where tourists lined the steps, as far as 59th street where the park ended. He turned right, heading west, skirting the park’s southern fringes. When he reached Central Park West, he headed north, slowing to a walk as he passed through Strawberry Fields. He picked up the pace and ploughed on further, covering the entire western edge of the park which ended at 110th street. Harlem was on the northern side of the street, and he knew he had plans there later this evening.
Turning right again, Mitch pounded the pavement as far east as Duke Ellington circle before heading south on the final leg of his run. He ran along the eastern edge of New York City’s massive green lung, astride the eastern fringe of the Jackie Onassis reservoir, before returning to where he started. The full loop was about 10 kilometres, and it took Mitch just over an hour to complete it. He felt wildly alive, but he knew he should conserve some energy for later.
His skin was covered in beads of sweat, and his t-shirt felt like it’d been glued to his back. He headed home to shower off. He opened the door and stripped naked. He’d just thrown his clothes into the hamper when he noticed he wasn’t alone.
“Mitch!” shouted Trina. She looked his sweaty body up and down. She thought he looked fitter than she remembered him, but at the same time, his cock seemed a little smaller. “How are you?”
Mitch was emotionally thrown, not sure what to say. Something about standing naked in front of his wife felt completely inappropriate to him now. “Uh… yeah… I’m good… how are you?… umm… can you excuse me for a minute, I’m just going to have a shower.”
“Yeah, you look like you’ve just been for a run or something.” Trina’s eyes were fixated on her husband’s small white cock. The last time she’d felt his dick inside her was when it was in her ass.
“Yeah… uhh… I just ran around Central Park.”
“All of it?”
“Well… yeah… as much as possible… I mean, you can’t run around the square borders of the park, but there’s a loop inside the park that covers most of the perimeter.”
Trina remembered months ago when Mitch told her he’d been running in the park and she didn’t believe him. In fact, she ridiculed and mocked the fuck out of him. Maybe he’d been telling the truth. She glanced down at her husband’s sweaty cock again, wondering what it might taste like after he’d been for a run.
They stood facing each other — Trina fully clothed, and Mitch not — for a few more seconds of uncomfortable silence. Mitch sneezed. “Gonna grab that shower now, Trina,” he said.
“Sounds like you’ve earned it,” she whispered, watching his ass as he walked away.
Trina could’ve sworn she saw a heavy black mark on one of Mitch’s ass cheeks.
She sat on the couch, aimlessly flipping through the TV guide while Mitch showered. Mitch hoped she’d be gone by the time he finished, having done whatever the fuck she needed to do, but as he shut the faucet off, he sensed he still had company. ‘She’d better not be going through my fucking drawers again,’ Mitch thought to himself.
He dried himself off and wrapped a towel around his waist before heading to the bedroom for some clean clothes. Trina was still here, in the living room, sitting on the couch. Mitch wanted to know *why* she was here, but he couldn’t think of an appropriate way to ask the question without making her feel like an intruder, which, in a legal sense, she wasn’t. The difficult reality Mitch inhabited was that he and she were still married, her name was on the lease, and she had a key. She had as much right to be in their apartment as he did.
Mitch dressed and returned to the living room. Trina closed the magazine and lobbed it onto the couch. She gave him her full attention. “What are your plans for the day, hubby?” She was getting used to his nose ring and now thought it suited him. She felt ashamed when she thought how mean she was to him when he first got his nostril pierced.
Hubby? Mitch winced. “Uhh… I don’t know… I guess I feel a little hungry after the run.” As soon as he admitted this, he regretted it, because it was an implicit invitation to Trina to have lunch with him.
“Cool, I could use a bite to eat myself,” Trina said. “Let’s get lunch together, what do you say?”
Mitch knew there was only one thing he *could* say. “Yeah, sure, OK.” He would’ve much rather been left alone.
Trina bounced up from the couch and hugged him. Mitch returned her gesture as weakly as possible without arousing unnecessary suspicion.
“I know a place,” she said, beaming. She grabbed her husband by the hand. “Come on.”
Twenty minutes later, Mitch sat at a table in a restaurant, across from his wife. A smiling waiter brought menus.
Trina beamed. “This place is new. I’ve been here once or twice with Amanda. She says hello, by the way. Check out the menu. It’s Icelandic food.”
Mitch nodded before perusing the menu. He found it confusing. Each of the dishes had unintelligible, unpronounceable names. “What would you recommend?” The table was made out with plates, cutlery and glassware of all shapes and sizes. He would’ve been happy with a simple salad sandwich.
Trina didn’t answer. She waved to the waiter and ordered two martinis.
Mitch wasn’t in the mood for alcohol. “I don’t know about this, Trina. It’s only lunchtime, I’ve just done a six-mile run, and I don’t usually drink gin or vodka at this time of the day.”
“You aren’t drinking either of those,” she replied. “I’ve ordered brennivín.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s an Icelandic drink. The name means ‘burned wine’, but it’s not wine. It’s kind of like an aquavit.”
A few awkward minutes later, two martini glasses landed on their table. Thin floes of shaved ice floated on the surface of each chilled glass.
“Try it,” Trina encouraged. “Skál!,” she said, raising her glass to his.
Mitch had flashbacks to the time he thought Tyrone and Leroy gave him a shot of gasoline to drink. He sipped gingerly. “Tastes like liquorice.”
“Mmm,” Trina agreed, nodding. “Yeah, I think so too. Even though the liquid is clear, like vodka, I think there’s something very dark about this drink. Almost… black.” She looked him dead in the eyes.
Mitch choked on his beverage. Surely his wife must’ve seen his tattoo when he headed to the bathroom after his run. Assuming she did, would she know what it meant? He held his menu up to his face to try to disguise his reaction.
A waiter noticed Mitch choking and came over. “Are you OK, sir?”
Mitch’s face was red. “Yeah… I’m fine, but thanks for asking.” The waiter poured him some chilled water, and Mitch drank greedily.
“Are you ready to order?” asked the waiter.
“Almost. Two more minutes?” Trina replied.
The waiter smiled and walked away.
Mitch’s eyes ran up and down the menu. “I don’t know what any of this is,” he admitted.
“Neither did I, at first, but like I said, I’ve been here a few times and I’ve tried a few different dishes.”
Mitch looked concerned. “I really need you to help me out here.”
“OK. So as an appetiser, we’ll order hákarl.”
“I’ve never heard of it before,” said an unimpressed Mitch. “What is it?”
“Cubes of shark meat. It´s an Icelandic delicacy. I’d suggest we get a second brennivín martini to accompany it. They go well together.”
Mitch was a million miles out of his culinary comfort zone. “OK, whatever.” He had no choice but to trust her.
“Then we’ll order hrutsprungar, blóðmör, and svið”.
Mitch hoped they were Icelandic words for fish, bread and salad. “If you say so, Trina. Hey, do they have beer in Iceland?”
“Yeah, sure they do. I’ll order us two bottles of Víking.”
The waiter came over and Trina relayed their order. Whatever it was she was speaking, it wasn’t English.
“Hey… what the fuck was that?” Mitch asked.
“What?” Trina pretended innocence.
“That wasn’t English.”
Trina took a sip of her martini. “Amanda’s parents are from Iceland, and she’s been teaching me a little of the language. It’s insanely complicated.”
Mitch wasn’t happy. “So, like, we’re not here because you wanted to take me here, but because this’ll be an amusing story for Amanda?”
Trina put her hands up, palms open and outfaced in a non-verbal apology. “Fuck, no, hubby, it isn’t anything like that. I just thought you might be interested in trying something new.”
Mitch mulled this statement over in his head. He’d been trying many new things for himself over recent months, but Trina had rejected and ridiculed every single one. Was it only OK for him to do something new if Trina approved? He remembered the night a few months ago when he took her to a restaurant in Harlem, precisely because it was something new, and she lost her fucking mind.
And he desperately wished his wife would stop calling him ‘hubby’.
Their beers arrived, and Mitch took a sip. It tasted good. Seconds later, their appetiser arrived. There were half a dozen whitish cubes of something firm and fleshy, with a toothpick stuck in each.
“What’s this, Trina?”
“This is the shark meat appetiser. Wait until we get our next martini before you try it.”
The meat smelled bad, and Mitch felt the need to pinch his nose. “Are you sure that’s edible? It smells like the chemical I use to mop the bathroom floor.”
“Yeah, it’s unusual, isn’t it? It’s because the meat has been cured for up to eight months, and it ferments over time, like wine.”
Mitch was mystified. “And people actually eat this?”
“Yeah,” said Trina. “Like I said, it’s a delicacy. But don’t judge until your brennivín arrives.”
Right on cue, two more martini glasses landed on their table. Mitch gingerly reached out to grab a toothpicked cube of shark-based ammonia. The taste was so horrific Mitch downed his martini in two gulps, trying to burn the stench out of his mouth. He gasped for fresh air. “The rest of that shit is yours,” he said to Trina, pointing to the plate of rotten shark flesh. He tried hard not to puke. He remembered what happened last time he threw up at a restaurant.
The rest of their meal began to arrive. Mitch remembered Trina had ordered three other items off the menu. The waiter plonked the first plate down on their table, saying something unintelligible to Mitch. “What’s this?” he asked Trina. It looked like a thinly sliced sausage, perhaps like something they’d be served in a German restaurant.
“It’s called ‘blóðmör’.”
“What’s in it?”
The Icelandic aquavit was going to Trina’s head. “Everything’s in it, Mitch. For hundreds of years, people in Iceland were too resource-poor to throw any part of their dead animals away, so they found ways to consume everything.”
“Great. So I’m about to eat eyeballs, am I?”
Trina chuckled inwardly, knowing what was still to come. She shrugged. “Yeah, possibly. I guess it’s all different kinds of meats, blended together as a sausage, and then cooked.”
Mitch picked up a slice and took a nervous bite.
“There’s a lot of boiled blood in it, too,” Trina disclosed.
Mitch nearly retched. “Blood? That’s fucking gross. I can’t eat any more of that.”
Trina devoured three slices.
The next dish arrived. Mitch felt outright nauseous. This plate contained flattish balls of meat.
“Fuck, Trina, what the hell is this?”
“These are ram’s testicles.”
Mitch nearly dry-retched. “What the fuck? Ram’s testicles? Are you being serious with me right now?” He looked around the room. “Am I on one of those weird-ass Japanese game shows right now? Where are the hidden cameras?”
“I’m serious,” Trina replied. “These are usually eaten during the bleak Icelandic winter.”
Mitch stared at the plate. “Is that because they have to eat shit like this, or die?”
“Once upon a time, yeah, probably, but it’s not like that anymore,” Trina enthused. She put one into her mouth and savoured the delicacy.
“No,” said Mitch. “That’s not for me.” He would’ve killed for some southern-fried chicken from a humble Harlem diner.
Trina remembered the dildo she’d temporarily ‘borrowed’ from him. “Haven’t you ever tasted a testicle?”
Mitch was like a rabbit caught in headlights. How much did she know?
The waiter brought their final dish across to the table. “Þetta er svið,” he said, resting the plate on the table. “Gjörðu svo vel.”
Mitch was horrified. “That’s… that’s the head of a sheep.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And it’s still got its fuckin’ eyeballs!”
“Amanda says you can buy sheep’s heads wrapped in plastic from convenience stores in Iceland. She eats the eyeballs and says they taste sweet, but I’m not brave enough to try one yet. Anyhow, if you buy one of these in Iceland, it’s already cooked, so all you need to do is put it in the microwave for a minute or two, and…”
Mitch stood up from the table, went to the bathroom, and threw up into the sink. He puked until there was nothing left to come up. He wiped his face and slunk out of the restaurant without returning to his table and without saying goodbye to his wife. This whole experience had violently fucked him up. No way was he paying for this ridiculous culinary ordeal. As he walked home, his stomach felt empty like a vacuum, but despite his intense hunger, he couldn’t bring himself to eat anything.
Trina sat at the table for another fifteen or twenty minutes before concluding that Mitch wasn’t coming back. She messaged him a couple of times, but he didn’t respond. She paid and apologised to the staff.
Mitch wasn’t sure if he could ever eat meat again. He went home, lay on the couch, and hoped those horrific images would one day leave his head. He placed a plastic bucket next to the couch in case he felt the need to hurl again.
He heard a key turn in the door. “Mitch?” his wife asked. “You here? You OK?”
‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?’ Mitch thought to himself. He groaned loudly.
She saw him lying on the couch. “I’m so sorry babe,” she said, sitting by his feet. She reached out to rub his tummy.
“Was that a joke?” Mitch challenged. “Was that meant to be funny?” He angrily pushed her hand away.
“No, babe, I thought you might like to try something new.”
“What, sheep eyes and testicles for lunch, after a six mile run? Please leave me alone for a while, I need to recover from that shit.”
“I just thought it might be an unusual experience.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that,” Mitch responded. “If I could assign a single word to throwing up in the bathroom at a Saturday lunch after having eyeballs and testicles presented to me as food, I’d go with ‘unusual’.”
“I’m sorry,” said Trina.
“Look, I know we need to talk about our stuff at some point, but if you were looking for an entry point to that discussion, that meal wasn’t it.”
“I’m sorry,” Trina apologised again. She looked at the walls of the apartment she used to call home, but these days was just a place to keep her stuff. “And no, I wasn’t trying to have that conversation today. You said you were hungry after your run, so I took you to lunch. Or, to be more accurate, I tried to. Maybe we should’ve just gone to a café.” She noticed Mitch looked tense. “Look, Mitch, I’m gonna leave now…”
“Thanks,” Mitch interrupted. “Under the circumstances, I think that’s a good idea. And I know you have a key to the apartment and we’re both on the lease, but we’re separated, and it might be better if you called or texted ahead in future.”
He heard Trina close the door behind her. Something about the way the door closed sounded sorrowful to him, but he shrugged it off. As soon as he knew she’d left the building, Mitch raced into the corridor and stabbed the elevator button. In a sudden blizzard of almost insatiable hunger, he bolted to the Subway across the street. His eyes closed in bliss as he bit into his toasted veggie patty footlong with melted cheddar cheese, drenched in honey mustard sauce and sprinkled with a light dusting of black pepper.
As he hungrily inhaled his sandwich, Mitch thought about what had just happened. Trina had blindsided him, coercing him into having lunch at the strangest place he’d ever been to, while seemingly trying to pretend that everything between them was normal. It made no sense. Nothing was normal.
He knew what he should’ve done. Even though it would’ve been a cowardly lie, he should’ve said he had plans. Even though they were separated, it felt like Trina’s claws laid claim to a part of him that she could play with whenever she wanted, but this wasn’t the life Mitch wanted. He needed to grow some balls and end this charade, but this was an issue for another day. The rest of the day was all about Harlem.
Stomach full again, Mitch headed back to his apartment in need of a quick snooze before tonight. He reached for his phone and sent a message to Tyrone.
Mitch: gonna take a quick nap right now but hey can you and i meet at 4:30 before Leroy shows up
Tyrone: yeah sure thing whiteboi
Mitch: i need 2 tell u something
Mitch didn’t wait for a response. He put his phone on silent, went to bed, rested his head on his pillow, and closed his eyes for a while. His alarm was set for half past three.
*
Mitch’s alarm sounded after his nap and he jumped out of bed. He threw some clothes on, brushed his teeth, grabbed his backpack, and headed to the subway station, looking forward to what might happen tonight. The afternoon was warm.
His train arrived at 125th street. He walked west across Harlem and took a seat at their booth. Mitch was relieved to discover that the bar was crisply air-conditioned. He ordered a beer, and it arrived just as Tyrone walked through the door.
Tyrone pointed at Mitch’s beer. “You get me one of those, whiteboi?” he smiled. “It’s hot out, and I’m a thirsty motherfucker.”
“Uhh, no, but hey, I can ask the waitress…”
“Nah, dude, ‘s all good, whiteboi, I’s jus’ playin’ wit’ you.” He looked across the bar. “I know who’s workin’ today.” He pointed towards the waitress who’d just served Mitch his beer. “That’s Jada over there. My dick an’ her fat, tight asshole are on speakin’ terms.”
Jada came over with a tall pitcher of beer, along with a couple of shots. “Thanks, girl,” he said, slapping her ass as she headed back to the bar. He turned back to Mitch. “Fuck, whiteboi, look at those fuckin’ thighs. She got some thicc slabs of dark meat, just the way I like it.”
Mitch watched Jada’s ass sway away. Sure, her ass looked amazing, but he didn’t feel compelled to comment. He knew he’d never get her attention. To Jada, Mitch was a customer who might provide a tip, but nothing more. “What did you order?” he asked.
Tyrone’s gaze was superglued to Jada’s tight cheeks until he heard Mitch’s question. “Huh? What’d you ask me jus’ now, whiteboi?”
“What’s in the shot glass?” Mitch asked.
Tyrone laughed, remembering an earlier time. “It ain’t gasoline, whiteboi. Just drink the mo’fucker. I bought you some good shit. Top shelf shit. This shit ain’t cheap.”
Mitch sniffed the rim of the shot glass, and Tyrone exploded, arms flailing everywhere. “Whatchu doin’ right now, whiteboi? Jus’ fuckin’ drink it!” Tyrone lifted his own shot, tilted his head back and poured the spirit into his mouth. “Don’ you truss me? This some fuckin’ high-dollar beverage right here! I ain’t poisonin’ you!”
“I’ll tell you why I’m nervous in a second,” said Mitch, “but first, thank you for whatever the hell this is.” He lifted the glass to his lips.
“It’s vodka, whiteboi,” Tyrone disclosed. “Fresh from Iceland.”
Mitch half-swallowed, panicked and coughed. He sprayed a fine mist of half-swallowed vodka all over Tyrone.
“Hey, Jada,” hollered Tyrone, “get this whiteboi another shot, girl! He spat half o’ this high-dollar shit all over me!”
Mitch’s face turned red, and he wordlessly crossed his arms across his face as if to say ‘no!’ But Jada didn’t see him, and half a minute later, both he and Tyrone had another shot of icy Icelandic vodka on the table in front of them.
Mitch’s breath slowly returned to normal, and as he looked across the table, he saw Tyrone, elbows on the table, his head resting on the heels of his hands, fully focused on him. “You said befo’ you got somethin’ to tell me, didn’t you, whiteboi?” he whispered.
Mitch tried hard to put his brain in gear, but the pose Tyrone had struck on the other side of the table, as he gave Mitch his undivided attention, was hypnotically sexy. He took a mental snapshot of Tyrone’s beautifully upturned face, knowing he’d jack off to it for years to come. Maybe the vodka was going to his head, but he desperately wanted to crawl under the table and jam his face in Tyrone’s sweaty groin, fishing out his sweet meat, feeling the weight of his beautiful BBC in his hands…
Mitch shook his consciousness back to reality. Very briefly, he summarised what had happened earlier today — his breakfast, his run in the park, his unwanted encounter with his wife, and his disastrous Icelandic lunch with her.
“So you see why I freaked out when you said the vodka was from Iceland? I’m instantly associating the whole country with sheep balls.”
“I don’t know shit about Iceland,” Tyrone replied, “but ‘pparently those motherfuckers got the best fuckin’ water in the world. Like, they tell me it’s like drinkin’ pure spring water straight from the kitchen faucet. You ever tried drinkin’ water straight from a kitchen in Harlem? There’s a reason we drink so much bottled water; the liquid shit they funnel into our apartments is fuckin’ unhygienic, and they tell us we’ meant to be a first world country. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout eatin’ sheep’s balls, but if peeps in Iceland can use their water to make vodka, I’m on board. I’m a fuckin’ patriot, but I’d much rather spend my hard-earned cash on a quality imported beverage, even if it’s more expensive, than on shitty American vodka. Idaho got too many fuckin’ potatoes and not enough good water. Fuck that bullshit.”
Tyrone’s commentary on the discerning consumer’s approach to the theory of monopolistic competition as it pertained to international trade was intriguing, but Mitch was much more curious to find out how Tyrone collected his ‘hard-earned cash’. He still hadn’t found out, but it was a line of inquiry that’d need to wait for another day. He had something else he needed to tell Tyrone before Leroy arrived.
They clinked their shot glasses and drank.
“OK, dude,” said Mitch, “you need to shut up for a few minutes while I tell you some shit.”
Tyrone took a slug of his beer. His thick, tattooed fingers gestured ‘go ‘head, whiteboi, tell me.’
“Last Saturday morning, I was out when my wife came back to the apartment to collect some stuff. The reason I knew she’d been there is because she left me a note on the kitchen counter. I mean, her name is on the lease, she has a key, and most of her worldly possessions are still there, so even though we’re separated, I expect she’ll come back from time to time to collect some of her stuff, and I guess I was grateful that she happened to pick a time when I wasn’t home. I assumed maybe she wanted to take some fresh clothes from her wardrobe with her, or some shoes, or some perfume, or whatever. Who cares. But while she was there, she took my dildo. She knew where I kept it, but she probably didn’t know what I used it for.”
“She’d prolly have a reasonable idea,” Tyrone interrupted.
Mitch frowned. “Shut the fuck up, dude. Let me tell you my fucking story.”
Tyrone lifted his beer to his mouth in silence, looking his whiteboi in the eye.
“I went through all of my drawers trying to find it,” Mitch continued, “and it absolutely was not there. I’d used it just the day before, and I distinctly remembered cleaning it up and putting it back where it belongs, in my sock drawer. The only problem was Trina knew where I kept it, too, which I guess is why she took it. After emptying my drawers, I found a cryptic note she’d left me on the kitchen counter. It said something like ‘by the way, I borrowed something of yours, but don’t worry, I’ll look after it and I’ll bring it back soon,’ so as soon as I read that, I knew exactly what she’d taken. I jacked off later that night watching some interracial porn, and while I still got my nut, it wasn’t the same. The next morning, I woke up knowing I couldn’t call Trina demanding my dildo back…”
Tyrone wondered ‘why the fuck not, it’s your shit?’ but he’d been sworn to silence. He was also wondering what — or who — Mitch thought about while he fucked himself.
“… even though I was pissed as fuck that she took something of mine with her. She can take as much of her own shit with her, and that’s no problem for me; but it sure as fuck becomes a problem when she takes *my* stuff, and it’s even harder to bear when she takes something of mine that she ridiculed me for. So on Sunday morning, I googled some adult bookstores, because I wanted to buy a replacement. I could’ve easily purchased one online, but it would’ve taken a few days to be delivered, and I needed it as soon as I could get it. Like, I fucking *needed* that big black dildo jammed way deep in my pussy as soon as possible.”
Tyrone’s face was pure curiosity. He was boning up under the table, imagining his thick BBC ploughing his whiteboi’s tight hole to a sweet, beautiful sissygasm.
Mitch continued. “Dude, you’ll probably never know how good it feels to have something in your ass, and how desperately you miss it when it isn’t available. So anyway, I went to a store in midtown, I found what I wanted and bought it. But just as I was about to leave to head home for some hot whiteboi sex, the guy behind the counter must’ve noticed something about me. He just said one word to me — ‘gloryhole?’ — and I nodded. I’d never been in a gloryhole before, on either side of the wall, so this was a bit fucked up right from the get-go, but I wanted to find out…”
Tyrone was interested, but confused. “Hey, hey,” he gently interrupted, “wait a second. Why the fuck you’ tellin’ me all this shit, whiteboi? I ain’t followin’ you.”
Mitch grinned. “Because Leroy was on the other side of the wall.”
Tyrone sat silently for a few seconds before responding. “That’s some bullshit right there.”
Mitch met Tyrone’s gaze. “It’s true.”
“Bullshit,” Tyrone repeated. “I don’ believe you. My dude gets mo’ than enough pussy; why you think he’ gon’ go to a fuckin’ gloryhole, whiteboi?”
This was a level of denial Mitch hadn’t expected.
“I can’t answer that question. I don’t know. I was just as surprised as you seem to be.”
Tyrone remained silent, thinking. He couldn’t think of any reason why Mitch would lie to him. “OK, so let’s assume it was him. How could you tell?”
“Because his voice is loud and instantly recognisable, and because… well… because I recognised his penis. I recognised how it smelled and how it tasted.” Mitch paused momentarily before continuing. “I didn’t say a word the whole time. Even though it felt so fucking good sucking him off, I wouldn’t even let myself moan, in case he recognised something about my voice. I did everything I could to disguise myself. I used my nails instead of my fingertips, and other than my lips and mouth, I made sure my face didn’t make any contact with his dick…”
Tyrone waited silently for Mitch to continue, but the story concluded much more quickly than expected.
“He poked his balls through the hole,” said Mitch, “and I sucked them hard. I think he was jacking himself off on the other side of the wall while I was sucking on his nuts, because when he thrust his shaft back through the hole, he was mighty thick. Like, I know his length is just a little shorter than yours, but fuck, when he jammed his dick back down my throat, he felt ginormous. I gasped for air, I heard him moan, and then he nutted in my mouth. The modern-day whiteboi romance, right?”
Tyrone’s erection had completely deflated. He felt a kind of muddy, indistinct anxiousness slowly building up inside. He couldn’t think of any reason to disbelieve what he was hearing, but he found it hard to imagine Leroy as the gloryhole type. Surely this topic would’ve come up in conversation over the many years they’ve been friends. Fuck, they’d talked about sex from a million different angles and perspectives, so why would this be a no-go area? He finished the rest of his beer and waved Jada over for a couple of refills. He felt a little drunk.
Through his thickening alcohol fog, Tyrone tried to zero in on what it was that was making him feel uncomfortable. Every man on the planet loves to get his dick sucked, and if anonymity added a little mysterious spice to the exchange for some people, he was in no position to judge.
No, that wasn’t it.
What burned him up was that he didn’t know anything about it.
He and Leroy had been tight as fuck since elementary school. They told each other everything about their lives. Everything. Two brothers in the hood could never have been so close as he and Leroy. There’d never been any secrets in their friendship until now.
He tried hard to remember if he and Leroy had ever had a conversation about gloryholes, but he came up blank.
It was only a little thing, but even so, Tyrone felt deceived. And now he wondered what else Leroy might be keeping from him.
For the next few moments, his conversation with Mitch was a little quiet. Tyrone found himself lost in his own thoughts. He desperately wanted to disbelieve what he was hearing, but the more Mitch revealed, the more it felt like it was the truth. But was he making too much of this? What was so wrong about going to a gloryhole? As long as both people on opposite sides of the wall were getting their fix and nobody got hurt, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Sure, Tyrone had never had a gloryhole experience of his own, but he’d never wanted or needed to have one. He’d never had a need to get his dick sucked by an anonymous mouth; his swagger and his size meant there were no shortage of hoes around town willing to get on their knees for him, and he thought Leroy had pretty much the same deal. Or maybe Leroy had unexpectedly found himself in a different part of town on that specific day for an unrelated reason, and felt the need to visit an adult establishment and then ended up…
Mitch watched Tyrone thinking. “I’m sorry… have I upset you?”
Of course he hadn’t. This wasn’t about Mitch, this was about Leroy. Tyrone was about to tell Mitch that everything between the two of them was cool, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, the door flew open and Leroy entered. He sat down next to Mitch and opposite Tyrone. There was a short flurry of physical greetings, but something about Tyrone’s hug felt reserved and distant. Leroy sensed that feel something in the air wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
Jada noticed Leroy’s arrival. She poured a beer for him and brought it over to their booth. “Thanks, girl,” he grinned. “I ‘ppreciate it.” Jada smiled tersely as if to say ‘if you appreciate it, please leave me a big fucking tip tonight, because I’m living in my car with my son right now, his dad is gone, and if it wasn’t for this fucking bar, I wouldn’t know where our next meal was coming from.’
Leroy sipped his beer and looked across the table. He noticed that Tyrone looked sullen and a little uncomfortable. Maybe this was why things didn’t feel right. “You good, bruh?” he asked.
Tyrone responded wordlessly: he lifted his glass of beer, but failed to meet Leroy’s eyes. He’d been looking forward to tonight, but after what Mitch had just told him, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to be here anymore. He waved to Jada in search of another hit of expensive Icelandic vodka. Three cool shot glasses arrived. Tyrone smashed his back as soon as it landed, and he asked Jada for yet another.
Tyrone was a big boy who knew how to handle his alcohol, but Jada couldn’t help noticing how much he’d consumed in such a short space of time.
Leroy was his best buddy. They’d known each other since elementary school… he cared for Leroy, and in a brotherly way, he loved him deeply… but he now knew there was something about Leroy’s life that had been hidden from him, and he couldn’t think of any reason why.
He looked at the man sitting across the booth from him, who he’d known since like forever, in an entirely different light.
This wasn’t the evening Tyrone expected when he invited his whiteboi up to the hood. He thought he and his bro Leroy would enjoy some chill drinks before heading back to his crib to fuck their whiteboi all night long, but right now, that scenario felt remote. He tried to pretend everything was OK, but failed miserably. “Yeah, bruh,” he replied, looking out the window, subconsciously avoiding Leroy’s gaze. “All good. What ’bout you?”
There was something in Tyrone’s demeanour that felt challenging and unfriendly. Leroy had seen the darker side of his bro’s personality a few times before, and it wasn’t pretty. He didn’t want an argument. “Yeah, I mean, I can’t complain ’bout nothin’,” came his shallow response.
There was an unmistakeable tension in the air.
Mitch’s eyes darted nervously back and forth. Something very serious was taking place, and he worried that his innocent disclosure to Tyrone had set off a chain reaction of mistrust he hadn’t anticipated.
Leroy felt — no, it was more than a feeling, he *knew* now — that there was something poisonous in the air, but its cause was still a mystery. “Seriously, Tyrone, are you OK right now? It’s *me* askin’ you, bruh. Yo’ boy Leroy. You pissed at me fo’ somethin’? What’s up? You can tell me anything.”
Leroy wanted to try to pull Tyrone’s mood out of a nosedive, but his last sentence landed like an anvil on a sidewalk. He didn’t know it, they were now in a world of secrets. From Tyrone’s perspective, the days and nights of “you can tell me anything” were over.
Tyrone took a heavy, heavy gulp of his beer, draining the remainder, gulping down all the froth. He angrily slammed the empty glass back down on the table so hard it was a miracle it didn’t shatter. “Errythin’s coo’, dude. Never felt better,” he boomed, finally meeting Leroy’s gaze. The merest hint of a snarl played across his lips. “I’m fine.”
Mitch jumped in fright, recoiling at the sound. He felt scared. He’d never seen these guys disagree over anything before, yet he seemed to have scored himself a ringside seat to a fight, and he was the one who’d rung the bell.
He still didn’t know that this wasn’t about him, but given the way Tyrone’s mood disintegrated straight after he told his tale, Mitch couldn’t have drawn any other conclusion. He sat in the booth, trapped between a pair of huge alpha thugs, feeling certain he’d lit a fuse.
The tension continued to rise.
Leroy looked out the window for a second, watching the traffic, breathing deeply as he collected his thoughts. “You know what, dude?” he said. “I think I’m jus’ gon’ leave you to yo’ own fuckin’ personal melodrama, bruh. I can tell you’ shitty wit’ me ’bout somethin’, and I fuckin’ need you to tell me ’bout it so we can get whatever the hell this shit is out in the open so we can fuckin’ deal and move on. How’m I expected to try to make shit better if I don’ know why you’ pissed at me?”
He paused, waiting for Tyrone to say something — anything! — but there was only silence.
“OK, bro, so you jus’ gon’ gimme that fuckin’ “nah, bruh errythin’ cool” bullshit ‘gain. I mean, shit, dude, I thought we’ gon’ have a chill night, jus’ you an’ me and whiteboi over here, but nah, fuck this shit. I need to tell you, my homie, I’m gettin’ tired as hell of yo’ passive-aggressive shit lately. I can’t fuckin’ deal with this fuckin’ shitty attitude no more. I’m out.”
For a few seconds, Leroy gently tried to catch Tyrone’s eyes, seeking some kind of response, but Tyrone’s fierce glance was directed downward at the table. There was no connection.
In heartbreaking disappointment, Leroy downed the rest of his beer, threw a crumpled twenty-dollar bill on the table, and left. As he walked towards the door, he regretted the heat of his impassioned monologue, but the words were out there now, and he couldn’t take them back.
Tyrone’s dark eyes remained fixated on the table, exploring the cracks and crevices in the tabletop wood, seemingly searching for some kind of meaning. Mitch was too terrified to say anything. Eventually, Tyrone looked up, gazing across at the other side of the bar, not looking specifically at anyone or anything. “Fuck,” he whispered to himself. His eyes were wet, as if he’d been silently crying.
Tyrone had never had a long-term relationship. He’d never wanted one, nor had he ever needed one, because bitches formed an orderly line waiting for the privilege to service his huge, oversized black dick. The only long-term relationship with any serious emotional connection he’d ever had in his entire life was with Leroy. What just happened between them just now felt like a breakup. A bubble of unfamiliar emotions rose up, bursting through the tender, inexperienced walls of Tyrone’s emotional existence. Silently, he wiped his eyes.
Mitch had always believed that the relationship between Leroy and Tyrone was deep, long and wide, but even though that was true, he’d just discovered it was far from perfect. His gloryhole tale wasn’t a smooth pebble being cheerily skimmed across the surface of a still pond, but a meteorite heavy enough to shift tectonic plates.
Mitch had no idea his innocent story would have such serious ramifications. He retrofitted his imagination, thinking about what might’ve happened tonight if he never said anything at all about the gloryhole. He assumed Tyrone and Leroy would’ve laughed and hollered all night, slowly getting their whiteboi drunk until they decided to walk the short block back to Tyrone’s crib, where they’d get their sweet interracial fucc on until sunrise. That was the evening Mitch wanted to have, but it wasn’t going to happen tonight.
Tyrone reached into his pants and pulled out his wallet. He threw two crisp $100 bills on the table. He left the bar without another word.
Mitch sat there shaking, alone in the booth, for what felt like aeons. Slow, chill rap beats slithered out of distant speakers, and his ears caught the fragments of distant conversations. He still had half a beer in front of him. His brain felt like it had been severed from his body; he had absolutely no idea what to do or what to think. Anxiety and nervousness had made his mouth feel as arid as a desert. Unthinkingly, he reached out, grabbing the glass with two unsteady hands to take a sip. Seconds later, his mouth felt dry again. His pitcher was empty within minutes.
Despite the alcohol he’d consumed, he felt wired, unable to sit still, but not sure what to do or where to go. He folded his arms on the table and rested his chin on them. His brow was furrowed.
Jada saw the quiet explosion from behind the bar. She approached Mitch, offering him a cool glass of water. She collected the bills that had accumulated on the table and stuffed them down her cleavage. “On the house,” she said, gently placing the chilly H2O in front of Mitch’s nose.
He thanked her, drank it down quickly, then excused himself for a moment. He desperately needed to take a piss.
He stared at the bathroom wall as his stream slowly began, reading the explicit graffiti scrawled on the painted bricks. He finished what he needed to do and shook the stray droplets away from his dicklet. His intention was to collect his backpack and leave the bar as quickly and as quietly as possible, possibly never to return. There was no point spending any more time in Harlem tonight.
He didn’t count on seeing Jada sitting at his booth, waiting for him to return. “Hey, whiteboi, sit down wit’ me,” she said. Mitch felt uncertain, but fuck it, what else was he gonna do?
For now, Mitch remained standing. “Why?”
“Becuz I needs talk wit’ you.”
Slowly and uncertainly, Mitch took a seat opposite the waitress. He remembered Tyrone’s commentary on the tightness of Jada’s ass, but as Mitch sat across from her in the booth, he couldn’t help noticing how full and plump her lips were. Despite the alcohol he’d consumed, his cock moved as he imagined his dick in her wet, juicy mouth, and her dark, intense eyes looking up at him as his tiny white dicklet exploded onto her tongue.
He knew that would never, ever happen in real life.
“Firs’ all, I think I know you,” Jada began. “You’ ever eaten at a southern-fried diner on West 126th street?”
“Uhh…” began Mitch.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ know you. You was the dude who tried to eat half a fuckin’ bird a few months ago and then threw up in our bat’room.”
Mitch had tried to erase that humiliating memory from his mind, but it all came flooding back. He hung his head in shame. “Yeah, that was me. And I remember you, too. I remember you waited our table. My wife and I had never eaten in Harlem before, and it was my idea. I remember you were sweet as candy to my wife, but you gave me sass all night. And I remember I left a tip that was twice as big as the meal.”
Jada laughed. “Yeah, dude, yo’ tip covered rent for a whole week. And if I was sweet to yo’ wife, it’s prolly ’cause she got some fat ass fuckin’ titties. I think I ‘member her. How the fuck a boy like you land a fine bitch like that?”
Mitch didn’t answer the waitress’s question. He guessed Jada didn’t look closely enough that night to realise Trina’s tits are fake. Did that matter? He shrugged. He was still fixated on watching Jada’s mouth and tongue move as she spoke. It was the only thing keeping his brain from imploding under the weight of what had just transpired.
“I saw what happened befo’,” Jada disclosed. “I mean, tonight, with you, Leroy and Tyrone, that is. And now that I recall, they was both at the diner on 126th that night when it seemed you couldn’t pay, and they took you out back to settle yo’ account. Is that right?”
Mitch nodded, recalling the events that changed the path of his life. Their intimidation was the reason he left Jada such a big tip. That, plus the outline of their massive BBCs hidden inside their pants.
Jada took a deep breath. “OK, dude, so here’s what you gots to know ’bout ’em both.” She waved a hand in the air, and magically, half a minute later, two beers arrived. “I’m off the clock,” she explained. “OK, whiteboi, I need to fuckin’ set you straight. Drink up. We gon’ talk, you an’ me.”
Mitch’s head was spinning. All that Icelandic vodka. “I’m hungry,” he said.
“Wan’ me get you a southern-fried bird from 126th?” taunted Jada. “Full, thick and juicy, just how I remember you like it.”
Mitch grabbed his stomach. “Uhh… some fries?”
“Comin’ right up,” said Jada. Ten minutes later, a large serve of fries landed on the table, complete with the full range of condiments. “On the house. Just don’ puke it up.”
Mitch’s hungry eyes widened as he dunked a thick slice of potato into a deep pool of ketchup. After half a dozen round trips, he was ready to listen.
“Now you best listen to me good, whiteboi,” Jada began, “and stop watching my fuckin’ mouth while I talk. I’m onto you, and I know what you is thinkin’. Yeah, whiteboi, I gi’ the best fuckin’ head in the entire fuckin’ borough o’ Manhattan, but you ain’t gettin’ none, so jus’ you sit still an’ listen to the shit I gots tell you.”
Mitch wondered how she could possibly have known what he was thinking. She was right, she’d seen right through him. He was watching her mouth again.
“You still ain’ listenin’, is you?”
Mitch didn’t know how to respond. If Jada was chewing gum right now, he would’ve had to run to the bathroom to jack off.
“I ain’t got yo’ ‘ttention ri’ now, do I?”
Mitch was fixated on Jada’s lips and tongue. He couldn’t help it. His small white penis had only ever been in one person’s mouth before in his life: his wife’s.
“Is yo’ dick twitchin’ right now, whiteboi?”
Shamefully, Mitch nodded.
Jada sighed. She stood up before addressing her co-workers. “Yo, bitches,” she hollered, “keep this mo’fuckin’ booth free. I’m gon’ need it ‘gain. I’ll be back in two minutes.” She looked Mitch up and down. “Maybe one and a half.”
She grabbed Mitch’s hand and dragged him to the storeroom. She pushed him up against a wall, kneeled, unzipped his pants, and extracted his erect dick. She raised a disappointed eyebrow. Jada had sucked smaller dicks than Mitch’s before, but not very many, and this wasn’t gonna be a challenge for her. She placed Mitch’s dicklet inside her mouth, stroked it up and down a couple of times, and as he felt her tongue tickling the underside of his small shaft, his balls twitched. She didn’t even need to suck.
Mitch’s breath became shallow, and he groaned as he unloaded his tiny stream of whiteboi goo into Jada’s mouth. This had been one of the strangest days of Mitch’s life, like, ever.
Jada knew she’d brought Mitch to orgasm, though she was surprised at how little time it took. She felt liquid on her tongue, but the quantity was small, and it didn’t really taste like anything.
She stood up again. “We good now, whiteboi? You’ gon’ listen to me?”
Mitch was still trying to stop his trembling knees from giving way. He nodded. Right now, he wasn’t sure if he was capable of speech.
“OK, so follow me back to the bar. And now you’ bes’ listen to me now instead of watchin’ my mouf move, ‘cuz I gots a fuckin’ story for you. Hopefully that blowjob took yo’ mind off yo’ shit, because you need to fuckin’ listen to me. You hear me, whiteboi?”
“Yeah.” Mitch nodded and followed her. Two minutes later, they were re-seated, facing each other. Their beers were still on the table, and still icy cool. They hadn’t been gone long.
Jada lifted her glass. Under normal post-blowjob circumstances, she’d be aiming to rinse the last stray remnants of sticky nut out of her mouth, but this time, there wasn’t anything of substance to wash away. “Hey,” she commenced, “so I jus’ have to tell you this firs’ up. And I don’ really know how to say it.” She took a short breath. “So, jus’ to establish context, I’ sucked a lot of dick in my time. Big ones, small ones, fat ones, skinny ones, black ones, white ones; you name it, I’ sucked it.”
‘Here comes the report card,’ Mitch thought. He was hoping for a D-minus at best.
“I sucked a lot o’ dick, which means I’ eaten a lot o’ cum. And yours was the first load I’ ever swallowed that… well, I’ jus’ gon’ come out an’ say it… well… I could tell I made you nut, but yo’ load didn’t taste like nothing.”
“You definitely made me cum,” Mitch replied, but the revelation that his load was tasteless wasn’t exactly news to him.
“I ain’t no medical professional,” Jada said, “but you might need to see a doctor. I ain’t sure if you’ shootin’ any babies.”
Right now, fertility was the least of Mitch’s worries. The hum of the bar continued to play in Mitch’s ears.
“Class is in session, whiteboi.” Mitch wished Jada was her teacher. His mission every morning would to be the naughtiest boy in class, just to find out what punishment he’d receive. His eyes were fixated on her mouth again. He couldn’t help it. He stared at the fat tongue he’d just dropped his weak, tasteless load onto.
Jada tried hard to push through Mitch’s inferior whiteboi angst, and Mitch tried hard to concentrate on what Jada had to say.
“Tell me ’bout yo’ longest friendship.” The bar moved around them.
Mitch threw his mind back. “Well, I’ve worked in the same office for a few years with the same people…”
Jada cut him off. “No, dude, that’s not what I meant. You sit at a desk across from some other corporate dude you might grab a coffee with? No.” She rubbed her temples. “Forget work. Like, you ever had a friendship that’s lasted for, like, let’s say, ten years?”
All of Mitch’s high school friends left his orbit long ago, and he could barely recall any of his Harvard colleagues. He couldn’t answer Jada’s question definitively, but he did his best. “Probably not. But what do you mean by friendship?”
Jada couldn’t believe he asked that question. “The actual fuck, whiteboi? You bein’ serious wit’ me right now?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, friendship can mean many different things, I guess.”
OK, Jada thought, at least Mitch is just trying to focus. He looked genuinely thoughtful, and she tried to reframe the conversation around how Tyrone and Leroy felt about each other. “You ever had a buddy you felt comfortable with, but also deeply connected to? Like, someone you’d go to a bar with to kick back an’ watch sports with an’ you’d both feel completely relaxed as you watched the game and shit-talked each other, but also someone you’d tell your deepest fears, insecurities and secrets, knowing anything you said was safe? Someone you’d drop errythin’ fo’ if he ever needed yo’ help, and you’d hope and expect he’d do the same fo’ you?”
Mitch thought hard. “I don’t really think so. I guess I’ve always been a loner. In trying times, I guess I look after myself.”
Jada filed that admission away. “OK, so now you fuckin’ listen to me closely, whiteboi. These two bulls you’ messin’ wit’ known each other most of their entire fuckin’ lives…”
“Since elementary school,” Mitch interrupted.
Jada’s eyes went wide. “How’ you know that shit?”
Mitch sipped his beer. “Because they told me.”
Jada waited for a moment. “You still know anyone from yo’ own elementary class, whiteboi?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t believe so.”
Jada sighed. “So, lemme ask you this. When you go watch sports on the weekend, who you go with?”
“I’ve never really been a sports guy,” Mitch replied, “other than basketball. My wife isn’t into it, so I watch on my own. I’ve watched some hoops on TV with Tyrone, though. That was cool.” He didn’t tell her what happened after the game ended.
Mitch was a tough psychological nut for Jada to crack, yet he was trying to be as open as possible. “OK, so… fuck… forget sports. Who’ you chill wit’? What do you upper eas’ si’ types get down wit’? Art, I assume. You’ all highbrow types. Who do you go to gallery openings an’ yo’ fuckin’ poetry readings with?”
Mitch wasn’t really big on art. “Trina, I guess.”
“Yo’ big-titted wife?”
“Yeah.” Mitch couldn’t help noticing how fixated Jada was on his wife’s fake rack.
“OK. Forget sports, forget art. You ever go to the fuckin’ movies or to watch a goddamn show?”
“Yeah,” said Mitch, “sometimes, but not often. Again, most of the time I go with Trina. I like rap, but when I go to shows, I go on my own. Trina isn’t into rap or hip-hop.”
It surprised Jada to learn that Mitch was into rap, but she stayed on mission. “Imma cut to the chase, whiteboi, ‘cuz I needs to get back to work. You got any friends at all?”
For the first time this entire conversation, Mitch met her gaze. He looked her straight in the face, this time concentrating on her eyes, and not her mouth. “You’re making me sound like I’m an anti-social hermit. I think I have a different concept of friendship to what you’re describing. I have many acquaintances, but for me, ‘friend’ is a very high standard. I prefer to be alone or with just a few others than in a huge crowd of people, but that doesn’t mean I’m bereft of social skills. I can sit by myself in a sports bar watching a game of hoops and talk to the guy sitting next to me, or not — it really doesn’t matter all that much to me. I’m happy either way. I can strike up interesting conversations at dinner parties and engage in sparkling repartee, but I’d just as soon not go in the first place. In general, I like to read, I like to think, and I guess that makes me an introvert. On balance, I prefer to live my life inside my own head.”
“So you don’ know what it’s like to have a friendship like Tyrone and Leroy have?”
Mitch shook his head. “Ontology is a slippery concept.”
Jada blinked. “I don’ know what the fuck you said just now, brainiac whiteboi.”
“What I mean is, I don’t know what it feels like to be inside Tyrone’s head, or Leroy’s either, so I can’t describe in my own words what their mutual friendship means to each other. And neither can you,” Mitch challenged, “nor anyone else. But on the basis of what you’re describing, my answer is probably no. I’ve never had a friendship like theirs. Not even close.”
“So it sounds like you already know how important their relationship is to each other.”
“No!” Mitch exploded. “How the fuck could I answer ‘yes’ to that question given what I just said? I can’t transplant my brain into either of their skulls, and I’ve had nothing in my own life to compare to what you’re describing. Sure, I get that their relationship is important to each of them, but that doesn’t mean I know how either of them *feel*. Like, are you even listening to what I’m saying?”
Jada sat quietly for a while as she tried to take Mitch’s reply on board.
Mitch wasn’t sure where Jada was going. He wondered if Jada was trying to warn him that Leroy and Tyrone were, in some unexplainable way, co-dependent. “Are you saying… umm… are you trying to tell me I’m interfering in something I shouldn’t be involved with?”
Jada said nothing.
“Are you saying I should leave them both alone?”
Again, Jada said nothing.
“What do you think I should do?”
Silence.
Mitch felt a sudden urge to leave. He needed to be somewhere else right now — anywhere else but here. He began to stand up, collecting his backpack.
“Sit yo’ fat mo’fuckin’ whiteboi ass down,” commanded Jada. “I ain’t done wit’ you.”
Mitch resumed his seat. He sat quiet and still, like a good boy in a classroom. He sipped his beer.
“Tell me what you know ’bout these bulls yo’ messin’ wit’,” Jada boomed.
“I think I told you everything I know.”
“Tell me again.”
“They’ve known each other since they were at school,” repeated Mitch, “they’ve both got beautiful bodies, their big black dicks are enormous, they’re both into basketball, and they’re straight.”
“Tell me that las’ bit ‘gain,” Jada said.
Mitch cleared his throat. “They’re straight.”
“That’s right, whiteboi. They’ fuckin’ straight.”
“Well, that’s what they told me, at least,” Mitch clarified.
Jada continued. “I seen ’em both many years ploughin’ their fields, sowin’ their oats. Fuck, boi, it’s a goddamn mo’fuckin’ miracle neither o’ them is a daddy yet, when I think about how many seeds they sowed. These boys both all ’bout the pussy, and let me tell you, whiteboi, I’ll let Tyrone plough my asshole whenever he wants to, but he ain’t never gettin’ in my puss. I ain’t never lettin’ him knock me up, my life is already fucked. I mean, I love my boy, but I sure ’nuff ain’t lookin’ for another hungry mouf to feed right now.”
Mitch wasn’t sure what to say.
“So, you see what I’m sayin’ here?”
“No,” replied Mitch. “I don’t.”
“These brothers been brothers since forever. They ain’t into dudes, and they ain’t ever been befo’, not leas’ since I noticed. They got all the fuckin’ mouths, pussies and assholes they could ever want. But they’ both hung up right now.”
Mitch was waiting at the far end of the runway, waiting for Jada’s crypticism to land.
“They’ both hung up on *you*, whiteboi.”
Mitch felt stunned. He had no idea how to respond to what Jada had just said. He coughed, clearing his throat. “I don’t understand.”
“Lemme try to explain another way,” ventured Jada. “They’ both straight. You said so yo’self. But they emotionally invested in each other like you wouldn’t fuckin’ believe. It’s like they’ in a committed relationship with each other in every possible way apart from sex, but they don’t ever get their fucc on with’ each other, because, like I said befo’, they’ straight. And that’s where you come in, whiteboi. When they’ both havin’ sex wit’ you, it’s like they’ fuckin’ each other, *through* you.”
Mitch’s jaw dropped.
“Does that make sense, whiteboi?”
“No, not really.” If Mitch was honest with himself, this was one of the most batshit crazy theories he’d ever heard in his life.
“I need to get back to work soon, whiteboi. I ain’t no psychologist, but I think what I’m sayin’ is true ’nuff.” Jada tapped her index finger against the side of her skull. “Think ’bout it.”
Mitch paused for a second, thinking very deeply. He looked up at Jada, meeting her eyes. “I know you only saw what happened tonight from afar,” he said, “but do you want to know the details?”
Jada looked across the room. The bar was filling up. “Gimme the short version,” she said, impatiently.
“OK, here’s the TL;DR version of events. I had a fat black dildo hidden in my sock drawer at home. I used to fuck myself with it. My wife found out where I kept it, and even though we’re separated and she’s living somewhere else, she came back to the apartment one day while I was out so she could collect some of her stuff. But while she was there, she ‘borrowed’ my dildo, leaving a note for me on the kitchen counter. So the next day I went to a store in Midtown to buy a new one, but while I was there, an opportunity came up to suck some gloryhole dick. I’d never been in a gloryhole before, on either side, but I was stunned when Leroy poked his fat cock through the wall. It was definitely him; don’t ask me why, I just knew it was. I sucked a load out of him. Last night, Tyrone threw me a bootycall, and as if I was gonna say no. I hoped the three of us would fuck all night tonight, but I asked Tyrone to meet me half an hour earlier so I could tell him I’d sucked Leroy’s cock at a Chelsea bookstore. I thought he would’ve found it amusing, but he got shitty, and the whole thing was surprising and scary.”
Jada listened intently before responding. “Imma say two things to you, whiteboi. Firs’ of all, these boys ain’t got no secrets from each other, and it sounds to me like you just tol’ Tyrone something about his bruh he didn’t already know. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the first time ever in Tyrone’s goddamn life that that’s ever happened, and I can see why it’d cut him up. Second, you an’ Leroy had a sexual experience together, even though you were the only one who was wise to it, an’ here you are gloatin’ about it to Tyrone. Now don’ get me wrong, I know you didn’t mean any harm, but maybe Tyrone’s worried he gon’ lose you to his best friend.”
“Fuck, that’s a lot to take in.” Mitch remembered that he and Leroy had had sex one other time, in Leroy’s apartment, that Tyrone didn’t know about. Another secret. “I knew they were close, but… why would they be hung up on *me*? I mean, I find that so hard to believe. They’re kings of the streets and gods in the sack, and I’m nothing and nobody.”
For the first time, Jada’s facial expression softened. “Not to them, you ain’t.” Her brow furrowed again. “And you’ best think better of yo’self, whiteboi. You’ right, these boys are kings o’ the mo’fuckin’ streets, and if they got you in their sights, you be sure you’ a li’l bit more than nothin’ and nobody.”
Mitch smiled. “Thank you, Jada,” he said, calling the waitress by her first name for the first time. “I don’t know what to do next.”
“I’ll tell you what to do next, whiteboi. This gon’ be hard, but listen closely. What you do next is nothin’. You stay out of circulation. You let them get a fresh grip on their emotions. You let them recover.”
“What if they don’t?” worried Mitch.
“They’ gonna,” Jada smiled. “I’ known ’em longer ‘n you. I’ seen this shit befo’; only thing different this time is yo’ fat ass is in the frame. Shit’s gon’ work out, whiteboi. Just give them time and space. They’ gon’ work it out. Truss me.” She paused for a moment before heading back to work. “Oh, and one other las’ thing. The longer you keep yo’ distance, the more they’ gon’ fuckin’ want you.”
Mitch felt nervously optimistic. It felt like the author of his life had started writing a new chapter, one without Trina in the foreground. All he could do right now was trust in Jada’s unexpected advice. He stood to leave. “Thank you so much for what you said. Can I have a hug?”
“Sure you can, whiteboi.” She stood and embraced him. “One las’ thing befo’ you go. See a fuckin’ doctor, I’m worried about yo’ sperm count.”
Mitch smiled, not committing either way. “Thank you for everything you said.”
“And also for the blowjob, right?”
Mitch laughed. “Especially for the blowjob.”
“My mouf pretty fuckin’ fine, ain’t it?” Jada laughed.
“I’ve only got one other mouth to compare to, and yeah, you’re way better than Trina.”
Jada laughed. “Yeah, you need to fuck her fake-ass titties instead of her mouf. Get the fuck outta here, whiteboi. Shit’s gon’ work out. Just give it time.”
Mitch left the bar, feeling unusually clear-headed given how much alcohol he’d consumed. He strode across Harlem towards the subway, but paused after a couple of blocks. He looked back at the building where Leroy and Tyrone lived, in separate apartments. He wondered what they were doing and feeling. He felt for them, barely able to imagine the emotional pain they were experiencing right now.
With a heavy heart, he caught the express train back down to 86th street. He grabbed some takeout Chinese from a street vendor before heading upstairs. He turned the air conditioning on, sat on the couch and watched some TV, just to hear some background noise while he ate. After a quick shower, he climbed between the sheets.
He lubed his ass up and turned his laptop on. He logged on and found one of his favourite scenes. A chick with ridiculously huge fake plastic tits was on her knees, surrounded by ten BBCs. He forced the dildo into his tight pussy, feeling the intoxicating combination of pleasure and pain that came with anal penetration. He began fucking himself, but he couldn’t get into the mood. There was way too much on his mind. He felt intense waves of sadness for two people he’d begun to care about deeply. He had no idea his innocent story would land so hard.
He squeezed the dildo out of his ass and lobbed it onto the floor. He’d clean it up in a second.
Mitch struggled to make sense of what he’d learned tonight. Sure, he’d accepted that the relationship between Tyrone and Leroy wasn’t the emotional paradise it appeared to be. Like anyone in a close relationship, they each experienced mood swings, and they fought. But what Mitch observed tonight wasn’t a fight. In a moment of terror, he thought the situation could turn to fire, but instead it froze over. There were no angry words; instead, Mitch saw avoidance and withdrawal.
Did that point to a strength in their connection, or to a weakness? Mitch reflected on his own relationship with Trina. He didn’t enjoy arguing with her, and when Trina stepped forward in confrontation, most of the time, he stepped back. Did that make him a stronger person? He doubted it. Projecting his own perceived weakness onto his Harlem buddies, he wondered just how strong they truly were inside.
Jada had told him that they weren’t gay. Mitch had heard the same thing from them, more than once. But neither of them seemed to have any reservations about fucking *him*, so how the fuck did *that* add up? Mitch wasn’t hung up on labels. He knew he wasn’t straight: he was deeply addicted to hot black dudes. But he wasn’t totally gay either: while he didn’t want to fuck his wife anymore, he was still attracted to the female form, and his most recent sexual encounter had been with Jada’s juicy mouth. So what did that make him? He didn’t care, and it didn’t matter to him, but maybe identity mattered to people like Tyrone and Leroy. Maybe the hood they lived in was a factor. Maybe their jobs were part of the story: from the little he knew about their line of work, they had personas to uphold.
Mitch cleaned his dildo and took a quick shower before returning to bed and switching out the light. He stared at the ceiling for an hour, lost in thought about where his life had been, where it was right now, where it might lead, and what he could do to bring Tyrone and Leroy closer together.
After tonight’s events, his mind was far too active for sleep, and he needed to find a way to wind down. He reached across to his bedside table and grabbed his phone. After scrolling through a few audio hypno clips, he found the one he was looking for and pressed play.
A seductive voice began to tease and tickle his auditory senses. As the hypnotic suggestions began to land, Mitch’s breathing slowly became deeper, fuller and smoother. He enjoyed feeling his mental state begin to slow down. He exhaled deeply as the anxiety he’d stored up earlier in the night began to leave his body.
He drifted into a trance, and as he followed the suggestions in the audio, he found himself completely fixated on big black cock. His mind cycled through a mental portfolio of BBCs he’d seen in porn that he’d love to suck in real life. He picked one at random, imagining the pornstar as a tall, muscly dark-skinned basketball player having just come off the court following a tough game. He imagined kneeling down in front of him. In his trance, he smelled fresh, masculine sweat as he pulled the dark imaginary cock closer to his face. He opened his mouth and felt a thick, weighty fullness on his tongue. He felt the awkward sensation in his jaw as it stretched wide to accommodate the length and girth of the beautiful imaginary penis. He heard the sweet, satisfied moans of the imaginary basketball player standing above him, and he felt his eyes beginning to water with the effort required to fellate a penis of this size.
All five of his senses exploded as the imaginary BBC shot its sweet, sticky ghetto babies into Mitch’s mouth.
Just before the audio clip ended, Mitch jacked himself to a sweet climax. The last thing he thought about before falling asleep was the scent, feel and taste of a thick, sweet load being fired onto his eager, outstretched tongue, and all over his face.
It was still hot outside, though his apartment was crisply cool, and Mitch fell asleep as his weak emission dried quickly on his stomach. He woke up a few hours later, desperate for a pee. It was still dark outside, sunrise was still a few hours away. As he stood over the bowl, emptying his bladder, he scratched flecks of dried semen off his stomach, watching them flutter down.
He went back to bed, eyes still groggy.
He dreamed.
He dreamed he was sitting on a wooden bench, facing a gray slab of concrete squeezed between two high-density residential buildings. He was the only person around, and he wasn’t sure why he was here. White lines had been painted on the concrete, but he wasn’t sure what they signified. He looked around the area, but saw nothing of interest.
Looking back at the concrete, he noticed a one-on-one basketball game was in progress. He couldn’t make out who the players were, but they weren’t exactly playing for keeps — the game seemed informal and friendly.
Something in his dream told Mitch that the game had been in progress for some time and would shortly come to an end. Both players had worked up a serious sweat.
Both dudes were wearing caps. One player was wearing a Bulls singlet, with long dreads threaded through the back of his cap. Each of his arms were tattooed from the shoulder to the wrist. His biceps looked sculpted and firm, and Mitch had a strange, dream-like premonition that his nipples were pierced. The other player had removed his t-shirt, and Mitch could see the gold bling bouncing around his neck and off his naked chest as he moved around the court. His forearms were muscly, and even from a distance, Mitch noticed his nose was pierced.
The dude in the Bulls singlet had sweated so heavily the fabric was stuck to his chest. Sweat was pouring off the pecs of the shirtless guy — maybe this was why he’d taken his top off and thrown the fabric courtside.
It slowly dawned on Mitch that he was somewhere in Harlem, watching Leroy versus Tyrone in a friendly game of street basketball. They talked as they played, but even though Mitch could hear their voices, he couldn’t make out what either of them were saying to each other.
Tyrone had the ball, lazily dribbling it as he considered how to evade Leroy’s guard in his drive towards the hoop. His back was facing toward Leroy, which hid the ball from his opponent, but it also gave him a close-up view of Tyrone’s ass.
Leroy moved in, getting as close to Tyrone as possible. The aim was to block and physically intimidate his opponent as much as possible without committing a foul.
Leroy reached out and grabbed his opponent’s ass, squeezing his cheek. In his dream, Mitch knew this was a clear foul, but the game was informal, and Tyrone continued dribbling the ball.
For the first time, Mitch heard dialogue. “You’ gon’ need to do better than that, my bruh. You ain’t gon’ beat me just by gropin’ my ass.”
Leroy laughed. “Good thing we ain’t got a shot clock, dude, feels like you’ been dribbling for fi’ fuckin’ minutes. You gon’ take a fuckin’ shot before the sun sets, or you jus’ gon’ keep dribblin’? Because if you ain’t gon’ take a shot, Imma keep gropin’ you’ ass.”
“You hear me complainin’?” Tyrone replied.
Leroy reached around to try to steal the basketball from Tyrone’s possession, but failed. Tyrone’s back was still facing Leroy, who couldn’t see his opponent’s wide grin. “Go ‘head, do that again,” taunted Tyrone. “You ain’t gon’ get it, bro.”
It was an informal game between two good friends. Not only was there no shot clock, but there was no referee, and Leroy decided to resort to some unprofessional tactics.
He grabbed Tyrone’s shorts at the waist and yanked them down to his ankles. The basketball bounced away and off the court.
Leroy’s opponent turned around in complete surprise. His fat ten-inch penis hung low, almost as low as his knees.
From the wooden bench, Mitch watched on.
Leroy sank to his knees and swallowed the entire length of Tyrone’s cock.
Mitch looked down at his groin. He pulled the waistline of his pants down just far enough so he could jerk off.
When he looked back up at the court, Tyrone and Leroy were completely naked, lying down on the concrete in a 69 position, their sweaty black cocks buried in each other’s mouths. And it wasn’t only Leroy who was a sword-swallower; Tyrone sucked his bro’s nine inches deep enough into his throat that his tongue was able to lick the underside of his balls.
Mitch watched, masturbating furiously to the sight of these sweaty, sexy, huge-dicked basketball players, sucking each other off on a public basketball court in the middle of Harlem, not caring who saw them.
Their climaxes came quietly and simultaneously. They nutted in each other’s mouths, grateful to eat each other’s seed.
In Mitch’s dream, he dribbled a watery load over his knuckles.
In reality, his orgasm was violent enough to wake him up. He threw back the bedsheets to see what he’d done.
He’d cum so hard he’d painted the sheets a crisp, milky white.
Mitch’s mind was still reeling as he recalled imagery from his dream of Tyrone and Leroy sucking each other’s sweaty black cocks, desperate to eat each other’s nut. With two fingers, he scooped some of his own cum off the sheets and sucked it onto his tongue. It was thick, creamy and delicious.
He remembered the last time he dreamed about these two sexy black thugs, and how hard he nutted. Tonight, it happened again. He couldn’t work out why his ‘real life’ loads were so weak and pathetic, but lately, whenever he climaxed as a result of a dream, his load was full and thick, rich with potent sperm.
It was a question for another day.
Fuck, he was tired. His balls felt empty.