Several more moves followed with two more of Mark’s pieces leaving the board. He was considering a change in strategy when he unexpectedly returned to the question.
“I have sometimes been curious about other guys,” he said.
“Only curious?” Don inquired.
“Well, sometimes maybe more than curious,” the younger man admitted.
Even though he was sure there was a story behind Mark’s admission, Don didn’t press him to share it. If he wanted to do so, it would have to be of his own volition. After another exchange of pawns, he did just that.
It had been his seventh month on the job and he’d just finished a delivery of medical supplies to a storage facility up in the Bronx. Since it was his last run of the day, and traffic was already backed up on the Cross Bronx Expressway, Mark decided to get something to eat before heading back to Brooklyn. The delivery site was in an industrial area, with few places to eat, but he eventually found a small bar and grill just off the highway entrance.
Being only late afternoon, there were few customers in the bar as Mark took a seat at the end of the counter and ordered a burger plate and a small beer. So it surprised him greatly when, a short time later, a slim, short haired forty-something gentleman slipped onto the stool next to him and started up a conversation. They’d only been chatting a few minutes when the man, who’d introduced himself as Sidney, unexpectedly said, “Do you know what goes good with a cold beer — a good blowjob.”
While it wasn’t a sentiment that Mark would disagree with, it wasn’t one he expected a stranger to say. He quickly glanced around to see if anyone else might have heard him — especially the bartender standing only a dozen feet away, cleaning a glass mug. If he had, Mark noted, it didn’t garner any reaction.
“I guess not,” Mark finally replied, then as a joke asked, “Know a good place to get one?”
Several times during his initial training, senior drivers had pointed out places where a guy could get his cock sucked, or, if he was really horny, his ashes hauled. They ranged from hole in the wall whorehouses to diners where a waitress might offer something not on the menu. He’d had an encounter with one of the latter on his last day of training, a sort of graduation gift arranged by his instructor.
“Just down the hall,” Sidney replied with a cock of his head, much to Mark’s confusion.
Glancing in the direction the older man had indicated, Mark saw only the doors to the storage room, which had a lock on it, and the small bathroom. He’d made use of the second when he’d first arrived, noting that it held only a small sink and single toilet.
“I don’t understand,” Mark said.
Then it hit him. He’d noted the absence of any female customers when he’d first come it, but as that was pretty much the norm at most bars he’d been in so, it hadn’t seemed unusual. When Sidney had first approached him, Mark thought the impeccably groomed man slightly effeminate, but didn’t want to make any assumptions on just that. Now he was reconsidering that choice.
“Are you interested?” Sidney asked as Mark turned his attention back to him.
Rather than reply, Mark instead surveyed the room; finding little to no interest in what might be happening down at the end of the bar. Then he again turned his head in the direction of the bathroom, thinking as he did that two men entering it together would clearly be using it for something other than its intended purpose.
“Oh don’t worry about them,” Sidney assured them when he’d noticed Mark looking at the other customers. “They’re all regulars — they know the score.”
‘Is this a gay bar?’ Mark asked himself, again glancing around as if there would be a sign somewhere.
“So, what do you say?” Sidney asked. “I’m not looking for any reciprocation, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just like taking care of cute guys like you.”
“I have a girlfriend,” Mark lied.
“One that obviously doesn’t take care of you, because if she did, you’d have already told me no,” Sidney countered.
‘Why haven’t I already said no?’ Mark asked himself.
It wasn’t like he’d actively ever sought out a guy to suck his cock, but there had been a few times when he’d wondered what it might be like. Would a guy be better than a girl, since he knows what it felt like on the receiving end? If he did let Sidney blow him, who would ever know?
“You know, an hour from now, you’re going to be stuck in traffic on the Cross-Bronx, saying to yourself that you’d wish you had,” Sidney said as he began to slide off the stool, pausing for a few seconds to give Mark a last chance to consider the offer.
“You went into the bathroom with him, didn’t you?” Don asked, even though he already knew the answer.
Mark nodded his head yes.
“And was it better than the girls you knew?” Don inquired.
“Not really,” Mark admitted. “It wasn’t bad, but not any better either. The only thing that really set it apart was that he didn’t stop when I said I was about to come.”
“Ah, I take it that the girls you’ve known weren’t swallowers,” Don grinned.
Mark’s expression said that they weren’t.
“Did you reciprocate?” Don asked, adding that he knew that Sidney had said that wasn’t necessary, but sometimes a guy got caught up in the moment and…”
“I did think about it,” Mark admitted, “but before I could decide, someone was banging on the bathroom door. He said that he didn’t care what the two of us were doing, but could we hurry it up ’cause he needed to take a piss.”
report “I see,” Don said after making another move. “And that, I’m afraid, is checkmate.”
Mark looked at the board and, now seeing the opening that he missed in his distraction, he reached out and tipped his king.
“And much like the gentleman in your story, I have to take a piss,” Don said as he excused himself, “but if you want to go for the best of three, why don’t you set up the board and order another round while I’m gone? Tell the waitress I’ll settle up later.”
-=-=-=-
“Well, I guess it’s one more for all the marbles,” Don said as he returned from the bathroom and found the board reset and two new beers sitting off to its side.
As each had already played white in a game, Don took two different colored pieces off the board and, after hiding them behind his back for a moment, presented both hands tightly closed around the rooks. Mark picked his left hand which turned out to be black, so Don would go first.
“How about we make this a bit more interesting?” Don suggested before making his opening move.
“What do you have in mind?” Mark asked.
“A small wager, not much, just enough to make winning worthwhile,” Don replied.
“How much?” Mark inquired.
“Hmm, how about five bucks?” Don offered.
“That’s not much of a bet,” Mark noted.
“Well, the amount really doesn’t matter as much as the idea that you’re playing for something. I think doing so gives you more of an incentive to play your best,” Don said. “But if you think five isn’t interesting enough, we could always make it twenty.”
From the look on Mark’s face, Don saw that twenty was probably a bit more than the younger man could afford to lose. He immediately suggested that perhaps they didn’t need to play for money at all, at least not directly.