Flesh and Bone by William Alton Read Free Book Online

find a corner. There are too many people around, but my queen doesn’t care and who am I to argue? She goes down on me, her mouth is wet and warm and I’ve never felt this way. She works me like a top, spinning me through the room, the walls vibrating, strangers staring at me with my dick hanging out. My queen swallows me completely and when it’s over she kisses my neck.
    â€œYou taste like toothpaste,” she says and leaves.
    Where’d she go? I don’t know her name. There are no names here. No one cares that I’d just gotten a blow job in the corner of a dance hall. No one cares that this is my first time in the scene. To them, I’m just meat. They’ll eat me alive if I’m not careful.
    I go to the parking lot and smoke a cigarette. I watch the rent boys working, the hooker girls chatting on the corner. A cop drives by, slowly, watching everything, seeing nothing. This was a bad idea. I don’t belong here. I’m a small town boy. Cities are for the courageous and outrageous. I am neither. I’m just a baby queer looking for his feet.

Lifting the Shop
    â€œI ’M DISAPPOINTED,” M OM says.
    I don’t know what to say.
    â€œHow much did you steal?” she asks.
    â€œA case,” I say. “Maybe two.”
    â€œThat’s twenty bucks,” she says. “You stole twenty bucks of beer?”
    â€œI guess so.”
    She lights a cigarette. She stands in the middle of the room and stares at me.
    â€œYou couldn’t drink it all,” she says.
    â€œI have friends.”
    â€œFriends?”
    â€œPeople I know.”
    â€œThe only reason you’re not in jail is I went to high school with the chief.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œHe’s buying me dinner Friday,” she says.
    â€œYou have a date?”
    â€œIt’s about time, don’t you think?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œI can’t believe you stole beer,” she says.
    â€œI can’t believe you’re going to fuck the chief.”

Her Night Off
    M OLD AND STEAM fill the bathroom. Cracks make the mirror wild and uncertain. Mom stands there, making up her face, lining her hair into a simple part.
    â€œYou’re coming home tonight?” I ask.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œHis name’s Bobby?”
    â€œBobby,” I say. “The Chief?”
    â€œNot the Chief.”
    She brushes her teeth and lights a cigarette.
    â€œAre you fucking him?” I ask.
    â€œNot yet,” she says.
    â€œBut you will?”
    â€œProbably.”
    I think about that. I don’t like the idea of my mother getting naked with a man. It occurs to me that she has tits, that she does things I want to do. My skin crawls. My belly gets cold.
    â€œWhat’s it like?” I ask.
    â€œSex?”
    â€œSex.”
    â€œI can’t explain it.”
    â€œTry.”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    She doesn’t tell me these things. There are things in the world that mothers don’t tell their sons about. There are things in the world too big to talk about.

Giving In
    T HE BED IS huge, king sized in a queen sized room. What room there is to walk in is cluttered with clothes needing washing and empty beer cans. He lies naked next to me, his hairy legs thin and white against the dirty mattresses.
    â€œThat hurt,” I say.
    â€œYou okay?”
    â€œGive me a second.”
    Harold lights a cigarette. Smoke rises to the ceiling and rolls against the plaster. Pain roils in my gut, but there is a warm tingling too. I’ve never felt anyone inside of me before. He was slow and kind, rubbing my back, waiting for me to ease back on my own. I took all of him and he came fast so it was over, but now I’m a little ashamed. These kinds of things aren’t supposed to happen. What if someone finds out?
    I reach for a beer on the nightstand. Soon I’m going to need the bathroom, but right now I don’t want