I put my palm against the bony side of his near knee. His leg moved. He still didn’t look. But his heel had gone down flat. I moved my hand up his thigh. He quivered, like a wire inside had been plucked. And raised his beer for another swallow. This time he put the bottle on top of the jukebox, and left his hand up there, sort of holding on.

I hooked one finger in the bottom of his fly—I felt his cockhead, hot and dry, against my fingertip; then the twisted nail.

He turned a little toward me, limping. His hand was still on the jukebox top. He was looking straight ahead. I opened one of the two buttons he had closed.

Somebody walked right past.

I opened the other button. I guess it was pretty dark. I took his cock in my hand: it was half again as thick as it had been, and leathery. Even though it hung straight down, it felt full. Gently as I could, I pulled it out his fly.

It looked funny.

The flesh clamped the nail so it couldn’t move at all. Even in the shadow, with nothing but the jukebox’s pastel lights, I could see it was the wrong color.

I stuck out my tongue, touched it against the place where flesh, warm, touched metal, also warm. Denny gasped and swayed. One hand swung out and flapped by his thigh. And the jukebox shook. I got my mouth real wet—spit ran down my chin—and slid it around his bloated flesh. He didn’t make any other real response; just swayed a little, so it slipped in and out. The nail, in the back of my mouth, felt funny. Once I bit a little.

“Yeah …” he whispered and kept pulling and pushing.

I let it slip more. You couldn’t tell if it was hard or soft because the skin had become so stiff. I mashed it between my teeth, this time when the head was up near the front of my mouth. From the corner of my eye I saw his hand jerk—and fall back.

Something squirted, out the piss-hole and out the side. It was a lot thicker than cum and tasted bad. I swallowed. And Denny kept swaying.

“Jesus Christ,” a familiar voice said behind me. “Little cocksucker don’t never stop!”

Somebody else laughed: that was Nigg. “Take it out and get it ready for ’im. Go ahead, I know the cocksucker.…”

“Shit, nigger,” the familiar voice said. “I been fuckin’ that kid’s face all summer. He used to be over in Pedro’s cellar—”

“Well, hey, Hawk? You used to go over there, too?”

“Sure.” The familiar voice was Hawk’s. “Me and the boys used to be there practically every goddamn night.”

“Well, Jesus Christ!” the nigger said. “Goddamn motherfucker. Jesus Christ.…”