Tree House

I tried to get Mick to build a tree house with me when I found a door in the park.

“A tree house? Man, you’re fuckin’ 16 years old, what the fuck you gonna do in a tree house?”

“I dunno, man, it’ll be ours and shit, won’t tell no one, ours, ya know.” I start dragging it over to a tree. He squats and lights a joint. “How ya gonna get it up?” He shakes the match like a thermometer.

“I dunno . . . rope, pulley thing, I guess.” He squints up at me, blows some shitty rings and stretches his arm straight out, with wrist down and tucked way

under, faggy-looking, with the joint tweezed between an upside-down “okay” sign, but looking cool. “Thanks.” I reach for the joint.

“Don’t slobber.”

“I don’t.”

“You do.” He smiles, with little comma lines at the ends of his mouth, rocking back and forth on his heels, and blinks at me. He’s got this little beauty mark under his eye on his left cheek. I keep thinking it’s a blackhead and I get urges to tie him up and squeeze it.

“Besides . . . ” He reaches back out for the joint. “Ranger Ricks will find it.”

“Naw . . . ”

I exhale through my nose. “They only look down, no one will know!” I pass off the joint and pull the door closer to the tree. “We’ll be like the Swiss Family Robinson!”

“Like who?” he laughs, and sits down on some dead leaves.

“Okay, look.” I sit on the door. “In Disney World they got their huge house.”

“Who?”

“The Swiss Family Robinson.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, see, it’s a mansion and it’s all in a tree . . . ”

“And they live there?”

“Yeah, well used to.”

“So, like, where are they now?”

“I dunno, man!”

“If it’s so fuckin’ cool, where are they now, huh?”

“Look, I went in it.”

“You climbed a tree?”

“No, it’s got stairs, like rope things.”

“Is it a ride?”

“No, just a tree house.”

“How fucking lame.”

“No, it’s so cool, we can sleep up there and not wake up all wet!”

“Fog’s up there too, asshole!”

“It’s not so wet.”

“Then play with your clit some more.” His smile is huge.

“Suck my dick.”

“Fifty dollah, man.” He holds his hand out, palm up. I turn and aim my butt over it. I grunt, “One-hundred percent pure black shit beans picked by Juan Valdez for you,

mutha fuckah.” I squeeze. He grabs my hips. “Whoohh.” I fall back on his lap.

“I think you gained some ass weight.”

“Been tryin’.” He opens his legs and I plop between them onto the dirt in front of him.

“Hey,” he says mischievously and leans toward my ear and grabs my thigh. “You hungry?” His damp and warm breath floats across my ear like velvet and the kind of whistling, slick slick noise his flight jacket makes as he takes it off makes my stomach ache, but in a good way.

“C’mere.” He puts a hand on my waist. I don’t breathe, but just bite the inside of my bottom lip too hard. His mouth, next to my ear.

“How about a fat tube steak with white gravy?” He laughs loudly and slaps my thigh like it was his. I taste blood in my mouth.

“Fuck you!” I start to get up.

“Hey, I’m kiddin’ man!” he says, surprised, and grabs one of my belt loops on the back of my pants.

“Fuck offa me!” I reach and grab the door and push forward on my knees. He puts a hand inside the gap at the top of the back of my jeans and pulls me backwards.

“I was just kidding, okay?!”

“Faggot.” I squeeze my face up hard and bite my lip more; it feels like a squirting gummy bear.

“Come on, man, I’m just, I’m sorry.”

“Let go ’cause you’re fucking pulling my pants off.” I spit some watery blood out on the door.

“Yeah, guess I am, ha, ha . . . look, I don’t mean to, I’m not laughin’ at ya, and fuck man, you’re way too fuckin’ sensitive man.” He doesn’t let go of my jeans and I hold on to the door. I can’t say anything. I feel that chill in my head, like a frozen spider web spreading out, warning me that I am going to maybe cry or something. With half his body still behind me, he leans over and kisses me on my cheek, and then again. The sound is gentle and I almost laugh. It reminds me of the first time I saw him sleep. I had bought part of a balloon off him and he invited himself to smoke it with me in the bushes in the park. He’d been up for days, and was just coming down — hard. He took a few deep puffs and, sitting up like that, fell asleep. I couldn’t believe it

because sleep just seemed like something he couldn’t, or just wouldn’t, do. He was sleeping, exposed, babyish, soft.

I turn more toward him — his nose is crushed up against my cheek and I can look down and see his black little freckle-zit. I turn a little more; he moves his head, his mouth on mine.

“You’re bleeding.” I want him to taste my curdled, lemony blood. I kiss him again, taking his lips inside mine, and I watch him swish my spit and blood around in his mouth. I watch till he swallows, and then we just stare at each other. Whiffs of his chicken soup–smelling pits keep hitting me and it sort of makes me hungry.

I look away and let go of the door. I reach back to where his hand is still in my jeans.

But he is already moving behind me, pulling down my jeans.

“Yeah, okay,” I whisper as I feel him tug hard on my pants till they crumple between my knees. “Uh, I um, didn’t shower yet.”

“Yeah, I know.” He pulls on my underwear and I hold on to them.

“Hey, it’s cool,” he says, “really, really!” I let go and scrunch up my eyes. I hear a rip.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Uh, they’re full of holes anyway, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry man, mine are air-conditioned types too.” I hear him unzip.

“Umm, should I lay down, or something?”

“Naw, doggy style is cool, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I make sucking noises with my teeth and lips as I feel him hold my hips. “Um . . . what if someone comes?” I look around.

“They won’t.” He pats my bottom.

“Over there . . . ” I point, “they can see from that horse trail . . . Put the door up against the tree.”

Heavy sigh. “You want me to?”

“C’mon.”

“Don’t move.” He wobbles over to the door, his jeans around his ankles and no underwear.

“Put it sideways.” He bends down and I can look up his crack a little. A leaf piece and stem are stuck in some butt hairs, and he has some zits he’s squeezed on his ass. I feel embarrassed for him. “Yeah, turn it that way.” I reach back

quickly and make sure nothing is stuck in there. I feel proud of not having any ass hairs.

“Okay?” He turns back, his dick out in front horizontally like a divining rod.

“Yeah . . . but . . . uh, get down.”

“I plans to, baybee.” He grins down at me. I feel like an idiot, my naked ass in the air, on all fours. He starts to walk behind me but stops and comes back. He squats next to me, his dick dangling naked between his thighs.

“You want me to suck you some first?” I ask, but don’t look up.

“No, umm . . . I mean if you want . . . look, I just  . . . uh.” He puts his hand on my head and runs his finger tips across my skinhead crewcut, then slides his fingers along the inside of my ears. My breath starts getting uneven.

“You’re, like, my best friend.”

“Whatever” is all I can say.

“C’mon, man. I mean it. And you’re . . . ”

“Put it in my mouth.” I can’t take all that stuff anymore.

“Now?”

“C’mon.” He takes one hand and wraps it around his cock and aims it toward my mouth, his other hand on my face stroking my cheeks so softly and tenderly I decide to give him the best blow job ever.

“Bad angle.” He winces as my front teeth scrape down on his shaft. I turn my head up and feel his cock slip down, and I relax my throat so I won’t gag.

“Yesss.” He starts rocking his hips faster and faster. “Oh shit.” He pulls his dick out. “I almost came,” he says, wide-eyed and serious.

“So?”

“Well, I wanna . . . ” He sits on his boots.

“Gimme tube steak and white sauce?”

“Gravy.”

“Whatever.” He crawls on his knees behind me.

“Mind if I spit?”

“Uh, go ahead.” I stare at the door with all these names and other stuff carved

in it like it must have been a bathroom door or something.

“Umm I don’t gotta bag, is that cool?”

“Yeah, just $20 more, okay?” I put a palm out behind me. He laughs and slaps my hand.

“I just hate the way it stinks for a few days after, you know.” He starts tapping on my butt.

“Hale Wilson pays extra for that.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah, loves to feltch day-old rectal come, pays $200 for the honor too!” He laughs and I do too.

“Fuck!” I flick some pebbles, and I feel him picking on a scab or something on my ass.

“Hey, do you like ever think about . . . uhh, A?” I ask quietly while I write Mick’s name in the dirt with a pinky nail. He takes a deep breath. “If I got it, I gots it already . . . too bad, ya know.”

“Yeah, me too.” He brushes off whatever he’s been picking at.

“‘Sides,” he says, “I think it’s all a government scam anyway.”

“Yeah, I seen that somewheres.” I nod my head. “Plus, a friend of Kamal’s, this voodoo chick, can like totally cure it and shit.”

“Cool, okay, let’s not talk about it.” I brush out his name before he sees it. Mick clears his throat and I feel him spread my cheeks. I hope nothing’s hiding in there. Spit, splat, spit, splat. I hold my breath, hoping that somehow he will too, in case it smells.

“Okay!” I feel him grab my hipbones and spit again, but this time on his dick because I don’t feel the wet, gooey blob. I wish I were lying on my back, my legs around him. I close my eyes and imagine that. I feel his cock head press up against me, relax, relax . . . I wish I was really fucked up. I feel a sudden hard push and a tight burning. “Ow!” I say, more pissed than hurt.

“Where is it?” he asks, as if it’s my fault, as if I’m hiding my butthole.

“Higher than wherever the fuck you’re at? You looking for a pussyhole?”

“Shut up.” I feel him spit again.

“Well, I got news for ya . . . ” I want him to use his fingers.

“You usually use lube, huh?” he asks, fumbling around again.

“Try to.” He spits again, splat, splat.

“Okay, I see it . . . ” I feel him peering into me like an overcrowded fridge.

“This is it!” He presses in while pulling back against my hips. I feel it open and him sliding in.

“You got it,” I say too quietly.

“Yeah, man!”

“You’re in.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, it’s cool.” He starts sliding it around.

“Feels . . . ” Pump, pump. “Good?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I scan all the names on the door till they’re a blur. “You? Feels, uh, good?” I ask.

“Yeah man, you’re still fuckin’ tight!” I try and turn my head toward him. “What’d you fuckin’ expect?! The great fuckin’ black hole?”

“Sorry, man . . . it’s  . . . it’s good, real good.” He’s sliding it in and out, picking up speed, going faster and faster. “How’s that?” he grunts.

“Just great!” I say too loudly, like a spaz. His hands are on my ass. I wish he’d slap it. He just pumps hard, his nuts slapping like ping pong balls against my thighs.

“Oh FUCK!”

“Hey Mick.”

“Oh yeah, fuck.”

“Know what Mick?”

“Oh, oh, YEAH!”

“You’re like . . . ”

“Oh, oh, fuck, I’m, I’m coming, I’m . . . ”

“You’re inside me!”

“I’m coming, oh yes, yes, God, fuck, God!”

“You’re inside me!” I look at the door and up at our tree house. “You’re inside of me.”