“Shit, I’m sorry, man. I shouldn’t have said all that.”

  Lyle stood. He started for the door, but Mike’s voice stopped him from retreating.

  “Wait,” Mike said.

  Lyle hit the brakes and revolved.

  “Since this happened, you’re the only guy from work who’s made the effort to ask how I’m doing. Thanks for saying it, for making me feel good about myself.”

  “Any time,” Lyle said. “I think you’re a hell of a guy.”

  “My feet,” Mike repeated, lifting up one of his giants and examining it. “You think they’re sexy?”

  “Oh, very much so,” Lyle said. “Most men don’t know it, but their feet are their most underrated sex organs.”

  Lyle couldn’t believe what happened next, any more than Mike seemed able to comprehend just how incredible the unthinkable idea could feel. With the baseball game droning on low in the background, Lyle sat Indian-style between Mike’s legs. Mike reclined in his big chair, offering his feet, one at a time, into Lyle’s hands.

  “Dude…” Mike moaned.

  Lyle applied gentle but firm pressure and massaged Mike’s naked foot from ankle to instep, sole to topside, eventually reaching toes. Starting with the small one, Lyle rubbed them in order, all the way to the big toe.

  Mike shifted in his seat and groaned, signs that Lyle at first assumed were due to the other man’s discomfort.

  “Want me to stop?”

  “Hell, no,” Mike sighed, closing his eyes. His hairy throat knotted with a difficult swallow, something not lost on Lyle. As aware of Mike as he was, Lyle didn’t realize his cock had gotten stiff until he shifted to accommodate the man’s other foot.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Feels great, pal,” Mike said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Lyle drew in a deep breath. “I can make it feel even better…if you want.”

  Eyes still closed, Mike nodded.

  Lyle raised Mike’s foot to his mouth and began to suckle his big toe, as though it were a smaller version of his cock.

  “Fuck,” Mike growled. “Aw, fuck…”

  Lyle continued nursing on Mike’s toes, but worried he’d gone too far, that the realization of the line they’d crossed would hit fully home to Mike, sending a man who had already been sorely tested by life in recent weeks into a blind rage.

  “Fuck,” Mike repeated.

  Lyle glanced up to see Mike’s eyes were open, as if telegraphing that he had, indeed, come out of his trance, had landed hard and found another dude touching and tasting him in a way most straight men would find unthinkable.

  Lyle spit the toe out of his mouth. “Mike?”

  “I don’t fuckin’ believe it. Dude…”

  For several tense seconds, Lyle was sure Mike was going to deck him. But then Mike snaked both hands down to his crotch and hastily unzipped his blue jeans. He fished out his dick and let it hang in clear view, gloriously hard.

  “I haven’t gotten a boner since this whole fuckin’ nightmare started,” Mike said, a wide smile breaking across his handsome face. “Not since…fuck…thanks, man.”

  Mike eased his foot away from Lyle’s mouth and leaned forward, cupping his cheeks in both powerful hands. A mix of relief and giddy excitement flooded Lyle’s insides.

  “I told you there were other parts of your body more important, you know, than balls,” Lyle said, smiling back.

  For a moment, he wondered if Mike, overwhelmed by excitement, might actually kiss him, crush their mouths together, perhaps wrangle Lyle’s tongue into submission with his. The look in Mike’s eyes said all that his lips could not, that Lyle had pulled him back from the dead, had saved him body and soul, and that Lyle had given him a better gift than any woman—any person—ever had.

  “So how about you help me out with this part, now,” Mike growled, releasing Lyle’s face and giving his cock a shake.

  By the time Mike returned to the job, Lyle had revealed other secrets about his body Mike hadn’t considered before the surgery, that toes and earlobes, throat and armpits, legs and asshole could also give a man an amazing erection thanks to the licks of another male’s tongue, if he simply opened himself up to the possibilities of finding love in unexpected places.

  Lyle didn’t see Kevin’s elbow coming at him. Lightning quick, the powerful jab collided with his shoulder, knocking him into the nearby shelf.

  “Sorry,” Kevin said. It was obvious by the chuckle he added that he really wasn’t.

  Lyle straightened. Less than a minute later, Kevin was on his knees in front of him, held in place by a powerful armlock.

  “Apologize,” Mike ordered.

  “Let go of me, fucker!”

  “Oh, dude, I’m this close to letting you go—right out the fuckin’ door, unless you make good with your esteemed coworker and cut the shit.”

  “I was just joking around,” Kevin pleaded.

  “Nobody’s laughing. This guy you’ve been fucking with has more balls than you, me, and the rest of the warehouse combined. I see or hear one more deliberate attack against him, I’ll clean house. You and your pals got that straight?”

  “Yeah,” Kevin muttered, surrendering. “I’m sorry.”

  Mike released him. “Now prove it. Get the fuck back to work!”

  Kevin grumbled a blue streak of curses under his breath, but none of them were directed against Lyle.

  “You okay, pal?” Mike asked.

  Lyle rubbed his shoulder. “Sure am.”

  Mike nodded and turned to go, but then pivoted back in Lyle’s direction. “You up for hanging out tonight?”

  “Always.”

  “Game’s on, and maybe you could stay over. You know…”

  “Love to,” Lyle said.

  As he turned to continue filling the order he’d been picking when Kevin side-armed him, Mike gave Lyle’s butt a friendly pat. Lyle cast a look at the prominent bulge in Mike’s camouflage pants, no longer afraid of stealing glances because permission had been granted.

  The ones had become two.

  COMING BACK TO ME

  Simon Sheppard

  I know: wish fulfillment. But sometimes wishes come true, and not only at Disneyland.

  God, how I’ve loved him. Love him still. At the risk of seeming overly sentimental. I’ll take that risk. Yes, we met unromantically, at a fairly wild party at the mostly gay commune down the street, where I spotted him getting blown in a corner. He was stoned and I was stoned and when the guy who was sucking him got off his knees, I was impressed with Charlie’s…attributes. So I went over to him and something…happened. Just happened, rich and strong. But like I said, we were both very stoned.

  After that night, we began seeing each other, me sneaking visits to his attic room, sticky in the heat of an Ohio summer. Since it wasn’t just any summer, but the summer of 1967, we spent a whole lot of our time together stoned, planning our getaway to San Francisco. Because, let’s face it, it was a whole lot harder to be a good hippie in some Hicksville college town in the middle of the country than in the Haight or the East Village. It was harder to be a homo, too, though that didn’t stop us from spending plenty of time together, mostly naked.

  Neither of us had dropped acid before, and we decided to give it a shot the night of a Jefferson Airplane concert. It was amazing, of course, though if we hadn’t been with friends, we probably never would have gotten home. I mean, we’d still be there, our sweaty tie-dyed T-shirts stuck to our skinny-but-cosmic bodies. And yes, there were some rough patches, as with—I was subsequently to find out—any trip, but then Charlie smiled a cosmic smile, both innocent and knowing, fuzzy-eyed, and it was all right. By the end of the night he and I were wrapped in each other’s arms. And I mean wrapped. And the first time he came inside me, I felt that the universe itself exploded into shards of shimmering light. It was like a Grateful Dead jam. Only better.

  Summer turned to fall, as summers will, I guess, and then to a bitter-cold winter. Dreams of San Francisco receded, dreams of love didn’t. Everybody talks about the crazy wonderfulness of first love, and in our case, that was totally accurate. I was in my last year of college, he was working at some lousy job packaging essential oils and handmade soaps, we were head over heels in love. We explored each other’s bodies and souls, swore undying devotion. Charlie got free incense at work. What more could one ask from life?

  Except that I wanted more. I hated to admit it. It was so… ego-driven. And, as we’d both learned on our voyages through chemical nirvana, ego was an illusion and a trap. But I wanted to be somebody. With him (preferably) or without him. I wanted to go to New York and be an artist. Or an actor. Or a filmmaker. Something. Something famous, successful.

  See, another thing about first love affairs is that they tend to be confused. Most people, lacking experience in the weirdness of love, just can’t navigate the shoals. Yes, I was amazed that someone—anyone—could love me the way he said he did. And yes, he was the world to me. But that didn’t make growing up any easier; if anything, all the passion flying around made it tougher. And being stoned on our asses most of the time didn’t make things any simpler.

  But on those perfect nights when we made love—yes!—until the dawn…

  “I want to go to New York,” I told him on one of those nights. “I want you to come with me.”

  After an unexpectedly long pause, he said, hand still on my dick, “I’m not sure.”

  Not sure? But didn’t we love each other more than anything in the world? Well, sure we did. So I let that drop, didn’t bring it up for the next couple of months. Winter finally thawed into spring, and we loved each other so much that even our straight friends suspected something was up, and then they knew for sure, and they, almost all of them, approved. Approved, maybe, in that “Man, go do your own thing” way, but that was fine all around.

  As my graduation approached, his notion of moving to California, hanging out at the Fillmore, dancing to the Airplane and the Dead and Big Brother, seemed less and less attractive. I was raised to be an overachiever. It was hard to shake that. I wanted to be somebody. I wanted him to be part of that. My love.

  So I suggested I go to New York, just to scout things out. If it didn’t look promising, we’d try California.

  But things in New York did look promising. Back then, the Manhattan underground was damn near as accessible as the subway, and it didn’t take me too long to meet some of the cream of the avant-garde, up to and including the folks at Warhol’s Factory. And if the underground’s drug of choice was more often speed than acid, well, I could just steer clear. And anyway, I was hanging out with Billy Name and Taylor Mead.

  The phone call when I told Charlie I wouldn’t be coming back to Ohio didn’t go well. Not well at all.

  “I thought you loved me,” he said.

  “I do love you. More than anything. Come to New York and give it a chance. I already found a place for us. Really interesting apartment on Avenue B.” I didn’t mention its flourishing cockroach population.

  “Without asking me?”

  “Charlie, you have to learn to compromise.”

  He hung up.

  I tried again, of course. Every time, the call went nowhere. I missed him a lot, needed him so much…but not so much I didn’t seek the solace of other men at the baths. Eventually—well, actually pretty fast—the calls trailed off, and the last time I phoned, Charlie’s number had been disconnected. I wrote a few letters, and though Charlie must have gotten them, since they never came back, I didn’t receive a single reply. Anyhow, by that time, I’d already met Louis, a nurse who drank instead of using drugs, and who had a perfect body, much better than mine. Or Charlie’s.

  Time passed.

  A lot of time.

  It wasn’t that I forgot about Charlie. You never forget your first love. A cliché, maybe, but true nonetheless. But there were others. A lot of others. And I loved some of them, as well. Louis, of course, but we didn’t last all that long. And…well, others. Still, I thought of Charlie occasionally, wondering what had happened to him, what might have been.

  And then, one beautiful spring day, a letter came for me. From Charlie.

  I know I’m probably the last person you expected to hear from after all these years, it read. But you’re kind of famous now, so it was no great problem finding out how to get in touch. And I’ll be going to L.A. in a few weeks—ironic, I guess, that I ended up in New York, while you gravitated to the West Coast. I’d love to see you, catch up. No telling what might happen, but then, there are never any guarantees, are there? Anyhow, let me know. Love, Charlie.

  His using the L-word—twice—was both a little reassuring and a little worrying. And it set my heart, unbelievably, to racing.

  The day he was due to arrive, I was all, embarrassingly, aflutter, like a teenage girl with a crush. I straightened up the apartment, shaved twice. Half-unconsciously, I put on an old Jefferson Airplane album.

  At last the doorbell rang. Eighteen years later.

  It was, unmistakably, Charlie. A bit heavier, with much shorter hair. But handsome, more handsome than I’d remembered. How could I have given him up? What a pointless question.

  “Hey,” he said, “how you doing?” He was looking straight at my wheelchair.

  “I thought you knew,” I said.

  “I had no idea.”

  “I have no one to blame but myself. After the accident, I stopped drinking, been clean and sober ever since. But sometimes we learn too late.”

  “I guess.” The words hung in the air.

  “I don’t work so well below the waist,” I finally said, “but my mouth’s still fine. If that’s not too much information.”

  Charlie was silent.

  “So how’ve you been?”

  “Are you glad to see me?”

  “Glad” didn’t quite cover it. “Charlie…” I began. And then he leaned over and kissed me.

  When the kiss ended, I could see there were tears in his eyes. Maybe in mine, too. Probably.

  “Time’s a bitch,” I said.

  “A bitch, yeah.” He leaned back over and kissed me again. This time, the kiss lasted longer, went deeper.

  Then Charlie knelt down by my chair and looked in my eyes. I’d forgotten about that shade of blue.

  “You don’t have to be afraid,” he said.

  “I’m not afraid.” But I was.

  Charlie began to stroke my useless legs. “Did you love me?” he asked.

  “Yes, a lot. A whole lot.”

  His hands began to reach farther up, toward my crotch.

  “Doesn’t function so good anymore.”

  “Don’t worry. It wasn’t just about the sex, anyway. At least not for me.”

  “Me either. Or the drugs?”

  “Or the drugs. Or the rock and roll, for that matter.” Charlie smiled, that same dazzling smile. “And you’re still one gorgeous stud.”

  “In this?”

  Charlie leaned back and pointed to his crotch. “Swollen up, see?”

  “I remember that you had a gorgeous cock. With a great foreskin. Am I wrong?”

  “Have a look?”

  “Please.”

  It was, in fact, beautiful, and not just because it belonged to the first man I fell for.

  Okay, it seemed too soon, too easy, as though the years hadn’t passed, as though what I’d done hadn’t mattered. But Charlie was in my mouth, and I wasn’t about to refuse his wet, salty gift.

  Afterward, as I licked my lips, I had second thoughts. “This is stupid, really stupid,” I said.

  “Is it? No.” Those blue eyes. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re not going to leave me again?”

  “You’re the one who left me. Remember?”

  I did. “And the chair?”

  “I’m no prize package, either.” And that smile. “You’ll find out.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “You will.”

  I saw you. I saw you, coming back to me.

  “I love you so fucking much,” I said, “and I guess I always have.”

  Charlie smiled. Smiled.

  WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND

  Shanna Germain

  There is a dying dog the size of a small horse in my kitchen. She is nearly as tall as the kitchen table. Nearly as wide. With a hell of a lot more long white hair.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to the man who brought her here. “There’s been a mistake.”

  The man who brought her is on his knees on my kitchen floor, rubbing the dog’s brown- and gray-tipped ears. He has bits of gray in the dark hair above his own ears.

  “It’s okay, Annie,” he says to the dog, who lets her tongue fall from her mouth and tilts her head sideways to listen. “This is gonna’ be sooo good for you. Okay, girl, it’s all good.”

  He doesn’t seem to care that he’s talking baby talk to this polar bear-like creature in front of me. He doesn’t seem to hear me saying that the polar bear cannot stay in my kitchen.

  When the man stands, his knees pop on the way up. “Ack, getting old.” He shakes his legs out and laughs. “Too much bending down to dogs is more like it.”

  Even standing, he can’t seem to keep his fingers out of Annie’s fur. They nuzzle the pads of her ears while he pulls a clipboard from his shoulder bag.

  I want to touch Annie, too. She’s almost all white, except for those ears. From here, her fur looks like soft fuzz all over. But I don’t touch her. I can’t. It’s not that she’s dying. That, I’m used to. It’s that she looks so damn healthy.

  By the time Bella came to us, she was already missing her back leg from the knee down and was getting oral pain meds twice a day. Her owners had tried to save her by cutting off the tumored foot. But when the cancer spread, they decided it was too much and turned her over to the shelter. That’s when she came to Thom and me.

  It had been Thom’s idea to take in a dying animal. A few years back, our local shelter had joined with a group of vets to start a hospice program for animals—some strays, some abandoned—who were dying, but still had quality time left in their lives. The goal was to get the animals into a good final home, a place where they could die with love and compassion. “We can still do something good,” Thom had said when he’d heard of it. “Think of it, these animals, having to die alone.”

 

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