For Don with love

I met them where Tornfield Avenue was intersected with that small street - only several doors of half-decent bars and a neon sign of a night-club. They passed me round - three leather-dressed rangy teens, one of them a mulatto. He shot me a look, part malignant, part confidential. But I was a shape impressive enough for them to stay away from me.

And then I saw him. On the ground - in fifteen, maybe twenty yards in front - crouched in the pose of a foetus, with his palms pressed tightly to his face. I made several rapid steps and squatted over him. He had a suit on. A suave bluish-grey rather expensive thing. On his narrow wrist I saw a raw trace - from the watch they tore off. Now I could recall I saw something looking like a watch in the hands of one youth. The other thing was a wallet.

"Hey," I said softly trying to draw his hands aside from his face. "Are you all right?"

He grunted a little when I disturbed him. His face was smeared in blood; most from his nose, some from his mouth, but he spread it all over. He was young, much younger than I could conclude according to his clothes.

"My car..." he mumbled. "Did they?.. My car..."

He was drunk hopelessly.

Without hesitation I took him under his arms and shook into upward position.

"Your car? Did you have it? I think they didn't take it. Where are your keys?"

He muttered something incomprehensible, making vague motions with his hand. I checked his outside and inside pockets. The keys with alarm device switch were here. I moved it from side to side along the row of cars on the opposite side. One of them, dark-red 2-door Saab, responded.

I raised him to his feet and dragged to the car. He was limp, unresisting - and he was not heavy at all. I put him to the front seat, walked around and sat to the driver's place.

"Where to take you?"

He didn't react.

"C'mon," I pushed his shoulder lightly. "Where do you live? What is your address?"

"1214 Lavender Drive... 4a..." he answered at last. "1945."

I turned on the engine and started.

He lived in a huge apartment building, constructed, maybe, right after the war, with a code lock on the door. So, I understood what the last two numbers he said were meaning.

I put his arm around my shoulder to keep him standing - but it was no good at all. He was several inches shorter than I was. I regarded an idea to set him over my back - but, fortunately, there was an elevator - a grandiose net cage - and it was in order.

I unlocked the door with one of his keys and pulled him in. The apartment was dark and empty.

Actually, taking into account his clothes and car, I was sure he must have lived in a private house in some respectable neighborhood. Well, he probably was, let's say, "making impression". I switched on the light. It was not very spacious around. A sitting-room with a sofa, two armchairs, TV and audio. Tiny kitchen was on the left. A bedroom where a queer one-and-a-half size bed with wooden back was positioned at the wall was on the right. One more door was to the bathroom.

I stopped for a moment. The guy - he was really young, maybe, twenty plus - suddenly turned around - his arms braced my neck. His weird dark-blue eyes - color of tinted glass - opened widely. He looked at me - as if he saw me - and ran his fingers through my hair.

"Beautiful," he murmured. "Big and strong," before passing out again.

We made several more steps when he squirmed abruptly and threw up. Right on the floor, on his expensive suit and on my hands.

I let him finish and took him to the bathroom. He lay unconscious while I adjusted the water stream - and was no more conscious when I undressed him. He even tried to slide down on the wall of the tube but I sat him solidly and directed the shower to him.

He was such a thin guy. Not small, maybe, 5'11" - only my own enviable height let me look down at him - but thin-boned, with straight shoulders and narrow back. He was not strictly blond - maybe, his hair was flaxen when he was a child - but it darkened to a kind of ashy, both on his head and on his private parts.

I washed his face carefully. There was nothing wrong with his nose, it was not broken, I mean. His lips were swollen a little - maybe, because of a blow, maybe, he bit them himself accidentally. There were some fresh purplish bruises on his belly gotten in the street occurrence - and some of them on his back, the guys probably kicked him after he fell down.

He puked again under the shower, only with bile this time. It was a pitiful sight how he was turned inside out with nothing in him. I gave him several palms of water to drink and he threw up again.

I soaped and rinsed him and his hair, too. His eyes were squinted shut all the time - he was similar to catatonic - passive and obedient to all my shifting and stirring. I took him out of the tube, wiped and looked for anything he slept in. I didn't find - maybe, I looked in a wrong place. So, I wrapped him in a big terry bathrobe and took him in my arms. Now his face, without this blood, looked handsome and childishly serious - lips pressed tightly and little frowns fluttering now and then between his brows. He had beautiful brows and long eyelashes but not really dark, the same color as his hair.

I brought him to the bedroom and tucked up in bed. His mouth, a little puffy, looked so vulnerable that it almost caused an ache inside me. I wanted to touch it with my fingers. But I decided not to. I switched off the light and went to clean the mess he left after himself on the floor.

I didn't know what to do with the suit, so, I put it in a plastic pocket and closed it. Maybe, it was spoiled irreparably.

It was almost two o'clock when I curled up on the short sofa in his sitting-room.

* * *

I woke up because of a long moan in the other room. It was long past dawn already, the sky was grey-pinkish and dimly lit behind the window. I listened for a little while to him stirring and wiggling, then got up and went to him.

He was sitting in the bed with his arms pressed to his belly. His eyes were sleepy but intelligent. He flinched when he saw me.

"Sorry," I started tucking my shirt in my pants. "Do you remember me? I brought you home this night. Do you remember anything?"

"Oh, God," his voice was hoarse and unsure. For a moment I thought my words didn't register - but then he spoke more coherently. "Yes. Yes, I remember. Something. Did I get in trouble?"

"I don't know everything," I smiled. "I found you in the street. These mother fuckers seemed to knock you down. Well, you didn't look like injured seriously, so, I decided to take you home, not to ER."

"Okay, okay, it's all right," he said hastily. "Jesus, I never... I don't drink a lot, you see. It was Robby, his birthday. We started at the office... and continued... and continued..."

"Don't think I don't know how it happens," I interrupted him laughing.

"God!" he growled again and clasped his stomach. "Oh, sorry, I didn't thank you. You really saved me - I could get to police, I don't know where else!"

He was visibly in pain, for all his polite speeches.

"Ever had a hangover?" I asked. "What hurts the most - your head?"

"Head?" his longish fingers lay on his temples - as if he checked it. "No! My stomach! My belly, too! Everything!"

"Well, you could overstrain it when you vomited," I said casually.

The look of his eyes was almost comic.

"Take it easy," I said. "Lie down, I'll bring you something that'll make you better."

I rummaged in the kitchen until I found an anti-hangover pill. I dropped it to the cup of water and returned to him.

He lay in bed submissively, with his softly glistening eyes widened of pain.

"Here, here," I spoke to him soothingly while sitting down and raising him against the pillow. He took the cup in both hands - like a child - and gave me an embarrassed glance before he began to drink. He squirmed his nose a little - the pill didn't dissolve completely. When finished, he slid down again.

I wanted to pass my fingers over his lips, wiping a trace of white residual from the pill - but I didn't do it. He licked his lips with his small pinkish tongue - and it was good, too.

"God!" he repeated helplessly. "I'm sick again."

"Try not to," I advised. "It'll be okay in five minutes."

His face had an expression of concentration on what happened inside him.

"By the way," I said. "I'm Jake. Just in case you are interested."

It animated him a little.

"Oh, sorry!" he made an attempt to sit and stretched out his hand. "I'm Terrence. Terry. Thank you once more."

"Don't get up," I said.

"What time is it?" he looked worried. I took an alarm-clock from the small table at the bed and showed it to him. "Half past nine! Christ!"

He shut his face with his palms.

"Late to work?" I asked compassionately. He nodded - without taking his hands from his face. "But you can't go to work in this condition. No way. It would be disastrous."

He didn't argue.

"Call them," I said. "Flu? Can't you catch flu? I don't think you often miss a day."

"No," he agreed. "Yes. I'll do it. You are right."

"Today is Thursday," I made it sound like a question. "They probably won't believe you had your flu one-day long. Tell them you'll be back on Monday. It doesn't really matter, does it?"

He showed me his face. The expression was reluctant. But I knew what he felt: he couldn't believe he would be better today, or tomorrow, or ever.

"I'll bring you the phone," I said.

From the other room I heard him speaking with a girl named Ponette. Actually, he didn't even lie - his voice sounded so weak that she was first to suggest him to stay at home.

When I returned, he looked happier.

"Do I have to thank you again, Jake?" he said with a shy smile. "I am doing it so often today that you may be tired, huh?"

I smiled back.

"A cup of coffee?" I said. "It'll do good to you, believe me."

"I am getting used to believe you," he nodded. "Though the idea doesn't sound appealing for me."

All of a sudden he started crawling out of the bed.

"I'll wash myself," he said uncertainly. I watched his shaky steps towards the bathroom.

"Give you a hand?"

"No," he shook his head.

I went to the kitchen and cooked breakfast. He didn't have a big storage of food - but what he had was quite enough. Everything in his kitchen was scrupulously neat.

I fried three eggs and toasts for myself. I didn't think Terry would be able to eat. I was right. He appeared in several minutes, sniffing ferociously.

He washed himself. He shaved as well and brushed his hair. Somehow the time he spent in the bathroom brought him together - he didn't seem so debased any more. He looked cute, actually.

"Sorry for my robe," he said with an apologetic smile. "I'm going back to bed as soon as possible."

"I do not mind," I said sincerely.

We chatted while eating. He told he was twenty-two, he graduated from the college in Kentucky a year ago, he studied architecture. Now he was working for a contractor's firm. He said it was a responsible work, requiring many contacts with people. He planned to go on with studying - in the evenings.

I asked him about his family. It turned out they all were in Kentucky. His father was gone, his mother was retired. He had two older sisters.

This conversation somehow distracted him from what was happening with his stomach. He looked much better when got back to the bed.

"Have a sleep," I proposed. He shut his eyes.

* * *

I gave him two hours of nap. Meanwhile I checked my possessions. The rest of time I sat in the arm-chair watching TV. I didn't have to sleep, I don't need a lot of sleep usually.

It was well in the afternoon when I came back to his room. He heard my steps and sat in his bed, his eyes were not so bright as in the morning.

"Jake?"

I shot him my white-tooth smile and walked around his small room. He looked at me somehow uncomfortably. I came up to the table and took a framed photo from it - Terry was embracing a lovely dark-haired girl.

"Who's that? Your sister?"

"No," his face brightened for a moment. "My girl-friend, Alice. She is in Kentucky, too."

"Did you fuck her?" I asked. His eyes became startled - beautiful eyes.

"What?"

"You hear me."

"Look, Jake..."

I interrupted him.

"Did you fuck her little pretty cunt? Do you like fucking cunts of pretty bitches? What do you do when she is there and you are here? Do you fuck this bitch at your work - Ponette or what is her name?"

When I started he gaped his lips a little - and then he took himself under control. His soft mouth became thin and whitish.

"Jake," he said again. "You know, I really appreciate everything you did for me. I'm sorry, I'm not in a right condition to drive. Maybe, I'll give you money so that you can take a taxi?"

Money! It was real fun.

Or no fun at all.

"Thanks, Terry," I said. "But... The thing is I'm not going nowhere."

He reacted as I expected him to. He looked at me with disbelief. And when he did it he saw the thing I held in my hands. For a moment he tried to figure out what it was - and then he understood.

"Don't move," I said. "Until I tell you. You don't have a chance. Even if I prefer not to use my gun - and I prefer not to - this knife will make a nice draught in your guts. Clear?"

He swallowed hard and nodded. He didn't say anything - his eyes said a lot - very big and black because of widened pupils.

"Slowly," I said, "raise your hands above your head, wrists together."

He did what I said. I came up to him with the telephone cord in my hands. He whispered suddenly:

"You spoiled the phone. They will call. They'll worry."

"Will they?" I asked softly. "When? After three or four days? It won't take that long."

I tied his wrists with the cord firmly and threw it over one of the cross-beams on the back of the bed. He gasped when I jerked the cord and brought him down on the pillow. But he was not uncomfortable - just lay with his hands tied above his head. I fastened the cord.

"Why are you doing it?" he asked in a small voice.

"Because I need a place," I explained. I readjusted his blanket so that he was not cold. "I don't gag you," I said. "If you scream - remember - maybe, you'll have your help. And maybe I'll have my problems. But I'll have time to kill you, you can be sure."

"I won't scream," he said faintly.

I left the room.

There was a teen comic show on TV. I set the armchairs together so that I could stretch my long legs in them. There was news on another channel - but I didn't want to watch it.

I felt hungry at about four. So, I went to check Terry's fridge once more. He had some semi-cooked steaks and frozen vegetables in the freezer. I put them into the micro-wave and went to Terry.

Now it was shady in his room. He lay in the position I left him - that is, he didn't much choice, after all. His eyes blinked frequently.

He looked at me with a kind of hope.

"Do you have soup?" I asked. I'm afraid it was not what he wanted to hear.

"Soup?" he thought a little. "Yes, instant soup. Look in the cupboard at the door."

I left again and returned in several minutes with a cup and a spoon.

"It's mushroom soup," I said. "I presume you like it - you have a lot of it."

"Soup!" he repeated. "I don't want to eat."

"You have to," I said gently. I put the cup on the table and helped him to sit. Now his hands were behind his head, elbows forward - but it was not inconvenient. I noticed he rubbed his wrists sore against the cord but there was no way he could free himself. I know how to tie.

"I'll feel bad again," he complained when I brought the spoon to his face.

"No," I said. "You are all right. You have stomachache because you don't eat."

He obeyed. I fed him, spoon by spoon, it was such pleasure. I really liked it.

When he finished, I moved the cup aside and lowered him on the bed again. He licked his mouth getting ready to say something.

"Why do you need a place?"

I stood up over him, feasting my eyes upon his pale tensed face. He was scared - and still he tried to be decent.

"Because police is after me," I explained quietly. He processed it for a little while.

"Jake," he said, "it's not your real name."

"No," I confirmed.

"What is your name?"

"Jordan," I said. I saw him thinking and then he got it.

"Jordan," he whispered. "Jordan Washington."

I smiled.

"You see," I went on. "If you misbehave, I'll kill you. It won't even change my sentence - if I see the trial, of course. But I don't want to kill you - no more than I wanted to kill these people at the bank. So, behave yourself - and you'll be okay."

He still was musing. His eyes flickered at me - but I couldn't understand if the situation seemed for him easier now or not.

"They blocked the roads," he said at last. "The terminals. Everything."

"I know," I said. "Do you think I don't know? I have a friend. He is helping me. On Saturday morning I'll have a charter flight to... to the country where I will be safe. I'll get new documents, whatever I need. But I can't risk him and hide at his place. I have to have a shelter until then."

He made a little sigh. It was Thursday evening now. It didn't seem a short term for him at all. But I knew he would understand it with time - that it was better to know it wouldn't be endless.

"I'll behave myself, Jordan," he said miserably.

The bell of the micro-wave rang - my steak was ready.

* * *

I ate and watched several more shows. I didn't hear a sound from Terry. At six o'clock I visited him again. The room was almost absolutely dark now. I drew the curtains together and switched on the sconce above his bed. He blinked painfully because of the light.

"Wanna piss?" I asked. He made a sharp movement. "You aren't going to put up with it for a day and a half, are you?"

I teased him.

"Okay," he said reluctantly.

"That's good," I untwined the cord from the beam and pulled Terry up. He stood up and I pushed him in front of myself towards the bathroom.

When I came in with him he jerked.

"You... you won't leave me alone?"

"Gee, very funny!" I shrugged. "I'll leave you and you'll prepare a dirty trick for me. Bang me with this ceramic jar on my head, for example. We'd better not to risk. Both of us."

"But I..." he pulled the flaps of his robe apart and took his soft prick out. "I can't when you look at me."

"C'mon!" I chuckled. "I saw it yesterday. And a lot more."

"Yes," he said very seriously. "But I didn't know it."

He didn't pretend; he really couldn't. His eyes became guilty. I sighed and turned away a little.

When he did his things, I guarded him back to the place. He became somehow mute after the intermission in the bathroom. I left him again, now with the light on.

* * *

It was almost midnight when I visited Terry again. The show on TV was a sci-fi one and I don't like sci-fi.

I thought Terry probably was sleeping, too, but when I came in he was not. He was crying. With his face lit by this sharp light, he wept soundlessly and violently. His body jerked with suppressed sobs and tears made two steady flows from the corners of his eyes. His sight - crying like a child - was almost pathetic. I almost felt remorse for what I was going to do.

He heard me. His eyes opened immediately and he hastily started wiping his face on the sleeves of his bathrobe. His face had a kind of hurt expression - as if he was ashamed by me seeing him crying.

I sat on the bed.

"Doesn't this light bother you?" I asked. "It look like a kind of interrogation room."

His eyes, still too much glinting, followed me with a wary expression. I touched his face with my palm. His cheek was smooth, wet and warm.

"But I think it would be even worse in the darkness," gently I caressed his flushed face.

I felt he was very strained because of me so close. He didn't say anything. I went on stroking him. His brows were silky under my fingers. I brushed his sticky-wet eyelashes. They fluttered - like butterfly winds.

So lovely he was. So defenseless.

I stood up and picked off the blanket from him. It took him out of surprise - his mouth gaped a little. I pulled the sash of his robe and untied it. With his hands fastened like that I couldn't possibly take it off - but when I pulled it aside I could see whatever I wanted.

He crouched his knees up to his belly instinctively and turned them away from me. But it was the only thing he could do. I saw him struggling with the cord - in vain.

Without taking my eyes off of him I unbuttoned my shirt and let it drop on the floor. When I started doing it, he stopped his thrashing. He stared at me, his eyes big as saucers, and his breath became somehow swift and shallow. I pulled down my pants and shorts and stepped out of them. Now I had only my golden chain with the crucifix on.

His gaze was fixed on me. Not on my 9" stiff rod pointing right upward. But he saw it, surely. I took his ankles firmly and straightened his legs.

"Don't hide from me," I said.

He looked at me and I looked at him - but while I caressed his thin smooth body with my eyes, his stare was wild with fear.

"Jordan," he said very-very softly, almost without voice. "You are not going to?.."

"You know I am," I answered.

"But I didn't misbehave!" he said hastily, his voice colored with hysterics. "I didn't!"

I shrugged. There was no connection.

He gasped when I lay down atop of him. Legs to legs, belly to belly, chest to chest. My swollen cock was pressed into his crotch so firmly it almost hurt. He drove his teeth into his lip.

I was the closest to him I'd ever been. So close that his face blurred in my eyes. I felt his hot bony form under me, his chest was rising and falling shallowly.

My hands - two dark shapes - lay upon the whiteness of his face. I touched his bared teeth with my finger.

"Don't spoil your lips," I asked him.

He needed several moments but then he relaxed his jaws. I put my mouth on his. It had a faint salty taste - he drew a little blood, anyway.

I kissed his lips warmly and unhurriedly. He was trembling under me - thinly, like a scared pet. His head was in the ring of my arms now and I caressed his slightly wet temples with my thumbs.

I put my tongue into his mouth. The funny thing was that he not only let me do it - but he responded to me. Some feeble clumsy motions. I thought, maybe, he believed it would make me more kind to him.

I backed a little and took his lower lip into my mouth. I sucked it for a while - it was so tender after they hit him yesterday and he bit it today again - but I never bit him, just pressed it between my lip-covered teeth. Pangs of pleasure coursed through my body. I felt the drops of pre-cum leaking out of my dick onto Terry's belly. I rubbed my dick against his crotch. Its hair was more wired and curly than soft hair on his head.

"Do you like it?" I asked then.

There was only terror in his eyes. He made a short gasp through his nose and didn't answer.

"Don't you say you don't like it!" I said. "You dreamed about it! About a big black guy filling your tender ass with his fat cock. You wanted it, Terry, I know, you wanted it."

He rocked his head in my hands. It was not an answer - he never gave me an answer - it was that his torment was too much for him to be still.

"Do you want my cock deep into your throat?" I went on, smoothing his lovely fluffy hair with my palms. "Or do you want my cock split your ass open until only my balls are outside?"

He made a muffled sound.

"You are lying," I said.

I shifted my body a little down - to kiss his throat. His skin was so tender that my lips would leave bruises, I thought. His throat was moving under my kisses - he tried to swallow and he couldn't. I kissed the place between his collar-bones - it was pulsing thinly - as if I was kissing a tiny bird. There was an imprint of my crucifix on his chest - I pressed to him too tightly. I kissed it, too. His nipples were really small, of light-brown color. I put my mouth on one of them.

It hardened. And the other, that I pinched and tweaked with my fingers. I placed my mouth on each of them in turn, sucking and chewing them. But his prick - I felt it under my pressed belly - it never responded. When I tried to do really hard, he flinched - and nothing more.

I saddled his legs. Terry had his eyes shut.

"C'mon," I rubbed his limp prick. "What's wrong? What else can I do?"

His eyes opened - a mystery I couldn't see enough: these huge deep-blue irises blossoming on almost white face.

I placed my knee between his thighs forcing him to spread his legs wide. I put my other knee in, too, and shifted forward so that he lay with his bottom on my lap. I took his ass cheeks from below in both my hands and squeezed them. The sensation was delightful. I peered my eyes, kneading his ass, sticking my fingers deep into it. He quivered.

Continuing the massage with one my hand, I found his hole with the other. It was small; so small that it seemed incapable to accept even my finger, not to mention my huge dick.

"You didn't never finger it, did you?" I asked with a kind of compassion. "Why didn't you try?"

I didn't expect him to answer - and he didn't.

I licked my forefinger and pressed it to his tiny pink hole. Soft and resistant it was - and my finger sank into it slowly.

I watched Terry's face. His brows flew up when I poked it in. For a moment he stared at me - and then he screwed up his eyes. But I still saw the flashing of pain when I drove my finger in and out.

I worked his hole for a while - but then I left it; there was no way I could do it loose enough for my dick, so, it didn't make real difference.

I spat on my palm generously and wetted my cock. Another portion of spat went around and into his hole. That's when he strained really - he knew I was ready.

Carefully I set the tip of my cock to his hole and pushed. So slowly it gave in to my pressure, so unwillingly. The head was in - and then it seemed it was all it could do. So tight; I didn't know how it would accommodate the rest of my rod.

Terry drew his breath in through clenched teeth. All his body strove from my thing that impaled him. I saw his curled fingers clawing into the wood of the cross-beam.

I grasped his hips tightly and pushed in. He didn't sob; his breath was only noisy and shallow - as if he was choking.

Insistently I filled his ass with my hard cock. He took it silently and desperately - as if I was torturing him. Perhaps I was.

I was in at last. The grip on my cock was almost painful. His sphincter was contracting - I felt it like little hot clamp tightening and loosening on my rod. For a moment I doubted if I could move. But I could, of course. It was blissful.

Terry panted unevenly. Now there was sound in his breathing - occasionally. I loved to look at his face full of anguish - but I was already drowning in my own sensations.

I started pumping his ass rhythmically, speeding up and slowing down. I didn't feel already every flutter of his hole - it was friction itself that drove me to madness.

I took his legs and raised them on my shoulders. I could lean forward this way - closer to him - and it gave me more room for thrusting. I supported myself on my hands and pressed him with all my weight. I put all my strength in each blow. Faster and faster. I was wet with sweat, my body rang like a string. Every time when my balls banged against his ass, I gasped.

Terry was breathing noisily through his nose. With his eyes screwed up he tossed his head from side to side. There was a little blood running from under his stuck teeth.

Suddenly he looked at me. His eyes were misted - but his gaze was inquiring. He said between two short gasps:

"You soon?"

His tiny hoarse voice - and his face full of suffering - I felt my bosom filled with aching warmth.

"Yes," I whispered. "Yes. I'll soon."

And I was soon. Maybe, a minute more - and I felt my balls exploding. My semen was shot in four heavy loads deep inside him - hot and thick and slippery. And I couldn't support myself anymore. I fell upon him, exhausted, breathless - the same as he was.

We lay together, hooked with my limp prick in his splintered hole. I didn't get out - I didn't want to. I liked this hot slick feeling around my penis. I felt my own sperm enveloping it.

Now Terry's legs were spread wide around me. I lay on his chest, pressed so tightly that I could sense his heart beating through two our rib-cages. His trembling under me subsided.

I stroked his wet hair tenderly. It was the last movement I could do. I was so immensely tired.

* * *

It was about five when I woke up with raging hard-on. My dick, surely, slipped out of Terry. When I crawled over him he woke up, too. He didn't say anything when my cock brushed his lips. He just opened his mouth and took it in.

It was not quite clean after my night session - shit and blood and everything - but he didn't give a blink that he disliked it. His eyes had a very strange expression: rather sad than unhappy.

He couldn't deep-throat in this position - but he made it as deep as he could. In a while - after he coped with the taste of residuals - he did it fairly nicely. He swallowed all right when I cummed. I fell down at him, embraced him and slept again.

It was a broad daylight when we woke up again. My arm was numb because of the way I held Terry. I looked at him and kissed his deformed mouth.

"What about getting up?"

"Yes, Jordan," he said.

I untangled the cord. He lowered his arms awkwardly, shifting his shoulders, and quickly folded and belted his robe. There were some blood stains on the robe where he lay on it and dry streaks on his legs. Well, it was not the first blood I drew. He stood up and staggered. A little uneasy smile flashed on his lips. He sat down again.

"We went through it already," I said taking him up and dragging to the bathroom. He started struggling somewhere on half-way, saying:

"Stop, I can do myself."

I made him sit on the tube and kneeled in front of him. His fingers in my hands were cold and motionless. I removed the cord from his wrists. It left deep crimson imprints - I made it too tight! Tentatively I rubbed his hands, warming them in my palms. His deadened fingers jerked a little. He breathed in sharply when their sensibility started returning.

I took his fingers in my mouth and kissed gently.

"Don't you want to wash yourself?" I asked. He nodded.

He didn't wash himself, actually. I washed him. He tried to say that he could do it himself but it was my way we were going. I enjoyed doing it with him too much. I mean, he was so sweet, so frail - like an exquisite doll - but warm, fluttering under my hands. I shaved him.

I got erection at one point. Terry looked at me big-eyed - but I didn't do anything, just let it die away.

When I tied him again I did it in another way - his wrists still were fixed together without hope to free them but the cord didn't cut in already.

"Do you want me to tie you to the bed for all the day?" I asked him brushing his hair. "Or you'll sit with me where I want to be?"

He thought a little.

"I'll be with you," he said.

So, we went to the kitchen. The kitchen was a dangerous territory. I took care about knives and so on but I didn't want any problems.

"I'm sorry," I said raising his hands above his head again and tying them to the heater. He shuddered. "You aren't cold, are you?" I asked. He shook his head.

I turned the kettle on and went to get dress. My pants and shirt still were where I left them - in his room.

"What do you eat for breakfast?" I asked when returned.

"Corn flakes," he said. I checked the pack.

"You don't have any."

"Then toasts. I think I bought bread on Tuesday. Are you going to feed me again?"

"I would love to," I said. "I won't."

So, I allowed his hands to be down again and we had breakfast together. I took him to the sitting-room afterwards. He curled up on the sofa.

"Do you want to watch TV?" I asked. He made a little movement with his shoulders.

"If you like it."

"No," I said. "I had enough yesterday. I prefer to speak to you. And," I glanced at the box of mah jongg on the table, "to play. You play mah jongg, don't you?"

We started hands.

"Do you know what mah jongg means?" I asked.

"A sparrow," he said.

"Yes, a sparrow."

I asked him other questions, too - about his sisters, his friends, his career. Unlike yesterday, he seemed uninterested. Then he interrupted me on half-word and started asking me.

I told him about myself. About my mother. And about a white boy she looked after - who was closer to me than my own brothers and who got killed ten years ago. I told him how badly I needed money and how good it felt in my hands when I got it. I told him how I understood for the first time that the man I hit would never stand up any more.

His gaze was distant and thoughtful.

"And..." he asked. "After what happened at the bank... If you hadn't met me then... What would you have done?"

I shrugged.

"I would have found somebody else. You know, it's just a situation. I feel it. I was sure I would find somebody who would cover me."

"Another man?"

"Or woman. Anyone."

He flushed.

"You are not gay, aren't you, Jordan?" he said.

"I go both," I said.

"So..." he started and stopped and started again. "If it were a woman in my place... you would make sex with her, too?"

"Maybe," I answered. "If she was a bitch or got me under the skin..."

He made a nervous laughter.

"But I was not bitchy? Or was I? When I told you to get out..."

"You had no way to know who I am," I said reassuringly. He went on looking at me. "I like you," I said.

We played a little more and then he slept. I took my time thinking.

In the evening we had some more conversation. I told him I was afraid of flying by the plane. I never flew before.

"You will survive it," he said. I said:

"Of course, I'll survive it. Maybe, after some time I even will like it."

Late at night we went to the shower together. I held him in my arms and kissed his tilted upward face, his eyes shut because of pouring water. His tied hands trembled slightly pressed between our bodies. I took them and put on my chest. His fingers touched me carefully. He probed me - my shoulders, my pecs, my scar under right collar-bone.

Then I turned him around. He didn't say nothing, just rested his hands against the wall.

I fucked him gently and slowly, whispering silly pet words he couldn't hear under the rustle of water. It was so long that sometimes I lost the trace of reality. When I was done, I had to bring him to his bed in my arms.

I tied him again.

"Look," I said, "I'm sorry it happened this way. I would be happy to reciprocate, you know. I'll leave tomorrow morning. Very early. You will be sleeping. I can't let you be free before I'm safe, you understand? Give me a phone of your friend or somebody whom you trust. I'll call him when I am there, in that country. I mean, somebody who will be discreet when finds you in this position."

Very reluctantly he gave me a number of a guy named David.

"See," I put his alarm clock on the table in the place where he could see it. "Tomorrow at eleven I'll be there. At twelve your friend will come. It's only twelve hours, okay?"

He nodded.

I went to the other room where my bag was and brought a pack of money; fifteen thousand, maybe. I put it in the drawer.

"It is clean," I said. "I changed it already."

I sat with him for a little while more, without touching him. Only when I was going to go I kissed him for the last time. His mouth was soft and yielding under my lips.

"Don't wish me good luck," I said and shut the door behind myself.

At four in the morning I left.

The End