Matty Moon's Story Cauldron

[MattyMoonTonight]

Some starter notes: This will be a repository for some smutty fiction in an attempt to regain the motivation to write my normal fiction. I'm not familiar with posting stories onto a site with a forum format, but I'll try to keep these stories at or below 5,000 words, which for me will require a bit of effort. I'm not sure how many I'll shoot for - perhaps five stories for a start and I'll reconsider from there. I don't expect any responses, but I'll be happy to take any sort of critique or answer questions.

I'll try to put up one story per week or so, but my punctuality with this sort of thing is garbage.

 

[MattyMoonTonight]

Keystone Species
or, Halloween Candy​

Smokey wondered what the ratio was between a life of action and a life of observation, and why someone his age can still feel so sick changing between those lanes.

He checked the rear-view mirror and caught a glimpse of himself. Just a glimpse, only an ex-con with a chronically busted nose the size of a cherry tomato, eyes swollen from exhaustion. No matter how much he avoided the thought, he still knew that the power and magnanimity of youth was far, far behind him now. All that he had to his name was the stories, the reputation they spawned. Frail stories of a hollow old man. A bruised-sky evening faded into a starless, mean late October night, and the Pontiac grew colder than his brown overcoat could safeguard. He had to put his hands under his ass to keep them warm. He knew he could have turned the engine on, but he didn’t. The parking lot wasn’t empty, and he didn’t wish to draw attention to himself.

He kept glancing from his phone and its silence to the navy blue Nissan not very from him in the lot. It was clear the man in the driver’s seat was getting his dick sucked, but Smokey couldn’t tell if the owner of the long blonde hair slowly bobbing up and down was either man, woman, or somewhere in between. He couldn’t tell from this distance, and he was certain it hardly mattered to the driver.

He looked down at his phone. The person with the handle ANISETTE had only sent him one message: “Be here. In your car. Tonight. Don’t tell anyone.” That had been three hours ago, and there were no new messages after that. It had taken him just this long to control his pumping heart, his nervous breathing. He had chuckled a little while ago, and he knew that counted as mild hysteria. He supposed it was warranted.

A tap at the window (a rapping at my chamber door), and an angular face, pale with makeup bruising, looked in at him. Black hair down to his shoulders, a slash of sharp, Pacific blue like a razor’s edge at the ends.

“Smokey Lou, old dog” the androgyne said, and smiled a tight black-lipstick smile. “And what’re you doing out and about on this cold night?”

“Cut that shit, kid, and get in. I don’t have time.”

The prostitute slid into the seat, black nylon skirt hissing against the faux leather. The smell of Halloween candy followed.

 

[MattyMoonTonight]

[Continued from Keystone Species, or Halloween Candy]

It wasn’t being called an old dog that got to him; plenty of his whores heard him refer to himself as that time and again. It was the talk-back, it was Blue’s utter goddamn confidence that pissed him off. It was an empty wallet and another month with the same dicky heart. He decided he wouldn’t make the mistake of restraining himself.

“I heard a nasty rumor, boy,” Smoky said, his voice controlled, organized. “One of my bitches overheard you at the Green Man last week, talking to that Polish bartender.”

Blue was silent, simply watched him with an expression that was neither a smile nor a frown. His eyes were a shade of pale green, not the sharp green of absinthe but the jade coloration that follows when you dissolve a block of sugar into it.

“So, what in the shining fuck is this I hear about you wanting to take over my club? You think it’s a smart decision, trying to horn in on what took me decades to work on?”

“Oh! Oh, that’s what this was about. And here I thought it was something else.”

Smoky sighed and shook his head. “You really got uppity since you started working for me, you know that? Some employers wouldn’t take kindly to that.”

“Hmm, you’re right. Some employers would sooner put a bullet into some uppity whore like me, right?”

Smoky narrowed his eyes. “That’s right. That’s right for damn sure. That’s why I’m giving you this one and only chance.”

Blue glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. “You’re so generous. What sort of chance is that, Smokey?”

“The only kind you’re getting. You sit on my dick right now, and you back off this little takeover of yours. If you don’t, not even the fucking turkey vultures will find where I’ve put you. I promise you that.”

Blue held his gaze with those unobtrusive jade eyes. It looked like his hands were straying to the door handle, but Smokey Lou pulled aside his coat enough to show the snubnose .44 Ruger he kept in his holster. Blue looked at it, his expression sinking, and Smokey repressed a smile. More than anything, he adored that expression because it meant capitulation, it meant loyalty. It meant a bitch had been knocked back into place without damaging the merchandise.

“Alright,” Blue said after a moment’s consideration. “Fine. I guess those are the only options I have to work with.”

Smokey glowered. In the silence, Blue bent and went to work. Smokey expected no less than what he had hired Blue for, no less than excess and fabricated lust. Smokey’s slacks are bared open, slipped down to his ankles, and Blue sets to work with tongue and cheek and the gentle brush of teeth that are too white in the dark.

Smokey sighs, his cock growing as hard as possible in Blue’s mouth. It wasn’t the sensations that gave him pleasure, the act became more of an industry after so long. It was seeing the back of a head, a nest of black or brunette or blonde or red hair nestled in his lap and fulfilling his will.

Dominance was a damn strong aphrodisiac, and, like any drug, hard to get rid of, even if you wanted to.

Blue lifted his skirt, a sharp royal blue thong shrugged away. Smokey helped him out, just a little, by pulling on a side lever and moving the seat back. Blue snatched at his purse and pulled out an unlabeled plastic vial, the kind meant for travel. A thick, bright blue liquid swirled around inside – Smokey frowned. Did the bitch put glitter in his own lube? He really carried this character of his all the way, didn’t he?

Smokey let his head relax against the seat, watching hawk-like as Blue reached around and applied the lube to himself. He glanced at Smokey only briefly before lifting his skirt – the old con artist himself glanced down at what Blue had between his legs, frowning and perplexed. Not quite big, not quite small, not even cut. No jewelry or tattoos, and no stitches hiding a gelding or gash surgery as he’d suspect the entire time.

He often kept a sharp eye on the online reviews for the hookers under his employ, and the way people lauded this one you’d think the little shit had something special under the dresses. Smokey didn’t like it; he didn’t like uncertainty because it left so many little voids that only grew as time passed. Even while Blue shifted higher on his lap and he felt the shaft of his cock pass into Blue’s muscular ring, it was the uncertainty, the pall of unknowing and having no real fix for it, that threatened to ruin his erection.

It was those eyes, those damn eyes the color of algal blooms. They were hiding little stars in them, a glint of rebellion hiding so, so deep. Even though his blackened lips were half open in a lurid caricature of lust, they had a way of turning at the corners of his mouth in the subtlest manner.

Smokey slapped him in the face, his black hair flying in a huge fan to cover those eyes.

 

[MattyMoonTonight]

[Continued from Keystone Species, or Halloween Candy]

“Turn around,” he growled. “I’d rather watch your ass move than your hair.” Blue stared at him from behind the new tangles of his hair, looking small and worried, almost virginal. Without easing his body off him, Blue pivoted in Smokey’s lap, spinning as if from a flagpole, skirt hiked up over the small of his back. Smokey, no longer encumbered by that look of silent insurrection, looked down at that pale round ass, his cock disappearing into it. Yes, this was better.

Some ten minutes later, Smokey finally finished inside the whore. He grunted throughout, grabbing Blue’s hips and pulling them deeper down on him, holding him in place while he spent himself. The arduous task completed, he had to take several deep breaths; his blood was pounding so loudly in his ears he half thought he saw the window panes shuddering.

His arm was tingling, but not drastically so. It wasn’t as bad as it was, and it wasn’t all too bad then. Shit like this was good for him, doctors be damned. He’d been in the racket since 1989, for God’s sake, and he’d been lucky enough to not catch anything other than arterial buildup.

“Not bad, not bad” Smokey hissed. “Now say thank you.” Blue panted, hands clinging to the steering wheel. He waited the allotted five seconds before he slapped Blue’s ass, hard, and repeated himself.

This was it, the part of the job that he hated to do but it had to be done. He thought about Josephine, the pretty black and white husky that used to do tricks and had eyes as blue and cold as glaciers, and he thought about what she looked like after years of mange and losing bouts with ticks and infections, and a case of distemper that lasted longer than it ought to for a good dog. He thought about how his mother handed him the shotgun and said it doesn’t matter whether he wanted to do it or not, it had to be done. A sick dog can’t be kept like a healthy one, no matter how much you want them.

So, before Blue had taken a shaky breath and leaned back to whisper his thank you, Smokey reached under his coat and pulled the .44 out from its holster. The handle was a dark reddish walnut, and even though the metal came off the assembly line black, he had held it high above a fire, just close enough for the soot to collect and erase any possibility of reflecting light that could be spotted.

Blue leaned back far, brushing his body against Smokey’s. Skin so soft as satin, black hair with that annoying blue stripe at the end tickling his nose and neck, that lingering caramelized aroma filling his lungs. Cloying. He brushed his lips from Smokey’s cheek to his earlobe, a beautiful tragic act that he would try to remember. Delicately, he raised the pistol.

And as the androgyne the city only knew as Blue whispered the first three names of The Black Goat of The Woods into his ear, and sent his mind reeling into the void that followed the last syllable, Smokey’s body went limp. The gun clattered against the stick, one knobby, liver-spotted index finger still looped through the trigger guard.

His senses still worked, running as if on auxiliary while his body functioned on its own. The hand that used to be his right spasmed, gripped the Colt. It rose through the blue night inside the car, too close, too close.

Blue rose up off his lap and dried himself with a bright blue hand towel from his purse. He snatched at his thong and tossed it into the purse, then patted Smokey dry with the towel, and zipped up his pants. “Oh, Smokey. This could have been so much easier. Do you know – I’m sorry for going on a tangent here – do you know what a keystone species is? It’s an animal in an ecosystem that is so crucial to it that if it were to up and vanish, the whole system would be thrown overboard. Chucked into chaos. Chaos is disorganization, you know, and that’s something we both don’t tolerate, you know.

“And that’s what a whore is, Smokey. That’s what I am. See, since people have gathered together and formed communities, formed settlements and cities, pressure builds, and that pressure must be released or else the system falls apart. It’s not the law that discharges it, it’s us. Ancient Greece had sacred, holy prostitutes, but the practice itself is so much older, more sacred than sacrosanct. Divine is a close-enough word, but it’s still just a word.”

Blue moved his fingers in odd, intricate patterns with brief, spidery movements. The barrel of the snubnose rose higher, and Smokey felt his mouth opening. “Club Lilitu is mine, Smokey,” Blue whispered in his ear. “It was mine the second my shadow touched its doorway. Just as you were mine the second you dared to think it wasn’t. We won’t be meeting again, Smokey Lou. I really wish you knew what that meant.”

Blue caressed his face once, looked him once in the eyes – such sad Absinthe eyes – and stepped out of the Nissan, into the cold October night. He didn’t look back. A keystone species keeps the whole ecosystem in fine, perfectly running order, and sometimes it’s terribly busy work to look back.

As the barrel clacked against his teeth, Smokey caught the acrid tang of gun oil, chalky soot, manufactured steel, the electric taste of biting down on aluminum foil. But through it all was the lofty stench of Halloween candy.

Click-clack. The end of Smokey Lou went out with a bold punctuation.

 

[MattyMoonTonight]

Author's Note:
Keystone Species, or Halloween Candy

One of the few short stories that truly made me cry was “Breakfast in The House of the Rising Sun” by Caitlin R. Kiernan. It concerns a recurring character of hers, a young male prostitute named Rabbit, who in the story becomes a victim of mistaken identity. Blue was originally my way of keeping Rabbit alive, but somewhere down the line he became something else. At first, he was a terrified, capitulating victim of his position in life; then he became some sort of witchy boy, still anxious but incredibly powerful in his own way; then, he became a real lilitu, an androgynous incubus in human form; now, he’s a full-fledged offspring of my particularly favorite Lovecraftian deity, The Black Goat of the Woods With a Thousand Young (or “Shubbie” if you prefer). This story is a rare example of Blue taking a proactive position with his life, while other planned stories had him being the victim to various crimes, human and otherwise.

I'm really going to have a rough time with the 10,000 character limit.

 

[MattyMoonTonight]

Send Me a Ghostcard
Part 1​

New Orleans, Louisiana
Francine Parrish
October, 1994

Rory waited long enough for the brights of his ’83 Beetle to spear the gates of Our Lady Francine’s Cemetery before he started complaining again. Flecks of mica and quartzite glinted off the headstones as he edged past the staring pewter gargoyles, and into a nearby vacant lot. The lot belonged to a strip club – The Bunny Room – that closed down a decade ago, and the glitz still littered the cracked tarmac.

“I’m serious, Adam, you really don’t have to do this. Cops are all over the city tonight.”

“Did you hear what the bitch called me?” Adam checked himself in the rearview mirror, seething and trying not to seethe. Trying to keep that prim Betty Boop gleam that had taken him two hours to settle on in their apartment. Long hair feathered and crow-black, black as his lipstick and the Mississippi at midnight. His eyes were ice blue, a local rarity that betrayed him as a Northern Aggressor in his youth, which the rest of the city never failed to remind him. Smoky shoplifted mascara was already running, and that wasn’t from the humidity.

He was nervous. Adam hated that he would be feeling like this, and that it should be so obvious that Rory noticed it. His brow now seemed creased in a permanent scowl, and that only made him scowl even more.

Rory killed the engine, left the key in the ignition. He tilted his head to Adam but kept his eyes on the street. Metarie was never quiet. “Yeah, I heard. That doesn’t mean—”

“She called me a fucking cliché.” Adam’s voice was low, controlled. The voice of a man who since birth was taught to absorb each indignity, conceal each emotion, risking the lash of his stepfather’s belt or an extension cord. The dull rumble of a bomb before it went off.

“Adam, stop it. You can’t get riled up every time someone throws a dagger at your back. Besides, you know that’s what that crowd’s like.”

“You sure this is where she said? She said Old Francine, right?”

Rory leaned back, stared up at the Beetle’s roof as if he’d find an answer in the constellation of cigarette burns and pen gouges there. He breathed out a beery sigh and said “Yeah, that’s what Charlene told me. She didn’t say when they’d be ready. She wanted me to tell you they’ll have the cash on ‘em when they get here.”

“Whatever. Tell me you brought a backup battery for that camcorder.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Adam popped the door open and slid out into the night, sliding in that fluid way of his he could only find after a few rum-and-cokes. He sniffed the night air, sere October breeze that brought all the tastes of the city, the land, the water, the world into his lungs. October smelled like whispered promises yet to keep, yet to be disappointed.

Twenty-five and still blessed with the vulpine-sharp features of youth, pale as chicken bones, Adam languished on the hood of the Beetle. He stretched until he felt his sternum pop, heard the metallic wave as it echoed across the hood. Though it was still fairly muggy and a storm was supposed to be breeding somewhere along the Atlantic, the sky was clear, the stars up in that vast black ocean twinkling their own secrets. He fingered the lining of his fishnets that lay under his black shorts, lifting one of his legs onto the wheelbase.

It was stupid, really. He never would have said he’d do something like this, but that aggravating blonde cow at the bar had to go into a tirade, and he had to get sucked into it. He fell so fluidly into the conflict, and wasn’t that part of the cliché, too? And she pissed him off further by listing off every stereotype she could, and it pissed him off that so many of them really hit the nail on the head. And when Rory’s cousin appeared with that stupid idea, he blinked through the aged spiced rum and said he would.

Don’t pretend to be naïve, dumbass. You know what it’s called. You know what you are.

He looked back and saw Rory behind the windshield in time for him to look down, bashful-like, pretending to reorganize the fat case that held his camcorder.

“You wish it was you, don’t you?”

Rory glowered at him. He snapped the case shut and got out of the Beetle. His olive green army surplus jacket was two sizes too big, almost like a greatcoat, and it hung like a long shadow over his big shoulders. “I don’t care about that. I care about you, Adam.”

Adam hopped off the hood. He hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his shorts and gave Rory a look – a look. The kind of flirty look that he learned from the other pretty bats in the bathrooms of rock clubs and gay bars up and down the French Quarter or Lafayette. He took a couple steps up to him, close enough for Rory to stop fidgeting with the strap on his bag.

“What?”

He flung his hand out and made a grab for Rory’s crotch. Not too hard, but the suddenness made Rory flinch back, one protective knee up. Adam took off like a shot across the empty lot, over the empty street where the lamps were still violently orange instead of blue in other parts of the city, and slipped through the bars of the cemetery gates.

The gargoyles on either side of the plaque regarded him with stern judgment. They would be the only ones who would tonight; the small parish itself had been auctioned off and abandoned sometime in the mid-70s. Adam thought it a shame; the church, though small, had been built following the end of the Civil War. Just a week after General Lee begrudgingly capitulated and put his name to paper to end the Confederacy, in fact. The graveyard it tended was small but very old, perhaps as old as St. Louis No. 1, where Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen herself, was purported to have been buried.

In New Orleans, there’s a ghost for every shadow, and the willows hang very low over the unkempt ferns and grass that cover the cemetery. Here would have been the drowned victims, the unfortunates, the vagrants and pirates and riverboat gamblers who lost their lives out there on the face of Old Man River or on Lake Pontchartrain on the other side of the city.

Adam ran his hands respectfully along the rough, brine-hewn stone and marble. There were no families here who were wealthy enough to afford tombs, so there were more headstones than statues, and more footstones than headstones. The graves here were shallow, and the water level was high; more than once in the city’s history has a storm or flood rolled over the land and displaced caskets, jostling their residents. Sometimes, they’d be found with their latches rusted through, the lids popped open.

He shivered. A rushing breeze pushed through the willow boughs and cattails, made them sing. The Mississippi River slapped at the rocky bank and he found it so alluring. Even in the center of the city, nearer the Mississippi than Lake Pontchartrain, it seemed quieter, peaceful. It was sad, but in a beautiful way.

The thud of Rory’s boots behind him drew his attention. “Bitch,” Rory grumbled, hissed. He always said he wasn’t so superstitious, but Adam knew him better than he let on.

“It’s cold,” Adam observed. He felt drunker than he did after his sprint, heavier and looser. He sat his haunches down on a tilted granite slab, and the chill shut up through his thighs, straight up his back.

“Tell me you brought your own shit, Adam. I have some lube, but as for condoms…”

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it. What lube?”

Rory unzipped his bag, looking surreptitiously around the yard like someone might catch them in a drug bust. He showed off a small bottle of vegetable oil, and Adam smiled. “Aw, my sugar daddy’s got me covered.”

Rory sneered, underhanded the bottle at him. He caught it as it bounced off his jacket, just barely, and set it down on the stone beside him. He fingers ran into a series of ridges pitted in the surface. He looked down and saw an engraving, at a life in the engraving:

Theobald Reed
1863
Departed this world by way of rain and wind. Lord blessed, Lord taken.

There is never silence, not really, just a still beauty that spread out and shattered against the night. A night made to experience and just forget every night that happened before, but the heart never has enough desire to forget.

Adam looked at Rory, already turned his back on him and was setting up his device. His hands were shaking, his knees wobbly. Rory was the good boy; he drank but never enough that he felt it. He gambled, but he had the wherewithal to cut himself off before it became a problem. It didn’t strike Adam until now just how anxious he really was about the whole situation. He wanted to apologize, wanted to say he was sorry for dragging him into this.

Rory wasn’t a city boy. He had to come find himself after having it knocked out somewhere in the Louisiana backroads. He wasn’t accustomed to this perfumed landscape with its hegemony and nigh-cloak-and-dagger luxuriance, and he didn’t take to being chewed up and spat out by it. And when Adam slid all hypodermic into his life, he finally tried to gum up the courage to get out. But Adam had to have the final say, he just couldn’t…

You can’t stop it, can you? You can’t stop being such a fuck up, breaking everything you touch.

“Hey, Rory?”

“In a minute.”

“Ror?”

“Fuck! Not now, Adam. I had to drive all the way home to pick up my gear, make sure it was even working and I had enough cash left for gas. I had to blow off a job interview today because you wanted to hang out with your damn friends.”

Adam narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t have to stay. I could’ve gotten a ride with someone else, man. I can take care of myself.”

“No, you can’t, Adam. You keep making stupid decisions like this. So stop pretending you’re some gold-hearted prince.”

 

[MattyMoonTonight]

Send Me a Ghostcard
Part 2
​

Sere stillness followed like a wave receding from a beach. He looked over at the river, at the faraway lights on the other side spreading their dim glow along its glassy surface.

It was so beautiful. He smelled the wisteria and soggy moss and ocean brine, wishing he had the courage to walk out there and keep walking, until the warm water totally covered him.

Something caught his eye, something fuzzy illuminated in the warm glow of the streetlamps. It wafted in the corner of his vision then spiraled up in drifting threads. The smell hit him then, cutting through the bayou and flowers. It was a burning smell, like a flowery prairie set aflame. He turned his head, had to twist his waist to see the smoke trailing away behind him.

There – a dim orange ball of light glowed in the darkness beneath the willows that sobbed over the riverbank. It flared once and another puff of smoke rose up into the night. The light rose and slowly advanced toward him, followed by the sound of boots sloughing through the leaves and grass.

“Evening, fellas.”

Rory spun around, slipping and cursing loudly. Adam was transfixed as the man stepped into the moonlight. Must have come from a costume party, because he was garbed in a fancy copper-colored vest, dress shirt, and jacket, sleek trousers, and sharp calfskin boots. His hat was a pompous-looking thing, wide-brimmed with a snakeskin strap, holding in place a pair of brightly colored pheasant tailfeathers. Well-tanned, with brown eyes so dark and full like potash. He had a thin black moustache that reminded Adam of Lee Van Cleef.

“It’s a mighty good-looking night, isn’t it?”

“Jesus,” Rory grumbled. Adam glanced at him, at the fear and shock tensing his face. He stood up, rather swayed upward on legs that didn’t want to stay straight. Rory caught him by the shoulder, kept him in place. “So you’re the guy, then? You got everything patched up with Charlene just fine?”

The man nodded, the feathers on his hat bobbing. “Yep, I’m your man. At your service, sirs.”

“Right.” Rory’s voice became tremulous, and he had to clear his throat. The two young men shared a look of shattered expectation, of fearful realization that reality had crept up on them. Adam realized that they both had been hoping that nobody would show.

“First off,” Rory said, “empty your pockets, or take off your jacket. Whatever. We wanna be sure you’re not carrying anything, you know?”

The man smiled, and it wasn’t a sinister smile. As he stepped closer, he proceeded to expose the huge pockets of his coat and his vest with respectful slowness. Adam could smell whiskey and the unmistakable tang of chewing tobacco, but he didn’t appear drunk at all. In fact, he looked very refined, handsome even, now that he was fully in the moonlight. His fashion sense might have been from another century, but what he wore didn’t look cheap or dirty at all.

The man shifted his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other. He caught Adam’s eye and winked. Adam didn’t know he was smiling dumbly back until several moments too late.

“Alright,” Rory said, stepping aside. “If you guys wanna get started, I guess.” He grabbed his camcorder. The stranger’s eyes lingered on it for a second but turning back to Adam.

Here we go. You’re really doing it. Really proving them you’re not a cliché…

The stranger bent down and mashed his cigarette down into the stone. Adam sidled up to him, wrapped his arms around him and immediately filled his lungs with the smell that hung around him in a cloud. That burning, flowery smell, exotic. Enticing. The stranger gazed down at him with those hard brown eyes, Dracula eyes. The man grinned again, and those teeth were the same color as the moon.

Adam never liked facial hair. He had always gravitated toward those boys that mirrored his own body; famine-thin, they’re finely shaven skin soft as satin. Young fools too obsessed with the moment they were living to ever believe that Time could touch them.

“What’s your name, beautiful?” the stranger asked, and damn if Adam’s legs didn’t buckle when the timbre in his voice plummeted.

“No names,” Rory said from behind the lens, maybe a bit louder than he intended.

“I’m Adam. What do they call you when you’re not at home?”

The stranger didn’t speak. He answered by leaning down and pressing his lips to Adam’s. The moustache was coarse at first, ticklish, but he got used to it pretty quick; his tongue invaded Adam’s mouth, probing at the pits and shallows of his teeth and the walls of his mouth, running over his own in slickened whorls.

Hands cold as lakewater reached up under his shirt, strayed at the sharp jut of his hip bones, thumb the divots of his pubis before rising up and reaching around to clutch at his back. Adam started working at the brass buttons of the man’s vest and then the pearl ones of his dress shirt. Decent-looking chest, a thicket black as night. He ran his fingers through it, amazement tinted with a little bit of fear.

What’s the matter with you? This isn’t your first time, why are you acting like it is?

His jacket slid off his shoulders, ended up at his boots in a tangled heap. The stranger pulled up on his shirt, and Adam pulled away enough to move his arms up. The fabric hissed over his skin, replaced with the night’s chill. The shock made him gasp, gooseflesh pimpling his pale body. His shirt was tossed away into the leaves, and he crossed his arms over his chest, his nipples already hardening.

“Such a pretty thing,” the man said, his whiskey-gravel voice like a song at sunset. “How does a body like yours get to be softer n’ cornsilk?”

“Practice. Lots of filthy, fucking practice.”

Adam reached for the button of those prim trousers, and in the same moment, he opened his mouth to take in the stranger’s tongue again. Long fingers reached around his neck, touched him delicately, tracing the flow of a vein. A button popped, zipper slung down, and Adam allowed himself to be lowered to his knees. Practiced supplication to a familiar and welcoming altar.

Take a breath, wet your mouth. Holy fuck was it cold out here. The cock twitched from its thatch of thick black hair, expecting his expectation. It was impressive, its droop slowly rising, the veins pulsing blackly under the moon. A sere bead of precum hung suspended on the tip, tantalizing, then fell onto his nose. The stranger hung in a gaudy silhouette above the honeyed moon, like a dream.

You’re fucking disgusting, Adam. You deserve everything you get.

Take a breath, stick out your tongue. He played with the tip, danced on it, kissed it, traced its length by following those thick veins. He savored the taste while Rory hovered around them, trying to get the shot as Charlene desired. Make it spooky, she had crooned behind her bottle of Chartreuse.

The stranger groaned deeply. Adam, goaded by rum and motivation, pushed himself. He pressed forward deeper than he ever went before, the tip slickening the back of his tongue, entering his throat. His nose settled into the black nest of hair, and the smell was incredible. A hand touched the back of his head, stroked his long dark hair.

He braced himself – there had been men on other moonlit nights who hadn’t been as gentle, had never equated sex with gentleness. Men who liked to take as much as they could and leave you in the ditch. He started to gag, and he pulled away. Not entirely off, but away enough to catch his breath. The stranger didn’t get rough, didn’t pull him back. Adam looked up at the grim shadow above him, felt his eyes on him. He couldn’t see, but he had a feeling he was smiling.

“That’s enough, boy. I think it’s time for the main event, don’t you?”

Adam coughed. He laughed, didn’t know why he was laughing. It just seemed appropriate at the moment. He hauled himself up on knees that ached more than they did last year. He swayed, head fuzzied – he grabbed the man’s shirt to steady himself and found himself buried in his chest, in another man’s heated musk.

The man kissed the top of his head, and he felt himself spun around. Arms, strong as industrial cable, slinked around his waist and imbued his flesh with warmth. Fingers played staccato on his ribs, tweaked the areolae of his nipples before pinching them.

Adam was about to say something, make some little remark to keep the stranger’s cock at the ready, but before he could one of those large hands grabbed his forehead and tilted it back, as firm as it was gentle. The endless night filled his vision, with all its secrets and promise. A finger, so warm and soft, played with his Adam’s apple and tickled his mandible.

“You’re such a treasure,” the voice whispered at his throat, tickling. “And here I almost forgot this.”

“What did you forget?”

Lips, tongue, teeth brushing along the skin above his shoulder. Adam could feel his own dick pushing against the hard denim, straining into the fastened teeth below the zipper. He didn’t put on underwear tonight. A sound escaped Adam’s throat, low and almost pleading, and his cheeks flushed even deeper; it was a sound he’d made before in the beds of other men, but this time it felt sincere.

 

[MattyMoonTonight]

Send Me a Ghostcard
Part 3
​

Then the hands vanished from his torso, reappearing at his hips. “Take hold of that headstone,” he said, and Adam’s anticipation began building pressure somewhere in his chest. His body shook and he let out a sound that made him blush. He bent down – the stranger put one large hand on his shoulder, so heavy and hot – and put his own hands on either side of the broad granite slab. Freezing cold, stars shining with twice-stolen sunlight.

The stranger stroked the fabric of his shorts, played with the hem of his stockings, groping the fatty underside of his ass. Adam arched his back, easing so fluidly into his role.

A flash of red in the corner of his eye. He looked to his right and glimpsed Rory behind the gleaming lens. There was a tense look in Rory’s face that Adam didn’t like, a sadness in his eyes. The button and zipper of Adam’s shorts were released, his cock granted respite. His shorts were pulled away, the cold running over his wholeness. He shivered.

There was a pause, and Adam waited. He saw Rory tilt his head, the stranger taking his attention. He pulled out the bottle of vegetable oil from his bag and gave it to him. He gave Adam a brief glance, an unreadable expression, before returning to work.

After a few moments, a knuckle slid between his ass cheeks and greased his entrance. The suddenness pushed something into his throat, and he coughed a little. The taste of the stranger’s cock still stained his tongue, and he swallowed it down, savored it. The man slid a finger inside him, not half as gentle as he had hoped. He hadn’t prepared for being in this situation, no time, and he was much tighter than the last time.

He hated this. He loved this.

One finger, one minute. Then two. The man seemed experienced but not artistic. Just as well, Adam supposed; it was getting too damn cold. His own erection was already shrinking, shrunken.

“Don’t hold still,” the voice spoke into his ear, and Adam felt fire erupting inside him as the stranger pushed in, stretched him. He groaned, hadn’t meant to but he did, and the stranger took that to mean he could go at whatever pace he wanted.

What metaphor could Adam compose, what comparative could he use to describe it to Rory to make him blush like a cherry later tonight? It was as monstrous as it was wondrous, as cruel as it was passionate. The stranger went at him hard and fast; Adam had to bend further down, the frozen stone digging into his abdomen. The further he tried to escape, the harder the stranger went after him, dirty fingernails cutting into his skin.

Adam tried to keep his mouth shut, but the small rabbitty sounds that escaped his lips goaded his own desire. Beads of semen flung from the tip of his cock onto the gravestone. Somewhere, a cop sounded its siren as it flew up the street to the French Quarter. Somewhere closer, an owl screeched.

You’re such a cliché.

When the stranger grabbed at his shoulder, hauled him backward, and shoved his hips against him, Adam knew he was close. Two more thrusts, and the stranger growled like a jungle animal, dug his claws deeper in until Adam could feel warmth slicking his thighs. Then the heat exploded inside him, filled him like a light fills an empty room. A flash of being dirty, of filth and shame, fell over him like a shroud, then it was peeled away as a breeze dragged him back to this empty parish cemetery where the shadows and moonlight danced.

A short while later, the stranger had stepped to the river, brushing off his clothes and staring at the lights of the city. Adam pulled up his shorts – worried that they would stain, he had to push out some cum, embarrassingly and noisily squatting in the overgrown grass. Rory walked over to him, and when he tried to put a hand on his shoulder Adam pulled back. He didn’t know why.

“Did you get everything?” Adam asked.

“Yeah, I did. It’s kind of dark, but it should keep Charlene happy.”

Adam nodded. That was the important thing, wasn’t it? Keeping that pompous bitch happy. He suddenly felt tired, drained – he never felt that way after sex before. He had to sit back on the gravestone and take a couple breaths. “Please tell me you got his money.”

Rory’s face pulled into a rictus, and he hissed between his teeth as he stomped toward the river. Adam watched him for a second before gazing up at the stars and the moon. It used to be so pretty to him, so serene and tranquil, looking up at the sky, the sound of the river lulling him to sleep. But now? It all seemed to useless, so perfunctorily awful.

Adam had never used the word perfunctorily before, had only seen it written in coffee-stained books in the thrift store where he worked. It was such a fancy, old-fashioned word. He wished he was as fancy and old-fashioned as the words he’d see written by dingy authors nobody remembers. He straightened out his shirt, his mouth pulling down.

Are you crying, you dumb bitch? You better stop that now and man up, or else.

His father’s words, thought with his own voice.

“Adam? Did you see where that guy went?”

Adam narrowed his eyes, unsure if he’d heard correctly. He looked over and saw Rory over by the river, turning around and around, looking like a kid that lost their favorite toy. He peered behind the cattails and stomped over to the willows. A moment later, he turned back to Adam, shook his head and flung up his hands.

 

[MattyMoonTonight]

Send Me a Ghostcard
part 4
​

“No fucking way,” Adam mumbled, wiping his face. He had to be joking; he didn’t recall seeing the guy head to the gate. He should have been at the river. He wouldn’t have run, not in those clunky old boots. No way he jumped into the Mississippi.

“Yo! What’re you queers doin’?”

Adam snapped his head to the gate so fast that he pulled a muscle. Holding a hand to his neck, he saw Charlene, garbed like a male Vaudeville performer with a three piece black suit, penciled on moustache, derby hat, swinging a cane as she pushed open the gate. There was a milquetoast sort of man walking beside her looking sheepish and trying to be inconspicuous even in an empty graveyard.

Charlene skipped up to them, tapping her cane on each headstone. “Are you ready? Dave here says he’s got the dough.”

The man smiled nervously, fidgeting with the back of his wrist. “I thought you said no names…”

“Whatever. Just fork it over and we can get this over with.”

Rory and Adam exchanged stunned looks. Rory looked like he was about to say something, but Adam cut him off. He asked to see the cash upfront before anything happened – Rory really looked like he was going to say something, but Adam threw him a glare.

This new man rifled through his pants pockets and came up with just over two hundred dollars. The second the money touched his palm, he felt that pang of filthiness again, of uncleanness. But triple digits would go a long way with the rent, with food, with Rory’s photography business. At least for one more month.

Rory, at the urging of Charlene hanging on his shoulder, replaced the memory cards in the camcorder with riverboat gambler finesse. He kept his mouth shut, those eyes looking deep and hurt as Adam assumed the persona again.

Ten minutes became half an hour. Half an hour turned into one hour, and pretty soon the sky was painted in Mai Tai colors. The man finished for the second time in Adam’s mouth. His shorts were somewhere in the grass, and Charlene allowed him to collect them. He did what was expected of him, he cooed and smiled when the man said he was worth every cent, he was kind and receptive to the attention. This new, cautious little man hadn’t made him feel like the other. While he was being fucked from behind, Adam kept his back arched and his head high, but he kept his eyes on the long, old-fashioned cigarette crushed into the gravestone. He realized there it would have left a charcoal smear on his stomach that’ll have to be washed later.

After a time, Charlene was sated. Rory passed her the second memory card and she told him his tab at the bar wasn’t a problem anymore. Grumbling, he took hold of Adam’s elbow, silently led him to the gate. Charlene and the milquetoast started an argument that they couldn’t hear, and it was finished as soon as it started.

Passing the gate and the judging gargoyles, Rory put his arm around Adam’s shoulders. This time, he didn’t pull away. It was such a rare thing for Rory to show some kind of affection outside of their apartment. They both kept in silence as they crossed the street, passed the lot, and got into Rory’s black Beetle.

His body ached; he wouldn’t admit it, but Adam’s whole body felt like some of hit had been left in the graveyard. He put his arms across his stomach, sinking into his seat, avoiding eye contact with the rearview mirror while Rory got in behind the wheel. For a while, Rory didn’t do anything, just watched Charlene and the stranger walk together for a distance and then part ways, presumably to return to the bar.

Adam looked up at the pregnant moon. Rory flipped the key and the Beetle coughed to life.

“I really am, aren’t I, Rory?” Adam mumbled into the seat.

“Huh?”

“I really am a disgusting faggot. Just a fucking cliché.”

Rory looked at him. Adam wouldn’t look back, just felt his gaze until it burned enough that he had to look, and there was a painfully paternal look in Rory’s face.

Rory brushed the bangs out of Adam’s eyes. He stroked his hair with a delicate touch. “Here’s the funny thing about cliches, Adam. Where do you think we get myths and legends from? Myths and legends are made up of cliches. And whose to say you can’t rewrite the narrative whenever you want? Legends do it all the time.”

Adam chewed on his lip, considering Rory’s words. He flipped over to his other side and stared out the window, hoping he could keep from crying until they got to their apartment. From the other side stared his reflection, zipping along with the rest of the city in a brilliant blur as morning began to cut across the horizon.

 

[MattyMoonTonight]

Author's Note:
Send Me a Ghostcard

I developed this idea after listening to “In The Tules” by Bret Harte (1837 – 1902), from the audiobook version of Out of the Closet: A Collection of Early LGBTQ Fiction, which had a much kinder voice than this jaded one of mine. My knowledge and interest in New Orleans stems largely from Poppy Z. Brite’s fiction. I wanted to write something that politely petted that Goth pretty boy I’ve always dreamed of being but never became, and now likely will never be. This originally started as being much lighter in tone, with the phantom riverboat gambler taking a gentler approach to sex and Adam’s emotions, and not the oddly vampiric sort it became. This story is also a good example of what happens when I feel a project has gone on long enough and I want to end it so I can move on to the next damn thing in the list.