Sleeping Rough

  Sleeping Rough

  Four Seasons on the Streets

  Thomas Carver

  Copyright © 2016 by Thomas Carver

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Sleeping Rough: Four Seasons on the Streets

  Book I: Summer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Book II: Fall

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Book III: Winter

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part IV: Spring

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Book I: Summer

  Chapter 1

  Of course it was raining.

  The homeless shelter turned me away. Apparently, it was first come, first serve, and the smell of rotting lives and sweaty cots didn't exactly appeal to me anyway. They put my name on a list.

  I felt right at home. It was downright German of them.

  We had just arrived in the States a few weeks ago -- back in the States, Mom said, but I had been bundled off to Germany when too young to remember much of the U.S. So far, all I knew of the States were that people my age apparently stopped reading anything after eighth grade, and the beer was shit. And I wasn't allowed to drink it. And being gay is apparently a big enough deal that your Dad will kick you out of the house for it on your eighteenth birthday, when he no longer has to "put up with your faggot bullshit."

  "You're a man now," he said, "or something. So figure it out."

  I had a few months before college classes started. So all I had to do was survive till then.

  But my hoody was soaked through and my jeans stuck to my legs. I was in some sort of park, near a river. It was maybe three or four in the morning, but the water had ruined my phone. I found a park bench under a tree, but it offered no shelter. Fat drops of water splattered me from the leaves. I curled up into a damp ball and tried to sleep a little, figuring a cop would come along to hurry me away in a few minutes. Or maybe take me somewhere warm and dry, give me a cup of coffee. I imagined me, in fingerless gloves I didn't actually have, gratefully accepting a Styrofoam cup. He'd be young, handsome, concerned, not yet burned out by the ceaseless turmoil of Chicago streets. His brow would knit, a single wrinkle marring its smoothness. No, he'd have a couple zits, tiny ones, just on his hairline. So young. He'd place his hand on my knee. His eyes, full of human warmth, human compassion, human -- lust? Yes, perhaps a spark. I'd fan it, encourage it -- encourage him to move his hand higher, and higher --

  Someone was singing.

  My eyes snapped open.

  "I'm dancin' in the RAIN! just a-dancin' in the RAIN!"

  A thin figure moved in the shattered lights of the wet reflections of the city. His naked arms were held up to the sky, whipping a wet cloth -- his shirt, maybe -- around his head. He dropped the shirt on a pile of other cloth and a tattered, soaked military surplus backpack. Then he dropped his jeans, bent over, and sang out: "Wash my asshole, God. You made it dirty, you clean it up." He farted hugely, then looked up, saw me, and straightened. His cock swung and dripped.

  "Hey," he said. "How's it going?"

  I sat up, squishing. "Hey."

  He yanked his pants up -- hard to describe them as "jeans," really. They reminded me of motley, but all in shades of gray and brown and black. More patch than cloth. He approached, holding out the hand he had just used to scrub his ass-crack in the rain.

  "I was just going," I said.

  He looked at his hand, looked at me, and smirked. His face was brittle, thin, sharp even. He looked like someone had hammered his skull out of sheet metal, and stretched a thin, pale, but smooth skin over it. He wasn't attractive, but after my sexual fantasy, I didn't find him unattractive either. I had just seen his cock. That was only the second live one I'd ever seen, other than in gym, and I never looked then. The first had been another military brat back in Germany, and how my dad had found out -- well.

  "I'm Brandon," I said.

  "No," he said.

  "So. What's your name?"

  "We haven't established yours yet," he said. "I think Brandon is a really boring name. You're Puppyface."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. Cause you got that blond Puppyface, all chubby cheeks and sad pouty eyes. Cute. I'm called Cray, cause of the way I act."

  "Taking showers in the rain."

  "Purely sane," he said. "That rhymes. It's a practical matter. Got to get clean, taking showers means paying the price."

  "Shelters are free, yes?"

  "No. There's always a price. You sad because you're wet, or wet 'cause you're sad?"

  "Both."

  "Can I steal half your bench? They ain't put the stupid metal things on them yet to keep us from sleeping on them. The shit this city does, man, to unman a man."

  I hesitated. He was clearly nuts. But he seemed harmless and was making the time pass and his thin, slick body traced with poorly inked tattoos gave me some hope of human warmth in the long, wet night.

  He put on a soggy ragged baseball cap with "CRAY-Z!" under the brim written in Sharpie, and tossed his bag and the rest of his clothes up against the tree. He sat next to me, his feet curled under him, like a yogi.

  "Tell me a story, Puppyface."

  So I told him what happened. My dad, finding me with another of the boys in Germany. His dad, my dad, both outraged, disgusted. Lots of Marine corps bluster. Coming back to the U.S. after my dad's retirement from the military. Turning eighteen. Getting kicked out on my birthday.

  "Today's your birthday? No, yesterday would have been. Hey, man, did you get your birthday swats?"

  "What?"

  "You gotta get swatted on your b-day. That way, you practice for the pain of the rest of the year. Come on. You know you wanna." He unfolded his legs and planted his tattered shoes on the muddy ground. He patted his wet lap.

  I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and said so.

  "Lean over my knee. I'm going to spank you."

  "Uh, no," I said.

  "Up to you. But if you don't get your swats, you gotta take them from fate, and she hits harder."

  Was this his way of coming on to me? If so, it was deeply weird. But I was tired, sad, and in a strange country, even if it was technically my home. I was open to the deeply weird.

  I leaned over his lap, my ass in the air.

  He paddled me with his hand, lightly, each blow splashing against the wet fabric. Eighteen times. Then he crowed "and one to grow on!" and delivered a huge wallop that nearly sent me face-first into the mud. My ass stung.

  I rounded on him. "What the fuck?"

  "One to grow on," he said, calmly.

  "That hurt."

  "Yeah. That's the point. Come on, man. Tell me the rest of your story."

  Reluctantly, I sat back down. "There is no more. I went to the Metra station to get out of the rain, and on a whim I got a ticket to the city. The shelters were -- closed, I guess, full. So I came here to sleep. You were washing yourself. Then you smacked m
y ass."

  "It's a nice ass," he said.

  "Thanks."

  "You have a nice body."

  "I was on the wrestling team. Germans are big on Greco-Roman stuff."

  "I bet they are. You're going to lose some of that muscle on the streets, you're not careful."

  "Yeah. Well. This is temporary. I'm going to school in a couple months."

  "That's cool," he said. "I mean, it's one way to pass the time, I guess. Of course, there's a downside -- "

  "What's that?"

  His arm swept around, to take in the darkness of the park, the sparkling of the city, and the now drizzling rain. "You lose all this."

  "Lose what? You're homeless."

  "I'm not homeless, man. I'm home free. Look at how big my bathroom is, man. My shower is the whole damned sky. And if I want to read something, my study is the Washington Library. And if I want to see view my art collection, I stop by the museum on Thursday, when it's free, and see all my art. I own a whole wall of Monets, man. And when I want some quiet, there's every church in the city. And when I want some noise, there's all the sidewalks. And when I want to eat -- "

  "Yeah, well. Eating is what I'm afraid of."

  "You can eat well, if you're willing to eat what other people throw away."

  "Sounds horrid."

  "Poor Puppyface. Come on, I'ma take you home with me, scratch your belly and give you a treat. If you want."

  I was exhausted, terrified, and depressed. Why the fuck not?

  "Why the fuck not?"

  "Good motto. Hup hup, here boy. Follow me. Two doggies in this dog-eat-dog world."

  Chapter 2

  Home was a spandrel -- is that an English word or a German one? sometimes I don't know -- under an overpass. A large cardboard box had been dissected and spread out as a mat. It was more or less dry, and the rain was petering out. He spread his clothes out on the cement. "Get out of those, and we'll let 'em dry."

  "These are the only clothes I own," I said.

  He smiled, showing surprisingly clear, even teeth. "Oh, lucky boy. So little to weigh you down."

  "I mean, I'll be naked."

  "Cool. I'd like to see you naked."

  "Are you gay?"

  He leaned back on the mat and took off his shoes. He peeled off his wet socks and wiggled pale, water-wrinkled feet. "Ain't nothing I'm not, man." He began worming out of his pants.

  I shrugged and stripped off my shirt. I spread it on the concrete, so that it would dry if it ever quit raining. I did the same with my pants after a brief hesitation, and then joined him on the mat in my underwear.

  "What if someone sees us?" I said.

  "You want to be invisible? I'll take you to work the ramp some time. You'll see how invisible we are. Come here. I'm cold."

  I didn't know him. He was a stranger, and a strange one. But I lay next to him and let him nestle me in the crook of his arm. My head rested on his armpit.

  He stroked my hair. "Is this curly when it isn't wet?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "My little blond curly puppy. I like that." He pressed his lips to my forehead. They were hot. "You, my little blond curly puppy, have a fever."

  "I do?"

  "You do. Dig in my bag there and pull out the Hello Kitty bag. It has some aspirin in it."

  I swallowed two of the aspirin -- after making sure they were, in fact, aspirin -- dry. Then I rejoined him on the cardboard. My body had left a wet mark in the shape of my side.

  "I might learn to love you, little puppy face."

  "I don't know about that," I said.

  "Don't feel too special. I love everyone. I'm a living fucking saint."

  "Yeah?" I said.

  "Yeah. You ever suck off a saint?"

  "I've only ever sucked off one guy."

  "I'm pretty sure that wasn't me. So -- "

  I knelt between his legs. This was insane. It was stupid. But I was tired, and yes, feverish, and sad, and lonely, and he had been kind to me. Everything had the haze of a dream or a fantasy.

  I bent between his legs. He didn't smell bad, not like I imagined a homeless man would smell. But of course, he wasn't brined in ancient cheap wine, dying of internal decay. He was young, healthy, somehow, and vital, more vital than a lot of people I'd known in starched shirts and tight European slacks all growing up.

  His cock, wet and cold, warmed and lengthened in my hand. He lay back and put his hands behind his head. I couldn't see him well, in the dim reflected glow of distant streetlights, but he was traced with black lines, all up and down his thin sides. His cock, though, was free of tattoos. I put my lips on it, had one brief moment of sanity that I stepped on, and swallowed him.

  My tongue lapped the rainwater from his prick, my lips sucked it from his curly brown pubic hairs like wine. It was nice, being intimate with a stranger.

  I inspected his cock, but it seemed clean enough. No lesions. Nothing living in his pubes. I had been vaccinated for everything.

  Well. Wer A sagt, muss auch B sagen. I slipped into German in my head. It was the language of my heart, the language of my gonads. Dad hated it, that I spoke German as well as English (or better -- my English was sterile textbook purity, my German a weed in the street).

  His cock lengthened into a graceful curve, not up or down but to the left slightly. He had no foreskin, something I had learned many Americans somehow stumbled into without the usual requirement of being Jewish. It was a novelty. My own cock had a silken sheath, and Kyle -- the boy back in Germany -- had a foreskin as loose as a knitted sock.

  I ran my lips up and down the smooth curve of him. I couldn't escape the idea that he was dirty, that I was debasing myself. And to my surprise, I found the idea not entirely unappealing. I touched my own cock in my sodden shorts, then divested myself of them with a kick or two. My cock fit into my palm. Familiar, thick, and loose.

  I took him down as far as I could, not to the limit but close. His pubes tickled the tip of my nose, just barely. I gagged, but choked it back. I could tell by his breathing that he liked this.

  I pulled back up. "You can talk if you want."

  "You like that?"

  "I like -- everything," I said.

  "Then suck me," he said, and I returned. "That's right. Suck my cock, my new little puppy boy, my new little whore. Suck me and make me come, eat my cum for breakfast. The sun is rising, the lamp of God is lit, and we writhe under thundering concrete like two dark worms seeking the damp earth. You're my earthworm, sucking me dry, and I'm a worm burrowing into your body to curl below your heart and feed off the warmth of your blood."

  As sexy talk went, it was not -- good. It was hard not to laugh. But his cock hardened. It was getting him off, and now, that's all I cared about.

  He ran his hands over my cold hair and pushed me, gently, down on his dick. I swallowed more of it than I thought I could, and he curled up around my head in a tight crunch.

  "Love," he said. "Love, love, fucking love."

  And he came down my throat, three strong pumps of such force I barely tasted them. They shot directly into my stomach. I barely had to work to swallow them. Then he pulled out, leaving a fourth feeble spurt on my lips.

  I licked it up. It was sweet and salty but smelled like bleach.

  He barely let me lay back before he was on me, and he sucked cock much better than he talked dirty. I felt like an amateur pianist opening for a master. His lips were soft and smooth, and he played the tightness of them like like an expert. His tongue probed, thrust, and encircled. It rolled under my foreskin, over the head of my cock, and then thrust -- somehow, it seemed that way anyway -- into my piss slit and right inside me. I arched back, close already.

  He pulled my balls, not viciously, but enough to bring me back. He wanted to savor my cock. His tongue lapped at it, and then he swallowed the whole spit slicked length of it and let it rest, pulsing, inside his throat. Some muscles inside his gullet pulled and massaged it.

  I came. I couldn't help it. I came a
long, sad, and not entirely pleasant orgasm. But he swallowed it all, and pulled up to lay next to me, his thin arm flung over my chest.

  "I'm sorry the world fucked you," he said, after a few moments of silence.

  "I'm sorry too."

  "What would you want to be if you had to grow up?"

  I thought about it. What would piss my dad off most? "A whore," I said.

  He "huhhed." "You know," he said, "you'd have to let gross old men suck you. You'd have to suck off guys you don't want to, maybe fat guys, ugly guys. You'd have to let thugs use you, fuck you, and maybe hurt you. You'd be nothing to them, just a piece of shit to use. Cops would fuck you then arrest you, throw you in cells with skinheads who would take turns turning your ass out."

  "Sounds horrible," I said.

  "But you're getting hard again."

  "Yeah. Hurts a little."

  He wrapped his fingers around my dick, very lightly. "Yeah. But what happens if you love pain? Who can hurt you? And if you love being degraded, who can degrade you?"

  "I don't know."

  His lips rested on my earlobe. He nibbled it. "Welcome to freedom," he breathed, hotly, into the whorl of my ear.

  Chapter 3

  I woke up to the roar of a truck engine-breaking above me. I stared at concrete, traced with red graffiti I couldn't read. It's a cliche to say you wake up and don't know where you are; it's not a true one. I woke up and knew where I was. On a -- under a -- street. I rolled over on the cardboard mat. I was alone.

  He had left, taken his bag, but left me my clothes and, I realized after a quick and panicked search, my meager stash of cash.

  Maybe it hadn't really happened, I thought. Maybe it was a dream. But no, there was dried cum on my chin and in my pubes.

  It had been hot, I had to admit. Hot because forbidden, and yeah, hot because it'd not only piss off my dad, but maybe kill him if he ever found out, and that was fine with me.

  I put on my pants and shirt. He had taken my underwear. A souvenir? But he had left me his tighty-whities, long ago past the life of their elastic and full of holes. I pulled them on and felt a thrill to have my cock rest against the dirty fabric that held his.