“Da weather, it is wild tonight. Maybe it rain on me, maybe it rain on you. De clouds are busy, dey hard to read,” Portaphoi said, walking up to stand next to Stanley as he moved to shoot.

Stanley turned to smile up at him, seeing Carson out of the corner of his eye looking angry. “If I were you I’d buy a fuckin’ umbrella,” he said, breaking near and quick, sinking a four and a six neat and thick, the sounds of the balls in the pockets like belly punches.

That game, and the one after that. Somewhere along Stanley had tossed his coat onto one of the spectator seats, loosened his tie, and undone a couple of buttons. His belly was full, but now his eyes were starting to get tired. A quick look at his watch: 3:00 a.m. They were almost even, with Stanley just two games ahead. The night was young, but Stanley was feeling his age.

Then a ball betrayed him, touching the bumper before the pocket, spinning out into the middle of the table. The kid stepped up and cleared it—hard and neat, the fall of ball into pocket becoming punches into Stanley’s gut this time.

The looks continued, too. After every shot, Billie would stop and look up at him—his eyes gleaming ice, his lips hot and full. Despite his nerves, Stanley felt his cock start to get hard. Yeah, after all this, he’d get himself a whore—some babe with easy hips and hungry lips, or he’d walk that way again and see what Richie would do for a ten-spot.

Billie sank a seven, quick and sharp. Looking up at Stanley, he smiled and licked his lips. The next ball missed the pocket.

Stanley stepped up, walking stiff to hide his stiffening cock. But he felt the edge nonetheless. Even though his mind was foggy with dicks, assholes, cunts, and tits, he still felt it—there—the game spelled out before him. The balls still respected him and they did what he wanted. One game, two, then it slipped away. He felt like he woke up, and the dream wasn’t real life. The balls laughed at him, slipping and sliding away from each other and the pockets.

Angry at himself and his throbbing dick, he walked back to the seats. He called over the black guy and asked for some Daniel’s. As Billie cleared the table and won the game, he finished the bottle. As Billie cleared the next, putting them in a tie, Stanley put the bottle on the linoleum floor—and saw that his hands were shaking.

That was it. The kid was ahead by two and they only had three more games to play. He looked up at Carson and saw the anger in his eyes, the fury that comes when you realize that your sure thing isn’t going to deliver. Another glance, this time at Portaphoi, gave Stanley nothing but a cool shiver as the black-on-black fancy-dan was smiling again—a little too wide, showing even another gold tooth.

Stanley looked at Billie, and there was that smile. That hot, inviting smile. In a moment, Stanley hated that smile. Hated the fact that the kid was going to smoke him, that he was going to run the game, take home his cut, put another gold tooth in Portaphoi’s head and make Stanley a loser.

Then it happened. Portaphoi couldn’t have seen it, but Carson certainly did, just as he certainly placed a fat roll in the kid’s pocket—but that was something that Stanley didn’t figure till later, lying in his still hotel room bed and staring up at the fly-specked ceiling. Stanley only saw it because he knew what it was: a shift of balance, too much spin, too little strength in the hit: the kid was playing the game several moves ahead too, but not to win. The kid had thrown the game, he’d tossed it away. For Stanley, probably just a little bit; but mostly for the game that Carson had played with him—the game they’d played on Portaphoi: and won.

The eight skipped too far to the left, bounced against a hovering three. Billie swore, a short, sharp “fuck!” and moved away.

Stanley sat there in the spectators’ seats, more aware that the sun was rising behind him—slowly heating the pool room—than he was that he was up. It took Carson walking toward him to make him blink, stand, and grab his cue. The rest of the games were easy, and he could have shot them even if he wasn’t somewhere else, lost in that last game of the kid’s.

It was over, the last ball sank neat and clean. He stared at the velvet for a long moment, at the empty table, and at the pale, narrow shaft of his cue—which didn’t look anything like his dick, just a cheap stick of wood. He didn’t see Portaphoi leave, didn’t see the muscle go. He only looked up when Carson put a wad of bills in his shirt pocket, saying, “Fucking great, Stanley.” When he did look up, he saw the kid standing there in the doorway, an inviting look in his eyes. But Stanley didn’t agree or disagree; he just looked down at the velvet and shook his head.

*

The walk back to the hotel was longer than the walk there. His steps were shorter, the blocks were longer, and the air—even though the sun was up – was much cooler. He must have walked the same way back as he had going to the hall, because as he passed an alley he heard a voice, gruff and thick with phlegm, say “Hey, hey, hey—”

But Stanley didn’t reply, even as the voice changed: “Mister! Got a buck, mister? Hey, you—I’m talkin’ to you.”

One foot in front of the other. Small steps. “Fucking loser asshole,” the voice in the alley said as Stanley walked past.

Realizing suddenly that he’d been recognized—again—Stanley just kept on walking.

Tricked

Jonathan Asche

“Okay if I smoke in your car?”

Ordinarily Martin would say no. He’d quit smoking six months ago and didn’t need the extra temptation (his willpower had already been strained being amongst all those smokers in the nightclub). Plus it would stink up the car’s interior, hurt its rapidly dwindling trade-in value.

But this wasn’t an ordinary moment. “Sure,” Martin said, smiling at the man—the young man—sitting in the passenger seat. Make that slouched down in the seat, like he was being pulled down by the weight of his crotch, Martin thought. He eyed the young man’s basket, bulging in his fashionably worn blue jeans. Martin’s heart quickened its pace, and his eyes traveled up the man’s torso, still bare, the street lamps and sheen of sweat making his taut, sinewy muscles gleam appealingly.

Soon, he thought, this will be mine.

His eyes stopped on the young man’s face—his features still soft, not yet hardened by time, though his eyes revealed a depth of experience. Martin’s eyes stopped at the mouth, an unlit Winston dangling from those fleshy, peach-colored lips. Those lips curled into a smile. Or was it a sneer?

“Checking out the merchandise?”

Martin looked away. “Sorry,” he mumbled, embarrassed, looking away and running his hands through his thinning brown hair. “You’re just…you’re…very attractive.”

The young man’s name was Ty. They’d met barely an hour ago, in Armory. Actually, Martin had been watching Ty for a while before they met, watching him gyrate on the dance floor. Martin stood on the sidelines, nursing his third bourbon and ginger, wishing he was ten years—hell, twenty years—younger, wishing he had the nerve to go out there and join Ty or any of the other hot, shirtless men undulating on the dance floor, all dancing together, though few with each other.

And it looked like all Martin would leave with was the mental pictures of those hot men who might fuel a listless jack-off session when he got home. That was, if he didn’t drink so much he couldn’t get it up.

Then, as Martin was ordering bourbon and ginger number four, Ty came bounding up beside him, bumping him on the shoulder. “Hey, dude, how’s it going?” he asked breathlessly, like they were buddies. “Uh, fine,” Martin stammered. Like a goddamned dork. Ty ordered a bottle of water and, for once, Martin acted impulsively. “I’ll get that,” he told the bartender, thrusting a twenty in his direction.