Common Language

They live in the poorest section of the city. In a wealthy community, though, this area of modest income is nothing like the poverty-stricken slums of Detroit. There, every day I drove through areas that looked like they’d been bombed out. Areas so bankrupt that I couldn’t imagine anyone living in the homes without roofs, or windows, or even much more than the rotted and weathered bare timber fingers projecting skeletally to the winter skies. But people did live in those monstrosities. Whole families, or groups of men and women would hole themselves up beneath fallen plaster walls or boarded-up fireplaces, hiding in the shadows and waiting for a change in fortune that never comes.

Here, poverty looks a lot like Detroit’s lower middle-class neighborhoods of slightly shabby older homes, tightly spaced to conserve land. None of them have seen updates or coats of paint in years, but none of them are rotted out, or abandoned, or unlivable. If the people in my neighborhood are afraid to drive through here after dark, it’s only because at night there are actual people roaming the street, rather than the deserted sidewalks and empty driveways of suburbia. There are nightclubs in old commercial buildings, and food trucks serving spicy food through their back windows, on the perimeter of the little city park. There’s a bodega bustling with activity on the corner, and a lunchtime rush of cars along Route 1 half a block away. This might not be the pristine and manicured showcase of a street that’s typical of this part of my state, but compared to where I lived for twenty-five years, it’s just a bustling neighborhood of working class people.

One of them is waiting in front for me as I park my car. He stubs out a cigarette a nods. It’s the first time I’ve seen his face—the profile of this couple merely shows a couple of dicks (good-looking dicks, admittedly) and a vague silhouette of two Latin men standing arm-in-arm, muscular shadows without faces against a sunny doorway. But this guy’s quite handsome. He’s a full half-foot shorter than I, and twice as broad in the shoulders and chest. His black hair is full and thick; there’s a trace of a mustache across his upper lip.

As I approach, he extends his hand. Nods. Jerks his head. We walk down the house’s driveway and around the back. When he leads me down a half-flight of cellar stairs to an exterior door there, I understand where we’re going. There are a lot of houses like these, in this neighborhood—old large family homes that have been divided into as many possible rentable rooms and apartments as possible. Even some of the most windowless basement enclosures have been laid with linoleum and crudely drywalled and transformed into miniature dwellings.

That’s where he leads me—into a two-room basement apartment where the ceiling is so low that I can’t stand up straight. He and his boyfriend are both short enough that neither of them have much problem maneuvering around. As I stalk through to the bedroom, doubled over, I feel like Alice, after ill-advisedly munching the cake that says EAT ME, or Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

The other man is less muscular than his boyfriend. He’s softer, slightly more effeminate. Younger, too. He’s not unattractive, but he doesn’t have that rough trade quality the older guy has. He’s sitting at the computer when I enter, prowling through Manhunt profiles. At the sight of me he rises, smiles, shakes my head. They speak to each other in rapid Spanish, then simultaneously gesture me in the direction of their bed.

It’s a king-sized bed wedged into a pint-sized room. I’m grateful to lie down simply to give my craned neck relief. The moment my ass hits the mattress, the two of them silently remove their clothes. Then they go to work on removing mine. The older guy lifts up my shoulders and pulls off my sweater and shirt; the younger removes my sneakers and unbuttons my jeans and pulls them off. We’re all wearing nothing but our socks when they’re done.

The top lies beside me on the bed. He can’t keep his eyes off my cock. I’m twice his size, easily, but his uncut inches are nothing to sniff at. He lets me take it in my hand, squeeze it. His boyfriend is down between my legs, licking at my balls and sucking my dick to hardness. The top reaches down and shoves on his skull roughly, making his mouth take more of me.

Yeah. I can deal with this.

This is one of those situations where I’ve come in not really knowing what to expect. I think it’s the top who’s been communicating with me on Manhunt, but the only word of English in his vocabulary seems to be lookin? In person, they talk to each other in Spanish from time to time. The top barks out sharp commands I don’t understand. The bottom grunts and obeys, sucking on my nuts, or spreading my legs to get at my asshole for a lick, at his partner’s voice. Finally the top says something to me that my vanished high school Spanish classes didn’t cover. When the bottom slithers from the mattress and bends over it with his legs spread, head submissively down, and his ass in the air, though, I’m pretty sure I can figure out what he wants.

The top takes over my vacated spot in the center of the bed. He throws me a bottle of lube. The bottom guy’s hole is already slick, though. There’s no telling how many guys have been in there already, and I have no way to ask. I rub a little bit of the cheap lubricant on my dick and push in. My head pops through immediately with no resistance, and the rest of me glides inside. He’s warm, and juicy. There’s a load in there already—I can tell by the slick sensation and the faintly chlorine smell coming from his hole. The top is stroking himself as he watches me fuck. Our eyes meet and lock. He lifts up his head a little bit, acknowledging the work I’m doing. He’s enjoying the sight of it.

The bottom doesn’t make any noise. Doesn’t complain. Doesn’t let me know his pleasure. He just stands there with his ass up, taking my dick. The top looks at me, stops stroking for a moment. He turns his hands palm-up to the ceiling, curls them into fists. Clenching hard enough to make veins pop on on the undersides of his forearms, he draws his fists in.

He wants me to fuck harder.

So I fuck hard. I bang away. I draw up a foot and place it on the foot of the bed so that I can get some leverage going. The bottom lets out a little gasp, then a grunt. If anything, the rough fucking makes him more submissive. His hips relax and push up; his legs spread even farther apart. His hole seems to deepen, to suck me in with every thrust. The boyfriend has his jaw jutted out and his lips pressed together. This is what he likes to watch, apparently. He likes to see his boyfriend roughed up.

I slap the bottom’s ass. He sighs and groans. The top starts whacking again. Our gazes are locked. Our focus is not on the hole, but on each other. I start fucking hard enough that the bed’s headboard begins banging against the wall. I don’t care who might be in the house to hear it. The frame’s newel post knock against the drywall over and over again, creating a steady tattoo of noise. Then the top leaps up and stands and my side. Again he draws his clenched fists in and makes a tough face. More, he’s telling me. More.

I’m plunging all the way in and out by the time I shoot. The top is whispering obscenities to me in Spanish. I don’t understand the words, but I know exactly what he means. He wants me to use his boyfriend, to slam it into him. When I shoot, it’s balls-deep. The bottom is groaning and clutching the cheap bedspread.

I’ve scarcely released my nut when the top is pushing me aside and shoving his own dick into my sticky load. I climb onto the mattress and kneel there, forcing the bottom to clean his juices off my dick. The top fucks even more roughly than I do; the bed is jumping up and down with each of his invasive thrusts. We’ve each got a dick in his boyfriend’s holes. When the top realizes how completely his boyfriend is filled, he grabs the back of my head and pulls me forward. Our mouths lock in a kiss that tastes of coffee and cigarettes.

This is how we’re all connected when the boyfriend comes with a loud grunt—our dicks in the front and back of his partner, our mouths and tongues grappling to get in the other even more deeply than they already are. His body spasms. Our mouths drift apart, our cheeks graze. Then we’re left standing and kneeling while we stare at each other, completely spent.

They’re anxious for me to leave. I don’t mind. I pull on my clothes, kick back on my shoes, and shake their hands. Then with my head cocked sideways, I make my way out of their makeshift apartment and back out into the busy neighborhood.

We haven’t really exchanged a word. Somehow in the space of a few minutes, though, we found a common language.