Room 208

February 2023

Since my arrival in Virginia, I’ve been averaging about five hours a night of slumber. I know because I wear my watch as a sleep tracker. Mornings, my ears ringing from birds screeching before the light of dawn, I’ll blearily look at the tally of my nighttime hours, then groan. I’m used to much more rest than this. Back home, it’s eight hours or I’m a grumpy boy.

When I visit Richmond for non-emergencies, I stay at a hotel rather than my dad’s. He doesn’t understand why I pay good money for a room than sleep for free at his house. A modicum of comfort is worth the cost, I tell him. Since I’m here indefinitely, though, the price of an extended hotel stay would be prohibitive. Plus after my dad comes home from the hospital—he’ll have to come home eventually, right?—I know he’d be more comfortable with me close at hand. So here I lie in my little sister’s old room, where the only clear space is occupied by my open suitcase on the floor—there’s no closet or drawers I can use, and no room for anything, anywhere else.

Part of my sleeping problem is the bed. It’s a twin mattress, half a century old; it was my birthday gift when I was eight. It might have suited my smaller self. Now, my feet hang off the bottom. It’s lumpy. Over the decades, the springs have collapsed. They now droop down on one side, so I have to bolster myself against the wall to avoid rolling onto the floor. Then there’s the room itself, five feet wide by eight feet long. It’s too hot at night, and too cold in the morning; the only twin blankets and sheets my father has are threadbare and older than I.

I’ve been spending my days at the hospital, arriving after breakfast and lingering until past dinner. By the time I get back to my dad’s, it’s dark and I have his cats to feed. His house is in bad shape, so I’ve been tackling bite-sized projects as I can. But exhausted as I am by day’s end, after I turn off the light and wedge myself into a fetal position on a mattress older than either the song “American Pie” or the TV show All in the Family, god help me, all I can do, long past midnight, is toss and turn. My lower back aches in ways handfuls of ibuprofen can’t mend. My eyes won’t close. I masturbate, hoping it might exhaust me, but beating the meat doesn’t do the trick.

Self-pity eventually wears me down, but it never lasts. I’m awake with the birds, bleary, unhappy, worn thin.

This can’t go on forever.

Today has been particularly grueling. Ever since he’s been admitted to the hospital, my dad has been unusually caustic with everyone within earshot, including myself. It’s a change from his usual, laid-back self; I’ve never known my father to say an unkind word to anyone, much less treat someone trying to do their job with contempt and disrespect. But today he’s been argumentative with the nursing and technical staff and even the doctors themselves.

It’s mostly the fault of the cardiologist who visited in the morning. After pronouncing my dad’s heart in good condition, the specialist declared he didn’t need to see any more of him. What the cardiologist meant was that my dad’s two strokes had contributing factors other than his heart. My father decided that I don’t need to see you again means he’s being released.

All day, when the hospital staff visit to perform more tests or to check his vitals, he demands to go home. When friends phone, he tells them he’s being discharged, above my protests. When the hospitalist—the doctor in charge of his case, who receives reports from specialists and makes any final decision—arrives around dinnertime and strongly recommends my dad enter a rehab facility for an unspecified period immediately after the hospital stay, my dad throws an actual tantrum. He screams at the top of his lungs that ‘his doctor’ said he would be discharged. He raves at length about ‘the comforts of home.’ At one point, he looks like he’s searching for something to throw.

After the hospitalist departs, I launch into action. I give my father a hissed, angry lecture about how he is never to speak to another member of the hospital staff in such a manner ever again. He’s behaving like a child. No, in fact, children behave much better than he. I remind him that I’ve been forsaking the comforts of my home in order to see him back to health, so the very least he can do is cooperate, participate in his own recovery, and listen more than he speaks.

I’m so angry that I’m sure sparks are flying from my skin. Once I’m done with my scold, I cool off in the lounge down the hallway, where I call my next-door neighbor back home. She’s a physical therapist who gives me a detailed list of all the ways rehab is more productive than any therapy my dad might do at home.

When I return, list in hand, calmer and ready to discuss with him the prospect of rehab, my father nastily accuses me of sneaking out of the room to conspire with the doctor—to send him away for good, he snaps.

I need a fucking break.

So I’ve rented a hotel room. Just for a night. Just so I can sleep on a mattress that’s not tilting like the Titanic, post-iceberg, or doesn’t feel as if it’s been stuffed with garden trowels. I don’t care that I’m going to be spending less than twelve hours there. I need to sleep. No, I need a good night’s sleep, on a real bed, between sheets with a thread count higher than twenty-five. I want a thermostat that I can control, set at a temperature I choose. I want a room that’s dark and hermetically sealed against the sound of squawking birds at four-thirty in the morning. Going a little out of pocket for a night’s comfort is an indulgence I’ll allow myself. I deserve it.

When I check in, the imperious, effeminate clerk looks at my out-of-state license, then gives my rumpled clothing the once-over before inquiring, in a vaguely Teutonic accent, “Long drive?” It’s a shady comment, as the hotel is only ten minutes from the hospital, but I smile blandly and accept the twin room cards he passes over. To the elevator I stumble, then up to my third-floor room. Inside, in the living room portion of the suite, the TV immediately blinks on. A message welcomes me by name and hopes I enjoy my stay, triggered by either the door or the first-time presence of my room key nearby. I fumble for the remote and switch it off, toss my knapsack onto the sofa, and drag my weary feet to the king-sized bed in the room beyond.

Oh god. This bed is perfect. It’s clean. It’s flat. The pillows aren’t the thickness of pancakes. I fall back onto it with my arms outstretched, breathing a sigh of relief. The room itself smells like nothing. Not like the litter box for my dad’s cats, which for some reason sits directly outside the door of my sister’s bedroom. Not the staleness of a house sealed against outside air like an ancient pharaoh’s tomb. Just simple, air-conditioned neutrality, with only a phantom of disinfectant haunting the darkened bathroom. I arch my back and stretch, eyes closed, blissful, happy for the little luxuries of corporate impersonality.

Then I flick on my phone and open Grindr. Out of curiosity, I tell myself. Despite my weariness, though, I feel something stirring within. Seeking a hookup hadn’t been on my agenda for tonight—but I am what I am, and tonight I have a clean hotel room all to myself. There’s no harm in looking. I’m not surprised, when I check out the app’s grid, to see the desk clerk from downstairs staring back at me. I’d been pretty sure I’d clocked him, checking in. However, his profile very prominently proclaims, NO MEN OVER 40 EVER!! To which I roll my eyes, as that clerk will be hitting forty himself in a couple of years, and that kind of sexual karma has a way of hitting hard. More of immediate interest is the fellow to the left, only 15 feet away. The photo is of a torso, dark and blurry. I’m a little surprised when my phone vibrates and a number appears in the profile’s corner. He’s messaging me.

Looks like you’re real close, he says. You at the Fairfield?

Sure am, I reply.

Looking for…?

I think. I hadn’t really been looking at all. Honestly, though, would I still be looking at this screen, pondering how to reply, if I weren’t interested? But ugh. I’m so tired. Mentally, I’m wiped. Do I really have the sexual wherewithal to spare for a random stranger? What is it I want, here?

I take a moment, then decide to be candid. My thumbs busily type back, I need to suck some cock. I want someone who needs his dick serviced for as long as it takes. I want to be fed. That’s exactly all I’m fit for, this evening. I don’t want to have to plan some elaborate scenario for a guy who needs me to be his daddy, or his controlling but understanding top man. I don’t have the perception or patience to navigate the tricky stepping stones across a river of consensual non-consent.

I just want to suck. I want a cock in my face and saliva enough to keep it wet and happy. I want a job to do, and a hard dick ready to make me go through with it. I don’t care what the guy looks like, or what he’s packing. My hands tremble as I wait for the guy’s reply.

Now? He asks.

Now, I say.

Again, I have to wait for a reply. Finally it comes. Room 208.

I don’t need more invitation than that. I bound up, spry and alert, as if I’ve already had that fantastic night’s sleep. All my aches and pains evaporate. I shove my room key into my shorts pocket, give my pits a quick sniff—they’ll do—and sprint out the door, down the hall, and to the elevator. Once I’m outside the stranger’s room, I check Grindr to ensure he hasn’t changed his mind. Then I knock.

When the door opens, I’m a little taken aback to face a good-looking Black man wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants. He’s neither tall nor young; I’d guess him to be in his late thirties and barely five-foot-five. I stare at the bare torso that had been dark and blurry in his Grindr photo—well, at least now I understand why it had been so dark. However, I’m baffled why he’s settling for a shot that more resembles a blurry smudge than the lean and sexy man before me. He’s holding his left arm akimbo; I instantly spy a wedding ring glinting above his hip. His right arm is raised high to hold the door open, giving me a moment to blink at his surprisingly hairy armpit, the inky, tight coils that cover his chest, then finally the light beard on his face. His dome is completely shaved.

He’s checking me out as well, looking me up and down, not missing the obvious protrusion beneath the cotton fleece of my shorts. After a moment he grins, drops his arm, and steps aside. “Come on in.”

His room is identical to mine, though in the sitting area, his TV softly plays a repeat of a sitcom I don’t watch. We’re not here for television, though; he leads me to the bed at the suite’s far end. Bedside, he makes a leap into the air, sleek as any cat, to land on the mattress with a bounce on his butt. His lean legs open.

I seize one of his bare feet as I move between them onto the mattress. My other fingers dance up his thigh; before I can lay claim to my prize, though, he takes my right hand between both of his, then presses the palm to his abdomen. Without a word, he slides it upward, toward one of his broad and flat nipples. I squeeze it gently, then harder, judging his reaction by the satisfied slits of his lids. He nods as I move close; when my lips meet the raised circle, darker even than the skin surrounding it, a sigh escapes his lips.

While I gnaw gently at his nipple, I can feel him lifting his hips to lower his sweats. He cups my head to keep my mouth attached to his tit, but his other hand wraps my fingers around his hard cock. It’s firecracker hot to the touch. His clutch tightens around mine, showing me how firmly to squeeze.

I keep up the pressure while he disattatches me from his nipple. Hands on either side of my face, he looks me in the eye. “You a good cocksucker?” His voice is little more than an animal’s growl.

“Yes, sir.” The ferocity of his stare is everything to me. Those dark pools of carnality hypnotize me. My only immediate concern, in this moment, is a need to please the naked stranger. To prove to him that I’m worthy of the pulsing inches in my grasp.

“You want this?”

It’s a rhetorical question. We both know it. I swallow hard to clear my throat, so anxious I am to speak. “Yeah. I want that dick. Please.”

Still he holds my skull between his palms while his eyes bore into mine. “Suck it.” He spits the syllables at me like buckshot. “Suck it good.”

There’s a moment’s mad scramble as he kicks off the sweats from around his ankles and I, still holding onto his meat, press my chest into the mattress between his legs. This is my one chance really to examine what his piece looks like: I study what’s about to occupy my attention for the next few minutes. To memory I commit the image of that thick five and a half inches and the heavy, shaved balls hanging below them. I admire the dark sheath, smooth at the base and wrinkled where he’s pulled back the foreskin. The pinker, tapering head that’s smaller around than the shaft. I don’t care that his dick isn’t as big as my own. Screw that. It belongs to this good-looking stranger, and I’ve volunteered to satisfy. That dick could be a mere three inches and ugly as sin, and I’d still worship it like the prize-winning fuckstick it deserves to be.

His legs spread as I dive down. He’s groaning the moment he feels my hot breath on his balls. I feel warmth both on the back of my head and circling my neck; his hands are pressing me onto that thick, pulsing saber until my lips hit the base. “Fuck yeah,” he says, as I buckle and suppress my gag reflex. “That’s what I need.”

I grunt, eyes watering, as he drives himself deep into my throat. With that kind of determination to penetrate my gullet, it’s a good thing he’s not super long, and even better that his head is smaller in diameter than the rest. It tickles my tonsils as the column of flesh beyond attempts to force open my gorge. His hands push me more deeply onto his concrete firmness and hold me there as he grinds and thrusts.

When at long last he releases his grip and allows me to come up for air, I gasp and open my eyes, staring up at him through my tears with blind adoration. I feel his fingers run through my beard, against the grain, messing it up before he smooths it down again. “Suck that dick,” he orders.

My eyes close once more and I go to work. My thumb and forefinger angle the fat tool to match the trajectory of my lips as they glide back and forth along his length, lingering at both the tip and the base. The rest of my fingers cradle the man’s fat nuts and stroke the smooth skin. I’m glad I memorized the fat cock before I set to work; I can relax and let my mouth and tongue flick and linger over spots I hope he enjoys: the valley between his balls where sac meets shaft, the crevice from which leaks a constant supply of his precum, the tender spots covered by foreskin.

He doles out my reward—all the reward I need—in grunts and groans. Every time he lets out some new feral whimper of pleasure, my own cock hardens. I grind myself against the bed’s corner, feeling my shorts grow even more damp as I self-lubricate. It’s his pleasure that’s my priority. Not my own. I revel in his gasps, in the rumblings deep in his chest, at the air whistling through his nostrils when I do something he particularly likes. My jaw is sore and I’ve lost all sense of time—all consciousness of anything beyond the inches pistoning my stretched lips and aching throat. But this is what I wanted. I’m happy to lose myself in the bliss of service.

It’s a shock when, after how long I don’t know, his palms pry me from his fat dick and pivot my focus to his face. Into my eyes he stares, his pupils flared to their widest. “Sexy white daddy,” he whispers. I don’t know how sexy I can look, in that moment, mesmerized by his tool as I am, slobber all over my beard, lips puffy and wanting more. “Sexy white daddy, suckin’ my dick. You like it?”

“I love it.” I reply without hesitation. Pride and desire battle for precedence in my scratchy voice. “I love your big dick, sir.”

“Damn right you do.” I wish he would let me get back to my work, but he continues searching my eyes. For what, I don’t know. Then, without warning, he pulls me to him and covers my lips with his own. The kiss is shocking in its passion; I haven’t been kissed like this in far too long. His tongue invades my mouth as if he’s trying to root out my very soul; his arms hold me close to his chest as his palm cups the back of my skull. I’m helpless as he turns us over and introduces my back to the mattress. Still he kisses me, his cock driving into my stomach as his hands tug at my waistband. When the kiss ends, I open my lids to see him staring at me again. He rubs his nose against mine. “You’re a pretty man.”

Before I can thank him for the compliment, he’s sat up to complete the job he started. The man rips off my shorts. My phone flops out of my pocket, but he picks it up from the hotel carpet, folds my shorn clothing, and places both it and the device atop the desk at the bed’s foot.

“Shit,” he says, moving back to stand by the bed. “You a big boy.” He seems surprised that I surpass him in the cock department; I’m definitely surprised when he lifts a foot to press against me. The heel connects to my dick’s base, while the sole digs against my shaft. His long toes wriggle against my head, eliciting a snarl of pleasure. “You like that, huh.” I can only nod. He rewards me with another firm shove of his foot against my meat, then stands upright and strides around.

I’m horizontal across the mattress, at this point. From next to the air conditioning unit, he grabs my arms and drags me until my shoulders lie at the bedding’s sharp edge. My head dangles over the edge. I see his plan, now; after he points his hard dick down, my mouth is ready for the re-entry of his cock down my throat. He begins slowly, at first, elbows raised and out and his fingers interlaced at the back of his neck. Then he picks up the pace, leans down and braces himself against the bed to give himself more traction. I aid my own violation by grabbing his ass from below and pulling him into me. I want to be used like this. Use is my purpose, tonight.

He fucks my mouth like pussy, sometimes with such force that I feel sure my chin might bruise. The violence is worth it. All I care about is providing the wettest, softest, most accepting hole for his beautiful uncut dick. I’m sprawled across this stranger’s bed wearing nothing but a t-shirt and sneakers, my dick straining to the ceiling and leaking on my belly, but I don’t give a damn about what it might want in the moment. I can and will take care of myself later. My eyes water so freely that I have to keep my eyes clamped shut out of fear my contacts might float away. Saliva spills from the corners of my lips and runs up my face. My mustache keeps some of it from entering my nostrils, but not all. I scarcely notice my own discomfort, though. So long as the man keeps ramrodding my throat, using my mouth—so long as he’s relishing the sensation of my tongue sliding and clinging to the top side of his beautiful, magical tool—I’ll lie there and provide this man the pleasure he needs.

The pleasure he deserves.

I can tell he’s close when he changes position. Instead of balancing himself on the mattress with his palms, he grabs the sides of my skull to hold it still while plunging in and out. It’s enough to make me choke, but I defer my distress. Now’s not the time to distract him. He plugs my throat once. Twice. A third time. Than a few rabbit-like thrusts. His palms cover my ears, muffling his stream of curses, but I both hear and feel his body-rumbling groan as he unleashes glob after glob of semen into my throat. It burns when he withdraws, slowly, leaving a trail of his cock slime on the roof of my mouth. I get a brief taste of its strong, brackish saltiness before my throat begins to react from the abuse it’s endured these last several minutes. Much as I try to subdue my choking, he’s left the passage raw. I keep it as quiet as possible, but I need a moment to recuperate.

I try to wave him away, but he’s solicitous in his response. Though I’m taller and bigger by far, I find myself scooped up in his arms, then a pillow thrust beneath my head. He curls himself to become my big spoon and pulls me closer. That beautiful dick, now soft and still wet from my mouth, presses against the base of my spine. Soft lips pepper kisses on my neck; one arm holds me tightly while the other squeezes my dick to see if it’s still hard—it is—before roaming over my chest and belly. “That was so gooooood,” he whispers in my ear. “Thank you, baby.”

I sigh and smile, content. His tenderness is an unexpected bonus and I feel selfish for accepting it, but for a while, he shows no signs of stopping. I shiver as his hand travels from hip to shoulder, from beard to nipples, from the mountains of my buttocks to the bristly forest of my head. He hums with contentment as he grinds into me. It doesn’t take long, though, for his motions to slow, then cease altogether. His grip slackens. His breathing becomes slower.

The stranger has fallen asleep.

The only sounds in his dark room are the hum of the air conditioner and the quiet canned laughter on the TV in the other room. It’s with reluctance that I disentangle myself from his grasp. I’m not needed any longer. Across the mattress I slide, careful not to wake the man with any sudden or loud movements. I tug my shorts over my sneakers and shove my phone back into my pocket. With a last glance back at the sleeper, I pad quietly from room 208 with my hands plunged deep in my pockets to conceal the erection that’s been plaguing me for the last—whoa—hour.

Not until I’m back in my own room upstairs do I unleash the beast and pleasure myself. From time to time I’ll wrinkle my lips upward to take deep whiffs of the man’s scent from my mustache; the musk of him is as potent as any poppers. My orgasm, when it arrives, wracks my body and leaves it feeling spent. Covered with sweat and juices, only some of which is my own, I lie in the cool air and allow my lids to sink.

Now, finally, I can sleep.