Gas Money for Santa

I had already cried out, "I'm coming," and did so when he tensed, jerked, and released in the center of me, quickly pulled back to released again on my rim, and then thrust inside to release again. He held me tight under him, a strong hand palming my lower back into him as he grunted his final releases. I lay nestled and firmly in his arms, taking his cum, sighing. I was relaxed, totally surrendered to him, and he knew he had mastered me. He had fired off repeatedly. He must not have had it for a long time. He had barebacked me—flooded me with his cum. I didn't care.

I lay there, collapsed into the corner of the sofa, legs and arms akimbo, tongue hanging out and panting lightly, my eyes watching the snow softly fall on the boats in the marina beyond the wall of glass to the balcony, humming to myself, when he'd left me to take another shower. Bing was singing "Silent Night."

How in the hell did an old homeless guy learn to fuck another guy so well?

Merry Christmas.

The pizza, of course, was burnt to a crisp.

* * * *

I woke, flat on my back on my bed, my legs spread and bent, my feet pressing into the mattress, pushing my pelvis up to stretch into Nick's throat as his lips descended the sides of my cock, which had wakened sometime before the rest of me did. My arms went over my head to grip the top of my headboard and I arched my back and babbled to the ceiling, as below me and lying between my spread thighs, Nick gave me an almost never-ending, edging blow job and worked my prostate with his fingers. Christmas present to me.

"God, you're good," I whimpered.

"Just payin' my way," he answered in a muffled voice. He was kissing my inner thighs, which were trembling for him.

I was already exhausted, even though having just awakened Christmas Eve morning, when I came. He rolled my pelvis up and went after my hole with his mouth. When I was ready, open, and whimpering for him, he cupped my buttocks, pulled me up to where my legs were extended under me, worked his way between my thighs on his knees, penetrated me, and fucked the hell out of me, once again, taking me hard, savagely, gloriously once more. Yodeling about the great time I was having, I turned my face to the wall of glass beside my bed and enjoyed the slightly different angle view of the marina under a blanket of snow. The snow had stopped though, and after he'd come—once more barebacking and me once more not caring that he did—and I'd come yet again, he scooted up beside me on the bed on is back, and I turned on my side toward him and let my hand glide over the curves and creases of his body, beautiful to me despite the heft of him. Anyone who could fuck me like he did . . .

All of world in silence now except for the low sound of the never-ending revolving of the CDs in the living room, now featuring the Mormon Tabernacle's rending of "In the Bleak Midwinter" and the muffled sounds of snow plows and snow shovels at work outside. Havre de Grace was coming alive and shoveling out for Christmas.

"I would guess that the clothes are finished in the dryer," he whispered.

"They are if I remembered to put them in last night before you carried me in here and fucked the shit out of me a second time. I don't know—"

"As I told you, I take it where I can get it. I don't get it that often. The clothes are probably still in the washer," he said. And then, "I guess we should get them dry and I should get going again."

"To Florida?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. Neither of us objected to that. We were alike in being content to take our pleasures as encounters, not toying with relationships. We were both drifters in that way—Nick physically, me emotionally.

"I'll feed you breakfast first," I said. "The clothes can go through the dryer while we eat. Then I'll take you back to the gas station for your car."

"I don't have a car," he said, and he laughed. "Do you have a bus station here? Buses require gas to run too."

I laughed too. This all had come out of concern for gas money for a car that Santa didn't have.

He'd left his leather strip with the bells on the kitchen island counter and I rang them to summon him to breakfast. His clothes were only damp when I went into the laundry room as he went off to take another shower, so they'd be ready soon after breakfast was finished. He done me superbly and I'd be sorry not to get another round, but casual hookups were what I was used to. This relationship I'd had with Hal had been what had been hard to manage.

Still, it was kicky to having been fucked royally and repeatedly by a surprise Santa at Christmas—and a very capable Santa at that. Quite a Christmas present.

"Do you have enough to get you to Florida on the bus?" I asked as we were finishing breakfast.

"I don't know. You said something about making me a new sign. I could do some more panhandling."

"How much more do you think you need?"

"Trying to get me out of town?"

"I think we both enjoyed it. I, for one, was touched deeply by it. No one has gotten as deep into me like that and fucked with me so completely as that. That's dangerous. I don't know about you, but I think we both don't want to push that button any harder."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. If I were another person—"

"Same here. How much more do you need to get on your way south?"

"Maybe seventy-five, but you don't have to . . . I don't want to take any more gifts from you."

"It doesn't have to be a gift. I'll buy something from you." I reached for the cookie jar, where Hal kept the grocery money. He was a lavish spender. He wouldn't even notice that the household fund was light by eighty dollars, which is what I took out of the jar and handed to Nick.

* * * *

When I returned from the bus stations, which, amusingly was just north of the Weis supermarket on Pulaski Highway, where I had picked Nick up in the first place, Hal was standing by the balcony window, gazing out onto the marina.

"There you are," he said, in a natural way, just as if he hadn't walked out on me the afternoon before. "I wondered where you were. The tree lights and the CDs were still on when I came in." The CDs, in fact, were still going. Dinah Shore was singing "I Wonder as I Wander." "It smells like something was burned to a crisp in here."

"It was pizza," I responded instinctively. "I had it in the oven and forgot about it. Something came up." With Hal, I tried to stay as close to the truth as I could.

My mind raced. How had the apartment been left? Thank god I'd put the breakfast things in the dishwasher. My bed was still a mess, but it often was. What evidence of himself had Nick left in the master bedroom, Hal's bedroom? I'd taken the towel he'd been wearing to the laundry room before we left. Thank god he hadn't worn any of Hal's clothes.

"I was out seeing how the roads were, whether they'd been cleared." That wasn't a lie. I'd been on the roads. "The note you left yesterday—"

"You were right. The Cadillac is a piece of junk. I'd had enough of it. I was taking it back to Baltimore to trade it back in—I've got a Lexis now. The Caddie broke down on I-95. Had to be towed into town and they couldn't get a new car to me until this morning."

"You were out all night. I didn't know—"

"I tried calling you several times. You have your cellphone off."

"Oh." Yes, of course I did.

Hal was over at the refrigerator, opening it. "I made some eggnog. I thought for Christmas Eve . . . shit, it looks like you've drunk most of it already."

"Yeah, sorry. It was good. And you weren't here last night. I got maudlin watching the tree and the snow falling in the marina and listening to the CDs. Sorry."

"That's OK. I'll make some more. You want to go out tonight?"

"No. I want to stay in and do more of what I did last night—with you. I want to give you a special Christmas present." That was all true enough.

"Give me a special . . .? Oh, yes, I see." I'd come over to the refrigerator and embraced him and kissed him on the throat. He pulled my face up and we kissed on the lips. "Yes, I approve. The best sort of present."

"Yes, it is," I thought. Thinking of another kind of present giver, but content with the one I had and who took care of me—as long as I could go off the reservation now and again.

"Uh, what's this?" he asked. Hal had seen the leather strip with the bells on it that was laying on the kitchen island counter.

"Oh that?" I said. "That's something I bought off a homeless guy I saw in the gas station parking lot over at Weis's. He was asking for gas money to get him to Florida. He'd dressed up a bit like Santa and sort of looked like him. He looked so cold and pathetic that I gave him a fifty. He didn't want to take all that I gave him as a gift, so I bought these bells off him he'd been ringing to catch people's attention. I went by Weis's this morning and he was gone. He's on his way to Florida, I'm sure. I guess you'll say I was being impetuous and overgenerous again."

"Shhh, let's not go there again," Hal said, taking me into his arms. "I was being unfair. It's Christmas and you were just in the Christmas spirit. Those characteristics are good things about you, not bad."

I smiled in his embrace, looking out at the beauty of the snow-covered boats in the marina. He'd left out at least one trait when he'd been berating me for what I had to admit were flaws of mine—my tendency to keep secrets. On the whole, though, I think I was doing that for his benefit and to keep our relationship going. I don't think I could go on with him as I did if I didn't get myself a present now and again. Merry Christmas to us.