Pour

Full glass. Full glass. Full glass. Getting there. Empties placed. Tip taken, unfolded, stuffed into jar.

Man. “What can get for you?”

He turns around and asks his buddies, waited this whole time in line and is just now asking what they’re drinking, two Jack and Cokes, two Miller Lites, a Tanqueray on the rocks and a Corona. Beer in cooler behind me, remove caps. Miller Lites open easily, Buds are the worst. Corona needs my key. They’re placed on the mat. Two tall glasses and a rocks glass, ice, the scoop jammed into the bounty, just filled and spilling onto the rubber mat, the ice new and still crunchy and white, chilling parts of the rocks glass now, Turn for Tanqueray, pour one, two, three, four, five, six. Jack in the well just a bit out of reach, seated customer glass now empty and on the rail. Jack in hand, ribbed neck and square body, pour one, two, three, four and one, two, three, four. Coke, not diet, little red C in the upper right hand corner of the gun, adjust for slight kickback by holding the gun deep over the lip of the glass. Couple more squirts and bottles returned, straws in place while they lose their fizzy, grumpy bubbles, ready to be topped again. Math done in head. Beers: Miller Lite four fifty apiece, together nine, Corona five fifty, fourteen fifty. Drinks: Jack shots seven each, fourteen, twenty-eight fifty, Tanqueray, rocks call, nine. Empty customer glass was Ketel and cranberry.

“Thirty-seven fifty.”

“Keep it.”

Forty dollars. Derrick at the register. Start seated customer drink. “You ready?” glass shaken in front of him.

“Please”

Ketel, Cranberry. Money taken from pile in front of seated customer. Needs change. Derrick still at register.

“Sammy,” he says, one finger raised in the air behind him, pointing vaguely at where he guesses I am, “I can feel you when you just stand there, you know.” I walk up to his finger, rub my cheek along it, then lick the tip. “Where…,” he continues, “is the goddamn Campari on this thing?” I suck in the rest of the finger. It relaxes immediately in my mouth. I rub it with my tongue. “You think this is the first time I ever got my finger sucked by some straight boy? Show me the fucking Campari.” I slip back to the third joint and bite in.

“Ere,” I say around his fingertip, pointing with mine, “in de aperteefs.” The barback bumps into me and slams me into Derrick. His face turns and he looks at my lips, removing his finger. He rubs it on my neck, my own saliva cooling my skin. I push him away from the register by the hips.

Change made, two fifty in tip jar, thirteen for the seated customer.

The night patters on, a swirl of repeated customers, most I know, some I don’t. Some I only know by what they drink. A girl or two, neither pretty, but both friendly. I smile deep for them, stretch my t-shirt across my stomach wiping my palm. Derrick’s hands on me, his fingers into the skin of my forearm, or leaning on my back to clarify someone’s order. He’ll say “Behind you” as he passes, the service industry standard warning. I stick my ass out sometimes when he says it, just to feel his hands on my hips, to watch the customers swoon when he dry-grinds me, finishes it with a spanked ass for being naughty. When we pass face to face, me reaching for the J&B, him for the next bottle of Citron, we slow together, our lips close to each other, close enough to feel it. It’s busy tonight and he smells like sweat, looks like sweat. He opens the Citron with a yank, bursting the plastic seal. He whips the cap onto the floor, takes a pourer and shoves it in, all while watching me, all while he’s just inches away, shiny glass rivers curling around his chin, headed for his neck.

An angry drunk is ignored until he goes away, calling Derrick a little queeny prison bitch and me, once he found me, a closeted fucking cocktease. Another angry drunk finally just passes out when he’s ignored, his head down on his arms on the bar, like an ANgel, Derrick says into his walkie-talkie. The angel is woken by a bouncer, who is elbowed in the face for his troubles. There is noise, constant little roaring, the peas and carrots of the English language, broken by an occasional shriek, all over it, the thumping techno beat, a swirling heartbeat, we put glasses on the mats in time.

Shots are bought for us. Shots are bought for the regulars. We ignore the newcomers for this ritual, let them line up. We pour each other Jameson and drink it fast, keep a plastic bottle of the cheap stuff in the cooler for the customers, something I whip up with all the ignored strawberry schnapps, cans of juice and the well vodka before the doors open. I shake it, my thumb over the pourer, while Derrick watches me. Little bits of the sweet stuff christen my clothes for the night, escaping through the seal.

Derrick pours me a few shots of the Jameson without taking any himself. “I like you lubricated on Thursdays,” he says. I drink the first, but ignore the rest until he finds ways to force it on me, tapping me on the shoulder and shoving it to my face, or making the customers insist. They always do. They’re good like that. I drink one facing Derrick, and while my face is in the air, inhaling it, Derrick runs a hand up the inside of my thigh. I don’t react. He grabs my balls. I put the shot glass down and stare at him, arms akimbo until he lets go. He smiles after a little, disappointed pout.

The lights come up, last call, the bouncers finding and rounding up the leftovers, the arguments and the nice guys and the cruisers with their finds. The spills and the stick appear on the floor and the silence hits like a gong, Derrick and I talking too loud, used to talking too loud. A beer for me and one for him, cool in the bottle, the silent jealousy of the seated customer forgiven. I count the drawer. He counts the tips and places them in even piles on the bar. He doesn’t talk and neither do I until we’re done counting, until I’ve counted three times and made the final drop.

“You tease too much,” Derrick says, ashing into thin air. The ashes fall and seem to dissipate before they hit the floor. Maybe it’s because they don’t make any noise. I put the bottle down and slide off of the stool. I try to make him look at me, but he won’t, just stares ahead of him, eyelashes thick like palm fronds blinking slowly. I reach out for his chest, but he doesn’t flinch, simply exhales, a grey fog into the orange lights. I let my hand drop to his stomach, then ascend to his nipple. I flick it with my thumb and rub gently, almost imperceptibly.

“What are you doing, man?” he says, and takes my hand away.

I move in closer, slide my arm around his chest. His head turns to watch it and I go to his neck, under the short dreads and the sweat lines, under the curve of his jaw. A strong neck, large muscles and very dark skin that I lick sweetly. He puts up with it for a while and bends his head to me, pushing me away, forearm against my breastbone.

“Sammy.” I try to kiss him. He holds me away. “Sammy, you’re fucking straight, alright?”

My palm makes contact with the inside of his thigh and slides up, gripping at the deepest part, the backs of my fingers against his balls. He drops his arm and shakes his head, smoking and flicking the ashes with purpose. I kiss his neck again, raise his shirt in the front, over the stomach, flat and precise like a diver’s. His cigarette is over and he flicks it away. The butt skids into a sticky corner and stops.

“Don’t…,” he says, or almost does. I interrupt him at his cock, thick and straight, searching for release in his jeans. I let out the smallest laugh, a little pfft through my nose and pull his shirt up in two hands. He’s panting a little, the chest expanding and contracting deep and quick. I put my fingers in his belt, in his button, in his fly and then on his cock, over the underwear, something expensive and tight. Soft to the touch over his biting hard on. “Sammy…,” he says, more breath than voice, and turns finally to kiss me, to lay his mouth on mine, hot and strong and strange. His tongue in my gums. His lips, his lips like their own creatures.

He takes me by the shirt, bunched in his fist, and pulls me behind the bar. I almost trip on the mats. He presses me into the backbar, unstoppable, heavy and lean. His hard on is in my hip, the button of his jeans rolled into my stomach. He kisses me more, having taken over now, my shirt over my stomach, my jeans opened, my cock manhandled. He knows what to do with it, where to go. My back buckles at the first touch. He takes my shoulders and pushes me down to my knees. I’m confronted with his cock, enormous and uncut. I slide my lips over the tip, lick the foreskin between my lips and suck on it. He gulps air between his lips and grit teeth and stands on the balls of his feet. His fingers enter my hair and he grips tight. I let go and he lets up, then finds a new, stronger but less cruel hold of my head and pulls my face to his cock.

I let it in.

It’s massive and wrenching and awful. It chokes me, muffles me, gags me. He doesn’t relent. My jaw starts to ache. My cock aches too. He fucks my face hard, using long, deep strokes and grinding. Spit and precome drip from my mouth. I wipe my palm in it and start jerking off.

He makes two quick thrusts, yelps and the come itself arrives, explodes into my mouth. I spit it out quickly and return to my work. I haven’t been this hard in years, this desperate and shaky. He pulls out of my mouth, his cock still hard, waving above his zipper. He walks backward and trips a little, falling against the coolers. He watches me, shivering on my knees, my mouth agape. When he sees me begin to grimace, he slides off the cooler and bends over me on the floor. His tongue twists at the tip, little sweet flicks. I look down at the back of his head, amazed that this is finally happening, amazed that I’ve just sucked a man off, let him fuck my mouth. But there is no distraction from the tongue, nothing but an electric current and a panicked grab at the air. I come, pressed into the backbar enough to move the mat, my fingers dented by the corner of the backbar.

When I open my eyes, he is watching me. He smiles and pushes a drip of stray come between his lips with his thumb.

“No, Sammy,” he says, and puts his forefinger on my lips. “This does not mean that you get to keep the tips for the night.”