110 IN THE SHADE

By Jeff King
(Torso.Nov.1982)

Rand paused in their sex-making and leaned away from Todd, who looked up with a
question in his dark green eyes. To reassure him that he wasn't finished
exploring the sleek, muscle defined terrain of his body, Rand rested a hand
against the hardness of the young man's pectoral, the gold ring piercing the
nipple pressing into his damp palm.

The bedroom was sparsely furnished with just a large bed against the center wall
facing another wall of plate glass leading to a balcony. There was a chair and
night stands. The young men's clothes were scattered on the carpet about the
bed. Three of the walls of the room were floor to ceiling mirror and the door to
the room, as well as to the closet, was concealed by the glass, which with light
pressure in the correct spot, could turn to open. Now the mirrored walls were
alive with the reflection of deep orange/vermilion in the first moments of a
long southern California twilight. But the color filling the entire room was not
from the sunset. The sun had been masked by billowing black smoke for days now.
Rand shifted his eyes from the mirrors to the wall of clear glass. Beyond the
balcony, twenty stories below, in the far distance of the Hollywood Hills he
could see the progress of the fires.

For four days Laurel Canyon and the Mount Olympus areas had been a storm of
acrid black smoke and hungry tongues of searing red/orange flame driving
steadily deeper into the dry ravines. On this, the end of the fourth day of it,
the fire had defeated every attempt made to harness and destroy it. Mansions of
the wealthy and near-wealthy, which had narrowly escaped past fires, were
consumed: Italian tiled swimming pools cracked beneath the heat: tires of cars
and trucks exploded and melted into the pavements: memories and dreamy fantasies
became no more than sprays of sparks feeding into the opaque, angry red scrim of
the southern California sky.

From the streets below Rand could hear the now familiar shriek of emergency
vehicles. When night fell their red, yellow and blue flashers made trails of
carnival light streaking through the Los Angeles Streets. Yet, for all of it,
people continued to carry on their daily routines, while casting anxious eyes
toward the surrounding hills, hoping it would soon end.

Routines are not easily broken in Los Angeles, even with the threat of disaster
eating at the edge of the city. Merchants continue to do business, cars crowd
the smoggy boulevards and slender, copper-skinned young men appear as usual on
Sunset, hitching up and down the Strip, hoping for the fifty dollar trick, but
more often settling for the twenty dollars offered. On Selma Boulevard, where
Rand worked, the threat of the fires had far from halted business, or even
slowed it. Here the younger and handsomer hustlers still stood at curb-side,
defiantly not taking the legal hitchhiker's stance, but hooking their hands into
back pockets, waiting for a car to pull up beside them.

Hours earlier, Rand had been standing on Selma. He'd removed his T-shirt and
stuffed it into a back pocket and unsnapped the top of his jeans, drawing the
zipper down just far enough to give a low and legal view of his flat, hard
stomach. Rand was of medium height, with short flaxen hair framing a handsome
face. His smile dazzled when he chose to employ it and if that didn't work to
attract a trick his beguiling pale blue eyes usually did. His shoulders were
broad and his chest and stomach sharply defined with muscle. A down of blond
hair covered his pecs and trailed over his muscle-platted stomach, becoming
thicker and darker where it disappeared into the open V of his jeans.

He'd been standing on the street for little more than an hour, leaning back
against a eucalyptus with one leg drawn up against the trunk. When he wasn't
looking directly into passing cars his attention was toward the flaming and
smoldering rim of the hills. And then the winds came.

The Santa Ana’s blew in from the desert as an unwelcome blast of hot, acrid
breath. They stirred the restless fires to full fury, striking, in a dangerously
short time, the fire line all the way to Santa Monica. Eddies of gritty dust
swept in waves through the Los Angeles streets, altering the afternoon light to
an eerie amber. The temperature sailed up to a hundred and hovered there for a
long while before it suddenly began to creep higher still.

When the Santa Ana’s seize Los Angeles the hustlers along Selma nearly all
disappear, few of them desiring to brave the hot winds. They drift to other
places to worry over how green their wallets will be come by nightfall. Only the
most persistent, the most seasoned, or the most hungry remain at the curb, eyes
half-lidded against the searing air breaking across their faces. Rand had
remained. When the Santa Ana’s came he always became as hungry as any trick who
might approach him. It made him want the feel of flesh pressing against his own,
and his desire was like a fever, an itch beneath his skin. Few of the cars
passing bothered to slow now that the street had grown deserted of the male
trade, and those who did only seemed to want to look at him out of curiosity.

Rand knew full well he should go into one of the nearby bars. The winds always
filled the trade bars and few wanted for anything there. But he remained. He
sighed and turned his head to look the length of the street. The afternoon was
darkened and the glow from the burning hills undulated and sparked. Rand could
feel a wave of desire flicker through his groin, radiating through him. He
closed a sun darkened hand over his swelling cock, feeling its thickness
chaffing against the worn denim. He tightened his fingers and then dropped his
hand away and looked at the length of his prick moving snakelike across his
thigh as it hardened, clearly outlined against the material.

Rand looked up and, although he did not show it outwardly, was startled to be
staring into the dark green eyes of another young man. He was taller than Rand,
with wavy auburn hair. His body was lean and, Rand had to admit, beautiful.
Where Rand's own body was molded and shaped from weekly workouts at a gym, this
other young man had a natural muscularity, and was every bit as erotic to the
eye. Like Rand he'd removed his T-shirt and it spilled from a back pocket. Rand
continued to stare at the young man, not saying anything.

For a brief moment Rand wondered if the young man might not be a cop. He'd seen
decoys just as handsome, as well built, willing to dance a hustler into a
proposition — to even go to a hotel or into an alley with them to fuck them or
to lean back and have their cum slowly and expertly sucked from them — before
flashing a badge and making an arrest. Rand continued looking at the man. He
brushed tiny bits of cinder and ash from his hair before he said, "Well, look
what the wind blew in."

The green-eyed young man looked away, almost distractedly, up the sidewalk and
then looked back again. "The winds make people crazy sometimes, or it just makes
them edgy," he said. "I'm not crazy and I'm not feeling edgy — just horny."

Rand nodded. He decided the kid was not a vice cop. "Why aren't you working a
bar then?" Rand asked. "You can get it off and have some bills to prove it."

The young man smiled. He idly grazed a hand over his smooth stomach. "I'm not in
a mood to shoot and run today." He looked Rand over. "What are you doing on the
street?"

Rand saw that the young man's crotch had grown fuller as they talked. He lifted
his eyes from it and said, "I don't live far. If you wanna fuck, then let's get
out of here. If not, move on. That's a proposition, buddy, but the only pay I'll
give you is a hot load up your ass." Rand took a breath. "Take it or leave it."

The young man smiled again.

"Name's Todd," he said.

Rand pushed away from the tree. "I live this way," he said and the young man
fell in beside him as they moved down the sidewalk.

Todd leaned up beside Rand in the bed and also gazed at the distant fires,
bright and threatening looking now that night had come fully on.

"Do you think the fires'll come down into the city?" Todd asked, sliding a hand
up Rand's side.

Rand got out of bed and moved to stand mid-room facing the plate glass wall. The
room was filled with the shimmering reflection of the firelight, surrounding the
two naked men on all sides, reflecting in the sheen of sweat covering their dark
tanned bodies. "If the winds shift," Rand answered at last, "maybe then the
fire'd move down. But the winds never seem to do that."

Todd left the bed also and came up behind Rand. His cock was fully erect and
stood straight out before him, thick and wide, with low-slung balls grazing
against the hairiness of his thighs. He pressed against Rand and the other young
man drew in his breath and suddenly, without warning, spit into his hand,
reached about and wiped the saliva down the length of Todd's prick. Still gazing
at the burning horizon Rand squatted just down far enough and reached about to
spread the cheeks of his ass so Todd could drive into him.

Todd gripped Rand's hips and slid the entire length of his cock into Rand's
tight asshole with one smooth motion and then held it there, his forest of
auburn pubic hair grinding against Rand's hard ass cheeks. And then he began to
move, very slowly and with precision, only a few inches out and then easily
inside again. And then he began to pull out just far enough so that the wide
head of his cock remained encased by Rand's sphincter. Rand groaned and
tightened the muscle, relaxed it and tightened it again, as if sucking Todd's
cock head with his ass until Todd felt a stirring in his balls and rammed his
lob deep into Rand's ass with such force that Rand grunted aloud and threw his
head back, teeth clenched as he sucked his breath in. Todd released his hips and
clamped his hands on Rand's wide shoulders and shoved him down to the floor onto
his knees and held him down and continued fucking him. The loud smacking of
flesh against flesh filled the room.

Rand raised himself up on his elbows, breathing hard as his ass was cock-rammed
and still watched the fiery hills, eyes bright and filled with the image of it.
He grunted again, louder this time as Todd yanked his cock out with a smacking
wet noise and a moment later buried his face into the crevice of Rand's ass,
tongue lapping and pressing deep into him. Rand pushed back and his sphincter
opened like a rosebud to welcome the hungry probing tongue into himself. As he
continued to look across the illuminated darkness of Los Angeles he seemed to
draw into himself the heat of the fires lighting the rim of the horizon — as if
their heat was drawn into his eyes and flowing down through his body,
electrifying his bowels, and he also felt the searing heat from Todd's body
streaming into him through his probing, lapping tongue. Rand felt his muscles
glowing, desire burning in his groin. He groaned and lowered himself to the
carpet, writhing as Todd grazed his teeth across his ass cheeks, biting lightly
as the flesh, licking the thick blond hair where his cock rose up from his
balls.

Todd matched Rand movement for movement, moving expertly with him, his own body
chaffing against the carpet, his cock so hard against the rough nap and as he
ate Rand's asshole he began to do it loudly, with wet, sloppy sounds, saliva
oozing from his mouth, his tongue lapping it back up again and trailing it again
into the crack of Rand's ass. Rand, in complete ecstacy, spread his arms and
legs wide on the carpet, closed his eyes and allowed Todd to work on him as he
pleased.

That was when Todd drew suddenly back and up onto his knees. His labored
breathing filled the room but he did not continue. Rand waited, raised his
perfectly shaped ass off the floor in anticipation, but Todd made no move. Todd
took his own cock in hand as he watched Rand silently begging him to continue
rimming him. He felt the thick veins of his prick as his hand stroked smoothly
up and down the shaft. Rand raised his hips still higher, spread his legs. The
tangle of dark blond hair glistened on his balls and down his heavy, semi-erect
cock. He did not open his eyes and Todd decided that the beautiful, muscular
blond hustler on his stomach before him, ass raised and begging, would wait
until he decided he needed any more attention. Todd raised his hand and brought
it down with great force against Rand's ass. Rand still did not open his eyes
and Todd continued stroking and feeling his cock. He leaned over and pulled his
jeans across the carpet, worked the wide leather belt out of the loops. He
folded it over, feeling the metal buckle in his hand.

Todd stood, raised his arm and slung the strap down across Rand's ass, striking
harder as he brought his arm back and again up into an arc. The leather flashed
again and again. Rand groaned loudly with pleasure, came completely up onto his
knees, pressing his shoulders down into the carpet. Then he stood, back to Todd,
facing the plate glass wall, watching the flaming distance. Todd unfolded the
strap and lashed Rand across his back, arms and thighs. And he did it expertly,
bringing the taut skin to a glowing soft crimson, but not leaving one welt or
the beginnings of a single bruise. Soon though his arm grew tired and he dropped
the belt. Rand turned slowly and looked into Todd's face. Both their cocks were
at full erection now. Rand's face flushed with desire. He stood very close to
Todd whose face was drenched with sweat, his dark hair in tangles about his
forehead and neck. Rand parted his lips, slid his arms about Todd's shoulders
and pressed their mouths together, kissing him for a long time, tongue probing
deep into his throat, their damp bodies sliding slowly against each other.

Unseen by either of the embracing men there was an explosion of flame on the
horizon that brightened the night, taking flames high into the air, bright
luminous orange/red. Veils of flame-light reflected one mirrored wall to the
other across the room. Rand and Todd's dark wet bodies shimmered with the
movement of the light, cold flame engulfing the heat of their flesh. Their arms
tightened about each other, they pressed closer. Rand broke the embrace first,
hunkered down to his knees and without using his hands sucked Todd's cock into
his mouth, closing his lips over the thickness and moving his head forward,
engorging his throat and sucked him like that, cock head to base until he could
feel the muscles in Todd's thighs begin to tense, his stomach muscles ripple
hard, and his prick expand even further against his throat and cum began to gush
into his throat.

He pulled slightly back, gripping the shaft with his mouth, as he tasted the
thick load stream across his tongue and he swallowed. It filled his mouth,
streamed over his lips and ran down his chin, dripping down onto his pecs,
trickling over his stomach and into the tangle of hair between his legs. Rand
gripped the prick with one hand, pressing the flat of his thumb from the base of
Todd's balls and then tracing it up with pressure, up the underside of the cock,
forcing out the last of the cum, licking it as it emerged thickly from the piss
slit of the wide head. Then he released the cock and leaned back and just gazed
at it a moment, hanging now between the man's legs. He looked up and Todd smiled
languidly, bent and pulled him to his feet. Rand rested his hands on Todd's
hips.

Todd looked the length of Rand's body and back to his eyes. "Back there, on
Selma, you were the tough guy. You were the one gonna take care of my ass."

Rand slid his hands to cup Todd's ass. "I always keep my word. And you said you
weren't in a mood to shoot and run. You just shot, but I'm not letting you run
anywhere for a long time." His cock sprang up and glanced against Todd's balls.

Todd leaned and licked at Rand's nipples, circling them and then licking down
between Rand's pectorals and into the flaxen pubic hair, biting at it lightly.
He wet Rand's swelling prick as he bit lightly along the shaft and then
swallowed the head into his mouth and began sucking, closing his eyes.

Rand watched the young man sucking his cock for a while and then felt a renewed
wave of passion radiate throughout his body. He lifted his eyes and looked out
at the burning hills beyond the city. He groaned, still watching the waves of
fire and smoke and gripped Todd's head and drove his prick deeper into the
willing, hot damp throat.