Blue Christmas Eve

Christopher Dillon looked toward the right, where all of the activity was in the homeless shelter being conducted in the half-basement of Cleveland's Payne Avenue Episcopalian church on Christmas Eve. He was well away from where dinner was being served, the TV room was being provided, and, later, the fellowship hall would be cleared for cots to be put out for the sixty homeless men being sheltered there the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. He, at thirty-two, a member of the church and lead in hosting the homeless in this shelter, was a handsome young and prosperous-looking man, as indeed, as owner of three jewelry stores in downtown Cleveland and the suburbs, he should be.

He'd had a rough year in his personal life and was graying at the temples, but on him that looked good. The grief and worry had, if anything, enhanced his look and aspect. He'd trimmed down to having a hard body, and life had mellowed the edges of the attitudes he showed. He was less judgmental and showed more interest in and concern for others. The other members of the church working with the hosting of the homeless, all of whom thought the world of Christopher and were protective of him on this night of all nights, had urged him not to be there on this night, knowing how Christmas Eve would affect him. But Christopher told them he had needed to be here. He had a need that required him to be here that was somewhat different from they, with universal sighing, thought. They thought he was dedicated to this responsibility and was a saint of putting others first.

Christopher wasn't here this night exactly to put others first. He had a burning personal need.

The door to the bathroom remotely located in the church basement that had been renovated with a shower to accommodate the church's homeless shelter program—each of several churches in this Cleveland State University section of the city taking a week each winter season to shelter the homeless—opened and Jamal, one of the homeless guy regulars, filled the doorway. He had showered but he hadn't dressed other than his socks and heavy boots. The clean clothes he brought to put on after his shower were folded and under his arm. His free hand clutched at the bath towel around his waist. Jamal was black, big, and muscular. From his high school days he'd put all of his eggs into the basket of becoming a pro team football tackle. That dream had ended early in college when he couldn't keep up academically and wasn't deemed quite good enough at the sport for the college's football program to prop him up. The subsequent crash had carried the now twenty-two-year-old to the streets.

Jamal was in the know of what was up this evening. He'd seen no reason to get fully dressed after his shower.

Seeing that no one was looking from off to the right, toward the homeless shelter activity, Christopher took Jamal's elbow and guided him off toward the right, deeper into the church's basement complex, into the area of the preschool rooms, declared off limits to the shelter activities and marked just beyond the shower room door with a screen across the hallway with an "Off Limits" sign on it. Night lights were attached to sockets along the corridor to provide just enough light so that someone wouldn't trip over anything. Christopher guided Jamal around the screen, down a dark hall, and into a room lit only by the moonlight reflecting off several inches of snow in the church parking lot beyond two large windows.

They didn't need to speak about where they were going and what they intended to do. This wasn't the first rodeo for either one of them. The deal had been set earlier in the evening, when Christopher had seen Jamal's name on the intake list at the reception desk and had eyeballed him. There was an undercurrent in Christopher's social world of who would do what for how much, and Christopher had been looking ahead for some time for Jamal's name to appear on the church's homeless shelter list. It was unfortunate that it was Christmas Eve, but, even there, perhaps, Christopher thought, it would be a good distraction for him from the grief of this anniversary. He certainly was in heat for such a distraction.

Without saying anything, Christopher backed the hefty and hunky black Jamal against a low counter running under the windows and went down on his knees, pulling the towel off the black stud's waist in the process, leaving the muscular, chocolate-brown body bare except for the socks and the boots. Having been in anticipation of this and finding Christopher arousing, Jamal was in magnificent erection. He had given the shelter guy relief like this before. The man had a real honey of a body, he paid well, and Jamal had his own needs for regular release. Christopher immediately went to servicing the young black's cock with his mouth.

While he gave Jamal head, Christopher used his hands to strip himself—to unbutton his Brooks Brother pristine white shirt and drop it to the side and to unbuckle and unzip his Levi jeans and push them and his Calvin Klein briefs down to his knees. His hands then went to gliding over the bulges of the black stud's body and to lacing fingers through Jamal's meaty balls and rolling and distending them. He groped for his own erection with the other hand and stroked himself.

The black bull groaned for Christopher and leaned over him, running big beefy hands down the willowy back of the well-toned thirty-two-year-old, the fingers of one hand running into Christopher's butt crack and finding and penetrating the man's hole, pressing in—and out and in—opening and stretching the hole. Christopher moaned for him and took his mouth off the cock long enough to murmur, "Yes, yes. Fuck me. Now."

"Sure, you're paying for it," Jamal said, as he pushed Christopher off his shaft and back on his haunches. "Right here, now?" he asked.

"Yes. Here. Hurry." What Christopher needed on Christmas Eve was to forget that it was Christmas Eve—to erase other Christmas Eves from his mind.

"You're probably not open enough," Jamal muttered, as he pulled Christopher up as if he was light as a feather and turned him, butt perched on the low counter between to the two windows overlooking the snow-covered parking lot. As he settled Christopher on the edge of the counter, he reached down and stripped the man's jeans and briefs off his legs. Now all that either man was wearing were Jamal's socks and heavy boots, and Christopher's silky socks and Gucci loafers.

"Just do it. Hurry," Christopher begged in a breathy voice. "I don't care. I want to suffer."

Jamal did it, and from the sounds of Christopher's panting and groans, he suffered from taking the thick shaft without greater preparation. But take it, he did. Jamal pressed Christopher's back against the wall between the two windows and grasped the trim-bodied man's ankles and hooked them on his beefy shoulders. Christopher had handed him the golden condom packet and lay there under the hunk as Jamal extracted the disk and rolled it on his cock. Christopher pressed his hands to the black man's bulging and swirly tattooed pecs and panted and groaned and grunted as Jamal worked hard to penetrate and stretch him and to be fully saddled with his thick, long, jet-black shaft.

When he was in and leaning in toward Christopher's chest, his eyes latched onto the jeweler's eyes to capture the effect of being inside the man, deep and throbbing, He grasped the older man's ankles and raised and spread his legs wide to give him maximum openness and access. Christopher, in good shape, managed the wide stretch and rolled his pelvis up to accord access of the thick shaft, huffing and puffing both his need and the taxing of the extra-large man. He knew Jamal was hung. Knowing that had been part of his obsession of having him and to experience him at the next opportunity, here at the church, on Christmas Eve, when there was risk, Christopher having responsibilities to the shelter program.

Christopher moved his hands to the black stud's bulging biceps, and dug in. His eyes rolled back in his head and he emitted little yipping sounds from his slack mouth, as Jamal started thrusting hard, fast, and deep, causing Christopher's body to jerk and his back to rub up and down on the wall between the windows.

"Please," Christopher begged as Jamal pumped him.

"Please, what?" Jamal growled.

"Please, not so hard, not so deep," Christopher moaned, less insistent now that they had actually gotten to it. "Give me time to adjust."

Jamal laughed. "I know what you want." A beefy black arm snaked under the other man's waist and pulled him in close, in a tight, controlling embrace. Jamal thrust hard and deep. Again and again. Christopher writhed under him, murmuring, "Oh shit. Oh fuck." Jamal was in full control, pistoning his shaft, drilling the older man cruelly. Christopher collapsed in his arms, whimpering the totally mastery of the big, black bull.

"Yes, yes. Fuck yes! Give it to me!" Christopher cried out as Jamal tensed and jerked and came, tensed and jerked and came, releasing thick wads of come into the bulb of the Trojan Magnum.

It had, in fact, been just the way he'd wanted it—just the way Steve used to give it to him, taking him beyond the comfortable, getting wild, making him admit he wanted it rough and overwhelming. Steve had been hung like Jamal was. Christopher had found a few men, for casual sex, after Steve, but none of them had taxed him like Stever—and now Jamal—could.

Both men sighed and expended contained air, which covered the sigh that came from just beyond the doorway to the hall leading back to the shelter area. Someone else had followed them beyond the barrier next to the shower room and had watched the fuck unfold. As Jamal pulled out of and away from Christopher, ripped the condom off his cock and dropped it to the floor, and reached for the towel to dry himself off, the figure beyond the door zipped himself up, turned, and melted back toward the shelter area.

"Finish me," Christopher begged, and Jamal turned to where he was still collapsed on top of the counter. He moved Christopher's ankles back onto his shoulders, grasped the man's erection with one hand and stroked it, as he inserted a beefy finger in Christopher's hole and finger fucked him until the man, with a heavy sigh, released his load.

"Thanks. You have no idea how much I needed that . . . on this night especially," Christopher whispered, as, deed done as contracted, Jamal busied himself with dressing. "Will you . . . are you available to . . .?"

"We're booked here for the rest of the week," Jamal said, not looking up, continuing to adjust the clean clothes that had been washed for him here earlier in the day. "So, sure. When I've got the time and you've got the money. You're a good lay; you've got a great body."

There had been no kissing or other sign of affection. It had been a straight, negotiated and paid-for fuck. But Christopher was satisfied. It was what he had wanted. He didn't think he could take any form of affection on this night of all nights. But he had needed the fuck, and it had been a good one. He'd had a fascination about black men and their reported outsized endowments. That hadn't been a requirement here—knowledge of what Jamal would give and opportunity were more the issue—but Christopher had been pleased from previous servicing by Jamal to know that there were black men who lived up to the legend.

"Hand me my trousers, please," Christopher said, and when Jamal had done so, Christopher pulled three twenty-dollar-bills and a home address and phone number card out of a pocket of the jeans and handed it to the black stud. "Take my card too," he said, "in case we want to be in touch after this week."

"So, I did you real good again," Jamal said. "Good enough that you'll want Jamal's cock again." It was the first time Jamal showed he needed reassurances as well. The earlier times, he hadn't stayed around afterward. He'd fucked and left.

Christopher didn't answer beyond a grunt of agreement, but the answer was self-evident to both of them. A grinning Jamal counted the money, gave Christopher a salute, and turned and was gone, into the dimness of the hallway leading back to where his clothes were waiting for him.

Christopher lay there, collapsed on the low counter, for a few more minutes, a slight smile slowly turning into a grimace of grief as memories flooded in. He wiped a couple of tears from his eyes, thoughts of the previous year's Christmas Eve flowing back into his mind. Oh, well, he'd had moments of distraction. With another sigh, he pushed himself off the counter, picked up the spent condom and packet from the floor to cover in a paper towel to be disposed of elsewhere—somewhere outside of the church—went into the preschool bathroom and cleaned himself off, dressed, and slowly, after pausing by a trash bin outside a door onto the alley to relieve himself of the evidence of the indiscretion, returned to his duties where dinner was being served to the sixty homeless men registered for the night.

When Christopher came back to the other side of the church basement, where the shelter was being held, he saw that Jamal was at the intake desk, checking out. The woman there was saying, "You realize that if you check out you can't come back in tonight."

"Yeah, I know," Jamal was saying. Christopher avoided looking at the black man as he passed. He had heard, along with being told what services the young man could render, that Jamal had a cheap wine habit. He wouldn't get that here with dinner. He'd had dinner before he had been scheduled for the shower room, so Christopher could only suppose that the man was willing to be out in the cold all night in exchange for finding an all-night convenience store to buy wine with the money he'd given him.

That wasn't Christopher's worry, even though he did allow it to bother him a bit. He walked on to the kitchen, where they'd be winding up serving the food. He was in charge of the cleanup. He'd bury himself in a different kind of effort for the rest of his shift here.

* * * *

In walking by the intake desk en route to the kitchen, Christopher saw that his relief, the night supervisor, had arrived already. Christopher could go home soon—not that he wanted to go home. His coworkers this evening had seemed surprised that he'd want to be out and here on Christmas Eve this year considering what had happened the previous Christmas Eve, but he couldn't have been home alone this evening. Sandy, the night supervisor, was talking with Ben Thomas, the off-duty cop, who volunteered to spend the night here in case there was trouble. You never could tell with homeless men. Some of them were hopped up—especially since this was Christmas Eve, when emotions were high.

He found Mae Manning and Frieda Halpern in animated conversation when he entered the kitchen from the main hallway.

"Christopher. It's good you're here," Frieda said, turning to him.

"Let's not bother Christopher with this tonight of all nights," Mae said, giving the other woman an admonishing look.

"Not bother me with what?" Christopher said. "If there's a bother here, it's my responsibility," he added, knowing that Sandy didn't officially relieve him for another hour.

"There's a new man out there at one of the dinner tables—a very young man," Frieda said.

"Frieda, don't. We'll tell Ben," Mae said. "Christopher doesn't need to get involved with this."

"Yes, a new young man?" Christopher said. "What about him?"

"I think he has a gun. They aren't allowed to bring guns in here," Frieda said, breathless.

"Which one is he? Show me," Christopher said. She pulled him over to the passthrough window, past a clearly disapproving Mae, and pointed to a table out in the fellowship hall, where the last of the evening meal was being finished by the last round of diners.

"That one there. The young man who seems withdrawn into himself. The one not talking to the other two at the table. I saw the butt of the handgun inside his jacket. It didn't register to me that it was a gun when I first saw it. But now I'm sure it was."

"OK," Christopher said, picking up a deep service tray and a towel from the drying rack, "you're about to take that platter of cookies out to the serving table for dessert, aren't you?"

"Yes," Mae said, stepping up to him.

"Put a few on a plate for me and one of you go stand by the serving table to keep those other two at the table talking if I can get them to go for cookies and get that kid alone—you, Frieda, if you would." Frieda was younger and a lot better looking than Mae was. She could hold those two guys' attention.

Christopher walked out to the table with a plate of three cookies in one hand and the towel and serving tray in the other. "Here, son. Here are the cookies you requested." And to the other two men at the table, he said, "The cookies just came out, over there at the serving table. You guys might want to get to them first to get the ones you want." The two men got the message, rose from the table, and approached the serving stand, where Frieda stood, somewhat nervously, with a welcoming smile and the promise of a bit of conversation. Mae was looking disapproving from the kitchen, beyond the passthrough window.

"I didn't ask for any cookies," the young man said.

"I know you didn't, but we have a problem here that I want to help us solve without others knowing about it or getting the police involved, if we can." Christopher sat down across from the young man at the table. "And I think you'll like these cookies anyway."

"Problem? What problem?" the young man asked. He looked almost too young to be out on the street. He also looked like he hadn't been homeless long. He just didn't belong. His clothes weren't tattered enough. He had the despondent, down-on-his-luck look that many of the homeless exhibited, but he just didn't look fully into the role. He was tall, blond, and well built. He could easily be a college basketball player. He was achingly good looking but highly tense. Frieda had been right; the handle of a hand gun showed under the flap of his not-warm-enough-for-winter jacket at his armpit.

"The gun. That's a problem here. Let's get that put someplace safe before Officer Thomas sees it."

"Officer Thomas? There's a cop here?" the young man asked, as he pulled the jacket flap over the handle of the gun.

"What do you need a gun for here anyway, son? This is a church and we're just trying to give you guys something to eat, a warm place for a few hours, and a place to sleep safely. All the guys know firearms are off limits here."

"Safely," the boy responded with a snort. "You don't know homeless guys. You don't know what it's like to be young among homeless guys like this."

"Young and good looking?" Christopher couldn't help saying. The young man looked up into his eyes then.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"What are you going to do with a gun?" Christopher asked. "My name is Christopher, by the way. What's yours?" Getting them on a name basis was basic training for working with a homeless shelter, Christopher had been taught.

"Evan. My name's Evan," the young man said. "I haven't decided what to do with the gun yet. Certainly nothing here at the dining table. I could rob a bank or just end it all. This life's the pits. I haven't decided yet."

Christopher's stomach turned over at the mention of ending it all. The Christmas tree in the hall was beyond Evan. Christopher looked at the young man, the tree glittered behind him. Christmas Eve. It was almost too hard to take. "It can't be that bad. You could get hurt trying to rob a bank or store with a gun." He couldn't bring himself to address the other issue Evan had mentioned.

"Yeah. Death by cop is one way out," Evan muttered. "And if it didn't get there, there at least would be a warm jail cell and free food."