Homeless Haven

So far they were doing great, Wyatt thought.

* * * *

"Brad. You got a few minutes you can come up to my apartment?"

Just a couple of minutes? was Brad's first thought. He'd just turned off the power mower. The rain had stopped the day before after several days running and the grass had grown almost too high to mow. It had dried out now, though. It was Brad's job to keep the lawn mown at the Amherst Street house.

"Sure, Mr. Cooper. Should I stop and get some beer?" He turned to face Cooper, who was standing on the porch in front of the door into his apartment. The man was in just athletic shorts and sandals. He looked really good to Brad. Brad was just in athletic shorts as well, although he had sturdier shoes on since he was working with a power mower on a sharply sloping front yard. He knew he looked good too. He'd heard that the guy Cooper had in his apartment was going back on the street—that he was a homeless guy—when the rains stopped. The rains had stopped, so maybe he was gone and Brad could make a move. He posed at the mower in a way that showed his developing musculature off well. He didn't want to overdo it; he knew Cooper liked the small guy look. Both he and Cooper knew Brad was too young to be drinking beer. Sharing beer was a euphemism between them for doing something else Brad was a bit too young to be doing with Cooper.

"It won't take long, Brad. You're from this area, aren't you? Didn't you go to B. T. Washington High School? Aren't you in Tidewater Tech now?"

"Yes, sir, to both. When school starts up, I'll be in my second year at Tidewater Tech, over off East Princess Anne Road."

"I thought so. I'd like you to come up and talk to Steve about the school. I'm getting him enrolled there and he's fighting it a bit. I think if someone going there tells him about it, he'll come across."

"Sure thing, Mr. Cooper. I'll be up in a few minutes. Have to put the mower away and clean up a bit." That's what Brad said, but what he was thinking was, Shit. The little fucker's still there. And Cooper wants him to stay. He wants another Frank. I thought I had a chance. Shit, shit, fuck.

* * * *

"I don't want to go to college or to tech school, so there's no reason for me to go to Tidewater Tech. And you don't have to drive me over there. I've seen it. If I wanted to go school, I'd . . . I'd . . ."

"You'd do what?" Wyatt asked. "I'm just trying to help you, to give you a step up in life. You don't want to be homeless and live on the streets forever, do you?"

The three of them were sitting in the living room area of Wyatt's apartment. Steve had been sullen, but he'd heard Brad out. Brad had been patient, although he was aching to be in the other young man's place instead.

"Fuck it," Slick said. He was digging in again, wanting to assert he was Slick, not Steve. He almost told them. He'd almost said that if he wanted the life that Wyatt was trying to build for him, he wouldn't have left home to begin with. He was born and grew up here in Norfolk. He'd lived within a few blocks of here forever. He'd lived up in Green Hill Farms, in a nice house, with parents who had careers, were totally into their own shit, and had had him by accident. Norview would be his high school now if he hadn't left home. And he might not have left home if Mr. Paine, the P.E. teacher and his soccer coach at Norview High School, hadn't done what he'd done to him—hadn't started him off and broken him down and said there was a teacher at Tidewater Tech he was going to turn Slick over to when Slick went up to the technical college. Not that Slick hadn't liked what Mr. Paine had done with him; Mr. Paine was a hunk and knew how to fuck. Slick just didn't want someone making all of his decisions; telling him what to do; controlling him. If that's the way it was to be, Slick had thought he might as well be free—and get paid for it on the street.

"OK, OK," he said. "But I've missed some school. I'd rather do another year of high school. Isn't there one near here?"

"There's Norview. It's the closest high school," Wyatt said, relieved, feeling he was making headway. "Or there's B. T. Washington, about the same distance in the other direction. Then after another year in high school, we can talk colleges or Tidewater Tech."

"B. T. Washington maybe," Slick quickly said. "Not college or trade school. I don't want to talk about anything that far in advance," he stubbornly added.

"You know, I'd love taking whatever Mr. Cooper would give me in education and a place to stay, if I was in your place," Brad said. And it was true; he was aching to get what Cooper was offering to this snotty guy. Cooper had done wonders with Frank, and Brad hadn't thought that Frank had appreciated it enough. Frank had told Brad that going into the Navy was a release for him—release from Cooper's control. Brad couldn't see that. He was dying to get the support that Frank got—and that Wyatt was offering to this guy. And he was aching to get the loving that Wyatt gave Frank and Brad knew he was giving Steve now. Brad would love having a man who wanted to protect him.

Wyatt got up to get another round of Cokes for them from the kitchen, and Slick turned to Brad and fairly hissed, "Why don't you do this then? Why don't you let him control and fuck you and decide what your life is going to be?"

"I would if I could," Brad hissed back. "But he chose you. I would if I could. And I'd be grateful that he pulled me out of the gutter and gave me a life. Don't screw this up—for yourself, and for him. I'd give the world to have a hunk like Mr. Cooper taking care of me—and taking care of me in bed too."

When Wyatt came back, he said, "What do you say, Steve? Shall we drive over to B. T. Washington this afternoon and see what can be done on getting you back in school?"

"If you want," Slick answered wearily. "You're the boss." He said that in a sarcastic tone and turned a pointed look at Brad.

"Someone has to be the boss, Steve," Wyatt said, as he handed the young man a cold can of Coke. "You're too young to be on your own."

But not too young to fuck, Slick thought. And then he wanted to kick himself. There was nothing wrong with how the man fucked him. He felt safe and protected when he was in Wyatt's arms, with Wyatt's dick inside him. But, for the rest, Slick felt the walls closing in on him.

That night was the best sex they'd had so far. They took turns giving each other a body massage, reaching all crevices and curves and moving to giving hand jobs that went to the brink and back again. And then the young man coaxed Wyatt onto his back on the master bed, put himself in a cowboy man position, facing Wyatt's head, and rode the older man and rode him and rode him.

They fucked like there would be no tomorrow.

When Wyatt woke up the next day, he was alone in the bed. He rolled out of bed and did what he had to do in his bathroom. He expected to hear some manner of sound from beyond the bedroom. Steve had gotten up before he did before in the week he'd been here, but Wyatt had always heard him in the shower in the other bedroom suite and banging around in the kitchen. Today he heard nothing.

When he came out of the bathroom, he padded out into the living/dining area in his sleep shorts. He still heard nothing and he saw nothing. Until he did see something. Steve's new backpack was sitting on top of the dining room table. And beside it, neatly folded and stacked, were all of the clothes Wyatt had bought him as well as Frank's clothes Steve had loaned him.

In panic, Wyatt went into the second bedroom. Everything had been tidied up. He went to the bureau and opened the drawer where Steve had put the clothes he'd come with, clothes that he'd told Wyatt he'd thrown out, but he hadn't. Wyatt had snooped, of course, and seen the clothes in the drawer. They were gone now. He looked in the closet where he'd found Steve had retrieved and stashed the old backpack Wyatt had trashed. Wyatt had plans to celebrate, to take Steve somewhere special, when the young man signaled he was comfortable enough to stay and go with traveling down the new life's path Wyatt was providing for him by throwing out this old stuff. This didn't feel like Steve had turned that corner, though. Wyatt didn't think the young man had thrown out the old stuff. This felt like something entirely different.

He came back out into the living room and stumbled over to the dining room table, where he saw, for the first time, that Steve had left him a note—and two worn twenty-dollar bills.

"Sorry, I can't do this," the note said. "And my name is Slick. Sorry I didn't leave more, but it's all I've got. I want to pay my way, though. I don't want you to think I stole anything from you."

* * * *

The red RC F pulled over to the curb two blocks up Chesapeake Boulevard from the Hershee club and the passenger seat window scrolled down. "You need a lift, Brad? You coming or going?"

"Going home, I guess, Mr. Cooper. If you're headed in that direction—"

"Hop in. I can take you there and come back."

When Brad had folded himself into the seat, Wyatt managed a U-turn and started back down Chesapeake Boulevard. "You here to do something at the club?" he asked.

"I guess I'm out here for the same reason you are—looking for Steve."

"So, you heard then. Heard that he took off this morning."

"Yes. And I heard you had gone looking for him. I thought you'd appreciate the help."

"Thanks, Brad. You're always helpful."

"Anything for you, Mr. Cooper."

"It's Wyatt," the driver said and reached over and squeezed Brad's knee. "Again, appreciate it. You stick with a guy."

You don't know the half of it, Brad thought. The hand was still on his knee. He had an almost overwhelming urge to put his hand on top of Wyatt's, but he resisted.

"Frank did that a couple of times—ran away," Wyatt said. "It's really rough at the start." He put the hand back on the wheel.

"Steve might be different from what Frank was," Brad said. "Some really don't want a normal life . . . and support. I didn't get the feeling that Steve was ready to go back to school, or that he had any ambition to learn to work in anything yet. I think he is one who enjoys the freedom of the streets, even with what that denies him."

"It's hard to think anyone would think like that," Wyatt said.

"It's sure hard for me to think that," Brad replied. He swallowed hard, and went for it. "I certainly don't think that. If someone was to want to help me get an education and a good job, I'd do anything he wanted to get that help."

"Anything?" Wyatt asked, turning his head and flashing a grin.

"Yes, anything," Brad responded.

"What is it you want to do in life, Brad?"

"I know you'll laugh, but I'd like to be a stockbroker. That sounds like an interesting, steady job."

"You would? I'm a day trader, you know."

Yes, I know, Brad thought.

"And I do pretty well with it."

Yes, I know.

"There was a man who helped me get there," Wyatt said after a moment. "Saw the potential in me when I was graduating from high school and pulled me under his wing."

I didn't know that, Brad thought. That explained some things.

Wyatt's right hand came off the wheel and went back to Brad's knee. It wasn't clear he realized it had. It was quite clear to Brad that it had.

"I'd like a man to do that for me," Brad said in a low voice. "I'd do anything for him." He took the plunge. He put his hand on top of Wyatt's.

"I had to do it all for that man," Wyatt said.

"I'd have no trouble doing it all. Not with someone like you," Brad answered. "I think you know I would. We've done it already, anyway."

"You don't think Steve is coming back, do you?" Wyatt asked.

"No, I don't think he is . . . Wyatt." Brad knew Slick wasn't coming back. Brad had found Slick, in the same alley were the young man had been before he exploded out of the alley and into the fender of Wyatt's RC F a week earlier in the rain. Slick had told Brad how he wasn't ready for what Wyatt wanted, how much he wasn't ready to go under a man's control like that. And Slick had told him why he didn't want to go to Norview, about how his high school soccer coach said he was going to hand Slick over to a man at Tidewater Tech for more control and sex. Brad didn't doubt him. He went to Tidewater Tech. He knew the teacher Slick was talking about. And the teacher knew Brad—biblically. He didn't wish that guy on anyone, including Slick.

No, Slick wasn't coming back. When Wyatt had pulled up to the curb beside Brad near the Hershee club, Brad was just back from getting a friend to help Slick move to another patch, out of the neighborhood he'd been working before.

"So, here we are," Wyatt said, pulling into the driveway of the house on Amherst he'd had made into three apartments. He turned the ignition off and popped his door open.

"You aren't just leaving me off here?" Brad asked.

"No, I'm not. Not unless that's what you want me to do."

"You know it's not what I want you to do," Brad murmured.

Wyatt reached around and placed his hand on the back of Brad's head. It didn't require any pressure at all to bring the young man's face to Wyatt's, and Brad's mouth opened to receive Wyatt's tongue as their lips came together. Brad heard Wyatt's fly being unzipped and he didn't flinch. Neither did the young man resist when the hand cupping his head pulled his face down into Wyatt's lap. Holding the base of the engorging cock with one hand, Brad opened his mouth over the shaft.

Wyatt sighed as he settled back in the driver's seat. "I think we'll go up to my apartment," he whispered. "Someone gave me some beer a few days ago I haven't gotten around to drinking, and I think I'd like to share that with someone—and then, maybe, share something else too. Sharing's good."

He smiled when he heard the compliant young man giving him head voice a muffled, "Yes, please."