Christ Almighty, he said to himself, staring out at the empty parking lot lit up like a Sunday afternoon. Bam's hand was still on his shoulder, curled into an innocuous fist, not altogether unpleasant and not altogether innocent, Chris was thinking, and he turned to Bam and said, "Don't play me, man," and Bam grinned harder and said, "Who's playing who, dude?" He lifted his hand and pounded lightly on the side of Chris's head. "You don't get it, do you?" he asked, and Chris shook his head, feeling dull and drunk, the parking lot lights flickering. It was cold in the car. He turned on the engine and turned on the heat. The heater made a noise that sufficed for an explanation, and Bam went quiet, although he replaced his hand, and Chris said, "Don't do that," and Bam said, "What?" and Chris said, "Your hand, man, your fucking hand."

"Let's get the fuck out of here," Bam said, and the hand was gone. "Let's get some more beer," he said, and Chris agreed that more beer was in order. What the fuck, he was thinking, let's get some more fucking beer, fuck all of this other shit. He looked down at Bam's thigh, at Bam's crotch, the thick roll of it, the obvious hard-on. He blinked, his head nodding, wondering why he always had to drive when he was the one who got the drunkest. He focused again on the big lump of Bam's cock.

"What the fuck is that?" he asked.

"What?" Bam said, and Chris pointed. "That," he said, and he poked the lump with his finger. There was no give to it at all -- it was like poking stone.

"What the fuck do you think it is," Bam said easily.

"Well, I think -- I mean it looks to me like it's a fucking hard-on. I'm just asking what's up with that?"

He saw Bam shake his head. "Dude," he said quietly, quickly, and Chris touched it again, and Bam spread his legs, exhaling.

"You're drunk, Chris," was the last thing Chris remembered Bam saying.

He remembered, though, opening Bam's jeans the night before and pulling out his prick, remembered Bam's hand on the back of his head or saying the things he said to Bam, that he loved him, loved his cock, loved sucking him off, had always wanted to suck him off, and Bam said, again and again, "You're fuckin' drunk, Chris."

And he remembered this: the way he filled his mouth with Bam's cock, the fat handful of it, the thick rubbery head that stopped his throat; remembered that Bam lifted his ass off the seat, allowing Chris access to the heavy dangle of his balls and the dank, shit-smelling split behind the swaying sack; remembered Bam saying, "Dude, that's fucking it, right there," when he wiggled his finger up into the tight knot of Bam's asshole; definitely remembered the gush of come, how much of it there was, and Bam's emphatic "Gee-zuss-Christ-already-Chris," taking back his used cock, come drooling from its deep-split head; and, "You fucking dick-pig," which at the time he took as a compliment.

Saturday afternoon, Chris was sitting outside on the roof of his downstairs neighbor's apartment, cell phone beside him. It rang.

"Dude." It was Bam. They hadn't talked since the morning-after. Neither of them said much then, and they weren't saying much now. What do you say to a guy who calls you a fucking dick-pig anyway?

"What's up?" Bam wanted to know.

"You know, same old. You?" Chris said. Sweat trickled down his chest and welled in his navel.

"Same," Bam said. "What you doing tonight?"

Chris shrugged, paused. "Dunno -- you?" He heard Bam breathe hard.

"Who fucking knows. I was thinking maybe going down to Tommy's, see who's playing."

"I think it's Dachshund," Chris said.

"A dog?"

"The band, ass-wipe. They're supposed to be pretty good."

"Yeah?" Bam said. "You wanna come?"

Chris looked out over the roof. He could see the skyline of the city of Ashland, the dying metropolis they called home. What else was there to do? he wondered, forgetting for a moment all the other things. This sounded almost, to Chris's untrained ears, like a date.

"What time?" Chris asked, and heard Bam say eight.

"What are you doing now?" Bam asked, and Chris looked at his watch.

"Nothing," he said, his cock creeping up in his loose shorts, its head poking around like a dizzy puppy. Woah there, fella, he was thinking, grabbing himself and squeezing -- plenty of time for that. I hope, he thought, squeezing again.

"I fuck with you. You fuck with me. It don't mean shit," he heard Bam saying. They were sitting at the Waldorf. The Dachshunds weren't playing at Tommy's after all; instead, there was some girl band that drew a large lesbian audience that freaked Bam ou t-- all those chicks and none of them interested in the Bamster! They sucked down pitchers down the street, at the Waldorf, where they knew the bartenders and most of the people lined up on the bar stools. The boys sat in back, next to the vacant pool table, waiting to play their quarters until they finished the pitcher.

"Because," Bam said, "I play better with a load on." He dropped the hint and was waiting for Chris to pick it up. Chris only squirmed.

"You're fucking with me now," Bam said, putting his elbows on the table, speaking low because he'd rather die than have anyone hear what he was about to say next. "Sitting there like that in that fucking shirt."