The Pickup

© 2003 Jim Schutte
All rights reserved.

Rick and Michael finally had it all worked out. They'd discussed every detail, yet left room for spontaneity and chance. It was a game, really, but with erotic consequences they both wished to enjoy. They were really looking forward to it. Especially Michael.

Michael met Rick over two years ago, and last year they'd moved in together. Just two gay white boys in love, as their friend Felicia described them. It was Michael's idea to spice up their sex with a rendezvous-type encounter. It's silly, Michael thought, as he tingled in anticipation at his last hour at work: They'd meet at a subway station, but pretend not to know each other. They'd sit or stand in close proximity, cruising each other with the intensity of two strangers in the night, and just go home, which they'd pretend was Michael's place, and do whatever came naturally.

The perfect plan, Michael thought as he finished filing the day's jobs. He felt a little flushed thinking about it, and tried to put it out of his mind as if he'd never known Rick to begin with, although imagining life with out him was difficult to do. Rick was everything Michael ever wanted: he was handsome, thirty-two, not too stocky, but not too skinny, with dark hair and piercing eyes and a confidence in himself that Michael deeply envied.

4:55. Almost time, Michael thought as he decided to check his hair one last time. He didn't hate himself, per se, but he wished he saw someone else in the men's room mirror. His body was too thin, always was, and really on the short side, but he made up for it by being toned and eating right. Maybe I should take that protein stuff everybody's talking about and really bulk up, Michael thought, but then he worried that doing so might make Rick lose interest in him. Better to not make any radical changes, he thought as he adjusted his neatly cropped hair one last time.

Soon Michael approached the subway station and held his breath as he passed the stench of urine and homelessness that forever clung around the descending escalator. He inserted his ticket, ushered himself through the gate, and plunged down the stairs at top speed. He wasn't late, but the 5:15 time for "hooking up" was fast approaching. Michael wondered if Rick's boss might have made him stay late, although he didn't e-mail to warn him, like they'd planned. He walked over to the second circular bench and sat facing eastern trains and pulled out a paperback, a novel by Felice Picano, and pretended to read it.

Just as Michael was getting sucked into actually reading his book, he spotted Rick approaching. He looked back down to the crammed typeface, playing his role, and soon looked up again. Rick looked cute all right, wearing a black button-up shirt and slacks that made his buns appear muscular and inviting. But there was something strange about him; he seemed different, somehow. Maybe he got a haircut, Michael thought as he returned his gaze back to his book. Rick stood in line in front of him, and at one point he looked back and their eyes met. Michael suppressed the urge to smile and barely raised his eyebrows instead. They both looked away.

Soon it was time to board the train. It honked "Shave and a Haircut" as it rushed in and opened its doors. Michael hustled in one of the two lines and entered left, following the direction taken by Rick. He spotted the back of his head as he stood near an empty seat. "Perfect!" Michael thought as he sat almost at crotch level, facing Rick.

Michael pulled out his book, and eyed Rick some more. He felt himself getting aroused as he mentally undressed his boyfriend. He couldn't wait to plunge into him, licking him from head to toe. Rick seemed to notice this attention. Then he reached down and grabbed Michael's book right out of his hands.

"Whatya reading?" he asked.

That's a little bold, Michael thought. Is that part of the plan? "Uh."

"Oh, yeah I read this," Rick said, flooding Michael with disappointment. Did he forget? Michael wondered.

"Um, yeah, my ex gave it to me," Michael said, trying to salvage the plan.

"Oh, did he tell you about the ending?"

"Uh, no."

"It's a rush, man. You live in town or out here somewhere?" Rick eyed Michael up and down.

Michael beamed. "Um, in Kensington. It's just a short bus ride from the...."

"Yeah, I know the way. Got a friend that lives there." Rick grabbed a bar above him with both hands and had to lean in a bit as they rounded a curve. "It's beautiful up there," he continued, smiling.

"Yeah, it's nice," Michael said, trying to be coy.

"So have you ever read 'The Swimming Pool Library' by Alan Hollinghurst?" Rick asked. Rick hates gay fiction, Michael thought. He always says it's pretentious. Suddenly Rick adjusted himself.

Michael watched and wondered if the other passengers noticed. "Um, no."

"It's really hot. A very intense read, if you know what I mean." He finished adjusting and winked.

"So you like intense stuff?" Michael asked, trying hard to be suggestive himself. He scratched his armpit, raising his tee-shirt above midriff.

Rick eyed this and said, "Yah. Any chance I get."

"Listen," Michael said, trying to cinch the deal, "I don't normally do this kinda thing, but, you wanna come over?"

"Okay," Rick said, their stop approaching. Michael stood up before the train stopped, facing Rick and barely brushing Rick's chest with the back of his hand. He felt his heart racing as they stood in silence waiting for the doors to open. It was then that he noticed Rick's shoes. They were Dockers, which he doesn't own, and they were worn. Where did they come from? Did he buy them used? Michael was so puzzled that he thought about breaking the spell of the charade as they ascended the stairs to the surface.

It was then that Rick said, "My friend and his boyfriend live in a nice apartment out here. They sometimes have me over for a good time."

"Oh, what kind of time?" Michael asked, now distracted by Rick's suggestiveness.

Rick didn't answer as they boarded the waiting bus. They sat together, which felt normal, but there was something different ... like Rick wasn't quite right.

The ride was short, and they continued more suggestive chatting about books and then movies when their stop arrived and they got off. Rick seemed genuinely surprised by the location. He even pretended to be unfamiliar with their tricky entrance gate, which required two hands to open. Give the guy an Oscar, Michael thought, impressed and a little disturbed by the performance.

Once inside, Rick wasted no time, pressing Michael against a wall and kissing him deeply. Michael loved the rough stubble forced onto his lips as their opened mouths pressed together. They kissed much longer than Rick would do normally. "Where's the bedroom?" he asked, his hands under Michael's shirt, tearing his own off in the entryway.

"This way," Michael said, feeling a little weird about the whole thing. But it was getting so hot; he wasn't about to break the charade now. And, after all, it was his idea.

They fell on the bed and continued kissing, their tongues now aggressive. Michael now had hands under Rick's undershirt. He smelled a little different, like sweet milk. "Let me help," Rick said as he ripped his shirt off, revealing naked skin and a drop of sweat running down his neck. Michael licked it and felt Rick tug off his pants and shoes.

Michael sat on Rick's lap, both legs wrapped around his waist. It was when he was pressed up against him that he noticed it. At first he thought it was a piece of black lint or maybe a bruise. But then he touched it: a smooth serpent right at the base of his two shoulder blades, poised between them like they were its wings. "Aaah!" Michael jumped back.

"What's the matter?" Rick said.

"What's that thing on your back? How'd it get there?" Michael suddenly became aware of his nakedness.

"I have a tattoo," the man said tenderly, his eyes suddenly flashing. "Most guys are turned on by it." Michael looked at the man's eyes and noticed they were smiling at him. He felt a sudden surge of warmth, a new spark of passion that wasn't afraid of what didn't make sense. He had to have him. Michael fell back into his arms, burying his face in every opening, losing himself in their heat.

Rick came home ready to apologize. He'd even managed to get some flowers at the subway station. He'd tried to call home a few times to explain why he was so late, but the line was busy. Michael must've been on the phone with Felicia, bitching about him messing up their rendezvous plan, but how was he to help the fact that the fire alarm went off and he was stuck on the 39th floor until it was fixed? The thirty-minute delay was substantial enough, he reasoned, to send Michael home alone and disappointed.

He walked in the front door, which was unlocked. A black shirt sat in the entryway that he didn't recognize. Not like Mr. Neat Michael to leave stuff lying around.

"Hey, I'm home," he called. No answer. "I tried to call, but the line was busy," he said, looking for a vase for the flowers.

He gave up on the quest for a vase and went straight for the bedroom, the only place Michael could be, flowers in tow. There was no sign of him. The bed was all messed up, though, and Rick was sure he'd made it that morning after they left for work.

"He must be home," he whispered, and then he saw it.

It was an odd thing to find, a black wooden tile in the middle of the bed. It was six inches square and an inch thick, and it was the color of black tar. On it was an image of a young man, nude, riding atop a long, strange serpent toward a horizon.

"Michael?" Rick's voice seemed very small in the bedroom, a voice somehow out of synch, out of touch with whatever went on there just moments ago. He could almost hear his own voice echo, only it wasn't saying Michael's name. It was laughing.

He picked up the tile and replaced it with the flowers. Saddened that it came to this, he carried the tile somberly to the padlocked door of the dirt-floor basement. Michael had always been so curious about what was down there, but he'd accepted the explanation that it was off limits by order of the landlord. Rick unlatched the padlock and lit the ancient oil lamp that revealed what at first glance resembled an old-fashioned workshop. Yet instead of hammers or wrenches, old, leather-bound books describing forgotten magics and curses lay atop workbenches.

Rick's feet stirred up no dust as he approached the mosaic, made of eight other coal-black tiles. Each depicted young men at play with other serpents, with each tile positioned at one tip of a ten-pointed star.

He put Michael in his new home, between Alan and Marty, and mumbled a cryptic chant. Wiping away a tear, Rick crossed his arms and looked at the last vacancy, at the upper left.

He loved them all. That was the deal. He had to love them, and they had to love him. Then, without warning, it would happen, and only after the tenth time and the tenth tile would he be let in. Paradise was the promise, but some things begun are murder to finish.

"Time to go," Rick whispered to himself. "It's time to go."

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