“No, no. The white men got trials. They was hanged in the town square. Only the nigrahs are killed in the field. You’re probably smellin’ it right about now.”
“Yes, I am. Hard to believe a couple of severed heads could smell that bad at this distance.”
“Oh, it ain’t just the heads,” Cutton calmly went on. “Their whole bodies are threshed into the soil. Fertilizer. turnin’ somethin’ bad into somethin’ good. And they’ll just leave the heads there till they rot down to skulls, a reminder for the rest of the slaves not to act up.”
Poltrock gazed back out when several intermittent shadows crossed his face. Jesus Lord, he thought grimly. They’d just passed two more severed heads mounted in the field. He forced himself to look forward.
Down the line, he could now see the men working. White foremen measuring gauge and marking the next length of track bed to be dug and filled with ballast, then a hundred sweat-glazed slaves, either digging, hammering spikes, or dropping ties. Armed security men stood watch over the entire site, faces vigilant.
“Here were are, Mr. Poltrock,” Cutton announced and slowed the wagon. “Everything you see, you’re now in charge of. It’s a pleasure to be workin’ for ya.”
You work for me, but I work for Gast, Poltrock reminded himself. “Thank you.” Metal striking metal sang in his ears. “I must say, this appears to be a top-notch team.” And suddenly he felt enthused. Maybe the job wasn’t impossible after all. The operation was running like welloiled machinery.
The wagon stopped. “Morris is the crew boss. I’ll have him call a break, and then he can introduce you to the men.”
“That would be in order.”
They both dismounted the wagon. No one even looked at him when they approached the line. Each man, black or white, worked with focus and determination.
And the hammers hitting spikes rang on.
When Poltrock crossed the line, he stopped cold. Suddenly he felt bile bubbling in his gut…
The field seized his gaze, where he saw at least three dozen more severed heads on stakes. II
“Quit actin’ like you ain’t never done this before,” the younger man said, straddling the fat man’s face. The fat man mewled.
This guy is the hardest trick I ever turned, thought the younger man, frowning, and this younger man, of course, was Jiff. To maintain his arousal, he forced himself to think of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, because every time he looked down at his obese client, he winced. Nothing arousing about him. The fat man remained strained and trembling on his bed, his XXX-large Christian Dior shirt opened, and his Bermuda shorts pulled off.
“Suck it right, fattie,” Jiff said, and grabbed a hank of white hair beside the fat man’s bald spot. “If’n you cain’t suck better than that, I just might have to slap your big fat face.”
The overweight “client” struggled to do as complied.
“Maybe if I kick your fat ass, you’ll get the message,” Jiff went on with his playact. He angled off the bed and—
CRACK!
—brought his open palm hard against the fat man’s face.
The fat man was misty-eyed now. “I…I love you…”
Jiff couldn’t have smirked more sharply.
Afternoon sun lit up the fat man’s posh bedroom; Jiff found it amusing that a busy Number 1 Street bustled just outside that window, a story down. Tourists out for leisurely strolls and antique fanatics scouring the town’s quaint shops. And none of ’em would ever guess what’s going on up here. When the fat man brought his hands up to caress Jiff’s ass, Jiff jerked away the fat man’s cheeks with one hand, squeezing hard.
“Did I give you permission to touch my ass, girlie? Hmm?” He squeezed harder, and the fat man shook his head.
“I ought’a drag your fat girlie ass right out in the street with your little pants down like ya are, so’s every one out there can see your little pansy pecker! And then piss on ya to boot!” Now he squeezed so hard, tears formed in the fat man’s eyes, and—
Jesus, what a sick pup, Jiff thought.
Before the great mound of belly, the client’s genitals hardened and he moaned.
How grim. It just reminded Jiff of the situation’s strange psychology. I tell the guy I’m gonna piss on him and he gets hard? Jiff had been a male prostitute for a long time but even he had never seen a client this bad off. It wasn’t the actual sex, nor even the pain and bondage—it was the sheer humiliation that the fat man was paying for. It didn’t matter that this was fast money—the gig was getting old.
Get it over with, he thought, disgusted.
He put the rubber ball in the fat man’s mouth and got to work.
A few minutes later, Jiff was finally done, his client ravaged. He removed the rubber ball. Finally…
“Help me! I love you so much!” came the desperate plea.
By now Jiff felt sorry for him. Poor fat bastard’s up’n fell in love with me. “That’s a good girl,” he praised. “And now, for bein’ so good, you know what I’m gonna do?”
Hopeful eyes glimmered up.
Jiff lowered his face and bit one of the nipples.
The fat man shrieked in glee.
Jiff climbed off the bed, nude. He knew that the fat man’s eyes were on his body when he strode to the bathroom. Behind him, he pretended not to hear the forlorn whisper: “I love you so much…”
Jiff washed up at the sink. He felt skewed. He’d originally viewed this gig as easy money—thirty bucks for ten minutes?—but now it was getting too kinky even for him. The debasement? At least his other tricks in town were simple action. It was his body that got him the business. He appraised himself in the mirror, flexed his abs, shot a few bicep poses. Some of the guys down at the Spike would lay twenty on him just to flex while they jerked off. Now I’ve got this tub’a lard with all his hangups. Oh, well, he supposed it beat cutting yards.
He pumped his pecs once in the reflection. Yeah. I still got it.
Behind him, his client’s voice drifted, “You’re beautiful…”
Jiff frowned.
When he came back out, the fat man was sitting up in bed, his shorts still at his ankles. “I’d be a mess without you.”
You ARE a mess! Look at yourself! You look like 300 pounds of vanilla pudding folded over in bed! Jiff ignored the remark.
He looked around the spacious room. A stone bust of some guy named Caesar stood on a pedestal by one wall, and another one of some guy named Alexander the Great stood next to the window. Jiff guessed these guys were relatives of Liberace, maybe helped get him started in Vegas. There was also a chess table made of checkerboarded marble and pieces that looked made of silver and gold. Lucky bastard…Jiff knew that his client’s money came from an inheritance—he was the last of the line. Ain’t no way that fat pansy’s ever gonna have a kid to inherit what’s left. Jiff knew he could steal a chess piece or two, but that wasn’t his style. He was just a hayseed male hooker, not a thief.
An old, fancy armoire stood opened, revealing cans of nuts and boxes of chocolates. “Hey, can I have some’a this?”
“All that I own…is yours.”
I guess that means yes. Jiff knew he had to get the gears shifted fast now, otherwise the man’d just get all depressed and mushy. He opened a box of Trufflettes. “Wow, these are good.”
“Take the whole box, I’ll get you more. I order them special from France.”