Halfway

He fucked me slowly, shyly, continually asking me if it was good for me—if anything else he could do would be better. And it was good for me—especially when compared with the fast and furious fifteen-minute-max pokes by the truck drivers in the room over the bar on the other side of the bridge.

He apologized when he was finished and said he had to get back to the motel.

"No need to apologize. I wanted you," I said. "You took care of me with the salve. And then you really took care of me." He blushed at that. "Can I stay here tonight?" I asked, it suddenly occurring to me that the three places in this clutch of buildings that I now had rooms—the consignment store, the bar, and the motel—were all places I didn't want to be tonight.

"I don't know," he stammered. "I'm nothing like what you—"

"I want to spend the night here, with you, in this bed," I said.

This evoked a small smile, a deepening of the blush, and the hanging of his head. "Of course you can stay here tonight," he said. He turned and headed for the door, but then stopped, and turned back to me. "And whenever you want to leave here, I'll drive you anywhere you want to go. I got a car right next to the room here."

I found that touching. After he'd gone and I'd showered in his small bathroom, I left to show up again at the consignment store next door. I'd promised to work a short shift there, and that's where the rest of my clothes and stuff were.

I had to laugh when I left his room and got a look at his ride. It was an old Buick LeSabre. I had arrived here in a new Buick and chances were good I'd leave in an old Buick. There was probably some irony in that, but I didn't want to think about that just then. At least it wasn't a semitrailer.

* * * *

I asked the bartender at the club what the usual lifespan of a pole dancer and rent boy at the club was, and he said "about two weeks." Thus, when at the two-week mark Julio, a cute little Hispanic trick, showed up to share the duty with me and another Hispanic, Juan, who had been here before and seemed a permanent fixture at the place, I wasn't surprised.

What surprised me more was how extensive Kincaid's holdings were. He had an "On the Road" special posted on the board behind the door into the bar, and I hadn't been working at the club for more than three days when I learned what that meant.

"This here is Mick," the bartender cum club manager told me one evening. "You'll be driving with him to near Philly to a truck plaza where Mr. Kincaid owns another club like this. He'll leave you there and you'll work the pole there until there's another 'On the Road' special from there back to here—or to near Harrisburg, where Mr. Kincaid has a club at another truck plaza. Got that?"

"But what's in it for Mick, here?" I asked. "What's so special about the special?" Mick was a big bruiser of a bearded mountain-man type who looked heavy but most of it was in muscle. He was maybe forty, tricked out in cowboy duds. He was leering at me like he would try to eat me in two bites.

"Mick here will have privileges with you between here and where he takes you and for three hours after delivery."

Mick proved to be quite virile and a quick reloader. He had his money's worth in the compartment behind the cab of his semi before he'd even driven out of the club's parking lot. He stopped four times between here and Philly and banged the hell out of me in the back of the cab.

In those two weeks I did an "On the Road" turnabout once to both the Philly and the Harrisburg ends. I usually, when in Halfway, slept in the room above the bar where I serviced men. Sometimes I just had to get out of the environment, and then I'd go to Dan in his room behind the gas station. He was always happy to see me. And I was happy to be with him too. He never got over the "lucky me" aspect. He'd been to massage school before becoming a "little bit of everything" at the Halfway gas station and motel, and whenever I came to him, full of tension from what I had to give men at the club, he relaxed me with a full-body massage before we had sex. He had magical hands, and I invariably had an ejaculation before we got to the main bout.

And when we did get to the main bout it was unlike having sex with any of the men at this club or the ones I'd had sex with before—even Larry. Dan improved in expertise with each successive fuck, and I quickly forgot he was no physical beauty because what he could do with his hands, tongue, and dick were a thing of beauty in themselves. Besides, he noticeably upgraded his wardrobe and was hitting the antiacne drugs hard since I arrived.

I had encounters with Kirk and Gus, too, the pair living above the consignment shop, but only on a couple of occasions. Being doubled took something out of me.

During the two weeks, Kincaid continued to show up at the club of evenings and oversee all that transpired. I could sense his eyes on me whenever I danced the pole and they followed me as I ascended the stairs with a john tagging behind me. I was waiting in fear and anticipation for the time he'd call me to go with him—and not just to the motel. When, as Kirk had warned me, that he'd tell me he wanted to drive me out to his farm.

That declaration came shortly after Julio was added to the roster of pole dancers, at the end of my first two weeks at the club.

As I'd come downstairs from servicing a john and was passing his table, Kincaid reached out and grabbed me by the wrist. "Tonight I want to take you home with me."

A shudder went up my spine. I knew it was a command, not a request. "Sure thing, Mr. Kincaid," I answered, and I turned from him so that he couldn't see the fear and concern in my face and moved toward the stage.

I didn't make it to the stage. Another hand shot out as I was moving between the tables, and I looked around, in shock, to see that the hand belonged to . . . Larry.

"Do you have to go back on stage just now, or can we talk for a few minutes?"

"I have a few minutes," I said, as I tried to control myself, still upset from the summons to Kincaid's farm after the show tonight and wondering how I was going to get out of that. I sat down at Larry's table. "Buy me a beer or I can't be sitting with you," I said. "And when the bartender comes over, slip him an extra twenty or I'll have to leave."

It felt good to make Larry pay to have to talk to me.

"I've missed you," he said when the bartender had been satisfied and we both had fresh beers. I didn't touch mine. I didn't want a beer. I needed some sort of escape plan. The irony didn't escape me that Larry was here. He wouldn't have come back, I didn't think, unless he wanted to pick up with me again.

"On your way back to Harrisburg?" I asked. "I wasn't aware that they'd called a special legislative session."

"They haven't," he responded. "I came from Philadelphia and am returning there—with you, I hope. I'm sorry; I shouldn't have left you here—to have to be doing this."

"No, you shouldn't have," I answered. I wasn't going to let him off the hook on that.

"I asked about you at the gas station and they told me you worked here. They remembered me letting you off there."

"Of course they would," I snapped at him. "It's not like people get abandoned on their doorstep every day of the week here."

"I said I was sorry. This isn't going well."

"Did you expect me to be all smiley face? You left me with nothing. Even took my suitcase. I had to rebuild here from nothing."

"I've missed you and know it was my fault—that I was in the wrong. I've come back to beg you to come to Philadelphia. To live with me in my apartment."

"Have you consulted with your wife and children on that—or the parents you say you live with?"

"There's none of that in Philadelphia. I just didn't know if I wanted to be living with a man openly—a half man, a transvestite. I'm not out; you know I'm not. Now, having tried to make it without you, I know that it doesn't matter. I need you. We can make it work."

"I don't know. I'll never know when the next time is coming that you'll abandon me somewhere."

"I won't. I promise."

He looked so hopeful. And it was a way out—a miracle of a convenience coming right at the right time, like this was some sort of Hollywood movie script. Everything coming together neatly in the end, and the happy couple riding off into the sunset in a new Buick to enjoy the happy ever after.

"You have your car here?"

"Yes, I'm parked out front."

"Let me get my things together then, and I'll meet you out there at your car in a few minutes."

I stood up from the table and prepared to walk away, but his hand shot out and he momentarily arrested my movement. He looked up at me with grateful, puppy dog eyes. "I'll treat you right this time, baby. It all will work out for the best. Trust me."

"I'm sure it will all work out for the best," I answered. As far as trusting him, though . . .

When I'd pulled what little I had together in the duffle I'd paid for in servicing two weeks previously, I left by the rear staircase and out the back of the building. Coming around the side of the building, I peeked around the corner and was able to pick out Larry's Buick. He was sitting in the driver's seat with his eyes glued to the front entrance of the place, assuming, I guess that I'd exit through that door.

Keeping semitrailer trucks between the Buick and me, I went out to the road, walked hurriedly across the bridge, and to the other side of Halfway.

Dan's eyes lit up when he saw me enter the door to his room behind the gas station.

"Get up and get dressed, Dan," I said. "It's time for you to give me that ride back to Harrisburg."

"Sure thing, Angel," he said, standing up immediately and reaching out to the chair beside the bed where he had his jeans and shirt folded. No argument and no hesitation. I could see that he was distressed, though, and disappointed.

"If you want, you could scrape together anything that you want to keep, and end up in Harrisburg with me," I said. "I'm sure you can get a job there that's better than you have here—maybe as a masseur. You have magic hands."

No hesitation there, either. His face lit up like a Christmas tree. I had no doubt what he wanted to do but he still asked, almost as if in disbelief, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, Dan, I'm very sure," I answered. And I was. It was time for me to settle down and to go more than half way in some direction too.