Ridge City Mall is far away. It takes about two hours to walk there, past long rows of evenly spaced paper box factories, then around a few tricky corners filled with criss-crossing, unexpected traffic. You then walk over a small highway with a very narrow shoulder, past a sickly sweet smelling Tootsie Roll factory and a lone Pizza Hut, until you hit the mall itself. Sometimes Kyle walked all the way there, but today he was going to splurge, spend some money, take the bus.

Kyle got on the bus and paid his fare; he had three hundred dollars in his pockets. For half a year he had stashed away the money his parents gave him for lunch, hoarding it in a heavy black box with a lock his grandfather gave him on an early birthday. The night before, Kyle had counted all his limp and dirty twenty dollar bills, feeling their texture with dreamy, absent satisfaction. Surely his parents noticed his drastic weight loss, but they said nothing.

The people on the bus do not look at him. They are mostly old ladies, and if they aren’t, they might as well be. It takes a while. Kyle thinks about what he wants to buy, things he’d be embarrassed to ask his parents for. Bikini underwear, for instance, in bright colors. Sexy clothes. Kyle wants to buy sexy clothes, tight clothes. Clothes that show he has a body. Kyle is very skinny now; he’s been working out all summer. Sometimes at night he goes into the backyard and strips naked. As he looks down at his body in the moonlight, Kyle pretends he is being filmed for a nude scene in a movie. He is sure someone is watching him, but he doesn’t know who. An older man, probably. An older man might want him.

At Ridge City Mall, Kyle goes directly to a small clothing store at the far end of the mall. The store rarely has any customers. On his trips to Ridge City, Kyle always finds himself drifting to this store because Joe, the manager, actually started talking to him a few months ago. Joe was in his late twenties, probably, a little goofy-looking, with glasses and big white teeth and slight acne-scarring on his cheeks. To compensate, he worked out every day, and his solid body was ostentatiously attractive, especially in contrast to his affable, plain face. Joe smiled when he saw Kyle come into the store, and he swung his heavy body lightly over the counter.

“Hey, kiddo,” Joe said. “You gonna buy something today, or just look around?” he asked.

“Just look,” Kyle said, barely able to look at Joe, walking ahead of him. “But I might buy something.”

“What do you want to get?” Joe asked, as he stared at Kyle from behind.

“I’d like to get some underwear,” Kyle said quietly, over his shoulder.

“Oh, really,” Joe said. “What kind of underwear?” he asked.

“Um...I don’t know. I thought...maybe...some bikini underwear,” Kyle said. He hoped that Joe wouldn’t laugh.

“Bikini underwear?” asked Joe, trying to laugh a little, but starting to blush. Kyle turned around and hugged his skinny torso with his arms. Joe shifted his weight restlessly from one leg to another and stole a glance at Kyle’s lower body from the front, whip-thin in tight blue jeans.

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “I saw this show on TV where the guy was wearing red bikini underwear, and I liked the way he looked,” he said shyly, his words tumbling out fast.

“Who was wearing it? What show?” Joe asked, his hands on his hips, leaning forward slightly, looking right into Kyle’s shifting eyes.

“Um, I think it was Melrose Place,” Kyle said.

“OK,” Joe said. “Let me go get you what you want.”

Joe walked over slowly to the underwear section, and he was almost certain Kyle was staring at him. Joe smiled. He was turned on by the attention and touched by Kyle. Months before, Joe had sensed Kyle’s loneliness and he recognized it as his own at an earlier date.

“Here you go, try these,” Joe said, passing an underwear package to Kyle. Joe smiled at Kyle and rubbed his big hands together. “They get good-looking guys to pose for those things, huh?” he asked, cocking his head and sidling up closer to Kyle.

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “They’re pretty cute,” he admitted.

“You know, if you turn the package over, you can see what that same guy looks like from the back in the underwear,” Joe said.

“I know,” Kyle said, too quickly. He looked mortified, and Joe patted him on the shoulder, placatingly. Kyle got goose pimples all over his bare arms from the brief physical contact.

“Don’t worry, buddy. You don’t have to worry with me,” Joe said.

“OK,” Kyle said. His heart started to beat in his right ear.

“I like the guys on those packages,” Joe said, confidentially, leaning in very close to Kyle. “I spend so much time here by myself....it’s cool to have pictures like that to look at. I almost feel like I know them.” Joe suddenly felt he had said way too much. Kyle looked at the package and turned it over. They stared intently at the model, who was slightly turned to profile in tighty-whities. The angle of the shot was quite flattering.

“He’s got a nice butt, huh?” asked Joe.

“Yeah,” Kyle said.

“A really nice butt. Tight,” Joe emphasized, as he stared at Kyle’s hips and the sweet little curve in the back of his jeans.

“He must work out a lot to get it to look like that,” Kyle said.

“When a guy gets older, you need to work at it a little more,” confided Joe.

Kyle flipped the package back over. “These are small...are you sure they’d fit me?” he asked.

“You’ve got a really tiny waist,” Joe said, staring straight at Kyle’s hips. Suddenly, he had an urge to pull Kyle’s jeans down. He wanted to see this kid completely naked, make him bend over and show his asshole. This kid must be so tight down there...for a daring second, Joe wrapped his big hands around Kyle’s waist, as if he were measuring it. “I’d say a small is what you need right now,” he continued.

Kyle just stood there for a second, almost gasping, not yet processing the press of Joe’s hand’s on his hips. “Can I try these on?” he asked. “I want to see how they look.”

“Well...you’re actually not supposed to open the underwear before you buy it,” Joe said. A thought struck him. “How old are you, buddy?” he asked.

“I’m 17,” Kyle said, as if he were embarrassed.

“Really?” Joe asked. He started to inch away from Kyle. “I would never have guessed you were so...you don’t seem that young.”

“I know,” Kyle said. “When I look at my face in the mirror, I see a thirty-five year old, or something.” He stared at the floor and gulped.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Joe said softly.

“Can I try these on?” Kyle asked, still staring at the floor.

“OK, just for you,” Joe said. “Here’s the key to the dressing room.” Joe pressed the key into Kyle’s hand. As Kyle was walking away, Joe suddenly said, “I bet you’ll look really hot in them.”

Kyle stopped in his tracks, then turned around quickly. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Really sexy. You’ve got a nice butt yourself, kiddo, anybody ever told you? Sticks out a little bit. And I bet you don’t work on it.”

They were silent for a moment. Kyle waited for Joe to keep talking.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight from when you first started coming in here,” Joe said. “You been exercising?”

“A little,” Kyle said. “I use my Dad’s free weights.”

“Hang in there,” Joe said. “You’ll look like a guy on Melrose Place in no time.”

Joe seemed to be closing down communication, which worried Kyle. A customer came in, a middle-aged woman with long blond hair, and Joe went over to her to see if she needed any help. Kyle went into the dressing room and opened the underwear package. He took off his pants and underwear slowly and stared at his body, which looked pale and skinny in the unflattering light.

Kyle took out a bright red pair of the bikini underwear and tried to put it on. It was much too tight and Kyle got hard instantly from the pressure. Kyle looked at himself in the mirror for a long time. He seemed to look better and better as he kept on looking.

After about forty-five minutes had passed, Kyle heard a knock on the door. He felt like he was waking up from a deep sleep.

“Hey, kiddo, you still alive in there?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, I’m still alive,” Kyle said, in a flat, speculative voice. His eyes shifted to the changing room door.

“How do they look?” Joe asked, trying to sound professional.

“They’re way too tight. I think,” Kyle said. He felt a flush of courage. “Do you think I could get your opinion on how they look?” he asked.

Joe wondered if he had heard him correctly.

“Could you tell me how I look in them?” Kyle asked. “I’d value your opinion.”

This was just a kid, Joe thought, so lonely, dying for attention. After a moment, Joe decided not to keep Kyle waiting any more. This kid was brave, he had to admit that. Plus, Joe was so turned on that the rational part of his brain shut off. The job? Who cared, who cared about the boring job.

“Yeah, I’ll take a look, kiddo,” Joe said. “Open the door.”

Kyle’s heart thumped loudly in his ears and he felt like he was going to pass out. He opened the door and stood as far away from the glaring overhead light as he could.

“Nice,” Joe said, on an exhale, as he stared at Kyle. His eyes clouded over with lust; there was a hint of Kyle’s dark pubic hair sticking out of the top of the underwear’s waistband. For a moment, Joe wondered whether he should continue, somehow, with customer/store employee formality. But when he saw Kyle’s anticipatory, bright-eyed face, he knew he couldn’t and shouldn’t turn back into safety.

“Turn around,” he said, a little loudly. “I want to see you from the back. Like on the package.” Joe’s mouth was slightly open and he was nodding his head. He was beginning to enjoy the role of older guy/teacher.

Kyle turned around, arched his back and widened his stance slightly. He was literally shaking with pleasure.

“They’re way too small, buddy,” Joe said, softly, as he cocked his head to get a better view. “They barely cover you back there. Sorry I got you the smalls.”

“You are?” Kyle asked.

A bit of silence.

“No...no...I’m not sorry,” Joe said deliberately. “You look so hot. Like neutron hot.”

There was a long silence. Kyle stood there for an eternity while Joe surveyed him from every angle. Joe kept his distance, though. He didn’t want to scare Kyle.

“OK,” Kyle said, finally. “Could you get me the mediums?” he asked, not knowing what else to say.

His trance broken, Joe said, “Yeah, stay right there.” He turned and ran back to the underwear section, then grabbed a medium package. His palms broke out in a sweat as he ran back to the changing room. Kyle was still standing there. He hadn’t moved an inch. Joe opened the medium package and threw Kyle a red pair. They landed on the floor.

“Take the ones you have off and put those on,” Joe said, closing the changing room door and locking it. Kyle flinched when he heard the door lock and he stared at the package on the floor. “Bend over and pick them up,” Joe said softly. Kyle did as he was told, and the top half of his butt popped out of the small underwear. Joe licked his lips.

“Look at me,” Joe said. Kyle took his eyes from the floor and turned around. Their eyes met. A connection was made, a strong connection, broken willingly by a mutual smile. The smile on Kyle’s face was big and toothy and it transformed his gawky appearance. All at once, for the first time, Kyle felt sexy, and he looked radioactively sexy to Joe.

“Take them off,” Joe said, lightly, not wanting to scare Kyle, not wanting this whole miracle to devolve into something too gross or obvious. After just a moment of waiting (the anticipation was intensely pleasurable to both of them), Kyle took the underwear off and stood there naked.

Without missing a beat, Joe said, “You’re beautiful.”

Kyle’s smile got wider and he felt blessed. He felt as if he were going to cry, too. He’d been so unhappy for so many years now. This first taste of adult happiness was new to him, and it demanded everything he had.

“Turn around now, kiddo,” Joe said, his lowered voice daring to edge this exchange into something smutty. “I want to look at your tight little teenaged ass,” he said, fetishizing their age difference.

Kyle turned around and Joe let out a small involuntary grunt of lust.

“Can I see you, too?” Kyle asked, tentatively. When Joe heard this, he got closer to Kyle and stripped off his shirt quickly, then took off his pants and underwear. Kyle’s head tipped back as he took in the sight before him, and they just stood there like that for a time, lovingly scanning each other’s bodies and making a galvanizing pit stop every now and then to stare into each other’s eyes. They weren’t Joe and Kyle, finally, and they weren’t in a dressing room in Ridge City Mall anymore. They created another location.

At last, Joe asked, “When are you 18?”

They both laughed, coming down to earth.

“Next summer,” Kyle said.

Carefully, Joe asked, “Are you a virgin?”

“I don’t have any friends,” Kyle said, skipping the smaller point and arriving at the larger issue. Somehow, he felt he had permission to jump to the important things, that this man would understand. “I don’t really have anyone. I’m alone all the time,” Kyle said. Then, he felt he had gone too far.

There was a pause. Kyle was in agony.

“You have me,” Joe said.

All during the fall, winter and spring of Kyle’s senior year in high school, he walked to Ridge City and tried on clothes in front of Joe. White briefs, black briefs, sleeveless shirts, and jeans, lots of jeans. “You look so great in tight jeans,” Joe said, running his eyes and then his hands from Kyle’s tiny hips down to his feet. Joe started giving Kyle tips on how to bulk up. Though he remained almost painfully skinny, by the spring Kyle’s body was starting to get some definition.

Joe talked lovingly about every little change and improvement he saw in Kyle’s body, and he talked and talked about what they were going to do on Kyle’s eighteenth birthday. Hypnotically, Joe would murmur detailed, fantastically dirty things he was going to do to Kyle, always coming back tenderly to what he was going to do to Kyle’s “tight little teenaged ass.” The repetition of this phrase grew more powerful each time Joe said it.

Kyle would constantly interrupt and say he wanted to do all that now, but Joe would shake his head and say, “We have to wait until you’re legal, sweetie. You can wait, can’t you? Let’s go over some of the different positions we’re going to use...”

Kyle would stare at himself in the mirror as Joe stared at him. Most of the time, Joe brought in clothes, leaned against the door and half-whispered instructions to Kyle, spiked with lurid commentary. Kyle was ordered to turn and stretch and bend, to hold strange and difficult poses. “We have to train that cute little body of yours,” Joe said. “It has to be flexible and ready to take cock. That’s all your gonna do is take cock. I’m going to fuck your tight little teenaged ass every single day.”

“Yes, Joe,” Kyle would say.

“Every single day,” Joe would repeat.

“Yes, Joe,” Kyle would say.

“I’m going to bone your tight young teenaged butt every single day. On all fours, face down...butt up....on your side....on your back, with your legs wrapped around my neck...I own your tight little teenaged ass....say it...say it...”

“You own it,” Kyle would gasp.

“What do I own?” Joe would ask.

“My butt,” Kyle would say.

“Your smooth...tight...17 year-old...ass,” Joe would say, holding Kyle from behind, his fingers splayed around Kyle’s waist. “Bend over,” Joe would say, and Kyle would do as he was told. Whenever Kyle bent over, Joe would give Kyle’s butt a hard, proprietary smack. “Let’s see your tight teenaged fuck hole,” Joe would say. He would push Kyle’s legs apart and spread his cheeks, revealing a barely visible pink rosebud. “Look at that,” Joe would murmur. “Fucking look at that. It’s perfect. It’s a perfect young tight fuck hole. Look how pink it is. Who owns it?”

“You Joe,” Kyle would say.

At a certain point, Joe couldn’t control himself, and he started to take liberties with Kyle’s butt. Joe was amazed at how small and tight Kyle’s hole was, and it took a while before he could get his finger all the way inside him. Kyle felt scared sometimes when Joe would say, “It’s time for your finger fuck, kiddo. Bend over and spread your ass. Spread it.” Once, Joe stuck his whole fist into Kyle, and kept it there a while. Kyle barely felt it after a while. “I’m turning you into a little slut,” Joe said, with a smirk on his face, when he pulled out. “A little whore.”

One day, Joe said they’d be doing something different. He made Kyle get on all fours and arch his back. “It’s time you got tongue fucked,” he said. Kyle’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as Joe ate him out for an hour, deeply and hungrily. When he was done, Joe said, “On your eighteenth birthday, you’re going to take my dick.” Kyle smiled happily and put his arms around his savior.

Joe would dress and undress Kyle himself, touching the boy’s body all over, eroticizing every inch of him until Kyle would laugh and cry and fall asleep in Joe’s arms for an hour or more. A few times they were almost caught by an elderly female customer; sometimes Joe would forget to close the dressing room door. This was semi-deliberate on his part. The fact that they were in a public place heightened the theatricality of their drama of postponement. The store was so isolated from the rest of the mall and did such poor business that they took the space itself entirely for granted after a while.

One day, a month before his eagerly awaited eighteenth birthday, Kyle asked, “Would you try on clothes in front of me?”

Joe smiled. “You want to see me do that?” he asked.

“Yeah, I want to look at you again,” Kyle said.

Joe went off and got himself a pair of small-sized blue jeans. He came into the dressing room and slowly started to take his clothes off in front of the mirror. Kyle was dazzled and Joe was proud of his strapping body.

“This is yours,” Joe said, running his hands down his body and then grabbing his dick.

“Mine,” Kyle said.

It took Joe a while to get into the jeans. When they were on, Kyle went to Joe and kneeled down. Joe took Kyle’s head and rubbed it deep into his crotch, then leaned back into a wall and let out a contented moan. Joe looked at them in the mirror and smiled at Kyle’s fresh young nakedness, crouched over awkwardly, worshipping his maturity and largesse. They stayed in this position for such a long time that it felt to Kyle like he was not quite there anymore, like he was looking at himself in a movie on television.

Finally, Joe pulled Kyle upright. “You’re so sweet,” he said. “You’d do anything I asked, wouldn’t you?” Kyle nodded eagerly. “You’d even give your tight little teenaged butt to an old, ugly fat guy if I told you to, wouldn’t you?” Joe asked. “I want to see the oldest, nastiest, fattest guy come right in your sweet little face,” he continued. Kyle felt stung, like a butterfly pinned to a corkboard. The sound of a customer finally broke up their scene. Kyle left in a hurry.

On his eighteenth birthday, Kyle walked all the way to Ridge City in the tightest blue jeans he owned; underneath them was the red bikini underwear he had bought on their first day together in the changing room. When he got to Joe’s store, Kyle just blinked his eyes, over and over again. The store was gone, closed. It wasn’t anything else. It was just boarded up and abandoned. “No, no, no,” he said. His hands broke into a sweat. He ran around the mall, the ugly, boring mall, hoping to see Joe. He wondered if he could ask anybody what had happened to the store, but he knew no one there, only Joe. Only Joe.

For an hour or two, he walked around the mall jerkily, trying not to cry. Finally, he sat down in front of the bus stop, and he did cry, he cried for all the years of waiting, he cried for feeling like the most rejected reject, and he cried, at last, for no reason at all. An old lady lumbered up to him and, without saying a word, offered him a Kleenex. He sat next to her on the otherwise empty bus all the way home.

 

© 2007 Bradley Harris - Contributor's Bio