The Hardest Thing

passenger, however nice a contrast he made to Jody, however much I liked the idea of both of them slobbering over my prick.
    “I very much doubt that,” I said.
    “Silver Chevy Malibu,” he said, and rattled off the license number.
    “That’s not my car.”
    He seemed to expect this, and just carried on. “If
you think about it, there’s only one place in town that a smart guy would hide a car. The dump.”
    “Uh-huh.” I’d run through my repertoire of noncommittal noises.
    “Happened before. Guy last year, stole a car down in Boston, drove it all the way here before he gave up. Parked out back of the scrap yard. I guess people think nobody goes there.”
    I could carry on pretending he was wrong, but where was that going to get us? The kid had information on me, and I had to contain it. “Okay. Very good. Very smart, Kenny. So you found the car and then of course you followed us up here.”
    He tapped the side of his head. “I just thought about what I’d do if I wanted to get out of the way. Get up on the mountain.”
    “Right.” I thought I’d been clever, but a 19-year-old country boy outsmarted me. “What took you so long?”
    Sarcasm was wasted. “Didn’t want anyone to follow me. Waited till they were out of town.”
    “Why didn’t you go with them?”
    “Oh, they don’t want me.” He looked down at his bitten nails. “Nobody wants me.”
    A faint light was dawning in my mind. “What’d they tell you about me, Kenny?”
    “Told you. Armed and dangerous.”
    I nodded back toward the cabin. “What about Jody?”
    “That his name? Your boyfriend?”
    “Yes.” I didn’t deny the details, just held his gaze. His eyes were pretty, as big and round as Bambi’s, and those eyelashes…

    “They said…” He kicked the ground. “Usual bullshit.”
    “And you just thought you’d come up here on your own, unprotected, and make a citizen’s arrest. Was that your big plan?”
    “No.” He was blushing. My suspicions were correct.
    “What is this, then?”
    “They call me those names, too. Stuff they said about you and…” He paused, and whispered, “Jody.”
    “And are they right, Kenny?” I took a step toward him; he didn’t back away.
    “Maybe.”
    “I see.”
    The forest was quiet—a bird singing somewhere in the distance, nothing else but the blood in our heads, the whisper of the air.
    “When I want to disappear, I come up here,” he said. “Nobody bothers me. My old man and his buddies use the cabin in the hunting season, but all they do is drink beer and tell dirty stories.” He looked disgusted. “Shoot a few squirrels. My dad’s a jerk.”
    “And what do you do up here, Kenny?”
    “Nothing.” He looked cautious.
    “Ever bring a buddy?”
    “No.”
    “Ever think about it?”
    “Sure, if I had one.”
    So the lonely gay boy watched his daddy’s friends ride out of town, then tracked us down in his own way. Why? To warn us? To get a piece of the action, maybe ride into the sunset with us? To sneak a peek at something he’d never had?
    “What are you going to do now, Kenny?”

    “I don’t know.”
    “You going to tell the cops what you found?”
    He shrugged, looked up at me. He wanted something, but he didn’t know how to ask for it.
    “We can work something out.” It sounded unbelievably corny, but subtlety can waste time. The posse could be riding back into town right now, and if they noticed Kenny was gone someone was might decide to take a look at the old hunting cabin.
    “Yeah?”
    “You keep your mouth shut about what you saw,” I said, “and you can suck my dick.”
    The words fell like stones in still water. Ripples of emotion traveled across Kenny’s face.
    “For real?”
    “Sure.” I squeezed my crotch through the thin fabric of my shorts. “If that’s what you want.” Not such a big “if.” At the age of nineteen, despite all the bullshit I’d put myself through, I’d have sold state secrets to Saddam for a taste of cock.
    Kenny was no different. He licked those full pink lips and picked at his pants. “I want it.”
    “But you better promise me.”
    “All right! Anything!”
    I stepped toward him, took his jaw in my left hand. “Promise you won’t tell.”
    “I promise.” He started sucking my thumb.
    “Because if you do…”
    “Please,” he said. “Let me.”
    “Okay, buster.” I stood back, hands on my hips, my dick already pushing its way forward. “It’s all yours.”
    Kenny wasn’t the