"Fox Hunting"

Pussy's Bow

"Fox Hunting"

From Pussy's Bow

Five hours later, Murray caught a tram to Commercial Road and booked into a hotel. He decided he could live it up for three nights, then it was the youth hostel if nothing permanent showed up. He had sold his bomb of a Cortina for almost nothing and saved $3000, but he knew that wouldn’t last long in Melbourne. He looked through a copy of the Melbourne Star Observer while grabbing a serious caffeine fix. He looked at the haircuts and clothes, the snapshots of cheeky party boys out clubbing, and figured he’d have to reinvent himself a little more. Then he glanced at the classifieds. He skipped the personals and flipped to rentals.

Unusual opportunity. Unconventional, professional guys in magnificent Deco house seek live-in housekeeper with cooking skills and open mind. Free accommodation and expenses covered. Ideally suit uni student or traveler: pref non-smoker.

He pulled out a pen and circled the ad. He’d worked in a restaurant, he’d kept the house and garden tidy–why couldn’t he do the job? Back at his hotel, he rang up and arranged to go by the following night. He pulled out a joint–"Rutherglen Rip" as his friends called it–flopped onto the bed and chilled.

Later, he took himself out for a stroll, looked at the flickering lights and walked past the bars and cafes, all firing up for the night. Candy Bar, Diva, JC’s. He looked at the boys rugged up in fake furs and leather coats, their hair immaculate, their noses in the air. He watched with curiosity as pale girls with lots of lipstick vaguely satellited some of them. Everyone seemed to be chewing gum, talking loud and fast. They’d have their heads kicked in Albury.

Murray looked down at his trainers, his trusty Levis and the ugly parachute-silk jacket his mum had bought him "because it rains all the time in Melbourne." He overtook a group of conspicuous and up-themselves queens who snickered as he went past. He felt his heart sink. Was this the sort of tribe he wanted to join? He moseyed on to the Exchange. People in there didn’t seem quite so full of attitude.

A big, handsome guy of about thirty emerged from the smoky haze and started chatting him up. Shell-suit aside, Murray was pretty gorgeous. He was no good at making first moves, but once someone started talking to him, well, he opened right up.

"Yeah, mate, I’d love another beer." He eyed the guy through the gloom.

Turned out the bloke was staying in a hotel too, only his was in the city. They went back there and Murray noticed he was wearing a wedding ring. Damn, he thought, he could have it off with a wedding ring back in Albury. The other guys in the park used to laugh about them. "You think they’ll be all fuckin’ butch and wanna top you, but they’re always the ones who want to be fucked–up the proverbial wedding ring."

But this guy wasn’t like that at all. He was a salesman from Perth, and more aggressive than Murray bargained for.

"You like getting fucked?"

"Oh no, I’ve never really got into it."

"You should."

Murray kept sucking his cock–it would keep his mind off the other thing, he thought. The engorged dick was too big and not the sort of thing he wanted to be shafted by for the first time.

The guy was squeezing Intensive Care lotion all over his hand and rubbing it into the valley between Murray’s buttock cheeks. His middle finger took a savage lunge into Murray’s shy rear passage. It contracted violently, but as the lotion ran round to his balls and the guy started taking long greasy strokes of his hardening cock, Murray found the finger less of an imposition. Unngghh, he exhaled from somewhere inside, closing his muscles on the invading finger pushing as if to expel it like shit. But the finger had plans; it pushed and worked its way further in. Another finger joined and he felt the hot terror of too much intrusion.

Suddenly he stopped, the burning fingers shot themselves free. For a minute Murray thought it was over. Then big arms turned him over; the salesman clearly had invasions of a larger scale in mind.

"No!" cried Murray as the man plunged into the tiny, glistening fret of flesh. "It fucking hurts."

"You love it, all that cock up your greasy arse," the salesman grunted.

The white pain fragmented into hundreds of colors. Murray meditated on it for a time.. The searing, raw tearing of flesh suggested the possibility of internal damage. He felt cut inside. The guy was pumping harder like he was getting close. Murray moaned painfully, rhythmically. Whether they were sounds of pain or pleasure made no difference to his assailant. He was fixed on his goal. Spurts of white into crimson chambers.

As the guy topped the crest of his thrusting, Murray twisted free. The glistening cock burst from Murray’s seared viscera and waved about, showering the bed with a beaded rain of pearly sperm. Murray’s arsehole spasmed and burned. Tears escaped his eyes, absconding shamefully down his cheeks.

"Shit, you made me pull out too soon," gasped the salesman.

"Too fucking right. I didn’t even want you in there."

"I thought you were into it."

"Yeah, right. What part of NO don’t you understand? Haven’t you heard of condoms? Fucking AIDS?"

"Don’t sweat, I hardly ever do guys and I’m nobody’s bottom, if you know what I mean."

Murray was putting on his clothes, eager to get out.

"I’m in town for a couple of days, you want to get together tomorrow?"

"I don’t think so." Murray grabbed his coat, nearly speechless at the gall of the guy.

He found a bench hidden by the towering shadows of Collins Street’s monoliths. He curled up and began to cry, the sound obscured by the crash of a nearby fountain. He felt sore, torn, shamed and stupid. He wondered if he was bleeding. He felt sick. He heaved up some beer and cried some more. What would his mum think of that effort?

Suddenly he missed her, and cried about that as well. He wandered past shops towards the tram stop, each store window a shimmering winter palace. Every one a shrine to the splendors of city life. His eyes dried quickly in the sharp cold of the night as he waited for the last tram..

Back in his room, he sat on the cold white porcelain toilet, and cried some more. "Shut up, you girlie sook," he said to himself. He remembered how his father had used those very words when, at five, he’d refused to go beyond his depth in the Hume Weir.

"I can’t swim, Dad, I can’t swim."

He’d begun to cry then because he didn’t know what he’d do when the water was over his head. His dad saw the tears.

"Oh, you’re not fuckin’ crying are you, ya useless little sissy?"

Murray cried harder.

"For Chrissakes, shut up, you girlie sook," his dad had exploded and then he’d swum off further, leaving Shane sobbing. He hadn’t said another word to him all day.

Remembering this now, Murray shed a few more tears into the handful of toilet paper he’d grabbed. He wiped himself clean and flushed. He never looked behind or turned the light on. In darkness, blood is always grey and sobs muffled. He had an appointment in the morning about a house and job. He needed to be together for that.