When the war ended and we were all shipped home, I wound up disembarking in New York. By that time I was pretty much aware that I wouldn't be going home to the farm town in Nebraska that I'd been drafted out of. I can't say that the war changed me, what it did was just make me more me. At home I'd spent nights praying for god to change me, after 4 years of spending 24 hours a day with other men, I never wanted to change. I'd accepted that, for better or worse, I was one of those guys who only wanted sex with other men. During my enlistment that hadn't been a problem and I'd been surrounded by plenty of guys who just wanted to get off, no matter how.
Now I was a farm boy in the big city and I intended to take advantage of the fact. I looked the part, too, a big dumb hayseed with blonde hair, a muscular body, tight little buns and a big dick that I loved sharing. I liked to think that I only looked the dumb part but I might have been wrong.
In those days, there were plenty of cheap apartments in the city if you weren't too picky and I wasn't. I found a 3 room 3rd floor walk up that rented for $30 a month not too far from the docks. Make no mistake, it was in a tenement and had seen its better days sometime in the last century. It even had the classic tenement bath tub in the kitchen. Hell, that was a step up for me, back home we didn't even have indoor plumbing.
I wore out at least half a dozen scrub brushes cleaning the place up and used a couple of gallons of bug spray but when I'd finally finished it didn't look half bad. I bought some cheap junk shop furniture, found some on the street and everything else came from the five and dime.
Within a week or two I found a job, too. Right in the neighborhood, down by the wharves was a hole in the wall bar that catered to the laborers and wharf rats that came with the ships. Having spent four years in the navy, I knew what the guys were talking about most of the time and they accepted me pretty quickly. Six nights a week from 4pm till closing, I tended the bar and the drunks. After being in four years of combat, I thought I had it made.
And there was another class of clientele in the place, too. Wherever you find that many masculine men clustered together it only makes sense that you're going to also find the men who want them. It was all really casual, everyone knew what was going on and there aren't many guys who are going to turn down a free blow job from anyone. Some of the guys even occasionally made a few bucks by letting some strange guy swing on his cock. I got head twice just in my first week there. And before I knew it, I'd been working there for 2 years.
In a place that small you get to know all of the regulars and semi-regulars and I'd built up a black book of guys who I regularly serviced, got serviced by or swapped head with. Things were great.
Then, one evening just after I'd come on shift a new face showed up. When he first came through the door it was hard to tell anything about him, the setting sun was behind him and all I could see was an outline. A pretty tall outline. The door closed behind him and he took a seat at the end of the bar where I slapped a coaster down in front of him and asked "What'll it be?"
I looked at his face in the dim light and he gave me a half smile and said, "Why don't you surprise me."
I figured a guy that big probably liked whiskey, neat, so I poured him a double shot and set it down in front of him. While I did so, I took a better look at him.
He was a good looking guy, real strong features, big nose, big lips, wide almond shaped eyes. Each cheek had a crease in it that ran down to his jawbone and he had a cleft in his prominent chin. He had black curly hair that was a little too long for those days and a heavy five o-clock shadow that could probably never be shaved entirely away. I saw small holes where his ears had been pierced and I wondered if he might be Gypsy. He didn't look well, though, his deep olive skin had a yellowish cast, like he was recovering from something and I wondered if he was one of those people we'd heard about who'd been in concentration camps.
"You're staring." he said. His voice had a trace of some kind of accent, something I wasn't sure I'd ever heard before.
"Sorry." I said. "I haven't seen you before."
"I haven't seen you before either but I'm not staring." he replied with that little half smile again.
"I mean I haven't seen you in here before. I'm pretty good with faces."
"That's because I haven't been here before. My ship just got in less than an hour ago."
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"Everywhere. Nowhere. I move around a lot. I'm here, now."
"We get a lot of newcomers here because of the war. Trying a new place because Europe is not home anymore. Were you in the war?"
"If you mean did I fight in the war, no. But I was in the war."
"The reason I ask is because you look kind of sickly, like you haven't been well for awhile."
"That's mostly from the ship, I couldn't feed very well and the trip took longer than I had anticipated."
"I get you." I said. "My first year in the navy it seems like I was seasick the whole time. I finally got used to it, though."
He looked around the bar. There were only two of the hard core regulars there this early and the young kid I'd hired to bus the place and do bar back.
"I'd hoped this place would be more lively." he said.
"It's early, it will get that way when the guys start getting off work." I noticed that his glass was empty and I asked, motioning at it, "What else can I do for you?"
He stared into my face and I noticed that he had really spooky looking eyes, really deep looking.
"You could let me suck your cock." he replied.
Now, you have to remember the times. Nobody was ever that blatant, they could wind up in jail or a mental hospital. So, even I was shocked.
"And you could bust me on a vice charge, too, officer."
He continued staring at me and then he said, "No, I couldn't. I'm not police. I just really would like to suck you off."
"And not the least bit shy about it, apparently."
"I've been around too long to be shy." he said. He stood up from the stool and leaned in slightly toward me. He wasn't just tall; he was really well built, too.