Encounter: Guitar
Boys
Sarah Black
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2010 Sarah Black
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Guitar Boys
When Kenny
Lee got home from work, there was an old guitar propped against his apartment
door with a note from his mother. The beautiful mahogany top was dusty and
dull, and there was only an E string left. He opened the note.
I found your old guitar when I was cleaning out the basement. I remembered how much you used to like playing guitar with your friends and thought you might want to clean it up and play again.
Don’t forget I’m leaving for Fiji next week.
Love, Mom
Fiji. He
needed a vacation in Fiji. But Kenny Lee couldn’t go anywhere. He was forty
five and he had a hundred middle-schoolers every day, learning how much fun
science could be. This week they were turning trash into worm casings for
compost.
He felt
his hands slide into place along the smooth neck. He’d been a guitar boy, spent
his teenaged years playing the guitar, listening to rock and roll, drinking
illicit beer. And every once in a great while, he would find another boy who
looked at him with soft eyes, watched the way his hands moved over the strings,
reaching out to touch him.
That all
seemed so long ago now. The guitar felt as curvy and warm in his arms as a
lover, but he looked down at his feet, and he was wearing Hush Puppies, suede,
with comfort soles. Good shoes for a man who was on his feet all day, but
guitar boys didn’t wear Hush Puppies.
He had a
spinach and feta salad in the fridge for supper, but he couldn’t stand to look
at its low-fat, organic green reproach. He kicked off the Hush Puppies, shoved
the salad back in the fridge, and picked up the guitar. There was a store on
Main and 5th where he could get some new strings.
His feet
felt great in moccasins. He’d bought them on an impulse at an art festival a
couple of years ago, but hadn’t worn them much. Afraid to get their beautiful
golden elk skin dirty. The guitar in his hands, moccasins on his feet -- Kenny
Lee was starting to remember the boy he’d been at seventeen.
The Old
Boise Guitar Company was full of men and boys, sitting on low stools and
holding guitars in their hands. A man wearing old jeans torn at the knee and a
black fedora smiled at him and nodded. “Looks like you need some strings, my
friend.”
“Yeah, I
do. Don’t stop playing, just point me in the right direction and I’ll get
them.”
The man
held out his hand. “I’m Ben James. Have you been in before?”
Kenny Lee
shook his head. “No. I used to play, but I gave it up. I can’t remember why
right now.”
Ben James
was a good-looking forty, with a black moustache and big black eyes. Kenny Lee
looked down, and laughed out loud at the man’s Hush Puppies.
“What? I’m
on my feet all day!”
“I just
changed out of mine when I got home from work. They made me feel old.”
“You’re
just a baby. Cool moccasins.”
“Thanks.”
They looked at each other a moment longer, and Kenny Lee couldn’t mistake the
interest in the other man’s eyes. It had been so long he wasn’t sure he knew
the steps to this dance anymore. Did guitar boys still get it on like they used
to? Did anybody even say “Get it on” anymore?
“Why don’t
you let me string that guitar for you?” Ben held out his hand, and Kenny Lee
handed the guitar over. “Oh, she’s a pretty one,” Ben said, running his hands
over the curves. “A Fender.”
“Yeah. I
got home from work today, and my mother had left it outside my apartment door.
I think I put it in the basement when I was twenty.”
“She’s
worried about you,” Ben said. “Wants you to get out and have some fun.”
“Is that
what it is?”
“It’s
noisy out here. We can’t talk with the store full of these boys playing sad
country songs. Come on in the back and we’ll string this baby.” Ben grabbed a
handful of steel strings, and Kenny Lee followed him.
There was
a little studio apartment, and Ben gestured for Kenny Lee to sit down while he
settled the guitar on his foot and started pulling out strings.
“You live
back here?”
Ben looked
up and smiled. “Yeah, I do. I couldn’t give up the guitar when I was twenty,
like you did.” He shook his head. “I keep trying to find a way to make a living
with a guitar in my hands.”
“You’re
still doing what you dreamed about when you were a boy. I admire that.”
“What do
you do?”
“I teach
science at the middle school.”
“Good
God.”
Kenny Lee
laughed. “I love it, really. I just have to be good, you know? I’ve got a lot
of young eyes on me, watching.”
Ben
nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. If it’s important, you do what you have to do.”
He set the guitar aside. “You want a beer?”
“Sure.”
Ben
brought a couple of bottles of Alaskan Amber from the fridge, then pulled the
guitar back into his arms. “Let’s get this baby tuned. Then maybe I’ll play you
a song.” Ben looked up at him, pulled the fedora off. His hair was black and
wavy, caught at the back of his neck in a ponytail. He grinned, and Kenny Lee
caught a glimpse of a wicked dimple in his cheek. “I’ll play you a song for a
kiss.”
Kenny Lee
caught his breath, a tingle snaking its way down his belly. “Okay.”
Ben smiled
down at the guitar, his clever fingers moving over the strings. He sang a
country song about wild hearts, and second chances. And then he put the guitar
aside and stood up, walked to where Kenny Lee sat on the couch, drinking his
beer and smiling up at him.
“I haven’t
done this in a long time, Ben.”
Ben pushed
his knees apart. “It’s been a while for me, too,” he said. “The guitar boys
have gotten a little young for me. I’ve been looking for a grownup man. Maybe
I’ve been looking for you.”
Kenny Lee
reached out for him, put his hand flat against Ben’s chest, hunger filling his
belly. Ben pushed him back and took his time smiling down into Kenny Lee’s
face. He tasted his mouth, sweet warm kisses, beer flavored, like all Kenny
Lee’s best kisses. “I don’t have anything you need to worry about,” Ben said,
moving his fingers down the soft skin of Kenny Lee’s throat. His fingers were
rough from guitar strings, the tips hard with callus.
“Me,
either,” Kenny Lee said. “You got any condoms?”
“Nope. How
about you?”
“Nope.” He
laughed, tugged Ben down and kissed him fiercely, let their tongues tangle,
passion flowing like a river down his chest, into his belly, filling his cock.
“I just came for the guitar strings, baby.”
“That mean
we’ve got to take it slow?” Ben pulled his shirt open. “Oh, nice,” he said, and
Kenny Lee closed his eyes, felt warm mouth and soft moustache and rough tongue
across his nipple, then Ben sucked him in between his teeth.
He was
hard in his jeans, felt Ben’s cock through faded denim pressing into his. “I
feel like a teenager again, making out on a couch, humping through a couple of
pairs of Levis.”
Ben slid a
hand down between them, flipped open the button on Kenny Lee’s jeans, slid the
zipper down. “Let me just have a taste,” he said, and bent his head over Kenny
Lee’s belly. Fingers rough with callus slid down his cock, and Ben rubbed his
soft lips across the head of his cock before he took him into his mouth. Kenny
Lee felt thumping heat between his legs, and he was thrusting into Ben’s mouth,
rough, splashing his semen deep in Ben’s throat, fingers tangled in soft dark
hair.
Ben rested
his head on Kenny Lee’s belly. “You’re not gonna disappear, are you? Take your
guitar and go back to your real life?” His voice sounded wistful.
Kenny Lee
stroked the hair back from Ben’s face. “No, I’m not. Not if you want me.”
“I want
you.”
“I’m gonna
let you get back to your shop. Can I come tomorrow night?”
“Yeah.
Spend the night if you want.”
“Okay. But
I better go now,” Kenny Lee said.
Ben sat
up, nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
Kenny Lee
was halfway down the block, waiting for the evening air to cool his face when
he realized he’d left the guitar. He walked back down to the store, pulled open
the door. Ben was leaning against the counter, his black hair tumbled around
his shoulders, mouth swollen, dark eyes a little sad. He looked at Kenny Lee
and smiled. “You forgot your guitar,” he said.
Kenny Lee
pulled him into his arms, kissed him like he’d been missing the taste of his
mouth forever. Ben held on to him, hands fisted in his shirt. The guitar boys
in the shop set up a whoop and a cheer. “I didn’t come back for the guitar.”