The Bunker 3 (musc)
by Jaypat
Roy was a huge problem. We might be able to explain Jasper and me being gone for 5 days, but Roy… Roy was another matter. And Jasper’s plan to go back just long enough to grab our stuff and then disappear, that wouldn’t work either.
“We can’t just run off with Roy,” I said. “He’s a minor and a ward of the church. It would be kidnapping. And we can’t just leave him there either.”
“Well, what do you want us to do?” asked Jasper annoyed.
“I don’t know,” I snapped back at him,” something that doesn’t involve kidnapping might be nice.”
“Will you two ladies calm down?” said Roy. “Jeeze, you’d think neither of you had ever had to lie before.”
“What kind of lie is going to cover this?” asked Jasper.
“Easy,” said Roy, turning to me. “Last Wednesday you came home and found a note from me under your door. I was saying goodbye. I’d finally had enough of Patch of Grass and was setting out for Vegas. You grabbed Jasper, there, and the two of you came after me. It took you a few days, but you finally found me and talked me into coming back, and you were so sick with worry that you didn’t remember to call anyone.”
Wow, I was stunned. That might actually work.
“Roy, you are an evil genius,” said Jasper, grinning.
“What can I say?” said Roy. “Once again my deprived background saves my ass.”
And so that was our story. We sat at the diner for another hour. I think we each ate three breakfasts—after all we had some lost time to make up for—and then we went home.
Of course my parents had nearly wept when they saw me. They thought I was dead. Jasper’s family had thought the same about him. The Pastor of all people was the hardest sell. I’m not sure he ever quite believed us. In the end it was my reputation that sold our story to everyone else. I guess my dad had been right. All that community volunteering and dating Esther had started to alter people’s opinion of me. And there were even some who admired my attempt to save Roy. I wondered what they’d say if they knew about that first night Roy came tapping on my window.
That had happened a little over a week after Roy went to live with the Pastor, and just about midnight. I’d always been a light sleeper. And when I first heard the tapping, I wasn’t sure what it was. I was a little surprised to pull back my curtain and find Roy out there. Talk about being visited by angles, this had to be pretty close. He was so breathtaking I’d swear he was almost glowing.
“Hi,” he said.
“Roy, what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you. Can I come in?”
That was a dangerous request, but I knew my parents were sound sleepers so I stood back and let him climb in through the window. As soon as he got into my room, he went to the door and locked it.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I just want a little privacy. Living with the Pastor is ok, but none of the doors have locks and I never feel like I’m alone, if you know what I mean?”
I did know what he meant, but what I said was, “You don’t have to do that. My parents will never wake up until morning. They sleep like the dead.”
His eyes went wide. “Really?” It suddenly occurred to me that what I’d just said sounded like an invitation. Maybe it was my hormones overriding my brain. I don’t know. But the next thing I knew, he was saying, “Man, it’s so hot around here.” And then he reached behind him and pulled off his t shirt. Fuck, he had a body, a fair amount of muscle and he was ripped… but still slightly bruised.
“I guess you’re still a little bruised.”
“Oh these?” he said looking at his slightly purple side. “These are new. There’s a kid at school, a big kid, Nathan Bix. He doesn’t like me.”
“That’s terrible.”
He shrugged. “I’ve had worse.” He flopped down on my bed.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“What do you think?” He smiled impishly and tugged at his waste band, giving me a slight peek at his upper pubes.
“You’re just a kid,” I said.
“I’m over the age of consent,” he said, “and besides you can’t be that much older than me. What are you, twenty?”
“Nineteen,” I said.
“See, still a teenager like me.” Then he reached over and pulled me down on top of him and before I knew it, I was kissing him with a passion I didn’t know I had. Then I was wriggling out of my shirt and just the feel of his bare hard chest against mine was almost enough to make me cum on the spot.
“Slow down, Tiger,” he said, “or it will be over too fast.” He rolled out from under me, stood up and did this little striptease thing where he slowly shed his pants bopping to music only he could hear. I’d never seen anything like it outside of a porno video. And he was so much better at it, and so damn hot. In a minute he was standing there dressed only in his tight briefs which did nothing to hide his endowment, which now stood a good nine inches stiff, fully erect, and plastered against his groin. I was transfixed.
Then he leaned down and still bopping to the same music, began working on my fly. He slowly pulled it down, and then with one impressive jerk, yanked my pants half way off. He peeled back my boxers and my member sprang to attention. Then he was on it, licking it, sucking it, caressing it, and I was gone. I had left planet earth and traveled to some other dimension where excruciating pleasure was all that existed. I don’t know how long I was there, but the explosion that brought me back was enough to crack my world wide open and leave me ruined, exhausted, and scared I’d never get back there again. I’d gotten head from Jasper before but it was never anything like that.
When I looked up, he was wiping of his mouth and smiling at me. “Did you like that?”
I nodded, and he began pulling up his pants.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, “I’m pretty good at taking care of myself. It’s just that you’ve been so nice to me, I wanted to do something nice for you.”
“Teach me,” I said.
“Teach you what?” he said.
“Teach me how you do that.”
He looked uncertain for a minute but then he said, “Ok.” He let his pants drop again. “It took a while for me to figure it out,” he said “It’s as much instinct and intuition as anything else, but I’ll show you what I can.”
He stepped out of his briefs, and for the first time I saw the full glory of his cock It was only semi erect, but a couple of swift, skillful caresses from him and it jumped to full attention. If I hadn’t just had the orgasm of a lifetime, I probably would have cum again just watching that.
Then he began pointing out the different areas of his cock head, and explaining how some areas were more sensitive than others and how to tell when you’d struck the most sensitive area. “It’s different on everyone,” said Roy. “I know where mine is, but I’m not going to tell you. I’ll let you find it on your own.”
I had a feeling I was about to get my first quiz.
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll walk you through it.”
So I took his cock in my hand—
“Gently,” he said
So I took his cock gently in my hand and began to softly probe it with my tongue.
“That’s good. That’s good,” he said. “Keep going. Right around there. Just a bit harder. A little more… Oh God… A little more. Sweet Jesus. You’re really getting it. OH FUCK THAT’S GOOD! Keep it coming. DAMN! You’ve… You’ve… OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK!!!!”
And then he came, in my mouth, on my face, on my chest, all over the place. When it was done he looked down on me and said. “You’re a quick learner.” And I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“We’re supposed to be curing you of your wicked ways.”
“And do you?”
“What?”
“Want to cure me of my wicked ways?”
“I’d rather die.”
“Don’t do that. You’re, like, the only good thing in Patch of Grass. If we could do this once in a while it might make High School bearable.”
Well, our goal was to keep the kid in school…
The next time I saw Jasper, it was at a motel twenty miles down the road. To say I surprised him with my new skill would be an understatement. Of course I had to tell him all about Roy. And before long, we were trying to figure out how we could include him in our little trysts.
Of course, the thought did occur to us that we might just be exploiting a troubled youth. But then again there was no doubt he was gay, and if anyone knew how lonely being gay in Patch of Grass was, it was us. So we agreed no sex, just companionship, until such time as all three of us deemed it appropriate. Roy didn’t like that very much, but as the year progressed, Jasper and I decided to wait until he was eighteen, which, at the time we encountered the bunker, was only around the corner.
It was only a couple of days after we returned from the bunker that the flaking first appeared. I didn’t think much of it. You live in the desert, you get sunburned from time to time and a little flaking skin is pretty common. But it just seemed to get worse. And I was eating ridiculous amounts of food, maybe four or five times what I usually ate. I always seemed to be hungry. I kept telling myself it was just my body recovering from its five-day coma. Although I would have assumed I’d recover a little faster. I didn’t really get worried until Sunday rolled around.
I woke up that morning to find even more skin peeling off my body—all over. I couldn’t imagine what was wrong with me. I hadn’t been out in the sun that much, certainly not enough to cause this. I looked awful. I did my best to remove the dead skin, but that left large patches of raw red looking skin in its place. Yuck. I did not like this, but there wasn’t much I could do about it, so I just dressed, went downstairs and ate a monster breakfast.
“You spend too much time in the sun,” my mom said. “It’s not good for you.” I just shrugged and inhaled another waffle.
I went to church kind of hoping I’d run into Roy. I hadn’t seen him since we’d gotten back. The three of us had made the decision to stay away from each other for a while, at least until things had calmed down a bit. So, I was looking forward to maybe exchanging a couple of words with him at church. I saw him all right; he had patches of new pink skin all over his forehead and cheeks. He was peeling just like me. And then it clicked. This had something to do with that bunker. Suddenly, I was scared. What had it done to us? Did we have some kind of cancer? Were we going to die?
Roy took one look at me and I could see him making the same connection, but I didn’t actually get to talk to him until after the service when everyone was out front chatting. I tired to slide over to him as casually as possible.
“Tell me you fell asleep in the sun,” I said quietly.
“No, dude,” he said. “You?”
“No,” I said.
“Are you, like, really stuffing your face all the time?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, a little surprised. Was that part of this too? “You think, you know, we’ve got cancer or something?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Have you weighed yourself?”
“No,” I said. “Why?”
“I’ve put on 5 pounds in the past week,” he said. “I’m no doctor or anything, but if we had cancer shouldn’t we be loosing weight?”
That was a good point. And that’s all we really had time to say because the Pastor joined us, and we had to make small talk about the weather and how nice the garden looked.
As soon as I got home I weighed myself. I didn’t weight myself often, so I wasn’t really sure if I’d gained or lost weight, but a hundred and forty five pounds seemed a little heavy for me.
And then suddenly I needed to see Jasper. I had to know if these things were happening to him, too. I mean, I knew we were supposed to stay away from each other, but this was way too important.
When Jasper opened his door, I had my confirmation, peeling skin on his arms and face.
“Hey,” he said, “I’m glad you’re here. Come on in.”
I walked in and suddenly all my concerns just poured out of me. I told him all about my conversation with Roy. What was that bunker? Were we going to die? What was happening to us?
Jasper said, “I don’t think we’re going to die. Come here.” He led me into his workroom, a place that was constantly littered with computer components, books and note books. But today it had something new; today, it had a microscope.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“The high school,” he said. “I borrowed it. Mr. Johnson always liked me.” All the teachers liked him. He was their best student. When he took a class, he didn’t just learn the subject, he obsessed on it. He would research every aspect of it, even things not covered by the class or the text. By the end of the semester, he knew more about the subject than the teacher. But that was Jasper.
“I’ve been looking at this,” he said, peeling a flake of skin from his arm.
“And?” I said.
“And it’s exactly what you’d expect it to be, dead skin. But,” he continued, “what’s far more interesting is this.” He pointed to a patch of the new pink skin. I could see he’d cut himself there. “It’s different.”
“What do you mean, it’s different?”
“It’s hard to say exactly with just this microscope, but it’s not like ordinary skin.” Then he reached over to his bench and picked up a scalpel.
“Where’d you—“
“Borrowed it. Do you mind,” he said pointing to my arm.
“No,” I said. “Just don’t take too much. I’m loosing enough as it is.”
“You’ll never miss it,” he said, smiling “Watch this.” Then he took up his scalpel and drew it across some of my new pink skin. Nothing happened. Then he began applying a little pressure and sawing back and forth a little. It felt funny but it didn’t hardly hurt at all.
“If you were going to borrow a scalpel, why didn’t you borrow a sharp one,” I said.
“I did,” said Jasper, finally coming away with a tiny sliver of my skin, and placing it on a microscope slide. “This is sharp.” Then he picked up a piece of paper and shredded it with three quick strokes from the scalpel.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why didn’t it cut me easier?”
“Because this skin is not like ordinary skin,” said Jasper.
“You mean we have some kind of skin disease?”
“No. No sign of disease,” said Jasper, “at least not that I could find.”
“You’re not a doctor,” I said. “How do you know?”
“No, I’m not a doctor. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what you had, but I could probably tell you if you had something.” He put the slide on the microscope and looked at it. “But I don’t think you do, and neither do I, and I’m guessing neither does Roy.”
“Then what is all this?” I said, pulling another piece of peeling skin from my body.
“I don’t know but it’s a pretty good guess it has something to do with that bunker. I’m going back there.”
“What? Why?”
“There was a lot of encrypted documentation on that computer. I’m prepared now,” He said patting his laptop. “I shouldn’t have too much trouble breaking into a bunch of twenty-five year old files. Then we’ll get our answers.” He started for the door, but paused. “But first, I need to eat again. I’m starving.”
“Yeah,” I smiled, “Me too. Come on, my treat, we’ll go to Hometown and clean out their buffet.” Hometown was about ten miles up the highway. We may not have cleaned it out, but pickings were a lot slimmer when we left, that’s for sure.
By the time I got home I was hungry again. Good thing mom was just about to serve dinner, and when I got up from the table, it was pretty much empty.
“You’re becoming quite the chow hound, there buddy,” said my dad. “Makes me wonder what you were doing up at Hometown with Jasper.”
“What?” I said. How the hell did he know about that?
“Lou Turgent was in here a while ago. Happened to mention he saw you. I thought you were going to give Jasper a little space,” he said.
“So, now you’ve got people spying on me?” I said, my voice rising to a shout.
“Not spying. He just happened to drop by the shop.”
“Lou Turgent lives 5 miles from Hometown—in the other direction. How did he just happen to drop by our shop? No, don’t tell me. He developed an urgent need for an Indian dream catcher.”
“That attitude isn’t helping,” he said. “Folks around here are just starting to like you. I don’t want to see you ruin it for yourself.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but he cut me off. “And if Lou Turgent can see you out with Jasper, anyone can.”
I was suddenly so mad, I couldn’t speak. It was like my life wasn’t my own, like I was living in some kind of dictatorship where my every move was being watched. I turned and stormed from the kitchen and went straight to my room. I was starting to wonder if I was going to make it until Jasper finished The Project.
The next day I was a nervous wreck waiting to hear from Jasper. I wondered what he was doing at the bunker. What was wrong with us? What could possibly be taking so long?
I stayed up until well after midnight, hoping Jasper would call, but he didn’t. I wondered he was sleeping at the bunker and if he was maybe still there, and even more, I wondered what he had found out. I tried to sleep once or twice but I couldn’t. There was too much running around in my head and not enough in my stomach. I was starving again. Around one o’clock I heard a tap at my window. I pulled back the curtain and there was Roy.
“Hey dude,” he said, “how about a lift out to Conocco’s?”
Conocco’s was an all night truck stop about fifteen miles up the freeway. “I’m starving.” Boy, I was starting to hear that phrase a lot. My first thought was we really shouldn’t go, but I was still angry about my father and Hometown that I decided to screw it all and go anyway. Besides, I was starving, too.
15 minutes later we walked into the brightly lit dining room at Conocco’s and slid into a booth. I looked around for anyone I knew, and didn’t see anyone. I hated that I even had to look. The server came by and we each ordered four cheese burgers.
“You sure?” she asked. “They’re pretty big.”
“Not big enough,” said Roy. She looked at us like she thought we were crazy, and walked off to place our order. Then Roy started looking around. He spotted someone at the other end of the dining room and nodded at them. “I haven’t been in here in a long time,” he said and he almost sounded wistful about it. I turned around to see who he nodded at and spotted this big truck driver staring at Roy like a hungry man stares at the deer he’s about to kill for supper.
“You know that guy?” I asked.
“Sure,” said Roy. “That’s Hank. He’s a teddy bear.”
“You sure that isn’t Grizzly?”
“No,” laughed Roy. “You want to meet him?”
“Hell, no.”
“Ok,” he said. “Be right back.” Then he got up and walked over to Hank’s table. They spoke for a few minutes and then Hank got up and stepped into the men’s room. About thirty seconds later, Roy followed after him.
I was stunned. I mean, I knew what he was doing, and it was pretty clear he knew what he was doing. The smooth professionalism was amazing, and at the same time, a little chilling. I thought he was past that. And yet the ease with which he slipped back into roll left me wondering how much I really knew him.
Our burgers arrived ten minutes later and Roy came back not much after, but I was already half way through my food. The server had been right. They were pretty big.
“Hey, hey,” he said, his face lighting up at the sight of the sandwiches. “Burgers are here. Tell you what, foods on me.”
“I can’t believe you just did that,” I said.
“What?” he said. “I could use the cash. The Pastors kinda cheep. Besides, I’ve got urges, too, and you won’t put out.” Then he dove into his burgers. I couldn’t believe he was putting this on me.
Then the door opened and a couple more overweight bearded truck drivers came in. “Oh look, it’s Jessie,” he said. Then he turned to me. “You want him?”
“What?”
“You wanna blow him? The money’s pretty good. I’ll set it up… for ten percent. Come on, you can do it. You’re pretty good. Not as good as me, of course, but I wanna eat.”
“What?” I was in shock, speechless for a second and then Roy broke out laughing.
“You should see the look on your face,” he said, guffawing. Roy had kind of a goofy laugh. “Dude, I’m only messing with you. I don’t even know who those guys are. But you totally fell for it, fucking hilarious!” He kept on laughing, while he was eating.
It took a second for it to sink in. I’d been punked. Then I started laughing, too.
Then the laughter died on his lips and he sank down into his seat.
“What’s the matter?”
“Remember that Grizzly you were talking about?”
“Yeah?”
“He just walked in.”
I turned to look.
“No, don’t look!” hissed Roy. But it was too late. I’d seen him and he’d seen me, and what’s worse, he’d seen Roy. And this guy was big; I’m talking six foot four at least. He had a slight gut on him, but it was dwarfed by his broad shoulders and a huge chest. And those arms… This guy didn’t spend all his time in a truck cab; that was for sure.
He had stopped in the middle of the dining room and was staring straight at us. He looked like a bull getting ready to charge.
“Fuck,” said Roy. “Let’s get out of here.” Then he got up and took off, not for the front door, but for the kitchen. Not really sure what to do, I took off after him.
The kitchen workers acted like they were used to their customers busting in and running for the back door. They pretty much ignored us as we quickly slipped through. But the big guy, there was no way they could ignore him. He was right behind us. I didn’t look but I could hear him knocking things over and shoving people out of his way. This guy was a bulldozer.
I flew out the back door and I looked just in time to see Roy’s bottom half disappearing inside a dumpster. With no time to think, I just followed him in, and the lid slammed shut behind us. Man, the thing stank. I didn’t want to guess what we were sharing it with.
“Wha…” was all I got out before Roy shushed me. We sat very still and quiet. It wasn’t hard to hear the slam of the door as the Big Guy came tearing through it. We heard his heavy footsteps as he ran a short distance and then stopped. There were a couple of moments of silence. I’m pretty sure I was holding my breath. Then I heard some slow footsteps and the door slammed again.
“Wha…” I started again but then Roy put a hand over my mouth, and held a finger to his lips. Another minute passed and then Roy dropped his hand from my mouth and seemed to relax. “Sorry, dude, but old Eugene there is a tricky one. I wanted to make sure he was really gone. We should stay here a couple more minutes just in case he’s still looking for us.”
“What’d you do to him?”
“What’d I do to him?” he snorted a laugh. “We entered into a transaction, standard BJ. But he decided he’d rather rape me. He beat me up pretty bad, and when it was over, he even refused to pay, said I was a lousy lay, and just left me there at the side of the road, bleeding.”
“Fuck…”
“That’s ok. A couple of weeks later I saw him at a truck stop. I knew he kept his cash in the cab. So while he was inside, I robbed him blind; figured he owed me. Only trouble was he saw me leaving. He chased me for about half a mile before he finally ran out of steam. But I can still hear him yelling, swearing to kill me if he ever laid eyes on me again.”
Just then we heard the unmistakable snarl of a semi engine.
“Fuck,” said Roy. He threw open the lid and we both looked out just in time to see a giant semi cab barreling down on us. There was no time to do anything. We were dead.
The truck’s headlights were blinding me, so I didn’t actually see it hit. I got slammed back against the rear dumpster wall. I felt oddly weightless for a second. I guess the dumpster must be flying through the air. There was a sudden, hard impact and then I was tumbling, rolling end over end, being smashed against the jagged broken sides of the dumpster and smothered in the unimaginable stench of rotting garbage. I finally tumbled out and slid about fifteen yards across the asphalt, before I stopped.
I lay there looking straight up at the night sky and the stars, amazed I was still alive and afraid to move, certain I’d discover some hideous mortal injury. But there wasn’t that much pain. I figured it was because I was either paralyzed or in shock. But in a couple of minutes, when my vision didn’t go foggy and I didn’t start to choke on my own blood, I decided to try sitting up. And to my astonishment, I could. My clothes were torn, I was bleeding and bruised, but otherwise I seemed ok—which was impossible. And there was Roy, not ten yards away from me, pulling himself to his feet. Christ! It was a miracle.
“Dude,” he said, coming over to me. “You ok?”
“I should be dead,” I said. “You too. What the hell happened?”
“Guess we got lucky.”
“No, dude, this goes way beyond luck,” I said. “This is something else.”
I got up and walked over to the dumpster. God, it was barely recognizable anymore. It had been crushed like a soda can.
How the hell was I alive?