photo of his son.

"He's five now." The two men would both feel confirmed he figured. They would be related in the way of things, and yet outside of them. Silvio opened his second beer and offered Christoff the first swig. Again Christoff allowed his fingers to linger a few micro seconds longer than needed in the passing and the ritual asserted itself as something that could be told by the trees for generations.

When the hush settled finally between them, the men were temporarily no longer strangers. The anxiety of being out of beer and cigarettes left. The park appeared empty. The threesome from the pagoda had wondered off half an hour prior to the 'officially closing time.'

"I guess I better get out of here" Christoff said in hopes that Silvio would agree to leave also, or stop him. Instead Silvio shook his hand stronger than he would have liked and told him to be careful. The heat that passed between them had died with the uncertainty of what to do he thought. 'Maybe I should ask him over' but by then several paces had widened the distance between them and it looked too suspicious, too gay, too desperate. Christoff continued forward past the pond with the fish, through the clearing and toward the river. He walked mostly by the light of the moon and the sound of the waves. He came out on the trail to the lot between the trashcans and the men's room. He saw two vans parked amongst the eleven cars that were in the lot but hadn't asked Silvio what color his had been. "I could always just leave a number on both" but it seemed pointlessly romantic.

He sat in his car hoping that he had been followed, but the thing he hoped would happen didn't. When someone finally came out of the forest, it had been a portly man in his late twenties who looked, at least in the dark and under those circumstances, older than his years. He got into a gray Pontiac and left. Ten cars in the lot. Christoff had become curious at that point to see who would be leaving next. Five minutes later another car pulled out. Oddly he hadn't seen or heard the guy get in. Maybe he was sitting there the entire time. The thought spooked him.

Christoff's mind raced back to Silvio and imagined the Mexican stud hooking up with some little snotty nosed queen who would have fell to his knees and taken Silvio on a ride down the back of his throat. The image infuriated him, had he been coy? Had he maneuvered differently would the outcome have been the same?

"Fuck it" he said, and started the engine a little depressed.

~

Silvio hadn't realized the time. He was enjoying the idea of having someone to talk to. He'd held a questioning gaze as Christoff slipped away from him touched here and there by fragments of moon.

The night was looking pathetic. He'd gotten a look at how he had turned on a few of the queers. Their cocks pushed against the fabric of their jeans. He'd seen and felt intimidated by the size of some. Against himself his mind went to a place behind the fabric. He questioned how Christoff's jeans had worn so thin. He'd ogled the way Chris fingered himself casually pretending to adjust. What had gone through his head? Had he thought he could handle a real man's cock?