"The Red Thread" originally appeared in
Satyriasis: Literotica²

Would you like to hear a story before you go to bed?

Kenneth and Charles are as white as their names. As white as their teeth. As white as walls in the dental offices they share. No one but they two know that red is their favorite color. The red of well-aged wines, five-star sauces, sumptuous and flowing velvet. The red of sunsets in the South Pacific and the American Southwest. The red of freshly slapped cheeks and swollen lips and angry-to-the-point-of-spitting dicks. Most of all the red of blood. Blood drawn from their most thrilling, their most favorite game: The Red Thread.

Red, red, red red red.

Kenneth and Charles are two very loved men. By friends and family and peers and clients and acquaintances and play-party comrades and nameless tricks and boys with made-up names who charge by the hour and make love by the minute after minute after minute (always wishing they kept the watch on to check the late-night faucet drip of time) after minute.

Tick tock tick tock. When will the end come?

But Kenneth and Charles were still lonely in all those minutes, in all that time, in all that love and knew it and knew it all the more keenly as they said goodbye to that sour feeling and hello to the sweet relief of the Other when they met and vowed never to be parted again after they shared a stall in the bathroom deep beneath the Castro Theater while Marathon Man danced in the light on the screen far over their heads on a night in February in a month when all nights are rainy in a city where men meet in bathroom stalls and marry and live happily after ever.

Ding dong come along. Ding dong suck my dong. Ding dong ding dong.

As long as they play games together that is. As long as they play games together well. As long as they enjoy the games they play together so very well.

Kenneth and Charles play all games together. Play all games together well. Play and, better still, love all games. But Kenneth and Charles play and love one game most of all: The Red Thread.

Red, red, red red red. Just like your underwear. My aren’t we grownup?!

Tonight Kenneth and Charles shall play The Red Thread and we shall watch. For Kenneth and Charles cannot see us but we can see them. That is our game. We can see and they cannot for a story told well is one-way mirror in a funhouse. They see only themselves but we see them sometimes short and sometimes squat and sometimes tall and sometimes thin. They wiggle and we giggle and we watch all the fun.

Watching and touching is always fun. You touch me here and I touch you there. Don’t tell a soul. Our special story. Our special secret. Isn’t this fun? Watch and touch. Watch and touch.

Watch. Touch. Fun.

Here are Kenneth and Charles now. They have locked the door to their white office and have said goodbye to one and all save the Other. Let us watch them play The Red Thread, shall we? We will all have fun. Kenneth and Charles and you and me.

Kenneth and Charles have many patients and many chairs for patients to stretch out and open wide and close their eyes. You’ll feel a little pinch before you go numb. Tonight Kenneth and Charles choose a white chair that stands alone in the corner of the large corner room of their white office where there are many windows. Kenneth goes from window to window and twists at this blind and that until all are shut tighter than a dead man’s eye. Charles changes the music from the la la la of the day to the dum dum dum of the night.

That’s the lullaby for naughty children. Are you a naughty boy? I think you might be. I think you’re my naughty boy.

From room to room they go turning off the lights. In this little office and that. In this long hallway and that tiny break room. Off go the lights at the receptionist’s desk. Off go the lights in the waiting room. Now all the magazines with happy shining faces with dazzling white smiles go to sleep. Now all the files with all the secrets behind those dazzling white smiles—here a cap, there a veneer—go to sleep.

Nighty night. Nighty night. Don’t let the sugar-plump fairies bite. Yum, you taste so good.

Soon Kenneth and Charles find themselves standing alone in the black-and-gray shadows around the solitary light that hovers over the chair in the corner of the large corner room of their once-white office. The light is tilted so a bright spotlight burns through the head of the chair. It is the backdrop and tonight Charles’ mouth will be the stage. Time to change, Kenneth says to Charles. It’s time for costumes. It’s time for the show to begin. It’s time for the red red red curtain to go up on their game.

What’s behind your curtain? Lift the blanket, let me see. Lift the blanket, let me in.

Into their offices go Kenneth, go Charles. Each next to the other. Each always next to the other. Out comes Charles, out comes Kenneth.

Here stands Charles in a red jock. And there stands Kenneth is a red dental smock and nothing else. Slap, slap. Kenneth hits Charles. Charles wobbles a bit and Kenneth shouts, It’s time for your check-up, boy. You’re long overdue. Yes, Dr. Sir, says Charles. My jaws ache, Dr. Sir. I think I grind my teeth. I think I have a toothache. Slap, slap, thud. Kenneth hits Charles’ face again before punching him hard and fast in the gut. You fucking sugar fiend, screams Kenneth. You teeth must be rotted. Look at your swollen cheeks. You’re doubled over in pain. You need a thorough exam now. Into the chair this instant.

Kenneth takes Charles by his shoulders and shakes him, shakes him, and shakes him. Until Charles spins himself around and toward the chair. Whack. Even without his white shoes, even with just his one white foot, Kenneth can kick Charles square in the ass. Charles stumbles over the chair and Kenneth not so kindly helps him roll over. Charles’ flesh squeaks as it is pulled up along the sucking skin of the chair.

Just like when I kiss you here or here. Suck, suck, suck. Pop.

Pop goes the buckle of the restraint. Pop once more. Charles’ wrists are snug and safe. The arms of the chair will hold him tight. For The Red Thread is fun game and Kenneth doesn’t want Charles to get hurt. Much.

Kenneth spits on his fingers. Where are his gloves? There are no gloves tonight. Tonight is all fun. Kenneth takes his fingers and shoves them between Charles’ legs. Until Charles’ legs are bent at the knees and each knee as high as a church steeple and his ass floats in the air like an angel. Who’s my angel? Out come the fingers. Out comes the spit. In go the fingers. Up goes the ass. Out comes a moan from Charles. Kenneth laughs.

See, fun!

Kenneth grabs something from the tray beside the chair. There are many sharp and shiny things on the table. This is not shiny and not very sharp. It’s a red toothbrush. Kenneth pushes the end of it with a little rubber thorn at the tippy tip tip inside Charles to get Charles’ mouth wider, wider, dammit, wider. Oh, look at Charles. O is just how Charles’ mouth looks. The letter O. Capital O. O is for ouch.

There are several O’s hidden all over your body. Can you show me one?

Kenneth stands back and smiles. What a pretty white smile he has. He should. He’s a dentist. He drops his robe. What a pretty white body he has. He should. He’s a gay man who believes that love is unconditional for only those with no more than 13% body fat, no matter the age, no matter the man. 13. So often unlucky. Unless it’s inches of course. Which in Kenneth’s case it’s not. But more than half isn’t bad and Kenneth has never been loved less for it. And what a pretty red and oh-so-hard seven-and-a-half-inch dick it is. It should be. Kenneth’s a sadist and he’s just begun.

Watch Kenneth climb. Climb on top of Charles. Climb up Charles till he straddles him just below his well-defined chest. How gyms brings such clarity to the life of gay men.

Do you like to work out? I have something big and heavy for you to lift. You’ll need to use both hands. Will you help me? You’re such a good friend.

Kenneth turns his head and scans the tray of gleaming ramrod-straight steel blades and curved-and-gnarled steel points and chooses an ordinary pick. One that every dentist has taken to all our mouths. He taps it against the hard sides of Charles’ molars and he scrapes it and scrapes it against the impervious enamel of Charles’ canines and incisors. Now Kenneth reaches for a drill. He turns it on. Whir, whir, whir. Listen to it shriek.

Kenneth doesn’t put the drill to Charles’ tooth. Where did it go? Kenneth puts the sharp, shiny point at the end of the pick against Charles’ tooth and drags it with a tiny screech to the border where white enamel meets pink gum.

Flinch, bitch, and I’ll let it rip through your tit, says Kenneth with a spit-filled hiss into Charles wide but scream-less mouth. Here’s the drill! Kenneth lets the whining tool get close enough to Charles’ tit, as hard and high as a tooth made of skin, so Charles can feel the vibration, the tiny breath of air from the spinning metal spike.

How you tremble so as you help me touch mine. It’s not metal. Just me. I’m shaking too.

Poke, poke, poke goes the pick against Charles’ pink pink pink gum.

No blood.

Kenneth is both happy and sad. Happy that Charles’ gums are so healthy. Who would go to a dentist with gums bloated and red from gingivitis? Not you. Not me. And sad that there is no blood. Yet.

Off goes the drill and away goes the pick. Kenneth turns to the tray once more. What will he choose? So many tools. So many sharp points. So many shiny points. So many ways for Kenneth to draw those red drops from Charles. Each a distillation of the man he loves. How Kenneth loves Charles and Charles loves Kenneth.

How I love you. Here’s a drop of me for you. Men have two kinds of blood. One is secret. It only flows on special times. It’s the lifeblood. It connects you to me and me to you.

Yank, yank, yank. That’s just how it sounds as Kenneth pulls and pulls and pulls something from the tray. It’s a thread that’s long and white. White? Where is the red thread? Watch. What goes in white comes out red or this game will be no fun.

Around his one pointing finger Kenneth wraps the thread leaving just a bit to wind about his other pointing finger. Kenneth grabs the fingers with his thumbs and twists and tugs and a tightrope appears. It’s so tight that even if a teeny elephant tried to walk across the thread it wouldn’t sag or even bounce. When something’s that tight it’s taut.

Just like when I touch you here. Stay still. Right here. Ooh, that’s what taut feels like. How I love taut. How I love you.

When you floss, you’re supposed to make a letter C. Wrap the ends of the floss around the tooth so it’s inside the deep curve where the letter bows out like the belly of a very fat man. Yes, just like mine. But I’m not the letter C even with my nice big curve.

C is for curve. C is not for scrape. Though there is a letter C snug as a bug inside. Hard and fast asleep between the S and R. It’s a hard C in scrape. It’s sounds like the letter K.

Skrape.

And that’s what you do with your floss once it sits like a C that’s fallen over on its side. You scrape up. You scrape down. Scrape into the hollow between tooth and gum where bits of food and gunk are mingling and fucking in the hot tub waters of your saliva. Fuck, fuck, fuck. And soon all the Mr. & Mrs. Food-Gunks have babies and Plaque is the de rigeur baby name for that minute. For every minute. Here a plaque. There a plaque. Everywhere a plaque, plaque. It nurses on your tooth till it wears it down. Rots it through and through. Greedy baby. Greedy fuck. The only way to pry the invisible sucking mouths from your titty teeth is to floss.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

If Kenneth were scraping inside my big mouth or your little mouth, we who floss only when a blue moon waxes and wanes, the thread would be red by the second scrape. Not Charles. He has healthy gums. Not a single cavity. Kenneth must go from tooth to tooth—molar to bicuspid to canine to incisor to canine to bicuspid to molar—over and over again. Down and up Kenneth thrusts the floss. Each time he pulls it out from between the teeth there is a loud and popping thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk thunk thunk. Faster and faster goes Kenneth. The floss is growing ragged at the edges. Soon it will break. Soon Charles will break. Who first? Will it be the floss? Will it be Charles?

Wait! Kenneth sees something. Up it oozes between Charles’ two front teeth. A teeny tiny droplet that trickles down from the tender gum and over the ragged floss. It dyes the thread to red.

The thread is red.

Red, red, red red red.

Like to like always say Kenneth and Charles. White to white and red to red. Out comes the red thread. In stays the red tooth. In goes the red head of Kenneth’s dick.

I’m partial to dark pink. I know somewhere very pink and very dark on you. Out comes my finger. Your exam is through. In comes my dick. Time to drill. Open wide. You’ll feel much better very soon.

Look at Kenneth drill. Watch the chair buck. Watch Charles’ eyes roll. Watch Kenneth’s butt clench. Following the bouncing buns!

Kenneth can’t wait till blood and lifeblood mix. Kenneth can’t wait till he and Charles are one. One inside one makes one.

See Kenneth come. Come, Kenneth, come. And come he does. I can’t see it. Neither can you. But, boy, can we hear it! Yipee ai ay! Jesus christ oh god fuck!

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Now it’s our turn. Give me your lifeblood, son, and I’ll give you mine. We’ll be connected—you to me and me to you—always. We’ll always be special friends. Big Daddy and his not so itty, not so bitty baby boy. If you didn’t weigh twice as much as me I’d be bouncing you and good on my knee. So here we lie together in baby’s king-sized crib. Side by side. You on the outside. Me on the inside. Side by side. Oh, how good it feels to share. Hear how we shout for joy!

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Kenneth isn’t done sharing yet. He doesn’t even notice what a generous gift Charles wants to share with him. Charles knows and shouts with glee. Look at what a big white puddle the big white boy makes! Kenneth laughs because he has a surprise for Charles and now is the perfect time to give it to him.

Time to rinse and spit, boy, says Kenneth. Charles would say, Yes, Dr. Sir, if his mouth weren’t so full with Kenneth’s dick and Kenneth’s lifeblood. No time for Charles to catch his breath. No time for Charles to swallow. Look, now Charles’ mouth is filling with hot and bitter water. See it flow out of his mouth. Wait, Charles is pulling away. Kenneth is watering Charles’ face. Charles is rinsed. Now it’s time to spit. Charles spits Kenneth’s water back on him. But not with a tinkling trickle. Just one loud and wet SPLAT!

Is Kenneth mad? Has Charles been bad? No, see how they laugh. The wetter they get the more they laugh. They are soaked. Their skin shines like a just-mopped floor under the bright light of the 4-in-the-afternoon sun, leaning against the kitchen wall like a drunk, lost and bewildered to find himself in a kitchen and one that has just been mopped. Watch their skin dry over the next hour as they wipe down and disinfect the sticky chair together so it is innocently clean before Mrs. Groesbeck reclines for her 8 a.m. final fitting and cementing of her crown.

Crowns, crowns, crowns. Every one is queen for a day at Kenneth and Charles’.

The game is over. Everybody won. Kenneth and Charles are very tired but very happy as they bid each other goodnight and curl up upon their daybeds in their adjoining offices. In goes Kenneth, in goes Charles. Kenneth and Charles sleep alone the nights they play at the office, the nights they play their favorite game at the office, the nights they play their favorite game The Red Thread at the office. But Kenneth and Charles are never lonely in all those minutes they sleep apart, in all that time, for they are in love and know it and have known it more and more keenly since they said goodbye to that sour feeling of loneliness and hello to the sweet relief of the Other when they met and vowed never to be parted again after they shared a stall in the bathroom deep beneath the Castro Theater while Marathon Man danced in the light on the screen far over their heads on a night in February in a month when all nights are rainy in a city where men meet in bathroom stalls and marry and live happily after ever.

Ding dong come along. Ding dong suck my dong. Ding dong ding dong.

Goodnight, Kenneth. Goodnight, Charles.

Goodnight, sugar. I love you. Sweet dreams.

 

© 2006 Ian Philips - Contributor's Bio