“As I came home at five in the morn­ing, I saw an in­credible hunk emerging from a manhole in the empty street; a lit­tle while later he was back in a manhole: mine!

By Mario Mangiacazzo

(Honcho.April.1984.)

It was nearly five in the morning, and the dawn was beginning to crack through the blackness of the waning night as I strode through damp and deserted streets. I had spent Friday night dancing at my favorite after hours club, and my head still rang from the loud music and the drugs. Random half thoughts, fragments of conversa­tions, and refrains from records the DJ had played crackled through my head like static on a radio. As soon as I got back to my loft I’d drink some herb tea, smoke just a little reefer and then tumble into bed — alone.

I was just entering the section of downtown Manhattan known as TriBeCa — “the triangle below Canal Street” — when I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks. About halfway down the block I saw a large, bulky figure slowly ascending from a hole in the street. In my semi crazed state this vague but imposing form looked to me like a devil rising from a Stygian pit. I’d seen some startling sights during my many years of predawn prowling in New York City, but none so arresting as this.

At first I felt a twinge of fear, but as I was able to distinguish the nature of this particular sight, the fear turned to curiosity. My devil was ac­tually a sewer worker — a “sandhog,” I think you would call him — and the pit he clambered out of was a manhole ringed by a semicircular iron frame. The man held a lantern in one hand; when he was fully outside the manhole, he hung the light on the frame. I slowed my pace as I ap­proached him. He was wearing a heavy poplin jacket that came down to the tops of his thighs. Whatever color it might once have been was totally obscured by dirt and grease. His dark work pants were similarly filthy, and his heavy, laced up boots were darken­ed with whatever nasty fluids he’d been stomping around in down in that pit. Not the most appetizing sight, but when he suddenly turned around and faced me, my distaste turned to sur­prise, and excitement.

The man wore a grimy hardhat and underneath it was a big, leonine head. Thick black hair streaked with gray hung over the tops of his ears. He had unfashionably long sideburns that reached below his earlobes. The ends of his bushy black moustache curled around the corners of his wide, thin lipped mouth like commas. His fleshy face was unshaven. Now, this guy was clearly no fey little fashion plate. He was a fucking animal — a brutish, swea­ty, fearsome motherfucker who looked like he could do a lot of damage to anyone who crossed him. God, was he hot!

I was only a few yards away when I noticed that either he bought his pants a size too small or he had massive thighs. The latter was of course, the case; the grimy workpants molded his mighty legs, outlining his bulging thighs and thick, rounded calves. The dirty pants also hugged his meaty ass, each fat cheek defined by the fabric. As he moved about, gathering up his tools and replacing the manhole cover, I could see muscle and sinew grinding inside the trousers. My groggy head was clearing rapidly as I stared. My only regret was that his coat blocked my view of his crotch. That, I was sure, had to be just as bulky and for­midable as the rest of him. Wrapped up in my rising lust, I was unprepared when he abruptly turned in my direc­tion. Our eyes locked. Mingled terror and exhilaration coursed through me. Say something! my brain screamed.

“Mornin’” I chirped, nodding in his direction.

“Mornin’” he grunted, eyeing me warily.

I stood there with my hands in my pocket, grinning like a Grade A asshole. He continued to stare as he kicked the manhole cover into place and lifted his tool bag.

“Got any smokes?” he rumbled.

“Uh — yeah, sure.” I reached inside my jacket and pulled out a crumpled pack of Benson and Hedges. I walked over to hand it to him, using our prox­imity to each other to study him further. He smelled as strong as I’d ex­pected, and the thick black hair was matted with sweat. His small, brown eyes glittered with a feral intensity. He took the cigarette in a huge, hairy paw, regarded it disdainfully and then tore the filter off and flung it in the street . ‘Fuckin’ pussy smoke,’ I imagined him thinking to himself

“Light?” he demanded.

I fumbled my lighter out of my pants pocket. He reached for it but I lit him up myself. As he cupped his hands around the flame and bent his big face towards it I found myself staring into the deep cleft in his hairy chin. He took in a deep blast of smoke and then exhaled.

“Thanks,” he said. There was ac­tually a hint of amiability in his rumbling voice. He puffed on his cigarette, savoring the sensation of smoking. He looked up at the lightening sky. “What a crazy fuckin’ hour to be workin’, huh?” he said, shaking his massive head. Then he reached down and tugged on his crotch.

“Yeah. Sure is.”

“Sometimes.” he continued, “I wish I had normal hours, ya know? The usual nine to five shit ’ He removed his hand from his crotch and scratched the back of his head. “But there’s somethin’ I like about this shift.”

“The solitude?” I put in.

He considered it for a moment before nodding his agreement. “Yeah. Ya don’t have ta deal with a lotta assholes. No rush hour bullshit. It’s peaceful. That’s what I like about it.” He stared at the sky again, and damn, that furry paw made it back to his crotch. He gave his basket a sharp tug. Was his underwear too tight around his huge — I imagined — dick? Was he horny after spending the past eight hours or so down in the sewers? Did he need someone to relieve his swollen, aching balls of their pent up cum?

“So whaddya doin?” he abruptly asked. “Where ya work?”

I almost told him that I’d been party­ing, not working, but I stopped myself. He’d gotten the idea that we belonged to the same fraternity of working class guys who labor overnight, while the rest of the world slumbers — a different breed of man, alone but comfortable in our solitude. Something was building between us, and I didn’t want to tear it down by telling him the truth: I was a well paid editor at a major midtown publishing house, who partied away too many of his nights. Nor if he knew that I was urbane, successful and gay — attributes of which I was proud — he’d probably sneer, spit and stalk off.

“I work at a warehouse over near the river. Same shift as you, man.”

“How ‘bout that,” he chuckled. I was startled by the boyishness of his smile. It softened his heavy, almost exag­geratedly masculine countenance.

“Say,” he spoke up, “I’m gonna stop off at this little joint for some breakfast before I go home. Wanna go?”

I looked into his expectant eyes. Oh Lord, I thought, what am I getting myself into? It could be a disaster. Or it could be the hottest, wildest escapade I’d had in years. Or, it might be a big, fat zero. We could end up eating our greasy fried eggs in silence, me with a painful, relentless hard on. But there was no way I could back out — not now.

“Sounds good, man.” I said, trying to affect his offhand, butch manner.

He said, “All right!” and shot me a quizzical, but unthreatening look. An “I’m trying to be sure I’m right about you” look. He pointed in the direction of the restaurant and shambled off, weighed down by his tool bag. I follow­ed. We walked two blocks before com­ing to the joint — a typical Greek diner located across the street from the Manhattan entrance to the Holland Tunnel. I’d passed it countless times but had never gone in, satisfying myself with amused looks at their dessert carousel — a multi-tiered, revolv­ing display full of sumptuous looking cakes, pies and pastries. As we entered, the place was nearly full, and the clientele seemed to consist entirely of worn out guys who’d just come off the graveyard shift or others who, hav­ing just risen for work, were rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.

A stout woman with disarrayed auburn hair and several large moles on her face hovered over the cash register. When we entered, she called out to my companion in a loud, ac­cented voice. “Hallo, hoe-nee! How you doin’ thees mornin?”

“Not bad, Maria,” he replied.

“That’s nice, Nicky.” She was count­ing a handful of paper money as she greeted us, and she continued this procedure while she talked to — Nick.

“Nicky, when you gonna find a nice wife to take care ‘a you — twenty, thirty, forty, feefty — so you no have to work such hours, eh?”

“Someday, Maria, someday,” he answered, his tone wavering between annoyance and weariness.

“Ahhh,” she wailed. “Someday. Someday. That’s all I — seexty, seexty five, seventy — ever hear from you!”

Nick shrugged and headed for a table near the back of the long, rec­tangular room. He yanked off his coat and hung it on the back of an empty chair. He was wearing a thick sweater of indeterminate color. He pulled it off, and dumped it on top of his coat. He was wearing a black t-shirt, and its sleeves had risen up almost to the tops of his shoulders. Tufts of black hair filled his deep armpits. Hair also curled up over the front of his collar. It swirled on his upper arms and be­came a dense crop on his oversized, sinewy forearms. Nick literally reeked of virility: a thick, musky odor com­pounded of sweat and a superabundance of hormones. My cock sprung up in my pants, fully hard.

We ordered eggs, toast and coffee. I picked at my food, focusing most of my attention on Nick. Or at least I tried to. He was going on about the vagaries of being a sewer man — dodging rats, getting used to the fetid air, pleasant stuff like that—and I would nod sympathetically and laugh at his little jokes. But the entire time I was imagining him naked, his hairy bulk enveloping me. I saw myself tonguing his big butt and slavering over his enormous, turgid tool. Fearful that he’d realize that I wasn’t paying full attention to his chatter, I’d chase these fantasies out of my mind only to have them return seconds later. In my febrile imaginings I was about to welcome his monster meat into my asshole when he blurted. “Hey! I been sittin’ here goin’ on and on and I just realized — you know my name and I don’t know yours!”

I laughed nervously. “Mitchell,” I said.

“Hey, fuckin’ Mitch!” he laughed heartily, extending his hand to me. “Nickolas O. Georgeulakos, ‘atcha ser­vice.” His affected courtliness got me laughing.

“Just Mitch?” he inquired.

“Mitch Brady.”

“Irish, huh?”

“Yeah. Well, half. My mother’s side is French.”

“Uh huh.”

The small talk ran out and we were arriving at an awkward lull when he exclaimed, “Hey look at this! We musta been in here a long time — the fuckin’ place is empty!”

I looked around the diner and saw that he was right. Except for Maria, who was paging through a Greek language newspaper, her two waitresses and an old guy sitting at the counter dawdling over his coffee, the place had emptied out.

“Yeah,” I said flatly. I found myself looking into Nick’s eyes, and what I saw both excited and discomfited me. He silently stared at me while his crowbar fingers crumpled an egg stained napkin. Oh Nick, baby, I thought, do something. Please.

He looked at his fingers and then looked at me. “Ya wanna?” he whispered. I stared at him as intently as he’d been eyeballing me, or so I thought. My hard on throbbed, struggl­ing against the confines of my pants like a trapped creature fighting for air.

“Well, do ya?” he whispered more urgently. I reached for my coffee cup, and my hand shook. I brought the cup to my lips, took a quick sip and set it back down in its saucer.

“Sure.” I said blandly. He smirked.

“I gotta go to the John,” he said, ris­ing from his chair. He stood over me for a second, and then reached into a small dish and picked out several pats of butter.

“Here,” he said, handing them to me. My fingers pressed lightly onto the paper covering the butter, which was soft and squishy.

“Bring ‘em with ya. Wait a coupla seconds, and then come on in.”

He turned and headed across the room, disappearing behind a wooden partition. I sat there, the pats of butter tying in the palm of my hand. I could get the fuck out of here, I told myself. I could simply get up, pay the check and leave. That would be the prudent, sensible thing to do. Anything else would be crazy. And crazy was what this big bruiser was. Did he really think I was going to get it on with him in the men’s room of this place, with old Maria sitting up front and people coming in and out? I mean, really!

Awww, why the fuck not!

I rose from my seat on wobbly legs, the butter in my sweaty hand, and headed to the men’s room. When I entered Nick was standing at a urinal, his back to me. He turned at the sound of the door. Seeing that it was me. he smirked. I walked over to the next urinal and stood before it with my legs spread wide. I pulled down my zipper and extricated my cramped cock. Bone hard, it was drooling pale juice onto my fingers. I turned to look at Nick. His attention was focused on my cock. I stepped back from the urinal to give him a better look. He shook his head appreciatively, his thick eyebrows leaping way up on his forehead. I had a big, proud joystick, and I loved seeing other guys go wild over it. I set the butter down on top of the urinal and began jerking my cock with both hands.

Nick’s expression turned hard and mean, but from lust, not anger. He moved away from the urinal to show me what he had. I gasped when I saw it, dark, veined and a good eight or nine inches long. Its upward swing reminded me of a diving board; I wanted to climb on it and do all kinds of tricks.

“Touch it, man,” Nick ordered.

I reached out for it and cradled the fat, brown head in my hand. Then I coiled my fingers around the shaft and began to jack it. After only a few strokes, the pre-cum issued forth in a steady stream.

“Suck it.”

I sank to my knees and wrapped my lips around his piece. The funk from his hot crotch mingled with the smell of his dirty pants. I’d never been especially attracted to “pig sex,” but I was quickly learning to love it. My ran­dy sewer rat began thrusting his hips, forcing more of his meat down my throat. I sucked avidly, savoring its heat and pungency. Just as I was working up a good, steady suck rhythm, he pulled it way from me. His big ham hands slipped under my armpits and pulled me to my feet. He nodded in the direction of the stalls set against the far wall of the men’s room, away from the door.

“The butter,” he grunted to me. I snatched the melting pats from the top of the urinal and followed him into one of the stalls. Once inside, he tore at my flannel shirt, popping off a couple of buttons. He pulled the shirt off my shoulders and hung it over the hook on the stall door. He spread his palms over my naked chest, ruffling the hair and squeezing my nipples between his fingers. His big hands next tore at my jeans; in a flash they fell to my ankles. He yanked at my underwear as if it angered him: his sex-rage was begin­ning to scare me. I knew he planned to sink that huge pole into my ass, and I tried to ready myself for the assault.

With one hand groping my ass, he us­ed the other to tear off his t-shirt. He carelessly tossed it on the toilet tank. The chest rippled and undulated as he moved. I could see the movements of the muscles because he wasn’t quite as hairy as I’d expected; there was more fur at his neck and thorax than on his pecs. The nipples were large and olive colored; the tips were stiff and pointy. I mouthed one nipple, slashing my tongue over it, sucking and chewing. He allowed me this pleasure for only a moment. Then he impatiently pulled down his pants, free­ing his dick and pendulous balls.

“The butter,” he ordered.

I handed the pats to him. He peeled off the paper coverings and smeared three pats of the mushy yellow stuff onto his cock, saving just a smidgen to coat my asshole. Then he sat down on the toilet, and, his arms wrapped around my waist, pulled me down on him. His cock stabbed right into my asshole, and I gasped from the painful in­trusion. He gave me a few seconds to get used to it; he stroked my chest and reached down into my lap to fon­dle the head of my dick. The pain ebbed, replaced by a warm sensation of fullness. I slowly began to raise and lower myself on his dick, and he mov­ed his hips in time to my exertions.

“Fuck me, Nick,” I whispered. “Fill me up and fuck me hard!”

Nick accelerated his thrusts, and as he fucked, he bit me on the back and shoulders. I gritted my teeth to hold back my cries. Shutting my eyes, I listened to the sounds of our fucking: Nick’s heavy breathing, my sharp gasps, the squish squish of conjoined, greasy dick and asshole. And then the door swung open. We both froze in midstroke. I carefully leaned back, shivering as my sweaty skin made contact with Nick’s chest. I heard the sounds of pissing, a urinal flushing and water running. The hot air dryer went on, and the anonymous pisser took an eternity blow drying his mitts. Get out — get out — get the fuck out! I heard the feet approach our stall. I looked down and saw them: white run­ning shoes. They paused, and turned. The door opened and then slammed shut. As soon as the intruder left, Nick began pile driving my ass. His cock had remained rigid the entire time. Danger queen!

I could tell that Nick was in a hurry to shoot his load, so I beat my dick in time to his thrusts. I wanted us to come together, I wanted my asshole contractions to milk a big, thick flood of jism from him. I reached down and gripped the rim of the toilet bowl to steady myself as the fuck tempo quickened.

“Gonna cum!”

Nick hissed, “Do it!”

The pace slowed and Nick delivered a series of fierce jabs into my ass that nearly threw me off the bowl and into the stall door. My own climax was nearly as violent; my erupting cock shot bolts of cum onto my shirt hang­ing from the door hook. When our orgasms subsided, I sank back down onto his stilled — but nonetheless rigid — cock. I wrapped my bared arms around him — leaving shoulders and pressed my face into his stubbly neck. I could’ve sat there for hours like that, impaled on his pork sword, waiting for him to fuck me again. But he instead pushed me off. His tool left my regretful asshole with a pop. Nick grabbed some toilet paper and wiped off his meat before standing and pulling up his pants. We hurriedly put our shirts back on.

I left the stall first. I checked myself out in the bathroom mirror. Face a little flushed, hair a mess. I threw some cold water on my face and whipped out my comb. Nick came out of the stall.

“You go out first,” he whispered. “I’ll join ya in a minute.”

I smiled at him. “That was great,” I said, as I gave his crotch a firm squeeze. He shrugged diffidently. I turned and headed out the door. When I got to our table, I saw that the dishes had been cleared away The check had been placed under a water glass. I picked it up and headed to the register Maria was still reading her paper, but there were more customers in the place now, and they kept inter­rupting her to pay their checks. As Maria made my change, I pulled on my coat. My ass felt raw but when I walked I could feel the butter slathered between my buns. I went back to our table with the change and left it as a tip. Nick hadn’t yet emerged from the bathroom.

As I was about to leave, Maria snagged my arm. “Listen, hoe-nee,” she pleaded. “You Nicky’s friend, right? Can you feex him up with a nice girl? He stay out all night, working. All’a time working. What kinda life is that, eh? He needs a good wife, no?”