By Hunter Perez

“Bingo, did you ever get the feeling that you were being watched?” said Jock while we were in the midst of a late-night meal at a roadside diner just outside of town. Jock was enjoying a Greek salad and a cup of green tea while I indulged in a pizza burger deluxe with French fries and a large Coke – yeah, I’m a slob.

“No, of course not,” I responded as I mopped up a drop of pizza sauce with one of my French fries. “What brings that up?”

Jock laughed and shook his head. “You eat like an eight-year-old. Seriously, there’s a guy at a table across from us who hasn’t stopped staring at you since we got here. Don’t tell me that you didn’t notice him.”

“Oh, please,” I responded between bites of my pizza burger. “No one is staring at me. If anything, the guy’s probably staring at you. And can you blame him? With that tight t-shirt showing off your muscles, you’re the life of the party. You don’t expect a runt like me to steal your spotlight”

Jock carefully chewed at his salad before answering. “You’re not a runt and he’s not staring at me. I can confirm that. That’s why I went to the men’s room a few minutes ago. I thought he was staring at me and that he would follow me to the men’s room for a quick bit of fun. But he didn’t follow me. I came back and he was watching you while you were on your phone.”

I chuckled, perhaps a bit too loud. “You slut, trying to get a bathroom hookup. Yeah, Simon called when you were in the bathroom. He wanted me to know that he bought me a new toaster to replace the one that caught fire when he was trying to make me breakfast the other day.”

Jock put down his fork and looked at me with a pained expression. “How many kitchen appliances has he wrecked? I remember the microwave caught fire, the blender exploded, and there was the dishwasher…”

“Please don’t remind me about the dishwasher,” I interrupted. “There was also the coffee maker, but I was able to save it before it overflowed. Simon’s the world’s best fuck buddy, but he is as dumb as a brick. I really need to find someone who checks both the carnal and cerebral boxes.”

Jock turned to look across the diner and then quickly returned his attention to me. “He’s still looking at you. Maybe you should be polite and acknowledge him?”

I finished my pizza burger, wiped my mouth with my napkin and turned to see the guy that Jock kept mentioning. He was a rather intimidating character – broad shouldered, burly, with a shaved head, severe dark-rimmed eyeglasses and a goatee. He wore a sleeveless shirt that exposed muscular arms wrapped in an intricate web of tattoos. When I made eye contact, he sat up slightly and his eyes widened.

I looked back to Jock and wiggled my eyebrows. “That’s the kind of guy I attract? He looks like a serial killer. Hey, did I ever tell you there’s a band called Captain Crunch and the Cereal Killers?”

Josh looked back across the diner and suddenly winced. “Well, don’t look now but Captain Crunch is sailing over here.”

Jock and I simultaneously turned as this guy walked to our table. The stranger did not acknowledge Jock, but stood over me, inhaled, and paused for a few seconds before addressing me.

“George?” he finally said in a low grumble of a voice.

I was startled – no one called me that except my family and a few childhood friends who were still in touch with me. I tried to place the face and voice but could not come up with a name.

“You are George, aren’t you?” he insisted with a touch of impatience. “You don’t recognize me, don’t you? It’s been a long time, I know, and I don’t look the same. I’m Bobby.”

No. Hell, no. It couldn’t be him – not Bobby. This tattooed, roughneck character standing before me looked nothing like the Bobby I adored and who adored me. Granted, I had not seen him in 10 years, but how could he change so dramatically in a decade, to the point where he was unidentifiable?

I didn’t know how to respond. He stood there, looking at me with what seemed to be low boiling annoyance, waiting for an immediate answer, for a confirmation that I knew him. I looked about, as if trying to locate a delayed bus to carry me off. Jock seemed baffled by what was happening and started to straighten up, as if preparing himself to intervene in a physical clash.

“You are George, aren’t you?” Bobby repeated.

“Hi, I’m George,” I said to Bobby as he sat across from me in the cafeteria of the community college 10 years ago. I just turned 18 and didn’t want to be in school anymore – I envisioned the life of a rock guitarist, but my parents were insistent that I have a college education. To appease them, I agreed to enroll in the local community college – I would commit to two years to their dream for me before striking out in the music world.

Bobby was in three of my classes. He was aiming for an associate’s degree in criminal justice – it was the minimum educational requirement needed to become a police officer in our state. I couldn’t believe he across from me in the cafeteria – I was a chubby little nothing being treated as an equal by an 18-year-old deity with a suntan-bronzed lean muscular physique, a thick shock of chestnut hair and dark Irish good looks. He was charming, with a cute diagonal smile and an insouciant air about him.

As we talked, we found that we had a lot in common – we both hated school and were eager to get on with the worlds we planned for ourselves. We shared the same likes in movies, sports and video games. He claimed to be envious that I could play the guitar and insisted that I teach him. One day after school, I acquiesced and came to his home – his parents were at work and we retreated to his basement, where I brought my guitar and began to show him the basics of the instrument. He didn’t master it quickly, but that didn’t bother him – he seemed to enjoy having me over.

“When you become a cop, you should carry a guitar as well as a gun,” I remarked after a lesson. “You could be like the cartoon character El Kabong and hit the bad guys on the head with a guitar when making an arrest.”

“Have you ever been arrested?” Bobby asked. When I said that I had never been in trouble with the law, he laughed and added, “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

There was an old desk in the basement and Bobby began to fish through its drawers before locating a small box. He opened the box to reveal a pair of handcuffs. “I got this the summer I did Park Patrol as a police cadet,” he explained. “Go over and put your hands up against the wall.”

I giggled and followed his command, planting my palms into the wall. Bobby came up behind me and gently kicked my feet wider before he started to pat me down roughly. It was very exciting to have him touching me.

“Do you have any sharp objects on you?” he asked.

“Does my intellect count?” I asked.

Bobby laughed before placing his fingers around my right wrist. He quickly pulled my arm behind my back and locked a handcuff around my wrist. The metal manacle was tight – maybe a little too tight – but I didn’t protest. He repeated the action with my left wrist before spinning me around to face him.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he said. “Anything you say can be held against you in a court of law.”

“Held against me,” I repeated, laughing.

Bobby looked square into my eyes as his lips curled into a wide grin. “Held against you,” he whispered, putting his arms slowly around my shoulders and pulling me close to him. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips hard into mine. My eyes widened but then shut as the warmth of his kiss and strength of his embrace imprisoned me. My hands flailed impotently in the handcuffs and I tried stupidly to pull my wrists apart to free myself and return his hold.

Bobby released his kiss and gazed at me with a gluttonous pleasure. He reached behind me and yanked on my handcuffs. “How do you like being my prisoner, George?”

I felt an erection pushing my pants to its limits. Bobby rubbed his right hand over my crotch, grinning with devilish excitement while unzipping my fly and inserting his fingers over my groin.

“George,” he said in a rueful, somewhat desperate tone.

Bobby was still standing over my diner table, beginning to quiver as my pause in answering him became interminable. I stared at the half-empty glass of Coke before me, slowly taking it to my lips for a drink.

For much of that now-distant semester, Bobby and I would retreat after the school to the basement of his family’s home. The routine would be wonderfully predictable – I’d be arrested and handcuffed, always a little too tight, and then he would either work his way into my pants or he would direct me to my knees while he opened his fly and happily ordered me to pleasure him. One day, he had a new idea for fun – I would stand with my back to a pillar in the basement and he would wrap a thin rope around me. The rope began its journey at my ankles and would conclude in a knotted clump just below my shoulders. The rope was raw and movement was usually impossible once I was wrapped into place. He would then remove his shirt and start to rub against me. The convulsions he created were restricted by his ropework – once or twice my orgiastic fury broke the rope loose, causing us to laugh ridiculously, but mostly it held me in place and my entire body was engulfed in ecstatic passion which he further enflamed with his lips, either across my lips or when he kneeled and undid my fly, liberating my cock for his tasting.

I finally returned his eye contact as he stood before me and shook my head. “Sorry, pal,” I said. “You have the wrong guy.”

Bobby seemed to immediately deflate with my lie, mumbling an apology before retreating to his table. I looked at my empty plate for too long before raising my gaze to Jock, who wore an enigmatic expression.

“Why did you lie to him?” Jock whispered in a barely audible voice. “He knows you – or knew you. What’s going on, Bingo? Who is he?”

All I could then recall was our last day in the basement of his family home. He signed up to join the Navy and would leaving in the morning. He sat on an old couch in that space and I curled up in a fetal position besides him, sobbing while his muscular arms caressed me. He gave me the box that contained the handcuffs and whispered, “When I get back from training, we’ll play again.”

For a week after Bobby shipped out, I was inconsolable. I lied to my parents that I had food poisoning – I couldn’t think of a better excuse – and stayed in my room, feeling that my world came to an end. And then, a phone call came that changed everything – a friend of a friend had a band that was going on a tour of New England clubs and bars, but their bass player dropped out at the last minute — did I want the job? Of course I did! I said goodbye to community college and my parents, packed my clothing and instruments, and started pursuing the dream that I wanted. Bobby emailed a couple of times while I was on the road, but suddenly he meant nothing to me and I didn’t respond. I wasn’t waiting for him to return because I was living my own adventure and not waiting for him to come back for me. I don’t know what became of the handcuffs – somewhere they slipped away from me, just as Bobby slipped out of my heart until his sudden reappearance.

Was I stupid to shut him out? Would it have been impossible for us to have a long-distant relationship? I never paused to think about that. Now, those questions clawed at me.

“Bingo, are you in there?” Jock said loudly.

I looked up from my inner thoughts and found Jock looking at me with concern. I mumbled an apology and asked what I owed for my portion of the meal.

“I’ll cover it,” Jock said. “Are you okay?”

I nodded and looked over to the table where Bobby was sitting. He was gone – a busboy was wiping it clean for the next patron.

Jock paid the bill for our meals and I followed him to his Mercedes. I took my place in the front passenger seat and closed my eyes. The roughneck Bobby I just saw disappeared from memory – all I could recall was the lean, playful, 18-year-old Bobby as his handcuffs clicked tight on my wrists while I made futile efforts to pull them apart. I could feel and taste his wonderfully sloppy lip embrace and I could even smell his masculine beauty as he rubbed against me. Just as the sensation enveloped me, I opened my eyes and looked around in confusion before turning to Jock, who was staring at me while his car remained in its parking spot.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

Jock looked at me with a sadness that I never saw in his eyes before. He reached out and caressed my face, whispering, “Bingo, I really wish that I knew you when you were George.”

“It’s all copacetic,” I replied. “George is sleeping. Don’t wake him.”

Jock rubbed my thigh and started the car. As we exited the diner’s parking lot, I closed my eyes again and could feel Bobby’s rope tightening around my body. He grinned as he knotted me into immobility and stripped off his shirt. I writhed under the rope as Bobby slid up and down my bound body, running his tongue up my neck and into my mouth. I was 18, in love, in bondage, and the world was in a state of perfection.

The End