SAFE SEX AND THE HUSTLER by Chip Masterson chipmasterson@yahoo.com THIS FICTION EMBODIES HOMOEROTIC THEMES AND THE DESTRUCTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. IF YOU ARE UNDERAGE OR OFFENDED, STOP READING. Normally I don't do this sort of thing, and I never will again. I'm almost certain of that. My lover was out of town and I was horny. Now, neither of us are The Bomb, though our waistlines have bombed out in how many years of marriage? More than I want to count. Not that I don't love him. I just get ... restless. Driving home from the bank someone caught my eye on Hustler Row along Santa Monica Boulevard. I usually take Wilshire in but tonight I wanted to look over the meat, just for a lark. The kids were so stringy and strung out I could barely look at them but one guy stuck out. He was just under six feet and lean as fuck. You could see every fiber in his square shoulders as he walked languidly down the street in a jeans jacket with the sleeves ripped off and tight, torn 501s. Dark tattoos covered his arms and crawled up his neck but I could still see shadows cast by his ridged triceps as they twitched, despite the ink. His forearms looked like braided rope. Traps rose up above the denim and a snake's tail writhed in and out of the bumps and folds of the muscle beneath long hair that looked a little pungent. His bare feet were a little dirty. This would have been no more than a casual tug of forbidden desire if traffic hadn't stopped in front of me. BAM! The impact jolted my eyes forward to the huge tire of a huge Bronco hanging over my hood. Dammit! I got out to trade information and look at the damage. My classic Thunderbird held up really well but the bumper locked beneath the SUV's. A steroid monster climbed out looking really pissed. I looked around but nobody was stopping, nobody except the hustler, who leaned against the pink wall of the Pleasure Chest and squinted in the fading sunlight. The ‘roider ambled up, handsome in the brutal, just-beaten-up-but-you-should- see-the-other-guy way. Veins pushed through gossamer, tanned skin over round, hardened shoulders and beefy pecs that stretched his wifebeater all out of shape. He looked at me with contempt, rolling his tongue under his lower lip, and flipped out his wallet. It was attached to a chain. He really had the look down. "Looks like we might need a tow-truck," I offered, cool and friendly. He shook his head and let the wallet fall on its chain. His eyes flashed and his fist cocked and I instinctively flinched, closing my eyes: but the blow never came. Peaking I saw the colorful hand of the hustler, attached to a wiry but immobile forearm, covering the hand of the brute. The bigger man grunted and tried to drive his fist at me using his back but the hustler only bobbed very slightly and held him. His knuckles went white and a heard a small cracking sound–and the big man hollered and tried to pull away. Another crackling penetrated the flow of traffic and I saw tears in the brute's eyes as he flopped back against his Bronco, unable to escape. The hustler didn't say a word but just stared him down. When he let go, the bodybuilder skittered away down the side of his car, wringing his hand, which looked red and funny. The hustler walked past me without emotion to the locked bumpers. Again, without a sound or even heavy breathing, he reached down with one hand and lifted the Bronc's rear end. The shocks groaned as the chrome bumper rose easy inches, my T-bird rising with it. I gaped in shock at the way his lat stuck out through the denim, that one big tubular muscle running down the side. His shoulder popped and the SUV's tire pulled up off the pavement, but that arm kept craning it up. Holding it there, his other hand grabbed my T-bird's front end behind the bumper and tried to jiggle it. It wouldn't budge, so he lifted the one hand even higher, now above his shoulder as he crouched down. My T-bird's wheel followed the SUV's and all that Detroit steel hovered in the air. I stole a glance at the ‘roid rager, his mouth slack in amazement, and saw a chubby in his spandex. The hustler was too skinny for this. Sure he was muscular but the muscles were long and ropy. Though the bicep holding up the cars had a hard, knotted peak that seemed to stretch the skin a little and really make the octopus's face etched on it scowl. His eagle-emlazoned chest rose like a mesa above the fat- less expanse of his body, the abs like rippling ridges of sand in the desert. Only they looked like rock. But he gave away easily a hundred pounds to the bodybuilder. And he held these two cars two inches off the ground in one fucking hand while he fiddled with mine. Something groaned again and my car smacked down to earth, bouncing. The kid–he looked barely legal– wheel-barrowed the SUV forward a few inches, then stood up. He wasn't even sweating but the tatoos gleamed in the setting sun. After sneering at the driver a moment longer, he dropped the SUV. "Beat it," he said in a soft voice. The steroid monster climbed in the truck and gunned the engine. "But we haven't exchanged–" I started. He whipped his long-haired head around at me. "Body fluids?" he asked; then laughed. "We just met. I'm Darren." He held a hand out I was afraid to take. Still, I did, and felt a firm shake that let go a little too slowly. "Uh, Judd," I said. "Judd." That's all I could manage. Green eyes sparkled back at me. "Uh, thanks. He looked like trouble, didn't he?" "That nelly thing?" Darren chucked his head derisively. "Only girls need to take it in the ass, needles or whatever it is. I don't do needles and my ass is a virgin Shirley Temple. He couldn't've punched a time card." He leaned against my fender. A car behind me blared and Darren went instantly rigid, rising to his full height and donning a mask of intimidation. The driver cursed and pulled around us, muttering some obscenity through a closing window. Darren's legs tensed as if he might run after the jerk, but then he relaxed, and looked back at me. "Looks like we better get moving." He walked around to the driver's side. "Get in." he said. I hesitated, suddenly terrified, when he gave me a look I'll never forget. One that told me not to defy him, yet empty of all danger. He tossed his head a moment and pulled back his hair and one perfect, swollen bicep curved up from his arm, an octopus tentacle wavering up the belly from underneath where vibrant hair stuck out, medusa-like. I gulped and walked around the side of the car. It looked like I might not get off so cheaply after all. Darren slipped in and reached a long arm over to unlock my door. I don't think I've ever ridden in the passenger seat before; it felt odd. He peered at the registration across the steering column. "June Street, huh? Hancock Park. Very fancy. Aren't you a little north?" I fumbled with the seat belt and he looked out the corner of his eye. "I'm a little shook up, ‘sall," I muttered. He nodded. "I know," he said. Then, to himself more than me, "I know." I caught my breath. He turned the key and we bolted. He commanded the car and she responded to her master by weaving in and out of lanes, clipping yellow lights and squealing around corners like a blue tornado. I'd never seen her handle like that before, or reach those speeds on city streets. His bicep stuck up, a thick cannister of power, as he pulled on the wheel. A slight knowing smile played across his face. He skidded into my driveway and went all the way to the back, stopping with a jolt. My teeth rattled. I shook my head and started to climb out when his hand–that strong hand–clamped on my forearm. "We should come to an understanding," he said in that soft, smokey voice, twirling the keys around on his finger. And waited. "I only do safe sex." "Me too," he grinned. I looked into his face at that smile was still there, a slight puffiness around his lower lip and cheeks as if he had a mouthful of come or something. I muttered, "I don't have a lot of cash handy. Would forty do?" He grinned broadly but there was a coldness in his eyes that bespoke something more than humor. "It's a start." He gave my arm a small squeeze that made it ping all along the top and climbed out. I hurried around and opened the kitchen door. We have two Rottweilers, Peter and Gabriel (I did not name them). Usually they wait for me in the front so when they heard the key in the back door they came bounding in. New faces always get doused in a squall of furious barking, and they smelled Darren before rounding the bend. Darren stepped in the doorway and crossed his arms before his chest. His forearms pressed outward in thick parallel lines and his chest bulged, the squiggly attachments along the sternum ruffling the eagle's feathers as they rose almost straight up from the bone. He looked down at the dogs, without a word. I started to call them but they suddenly locked legs and scrambled backwards, stopping short a good five feet. Gabe knocked into the butcher block. The sat there, ignoring me, staring at Darren. The boy took a deep breath, chest rising and shoulders widening, and suddenly Petey yelped and fled into the house and up the stairs. Gabe just sat there, shaking his head, wanting to bark but clearly conflicted. I looked at Darren and he had that cold, cold grin on again as he locked eyes with my one hundred thirty pound watchdog urinated all over the tile and started shaking. I glared at Darren and he looked at me briefly before going to inspect the place. I cleaned up Gabe and gave him a cookie and went to confront Darren. He had a Pierpont lamp upside down as was trying to see how the picture worked. "Put that down. What did you do to my dog?" He set it gently down on the console and turned, hands on his hips. His arms pushed his jacket- vest back to reveal the tight maze of muscle that gave new meaning to the phrase "abdominal wall." He looked at me a moment before answering. "What I'm gonna do to you in a minute. Make you all weak inside." And he undid the top button of his 501s. "Let's look around first. Got a garage? This stuff is all too precious." I had a mind to put him out but something else overruled my mind: the part that wanted to see what else was hidden behind all that denim. I led him back into the yard and slid open the old door. The must of junk swept out into the slanting rays of an orange sun. Darren wrinkled his nose and peered inside. "You boys need a garage sale," he muttered. He walked into the darkness and things started poking around. I heard a clink and he emerged, holding a rust- spotted steel rod left by that conceptual sculptor we kept a few summers ago. That had been about all the extraneous sex we ever wanted, not to mention having to haul all that art away. This thing was about an inch thick and four feet long, rolled steel strong enough to jack up a car with. Like Darren, I thought, my stomach dropping. "Wanna see something special?" he asked, flashing hard ivory teeth. "Um, yeah?" I said. He winked. "Let's have a little privacy." We walked back into the garage and I turned on the light. There was just room for both of us to stand between a bookcase and a workbench full of unused, greasy tools. He slid the door shut and a light sweat broke out across my shoulders and down my back as I realized I could die. He stepped under the light bulb. Shadows dug deeply into his torso beneath the flat plain of his chest across his corrugated belly. He put the bar in his teeth and held it not quite at the ends. I admired the veins sticking out of his arms when suddenly they tensed and throbbed. His biceps shot up in a fibrous mass and his forearms bulged like Indian clubs. His neck set and sprouted veins and thick muscle and his eyes squinted tight. The thick bar remained rigid but the scraping of his teeth made my skin scrawl. I was about to offer him a towel to wrap it in when the quality of his arms changed: the split across the top of his swelling biceps deepened and a peak rose impossibly from the outstretched muscle. Quivering in his mouth, the bar actually bent downward smoothly about two inches on each side! He took it out of his mouth and blew out his breath. "Wow, I'm getting out of shape. But that's the tough part," he said, "getting it started. See?" He held the bar out to me and I saw the impression of his teeth about an eighth of an inch into the tempered steel. "Now, for the real show." He took off his jacket and let me feast on the wicked interconnecting tendons that snaked in and out of his iron-sheathed body. Holding the bar before him like Hercules, without a fulcrum of any kind, his arms challenged the steel's density. The wings of the eagle soared across his chest and flapped slightly as the muscle jittered. The bar shook slightly in his grip, then stopped as his knuckles tightened around the ends. Sweat dripped down from his armpits and it looked like his rangy biceps thickened even more. The bar remained motionless. His biceps sought to match the forge's heat that alone could reshape a bar of this thickness, or the power of an earthquake that could overmatch its tensile strength, but still it held. His breathing grew deeper and rattled a bit in his chest, which also thickened between his arms, as the eagle bunched up, ready to dive onto its prey. His lats swelled outward and his knees bent as he rocked a bit backwards. The light cast deeper shadows as his long, concave belly rose and fell. A slight, soft grunt escaped his tight lips and the bar could no longer cope with his muscle pressure: it shuddered and bent in his arms, its power humbled. In a smooth, controlled sweep his arms powered the ends closer together as the bar bent past parallel and angled in. I could practically hear its integrity being shattered by this kid's pure brawn. Past every stopping point his hands crushed inward until the two ends clinked together. My mouth stood open: I'd seen bars this thickness bent by strongmen on TV, but never closed entirely into a loop. And always over their heads or against their thighs. Never in mid-air. He wiped sweat from his brow and his animalistic bicep pressed against his vein-riddled forearm. He caught my eye with a wry smile and before I could congratulate him, he said "Now watch THIS." My hardened cock jumped in my slacks at the tone of his voice. A sight he caught; he chuckled softly to himself. He knew I was trapped in his orbit, a decaying orbit that threatened to crash down into the hard, unyielding surface of his body. He held the touching ends in one hand, and placed the other a little farther up the bar. Wrapping his thumb around one end he bridged the gap with his fingers: and squeezed. Cords stood out down his wrist and his hand trembled slightly. My vision blurred a moment as I saw that one hand start to narrow the gap, squeezing the ends together. My breathing deepened and labored in my chest as he brought the two lengths together. Then, shaking that hand out a moment, he gripped it again and moved his other hand a little farther up, just to where he could barely span the two bar-ends. Again his fingers clawed and strained and this time the bar emitted a squeal as metal at the bend was compressed even further than before. This time his hand shook all the way down but he muscled the gap closed, squealing in protest all the way. Nodding once, he shook that hand out and grabbed farther up with the other one. The thick steel closed closer and the entire bar shivered. The tempered steel screeched under the insane torture. Suddenly the bend had had enough and CRACKED in half! A sliver of steel shot out and pinged across the garage and the two ends reverberated with the suddenly released tension that Darren's strong fingers had created in the inert bar. I grunted and found myself stroking my cock through the thin wool of my pants and Darren said, "Whoa, buddy. Show's not over yet. Now the fat lady's really gonna sing." Each bar was now roughly two feet in length. Holding them in one fist away from his body, he began wrapping the two bars around each other. My belly trembled at the sight of all that power: it must require hundreds and hundreds of pounds of pressure to bend it at all and he was fucking braiding it! Steel scraped over rust-stained steel and his fingers and palm jerked the hard metal into new shapes with short bursts that deformed the shafts to his design. One of my hands crept to my groin again and the other toward my ass, unconsciously, as his forearm rippled in the light and that big biceps got redder and bounced up and down. "Keep yer hands where I can see ‘em," he growled. I stuck them out from my sides and watched the octopus's tentacles writhe around that big arm muscle. "Good boy," he said. He raised the bar above his head. If he'd bashed my head in I would have forgiven him but the arm that held it up looked more than powerful enough to do that without a tool, with twisted cords of virility wrapping its veined length. He held his other arm straight out before him. "And now, voila!" he said, breathing in once. Screaming like a warrior he slammed the twisted bar against his own forearm so hard and fast I blinked. Two inches of braided steel bent around that arm into a seventy-degree angle, actually bending under it, and the arm never moved. He lifted it up, revealing a slight red mark in his arm holding the humiliated piece of metal like some sort of jagged, warped meathook. "For dessert, a little thighmaster action." Placing the bent piece between his thighs, he slowly crushed the metal again as the thick bars squirmed against each other, ending with a sudden SQUAWK as his quads mercilessly squeezed the two inches of over-stressed steel between them. My hands were shaking at my side, my head swimming my body tense; I became aware of the pungent smell of salt. Darren sneered and I looked down and saw a widening wet spot across my pants. He held the convoluted mass of broken, bent steel before me. "Smaller?" he asked. I watched his Adam's apple bob in his long neck. "Shall I punish it more? Or do you think you've hand enough?" His fist squeezed around it, the metal grating under the pressure, and dropped it at my feet with a loud CLANK. The pieces were fused together where his hand had held them. I leaned against the tool bench, my cock convulsing against my trousers, drenching the wool as it strained against the fabric and twitched, discharging more come than I had in weeks. It ran down the tented pant leg into my socks. When it finally subsided my brain swam through some viscous sea. Opening my eyes, his nodding head and contemptuous curled lip made me shiver anew. My entire body tingled, alive, every nerve ending wracked by that look in his narrowed eyes. Wondering what else this stud was capable of, I reached for my wallet and said, voice cracking, "You've more than earned forty bucks, kid. How about a hundred." My hands shook; I had no idea how to explain the expense. He laughed; some spit hit my cheek and I wanted desperately to lick it off but didn't dare. "Bucks?" he said. "You thought we were talking about forty dollars?" My blood froze around my fluttering stomach and I blinked again. "Wha–what do you–" "Oh, don't give me that," he said, leaning in close. I could smell the Oki-Dog he had for lunch, chili and pastrami and cheese. "You don't think I picked you at random, do you? You work for Community Savings." "But how," I stuttered, "I don't usually take Santa Monica, I–how did you–?" My mind reeled. "You've glimpsed my hard ass every step of the way. I led you out like a sheep. And now's the time for slaughter." "Hel–help!" I wheezed. He chuckled. "Not you. It's time for a lesson in safe sex." *** He drove me back to the bank on San Vicente. George, the night man, sidled up to the door. I explained I needed to fetch something and he let me in. I turned around and Darren had slipped in behind me and now held an unconscious George in his arm. "What did you do?" I demanded. "Just a flick to the head," he said, flicking his fuckfinger. "He'll have a headache but there's no concussion. If he stays asleep for awhile." And he gently lowered George into a chair and turned his back to the door. "Vault's over there, buddy boy." I walked toward it and shook my head. "Are you nuts? This thing has so many alarms and failsafes there's no way you can pick your way in." "First off, you don't tell me what I can and cannot do." I turned around and he towered over me, his jaw set and all that tremendous muscle leaning into me so that I fell backwards a step. "Second, you disable all the alarms, now. You have exactly five minutes." And he walked over to gauge the wall of steel. The vault wasn't state-of-the-art but was solid enough: a big, heavy steel slab filled a foot-thick opening three feet wide and six and a half feet tall. Eight bolts two-inches thick secure the door along with the inch-thick bars that spring up and down from the door's locking mechanism. The containment walls were specially reinforced high-PSI concrete and the entire unit was UL Class III approved: that means it has stood up to sixty minutes of continuous assault by trained professionals with tools, torches, everything but dynamite. As if reading my mind, Darren said over his shoulder, "You'd need dynamite to get through this door." I confidently disabled the alarm systems. Darren called out impatiently, "Is it soup yet?" I walked over to keep the noise level down. "We're ready. But you don't have any dynamite." He smiled and looked down at me. I glanced down and saw him pointing at the hard knot of his biceps with his finger. "Oh, yeah?" He fingered the muscle to show its density, massaging its fibrous surface as the veins squeezed back and forth across the flexing iron. He sneered at my open-mouthed deep breathing and approached the safe. He ran his fingers over the satin surface of the cold steel obstacle to his will. "In, or out?" he asked, that smokey voice soft as a whisper. I stared at him. He breathed deeply, cocking his head. "I think, in." And he placed his hands on either side of the lock and started to press. The tatoos squiggled in the darkness as his body became rigid. A lion roared across one shoulder blade, its face contorting in rage; on the other great mound the head of a Viking scoffed and sneered. One foot was placed before the other and his jeans seemed tight as a drum. The only movement was his back, which seemed to deepen as the cobblestoned musculature rose beneath these wild and mystical ink creations. His spinal erectors seemed to have four lobes as they swelled, closing the space above his spine in thick armor. His lats widened just a tad and a slight popping of joints and vertebrae made my mouth water. Suddenly I heard a glassy tinkling, a snick-snick sound. Beneath his bare feet the marble tiles cracked. His feet didn't move, but the dim light danced as pieces of marble shattered into smaller pieces, his feet simply sinking into them. A few light clouds of dust puffed out from beneath his arch and the tinkling stopped; his feet were half an inch lower now. And still no sound, no movement more beyond his steady breathing. I sweated how to explain everything that had happened so far. Kidnaped? He has no weapons. If only I could get him to handle George's gun. My thoughts spun; I heard a slight grunt. I looked over and saw nothing had changed... nothing... nothing except... well, it looked like a thin veil of dust just so happened to be falling in line with the vault door's hinge-side. I walked over and felt his heat, smelled the unwashed sweat that was beading up like dew across his dark tatoos. His arms seemed to have thickened and the octopus that tried to strangle one of them struggled to hang on, while the boa constrictor slithered across the other arm, lending its power to the limb. I could see the orange threads of the 501 seams being pulled apart. Yet the waistband was loose, I could have stuck my whole hand between his hardened torso and the denim. His chest had nearly doubled in thickness, two hard, flat, ridged squares. Shoulders rose like hearts above his arms, ending the gentle roll of his traps. They seemed to rise a bit and his elbows bent slightly. He grunted again. This time I heard it, a subtle shift. As if a ton of steel and its solid, encasing concrete had suddenly come to a new accommodation, found a new position to rest in. I approached and saw a tiny crack no wider than a hair running down the plaster alongside the hinge. I felt it: my heart stopped. Stopped cold in my chest. The wall was actually depressed all along the hinge for just about an inch, then flattened out regularly on the far side of the crack. I stared at Darren and saw his arms bent further, his breath regularly sucked in through his nostrils and sent out through pursed lips. His eyes focused on the steel with determination and, maybe, contempt. I could see dark swirling hair where the seams separated down his thighs, and again over his calves. He began giving little rhythmic shoves. Something squeaked. Shove: squeak. Shove: squeak. Steel no longer resting but rubbing against steel. Parts meant to slide smoothly in and out of each other came into a new contact, a grinding together. Shove: squeak. Shove: squeak. His feet sunk lower and I saw the wires from the sheetrock layer pressed up around them amidst the crumbled debris. Shove: squeak. Shove: squreeaaaakkkk– kkk-kkk-kkk. He sustained pressure that forced something in the door's construction to give way, and now the wall on either side was clearly caving inward. Puffs of plaster squeezed out of the wall and a deep creaking sound, like a ship rolling in high winds, filled the empty darkness. My gut writhed as with horror I realized how strong he really was. Even to come only this far! "I ain't through yet," he wheezed out, again reading my mind. "I'm just starting." His rigid cock stood inches above his waistline and he pressed it against the steel, smearing the door with his precum. "I'm gonna fuck this vault like it ain't never been fucked." His arms tensed, the animals on them squiggling to life once more. Creakkk–kkk– kkkk. The terrible popping from inside the door put my teeth on edge and I saw the satiny surface waver around his hands–they were pressing into the steel! The big lock seemed to sink to the left. The mountainous terrain of his back flattened out as his arms straightened: the lion stretched and the Viking rose to his full height. A rain of dust fell from the top of the door into the crevices and ledges of that heroic back. Those big bolts would surely hold the door in place.... His cock was at least three inches north of his jeans and it strained against the buttons, bulging along its length. His balls clearly pressed out of the denim. He pulled his feet free of the floor and I peered into pits of pulverized concrete where the net of rebar had been bent. Again he moved close to the door and spreading his arms wide he began bucking the door with his hips. He rose up on his toes and his calves pulled the seams apart and the door groaned anew under the pressure. More dust and a light tinkling of stone fracturing under the pressure of his body. His lips moved over the steel, leaving a trail of spit as he tongued the cold steel and then RAMMED his cock into the door, which moved grudgingly back into its frame with a horrid, strangled squeak. He plunged his cock against the door again, loving the constriction of the denim and the doors weakening resistance. Darren breathed deeply and stepped back, the dim light reflected off his glistening pecs, the eagle's wings drawing together for a final flight as he flexed. Suddenly his hands joined and rose above his head. With a terrifying cry he brought them down on defenseless steel and the boom echoed. He hit again with enough force to send tremors across the bank, and pencils jiggled in their holders. Again he beat his joined fists into the door and it began to cave inward, the light swimming off the deepening crease just off-center. "Fuck it!" he screamed and lifting a foot, kicked the door. His jeans shredded across his quad and the thrust forced the door inches inward. Plants swung from the ceiling and upright folders fell off desks. Again he snarled and kicked, folding the vault door inward as the holding bars squealed in their tracks and pulled out of the wall. Kicking again and again with merely the one foot sent zigzag cracks out of the wall and across the ceiling. Frustrated by the immense resistance the door still put up, he stepped back and flung his entire body against it. The deep gong joined the crackling of concrete fissures and the shriek of solid fittings and locking bars twisting away from their designed strength. Again he threw his shoulder into the door and fold deepened as the hinges pulled out of their beds and the door sank further back. Yet again he battered the solid steel door with his hardened muscle body and the tormented metal groaned as he crushed it inward. With one last sonic BOOM his legs powered him into the crippled vault and the door crashed to the hard floor, rocking across its indentation as concrete dust and metal shavings flew through the air. The locking bars twisted like Medusa's snakes down the side of the twisted door and the inside of the jamb was ripped open by the explosion, exposing ragged concrete and torn rebar. Darren lay over the door, his cock bursting his jeans and shooting come as he rubbed it into the crease he created with his muscle. Come spurted and puddled and smeared across his chest as he rode the broken barrier like a whore. Rising up on his knees, he squeezed the last cupful of come out and let it flow down the length of the shaft onto his balls. Come dripped off his thick nipples as they stuck a good inch off his narrow torso. He kept stroking his meat and jerking, a look of sublime ecstasy on his face. As his body convulsed with pleasure, the door beneath him groaned anew: his legs pressed down, flattening it out against the floor. Despite my terror my own cock was aching and throbbing and I pressed my hand against it. Darren picked himself up and dusted himself off. Facing him was our last security device: the money was stored in smaller locked safes, each about four feet high, lining the walls in the low room. I didn't tell him they had been largely emptied earlier that day, with only enough cash on hand, spread among the safes, for routine transactions and filling the ATM. I was scared enough by the look on his face. "Shit!" He stamped his foot, causing the floor to spiderweb and the safes to jiggle. "Which one is the money in?" He glared at me and clinched my fists. I fell involuntarily onto my knees as if blown down by his fury. "A–all of them. It's spread out. In all of them." His eyes glinted cold in the fluorescence. He kept staring at me until I trembled, struggling to remain composed but faltering, failing. We heard the first siren and his nostrils flared. Quietly in that smokey voice he said, "I thought I told you to disarm the alarms." "I– I did. But you made enough noise for an army." My cock started to harden again as he smiled knowingly and said, softly, again, "I know." And then, to himself, "I know." He walked straight over to two of them and without stopping rammed his fists into the front along the edge. The heavy-gauge steel scrunched beneath his power and my cock jerked up against my leg. His hands grappled with the steel and forced it apart so that he could grab the hold of interior wall of the safe and jerk them backward. The lion roared and the Viking bellowed and the two safes ripped loose from the wall and skidded back to the crumpled vault door, each over half a ton. Grabbing one he twisted around and began pounding the wall with it, faster and faster. The steel remained rigid for a moment but the impacts started to flatten and deform it. The wall cracked and grated, concrete chipping and crumbling, soon exposing a thick steel girder. The chopping of helicopter blades came in through the open vault door and flashing lights penetrated the darkness. The hollow steel made no headway against the girder and time was running out. Darren dropped it and began digging into the wall beside it with his hands. I had no doubt he could have gotten through the girder as well but he had no time. He pounded rebar with his fist and the wall gave beneath his clawing fury; I flattened myself against the safes to escape the flying debris that had the vault of safes ringing like a belfry. A streetlamp shot a beam onto the vault floor, a beam which widened as chunks of broken cement rained out of the funnel-shaped hole. With grunts he began pushing and I heard the exterior brickwork loosen from its mortar's hold and clink down into the alley. With quiet determination he continued to break down the vault wall, burrowing through two feet of reinforced concrete, battering it wider with his arms, stone crushed beneath his brawn. His cock rose to half mast with the effort. When the hole was wide enough a squad car pulled into the alley and Darren went back to the two safes. Sticking his fingers inside the hold and gripping so hard the metal crushed under his fingers, he rammed his way through to the outside and stood there a moment, tattoos veiled in white dust and bleeding slightly from a few scratches. He held the two safes, one a battered lump, motionlessly beside him, their combined weight over a ton, defying gravity. A bullhorn shouted at he but he turned toward the squad car. Shots fired and ricocheted off the safes he used as shields. He got to the cruiser and kicked it hard. The grilled smashed inward and the car skidded back on it brakes, toppling the cops shooting from behind the doors. Steam burst out of the bent- up hood as the car slid into the street, where an minivan smashed into the rear end. Darren laughed and ran down the street, safes aloft, shredded jeans flapping off his hard ass as his darkly tinted muscles worked the street lighting into coruscated shadows. From what I understand, he outran the helicopter. And me? I got a promotion for surviving the kidnaping. I swore it was an assault rifle gun the cops saw in his pants. And I still jerk off about five times a day, thinking about it. THE END chipmasterson@yahoo.com