i'd seen him around before, but couldn't remember his name, then all of a sudden it came to me: vernon. i had to suppress a smile when i thought that, vernon still conjures up fishing and lunenburg for me but here he was at the studio. funny, i'd never thought he'd be here. i'd seen him at the art-rave once, collaborate-painting this big canvas with swirls of green acrylic. a friend of a friend. he'd stuck out in my mind because he was the first asian skinhead i'd ever seen then. i thought he was chinese but i guess his last name was nguyen so he was vietnamese. and there he was at the studio, on the dance floor, sweating out to some techno or other. he was still a sharp, like andrew, and delicious thoughts of andrew bubbled up when i looked at him. the two couldn't have been more different. andrew was about six- seven, a blue-eyed white-headed shining soul gentler than fog. vernon was short, slight. he undulated out there, the trance belting out from behind my head and i nodded slowly, watching his thighs as he swirled away from me. hot night, i was sticking to myself as i moved in my chair, turning away, and then a voice at my shoulder, loud over the speaker "i remember you, but not your name..." "craig," i replied, "you're vernon, i was looking at you on the floor." i rested my hand on his lower back, he didn't seem to mind. what must he think, i thought, he so slight and clean and smooth and small and me, short hair but sideburns and gruff smoke-voice breathing on his neck. he sat, careful not to jostle my hand, then decided against it and leaned on the bar overlooking barrington street. my hand rested on his belt, a big chunky strap of leather broken well into middle age. he wiped his head as i had an idea, drew my handkerchief from my breast pocket and wiped his brow, mopping his sweat and then my own. he looked at me, and it was odd because not many look up like that into my eyes. i ran my hand through his jet hair and felt it, slick leaving grease on my knuckles. "let's cool off," he said, and i followed him, having no idea what he meant. he opened a door and mounted a stair, me under him now, head level with him. he opened another door. an apartment? i was surprised but realised as i saw what must have been his art on the walls (same green swirls, same big canvases) that he lived here. above the studio? weird. it was cool though, he had a window air-con that blew his wet hair back as he stood in front of it and motioned, behind his head, with a hand. come hither. or, enjoy the cold air... fine, i went up to him and felt so strange as the air cut into my face like jagged ice-blades, icicles on my eyebrows. i didn't stop, i walked right up to him, looking at that little-boy-ass in front of me and his shoulders, thin and defined through his white shirt stuck like clear-coat on his arms and back. i walked right into him. that belt again, massive resting on thin hips. he smelled at this range, and it was clean sweat, no cigarette- tar and hair-follicle-oil body reek like mine must have been, and i puckered my tongue into my lips and ran a wet, wet kiss over his soaking neck. he said nothing, just "hi craig" so soft i thought it might be someone else behind me. that belt had to go. it bothered me more than it might have, i thought it had no right to be wrapped around such a small waist and i hoped that it didn't hide a hairless boy's body, that frightening half-remembered thing from so long ago. the buckle was already gone, the belt hanging over his hipbones, and i reached inside under his shirt and felt coarse stomach-hair over flesh anvil-hard and cliff-straight and i kissed again, bit him at the tip of his shoulder-blade, muscling my tongue in circles against him. still in front of the air-conditioner, cold air blasting on my bare forehead giving me an ice-cream headache, i stripped him slowly, he didn't move, he hardly breathed, he didn't wear shorts and when those too-large jeans fell (button, button, button, button) to the floor a perfect little penis smacked my palm and i was so surprised i moved my hand away, he turned around, he pressed it into me, slowly, hard cock to clothed crotch melting down harder, still more. under his clothes, his skin was darker and even in bright halogen light he wore battle fatigues when naked, black hair like decorations on his nipples. Here, the smell was still clean but I only kissed his neck, working it over and over as his head twitched when i knotted my tongue with his arteries. i pressed him to me, feeling this light-hard body against my clothes. "ok?" i couldn't help asking because his eyes were closed and so help me god, he looked like a scared seventeen in front of me, nude in my arms like the model on the west wall. "ok." here he was, the perfect little southern boy of chinese lore, and he moved my hand back to his ass, moving it within the cleft. those buns were exactly that, oven-warm and resilient like a baker's life-work, and he grabbed my other hand, wet it, rolled his tongue and teeth over my fingers as if they really were fingers, not like burly white/black boys who take them as if they were my cock. bless this young man, i thought, he knows my hands are hands, and i felt him nibble the tiny webs by the palm and a rush went over me as his lips let go. the only place he had no muscle turned out to be his pubic bone, i let out a long yeagh of a sigh as i pressed one hand into it, his ass at my hipbone, and those three wet fingers pressed and fought for precedence in that warm cleft, he yielded, easily, and with fingers crossed for eternal luck-protection, finger-fucking him without barriers, pushed through and he cried to the skies, sobbing upper-body twirling round as i held his basket and pushed my arm towards his ass, and loved this. i kissed his scalp, bare to the world like a temple monk, and loved him with these stubby fingers. again. once more, and then he cried again as i pulled away roughly, feeling the contraction as i left his tender-tough body and the whoosh of air around me reminded me where i stood. "i know why you did that," he said sharp, breathing hard, and he scrabbled at me, my shirt still on, my fly open, me still in my shoes, and as he stripped the rest of my cover away he ran my cock (hard, upward...) over his angular face, into his nose, his hair, grazing his ear, pausing to remove the woollen trousers until he plunged in again, his rough small mouth making me jump as he attacked my foreskin. and when i said "vernon" he knew, and now, gentle, rolled that condom on with his quick lips, small mouth distorted around my thickness, even so those words are unmistakeable. "i'm ready" was what he said, his mouth against my root. through his pausing, i looked at the green swirls of forest against his wall, he moved his head away, then touches his forehead to my balls, then his words, soft, "yes. fuck me."