Later this week. Twilight. Closer to the dark than not. Sticky-hot. Eighty-eight degrees thanks to global warming. I get this bright idea to borrow a tool from Tool. Why not? What do I have to lose? Maybe a screwdriver. Maybe a handsaw. Maybe a wrench. I have yet to decide. Maybe when I’m face to face with the stud I’ll make up my mind and tell him what I need ... What every gay man needs from a Tool. Until this moment arises, I ...

I don’t know why I’m attracted to Tool. Is it his bulging muscles, his handsome face, or his unique mysteriousness? Maybe it’s all the above. I’m sure. How can I not be sure? Never have I been into a tool. Never. Not one in my life. I’m more into thin geeks with glasses and no muscles. Weaklings. Book types. Men who read nonfiction. Men who are bright with high IQs and are usually weak. I’m drawn to men with bowties, electrified brains, and Harvard scholars with nicely pressed shirts. I like gangly types who understand chemical reactions, fractions, and how the planets sometimes line up among the spacious stars. Never ... never have I been sexually attracted to, or chemically dependent on, or interested in, a tool. Not once.

Until now.

Now.

But Tool has this magnetism about him that I don’t fully understand. His broad shoulders. His summer suntan. Hair that hangs in his eyes. His beaming eyes. His chiseled chest. The treasure trail above the lip of his jeans. His corded biceps. His firm nipples. The pumped lump of pipe in his jeans between his legs. His thick thighs and ...

He has a pull that causes my balance to go askew, slip left, slip right, off kilter. A hungry draw that prompts me to dress in a short-short pair of running shorts -- I’m a whore, such a bad little whore, a toy that wants to be played with, needed, wanted, desired, kiss me, press against me against something and do what you will with me, press inside me, pull on my dick, pump me with you, let me play with your dick, shame on me, because I’m a dirty dirty dirty dirty little whore -- and no shirt this evening. And I become animalistic and brave and daring and step out of my comfort zone, and strut over to his uncle’s property.

I walk down the sidewalk and pass the battered gym set and the large tire that Tool uses to work out with. Behind the garage is Craig Danning’s red-brick saltbox; a mirror image of my place. To the left of the house is the garage. I walk to the front of the garage, which I can’t see from my living room window, find myself inside the garage, and discover Tool half-hidden behind the Nova, sweaty and bare-chested, nipple-hard and caught off guard by my sudden, unannounced visit.

Oops, my bad. What have I done?

I’ve interrupted you on purpose. Haven’t I? Shame on me.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

I’m such a bad bad bad bad next door neighbor.

He looks up from his cell phone. “Lance. What brings you over here?”

Nervously, he fumbles his phone in his hands and immediately turns it off. Before he shuts it off, I see a half naked dude on its glowing screen: muscular, hard-packed, no shirt, hairy-chested like me, suntanned and golden brown like me, blond like me, blue-eyed like me, Caribbean Sea backdrop behind the sun-dude’s frame, lemon-colored bikini covering hard junk shaped like a banana. Filth. Absolute filth on his phone.

Oh my God, what have I walked in on?

“I need to borrow a tool, Mike. It’s Mike, right? Mike Danning?”

Lost in the garage’s shadows, does he push away a boner inside his shorts? I think so, but I’m not sure. What else would he be pushing away? Nothing that I can imagine.

What? What? What? What do I walk in on?

Is he getting busy with himself before my arrival? Does the boner boy on his cell phone turn him on? Was he getting ready to jack out a load to the filth on his phone just before my arrival? Probably, by the looks of it. Actually, I have no doubt.

Someone’s uncomfortable. He clears his throat, shifts left in his chair, shifts right.

I see right through his gig. I’ve done this move before. Many times. I’m a guy. I’ve had a boner before. Many times. I know what he’s doing: buying some time to deflate the blood-filled erection between his legs. Getting his shit together. Acting like he wasn’t getting off to a picture of some hot dude on his phone.

He fakes a cough, which sounds ridiculous. Totally bad acting. B-rated stuff. “Yes… Yes, it’s Mike Danning. What tool do you need?”

“A wrench.”

He has his composure together. Finally. He quickly rattles off, “Pipe, open-end, box, socket, ratcheting, crescent ... Which kind?”

Jesus. I’m pretty clueless about wrenches. I have no idea there can be so many to choose from. Maybe I should have done my homework on such a tool before slipping over here? “Ahh ... Crescent. Yeah ... that should do the trick.”

“What size?”

I have no fucking idea and guess, “Four-inch.”

He stands and I see a shadowy bulge at his center, under his thigh-tight jeans. He’s definitely semi-hard ...