the sweet smell of decay

some of us got together and decided to buy
an old mental hospital that we found in the woods.
it was in pretty bad shape.
some walls had collapsed.
there was water damage.
the forest had worked its way right into
the central lawn and up against the
main complex of buildings.
we contributed what we could.
a penny here, a nickel there.
it wasn't much of a down payment, but the
current owners didn't seem very set on the particulars.
we told them we'd get the rest of the money from the bank.
we told the bank we were going to turn
the place into a luxury hotel out there in the middle
of the wilderness with a five-star restaurant
and top-quality service.
the bank was most agreeable and gave
us the necessary funds.
i'm afraid some of us didn't work very hard to whip
the place into shape.
some of us spent most of the days just wandering
in the woods, looking at the signs of decay.
there was an old wall way out way away from
the main complex that didn't seem to be there for anything.
it was crumbly and big, and old vines and trees wriggled
all over it.
some of us spent a lot of time in our rooms, trying to
get things organized and livable.  ironically,
some of the rooms were already in really good
shape when we took over the place.
nice furniture, no mildew, good-looking carpets,
bathrooms immaculate and no rust stains,
those rooms went fast, there was kinda a stampede
on those rooms,
my old college roommate and i got one of those
rooms, he mostly wanted it for himself, but
decided he wasn't going to get rid of me
very easily, so he'd just accept the situation,
some of us tried to learn to cook, but
we weren't very good at it. some of
us spent a lot of time sweeping the hallways,
some of us really were good with hammers and
saws and sanders and power-tools and they
made a lot of progress. my old college
roommate was among that group,
i was kinda with the floor sweepers, kinda
with the guys who went out by themselves
and wandered in the woods on nice
days, sometimes one of us would run
into the other one and we'd take off
all our clothes and lie down beside
each other and we'd jerk off together,
talking admiringly, yet, with just a tinge
of bitterness, about the guys who were doing
the sawing and sanding and power-tool
using. then we'd get dressed and wander off
on our separate ways, and eventually
we'd end up back at the old mental
hospital. my old college roommate
was having less and less use for
me, he worked hard all day and
his muscles were getting bigger
and he was sore and cranky.
he was making noises that i should
do more work or move out. i kept out
of his way as much as possible,
and, in fact, i really did start doing
my work better, those hallways were
constantly clean and looked real darn good,
but i was still a little leery of him, and
for quite a few weeks i had developed
the habit of coming in late when he was already
asleep in his bed and watching
him sleep, occasionally he slept
on his back with just a sheet
over him and his big erect dick
lifted the sheet well above his
belly and it just kinda bounced
lightly with the pulse of his erection.
eventually the renovation was done.
we hired a really good chef and
a whole crew to run the restaurant.
guests began to come down the
old winding road through the woods and to
eat in the restaurant and to spend
the night in rooms in our old renovated
mental hospital. sometimes guests would
go out walking in the woods. sometimes
a solitary guest would go out alone,
and one afternoon a few of us
happened upon a guest all alone in the woods
and we asked him if he wanted to
take off all of his clothes and jerk off
with us and he said yes. he was
only 17 or 18 yrs old and he was
very very beautiful, with a really
big monstrous cock, and we all
paid quite a lot of attention to
him as he stripped and jerked off.
it was enjoyable, there in the
deep dark woods watching him
and each other jerking off,
although he was by far the
most fun to watch. he had
a great face and lots of muscles
and his fully erect cock was very thick and
probably at least 11 inches long,
maybe longer.
i think everybody came two or three
times that day. then we all got
dressed and went our different
ways and all arrived back at
the old mental hospital by separate
routes. the next day, the cute boy who had jerked
off with us left along with his parents.
the weeks went by. those who
sawed and sanded and
used power-tools called meetings
and told us we were making
a nice profit, that things were
going well, our duties became
more systematic, it was acknowledged, for instance,
in fact, my old college roommate said it quite
eloquently, that i was an excellent sweeper
of the halls, that i kept them really clean,
and that i should be assigned that duty
permanently. i flushed bright red
as he talked, and that night, when he
was asleep on his back, and i was watching
his big erect cock lift his nice white
sheet above his nice flat belly,
i pulled down the sheet very very carefully
and just as it cleared his thighs, he
opened his eyes, and he told me that if
i wanted it that bad, go ahead,
give him a nice slow handjob, and
that's what i did, he came all over his
belly and i wiped it off of him with a
nice warm soapy wash rag from our
bathroom, and then i rinsed his belly
with fresh water, and then i dried
his belly, and pulled the sheet
back over him and he went to sleep
in his bed and i went to sleep in my
bed, after first jerking myself off
as silently as possible, i don't think
my old college roommate heard
a thing.  weeks went by.
profits were up. we all had
food and a roof over our heads
and sometimes nobody did
hardly any work and in spite
of the fact that those who sawed
and sanded and used power-tools
held meetings and yelled at various
ones of us, it was noted that
sometimes the power-tool guys
didn't do all that much work themselves
on certain days, there was
general dissatisfaction from
the kitchen, the head chef quit,
and went to another job, and took
most of his staff with him,
there was a general feeling
of tension about the place,
the old mental hospital was
not attracting the customers
it once did, sometimes there
were days when there were
no guests at all, and some
of us fixed sandwiches for ourselves
and for everybody else, and sometimes
everybody had to fix their own
sandwiches, my old college
roommate started spending
a lot of time just laying about
the room and sometimes
he lay on his bed stark naked
and expected me to give
him handjobs without even
being asked to, i wasn't
liking him as much as i used
to, and sometimes i didn't
even come back to the room
at night, but lay near the old
wall way out in the woods,
listening to things move amongst
the fallen leaves in the darkness,
sometimes i took off all my
clothes and lay there spread
eagle on the leaves staring
up into the sky, there were
tears in my eyes, and as
the night wore on, i would
make growling sounds in
my throat to answer the
growling sounds i occasionally
heard around me, and then
i'd get dressed and go back
to the room and shower,
eventually my old college roommate
left the old mental hospital altogether,
and i had the room to myself,
for a period of time
there were no more guests at all
at the old mental hospital,
except one night the 17-or-18
yr-old guy who had jerked off
with us in the woods came back
and some of us ended up jerking
off with him in the old shock-therapy
room while we smeared jergens
body lotion all over him,
he left that same night,
his eyes were wild and
the tip of his tongue was
between his lips, eventually
there were only a few of us left in
the old mental hospital in the woods,
we ate coldcuts and bread,
one of the power-tool guys
was evidently pretty rich and a little off his
rocker, and he kept on
funding the place, but there
were no extravagances, it
was pretty basic, out there
in the woods. sometimes,
growling in the night alone
in my room, i heard others
growling, too, sometimes
i'd creep outside the door
of somebody i heard growling,
and then i'd try the doorknob,
generally it wouldn't open,
but sometimes it would,
and i'd go on in, and we'd
just sit down together, and
we'd talk about what
was going to happen next,
and we wouldn't have a clue,
we'd say we missed the good
ole days when there were
lots of guests and the restaurant
was still operating, and i'd confess
that i felt like everything was
going to hell, we were all
in one big long tailspin that
we were never going to get out
of, often the guy whose room i
happened to be in at the moment
would agree, and then sometimes
we'd just lay there not saying
a word, too tired to lift a finger,
too tired for much of anything,
eventually the power-tool guy
with the money moved out,
winter was coming, food
was running low, but
we stayed on anyway,
and every now and then,
guests still came, not
of the quality we were used to,
and not in the numbers we'd
once grown to expect,
but we were constantly surprised
by what people were looking for
out there in the middle of
the woods, our old mental
hospital looming grey and sinister
there in the clearing,
exactly what they are looking for
has never been readily apparent
to any of us, certainly not to me
anyway, and they tolerate questionable conditions
far better than i'd have
ever expected.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem also appears in my book String Bean, published by BareBackPress in 2018. The poem first appeared in my book Shy Boys at Home, published by Chiron Review Press in 1999. It also appeared in The Commonline Journal, June 12, 2015.)