Pilat could still remember his first alone time with the boss.
It had been the night of the big Fujiomi Central Bank heist. Everything the then-greenhorn Pilat had expected to see in a mob celebration was in the warehouse that night...Ox had brought over hookers, Skunk had broke out bottles of liquor with price tags in the three digits, and Vito had brought out a selection of narcotics that frankly no one knew how he'd gotten into the country. At that moment, the guys had made a pyramid of empty bottles, and Skunk was standing at a distance playing target practice. The pistol wavered in front of his bleary eyes, and as he bit his lip, he blasted the bottle on the top of the pyramid to pieces.
As the bottle pile collapsed, Skunk and the men around him exploded with raucous laughter. Pilat was frankly terrified, and he sat in the warehouse kitchen, staring at everything taking place out there. It almost reminded him of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
He turned back to the portable TV, gripping his can of beer. Pilat had co-opted a six pack for himself that night. The way he saw it, just because the rest of the gang was doing shit like eating women out on the stairwell, it didn't mean he couldn't party on his own.
A sudden presence broke Pilat away from the TV; the boss had entered the kitchen, hands dripping in something. He began washing his hands at the sink, hazy, until he looked over his shoulder.
"Aw hey, kid!" Skunk slurred. "You're alone in here?"
"Y-Yeah..." Pilat took a drink. "I just wanted my own pace, uh..."
Skunk nodded and turned off the taps. He wiped his hands on his slacks, and hobbled over to the TV. With a chuckle, he asked, "What's on?"
Pilat looked back to the TV. "Um, some documentary on horse racing. It's-"
He was cut short when he realized the boss had put a hand on his shoulder. The boss was hunched over now, waving gently where he stood, and Pilat was struck by how warm his presence was.
"Fuckin' nerd," Skunk laughed, stepping away. He gave Pilat a firm, coach-like pat on the back, and stepped away to the fridge. "Nice to see one guy who ain't out there chasin' tail with the others..."
It took Pilat a moment to catch up. He shook his head and sat back, saying, "Nah, I'm...I'm not interested in, uh..."
Skunk leaned against the doorway. Pilat didn't know whether or not he should relax, but when he glanced up, he found the boss was smirking, one eyebrow cocked.
"G-Girls," Pilat sputtered. "I'm gay."
"Oh, I got it," Skunk nodded sloppily. "Nothin'...wrong with swingin' that way, y'know? Keep it under wraps, but y'know what...?"
"What?" Pilat was becoming quickly comforted by the boss's candid state.
"I swing...both ways, like..." Skunk rapidly pointed a finger side-to-side, in a drunken man's interpretation of a swingset. Pilat nodded back, a little in awe at the sudden open moment.
"I got it, too."
"Hah, yeah..." Skunk leaned back against the doorway. "It ain't easy findin' guys like us in this town, huh?"
"Oh man, definitely." Pilat, now starting to loosen up, began telling his own personal story. "Like, back when I worked at the bar, I'd have guys come in but I wouldn't know if th-"
"You wanna make some time this evenin'?"
Pilat sprung up in shock. "Do I what?"
Skunk looked down at him with a put-on Elvis-esque smirk. A moment of silence passed between them, and Skunk, acting as if he were trying to talk to a space alien, waved a hand and said, "You know, kid, some bump an' grind, just a couple a' guys, needin' a..."
His voice had become hushed, almost embarrassed. As he trailed off, he struggled to put into words whatever he wanted to say; the boss gave up and made a stiff pelvic thrust towards the fridge.
"I'm...I'm good," Pilat stammered, aware his face was turning pink. "You're drunk, anyway. I-I wouldn't wanna be...you know..."
Skunk grinned, "Ah, you're some kinda fuckin' gentleman! If you say so, man..."
He tousled Pilat's hair, and then began walking out of the kitchen. As horses brayed on the TV, Pilat made himself look at the floor. The boss suddenly stopped and turned to the smaller man.
"You want anythin' from Ice Palace? A burger even?"
"Nah, I'm good. Be safe, boss."
"Right-o," he slurred, leaving.
It was that same night that the boss and two of his men were arrested at an ice cream joint. One of the servers recognized one of the henchmen, of all people, and called the police. Pilat didn't see any of them for five months.
Skunk had been charged with a whole load of shit...some charges were years overdue, some charges the gang didn't even see coming. Possession of a controlled substance, 67 counts of robbery, endangering an officer, obstruction of justice – the last of which came from his refusal to rat out the rest of the gang, no matter how many years the cops offered to take off his sentence. There was a whole media circus around the arrests; Pilat would be walking up the street to a restaurant when he'd see Skunk's grinning face plastered across the front page of every newspaper. It gave him a sense of loneliness he couldn't describe.
Ox was a fine enough leader in the meantime, but in a way, he was far more practical. Things in the gang became a job more than anything else. Pilat lost interest in staying at the warehouse right after Skunk went to prison, instead renting a bachelor's suite two blocks away. It was a shitty little dive, but it was quiet. He spent evenings driving the gang around, and at the end of the month, Ox would fudge an official-looking paystub; they were stamped Oakridge Mobility Corp.
There was one afternoon when Ox called Pilat's apartment. The younger man picked up and couldn't get a word in before Ox nearly shouted. "Get the keys."
"What's up?" Pilat learned to stop asking questions.
"The wolf's free range. Skipped the histrionics and we need to bring him home."
He understood maybe a third of that. "On the way."
After running down the alley, Pilat found Ox parked down the way in a beat-up, pale blue van. The message was short; get down to one of their safehouses on the edge of town. Skunk had bailed from a parole hearing somehow, and the two guys who'd gone to prison with him were loose. One was leaving the country and the other was staying with his mother, but it didn't matter. The boss was out, and Pilat was the least suspicious-looking man in the gang who could drive. It all felt panicked and cold, but work was work.
The safehouse turned out to be a little beat-up shack in the hills. A retired gang member lived there, and while he now drove shipping trucks for a living, he'd seen Skunk shambling around in the night, still in handcuffs. Skunk was now resting in the old man's kitchen until someone could come down there. It was an hour-long drive, but when Pilat finally got there, it was well after dark. Pilat parked the van on the hill up to the old man's shack, and like he'd been told, he honked the horn twice. He left the ignition on, with a sense that he wouldn't be staying long.
The front door flung open. Skunk emerged, waving warmly at a paunchy old man Pilat could just barely see. Pilat shifted gears while the boss flung himself in through the passenger's side door, and within seconds, they were back out on the country road.
"Damn," Skunk began, fondly. "I hadn't seen Tetsuhara in years, and what are the odds he- kid! You're looking good!"
Pilat looked away from the wheel, beaming. "Aw boss, I'm just glad you're back!"
"How was Ox, eh?" Skunk sat back, his seatbelt still undone. He draped an arm along the long front seat they were seated upon.
"Boring," Pilat sighed. "The most we did was import some more uncensored porn mags. They sold great, though."
"Good, good..." Skunk looked out at the road. "God, am I glad to be out. I felt like a fucking monk. Tetsu gave me a cigarette and I almost started crying."
Pilat laughed, "You want me to stop off by a liquor store?"
"Nah, Ox is probably on that right now." The boss paused. "You grew your hair out!"
"I kinda forgot to keep it short..." Pilat shook his head, letting the locks of his moptop hair ruffle around. "You were way more on the ball, huh?"
They'd shaved Skunk's hair in prison. It had grown enough out to be short and uniform, with curt bangs. Skunk smirked, "I guess I was due for a cut. I like your hair more, though."
"H-Heh, thanks!"
"It's cute," Skunk drawled. "Bet it's fun to run your fingers through."
Oh geez. Pilat tried to chuckle smoothly, but it came out as an embarrassing giggle.
"How've you been, kid? I honestly missed you in there."
"Y-Yeah?" Pilat was having trouble focusing on the road. "Well, I, uh, turned 23, got a little apartment for the t-time being, started collecting model cars..."
"Nice belt."
"Oh, I-" Pilat glanced down, and felt a chill run down his back. A fledgling erection was just beginning to jut out through his thick corduroy slacks. Horrified, Pilat crossed his legs in a huff while the boss burst into laughter.
"Kid, kid, you're fine...!" Skunk slid closer up the seat. "It happens!"
The boss's arm was now behind Pilat's shoulders. He looked away, ashamed. "So much for a decent "welcome home", huh?"
"Actually..." Skunk placed his right hand on Pilat's thigh. "...This might be turning into a real nice evening for both of us."
Pilat gasped, but forced himself to keep looking at the road. Skunk's hands were long and warm, stroking the younger man's thighs fondly.
"C'mon, kid," Skunk whispered directly into his ear. "Just a couple of guys in the middle of nowhere..."
He breathed, "B-Boss..."
"...All strung out, 'cause one just got outta jail...all primed for some fuckin'...and one hasn't had it off in weeks, I bet..."
"I-I've never done it before," Pilat sputtered. "I...I'd probably be terrible, actually."
He could feel the grin spreading across the boss's face. He cooed, "God-damn kid, that's no problem at all! You find a nice, safe place to park the van, and I show your virgin ass a good time."
Every inch of Pilat's skin felt like it was alive with electricity. He almost stomped on the gas, bringing them closer to a cluster of trees on the edge of a small grove. Skunk started laughing in excitement, and Pilat joined in, too, slamming on the brakes as he yanked the wheel to the side. The van came to a stop in the privacy of the trees, with startled birds fluttering away from the dust billowing from the road.
Pilat yanked the keys out, babbling, "All right. We're good."
"Damn right," said Skunk as he opened the glove compartment. He lit up as he found a travel size bottle of lotion inside, obviously one he'd stashed long ago. He dug a bit further into the compartment and soon pulled out a handful of condom packets, which flapped open like a card wallet. His hands seemed to be shaking, too.
"I am so fucking excited," Pilat said, breathing hard. "I've never g...and, shit, with you! Boss, you're the biggest criminal in Japan!"
"I ain't that big," Skunk smirked, tugging off his prison trousers. "But I hope you like what I've got."
It was nothing less than what Pilat expected. As the van rocked side to side in amid otherwise silence, the two of them brayed and yelled, with Skunk pegging Pilat from behind in the back of the van. An old futon-turned-truck bed liner provided just enough comfort from the stiff chill of the steel below them.
"Yeah! Yeah!" Skunk almost screamed, with a vice-like grip on Pilat's hips. "I'm a free man, baby!"
"Fuck me, boss!" Pilat wailed, being pounded into the futon. "We're on top of the fucking world!"
Both of them were thankful to be in the middle of nowhere.
"I-I, ah, aauuaaaah!" Pilat suddenly howled, his hips bucking as he came. Cum spurted messily onto the futon below him, and Skunk kept going, thrusting into the smaller man until he'd ridden out his own orgasm. He pulled out, and the two fell back onto the floor of the van, dishevelled and stunned.
"C...Creeping Jesus," Skunk mumbled. "I needed that..."
Pilat slowly sat up, almost dizzy, and carefully zipped up his pants. He stuttered, "I...I guess I should ask if it was good for you, too?"
Skunk laughed, hard, and it gave Pilat another little glimmer in his afterglow. Talk about going above and beyond for your boss, he thought.
Another moment passed in silence. Pilat decided to make himself scarce and grabbed the van keys off the floor, before climbing up into the front seat. He started up the van and said, "Well, time to bring you back to freedom, boss."
Skunk still remained in the back. He tied off the condom, paused, and then looked up with a greasy smirk. He said, "Hey, on the way home, pass by the Ice Palace. I wanna throw this at their front window."
Months passed after the encounter. Maybe two, maybe three. But there were times when Pilat just couldn't stop thinking about that evening in the back of the van. The things Skunk had grunted over him would come back, and there were quite a few nights where Pilat remembered them while having it off with himself in the secrecy of his little apartment.
Eventually, the gang had to move, and the lease to that apartment ran out. Most of the gang had taken up refuge in an abandoned concrete factory, with Skunk offering Pilat a small room on the top floor. He later found out that he had been the first henchman to be offered his own room.
There was one night when Pilat stopped by his boss's room at the other end of the hall, initially going to offer him the last cans of some beer. It all went by fast, but Skunk had let him visit and watch TV with him, let him sit on his bed with him, let him lie down with him...
Things snowballed, albeit very slowly. Either Skunk would invite him over for "a few drinks", or Pilat would suggest some fooling around when the two of them were on the road and alone. Nobody else seemed to catch onto the flings, but if they did, they sure didn't care or didn't want to bring it up.
And now, after a few years, the two of them lay together in Skunk's room, now in a new hideout on the edge of Metro City. The blue light of the moon poured in through the window to their right, and some tacky TV movie about cowboys was playing across the room. A man in a black hat got shot and made a ridiculous hoot as he fell from his horse; Skunk chortled briefly at this.
"Mmh..." Pilat rolled over, resting his cheek on Skunk's chest. "...Anything happening tomorrow?"
"Ox bought some new chairs...I might try puttin' them together," mumbled a half-asleep Skunk.
"Heh...sounds like fun..."
"Maybe we'll pick up some bourbon," Skunk continued. "Make it a little more challenging."
Pilat tittered at that. He could sense Skunk was falling sleep, and Pilat sighed against him. Things earlier day had been wild, with some of the men getting into a brief shootout at a donut shop, and Skunk had spent a few hours yelling at them when they eventually got home. Somehow, though, the overall mood had turned around, and it was nothing short of a relief to see the boss this relaxed. Pilat thought about this for a moment, listening to the rhythm of Skunk's breathing; being this close to the boss was something he couldn't have even imagined two years ago. And, now, Pilat felt the safest he'd ever been.
They were still boss and lackey. Sometimes, more often than they suspected, they were lovers. But above all, they were best friends.