How long would it take him to beg for enough money to get him some food, and where would he sleep?

Jason didn’t like the idea, but he didn’t see what other choice he had. He sat on the rim of the pool and untied his shoes, which he slipped off, followed by his socks, which were full of holes. Looking nervously around him to see if the cop was lurking nearby, he untied the rope holding up his pants, and stripped down to his boxers. He stared at the coins on the bottom of the pool, but couldn’t get himself to step in. Several long moments passed.

“Well, am I going to eat, or not?” he told himself. With a yell, he jumped and landed in the pool with a splash. Every single droplet of water felt like a shard of dry ice on his bare legs. He waded through the pool, scooping up coins with his numb fingers and throwing them onto the concrete walkway. His teeth chattered uncontrollably, battering each other hard enough he feared that he might chip them. A thin coin lying on a flat surface underwater was devilishly tricky to pick up, especially with numb hands, but he waded through the pool despite the goosebumps on his legs, and the excruciating numbness in his fingers and toes.

Jason decided that even if he didn’t get every last coin, he couldn’t take the cold anymore, not to mention that his back ached from being stooped over. At least he had enough change to get himself something to eat. He stepped out of the pool, and his whole body shook with the cold. Jason needed to dry off, or he might die of pneumonia. Seizing the newspaper from the wastebasket, he opened up the pages and scrubbed himself. After the paper was wet enough that it tore, he grabbed a wadded napkin and a hot dog wrapper from the trash, ignoring the bits of mustard he smeared over his legs as he dried himself off. He quickly put on his pants, but struggled to tie the knot at his waistband. It wasn’t any easier for him to slip his tattered socks over his feet, and once he got his shoes on, he eventually gave up on trying to tie them.

Remembering Lou’s Diner, he headed back in that direction. His teeth still chattered, but the faster he walked, the warmer he felt. When he arrived at the diner he plopped down into the seat. As hungry as he was, he felt as happy at the prospect of seeing the beautiful waitress as he was eager to have dinner. She smiled, only now she wore a sweater that failed to hide her large breasts. “What can I get ya?”

“I’ll have the meatloaf and a cup of coffee, please.” Jason huffed into his hands again.

“Comin’ right up.” She pirouetted, displaying her toned calves, and called out the order.

He removed the damp coins from his pocket and set them onto the Formica counter. He used a shaky finger to rake the coins into piles so he could count them. He counted three times, and by the time he was finished counting, she brought his order and set it in front of him.

“Sorry, but I’m a dime short.” Jason checked his pocket quickly to see if he missed a coin.

“No problem. Each cup of coffee comes with a free refill. You had only one cup this afternoon, so we’ll call this your refill.” She rested her slim hand on his forearm for a moment, which sent a current through him.

Someone that pretty didn’t have to be that nice, he thought. He slathered ketchup on the meatloaf, and with his first bite realized that he had no idea that meatloaf could be so delicious. The feeling of warmth in his hands as he held the coffee cup was a welcome relief, and he desperately needed the caffeine. He devoured the meatloaf, and was tempted to lick the plate, but he figured he was already at the fringe of polite society, so he refrained.

“Joe says he’s got some meatloaf left in the pan, but it’s not enough for an order,” she told him, as if she knew how powerfully hungry he was, and as though it wasn’t a transparent ruse to give food to a broke bum. She slid another plate in front of him, with a slice of meatloaf that was hardly smaller than the one he just wolfed down. “No sense throwing it out.”

“Thanks, you’re a real sweetheart.” Joe looked at her bright eyes and forgot about the cold, his hunger, and his poverty for a moment. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Your quarter tip already did that,” she said as she topped off his coffee cup. “It’s funny: you just never know who’s going to tip.”

Jason nodded with his mouth full, hoping he didn’t come across as rude. He finished his second plate of meatloaf and sipped the last of his coffee as he tried to figure out what to do next. He was surprised that he had a sense of accomplishment, because the thought of being homeless would have terrified him earlier, but now he felt a growing confidence that he could survive, and his situation wasn’t as dire as he feared.

“Good night,” he said as he rose from the counter, and would have tipped her if he hadn’t spent his last cent.

“Good night,” she echoed, looking up at him with a smile as she removed his dishes.

Jason decided to return to the spot on the sidewalk where he began. He removed the cup from his pocket to clean it as he walked through the crowd on the sidewalk, some of whom moved with him, while others moved in the opposite direction. Cars cruised down the street, and he smelled a hot dog cart. Now that it was nighttime, the city was lit up by neon lights, and rows of bulbs or lamps in conical shades illuminating billboards with advertisements for Bromo Seltzer, Victrola, and Ford Motors. He polished the cup with his coat as he strolled, and was holding it out to examine it, when someone dropped a dollar into the cup. Incredulous at his luck, he removed the dollar to see that it was genuine before slipping it into his pocket. He turned around to thank the gentleman, but the crowd moved on, and the donor never turned to look behind him.

“Thanks!” he yelled, and he hoped whoever was that generous would hear him as the crowd surged past him.

When he reached his spot on the sidewalk across the street from the theater, he noticed that a cardboard refrigerator box lay there. One of the corners had been sliced with a box cutter from top to bottom, so that he could lift up one side and see that it was unoccupied. He sat on the sidewalk, and set his cup down, then raised the one side of the box and stretched out inside. He dropped the flap down to cover himself, but the cardboard did little to shield him from the cold wind. Jason felt like taking off his shoes, but his feet were too cold.

He curled up to preserve the warmth of his body, which made his knees stick out of the box. A horrifying thought suddenly struck him: if his grandfather could create a video game, it wouldn’t be a badass game with machine guns, helicopters, tanks, rockets, commandos with jetpacks, grenades, fast cars, scantily clad women in bikinis at the casino, and explosions. No, if his grandfather created a video game, it would be exactly as shitty as this. But he shook his head and dismissed the thought.

Jason tried to sleep, but couldn’t. Not only was it cold, by the hard sidewalk pressed into his hip blade, even through the cardboard. Then there was movement at the side of his box, and he slid back, raising his hands to defend himself. A Japanese woman with a cute round face peered into his box. She displayed her palms to him as a gesture to indicate that she was not a threat. She slid up beside him, only lower, and ran her hand over the front of his pants. The woman with the almond eyes and short hair searched for his member until she found it, then pinched it between her fingers and rubbed it. His fleshy tube began to swell with blood and thicken. She rubbed her hand over his stiffening tool while she used her other hand to untie the rope that held up his pants, until she was forced to use both hands to unfasten it. She unzipped his pants and slipped them down, which allowed his erection to rise up through the slit in his boxers.

Despite the cold, the woman’s hand was warm. She stroked his rod and aimed the knob at her mouth, while the fingers of her other hand dug into his boxers until they found his balls and began to roll them like eggs in a sack filled with oil. He sighed when her mouth engulfed him—it was the warmest sensation he had felt all day. She shuttled her hand quickly over his shaft, using a light touch of her fingertips, building a delicious tickling sensation as she rapidly slid the loose skin of his cock up and down. The tickling of her delicate ministrations was coupled with a firm suction of her mouth, as though she were eager to suck his thick milk out through his slit. The hand at his balls now kneaded the base of his shaft, urging his juice to flow upward.

The rapid movement of her fingertips moved closer to the frenulum beneath the hard dome of his cockhead and he felt his groin tighten. His hips rose from the cardboard to meet her mouth, which she withdrew so that she could flick her tongue over his slit, anticipating the flood she was about to unleash. He trembled and groaned, until he climaxed, and began ejaculating into her mouth. She suddenly stopped the motion of her hand, but softly gripped his spurting organ with her fingertips, holding still while it contracted rhythmically. She sucked in every jet of his cum, waiting patiently until his last spasm, and still she sucked while gluey beads oozed from the tiny mouth at the end of his knob.

She swallowed with a gulp, and tucked him back into his boxers, zipped him up, and retied the rope at his waist. Without a word, she slipped out of the cardboard box. He heard her footsteps move down the sidewalk.

“That came out of nowhere,” he thought, and he reflected on how sad it was that his sex life was better as a homeless bum than as a school teacher.

He felt a sensation of peace, and was about to drift off to sleep when he heard organ music, or an accordion, music that was cheerfully upbeat despite the cold and the darkness. The music grew closer and louder, until it seemed to be parked right outside of his box. The same song played insistently, and he realized that it was directed at him, and would not stop until he answered.