Far be it from him to object to a hot meal on a cold night; the freezing air comes through the open driver’s-side window in sharp gusts, making the voice issuing from the pillar-mounted speaker crackle and fade. Cornelius strokes down the metal zipper pull with his fingertips; the old man shifts uneasily against the leather of the driver’s seat. The smell of his skin beneath his clothes is soaped and frowsty, vinegar sweat and soft silken hair — Hickey mouths at him, feeling the pubic hair crunching beneath the poly-cotton of his boxers. Maybe he’s got freckles.

The driver — Francis, Frank — pushes him down against his lap. At first it’s a sexy show of roughness until it registers that this man somehow thinks the stoner working the intercom is able to see them.

“And I want the Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes as well,” Frank says through the rolled-down window, with an admirable firmness. Despite the accent he’s got the same put-upon tones as every other middle manager in the tristate area — Cornelius will have to tell Billy later, maybe throw in a mean-spirited accent impression at work tomorrow if it means they won’t change the locks on him for walking out like he did. No place to go, nothing to do but ride the Metro Line and look thin and interesting — now Hickey’s in the drive-through with a fifty-year-old Irish man with faded ginger hair and an insistently semi-soft cock who wants to buy Hickey a Crunchwrap Supreme. God bless.

“And will that be all?”

Tinny little intercom voice — Francis hesitates, and Hickey mouths at him with gusto, tonguing at the plump balls through the spit-wet cloth. The gear knob is digging into his side, but he’s given blowjobs in worse circumstances than these.

Hickey’s sharp little fingers pluck him free; he takes the man’s fat flagging cock into his mouth, tonguing back the gristly foreskin and hearing him groan. The spit is already starting to run, some Pavlovian reaction to the smell of ground beef frying even after six years a vegan; as Cornelius’ head works up and down on that struggling length he takes no pains to conceal the generous wet smacking sounds of tongue and teeth colliding with fat, leaking old-man cock.

“And a hot coffee,” Francis chokes out, and the car lurches abruptly into drive.

”First window, please.”

Fuck solidarity with fellow retail workers. Let them look.