Naked Men

by Alicia Giménez-Bartlett

  In my experience, if the house you’re going to is kind of crummy, they tend to be super disrespectful and the chicks get way inappropriate: right from the start they’re smooching you and groping your crotch. Then, when it comes time to collect, they’re reluctant to give you the cash and they start haggling . . . totally tacky. If the place is really posh, that’s its own problem: at first they look at you like you’re a turd that’s stuck to their shoe, and when the party starts up, you always get the feeling they see you as one of the help. That’s no fun, and it can really get you down. The best parties are the middle-class ones, where the girls talk to you and ask you if you’ve got siblings, if you like soccer, normal stuff.

  That night, as soon as I switched off the engine, we could hear the noise coming from inside the house: music blasting, shouts, general chaos . . . It’s better that way—we’ll draw less attention when we go in. I was a little worried: if we got too enthusiastic a welcome, this doofus might just take off running. A girl opened the door for us—she was in her late thirties, which is normal at bachelorette parties these days since people are getting married later. She was pretty hot in a body-hugging black minidress.

  “Are you the guys?” she asked like an idiot.

  “No, we’re with the Civil Guard,” I responded, trying to be funny.

  She turned toward the living room and yelled, “Girls, it’s the Civil Guard!”

  She was pretty wasted, but it seemed like it was just from alcohol since her pupils weren’t dilated. She waved us inside. I prodded my companion, who was starting to lag behind. Inside there were about twenty chicks, all of them more or less the same age, all of them holding rum and cokes, all of them dressed to kill. As tends to happen, some of them started whooping and yelling.

  “Finally, we’ve got some real men in here!”

  Others tried to shush them, apparently thinking they were ruining the ambience. As I always do, I stayed cool and smiling and didn’t say anything, just watched them come.

  “Do you want a drink?”

  We accept the first of several gin and tonics. Once we, too, were holding glasses in our hands, the room seemed to relax some. The bride-to-be—the chick who’d opened the door—asked us warmly if we were hungry. I told her no, that maybe we’d grab something after the performance.

  “Oh, are you in a hurry?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I thought maybe you had another performance afterward.”

  “No way. The night is all yours.”

  “That’s great! I was worried everything was going to be really cold and mechanical.”

  “We’re professionals, and we like to do a good job.”

  I said the bit about being professionals so there wouldn’t be any confusion. We’re on the clock; we’re not here to make best friends for life. I made a few rounds through the room, chatting and knocking back gin and tonics. The place was already a wreck, with dirty and half-empty plates scattered everywhere. Sure enough, they started asking me questions.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  I always answer that one in the affirmative to keep them at a distance.

  “What does your girlfriend say about you doing this?”

  “Nothing, being a dancer is no big deal.”

  That provoked the same tired old joke: “Dancer! Have you performed at the opera house?”

  They all crack up. I coolly respond, “Not yet, but my agent says there’s a contract in the works.”

  “Oh, you have an agent?”

  “Of course. He’s the one who told me that I should come dance at a party with a bunch of pretty girls instead of at the Russian Opera.”

  I don’t know if there’s any such thing as the Russian Opera, but it didn’t matter—I needed to neutralize the joke so things didn’t get out of hand. And they were all dying laughing at what I’d said.

  With all the kidding around, I’ve forgotten to keep an eye on the teacher. I look around for him and . . . shit! There he is, surrounded by a gaggle of girls who are staring at him and drooling like they might get off from the sheer pleasure of being next to him. What the hell? What the hell is he saying to them? I wouldn’t put it past him to start babbling about Raskolnikov. I go over and say, “Hey, man, we’re up.” The girls scatter around the room, and I hear one of them say to the bride-to-be, “Oh, he’s so charming!” And the bastard hadn’t even wanted to come! He’s a chick magnet, I always knew it.

  The owner of the house shows us to a bedroom where we can change. I ask the teacher how he’s doing, and he says fine but he’s not sure how this “trial by fire” is going to go.

  “Are you nuts, Javier? Just do the same thing you do at the club. That’s it. Plus, these chicks are drunk off their gourds. They won’t even notice whether you’re naked or wearing a fireman’s uniform.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know . . . ”

  He shakes his head, unconvinced. I know he’s going to come through, but he likes to get on my nerves, make himself interesting.

  We put on some tight black pants with zippers all the way down the legs that come off with a single tug. They’re special striptease pants. I already had a pair, but Javier must have had to order some from the seamstress. They cost a wad. If the dude decides he’s not into striptease house calls, it’ll be a huge waste.

  Our white T-shirts are tighter than normal. This outfit looks good on me—it highlights the muscles in my thighs, shoulders, and chest. I glance over at him, and to tell you the truth he looks pretty weird. He’s so lanky and skinny that he looks like a schoolkid in gym class—all that’s missing is a pair of gym socks. It’s a good thing we’re barefoot. In any case, it’s obvious those chicks are going to eat him right up. I guarantee it.

  When we go back to the party, they’ve cleared the furniture to one side of the room and dimmed the lights to create a more intimate atmosphere. When the girls spot us, they start shrieking excitedly. All in good fun. I give the bride-to-be the CD for our performance. She puts it on and we get ready, but there’s no sound. She doesn’t know how to work her own system—she’s a dumbass, I could tell as soon as we got here. The guy who’s marrying her has no idea what a catch he’s got. The party guests are lounging around on cushions and couches. They howl and protest over the delay. The music starts and catches us off guard, but finally we can perform. We’ve rehearsed a little during the week. Since we’re not dancing the same number as in the club, we’ve had to work it out. We move together to the beat; everything’s going well. I’d thought the teacher was going to be pretty detached, but no, he throws himself into it, shakes his ass off. Awesome. The girls’ whoops and hollers have stopped. You could hear a pin drop—they’re not even breathing. We remove our shirts—applause, exaggerated sighs—but that’s the last joke those bitches make. When we take off our pants, the air is thick with tension. We dance around in our briefs, and I get hard. I’m watching the girls’ reaction, how their eyes are bugging out of their sockets, how they look away when I meet their eyes, afraid I’ll guess what they’re thinking. And finally, whoosh!, briefs flying through the air, cock in the breeze. Isn’t this what you wanted, you sluts? Isn’t it? Well, here you go! You’re never going to see cocks like this in your lives. Not ever.

  The music stops. They all applaud, and they mean it. You can tell they appreciate the effort we’ve put in. I’m not sure how the teacher’s feeling about things since by the end I was focused on my own experience, but I imagine he’s good. They demand an encore. Fine, the prearranged price includes up to three . . . but no more—we’re not a damn charity organization.

  I put on the second piece of music we’ve prepared. We get dressed again, which is ridiculous with the audience right there watching us, but it is what it is. White powder has started circulating around the room. I request a hit for the performers. They hand it over without hesitation. The girls are all high. It makes me h
appy to see them that way. I plunge into the music and we start dancing again. It’s going really well—we’re stoned and feeling hot. Now I do glance over at Javier to see what he’s doing. Seems like he’s no longer in a rush, and he’s loosened up but not trying too hard—very him.

  During the final encore, one of the girls suddenly gets up in front with us. With what are apparently supposed to be sexy movements, she wriggles toward us to the beat. The others laugh and cheer. The ninny starts dancing between Javier and me and gradually undresses. She’s the ugliest one there, of course: a real cow, with rolls of fat sloshing from side to side. Horrifying, man! When she’s down to her bra and underwear, it seems like her friends aren’t finding it so amusing anymore. They fall silent, no longer whooping, but she keeps going. She totally coked up, practically drooling. She takes off her bra, and then she really does look like a dairy cow with an udder you’d attach milk hoses to. She’s revolting, but none of her friends attempt to stop her. Suddenly the girl turns toward me and acts like she’s going to suck me off.

  Hell no, I couldn’t take it anymore—I gave her a shove and knocked her sprawling. She fell on her back like a cockroach, legs in the air. Holy shit, what a sight! I got really worked up and started roaring like you wouldn’t believe. I ran over to the owner of the house and shouted, “Look, lady, this wasn’t part of the deal. You need to get your friends under control.” But she got all up in my face, calling me a monster and saying how dare I touch one of her guests, she was going to report me, she . . . a ton of threats! Throughout all this, Javier was tugging on my arm, trying to calm me down—both of us buck naked. A fucking train wreck, man! All the girls were glaring at us, and the fat one was sobbing on the floor. So anyway, I say to the bride-to-be, “Hand over the money, we’re leaving before I punch somebody.” Looking frightened, she went to get the money. I counted it right in front of her, and it was all there. We got dressed, retrieved our scattered belongings, and I heard the teacher saying, “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. He flipped out, but he’s not really like that.” The girl didn’t seem to be pissed at him, just me, because she said, “It’s my fault too. I should have shut this crap down earlier.” I don’t know how the teacher managed to pull it off, but they ended up besties. Anyway . . .

  In the car on the way back, I was seething. I was ranting about those chicks and about chicks in general. I stopped and had Javier take the wheel, I was so agitated. He started driving, not saying a word, but after a while he said, “Calm down, Iván, please. It’s not worth being this upset.”

  OK. I shut up. Both of us shut up. And suddenly he goes and says, “You were right—it was a piece of cake, like you said it would be. Just a little inconsequential carnage. Luckily, nobody died, though next time we should probably wear helmets.”

  The guy had some balls to say that. Balls! Because when I’m in a foul mood, it’s best to just go with the flow and keep your trap shut. But no, damn it, it was funny—I wasn’t expecting that, a bit of humor. I put on a straight face and said, “Don’t worry about the casualties. Next time, instead of a helmet, I’ll bring a gun, and the first one who gets out of line is going down.”

  “You would have needed a cannon for that one.”

  The teacher was on a fucking roll! I cracked up and so did he, and we couldn’t stop laughing, looking like a couple of dumbasses chortling away. And to think I’d expected him to freak out that I’d pushed a girl and everything. But no, his little jokes cheered me up. That’s one of the nice things friendship can offer.

  When we got home we grabbed a couple of beers and wandered happily off to bed. But first I gave him his part of our haul. When I gave him the euros, in cold hard cash, his eyes gleamed as if he couldn’t quite believe it. Great, mission accomplished.

  * * *

  It was awful—there’s no getting around it! Luckily I was so stoned that when things started heating up, I didn’t fully realize what was happening. I think I really woke up when Iván shoved that girl and she fell over. It was horrible, just atrociously violent. Everything else was pretty funny, actually, totally surreal: Iván and me naked in the middle of a throng of women, some of them dumbstruck and horrified and others so out of their gourds they had no idea what was going on. Iván, more The Terrible than ever, yelling at the host, doubling down on his outrage.

  I suppose there were a lot of factors that led to things turning out that way. It was a heady cocktail of elements right from the start: cocaine, alcohol, crumbling inhibitions, and girls who probably weren’t used to that kind of thing. Even so, the end of the party wouldn’t have turned into such a circus if my buddy hadn’t had such a visceral reaction. That girl really did offend our dignity, though, and you could even call it assault. Throwing herself at Iván like that! . . . I would have jumped back myself. She was so unattractive: chubby; her eyes rolled back from all the shit she was on; those gyrating, repulsive movements; her tits swinging back and forth . . . Of course, jumping back isn’t the same thing as shoving her away like she was a monstrous vermin. A psychiatrist would have a lot to examine when it comes to Iván’s relationship with women, though I bet it’s actually a pretty simple case, textbook.

  Anyway, after that experience, it’s clear what I am: just another male escort. When Iván handed me my part of the money, I was stunned. Sure, it was a lot, but most of all it had been easy. None of what had gone wrong was attributable to the job itself. I’d really gotten myself worked up before the party: moral qualms, a sense of humiliation, fear of ridicule. The altercation with the girl should be deemed purely accidental. Going to that house and dancing naked had turned out to be way easier than I’d ever imagined. I’d actually been chatting with those women like just another guest.

  I counted the money several times. Yes, now the numbers made sense: if I performed at two or three parties a month, plus what I earned on weekends at the club, I’d have enough to rent a decent apartment and live on my own. I made up my mind and called Iván:

  “Two or three parties like that, Iván, that’s all I need.”

  “All right, Javier. That’s great, man. You’ve ditched your neuroses and buried your fears. Only thing is, bachelorette parties, birthday parties, and other little events like that don’t come up every day. We’re in a recession, this isn’t New York, and I don’t have exclusive access to all the shindigs in the city.”

  OK, man, this is awesome. The teacher sure did snap out of it! He’s unbelievable, though—wants to sign up for three little parties a month and make out like a bandit. That would be amazing, but things don’t work that way. If it were that easy, even the goddamn bankers would be doing this. You have to put up with chicks who are tiresome, ugly as sin, bitter about life. And sleep with them! It’s not all blowing out birthday candles.

  “All right, I can go to dinner with an older woman or something too.”

  “Yeah, sure, or to the zoo. But at some point you’re going to have to go to bed with one of them.”

  “Shit, Iván, that’s the last resort. If there’s any way to avoid it . . . ”

  “All right, man, I’ll keep it in mind. Say no more.”

  And he kept it in mind. Three days after that conversation, Iván let me know he had what he called “an awesome contact.” He was euphoric.

  “Russians, man, they’re Russians. Russian tourists. Loaded as a baby’s diaper. These broads come to Spain by themselves on business or to see the city and are looking for company at night. They pay a fortune. Just think: barrels full of vodka, champagne, and caviar. And they’re sure to be hot—Russian women are always hot! I’m going to finish the Raskolnikov book so I can play the sophisticate. What do you think? Are you in?”

  “I don’t know what to think, man. It’s not what we’d talked about.”

  “Listen, let’s give it a try. Just one time isn’t a big deal. This is for Thursday. It’s two friends looking for a couple of guys to go out to dinner and then whatev
er else happens. It’s a great gig, I’m telling you.”

  I said yes. There’s no way of coming back from this. Degeneration, opprobrium, debasement? Those words sound so old-fashioned, smell like musty wardrobes. I’ll keep my eyes closed.

  The Russians were two women in their thirties. The prettier one had startlingly blue eyes, very blond hair, and Slavic cheekbones, high and prominent. The other was big: tall, stocky, enormously busty. “She’s as large a barge,” Iván whispered in my ear. They spoke some English, about as much as I did. To my surprise, Iván was also able to fumble along in the language. It apparently wasn’t his first experience with tourists.

  I remained numb, trying not to think about the words from the old-fashioned wardrobe. My shyness had been quelled by a line of coke. Everything was going well. I figured Iván would go with the pretty one and I’d be left with the barge, but this wasn’t a teenage blind date—it was a business transaction. The customers got to choose, and the pretty one soon gave signs that she’d chosen me. Iván didn’t even blink—indeed, anyone might have thought he found the barge absolutely fascinating, that he’s always had a thing for Valkyries.

  We went for dinner at a tapas bar. According to Iván, tapas dinners foster conversation, plus foreigners’ favorite thing about Spain is the tapas. I quickly realized the Russians were hard to talk to. They didn’t smile, didn’t try to be pleasant, spoke only in their language, and made absolutely no effort to foster anything resembling mutual understanding. They talked mainly to each other in a harsh Russian full of ns that sounded like nys. Sometimes they cracked up laughing. They barely looked at us. I got the sense something was wrong—maybe they regretted their decision and no longer wished to spend the evening in male company. I remarked on it to Iván, who was still calmly eating and drinking.