by Greg Kearney
“Yeah, not so much anymore. They’ve kind of fallen away. They’re not so much into the whole PNP thing. I’m much more a part of the PNP community now.”
“The PNP community!” Binny sneers. “Bitch, please! Do you drive the fucking ‘PNP bookmobile’? Where the ‘PNP meals on wheels’ at? Huh?”
Jim puts down the Lemon Pledge. He gives Binny a long look. “You know, now that I think about it, I might have a couple of ideas. Lemme see what I can come up with.”
Jim goes off to the back of the house. Binny smiles triumphantly. “See? She gets what she wants when she wants it!”
EDMUND AND BINNY sit and listen to “Let the River Run,” over and over. Jim returns; he’s found some tops, and the first one will be here within the hour.
They sit and listen to “Let the River Run.” Finally Binny, nicer now that cock is en route, clears his throat loudly. “You know, I really am all about Diva Carly, intense stage fright made me have my period onstage realness, but do you maybe have another song, or even a whole CD? I would seriously even listen to that one that got the bad reviews, Hello Big Man.”
Jim is confounded. “The music,” Edmund clarifies. “Do you have any other music?”
Jim bounds up to look through his CDs. This takes a very long time. The top guy arrives before Jim has arrived at a selection.
He is ugly and rather squat, but he has a nice piece. He fucks Binny on Jim’s bed for nearly an hour — good endurance for a sober guy, but barely foreplay for Binny, whose face and torso are flushed Kool-Aid red and whose fingers keep pinching at the bedsheet as if feeling for flaws in the fabric. “Fill me up!” Binny barks every two seconds; as soon as the guy announces that he’s about to come, Binny yells “next.”
And so it goes for several hours. One guy after another, in filthy baseball caps and budget denim, bypassing the two middle-aged men talking at each other in their underwear, en route to the beckoning, bossy bottom boy with his legs in the air.
At one point in the night Edmund notices a familiar object in Jim’s living room, a cheap, sparkly, plaster bust of a Roman man.
“Hey,” Edmund says, “where did you get that Roman head? I know I’ve seen it somewhere before.”
“The Romans,” Jim said.
“What do you mean? Oh! You mean the old Romans, the bathhouse? That’s it! That head was right at the front desk. Wow. What a memento. How did you score that?”
“I was friends with the owner. He let me have it when they closed.”
They both stop their fidgeting to take a long look at the sparkly bathhouse head.
“I had some amazing times at the Romans,” says Edmund. “Remember that little old man, five feet tall if that, who used to stand, fully clothed, in the dark room, and when you walked past he’d say, ‘Hi, I’m friendly!’?”
Jim nods. “He actually came to see me a few times. For a month or so, three or four sessions. He was totally fucked. He was worried that his cat was mad at him.”
“Aren’t you breaching patient privilege or whatever it’s called?”
“He’s dead. I don’t practise anymore. It was a lifetime ago.”
“True. So where did you find all these guys?”
“Cruiseline.”
“Oh. Okay.” Edmund is disappointed: here he thought Jim was this plugged-in sexual maven, and it turns out he’s been finding guys through the phone line, like everybody else.
Come sunrise the only guys on Cruiseline are lonely hearts calling in before work. Binny needs more cock and he still hasn’t gotten beaten up yet. He lies, nearly preverbal, on Jim’s big bed, asshole agape, skinny legs kicking. Cuck, is how he’s pronouncing “cock” at this point. Ah nee mo cuck.
They run out of crystal, and Binny’s butt is getting lube all over Jim’s pillow shams. Edmund wouldn’t mind a change of scenery himself, so Jim calls his friend Julio, who always has party favours. Julio says that Jim’s timing couldn’t be better; he has a hot top guy there who needs service and won’t accept service from Julio, for whatever reason. Jim and Edmund wrap Binny in a duvet and cab it to Rosedale.
Julio answers the door nude. He is deeply tanned. He has had an unfortunate face lift, which has left him looking surprised and mildly annoyed, as though the cable bill has just come and it’s a lot more than he thought it would be.
“He’s so hot,” Julio says, pulling them all inside. “He’s from somewhere way in the east end, possibly even Scarborough. He told me when he got here that I was too fat and old to have sex with, and that I had lied about my age. He was really mad. Really, really mad. Scary. But hot.”
“How old did you say you were on the phone?” Jim asks.
“Twenty-two.”
“But you’re fifty.”
“I know. I just thought, with only the lava lamps on, he might not notice. I’ve stopped eating dairy, and I’ve just been feeling so fresh these days, so … Anyway, I told him I’d give him my DVD player if he’d hang out with me.”
“How big his cuck?” asks Binny, bookended by Jim and Edmund.
“Aren’t you lovely! I haven’t yet seen his pride and joy, but his hands are enormous, so I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.”
They file through Julio’s house, past the obligatory lacquered fans hung on the walls, past the obligatory fat, indolent cat and the bathroom that reeks of aerosol lilac overtop recent diarrhea. The guy is propped up on the bed, fully clothed, flipping through the channels on the huge, squat television. He’s massive, longer than Jim and twice as thick, with a beard line that begins just under his small, hooded eyes.
“Everyone, this is —”
“Burt,” Jim interrupts. “It’s been a long time. How’ve you been?”
“Good. Shit, what’s your name again? John?”
“Jim.”
“Right.”
“Okay, so we’ll all just leave you with Binny for now,” Jim says, encircling Edmund and Julio with his arms. “If you need anything, just holler.”
“Great, yeah, ’cuz I was just going to say — I’ll do the young one, but I’m not gonna do all you old-timers.”
“That is absolutely more than okay!” said Julio instantly. “The rest of us are just going to be in the other room, and maybe we might come in just to watch?”
“No fuckin’ way. No watching.”
“Absolutely okay. One-on-one can be so special sometimes. We’re just going to hang out in the living room and catch up.”
“Yeah, you do that. Go do your fuckin’ drugs.”
In the living room Edmund asks Jim how he knows this Burt person.
“That man,” Jim says hesitantly, then stops to ensure that the door to the living room is shut tight. “That man is a sociopath. He’s been banished from the leather community. He’s overdosed boys on G, fisted them and then left them for dead. And — do you remember Brutus, who owned The Truck?”
“Yeah,” says Edmund. “He was murdered. Stabbed, wasn’t it? You’re not saying that Burt is —”
“Yup. There wasn’t enough proof, but everybody knows that Burt did it. A few people have told me they’ve heard him actually bragging about it in bars.”
“Oh my God. Maybe we should tell Binny.”
“It’s his fantasy. He wanted a psycho top. I personally would never let someone I love play with Burt, but if you want crazy and mean, he’s your guy.”
“This is so kinky!” Julio exclaims with antic hands. “I feel like I’m in a porno!”
Edmund thinks. As long as he checks in on them periodically, Binny should be okay; he knows how to handle himself, and he is thirty-one (Binny would be furious if he knew that Edmund found his birth certificate in the back pocket of his baggy black jeans). Yes, Edmund will play it by ear.
Meanwhile, Julio can’t stop talking. About how hot Burt is, how awesome it is to meet guys who actually
have the kind of sex Julio only fantasizes about. About how warm it is for late autumn. About how spunky and sexy Binny is. About how great Julio’s been feeling, lately.
Both Edmund and Jim confirm that they, too, have been feeling really great lately.
“It’s such an exciting time,” Julio resumes. “The possibilities are so endless that it blows my mind. The diarrhea from the meds is almost gone. I was really looking forward to bottoming again, after so long out of commission that way. Then Burt comes over and says I’m too fat and old to fuck and he punches me, and suddenly the diarrhea comes back. How’s that for the so-called mind/body connection? This batch of crystal is possibly the best I’ve ever had. It’s such an elegant, thoughtful high. I feel like … like Margaret Atwood, or someone like that, or that journalist who’s really pretty — Barbara Amiel? I’ve finally found a reliable, humane drug dealer. At this point in my life, I strongly feel that crystal is a valid, holistic choice. I pretty much introduced crystal to Toronto, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t,” says Edmund. “Thanks for your work on that.”
They set up to smoke. Through two closed doors Binny somehow hears the telltale sounds and bolts into the room, feral and splay-footed, intent on the first hit of the pipe. Edmund has never seen someone so given over to the craven, cruel, base, sucking want. Not even in his many laps around the Romans bathhouse. Once Binny is all lit up he barrels back to the bedroom.
“He’s so feisty,” Julio says. “And yummy. Are you guys an item?”
“No. I don’t know. He’s — a — he’s — someone in my life. You know how sometimes you have people in your life who are — in your life?”
“Oh, sure, yeah, sure. And he likes the pig sex, I guess, also, heh? Seems like he’s really into the pig sex.”
“He likes to be roughed up — well, more than roughed up, beaten really — during. Does that count as ‘pig sex’?”
“Oh, sure it does. Yeah. Hot. Nice. Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Hot.”
Edmund and Jim glance at each other. Through the hum of the drugs it needs to be silently said: this Julio person is rather frantic, possibly slightly stupid, clearly unable to handle his high, unlike Edmund and Jim.
“So, Julio,” Edmund ventures. “What do you do?”
Julio gathers himself as if preparing to give a speech. “I was seventeen years with Air Canada as a flight attendant. It was a dream come true, until I got sick in ’92. I was really bad there for a while. I had dementia. I forgot my mother’s name, my phone number. Then the cocktail came along and now I’ve never felt more — undemented, or whatever the opposite of demented is. I feel so fresh, especially since I had my face … freshened up, which was the greatest gift I ever gave to myself. I was all set to go back to work when the — tragedy occurred, but you don’t want to hear that whole saga,” he says, obviously wanting to tell the whole saga. Edmund looks to Jim again. Jim shakes his head to indicate that Edmund would, indeed, be better off not hearing the whole saga. In the silence Edmund can hear Binny’s sex chatter, that numb chant of grunts and demands. To drown him out Edmund asks Julio to elaborate on his tragedy.
“I was very close to my parents. We were a little team, just the three of us. They were both small people; my mother was officially a little person — or midget, as she used to call herself. The doctors told her that her tiny pelvis couldn’t withstand childbirth, but out I came, right as rain. We were so close. When I came out to them, they just hugged me. For, you know, half an hour. And when I told them about my illness they cried and cried — Dad actually cried until he passed out, but he was sitting down, so he was okay — and then, a couple days later, they vowed to die alongside me when my time came. Of course I said, ‘Absolutely not!’ — how could you ever condone your parents killing themselves for you? — but the more I thought about it, the more comforting I found it. So it became this unspoken agreement. Can you believe it? Isn’t that just so moving, that they’d do that?
“Then the pills happened and I got better. We were all so relieved. Winter of ’97 Mom came down with a real aggressive female midget cancer; it was just awful. So Dad euthanized her, and then he — passed away on purpose, also. I was in Palm Springs at the time. They left a note for me. I went mental. I was so, so pissed off at them for leaving me, for not including me. I was put in the Clarke on suicide watch for several weeks. And now … I’m all alone in the world. I’m Little Boy Blue, you could say. I’m all alone, but that’s okay, because solitude really makes you … think about everything, and watch movies. I’m so happy. I really am. I get to party and spend time with nice people like you. You want some more smoke?”
Edmund declines the pipe. Julio’s story was a buzzkill. He no longer feels sexy. He wants to leave.
Jim senses the shift in mood and lights into Julio for being morose. “That’s exactly the kind of downer shit we’re trying to get away from, Julio. Why do you always have to tell that god-damned fucking story? Jesus. And there is no such fucking thing as a ‘female midget cancer,’ so get that straight. Ugh. Let’s go see what the other guys are doing in the bedroom.”
“But we can’t,” says Julio. “Burt said we couldn’t watch. He already punched me in the face for being fifty. You don’t want to antagonize him.”
Jim gets up. He gestures at Edmund to come along. Edmund is afraid of what he might see. As they get closer to the bedroom, the yelps and smut talk become more distinct.
“You like getting all fucked up on drugs and having your asshole split open?”
A smack.
“Yeah, I love it. I’m nasty.”
“Cheap-ass piece of shit. You’re just a hole, aren’t ya? Fuckin’ street whore cum dump.”
“I fuckin’ suck! Use me like a fuckin’ cum rag!”
“You like getting smacked around?”
“Yeah, pound me.”
“You’re fucking cheap. I should choke the life right out of you.”
More smacks. Then Binny choking, gasping. Edmund cracks the bedroom door open.
“Yeah, fucking DO ME!” Binny says, his voice shredded. “Fuckin’ RUB ME OUT! Fuckin’ MURDER ME!”
Edmund looks at Jim. “We should probably intervene,” Edmund whispers.
“Why? The heart wants what it wants.”
Julio comes up behind them. He bobs about for a better look. “Is it hot? What’s happening? Is there anal? Is it hot? Is there ass-to-mouth?”
Binny is turning purple. Edmund steps in. “Okay guys,” he says, pulling at Burt’s shoulder. “Let’s have a time-out.”
Burt jerks away from Edmund but releases Binny. Binny coughs and coughs. Close call.
“What the fuck, Eddie?” Binny barks when he can finally speak. “You fuckin’ ruined it! It was so hot.”
“I’m sorry, Burt,” Edmund says, sitting on the side of the bed. “Could we have a moment alone?”
“Ah, Christ,” Burt grunts on his dismount. “What is this?”
He stalks off to the bathroom. Edmund puts his hand on Binny’s cheek; Binny slaps him away.
“Why are you fucking with my sex? It was so amazing!”
“But you were purple. Do you not have a ‘safe word’?”
“Fuck that. Fuckin’ safe words are for pussies. This dude is for real. He said he wants to take me home and fuckin’ put me in a fuckin’ box on wheels under his bed, and then fuckin’ roll me out to fuck me and then fuckin’ roll me under again. It’s finally happening. It’s really happening. I’ve just got to go with this.”
“But what if he … Okay. Okay.”
“Cool. You’re the best. Love you lots. I’ll, like, call you when it’s over.”
Edmund rises. He’s not sure what has just occurred. Is Binny leaving him for murderer Burt? Or is Binny simply instructing Edmund to go wait in the living room? As Edmund passes Burt on the way out of the room he has the urge to shake
Burt’s hand, offer some gesture to signify a gentlemanly passing of the torch, but he’s afraid Burt might punch him for being old.
“Why don’t we go somewhere else,” Jim asks Edmund in the hallway. Edmund looks around for Julio. “Bathroom. He’s got the runs again,” says Jim, sensing. They sneak out of the house.
“Surely you guys aren’t leaving already!” Julio says, running barefoot over the lawn to catch up with them. “It’s just getting hot. Does the beat-me-up guy have to leave, too?”
“No, no,” Edmund says. “He’s having a great time. He’ll be fine.”
“Please don’t leave. I don’t want to be the odd man out. I have some crack, too … We could smoke some rock and play ‘Clue.’”
Jim pats Julio on the shoulder. Tells him they’ll be in touch. Thanks him for the party favours. Julio holds out his hands and clamps them open and shut in a gesture meant to convey longing. Edmund mouths a farewell while waving down a cab.
“It’s snowing,” Jim said. “Where are we going? Are we going back to my place?”
“Sure, yeah, I love your place.”
Jim reaches into his jeans, produces a baggie of yellowish chunks that look like mangled teeth. “I swiped his crack. Aren’t I a caution?”
“Jim! That’s so gutter. You’re a homeowner.”
“It’s wasted on Julio. He doesn’t know how to have fun. We’ll go to my place and give it a go. ‘Kay?”
Crystal is one thing, but crack? Stolen crack? That’s quite a commitment to the lifestyle. But there is something disarming about Jim; he has a way of normalizing the most far-flung notions. What to do? Dean said that Edmund’s indecisiveness pointed to a fine, rarefied sensibility. Edmund never understood how Dean could glean that conclusion from his dithering over toilet paper brands for twenty-five minutes. He’ll go to Jim’s.
Back in his living room, Jim digs out a glass stem, different from the pipe they smoke crystal with. Jim lights up. “Interesting,” he says, handing it over.
“I will in a minute,” Edmund says.
“Our highs will be all discordant, then,” Jim pouts.