by Damon Suede
“Har har. I mean, it’s not gross or anything. Like animals or pudding or whatever. And it’s way more money than we make eating smoke.” Dante nodded at the obvious reason and logic of the idea, his face calm. “Totaly professional. He shoots in a studio out on Avenue X. Sheepshead Bay.” The ice in the pit of Griff’s stomach grew spikes, and the angry blush crept up his throat onto his face. “You, uh… wait. It’s like a naked dudes site? Alek runs a website with guys flashing their junk and he wants you on it?”
“Wel, I didn’t have a vagina last time I checked, G.” Dante roled his eyes and his face creased into an exasperated frown. “So, yeah, it’s guys.” Griff pressed. “Have you gone to this site? Checked it out or whatever?”
“I’m gonna. I mean, I don’t have Internet at my place yet and I can’t exactly”—his voice dropped to a cop-show murmur and his eyes flicked to the door
—“surf to Donkey Dongs ‘R’ Us while I’m working.”
“You’re kidding. That’s what it’s caled?” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Griff wished he hadn’t asked.
“Nah. It’s Hotrod something. No, wait. That’s not it.” He dug a card out of his walet. “HotHead-dot-com. Hot head. Get it?” Shit.
“I get it.” HotHead. Now he’d never be able to forget it, and knowing would make him nuts .
Dante put the evil little card back in his walet. “He’l pay me almost a grand to get undressed on camera. It’l take a couple hours. No sweat.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And, ya know, jerk off too… I guess.” Dante’s eyes flicked to the door again as if he expected the rest of the crew to stomp in here looking for chili. “Just polish the pole. For cash! Like I don’t do that four fucking times a day already.”
Another thing I should never know.
This was not how Griff had imagined this day, or even this conversation, going. For once, he wished his best friend had an ounce of shame. The idea of Dante jerking off was bad enough, but for an audience? A male audience? A male audience of milions? The ice in his stomach melted into cold sweat.
Jesus H. Christmas.
Right then, Griff realized what the two men had been fighting about that night at the bar, why the kid had taken a swing, why Alek had been so cagey. Duh.
He had found some dude with a six-pack and bils he couldn’t pay. Bingo. He had shot a skin flick with that little Latino, and then his girl had found out . Fuckety-fuck. Most likely he’d come to that 9/11 party to scout talent: buff blue-colar dudes down on their luck. In this economy, there was a surplus.
Now Griff felt like a complete asshole; he’d defended this pervy Russian scumbag against some poor dope he’d taken advantage of. He hadn’t known; he hadn’t known! He wished he could go back in time and help the little Puerto Rican beat the living shit out of Alek before he had a chance to make this slimy offer to other desperate guys.
Like my best friend.
Last thing he damn wel needed: access to Dante naked and aroused at the click of a mouse.
Griff stood and sat down on the little bed next to Dante. “Y’know, it’s not free money. It’s not fucking fun or whatever you expect or else that prick wouldn’t pay people to do it.”
“He’s offered me close to a grand. Wel, six hundred plus bonuses. I don’t have any hang-ups. If I did it a couple times I’d be able to get out of the hole.” Dante counted off the porno benefits on his perfect fingers. “Pay off bils. Make my note. Plus it’l be great for my ego.”
“Just what you fucking need.” Griff roled his eyes and snorted.
“You know, you could come with—”
“No.” Griff shot that down fast, nostrils flaring as he dragged air into his lungs.
“Alek was asking if you’d be—”
“Fuck no! And I don’t think you’re going near that pimp once you think it through. Are you brain-damaged?! What if your folks found out? Or the fucking department? The neighborhood? People who love you. Imagine if your mom saw you greasing your dork. C’mon.”
“Bulshit. Ma doesn’t even know how to get online. Plus, there are like thousands of these jizz-biz websites, so it’l be my needle in the haystack.” Dante shook his head and ran a hand through his wavy hair. “Who’s to know? I don’t get why you’re so mad.” Griff turned toward Dante, talking directly to him as if he were a head injury patient in a pediatric psych ward. “Porn is forever, Dante. When you realize that you’ve made a huge fucking mistake and want to undo it, your cumshot is going to be everywhere, and that jam is not gonna get back in your jar.”
“So?” Dante pursed his lips and pretended not to hear what Griff was saying. “I might open up a whole new dating pool.”
“Yeah, yeah. You joke about it, but you’re not gonna want your junk floating around where every perv in the world can get at it. Nothing is worth that.”
“Oh.” Gears turned in Dante’s head. Porn was something they al joked about, and he didn’t want to be a joke.
Think. Think, asshole. Griff mentaly crossed his fingers and offered a little prayer, watching Dante mul the possibilities. He tried to think of worse things he could predict to scare sense into his best friend, but he kept quiet for fear of giving him any dumber ideas.
Dante’s face fel. “I see what you mean.”
“Tel him no.”
“It’s a lot of money though. Seriously.”
“I’l get you the money.” Griff pinned him with cool gray eyes. “Look at me; I promise you. I swear to God and the angels on my mother’s grave. Whatever it takes, Anastagio. I wil make sure you don’t lose your house. I wil take care of you no matter what. Okay?” Dante smiled and gave a little nod of sad gratitude. “I know, G. I know you wil. I was just trying to take care of myself.”
Chapter 5
DANTE didn’t bring up the porno thing again, so Griff convinced himself he’d dropped the idea. He just kept slipping money into Dante’s walet and buying dinner and beer.
September was almost over. Dante didn’t mention money or bils, just spent his days off working extra construction. Griff assumed that he’d put the mortgage problem to bed. Dante was back in the black, and Griff had stopped him from peddling his meat to that HotHead creep. For six days, he rested easy, knowing he’d kept Dante safe.
A fish stew proved him wrong.
A week after the money argument, Griff had worked a realy rotten shift, picking up a Saturday for a buddy who had twins getting baptized. About six hours in, three stations had been caled to a bad warehouse fire made worse by the dry summer and old barrels of paraffin someone had stored on the second floor.
By the time he got rotated off duty, his hair and skin stayed smoky even after two showers. Al he wanted to do was go home and faceplant on his bed til the next sunup. But Dante had left a message that for dinner he was making cioppino, Griff’s al-time favorite, and he knew it took a day to prep and cook. Dante would have driven to the fish market before sunup.
Wanna come over, G?
Griff wanted to kil him.
It was such an obvious peace pipe that it could only mean one thing: Dante had hauled his hot, dumb ass out to Sheepshead Bay and gotten naked on camera and whacked off for that skeezy Russian pornbroker. Dante’s cockamamie X-rated salvation scheme was underway.
Maybe no one would see; maybe he was overreacting; maybe it didn’t matter.
Bullshit.
Griff walked to Dante’s from the Red Hook Station and tried to cool off as the sun sank behind buildings into the hidden river. He knew why Dante had done it: to prove he could, to show off, to shock him and anyone else who found out. Stupid bastard.
He couldn’t figure out which was worse, the guilt or the temptation. He hadn’t been able to stop his best friend from making this ridiculous mistake, and the literal man of his dreams had made a crazy-hot video that he could easily watch as much as he wanted.
Help.
Griff turned the corner; he realized he’d forgotten to bring beer or wine or a barrel of
lube. Yeah right. But by the time he’d had the thought, he was clumping up the steps to the glass of the front door. Dante always kept his house lit up when he was home.
Dante started the fight the minute he tugged the door open, chalenging Griff right there on the stoop before he got a word out. Pow.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t start. I jerked off! Like it matters? Plus the Russian guy gave me eight hundred bucks, and I just sat in this fancy leather chair and burped the worm.” Dante was flushed and happy as a sweepstakes winner as he headed back into the house.
Griff folowed him toward the tiled kitchen. As he stepped in, he could smel the cioppino: brine and garlic and something else green mixed in. He knew that Dante knew he’d fucked up; the cioppino was supposed to make them both forget.
“The Internet doesn’t go away.” Griff couldn’t keep the clench out of his comment.
Dante washed his hands and dried them roughly. “Big fucking deal. And he said I did real good, huh? That Alek guy. And I can do more. Next time maybe he’l pay me to bang a broad. Two broads. Twenty chicks tickling me with a poodle. Whatever the hel. Around my schedule. Sick, right?” Dante raised his hand for a high-five that never happened.
Griff stayed stil. His gray eyes stayed locked on Dante’s.
“It’s cool, huh? I’m proud of my body. Aren’t you? Hel, we bust our changs to stay built.” Griff opened his mouth and closed it. Opened it further, then closed it in a frown.
Dante started slicing scarlet tomatoes with an old knife on the scarred counters, pretending to be reasonable and rational. “Look, I just need some cash to float me over, G. For the house note. I gotta. It’s nothing else. I’m not a drug addict. I’m not gonna get a disease diddling myself.” Swoosh— the diced tomato went into a bowl. Dante licked his finger.
“For jerking off.” Griff took deep breaths and tried not to imagine his best friend unzipping and getting the job done.
Dante’s fist yanked an imaginary salami in the air. “Yeah. Like I don’t do that like clockwork anyways.” He rummaged in cabinets and snagged a jar that had some kind of aromatic twig in it.
“And that’s al.”
Dante chewed on one of the twigs and nodded, reassuring Griff as if he was the crazy one, as if he was ignoring the obvious. “Showed up. Tickled the pickle in my turnout gear. Ka-ching!”
Worse and worse. “Your gear?!”
Dante chopped some twigs, and the licorice smel was strong. “The website’s whole gimmick is hot straight guys in uniform. Soldiers, cops, EMTs. I dunno, mailmen.” Dante’s olive brow wrinkled. “Does anyone fuck mailmen? Wel, yeah, where else do mailmen come from?” The twig bits went into oil in a pan.
Griff’s stomach growled. He was having a hard time trying to forget the name of the HotHead website, trying to forget how easy it would be to have Dante’s sweet eyes staring at him on the screen while he pumped his meat. Even through Dante’s clothes, Griff could imagine what the body looked like. He tried to stay disgusted and stepped away.
“And if you get caught? You could get fired for using the suit ‘in a manner unbefitting’, blah, blah.”
“See! I thought of that. Right?” Dante cracked his neck, pacing the room, happy energy crackling out of him. “So I taped over the numbers. No one’l know.
Wel, someone might, but if someone sees me it’s not like they’re gonna advertise being a member of an amateur pornsite.” Holding a fist of peeled garlic cloves, Dante stopped in front of Griff to rol his eyes at the idea.
Griff squinted back in reply. “Who do you think watches that?”
Griff had to ask; he knew Dante wasn’t asking anyone anything. This was like arguing with a Martian, a Martian with a head injury and the sexiest lopsided smile.
“Who wouldn’t? Hel, I’m gonna watch it next time I got a girl over. Fuck her in the ass and the eyes. I’m a porn star.” Dante squeezed the lump under his buckle so hard Griff could make out the plump ridge through the denim.
Griff rubbed a hand over his eyes. He’s gotta know what he’s doing when he does that.
“Dudes go to those sites, D. Think! I don’t care what they told you. It isn’t horny housewives, man. Men are gonna tug the pug while they watch you. Gay guys in the privacy of their homes who get off on you… doing your, uh, thing.” Griff held out his hands like he was bracing for a colision.
“More power to ’em. What do I care? My ‘thing’ is a thing of beauty. And being this hot is a terrible responsibility.” Dante flexed one perfect arm til the olive bicep strained against his T-shirt’s sleeve like a grapefruit. He licked it.
Griff almost smacked him.
Dante winked, proud of himself.
Griff smacked him.
“What are you, my granddad? Don’t you fuckin’ judge me. Some of us don’t have hang-ups.” Dante’s face grew hard, almost wary. He held one hand up as if ready to block a punch. “Look, Griff, I figured out a solution for myself. One I can live with so I keep my place.” He turned his ful attention to his knife and slicing garlic paper thin with exaggerated care, his face baffled and sad.
“I hope your family and the FDNY can live with it too, D. Guys get fired for that shit.” He wants me to be happy for him. If I didn’t want him, I would be.
Griff walked into the parlor to stand at the bay window, looking down into the dark street. The room was furnished with hand-me-downs and junkshop furniture. He counted to ten and breathed. He stil stank of smoke from that warehouse.
I’m acting crazy because I’ve been lying to him, and that’s not his fault.
Up the block, a stocky Latino in his fifties was walking a pit bul. Actualy, the pit bul was walking the man, puling at its leash hard enough to yank his arm out of its socket. A Korean delivery guy on a bike pedaled the wrong way up the street. A grumpy teenager was putting garbage in the cans out front of his house.
The night sky was cloudy over the other brownstones, no moon and no stars.
Nothing to do. Nothing to do.
He heard Dante enter the parlor cautiously.
Griff had a sudden impulse to turn around and confess everything to his best friend right then: his lust, his panic, his grief, his hope…. He could feel Dante’s quiet confusion pulsing in waves from behind him— G, what’s the big deal?
Explain that one, genius.
Stepping closer to him, Dante sounded cautious. “He doesn’t even seem, y’know, queer. I think he’s just in it for the money too. Seriously. This business is like all profit.”
Griff kept his eyes on the street, his voice hard, his arms crossed so tightly that his forearms bulged against his chest. “Anastagio, he’s queer. I am here to tel you.”
“So? What? Are you prejudiced or something?”
“No!” Again Griff had the demented impulse to confess al, which he crushed. “No. But he is not running a gay porn website and watching straight guys pump the stump ’cause he likes the pension. He wants to fuck you in your bony, hairy ass. While you sit here right now gloating over a couple hundred bucks, he is thumping one out with ten milion other guys watching you do the same.”
If I had any balls, I’d be watching too.
“Fuck you. My ass isn’t hairy.” Dante managed to look genuinely insulted as he sat on the battered couch facing the window.
“Jesus.” Griff scratched his head hard with his hands— scritch-scritch-scritch. Why couldn’t he explain properly? He left the window and sat down on the floor, not against Dante’s leg, but close.
“I don’t know about his ass. He’s Russian, so maybe, but I’l never have to know. And it was eight hundred bucks.” Griff could feel his brain boiling, scrambling for a solution to something his best friend didn’t see as any kind of problem. “I’m trying to look out for you, huh?” Dante slid off the couch onto the floor next to him and bumped their shoulders together. He smeled like lemon juice and pepper. His arm was so warm against Griff’s. “Thank you. Realy, G. Thanks. But I’m good. This is good. This dude runs a clean shop. Trus
t me.” Griff wouldn’t budge. “Sure. But no way do I trust that ugly skinhead scumbag pimp. You tel him for me: if he fucks with you, if he lays one Russian knuckle on you, your buddy is coming after him and someone’s gonna need a screen door to fish out the pieces.” He could feel the murder rising off him like heat on a highway.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. He needed a drink and a think before he split open.
“Okay, Griffin. Okay. I promise.” Dante patted his shoulder with a cautious hand like he was facing a rabid dog, trying to smooth the psychosis into something normal. He raked a hand through his midnight curls and let out a ragged sigh.
Griff knew he sounded crazy. He sounded batshit, but he had to say it and he couldn’t stop himself. “You’re my brother, man. We both know they’re dickless insects taking advantage of you ’cause you’re in a jam. I fucking hate it. If I had the money—”
“You don’t. It’s fine. Don’t worry so much. Sheesh, you’re gonna have a heart attack. And then I’m gonna have a heart attack.” Dante pushed himself to his feet and offered a hand to help Griff up.
Griff stood, turning his back to him, determined not to apologize for giving a shit. “Your life needs an airbag. I swear, Anastagio, you should have come equipped when you were born.”
Just then Dante leaned against him, brow between his shoulder blades for a moment, so tentatively Griff held his breath. His voice was almost sheepish. “Nah.
Everyone knows I was born defective. They didn’t instal you until later.”
Griff turned and looked at him in surprise, his face warming, not sure what to say, which didn’t seem to matter. The moment stretched awkwardly like they were both waiting for the other to say something, do something.
He must know, right? Man up, Muir.
Dante smiled.
Griff blushed.
The doorbel rang.
SHANKED by the bell.
Griff felt like he was going to die of blushing. As if al that blood had drained out of his head until he’d black out with embarrassment or an overactive erection.
Dante puled the door open and found a tearstained Loretta pacing on the steps, gripping her daughter, who was four, maybe five years old. Nicole was petting her mom’s brown curls, trying to calm her.