Can't Buy Me Love

by Chris Kenry

  I was also a touch more meticulous than I needed to be and wrote everything down in exhaustive detail: when I’d wake up, what I’d eat for breakfast, who I needed to call and how long I was allowed to speak to them. It was neurotic, I guess, but it was the first time in my life I’d ever kept a book like that, and they don’t come with instruction manuals. I just assumed that was the way everyone did it.

  So let’s see, let me take you to a day about a month after Ray and I started advertising. April 22, 1996. A typical and an atypical day. A day that was, in retrospect, the day when things began coming apart just a little bit faster than I could manage to put them together.

  I got up at seven A.M., which I had taken care to pencil in the night before, in case I forgot. At seven-fifteen, I see, I ate a bagel, and had a teaspoon of muscle-building Creatine and eight ounces of grape juice, all of which I saw fit to document as well. Then I drove to the gym, where from seven-thirty to eight-fifteen I worked out. It was shoulders and back that day.

  In the nine o’clock slot, the following “code” is written: Steve @ Adam’s 832. U-wear. Ginza manana, 7:30. $150.

  And what that translates to is this: At nine A.M. I met my first client of the day at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. There, in room 832, I modeled several different undergarments for “Steve,” a middle-aged businessman from Detroit, who took pleasure in slowly pulling down the waistband of each pair and watching my cock spring out like a jack-in-the-box. When we’d finished, he treated me to a huge room-service breakfast while we talked about which restaurants he should sample while in Denver. We arranged to meet the following evening for dinner at Ginza, a Japanese restaurant in Cherry Creek. As I was getting dressed he stuffed one hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket and kissed me good-bye. Everything accounted for.

  As you can see I also kept track of all of my money in the Day-Timer, which proved highly incriminating later on. All I can say is thank God I never used last names, and thank God I paid my taxes.

  Next entry: 10:30 A.M. Talker Todd @ home, B.O., 160., Mom’s chairs?

  Translation: At ten-fifteen I drove back to my apartment and met Todd, one of my semiregulars. Todd is a prominent psychiatrist who liked to get me excited by telling me what he was going to do to me (although he never actually did any of it) while we sat opposite each other in my club chairs and masturbated (B.O. = beat off).

  “First I’m going to kiss your mouth,” he’d say, unzipping his pants, “and you’re going to reach down and feel my cock getting hard.”

  “Yeah?” I’d respond in a breathy voice.

  “Oh, yeah. Feels good, doesn’t it?”

  “Mmmmm.”

  “You want this big dick, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah, please. I want your cock.”

  Some days this involved more acting on my part than others, but I was usually intrigued, if not actually excited, by listening to someone so conservative (with his horn-rimmed glasses and graying temples) talk such filth, his pants down around his ankles. He’d never say anything really derogatory, so I didn’t find it offensive, and the more I got into it, moaning and writhing in my chair, the quicker he came, and that, after all, was the goal. It was understood between us, although how I’ve never been sure, that if I came he would pay extra, and it looks like on Tuesday, March 22, I did, because he paid me a hundred and sixty dollars instead of the usual hundred and twenty. The rest of the “code” is to remind me to ask my mom where she got the club chairs in which we’d been seated because Todd thought he might like a pair for his office.

  12:30 P.M. Haughty Warren @ home, water-wiggle 60. 2 wks.

  Translation: Warren was a gay client of mine—a cop. He was ridiculously muscular, even by my standards, and handsome—Nordic-looking, with a blond crew cut, prominent cheekbones, and snow white teeth. He had been with the same lover for several years, and they were then, and I believe still are, committed to each other. And yet Warren enjoyed doing several things his lover evidently did not, and that is why he came to me once every two weeks. He enjoyed being on the receiving end of spankings, verbal humiliation, being tied in compromising positions, and, last but most often, having anal sex toys used on him (his favorite being a series of balls on a string, which I would gently push, ball by ball, up into his ass and then slowly pull back out as he came).

  On this particular day he brought something new, which he carried in a black plastic bag.

  “I brought this,” he said, thrusting the bag toward me. I opened it and removed a four-foot-long piece of rubber tubing, two inches wide at one end and narrow and cock-shaped at the other. I wasn’t very experienced with toys then so I looked at it, perplexed.

  “It’s an enema.” He blushed. I looked at it again and smiled deviously.

  “Well, then, get in there and get those clothes off!” I ordered gruffly, pushing him into the bathroom.

  I watched as he stripped down, but left my own clothes on. I sat on the edge of the tub, rolled up my sleeves, and fiddled with the bath knobs, trying to get the water temperature just right. Warren took his place in the tub and stood, legs spread, facing the wall.

  I borrowed some dialogue from Todd.

  “You want this bad, don’t you,” I said, and gave his ass a spank. “You’ve been carrying this dirty little secret around all week waiting for this, just getting hard thinking about it.”

  And he, responding with my earlier dialogue, would sigh, “Oh, yeah!”

  I attached one end of the hose to the bath spigot and watched, not without amusement, as water sprayed in all directions from small holes in the other end, like a miniature fountain or a Water Wiggle.

  “Spread those cheeks and show me that ass!” He complied, and slowly, gently, I inserted the tube and listened to him moan as he filled with water. A moment later I reached back to turn off the tap but accidentally turned it the wrong way.

  “Aooowwhh!” he cried, and I quickly removed the tube.

  “Sorry.”

  “Make me hold it,” he cried, scrunching up his face and flexing his ass cheeks. “Make me hold it!”

  “Yeah, you’ll hold it, all right,” I said, and gave his cheek another playful smack, the sound echoing off the tiled walls of the tiny bathroom. “You’ll hold it till I say let go. Till I’m good and ready. I’m gonna make you squirm!”

  After about thirty seconds of this banter I stood up, reached around his waist, and grabbed his cock, which was rock hard, pointing straight in front of him. I had barely touched it when he cried out and shot in both directions. When he was empty, he sat, exhausted, on the edge of the tub.

  “That was great!” He sighed, flashing his perfect grin. I sighed myself, wondering how anyone could be so beautiful, rubbed his crew cut affectionately, and then left him to recompose himself. He emerged a few minutes later, dressed once again in his uniform, and shyly handed me the black plastic bag.

  “Can I keep it here?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said, and placed it alongside his balls on a string, fraternity initiation paddle, ball gag, and triple-ripple butt plug, in the “Warren drawer” of my dresser.

  Cops evidently don’t make a whole lot of money and he never stays very long, so he hands me three twenties and we make an appointment for two weeks later.

  Let’s take a break here from the Day-Timer and let me go into an aside on the subject of Warren, since I feel that entry really doesn’t do him justice. I thought Warren strange at first, having a lover he seemed incompatible with, and I felt sure they must be clinging to the wreckage of a now loveless relationship, a mortgage or a dog they had bought together the only things keeping them together. That all changed one night when I was out on a dinner date with a client and spied Warren sitting with his boyfriend in a booth by the wall. They were with another couple, seated opposite them, and all through dinner Warren and his boyfriend were laughing and smiling and hanging all over each other like newlyweds. Warren kept resting his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder, giving him admiring looks a
nd little kisses, and something about it all reminded me of Paul and of Siena, and I knew then that they were genuinely happy with each other.

  In fact most of my married clients were happy with their wives. Wives who could be everything to their husbands but one thing—a boy, a fantasy, a perversion, an aching curiosity. Warren’s lover may have been perfect in every way, may have fulfilled all of his needs but one, and for that one thing there were people like me.

  To men, sex and love are like the yolk and the white of an egg. They can exist together but they can also be separated, and most men are, ironically, very skilled when it comes to separating the two. Women, on the other hand, tend to scramble them together. Obviously I’m not a woman, so I don’t know this for sure, but from what I’ve seen I would venture that most women think love and sex are necessarily synonymous. I can’t agree. If they were I’d have fallen in love with my clients, and they’d have showered me with bouquets and love notes and boxes of chocolates—and that didn’t happen. Oh, occasionally I’d have a man become infatuated and entertain ideas of saving me (from what exactly, I was never quite sure), but the only notes I ever received were printed on paper that was legal tender. The sex was a business transaction between us. A commodity. Love is not nearly so simple.

  Maybe you can condemn Warren and the other married men for not having the discipline to shelve their desire (as I’m sure Sister Melanie would), or can accuse them of failing to communicate fully with their mates out of fear of the consequences. Ninety people out of a hundred would probably agree with you, but I don’t think it’s that simple. In fact, I’ll be so bold as to say that it’s not like that at all. My take on the matter is that the men who visit prostitutes and hustlers are often wiser and more in control for having indulged themselves. In my mind sexual desire is not unlike diabetes: definitely manageable, but if ignored and untreated, it will wreak havoc on your daily life. It will overwhelm your being and your thoughts, making you physically and mentally unable to function. But if you do treat it—with insulin, or with an occasional blow job—your head and body will be less riotous and life can go on harmoniously.

  As an example let me tell you my “sexorcism” story. It’s good, and one that I often recited to all the guilt-ridden souls who crossed my threshold.

  There is a Catholic priest, Father Toby, who came to see me about once a month. He is a good priest, attentive to the needs of his numerous parishioners, honest and hardworking, with fingers in all sorts of charitable pies. He works with single mothers, and runs a homeless shelter and a program to keep inner-city youth out of trouble by building houses for the poor. He does so much for other people, but once a month he would come to my apartment to get some attention of his own. Invariably he’d arrive late at night, distressed and upset, overwhelmed by feelings of guilt for what we were about to do. I’d open a bottle of wine to try to relax him but this usually led to drunken tears, and then, as if that weren’t bad enough, he’d lower himself to begging for my forgiveness. Tears and pleading are difficult to take from anyone, but when they come from a six-foot-five, barrel-chested priest like Father Toby, they’re particularly difficult.

  “Look,” I said, giving vent to my annoyance one night as he sat blubbering at my kitchen table, having knocked back a few too many glasses of the blood of Christ. “Maybe it is wrong for you to be doing these things, and maybe you should have more self-control, but don’t you find you feel better when it’s over?” I asked. He looked up at me, confused.

  “Think about it,” I said, snatching away his wineglass and emptying it in the sink. “Isn’t your head clearer and less obsessed with sex once you’ve finally had it?”

  He seemed to ponder this for a moment, but then his head collapsed in a blubbering heap on his arms. I looked at my watch, feeling frustrated and annoyed. I heaved him up out of the chair and led him into the bedroom. There I quickly removed my clothes, forcibly removed his, and pushed him down on the bed. Force was the only way to shut him up and get him in and out in less than an hour. I did, after all, have a schedule to adhere to. Once it was over, he was fine. In fact he was more than fine; he was at peace. He sighed contentedly and whistled while he dressed, telling me about the bake sale the church was having next Thursday. His demon, if not actually exorcised, was at least appeased for another month.

  1:30 P.M. Nick, new, discus, @ home, band fags, 150.

  Translation: Nick was a new client who had responded to the ad with me poised to throw the discus. He became a regular, but Tuesday, March 22, was his first visit. He was nervous and married, which I suspected by his ring and confirmed later when he was in the shower and I took the liberty of looking at the pictures in his wallet (elegant-looking wife, daughter who plays softball). He was not bad-looking, forties, a little soft around the middle, and expensively dressed in a suit and tie, which was why I decided not to bring up the subject of money beforehand. If they look like they can afford it, they probably can. Even if they don’t, and they can’t, they usually pay close to what you ask, and discussing money first is rarely a good idea. It puts your relationship on too much of a business level, which is fine in postorgasmic sobriety, but can be lethal in the beginning, when magic and illusion are so important.

  “I’m Jack,” I said, giving his hand a firm shake.

  “Nick,” he said, barely meeting my eyes.

  “So, Nick, am I what you expected?” He nodded and smiled and looked around my apartment curiously.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Uh, no, thanks.”

  “Okay, well, come in, sit down.” He perched on the edge of the couch and I took a seat at the other end, giving him some space until he felt more comfortable.

  “I’m a little nervous,” he said, giving me a quick sideways glance, unsure of what to do with his hands. “I’ve never done this before.”

  “That’s okay,” I said reassuringly. “Have you ever been with another guy?” He shook his head no, but then added as an afterthought, “Well, not really. Just one. But not since high school.”

  If I’d put a notch on the bedpost (if my bed had posts) for every time I heard that, the bed would soon have been whittled down to toothpicks. So many married men have had that single chance encounter—messing around in the locker room, sleeping in the same tent with a buddy on a fishing trip, a drunken tumble with their college roommate—and have carried the memory of it with them, over decades sometimes, telling no one, alternately thrilled and ashamed, until the desire to try to recapture it becomes so strong that they call someone like me.

  “Tell me about it,” I said, and was truly interested. All of these stories were similar, formulaic almost, but the characters and the settings were always different, and the way it was told—comically or sadly—it was always with a tone of dreamy nostalgia.

  He looked around nervously to see if anyone might be listening, to see that the shades were drawn, to make sure no one would discover his secret but me.

  “It was on a band trip,” he said rapidly. “I just messed around with another guy.”

  I swing at his volley and hit the ball back.

  “Tell me about it. I get really turned on hearing stories like that.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, moving a little closer to him on the couch.

  “Let’s see,” he said, pretending to search through the mental files, as if it wasn’t the foremost thought in his mind. “Band trip. Oh, yes. We were going to the Sun Bowl to be in the halftime show, sort of a battle-of-the-bands thing.”

  “What instrument did you play?” I asked, trying to picture him as an adolescent, walking to school with his case.

  “The trumpet.”

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah. So anyway,” he continued, warming to the story, his nervousness nearly evaporated, “we all had to double up in rooms, you know, class trips, and each room was supposed to have two twin beds in it. One for each guy. Well, some of them didn’t, some had just one double
bed, and I got one of those rooms and I had to share it with Tommy Morrison.”

  “And what instrument did he play?”

  “Bass drum. So anyhow, we got to drinking with the other kids and partying in the hallway and we were both really drunk.”

  Drinking always plays a role in these little dramas.

  “I don’t remember going to bed—I guess I kind of passed out, ’cause when I woke up, it was all quiet, must have been early in the morning, like five or something, because there was a little bit of light, but it was mostly still dark. Kind of a blue light, you know? And Tommy was in bed next to me, lying on his back, asleep. I looked at him and I could see he had a big hard-on under the blanket. Well, I got up to pee and when I came back his eyes were open and he watched me walk all the way back to the bed but didn’t say anything. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help looking at that hard-on! Well, he saw me looking so I got in the bed real quick and lay down on my side, facing away from him. I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t, and then a couple minutes later I felt the bed moving and I could hear him breathing, heavy-like.”

  “And you knew he was beating something other than the drum,” I said. He laughed.

  “Exactly?”

  “So then what happened?” I asked, moving closer still.

  “Well, I got scared. I figured he’d just finish up and that would be that, so I just lay there, but he didn’t. He kept going, and he was making more and more noise. You know, moaning and stuff.”