by Paul Slatter
But unfortunately for Mazzi, the ‘pleasing’ wasn’t altogether in the variety expected as part of his new sexual awakening, as it would only be offered at a price and one which had no actual monetary value.
“What do you say about us all having some fun, Mazzi?” was the first thing Einer’s girl had said the previous evening when Mazzi had sat down and automatically put his arms around her two friends, who were sitting in the corner booth section of the bar drinking free shooters from the waitress.
“See, we’ve been watching you strut your stuff. Now we want to get naked so you can watch us at your place below that painting you’ve got on your bedroom ceiling. We want you to watch us making love underneath it, then if you’ve been good you can join in, but you can only do that if we can watch you first.”
Mazzi stared at Einer’s girl, then looked from side to side at the two girls he’d sandwiched himself in between—just the same as he’d seen DJ Raffi sit down and do after he’d had enough of Mazzi’s dancing. He asked, “What is it you want me to do?”
And Einer’s girl had said straight back, “what we want is this: you and this guy we found to put on a show, and no it’s not Einer, because he’s a flake.” Mazzi looked around the bar as he took it all in and said back, “You’re not talking about the DJ are you? Because I don’t think he likes me.”
“No Mazzi, we found a guy from somewhere deep in Africa—Congo, or Sudan, or somewhere like that. He’s on this web site and claims to make fantasies come true—he’s waiting for us to call him back.”
They left the Ferrari to get towed eventually and all jumped in a cab and were back at Mazzi’s pad within the hour. Mazzi still rocking the boots and jeans. The girls making themselves at home and leaving the fridge door open, wandering around the place, drinking wine and smoking thick spliffs of BC dope, half naked in their knickers.
Then the buzzer went and it was the African gigolo. Fuck me! Mazzi thought as he followed the girls as they ran excitedly towards the entry phone. All three of them there giggling at the sight of the guy outside. Mazzi stared at the guy as he watched him on the screen. With the amount of guys he’d had up in his place, the chances are he knew him anyway. In the old days, he would have been first to the phone, but somehow now it felt different. Gone were the usual feelings of his dick stiffening at the thought of a black guy coming over—though now it still was already semi-there because of the girls in their knickers and bare feet running about the place. They liked the pad, that’s what it was—he could see that. It was a cool place to hang out and party and take selfies. But having to deal with this guy being brought in suddenly seemed to change the equation.
The door opened and in he came, carrying a smile as wide as a long weekend, arms open, hugging the girls like he’d only left them a week earlier even though he’d never seen them before in his life. He high fived Mazzi as he passed in the hall, sizing him up—the guy he’d have to fuck. The man not gay, just a walking fuck machine who’d do anything or anyone for money. And Mazzi Hegan the opposite and all confused, doing anything for fun.
He reached the living room and walked straight out onto the balcony to take in the view, as people always seemed to do. Then he turned and said, “Hey Girlfriends, who’s got my money?” The girls ignored him and grabbing him by the hand, pulled him back inside. The man laughing as he followed them in and, in his African accent, said happily, “Easy baby we have all the night.” The girls wanting to see what he was working with, wrenched on his jeans to pull them off, and for the first time ever Mazzi was hoping it was small. Jesus, he thought, when it wasn’t.
Very quickly he said, as the girls took the man’s dick in each of their hands, feeling its weight, “Well you can put that away.” His own voice that, for a moment, didn’t sound like his own.
Walking them both like prisoners and carrying their wine as they did, the girls marched the two men towards the bedroom with the painting Mazzi had commissioned years before on the ceiling. The male prostitute from the Congo now naked with his huge dick swinging as he went still asking about the money. Mazzi with his top off, still wearing the labourer’s boots and jeans—his mind all over the map.
They hit the bedroom, the girls cuddling up against Mazzi’s silk covered pillows, readying themselves for a show as the man from the Congo began to take control, saying to Mazzi, “You need to take off your trousers, I am strong, but I cannot break through denim.”
Mazzi stared at the man as the guy from Kinshasa unconsciously stroked his dick, getting it somewhat ready to perform. Getting lippy back, Mazzi looked to the girls at the head of the bed and said, “If he was worth the money you girls are paying he could.”
Then all of a sudden, the man from the Congo was up, standing on the bed holding Mazzi’s hair with one hand and his dick with the other, slapping it across Mazzi’s face from one side to the next as Mazzi kneeled before him and called out with every swipe.
“Where my money?”
Mazzi looked at the girls for an answer that didn’t seem to be coming as the man’s dick hit him again across the side of his face. “No cash, no show,” he said to the girls. But the show had already begun and there was no way they were looking for an intermission.
Frustrated, the man from the Congo hit Mazzi again with his dick, from the left and again from the right. Then like a baseball player lining up to hit a curve ball, he took a huge swing, hitting Mazzi Hegan so hard in the face it sent him spinning off the bed.
Mazzi stood up from the side of the bed and felt blood tricking from his mouth, he had a thousand dollars in cash in his sock drawer but there was no way this fucker was getting any of that. Looking up at the man standing naked on his bed, still holding his dick, he shouted, “Get the fuck out of here.”
“We had sex man—money first, then I go.”
“That wasn’t sex, that was like meeting the fucking Gestapo,” said Mazzi, spitting blood with every word and wondering at the same time what was going on with him as he heard himself say out loud again, “Now get the fuck out and take your dick with you.” When not too long ago, had he have been in the same situation, he would have been on his knees with his head back, like a stork swallowing a huge fish. But no, here he was, standing in builder’s boots and jeans with three beauties half naked and curled up, hiding behind his silk pillows with their backs against the headboard of his bed, watching this black guy standing naked at the other end of it with what looked like a third leg that had been cut off above the knee. Then the man, who used his dick for a living said, “I thought you gay guys liked it rough?”
And Mazzi screamed out for the first time in his life, “I’m not gay okay—I’m straight!”
In a fit of rage that would normally have instinctively sent him pathetically slapping at the guy’s legs, Mazzi stepped up onto the bed, not caring for a moment about ruining the immaculately stitched Mulberry silk sheets with the plaster from the dirty boots he’d stolen. Swinging out with his right arm he bought up his left, aiming for the man’s chin in just the same way he had years before his hormones had kicked in and he’d started liking Wham, the same as he had when he’d aimed at the bully and punched out his mother. Only this time he didn’t hit anyone and missed.
With his head snapping back, dodging the ill-aimed strike and getting his feet all twisted and tied up in amongst the expensive bedding, the man from the Congo fell back away from Mazzi standing there in his jeans and dropped down off the other side of the bed. Quickly the girls stood up on the bed, still holding their glasses of wine, and joined Mazzi looking down at the man laying naked, knocked out cold from hitting his head on the $74,000 Persian carpet Mazzi had just shipped in from Iran.
“Is he dead?” asked one of the girls, as she looked towards Mazzi.
Mazzi stared at the guy for a moment then he shook his head, “No, he can’t be, it’s okay—the vein in his dick’s still pulsing.”
*************
Not long after Sebastian was on the phone wondering where
Mazzi was because there was an emergency. The only emergency Mazzi could see was that he had a promise with the three girls he had sitting next to him. He said to Sebastian, “Can it wait Sebastian? I’ve got something going on right now?”
“What?”
“It’s been a busy night Seb, this guy came over with a huge dick, he called me a fag and we had a fight. I took quite a beating, but in the end I knocked him out and an ambulance came and he’s gone now. Oh, and don’t worry, the secret’s out now. I’ve come out—or in—or whatever you’d want to call it. You know, best thing is though, is that I’m not confused anymore. I’m telling the world I like pussy.”
Sebastian String sat down at his desk at Slave and looked at the clock. It was 7:01 a.m. and maybe Mazzi was right to be more concerned about his life than a stupid film he’d allowed a guy who sold him his penthouse to run amok with. But work was work, and Mazzi should be in when asked, so fuck him and fuck the girls he was apparently fucking now because they had work to do. He said, “I’d appreciate it if you were able to make it into a meeting we are having at 9 a.m. Thank you.”
Sebastian looked at his dog and then to the window. He walked to it and stood at its side looking out. It was still early out there, the shops selling designer wear were not opening for another couple of hours or so. And some cafés were still only just flipping their open signs on, ready for the day. That guy was out there again, holding a coffee.
He called Chendrill and heard him answer after a couple of rings.
“What’s up.”
“That guy’s here Chuck, drinking coffee.”
“What type?”
“Looks like Starbucks.”
“How long’s he been there?”
“I’m not sure I just looked out.”
Less than ten minutes later, Chendrill was downtown and walking away from the parked Aston with its engine still crackling from the caning it had just received all the way over from Dan’s mother’s home on the East Side. The Italian was still there, waiting in a doorway just outside Slave’s office. Not looking up, but staking out along the street for whoever it was he was waiting for to come in to work within the next hour or so. Approaching from his blind side, Chendrill stopped right next to him and, before the guy felt his presence, Chendrill said, “I thought the kind of people you did business with didn’t get up until the afternoon.”
The man turned seeing Chendrill, not flinching whatsoever, he said, “Some people I do business with have normal jobs.”
“Maybe I’ll come down to your place and watch your kids go to school.”
“They don’t live with me anymore. I just get them every other weekend.”
Ignoring him and turning away, the Italian looked at Slave’s offices. Chendrill watched him for a moment, wondering what was going on inside the man’s head, he said, “I told you before that whatever debt you’ve dreamed up in your mind, it’s with me now.”
The Italian reached into his pocket for a cigarette and remembered he no longer smoked. This guy was good; it was early and he wasn’t even finished with his drink and the fucker was onto him—even caught him unaware. He said, “You got a quarter of a million dollars spare have you?”
The man was right, he hadn’t. Chendrill said, “Why are you chasing rainbows?”
The Italian looked at him, surprised. Then he said, “Is that what you call it?”
“That and a few other things.” Then Chendrill said, hitting the guy with a little taste of reality, “If you’re feeling the crunch because your usual clients are dying from fentanyl before they get a chance to make good, then maybe you should be looking at who’s mixing the shit and talk to them instead of getting up early and coming around here?”
Mattia, the Italian who leant money to people who couldn’t pay back, looked at Chendrill and then back away towards the offices of Slave and took a deep breath. It seemed like almost every day now he was hearing of someone who owed their death, or near death, to fentanyl. Whoever was mixing it in the dope was out of reach, at least to him. Knowing Chendrill wasn’t wrong, he said, “Go speak to social services if you’re worried about the community.”
Chendrill shrugged; what was going down out there on the streets was pretty shitty and now more than ever if you took any drug on the streets—from good old-fashioned hash to heroin—it could be laced with fentanyl. If so, there was a chance it was check out time—unless you happened to have someone nearby who had the tools to bring them back or an ambulance arrived quickly. A lot were not that lucky, and the problem was becoming an epidemic. There was little he could do—unless he wanted to take on the Triads and the Angels and whoever else was playing in the shadows. Chendrill said, “Like I say, if times are hard, go get a real job. Otherwise, fuck off and leave me and my friend be.”
And the Italian said straight back, “And like I said, you’ve got till the end of the month to start paying.”
***************
They sat upstairs in the darkness of the reception, Sebastian on the sofa holding his dog, Chendrill on the reception desk with his legs dangling like a kid in the class at school when the teacher was out of the room. Sebastian all concerned and red in the face said, “Let’s just pay the man Chuck and get him out of our hair. After all, Alan did smash up the guy’s trailer and stuff.”
Sebastian had a point—it would be easier—but deep down he knew the guy he’d been talking to downstairs was full of shit. After giving it a bit of thought, he said, “Truth is, I feel as though time’s have hit hard for this fuck—this and the fact he just discovered his brother was gay. And because of this he’s putting the two together and coming up with us.”
“No, Chuck. Me.”
“US,” said Chendrill, making sure Sebastian 100% understood that he was never going to be alone in this.
“Okay, us.”
Then in a tone that left no doubt as to what Sebastian wanted Chendrill to do, he stood up, bent over to drop little Fluffy to the floor and said, “I’ve got better things to do than worry about this man Chuck, and so have you—I’ll have a blank cashier’s cheque for you by midday. Give it to him, and if he comes back for more, then go find someone and have the prick put in a hole.”
*************
Two hours later, the movie making team were all back around the table, and from what Chendrill could tell they had a week or two to get it together and go into production or the job was over—unless they recast, which wasn’t going to happen. Not with Adalia Seychan headlining, even if she was, according to Dan, sixty-eight years old.
As usual, Chendrill was wondering why he was there and why Mazzi was sporting two black eyes. The rest was as per the norm, with Patrick blathering on. When Chendrill wasn’t staring at his phone and not listening, he was looking out the window and not listening—except when Sebastian, who was acting the most serious he’d ever seen him, had leaned in for a second and whispered in Chendrill’s ear, telling him Mazzi had told him he was definitely out (or in) the closet and had gone straight.
There was no doubt the man’s attitude had changed, and he still had those plasterer’s boots on, but how the hell could that have happened to a man who was such a flamer he almost caught fire Chendrill wondered? Then he heard the name which had been a constant throughout pretty much all of Chendrill’s life, Rock Mason.
Rock Mason had been a star in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and well into the new millennium—if you believed the guy’s agent that is. Regardless, he was up there in the Hollywood elite and Chendrill had seen pretty much all the man’s films. He’d missed all of the first part of the conversation, but from what he could tell, the prick of a director was, for the first time, starting to make sense. They needed Rock, and Rock was available.
“He’s a has been,” Sebastian said as soon as they were out of earshot.
“Yeah well aren’t we all sometimes Sebastian?” Chendrill replied, as he sat down in Sebastian’s office which was slowly becoming his own.
Sebastian said straight
back, “I didn’t know you were a fan Chuck. Well we’ll definitely get him now then won’t we? And there’s another guy who’ll be around this afternoon, Roger’s his name. I spoke to him last night after a call from Patrick. He’s an old friend of Alan and mine—used to live with us in the first apartment we ever rented in town here. He was an office PA back then, but the man’s a producer now—and a heavy hitter, takes no shit Chuck.”
Chendrill asking straight away without even thinking, “So, what team does this guy play on then?”
Sebastian looked at him for a moment, then sitting down said, “And that matters, does it?”
“No.”
“Let’s stop it then please Chuck, I’ve got enough trouble going on with Mazzi at the moment.”
Chendrill smiled, loving it. Then he said. “So how did he get the black eyes?”
“He had a fight, with a huge black guy, Chuck. That’s what he said.”
Chendrill started to laugh, then stopped and said, “You’re kidding, right?”
He wasn’t. “No Chuck, he said he won as well, knocked the guy out. Mazzi told me all about it. He said that he’d been to the Roxy and picked up three girls.”
“Three! Not one? Not two? But three!?”
“You know Mazzi, Chuck, he doesn’t do small—he took them back to his place, then this guy shows up, said he knew one of the girls and it got physical. Mazzi knocked him out and they called an ambulance.”
“What happened after that then?” Chendrill asked, wondering at the same time about the bit where Mazzi knocked out the huge black guy and if this guy was gay as well, and he heard Sebastian say, “Well what happened after that Chuck, the guy’s saying he’s straight, he’s got three girls he’s picked up at a bar with him in his penthouse, you work it out for yourself, I’m sure if you get close enough you’ll smell fish.”