Dreamspinner Press Year Six Greatest Hits

by JD Ruskin

  Brandt had stopped chewing halfway through Nick’s explanation, and he hadn’t started up again. “What?”

  Nick grinned again. “I know, right? I used to try to explain it to people, but I kind of gave up.” He took another bite of pasta as if the topic were closed, but Brandt’s silence apparently drove him to try answering anyway. He swallowed and gave it a try. “See, Pete and I, well, we just fell in love accidentally. We kind of got thrown together. I mean, I love him and all, but I’m still basically into women.”

  “And Pete’s okay with that?”

  Nick chuckled again. “Yeah, not so much at first. But then we got it worked out. This summer, while I’m here stashing cash for school, he’s in Eastern Europe with his friend Josh, making the world safe for humanity. He’s like that.”

  “So, let me make sure I’ve got this,” Brandt said. “You have a boyfriend, but you are into women, but you work in a place that pays you to wrestle naked with other guys.”

  Nick took a drink and looked at Brandt. “Wrestling? I don’t think I mentioned wrestling.”

  Brandt felt concrete harden in his chest. He had fucked this up. He let the conversation with Nick run off the script, and now he’d been caught.

  “Oh, I just assumed that you would…. I mean—”

  Nick burst out laughing. “No, stop,” he was finally able to say. “Let’s just leave it there. You don’t have to explain how you knew about the wrestling videos, just like you don’t have to explain why you were watching me jack off yesterday. That’s what’s great about this place, Jason—you don’t have to explain anything to anybody. We just do what feels good, and what people will pay to see. And luckily those are often the same things.”

  Brandt was furious with himself, and yet Nick was letting him off the hook so easily. Too easily?

  They were finished with lunch now, and Nick took the plates to the sink. He stood at the counter, rinsing the dishes, and looked right into Brandt’s eyes.

  “So, Jason, would you ever consider working here?”

  Brandt could hardly stand the shocks he had suffered already, and here was another. His job required him to answer in precisely the way that his entire being begged him not to.

  “Hell yeah. Construction pays for shit these days. I could do with some real money.”

  Nick’s grin was wide.

  “Awesome. I hoped you might say that.” Nick finished the dishes. “How about this—can you come back tomorrow and talk to Mr. Drake? He manages the house.”

  “You mean, like, for a job interview?”

  “Sort of. But don’t be nervous. I know what sells in this place, and you, my friend—” And here his eyes took another sweeping journey up and down Brandt’s body. “—are exactly what we’re looking for.”

  “That would be great,” Brandt lied. Even the bare outlines of what he would have to do in order to get hired here were too horrible to contemplate.

  “Cool. How about ten tomorrow morning?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “I’ll see you then,” Nick said, holding out his hand to shake Brandt’s. Having shaken it, he held onto it a little longer than Brandt thought normal. “It’ll be awesome to work with you.” Nick winked and released Brandt’s hand.

  “Yeah, thanks, you too,” mumbled Brandt as he walked back toward the construction area. He had a great deal to contemplate as he swung his hammer the rest of the afternoon.

  “SO, YOU’RE in! That’s amazing!”

  “Yep. Woo-hoo. Tomorrow morning I go to interview for a job that will require me to take off all my clothes and masturbate in front of a camera, in the hopes that the video will be posted on the Internet for a bunch of sick fucks to jerk off to. Awesome!”

  Donnelly took his eyes off the road for a moment to look sympathetically at his partner.

  “I know this part of the job sucks. But you’re doing good police work, and you’re getting results. That’s worth a lot.”

  “Yeah, I’m a shoo-in for employee of the month. Now we need to get me something to wear tomorrow.”

  “Do we consult Bryce?”

  “He hasn’t let us down yet. I think that Wonderbra for my junk really did the trick today. Let’s see what else he can do.”

  The troopers walked into Camp & Dragg for the third time in as many days, and again immediately heard Bryce’s welcoming call.

  “Ooh! They’re back!” he sang out as he made his way to them. “And looking yummy! Who dresses you, doll? Be honest. I can take it like a man.”

  Brandt blushed, perhaps slightly less than usual. “You do, Bryce. And we need you to do it again.”

  “More work duds? But honey, it’s the weekend! Can’t we lighten it up a bit?”

  “Actually, yeah, we need to. I’m going back tomorrow to talk to someone about a modeling job, so it needs to be a bit more casual.”

  Bryce’s eyes lit up and his hands clapped manically as he bounced up and down. “Oh! Oh! Oh! It worked! You’re about to be discovered! Oh, honey, I’m so happy for you!” And to Donnelly he stage-whispered, “I did it all—kid was a complete remodel.”

  Donnelly laughed, as if too baffled by Bryce to do anything more.

  “But, honeys, this is not the place to get a weekend ensemble that will seal the deal. For that we need to go two doors down.” He turned to call over his shoulder as he hustled them out, “I’m taking a break! Back in a jiff!”

  “You get back here, Bryce!” came a tobacco-laced growl from the back of the store.

  “Cover for me, okay? Fuck you very much, dear!” called Bryce in return, not breaking his stride.

  The three shot out onto the sidewalk, and Bryce, holding both by the elbow, led them to the shop two doors down. It was decorated in a kitschy tiki theme, and the words “Cabana Boy” glittered over the door.

  The clothing was about as far from the heavy denim-and-plaid of Camp & Dragg as possible; here, the focus was on the provision of microscopic bathing attire and peek-a-boo short-shorts. Cabana Boy’s customer base consisted primarily of waifish young men looking to catch the eye of rich-ish old men. That likely explained the clamor that the entrance of two solidly built state troopers—and Bryce—produced. No fewer than three floorwalkers popped up like man-hungry meerkats, all eyes glued to Brandt and Donnelly.

  “Nestor! Nestor get your skinny ass out here this is an emergency!” shrieked Bryce as he propelled the two hesitating men into the store.

  One of the meerkats scurried to intercept Bryce and his emergency. Nestor’s expression of delight revealed his admiration for Bryce’s taste in manly accessories.

  “Bryce, chill yourself! Nestor’s here now. Why your panties all in a twist, girl?”

  “These are my very most favorite customers, and this one”—he pointed to Brandt—“needs to make an impression tomorrow.” He leaned in close and whispered loudly, “He’s got a date on the casting couch.”

  Nestor nodded sagely. He turned to Brandt, his appraising eyes flicking up and down.

  “You got two choices. You can get on your knees and suck ’til he hire you, or you can let me work my magic. Which it gonna be, honey?”

  “I’m straight, so I’ll take door number two.”

  Brandt’s declaration of heterosexuality prompted giggles from Bryce and Nestor, whose view of sexual identity was perhaps more fluid than Brandt’s.

  “Then we need to make sure you stay off those straight knees. Follow me, honeys!” Nestor ordered, and they fell in line behind him as he walked and spelled out his vision.

  “So, what you say to me is you need a look that’s all ‘I’m straight but even if I weren’t I’m too hot for you,’ right? And then he’s all ‘I have to have you, you seductive straight man,’ and then you’re all, ‘Give me the job first,’ right? And then he’s all, ‘The job is yours, now on your knees,’ and you’re all ‘Bitch, please, I got the job, I ain’t going downtown,’ am I right?” This was delivered in one breath, at top volume, with finger-puppet motions
. Nestor was, amazingly, even more exhausting to listen to than Bryce.

  Then, abruptly, he stopped in front of a display case fashioned out of surfboards held by startlingly muscular Aussie lifeguard mannequins. He chose a pair of khaki shorts and a scoop-neck T-shirt in a muted shade of blue that perfectly replicated the color of Brandt’s eyes.

  “Here, doll,” he said matter-of-factly as he handed Brandt the clothing.

  Brandt could not believe he was about to ask this question.

  “What about, um—” He leaned in a little closer, aware that the eyes of the entire store were now fixed on the noisy band of men around him. “—underwear?”

  Nestor cackled. “Oh, honey, no! You do not wear underwear with these! They must be free to slide along the body, caressing your strong flesh, slipping back and forth light as whisper.” Nestor sighed dreamily, as if imagining in full detail Brandt’s bare skin under his thin, silky garments.

  “Okay, then, I guess I’ll try these on.”

  “Oh, yes, yes! To the fitting room!”

  The entire entourage proceeded to the dressing room, and Brandt was followed in by Donnelly, Bryce, and Nestor, who shut the door in the face of the other salesboys who doubtless wanted to see Brandt slip into something more comfortable.

  Brandt was completely resigned to his fate now, and simply started pulling off his clothes, no longer caring how many people were in the room with him. Nestor flashed Bryce a significant glance when Brandt’s shirts came off. As his eyes locked like a laser on Brandt’s belt buckle, he licked his lips with all the subtlety of a fat mime in an invisible donut shop.

  Brandt unzipped his jeans, forgetting for a moment just how large a bulge his push-up briefs made. He struggled a bit to work the jeans down over his package. Nestor gasped and clutched his throat as if checking that his heart was still beating.

  Once the jeans were off, Brandt needed to extricate himself from the stretchy confines of his underwear, and for reasons unknown to him, this caused an unexpected difficulty. It may have been because he was jiggling his junk pretty hard to pull it out of its special pouch, or because he had been refraining from masturbation (the nature of his assignment certainly made jacking less appealing), or because he was in a room full of people all looking at him as he was about to get naked; whatever the cause, Brandt’s cock was on the rise, and there was absolutely no way to hide it. Fuck it, he thought, and just went ahead.

  When Brandt’s cock sprung free, there was a gasp from all corners of the room, including, to Brandt’s shock, from Donnelly. Soft, Brandt’s penis was a handful, perhaps two; hard, as it nearly was now, it was substantially more. It arched out over his equally sizable balls, extending more than eight inches from his body.

  Nestor fanned himself. Bryce’s mouth made a perfect “O” in exactly the right shape to fit over a beautiful, plump cockhead. Donnelly just stared, blinked hard, and stared some more.

  “What? You guys all look like you’ve never seen a dick before,” Brandt said, a touch of defensive anger in his voice.

  “Honey, I thought I had, but I have been most cruelly misled,” answered Bryce, his intonation unmistakably Blanche DuBois, while a hand fluttered delicately at his throat.

  Brandt looked at Donnelly, who turned away abruptly. He pulled the shorts on and had to tug them a bit to contain the monster in his crotch. The result was something like stuffing a sausage back into its casing. It bulged obscenely at the front of his shorts. He thrust his arms into the T-shirt and stretched the fabric over his muscled torso. It clung to his every ripple and cut; he looked more naked now than he had before he put it on.

  He looked in the mirror. He hardly recognized himself; the shirt showed every tendon and sinew, and the shorts made it perfectly clear what was underneath. He had to admit, he looked pretty hot. Then he looked at the reflection of the other men in the mirror, and was again surprised to see that, judging by their faces, they all agreed with him.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked. “Will I get the job?”

  “I would give you any job you wanted,” gushed Bryce. “In fact, there’s a particular kind of job I would gladly give you right now….”

  “Looks awesome, man. Holy shit, you have a body,” said Donnelly.

  “Oh my God oh my God oh my God,” murmured Nestor, reciting a rosary of devotion to the male form.

  “Well, I guess we’re a go, then,” Brandt summed up. He looked around him. “Can I have a little alone time to get my other costume back on?” he asked, suddenly aware of a desire to have at least a scrap of privacy. As the other men filed out of the dressing room, he could hear Bryce and Nestor jabbering frenetically about the only thing in their world at the moment—his own cock.

  LATER THAT evening, Brandt sat studying the Str8 Frat Dudes website, looking for any information that would help him play a more effective role the next morning. Donnelly was over, as had become his habit lately. He stopped behind Brandt’s chair on his way back into the room from the kitchen, and Brandt heard his intake of breath as he glimpsed the video of two of the house members having a jack-off race.

  “Oh, dude. I will never get used to that stuff,” he said as he sat down on the couch with the sandwich he had just made.

  Brandt swiveled his chair to look at his partner. “Funny. Today you couldn’t seem to stop staring at my junk.”

  Donnelly froze midchew. Brandt turned back to his computer.

  “What are you talking about?” Donnelly asked, once he swallowed his bite of ham and cheese.

  Brandt snorted. “You know what I’m talking about. In the dressing room. I get why Bryce and that strange little Cuban guy were staring, but you? You’ve seen it before like a million times.”

  Donnelly was studying the carpet, still not talking.

  “Just seemed strange, that’s all,” concluded Brandt, who went back to his research.

  “I’d never seen it before—ever,” Donnelly finally managed to say.

  Brandt stopped clicking, but he didn’t turn to look at him.

  “What the fuck does that mean? We shower together all the time.”

  “Yeah, but that’s different.”

  “You keep saying that—things are always different. Well, what’s different?”

  Donnelly paused as if choosing his words carefully. “What’s different is that it was hard. That makes it different. A penis is something we all have, but a hard-on is a different thing.”

  “Yeah, one is hard and one isn’t. But a dick is a dick. Just because it’s hard one time and soft the next doesn’t mean it’s different.”

  “It is, though,” replied Donnelly in a quiet voice. “A penis is a penis, but a hard-on is more like a message you send to other people. It’s a desire, not a body part.”

  Brandt swiveled his chair around. “‘It’s a desire, not a body part’? What kind of fucked-up angry feminist book did you get that out of?”

  “I didn’t. You don’t have a hard-on unless what you are doing excites you and you want more of it.”

  Brandt didn’t want to think about what Donnelly might be getting at. His carefully reasoned reply deflected the question.

  “Fuck you.”

  “No, fuck you. You were clearly having fun. To me, it was just awkward.”

  “Awkward enough to stare at my dick for like an hour?”

  “Buddy, have you looked at that dick of yours? Have you seen how big it gets?”

  Brandt rolled his eyes. “Of course I have, stupid. I’ve even touched it once or twice.”

  “Well then you know what I’m talking about. Sorry I was staring—I couldn’t help it.”

  Brandt wasn’t sure which made him more uncomfortable: that he had gotten boned up in the dressing room, or that Donnelly had stared at it. He turned back to his computer for the finale of the jack-off race which, according to frat house tradition, ended with the “winner” (the one who ejaculated first) shooting his load onto the loser. Brandt closed his web browser. He stared at the e
mpty computer desktop for several minutes.

  “Hey,” he said softly, still staring at his computer. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure. What?”

  Brandt paused, frowning slightly. “How did your brother know he was gay?”

  There was silence in the room—Brandt could no longer even hear Donnelly chewing. He swiveled his chair around slowly to see his partner’s face screwed up in confusion

  “What?” Donnelly asked through his nearly forgotten mouthful of sandwich.

  “How did he know he was gay?”

  Donnelly chewed haltingly, eyes squinting. He swallowed and took a stab at answering.

  “I guess he probably figured it out when the guy sucking his dick was, you know, a guy.”

  Brandt sighed, shook his head. “No, dipshit. How did he know he wanted a guy to suck his dick?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just something he realized, and once he did, it seemed to make sense—to him, and to all of us. Well, except Mom. She’s still not over it. Why?”

  “I’m just thinking about Nick—about all the guys in the house. They all claim to be straight, but they do these things that are not by any stretch normal for straight guys. At least none of the guys I know. It just makes me wonder if some of them aren’t really gay and just don’t know it yet. I mean, Nick talks about his boyfriend, and still calls himself straight. What’s up with that?”

  “Well, when my brother was in high school he dated girls and stuff—he just wasn’t ready yet to admit he was really attracted to guys. Even to himself, I guess.”

  “I’m just trying to figure this shit out. I’ve just watched two guys who call themselves straight jack off sitting next to each other, and the first one to come shot his load all over the other one. Doesn’t that seem a little gay to you?”

  “The whole thing seems gay to me.”

  “But where’s the line? At what point do you stop being a straight guy messing around and become a gay guy having sex?”

  “I don’t stop being a straight guy for anything,” Donnelly answered.

  “I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the guys in the house. At what point would you say they cross the line?”