by Paul Monette
Mark was stuck for a second, trying to process since you were here. He didn’t like Sonny knowing he hadn’t made an appearance at Steven’s house since the night of the rawhide tryst. It almost seemed that Sonny took a certain satisfaction in the breach. Mark should have hung up right then, but he was a step behind. “Tell Steven if he needs anything, like wine or—”
“First we got us a fugitive,” said Sonny, a bit too loud. He sounded drunk, but it was only 9 A.M. out there. “The fag Jesse James, holed up right here. Wearin’ my underpants and everything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” retorted Mark, his voice even and cold, though in fact he was feeling pretty agitated. He heard the bedroom door open, and out of the corner of one eye saw his father saunter across to the kitchen, wearing an oversize green silk robe like a prizefighter’s.
“But that’s not the best. Listen—Stevie’s got a boyfriend.”
“A what?”
“This kid. He’s been here all weekend. Kinda cute—nice butt.”
“Andy,” said Mark quietly.
“Oh, you know him.” Sonny sounded immediately deflated. Rob Inman appeared in the doorway to the TV room, sucking on a nocal Popsicle.
“Just tell him I called, okay?” Mark barked abruptly, and depressed the button, ending the call.
He turned to his father with relief, anything to change the subject, and Rob said, “C’mon, get dressed. She wants to take you to see some garden. S’posed to be famous.”
As Mark nodded, the green silk robe, unbelted, billowed open a crack. His father’s penis was half again as big as Mark had ever seen it before. Not surprising, since it was just easing down after being at full throttle. Yet Rob didn’t appear to be deliberately showing off, merely unconcerned and playing it real loose. The fingerbitten accountant was dead and buried. Rob Inman had become a sensualist, a South Florida Casanova, with nothing on the schedule but loveplay with Roz Schwartz. If it took him all day to come, all the better.
As Rob padded back to his bedroom, Mark didn’t begrudge him a minute of it. It wasn’t as simple as jealousy or envy, not like his own dick had suddenly become the stub of a pencil. No, it was sadder than that. He felt as if he’d never grow up and be a man like his father—a fatuous thought that had never once crossed his mind as a kid—and knew besides he would die alone. It didn’t even matter that he was finally able to admit he loved Steven Shaw, because he’d lost him now. Driven him away.
There was nothing to do but put up the wall. He pulled off his running clothes and headed for the shower. Right then he was as old as the oldest man in Lauderdale—no options left, no second chance, nowhere to go but out to sea. At least he’d come out of the closet. He ought to be glad he could even admit to being in love. But all that mattered now was the wall. He looked the same, he looked fine. You would have had to have known him better than anyone he’d ever allowed. Too old and too young at the same time, sadder than he could even feel, but damned if anyone would see.
Especially Steven Shaw.
“Yeah, ride me, man,” snarled Sonny Cevathas. “Do it!”
He straddled the soft belly, pinning Sean’s wrists with his hands as he sank down on the stiff member, taking him all the way in. The fucking itself felt surprisingly good, considering how lifeless and unappealing was the dazed man lying under him. At least he had a big dick. The astonished look hadn’t left Sean’s face since Sonny climbed on top of him, so that Sonny couldn’t be sure how close he was to coming.
But he kept up the pace of his pumping up and down, clenching his ass muscles and swaying his hips as he rode, expertly driving the guy crazy. Sonny was in total control—a little bored, a little impatient, but never breaking the flow of smut that spilled from his mouth.
“You gonna give me a load, Sean? Right up into my belly? Yeah, we got a lot of fucking to do. I’m gonna be your stud puppy, huh? Fuck me, man. Fuck my boy pussy.”
The older man’s mouth was pursed in an O, emitting short bursts of breath that grew more and more urgent. His eyes were wide with shocked delight. He’d held it in as long as he could, and now he grunted wildly, all the answer he could give to the torrent of Sonny’s abandon. “Yeah!” Sonny shouted in triumph, bucking on the pole, shouting it over and over to punctuate every burst inside him.
Then Sonny let go of his wrists and sat up straight, showing off his warrior torso. The dick was still inside him, and Sean was still dazed. Sonny grinned, something between a purr and a growl. “Yeah,” he repeated again, but softer, like a dirty little secret. His own dick swayed in front of him, about three-quarters hard, untouched. Sean didn’t seem to notice that Sonny hadn’t got off. Slowly the Greek lifted himself away, moaning nicely, as if to keep giving praise for a job well done. “You fill me up real good, Sean,” he said with a small cry of regret as the head came out.
“You’re beautiful,” Sean Pfeiffer retorted, finding his voice at last. Which was true but a little beside the point: it was the animal heat that had really knocked him out. There were beauties on every corner, after all, but not with a mouth and moves like this.
And as if to prove it wasn’t over even after it was over, Sonny shifted around, showing the butt that had riveted Sean’s gaze for months at The Body Works. The Greek reached for the heavy meat and carefully slid off the condom. The reservoir end was thick with cum, white and foamy. Sonny cocked his head and glanced at Sean, still lying there in a dumb swoon. He held the rubber between his thumb and forefinger and swayed it like a pendulum, displaying the weight of the seed.
Then he lolled his head back and lifted the rubber to his mouth. Baring his teeth like a jackal, he started to chew on the bulbous tip, keeping one jaded eye on Sean, who looked appalled and thrilled at once. After a few moments the condom broke, and he sucked out the cum as if it were an overripe fruit. He made a smacking noise, then drew the back of his hand across his mouth, tossing the husk of the rubber away. “Now you came in me twice,” he said, staring at Sean with a passion that appeared to have no limits.
“Very fucking hot,” admitted Sean, always glad to see a new trick. “But are you sure you should do that?”
“You mean is it safe?” Sonny gave a languorous shrug, as if the question was beneath him. “The stomach juices kill all that. Besides, you’re a total top man, aren’t you?”
Sean nodded on the pillow, folding his white arms under his head. He seemed relieved at Sonny’s unconcern, as well as highly pleased to be touted for his manhood. A total top and a total asshole. Though he bragged incessantly about business, Sonny still didn’t understand remotely how cable franchise worked. The money he understood, however, and the post-mod house at the top of Trousdale, commanding a two-seventy view of the glittering prizes.
Sonny rose up off the Porthault sheets and swaggered across and into the bathroom, knowing Sean Pfeiffer’s dazzled gaze was following him. Sonny caught himself in the river of mirrors that wrapped around three walls, and he stopped to pose, alert to every muscle, loving his deep reflection as he receded into infinity. He moved to the open shower, in a window alcove that hovered on top of Sean Pfeiffer’s mountain, the city far below shivering with light. Much higher up than Steven, or even Mark Inman just off Mulholland, whose property Sonny had checked out punctually the morning after their one-night stand, to see if the thing was worth pursuing. Not a chance. Sonny required an entire mountain.
He turned on the water full-force, as hot as it got, and the jets pummeled him. He swayed in the stream, almost dancing with himself. He felt terrific, though the crystal was beginning to wear a little thin around the edges. His butthole throbbed, but then, that was the price of admission, and in truth it hurt pretty good. Besides, Sonny knew how to compensate. In a day or two he’d check in with one of his fuck buddies and plow the shit out of him. Because life was a balance of power, something he’d known since the Second Cataract.
Not that he didn’t have all the power here. Ever since he was sixteen years old, luring his Au
nt Urania’s husband onto the shoals of desire, he understood instinctively how a bottom stayed on top. Especially here, in the house of a vulgar man. He turned in the steam as Sean strutted into the shower. Sonny grinned lazily and reached for the soap. Vigorously he lathered Sean’s tire-waisted body, inexhaustible as a geisha.
And Sean stood there dumbly, happy as a sheik in a harem. While Sonny soaped him down, he stroked the Greek with a meaty hand, lingering on the buttocks in a proprietary way. He had sunk two and a half mill in the Trousdale house, and three years later it was easily worth double. In truth, his whole life seemed to double every time he turned around, that was how rich he was. And yet this right here was the only reward that mattered: a man whose beauty took his breath away. It was what he deserved and what the world owed him. Though he couldn’t leave Sonny alone, pawing him like a drunken suitor, he was also coolly appraising. For if he’d learned nothing else from having an ocean of money, he knew that the rich could own the beautiful.
It was close to 4 A.M. when they stepped out of the shower. As Sonny toweled himself dry in the hall of mirrors, Sean leaned over the sink and blew out his nostrils, thick with bloody gunk from the crystal. He hadn’t done as much as Sonny, but he did it all the time, so his sinuses were shot. He didn’t seem to care how gross was the sound of his nose-flushing. On the contrary, he appeared to take genuine delight in being gross and vulgar and rich.
The evening hadn’t even started till one, when Sonny was through at the restaurant. The second date, the second night in a row. Last night they had tooted a little crank in Sean Pfeiffer’s limo, pulling up at this travertine palazzo at the top of the city. Sonny had seen immediately how very high the stakes were, and on the spot decided to go for the gold.
In a voluminous white terry robe, Sean moved to Sonny, who was toweling dry his hair. He watched him for a moment, sated but still famished, as if all that counted was figuring out how to use him next. Then he frowned: “What’s this?”
Sonny’s head emerged from the towel. Sean put out a stubby finger and raked the swirl of hair in Sonny’s armpit. There was a small crimson spot about an inch from the tricep, slightly raised, that looked sore. “Nothing,” said Sonny, stiffening slightly at the offense. He didn’t look at the spot himself. “It’s a birthmark, why? You paranoid or something?”
He flicked his towel at Sean’s ass, turning it into a playful moment, two guys horsing around in a locker room. The older man laughed and grabbed at Sonny, chasing him back into the bedroom, tumbling with him onto the bed. It was half a wrestle and half an embrace, but too late at night to take it either way. They were lying side by side, Sean puffing with exertion just from the little chase. Sonny dug a tickling finger between his ribs, put his face up close and said, “So you think I’m Typhoid Mary, is that it?”
Sean laughed, his belly shaking. Sonny was glad the fish-white body was wrapped in the terry robe, because he was sick of touching it. “Not exactly,” Sean replied, lazily nuzzling Sonny’s neck, “but you lived with a guy who died, didn’t you?”
Sean couldn’t see the startled look in Sonny’s eyes, like something wild in a trap. But he didn’t flinch; he had too much control of his body for that. Instinctively his hands parted the robe, and he began to play lightly with Sean’s nipples. Sean groaned in protest, his tits having gone through a long delicious session at Sonny’s hands before they got down to serious fucking. Tits were the only topwork Sean Pfeiffer ever allowed, the only thing close to yielding. Now Sonny kept the pressure exquisitely light, the softest echo of a deeper throb, till Sean lay back on the pillow with his eyes half-closed.
Anyone else might have been glad to consider the subject dropped, but Sonny said quietly, his voice like a lullaby, “You mean Ellsworth? We were just roommates.”
“I heard you were lovers,” Sean murmured in reply. He hadn’t got rich by losing the thread of conversations, no matter how nice his body felt.
“No way. I mean, like maybe we jerked off a couple times, but he never fucked me. I’m real picky.” He gave the nipples a final twist, perfectly walking the tightrope of pleasure and pain, and Sean hissed in answer, reduced at last to a sort of white noise. “I need a man,” declared Sonny, releasing the pressure points and closing the discussion all at once. Ellsworth, whatever else he was, had clearly not been what was needed.
Sean Pfeiffer gave a tremendous sigh of contentment. He began to breathe more rhythmically, surfeited at last and ready to sleep. Sonny leaned up next to his ear and whispered, “I want to wake up in the morning with you inside me.” The ghost of a shit-eating grin suffused Sean’s face, as if this last remark would ensure an X-rated dream or two. Then he was out cold, the strain of forty-six grubbing years visible now in the puffs and sags of his face.
Sonny pulled back and reached around to the bedside table. He’d hardly touched his flute of Dom before the session got going in earnest. Now he just wanted to savor his champagne. He’d put in a double shift tonight, Monte Carlo and here, back to back. And he had barely slept the night before, wired as he was from the crystal. He’d been running on pure adrenaline all day. He probably should’ve crashed and taken a major nap, but he’d gone to the gym instead and put in his regular two hours. It was almost as if he wanted to gauge his loss of power after a night of sex and drugs.
He passed the test just fine, benching as strong as ever. The only tangible effect was how spaced he was, jangled and slow on the uptake, which was why he neglected to pass on the message from Mark to Steven. And couldn’t remember the name of Steven’s new boyfriend, though he kept bumping into him all through the house.
He sat up and leaned close to the table, where a skim of white powder covered a small hand mirror. Enough for Sonny to scrape together a last line. He toyed with that for a moment, figuring it would give him the rest of the night to think. He even felt a perverse fascination with how it would be tomorrow, after two nights sleepless. How it would be, in other words, to push the limit here, play a little Russian roulette with the perfect tone of his body.
Strange, since he really wasn’t into drugs. Not that he was so clean either, but he only took what his tricks would feed him—a joint here, a couple hits of amyl. For a while there in his early twenties everyone seemed to have coke, but that was passé now, at least among the hard-bodied types he played with these days. It really took finding a sleaze bucket like Sean Pfeiffer to get drugs thrown into the package. And frankly, Sonny was grateful for the carnal boost of the speed.
But the champagne was enough for now. He wandered naked into a living room the size of a barn, with half-acre splatter paintings on facing walls, in which obscure violent figures foamed up red and fought with beasts. Sonny didn’t get the paintings at all, but then, neither did Sean Pfeiffer, who only required them to be expensive. Sonny crossed the room with a certain caution, knowing there was staff in the house, including the hulking limo driver who doubled as a bodyguard and looked as if he ate West Hollywood fags for breakfast.
Sonny hoped he wasn’t tripping invisible wires, especially when he moved up three stone steps into Sean’s office. A swirling Nouveau desk stood on tiptoes in the bay window. Sonny sat naked in the glove leather chair, brought the champagne glass to his lips, and tilted back to drain it. He liked the feel of the leather kissing his body and wondered what it would be like to lie naked in the back of the limo. He’d save that idea for Sean, who could ravish him as they purred through Beverly Hills.
Idly but methodically, he pulled out the drawers on either side—blue boxes of Tiffany stationery, business cards and letterhead for the cable company. Nothing so concrete as a balance sheet that would tell him in black and white what Sean was worth. He’d have to break into the office on Wilshire to root out that kind of detail, and even then he’d probably need an accountant. That didn’t seem fair, given the fact that all his own assets were concentrated here, naked in this chair. Already Sean knew just what he was getting, after only two nights’ feasting. If they were going to
keep it on an equal footing, man to man, a financial statement seemed only fair.
Not that Sonny thought of himself as a gold digger, or not in the usual sense. Oh, he liked the feel of the palace around him, the privileges and accoutrements of empire. But he wanted no things. His own body was all he ever desired, the only object worth possessing. Sean Pfeiffer was power rather than gold, a prince on earth with a walled kingdom, and Sonny’s perfect match, who wanted out of the world. Sonny had caught Sean at just that moment when all his domain was ashes in his mouth if he couldn’t have love.
Sonny knew a terminal romantic when he saw one. Beneath the Neanderthal manner, the drivenness about money, Sean Pfeiffer’s heart was shaped exactly like a valentine. Love to him was purely of the body, measured by beauty alone. Sonny would make him fall hard, like an eagle plummeting out of the sky. Tit for tat: his body for a kingdom.
He pulled open the bottom drawer on the right, full of prospectuses and promos. He wasn’t looking for anything now, especially not any further clue to how Sean Pfeiffer ticked, since he knew all that already. He flipped through the second-class matter, bored by the very sight of print. Reading had never taught him a thing. Underneath was a black vinyl pouch, about six inches square. Sonny lifted it from the drawer and opened the flap.
It was full of pictures, but even so he wasn’t burning curious. He didn’t care what the past looked like, or who Sean kept for a keep-sake. Only the deepest distant past had any resonance at all, beyond the reach of any record save what could be carved on a temple wall. But he couldn’t not look either, the last blip of the crystal pushing him past his huge indifference to the world of the non-self.
The pictures fluttered out in the palm of his hand, a couple of dozen Polaroids. Men, but not their faces. Crotch shots—flashing their dicks and bound-up balls, bending over to show off their shaved holes, the red welts on their cheeks visible even in the crude half-light of the flash. The final submission being the picture. Sonny went through them one by one, unmoved, unshockable. He only felt a certain weariness to see how rapt Sean Pfeiffer was, how wed to all the ritual. There was nothing here that Sonny hadn’t given himself to, one time or another, but it needed an awful lot of heat, and not the manufactured kind he was putting out for Sean.