I forget Lonnie’s straight.
I pull away only to dive toward his balls. I gently tug at the loose, dank skin of his rubbery sac with my teeth, now pulling at my own hardening cock through my jeans. Lonnie expertly guides my mouth back onto his cock. He’s ready. I swallow his bland load. My hard cock aches as I stand up, unsteady but awaiting my reward. He pulls up his pants. We exit the stall.
“Thanks, bro.” Lonnie turns his back toward me and strenuously washes his hands, like he’s a surgeon having finished a particularly grizzly operation.
I just stand there, dazed. “Here you go.” He hands me a fat bag glowing with K, telling me to let him go out first, and then wait a few minutes before leaving.
I nod, ready to go back into the stall and do a bump. He aims his finger at me and fires off a shot and winks, just like he does with Sung.
Wavering outside another bar, the cigarette between my fingers a long, bent icicle of ash. I’m busy erasing connections, first painting bridges white, then finding doors to lock, so I’m annoyed when Sung approaches. He’s with a different old man than the one he went into Bardo with, and a really short, boyish-looking Japanese guy. Sung says something to me but I can’t hear him. The Japanese guy looks at me like I’m a monster and draws closer to the old man; the old man is smashed, red-faced, smiling loosely with that ridiculous, benevolent grin certain types of drunks like to throw around.
Sung speaks to me. I see his mouth moving but I don’t hear anything. The red starts to drip off the old man’s cheeks, pooling at his feet like a fresh crime scene while the Japanese boy shrinks further, darkening like a crow at his shoulder.
I don’t know what Sung is trying to say to me but I can tell it’s awful. It’s wrong. I swing at him. I want to put my fist in his mouth to stop the words. Desperately, I want to be the black boy that hit Sung. I always have. I miss him by what feels like a mile. The momentum of my swing spins me like a rubber corkscrew and I collapse on the sidewalk.
Sound returns. Sung’s laughing, the Japanese boy is making whispering sounds in the old man’s ear, the old man looks less red, more concerned, concerned I’ve stalled the oriental rotisserie of his sexual fantasies.
Reeling, stumbling, I tear away from him and rush toward Tompkins Square Park. The darkness suits me; the park clutches me and holds me to a bench. Collapsing, I pat my pockets for a pack of cigarettes. From where I’m sitting I see the old man hurriedly hail a cab. Holding the door he covetously ushers Sung and the Japanese crow into the backseat. I can’t find my cigarettes. Looking around, no cops, I shake out another bump.
Death must be this bright. Morning light stabs at the corners of my eyes. I’m still on the bench. My neck hurts, my legs hurt. Dew has settled deep into my clothes, drawing the chilly dawn air to wrap around my bones. Blinking, I look around. A thin, weary woman with a small, black dog on a leash is staring at me. She looks away as I focus on her. No one else is around, it must still be early.
Light through waxy leaves, the pleasant sky is a yellow-blue. Piles of soiled snow slump beneath certain trees, hiding from the light.
It hurts to stand; really, really hurts. As pain spiders through my knees I try to remember last night. Nothing. A huge marshmallow. No, I remember Lonnie, looking down at me. No, his eyes are closed, but he is above me, like a daft puppeteer. And Sung. But for some reason he’s red.
And Sung is striding down the street. When he sees me he waves vigorously and smiles. I blink. It’s really him. He comes up to me looking fresh, showered, though still in the clothes he was wearing last night, so I know he hasn’t been home.
At the diner again, dissolute carp hang in their overcast tanks. I seize my cup of tea between my hands for warmth. Sung orders soup. At his wrist a thick fold of twenties rests atop a fresh pack of Marlboros.
Sudden memory: we met at the Next Bardo. I wasn’t even that high. It was late and I was confident I would score with someone. On stage Lucinda Williamsburg, a fat Filipino transvestite with a huge, quivering mouth like candy-glazed tire tracks, lip-synched Whitney Houston. I was staring at this Japanese boy with feathery eyebrows tucked into a Gucci hat. Baggy pants low on pointy hips; he kept his feet tightly together, to better accent new shoes, a pair of Campers that perfectly matched everything he was wearing. Sipping his drink through a pink straw, he was perfect. Just as he smiled in my direction Sung came up from behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder. I turned around and ran right into his gleaming smile.
Memories are abrasions, aging me.
The waiter brings us both soup. Where did he get the money for that ticket? I stare at the arrogant pleat of twenties on the table. I think about the date on his plane ticket. Every day it gets closer. When are you going to tell me? Are you going to just leave? He’s always said he wanted to live in New York forever. Just not with me. I imagine him not telling me, just leaving. I’ll meet him there, at the airport, dressed in funeral clothes.
I watch him lift the bowl, nose parting the steam from his soup. His nails are long, the dirt deep in their seams moist and clumpy, the fresh compost of nightlife; seeing this makes my heart spiral.
I’ll rip the ticket up. I’ll steal the ticket and go to Kuala Lumpur, get a job in an American hotel gift shop, policing the aisles for shoplifters. No, Sung is in love with me. He knows our love can never be reconciled within his strict family, that his visa is expired. There is only one thing left to do. He’ll immolate himself up on our roof, like those Buddhist monks did during the Vietnam War. The fire will melt all of the snow from the roof. People on the street think it is raining. Tourists stare up at the fiery glow while New Yorkers push past, obviously there’s a movie being filmed. The ticket is meant for me. It’s my movie. I am to solemnly deliver his ashes to his parents. Without a word I will hand over the urn, warm from my lap in the cab ride from the airport. My face made calm by a permanent sadness, a soldier in a war I resolutely believe in. I’ll hand the ashes over to his father in the doorway, turning to leave without ever entering the house where Sung grew up. This single, direct movement will tell the father he has allowed his own familial shame to outweigh the very life of his only son.
The waiter comes to refill our tea. He is young, with black hair swept back like an oily, angry wave. I think I recognize him from the Next Bardo. He smiles at me, lingering at our table, filling my cup to the brim. I notice his pinkie fingernail is longer than his other nails, polished to a shine. When I lift the cup some of the hot tea is guaranteed to spill out onto my wrist. I smile back. Tomorrow I’ll come back for lunch while Sung is at work.
FRANK FUDGEPACKER, TEENAGE WHORE
Simon Sheppard
I’m working my way through college, okay?
It’s not my fault my cheap parents won’t send me enough money, even though my dad’s a professor and should fucking well know that college students have their needs. Man, he already gave me so much attitude about not being able to get into my top choices that I’m sure as shit not going to ask him for any more cash. But hell, I got to leave New Fucking Jersey and come to school in Florida, so what the hell, huh?
Oh, yeah…most of my clients call me Lance. Or Erik, depending. And sometimes, when I get all gothed up for the kinkier old men in my, um, clientele, I use the name Stiv. It’s some old rock and roller’s name, I think. One guy—he’s not very nice, but he’s rich as fuck—nicknamed me Frank Fudgepacker. You could call me Frank, I guess, but I’d rather you didn’t.
So, yeah, I’ve always been attracted to older men. Sometimes much older men. I know, you’ll probably say I have issues with my dad. Whatever. Listen, a guy likes to fuck what he likes to fuck. You, as a gay man, should sure as shit understand that.
When I was living at home, I didn’t do anything about that. About wanting to have sex with old men. But when I got to college, I started sucking them off, sometimes. Men I picked up down by the beach, or at the mall. Guys who used to be married to women, or still were. Men who’d lost their boyfriends to you-know
-what. Sometimes they’d be all nervous till I showed them my driver’s license, that I really was eighteen. I know I look young for my age, but dude, it still seemed comic.
I’d usually end up back at their house, down on my knees, sucking. Some of them had real nice cocks, too. And even though they were pretty old—okay, sometimes very old—a bunch of them could get it up pretty well. Even without those little blue pills. As far as I knew.
They all seemed pretty pleased by their luck, too, even the ones who’d been nervous at first, thinking maybe I was a police decoy or something. As if.
Then I met Bruce. He was one of those AIDS widows, living on his inheritance in a pretty cool place, though it was a little pissy looking, if you know what I mean, all antiques and shit everywhere. Still, Bruce was nice. And I found him sexy, though mostly I like ’em hairier than him. Awesome cock, though. Thick, all veiny. And once he got his pants off, he did have hairy legs and a big bush. So.
I sure hadn’t intended to have anything like an affair. I mean, I was busy enough just trying to keep up with math class. But I started seeing him kind of regularly. It was nice, really, and he started taking me out to dinner and stuff, even though I had to explain to him what “vegan” meant. I think he was happy to be seen with a guy as young and—well, fuck, I’ll say it—as cute as me. No, I know he was happy. Proud, even.
Okay, once it got a little awkward when this straight couple, must have been in their seventies, came over to us and said hi to Bruce. I could tell he was trying to figure out what to do about me. He finally introduced me as a distant grandnephew. That was that. I doubt that the Steins or Cohens or whatever suspected a thing. I’m not even sure they knew what month it was. If you know what I mean.
Not that Bruce was a mercy fuck. Far from it. He was attractive. Wasn’t even very old, just in his midfifties. And he was actually hella good in bed. He was the first guy ever to rim me. Until then, I had no fucking idea. How great it felt. No idea.
He’d get my legs up and scoot down there and start licking my hole. It was amazing. He was really, really good at it. Lots of men have done that to me since then, so I know. Bruce was really good.
He’d always said he loved how furry my crack was, even before he started slurping at it. Actually, my crack is one of the few hairy places on my body. Bummer, but there it is. I know…guys my age are supposed to all want to shave our bodies and be hairless as goddamn guppies. But fuck it. Guys my age aren’t supposed to wind up in the sack with men old enough to be our fathers. Or grandfathers. Are we?
So he’d lick me and kiss me down there until it drove me totally crazy. Then he’d raise his head up and I’d look down between my thighs—okay, back then, I could have stood losing a few pounds, which I eventually did—and there he’d be, his spit all over his beard and a big smile on his kind-of-handsome face. Then maybe he’d pull himself back up on the bed and lie on top of me, his stiff dick rubbing against my belly, his furry chest up against me, and he’d kiss me, a lot, and I could taste my ass on his mouth. Which was way hotter than it might sound.
Like I said, he wasn’t a mercy fuck. He was a nice guy. Only I could tell he was pretty, well, romantic. Like he was always trying to avoid getting too affectionate, so he’d say stuff like, “Dave, I love…your hairy crack.” Like he’d started out to say something else, but thought better of it. Which was smart, because when you’re busy with classes, who wants some old guy to fall in love with you? Not me. But Bruce was nice, like I said, and not a mercy fuck. Actually, he was the first man ever to fuck me.
It had started out with him licking my asshole, as usual, then playing with it with his fingertips, just rubbing the wet flesh till I was fucking squirming.
“I want you to fuck me,” I said.
“Really?” he said.
“Yeah, just take it slow.”
“How about if I just lie back and you can lower yourself down on my dick? At your own pace.”
“That’ll work,” I said. And it did.
Okay, well at first, when I looked down at his rubber-wrapped dick, I figured there was no way I’d be able to take it. That big thing was just not going to fit inside me. No way. But Bruce lubed me up real good and just let me slide down on it slow. And it maybe hurt a little to start with, but he played with my nipples—I like having my tits played with—and told me to relax, so I bent over and kissed him and just kinda slid on down, feeling that big old cock enter me, inch by inch, like I could almost measure it with my ass, I swear.
“I feel like I gotta take a shit.”
“That’s normal. Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“Relax more.”
And that’s when it began to feel fantastic. Anybody who says anal sex doesn’t feel good has just never been fucked right.
So Bruce started to fuck me on a regular basis, sometimes twice a night, though school was actually getting kind of tough and sometimes I couldn’t schedule in sex with him, or I had to stay up hella late studying, on the nights when I did end up getting fucked.
Bruce was always going on about how cute I was and how I was good sex, so I decided to take his word for it, and about then was the first time I sold my ass. I needed some extra money all of a sudden—some asshole had stolen my iPod and I hadn’t even backed up most of the music. And my mom and dad were not going to be sympathetic about me being careless enough to let someone rip off my new iPod. At least not sympathetic enough to cut me a check.
It was easy to set up, really, the hustling. I put up an ad online, and after some emailing back and forth, this guy and I spoke by phone and he asked me whether I was a cop and I said no, I wasn’t a cop, and yes, I had really just turned nineteen, and then he invited me over. He wasn’t as good-looking as Bruce, but his house was a lot nicer—almost a damn mansion, really—and it was an easy two hundred bucks, since I probably would have let him suck my dick for free. Probably. Not that I ever would have told him that.
After that, I started picking up some much-needed funds, and it sure was easier than selling flat-screen TVs on weekends or asking, “You want fries with that?”
I was still seeing Bruce, though. And things had gotten a little kinkier. He’d even drunk my piss a couple of times, which was hot. Once I got over being pee-shy. Oh, he liked my foreskin, too. He was always going on about that. It’s kind of long, see, even when I’m fully hard.
So one day during spring break, when I was still in my dorm room—because I didn’t want to go north, and anyway, Florida is where everyone else comes for spring break—but my roommate was gone, Bruce came over, and we did some role-playing, like he’s my professor and he’s come to see me because my grades have gone to shit. But, he says, there’s one way I can pass, and I ask him how, and he tells me that he really needs his dick sucked. Kinda hot, right?
I had his big old piece of meat shoved all the way down my throat when there was a knock on the dorm room door. We kind of froze, hoping it wasn’t somebody from the college who had the passkey. Actually, at some point I started half-hoping it was my roommate Shawn coming back early, because he was actually pretty sexy, especially with his clothes off so I could see his big old dick and perfect ass, even though he was ostentatiously straight. Actually, though I mostly do go for considerably older guys, I’d every so often jacked off thinking of Shawn. That is, if I wasn’t saving it for business. Thinking especially about spreading Shawn’s cheeks and licking his hole the way Bruce liked to lick mine—maybe I’ll be a good dirty old man someday. But anyway, after another knock or two, we heard footsteps going away down the hall, at which point Bruce started laughing pretty hard, which was kind of weird, seeing as how he still had his dick in my mouth. But that didn’t stop him from coming…or from giving me a passing grade.
By that point, I’d built up a pretty steady clientele. I’d been seeing three or four regular johns every week or two, and there were also the one-timers who obtained my services when the missus was out of town or something. Most of them were p
retty good guys, though one of them, a rabbi actually, could only come if he spanked me—I charged him extra for that—and another one kept offering me speed. I mean, he was old enough to be my grandfather and he kept offering me crystal. But mostly good guys. And there was also my damn school-work to keep up with, on top of business. So I started seeing Bruce less often. Taking rain checks on dates. Just blowing him off. Seeing him a lot less often.
But one night, pretty late, I was feeling kinda weirded out because a potential john had decided not to hire me, after I’d gone to all the trouble to go to his hotel room and shit. And he was pretty nasty about it, too, really, like what I was selling was somehow crap. So I phoned up Bruce, just to talk, y’know? And that’s when I first told him I’d been hustling a bit. And he acted all nice and understanding—because, after all, he’d occasionally been fucking guys besides me, as well. Maybe he was glad I’d just been busy, and it wasn’t that I didn’t like him anymore, I don’t know. Anyway, he was just so damn sweet that he managed to persuade me to head over to his place.
“Okay,” I told him, “but no messing around. I’m beat.”
But after we’d been lying around for a while on Bruce’s bed, me talking, him trying to make me feel better, he leaned over and kissed me on the mouth, and pretty soon I had me a hard-on that was damn near peeking over the top of my jeans, and I knew that Bruce was going to fuck me, even if it was for the last time, and he did. And it felt great, no doubt about that. With experience, I’ve become relaxed enough to get boned any old which way: on my back, doggy, even standing up and leaning against a wall, which is what this skinny Mexican violinist who hires me likes to do. Still, I climbed up on Bruce and rode his cock, just like the first time, for old time’s sake if nothing else. But then, while I was lying there with my head on his furry belly, smelling the drying cum, feeling safe and warm, he finally went ahead and said it: “I love you, you know.”
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