“Talk to me about where these shoes have been.”
I looped a butterfly knot and told him everything—the places in New York where trouble had picked up my scent and followed me, the places where I had seen proof that the human will is stronger than any poison the world can feed it, the places that had changed me forever, and the places I would rather forget.
These shoes, for better or for worse, had brought me to where I was. It sounds stupid and simplistic, but it’s so true.
He clicked and snapped. I didn’t feel naked anymore, because I realized that he was shooting me, not my body.
I was surprised when Richard gave me three hundred dollars—it didn’t feel like we’d done anything. He picked up my sneakers and untied the laces for me.
“You don’t shoot porn,” I said.
“Plastic go-go boys don’t interest me. Come back in a few weeks and bring something else for show and tell.”
“I have a baseball cap.”
“As long as it’s not new, you know I’m a goat.”
He stuck his nose in my sneakers, took a few pleasure snorts, and gave them back to me.
“Right,” he said.
I’ve gotten used to seeing Derek’s back when I open the door to the loft. Square shoulders that shift and straighten when I click the door shut. I think he likes me walking in on him, catching him doing whatever.
Based on certain patterns of coexistence, I have reason to believe that he never leaves home anymore. It’s equally plausible that he spends as much time out-of-doors as I do, and our paths are hardwired to overlap only in the loft. And even then, sometimes we’ll only see each other a few times a day: in bed, by the window, trading places in the bathroom.
“Hi, Booger,” he said. “There’s some eggplant parmigiana in the oven. Pepper’s in the grinder.”
“Booger? Am I another one of your pets?”
“Don’t get testy. It’s just what ... what people do.”
At first I thought that he was hanging up the latest turtle-trace canvas, but no.
He was painting.
Derek Brathwaite was creating, without the aid of reptiles. Mixing paint, cocking his head at the canvas on the easel, muttering incomplete words under his breath, dabbing, shading, and sighing. He had a brush in each hand and daubs of paint on his shirt and face. I felt a surge of guilt, like I was interrupting a most delicate process that could disintegrate at any moment.
Wink and Nod were roaming free, exploring nooks and crannies, finding caves where there were none before.
Derek shot me a loaded look. If I had to venture a guess, it told me about a valve he had bust open, a drain he had unclogged, a lid he had lifted. It was a miracle to finally see him in his element. Sure, I had been a part of this release, but he owned this moment with a singularity that changed his whole demeanor. He had the body language of a man who felt free to be dangerous.
“You’re doing it,” I said, feeling like Richard Rorschach.
“Yes, I am ... You never come home with bruises anymore, so you’ve taken away my reason to procrastinate.”
“I was worried you might miss my injuries.”
“Not really.”
I noticed my notebook lying on the bed. I didn’t remember leaving it there, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have left it open. I often bounce literary ideas off Derek, but I never let him see my writing. For some reason, it’s okay to share it with magazine editors, but it’s too personal to share with Derek.
Huge, impressionist swipes of magenta. Agitated swirls where a hand would be. I moved in closer to his easel. He took a step back to let me soak it in, one stroke at a time. Charcoal ellipses, the outlines of plates on a dinner table. A looming figure made of layers of color, layers that looked like you could peel them back. Hazy, Monet-like washes hiding the brightest blue flame.
A handful of pills.
My latest story, told in acrylic.
“I’d like to talk about your jealousy problem,” I said.
“What the FUCK are you talking about?”
“Why did you go through my notebook? What were you looking for?”
“Listen, Jaeven, you left it open. What was I supposed to do, pretend I hadn’t read the first couple of lines? It was already too late. Your story hooked me and then I read the whole thing and realized it’s what I’ve been looking for all along.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“Why can’t you be happy for me? You have everything you want,” he said.
“I know it eats you up inside when I turn a trick or do a photo shoot. All I’m trying to do is make a living.”
“Are you listening to yourself, Jaeven Marshall? We don’t even have sex. How can I be jealous?”
“I know, that’s what’s weird about it.”
“Right.”
Derek wiped his forehead, smearing even more paint on himself. Nod was bumping into the jet engine, backing up, and making a metallic clunk with every go of it.
Maybe I was being a paranoid jackass, or maybe he actually mistrusted me. Whatever the case, I couldn’t blame him for getting attached to me after all this time, and for feeling lonely when I was out gallivanting naked in the city. And I had to start accepting a certain loss of privacy that came with being in a relationship, as annoying as it was.
“Sorry,” I said.
“That’s okay.”
He put down his brushes.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you paint,” I told him.
“It is,” he said.
“Your first show is going to be amazing.”
He dabbed a splotch of purple on the tip of my nose.
Now that I think about it, I’m not worried about Derek reading my short stories. He’s bound to read them eventually, since I plan to publish them. That is, if the universe conspires to keep me alive long enough.
It bugs me only mildly that he might discover the Coney Island I wrote about, that I might lose my secret hiding place.
But it drills a hole in my head, day and night, wondering if he read the other stuff. What I wrote about him. It makes me sick, thinking about how he’d react to the way I’ve been characterizing him as a gentle romantic with opaque moods I try to crack. He might be uncomfortable in that box. He might feel weak.
Or worse yet, he might think that I’m in love with him.
Part 2
I PASSED A HOMELESS KID on Eighth Avenue today, twenty-two, twenty-three, looking scruffier than he had to. It’s freaking summertime and he was wearing a winter jacket with rips in it, when there are shelters all over the city that give clothes away for free.
It’s easy to steal disposable razors, so he has no excuse for the two-week beard. And as for his nappy hair, all he has to do is run a restroom faucet—tap water in New York is the cleanest in the world.
Couldn’t he have hustled a room by now, a mildly compromising living situation, anything? A Prada liquidation center? He’s crouching in a doorway under a pile of torn cardboard when he could be on the beach under the stars, eating hot dogs and clams for free.
This kid clearly has no skills. Put me back on the street and I’d have all the details worked out within a week, I swear.
I took a free subway to Broadway and Houston today and had a meeting with Phil McDougall, lord and emperor of the gay porn magazine world.
It was intimidating walking down the hallway to his office, through a gauntlet of framed magazine covers all tilted down to make you feel small and unimportant if you weren’t up there among the nudie idols.
Honcho: The magazine for bears, bear-cubs, and the men who love them. Leather cross-straps, cigars, neck tattoos, and young turks with enough facial hair to ruin their boyish glee. Furry patches moistened with spit, hairy asses spread on pool tables, reluctant manly cherries, five-o’clock shadows, chains, dangling cigarettes, dark mischief, rimming, spit wads all by themselves, muscles, military deviance, revolvers, and pissed-on jock straps.
It’s actually a less c
liché read than it sounds.
Inches: The magazine for size queens and those who get off on being consumed by envy. Rulers, measuring tapes, yardsticks, fisheye lenses, awe-inducing perspective, heft, swing, low-hangers, miles of shaft, off-the-page, white lies that nobody minds, foreskin fetishes, growers, curves, bulges, packages, centerfolds you want to ride to the moon, big dicks on little twink boys that make them look ridiculous and irresistible, Latino chulos.
Black Inches: See above, but black.
Playguy: The magazine for candy twinks and those addicted to their fruit-loop flavors. Bubble butts, twist-on/twist-off smiles, dimples, dorm-room play dates, popsicles, lollipops, sparkles and eye shadow, low-slung belts, hairless cracks, shaved pubes, Photoshop, coyness, fake ID cards, undies, go-go boys, parental consent, frolicking poolside with slender dildos, lip gloss, loose shorts, puppy dog love, necklaces and bracelets, pacifiers.
I wanted it all. Not because pornstar was my preferred career choice, but because it would pay enough to give me time to write. I was sure that publishers, no matter their stripe, all hung out together. I could use my porn fame to make connections that would get my fiction published. The challenge was to become everyone’s perfect whore without taking myself too seriously.
Phil walked me over to his Wall of Polaroids.
“Do you know what it takes to become Boy New York?”
I looked at the thousands of awkward, posing boys and bit my tongue because I was about to answer “ugly.” I didn’t want to spoil my big chance, so I tried to be innocent and cute by saying nothing and giving him nonchalant eyes. He returned to his desk.
“You have to be magic, pure and simple.”
I jumped on the desk, swept his Jeff Stryker dildo/paperweight to the floor, and reclined on one elbow.
“You know I deserve it.”
“No one deserves anything. A lot of kids come to New York and make that mistake.”
He had a nice shaved skull and drippy brown eyes that were either expressionless or consistently sad. I couldn’t tell which.
“You mean if you weren’t queen shit of this magazine empire that you wouldn’t pay seven bucks to see me nude?”
“You’re being cute,” he said.
It was time for Plan B.
“You need a massage,” I said.
I stretched Phil out on the floor and gave him what was probably the best workout of his life, a beating of the touchy-feely prescription.
He groaned an internal gush and went kind of limp.
“Playguy,” I said. “Then Honcho, Mandate, Inches. Your timetable.”
“Ooohhhhhhh fuck, that’s good.”
Some judo chops in his most brutally tender spots, the shoulder blades and kidneys. I worked past his softness and into bone.
“I have some creative ideas about how I’d like to pose.”
“We’ll have to see about that. When can you massage me next?”
“I’m not even finished and you’re already talking about the next time?”
“It’s just ...”
“Yeah, I know.”
Saw it all the time. The hands of the young are murder on men in their thirties.
“I want to be in Black Inches,” I said.
“Don’t push it,” Phil said. “We’ll see.”
I had to buy a better pager because business was picking up and it was rattling the life out of my old one. I upgraded to a transparent blue model with hip holster and Talking Heads ring tones. Cellphones are a turn-off to older guys who expect a more destitute hustler. I can’t disappoint. Image is everything.
The pager either buzzes with numbers I know, with numbers I don’t, or with codes I’ve given out but forget what they mean. Mixing up the codes is a dangerous business.
Here are some of them and the transactions they stand for:
0066—We meet at the Hilton Hotel at 9:30. You bring condoms, lube, vodka, cranberry juice, menthol cigarettes, coke, and $400 cash. I do as much blow as you like, suck you off, and fuck you. We watch infomercials all night and have a generally icy time. You toss in a fifty-dollar tip if I know where you work and how much you make.
0099—You can already see the confusion these numbers lead to. You need me to look pretty at a party with you. I gussy up your arm, make it look younger. I’m disinclined to say “arm candy” because I’m slightly hairy and not as Hollywood as the expression implies. We’re a hot date and everyone knows it. Two hundred dollars is fine. No kissing.
0020—This one can vary. Either you want a blowjob in your car and I have to call you for the coordinates, or you want to fuck in a club bathroom. I get sketched out by 0020s, so I don’t answer them unless I’m really hard up, which is more often than I care to admit.
0013—All I’m going to say is you’d better be fucking rich, gentle, and have no kids of your own. If you have a camera in the vicinity and I find it, I crack it over your head.
0052—Phil needs a massage, the darling. How could I say no?
Jaeven Marshall, twenty-two.
Here’s my product description, the spin I have to believe in order to sell myself effectively.
Here’s the press release.
Slacker hair and black bangs long enough to have fuck-you cachet. No pimples. I smell great. I climbed out of the puberty swamp a victor, with hormones riding that ideal balance. I’ve got blue eyes that you can stare through into oblivion, and a pierced lip so red you think it’s bleeding.
This is what I have to shill.
Snake-bitten nipples, chewed on and spritzed with lemon juice. I’ve had to swear on a New World Translation Bible that I don’t rouge them up. A fire-chain tattoo circles my waist, a touch of glam just above the field of play.
Body hair—now here’s where I’ve got all the niches covered. I’m so bushy in places and hairless in others that I can’t help but offer the best of both worlds.
I’ve got pit-hawks under each arm, long four-inchers you can bury your nose in, and a spray of pubes that frame a pretty spectacular area. I’ve got a good face of stubble, and a treasure trail running from my belly to ... oh, I’ll tell you later.
The flip-side of me is the ass of a preteen boy, a sweet hairless crack buried deep between doughy bubble cheeks. My pink asshole is ringed with a brown stain, like icing I can never wipe off. The men, the customers, they drool over dichotomy, contrasts that make no sense in the world of physical development.
I’m an anomaly.
This is the stuff I have to believe, even though most of it isn’t true.
Okay, moving down to the real merchandise.
When I shuck my pants, the first thing you’ll see will be my cock, not only because it’s darker than the rest of me, but because it’s the wrong size. It’s tiny.
Just kidding.
It’s bleeping gi-normous. A man’s dick on a boy’s body. Eight inches you don’t want to mess with, or you do want to mess with, as the case may be.
And that’s the complete me. Clearly pedestal material. I’ve got to go now, and anyways, I’m not the type to talk about myself forever.
Because New York manholes hiss with steam even in summer, because men on tricycles lug around giant blocks of ice, scrape off shavings, then drown them in blueberry syrup and sell them, because firefighters in the Bronx bust open the hydrants so kids can splash away the heat, because sometimes you’ll make the mistake of choosing a subway car where the air conditioning’s broken and you’ll want to kill somebody.
I never expected to be in the Toilet Böys’ lead singer’s apartment. I’m not sure how this photographer chick Crystal Vase swung it.
“Yeah, show me some wood.”
My cock’s growing because of the punk band T-shirt framed on the wall. It’s the one where Sean Pierce (screw him for having devil horns and making me attracted to a straight boy) is showing off his heaving dick. His glam punk band is famous, though, for other reasons. John Waters and Debbie Harry at every show? Fire-breathing finales and sex with the audience
? It’s got to be something.
Crystal sets up her lights and plays Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf.” How does she know that’s my mood track? Her lithe, little body is slinking in a purple leather catsuit. Doesn’t talk a lot, but communicates the important stuff with dangerous eyes.
All these shenanigans we do with cameras.
The freeze.
The pose.
The hold and don’t move.
The go crazy.
The show me more.
The back it up.
The spread it.
The work it.
The lie down.
The now turn.
The smile.
The scowl.
The beam.
The wince.
The grimace.
The look into the camera. The look beyond the camera.
Why do we waste our time dealing with people when we can deal with their photographs?
“Where’s that wood? Move to the edge of the sofa, you rockstar.”
These photogs like me because I’m obedient and creative. Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” comes on, and that’s exactly what I do. I wipe my pits with my undies, twirl them around, squeeze my foreskin into a rosebud, and pretend to sit on a middle finger while pumping my other hand in the air to the music.
My fuck-you-but-fuck-me-too sneer. My fierce eyebrow arch. Let the people have what they want.
I’ve learned that attitude sells. There are better-looking guys out there, but they don’t get this kind of attention because they don’t know how to jam the viewer’s emotions. Make him so weepy, he’ll put his dick away and hug your magazine cover in bed until sunrise.
“Now show me where that cock belongs.”
Classic. She knows I can do it. I wonder if this is the ultimate in narcissism, but who really gives a shit? It’s all for the writing. I assume the position, propping my butt against the sofa back, scooting my hips over my head. I stare at my tattoo.
This is the only way to end these photo shoots. To go up in flames.
I plant my knees on either side of my head. I can feel the blood draining from my dick, rushing behind my eyes. Crystal notices the disturbing softness and pads over stealthily. She squeezes her fist expertly around the base of my cock and brushes a finger across my asshole. She’s too good at this. Word has it she’s a dominatrix by night. I throb and inch it closer to my face.
Shuck Page 5