Boystown 7: Bloodlines

by Marshall Thornton

Ronald Reagan went to China so that he could look like a diplomat and help his chances for re-election. Most everyone thinks he will get re-elected because America hates details and loves photo opportunities. Thriller was replaced as the number one album by Footloose , a movie soundtrack. I didn’t bother seeing the movie. A town where they banned dancing seemed too ridiculous even for Middle America. Of course, for all I knew it was based on a true story.

  Madeline Levine-Berkson spoke in her own defense at her sentencing. She was the only one who spoke. The jury gave her the minimum sentence of four years probation, which is sort of like saying, “Hey, as long as you don’t kill anymore husbands everything will be fine.” The judge, though, didn’t buy it and gave everyone in the courtroom a stern lecture, but apparently that was all he could do.

  Giovanni Agnotti AKA Jimmy English was indicted on Monday, April 30, on dozens of counts, including conspiracy and murder. He posted a very pricey bond and surrendered his passport. The trial was unlikely to happen for at least a few months, maybe six, maybe more, which meant that I had a very unfortunate kind of job security. The testimony of Deanna Hansen and the diary were not enough on their own to indict him. The final nail in his coffin was the Nose, Jr. Apparently they’d put enough pressure on him to get him to say what they wanted. He was going to testify that his father confessed on his deathbed to killing the Perellis at Jimmy’s behest. I didn’t know why he didn’t call Cooke, Babcock and Lackerby to get him out of it. Unless, of course, he was the kind of CPA who wasn’t really on the up and up and they had something on him.

  Terry began coming into town for weekends. Surprisingly, he stopped begging to come back full time. He’d usually come in on Friday night and either stay with Brian in his old room or with me on the pullout. I’d drive him back out to Edison Park for Sunday super. A few weeks after Easter, Mrs. Harker came out into the hallway while I was leaving. I’d managed to sell the Nova and had brought her half the money, money which she refused until I told her to spend it on Terry. My first thought was that she was going to try and give it back again. I was a bit taken back when she asked, “Is boy sick?”

  I knew right away what she was asking me. She wasn’t wondering if he had a cold. “I don’t think so. He’s not very experienced.”

  She thought that over.

  “He doesn’t seem sick, does he?” I asked.

  “No.” I was about to leave when she added, “Is terrible thing. AIDS.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  She and I knew that all too well.

  It took me three weeks to call Joseph. I still had his priestly get up and needed to give it back to him. I really just wanted to find out where he was so I could drive by, drop a bag with his things on his front stoop and speed off. He said he wanted to see me so he could explain himself. I didn’t have much patience for that, but I didn’t know how to say no.

  I suggested we meet at the Glory Hole just to be obnoxious, though The Closet would have been more insulting. I suppose. Instead he asked if he could simply come over.

  “Did you paint your apartment like you said you wanted to?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “I’d like to see it.”

  We agreed that he’d come by the next day. I spent a lot of time in that twenty-some hours looking at my place and adjusting where things were and how they looked. I really had no idea what I was doing, but I did it anyway. My mind made the ridiculous connection that the nicer my place looked the more Joseph would regret going back to the priesthood. And I wanted him to regret it. I wanted him to regret it a lot.

  Harker’s couch, I couldn’t think of it any other way, was a very light beige and looked good with the brown rug and the gray walls. Brian suggested I angle it away from the wall so that there was a nice view when you sat on it. He was right. The director’s chairs that Daniel and I had bought together had new canvas in burnt orange and sat across from Harker’s couch. I’d gone to The Great Ace and stood there for twenty minutes deciding between green and blue and orange. Actually, I still eyed the chairs suspiciously and wondered if I should go back and get the green canvas. I did get one of their curly-cue extension cords in kelly green. It snaked across the floor behind the grey metal shelves I had which held my TV and VCR on one side, and my turntable and receiver on the other. My Bose speakers sat on the floor on either side of the shelves. My kitchen table sat in front of the wide window, and I enjoyed sitting there in the mornings with a cup of coffee and the Daily Herald that showed up at my door every morning. In the evenings, I enjoyed a scotch and worked my way through Dancer From the Dance , which I’d picked up at Unabridged Books.

  The intercom buzzed exactly five minutes before Joseph was due to arrive. I didn’t bother saying hello, I just pressed the button to release the locked door. I was nervous, though I had no reason to be. I wished I’d opened the bottle of wine that I’d bought. He wanted to explain himself, that didn’t mean I needed to be sober. I took the bottle of Chardonnay out of the refrigerator and managed to get it uncorked before Joseph knocked.

  I opened the door but tried not to look at him. “I’m having a glass of wine, do you want one?” I asked walking back to my tiny little kitchen.

  “Sure,” he said dubiously.

  I set the brand new wine glasses Brian had bought me as a housewarming gift onto the table and filled them. When I offered one to Joseph, I caught his eye. What I saw there surprised me enough to ask, “So what’s going on?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “You just got here.”

  “I’m leaving the priesthood.”

  “Oh. Again?”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve been a little hard to follow.”

  He put his wine onto the table, then took mine from me and set it next to his. Taking a step forward, he kissed me gently. I kissed him back, my tongue exploring, touching his broken tooth, his tongue, his lips. I pulled him close. Kissed his neck, then whispered into his ear, “You didn’t say if you liked what I’ve done with the place.”

  “If you bought a bed I’d said what you’ve done is amazing.”

  I led him into the bedroom. There wasn’t much in there other than the brand new queen-sized bed, a couple of orange crates I used as nightstands, and my old beat up dresser. The bed did have new maroon sheets, a bedspread in a red and brown pattern, and extra fluffy pillows. I didn’t have any drapes for the window.

  Joseph kicked off his loafers and climbed onto the bed. Already barefoot, I crawled onto the bed to join him. I kissed him some more, pressing my body into his. I could feel his erection rubbing against mine through his pants. I reached down and grabbed hold of it. He moaned like he might pass out. I stopped kissing him and undid his belt, unzipped his jeans and pulled his pants down around his hips. I cupped his balls, pulled his cock away from his belly and slipped the tip into my mouth.

  Given that I was fairly certain this was his very first blow job, I applied just about every technique I could think of. I ran my tongue around the glans, I took his dick as deep into my throat as I could, I kept a hand around the base and moved it in rhythm with my mouth, I rubbed the stubble on my chin against him. I pulled out all the stops. And from the panting and occasional oh-my-God-ing he did I was pretty sure I was doing a good job. I had his cock deep in my throat when I realized he was coming. There wasn’t much to do but go ahead and swallow.

  I tried to remember what it said in the brochure Brian had given me. I wasn’t sure this was a good idea, but if it was a virus it seemed entirely possible…but then maybe I was being kind of stupid. Joseph was a virgin. It was fine. I relaxed and ran my tongue over the cum-covered head and felt him shiver.

  I sat back and smiled at him. His button-down shirt was still on, his jeans were around his knees, I told him to “Get naked,” and we both quickly pulled off our clothes. It was still early enough that some light came through the window. I didn’t want to turn on the overheard light. That would feel like we were fucking in an operating theater. I needed t
o buy a lamp. Or maybe not. In the dim light he seemed to shimmer on the dark sheets. His freckles were scattered all over his chest and shoulders. His belly and hips were ghostly white and then freckles began again on his legs. I start to kiss and lick him around his shoulders. He smelled sweet, faintly like warm bread. I kissed him around his chest. He lay back and let me do what I wanted. I explored his body like it was it was island I wanted to inhabit.

  When I got down to his waist, his cock lay flaccid on his hip, sticky, spent. I flipped him over. His ass was unblemished, startling white and plumply square. I kissed each cheek and then slid my tongue down the crack. When I hit his pucker hole he whispered the word “Jesus.” I thought I might have to talk to him about that. A former priest really needed to say something else in bed.

  I teased his ass until he was breathless, then I reached beneath him and found he was getting hard again. I reached over to the crate on the closet side of the bed and opened a small Indonesian box I’d put there, and filled with condoms and KY.

  “What are you doing?” Joseph asked.

  “I want to fuck you.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “We’ll stop if you don’t like it. The condom is supposed to make it safer.”

  “Okay.” There was still a bit of concern on his face, but I decided to pull out all the stops just as I had with the blow job, hoping to get the same result. I slipped on the condom and lubed it. After putting more lube on my fingers, I rubbed them around his hole. Then I carefully slid a finger in. “If it feels uncomfortable press down a little.” I kept my eyes on his ass and felt around for his prostate. I found the circular button already beginning to harden. Pressing it, rubbing it, I worked it until I saw surprise on Joseph’s face. His cock was good and hard so I slipped in another finger. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

  I whispered, “Relax.” I could feel him let go a little, then a little more as I worked his prostate.

  “This feels so…different,” he said. It didn’t seem a good time to ask what it seemed different from, but my guess was masturbation since that was his only real sexual history.

  “Just go with it.”

  I pulled my fingers out of him, positioned myself between his legs and aimed my cock. Then I pushed, slowly but steadily, into him. He let out a ragged gasp. I told him to “Relax” again and went all the way in. I held myself there to give him time to adjust. He whimpered a little and the looked up at me with a questioning look on his face that seemed to say, “Are we really doing this? Does this really feel this good?”

  Moving slowly in and out of him, I was carefully not to be as aggressive as I might have been if he were more experienced. I had a leg in each hand and pushed them up into his chest. His face looked as though he was becoming emotional, his eyes glistened with tears. I wondered if he might begin to cry.

  Abruptly, he said, “I’m sorry. That’s all I can do right now.”

  “All right,” I said, easing out of him. “That’s fine. You did really good for a first time.”

  “It was good, I just…it’s a lot.”

  “I know.”

  I stayed where I was, slipped the condom off and applied some more KY to both of us. I began jerking us off, a prick in each hand. I wasn’t too far off from coming. I kept my eyes locked to his, watching his every reaction, listening to his breath quicken, I knew the minute he came again I’d go with him. I was anxious for him to come, willing him to. And then, cum flew out of him landing just below his collarbone leaving a trail across him like a creamy comet. I popped almost immediately, adding to the mess on his belly.

  I hung my head over his and kissed him, still hungry to be close to him. Then I got up and grabbed some tissues from a box on my dresser. After I cleaned us up, I got into bed beside him and pulled him close. He rested his head on my chest. I felt content and comfortable. A lot of things were going my way.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” Joseph whispered into my chest.

  “No one does. But we do it anyway.”

  Interview

  Interview with fellow mystery writer Mark McNease.

  Originally appeared on lgbtsr.org

  MM: I was looking at your bio. Having lived in Los Angeles in the ’80s, I’m wondering: Why Long Beach? What got you there?

  MT: Like many decisions in my life, moving to Long Beach was a bit random. In my early thirties I decided to go back to college to finish my B.A. I applied at both Cal State Northridge and Cal State Long Beach and got into both. The deciding factor was that the Cal State Long Beach brochure said that you could see the ocean from campus—and, if you go to the top of the tallest building you can. Looking back, that’s a ridiculous reason to choose a college. But I’ve been here about twenty-two years. It’s really a great city.

  MM: Desert Run . My Favorite Uncle . The Boystown Mysteries . You write a lot. Is that how you make your living? Twofer: How long does it take you to write a book?

  MT: I’m making more and more of my income writing but it is not yet what you’d call a living. As to how long it takes to write a book, that varies I first drafted My Favorite Uncle in 2005/6. I went back to it once and then finally finished it last year. If I add up the actual writing time it’s probably six months spread over nearly ten years. The Boystown series is easier. They take about six weeks to write and then another four to six weeks of editing spread over a year.

  MM: Here’s my ‘writer’s routine’ question (there’s always one): Do you have a routine? Same time every day, or not so structured?

  MT: Generally, I try to write in the mornings. Writing has a component of the subconscious involved. It’s easier to access that early in the morning or late at night. I’ll sometimes try to puzzle through writing problems as I fall asleep, that way my mind works on it all night. And I often have an answer in the morning.

  MM: I read that you wrote spec scripts for ten years and moved into fiction partly as a business decision. What’s the balance for you between writing for the love of it and writing for a readership – does one influence the other?

  MT: I stopped writing spec scripts because a screenplay isn’t finished until it becomes a movie. Never seeing your work finished becomes very frustrating. I think one of the primary reasons to write is to create a response in others. To write simply for the joy of writing feels like you’re only doing it halfway. Of course, writing for a readership, building an audience, those do require some compromises. The key, I think, is to look for the place where what you want to write intersects with what the audience wants to read.

  MM: I’ve been a lover of serials for decades and I’ve watched the central characters age as the books continue, in some cases 20 years or more. They’re getting old with me. Nick Nowak’s life unfolds in the 1980s. Will you keep writing them as he gets older in a sort of parallel, past-time universe, or is he particular to a particular window in time?

  MT: In the first of the books, Nick is thirty-one and in the book I’m writing now ( Boystown 8: The Lies That Bind ) he’s thirty-five. I’m not entirely sure how many books I’ll write, nor how old he’ll be when I finish. I do, however, feel him aging. There isn’t a huge difference between thirty-one and thirty-five, but there is a difference. That passage of time, and the things that have happened to him, have made him a different person than he was when I began.

  Mark McNease has written and published four Kyle Callahan Mysteries , with a fifth on the way. His short stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications over 30 years, including The James White Review, EDGE, Wisconsin Magazine, First Hand and others. He recently co-edited and published Outer Voices Inner Lives , an anthology of LGBTQ writers over 50. He’s had six plays produced, the last at New Jersey Repertory Co. He is the publisher and editor for lgbtSr.org , a website in its 4th year “where age is embraced and life is celebrated.” He spent three years as the story editor for foreign co-productions of Sesame Street . Subsequent to that he won an Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program as the wri
ter and co-creator of Into the Outdoors , a show for kids aged 9-12 produced in Wisconsin and now in its fourteenth year. He lives in New York City with his husband, Frank .

  The Ghost Slept Over

  When failed actor Cal Parsons travels to rural New York to claim the estate of his famous and estranged ex-partner, playwright McCormack Williams, he discovers something he wasn't expecting...Mac’s ghost! And, worse, the ghost invites Cal to join him for all eternity. Now. As Cal attempts to rid himself of the ghost by any means he begins to fall for Dewey Morgan, the attractive attorney representing the estate. Will Cal be able to begin a new relationship or will he be seduced into the ever after?

  “A highly entertaining tale of the ex who wouldn't leave, with a hilarious cast of characters you won't soon forget.” — Eden Winters, author of Diversion .

  “Marshall Thornton is a funny writer, and left me chucking all the way through the narrative.” — Ulysses Dietz, Prism Book Alliance

  Honorable Mention - 2014 Rainbow Awards

  Runner Up - 2014 Rainbow Award - Best Romantic Comedy

  An Excerpt from The Ghost Slept Over

  A Rock and a Hard Place

  I have to admit, it wasn’t the first time I’d stood on the street brushing my teeth. Nor was it the second. This sort of thing, for some reason I could never quite grasp, happened to me a lot. That particular Friday evening, my temporary bathroom was the curb next to my truck on a quiet, residential, tree-lined street in Long Beach. I’d driven down from L.A. to do a performance. Of course, I would have gotten ready at home…if I’d had one.