Freddy felt really good against me. For a moment, I considered throwing him to the floor and showing him how easily the shorts slid off.Just friends,I told m y s e l f ,we’re just friends, just friends, justfriendsjustfriendsjustfriends. . . .
Problem was, my pants were rapidly getting bulgier by the moment and the only kind of temptation I was good at resisting was the kind that wasn’t offered.
“Maybe we should . . .” I began.
“Right,” Freddy said, pushing himself away. He cleared his throat. “We should. We should get going.”
“Right,” I agreed. I pulled my coat back closed.
There was a brief awkward silence, which Freddy mercifully broke. “You going to be OK at the party?”
“Yeah, I guess. I just wish I didn’t feel like such a slut in this.”
“Darling, please don’t make me bite my tongue. I might need it later.”
“You promise I don’t look ridiculous?”
“You look fine. Come on, Oscar.”
We left my apartment and headed for the elevator. Usually, there wasn’t a quiet moment between us, but I think we both felt awkward about what we almost did in my apartment. Freddy pressed the down button and I tightened the belt on my coat. We watched the numbers over the elevator’s door change as it neared us. Fascinating. Then a soft pingas it arrived on my floor. We hurried on with the zeal of thieves escaping a crime.
On the way down, Freddy said, “Listen, about what happened up there. It was just . . .”
“I know,” I said.
“Because, we probably shouldn’t . . .”
“It would be . . .”
“Just kind of . . .”
“Too . . .”
“Yeah.”
“Right.”
“Well,” Freddy said, “I’m glad we can talk about it.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “Talking is good. Talking is our friend. It’s one of the best ways to, you know, talk and . . .”
Freddy arched an eyebrow. “You’re not about to start that babbling thing you do, are you?”
“No,” I said. “Shutting up now.”
Which was probably just as well. Otherwise, I might have told him that what I had been about to say when he was holding me upstairs was, “Maybe we should close the door.”
11
The Main Event The street in front of Ansell Darling’s house was so crowded that we had the cab drop us off on the corner. A bus stop there had a large poster of Jacob Locke on its side. Someone had used a black marker to draw a Perez Hilton–style penis pointing at the conservative candidate’s mouth.
“I hate that guy,” Freddy muttered. I was impressed. Freddy wasn’t much for following politics. Porn and gossip were his major interests. “Me, too.”
“His show is stupid, too.”
“What show?”
“Isn’t he the guy from that game show?Wheel of
Jeopardyor something?” Freddy asked. I was about to answer him when a small, attractive blond woman teetered past us on what looked like five-inch heels.
“Oh. My. God.” Freddy was breathless. “That’s Kelly Ripa!”
She he knew. Oy.
If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn that the door that led into Ansell Darling’s three-story SoHo loft was a time machine transporting us back to a nightclub in 1978. Or to what I imagined a club in 1978 would have been like had I been born yet.
The space was dark and crowded. Everywhere I looked were strobe lights, smoke machines, and tambourines. Most of the furniture had been pushed to the sides, allowing for open dance floors, where an enthusiastic crowd gyrated wildly. A full bar with shirtless bartenders lined the back wall. Incredibly huge speakers played a mix of disco-era dance hits. There were even silver platforms on which beautiful boys and girls swayed with closed eyes and blank expressions.
“Jesus, Joseph, and Bianca Jagger,” Freddy whispered to me as we walked in. “Did we just die and wake up in Studio 54?”
“If I really do die,” I asked him, “could you please make sure I’m wearing something else?” The burly doorman had insisted I check my coat at the door, so I was pretty much naked. And golden.
Freddy and I inched our way through the crowd. People stared at me.
Did I mention yet that I was golden?
A tall, skinny white girl with a silver tray and a huge
black Afro roller-skated over to us. “Cute,” she said to me. “And you’re hot,” she said to Freddy, putting her hand on his chest. “Straight?”
“Cher?” Freddy asked her.
“I guess that answers my question.” She shrugged. “Can I get you something to drink?” We told her maybe later and continued to work our way toward the bar. Most of the crowd was wearing contemporary outfits, but occasionally we’d see an attractive young guy or gal dressed in reworked retro like ours. We’d nod at each other and move on, trying to ignore that most of the other attendees were watching us, like we were part of the evening’s entertainment. Since we were, in effect, modeling Ansell’s new line, I guess we were.
It’s tough when you don’t know if it’s you or your clothing getting cruised.
We were halfway across the dance floor when I felt someone grab me from behind.
“Kevito!” Rueben shouted, lifting me effortlessly.
He put me down and I turned to yell at him for sending me this ridiculous outfit. Instead, I just gaped. Rueben looked too ridiculously sexy to scold in his lime green pimp suit the likes of which have not been seen since Donna Summer’s triumphant movie debut inThank God It’s Friday.
But instead of polyester, Rueben’s suit was made of soft suede. The bell-bottom pants flared wide at the calf but fit snugly around his strong thighs. The wide-lapelled jacket draped like a second skin, revealing every sensuous curve of his sinewy shoulders and thick biceps. He didn’t wear a shirt, but four gold chains around his neck drew your attention to his sculpted chest and tawny skin, which looked like caramel and probably tasted twice as sweet.
“You lookhawwwwwt, baby,” Rueben drawled, reaching out to tweak my left nipple. “And you, Frederico.” He turned to my best friend. “How come I never see construction workers like you outside my apartment,mi hermano?” He kissed Freddy on the check.
Rueben looked back and forth at us. “Ah,mi amigos caliente. Me gusta, muchachos.” He cupped his crotch and licked his lips.
I took him by the arm and started pulling him off the dance floor. “Cut the Latin lover shit, ‘muchacho,’ ” I hissed. “We both know you grew up on the Upper West Side and went to Wharton.”
“I’m just pimping, my brother.” Rueben grinned. “Don’t be hating on my mack-daddy style, now.”
“Whateva,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Let’s just go somewhere we can talk. Come on, Freddy,” I called, but Freddy was nowhere to be seen.
“There he is.” Rueben pointed. Freddy was in the middle of the dance floor, dancing in perfect synchronization with a stunning slim Asian boy. They turned, dipped, and shimmied as one. A small crowd encircled them and applauded.
“What,” I asked, “is that?”
“It’s the Hustle.” Rueben grinned again. “Caliente, no?”
“Where did he learn the Hustle?” I wondered.
“I don’t know about him,” Rueben answered, “but I learned it at Wharton.”
Rueben took me upstairs to a locked room. He pulled a key from his back pocket and let us into a huge bedroom. The space was industrial chic. At the far end of the room was a huge bed half-hidden behind a folding silver screen. A flat-panel screen hung from the twenty-foot ceiling, all of its cables hidden in the steel tube that suspended it in midair.
By the door where we entered was a sitting area with a black leather couch and two red leather chairs. A WarholMarilynhung over the sofa.
He’s got a whole friggin’ living room in his bedroom,I marveled, and for a moment, I thought it might be nice to be Ansell Darling.
“What’s the dilly-o?�
�� Rueben complained as he settled onto the sofa. “Why you trying to kill my chill, homes?”
I gave him my best Joan Crawford don’t-fuck-withme-fellas stare. “Would you cut that out?”
“All right, all right,” Rueben said in his perfectly unaccented prep school speaking voice. “I was just trying to get into character.”
Rueben had been born to wealthy parents who owned about half of Puerto Rico’s commercial real estate market. They did their best to Americanize him, but Rueben always yearned for a more authentically urban experience.
Which he got when, in his second year of college, he told his parents he was gay. They gave him an ultimatum—either repent and marry a girl of their choosing, or they’d cut him off for good.
I don’t understand how parents can let the luck of the draw lead them to reject their own children. If being straight were the only requirement of good parenting, I’d hear a lot fewer stories like Rueben’s.
Given a choice between being cut off from his parents or being true to his heart, Rueben chose freedom. Unfortunately, his subsequent decisions weren’t as sound. He dropped out of school, started hustling, and dulled his pain with almost everything a person could inject, snort, or smoke.
The next two years for Rueben were filled with enough drama and outrageous occurrences for five or six reality series on Bravo TV. I wasn’t sure about the exact chronology, partially because the story changed a little every time Rueben and I talked. Maybe not all of it was true, but Rueben certainly had a tumultuous life.
Over the years, I’ve seen Rueben go up and down. When he was doing well and staying relatively clean, Rueben was gorgeous, sexy, and smart. A fun and funny guy who lit up the room.
Other times, he looked haggard and worn. Drugs and hard living took their toll. Some of the old Rueben would shine through, but it was dulled by addiction and depression.
The last time Freddy and I saw Rueben, he looked like shit. Beautiful shit, yes, but still shit.
Tonight, I was glad to see, he looked fantastic. Fit and healthy. Happy. I told him so.
“Thanks.” He blushed. “It’s Ansell. He’s been really good to me. Took me in, dried me out. He’s been incredible.”
“Really?” I remembered how scared he sounded on the phone. “I thought, I don’t know, I thought you two were having trouble or something.”
“What? No. He’s the greatest. It started with him as business, you know? He was a client. But one night, we got to talking, and we really connected. Then, I dropped out of the scene for a while.” He looked away. “I went to Florida with a videographer for FratPackBoysOnline. You know it?”
I nodded. FratPackBoysOnline was an online “amateur” video site that featured “college boys.” Supposedly, customers got twenty-four-hour access to a fraternity house’s hidden cameras, where the “students,” many of whom appeared to be in their thirties and semi-retarded, were frequently observed showering and having sex but, mysteriously, never doing anything that real students do, like attending classes, watching online porn themselves, or playing video games.
“At that point, I was doing meth pretty much twentyfourseven,” Rueben continued. “This video guy, he tells me he’ll hook me up steady if I move into the FratPack, right? I was partying and doing group scenes all the time anyway, so I figured what the hell?
“What’s the worst that could happen? Maybe someone would find my videos online and send them to my dad, and the old fuck would die of shock, right?” He smiled with one side of his mouth while the other half trembled as if he was about to cry.
“Maybe I’d send them to him.” The half smile was gone now and his doe-like green eyes watered up.
I took his hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“Please.” Rueben blinked back the tears. “Please. I’m a big boy. I knew what I was doing. Stupid.” He shook his head. “Anyway. . . some porn, I wouldn’t mind doing, you know what I mean? If Johnny Hazzard wants to do a scene with me, baby, I’m there. I was a goddamn prostitute, Kevin. It’s not like sex work scares me.”
I noticed his use of the word “was.”
This despite his mention of Johnny Hazzard, who I had to agree I’d do onscreen or off, too.
Rueben may have been a big drug addict, but he had good taste.
I was fondly recalling Johnny’s, literally, seminal work in the genius productions of Miss Chi Chi LaRue when I realized I had stopped listening to Rueben.
Focus, Kevin, focus.
“ . . . not too bad,” Rueben was saying when I tuned back in. “But FratPack was a meat grinder. Boys coming and going, some ODing, some getting sick. Everyone treated like shit and encouraged to do as many drugs as possible so we wouldn’t ask why we weren’t getting paid. Pathetic.
“So, one night I go out in Miami with some of the other ‘models’ and there’s Ansell. With his usual entourage of the rich and beautiful, right? Meanwhile, I’m looking like a truck rolled over me and probably smelling worse.”
I knew Rueben run over by a truck would still look better than half the boys working the runway, but I didn’t say anything.
“I’m thinking I better get out of there, because I didn’t want Ansell to see me like this, right? But there’s this other part of me thinking Ididwant him to see me, because maybe I could hit him up for some cash, you know? Maybe I could score some betterquality shit.”
Rueben shook his head again. A tear rolled down his cheek. I squeezed his hand.
“While I’m making up my mind, one of Ansell’s assistants sees me. He knows Ansell’s type, so he points me out to him. Ansell comes over and soon we’re talking like always, right? He says, ‘Hey, let’s get out of here, you can show me a good time.’
“I hesitate for a minute, because I’m wondering what I’d tell the guys I came with, when Ansell takes a couple of hundreds out of his pocket and presses them into my hand. ‘Arealgood time,’ he tells me. ‘But we have to go now.’
“I liked Ansell well enough as a client, but I liked those hundreds a lot more. So I said, ‘Sure,’ and we go outside where there’s this big stretch limo on the corner and, of course, it’s his. I get in and it’s the cleanest, quietest, most comfortable place I’ve been in weeks, man. I’m so relaxed I don’t even realize it, and Ansell, who’s looking at me real close now, says, ‘Why don’t you close your eyes for a minute?’ and I do.
“The next thing I know I’m waking up in a padded white room. I thought I died and went to heaven. Then I saw lettering above the door that said ‘The Gateway Clinic.’ I was in a freaking psycho ward, man.
“I just about went crazy. But they’re used to that there. I knew I couldn’t be held against my will, so I started screaming to be let out. I could feel that scratchy hunger building. I wanted another hit. But the doctors showed me papers I signed saying they could keep me for seventy-two hours. I didn’t remember signing anything. Still don’t know that I did. But when you’ve got Ansell Darling’s kind of money, you can make things happen.
“An hour after I woke up, Ansell showed up. I was cursing him, screaming, but he had the doctors bring another bed into my room and that crazy-assed white boy stayed with me for the next three days. He held my head while I puked, he listened to my shit when I screamed, he even changed my sheets when I sweated them through, which was about every twenty minutes.
“Trouble with Ansell?” he asked. “I have no trouble with Ansell. Ansell’s my angel. He got me clean.”
“You still clean?” I asked.
Ansell held his arms out for inspection. “As mother’s milk. I’m not going near that shit again. Not even a joint. Believe me.”
I did.
“Ansell saved my life, Kevin. If not for him, I probably would have wound up like Sammy White Tee.”
Sammy White Tee was another working boy who Rueben and I knew through that invisible network that links New York’s most successful and exclusive male prostitutes. I don’t know how we all got to know eac
h other, but somehow we did. Sammy was one of the shyest of us—hence, his nickname. No one knew much about him except that he always wore blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt. In the fall, he added a dungaree jacket and in the winter its leather twin. In every season, he looked like James Dean at his most breathtaking and most innocent.
“Sammy White Tee?” I asked. “What happened to Sammy White Tee?”
“You didn’t hear,papi?”
I shook my head.
“Sammy White Teees muerte, chico.Dead.”
12
Putting It Together “Sammy White Tee is dead?” I asked. “What are you talking about?” I felt the blood drain from my face. “Sí,” said Rueben. “Yes. I know, it’s hard to believe.”
Sammy had been such a sweet kid, so full of life. “What happened?”
“Died in the bath. They think he tripped on a bar of soap, hit his head on the side of the tub, and drowned. I heard about it from Corbin Fitzer, who told meheheard it from that boy who used to dance at Rumors. Dalon.”
OK, the network between rentboys in this city may have been loose, but it wasn’t unreliable. At least I didn’t think so.
“Is it true?” I asked.
Rueben shrugged. “Yeah, I think so. Nobody’s seen Sammy White Tee for weeks, so it makes sense. I heard he was high on something when it happened.”
I shook my head.
“I know,” Rueben said. “It’s hard to believe.”
“Actually,” I said, standing up, “not so much. Come on, we have to find Freddy.”
Freddy was still on the dance floor, sandwiched between a heavily muscled black guy who gyrated against him from behind and a Justin Timberlake look-alike who Freddy held in his arms. I’ve seen less explicit three-ways in pornos.
“Now,thatis hot,” Rueben observed. “Not anymore,” I said, grabbing Freddy by the arm and pulling him away.
“Are you crazy?” Freddy asked.
“Hey!” Justin Timberlake Boy cried.
“I saw him first,” Muscle Head shouted.
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