“Enough!” I shouted. “As charming as this trip down memory lane is, can we skip any more stories about my bodily functions?” I fol owed her as she walked into my kitchen.
“Oh, please, don’t even get me started on your poopies! I remember one day, oh, you must have been three years old, I had you dressed in the cutest white outfit and…”
I picked a knife off the counter and pointed it at my chest. “That’s it. I’m cutting my heart out right now.”
My mother opened up the refrigerator. “Don’t be such a drama queen.”
“‘Drama queen?’”
“I run a beauty shop, darling. I can talk gay. And there’s stil nothing to eat in this thing.”
“I go out a lot.”
“Tel you what,” my mother said. “How about we hop in my car, drive out to somewhere where there are real supermarkets, Queens or Brooklyn or something, and go shopping. Let’s pretend real people live in this apartment.”
“I don’t cook.”
“I’l cook.” She walked over to the stove. “Does this thing actual y work, or is it just for show?” She turned the dial and the pilot light caught. “Hal elujah!
We have fire! Now I know how the cavemen felt.”
The truth was, my mom’s cooking didn’t sound half bad. Neither did a ful y-stocked kitchen. I didn’t have a client tonight, or any other plans, either. I was thinking of staring at the phone al night hoping Tony might cal, but I could always do that tomorrow.
Besides, she’d be a captive audience on the car ride, and I could use the time to plead my father’s innocence.
Four hours later, I was fat and happy sitting at my computer. My mother was in the bedroom watching Matlock or something.
It had been a fun evening. Although I didn’t get anywhere on the Dottie Kubacki front, (“I know what I know and don’t ask me what I know, al right?”) we did tear up the supermarket and fil ed my cupboards with more food than I knew they could hold. The apartment stil smel ed of her signature liver with cabbage and onions, which sounds disgusting but is real y delicious. And there was stil about ten pounds left over for tomorrow.
The evening made me remember that when I wasn’t embarrassed or overwhelmed by my mother, she was pretty good company.
A stocked kitchen. Home cooking. A shower that rained on me. Maybe having her here for awhile wasn’t going to be so bad.
“Hey,” my mother’s voice came from the bedroom.
“Where’s that magazine I was reading last night?”
“What magazine?” I asked her.
“The one in your nightstand. With al the naked men.”
Oh. My. God.
She had to go.
I was typing the phrase “how to kil your mother” into Google when I got an instant message: “R u free?”
It was from Marc Wilgus, one of my favorite clients. I typed back “I’m available, but never ‘free.’”
“LOL,” Marc replied. “Seriously. I’m bored amp; horny. Wanna cum over?”
Marc was a great guy, and sex with him was always fun. I’d do him for free, although I wasn’t about to tel him that.
“C u in 20,” I answered. I didn’t want to interrupt my mother’s show, so I left her a note saying that I was meeting some friends.
Marc opened his door and immediately pul ed me inside, pinning me against the wal and kissing me hard and deep.
It was probably the movie Pretty Woman that popularized the myth that prostitutes don’t kiss. Think about it: Does it real y make sense that a hooker would suck Richard Gere’s dick but not make out with him?
In fact, it’s our clients who usual y avoid the lip lock. If a guy wants to kiss me, and if he’s clean and doesn’t have bad breath, I’m not adverse to some tonsil hockey.
Least of al with Marc. He was as good a kisser as he was everything else.
Al around us, computers buzzed and whirred.
Marc worked out of his apartment as a reverse-hacker. Security companies hired him to try and break into their client’s computer networks. If Marc found an opening-and he always did-the security company knew to develop appropriate countermeasures.
In other words, Marc made his living doing things most people would go to jail for. But then again, so did I.
In addition to being good at sex, Marc was handsome as hel. He was just a little tal er than me which made him kind of short. His body had obviously never seen the inside of a gym.
Sometimes he’d cal himself “fat” but he wasn’t. He wasn’t in great shape like a cover boy, but he was warm and strong and his skin was the smoothest I’ve ever felt. He must have been in his mid-thirties, but he could pass for younger. He had luxuriously black curly hair that I could spend hours running my hands through.
Had I met him under other circumstances, I might have been tempted to go out with him, except for one smal thing: I wasn’t entirely sure he ever went out.
Marc lived his life almost entirely on the Web. He ordered groceries and meals on the Internet. His movies, music, and pornography arrived over his FIOS line. He even hooked up with me through Mrs.
Cherry’s Web site.
“Mmmm,” I said, pul ing away from his embrace.
“It’s been kind of a long day. Do you want me to grab a shower?”
Marc licked me from my neck to my ear, whispering, “only if I can join you.”
I put my arms back around him, hooking my thumbs into the back of his jeans. I started pushing down. “Wanna get wet?”
Marc pressed his impressive bulge against me.
“I’m already getting wet.”
“Sweet talker.”
Marc took my T-shirt off and put his lips to my right nipple. He sucked hard and I gasped with pleasure.
“Fuck the shower,” Marc said, putting his hands under my ass. He lifted me off the ground and I wrapped my legs around his back. He carried me towards the bedroom. “Let’s fuck.”
An hour later, I needed the shower even more. Marc lay on top of me, the drying evidence of my orgasm threatening to permanently glue us together. Marc tossed his condom on the floor, where it landed with a wet plop.
“Damn, that was good. How much,” Marc asked playful y, “would it cost to have you move in?”
“More than you could afford.” I ran my hands down his back.
“Hey, careful what you say,” Marc smiled. “You’re talking to a man who can hack into the bank accounts of seven of the world’s ten richest men.”
“Only seven?”
“The other three haven’t hired me yet to try,” Marc answered. He rol ed off me, finding out too late how sticky dried cum can be. “Ouch!”
“Love hurts,” I said.
“You’re tel ing me,” Marc answered. “And I haven’t even paid yet.”
“Listen,” I said, thinking of the uncomfortable couch and my mother’s snoring awaiting me at home, “if you want I can stay the night.”
“I’d like that,” Marc said, “but I’m kind of in the middle of breaking into the satel ite systems of a smal Central American nation. I better get back to work.”
“No problem,” I said, disappointed.
I couldn’t help but think that Richard Gere never kicked Julia Roberts out.
Maybe I should have held back on the kissing.
After I got dressed, Marc slipped two hundred dol ar bil s into my hand. “I’l settle the rest up with Mrs.
Cherry online,” he told me.
“You’re great,” I said, giving him a hug.
“You too,” he said. “What’s your schedule like next week?” I told him the nights I was free, and he said he’d get back to me. It was a sil y dance we did, because we both knew he’d never schedule a date in advance. In Marc’s virtual reality, everything came to him when he wanted it, and he never knew what he’d want from one moment to the next. If he saw me online when he was horny, he’d get in touch and we’d get together. If I wasn’t available, another rentboy would enjoy his generosity.
/> Although he always told me I was his favorite.
Which I didn’t doubt, because he was my favorite client.
“Maybe next time,” he said, “you could do it.”
“Do what?”
“You know,” he said, shyly. “Spend the night. If you want to, I mean.”
Marc looked sweet and vulnerable, even younger than he usual y did.
Maybe Marc’s earlier rejection of my offer to stay had less to do with his work than with his fear of getting too close to someone. It wasn’t an accident, I thought, that he’s locked himself in this computer wonderland.
Maybe he wasn’t locking himself in as much as he was locking everyone else out.
Maybe he needed someone to knock down the door.
He was sweet, he was handsome, he was sexy, and he was rich. Maybe that someone should be me.
Maybe this kind of thinking gets a hustler in trouble.
“Give ‘em your mouth, your dick, and your ass,”
Mrs. Cherry once told me, “but do me a favor: keep your heart to yourself.”
“Maybe I can,” I told Marc.
But I knew I probably shouldn’t.
I sneaked into my apartment somewhere around one. My mother’s snoring combined with the lumpy couch to defeat any chance of sleep. I tossed and turned for awhile, but eventual y gave in to pharmaceutical assistance and popped an Ambien.
What do you get when you cross someone with hyperactivity with a sleeping pil? Someone who can’t wait to fal asleep. Get it?
So, after ten restless minutes, I popped another pil. That did the trick. Sleep hit me like a hammer.
CHAPTER 8
In Which Our Hero Goes to the Gynecologist
“Good morning, gorgeous!” someone shouted into my face. I groggily opened my unwil ing eyes. Features slowly came into focus: blood-red lipstick, long, false eyelashes, heavily teased wig.
Oh my God, I thought, a demented drag queen has broken into my apartment!
Then I remembered.
“Mom. What time is it?” I croaked
“Wake up time,” she said. She leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “Smel.”
I covered my mouth. “I haven’t brushed yet,” I explained.
“No, you don’t smel,” she said. “Wel, maybe a little. I mean: smel.” She took a deep breath.
I did too. Oh my god. Bacon. French toast.
Hazelnut coffee. If I hadn’t woken up with a morning erection (thank you Lord for the blanket that covered my lap), I’d have sprung one there and then.
“See what you can do with food?” my mother said.
“It’s cal ed ‘cooking.’”
After breakfast with my mother, I went to the gym. I was doing pul — ups, my least favorite exercise, and thinking about what Tony told me.
“Just walk away.”
He was right, of course. I had about as much business solving a murder as Sherlock Holmes did turning tricks.
Stil, several things nagged at me.
Not the least of which was that I couldn’t believe Al en would have kil ed himself.
I don’t care what Tony told me about a recent rash of gay suicides. Al en was a happy, vital man, and he never would have taken his own life.
Someone must have kil ed him.
But who?
His children were obvious suspects.
Both Michael, the tal, handsome one, and Paul, the fey dandy, hated their father. Perhaps they had other motives, too. Maybe they didn’t believe he had cut them from his wil. Were they expecting a windfal from Al en’s fal from a window?
There were other suspects, too.
I stil had questions about Randy Bostinick, the hustler I had hooked Al en up with. Randy had a kil er temper. But did he have a killer’s temper? I couldn’t say.
Then there was Roger Folds, the development director at The Stuff of Life. While I didn’t have any reason to think he was capable of murder, it was pretty strange that he stopped coming to work right around the time of Al en’s death. And his co-worker Vicki had told me something else… what was it?
Focus, Kevin, focus.
Ah yes, she thought Roger and Al en had been fighting about something.
And I stil didn’t know enough about Paul and Michael Harrington. What was Paul doing with that shrew Alana? And what was up with Michael’s group, The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy? It sounded like a quack factory to me.
Al these thoughts swirling around in my head-it was time to get organized. My psychiatrist often told me that people with AADD should make lists. I was lazy about fol owing his advice, but I felt overwhelmed enough to admit I needed al the help I could get. I took my iPhone out of my shorts. Along with a very smal canister of Mace I kept on my keychain (we little blond boys need al the help we can get), it was something I carried with me al the time. I opened up a note and started typing.
1. Fol ow up with Roger Folds-fight?
2. Talk to Randy Bostinick
3. Research Paul and Michael Harrington.
4. Look into those gay suicides-was that true?
Then, just for the heck of it, I added
5. Fuck Tony
I wasn’t sure how I meant that last item, but what the hel. Either way would be immensely satisfying.
I looked over the list. Items one and two looked pretty doable. With the help of the Internet, I could at least get started on three and four.
Item five I had waited seven years for. I could afford to wait a while longer.
My first to-do, talking to Roger Folds, I might be able to make short order of. Feeling pumped from the gym, I walked to The Stuff of Life for my morning shift. By the time I got there, the summer heat had deflated my pump, soaked through my shirt, and left me a sweaty mess. Yuck.
I got to The Stuff of Life early and headed straight to Roger’s office. The door was closed. I knocked, once quietly, once with a little more oomph. No answer.
Next I went to see Vicki. She was sitting with her feet up on her desk, back to the door, phone held to her ear. Black cowboy shirt, black jeans, black boots. Black hair slicked back like Elvis. She was talking on the phone. “So I said to her, ‘listen honey, I wouldn’t eat her pussy with your mouth,’ and she said…”
I tapped on the door to let her know I was there.
Vicki held up a finger.
“Hey, listen, someone’s at the door. I’l cal you back later. Yeah, love you too, Mom.” She hung up the phone.
“Jesus,” I said, “you talk to your mother like that?”
“Please,” Vicki rol ed her eyes, “once my mother found out I was a dyke, she got more interested in lesbianism than I am. She read every book she could find on the subject, rented Desert Hearts, and begged me to take her to a gay bar.”
“Did you?”
“Of course! She had a great time. Haven’t you ever taken your mother out?”
“We went to the supermarket last night.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Listen, there’s not a gay bar in New York big enough to hold me and my mother.”
“You should try it. Maybe you guys could come out with me and my mom sometime. Who knows, maybe our moms wil hook up.”
I put my fingers in my ears. “La, la, la, la…”
“OK,” Vicki said, laughing, “I take it back. So, if you didn’t come here looking to hook your mother up with some hot lesbo action, what does bring you my way?”
I explained that I was looking for Roger Folds.
“Wel, don’t look here,” Vick answered. “He quit.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. He said he never wants to come back, either. Just asked if someone could bring his personal stuff to his apartment.” Vicki pointed to a cardboard box sitting on her floor. “That’s it over there. He doesn’t live too far from me, so I figured I’d do it. Give me a chance to tel him what an asshole I think he is.”
“Listen,” I said, “think you could tel him in a letter?
/> Cause I’d really like to see him.”
“Can’t imagine why. But if you wanna deliver his shit, be my guest. Just be sure to send my disregards.”
“Thanks. I’l pick it up when I’m done.” I kissed Vicki on the cheek. “Tel your Mom I said ‘hi.’”
“Hey, tel her yourself when your mother brings her home for Christmas. As her date.”
“Ewwwww.”
My talk with Vicki had taken longer than I expected. I had to hurry to the kitchen to get today’s volunteers started on the meal preparation. I was racing down the hal way, not real y looking where I was going, when I ran smack into a wal. “Oomph!”
“Sorry,” the wal mumbled.
“It’s OK,” I said, realizing that the wal, in fact, was a woman. Not a heavy woman, but large and solidly built, with the muscles of a high-school footbal player.
Our eyes met with a flash of recognition. The Wal blushed and looked down at her feet.
“Lori,” a voice cal ed from down the hal way, catching up to us, “I got the papers we need and…”
The tal er, thinner woman recognized me immediately. “Oh!” she said. “Hel o. Connor, right?”
“Kevin,” I corrected her. “I met you two…”
“At the reading of Al en’s wil,” she finished my sentence. “I’m May. And this,” she said gesturing towards to her companion, “is Lori. My partner at the Association for the Acceptance of Lesbian and Gay Youth, as wel as in life.”
They were the women from the group Al en funded in his wil.
Lori shifted uncomfortably. “Huh,” she said by way of greeting.
May put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I could tel you and Al en were close. The way he spoke about you in that video-it was obvious he cared. You must have been very special to him.”
Had anyone talked to me with compassion about Al en’s death, I wondered? I found myself tearing up.
“Thanks,” I said. “He was a very good man.”
“He was obviously a big fan of yours,” I said. “Of your work.”
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