“No, nothing bad. Just need ur help.”
“Come now if you want.”
Of course, since Marc never left his apartment, any time was as good as any other. I had to be at The Stuff of Life at 11:00 to volunteer for the lunch shift, and then had a client at 3:00.
“Let me grab a shower,” I wrote back. “C u in 30.”
“Cool.”
I showered, shaved al the relevant body parts, threw on frayed dungaree shorts, an Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt, and sneakers, and headed out the door. Just as I was leaving, my mother emerged from the bedroom.
“Good boy,” she said, “you’re almost dressed today.”
“Morning,” I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“You recovered from last night?”
She put her hand on my cheek. “You’re the one who almost broke his neck. Not to mention seeing that bitch Dottie Kubacki in such detail that not even her doctor should have to. I’m sorry you have such a crazy mother.”
My mother never real y admitted to being wrong, but this was close.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “At least now you know that daddy wasn’t there.”
“Wel, he wasn’t there when we got there. Who knows where he was before that.”
I sighed.
“I’m tel ing you,” she said. “There is something going on between your father and that woman. And I’m going to find out what it is.”
“OK, wel, good luck with that. I have to run and meet a friend.” I turned towards the door.
“Oh, I don’t need luck.” She patted me right on the sorest part of my butt. “I have you.”
The doorman at Marc’s building gave me a look that seemed to say “Isn’t it a bit early for the likes of you?” before buzzing me in. When I got to Marc’s door, Marc was standing there in sweatpants and a T-shirt that said “When the robot overlords take over, I can translate.” He looked cute and a little disheveled, and smel ed of freshly-applied deodorant.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
We stood there a bit awkwardly. Usual y, when he was paying for my visits, he just grabbed me and we started making out. Today, he didn’t know what to do.
Was I there as a friend? A hustler? What?
I gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for seeing me.”
“No problem,” he said, “you want some coffee or tea?”
“That’d be great.”
He walked me into his very modern kitchen, where about fifteen tal cups from Starbucks were lined up on his blindingly clean marble countertop, along with a plate of baked goods.
“I, uh, didn’t know what you wanted,” he said, “so I just told them to send up one of everything.”
“We could have just made a pot,” I said smiling.
“Um, I don’t actual y have a pot,” Marc answered.
“Or any coffee beans or real cups. Or milk. I pretty much order in whatever I need.”
Like I said, Marc is the Master of the Web. But how he survives in the real world is a mystery to me.
“The only problem is,” Marc continued, “I don’t exactly know what is what. But feel free to take a sip of everything until you find one you like.”
I eventual y found a nice Chai tea that smel ed deliciously of cinnamon and honey Marc picked up a cup at random and started drinking. We both took scones and sat at the counter.
I told Marc about Al en’s death. I described for him the crazy sons and my visit to The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. I told him about the gay suicides and how they haven’t been reported in the press. That was what I needed his help to investigate.
“Wow,” Marc said, after he heard the whole story.
“That’s what I cal good customer service. Would you do al that for me if I ended up on the pavement?”
“Al en was a friend,” I told him. “But the answer is
‘yes.’”
Marc smiled. “I bet you would.” He reached out to ruffle my hair. “You’re a pretty special kid.”
“Thanks. Can you help me?”
“You mean, can I il egal y hack into the files at police headquarters and find out the information they’re withholding from the press?”
I nodded.
“With my dominant hand tied behind my back,” he grinned. “But I’l go you one better. Wait here a minute.”
Marc went into his office and returned with a laptop. Flipping it open, he fussed with the mouse and keyboard.
“Give me al the information you have. I’l put it into my data mining program and we’l see what comes up.”
“Data mining?” I asked him
“It’s one of the information technology tools that governments use to catch terrorists. It’s like a giant database that looks at mil ions of other databases and other information to make relevant connections.
“Like, for example, the program might notice that five people from a country with terrorist connections who al attended the same military training program have dissolved their bank accounts and booked themselves on the same flight. Each one of those pieces of data might be insignificant, but when you put them al together, wel, I wouldn’t want to be on that plane.”
“Got it,” I said.
“So download to me everything you know that’s related to Al en’s death and we’l see what turns up.”
I rattled off al the people and places that I knew were involved, including the eight names Tony had given me of the supposed suicides, which I read off the list I stil carried in my wal et. Marc typed it al in.
“OK,” he said. “It wil take a day or two to run that through the program. I’l cal you when I find anything out.”
I got up and sat on his lap. “You’re wonderful.” I kissed him on the lips. Now I know what he’d been drinking-he tasted of caramel.
“Mmm,” he said. “You’re going to get me started.”
I looked at the clock. I had over an hour before I had to be at The Stuff of Life.
“And this is a bad thing why?” I asked. Then, I realized that he might think I was working.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m going to tel you something I’ve never told another client. You know how you’ve been paying me over the past couple of months?”
He nodded.
“I would have done at least half those things for free.”
“Real y?” he said, his voice cracking like a teenager’s.
“Uh-huh,” I said, kissing his neck. “Maybe even three quarters.” I scraped his skin with my teeth.
“Mmmm,” he groaned. I felt him grow hard against me. “I don’t mind paying. But it’s nice to know.”
“Wel, today’s on the house,” I said. “If you have time.”
Marc stood up, grabbing me behind the knees and carrying me to the bedroom. “I think I can squeeze you in.”
As I pul ed my shorts back on, Marc looked at me affectionately from the bed. “What you’re involved in, it’s got me a little worried.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re dealing with a possible murderer here,”
Marc explained. “You said that guy Michael looked like he wanted to hurt you. I don’t want to see anything bad happen to you.”
I stood up and executed some Krav Maga moves and then jumped into a handstand. “I can take care of myself.”
“Hey,” Marc said, standing up, naked. Although we had both just cum twenty minutes ago, he looked like he was getting excited again. “Little tough man.
Who knew?”
I playful y flexed my biceps. “Grrrr!”
“Where’d you learn to get al Jackie Chan like that?”
“When you’re a little blond boy like me,” I said,
“you either learn to defend yourself or you wind up an easy target.”
Marc took me in his arms. “Wel, I’m impressed.”
I grabbed him where it counts. “I can see.”
Marc put his hand under my chin and tilted my face up to his. His
eyes looked steadily into mine. “I know we’ve spent plenty of time together, but I guess I’ve never real y gotten to know you. But today, wel, I think I’ve learned a lot about you. You’re smart and brave and resourceful and strong in ways that I never knew. I have to say, I like what I see.”
I heard Mrs. Cherry’s words in my head. “Give ‘em your mouth, your dick, and your ass. But do me a favor: keep your heart to yourself.”
Was she right?
I blushed.
Marc put his hands on my hot cheeks. “That’s cute.”
I definitely had feelings for Marc. But could I love him?
Maybe, but he was no Tony.
Tony? Shit, where had that come from? Ugh.
I threw my arms around Marc and hugged him tightly. “Thank you for helping me,” I said.
Marc hugged me back. “Thank you for asking.”
CHAPTER 15
A Climax, of Sorts
I arrived at The Stuff of Life about fifteen minutes before the lunch shift, planning to tel Vicki about my bizarre meeting with Roger Folds. But as I walked through the door, my cel phone rang. It was my father.
I went into an empty office to take his cal.
“So,” my father began, “if you don’t mind my asking such a thing, what was your mother’s car doing racing down our street at midnight last night?”
“Oh, you saw?” I asked.
“The whole neighborhood saw. At least no one else recognized her. For this, we should be thankful.”
“It’s kind of a long story,” I said.
“You can start with why you were in a tree peeping into Mrs. Kubacki’s window.”
“She saw me?”
“She saw someone. And it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know that your mother didn’t haul her fat, excuse me for saying, ass up that tree.”
I told my father about my mother’s suspicion that he had been visiting Dottie that night.
“Oy. That woman. She drove me to it.”
“Drove you to what?”
“To Dottie, of course. What do you think?”
I was glad I was sitting down. “You mean, you real y are having an affair with Dottie Kubacki? You told me nothing was going on.”
“Wel, what’s ‘nothing?’” he said to me. Then, after a moment, “And I wouldn’t cal it an ‘affair.’ I’m not, pardon the expression, having the intercourse with her. It’s not physical.
“But your mother, you may know this already, is driving me crazy. She doesn’t let me live. She nags, she lectures, she doesn’t let me get a word in edgewise.
“But Dottie. Dottie listens. I tel her about the war, about my parents, about my dreams, and she sits there with her chin in her hands and she looks at me like I’m the most interesting person in the world.
Then, she makes me a glass of tea and homemade apple cake and it makes me feel like a man again.
“When you’re as old as I am, that’s a good feeling, son.”
I have to admit I was moved listening to my father talk. He was right; he did deserve a moment in the sun. At the end of days, don’t we al?
“So, do you want to leave Mom?” I asked.
“Leave?” my father asked. “What are you, nuts too? I love your mother. She drives me crazy, but she’s stil my wife. I just have a friend. A lady friend.
She makes me tea and every once in a while I change a lightbulb for her. So what? The world has to come to an end because I have a friend? What is this, Nazi Germany?”
Suddenly, I understood what threatened my mother so much about “that bitch” Dottie Kubacki.
She knew perfectly wel that my father wasn’t having sex with Dottie. But my mother also knew how difficult she could be. She was afraid that if my father had someone with whom he could compare her, that he’d realize it, too. As if he didn’t know.
My mother recognized that, measured against Dottie, she might, in some ways, look bad. And if there was anything my mother couldn’t stand, it was looking bad.
“OK,” I said, “listen. We’re gonna fix this, OK? I know you want Mom back home…”
“Let’s not get carried away,” my father said.
“Dad.”
“No, you’re right, she belongs here. The house, and I know you may find this hard to believe, is kind of quiet without her. Empty, too. Plus, she must be driving you coo-coo. Before you know it, she’l be putting up curtains.”
“You’re going to have to do something,” I told him.
“Something romantic. Something that shows her that she real y is the most important person in the world to you. Can you do that?”
“Like maybe I should send flowers?”
“Bigger.”
“Chocolates?”
“Too ordinary.”
“One of those guys who come to the house dressed like a policeman and then takes his clothes off like a crazy person? She saw that once on that View show and loved it.”
I thought I might enjoy that, too, but it didn’t seem entirely appropriate. “We’l have to come up with something better than that, Dad. I’l think about it.”
“You’re a good boy. So, tel me: Dottie says that whoever was looking through her window saw her naked. Is this true?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
“And…” my father asked.
“And what?”
“How was it?”
“How do you think it was?”
My father paused for a moment. “Epic.”
“Yes,” I said, “but not in a good way.”
“No,” my father said, “I wouldn’t think so. The woman has a heart of gold, but it’s surrounded by, and you’l excuse my French, a shitload of lard, isn’t it?”
After my shift at The Stuff of Life I went to the gym, had a protein drink, and then headed off to a date with a client who paid five hundred dol ars to play
“salesman.”
His fantasy was that he worked at The Gap, and I asked to have my inseam measured. He took a measuring tape, put one end at my shoe, extended the rest up the side of my leg until his hand was just under my bal s, gave them a quick, surreptitious squeeze, and then ejaculated into his pants.
The entire thing took less than five minutes, four minutes of which was him explaining what he wanted me to do.
Sometimes, I loved my job.
I got home at 4:00 to find Tony outside my building.
“Hi,” he said, looking great in his standard blue slacks and white shirt. No tie today.
“Is this a stakeout?” I asked.
“I was just in the neighborhood. Rang your bel and when no one answered, decided to wait awhile.”
I took out my cel phone. “You could have cal ed.”
“I could have.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I wanted to see you.”
I extended my arms. “OK, you’ve seen me.”
“You’re going to make this hard for me, aren’t you?”
“Didn’t you tel me two days ago that you didn’t want to see me?”
Tony cocked his head to the side and gave me his most charming smile. He arched one eyebrow and shrugged. “I have conflicting feelings.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. “There’s a lot of that going around.”
“Can we talk?”
Because of my attention deficit disorder, I often get lost in the details and forget the big picture. That was happening here, too, I thought. I real y didn’t want to talk to Tony. What else was there to say?
Just this morning, I spent time talking to Marc with whom I’d had a lot of sex, but never real y spoken. It brought us a lot closer.
Now, here I was with a man who I’ve been talking to for days, but we haven’t had sex in years.
If we did it, if we final y made love again, would it bring us closer together, too? Or would it be the end?
Wasn’t it time I found out?
I thought of my to-do list. What was the last item?
Oh yeah, “fuck Tony.”
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When I wrote it, I meant it in an angry way.
Standing here with him now, on a steaming city street with him looking cool and so handsome and smel ing faintly of freshly-mowed grass, I decided it would be OK to mean it in the other way, too.
What did I want?
What was I afraid of?
Focus, Kevin, focus.
“Let me ask you a question,” I said. “Are you drunk right now?”
Tony looked quizzical. “No.”
“Under the influence of any drugs or other mind-altering substances?”
Tony rol ed up his sleeve. “See? No track marks.”
“So, whatever happens, you’re ready to take responsibility for it?”
Tony saw what I was getting at. He pul ed me towards him. “You mean, right now? In the middle of the afternoon? No more talking?
I just had sex with Marc Wilgus a couple of hours earlier, but I suddenly felt as horny as I ever have. I kissed him. He kissed me back.
This time he didn’t hold back, and the kiss made something inside me expand and explode into a mil ion little pleasures.
“No more talking,” I said. “But feel free to cry out in ecstasy.”
CHAPTER 16
Can’t Help Loving That Man
Because I have sex for a living, it’s easy to think I could become inured to it. Jaded.
But having sex isn’t making love.
When Tony entered me, I felt like I final y had come home.
And then I came.
Just from him sliding inside me.
“Wow,” Tony said. “I do that to you?”
“Now,” I said, climbing on top of him, “watch what I can do to you.”
Although being with Tony wasn’t like being with a trick, that didn’t mean I wasn’t about to use everything I had learned. I rode him like he had never been rode, feeling him grow impossibly hard inside me. I stopped every time he got close and then sped up again.
“You’re kil ing me,” he cried, before final y flipping me back on my back. He made love to me slowly, and then quickly, passionately, kissing me the whole time and moaning against my lips.
My erection, which had never real y gone away, rubbed against his impressive abs.
“Jesus!” he cried when he final y came. “Holy fuck!”
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