Read by Strangers

by Philip Dean Walker

  As I focused back on the TV in the bar, a man started to rub me through my jeans, an older guy. He was balding and, yeah, a little paunchy. Like an ex-boxer gone to seed. But very Ed Harris. Hot. I let him go further, undo my fly and take me in his mouth right as the rich guy was flipping the blond kid over on the screen, propping him up on the billiards table for a hard pounding from behind.

  Ed Harris was damn good at giving head. He placed his hands on my thighs as his head bobbed back and forth, up and down. The shiny top of his scalp reflected the overhead amber lighting above us. I tossed my head back and relaxed. I could see where flies that had gotten too close to the light above had burned, their desiccated husks grouped together toward the center of the overhanging fluorescent—mass-casualty style. A little death pit hanging over me as this guy worked me over.

  When I glanced at another screen, I saw something I recognized immediately. I took my hand away from the base of Ed Harris’s neck and leaned forward to get a better view. There it was, absolutely—a solo jack-off video I’d done three years before (Solo Twink Boyz: Volume One, ’90), not something of which I was especially proud. It was my first picture.

  I’d answered an ad in the back of Manshots magazine looking for “models.” The man told me to show up at a studio loft in Hancock Park at six in the morning, which I found weird. But it was a job, and I had no money and was really close to joining the hustlers on the Boulevard because at least they were getting paid while they were getting laid. And I wouldn’t be wasting the money on drugs like a lot of them, but food, so I could bulk up more. Drop this skinny, ravaged-bird look I had going on then.

  When I got there, all I found was a mattress on the floor. A fat cameraman tossed me a squeezable tube of silicone lube and told me to get started. I said I didn’t need anything like that. All I had to do was take off my clothes, tweak my nipple, and my dick would rise all on its own. He said I wasn’t being paid four hundred fifty in cash to perform a fucking magic show. He said he wanted me to lube my cock up and polish it like it was serving the royal family. Well, I love the royal family. Like seriously, I’m obsessed with them. Princess Di and Fergie and Princess Anne. So it’s not like he could’ve said anything more perfect to get me going.

  But that didn’t necessarily erase the smell of the place and the fact that I was choking a little on the dust and dried skin that lifted off the mattress when I got on and started working myself over. And the constant leer of the cameraman as he watched me, taking on not the passive role of the observer behind the lens but something more menacing—an instigator, beckoning me to climax with hushed commands. “Yeah, boy. Do it, boy.” I tried to shut him out, look past him to a spot on the wall, but I couldn’t seduce a brick. So I stared straight into the camera and stroked harder and harder, and the cameraman kept goading me on, knowing he could later cut out his jeers during editing.

  Honestly, I almost felt the cameraman inside me, whispering in my ear like he was a lover and could inspire this level of passion from me. When I finally climaxed all over myself as he had ordered me, I arched my back so dramatically that I felt I might meet myself full circle, do a complete revolution on the mattress, stick my own dick up my ass, and fuck myself right out of this room, into another place entirely. Into the stratosphere with my name in lights. The slob threw me a towel and told me to clean up because someone else was coming to shoot after me. He’d probably be the next kid in the video.

  I wiped myself, then tossed the towel over my bare shoulder like I was off to the beach and took from the cameraman’s proffered hand an envelope, creased with black smudges but thick with cash. I left my bike on Sycamore and walked home. I felt as if I’d stepped over into something, and that piece of myself I’d left on that video would stare out at me through the eyes of any horny guy who’d ever seen me in it.

  Later, the other guys, other performers, shared with me similar feelings of having crossed over into something dangerous, out of their control. It gets easier after that, they’d said—after I figured out what I was doing and certainly after I’d learned that the largest part of it is the acting and that it’s the saving grace of it too. In the end, it wasn’t really me. There was someone before Crispin Mandrake. And now there was Crispin Mandrake. That’s who was doing all of this.

  Ed Harris took me deep down his throat, deeper than I could remember getting from anyone in some time. When I was about to come, I grabbed the back of Ed’s head and pumped my load down his throat, still watching myself perform in that video at the end of the bar. I’d seen that someone, that guy I’d been before. I’d just forgotten when exactly.

  IV. SAWYER

  THE THREE OF us never talked about what we’d done to Jerry. In fact, the more time that passed—and the fact that Jerry disappeared from school soon after—granted us the illusion that it never had happened at all. When he’d first left, the other kids came up with a bunch of different theories. Several of the girls suffered a kind of buyer’s remorse over their years of mistreatment of him. Since Janelle, his one true friend, began circulating the notion that he was too good for our pathetic Midwestern high school and finally had left for New York City, I felt a bit of relief. I started to think maybe this was true, that what had happened to him wasn’t traumatic at all but just the push he needed to find his true self. “He said he could close his eyes and see his name in lights,” she told a group of students in the hallway as Brad, Chip, and I walked past. “I mean, didn’t he just scream Broadway to you?” she asked them. But there was a doubtful look in her eyes. The more confidence she gained in her voice, the greater the look of fear multiplied. She was afraid for him, but she had no idea why.

  Brad picked me up from school one day not long afterward. He’d been suspended from school for skipping classes and nearly driving his truck into Rick, the old retard who guarded the front gate and reported kids who tried to leave. He said we should go out to an old shed he knew of to shoot at some panes of glass he’d found. They were supposed to be installed in a greenhouse that was undergoing construction across town and being stored there temporarily by the man who’d fired Brad from his contracting job the summer before. He said Brad didn’t know what he was doing and was freaking out the customers with his rage (throwing a hammer at one of the Mexican guys he’d hired for daily work, for one). “That fuck doesn’t know how to install shit. With me gone, he’s probably got his thumb up his ass. And those spics aren’t worth a can of beans.” I stared straight ahead and kind of laughed a little. “Beaners!” he said.

  When we got there, Brad opened a small cooler of beers and popped one open for me. I’d smelled his breath on the way over; he clearly had already started drinking before coming to get me. He was sloshing his words a little.

  He set up the panes of glass along a broken fence near the woods. The glass made everything behind it look really clear and crystal, as if we were watching it all on a screen. A nature show. Brad took the first shot. He hit the pane right in the center, and it exploded in a cascade of glass, disappearing into the weedy dirt, like it had never even been there.

  “You see that, bro? That’s what I’m talking about! That’s it, bitch!” he yelled at me, then took another swig of beer.

  I took a shot, but it only clipped the corner of the large pane and sent a crack down the side.

  Brad squeezed my shoulder. “Hey, that’s okay. Try it again.”

  I took a second shot, and the whole pane burst like it had for Brad. He clapped and hollered and then grabbed his crotch.

  I don’t think I knew how badly I wanted him until he was in my mouth and holding the back of my head. He had total control over how much I took, how fast I went, everything. And I heard him moan, like he was really enjoying it. But as much as I was enthralled over actually doing this with him, with anyone, the moans made me think of the locker room and Jerry’s face. I started to pull away, but Brad grabbed the back of my neck like a vise with both hands and finished himself off. He pulled his jeans up and said we shou
ld reload and hit the rest of the panes. It was like nothing had happened at all. Afterwards, I had a beer.

  The next week at school, Brad returned from suspension. I ran into him and Chip in the hallway along with this new guy they were calling Maverick. I said hey, and they all sort of nodded. A fire drill went off during fifth period, and I found the three of them standing near the soccer goal in the athletic fields, set aside from the rest of the class. I can’t remember how they said it, but (and here are the buzz words I recall), my “loyalty was under suspicion.” I said something like, “My loyalty? What is this—the Mafia?” And that dumb-fuck Maverick, who I barely knew, looked at me with his no-neck and his maroon varsity letter jacket like, “Yeah, maybe it is the Mafia, which means you’d better shut the fuck up.”

  The trio conferred for several minutes. Then they turned around and hawked the largest, most viscous, lumpiest loogies. Real phlegmglobbers, you could just tell by the sound. They all spat them in the same spot on the grass.

  “Sit on that,” Brad said.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Sit it in, and then we’ll see where we are after you do.”

  I think I was wearing Jams, those shorts we all wore in the ’80s. Yellow Jams with little surfers on them. I squatted and, in the most delicate way, lightly touched the small puddle with my ass.

  “Don’t fucking Nancy around with it,” Brad said. “Get in it. Squoosh your ass right down in that shit.”

  It was cold and slimy, and it soaked through the fabric of my shorts onto my underwear then finally touched my skin. They stood around me in a circle so no one else could see what was going on. After a couple of minutes, they spread away from me and regrouped at the other side of the goalpost. When the teachers announced the drill was over, they headed back to class. Chip was the only one who looked back, and he was shaking his head.

  I didn’t wash their spit off my shorts. I left it there, and it eventually dried, but for the next few hours, I felt it every time I sat down. A dewy shame on the back of my Jams and me just marinating in it.

  V. CRISPIN

  IT SHOULD BE something I would’ve learned by now. I should have the formula down. The right amount of food to eat, when and what and what absolutely not. And I do, to some degree. I’ve learned the hard way about Mexican or Chinese, those foods that sit like dead carrion inside you, getting poked by a long rod but never brought back to life. I’ve coaxed my body into evacuating itself. Flushing out—to be that empty, suctioning vessel so totally desired. To be fucked but not filled. Like a really good foster home, I imagine sometimes. I take in the hard-luck cases, nurture and coddle them, only to dispatch them satisfied and assured. I know they’ll be looking for my dark little house wherever they’re living from then on out.

  I’m not a regular grocery shopper and prefer going out to eat or ordering in over cooking. I left home before I’d really gotten the hang of that, although I can make a killer grilled cheese with tomato. When I was really training hard and bulking up, I’d go out and eat for days. Three-foot-long subs, a pint of ice cream, fistfuls of peanut butter—and I still needed more. It was like I’d been starved in the dark for years; I couldn’t stop putting things in my mouth, lifting more iron. I even did steroids for a couple months, but I stopped when I felt they were changing my mood. Making me think of darker places I didn’t feel like going. Besides that, I didn’t want bitch tits.

  I stand in the middle of the kitchen and survey the possibilities. There’s still a nice collection of snacks to feast on, most of them in unopened packages. I take down a bag of Tostitos from the pantry and sit on the floor. I’m hungry. I didn’t eat the day before, not because I couldn’t handle the shoot. There was just barely any time to take a leak, let alone chow down on a Philly cheesesteak.

  I was sure the new top in town was going to be in the studio that day—Brad Chambers—but he wasn’t. I couldn’t risk my first meeting with him taking place between mouthfuls of doughy bread and cheese melting down my chin. This could be the new super pairing of the decade in gay porn. If I play my cards right, I could solidify my place in the industry by luring that expensive dick over to me. If Chambers likes me enough, I could ride this thing out long past my prime, because Brad Chambers is a huge name in straight porn, and this is his first crossover. He chose to cross over with me. He’s going to bring with him a totally different audience.

  You’ll laugh, but I’ve imagined scenarios where Chambers puts fucking me into his contract. A bottom clause. “I must fuck this guy in at least five movies a year.” I’d had another actor demand as much a couple of years ago. I’m that good. Damn it if I’m not going to go all the way with this.

  The chips are lightly salted. I take two or three at first in one hand, savoring the taste of the corn and the oil; my buds are salivating. Once my stomach gets that quick fix, I dig in my other hand, double-fisting them into my mouth, which I can open very wide. I crawl over to the fridge and find the salsa, meaty with thick chunks of onion and green peppers. I dip three fingers in and scoop it straight into my mouth, mixing it with the chips already in there. Then I pour the whole bottle right in the bag, close it at the top and shake it all up. You can learn a lot when you improvise.

  When I get to the shoot, the lights are so bright. A couple of them are on dollies so the best boy or the grip or whoever (they’re all just regular people in the background wearing black T-shirts, so really, who cares what the fuck they do?) is arranging them to light the set, a locker room. I see him almost immediately. Brad Chambers. Brad. It’s like a name from a past life. He’s huge, almost as tall as me but super muscular, which makes him seem that much bigger. I can read pretty muscular on camera, but this guy’s body will make me look downright puny.

  “We gonna do this?” he says, like he’s asking for permission.

  “Hell, yeah,” I answer. “I’ve been waiting for this.” And I have. All my life.

  We’ve both already gotten the sides for the scene some days before, but there aren’t that many lines, so I take the extra time before the shoot to do some push-ups and curls. Make sure my abs are popping out just right. I have this image of myself from before, when I was super skinny with a little twink belly shaking like a fanny pack as I was getting pounded. It’s not cute. You can be a fat person caught in a thin person’s body. It’s true—look it up.

  When we’re finally ready to start shooting, Brad comes over and grabs my shoulder and gives it a little squeeze. “I’m big, okay? Just a warning.”

  All I do is smile. He has no idea what I can do with “big.”

  I start by blowing him, and he’s right—he’s fucking huge. I’m almost gagging on it, because, yeah, I still have that reflex. It’s not exactly something I’m looking to get rid of.

  Then in walk three other guys. I recognize one of them, Troy Majors. I did Raising the Titandick, ’91, with him a couple of years ago, but the other two are new. I’ve never seen them before. Big meaty guys, all three of them. The director looks at me like, “Surprise!”

  Troy and one of the other guys hold my arms back behind me while the third guy pushes my mouth down on Brad, and I really am gagging on it now and it’s getting to be a little much. But the cameras are rolling, and I have to keep this up because the studio is expensive, and like they always say, in Hollywood, time is money. This girl Lois who’s working one of the mikes gets in the shot a little, and the director yells, “Freeze” because he doesn’t want to ruin the shot, just in case she can be edited out or wasn’t too far into the frame. So I’m frozen with Brad’s cock shoved down my throat. I look up, and Troy smiles at the other two guys like, “See how good this kid is? I told you.”

  Before I know it, I’m taking Troy from behind, and the other three are surrounding me. Troy’s warming me up for Brad, his big gay premiere moment, although I’m sure he must’ve done this before. He certainly isn’t acting like this is the first guy he’s face-fucked. Then Troy switches with another one of the guys, a darker,
more Latino guy. And then the third guy is taking a swing, but I don’t notice until he’s halfway through; I’m in a fugue state and still kind of hungry.

  The lights shine down on me like the sun, and then I can tell it’s Brad’s turn because he’s the biggest. The three other ones are either spreading my legs open or pushing down on my back so my butt pooches out. Brad holds on to my right forearm, which is twisted behind me. He pulls on it like it’s a rope that’s keeping him on a horse. There’s music in the background, which I didn’t hear before because I was trying to concentrate on what I was doing. But Brad’s riding me hard, and it hurts a little, like when you try to go down a shoe size and it pinches your little toe inward. Just a pinch.

  Still I keep on going. Because after Brad’s done, the others might want a bit more. And it’s the director’s picture, not mine. We improvise that way out here. I can tell it’s not really up to me this time. And I can take it. I’m a professional. I’m a star. Everyone knows it.

  Hester Prynne Got an A