The Trouble Boy, page 9
He sat down on his box and sized me up.
“I hate this trance shit, you know?” he told me. “You can’t dance to it.” He slipped on a pair of sneakers as he took a break from the evening’s work.
I asked him if I could get a few quotes from him for my article.
“You gonna pay me for it?” he asked, his beady eyes examining me with suspicion.
“Well, I—” I stammered. Why was I nervous about this? He was just a stupid hustler. He was probably younger than I was.
“Don’t worry, I’m just fucking with you.”
We sat down together on a nearby couch, and I gave him a cigarette, his fee for our twenty minutes together. From close up, I could see his body was completely shaved; his stomach, so smooth from a distance, was covered with a slight layer of stubble. I imagined the razor burn I would get during sex.
“Do you shave your whole body?” I blurted out.
“Yeah,” he said. “Even my pubes. You wanna see?” Before I could protest, he pulled down his briefs to show me his entire pubic area, right up to the shaft of his cock, completely shaved, bare like a little child’s.
My curiosity more than satisfied, I lobbed a number of questions at him, and, like a media pro, he answered them with aplomb. He told me about the new Rentaboy Web site and how it would change his business, bringing him a more upscale clientele. He said he was originally from Rye, New York, and was now a student at Fordham; he was hoping to break into the music management business. His name was Tyler, though in his ads he went by the name of Stephano.
“People like that, you know. It sounds European. I’m half Italian, so I figure it’s okay,” said Tyler-Stephano.
“So, what do you do with these guys when you’re, like, with them?”
“Me? Oh, I do everything,” he said.
“You mean, everything everything?”
“What are you talking about? You mean, like fucking?” he said, as if it were a concept foreign to him. “Yeah, I do that, sometimes.”
“Have you ever had any really scary, um, clients?”
“Scary tricks? No. I’ve never slept with anyone I wouldn’t have for fun. I’m a big slut anyway.” Though I didn’t doubt his last statement, I had trouble believing he had never encountered any difficult clients. “So,” he continued, “what are you doing after this? You got plans?”
“No,” I said, “I’m not doing anything.”
“Maybe we could hang out. You’re cute.”
I laughed. “Are you going to charge me for it?”
“No, not for you,” he said.
“I thought it was bad business for hustlers to give it away.”
“Oh, I make plenty the rest of the week,” he said. “What other business do you only have to work an hour a night to make this kind of money?” He was surely pulling in more each month than I was, but I didn’t want to think about that.
“I have to get back to my friends,” I said.
“What, you don’t want to hang out?” He seemed incredulous at being turned down.
“Not tonight,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Well, you know where to find me.” He got back up on the go-go box and started working it again.
I put my notebook back in my bag and stood up. When I turned around to look at him, he gave me a half-wave and a grin.
I was shaking; I wasn’t used to being propositioned by hustlers. Should I have been flattered? Embarrassed? Scared?
I made my way back to where Jamie and Donovan were sitting. As I passed the dance floor, I looked around for Subway Boy, but he had disappeared.
“I need that drink,” I said.
Donovan pointed to it.
“Fuck,” I said to Donovan. “I just turned down a hustler. He was hot, too! Dumb and tacky, but hot.”
“Where is he?” Donovan asked. “I might be interested.”
“That’s a mess I’m not letting you get into,” I said. I’m not letting you, I thought, because I want you for myself.
“You’re right,” he said. “I should be getting home; it’s almost one.”
We all exchanged goodbye kisses and Donovan took off. I had blown another chance to make a move on him. It wasn’t the same when we were in the office together; things felt more intimate under the cover of night.
Jamie lit a cigarette.
“I want to hook up,” I said to him, realizing after I said it that he was going to misinterpret the statement.
“Me, too,” he said.
“I mean, with someone else.”
“Why do you torture me like this?” He cupped his hands to his face in mock despair.
“Look, Jamie, if we’re going to be friends, we have to be able to talk about stuff like this. I really like you, but I don’t want to ruin our friendship by sleeping together.”
“But you sleep with people all the time! Why not me?”
“I do not sleep with people all the time!” I said. The article was causing my reputation to balloon exponentially. “I haven’t slept with any of our friends.” I cocked my head toward him. “But give me time, I’ll get to some of them.”
“You’re a slut,” he said.
“So? What’s your point?”
“I’m leaving,” Jamie said. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
After Jamie left, I got up to use the restroom. On my way past the bar, I saw Donovan talking to a guy I didn’t recognize.
“I thought you were leaving,” I said.
“I was. I just ran into an old friend.” Donovan had a fresh drink in his hand.
Someone else was worth another drink and I wasn’t? I shrugged and tried not to look annoyed. I didn’t want to act the way Jamie had been acting toward me.
There was a line for the restroom. I waited behind a late-career drag queen who had once dubbed herself “the toast of New York” in Time Out. She was wearing a tight black dress and fishnet stockings. Her makeup was caked on hard in an attempt to cover her wrinkles and 2 A.M. shadow.
“Hey, baby,” she said, her voice husky.
“Hey,” I said.
“You want a blow job?” she asked, grabbing my crotch. My dick was about as hard as a piece of warm brie.
“No, thanks,” I said, grimacing.
“Your loss,” she said.
When I left the restroom, I saw a guy I knew from going out, a hunky NYU student I wouldn’t have minded getting with.
“It’s been a really weird week,” he said to me. “I lost my ferret.”
“What do you mean, you ‘lost your ferret’?”
“My ferret. He died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Hey, do you want some coke?”
It was turning into that kind of night. I decided to push everything else out of my mind and focus on what mattered at the moment: partying and the pursuit of sex.
“That guy over there, the bleached blond, he’ll give you some. Just tell him you’re a friend of mine.”
I found the guy by the bar. He was in his thirties, muscular and beefy, and had spent too much time in the sun. His face was pockmarked, though I guessed he had once been handsome.
I told him my name was Tyler and I was a student at Fordham.
He was an interior decorator, originally from Atlanta. We discussed a past boyfriend of mine who had wanted to be a decorator. After about five minutes, I decided I needed the drugs, since I couldn’t bear the conversation any longer.
“Do you have any coke?” I asked. “I, uh, had some earlier, but I ran out.”
“Sure,” Decorator Guy said, smiling. “All you had to do was ask.”
I followed him into a private handicapped restroom, and he handed me an amber vial. I scooped out two bumps with my old post office box key from Yale Station and snorted them into each nostril, licking the key afterwards and rubbing the coke dust into my gums. As usual, it tasted bitter, like uncoated aspirin dripping at the back of my throat.
Infused with a burst of energy, I suddenly didn’t care about anything else that had transpired. There was a party to be had and I was going to enjoy it. Even though the night had been disappointing, it was only 2 A.M., and there was still plenty of time to salvage it.
The crowd was starting to strip off its clothes, turning the dance floor into a meat parade, a mass of writhing bodies, flopping breasts and penises. Tyler the Rentboy, I noticed, had started flashing anyone interested in a peek.
I had a few more drinks with Decorator Guy, which he paid for, since I had depleted my cash reserves by this point. Compared to what I could have scored that night, he was a shitty catch, but I felt like I owed him my company—in exchange for the drugs, the drinks, the companionship he had given me after my friends had left.
We stumbled back to the restroom several more times, the second and third time to do full lines off the top of the toilet tank. I had done coke in college, but this was nothing like the New Haven crap I had tried before. I had never bought it; if it was available, though, I was the first in line.
Decorator Guy told me that he used to be married to a woman and that I reminded him of her, in a good way. I told him I had just come out and hadn’t been with too many guys.
I put my arms around him and we started sucking face. His body was thick and built, the product of many hours at the gym. If he hadn’t been there to hold me, I might have fallen over right there at the bar, a drunken, quivering mess.
“Let’s go to your place,” I slurred into his ear.
When we got to his apartment, we were greeted by his large Doberman, Willie. The first-floor apartment consisted of a long hallway with a bedroom, bathroom, and a galley kitchen that reeked of air freshener. The walls were stained and the carpets frayed. “You’re a decorator and your apartment looks like this?” I asked.
“You little brat,” he said, slapping me on the ass.
“Sorry,” I said.
He took me to his bedroom, where the bed was a double-size futon. I was exhausted, so I flopped down on it. Willie promptly joined me at the foot of the futon and stared at me expectantly, as if I was supposed to perform tricks for him.
“Shit,” Decorator Guy said. “I think Willie pissed in the bathroom. Let me go clean it up.”
I closed my eyes and tried to pass out. My head was throbbing from the booze and the coke and I couldn’t shut my eyes without seeing the spinning lights of the club.
When I woke from my catnap, Decorator Guy was on top of me and kissing me. He took my clothes off, which was a relief, since I didn’t feel like doing it myself. He pulled my boxers off and started sucking on me vigorously.
“Your dick,” he panted, after coming up for air. “It’s the perfect size for blow jobs.”
I tried not to laugh. “Thanks,” I said.
I felt I should reciprocate, so I let him straddle my face while I gave him the most dispassionate blow job of my life. His crotch smelled musky and I wanted to get it over with. I stopped just shy of the obligatory sixty seconds. I didn’t want to be rude.
Like Tyler, Decorator Guy was also a shaver, and his crotch was rough and stubbly, so I got the razor burn I had been wondering about. Guys with shaved pubic hair were bad news.
Across the room, Willie was curled up in a corner, licking his balls. I wondered if the two of them slept together in the bed.
Decorator Guy decided to do some licking of his own: he flipped me over and tongued my ass. I tried to pretend I was on the brink of passing out again, that I didn’t have control over what I was doing. But it felt good.
“I want to fuck you,” he whispered.
He put on a condom and pulled some lubricant out from under his futon. I straddled him and positioned myself. It had been a while, but I was too tired to say no.
As I held onto his dick and tried to slide it in, my ass tensed up. Even though his cock was small, my body wasn’t having it.
“Just relax,” he said, as if it were a simple bodily function to control, like making a fist when you give blood.
After a few deep breaths, his cock was inside me; small as it was, it was in me, part of me. Was this worth it? The condom breaking, slipping off when he pulled out, exposing me to the blood and semen of this man who sticks his dick God knows where and keeps condoms and lube right next to his bed? I wondered what Tyler the Rentboy was doing right now, and wished I were with him.
I rocked up and down a few times, but I was getting no pleasure from it. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I said, getting off him. I pulled the condom off his dick and threw it on the floor.
“Don’t put it there,” he said. “The dog will eat it.”
I slept for a fitful two hours. As it was getting light outside, I slipped my clothes back on and let myself out. I had spent all my money on drinks, and I was too tired to find an ATM, so I decided to walk home. Rain had started falling in giant drops. By the time I reached Washington Square Park, I was soaked.
5
After showering and changing at home, I dragged myself into the office, arriving at quarter after ten.
“You look like you’ve been partying all night,” Sonia said. “Did Lola take you to an after-hours?”
“Bad night,” I said, shaking out my umbrella.
“I hope you took a lot of notes for your story.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I got notes.”
I hadn’t realized Sonia wanted the article up by that afternoon, so I was forced to relive the evening, moment by moment. I kept thinking about Tyler the Rentboy, and about Decorator Guy and how disgusting he was. What was the difference between sleeping with a hustler and sleeping with someone like him? After spending the night at Decorator Guy’s apartment, I felt cheap and sleazy, whereas I imagined myself feeling sexy and fabulous after a free night with a rentboy. But Tyler probably had to sleep with people like that all the time. Who knew what diseases either of them was carrying? I resolved never to let anyone fuck me on the first date. Oral, yes. Anal, no. Maybe I could keep that in my wallet as a mantra.
After I wrote the article and put it up on the site, complete with some images Sonia had purchased (including a tasteful photo of Tyler the Rentboy thrusting his crotch toward the camera), I felt strangely cleansed. I had shed the skin that had been bothering me last night. Sure, I hadn’t written about my activities after the party, but that was no one’s business. I was free to start afresh. Afresh with a wretched hangover, but afresh nonetheless.
Sonia wasn’t crazy about the piece, but she said it would do. “I think you could have done more with this,” she told me.
I realized I had to stop fucking around. If I was going to do proper nightlife reportage, I couldn’t scrawl drunken notes and hope it would all come together in the morning. And if I was going to be a screenwriter, I had to use my time outside of the office more effectively.
I decided to continue working on my screenplay as soon as I got home that night.
I left the office at six and walked home. I would take a short nap and then resume work on Breeders. The short nap turned into a long one, and I woke up at ten to the sound of the phone ringing. It was Donovan.
“Do you want to go out to Mirror tonight? I heard Ariana saying she and Cameron might stop by.”
“I need to get some work done,” I said. “I’m really behind on my—”
“All work and no play makes Toby a dull boy,” he said.
“Yeah, and all play and no work puts Toby’s career in the toilet,” I said.
“Whatever,” he said, hanging up.
After I went to the bathroom, the phone rang again. It was my friend Elizabeth, who was working in film development in Los Angeles. We had been best friends in college; she had graduated the year before me.
“You’re home,” she said. “I thought you’d be out carousing.”
I told her about the screenplay I was trying to finish.
“It sounds fabulous,” she said. “I should set up some meetings for you. I mean, it’s very, you know, alternative, so it’s probably not right for us, but I can think of a few people who might be interested. New Line, maybe.”
“Really? Do you think you could send it around?”
“I’d have to look at it, but yeah, totally, we could do something. Just finish it first.”
Elizabeth was a rich girl from Connecticut I had met during my sophomore year in college. She became the friend I always called after a drunken hookup, the confessor who absolved me of my guilt. Elizabeth was the closest thing I had to a fag hag, though there was nothing haggy about her. She was pretty, with almond-shaped eyes and a button nose. She had no problem getting men into bed; she just had trouble keeping them there.
Elizabeth was, in her own words, a “Westport JAP,” a high maintenance strain of the species that required frequent trips to Barneys, Tiffany, and, now that she was in Los Angeles, Fred Segal. As a development executive who had been at her studio for over a year, she was my in to the film industry. But I didn’t like to think of her that way. She was my friend, and I felt terrible that we hadn’t spoken since my graduation.
After I hung up the phone, I reread the opening scene of Breeders:
FADE IN:
EXT. GOTHAM STREET—NIGHT
A MAN and a WOMAN, both breeders, exit a basement level nightclub and walk down the street together.
MAN
I didn’t know you were such a good dancer.
He affectionately puts his arm around her. She wriggles out of his grasp.
WOMAN
Not here. You know we can’t—
MAN
Oh, come on!
WOMAN
Just wait, wait until we get home.
MAN
Fuck that! I’m not going to be afraid anymore!
