Closer, page 7
They need a center, a theory, a sense of belief. He believes in the power of film to sanitize the unthinkable. But such a cross-hatch must seem to reflect one clear viewpoint, and Alex feels very divided, as though his self and his self-understanding were merely atop one another with no sense of how they might coalesce, much less attract an audience. This needs intense thought. Luckily, the boring film is dissolving at last. The boys and their fathers relax in the nightclub seen earlier, sipping tea. The End, it says. The words obscure them. Alex turns to Cliff. “I'm going.”
Alex rolls onto his back and bends his knees, encircling them with one arm until the crack in his ass widens and lifts a foot off the bed. The rest is up to whoever. He didn't catch the guy's name. In fact he's wondering if his decision to go home with blondie was logical. He'd had a few drinks on the guy's tab. The bar was peculiarly empty. He'd been amazed by the sound of The Jesus and Mary Chain, a covert pop group, mixed in with the flightier disco. Something transported him here, ripped his shirt trying to take it off. He watches the face he'd been grinning at all evening eat out his crack as though it were a scene in a porn tape he's renting.
If that were the case he could judge his sex partner more clearly. As is, he's too distracted by personal traits and sketchy fragments of history. They came out over drinks and remain an issue now, when everything but good looks should be pointless. Alex knows, for example, that blondie's attracted to freckles because they remind him of pennies strewn inside a wishing pond, his favorite memory of childhood. He fixates on asses because they're so rounded and pondlike. Slobbering over them seems to refill his more dried-up emotions, or something like that.
For Alex's part, he has always felt very detached from his freckles. When strangers make a big deal out of them it just confuses him. What's he supposed to say? Skin's skin. What's the point of decoding it? Freckles aren't painful. They don't crackle when touched, as dry leaves would do. They're not reminders of anything, like scars. This blond's fascination with them has no bearing on him. Occasionally a tongue disappears up his asshole and he feels involved, though it's still kind of vague, like he's passing the scene of a crime and gets hit by a stray bullet.
He picks up one of the blond guy's porn novels, which they'd been perusing to get in the mood. It's called Chicken Lickin'. The cover art is an incompetent sketch of a boy on his hands and knees, bracketed by two distorted men. One has his hand in the shape of a gun and is pointing it at the boy's ass-crack. The other man aims his cock at the boy's mouth, which grins or grimaces. The men are absurdities: arms too long, cocks like cannons, hands withered. The chicken's malformed as well, buttocks overinflated, his eyes reminiscent of bullet holes.
Alex opens the book and reads a passage at random. “Toby's ass was public property. Whitey looked hard down its steaming tube. ‘He may be young,' Whitey hissed, ‘but he's got a real hellhole.' Pedro stroked his colossal dong. ‘Hot mouth too,' Whitey added. ‘Hot stuff at both ends.' A line of spittle ran down his chin. ‘And good enough to be eaten, I'd say,' he winked, shoving his face between Toby's soft ass-mounds. ‘Eat me,' Toby cried huskily. ‘Clean it, you fucker.' As Toby spoke his pit slowly relaxed. Whitey gulped down its dark, hidden fruit.”
“I would pick that page.” Alex tenses a bit at the memory of Cliff's boyfriend George in the same situation. In fact, at three steps removed—first enacted by strangers behind glass, then filtered out through his friend's vague account, then overlaid with wretched prose—the scene that embarrassed him during Cliff's story seems much more intriguing, a fiction dissolved of allusion. Alex's eyes, which have narrowed in irony, flit to the drama between his legs. As an experiment, he tries to master the tone of the novel, in order to silently ornament his experience.
“The blond stud pushed harder with his darting tongue—that's ridiculous—curling the rough muscle into a pointed tool that pushed my sphincter—ugh—forcing it, uh … to relax as my tight ass-mouth opened—that's awful—accepting the stud's wet caresses with a proud … lunge, I guess. It was, uh, marked by a cry of relief from my … parched lips … let's see, a whimpered sigh of surrender as my whole body relaxed, gladly taking this anal intrusion—shit—hungrily ready for more, ready to … to … take this blond hunk in any … shit …” Alex stops for a second. “I have to do better than that. Okay…
“The blond wormed his tongue up my shit-chute. That's better. ‘I've struck gold,' he said in a … muffled voice … uh, swallowing thick … wads of ass-tinged saliva. Good. ‘You're hot, really hot,' he continued, addressing my … gleaming hills. Mmm. He stroked his hard-on so roughly he could have been … signing his name on a contract. That's funny. My pink butthole widened with each probing … lunge of his lick muscle, until the hole was humongous and … and … rubbery. God. ‘Say ah,' I moaned. God. He did. Then I loaded his mouth with my rancid brown … unh…”
Alex has managed to come and, by so doing, seem half-involved in the sex, but his calves ache. “That wasn't bad,” he says, wriggling free and standing up in one motion, then reconvening his clothes. “Enigmatic, not too complex, quick.” He smiles down at his partner and finds the blond rubbing his eyes, either tired or disconsolate. “I really hate it when people use words to describe an emotion,” the blond sniffs, then sobs quietly. Alex wipes come on a handful of Kleenex and steps through the wobbly holes in his shorts. “Mind if I take this?” He picks up the novel.
“Look,” he continues, “we used each other. It's over. You've got things to do. I've got things to do. Period.” That does the trick. The blond tumbles onto his stomach, shoves his face in a pillow and kicks his lower legs, swimming-instructor-style. Alex is barely involved in the formalities of dressing, chatting, waving goodbye. His experiment with the pornography haunts him. Its tone and his eyesight have merged like his film teacher's knowledge of plot seems to do with a weathered print. Somewhere amidst this consolidation is a great work of art. “I can't picture it,” he mutters. “I need a blank wall.” He fumbles around for his car keys.
He lies in bed, notebook propped on his lap, scribbling. Spread around him are various magazines, open to pictures of muscular bodies stripped nude, roughly fastened together. Running alongside each shot is an X-rated story line, added on later, that tries to explain their disjointedness as violent, mutual hunger. But Alex knows they're actors. What the text presupposes has no more connection with them than they have with each other. It's these gaps that Alex keeps glancing at. They're what his scrawl is about.
Alex enters his math class and picks a clean seat. The teacher writes giant numbers across the front blackboard. Students open their notebooks and copy them down. One, a boy sitting two seats to Alex's left, is excessively pretty. “He should be a chipmunk,” Alex decides, leaning forward to scrutinize. Draw a few rings round the eyes, dye his hair, make him lose a few pounds and he could be George Miles on a good day. “Well, close enough,” Alex thinks, lowering pen to page. He scratches wildly, stops, studies his stuntman, then blackens some more of the notepaper.
“George made men's mouths water. And I know why,' the boy muttered. He snuggled low in the couch, grabbed his legs and raised them high in the air, so his pants grew real tight to his ass. It stuck out like the prow of a pirate ship. Drool dribbled over Cliff's chin. ‘I just knew it,' George thought. ‘I'm gonna give him a taste.' He bent his knees, which ripped the seat of his pants open. Cliff was there in a flash. He completed the job, shoved his face through the frayed cloth. ‘Here it comes, babe,' George grunted. ‘Unh!' “
Alex runs out of ideas. He shakes his head to dissolve the absurd voice. His stuntman comes into focus. The boy tilts sideways in his chair, trying to suss out what Alex was writing. The boy squints for a while, then gives up and casts curious looks in his schoolmate's direction for the rest of the class. When the bell rings he gathers his books and strolls over. “I'm David,” he smiles, sticks his hand out. “I know,” Alex says, “you're the retard who thinks he's a pop star.” The boy's hand withdraws. “These are notes for a porn film. You want to be in it?” The boy stiffens. Something tells him to walk away. He gets lost.
Alex is hustling down the hall, notebook spread out like a map across his arms, rereading his porn, when he notices George Miles a few yards ahead. The kid's scrawny ass does its limited trick, jiggling slightly. Thanks to Cliff, Alex can't see it without getting jealous. He quickens his pace. “Hey, Miles,” he says, “got a sec?” They retreat to a small square of grass in the heart of the school buildings. “I'm directing a film and I want you to star in it.” George is apparently too stoned to comprehend. “Cliff plays your lover and”—Alex debates for a moment—”he eats your, uh, shit.”
He has managed to animate George's face, but its expression lacks depth. He starts again with the addition of several provocative details, the thrust of which—payment in drugs—evokes the needed response. George clears his throat. “Cliff's my lover?” When Alex nods, the boy's grin makes him seem almost human. “You said a film? Sure, when, what drugs?” Five minutes later, Alex is strolling away toward the school cafeteria, a little vacant with happiness. With George as bait, Cliff is sure to see worth in the project.
He fills his tray with a sandwich, some french fries, an Orange Crush, then walks through the long, crowded tables. There's Cliff's handsome face chewing something up. Alex imagines its mouth smeared with shit, and his cock hardens. “Christ,” he thinks, “I'd better cool myself off.” He tries to picture a vast crowd of startled film critics. That doesn't help, but his blue jeans are fairly loose. “Hi, pal.” He sits and announces his project's beginnings, allows himself to be slapped on the back, then pops the question. “No,” Cliff says.
Alex rephrases the question several times. Each time Cliff makes up a different excuse. Although the excuses are standard—disgust, guilt, embarrassment, decency—all of them somewhat negotiable, they obviously hide a more boring concern. “You're still in love with that twerp,” Alex crows. “No,” Cliff responds. “That's the past. But there was something there and you're making it …” Alex's thoughts trail off. He must decide how to salvage his project. He forces a smile, wanders into his gym class, and goes through the motions of hitting a baseball.
“You're out!” Alex plops on the bench between someone he knows well enough to say hi to and someone he hates. He watches the pitcher's grand style of delivery, then the bored outfielders shouting things back and forth, then the immense chain link fence that circumscribes the campus. Just beyond, walking slowly along some parked cars, is a former A student, expelled for possession of drugs. Alex had sex with his brother once. Its nuts and bolts were disastrous. Kenneth looked so frail that Alex was scared he would break something. Still, four months later when Kenneth had dropped dead from some kind of brain cancer, Alex was glad he'd gone through with it. Rrrrring.
“Hey, genius.” Cliff rushes his way through a crowded hall. “I've got a thought,” Cliff continues, wrapping one arm around Alex's neck. They veer toward the shade of an elm tree. “Why don't you shoot the real thing, through Philippe's window? It's up your alley. Besides, you could art it up in the editing room or whatever you call it.” Alex yawns. “I'll even show you the place, be your cinematographer.” Alex nods, yawns. When he yawns his mouth opens extremely wide. Someone once told him it looks like he's crying wolf.
He walks Cliff to biology class. As they chat, the film assembles itself before Alex's eyes. Cliff's particularly sharp, or some drug has inspired him. He talks about fucking George in such blasé, edgy terms that he could be describing the plot of a porn magazine. Once they get to the crossroads there's quite a rapport. Alex stops dead. “When we finish the shooting tonight, let's fuck,” he says. Cliff keeps walking. When he's a few yards ahead he shrugs. “I'll take that as a yes,” Alex yells. “Thanks!” He runs to astronomy.
* * *
Alex creeps through the foliage. “Sssh,” says a voice just behind him. “Straight on past the … Yeah, just a foot or two further … You're there. I'll be back at the car.” Alex gets to his feet. As Cliff explained there's a neat little space between bushes and window where he can stand comfortably, kept dark by the crest of damp leaves overhead. He fiddles around with his light meter. The room is nightmarishly lit. He plugs one eye and frames the black-and-white furnishings within the fractured square etched on the lens. Philippe and George perch on facing chairs, five, maybe six feet apart. He can just fit them in.
George's body is nothing apart from his crotch, which resembles a mouse. His head sways on top of that vague streak of whiteness, a kitsch souvenir, its lips and eyes the unnatural colors of candies. Alex pans to Philippe. “Too much skull,” he thinks. “It really swallows the face.” What few details there are seem generically French—sharp featured, unshaven. From the neck down he's fat, and to Alex all fat is identical. “I'll try to improvise now, and write the real porn stuff later.” He uses the lens as a monocle while the kid takes a few tipsy steps and collapses facedown on the carpet. “Okay, well…
“He eyed George's ass. It lay in front of his chair like a footstool. That's gotta be the worst piece of flesh I've ever seen,' he thought. Drool dribbled down his chin. ‘Jesus, you'd think I was starving to death.' He almost laughed at himself. He stuck out his foot and kicked it. The fucker's real enough.' He started wiping one hand back and forth on his big, veiny cock. ‘Listen, baby,' he said. ‘Keep your mouth shut.' He planted one foot on each buttock and pushed the crack open, licking his lips at the hairless pink slit. ‘You could mount that thing on a ring,' he joked.
“He knelt down, reached behind him and found a small flashlight. He parted the ass-crack and aimed a bright beam at the red cavern. ‘You're pointless,' he growled, looking over its glossy walls. ‘I need a snoutful.' He did a sharp nosedive and smelled something rancid but rich, like the trace of perfume in a king's tomb. He flattened his face on the butt, sucked and chewed at the hole, but his treasure was stuck in its vault. He introduced a few fingers. They twisted the tube in an interesting way, but not wildly enough.
“‘Fine, have it your way,' he said. ‘Don't give me what I want, but you'll be sorry, kid.' He started slapping the ass with ferocity. He laughed out loud as the pert globes turned purple and twitched into ugly shapes. This'll teach you to mess with me,' he thought. The skimpy body was tossing around like a beached fish. The sight made his prick leak. ‘I've landed the boy of the century,' he thought. ‘No shit. Man, those sunken eyes, that runny nose, those chapped lips.' He gave his hand a rest.
“‘You get my point?' he said firmly. ‘I want the goods, George. A lovely thing like you shouldn't have some ugly junk up your ass. I'll take it off your hands. Get me?' The stud poised his face by the glowering mounds. A prize emerged, ripe and hot from its bowel oven. He caught the brown morsel between his teeth. Whipping his fierce, swordlike prong into a frenzy, he gulped the abhorrent meal down in one bite. ‘Just like Mom used to make,' he sneered.
“As a reward for the youngster's behavior, Philippe gave the ass a quick tongue bath. ‘Good as new,' he surmised with a wink. ‘Now let's complete the job.' He fit the huge, sopping head of his love muscle to George's pucker and worked the entire seven inches inside. ‘Oh, you're the loosest one ever,' he groaned. Arching his hips, cock touched bottom. When he withdrew, it was covered with crumbs. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,' Philippe chanted, increasing his tempo. ‘You're gross!' And it wasn't too long before gobs of come plummeted into the wimp with a noisy splash. Cut.”
When Alex gets back to the car Cliff has locked its doors and gone to sleep in the back seat. He bangs on a window. Cliff lurches up, slurs some words. They sound like, “So, what did you think?” “Banal,” Alex says, starting the car. “Even as porn, there's so little to work with. For all the mystique of the shit, Phillipe's sex has a regimentation, as if it's been too well thought out, or performed once too often. At this point, it's all in the telling. …” Cliff's snores interrupt him. He drives off, turns left down a street lined with huge, ostentatious homes.
It's late, so they've blended together. Only their top floors, in one or two cases, are still lit, like watchtowers. Suddenly there is a very dark stretch in the row on the right. He puts his foot on the brake, rolls his window down. Legend has it this house has been empty for decades, since a depressed father killed his two kids there. No one will touch it. Occasionally lunatics claim they've seen transparent children run into the street like they're chasing a ball. Alex has long-standing dreams to use its grounds for a big-budget splatter film.
Sometimes he drives here alone, parks, and sits on the curb for a couple of hours, taking notes. The basic line he's come up with has three or four drunk teenaged boys sneaking into the place. A psychotic, deformed guy is using the house for his hideout. He spots the intruders, makes chase, rapes and murders them one by one. It's a conventional plot, but the rapes make it fresh. At the moment he's too tired to do more than stare at the gate. Once he gets bored with that, he turns to see what position Cliff's sleeping in.
“Home!” he commands himself. The road is straight but looks tapered, a shiny sword aimed at his neighborhood. When he's exhausted, he's prone to seeing daydreamy mirages out there on the route. Since his thoughts are a mess, it's a real sixties light show. He tries to separate Cliff from Philippe from himself from George, the sexy parts from the dreck, and at the same time keep just between two white lines. When a truck pulls in front of him, he's far too busy to notice. When he does, he puts his foot on the brake a half second too late.
