Best Gay Erotica 2003, page 9
And then I’m getting my quad fucked by a green-eyed gymnast in the very same room where Andrew stopped breathing in my arms, two weeks after coming home from the hospital to die. This is something I’ve never discussed with Josh, either, though it has come to mind sometimes when he and I are up in bed and he’s gobbling my fat, old man’s cock (which is his favorite thing and mine), or we’re playing in an occasional threesome with one of the guys we meet on the Internet—one of whom, now that I think of it, did bump against the railing during some horseplay last month, as we all headed merrily upstairs.
Funny: I remember telling hospice workers and ambulance attendants and all kinds of other strangers who went up and down these stairs every day when Andrew was dying to please be careful of the balusters. I was such a pill about scratches, stains, messes, when all that was happening. I was always doing laundry, straightening furniture—I suppose as a way of coping. Wrote up a storm, too: one of my worst books, very unsexy.
Well, maybe we can talk about that tonight, too. Maybe this whole Boston trip will prove a nice little overdue growth spurt for our relationship, whether or not I have really “outgrown growing,” as I thought I had, like the Jules Feiffer character. Here’s the thing, though: I find this dialogue habit so much work, and so much time away from my work. Love should be easier by now, I keep thinking. Sure, I can’t complain about Josh putting me in a category if I put him in one labeled “Won’t understand the twittery nerd within, which I am just now coming to accept,” or “Won’t appreciate the fact that previous boyfriend died where we fuck.” Sure, we’re both big talkers, but I’d also love to have the comfort of being effortlessly known, at this point. That’s the old man in me. I’d rather talk about my roses, and we all know I can do that in some depth. The habit his generation has of endlessly “interrogating” themselves on positions and assumptions— planted there, of course, by well-meaning educators of my generation—takes too much time away from what I consider to be real introspection, and even, when we are in the middle of one of those week-long conversations about some issue between us, from my gardening.
Really: It affects my gardening. I mean not only hands-inthe- earth but that garden state of mind I struggle to achieve in the Buddhist sense, in which all possible me’s, all the stages of my life, the goals achieved, the dreams lost, feel wordlessly knowable and present at once in some sunny, green place. There’s the two-month-old me in a pram, outdoors during my very first summer in my parents’ backyard; the fifty-year-old me helping Andrew up the porch steps for the last time; the 104- year-old me, doubtless a Pulitzer Prize–winner, being wheeled onto the back terrace by an attendant not even born yet; the me standing here right now on this staircase—all observed in one view, if not by some ideally empathic lover then by a movie camera, as during the final scenes of Dark Victory.
Well, tonight I’ll simply have to keep it from becoming interrogation; that’s all. We’ll discuss. And what am I talking about? Josh is completely not a typical member of his generation. And besides, they’re not so bad as a whole. So after dinner it’ll be something like, “No dessert for me, just coffee,” and “Hey, Josh, isn’t it odd that as the years go by you can become both more yourself and less the self you once, ‘at last,’ discovered?”
My agent called this morning. “Have you got it yet?” she asked. For eighteen months I’ve been promising her the idea for my next book. “Yeah, it’s about jerking off,” I said flippantly. I was half-propped up in bed, toweling cum from my navel. “It’s about a guy who jerks off and in that one moment of cumming he encounters the wholeness of his life. He sees this huge urge to cum and the memory of all his sexual adventures and the cumming itself as moments in time that are somehow unified by an achievement called joy.” There was a silence on the line. “That’s a book?” she said. “A book about jerking off?” “No,” I said. “It’s about how we live. But jerking off inspires the guy. See, there’s only one character. He’s survived World War II, and Vietnam, and AIDS, and now he feels lost in time. Sexual drama gives him the only through-line there is.”
After a second she said, “I hate it. It feels juvenile. Go back to the drawing board. Good about World War II, though.”
It was a joke—but here I am thinking, why not? Actually my next book was supposed to be about the murder of a sex club entrepreneur in Amsterdam, but who knows? In the past, I’ve often bashed off with one book idea after spending several months developing a different one. Josh keeps telling me I should write about him.
OK, no more moaning about endless silences. I’m saving any further interior monologue for the flight. I’m moving my butt up these stairs. I’m jerking off again. I’m showering and packing. I’m getting in the car and going to the airport and flying off to see Josh, and sharing all my masturbatory, old-man maunderings. And tomorrow, well, I’m calling a contractor and getting that baluster taken care of. I mean, blah-blah-blah.
Pigs
Karl von Uhl
It was one of those ridiculous only–in–San Francisco bar conversations that happen on dateless Saturday nights. The topics vary, but that night’s included worst play parties ever attended, most lackluster boyfriend, the tiresome and predictable dishing of titleholders, and the cheap pop psychology that explains every fetish.
“Some people are what they are,” I said.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m a top because I’m a sadist,” I said. “I’m a sadistic man. I enjoy having people under my command. I enjoy inflicting pain. It’s what I do.”
I was responding to Randall: little, blond, and balding Randall. I suppose you could add “pathologically obnoxious” to that description, but it was clear that to him such obnoxiousness was part of his bar persona; how it aided him in getting laid was beyond me. Clayton and Tom, in full leather like me, stood with us, enjoying the ambiance of the bar’s patio.
“I are what I are, and what I are is an illusion,” sang Randall, drunkenly.
“So there’s no training?” asked Tom. That was his specialty: training bottoms.
“Well, no,” I said. “There’s training. There’s always training, there have to be rules. You always have training in any relationship, no matter how brief.”
Clayton nodded. He was only marginally good-looking, but came from a rich family, very old San Francisco, was very well off, and didn’t need any of our help to find a playmate. He spoke very little, probably to hide his voice, a pure and sweet tenor, but which I often suspected he thought girlish.
“But are you a sadist because you’re a top?” asked Randall.
I wanted to smack him. “It’s not that commutative,” I said, dryly. There was a reason we confined such conversation to bars. I don’t think any of us had ever seen the inside of one another’s homes. Playrooms, perhaps.
“Oooh,” squealed Randall, “commutative.” He reeled and brought himself suddenly upright.
“There was a boy I trained once,” said Tom. “He could take anything.”
“Anything,” I said, raising my eyebrows, “is an awful lot.”
“He’s definitely a different breed,” said Tom. “Very much his own man, very self-assured, self-reliant. But he trained admirably.”
“He sounds like a gay Boy Scout,” said Randall.
“He just takes the pain,” said Tom. “Takes it and takes it.”
“What does it mean for him?” I asked.
“It means he can take pain,” said Tom. Clearly he was being dense to tease me. But Tom knew what I liked. “I could introduce you. I saw him here earlier.” Tom excused himself, and walked into the bar proper.
“Now you’ve done it,” said Randall.
Randall must have wanted me to hit him, wanted me to live up to my reputation as a mean top. I started thinking of excuses to leave.
Tom reappeared a few minutes later with a clean-shaven man barely into his thirties. Far younger than me, but age is not pertinent among leathermen.
“Blake, I’d like you to meet—”
“My name isn’t important,” I interrupted, setting the appropriate tone. I wanted to find out how much his muscled flesh could take, if he was everything Tom said he was.
“No, I suppose not,” said Blake, grinning sheepishly. He extended his hand for a shake.
“Tom speaks very highly of you,” I said, gripping his hand firmly, its gravity evident through my glove.
“Oh,” said Blake. He looked at Tom. “He didn’t say anything about you.”
“All the better,” I said. Randall had pissed me off, put me in a foul mood, and this boy could be just the release I needed. “Shall we take our leave?” I asked.
Blake looked at Tom, divined something in his face that said it was all right, that I would do nothing untoward or unnegotiated. He said good-bye and started walking with me. Halfway through the bar, I corrected him. “You walk behind me. Five paces behind me,” I said.
“All right,” he said, nonchalantly, almost cheerfully. He waited for me to gain the lead, then followed. Obviously Tom hadn’t trained him properly. If this arrogant pup’s reaction was a muttered “all right,” if he had no prompt respect for his elders, then Tom had failed. But it was nothing I couldn’t remediate.
Blake spent the drive home in the bed of my pickup, secured to the dog tie-down. He stayed there for a few minutes after our arrival; I wanted to be sure he knew his place, as well as get myself a beer.
We stood in my garage, sizing each other up. His features were rugged, as if just emerging from chiseled marble. “Is there anything you won’t do? Any limits you want to tell me?” I asked.
“No, sir,” he said. At last: sir. He said it too easily, though; it left no sting of respect in his mouth.
I slapped him hard with my gloved hand. “That’s because I like you,” I said. He lowered his gaze to my boots. Perhaps Tom had trained him right.
I led him to the playroom adjacent to the garage. Originally it was a den, but I remodeled it extensively after I had moved in. The light was indirect, full spectrum but subdued; the room’s features were plainly visible. A St. Andrew’s cross dominated the far wall; various floggers hung from pegboard; the windows opposite were painted the same black as the walls. A dingy junior hutch held other necessary supplies; there were TV trays scattered about the room. He gazed at the room with a lowered head. He looked toward my boots, then toward the door-less water closet in the near corner.
“Later,” I said. There was a drain in the concrete floor in case he pissed himself. “Remove your shirt and boots.” I stepped to the toilet to relieve myself, my back to him, sure that I was making his bladder ache sympathetically. I’ll let him hear me piss, but I’d be damned if I’d let him see my cock right away. He’d have to earn that.
“Step up to the cross,” I said, zipping myself up. Half naked, he stood at the cross, and raised his arms over his head; hair stretched from armpit to armpit, and ran a tight line down his belly. His torso, like his face, was agreeably sculpted, a pleasing ratio of muscle to bone. I secured his wrists with padded restraints, and slapped his chest when I was done.
I took a Foley catheter, a clothespin, a bottle of alcohol, and a rag from the chest of drawers and grabbed a tube of K-Y that was lying on top of it. I stood close to Blake, put my face near his, and inhaled. I smelled only healthy sweat. “Did you bathe tonight?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I think parts of you could be made cleaner,” I said. I opened his belt and fly; he wore white briefs. “How charming,” I said. “They make you look like a little boy.” I pulled them down, exposing his cock. Average in length, but circumcised and pleasantly veined. The hair was clipped but not shaved.
I poured some alcohol directly onto his cock. His balls contracted slightly as it dripped down. I wiped away the excess with the rag and made sure his cockhead was scrubbed clean. I took the cath from its wrapper, smeared a little K-Y on the tip, and slipped it into his pisshole.
Blake held his face toward the ceiling, but I was sure his eyes were closed. Bit by bit, I slid the catheter in, lubricating short sections of the long latex tube as I eased it further in. His breathing deepened again. His cock swelled, but did not harden.
I grabbed the clothespin and clamped the cath. I wasn’t sure when I would hit his bladder; usually there’s a telltale obstruction, a sphincter that needs to relax before insertion can be completed. But I couldn’t feel it. As if Blake knew when to relax without my telling him.
I attached a length of rubber hose to the cath and held the end to his face. “Am I there, boy?” I asked, waving the end near his face. Before he could reply, I removed the clothespin, and moments later a gush of urine sprayed over his lips. I clamped the clothespin again and inflated the bardex to secure the cath. “Be a good boy,” I said, “and hold this for me.” I put the tube in his mouth. My black gloves glistened with K-Y and Blake’s piss.
“Any idea why you like this treatment?” I asked.
“Sir?” The tube in his mouth forced him to lisp slightly.
I ran my hand across his taut belly. “Why you’re into this?”
“I enjoy it, sir.”
“Is that all?”
“Sir, when I was a kid, sir, I liked comic books, sir. I daydreamed about superheroes, sir.”
“Did you have a favorite?” I asked, looking for a shaving kit in the hutch.
“The Phantom, sir. I liked his hood, sir.”
I grabbed a hood hanging next to the floggers and held it to his face. “Like this?” I said. “You like the smell, the look, the feel? It makes you sink into yourself, takes away your face? Gives you a new one?” His only reply was his hardening cock. I took the tube out of his mouth and quickly slipped the hood over his head, the worn leather molding itself against his flesh, his eyes and lips pale against the black. When the laces were cinched and tied, I put the tube back in his mouth and turned to the shaving kit.
I shook a healthy amount of powder onto his chest, and razed the hair in neat, short strokes. “I didn’t read comics as a child,” I said. “My parents forbade them. But they let me watch sports. My father’s heroes were football players.” The hair fell around Blake, some clinging to his skin. “They said comics were too violent for my impressionable young mind.” His muscled pecs, no longer obscured, were impressive. I wanted to pound them right then. “Mine were boxers. I idolized Cassius Clay.” I stopped. “Do you know who he is?” “Muhammad Ali, sir?”
“Good. You know your history.”
The line of hair trailing down his belly came off quickly. The powder left his skin smooth, lustrous in the dim light. I put the razor down, made a fist, and punched him lightly on his right pec. Blake jumped, more startled than stung.
“Cassius Clay,” I said, landing another punch. “ Sonny Liston,” I said, and popped him hard on his left pec. “Ingemar Johannsen,” with a quick, solid jab, dead center of his chest. “Floyd Paterson,” thump, “Eddie Machen,” thump, “Sonny Banks, Marty Marshall, Julio Mederos,” and three quick jabs to Blake’s gut. I felt my blood throbbing in my fists. His pecs glowed nicely, a thin crest of sweat on the skin bringing out the red that would surely deepen to a bruise by morning. “Archie Moore,” I said, and sent a hard roundhouse to his right pec, slamming him against the cross. “Tommy Jackson,” I said, “Yvon Durelle,” with each name landing a fist on his chest. “Watching all that boxing made me something of a brawler in the schoolyard,” I said, smiling. I wound up and punched him hard in his gut; his abs tensed against my fist, but I still shook him good. A flicker of nausea wavered across his eyes, but Blake kept his head up. Tom had certainly trained Blake’s endurance; that he could hold up was impressive.
I stood back and studied him for a moment. He seemed ready to sink into the restraints, let them hold him up. “And John Summerlin,” I said, giving Blake an easy but solid roundhouse to his left cheek. His cock was fully hard, straining against the weight of the cath. I unclamped it and spat on his leather-covered face. His piss ran out his mouth, coursing down his chin and neck, washing away errant hairs and powder on his chest and belly. His piss smelled vaguely of beer and Cheerios. He’d been holding his water a fair while. He breathed hard through his teeth, slurping at the thick air.
“And you’ve always liked this?” I said. I took the tube out of his mouth, clamped it, and let it trail down slowly toward the floor.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Would you say you were born to it?”
“Born to it, sir?”
“Yes. Nature,” I said, punching him hard, slamming him into the cross again, “…or nurture.”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“Don’t know?”
“No, sir.”
I punched his cheek again. “Men are born to it.” I walked over to the floggers. “But any man can be made queer for anything. Even for pussy.” Blake saw where I stood, and straightened himself up, standing at full attention. Abruptly, I walked to the hutch, opened a drawer, and withdrew some sterile needles, changing course to keep him off guard. “I went queer for this,” I said. I stood in front of him for a moment, then grabbed the alcohol and poured it over his chest and belly.
“Doctors lie,” I said, tearing open the packaging for the needles. “They always say this won’t hurt. Steel always hurts.” I grasped a nipple carefully in my left hand, and, with a needle in my right, stabbed it through in one quick, smooth stroke, right to left. I took another needle, grabbed his other nipple, and ran it neatly through his flesh.
