“Live fast. Die young. Leave a beautiful corpse.” Nothing beats a self-destructive motto these days. I’m a time bomb. I’m a walking story just begging for an ending. I’m the scum of the earth and I’ll be paying for it in the afterlife… HA.

And yesterday this scum of the earth got a check at his hotel room door telling him he’s on the cover of Freshman. That’s right, that’s going to be me spread-eagled and thumbing my boner on the glossy cover of the porn mag… there’s a towel between my legs in that shot, but you get to see everything by the time you reach the centerfold.

For the next month or so I can rest easy knowing that the sex-starved faggot populace will be jacking off to my photos. I can also rest easy that I’ll be getting one fucking fat check before this thing even hits the stands. What a way to live, right? Easy money for the easiest work you could ever imagine.

In a life like this, you start relating everything they make you do to its monetary brethren.

“Bend over.”

Ten dollars.

“Put a leg up on the platform.”

One hundred bucks.

“Can you get any harder?”

Three hundred flat.

“Brush your hair behind your left ear.”

If they use this in a greatest dicks compilation, I get another thousand. Not bad.

The photographer wears sunglasses indoors. That’s really cute. He pretends he doesn’t want to jam it inside of me. Ha. Why does he even bother? I’m the hottest thing on the scene right now. I know it. Your gay girlfriend knows it. And the kind folks at Spankit.com know it too. And this isn’t just some egomaniacal little boy talking, okay? I’ve got the checking account and the cover shots and the constant phone calls from people in West Hollywood to prove it.

Every scuzbag that wanders into the back corner of the newsstands in Penn Station wants to fuck me. Chances are that they’re not going to go and admit that to their wives, though. No. They’re just gonna buy my magazine and stick it under a pile of socks somewhere in their closet and break it out whenever nobody’s home.

Yeah a lot of people want to fuck me. That comes along with my photo pornographic job.

Whoever’s got the cash and the place can fuck me, that comes along with my male escort job.

I can top. I can bottom. I’ve got the cock that won’t quit, and an ass as tight a tube sock and hard as a slab of marble. Who doesn’t want to toss off across the hairless chest of Mr. Barely 17? I haven’t met a single person yet.

What? How is it that a 16 year old is in porn? Isn’t that illegal?

Get over yourself. This world is full of lies.

It’s full of lies and I’m going to take advantage of every single one of them. Making a living off of taking off your clothes and letting a few people fuck you is quite a way to go. And the money’s good. Very good. Almost too good. It guarantees me hotels to stay at. I’ve got the funds to buy the entire alphabet’s offering of drugs on the market. K. E. P for poppers. The two C’s. Crystal. Coke. And whatever else I can stick inside somewhere to feel a little bit happier for a while.

When you do this kind of stuff for a living your life isn’t like everybody else’s. No, life becomes a twenty four hour party where the liquor flows alongside melted heroin and you fuck faceless bodies until you fall asleep, wake up, and do it again.

Can you believe that this is the life of Mr. Barely 17? A boy who left the house when mommy and daddy found out that he sucked dick. Well, they didn’t find out right away. They sent him to a psychologist first thinking that he had some sort of depression. Wouldn’t that have been convenient? Well, Sixteen and the Doc decided it would be best to tell mommy and daddy. So they did. And they kicked his ass out of the house. They wouldn’t own a fag. No fags in this house. No way.

So Sixteen took some money from their wallets and hopped the first train on the LIRR right to the city. He had friends who gave him places to stay until he made a name for himself. And what an investment he became. Mr. Barely 16, parent-free, and roaming the streets of New York with a new place to sleep every night.

But please, no pity. Does it look like I’m suffering under the skyscrapers? Not in the least. I wonder sometimes what Mommy and Daddy would do if they saw me now. Or what they’d do if they walked by and recognized my smile on the cover of Freshman. And I wonder what Doc would do when he realized this is what happened to the boy he guaranteed a ‘safe coming out’ to.

And here in the studio, Mr. Camera Man wears sunglasses to pretend he’s better than everyone else. That’s adorable. He only wants to be better than every one else. He’s really trying to say “I’m not turned on by you, you don’t get me hard, I’m just here to take pictures of you.” And all of this comes out of his solid, expressionless face, and the incessant clicking of the camera. Please. Maybe if I poke my cock out a little farther, I’ll see the bulge in his pants get even bigger.

In the flash of the lighting equipment, I look down and see little black dots. Shit, there’s stubble on my inner thigh again. Isn’t that convenient. I just got a fucking full body wax a week ago. The black dots don’t usually come out for two weeks.

That probably bothers other people a lot more than me. Especially other gay boys. The hundred bucks they’d have to shell on another waxing would put a dent in the paycheck from whatever restaurant they’re waiting at. And that might lead to less drinks one night at the club… or, god bless them, a weekend without doing the circuit just so they can keep saving up to get that belly button ring that they always wanted. Money is never an issue for boys like me. I just don’t want to waste the time in the salon again. Ah who cares, the guy who waxes me was pretty hot.

And what’s in a name any ways. In the trade, people call me Gianni. And my trade friends all have little names that they go by, too. We know each other’s real names… but we don’t bother telling the photographers. It’s sort of like a sexy boys club of America.

Every porn boy has a great Genesis story to go along with his name. I think I was wearing Versace boxer briefs on the set of my first shot. A more weathered sex boy at the time suggested “Gianni” when they were putting together the credits and I was about to give them my real name. I admired the kid because he was hung like a horse. He’d also been in enough videos to line a smut rack at a Christopher Street Adult store. In the end, I was too lazy to make my own name anyways. And so the porn industry christened me on that very day as “Gianni.” I didn’t get dunked under water in a big ceramic bowl… but I did have ten other guys jack off and cum across my chest. I guess that’s an inverted ceremony of some kind, isn’t it?

I’ve been using the name for so long that at times, I forget what my real name is. That’s when you know that you’ve been swallowed by the sex culture: When you forget your real name and start using your porn name instead. But sometimes every one wishes they can just change their names and be someone else. I’m lucky enough to be able to do just that.

“Okay, Gianni. You’re done for tonight.” Mr. Sunglasses starts to put away his camera.

I don’t respond. He looks at me standing there and remembers. The click clack of his shoes quickens as he walks across the studio and hands me a lump of cash. Half paid on the spot. God I love it.

“Always a blast to work with you.” He says.

I don’t even bend over to pick up my clothing yet. This silence game is kind of fun, it’s making him nervous. He looks back up into my face and I can imagine eyes through the tint of his sunglasses. My hand snakes out like a cobra and latches in between his legs. Like a rock. I let a small grin escape my silent lips.

“I know it is.” I reply, grinning.

And off I go, carrying my clothing, leaving the erect camera man to jack off in the studio before he finishes packing his shit.

Rain comes down in sheets outside. People run in and out of taxis and duck under canopies to shield themselves.

And I just walk. I actually move a little slower when it rains. What’s there to rush for? The rain is cold and sharp. Like falling pieces of shattered glass.

I could be all poetic and say that the rainfall is cleansing me of my sexual filth. But that would just be a lie. I don’t need a cleansing. And I don’t feel dirty. But, if you want to get technical, everything in this city is filthy. It’s just a big sectioned off tray of mud and everyone gets to pick where they wallow. Personally, I think I picked one of the better piles to play around in.

A little piece of paper in my jeans pokes me with one of its corners. Oh yeah. I almost forgot about that. I’ve memorized the words: “Hi, I’m Luke. I saw you here the other day and didn’t have a chance to say hi. If you want to, meet me at the Big Cup tomorrow at 5:30…” My friend Susan had given me the note yesterday at the salon when I went in for my coloring. Apparently this brave little gay boy had seen me and felt like taking the chance of a life time. Well today was his lucky day. Susan guaranteed me that he was “pretty cute”. And his ballsiness actually won him a date with Gianni, Freshman cover boy of the month.

I doubt he even knows me. He probably just saw a cute face and great body and felt a surge that maybe he might stand a chance. I wonder if he thinks I’m an untouchable… and when he gets me, he’ll go running home to tell his friends about how he fucked around with some gorgeous, unattainable guy. Please. Or maybe he sees some sort of deep essence and spirituality in this date. Why all the guesswork? His note is too innocent. Anyone who can read me would know to just stick a phone number, don’t bother with a name, on a piece of paper. The fact that he took the time to write me a book only incriminates him further. What of? The boy wants a date. It’s fucking obvious. It’s cute… don’t get me wrong. He just doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.

Actually, the fact that he would ask me on a date is pretty ridiculous, too. What the fuck is a date? When you get down to the crude basics, it’s just a pleasant precursor to sex. Two people dress up nice and go out somewhere to drink coffee or eat a Caesar wrap or see a campy musical… in hopes that they’ll be ripping each other’s pants off and sixty-nining under an apartment skylight before the morning sun comes up.

At least that’s how it is here in Gayland. I won’t bother talking about the straight world, that’s even more confusing. But here that’s what a date is. Two boys go out with the hopes that, when all is said and done, they’ll end up in bed together.

So why is he asking me out on a date? Judging from the hope of the note, he must see this as something romantic. I can be his knight in shining armor. I’ll walk through the swinging glass door of Big Cup, whisk him into my arms and carry him up into the sky with a chorus of angels harmonizing around us. Right. I’ll be perfectly content getting him to suck me off in the corner of one of the bathrooms, and if he swallows, I might get that momentary warm sensation of respect before I zip my fly back up. This is all assuming he’s as cute as Susan says he is.

The rain gets heavier and I can feel it sopping into my shirt. It’s those fat rain drops that get annoying after a while. My shirt starts to stick to my chest. And then it starts to itch. But before I can complain any more, the Big Cup looms ahead of me. This place is the gay Mecca.

All day it’s home to older fags who drop by for a tea (and maybe a tea-bagging, if that’s what they dig) sometime before five. After that it’s where closeted high school boys hang out with bottles of San Pellegrino before they’re due back home for din-din. And on just about every week night, it’s where club boys come for a quick shot of caffeinated hysteria before they go shake their asses across the dance scene at midnight. They’ve got all the offerings of any coffee place: sandwiches, dessert, that chai tea shit. And for all the nancy boys, there’s plenty of skim milk and soy available, too. The interior is more tacky than Madonna’s latest outfit, and boys and girls freely use either bathroom, despite the fact that they’re clearly marked. Normally there would be a crop of meat standing around outside smoking and exchanging phone numbers with gossip; but today the rain seems to have scared them all away.

“I’ll be sitting as close to the door as I can get. I’ll be wearing a brownish gap t-shirt,” was the end of the note still hanging out in my pocket. I wipe rain from my plucked eye brows and look into the queer hovel.

There he is. Sitting with his fucking back to the giant plate glass window. Was that intentional? Probably not. I doubt this kid has any clue as to how to scope someone out. He probably just didn’t feel like looking out at the shitty weather. Great. I can’t even get a reading on his face. If he was a train wreck I could always just keep walking down town in the rain, and maybe pick up a quick fuck at the Factory Café in the Village. But Susan did assure me that he was pretty cute, and she’s just as critical as I am. Well, I can always make myself unnoticeable and check him out from across the room…

I pull my skull cap down a little further just over my eyes and head straight to the bathroom in the back of the place. I don’t look back. That way he won’t be able to recognize my face. He’s had it running through his head for a day, he’d spot me at first sight. The café is packed with older guys and any one who can see me is all ready staring me up and down. Keep it down, you chicken hawks, I don’t feel like a grand daddy fuck tonight, ok? Just before I get to the little girls room, some old dude gets up and blocks my way.

“Hey, I really like your hat…”

“Fuck off, troll.” I don’t even look him in the eyes and just like that he’s back on his over-fucked ass bitching something like “you stupid little hoe bag”.

I don’t care. I slam the bathroom door behind me and switch on the light. The entire room has a chalkboard wall and people have written such wonderful profundities like “Fuck me hard” and “Julio likes it two at a time” and “WHT BTTM ISO BLK TOP…” in different colors of chalk above the toilet bowl. There isn’t even a mirror in the room. Waste of my time. My hat flattened my hair against my head… so I rip off it off and run some water through my hair, spiking it back up. I re-organize my dick in the right place. Finally, I crane my head over my back to check out my ass. I’m sure I look like some kind of retarded, confused ostrich, but I don’t have a mirror and I have to make due with what I have, okay?

When I finally get out of the bathroom, there’s a line of boys waiting to get in. Two of them walk into the same one I just left. Both work out. A lot. One’s blonde, the other’s not. And they’re cute.

“You wanna come in, too?” the black haired boy asks me. Decisions, decisions. I look to the front of the room to see the kid. He’s sitting there, drinking a big plastic glass of water with a straw, sort of just staring off innocently into gay space. Brown hair, spiked out in all directions. Goatee and a mustache. And… holy fuck… his eyes… they’re just…

Suddenly I’m attacked by the white sound. I hadn’t heard that since my parents sent me to the Doc when I was fourteen. It came from this old, tiny, yellowing machine. The white sound. That’s the best they could name it: white. It always sounded to me like what you would hear if you got caught and dragged up into the top of a wave in the midst of a typhoon. I close my eyes and all around me, there’s just white. Swirling jets of vanilla and milk and cotton all around me. It’s a sweet and soft and thick sound just entering me and filling me up. Like some divine form of sex. At 14, that’s what sex promised to be, where you’re penetrated, but nothing is ever withdrawn. And I cry out and…

I cum.

Fuck.

“Yo man, you coming in or NOT?” The black-haired boy is getting pissed… I don’t even remember how long I’ve been standing there.

“N…No… I’m meeting someone.”

“Whatever, girl. Missed your chance.”

The cum starts to dry and I can feel my pants begin to stick to my leg. The black haired boy recruits some other guy from behind me and he enters into the bathroom for his chance in a wild three. And I’m stuck here with my jeans full of spunk.

What the fuck was that? My head swims for just a second. It had been years since I’d done acid… But a friend once told me that once you do acid, it stays in you forever, and you can have an acid flashback at any point in time. Shit man, I hope I don’t get that again… especially when I’m crossing the street or something.

I look down in amazement. There’s no stain on my pants… Fate must be shining down on me. My legs still shake, whether they’ll be able to hold me up when I walk across the room is going to be the mystery of the day.

And the kid, Luke, just sits there. Drinking his water. He’s been sucking at that straw for an hour, but he’s not running out of water. And he is cute. It’s a weird cute, too. It’s like a really attractive cute, but it’s swirled with something else. There’s something very baby about this boy. He can’t be much older than eighteen… and his goatee does nothing to age his looks beyond twenty or so.

Some other guy walks over to him and starts to speak to him. Luke shakes his head violently as if coming out of a trance and answers the man. All the while his eyes just seem to grow and grow. The man tries to sit down and finally the kid asserts himself. He must be saying something dismissing because the guy humbly accepts his shoot-down, and heads for the exit, a defeated man. Nice try, cowpoke. This one’s mine.

So I force the feeling of the cum drying in my crotch out of my mind. Whatever that was doesn’t matter. Approach with power and you’ll come away with what you want. I wipe the white sound and the cum away and head over to the table without looking back.

“Hi.” I say before he even has a chance to look up and see me standing there.

He’s shocked that I actually showed.

“Hello? Can you speak?”

“Sorry,” He stutters out, “I was starting to think that you wouldn’t show.”

“Well, I did.”

“I’m Luke…”

“Gianni,” I say, looking at some cute guy walking by.

“Yeah… Gianni, can I get you something to drink?”

“Maybe. What are you drinking?”

He looks down at the glass, the poor kid’s in such a daze he forgot what the fuck he’s been sipping for the past hour.

“Oh. It’s water.” He has a nervous laugh.

“I’ll have some of yours.” I say as I seat myself opposite of him and start to drink intently out of his straw. His ears turn red. I stare right into his eyes and curl my eyebrows out (a trick of the porn industry… it makes your face appear more animal, more intense.) I can feel his self control draining out from under him, splashing on the floor. I am your puppeteer, little gay boy. Let’s see how I can make you dance.

“They… they have bottled water here if you want me to go and get some.” He says as he starts to get up.

“No,” I re-assert as I grab a hold of his forearms and pull him back down into his seat, “I’m fine with this, here, you can finish it.” I slide the water over across the table back to him. He stares at the straw like it was blessed by God, himself. Then I guess he realizes how hypnotized he looks and feigns nonchalance as he stoops his head down and draws the remainder of the water out of the cup.

“Thanks.” He says as he finishes what’s left.

“Thanks for what?”

He pauses for a second and then laughs at himself. Apparently the hours of practice that went into his date persona are proving ineffective.

“I… I have no idea. Listen, I was really nervous and…”

“I need a cigarette.” I get up and head for the door without looking back. Finally when I reach the exit, I toss my head over my shoulders and stare back at him. His jaw is dropped, his eyes full of hurt and dismissal. “Well?”

“Well what?” He shakes as he responds.

“Well… aren’t you going to come out with me?”

It’s like his entire life has just regained its meaning and he’s been reborn.

“Shu… sure. Let me just get my…” He grabs his charcoal jacket and drapes it over his broad shoulders. Damn. This boy looks like a top if I ever did see one. Suddenly all I can see is what he would look like, curled over me, with my legs wrapped around his neck. I almost laugh. Has this kid ever even been naked with another boy? Haha maybe once or twice in Junior High or something. I don’t think he’s gone much farther than that.

It seems to have gotten a trillion degrees colder outside when the air hits me. But the rain isn’t turning into snow. The drops collect just beyond the edge of the sidewalk in dirty little puddles that slowly ebb their way towards the sewer opening that’s stuffed with Starbucks cups and paper bags. Using my hands as an all-purpose shield I light my cigarette and look at Luke.

“You smoke?” I ask him with the cigarette bouncing between my lips (another porno trick, it’s amazing all the things you learn that so perfectly apply to real world encounters.)

“Yeah,” his eyes follow my bouncing cigarette… and I see in my head the vision of a baby cat shaking its head back and forth watching a ball of yarn roll.

“You want one?”

“Sure.”

I hand him my pack of Newports and watch as his shaking hand finally flips the top and produces one. He sticks it in his mouth. As I hand him the lighter, he laughs and the cigarette almost drops out.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“I… Well, I usually have my friends light them for me.” More nervous laughter.

This is going to be a riot. I let an over-dramatic sigh escape my lips as I hand him my cigarette and light the one from his mouth to smoke for myself. One puff and the kid barely stifles his cough.

“You don’t smoke.”

“No,” he defends himself desperately, “I really do, Gianni, I’m just used to lights.”

“Gotcha.” I might as well let him retain some feeling of self-confidence. He needn’t know that I am aware of the power I have over him.

“So now what?” I ask as I blow cigarette smoke into his face.

“What do you mean?” He’s holding the cigarette awkwardly between his middle and pointer fingers, and it’s ashing really quickly.

“Well, where do we go from here?”

“I never thought that we’d go anywhere…”

Wrong answer. This is going to go my way and it’s going to go my way now. I don’t have time to stick around in some queer coffee place all night long and go home without getting my rocks off. I throw my cigarette into the dirty puddle beyond the sidewalk and snatch his out of his mouth and finish it off.

“Where do you live?” I ask bluntly.

“Upper West Side…”

“Well your parents are probably back home, aren’t they?”

“Yeah… I guess so.” He turns red and realizes that. Must be pretty embarrassing.

“Well you can come back to one of my places.”

He laughs. “One of your places?”

“Yeah,” I dominate him with a serious tone, that shuts him up. “I have a bunch of places where I can stay. Are you going to come with me? Because if not, I really should get going…”

“No. No.” He stops me before I even pretend to start walking. “I’d love to go back to one of your places.”

And so it’s settled. I toss what was left of “his” cigarette into the puddle and we’re off on our gay little way. My friend Rich has a place in Chelsea Piers that he lets me use whenever the fancy suits me. It’s a pretty big studio apartment. He’s got a nice bed and he never minds me using it if and when I need to. That’s probably the best place to bring this kid, it looks nice, and Rich is gone for the week on some model shoot.

As we walk the rain changes again from those fat, annoying, sopping drops to the kind that mists in your face, like someone’s spritzing you at a salon. The droplets stick and I find myself constantly wiping them away. My forehead feels slick and slippery, my clothing is way soaked. It’s clinging to my chest… but that’s never a bad thing. I catch Luke staring at my pec lines every once and a while. Every time I catch him, he turns his head quickly and blushes.

Luke seems to be regaining his self confidence on the trip and he starts talking to me. He’s using all these big words about his love of writing and acting and everything. The kid’s a high school theater boy. Those can always be fun. He’s been in this play and that and he’s written for this poetry journal and edited that newspaper article. And then, as if he thinks it’s been expertly delivered, he mentions some random hook-up he had backstage during the opening night of one of his shows.

I ask him if he’s ever had sex before. His breath catches in his lungs. I’ve checkmated him again and it’s like he’s been thrust from whatever podium he’s climbed up on top of for a moment. Then he spends the next twenty minutes giving me the rundown of the boys he’s been with.

It’s cute. His attempt to deliver me the educated slut list is commendable, but it’s not gonna work. Not with me, at least. I have to admit, he is much more experienced than I first surmised. And maybe, just maybe, he thinks that he’s impressing me, or rendering me submissive. I let him think that. I’m a nice guy sometimes, and I don’t mind gifting people with temporary power trips.

Then again, he could just be stringing me golden lines of bullshit. That’s also a good possibility. Luke may have never even gone farther than a brief kiss with a co-star sometime last week. He is a writer. Who knows what’s the truth and what’s not. Then again, who the fuck cares? Not me.

The walk continues and Luke starts to get a little more insistent. He’s thirsty again… so we stop at a Starbucks and he buys me a latte. Good. Great. Wonderful. But it’s too rainy outside, and he doesn’t want the drink to chill before he’s finished with it. We find ourselves sitting in one of the dimly lit corners on big fluffy brown couches and talking again. Now he’s asking me about my life. So I figure I can tell him a little bit about my past. So I tell him about Mommy and Daddy. And the Doc who gave me the go-ahead. He gives me his apologies, I get up and head out for a cigarette. I don’t tell him about the porn or the escorting or any of that shit. Don’t want to scare the little boy away this far into the game. He follows me outside. The rain picks up again around us as Luke actually lights himself one and smokes alongside of me. He asks me if Gianni is my real name. I tell him yes. Nobody outside of my industry knows my real name, and he isn’t going to have that privilege either.

After a few more minutes I finally have us on the road again to Rich’s apartment. It’s only a few blocks away. So the heavy rain isn’t all that bad, since I know we’ll be there soon enough.

On the walk we keep on talking and Luke mentions his coming out experience with his parents. They threw him a party, complete with rainbow cake and close to fifty friends. For a second there’s this burning feeling in me like I’m going to burst out crying. But it goes away and we keep walking. I start to actually look over at Luke and I see that his hair is starting to get weighed down by the falling rain. He looks really cute with his hair down, I tell him that, he laughs.

Then he’s hungry. I roll my eyes… but I’m starving, too. So we stop off at this little Italian place on the way over. There’s a thirty minute wait and we sit around and talk some more. He asks me about what I do. So I tell him that I’ve done some modeling here and there and spare jobs whenever I get the chance. The half hour zips by and they seat us at some nice table by a window. Shadows of the rain through the window drip across Luke’s face and we sit there, talking and talking. We get appetizers, dinner, dessert, espresso. The espresso is dark and grainy, my face crinkles up and I choke on it. Luke laughs and comes over to my side of the table and shows me the ‘proper’ way to take a shot of espresso. He crinkles his face too and now it’s my turn to laugh at him. He admits that it’s a bad shot through his bitter, laughing face and we have the waiter bring us another round for free. Finally it’s Luke who reminds me that we were in the process of heading towards “one of my places.” I had forgotten completely… shit, that’s not right. I tell him that I was about to say the same thing, and we’re off.

Twenty blocks and five cigarettes later, we finally get to Rich’s apartment. Our clothing is soaked and we’re shivering. We had come to the realization that we both watched “The State” on MTv before it was canceled. Now we’re just firing quotes from the show back and forth and almost falling off the sidewalk laughing from them. I stop at the door and get ready to say goodbye.

“Well, can I come in?” Luke asks.

I stand there stunned. What the fuck is going on here? I was about to say goodbye to him? Jesus. Something’s not right here. I look at him and my entire body shivers. I regain my composure and speak up.

“You better come in, I didn’t spend all that time with you just to have you head back uptown.”

Luke’s smile fades under the sheets of rain. Something in my stomach flips. I feel like I just stabbed him in the gut. Why? No good reason. I smile inside. Yeah, you better be shocked, boy. I’m still your master. I usher him inside and close the door behind us.

There’s only warm and infrequent lighting in Rich’s apartment. That girl knows how to set up exposure rates. Every corner of this room can make a person look gorgeous. I flick the switch from the doorway and the yellow lighting dims. His shades are down, and it’s better that way. Now the rain seems to have taken a turn for the worse and it attacks the windows, like it’s trying with all its power to get in. Like it’s trying to stop me and save Luke. Too late, rain. The predator’s got the prey in his den, and it’s supper time.

“Stay here.” I point to the bed.

Luke takes off his jacket and throws it over by the bed.

“Right there?”

“Yeah. I’ll be right back.” I head into Rich’s bathroom, leaving Luke to look around the place. In the bathroom I take one last look at myself and take off my shirt. My nipple rings glisten in the light, they form an almost perfect triangle with my belly button stud. Unzipping my fly, I pull down my pants and leave them in a pile to the side of the sink. All that’s left is the jock strap (sans supporter) that I put on today. My jeans were too tight to accommodate any other under garment… and I only wear those, thongs or nothing at all any ways. I click the light off and take one last look at myself in the darkness. My reflection looks like a big, hulking monster. It heaves in and out as its broad shoulders move like the waves in a typhoon. And it grins with razor sharp teeth. The monster takes one last look at himself, and leaves the room silently.

Luke’s sitting Indian style on the bed facing a window that he just pulled the shades up from. He’s just staring out into the gloom.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Just admiring the ugliness.”

Yeah, this kid talks like a writer, all right. “What?”

“It’s so shitty out. Ya know? Gray. Wet. Loud. But that’s not so bad.”

“Right…”

“Ever look out and admire the contradictions in the storm?” his voice is taking on a new tone, one I haven’t heard before. “I mean, people curse the rain because it floods the street and makes driving conditions hazardous. But… if it didn’t rain, we’d all drop dead of thirst. Crops would die. Mankind would just dry up and blow away.”

“So?” I’m getting impatient. “What are you trying to say?”

He turns around and faces me. My entire body freezes the second our eyes lock. “So I’m saying that no matter how bad something or someone is, and no matter how bad that someone wants to be, or thinks they are… to someone or to some people, they’re the most necessary thing in the world.” He gets up and walks over to me. He stares me right in my eyes. “Has any one ever said that to you?” He puts his lips right on my ears and whispers, “That I need you.”

Then he pulls his head back, smiles at me, and puts his lips to mine.

And I hear the ocean again. It comes flowing through his mouth and into me. It’s filling me up, and it’s warm. I close my eyes and everything goes white. I open my eyes back up and it’s even whiter than when they were closed. Suddenly I’m lying on the bed, looking up into Luke’s eyes.

He’s smiling at me and he kisses me deeper and deeper. It feels like he’s diving inside of me and flying around. I hungrily start to kiss him back. It’s hard to kiss this hard while smiling, but I try. I just want to draw him deeper and deeper inside of me. He reaches down between my legs and starts to touch me. My whole body vibrates with something I’ve never felt before.

Without a slight bit of hesitation, I’m rolling over onto my stomach and looking over my shoulder at him. He’s up on his knees, looking at me like no one’s ever looked at me. And there’s this white light all around his muscular body. It’s like he’s standing in front of a star. He looks at me one last time as he enters me.

My smile stretches so far across my face that I’m laughing. There’s something so light and easy inside of me. And he’s so warm. My body connects with his as he goes farther inside of me. He’s pulling out of me and going back in, but I only feel the warmth going deeper and deeper, filling me like the ocean that was in his mouth.

Through my smile I look back into his wild animal eyes and gasp as best as I can. “Please, don’t… please don’t stop…” and then I feel it starting to leave me. “No…come back…” But it’s leaving me even quicker. The emptiness is returning. “No, please… Luke…” And then I hear the sound of the tide again…

I’m crying. Fuck.

Luke’s holding me in his arms and I’m crying. My jockstrap is still on, all of his clothing is still on… we haven’t moved an inch since he kissed me.

“I need you…” I gasp out of my tightening lungs. “I need you, Luke.” I can’t make sense. And I can’t communicate to him what I’m trying to say. I want to say to him that that kiss is the first real kiss I’ve ever felt. I have to tell him that I’ve never been so filled with a feeling before in my life. But I’m too busy crying and heaving. “You were inside of me… but you weren’t… but I felt you inside of me.”

“I don’t fuck on a first date. You felt someone care about you.”

“Fuck that psychological shit! I felt you inside of me.”

“All I did was kiss you.”

“That’s all you had to do! I want that back!”

“You want that feeling inside of you again?”

“Yes, I need it. Please, give it back to me.”

He just looks back at me. And all that I can think of is how wonderful it felt to have him pushing deeper and deeper into me. It wasn’t sex. It was something beyond sex. It obliterated the idea of sex, and left it crying in a gutter next to Starbucks cups and paper bags. No, this was life. This was life beyond all the flashing cameras and make your own kits of K and E. Luke had just filled me with life. He had passed happiness through his lips to mine. And now I’m addicted to it. He just stands there, admiring this boy of utmost experience who’s bawling like a queen who broke his heel just before his big drag social.

He walks up to me and puts a finger to my lips, I stop crying immediately. He leans in and plants one last, deep kiss on my lips and I smile.

“Goodnight, Franky.”

“How do you know my name?” I blurt out.

“You just told me it a minute ago.” He laughs as if he can’t believe I don’t remember.

He looks at me with those flaming eyes for another silent second before he opens the door, and leaves. The drama queen makes a movie-perfect exit leaving me alone in the room, still breathing like I’ve come out of a marathon.

Before I even move I just go and sit there on Rich’s bed and try thinking. My head is filled with the residue of the white noise and nothing’s making sense. What the fuck was that? And who the fuck is this gay boy to come and make me cry and leave me just like that? He didn’t even take off his clothes. He kissed me, and left me.

I struggle to my knees and crawl across the bed to look outside. There he is, walking out of the building. I can’t see his face… but this time I know it’s intentional. Our eyes lock again as he turns around and stares back at me from a hundred feet away. I can still feel the flames inside of my head. He waves to me and turns around, using the end of my wave to hail a taxi. And here I lie, downtown, in the city’s version of hell while the boy heads back to his high rise in heaven. I feel the tears warming my face, and my stubble poking my legs. Just before I start to cry again I notice something sticking up on the spot of Rich’s bed where Luke was sitting. It’s a small piece of paper all folded.

I open it up and I can’t even hold back a smile. “Hey, thanks for the date I had a great time. Please, call me. xoxo- Luke” I fold the paper back up and sit there, rocking on the bed. The boy duped me out of an evening, and got me to go on a date. He came back to my place and all he did was kiss me and leave me a note. The funniest thing is that all I can think about is canceling my shoot tomorrow night, so I can see him again. Forgive my french, but that’s really fucked up.

 

© 2004 Justin Buchbinder - Contributor's Bio