“Pool Boy” appears in 35 Cents

I walked all day and got to Sunrise Boulevard just as the sun was setting. Always the right place at the wrong time. I walked down Sunrise to A1A and then went north. I walked a couple more blocks before I noticed I was being followed. A guy in a new white Cadillac kept driving slowly by me and then circling around the block again. I was taking my time, thinking things over. By the time I decided to get in his car I think he must have been pretty tired. He had circled the block at least ten times. He looked so frustrated and desperate by then that I felt sorry for him. I made my decision. When he came back around the next time I walked slowly, timing it so I reached the corner just before he did. When I got to the corner I turned around to face him, grabbed my dick, and then walked quickly around the corner to where it was dark. I was a hustler after all, right?

That was the first time I had ever been so aggressive, and it felt good to be so bad. After that, my hand was practically glued to my dick. I walked around Fort Lauderdale grabbing my dick every time a guy in a car went by me slowly. I let them all know who I was. I just didn’t give a fuck any more. The guy in the Cadillac was Frank. He was a retired real estate agent, but he reminded me of an aged movie star like Rock Hudson. Frank was not in the closet. He dressed in clothes that were gay, mostly white suits with black turtle necks and a lot of jewelry. He combed his thinning white hair to one side like Hugh Hefner. His movements and gesticulations were all overtly feminine. He had a sort of feline elegance. Overall, Frank was actually a pretty handsome old queen.

One night he showed me some old photos from when he was young. They were mostly beach photos taken in Cuba in the late nineteen forties. He didn’t have to point himself out, he was the only gringo. There was this young and extremely attractive Frank in khakis and white cotton shirts surrounded by hot young Cuban boys in bathing suits. His shirts were always unbuttoned and I was amazed at how great he looked. I was amazed at how great they all looked and how much fun they seemed to be having. Frank knew what I was thinking.

“What, did you think I was born an old dried up troll? I was once a young chicken like you, the belle of the ball. And if you’re lucky, you might look as good as me when you’re my age.”

I just laughed. I liked it when Frank would get back some of his former dignity. I never had much respect for most of the guys I tricked with, but Frank was an exception. He wasn’t trying to hide anything. He knew what he was, and he knew who I was. We didn’t play a lot of games.

I liked Frank and I think he liked me too. At first he would just pick me up and blow me in the car behind the Mall on Sunrise Boulevard. Once a week, then twice, then he started taking me home. The night he showed me the pictures he also showed me his pool house. It was a nice little cabana out behind the pool. It looked like a room out of some nineteen fifties beach movie. It had terrazzo floors and a matching rattan couch and love seat with some blue Hawaiian patterned cushions. There was a small desk with a ship in a bottle lamp on top and a bar with a matching lamp. Behind the bar were shelves with all sorts of tropical stuff like coconut drinking cups and hula girl statues.

“Wow Frank, I feel like I’m in Hawaii!”

“There’s a bathroom with a shower in there too.”

“That’s great.”

“So you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty cool little pad.”

Frank got all serious.

“Where do you sleep, Matthew?”

I still hadn’t caught on to that alias stuff.

“Around,” I said, “different places.”

“Well, you’ve been wearing the same clothes since I met you and to be honest you’re beginning to stink a bit.”

That pissed me off.

“Fuck you, Frank, you’re not my father. You’re not anybody’s father!”

Nobody ever told me I stank before and I was a little embarrassed, but all I could do was get angrier. I felt like I was going to cry.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to offend you. I just think maybe you’d be happier having your own place with a shower and a decent bed. I thought maybe you’d like to stay out here for a while.”

I was trying hard not to cry, and I screamed at him.

“Well, you thought wrong; you’re not my father, so stop trying to be!”

“I’m not trying to be your father; I’m just trying to be your friend.”

“Fuck you, Frank; you just want me to live here so you can keep me all to yourself! Fuck that! Fuck that and fuck you!”

Later that night two guys in a jag picked me up on US1 around Oakland Park Boulevard. After I ran out of Frank’s house I got some old wino to buy me some beer and proceeded to get drunk.

“He’s not my fucking father. He’s not my fucking father!”

That was the thought that kept running through my head until I got drunk and started to laugh. The whole fucking scene was hysterical to me; moving into his house, cleaning his pool, being his house boy. Who the fuck did he think I was? I pictured myself in those low-cut bikini briefs the Cuban guys were wearing in the photos, and I laughed like crazy. I would clean the pool while Frank lounged in a recliner wearing a Panama hat and sipping lemonade. Maybe we could get a little fucking poodle too!

I was sitting on a bus bench still laughing when the Jag went by real slow. Inside were two middle-aged men. Well, maybe late middle-aged. They looked like twins. Both had short gray hair cut military style, both had a single diamond earring in their right ears, and they were both wearing expensive white jogging suits. I saw them staring and immediately jumped up and grabbed my dick. They looked a little shocked, but not enough to stop them from pulling up to the curb. The power window on the driver side went down, but nothing happened to me that time. I was just standing there holding my dick in one hand and my beer in the other. I wasn’t all nervous or excited like in the past. My heart wasn’t beating like crazy. I was just there, really in the present for once. Thinking and planning. Sizing them up to see what I could score and how I should play it.

“You’re a feisty little one,” the driver said, “you wanna party?”

“Sounds great,” I said already making for the back door.

They drove me to a house near the beach in the richer section south of Sunrise. The house was fucking unreal. They had everything: a huge TV, a pool, a hot tub, and that wasn’t all. They had coke, and lots of it. As soon as we got in the door David started cutting up some lines and Chris got me a beer. Or was it David who got me the beer and Chris who laid out the coke? I couldn’t tell them apart. When I asked if they were brothers they both laughed.

“Worse, honey, lovers,” David or Chris said.

They were in the business of selling cocaine and from the looks of it, business was good. I hadn’t done any coke since that night with Ray, so I was all over it. Is that strange?

The very first time I tried heroin I overdosed. My friends had to put me into a tub of ice water for hours. Even in the ice I kept nodding out. I just couldn’t stay awake. They were all yelling at me and slapping my face so I knew they were upset at me for something, I just didn’t care. Eventually I came around and they were all screaming.

“Jesus Christ you fucking idiot, you almost died!”

“Really,” was all I could say. The next day I woke up and tried to get them to shoot me up again but nobody would. I was pretty afraid of needles, and I definitely couldn’t hit my own vein without fainting, so I just cooked some up and shot it into my ass cheek. My friends were all laughing. They thought it was pretty funny that I almost died and woke up the next morning wanting more. I didn’t think it was all that funny. I didn’t think at all.

So I was diving right into that coke with David and Chris when one of them stopped me.

“No more for you until you’ve had a shower.”

I guess I really was starting to smell.

“Okay, where’s the shower?”

Did I say shower? It was more like a sauna or something you’d see at a health club. It was about the same size as the showers in the juvenile detention center, but those were for eight guys at a time. This was made for two, and occasionally three. So they got all into washing me, and I got all into how good the hot water felt. There were six shower nozzles and I had never seen anything like that in my life. They had really nice soaps and stuff too. Did all rich people have that many products?

I was feeling pretty good. I thought Frank was rich, but these guys were beyond rich. They were fucking rich! I guess I was a little drunk too, ‘cause I hadn’t really noticed how the looks in their eyes had changed from lamb to wolf so fast. By the time I did notice, it was too late. It was Pedro and Eric all over again, only this time they were Chris and David. But the crazy look of desire was the same, the groaning sounds were the same, and I was the same too. I couldn’t utter a single word of protest, not even a whisper. I was thinking to myself, Hold on a minute here guys, let’s just slow down.

But my lips weren’t moving. On the contrary, theirs were. They were all over the place, like two octopi if that’s not too cliché. Then we got out of the shower and started doing more coke. All three of us were wearing these incredibly soft white bathrobes. I was swimming in mine. My sleeves kept falling down over my hands and landing in all the coke. I must have wasted at least a gram on that robe, but they didn’t seem to mind. They just kept putting out more lines and smiling at each other. Then there were more drinks and a little yellow pill, or was it blue? And then I was really fucking high.

We were in the bedroom, and I couldn’t get hard which was pissing them off to no end. They put in a straight porno, but it didn’t help. They were both all over me. I felt one trying to put his finger up my ass, and I tried to tell him to stop but no words would come out. The other one held a little brown bottle up in front of my nose and told me to inhale. I thought it was some type of smelling salt and that he was trying to wake me up. I was really starting to lose it. I inhaled deeply. Things went from bad to worse. A ringing started in my ears that was coming in waves and kept getting louder and louder. My vision was starting to get wavy too. Even my thoughts were coming in waves. The only thing I was sure of was that there was now definitely a finger in my ass and it was extremely uncomfortable. I wasn’t really feeling the least bit sexy or turned on. The brown bottle appeared before my nose again. I thought or said or screamed, “Nooooo!”

I must have just thought it because the bottle didn’t go away. In my ears I heard the ringing and a voice saying, “Inhale, Inhale, Inhale, Inhale.”

I tried to push the bottle away but my coordination was all screwed up. Then the bottle was gone so maybe they did get my point after all. Thank God.

“The little bitch spilled the rush on the fucking bed!”

“Calm down!”

“No, I won’t calm down, look what you did, bitch, look at me!”

I felt a sharp pain on my face. It was hard to concentrate, but I felt like David or Chris was mad at me for some reason. I tried to concentrate. David or Chris was standing in front of me. A finger was still in my ass. I saw his hand come up in front of me and felt a sharp stinging on my face again. I felt sick; really sick.

“Oh shit, bitch, he’s going to vomit on the bed!”

My scalp hurt like shit. Why was someone pulling my hair? My sister used to pull my hair a lot. Fuck, it hurt. I was sliding on my back. Why? I felt the burning vomit coming up my throat and into my mouth. Instinctively I tried to hold it in, but this only created more pressure and it finally burst out.

“Holy shit! Turn him over or he’s gonna choke on his own vomit!”

“Not on the fucking carpet!”

“Just shut up and turn him over quick!”

I felt the carpet on my face and someone was still pulling my hair, but to my great relief, there was no longer a finger up my ass. With the relief came more vomit. And vomiting felt so good. I surrendered myself to it. It kept coming and coming and the more I vomited the better I felt. I started to get happy again, I felt so relieved. That was exactly what I needed.

David and Chris were still arguing loudly but I couldn’t tell what about. Then I was sliding again but this time on my stomach and the hair-pulling had stopped. They were dragging me by my feet. I felt the cool grass against my face, and then they turned me over and I could see the stars. It was a nice night. Cool and crystal clear. I sat up and looked around. I was in the grass next to the pool. It was a really a nice pool too. I could see David and Chris through the sliding glass doors. They were in the Florida room and still arguing. They needed to relax. One of them came out and stood in front of me with his hands on his hips.

“Are you happy now, bitch?”

“Yeah, I feel a lot better. Do you think I could have a glass of water, please?”

“Oh, the bitch who just ruined my carpet and duvet wants some water now. I’ll give you some water!”

He stormed off. He seemed pretty tense. He came back a minute later and stood in front of me with a garden hose in his hands.

“Here’s your water, bitch!”

He started spraying me with the hose. What the fuck was his problem? What was with these guys? The water was freezing, and he kept spraying me in the face. I couldn’t see and I started yelling for him to stop, but he didn’t stop. I was getting madder and madder. Then suddenly it just came out.

“Stop it, you faggot!”

The water stopped.

“What did you call me?”

“Nothing, I just wanted you to turn off the hose.”

“Oh, I’ll show you who the faggot is, bitch!”

He got on top of me and started hitting me. He looked so mad. I couldn’t understand how he had gotten that mad. His face was all red and his fists were moving so fast. I couldn’t really feel anything except that I was gonna be sick again. I tried to turn over on my side and cover my face, but he kept rolling me back onto my back and pulling my hands back from my face. It was like a game. I put both hands in front of my face, then he would peel one back and hit me in the face. Then he would go for the other hand, and I would put the first one back again. We repeated this game a lot. I didn’t like it so much and I suspected that I was losing. He was starting to scare me. My face was sore and my head was beginning to throb.

“David, stop it!”

“This is between me and him. He called me a faggot!”

“David, you’re going too far, stop it!”

They were wrestling on top of me and screaming at each other.

“Let me go!”

“Go back in the house!”

“No, you go back in the house!”

I turned over on my side in the grass and vomited some more. I was really cold. I was shivering and this got me to thinking about my clothes. Where were they? Where was that white bathrobe?

“Here, get dressed.”

“What?”

Turning over I could see one of them standing over me with my clothes in his hand.

“Get dressed.”

He tossed my clothes down in the yard next to me. I wanted to ask for a towel to dry off with first, but I remembered what happened when I asked for the water, and decided to do as I was told.

“Hurry up! We haven’t got all night.”

I just left my socks and underwear in the grass and put on my jeans and t-shirt. He picked up my shoes, underwear and socks and took me by the arm.

“Come on.”

He led me around the side of the house, through a gate and into the driveway. He opened the back door to the Jag and pushed me in, throwing my stuff in behind me. I spent the next few minutes trying to get my shoes on and then he told me to get out.

“Where are we?”

“Where we found you.”

“Do you think you could let me have twenty bucks?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

I sat on the bus bench for a while. I was cold and wet, and somehow being a pool boy didn’t seem so funny anymore.

 

© 2006 Matty Lee - Contributor's Bio

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