A Consumer's Guide to Male Hustlers (21 page)

Étienne was born in Port-au-Prince—he pronounced the name of Haiti's capital the French way—but moved to Miami with his mother and his siblings at an early age. He had never met his East Indian father.

"Do you speak French?" I asked.

He thought my question over for a good half a minute. As I was to learn later, Étienne sometimes would mull over very simple questions for a very long time. "Yes," he finally said, "but I forgot much of it."

As soon as I asked, I realized it was a stupid question. Only upper-class Haitians speak French. The rest speak Creole. As a matter of fact, while we were seeing each other, Étienne never uttered a single French word.
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. My question spooked Étienne. Most people he dealt with knew nothing about Haiti. As I got to know him, I found out that he would, at times, say that he had spent most of his life in France. I suppose that is why he insisted on the phone that I put an accent on the first "E" of his name. A childhood in Miami as the son of an East Indian father and a Haitian mother must not have been easy. But Étienne, Alfonso, and many other "ethnic" hustlers have a unique problem. Of a hundred clients reading the ads, maybe only 5 percent are interested in them. But these readers, myself included, prefer them over all others. Had Étienne described himself as French I would not even have finished reading the ad. Whether they like or dislike their ethnic affiliation, it serves as their sales tool.

He finally perked up when I talked about hypnosis. He urgently needed to be regressed to his past lives. There, in one of his many past lives (he was a very old soul, he told me), he would find the key to his present existence.

When we came home, we sat in the living room for a while. I served Étienne juice. When he spoke, he moved his fingers, hands and forearms at very sharp angles, reminding me of East Indian dancing. I was fascinated by the elegance of his movements, even when just sitting down.

Étienne said that he needed to take a shower because he was very sweaty after his class. Only when he came out of the shower, stark naked, did I realize how sexy his body was. He had worn extra large clothes—the fashion among the young these days—making it impossible to get an accurate impression of what his body looked like under the oversized clothing. Now I was certain that, had I been allowed to choose a model from a thousand photos in a catalog, Étienne would have been my first choice. He had a cherubic expression on his face which, as I would soon find out, could easily change to impish and even mean. There was not an ounce of fat on his hairless, dark body, though his small and firm butt was prominent. His circumcised penis was small too. Because of the size of his dick, I doubt that his nude photo would have graced a thousand- model catalog!

I have disclosed so many of my heresies in this book that I might as well confess one more. I prefer partners who are not well hung. Needless to say, since this is my preference, I tend to meet hugely hung guys. Étienne was a very pleasant exception. I am sure that for him, comparing himself to other Haitian men, the small size of his dick must have occasioned some very traumatic experiences.

When we lay down I embraced Étienne. Belying his thinness, his body was enormously strong and supple. "Not so fast, buster," he said. "I run this show."

Having sex with Étienne was like taking a dance class. We started with warm-up exercises and progressed slowly to more complicated steps. Étienne kept correcting my style. "You don't know how to kiss."

"Teach me," I said. For the next year and a half, I took kissing lessons from Étienne. I was not a good student. I would slip into my old kissing habits, which Étienne considered dilettantish. But I'll say this for Étienne: each sex session he choreographed, ending with both of us climaxing simultaneously, was a very memorable experience. Étienne was nothing like Jed or Gabriel. Having sex with him was a learning experience: I perfected my style as a sex partner by doing it with a trainer.

While Étienne was teaching me sex techniques we also talked about his life. He told me that he had run his model ad only four times over a period of eight weeks, and had had about six clients. He was disappointed in all of them. Their sex techniques were shaky.

With me, it was different. Even though I was a slow learner, at least I tried to improve myself and, to the best of my limited ability, followed instructions. "I am bisexual," Étienne said. "I have had gay sex for only a year." I found this difficult to believe.

Étienne, who came to the United States when he was eight years old, had the slightest accent in English. It became much more pronounced when he was tired. It was not a French accent but, to me, it was just as charming.

"Will you regress me to a past life?" Étienne asked me after we climaxed.

I do not hypnotize for free. Just as I do not expect free sex from hustlers, I want them to pay me for my professional services. I told Étienne that he would have to pay for a past-life regression. "How much do you charge?" he asked.

"Fifty dollars per session."

One of Étienne's long silences ensued. It reminded me of a slow computer. The answer is there, but the computer takes a long time to spit it out. "Would you like to see me again?" he finally asked.

"Of course, Étienne. We need to work on improving my kissing techniques."

"How about you paying me $30 plus a hypnosis session next time?"

This is how Étienne and I started seeing each other regularly. The $30 became his established fee, and he was entitled to past-life regressions as needed. The lower fee was also based on a technicality. For Étienne, only a penetrative act qualified as sex. Étienne classified our sessions as massage. Within a month, he was the only hustler I saw. And I became his only client.

Étienne had not been very successful as a hustler. To begin with, his schedule was so hectic that most clients could not accommodate him. But the real problem was Étienne's schoolmarmish attitude. There was only one correct way to do things in bed—his way. I am not saying that he dictated what we did (that was left up to me) but how we did things was choreographed by him in minute detail. If, in the heat of passion, I took his hand and tried to wrap it around my penis, he would freeze, and then ask severely: "What are you doing?"

"I am taking your hand and moving it toward my penis."

"Are you trying to run this show?"

"No. I am just trying to enjoy myself." Étienne's face would assume a mean expression, he would give me a withering look, and return his hand to its previous resting spot. A few minutes later, when he was good and ready, he would wrap it where I had wanted it.

I suspect that most clients were turned off by his demeanor. I let him have his way. I liked Étienne so much that even letting him have complete control in bed turned me on.

I have already written about the dangers of finding a "dream hustler," someone who is exactly one's type. It makes the client ignore all of the hustler's shortcomings. I had been very attracted to Jed and Gabriel sexually, and I considered both of them cute. But they were not precisely my types and I was not completely powerless with them.

Étienne was my archetype! His face, body, movements, voice, penis, and even his androgyny were made to order for me. (Literally made to order. I prefer circumcised partners, and Étienne had been circumcised in his teens for medical reasons.) He was not a hustler who could be exchanged for another when the necessity arises, just as the Mona Lisa cannot be traded for another painting.

During the year and a half that we saw each other, I went abroad three times. Even though I got it on with local hustlers there, I missed Étienne terribly. Nobody measured up to him. Once, after arriving in Puerto Rico from Barbados, I called his answering machine just to hear his voice.

At the end of the second month of our acquaintance, Étienne asked whether he could borrow $100 to help pay his rent on the first of the month. By that time I was thinking again about a monthly arrangement. We did fewer past-life regressions (because he was rushed or tired and because I was bored and did not push the issue), and I was afraid he would raise his fee. The $30 per session fee I could afford, there was no hustler on the horizon I would like better, and no boyfriend lurking around waiting to supplant him. I decided to make him a formal offer.

I prefaced my offer by sharing with him my concern that our arrangement would change his status from independent contractor to employee. This fine distinction was lost on him. I said, "My proposal is that we would meet ten times a month—every third day. I will pay you $100 on the first of the month, and $20 every time I see you. If there are extra sessions, I'll pay the full $30."

Étienne mulled this over for a very long time. Then he said, "Because of my schedule I don't know if I can see you every third day. I am starting a new class. I'll be on a time frame."

Étienne used the expression "time frame" frequently. It meant that he was on a tight schedule. His meager income was derived from four sources: a dance class he taught in San Rafael that brought in $30 a week, minus his transportation expenses; working as a go-go dancer on the platform of a club; a part-time job selling clothes in a gay boutique; and the money that I paid him. Fortunately for him, he had a work-study job at his school doing clerical work there. My offer would almost cover the rent for his room.

I was surprised that he hesitated to accept my proposal. "Well, Étienne, I will try to accommodate your schedule. With goodwill, I think it's a can-do situation. After all, we have been seeing each other every third day for quite a while now. Why don't we try it for one month?" He agreed.

I believe that Étienne's schedule saved me from asking him to become my lover. I was so enraptured by him that I would have ignored our considerable age difference. But not even a much younger man could have kept up with him. Étienne had no fixed time for sleeping, eating, even for going to the bathroom. He was even more anorexic than Gabriel. Sometimes he would forget to eat for an entire day. On a Monday morning, for instance, he would come home from clubbing at 5 a.m., and sleep until eight. Then he would work at the boutique until 3 p.m. I would pick him up there and we would have a session. Around 6 p.m., he would take a nap at my place for an hour, then go to school, and then again to the clubs.

Often he would oversleep because he was exhausted and miss work, class, or an appointment with me. Or he would be late because he had to go the bathroom that very minute—he had neglected to take care of it for two days. If his boss or teacher or I scolded him for not being on time he would be very offended. He said that nobody understood or cared how little time he had to sleep. Squeezed into this schedule were his boyfriend and two or three other men. At least, as a client, I got a
lot
more sex than they did!

Étienne had not been a pharaoh or even a general in the ancient Egyptian army in the previous incarnations we explored. His past lives had a dreamlike quality. Étienne found them fascinating, and believed they had great significance. A Jungian analyst would have a field day with this material. I found it a bore. I am a Taurus (as Étienne, an Aries, constantly reminded me when he wanted to put me down) and therefore much too practical. I thought that Étienne should concentrate on the monumental obstacles he confronted in his present incarnation, rather than waste his time exploring the previous ones.

As I saw it, Étienne was in very deep trouble. Whichever move he made would result in a checkmate. Étienne Patel (he was given his father's surname), his mother, and his three younger siblings had been admitted to the United States provisionally as political refugees. Étienne's half brothers were of different fathers, and all bore their mother's maiden name. Somehow, when the family was processed for permanent residence, Étienne's name was dropped. The mistake went unnoticed. Subsequently the family split, and Étienne went to live with an aunt. When the time came for him to get his own ID, he did not have a shred of paper to prove his status.

Every now and then, Étienne made feeble attempts to get his papers in order. The last time, in Miami, he was apprehended by the INS right in their building as an illegal alien. He managed to slip away. They would probably have deported him, I assume to Haiti, though Étienne did not have any papers to prove where he was born.

As a result of this mess, Étienne could not obtain a legitimate Social Security card. He had bought a fake one in Miami, which bore his real name. As I understood it, the card's number was legitimate, but belonged to another person. With this, and an old photo ID issued by a Florida community college, he could secure jobs with small employers. Larger employers and government agencies were not fooled by his documentation. Since California matches names with Social Security numbers, Étienne could not obtain a driver's license in this state. His passion was driving. Every time he sat behind the steering wheel (he drove his school's van), he risked being cited for driving without a license and bad things would snowball from there.

Some of his fellow students had been recruited by a Dutch nightclub on a year's contract. Étienne could have gone with them, but he was unable to obtain an American passport. He probably could not even have obtained a Haitian passport—he was a man without a nationality.

I saw Étienne in a few presentations with his school. He performed highly choreographed versions of hip hop and street dancing. I considered him a very gifted dancer. But, as a dancer, he had no future even as a common hoofer. He had auditioned many times and was rejected, apparently, because he had the wrong body type. (I was never quite clear about this point.) Had he been accepted, his phony Social Security card would have trapped him sooner or later.

With my practical Taurus mind I wanted to help him deal with his major problem. At one time, I told him that I would pay immediately for a consultation with an immigration lawyer, and suggested withholding $5 every session to cover the legal fees. He was all for it in principle, but I could not persuade him to get in touch with his aunt so she could contact his mother to find out whether there were any Étienne Patel documents in existence. Nor was he willing to give up $5 per session to pay a lawyer. Taking care of his legal status was of much less concern to Étienne than exploring a previous life or even checking out a new club.