For years, the new war had been outside of him, somewhere else.
Those days were scrapped.
9
“Hi. This is Ritchie ...”
“Brian ...”
“And Ed. We’re not doing the phone thing right now ...”
“But leave a message ...”
“And we’ll call you when we are.”
BEEEEeeeeep.
Alex Tilson’s smirk nearly sliced through the wire like a carving knife. “Cute, guys. This is Alex at Fabulous. We have a party at the Seagram Building next Tuesday. We need more guys. This is a four p.m. call. Please get back to me today to confirm whenever you boys are in the mood to–”
Feedback pierced the machine as Brian picked up the phone and struggled to waken. His hair jutted up from his head like a porcupine’s ass.
“Hulloh?”
“Brian?” Alex guessed.
“Just a sec.” Clawing frantically to turn off Ed’s machine, the naked Brian nearly tumbled to the floor elbow first. Instead, he merely yanked the AC cord from the wall. That seemed to do the job.
“Sorry ’bout that.” Brian sat up in bed at attention, as if he actually were behind Alex’s cubicled office a bridge away.
“Napping?” Alex quizzed, as if sleep were beneath him.
“No,” Brian lied. “I was in the other room.”
“Well, anyway, I have a lot more calls to make. Are you available?” Brian’s vision was still blurry, his piss hard jutting up in equal confusion.
Are you available tonight?
Backtrack. Brian Burns, ten years old, already bored with his new electric toy car Christmas morning, burping up cookie and eggnog giggles in the warm Connecticut home where his needs were always met, usually within minutes. The baby in a family of five with two older brothers, and the prettiest of the lot, he invariably got what he wanted, either through charm, deceit or by simply whining. He spit back their masculine torture in other forms, particularly threats: >
Upon arrival to New York from the ivied canopies of Bennington, the realization that he was not about to become the next Tom Cruise stung as sour as pretzel mustard. The seeds of resentment took root. He could manipulate friends and acquaintances for favors with a low flame. He learned to charm employers into raises with the never-kept promise of seduction dangling from his lashes.
Unsure, however, of what he wanted, just that he wanted, his first years in Metropolis amounted to little more than a scattered resumé of odd jobs, including two Off-Off-Broadway appearances, as the cute deaf mute in a Harvey Fierstein one act, and a walk-on as a shirtless guard in a science fiction version of
Medea
. While pursuing the improvement of his body, he did learn which gyms had the hottest saunas.
Before making the glorious jump to catering in the spring of ’87, Brian lived in an Upper West Side railroad with a soft-spoken Columbia University grad student who kept to himself. Late one night, while flipping through
The Advocate
among his growing collection of porn, an ad caught his eye:
MALE ESCORTS WANTED
LOOKS, BUILD, SIZE
HAVE TWO OUT OF THREE? CALL US
After two nervous attempts to dial all seven digits, he reached a soft deep voice that coaxed out his name and falsified experience, and that he only lacked size. Perhaps the gym hopping had come in handy. He arranged a meeting with the voice, whose name was Tony.
After two hours pec-pumping at Better Bodies the next day, Brian’s head floated on visions of well-dressed gentlemen wining and dining him in a black and white ’30s night spot. His pretty yet uninformed visions soon disappeared after meeting Tony.
Admitted into a West 81st Street condo by a seven-foot Jamaican doorman in full coat uniform, Brian was announced and led up to an elevator, which was blanketed to protect the walls while someone moved in. The cubicle resembled a padded cell.
A short swarthy man who looked like he should be selling pizza on Bleecker Street, if not for the diamond pinkie ring, opened his apartment door as Brian stepped into the twentieth floor hallway.
“You didn’t brag on the phone.”
Brian blushed.
“Come in. Sit down. Have a drink. I won’t be a minute.”
The windowed view of upper Broadway glistened through the floor-to-ceiling window. A single black leather sofa, glass table and two chairs, and nearby brightly-lit kitchen impressed Brian, stirring his craving for such discreet opulence, although it felt a bit cold.
While Tony talked on one of two telephones, Brian sat patiently at the other end of the glass table, sipping a soda. The acrid smell of freshly laid carpet filled the room.
Tony hung up. “Sorry about that. So, why do you want to be an escort?” His dark eyes glowed like a leopard at midnight.
“Uh, well, I’m an actor. I mean, I wanna be an actor ... an’ I wanna get different experiences.”
“Well, you may get plenty of experience with different kinds of people. All our clients are very nice gentlemen, very respectable. We have a lot of regular clients.” Tony’s voice was oddly soothing. He proved to be very businesslike, providing suggestions, a package of Trojans, and a small bundle of credit card slips.
“Do I have to take one of those department store things?”
Tony smiled. “Oh no, just rub it with a pen. Let me show you.” The escort business proved not to be nearly as glamorous or creative as expected.
“A rubdown is eighty. You are nude and you massage him and get him off manually, if he likes. Full escort service at one-fifty goes further. It’s always your discretion as to how safe you wanna stay. Most of my clients’ tastes are pretty vanilla. They’re probably just gonna suck you a bit and get the same. Maybe later, we’ll let you do some of the more ... creative assignments. But remember, it’s always up to you. Just be your own pretty self and they’ll feel like they’re getting their money’s worth.”
“Okay.” Brian glowed with naivete.
“So, do you wanna use your real name?” Tony sipped his club soda. He leaned his round, beard-stubbled face over the glass table. The phone rang.
“You mean ... ?”
“Most of the guys use a different name. Makes things a bit more objective. A nom de plume, as it were.” The other phone rang, a different tone. “Hold on,” Tony purred. “Metropolitan Man, please hold. Campus Man, how may I help you?”
While he chatted on the phone, Brian reeled through a list of film stars, high school crushes and quick lays. He needed a name that was sexy yet butch. Tony finished his phone conversation and returned his gaze to Brian. “So?”
“Uh, Mel?”
“Too trendy. They’ll expect an Australian accent.” Tony slurped his soda, poured an ice cube into his mouth and crunched it out of existence. Brian felt a shiver.
“Uh, Troy?”
“We’ve got one.”
“Chip?” Brian glanced down at the glass table. Two rings of water from his glass overlapped to form a wet infinity symbol. He noticed his own fingerprints and wondered about the possibility of being arrested. Rent boys, a gay friend from London called them. His parents would surely cut off his inheritance if they ever found out before they died.
“Chip.” Tony rolled the name, and another ice cube over his tongue. “Yes, very wholesome. Very
Leave It to Beaver.
”
Brian was actually thinking of
My Three Sons,
but he didn’t think it wise to correct his new employer.
Tony perused his newest prospect. Brian had a face that made men and women stare. Alarmingly handsome with almost black hair, his blue eyes glimmered like cold silver. He had a small sleek nose, pouting lips, not much of a jaw, but his wide shoulders and frame compensated for that and his shortness. But there was something Tony couldn’t place, some sly deceit beneath the clean New England charm.
“Chip. Yes, that’ll work for now. So, you wanna start off tonight?”
Brian’s pulse quickened. He immediately considered backing out, then remembered the two-hundred-seventy-three dollars in his Chembank account with four hundred required rent dollars chasing close behind. He also felt pleasantly excited. “Sure.”
Tony smiled and gave him the address of a Charles in the East Nineties. “He’s nice,” Tony soothed. “A regular. Nothing weird.”
“I’ll give it a shot,” Brian grinned as he buttoned his coat in the hallway.
Tony leaned against the open door. “Usually that’s all they need.”
Brian pressed the elevator button, turning to give his new freelance employer a last glance. Tony had wanted to try the boy out, but he seemed a bit skittish. “By the way,” he said as the elevator chimed and the door slid open. “Where did you get that name, Chip?”
Brian stepped into the elevator and smiled at Tony. This would be the first of many dramatic exits in his new career.
“He was my first dog.”
After a few experiences with “clients,” Brian’s illusions about escorting were cleanly shattered. He failed to realize that most men who choose to pay for sex don’t get it any other way, and are not very handsome, nor especially talented in bed. He did, however, enjoy being admired, and often took pleasure in laying back and letting a nervous out-of-town husband lick his smooth musculature in a fine midtown hotel. Brian also figured out how to get better rates than those provided by Tony. He simply offered clients a bit more fun for a bit more cash. Most of the time, however, it was work; choking unresponsive puds, rubbing sagging bellies and hairy backs of men he’d never look at twice.
This went on for a few months, about four times a week. The phone would ring.
“Are you available?” Tony’s faux-sexy voice would purr. Usually Brian was available, despite a pang of dread and excitement. He began to keep a stash of fifties in an envelope in his underwear drawer. Brian’s roommate seemed satisfied with Brian’s job description as a home fitness instructor. He probably wouldn’t have minded if Brian were honest with him, as long as he paid his half of the rent on the first of each month, which he did, in cash.
He rarely met any of the other young men who were in Tony’s employ, except for one occasion where he visited Tony to cash a few credit card slips. Tony invited Brian to sit in his living room while he got some money. Relaxing on a couch and watching TV was a muscular guy in a black T-shirt, jeans, and boots.
After Brian introduced himself, immediately regretting having given his real name, he maintained a stilted conversation with the guy. They both seemed embarrassed to be seen at Tony’s. They carefully skirted any talk of their whoring. The awkwardness and humiliation thickened the air between them, filled only by car commercials from the TV. Tony returned, cash in hand, and they parted company.
Brian made a few attempts to get other jobs in addition to his escorting. He often found himself spending his income from whoring on silly things; expensive dinners alone, nightly video rentals, pricey clothes. He always felt best after visiting the Gaeity, overtipping the strippers, and a few times even renting an hour with a muscled stud, who usually joked about just who should be paying.
It wasn’t their bodies, but the display that excited him, the sort of class reversal.
To others, stripping may have been the lowest job above prostitution. But for Brian, the Latino muscle boys swinging their stiff cocks and dancing so fine, (and paying more attention, since he was usually the only patron under fifty), were profoundly honest in selling themselves, sometimes dating him for free. For that, Brian adored them, even envied them.
His roommate at the time remained oblivious to his carnal commerce and subsequent relief mechanisms.