Several people, the older ones—and younger ones usually on break—often come to the park in West Hollywood to sit on benches and have their lunch. Almost everyone is careful to collect paper plates, containers, napkins, to discard in one of several trash cans along the paths. Among those who frequent the park, there often develops a camaraderie. The conversations are mainly topical, mostly about local matters. Did you feel the recent tremor? Will it ever rain again? Will West Hollywood become a city?
Is it true that the Sant'Anas augur disasters?
JESSE
AFTERNOON
Let Mr. Macho wait there thinking he was going to be knocked over by him. Well, he'd just continue walking away, let the guy get hot over him. Jesse had known, as the biker roared by and they looked at each other, that he would come back and park his motorcycle near him—and he did. Now Jesse decided he'd look back, once, before moving on.
Double wow!
It astonished him that his cock reacted. The biker was an older guy, thirty, maybe older. But he was sexy—and knew it—with dark stubble on his face, a wild body. And attitude! For God's sake, the hair on his head was beginning to thin. Jesse saw that when the wind jerked the leather cap back and the biker had to hold it, relocating it at a slant.
Despite the guy's age, all of it came together. Jesse allowed himself a few more casual glances. Still, guys decked out like him might be into weird stuff. He didn't mind some rough probing when a guy was fucking him—that felt good—and if the guy was a dirty talker—“I'm gonna fuck the hell outtaya, ya know ya wannit up your fuckin’ ass, don'ya? don'ya?”—hot stuff like that. Jesse could get into it.
Heavy stuff turned him off—S & M, huge dildos, belts, chains, handcuffs. Ugh. Still, being got up like the biker didn't mean you were into all that, just rough decoration. It didn't even mean you were a top. Lots of leather guys were bottoms, and others turned bottoms at the right opportunity. The sight of a guy in high leather mincing along like a queen wasn't rare, either. This guy on his bike looked real—not real real but fantasy real, which was much better, like he could play a good macho. The navy-blue handkerchief dangling out of his left pocket meant—left or right, which was it? Those signals confused Jesse, and he didn't bother with them on himself. He was almost sure left meant top, and dark-blue signaled being into fucking. Even that could be contradicted when things got going, and the one fucking wanted to be fucked. Where Jesse definitely drew the line was with guys who wore dark-red handkerchiefs. He knew what that meant. Ugh. The only thing that belonged up your ass—after a finger or two—was a cock, period.
Jesse realized he had continued to look at the biker, and, no doubt about it, the biker was interested in him, staring at him from under his slouched cap.
Too old, though.
Lusty.
Too old.
Hot.
Old.
Now the man on the motorcycle raised his right arm up, back, stretching or showing off the dark tufts of hair under his arms, or the tattoo of an eagle or something. Jesse didn't like tattoos, but on this guy—
Wild!
Then Jesse noticed that the biker was wearing a black glove on the outstretched hand. Now he lowered that hand, very slowly, then clenched it into a fist, which he raised in one harsh thrust.
Buzz, Toro, Linda, Boo, and Fredo
AFTERNOON
They cruised off Hollywood Boulevard, into a section of decrepit vacated buildings, condemned and boarded, taken over by derelicts who ripped away barricades and signs forbidding entry. Occasionally a portion of a wall would crumble, tossing dust into the wind. Along sidewalks, next to garbage spilling out of bags torn open by the wind, a few men lay, passed out on heaps of rags that flapped about their bodies. Others walked by dazed, on drugs or drunk. On corners, ragged women attempted to hustle, raising their skirts to reveal naked hips. A boy of about ten yelled out his offer of ‘hides.
Toro pounded the steering wheel to rapid-fire blasts from the Judas Priest tape.
Buzz had been trying to figure things out since Toro had seemed to challenge Linda to prove to all of them that she wasn't a lez. Maybe she wanted to fuck them all. A fuckin’ nympho. He'd prefer it if she didn't want it. Either way, he'd make sure they gave her something she didn't want. Like the time he and Boo and Fredo had picked up a skinny ugly druggy, and they felt her up, and then threw her panties away so she'd have to walk back to the street in her tiny skirt. They had followed her, jeering, so other guys would see her.
Even the wind was giving Buzz a rush. It would pause, everything settling, and then it would gust and stir trash around.
Toro turned into an alley A few derelicts lying on newspapers tried to hide, grabbing at debris. The wind blasted in as if through a tunnel.
Toro parked the Chevy before the remains of a small house on what might have once been a lawn, now a sprawl of debris, liquor bottles, old newspapers, cans, weeds with tiny yellow flowers. Either fire or the rumble of an earthquake had crushed the house. Only portions of some walls remained, their sides swathed with smoke. Jagged edges of gouged windows had trapped fragments of splintery dried brush, which rustled when the wind whipped in.
With a nod of his head, Toro motioned Linda to get out. She did.
Too easy? Or afraid not to? Buzz jumped out of the car. Boo and Fredo followed. Through the skeleton of a door, Toro led them into the pulverized house. Buzz, Boo, and Fredo faced Linda. Toro stood halfway between her and them.
Linda glanced at Fredo, then Boo, and then at Buzz. “This where you guys want me to prove I'm not a lez?” She was smiling.
Father Norris
AFTERNOON
Of course Angel would ask him why he was looking for him. He couldn't know, not yet. “Ahn-hel”—Father Norris breathed the name—“I want to see—”
The young man groped his genitals. “This?”
Father Norris glanced away, shaking his head, no.
The young man reached for the door. “Are you a cop?”
Father Norris didn't hear the boy's words. He was hearing his own before he even spoke them. “I want to see your back.”
“I don't get fucked,” the young man warned.
“I want to see your back.”
“My back? See it? Just that?”
“Yes.”
“Sure. Money first.” He removed his hand from the door.
Father Norris fumbled for his wallet, handing the boy bills. The woman's words this morning in the confessional had alerted him to prepare for whatever might be required. Before Father Norris could say, No!—because this was not the proper place for such an immense revelation—the boy had taken off his shirt, lowered his pants, and twisted his lithe body around. Father Norris braked. The boy's skin was tanned—not brown and—
“Where is it? The tattoo?”
“Huh?” The young man clasped the door handle.
“You're not Angel!” Father Norris wailed.
The young man jumped out.
Father Norris was calm again, entirely controlled, entirely. He had been naive to believe this journey would be uncomplicated. Our Lord's journey had been a harsh one, but at the end of the night of torture, He had attained His goal. And so would he.
Za-Za and the Cast of Frontal Assault
AFTERNOON
“Fuck me, fuck me!” Rex Steed couldn't stop shouting those words—his eyes closed, thighs spread, feet pointing to the sky, hands parting his buttocks before a pensive Tony Piazza.
Had Rex Steed gone crazy? Was he possessed?—like in The Exorcist just before the demon girl whirls her head around, a scene that Za-Za would pay homage to in her debut film, adding a light touch, of course, like Lubitsch.
“He vants it bad,” Lars Helmut observed.
“Somebody better get in his ass,” Dak Boxer offered.
“I think he's dead,” Jim Bond said. “The strain—”
Mr. Smythe and his guests were standing—watching this spectacle go wildly out of hand.
She must try to bring order out of this chaos, whatever would salvage the opportunity she had counted on to allow her artistic future to blaze. Let's evaluate, Trésor, she spoke to herself. Rex Steed was asserting his desire sans equivoque. Yes, the top man in the business—the one who claimed to be Mr. Straight—was asking—pleading, begging!—to be fucked, and Tony Piazza—that stunning man of her desires, the most famous bottom in the business—was clearly indicating—there was no mistaking the intention of that upraised cock—that he was willing—eager!—and, God save us all, able—to accommodate him. That was the case. What to do?
Inspiration!
She ran over to Tony Piazza, turned him around and smacked his eager cock so forcefully with her hand—ignoring his “Ouch, bitch!”—that it began to deflate immediately, and in an extension of the same movement, she grasped Rex Steed's legs by the ankles, and pulled them shut—holding them that way with all her strength and against his resistance.
The binoculars on the veranda swirled.
Tony Piazza grabbed his balls as if in pain. Jim Bond soothed them for him, fanning them with his hand. Huck Sawyer started to run in panic at the turn of events, but he stopped when he couldn't decide where to go. Sal Domingo doubled over with laughter, seizing that opportunity to locate his ass for full display to the veranda. Lars Helmut exchanged mysterious looks with Dak Boxer.
Thrusting out forcefully with his knees, Rex Steed freed himself of Za-Za's clasp and sent her reeling against Tony Piazza, who shoved her farther away, almost into the pool.
On the ground, Za-Za pressed her hands abjectly against her cheeks, attempting to be philosophical about this ghastly saga. She might learn something or other from it for her newer wave film, like when Claudette Colbert—
Oh, my God! This was no longer a rebellion. It was a revolution! Among fluttering bougainvillea and delicate lilacs and noble birds of paradise scattered just beyond the pool area—she saw this while she remained, prostrate, on the ground—famous tops Dak Boxer and Lars Helmut were patting each other's asses! And! Jim Bond and Sal Domingo were staring at the two tops as if they were gravely considering how best to join the unexpected proceedings. Poor sandy-thatched Huck Sawyer was the only one doing anything that made sense—running around in bewilderment and tugging at his Jockeys.
Raising herself from the edge of the pool, Za-Za gave a little scream, all that her voice would allow her in response to what she saw now that she was upright.
Tony Piazza had grabbed!
The long blond legs!
By the ankles!
And was spreading them even wider!
And now he was leaning over to spit into the parted buttocks and on his own cock in unequivocal preparation—
To—
To—!
Tony Piazza buried his cock in Rex Steed's ass.
Thomas Watkins
AFTERNOON
Just as he promised himself, Thomas drove back to his haven, his serene home, away from that terrifying street with all those corrupted young men. Once inside, he served himself a civilized scotch, only a dab extra so he wouldn't need another.
“Tom—”
“Oh, my God, I didn't see you in the shadows.”
“I'm sorry I startled you.”
Thomas couldn't restrain his delight. He'd imagined him earlier, hitchhiking, but now there he stood in the familiar baggy trunks, the young man he often saw down the road. “But how did you get in?”
“You left the door open. I rang, then knocked—I guess you didn't hear me—and then the door opened on its own—and so—You don't mind my calling you Tom, do you?”
Thomas preferred his full name, but he wasn't about to intrude on this lovely unexpected encounter. “Of course not. And you're—”
“Lawrence, but everybody calls me Larry.”
“Larry.” Thomas became very shy, though there was no reason—Larry had come looking for him after all those times of smiling and waving at each other—flirting, as it now turned out so clearly “I've often thought of stopping to talk to you, when you're working on your car, but—”
“I kept hoping you would. But that's okay, because here I am—”
But he wasn't, only in Thomas's imagination as he faced the empty shadows where he had envisioned the young man in his baggy trunks. Yet the boy did wave at him all the time—maybe anticipated his passing by? What if he drove down now, slowly? Perhaps the boy would be inside his house, looking out in case he came by, not knowing what to do this Saturday, and maybe he liked English films—that film was, after all, about runners—
From his wide window, Thomas saw palm trees bending as if in protest.
How much of his loneliness—although he wasn't really lonely—was a result of the fact that he didn't take chances? That's what that terrible Herbert implied. Oh, the hideous man came right out and said it. Was it true?
He went to his bedroom. He had never worn a denim shirt he'd bought impulsively. He tried it on. Slightly tight—because his chest had become broader. To accommodate that, he might leave two buttons open—many gay men did that.
What pants? Everyone wore jeans. He had never owned a pair, finding the material coarse. He did have some black slacks. He slipped them on. Cruising pants were supposed to be tight. He had kept the hiking boots he'd bought when he began a regimen of walking. He hadn't liked the men and women in the group he joined. They kept counting every step and then adding “hup.” “One-hup.” “Two-hup.” “Three-hup.” They drove him crazy, and he wrote a letter of resignation.
He tucked the pants into the boots he had slipped on. His hair was no problem. Some of it was gone, yes, but not much, and he'd seen very sensual models in fashion magazines who were losing just enough of their hair to emphasize their masculinity How had that one model worn it? Defiantly back—like this—not like that terrifying Herbert, who combed over his pate the few hairs he had left—awful, awful—but, he, Thomas, was too much of a gentleman to point it out.
Sipping his freshened scotch, Thomas Watkins faced himself in his full-length mirror, standing tall. If Herbert could see him now—
He would laugh.
Orville
AFTERNOON
In a cove of leafy branches and vines, Orville waited for the muscular guy he had been cruising. He'd been able to keep his cowboy hat on easily because the cove rejected the wind, though he did hear its murmur through the twisted limbs of trees—and, now, he heard the crunch of footsteps. The muscular guy entered the cove and stood there. He was even more muscular—a real bodybuilder—than Orville had thought from a distance. His cock hardened in anticipation.
The two men faced each other, fingers cocked into their belt loops, like triggermen in a duel. The muscular guy drew first. He touched Orville's hard cock, groped.
Orville's hand advanced, about to do the same on the muscular guy. He stopped. “I'm not into white guys.” The words he had been repeating over and over with no intention of saying them, reciting them only to hear them in his mind, how they might sound, reversing everything—those words shot out of his mouth in fury.
The muscular man rushed out of the cove.
The surge of vindication Orville had felt dissipated, adding more depression to his mood. He had really wanted that guy. This often happened when you had a bad encounter, like the earlier one at home with that fucking Bruce. It made you determined to make up for it in any way, even a mean way. So you kept on hunting—and it might all turn hellish, and even then you couldn't stop yourself.
He left the cove. Hearing footsteps, he turned. A black man was cruising him.
Paul
AFTERNOON
“Hello,” Paul answered the telephone on the first ring.
“Uh, who—?”
“Stanley, it's Paul. Didn't you recognize me when I answered? I mean, after all, you're calling me.”
“Sure. It's just that you sounded different, and I thought I got the wrong number. Uh—I just called to let you know I'm thinking about you.”
This had never happened before—Stanley calling him during one of his trips. Regretting having left? Yes! There was something different about his voice, hesitant, almost breathy Because he was afraid he'd meant what he'd said this morning. Paul held the telephone close to his ear, closer to Stanley. “I'm thinking about you, too, Stanley You sure you were thinking about me?” Paul wanted to hear Stanley say that again, and that he was coming back now.
“You know it, babe. I called earlier but you were out. I kept calling from my room. The operator rang me back just now to tell me she'd reached the number—I'd told her it was urgent.”
Paul felt even guiltier for having picked up that man on the beach. Thank God nothing had happened or they might have been together when Stanley called. Now everything would change, Paul was sure of it. He'd gambled by threatening Stanley, and the gamble had paid off!
“I'd better go now—”
“No, Stanley, wait, I want to tell you how much I love you.” Why wasn't he letting him know what time he'd arrive back?
“Tell me—later—yeah, babe—me, too—later—uh—yeah—great—”
It was as if he'd stopped listening, anxious to put down the phone. Paul was aware that Stanley had covered the mouthpiece, might have whispered something away from it. Why did people think they could disguise that? “You covered the phone.” He wished he hadn't said that.
“Just—uh—-just holding it against my neck—I'm in bed—relaxing—callya later.”
“Don't hang up, Stanley!” Paul's voice was harsh, commanding.
There was another sound on Stanley's side of the line, a smothered moan—Stanley's—a sound Paul was familiar with, had heard hundreds of times, over the years, this morning. “You're with someone right now, aren't you, Stanley?”
“Hell—no!”
“Someone is blowing you while you're calling me, and you're actually getting off on it.”
“You—think I—call—while—,” Stanley started. Paul heard Stanley's groaning, muffled, a long moan—“yeah”—that he knew so well.
Paul hung up. Stanley had been concerned—no, his vanity had been concerned—that he would go out on him. So he'd called to make sure he hadn't, had become agitated to find he was out, and then even forgot he'd asked the operator to keep trying the number, and by then he was with someone else. He had dared—
Paul's hand reached for it.
He let it ring.
Outside, hot wind dried his tears. He tasted them, salty, mixed with stray ashes. Tonight he would do it finally—free himself from Stanley.
Nick
AFTERNOON
“Eres bendito, un hijo de Dios, mijo!”
“What?”
“Mijo, tu eres el hijo de Dios, un ser sagrado.”
The woman standing before him was Mexican—something like that—wearing a shawl, black, over her head. The shawl—maybe it was a long black coat—flapped in the wind. It wrapped around her, then unwrapped like dark wings.
Nick recognized the woman he'd seen earlier, in the distance. He was back on his corner after the encounter with the man who had wanted to see his back and then had turned angry, weird, scary. “I don't know what you're sayin’, lady.”
“You're blessed, a child of God, a sacred soul—and you're my son.” She spoke in English now, heavily accented. Her eyes were darkened into black by the shawl shading her face.
Nick started to move away.
The woman reached out for his bare shoulder, restraining him.
Nick twisted away from her. “I ain't your son. Leave me alone, you crazy”
“You are my child, among God's children on this street. He's looking for you. Let Him find you!”
“I'm Methodist, lady!” He needed to say something, anything, before he pulled away. He crossed the street, looked back.
The woman hurried on, stopping to talk to someone else—another hustler? Then she faded along the street, a dark frightening figure in the wind.
Nick was grateful that a car stopped for him right after that. The woman had spooked him, man. A crazy for sure. Lots of them on the fuckin’ streets.
“How much?” the driver asked.
He was no cop, not as out of shape as he was—although some cops were very out of shape. “Fifty bucks, and I don't get fucked.”
“You're a cute-looking guy, got a nice body—thirty bucks and you won't get fucked.”
“Okay, thirty bucks and you blow me,” he clarified.
“Get in.”
Nick hesitated. Too easy? He got in, keeping the door ajar. He was reassured when the man felt his cock.
“Nice,” the man complimented.
“Never had no complaints,” Nick said. “You mind turnin’ the radio on to the Western station, man? Maybe they're playing ‘Cheatin’ Heart,’” he thought aloud.
“Not much chance of that happening,” the man said.
“I know it,” Nick said. Of course, he did, although, one time, hitching a ride with a trucker, he'd got in and it was playing. Right now, he'd just wanted the man to ask him if that was his favorite song, and he would have said, oh, yeah, with Hank Williams singing.
“I don't like hokey-pokey music,” the man said, and left the radio off.
They drove to the man's place, a small, not entirely neat apartment a few blocks from Hollywood Boulevard. Nick hated it when the guy paying him didn't have a good place. He liked to go to pretty homes and apartments, liked to feel “rich” by the contact.
“Let's see the rest of that gorgeous body.” The man was sitting on his bed, staring at Nick as if at a performance.
Nick had only to lower his pants and he was naked. He wasn't self-conscious about that, proud of his body.
“Everything.”
He meant the socks. Some guys wanted him to keep them on-damned if he knew why. Whatever. This was going to be easy
“Really nice,” the man said.
Nick wanted to ask for the money first, a lot of times he did, sometimes he didn't—one man he'd gone with said that when a hustler asked for money first, he'd think up an excuse to split, feeling the hustler wasn't going to be any good. This guy was complimenting him, and that felt good.
The guy lowered his own pants, and Nick looked away from the flabby flesh, shut his eyes. He preferred it when old guys didn't even take off their clothes, man.
He felt the man's cock poking at his ass.
Nick's eyes flashed open. He pushed the man away. “What the hell? I told you I don't get fucked.”
“What do you do?”
“Didn'ya hear me out there? I told you all I do is get blown. Now you go ahead and blow me.”
“Shit, and what do I get?”
“You get to suck my dick. I told you out there, man. Didn'ya hear me? You can jerk off while you blow me. Go ahead now, blow me—that's all, just fuckin’ blow me.”
The man's head bent down and sucked Nick's cock. He stopped. “You can't even get hard.”
“You fixed that with your bullshit,” Nick said.
“Okay, just relax. There. Umm. That's better. Ummm. Yeah, get it hard in my mouth. Ummmm.” He stopped again. “Will you fuck me now that I've made you hard?”
Nick began to get soft again. The thought of putting his dick inside the man's saggy ass disgusted him. “I told you out there, man, didn'ya understand?”
“Okay. Come in my mouth.”
“Not for thirty bucks. I gotta save up my cum so I can go out and make some good bread.”
The man sucked him insistently. Closing his eyes, Nick was able to get a semi-hard-on, but that wouldn't last long because the guy didn't suck that good, used his teeth a lot. “You better come soon,” Nick said.
“Will you, in my mouth?”
“Okay.” He blew Nick's softening cock some more, jerking himself off, coming loudly, convulsing.
When people came that loud and shaking, it sometimes scared Nick, thinking they might have a heart attack. But the guy was all right now, wiping himself off with a towel. Nick dressed. Held out his hand.
“Here's twenty—you didn't do anything.”
“Motherfucker, you give me what I asked for or I'll—Listen, I'm not eighteen yet, did you know that?” he used a lie that had worked other times when things went bad. “You could get busted, man, so you'd better pay me what we agreed.”
The man studied him. “Here.” He gave him the ten more dollars he had already prepared.
“Now drive me back.”
“Get yourself back. Now you get out, you cheating queer punk.”
“Queer! Hey, man! You're the fuckin’ queer, not me.”
“Didn'ya hear me? I said get the fuck out, you punk queer.”
The man's voice was tough, and he was big. From other hustlers Nick had heard about guys who picked them up, seemed pushovers, and then turned rough. It wasn't far from here to the Boulevard anyway, he estimated. He started to walk out. His anger rose. At the door, he paused, glancing around. Then he kicked over a small table that had a vase of ugly artificial flowers on it. They fell intact to the floor.
He ran until he was back on his corner.
“How big is your dick?” A car paused.
Nobody had ever complained about his cock. Some johns measured it with their hands, length and around, just before going down on it. Still, that question always made Nick nervous. You never knew what people expected.
“At least seven inches?”
“Yeah.”
“How much bigger than that?”
“Uh—well—”
“Come over here and let me feel it, press yourself against the car, I'll hold my hand out like this—”
The guy's hand dangled out the window. But where would the other one be? Getting himself ready to pop probably. Then the guy would drive off after copping a good feel. “Uh-uh,” Nick rejected.
“How do I know you're not lying? How do I know you haven't got a tiny dick?”
“Cause I haven't, that's how.” Shit, no way he'd go with this guy, already acting like he was going to pull something fast. Nick would bet on it. Johns who started out like that ended up feeling you up in the car and then saying you weren't big enough, and they'd say that even if you had a fuckin’ foot-long dick, man, just to humiliate you. People sure could get shitty on the streets, like you weren't even a person. Fuck that shit, man. He'd get this motherfucker first. “I got ten hot inches right here, man.” He groped his crotch with both hands.
“Get in and we'll go—”
“I ain't ready to go nowhere.” Nick walked away. Man, that felt good, to walk away from the son of a bitch—whatever he'd been planning—and leave him behind, thinking he'd let a ten-incher get away from him.
Oh, fuck, that hustler over there—an older guy—still standing waiting to be picked up. He'd been there for hours. Must've been real good-looking when he was young, Nick bet, still was, but you could tell he was way up in his twenties. Some of the hustlers who bragged the most about how much money they always made—you'd see them still hanging around real late, looking scared. Fuck, what would that guy across the street do next year, and the next? Nick looked away from him, touching his own body.
Clint
AFTERNOON
He stood by the window.
Even from here, he could sense the exhilaration the strange day was creating on the street before the coming of this heated night, cars backed up honking, young people gathering before music clubs, their bodies twisting as if rehearsing their moves, pedestrians running against traffic.
He closed his eyes.
NEW YORK
Last Weekend
Within the dirty light of the Anvil, the performance on the platform held, frozen for seconds. The mouth on Clint's cock had been replaced by another.
The leatherman on the improvised stage lowered the lit candle closer to the naked body.
As if responding to a signal, the naked man lying prone before him turned over on the floor, face down, legs parted.
“Do it, do it, do it!” men in the audience chanted at the leatherman.
The leatherman knelt over the naked body.
Growling, the naked man thrust his buttocks up. His cock remained unhardened.
“Do it! Do it! Do it!”
The leatherman held the unlit tip of the candle over the opening of the naked man's ass.
Men shoved forth to watch more intently.
As each drop of wax fell on his buttocks, the naked man arched his body and jerked his head back. His mouth remained open, a scream—or harsh laughter—throttled.
“Push it in, push it in!”
The leatherman held the unlit tip of the candle closer to the opening of the man's ass.
“Do it, do it, do it!”
The leatherman inserted the unlit tip into the naked man's ass.
The silent scream, silent laughter, erupted from the naked man as wax melted on his flesh.
The leatherman put out the flame with his spittle and stood up.
The naked man's body crumpled on the floor with an orgasmic gasp—his cock still unaroused.
In the fringe of darkness about to become black, Clint pulled his cock away—-just before he would have come—from the mouth that had continued to suck at his groin.
Beyond the window, where smoke had invaded the edge of the sky, the sun glowed deep orange. The only time the sun really looks as if it's on fire, Clint thought. Toppled fronds along the hotel driveway looked like tossed bodies in a mass suicide.
What did that man feel!
Trying to resist the weariness pulling at him, Clint knew that, this time, he had asked that pursuing question about the man lying on the floor as the candle melted on his flesh—no, it was the face of the man in leather. No, the man—
The man who—
A face he did not recognize had pushed away the image of the naked man, of the man in leather.
Ernie
AFTERNOON
Motherfucking black bastard!
He cruised me and then—
Ernie stopped trying to figure out what had happened with the black guy. Sometimes it seemed that cruising was all about rejection. But, hey, you still managed to make out over and over, right?
He walked back to the main road, past an unattractive man standing behind his car with his pants down to his knees. The guy had to be fifty years old. Ernie believed in respecting older gay guys, sure—they'd fought a lot of battles, right?—and he always went out of his way to say hello to them during the Gay Pride Parade. But they didn't belong in the park.
“Say, shorty, is it true what they say about muscle queens’ dicks? Well, check this out.”
Can you believe that motherfuckin’ old guy yelled that at him?—and shook his big thing up and down? Shit—Ernie didn't bother to answer.
He moved on. A good-looking guy walking ahead of him turned back to give him a cruisy look before dodging under an arch of trees off the road.
All right! So fuck the black guy—he wouldn't've made it with him anyway, he was sure now. In a cavity of branches, the good-looking guy opened Ernie's fly and pulled out his cock. Ernie always breathed with anxiety when that occurred so quickly. Nothing to worry about, the guy had already slid on his knees and was blowing him. Terrific!—standing out here, pants down, no shirt, even the hot Sant'Ana lickin’ at you—and this good-looking guy starin’ up at ya an’ suckin’.
It was Ernie's turn, right? Fair's fair. He raised the guy and slipped down on his knees, opening the guy's pants. The guy pulled away, but Ernie had already grasped his cock.
Jesus Christ, the guy was tiny.
“Footsteps!” Ernie pretended apprehension. “Lots of vice cops in the area. Let's split!” Anything to get away. He didn't feel good about what he'd done, he wasn't cruel. If the guy had been just average size, okay, but, hey, if you didn't feel desire, you didn't feel desire, right?
Back in his car, he drove up and U-turned to park in an island of granulated dirt when he saw, ahead, on a hill, a man in trunks.
Before Ernie could begin the trek toward him, another man who'd been cruising him got out of his car, slipped down a slope, and motioned. Go with him or check out the guy in trunks?
“Hey, muscle guy, cummon down, I'd sure like to spank those cute buns of yours.”
Well, there was no decision to be made now.
Ernie proceeded up the hill. Why was everybody into kink nowadays? What was wrong with good old-fashioned body-worship?
Can you believe who that was up there on that hill?
“Hey, Lars! I knew I'd run into you someday.”
“Yeah, Ern, I've been hoping—”
“Howya know my name, Lars?”
“Word gets around da park about cute guys, ya know?”
Pulling away from his fantasy, Ernie climbed up craggy rocks until he reached the man there.
Real good-looking. Not in trunks. Bare ass naked.
So what? Challenged, Ernie took off his own clothes. His cock was already aroused, and so was the other guy's.
The naked man inhaled eagerly from a vial of Bolt, butyl. He stumbled. The small dark bottle smashed on a rock. The man made an anxious sound, almost a sob. “I got more poppers in my car.” He grabbed for his trunks. “Wait here.” He rushed down twisted paths.
The guy couldn't make it without poppers! That happened more and more. Some guys stood alone sniffing and jerking off. Not that he minded an extra buzz or two from the stuff, who wouldn't? But you were still making it with a guy, not the butyl. Hey, wasn't sex enough anymore? Ernie dressed and walked back to his car.
He'd go home.
He'd try just one more time.
He'd go home.
Soon, he was slipping down a slope off the road. A guy leaned against a tree along the trail. Really sexy, with a denim shirt and Levi's and a cowboy hat and boots. Must be cowboy day in the park!
“Hi, cowboy,” the man said to him.
So? “Hi, guy.”
“Just in from the roundup?”
“Later, guy.” Ernie slipped away from the park cowboy. No telling what he was into.
Down the path, a shirtless man motioned him into a branchy cove.
There, the guy blew him. Then Ernie sucked him until the guy pulled away and got on his knees, spreading Ernie's buttocks with his hands, and slipped his tongue into his ass, nestling it in the puckered opening till Ernie was moaning. The guy straightened up, cock probing the saliva-moistened ass. Ernie bent over and took it like a man.
He felt hot spurts of cum shoot into him. “Ahhhh!”
The guy pulled out. Adjusting his clothes, he told Ernie, “Maybe I'll see you later, when I'm ready to get off again, and then I'd love to have that big dick of yours up my ass.”
Big dick!
Any disappointment Ernie might have felt at not coming—and he had wanted to come, to end this Griffith Park afternoon—was swept away by a surge of joy.
Mitch
AFTERNOON
Mitch walked away from the ocean's edge, letting the hot wind dry his face—moist from the ocean's spray, nothing more.
He got into his Cougar coupe at the parking lot and pulled away to—
Wherever.
On the freeway, people were driving erratically, dodging away from swirls of dusty wind, or attempting to avoid a desolate tumbleweed swept in from miles away.
Heather's car was parked in her garage. He waited before he knocked—and immediately wondered whether he might prefer that she not be home.
“Mitch—”
“Can I come in?”
“Of course. I was watching the news.”
Mitch was glad the television was on. They sat together, facing it.
On the screen a house raged on fire. Water raining on it from hoses did not daunt it, the flames leaping up as if to stifle it.”—not far away from the mansion of Studio Head Dick Gellman, who was entertaining guests at a swimming party when—” Now the scene of disaster faded off and an announcer informed viewers that in the late news there would be an “in-depth report on male hustlers.” “They ply their trade along Santa Monica Boulevard, selling their young bodies to the highest bidder. They can earn hundreds of dollars a night.” The screen scanned anxious young men along Santa Monica Boulevard.
Mitch reached for the remote control. He clicked off the television. “We can't pretend there's nothing to talk about.”
“No, we can't,” Heather said.
Now he would speak words he had rehearsed on the drive here. I'm sorry, Heather, about what I said—that you were responsible for what was happening between us. You were right, it was me. After I left you, I went to the beach, I met this guy, I really wanted him. Instead, I used him to prove I'm not gay—but I am—
“I'm sorry—,” he began.
“No, Mitch,” she stopped him. “I'm the one who should apologize. I haven't been honest with you. What you said is true.” She put her hand on his cheek. “I did want that woman on the beach, and I do. And others, before her.”
Mitch wanted to laugh, wanted to hug her, be angry at her, hug her. He kissed his fingers and brought them to her lips.
Dave
AFTERNOON
The little dude would turn back. Watch.
Dave bet himself that as he saw the kid he'd been cruising walk away. A real beauty Look at those buns. Showing them off in those tight cutoffs. Begging for something up that ass.
The kid slowed down.
All right! I told ya.
The kid turned around, waited, took a few steps back, stopped again.
I got ‘im. Dave stretched back on his bike. He let the unlit cigarette dangle from his lips. No question about it, that dude'd never been in a leather scene, not even a light one. That aroused Dave even more. Initiation—that was righteous, to introduce gay guys to what they were looking for without even knowing it sometimes, a feeling he still remembered from the time he had entered the leather scene and played bottom, briefly Even now, when he saw someone who was exactly right—he'd let himself imagine—just imagine—being a bottom again. But the guys he'd consider that with ended up wanting to be bottoms themselves, with him. Dave's hardening cock had shoved against his jeans, right to the edge of the rip he had encouraged near his crotch. He ran his finger along the tear until the head of his cock protruded.
“Hi, I'm Jesse.”
Dave placed his gloved fist on the handlebars of his chromy bike, as if he might just rev it up and drive away. He had no intention of doing that. This kid was right. He allowed his lips to curve, only on one side, a crooked smile. Cupping it carefully from the wind, he lit the cigarette in his mouth. He squinted as the smoke he counted on smirched his face. He did not hold out his hand. He just tilted his head, retaining his squint even after the wisp of smoke had faded into a violent throb of wind.
“I'm Dave, dude.”