CHAPTER 9
Pete pulled into the parking lot of the Paris Bookstore and Cinema and cut the engine. A dozen other cars were already there. In the dark it was difficult to tell if any of them were recognizable, but it didn’t matter anyway. There was no reason he shouldn’t be at the Paris. It wasn’t a fag place, even if some of the men who came there weren’t completely interested in the variety of porn offered for sale inside. Most of Pete’s buddies had been there, some regularly, and there was no shame in it.
He got out and walked through the lot to the door. In deference to their clientele’s privacy, the Paris had wisely placed the entrance at the rear of the building, invisible to curious passersby on the street. Not that many people drove by it without purpose. The bookstore was located in one of the city’s more run-down areas. Anyone going there would be going there for a reason.
Pete opened the door and entered. A hallway lined with video booths offering five minutes of video time for a quarter led to the interior, and he walked by these quickly, noting that they were all unoccupied. Inside, the Paris resembled a remodeled fast-food establishment, which in fact it was. In better times it had been a Red Lobster restaurant, a barn-like building painted bright red, where families gathered to feast on all-they-could-eat popcorn shrimp and crab legs. Now the windows were boarded up, the tables removed and replaced by shelves filled with videos, magazines, and sex toys. Where the kitchen and storage areas had once been, a small theater now resided, reached by passing through a faded velvet curtain.
Pete looked around the main room. A handful of men wandered around, reading the backs of video boxes and flipping through magazines. Behind a cash register a bored-looking kid with bad skin and a nose ring watched cartoons on a snowy black-and-white television, ignoring the middle-aged man who perused the display of lubricants and rubber vaginas housed behind the counter’s glass front.
The crowd was the usual, a mix of young blue-collar types in dusty work clothes, sad-looking men whose wives thought they were at the store picking up ice cream for dessert, and the occasional older man. Each type had their own way of behaving. The younger guys looked without reservation, opening magazines and flipping through them to see which images of overly enhanced breasts and spread, pink-lipped vulvas most excited them. Pete knew most of them would find something fairly quickly, buy it, and leave, taking it home to enjoy with a couple of beers.
The older men, too, were unembarrassed about their activities. Too old to attract actual partners, they were searching for an alternative. Most shunned the magazines and videos, going for the more tactile offerings of the fake pussies and rubber lips made for replicating the experience of a blowjob. They openly fondled the toys, not caring who knew what they desired.
It was the men in between who were secretive, the ones with wedding bands and the thick middles of the married and settled. They moved awkwardly, dressed in their corduroys and ill-fitting sweaters, going from one rack to another as if they were merely searching the shelves of the local video store for something to take home to the kids. These were the men who longed for something they couldn’t have. Weary of their bland wives with their sagging breasts, sensible haircuts, and demands for help with the chores, they wanted to lose themselves in the fantasies promised by the magazines and tapes. They looked at the girls who looked back with eager eyes and open mouths and thought about the lives they once dreamed of having, the lives the young men around them still dreamed of and the older men knew would never come.
These were the men Pete despised the most. He despised them for their air of sad desperation and their shame. He despised them for their irritating way of holding the magazines open just enough to peek inside, as if they were fooling anyone. And mostly he despised them for the way they reminded him of his father. In their faces he saw the defeat he saw in his father’s face, the look of resignation to a life that was the same day after day, an acceptance of what they had achieved as being the most they would ever have. They’d given up, and he hated them for it.
Having noted the possibilities, he walked toward the velvet curtain. He wasn’t wasting time in the outer room, which as far as he was concerned, was simply there to provide a pretense for those too timid to venture directly into the Paris’s darker regions. That was where the real appeal of the establishment lay.
Behind the curtain the room was shadowy, and Pete paused to allow his eyes to adjust. On the far wall a porn film was projected, a grainy image of a woman giving a blowjob. The cock was as tall as Pete was, and the woman’s red-lipped mouth moved up and down it energetically as the penis’s owner gripped her blond hair tightly.
Like the main room, the theater held less than a dozen men. They sat scattered throughout the theater, slumped in the seats. Below the slurping of the woman on the screen, Pete heard the faint groan of tired springs, the telltale sign that one or more of the audience were busily whacking off along with the action.
In the dark it was difficult to tell what the occupants of the theater looked like, but he didn’t care. He never hunted; he let them come to him, and decided when they were near enough to see whether they would be allowed to have what they wanted. Sometimes, if they were lucky, he would take them into one of the private booths that lined the hallway out front.
He chose a seat halfway down a row in the middle of the theater. The rows in front of and behind him were empty, meaning he could avoid the glances of anyone he didn’t want to have watching him. Sitting, he leaned back and tested the seat’s give. Unlike most of the theater’s chairs, it didn’t let out an audible groan, which pleased him.
He turned his attention to the action on the screen. The blowjob was still going on, the man’s cock shiny with spit as the woman, using her hand now, attempted to bring him to orgasm. Pete looked at the man’s nuts, enlarged to the size of beach balls, each hair visible in their magnified state. They bounced vigorously as the woman jerked the man off. Then the man came, a fountain of cum shooting from his dick and hitting the woman in the face.
The scene did nothing for him, and he was glad when it ended and a new one began. In this one, two men were fucking a woman in a living room. One man sat on an impossibly ugly orange couch, legs spread, as the woman knelt on the floor between them and sucked him off. Behind her, knees buried in the white shag carpet that covered the floor, the second man was busily pumping himself in and out of her.
Pete felt his dick begin to stiffen inside his pants. Reaching down, he unbuttoned the fly of his jeans and placed his hand inside, squeezing the swelling head of his cock. He kept his eyes on the screen as he played with himself, watching the two pricks filling the woman’s mouth and pussy. The men seemed connected through her, almost as if they were making love to one another, using her simply as a conduit for their union.
He was distracted by some motion taking place to his left. Glancing over, he saw that he had been joined in his row by someone else. Instinctively, he put his cock back in his pants, not wanting to advertise his arousal if his potential partner turned out to be undesirable.
The man looked young, which was a good sign. But in the dark it was difficult to tell. Pete had been fooled before. Still, it was light enough that he could see that he wasn’t being approached by one of the old trolls who frequently tried to use the darkness as a cover for their wizened faces.
The man looked at him and nodded briefly before turning his attention back to the screen. Pete waited to see what he would do. On the far wall, the trio had changed positions. The man from the couch now lay on his back on the snowy carpet, his legs pulled up. The woman sat astride him, facing him and riding his cock. Somehow, the other man had managed to insert his dick into her ass, so that she was being entered simultaneously by both men.
Pete took a chance, freeing his cock once more and stroking it openly. He didn’t know if the man beside him was watching or not; the scene had excited him beyond caring. His eyes focused on the two dicks, so close they were almost touching as they slid in and out of the woman’s eager holes.
He sensed the movement of shadows and realized that the man in his row had gotten up and moved over into the seat beside his. That was all right. He glanced over and was pleased by what he saw reflected in the light from the projector. He was indeed young, and not that it mattered, but he wasn’t bad-looking either.
The man looked at Pete, then down at the cock in Pete’s hand. Tentatively, he reached out and touched it. Pete let him, feeling fingers close around his shaft. He leaned back and let the other man take over the job of getting him off.
The motion of the man’s hand combined with the images on the wall, blending into one continuous sensation. Pete became one of the participants in the film. He felt the warmth of the woman’s ass surround him, sensed the tightness of her. More than that, he felt the other man’s cock moving in time with his. He felt its thickness against his own as they pressed together somewhere inside her. Their dicks were one united organ, tying them together so tightly that their heartbeats became one.
Too soon, the men in the film came. Pete was not ready, and when the clip suddenly faded out, he was left frustrated and disappointed. He needed more of what he’d felt watching it. He wanted to be back there, entwined with another man. He needed the release.
“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered to the man, who was still jerking him off.
The man released him and stood up. Pete tucked his still-hard dick into his pants and followed as his partner exited the theater. Stepping into the brightly lit main room, he barely looked at him as he led him down the hallway and into a private booth, first making sure that no one was watching them.
It was a tight fit. The booths were designed to hold one person. The two of them were close together, almost touching. Pete fumbled in his pocket for some quarters and plunked them into the video machine. A film began, but he ignored it. He knew what he wanted, and he needed the video only as background noise.
He unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down. Immediately, the man dropped to his knees and began sucking. But that’s not what Pete wanted. He pulled the man up.
“I want to fuck you,” he whispered.
The man hesitated. Pete turned him around in the small space and reached for the buttons of his jeans. He found them and pulled them open, tugging the man’s pants and underwear down. He pressed his cock against the man’s ass.
“You want me to fuck you, don’t you?” he asked.
The man said nothing, but didn’t pull away. Pete spit into his hand and slicked his cock. Pressing the head between the man’s asscheeks, he pushed forward until he felt himself begin to enter the guy’s hole.
“Slower,” the man said, the first word he’d spoken.
Pete ignored him, pushing himself inside. The tightness was intoxicating, and he couldn’t wait. He felt the man tense and he pushed harder, breaking through the resistance.
The man cried out and Pete put a hand over his face, covering his mouth as he started to fuck him. It was so warm, so tight. He felt the man pressing back against him as he fucked him. He wanted Pete’s cock inside him, wanted to be used by him.
The man was groaning through Pete’s hand. That was better. That was what he wanted to hear. He removed his hand so he could hear his moans. He felt his balls slapping against the man’s ass and fucked him harder. The man had braced himself against the door of the booth, and Pete used this leverage to push deep inside him.
“I’m gonna fill your ass with cum,” he told the man.
“No,” the man gasped. “Not inside me. Pull out.”
Pete ignored him. He could feel himself about to explode, and he couldn’t stop. He gripped the man’s waist and steeled himself for the release.
“I said pull out,” the man said again. “I don’t want to get anything.”
The man lurched forward, dislodging Pete’s cock. Pete came, but instead of emptying himself into a warm ass, he saw his load shoot out and splatter against the wall. His partner was hurriedly trying to pull his own pants up.
“What the fuck?” Pete said, looking down at his still-twitching cock.
“I said not to come inside me,” the man said. “I don’t want to get AIDS.”
“You think I have AIDS?” Pete said angrily. “You think I’m some sort of dirty fag? You’re the one who was getting fucked, faggot.”
The man was trying to unlock the door so he could leave. Pete grabbed his hand and twisted it, making the man cry out.
“Shut up, faggot,” Pete ordered. “Tell me you wanted it.”
The man let out another cry as Pete squeezed his hand again.
“Tell me you wanted it, fag,” he repeated.
The man tried to pull away. Pete hit him, his fist connecting with the man’s nose. His head flew back and smacked against the door with a crack. Pete saw blood begin to flow from the man’s nose as he raised his hands to cover his face.
Seeing the fag try to hide made him even angrier. Why wouldn’t he fight back? He hit him again, this time in the mouth. He felt the man’s lip split, felt warm blood on his fingers. The man groaned.
“Help,” the man called out softly. “Somebody help.”
Hearing his cry, Pete was shocked back to reality. What was he doing? He pulled up his pants. Shoving the man out of the way, he unlocked the booth and looked outside. No one had heard anything.
The man had crumpled to the floor, holding his face. Before he could cry out again, Pete dashed for the door at the end of the hall. He hit the door and flew out into the night, not looking back. His car seemed impossibly far, miles away, as he ran through the parking lot, praying that no one saw him.
He reached the car. He seemed to have hundreds of keys in his hand, none of which would open the door. But then it was open and he was sliding into the driver’s seat. He looked anxiously at the door to the theater, expecting at any moment to see people running out, looking for him. But no one came.
The engine started and he tore out of the lot, not even bothering to turn on his headlights.