Have A Little Faith In Me (14 page)

“Oh,” Korey said lightly, “they didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“You’re all coming here for winter break.  To Brooklyn.  To New York Mother Fucking City.”

“What?”  Rocky sat up in bed.  “I can’t afford…”

“You can afford a bus ticket.  And we’ve got a giant space with lots of room for visitors.  It’s cold and it’s scary and it’s full of bugs.  And it’s fucking awesome.  You’ll live on coffee and stolen day old pastry like the rest of us.  But dude.  You are going to hear some fucking music you wouldn’t believe.  And you and me and your new buddies are going to make some fucking music nobody is going to believe.  Now.  Get your ass out of that bed and brush your teeth and pack your guitar and prepare to meet your destiny.”

Rocky smiled for the first time in weeks.  “Yeah.  Okay.  Yeah.”

Rocky raised his hands in the air like he just didn’t care.  Those around him, raised with a painful self-consciousness of their Place In Cultural History As A New Generation, smothered by their over-nice sense of irony, assumed he had his hands in the air for the same reason they did, to mock the cliché. 

But he wasn’t.  He had no idea it was a cliché.  He was…
yes, say it,
he thought,
do it, blaspheme away
.  He was in heaven. 

It was his first rave, his first dance party, his first night out in New York City.  All around him young people were grinning furiously, sweating profusely, the drugs they’d taken lifting them up to where they could touch the music, the communal vibe, leave the Earth behind.

Rocky didn’t need any drugs.  Appropriately enough, the song playing now was by a band called The Rapture.  Back at Family Victory Church, they had raised their hands, too, swaying gently to the spirit.  But this, this was the
real
spirit, this music, this crowd, these lights…this was God’s touch, if anything was.  What a pale copy they were content with back home!

“Gonna get myself into it, gonna get myself into it, why not help me do it?”  The crowd roared Hey Hey Hey back at the speakers. 

Two days in the city and already Rocky felt like an egg that had hatched at last.  His years hanging out at Korey’s house had introduced him to rock, funk, soul, and disco; his first semester in Athens, GA had introduced him to punk, grunge, and emo, but what he was hearing now?  He knew Gang of Four, he knew New Order, all the bands whose propulsive, dancey hooks had been pushed aside in the 90s, in favor of fuzzy guitars and flannel shirts.  The pulsing rhythms of the city, black and gay, had fallen out of favor, too shiny and smooth, denounced as symbols of shallower times, shallower tastes.

But now that was changing. 
Fun
was back in music, and there was no shame in the word “disco.”  Korey had baptized him in the Church of Murphy, and James Murphy’s DFA Records compilations and LCD Soundsystem singles were his Great Awakening.

The Bravery’s “An Honest Mistake” was up next, its opening and bass lines making shameless references to New Order’s classic monster dance anthem, “Blue Monday.”  

Korey was dancing next to him, sweating, eyes glassy, on some designer drug or another.  Rocky had refused everything but water – he had wanted to feel
this
, the music, the dance, to see just how powerful this drug was on its own.

“This is what I want to do!” he shouted at Korey. 

“You’re doing it!” Korey shouted back, twirling like a dervish.

It wasn’t the time to have this conversation.  But his conversion experience was complete.  He was done with sadness, done with songs about anger and suffering and loneliness.  He wanted to DANCE.  To have fun, to make music that was fun.  To live in moments like this, forever.

He forgot Nico, he forgot his father, he forgot everything but his feet and his arms and he shouted, as he’d never shouted in his life, and everyone around him shouted back, with the same sense of raw, animal glee.

“So what’s your name?” a girl asked him the next night, another attendee at the never-ending party in the warehouse where Korey lived.

“Rocky.”

“No, your band’s name.”

Rocky looked at his friends.  “Umm…”  They didn’t have one yet.  Hadn’t been anything more than a bunch of guys hanging out, playing music. 

Sam and Jet and Rick looked at him.  And he realized, this was the moment.  If there was to be a band, it was up to him.  Somehow the dynamic had set him up as The One, the best musician, the best singer.  The Front Man. 

He was already getting irony, its role in this place and time.  He was too innocent and inexperienced to participate in it, yet.  Almost. 

He broke into a smile.  In a perfect Emperor Palpatine voice, he said, “Your Pitiful Little Band.”

His friends roared with laughter, and he knew he’d hit it. 

“And together,” Sam began, and the rest of them joined in to complete the quote, “we will rule the galaxy!”

“Your overconfidence is your weakness,” a passing stranger replied, quoting Luke Skywalker’s defiant speech to the Emperor.

“Your faith in your friends is yours!” Jet replied.

Sometimes, it just comes to you.  Well, it simmers in your mind for a while, of course.  You don’t consciously think of it.  But then, one day, there it is.  A perfectly formed creative concept. 

“Who’s got a pen and paper,” Rocky said.  “I just thought of a song.”

The friends…the band, now, retreated to the quietest corner they could find.  Jet had upturned one of the buckets scattered around the loft to catch leaks, creating a makeshift drum.  Sam didn’t have his keyboards, but he would hum the melody as he thought of it.  There were plenty of guitars around, and Rick had borrowed one.  Rocky was the scribe, thinking and rethinking the words, reworking them to fit the evolving melody. 

It couldn’t help but be a tribute to James Murphy’s LCD Soundsystem lyrics – he was aiming for that level of sophistication, humor, truth – but, Murphy’s lyrics had the weariness of someone who’d been through the same cycle too many times, and the intelligence of someone who couldn’t fail to see what would be the same this time, too, when everyone else was saying “this time it’s different, for sure.” 

Rocky wasn’t weary, wasn’t jaded.  He had all the exuberance of youth just coming into its powers.  But he wasn’t a stranger to suffering, hadn’t lived in a bubble of financial ease and parental support and unlimited entertainment options.  And he knew all too well from his childhood, who would turn their backs on you when you were revealed to be…different.  Strange.  “Troubled.” 

They had the opening, or a version of it anyway.  A small group had gathered, listening to them play with it, test it, revise it.

You run into people you kinda know,

they go,

Oh hi, oh hi! 

And it’s hugs and kisses like long lost lovers

Another year later, you see them on the road,

they go

Oh hi oh hi!

And it’s hugs and kisses like long lost lovers

And it’s good, it’s good enough, it’s good to see you too

It’s more than enough when the chips aren’t down

Look around, don’t look around, don’t think about it yet

Today you’re young and happy and nothing can go wrong

Your faith in your friends is strong. 

Rocky looked up.  “And then, I don’t have it yet, but, something something, fair weather friends.  Because, you know,” he said, smiling at Korey.  “Who are your friends, really?  Who are the ones who fucking show up when you need them, who don’t use and abuse you, who don’t blow you off in favor of whatever plan sounds better that night instead?  Who don’t tell you the reason they blew you off is because they ‘fell asleep’?”

The laughter around him was the laughter of recognition.  They all had friends like that and, of course, they were that kind of friend to others, sometimes.

Korey nodded.  “Real friends are a light in dark places…”

Rocky finished the quote from Galadriel.  “When all other lights go out.  Can we use that, would we get sued?”

“I was thinking about cobwebs,” Sam suggested.  “You know, they connect things, but one stiff breeze and they’re gone.”

Rocky wrote down “cobwebs.”

“Right,” he added, “something about that versus…well, not a spiderweb, not with the Galadriel reference, right?  Too menacing, not…comforting.  But like…a net.  Something that’ll catch you and not break.”

It was late when they stopped for the night.  So late it was early.  But Rocky couldn’t sleep, he was too excited, too exhilarated. 

He got his coat and went out for a walk.  It wasn’t the safest neighborhood, but at 5 am on a winter morning, most every neighborhood is safe enough. 

Scattered clubbers were just going home, laughing, too high to be cold.  There was already a line of municipal and construction workers at the local deli, picking up a doughnut and a cheap coffee in the “Grecian” blue cup that Rocky would come to know well enough, soon enough.

All his life, music and art had been a train out of town, a slow but powerful and inexorable force moving him forward.  But here, now, he could jump off the train, and ride a rocket.  All around him was the sense that something wonderful was happening, to everyone, all the time.  That any minute now, everything was changing forever.  And it was true. 

The impulse was almost overwhelming, to just chuck school and move here, right now.  But he checked himself.  No, the best thing would be to have a little more time, to work on polishing their brand new band, out of the spotlight.  He’d seen how cruel the “hipsters” could be to young, raw talent still finding its way – as if you should be like Venus on the half shell, perfect from birth.

That was it,
he thought. 
We’ll go, we’ll work, and we’ll come back.  We’ll come back and we’ll rock this town.

Rocky came back to school brimming with ideas.  The most exciting discovery was that you didn’t need to be with a big record label anymore to reach, well, everyone with an iPod, for sure.  His new idol James Murphy was selling his DFA dance singles through the iTunes Store.  Barriers to entry were falling everywhere.  All you needed now, Rocky realized, was to be great at what you did.

He felt a faint stab of regret when he saw his new roommate Charlie.  Certainly he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to deal with loathsome Harry anymore.  This shy dorky kid, another art major, wouldn’t be putting any ties on their door, Rocky thought…though you never knew, anymore, who would turn out to be the legendary stud. 

Harry’s absence meant he’d never see Nico again.  Not in person, anyway.  But wasn’t that for the best?  Wasn’t he making himself sick, obsessing over someone he could never have, who could never, would never, love him in return? 

So why didn’t he feel good about that?  Why did the ache inside get even worse now?  He resolved to move on, to forget, to think about New York and the men he’d meet there soon, so soon now, when his glorious future arrived.

Then all that changed, his first day of the spring semester.

He’d signed up for a dance class, on a lark.  After all, he was going to be a rock star!  And a performer in the age of music video couldn’t just stand there with a guitar and a microphone.  Look at that band OK Go, and that “treadmill dance” they did last summer!  Would they have become as famous without that video? 

When he entered the drafty dance studio, he could tell who the real dance students were – the ones warming up using the bar on the mirrored wall.  Then there were the kids looking for an “easy A,” the ones in jeans who realized their mistake in not looking at the syllabus before day one.  Rocky was in the suggested wardrobe of t-shirt and sweatpants.

There was one guy warming up at the bar who didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the dancers.  He had black tights on, and a UGA t-shirt, but he was so much bigger, and taller, than the rest of them.  Like, way too huge to be a dancer, and yet, he was as flexible as they were, his leg stretched out and heel anchored on the bar as he bent to touch his toes.

Then he stood up and turned around.  And saw Rocky.  And burst into that grin that could shame the sun behind a cloud.

“Hey, little dude,” Nico Paulus said.

Rocky couldn’t look away.  Every contour in Nico’s massive legs was hugged by his tights, and he had clearly, brazenly, refused to wear a cup or codpiece.  His cock was enormous, almost absurdly so – and he knew it.  Even the microsecond Rocky spent staring at it was obvious to Nico, who was just as obviously accustomed to seeing eyebrows lift at the sight of it.

“Hey,” Rocky said, immediately detouring as far from Nico as he could get. 

No, they didn’t dance that first day, but they did get a lesson in stretching, and it took all Rocky’s self control not to watch Nico’s body arch and flex, not to watch his ass cheeks, like two firm melons, not to watch his broad, muscular back bend gracefully…

Rocky fled as fast as he could afterward.  He would drop the class, right now, today. 

“Hey, man,” he heard the voice behind him, and it was like a rope thrown around him, stuttering his step.  But he kept moving, away from that deep, rich, honey-coated voice.

“Rocky, right?” Nico said, catching up with him effortlessly.  “How’s it hanging, man?” 
At least he had sweatpants on now,
Rocky thought,
and I don’t have to look at…that.

He offered Rocky his hand to shake, and Rocky could hardly refuse the civility.  But taking Nico’s hand, letting his guitar-callused fingers disappear inside Nico’s huge quarterback paw, thick with muscle from a lifetime of gripping a football, was like being eaten alive. 

Nico’s crooked grin told Rocky what he already knew – that Rocky’s breath, his eyes, his face, had given away what Nico’s touch did to him.  He’d never been in the embrace of a hand like that, young and strong and massive, and every skin cell on his body cried out at once, no, no, touch
me
, here, here!

It’s funny to him,
Rocky thought with sudden rage. 
It’s fucking hilarious how much power he has over me. 

Rocky retracted his hand as if stung.  “Nice to see you see you later,” he mumbled quickly, making his escape.

Nico was right there behind him.  “Hey.  Hey!” 

Why can’t I keep going? Why can’t I just…run!  Why am I turning around, why can’t I stand the idea of not seeing him, his beautiful fucking face, one more time…

“You know what I think?” Nico said, his hot brown eyes boring into Rocky’s.  “I think we both want the same thing,” he murmured. 

Rocky snorted.  A little of New York City had rubbed off on him already.  He looked up at Nico, towering above him.  “Oh, so
you
want to suck
my
cock, too?”

Nico was shocked, and delighted to be shocked.  This wasn’t the script, this wasn’t the way it always went.  Nobody defied Nico Paulus when he made his desires known.

“No, I don’t want to suck your cock.  But I want you to suck mine.”

This was suddenly a different Nico, Rocky realized.  He wasn’t laying on the charm, wasn’t grinning with that sly winking teasing demeanor.  He was being…practical.  Matter of fact about it. 

“And you just said, you want it,” Nico concluded.  “So…let’s do it.”

“Okay,” Rocky said abruptly, surprising himself.  “Yeah, let’s.”

Rocky didn’t own a tie.  And hoped, had sworn, he would never have to – at least, not one he’d have to wear to a job.  Fortunately, his roomie had a skinny retro 80s New Wave tie, with a keyboard printed on it.  And that was what he hung on the door of their room.

His heart was racing as he shut the door behind him.  Nico had already kicked off his shoes and sprawled on his bed. 

“I figured this was your bed,” Nico rumbled, putting his hands behind his head, regarding Rocky like a lizard would a fly.

It hadn’t been hard to figure out which side was Rocky’s – the one with the posters of Interpol and Kraftwerk and The Killers – since the other side was decorated with semi-ironic-but-not-quite posters of Britney Spears. 

Rocky nodded, watching Nico idly grab the massive bulge in his sweats and shift it into a more comfortable position.  He didn’t know what to do, if he should undress or what. 

Nico cocked his head.  “Come on over here and suck this dick,” he said, as casually as if he was inviting Rocky to have a drink with him.

Rocky moved like a man in a dream.  Nico spread his legs, and Rocky got on the bed between them, on his knees, reaching tentatively for the object of his worship.  He put his hand on it, and snatched it back, startled.  It was so hard!

Nico’s eyebrows shot up.  “O fuck, you’re a virgin, aren’t you?” 

Rocky looked up at him, to see if he was being mocked.  “Yeah.”

Nico’s eyelids fluttered.  “Shit.  That’s so hot…”  He arched his hips and pulled his sweats and tights down, revealing his hydrant-sized erection and his massive furry thighs.

“Kiss it,” Nico urged him.  “Just put your lips on it.”

Rocky bent over, and got a whiff of Nico’s musky crotch, warm and fecund from dance class.  The scent was clean, manly, intoxicating. 

He just touched his lips to the shaft, at the base where it met Nico’s balls.  His shaved balls, Rocky marveled – like two eggs in a purse. 

Nico sighed.  “Yeah, now up a little higher.”  Rocky eagerly complied.  He was so relieved to be under Nico’s command, to surrender his confusion and uncertainty about what to do next, and just…obey. 

Rocky kissed it again, and again, up a little higher each time.  Then he paused just before he got to the head.

Nico opened one eye.  “What you waiting for?”

“I’m waiting for you to tell me what to do.”

The eye dilated, the nostrils flared.  “Oh fuck yeah.  You gonna do whatever I say?”

“Yeah,” Rocky nearly groaned.

“Put your mouth on the head.  Just your lips.”

Rocky enveloped Nico’s huge mushroom head in his mouth.  It was the softest thing he’d ever felt.  Then he tasted Nico’s salty precum, already urged up by Rocky’s kisses (and his vow of obedience), and that was when he started to melt. 
His seed, his juices, the star quarterback’s vital essence…

Nico helpfully grabbed the base of his dick and tilted it down, aiming it straight at Rocky’s mouth.  “Now put some more of that in your mouth.”

Rocky eagerly complied, feeling Nico’s stiff flesh slide over his tongue, and touch the back of his throat.  His dick was so big that Rocky had to stretch his mouth open wide, wider, to take it, its mass expanding ever closer to the base.

“Oooh,” Nico flinched.  “Watch the teeth.  Keep your lips over the teeth, so they don’t cut me.”

Rocky nodded enthusiastically.  Nico was so huge! 

“Okay,” Nico nodded, pulling out and stroking it, inches from Rocky’s face, blocking his field of vision.  “Now take a deep breath, let it out.”

Rocky had indeed forgotten to breathe.  He sighed, relaxed.

“Now I’m gonna get it down your throat.  So you gotta open wide.  And there’s gonna be pressure.  Your gag reflex is gonna kick in, so you just gotta roll with it, right?”

Rocky nodded.  He was so relieved, so grateful, to be with Nico, to be with someone so experienced, so patient.

“I’m not gonna choke you to death with, okay?” Nico’s eyes darkened.  “Maybe later, when I’ve got you trained.”

Rocky’s blood tingled.  Later!  Trained!  The promise of another time, and another…

Nico put his dick back in Rocky’s mouth, pushing slowly.  One hand at the base of his cock, he put the other on the back of Rocky’s head.  It was like being inside a catcher’s mitt, his hand was so big. 

“Take a deep breath and hold it.”

Rocky’s lips stretched to suck some air in around the sides of Nico’s erection.  He took the breath, and just as he stopped, Nico
pushed.

The head of his dick popped past the back of his mouth, and instinctively he choked, pushing it back out. 

Nico grinned.  “Yeah, that’s tight.  Gonna take some time to relax you, huh.  You’re tense as a motherfucker.”

Rocky laughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  “Sorry.”

“No need to be sorry.  You’ll learn.” 

Rocky looked at Nico, his tutor, his master.  He wanted to please him so badly.   He grabbed Nico’s cock and pushed his head down on it, ramming the head into the back of his mouth, trying to force it in, gagging again.

Nico laughed.  “Slow down, man.”  His dark eyes were so smoky, so glassy with lust, with pleasure.  His smile was so lazy, so certain…

“Here,” Nico said, shifting himself to the side of the bed.  “Turn around.”

Rocky got in the “69” position at Nico’s side.  Nico’s cock pointed down at him now, its curvature now matching that of Rocky’s throat.

Rocky bent over and went to try and take it again, but Nico’s iron hands grabbed his head.  “I’m gonna control you,” Nico whispered.  “I’m gonna use your head now.  Right?  Don’t even try to do anything.”

Rocky whimpered, relieved, ecstatic.  Nico bobbed Rocky’s head up and down on the tip, Nico just teasing himself, extending his pleasure, more of his juices leaking on to Rocky’s tongue. 

“Yeah, that’s it, relax, just take the ride,” Nico urged him. 

Rocky did relax, placing his trust, his faith, in Nico.  He dared to put his hands on Nico’s legs, his huge iron muscles.  The skin was so soft, the flesh so firm, like pillars of the temple between which lay the object of veneration.

“You like those legs?”

“Yeah.  Your thighs are the size of my waist.”

“Heh.  Could be.  You’re a slim little guy.  I could just pick you up and post you on my dick and carry you around.”

“You could…”

Nico could sense it, Rocky’s whole body loosening up.  So that, when he pushed past the larynx, down into Rocky’s throat, it was like a hot knife through butter.

Rocky didn’t choke, or not much.  Just a little, and he could tell Nico liked it, the little squeezes that his contractions gave Nico’s dick, the way Nico’s hands clenched on the back of Rocky’s head, urging him but not forcing him to hold it down a little longer. 

Rocky backed off, gasping, and Nico’s hands flew free to let him.  “That’s good,” Nico whispered.  “Good cocksucker.  You like that.”  It was a confirmation, not a question.

Rocky nodded.  “Yeah!”  His tongue darted into the slit in the head, eager for more juices.

Nico chuckled.  “You like the taste, huh?”

“Yeah, fuck yeah.”

“Just wait till you eat my load,” Nico said, pushing Rocky’s head back down again.

Rocky opened wide now, embracing it, his hands grasping Nico’s legs like life preservers.  Each time Nico stayed down longer, was able to get a few more thrusts in before Rocky needed air.  Rocky was on fire now, his own dick aching, and like a swimmer he’d come up only for a quick gasp and then dived down again.