The Price Of Dick (12 page)

The saying is that there are two things that are inevitable: death and taxes. Except in the case of my friend and business partner
’s mother. Then it was nagging and religious nagging. She needled him in phone calls and emails about his as of yet unmarried status. It never ended.

These calls from her increased in number anytime the holidays neared, in particular those involving full family gatherings
, like Thanksgiving. Apparently the little beast fretted over speculation about her unhitched son. I could hear her shrill voice drilling him with guilt and Bible verses through his phone, even with his door closed. It carved its sound into my brain like claw marks.

I
also noted that as the holidays neared, his drinking skills became more honed. A beer after dinner became a six-pack. Then a six-pack and a few shots. Then when the beer wasn’t drowning things properly, he pulled out the hard liquor alone. There wasn’t a night he wasn’t drinking, or an afternoon business lunch that didn’t require a few cocktails. He constantly reeked of alcohol. When I did his laundry I could smell it in the sweat stains on his shirts.

I had to admit seeing this big guy respond this way to a
tiny tyrant like his mother actually confounded me. I always thought that somewhere along the way as young men matured, they had to cut the apron strings from mommy or risk becoming Norman Bates. Along with this 100 proof barrier erected as a buffer between his parents and himself, also came what I’d eventually call ‘the girlfriend ritual.’

I didn
’t recognize it for what it was at the time because on the first occasion it confused me. It was his way of keeping the harpy from chewing the flesh from his bones. He’d placate mommy with the obligatory visual aide proving he was her family-certifiable heterosexual son. The charade would begin as Thanksgiving approached. He’d acquire a
girlfriend
.

The candidate for this position had no clue, of course, that she was nothing more than a game piece. He
’d select her from random blind dates his friends would set up for him. The first one was arranged by his dentist after he voiced the obvious hints of “wanting to find that special someone.” I’d actually see this game play out in exactly the same way three times over the course of our relationship. It wasn’t pretty and I began to feel sympathy for the poor women who unknowingly fell into this game. Who the girl was didn’t matter to him in the least. How he selected her did.

She
’d be nondescript. He’d never allow himself to be near someone who challenged his own looks. He’d never stand for someone saying “you make a beautiful couple” because it’d mean someone had taken their eyes off him to look at her. She’d be tomboyish, slightly masculine. If he had to spend time with a woman she better like the same things he did. Football, rock-climbing, triathlons, golf. The best way for him to tolerate the opposite sex was for them to not act like it. The less makeup and fewer skirts they wore, the better. They’d have just gotten out of a relationship and were vulnerable, or they hadn’t been in one for a while and were vulnerable. The big “V” was the key. They’d never know what hit them.

He was the textbook Prince Charming. There
’d be gifts and flowers and romantic dinners. He’d open their door, pull out their chairs, take them to movies and snuggle on the couch. He’d wait on them like an obedient manservant, and say all the things they had ever wanted to hear a man say. For the few months that he’d grant them the pleasure of his company they’d be mentally planning their weddings, picking their gowns and menus and which songs they’d dance to at their receptions. He needed them showing public affection toward him. The handholding and hugs. The pecks on the cheek. The starry-eyed, blissful look of adoration. The act had to convince his friends and family, including the old battle-axe herself. He was just that good, too. It worked without a hitch. For the few months he needed to play this game for all to witness, he’d be missing from our own daily routine. I’d miss him. And a portion of me would be jealous because no one likes to be alone when they’ve grown used to someone’s company.

*  *  *

The first one was named Christy. He found her just in time for Thanksgiving with the folks. She was a schoolteacher. I’d meet her on a couple occasions and pretend, as usual, to be his straight friend and roommate. She was nice enough; courteous to me in a non-interested sort of way. I’d find out more about her in bits and pieces from leftover movie tickets, restaurant dinner receipts, notes she’d write that I’d find tucked in his pockets when I did laundry, and drunk conversations I’d have with him after his dates. Friends who saw them out would tell me she was totally enamored. Stuck to him like a postage stamp. I really didn’t want to hear about it, because I didn’t want to lose my friend, roommate and business partner to a woman. It’s not unheard of for men who desire men to marry a woman and raise a family to fit in with society. His was a family that could actually cause such a travesty to happen.

The idea of him sharing himself with a woman
sexually was something I also wouldn’t contemplate. To me it was something horribly false, but more than that it was something beyond my control or management. Was this jealousy? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t own him. We weren’t boyfriends. It just all felt wrong to me. Maybe it was because it was the first time I was being excluded, although I certainly had no interest in being a part of the game, or even watching it. Maybe because it added teeth to the threat that his mother could actually take him away from me by using the one thing I couldn’t compete with. But the complexity of my emotions about it added to the maelstrom that churned in my gut. I tried to avoid thinking about it.

I added
a few cocktails to my lonely evenings as I sat watching television in an empty apartment. Having no family, I made it singularly through holidays. That Christmas, as he and Christy celebrated in the company of his family, pride on the gloating face of his mommy, I bought a roast chicken, made some stuffing and drank a bottle of wine by myself. I watched a rented movie and finally fell asleep on the sofa. I was depressed but wouldn’t admit it. I completely believed that one day, or one night he’d walk through the door and announce that he was engaged. Most engagements occurred during the holidays when people drank, got emotional and did things impulsively. I hated that because then, in the fervor of a moment, all of the exciting little dreams I’d formed around him and our business would be gone. If he married, there’d be no Dick in the photo sessions. It would become the lonely venture it’d been prior to his appearance in my life. The apprehension of this over those months had worn me down as smooth as a marble. Looking back I was just as pathetic as all of those women who believed in him. We could have formed a club. Dick’s Anonymous.

I fell asleep, drunk
, on the sofa hearing Christmas music on the television. He returned sometime around midnight. He was very inebriated. He stumbled through the door, banging it open and then shut. I sat up, startled, looking at him through blurry eyes as he leaned against the door like it was the only thing keeping him attached to the planet. His eyes darted back and forth like he was watching a tennis match.

He smiled. It was the first one I
’d seen from him since he began dating Christy. “Hey, dude!” His drunk tongue elongated his happy greeting. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

I flipped
on the lamp next to me to watch him try to stand. He weaved. There was a food stain on his tie.

“
You’re drunk.” I announced it like it was a fact he needed to be made aware of. My own voice sounded intoxicated, too, which made it funny in my own head. Pot meet kettle.

“
God, I hope so. I’d hate to think I walk like this sober.” He pointed at my feet on the couch where he apparently was aiming to sit. I pulled my legs up under the blanket as he Frankensteined his way over and fell into the seat.

“
You drove like this?” I wondered if someone had dropped him off.

“
I drive better when I’m drunk,” he said it with a conviction I was confident he believed.

“
Jesus,” I said waving the fumes billowing from his mouth away from my nose.

“
You think it smells strong, you shoulda tasted it,” he grinned.

“
How was Christmas dinner with your mom and...girlfriend?” I asked, surprised by the sarcasm in my voice. Did I really harbor that much resentment?

Leaning back into the cushion, he
smirked. “Hell on earth, good will toward men,” he said with a laugh. “I hate that old hag sitting there like she was some little female Caesar presiding over her table of breeders and their baby makers.”

“
Speaking of which, I thought you’d be staying with yours?”

“
My what?”

I choked on the words
, “Your gal.”

“
Oh yeah.” That familiar smirk appeared. “I knew I was too drunk to wanna wake up and see that thing lying next to me in the morning. Hangovers are bad enough.”

“
Ah, true love,” I muttered under my breath. He heard it and seemed to find it humorous.

“
Means to an end, my friend. As long as there is a chick on my arm every now and then, Mrs. Hitler doesn’t think her son is a homo.”

“
So how is the non-homo sex?” I asked. I was being facetious; maybe even a little bit of a jerk, but he was too wasted to detect it.

He didn
’t notice, or he didn’t care. “I’m pretty good at faking it,” he replied, not missing a beat.

I had the
You-lost-your-marbles look, I’m certain. “How does a guy fake it?”

He matched my expression with his
You’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look. “I just spit in the condom before I put it on. If you have them on their stomach they never notice you doing the fill up beforehand. Then all I have to do is think about Matt Damon or Harry Connick Jr. I like him; have you seen him? He’s good looking and can sing too. I need to pick up one of his CDs for the car. Oh, think of them naked and I’m good to go. You just do your “Ooh-Ahs” and act like you popped one. The condom is full. You’re home free. Time to catch a snooze. No need to waste a good pop.”

“
That’s kind of cold,” I said, astonished at how he distanced himself from the woman’s feelings. If I’d thought he was bisexual, that notion was instantly dismissed by this apparent callousness toward his so-called girlfriend.

“
She already said the voodoo curse words that end a relationship.”

“
Which are?” I asked, confused.

“
I think we should take this to the next level.” His face twisted showing his distaste. “I mean what the fuck does that mean anyway? You already had your dick in them. What level is there after you fuck someone?” His head shook, face twisted with disgust. “Anyway, that’s the signal for the old heave-ho.”

“
With what excuse?” I wondered. How does one break off a relationship with someone who thinks everything is going along well enough to want a next level?

“
I’ll make up something. With her, it’ll be easy. She can’t stop shopping. I’ll say I don’t like the way she’s irresponsible with money.”

I was stupefied.
“As a reason to break up with someone?”

He shrugged.
“It sure beats: ‘it isn’t you...it’s me,’ doesn’t it?"

“
When do you propose to do this?” I will admit when I asked this, in the back of my mind I was thinking, when will things get back to normal?

He stood up, unsteadily.
“After New Year’s. Got to have a date for all those parties, don’t I? Lady Killer got to be seen with his new pussy.”

“
How can you do that with no feeling for her? Don’t you worry how that’s going to affect her?” I asked.

His blood-shot eyes danced over me.
“You don’t think that’s a two way street? You think she really cares about me, or that I’m just husband material for her? Father material? A way to get her into that bridal gown she’s dreamed of since she was six? The motivations are different, but it’s the same thing. Her folks are wondering when she’s gonna make them grandparents and she’s just doing what she thinks is gonna make them happy. It’s all a fucked up piece of shit game.” His finger pointed at me unsteadily. “The difference is when we fuck them it’s for a nut pop. When they fuck us, it’s for an engagement ring.”

Almost everything he said made me angry, but I put it down to him being drunk and spending the night in the company of his mother. I didn
’t know this girl. I felt nothing for her. I wanted her gone for my own personal reasons. At the same time, I didn’t appreciate how he viewed her, her intentions, or how he could dispose of her with so little regard. Sometimes he was a shitty drunk.

“
We got beer in the fridge?” he asked, stumbling his way toward the kitchen. “I wanna have a brewski, look at some hot surfer dude porn, and rub a real one out.”

By nature I
’m not a nosey individual. I believe everyone has a right to their privacy, and I try not to overstep boundaries. I mean, I wouldn’t want anyone prying into my life looking for dirty little secrets.

In the
new year, Dick's presence around the house became a more regular occurrence. Things returned to the way they had been before the holiday girlfriend ritual. I assumed his relationship with Christy had run its course, but I didn’t ask. Mainly because I didn’t want to jinx it. He certainly didn’t speak a word about it.

I
’d just done laundry. New year but same old chores for a Monday. Day to change the sheets on his bed. I usually performed these duties while he was at the office. The first thing I noticed upon entering his room was all the clothes that had gone missing while he spent his weekends with her had found their way back into the closet. His favorite comforter was back, and the bed was tight and tidy. He was a neat person.

As I tore the bed apart and
changed the sheets, I kept hearing a quiet beeping sound. I thought it might be a watch or his alarm clock. I checked and found that it was his laptop on the nightstand in the far corner of the room. He hadn’t closed it properly; light from the still glowing screen seeped through its edge.

My hand hovered over this for a few seconds. I was just going to close it. Shut it down. I really was. Then I did something even I didn
’t expect. I got nosey and opened it. The screen bounced back to full brightness. It was filled with an opened email addressed to him. For the first time I saw Christy’s full name in the sender’s box in the top right hand corner.

I know
that I held my breath because I couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted to read it. There are a lot of things I just preferred not to know. I had developed a finely tuned ostrich act by this time. There was one thing I did: I wanted to know if the nonsense between the two of them was at an end; permanently.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my eyes slowly drawn to the screen. I didn
’t know this woman. In essence, she was a stranger to me. We only shared one thing in common. Him. Because of my possessiveness toward Him, I was going to read her personal correspondence. I felt guilty, but compelled. Curiosity, cat and all that.

The first paragraph told almost everything
I thought I wanted to know. Pure despair on her part. Utter confusion. A relationship inexplicably ended. She thought they’d had something; wanted to know what went wrong. She needed to understand. I doubted that he’d fill in the blanks for her. She had served her function and he’d left her in ruins.

Undeniably
, I felt sorry for her. I am, after all human, and all of us have felt the pain of rejection. It’s rapier sharp, cuts to the quick, and is slow to heal. It made me wonder about him, though. How a human being could lead another one on, and cause—no—encourage that person to develop real feelings for himself for no reason other than to use them as part of his disguise. How could he treat a person no differently than a suit he chose to wear from his closet? How did he close off that part of his brain that tells someone they’ve harmed another soul? Do some people have a less developed conscience than others, or are some of us born with too much? Most frighteningly of all, are some of us born with no conscience at all?

I closed the laptop. If nothing else
, this most recent chapter of the girlfriend ritual had closed. The fears I’d had of him disappearing from my life and our work vanished along with the girl herself. The weight in my chest lifted but I wasn’t certain it was relief that replaced it.

My
too-much-conscience worried for Christy whether I wanted to or not. We were all puppets controlled by the strings held by our emotions. We all felt helpless when the puppeteer tangled those strings. Dick had made me a part of the game that had hurt her. I didn’t like it, even if my role had been so minimal. I hoped, in time, she’d be okay, even stronger for the hell he put her through.

*  *  *

The comfort of having things returned to how they’d been seemed to shape even the light in the apartment around me. It felt bright again. We were back to dinners at home, back to asking, “How was your day?” and wanting to hear the answer. He returned to training in the apartment gym for a spring triathlon. I was happy to run on the treadmill next to him. I continued sending my friends and acquaintances to him as prospective clients, dreaming of that sunny beach in Puerto Vallarta where we’d sip Margaritas and work on our tans.

The photo shoots were few and far between
during this season. Our supply of willing college boys had dwindled as they went home for the holidays, and then to warmer regions for spring break. So I was back to the standard model shoots to keep the income flowing. Dull, boring wanna-be models; skinny boys with piercings, tattoos and acne; brute-faced bodybuilders who’d lost their ability to smile, and the regulars. The bread and butter of any photographer. We were paid to make them look flawless. I could tell this frustrated my roommate. By that, I mean it sexually frustrated him. He needed to be worshipped; he needed to seduce. It was the lifeblood of his psyche.

I was content with smaller concessions. I
’d wait patiently at night, feigning sleep, listening for the sound of stockinged feet tiptoeing to the office where he’d sift through our shoots, or surf porn for something appropriate to whack off to. Whether by neglect or intent, he’d inevitably leave the door cracked so I could actually see him in the chair, in the glow of the screen working at the enormous curve swelling upward from between his thighs. He always behaved like he thought I was watching, making certain to turn to give me a good vantage point for the entire performance. I could see every spurt issue like erupting geysers. I could watch him wipe himself with tissues before strutting naked and content back to his bedroom. Ours was an unusual arrangement. He never failed to find a way to provide a thrill, whether he knew that or not. And I was pretty sure he knew exactly what he was doing.

Less
enamoring was having to play his game when his friends came around; donning the straight man persona was not just grating on my nerves, but physically repulsive to a man who had lived a very free-spirited life for many years and grown accustomed to it. I didn’t like that he was dragging me back into his closet on these occasions. He thought of it as a small concession on my part. I felt like it was a betrayal to myself. He insisted on it since he’d talked the frat brothers, Joey and Jeff into doing the triathlon with him. They were harmless fellows; possessing no extraordinary traits that would separate them in a teeming crowd of a hundred other college-dispossessed frat boys. As brothers, they actually didn’t even resemble each other. They were both stocky, but one was blond, the other brunette. One had short hair, the other longer, wavy and styled. They were both classic examples of the brotherhood of the dumb jock, and when they drank and became grinning, hooting imbeciles, they placed themselves more securely in their pigeonhole.

He knew I hated being a part of his get-togethers. Age-wise, I was out of sync. However, it was important to him to convince them that I was
an ‘ordinary’ guy. Just like them. But ordinary in his mind meant only one thing. The operative word for the image of me he wanted to portray was straight. Their opinion of me mattered to him because it affected his own reputation. The politics of friendship. Something of which I wanted no part. My disinterest actually worried him.

Annoyed, not wanting to debate it any further, I ran a bath and shut the door to the world to avoid further discussion.
It was the day before they were due over and I wanted to lie in the warm water and not think about play-acting in his make-believe world for people who didn’t matter to me.

As I soaked in the tub in a the steamy room that smelled soothingly of lavender bath
beads and a single jasmine candle I’d lit, the door opened after a soft knock. He stood there in the rectangle of light in his underwear. He had a look in his eyes which I recognized. Sexual. The blowjob I got in the tub and the one I gave that ended up tasting like soothing lavender made me forget my annoyance at once again being shoved into a virtual closet and playing it straight for his fraternity buddies.

*  *  *

The next day he even talked me into cooking for them: buffalo chicken wings, homemade pepperoni calzones and beer battered onion rings. He appealed to my inner Iron Chef. It’s pathetic how easily he manipulated me.

When these guys got together, they drank
to excess. I was no longer at the age where I could do that and recover as easily as someone ten years younger, so I dumped half-filled beers down the sink every time they handed a fresh one to me. The highlight of this particular gathering was the showing of a DVD they’d made in college. It had been put together as a sort of documentary of their college life by one of their fraternity brothers who had studied film-making, which simply meant he had access to a spare video camera and could record their stupidity so they could enjoy it in perpetuity. The little film enterprise had been entitled, “The Drinking Olympics.” It chronicled every known drinking and pissing game under the sun. A true testimony to college-aged immaturity that made you marvel how any of them had been left alive afterwards.

It was two and
a half hours long, and thankfully, I was cooking during most of the extravaganza because it was obviously one of those experiences where you had to have been there in the first place to actually enjoy the DVD. They all found it hilarious, if their rolling around drunk and laughing during its presentation was any indication. It never stopped, and was accompanied by their own interjected recollections of some nasty bits that didn’t make it onto the recording. I found none of it interesting, and grew annoyed quickly with the notion that juvenile stupidity had been elevated to the same level as recorded scrapbook memories. So I kept finding reasons to step out of the room.

By nine
p.m., they’d drunk the case and a half of beer that had been bought for the occasion and were hankering for more. Dick and Jeff, the darker of the brothers decided to walk the two blocks to the liquor store to pick up more alcohol. I made no effort to volunteer. The longer this party dragged on, the more I debated whether any blowjob was worth it. Left in the company of the other brother; Joey, I asked him to help me collect the accumulation of beer cans and carry the two towering trash buckets to the dumpster out behind of the apartment.

I had lost whatever buzz I
’d had earlier due to sheer exasperation. Joey was unquestionably lit. He looked like a blond grinning monkey, eyes tilting upward to match the shape of his mouth. I just kept wanting them to all be gone, for the night to be over, to crawl onto my couch and dream of the ten minutes of dick sucking I had gotten in the tub that convinced me to allow all of this to happen.

Through the time I had known Dick's friends,
Joey always struck me as the more inquisitive of the brothers. When he was sober, he was decently intelligent. He worked as a restaurant cook, had dated the same girl off and on since high school. It seemed as if, outside of the fraternal influence, he might be an okay kind of guy. He was comfortable around me even though I was much older.

We were emptying the trash into the dumpsters, and after the clatter of
aluminum died down, he said, “You guys got a real good thing going on here what with the photography and all the models and shit; don’t you? Lots of hot chicks and stuff, I mean?”

I just fucking hated moments like these. The ones where someone put you in a corner
and the magic lie was your only means of escape. I saw the even row of teeth, the eyes greedy for some juicy gossip. I wished I were someplace else where I didn’t have to pretend. I shrugged. A non-answer felt like less of a betrayal to myself.

“
You two guys ever get it on with one chick? You know like double-team one?”

The beer in my stomach turned to acid.
My instinctive fight or flight response took over. I started toward the house, pretending I hadn’t heard him.

We were almost at the rear door of the apartment when he said from behind me,
“Have you guys ever got it on together? You know just the two of you?”

That stopped me.
A better word might be paralyzed me. He moved around to face me, eyes all twinkly like he’d stumbled onto a fantastic, salacious secret. “Listen, nobody would say a thing if you did. You guys are our friends. He’s been our buddy since college. We always kinda suspected deep down he went both ways, but he plays that Lady Killer shtick up so much every time we’re around, well...you know, we ain’t gonna say anything.”

I stared at him.
My mind was still trying to allow this revelation to sink in.

“
My brother and I messed around with guys in college. I mean not together,” he amended quickly. "But we’ve both done the bi-curious thing. Hell, I think every guy does. But Dick acts like it ain’t anything that would ever cross his mind. The thing is,” he moved in tight as if to divulge a secret. “The girl he was going with in college told us that he always seemed to be more interested in her brother than in her, and that most of his stories about them having wild fucks were...well...stories.”

He
peered around in the darkness of the woods behind the apartment building to make certain there were no ears to hear us. “And both of us caught him watching us masturbate at night in the dorm room, pretending to be asleep. It’s totally cool with us if he is bi, you know? So, we thought maybe you guys had a bi thing going on? Maybe that was why he moved in with you? A guy with access to beautiful girls and guys.”