The Price Of Dick (22 page)

As he grew older, Dick began acquiring his own idiosyncrasies. Besides the cowboy, Lonesome Dove, fixation which had grown ever worse, his personality began to change. He seemed more combative about small issues; sometimes in demeaning ways. I put it down to job stress and being naturally bull-headed, but other things kept cropping up where he positioned himself as the dominant member of the household. Early in our arrangement, I’d been the one to decorate or select the styles of furniture. Now, I couldn’t buy a vase to put flowers in if he didn’t approve of it. He’d choose what color bed sheets and spreads were bought. Only he was allowed to pick and buy household items like coffee makers or irons or blenders, or even potholders. Only he would take care of the taxes. All I was required to do was sign. If I tried to protest at all, he’d occasionally slip in the argument and say it was his house, his choice. It always offended me, but I let it go. I figured he inherited some control issues from good ole mom.

Most of the time he was pleasant. Life isn
’t always hunky-dory, and we can all be a bitch on occasion. So I made more concessions. We were in this together and there was no need to argue over trivial things. It grated on my nerves, and I would think about his nasty little word-bites later. Quarrels over nitpicking issues usually signal the beginning of trouble in a marriage. I wasn’t going to fall into that too-easy trap.

Dick's moods
of dark melancholy began to surface more regularly. These first appeared a year out of the hospital. Initially, I paid them no more special attention than I would my own blue moods. They come and go for all of us, but as the months and years went by, these moods became more frequent, deeper, more black in nature for him. He’d be sullen. Caustic words would fly impulsively from his mouth, and he made no effort to apologize for them. When his bad moods got really bad, he wouldn’t want to talk at all.

The first few times I tried to
invade his space and offer a sympathetic ear, he angrily made it clear it was a private pity party. He preferred the quiet of the bedroom where he’d work silently on his laptop. He’d come and go without goodbyes or greetings. He’d never cry as some of us do when we’re down. His face turned brittle, his mouth a thin, horizontal line as if it were damming a torrent of pent-up rage. Then, a few days later, he’d walk in with a smile, engage in conversation and go on as if nothing had happened. There’d never be any discussion of what had been bothering him. I worried that he might be developing bipolar disorder. His swings between the two distinct moods were radical, but I said nothing. It would have done no good.

As
time passed, my own idiosyncrasies were rearing their ugly heads as well. Mine weren’t as dramatic as Dick's. I just thought of them as an evolution of the things I couldn’t tolerate. After two years, I no longer cared for sharing a bed. Most people like the sense of security that comes with company in their bed. I just couldn’t block out his DVD westerns, ignore the sudden bursts of window-rattling snoring, rollovers, arm-flops and farting. I hated the sweaty feeling of waking with someone’s arm pinning me and smelling the body odor in his armpit hair. Relationship transformation. We weren’t boyfriends or lovers. I could sleep elsewhere.

Ironically, the insomnia I
’d acquired with age resolved the rooming situation for me. I began working later into the night and even the early morning. To not disturb his sleep I began to crawl into the bed in what had been my mock bedroom since we’d moved there. By subtle degrees, it eventually became my actual bedroom. It was directly beneath the master bedroom so I could hear him rise, shower, get dressed and leave every morning. He never came in to disturb me. I’d sleep until noon and then have my breakfast.

I
’d go to the gym in the afternoon if I didn’t have a shoot scheduled, get back and make his dinner. He went to the gym at night. The settlement into this chapter of real life brought its natural separations. Just like married couples.

We were both always excited when we
’d book new shoots for him and the models. The act never grew tiresome for him. It was his only outlet for sex with men. When I had trouble finding models for the male on male romance shoots, I could sense the frustration in him. He’d drink more, surf porn more frequently. He’d bother me about it, want to know when I would have a shoot for him. For the most part I didn’t mind, but his sexual modus operandi had morphed into something odd as well. Something unpleasant for me. His version of sex became coarser, meaner, and quicker. It lacked sensitivity and was one-sided. There was violence in him and it was emerging during sex. I’d have dark marks up and down my arms and legs from a session in bed with him. It became less an act of sharing and more one of anger management. Again, it was never anything he’d discuss. I made excuses to not get naked with him.

More odd
sexual things began to crop up with him all the time. He added kinks to the shoots. Spanking, ropes and handcuffs. Leather gear and cock rings. The personality that was coming through more and more in the photos was someone less romantic and far more dominating. I had to push to get the photos depicting sensual love. He was more interested in his sexual needs than in satisfying the needs of our business. He began experimenting with Viagra, not that he needed it. His sex drive seemed to be
on
at all times, but he liked to keep his erection long after getting off to make himself appear godlike in the eyes of the ‘gay boys’ as he called the models. His preference for the types of guys he wanted to do the shoots with had taken a new turn as well. He now gravitated toward the more feminine, almost girlish guys. Very fine features, slim bodies with virtually no muscle and very little body hair. He liked them to look innocent, somewhat feminine; helpless and controllable. It was his desire to be revered, to be the only masculine entity in the scenario. There was a look of supreme satisfaction on his face when it was a struggle to make his dick fit in the ass of someone half his size. He enjoyed hearing them scream out. You could actually see his dick grow fatter with excitement if they were in pain. None of the models complained, but I began to doubt that they were enjoying themselves. I was torn, because I also didn’t want to interfere in the artistic progression of the shoot. I was now wondering, on some occasions, if I should step in because of the violence ramping up. We’d get the romance stuff, and it was great, but Dick's sexuality was doing a Jekyll to Hyde, similar to his mood swings.

The personality change in him exploded like napalm
during a shoot I’d arranged with him and a twenty-year old Asian man. He was a ballet dancer named Ran, who had travelled two states and planned to stay overnight to do a photo session with me. He’d been a fan of my work for several years and had saved to get a bus ticket to come for the shoot. Dick picked him up at the bus station and brought him to the condo. He was a stunner. He had bleached his hair a beautiful shade of blonde and wore blue contacts. With his honey-colored skin and exquisite features he was a knockout. Only five foot five, but every inch camera ready. Dick seemed to be intrigued by him. Apparently they’d had a conversation on the drive and had made like fast friends in the short trip. Of course, Dick played the straight card. That never changed.

“
Dick wants to do a wrestling scene,” Ran said, enthusiastically, opening his wallet and pulling out a folded piece of paper and handing it to me. “That’s my medical tests. I was checked for all STDs and HIV and am clean. There’s no worry if I accidentally get scratched or anything. I think it would be awesome to do. I took martial arts last year. Maybe we could incorporate that into the shoot?” His high-planed face and sculpted jaw-line made his voluptuously large lips a singular feature I’d play up in the shots.

I saw the anticipation in Dick
’s eyes as I read through Ran’s documentation. I knew exactly what was going through his mind. I’d have to pull the reins in tight on this one to get the shots I needed, because my business partner’s testosterone was rampaging again. I’d have to keep a close eye on him as well to make certain he didn’t get carried away. Ran wasn’t a very large guy. I feared Dick could hurt him; might probably enjoy doing just that.

I made a nice tasty little
Italian dinner: spaghetti and garlic bread. Dick and Ran socialized like old pals. Ran worked in his parents' clothing store, and aspired to tour with a ballet company. He’d just come out to his folks last year and they were more than accepting of him. He seemed like a very happy young man. Like those before him, Dick had captured his fancy. The attraction of the forbidden fruit.

My partner had concocted a whole new background story
for himself. I was always impressed by how he could come up with these elaborate pieces of imagination and make them real down to the last detail. He’d describe his fictitious girlfriend and then effuse about how Ran’s lips were more sensuous than hers. How her skin looked radiant, but nothing in comparison to Ran’s golden silk. There was no doubt that Dick was taken with the boy. The admiration was mutual. Dick made them both cocktails. Something dark and strong-looking. They sat on the sofa talking in a continuous back and forth. Dick kept his voice low so that Ran had to bend into him close to listen. A cock tease.

I cleaned the kitchen, put dishes in the washer and poured myself a glass of wine. By the time I turned around, they were locked in a passionate, neck-twisting kiss. Ran had practically crawled into Dick
’s lap. His hands had worked up the back of Dick’s shirt. Tongues darted like battling asps. Same old shtick.

“
Good god, you’re beautiful!” I heard him whisper in Ran’s ear. “You’re really tempting me to do something I shouldn’t.”

He was working the shoot backwards. These were the lines he used during the
romance part of the shoot. He was now doing the seduction prior to the shoot.

Dick pulled himself away, pretending inner conflict.
“I have a girlfriend. I’m in love with her. I just agreed to do this shoot to help out J.J. We have to cool this down a bit. I don’t want to do something I regret just because I met a guy who’s screwing with my head because he’s so beautiful. I don’t want to screw up my relationship. I plan to get married and have kids.”

Ran heard refusal. I heard old soap opera
theme music.

Disappointment
caused the Asian boy’s elegant features to droop. His lips had that blood red color from what I called kiss-punching. It made him look like he was wearing lipstick. “Oh man, that was crazy how great that was!” He effervesced, still toying with the collar of Dick’s shirt. His fingers danced like a piano-player's as he sat in the bigger man’s lap.

“
I know,” Dick said. “You’re really dangerous, what you’re bringing out in me. I don’t know how to deal with this.” He was angling his body around him to make Ran feel small against his largeness. The meat of one of his legs made two of Ran’s. His bicep was as thick as the boy's neck. Every move he made accentuated the comparison in their sizes so that Ran would feel dominated by him. It was a crafty display of physical superiority. Pulling him deep in his lap was letting him know he would fill him to the brim with his dick, make him scream with every inch of penetration. Ran responded to the manipulation with feline agility. He was ready for it.

I tuned the straight boy/gay boy drama out. I
’d heard it a hundred times. I had a shoot to plan for the next day. Thanks to the heavy pasta meal and their booze consumption, they both got tired quickly and made it to their individual rooms. Dick seemed odd, but I couldn’t place what it was. He had that black-eyed look again, but he didn’t seem depressed, or about to descend into one of his moods. There’d been no agitation in his voice. It still set me on edge.

We started
working early the next morning after breakfast. Outdoor shots at the lake and in the woods. The bromance stuff. Guys riding their bikes, kite-flying, paddle boating, playing tag football, and jogging. They did an improvised piggyback scene that was adorable. They used sticks to score a huge valentine's heart in the sand on the beach, which the lapping water soon washed away. We bought bagged lunches from a vendor. Just the thing for a picnic in the park and feeding the geese. They chased the squawking birds into the lake, which shone with confetti-like refracted  sunshine. Innocent, yet endearing and romantic.

I
’d rented the tiny local dance studio in a strip mall a few miles from the condo. It was closed on the weekends and only cost me a few dollars to cover the use of electricity. There we could do the dance and martial arts shots they both wanted to do. After dinner, we packed up the lights and some props and headed over there. They yapped like agitated magpies during the ten-minute ride there. Dick still had that shadowed look that made me uneasy. I’d seen it in people who looked tired and worn out; on edge. It made him look older, and because of his bone structure, the strong light turned his appearance ominous. I hoped once he became engrossed in the erotic aspects of the shoot his mood would ease up, making him appear less rough.

Ran had brought his ballet tights and pointe slippers. He had his own disc of music so that I could shoot a few of his ballet moves. I
’d never photographed anything like this, so it was exciting for me. More so for Dick who’d never been up close to anyone who could perform classical dance. We set up the lights, then the sound system with Ran’s music in the long, empty room. It had a polished wooden floor, one wall of mirrors with a ballet barre running the full length of the room, right down the center. He began to perform. His tights were a light charcoal as were the slippers, and with his lean torso he looked like a willow being swept along by the wind. Graceful, majestic; lighter than air. He educated us on the names of each move he performed. Ballet was without question the human body as art. I was moved by what he allowed me to capture. Dick, unblinking, was entranced by the visual treat. The boy tempted comparisons to something from the pages of a fairy tale. I could have shot nothing but his performance for the rest of the evening. I knew we still had the martial arts scene to shoot before getting him to bed. His bus left in the morning at the crack of dawn. It had already been a long night and day for him.