The Price Of Dick (4 page)

I sold every one of the photos
from that first male/male shoot to seven different publishers and they asked for more. I officially recruited Mike to acquire new models. He seemed happy with that job assignment. He’d scour every gym and nightclub and community pool in the city and find the hottest guys to shoot with the hottest guys. I never saw anyone so eager to go to work.

I was looking forward to the prospect of actually forging a job niche that no one had done yet. The times they were
a changin’. More gay movies were being made. More gay books were being written. There would be a demand for this type of photography. I was very proud of myself. I wanted to be the best. I wanted the work I did for the male/male genre to be equal in artistic beauty to its hetero counterpart. This would be a great way to make a lasting name and business reputation for myself.

So life was
moving along on a nice even keel. Good things happening, with great things about to happen, and changes that held promise for doing something new and different. I wasn’t looking for anything to provide drama, or intrigue. In fact, I’ve always said I like my drama on the stage, not in my life. But lo and behold, there was a knock on my door at the beginning of that summer that delivered just those
gifts
right into my life.

It was
him. Yeah. The stud with bad bed manners. Dick with the beat-you-to-death dick. I hadn’t seen or heard from him for weeks before his sudden appearance at my door. He looked sad. Not a good sign when big, strong guys look sad. But I’m a good guy and I invited him in. It’s either a strong conscience or weak logic with us good guys that causes us to make decisions we live to regret. Sometimes a combination of both.

He was still
wearing his suit and tie, even though it was evening, which meant he’d come from his office and hadn’t been home yet. Mommy probably had dinner waiting on the table for him and was tapping her toe at the door. Made me wonder what was of such dire importance that he’d take the chance of standing up mommy, to be in my living room looking sad and asking if I had a beer, instead.

If you are inherently a good guy
, which I think I am, you instinctively want to help people even before you know what their problem may be. Which, as I examine that notion, makes good guys sound gullible. Con artists look for good guys because of that built-in gullibility. If they’re con artists that come in a sexually alluring package, a good guy can become a brainless idiot. Allow me to introduce myself.

He asked if he could just sit and watch television a while
. He needed some space; rough day and all. I handed him the remote. He drank his beer, sullenly staring at an old episode of
The X-Files
. He looked far away, his mind in a place no one wanted to be. I left him alone while I worked on some photos. Maybe a half an hour later he walked into the room where I worked. He had a beer in his hand, which I heard him open on the way. He stood in the doorway.

He began by telling me how much he admired me. That
’s always a good opener if getting someone’s attention is your goal. He liked that I was my own man; that I could be myself without worrying what others thought of me, and said that made me seem very strong in his eyes. I was liking me better and better the more he talked. It didn’t hurt that every time I looked at him I had some kind of teenage-like hormonal surge. Amazing how a confluence of praise and lust can just make your defensive barriers collapse like Jell-O on a hot stove.

I asked him what was wrong. People w
ho tell you they need space usually want you to invade it and ask what’s wrong. Otherwise they wouldn’t have invaded your space. And I ain’t going to lie. When he started rambling on with the redundant details of his job and how he was struggling to get ahead, I was still picturing that one night in my bed, pushing my aching dick through the crack of his ass, laying quarter-sized pearlescent droplets of myself all over those flawless mounds. I wanted to bite those muscled buns while he was telling me his problems.
Oink
.

I could tell there was something more; something deeper going on with him and he was having
difficulty spitting it out. I asked him to grab a beer for both of us. That seemed to be exactly what he wanted to hear. We sat, and cracked beers together. He took off his jacket and tie, unbuttoned his shirt and gazed off into the corner.

It was nothing I didn
’t expect.
Mommy
. He faced the same dilemma every night at the dinner table, every morning over breakfast before his mandatory appearance at Mass. He was coming unglued having to deal with her every day. The only reprieve was when he was at work, when she wasn’t calling him there. He rubbed his eyes as if there were tears there. I didn’t actually see any, but the idea of it was oddly endearing.

With a mixture of
fascination and dread, I had a feeling I knew where he was headed.

“
You’re absolutely the only person I have to talk to. My friends wouldn’t understand some things about me. I can’t talk to anyone at work. You’re the only guy I feel safe to tell my feelings to.”

Yep. Knew where
this was heading
.

“
I don’t know how to ask this but I haven’t got anyone else to go to, and I was wondering if I could stay with you? Live with you for a while. Be a roommate.” he looked at me, his face all knotting like he was still near tears. “I can sleep on the couch. I don’t have many clothes. I’d never bring anyone back. I can help pay the utilities...I can help you with your shoots...”

I almost had my denial figured
out before he uttered that last sentence, and then the wheels in my brain went spinning out like I was a NASCAR driver. It pushed everything else right out of my head. A hot, good-looking guy living in my apartment willing to help me with my shoots. I could have someone available any time for any shoot just by turning around and saying... “Hey there!” His face didn’t have to be in any of them if he didn’t want. A million covers were nothing but torsos. And he had one helluva torso.

It was a matter of weighing the conveniences against the inconveniences
of two grown men living in a two-bedroom apartment where one bedroom was used as a studio/office. One bathroom.

And there was another thing. After my last relationship, I vowed to live alone because I just liked the freedom of it. A lot of thoughts went racing
on perpetual left turns through my mind. Don’t think I wasn’t thinking of the possibility of a few more drunk sucks or even fucks with him if he became a roommate. Everyone was teachable.

So I said th
e words that would change pretty much everything about my life for a long, long time.

I had a room
mate.

Looking back now with the knowledge of wha
t an adept hustler Dick is, I wonder if this move was more about him rebelling at his mother’s domination over him, or if he thought he had spotted a complete sucker in me? Or both? Hindsight is a bitch making you question your own common sense like this.

It didn
’t take long that night for him to run home to the folks, make his announcement, and return with all his possessions. They lived thirty minutes away and between the time I agreed to his proposal and the time he returned with all of his belongings, only an hour and fifteen minutes had elapsed. I had to figure he’d packed his things long before he’d ever arrived at my house earlier that evening.

I cleaned out half the dresser and gave him the h
all closet for his suits. In a gesture of consideration, and because I worked late in the night, I gave him the bedroom. I’d be sleeping on the sofa from now on. It didn’t bother me to do that. Hell, I fell asleep on it many nights watching movies. Now I just wouldn’t have to get up and walk to the bed in the middle of the night.

Having someone around brought
out a new brand of excitement in me. I’d have to get used to cooking for two again, have spare keys made, and buy a second alarm clock. I was as excited as a teenager to have a new set of balls in a pair of underwear facing me each morning at the kitchen table. I was happy to have a sexual specimen parading around me daily as inspiration. He left the door open to the bathroom when he showered and I could see him naked beyond the glass. He rarely wore a shirt, and preferred going commando in sweat-shorts as he watched television or worked on files he brought home from his office. He had a tendency to prop his bare feet on the coffee table and rub them together as he worked. I could see him piss in the a.m. holding his morning wood down with three fingers and leaning forward to make certain the stream made it into the bowl. And that shaft was a marvel to behold, flaccid or non-flaccid. I realized why ancient cultures had worshipped the phallus.

I tried not to intrude on his space, but I don
’t think anyone ever intrigued me more. He’d sneak in to the second bedroom, which served as my makeshift studio, to use the computer at night. I could hear the porn he watched through the cracked door. Curious, I’d check the computer’s history just to see what he watched, what tripped his trigger, what got him off.

It was
titillating to discover another person’s sexual predilections. Out of ten pornos, only one was straight, but the guy in it was big and thick with a hole-tearing dick. I would have watched it myself, if only to see him. The woman was obviously there just to scream. How her pelvis didn’t fracture was a mystery. The other nine films were more revelatory of his tastes. The first one was European-made, Hungarian, and gay. All dark-haired, walnut-brown eyed, gorgeous, twenty-something hunks with uncut tools. It was set in a boarding school and the theme was schoolboys spying on other school boys fucking and sucking in the shadows and hidden places around the school. It was well-made, beautifully shot and the boys delivered the goo to paint the chins of their mates. It revved my motor too. The next one was about a man, neighbor to a jock, who liked to leave his curtains open so he could tease the man with his nightly sexual escapades. It boasted an assortment of greased-up, hairless athletes. Never my favorite, but it was well done and the idea more than provocative.

By the time I got to the fifth film, I
’d figured out the kinks of Dick Fitch. Voyeurism and exhibitionism. He liked to watch and be watched. I speculated how close he’d been to his fraternity brothers. He talked about them incessantly, like they were still a part of his everyday life. He’d spoken about watching the brothers, their names Joey and Jeff, masturbating. Had there been something more between the three of them? Nothing like a gay guy drawing on his fantasies about the rituals of college male bonding.

Listening to him talk to these guys on the phone was like living in an
alternate universe. Cliché jock sports talk peppered with typical references to women, women’s body parts and what to do with said body parts. This was followed with the
remember whens
of their glory days in the bars, drinking and hitting on yet more women. Apparently Dick’s nickname was “Lady Killer” because he was the champion of the group at sniffing out, going after and getting the kill in these scenarios. A real ladies’ man according to what I overheard of these conversations.

*  *  *

In the first few days, weeks and even months of being
roommates
, I’ll admit it was fun. My stale routines fell by the wayside quickly to adapt to the new ones that came from expecting someone home from work, having dinner ready, and going to the gym together.

One evening we ran into his dad and brothers at the gym. They were there to play
handball, and were waiting on a court. My introduction to them was stiff, but polite. They clearly didn’t know who this older man was that their son and brother had moved in with, and they were suspicious. It was written in the fixed smiles and polite distance they kept from me after shaking my hand. I didn’t take offense to it. In their place, I’d probably have similar sentiments.

One of the most peculiar and most memorable things we did came one evening after we
’d showered from our workout. He suggested we take a trip to his parents’ house. They were away on vacation in Mexico. I figured he had something else he needed to pick up and bring to the apartment. He was driving, I was just along for the ride.

His folks lived in one of the more affluent upper
-middle class suburbs. The houses were large, most had pools, and all were in the sight of the local Catholic Church and grade school. The same ones Dick had attended all through his youth. The church was where his mother still attended morning Mass. He hadn’t been back to a Mass since the move. They lived close enough to it that the sound of the steeple bell would startle you.

It was a beautiful house. Apparently his mother was fond of the color blue. It was everywhere in every room, if not in the paint, then in the wallpaper, wood trim or curtains. I
’m sure some would find it rather homey in its continuity. I found it a little creepy that she fixated on one shade in an endless palette of colors. That said quite a bit about her. There were several other things she had an affinity for. Crucifixes, which hung on at least one wall of every room. She seemed obsessed with Ronald Reagan. Pictures of the former Republican President hung like shrines throughout the place, and books about his life were tucked in every book nook.

Snatching two beers from their refrigerator,
Dick guided me to the basement stairs. They were carpeted and when he flicked on the light, I could see it was a finished interior. My gaze caught the edge of a pool table as we descended, and the wall that extended next to it was cluttered with an endless hodge-podge of framed family portraits. There were pictures from every age of his childhood. I could spot him because of that too-large chin of his, even though he was blonder and had worn glasses as an adolescent. It looked as if they’d been to every tourist spot on the planet, every lake to fish in, and every place to ride a horse. This was a family that appeared to believe in togetherness.

They had a regulation
sized billiard table, a
Dukes of Hazzard
pinball machine, a big screen television and stereo entertainment center with a leather sectional sofa, and a card table in one corner. Another hallway jutted off to the left just before the card table. He was leading me there. There were two bedrooms off this hallway. The first one had been converted into an office and the one at the far end had been his.

It was a moderate size room with a
queen-sized bed covered by a comforter that couldn’t have been nicer had Martha Stewart chosen it. There were shelves all over the walls. These all held trophies for every sport imaginable, his name etched into their golden plaques. He had me sit on the bed as he pulled out his picture albums. He’d brought me to his family home to show me his childhood. I was strangely touched.

Most of us live unremarkable lives dotted
here and there with a few memorable experiences. This family, however, appeared to plan out storybook vacations and record every small detail in photographs. I was having a Stepford moment looking at all these pictures of frozen, smiling faces. Then he brought out a scrapbook an uncle had made for him of every news clipping that had featured him in a sporting event from grade school through high school. He’d been both a wrestler and quarterback on the football team for the Catholic high school he attended. Even in his teenaged years Dick was the butch, all-American, red-blooded jock. To the nth-fucking-degree.

As I finished going through the last of the scrapbooks,
he brought us each another beer.

“
I don’t show a lot of people this stuff,” he said, standing at one of the shelves and eyeing the line of trophies on it. This particular group was for bowling.

I thanked him for the privilege, although I was still perplexed by it. I wondered if he
’d brought many girls here for the same show and tell.

“
They’re good people,” he was saying as he took a seat beside me, picking up the scrapbook and idly leafing through the pages. “My brothers are good people. They’re exactly what my mom wants them to be. They both married the first girls they ever dated. They both have the jobs my folks wanted them to have.” He looked at me. “I can’t be what they want me to be. I knew that when I was a kid. I did all those things,” he pointed at all the albums now spread on the bed between us, “because that’s what they expected. I can’t do that anymore. You just wake up one day and think, this is what I’ve always been but this isn’t me. You become this manufactured thing that others want you to be and there ain’t a bit of the real you in there.”

I told him I understood. A lot of closeted men lived exactly the same lives.

“You get caught in these traps playing the part people expect of you. Even my friends.” He shook his head. “I can’t live without my friends. They mean the world to me, but they all have this image of me that they came up with when they met me, and I’ve had to live up to that every day since.”

It was easy to say I sympathized.
They were just words. I’d never experienced it. I’d always been an artist, so I’d been strange from the get-go. Once I’d left my family’s home as a teenager, I’d never had to pretend to be anything, and people had just accepted me for my eccentricities, sexual and otherwise.

“
I think that’s why I really liked you right off,” he said. “You made me realize that I could be somebody else with you. Myself. Being around you is the first time I feel like I’m fucking free.”

Pat
, my ex, had done that for me. I was happy to be thought of in the same category.

“
I think I can learn a lot from you. That’s why I asked to move in with you. You can teach me the stuff I don’t know.” He laughed and added, “Definitely.”

I knew for a fact that I
’d already taught him one thing his family wouldn’t approve of. From everything I’d seen of them, he’d actually run the risk of being disowned. Or put through an exorcism.

“Was that a first for you?” I asked, simply out of curiosity. It would have been kind of neat to know I had been with a male-love virgin once in my life.

But he said,
“No. But it’s the first time I wanted to.”

I
didn’t know where to go with that. It wasn’t said in a manner that made me want to pry for more information. I did think, “Well whoever it was could have given you a few more pointers.”

I stood and thumbed through the rack of CDs on the dresser. He was a fan of
country music. I wouldn’t have guessed that.

What happened next no one could have predicted. He asked me to teach him how to kiss a man.

“I’ve actually never ever,” he confessed with a look of embarrassment.

I had two
simultaneous reactions. One you can predict on your own, and the other was shock.

“
Seriously?” I asked. “Not even as a fraternity prank?”

He shrugged.
“Only chicks. I don’t even have a clue how to approach kissing a dude.” He scratched his head. “I’m asking you because you’re my friend. One that I can trust. And I want to know how.”

“
That’s totally the strangest thing anyone has ever asked me to do,” I admitted.

He smiled.
“I don’t believe that." And then he stood to face me. He looked me in the eyes.

I told him to close his eyes. Then I gently took him by the back of the head and pulled him to my face. Instinctively, he opened his mouth and met mine. Our tongues found each other. I didn
’t have much to teach him. His arms came full around me and pulled me into him. He found the angles to keep exploring, to find a deeper entrance. And I felt both of us harden at once against each other’s jeans. I wasn’t instructing as much as responding when his large hands found their way under my T-shirt to my back. They were like dry heat against my skin. He pulled away and looked at me to see if his efforts met my approval. My face gave that answer away, and he came back at my lips for a second serving.