The next morning I woke up at six, groaned, turned to go back to sleep, and remembered that I had to meet Randy at the gym. Shit. I dragged my ass out of bed and was about to make a protein shake when I realized something amazing. I heard no crashing pans, no loud snoring, and no invitations to “wake and embrace the day.” Just silence.
My mother was stil sleeping.
Final y, a little peace. I had my drink, took my meds, grabbed a quick shower, shaved the usual places, and began the important task of choosing my outfit for the gym. I needed something tasteful, yet erotic, simple, but seductive, revealing but not too… aw fuck, let’s face it: I needed to dress like a whore again. Randy wasn’t the type to be interested in my sparkling conversation.
I threw on a pair of skimpy, almost translucent white running shorts with side slits. Truthful y, they looked more like underwear than pants. I squeezed into a tight little white T-shirt that has a picture of a basebal player and the word “Catcher” on it. I put on sneakers with no socks, a combination I found unsanitary but sexy. I took a look at myself in the mirror and realized there was just one thing missing: Nipple action. Freddy was right: It’s al about the boobage.
There’s an old stripper trick I learned from the movi e Showgirls. If you apply ice cubes to your nipples, they’l harden and stick out. Knowing how much Randy liked juicy tits, I figured I better meet him with my headlights on high.
I grabbed two ice cubes from the freezer and held them to my chest. But they melted too quickly and started dripping onto my shorts. Shit, I looked like I wet myself. I wanted to look excited to see Randy, but not that excited. I stripped off the shorts, put the ice cubes back on my chest, and leaned over so that the drips would fal harmlessly into the kitchen sink.
“What, I shudder to ask, are you doing?”
My mother was standing behind me.
I dropped the ice cubes.
“Mom!” I screamed. “Hel o! Naked here! Could you give me a minute?”
“Oh, please, like I haven’t seen that little tushy a mil ion times.” She swatted my ass.
“Mom!”
“Could you please stop screaming like that, darling? Maybe we can save the outraged ‘Moms’ until after I’ve had my coffee.” She reached around me to fil the pot.
I grabbed some paper towels off the rol by the sink and wrapped them around my waist.
“What were you doing, anyway?” my mother asked. She looked in the sink, then at me.
“My lord, were you icing your nipples?”
If I turned any redder, I would have exploded.
“Mom!”
“Again with the ‘Mom!’” she got herself a cup.
“I was not,” I said through gritted teeth, “icing my nipples.”
“Liar. Look at those things. You could take someone’s eye out.”
“Listen,” I told her. “I real y am going to die if you say one more word.”
“I used to do the same thing before my dates with your father, may the Lord rest his soul.”
“Dad’s not dead,” I reminded her, pul ing on my skimpy shorts.
“Wel, not yet,” she said a little wistful y.
I threw on my shirt and hurried to the door. “I gotta run.”
“Wait!” my mother cried after me. “You forgot your pants!”
Randy worked out at Pexx, a hot new gym in Tribeca. His magnificent body had made Randy a bit of a legend in NYC gyms and he usual y belonged to the best and newest ones. This was partly because A. new gyms often hired him to create some buzz, and B. he had already slept with al the real y hot guys at his last gym, so why not move on?
I took a cab to Pexx and arrived there sweaty and aggravated. Like most taxi drivers, this one didn’t believe in using air conditioning. I growled as I handed him the fare.
Pexx was a high tech gym, al stainless steel and industrial carpeting. The air was chil ed to a polar degree-I could have skipped the ice. Electronic dance music pounded from invisible speakers. I went to the front desk and told them I was thinking of joining. They gave me a day pass and I was in.
I walked into the weight room and spotted Randy right away. Al I had to do was fol ow the stares of half the guys in the room.
Randy was lying on an exercise bench doing chest presses. He was wearing baggy green basketbal shorts. The curve of his red underwear, and the throbbing menace within, was clearly visible.
His muscles bulged obscenely beneath his tight tank top. His arms looked as hard and smooth as marble straining beneath the heavy weight.
I remembered my own workout straining beneath Randy’s heavy weight and felt a tingling in my groin.
Stop that, you’re here on a mission.
Randy finished his set and sat up, bumping his head on the weight bar. He rubbed his head, cursed, and looked up. His eyes rol ed in their sockets. If this were a cartoon, he’d have stars and little bluebirds circling around his head.
Then he saw me. “Kevin,” he shouted.
He jumped off the bench and picked me up, effortlessly spinning me around. “You look tasty as ice cream,” he said, hugging me close.
“Thanks, you too.”
His hugging started to turn into grinding. “No, I mean real y, real y great,” he said huskily. “You know I always was kind of sweet on you. Such a hot little-brother piece of trim you are.” He grabbed my ass. “I missed these cupcakes.”
Randy spoke his own language of primal needs: everything was either sex or food. I pushed myself away. “What a surprise to see you here,” I lied.
Randy looked me up and down. I don’t know if eyes can smolder, but his seemed about to burst into flames. Al this sexual attention was starting to get to me.
“Come on, work in with me,” Randy offered. I looked at the three forty-five-pound weights on each side of the bar. “What,” Randy smirked, “want me to throw some more crackers on that?”
“Ha-ha,” I said, “very funny.” I walked around to the back of the bench. “How about I spot you?”
Randy lay back down. “How about you just stand there and inspire me.” In this position, he was looking right up my shorts. “I see London, I see France…” he began.
“Just lift,” I said. And he did, impressively, his body a perfect symphony of strength and symmetry.
And he was right-he didn’t need the spot at al.
I stood there for two more sets, and we made some smal talk. Randy continued to flirt outrageously, and I continued to remind myself that I didn’t come here to get laid. I needed to know what he knew about Al en’s death.
I was trying to figure out how to bring up Topic A when Randy sat up.
“Your turn.” He took two plates off each side. This I could handle.
I lay on the bench and grabbed the bar. Randy’s crotch loomed like heaven above me. His cotton-enclosed cock coiled menacingly.
It seemed to be growing.
I felt myself hardening in sympathetic response.
“Look at you down there,” Randy whispered huskily. “So fucking sweet and creamy. Such a smooth milkshake of a boy. I could slurp you right up.”
I put my hands on the bar to lift, but my blood seemed to be rushing elsewhere.
“I could rip those shorts right off with my teeth,”
Randy purred.
My eyes were riveted to his growing crotch, which seemed to be lowering.
Growing and lowering.
Then al of a sudden his half-hard cock slipped out of his underwear and flopped on my forehead.
“Hey!” I sat up suddenly.
This is when I learned A Very Important Lesson that should be part of every SAT study course: In an accident where a rapidly ascending big head impacts a slowly descending little head, the little head is going to get hurt.
Or, in simpler turns, when you head butt someone in the crotch, it’s gonna hurt.
“Shit!” Randy screamed. He grabbed his bal s and doubled over. “Holy fuck!”
I jumped off the bench and put my hand on his back. “Sorry, sorry, I got kind of startled.”
“Ow!” Randy hopped up and down a little before crouching again. “Fuck me, that hurts!”
“OK, OK,” I said, “I’m sorry.” I waited a few minutes until he seemed to be breathing normal y again.
“I feel terrible,” I said, flinging back my bangs and biting my lower lip. It’s one of my most seductive moves. “Let me buy you a protein shake and make it up to you.”
Randy nodded. “You got it, little man. And then we can talk about why you real y came here.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“You didn’t come here just to work out, did you?
You think I aced Al en Harrington.”
Holy shit. “I do?”
“Wel, I figured as much when you saw me there that night,” Randy said.
“I did?”
“In front of his building.”
“Oh, that. Yeah, wel, sure, I saw you and al,” I lied again, “but, you know, I didn’t think, wel, did you?”
“Come on,” Randy said, extending his hand. “Let’s get that drink.”
Fol owing Randy to the gym’s cafe, I tried not to be distracted by two things: 1. his admission that he had been to Al en’s apartment on the night of his death, and 2. his perfect, muscular ass. Focus, Kevin, focus.
We ordered protein shakes (I hadn’t actual y done any working out, so I got the best-tasting and least healthy one), and sat in a booth.
Randy started. “So, do you real y think I kil ed Al en?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I took a long sip of my shake. Stal ed. But Randy just waited.
“Wel,” I said, “no, of course not.”
“But you’ve seen me pretty angered up, right?” He was referring to the night he almost beat a deaf guy to death on my behalf.
“Were you angry at Al en?”
“Maybe I should be charging you for this information.” Randy grinned. “You know my time is costly, right?”
I took a dol ar out of my pocket and slid it to him.
“Nice, try, creampuff. I was thinking more along a trade.” Randy’s foot, which he managed to slip out of his sneaker, landed in my lap. “Maybe take it out on your ass. You look real sexy in that little pair of underwear you’re wearing.” He slipped the dol ar into his bag.
Once a hustler, always a hustler, I thought. Not that I was throwing any stones.
“It’s not underwear,” I said, trying to ignore his toes scraping up and down my crotch. “They’re gym shorts.”
“Look like underwear to me.”
“My mother said the same thing.”
Randy’s foot began tapping against my bal s. I felt myself start to swel.
“Your mother?”
“It’s a long story. She’s kind of living with me now.”
This revelation was so startling that Randy stopped moving his foot.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish.”
“Poor little dude.” Randy looked genuinely sympathetic. “You got yourself a whole world of troubles, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“Wel, then, I guess I’l stop torturing you.” He smiled, evil y. “Unless you like to be tortured, little dude.” He started with the foot-tapping again. “A little teasing. You like that? You like to be teased, little dude? It feels like you do.” His voice was getting a little husky.
I was ful y hard now. I knew he knew it, too. Damn, he was good at this.
“You know how much I like you, Randy.” I decided a little flattery might help me get the subject back where I wanted it. “Damn, you’re like the hottest guy I’ve even been with. I know Al en thought so, too. He never stopped thanking me for referring you.”
That stopped the foot again. “Al en,” Randy said.
“That is some fucked up shit.”
When in doubt, plunge right in. “So, what were you doing there that night?” I asked.
“Al en and I had a date,” Randy said.
I remembered the Budweiser I’d seen in Al en’s refrigerator. It was for Randy! But he also had two wine glasses set out. So he must have been expecting someone else.
“How was it?” I asked.
“How was what?” Randy looked puzzled. Wel, he looked more puzzled. He always looked a little puzzled.
“The date.”
Randy started the whole foot-rubbing thing again.
“What are you, the cops?” He pressed against me.
“Is this your nightstick?”
I let out a smal moan.
Randy grinned.
“Come on, man,” I said.
“You want more, baby?” Randy purred. “I could eat you up real good. Let me take you home and lay you out like lunch.”
Randy was distracting me with his food fetishes again, but also with that damn foot and the sexy huskiness of his voice. What were we talking about again?
“Or I could just do you right here,” Randy continued. “Slip right under this table and pul down those little white briefs you’re wearing. Take you in my mouth. Would you like that, baby? Think anyone would notice? Think they’d watch? Bet that would make it even hotter.”
I was about to lose al conscious thought when I realized what Randy was doing.
I sat back, pul ing away from him.
“You’re hustling me,” I told him.
“Huh?” Randy looked
I looked at him angrily. “You’re playing me. Dirty talk and that sexy whisper and that tricky little foot of yours. I’m not one of your customers, Randy.”
Randy’s face crumpled like a little boy’s, “I’m just doing what guys like me do, Kevin. Don’t you like it?”
“Of course I like it. But I’m not here for a goddamn foot job. I came here as a friend.”
“Why?”
“Because Al en was my friend, too, Randy.
Something terrible happened to him and I just want to know what it was.”
“You real y cared about him,” Randy said.
I nodded.
Randy looked even sadder. “I did, too, Kevin. He wasn’t like the other guys. He would talk to me, you know. He always wanted to know how I was, if I was taking care of myself. He used to try to teach me stuff, about investing, shit like that. Told me I had to think about my future. He always wanted to help me, you know?”
I nodded again.
“But of course, I never took him up on it, right? Big stupid Randy. Al muscles and cock and no fucking brain. That’s what everyone thinks, right? Wel, you know what? They’re right. That’s me, always thinking about the next workout, the next trick, the next hit.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Randy.” I wasn’t exactly lying, either. Randy had people smarts. He knew how to play them. And it’s not easy to be one of the hottest hustlers in a big city. Randy knew how to work it.
“I don’t think Al en did, either,” Randy said. He let out a big sigh. “So, what do you want to know?”
“How was your date with Al en that night?”
“We didn’t have it.”
Now it was my turn to look confused. “But you told me you did.”
“I did. Have it, I mean. But I didn’t have it. I mean, I had just gotten to his building when he cal ed me on my cel to cancel.”
“That wasn’t like him.”
“No. But he said something came up and he couldn’t see me. He said if it didn’t go wel, it might only take a minute, but he was hoping it would take a lot longer. He didn’t want me to wait.”
“It must have been important for him to cancel you at the last minute like that.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. So, I went down the street and had a coffee for awhile and then decided maybe I’d go by his building and give him a cal — see if his meeting was over. You know Al en-he said he’d pay me for my time. I’d’a taken the money, but I thought maybe if he was available I’d go earn it, too.”
“And when you got back to his building…”
“That’s when I saw him. Al laid out like that. Al broken.” Randy’s face crumbled again. “And I saw you, too. I almost went over to you, but I didn’t want to have to explain to the cops what I was doing there, you know?”
“Yeah, that might have been awkward.”
“Plus, you were talking to that super-hot cop, and I didn’t want to crash your party.”
He was talking about Tony. “Yeah, wel, that party was over a long time ago. But I understand why you stayed back.”
“I real y am sorry for you,” Randy said. “I mean, Al en was my best customer, but I know he was your best friend. I think it’s great that you’re doing this for him. Trying to figure out what happened. I’m sorry I was such an asshole before.”
“You weren’t an asshole, Randy. You were just doing what you do. And it’s not like I hated it,” I couldn’t help adding.
“Oh yeah.” Randy grinned. “Wel, the offer for a little under-the-table action is stil out there, baby.”
“Maybe some other time.” I smiled back. I was about to say goodbye when I suddenly thought of something.
“Listen, you said that Al en cancel ed because something came up, right?”
Randy nodded.
“And then you said you came back because you thought his meeting might be brief-he did say he was meeting someone, right?”
“Yeah, he said someone had just cal ed and said it was real y important that they talk. ‘In person.’ I remember he used that phrase. He said he didn’t know how it was going to go, though. That’s why he didn’t know how long he’d be.”
“He didn’t say who it was, did he?”
“Yeah, he did.” Randy said. “It was his son.”
“His son!” I shouted. The guys at the next booth turned to look at us. I repeated myself more quietly.
“His son. Did he say which one?”
“Did he have more than one?”
“Why didn’t you tel the cops?”
“How would I have explained what I was doing there?”
I knew the feeling. “Got ya.”
“You’re not gonna tel them, are you?”
I ran my fingers over my chest. “Cross my heart.”
Randy’s foot found its way back into my lap.
“So, what do you say?” he asked. “Do I stil get to sink my hot dog into your toasty buns?”
I stood. As much fun as Randy would be, his revelations inspired me to a different kind of action.
“Not this time, Randy. Can I take a rain check?”
“A check? Naw. You know I only take cash, Kevin.”
“I knew it!” Freddy screamed when I told him about Randy’s revelation. “I knew it was one of those freaky kids of his. It had to be the big one, the religious nut.
Michael. That other one couldn’t throw a basketbal off a balcony, let alone a grown man.”
We were sitting in Freddy’s office, where I headed immediately after my conversation with Randy. I couldn’t wait to tel Freddy my news in person.
“And I’m so proud of you,” Freddy said, ruffling my head. “Charlie’s littlest Angel, Although in the future, I’d prefer if you didn’t come to my office in your underwear. People talk, you know.”
“It’s not underwear,” I protested. “Oh, never mind about that. Al en hadn’t spoken to either of his sons in years. Why would one of them been going over there?”
“Maybe he just wanted to get in there so he could give his dad an impromptu flying lesson.”
I grimaced.
“Sorry about that,” Freddy continued. “But real y, maybe it was al just a setup.”
“Maybe,” I said. “So, what next?”
“Now, I think you cal Tony and tel him what you learned.”
“I’m not speaking to him.”
“Honey, this isn’t a lover’s spat. You have ‘material information in a homicide’. Wel, a possible homicide. I think that’s how they’d describe it on CSJ.”
“And how would I explain how I’d come across this
‘material information,’ huh? Without compromising me or Randy, that is?”
“You haven’t told Tony what you do for a living?”
“Hel, no!”
“Oy,” Freddy sighed. “Then I guess it’s back to Square One: We’re just going to have to solve this case ourselves.”
I sighed. Freddy was enjoying this.
“We need to get a better read on Michael.”
Freddy typed something into his computer. “OK, here’s the schedule for the Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. And look-tomorrow they’re having a free seminar.” He read on. “Oh, this is too perfect.”
“What is?”
“The seminar. ‘Flight from Homosexuality.’”
“You shitting me?”
“No, and listen to this: ‘Flight from Homosexuality is about breaking the dysfunctional patterns that bind you from leaping boldly into a brand new life. This seminar is the perfect jump-start for those of you brave enough to boldly spring out of the death-style of homosexuality and into the promise of a healthier lifestyle.’”
“‘ Flight from homosexuality,’” I repeated. “Leaping boldly?”
“Don’t forget ‘jump- start,’” said Freddy.
“Kind of heavy on the whole flying metaphor, isn’t it?”
“And kind of coincidental for a guy whose dad supposedly threw himself off a building.”
Shit. This was al getting very complicated again.
“Oh, and look,” Freddy enthused. “Michael Harrington himself is running the workshop. Talk about a hot ticket.”
“So,” I said, “wil you go with me tomorrow?”
“Honey,” Freddy grinned, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. That hunky white boy’s gonna teach this little fairy how to fly!”
I walked home from Freddy’s office, ignoring the catcal s and come-ons that my skimpy outfit encouraged.
I had a 2:00 date with a regular. That gave me two hours to kil. I decided to go to the gym and run home for a shower. At least I’d feel clean.
Dudley Chambers was one of the top psychiatrists in the entire city-not a bad achievement in a town with almost as many shrinks as taxis. Every month, I’d sit under the handsome fifty-something-year-old doctor’s desk and jerk him off while he participated in the board of director’s conference cal of the North American Analysts for the Advancement of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. That name was more than a mouthful, as was his dick, which must have topped nine inches.
With a cock like that, he real y didn’t need to pay for sex, but I wasn’t about to tel him that.
“I swear,” Dr. Chambers said, as he hung up the phone and scooted back to zip up his pants. “Your kind ministrations are the only things that get me through those excruciating cal s. Imagine, seven pseudo-intel ectuals who get paid al week to listen.
By the time they get on the phone, they are so pent up they just can’t shut up. They real y should find a healthier outlet for al those repressed feelings.” He patted my head. “Like I do.”
I grinned.
“Come sit up here, sweetheart,” he said, pointing to his lap. “Tel me what’s up with you.”
“Do you have a minute?” I asked.
“More than that, dear. And anything you have to say wil be more interesting than the posturing of those solipsistic bores I just escaped.”
I told him about how a friend had become involved with The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy, and about their promises that they could convert gay people to be straight.
“A dreadful sham, it is.” Dr. Chambers shook his head. “Yes, some smal percentage of gay people want very much to change, but why is that, my dear?
Because they’re il? Sick? Of course not! It’s because society puts such burdens on them, because they’re not strong enough to build a life for themselves. Any decent therapist, even one unfortunate enough to work at something cal ed The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy, would help such an individual to live a life congruent with his natural orientation.
“But some charlatans exploit these poor, tortured souls and take advantage of their desperation. They peddle false ‘cures,’ impossible ‘conversions.’ They push religion or psychiatry as tools to pervert the natural self.
“And what tools do they use? They inflict shame upon their clients, teach them to hate themselves.
How else could you get someone to repress something as basic as whom they’re born to love?”
Dr. Chambers scooted me off his lap and went to his bookshelf. “You should give this to your friend,” he said, handing me a copy of Wayne Besen’s Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth. “It exposes these frauds for the sick, self-hating bastards they are.”
“Self-hating?” I asked him.
“Often,” said Dr. Chambers. “Many of these supposed therapists claim to be
‘ex-gay’ themselves. They can only justify their own cognitive dissonance by trying to convert others to their own internalized loathing. If the ‘patient’ buys their bul shit, they can claim that it ‘works.’If the patient is healthy enough to get the hel out of there, the ‘therapist’ can feel moral y superior. It’s a win-win for these execrable exploiters of their brothers. But you know what they say.” Dr. Chambers sighed.
“Um, misery loves company?”
“No, I was thinking of ‘Life sucks, and so do I.’” Dr.
Chambers sank to his knees. “What say we double your fee?”
If Dr. Chambers gave advice as wel as he gave head, I might have to switch therapists. Feeling significantly more relaxed, and a couple of hundred richer, I hailed a cab and went home.
Should I make it to heaven, I have no doubt that the first meal they serve wil be my mother’s stuffed cabbage. Loading up a second plateful (note to self: double cardio at the gym tomorrow), I tried to remember why I needed her out of my apartment so bad.
Then she started to speak and it al came back to me.
“It’s curtains,” she said, watching with pride as I ate.
“Mmmm,” I said, swal owing. “Curtains for who?”
“Not ‘for who.’ ‘For what.’ Your apartment. I was thinking curtains.”
“I have blinds.”
“Blinds!” my mother repeated, as if I had just uttered a heresy. “Blinds are for doctors’ offices.
Curtains are for a home. You need curtains. And some throw pil ows. Matching. I’m thinking floral.”
“OK, thanks, but I think I’l pass.” I gestured around the room. “It’s fine.”
“My son should be doing better than ‘fine.’ You’re always tel ing me that you’re making good money on your consulting work. Which, by the way, I would like to know a little more about.”
That was an area I real y wanted to avoid.
“I’m real y a blinds kind of person.” I said. “I think curtains and pil ows attract too much dust. I might be al ergic to dust. I’l have to check that out. Besides, I like it the way it is.”
“What’s to like? Inmates have better rooms than this. I feel like I’m in prison here. Where’s the color?
Where’s the drama? Where are the tchotchkes?”
“It’s fine,” I repeated.
“I don’t know why you invite me here and ask for my opinion if you’re not going to take it,” she pouted.
“I love you, Mom, but I don’t remember the part where I asked for your opinion. Actual y, I don’t remember the part where I invited you, either.”
“I assume I have an open invitation to see my only son,” she said.
“You do. But don’t you miss your own home? Your husband? I know that Dad misses you.”
“Good,” she said. “Let him miss me. Now, tel me about your work.”
I paused. Looked around the room pensively.
Settled on the windows.
“Curtains,” I said thoughtful y. “You know, now that I think about it, maybe it’s not such a bad idea. What did you have in mind?”