How Long Has This Been Going On (17 page)

"...going into the Continental?" the Kid asked.

Derek sighed, and Tommy said, "I heard all about the Y." "What," prompts the Kid, "did you hear?"

Tommy shrugged. "Guys go there to date. You know, they take a room and then hit the showers."

"I would love to watch you two together," said Derek quietly. "Tommy's strictly a bottom and Johnny is versatile," he reasoned, "so Johnny can do the honors."

"Go easy on me," Tommy told the Kid.

"I'll bang you halfway to Lourdes," Johnny snapped back, "you Humorette."

"No joking, now," Derek ordered. "It's a sacred moment. Two all-American boys coming in from wrestling practice. It's a... a soft afternoon-like picture."

Derek's voice took on lilt and wonder as he glided into another of his idylls.

"The gym is empty," he intoned. "The two boys strip and stretch their young muscles and head for the showers. Accidentally, the leg of one brushes the leg of the other. Thighs touch. They halt... Johnny, will you
please
stop giggling?"

"Derek, you make it ridiculous when you go into that play-by-play. You sound like Lowell Thomas narrating a fertility rite."

"Do it in your own way, then," said Derek, gesturing surrender.

Tommy was nervous as the Kid approached him.

"I love to see a boy very easily aroused," said Derek, mildly reproaching Tommy's quiescent member. "A boy who bursts out of his pants."

"Pretend," the Kid told Tommy. "You're the Contessa Dooit's chauffeur. Big strapping guy, really fits his coat. Heavy beard, huge jaw, chest hair curling up at his collar, moves slow and secure. Really
solid
guy, you know the kind?"

Tommy was staring at the Kid.

"Now, the Contessa's feeling horny and she sends for the chauffeur. A knock at the door. He enters."

The Kid had his hands on Tommy, massaging his back and shoulders.

"He walks in, two hundred fifty pounds of sizzling stew, and the Contessa is ready for it. She's ready."

"Yes," said Derek, opening his pants. "Yes, Johnny."

"The Contessa doesn't say, 'Hello.' The Contessa doesn't say, 'How are the carburetors?' The Contessa says, 'Take off my blouse.'"

Derek, working himself, began to breathe heavily, his eyes roaming up and down Tommy's body.

"Then the Contessa says, 'Take off my skirt.'"

Tommy, with a little help from the Kid's right hand, was growing out nicely.

"Then she says, 'Take off my bra and panties.'"

"Oh, Johnny.... Tommy boy."

"Then she says, 'If I ever catch you wearing my clothes again,
you're fired!'"

Derek was too deeply into his dream to react, and Tommy didn't get it. He turned around and put his arms around the Kid and whispered in the Kid's ear, "Aren't you going to fuck me?"

"Go on, Johnny," Derek urged as he fell back into a chair, pulling at his shirt buttons. "Like two corn-fed boys who don't know anything except how to be sweet to each other."

"On his tummy, or legs high?"

"Johnny, just
do
it. You're the Contessa, aren't you? The Contessa makes the rules."

"So I do," said Johnny, laying Tommy on his back on the bed, and kissing him from top to toe. "The stuff still in here?" he asked, pulling open a drawer. "Ah, so. K-Y in the tube, a boy's best friend."

"Don't hurt me," said Tommy.

"Be very, very kind to him," Derek insisted. "Make him fall in love with you."

"Just by fucking him?" asked the Kid, loosening Tommy up. "It takes more than that, Derek."

"Oh, Johnny, no. Boys fall in love with the man who makes the cream flow free."

"Say that three times fast," said the Kid, sliding inside Tommy's asshole.

"I never like this part," said Tommy.

"And I wish you were Sterling Hay den," the Kid replied.

"Oh, Lord," said Derek, beating off with an enthusiasm he never showed as an actor. "The beauty of the boys! Tommy! His ass upraised like that of some primeval sacrifice to greet Johnny's swollen portion—"

"—and his face about as sour as June Haver's," said the Kid, working away with Tommy, "when the Fox commissary served her a mere half portion of their primeval Green Goddess salad...."

"This hurts!" Tommy cried.

"Go on, Johnny!"

"You little shit!" the Kid murmured, picking up the tempo.

"Well, you're hurting me!"

"Partner me, princess!"

Derek, spending, gasped out, "Don't... fight... please... boys..." but the Kid was in a rather gung ho mood just then, lost in the abandon of his pleasure. Tommy was silent now, moving with it, and perhaps secretly content. They say it's an acquired taste; this may have been the moment of acquisition. Johnny's head slowly rose, eyes closed and teeth sharp, and he made it to Go. As so often in sex of this kind, the top came and the bottom didn't; but the night is young.

Lying on top of Tommy, panting and holding him tight and, when the boy tried to pull free, tighter, the Kid said, "Listen, boys, I am the Green Goddess."

Todd was only the second man with whom Frank had had sex in his entire life, and he was surprised at how different Todd was from Larken, more demanding, a coaxing and intrepid partner. Larken was soft, romantic. Todd was sin itself, a thing of such certain satisfaction that God has to outlaw it or the world will consist of little else. Not only did Frank get a lesson in kissing in places he hadn't known you were supposed to kiss in: He felt himself nearly enjoying it. And where Larken was a reluctant bottom, Todd was avid, a tensely possessive and wildly elated partner who sustained a cascade of dirty pep talk and who, after Frank came, jumped up to finish himself off by hand, his head nodding from left to right and his eyes alight, whistling through his teeth when he shot. It was wicked, shameless, grotesque, and wonderful. Frank felt so treacherous that he didn't dare go back to Larken's even after showering. He hopped into his car and sped off to Elysian Park to sit and think it over.

Now, Frank could come to terms with his guilt at having cheated on Larken, and his anger at his father for not listening, and even the realization that not too many people have been listening to him at all for his entire life, which is, what?, twenty-three years, okay? But what you don't come to terms with so easy is, How come sex is suddenly so
incredibly
terrific—and with someone I scarcely even know?

That crazy Todd. It's as if he wrote the handbook. What doesn't he know? He showed me this thing he called "Around the World," where you just lie there and he does it all, licks your skin every which way from your head all the way down, blows you real solid with your legs strung up over his shoulders so he can stroke your thighs while he's sucking, and then pushes you back so you're bent double, parts the cheeks of your ass—you're not going to believe this, right?—and licks you up there, too.

Scary, Frank thought, as he drove to the park. Indefinably scary. Something new in this old world. I mean, who in a hundred years would think of putting his mouth on someone's behind?

Where did Todd learn all this stuff, anyway? Around the World, no less! If I showed it to Larken, would he guess about Todd? Would it hurt him? Because I owe the guy too much now to risk that.

The midsummer sun was an hour or so from fading when Frank rustled into the park, hands in his pockets and eyes canvassing the many paths that lay ahead of him. He didn't know this park well, and simply let chance beckon to him. It took him up a hill, around a bend, then to a bench where he sat to watch the sky blur into its reds and gold. Frank thought, Getting out of law enforcement—that was right. Taking up with Larken—that was right. Sounding off to my dad—that was not right. And Todd—

"Hello, handsome," said a stranger, sitting next to Frank. "Know any ritzy jokes?"

"What do you call it," Frank asked, "when some guy licks around in your ass?"

"Heaven."

"No, the technical for it. What's the name of that act?"

"Rimming."

Frank didn't catch it. "Hit me again?"

"I rim, you rim, he shall have had to rim.
Rimo, rimas, rimat."

"Rimming," said Frank. "Okay."

"I don't, by the way," said the stranger, a pleasant-looking chap with heavy shoulders and a crew cut wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. He could have been a cop on his day off. "The medical penalties are a little—"

Frank, suddenly alert, said, "You a cop?"

"Man, are you kidding?"

Frank quickly asked, "What's a 'deuce'?"

"Huh?"

The guy seemed genuinely bewildered, and Frank relaxed. A deuce is a drunk driver, and any cop would have given something away at the question—a flicker of the eyes, a split second's pause. Anyway, cops know cops, right? This guy was either John Q. Public or one hell of an actor going to waste in Vice.

"Look," said the stranger, "I don't rim and I don't have leather sheets or a closet full of racy costumes. But if you're interested in some conventional sex..."

"But what's conventional?" Frank countered. "Everyone is different, so who decides what's conventional, right?" "You're really handsome. Do people continually tell you that?"

"I cheated on my boy friend today."

"Me, too. All the time."

"Well, don't smile about it," Frank chided him. "Don't you feel bad?"

"I hang my head," said the stranger, rather neutrally. "But one indiscretion here and there won't change the way I feel about him. Will it?"

"...Well..."

"For instance. Now, I could spend a very nice hour or so with you. And I could give everything I have to it. But then we'll say ta-ta and go back to real life. So what's bad? Who's hurt?"

"I keep thinking that something's rotten about it."

"While they're counting the votes," said the stranger, dryly, "shall we give it a whirl? My name's Don, by the way."

"Frank."

They shook hands.

"You're very thoughtful, Frank. Besides handsome. Your boy friend must be very happy."

"He's a very intelligent guy. He's sensitive and yet he's fearless. I like him, but also I admire him."

Don was looking at Frank with an odd expression. "Frank," he said, "I have the most awful premonition that you're one of those unbearably nice guys who destroy everyone with their niceness."

"Huh?"

Don got up. "I had one of you last fall. One hour with him and I was devastated for three months. I couldn't think about anything but how sweet and strong he was."

"Well, see?, it isn't just ta-ta and—"

"I won't go through that again. Sorry."

And off he went.

Fine, Frank thought.
Perfect
. All I need now is, like, a bottle of something, and I'm slobbering drunk and Larken is tending to me and never guessing what's been going on. Rejected for being unbearably nice in Elysian Park. I would have done it with that guy, too. He fit the bill.

Walking back to his car, Frank thought, So Larken's too basic and Todd's too crazy and I'm blurting out come-ons to guys on park benches.

That's some world I have here, huh?

Frank pulled into Larken's after dark with a bottle of vodka all set to flow. One look at the living room told him that Larken had returned, for there was junk all over the place, an unpacked grocery bag on the kitchen counter, and Larken's baseball cap peeking out from under the sofa.

Frank looked inside the bedroom and found Larken deep in a nap. He had supervised one move early that morning, then crossed town to the Valley to run a haul all the way to Long Beach, so the guy must have been pretty tuckered out.

Frank lay down beside Larken and held him and stroked his hair till he awoke, slowly, easily, with a whimpering "Hmuuh?"

"Hey."

"I saw your bag," said Larken, not yet turning to face Frank. "Are you here to stay?"

"Yeah. I had a fight with my dad."

"You'll make it up, I guess. But I want you to stay here anyway. Promise?"

"I love you so much, boy."

Now Larken turned to Frank, and the two held each other, dozing and breathing and nuzzling like puppies.

Larken said, "Sometimes I think I like this better than actual sex."

"It's nice like this," Frank agreed. "But I feel so fucking guilty, Lark. If you only knew."

"About your dad?"

"At least this way I'll feel too compromised to chew you out for sloppiness."

"What did I do now?"

"You didn't put the groceries away."

"Oh, that."

"Well, the milk and the eggs will... Never mind, I took care of it."

"I wish we could stay like this forever. No apologies to anyone."

"No apologies."

"No worries."

"No worries," Frank agreed, throwing his arms around Larken and still feeling horribly guilty about Todd, with whom he had a date for that night, when Larken would be out on a job.

"Just us," Larken said.

No doubt about it, Lois was thinking: Jill's needs the Kid. Not that business fell off while he was in San Francisco—they don't come for the music. But the Kid does give off some wonderful feelings, and it spreads through the place.

"What is it that Johnny gives the club?" Lois asked Elaine.

"A theme," Elaine replied, after some thought. "He centers its sense of identity and soothes its worries. Lois, I want to come back to Jill's to work."

"No."

"The lawyer is... not relishable."

"There's other jobs."

"All with men saying, Give me."

"It's not good for us to spend all day together, chick. I need room. I need someone to miss and come home to, not a shadow."

Elaine looked doubtful, so Lois said, "Look, are you with me or against me?"

She said the same thing to the Kid upon his return from San Francisco. Jill's had been getting by in his absence with a closeout-sale matinee idol with so little left of whatever he might once have had that he was forced to turn his act into one huge medley to hide the fact that no one was clapping.

"I'm for everybody in this club, one way or another," the Kid told Lois. "But I've got a career to set up, don't I? I wasn't put on earth to play Thriller Jill's for life."