How To Rape A Straight Guy (4 page)

What a fuckin’ idiot.

Chapter Two

I walked with them over to Lenny’s place, that turned out to be Wayne’s, too.  They shared this townhouse or duplex or whatever you want to call it in West L-A, where the parkin’s the worst an’ parkin’ enforcement’s mean as a gangbanger after a week in solitary.  It wasn’t a fancy place on the outside -- I mean, from what I could tell in the dark -- but even with the nearest street lamp half a block away an’ the night clouded over, I could see they kept it up.  The two inches of front yard they had was covered with roses an’ this thick kind of ivy-like stuff reachin’ over the cement blocks beside the steps an’ up the cement walls.  The place was square with a flat roof -- not good in LA in the summer; makes the house hotter -- an’ a yellow light was on by an iron gate of a door.  The windows had bars over ‘em, too.  Reminded me of my six years at Mid-state, though this was a little cozier lookin’.

Inside, it was all done up in the best queer taste -- big solid antiques all over “draped” with pillows an’ afghans an’ flowers in vases or plants in pots, knickknack shelves an’ big-framed pictures coverin’ “tastefully subdued” wallpaper, windows that had what Connie once told me were “treatments” to give them “character” -- making it just scream “faggot hole.”  Most of the pictures were of smooth naked guys posing like girls with pouty lips an’ arms stretched back.  Like any real man’d think that’s sexy.  Made me want to laugh an’ puke at the same time.

What is it with fags buyin’ into everybody’s idea of what a fag is like?  Girly shit everywhere that no girl’d have in her place.  Connie’s big into nice things an’ decoratin’ an’ makin’ a place to her taste an’ all, but she never had crap like this around her.  She went for clean an’ simple an’ easy to keep up an’ comfortable, things that make a room a home an’ not some overdone shit you find in a decorator’s window.  But these two?  They’re the type that gives all fags a bad rap an’ keep it goin’.

I knew a couple of fags at Mid-State who were as much like a guy as me.  They were in for drugs -- possession, I think, but it might of been more -- an’ didn’t seem all that bright; but hey, look at me -- I ain’t exactly a poster boy for higher education.  But these guys, they were okay.  Couple of regular mutts, not overbuilt, not smooth skinned, not bitchy or faggotty, just a couple of...well, I guess they sort of fit into the stoner dude life an’ they just got off on each other.  That don’t mean they couldn’t fight if they had to.  One of ‘em knew Aikido an’ showed it off on a couple of vatos who thought he’d be funny on his tummy; the other just fought like a street punk, mean as shit an’ nowhere near as fair.  You could respect both of ‘em, even if they did like to suck dick.

I figure there’s lots more like ‘em all over the place.  But since all you see on the TV an’ in movies an’ in the news an’ shit is the weird ones, you think all of ‘em are weird.  An’ guys like Lenny an’ Wayne buy into the weirdness, too, an’ keep it goin’...just like most of the guys in queer town.

But at least Lenny made good on his word -- a dark ice cold Beck’s.  I dunno what it is, but black German beer makes me happy.  An’ horny.  Maybe it’s the bite to it.  How it don’t just pretend it’s beer, like that piss-water from Colorado, but first it lets you grab it an’ then it grabs you right back, like it’s sayin’, “I ain’t gonna play around, asshole; I’m the real shit.”  I once thought that I wouldn’t mind goin’ queer if I met a German faggot who owned a good brewery an’ was built good an’ liked it up the ass.  But most of the Germans I’ve seen look like sneaky rabbits, an’ I hear none of ‘em’s cut, so I guess that leaves that out.  Too bad, in a way.

I took a long drink of the beer an’ flopped onto a big-backed chair.  No sense in lettin’ myself wind up on the couch too quick, not till after the third or fourth Beck’s.  Maybe.  I was already buildin’ a little buzz from the Heinekens at the bar, though they don’t really count as bein’ beer ‘cause they brew ‘em here in the states an’ make ‘em half what they are in Europe.  I know ‘cause this one faggot I let have my dick had some direct from -- where’d he say?  Denmark?  Holland? -- but I’d had three or four, so I was gettin’ in the mood.

Lenny an’ Wayne sat on opposite ends of the couch, both lookin’ at me an’ tryin’ to be cool, but I could see their eyes dartin’ from my face to my crotch to my pecs to my legs then back to my face.  An’ I played ‘em, no question.  My jeans were tight an’ I wasn’t wearin’ my briefs; I took ‘em off last time I hit the john.  An’ I kept my legs apart, not so wide it looked like I was tryin’ to be hot but just wide enough to let ‘em get a good idea of what they could have.  I was figurin’ I’d get maybe two-fifty, three-hundred from ‘em an’ an encore at some later date, the way they were droolin’...Lenny way more than Wayne.

We bullshitted some -- about how good Beck’s is an’ how long they’d had their joint an’ how they thought of themselves as the West Coast “Felix an’ Oscar” but out of the closet.  Wayne had to explain to me about “The Odd Couple” since I never watched TV outside prison.  Never paid attention to reruns.  He did it like some bitchy old maid schoolteacher would; “Well now, little boy, this is a story about two middle-aged men who live together, and who are real opposites, in everything, and how they get on each other’s nerves, just like real people do,” an’ yap yap yap, just like a Chihuahua.  What did Lenny call him?  “Condescending.”  Yeah, that’s it.

Thing is, Wayne did look a little like Jack Lemmon.  I’d seen him in this old movie Connie made me watch, which I didn’t mind so much ‘cause I’ve always had the hots for Shirley McLaine; she looked like she could handle herself.  Anyway, Wayne had that same fussy directness an’ the same kind of hair an’ sort of the same chin, even if he was a good forty pounds heavier.

Now I could tell Lenny’s got all these questions he wants to ask me ‘bout what happened in prison, but he kept dancin’ around ‘em, like they were snakes tryin’ to bite him.  It was Wayne who finally gave up on the bullshit.

“Tell me something, Curt,” he said, leanin’ forward just a bit, his eyes lookin’ straight at me.  “Have you really raped a man?”

Lenny rolled his eyes at that an’ sneered, “Of course he has, twit.  He’s been in jail.  I mean, look at his tattoos.”

“Porn stars have the same kind of tattoos, Lenny,” he sniped back, “but they haven’t necessarily forced a man to have sex with them.”

“Porn” stars?  Fuckin’ asswipes that let themselves get fucked for cash on video?  That got my back up.  I glared at Wayne as I said, “You think I do porno?!”

He backed down a bit...but not much.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “That’s why I’m asking.”

That really pissed me off.  I swallowed the rest of my beer an’, since Lenny’s was on the glass coffee table between us, I helped myself to his.  He let me.  Then I leaned forward an’ looked straight into Wayne’s eyes an’ said, “I did six years at Mid-State.  For drugs.  They don’t allow private visits with your wife, an’ your right hand only goes so far.  You do the math.”

“But c’mon, there are other possibilities,” Wayne said.  “Gay men who are willing to have sex in exchange for -- .”

“They give you AIDS,” I said.

“Oh, now that’s insulting!”

“That’s the truth, you fuck!” I snapped.  “Most fags in prison got there ‘cause of drugs -- usin’ ‘em, whorin’ for ‘em, stealin’ to buy ‘em, that kind of shit.  If they ain’t got AIDS from gettin’ fucked, they got it from a needle.  Only dumb fucks do it with them.  Then those dumb fucks take it home to their wives an’ girlfriends, or they gang-bang a guy an’ give it to him an’ he takes it home when he’s let out.  Smart guys get fresh clean meat, straight guys in for the first time.  Smart guys keep ‘em to themselves as long as they can.”

“An’ you’re a smart guy?” Wayne asked.

I just sneered at him.  “I don’t think I’m all that fuckin’ dumb.”

“How many times have you been in?”

“Why?”

“Just curious.  You sound rather experienced for someone who’s only been to prison once.”

Shit, the fucker was payin’ attention.  An’ it was makin’ me feel...well, feel weird.  Like they wanted me t’ tell ‘em more than I really wanted to.  But it also felt...I dunno, felt good to be talkin’ to somebody besides Connie.  Somebody who acted like they gave a shit, even if they really didn’t.  Connie, she’d act like she’s listenin’, but after a while I figured out she was really thinkin’ ‘bout somethin’ like the costumes she had to pull together for nothin’ for some low-rent movie she was workin’ on, so I stopped tryin’ to talk with her.  But Wayne -- it seemed like he wanted to know.  Really wanted to.  An’ not just to be nice, y’know?  Or for chit-chat.

Then I got the idea there was somethin’ more goin’ on here, somethin’ I couldn’t quite figure out.  An’ I remembered I got the same vibe earlier from him, so it made me want to be careful with how much I did tell him.

I must of taken longer than I figured to answer, ‘cause Lenny added, “Well, are you up for a third strike?”

I shook my head.  “My first time, I was a kid.  They wiped it clean when I met probation.  Then came Mid-State.”

“Were you raped?”

That question came at me, low an’ quiet, from Wayne.  Now I remember I’d already told these two I wasn’t, so now I knew they didn’t believe me.  But I wasn’t gonna tell ‘em anything else.  Problem is, he got my mind ripped back to my first time inside.

I wasn’t even eighteen.  Just a dumb-shit kid who got too deep into pot an’ wound up havin’ to pay off his dealer by doin’ some transactions in “home room.”  I got narc’d out by this little fucker named Anthony on the school’s varsity baseball team.  Little “Mister Born Again” Boy Scout bought a joint off me an’ turned it over to the principal, who turned it over to Vice, who turned me over to the County Jail.

Now, I’d never been in trouble, before -- I mean, not where th’ cops had come down on me -- so it looked like it was just gonna be a smack the wrist time for this one.  They put me in a holding cell an’ called my mother to come bail me out.

Good ol’ mom did just like she always did -- she bailed.  Told ‘em to make me take care of it, myself; that she was “tired of dealin’ with me.”  Like she ever had really “dealt with me.”  Fuckin’ cunt.  She could get stoned an’ blasted an’ knock me around -- till I got big enough to knock her back -- an’ leave me to fend for myself most of my life, but th’ second I get in copland trouble, she figures, “Well, he sneaks out at night an’ gets stoned an’ had a fight or two an’ my new husband doesn’t like him, so he’s on his own.”  I hate her fuckin’ guts, an’ when I finished with that stint, I split.  I’ve only seen my brother, since.

So there I was, this scared punk kid caught dead to rights an’ no one backin’ me up, with a public defender who had a thousand other cases to follow.  He told me to plead guilty an’ he’d try to get leniency.  I got lucky; the prosecutor offered a plea bargain of six months in county, an’ the judge said that if I was good, they’d wipe the slate clean.  So in I went.

Since this was my first time in, I didn’t know what the fuck was goin’ on, but that didn’t stop the guards from actin’ like I should.  They treated me like I was the devil’s disciple or some such shit.  Anyway, I got transferred to a long-term wing an’ made it through bookin’ an’ th’ mug shot, okay.  But then they strip-searched me.  An’ then the pig that was doin’ it pulled on some rubber gloves an’ shoved his fingers up my ass.  Didn’t say a fuckin’ word about what he was gonna do, first; he just poked ‘em in.  I jumped an’ kicked him off me an’ the other guards smashed me ‘round the room for a few minutes.  Then they shoved me over a table an’ held me down an’ let th’ fucker dig up inside my ass lookin’ for I don’t know what.  When the finger-fuckin’ was done, he told me to wipe my ass an’ get dressed.  I did.  Then I started cryin’.  Swear to God, I couldn’t help myself -- I just started blubberin’.

Well, that made the fuckers laugh an’ sneer.  An’ this one motherfucker got down in my face an’ smiled an’ said, “You think you’re sorry now?  We’re gonna show you what sorry fuckin’ means, cocksucker.  We’re gonna teach you how to do time.”

Then they took me way in the back an’ down this block of cells.  All of ‘em were packed with guys who looked like they could rip your heart out with their pinkies.  The place reeked of piss an’ sweat, like six-year-old laundry, an’ the prisoners whistled an’ called out to me as I was escorted past.  I was really gettin’ scared that I was gonna wind up in some cell with a dozen black guys an’ they’d spend the night beatin’ me up for bein’ white.  I had no idea what could really happen.  Then they stopped before this one that had two sets o’ bunk beds...an’ three gang-banger “Latinos.”

One of the guards, this big fat ugly Mex named Martinez, shoved me in an’ slammed the gate shut.  Then he smiled an’ said, “Have fun,” an’ he an’ the other two guards walked away.

Those motherfuckers knew what was gonna happen.  No question in my mind.  They did it to punish me an’ his last crack was to let the vatos know it was okay.  ‘Cause soon as they left the floor, my fuckin’ cell-mates were surroundin’ me, askin’ me questions like, “What you in for, ese?” an’ “You a maricon, pendejo?” an’ shit like that.  I couldn’t get away from ‘em.

Now I wasn’t exactly a skinny-assed kid, back then.  I’d been half-back on the football team a couple years -- when things were lookin’ up for us, just after mom got married -- an’ I pumped a little iron, though nothin’ regular.  An’ I’d been in enough fights to know how to defend myself.  But that don’t mean shit when you’re faced with three guys who’ve had more fights in a month than you had all your life.

I tried to stay calm, tell ‘em everything was cool, that I was down with their deal.  But they kept circlin’ me an’ yankin’ me by my chin to make me look at ‘em an’ goin’ chest to chest with me.  Then one grabbed my ass an’ said, “Hey, I bet you a faggot.”  I clipped him with my elbow an’ that’s th’ only real hit I got in.  They didn’t punch me, back; they didn’t need to.  They just took hold of my arms an’ legs an’ carried me over to a bunk bed.

 Next thing I knew, I was bein’ held face down on a lower bunk, one vato sittin’ on my back, another one on my legs.  I was yellin’ an’ callin’ for the guards, even though I knew they wouldn’t come, ‘specially since the rest of the floor was yellin’ along with me.  Then this one chunky asshole named Paco slapped me a few times an’ told me I was gonna suck them off, told me that’s all they wanted.  An’ he told me that if I bit any one of ‘em, they’d cut my balls off.  He showed me a shiv to prove he could do it.  Then he pulled out this thing that looked like an eyedropper an’ was about th’ same size as one till he yanked it to where it was hard, an’ put it up to my mouth.