Rough Trade (21 page)

Then a ball betrayed him, touching the bumper before the pocket, spinning out into the middle of the table. The kid stepped up and cleared it—hard and neat, the fall of ball into pocket becoming punches into Stanley’s gut this time.

The looks continued, too. After every shot, Billie would stop and look up at him—his eyes gleaming ice, his lips hot and full. Despite his nerves, Stanley felt his cock start to get hard. Yeah, after all this, he’d get himself a whore—some babe with easy hips and hungry lips, or he’d walk that way again and see what Richie would do for a ten-spot.

Billie sank a seven, quick and sharp. Looking up at Stanley, he smiled and licked his lips. The next ball missed the pocket.

Stanley stepped up, walking stiff to hide his stiffening cock. But he felt the edge nonetheless. Even though his mind was foggy with dicks, assholes, cunts, and tits, he still felt it—there—the game spelled out before him. The balls still respected him and they did what he wanted. One game, two, then it slipped away. He felt like he woke up, and the dream wasn’t real life. The balls laughed at him, slipping and sliding away from each other and the pockets.

Angry at himself and his throbbing dick, he walked back to the seats. He called over the black guy and asked for some Daniel’s. As Billie cleared the table and won the game, he finished the bottle. As Billie cleared the next, putting them in a tie, Stanley put the bottle on the linoleum floor—and saw that his hands were shaking.

That was it. The kid was ahead by two and they only had three more games to play. He looked up at Carson and saw the anger in his eyes, the fury that comes when you realize that your sure thing isn’t going to deliver. Another glance, this time at Portaphoi, gave Stanley nothing but a cool shiver as the black-on-black fancy-dan was smiling again—a little too wide, showing even another gold tooth.

Stanley looked at Billie, and there was that smile. That hot, inviting smile. In a moment, Stanley hated that smile. Hated the fact that the kid was going to smoke him, that he was going to run the game, take home his cut, put another gold tooth in Portaphoi’s head and make Stanley a loser.

Then it happened. Portaphoi couldn’t have seen it, but Carson certainly did, just as he certainly placed a fat roll in the kid’s pocket—but that was something that Stanley didn’t figure till later, lying in his still hotel room bed and staring up at the fly-specked ceiling. Stanley only saw it because he knew what it was: a shift of balance, too much spin, too little strength in the hit: the kid was playing the game several moves ahead too, but not to win. The kid had thrown the game, he’d tossed it away. For Stanley, probably just a little bit; but mostly for the game that Carson had played with him—the game they’d played on Portaphoi: and won.

The eight skipped too far to the left, bounced against a hovering three. Billie swore, a short, sharp “fuck!” and moved away.

Stanley sat there in the spectators’ seats, more aware that the sun was rising behind him—slowly heating the pool room—than he was that he was up. It took Carson walking toward him to make him blink, stand, and grab his cue. The rest of the games were easy, and he could have shot them even if he wasn’t somewhere else, lost in that last game of the kid’s.

It was over, the last ball sank neat and clean. He stared at the velvet for a long moment, at the empty table, and at the pale, narrow shaft of his cue—which didn’t look anything like his dick, just a cheap stick of wood. He didn’t see Portaphoi leave, didn’t see the muscle go. He only looked up when Carson put a wad of bills in his shirt pocket, saying, “Fucking great, Stanley.” When he did look up, he saw the kid standing there in the doorway, an inviting look in his eyes. But Stanley didn’t agree or disagree; he just looked down at the velvet and shook his head.

*

The walk back to the hotel was longer than the walk there. His steps were shorter, the blocks were longer, and the air—even though the sun was up – was much cooler. He must have walked the same way back as he had going to the hall, because as he passed an alley he heard a voice, gruff and thick with phlegm, say “Hey, hey, hey—”

But Stanley didn’t reply, even as the voice changed: “Mister! Got a buck, mister? Hey, you—I’m talkin’ to you.”

One foot in front of the other. Small steps. “Fucking loser asshole,” the voice in the alley said as Stanley walked past.

Realizing suddenly that he’d been recognized—again—Stanley just kept on walking.

Tricked

Jonathan Asche

“Okay if I smoke in your car?”

Ordinarily Martin would say no. He’d quit smoking six months ago and didn’t need the extra temptation (his willpower had already been strained being amongst all those smokers in the nightclub). Plus it would stink up the car’s interior, hurt its rapidly dwindling trade-in value.

But this wasn’t an ordinary moment. “Sure,” Martin said, smiling at the man—the
young
man—sitting in the passenger seat. Make that
slouched
down in the seat, like he was being pulled down by the weight of his crotch, Martin thought. He eyed the young man’s basket, bulging in his fashionably worn blue jeans. Martin’s heart quickened its pace, and his eyes traveled up the man’s torso, still bare, the street lamps and sheen of sweat making his taut, sinewy muscles gleam appealingly.

Soon, he thought, this will be mine.

His eyes stopped on the young man’s face—his features still soft, not yet hardened by time, though his eyes revealed a depth of experience. Martin’s eyes stopped at the mouth, an unlit Winston dangling from those fleshy, peach-colored lips. Those lips curled into a smile. Or was it a sneer?

“Checking out the merchandise?”

Martin looked away. “Sorry,” he mumbled, embarrassed, looking away and running his hands through his thinning brown hair. “You’re just…you’re…very attractive.”

The young man’s name was Ty. They’d met barely an hour ago, in Armory. Actually, Martin had been watching Ty for a while before they met, watching him gyrate on the dance floor. Martin stood on the sidelines, nursing his third bourbon and ginger, wishing he was ten years—hell,
twenty
years—younger, wishing he had the nerve to go out there and join Ty or any of the other hot, shirtless men undulating on the dance floor, all dancing together, though few with each other.

And it looked like all Martin would leave with was the mental pictures of those hot men who might fuel a listless jack-off session when he got home. That was, if he didn’t drink so much he couldn’t get it up.

Then, as Martin was ordering bourbon and ginger number four, Ty came bounding up beside him, bumping him on the shoulder. “Hey, dude, how’s it going?” he asked breathlessly, like they were buddies. “Uh, fine,” Martin stammered.
Like a goddamned dork.
Ty ordered a bottle of water and, for once, Martin acted impulsively. “I’ll get that,” he told the bartender, thrusting a twenty in his direction.

Ty suggested they go to the lobby of the club, where it was just a couple decibels quieter. Where they could talk. He kept touching Martin’s leg. He squeezed Martin’s arm, asking if he worked out. Martin felt eighteen again. His cock felt like it just got its first hormonal rush of puberty. Martin wasn’t sure if he hoped Ty didn’t notice the hard-on poking at the front of his khakis, or hoped that he did.

When Ty said he was ready to leave, asked if Martin minded giving him a ride, Martin quickly obliged. A ride to Ty’s apartment could only mean a ride on his dick.

“So, where are we going?” Martin asked, turning the ignition. The car rumbled to life.

“Depends on what you feel like doing.”

“Don’t waste time, do you?”

“Who’s got time to waste,” Ty said, finally lighting his cigarette.

“Well, we could go to my place. I live over in Decatur, but—”

“Decatur?” Ty snorted, exhaling a plume of smoke. “Don’t think so. How ’bout pulling around the corner.” He pointed to a dark, narrow side street. “There’s an alley you can park in. No one will bother us.”

“
That’s
preferable to Decatur?”

Ty took another drag. “You willing to spring for a motel?”

Martin was willing, and they were on their way, down Spring Street, blood racing through Martin’s veins and pulsing in his cock as he pondered all the possibilities with his young trick.

Twenty minutes and a $74 charge on Martin’s Visa later, they were entering room 206. Ty had put on his shirt—a body-hugging electric blue tee—for the walk from the car to the room, though he needn’t have bothered. Martin planned on tearing it off him in the next thirty seconds. He shut the door and prepared to do just that, but Ty was fishing another cigarette out of crumpled pack.

“Shouldn’t you save that for after?” Martin chuckled, walking toward his young trick. He couldn’t wait to feel that young, smooth body pressing up against his, to see what was bulging in those jeans.

“Let’s settle a few things first.”

“Settle?”

“Like how much you’re planning to spend.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Ty lit his cigarette. He tossed his lighter and pack of Winstons on the room’s fake woodgrain dresser. “You want to blow me, it’s twenty-five. I blow you, it’s thirty—fifty if you want to come in my mouth, but I don’t swallow. You want me to fuck you, that’s also fifty, and—”

“You’re…a
hustler?
” Martin’s excitement went into a tailspin, spiraling toward disappointment.

There was a definite sneer on Ty’s face now. “You didn’t expect me to give it to
you
for
free,
did you?”

Ty’s words were like a slap across the face, and Martin’s cheeks reddened accordingly.

“I guess not,” he said quietly.

“So, what’re you interested in?”

He should throw this guy out, Martin knew. Tell him thanks but no thanks. Push Ty out into the night to go find some other poor S.O.B. Find someone else who was looking back at what could’ve been but never was and make them think it might not be too late—only to make them feel a hundred years old. Find someone like Martin.

And once Ty (or whoever he
really
was) was gone, Martin would be left in the room. Alone. Hearing Ty’s words over and over.

You didn’t expect me to give it to
you
for
free
, did you?

Disappointment took a detour, speeding toward rage.

“How much to fuck
you?
” Martin asked.

“Hundred,” Ty said, smoke puffing between his lips, his head tilting upward as if to say, “Bring it on, motherfucker.” “But you have to wear a rubber. Don’t care how much extra you pay me.”

“No problem,” Martin said tightly, unbuckling his belt.

“So, can I see some cash?”

Martin stopped unfastening his pants and looked at Ty coldly. He reached for his wallet and rifled through the bills. Not quite a hundred bucks; only $92. Close enough for this cocksucker. He pulled the money from his billfold, holding it up for Ty to see.

Ty made a grab for it, but Martin pulled the cash out of his reach. He pushed Ty backward, roughly. “Not yet. After.”

“Hey, I don’t operate that way.”

“
I
do.” Martin stuck the money into his front pocket. “Now get undressed. And put out that goddamned cigarette.”

The two men stripped, silently, each eyeing the other with suspicion and curiosity. Ty shucked off his jeans and underwear (basic tighty-whities) in one quick motion. Though his torso was so smooth, he had surprisingly hairy legs. His black pubes were trimmed into a neat trapezoid, however. Just below Ty’s left pelvic bone was a tattoo: a cartoon rabbit munching on a carrot. Ty’s cock hung limply. The big bulge in his jeans was apparently owed to a pair of hefty, low-hanging balls.

Martin was surprised that he himself was hard as an anvil, his dick jutting forward like a sword. “Wow,” Ty whistled, and he actually sounded sincere.

“You got a rubber?” Martin asked, stroking his cock.

“Yeah, of course.” Ty picked his jeans up off the floor, rummaged around the pockets, bringing out two packets. He tossed them to Martin. One packet was a rubber; the other was a trial size tube of lubricant. Martin tore the condom wrapper open with his teeth. Quickly and efficiently he covered his cock. He snapped open the tube of lube, squirting some into his open palm and rubbing it over his hard-on.

“Get on the bed,” he ordered Ty.

“How you want me? From behind or face-to-face?”

“Face-to-face.” There was no question: Martin wanted to see this little bastard beg him to stop.

Ty sprawled back on the bed, his legs spread. Martin climbed on the bed with him, positioning himself between the hustler’s legs. He pushed Ty’s legs back, curling his body into a loose fetal position. Ty’s butthole was a puckered, dark tan ring, nestled in a valley of silky black hair. Martin squeezed the remaining lube on the hustler’s asshole, tossing the empty tube over his shoulder. He circled the rosebud with his index finger, lightly pressing the raised ass ring as he spread the slick liquid around. His finger then stopped at the hole, shut to invaders but easily opened. Martin pushed, and his index finger slipped inside the tan lips, into Ty’s warm chute. As he suspected, Ty’s sphincter didn’t offer much resistance.