Boy of the Westend

by Zack

  It had been on the escalator at Bond Street on his way home from that amazing Top Of The Pops experience, as he switched from the Central to the Bakerloo line, that he discovered a piece of folded paper. He’d unconsciously bobbed up on his toes and tucked his right hand into his pants’ back pocket. And there it was. Unfolded the paper measured about five by seven inches and at the top Mike saw the BBC World logo. Below that, in a hasty but legible scrawl he read:

  If you want to make some money, give me a call any Tues or Fri after six. xxx Jim.

  And there was a phone number.

  Jim. For a second, as he stepped off the top of the short escalator and flowed with the crowd around a tunnel which led over the top of the Bakerloo lines, Mike failed to connect. And then it hit him. The pat on his bum as the assistant floor manager pushed him into Jez McGowran’s dressing room hadn’t really been an encouraging gesture but Jim slipping the paper into his back pocket. His instant reaction was one of puzzled astonishment. Make money? And then irritation. The bastard had delivered him like a wrapped present to be seduced and… and what he’d dreamed of for days really, only… (oh, it made him angry) not in quite the way he’d fantasized it, damn it! He certainly wouldn’t be ringing that phone number. No way, man!

  That was two weeks ago now. But the Friday following the recording he hovered, hand over the phone on its hallway table by the front door, and even picked up the handset. For seconds he stared at the patch of red, green, and purple light washed across the small table surface and partway up the wall where the sun beamed through the stained-glass light of the front door. But then he replaced it. Make money? How? It all sounded very fishy. He thought of it again on the Tuesday, but then put it out of his mind. And now here was Jim, smiling slyly, still looking vaguely self-important even without the cloak of BBC officialdom.

  “I’ll take a roll of 35mm Ilford FP4, thirty-six exposures, please.”

  Mike nodded and swiveled around to the mass of diagonal wall holders stacked with an endless array of films. When he turned back with a box of Ilford film in his hand, he encountered Jim leaning over the counter. For a horrified moment, Mike saw his bright glass smeared with a finger print as Jim shifted weight.

  “You didn’t call.”

  Mike gave Daniel a quick glance again, but he was showing the other customer a range of three lenses. He looked Jim in the eye and shrugged. “How’d you find me?’

  “How many branches of Fox Talbot are there in London?”

  Mike shrugged. “Not many, I guess.”

  “Two, so, not hard to track you down.” Mike’s deep frown of puzzlement brought a grin to Jim’s canny face. “You told me. Where you worked, Vacation job? Remember?”

  Mike didn’t, but then… “What’s it all about?”

  Jim grinned and puffed his cheeks out, which made him resemble a kindly marmot. Mike wasn’t sure kindliness was on offer. Jim let go the air with a whoosh. “Ah, well, if you’d called me, you might have found out.” He sounded aggrieved, as if in deep disappointment.

  “Money? You said?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Could be. That Jez, he expects it free, if you know what I mean.” Jim tapped the side of his nose and winked. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. Pop bloody stars, deejays, they’re all the same. Get the groupies all hot and bothered and then…” He held out a hand palm down and rolled it from side to side. “And that’s the boys as much as the girls. I know, I seen it, plenty. Nobody out there has a clue what the telly stars get up to with the kids after a show, and them throwing themselves at their idols. Well, it doesn’t have to be for free. Give me that call. We’ll meet for a chat. How much?”

  Mike’s eyebrows pulled into another frown.

  Jim pointed at the carton in Mike’s hand

  “Oh, er…” He consulted a laminated chart under the counter. “Twenty-five pence.”

  Jim fished in the pocket of his jacket and handed over the right amount in coins. He picked up the film when Mike placed it on the counter and pocketed it. “Can I have a receipt, please?”

  As Mike laboriously filled out the details on a triplicate pad, Jim leaned over again and kept his voice low. “You had a good time with Jez, hey?”

  No answer.

  “Anyone ever tell you how cute you look biting your lip in concentration?”

  Mike stopped, glanced up from under his dark brows, and managed to prevent a smile gracing his chewed lip. “Fuck off.” He tore off the top copy and held it out. “There,” he said in a louder voice. “Thank you for shopping with Fox Talbot.”

  Jim threw out a short laugh. “You sound like some bloody American.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Call me.”

  “I’ll see. If I’ve the time.”

  “Call me, or you’ll make me regret it.” Jim snapped a two-finger salute against his temple, winked again and left the shop smartly.

  Rainwater gilded the streets when Mike emerged from the bowels of Tottenham Court Road tube station. Fortunately, the August storm had been short and sharp. Drips fell from the overhanging marquee of the Astoria cinema, so Mike pulled the bag he carried aside to prevent the film stock inside getting wet. Images of Monty Python and the Holy Grail assaulted him from the cinema’s side panels. He’d bunked off afternoon school with Jules a month ago to see it. Daniel Jude had sent him across town to make a delivery to an office in Broadwick Street, and his quickest route lay across Soho Square to Dean Street and down St. Annes’s Court to Wardour Street and then across into Broadwick just opposite.

  He ducked into the narrow alleyway on the corner of the Astoria and walked along the center of the virtually unused road. A narrow canyon, it was about wide enough for a Mini and not much else. Among the numerous poster bills plastered on the maroon-brick side walls of the Astoria, one screamed out for his attention. It used dayglo orange ink, so “scream” wasn’t much of an exaggeration. It sent a thrill like an electric shock zinging along his nerves to hit the top of his head and drip down inside, sharp tingles of erotic arousal. He stepped up on the narrow sidewalk. The advert wasn’t very large. It showed what appeared to be the cover of a magazine with an unadorned photograph of a young man, totally naked, sitting cross-legged on what looked like a bland rug against a blank dull-orange backdrop. A large book propped on his legs and opened wide protected his modesty. He wasn’t reading. He stared out from the magazine cover with an engaging come-to-bed smile. At the top on the blue surround the word PLAYGUY stood out in bright yellow capital letters. A small diagonal strap in black bearing the word Incognito in red ran across the left-hand top corner. Under the cover Mike read: “Britain’s Number One Magazine for Gay Men.” Smaller, on the next line appeared the instruction: “Available from all good sex shops and the Incognito Book Shop.” An address directed the potential customer to a street near Hammersmith, London W6 and the information that the store was open from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m., Mondays to Saturdays.

  Mike didn’t know any “good sex shops,” or even if sex shops were actually good. Highgate Village didn’t boast one (the school would have called for its immediate closure if one ever dared show its shiny lubricious head above the parapet). In fact, the concept of a shop selling sex had never occurred to him before, but he supposed they must exist in some universe, unless the poster was telling porkies. On the other hand… He was just saying to himself that Hammersmith wasn’t very far, when as luck would have it he saw ahead a brightly colored awning over the entrance to a Lovejoy’s shop. Painted-over windows bearing coy suggestions of lovemaking in simple abstracted graphics suggested something secret, salacious, forbidden, the trademark of taboo. He ground to a halt again, looked around, and realized he was, after all, in the heart of Soho, London’s red-light district.

  To go in or not to go in, that is the question. And then he saw the Adults Only warning.

  “Damn.”

  But then, was this a good sex shop? He decided to be a good boy.

  Delivery made, Mike hastened ba
ck to Baker Street, and when Daniel shooed him out the door before closing up at five, he dove back underground and grabbed a Metropolitan train to Hammersmith. Every nerve tingled with apprehension. The Incognito store was bound to have a twenty-one-age rule as well. Or not? It didn’t take long to locate the shop, which from the outside looked innocuous enough: a double-fronted window display of two very boring vases was squeezed between a green grocer on one side and an emporium displaying vaguely Oriental goods on the other. In the last school vacation, Mike had fallen in with a couple of deracinated hippies who he suspected were on the run from the U.S. Army after fleeing Vietnam years before. He knew them because they rented a basement flat on Fairhazel Gardens, which was one of two other properties his parents owned. The hippies earned a living from “importing” Afghan rugs in which, rolled up, came quantities of high-grade cannabis resin and, he suspected, rather more virulent intoxicants. Mike had lied to Jez when he said he only smoked the occasional ciggy. Randall and Henderson (who sounded like some American sitcom to Mike) were insistent hosts when it came to divvying up the spliffs to the itinerants who passed through London and somehow seemed to know the two Americans and where to find them. The rugs thrown rather haphazardly in the window of this Hammersmith shop reminded Mike of Randall and Henderson. No doubt inside, you could request a bong to go with your joss sticks.

  None of this made pushing through the Incognito entryway any easier, boring vases in the windows notwithstanding, and after a few minute’s indecision, he backed off to stand across the street and sway from one foot to the other in a bother of indecision while he observed the shop. He saw the odd movement of indistinct figures behind the grimy sash windows on the two floors above, but nothing indicated what fevered operations might be going on inside.

  On the ground turnover seemed fairly brisk, and in the space of fifteen minutes he saw eight guys disappear inside and several different ones leave with plain brown paper bags under their arms. He came to a resolution and waited only until a likely looking man came down the street and paused outside Incognito a moment. Mike strode quickly back across the street and arrived just in time to follow the new customer’s footsteps into the shop. Nerves a-jangle, he stepped into an area that at first glance looked like any average newsstand. He even saw a stack of Gay News and was somewhat surprised and shocked that such a journal actually existed. It even looked serious, like a real newspaper.

  But he felt so conspicuous even though he was only faintly aware of furtive rustlings which proved what he knew, that he was not alone in there. A guy dressed head to toe in biker’s black leather, a complex winding of silver chains, and a fancy leather cap, turned from browsing a small book to look Mike up and down. Cool eyes examined and took an audit. Their slight narrowing felt predatory, like the man was sizing him up for something. Bed maybe? Mike hurriedly stepped across to the free-standing magazine rack which hid him from prying eyes. He spotted the cover of the magazine he’d seen on the wall of the Astoria, Playguy. He picked it off the rack, and with only a few casual flicks from the back to front pages, knew he had to have it. Christ, just one of the pictures inside gave him a hard-on.

  He peered carefully around the end of the rack. At the far end of the shop, a smartly dressed beanpole stood leaning on the other side of a counter piled high with… well, Mike wasn’t sure he believed his eyes. He knew his cheeks were burning, and turned hurriedly back to a perusal of the other magazines: Hung Heavy, Taste of Beefcake, Black Studs, Leather Studs, Man To Man. Even the one with the safe-sounding title Jeffrey contained nude men in rather poor reproduction.

  “I really have to ask. Just how old are you?”

  Mike sniffed. He’d plucked up the courage to finally approach the sales counter with the copy of Playguy in hand. Devices and contraptions for which he could conceive no practical use and couldn’t imagine anyone wanting lay in a cluttered pile at one end of the glass-topped counter (which was rather finger-print smeared, he noted with professional disdain). His eyes skittered fearfully over the objects to come to rest on something safer. He didn’t think his tall questioner behind the counter, in his skin-tight jeans and skimpy small-checkered shirt looked much older than he did. At least he asked in a friendly way as he flicked a hank of obviously dyed strawberry-to-fair hair from his forehead.

  Mike tried for an ingratiating smile. “How old do I have to be?”

  “Old enough, sweetheart.” It didn’t look as though he was about refuse Mike, because he started loading the Playguy into a brown paper bag as he spoke. “Management likes to say over twenty-one.” The smile was private, just for them. He gazed at Mike from the corner of his eyes with his head held to one side. “And I’d hazard you might just possibly be a bit off that. That’ll be a pound.”

  Mike gulped at the price—the mag wasn’t that thick. He dipped into his pocket to come up with a pound coin. “I’m old enough.”

  “You’re a sweet chicken, baby, and if my boss comes down the stairs he’ll toss you out on your ear. Or maybe throw you to the hawks that hover about here.”

  Mike turned to look with some alarm at the hallway behind the counter and the stairs he could see rising up beyond the doorway, up to where he imagined the boss lurked. There didn’t appear to be much room for people to get up or down past the stack of papers, boxes overflowing with books, and piled magazines. One cover caught his shocked eyes where it stuck up from a tatty cardboard box piled with other detritus. It featured in black and white a naked youngster seen from the waist up, with what was obviously cum dripping from his smiling lips. Mike could easily see the title: Mouthful.

  “Either that, or one of the editors like Aiden Parnell will whip you into the studio, strip you off, and take pictures of you for the next issue of this.” He handed Mike the wrapped magazine.

  “Don’t worry, poppet.” The new voice was gravel on rock and came from behind. Mike whipped around to find Mr. Leather standing right behind him, thumbs hooked into the tight slits of pockets. “They’re all busy slavering away up there over new issues of creative porn.” Mike swallowed nervously. The man exuded a heady scent of sweat, leather, and something undefined but a bit sweet-sour, like a cologne slightly gone off. He reached past Mike to drop a Taste of Beefcake on the counter. “Take no notice of Daphne, here. She’s just ratchety cos she didn’t score last night down the Catacombs.”

  “Bitch! You weren’t even there.”

  “Nope. Coleherne for me. Can’t be doing with all the pansy boys flopping about.” He turned to eye Mike closely. “You look like a Catacombs type of kid. But if you prefer something a bit tougher, a bit more like this—”

  “Jerry! Don’t fiddle with the merchandise,” Daphne snapped as Mr. Jerry Leather waved something in Mike’s face.

  Christ alive! It— it’s a giant plastic dick. He simply hadn’t taken in some of the weird things piled on the sales counter, or his brain had refused to accept what his eyes fed it.

  Unfazed, Jerry replaced the plastic cock, slapped two coins down, and picked up his magazine. “Nah, don’t bother with a bag.” He tapped Mike on the shoulder with the rolled up Taste of Beefcake. “Or if you’re an early evening kinda person, how’s about a session with me in one of Daphne’s cine booths?”

  “They’re switched off. And leave him alone. He’s a new customer, and we don’t want you frightening them off.”

  Jerry gave vent to a deep chuckle, ducked his head sharply at Mike in salute, and walked bow-legged toward the exit.

  The words had attracted Mike’s attention. “Cine booth? What’s that? And why’s he call you Daphne? Don’t you mind?” Mike hadn’t noticed anything particularly effeminate in the sales guy beyond a few words like sweetheart.

  “Dear boy. You have such a lot to learn, I can see. For one, my name is David and surname Du Maurier. No? The famous novelist? Anyone home?” He tapped the side of Mike’s head peremptorily. “Wrote Rebecca, among many others?”

  “Oh, sorry, the Hitchcock film.”

 
Big heavenward flick of the eyes. “Well, she wrote the book. He made the film. And her first name is Daphne. Geddit? Good.”

  “And Hitch said he found it better to make good films from crappy novels,” Mike interrupted sulkily.

  David-Daphne screwed up his left eye and twisted his lips ferociously like Long John Silver on a mission of evisceration. “Second —” It came out as a hiss, not very piratical. “—while I might allow you to get away with pretending to be older than you are so you can buy a nice mag like Playguy, I can’t let you into one of those cabins to watch 8mm loops of boys and real men having sex. Besides, they’re not much fun unless you’ve got someone nice to watch them with, and that Jerry Murdoch monster would gobble up a tasty chicken like you in seconds. Now pet, you’d better fuck off.” He sniffed and turned his head up to look meaningfully at the ceiling.

  “Do they do the magazines up there?”

  “They do indeed.” Dave leaned forward confidentially. “Take my advice. You want to come back for something, make it a Thursday, like today, or a Friday after two. That’s when I’m usually keeping shop, and everyone else in this benighted company is occupied getting deadlines kept. Any of the others who work down here at other times will probably turf you out, although—as I said—I wouldn’t bet on Aidan Parnell turning you down for a modeling session. You look as if you’ve the muscu- lature.” He dragged out the last two syllables so they came out sounding French.

  It was all a bit much. Head whirling, Mike nodded a farewell and beat a retreat out onto the street with his plain brown paper bag clutched tightly in his fist.

  Back at the empty flat in Aberdare Gardens, he relished his loneliness and planned a long session absorbing every page of Playguy. He noted it was the fourth issue. With the magazine open flat on his pillow, he stretched out on his stomach, and was glad Will was not around to see him humping the bed as, eyes agog, he flicked through pages of partially clothed and naked young men. None was powerfully aroused, which seemed to be a general rule in all the pictures, but he hadn’t seen so many semi-hard cocks before. The writing, however, was much raunchier, and he was soon rigid against the mattress. And then, near the center came a comic-strip story titled The Hitchhiker. Just three pages, but about the most erotic thing Mike had ever seen.