by William Poe
“How much money did you make today?” Gus asked, as if it meant anything to him. I had sold quite a few titles from Wally’s library, but only mentioned one.
“Everyone likes Bel Air Babes. Kathy will be a fantasy in every part of the world, at the rate I’m going.”
Kathy looked up from her plate of formaggio and sipped her glass of barbaresco without comprehending what I meant. I wondered if she even knew that she was in the video with everything exposed except what people couldn’t see because she had her legs crossed on Gus’s lap.
“I’ve sold to half of Europe and most of Asia. Now I’m working on South America.”
Kathy whispered something in Gus’s ear as her hand slipped under the table.
“That’s right, dear,” Gus said. “You’re a fantasy to other people, but you’re mine to touch.”
I’d just have to gag all the way to the bank.
By the end of MIFED, I had written enough contracts to keep me busy until the American Film Market. If everyone paid, it would push my gross assets to several hundred thousand dollars. I figured a treat was in order and decided to investigate Thad’s you-eat-me bar.
Instead of going back to the hotel to change into casual clothes, I kept on my Christian Dior suit and hailed a taxi. I tried my best to articulate the Italian name, Uiti bar. The driver had no idea what I was saying, but following advice Nicolò had given me, I pronounced the words as flamboyantly as I could, something like Oo-ee-tee-bahr, Por Favor-eh.
The taxi driver shook his hand in the air to indicate that he understood. We headed to an industrial section of town. As we got near our destination, the driver rattled off phrases that eluded me. The only word I understood was finocchio—Italian slang for queer.
“Oui, je suis gay,” I said, wondering if he spoke French, as many Italians did. I knew a few phrases from my work with French members of the church.
The man muttered bitterly as he navigated a side street. He was so anxious to get away from the area that he nearly ripped off my arm as he gunned the engine after I handed his cash through the window.
I found myself alone on a cobblestone street with no one in sight. An incandescent light dangled over an anonymous door recessed into one of the buildings. A note above a buzzer had to say, Push to Enter, so I did.
A clanging noise echoed from inside the building. Within moments, a dark-haired youth opened the door and motioned for me to come inside. I followed him down a spiral staircase to a landing where an almost-naked boy asked if I wanted to check my overcoat. The lad was exquisite in his net shirt that just reached the top of his jockstrap. He flashed a toothy grin as I gawked.
Down another turn of the spiral stairway, we entered the main bar—a smallish room, more brightly lit than gay clubs in Hollywood. A row of booths ran opposite a long bar. Scattered about were small patio tables with hard benches where hustlers sat entertaining their tricks.
I found an empty barstool and tried to order a drink, not an easy task since the bartender didn’t speak a word of English. He eventually understood “beer” and exclaimed, “Ah, bira!” proceeding to pour the house draft into a stein.
My poor command of French helped get across a pressing question—how much the boys charged.
“Je voudrais le garçon. J’ai l’argent.”
The bartender laughed as I opened my wallet and showed him my cash. He pointed to a £50,000 note. I laid a generous tip on the bar and put away my wallet. The bartender treated me to a shot of alcohol that tasted like licorice.
One cannot open one’s wallet in a hustler bar without being noticed. A cute fellow approached and invited himself to sit next to me. He wasn’t exactly what I was looking for—a little older than I typically preferred—but there was something to say for availability. Most of the guys were already deep in negotiations with prospective clients.
As was the style in Milan that season, the fellow wore tight jeans with short cuffs that exposed his white crew socks. His plaid shirt made him look somewhat like a lumberjack, but his brown derby contradicted the effect. His black hair was cut unevenly, as if a friend had trimmed it for him.
“What’s your name?” I asked, hoping he spoke English.
“Yasha,” the boy responded. “I am Yasha. You have name?”
“Simon. Do you speak English?”
“No really,” Yasha said, then whispered in my ear. “I like sexy. You want I sex you?”
Without actually committing, I managed to communicate that I’d like to go to a different bar. Uiti Bar was interesting, but I wanted to experience more of the gay scene. Yasha led me up the spiral staircase. The jockstrap boy winked as he handed me my overcoat. He practically threw Yasha his coat, which was stashed under the counter. They obviously had some bad history between them.
Yasha whistled for a taxi passing on a distant street and directed the driver to take us to another part of Milan. We circled an ancient mausoleum, drove past the Sforza castle, and finally made it to a discotheque. It was larger than any club in Hollywood. The dance floor was a riot of purple and blue lights emanating from an array of neon fixtures that lined the walls. Lasers darted across the dance floor, creating fantastic geometries.
We danced to the heavy throb of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” When it ended, I went to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic.
A George Michael song played next, “I Want Your Sex.” Yasha sang along, misstating the words as “I want to sex.” Suddenly, though, he had danced enough.
“We go,” he said.
The cover charge had been the equivalent of fifty dollars. I was in no hurry to leave. Yasha pulled me into the bathroom and pushed me inside a stall. He plunged his tongue down my throat and rubbed his leg against the mounting pressure between my legs. He butted his forehead against mine and looked me in the eyes, the way Lyle had done when he wanted his way. “We go, Daddy?” Yasha pleaded.
To a new disco it was.
I was so drunk that my awareness of our surroundings began to blur as Yasha took me to one club and then another. At some point, we were making out in the back of a taxi with our pants around our knees and my overcoat draped across our laps. Then we were at the Michelangelo.
Yasha kissed me on the ear as he took money from my wallet to pay the cab fare. We stumbled through the lobby toward the elevator. It seemed to take forever to get the key into the lock and open the door.
I collapsed on the bed while Yasha undressed. He had a chiseled body. I kept thinking of Donatello’s David when I saw him standing before me in nothing but his bowler hat. Yasha tossed the hat on a chair, ripped off my clothes, and was on top of me. I drifted into a stupor.
Something startled me. My first reaction was to scream, but I couldn’t move. My arms were stretched above my head and secured to the headboard with my knotted shirt. A sock was stuffed in my mouth. My legs were spread with my feet tied at the bottom of the bed. Yasha was sitting on top of me. When I struggled to turn over, he grabbed the back of my head.
“You wake for Yasha?” he said, pulling my head sideways so I could see him better. He puffed on a cigarette to get it hot and pointed it at my face.
“I burn you?” he threatened.
The sock prevented me from screaming. All I could manage was a pathetic moan.
Yasha lowered the cigarette so dangerously close to my eyes that I could feel its heat. He burst into laughter, positioning himself over me so he could touch my cheek with his hard cock.
“My dick cut, like Jesus. Not like Catholic man,” Yasha said. “I’ve got a Jesus dick.”
What was this, a demon sent to exact punishment on me for abandoning God?
Yasha laughed like a wolf baying over helpless prey. I clenched my teeth as Yasha pressed the cigarette into my ass.
“I baptize with fire, now I fuck you,” Yasha said.
My throat tightened, and I began to choke.
Yasha drove his cock through my seared sphincter, laughing at the pain it caused me. When I tried to lift my
head from the pillow, Yasha smacked it down. I wondered if this would end with him snapping my neck.
Just rewards for a life of sin, sounded a taunting voice. It seemed fitting that I should die so far from home, at the hands of a sadist who compared his cock to the body of Jesus.
Yasha yelled into my ear every time I passed out. He wanted an attentive victim. He pumped harder as he tore into me. Yasha got what he wanted—the chance to ejaculate into a terrified body racked with pain. When he came, he lost interest. I watched Yasha dispassionately as he dressed himself, primping in the mirror, positioning his bowler hat from side to side until he was satisfied with the way it looked. He picked up my suit pants and fumbled around for my wallet.
“We spend your money,” he said, turning the wallet upside down. I was sure he’d get angry and start tormenting me again, but he didn’t seem to care. He took one of my business cards and said, “Maybe I see you in Hollywood.”
I stared blankly as he untied my arms. I was cold, as if paralyzed. I couldn’t feel my body.
Yasha kissed my forehead. Before leaving, he said, “You fuck good.” Then he shut the door quietly behind him.
It felt as though a hot coal had been pressed into my ass. I went to the shower and doused myself with cold water. When I made it back to the bed, I collapsed, not waking until late the next day. My only thought was to get antibiotics. I managed to dress and made it to a pharmacy down the street. Applying ointment, I realized that my burn was not as severe as it felt. Yasha had been more threatening than truly torturous and had not actually inserted the ember. My imagination had been a willing participant to his sadism.
I stayed in bed the rest of the day, shivering more from disgust and fright than actual pain. Whenever I tried to sleep, I would awaken in a sweat, sure that Yasha was in the room. Once, I woke up repenting with a prayer I had learned as a member of the church: In the name of God and the True Parents, Amen.
MIFED was ending, and I had to clear out the office. I arranged to have the remaining flyers and posters sent back to LA and got in touch with a few buyers who still needed to sign letters of agreement.
It had been over three days since I last saw my traveling companions. I knocked on their door and was greeted by Gus, who was wearing nothing but a pair of sagging boxers. He looked skinnier without his clothes. The room smelled like a bathhouse, ripe with the odor of old sex.
“There’s no more business to be done at the market,” I said. “We may as well check out.”
Kathy emerged from the bathroom, quickly pulling the strings at the front of her pink robe. She plopped on a chair, making a kind of nest out of the white towels collected on it.
“We can’t leave yet,” Kathy complained. “We haven’t seen anything. What’s the point of coming all this way if we don’t see anything?” Her voice grew into a whine.
“Have you seen The Last Supper?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s good. Let’s go see that,” Gus said, perking up a little.
“How about it, Kathy?” I asked.
Kathy pulled her hair into a ponytail and picked up a rubber band from the side table to secure it. “Whatever Gus wants to do.”
“Let’s get the fuck going,” Gus said. “My butt’s about to stick to this goddamned bed.”
While waiting in the lobby, I got a package of cookies from a vending machine. After my experience with Yasha, I had not felt like eating. Gus and Kathy exited the elevator dressed like tourists: Gus wearing plaid pants and a leather jacket with epaulets, Kathy in blue jeans with a rabbit fur coat.
We took a taxi took to the museum that housed the remnants of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous work. The original church had been destroyed by a bomb during World War II. The only thing that remained standing was the wall with The Last Supper painted on it. The fresco was so faded that the details were hard to make out. What impressed me were the photographs taken just after the bombing. I pointed them out to Gus.
“That’s as close to a miracle as it gets,” I said.
“Yeah, fascinating,” Gus said flatly. “Okay, I’ve seen it. Let’s get the hell to a bar.”
“Fine with me,” I said.
On the way to the hotel, Kathy couldn’t hold back the big question that had been nagging her.
“Why is it called The Last Supper?”
“Haven’t you heard of Jesus having a last meal with his disciples?” I asked.
Kathy looked at me blankly.
“You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, do you?” I asked.
“No,” Kathy said, clinging to Gus’s arm. “Am I supposed to?”
“Not necessarily. Ask Gus about it.”
Gus had fallen asleep.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care,” Kathy said, ending the matter. “That place was boring, anyway.”
CHAPTER 16
Gus and Kathy slept the entire flight back. Thad met us at the gate. Wally was with him.
“Have a good time?” Wally asked as our weary troop shuffled toward baggage claim.
“Wonderful,” I said without conviction.
Thad left to get my car. Wally retrieved Gus and Kathy’s luggage from the carousel and rushed them outside where he had parked illegally. They were driving away when I spotted Thad.
“You wouldn’t believe that pair,” I told Thad on the way to Laurel Canyon. “It sure is good to see you.” I took Thad’s hand from the steering wheel, but he quickly withdrew it.
“There’s too much traffic,” Thad said. “I have to drive.”
I glanced at the odometer, noting that a lot of miles had been put on the car during my absence.
When I walked through the house after our arrival, my first thought was that it seemed too neat, as though Thad had not been there while I was away. While I unpacked, Thad rushed to clean the hot tub. I looked out the upstairs window and saw that it was full of debris. It looked as though the cover had been left off of it for some days.
I had hoped for a kiss, some kind of welcome. Thad didn’t even ask how business went. After cleaning the patio, he offered to get Chinese food from a restaurant we both liked.
Thad ignored my advances in bed. It took some cajoling just to get him to cuddle.
“What’s the matter, Thad?” I whispered in his ear. I tried to push my hand between his thighs, but he tightened his muscles to prevent me.
Thad was seeing someone else. I was sure of it.
The night with Yasha in Milan haunted my dreams. In the nightmares, I sometimes took his position and tortured myself.
I threw myself into work, trying desperately to forget the horror of my experience in Milan and to ignore the certainty that Thad was cheating on me. I should have been elated about the sales I had made, but Thad’s affection was all I wanted. And that, it seemed, was out of reach.
Often, Thad would go on an errand and disappear for hours. I would call around trying to find him. Twiggy would say he hadn’t seen Thad, but I’d unfairly accuse Twiggy of covering for him.
Sooner or later, Thad would return. He always had an excuse, and after a warm hug, I’d accept it. For fleeting moments, it would seem as though our relationship was back on track.
Thad would sense when I was at wits’ end, ready to end the relationship and kick him out. Thad would suggest we go to the Spotlight. We’d drink and play darts and sing along when the jukebox played “Life is a Cabaret” and “That’s Amore.” Thad would act as though I was the center of his life. People would whoop and holler when we kissed, commenting on what a romantic couple we made. Then Twiggy would announce last call, and we’d go home and jump in bed. My passions would be at fever pitch, but Thad would just roll over and go to sleep.
One afternoon as I was showing Thad how to move text between files on the computer, the phone rang. Thad answered.
“It’s for you,” he said. “Someone named Yasha.”
My hand trembled as I took the phone. “Yasha?”
“Simone? In Hollywood?” Yasha said.
“This Yasha. Remember Yasha? I visit Switzerland. See Mama. I come to you? We have good sex?”
Beads of sweat began to form along my hairline. “No, Yasha. Absolutely not.”
“Okay. You come soon? To Milano?”
“No, Yasha. I no come to Italy.”
“Okay, bye-bye.”
I dropped the receiver.
Thad took me by the shoulders. “Who was that?” he demanded. “Your Italian boyfriend?”
“You’re the one who suggested I visit a hustler bar.”
Thad stormed out the room.
“Hypocrite!” I yelled.
For a moment, I was glad Yasha had called.
My nerves were at a breaking point by the Christmas holidays. Vivian had been asking me to visit, and I thought a drive across the country might give Thad and me a chance to talk.
“You want me to meet your mom?” Thad said, lounging on the sofa one afternoon watching General Hospital.
“I used to go home every Christmas, but I haven’t done that in years. I thought it might do us good to get away.”
“Your mom doesn’t know you’re gay, does she? What will she think when I show up with you?”
“Vivian won’t say anything. It might ruffle the feathers of my born-again sister, but that’s a bonus as far as I’m concerned.”
“Can I go in drag?”
I feared he might be serious and was glad the commercial ended and his focus returned to the soap opera.
We drove the southern route to Arkansas, passing through Phoenix and Tucson, then across the plains of Texas to reach the border city of Texarkana. Snow and sleet dogged us during most of the drive. My plan to have a talk with Thad didn’t amount to much. Whenever I started up a conversation, he put on headphones and disappeared into a Pet Shop Boys album.
We stayed one night in Tucson, and I hoped it might be romantic. Thad lay on his back and allowed me fondle him, but that was the extent of it.
