by John Rechy
He started walking down the hill, back to his jeep. Sitting on the trunk of a thick, fallen tree was a beautiful, slim, curly-haired blond youngman with dark eyelashes and azure eyes—one of the various types Dave's versatility was attracted to. The youngman looked eighteen. “Hi, Mr. Macho,” he said.
Dave astonished himself. When the kid slipped invitingly into a cove off the road, he did not follow. He felt aroused by the kid, oh yes; but his sexual needs were in limbo during these moments, and the youngman's youth confused them further.
Dave drove to Santa Monica Boulevard, parked, got out, began to cruise the street. Growing weariness matched the burgeoning sexuality. Martin's knowing tone … In a usually favorite afternoon bar, Dave had a beer, talked to one or two people, friends; got cruised—and left.
He went home, lay down, got up, took a bath and a shower and fixed himself a large steak, blood-rare, the way he liked it. Today, when he cut into it and it burst into blood, he dropped the knife.
He decided to stay home tonight, watch TV until he fell asleep. Or maybe call one of his close friends, drop by, just talk? He looked in the mirror. Yes, tired. He dialed Julie's number. She was dashing out, she said. He began to dress. Western garb. Fifteen minutes later, he dialed Julie's number again; she was still there. He hung up. He lay back in bed and turned the television on with the remote control.
The late news: “… —gratitude to Mandy Lang-Jones,” Kenneth Manning was saying, “for her continuing exploration into The Lower Depths.’ Thank you, Mandy; those are cruel worlds you expose yourself to for our viewers.” The man was somber for a few moments. Eleanor Cavendish said, “French diplomats— …”
Dave flipped channels.
That spooky Sister Woman. Dave shot her off the screen. Occasionally he'd watch her with some of his friends, marveling at her grand, spellbinding acts. One of his friends did a hilarious imitation of her, draping himself in chiffon. Tonight Dave wasn't up for her.
He'd go to Martin's new club.
Again the mirror confirmed his weariness. Was his hair thinner? He brushed it carefully. He almost pulled back on his decision to go out. Desire tugged. He put on a plaid lumberman shirt to go with the jeans and the cowboy boots.
The Santa Ana wind swept heat into the city and into his exposed jeep. West Hollywood swarmed with semi-exposed bodies. In the lot Martin had described, there were many parked cars. That meant many bodies to choose from inside. Like that of all other such “private” clubs, the entrance to Martin's was almost hidden, no sign, no name. These places burrow between buildings, then spill out into rooms and even other floors beyond the tight entrance. Dave parked his car and waited. He got out. The wind scratched with dusty fingers at his hair. Dave arranged it carefully, but the wind kept disheveling it. He walked under a single yellow light and up squeezed steps. Behind a half-door to one side of the landing sat a skinny youngman in a sleeveless black t-shirt. His fan?—Dave hoped so; the youngman was sexy, in a punky way.
“Hi.” Dave waited for the adulation Martin had promised him.
The youngman eyed him. “You a member?”
“No, but— …”
“Can't come in. Private club.”
“I know, but— …”
“Rules, okay?” the surly youngman said. “You gotta have two local I.D.’s, and— …”
“I do.” Dave reached for his wallet. He stopped. He said firmly, “I'm Clint Dave”—he used his “model's” name—“and Martin of Stud Studios said— …”
“Hey, man,” the youngman said. “I just got hired today, okay? and I don't know who Stud Martin is, right? Hey, all I know is they got rules, and you gotta be under thirty-five to get in. See?” He pointed to a sign:
NO FATTIES, FEMMES, ALMOST 40S
What had he felt at that moment? Outside in the parking lot, Dave didn't know. He let the wind howl at him. Had it really happened? To him? He wanted to rush back up the stairs, tell that fucking punk that he was Mr. Macho, and the Combat Sniper, and one of three slavemasters at the fundraiser, and that he was not almost— … But he was—he was almost forty.
He leaned beside his car, not able to muster the energy to drive away from the terrible place and the dusty entrapping night. It didn't help even when two good-looking men walking the steps into the club recognized him. “Stud model,” said one. “Mr. Macho,” the other said. They looked back at him longingly. Longingly? Or in amazement that he looked so … tired?
He drove home, desire squashed.
He called Julie. “Am I just imagining you're avoiding me?” He was blunt. They'd spoken a couple of times recently; each time she had “been on her way out.”
“No,” she said. “Dammit, Dave, you're changing and I'm not sure how. I mean, how do you really feel about all the stuff you've been telling me?—about those women shouting at you at Tiffany's, and the men shouting at the women wallowing in mud.”
“I don't know,” he said. Then he told her goodnight and hung up.
Weariness crushed him. The phone rang immediately again. But he didn't answer. He fell into roiling sleep, which became smoother, smooth, calmed. Twelve hours later he woke. When he went to the bathroom, the scratches of last night's weariness were gone.
The day of the slave auction, he looked great and felt terrific. Ten years younger, tanned; his body flushed from an earlier workout. He wore a black jockstrap under the hugging chaps, black boots.
In the enormous patio, he stood apart and watched the erotic parade. The auction was being held in the enclosed grounds of a secluded, unkempt mansion in a now-shabby part of the city. It belonged to an eccentric friend of Martin's who was in Europe, and it provided the perfect setting. The desert-seared wind dipped occasionally, but tall trees rising on one side into an uncultivated hill resisted its invasion. Almost two hundred invited leathered men sauntered about the grounds. Beer and sweat flowed.
More men had wanted—longed—to attend than could get in. Martin had insisted the invitations be sold only to attractive, masculine men in the bars. Leathered men roamed about; there were the ubiquitous chaps, leather pouches, vests, studded contraptions like harnesses formed by intertwined studded belts; leathered nudity on display throughout. The poses were tough, laughter coarsened. Waves of butyl and amyl nitrite saturated the air with sexual fumes, men constantly inhaling from small brown bottles or snapped ampules.
From where Dave stood on the secluded trail that pushed the courtyard into the slope covered with trees, it all looked like a sexual fair: flesh and leather rubbing against each other, rough men collecting in intimate groups—and everywhere the hints of “heavy sex.”
The “auction block” was designed in a T flanked by steps. A row of six improvised “cells”—barred cubicles Martin sometimes used as props for his photographs—lined one side of the courtyard. Inside each cell were three or four or more men; some lay pretending to be shackled to bare army cots, or on the yellowing grass. There were more than twenty “slaves,” good-looking, muscular men, others slender—all types, all sexual, all naked except for black leather pouches and studded black straps on their wrists and collars; delicate chains would be hooked easily to these. As the invited men studied them, the “slaves” performed exhibitionistically as instructed; they writhed and twisted in invisible restraint. Occasionally one or another of the milling men would recognize one of the slaves as a friend, and a spirited chat would develop.
A large wooden enclosure was filled with thick mud. For a further contribution, men could strip down—or not—and wrestle in the popular “Pig Pen.” Muddied flesh writhed in the thick dripping brown ooze.
“Gentlemen!”
In leather chaps, vest, boots, his sweating body spilling in ugly folds that would have barred him from his own club, Martin was calling for attention from the mob of men wandering the sexual area. “Gentlemen! The goal of the fundraiser has already been surpassed!” he announced.
The men cheered.
Martin went on to explain what they a
ll knew—the slaves had volunteered to be “sold” to the highest bidder for an evening of “service” to be determined by the master—“and the slave,” he emphasized. If the slave didn't like the person who bid for him, he could protest and be “freed” by someone else's new bid—even if it was less.
The men applauded the democratic consideration.
“It all goes to the fund, of course; and remember,” he emphasized again, “it is all make-believe, charade. Take your fantasy only as far as consent allows.”
Shouts of agreement, a few dissents.
“And now it gives me great pleasure—and a hard-on!—to introduce—although they need no introduction in the gay community—our slavemaster-auctioneers! … Buzz Saw!” A huge muscleman walked onto the scaffold wearing only a leather pouch, boots, and heavy oil. Shouts, whistles. “Tim Pierce!” He was tall, sinewy, menacingly sexual, wearing boots, a tangle of gleaming chains on his torso, and tight leather pants that revealed an enormous bulge between his legs. “Eat your heart out, Jimmy Steed!” Martin ad-libbed. More shouts, more whistles. “And Mr. Macho himself—Clint Dave!” Still more shouts, still more whistles. Sustained applause for the three imposing men. “Just gaze upon all these daddy-hunks!” Martin drooled.
Dave's excitement was lanced—sharply.
“Take it off!” screamed one of the men.
“Off! Off!” a chorus chanted.
Martin went on: “Because everyone is contributing his talents to this worthy cause of— … of— … unity … this very worthy cause! Uh, because of that— … Our slavemasters will be rewarded by their choice of any of the gorgeous slaves. Whoever has bid for the one they choose will have the option of getting his money back; donating it anyway— …”
Boo! Boo! Boo!
“… —and getting a special surprise gift!”
Acquiescing cheers.
“And I'll double the original bid prize,” Martin got swept away.
“But first! Let's dance! There'll be a prize for the best couple.”
On the platform with the others, Dave couldn't believe this shattering of mood would be allowed.
But as soon as the loud music poured from the speakers, the heads of the leathermen begin to dip back and forth in rhythm; now the men danced, churned enthusiastically. Although the small hardcore of “heavy leathermen” takes its rituals very seriously, the larger contingent on its wider periphery can slide in and out of the charade and into campiness, especially when the split is lubricated by liquor. Several of the slaves came out of their cells to join the dance, two with each other. Three judges chosen at random by Martin selected the winning couple. Summoned to the platform, the two, one in a harness, the other in leather pants, were given $100 gift certificates “donated by several committed gay businesses.” In appreciation, the two dancers executed a few winning steps.
“Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers!” a husky voice shot out.
Hoots fought with concurring sounds.
“We just met on the dance floor,” the man in the harness said.
“Whoevuh you are, Ah have always depended on thuh kindness of stranguhs,” a voice drawled as Blanche Dubois.
Laughter attacked the boos!
“After all, tomorrow is another day!”
The boos surrendered.
A deliberately coarsened voice did Bette doing Tallulah: “Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy night!”
Laughter and applause won.
The camping stopped when the first two slaves were led up the steps by Buzz Saw. The serious performance had begun. About the courtyard, men slumped into studied poses of contemptuous machismo. Slowly, dramatically, the first two slaves trudged up the steps, pretending to fall, being pulled by thin chains snapped onto their collars, which, like the “wrist shackles,” were so loose the men could easily squeeze out of them. On the platform before Tim Pierce, the slaves mimed great agony.
Waiting to one side of the platform—the three auctioneers would take turns—Dave felt a terrific rush at the display of dominant and dominating male flesh! He increased the rush with a deep breath from a brown bottle of amyl. The fantasy was overflowing now, conquering reality. Dave was aware of a heated gathering current, and he was riding it.
“What am I bid for this— …?” Tim Pierce slurred. The eager slave groped the slavemaster's engorged groin; the slavemaster thrust him back and spat on him.
“Whip him with your cock!” an aroused voice cried. The bids rose.
The heated current flowed against Dave, and then, swelling, it rolled again, flooding the scene and him.
There was an altercation at one of the guarded entrances, behind the scaffold. Each of the gates was being overseen by two or three beard-stubbled men. A slightly drunk middle-aged man in frayed leather was trying to come in. Martin shook his head emphatically—No! Dave went over and said softly, “Oh, lettim in.” The men did. The man staggered into the courtyard. Martin shot an annoyed look at Dave.
A muted, unwanted echo— … It pushed against the resurgent current sweeping Dave.
“This slave's got a good fuckin’ asshole on him.” Buzz Saw was going through his auctioneering. He slapped the exposed buttocks. The slave looked at him in flashing anger, the slap red on his flesh. He slapped back, hard, at Buzz Saw's bare round buttocks and stalked off the platform. Another body replaced his. “What am I bid for this hunk of meat?” Buzz Saw was unperturbed. “This unworthy fucker. Kneel, fuckin'slave!” The slave bowed his head.
Despite the increasing clutch of the fantasy, the tension snapped occasionally into laughter. Two slaves didn't like the men who bought them and chose a lower bidder. Shattering the tension further, one slave bid for another—“I'm versatile,” the husky voice said, and the sale was made. A “master” among the guests decided to be a spontaneous “slave” and jumped on the scaffold to be sold. The slaves were going for about $30, slightly more; one or two for less.
“Who wants this dirty pig?” the muscular man pulled at a slave dripping with mud from the pen. The charade grew darker.
Now it was Dave's turn on the platform. He felt pulled by welcome fire. Immediately he was the best of the auctioneers. He vaunted “prime stock.” He prodded a higher bid by probing a “slave's” buttocks, arousing the bidders, raising bids. He “weighed” the balls of one slave in his hand. “Bid by the pound for this one!” he tantalized. Inspired, the slaves groaned, cringed, pled. The black pouch of the next slave reached low on his thigh. Dave pulled the tantalizing pouch off, to auction him “by the inch.” But the pouch had been stuffed. So Dave whirled the man around, exhibiting his firm ass, forcing him to bend down “and show your wares.” The bent man licked Dave's boots hungrily. Sexual fire imploded in a series of jolts inside Dave. Now he whirled in a vortex of new desire, found at last. He pushed the head of the cringing slave against his boots.
The men in the audience swam in those boiling waters. Throughout the courtyard, orders echoed those coming from the block, as spontaneous masters and slaves extended the boundaries of the auctioneering arena.
The next slave was the blond youngman who had called out to Dave in the park, whom he had not followed into the bushes. Not inexperienced at all, then, and at least twenty-one—they all had to be. The youngman dropped to his knees. Then he looked up and whispered. “My name's Chip. Choose me as your slave, Mr. Macho.”
The audience applauded the groveling slave. More heads disappeared between planted boots about the patio.
“Thirty-five dollars!‘” Dave spat in disgust at the bid. “Just look,” He squeezed Chip's pouch, no stuffing. “Forty dollars? Only forty dollars for this?” He lowered the pouch for just an instant. Now he cupped the mounds of ass. The bids rose. “Sixty dollars Just this is worth that!” He pinched the youngman's nipples. “Seventy measly dollars! Show ‘em what you can do!” he commanded. The youngman's tongue traveled up and down Dave's boots, crotch. “Lick!” Dave ordered. He was in it, really in the world that beckoned; he was learning to
swim in the most turbulent ocean—and to do so expertly. The bunching disturbance of the past few days untangled. He held the licking head down. The bids soared. Eighty dollars, eighty-five, ninety, ninety-five.
“One hundred dollars!”
“Sold!” Martin stopped the bidding, which he would have to double if one of the auctioneers chose this slave—and it was very likely!
The man who bought Chip was dark, brooding, good-looking, young, masculine. Dave felt apprehensive about that.
The auction was over. A huge success!
The slavemasters would now choose their slaves. The muscular auctioneer chose a muscular slave, and they kissed; the sinister auctioneer chose a sinister slave. Dave chose Chip.
Chip rushed over and knelt at his feet.
But the original bidding “master” disagreed; he began pulling at Chip's loose-chained collar. Chip shoved the hand away. Martin said firmly to the dark young master, “Now don't be a sore loser.” The dark youngman said, “Fuck you!” He and Dave faced each other.
Martin said firmly to the dark youngman, “I will not have roughhousing, this is a peaceful party, you want your money back?” The handsome man said yes, got it, and without waiting for his “special surprise” stamped out.
The patio turned into a mass of bodies.
“You had enough of this shit?” Chip asked Dave. “Of course, you're the master, but, me, I'm ready to have a private party; why don't we go to my place?”
Chip's apartment was two pretty rooms in the Hollywood Hills. The walls were plastered with posters from A Chorus Line, Evita, and The Pirates of Penzance.
“I'm going to be a dancer,” Chip said. “I've already done a TV special—in the chorus, but featured.” Naked, he spun about and landed at Dave's feet. He stood up. “Wanna drink?”
“Yeah,” Dave said.
Chip brought the drink. Wine and Seven-Up. “I know it's crazy, but I like it. Want me to worship you?”
“For a start,” Dave lowered his voice. He began pulling at his own cock.
