Ducati and I hadn’t been working together for more than a few days before he invited me to go have a drink with him after our shift. He took me to the Tudor and introduced me to the regulars who were hanging out there that evening. Here, where he felt comfortable in the midst of his peers, he didn’t hesitate to make me the butt of his somewhat warped sense of humor.
“This is Jim Melton, the department’s new poster boy,” he announced. “He used to be a male stripper, and sometimes he wore a cop uniform in his act. He decided he liked the uniform so much he wanted to find out what it would be like to keep it on for a change, instead of prancing around up there on a stage buck naked.”
No one, I was relieved to see, believed a word of this. But they were willing to play along.
“Welcome to the force, Melton,” a detective told me. “Yeah, I remember somebody telling me about Precinct Two’s new recruit—the rookie who used to strip. Didn’t you use to make gay porn, too?”
“Ah—no,” I said.
“Are you sure?” the detective persisted. “I heard that Ducati got so turned on jerking off to your DVDs every night, that he just had to meet the real thing. So he tracked you down and talked you into taking the exam.”
“Was it an oral exam?” another departmental wit asked. “And did Ducati pass it?”
Yet another cop put in his two cents’ worth. “Of course he passed it. Ducati never stops exercising his mouth, in one way or another. Although I hear he does his best work down on his knees in a men’s room.”
I couldn’t believe Ducati was letting the other drinkers razz him like this. But the big, tough guy just stood there, smiling sweetly, eating it up!
“Come into the john with me and I’ll give you a demonstration,” Ducati offered the other cop.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” the guy who’d made the crack about the men’s room said. “I’m afraid you’d be so good you’d ruin me for my wife!”
“You’d be right!” Ducati exclaimed gleefully.
“So tell us, Melton,” a uniformed officer scarcely much older than me, from the looks of him, wanted to know. “Has Ducati fed you that line of bullshit yet, about polishing the end of a nightstick by shoving it up your ass and rotating it until it gets all nice and shiny? The last rookie they partnered him with fell for it. The poor bastard couldn’t sit down for a week, his asshole was reamed out so hard.”
“Yeah, but a nightstick had nothing to do with it,” Ducati bragged. “It was my cock knob that fucking rookie kept polishing with his butt. He couldn’t get enough of it.”
The alcohol-fueled jokes started out risqué and they got bawdier. And some of the female cops had fouler mouths than the men.
“You must really like Melton, Ducati,” one tough-looking dyke suggested. “I heard you even let him drive the car when the two of you are out on patrol together. Of course,” she added, after inserting a pregnant pause for dramatic effect, “you have to let him drive—because the rookie spends most of his time sitting on your face, and you can’t lick his ass and see to steer at the same time.”
Ducati stuck out his tongue at the dyke, then wriggled it about with a truly remarkable lewdness and agility.
“Any time you want some of this tongue action, beautiful, you just let me know,” he said. “And your girlfriend doesn’t have to know about it.”
And I have to admit that Ducati could give as good as he got.
“Hey, Ducati,” one burly cop sang out. “I heard that the first time you asked Melton to suck your dick, he told you he couldn’t find it without a magnifying glass. So now you always carry one in the glove compartment.”
“Oh, that’s a good one,” Ducati responded. “Remind me to tell it to your mother the next time I’m in bed with her, banging her.”
“Tell it to your two brothers,” the cop said. “Since I hear the three of you still share a bed at home, and you take turns spreading your asses for one another. That’s the wop version of birth control, isn’t it? Fucking your brothers instead of your sisters?”
“Now, that’s a goddamned lie!” Ducati swore. “We don’t take turns. We draw straws. Short straw ends up in the middle of the sandwich.”
“What’s a sandwich?” somebody was naïve enough to ask.
“Jesus!” Ducati exploded. “Do I have to teach you dumb straight bastards everything?” He proceeded to demonstrate, using three olives and three toothpicks. First, he inserted a toothpick into each olive, so that it protruded from the little green fruit. Then he lined them up on the bar. “Okay, here are three guys, and each of them has a stiff penis,” Ducati explained. “The one in the middle has a cock shoved up his ass and his own cock shoved up the third guy’s ass.” Suiting the action to the word, Ducati used two of the toothpicks to join the three olives together. “Then they fuck, until they make their olive oil squirt out.”
“What does the third dude do with his dick?” the cop who didn’t know what a sandwich was asked.
Ducati emitted a snort of derision. “He jerks off, you dumb fuck! You ought to know all about that!” Ducati turned to the bartender. “Give me another drink, and make it a double. I’m going to drown all three of The Fucking Ducati Brothers, here, in it.”
During a brief lull in the ribaldry, Petrie and Blanco walked in.
I’d run into them frequently at the precinct, of course, and they’d given me some more grief. But I’d noticed that they were careful to tease me only when Ducati wasn’t within earshot. When I was in Ducati’s company, the other two cops were suspiciously civil toward me.
Tonight was no exception. They invited Ducati and me to join them in a booth.
We hadn’t been seated there for long before the conversation got raunchy again.
“Okay, Ducati, we’re dying to know,” Petrie declared.
“Know what?” my partner asked.
“Whether you’ve nailed the pretty new rookie, here, yet.”
Ducati only laughed. “No. Not yet.”
“No? You must be slipping.”
Ducati shook his head. “Honest to God. The kid still has his cherry, so far as I’m concerned.”
Petrie looked dubious. “Is that true, Melton? And don’t you even think about lying about it. I’ve got a built-in, infallible rookie bullshit detector.”
I fought not to blush. “I swear to God, guys. Ever since the first day I set foot in the precinct, I’ve been saving myself for marriage.” I ventured a joke. “Hell, I’ve even been afraid to jerk off, because I’m sure the department must have some regulation against it. There’s one for everything else!”
Blanco now spoke up. “I told you the kid would tell Ducati to go fuck himself. Now, pay up.”
“Fuck!” Petrie took out his wallet and handed his partner a twenty-dollar bill. “I could’ve sworn it was a sure thing.”
I was indignant. “You guys bet on it?”
“Of course we did,” Blanco said.
“Didn’t it occur to any of you that I could actually be straight?”
To my chagrin, all three men seemed to find my question hilarious.
“No offense, Melton,” Petrie said, after he’d stopped laughing at my expense. “But no guy is ever one hundred per cent straight after he’s been around Ducati for very long. You’re the first hold-out the horny son of a bitch has come across in a long while. Good for you, kid. It’s about time somebody taught him a lesson.”
“Yeah, Ducati,” Blanco chimed in. “Looks like you’re not quite as irresistible as you thought you were.”
“Oh, I’m still irresistible enough,” Ducati said, smugly.
Blanco snickered. “You poor bastard. You must be foaming at the mouth when you lie in bed—alone—at night, thinking about sweet little Melton, here, and what you’d like to do to him.”
“For your information,” Ducati retorted, pretending a display of haughtiness, “I do not foam over mere rookies. I may work up a light coating of spit—that’s all.”
I was sure I was blushing
again, and I hated myself for it. “Listening to you guys talk is enough to put anybody off sex—any kind of sex—for life.”
Once again, my remark sent them into gales of laughter.
“You’re all right, Melton,” Petrie said, slapping me on the back. “Even though you cost me that twenty bucks. You’re a good sport. You’re going to fit in just fine. Welcome to the club.”
Some instinct told me that by the club he wasn’t referring to the department as a whole, but to some subculture within it.
To seal the deal, Blanco used the twenty bucks he’d won to buy us all a round of drinks.
A few days later, Ducati and I were on patrol. He seemed to be in one of his comparatively mellow moods, so I risked making small talk.
“That was fun, at the Tudor the other night,” I said, by way of feeling him out.
“Yeah. I’m not a big drinker, myself. I’ve seen too many cops climb into a bottle and have trouble climbing back out. But we all have to cut loose and blow off a little steam every now and then—in one way or another.”
By now, I felt comfortable enough with him to risk asking him a personal question.
“So if you don’t rely on booze—how do you blow off steam, Ducati?”
He glanced at me. “Oh, the usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. Working out down at the gym. Hitting the sauna afterward, to sweat the stress out of me. Relaxing at home in front of the TV, or with a good book. And then there’s always the sure cure for tension. Namely, sex,” he added, bluntly.
“Are you—?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, go on, Melton, ask me. I can tell you’re dying to.”
“All right. Are you really gay? Or is all that joking around about being gay just an act you and the other guys put on?”
“Well, contrary to what you may have heard, I haven’t fucked every dude on the force,” Ducati said. “So I can’t speak from first-hand knowledge about every other cop. But I’m sure as hell gay. So are your buddies Petrie and Blanco, in case you still had any doubts about them.”
“They’re hardly my buddies.”
“Oh, they like you, well enough. I can tell,” Ducati said, somewhat enigmatically.
“Are those two really an item?”
“They’re in love with each other. Disgusting, isn’t it? I don’t know why they don’t go ahead and just get married. God knows they bicker like an old married couple.”
There was a lapse in our conversation for a few minutes.
“Well?” I asked, at last.
“Well, what?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m gay?”
“Do you expect me to?”
“It’d kind of be the next logical step.”
“All kidding aside, it’s really none of my damn business—or anybody else’s, for that matter. I know we all talk a lot of crap, but that’s just another way of blowing off steam, like I said before.” He paused. “On the other hand, if you want to volunteer any information, then that’s your choice.”
“Well, I’m gay, too.”
His reaction was nonchalant. “That’s interesting. I wasn’t sure. You do seem kind of embarrassed when the subject comes up. I thought you might be undecided, if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean, but I’m definitely decided. I made that decision long ago.”
“Did you? Good for you. And how’s it been working out for you, so far?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Only okay? You don’t sound too enthusiastic. Anything wrong?”
“Nothing wrong. Maybe I feel that my experience is still incomplete, in a way. I’ve had a lot of fun with a lot of guys,” I admitted. “But I’ve never fallen in love with any of them.”
“In love!” Ducati exclaimed. “Is that all you’re worried about? You’re still young. God, you’re just a kid. You’ve still got your whole life ahead of you in which to fall in love. More than once. Stop worrying about it. It’ll happen. Only, it’ll come when it comes. You can’t make it happen by wishing.”
After that, there was another subtle change in our relationship. Ducati now seemed more willing to let down his guard around me.
On subsequent occasions, we had some frank discussions about homosexuality—and homophobia.
“The department’s changing,” Ducati told me. “More slowly that the rest of society, maybe. But it’s going to have to drag itself into the twenty-first century sooner or later. Nobody should really be surprised that a man can do a good job as a cop, and have sex with other men in his spare time. Hell, I’ll go even farther. I’d say that fucking other guys has made me a better cop. It’s kept me from buying into that whole macho pretense that some straight cops have. I like a man to act like a man when he’s in the sack with me. On duty, though, I don’t give a damn how manly he thinks he is. I just want him to do his job and watch my back. And a woman cop can do that every bit as well as a man.”
I decided to carry his argument to its logical conclusion. “So are you saying—it’s possible for a guy to be nelly, and still be a good cop?”
Ducati grinned. “Absolutely. At least, theoretically speaking, everything else being equal. And let’s face it. If you were a perp, could you think of anything scarier than being caught in the act by a twink who’s packing a gun?”
“No.”
On another occasion, I dared to ask him why he didn’t have a steady lover.
“Fuck!” he scoffed. “For two good reasons, I guess. Number one, I’m a whore. I like to play the field. And number two, I’m kind of a loner, basically. Maybe that comes with this job, sometimes. But don’t you worry, kid. After I’m retired, I’ll find some other old fogey to settle down with. Hell, no,” he decided, after a moment’s reflection. “I’ll find some hot, buff-bodied young hustler to settle down with. I’ll be his sugar daddy, and he’ll be my boy. He’ll do everything I tell him to do, because he’ll know I’ll beat his ass if he doesn’t. It’ll be perfect.”
I assumed that Ducati was only kidding. But then, with him you could never be too sure.
Chapter Seven
Police Cruiser
During those first few months on the job, I threw myself into my work.
I was on probation, after all, so I was determined to make good. Or at least not screw up.
I strove to become the most conscientious rookie who’d ever graduated from the academy.
As a result, my social life consisted of hanging out with other cops at The Tudor Lounge. And my sex life consisted of masturbation.
There were times when the watch commander teamed me up with other cops. I knew that this was his way of exposing me to different police officers’ individual personalities and ways of doing the job. Most of the time, though, I rode with Ducati. His former partner was still out on medical leave—eventually, he returned to work, but he was forced to take a desk job—and so, for all practical purposes, I became Ducati’s new partner.
Our relationship remained strictly professional. We talked about gay issues, and indeed shared jokes. But that was as far as it went. Ducati never laid a hand on me, or made anything that could be interpreted as a suggestive gesture or comment. Much to my disappointment! By now, I had developed a bit of a crush on him. But of course I was still too much in awe of him to so much as think about making the first move.
Sometimes the pressures of the job, combined with my lingering insecurity about my ability to do the work, got to me. I could feel myself getting stressed out. Cops deal with this sort of thing in different ways. Some develop unhealthy habits—boozing, gambling, even drug-taking. In my case, my drug of choice was sex.
I finally decided that this virtuous, near-monastic lifestyle I’d been leading just wasn’t for me. I needed to get laid!
I was at home alone on a weekday night, with no plans. So I was faced with one of those agonizing decisions a gay man has to make. Should I stay at home and just jerk off, or go out in hopes of meeting somebody?
The convenience of staying in, and the odds against encountering the man of my dreams in a gay bar on a Wednesday night, at first tempted me to make an early night of it—and alone. I could give myself a quick orgasm with my fist and then fall asleep, all right there in my own comfortable bed.
I was actually undressed and in bed, with the television’s remote control at hand, when—perversely—the idea of going out began to appeal to me more and more.
Just one drink, I promised myself, after a glance at the alarm clock. It was already close to midnight. One drink, and then I’ll come right back home. What’s the harm?
I turned off the TV and got out of bed, my cock already twitching with the first signs of excitement.
I was already experiencing the tiny thrill of doing something naughty. I had to get up and go to work in the morning, and I suspected that I’d end up breaking my own rule by staying for more than one drink.
Logic suggested that since I wasn’t really going out with the intention of trying to pick up somebody, it didn’t much matter what I wore on this little excursion. But I was thinking less in terms of logic, and more in terms of lust, with every minute that passed. I decided that I ought to wear something fairly provocative tonight. After all, a guy never knows when he might get lucky!
On impulse, I opened the top drawer of my bureau, where I kept a few clothes and personal items, but which also tended to become a repository for sexual accessories—such as a jockstrap, a box of condoms, a tube of lubricant, a leather thong, and a pair of nipple clamps. I rummaged through the clutter until I found what I was looking for.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn the cock ring. It had to have been at least a couple of months before. It was a single piece of heavy-gauge metal, bent into a perfect circle and welded together at the seam, where there was a slight bump as a result.
A Thing for Cops Page 7
