hidden

by Tomas Mournian

  “Nipples! ‘No special requests.’”

  Bling! Bling! Bling!

  “Please Please Please.”

  “Takers, users, time wasters, this boy needs some give.”

  Bling! Bling! Bling!

  “‘Check your wish list.’”

  “Yeah, today’s wish list is hella different.”

  I type exactly what he says. I feel weird having a convo when I don’t have a clue what it’s about. If this is all about “give ’n take,” what am I getting for my voluntary carpal tunnel? A front-row seat. Kind of like an “All you can eat” buffet.

  Bling! Bling! Bling!

  “They want to know, ‘Enough for today?’”

  “We get to that when …” His voice trails off as he unbuckles the belt. “We get to that—”

  I start to understand why Hammer and Peanuts spend so much time in here with the door shut. There are shows to perform, clothes to remove, and wish lists to fill—“fans” to satisfy. I feel sick to my stomach. Hammer—My Fantasy Boy—has morphed into Hammer, My Worse Nightmare. I hate this. I feel trapped. Same as Serenity Ridge? But a boy stripping in cyberspace is nothing like Serenity Ridge.

  “You okay?”

  I want to leave.

  “Yeah,” I say, lying. I hope he can’t tell. “Your mom … she followed you?”

  Chapter 52

  “This guy made a reel—clips of my shows. He threatened me. He said, ‘I’ll send it to your mom if you don’t get with me.’ I told that bitch, ‘No fucking way are you blackmailing me.’”

  “And he sent it?”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s when your dad found out and got mad?”

  “Hell, no! Dad wanted in. Fuckin’ deadbeat. Dude loves trannies. Anita’s his idea of Miss America. He didn’t give a shit about what I was doing. It was about the Benjamins. He’s the one who busted me and set me up to do more shows. We made bank. I was way fucked up on drugs. He started pimpin’ me out for reals.”

  “Pimp you? Like, sell you for sex?”

  “Girls, boys, their dads, grannies. For Sale. Stamped it on my body.”

  Hammer’s so matter-of-fact about incest and his Pimp Daddy. My father, Moustapha, is a monster, but I doubt pimping me out ever crossed his mind.

  “Wait, so you’re bi, or—?”

  “I’m whatev. Hole’s a hole. But then—” Hammer’s attention shifts back to his performance.

  “Can I guess?”

  “Go for it.”

  “He wanted in on the action?”

  “Dude! How’d you know? I split. Back to mom’s house and that’s when—” He punctuates his thought with a move. “I got sent down, dude, down.”

  Compared to Hammer’s story, mine feels lame. Maybe it wasn’t so bad? Reality check: closet, cam whore. For a moment, I consider. Stand. Walk out. Call home.

  He stares at me, unbuckles the belt. He’s got this weird half smile on his face. I can’t read his expression. Blank. Cam whore? Or, serial killer? He’s here, but not. I know that face. If not the same face, then the feeling underneath. Dead. I bet he learned it from being with his dad. Or, it settled over his face, like a scarf. Working for his dad. Doing. The way I—

  “No!” I shout out and cut off the thought. Hammer’s so far gone, he doesn’t notice. Then, I remember: He’s looking at the Webcam over my forehead. Duh. “Blank” is his show face. But there’s nagging questions. What came first: the blank face? Or, the cam show?

  “Peanuts types for you?” I ask. I want to grasp the “how” and “why” of this cam whore show.

  He slides the belt out, slow as a rattlesnake on the creep. Done, he dangles it off his index finger.

  “I had the number one ranking on this portal. This other kid knocked me down. Peanuts sends him an e-mail and says—hey, can you move the camera so it’s on my hands?” I play with the toggle and move the camera eye down, to his hands. I like being in control. Deciding what the “audience” sees. “The next day, that kid’s site was gone. Gone. After that, me and Peanuts, we tight.”

  “You’re not worried about your dad finding you?”

  “Whatta you mean?”

  I twitch. My mind’s eye flashes on Blue-Eyed Bob’s face.

  “Track you down.”

  “Naw.” He knocks back the baseball cap. Chin up, he reveals his face. He curls his upper lip. Snarls. Now, he looks more perfect than perfect. Part man, part boy and all sex. “I know he’s seen me. For sure. One time, he tried getting me back, but he knows—knows—if he says one word. One word. The End. Told him, ‘I go to the cops and you, Daddy, will go to the joint. Some gang banger’s meat puppet biatch.’ Ain’t heard from him since. Now, Mom, she—”

  “She never knew. But if she found out, she’d send me back.”

  “Where?”

  “Juvey. RTC. Foster case. Those are all the same fuckin’ place. Just a different sign outside.” He turns. “Can you bend down and move over that way?”

  I look over my shoulder. My face looks back at me in a mirror’s reflection. All this time, I thought he was a natural. Really, Hammer’s been working his moves in the mirror over my shoulder.

  “How’s the pervs.”

  I scan the IMs piled up, one atop another. “Lots of, ‘We love you.’”

  “Love?” He snorts. “What they love is lookin’ at what they can’t have.”

  “You want me to write that?”

  “Go for it.”

  I type.

  Bling! Bling! Bling!

  “They love it. Lots of exclamation marks and hearts.”

  He sticks his left thumb under his waistband, raises his right hand, and gives the camera the finger. He runs through a new series of hot, sexy poses. He has an unlimited supply.

  “You want to say something?” I ask. He ignores my question and continues working his poses. I sit, mute, hands on thighs and watch him. IMs go unanswered. He tilts his head, rests his chin on his shoulder, looks to the side. “Some dork found my pictures and passed them around school.”

  “Copies.”

  “Yeah, so I tell my mom I’m gonna home school myself. When the school calls, I was flunking out everything but football and shop.”

  “Your mom let you drop out, no questions asked?”

  “My dad and me split. What now?”

  I decide to digest this information later. I scan hundreds of messages, looking for an average, skipping the weirdo requests: bathroom business, clean up my mess, and doggy style. “Basically, they all wanna know when your shirt comes off.”

  “Tell ’em I need three grand in two minutes or I step off. No, no! Wait! Don’t write that. If there’s—how many peeps I got watching me?”

  “About five hundred.”

  “What’s that into three thousand?”

  “Into? You mean divided?”

  “Yeah.”

  “About six.”

  “So write, ‘Torso Special. Fourteen fifty. No face.’”

  “No face?”

  “Say, ‘Three minutes, or I step off.’ You time it.”

  I post the torso special and note the time. Hammer’s eyes are closed. He moves, slowly, in a trance. On-screen, he looks like he’s dancing. But in the safe house closet, he’s somewhere else. Not here. Present but not accounted for. I’m not sure I buy that life-after-death crap. But if he has a soul, his is gone. Hammer’s a meat puppet. Invisible strings make him dance.

  I know the feeling. I felt that way during “treatment” (electric shocks to my dick every time I got hard looking at the nekkid pix). Leaving your body’s all you can do when your body’s trapped.

  Meanwhile, the money counter ticks. Up, up, up. Fourteen fifty plus fourteen fifty plus fourteen fifty. It’ll hit three grand in two minutes.

  Moving, always moving, Hammer’s hypnotic, hypnotized and hypnotizing. His left hand drops to the shirt’s bottom edge. He lifts the frayed fabric, flashing his perfect stomach. He lets it drop. Moving, moving, always moving. He lifts t
he shirt, flashes some ab and drops it. Moving, moving, always moving. He lifts the tank and flashes the skin under the boxer’s waistband.

  “You know what that”—fingertip to tongue, he wets the tip and draws it along the ridge that runs deep between outer blond pubes and abs—“is?”

  “No, what?”

  “It’s called,” he says, tracing the ridge, “a cum gully.”

  Stops, pauses.

  “How much now?”

  “Seventeen thirty-five, fifty.” I can’t keep up coz it’s going so fast. There’s a cotton triangle in a dark blue frame. The numbers climb faster than I can count.

  “How much time’s left?”

  “Nineteen seconds.”

  “‘Not fast enough,’ tell ’em that.” His eyes crack, opening slightly, but not all the way. He might be waking up. On-screen, his eyes look sleepy-sexy. Or, like he’s having sex with his reflection. His right hand slowly climbs up, over his chest. Massaging his pecs, he plays with the silver nipple ring.

  “Say, ‘Hit it peeps or we go dark.’”

  I type the warning.

  Bling! Bling! Bling!

  The money line shoots up and crests over the two—three—four thousand mark.

  “We hit it?”

  “Yeah. Now they say they want to see it.” I smirk. “It” means one thing to me and Hammer’s hundreds of fans.

  “Tell ’em, I said, ‘Five Minutes.’ Put that in big letters. Tell ’em, ‘But.’ Then do that dot, dot, dot thing. ‘Behave yourselves. Or I might change my mind.’”

  His left hand drops, hung over the white triangle. His big fingers graze the cotton. They creep over, left, to his thigh. His hand moves up and down. Even though he’s fully dressed, Hammer’s hot and makes bank.

  I glance at the monitor, back to him, “live.” He looks sexier on-screen. I look in his eyes. Present? Absent? I can’t tell. Absent might work better. People want what they can’t have. Hammer couldn’t give present even if he wanted.

  “How’d you get so good at this?”

  “Practice.” His hands hold down the sides of his shirt. He pulls one side up a little and one side down a little, stretching the fabric, gyrating his hips. Thumbs hitched to underwear, he slides the fabric down. His Hammerhood presses, hard, against the shirt.

  Creak—

  Sound—

  I turn, look—

  See—

  The front door open.

  Great, we’re gonna get caught. One of us, literally, with his pants down.

  Chapter 53

  My hands can’t move. “What’s wrong?”

  I open my mouth. But I can’t speak. I turn my head, look. The door clicks, shut. Hammer nods, index fingers to lips, a silent “Shhh.”

  He steps away from the cam and peeks through the closet door.

  “Marci. Music? The box is in back’a you.”

  I reach back, press Play and music—tribal, house back beats—pours out the speakers. I feel light-headed, filled with helium. I’m about to float off, too.

  “Who you got the hots for?” I type his question. “No, I’m asking you.”

  His shirt plays hide-and-seek, flashing gold skin, muscles and sex. He plants his feet and takes a wide stance, moving his hips side-to-side. Hammer’s a human sextronome.

  I can’t look, I look away. The way he’s moving—two feet away from me!—makes me excited. Dot, dot, dot: again. I reach under the desk and adjust myself.

  Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling! Bling!

  The computer goes ape-shit crazy. The activity saves me from answering and extreme embarrassment.

  “They’re say—”

  “No talk,” he says, hollow voiced, head elsewhere. “I’m all action.”

  “You want me to type that?”

  “Yeah.”

  I do.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he says, breaking his vow of silence. I forget: I feel like his audience but, really, I’m his typist. I guess a little chitchat with me is our give ’n take. I know—it’s not real, and kind of grosses me out—but his attention feels good.

  “Question?”

  “Who do you have the hots for?”

  “Where, here, or …?”

  “Here.”

  Quick, he reaches back and pulls the shirt’s fabric in-between his legs. He tugs the fabric, and it rips, splitting down the opening, up, and middle, creating another V.

  Oh, oh … I gasp. The show feels dark, exciting, confusing.

  Gold. Bare. Skin.

  The white shirt jumps. His abs dance. Golden hairs dusted over smooth, tight skin. The fleece doesn’t show on-screen. I pinch my arm. This is real. I’m really here. Something switches. What seemed sleazy becomes fun.

  “You.”

  My answer pops out, against my will, itself on a three-second time delay. I want to reach out, grab it, take it back.

  He smiles, huge, hips quickening. Now, he’s the excited one. Abrupt, his movement grinds to a slow, hard side-to-side slide. I want to believe, this is for me. But my smarter self knows better. This is just a show. Only a test. If he can work me—audience of one—then he knows he’s doing his job.

  “Me?” He smiles, pleased. “You got the hots for me?”

  “No, I meant—” I stammer, more confused. Hammer’s my fantasy boy. He’s not supposed to brush reality. Yet, it sounds like he agrees with me. Thinks I’m a hottie. Or, he’s just leading me on? Or—the scariest—he offers to make my fantasy a reality.

  My head’s about to explode.

  “What if I told you—” His tongue pops out his mouth and runs over his lips, covering the plump, pink flesh with a wet gloss. “I want to kiss you?”

  “I—” I’m ready to. Then, I notice he stares at his reflection. Oh. No. I might have mistook his convo with Narcissus, the God of Love Thyself, for one between him and me. Embarrassed, much …

  “You could, you know. Fact, I’d like that,” he says, looking at me—and the mirror—while moving the white shirt up—down—OFF!—over his torso. Hammer, heading to naked …

  Knock! Knock!

  Hammer stops, his body freezes.

  Knock Knock.

  “Hello?”

  A woman. Marci’s already inside.

  Chapter 54

  “Hello?”

  Hammer pulls up his jeans, cracks the closet door and looks out.

  “Hey, you,” he says. His face relaxes and he smiles. “I’m doing a show.”

  He steps out the door, careful to close it. I press my ear against the door.

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” a girl says. “The door was open.”

  “Later.”

  Click. The front door shuts. Closure does nothing to slow my heart’s fast rat-a-tat-tat.

  The closet door opens, Hammer steps inside and looks at me.

  “You okay?”

  I nod, freaked out. My face feels like it seized up.

  “Shelia’s cool. She lives upstairs. One time her client—”

  “Is the camera off?”

  “Oh, shit!” He grabs the Webcam and turns it away from the room.

  “Your commercial break.”

  “Yeah, so one time her client comes to our door. ‘Shelia!’ he says. ‘It’s me!’ We tell him, ‘There’s no one here by the name Shelia.’ He keeps knocking. Real loud, he says, ‘Shelia! I know you’re in there!’ I opened the door and told him, ‘Bro, there’s no Shelia here.’ He stuck his foot inside. I can’t shut it. I know his type. He’ll push to get inside. Needs to see for himself. Right then, Shelia shows up. That’s how we became friends.”

  “You do shows with her?”

  “Hell, no! She’s got fake tits. ’Sides, she only does private shows. You know …” he says. “You’re really cute.”

  He steps forward. His voice, his body, his smell—he radiates sex. And pleasure. When I watched him doing push-ups, this is what I imagined. We wouldn’t talk. Our kiss would just … happen. I close my eyes. I’m ready.

&n
bsp; His big left hand touches my forehead, fingertips trace my face, temples to cheekbone and jaw, lips. Kinda rough, he thumbs my lips. My body shudders. My head feels light. He sticks his right hand in my hair and roughly pushes it back. The blond color’s fake. Who cares. I don’t. Hammer wants me.

  “Yeah?” he says, his voice low, sexy and dirty. He steps close. Heat peels off his body. I reach out and hold my left hand over his chest. Hot, he burns. “You like that?”

  “I do but …” Yeah, dude, BUT WHAT? That’s not what I’m supposed to say—not to a sixteen-year-old hottie who’s perfect. And wants me.

  “But what?” A confused look crosses his face. Hammer’s never dealt with romantic doubt or sexual hesitation. Hammer knows he’s hot and has known this since kindgergarten. Girls chased him around the playground. Boys wanted to be him. He knows that everyone who sees him wants to fuck him. Like, me. I want him so bad. But I pull back. I want to turn and run.

  He’s not put off. I hope he’s not the type who believes “No” means “Yes.” His hand pushes through my hair. Meat-hook-sized fingers move down and grab my neck. He pulls me forward. He even smells good. Lemony fresh with a hint of violet.

  “Foxy boi,” he says, voice sexy and dirty. His lips graze my ear. I can’t resist: I want him. I reach up, caressing his hair. Oh. My. God. Blond, buzzed and thick.

  “I don’t know—”

  “Shhh.” He places an index finger over my lips. He pushes my lips apart and forces me to suck his thumb. His other hand travels down my neck and over my back, to my butt. His big hand cups it. Instinct, I arch. I guess this makes me a bottom. His touch feels so good. He’s gentle, so different from—

  Stop. Everything stops. My body seizes up. I freeze. I want to shout, “Stop!” but the word’s stuck in my throat. I pull away. He won’t let go. He holds me tight. I choke. I want to throw up. “Let me go!” Where’d my voice go? He pulls me closer. Peach fuzz brushes my skin. I don’t want to kiss him or his pink lips, just—

  Chapter 55

  “What?”

  He steps back. That’s it. Now I’ve done it. Really fucked up. Hammer Fail. I’m such a fool. He never really liked me. He’s just good at this. Fake desire? Velveeta? I feel so stupid. He’s a tease. That’s his job. Worse, I watched him. Give a glimpse. Pull back. Stir up desire. I feel so stupid. I’ve been played. Used. Again.