by John Rechy
“Boy meets boy, boy sucks boy, boy meets other boy, other boy fucks boy,” Jim Bond offered. High-fiving each other, everyone laughed except Rex Steed.
“Contain yourselves, girls,” Za-Za warned.
“What the fuck did you call me?” It was a growl from Rex Steed.
Oh, oh. She couldn't afford to have him walk out. “Now, girls—and Mr. Steed, the famous stud,” she revised.
“And what about me?” demanded Dak Boxer.
“Yeah, vat ya call us?” Lars Helmut added to the menace.
“I said, now girls and fabulous studs,” Za-Za adjusted.
“Uh, Za-Za, bottoms aren't girls, ya know?” Tony Piazza joined the protest.
“All right, all right, controlez-vous, studs and studettes!” The last word flew out. She cleared her throat. “The story is this, trésors. Marine Sergeant Dick has secretly taken a room in a fabulous motel for the weekend. Sergeant Dick is played by Mr. Lars Helmut.”
Rex Steed turned a fierce scowl on her.
“You, Mr. Steed, are playing the sergeant's straight lover,” Za-Za assuaged.
Rex Steed relaxed. Eyeing the gallery at the top of the veranda, he removed his tank top, slowly From his perch, Mr. Smythe toasted the bared chest with a glass of the iced tea an imperturbable maid had passed around the veranda.
“And who the fuck am I?” Dak Boxer demanded.
“You have a better part, later,” Za-Za tried to whisper to him.
“Oh, yah?” Lars Helmut protested.
“Not a better part, just a different part.” Za-Za resumed with Mr. Smythe's directions, “What Sergeant Dick doesn't know is that his straight lover, who was supposed to go out of town on business, has decided to join him in the motel.”
“How does the straight lover know where the hidden sergeant is?” Sal Domingo queried.
“And how can he be his lover if he's so goddamned straight?” Jim Bond aimed at Rex Steed.
Za-Za continued intrepidly, “Now Tony Piazza is—”
“—the great-looking bellboy,” Tony Piazza already knew.
“Yes, but there's another bellboy—” Za-Za placated Sal Domingo's glower.
Huck Sawyer—freckle-cheeked, sandy-haired—rushed in, led by the oblivious maid. “I'm sorry I'm late. I had to go back for my briefs.” He jumped out of his clothes, leaving on Jockey shorts, his trademark. He kept them on in all his movies, having them pulled down only to the crests of his buttocks when he was being fucked. He came by rubbing his hands on the briefs so that cum smeared on them. That transformed him into a shy country boy.
Za-Za waved him away Her eyebrows soared as she read into the script.
CLOSEUP. TONY PIAZZA'S ass, puckering.
CLOSEUP. REX STEED'S cock, throbbing.
EXTREME CLOSEUP. REX STEED'S mighty cock probing TONY PIAZZA'S pleading ass.
TONY PIAZZA
(moaning)
Ahhh. Yeah, stud, fuck me! Fuck me!
REX STEED
(in husky voice)
Yeah, I'll fuck the fuck out of your fuckin’ ass.
Extreme closeup? Pleading ass? Fuck the fuck—? All part of Mr. Smythe's elaborate fantaisie, Za-Za soothed her anxiety.
Or did he intend to film this?
She shook that consideration away with a poke at her wig. Still, she might learn the correct form of a script, for A Message from Out There, in which she would employ overlapping dialogue, like Robert Altman, except that you wouldn't be able to hear anyone. “Ready for your entrance, Mr. Steed?”
“Ready.” Rex Steed unveiled the edge of his golden fleece. He directed a wry smile at Tony Piazza. “Remember. No kissin’. But I'll fuck your ass like you've never had it.”
“Oooh.” Tony Piazza wiggled his celebrated butt. “Do that, stud, you do that.”
Jim Bond approved the exchange with a high five between his legs.
Oh, oh. Something unscripted might happen. These crazy winds stirred everything—Za-Za glanced toward the not-so-distant hills—including fire.
Thomas Watkins
MORNING
In his robe and pajamas, lightweight for summer and somewhat large for his fit, fortyish-year-old body, Thomas Watkins sipped his coffee and looked out the window—a glass wall—of his beautiful home at the top of Laurel Canyon. Today, though, the wind seemed to be agitating the vista of trees and flowers almost vengefully.
“Is your coffee warm enough, my dear?” he asked the handsome young man who had just joined him, wearing his own robe.
“Yes, thank you. Are you enjoying the great view your home provides of the Canyon, Thomas?” The young man extended his hand for the older man to clasp in both of his.
“Our home. We share everything.”
“Oh, yes, Thomas”—he kissed the older man on the lips—“our love of ballet, great literature, and, of course, the Divine Maria. Thank you for leading me to Proust's Overture. I look forward to spending a year of my life reading the whole novel, with your guidance.”
“Thank you, my dear.”
“We have an isle of civility here, Thomas—away from the barbarities of the Reagan Administration.”
“Indeed we do, my love.”
“Before I met you, Thomas, all I could think of was polishing my car—”
“But, my dear, that, too, was charming. Now where would you like us to go this evening? They say that British film Chariots of Fire is quite moving.”
“Let's spend a quiet evening. I think they're showing Camille on Z Channel. I always cry when Garbo—”
“My beloved, you're too young to cry—”
“Tears of joy?”
“Ah, well, those should never stop, especially when they're shared.”
“We've shared everything from the lucky time when you drove past my house and I was polishing my car and I waved to you and you stopped. But what we share most is our love.”
“Yes”—Thomas closed his eyes—“especially our love.” He sighed, over the strains of the glorious voice of La Divina soaring with Puccini and Tosca through his fabulous new stereophonic set—
Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore—
Thomas opened his eyes, and the young man of his imagination was gone from the impeccably decorated home.
Thomas Watkins was alone, envisioning that someone special was sitting with him—yes, the young man who lived down the Canyon—and that they were about to enjoy a light brunch, he and this handsome young man who was capable of seeing beyond appearance. Not that there was anything wrong with his appearance—despite the fact that Herbert, that terrifying man who dared to call himself his friend, referred to him as “pleasantly plain”—it was simply that he was not “a great beauty.” He wasn't old, barely forty-seven—younger than Herbert anyway—and certainly he looked younger than his age. He might have added a few pounds in the last year, but at his height, five foot, eleven inches, he surely wasn't heavy The few extra pounds added presence.
Thomas held his coffee at his lips, waiting for a special cherished moment of La Divina as La Bohème—
Si, mi chiamano Mimi—there!
If the bell rang, he wouldn't answer it, because it would be that hateful Herbert. He might never have moved here, beautiful as the house and the Canyon were, if he had known that that man lived up the road from him, and that he felt he could pop in whenever he wanted, announcing that he knew “Tom”—Thomas hated having his name truncated—would be alone, and then assaulting him with all kinds of lurid stories about his purported sexual conquests.
Of course, Thomas would acknowledge about himself, he did have a reputation for being “a good listener.” At the only gay bar he frequented, a cozy, quiet one, he enjoyed the confidence of young men lamenting broken affairs or exulting in new ones. So many of those young men had a propensity for shabby affairs, he often noted to himself. With them, he commiserated and congratulated. What he didn't like was that if someone attractive entered the bar, they would glide away from him, sometimes blowing him a kiss of gratitude f
or listening.
Certainly, he had other friends, men, women, cultured friends who had him over for dinner, or he would have them, or they went out, to the opera, the ballet. All were unattractive.
The wind screeched, flinging palm fronds onto his small balcony, heaving them about so that they scratched at his window as if demanding to be let in.
Thomas hated these Sant'Ana days, especially the nights. That was when everyone—especially that despicable Herbert—claimed to have the most sex. Well, he wouldn't go out on such a violent day, not even for a drink at his bar—the only subdued bar left in the City—not one of those loud places with trashy music and men without shirts leaning over a pool table in vulgar attitudes. So much vulgarity in the gay world now, wasn't there? Why, even in his bar a few of the younger men carried small brown bottles of chemicals they said they sniffed from for added stimulation during sex, as if sex was no longer enough.
No, he would not have a scotch yet, not until, oh, perhaps two o'clock, or maybe, since it was Saturday, one o'clock. Just a touch of this fine Chivas Regal—
The doorbell rang, forcing him to swallow the drink he would have enjoyed sipping. It had to be that horrifying Herbert at the door, who else? With La Divina soaring ever higher, there would be no ambiguity about his being home. Of course, he could pretend he didn't hear him because of her—or that he'd gone out and left the recording on.
What if it wasn't Herbert? What if it was that young man down the road, always washing or working on his car in his baggy beach trunks—he must live with his family, sophisticated, cultured liberals, of course. Every time Thomas drove past—slowly because, precisely there, the road curved—the boy—young man—would look at him for steady seconds, and he'd begun to smile, and, most recently, he'd held out his hand in an uncertain wave, clearly shy. Perhaps today, he had emboldened himself to come over and—
Thomas went to his door and peered through the peephole.
“It's Herbert, Tom!”
It was impossible for Thomas to be rude. He was courteous to his own detriment, everyone said so. “Herbert, I was just—”
“Oh, don't apologize, Tom, I could hear that woman shrieking and knew you were here by yourself.”
There it was—four in a row and he hadn't been here but two seconds—calling him “Tom,” calling La Divina “that woman,” referring to her celestial voice as “shrieking,” and assuming that he would be alone. Here he had been picturing himself having morning coffee with a beautiful lover, and whom should he actually be going to have it with? Herbert Lavet, the “friend” he detested more than anyone else in the world.
“Oh, Herbert, please come in, of course.”
“Thanks.”
Herbert Lavet was an unattractive man of fifty. It angered Thomas that he kept referring to men “our age” although he'd never told the man how old he was. Nothing could be more incongruous than the sublime strains of La Divina's “Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore”—now refilling the air with grandeur—and coarse, terrible Herbert, who would soon—Thomas girded—make another remark about the Great Diva.
“Another friend of mine, our age—”
Thomas shut his eyes. Then, resigned, he led Herbert into the room he had just occupied with his imaginary lover.
“—is also an opera queen, and every time I—”
“I have told you many times that I am not an opera queen. I enjoy—yes, I love—opera.”
Herbert squirmed his broad hips onto a chair, waiting for Thomas to pour him a cup. “And the ballet, right—?”
Here it came, along with that despicable laughter. Thomas heard it in his mind before it erupted out of Herbert. Ha-aaa, ha-aaa, ha! “Yes, you know I love to go to the ballet.”
“A crotch watcher,” Herbert said before the monstrous laughter burst out of him. “That's what I call a friend of mine who takes binoculars to look at all the stuffed crotches. Ha-aaa, ha-aaa, ha. Me, I prefer real men, not those mincy fairies on tiptoes.”
“I take,” Thomas measured his words and held his cup steady because his hands were about to tremble, the wind increasing his edginess, “opera glasses with me so I can delight in catching the nuance of an intricate pas.”
“Whatever. Um—hot coffee on such a hot day.” Herbert blew into his cup. “Love these hot, windy days that give you a constant hard-on.”
Now it would begin, his ghastly recounting of purported sexual encounters. “I don't like these windy hot days. They make me nervous, especially when I have to go out—” He was preparing an escape.
“I love them because that's when I make out best. Last night, when the winds were kicking up, I met this one number outside that all-night sex-book store on lower Sunset. He was six foot two, but, like Mae West said, I'm not interested in the two inches. Ha-aaa, ha-aaa, ha!”
There he went. So unattractive and heavy-set—and fifty—yet bragging about his great conquests and appreciating himself so much—and oh, the way he laughed—Thomas could hear that laughter for hours after he left. Thomas tightened his lips, feeling that a rude insult would fly out of his mouth beyond his control. The wind shoved against the window.
“And, hon,” Herbert proceeded as expected, “that number was hung—” He spread his hands almost a foot. “I had to gag, and then he motioned his buddy over, and he was even more gorgeous—and bigger—well, I wanted to faint when I saw it, and the three of us—”
The window rattled. Thomas looked out and saw tangled weeds sweeping down the Canyon. He stood up, knowing he would now say words thought a million times, never before spoken. “Herbert, I must tell you that I don't believe your stories about your great conquests.”
Herbert's expression did not change. “Because I'm a troll?”
Thomas winced at the unexpected reply. He hated that word, “troll.” He knew that it was used on posted signs restricting entry into certain gay bathhouses. Fliers for such places—warning “TFF” to stay away—were often passed out, sometimes tacked onto light poles, in gay neighborhoods. Thomas regretted having unintentionally introduced such an unpleasant subject. “I'm sorry, I—” He sat down, pouring himself more coffee although he did not want more.
“Listen, Thomas.” Herbert's voice was ominously serious. “You know why you don't make out? Because men our age—”
“I am not your age.”
“—men our age have to face certain things if we want to go on in the gay world, and I do.”
Thomas did not want to hear any more. The recording had ended. There was only the insistent sound of the wind, and the sound of Herbert's voice, almost somber.
“I accept those things, Thomas, the three curses in the gay world—unattractive, old, and fat. I've been spared the fourth curse, the curse of a small dick, but that's not a blessing for me because no one notices.” He leaned toward Thomas.
Thomas retreated from him. He wanted to protest any possible implications in Herbert's words, but his mouth was too dry to speak.
“So I go where none of that matters.”
“I don't want to hear, I really—”
“There's a tunnel a few blocks away from two gay bars in Silverlake, near the sex-book store. The tunnel connects Sunset Boulevard above to a street below. It has a long, angular flight of stairs. It's dark at night, almost pitch-black, and it stinks, dank with the odor of dried cum and piss.”
Thomas stood up, trembling.
“If you want to see who'll go in the tunnel, you wait outside in the streetlight and then you follow If not, you go in and squat and you wait until, out of the darkness, a cock will push itself into your open mouth.”
“Herbert, I really don't—”
“Or I pay for it—like I did those two last night. You know why? Because I have to. But I make out, Thomas.” Herbert stood, facing Thomas. “And you don't.”
Thomas's words came out as gasps. “I will never pay anyone for sex—and I will never be a mouth in the dark!”
Orville
MORNING
Orville
usually slept soundly Not last night. He had been wakened several times by the Sant'Ana, which had started like a beckoning whisper, after midnight. Intermittent surges of wind became so strong that he got up and closed the windows, but the room became unbearably hot. Locating his body on his own perspiration on the mattress so that that would cool him for moments, he managed to fall asleep and slept late.
Now he stretched on the bed. Like most gay men, he slept naked. Most often, he woke with a hard-on, like now. He looked at his dark body on white sheets, his black body—chocolate-brown and good-looking. Yes, black was beautiful. It was true that black people had natural muscular bodies that white people had to work out to achieve, like his.
Handsome, tall, twenty-seven years old, Orville had no trouble making out—well, no more than anyone else did, considering all the games gay men played while cruising, trying to read each other's silent—confusing—signals. He knew, of course, that some white guys went only with black guys. He'd laugh when he heard the familiar saying, “Once you go black, you'll never go back.” He did not feel that anyone went with him because he was black.
He had become used to white people in bars addressing him as “man.” He even bantered back, using “man” in every sentence until the other person caught on—some didn't—and stopped. He laughed when someone expressed surprise at his decorated house in the good area of Silverlake. The living room and dining area were done in mostly black and white and beige, with huge blow-ups of great thirties and forties movie stars—women—only the faces detailed from classic photographs by Hurrell. Once he'd been asked if he was housesitting. That was so stupid it didn't bother him. He didn't mind when, at the beach—and why the hell shouldn't he cruise and show off on the beach and “sunbathe” like other guys just because his skin was already dark?—someone would claim to wish they had a “natural tan” like his. Maybe they did.
Waiting for his cock to soften, Orville got out of bed. He turned on the stereo in his living room. The record he'd listened to last night was still there—Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits. Damn if he'd apologize for liking Frank Sinatra, especially “Strangers in the Night,” playing now.
