by Andy Behrman
A Creamy Vanilla Dessert
After dinner at Arqua with clients from a new Japanese gallery, I take a cab back uptown to my apartment. It doesn’t feel like I’m going to be staying here too long—I’m restless. No phone messages. There’s nothing on television. The T-word is coming on—trouble. Drugs. Sex. I’m not going back downtown or out to a bar. I could order in sex. But I’m not paying for it tonight. I get on the phone and start talking to a few different guys on one of the phone-sex lines. Nobody too interesting. Finally I hear a guy who sounds good. Nice voice. Good laugh. His name is Jeffrey. “Bi-curious” with a girlfriend. Always the most fun and fucked-up kind. He’s been partying for a few hours, smoking coke. We talk for ten minutes about lots of things. Work. (He’s a television producer.) Sex. What else? What he likes to do. He’s a top. He’s a big voyeur. He gets off on beautiful bodies. He likes watching guys fuck girls. (We’ve got a few things in common.) Says he’s in the mood to party and play. He’s in the 60s between Park and Lexington. I figure I’ll give it a shot. I take his number and call him back. He answers. Phone-line protocol. I take his address. Get dressed. Jeans. T-shirt. V-neck sweater. Take a few thousand dollars from the freezer. My frozen assets. Never know.
The concierge rings apartment 35B and announces my arrival. He’s a bit curt. I get the sense that I’m not the first visitor of the evening. I nervously ride the elevator, slightly buzzed, wondering if I reek of the five or six vodka tonics I consumed earlier this evening. Fuck it. I’ve got nothing to lose. I ring the bell and the door opens. Standing in front of me is a good-looking guy, about thirty years old, six-feet-two, 190 pounds, messy brown hair, green eyes, a cleft chin, and a worked-out chest and arms. Real straight boy. Looks kind of like he could do a deodorant commercial. He’s wearing a light blue UCLA T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He’s barefoot. Next to him is Einstein, his golden retriever puppy. We shake hands and he invites me in. Big hands. Solid grip. Good eye contact. It’s safe to go in, I tell myself.
Jeffrey’s apartment is a bit of a mess. My first instinct is to offer to help him clean up a little. He invites me to sit down and relax and offers me a drink. Vodka and Scotch bottles and empty Diet Coke cans cover the glass coffee table in front of the matching white Palazetti couches. He brings me a glass with ice. I point to the vodka, and he pours me a generous drink. Einstein is under the table, which is littered with Marlboro Lights, full ashtrays, pipes, lighters, an old Blimpie sandwich, and back issues of New York magazine. He lifts his glass to mine. “Here’s to good friends,” I say. “Tonight is kind of special,” he adds. We laugh. It’s unusually quiet thirty-five stories high. The lights are dim. This guy is making me nervous, so I take a drink. He asks me if I’m in the mood to smoke some coke, and I tell him I’m always in the mood to smoke coke. I sound like an addict. He double-checks that all the shades are drawn. He puts on Blondie. “Heart of Glass.” Much better. Time for drugs. He fills the pipe with some crack and takes a big hit. He’s leaning back on the couch and lifting his hips off the launchpad, lips pursed, smiling. He refills the pipe and passes it to me. I take a deep breath of the white smoke, and it tastes like a creamy vanilla dessert—it’s so rich and fluffy it goes straight to my cock and balls. They’re tingling. I’m as high as I can go on my chart. Suddenly I care about Jeffrey and Einstein. They’re mine. I put my arm around Jeffrey’s shoulder and rub his neck. He puts his head between his knees and starts laughing. We laugh together. We just sit next to each other on the couch waiting out the high. I’m petting Einstein. I get up and go to the bathroom and spot a Cindy Sherman photograph on the wall that I really like. Shit. He’s got a Cindy Sherman photograph. I don’t say anything. Maybe I can get him so fucked-up that I can steal it. I piss in his sink and go back into the living room. We’re both barefoot at this point, so now there are two sets of naked feet on the white carpet underneath the glass coffee table. We take another hit. He stands up, takes off his jeans, and throws them on the floor. He’s getting serious. Of course this guy doesn’t wear underwear. Faggot. I should have known. He walks around the room showing off his ass. Not bad. He sits on the couch and turns on the VCR and starts watching a video of a group of guys taking turns fucking a blond girl with big boobs. He lubes up his cock with some lotion on the coffee table and starts jerking off in front of me. He smiles. I guess this is what I came here for. I take a hit until I feel real turned-on and sit down next to Jeffrey. I pull off my jeans and briefs and start sliding my hand up and down my cock. Then I start stroking his. It’s pretty massive when it gets totally hard. It looks like a missile or a rocket. I’d like to have one that big. I don’t know what for. Just for show, I guess. Out of nowhere he asks me my last name. I stumble for a minute, then give in and tell him. He tells me he knows my sister. I guess my jaw drops. He starts laughing. Jeffrey has this incredibly deep laugh. Great. He knows my sister. Should we call her now or wait until we’re done? I’m fucked now. Guess what? I just jerked off with your brother. I’m craving another hit of coke, so I smoke some more and get even more turned-on. On the coffee table is a framed picture of Jeffrey and another guy, who looks just like him. It’s his brother. He probably has a big missile dick, too. They’re with their mother and father skiing in Aspen. They’ve been watching this entire display of lewd behavior from the coffee table the whole time. I’m a little embarrassed for Jeffrey.
Jeffrey gets up and announces that he’s going to take a shower and that I should make myself at home. I already feel at home. I’m in my briefs. Watching television. Eating popcorn. Einstein is snoring under the table. Once I hear the shower running, I start rifling through Jeffrey’s desk. I feel like I’m on a game show desperately searching for clues to something. Beat the Clock. On his desk is a photo of Einstein with a ribbon on his head at Christmas. The frame is monogrammed with the initials PJB. Something’s off. I find his wallet with his driver’s license, an American Express card, a Citibank card, all bearing the name Patrick J. Bailey. I should have figured. The old use-your-middle-name-as-your-first-name trick. I’ll deal with this. Then I find rubber-banded piles of pictures of him at black-tie events with lots of beautiful girls and boys getting drunk and celebrating with their arms around one another holding champagne bottles. There are even some of him with Calvin Klein standing near a pool—looks like Miami or Los Angeles. He’s got about $1,000 in cash and a bunch of Chinese menus. And crack pipes. Lots of them. I go into the refrigerator, and it’s empty except for some peanut butter and jelly and bread. I’m not in the mood for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I find his passport on top of the refrigerator. It’s brand-new. He must be going somewhere soon. Bad picture. Looks like Marcus Schenkenberg on a bad day. Probably spent the night before partying. He comes out of the bedroom wearing just a robe and tells me he feels much better and that I should take a shower. He gives me a towel, a pair of sweats, and a T-shirt to change into. I jump into the shower and stand under the jet of some Sharper Image faucet gadgetry that pulses on my brains. I start coming back to life. I use his Kiehl’s grapefruit liquid soap and feel like I’m sterilized and ready for surgery. I dry off and walk back into the living room, where Patrick is smoking more coke.
“What do most people call you?” I ask him.
“Just Jeffrey, I guess. Sometimes Jeff,” he answers. “Does anybody ever call you Andrew?”
“No, just Patrick,” I say. “My real close friends just call me Patrick.”
He stares at me.
“You should let your friends call you Patrick, too. Then you wouldn’t have to reprint your checkbook or passport, get new credit cards, monogram your picture frames or stationery or any of that kind of stuff,” I add.
“Go fuck yourself,” he yells.
I start laughing. Patrick turns on the television and starts flipping through the channels. He offers me a hit of coke, which I gladly accept, and it gets me going again. This time I feel refreshed. I’m wearing my new uniform—sweats and a T-shirt—and I feel clean and smell good. Smokin
g crack is like a sport. It should be an Olympic sport. I would be very good. But Patrick, I think, would be a gold medalist. He goes into the bedroom and changes into a pair of briefs and a T-shirt. He feeds Einstein and then gets on the phone with someone he calls Matt. Twenty minutes later Matt arrives at the apartment with more coke, and I insist on paying for it. He tells me to put away my money. I recognize Matt from some of the photographs. Patrick introduces me as a filmmaker friend from Paris. Matt is about thirty, a scaled-down version of Patrick, with short brown hair and sad-looking blue eyes. He’s obviously a regular visitor, as Einstein makes a big fuss over him. Patrick asks Matt to take Einstein out for a walk, and the two go running for the door. On the way out, Matt and Patrick look at each other and smile. I quickly decide to put my regular clothes back on and leave, but Patrick insists that I stay. “Don’t go—we’ll have fun,” he assures me. We’re going to smoke more coke when Matt and Einstein come back. He convinces me. When Matt returns in about fifteen minutes, he puts on Blondie again. We’re all getting high. “What do you do in Paris?” he asks me. Make films. What kind of films? Mostly documentaries about fish. Flicks about fish? Yes, fish. Poisson. Matt laughs. Soon all three of us are sitting in our briefs. Tropical fish? Actually, all sorts of fish. Are there fish in the Seine? I laugh at the question. Matt seems puzzled and takes another hit of coke while Patrick and I laugh at him. Then Matt and Patrick start touching each other on the couch, and I go into the kitchen and start making myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on toast. By the time I’m done, the two of them are in the bedroom, naked, sucking each other’s cocks. They’re boyfriends, is my guess. Also that there is no girlfriend for Patrick. Or she’s out of town with a touring company of Cats and she’s not coming home for a few years. I come back into the room eating my sandwich. They stop midsuck. Matt sits up and asks me how I met Patrick. Same way you probably did. The Parisian fish-documentary story was just a little joke. Move over. Three naked guys in a bedroom totally coked-up playing with one another in the middle of the day. Or night. Einstein’s confused. It’s dark, but that’s because the blinds are closed. It could be light. Patrick and Matt and I are smoking and the two of them are kissing and they look beautiful together and we all have four letters in our first names and we all have blue eyes but Patrick still has the biggest cock. I’m not sure if I should be watching or playing, but Patrick keeps pulling me closer to him and Matt and both of them start taking turns sucking my cock while I’m getting high. I wonder if anyone else is coming over to play.
Later Patrick decides to order in some Chinese food and asks what we want. I tell him anything he likes; I eat everything. I lie in bed with Matt and ask him if he’s okay with all this. Sure. He inhales a huge hit of coke and blows it into my mouth; I get extremely high from it. Patrick watches the whole thing from the phone. The food comes, and we put on our briefs. Dumplings with hot sesame oil, moo shoo pork with pancakes, shrimp with walnuts, Szechuan chicken and eggplant with garlic sauce—and Diet Coke. We don’t really eat much of it. But if I die in this apartment, I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to do the autopsy on me.
David Letterman is talking to Chevy Chase, so I know it’s after midnight, and still nobody has shot his load. Einstein’s been out only once since I arrived; it’s somebody’s turn to walk him. Don’t look at me. Ask the doorman or the concierge. All I know is that I need to be inside dimly lit enclosed spaces when I’m coked-up. Patrick throws on a pair of jeans and plays self-sacrificing dog walker. I end up with Matt in the bedroom—we’re naked in a matter of minutes and together in the shower before Patrick is back. I met him on the phone. Me too. Matt’s your real name? Yeah. Andy? Yeah; little boy’s name, huh?
After Patrick returns, we start passing around the pipe again. I’m watching Patrick and Matt together and stroking my cock, and all of a sudden I can’t hold back any longer and it starts building and building until finally I just let it all go and shoot all over the two of them and all I can see in front of my eyes is a big pinwheel going in circles. For about three seconds my brain freezes and everything shuts off—just the pinwheel, no sound. And I feel this tremendous guilt for having spent the last twenty-four hours in this apartment for these three seconds and six spurts of cum. So I clean up a little, put my clothes on, and say good-bye to Patrick and Matt, who are entangled on the bed. Einstein follows me to the door and looks up at me. I go into the kitchen and feed him and leave.
Another Round, Please
My friends decide that I need to start dating again. They figure I’m successful, good-looking, and funny and should be in a relationship and put Allison in my past. Lucy, who has returned from Paris, turns out to be a well-intentioned and dedicated matchmaker, but she doesn’t understand that I’m incapable of connecting to anyone in a serious way. She tells me that she has the perfect woman for me and introduces me to a good friend of hers, an actress named Jane Fletcher, who works as a waitress at Elio’s on the Upper East Side. The first time I meet her, for drinks, I’m immediately impressed—she’s got a great smile, a wild laugh, and a quick wit. I think she’s a bit nuts, too. We’re well matched. We start dating, nothing very serious at first, but we end up spending most of the summer together, going out to dinner and the movies and having sex. Unfortunately, although I don’t know it, I’m looking for a replacement for Allison and she seems like the right one. But the relationship runs into some trouble: first, she’s not Allison, and second, we’re both drinking too much. I’m also taking medication, and we’re both flying high around Manhattan.
It’s a Saturday, and I’ve spent a long day at Kostabi World getting a huge shipment of paintings out to a client in Japan in record time, and I’m not feeling too well. I’ve got a bad headache. When I get home, I take about five Advil with an Amstel Light and after about an hour I’m a little better. I’m looking forward to tonight because Jane has the night off from work and it’s been a few days since I’ve seen her. I call her and tell her I’m going to be a little late and jump into the shower. The water turns cold. Shit. I dry off. I throw on a pair of jeans and a white linen shirt and head crosstown at about 8:30 P.M. Jane gives me a big hug and kiss when she sees me, and I wait in the living room while she’s getting ready. A pop station is playing in her bedroom and I’m reading People magazine. She’s putting on her makeup and offers me a drink; she’s having one herself, so I take a beer from the refrigerator. When she comes out of her bedroom, she’s still brushing her hair, wearing a pair of jeans and a tight black shirt and looking like she’s ready for a night out on the town. “How do I look, seriously?” she asks. “You look great,” I tell her. I’m attracted to her; she’s a lot of fun and really amusing. She thinks I’m incredibly wild and likes playing on the edge with me. By now, we’ve had a few drinks and we’re anxious to go out. We arrive at Punsch, the restaurant of the moment, on the Upper West Side. The owner, who knows me well, seats us and we order drinks. I start rambling about some of the difficulties I’m having with Lauren about keeping the film financed. “Honey, you’re going to have to talk to her about it,” she says. Jane has such glib solutions. I have never considered talking to Lauren about budget problems because she could outtalk me any day. Lauren would just persuade me that I have the money and should just keep paying; it’s for a good cause, and anyhow, we’re almost done. The waiter comes, and we both order gravlax and the duck. I don’t know why we both have the same thing. He also brings us another round of drinks, and I order a bottle of wine. It’s getting more and more crowded in the restaurant, and very warm. It’s been pretty hot the entire week, and I’m thinking that maybe the air-conditioning isn’t working very well. Jane looks pretty buzzed; she tells me I do, too. We’re laughing at each other in our drunkenness. Alcohol is clearly fueling this relationship. Our dinner comes to the table and we eat ravenously and order another bottle of wine. I don’t think I can walk out of the restaurant now. Somehow I manage to pay the bill with my credit card, and I’m trying to think of where we can
go next. “What do you want to do?” I ask her. But my mania steers the course; we stumble into a cab and go downtown without a specific destination. “Keep heading downtown,” I tell the driver. We pass by some bars that we nix and just open the window and breathe in the air and laugh at the last couple of hours. We’re having a blast. “Take us to Gansevoort Street in the West Village,” I tell the driver. He drops us off at Florent and it’s pretty crowded, but we don’t care. We’re fearless; we order an after-dinner drink and share two desserts, and I’m already starting to think about our next stop.
Frequent Flyer
I’m obsessed with buying large quantities of cleaning products at the supermarket. Everything I can get my hands on: paper towels, sponges, bleach, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, scrubs, soaps, waxes, sprays, and oils. I hoard them in my kitchen cabinets in case I get snowed in for the next six months. Then I get to work. I put on my rubber gloves and scrub the entire bathroom until it sparkles—this can take an hour or longer. I move on to the next room, vacuuming dust from crevices, waxing floors, and polishing furniture. I set everything in its proper place. When it’s all done, I’m exhausted. I’m obsessed with counting the number of words on a written page, usually after I’ve read it, but sometimes I have to count first. Sometimes this gets in the way of getting work done. When I leave my apartment, I check three or four times to be sure I’ve locked my door.
