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Derek always said he had champagne tastes on a crystal budget. I never totally understood that-whenever he got some money, he spent it on crystal, and if he got a lot of money, he bought a lot of crystal. But still, every time Derek emptied his pockets at night while he was opening the refrigerator, turning them inside out to show what he got that day, out would pop a square Ziploc bag of crystal, along with other junk-phone numbers of new pals, appointment times for dates scrawled on a matchbook, ink-line drawings of dying bodies with pustules mushrooming out from every piece of flesh, flyers for bands, etc. Everything else was thrown on the floor next to the bed, but the crystal bag was lovingly placed in his purple velvet drawstring drug bag. The little Ziploc bag was so small and elusive that it would attach itself to other things, or stubbornly cling to the bottom of Derek's pocket, or find its way to the inside pocket of his Levi's, etc., and Derek would turn the entire room upside down, figuring that the crystal had slipped out somewhere between the door and the refrigerator, and tear his backpack apart, even though he never put drugs in his backpack cuz he was afraid someone would take 'em while he was walking down the street. "Fuck!" he'd say. "I fucking lost it at New Dawn!" Or "That fucking Eddie-he stole my fucking crystal!" But then he'd calm down when he wrenched the little pack of matte white grains out of his pocket. He'd look at me and turn his bratty-boy face around like he was trying to feign ambivalence, even though he only had three looks on his face he could successfully pull off-a really happy grin, like he'd just been fucked in the ass by an ice cream cone with sprinkles on top; a don't-fuck-with-me look that simultaneously scared off and attracted scads of people; and a puffed-out-lip look in the middle of sex, like this was the most mind-blowing experience he'd ever had. He did the last one too well and too often for it to be real-I think he just created it for tricks, to make them think it was a really good blow job or something, and then his face just naturally made itself up that way during any sex. For a while, though, I thought it was just for me, cuz what we had was so special and all that shit, and it was one of the things that made me fall for him. But anyway, even if his face was kinda unformed and hardwired and could perform only three looks successfully, Derek still tried to show a range of emotions. The look he gave me when he finally found his crystal was one of them-an awkward, apologetic ambivalence, composed by lifting his eyebrows up, pushing his chin down, and extending the right side of his mouth like he had some kinda slow tic. This was his "I did something that was a little fucked up" look, and he got away with murder with it, even though nobody believed he was truly regretful. Derek wasn't sorry about anything he did. That's just the way he was: if he slipped on the ice and tripped his grandma for her last fall, he'd offer up the same look and take the money out of her purse. But nobody cared. That was Derek. "Got some more fucking crystal," he'd say. "What a shitty drug. I got champagne tastes on a crystal budget though," which was really irritating cuz he said it all the time, cuz he probably didn't remember he said it all the time, even though I told him, and cuz he fucked up the meaning of the cliche-if you got champagne tastes on a crystal budget, you buy the champagne, but you run yourself into debt, don't you? I don't know. I never bothered to really figure it out. It just annoyed me.
But that's just cuz I hated Derek for getting away with everything, for being so goddamned self-centered that you couldn't hold anything against him; he would never think of you anyway, so why not just give in. So what if he said the same fucking thing almost every day and he was a crystal addict-we were in San Francisco, what else were we going to do? Besides, I liked that he got crystal, cuz whenever we were pissed off, we could just do a little and I would get an instant hard-on. Derek put his hand on my cock when I first snorted crystal to see how quickly the stuff went to my groin. That's how he got me in the first place- picked me up at a vegetarian burrito place in the Mission and took me home one afternoon, threw me on the bed, took out his bag of speed, and held it out for me. We didn't leave for forty-eight hours. I swear. Two days in his little crappy Tenderloin studio where you could hear the drag queen's stomach upstairs struggle with bad shrimp or death throes-every thirty minutes we heard this explosion of diarrhea and then a toilet flush that shook the bed. We fucked-it was incredible-my body was a million Lite-Brites on at one time, etc. I was high on speed and sex and high on that pale bratty face in front of me that looked like he had just wiped a load of snot on the back of his sleeve, and high on all the mysterious Derek history around me-a picture of Derek on Polk Street, huddled next to a girl, that was taken for one of those trend stories on male hustlers; collages of Derek on a mountain top with angels and syringes hovering about him; matches everywhere, usually with a guy's name on the back of them, comics of grotesque, squat colorful figures fucking each other in the ribs and other exotic places; children's storybooks; teen boys and old ladies ripped from their resting places in magazine spreads and entwined together in languorous perversion; dirty T-shirts, etc. When he left to get more speed, I looked in his journal. Put one of his dirty white briefs next to my nose and took a whiff. Felt like the world had disappeared outside. Feared Derek would never come back. Convinced myself I should leave and get back to waiting for my unemployment check. Began jacking off. When Derek came back with more crystal, he got himself hard, started fucking me, rained a little crystal on my back, snorted it, then told me to switch and do the same. I couldn't get hard so I finger-fucked him and did the crystal from his back anyway. I moved into his place a week later.
Derek got me into hustling. I called it sex work because I went to college and lived in San Francisco, but he just called it hustling. He kept on telling me I'd be really good at it, that guys would like the tough-guy act I was putting on, that I could be a great top, that I could learn S/M and pull in thousands of dollars, that I thought I was better than him, that he was sick and tired of feeling like a slut, that if I hustled it would improve our relationship, etc. But my unemployment checks were still coming in, so I told Derek to fuck off; he got that don't-fuck-with-me look when we argued about this, so I knew nothing could stop him, and it was just a matter of time. A few weeks later Derek told me that his major trick, John (a John named John, ha ha), had spotted me walking next to Derek and really wanted to have me in bed. He said he'd pay three hundred dollars extra to have me and Derek in bed with him, so I did it. Derek and I did a little crystal, and we ended up at this megahouse in Twin Peaks with white carpeting everywhere, silver and glass tables, bookshelves, expensive coffee table editions of black-and-white male nude photo collections-'the whole thing. John was allegedly a doctor who made a fortune selling drugs and prescriptions to users throughout California. Or at least that's what Derek told me. When John opened the door, I hadn't known what to expect, but it wasn't what I saw-an Izod and shorts over a surprisingly buoyant, round body. His hair was straight and thick and almost totally white, and he had that kinda gay face that somehow stays "boyish" until age one hundred or something. He was really friendly, but there was something cold in his eyes. John shook my hand and smiled at me like he had already fucked me a couple weeks ago and I'd loved it or something, like he knew something about me. John ushered us into the bedroom and asked us to get comfortable, got us drinks, and Derek started fooling around in bed. It was the same as when we fooled around at home after I got over the weirdness of it all, except every few minutes Derek would turn around and ask, "Is it okay?" or "Do you want us to do anything else?" or "Can you see everything?" John sat on his faux-fur-upholstered chair, his head propped up on his fist, totally impassive, like he was studying a particularly tough engineering problem. Derek and I were like arms and legs and an extra pair of eyes. When Derek yelled that he was getting close, John yelled out, "Don't come yet!" and got on his knees next to the bed. Derek pulled out of me and came all over John's face. Derek told me to do the same, so I did. John stroked us for a little afterward, his head resting on Derek's inner thigh; John was sitting on the carpet, rambling about getting another designer for his place. He wanted to make it more " California," with lots of redwood. Our come was glazing his face, and it dripped down slowly onto the rug. John went into the shower and Derek told me that we should leave, that John didn't wanna see us after he came out, so we walked out and grabbed six hundred dollars off the kitchen counter. Derek went back in-said he forgot something-then came out five minutes later.
It was my first trick, and I felt like-what-I had gotten over on someone, I guess, and thought Derek would like me more. I felt something-a heat, a high, a rush, but I never really savored the rush, cuz we hooked up with our dealer quick and abandoned the next week in a crystal ice storm. We fucked forever and spent the noncrystal money on Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear discs, matching nipple piercings, and a little silver Victorian coke spoon Derek had been eyeballing for months. I told Derek I loved him while he was fucking me one night, and then he took it as a mantra, spitting the words out in a whisper, over and over again, matching it with his thrusts until he shot in me. I asked him to keep his cock in me as we lapsed into sleep, and he did, but when I woke up, he was on the other side of his bed, and I was empty.
John paged again the next week and wanted both of us there. He told Derek he wanted us to play dress up-he had some kinda cutoff blue jeans fantasy, but we didn't have any, so we stopped off at one of the Mission thrift stores to pick up a couple pairs before we got there. John was a little pissed off that we didn't have the stupid cutoffs on, but his smile never flagged; it just got brittle, and his cold round eyes got a little slittier. Derek and I went into John's marble-and-mirror bathroom and changed into the cutoffs, and when we got into the bedroom, John was on his furry chair again, with no pants, slowly jacking off. He asked Derek if he had got the stuff, and Derek kinda grunted, extra surly, and fished in his pockets forever for the crystal. I didn't know about the deal-Derek musta been holding out on me, but he would have just told me that he forgot about it, so I pretended not to care. John grabbed his little hand mirror, like old Hollywood starlets have-gilded silver with lots of swirls on the back-and laid out a coke-size line. Derek told him that the stuff was strong, but John did the whole line, and then offered us some, which we did. John looked all crystalled out-like he was on the edge of some big discovery but couldn't quite get there. He told us to start making out, to take our shirts off, etc.-and then he told Derek to fuck me. I looked back while I was on my stomach to see John's eyes fixed on a spot in front of his face and his tongue rushing in and out of his mouth like one of those New Year's Eve noisemakers. When Derek and I shot, John snuck up right next to the bed and sprinkled his come on us. He went into the shower. Derek and I both dressed, and were gonna walk out, but John yelled for Derek to stay, so he did. "Dude, I gotta stay. I'll meet you at home," Derek said, with the shrug-smile he had nailed down.
I stopped in Castro Station for a beer cuz no one I knew would be at that shit-ass crystal-troll palace, then walked up Market, figuring Derek was gonna be there, but he wasn't. The crystal was still fucking with my mind, so I cleaned the whole damn place, twice, and even rearranged what furniture we had-which pretty much consisted of swapping the futon with the beanbag and moving the plants that Derek had bought when he decided he needed more nature in his life. Derek still hadn't come home, so I just stayed in, waiting for Derek to get back so we could hang.
Derek didn't come back for two days. I made three mix tapes, looked through my old journals, painted the ceiling of the bathroom silver, organized all of our CDs according to genre (punk, seventies, fucked-up experimental stuff, rap, etc.), and tried to write one poem for each of Derek's piercings-nose, eyebrow, guiche, belly button, nipple. Each time I finished a poem I was pissed off even more that Derek wasn't there, cuz I wanted him to come loping through the door while I was doing this stupid, romantic, literate thing for him. But he didn't come back until three or four a.m. a couple days later. I was drunk. I was pissed. We got into a fight. He said I wasn't his mother. He told me that John and he had spent a couple days fucking around, that he had bought him a couple hundred bucks worth of speed, that John was fucking crazy for him, that John couldn't get it up for the last day so he just spent the whole time jacking off his soft cock while Derek posed for him. Derek showed me the money in his pocket-seven hundred dollars-and said John wanted to take him on a trip to New York next week. I wanted to fuck around, but Derek was worn out-the last thing he wanted to do was deal with his cock. He spent a few hours in the corner drawing in his journal; one drawing was a skeleton fucking an ape. If you can imagine it, there was a lot of love in the drawing-the ape was kinda pouting-but that's where the warmth stopped. Derek wouldn't hug me or touch me or kiss me, and I jacked off in the futon, pissed that John had sucked all the play out of Derek.
Derek didn't sleep with me that night, or the next night, or the next night. I mean sleep in both ways-he didn't spoon me while we were dreaming, and he didn't fuck me in the ass. He was bingeing. I was pissed off at him, so I pretended not to want any crystal cuz it was getting on my nerves, but really I was doing crystal, just not with him. Derek didn't say much when he stopped home to change clothes or grab something to eat-just mumbled something about some trick up in Pacific Heights or hanging out with some bull dyke named Mikee-but I figured he had picked up a couple guys and fucked for days like he did with me that first time. Maybe it was the crystal-I had no evidence-just the acid inside me.
Then Derek's friend Jason overdosed. He was this kid Derek used to hang out with on Polk Street; he turned Derek on to speed, then moved on to smack. He died at his place down at Folsom and Twenty-fifth, just like that, he elapsed. Derek got the call when he was in the shower; he ran out naked, then just stood there with the phone hanging from his hand. We both went to Jason's apartment, just cuz Derek needed to do something, needed to see the body or the place Jason died, or whatever. We took a cab to the Mission, and I held Derek's hand, in between our legs, like we were trying to hide something from the world, or from each other. When we got there, the body was gone. Jason's roommates-John and Boa-were smoking cigarettes in the common room, talking about whether they could get into trouble with the cops, whether the landlord could evict them, etc. Derek wanted to leave-he hated those guys-and when we walked out, he told me that they had killed Jason, that Jason had quit smack a half a year ago, that Boa hated Jason cuz he had slept with John, etc. I thought Derek was crazy, that he just needed to unload, etc., but he kept on it and threatened to call the cops, wanted them put in jail. Then he got all silent. We walked all the way to the Tenderloin. Derek grabbed my hand, and I gave him my sweatshirt, cuz he was really cold. We sat outside our place on the steps, smoking cigarettes, and Derek got all serious, said he didn't want to die alone, said we should go up to Oregon and get out of the city, just live in a little cabin next to a river or something. When we got inside, we did some crystal, and we started messing around, but it wasn't sexual; it was to soothe each other. We just spread ourselves on each other like cream, and we kissed each other a lot. Derek looked into my eyes; his cold blue eyes had darkened a bit, and they seemed on the verge of tears. It was like an ecstasy trip or something-we felt each other's presences or auras ooze out of our bodies and share the bed with us. That night, Derek hung on to me harder than he ever had, closer than he ever had, burying his body in the twists of mine, and I caressed his arm, over and over again, like a piece of beautiful wood.
The next morning, Derek got up, lit some sage, and sat down and meditated. I had seen him do this before-the last time was the first week we were hanging out; he told me he had to clear his mind to see if we could live with each other-the answer was yes. This time he emerged out of a few minutes of Indian-style sitting and told me he wanted to quit hustling. He wanted to get a job, a real job, any job; he could do outreach for street kids- he'd already been offered the gig, he said. He told me I should quit, too, that we should both go straight, that if we really loved each other we'd do that for each other. He had that possessed, bulldog look, scrunching up his nose and furrowing his brow, willing his idea into existence.
He'd take a week, he told me, to finish up with his clients and save up some money, but that was it, and we should both start looking for jobs. I hugged him, and I guess I got this image of both of us helping each other to imagine something different, something beautiful, having the courage to change, etc. Derek had a mind of switches and knobs, while mine was all analog dial-he could just toggle something in there, up or down, and everything would change, in a second, permanently.
The first thing he did was go and get more crystal. He said he needed it to get through the week, that this was the most important week in his life and he had to be up for it, etc. Then he called up a few of his regulars and told them that he was getting out of the business-me and my boyfriend, he kept on saying, we're gonna move to Oregon. I guess he'd changed his mind about getting a job in the city-that's how I learned most of the stuff about Derek's decisions; he would never tell me. I'd just learn it when he told somebody else, like it was something he had figured out a long time ago.
That week went like this: Derek got a book on Oregon, decided he wanted to live in Eugene, gave half of his clothes and CDs away to friends, had a few dates, showed me the pictures he kept in a little shoebox in the closet, put crystal on his cock and fucked me, and bought a pile of crystal to get us through the first few weeks in Oregon. We went partying with his friends almost every night, mostly whores Derek used to hang out with, dykes he trusted, a couple of artist types, etc. Derek was saying goodbyes-one night he did ecstasy and everybody he ran into in the streets was suddenly his best friend; he held everybody's hands and turned eight years old, reciting slowly and precisely where they met and what memory he cherished of them, etc. It looked like he was really gonna do it, that we were really gonna do it- go to Oregon. That night, we stayed out all night, climbed up on top of this little cliff outside of the Castro, and looked at the little cookie-cutter domestic skyline that is San Francisco. It was way cold and windy-we had to smoke the pot.
We were at home watching Pink Flamingos-Derek loved John Waters, thought he was the most brilliant guy around-he had his own copy of the movie and knew all the lines. Whenever anybody wanted Derek to do anything political-like sign a petition or go to a medical marijuana protest or whatever-he'd turn them down and say, "Filth is my politics; filth is my life!" I thought it was cool and didn't figure out the reference 'til that night, when Divine makes her manifesto. Anyway, right after that, John paged. He wanted us to get over there. So we cabbed it, and we put those stupid cutoff blue jeans on in the cab, taking our pants off right in the back. Derek didn't wear any underwear-he dared me to suck his cock right there, and I did, cuz I'll do anything on a dare. When we got to John's place, he was waiting for us; he was real twitchy and couldn't stop moving his mouth around, crystal marks. I figured he'd been up for at least a day. John touched me and Derek all creepily, on the chest, moving down to the stomach, and then got all courtly, asking us if the house was too cold or too warm, if we wanted to listen to different music (it was some stupid Steely Dan), if we wanted coffee, if we wanted crystal, whatever. So we did a couple bumps of crystal and then went to sit at the glass table in the kitchen, while John moved back and forth from the cabinet to the countertop, making coffee. He was talking all the time-his medical office was being run by idiots; the nurses were all gossips, except for this one guy who was really cute and maybe raiding the stash of local anesthetics; he met this really sexy guy and did we know him; coffee is really his drug of choice, etc. Derek would say something back to John and roll his eyes to me like, "When do we get the fucking money?"
It seemed like an hour, but we were doing bumps of crystal, so in a very long five minutes, the coffee was done. By that time John didn't want it anymore and neither did we, so we just went into the bedroom and John told us to take our shirts off but leave the cutoffs on. He told us to start, to go on, and so we did. Derek's mouth tasted like it always tasted-tobacco and that bitter pharmaceutical crystal tinge-and we passed our chewing gum to each other during the kiss like a secret message. John jacked off his crystal-crippled cock and kept on saying, "Yeah, that's it," like bad porn. Derek pushed me on the bed and moved me on my stomach, like we usually do it. He started getting the lube out and smearing it in my ass crack, when John said, "Why do you always fuck him? Next time you're gonna get fucked." Derek kept on going but said, "There isn't gonna be a next time." John asked, "What does that mean?" Derek told him, "We're moving to Oregon!" John got up and stood right next to the bed, his soft cock peeking out from below the bottom of his shirt. "What do you mean you're moving to Oregon?" he asked. Derek pulled off of me and told him he was sick of this town and he was leaving. "When?" John asked. "Two days," Derek said, "going to Portland." I reached for a cigarette.
John told Derek that he didn't want him to go, that he needed someone to go to New York with him, and that Derek had already agreed to go. Derek said, "Yeah, well you never brought it up again." John said, "Well, I'm going, next week." I figured John was lying cuz why would he suddenly mention that he was leaving in four days and that he expected Derek to go with him? It was total bullshit. John said, "So, are you gonna come with me?" Derek said, "I can't, dude. I'm moving to Oregon." John sat back down in his faux-fur-covered chair, to get more leverage or something. He stared at Derek like Derek stood between him and 5 million dollars, like an obstacle to be surmounted.
"You can move after we come back."
Derek didn't know what to say to that; he squirmed a little and looked at me for help, so I said, "We've got everything planned," which we didn't. I didn't even know that Derek wanted to move to Portland until now. John was pissed. I'd never seen him like this-he pulled some strange authority out of his ass, like he was back in the doctor's office giving someone a prescription. "You've never been to New York, have you? But you want to go." Derek didn't know where to go now. He changed positions on the bed, sitting up against the headboard. "Yeah, dude, of course," he said. "So come and see it." "I don't know dude." "I'm paying your airfare; we're staying in a great hotel..." Derek asked, "And?" John said, "And I'm giving you a hundred dollars a day spending money."
Derek motioned for my cigarette, so I gave it to him, and he pulled a drag. I still remember looking up at him while his lips were forming around the filter, waiting for his answer. Derek didn't look at me. He just looked straight at John and said, "Okay." John said, "Great," and then started working his cock again. "You guys should go back to work."
So I turned over on my stomach and Derek started fucking me again. I played dead. I left when John went into the shower, said, "See you at home, dude." Derek ran after me, playing dumb. "What?" he asked. "Is it about the New York thing? I've always wanted to go to New York. We can go to Oregon after I get back." But after that, he didn't say another word about Oregon. It was all New York -I'm going to New York, he told everyone he was going to New York; he started playing the Velvet Underground over and over again, etc. Every time I talked to him about Oregon his eyes glazed over and he changed the subject. John picked up Derek in a taxi at our place a few mornings later. Derek kissed me good-bye and told me he'd call, left, then came back and grabbed his baseball cap, then left again.
Derek did leave a message, from the top of the Empire State Building. He claimed to be calling from John's cell phone and said he could see all the way to our place and that I should close the window. When he got back into town, he looked like hell. Told me he hadn't slept in four days, that John and he had done all the crystal that was supposed to keep us in Oregon for a month, that he was sorry, but John had asked him to move in and was willing to pay him lots-o-cash just to live there, so he was gonna live there. I wanted to talk about it, but Derek told me John was waiting outside with the taxi, and he had to run-just wanted to pick up some more clothes. I said, "Wait! We gotta talk about this! What's going on? Are you living there forever? Are you giving up the apartment? What should I do?" He was running around, looking for something, and he said, "We'll deal with it." I turned into the spurned lover. I said, "I thought you wanted to get out of the business. I thought you wanted to live with me in Oregon." Derek was on his way out, but he turned before he reached the door and said what he always says: "Dude, I've got champagne tastes on a crystal budget. It's time for some champagne."
Gary Rosen is a writer, actor, and filmmaker. His stories and essays have appeared in Strange Fruit, Cuir Underground, Frontiers, RFD magazine, and the collection Trices and Treats. His first film, Totally Confused, played at festivals around the world, including Independents Night at Lincoln Center and the Berlin International Film Festival. He currently lives in Manhattan.
"Champagne Tastes on a Crystal Budget," by Gary Rosen, © 2000 by Gary Rosen, first appeared in Tricks and Treats, edited by Matt Bernstein Sycamore (Harrington Park Press, 2000). Reprinted by permission of the author.


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I found a company in the yellow pages, called them up, and went to their downtown office for an interview, which was actually a form-filling session and a rundown of time sheet and logon procedures. I already had the job, based on my initial phone voice, I guessed. The place was called Orange Phone, and the time sheets were pale orange. I was to work from home, logging on whenever I liked via the telephone keypad and marking the calls I got on the time sheets-but I'm not sure why, as calls were logged by the computer as well. I couldn't lie. I had to record a ten-second intro that would play in a menu of girls' voices for the callers, who would choose their favorite one before punching in credit card information. If it cleared, the call would be forwarded to that woman's house and would begin.
My instructions were to get a guy off in no less than four minutes, and no more than fifteen. For any time amount within that range, I got paid four dollars. That was it: four dollars a call. If the guy wasn't "done" at fifteen minutes, it was my job to cut him off and make him call back if he wanted more. (If I went over fifteen minutes, it didn't matter; I still only got four dollars.) So I would lie and say, "The computer's going to cut us off," at around fourteen and a half minutes and then just hang up in the middle of a sentence. I loved that, cutting off my own moans. It was my favorite part. "Oh, oh baby, you-" I figured if I got four calls an hour, it was double the wage of my day job. But for sex work, it was nothing. And, of course, because I had to be at home and wait for calls, it was hard to do anything else. So I didn't log on very often. The biggest check I ever got was for about eighty dollars: pathetic.
Somehow, I developed interactions with a few regulars who'd find me whenever I was on. I'd had fun recording my message: "Hi, I'm Eve. Tell me your fantasies, and I'd love to indulge you." My voice was deeper than the other girls' and my hope was to stick out from the crowd. There were usually only eight to ten girls logged on at a time. When I'd get a call, I had the choice to accept it or not. But there was this whole list of penalties-if I refused a call when I was logged on, I'd get docked one dollar. Or if a call was less than four minutes, same thing.
I almost always accepted calls, and this was my approach: we'd do introductions, during which I was generally asked what I was wearing and what I looked like. I'd make some shit up, depending on my mood, though usually I was the black-haired girl in nothing but underwear, touching myself. Then I'd say, "What's your fantaseeeee..." It was easier to work with whatever idea they already had in their heads than to make something up. A lot of times, the guy would do most of the talking, and I would moan and sigh. Real easy. I was never really naked or touching myself, though occasionally I'd get turned on. (At that point in my life, this disturbed me. Now, it wouldn't.)
I had one guy named John who would call me over and over for up to an hour at a time. He was great: he'd have a porno on his TV and tell me he was a director who traveled the states making them. He'd call me from " Atlanta," " Dallas," " Denver." He was probably just a businessman. But he'd say, "Listen to this scene. Can you hear it?" (I barely could.) "This is my favorite. I directed it; this actress is hot. Can you hear her? Does she sound hot?" and I'd moan and say, "Yeah, she's really hot. I love to listen to her," and wouldn't have to say anything else for a couple minutes while he got it on with himself and his pay-per-view.
But he couldn't get off unless I was on the phone with him. The voyeur needed a voyeur.
I heard from several men who picked my voice because I sounded bisexual. They all then arrived at the conclusion that I was willing to fuck them up the ass with a dildo. This dumbfounded me. Really, several guys made the leap from my voice to the dildo, all in their separate worlds, a synchronicity of thought. It was amazing, and I would fuck them all. A few men would also ask for my home number. A common misconception among Johns was that what I really wanted was a boyfriend and not the money. One guy, Steve, would want me to talk him through jerking off, and I would dance with him around his cock, make him travel up the back of it slowly, make him thrust with his hips, then linger at the tip, then jerk up and down, up and down the shaft and he'd say, "You're really good at this. You sound like you have one of your own. Are you sure you don't have one of your own? You really know what you're doing."
One day I accepted a call from a person with a severe stutter. His name-I eventually got-was Jimmy. "I-I-I-11-live... with m-my p-p-p-parents." He said, "I-I'm... s-s-slow." We had a little get-to-know-each-other session, and I figured out that he was almost forty and lived in Southern California. He wanted to know what I really did for a living, and by the time he got to that question, I had such a soft spot for him I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him I was a kid in San Francisco, trying to create my own life, but struggling with being poor... But it was better to uphold the fantasy, I think, that I was just there for the callers' needs and that I waited for them and loved it.
Jimmy became a regular. It was great because his language challenge drew the calls out, and he'd call back three, four times in a session. He started to tell me more and more about his life. "My... b-b-b-broth-th-ther b-b-b-beats me... i-in th-th-th-th-the b-back... yard... I-I-I-I'm worth... less. H-he kn-knows it." I was not able to hide my own concern, but I didn't want to play therapist, either, so I said, more cheerleader-like than parental, "You're not worthless! You're great!" And he'd reply, "N-no. I 1-1-1-like it." I was starting to understand. "It t-t-turns me on."
Jimmy wanted me to abuse him, too. After we'd established a certain level of trust, he asked me to tell him to do things. "What kind of things, Jimmy?" "I-I-I w-want to h-hurt m-m-m-m-my-self." I was eighteen. I had a hard time being a creative S/M top, let alone knowing his situation. But he was paying me. "And... s-s-s-s-silly th-things. I-I-I-I-I c-c-can do s-s-s-s-silly th-things." "Okay, Jimmy, cluck like a chicken." "Wh-what?" I could hear in his words that he was smiling. "Cluck like a chicken, and jump around the room. You're a chicken." He put the phone down, slowly, and did it. I could hear stuttered clucks approach and recede, and it broke my heart. When he got back, he said, "I-I ha-have a ha-hard-on." "Touch yourself," I said. "I want you to touch yourself and cluck like a chicken. Keep clucking." This was a successful session. He had what sounded like a great orgasm, with these stuttered clucks. I almost cried.
Jimmy kept calling back, week after week, and it got more and more difficult for me. I'd make him tie fabric around his wrist until his hand turned blue, while he was jerking off. Or I'd make him slap himself. Or hold his breath. I was running out of ideas. I'd make him jerk off until he almost came, then make him stop and wait. He loved that one. His stuttering would get excited and almost fluid.
"E-eeeve. I h-h-h-have t-to a-a-ask you s-s-s-s-s-some... th-th-thing," Jimmy said one day, as soon as I answered the call. "Go ahead!" I replied. "W-w-w-will you t-t-t-tell m-me how to k-kill my-s-s-self??" He was quiet, waiting for me to respond. "Jimmy, are you serious?" "P-p-p-please... p-p-p-lease," he began to beg. Was he serious? Was this a fantasy of autoerotic asphyxiation? More of the self-punishment vibe? "P-p-p-p-p-please." "Jimmy, I don't want to do that. Let's do something else. Do you have a fantasy?" I asked. "I-I t-told y-you," he replied. That was his fantasy, but where was the line between a story and reality? I tried to soften the wish and told him to place his head under a pillow while he jerked off, knowing that as long as he could talk to me he was getting air. But he was persistent. "I c-c-c-could j-j-jump o-o-o-out th-the win-d-d-dow. I h-h-h-hate m-my f-f-f-f-family. P-p-p-please. T-tell me to j-j-jump."
How long had Jimmy had this fantasy? I tried to talk around it, but he called back several times in succession, and it became clear that he was fixated on wanting to jump. I was getting paid. Was this my job? Would verbalizing the command just give him a huge instant orgasm? Or would he jump out the window? I couldn't take the risk that he would actually do it. I just wanted to get him off at this point, I really did, and I was attached to him. "Jimmy. I'm sorry." "Wh-wh-what!" He said. He knew what was coming. "I'm sorry. I can't do it." I thought about making him call 911, encouraging him to leave his family and live on his own, telling him that he was valuable and that his life was worth having. "I'm sorry, Jimmy," I said again. "B-b-bye," he stammered, sadly, and I hung up. He never called again.
Laurie Sirois, after nearly a decade in San Francisco, has returned to her home state of Maine. She now enjoys her rural environs, both as lifestyle and inspiration. The majority of Laurie's time is spent telecommuting to a technology company in San Francisco and caring for her dog, Otto.
"Orange Phone," by Laurie Sirois, © 2000 by Laurie Sirois, first appeared in Tricks and Treats, edited by Matt Bernstein Sycamore (Harrington Park Press, 2000). Reprinted by permission of the author.

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What she could tell when he was taking down her hair, and then unbuttoning her jacket and her blouse, was how many years he had spent with horses. His gestures were smooth and consistent, and once he had his hands on her body, he kept them there. But they weren't eager and hungry; they were quiet and reassuring, warm, dry, and knowledgeable, as if he could find out things about her by touching her, the way he would have to do with horses, the way, perhaps, he would do with Laurita tomorrow, running his hands down her legs looking for heat. His touch, in fact, belied the look on his face, which was disturbed and eager. His touch was almost idle. When he had his hand on her neck, she felt him probe a little knot there, press it and release it, the way her masseuse did, then move down to her shoulder, and do the same there. It was as if no degree of desire could interfere with his habit of taking care. They had been naked for ten minutes when she spoke for the first time. She said, "I bet the horses like you." Eileen, who had been lying curled on the bed, jumped down and went under the bedskirt.
"They seem to, actually."
"You have a nice touch."
"I get along well with dogs, too. Though Eileen hasn't really made up to me."
"And you don't get along with...?"
"Owners, maybe."
"Al likes you."
He looked her right in the eye. "Oh, they like me all right. I don't like them."
Rosalind threw back her head and laughed.
"And I don't get along with my wife."
"Is that why you look sad?"
"No doubt. Do I look sad, then?"
"You do to me."
He sighed. "I've been afraid it would get out."
"You looked happy after the race. Well, not happy, but excited. Almost happy."
"I was almost happy. Closest I've been in a pretty long time. She's a bombshell, that filly." Here was where Rosalind fell in love, because Dick had a whole different smile for this filly when he thought of her, a whole separate category of secret delight that crossed his face and pierced Rosalind for some reason she didn't begin to understand. She had been looking for mystery, hadn't she? Well, here it was.
Even so, they could still stop, get dressed, turn back. Their friendly conversation and her laugh showed that. In the atmosphere of the room, there was some levity, some detachment, some pure friendliness that they could build upon to get out of this. Rosalind knew it. But instead she put her fingertips on his lips and ran them gently around, a multitude of her nerve endings tickling a multitude of his. And then she leaned forward, letting her hair fall on his shoulders, and kissed him.
Maybe he wasn't getting along with his wife, but it was obvious that he had gotten along with her fine at some point, or with someone else, because his knowledge about what to do with Rosalind was instinctive and expert. First, he took her face between his hands and very gently and attentively ran his thumbs over her eyebrows, the planes of her cheeks, down the line of her jaw, bringing them to a rest upon her lips, where, after just a moment, he put the tips of them into her mouth. She could feel him touching her tongue and the inside of her lips. Then he smoothed that moisture into her cheeks and chin, over and over, until she was groaning. Then he ran one hand lightly down her throat, reminding her what a long and vulnerable throat it was. Then the other hand. Then he looked at her and kissed her, first just soft kissing, then firmer kissing, then tongue kissing, then gently biting her lips, kissing, biting, kissing, then kissing her neck, then biting, then kissing. Except the bites weren't bites, so careful and considerate were they, as if he were inside her skin and knew exactly what would be exciting and what would be painful. He bit her shoulders, left, then right. Meanwhile, his hands had found her breasts. Al's hands always happened upon her breasts as if he had never felt breasts before, but Dick's hands knew breasts perfectly well, and hers, it seemed, in particular. Pretty soon, but not too soon, his lips found them, too. She closed her eyes, because she didn't want to look at anything but his face now. His face was the only familiar thing in the room, and if she couldn't look at it, then what was happening in her body was too terrifying. Her body was already arching and shaking, but she wasn't orgasming. She was just responding to the lightness of his touch like iron filings to a magnet.
Now his hands moved downward, to her waist. She had not known the waist was an especially erogenous zone, but as he squeezed her waist and ran his thumbs and hands over her belly, she felt her whole lower body turn to fire, and sparks shoot out of her toes. It was as if there were some spot there, near her navel, that was sensitive and he knew it, he knew just where it was and how to activate it. She opened her eyes now and saw that his eyes were closed, and that, furthermore, she was participating unbeknownst to herself. She was rhythmically pinching his nipples, and he liked it. His hands fell away from her waist to her buttocks, and now he wasn't so gentle with her. He squeezed them hard, over and over, pinched them, too, but it didn't hurt. Always there was that quality in his touch of being unable to hurt living flesh. It was alluring, but, more than that, it was fascinating.
While this was going on, she opened her eyes again, and he was looking at her. He looked happy and fond. The look made her moan, because she didn't feel that she deserved fondness from him. Suddenly, and very very lightly, he touched her labia so that she cried out, and as she was crying out, he penetrated her, kindly but firmly, threw back his head, and closed his own eyes, seeming to pull her over himself as easily as a glove.
He penetrated her to the core, didn't he? He knew just how to do that, the way a racehorse knew how to find the finish line: wherever he penetrated her to, that was the core, and she felt it. He eased gently back and forth a time or two, and it wasn't so comfortable just then, but right when she was going to say something, or ask something, she got a wonderful feeling of moisture flooding her, and his penis turning to silk inside of her. She said, "What was that?"
And he said, "Sometimes it takes a moment or two for the foreskin to slide back." "You have a foreskin?"
"I do, indeed. I was born in Britain when my father was training horses there for some years."
"I'm sorry I didn't notice. I guess I was looking at your face." He smiled.
But then there was no time for talking, only for probing more and more deeply into this feeling she was having all through her body of melting around him as he went farther inside of her, and just when she orgasmed, he covered her face with his warm hands and made her go where he was inside her and she disappeared.
About two, Rosalind got up and put on a robe, and went over to the window and sat down, looking out over the beach and the dark ocean. There were stars everywhere, even in spite of the lights below. She hunched forward in her chair and looked down, then looked out again, taking her thick hair in her hands, hair that was her lifelong friend. She twisted it into a tail and curled it around her hand, then took a pencil out of a container on the desk and pinned it up. At that moment, she was thinking nothing. You could have asked her to swear, and she would have sworn, under oath, that she was thinking nothing. That she was utterly at peace and blank, well fucked, Al would have said, had said from time to time, referring to himself as well as to her. She put her hand between her legs and smelled her fingers, smelling the both of them together, then wiped her hand on the robe.
What was it that did it? She thought about this long afterward, obsessed about it, even. What was it that switched her so suddenly out of that blank, satisfied state? Perhaps it was the knowledge that the care he had taken of her was impersonal, nothing to do with her, only a quality of his that he brought to everything, something she responded to, but nothing she could claim. And she hadn't intended to claim anything, had she? This wasn't about claiming, it was about investigating. Nevertheless, whatever it was, whether something she thought or something she saw when she turned her head to glance at him on the bed, her blank satisfaction dissolved once and for all into pure longing. All her powers drained out of her then and there, as lost as if they had dissipated into the stars, and tears began to run down her cheeks. Eileen emerged from under the bedskirt and yawned, then stretched, first backward, then forward, with slow relish. Then she espied Rosalind at the window and crawled over to her, low crawl, pushing with her short back legs and swimming with her elbows. Her head was up and her eyes were bright, and she made a funny picture, but she didn't even begin to relieve Rosalind's sadness.
Jane Smiley is the author of ten works of fiction, including The Age of Grief, The Greenlanders, Ordinary hove Good Will, A. Thousand Acres (for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize), and Moo. She lives in northern California.
"From Horse Heaven," by Jane Smiley, © 2000 by Jane Smiley, photographs © Norman Mauskopf, first appeared in Horse Heaven, by Jane Smiley (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000). Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.


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Marcus took the stairs slowly, putting his grocery bags down while he stopped to rest on the second-floor landing. The fifth-floor climb to his apartment got worse every day. If he'd had any sense he would have changed apartments years ago after Don died, gotten something on the first floor, or at least found a building with an elevator. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to leave the place they had shared. There were too many wonderful memories. And now it was too late. His building was rent-controlled, and if he gave up his apartment he'd never be able to afford another one.
He'd only walked a block from the small Asian grocery store, but his emphysema made him feel twenty years older. That's what three packs a day for thirty-four years could do to you. How many years had Don bugged him to quit, telling him he should take better care of himself? Funny how things had turned out. Here he was, still plugging along, and Don was dead. The tightness in his chest had subsided after the short rest. Marcus picked up the bags and started up the stairs again.
"Need some help with those, Mr. Tyler?"
Marcus looked up to see Kelly, the boytoy from 5C, standing on the third-floor staircase. Marcus smiled. He might be too old to attract boytoys, but he wasn't too old to enjoy the view. Kelly was bare-chested and wearing cutoffs so short Marcus thought he saw the tip of the kid's cock peek out from the frayed denim of his left pant leg. He couldn't help staring at the sturdy legs covered with reddish down, a sharp contrast to the broad chest, which was completely hairless. Of course he might have had chest hair. The kids today got rid of hair in places they didn't want it.
Kelly didn't wait for Marcus to answer. He took the bags and bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Marcus craned his neck so he could get a good look at Kelly's bubble butt as he ran. Moments later Kelly was back downstairs, patting Marcus on the arm. "I left the bags outside your door, Mr. Tyler," he said.
"Thanks, Kelly." Marcus looked the twenty-something up and down appreciatively. "You're looking good tonight, boy. Got a hot date?"
"Sure do," Kelly replied. "I'm going to The Roundup."
"Well have a good time," Marcus told him. "And play safe."
"Always, Mr. Tyler," Kelly answered with a big smile, showing off perfect, straight, white teeth. Then he was down the stairs and out the front door.
Marcus shook his head as he watched him go. Getting old sure sucked.
He put a frozen entree into the microwave. Marcus couldn't remember the last time he had actually cooked. He used to love it, but there wasn't much enjoyment in cooking for one, and even less in sitting down to a nice dinner by yourself.
When he still had Don to cook for, he'd spend hours in the kitchen trying out all kinds of new recipes. Don would eat whatever Marcus put in front of him and pretend to like it. His lover had always been a basic, meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, although the meat he liked best you couldn't buy at the neighborhood grocery store.
He swallowed his last bite and finished the second of two beers he allowed himself each night. A smile crossed his lips as he recalled Kelly standing on the stairs tonight, looking like a proud, young stallion. He envisioned the young stud at The Roundup, moving through the horde of other hard young bodies, their sweaty chests rubbing against each other in a male mating dance. Marcus stood up to clear the table and was surprised to find his pants bunched at his crotch. Jesus, he had a boner! That sure didn't happen much anymore. He took out his hard-on and stroked it. He was a respectable six inches, certainly no stud, but he'd always been enough for Don.
Don himself had owned eight inches, but for reasons Marcus could never fathom, his lover had always loved getting fucked more than fucking. Once in a while Marcus would ask to have Don's rod up his ass, and Don would oblige, but he never seemed to enjoy himself as much as when Marcus was inside him.
Too bad they didn't have Senior Night at The Roundup. Maybe he should go down there anyway, Marcus thought. He could picture the faces of the young men when they saw him, potbellied and bald, with desperation written all over him. He probably couldn't even pay one of them to have sex with him. They'd take off so fast it would be as if someone had yelled "Fire!"
What was it Don used to call old men like him when they were young? Gnomes? No-trolls, that was it. Trolls. When he and Don were Kelly's age, Marcus couldn't imagine himself ever turning into one of those ugly old men, yet it happened to everyone. But if you were lucky, you had someone to grow old with, someone who wouldn't be disgusted by your sagging tits and shrunken ass. He thought he'd have Don, but Don had been gone for almost twenty years, a victim of the plague that had somehow managed to pass Marcus by.
Marcus sighed. You can't live in the past, he told himself. He went into the living room, opened the cabinet under the television, and looked through his porn collection, settling on Crotch Rocket starring Johnny King. Maybe he couldn't go to The Roundup tonight, but he was going to be there in spirit.
He slid the cassette into the VCR and sat down, holding his cock in one hand and the remote control in the other. He fast-forwarded through the credits and pushed play just as Johnny King came on screen. The movie had always been one of his favorites. It was amateurish and technically poor, but he and Don both loved it. Maybe because it held such fond memories.
They had seen it for the first time at the MalePlex. It was over thirty years, but Marcus could still remember sitting in the last row of the balcony, with Don kneeling between his legs, deep-throating Marcus's cock. Watching the flickering television screen, he could almost feel Don's breath on his skin, feel Don's black curls between his fingers as he held his lover's head against his crotch. When he closed his eyes he could almost hear the thump thump of Don's hand hitting the bottom of Marcus's seat as he jerked himself off while he pleasured Marcus.
Even now he could still picture the dreamy look on Don's face. He loved sucking cock, especially Marcus's. They'd come together that night, Don's body jerking so violently he'd fallen back against the seat in front of him. Marcus had ended up shooting all over Don's chest while Don's come had sprayed the empty seats around him.
As black-haired Johnny King started going down on a blond Adonis, Marcus spit in his hand and began to stroke himself. He smiled as he remembered doing this with Don. They'd sit together on the couch, reciting the insipid dialogue along with the video while they worked their cocks. They'd always tried to hold off as long as they could so they could come with the porn star, but they'd never lasted. Don would always end up with his head in Marcus's lap, swallowing his lover's cock, then before long Marcus would be on top of Don, sliding that cock into Don's waiting hole. Marcus looked down at his cock, resting limply in his wet hand. Shit! He'd come without realizing it. And he hadn't needed Johnny King. Just the memory of Don.
"Johnny King always did do his best acting with a mouthful of cock, didn't he, Marcus?"
Marcus turned in the direction of the voice. "He sure did-" he began. He sat frozen, then turned slowly to see the figure sitting beside him on the sofa. "Don?" he asked, barely able to generate enough saliva to speak.
"That's right, Marcus, it's me, in the flesh... so to speak."
Marcus stared at him, unbelieving. It was Don, all right; there was no denying it. His black curls were as unruly as ever, his smile just as welcoming. But his body was young and strong, the way it had been before the disease had eaten away everything that he was and made him almost unrecognizable.
It was impossible, yet there he sat, broad-shoulders, incredibly pumped-up pecs, his thick eight-incher standing at attention. Marcus had so many questions, yet the first one out of his mouth was, "Why are you naked?"
Don grinned. "You don't need clothes where I came from."
"Where did you come from?"
"You know the answer to that, Marcus."
Marcus did know, but was afraid to say it out loud.
"I've really missed you," Don told him.
"I've missed you, too. There hasn't been anyone since you."
Don looked skeptical. "A hot man like you alone all these years? I don't believe it."
"I was never a stud, Don, even though you always made me feel like one, but at least I was young. Look at me. Now I'm old and ugly."
"Not to me." Don slid over and put his arms around Marcus, kissing him deeply while his hands worked quickly to get Marcus out of his clothes.
Marcus felt the old stirrings immediately. He returned the kiss, clinging to his lover like a drowning man. It had been so long. He lay back, reveling in each sensation as Don's long, talented fingers explored every inch of him. His body had always come alive at Don's touch, but this time he felt different. He couldn't be drunk, not on two beers, but he felt that way. And in his drunken state each part of his body Don touched seemed to physically change.
When Don stroked his shoulders, Marcus felt them broaden.
After Don's hands passed over his chest, Marcus felt his nipples grow hard and his sagging tits tighten into muscular pecs. Don licked Marcus's belly, and suddenly the rounded flesh became flat and hard.
Don's mouth slid down Marcus's body, covering it with kisses. He stopped to rest between his legs, sliding his hands under Marcus and cupping his ass, using the hold to pull Marcus toward him, guiding his lover's cock into his waiting mouth. Don squeezed his ass cheeks and Marcus could feel his shrunken ass bunch up firm and high. Marcus lost himself in the feel of Don's wet warmth surrounding his hard flesh. His cock was lengthening as Don's talented mouth sucked him deeper and deeper into his throat. Don's nose was buried in his graying bush, but still his cock grew. He'd been ready to pop the moment Don touched him, but he forced himself to hold back, wanting the moment to last.
"Let go, Marcus," Don told him, his voice vibrating through Marcus's skin. And to help him, Don slid a finger deep inside Marcus's hole and massaged his prostate.
Marcus gave a strangled cry and gripped Don's hair as he came, shooting again and again. Never in his life had an orgasm lasted so long. Don kept Marcus in his mouth, swallowing it all, refusing to let even a drop escape his throat. When Don finally released his cock, Marcus felt his long, thick pole slap his thigh. His body felt so totally different he could almost believe it had actually changed, but he knew that wasn't possible.
"You make me feel young again, Don," he murmured, ruffling Don's dark hair.
"You are young again, Marcus. Go look at yourself." Going along with the joke, Marcus got up and went into the bedroom. When he saw his reflection in the wall mirror he stopped, stunned at his transformation. He looked thirty, but he'd never looked as good the first time around as he did now. The broad shoulders, the flat stomach, the powerful chest, and bubble butt he thought he had imagined belonged to him. They were actually real.
So was his cock. And it didn't only equal Don's. It surpassed it. Marcus hefted it in his hand. The fucking thing had to be at least ten inches, and so thick he could barely get his thumb and forefinger around its girth. "I don't understand," he said in bewilderment. "How could this happen?" he asked.
"It was always in you, Marcus," Don said from the doorway. "It was what I saw whenever I looked at you."
Marcus couldn't stop staring at himself. Needing to confirm his eyes weren't deceiving him, he pinched his nipples. He ran his hands down the hard flatness that was now his stomach, still expecting it all to disappear the moment he touched it. His eyes kept coming back to his cock, the most incredible change of all. And even more unbelievable than its size was the fact that it was hard again. After all Don had taken from him only moments ago, his erection was again straining against his belly. He glanced at his bed, then at Don. "I want to fuck you," he said.
Don laughed. "I thought you'd never ask."
"Can I?" Marcus asked.
"You never asked permission before."
Marcus said, "No, I mean-will I be able to fuck you, the way you are now?"
Don grinned sheepishly. "Sure. You didn't think I'd come all this way without making sure you could fuck my ass when I got here."
"Then come to bed."
His voice had barely formed the words and Don was there with him, the two of them jockeying for position like wrestlers. Marcus pinned Don down under him, then flipped him over onto his stomach. Don surrendered without a fight, resting his head on his arms and raising his ass high in the air.
Marcus licked his lips at the sight of the perfectly rounded buttocks yielding before him. He pulled apart the cheeks and buried his face in Don's ass, inhaling deeply. The smell of Don's ass had always been an aphrodisiac for him. His tongue sought the small pink hole, bathing it in spit. He worked his tongue inside the ring and heard Don moan. Hadn't it been just as long for Don as it had for him?
Marcus pulled back, pleased to see Don's pucker had increased in size from a dime to quarter. He dove back in, laving the tunnel, spurred on by the sounds of pleasure coming from his lover. He would have been happy to just keep rimming Don's hole, to continue savoring the taste of the man he loved, but Don was squirming and shifting his ass, impatient for the main course.
"Your tongue feels a foot long," he moaned, "but you know what I want you to put up there. Fuck me, Marcus! Fuck me now!
Marcus placed the tip of his cock at the opening of his lover's magnificent body. Finally, after all these years, he felt worthy of entering it. He grasped Don's hips and slid his cock into the spit-lubed hole.
Don's body shuddered at the contact. "It feels like a two-by-four," he whimpered.
Marcus thrust tentatively at first, but then overcome with desire, he rammed himself inside Don's ass and began to fuck more furiously. Again and again he pulled out a little, only to plunge his cock in deeper with the next thrust. Don quickly found his rhythm, and they began to move as one.
Soon Marcus felt the familiar tightness in his chest that came from any kind of exertion. He was frightened, but he didn't stop. He would pay any price for this chance to be with Don again. He increased his speed, fucking more like machine than man, slamming his groin against Don's ass with such force his lover was now lying flat on his stomach. The pain in his chest was spreading, and his heart was beating so fast he thought it would burst. Each beat echoed in his ears. He felt light-headed, but still he continued.
He was so close. Another minute, he begged. Please let me come in Don just one more time-
Marcus cried out, and all at once the pain in his chest was gone. His hips bucked wildly as his cock pumped wave after wave of come into the man who lay beneath him. Even in the throes of orgasm, he was aware of Don's hips moving against the mattress. When his body was finally spent, Marcus let his full weight come down to rest on Don's back.
Only when he felt Don moving under him did Marcus muster the energy to lift himself off the other man. He rolled off his lover's body and lay back beside him. When Don turned over, he could see the evidence of Don's own orgasm glistening on his sweat-coated skin.
Marcus raised himself up on one elbow. "I wish this night could last forever."
"It can," Don told him. "If you come with me."
Marcus dipped his head and lapped lazily at a glob of come on Don's belly. "Come with you?" he asked.
"It's why I came back, Marcus. To get you. You're ready to go, aren't you? There's nothing here to keep you, is there?"
Marcus glanced around. The place had ceased to be a home the moment Don wasn't there to share it. "No, nothing," he said. "My home will always be wherever you are."
"Then let's go."
When they reached the doorway, Marcus glanced back to where the figure lay unmoving on the bed. He was going to ask Don if the old man would be coming with them, then thought better of it. Even without asking, Marcus knew the place where Don was taking him was no different than The Roundup. No trolls allowed.
Michael Stamp's earliest writing influences were Gordon Merrick and John Preston, so it's not surprising that all Michael's erotica, including his S/M tales, have a decidedly romantic bent. His stories appear in the anthologies Best Gay Erotica 2001, Casting Couch Confessions, Sex Toy Tales, Strange Bedfellows, and Best S/M Erotica.
"Trolls," by Michael Stamp, © 2000 by Michael Stamp, first appeared in In Touch for Men, October 2000 (In Touch, 2000). Reprinted by permission of the author.


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I he night was frigid and the coffee so strong you could use it to flush a carburetor. I sat at the counter of the L.A. Diner (That's Last America, not Los Angeles, by the way) and checked out the only other patron, a balding, thick-waisted guy sitting with his back to the wall, going over some books. Tried to calm my nerves by making a game of guessing how big his dick was.
I started with his hands, which were big, thick-wristed, and peppered with dark hair. Full lips and the kind of proboscis people usually buy in a dimestore on Halloween. And when he'd got up to use the restroom earlier, I'd noticed a cowboy jut to his pelvis, like he was either hauling some serious cargo or trying to give that impression.
I figured him for an eight- or nine-incher.
But what the hell, even though I was dressed for the possibility, I didn't plan on fucking Barney McGuire.
Not if I could possibly avoid it.
I glanced at the clock above the door. Ten after one in the morning. Not a lot of time to accomplish what I needed to.
Outside snow drifted past the window, small steady flakes that would add up to a foot or more by daylight. Detroit winters can be brutal. I was thankful to be wearing the full-length fur coat that I'd been nagging Donny to buy me next time he got paid for a smack shipment. He always said no dame needed such an expensive coat, but on a night like this, maybe he would've understood.
The counter girl, Myrna, was coming out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee in one hand and my breakfast in the other. There was a sway to her walk and a droop to her lids that gave her that freshly fucked look. Which, since her boss Barney was here doing his weekly accounting, she might well have been.
Long witchy-looking black hair, a valentine-shaped butt, tits that, from the two inches of cleavage showing at the neckline of her uniform, must be perched on some serious underwire. As usual, she was painted up like a ten-dollar whore-crimson lipstick, kohl eyeliner, gold shadow-and hobbling around in a pair of towering spike heels that gave a succulent jut to her ass.
I'd had the hots for Myrna since we both waited tables at one of Donny's nightclubs and sneaked opportunities to make out in the ladies' room when we could. Then I got a chance at better things with Donny and, not long after that, Myrna went to work for Barney McGuire. Funny, huh? Two nice Detroit gals ending up in the employ of rivals in the numbers, whore, and drug trade.
Myrna slid a plate of grease-drenched eggs and hash browns in front of me. As always, my eyes went to the pattern of raised red scars on the back of her wrists-reminders that Barney, like his buddy the Marlboro Man, had a thing for branding.
"So when do you get off work?"
"When Barney says."
"Which is?"
"Depends on whether or not he's in the mood for any dessert." She seemed to want to change the subject. "So how's Donny? He okay with you bein' here?"
"Donny don't need to know every time I take a piss."
Myrna shrugged. "Your neck."
She reached over and ran her hand over my fur with the mingled lust and timidity of a girl about to give her first blow job. "Mink?"
"Sable."
"Lucky girl. Donny must be a generous guy."
"He can afford to be. Every few weeks, he does a transaction, he takes in fifty or sixty grand."
She picked up my cup of coffee and refilled it. I reached for it just in time to let our fingers brush, nails clinking lightly together. Then I couldn't stop myself from glancing at the clock. Myrna saw me, and her scarlet mouth pouted up like maybe I'd hurt her feelings. Maybe she thought I had a hot date. Night like this, most people aren't in a rush to be anywhere.
I looked around the empty diner. "Weather keeping people home tonight, I guess."
She nodded. "Yeah. Everybody but Barney, I guess, but he's gotta finish the damn books."
It was common knowledge how grumpy Barney got if he had to deviate from any of his comfortable routines. Going over the books at the Diner Saturday night was one of them. Arty Cohen, Donny's right-hand man, used to say Barney would wait to take a shit if it weren't written down on his schedule.
"He's been checkin' you out since you got here," said Myrna. "You don't want him to hit on you, you better leave."
I sipped my coffee. I didn't care what Barney did, as long as he stayed where he was a little longer.
When I set the coffee cup back down, I let my hand stray across the counter and brush hers. She jerked her hand away and glanced over at Barney to make sure he hadn't seen.
"You know what, these eggs just ain't doing it for me this morning. What I really want is something hotter, sweeter."
Underneath the makeup, her cheeks actually darkened to a deeper shade of pink. "Jeez, Viv, this ain't the time. He'll kill us both."
"Nobody lives forever. Don't you have a storage room or a basement? And stop lookin' over at Barney, he'll think some-thin's goin' on."
She giggled, scowled, and glanced at Barney all in the space of an eyeblink. "No shit, Viv. We can't. Barney, he don't like games if he ain't winnin'."
I was ready to risk scribbling something on a napkin or whispering in her ear when Barney yelled, "Hey, Myrna, what the hell's going on over there. Do I pay you to make out with my customers?"
Myrna jumped back like he'd jabbed her with a cigarette.
"Fuckin' broads."
He pushed back his chair and strode over to the counter. He was dressed like a banker who had a thing for Liberace. Nice suit, silk tie. Gold cigarette holder and a diamond big as a Chiclet on his right hand. Smile rehearsed and phony as a Fuller Brush salesman about to fuck the farmer's daughter.
Shit. It was almost one-twenty. I didn't have time for this crap.
"Ain't you one of Donny Marshak's girls?"
I nodded.
"He know you're here in my establishment?"
"Me and Donny, we had what you call a partin' of the ways. We're not so close no more, you know."
"He let you go? The man's a bigger dickhead than I figured him for."
"He got a short attention span, Donny does."
"So you're a free woman?"
"You could say."
Barney's expression went cool as a corpse. Like if he let anything show, his skin would crack. But I saw the tiniest, secret smile. Nothing you could even swear for sure was there. Like the smile of a man who's just seen his mistress across the room when he's got his wife on his arm.
He whisked out a card for Jules' Liquor Store and scrawled a number on the back. "Look, hon, I'm takin' off now before I get snowed in. You call me, though. Beautiful woman like you never has to worry where her next meal's comin' from as long as Barney McGuire's around."
I stroked the collar of my fur. "You don't gotta go right now, do you?"
He shrugged, looked almost embarrassed. "My daughter's gettin' baptized tomorrow morning. Don't wanna run the chance of missin' it, you know. Disappointin' her and her mama."
A kid? Funny, but I never thought of guys like Barney havin' kids. Not legit ones, anyways. Or going to baptisms, for God's sake.
"Hey, don't worry, though. I'm a man of my word. You want a job, doll, you got a place with me."
I imagined I could hear the clock over the door ticking. Like it was daring me to do something.
I put a hand on his lapel. "Before you go promising to buy the merchandise, ain't you gonna ask for a sample?"
"Hey, do I look like a guy who'd ask a woman to elope if I didn't plan to marry her?"
"I don't know. What does a guy like that look like?"
The bags below his eyes puckered with irritation. "Look, honey, Donny may go for pushy broads, but-"
I opened the fur coat and let it slither onto the countertop behind me. All I had on underneath was a garter belt and black stockings. I heard the sharp intake of Myrna's breath. Barney's eyes got big as my nipples. His gaze went to my tits, then did a quick up-down of my silk-clad legs and platinum snatch.
He glared at Myrna. "What you starin' at? This is between me and her. Go clean out the freezer. Scrub the John. You wor\ here, don't you?"
I couldn't tell if Myrna's eyes were green with jealousy or if she was just pissed because he might get cum on the floor. If it was jealousy, that came as a shock. Barney was as sadistic a bastard as Donny. I hadn't known she cared.
Barney unzipped his fly, grabbed my hair, and shoved me to my knees. His cock sprang out like a party favor, not as outstanding as I'd guessed in the length department, but thick as a rolling pin. When I took him in my mouth, it was like trying to suck down a rolled-up copy of the Detroit Times. I risked a look at his face and saw his eyes. They were mean and greedy, like his cock. Full of venom and guile.
You don't work the streets, then become the girlfriend of a mobster, without developing a throat like a vacuum pump and a gag reflex so numbed-out you could swallow swords.
I knew I was doing a great job on Barney. His cock was swollen and stiff and he was ramming himself past my teeth the way men do when they're ready to come. But nothing was happening.
I came up for air. "What do you like, baby? Tell me what you want."
"Hey, take your time. Now that you got my interest, I ain't in that big a rush."
He pushed me down onto the grimy floor, my legs up over his shoulders, bending me back so far that I thought his cock would ram into my tonsils.
A door slammed and I got a glimpse of Myrna disappearing into the kitchen. Good, I thought. Just stay there.
Meanwhile Barney was fucking with workmanlike concentration, grunting and sweating and pounding away like a carpenter hammering nails with my feet in their four-inch stilettos up over his shoulders.
I thought how I'd been thinking about Barney when I'd gone into my closet to find that pair of silver fuck-me pumps last night. Shoes, everybody knew Barney loved shoes.
I leaned back and arched my pelvis so his cock popped out of me with a sound like a cork leaving a wine bottle.
Before he could reinsert himself, I pulled off one of my pumps, held it to my mouth and ran my tongue, long and strum-mingly, up the heel. Put the heel in my mouth, sucked on it.
Barney sat back on his ankles. Bug-eyed and unblinking.
I slid the saliva-slick heel up my pussy and twisted it around. Pulled the shoe out so he could see that the leather was shined with my juices, and popped it back inside. He licked his lips and squeezed his dick so hard that the veins on the back of his hand showed.
I bucked my hips and fucked myself faster. I wanted to look at the clock, I wanted to see if Myrna was still in the back, but to know either of these things would distract me, break my rhythm.
Barney groaned and clenched his jaw. He was one of those men who would split a gut before he made a sound during orgasm. Then his cum spurted forward, not onto my pussy or tits as I was expecting, but onto the bar stool where I'd been sitting.
He grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head up, positioned my face over the chair.
"Lick it up, doll. Get every drop or next time I'll cum on the floor."
Not exactly my idea of dessert, but I did what he wanted, lapping the pearlescent ooze while faking little noises of enjoyment.
"You wait here, baby," I told Barney.
"Where you think you're goin'? You don't go nowhere until I tell you to."
"I want to go find Myrna. Make it a three-way."
"Oh." He looked surprised that such an idea could originate from a woman. "Okay, then. Tell that slut she don't act nice, then I won't act nice, either. And believe me, she don't want that."
"Sure, baby." I paused just long enough to pick up my fur from the countertop and put it on. "Cold night, huh?"
"Make it quick. I still gotta get home."
I searched the back room, but didn't find Myrna, so I followed some rickety stairs to the basement. She was slumped on the floor next to a shelf full of canned goods. Tears tracked her face and smudged mascara blackened her eyes.
When she saw me, she grabbed a can of baked beans off the shelf and threw it at me. "You bitch, it's bad enough seeing you again after all these months without having to watch you fuck that scumbag."
I dodged another can. "Stop it! What's wrong with you? I thought you hated Barney."
"I do."
"Then-"
"What is this, your revenge because I didn't trot after you the minute you winked? What are you doing down here, anyway? Why aren't you with him? He needs cream for his coffee, tell him to jerk off in it."
"I told him I was gonna bring you back for a three-way."
"Are you fuckin' crazy?"
"I wanted an excuse to come talk to you."
"We got nothin' to say."
I reached over and tried to wipe away the tear stains. She pulled away.
"Fuck you, now what kind of game are you playing?"
"It's not a game. It's serious."
"Fuck you. I'm going back upstairs."
"No, wait." I grabbed Myrna and forced my mouth against her darkly painted lips. She tasted of mint and just the faintest aftertaste of Marlboro.
"Leave me alone."
I started unbuttoning the black plastic buttons on her uniform. Yanked her bra up and buried my face in her cleavage while I ran my other hand up underneath her skirt. She wasn't wearing panties-probably a concession to Barney's need for instant gratification. I found her clit and rubbed it with my thumb while I slid my fingers up inside her pussy.
"Don't you know why I came here tonight? I came to get you."
"What d'you mean?"
"Didn't we always talk about gettin' out of here? Going someplace warm? Maybe Mexico. Tahiti."
Upstairs I heard the front door open. Footsteps.
"Don't kid yourself. We'll be stuck here till the day we die."
More noise above us. A chair scraped back across the floor. Then shattering, as though a glass had fallen.
"What the hell is that?"
She started to get up.
"No! Stay here!"
I bit down on her nipple. She stiffened, gasped, and then relaxed. I hurt her just a little bit, then moved up to her ear, tonguing the lobe, exploring the folds and whorls inside while I moved my fingers up inside her cunt.
She started to lean back and thrust her hips against me. "Oh, God, Viv!" My first thought was that this was a comment on my pussy-eating skills, but then I saw her eyes.
I twisted around and saw the blood trickling down from the ceiling. First a single stream, then two more. The streams split as they slithered toward the floor, candystriping the grimy, pockmarked wall.
Myrna began to cross herself. "Holy Mary Mother of God..."
I put my hand across her mouth and we held on to each other, watching the crimson rivulets come down the wall.
When the front door shut, we waited a few minutes before we went upstairs.
They'd used silencers, Donny's boys, and they'd been right on time. One forty-five, just like Mac Cohen had said they'd do it when I told him how I'd walked into Donny's place last night and found him dead with one of Barney McGuire's calling cards up his ass.
"We can't let that fucker get away with this," Mac had said, and thank God he had meant it.
Barney's body was laid out across the table where he'd eaten his last meal. His face and chest looked like they'd been run over by a streetcar and then snacked on by vultures.
And then that little touch of humor-the heel of a silver fuck-me pump plunged into Barney's eye. Maybe even the same one I stuck up Donny's ass right after I shot him.
Everyone knew that Barney's trademark was a high-heeled shoe-in the eye, up the ass, puncturing a ballsack. Nobody in Detroit finds Donny Marshak with a shoe heel up his ass got any doubts that it was Barney McGuire done it.
"Come on," I said to Myrna. "My car's up the street. We gotta go."
"How? Where'll we go? We don't have any money."
I squeezed her hand. "Hey, would I ask you to elope if I didn't think I could support you?"
I drove. Even wearing a fur coat, with nothing else on underneath, I was starting to get cold. Detroit winters can be brutal, but then, so can Detroit dykes.
Donny hadn't understood why I needed a full length fur, but on a cold January night, holding Myrna's hand and knowing the coat was lined with fifty grand of Donny's money, it went a long way toward warming my heart.
Lucy Taylor's work includes the collections Close to the Bone, Unnatural Acts and Other Stories, Painted in Blood, and The Flesh Artist, as well as the Stoker-winning novel The Safety of Unknown Cities. Her latest book is a suspense thriller called Nailed. Taylor shares a home with her husband, Don, five cats, and a springer spaniel named Zeb in Mead, Colorado.
"Stiletto," by Lucy Taylor, © 2000 by Lucy Taylor, first appeared in Noirotica 3, edited by Thomas Roche (Black Books, 2000). Reprinted by permission of the author.