Call Me (10 page)

“Hell-
o,
” he said. “Come on in. Straight up.”

He wanted to watch my arse in motion up the stairs. I ascended in threes. He had to race to keep up floor by floor with the vision of maximum crack.

In the converted attic I smelled nose-bleeds and toffees. Green walls were covered with pictures of fattening years scientifically documented on glossy photographic paper. Narcissism gone mad. Group shots galore taken at Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and a variety of nudist beaches. While he got busy with the kettle, red in the face and panting, I went to the loo, taking my pannier in with me. Lowering the toilet seat I just sat there, eyes drifting from tanning pills to Fruits of the Forest air freshener and Body Shop seaweed-and-pomegranate shampoo. It was nice to be away from the rumble of the Goswell Road. Assorted seashells were scattered by the bath and many new-age crustaceans awaited discovery in the shagpile. The bidet taps seeped; twisting both off at once I detected oil or lubricant on them.

Above and around the well-splashed full-length mirror, pin-up boys from wank mags stared. Others came from teen zines: Take That, Bad Boys Inc and East 17 were all there—prime, pumped, waxed, tanned, moisturised boy-flesh giving their best knowing smiles and very convincing big thick dick looks. I raised a pistol-shaped hand and aimed between my eyes. From the back of my mouth a slow gust of breath hit my teeth, an attempt at a slow-motion bang. My breath steamed the mirror.

I took centre stage in the kitchen as the kettle steamed. I was still only guessing but my guess was that this sissy fairy had been a plump but pretty little poofter at school, always saying the wrong first words. Always planning how to get to school safely, arriving on the bell. Master-minding how to get through break, questioning teachers on the finer details of homework just set, making the librarian feel wanted at lunchtime with fastidious questions and cute vulnerability.

He looked neither cute nor vulnerable during the food orgy. He'd made the scones himself, jam too. Crumpets and muffins came out of wrappings he tried hard to conceal. Cheese, fruit and a tin of butter biscuits awaited incisors, molars and the internal squeeze. He clearly had a tendency to consume far more than he could metabolize.

Chewing in time to the second hand of his very new old fake Rolex, he seemed to be enjoying himself. Fancied a taste of me, too. For half an hour I nodded drowsily to everything he said and he had a lot to say. He obviously read newspapers and the occasional bit of queer theory on Cassell. Long rows of thin-spined paperbacks, lined up by the kitchen window, made interesting head-turned-sideways reading as he droned on about Bosnia, Clinton and the age of consent.

“I don't usually reply to ads, you see. I prefer to be on the receiving end, if you know what I mean.”

“Right.”

“My interest mainly lies in shorts and…”

“Go on.”

“Well, my ad went something like,
Jewish Y-fronts enthusiast WLTM discreet non scene young guy (18-35) wearing white Y-fronts. ALA. London/Anywhere.
”

“Uncut particularly welcome!”

“Oh, you've seen it. What a good memory you have. I'll have to watch what I say.”

“Not a bad idea.”

“Shall we…” he said, standing.

An old record Liza Minelli had made with The Pet Shop Boys was all cued up.
PLAY
was pressed. A short walk away at the other side of the long sitting-room (turquoise pencil-shaving pot pourri ad infinitum) another
PLAY
button was activated with the same index finger. A video featuring Dutch boys in pre-virus action had been carefully selected and lined up to a favourite section. No pre-plague moaning or groaning was to be heard. I sat by the window on a decorative stool between curtains (with heavy emphasis on flounce) that pooled down to form two dusty heaps. It probably wasn't intended for sitting on but it was the furthest seat from him.

“This is nice,” I lied, running a hand over carved legs.

“Moroccan. Went there years ago, in search of boys. Well, got so sunburned the first day I couldn't move from the balcony for a week which only left three days for trade, peeling. Should've seen the blisters. My dear! Two boys I 'ad. Got pickpocketed and crabs.”

“A frequent combination.”

The video, badly transferred, was in shades of cobalt. A boy, probably seventeen, maybe sixteen, fair skin turned blue, strolled out of a blue bathroom with a pale blue towel around his blue neck while unbuckling the big black belt on his torn jeans, ignoring an almost identical (skeletal) blue boy on a blue bed wearing tight blue-white Y-fronts. The boy on the bed began jerking off with a weird sense of loss, acting like the bathroom boy wasn't there. No newcomer to videos, masturbating nice and slowly, getting it right for the cameras. Then the bathroom boy, inexperienced, rushed in, lowering those blue jeans and undies too quickly for the cameras to savour. For Stan the dressed moments were the most erotic though he did his best to look genuinely bored. No inch to pinch on either of them. Nice. There was a bit of kissing, gentle fondling and much made of a bit of blue pre-cum on one of the blue cocks, then the lovely skinny back of the bathroom boy stretched long as he entered the bedroom boy's blue buttocks. I like that area around the kidneys when it's totally fat free, without moles or hair. The boys seemed to share an evenness of inhalation and exhalation.

I bet Stan's thumb had blistered with the picture search of his remote, rewinding, fast forwarding and viewing frame by frame. £20 of VHS, worth every penny. Liza sang, the boys fucked. A dark line of sweat defined the crack of Stan's fat arse as he minced off towards the bathroom. Baggy old arse, arse like a windsock. The only way to treat such an arse is to fuck it hard, making it tighten up, providing an adequate amount of internal friction to get off.

Through the half-closed door I saw him take a leak, shake his cock. He farted loudly and then, like a dog, moved his head a little to sniff. I think he smiled. By the mirror he paused to check the pores of each nostril, then his breath. He was back in the room after the briefest gargle.

Confident as to the state of his nose and breath he walked straight over to me (I thought he was going to open the window) and put his hands around my neck very fast, squeezing deeply but gently. A strange sort of massage. His crotch was at eye-level, horrid and faintly smelly. Hands moved to the top of my shoulders, kneading like a hausfrau. Then he lunged, the horrible mouth on mine, sticky lips glistening like fly-paper spreading up and over mine.

His mouth was very soft and with my eyes closed the feeling transferred into a very dull crimson. The inside of his mouth was too roomy, his sloppy tongue attempting to refill dried-up emotions by licking my front teeth. That same tongue had probably disappeared into arseholes, savouring body juices from paid-for bodies. When he took a step back to assess the situation, I must have flashed an expert vile smile because he popped off back to the bathroom with the air of a thirteen-year-old playing Cleopatra, shutting the door behind him with the hint of a bang, all feelings concentrated upon that which is detached, outwards and outgoing—his sunrise circumcised winkle.

His diary, stupidly left beside the phone, went into my pannier beside a knife taken from the magnetic frame. If I'd known he was going to get the Accu-Jac kit out I'd have pinched a paperback or two or made for his CD collection.

I listened at the door. All was quiet. I imagined him at the mirror brandishing a small but tremendously thick purple-headed erection, wanked to excess in pre-obese teenage years. A dick which had helped him forget the distress of days alone, brightened with jerking off in tree-houses, basements, attics, toilets. I could almost smell the sweet counterfeit orgasm, the swimming-pool chlorine, locker rooms of rugby boy smell and those dreaded showers.

I heard his ‘aah' steaming up the looking glass in that final moment behind the bathroom door, the room becoming an echo chamber for just a moment. In the dark he'd been called beautiful. In the dark he'd been loved.

When he came out I was merely the relic of a mood to be shot of asap. I declined his offer of one last cup of tea. The weather had changed. It had turned out to be another boiling hot day.

Fat Man Stan's diary got splashed in the bath but that didn't matter. He had nothing special to say either to me or his diary. Royal blue ink stained the water as the diary submerged.

Dreary day, tiring day.

*   *   *

I sent Costas a DIY Polaroid, sealing down a recycled first class stamp with a smile. I didn't give my number or anything, just wrote, in capital letters:

WILL PHONE SOON—BIKE BOY.

This was executed with a black biro, pressing hard.

I'd phoned him up and he sounded worth investigation. A photo was his one stipulation. He got what he asked for. He sounded different. A different type. Somewhere between innocent, naive and stupid. Sexy.

*   *   *

Shortly after I arrived, rain fell suddenly against the perspex skylight with the uneven sound of a cheap shower. The place was furnished with junk shop finds. Taste not dissimilar to Ray's. Functional, thirties. He'd got me reclining in a beaten-up armchair, highly contentious Michael Jackson teeshirt draped around my shoulders. Ludicrous. Everything was quite pleasant in the garden flat and the erection in my lycra shorts was as evident as his in denim.

After maybe half an hour the rain stopped. We'd both got used to having a sound backdrop. Putting down a pencil, he pressed
PLAY
and Duke Ellington came to life for what felt like a to-the-minute scheduled break from the sketching.

Charles from Brockley made a fine cup of tea and never got to finish his sketch. A not-bad-at-all kiss led on to a pretty fast blowjob in the kitchen. The kiss was a matter of lips and tongues meeting. No warmth, no tenderness—purely physical. With my eyes closed I found myself comparing his kissing technique with Ray's. He liked to be on the receiving end of a tongue.

After the kiss he was down on his knees, a position I supposed he frequently took with his occasional models. In a somewhat routine manner jeans and shorts were lowered, then he got busy throating. I didn't tell him I was about to come which brought a smile to his face and a groan through his chest as I did. “Mmm,” he went as he pebble-dashed the cork tiles with his load. Although I'd estimate that on the Wechler intelligence scale Charles would score a full IQ of one hundred and eighteen, placing him in the bright normal category, he swallowed. He was okay. He was the kind you could have sleepy Sundays with, the kind who'd iron a shirt for you. Good with mothers.

One question led to another. A photographer? Who have you worked for? So why have you jacked it all in?

“I haven't jacked it all in, as you put it. I'm just taking a break. I could go out and knock off a nightclub feature tomorrow. Anyone can cobble together a bit of copy on some dragged up DJ in her thirties playing records at six in the morning. Some new Steve Strange/Leigh Bowery trash bash door whore, drag king, whatever, but what's it worth? I've been looking over my laminates lately. I wasn't put on this Earth to document street-style for the likes of
An-An.
”

“An-An?”

“It's a Jap magazine. A lot of what I do goes abroad.”

“Standing back from it all for a while then, yes?”

“Basically, basically I'm fed up with it all. I could go into teaching, I've got the qualifications.”

“The world is your oyster.” He sounded patronising but wasn't. If the doorbell hadn't rung, I might have stayed the night. Unexpected Sunday guests fresh from shopping at Camden Lock walked straight on in demanding coffees. Unexpected, uninvited and unwelcome.

I sat for a polite period, feeling the stubble bristling on my arms before going, saying I'd phone at seven. He was one of the few people I thought I'd bother with again. Bit social worker, though.

At seven I was in the bath, shaving all over, humming the national anthem—Ray's old winceyette pyjamas waiting for me.

*   *   *

Yet another beautiful sunset, making me sad. The more beautiful the skies, the uglier the rooftops. A school nurse once said: “If you're feeling sad, hum to yourself, it'll help.” Depends what you hum.

I never really understood the mysteries of the
INTRO/FILL IN
button, used in the Auto Accompaniment mode to create pattern variations. When this button was held down, the
FILL IN
pattern was supposed to repeat until released, then the normal rhythm would start from the beginning of the next measure. I think.

When I sat behind the keyboards I usually focused on a spot far off, a vanishing point somewhere, often unaware of changes in light or temperature, recording the same piece over and over again until it felt right. I had nearly fifty cassettes of the stuff. Sometimes that vanishing point was a body at the bus stop, sometimes the moon.

*   *   *

From the light blue, stone-washed jeans to the perm—gold flashing, very Greek—he was a
Daily Mirror
reader. He was different from the rest but he too needed to talk. The flat was like a storage warehouse, stacked with goodies for his future dream home.

“She's not my big love or anything, she's just going to have my baby, ‘bout eight weeks from now.”

“And you've also got a girlfriend at the moment.”

“Oh yeah, but she's just, you know, just a girl. You know. I won't marry her. Wouldn't dream of it. Good for now, that's all. I want to marry a virgin girl. My parents will choose someone nice. You see, the way I look at it is gay men don't stick together long an' what I want is forever. Must be. I couldn't stand the pain of getting it all together then watching it fall apart. I don't want to go an' tell me parents that I'm in love with some guy an' we're an item an' that, right? Then he goes off with some bloke down Brief Encounter or Kudos an' that's it. Over. No way.”