Electroboy (8 page)

The third week in December, Brent Cummings is appearing at the Follies, and he wants me to come see him there. I stand at the top of the steps leading down to the entrance and, as usual when I’m at a porn show, I look around nervously before I descend. I take one step down. It’s like I’m putting my foot into an icy-cold swimming pool. It’s too late to stop—anybody might be watching. Like friends of my parents or an old high school English teacher going to see a Broadway show. The walls going down the steps are covered with photographs of bare-chested boys and men, and I wonder if they’re the same guys inside getting ready to go onstage. Sitting in the ticket booth is a man I can barely make out but who looks like Mr. Wizard from my chemistry set. Superimposed on the glass over his forehead is a sign that reads
ADMISSION
$6. I smile and give him my most masculine “Hey.”

“You here for an audition?” he asks. “Yeah,” I respond without the slightest hesitation.

He signals me to walk through the turnstile. I am in a dark vestibule.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Eric. Eric Colter,” I say. Not a bit of thought. Where did that name come from? He shakes my hand and I smile. His name is Jerry. My name is Eric. Inside the dark theater I can see about fifteen men bathed in light from the screen on which two skinny young blond kids are in a sixty-nine position. There’s no way either could be older than sixteen. This is not a turn-on for me. I’m a little nervous now, a bit afraid. Something about this place repulses me. It’s musty and smoky and not very clean. Jerry asks me if I’ve danced before, and I tell him that I have, just not in New York. San Francisco. And Montreal. He calls over a well-built young guy and introduces him to me as Justin. Justin is an all-American hunk. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark complexion, bright green eyes, not quite good-looking enough to be a model, and he’s just wearing a towel wrapped around his waist.

“My real name is Joe, but they like Justin better. It sounds more porn-star-like,” he says. This leads me to believe Jerry’s name might not be Jerry either. But what does Jerry have to hide? Justin is posing in front of a mirror. It’s funny I chose a first and last name. Almost as if I intend to have a serious career in porn. Justin tells me he’s from West Virginia. He leads me back to the locker room, a dingy gray-painted space with exposed wires, bad overhead lighting, and a few benches. He sits down on a bench, his abs not moving an inch.

“Have you ever done this before?” he asks.

“Does it look like I haven’t?” I say. I take off my sweater. I’m just wearing a T-shirt underneath. Justin kind of looks me over.

“There are six shows each day. The lineup switches every Monday. It’s a much better place to work than the Gaiety. The clientele is more upscale and has a lot more cash to burn.” He starts oiling up his chest and arms. “Better tips and better private shows,” he explains.

I’m not sure what Justin’s talking about. He tells me it’s really easy. “They announce your name, put on some music, you walk onstage fully dressed and then strip down to your underwear or jock, dance around the audience a little, and then come offstage and get a hard-on.” He makes it sound like such a normal thing to
do. “Then the music starts up again and you go back and work the crowd. Guys in the audience will fondle you and tip you and put dollar bills in your socks. You’ve got to work the crowd to get the privates. At the end there’s a grand finale, and all seven guys come out hard for the audience. Kind of like a chorus line. There’s always lots of applause.”

“Sounds easy enough. $10 a show plus tips and privates,” I say. “And you can really get up to $50 for a private on the premises?” I ask.

“Yeah, a jerk-off thing. There’s a narrow hallway in the back for that. Or you can do something outside for whatever you can negotiate,” he tells me.

“I like to negotiate.”

Justin tells me there’s a star of the show, a guy named Brent Cummings, who has just appeared in a new porn film. I pretend I don’t know him.

“And he’s bi, too. Are you bi?” he asks.

“I guess so,” I say.

“Well, are you into pussy?”

“Yeah, totally. I’ve got a girlfriend uptown,” I tell him.

“You should bring her down here one night. Maybe we could all bang her.” He throws his head back and laughs.

The show starts at 8:30
P.M.
and the rest of the guys are coming into the locker room, most of them eating their dinner. Something is making me nauseous. Maybe it’s the sight of those two skanky teenagers outside on the screen combined with the smell of fried chicken in the locker room. Those boys could never dance at a place like this—they’d be heckled and booed. In walks the star of the show, Brent Cummings. He’s a strapping Adonis with a handshake like none I’ve ever felt. (The only person I’ve met with a handshake that even comes close is Bill Clinton, as I discovered years later when I met him at a fund-raiser.)

“So, you came down to see me? Gonna audition tonight?” Brent asks me. He speaks in a dull monotone voice like Dr. Levitt and seems bored with having to perform tonight. Jerry pops his head in and tells me I go on last, which gives me a chance to watch
the show from backstage and get a feel for it. Brent is fixing his streaked-blond hair in the broken mirror on the wall. He’s wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I watch the whole group of guys do their routine before Brent is announced. I’m fascinated by what they’ll do onstage—how far they’ll go and what they think turns the audience on. Some of them will satisfy a customer’s ass fetish by bending over and touching their toes; others will thrust their cocks right into a customer’s mouth for a few dollar bills. Others will even jack off the customer, right there in the audience, if he is willing. There are no boundaries in the basement of the Follies.

Brent takes the stage, and the audience cheers. The theater is filled with his fans. They’ve all seen his movies: the one where he fucks a cheerleader on a bench press and the one where three guys on a diving board take turns sucking his cock. He struts his stuff awkwardly, with a kind of Vegas-style stride, taking off his shirt first and then stepping out of his jeans to reveal a pair of white briefs. He turns his back to the audience, spreads his legs, and pulls his briefs down a bit in the back, revealing a tan line. Then he turns around and shows a little bit of blond pubic hair. He really doesn’t dance, he just touches himself and tugs at himself a little. But it doesn’t matter. He grabs his cock and makes a mock grimace, to the audience’s delight. I can do that. He comes backstage and gets undressed, his cock already hard. He oils up his chest and his thighs and asks me to do his back, butt, and legs. He strides back onstage and the audience claps and whistles. He stands with his back to them, then turns around, covering his cock with his hands. From where I’m standing, I see the red spotlights bounce off his chest. He walks into the audience and pulls his hands away, and guys from both sides of the aisle start grabbing for his cock and his ass as he moves from shadow to shadow to collect tips, all the time stroking his big dick. This is going to be a hard act to follow.

The announcer introduces the final act: Eric Colter. I have no connection to the name. I do kind of a silly jog out onto the stage. The lights are practically blinding me, and I can’t see the crowd. I’m wondering how many people in the audience recognize me. I dance to the music—Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”—the best I can. I
must look like an idiot. I take off my shirt, then my jeans. This is the first time I’ve stripped except when I’ve done it alone in my studio in front of the mirror. It feels like a visit to the doctor. The air is cold from the air-conditioning, and it’s smoky. Bad combination. Freezing smoke. Offstage. Dip three fingers into the communal lube. Start stroking my cock. Thinking about Allison’s tits and Brent fucking her from behind, and all of a sudden I realize I have a huge hard-on. Easy. Next song. Madonna again. “Lucky Star.” Clapping from the audience when I get back onstage. I’m walking around bare-assed in a basement in Times Square. Men are shoving dollar bills into my socks. I feel totally naked—I am totally naked—but pretend I’m just in the locker room at my gym and it’s over pretty quickly. Now it’s time for the grand finale. Backstage Brent and I stroke each other’s cocks until they’re fully hard and we’re ready. He doesn’t look at me or say anything. We all walk out together—seven guys with hard-ons—dancing poorly to the music on the bad sound system. We collect some more tips, get dressed, then mingle with the customers. A sweet-looking Chinese man offers me $50 to go in the back hallway and jerk me off. He smiles at me and flashes two gold teeth and some cash. I’m feeling totally pathetic for being in this darkened room. I pull my jeans down, and he starts jerking me off. I just want it to be over with quickly. He whispers words that I can’t understand. I can just pick up “good.” It takes about five minutes for me to come. Justin is walking out with two men, taking them back to his hotel room. Brent is already starting with a second customer. Slow night for privates. Jerry tells me I was fantastic and we’ll talk after the next show about working me into the schedule. Brent and I go back to his room at the Fulton Hotel on West 46th Street. He tells me that I can borrow his room if I need to use it for a customer. It’s $50 a night, and sparse. Bed, dresser, TV, ceiling fan. He’s got the bathroom neatly organized: baby oil, hair gel, shaving cream. He tells me I can hang out with him until the last show. He’s going to take a shower. I see him take off his shirt and jeans. I’m watching the news. He walks out of the shower dripping and dries himself off in front of me. I’m starstruck. And jealous. I want people to love
me the way they love and admire him. He flexes his thighs for me and laughs. Says he’s going to add it to his routine. Turns around and tightens his smooth butt.

The dichotomy of my smart yuppie lifestyle on the Upper West Side and my career stripping and getting jerked off in a seedy Times Square theater is surreal at times. When I take the subway downtown, I stand next to passengers dressed just like me wondering where they’re going and if they would believe me if I told them where I was going. I think I can do anything and be anyone. And being a stripper and hustler seems entirely logical. I have no idea what is going to happen next in my life, but this feels right for now.

The risk of hustling gets me high. Most of the situations I get myself into demand very little of me sexually. I try to be careful, to simply function as an exhibitionist. It is my role to arouse these men, and I don’t mind showing off my body. Most of them ask me to undress and masturbate for them while they jerk off; others just sit and stare. But soon I realize that I am really the voyeur—watching what’s going on between the customer and myself. Sometimes my mood changes and I get so depressed by what I’m doing that I feel like I’ll get stuck doing this forever. Fortunately, it’s only a few nights a week and a couple of times a night. One night I head to the Edison Hotel with a customer, a guy in his midthirties in town from Miami, and he seems friendly. I’m in a pretty good mood, and we’re just talking about living in New York versus living in Miami, the pros and the cons. He wants to enter the hotel separately and have me meet him at his room. Fine. He opens the door as if we’ve never met. “C’mon in,” he says. Soon he’s naked and playing with himself while I’m taking my clothes off for him. The eleven o’clock news is on, this nice guy from Miami is jerking off in this crummy hotel room with bad overhead lighting, and I’m undressing. I should have gone straight home tonight and gone to bed.

A few regular customers just want to take me out to dinner or find out more about me, which feeds my narcissism. I never reveal anything about myself, and the dinners tend to be quite routine and boring—I end up doing more listening than talking. I am Dr. Myron Levitt.

One night after the last show I meet a man at the theater who seems to be what I term “a safe bet”—respectable, well-dressed, in his midforties, and Ivy League–educated (so he later tells me). He’s a psychiatrist who lives on Fifth Avenue in the 70s. He asks me out and tells me not to worry about money. We can go out for a drink or to his apartment, my choice. As usual, I go for the bigger option. We take a cab to his apartment, walk into his stark lobby, past his doorman, who, I realize, is probably used to seeing him bring home guests. His wife and kids are on vacation in Nantucket. He proudly shows me around his apartment, which is filled with spectacular Asian art pieces. I don’t remember if I tell him I’m in law school or an actor—I mix them up. I prefer the anonymity and enjoy the game. I am nervously awaiting his plan for me. And then he tells me that he is into what he calls breath control, which involves playing with gas masks and plastic bags, the Hefty lawn kind. He explains that he is fascinated by choking and strangling fantasies. I am a bit naïve, and scared to death. Are we going to be playing out these fantasies? Dressed or undressed? I must seem hesitant, because he tries to reassure me by telling me that I don’t have to take my clothes off. Is that supposed to calm me? He leads me into the bedroom—there are photos of his wife and children on the night tables. I hesitate and tell him that I don’t think I’m interested. But I do end up playing a little, because I’m somewhat curious and he’s promising me money. When he goes into the closet and pulls out the gas mask—the World War II kind that looks like a horse’s head—I must look shocked. I take my shirt off anyway and fold it neatly on the bed, then step out of my jeans and throw them across a chair. He puts the mask over my head, and I see myself standing—just in my briefs—in the mirror. The sight horrifies me. He asks me to take off my briefs, and I strip down. I find it frightening that the seemingly nice, healthy
doctor with strangling fantasies is actually treating patients with mental illnesses. I tell him I can’t go on with this anymore. I laugh nervously and he smiles. We both feel a little embarrassed and sorry for each other, and I get dressed. He offers to take me out to dinner, which I definitely don’t want to do, so instead I make us scrambled eggs and toast and try to turn the experience into something normal—there’s nothing more normal than some breakfast food for dinner. Wondering if I’ll leave this apartment without being strangled or taken out in a Hefty bag with the garbage, I talk with him a little about his practice—he sees mostly schizophrenics and manic-depressives. He tells me that he feels overwhelmed by their mental illnesses and the burden of being responsible for their well-being twenty-four hours a day. He says the anxiety hardly allows him to function. I can’t believe that he is so weak. Is Dr. Levitt this weak? But quite honestly I am more interested in his fascination with choking and strangulation and am curious to get him to talk. Was he aroused as a small child by a choking episode? Does it have something to do with losing his breath while having an orgasm? Does losing his breath get him high? He prefers complaining about his patients. I never see him again after this night. I also never look at a psychiatrist again without thinking of a gas mask.