Authors: Daniel Allen Cox
Shuck (10 page)
I had to buy a better pager because business was picking up and it was rattling the life out of my old one. I upgraded to a transparent blue model with hip holster and Talking Heads ring tones. Cellphones are a turn-off to older guys who expect a more destitute hustler. I can't disappoint. Image is everything.
The pager either buzzes with numbers I know, with numbers I don't, or with codes I've given out but forget what they mean. Mixing up the codes is a dangerous business.
Here are some of them and the transactions they stand for:
0066âWe meet at the Hilton Hotel at 9:30. You bring condoms, lube, vodka, cranberry juice, menthol cigarettes, coke, and $400 cash. I do as much blow as you like, suck you off, and fuck you. We watch infomercials all night and have a generally icy time. You toss in
a fifty-dollar tip if I know where you work and how much you make.
a fifty-dollar tip if I know where you work and how much you make.
0099âYou can already see the confusion these numbers lead to. You need me to look pretty at a party with you. I gussy up your arm, make it look younger. I'm disinclined to say “arm candy” because I'm slightly hairy and not as Hollywood as the expression implies. We're a hot date and everyone knows it. Two hundred dollars is fine. No kissing.
0020âThis one can vary. Either you want a blowjob in your car and I have to call you for the coordinates, or you want to fuck in a club bathroom. I get sketched out by 0020s, so I don't answer them unless I'm really hard up, which is more often than I care to admit.
0013âAll I'm going to say is you'd better be fucking rich, gentle, and have no kids of your own. If you have a camera in the vicinity and I find it, I crack it over your head.
0052âPhil needs a massage, the darling. How could I say no?
Jaeven Marshall, twenty-two.
Here's my product description, the spin I have to believe in order to sell myself effectively.
Here's the press release.
Slacker hair and black bangs long enough to have fuck-you cachet. No pimples. I smell great. I climbed out of the puberty swamp a victor, with hormones riding that ideal balance. I've got blue eyes that you can stare through into oblivion, and a pierced lip so red you think it's bleeding.
This is what I have to shill.
Snake-bitten nipples, chewed on and spritzed with lemon juice.
I've had to swear on a New World Translation Bible that I don't rouge them up. A fire-chain tattoo circles my waist, a touch of glam just above the field of play.
I've had to swear on a New World Translation Bible that I don't rouge them up. A fire-chain tattoo circles my waist, a touch of glam just above the field of play.
Body hairânow here's where I've got all the niches covered. I'm so bushy in places and hairless in others that I can't help but offer the best of both worlds.
I've got pit-hawks under each arm, long four-inchers you can bury your nose in, and a spray of pubes that frame a pretty spectacular area. I've got a good face of stubble, and a treasure trail running from my belly to ... oh, I'll tell you later.
The flip-side of me is the ass of a preteen boy, a sweet hairless crack buried deep between doughy bubble cheeks. My pink asshole is ringed with a brown stain, like icing I can never wipe off. The men, the customers, they drool over dichotomy, contrasts that make no sense in the world of physical development.
I'm an anomaly.
This is the stuff I have to believe, even though most of it isn't true.
Okay, moving down to the real merchandise.
When I shuck my pants, the first thing you'll see will be my cock, not only because it's darker than the rest of me, but because it's the wrong size. It's tiny.
Just kidding.
It's bleeping gi-normous. A man's dick on a boy's body. Eight inches you don't want to mess with, or you
do
want to mess with, as the case may be.
do
want to mess with, as the case may be.
And that's the complete me. Clearly pedestal material. I've got to go now, and anyways, I'm not the type to talk about myself forever.
Because New York manholes hiss with steam even in summer, because men on tricycles lug around giant blocks of ice, scrape off shavings, then drown them in blueberry syrup and sell them, because firefighters in the Bronx bust open the hydrants so kids can splash away the heat, because sometimes you'll make the mistake of choosing a subway car where the air conditioning's broken and you'll want to kill somebody.
I never expected to be in the Toilet Böys' lead singer's apartment. I'm not sure how this photographer chick Crystal Vase swung it.
“Yeah, show me some wood.”
My cock's growing because of the punk band T-shirt framed on the wall. It's the one where Sean Pierce (screw him for having devil horns and making me attracted to a straight boy) is showing off his heaving dick. His glam punk band is famous, though, for other reasons. John Waters and Debbie Harry at every show? Fire-breathing finales and sex with the audience? It's got to be something.
Crystal sets up her lights and plays Duran Duran's “Hungry Like the Wolf.” How does she know that's my mood track? Her lithe, little body is slinking in a purple leather catsuit. Doesn't talk a lot, but communicates the important stuff with dangerous eyes.
All these shenanigans we do with cameras.
The freeze.
The pose.
The hold and don't move.
The go crazy.
The show me more.
The back it up.
The spread it.
The work it.
The lie down.
The now turn.
The smile.
The scowl.
The beam.
The wince.
The grimace.
The look into the camera. The look beyond the camera.
Why do we waste our time dealing with people when we can deal with their photographs?
“Where's that wood? Move to the edge of the sofa, you rockstar.”
These photogs like me because I'm obedient and creative. Billy Idol's “Dancing With Myself” comes on, and that's exactly what I do. I wipe my pits with my undies, twirl them around, squeeze my foreskin into a rosebud, and pretend to sit on a middle finger while pumping my other hand in the air to the music.
My fuck-you-but-fuck-me-too sneer. My fierce eyebrow arch. Let the people have what they want.
I've learned that attitude sells. There are better-looking guys out there, but they don't get this kind of attention because they don't know how to jam the viewer's emotions. Make him so weepy, he'll put his dick away and hug your magazine cover in bed until sunrise.
“Now show me where that cock belongs.”
Classic. She knows I can do it. I wonder if this is the ultimate in narcissism, but who really gives a shit? It's all for the writing. I assume the position, propping my butt against the sofa back, scooting my hips over my head. I stare at my tattoo.
This is the only way to end these photo shoots. To go up in flames.
I plant my knees on either side of my head. I can feel the blood draining from my dick, rushing behind my eyes. Crystal notices the disturbing softness and pads over stealthily. She squeezes her fist expertly around the base of my cock and brushes a finger across my asshole. She's too good at this. Word has it she's a dominatrix by night. I throb and inch it closer to my face.
I've never done this before. Extend. The tip's at my lips, then deeper, then I close around my mushroom head. It's warm, fat, and all very flattering. I can taste the zing of something about to happen.
“This is it. Shoot yourself in the head with that weapon, and try not to spill. Who's doing this to you, hon?”
She knows damn well who's doing it. I look up in worship at the gargantuan poster dick above me.
“Sean is.”
And that's all I can say before I shoot cum down my throat, while Crystal snaps the shots I hope no one will bring out to my book signings as a practical joke.
I have to come clean with you again. I never figured out how to bend a MetroCard to make it work forever, but I told you I did because I needed a superpower to make you believe in me. I had to convince
you that I could rise above the shit of life, and that I could do it in style. I hope that knowing this won't change your impression of me.
you that I could rise above the shit of life, and that I could do it in style. I hope that knowing this won't change your impression of me.
You know, sooner or later, you're going to have to share some secrets with me, or I might have to stop trusting you.
I might have to shut up.
Yesterday, there was an event.
I called Derek's painting “infantile.”
You have to understand: there are two million words, all of them inappropriate, that I'm capable of saying at any minute of the day, to all the wrong people.
He misunderstood me.
The idea is this: words tick, fizzle, and explode in my mouth if I don't let them out.
Open a grammar book and you'll see a list of my heavy artillery: impersonal pronouns, punctuating adjectival clauses, gerunds and infinitives, paired conjunctions, modifying adverbial phrases, transitions, mixed conditionals, prepositions, modal auxiliaries, uncountable nouns, comparatives and superlatives, transitive verbs.
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