The Price Of Dick (21 page)

“
Open it.”

He wouldn
’t let me argue. I opened it. I saw the balance. The numbers. The zeros. My jaw dropped. He wasn’t a millionaire, but there were definitely enough zeros to do exactly what he was talking about. I was dumbfounded; speechless. I heard his voice in my ear but couldn’t make out the words. The numbers were still flashing in my eyes. He’d made more money in a year than I had in three.

“
How did you do this?” I asked. It was staggering

“
Commissions,” he said. “And giving people what they wanted to get their business. I know who and what I am. What people want. And if they want me to share, they have to as well. It’s not dog eat dog J.J., it’s dog fuck dog. Don’t fool yourself. No one gets anywhere by lying to themselves. I had a goal. Our business. Together. Besides," his voice grew more quiet. I knew his parents' bedroom was just above him. He had to be careful. "You could ruin me in a second if I tried to bullshit you and you know it. You have all those pictures of me with guys. You could ruin my job, my family and my friends. But I know you won’t because I trust you. And that’s all I’m asking in return. Trust.”

What he just shared with me was both amazing and scary. It demonstrated an uncanny and ruthless
head for business and common sense. And something else. He’d turned gay hustling into a high-end executive art form. Cash transactions for sex was too simple for his hustle. He gambled for bigger investments, percentages and commissions. He told me things he didn’t have to tell me. He hadn’t hurt his coach or the priest, and he put a lunatic stalker, tax evader where he belonged. He was a hustler. Not a criminal. He knew I would gamble on him again, albeit reluctantly.

He was excited
. “It’s only the fucking beginning of what we can do, bud. First, I have to get all the hospital bills paid off and out of the way. Thank goodness I had the best medical insurance available to me; then we start hunting for the ultimate place. Someplace with nice scenery, open spaces, parks where we can do shoots... and a lake. It’s gonna be great! I’ll pay for it all!”

I stared at the numbers in his bankbook again. All I could picture was my new studio...

If there was one thing you could depend on with Dick it was his unpredictability. For all those months he
’d stayed with his mom, gone to church, bulked up her bag of hopes of raising the most pious Catholic boy ever, she’d miscalculated him.

He said it to me
during a phone conversation, “She’s free food and rent until I get these bills paid off.”

I can
’t even imagine what went through her mind as she watched him repack his belongings and inform her that he was going back
home
. I’m sure that word hurt her to the core. As he knew it would. He referred to her as a woman of nothing but ulterior motives. I was beginning to believe it was an inherited trait.

I must admit it felt good to have him back in the apartment
, to see the drawers of the dresser refill with his clothes, and hear the snap of a beer tab and the plop of his now smaller butt on the couch. He looked really good. He’d gained back twenty of the thirty-odd pounds he’d lost.

I heard the click of
the locks on his briefcase opening on the coffee table. He’d been doing his company work from his parents' house while he recuperated. His case was crammed full. He pulled out a stack of folders, set them aside, and then brought out a hidden cache of real estate brochures he’d secreted beneath everything else. He cleared a spot on the table and spread them out.

Seeing
them, the enthusiasm gripped me as well. The seriousness of the financial undertaking had me concerned. I had nowhere near the amount of money he did to add to the enterprise.

“
I don’t know, Dick,” I said, hating to dampen the mood. “I still don’t have a lot in savings. Business has been slow. I’ve been pulling tight on my belt. It really takes a lot of money to do something like..."

His hand
waved away my words. “This is my business. I’ve got this all figured out. I know how to get a place with the minimum down payment, the whole thing. You’ve got to trust and leave it to me. I can do this.” He seemed sure of himself. I had to believe him. I knew nothing about it at all. He was the guy in the business suit. “We can use your money to outfit the studio, and when you get more money coming in, we can make some investments for you that will give you a little retirement nest egg. Got to think ahead.”

He made it sound like the easiest thing in the world. The idea of a real studio
instead of a makeshift one in a small apartment bedroom was appealing.

“
One of my fraternity brothers has a girlfriend in real estate we can work with. Her name is Dora,” he explained. “We’ll start looking at places next week. How does that sound?”

So began the next
leg of our journey.

*
  *  *

I’
d never house-hunted before. I’d hunted for my apartment, but it always felt like a temporary transition before something else, something more permanent. House hunting felt like the ‘something else.’ The prospect of finding a place that could be completely ours to do with what we wanted was exhilarating. Having my own real studio large enough for my satisfaction was mind candy. I dreamed pictures of it.

Dor
a showed us around to everything that Dick said fit the budget. We looked at inner city lofts and city rehabs like I’d lived in with Pat. We toured suburban ranches and splits, townhomes and condominiums. It was tiring mind and footwork. After a while I began to think nothing would work. There was always something that seemed to make them not quite right. That was infuriating.

Finally
, two months into the search, we found just the right condo. It was thirty miles out, a very long drive for him to and from work in the city, but it was situated among rolling wooded hills near a lake. Background scenery year round for any kind of shoot. Deer roamed in abundance, and from its second story deck you could look out over a field surrounded by a thicket where the animals came to graze in the sunlight.

The condo itself was large, especially coming from the cramped confines of
my tiny apartment. The downstairs was mostly open concept with a two-story vaulted great room leading into a dining room and kitchen. It had a fireplace and updated appliances. The appliances in my old apartment were at least the same age as me. There were two bedrooms and baths off to the side of this large open area, connected by a long carpeted corridor. The upstairs held two more bedrooms and a shared master bath. The larger of the bedrooms had an open balcony that looked down into the great room. Every inch of the place was suited for photo shoots. We had barely completed the tour when the smile we shared signaled our mutual agreement. We’d found the ideal place.

For the first time in ages I was dreaming new dreams; fun dreams. I couldn
’t believe the wonderful things that were happening. Like Dr. Who: I was regenerating.

Within a couple of weeks he closed the deal. We loaded the apartment
's furniture and the boxes of our belongings into a rented moving truck and moved into the new condo. We still had only one set of bedroom furniture and a petite dining room set that was fine for a small apartment but was dwarfed by the huge open space of the new place. It would be an evolving process to add things to fill up the empty spots.

For dinner that first night we lit the fireplace,
roasted hot dogs and drank boxed Cabernet. We had that fuzzy feeling of accomplishment as we talked about decorating. I was still having difficulty choosing a bedroom for myself. I figured since he was paying the mortgage, the master should be designated as his own.

His eyes were wildly static with wine in the dancing orange of the fireplace.
“ I had my own ideas about that," he said. A smile came to his lips. I noticed the first wrinkles crinkle the edge of his eyes. He was maturing. The weight loss had aged his face.

“
What?” I wondered.

“
Let’s make one the studio, and the other two guest rooms for when the models have to stay over.”

“
But that doesn’t leave one for...”

His voice rode over mine
. “And we share the master bedroom,” he finished.

“
What?” He’d floored me with that.

“
Not as boyfriends,” he said, clarifying. “Just friends. But that doesn’t mean we have to sleep in separate places. I mean nobody really likes to sleep alone, do they?”

I
’m certain my mouth looked like a huge empty space, matching the rest of the house.

He smirked a little.
“Buddies with occasional benefits,” he said with a wink. “We all have needs.”

I was still staring at him in the flickering of flames as he closed the gap between us. He pulled me to his mouth for a kiss that tasted like warm wine and hot dogs. My dick sprung
immediately to life in my shorts. I glanced down. It looked like his own was unzipping his jeans for him.

The bed hadn
’t even been put together yet. It’s frame stood in pieces against one bedroom wall; the box springs leaned against another. The mattress had been thrown on the floor. That didn’t hinder us as we left a trail of clothes on the stairs; clumsily making our way to it. His half-year of pent-up need spilled out in the form of passionate motion as we ascended the stairs. His kisses missed their mark, catching me on the nose, eyelid and chin in his desperation to get me out of my button down shirt.

We were naked as we fell on
to the mattress, and he took me fully with his mouth and throat. His fingers dragged trails on my thighs and ass cheeks. We were moving like fumbling teenagers. A dry, anxious finger stabbed me anally, startling me, but eventually made it inside. I winced. I knew I wouldn’t last long under the powerful suction of his mouth and tongue. He was yanking my orgasm from me second by second. And then he had it. I couldn’t hold on and I fed him every drop as my pelvis took over instinctively. I heard him swallow. Big, strained gulps. Noises that proved he’d tasted me. When I was done, I found hairs twisted on my fingers that I’d torn from his scalp.

Then he flipped me. Pushed my face into the mattress, hiked my hips up so that he had my ass where he wanted in front of his mouth. His thumbs pulled
hard, opening me, his tongue tip jabbed deep. I shook hard, feeling the muscles of my legs turn weak as he backed away to mount. I heard the roll of latex and then the stab of hard flesh sent a flash of pain up my spine. He pumped hard and fast and uncontrolled. There was no finesse to this fuck. He plunged deep, pulled back to the tip before plunging deep again. He was sweating more than usual. The hairs of his chest and stomach were sticking to me as if coated with glue. The bristles of his pubes were soaked as they pressed against my ass. He was making ugly, angry dog-like noises. A hungry animal devouring, taking. And then I felt the pulse of the release filling up the latex balloon. He held completely motionless and let his orgasm pump itself to completion. Then he lay atop me, long testicles drooping steamily against my own. I felt his heart thumping against my backbone and knew we would be asleep before long. I would be sore in the morning. No question about it. He was definitely alive again.

It was a
lmost laughable; for two guys who were not lovers, we became unquestionably domesticated. Our lives intertwined at the same points as married couples. It had to do with routines and the comfort derived from them.

I got used to his friends coming by. After
all, we shared the same secret about Dick. He just never knew we shared it. He could continue happily believing that everyone thought him to be the consummate ladies man. The Lady Killer. Lord knows he’d been through enough without giving him grief over what he still considered his personal deceptions. He lived Halloween year round. What child wouldn’t want to? And Dick was nothing if not child-like.

It was clear that things were changing in the lives of all his college friends. They were all getting engaged or married. He was running short on fake-dates to escort him to
required functions. One by one, they were leaving him standing as the sole surviving bachelor. No one said a thing though. No jokes, no puns. Nothing anyone thought would make him uncomfortable. We all insulated him from reality.

We
’d furnished the condo. I picked most of the stuff out. Nothing spectacular. Typical masculine furniture. Big, comfortable, easy to clean. No fancy decorations or knick knacks. We’d set up a downstairs bedroom as my mock bedroom. I kept all my clothing and belongings in there, would do all my changing in there, but it was strictly for show, perpetuating his myth that we were just roommates. We still slept together in the master bedroom and occasionally had sex with each other, along with a few companions from various shoots.

I made dinners like the happy
homemaker, had them waiting for him every evening after work. We discussed our days. We joined a family community center as a family so we could work out together in the fitness center. He was itching to do triathlons again. The fraternity brothers and their friends and family were now all doing them. He was feeling left out. He bought a new car. I paid mine off. Little by little, piece-by-piece, my dream studio came together. I added specialty lights, backdrops and props. Like with hetero married couples, everything was a progressive accumulation of things over time. Until it had become a home. A real home.

He gave me a glimpse into the childhood I never had. A trip to a waterpark knowing how I feared water, but inching me up the tall ladders of the slide and down
into the pool where he’d catch me all panicky and then laughing like a kid spooked in a horror show.

We drove to Kentucky on a weekend whim to see a horseshow. He loved his horses, th
e latent cowboy. We rented a hotel room with a Jacuzzi, sat in its bubbling froth chugging beer and then went streaking at midnight through the hotel parking lot. Oh, the excitement we got from dodging the ancient security guard who would look out his window just before and after we went running past it like juvenile delinquents.

I went to my first amusement park to ride
Ferris wheels and tilt-o-whirl, eat corndogs and funnel cakes and cotton candy. We discovered it was a bad idea to take Dick on any motion sensor rides, like Back To The Future, that would bob back and forth while showing a 3-D film. He was a delicate creature, this big boy, on this type of ride. I learned quickly that if his head bent down with an accompanying moan to move my feet. The snacks from earlier were making a surprise return.

I felt richer for these experiences with him because they were so large
r than life to a man like me whose inner child had never had them. Pat had always been too old to play the scamp. I felt no guilt for someone bringing one out in me.

He changed firms to become a partner with an established broker who was looking to retire and turn the reins over to someone younger. The man
’s name was Tom. He was fast approaching sixty years of age. Dick’s income increased and things looked good. Our world ran as smoothly as any newlyweds. The future looked bright. We got comfortable, complacent.

Even his parents and brothers would stop by on occasion to visit. I
’d say my howdy dos and then retire to ‘my room.’ It was all very civil, this afterlife. His mother didn’t even harangue him for not going to church regularly. He was a good boy for her on the holidays, and she seemed to be content with that.

My reputation as
a photographer continued growing. It's a changing process in the field of art. Fads come and go. That’s probably why we’ve always been referred to as starving artists. It’s a rough, competitive field. Magazines were picking my work up regularly for features. That helped draw me new business, and I was able to put money away in savings. Dick began investing it for me to assure that I had a good retirement fund. He allotted me a certain amount of spending cash every month for groceries and odds and ends. I paid the bills; he handled the mortgage. I couldn’t complain. My needs were very simple. I’m not a man who likes fancy clothes or expensive food. A burger here and there or a night at the movies were highlights of my spending my disposable income.

He began getting back into the triathlons.
The smaller ones at first. By the time he was fit enough again to do the longer ones, he was included with the age group which had the most competitors of any other in the events. I called them the pre-middle-aged crazies. He was maturing beautifully though. He had nothing to worry about. Time was just taking him through various stages of handsome. I, on the other hand, got older: the kiss of death for a gay man. I didn’t have the same genes or bone structure he did, and the telltale signs were manifesting themselves here and there like weeds cropping up through a walkway. Some thinning hair, but it wasn’t that bad; some sag in the elbows, wrinkles around the eyes, and a little paunch that just didn’t want to go away with any amount of exercise.

What I found
really pissed me off about growing older was how time seemed to zip past like flipping through magazine pages. Days and weeks disappear into months that vanish into years, and we really don’t feel an awareness of it. It just suddenly shows up in the mirror. I felt it in my bones, in my reluctance to get out of bed in the morning because sleep feels more and more like a natural state. I would walk the flight of stairs rather than dash them. Take baths rather than showers so I could read a book and soak aching limbs. And the new music isn’t music to you at all, just like your music wasn’t music to your elders when you were growing up. It all creeps up on you with such stealth that it makes you want to face your reflection a little less each day.

I began attending fewer of the tri
athlons. I made my excuses. I wasn’t missed. He had the brothers from college and their families joining him, and afterward they turned the whole thing into a tailgating shindig. Fratboys never grow up.

During the week I booked the regular shoots. Boring, but I could charge a couple hundred bucks an hour. Five or six a week was a good week. I saved the weekends for the romantic male
-only shoots. Most models were off from school and work, most could stay over in the rooms provided. I supplied food and booze. The tried and true tested method of letting them bond.

At this point more and more blogs and webzines were picking my stuff up and featuring it specifically for the marriage equality movement. I was proud to be a part of the change going on in the country. I felt like I was helping make the world a better place through my art. It was
a quiet way of doing it. Everyone recognized my work, but I remained unseen and unknown. My one and only book disappeared into the wilderness of unimportant novels, but I still hankered to do more writing. I just couldn’t find the time.