The Price Of Dick (8 page)

I pointed back at the drawer. He opened it again, searched and took out the larger
size condom in the black wrapper. This one fit, encasing the veined monster all the way to its base. The unrolling process prompted another shudder of pleasure through the man playing the jock role. The thick muscle of his thighs trembled. The last wall of resistance was falling. Every hair on his body appeared electrified.

Nimbly, the young man pushed one leg over onto the cushion between Dick and the back of the sofa. Looking down and behind himself, he grabbed the hard
slab of flesh in one hand, his own ass cheek in the other, preparing the way. As he bent, I saw he had shaved his crack as well. Baby smooth. There was the rose-colored aperture parting, almost begging, as Mike continued aiming the man into him.

The first inch was always the most difficult, the most painful. He swayed his hips from side to side
, creating the accommodating stretch. He held his captive in the deliberate move downward. Each inch of the descent caused another muscular quake through the hairy man. I saw the hard flesh slide deep inside the completely round, parted white cheeks. The redness of Dick’s cock through the clear latex was striking in contrast to the pale, firm, pear-shaped mounds into which it slid. He tried to move of his own volition.

The boy knuckled a pectoral and stopped him. Time to allow the dilation. He
’d be the one to control this fuck. His ass was too small to allow it to happen any other way. Dick would tear him apart if he lost control.

“
How do you like it?” the youth asked, a Monroe breathiness to his voice. He bent forward, nailing his lips to Dick’s with another subjugating kiss. Hips raised and lowered gradually, sliding along the thick, reddened meat. Big hands grabbed the back of his arms like someone afraid of falling. White pressure marks stung the flesh. Mike continued the slow motion fuck. He stared into Dick’s eyes. What vain men wouldn’t or couldn’t say, their eyes gave away every time.

“
I can’t believe I’m fucking a dude,” Dick panted out, eyes intent on the part of his body sliding in and out of the pale ass suspended above him. His reaction was authentic. He couldn’t stop watching. Marveling at the sight of himself inside Mike.

I moved mechanically, snapping the photos, finding the best angles, the right light. The straight act had
vanished from Dick. They were both lost in each other, or the moment, or both. I was lost watching them.

Sweat
slicked faces and backs. Skin shone lustrous. The camera lights had increased the temperature of the room. Both men glowed in the heat like golden icons: Hercules and a slave boy, an emperor and his valet, a captain and his private. Bodies like these were where fantasies found form.

Whispers were urgent. I couldn
’t make the words out, but the message was clear as I saw the large hand reach around and grasp Mike’s smaller cock and stroke it in tandem. Dick’s condom shrunk as he grew larger, closer. Breathing became grunting. The boy’s back curved like a stretching cat’s to take the full length inside him; wincing each time pelvis crashed against ass cheek. I caught every shining, flexing muscle in exquisite frames of millennia old instinct-driven lust.

Hamstrings galloped as Dick
’s block of a chin dug into his own chest. Eyes glazed then clenched shut. Balls rode up for the release. Their bodies sealed. The orgasm flooded from Dick into the latex. He held motionless, like a man frozen. Odd crying-like noises came from him with each spasm. Drool carelessly dripped from his mouth. His hand on Mike delivered the prize for the ecstatic young man. It came in five thick pops, pooling in droplets on all that beautiful sweat-knotted stomach fur. The boy collapsed into it. I could smell their combined spunk, combined with sweat and chlorine throughout the room.

I continued snapping photos until I could catch my own breath. I tried not to give my own condition away, still hard and hurting from it.

Dick looked like the man who jumped off a bridge and survived to tell the story. They laid in each other’s sweat trading sips from the last warm beer on the coffee table.

As hard as I tried to avoid it, or find an excuse
not to, I’d end up meeting the monstrosity that was Dick’s mother that Fourth of July. She extended a personal invitation through him, and in spite of my resistance, he was the one who insisted I go. No clue why, but I could hazard a few guesses. All of us were pieces on the board where he played his Almighty Game. I believe that my part in the game was to represent everything that was the complete opposite of his mother and her belief system. He was tossing my liberalism in her face as an act of defiance against her “Three R’s”: Rules, Regulations, and Religion.

His family had a
n annual barbecue for the Fourth, and now that I was a fixture in his life, they thought they should all get to know me better. At least that was the explanation he offered me on their behalf. Considering how his dad and brothers had first reacted to me, I didn’t have high hopes for a warm reception from mommy. However, I gave in to his wishes.

When we arrived
at his parents’ home, his dad opened the door to us. It was clear he was already half-sloshed. He smelled like aftershave and bourbon. He was happy to see his son; indifferent to my presence. I got a slight nod of acknowledgement as we stepped into the house. We made our way through all the shades of blue to the kitchen where the rest of the family had gathered to prepare the food and socialize. I could hear the bustle of activity. That sound would die away the moment I crossed the threshold of the kitchen. It was as awkward as I’d imagined, and I instantly regretted my decision to come. The only person with a smile aimed in my direction was his mother. It stretched on her face stiff and plastic as a Halloween mask.

She was a diminutive thing with Lady Clairol one-tone
black hair, lacquered into a helmet on her head. “Call me Eleanor.” All her
friends
did. She wore a floral blouse and a pair of new jeans that fit oddly on her short legs, wide hips and small waist. Everything about her was disproportionate. Her face held an inch-deep layer of makeup. Red lipstick stained the center of painted-on beige. How nice it was to finally meet me! She was so happy that I could make it! She was delighted to meet the friend of her son! The grin certainly didn’t match what burned in her eyes. Small, bony arms wound around me in a hug which made my skin crawl. I felt impatient for a strong drink. One as tall as Dick’s father was making in an iceless glass for himself.

We
all moved outside by the pool where the barbecue pit was, and where the adults could keep an eye on the children. They were all pre-teens. The sisters-in-law, bless their kind, birds-caught-in-a-religious-cage hearts, made an attempt to be hospitable to me. His brothers dueled to make the least eye contact with me. They walked past me to the beer cooler numerous times as though my chair were vacant.

“
So we’re told you’re a photographer...?” It was less a question than an accusation from Eleanor. Said it as if it weren’t a real vocation. Like; “so you’re a sorcerer, a pagan, a whoremonger, a heathen...” I remember seeing her sharp teeth align as if that was only way she could keep the smile affixed to her face. It had a Gloria Swanson
Sunset Boulevard
look to it.

Before I could reply, Dick piped
up, “He sure is, Mom. A model photographer. One of the best in the city.” Then, looking at his brothers, he added enthusiastically, “You should see the beautiful girls going through the place. In their bikinis.”

His b
rothers perked up like duck hunting rednecks hearing their first quack. Their spouses looked at them with silent disgust. Mommy’s disapproving brow-knitting quickly tamped it all down. She did it with just that smile, the one that never left her face. It had to be an exercise in muscle control to hold it. I wondered if her cheeks hurt.

She chopped coo
ked potatoes on a plate for potato salad. “So how old are you, Mr. Johnstone?” She asked in a low voice that had a clear undercurrent of read-between-the-lines. In that question, she was really asking, “So what’s an old guy like you doing with a young guy like my beautiful son?”

I told her my age
, knowing full well I’d get bee-stung by her eyes.

“
I don’t see a ring on your finger. Are you divorced?” Read-between-the-lines: are you a pervert who just uses women and then tosses them aside, or a homo?

Laughter from Dick.
He was still answering for me. “Mom. I told you he’s a confirmed bachelor. He just got out of a long relationship. You don’t have to interrogate him about it.”

The long,
simmering Gestapo stare she gave her son was unnerving even to me. She let the subject drop after that. I was relieved. My shirt was already soaked and it wasn’t due to the summer heat.

The
manipulation in this family was obvious everywhere. It had only one source; the June Cleaver-imitation matriarch of the clan. No one said or did a thing without casting an eye to Eleanor first. Her apron strings were those of a puppeteer. She listened in on every conversation simultaneously. And in spite of all her false warmth and fake kindness wrapped in the smile, a real penetrating coldness and dislike for me seeped through her performance.

I ate their dinner, drank their booze,
and listened to their small talk. Every minute I spent in their presence felt like vampires were sucking the life from me. If this was Conservative Americana, I wanted no part of it. Only when Dick and I were in my car driving away, did I feel the weight lift.

I know Dick wanted me to see this.
Experience the world he had run from. He hoped it would cement our friendship with my sympathy for him. He was right.

For the next couple months we brought
about a tremendous amount of change in each other’s lives. He’d developed an interest in competing in triathlons. Part of that, I believe, was because he had an excessive amount of energy, and never seemed to be able to sit still; always wanted to be doing something active. He began training with that goal in mind. I was a tag-along. I got sucked into taking part in the workouts myself. We each got a ten-speed bike, and began riding twenty or more miles on the weekends. When we weren’t doing that, or working out in the gym, we were running in the park. We ran at least eight miles each time. The only thing I wouldn’t participate in was the swimming. Since childhood, I had been deathly afraid of water. I’d sit on the sidelines and watch Dick swim. The unexpected benefit of all of this tag-along training was that, at thirty years of age, I’d never looked trimmer, or felt more healthy. I liked looking in the mirror and pretending I looked his age. People are like that.

Partly for diversity, but mainly for prospective model hunting, we
began to work out at other gyms around the city. I carried my business cards with me to hand to anyone who looked like a good candidate for one of my shoots. Dick had become my resident model recruiter when Mike went off to college. We had a scouting technique. We would both work out at opposite ends of the gym. If one of us saw someone interesting, we’d meet at the water fountain and point him out to the other. If we agreed, Dick would try to ‘work in’ with them and strike up a conversation. I used him as an “interest meter.” If they made eye contact with him, we had a good prospect. If they followed him into the locker room shower, we had a great prospect. If they followed him into the sauna, we had a bona fide winner. Then the wooing was up to him.

Our M.O.
when working with potential models was to bring them to the apartment and show them some typical modeling shots. The sort most models have in a portfolio, which they presented to agencies. Then cocktails or a few beers would be consumed and we’d invite the prospect to watch a live shoot with Dick. That shoot involved several clothing changes, some fitness shots, and a couple of swim suit shots. First board shorts and trunks, then the skimpy stuff. The Speedos always served as a test of their reaction. If it was promising—which we measured in chubs—then we’d do some underwear shots. The curious talked, the furious walked. Four out of five recruits always came back for a shoot of their own.

*  *  *

That September was also the occasion of his first half-triathlon. It would be memorable, but not for the sporting event itself. My fun would come from attending the event with his charming family.

For the triathlon uninitiated, the competition of a
half-triathlon goes like this: there’s first a mile and a half swim, then a fifty-six mile bike ride, and the event finished with a twelve mile run. In simpler terms, as an onlooker, you’ll see your athlete exactly thirty seconds at the beginning and end of two events, and then sit around with nothing to do for two and half hours. Not the most riveting way to spend the day.

When we arrived at the park at six-thirty that morning
, his family; mom and dad and two brothers were already waiting. Our arrival was notable because I unknowingly came in costume as The Invisible Man. They greeted Dick while looking right through me.

I played with my camera and pretended they weren
’t there, too. I’d promised Dick that I’d take pictures of him during the event. You had to be quick to catch the competitors going in and out of the lake during the swim, on and off the bike, and at the start and finish lines of the run. That meant being at each of the specified places on the course, willing to wait hours just to capture those few seconds you actually caught glimpses of the athletes. It was difficult to find a good photographic vantage point because the park grounds were crowded, not only with spectators, but with vendors and their tents. These were huge events.

I didn
’t have trouble finding space while near his family. They chose to stand a dissociative distance away from me. Think of them as cattle...me, the prod. I came near, they moved away. As a group. It was pathetically funny. I tested my theory a couple of times just to amuse myself.

At
his first competition, Dick did well. Out of one hundred and fifty people in his age category, he placed fourteenth. He looked like a machine formed from determined muscle. At the finale, the run, as everyone else limped their way to the finish line, he came barreling down the dirt road of the park looking like a madman. What had been sporadic cheering from the spectators' gallery became more enthusiastic upon seeing this lunatic huffing and puffing, arms and legs pumping like pistons, coming at them like he’d mow down the finish line. He had infused the audience with its first sign of life.

Afterward, as I wormed my way in through
his family’s protective circle to congratulate him, his mother brought out a cooler. She began passing out beers to everyone. Except me. It had been staged like a humiliating production number. Oops, she was just one beer short. She made a sad, apologetic face. It hadn’t an ounce of sincerity in it. “Oh, I’m sorry. If I’d known you were coming I would have picked up enough beer.” The sarcasm in her tone was spot-on Bette Davis.

It was my turn for fake
smiling and tongue biting. I knew she told a bald-faced lie. I’d been in the room with Dick when he made the call letting her know that I’d be at the event to take pictures. I looked at her, this self-proclaimed Christian woman and thought: there isn’t a Christian bone in this Catholic woman’s body. I wondered if it hurt her skin to hold in that much nastiness.

Dick offered to split
his beer with me. It was good that she couldn’t load her eyes with bullets. We both would’ve been dead.