Fifteen Shades of Gay (For Pay) (22 page)

Blush forgotten, Andrew found himself grinning wildly. Most clinical drug trials denied Marie for one reason or another. It seemed like no promising new drug, eager for FDA approval, wanted to risk enrolling patients with late-stage cancer. Each time she’d applied and been screened out, Marie had suffered a brief depression. Now she had a new reason to hope.

Tomorrow I’m baking you MJ brownies
, Andrew sent back. Abandoning his manuscript, he began researching the link between an orally-administered marijuana derivative and tumor regression, stunned and gratified by what he read. Midway through an article that described miraculous results in lab rats, a text from Cormac came through.

Wow. My friend Martin’s in way deeper than he let on. And my gaydar was right. The blackmailer is a man.

Crap
, Andrew sent back.
Can I assume your friend signed off on the same platform U did?
He started to Swype the word “homophobic” before the word “platform,” then changed his mind.

Of course. If this hits the press, it will be a bloodbath.

Will U lie for him?

Yes. Have you lost all respect for me?

It took Andrew longer to reply than he expected. It was so much easier to condemn someone else’s hypocrisy than to deeply examine the compromises he himself had made, especially in the last few weeks.

Of course not.

Good. I hate lying to the public, but they care too much about our sex lives. Besides, I couldn’t sleep at night, abandoning a friend.

I get that. Keep me posted.

Afterwards, Andrew tried to resume work on his manuscript, but he couldn’t. Were he and Paresh friends? Was there really some connection between them, beyond the purely physical? Paresh had seemed so touched that Andrew had even tried to understand the dynamic between him and Sven. What had he said? “If the people in my real life knew, they’d commit me to a mental hospital, or stand me up against the wall and shoot me.”

Andrew blew out his breath. He was going to Paresh and Sven’s party. He just didn’t know how long he’d stay, or what he would do once he got there.

Chapter 13

Andrew wasn’t the only man from Huey Wasserman’s stable invited to the pool party. Blond and spray-tanned Federico was there, hair bleached like a surfer dude and skin uniformly tangerine. So was Caleb, one of Andrew’s former partners from a creampuff “erotic housekeeping” assignment. Narrow-shouldered and no taller than five-six, Caleb looked out of place beside Federico. Not to mention the others: underwear model Julio, former AAA baseball hopeful J.J., and Marc, a body builder so veiny, Andrew couldn’t look at him without thinking of a penis. Viewed alongside so much concentrated manliness, Caleb resembled a hobbit among elves. Still, he was popular with Wasserman’s clientele, which was as varied as the Big Apple itself. For every man who enjoyed being squired about Manhattan by a strapping athlete like J.J., there was another who preferred a quiet night at home with sweet, slender Caleb.

“Everyone looks so tense!” Sven appeared in the entry between foyer and living room. Unlike the escorts, all of whom had been told to strip down to Speedos or swim trunks, Sven was fully dressed. He wore a lightweight burgundy sweater, jeans, leather jacket, and gold-tooled black cowboy boots that boosted him well above six foot six. With arms spread from wall to wall, he took control of the room without so much as placing a toe inside.

Like a vulture showing off his wingspan.

Sven’s head swiveled to Andrew as if he'd overheard the thought. “Andrew. You’ve served drinks here before. Will you take one for the team and play bartender? The bar’s unlocked, stocked with beer, champagne and a shitload of poppers. I recommend everyone save the poppers for later, but hey, I’m easy. In a few minutes I’ll be back with Paresh and we can all get acquainted.”

Inside the bar’s refrigerated panel, Andrew found two cases of Heineken, a case of drugstore bubbly—apparently Wasserman’s escorts didn’t rate anything as middle-of-the-road as Korbel—and a sack full of amyl nitrate inhalers with names like Super Hit and Mo Betta. Starting with beer, Andrew opened a box, placed six bottles on the counter, and began cracking them open.

Federico was the first to snag a beer. “Randy Andy. How’s Cormac these days? Still dancing?”

“Nope.” Andrew passed a bottle to J.J., who looked more apprehensive about the evening than all the others put together. “He takes me on educational outings. I can tell you anything you want to know about California Republicans and/or convicted serial killers.”

“Any juice back there? Orange or apple?” Marc asked, regarding the Heinekens with undisguised fear. Clearly his nutritional regime didn’t include empty calories.

“No juice. I can pop open champagne if you want.”

“Do it!” Caleb managed to look both scared and excited. As Andrew recalled, that was pretty much Caleb’s perpetual state. The boy who’d run away to NYC after a near death-match with his mom’s latest squeeze had come to the city expecting to beg on the streets and sleep in Salvation Army shelters. Instead, Caleb had stumbled across Huey Wasserman, started working that same night, and rented his very own iPod-sized efficiency after only one month. The boy was friendly, talkative and open to a fault. And “boy” was the legally correct term, since—fake ID notwithstanding—Caleb was only seventeen years old.

“Give me one of those,” Marc said, pointing at a stack of plastic champagne glasses. “I’ll drink tap water.”

“Champagne,” Caleb repeated.

Andrew gave the boy a look. He had no idea how many other escorts knew the truth. Caleb certainly hadn’t confessed to Wasserman, or he would have been packed off to the Greyhound bus station once the requisite foot was removed from his ass. Huey Wasserman, as he was fond of saying, wasn’t doing federal prison time for underage little pricks. But since Caleb had impulsively told Andrew his real date of birth, mostly to crow over the perfection of his fake ID, the kid had to live with the consequences. Andrew passed over an empty plastic glass.

“Follow Marc’s example. Get yourself some water.”

“What are you? His dad?” Federico leaned over the bar, practically pushing his face into Andrew’s midsection. Andrew pulled back, startled—some of his fellow escorts had absolutely no physical barriers left—and Federico, dangling like a monkey, seized the bag of poppers.

“Here we go. The man wasn’t kidding. Plenty for all.” Passing three to Caleb, Federico stuck another two in his package, giving it a freakish shape. “This’ll keep ‘em guessing, eh?”

Andrew shook his head at Caleb, who was on the verge of opening a popper. “Hey! Really?”

“They’re legal. You need one more than I do.” Caleb tossed one at Andrew, who returned it to the sack.

“Yeah, well, so is booze and you don’t see me drinking. I did that once on a date and I’m lucky I ever worked again. Besides.” Andrew dialed back the know-it-all tone, eerily like his father’s, that had crept into his voice. “I don’t use poppers on the job for one reason. I don’t want to wake up locked in a trunk, being driven to the second location.”

“Amen,” Julio said. Arguably the handsomest of the escorts, he had accepted a beer, but only as a prop, something to hold in a variety of attractive postures. If ever a man deserved a shot at television commercials, it was Julio. “Oprah says it’s the most important thing she ever learned about self-defense. Never let yourself be taken to the second location.”

Everyone laughed at that, even Caleb, who never missed a chance to follow along with the group. But before the laughter died down, he snapped open a Mo Betta, inhaled, and transformed himself into the center of attention.

“Someone’s getting started early,” Paresh said, appearing on Sven’s arm. Gone was the weary demeanor and off-the-rack clothes. Now, like Sven, he was dressed in the sort of “casual” men’s fashions that cost upward of twelve grand per ensemble. Andrew tried to catch the other man’s eyes, but they were wide, glittering, never resting on any face for more than moment. Any resemblance to the Paresh Andrew had sat down with just five hours before was purely physical.

Jeez. Is he high every time? Is that why everything Sven does seems okay to him?

The living room overlooked the pool. As Paresh reduced the room’s recessed lights to their lowest setting, Sven opened the pool’s control panel, turning on its underwater lights and cranking up the heater. “By the time we get out there, the water will be eighty-eight degrees. Believe me, between the pool and the patio heaters, none of you will be cold. No danger of shrinkage.”

Everyone laughed dutifully. Among male escorts, shrinkage was no laughing matter. Besides, there was something about Sven that didn’t encourage unbridled laughter. He was too hyperaware, too quick to stare a man down. Andrew knew every escort in the room, coincidental to their current career or not, had experienced some form of sexual violence in their lives. Either at home, like Caleb, or via school bullies, like Andrew himself, or some other way, often in the course of coming out. Whoever said being a male escort was easy money overlooked the small but very real chance of broken teeth, a broken skull, or an early death.

The pool, at least, was pretty, an ice blue rectangle surrounded by shimmering, dreamlike white. Despite what Paresh had said about only using this house for extracurricular sex, Andrew wondered if the other man didn’t envision someday bringing the wife and kids. On the pool deck there was a lifeguard’s tall chair, probably never used, positioned close to a circular life preserver and one of those red CPR kits. Where was Mrs. Choudhari right now? Would sending her an anonymous message do any good? Or was that completely out of bounds, the sort of thing no true friend would ever—

Andrew, still standing behind the bar, realized someone must have said his name. Everyone was looking at him.

“Andrew. You’re a thousand miles away,” Paresh said.

You should talk.

“Seriously, Andrew, we don’t expect you to tend bar all night.” Sven, who’d chosen the only leather armchair for himself, gestured to the room’s twin sofas, where the other escorts had already found places. As Andrew forced himself to take the cushion closest to the bar, Paresh settled himself on the floor at Sven’s feet. For a moment, Sven placed a hand on Paresh’s shoulder, like a king conferring an honor. Then he withdrew his hand, smiling around the darkened room as if Paresh had ceased to exist.

“Anyone know what a ligature is?”

Andrew steeled himself as Sven showed off the item, in this case a thirty-inch leather strip, smooth on one side and raw on the other. Andrew had the feeling Sven wanted to call on him, sensing his discomfort like a hound scents a bitch. But instead, Sven had Paresh demonstrate the item, looping it around Marc’s massive neck and giving an experimental squeeze.

As Paresh let the ligature fall slack, Sven continued, “Did you know when you beat off, you either hyperventilate or hold your breath? It’s a normal human response. A way to increase pleasure. There are three levels to breath play. The first is purely orgasmic. Restrict your oxygen as you climax and you’ll reach new heights. Guaranteed.” Sven smiled. “That’s nothing new, junior high kids are doing it right now, probably just down the street. But the second level is all about trust. You pick a man and just for fun—yet in a very real sense—you put your life in his hands. You not only come for him. You let him control your breath. With a ligature, a hood, or just his hands.”

“What if you pass out?” Caleb asked.

Sven regarded the boy. Long legs splayed as if the leather armchair was a post-modern throne, Sven was a vision from his taut thighs to broad shoulders to that handsome Teutonic face. Andrew could practically feel Caleb’s longing to be chosen by a man like Sven, cold-featured and smooth-voiced, legs seductively open, like he might unzip and mount the entire room. Federico and the others, most drinking little or nothing at all, looked comparatively blank.

“Then you prove your trust and collapse in perfect ecstasy.” Sven held Caleb’s gaze. “It’s an erotic secret, passed from man to man. As for the third level….” Sven’s eyes shifted suddenly to Andrew. “That’s special. The third level is love, pure and simple. Love accepts anything. All circumstances. All conditions. Even the fear of death.”

Pointedly breaking Sven’s gaze, Andrew tried fruitlessly to engage Paresh. Ligature stretched between his hands, Paresh kept his eyes on Marc, clearly awaiting further instructions.

“Should any of you wish to further explore level one,” Sven continued, “try it at home sometime. Tonight, we’re starting at level two. Marc, will you allow Paresh to place the ligature around your neck again? The smooth side, mind you. He won’t tighten it until you’re close.”

Andrew wondered if he was the only one who recognized the fear in Marc’s eyes. It was well-controlled, of course, just as that same fear was fiercely contained by Federico, J.J., Julio, and Caleb. Out of all Wasserman’s escorts, some highly experienced in BDSM, Sven had singled out a handful with absolutely no prior experience.