First You Fall: A Kevin Connor Mystery (2 page)

“You’re real y cute,” he said.

I get “cute” a lot. At five foot three and one hundred twenty-five pounds, with blond hair that I keep short on the sides and floppy on the top, it’s hard to be cal ed anything else. My face fits the bil , too, with a slightly broad nose, thick lips, and cheeks that turn red at the slightest chil or embarrassment.

Rent boys have to keep fit, so I work out four times a week. Luckily, I have a fast metabolism, so I can pretty much eat what I want. Years of high school gymnastics have made me limber and strong.

I also have a nice dick. It’s not huge—just an inch or two above the American average—but on a little guy like me, it’s impressive.

The whole thing makes a nice package. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but in my line of business, you have to know your product. I work at my looks because they’re my living. My body is nice, but that’s because I exercise to maintain it. I keep my hair long in front because it’s such a good flirting aid.

I’m the archetypal little brother, the boy next door, Dennis the Menace al grown up and gone gay. I’m, wel , cute, and that’s what sel s the tickets.

“Thanks,” I told my client. Gary? Larry? Something like that.

“So, real y,” he asked, “how did you get into this?” I figured I’d never see this guy again, so why be coy?

Dressed now in baggy Abercrombie cargo shorts and a tight CK T-shirt, I sat on his lap.

Guys love it when I sit in their lap.

“It’s not that interesting a story,” I said. “I was a sophomore in col ege and went to a bar. This incredible looking guy came up and asked me to dance. I wound up going back to his place and the next morning, he says ‘You’re real y cute, and a great lay. I know a way you can get paid for both.’

“Then, he told me about Mrs. Cherry—you know, the guy you talked to on the phone?”

“Mrs. Cherry’s a guy?” my client asked.

“Yeah, a drag queen. Or a transvestite. I’m not sure which. Anyway, I was a psychology major at the time, with a minor in English. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school, but I couldn’t afford it. And psychology majors aren’t general y big money-makers.

“So, I cal ed Mrs. Cherry, went for an audition, and, wel , here I am.

My client tousled my hair. Yeah, I get a lot of that.

“Do you like your work?” he asked.

This could be a tricky question. Some tricks get off on your not liking it—they want to feel like they’re defiling you or something. But, you can usual y tel those guys right off the bat. They’re creepy in other ways, too. This guy seemed normal.

“Yeah, I do. I’ve been fooling around with guys since I was fifteen years old. Mrs. Cherry handles the business end of things real y wel —everyone is referred by someone she knows or by a former client. That makes it pretty safe. It’s not like I’m walking the streets or anything. So, yeah, I like it.”

“Yes, but doesn’t your, um, work make it hard to have a regular relationship?”

The truth was, I didn’t want a regular relationship.

The last time I was in love was with Tony Rinaldi. I was sixteen, he was nineteen. I knew it was love because of that squishy feeling I got in my stomach whenever I saw him in the neighborhood, playing stickbal or hanging with my older sister. I had been watching him for years, getting close just to breathe in the way he smel ed in the summer, green and fresh like newly mowed grass. Tony was six feet of smooth Italian pony boy deliciousness, lanky muscles, dark eyes, and ebony hair that he wore in a sleek Caesar.

When I final y seduced him, it was like fireworks and Ecstasy and the best ice cream sundae of your life, al mashed together. We spent two months screwing everywhere we could. Tony’s kisses were so ravenous it was as if he was trying to inhale me.

He did everything in bed. He even let me fuck him (although only once, claiming that for such a little fel ow, I sure could hurt a guy).

It was after that when, sticky with sex and sweat, he pul ed me close and told me that he loved me. I had known for a while, but it was stil the greatest thing I’d ever heard.

It was also the first time he cal ed me “Kevvy,” a nickname no one else had ever cal ed me. It was almost as good as when he said he loved me.

Two weeks later, I came home to an e-mail that stopped my heart. “It has to be over between us. I’m going to col ege this fal , and I think it’s best we don’t see each other again. I hope someday we can be friends. Just friends. Take care. Your friend, Tony.” Had that e-mail contained the word “friend” one more time, I would have printed it out and used the paper to set his house on fire.

Since then, fal ing in love hasn’t real y been my thing. I didn’t need any more squishy stomachs, thank you. I had friends, friends with privileges, and tricks. Maybe I’d love again someday, but I didn’t need romantic love to make me feel complete.

Of course I didn’t go into al this with some guy whose name I couldn’t even recal . “I’m real y concentrating on getting into a graduate school, and on my volunteer work,” I told him. “I also help out at the local AIDS meal charity.” Both of these statements were not only true, but they were the kind of things that make clients give you bigger tips.

Clients like when you spend extra time like this talking after the shooting is over. It’s rude to fuck and run. No one wants to feel hustled—even by a hustler.

We spoke for a while more, and then my client announced that he had to get some work done. He had already paid for my time through Mrs. Cherry with his credit card, but as I was walking out the door, he slipped an extra hundred into my jeans.

“You were great,” he said, shaking my hand as if we had just negotiated a very important business deal.

“Thanks,”—I remembered!—“Jerry. Feel free to ask for me again if you come back to New York.” I flung my backpack over my shoulder.

“Wel ,” Jerry said sheepishly, “I usual y like a new guy …”

Figures. Now I’d have to forget his name again.

There was nothing forgettable about the furnace outside. New York in August is like a hot day in Hel .

Even at 9:00 P.M., the air was wet and heavy.

I was supposed to meet my best friend, Freddy, at a bar at around midnight. That gave me enough time to drop off a book I had borrowed from my friend Al en Harrington on the way home.

Al en and I had met under odd circumstances. A year ago, he had cal ed Mrs. Cherry looking for some companionship. He had asked for a blond, blue-eyed guy, and I fit the bil . But when I knocked on the door, the good-looking, distinguished gentleman of about sixty looked disappointed.

“Oh no,” he said, “you won’t do at al .” Now, as a professional, I don’t take this kind of thing personal y. People want what they want, and for me to be hurt by rejection would be like the subway complaining every time someone takes a bus.

Different strokes for different folks.

Stil , a flicker of annoyance must have passed my face, because Al en immediately looked chagrined.

“But where are my manners?” he asked. “Forgive me. Come in, let’s have a drink. And of course, I wil pay you for your time. But let me explain.” I walked in and sat at a table where two wineglasses sat with an open bottle of Merlot. I didn’t know much about furniture at the time (Al en would eventual y teach me more), but this place was obviously posh. Expensive looking paintings, vases displayed on marble columns, and thick wool carpets made everything seem rich and comfortable.

Turns out Al en liked his guys blond and blue-eyed, which I fit. But he also wanted them tal er, more muscular, and more mature. “It’s real y my fault,” he explained. “I should have been more specific with that woman on the phone. Mrs. Cherry, wasn’t it? A lovely lady, even if, as I suspect, she has a penis.

“Besides,” he continued, “you look like you’re what, sixteen?”

I do look a lot younger than I am. “I’m perfectly legal,” I assured him. I put my head down and regarded him through my bangs. “Are you sure,” I said, rubbing my finger along the rim of the wineglass from which I had been sipping “that I can’t interest you in anything? How about a massage?” I had seen the wineglass trick used by my favorite actress ever, Barbra Streisand, in
On a Clear Day,
when she tries to seduce a handsome young man by rubbing her glass with her finger, then across her lips, and down to her bosom. I didn’t have the tits for that last gesture, but you have to work with what you got.

Apparently, the move was familiar to Al en, too.

“Did you by any chance get that affectation from a Barbra Streisand movie?” he asked me.
“Nuts?”
Nuts,
of course, was Barbra’s seminal film in which she plays a prostitute accused of murdering her john. She also played a hooker in
For Pete’s
Sake
and
the Owl and the Pussycat.
Those movies, along with
Pretty Woman,
and about a hundred Falcon videos, were pretty much al the training I had for my job.

I was excited that Al en made a Barbra reference, even if he got the film wrong. I corrected him gently.

“That’s right,” Al en said, “you know, some people find her a little overbearing, but I think she’s marvelous.”

We started talking about our favorite Barbra scenes. Al en couldn’t believe I liked
The Mirror Has
Two Faces,
but I could watch Babs in a fire dril . We went on for hours. It turned out that we both were huge movie fans.

And thus a friendship began. Al en tried to pay me for my time that night, but I refused to take his money. After al , we hadn’t fooled around, and I enjoyed the evening as much as he did.

Since then, we’d get together about once a month for dinner or a show. While he always insisted on picking up the check, I never let him pay me as an escort.

Hustlers need friends, too.

I even recommended Randy Bostinick to him.

Randy was another hustler Mrs. Cherry represented.

He looked like an older, bigger, butcher version of me, with a body that could only be shaped by back-breaking workouts, steroids, and the appetite-suppressing powers of crystal meth. Randy’s figure is flawless; his biceps are cantaloupes, only tastier, his tits rival Dol y Parton’s, and his abs are so defined they look like a topographical map of a place you’d need a Land Rover to navigate.

Once, Mrs. Cherry talked me into doing a boy/boy scene with Randy at a gay bachelor party (wel , now that we’re getting “married,” don’t we have the right to enjoy the same rites of debauchery as everyone else?), and I have to say that just touching his chest was an erotic highlight of my life. The chemistry between us was so hot that we both walked out of there with over a thousand dol ars in our hands. Now that’s what I cal a good night’s work.

Al en Harrington was an interesting man. A self-made mil ionaire in real estate, Al en was married for most of his adult life, with two sons to show for it. In middle age, while his children were stil young, Al en came out of the closet with a bang when he realized that he had spent the last five years in love with his best friend. They final y got together, and Al en realized that the love of another man was what he’d been longing for.

The friend died of cancer three years after Al en’s divorce became final.

In the process of his coming out, Al en’s wife came to despise him. So did his sons.

“Losing my boys is the greatest sorrow of my life,” Al en confided over dinner at the Four Seasons. “I haven’t seen or spoken to them in years. When I did, they were ful of venom towards my ‘lifestyle.’ My older son, Michael, was particularly convinced that I had ‘chosen’ to be this way, and that I could change if I real y wanted to. He even offered to help me, whatever that meant. My younger one, Paul, wel , he was always a fol ower, and he just went along with Michael’s and my ex-wife’s bitterness.

“Not surprisingly, Paul married a girl whose bitchiness makes even my ex-wife’s seem minor league. It’s sad how children are doomed to repeat the mistakes of their parents, isn’t it?” Al en figured he’d hear from the boys again when they started having children. “Grandchildren tend to bring families together,” he told me. “Plus, I don’t think they’l want to stay away from my inheritance forever. I’ve already told them they’re out of my wil until they come around.”

“Wel , they’re idiots to give up a great dad like you,” I told him. “I can’t believe your kids rejected you just because you’re gay.”

“Wel , even if I left their mother for another woman, I’m sure they would have had issues. But I don’t forgive them. I’m their father and to be honest, I raised them to have better manners than this.

“I’ve made many mistakes in my life,” Al en told me. “I let the expectations and prejudices of other people make me deny the best parts of me. That’s what’s so great about your generation. You don’t have to hide who you real y are.”

Not always, I thought. I told him about Tony, the great love of my life who left me because he was scared. Al en shook his head. “I guess some people wil always be afraid of happiness.” Al en sighed. He took my hands in his. “Promise me that wil never be you, Kevin. Promise me you’l be happy.”

“Are you happy now?” I asked him.

“The happiest I’ve been,” Al en said. “I have wonderful friends.” He raised his glass to me, “I have wonderful sex, and I am involved in so many exciting things.” I knew that Al en was on the board of directors of some major gay nonprofit groups, and that his dinner parties, some of which I had been invited to, were legendary. “I have final y found my place in this world, and I wake up excited to start each day. How many men in their sixties can you say that about?”