Introducing Our Hero, The Scoundrel
In which we learn the importance of respecting pigeons, that nothing in life is free and why we shouldn’t fingerpaint with oils.
“I am a Cabalist.” Christian partly bows at me, which looks silly when you’re sitting down. “That means I’m a God trapped in a man’s body.”
I arch my brow at him from across the coffee shop table. “Um. What?”
“You see this window?” He taps on the glass, through which hundreds of New Yorkers pass by, going in different directions in a constant flow of controlled chaos. Hundreds upon thousands of strangers; any of which could’ve been less insipid than this idiot, who I just happened to meet through a personal ad. “With a mere snap of my fingers, I could turn this glass into a sheet of pure gold.” He goes on with a smile, so overwhelmed by how awesome he is, that he neglects to notice how the almost-legal art student he’s obviously trying to get into the sack is praying for a natural disaster right now. Anything at all to get out of this.
“Wow, that’s...” Retarded. You’re a friggin’ lunatic.
“Astounding, I know.” He beams, probably thinking to himself that now I can’t wait to climb into his pants. I’ll bet he thinks that because he’s a Stock Broker, a lot of people can’t wait to climb into his pants. “I can teach you how, if you want, Doug. But Cabalism is lot like Karate....it tastes years to master.”
I nearly choke on my Mochaccino. Am I on Candid Camera or something? This guy simply can’t be for real. I merely stare at him, dumbfounded and speechless. Does he think that because I’m seventeen, that I’m some wide-eyed, inexperienced naif who’s going to “ooh” and “aah” him all the way back to his bedroom? “Do it.”
“What?” He’s got his poker face on. What a schmuck.
“You said you could turn this window into gold, so do it.”
“Doug, I can’t just do something like that. Reality has laws.” He motions to me, both eyebrows raised. “Can I? Sure, but doing something that blatant could cause a widespread panic, and a Master Cabalist has responsibilities to the masses underneath him.”
“So people like me, we’re underneath you?” My tone comes dangerously close to insult, when in reality, I’ve discovered a love for busting this guy’s balls. I happen to have a poker face of my own.
“Them, yes.” He points out the window at the passing sheeple. “But you...you’re different. I can sense a power about you. Something strong, just under the surface, waiting to be brought out, refined and perfected.” He takes both my hands, his slate grey eyes pierce hard into my green ones. “Doug, haven’t you ever wanted to be a God among men?”
I pretend to think about it for a moment. Then, with my face as serious as a heart attack, I tell him, “No, but when I was a kid, I used to want to be Lion-O.” He laughs, and I give him my best “what’s so funny?” expression.
“Well, you let me know if you’re interested, I’ll be around. Busy, of course, I’m a busy man... but I’ll squeeze you in.”
Gee, don’t do me any favors. “Christian,” I sigh, getting tired of the charade. “You’re awfully lucky you’re cute.”
Cute he is, fortunately for me, even if he is twice my age. And just as fortunately, our power lunch is over, and alas, it’s time for him to get back to work, and me to walk back to Art School for more of my painting class. Before I leave though, he gives me an affectionate kiss on the cheek, which is awkward, considering he’s in an immaculate three-piece suit and my ripped, wrinkled jeans and Batman t-shirt are covered in paint and reek of turpentine. Christian winks at me, pinches my freckled cheek and says, “Meet me here after school. I’ll take you out for pizza and then show you around my apartment. You’ll love it.” It draws a genuine toothy smile from me, which people rarely see because I don’t like showing off my braces.
Dammit, why did he have to say that? Promises of free food and sex in a lofty penthouse apartment in Midtown? Now I have to come back.
Is it wrong for me to sleep with a guy in his mid-thirties? Probably, but I’m at my sexual peak right now, and a geek like me can’t just get it whenever he wants. I’m sort of seeing this kid who lives across the street from me named Lawrence. Our dads are both homophobes, and hate each other for some reason, so I can’t enter his house, and he can’t step foot into mine. So we end up having to sneak and fool around outdoors a lot. He’s the first guy I ever had anal sex with, but defiantly not the last. He’d opened the floodgates for many other encounters. I’m not sure if our relationship was supposed to be monogamous, because he sleeps with just about anything he could get his paws on. So why shouldn’t I? Does that mean that when I’m in my mid-thirties, I’m gonna prowl for seventeen-year olds? Hell no, that’s just sick! But when you’re the seventeen-year old, it’s pretty damn cool.
For those who don’t know, I go to the School of Visual Arts, and I suck at it. When I was in High School, my teachers couldn’t tell me enough of what a great artist I was. I illustrated the yearbook and the school paper and was even in the annual periodical for two years running. I was one of the nominees for Best Artist of my graduating class, but they gave it to some chick who did this lame ass mural because she was more popular. My old man hated when I drew. He’d come into my room every once in a while in a fit of rage and tear my drawings off the walls. Once in a while, I’d come home to find, to my horror, my comic book collection made into a giant bonfire in the backyard. I don’t know why; he’s always gotten a kick out of tormenting me and not my kid sister. I guess because he’s the oldest of two, and since his old man tormented him, he felt the need to keep up the tradition. His hatred for my hobby has only made me more passionate about it.
So here I am, in the college of my dreams, and everybody here has such amazing talent, and I feel like a three-year old scribbling stick figures in comparison. Everything comes so easy to these rich out-of-state kids who came straight out of a specialized Art High School. They can already do everything: sculpt, paint, work with paper mache’ and plaster, you name it, these spoiled ivy league brats could dwarf me with their endless endowment in it. And then there’s me, the true starving artist. My parents make too much for me to qualify for financial aid. So with both my meager savings coupled with whatever my Mom could scrape up, I could barely afford my first year’s tuition. And on top of that, the school gives you this laundry list of supplies you need during your classes. Things I’ve never heard of, and due to how absurdly expensive art supplies are, you could easily spend upwards of ten thousand dollars, each year. Gum and Kneaded Erasers? Why would I need two different types of erasers? What’s wrong with the one on the end of my pencil? Turpenoid, is that like an alien race that shoots turpentine out of it’s nose at you, like smelly, toxic war-boogers? Gesso, why would I want to paint the canvas before painting the canvas? If you don’t like how the canvas is made, get a different one, or make your own. India ink, is that like Henna? Do I have to get a sex change and get married? All that bullshit and much, much more. Seven-billion types of charcoal, pencils with all types of numbers on them, cray-pie, watercolor sets, colored pencil sets, marker sets, ten billion acrylic paints, another 10 billion oil paints. Plus a loose-tie portfolio and an Artbin to store it all. My gawd, everything under the mother fucking sun, none of which we had the money for.
So I learned to make friends. Rich, sweet, generous friends; the kind that see me come into paint studio lugging a bunch of cardboard I got from my house and feel bad for me because I’m too welfare to afford a pallette and canvas. So these rich, sweet, generous friends would come over to my easel before class to dab charitable amounts of oils in all colors of the rainbow onto a piece of cardboard for me so I wouldn’t be sent home like I was the first day of class when I showed up bewildered and empty-handed. The teacher hates me; either because I remind her of her poorer days, or because she has disdain for the poor, or maybe because she’s a dried up old buzzard who isn’t happy unless she’s actively picking on someone. Nevertheless, she never misses an opportunity to point out how terrible a painter I am, holding my dripping, recycled cardboard monstrosity up to the full view of the class for outright mockery. Of course, those are the times I point out that at least I don’t wear the same clothes every time this class meets.
I know I’m no Rembrandt; I’m not here for painting, I’m all thumbs with a paintbrush in my hand. The important part is that I’m trying, which she fails to appreciate. In fact, a few weeks ago, I got the crazy notion in my head that perhaps it was the paintbrush holding me back; so I smeared my bare fingertips in the oils and attempted to fingerpaint. It was the first time I’d done so since I was a child, when my Mom would put on Beethoven, Schubert or Debussy and tell me to paint, or draw what the music made me feel. There’s something comforting about finger painting; something primal. Anyone who hasn’t done it, or doesn’t remember the last time they’ve done it should go do it- right now. It’s like there’s this energy, this entity inside you that can only be awakened and released by putting bare fingers to the flat surface before you and making a giant mess. It was the most fun I’ve had in a classroom in a very long time.
My result was something halfway recognizable as the still life set out before us; I was amazed! The teacher had been watching me doing this with a sinister smirk, shaking her head. I was so proud of my handiwork that I showed it to her and all my fellow students. But of course, to the teacher it was still a sub-standard joke. At least I got pats on the back from all my sweet, generous friends, who were finally starting to see some results out of their investment. However, by the end of the six-hour long class, my fingers began to ache and swell, and I didn’t know why. It was then that the teacher, who’d been grinning wickedly this whole time, decided to let me know that oil paints are toxic. No wonder she was having such a good time watching me finger paint.
So for the next three days, the digits on both my hands were the size of Kielbasas, and I couldn’t hold anything, not even a fork. Gods bless my Mother for making hamburgers and chicken nuggets for dinner during those days. I couldn’t sculpt clay in class the next day, and I could barely draw the nude models in class the day after that. I didn’t go to the doctor, nor did I take Benadryl or anti-inflammitories, because that’s what old school Mothers did back in those days. They let their kids pay full price for their mistakes, because that way, the kid wouldn’t forget the lesson, and made damn sure not to make the same mistake again. Those three days of being handicapped and laughed at by my classmates just fueled my dislike for that miserable, evil hag of a painting teacher.
I also have problems with my Drawing instructor. He’s this washed-up old man who sports a permanent frown on his aged face, like somebody’s war veteran grandfather who’s plagued by night terrors and visions of malady and carnage. He hands out ridiculous amounts of homework, the kind that only lets you get two hours sleep because you have to complete the equally as ridiculous amounts of homework from your other classes too. He’s made it crystal clear to me that he thinks I’m the worst artist in the entire class. When I hand in my homework or projects, he’ll look at it and say, “What is this garbage you’re handing me?” or “You aren’t even in the same ballpark as the other students. I don’t even know how you got into this school.” It wounded and discouraged me so greatly that I seriously thought I’d never come back; yet I always do. This is your dream, I’d remind myself. So much time, energy and money’s been invested into this, you’d be a failure if you quit because of these sanctimonious bastards. Time to suck it up and move on.
One Drawing class I stayed home from because I was ill. So in my absence, the instructor pinned my project up in front of the class and said to them, “This is what I call ‘Lines of Pain’, simply because it hurts to look at them.” A few of my rich, sweet, generous friends told me about it the next day, and all respect I had for that son of a bitch was reduced to nothing, along with any desire I had to impress him or prove him wrong about me. After the next class I had with him, I did what I do best: I got right in his big, droopy, ugly face and told him off. I said “How DARE you badmouth me and my work when I’m not here to defend myself!” and used the ever-popular, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” All of which reduced him to silence. He’s eased up on me since, but I can tell it hasn’t taught him a thing. People like that are too obstinately set in their ways, too closed to any ideas save their own.
All in all, even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t come back here next year. Art School takes such a toll on me, both emotionally and physically. I don’t get enough sleep, I don’t eat right, I drink too much coffee, eat too many power bars and it’s screwing up my stomach. I can never remember which projects are due when, I’m always unprepared and I always feel like I’m struggling desperately for what seems to come so easy to everyone else. In truth, school was never my scene. I had similar problems in High School and was even a truent for a while. I got left back once, after which my old man kicked my ass, and by the next year, I was in a special Independent Studies program that allowed me to skip Sophomore year and graduate with all my friends.
So now that I’ve gone completely off course and pretty much given you my life story, allow me to get back to Christian. You remember Christian, don’t you, the loony Stock Broker with the God Complex? Oh yes, after school, I make sure to clean up as best I can in the bathroom so I could look halfway presentable for my date tonight. Free pizza, hot sex and a tour of a beautiful penthouse apartment overlooking the Empire State Building...how awesome! There were all sorts of reasons for me not to go back to see him, but as I walk back to the coffee shop where I met him last, those reasons seem to elude me. When I reach the place, a mental image of the window suddenly turning into gold makes me cackle out loud to myself.
“Hey there, stranger!” I hear him call out from in back of me. I turn and we wave to each other as he walks briskly up to where I’m standing. He’s dressed like a real Wall Street tycoon, and I feel like a hobo next to him. He puts an arm around me and gives me another big, affectionate kiss on my cheek, which makes me giggle. “Hungry, baby?”
“Starved. Pizza?” I give him an affectionate kiss on the corner of his mouth.
“I’m tempted to skip dinner and bring you home so we can get right to the dessert.” He purrs, rubbing the back of my neck.
“Hey, I don’t come that cheap, buddy.” I put a hand on his chest. “I’m looking forward to dessert too, but I don’t function well on an empty stomach.”
With that, he decides he could use something too, so we go into this one place near his house, which is okay. It’s not Brooklyn Pizza, but it’s better than most stuff you’d get out of a grocery store freezer. A pigeon wanders inside and comes right up to our table, which I think is so cute that I feed him some of my crust. Christian makes the usual “rat with wings” statement that small-minded people make.
“For someone who fancies himself a God, you’re acting like a sad, stupid little human.” I scold him, genuinely offended. I happen to adore pigeons. “You said it yourself; you have responsibilities. Respect all those around, above and beneath you. Were it not for these birds, you’d have a hundred times as many roaches, gnats and mosquitos to deal with.”
He purses his lips and drops his gaze to the table in shame. “You’re right, my mistake.” He then tears the crust from his slice and tosses it down to the bird saying, “Thanks, little guy.” To which the pigeon responds by pecking merrily between the two crusts that are all his, knocking and flinging little pieces of bread all over the floor.
“Aww, that was very sweet of you, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, you reminded me of something very important today. I owe you a lot.” I actually blush at his statement. Maybe he’s not such a loony after all.
After dinner, we walk arm-in-arm into his giant, glass apartment building that goes upwards forever. He lives in the penthouse on the ninety-second floor. “The Nosebleed suite”, he calls it, then makes a joke that the first two nights, he had to sleep on the fifty-third floor just so that he wouldn’t get altitude sickness. I’m not sure I get it, but by now, I’m so enchanted by him, he could recite the phonebook to me and I’d laugh. In the elevator, he leans down to me and traces my earlobe with his tongue. It makes me shiver with delight. “I want you.” He moans, pulling me into a crushing embrace. He presses his lips against mine, and I can feel the short stubble from his five o’clock shadow pressing up against the smooth skin of my face. He runs a hand through my medium-brown hair, which reaches just below my shoulders. It comes in handy when we stop at the sixty-something-th floor and he pulls away from me, nudging my face into his chest so the business woman standing outside looking in, might just think I’m a girl.
“Going down?” She asks. I laugh perversely to myself.
“Up.” He states, jiggling the “Door Close” button with his free hand.
“Ahh, sorry.” The doors close and he wastes no time forcing my face up to meet his, pushing his tongue past my lips. I moan into him as our tongues duel furiously. By the time the elevator reaches his floor, we’re all over each other. However, when the doors open, he pulls away from me to glance back and forth to see if anyone’s around to watch him bring me inside his apartment. Once inside, his paranoia dies down. The foyer looks like any other apartment, but once in the livingroom, the place takes my breath away.
The wall facing the Empire State Building is in fact a giant window, that extends up halfway across the ceiling. It’s like being in a giant fish bowl on top of a cloud; you could see everything, the buildings, the lights, even the bustling traffic way down below. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and I tell him so. Unfortunately, you can discern that the majority of his paycheque goes towards the apartment, because there’s only one piece of furniture; a glass table in the middle of the room, scratched and dusty. No couch, no chairs, noplace to sit except the rug on the floor. That lone table looks so awkward and out of place, I have to laugh. “Still furnishing?” I tease him. He takes it in stride.
“Ah, that belongs to my roommate, it’s from his last place.”
“Roommate? I was wondering how you were able to afford this place. How much is your rent every month?”
He laughs, taking me by the hand. “You don’t want to know. Come, let’s sit down.” So we sit on the floor by the table and talk a bit more. He hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on, so the only illumination we’re getting is through the window. He’d taken off his coat, shoes and tie, and halfway unbuttoned his shirt. The way his short, dirty blond hair is tousled about, and the facial hair just peeking through his square, chiseled jaw makes him look young and wild, and it drives me crazy. Pretty soon, I can’t help but crawl into his lap and kiss him. We wrap our arms tightly around each other and make out like madmen. He grabs my hips and pushes my ass down onto his lap, grinding me over his erection.
“Got any condoms?” I blurt out in between hot, slobbery kisses.
“Always.” He grunts back. Before I know it, I’m being led, still kissing, into his bedroom, which is small, cramped and unglamourous in comparison. He pushes me down onto the twin bed and crawls on top of me. “Oh God, Doug, I need to fuck you!” He growls, biting on my ear. I’m so excited that I wrap my legs around him, arching my hips up to meet his.
“Then fuck me, Christian.” I plant soft kisses along his neck as he tears his shirt off, then goes for mine.
“Please, call me Daddy. It turns me on so much.” His voice is low, dark and seedy, which only adds to the allure of the near pitch-black room.
“Yes, Daddy.” I comply without even thinking about it, though I’ve never called a lover that before. I like the way it sounds coming from me, and I certainly like the way he tears my pants off in reaction to it. Gods, it really *does* get him going. Considering our age difference, that’s kinda creepy!
“Ohhh, baby, spread your legs so I can lube you up, I need you right now, before I blow!” Where did he get lube from? I didn’t even feel him move. But low and behold, he’s applying the cold jelly on me hastily, and before I know it, he’s pushing it in, then lying on top of me, pushing my legs up to my chest with his shoulders, huffing and panting in the dark.
“Ughh...” I fake a grunt, because truthfully, I know it’s in, but I barely feel it. I get more stretching sensation from my own finger in the shower.
“Ohh, baby boy, I’m so close!” What? So close, we just started!
“Goddamn....OHH baby, I’m gonna BLOW in you!” Hey, wait a minute– no fair! “FUCK!” He grunts, unloading into me.
“What the fuck?” I complain as he climbs off me, sitting up on his knees at the foot of the bed while I lie there squinting at him, wondering if we just did it or not. I can feel how dripping wet my ass is, and it’s highly uncomfortable. By now, my eyes have acclimated to the meager lighting, enough to tell that he’s not wearing a condom. “Christian, I told you to put a rubber on!”
He looks down at himself. “I did put one on.”
“Well then, where is it?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, my brain clicks to the answer. “Oh, holy crap.” I look down at myself and realize it’s still inside me. I have no choice but to reach down and slowly pull it out. This is one of the grossest things I’ve ever had to do, and it’s so traumatic, that my erection runs shrieking into the night. Pulling it out of me is like a magician drawing this never-ending, multi-colored handkerchief out of his sleeve; it just keeps coming and coming. No wonder it slipped off- it was a thousand times too big for his two-inch killer! No sooner do I finally get it out of me is there the sound of jingling keys at the door.
“Oh my God.” Christian croaks, his face dropping in horror. “What time is it? Fucking shit!”
“Who’s that?” I manage to dry myself off a bit with his blankets before he bolts off the bed, running around the room to gather up my things.
“It’s my roommate! You have to leave, NOW!” He shoves my balled up clothes into my chest in a panic.
“What? Can’t I just clean up a bit in your--”
“No, you gotta go now, while he’s in the bathroom!” He yanks me out of bed by my elbow, ordering me not to make a sound as we pass the foyer. We pass right by the bathroom door, which is closed, a halo of light around it coming from inside. Christian then tosses me out into the hallway with all my clothes, my bag and my shoes, butt freakin’ naked. “I’m sorry!” He whispers harshly as he shuts the door in my face.
I’m in complete and total shock, and for a horrifying moment, I can do nothing but stand there with my wrinkled clothes in my arms and shiver, feeling my ass drip. It then occurs to me that other people live on this floor, and somebody could come out and see me like this at any moment. So I do my best to use my clothing to cover my shame and my ass at the same time, bag hanging off an elbow and shoelaces in my teeth, waddling my way towards the elevator. I manage to hit the down button with my foot, praying to myself, Please let the elevator be empty, please let the elevator be empty...
Ding! Lo and behold, it is! Someone up there loves me! I inch my way in and as soon as the doors close, I drop everything and practically leap into my clothes, now praying that nobody stops the car to get on. I know there’s a way to stop the elevator, but I have no idea which button to press, so I rely on my luck. Halfway down, I glance up and spot a blatant camera up in the corner. This wave of disgrace overtakes me in the form of intense nausea, and I wish I could just beam home. I think that at the very least, somebody somewhere would get a good laugh out of this. By the time the elevator reaches the ground floor, there’s a very large crowd of people waiting to get on. By now I’ve got my pants on, fly unzipped, shirt on inside out and backwards, my shoes on but not laced, and just barely get to grab my backpack from the floor before having to wriggle my way past this crowd as they give me suspicious, lingering stares as I dart out the front entrance.
By the time I hit Grand Central Station, I look a bit neater, but I still feel disgusting and uncomfortable from the state he’d left my ass in. With nowhere to properly clean up and in full panic mode, I ride the subway home unable to sit down, with this miserable look on my face, paranoid that I’d reek of cum, lube and sex, or possibly even leak through my jeans, which would be mortifying. I get home to Brooklyn an hour and a half later and take an equally as long shower.
____
After Multimedia class the next day, I take the brisk walk over to the building where that jerkoff works, planning to find him to chew him out, and possibly kick his teeth in. I know he gets out at 4:30 or so, roughly a half hour after the closing bell. I glance at my watch; 4:23. I’m waiting there and suddenly, somebody taps me on the shoulder. “Excuse me, who are you waiting for?” It’s one of the lobby security guards on a smoke break; a dark-skinned guy with a bit of a Haitian accent.
“Christian, one of the Stock Brokers. You know him?”
“Oh yeah, big, blond-haired guy? He’s always got young boys comin’ around lookin’ for him. How old are you?” He squints his brown eyes at me.
“Seventeen. Always, huh?” What a scumbag.
The guy shakes his head sadly. “You should stay away from him, son. Him and his buddies are bad news, always coked up. They don’t know how to treat people. Find yourself somebody nice, somebody your own age.”
“Um....okay. I will, thanks.” I walk away from the building with the thought in my head that Christian’s unsuspecting boyfriend/roommate might have very well saved me a lot more grief than what was already suffered. I briefly imagine as I board the subway home, that had Christian and I became close, he might’ve managed to make me into some drug-addicted boy toy, dancing for him and his vile, depraved buddies at one of their office coke parties. It sends a shiver down my spine.
What a way to start a book, huh?
In which we learn the importance of respecting pigeons, that nothing in life is free and why we shouldn’t fingerpaint with oils.
“I am a Cabalist.” Christian partly bows at me, which looks silly when you’re sitting down. “That means I’m a God trapped in a man’s body.”
I arch my brow at him from across the coffee shop table. “Um. What?”
“You see this window?” He taps on the glass, through which hundreds of New Yorkers pass by, going in different directions in a constant flow of controlled chaos. Hundreds upon thousands of strangers; any of which could’ve been less insipid than this idiot, who I just happened to meet through a personal ad. “With a mere snap of my fingers, I could turn this glass into a sheet of pure gold.” He goes on with a smile, so overwhelmed by how awesome he is, that he neglects to notice how the almost-legal art student he’s obviously trying to get into the sack is praying for a natural disaster right now. Anything at all to get out of this.
“Wow, that’s...” Retarded. You’re a friggin’ lunatic.
“Astounding, I know.” He beams, probably thinking to himself that now I can’t wait to climb into his pants. I’ll bet he thinks that because he’s a Stock Broker, a lot of people can’t wait to climb into his pants. “I can teach you how, if you want, Doug. But Cabalism is lot like Karate....it tastes years to master.”
I nearly choke on my Mochaccino. Am I on Candid Camera or something? This guy simply can’t be for real. I merely stare at him, dumbfounded and speechless. Does he think that because I’m seventeen, that I’m some wide-eyed, inexperienced naif who’s going to “ooh” and “aah” him all the way back to his bedroom? “Do it.”
“What?” He’s got his poker face on. What a schmuck.
“You said you could turn this window into gold, so do it.”
“Doug, I can’t just do something like that. Reality has laws.” He motions to me, both eyebrows raised. “Can I? Sure, but doing something that blatant could cause a widespread panic, and a Master Cabalist has responsibilities to the masses underneath him.”
“So people like me, we’re underneath you?” My tone comes dangerously close to insult, when in reality, I’ve discovered a love for busting this guy’s balls. I happen to have a poker face of my own.
“Them, yes.” He points out the window at the passing sheeple. “But you...you’re different. I can sense a power about you. Something strong, just under the surface, waiting to be brought out, refined and perfected.” He takes both my hands, his slate grey eyes pierce hard into my green ones. “Doug, haven’t you ever wanted to be a God among men?”
I pretend to think about it for a moment. Then, with my face as serious as a heart attack, I tell him, “No, but when I was a kid, I used to want to be Lion-O.” He laughs, and I give him my best “what’s so funny?” expression.
“Well, you let me know if you’re interested, I’ll be around. Busy, of course, I’m a busy man... but I’ll squeeze you in.”
Gee, don’t do me any favors. “Christian,” I sigh, getting tired of the charade. “You’re awfully lucky you’re cute.”
Cute he is, fortunately for me, even if he is twice my age. And just as fortunately, our power lunch is over, and alas, it’s time for him to get back to work, and me to walk back to Art School for more of my painting class. Before I leave though, he gives me an affectionate kiss on the cheek, which is awkward, considering he’s in an immaculate three-piece suit and my ripped, wrinkled jeans and Batman t-shirt are covered in paint and reek of turpentine. Christian winks at me, pinches my freckled cheek and says, “Meet me here after school. I’ll take you out for pizza and then show you around my apartment. You’ll love it.” It draws a genuine toothy smile from me, which people rarely see because I don’t like showing off my braces.
Dammit, why did he have to say that? Promises of free food and sex in a lofty penthouse apartment in Midtown? Now I have to come back.
Is it wrong for me to sleep with a guy in his mid-thirties? Probably, but I’m at my sexual peak right now, and a geek like me can’t just get it whenever he wants. I’m sort of seeing this kid who lives across the street from me named Lawrence. Our dads are both homophobes, and hate each other for some reason, so I can’t enter his house, and he can’t step foot into mine. So we end up having to sneak and fool around outdoors a lot. He’s the first guy I ever had anal sex with, but defiantly not the last. He’d opened the floodgates for many other encounters. I’m not sure if our relationship was supposed to be monogamous, because he sleeps with just about anything he could get his paws on. So why shouldn’t I? Does that mean that when I’m in my mid-thirties, I’m gonna prowl for seventeen-year olds? Hell no, that’s just sick! But when you’re the seventeen-year old, it’s pretty damn cool.
For those who don’t know, I go to the School of Visual Arts, and I suck at it. When I was in High School, my teachers couldn’t tell me enough of what a great artist I was. I illustrated the yearbook and the school paper and was even in the annual periodical for two years running. I was one of the nominees for Best Artist of my graduating class, but they gave it to some chick who did this lame ass mural because she was more popular. My old man hated when I drew. He’d come into my room every once in a while in a fit of rage and tear my drawings off the walls. Once in a while, I’d come home to find, to my horror, my comic book collection made into a giant bonfire in the backyard. I don’t know why; he’s always gotten a kick out of tormenting me and not my kid sister. I guess because he’s the oldest of two, and since his old man tormented him, he felt the need to keep up the tradition. His hatred for my hobby has only made me more passionate about it.
So here I am, in the college of my dreams, and everybody here has such amazing talent, and I feel like a three-year old scribbling stick figures in comparison. Everything comes so easy to these rich out-of-state kids who came straight out of a specialized Art High School. They can already do everything: sculpt, paint, work with paper mache’ and plaster, you name it, these spoiled ivy league brats could dwarf me with their endless endowment in it. And then there’s me, the true starving artist. My parents make too much for me to qualify for financial aid. So with both my meager savings coupled with whatever my Mom could scrape up, I could barely afford my first year’s tuition. And on top of that, the school gives you this laundry list of supplies you need during your classes. Things I’ve never heard of, and due to how absurdly expensive art supplies are, you could easily spend upwards of ten thousand dollars, each year. Gum and Kneaded Erasers? Why would I need two different types of erasers? What’s wrong with the one on the end of my pencil? Turpenoid, is that like an alien race that shoots turpentine out of it’s nose at you, like smelly, toxic war-boogers? Gesso, why would I want to paint the canvas before painting the canvas? If you don’t like how the canvas is made, get a different one, or make your own. India ink, is that like Henna? Do I have to get a sex change and get married? All that bullshit and much, much more. Seven-billion types of charcoal, pencils with all types of numbers on them, cray-pie, watercolor sets, colored pencil sets, marker sets, ten billion acrylic paints, another 10 billion oil paints. Plus a loose-tie portfolio and an Artbin to store it all. My gawd, everything under the mother fucking sun, none of which we had the money for.
So I learned to make friends. Rich, sweet, generous friends; the kind that see me come into paint studio lugging a bunch of cardboard I got from my house and feel bad for me because I’m too welfare to afford a pallette and canvas. So these rich, sweet, generous friends would come over to my easel before class to dab charitable amounts of oils in all colors of the rainbow onto a piece of cardboard for me so I wouldn’t be sent home like I was the first day of class when I showed up bewildered and empty-handed. The teacher hates me; either because I remind her of her poorer days, or because she has disdain for the poor, or maybe because she’s a dried up old buzzard who isn’t happy unless she’s actively picking on someone. Nevertheless, she never misses an opportunity to point out how terrible a painter I am, holding my dripping, recycled cardboard monstrosity up to the full view of the class for outright mockery. Of course, those are the times I point out that at least I don’t wear the same clothes every time this class meets.
I know I’m no Rembrandt; I’m not here for painting, I’m all thumbs with a paintbrush in my hand. The important part is that I’m trying, which she fails to appreciate. In fact, a few weeks ago, I got the crazy notion in my head that perhaps it was the paintbrush holding me back; so I smeared my bare fingertips in the oils and attempted to fingerpaint. It was the first time I’d done so since I was a child, when my Mom would put on Beethoven, Schubert or Debussy and tell me to paint, or draw what the music made me feel. There’s something comforting about finger painting; something primal. Anyone who hasn’t done it, or doesn’t remember the last time they’ve done it should go do it- right now. It’s like there’s this energy, this entity inside you that can only be awakened and released by putting bare fingers to the flat surface before you and making a giant mess. It was the most fun I’ve had in a classroom in a very long time.
My result was something halfway recognizable as the still life set out before us; I was amazed! The teacher had been watching me doing this with a sinister smirk, shaking her head. I was so proud of my handiwork that I showed it to her and all my fellow students. But of course, to the teacher it was still a sub-standard joke. At least I got pats on the back from all my sweet, generous friends, who were finally starting to see some results out of their investment. However, by the end of the six-hour long class, my fingers began to ache and swell, and I didn’t know why. It was then that the teacher, who’d been grinning wickedly this whole time, decided to let me know that oil paints are toxic. No wonder she was having such a good time watching me finger paint.
So for the next three days, the digits on both my hands were the size of Kielbasas, and I couldn’t hold anything, not even a fork. Gods bless my Mother for making hamburgers and chicken nuggets for dinner during those days. I couldn’t sculpt clay in class the next day, and I could barely draw the nude models in class the day after that. I didn’t go to the doctor, nor did I take Benadryl or anti-inflammitories, because that’s what old school Mothers did back in those days. They let their kids pay full price for their mistakes, because that way, the kid wouldn’t forget the lesson, and made damn sure not to make the same mistake again. Those three days of being handicapped and laughed at by my classmates just fueled my dislike for that miserable, evil hag of a painting teacher.
I also have problems with my Drawing instructor. He’s this washed-up old man who sports a permanent frown on his aged face, like somebody’s war veteran grandfather who’s plagued by night terrors and visions of malady and carnage. He hands out ridiculous amounts of homework, the kind that only lets you get two hours sleep because you have to complete the equally as ridiculous amounts of homework from your other classes too. He’s made it crystal clear to me that he thinks I’m the worst artist in the entire class. When I hand in my homework or projects, he’ll look at it and say, “What is this garbage you’re handing me?” or “You aren’t even in the same ballpark as the other students. I don’t even know how you got into this school.” It wounded and discouraged me so greatly that I seriously thought I’d never come back; yet I always do. This is your dream, I’d remind myself. So much time, energy and money’s been invested into this, you’d be a failure if you quit because of these sanctimonious bastards. Time to suck it up and move on.
One Drawing class I stayed home from because I was ill. So in my absence, the instructor pinned my project up in front of the class and said to them, “This is what I call ‘Lines of Pain’, simply because it hurts to look at them.” A few of my rich, sweet, generous friends told me about it the next day, and all respect I had for that son of a bitch was reduced to nothing, along with any desire I had to impress him or prove him wrong about me. After the next class I had with him, I did what I do best: I got right in his big, droopy, ugly face and told him off. I said “How DARE you badmouth me and my work when I’m not here to defend myself!” and used the ever-popular, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” All of which reduced him to silence. He’s eased up on me since, but I can tell it hasn’t taught him a thing. People like that are too obstinately set in their ways, too closed to any ideas save their own.
All in all, even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t come back here next year. Art School takes such a toll on me, both emotionally and physically. I don’t get enough sleep, I don’t eat right, I drink too much coffee, eat too many power bars and it’s screwing up my stomach. I can never remember which projects are due when, I’m always unprepared and I always feel like I’m struggling desperately for what seems to come so easy to everyone else. In truth, school was never my scene. I had similar problems in High School and was even a truent for a while. I got left back once, after which my old man kicked my ass, and by the next year, I was in a special Independent Studies program that allowed me to skip Sophomore year and graduate with all my friends.
So now that I’ve gone completely off course and pretty much given you my life story, allow me to get back to Christian. You remember Christian, don’t you, the loony Stock Broker with the God Complex? Oh yes, after school, I make sure to clean up as best I can in the bathroom so I could look halfway presentable for my date tonight. Free pizza, hot sex and a tour of a beautiful penthouse apartment overlooking the Empire State Building...how awesome! There were all sorts of reasons for me not to go back to see him, but as I walk back to the coffee shop where I met him last, those reasons seem to elude me. When I reach the place, a mental image of the window suddenly turning into gold makes me cackle out loud to myself.
“Hey there, stranger!” I hear him call out from in back of me. I turn and we wave to each other as he walks briskly up to where I’m standing. He’s dressed like a real Wall Street tycoon, and I feel like a hobo next to him. He puts an arm around me and gives me another big, affectionate kiss on my cheek, which makes me giggle. “Hungry, baby?”
“Starved. Pizza?” I give him an affectionate kiss on the corner of his mouth.
“I’m tempted to skip dinner and bring you home so we can get right to the dessert.” He purrs, rubbing the back of my neck.
“Hey, I don’t come that cheap, buddy.” I put a hand on his chest. “I’m looking forward to dessert too, but I don’t function well on an empty stomach.”
With that, he decides he could use something too, so we go into this one place near his house, which is okay. It’s not Brooklyn Pizza, but it’s better than most stuff you’d get out of a grocery store freezer. A pigeon wanders inside and comes right up to our table, which I think is so cute that I feed him some of my crust. Christian makes the usual “rat with wings” statement that small-minded people make.
“For someone who fancies himself a God, you’re acting like a sad, stupid little human.” I scold him, genuinely offended. I happen to adore pigeons. “You said it yourself; you have responsibilities. Respect all those around, above and beneath you. Were it not for these birds, you’d have a hundred times as many roaches, gnats and mosquitos to deal with.”
He purses his lips and drops his gaze to the table in shame. “You’re right, my mistake.” He then tears the crust from his slice and tosses it down to the bird saying, “Thanks, little guy.” To which the pigeon responds by pecking merrily between the two crusts that are all his, knocking and flinging little pieces of bread all over the floor.
“Aww, that was very sweet of you, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, you reminded me of something very important today. I owe you a lot.” I actually blush at his statement. Maybe he’s not such a loony after all.
After dinner, we walk arm-in-arm into his giant, glass apartment building that goes upwards forever. He lives in the penthouse on the ninety-second floor. “The Nosebleed suite”, he calls it, then makes a joke that the first two nights, he had to sleep on the fifty-third floor just so that he wouldn’t get altitude sickness. I’m not sure I get it, but by now, I’m so enchanted by him, he could recite the phonebook to me and I’d laugh. In the elevator, he leans down to me and traces my earlobe with his tongue. It makes me shiver with delight. “I want you.” He moans, pulling me into a crushing embrace. He presses his lips against mine, and I can feel the short stubble from his five o’clock shadow pressing up against the smooth skin of my face. He runs a hand through my medium-brown hair, which reaches just below my shoulders. It comes in handy when we stop at the sixty-something-th floor and he pulls away from me, nudging my face into his chest so the business woman standing outside looking in, might just think I’m a girl.
“Going down?” She asks. I laugh perversely to myself.
“Up.” He states, jiggling the “Door Close” button with his free hand.
“Ahh, sorry.” The doors close and he wastes no time forcing my face up to meet his, pushing his tongue past my lips. I moan into him as our tongues duel furiously. By the time the elevator reaches his floor, we’re all over each other. However, when the doors open, he pulls away from me to glance back and forth to see if anyone’s around to watch him bring me inside his apartment. Once inside, his paranoia dies down. The foyer looks like any other apartment, but once in the livingroom, the place takes my breath away.
The wall facing the Empire State Building is in fact a giant window, that extends up halfway across the ceiling. It’s like being in a giant fish bowl on top of a cloud; you could see everything, the buildings, the lights, even the bustling traffic way down below. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and I tell him so. Unfortunately, you can discern that the majority of his paycheque goes towards the apartment, because there’s only one piece of furniture; a glass table in the middle of the room, scratched and dusty. No couch, no chairs, noplace to sit except the rug on the floor. That lone table looks so awkward and out of place, I have to laugh. “Still furnishing?” I tease him. He takes it in stride.
“Ah, that belongs to my roommate, it’s from his last place.”
“Roommate? I was wondering how you were able to afford this place. How much is your rent every month?”
He laughs, taking me by the hand. “You don’t want to know. Come, let’s sit down.” So we sit on the floor by the table and talk a bit more. He hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on, so the only illumination we’re getting is through the window. He’d taken off his coat, shoes and tie, and halfway unbuttoned his shirt. The way his short, dirty blond hair is tousled about, and the facial hair just peeking through his square, chiseled jaw makes him look young and wild, and it drives me crazy. Pretty soon, I can’t help but crawl into his lap and kiss him. We wrap our arms tightly around each other and make out like madmen. He grabs my hips and pushes my ass down onto his lap, grinding me over his erection.
“Got any condoms?” I blurt out in between hot, slobbery kisses.
“Always.” He grunts back. Before I know it, I’m being led, still kissing, into his bedroom, which is small, cramped and unglamourous in comparison. He pushes me down onto the twin bed and crawls on top of me. “Oh God, Doug, I need to fuck you!” He growls, biting on my ear. I’m so excited that I wrap my legs around him, arching my hips up to meet his.
“Then fuck me, Christian.” I plant soft kisses along his neck as he tears his shirt off, then goes for mine.
“Please, call me Daddy. It turns me on so much.” His voice is low, dark and seedy, which only adds to the allure of the near pitch-black room.
“Yes, Daddy.” I comply without even thinking about it, though I’ve never called a lover that before. I like the way it sounds coming from me, and I certainly like the way he tears my pants off in reaction to it. Gods, it really *does* get him going. Considering our age difference, that’s kinda creepy!
“Ohhh, baby, spread your legs so I can lube you up, I need you right now, before I blow!” Where did he get lube from? I didn’t even feel him move. But low and behold, he’s applying the cold jelly on me hastily, and before I know it, he’s pushing it in, then lying on top of me, pushing my legs up to my chest with his shoulders, huffing and panting in the dark.
“Ughh...” I fake a grunt, because truthfully, I know it’s in, but I barely feel it. I get more stretching sensation from my own finger in the shower.
“Ohh, baby boy, I’m so close!” What? So close, we just started!
“Goddamn....OHH baby, I’m gonna BLOW in you!” Hey, wait a minute– no fair! “FUCK!” He grunts, unloading into me.
“What the fuck?” I complain as he climbs off me, sitting up on his knees at the foot of the bed while I lie there squinting at him, wondering if we just did it or not. I can feel how dripping wet my ass is, and it’s highly uncomfortable. By now, my eyes have acclimated to the meager lighting, enough to tell that he’s not wearing a condom. “Christian, I told you to put a rubber on!”
He looks down at himself. “I did put one on.”
“Well then, where is it?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, my brain clicks to the answer. “Oh, holy crap.” I look down at myself and realize it’s still inside me. I have no choice but to reach down and slowly pull it out. This is one of the grossest things I’ve ever had to do, and it’s so traumatic, that my erection runs shrieking into the night. Pulling it out of me is like a magician drawing this never-ending, multi-colored handkerchief out of his sleeve; it just keeps coming and coming. No wonder it slipped off- it was a thousand times too big for his two-inch killer! No sooner do I finally get it out of me is there the sound of jingling keys at the door.
“Oh my God.” Christian croaks, his face dropping in horror. “What time is it? Fucking shit!”
“Who’s that?” I manage to dry myself off a bit with his blankets before he bolts off the bed, running around the room to gather up my things.
“It’s my roommate! You have to leave, NOW!” He shoves my balled up clothes into my chest in a panic.
“What? Can’t I just clean up a bit in your--”
“No, you gotta go now, while he’s in the bathroom!” He yanks me out of bed by my elbow, ordering me not to make a sound as we pass the foyer. We pass right by the bathroom door, which is closed, a halo of light around it coming from inside. Christian then tosses me out into the hallway with all my clothes, my bag and my shoes, butt freakin’ naked. “I’m sorry!” He whispers harshly as he shuts the door in my face.
I’m in complete and total shock, and for a horrifying moment, I can do nothing but stand there with my wrinkled clothes in my arms and shiver, feeling my ass drip. It then occurs to me that other people live on this floor, and somebody could come out and see me like this at any moment. So I do my best to use my clothing to cover my shame and my ass at the same time, bag hanging off an elbow and shoelaces in my teeth, waddling my way towards the elevator. I manage to hit the down button with my foot, praying to myself, Please let the elevator be empty, please let the elevator be empty...
Ding! Lo and behold, it is! Someone up there loves me! I inch my way in and as soon as the doors close, I drop everything and practically leap into my clothes, now praying that nobody stops the car to get on. I know there’s a way to stop the elevator, but I have no idea which button to press, so I rely on my luck. Halfway down, I glance up and spot a blatant camera up in the corner. This wave of disgrace overtakes me in the form of intense nausea, and I wish I could just beam home. I think that at the very least, somebody somewhere would get a good laugh out of this. By the time the elevator reaches the ground floor, there’s a very large crowd of people waiting to get on. By now I’ve got my pants on, fly unzipped, shirt on inside out and backwards, my shoes on but not laced, and just barely get to grab my backpack from the floor before having to wriggle my way past this crowd as they give me suspicious, lingering stares as I dart out the front entrance.
By the time I hit Grand Central Station, I look a bit neater, but I still feel disgusting and uncomfortable from the state he’d left my ass in. With nowhere to properly clean up and in full panic mode, I ride the subway home unable to sit down, with this miserable look on my face, paranoid that I’d reek of cum, lube and sex, or possibly even leak through my jeans, which would be mortifying. I get home to Brooklyn an hour and a half later and take an equally as long shower.
____
After Multimedia class the next day, I take the brisk walk over to the building where that jerkoff works, planning to find him to chew him out, and possibly kick his teeth in. I know he gets out at 4:30 or so, roughly a half hour after the closing bell. I glance at my watch; 4:23. I’m waiting there and suddenly, somebody taps me on the shoulder. “Excuse me, who are you waiting for?” It’s one of the lobby security guards on a smoke break; a dark-skinned guy with a bit of a Haitian accent.
“Christian, one of the Stock Brokers. You know him?”
“Oh yeah, big, blond-haired guy? He’s always got young boys comin’ around lookin’ for him. How old are you?” He squints his brown eyes at me.
“Seventeen. Always, huh?” What a scumbag.
The guy shakes his head sadly. “You should stay away from him, son. Him and his buddies are bad news, always coked up. They don’t know how to treat people. Find yourself somebody nice, somebody your own age.”
“Um....okay. I will, thanks.” I walk away from the building with the thought in my head that Christian’s unsuspecting boyfriend/roommate might have very well saved me a lot more grief than what was already suffered. I briefly imagine as I board the subway home, that had Christian and I became close, he might’ve managed to make me into some drug-addicted boy toy, dancing for him and his vile, depraved buddies at one of their office coke parties. It sends a shiver down my spine.
What a way to start a book, huh?
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