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Authors: P. J. Brown

Tags: #Gay & Lesbian

Placing Out (5 page)

BOOK: Placing Out
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Peaches wasn't at the door. Ben felt bad about that. He'd heard the drag queen had been in the hospital for nearly a week, and was still off with a shattered arm and broken jaw. Ben hadn't had the guts to go see her. He didn't even dare send word to her in case someone intercepted his message.

Except for the phone call last night, he hadn't heard from Kevin, either. The call had startled him. Kevin never called. They met at Johnny's or they didn't. He knew his lover would be at the club most Friday and Saturday nights. Depending on what watch he was on, Ben would show up on those days. He knew if he didn't come, Kevin would find someone else. There was nothing permanent about them. They weren't in a relationship. That kind of thing was impossible. He saw the men around him married, with kids, some happy, some not. But they had the option at least. Did they ever think of how lucky they were? Of course not. To them, it was the only way. Anything else was unthinkable. Damned by God and good men of God.

Kevin was at the long brass and mahogany bar. He slid onto a stool behind him. The bartender brought his beer and he turned to face Kevin. He studied his lover's face. There was no sign of the trauma, but enough time had passed to heal all but the worst bruises.

Nodding at him, Kevin took a swallow of his gimlet. "Ben," he murmured without inflection. "Thanks for that."

"For what?" Ben knew, and he really wished Kevin hadn't brought it up. It stood, like a dark, malevolent shadow, between them.

"For keeping me out of it. I can't imagine what would have happened if I'd gone to jail." He gulped and threw the rest of his drink back. The bartender silently replaced it. "So thank you. I hope you didn't get into any trouble."

"No, no trouble." He didn't mention going out and getting drunk with the thugs who had beaten the other club patrons to bloody pulps. He didn't want to replay that for either of them. "I just wish I could have prevented it."

"We both know that's never going to happen." Kevin reached over and stroked Ben's arm. Ben hadn't worn his uniform this time. He wanted no reminders for him or the others of who he was. "I'm glad you came back. I was afraid you wouldn't."

Ben grabbed the back of Kevin's head, fingers twining through his thick hair. He pulled the older man toward him. His mouth was open when he closed over Kevin's. Their tongues thrust and probed and Ben reveled in the taste. He was stone hard by the time they broke apart, gasping for breath. Ben separated only long enough to see Kevin's glazed eyes and open mouth before they slammed together again. Tongues and teeth and moans commingling while their lust soared.

"Do you think I could stay away? From you? From this." He groped Kevin's erection and groaned. "I need you. I can't stop what I feel. Not for anyone."

They rushed through the streets, heads down, their eagerness electric. Inside Kevin's they barely had the door locked before they were groping each other, shedding clothes as they did. Kevin dropped to his knees and wrapped his lips around Ben's cock. Ben jerked and moaned, driving his dick down his lover's throat. "God, yes. Just like that. Fuck... oh fuck... "

Kevin sucked and pulled, wrapped his fingers around soft, wrinkled balls, tugging at them. When he inserted one finger up the other man's ass, Ben writhed and shoved his dick farther into his mouth. Abruptly Kevin pulled away. He stood. His hand stayed on Ben's cock, caressing it lightly.

"I want you to fuck me."

Ben half led, half pushed him into the bedroom. There he tossed him on the bed, scooped up the Vaseline and fell on top of him. He pinned Kevin to the quilt and, with rough strokes, slathered his prick with the greasy substance and thrust into Kevin, who roared and thrust back. Ben was savage. He bit the other man's throat and held his arms over his head while he pumped his hips with quick, angry jerks that drove him in deeper each time. He couldn't catch his breath. Raging storms don't last and neither did this one. With a final, gut wrenching groan, he emptied himself, fisting Kevin into orgasm seconds later.

They collapsed together on the rumpled bed, ignoring the sticky semen gluing their bellies and thighs together. Ben trailed his mouth over Kevin's flushed face and down his throat. His heart slowly settled into a regular rhythm.

Kevin stroked his bare back, slick with sweat. He smiled against Ben's cheek before trailing his fingers across it, touching his swollen lips.

"Can you stay awhile? I can cook us something to eat."

Ben rolled over on his side, taking Kevin with him. He draped one leg over the other man's, holding him still. "I can. You can cook for me later. Right now I want a shower and a drink, in that order."

"Hey, Mulholland's always telling us to conserve water. We can share that shower."

"I doubt that's what he had in mind."

"He doesn't know what he's missing."

Ben climbed to his feet. He slapped Kevin's ass. "Come on, shower. I want you clean for later."

"Later?"

"You'll see."

He stayed until the early hours of the morning. Then he slunk out and scurried back to the men's club he lived in on Broadway. He was on day watch, but it wasn't the first time he'd gone to work on so few hours of sleep. A night with Kevin made the exhaustion that followed worth it.

Roach called him out on another job. Fortunately this one didn't involve busting heads at a pansy bar. Instead they broke up a strike at a garment factory in the fashion district. The
Times
covered that one, with nothing but praise for the LAPD for keeping the commie sympathizers in place.

Ben went up a pay grade. He was making enough to move out of the men's club, but he stayed. He didn't want a home. A home without a wife or kids might make people wonder more why a young, decent looking guy with a steady job wasn't hitched. He'd worked around cops long enough to know they were deadly gossips and had ugly minds. Not surprising, he guessed, given the dirty business they rolled around in on a daily basis. He'd let them think he was sending all his money home to a sick mother in Iowa.

Some days he just wished it would all be over. What it was, he had no idea. He just knew it was tearing him apart.

* * * *

Los Angeles, June 19, 1930

 

Hollywood wasn't like I expected. It was dirty, it was dusty, it was crowded. The streets were packed with motorcars and trolleys, the noise never ending. Back in Nebraska the loudest thing was the thresher Mister Chatterfield used at harvest. Sometimes the Missus would play the piano they kept in the parlor, sometimes other folks come over and play the banjo and horn, but the only other thing made noises there was the animals. And it was never anything like this.

I wanted to clap my hands over my ears and scream for it to stop. How could these people live like this? The noise and the stink. I had been in the Grand Central Market yesterday. Things cooking I'd never seen before. People talking, but I couldn't understand a word they said. Brown skins, and near black skins, and men in funny clothes with weird, squinty eyes. But mostly there was people, more people than I'd ever seen, even on our trips to North Platte. I knew the city around me had a lot more than that. Sometimes it was hard to breathe, thinking of all those folks.

At the same time it was exciting. Running away from home was exciting enough. Running away to a magic place like Hollywood was even better. Because I knew it was magic, even if I hadn't found it yet.

I arrived at Union Station knowing I needed to find a job fast. But jobs, it turned out, were in short supply. Especially for a not so tall, skinny kid who looked like a girl. I found a job at a local market, but it bored me, and when a good-looking businessman wanted to give me twenty to suck him in his car after work, it wasn't long before I quit the boring job. It turned out there was good money for a pretty boy in the city. Before the week ended I had enough to pay for a room on Main for a year. By the first month I had enough for my own car. I bought a six-year-old Model T. That made me remember Mister Chatterfield's car I borrowed to get to North Platte. I wonder if he ever got it back. I should feel bad, except I gave him eight years and never once got treated like anything but an indentured servant. About as good as one of his mules. He's lucky I didn't take his own shotgun to him when he beat me.

I used my new car to go to Hollywood and out to the beach where I saw the ocean for the first time and met an older man who had a hotel room on the water. I spent the whole afternoon with him and he bought me dinner and gave me fifty for all the things I done for him. Maybe next year I might find a place out there, but right now the best money came from here, in Los Angeles. Businessmen on lunch or on their way home from work who paid ten for a blow job, twenty if I let them fuck me. The rest was negotiable. That was a word my new boyfriends taught me. I knew Missus Chatterfield used to bargain when she bought in town. The Mister called her the best haggler in Sedgwick County. Maybe she was. The only time I ever saw her happy was after a shopping trip to town. For sure her kids were nothing but a misery to her.

Over the next couple of years I learned to tell how bad my lover of the moment wanted what they asked me for. Sometimes they wanted it so bad they'd give me just about anything. It didn't take me long to find out this town's full of married men who like men nearly as much as I do. But they gotta pretend they didn't, so they needed me to give them what excited them, if only for a few minutes.

I went to movies nearly every day. Afternoon matinees. I'd never had so much leisure time in the afternoon before. At the Chatterfields' I had to be up at dawn and in the fields or outbuildings working till supper. Saturdays were the only day we'd do anything just for fun. Here every day was fun.

Until it wasn't.

Over the years I learned from some of my tricks that there were clubs I could get into--with their help. Once I was in and got close with the guy running the place, I could come and go. I went two, three times a week, making more in those days than I did all week on the street. Coppers were more likely to catch me on the street than in Black Kat or Johnny's. Until things got bad, when everything changed. Cops started raiding the clubs, beating up men inside. Before, when everyone used to go out to the shows to watch Mary or Greta doing their drag show, the cops never bothered us. Now it was like everyone hated everyone else. You ask me, world's going crazy.

I liked Johnny's best. More money and better looking men. A few even looked like movie stars. If I closed my eyes, it was easy to imagine I was being fucked by John Gilbert or, even better, Ramon Novarro. Sometimes I thought maybe I should visit one of the studios and see if I couldn't get a part in a movie. Meet real stars. When I heard Novarro had a male lover, I got really excited. Then William Haines wouldn't leave Jimmy Shields to save his contract with MGM. I knew if I ever met Novarro I could get him into bed. Everyone told me how beautiful I was, and Ramon liked beautiful men. It was easy to believe when men fought so hard to have me. Their gifts told me what they thought.

Mister and Missus Chatterfield wouldn't recognize me even if we passed on the street. I have good clothes now and thanks to all the movies I watched I was learning to talk right. No one wanted to hear my Nebraska hick accent. They wanted someone with class. So I learned to drink wine and how to mix drinks I never heard of before. And I learned how to dress. I bought my own pinstripe suit and black patent leather shoes that shone so much I could see my own face in them. My ties were silk and my fedora cost ten dollars. I felt like a million bucks when I wore them.

I learned how to dance, too. I never knew how much some men liked to dance. Maybe it was Fred Astaire that inspired them all. I watched his movies and tried to see how he moved, but I knew I'd never match him. Turned out I didn't have to. Men wanted to dance with me, but only as a way to get me into another kind of dance. And that I was good at.

I remembered Caleb and our fumbling play, neither one of us knowing what we were doing. The guy in the North Platte train station knew what he wanted and I learned I had another talent. The first time I let someone fuck me in the ass it was bad. I never knew there could be that much pain, but knowing how much people would pay for it, I kept doing it, until the time I found out how good it could feel. After that I would have given it away if I didn't need the money so much.

One thing I never did, I never nancied it up like some of the girls at Black Kat or Johnny's. I wanted to be a gentleman. Dress fine, talk fine, be real smooth and suave. I made sure I bathed every day. Powdered my face like Novarro and Valentino. At the Chatterfields, we bathed once a week in summer, more if we got away to the river, a lot less in the winter. It was a luxury to have nice smelling soap and scented creams. I never went out without shaving even if I'd done it that morning. I found out quick the men liked me smooth, so I even shaved my chest, though I never had much hair there. The stuff around my prick and balls was golden and fine; so was what grew in my armpits. I was a package the men all wanted and they paid good cash to open it up.

I lived in a small room on Main, beside a Liberty Drugs where I got breakfast most days. I got a doc to give me a prescription for a pint a week and Liberty Drugs only carried good Canadian whiskey. I picked it up regularly and would trade it for clothes or work on my car.

I ate breakfast whenever I woke up. Another thing that was different from the farm, no more up at dawn and in bed by ten, earlier in the winter since the Mister don't want us using kerosene to keep the lights going. Now the only days I'm in bed by ten is if someone's with me. And we got that electricity Caleb talked so much about. Mister Chatterfield was wrong, it was a wonder.

Sometimes I'm lucky and the man wants to spend the night. Maybe he's from out of town and doesn't have a wife to get back to because she's all the way back in Bakersfield or San Bernardino. Those are good nights.

I guess I surprised even myself. I like having someone beside me in bed. I like waking up to find a man's arms around me and not just because he wants to fuck me.

BOOK: Placing Out
8.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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