The Perils of Praline (7 page)

“Shall we get in the back?” the man asked, and immediately climbed between the bucket seats into the back seat. Praline eagerly followed. Abruptly, the man grabbed him with a violence that was at odds with the politeness of his manner and kissed him fervently, shoving him up against the back of the driver’s seat. Struggling to keep up, Praline was just beginning to enjoy the ferocious kissing when the man put his hands on Praline’s shoulders and pushed him down into this lap.
This guy certainly knows what he wants,
thought Praline.

The man quickly undid his khaki slacks and slipped them down around his hairy knees. His penis flopped onto his thigh as it was released; it was long, thin and furiously red. Praline thought this a perfect opportunity to perfect his cock sucking skills. If he kept meeting interesting strangers at this rate, he’d be a true fellatio pro by the time he found Dave G.

He bent over and slipped the tip of the man’s penis into his mouth. He spun his tongue round and round the head. Then, as he was about to ease the man’s penis out of his mouth so that he could run his tongue from the tip to the base, the man grabbed him by the head and began shoving him up and down on his prick. “Yes, that’s it, yes, I’m fucking your face. You dirty, dirty fag.”

Though he didn’t appreciate being called names, Praline also didn’t feel it was exactly the right time to discuss the issue. Yes, he was still relatively inexperienced, but he did know that long discussions of politically incorrect pejoratives in the middle of a blowjob weren’t exactly, well, stimulating.

“This is so repulsive, disgusting, perverted…” with each adjective the man’s cock seemed to grow just a tiny bit larger.

After gagging several times, Praline tried to relax his throat as the man continued to pump and denigrate them both. Saliva was running from his mouth and the man’s prick was slick and shiny. He
had
never approached a blowjob quite so strenuously. It was an unnerving, yet stimulating experience.

The man groaned deeply and Praline could feel that he was beginning to spasm slightly, already about to orgasm. Abruptly, he was pulled off the man’s throbbing cock and pushed up against the door.

The man dove into Praline’s lap. He tried to open the boy’s jeans with his teeth, but when that proved impractical, frantically unzipped them and tugged them down in a more traditional manner. Pulling out Praline’s rigid member, the man groaned with appreciation.

Before he went down on Praline, he looked up and said, “Talk dirty to me. Call me names.”

“You dirty, dirty, old gay person.” Praline said rather unenthusiastically. 

“Tell me I’m bad.”

“You’re bad.”

“Tell me I’m evil.”

“You’re evil.”

“Fuck my face! Come on, fuck my face!”

Here, Praline enthusiastically complied. He grabbed the man roughly by the ears and pumped him. The older gentleman, as is quite common, was far more skilled at receiving this kind of treatment than Praline had been, and our lusty hero found dishing out this sort of ruthlessness quite enjoyable. The man’s throat was relaxed and the head of Praline’s prick spent much of the time stabbing the man’s uvula. Resulting in a happy gurgle. In his excitement, Praline knocked off the gentleman’s fishing hat. Instantly, he let Praline’s cock fall out of his mouth, bolting upright, sunglasses askew.

“Great, now you know who I am,” he said.

Praline looked closely. The man’s hair was prematurely white and looked kind of sexy against his flushed skin, his features were even and symmetrical. While he did look vaguely familiar, Praline had no idea who he might be.

“Actually, no, I don’t. Who are you?”

“You really don’t know who I am?” The man seemed disappointed.

“Are you famous?”

“I’m incredibly famous.”

“Are you on a soap opera?” Praline guessed. He didn’t watch those, so he wouldn’t have any idea if he were getting a blowjob from a soap star. And the white-haired gentleman did have the kind of blandly attractive features required on daytime television.

“No. I’m a journalist,” the man said. “A serious journalist.” Frustrated that Praline couldn’t figure out who he was, he blurted out, “I have my own show on Box Cable News,
The Wright Way
. I’m Malcolm Wright for God’s sake.”

“Oh my gosh! You are!” Now Praline recognized him, sort of. “My mama loves you!”

“Well, your mama is an intelligent and righteous woman.” Which also happened to be the opinion she held of herself.

Praline blushed. It embarrassed him to talk about his mama while his pants were down around his ankles. But then he was hit by not only a brilliant idea, but a change of subject. “Hey, since you’re on TV, do you know Dave G.? He was a contestant on
House-Bound, Season Six
. I’m trying to find—”

“I don’t spend my time with reality TV stars,” Malcolm said. “I do meaningful television.”

And then to prove the point, Malcolm flipped a TV screen down from the ceiling and started a DVD. Suddenly, Malcolm was on screen, film of an American flag fluttering in a video breeze behind him. He spoke stridently about the evils of illegal immigration.

Praline assumed this meant that sex was over. But then, Malcolm went back to sucking his dick, albeit with less enthusiasm than before. Not that Praline minded, the forcefulness of face fucking the man he now knew as Malcolm Wright had been a turn on, but there was also nothing wrong with the gentle, warm, fluid cock sucking he was now receiving. Each had its own merits, the near violence of one being offset by the sensuality of the other. Praline realized he might have to have many, many blowjobs of varying sorts before he could be certain which was the absolute best.

Of course, he couldn’t help but listen to some of what Malcolm was saying on the TV
,
and the indignation Praline felt over some Mexican national getting between him and his God-given right to a job picking strawberries for subsistence wages helped him not come too quickly.

Malcolm lifted Praline’s legs into the air and went to work licking the boy’s asshole. This was just fine in Praline’s book. It tickled in the most interesting way. At first he squeezed his eyes closed, concentrating on each sensation, but when Malcolm managed to slip his entire tongue through Praline’s sphincter the young man’s eyes sprang open in surprise, and that was when he caught sight of the man standing outside the Hummer with a video camera.

“Um, sir…Mr. Wright, there’s a guy with a camera…”

Malcolm withdrew his tongue, sat up and turned quickly around. “Damn, I knew I should have sprung for the tinted windows.” He grabbed his hat, pulled it down over his head, then opened the door behind Praline and tried to shove him out.

“Wait a second!” Praline screamed, grasping at the driver’s seat to keep from falling out. He at least wanted to pull up his pants before being shoved out of the vehicle.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot,” Malcolm said, then dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a wad of bills, forcing them into Praline’s hands. Then he pushed Praline out of the vehicle and into the street.

Praline hobbled around, bending over to grab his pants. This was so humiliating. He hoped there weren’t too many people around to see this. And he certainly hoped the man with the video camera wasn’t filming him. He pulled his pants up over his hips, grabbed his backpack (which Malcolm had thrown out after him) and stood up just in time to stare into the grill of an oncoming Cadillac STS
.

Our adventurous hero learns to be careful when choosing a safe word.

The Cadillac STS bore down on Praline. Quickly, he jumped into the air, landing on the hood of the car long enough to spring into a somersault that vaulted him over the roof of the vehicle and onto the trunk
,
where he sprang into a double twist then stuck his dismount onto the street behind the Cadillac. A look of shock flew across Praline’s face—he had no idea he could do that. He
had
briefly been on the gymnastics team at Lumpkinville High, however, he never executed quite so impressive a move while on the team. Apparently, impending death was a far better motivator than Coach Jimmy Lee Pierson.

Surprised to be alive, Praline bolted down the street, shoving the wad of cash Malcolm had forced upon him into his backpack. He was nearly at Sunset Boulevard before he realized that somewhere in the process of getting a blowjob from a relatively attractive stranger he’d become a prostitute. Had he been given the luxury of considering this life-altering decision before it had actually occurred he would have declined the opportunity.

Prostitution as a career choice had a fairly poor reputation. And while it was more respectable than say, politician or CEO, Praline had no training in the field. Unless, of course, one counted the Non-verbal Communication class he’d taken at Laccacoochee Technical College.

As he wandered around, he didn’t stop to wonder why there was a man filming outside Malcolm Wright’s Hummer. It was Hollywood, after all, and people were often filming this and that. No, instead, Praline worried about getting a job and finding a place to live. If he was going to win Dave G.’s heart, and he was sure he would, he really needed a temporary career and a nice apartment. And, since he wanted to win Dave G.’s heart as quickly as possible, he had to get both really, really fast.

Uncertain what street he was on, but pretty sure he was walking north
,
Praline hurried away from the scene of his near death. When he was three blocks away he noticed a man coming toward him. A homeless man. Looking to be in his late fifties, the man wore a heavy overcoat, T-shirts five layers deep, horribly grass-stained pants and shoes held together with duck tape. He carried a half dozen plastic bags filled to bursting.

Recognizing danger, Praline quickly crossed the street. When the homeless man was out of sight, he took out Malcolm Wright’s wad of money and counted it. He discovered that his rate was five hundred dollars. Unless his rate was four hundred and Malcolm had given him a hundred dollar tip. He’d have to give that some thought in the event that he decided to continue this career path. Five hundred dollars would go a long way to replacing the money taken by Stewart and his crazy-jealous Euro-husband. His best move right now would be to look for an apartment. He could get a career tomorrow. Or rather, he could change careers tomorrow since, for today at least, he was a prostitute.

Praline took his phone out of his backpack and hopped onto the Internet. First, he updated his FaceSpace page to read “Praline thinks L.A. is sooooo…exciting.” Which, despite being dangerous, it was. Then he searched theeverythinglist.com for available furnished apartments. After a quick check via his GPS, he saw that there was an affordable apartment about six blocks east of where he was. He put in a call to the landlord and arranged to meet him at the apartment in half an hour.

Taking this as a sign that Los Angeles was about to become a much friendlier city, Praline
headed
in the direction of what he hoped would be his new home. Actually, as he thought about it, it wasn’t that people hadn’t been friendly since he’d arrived. In truth both Stewart and Malcolm had been friendly. Very friendly, at first. And, it really wasn’t either one’s fault that things had turned out so badly. Not really. Even though they each should have had some inkling things might not turn out well, they’d both offered an invitation to Praline with the best of intentions. They were no different than he was; essentially they were good, decent people.

Feeling right with the world, Praline thought about the apartment he was about to see. The ad said it was a furnished single with a designer kitchen, new carpeting and an elegant feel for five hundred and twenty dollars a month. Though he wasn’t sure exactly how he’d pay for it, he knew he could probably pick up work at a coffee shop. He had worked at Java the Hut on and off for three years, after all. Of course, if coffee shops in California paid the same as they did in Georgia, it would take nearly three weeks to make his rent.

On the other hand, his new frenemy Jason had talked about an internship at twelve dollars an hour. And, even though he
hadn
’
t taken
the offer seriously, Praline stopped on the sidewalk to do some math in his head. At twelve dollars an hour, it would take him about a week and a half to make his rent. Not too bad. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly a real offer. But since he’d been offered a fake internship within twenty-four hours of arriving in Hollywood, it was very likely he’d be offered a real internship soon enough.

Suddenly, Praline smelled something over-ripe and turned to find himself staring at the homeless guy he’d seen before. Now that he was closer he could hear the man mumbling to himself. The man abruptly interrupted himself and asked, “You have any spare change?”

Praline said what he’d been taught to say whenever charity was brought up, “I gave at the office.”

The homeless man looked confused but went back to his muttering and walked away. Before did though, he said, “Bless you.”

Praline nearly gasped. That was obvious sarcasm. He hurried after the homeless man and demanded, “Take it back!”

“Take what back?” the man asked.

“I will not have you blessing me,” Praline said since the man obviously didn’t believe it.

“Why can’t I bless you?”

“Because you don’t mean it.”

“But I do mean it. Bless you.”

“You did it again. Stop it.”

In a small voice the man muttered, “I’m the messiah. I can bless anyone I want to.”

Praline guffawed. “You are not the messiah.”

“I’m not?”

“No, you’re not.”

The homeless man looked confused, then said to himself, “That would explain a few things.” He looked up at Praline. “Are you the messiah?”

It was a very flattering question, but Praline had to be honest and say, “No, I’m not the messiah.”

“Someone needs to be the messiah.”

The poor man looked bereft. Praline wanted to assure him that the messiah would return soon, as his mama believed, but was afraid the homeless man would press him for an actual date. And while saying Tuesday, October twenty-second would be easy enough, there was always the possibility he might run into the man on Wednesday, October twenty-third.