Confessions of a Rentboy

Confessions of a Rentboy T.R. Verten

Confessions of a Rentboy T.R. Verten Published by Republica Press www.republicapress.com All rights reserved. Copyright © 2011 by T.R. Verten No part of this e-book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including emailing, printing, photocopying, or faxing without prior written permission from Republica Press ISBN 978-1-926830-35-3 Available in Adobe PDF, MobiPocket and ePUB Editor: Emma Holt

Chapter 1 Profile Andy/English/white/brown/hazel 27/5’9”/185/8”/uncut/versatile Ok unprotected oral/multiple partners/watersports/light BDSM No scat play, body modification, hoods or constriction of any kind Call for rate. (XXXX-XXX-XXXX) AIM: andy_to_let

What else would you like to know about me? Can’t you read between the fucking lines? Or is the abbreviated world of online sexual prostitution too complex for you? Bum-boy, on the game, in the trade, prozzie, renter. Whore. Faggot? What business is that of yours? If you want to know, I’m rather less picky in my private life. Girls, boys. White, black, Asian. Blondes, brunettes, gingers. Posh, naff. Breathing will do. Professionally, it has to be said that I fulfill a rather specific niche in the market. Too soft for rough trade, too old for twinkdom. Not fit enough to be pretty, not fat enough to be a bear. No one’s daddy, though the rapidly greying hair may push me into that market soon enough. Four years in this scene’s enough to turn anyone’s pubes white with exhaustion. Nope, just a guy. Somewhere in the middle, by no means beautiful or ripped, but smart, a good talker, just suitable enough to take to dinner or an event if the john requires it. Have a talented mouth, if I do say so myself and am well-hung, but not so huge as to cause a fright with the out-of-towners. I like fucking, I don’t mind if it’s how I earn a buck. Tried some other things before—drawing, writing. Shit never panned out like it was supposed to. And this way, well, it’s not so hard. Can loll around in my robe, eat Nutella from the jar, wank when I want to, watch DVDs. Write this bloggy thing, even though I have every assurance

Confessions of a Rentboy

of the self-doubting that it will all come to naught. Xbox and Play Station within arm’s reach. Not a lot to do of a day off. Attempt some press-ups halfheartedly. Dick around in a bookshop. Call up Michelle, go for a drink. Who’s Michelle, you ask? She’s the one who got me on the game, of course. Started, well, not innocent, that can’t be the right word, but harmless enough. Dragged by Michelle to some lingerie store in Covent Garden. Watching her flick through racks, hold things up. Lacy knickers, basques trimmed in bows. “What about this one?” “It looks fine, I guess. Why do you need so many bits of kit, anyway? Don’t you just get them off in the end? Or are you still selling your used knickers on eBay?” “That was just a sideline, Andy. And I don’t use the fancy ones for that, the five pound pairs will do. Got to pay all that shipping to Japan, don’t I?” “Fair enough. Can we go soon? This is bor—Oh, I like that. Hello.” “Do you? It seems a bit—virginal for your taste.” “I like the colour. And I like that it’s sheer.” She tossed it onto the rapidly growing pile. I imagined her wearing it, a weird creamy floaty thing and a g-string. Eyed her legs, crazy short skirt. Thinking about her arse, pushing her skirt up and sliding fingers underneath. Wondered if she’d resist or argue. Doubtful. Sidled a little closer, fingered the fabric of the slip she was holding up. “Do you want to go for a drink after this, then?” I asked. Say yes, say yes. “Oh, shit, I was going to ask you a favour. Are you busy tonight?” “Um, no. No plans.”

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I wanted to cop off with her again. We’re not really sexually suited. She likes her men bigger and more heterosexual than me. But she usually comes around by the fourth drink or so. Sometimes we end up in a toilet, her knickers around her ankles and my face buried in the sweet shaved smell of her. She comes twice, usually, quick and dripping. Sometimes she lets me fuck her, after, if she’s not too dizzy. Riding her into a corner, her legs wrapped around my waist, her dress still on, lips parting and slick with lip gloss— “Do you want to make a hundred pounds? I had a cancellation, and I need someone for my call tonight.” “For what? This isn’t some horrible ruse to get me to go-go dance, is it? I’ve already told you that’s not fucking happening. Do I get to watch you try that on?” “You wish. It’s easy money. Regular client. He just wants someone to watch while I give him a blowjob. You interested?” “Why are you asking me for?” “I figured you could use the money. I’ll even buy you supper, afterward. How ‘bout it?” “And I just, what, watch?” “Yep. Just watch me blow this guy. Don’t do anything else. You don’t even have to talk.” “Can I masturbate?” A snort. “Fuck, you don’t beat around the bush, do you? No, he just wants another pair of eyes on him. Some sort of cuckolding thing. You want to? Easy cash.” “A hundred, you say?” Could do with the money. Broke as all get-out. Pay to turn the mobile back on. Do a big shop. Video games. “Can I have a blowjob, too?”

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“You can have that or pizza. Not both.” “What time?” “Seven. I have to go home and get ready. I’ll text with the info. Don’t be fucking late, though. Not professional, innit?” she said, snapping her gum. “Jesus. Fine. I’ll see you then. Please wear that cream-coloured thing?” She chucked a pair of knickers at my head.

Hundred pounds? Why fucking not? Didn’t even have to do anything but watch. She texted later, the name of a hotel and instructions to meet in the lobby. Be on time. Wear something nicer than your usual stuff. Nothing fancy. Don’t talk to anyone. She’s always been a bit bossy. I arrived a few minutes early, hung around the lobby. Didn’t fit in, of course. Tried my best to look unexceptional, go unnoticed. She showed up in a form fitting trench coat, more demure than I expected from the task at hand. We air-kissed like media types rather than occasional lovers. I followed her into the elevator where she broke down the situation for me, blunt as always. “You look good in those trousers. They make your arse look cute.” “Careful how you talk, Chelle. You’ll give me ideas. Thought I wasn’t supposed to be getting into this too much.” “Fair point, love. Just follow my lead. Client’s nice enough, a good tipper, works in finance. Spends a lot of time in Asia.” “Funny that he fancies you, then, eh?” “How’d you mean? Oh, white girl and all that? He likes blondes, I gather. Listen, whatever he asks you just agree with, okay?”

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“Wait, what? Thought this was purely a looky-looky deal, no touching.” “If that happens, I’ll split the tip with you.” “He a good tipper, then?” “Very good. Come on. The scenario he likes is that you and I are married and you get off on watching me and him together. He likes his girls a little ghetto.” “Council estate slut? Oh, how very pedestrian.” “Not even. Keeps me in knickers, don’t it?” “It sounds complicated.” “Not really. Just look uncomfortable.” “That’ll come easy enough, then.” We stepped off the elevator into a quiet corridor. Room service trolleys littered with leftovers and detritus. A strange stillness. High-end place, creepily anonymous. Half a dozen doors down, no turns. Michelle rapped on the door, he opened it. We stepped inside. Usual hotel room, but very few signs of habitation. Just booked for the evening, then. He offered us a drink, and Michelle gave me a nod indicating that it was okay to accept. She did most of the talking, the transacting. Introduced us. Real first names, no surnames. He handed her an envelope, which she didn’t bother to count, just put in her bag straight away. At the time I thought she trusted him; she later told me it’s tacky to count the money in front of the client. “Toilet, always,” she said. “If you can.” The man was good-looking enough, nothing menacing. Older, roundish face, greying hair. Black suit, light pink shirt unbuttoned at the neck. No tie. An inch or two shorter than me. Chelle probably knew that, since her heels were also less tottering than usual. I didn’t get hard, immediately, until she took off her coat.

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Fucking hell. Had I known she had been wearing a tit-baring blue denim top and tiny cut-off shorts to match, the whole damn time, I wouldn’t have been able to pay attention to a single godforsaken thing she said on the ride up. He stood up as well—which seemed off-putting—and steered her towards the middle of the room with his hands on her sides, not quite kissing. I was on a chair, set off a little to the side. I wondered, at first, why he didn’t just stay on the couch, let Michelle do the work, sink in and lean back. It’s what I would do, if she would ever blow me again. Too much Penderyn, one fucking night I go limp and she refuses outright to ever put her lips on my dick again. Bloody awful. He was whispering to her, half-formed sentences I couldn’t hear, but the effect was immediate and she unbuttoned her top. Her tits sprang free and my dick stirred savagely. Real or fake, those things were fucking magnificent. He was barely touching her, and I watched as she played with her nipples, poked a finger down her shorts, brought it back up, played with herself some more. It made me wholly ravenous to watch, in part because she’d never been like that with me, even if what we did was real (at least, I think it was) and this was a performance. But Jesus, what a performance. She tossed her head about like a filly, not melodramatic or anything. She sank onto her knees and grabbed the back of his legs, looking up at him smiling expectantly as he undid his trousers and stroked his cock. It was nice, I guess, average sized. A little stubby and thick. Easy enough to take deep, which she did almost at once. All part of the show, just guiding the head of it between her lips and then sucking in, cheeks like caverns and hair tossed back. Still playing with her tits, looking him in the eye the whole fucking time, bouncing up and down on her heels.

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Bobbing her head, sucking hard and fast, with the occasional break for a lurid lick or a welltimed moan. Fuck me, it was fucking hot. I couldn’t really hear him, but I caught snippets over the slurping sounds and the thwack of his nuts against her chin. “Fucking ... loves to watch you ... dirty ... good girl ... you like that ... gonna take care of you ... such a good mouth ... daddy’s good girl ... bet he never gives it to you ... so wet down there ... help you pay the electric bill ... like that ... hell ... fuck ... oh ... oh ... so good ...” He pulled out before he came, and I could see him, deliberately aiming at her chin and her chest. A shooter, he was. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, gaping and wet, and his cock, rigid and purple and quivering in his hand—his left hand so I could see everything and her face wouldn’t be blocked from my line of sight. I almost wished it had been, watching this overgrown public school boy spurt cum all over my friend’s face while she made whimpering noises and grabbed her tits with both hands. But I couldn’t deny it was amazing to watch. When he stilled next to her mouth, he stayed there for a long time, hand resting on her forehead. No one said anything, at least, I certainly wasn’t going to. He looked in my direction for the first time since she inched his cock into her mouth, then gazed back down at the top of her head. We still had over half an hour left on the clock, and I prayed so fucking hard to the god I don’t believe in that we wouldn’t have to sit out the remaining minutes making excruciating small talk. Nope, not to worry. Roundface did up his trousers, rather carelessly, I thought, walked back over to the minibar and fixed himself another drink. Michelle was half naked in the middle of the room. I was still dressed but even my dark trousers weren’t hiding the telltale bulge I was growing increasingly aware of.

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He walked back over, eyes appraising her breasts and exposed stomach. He leaned down to her, and said, in a voice made pointedly loud so I could hear, “I can’t believe how hard that got him. Your husband must be completely fucked in the head.” She gave no response, just let her eyes travel to me and then back to the floor. He was behind her, almost petting her hair. I think she was playing, but I was legitimately aroused. “Crawl over to him.” She did so, but with a roll of her eyes that clearly shouted, “Not real, you wanker. In real life you’re lucky I deign to fuck you at all.” Well, wrong choice of words, perhaps, that. Michelle would never ever say ‘deign.’ “Undo his trousers and then pull them off.” She looked at me again, face still smudged with his cum. Fuck, I hoped she was serious about the tip. It had better be good.

For weeks I thought about it. Parceled off chunks of time where I’d be taking a leak or waiting for the kettle and I’d see it … fuck … her. Upturned face, sweaty-necked and glistening lips locked halfway between a smile and a moan. Without the cash, no audience to pay for on-demand activities she would never do what she did in that hotel room, pressing her tits onto either side of my dick and using her hands to ratchet me between them, up and down, the head of my cock intermittently bumping her too-white teeth until she found a rhythm that worked, the right kind of angle, and could flick out her tongue on almost every upthrust. Fuck, even with him standing over my shoulder, hands in his pockets like he was appraising a piece of goddamned real estate, my cock sliding slick and shuddery through his spunk, despite

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all that I came so fucking hard I thought I was going to black out. It was amazing. And she split the tip. And bought me a burger, afterward. Didn’t see her much, not alone at least, for a little while. Diary full to bursting, from what I gathered, and she very rarely said no to a client. Told me she was saving up for a flat, but she still had on a new pair of shoes when we met for lunch. Strappy things, even though it was cold out. Some rank café, watery cups of tea to ward off the sleet that was forecast for that evening. “Would you buggering well keep your hands off of my chips?” I said. “What the hell is your problem?” “I’m broke, for a fucking start.” “You spent all your cash already, then?” she asked. “Yeah, yeah. Bills, obviously.” Well, some money paid to the phone company, that much was true. And a few used video games, pizzas, beers, washing-up liquid, and a bag of the West Indies’ finest. What? Oh, don’t judge me. I was down to shake. Times were desperate. “Seriously, Chelle, get your own. This is my dinner.” I slapped her hand away. “You obviously have no idea how diets work, do you, old man?” “I have no arsing clue what you’re on about,” I said, letting her snag more chips. It wasn’t worth the argument. “These don’t count,” she said, as if talking to a mentally impaired child, then, “Oh, forget it. Do you want to make some more, then?” Fuck, if a repeat was in order, I’d do it for free. “Simon back in town, is he?” I said, trying to be casual. “Ah, him. No, Hong Kong until the end of the month. Something different.” “How’d you mean?”

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“I could bung a favour your way. I will, if you let me have more chips.” “Go on then,” I said, indicating my plate. “Thanks.” She stabbed forward with her fork. “Have you ever considered striking out on your own?” “What, like you? What about an agency?” “They skim way too much off the top. Freelance is where it’s at, these days.” “And the pay? What do you pull?” I have to admit, I was curious. “Me? Three hundred.” I nearly shit my pants. “Three hundred quid?! For the night?” “No, for an hour.” “Fuck me!” “Not bad, is it? But you’re not in that sort of league, sorry to inform you.” “Shit, I could have told you that. How much, then? Do tell.” “Ah, looking like you do now? A hundred, maybe, if you’re lucky.” “Oh, well thanks very much, then. I’ll just take my low-end badger face off elsewhere, shall I?” “Stop acting so offended. If you took a shower and shaved, you could tack on an extra twenty, easy.” “Twenty?” I didn’t know if I should be offended or not. “Now, if you cleaned up proper? Definitely charge more. One fifty seems about right.” I did the maths. I was already convinced. Three a week and I’d be pretty comfortable. More than that I’d be rolling in it. (Money, I mean. I know what you were thinking, you filthy fucks.)

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“I’m still listening,” I said, cautious. “Can you be bothered to set up a website, I wonder? You can use my template. And you’ll need pictures. Get a digital camera, if you don’t have one already.” “With what fucking money? I don’t poo ten-pound notes, I’ll have you know.” “Funny. No, actually, I was going to mention. I could have a client for you. Long story, in town with one of Donna’s regulars, a Saudi fellow. This guy’s an architect, from Egypt. They’re business partners, don’t know much more beyond that. Donna offered to find him someone, and was told he didn’t do girls.” “Can’t he just look on the Internet, do his own legwork?” “It’s a system of favours, numb nuts. Do you want in, then, or should I just send him off to Google instead?” I thought about it for approximately sixty seconds. Pro: I’d get laid, since Michelle seemed perfectly content to leave my dick unsucked. Con: I’d be fucking a stranger. Pro: A stranger who would leave me with cold hard cash and hopefully an alleviated hard-on. Con: I could get found out. Pro: I wouldn’t mind that too much. Con: ??? “All right then,” I said. “Do you have the details?” “I’ll have Donna ring you. Should be Friday, I think.” A little tingle ran through me. Was I actually going to see this through?

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Confessions of a Rentboy

Chapter 2

Donna called later on that night. Somewhat distracted, a lot bluffer than Michelle. She talked faster, for one thing. “Andy,” she said. Blunt as could be. “Donna, hi.” “I’ve got the details for you. Do you have a pen?” “Yeah, hang on.” I found a pen and the envelope from the gas bill. Wrote down the name of a fancy hotel, a modern place. I’d seen it from the street, all German smoked glass and polished chrome. (No, I’m not telling you the name. Identifying details will remain hidden, possums.) “He wants to take you to dinner first. Just in the hotel. He’s got a per diem, so follow his lead in ordering. He doesn’t drink, but he won’t mind if you do. Don’t get sloshed, it looks bad, and you could retch. Be polite. Oh, wear a tie, okay? He’s a bit old fashioned.” “Right. Do I, I … I mean, with the …?” “Spit it out, love, I haven’t got all night.” “Just, what else do I need to know?” She sighed, raspy. Possibly lighting a cigarette. Mmm. Maybe I’d smoke a spliff after this, try to keep the nicotine cravings at bay. She sounded sexy as shit, despite the fact that she was berating me. Oh, who am I kidding. I fucking loved that she was berating me. Never let me get off with her, not even once. A kiss at a party to try and make an ex-boyfriend jealous, which ended with me getting roughly confronted and them leaving together in a taxi. Story of my life writ large. She told me once I didn’t have enough money for her to waste her time. No apology, either. That stung, I can tell you.

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“Fine. Chelle can tell you all this, but I’ll give you the rundown. Bring a bag, satchel of some kind. Lube, obviously. Self-warming for handjobs, the thick kind for anal. Condoms. Your choice as to brand, don’t fuck him without one. Or the other way round. Blowjobs you use your judgment. Some hand sanitizer. Mints. Don’t be early, don’t be late. Laugh at his jokes. Don’t talk about yourself, and for God’s sake don’t fucking whine to him about television. He’s a very successful architect, I’m sure he has better things to talk about.” That was fine. I had read Mahfouz. Well, about thirty pages before I abandoned it in favor of a Jeremy Kyle episode on teen pregnancy, but, still. I did try. College dropout and all that. I’m sure I could find a tie, but something suitably intellectual to talk about, maybe less so. Maybe I’d buy a newspaper. The Guardian? The Telegraph? The Financial Times? I’d think about it. “Great. Okay, well, thanks,” I said, staring at the envelope. “No problem. Best of luck. Do us proud, kid.” She rang off. I ended the call with shaking hands. Made a coffee, rolled a spliff, looked at the list of things to buy. Next day meant a trip to the shops.

In the cold light of day, I was so self-conscious, I bought every item somewhere different. It emptied my bank account, as well, which was as good as a commitment to the appointment as anything. What would I need a jumbo box of Durex for otherwise? Whole thing took over two hours. When I got back to the flat, I collapsed horizontal onto the sofa, couldn’t even be bothered to find something on telly or check my email. I contemplated a bath, a wank, a nap. Michelle rang, to get me to go clubbing with her. “I don’t want to, I’m beat, Chelle. How do you do this every fucking day?”

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“Don’t even start with me. You only have to shave your face, not nine tenths of your body. And don’t even get me going on pedicures and cellulite. C’mon, please? I won’t try and make you dance. You can just lurk by the bar. Pretty please? I got a new dress I want to show off, and gay boys make the most appreciative audience.” “Fine. One hour, and then I’m going home. And you’re buying my drinks.”

We did go out, later and longer than promised. I watched her dance, loving the attention, the eyes on her. Some twink took his shirt off. I drank vodka and surveyed the scene. It had been a while since I’d copped off with anyone in a situation unlike this. Shots knocked back, fumbles in toilets and dimly lit corners. Occasionally getting asked back to someone’s flat, but much less often than you’d think. I’m not exactly hard bodied or conventionally pretty, but I’ll accept a drink with no question, and I usually don’t require a lot of talking round. Face like mine, you can’t be all that picky. I’m not winning any personality contests, either, but a scene like this isn’t about personality. Unless that’s code for ‘fluffy haired, dumb-eyed, and built like a motherfucking Spartan.’ Once we get outside, under the street lights and faced with the realization that we might wake up together in the morning, well, then excuses are made and numbers exchanged in futile protest. Dawn with her rosy fingers doesn’t shake me awake curled up next to someone warm, well, ever. Romance? Dirty weekends? Birthday cards? Not for me. Couch and takeaway and gorgeous girlfriends. It’s a kind of a life.

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When the day rolled around I was frozen with fear, Christ knows why. I rang Michelle, who tried to talk me down from my tree. “Are you all right? Andy, you need to tell me right fucking now if you’ve changed your mind so we can make alternative arrangements.” “Who with?” I said, thinking of the money. I could hear her tense on the other end of the line, probably chewing on her bottom lip. A very fetching habit, I must admit. I reckoned she’d be pretty upset with me if I didn’t follow through. “Shit, I don’t know. Nathan’s on a weekend gig, and Ollie’s on holiday in Edinburgh. I guess I could ask Ron if he knows anyone who could fill in for you.” “Ron?” “Big guy? Black, dreads? He only works the het scene, couples and the tourist trade. But he might be able to help. But, really, I need you to tell me, babe. You want out?” I thought for a moment. Couldn’t be any worse than my usual desperate tactics for a lay. “If I haven’t called you in the next twenty minutes, consider the job as good as done.” “All right. And listen, don’t sweat it. But if you do follow through, remember he’s paying for his pleasure, not yours. Just relax. Wear that blue tie. Think of it like a date with the guarantee of a shag.” Well, shit, when she put it like that. Fuck, it had been ages. Months, maybe even longer, since someone had bought me a meal, drank wine with no rush, split starters and puddings. It could be nice. I wanted a joint, I wanted a drink. Figured both would interfere with the equipment operating as it should. Pushed up off the sofa, headed for the shower. Just a date.

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I arrived at the hotel restaurant three minutes early, my bag of supplies in tow. I was wearing a suit, but felt more than a little silly. Low-level clinking noises and the hum of conversation as I walked into the bar, scoping things out, gaze landing on the trim man with his back to me. I walked over to him with measured steps, knees shaking like birch trees. I touched his arm and he turned around with an arched eyebrow, BlackBerry in hand. “Um. I’m. Um. Are you?” He put down the phone next to his mineral water, gripped my palm in both of his. Long fingers, faintly hairy knuckles. Hands of an artist, silly as it sounds. “Yaqub. You must be Andy?” He was absolutely lovely. The kind of man you never see at a bar or a club. Bespoke suit in a narrow charcoal pinstripe, blue shirt. Compact, tightly wound. Carriage of a dancer, dark eyes that looked like he had on makeup. Heart shaped mouth halfway between cruel and laughtertorn. Gorgeous. His hand was dry, smooth. I caught a whiff of pistachios. Maybe I made that last bit up. Almonds, then. “Yes. Hello.” “Shall we?” He exchanged words with the hostess; I followed him to a table. He held out an arm, indicating that I should sit. “Please.” I was still rigid with fear, but thanking Allah and Jesus and Pan of Arcadia that the task that lay before me now seemed much less arduous, and more like a treat. A delectable, toffeecoloured treat. I wanted to bury my lips in his neck and gnaw on his collarbones. Five minutes I’d been in his presence and I was already dizzy. Guess it could have been the endorphins.

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We talked, this and that. Exhibitions and buildings and the Bauhaus school in Dessau. He wore a silver band but made no mention of a wife, though he did refer to a son once or twice. He ordered me a glass of Riesling. He had the chicken. I picked at my crab cakes, far too nervous for food. No dessert. He charged it to the room, and we travelled upstairs in silence. A swipe of a keycard, a flick of a light switch. Modern and minimal, but I expected nothing less. I was sure he could hear every contraction of my aorta. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to pull out his dick, already convinced it would be as beautiful as the rest of him. To blow him into next week and make him come apart. I wanted to nibble on his toes and rub argan oil into his kneecaps. Instead I set down my bag and started taking off my tie. “What are you doing, Andy?” “I was …. Did you not …? Are we not …?” “Come in first, please. And then, if it’s all right, I would like to undress you.” More than all right. Beyond all right. Shitting wow. Lovely lithe fingers pulled off my jacket, worth a tenth the price of his. Brushed out the crumples, folded it over the back of the couch. He pulled on my shirt front to bring me close and then ran his index finger over the skin peeking out from my cuffs. It tickled, and he undid the buttons there, slow and deliberate, first one arm, then the other. I could barely breathe. Just wanted to crumple forward onto him and kiss his shoulder, still clad in its Italian worsted 120. It was only then that I remembered I hadn’t asked for the cash first. I should have said something, but he was tracing a fingertip in figure eights along the inside of my wrist and my knees buckled. Then he leaned in and kissed me, lips minty with balm and tasting of salt. Fuck it, I’d been bought dinner. Anything else would be gravy.

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I sighed into his mouth and pressed my hands to his chest, firm and maybe even a little pushy. My dick was throbbing and I wriggled closer to him as I slid my hands down to his belt. He pulled his hands away and stilled mine with soft fingertips and a shake of his head. “Slow down, please. Let me take the time to enjoy you.” I blushed. Why anyone this attractive would want my horrible body anywhere but a smoggy club lit only with fairy lights, I refused to even ponder. He unbuttoned my shirt and slid it off down to my wrists. Endless touching, drifting fingers and fluttery kisses. No one ever treated me that nice, and it was an internal struggle between tears of relief and wanton moans like the heroine of a supermarket bodice-ripper. He probably wanted me to suck him off and was just too polite to go about asking for it. That was fine. I could take the lead. I drifted downwards until I felt a hand under my chin. Another tiny shake of his head, and then he placed a gentle hand between my shoulder blades. I was still tangled in my shirt. I was so dizzy. “Come, this way. Lie down.” I shook myself free, toed off my shoes, and then climbed onto the bed. He leaned over me, kissing me like I was an oasis in the middle of the fucking Sahara, and then he rolled his weight onto me, legs entwining legs. I pushed my hands under his jacket and helped him ease it off. It crumpled to the floor. He’d have to get it pressed. We both undid his shirt, let it flutter down, one sleeve caught on the duvet. He ground his groin against mine and I let out a yelp. He smiled, dark eyes crinkling and then kissed his way down my chest. I assumed it was just the prelude to getting my arse reamed—not that I’d complain, mind— but instead I was stripped quickly, including my itchy dress socks. I arched and moaned under him, my cock trapped between us. I briefly worried that I was relinquishing too much control,

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but he seemed to have a definitive script for how the evening should play out. I’d just join him for the ride. He nuzzled the head of my cock, for a too-short moment, and then used both hands to pull my legs apart and angle me upwards, slightly. Oh, fuck. He looked up at me, simultaneously asking and insisting. Was he for real? No man could be that nice, that considerate. Especially not one who was paying for it. Or so I thought until he ducked his head and his pointed tongue found my hole. Alternating pressure and rhythm, first lapping then circling then smiling wide and pushing in and out for ages. Sweat prickled under my lower back and my palms itched. Michelle had told me not to worry about getting off, but if he didn’t stop soon, he would rim me until I came. That would be awkward, no matter how desperately welcome. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had glued their lips to my arsehole and made me want to weep. I gasped, loudly, and I could feel him grin. He flicked his tongue once, twice, three more times and then raised his head. I contracted under him, and fuck if I wasn’t dying to have his cock shoved into me five fucking minutes ago. I decided it would be rude to say this, just tried for my best come-hither face. Mae West I am not. “May I fuck you, Andy?” he asked, calm and polite. I could only nod, even though every internal circuit was lit up and I remembered how long it had been since anyone had had me lying down. Face to face? Over a year, it must have been. He was looking around, a bit furtive, right hand pressing into his still-clothed crotch. Shit, condoms, lube, fucking supplies. Left by the doorway, such an amateur move. I covered, pretended I needed the toilet. As if I could have pissed with that erection. It wasn’t budging. I stumbled off the bed, clumsy, arse cold and wet from attentive licking, and went to

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grab the bag. Pulled out two condoms and the thick stuff, brought them back over to the bed. He had taken off his trousers and briefs, and was lying stretched back on the pillows, one hand above his head, the other cupping his dick into his abdomen. Lovely like the rest of him. Thinnish, but long. I wanted to taste him, and made my way in that general direction. “I would rather you not. I want you to be here, on top of me.” I scurried up gladly, kissing his neck and behind his ears. This was worth it, even without the monetary transaction. It pains me to say it, but it was wonderful to feel wanted. I tore open the condom packet, unfurled it onto him with hands slick and trembling. Fingered myself with a cold glob of lubricant in preparation. His eyes crinkled up at me as I shifted into position. He placed his feet flat on the bed and pushed up a little while I performed some complicated acrobatics that would really befit a more dexterous man. And yet somehow everything fit, everything clicked, and I was sliding onto him, just a centimetre at a time. Width wasn’t too difficult, even in that position. But before long I was taking almost all of it, gripping my inner thighs and bouncing light as air atop him, his hands clenching mine in intertwined fists. Only then, as I sped up and contracted on every upstroke that he moaned, low and gorgeous in his throat. Harder and faster, he reached out a hand for me, closed it around my bobbing dick and tilted his own head back, long lines of his neck laddering up into a perfectly angled jawline. Then I came, on him, in his hand, and he let out a noise like a strangled yelp and pushed into me hard, hips riding up and torso gone rigid.

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We stayed there until we both stilled, flooded with aftershocks and lingering sensations. I wanted to stay there, fall asleep with his limp dick inside of me and curl my face into the crook of his neck. Instead I prised myself off him, fingers gripping the bottom of the condom. I stood up, wary of my aging knees and half-dead ankles, pulled it off, knotted it and headed for the bathroom bin. I grabbed one of the robes when I was in there. I could imagine he didn’t want me lingering, and we’d already exceeded our time by a quarter of an hour. I pissed, washed my hands, and tried to wipe away some of the stink of latex and cum already drying into flakes, but it was a lost cause. Home was the place for such details. When I reemerged from the toilet, he had wrapped himself in the duvet and was rummaging in the minibar for a drink. I stooped to gather my scattered clothing and began dressing. When I went to get the bag from the hallway, I saw he had placed a hotel envelope on the table. I put it in my bag. I kissed him goodbye. I didn’t bother to count it. I stepped into the elevator, checked my phone. Two missed calls and a text from Michelle. Everything okay? Please let me know you’re all right and safe. I was texting her a response when her number flashed up again. I let it go to voicemail, felt too good to want to talk. Wobbly and sated. All clear. Going home. Call tomorrow. I didn’t look in the envelope until I was tucked up safely in a minicab. Bad idea, walking anywhere with all that cash. When I looked, I was glad twice over to have chosen a taxi. The tip he gave me put Michelle’s hourly rate to shame.

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Confessions of a Rentboy

Chapter 3

After that, it was easy enough to get things underway. Set up a website, face blurred out so I didn’t scare the punters off. Draw them in with direct messages and photos that are more, ahem, revealing. That part usually clinches the deal. Well, that and the reviews, which are very complimentary of my deep-throating technique. Michelle took the pictures for me, giggling all the while, after slicking me up with baby oil. It was humiliating, and she knew I was profoundly embarrassed. Just enough guilt and carping that she finally shut me up with a handjob. I’d met her friends and colleagues before, but never spent much time with them. Could never be bothered to make the effort, not being judgmental. Now they had something I needed, something worth braving the migraines induced by social anxiety and groups of people who are funnier and prettier than me. Not smarter, true, but since when has that counted for anything in this hill of beans world? A group of us formed, keeping odd hours together. Biding times before calls at pubs and cafés, working the crossword, bumming one another cigarettes, running errands in the afternoons, swapping tips about where to buy sex toys and industrially-sized bottles of lube. If you ever needed a flogger or a vibrating cock ring at four in the afternoon on a Tuesday, one of them had the answer. They knew which cleaners didn’t ask too many questions, the names of cabbies who could be trusted, the chemists with sympathetic check-out girls, and the clinics with freebies and loads of discretion. There wasn’t much overlap in our clienteles. Michelle, the only blonde, popular with city boys who liked to slum; dark-haired and bouncy-titted Sharon and Donna both appealing to the gentlemen of the over-50 set. Fitting, what with their similar trunkloads of daddy issues and all.

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Usually sex workers self-segregate by gender, but our group was more fair and balanced than any piece of the Murdoch empire could ever hope to be. At bat for the mens’ team, Ron kept himself in good nick for the wives of simpering businessmen and professional thirty-somethings with complicated rape fantasies. He always had good stories to tell. Some fucked up shit goes on behind those terraced houses in West London. Ollie was another sort all together, undoubtedly more popular in the club scene and always up for a night out on the town. Dark haired and doe-eyed. Pale skin, teetering on just this side of gothic. He did the companion thing as a rule, weekends spent in a haze of drugs and parties. But he really only took calls when his boyfriend Rupert wanted to embark on a new art installation piece and cash ran low. Versatile, bisexual and older was left for me and Nathan, like Marlboro and Camel competing for the same eensy scrap of market share in a nightmare world where smoking is banned almost entirely. I was pretty sure he made out better than me. Kept his waistline in check, nattier dresser even on his nights off. You don’t ask, though. Rule of the trade. Another bird’s money, innit? What does divide us, a new apartheid, if you will, is the unwavering stance we all take on kissing. There is almost no middle ground. Michelle will kiss with regulars only, while Sharon staunchly refuses, as do Nathan and Ron. Me, Donna, and Ollie are all fine with it. That’s not strictly true. I love kissing. Every bump of teeth, every misfire of tongues. Fuck, I’ll suffer through a lot—the younger blokes with wildly sour breath, the men on six-figure salaries whose teeth are still furrowed with yellow bits of plaque (did no one explain the concept of floss to them?), the pushy-tongued who start fucking your mouth before you’ve had two seconds to sit down and sip your drink.

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I’ll put up with that and even then some for those men who’ve had experience, who’ve had the patience and the wherewithal to take lovers. An old-fashioned sort of word. It speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Someone who still excites you, who you put on that nice shirt for. You’ll buy the more expensive bottle of wine when they come round. Whose voice tickles you over the phone. A person who you don’t see every day, don’t fuck every day. But who knows you, your body, how to make three afternoon hours into a glowing lifetime of pleasure. More than getting off, is how I mean to say. Shit, look, I’ve gone and got all sentimental. Kissing I will never refuse. I don’t see how the others can. There’s no moral high ground to be had, for certain. I mean, you wouldn’t think, would you, that if you’ve let someone blow their load on your face or had your fist up their bum that a minute exchange of saliva would matter too much, eh? The Americans don’t seem to enjoy kissing quite so much. Too rushed, too much porn. Men who live in places where they can’t openly fuck other men, they shouldn’t know how to kiss, but they do. Snogging women to keep their secrets safe, you see. More than happy to continue the lessons on me, less concerned with getting direct to the on-the-face money shot. But for every nefarious Eastern European businessman whose breath reeked of hundredrouble cigarettes there was someone lovely. A silver-haired man from San Francisco who talked about trips through the Napa Valley with his now-deceased partner, sourcing bottles for export, and who wanted to kiss me for half the session. We necked on the couch like teenagers pretending to watch a film with Mum and Dad in the next room.

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He took me on the floor, both of us stark naked, spooning behind me with his suntanned hands curled around my clavicle. He kissed my neck the whole time, and I knew he wanted me to be someone else. I did my best not to distract him. That time I didn’t get off. I went home and wanked in the dark, wondering if anyone would ever love me like that, so much that they kept fucking my memory even after I was long gone.

Sometimes Nathan will kiss me. I think he gets bored, not in the same way as me, but the way that needs some kind of an outlet. Fidgety. When we’re round at his place, sitting next to the turntable, clutching sweaty beer bottles and working our way through the Stax back catalogue. Listening to melodic hooks, change-ups, him on his stomach, drumming on the ground in front of him, feet in the air like a teen girl on the telephone, wrapping the cord coyly around a fingertip. He looks so damn lovely like that, eyes lit up with excitement, the eagerness of the convert. I like music fine. I like being with him more. He’s not slumming, precisely, just biding his time. Estranged from his father, waiting for him to die so he can inherit properly. They don’t know how long he’s got, a year or two at the most. Throat cancer, nasty stuff. Doesn’t stop Nathan smoking Gauloises like they’re going out of style. I wonder sometimes if he even likes boys; I get the sense it’s just for show. That getting paid to take it up the arse is just an excuse for not-so-youthful sleazing around. He’s been talking to a girl at the record shop. Cute thing—short blond hair, pointed chin, small boobs, petite, quirky dresser. Is he trying to cop off with a girl who looks like a prepubescent boy? You didn’t hear it from me.

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Ollie noticed. He wanted to buy records, since he was feeling flush from a high-paying client who had booked the full boyfriend experience. He flipped through New Order imports and I watched Nathan flirt. “Does he know?” “Know what?” “Does he know that you like him?” he drawled. “I do not,” I said, angry. “If you say so. You should tell him. Can’t hurt.” Cunts, the both of them.

Nathan and I worked a job or two together. Once a one-off that we never mentioned again. It was too awful for words. The guy was a media type, short and loud. I fucking hated him on sight, a jowly prick who expects cheese danish and organic fruit cups every time he walks in a room. Some kind of stinky cologne, probably bought by the case to save a dime. Dark hair slicked back, a nose-talker. Wanted to complain about taxes and immigration and the NHS. It was almost a relief to transition to the bathroom, fill the tub with soap and bubbles. Nathan won’t kiss the punters, but if we’re on a job he’ll kiss me. That late in the evening I could feel the start of stubble on his chin as he rubbed it across my lips. He mouthed at my own chin, teeth scraping and lips wet. It felt good, almost good enough for me to ignore the cunt-rag sitting on the side of the massive bathtub, eyes looking greedily at my crotch. Shirttails were pulled out, trousers yanked down just a fraction of the way. Hands fumbled under clothing and he let me lean into him, solid, compact and commandeering. I could have stayed that way for hours, letting him explore every inch of me in that gleaming marble

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T.R. Verten

bathroom, with its toiletries and adjustable lighting. A throat was cleared from across the room. But of fucking course. The client. Arsehole. “Get in the bath, lads,” he grunted. We stripped ourselves, let him undress on his own. Nathan did the work, I just watched him. We all got in the tub, the two of us propped against the back wall, cocks bobbing up and down in the water. He got on his hands and knees, trying to keep his head up just enough to watch us jerk one another off. Nathan’s hand was perfect. Nothing if not professional, skilled. He knew exactly how to firm pressure in the right way, flick his wrist, use the soap to our mutual advantage. One benefit of the job is that it’s taught me greater self-control. Few years back it would have been over in six minutes, flat. Now I know how to back off of it, wait out that surge. Writhe away just a hair, think of something else: Chinese people still living in effing caves; Piers Morgan’s career, invasive as ivy. When we got the nod, the tight okay from the punter staring us down, I waited to hear him come first. He’s never very loud, more of a gasper, and he always turns his head in the other direction. Just one sharp sound from him, I knew it was all I’d get to hear, and then I let go, too, spilling into the water and pointing my toes. I’m sure you can imagine that the insouciant pleasure of being tossed off by a mate evaporated pretty goddamned quick as the john ducked his face into the water to slurp up our mingling beads of jizz, rubbing his stubby prick all the while. Nathan gave me a look of disbelief, one that said, ‘We’re going to need some serious fucking alcohol after this one,’ and I nodded my assent.

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When his spunk had joined the extant flotsam and jetsam, we all showered, thank fuck. The joint rate was slightly higher, but the jerk didn’t tip. Probably assumed the service had already been paid for in full.

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Chapter 4

This you learn fast, how to suss out your punter. Who is he? Not the regulars, because you’ll figure them out quick enough. Usually businessmen closeted beyond belief or locals hardpressed for time, they book an hour or two every other week for a standing shag. No lurid fantasies, no elaborate preparations to be made. An early evening call, not even making it over to the bed with its tautly stretched sheets. Quick and dirty, enough time left for us both to shower afterward, separately. Hands shaken, dates reconfirmed. The other regulars who let you in deeper, those I enjoy more. We all could do with a straightforward pounding now and again, but I like the slow build, the burn. The ones who send texts, direct messages when they should be preoccupied with conference calls, those I love. Filthy nothings read on a mobile phone in the middle of the day, the hectic confusion of city life slowed for one heady second when you see a return number or username. Just a stutter, spinning. Did you miss your bus stop? Did you stop short in the middle of the pavement? Sir? What form of payment did you want to use? I’ve bought you a blindfold and a collar. I want two hours, and I don’t want you more than waist-high the whole time. I’m so excited to see you. I wanked myself raw in the shower last night thinking of putting you over my knee again and turning your arse pink. I’m coming from America, and I’ve got a fat stack of region-free DVDs with me. Can you blame me? But the one-offs, the newbies you’ve got to work at a bit. Only a few minutes in which to assess the situation. Is he a talker? Does he deliver the scene straight to you over the preliminary

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drinks and leave the remaining fifty minutes for fucking? Is he quiet and retiring, pushy in the rest of his life but petrified to ask for what he wants in the bedroom? Or does he not know what he wants, the saddest thing of all, a man with no fantasies, no fucking imagination? Who saws away at your insides like he’s chopping firewood for winter. Belaboured and endless, leaving you raw and stretched and angrily unfulfilled. I never said every lay was great. Most aren’t even all that good. Ten minutes you have to figure him out. What does his hotel tell you? His hands, his accent, his choice of drink? Does he want you to act coy or brazen? And then as you get naked, him or you or both, more questions arise. Which way does his prick bend? Does he want eye contact or to pretend you’re just a mouth? Deep throating, novel positions? Cheeky finger up the bum? Ball-tugging? Does he like licking or that hint of teeth when you wrap your lips around him? Muffled moans or silent swallowing? Does he want to come on your face or in your mouth or somewhere else entirely? Is snowballing on the menu? Does he want you to wank while you do it? Who the fuck is he, this man you’ve just met for the first time and who knows more about you than any friend you’ve ever had? Is he attractive enough, shaved head and lithe physique visible through a white vest, chiseled arms peeling from a recent holiday in Phuket? Talks only about himself, however, so droning you almost forget to listen. Bright blue eyes that should have more life in them, but he doesn’t look right at you. Top of your head, only, waving his bright red cock in your face, demanding entrance to your throat.

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What, you want tips? Bed or coffee table will do, but I recommend the sofa, whose arms provide a built-in barrier that lets you maintain some semblance of control. Keeps the gag reflex in check. Lie on your stomach, grab a foot in each hand. It looks like yoga; it lets you take it all. (Don’t feel bad, it took me years to get that one right.) Doing that, letting him yank my hair and fuck my face until I swear to God my eyes crossed from near-asphyxiation, he pulled out in an instant and left me gagging on empty air. Twisted his hips sideways just a touch and cracked his hard-on against my jaw, so forceful it left my ears ringing. “What the fuck?” I snapped, eyes watering with the sting. “Oh, come on, you know you like it,” he smirked. “I just wish you had bloody well told me.” Thumbing the head in his hand to the side, letting it spring free again against my cheek. Then the same again. “Well, I’m telling you now.” He wanted to finish that way, too, brutal and boorish and dull as shit. He came on my face after what felt like ten years and his spunk smelled like muskmelons. My windpipe was still ravaged from a savage throat-fucking and I had to stop in at a chemist’s and buy a packet of Lockets on the way home. They were on sale, three for the price of two. I bought the lot. Who is he? Is he a bicontinental ad exec who divides his time between city meetings and Madison Avenue, parents from Singapore and thighs you could crack walnuts with? Wicked soft black hair and a goofy laugh that you hear, unabashed, when he plops down at your feet? Ungraceful, really, for one so well-defined, short boxer briefs clinging deliciously to the outline

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of his erection. The tiny penis myths aren’t true, by the way, although I can’t say for certain about body hair. He was the type to wax, but he could have just as easily been smooth by design. This one could have found someone on his own, indentations on either arse cheek that you could spoon soup out of. Heavy straight eyebrows and triceps made of cold iron. Beautiful. More direct than many of them, but not revealing of the details. Got to tease it out. That’s why no club or bar for him. Too much work, too much beating around the bush. Pun fucking intended. “I want you to tell me a story.” Jerking me hypnotic in one hand, the other pressing my thighs open against the couch. “What kind of a story?” Boxers and trousers around my ankles; him mostly bare. One small clue. Power play of some kind, he wants to be the vulnerable one. I can top, I grant you. It doesn’t come as easy, but it can be fun to play at. For the amount they pay me? I’ll be a goddamned leather daddy if he’s forking over two hundred an hour and ordering room service for me, after. “Any kind.” Longing looks at my cock, precum seeping from the tip. Jesus, a boy that sexy, I should have been paying him. I placed a hand on his head and stroked as he dipped his head to taste me. Patient, practised. Not desperate, just waiting to give over to it once I could figure out what he wanted to hear. I still felt absurd, but with a mouth that pretty? I wanted to make him feel it, the way I so often do. Heavy on his tongue and nudging his tonsils, only able to breathe through his nose. “What gets you hard, baby? Does sucking on my cock get you hard?” A tiny nod, a thrum in his throat. Another sign, clues deduced. Subby, definitely subby. Still carding fingers through that soft hair, running a finger from temple to hollowed cheek, feeling him vibrate around me. Almost didn’t want to get him there, this tight wet heat so

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remarkable in its own right. Not my money, though, not my imagination that needed to be piqued. “Would you like for everyone to know what you get up to behind closed doors?” I asked, voice low. Slightly risky, going for a more high-stakes move than the typical pub toilet or park bench scenario. A man in that line of business, though, if he’s going dingy it will be worse. Much, much worse. Barnyard-level worse, Mummy-Dearest-level worse. A whimper, louder than the last. Definitely on the right track here. “What if I told you that I had a camera set up just there, beside the television set, and that everything we’ve done so far is on film?” A pause. A hand on either knee and eyes downcast. Pace sped up, though, mouth that little bit more wet. Stupid fucking hot, a flood of saliva like a rainburst. “I mean everything, you know. You handing over an unmarked envelope, us splitting a joint. You complaining about your boss, who never appreciates your overtime and reined in your expense account. Drinking the pricey whiskey and you telling me you’ll charge it to the client. I bet you could get in a lot of trouble for that, couldn’t you?” And that did it, that was his fucking Waterloo, because he pulled back enough to moan, strings of spit lashing my glistening cock to his pursed lips. Solid work, that was. On-the-job punishment, probably sex but maybe a sprinkling of physical abuse, just to keep things interesting and all the players on their toes. “You like that idea, don’t you? Being reprimanded, put in your place? Should I tell you what punishment they’ve got in mind for you, then?” More nodding, fast and muffled as I thrust up into him, bumping the roof of his mouth and making his head recoil.

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“I think it would have to take place at work, don’t you? Maybe in the conference room, maybe with the other offices watching you over webcam. I think you would be offered the choice of the paddle or a seeing to by the whole account team. I wonder which one you’ll go for.” It was the latter option, if you care. They took turns fucking him on a conference table, naked but for his tie, still done up tight around his neck. He wanted to be covered in spunk, and I painted him that picture. Picture like that, shit, I could gilt-frame it and hang it from the ceiling. First thing in the morning, last thing at night. Dead arousing. He took me in all the way, his own pleasure incidental until I curled him into my lap, one hand resting light on his throat, the other tickling his prostate. He sounded strangled when he came, great ropy jets of spunk that looked so lickable on his taut smooth belly. I rubbed it in instead, felt my fingers get tacky. We didn’t kiss goodbye. I thought it was a good call, but he never did ring again. Maybe he just needed to get it out of his system.

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Chapter 5

It’s very much the opposite with clients than with friends and casual fucks. The fucking is different, that much should be bleeding obvious. (Don’t be daft, kittens.) It’s the listening, the part where you have to concentrate, pay attention to every squirm, every exhale. What words does he pick? Where does he stumble, hesitate? Gaze darting across the room, appraising you in an instant. Will he regret what he doled out for? (No, no he absolutely will not.) What I mean to say is that his story isn’t the same, every time. It isn’t that slotted groove of a vinyl record eroded even deeper from constant replaying. The stories of friends, those you already know before they even start to speak: Ron complaining about immigration statuses; Ollie gushing about a review of Rupert’s poetry in some obscure literary magazine; Michelle nattering on about pop music I’ve never heard of; Sharon bitching about her father; Donna telling everyone, in startling and vivid detail, about following some celebrity cleanse diet and taking a week off work to recover from the effects. A client you can’t just tune out when you hear them start that same old routine. Have to read between the lines, watch for cues. Get him naked and keep yourself aware. It’s different than real life, where I’m observing, I’m watching, but I’m never all there. Off in my head, words chasing words, ideas tumbling one after another like clothes in the dryer. Thump. Thump. This is something else. I’m not saying it’s Zen fucking Buddhism, but it gets me out of my head.

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Nathan talks about Sarah, Jesus-shitting endlessly. How they both love Rufus Wainwright and how her dream is to learn the particulars of audio engineering. That he’ll take her to the studios of Sun Records outside Memphis, buy her barbequed ribs and go see Graceland. He’s always going on about her. I’m not properly jealous. (Shut up, I don’t fancy him.) Michelle doesn’t believe me. Bong hits and beans on toast at mine, trying to get her to sit still long enough to concentrate on seventies episodes of Doctor Who. “You’re twitchy, too. Let’s leave the house. This is dull.” “It’s a Tom Baker classic, Chelle. Pay attention, this next bit is fantastic.” “If it’s so great why’d you keep checking your phone then? You expecting something?” “No, nothing.” I tried to play it cool. I’m pretty shit at it. “Client? Bit late for that, innit?” “Well. Nathan. He said. He usually calls.” A furrow of her brow, pursed lips. “Oh, babes. He didn’t tell you, then?” “Didn’t tell me what?” “He’s on a date, love. Cleared his schedule for the whole weekend. Taking her to a gig.” We switched off the television. I let her take me out, a late-night place chock-a-block full of middle-aged men in shiny shirts doling out horrible chat-up lines. Letting her find us blokes willing to buy us tequila shots, dance with her two and three at a time, grinding her arse back into blue-denimed crotches. We hadn’t fucked in ages, but it still made my dick half-hard. She wears those tiny scraps of fabric so well.

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I ended up in the back room with a short black boy, fuzzy-haired with a sharpish voice that carried over the awful trip hop. Hands calloused from whatever manual labour he did six days a week. Hideous trainers, not worth the price he paid for them. A ball-tickler, who rutted his cock next to mine for approximately eight minutes in a dimly lit corner until he came hard and slumped against the wall. I got off, true. I would have rather been at home, eating a sandwich and wearing my pyjamas. I checked my phone again in the toilet stall, cleaning myself off with a wad of tissue. Still nothing. I found Michelle, dancing but now with new men, gave her a peck on the cheek. Universal symbol for ‘I got my rocks off and now I need to crash. Call me tomorrow.’ She waved goodbye. I walked home, even though it took me over an hour. I felt hungry, restless. I thought I might cry.

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Confessions of a Rentboy

Chapter 6

A gorgeous redhead, half-Swedish, I gathered, from her odd accentual pronunciation, married to an Ethiopian restaurateur. He refused to let her fuck him in the arse, but conceded her quarterly trips to do so with rentboys. He didn’t want to receive, but he certainly liked watching well enough. She was coy, ticklish. Her mouth tasted like strawberries and her hair swept like a buttery pastry brush against my face as she straddled me on the bed. She wasn’t wearing any knickers and the juice from her pussy left sticky trails on my thighs. She fingered me slow and teasing until I was pulsing open and couldn’t see straight, and then she entered me from behind, both of us kneeling on the floor, my palms flat on the duvet. She was wearing a butterfly vibe, but he had the remote. She pegged slow and sliding—all the way in and all the way back out on every fucking stroke—and when she’d shrieked in my ear and barked like an overeager spaniel puppy I was given the luxury of a masterful reach-around and shot my wad on the bedskirt. She pulled out and leveraged me back onto the bed, kissing me until my lips were swollen as her cock traced shiny trails onto my stomach. They kept me for a second hour, and I watched him take her, too. Nice tip, lovely couple.

Getting in their heads, just for that tiny wedge of time. What are their fantasies? Do they tell you? Do the fantasies fuse seamlessly with your own, glorious moonbows of perfect synchronicity? A tall market trader with floppy blond fringe and a laconic froggy drawl, only a few measured words to tell you what he wants. It sparks a chord, makes you throb all over.

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Your clothes off in the work of a moment, up on tiptoes to wank over him. His trousers undone but he stays fully clothed, crisp white shirt and grey flannel suit that smells of marjoram. Hung like a fucking donkey and cock bending just slightly downwards. Pitching forward to coat his erection, unsteady since he’s a full four inches taller than you. Steers you bedward, on your back, stretched out long. Head tipped back off the edge as you guide him between your lips. Rough without being brutal, tasting sour and musky and clean all at once. Feeling your throat contract around his length, grateful for the ache that builds in your sternum. He comes like that, a series of beautiful manly grunts, your hands wheeling behind to grab his hips and pull him fractionally closer, still deeper if you can. Thirty seconds you see over and over, years after the client’s lone gone. In line for the checkout at Tesco’s, gripping a railing as you hurtle into blackness on the Central Line. Vision going blurry, tactile sensations recalled as best you can. I wank over that one a lot.

Are they different from your own, so much so that you wonder how and why and on what people fixate? Pies in the face, custard down the pants. The one who wants to eat dry crackers and get deep throated until he retches in your pubic hair. Ball torture. Sounding. Is he a ginger-pubed Scot, affiliated with the oil industry, down for the week from Aberdeen? Ugly brown suit, even uglier brown teeth. Voice like a landmine, cold dead eyes of a serial killer. He books you twice, the first time on Sunday evening, the second Wednesday late at night. First time he wants you kneeling, culminating in the creampie effect. Nothing shocking there. Men are fucking obsessed with their own spunk, that much I have learned. Again, I blame porn. Or it could just be that they want to feel wanted, to pretend that those few oozy spoonfuls

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are the most important thing in the world. Antidote to a poison injection you’ve been slipped in the middle of the night as a result of some horrific dystopian experiment. Second time, I had to call Michelle after. Rattled, didn’t want to ride home with only my own memories for company. He rimmed my eyes with kohl and clumped on mascara thicker than spider legs. Lay me on the cold Carrara tile of the freestanding shower and pissed on my face. I kept my eyes closed but it still stunk. I know it’s sterile. Still a bit ghastly. I scrubbed myself there and back at the flat. It took me two weeks to feel clean again. When he DM’d again, six weeks later, I never bothered to respond. The fat tip wasn’t worth that. I saw Nathan the following Monday. I should have fucking left well enough alone, fresh off a call and looking very much the worse for wear. More rumpled than I usually am, bleary eyed and arse still vibrating with sensation. Almost always go home straight afterward, wash the smell of strangers off me. Toss clothes on the floor, shower until my fingers shrivel up purple. This time it was a stocky bulldog faced man, dark-haired and balding. Sideburns. Tongue coated white with permanent halitosis, sweaty stubby fingers. He looked like your average fright. Sometimes the punters surprise you, though. This one had me against the wall, purposeful thumbs hooked hard into my armpits as I scraped my fingernails over the embossed green wallpaper, trying to find traction. He had me cooing like a pigeon in no time flat. Funny, that. I knew he was killing time before a client, waiting out the minutes with the Guardian and a fucking cappuccino. Remnants of some pricey pie on the plate next to his elbow. I walked past the pub twice before pushing the door open. He acknowledged me with a slight curt nod, went back to the paper. I ordered a pint, sat down across from him, tracing patterns in the condensation of my glass.

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He looked gorgeous, not a hair out of place. Paul Smith suit, legs crossed to reveal socks the precise colour of his shirt. Trouser legs shorter than they should be, that pegged style only wearable by androgynous boys and gamine girls with no hips. And Nathan. Fuck me, he looked kissable, if only he would let me. He made no move to converse. Likes to collect his thoughts before a client, get himself mentally prepared for whatever’s to come. I could read the signals. I started talking anyways, stupid babbling mouth with its own bullshit agenda. “How was your date, then?” Said with all the sarcasm I could muster. I don’t do angry, but passive-aggressive is my goddamned middle name. “Good, thanks.” He didn’t even look up at me. “What did you do?” I said, pushing, always pushing. “Hmmm? Oh, we went to a show. Dinner. Nothing special.” Head back down to the paper spread open over his knee. Like I wasn’t even there. I could be hunched over him naked and he’d probably still just use me to prop up his reading material. Bollocks. “Do you like her then? Is she the one?” Air quotes he didn’t even notice. I could still pass it off as me trying to be funny. He rustled the newspaper, put it on the table, folded it. Fingers smoothing the creases, brow turned down. “I do like her. A lot. I’m thinking maybe I’ll take her away for the weekend. Back to the homestead, even. Introduce her to Mum.” A crushing wave of nausea passed over me. He was fucking serious. Falling for this perfect girl, that insensitive piece of shit. Planning a life that didn’t include me, that culminated in two

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kids and public school and golden retrievers snoring before a fireplace. I looked back at him, wounded. Lashed out with the only weapon at my disposal. “Have you told her what you do for a living, yet?” He glared. It was a cheap shot, the cheapest I could muster. It was all the ammunition I had left. “No. She doesn’t know. What the fuck do you care, anyways? We’re being safe.” Ugh, he had fucked her. Maybe more than once. I drained half my beer in one go, moved to stand up. “You leaving, then?” he said, indifferent. I made to stretch, like I was tired. I wasn’t tired. I’d probably never fucking sleep again. “Erm, yeah. Need to clean up. Another call at eight.” He picked the paper back up, unruffled. Unbothered. Useless tit. “Right. Bye then.” “Bye.” I rode the bus home. I could have afforded a taxi, almost always can nowadays. I didn’t want to be alone. I looked at the great stinking seething mass of humanity, teenagers riding home from school, pensioners with their carrier bags, shop assistants who’d ducked out early for the day. I stared out the window and let myself imagine that if I thought it hard enough he’d love me back. Christ, the L-word. My most heartfelt apologies. You didn’t come here for archetypal whorewith-a-heart-of-gold bullshit, did you? Bet you’d much rather hear about fingers shoved in mouths and frantic fumbles in entranceways. Being had from both ends by a middle-aged couple on holiday from Denmark; tying an editor’s feet together and tickling under his knees as you swallow him sideways. I’ve been bent

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over every couch this side of Swansea, and I still like hearing about it. Damn the Internet. But really, how many Google hits does “Hardcore Romance” get in an afternoon? How many for “Soapy Titwank”? I rest my case. Not so stupid to conflate love and fucking, please understand. Can’t do the job properly otherwise. I’m not a chubby goth preteen girl, daydreaming about Edward Cullen during a maths lecture. You can fuck someone and not love them, Jesus, hate them, even. The horrid thrill of hate sex, we’ve all felt that one. The self-loathing makes you come even harder, I find. The other way round is true, too. Do you love them without wanting to see them horizontal? Maybe they’re your best friend, your confidante. The person whose soul you’re certain you share a piece of—small as a biscuit crumb or wide like a meadow. Maybe it’s someone you desperately want to feel that connection with, the guy who’s perfect in every way but one. Not a bad lover, a perfectly fine lay. But no fire, no sizzle. You might as well be watching rolling news. Laughter, though, is non-negotiable in my book. Sex isn’t all pouting lips and wordless grunts, shot in the Vaseline-smeared style of soft-core. More than love, what matters are the moments of absolute vulnerability, places where the fabric between selves wears thin. An accidental elbow to the teeth, a fart noise escaping when it shouldn’t. A bite that lands not on a neck but the side of a face. Hitting your head on the coffee table and laughing, feckless. The punters without love don’t worry me. It’s not a right owed to everyone. People make choices, they go where they shouldn’t, stay where they shouldn’t. Money and history and the crushing painful weight of expectations. Those are the ones who are experienced with hookers, who cut to the chase when you enter the room. They’ve danced this waltz a hundred times

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before. Preliminaries quick and efficient, envelopes handed over with no trepidation. Direct and outright, instructions doled out. No smiles, though. Certainly no laughter.

A woman, that rarest of breeds in the rentboy’s field guide. Posh, stellar, and beautiful, platinum hair and sunken eyes. Cold and hard-edged, glinting like a princess-cut emerald in a display case. Married to an impotent barrister in Norfolk, with him for decades. Lonely, won’t fuck anyone in their circle of friends. Doesn’t want finding out. Needs a seeing to. White expanses of smooth skin when she steps out of her cream-coloured trousers. Effortlessly stylish. Down to town for a monthly shop, morning at Harvey Nicks, lunch with a friend at Petrus. An afternoon reserved for a silent encounter with a strange man. New knickers bought for the occasion. She looks frigid, like it’ll take forty minutes of focused oral attention to get her there. An ache building in your jaw, not unpleasant, as you write the alphabet between her thighs. Looks like a quiet one, the kind who mouths silent words at the ceiling and smacks her lips together. Comes like she’s holding in a sneeze. Instead she wanted to be handled hard, thrown on the bed and serviced from behind. Knickers shoved aside with no ceremony. Twisting her nipples in ways that likely defied the Geneva Conventions. I fucked her three times in two hours, front and back door both, pulling her hair until her spine arched like a seizure. I couldn’t even tell where her orgasms started and ended, so loud was she with all her hollow groaning. A woman like that should be fucked hard—hard and often, not left to shrivel up brittle and dried out in a cocoon of unplanned celibacy. Does she require love? I doubt it would fix her.

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T.R. Verten

What I mean to say is that you can get by without someone loving you back. Certainly I’m proof of that. They don’t come looking for love, and neither do I. Companionship, though, company, a friendly touch in a hard-cornered world. Someone to thrust into for twenty minutes, sure. The remaining time spent curled up in bed, watching a gardening programme, while he moans about his wife, his job, his kids’ university fees. I listen. Good at that, surprising, yes, since I’m always off in my own head. I like to do it. It makes me feel like I’ve given them something beyond getting off, allowing that carapace between bodies to crack open. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to claim it’s a fucking humanitarian service. Not Médecins Sans Frontières, here. Still in it for the money.) But if he doesn’t even want that, is instead the kind of man who perches on the edge of clinical remove, I might get a bit frightened. They turn me on, somehow, the ones who provide humiliation and arousal in equal measure. Making me feel debased in a delicious way. I know who I am with them. They give me nothing more than what I deserve.

The youngest son of a well-known politician, being groomed for a successful career in government. Discretion absolutely required. So smart that watching him made my head spin. Thin-limbed, slim-suited in black wool crêpe de Chine, shirt the colour of a bruise. Curly black hair that glinted red in the light. Strangely sexy and utterly odourless. Hands that should have been memorialized in a line drawing, fingers like a Goya painting. No kissing, he told me. Fine. No touching, either. On either side. Wonder what he’s paying for, then. God, his voice. Wrecked from smoke and coughing, damp country air. It made me throb. Like a catacomb filled with crystalline honey. I stripped off; he did the same.

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Him seated on the edge of the bed, hands barely dragging over his belly, his chest. Lovely cock, purple and springing upright from an alabaster pelvis. I wanted to service him, make him moan and twitch under my tongue. Instead he watched over my every move as I sprawled on the floor, fisting myself to the best of my ability. I’m rather less flexible than I used to be, four fingers is really all I can manage. He murmured instructions, liquid phrases so vile they make me blush to remember them, even now. I came like that, covered in a hot sheen of sweat, the room close and too warm. Modern hotel, central heating, windows glued shut. He came with a quiet shudder, barely a squirt. I would have loved to have had him. I didn’t see much of anyone for a few months after that. Let the flood of clients slow to a mere trickle, down to regulars only. No new calls. Sofa and duvet, bags of Kettle Chips and endless fucking cups of tea. Malteasers. Michelle busy as a whirlwind, between paying clients and casting calls for modeling, the socially legitimate form of whoring. I watched repeats, soap operas. I discovered Amazon and bought box sets. I tried to write, sitting on the couch and staring at a blank Word doc, cursor blinking at me like a taunting schoolboy. Nothing to say, not even after three years of getting fucked for money. Still no story to tell. Nathan went more or less missing, holed up with his new girlfriend over the winter. Bumped into him once or twice, always with her in tow. In line at a café waiting for coffee, Sharon’s wretched birthday party. I missed him. Home for the holidays, still sleeping in that too-small bed at Mum’s house. Inquisitive relatives, turkey sandwiches. Don’t want to explain why I’m still single. Which part is the worst? Liking boys? Liking that one? Dying alone? Bending over for an envelope full of wrinkled twenties?

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He called me in the early days of February, voice tight and panicked. Tinny, like he was speaking from the inside of a well. “Andy. Hi, can you do me a huge favour?” No fucking preamble, no ‘sorry I haven’t called in months’ no ‘how are you’? “What,” I said, flat. “Listen, I’m stuck here at my parents’. I’m calling from the upstairs bathroom, got to make this quick. Dad’s gone into hospital. I’m supposed to be back tomorrow for a client. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it. Can you fill in for me?” “Shit, Nathan, I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Of course, sure.” “Thanks, you’re a pal. I’m okay, honestly. Mum’s holding up all right. Sarah’s been a big support to her. She lost her own father a few years back.” Prick. Taking her away for the weekend, calling me to do his dirty laundry. I suddenly felt the urge to refuse him. Tell him no fucking way, have the balls to own your own filthy vocation. I let those words remain unsaid, a lump in my throat like a malignant tumour. Just like his father. “Right. Good, then. Good,” I spluttered. “Listen, I can email you the details, okay. I really appreciate this.” “Okay.” He rang off, wordless. An email two hours later. Client is local, a writer. Pretty sure this is his first time, so tread carefully. Be discreet, he seems terrified of scandal. A hotel address, a time, a phone number, a name. I Googled him. His essays made me laugh. Eyes like a beagle, words pointed and perfect like javelins. I shaved for the first time in two weeks. Cleaned up the coffee table. Maybe stealing this from Nathan, even if he asked. Being

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someone’s first, you see, always a pleasure. Prickly, terrified. Apologising at every fucking turn. I could hardly wait.

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Chapter 7

First timers thrill me to no end. The squirming, the awkwardness, Jesus the looks on their faces. It’s such a treat in this age of blasé sexual irony. Rarer these days, from what I hear. Everyone’s had a fumble at uni or a six-month period of misspent youth. Now the lines are less hard and fast. But you do get them. Men married for decades, miserable. Guys too freaked out by the club scene, afraid of drugs. I didn’t know his story, this writer fellow. I vowed to keep my mouth shut; certainly wouldn’t want to provoke suspicion. Not trying to garner dirt for the tabloids, just idly curious. Why this? Why now? It was dark and chilly when I left the flat. Later than usual, long past suppertime. This one didn’t have to be home, no fiddly excuses about late meetings or working dinners for him. A hotel in Clerkenwell, a prewar ideal of luxury. No Eames chairs and endless expanses of white carpet here. Not musty, but heavy, even a little oppressive. Corners slanting just a little bit more than they should. A lobby so quiet I thought the concierge could hear me sweat. Junior suite, special occasion. I knocked, softly. The door creaked open. “Hello?” “Hi. I believe we have an engagement.” “Ah, yes. Come in.” He held the door and then shut it behind me. Turned around with a quizzical look on his face, eyebrows furrowed. “Are you not …?” Fuck. Nathan, that fucking tosser. Didn’t bother to tell the client there had been a change in the agenda. Fucking fucker. Of course he would be disappointed. I’ve seen Nathan’s website.

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He’s certainly trimmer, poses more provocatively. Bendier, shall we say, than myself. Reviews about the same. (Yeah, I read them all. Only way I’d get to know, wasn’t it?) “I’m so sorry he wasn’t able to tell you. There’s been a family emergency.” “Oh, oh. I see. Is … is everything all right?” Like he gave a shit. Or maybe he did, who knows. “Should be fine. Do you want I should go, then?” He hesitated, looked me over appraisingly. Rather direct. I blushed a little bit, being so totally aware of being judged in that moment. Was I desired? Objectified? Which would be nicer? He nodded and I felt my stomach drop, lurching like a roller coaster. He didn’t want me. Of fucking course. Maybe on my own, sure. Not in comparison to someone truly pretty, whose face wasn’t starting to sink into knobs and crevices like molten lava. I made to leave. “No. I mean, shit. I’m sorry. Please stay. I had them send up some claret. Would you like a glass?” “Love one, cheers.” Trying to sound studied and casual when my insides were screaming. Someone smart and lovely wasn’t booting me out of bed, just yet. Well, I hadn’t got in the bed at that point. We sat on the couch, he poured from an uncorked bottle and we clinked glasses. I let myself check him out. Horrible shirt. Lilac? Who the fuck wears lilac? Good thing Nathan wasn’t here, he would have been lecturing him about shirt collars and lapels and the necessity of flat-front trousers. I didn’t give a shit. Let him break the silence. “So. Erm. What do you do, then?” Oh, God. The poor thing.

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“Well, this. I write a bit. But mostly this.” “Shit, right. Sorry. Writing, then? What about?” Fuck, now I was backed into a corner. “I’ve been trying to make some headway on a novel.” That much was true. I had a page with the words ‘Chapter One’ written on it. “Oh, wonderful. Good. Right. Okay.” He was fidgety, rubbing hands up and down his brown wide wale corduroys. I should try to move things forward. All in due course. I placed a hand on his knee. He flinched, stared down at it like it had mutated into a jellyfish. I squeezed, just a bit. I could feel him tense up. “Do you mind if we get the preliminaries out of the way now? And then we can both relax a bit.” He nodded again. “Right. Definitely. Ah, here we go.” The usual hotel envelope, which I thumbed through quick and then put in my bag. “Cheers. Now, why don’t you tell me what you had in mind?” “What I … well … I ….” Now it was his turn to blush. Definitely a penetration virgin. I reached a hand out for him, brushed his hair away from his forehead. Odd ears, like an elf, attached at the bottom. I leaned in close to one of them, talking low just beneath it. “We can do anything you want. All you have to do is ask, yeah?” I kissed soft under his ear, reached out a hand for his, steepled our fingers together. He shifted a little, and then I unclasped his hand and closed fingers around his jaw. I swear to God he fucking sighed against my teeth. His mouth was soft and tasted like red wine. I could have kissed him until the sun rose.

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But he was quiet, not a talker. Should have expected that. Someone like me, who can make words bend to their will only when they pass straight from brain to keyboard, bypassing the mouth entirely. He wasn’t going to say anything; scared, besides. Had to go slow, let him start to feel in control of the situation. I kissed him a little deeper, his head tilting against mine. Slid my hand down him, but nowhere expected. The middle of his shirt, not the top. Undoing buttons one-handed, slipping a palm inside. Fuzzy, overheated feeling right under his ribs. Another tiny flinch. I stopped moving my hand. “Okay?” He nodded, still silent. I kept one eye open, trained on his face. Watching for signs, responses. Times like this, when you’d love to give yourself over to it, are the hardest. A casual shag rather than a paying client, those you can lose yourself in. He kept his eyes shut. Unbuttoning the lower fastenings, his shirt draping open across his belly. I wanted to lick him. Still kissing him, deliberate as fuck, not giving him a chance to catch his breath. This one I wanted. I usually don’t get quite so predatory; usually the other way round. Not for nothing do they call it bottoming. I spiderwalked fingers down still further, tucked them just a little under his waistband. The hairy edge where gut becomes groin. Nothing too forward. Letting him get used to the idea, letting it build up. I couldn’t stop picturing him, flushed and covered in sweat, on his back, legs wrapped around me, head dangling limp off the side of that carved four-poster bed. He seemed like he would keep his eyes screwed shut tight the whole time, and I could watch him, watch in glorious filthy detail as my cock slid in and out of his virgin arse, see him clench up when I closed fingers around him, God, see his fucking O-face. He’d probably look like he was passing a kidney stone.

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A fraction lower, underneath the saggy waistband of ratty-edged boxer shorts. Not an egotistical man, then, not concerned with fashion. His belt told a story of recent weight loss— cracked leather with new holes punched in to accommodate a thinner waistline. I pushed down further while I kissed his neck. Spread fingers under those ghastly wide lapels, thumbed at his collarbones. Just heavy breathing. His eyes would have been trained on the floor if they were open. “Still all right?” He kissed back in response. There. A glimmer of self-confidence, of wanton desire overtaking inhibition. I took that as my cue, wriggling my hand further down to clasp his half-hard dick. It pulsed in my hand. I didn’t start stroking him off, though—too direct, too immediate. Just held him, leading him almost, letting him grow hard and full. He let out a tiny growl that made me smile, and I pulled away from the kiss. Undoing his belt, his flies. He looked down in amazement, then back to me and then down again. Like he was dreaming, imagining things. He could have been. Fucking blowjobs I give? Punter could well be in the throes of a lucid wet dream, is all I’m saying. Got to compensate for my face somehow, you know. He gasped when I pulled his cock out. Nice, growing stiffer by the second. Jutting straight out, a head that flared out in a most appetizing way. Just a little darker than the rest of him. I bent forward and licked under the ridges, making little moaning noises all the while. Gentle, easy. Nuzzling the tip, one hand holding him upright, the other on his thigh. His hips hitched when I closed my mouth around him, but I kept him pinned just a little bit. Didn’t want him to go straight off right away, you see. A dick that pretty you have to savour.

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I slid back and forth onto him, lips opening and closing. Humming in my throat, pulling back every now and again to monitor the effect it was having on him. Very good. Shirt fastened at the top, maybe a little constrictive around his upper chest. Trousers still on. I bent my head sideways away from him, took him in deep. Like being the cameraman in your own personal porno, that angle. He alternated between throwing his head back and looking down in half-wonderment, gasping every time. It looks so fucking hot, I know. I’ve watched enough deep-throating porn to emulate what looks good. (All in the name of professional research, you understand.) He was getting into it more, one hot hand settling on the back of my neck, the other pulling, repetitive, on the hem of his shirt. I kept him as still as I could, switching between fisting the base of his cock and licking it like a lolly, guiding it in all the way, suction hard as hell. Could have gotten him off like that, easy. Nothing fucking to it. Ordered room service and done the telly thing. Maybe take a bubble bath, use the fancy toiletries. He gave a little cry out as his cock bumped the back of my throat, and I tasted a bitter smear of precum. Hell fucking no. I crossed fingers and toes that he’d let me fuck him. I slid out of his grasp, unfurled hands from around his dick, his hip. I flopped myself off the couch, walked over on my knees. Pulled him forward, working his pants down. Looked up, half tempted to wink or smirk, say something sarcastic. Rarely do I want to make a punter smile, turn pink with amusement rather than lust. This one I did. Jumper off, t-shirt, too. Played with the button on my trousers, undid them. Pants down just enough so he could glimpse the tip of my erection. His tongue flicked around his lips, pupils greedy. I went onto my belly between his open legs, like a snake. Arms pushing me up, only a few short seconds before my triceps started to quiver. Let his dick bump damp against my face.

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Licking up and down, lips pursed out sluttishly. Keeping his cock wet so it would slide across my chin, my cheeks, my forehead. Like a cat marking territory with pheromones. Like it’s the last chopper out of American-occupied Saigon; chips and chicken and cream teas all rolled into one. I pushed up onto my elbows, waist high now. He placed a hand on my shoulder as I sucked. I backed away, got my hand wet to finger him with, looked up to make sure he was okay. Torso sprawled back, pelvis pitched forward, eyes glazed over, stomach damp with perspiration, creeping stains under his armpits. Unraveling like an afghan from which a thread’s been removed. Crazy fucking hot. I shifted back, crouched onto all fours this time. Leaned back in, lips parted, fingers probing. He tensed up, fuck, almost instantaneously. Sucking him off was one matter, I guess. Fingers up the arse something else entirely. Bugger. He flinched away, pushed back from the edge of the sofa. Talking round, then. Or not. This could be sufficient. Or maybe he’d prefer it the other way, me perched over him sideways, arse angled down. Pitching back onto palms spun backwards, him letting me do the work. Nothing to do but watch. He stuttered, made to cover his crotch with a hand. “I … I … that. It—” I leveraged myself up, straddled him. Reached down and pulled out my hard-on, resting it against the top of his stomach. Two tacks to take: could pin his hands and get a little more forceful; or back away, leave the decision up to him. First option more enticing, rolling him onto his belly and inching my way inside after a long rim job. Hands splayed overhead, gripping. Second way the more responsible route. Balls.

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“Do you want me to stop?” Leaning in to kiss him again, going for the throat. He tipped his head to the right, then let out a surprised yelp. “Ow. Fuck. Fuck!” Shit, had I sat on his nuts, kneed him in the stomach? No, he was grabbing his neck, flinching. “Jesus H. Christ, are you okay?” “I’m fine. Just, my neck, it spasms sometimes. It’ll stop in a minute.” “Spasms?” “Tension, is all. Erm, carry on.” I unbuttoned the rest of his shirt, worked him out of it, tossed it on the arm of the couch. Ducked to lick his nipples, card fingers through his chest hair. He let out a hiss of pleasure, and then a grunt of pain. When I looked up, his teeth were gritted and the wispy hairs of his forehead were matted with sweat. “You’re not all right. You need to relax.” He grabbed the back of his neck again, prodded fingertips into his spine. I stood up, not really sexy, of course, but as enticing as I can manage of an evening. Trousers off, puddling around my legs. Pushed my underwear down partway, cock in hand. His eyes went wide at that and he curled his hands into fists. “Let’s go take a shower, yeah? And then I can rub your neck.” He slowly lifted his head until his eyes met mine. No response. “I’ll tell you what, how about I go take a shower, all right? And if you want to join me, you can, and if not, I’ll bugger off afterward. That okay?” One shake to indicate assent. Perfect. He’d come round. Seen the goods on offer. Even the reluctant ones can’t really resist. Smack in the middle of bumps and lumps, no less. Gorgeous

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dick, still-stellar recovery time. Thank Christ mother nature had gifted me with something worthwhile besides a brain that ticked like a time bomb. I pulled my boxers off and stepped out of them. A few languid strokes before I turned away, carrying my wine glass with me. I didn’t look back, but I could feel his eyes on my arse. Hungry, greedy, like a fat kid waiting in secret to gobble a whole packet of biscuits. He’d follow in due time. Bathroom below stairs, old-fashioned tub, no shower curtain or door. Maybe easier to just soak instead, less of a mess. I waited for the basin to fill, squirted various liquids in along with the water. Put a towel on the floor, dimmed the lights. A dance of taps, hot and cold and back again. Sliding in, steam rising up. Sipping my wine. Time to kill. Always something. Could think about my novel, as yet mostly unwritten. Could think about the pointy-chinned man in the sitting room. Could think about Nathan, coming to his fucking senses. She’d never understand him, not without the backbone of shared experiences. I let a hand drift under the water, eyelids closing most of the way, slitted open in the direction of the door. Something nice to walk in on, if and when he changed his mind. When. Let myself see a rainy Sunday, nothing out of the ordinary. A buzz from downstairs. Nathan. “Can you let me in, please? I’m getting wet.” Going down to him, instead, opening the door but blocking it, him trying to bypass me on either side. “What.” “I needed to see you. Can we go inside, please? This is linen.” “No.”

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And then in lieu of apologies the kiss I’ve been waiting for all these fucking years, lips open and tongue probing. His shirt soaked through, white and clinging. Hands in my hair, him pushing me against the brick wall. My hands on his arse, pulling him closer, grinding. “I’m so sorry. You’re all I want, I was so blind not to have seen that until now.” Damn right, you fucker. Now drag me upstairs and impale me over the coffee table. Stroking harder, could feel my balls tighten up. I’d give him five more minutes before I got out. The door opened, cautiously. I let go of my dick, reached for my wine. He came into the room. He had pulled his pants back on. “Hey.” “Um, hi.” “Water’s nice.” “Yes.” “You could come get in.” “Right.” “Might need to take those off, first.” He pushed them down, a blush crawling up his chest. I made plinky splishy sounds, tried to keep him from bolting. His dick was still hard, which was something. He stepped in across from me, wincing a little. Sat down facing me, hands gripping the sides of the tub. I spread my legs to wrap my feet behind him, toes digging in to his lower back. Grabbed the soap, pushed forward. My cock bumped his for a fragile instant under water and he gasped. I washed his chest and sides, and then dipped hands under the water to fondle his balls, soap his arsehole, albeit inefficiently. He moaned a bit. I grabbed the shower nozzle, made to rinse him off. “Hair too?”

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He bent forward in assent. I washed his hair, shampoo that smelled like mint and rosemary. Every strand thin as spiderweb, soft like you wouldn’t believe. Rinsed, using my hand as a shield to keep soap from getting in his eyes. Reached over and yanked out a hand towel. Dried him, delicate, wiping streaks of water from his face. Pressing up into him, going up on my knees. My cock nudged his a second time and he whimpered. I leaned down, tossed the towel away. Kissed him again, pushed into him again. Hands on his shoulders, fingers wrapping tight. “Do you want to touch me?” He was taken aback for just a moment. But then I closed a fist around my cock next to his, bobbing heavy and weightless all at once, and started to stroke. Another choked gasp. A protest. “Please. Not yet.” “Just watch me for now, then, okay? Go sit.” He got up, wrapped in a white terry bathrobe, sat on the armchair across from the tub. Lovely damp hair, pink cheeks. I nudged the plug from the drain with my toe as I stroked myself off. He sat, transfixed, legs drifting apart, elbows on his knees. I kept my eyes open as the water drained around me, the wet slapping sounds of my hand on my dick intermingling with the swishy suction of water down the pipes. I came in a rush, toes bent back, one hand on my sac and one on my dick. Languid and furious all at the same time. I made sure to be loud. When I finished he had that gorgeous greedy look on his face again. I eased myself up, rinsed off for good measure, wrapped a too-short towel around my waist. Got another bath-sized one to bring with, drained my glass. “Come into the bedroom. The heat’s probably relaxed your back. I might even have some massage oil.”

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I reached out a hand for his. He stood up and took it, white robe gaping deliciously open at the top. He was so going to let me fuck him. He followed me up the steps. “Go on in. I’ll be right through.” Rummaged around in my satchel. A half-empty tube of cherry-flavoured oil, left behind by a client a month back. No reason to use it until now. Well-fed portly bloke, Welsh, covered in moles. Black-rimmed glasses, media type, furry paunchy gut. Wanted nothing more than a lengthy rubdown and a rim job. Easy enough, but the smell of the benzaldehyde nearly made me retch. The self-heating lube would do; he’d never know the difference. Condoms, two of them. He was seated on the bed, legs dangling off the edge. I placed condoms on the bedside table, tossed the lube on the duvet. Then I bent over, brushed lips against his ear, spread the towel out, grabbed onto his ankles and laid him on the bed. I slowly let my towel drop to the floor. He was still hard, far as I could see. I climbed on top of him, pulled off his bathrobe, breathed into his neck. Nipping a bit, not so hard as to bruise, and then turned him over with forceful hands. A little water-based massage just to get him loose. Hands on his neck, shoulders, back , lats and side ribs. Kissing his spine while I rubbed him, and then slinking down further, the tentative stirrings of another erection trailing over the back of his thigh. All natural, I hasten to add, no little blue pills here. Gripping his hips, licking the base of his spine. Both of us still damp and hot from the bath. Clean-smelling, like grass clippings. And then down a little more. He shifted, uncomfortable. No fingers this time, just gentle hands easing his legs apart. I trailed my tongue along the crack of his arse and then lapped underneath to get his balls wet. He kept squirming, but I held him steady. He stayed quiet, fuck, too quiet, until I circled his hole with my tongue, over and over and over. Round and fucking round. That did it. His breath heaved and he gave a loud stuttered cry into his forearms.

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“I’m going to use my fingers again, okay? I’ll go slowly, and whenever you want to stop you tell me. It’ll hurt a little at first, so don’t get frightened. I’ll be gentle.” From the pillow of his arms I heard a muffled noise. “Okay.” Slicked up two fingers, just the middle one to start. Circling until he relaxed, a fraction of give. One fingertip. Back out. Head down again, licking. The same, repeated until it was easy. Then two fingers, shallow. Pulling away. Thrusting with my tongue until he groaned, then mimicking the same motion with my fingertips. Two in, all the way, and I crooked them against his prostate. He hitched up with a gasp. I backed off it, but kept fingering him the way a cock would thrust. My own cock was throbbing now, so fucking ready to push its way inside him. He wasn’t going to say anything, but from the way he was grinding restlessly against the mattress, I could tell he wanted it. As did I. “I’m going to put a condom on now, okay? The same as before. Tell me if you need me to stop.” I grabbed it from the bedside table, opened it with my teeth, and unrolled it. Gave a few strokes while I took a moment to scope out his luscious arse. Lucky fucking me. Drizzled some more on the tip, careless. Fuck the 600-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, I wanted in. Up on hands and knees would be easiest for him, first timer. Lying down like he was now would be okay too, the bump of his bottom preventing me from getting too deep. I’d start out like this, then. But I wanted him on his back before the end of the night. I lined up, felt him tense again. I should talk him through it, offer reassurances. “Just relax, okay? I’m going to go slow so you get used to it.” Just a nudge, the very tip inside. Staying like that for half a minute, pulling back out. Sawing forward again, a little deeper. A minute this time, feeling him tighten and then ease up around

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me. Pulling out again, rocking in. Fucking him shallow, just the head. In one inch, in two inches. Getting him loosened up. “Does that feel okay?” Another muffled assent. Slightly deeper, resting there. Out again, but not all the way. Tiny pulses of his hole that I could feel like kisses. Fractional fucking, like that, for excruciating minutes. My cock wouldn’t fit all the way, not until he could take more. Still deeper, plunging in and then slippery slides out. Circling my hips when I pulled away, tickling his prostate, making him gasp. A lovely sound from one so restrained. I pulled him onto his side, worked a leg underneath to keep the angle right. Kissed his neck, wondering if he needed talking to. He was pink all over, still damp from the tub and new beads of pleasurable sweat, and making the most moreish little gasps. I made sure to tip his head back, angle be damned, and kiss him as I closed a hand around his cock. Stroking him in perfect time with my thrusts, giving him no quarter, nowhere to turn that wasn’t filled with sensation. I waited until his cock pulsed hard and his back arched, a moan with no end as he spurted into my hand. I came as he finished, cock still not balls deep but gripped tight, god, so fucking tight. I waited until he had stopped shaking to pull out. He was the kind of lay who falls asleep right after, and this was no exception. Five minutes of drowsy talking—he had met someone, didn’t want to explain that he’d never been with a man before, was working on a novel about the Winter War and the siege of Petrograd—and then he was out cold. Head atop a meaty upper arm, perfect tiny whistles of snores. I looked at the clock; the call had run over by twenty minutes. I stayed for another twentyfive, just watching him sleep, playing idly with his hair. I hoped his someone would appreciate him.

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Chapter 8

Nathan came back to town later that week, sent me a text saying thank you. His father died shortly thereafter. By March his money was secure. He stopped going round with us, took down his website. Come April, Sarah moved in with him. He stopped returning phone calls and texts. In June I heard that he had asked her to marry him, and they eloped in Vegas, got hitched in a little white chapel with an Elvis impersonator presiding. No one was invited to that wedding, nor to the second one held in Sussex, in a proper church this time. Just waiting, was all he had been doing with us, with me. Twiddling his fucking thumbs until such time as a house in Kensington and couples’ holidays in Crete could materialize. I couldn’t sleep, nothing helped. Not booze, not pills, not even fucking homeopathy. I tried it all. I went round with Ollie and Rupert’s set, just to be out of the house, not locked in an airless bedroom, staring at the cruel hands of the clock. Three a.m. Four a.m. Five. Six. Tomorrow. In the noise, away from myself. House parties and private booths, raunchy dive bars, galleries, strip clubs. I didn’t give a shit who or where. Vodka tonics, Red Bull, endless cigarettes. Cocaine. Not eating for days at a time, watching the sun rise while waiting for a bus. Wearing sunglasses like some eighties prick. Taking calls I normally wouldn’t, blowing off regulars because I’d been up all night tweaking and couldn’t be arsed to shave. Four Japanese business types who wanted a bonding experience, my legs spread wide and held firmly by two men, one on either side. One fucking me, his knees bent, thrusting from underneath, my head turned to take another in my mouth. Letting them

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switch places until they were all satisfied. I got off twice, didn’t bother to shower. Straight to the hotel bar, whiskey shots one after another. Seeking out my own sick thrills, off the clock. Men on the Internet, rough men who are maybe even too cruel to pay for it. A stringy-haired man from Lancashire, son of a factory owner, who let me in his dingy flat on a Sunday afternoon. Preliminaries and safe words exchanged, no pleasantries. Stripped naked and made to kneel on his bed, arms stretched forward, tied together around the slatted headboard. I thought my shoulders would tear from their sockets and my skin had been set aflame. Old-school, this guy, no soft restraints or nylon fibres here. Rope that leaves burns and raw open patches. I could hardly feel him as he fucked me, so great was the pain. I was just grateful to be feeling something.

Another Friday night, another stupid fucking club. I didn’t even know what I was wearing, if we started there or somewhere else. Rupert flirting with the waitresses, Ollie trying to get me to dance. Trips to the toilet in twos and threes, mirrors and spoons and edges of credit cards. Cocaine is rather a stupid drug. Not good for much but fostering a false sense of ego, making you pace restlessly like a puffed-up motherfucker in a Guy Ritchie film. Plus it makes you think that chewing gum and smoking cigarettes simultaneously is a good idea. It’s not, it’s disgusting. But no one thinks that, of course. Too busy being numb. Some arrogant arsewipe with a Romanesque nose, Pete or Paul or something or other, kept worming his way over to our table. Trying to get off with me, promises of even better drugs and private parties. He had to have been lying. Obviously a junkie. Smelly breath, trying to lure me in.

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I left in a fumble, forgot my coat. Found myself retching in an alleyway shortly thereafter. Red Bull, more so than the drugs. It tastes like sherbet mixed with copper and it always makes me sick. I didn’t have my phone, didn’t want to go back there and face people, but I couldn’t bear the thought of home. Dark and totally empty, inhaling my own putrid air. I must have taken a taxi back across the river, must have somehow found my way to a thirdfloor flat in Soho, a flat to which I still had a key. I knocked. He probably had a model in. Some willowy East Asian boy, or a petite corn-fed blond from Middle America, on loan from the art school, happy to indulge him. They say he’s a genius, you know. I only ever knew him as an abusive alcoholic arsehole. And yet here I was, on his doorstep, seeing black spots, spinning like a carousel. He pulled the door open. Still that same stupid porn-star moustache. (Fitting, since he’s hung like one.) Pocky face, eerily black eyes, frizzy hair in a tiny ponytail, coming down around his face in greasy strands. No shirt, barefoot. Ratty grey sweatpants stained with paint drips, a purple paisley robe tied with a bit of artist’s twine. “Andrew.” “Hi, Nick.” He walked away, left the door open. I scurried after him, fuck knows why. Still the same filthy flat—sheets and tarpaulins strewn everywhere, paintbrushes and canvasses stacked four deep. “I’m working.” “I can go.” “Cup of something?”

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“Sure, great. Tea, if you’ve got it.” He sneered, sloshed three fingers of warm vodka into mismatched mugs, handed me one. “What brings you my way?” “I was in the neighbourhood.” “Still getting buggered for money?” “It pays the bills.” “How’s your novel coming?” “Coming. What about you, have you sold anything lately?” “I’m working on a piece for a private collector right now.” He gestured towards a large canvas, covered with red and blue slashes and random white drips. “Right.” “It’s a statement about the insidiousness of Anglo-American post-modern imperialism in an age of fragmented neoliberal identities. I call it Terror.” Wanker. I sipped my drink. He came closer, took the mug from my hand. Set it on a table cluttered with newspapers and mugs just like it. Closed fingers around my wrist, hard. “Why are you here, pet?” I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of hearing me say it. He turned my hand palm-up, pushed up my shirt sleeve. Kissing light up my arm, and then clamping down hard on the inside of my elbow, gnashing with his incisors. Sucking hard enough to leave a mark. Pushing close to me, hands running over my arms. “Do you have an itch, baby, that no one else can scratch?” Hands cupping my arse, sliding underneath my jeans, fingernails dug into the flesh.

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“You look like shit.” I tried to kiss him; he moved his head away. “Ask nicely.” I felt so fucking pathetic, head reeling, temples pounding. I wanted dick. I wanted love. I wanted for it to never be tomorrow. “Please, Nick.” And then he did kiss me, furious. Teeth hitting teeth, him biting my ears, my neck, my fingers. Pushing me down right there, amidst all the debris and garbage. Undressing myself in a drunken fury, his sweats pushed down, one leg still on. His cock was huge. Purple and veiny, just like I remembered. He fucked me just like I remembered, too, grabbing the nearest bottle of linseed oil to hand and slicking himself up. I was tight, sphincter clenching from the coke, but he wasn’t patient. He sat up on his knees and I wrapped my legs around him. He pinned my hands to the ground at first, grunting like a wild boar. He let go only when he was close, considerate enough to let me bring myself off as he slammed into me, over and over again until I saw white stars and was fairly certain I’d been given a concussion. When he finished he rolled off me, grabbed a pack of Marlboros from the side table. Lit two and passed me one. Smoking like that, propped up on one arm, ashing into the lid of a jam jar. “Who is he, then?” “Who is who?” “Whoever you came here to try and forget.” Cockmonkey. I stayed there, though. I even slept for an hour or so.

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Chapter 9

The next few months brought hotter days, longer nights, sweltering heat, and pop-up rain showers. I bought an iPod, downloaded dozens of albums. Everything we listened to together, Otis and Aretha and Curtis. I walked endlessly, wore down my trainers to papery thin soles. Holes that suctioned up water, seeping into my socks. I kept going, sodden and blistered like trench foot in fucking Flanders Field. (I know it’s not the same. Fuck you. Misery is relative.) Walking of a night, an afternoon, passing pub gardens filled with friends and lovers, clinking glasses, giggling. Ending up somewhere seedy; a cinema. A stranger four seats over, then two. Then next to you, eyes on the screen, hand down your pants. Blond, pudgy faced. Queeny as fuck. No names exchanged, just cocks being fondled and feet sticking to the floor. He leaves when you’re done. Toilets in bars, glory holes. Saunas, all of them. One open twenty-four hours. It has a dark room so you don’t have to see. Forgetting a condom and fucking them anyways. Not a paragon of virtue, I don’t recommend you imitate such behaviour. Coke that you do alone, not all the time, just for confidence when you go out. Feeling invincible. Invisible. Lately you’re always out, seems like. Ignoring Michelle’s texts, sending a blanket email to the client list saying you’re out of commission for the next two months. First once a week and then more and more, ending up at that same flat. Until it becomes a habit, knowing he’s always there, always awake. Never calling first, just waiting until leaden feet pull you there of their own accord, against your brain. Against your better fucking judgment. Always the same, the door pulled open, a scan of your body and face. A sign you can read in his

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eyes, as he chews gum, takes a drag off a fag. Eyebrows up, an exhale. ‘I suppose you’ll have to do.’ Following him into the studio. Very little preamble, hardly any talking. He’ll rant, sometimes, tracing a wide circle around the room, robe flapping behind him like some sort of disheveled vampiric overlord. Bemoaning the state of the applied arts, funding cuts, Tories in power, the total lack of originality enabled by the digital medium, the decline of the exchange of letters. Something about Baudrillard, simulacra and experience and the sensory gap between the two. Kantian aesthetics, the Frankfurt School, Adorno and Benjamin and Arendt and the Angel of History. I don’t know. I was always so buzzed, I can hardly fucking remember. Not that I would have understood anyways. But, Jesus, the sex. The things he did to me, the way he made me come. It was almost enough to make me forget why I had left. Almost. It couldn’t have been his stink, turpentine mingled with vodka so cheap it did, contrary to popular belief, have a smell. Sour and malodorous, Murray’s Pomade and days upon days of sweat. He had fans, windows he could open. Hardly ever did. He liked the dust and the shadows, not knowing whether it was day or night. Sometimes I tried to tidy things, make headway on the dishes stacked so high you couldn’t get water from the taps. He didn’t care, he’d use the sink in the bathroom, the shower, the toilet basin if he had to. One time he followed me in there, peering over my shoulder, as if housekeeping were below him, some curiosity that had to be investigated. I filled the kettle, plugged it in. He looked disdainful. I filled the sink, started on the silver. I could feel him breathing on my neck. I didn’t look up, didn’t turn towards him, just concentrated. Bubbles and repetitive movements, calming.

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Water warm against my wrists. His hand trailing across the side of my head. If he were another man, I would say it was gentle. With him, though—well, it was always hard to tell. Hands on my waist, not asking, never fucking asking. Pulling everything down, feeling his cock stiffen against my arse. I grabbed onto the sink, wanting to tell him no. I didn’t, though. He stuck a hand in the sink, cupped a handful of suds and dirty dishwater against my chest. Not nice, not playful. I didn’t say anything, not a single word of protest. He did it again, getting my head wet this time. Soap trailed into my eyes and I had to screw them shut. There was a fancy bottle of hand lotion next to the washing up liquid, and he pumped some into his hand. I was still grabbing on for dear life, hands slipping, eyes on fucking fire. He pulled me back by my hips, hard. I could feel him greasing his dick up, and then breaching me in one long horrible push. I don’t know if I was crying from the soap or from the bare weight of him, scented hand lotion burning every wrinkle of my insides. I had to brace myself as he fucked me, his ragged fingernails scraping the insides of my thighs as I held us both steady. The only man I’ve ever let bite me, teeth closing on my neck, the curve of my shoulder. Pointed incisors clamping hard, wet suction turning white skin into purple welts. The kettle had boiled long ago, whistle dying out into dry screeching and wheezes. It was over quickly. As suddenly as it began. He groaned and bucked his hips against my arse. I could feel his balls slapping against me, meaning he was in all the way. Even I usually need some prepping for that. I couldn’t spare a hand to touch myself, him pushing down on my upper back, pinning me to the counter. He came like that, with a whoop and a yelp, and I could feel him pull out, cock still jerking as he came. A trickle down the inside of my thigh. We stayed like that for several long minutes, his softening cock resting on my arse, still drooling. “Stand up. Turn round.”

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I did, arse sticky and frozen. Fingers white and numb from gripping so hard. I wiped my damp hands on my t-shirt. Then his fingers on my cheeks, pulling me in close. I kept my eyes on the floor. “You don’t have to do the dishes, pet.” I just nodded, breath coming up short. Four short months of smoking, undoing all my previous restraint. He placed a hand over my mouth, and I kissed it. He smiled so sinister, lowered it until his fingers closed over my throat. Just a firm push at first, as he took my cock in his other hand. I cried out a little. It felt so good. His hand gripped tighter. I still didn’t say stop, even though I couldn’t breathe. Even though the world was spinning and the walls were getting close. I was thrusting into his hand, totally shameless, choking and frightened and more aroused than I’d been in years. I came in heated gasps, spurting through his fingers onto his stomach, the whole world flashing white. My knees gave out and I crumpled to the floor. He stroked my hair for a minute as I clung to his knees. Then he nudged his bare foot under my chin and pushed me away, up against the cabinets. He turned the kettle off, left with a twirl. I could hear noises from the bathroom. I did up my jeans and left without saying goodbye.

I don’t mean he was always awful. But nor should you cut him any slack for being so bloody brilliant. A Friday filled with dust motes, when he had me on the floor, almost gentle. Tangled in sheets stained cerulean and sunflower, one leg hooked over his shoulder. Sun setting sooner than it should, getting on autumn. He’d played almost nice, kissing my neck, fingering me for three whole minutes before sliding in slow. He waited, too, let me come first, gripping my hand underneath his, wanking me

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as one. I let myself make noise, knew he would like it, and he did, grimacing against the side of my face. Grunting. Coaxing me over the edge, getting me there. Panting, breath hot and putrid. “Come for me, baby. Come for Nick.” “Oh, god, fuck. Nick. Oh my god, ohmygodohmygod. Ah. Oh, fuck.” I came so hard I must have squeaked, and he slammed into me, so fucking deep I swear I felt his dick in the back of my throat. He came inside me, biting my bottom lip until I could taste blood. He stayed in, too, glorious seconds longer than ever before. I felt amazing. If not loved, then well-fucked at the very least. He sat up, rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a pack. “Hand me those matches, will you?” I obliged, noted the lettering, the name of a hotel. He lit two fags, passed me one. “When were you in Asia?” A creased forehead, then a moment to consider the matchbook in his hand, dark blue embossed with gilded letters, Kawasaki Nikko Hotel. “Japan. April.” I nodded. He kept talking, unusual for him. “Every spring, when the cherry blossoms start to flutter from the trees, the people of Kawasaki and beyond gather to celebrate fertility. Kanamara Matsuri, the festival of the steel phallus. Cocks everywhere, Andrew, and I mean everywhere. Shaped in candy and parading in portable shrines. It’s like the Durkheimian corroborree meets a Dionysian bacchanal. Extraordinary.” “It sounds … interesting,” I said, taking a drag. “You would love it. Maybe next year I’ll take you with me.”

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My heart thumped and I coughed up a lungful of surprised smoke. He smiled again, ran his toes along my shins. His feet were rough. He inhaled, exhaled up towards the ceiling, pondering something. “I have a piece in an exhibition in New York, a show on imperialisms past and present.” I held my breath. “That’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you.” “Hmm. Long overdue, if you ask me. But no one’s talking about the Chinese, now, are they?” “No, I guess not.” He stared off into the middle distance. Maybe looking at a canvas. A spark of an idea. No clue. Just like he always was, completely bloody unreadable. Shook his head and then glanced down at me, like he just remembered he had company. “I could very easily reserve a plane ticket in your name. You can reimburse me, of course.” He’d never asked me anywhere, not even when I was his. I felt disproportionately happy. “I’d love to, thank you.” He leaned down to kiss me, stubbing out his cigarette on the floor, next to my shoulder. I, who was less filthy, sat up and rummaged for the ashtray. He pulled me onto his lap, sideways. A finger on my lips, and then down the inside of my arm, tracing a web of tiny white scars, almost invisible now. “Still there.” A lump in my throat. Not that again. “No, Nick. Not anymore.” “You used to let me, pet.” “I used to let you do a lot of things.” Fingers carding through my hair, eyes on my face with an expression akin to wonderment.

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“Let me paint on you again, then. My kanji have gotten much better.” So tempting. I leaned in to kiss him, rolled out of his grasp, looked for my bits and bobs, sheet wrapped around my waist. “I have to go, Nick. I’m already going to be late as it is.” “Late for what? Where could you possibly have to go that’s more important than this?” “Rupert’s show is tonight. I promised Ollie I’d help him make sure everything runs smoothly. He’ll freak out if I’m not there.” All the while tugging on boxers, t-shirt, jeans, jacket. Still hunting for one shoe. He got very silent, eyes gone completely dark. “Not … not Rupert Jones?” “Yeah, he’s my mate’s boyfriend. I’ll come round tomorrow, okay? I’ll see you then.” I pecked him on the cheek, left him sitting upright, alone, in the middle of the floor.

The installation went off without a hitch. Ollie kept trying to explain it to me, but, to be honest, I shut off at the mention of the words ‘qualisign’ and ‘mimetic impulse.’ I was buzzing, still feeling comfortably fucked and noticed. God, maybe even thought about. I should warn you now, that feeling didn’t last long. Narrative arc though, innit? We’re not at the denouement quite yet. Everyone went to a club afterward. I bailed. I went home, took a bath, drank some wine. Masturbated in the tub thinking about that afternoon, how lovely it was to be kissed by someone who knew me, inside and out. Fell asleep, in the bed, hands still tucked between my thighs, feeling tingly until I blacked out. Woke up at a decent hour, rested. Incredible.

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I was so used to not calling. Fuck, maybe then I would have heard it in his voice, known that one of those tar-black moods had him its in grip. I picked up coffee, I bought fucking pastries. I went over, let myself in. Hoping for something, Christ knows what. A relationship? A rebound? He was silent, up a ladder, brush in hand. White paint, erasing the huge canvas propped against the wall. Excruciating seconds, a head lifted up. He had heard me come in, refused to acknowledge my presence. “I brought coffee.” He stepped down, turned. Pointed the brush in my direction, accusatory. Shit. “Did you have fun last night with your little friends, then?” “It was fine.” Looked around the room, telltale signs: a chair pushed over, a finished work slashed to bits. “Was it?” Coming closer, still menacing. Threw the brush down at my feet. Plucked a coffee cup from my hand—mine, actually. Hurled it against the wall. What the fuck was I still doing there? How had it come to this, back here, still under his sway? Hurtling towards thirty and I’m still a fucking idiot. “Tell me about it, then, this show.” “Um, yeah. I mean Ollie explained it, I mean, I don’t think I understood most of it.” “Try.” “Okay, so it’s like this soundscape, yeah, and Rupert’s reciting a poem in like, Farsi or something, and there’s a video loop of a whirling dervish projected on a sheet. And, um, a pile of crushed up sugar cubes and pink rose petals in front of a bottle of absinthe carved from melted plastic frogs.” “What the fuck is that supposed to be?”

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“I mean, Christ, Nick, I don’t know. The programme said something about Charles Pierce and representamens?” “Oh, that is too fucking much. You have got to be joking. Jones thinks he’s a fucking semiotician now? God, what a load of horseshit.” “Yeah, I guess. I dunno, it was all right.” “All right? You used to have an eye, man. It’s all a myth, this bullshit idea of deconstruction. Don’t you remember your Žižek?” “Not really.” “Did I teach you nothing? Why are you running around with this joker?” “I told you, didn’t I? He goes out with Ollie, who’s a friend of Michelle’s ….” “Are you fucking him? Tell me the truth.” “I mean, no. But, I mean.” Trying to work out what he was insinuating. Who, precisely, was he jealous of? Not me, of course. Nothing I did was important enough. I was stuck being the Beatrice to his Dante. Bet he never landed her in Casualty, though, did he? (I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably right. Well done, you. I’m sure you’ve got me all squared away, then, a Dan Brown parcel of over-fucking-simplification.) “What?” He was in my face, neck stuck out like an angry rooster. Peering down at me, so much taller. His breath smelled putrid. Boozing all night, no doubt, sleepless. Lying in wait, curled up cruel in his airless cave. “What what?” Craning my head away, still instinctual. That fucker. “Are you sorry, then?” Still shouting. Finger pointing, an inch away from my nose. “Sorry?”

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“Yes, Andrew, sorry.” I caved. It was so easy. “Yes, right. I’m sorry, Nick.” What the fuck was I apologizing for? For his bruised ego? For an imagined dalliance with an artistic rival? Leaving him? “You don’t look sorry. Look like you mean it.” A hand raised up, poised to smack me. And then what? He never had to tie me up when he fucked me, not once. The pain was the same. I was too used to staying still and tiny and afraid. Everything he ever did to me—burns and knives and paint and gold leaf and candle wax and fucking pig’s blood—I never moved. Not a hair’s width. Barely let myself breathe. Letting him hurt me, doing it so he wouldn’t do it to himself. The world couldn’t lose him, you see. I told you he was a genius, or don’t you read Art Review? But maybe I was different, too. I looked up from the floor, got back in his face. “No, you know what? I’m not. You’re acting like an egoistical twat.” He looked stunned. Didn’t expect that. Bully for me, there. I didn’t expect his face to crumple in a howl. He was still shouting, though. Shrieking, awful. Like Janet Leigh, like Nosferatu. No monster movie, this. “Why?” Just one word. No abuse, no invective. And just then he looked old, frail. Far too thin. Hollow, empty as a broom cupboard. He sunk to the floor, weeping. Curled into a ball. I could have left him there. I couldn’t, though. He still needed me. “Hey, hey. Come on. Don’t be like this. Come on, let’s go into the kitchen.”

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I tried to hoist him up. He pulled me down, on top of him, next to him. A tangle of legs and a collision of torsos. “It was never the same, baby, with you gone.” Snuffling, still crying. Grabbing my arms, keeping me wrapped close. I’d just hold him until he stopped. Then make some tea. Order a takeaway, maybe persuade him to get dressed, leave the flat. Long minutes passed. I thought about phoning his sister. See if we couldn’t get him into a clinic. I’d clean the flat when he was away. He could change. We could go on holiday. Dubai, maybe, Marrakesh. Somewhere with no alcohol. He tipped his head back, turned softly towards me. His lips found mine, still wet from his tears. I kissed him back. I let myself get lost in a daydream. A life we could make. A holiday house on a rock overlooking the Mediterranean. Cats coming and going. Nothing to drink but white wine. Buying fish. Reading novels again, old paperbacks sent from England by the musty boxful. Him remembering that he once loved painting landscapes. Friends from before, Mark and Katie flying over from Los Angeles, spending holidays with us. Far away from media and newspapers and those ghastly critics who stabbed his guts with their words. He’d smile how he used to. He started getting pushy, rolling on top of me and rubbing my cheek against his. He had hands around my ears, fingertips pushing into my hair. I wrapped my arms around him, leaned up into it. He was grinding, growing hard against my leg. Trying to pin my hands above my head, starting to work himself into a frenzy. Every instinct said to just let him. It was so much simpler. Spread my legs, let him arch up between them. It felt so horrible to know I always

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wanted him to. Feeling so sure that he didn’t mean any of it, that it was the booze, the moods. That he loved me, genuinely. I know he did, once. When he still put on suits and saw his agent. When he would take me to Cowling & Wilcox, let me pick out sketch pads for my ridiculous doodles while he bought tubes of paint. So much green and yellow, I remember. Eating chips on the way home, taking the long way back just to walk in the sunshine. So different than this cloister of a rubbish skip, the malodorous stink of rubbing alcohol and unventilated tobacco smoke. Sweat soaked into clothes and then dried again. There was a whole other room, with bed linens and everything. He’d rather lie on the tiny daybed against the far wall. Turned onto his side, staring at the piece in front of him. The pose of the junkie, the one thing he wasn’t, thank fuck. Smoking, dangling an arm over, ashing on the floor. He’d go up in flames one of these days. Back when he was my only barometer for the quality of kisses I had a higher opinion of his technique. Hundreds of pairs of lips later I wasn’t so sure. Too sloppy, for one. And he always stopped far too soon. Once he had his dick inside me it would be over for good. And there’s nothing, and I mean nothing that I like more than that perfect synchronicity when the tongue in your mouth and the cock up your arse are thrusting into you at exactly the same precise moment, your neurons fucking singing, your blood gone all foamy under your skin. He made to reach for my zip, pulling away just like expected. This time something was different. I sat up, pushed him away. He growled at me. I kept kissing him. Pushed the shoulders of his dressing gown down. Put my hands around the back of his neck, raking up into the curls there. We both had our eyes open, and he looked puzzled. Perplexed. I didn’t give him a chance

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to ask questions. Softening the way my lips pressed against his. Relaxing my jaw until he did the same. Pulling away when he tried to nip at me. “No. Stop fighting me.” He pulled my hands off his neck, forced them together in front of his chest. Lunged for my mouth. I wriggled free and tried to continue what I had been doing before. I wanted so badly to make him submit to me. To roll him onto his hands and knees, pull his pants off. Make him spit in my cupped palm and then fuck him with nothing else. Yank on his hair with both hands until he was begging for it, saying my name over and over. Not touching him at all, letting his dick bob useless against his stomach, half-limp from drink and lack of sleep. Not too drunk to fuck, after all, just the other way round. I could have pushed back, could have tweaked at a nipple until he let me pin his arm behind his back and thrust between his thighs until I splattered his nuts with cum. Could have stood up and nudged my toes under his crotch and wanked in his mouth. I didn’t do any of that. (Have you not noticed that I’ve got a bit of an overactive imagination—like Cluedo and its alternate endings?) We were both on our knees, each struggling to gain the upper hand. He might look like his muscles are made of rubber bands, but he’s strong as hell. I decided to play dirty. I took his hands and put them on my chest. “Undress me, then, if you want to fuck me.” He made that growly noise once more, hands diving down for my belt again. I grabbed them firmly, pulled them back up. “Do it properly or I’m walking right out that door.”

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He looked bemused. No longer such an idle threat, now, was it? I had done it before. He backed away. “What, like one of your regulars? Do I not get more than that?” Eely-moralled bastard. He always did hit below the belt, as well as above it. I fumbled my way upright, dusted myself off. I wasn’t going to play this game with him. “I’m leaving. I’ll come back later on in the week. I’ll call first, try to be sober.” He looked up at me, almost supplicant. Very, very quiet. “Please don’t go, baby.” “It’s not for forever, Nick. I’ll be round in a few days.” And then words that made me fucking sick. “I can pay you for it.” My head span wildly. Too many worlds and selves colliding. I had to get out of there. I turned to leave. “How much?” I looked back over my shoulder. “You can’t afford it.” “Horseshit. I have money. Tell me.” I wanted to go, price myself out of his grasp. Part of me wanted to offer to blow him for a tenner. I’m clearly fucked in the head. “We’re not doing this, okay? You can’t buy me.” He got up, then, too. Pulled his robe back on, got right up in my personal space, didn’t touch me, leaned down and put his lips against my ear. “Whatever it is, double it. I want to fuck you bare.” That arsehole. Just hearing him say it got me hard. I nodded my assent. God, I’m so fucking easy. My bones went all limp as he undressed me, jacket peeled off, shirt buttons eased through holes. A hand down my pants, closing around burning flesh. I could hear my own rattling breath.

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“Take them off.” I did, hardly had to be talked round at all. Toed off my shoes, threw away my socks. Stood in front of him, naked as a figure model. He echoed my action, pulled off his drawstring pyjama bottoms. Didn’t touch himself like he normally would, just eyed me appraisingly. Like for the first time. Stepped in close, pressed himself against me. Tongue in my mouth, probing, searching. I deepened into the kiss, went up on the ball of one foot to wrap a leg around him. He made a throaty noise and hooked his arm under my leg. Our cocks rubbed together and then he grabbed my other leg, steering me over to the stepladder he’d been standing on before. It had a little shelf that he manoeuvred me onto, a head higher than him, hips poised on the edge angled towards him. He was so close, had me pulled wide open and screaming tight all at once. I groaned, kept myself upright by clasping hands around the rungs above my head. He had me pinned, his hard-on rubbing under my perineum. Sliding back and forth, so close to pushing inside. I was dry and not even halfway to being ready. I almost didn’t care. He was being different, though. Like maybe the thought of it turned him on, too. He wasn’t fucking me at all yet, just rutting underneath. Hands grasping onto my sides, long fingers kneading my ribs. And then murmuring. He never talked before, only doled out silences and staring. Now he was nuzzling my neck, looking me in the eyes. Barely formed words under his breath, whispers into my hair. “What is it like with them?” I choked, looked up at the ceiling. He turned my head back, voice insistent. “Don’t look away. Stay looking at me. Here. Right here.”

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Oh, fuck. He spit in his hand, three times. Offered it to me, let me add to the rivulet in his palm. A gesture like an embodied echo of a time long ago. He eased away from me, reached for his dick. One hand still keeping me upright. We both watched him slick his cock up and then he nudged against me. It was hypnotic, I couldn’t look away. My legs wrapped around his upper arms, offering him every part of me. He pressed in, slow, until we both felt me give. I gasped and he flicked his tongue out, licked the corner of his mouth. Like being fucked by a cobra, I swear to God, hissing and darting and so very very sudden. Shallow thrusts at first, also different. He looked down every time he pulled out. I clung on tighter, opened my legs wider. Pulled up just a fraction, easing back down. That extra inch of separation and convergence like a goddamn combustion engine. A steam train, a runaway coal cart. Too good to put the brakes on. He gave up on trying to be decorous and leaned back. Fucked me hard. My arse cheeks were going numb and his dick burned and I never wanted it to stop. I wriggled a hand free to bring myself off, every powerful thrust tipping us back against the canvas, against the wall. We could have tipped over. The fucking ceiling could have caved in and I don’t think I would have noticed. He came with a broken cry that lasted twenty seconds and I followed him. I didn’t say his name once, though. Too familiar.

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Chapter 10

I stayed for three days. Made a phone call to Ollie, had him bring round some essentials: Valium, smokes, tea, bread, milk, biscuits. He showed up with carrier bags and a curious look on his face, craning his head round the door when I opened it. “Is he here? Can I meet him?” “Not right now. Maybe later. Thanks. What do I owe you?” “It’s no bother. Listen, call Michelle, okay? She’s worried about you.” “Ta. Love to Rupert.”

We took a shower together. He let me wash his hair, towel him dry. I had to use what I could find, everything smelt of mildew. Found him some boxers and a reasonably clean t-shirt. Took him into the bedroom, fed him some pills. Tea and water both on the bedside table. Let him sleep for sixteen hours straight. I cleaned. Not the studio, which was sacrosanct—some sort of system in the seeming chaos— but the rest of the flat. Scores of empty bottles, fag ends. Abandoned pieces of toast covered in mouldering jam. I made a pile in the corner of all the papers. Sprayed things, swept. No hoovering, though, so as not to wake him up. Hauled countless bin bags of rubbish out to the curb. Plonked down next to him every few hours or so, night shading into dawn into day into dusk again. That night I let him write on me. I loved it more than anything, so still and meticulous. Sensual, really, if that’s not too naff of a word. It reeks of women’s erotica paperbacks and massage parlours, doesn’t it? Still true. Lying face-down on a black sheet strewn atop the bed. A

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board with fine-tipped brushes and pots of washable ink, mehandi and red and gold. Total silence, just the droning flip of the ceiling fan, the sound of water being stirred. Lights dimmed, pillar candles lit. (Oh, shut up. You would like it, too, if you weren’t being so fucking judgmental.) He showed me the tanka before drawing it across my back, horizontal lines marching right to left. It tickled a little bit, the tip of the brush cold and smooth against my skin. He blew each character dry when he completed it. When he finished he buried his head between my legs. His mouth tickled too. I kept my hands under my head, hard-on straining into the sheets. He slid down underneath, lying flat and stretched out in between my legs. His toes had to climb the wall a little so he could fit himself on the bed. I eased down onto him, so greedily tortuously slow. He let me do the work, riding him hard as he grabbed my hips. Reading that poem to me, over and over again. Every syllable matching a thrust; a rhythm of a language spoken only between us two. I had my hands on his bony shins and we came almost at the same time, him inside me, me on the sheet. Vision gone blurry, a fuck so familiar—it could have been midnight, two weeks ago; it could have been a Tuesday during that overheated summer of 1998. I don’t even know. He put his head in my lap afterward, and we shared a cigarette, me bringing it to his lips every few drags. He translated the tanka for me, number thirty from the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu—about a cold moon and lost love and the searing pain of daylight. He slept in my arms that night, the whole night through.

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I crept out while he was still sleeping, left a note. He’d be coming up from the down, the frenzy of labour upon him. He’d need space and every hour of two days and three nights to make something materialize, and I’d go back to find him spinning like a top with purposeful activity. I went home, cleaned up my own place, though not half so thorough. Changed the songs on my iPod: Cocteau Twins, Pixies, Pavement, Belle & Sebastian, Nirvana, Sonic Youth. Wrote an email to Mark and Katie in America. Told them I missed them, promised to visit soon. Maybe we could drive down the Baja again? Walked more. Free admission to the Saatchi Gallery. Staring for far too long at a painting he swore was made for me. I started watching people again. Nothing creepy, don’t be daft. Just looking. Who is she? What’s his story? Is that her baby? Does she really love him? I hope that’s his uncle. How beautiful. How sad. How wondrous. I went back on the fourth day. I went to the shop two streets over, still recognized the man behind the counter. He looked at me, suspect. Didn’t say hello. Probably trying to suppress the way I used to look in here—crying while buying smokes, a new lighter, a copy of The Radio Times, a packet of gum, a cola. Anything to get out, to have an excuse to escape. I bought biscuits, two kinds. Hobnobs for him, bourbon creams for me. I practically sprang up the stairs, totally elated at the thought of seeing him, glimpsing something new. Something made in those magical moments when everything was right and nothing he did was a mistake. No one else would know of its existence, yet. It would just be us two. Us and something infinite. (Oh, god, sorry. I sound like a right pretentious tosser, don’t I? I supposed you’d have to have been there.)

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When he opened the door, he was dressed. Faded pale blue jeans with a gash at the crotch, a white shirt unbuttoned halfway. No shoes, hair combed in a hurry. I thought he must be done with whatever it was. I went to kiss him and he pulled away sharpish. My eyes snapped open. “What is it? Look, I brought biscuits.” Waving the carrier bag in his face, like some sort of puppy treat. “Oh, it’s you.” “Of course it’s me. Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve got box sets. I thought we could watch telly.” “Television?” “Yes, Nick, television. Big shiny box that sits in the corner and bleeps blinky lights at you? Makes noise and pictures?” “I haven’t turned it on since you left. Vonnegut was right, it’s the lead in the pipes driving us all insane.” “Oh, come off it. Show me what you’ve done, then. I’ll put the kettle on.” And then a drawling voice from the bedroom. “Who’s the-e-re? Is that Andy?” He looked at me. I looked back. I almost hurled on his feet. This was the worst part of it all. He leaned in, sickeningly conspiratorial. “Look, do you mind to come back later on?” I didn’t say anything for a long moment. “How …?” “Oh, he came looking for you. Said you weren’t answering your phone. You should have invited him in the other day. He’s rather interesting. Attractive, even, in a jaundiced gothic sort of way. And he’s wearing the most fascinating red cowboy boots.”

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I couldn’t move my legs. I had to remember how to breathe. I’ve fucked scores of people, leave it to me to bed down with the devil. “Goodbye, Nick.” I made to leave. He grabbed my arm as I turned away, looked down unblinking into my eyes. “Do you want to join us? You can just add it to my tab from the other night.” I ran. Fast as I could. Five blocks over until I thought my lungs would rupture and bleed out my eye sockets. I threw the biscuits in a bin, kicked it, hard and totally fucking useless. I started to cry. And once I started, I couldn’t stop. It shouldn’t have mattered. Not so much, probably not at all. We weren’t really together, not this time around. It wasn’t the first occasion wherein I opened the door to find someone else in my bed. The strangers were never quite as bad as the friends, I’ll be honest. And being reminded of just who and what I was—well, it stung more than any drunken slap across the face. I crumpled down against the wall, chest heaving. I was sick of everyone, sick of myself. Like the author said, such a goddamn phony. Pressed a number for speed dial. She picked up, thank shitting Christ. “Hey, babe. Long time. I’m out with some of the guys from the crew. Can I call you back later?” I snotted into the mouthpiece. I could hear the clink of glasses in the background. Out celebrating, finally got a bit part on some Channel 4 shitfest. Good for her. “Babe? Andy? Hon, are you okay?”

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Noise fading, like she was walking away from the table. Somewhere more secluded, keeping her own secrets safe. “Is it a client? Are you all right? Where are you?” “It’s Nick.” “Shit, Andy. Fucking shit. What happened? Did he hit you?” Still all congested, tears spent. My hand on my forehead staring down blank at the grotty ground beneath my feet. Breathing open-mouthed. I couldn’t string a fucking sentence together. What the fuck could I possibly say? I don’t think it could get any worse? It feels like someone’s pulling my stomach out through my nasal passages it hurts so bad? Why can’t I get anyone to love me for longer than an evening? “Andy? Go home, babe. I’ll be right there.” I sat on the ground for a quarter of an hour, smoked three cigarettes right in a row. Thumbing through my phone, I reread texts from the previous year. Tiny things, absolute buggering nothings: a time and a location, a request for half a dozen beers, an apology for running late (a missed bus, a call that ran over). A man I tried to make notice me for longer than I should have. Idiot, such a fucking idiot. I deleted them one by one. She was waiting on the doorstep when I got there, tucked up all sniffly in the back of a taxi. She looked gorgeous—skintight white denim jeans, a shocking pink halter top. She grabbed onto me, hugged me, kissed my forehead, kissed me hard on the mouth, going up on tiptoes. “Come on. Let’s go inside.” I fumbled with the keys, somehow got the door open. It felt like I had been gone for a fortnight, not just a few hours. Everything felt alien, like I had stumbled into a life someone else was living. I was just the understudy. How the fuck had this happened? This wasn’t who I was,

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or what I was supposed to be doing. Not Lee Krasner; not Belle de Jour with a big enough dick and a pathetic excuse for a face. I should be eating twenty pound salmon salads and drinking Hendricks gin at businessexpensed lunches, should be saving the fucking rainforest, teaching orphans to read in Malawi, deseeding Cambodian fields from landmines. I should have finished university, met someone proper to love and wed and make goddamned mortgage payments with. I should have had a go at making art of my own. Maybe I had an iota of talent, too fucking chickenshit to try anything for more than six weeks at a stretch. What the hell did I have? A list of one-nighters long as my leg, the best part of a decade spent writhing between ecstasy and pure unadulterated hell, and bullshit unrequited feelings not fit for a teen remake of Shakespeare. I’m such a cunt. She hurried past me into the kitchen, fixed me a glass of water and then steered me onto the couch. I wasn’t even really crying, honest, only spent. Instantly exhausted from the sheer weight of trying so fucking hard all the time. Just having to hold it together, talking to people, remembering to pay the phone bill, cleaning the toilet, calling Mum, eating vegetables often enough so my colon doesn’t impact in upon itself, taking the rubbish out, doing the washing-up, the laundry. Over and fucking over again. Getting called or messaged, finding something presentable to put on, smiling for two hours. Hopefully getting outside my skin for a few minutes out of those hundred and twenty. A moment when you can’t count, couldn’t say your own name, find your own elbow in a hotel fire. Right? She didn’t make me talk about it.

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(Yeah, I’ll tell you, but I don’t know you, do I?) We’ve never kissed outside a pub, have we? You don’t have my mobile number. We’re not friends, really, are we? Oh, the confessional genre. You know so much, but nothing, really, in the end. It’s a false sense of intimacy, mediated by words. Oh look, I remembered my critical theory after all. I don’t know when I fell out. I woke up once or twice to look up from her lap to see her texting on her BlackBerry, the dim light of the television blaring at the wall. Her shaking me awake in the daylight, Nescafé under my nose, me covered in a blanket brought down from upstairs. “Babe, where’d you keep your passport?” “Wha—” “Shh. It’s all right. I’m taking you away for the weekend. I’ve got Monday off work.” “Wher—” “Malaga. British Airways, quite posh weekend deal. Come on, into the shower with you.”

We took a cab to the airport, both in sunglasses. Chain smoking outside until the last possible second. She was unusually quiet. We each popped two Valium before the flight; I gripped her hand tight during takeoff. She flipped through magazines while I slept. Only three hours or so until touchdown. Wretched thing, that sealed metal tube. Not a lot of talking, that weekend. Walking up and down the beach, watching people, sipping sickly sweet wine, eating seafood and sardines. The lovely lilty lisp of Andalucia. Neither of us on the game, no one picking anyone up. Not fucking other tourists, not fucking each other.

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She left me alone when we got home. Came round every third day with newspapers and coffees. I ditched the fags and hard stuff, sober save red wine and the occasional spliff. I set up camp on the couch, laptop plonked down as I shifted around—first upright then lying down then seated with legs outstretched. Drinking coffee gone cold, relighting roaches. Getting up to piss once in a while, though I contemplated going in an empty beer bottle. Just the other side of too disgusting, even for me. Scavenging in cupboards for stale biscuits and half-empty bags of crisps. Barely sleeping until something had been said. Tappity tap on this magic box until my fingertips were sore. Writing this thing. Telling you something, I suppose, fuck knows what. It’s not a parable, not a modernist fairytale. There’s no moral. Please don’t pin your hopes on there being one. It all just unravels, really, from here on out. (Be honest with yourself, dear reader, were you—like me—just in it for the fucking?) Does the ending even matter? Since we’ve cracked open the fourth wall, I might as well end on a coincidence. You’re granted one, from what all the websites say. Any more than that would just be sloppy. This really happened, though. Life often presents just those kinds of moments. But it always does, random cunt. Looking for patterns is all we’ve got. (Fuck me, that sounds like I’m trying to be clever. My apologies.) October was fine. I saw Ollie. We didn’t talk about his one-off with my ex. I wasn’t going back there again, and it wasn’t anything our friendship couldn’t survive. I stopped taking calls. My heart wasn’t in it, although I sorely missed getting laid on a regular basis. I did a hell of a lot of wanking that month, to tell the truth. It was actually sort of refreshing. No one else to try and please or worry about. I didn’t have to worry about timing, two minutes or

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twenty-five, it didn’t make a difference any more. If I wanted to take a shit first or not, take off my clothes or not, stop in the middle and make cheese on toast. Half-hearted while watching commercials, full-on rereading a passage from Philip Roth or touch-and-go while skimming through X-tube. Michelle scored the two of us an invite to a Halloween do at a gorgeous Georgian home in North London. People she knew through telly and, perhaps, other routes as well. Promises to meet up with the rest of the group at their own after-party across town. First time I had been out, really, since it all went to shit. Well, sober at least. She dressed as a sexy librarian. Didn’t argue with that at all; the glasses were hilarious. I took the lazy way out, just some not-too-tatty regular clothes and an arrow-through-the-headheadband. I was at the bar, getting my third vodka of the night. Wanted to smoke like crazy. Bored of making small talk. Certainly not going to dance. Maybe I’d sneak off and have a look at the bookshelves. There were voices behind me, at least one of which was ball-tinglingly familiar. “This red is shit. Get me something different, would you?” “God, you’re such a snob.” “I’m not a snob. It just tastes off. I’ll have a beer instead.” I turned round, drink in hand. Face to face with that punter from before, the writer one. Dressed in another horrible shirt. Dark suit, red silk-lined cape. He looked adorable. With a flatfaced man with flaring nostrils. Came across as quite queer, despite being dressed as an RAF pilot. His eyes met mine and widened for a terrified second. I looked back and forth between the both of them. I wasn’t going to blow his cover, even though I could tell straight off that the man

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standing beside him wasn’t right for him. Not like I could ask him out properly, though, could I? Definitely a drawback of the job. “Oh, sorry.” “Not a problem.” “Are you done, mate? Do you mind to move out of the way?” Awkward. An acute wave of nicotine craving swept over me. I couldn’t see Michelle anywhere. She could have been on the clock for all I knew. I headed out to the verandah. A bench out there, moonlight and lanterns glinting off a platinum wig. Smoke trailing upwards. Success. “Do you mind if I bum a fag off you?” I asked, to the back of his head. He turned to face me. Scruffy face, twisted teeth. Bright red lipstick staining the filter of his cigarette. Held out the pack, lit it for me. “Cheers. Who’re you supposed to be, then?” “Fay Wray from King Kong, innit? You?” “Post-modern victim of feotus-faced Robin Hood, of course. Or victim of a rogue elf attack.” He snorted. “Nice one.” We smoked in companionable silence for a moment, music and chatter audible through the glass. “So how do you know this lot, then?” I asked. “I did a segment for one of the shows.” “You a presenter?” “Me? Hell no, I’m an animator. I’m Chris, by the way.” Stuck his cigarette in his mouth and held out his hand.

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“Andy.” A second longer than was necessary, that seeking glance between like-minded men. A press of fingertips, a crinkle of the eyes. On the same page. “What do you do, then?” Dropping my hand, back to smoking side by side. I thought back. Banknotes rolled tight in a safe deposit box. A parade of eyeless faces and one-eyed cocks. Strangers and those I got to know a little bit. Stories they told, ones I could maybe tell. Sympathy, perhaps. A tiny bit of pathos. Making things up to not be alone in the world. These words on a page. You, dear reader. I took a drag, exhaled up into the autumn night. “I write,” I said. Out loud. Into the darkness. “I’m a writer.”

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