sometime in 2007
when i met him, he was 24, spoiled and pouty and loaded with attitude. and he has this thing he does, drives me crazy: when i get there, even though he's usually had at least an hour to do so, he's never prepared--he leads me to the bedroom, hands me a drink, puts on some porn, hands me the remote, tells me he'll be back in a minute, then disappears for a fucking hour.
first time he pulled this shit, i laid there, did a slow boil as the minutes ticked by, kept reworking the pleasure/pain equation in my head, decided to wait him out, and when he finally made his appearance all freshly showered and perfumed and unapologetic, i got up, grabbed him, tore his robe off, threw him on the bed and ravaged him angrily. which, turns out, is what the whole thing was all about, of course--he had (correctly) gauged me as easygoing, but wanted angry and dominant. and he got it, and it was such an unexpected turn-on, watching his eyes go from cool and remote to afraid and submissive as he meekly complied with my every barked order, and we both had a great time.
afterwards, easygoing once more, i curled him into my arms, and we talked. he was a puzzle--not the brightest bulb on the tree, but sweet once the shields were down. but the interesting thing about him was, unlike every other pretty, slightly dim boy like him i'd ever slept with, he lived like a fucking prince. the robe i'd torn off him was gucci, the cum-soaked sheets we were wrapped in were pratesi, and all about the large, lavish, messy apartment he occupied were strewn the debris and detritus of a rich boy (or a kept one--i've never figured out which)--from the high vantage of his king-sized, canopied bed, i spied a crumpled vuitton bag in one corner with clothes spilling out of it, a pile of barney's, saks and neiman's shopping bags in another, and gucci (god, does this boy love him some gucci) watches and sunglasses carelessly littering every surface.
i asked him as casually as i could what he did for a living, and he told me he was in the beauty business, catered to wealthy women, gave few details beyond that, and i didn't press. i looked around this chamber of the sun king again, considered the sheer number of rich, desperate housewives in this town, looked at his face, trailed a finger across the contours of his lush, incomparable lips as he gazed back at me cluelessly, did the mental math, thought, "yeah, maybe".
he'd grown up in fresno in humble surroundings, had met his first lover online at 16 ("he'd send a limo up from LA to pick me up on weekends, take me to all the clubs--he was fun"), and had escaped to the big city for good the day after graduation and never looked back. he sent his family money on a regular basis; got no appreciation for it, apparently. and this galled him.
"and it's not just my family--it's my friends, too. i try to help them, and they all take advantage of me, steal me blind, because i'm too nice."
or too dumb, i thought, as i gazed once more around this roomful of small, pocketable treasures in which he'd left me, a guy he'd known for all of 45 seconds, alone for an hour.
"so where do you meet these people you call friends?", i asked him--and this time, i did press. eventually, he admitted that most of 'em were guys he'd met while partying, and i mentally rolled my eyes, thought about how quickly any one of a number of tweakers of my acquaintance--and i'm just talkin' the more ethical ones--left alone, coulda stripped this room clean as a whistle and been outta there before this boy'd even finished hosing out the lower chamber of his ass.
i proceeded to lecture him about the dangers of allowing druggies into his house and he meekly nodded at the wisdom of this, but not convincingly, and i understood why: he was locked into his pattern of trying to buy the love of indifferent people, and he wasn't listening to me anymore--he hadn't paid attention to a word i'd said since i'd turned from hard, indifferent fuck-dad into concerned ward cleaver.
it was time for me to go. and as i drove home and replayed the interview in my mind as i always did, i reflected on yet one more lost boy selling himself short. i also couldn't help but reflect on the fact that i was probably the only trick who'd ever walked outta that apartment poorer than he'd walked in.
that was a brand-new bottle of poppers, goddammit.
* * * * *
new year's eve, 2012
early afternoon, he called me outta the blue, said, "come shopping with me--i need some shoes for a party tonight."
it had been awhile--this was a once- or twice-a-year boy for me, at most--so i was naturally suspicious.
"why? you've never asked me out anywhere before, and it can't be for my fashion sense."
he laughed. "you keep me grounded (which was true enough), so maybe i won't spend too much if you're there to tell me not to."
and...?
"and because you'll fuck my brains out afterwards, and this is an important party and i wanna walk in with my head held high instead of all desperate and horny and needy and shit."
kid's smarter than i'd given him credit for.
to say they knew him at barney's would be an understatement--the waves parted in a flurry of bows, scrapes and can-i-help-you's in a way that had never happened when my scraggly ass had wandered in there alone--and, once we had arrived at the destination department, he zeroed in on a spotlit pair of shoes such as i'd never seen before, gave the salesgirl a nod, and she scurried off to the back room without even asking his size.
he unzipped the garment bag he'd brought with him, fished out a fine, black woolen cuff, draped it across one shoe, looked up at me.
"perfect", was all i could say, because they were--not only for the outfit, but for him.
"i've been waiting for these to go on sale forever", he said, "and they finally called me yesterday, just in time--20% off!"
i picked up the right shoe, glanced inside--stuart weitzman, whose "mr. seymour" line i'd sold to rich women when i was in college--ran my hand over its fine, stubbly surface, held it up to the light, where it glistened with the fire of a thousand diamonds.
"swarovski crystals on black silk, mike--hundreds of 'em, hand-set over every square inch of surface. aren't they fantastic?"
and yeah, they were--pure elegance, nothing tacky about 'em. but only on the feet of the right guy, the guy who could pull 'em off.
he changed into the outfit, slipped into the shoes, took a few sparkling laps back and forth as spectators gawked and applauded, and i looked at him, at his radiant smile, thought about the figure he'd cut walking into that party in that armani suit and those shoes with his head held high, and i said,
"yeah. i approve."
as an afterthought, i picked up the display shoe again, flipped it over, staggered back a few steps.
and tried to wrap my head around how much things had changed since college--and the idea of a five thousand dollar pair of shoes.
"no, no, i told you--they're 20% off!"
oh. yeah. wrap 'em up, then.
* * * * *
last night
when he called last night, i asked "what address this time?", because it had always been onward and upward with this one.
when he called last night, i asked "what address this time?", because it had always been onward and upward with this one.
it was lower beverly hills, but a nice building--one flat
per floor; i noted the name that was not his as i pressed the buzzer.
he dragged me outta the elevator, through the living room, ignoring the
hot, wasted-looking guy on the couch who didn't look up from his laptop,
and into the first bedroom on the right--obviously a playroom, not his
room--handed me my drink, said, "back in a minute", and i cued up some
porn, settled in for the wait.
afterwards, once we'd stopped moving, i looked him over
to see how he was holding up, and the news wasn't good. he'd put on at
least ten pounds since new year's, and the receding hairline that had
been so barely-noticeable last year was creeping its inexorable way
backwards. the boy who'd been a 9.5 at 24 was at best a 7.5 at 30, and
slipping fast.
"so how you been?", i asked, and he told me about the friend who'd wandered into his apartment the previous week wearing the diamond gucci watch that had been bought off the friend who'd stolen it off his nightstand a few weeks previous, and how it had only cost him $800 to get it back.
and then he showed me around the new place. the second bedroom had become his closet (think oprah's closet), the master bedroom was bigger and messier than ever, and the master closet was...shoes.
i scanned the floor-to-ceiling shelves left to right, up and down, and--third row down, fourth from the left--there they were.
i picked one up, turned to him, asked, "so were they a hit?"
he sorta-laughed, said, "i didn't wear 'em. boyfriend said he wouldn't take me to the party looking like a whore--he made me change into plain black ones instead."
i thought about that, thought about him, thought about how happy he'd been that day at barney's with all those people applauding his choice and his beauty, turned the shoe over, rubbed my hand over its shiny, black, unblemished sole, told him to go get me a bottle of water, snapped a pic with my phone while he was gone.
because somebody oughta get to see those goddam shoes.
"so how you been?", i asked, and he told me about the friend who'd wandered into his apartment the previous week wearing the diamond gucci watch that had been bought off the friend who'd stolen it off his nightstand a few weeks previous, and how it had only cost him $800 to get it back.
and then he showed me around the new place. the second bedroom had become his closet (think oprah's closet), the master bedroom was bigger and messier than ever, and the master closet was...shoes.
i scanned the floor-to-ceiling shelves left to right, up and down, and--third row down, fourth from the left--there they were.
i picked one up, turned to him, asked, "so were they a hit?"
he sorta-laughed, said, "i didn't wear 'em. boyfriend said he wouldn't take me to the party looking like a whore--he made me change into plain black ones instead."
i thought about that, thought about him, thought about how happy he'd been that day at barney's with all those people applauding his choice and his beauty, turned the shoe over, rubbed my hand over its shiny, black, unblemished sole, told him to go get me a bottle of water, snapped a pic with my phone while he was gone.
because somebody oughta get to see those goddam shoes.
