Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

Ben reemerged, smelling deliciously of blue malva shampoo, he was dressed in gray boxer briefs and a white V-neck T-shirt.
    “Is that what you’re wearing?” I asked.
    He looked affronted. “What’s wrong with it?”
    “Nothing. Just wondering about the dress code.”
    Ben fondled my crotch. “Wear your sweatpants. You look hot in those.”
    “All righty, then.” I looked around the room. “Have you seen my cock ring?”
    “In the soap dish.”
    I swear, Mikey, you’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached .
    This wasn’t Ben but my mother, spinning one of her golden oldies just when needed the least. I wondered if her death would finally release me from this telepathic nagging. Or if I was doomed to spend the rest of my life in Norman Bates territory.
    “Better get a move on,” Ben said. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”
    But half an hour later, after I’d shaved and showered and squeezed into my finest brushed stainless-steel groin jewelry, Ben and I were still perched tentatively on the edge of the bed, awkward as wallflowers at an ROTC ball. The lamp we’d left burning to lend a sultry glow to the room was already—thanks to the Viagra—blazing with a brilliant blue-white intensity. Meanwhile, my growing hard-on was growing superfluous.
    “You sure you told him the room number?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “And he seemed…amenable?”
    Ben was amused by my wording. “Yes, he seemed amenable.”
    “So…what? He got cold feet?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Or maybe he just lost interest. Or got a better offer.”
    Ben shrugged. “Who knows?”
    “So what’s wrong with us ? I’d fuck us in a second.”
    He laughed.
    “I’m serious. Don’t you feel abandoned?”
    “It’s a three-way, honey. I don’t think two people can be abandoned.”
    “Can’t they?”
    “He might just be late, you know.”
    I looked at the clock again. “Twenty-five minutes. Only hustlers can get away with that.” I considered that for a moment. “He’s not a hustler, is he? You’re not withholding something, are you?”
    Ben turned and looked at me in amazement. “You think I bought us a hustler and didn’t tell you?”
    “Well…”
    “How pathetic do you think I think we are?”
    I smiled. “Some people would see that as thoughtful.”
    He looked at me again. “Why would you think he’s a hustler, anyway?”
    “I don’t know. It sorta felt like he’d…targeted us. Like he’d been watching for a while before he jumped into the conversation.”
    “I didn’t get that sense,” said Ben.
    “Maybe I’m wrong, then.”
    Ben smiled sympathetically. “Poor baby. You’re disappointed.”
    “No,” I said. “Just annoyed.”
    He gazed down at my tented sweatpants, then pulled down the waistband and stooped to give me a friendly lick.
    “No,” I said. “I don’t need a mercy suck.”
    He looked up, chuckling. “Mercy suck?”
    “Well…whatever…”
    Undeterred, Ben got down to business.
    “Mercy,” I said, making him laugh with his mouth full.
    And that, of course, was when Mr. Johnson knocked on the door.

    I should stop calling him Mr. Johnson, I guess, since you may have figured it out by now. Ben and I certainly hadn’t. To us he was still what Quentin Crisp used to call—without reference to race, of course—The Great Dark Man: a mythical (and therefore slightly two-dimensional) object of desire. Which is probably why we jumped to attention like a pair of guilty schoolboys when we heard his sturdy knock at the door.
    “Jesus,” I murmured, tucking the incriminating evidence under the band of my sweatpants.
    “Well…better late,” said Ben, heading for the door.
    “Wait!” I whispered. “Let this go down first.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. It seems rude.”
    Ben widened his eyes at me. “Did you learn that from Miss Manners?” He reached for the doorknob, so I sank to the bed again, hiding myself in the folds of the sweatpants. This probably made me look a little grand, like some pompous old top awaiting service, but that somehow seemed preferable to greeting him upright with flag already flying.
    Ben opened the door. The guy was standing there looking mortified, still wearing those camouflage fatigues. “I’m sorry, fellas.”
    “No sweat,” said Ben. “C’mon in.”
    Our visitor, I noticed, shot a quick glance at Ben’s boxer briefs before following him into the room. “Can we get you something to drink?” I asked, remaining graciously seated like a dowager