Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 12:33:57 EST
From: EastBayJag@aol.com
Subject: The Cinema

This story is posted for the exclusive enjoyment of readers of the Nifty
Archive. While you are free to make a personal copy, no copy of this
manuscript may be published, copied, posted to another web-site, or
otherwise disseminated without express permission from the author.

The contents of this story are fictional. Any resemblance of characters
to living or lived persons is strictly coincidental. Certain characters
engage in sexual acts that may or may not be legal in the state or
country in which a reader may reside. Any reader with objections to
graphic descriptions of sexual encounters between males, who may not have
reached the legal age of consent, or whose local, regional, state or
national jurisprudence prohibits such descriptions, should not read
further.

The Cinema

by: Eastbayjag@aol.com
_________________________________________

Of course there's a story about that twenty framed on the wall . . . it
was sort of a bet I won.

I never went into one of those theaters off Times Square, much as I
wanted to find out what a porno movie house was like. My friend Edward
had told me of the wild things that went on in the one he went to all the
time. The first time he told me he went to one, I pressed him
unmercifully until he told me a little about what went on.

"Well." he said, "You pay your twelve dollars, go through the turnstile,
go into the theater and move out of the aisle a little way, until your
eyes get used to the dark and you can see what seats are empty, what
seats are occupied, and what seats are occupied."

"You mean guys do it right in the main theater?"

"Oh, not everything," he said with a dirty laugh. "At least not very
often. It's usually just somebody going down on a guy who came in to get
his pipes cleaned out."

"Aren't they afraid of getting caught?"

"Who by?" he snapped at me. "The cops? They make more money shaking down
the theater than they do in salary. You think they're going to cut off
their second car payment just because some guy's getting his dick sucked
in a dark theater?"

"But the others see . . . "

"That's half the fun of it." Edward said. "We've all got a little of the
exhibitionist in us."

I couldn't imagine doing it in front of other people, even if I was the
one getting his tubes treated to a thorough cleanout. Of course, I would
never let anybody see me with a guy's dick in my mouth. Especially if it
was a guy I never met, just . . . "ecchhh! Gross!" I said.

"Oh, come off it Gerry, don't be such a prude!" he spat at me. "Just
because you've never got laid by anybody but your boyfriend of the month,
doesn't mean you wouldn't enjoy a little hot action without any emotional
baggage."

"I don't enjoy sex without love," I said, lying through my teeth.

I LOVE sex. I wore out two boyfriends in four years, never seeming to get
enough of me in them or them in me. Towards the end of both of my
relationships, even though I knew I was no longer really loved by my guy,
I enjoyed the sex just as much as ever, trying to get as much of it in as
I possibly could before he left. Sort of like saving up pennies in a
piggy bank.

"Besides," I said, in my worst 'holier-than-thou' manner, "I've only had
two boyfriends. Things just didn't work out."

"Bullshit," said Edward. "You screwed them right out the door. Barry used
to say he didn't dare undress in front of you to take a shower, because
you were on him and in him before he could say he was tired and just
wanted to snuggle."

"Barry told you that?" I was indignant that my sex life was broadcast
outside the boudoir. Or the shower, as it happened.

"He used to complain all the time, ever since you moved in together,"
Edward said in a low voice. We were on the train to the City, surrounded
by sleeping commuters, in the front seat. The clackety-clack of the rails
kept our conversation private, anyway. "He said he fell for your
beautiful body and handsome face, winning personality and charm before he
realized that you had an eight inch permanent erection, a vampire
approach to his semen, and only loved him, didn't Love him."

That part went completely over me. Of course I loved him! Great body,
great sex, nice to cuddle with in between.

"Besides, there's the little matter of your parting scene." Edward went
on.

"What about it?"

"As I recall," Edward said as we pulled out of Newark towards the salt
marshes, "when Barry came back to you and told you that he loved you,
that he wanted to see you, you said something like "It doesn't matter if
you want me -- I don't want you!." Then you nailed the coffin shut with
"That's all that counts."

I just sat and glowered the rest of the way into the City. Barry never
complained to me like that. Shit, I was always considerate of him. I
never came without making sure he came, too. And I always told him I
loved him, especially if my mouth was free, when I was coming inside him.
Even if I didn't. Just at that moment, I mean. And I never told other
people about our sex life, not even about his impotence on occasion.

"Oh stop pouting," Edward said as we got up, to be first off the train.
"You can't help being a middle-class Midwest over sexed egocentric prude
with a Colombia Law Summa Cum Laude."

I grinned and forgave him. How can you hold a grudge against a pixie?

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

That same morning, I found out I was going to have to make a three-day
trip to L.A. to set up a presentation for the Senior Partner to make to
some of the Pacific Region partners. My flight was out of Newark, but at
seven am, so my boss told me to go ahead and go home, get a little rest
and pack and stuff.

I called a couple of friends to see if they were free for lunch, but
nobody had time. At around noon, instead of going to lunch, I started for
home.

It was a gorgeous fall day, the sun was shining brightly, and the air was
spring crisp, despite the smell of chestnuts at the corner of Park and
Fifty-fifth where I worked. I decided to walk down to Penn station, since
there was a Princeton express train a little after two thirty. I did the
walk often, it only took an hour and a quarter, and you didn't have to
fight the subway smells and sights. I supposed if I took a cab, and there
was no traffic, I could get the one forty-two easy, but there was no
rush.

I usually took Fifth down to Thirty-fourth, past the shops and stuff, the
lines to the Empire State, the bustle of the garment district. Today, for
some reason (yeah, right, I know what you're thinking!) I decided to walk
over to Eighth Ave. and down.

I forget what cross street it was. Maybe Fifty-third, maybe Fifty-fifth.
After I crossed Sixth Avenue (The Avenue of the Americas to non
cognoscenti), or was it Seventh? -- I wasn't paying attention -- I looked
up and saw a little movie theater, tucked away on the cross street. "Odd
place for a movie house," I thought to myself. Then I realized what kind
of a place it was. "All Male Cast" proclaimed the marquee. "New release
every Tuesday." Today was Tuesday.

I watched the marquee approach as my feet took me down the street towards
"The Cinema," as the marquee proudly proclaimed. I thought about what
Edward had said. I mean about me being an over sexed prude who needed to
chill.

Something made me reach for my wallet and take out a twenty . . .

____________________________________________________________________________

Edward was certainly right about the light. Other than this huge
screenful of erection entering shaved butt hole, I could see nothing at
all. I put the eight dollars change into my jacket pocket, feeling a
little foolish in my suit and tie. I took a step to the right, like he
told me, to avoid getting run over by somebody coming through the door. I
immediately stepped on a guy's foot.

"Oh shit! " I said. "Sorry!"

I got no response, just a hand on my leg, moving up towards my crotch.

I stumbled back into the aisle, pictures in my head of some gargoyle
faced toothless old man with tobacco stained white beard trying to bite
off my dick. I definitely did not have an erection.

My eyes were a little better, and I saw that there was an empty seat on
the aisle, on the other side, so I went to it and scrunched down, trying
to be invisible.

The movie was accompanied by the worst possible music, more of a jungle
drum with music master tape, and the action on the screen seemed to be
the same stroke of one penis into a bum, but from forty different angles,
and the faces of two guys who were supposedly enjoying what they were
doing, but had eyes full of boredom. "Have you come yet?" "How much
longer does the contract say we have to do this?" "Does this smile look
natural?" "How'd you like the way I licked my lips when I supposedly
first saw you? Wasn't that real, man? Just like life!"

I wondered where I had seen that expression before, and then realized it
was the same look I got from Fred sometimes when I was screwing him
face-to-face -- my favorite position, although I've never turned down any
other position I can think of. Fred was my first boyfriend. We were
together for two or three years, I think, then fuck buddies for a little
while "until he met Craig, or Paul, or whatever the hell his name is.
They have a cottage with a picket fence. A fucking picket fence!" I
thought.

There was a steady feeble stream of guys going down the aisle towards the
"exit" sign next to the screen, and I watched as guys went through the
door, then reappeared a few minutes later to walk back up the aisle, more
slowly, looking closely at the faces of the guys in the seats watching
the film.

I saw a guy come up, stop at an aisle, then move into the seat next to
what looked like a kid, at least his neck was thin despite his broad
shoulders. The guy soon disappeared down in the kid's lap, and a guy
behind them leaned over to watch what was happening. I saw the top of the
guy's head bobbing up and down, so it didn't take any major mental
exercise to figure what was happening.

The kid started to groan a little, almost in time with the music on the
screen, and then he groaned real loud, letting us all know he was getting
his nut in the guy's mouth. A minute later, the kid got up, straightened
his jacket, and walked up the aisle. He couldn't have been more than
sixteen, Hispanic, not bad looking, slim. I was amazed they let anybody
that young into the movie. But it's New York, right?

"Trade," said a voice right behind my ear. I about jumped up to the
chandelier on the ceiling.

"Comes in here every Tuesday afternoon to get his dick sucked, never
gives back. Big cock though. Tasty. Carl lets him in for half price. Says
he's good for business." I looked back over my shoulder. It was a guy
about forty, mustache, balding, sparkles deep in his eyes. From the
movie, I guess.

"New here, i'n ya?" he asked.

"Yeh." I half grunted.

"Thought so," he said. "Everyone knows Al sits in the last row like a
spider, trying to get the new arrivals before they stick their dick
anywhere else."

I grunted something by way of response. The guy on the screen was getting
what looked like a genuine two foot long black cock into his butt. It was
too big to fit in his mouth. He and the guy it belonged to licked it
together for a couple minutes. Incredible. He got at least a foot of it
in. Yeccchhh!

"Wanna tour?"

"Uh . . . all right."

"C'mon, then," he said, and got up, walking slowly down the aisle. I
scrambled to unravel myself and get into the aisle next to him. He was
only about five six to my six two, so we must have looked like Mutt and
Jeff.

"That's Charlie over there on the right," he said. "Likes small dicks and
big balls. Loves suckin' on a guy getting' fucked, playing with the balls
of the fucker and the fuckee at the same time." Charlie was maybe sixty,
looked like anybody's version of a grandfather type.

"This is Bert," my guide said. "He's got the deepest, widest hole on the
West side. Never met a man he couldn't take." Bert was a thin guy, almost
emaciated, with hungry eyes. He looked at me, and I shivered. He looked
quickly back at the huge dick on the screen. I wondered if it was humanly
possible.

"Those two over there are tourists. They come in, sit together the whole
time, watch the others play, wander in the back, watch some more, then
leave without doing anything." The two looked like construction workers
without hard hats. All burly, with leather jackets and white T-shirts.

I couldn't believe the surreal nature of the conversation.

We continued down, and in the light from the screen, now that my eyes
were adjusted, I saw that about every guy that didn't have somebody on
his knees in front of him was waving his dick in the air, pants open and
down to the knees. I didn't see anything I liked.

We got to the door, finally. In the front row, a guy was listlessly
flopping his dick, like a dry fly fisherman, snapping the head a little
as if to catch a passing fish. His face was vacant, his mouth hanging
slack as he stared at the screen.

We went through the door - a blackout curtain, actually, into a wide
corridor lit only by two dim red bulbs at either end, mounted high above
our heads. There were a few guys leaning up against the walls, one with
his pants around his ankles and a guy bobbing his head back and forth. I
couldn't see the dick in the guy's mouth, but it must have been pretty
long, because the guy's head moved a long way on each stroke. Next to
them, another guy stood with his cock out of his pants, slowly stroking
it, as if he was next in line for a little tongue bath.

Each guy we passed on the way down the corridor took a quick look,
lowered his eyes, then looked again. Nobody reached out, thank god. Not
that they were all ugly or anything. A couple of them were really quite
handsome, maybe my age or a little more. (I had just turned twenty-four.)
I just . . . wasn't into it just right then.

One guy could have been my older brother - same Roman looks, with the
straight nose, black curly hair, lantern jaw and deep-set eyes, long
lashes He gave me a quick little smile, and I saw his front teeth. They
looked white in the red light, but who's to say? I wondered what I would
feel like if I did my own brother, and got a creepy feeling in my neck.
This was sick!

My guide led me down this other corridor, perpendicular to the first one.
I could smell a men's room, the odor of urine, sweat (and probably semen)
strong, but not enough to make my stomach turn. I felt the pressure that
says peeing is a soon-to-be-pressing need.

Suddenly to the left, I saw the doorway to the men's toilet, another red
light way overhead casting shadows over the blood-red floor. We went in,
and there were three stalls, two urinals. One of the stall doors was
open, and a guy was sitting on the stool, stark naked, rings in his
nipples, playing with himself, his mouth open wide, at just the right
height for a guy to stick his dick in without crouching.

"Hey, Ben," said my guide.

"Hey, Louie," said the Mouth guy.

"How's it going?" said Louie.

"So-so," said Ben. "Maybe a pint so far."

My mind reeled at the thought of a guy swallowing a pint of semen in a
single day. My stomach roiled.

"Ben likes playing urinal," said Louie. "Drinks a guy's pee, then sucks
him off if he's of a mind."

"I'll wait," I said.

"Suit yourself," said Louie. "He's pretty good."

A guy that had been in the theater walked up to one of the closed doors
of a stall. He looked over and down, pulled his dick out, and fed it
through a hole in the door. Another guy that had been leaning against the
wall on front of the stall moved next to the man and peered over the
door, I guess watching the outsider's dick get washed by the insider's
throat. His hand went to the Outsider's butt, massaging it, then slipped
down into the back of his pants and apparently massaged some more. The
Outsider liked it, I figured. He was groaning and going up and down on
his toes as we left. I heard a muffled shout from behind us as we went
out the door, so I guess he left his cookies in the stall occupant's
mouth.

Across from the toilets, there was a doorway into a completely black
space. I could hear sounds of heavy breathing and movements of shuffled
feet and clothes rustling within the blackness.

"Back Room," announced Louis. "Kinda quiet today. Still early, though." I
moved two or three feet inside the room, but I had no idea how big it
was. My impression was of a pretty big room, I think because there was a
kind of echo. I felt a hand on my fly, and my zipper went down in an
instant. I started to pull back, but there was someone behind me, his
hands under my jacket, fingertips searching for my nipples.

My dick was lifted out by the unseen hand, and without waiting for it to
get hard or anything, it was engulfed in a warm, soothing mouth. The
fingers found my nipples, and pinched lightly, and shivers of pleasure
went down my front, into my stiffening but still frightened dick.

"No," I whispered. "I'm not ready."

They guy behind me just said "Pity. Louie's real good." He let my nipples
go and pulled away from my back, and I pulled my dick out of Louie's
mouth, flipping it back into my pants.

"Sorry, I whispered," but got no reply. I turned and left, going back
down the corridor, numbed by it all.

I suddenly thought "My wallet!" and felt in my jacket pocket. It was
still there, untouched. "I could have been robbed back there,." I thought
to myself as I walked out the doorway through the curtains.

I looked up the slope, and saw at least fifty faces, most looking up at
the screen, a few looking at me. They could have been faces in any
theater, all sizes, ages, colours. All men, all here for . . . escape.

I walked up the aisle towards the seat I had first taken, but it was now
occupied. A young, quite -- no, very -- good-looking Puerto Rican guy in
a football jacket looked at the screen. I looked down, and saw that his
pants were open, his dick hard. He wasn't touching himself. It looked
okay, a little longer than average, but I think Edward says that the same
size dick looks a lot bigger on a skinny guy than on a big one.

I looked a little too long, I guess. He looked up at me and smiled a
little, and I felt kinda funny. Like I was . . . prey, not hunter.

Another chill went up my back, and I decided to leave. I'd already missed
the last express before rush hour, and would have to take the
Elizabeth/Rahway/New Brunswick semi express, just after three-thirty.

I went out the door, and saw a sign that said "men's room" with an arrow
pointing up the stairs I hadn't noticed before. I really had to pee now.
I wouldn't make it all the way to Penn Station on foot.

I went up the stairs, to the right and through the door to a regular
looking men's room, tile and white porcelain and all. The urinal was in
front of the stall, and I went to it and fished out my dick to pee. The
flow had almost started when the outer door opened behind me, and someone
came in. Being a little pee-shy, the flow stopped as it began, which is
always a little painful.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the football jacket of the kid that
had taken my seat as he went into the stall to my right. I let loose with
my stream of pee, and shivered as it came out, like I always do. I turned
a little so the kid could get a glimpse of my dick. "One of the nicest
you'll ever see," I thought to myself. Why deprive him?.

"Nice, man," said a voice from inside the stall. I looked down, and saw
the kid's eye at the crack of the door, peering at my dick as the pee
came out in the pencil-thick stream.

I just said "mmmm."

"Let me have it when you're done," he whispered. I looked down again, and
there was a hole in center of the door, at just about the right height,
just big enough for me to get my dick through if I wanted, into the
stall. It was well polished, smooth.

My pee stream ended, and I shook out the last drops, then gave it a
stroke or two to clear out the tube.

"C'mon, man," he whispered. The tip of his tongue came through the hole
in the door.

I debated for a millisecond. The kid was cute, his tongue was pink, I was
horny like always, my dick started to wake up. "Why not? Who was to know?
Who would see?"

I turned, and the hole was at exactly the right height. I moved forward a
half step. The tip of my dick introduced itself to the tip of the kid's
tongue, crept along its center towards the waiting lips, entered the
cavern of pleasure, in a slow, amazingly sexy way as I just watched,
dispassionate observer.

He was good. Really good. My pubes were all the way up against the door,
my hips pushing me flat against it, my dick stretched beyond its normal
length through the thin plywood. I marveled that the plywood had been
polished so smooth, to keep any splinters from happening, even as the
head of my dick went all the way into his throat, wonderfully tight and
seemingly muscled as he massaged me from inside.

O looked over the top of the door, and saw that he was on his feet, his
pants around his ankles on the floor. His butt was pert, small,
beautiful. I wanted it, even as he was giving me this really Class A1+
head job, so I told him.

"You want it all the way?"

He stopped mid stroke. "Mmmmm." He hummed. I figured that for a yes.

"Where?"

He pulled off, and stood, lifting his jeans as he came up. He was maybe
five six, five seven. His face was more handsome in the light than in the
flickering theater. Something about his eyes . . .

"Come with me." He said. No accent. No Spanish accent, anyway. Vaguely
New York. The Bronx, maybe.

He slipped out the door, past me, and reached up with his lips for a
kiss. He got it. Along with about seven inches of my tongue. His mouth
was like . . . like warm honeydew melon, sweet and salt at the same time.

He broke the kiss and took my hand, leading me out of the Men's room. My
dick hung -- rather, it poked -- out of my suit pants. He could have
dragged me by that.

Instead of going down the stairs, he led me to the left, into a room
behind the projectionist's booth, I imagine. It wasn't completely dark;
you could barely make out the things in the room. There were three sofas.
More like day-beds, one on each wall, and a few chairs, all upholstered
in a kind of dark corduroy or something. It wasn't light enough to tell
the colour.

He led me to the far sofa, and pulled a chair over, then took his jacket
off and hung it on the back of the chair. His shirt followed, and getting
the idea, I pulled another chair over and took off my clothes as rapidly
as I could, almost catching up to him. We both stopped when we got to our
underwear. He was wearing gray briefs, me black boxers. His body was as
close to my ideal as two protons in a nucleus of Helium. Slim, bur with
enough flesh to soften the edges, nicely muscled arms and legs, but
nothing out of a gym. I hate that look. He had some body hair, mostly on
his legs and a little on his chest, under his arms.

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled my boxers down to my ankles in
one smooth movement, my dick finding the depths of his mouth as if drawn
by a tractor beam. He lifted himself up a little and pulled his own
briefs down, and pulled his feet out of them. His pubic area was a small
mass of tight curls, black as night. He twisted around on the bed, so
that he was on his back lengthwise, his head turned to take my dick into
his throat.

I pulled out of his mouth, my dick glistening, dripping, and got on the
bed, my knees between his legs, opening them, but needing only the
suggestion of a nudge. My lips found his, and his legs lifted up. I put
the backs of his knees in the crooks of my elbows, letting him know that
I was in charge, that I would direct the scene. He broke the kiss for a
second to say "go slow. I've only done this a couple of times."

I nodded, and took his mouth back in my possession. He took my dick in
one of his hands, and guided me to the portal. I felt the softness, the
warmth of it, and I wanted in. Real bad. I wanted this cute kid even
though I didn't know his name, his IQ, his economic status, his
I-don't-give-a-shit-what. I just wanted to get inside him, fill him up
with my dick. Shoot my cum in him until it came out his eyeballs, make
him mine and nobody else's until I decided to discard him like the
others. "Where did that thought come from?" I wondered. It shook me a
little. "Damn Edward and his psychobabble."

I felt him opening to me, and the head of my dick popped in, trapped by
his muscle. He registered a little something, but let my hips go, and put
his hands around my neck, pulling me down to him. I began fucking into
him, the lube of his saliva easing the way, and I was soon all the way
in, right to the hilt, and it was as good as either other ass I'd ever
had, tight all the way up, really tight at the base of my dick. Grade A
Prime beef -- veal -- on the hoof..

I started to move in and out, and pulled back far enough each time that I
was sure I was brushing his prostate. He made no sound, but pulled on me
and squeezed my dick with his muscles, urging me to get into him, take
him, make him mine.

I determined to make it memorable for him, really outshine myself, and
deliberately started controlling my orgasm, putting it way out in left
field. I was going to make him come at least twice before I filled him
up, make him beg for a repeat, make him want to follow me for the rest of
his days. I looked into his eyes at one point, and there were little
sparks inside the blackness of them. Some sort of reflection off the
lights in the ceiling, or something.

I plunged slowly in and out, gradually increasing the pace as I felt his
insides accommodate more and more completely, reaching the point where I
had the length of each stroke almost perfect, the head of my dick
stopping just before it could pop out of him, then all the way back in,
taking care to rub directly up on the prostate for as long as possible,
establishing a slow motion rocking rhythm than brought our bodies
crashing together, bouncing apart. I picked up the speed a little, as I
could tell he was getting close. I wouldn't let him touch himself if he
tried, but he didn't.

His grip on me got stronger, and he urged me into him with his legs
around my waist as I let them go so I could hold his butthole at exactly
the right position. I felt an extra set of hands on my legs, working up
them, urging me on, but I was too far gone in the taking to make any
protest, They felt good, teasing, smoothing. Someone wiped my forehead,
and I realized I was perspiring profusely. This was going to be the best
fuck ever for this kid. I had already been at him for at least fifteen,
maybe twenty minutes. He'd not soon forget me.

Someone massaged my balls, and it felt super, and there was a tickle at
my butthole which didn't hurt either. There were hands on my arms, my
back, whispers of encouragement. "Keep it up. Take him! Take him!" So I
did. I kept my orgasm as far down as I could, but it was getting close, I
could tell. Hands were everywhere, urging me into him, caressing, loving,
and I felt myself come to the point where I couldn't stop.

"Yes, take him, take him now!" whispered at least five voices, and the
boy beneath me started to vibrate, and suddenly clamped down on my dick,
the spasms of his orgasm sending me over the brink as well. his breathing
more labored, but still no sound from his throat. I felt my dick expand,
and hands massages the base as I started to fire into him.

Someone counted. "One!" when my first shot fired.

"Two!" at the second,

"Three!"

"Four!"

"Five!"

I started to come down, wanting to cuddle, to hold this boy who I had
just made mine. There was something more, though, I felt a desire to hold
him, caress him, make him feel secure, protected, loved and . . . What
the hell was getting into me? I felt another spasm.

"Six!"

Everything went nice and warm and fuzzy, the way it always does when I've
had particularly good sex.

"That's it!" someone said, and hands lifted me, wiped the come from my
belly, pulled me out and away from him. Pushed me over to the side, to
let me breathe a little more easily. Wiped my dick clean. Someone took it
in his mouth for a second, massaging it, getting out the last drop. I
didn't even open my eyes to see who it was. I wanted it to be the boy.

"How was it?" someone whispered, "Will you take him?"

I gathered my thoughts to formulate a reply, just enough praise to make
the boy realize that I liked him, but if he wanted more he'd have to work
on improving his performance, put himself under my wing for a while, let
me make a man out of him, maybe teach him how to carry himself a little
better, definitely stay out of cheap movie houses, maybe become my house
boy . . .

"Not bad," the words came. "Not great, but not bad. Tenses up at the
wrong moments, gets too emotionally self-centered, doesn't give a shit
about the person he's with. Thinks he's god's gift to guys, thinks his
dick is an altar. Can't kiss for shit, all the romance of a dildo. No,
guys, I don't think this is the one. Thanks for trying, though."

I opened my eyes in disbelief. The kid didn't like it? I'm not romantic
enough? What the hell gives here?

"What's going on here?" I almost shouted. There were eight or nine guys
around the kid, who already had his pants and shirt on, and was pulling
up his socks. God, he had a gorgeous ass!

"Don't worry," Louie said, looking over at me from next to the kid. "We
won't tell anyone, as long as you don't ever come back. You'll get a full
refund."

"But I want to see him again!" Oh shit, what was I getting myself into?
It was true. I wanted to hold him like that again. "I . . . I want him."

"It doesn't matter if you want me -- I don't want you!" the kid says.
"That's all that counts."

The words were like a massive slap in the face. They hurt, more than
words had ever hurt before, even the words my Dad said when he found out
he'd never be a grandfather.

I turned to put my underwear on, at least, not be so . . . vulnerable in
front of all these men. I almost fell over when I put my left foot
through the leg opening, losing my balance. I sat quickly on the bed, to
keep from crashing to the floor.

I realized I was crying, for god knows what reason. I looked up, and
they'd all gone, and I felt very alone and vulnerable, for some reason. I
put the rest of my clothes on, automatically checking to see if my wallet
was still there. It was.

Dressed, but still sniffling a little, I stumbled out of the room,
towards the "exit" sign over the stairs. I went down them, through a
turnstile and around the corner and came up against a metal door. I must
have taken the wrong stairs. I turned around to go back up the corridor,
but there was no way to get through the turnstile, like one of the things
they use in the subway to ensure that you don't get in without paying.

I figured I could always pay another admission, get back in, learn the
kid's name. Maybe make it up to him, find out if there was a chance for
me; I went out the door, into an alleyway between two tall walls of
brick.

I walked to the end of the alley, out on to the street, and turned right,
expecting to see the Marquee of the theater, but it wasn't there. I must
have come out on the wrong street. I turned around to go back down the
alley. It wasn't there. I was in front of a building wall of solid
granite, no alley to be seen. I freaked. Not a little. A lot. This kind
of thing only happens in New York City. I just wish it hadn't happened to
me.

I walked around the block -- twice. There was no theater at all, Just
office blocks covering the entire block, Avenue to Avenue. No alleyway.
No Marquee, no theater. And no, I did not score a joint and smoke it on
the way to the train!

I hailed a taxi, no longer wanting to walk, and I closed my eyes as the
Armenian, Turk or whatever nationality he was Cab driver, hurled us down
the avenue to Penn Station. I felt sick, soiled, unclean to my depths. I
wanted to get under a shower at home for the next two hours.

"Penn Station," the driver yelled at me, and I opened my eyes to see the
meter, Six Dollars ninety-five. The eight dollars I had in change from
the movie would be exactly right for fare and tip. I felt in my jacket
pocket for the bills I'd received, but they were not there. "Sticky
fingers, after all," I thought to myself.

Shit, that meant I only had a fifty left in my wallet. If cab drivers get
mad making change for a twenty, they go ballistic when you haul out a
fifty. I'd broken the hundred that morning, paying for my thirty dollar
parking sticker, and the clerk only had the fifty and twenties, so I had
been lucky.

I opened my wallet, and there was a fifty and a crisp twenty in front of
it. Brand new, with the over-sized picture of Jackson. The one the clerk
had given me was an old rumpled one that looked like it had been through
a washing machine. I remember, because I had a hard time getting it to
lay flat in my billfold as I ran for the train.

"Want me to change that fifty for you?" said the cab driver. I almost
fell on the floor. "I only got twenties, and a few ones." I gave him the
fifty and told him to just give me the two twenties. He must have thought
I was either an out of towner or a lunatic, but he follower my directions
well. Greed conquers all.

I walked down the steps into the station entrance, and into the waiting
room. It was only one thirty! I had time to make the Express! I sprinted
through the station, down the steps to the mezzanine or whatever it's
called, and bounced into a guy running for the same train, almost
knocking him down in the process. He was a shortie, maybe five six, five
seven, and I helped him steady himself, then we ran down the second set
of steps and onto the train, laughing and panting as the doors closed
right behind us. I got a quick look at his body as we bounded through the
door, his suit jacket flying up to reveal a slim build and a pretty butt.
His hair was spun gold and honey.

"Whoo!" he said between laughs, "That was a close one!"

"Yeah," I said getting my breath under control. "I can't believe how
close!" I looked down at him just as he looked up, and I saw all these
little sparkly points of light deep in his dark eyes, saw the look in his
soul that said he was happy and proud but alone, that he was waiting just
for me, and I swore to myself I'd never let him forget how much I
treasured whatever part of his life he chose to let me share . . .