Scott Sherman: First You Fall

Eight o’clock on a hot and humid summer night in The Astor, a pricey hotel on New York’s Central Park West. The paintings were original oils, the furniture heavy mahogany, and the sheets had a thread count three times higher than my hourly rate.

Not that I’d gotten to sample them.

Wel, not this time at least.

A strange hotel room with a stranger. So far, it was a pretty usual night for me. I figured I’d finish up work, stop off at home to change, and then meet my friend Freddy at a club.

What I didn’t know was that before the night was over I’d be embraced by a homeless woman, I’d ignore a cal I real y shouldn’t have, that a man I loved would turn up dead, and that a man I considered dead would come back to life.

Now, those things were unusual.

They were also just the start…

The room smel ed like expensive soap, probably because I just used so much of it. The air conditioning was too cold on my naked body, but, in my line of work, I’ve put up with worse.

“So, Kevin,” my client, asked, sitting in an overstuffed easy chair and watching me get dressed, “what’s a nice boy like you doing in a business like this?”

It wasn’t the first time I’ve been asked that question. OK, it wasn’t the hundredth, either. But when you’re twenty-three years old, clean-cut, and reasonably intel igent, people are always surprised to discover you’re a male prostitute.

Why, my client wondered, would a guy like me make his living like this? Wel, you’d think the three hundred dol ars he paid just to watch me take a shower would have given him a clue.

“I’m a people person,” I told him, pul ing on my underwear. “And al the jobs at the Gap were fil ed.”

My client chuckled. I had forgotten his name, but he was an out-of-towner, and this would probably be the only time we got together. Local clients often want to see you more than once, but travelers like a new guy every time.

“I enjoyed watching you,” he said. I figured as much when he shot a load so hard that, even over the roar of the shower, I could hear it hit the shower door. I wouldn’t have thought such vandalism would be acceptable in a hotel like the Astor.

“You’re real y cute,” he said.

I get “cute” a lot. At five foot three and one hundred twenty-five pounds, with blond hair that I keep short on the sides and floppy on the top, it’s hard to be cal ed anything else. My face fits the bil, too, with a slightly broad nose, thick lips, and cheeks that turn red at the slightest chil or embarrassment.

Rent boys have to keep fit, so I work out four times a week. Luckily, I have a fast metabolism, so I can pretty much eat what I want. Years of high school gymnastics have made me limber and strong.

I also have a nice dick. It’s not huge-just an inch or two above the American average-but on a little guy like me, it’s impressive.

The whole thing makes a nice package. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but in my line of business, you have to know your product. I work at my looks because they’re my living. My body is nice, but that’s because I exercise to maintain it. I keep my hair long in front because it’s such a good flirting aid.

I’m the archetypal little brother, the boy next door, Dennis the Menace al grown up and gone gay. I’m, wel, cute, and that’s what sel s the tickets.

“Thanks,” I told my client. Gary? Larry? Something like that.

“So, real y,” he asked, “how did you get into this?”

I figured I’d never see this guy again, so why be coy?

Dressed now in baggy Abercrombie cargo shorts and a tight CK T-shirt, I sat on his lap.

Guys love it when I sit in their lap.

“It’s not that interesting a story,” I said. “I was a sophomore in col ege and went to a bar. This incredible looking guy came up and asked me to dance. I wound up going back to his place and the next morning, he says ‘You’re real y cute, and a great lay. I know a way you can get paid for both.’

“Then, he told me about Mrs. Cherry-you know, the guy you talked to on the phone?”

“Mrs. Cherry’s a guy?” my client asked.

“Yeah, a drag queen. Or a transvestite. I’m not sure which. Anyway, I was a psychology major at the time, with a minor in English. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school, but I couldn’t afford it. And psychology majors aren’t general y big money-makers.

“So, I cal ed Mrs. Cherry, went for an audition, and, wel, here I am.

My client tousled my hair. Yeah, I get a lot of that.

“Do you like your work?” he asked.

This could be a tricky question. Some tricks get off on your not liking it-they want to feel like they’re defiling you or something. But, you can usual y tel those guys right off the bat. They’re creepy in other ways, too. This guy seemed normal.

“Yeah, I do. I’ve been fooling around with guys since I was fifteen years old. Mrs. Cherry handles the business end of things real y wel — everyone is referred by someone she knows or by a former client. That makes it pretty safe. It’s not like I’m walking the streets or anything. So, yeah, I like it.”

“Yes, but doesn’t your, um, work make it hard to have a regular relationship?”

The truth was, I didn’t want a regular relationship.

The last time I was in love was with Tony Rinaldi. I was sixteen, he was nineteen. I knew it was love because of that squishy feeling I got in my stomach whenever I saw him in the neighborhood, playing stickbal or hanging with my older sister. I had been watching him for years, getting close just to breathe in the way he smel ed in the summer, green and fresh like newly mowed grass. Tony was six feet of smooth Italian pony boy deliciousness, lanky muscles, dark eyes, and ebony hair that he wore in a sleek Caesar.

When I final y seduced him, it was like fireworks and Ecstasy and the best ice cream sundae of your life, al mashed together. We spent two months screwing everywhere we could. Tony’s kisses were so ravenous it was as if he was trying to inhale me.

He did everything in bed. He even let me fuck him (although only once, claiming that for such a little fel ow, I sure could hurt a guy).

It was after that when, sticky with sex and sweat, he pul ed me close and told me that he loved me. I had known for a while, but it was stil the greatest thing I’d ever heard.

It was also the first time he cal ed me “Kevvy,” a nickname no one else had ever cal ed me. It was almost as good as when he said he loved me.

Two weeks later, I came home to an e-mail that stopped my heart. “It has to be over between us. I’m going to col ege this fal, and I think it’s best we don’t see each other again. I hope someday we can be friends. Just friends. Take care. Your friend, Tony.”

Had that e-mail contained the word “friend” one more time, I would have printed it out and used the paper to set his house on fire.

Since then, fal ing in love hasn’t real y been my thing. I didn’t need any more squishy stomachs, thank you. I had friends, friends with privileges, and tricks. Maybe I’d love again someday, but I didn’t need romantic love to make me feel complete.

Of course I didn’t go into al this with some guy whose name I couldn’t even recal. “I’m real y concentrating on getting into a graduate school, and on my volunteer work,” I told him. “I also help out at the local AIDS meal charity.” Both of these statements were not only true, but they were the kind of things that make clients give you bigger tips.

Clients like when you spend extra time like this talking after the shooting is over. It’s rude to fuck and run. No one wants to feel hustled-even by a hustler.