Bruce Wagner - Still Holding

It took everything he had to concentrate on not coming.

• • •

EARLIER, HE GAVE Kit some pills, and now Tyrone sat with his charge while he nodded off. Ram Dass and his coterie were long gone.

Ty snorted some crystal and massaged the star’s shoulders, oiling the skin. Smooth and unmarred. He rubbed oil into the FOREVER VIV, lovingly polishing the varied tattooed heart, Pacific Northwest Indian, and Sanskrit motifs. He reached around and rubbed the flat-muscled, soft-haired belly; the one-time orderly began to perspire and yawningly hyperventilate. He moved a hand up to the flat tits, tenderly tracing a finger around the nipple. He tongued one, nervously looking around, even though he knew nobody was there and no one would enter. Kit gaped with sleepified incognizance. Ty rubbed the tense muscle-braids of the actor’s neck for just a moment, then gently turned him on his back, softly whispering, as if auditioning the words aloud to see if the void would answer: I love you, Kit. He tripped on how the phrase sounded when uttered in the presence of the devotional object itself, tripped on the astonished hyperreality of it. Whoa. Whoa. Moved his hand to the radiant bush of soap-scrubbed pubic hair. Said, louder this time, “Kit Lightfoot is my lover.” His heart almost popped from his chest when he touched the shaft. Whoa — nearly fainting as he stood, he needlessly ran to recheck the door, already locked. Light-headed and light of foot… Lightfoot is my man. Lightfoot is my man — worked off the pants, fastened onto cock with his mouth, his own already leaking, clear as spinocerebellar fluid. Looked up, still sucking, at the idol of his prostrations and good fortune, to see perchance to dream if Kit was reacting. Any old reaction would do. Perchance to ream. The supernova only stirred, mouth open, and that was more than enough. He imagined the actor to be in some faraway place — a summer place… sucked and sucked, gentle, gentle, sucking, kneading, poundingheart, vertiginous stabs of paranoia whenever hearing nonsounds, willing now to lose his job and do hard time for this fleshy succor, this godhead paradise. I deserve this. Whoa. A K-Y’d finger in the ass to get Kit hard elicited a fart. Worked two more fingers in. Still got the touch. In and out till it was easygoing, leisurely cupping and weighing the balls between reentries. Big-time fun. Slid his pants down. Fingers in Kit then same fingers inside his own anus. The superstar groaned, eyes still shut. Heart slammed against steel cage of Ty’s torso, graveyard shift foundry, thin black pink-spotted snake cock in hand. Too excited! — oh no. No no no — Kit was half-hard from Ty’s expert manipulations. Jacked him fiercely, it was almost over, better luck next time, wanted Kit to come, mouth on it now as he worked his fingers like a safecracker’s, turgid ticking cock, lock to catch and spring, whoas! out loud, no no no shit no as he pushed further and sucked on Kit while jacking himself and Alf can hold it no more and is thankful Viv senses that and urges him on — maybe, he thinks, she’s in pain or I’m doing it wrong, can’t work it like Kit, can’t do the real deal dillio, I’m an assfuck loser — but he’s grateful she’s urging cause the thing he hates most is when a girl says, “Don’t come,” that means she’s totally frigid and wants to drag it out forever, he’s slept with so many of them, but Viv can come, can she ever, one of the lucky ones, doesn’t have a problem in the vaginal departmento, this he already knew from Kit’s innuendoes and Alf says “Now? Now?”—he doesn’t want her to think that he has to or needs to or wants to even though all of the above are true — and she says “Yes,” so he instantly comes in that tight slick chute and it feels better to come in a pussy but the cool thing, the kink of it is, that he comes in her bowel, in a place whose chemical wretchedness kills babies, vilifies and degrades his sperm, and somehow that’s exciting, that she hereby consents to infernal degradation, such apostasy, adulterous and unadulterated, that is what makes him come so deeply while she arches beneath like an animal being killed until yes, Kit arches too, sharp coughy intake of breath, Ty’s four-fingered hand inside him while the other pulls Kit’s cock as he sucks and the star suddenly comes as Ty nudges the G-spot, the Motion Picture and Television Entertainment Liaison quickly bowing to suck the come, coming more himself without even needing to be touched or nudged, climaxing like a woman, immaculately, licking Kit’s shaft as it spunks Ty’s dark-backed palm-white hand, which has drifted to the tip, not wishing to miss a precious drop Viv is coming like she hadn’t with Kit in so long, Alf doesn’t know they used to talk about it more than the actual doing, mostly embedding fingers instead, and now she cries out and is crying too because she thinks of Kit and is getting off on the betrayal, a helpless whore who’d sell anyone or anything out, she would not even make the call to stop the WTC hijackers, she should have put the engagement ring on for this, further frisson, and though she knows that later she’ll feel badly, all those useless feelings of guilt, right now all she wants is to be evil, evil, supercallifragalistic axis of evil— please don’t let the coming stop —and she comes some more because she knows her new assistant is listening to the wolflike screams, in the entry hall or in gleaming $300,000 kitchen, sipping a diet Coke through a straw while taking it all in, the whole house reverbing with screams, CD juke shuffling to lame-ass Bright Eyes-Blur-Sheryl Crow, and she feels the warm narcotic glow of the Norco and the Klonopin, everything so perfect, she, still coming before plunging the white dick back into his mouth and it goes on, him doing cleanup with his tongue, it takes a few minutes like that to settle accounts and close the books, Tyrone like a runner slowly calms, he’s crossed the finish line now, walking aimlessly from the crowd until lungs and worldly locomotion are returned, remembering old History Channel kinescopes of Jessie Owens….

What a surprise.

I deserve this. (Viv.) I do, I do. I motherfuckin Queer Eye do. (Ty.)

Everyone came together.

Baby still got the touch

That was cool (Alf)

SIDD KITCHENER McCadden was now eight months old, and a regular at Peet’s Coffee on Montana. There were a lot of regulars at Peet’s, and Lisanne often wondered what those people did for a living aside from drinking tea and lattes. They probably wondered the same thing of her.

In the early morning, she left the baby in the care of a nanny and went jogging along the bluff. The regulars tended to congregate outside, even if it was freezing, and she would see them as she drove to Ocean Avenue. The ones who preferred to stay indoors had special places to sit that they guarded with their lives. When she came at about ten, after collecting her son, the clique was still remarkably intact. They oohed and aahed over “little Sidd” (they assumed he was a Sidney), but she didn’t make small talk. Lisanne held them in benign contempt, wondering which was the actor, model, stylist, which was the kept person or whatnot. Sometimes they appeared in absurd spandex cycling outfits; sometimes they celebrated each other’s birthdays with slices of cake which they tried to foist on whatever innocents had the misfortune to sit close by. They didn’t seem wealthy and no one was famous, although the rich and famous did pass through, like Meg Ryan and her son or Kate Capshaw in jodhpurs or Madeleine Stowe and her sweet husband, who looked like a short, stocky dentist. Everyone from local yoga came to Peet’s, and Lisanne held out hope she would see Marisa or Renée so she could strike up a conversation about the terrible thing that had happened to Kit. She didn’t think that would be inappropriate, but they never showed.