Guide, p.3
Guide, page 3
“Yeah, fuck him.” Now that Chris mentioned it, there was this junkie-esque weight to his voice. It sort of dragged through his words, like it couldn’t be bothered with what he was thinking.
“So you’re a junkie.”
He gave me a quizzical squint, which he almost immediately wiped. “Off and on,” he said. Then his face kind of … sturdied, in pride, I think. “I make porns.” He sniffled. “Star in them. Or I used to.”
“Really?” I’d been inching his way. “Any chance of seeing them?”
From the way his eyes changed, he’d picked up on my interest. They warmed, which sort of normalized his features. I mean, to me he was already perfect. But to most of my friends, he was only okay. I guess you either fetishize fucked-up young guys or you don’t. Anyway, he brightened. Really, it was as if someone had just cleaned a century of grime off some masterpiece.
Chris was scanning the store’s wildly postered decor. “Okay, what are you doing now?” And his eyes flashed at mine. They were definitely warm.
“Now’s fine.”
“Because I have this idea.” He leaned very close. “Check this out.” His breath smelled sweet but kind of ugly, like incense. “Give me some money for dope,” he said, “and we can watch porn all night, if you want.” He grinned sweetly. “I get really, really friendly when I’m high. Sometimes I shock myself.”
“Deal.” I fished out my wallet and emptied the contents. Three twenties. They flapped on the counter.
Chris snickered. “A man on a mission,” he said. He picked up the bills and smashed them into one pocket.
I reached for his ass. I mean, all of a sudden, like I was grabbing the wheel of a runaway car. That’s not my usual style, but I guess I was really caught up. Junkies are sort of unreal in a way. Every signal’s so faint. You could hunt through their features forever and never see one fucking trace of your presence. So you might as well act all self-focused yourself. Because junkies respect other narcissists. Or that’s my experience.
Chris laughed, muttered something I couldn’t quite hear. “I’ll go score,” he added. “Meet me at my place in an hour.”
“You live in the Fontenoy, right?” Chris’s ass was so flimsy it seemed to deflate in my hands. I could feel the small, ornate arch-way of his hipbones. I might as well have been polishing them with a very soft rag.
Chris stiffened slightly and eased his lower body from the puzzle of my grip. “Yeah. Number eight,” he said. I guess my caresses were too complicated or whatever. I’ve been told that before.
I shoved my hands into my pockets.
“The buzzer doesn’t work.” Chris backed toward the shelves where the store kept special orders, box sets, et cetera. He misjudged the distance and smacked into one of the rows with his ass, knocking things loose. A few CDs clacked to the floor.
“I understand.”
“Uh … see you soon, then.” He made a one-eighty turn and started straightening up.
I left the store and drove around for a while, killing time, dreaming up sex acts. Chris was flotsam, period, every enterable point on his body wide open. When I fantasize about sex, it tends to look like a fire, or like a big pack of shuffling cards, my desires are so furious. Inside that blur, which even I can’t completely transgress, it’s impossible to tell if I’m worshiping some guy or torturing him. Probably both.
†
“Hey!” I was squinting down a long, narrow, badly lit hallway with nothing on its walls. “You there?”
Chris materialized. He’d switched into a toddler-size T-shirt and loose jeans which rested so low on his pale, bony hips that an inch of pubes smoked from his belt buckle. “Yeah, hi,” he said.
“How’s it going?”
“Better.” He shook my hand limply. “In the kitchen. Straight ahead.”
Two seconds later, things lit up around us. Once upon a time, the room had been 50’s-ish cool, with hysterically patterned wallpaper and dozens of knicknack shelves, now spiderwebby and littered with matchbooks. The furniture, counters, dirty dishes, were polka-dotted with roaches, apparently frozen in shock.
“Want a bit of the dope?”
The roaches sprayed into various cracks.
“No, thanks.”
Chris opened the fridge, bent way over, and reached deep inside, moving bottles and beer cans around. The back of his T-shirt raised up, exposing a glary patch of skin, much of it ass. Most of my friends are into pumped, boxy asses. But I like them near-nonexistent. Junkies’ asses are perfect, partly because they’re so scrawny and, at the same time, being so constipated, such weird treasure chests.
I sat at the table and lit a cigarette, pulling a food-caked plate close as my ashtray. Desire was undoing me.
Chris sat down across from me, organizing his dope, works, spoon, bleach, lighter, cotton balls, into a rough semicircle. Cooking his shot, he’d glance up on occasion and smile, gritty-eyed, anticipating the heroin’s rush, I guess.
“You know, I’m not that great in bed,” he said, hunting a vein. “I’m easy, though. That’s the best part. Hey.” He found a spot, slid in the needle.
“Don’t you tie your arm?” I asked.
“Old wives’ tale.” Then his eyes batted. “Whoa. Nice.” He eased out the emptied syringe. Within seconds, his blank, sort of Swedishy features had morphed into a sunken-eyed, pointy-chinned gargoyle’s.
“You all right?”
“Definitely,” said his voice.
I spent about a half minute studying him. He looked like a corpse. Like he didn’t belong to this world anymore. Calmer and much more together, I mean.
“What are you … experiencing?” I tried.
“Oh, it’s nice,” he mumbled. “Give me a second.” He almost smiled, I think.
Chris’s kitchen held very few clues about him. It looked sporadically used, and smelled very faintly of rotten food, period, which just meant the fucker was semi-disorganized—like all youngish guys, basically.
I heard a crash, squeak.
“Uh … we should do this.” Chris had teetered away from his chair. He entered the hall, staggering, bumping into walls, hunched over like an elderly man.
“Hey, hold on a second.”
When we got to the … living room, he headed straight for the TV, pushed POWER, and crashed to the floor, nodding out as a beautiful image defogged in its rectangle. “One … second,” he whispered.
†
On TV, a slightly too beautiful child—male, I think—eyed the mouth of a cave. The volume was down, but I suspect there was a dangerous sound track. He stepped inside, cocked his head, cringed, then took another few steps. Suddenly there was a shift in perspectives. I was inside the cave, looking back at the child. He was edging my way. Then something human-esque rose up between us and blocked him out.
“Some of these go way back,” Chris said. He fed the VCR. “So don’t be shocked.”
The TV screen held an antique-looking image, two small boys walking hand in hand down a crooked dirt road.
“Jesus, how old were you here?” I squinted through the multi-multi-copied tape’s yellowy fog. The boy on the left was unquestionably Chris, albeit blonder, scaled down, and a bit cutesy-wootsy.
“Eleven.” He landed midfloor, cross-legged, not far from the TV. “Can you see?” he asked, dragging himself a foot or so to the right.
In the video, Chris and friend stroll for a while. The road is muddy and lined on both sides by scruffy little pines. Chris wears black shorts, a tight yellow T-shirt, knee socks, and white Nikes. He has a rolled-up sleeping bag gripped in one hand. The other boy is wearing a huge purple T-shirt and baggy blue jeans. He’s Hispanic, a foot or so taller than Chris, and, oh, twelve, thirteen?
“What’s the other boy’s story?” I asked, pointing.
“I’m not sure,” Chris said. “Some kid. Nice enough and everything.”
“Were you into him?”
“Oh, uh … I guess.”
The Hispanic was cute, but he paled next to Chris, who was totally exquisite the way some kids are. “Well, you’re obviously the star here.”
“I was pretty cool, wasn’t I?”
“Definitely.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
The children enter a clearing. Chris unrolls the sleeping bag. The Hispanic boy strips. He has a slim, athletic body, immense genitals, and a violent tan line. Chris is smoothing the bag, oblivious, when the other boy sneaks up behind him and yanks off his T-shirt. They collapse on the bag, kissing furiously, with Chris’s pale, ribby back to the camera.
“Were you actually kissing?” I asked.
“Sure, man.” Chris looked over his shoulder, studying me, eyes pinched in … confusion, I think. “People used to be into me.”
“They still are,” I said, fixing my eyes on the screen.
“Yeah?” said Chris’s voice almost shyly.
I couldn’t risk meeting his gaze for some reason. I sort of hate it when things get too obvious. “Yep.” And I cleared my throat.
The children are nude. The Hispanic boy is sprawled on his back. Chris is up on all fours, straddling him in the opposite direction. He’s kissing the head of that oversize dick. The Hispanic boy is yanking on Chris’s. It’s minuscule. Occasionally he raises up slightly and gives it a doggy lick. Whenever this happens, Chris tenses and throws back his head.
†
“Felt good?”
“What do you think?” Chris’s shoulders just slumped. “It’s all coming back.” He shook his head.
I’d sprung another hard-on. It was cramped painfully within a fold of my jeans. So I unsnapped, unzipped them, and slid it out into the open. But that action made more noise than I had expected.
Chris turned, blinked. “You gonna put that in me?” he asked —jokily, I think. Then his eyes jetted sideways, rejoining the video.
“To say the least.”
Chris’s face gravitated toward the TV, whose ugly light blasted it. “So what are you into again?” he asked, blinking. “Not that I care.”
“Asses,” I said, stroking myself to make blatancy easier. “You know, sort of doing your ass in every possible way, if … you don’t mind. I mean, safely, of course.”
Chris shook his head. “Anything’s okay if I’m fucked up enough.”
The Hispanic boy holds Chris’s ass crack wide open and grins at the camera. Off in the less-focused distance, Chris’s bobbing head gives him a blow job. One of the Hispanic boy’s fingertips tests the springiness of Chris’s asshole, then sinks to the knuckle. The hand looks gigantic, Chris’s ass sort of doll-size in contrast. When the finger withdraws, the hole unfurls.
I could sense my face flushing. “So … how did you … uh, how did this … feel?”
“It felt good,” Chris said.
“How … experienced were you?” I was beginning to zone. In my daydream, Chris’s adolescent ass was an inch from my face.
Chris’s head turned again, really twisting his neck. His eyes were slits, like little brush strokes. “Why? Don’t I look like I know what I’m doing?”
“Sure, no, that’s not what I meant, but—”
On TV, things changed with a bright flash of hazed-over color. The children had shifted locales to a bedroom and were speedily undressing again.
“What’s this …?”
“A man’s coming in,” Chris said. “I think he’s supposed to be what’s-his-name’s father. I never could figure that out.”
The children lie on a double bed, kissing. The door opens a crack. A balding Hispanic man, maybe fifty, peers in, spots the children, and grins. He enters, walks straight to the bed, and separates them. The Hispanic boy skitters away. The man grabs Chris’s arm, pins him down on the bed, and licks his ass for a while. At one point the man raises up, says a few words, and laughs.
“I’m sure you don’t remember what he said.”
“No, I do,” Chris said. “He said … I remember this perfectly … he said, ‘You’re like cream in the shape of a boy.’” Then Chris quarter-turned, eyed me, arched an eyebrow, and cracked up. In so doing, his face just … flew open. Teeth, gums, tongue, completely visible. To be honest, it didn’t do his features any favors.
“How’d you respond?”
“Oh … I thought it was nice, I think. Didn’t I?” He quit laughing and scrunched up his face. That looked better. “Yeah, sure.”
“You didn’t think he was gross?”
“No, uh … I just wanted him to like me.”
“Did the camera bug you?”
“Sometimes. Like this shit.” He waved at the TV. “Being rimmed was fucked up.”
“Were you turned on at all?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Hm.” I squinted at Chris’s fuzzy little face, and, yeah, it did look sort of pleased as opposed to transported.
“It’s weird,” Chris said, watching his younger self. “With heroin, I’m sort of back in that kid state again. Because you can’t come. That’s why hustling’s okay. It just means that people like you.” His eyes glazed a bit. “Do you have a boyfriend?” He turned, studying me, though it didn’t appear that he could see very much.
“No.” I really must have liked him to say that.
The Hispanic boy is sidelined, calmly smoking a joint. The man, who’s in a wild sixty-nine pose with Chris, reaches over and finger-fucks him to be nice or whatever. The man’s face is wedged between Chris’s splayed legs, which are spasming a little. Chris is blowing the man as best he can given the vastness of the dick and the puniness of his mouth.
“This is intense,” I said, stroking myself at a fast yet safe clip.
“Yeah,” Chris mumbled. “I can see that. But I was starting to wish it was over. Because the man got too … something.”
I squinted at the TV. Little Chris seemed “into it,” period. “You can’t tell,” I said.
“I didn’t want anyone to know.”
The video cut to a new pose. Chris was lying flat on his back. The Hispanic boy had sat down on his face. The man finger-fucked Chris. Chris was holding one of his legs in the air, presumably so future viewers could see where the finger and asshole connected.
“I know this looks hot,” Chris said. “I mean, it’s exciting me, too.” He twisted around, raised one knee, so I could see a dinky hard-on engraved in his jeans leg. “But I was really, really ready for it to be over.”
Chris rims the Hispanic boy. His eyes are dilated and blinking. After what he’d just said, I could see he was miserable. Still, I’m almost sure that if I’d been watching the porn by myself, sans commentary, I would have been thinking, So this is how ten-year-olds register ecstasy. It’s strange how ambiguous everything is, especially children, who just seem like gods when you don’t have to deal with them personally.
“Did they pay you?” I asked, trying to sound more concerned than I was. Honestly, I just felt delirious and anxious to fuck him.
“Yeah,” he said. “And they gave me some pot.”
“So … I was thinking that … maybe we could … sort of … go ahead?”
Chris glanced back at me, slightly freaked out, I think. “Okay, but there are three videos left.” And he made a stupid face which I guess was defensive.
“I mean, during them. If that’s not too uncomfortable for you.”
“No, I guess not. But I need another shot first. Wait here.” Chris rose shakily to his feet and veered out of the room. A few seconds later, he yelled, presumably from the kitchen, “Do you mind if I’m really fucked up? I’ll still do what you want.”
“Fine,” I yelled back.
“Thanks!” I could hear the metallic and scratch-scratching sounds of a shot being readied. “It’ll be … easier.”
The Hispanic boy is gone. Chris is being fucked by the man. The man’s eyes are locked on Chris’s face, which looks a bit too transported to be on a child. On second thought, maybe he’s sort of relieved, since the show’s almost over. After thirty, thirty-five seconds, the man yanks out his hard-on. He leans over, fastens his mouth to little Chris’s, and comes. Then the visual darkens.
“Hey,” I yelled, aiming my voice through the door, down the hall. “You okay?”
Out of the kitchen’s slight humming, a very smeared voice, almost unrecognizable, more like a texture, said, “Yeah … I’ll be … there in a … minute.”
The TV screen blued.
I stood, stretched, and toured the room. Barren walls, thrift-store furniture. By far the most curious, least dusty spot held a smallish bookcase stuffed with kids’ storybooks. You know, with those hard, shiny, cartoony covers. I was wondering which one to yank and inspect when a colored light flashed in my peripheral vision.
“Chris!” I listened. “It’s starting!”
In the video, Chris, maybe a year or two older, lounges next to a pool wearing small, tight swim trunks. A slightly older boy, around thirteen or so, with a crew cut and skateboarder clothes, tiptoes up with a beer, which he pours over Chris’s head. They yell back and forth. Then Chris drags the boy down to the towel and unzips his pants. Chris reaches inside, and they French-kiss.
“Chris,” I repeated. “Get your ass in here.”
I didn’t hear shit. So I took a little trip down the hall. “Oh, Chr-i-i-is.”
He was sitting at the table. It was strewn with the same— maybe dirtier—paraphernalia. His eyelids were three-quarters shut, and his mouth was so ajar that his jaw seemed to swing back and forth in a draft.
“Wake up,” I said. “Sex time.”
“What?” Chris opened his eyes. He was grimacing, I think. “Then, uh … help me, all right?” He held out a very limp, dangly arm. “Because I can’t … I’m, uh … too high.”
I raised Chris to his feet and steadied him with a hug. That felt so sweet that I maintained it awhile, absorbing the pokes of his pointy bones, his low body heat, and the long-unwashed smell of his hair. But he kept getting heavier and heavier. So I renegotiated our hug and started walking him back to the living room.
Sometimes, when I’m fucking a guy, I want to wind him up, freak him out, make him writhe. Sometimes, I want to do the exact opposite. And with Chris, it was the latter. I wanted him finite, by which I guess I mean dead. But I’m not an evil man, so I did what I do, i.e., hit on a compromise. Chris nodded out, and I explored him as intricately as I could with my tongue, dick, and fingers, and daydreamed insanely until he was gore.
