“So you wouldn’t give one an eight and the other a nine? Like on a scale of ten?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“He’s a bottom? The kid? The bellboy?”
“I’d say he’s versatile.”
“You fuck him and he fucks you.”
“That’s pretty much how it works, yeah.”
“What’s his dick like?”
“It’s really huge actually. Too big for it to be comfortable. He likes to top more, but I just can’t do that all the time.”
“Of course he has a giant dick. And let me guess, he’s straight.”
Malcolm laughed. “Goes home to his girlfriend every night.”
“All you guys are the same.”
“You mean all us guys, right, Mr. Arcade? Anyway, don’t be jealous. You know I’m going to be home visiting in a couple of weeks. We could meet for a beer or something.”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t stack up after your experiences with the bellboy.”
“Well, he’s a lot less jaded than you, but I still think you’re handsomer.”
“You’ve never even seen my face.”
“Yeah, but I have a feeling about you.”
“So corny.”
“You’re never going to meet me, are you?”
“I might.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I should probably let you go. You’re probably expecting the bellboy any minute.”
“Ethan is going to a movie with his parents and his girlfriend tonight.”
“Gag.”
“I know. But it’s kind of adorable, right?”
64
A BIG BULL OF A MAN APPEARED AT THE ARCADE. HE LOOKED like a teenager’s stepdad, the kind who would never be ripped off by a mechanic or intimidated by pretty much anything or anyone. He strutted up and down the aisles wearing khaki pants with an XL polo stretched over his chest. In the store, he picked up DVD covers and considered them. He looked like a straight guy killing time while his lawnmower blades were being sharpened. But eventually he went to the counter and bought a handful of tokens.
It wasn’t long before he caught on with the other men at the arcade. He wasn’t good-looking — or not in the Cary Grant sense, which is what I always think people mean when they ask me if someone’s good-looking. I think of Cary Grant. Or George Clooney. If the person I’m describing doesn’t resemble one of those people, when someone asks me “Is he good-looking?” I always say no. So he wasn’t good-looking like that, but he was good-looking to me. I was among a small group of men stalking him while trying to play it cool. He wouldn’t acknowledge any of us. No one could draw more than a momentary glance from him. He went into a booth and locked the door. Everyone tried it one after the other, thinking that like The Sword in the Stone, the Chosen One might be able to do that which had been impossible before. Then the bull came out of the booth and walked around again. None of us could rest as long as he was out there.
It was always like that. No one wanted to settle down until he was certain he’d found the best he was going to get. It was perfectly acceptable to say to someone, “I just got here. I don’t want to come yet.” It was perfectly acceptable to say that you were going to walk around and see who else was there. That’s why it felt so good when a guy bought his tokens and then came straight to you without reviewing the options. He knew you were exactly what he wanted.
But then it also felt good when someone had made the rounds and seen all the possibilities and then came back and found you. Which explains the burst of pride I felt when the bull lowered his head in my direction and indicated the door to a particular booth. It was as if he was the coach, who, after surveying all his players on the bench, selected me as the one best equipped for the job.
He went into the booth first, and I followed behind him a moment later. He faced the screen with his back to me. I let him get a look at me before I locked the door. I wanted there to be no mistaking the situation. He turned around after a second and lifted his chin in a gesture of recognition. As I turned to engage the lock, another man slipped into the booth with us. I had noticed him outside. He, too, had been pursuing the bull, though his advances had been absolutely devoid of style. He was furtive, awkward, and creepy. He was at least twenty years older than me.
“Get out,” I whispered to him.
He pressed himself against the wall and shook his head, an eerie grin fixed on his face. The bull didn’t see what was going on behind him or hear over the volume of the porn flick he’d selected.
“Get out,” I said again, but the man didn’t move.
I got the attention of the bull by tapping his shoulder. “He won’t leave,” I said, pointing to the man behind us.
The bull behaved exactly as you would expect. He turned and looked at the guy. He didn’t waste a syllable. “Out,” he said, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder. The sneak, given no choice, exited, and I quickly locked the door behind him.
I joined the bull. We stood side-by-side watching the video. We both undid our pants. I looked at him and he looked at the screen. I reached over and took hold of him. He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. He didn’t touch me. He watched the screen. “Yeah,” he repeated, as I got to know him down there, tugging lightly.
“Now suck it,” he said.
I hadn’t even had time to say, “I don’t do that much out here” or to confirm and reconfirm his disease-free status.
I thought about trying it out on him, but I knew it would be the end of things. There wasn’t going to be the shared time in the booth together touching and playing, watching one another and getting excited, possibly even climaxing together, possibly even at the same time, or roughly the same time.
I bent down and tried to get a look at it in the dim light to see if it was covered in sores or scars or unusual bumps or ridges. It seemed normal, from what I could tell. I opened my mouth and put it in. He was silent. I sucked for a minute or two. He put his hand on my head and was mostly quiet. Occasionally, he reached over my head to adjust the volume of the video or scroll through the available options when he got bored with what was happening on screen.
I took him out of my mouth and looked at his face. I stood up and jerked him, looking at the screen and wondering what would happen next, wondering if it was my turn. He looked at me, and I could tell he was going to say something. I thought it would probably be something really nice. Guys had already said a lot of nice things to me out there. It might have been the real reason I went out there at all, to hear all the nice things guys had to say when they got you alone, when they earned their shot in a booth with you.
“You gonna suck it or what?” he said.
For a second I imagined he must be joking, but I saw just as quickly that this was not a person who made ironic jokes in which he pretended to be an insensitive jerk as a way of breaking the ice. I could imagine that scenario. I could imagine connecting with someone intelligent and funny who could acknowledge the strangeness of our situation — who might look down and see that I was a person too, and within me a complex world of memories and feelings and pleasures and fears — and say, in a joking way, “You gonna suck it or what?”
But that wasn’t this guy. This guy didn’t make ironic jokes. More likely, he made racist or sexist jokes.
I didn’t say anything else. I put myself away and left. Just outside waited the man who had refused to leave the booth. He slinked in like an insect before the door could swing shut on its springs, and I heard the door lock behind him.
65