“Someone told us you were here. Man, you’re hard to find. We’ve been in every bar on Castro looking for you. Anyway, I’m Drew. I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“Hey, I like your voice. Sounds butch. We looked up this other guy you fucked once, that hair burner, Dan something, and he had a voice like Minnie Mouse. Couldn’t use him, but we didn’t tell him that, just said we’d be in touch. But you sound great, which means we can use you. We’re making a feature porn movie with sound. More money and more publicity. Whaddaya say?”
“Okay. When, where and who do I fuck?”
“Me. We’ll do two shoots on different days and splice them together, make it look like you shot two big loads.”
“Cool. But two fucks means I get paid for two scenes, right?”
“Yeah, well we can negotiate the details. The important thing is you’re on board, right? What’s your name, your real name I mean?”
“Randy. Let’s have a drink on it.”
The Famous Porn Star had been right. Randy’s transition to sound increased both his fame and his fortune. His fee was double the going rate, the price of his growing celebrity. He wondered if he were really the object of so many hushed conversations, whispered giggles and sideway glances that paused when he passed, or if he was being egotistical or paranoid, not sure which would be worse.
“There he is.”
“Omigod it’s real. Look at the fucking basket.”
“And he’s tall, too. Not like those other guys who just look hung ’cause they’re short.”
“Shit, how does he squeeze into those Levi’s? Those jeans need a third leg or something.”
“Nice ass, too. I wonder if he gets fucked?”
Randy loved to get fucked, loved the feeling of a big cock in his prone and waiting hole. He loved the intensity of another man sweating like a horse, reaching his climax and spewing sperm deep inside him. He loved the urgency that came with being fucked, loved the sense of contentment that followed the injection of semen into his bloodstream. But Bottoms Weren’t Stars, and Big-Dicked Bottoms were the bane of a community where chickens far outnumbered roosters. Any suggestion that he give up his ass for payment was met with the same speech:
“I don’t know, man, I’m not really into that. I dunno, maybe, but it’ll cost ya. And you can’t tell anyone you fucked me.”
No matter the size of the assaulting member, or the violence it asserted, the monologue remained the same:
“Fuck, that hurts! Damn, you got a big dick. You’re tearing me apart.”
Though sworn to secrecy, the men that had the pleasure of Randy’s ass were quick to share the details of their expensive conquest. Eventually word got around that, for a price, Randy’s backdoor was accessible, but the price increased each time he was fucked because:
“I don’t really like getting fucked, you know? It hurts too damn much. Especially with a hung stud like you.”
Movie followed movie. He posed naked for Mandate, Blueboy and Torso, dick arching to heaven or hanging half hard. He smiled his winning smile, his eyes sparkling, head bent slightly to one side. But despite his continued popularity, Randy sensed that moustached, shaggy-haired men would soon be out of style; he kept his job at the Neon Chicken.
Seeing one of his movies on a home video, Randy sensed a milestone had been passed, the old medium succumbing to the new, and just as not all of Hollywood’s silent film stars were able to make the transition to talkies, neither would many of the established porn stars move seamlessly to video—a far more brutal media than celluloid. It was then that the Porn Mogul appeared, the new proprietor of an old studio that had bought the rights to what were now known as Ben Bohner’s Classics. The success of Ben’s early work in the new medium meant renewed interest in Randy.
“I got this great idea, see? I’ll get me a stable of the really popular guys from the old super-eights and sign them to Exclusive Contracts!”
“Like Hollywood?”
“Sure, whatever. So you sign with me and I give you a little something just for signing. And it’s a contract so I have to use you for so many videos a year, see? So you get some guaranteed work and I get a roster of stars that’ll make the other guys weep!”
“Sounds like a great idea. Just so you know, though, my price has gone up. A lot.”
“Not a problem, Benny. I got investors ready to make some money!”
“When do we start work?”
“Soon. Just one thing, though.”
“Yeah.”
“I get to swing on your knob sometimes. Kinda of a perk of being the boss, see?”
“Sure, man. After you pay me.”
“Not to worry. We’re riding the wave and we’re riding high!”
Almost overnight, the world changed. Sex was no longer a commodity but something feared. Semen was now toxic and pleasure had consequences. Whispered rumors, shame-filled eyes, gallows humor and desperate laughter were the new norm. Spontaneity died and all pleasure was suspect. Once stars, the sluts that had proudly peopled the City became pariahs irrationally blamed for not having foreseen the plague.
A pall hung over the Castro, a heavy black veil blotting out the joy that had filled their lives. The streets, once full of foot traffic every night, were empty. One by one, businesses closed, either because they were unable to succeed with diminishing foot traffic, or because the entrepreneur had died intestate. One could only fuck within restraints that felt unbearable to the initiated but were quickly adopted by the succeeding generation.
Among the first wave of deaths was the Porn Mogul. His silent partner took over and made vast sums of money by anticipating both an increased consumption of porn and a shift in popular tastes. Moustached and bearded men with hairy chests disappeared from the skin magazines to be quickly replaced by skinny boys touted as “Healthy Men.” Then they were replaced by buffed but shaven men with boyish faces and pouting lips. Randy watched the need for porn increase even as his own ability to get work within the medium waned with every video he made. Men with maturity (which is to say men over thirty) and experience were no longer a part of the iconography, buried under the avalanche of shaven chests and genitalia. When the Neon Chicken closed its doors on Eighteenth, and with his options fewer than ever, Randy consented to be kept by a wealthy man living in a modern monstrosity in the Oakland Hills. Randy left the city that had nurtured him, feeling like an exile from the home he had loved, fearing that Oakland would be his Colonus.
“He left me how much?”
“Enough to live on comfortably. You must have made him very happy.”
“I sure as hell tried.”
“Funny. I always thought Wayne was a top.”
“He was. Mostly. And super hung. There weren’t a lot of guys who could handle that much meat.”
“But you could?”
“Hell, yeah!”
“But your image… I always thought you were a top, too.”
“Versatile, but don’t tell anyone. It‘d ruin my image.”
“You know, I always thought you’d look good in leather…”