Rent - part 1 Copyright C.J. Davies
Standard disclaimer - don't read if you're under 18, easily upset or have problems (serious or minor) with gay-themed erotic stories. If your country/area of residence says this is naughty and illegal, well, I'm afraid I don't have a "get out of jail free" card you could use. Please, use your common sense. This, the first part of my story, sets an example of the safest sex around - there's no sex at all - but future parts will have some and, although characters may or may not use protection, you should. Not that you're foolish enough to eschew condoms merely because fictional characters don't use them, are you.
This story, or any part of it, may not be copied, re-edited, sold, or molested in any way without my saying it's okay. I have specially trained winged-monkeys that are right now watching you, and they're authorised to attack should they see you disobeying this. They have sharp teeth, those monkeys. Re-posting is okay, as long as you leave this preamble in place and full credit is given where it's due. Any comments, criticisms or offers of gifts and/or sexual favours may be made to vindacatrix@ntlworld.com
If you fancy reading some more of what I've written (it's slightly less porny, I ought to warn you), you're welcome to check out my site www.plenaryindulgence.co.uk
Chris
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There are excuses for every indulgence. Porsche buyers claim an engineer's appreciation of fine machinery. Vintage wine drinkers talk up their delicate palate and discerning nose. Sometimes the excuses are more topical, like the overweight scapegoating their metabolisms and the demonic golden double- arch. Quite often there's a moral quotient, and we name-check freedom of choice as justification for indulging our more basic of urges; to fight and to force and to fuck. The man caught paying a prostitute points to the currency involved in dating a woman, in taking her to dinner and buying her jewellery and flowers. All the things that oil the way to the bedroom.
I never thought my first time would be with someone whose attentions I paid for. At school, online, with friends, we laughed about the foul, overweight old men who sidled up to gaudily- dressed hookers and slipped them creased bills for a few minutes of jerking, spluttering release. These were men we could point to and label, the amoral dross who couldn't get a date and wouldn't, however much cleaning up they might do, ever amount to more than a grubby raincoat and rheumy, shifty eyes. And whilst I'm no Orlando Bloom or Justin Timberlake, I've had enough grudgingly-accepted compliments to reassure me that I'm not utterly hideous to look at. Being gay (or, as my parents chose to see it, "electing to be" gay) cut me out of the heterosexual race to lose my virginity before legally allowed; it was okay at eighteen to be untouched, acceptable at twenty to remain unbroken, but, with three days to go until my twenty-fourth birthday, I was beginning to feel the same worldly censure for not yet having gone 'all the way'. My friends, ever exasperated at me and my perpetual singledom, by turns cajoled and berated: I ought to go out more, I ought to meet more gay men, I ought to start dating. And whilst my protests - that I didn't feel the need to bend over in order to prove my sexuality, that I didn't need to go clubbing each weekend in order to have fun, and that I didn't want a boyfriend to salve whatever fears of loneliness I was expected to have - served to placate them through the teen years and just beyond, they were rapidly losing their charm. For them, my bedroom innocence was a dated shackle to adolescence that I'd be better to cast off; for me, sex had become something tangibly forbidding, the final frontier of intimacy that I could not imagine broaching with anyone I had any semblance of feelings for. True I had kissed and sucked, and been kissed and sucked in return, but the leap from them to anal felt far broader than the simple 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th base scale my friends had adopted.
Ironically, it's not as though I consider my ass off-limits. I'm well aware - through toys and digits - of the pleasure it can create, and the gilding it can offer to such mundanities as masturbation. If I were active, I would consider myself versatile bordering on passive; the metaphor of the 'hungry ass' is so cliched as to be inescapably wretched, but in my darker, more sluttish moods I might profess to being so. What I fear is the familiarity necessary for sodomy, that willingness to bare one's dark and dirty (in a moral sense, rather than a hygiene one) places for someone else's judgement. I'm tortured by the thought of farting or shitting or being somehow less clean internally than a partner - transient or long-term - might hope for or expect. I agonise about the pain and the appearance.
"But everyone is nervous about those things!" I hear you mutter. Don't worry, I've heard it before. And yes, you're right, I don't presume to be the only gay lad who's stressed about their first deflowering. But what were once normal, adequately-in- perspective fears have now grown to be this massive block to any kind of anal intimacy and, in fact, to intimacy in general. Boyfriends generally do want sex, I know, and a frigid fairy is not the man to give it to them.
As I said, I was content to let it slide and keep plodding through life both single and relatively untouched - in part believing that time would salve my paranoia, whilst always knowing that every day I left it be would be another day for that paranoia to build, and for my already-lax self-confidence to shrivel. I knew I was "missing out" but I was too afraid to change that. Anyway, even if I did decide to broaden my horizons (and my bottom), who would take a twenty-three year old neurotic virgin seriously? In the darker hours of my self-deprecation, I slated myself: you'd have to pay someone to sleep with you. And so I did.
Lest you think it so calculated, I didn't go out intending to score some rent. Neither did I kerb-crawl the back streets, squinting to see male faces half-hidden in the lamplight. It was, to be honest, an accident that I met him; a coincidence that he was in a lull between tricks whilst I had been dragged out by friends despairing at my dwindling social life. I can remember being a sack of churning nerves at a table in a gay pub, recoiling from the bustle and the noise that, to my gregarious friends, ranked basement-low compared to the clubs they were used to. I can just about remember gulping anxiously at my second G&T, the first having succumbed a little more promptly than is ladylike. I can definitely remember the light-headed, eye-opening lust I felt when I first saw him, slumped languidly in the abutment where bar meets wall, arm hooked casually over the payphone, nursing a tall glass of what could've been vodka & orange or maybe simply orange. I can remember how the stereotyped pendant bar-lights over him cast sharp shadows from his cheekbones, how his part-buttoned shirt gaped open to show the tight black tee underneath, and how his legs lolled unperceivable in the ballooned swathes of his many-pocketed combats. Thin but not skinny, pale but not sickly-looking, his hair was chopped short and gelled into dirty-blonde spikes, the colour obviously from a bottle, crowning a head of delicate, pronounced features and lips fuller than you might expect. Spellbound, I let my eyes drizzle down from face, 'cross torso and legs down to his scuffed Vans, before beginning the journey back up, only to find I had been spotted. Chocolate-brown eyes met mine, and I found myself jerking my face away before I could mask my interest with a casual sweep of the room. Dismayed, I blushed, cursing to punctuate my shame.
Inevitably my friends demanded to know why I was suddenly beetroot-red and muttering the type of obscenities that would see me excommunicated from the church (if I were a member, that is). Still kicking myself - mentally and literally - I tried to explain, hoping that they'd resist the temptation to simultaneously turn and stare at the youth who had so monopolised my attentions. Thankfully my friends have more refined social graces and, with the most subtle of glances, managed to piece together the reason for my abrupt panic. Their subsequent laughter, however, I didn't consider all that graceful or subtle.
"What's so fucking funny?!" I demanded, hideously aware that the beautiful boy was probably - like so many other people present - looking over in bemused interest at our table. It took them some time to calm down enough to tell me. "He's rent, Tom!" and, seeing the confused look on my face, further explained "he's a rent-boy, a prostitute... y'know, for sale!" Suddenly my humiliation was doubled - everyone in the room seemed to know this fact but me, meaning that everyone in the room probably knew that moments earlier I had, however naively, been eyeing up a hustler.
As you'll surely understand, my initial reaction was to run run run away as fast as humanly possible, possibly allowing myself enough time to grab my coat and open the door, possibly just running through the wall and leaving a Tom-shaped hole like the coyote in Warner Brothers cartoons. But my friends, who I was beginning to see as deeply sadistic, refused to let me go; instead, I drowned my sorrows with another drink (or, okay, another few drinks) that I refused to go and buy myself, for fear that he'd think I was approaching him to make an... ahem... transaction. The evening trickled past like treacle, punctuated at times by my awareness that he occasionally looked my way; his gaze boiled my skin and brought the blush screaming back to the surface, and it was growing tedious to have to scold my friends for their ensuing giggles.
Time, however, heals well, and when it reached double-figures and the bar was close to closing I had managed to suppress what remained of my embarrassment and self-consciousness. Socially-inexperienced I might be, but I knew I good time when I had one, and - ogling hookers aside - I had definitely had one. My friends managed to extract promises from me that we'd "do it again", and I reassured them several times that I'd enjoyed myself. In fact, if anything I should've known better than to make my assurances so convincing, because they sprung on me an invitation to go clubbing. My heart chilled, and I felt myself frantically scrambling for an excuse... a doctors appointment the next day, a lack of cash, anything that might get me out of such a hellish prospect. If I had been eighteen still, I think, I would've spun some lengthy, unbelievable yarn about why I couldn't do it, leaving nobody in any doubt that I was blowing them off and hadn't the balls to tell them straight; at twenty-three I managed to collect together enough self-respect to politely decline. Still taking some convincing, they finally conceded and left me to the solitary company of my mobile and the number for a local taxi firm.
Before thumbing the keypad, I took a glance around the now- quiet pub. Many of its brightly-clothed patrons had left, filtering out to clubs and bars, and the remaining close cliques each existed, distinct, in a bubble of their own conversation. A part of me observed that the instrument of my embarrassment had similarly departed, his spot by the wall empty, and whilst I was glad to have avoided any end-of-night eye-contact, at the same time I found myself wishing I could see him one last time, to somehow permanently record an image of his artfully-constructed casualness (as by then I saw it) as if doing so would protect me from making a similar mistake again. I shrugged off the urge, called myself a wanker under my breath, and began to dial the number.
"The number you have dialled is busy, please hang up and..." I pressed 'end' and weighed the phone thoughtfully in my hand. Three times it had rung engaged; possibly I should've thought ahead and booked a taxi home, rather than ingenuously imagining I could instantly summon one at throwing-out time. I called myself a wanker again - it seemed appropriate. For a while I sat back and let the music distract me, before casual inspiration struck and I hurried to the payphone; surely there would be a taxi card stuck there? As I scanned the various adverts for XXX numbers and "earn extra cash" promises, I felt a hand lightly brush my shoulder; I turned, to see... "What are you wanting?" ...the boy from before, the rent boy, with his eyes reflecting bar- light and a smudge of a smile on his lips, standing, one hip dropped, in front of me. And of course I panicked. "No! I don't! I mean... no, what I mean is, I'm sorry, because you see... well, I didn't know... what I mean to say is I didn't know what, sorry... who you are... and I'm not looking for... well, I don't want... sorry... no sex!" The look of abstract confusion threatening to subside his half-smile finally stopped my spluttering. We stood there, he watching me as if I were some escaped mental patient with acute verbal diarrhoea, me watching him as if at any moment he'd lunge, sexually-ravenous, at me, before equally-quickly presenting me with a bill for services- rendered. "Erm... I was just wondering what number you were looking for...?"
I just about died on my feet - talk about sex-obsessed, it was me who seemingly had it on the brain! All he wanted to do was help me find a taxi... no, even simpler than that, help me find the number for a taxi firm... and I start blathering about not looking for sex and all but accusing him of soliciting me. Christ, I knew why I didn't go out much - I couldn't be trusted in public! I couldn't trust myself to open my mouth and apologise, and so for a few seconds he had only the bulge of my wide eyes and tightly clamped lips to demonstrate my horror. "Sorry!" I finally bleated, and in the ensuing silence I became painfully, overwhelmingly aware of his hand on my elbow, where he had put it in some faint expression of restraint when I had spun round moments earlier. His palm felt hot through my shirt sleeve, and I found myself drawing in my arms part-protectively and part-fearfully. Suddenly his smile returned, sweeping the look of confusion from his - at close quarters, effortlessly beautiful - face. "That's no problem, I shouldn't have startled you." His voice was on the deep side of broken, honeyed and smooth, and whilst he had never spoken in much above a light conversational tone, the strength incumbent was obvious. I realised I had been holding my breath, and began to slowly exhale, taking the slightly-less-loaded pause to quickly examine his features and guesstimate his age. He had the smooth skin of an adolescent, but something unwordable made me peg him at eighteen or nineteen. Suddenly I became aware of how obvious my interest must seem and, fearful that he might take it as 'window shopping', I dropped my eyes and studiously examined the floor. The legs of his trousers pooled around his trainers, with only the broad, blunt toe emerging. I felt the need to explain myself, to convince him that the combined absurdity of the evening had been a catalogue of cock-ups on my part, and that I was in no way interested in his professional services... and yet to raise the topic of his employment seemed rude and presumptuous, and my middle-class upbringing flinched at the thought of it.
Eloquently, I settled for "I wasn't trying to... pick you up" and died another dozen deaths inside. Darting glances upwards told me that he was studying me appraisingly, and whilst I dreaded his reply to my clumsy slab of an apology I also found the silence hideous. Finally he replied. "I wouldn't have thought you were. You're not my usual type." And with that, he had me hooked. My biggest weakness is my irrepressible curiosity, I admit it, and so to have the chance for some insight into a lifestyle that intrigued me through my own ignorance to it... well, questions surged through me. "I'm not?" He smiled, obviously used to expressions of interest from people when they found out how he earned his living. "No, you're younger for a start... and cuter." His flattery brought my embarrassment streaming back, and my cheeks burned. "I doubt you need to pay to get some company." I couldn't help but laugh aloud, momentarily swamped by thoughts of my perpetual singleness, until I realised that his confused look had returned. "Trust me, I'm always single. Maybe I should be asking for your price list!" I muttered wryly, social morays shortly forgotten through my bile. "Normally a hundred an hour, mate, but for you I'd take seventy." His matter-of-fact response to my attempt at black humour brought me up sharp, and I looked at him with hunted-deer eyes. His smile, freshly back on his face, never slipped, and the hook of his raised eyebrow seemed to wait keenly for my response. The polite decline I expected to hear myself say for some reason never appeared; instead, his terms hung promisingly in the air between us, with each advancing second of my reticence fleshing out and colouring the desire for him we both knew I felt. In the end, it was my hand that betrayed me, awkwardly reaching out between us and allowing him to take it and, gently, as if I were some sleepwalker in a fragile dream, leading me from the pub and into the warm summer night outside.
End of part 1 - part 2 is written and is to follow shortly.
Like it? Hate it? Want a winged-monkey? Mail me at vindacatrix@ntlworld.com
Oh, and please, check out my site, www.plenaryindulgence.co.uk