Chapter 1
I meet him the way I meet all guys—online. His e-mail stands out from the rest because he doesn’t use a name but initials. RC, like the cola. Who goes by that?
The message is short and almost formal. I want to inquire about your services.
As if my ad online doesn’t spell it out. But I get this a lot—guys putting out feelers, curious and interested but not quite ready to commit. For every e-mail I get asking me to pencil in a date and time, I get another three or four with questions. It’s almost like they’re trying to talk themselves into an appointment.
That’s what I call it, an appointment. Like going to the dentist—it’s nothing I really want to do, and if I could avoid it, I would, but I can’t, so I just get it over with as fast as possible. I’m a broke-ass guy in my mid-twenties with a college degree who can’t get a damn job that pays above minimum wage, so I have to make ends meet somehow, right? I can think of worse ways to pay the rent.
So I cut and paste the body of my ad into the first message I send this RC character. I don’t even try to pretend I don’t by adding something new. In its entirety, it reads:
Straight white guy, disease-free, looking for donations from gay men interested in hooking up. Seven inches hard, circumcised, nice ass. See photos. Suck me for $50. I suck you for $100. No ass-play. No BDSM. No weird shit. Full nudity OK.
I hit send and don’t think about him again. I have a half-dozen more messages in my inbox to respond to, and the night is still young. On a good weekend, I earn more getting blowjobs from complete strangers than I do bagging groceries down at Shay’s. Any guy can do it, just lie there and let someone else suck his cock. Maybe let him fondle my balls a bit, or bend over so he can stare at my butt while he jerks off.
It isn’t sex. I’m not gay
* * * *
My ground rules are simple. I don’t tell anyone my real name. I don’t ask for theirs. I don’t meet them in public, and they don’t come to my house. I go to theirs, and I see the money up front before either of us undress. We do whatever it is they’re paying me to do, and I don’t stay any longer than an hour.
Some contact me again. If they didn’t gross me out or aren’t too weird, I agree to another appointment. But I don’t like to meet anyone more than three times. After that, it’s harder to stay strangers. By then we sort of know each other, and some start asking for a discount—like what, frequent fucker miles or something? No.
I can always find another guy eager to pay for my services. My inbox is full of e-mails waiting for replies.
I don’t think about RC again until he sends a second message. Like his first, this one is almost old-fashioned. May we schedule an appointment? An afternoon would work best for me.
He doesn’t give a date, so I suggest Tuesday at two. I include my cell number in the e-mail, and tell him to text me his address. Then I promptly forget about him until our appointment.
* * * *
The part of town he lives in is called Windsor Farms. If it sounds upscale, that’s because it is. I inch my battered 1982 Toyota Corolla down the leaf-covered streets of his subdivision and feel like one of the Beverly Hillbillies. These homes are on two- and three-acre lots, sprawling mansions set back off the road with landscaped lawns and cobbled driveways. Not for the first time, I think maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to quote my prices to new clients. I should get their addresses first, look them up on Google Maps, and hike up the rate if they live like kings.
RC’s home is tucked away in a cul-de-sac that is probably considered little in his neighborhood, but my whole city block would fit in his front yard. I pull into his driveway like he instructed in his text—all the way in, easing my car down a narrow lane between his house and a privacy fence, then turning into the paved space behind the house so no one will see me from the street.
When I get out of the car, I lock it out of habit, then chuckle at myself. Who’d steal it? Some of the people who live around here drive vehicles that cost more than what I paid for all four years of college. No one’s going to look twice at my piece of crap.