Tricks

Chapter 1-2

Sean didn’t know what he was doing in Tricks. It was the kind of bar he never frequented. Hell, he rarely frequented any bars, period. He felt out of place among these older men, all of them leering at the strippers. Everyone seemed happy—in party mode, their joy compounded by the sight of nearly naked men dancing before them. Sean supposed he couldn’t fault these men for coming here. The strippers, after all, were the bar’s reason for being—providing “adult” entertainment—and for charging outrageously high prices for watered-down cocktails.

Like the one right in front of me…I mean, really, eight dollars for a vodka and tonic? And the vodka isn’t even a call brand! Sean peered into the clear liquid, with its bubbles, slice of lime, and more than generous helping of ice cubes, and wondered again what could have possessed him to set foot inside this place. Tricks was a sleazy bar, a destination where he was certain the boys on stage probably made offstage deals with the clientele for more intimate, and less legal, behavior. It was the kind of place he and his friends once made fun of, painting the characters who frequented it with terms like “desperate” and “lecherous.”

So what was he doing here? On a Friday night, no less, when other gay men his own age (thirtysomething) were on the prowl in countless other places on Halsted and farther north, in the newer crop of bars in the neighborhood known as Andersonville.

He shook his head, knowing exactly what had brought him here. He stared morosely into his drink, the men around him hooting and catcalling as the next dancer hoisted himself up on the bar to begin his routine. The boy (to call him a man, really, would have been a stretch) was what was known in gay parlance as a twink. He barely looked old enough to drink, let alone wag his weenie at the patrons to a Lady Gaga beat. Was this kid really of legal age? Really? Sure, he had the requisite tattoos and piercings of a professional wrestler, and his smooth, almost hairless body was firm and well defined, but Sean had to wonder what would compel someone so young to make his living in a way Sean had always thought of as demeaning.

And if what the kid’s selling is demeaning, what does that make you? Can you really sit here in judgment? Thinking yourself so much better than that dancer or, for that matter, the men you’re rubbing elbows with here in the crowd?

Sean shook his head, preferring not to think about it. There were other things he preferred not to think about as well—like Jerome, his accountant boyfriend who had just dumped him on Wednesday. He preferred not to recall that Jerome, his lover of three years, had responded to Sean’s suggestion that they move in together with clichés. I need my space. I’m feeling suffocated. I think we should see other people. And worst of all—It’s not you, it’s me.

Sure, Jerome. Knock yourself out. Even you don’t believe that crap. I could see it in your eyes, those wonderful amber green eyes that could change from light to dark with your mood. You were just waiting for an opening, a way to break up with me. I gave it to you when I pressed you, telling you how my lease was up the following month and wouldn’t it be so lovely if we moved in together. Um…apparently not. Sean was forced to come to the conclusion that could couch itself in yet another cliché: He’s just not that into you.

And so Sean, walking home from his job as a catalog copywriter for an automotive retailer this warm August night, had been drawn to the neon outside Tricks and the raucous sounds of male voices as he passed the bar. Oblivion, he thought. A little forgetfulness is just what I need. The bar, with its promise of cheap thrills, alcohol, and who knew what, was in the business of offering oblivion at a price. He had the money, and he certainly had the motivation.

So he went inside, found a seat at the bar that had just been vacated by a man with a reddish beard, potbelly, and stained tank top, and ordered up the drink he currently nursed. It was watery, with a bitter aftertaste from the cheap vodka, and Sean wished, for about the thirtieth time, he had just headed home.

Once upon a Friday night, Jerome would have been waiting for him to come home from work, checking out restaurant options for the two of them on Yelp or maybe even cooking up something fabulous and fragrant in Sean’s own kitchen.

He didn’t want to think about Jerome, about being rejected, about entering the “dating scene” again. He didn’t want to think that, at thirty-seven, he was on the downhill slide to forty. He didn’t want to think of being alone. He lifted his glass to his lips, took a long swallow, and signaled the bartender for a second one. The drink might have tasted like crap, but it would work its magic, damn it! It would take a lot of these to wipe out Jerome, if only for the night. And tomorrow? He would be right back where he started, except he’d probably be nursing an aching head and a nauseated stomach.

He knew he should just get up from the barstool on legs that were still steady and head home to his apartment and his live-in lover—an overweight black-and-white cat named Bergamot who was always willing to pay attention to him when no one else seemed up to the task. He shook his head, imagining his lonely evening eating a Lean Cuisine, watching DVR’d episodes of American Horror Story, Bergamot perched on the back of the couch.

The forlorn image was enough to make him stay put, and simply for something to do, he turned his gaze to the boy on the bar, who was moving his hips suggestively, trying to make eye contact with everyone in the room all at once, and grinning like he was having the best time a boy could have this side of orgasming.

The boy was beautiful, Sean had to admit, in his own sordid, runaway sort of manner. His eyes were a piercing blue that somehow, when focused on Sean for the briefest of moments, made him feel he was the only guy in the room. But there was something otherworldly about him too, almost a glow, something that went far beyond his vitality and youth. It was as though he was performing to some inner music, something lurid and s****l to be sure but far better than the tired disco crap with its relentlessly repetitive beat with which he seemed to be forced to work.

Sean wondered what the kid thought about as he went through the motions of what could only loosely be defined as dancing. Did he really like being here? Why had he chosen this life over something with a more promising future, like college or some sort of employment that didn’t involve shedding his clothes? Did he do it out of desperation? Was he on drugs? What kind of home had he come from?

Or was it that he was using to his best advantage what he had to work with? Sean had to admit—and the little man down below, the one between his legs, raised his purple head to agree—that the boy was sexy, extremely so. He had about him something that was at once alluring and needy. You wanted to take this boy in your arms and comfort him. You also wanted to f**k the s**t out of him and slap his ass and whisper foul nothings in his ear as you thrust into him. Sean squirmed as his little man lengthened and thickened to his full size, which was actually about six and a half inches and not the eight he’d claimed in various online profiles before he met Jerome.

The boy shed the tool belt he wore, letting it drop to the bar’s surface with a thud, then the hard hat, finally swaying in nothing more than a black mesh thong and steel-toed boots. His legs were long, lean, and well muscled, and like every other lech in the bar, Sean could not keep his eyes off the boy’s member, which bounced around in front of him like a mini baseball bat, looking absurd and breathtakingly tantalizing at the same time. Sean didn’t know whether to laugh or just open his mouth and drool. How big was that thing, anyway? This boy, Sean was sure, would not have to lie about having eight inches. From the basis of the flaccid member barely concealed, the boy could honestly claim all that…and maybe even more.

Sean felt heat rise to his face as he gulped at his drink, finding the tall glass contained only ice. Where was that bartender?

And now the boy was moving along the bar, smiling and squatting down with those same magnificent legs spread, exhorting the bar revelers to stuff his thong with dollar bills.

He had no shortage of takers. Sean wondered what he pulled in during an evening in tips alone. The bills were testing the elastic of the thong’s waistband, and a few errant bills slipped to the stage. The boy discreetly snatched them up and held them in his hand as he made his way down the lascivious receiving line, letting the patrons dip their hands inside the thong to ensure what he had on display was real. Sean assumed it was—no way to fake that. He also let them pat his ass, running their hands over its smooth contours. When Sean watched one guy wet his finger and slip it inside the boy’s butt, he decided he’d had enough.

This wasn’t for him. It never was.

He climbed down from the barstool and headed into the summer night, perfumed with exhaust from the traffic, already heavy along Belmont and Halsted.