Boys of Two Cities Page 3

  “Well, well, Mikey-baby. Who’s been a good boy and done as he was told. I know. I’ve had guys watching your place from time to time.”

  Mike gritted his teeth as Rosen tweaked his nipples through the T-shirt.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  “I don’t have much to say.”

  “Oh now, that’s not like my Mikey,” Rosen crooned. “Unusually, you came here of your own accord, and that usually means one thing. You want something. Now I wonder what that could be…?”

  “Can you stop blocking me from getting some proper work? I know you have been.”

  Rosen finished tweaking and turned abruptly to go over to a side dresser. He rummaged inside a drawer and produced a small plastic packet from which he poured an amount of white powder onto the polished top of the dresser. Mike shifted uneasily. He knew what it was although he had never tried it, never had the opportunity or the wish to. Mike preferred an occasional toke or a snort of poppers, sometimes amphetamine speed for a hard night out. Gil’s natural innocence of drugs had cut that out almost entirely…apart from the poppers. Rosen swiftly cut four lines with a credit card and pulled a short straw from the drinks tray. He flicked a come-here hand at Mike.

  “I’m not really in the mood—”

  “Oh, are you rhally not?” Rosen mimicked. He gestured again impatiently. “Do a couple-a lines. I need you excited. C’mon!” The eyes glowered.

  Mike walked over, reluctance in every step, took the straw and leaned over. In the partly open drawer he could see several more bags. There must be a fortune’s worth in there… “Where did you get all this from?”

  “Just a sideline, not that it’s any of your damned business. Don’t just stand there, do the lines,” Rosen grated with bared teeth.

  Mike covered one nostril and inhaled the first line. His eyes blinked and he stifled a sneeze.

  “Now the other.”

  He took it up and staggered back. Rosen took the straw and swiftly snorted the two remaining lines.

  The hit took Mike within seconds. His teeth tingled and his head reeled, but after a minute the sensation subsided into a cool lightness flowing throughout his body. His nerves went into overdrive and for a while the room seemed to spin. He barely registered Rosen beckoning him through into a second chamber, or the large bed at its center. His brain did acknowledge the black leather thongs attached to the ornate bedposts. He put up some resistance as the producer flung him down and fell across him, but the cocaine was affecting his responses, and Rosen had a vicious strength. Mike was rolled over onto his stomach and then Rosen secured first one wrist, then the other.

  Mike lashed out with his legs, but with both hands out of play and lying face down, there was little he could do to prevent his shoes and jeans being ripped off, quickly followed by his briefs. He felt the cold slap of leather at his ankles as Rosen secured his feet loosely, leaving some slack. Mike tried turning over, but the hand restraints prevented him and the bucking simply aided Rosen in shoving a large leather bolster underneath his belly, which jacked his naked butt high up into the air.

  “That’s better,” the producer said with satisfaction. “Just a small adjustment here.” He shortened the ankle bonds, forcing Mike’s legs wide apart.

  “Fuckssake, James. Let me go. Please.” Mike hated the whine in his voice, but he couldn’t stop panting with terror.

  “Oh, I will, baby, all in good time.”

  Mike gagged as his chin was forced up off the pillow.

  “Open wide.”

  The boy’s eyes goggled as he saw the dildo Rosen was pushing at his mouth.

  “C’mon, you’ve taken bigger dicks before.” Rosen pinched his nostrils together and then slipped the dildo’s cock head between Mike’s teeth when, as he had to, he gasped for breath. “It’s really not so big. I don’t want to asphyxiate you, and it’ll give you something to bite down on when I fuck you. I’ll try not to split you down the middle.”

  The drug and Rosen’s quietly hummed words had a hypnotic effect that robbed Mike of any further will to struggle. In a quiet part of his mind which he kept intact from the situation, he hoped this wasn’t going to be too painful. He was unaware of Rosen’s rapid strip and only partly felt the slop of cold lube into his ass crack. The bed shook as the man positioned himself between Mike’s splayed thighs.

  Mike knew people called Rosen donkey dick behind his back. They thought he didn’t know, but Rosen made it his business to know everything. Still, Mike suspected the nickname didn’t displease. He always talked of himself as something of a giant in that department. Even so, Mike had taken his cock up his ass before. But a few seconds later something much longer and thicker in girth rammed home.

  Mike screamed at the sudden pain, but it came out as a wheezing gurgle around the rubber cock stuffed in his mouth. He choked on his own saliva, which only edged the dildo further over his spasming tongue. Behind, Rosen was getting into his swing, taking full advantage of the way the bolster hoisted Mike’s bared asshole to the perfect angle for the deepest penetration. He placed his hands flat on the bared back and stretched out his own legs the better to slam down into the resisting chute. The muffled shouts of pain only served to increase his pleasure.

  For Mike it was sheer torture. It felt as though Rosen’s unchained lust had caused his cock to grow in size beyond anything Mike remembered. There was no enjoyment in this violent rape of his ass, only searing red agony with each massive thrust. In his drugged delirium he began to believe that the bastard really would split him apart. Absurdly, the bragging of an old school friend washed through his mind, the kid boasting that when he had finished screwing a girl, she needed to be stuck together again with duct tape.

  Rosen seemed in no hurry to climax and the harrowing hump went on and on and on. Mike’s forebrain slumped into a state of semi-consciousness, which brought some relief. In the end, he had no idea how long Rosen fucked him and was only aware of the core of searing pain from rump to abdomen.

  The American producer paused briefly and, to the barely conscious victim, the rutting seemed easier to take. Eventually Rosen gave a long guttural howl of lust and impaled Mike for the last time, falling forward onto the limp body beneath him. As he withdrew Mike felt as though he was taking a massive dump, and he wasn’t sure that wasn’t the case.

  He came to as a generous bath towel fell over him. Rosen untied his sore limbs and let him slowly gather himself together while the producer went to shower.

  Mike stood under the steaming water for ten minutes in a futile attempt to clean what could never be cleansed. When he emerged from the torture bedroom, Rosen, dressed immaculately again, handed him a stiff Scotch. He went and sat on one of the long couches, gesturing Mike to one on the other side of a low glass-topped table.

  He tried sitting and groaned. “I’ll stand, thanks.”

  Rosen treated him to one his demonic grimaces. “So, Mikey-boy. I think you’ll be wanting a long vacation from renting out your ass. Take that as punishment for cheating on me with that shithead Californian friend of yours… the one I’ve set free because you’ve been a good boy.” The tone abruptly switched from vicious to mocking kind. “I’ll be much gentler next time.”

  Mike shuddered inwardly at the mere thought of a future time, and downed his Scotch in one. Its warmth helped soothe his nerves, but did little for the radiating hurt in his butt.

  “Take the paper on the table,” Rosen said.

  Mike bent to pick it up and scrutinized the detail.

  “I got this pal called Gerald Mundy I do regular business with at Pinewood. His name’s on the paper. He’s a fixer. Go see him soon and he’ll find you something worthwhile on this stupid pop movie that goes into pre-production soon; something about a wall.”

  It dawned on Mike. “You mean Pink Floyd—”

  “Pink Schmink, it’s all crap, but it has a good budget. He’ll fix you up. He owes me big time.”

  Rosen stood and circled the table to take Mike aro
und the shoulders again. “See. I keep my word. Deal fair with me, and I’ll see you’re looked after.” He shook his head in mock exasperation. “Sheesh, you young Brit punks, you know nothin,” and then dangerously, “so don’t let me down again.”

  Mike seethed inwardly, but he let nothing show in his expression, and guarded his flashing eyes. “No, James. Thank you.”

  Rosen gripped his chin in much the same way he had in the basement of the Subway disco in New York last December. The gesture wasn’t lost on Mike, in spite of Rosen’s next words. “No hard feelings then…?”

  Mike forced a grin and patted an ass cheek ruefully.

  Rosen gave a great guffaw and slapped the boy’s shoulder. “Aww, you joker. Getting your good humor back. That’s good. Now, off you go. I’ll be in touch when I want you again. Go see that guy Mundy.”

  The drive back to Swiss Cottage took a lot longer than the ride out, and it didn’t help one bit that Mike had to sit awkwardly to protect his tender rear end from the car seat. But it gave him time to ponder on his options. Work? Okay. The rest looked grimmer with every slowly passing mile. He fumed as he recalled what Rosen had deliberately let him see, and he saw it now in his mind’s eye. As he rubbed at his sore wrists and ankles, leaning tenderly sideways on the edge of the bed, he saw the discarded strap-on dildo on the floor where it landed after Rosen had tugged it off to finish his fuck au naturel. The thing was eye-wateringly huge. Rosen had brutally humiliated him as he punished. And all that coke lying there. Rosen must be dealing, he thought. Perhaps there’s something there, like tipping off the police. Oh sure…

  Tears suddenly sprang unbidden and he dashed them away with one hand taken off the steering wheel. He saw Gil’s face. Absurdly, he recalled the moment when they’d left the Odeon in Kilburn after Gil had dragged him screaming to see Gone With The Wind and Gil’s genuine joy to see that watching the movie had dumbfounded him. He had gone from scathing to wonderment in the first twenty minutes. Afterward, every time one of them peeled a carrot the words of Scarlett O’Hara came back and they would act out the scene.

  As the A316 entered the outer sprawl of Twickenham and Richmond Mike misquoted aloud. “As God is my witness, he’ll never fuck me like that again. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s all over I’ll never be angry again. No, nor any of my folk—that’s you Gil. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll get even with that fuckin bastard.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Well Met

  March brought Pacific mists swirling down from Santa Monica and Venice. What would be cleanly refreshing on the immediate coast, mingled with Culver City’s traffic congestion to form a light brown haze that hung around the spaced palms along McLaughlin.

  Gil had managed a few desultory days here and there on the fringes of the movie business and he sensed his parents beginning to despair. On the other hand, they were not aware that at least he spent hours in his room writing script ideas. Not that any of them were really any good. Still it filled in the empty hours and prevented him penning any more missives he never sent. Desolate letters of longing, urgent sexual outpourings that always ended up ripped to shreds in the trash. What was more frightening was that Mike’s face was beginning to fade into a pale imitation of what Gil adored. But while the image grew hazier, more imagined than real, the hurt in his heart continued to burn. That’s where he felt it. In his heart. Was it broken? Yes. Mike had broken his heart.

  There had been sex, sometimes fun, mostly empty. He hoped he could bring back the feelings that Mike engendered in his fantasies with every encounter, but every time the comedown revealed just another blank face suggesting another meeting because that had been really good. He never met them again, these few desultory one-night stands. But as though digging repeatedly into the wound would keep Mike alive, he ended up, against his better nature, in West Hollywood or Santa Monica or Venice Beach.

  He began feeling unworthy as a Californian, particularly a Los Angeleno, in a city where you were no one without personal transportation. He now knew every stop on the Culver City Bus Line 1, and spent almost all his meager earnings on taxis to WeHo and back. No wonder his long-suffering parents were concerned for him. His father had already tackled the awkward subject of “substances,” but a limited amount of alcohol was the most Gil extended to. No, it was time to get off his ass, get a real job, and a real auto.

  “Gil,” his mother called up.

  “What?”

  “We were thinking of having the Prossers come visit. When would be a good day for you, son?”

  The Prossers. She meant Janice really. Still hoping for a match for their increasingly wayward twenty-one-year-old son. That had been an okay birthday last month. They’d tried, and were obviously disappointed that he had wanted to go out later, but just as well he did. At least he got a good fuck out of it with a guy he met at the Roosterfish in Venice. A much older man, but attractive and, importantly, with a mop of Mike-black hair. They’d gone back to his condo and it had gone well. At least, the man asked if he could see him again. Of course, they hadn’t and now only passed pleasantries whenever they bumped into each other. Perhaps he was being stupid. Perhaps drugs were the answer to his eternal, low, keening misery.

  Oh Mike…

  “Uh, how about Saturday? Easier at the weekend.”

  “Sure, I’ll call Sam tomorrow.”

  Samantha Prosser, designated future mother-in-law. That was the other ache. When on earth was he going to confess that he was not interested in women any longer, that a boy with bubbling humor, a beautiful glowing round face above a solid jaw, and flashing eyes had…?

  A springtime warm spell brought the boardie boys out to cruise the Venice Boardwalk like flowers opening up to make themselves available for fertilization. Gil drank in the eye-candy, but kept to himself. It was inevitable that by spending some of his time in Venice he would eventually end up at Roosterfish. He had been to the gay bar twice, had met the guy with the condo there, and now found himself walking the two blocks to Abbot Kinney and the bright turquoise-painted blockhouse on the corner of Cadiz Court. Indifferent one-story buildings lined the boulevard in the growing dusk. By no means a poor area, after the neat greenery of Swiss Cottage, Abbot Kinney looked shabbily brown and barren to Gil’s eyes. The Roosterfish opened a couple of years back, but had already established a reputation as the only West Side gay hangout.

  A blast of Dusty Springfield from the jukebox met Gil as he went into the dingy interior, with its naked brick walls, cement floor, and beer barrels as the most obvious furniture. The place was already rocking with a mixed crowd ranging from youths in little more than colorful boardies and flip-flops to older suited types, all relaxing after hard day at the office or out in the surf. As Gil pushed through to the bar he overheard passing conversations.

  “If there’s two things I can’t stand…it’s size queens and small cocks…”

  “What, that one, dear? The boy has more excess baggage than LAX luggage claims…”

  The last, Gil knew, was aimed at him. That was one thing you could expect from Roosterfish clientele—brutal dishonesty. He aimed at a slight space between two guys propping up the bar with their backs to him; on the left a middle-aged, balding fellow with too-long hair at the neck; on the right a rugged looking man wearing a denim shirt over what appeared to be a good figure, with a narrow waist and broad shoulders. Gil was immediately attracted to the guy’s unruly black hair. He was listening to the bartender sparking out yet another snappy one-liner. “So what do you call a one-hour date?” The black-haired guy shook his head. “Hah, a transaction,” came the snappy answer. Then he spotted Gil with a tight smile of recognition. “And just as you say it, know what?… one comes along.”

  “Fuck off.” Gil grined aimiably as he settled himself against the edge of the bar, shoulder to shoulder with the guy on the right. A strange feeling of déjà vu washed over him as the man began to turn to see who the newcomer was. Gil’s mouth
dropped open.

  “Jeff!”

  “Gil!”

  “Hey…” They hugged, squeezing each other in the pleasure of meeting someone known in an unexpected place. Gil had last seen the cameraman on the final day of shooting at Cinecittà in Rome.

  “What are you doing in a dive like this? I thought you were going to England with Mike Smith.”

  “I did, for a bit. It didn’t work out. Now, would you believe, I’m living with my parents in Mar Vista.”

  Jeff drew his finely chiseled facial muscles into an expression of concern. “Anything to do with that bastard James Rosen?”

  “A cranberry vodka, thanks,” Gil said to the bartender. “No, I don’t think so. It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got the time.”

  Gil smiled sadly. “Maybe later. Right now I wanna hear what you’re up to.” He paid for the drink and Jeff drew him out to the patio, away from the juke box, pool table rowdiness, and the general hubbub of the bar. “I can hardly hear you over that racket. It’s funny, I go to Rome to work for an American director, and return Stateside to work for a Limey director.”

  “What’re you on?”

  Jeff waved his beer airily. “It’s madcap, a movie that’s been in pre-production for an age, so I hear, and a script that changes daily. Mind you, the director’s pretty darned hot when it comes to knowing what he wants. We just started principal photography over at the 2nd Street Tunnel, you know, in Figueroa.”

  Gil knew it. Not so far from his home in Mar Vista.