---
It's not like we never get guys like him in the store.
I know the type. Hair done in such a way that it looks like it cost more than the average house. A car that is so impractically small, you wonder how they manage to fit in it. Suits – sometimes ties – and expensive loafers. Cuff links you can't help but want to steal.
This one's different.
Not many people go right for the hard-core stuff. I mean, I know it's a porn shop, but most people try to make their excuses first. "I'm getting this for a friend." Or even worse, "My wife thinks they're attractive." And they look around, trying to make eye contact with everyone, drilling it into everyone's heads. I'm not actually gay, they're pleading with us to believe.
We don't, but if we humor them, they let us keep the change.
And they pay with large bills.
This one enters. The door jingles obnoxiously – we put up the door-jingler thing mainly as a means of terrifying the customers, like somebody might hear and see them entering.
This is Liberty Avenue, guys. We've all seen it before.
He enters, and he brushes past everyone else – all the terrified fags who want to know who he is, even though their biggest fear is someone else knowing who they are. He shoves past them all, grabs two from a shelf with the air of an expert, and swiftly makes his way to the register.
"Hi, I'm Justin," I say, as if my nametag didn't say it all. I am lounging, sprawled over the counter, because really, who wants to be half-invisible all day?
Unlike the others, he doesn't grunt noncommittally or flat-out ignore me.
He looks me over.
Makes his way from my feet up to my eyes, then back down to a certain place that contains what I'm sure is his favorite part of anyone's body, especially his own.
"When's your break?" he asks me.
The other guys are shocked. Maybe they've never seen a real "gay" person in the gay porn shop before.
I shrug. Check my watch. "Can you wait five minutes?" I ask.
He glances at the door.
"Daphne!" I yell to my co-worker, a straight nineteen-year-old girl who spends most of her time downloading new movies and putting them in boxes that look genuine. And, of course, watching them. "Get off your ass and watch the store for five minutes!"
"Five?" the man asks me, quirking an eyebrow.
I look him over. "Fifteen," I say at last.
The guy reaches out and opens the door to the closet where we keep duplicate videos and new arrivals and stuff. He closes the door and before I know it, I'm backed up against it.
---
The first thing he asks me afterward is "How old are you?"
I shrug. It depends who's asking. Considering he just fucked me, he probably wants to hear what I told my boss – twenty – or what it says on my fake ID – twenty-one. I suck at lying, though – and at other things, of course, but that's a standard gay joke that you may as well just use at the end of every sentence I say. Anyway.
"Twenty-one," I lie.
He knows. I can tell.
"Twenty?" I suggest, sounding less unsure. "Nineteen."
I know he wants to believe it. "Just spit it out, kid. I know you won't report me. You liked it too much."
I blush. "Seventeen," I admit at last. "But it's not like I haven't – you know – before. I mean, I work at a porn shop, and every so often a guy comes by who has the balls to admit that he's actually gay. And for those brave customers, I offer a few… special privileges."
The guy snorts. "I practically had to drag you back here."
"As much as you'll ever have to drag someone anywhere, yeah," I laugh. "Me, I'm more the type to get dragged around, if you know what I mean."
"All this 'drag,'" he observes mildly. "What is this, Babylon?"
I pointedly glance around at the videos stacked up on the shelves and walls around us. He laughs. "Well, we have quite a setting here," he tells me. "What's the deal with this closet – couldn't your boss put a lock on it so you underage employees don't come in here to fuck?"
"He wishes we spent time in the closet," I laugh. "Actually, after catching me giving someone a blowjob under the counter, he's pretty comfortable with keeping the closet open. Just, you know, in case."
There is a pause.
"What's your name?" I ask him, hoping I'm not crossing a boundary or something. The Rules of Homosexuality were never quite explained to me.
He hesitates, like he's thinking the same thing I am. But it's only fair that he tells me, because I have a fucking nametag, and he should offer me the same courtesy of knowing the name of the person who just fucked me.
Finally, he answers. "Brian," he says slowly, like he's expecting I'm going to start jumping up and down and squealing like a teenage girl.
Right. Because I'm soooo far from being a teenage girl. I'm just a teenage queer.
Then again, that probably means I can squeal louder.
While my parents didn't raise me to know the rules of being a homosexual, they did teach me manners. I stick out my arm. He looks like he has no idea what to do with it, so I prompt him, "It's nice to meet you."
"Look, kid," he says, like he's had just about enough of my bullshit. "I fucked you, I told you my name, and I bought some porn. That's about as far as our relationship is going to go."
I raise my eyebrows. "I've been working here for a year now, Brian," I tell him delicately. "If you think that just because I'm seventeen I don't know how to trick, you are sorely mistaken." I get to my feet, standing with a single hand on my hip like a drag queen on an ego trip. (Then again, aren't they all on ego trips?)
The guy – Brian – laughs. "I was like you at seventeen," he tells me.
"Does that mean I'll be like you at forty?" I shoot back. Not because he looks forty – fuck, he looks a little more than half that – but because I know it'll sting, and he deserves it, after giving me The Lecture Of The Trick Who Wouldn't Die.
Brian rolls his eyes. "Age jokes aside, you run a decent business here, Justin," he says, reading my name off my nametag, "and I'm not talking about the DVDs. I'll see you next week."
With that, he zips his pants, opens the closet door, and leaves.
On his way out, he drops a fifty-dollar bill on the counter. Daphne reaches for it, but I slap her hand aside. "Damn," she mutters. "What kind of blowjob did you give him?"
I am spared having to answer when an overweight forty-odd-year-old swaggers up to me with a stack of ten or so movies. I glance at the first one. Blondes in Bora Bora. It's one we've shown in the store once or twice – fast-forwarding through the non-sex scenes, of course, because what's the fun of plot? – and which I happen to know by heart. "That one's got an eleven-incher," I remark, indicating the second movie: Jumping for Boys.
The titles of these shitty films are the most contrived things I have ever heard.
The "sheep" – what I like to call my charming customers lacking the ability to think with their brains rather than with their cocks – adore them.
My mind's on something else – someone else – for the rest of the day. Later, when Daphne asks me which movie to pop in the VCR, I don't even manage to respond.
---
Some of my regulars are subject to obnoxious nicknames. There's Pinky, the magenta-wearing oblivious queen who comes in here every week and oozes flamboyance all over, even though he won't admit it. There's also Wannabe, who is among the whitest people I have ever seen but still insists upon buying these hardcore black-on-black dominance movies. And there's the highly politically incorrect Hao – the only Asian customer I have ever seen enter this store.
Others – most likely, the ones most in touch with their sexualities – share their names with me. This is the case with Ted Schmidt, an accountant who comes by every other day to drop off huge loads (no comments, please) of DVDs and pick up some new ones. Ted's pretty boring, and the only thing about him that really differentiates him from the average office worker is the fact that he spends his nine-to-five watching gay porn.
I know, because every time he comes in, he's on his cell phone, talking to his friends about what "Worcshafter" did today. That's his boss, I think – a boss who continuously has just missed catching Ted watching porn on his office computer. It's a fine line one walks between hobby and addiction, and it appears to me that Ted has crossed it.
One day, Ted walks in with a guy.
No.
The guy.
What was his name? Immediately, I search my mind for an appropriate nickname. "Big Cock" is all that comes to mind, and this is the one guy around whom I plan to maintain some sort of dignity. As in, I won't call him that.
"Come on," Ted is whining to his companion. "Pick something out, Bri."
Brian. Right.
"You," drawls his smooth voice, "just want me to get something so that I can pay for both of our choices. Well, Theodore, if this is where the big bucks of accounting are going for you, that's fine, but it is not my intended financial course of action."
Then he turns. He faces me, looks me over again. "Fucked him," he tells Ted loudly.
"You did not," Ted snaps. "This is my porn shop."
"Sorry, Teddy," I call from the register, pretending to examine my fingernails. "But he did. In there." I jerk my thumb to the closet door. "It was damn good."
On the TV screen high up on the wall on the left-hand side of the room, a guy is pounding into another guy's mouth in a bedroom whose walls are lined with pictures of cars and superheroes. Both look to be of age, but it's still creepy. I wonder if that's what Brian pictured after he found out I'm only seventeen.
Ew.
Brian looks at his watch, then at the door, and finally back at me. "You wanna have another go?" he offers.
I'm shocked.
Men like him don't do repeats.
Not "men like him" like the wannabe heterosexuals with expensive haircuts and suits and expensive cuff links. I mean "men like him" who dance and sweat and fuck all over the floors of Babylon, picking up tricks at every corner.
"Uh – sure," I stammer, very taken aback. I glance at Ted, and I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only one in shock. He looks bewildered too.
"Daphne!" I yell, kicking our shared "office" door. "I'm going on break!"
"It's not your break ti – "
Brian pulls me in the closet and slams the door shut. I hear Daphne sigh, drop her headphones on the desk, and step back into the main room to watch the shop.
Then the next thing I hear is my own grunting as Brian shoves into me.
---
Ted's jealous. I can tell.
Everyone is. Even Daphne. Everyone wants a piece of Brian Kinney. And fortunately for me, the piece I got is the piece everyone's trying to grab ahold on in Babylon.
If we leave the closet door open when we fuck, all those "straight" guys get their rocks off right then and there. And they go and browse the shelves and get a couple extra DVDs, because let's face it, it's going to take some fucking hot shit to match with the amazing sex our customers witness.
---
Until now, it's always been an unspoken rule at XXX Video that I pretend to be the manager whenever someone asks for him. Because let's face it, he never shows up. His name is Chris, and he's usually off with his family, trying to convince himself he's straight. Um. He's not.
But one day, Chris comes into work.
At first, it seems kind of normal. He's with his teenage son, who's dressed in a Little League uniform, dragging an aluminum baseball bat against the ground. I can see this out of the corner of my eye, peering out the crack in the closet doorway.
But I can see him.
Which means he can see me.
Oh, fuck, he can see me.
And needless to say, so can the kid.
---
When you're a kid who gets paid upfront, in cash, and live with your best friend who also gets paid upfront, in cash, it's always a sneaking fear in the back of your mind that one day, you might get fired.
He says he's not necessarily going to fire me. He says he's going to monitor my performance for the next few days. But not with his eyes. Nooo. No way would he waste his precious time on that. He installed security cameras.
Not one. Not two. Not even three or four or five.
He installed ten of them.
Yeah. Ten. Four in the main room, two in the office, two in the closet where we keep duplicates and where I like to fuck, one in the employees' bathroom, and one at the door.
Chris says it's not because of me. That he brought his son to the store in the first place so that they could start installing the cameras. And I believe him. A bit. I believe he wanted to make sure people weren't stealing shit, and to make sure all the porn Daphne downloads "meets standards," because once, she downloaded straight porn for herself, but then accidentally put it in one of the boxes, thus causing a huge fight with a client.
But I also know that he's been aware of my sexual escapades in the storage closet for a long time, and that this is partially a way of him getting me for it. Or watching me fuck. The bastard thinks I'm going to give him a show.
And his son, also named Chris, with his stupid baseball bat and uniform and stuff? He is the biggest closeted homosexual I've ever seen. He leers at me. He told his dad he'll hang out by the store for the next few days to make sure I don't "get out of control." Oh, I'll get out of control all right.
I just don't know what'll happen the next time Brian comes in and wants to fuck.
---
It happens sooner than I was expecting.
He strolls into the store, either not noticing or ignoring the security cameras altogether. Immediately, I am reminded of what sets him apart from the other patrons. Confidence. He's proud of who he is. He doesn't take slow, timid steps into the store, skittish like his wife might come up behind him. Nearly everyone who shops here is married. I'm pretty sure he's not – he doesn't wear a ring or anything – but hey, you never know with these guys.
"Hello," I say politely to him when he sets five DVDs on the counter. I read the name of the top one. My Blond Slave Boy. I cringe. Some people will never learn subtlety.
Brian grins at me. "I saw your cameras. Your boss saw us fucking, right? Was he pissed?"
Oh. He did notice, then.
"Fuck, yeah."
Brian grins. "Let me guess. He said he wouldn't necessarily fire you, but he's going to be supervising you for the next few days?"
I nod.
"That means he couldn't find anyone better to hire, or he's too lazy to, but don't fuck up or he's docking your pay."
With a laugh, I ask, "So what do you do? If you're such an expert in interpreting boss-speak."
"I'm in advertising," he replies. "I own my own company."
"Interesting." Yeah, he definitely looks like he's in advertising. He's definitely rich enough. I'd guess he was a doctor or lawyer, but he looks like the kind of guy who isn't thrilled by the sight of blood and hates to get his hands dirty, and also one who could never pore over papers for hours without fuck breaks.
As I ring up his DVDs, he gestures toward the closet door. "You want to…?"
"Security cameras," I say regretfully. "Sorry."
And that, I decide, will be the end of that. Since, after all, no way would he ever want to continue our casual fucking outside of "business." It's convenient for me – and for him, since he comes in here to get movies and he ends up getting off, too – but no way would a guy like this take such a silly thing outside of convenience. Fuck, he probably fucks a zillion guys a night, and the only reason why he did me multiple times is because no other hot guys work here.
Except then he says, "Meet me at Babylon tonight?"
I'm stunned. There. He just attatched a string to our no-strings-attatched relationship. Not even a relationship. A fucking-ship.
"Uh…"
"What time do you get off?" he asks with a wink, indicating that work isn't the only thing I'll be getting off.
I glance at the office door, where I can hear Daphne's headphones bleeding the faint sound of guy-on-guy fucking. There's a shocker. "Whenever I want," I laugh. "But my scheduled shift ends at nine."
He looks at his watch, though I have a suspicion that he knew what time it is before even checking. "It's five," he tells me.
"I know."
"Meet me at Babylon at ten," Brian says.
He drops a fifty-dollar bill on the counter and leaves. The jingle of the door is the last I hear of him before he starts up the engine of his sleek, shiny Jeep and heads back down Liberty Avenue.
---
Babylon.
I don't obsess over how this place is like a heaven anymore. The lights, the colors, the sounds – they're routine. They're gorgeous, but they're routine.
God, look at all those cheesy old men trying to dress the part of potential tricks. Ew.
And look at that. Over at the bar, there are three past-their-primes standing around, singing who-knows-what. One of them sports a Captain Astro tee-shirt; another, a pink wifebeater. The third is as boring as sliced bread.
Wait. The third one is Ted. I know Ted.
Brian steps up behind them.
Well, here's someone who belongs in the crowd.
I sidle over to him. "Screwdriver, please," I tell the bartender, slapping a ten-dollar bill on the bar. Brian brushes the bill back in my lap, replacing it with his own. "Make that two," he says.
I grin. Gesturing to the three people beside him, I ask with great trepidation, "Are these your friends?"
"Yeah. Emmett, Michael, and – you know Ted," he says, pointing to each one in turn. "And this is Justin," he tells them. "Wow. It's weird to see you without your nametag."
Ted cocks an eyebrow. "Justin?"
"The one and only," I reply, spreading my arms out like Jesus. To the clueless Michael and Emmett, I clarify, "I work at Brian and Ted's porn shop."
Emmett looks unsure. "Honey, you don't look old enough to buy porn, much less sell it."
"I'm not," I reply with a smile. "Fortunately, Brian is, which turned us on to some really incredible sex."
"Yeah, I bet," Ted mumbles.
Brian flashes a smile at a passing twink. "I'll be right back," he says.
I grab his wrist. "Don't," I say hurriedly. "I can do everything he can, and then some."
"Scared of Babylon, Justy-pie?" he teases.
"No," I retort. "But I'd like some more of that amazing sex, if you'd be so kind."
He grins. "Sure. Coming right up."
He takes me by the wrist and leads me into the back room. As we are walking away, I can vaguely hear Emmett, Michael, and Ted betting on how long "those two fucks'll last together." Mysterious Marilyn is willing to bet an eternity, and before I can deliberate over that, Brian has his pants down, standing against the wall, and I am being pushed to my knees to blow him.