Read Online Some Men Are Lookers: A Continuation of the "Buddies" Cycle by Ethan Mordden - Free Book Online Page A

the selection for us, pal?” Carlo asked.
    “The Widow Keebler.”
    “No, Cosgrove,” said Virgil.
“Lady Keaton.”
    Carlo and I glanced at Dennis Savage.
    “Mrs. Soffel,”
he said. “And if it’s movie night, why do I see those five-string dishpans?”
    “Well, first it’s the Von Sondheim Koto Ensemble of Manhattan Isle,” Virgil explained, “with their tasty new medley from
Company.”
    So that’s what we did that night. It’s funny how life went on like that around here. It missed the appeal of the unexpected—the dangerous, even—that life had at times in the 1970s. But I can’t say it was ever boring. It must be a little like those intricate three-geisha massages they perform in certain Japanese bordellos. By the end, you’re utterly exhausted, yet you didn’t precisely
do
anything. It kind of got done to you.
    Maybe we
should
have been getting out more. My friends were grumbling that anytime they phoned, day or night, I always answered, so instead of being able to tape a message and rush on with their day, they had to blow half an hour chatting with me. And Carlo observed that whenever he dropped in,
somebody
was around.
    We were all around when he dragged Bert in from the gym. I mean
dragged:
Carlo had hauled Bert all the way across town to make him tell us something—and Carlo was angry, a rare state for him.
    “Go on now and tell them,” he growled at Bert, pretty much throwing him onto the couch.
    Well, you can kidnap Bert, especially if you had been, like Carlo, a brief era before, the most apparent man in gay New York. Status has its privilege. But you can’t make Bert blow his suave.
    “A cold one?” he asked me, resettling himself on the couch as heftily as possible, the cowboy at tea. “Yeah, thank you. Saint Pauli Girl, if you’ve got it.”
    “Beer?” I said, suddenly realizing that this was my apartment and I was the host. “All I have is water, coffee, and Absolut. That’s all I drink.”
    “We’ve got Hershey’s chocolate Super Shake upstairs,” said Virgil. “And grapefruit juice.”
    “Just tell them!”
Carlo shouted. “Who cares what you drink?”
    The rest of us stood there, amazed.
    “Yes,” said Bert. “Well.” He’s letting it out slowly, smiling as at some private joke, enjoying the attention. “You know, Scott was always such an aggressive kind of guy. What Scott wanted was what Scott got.” He laughed. “Well, that’s cool. That’s what sex is for, right? You’d be strolling the avenue on a fine spring day, you and Scott. Cruising the avenue. And something cute passes by, and that’s the last you see of Scott on that fine spring day.”
    He paused, nodding at us all, his hands extended, as if to ask, Look, aren’t we all the same human under all our dodges and façades? Who are we to judge, right?
    “So now it’s years later and the story is, Who’s cute and what does Scott want
today?
What does Scott want?”
    He grinned.
    “Scott wants me.”
    He nodded some more.
    “Would I let an old buddy down?”
    He pointed rhetorically.
    “ ‘What do you like to do?’ Remember that question? ‘What do you like to do?’ You have to get what you need. Now, Scott used to need to top his boys. He basically liked them leaning over, bracedagainst the wall, legs wide, a good fast pump. Back in San they call that a creamdown.”
    “I’m not wild about this,” said Cosgrove.
    “But now it seems that our Scott here likes to be creamed himself. Any style you want. And that’s fine with me, because what I like to do is screw my boys coco-style, when they’re on their back and you start on them standing and then get yourself onto the bed and really sizzle them up with your arms around them, slow-stroking them to the sky. You know how beautiful it is to hear a really sexy guy moaning with hot while your cock works him to and fro?”
    “Listen to this,” Dennis Savage murmured, really alarmed.
    “What Scott wants, I shall have to give him. That was