Mojo - 11. Chapter 10: Sweating it out with a Pornstar

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Chapter 10: Sweating it out with a Pornstar

I opened my eyes. Stubborn sunlight found its way between the gently moving slats of the motel room blinds.

I groaned through my foggy head as I rolled over and patted blindly for the bedside cabinet. Hovering my phone screen over my face, it glowed a nauseatingly cheerful: Monday, 12:03 PM.

Slowly, feeling hungover and bruised, I tossed the light-weight sheet aside and sat on the edge of the bed. I got up on the side facing away from the annoying light. At least I was wearing my boxers.

‘What happened last night?’ The thought remained unanswered as I rubbed my scalp; I couldn’t remember what went on, but I felt wiped and vaguely ashamed.

An impulse made me check, so I opened the drawer. Hojax’s Luger was still in its wooden container, all the bullets accounted for and surrounding the weapon like bonbons in a demented box of chocolates. I shut it up again, noticing a couple of things at once.

I had to pee; that was primary. But secondly, Gordon and Assauer were asleep back-to-back on the other bed. It looked innocent enough, but still my jealousy stirred a bit though my morning haze.

Anyway, I stood up and took a leak, afterwards returning to the room to see my two ‘logs’ had not rolled an inch. So I went to the windows, yanked up the blinds, and returned to kick the bed. “Rise and shine, lover-birds!”

They slowly roused and looked no better than I felt. While they were scratching and rubbing eyes as prelude to sitting up, I heard my phone. It vibrated in the way it does to tell me a new text had come in.

‘Where was it…?’ Oh, yes. On the pillow where I’d dropped it to go piss.

I grabbed it, and the three of us sat on the beds facing one another.

“What happened last night…?” Gordon stammered, his voice sounding hoarse.

Assauer shrugged, glancing around. “Don’t know. We were here. Then weirdos came, and we went with them….”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but the rest is a blank.”

My ex and me looked to Gordon to see if he remembered more; he didn’t and shook his head painfully to confirm the fact.

“Well, whatever.” Assauer rubbed the back of his neck. “Where’s the aspirin?”

While he was doing that, with elbows in the air, I pointed, and Gordon saw them too. Our companion had black and blue marks on the inside of his arms.

My boyfriend stood, lifting my hands and confirming I had them in the same place. A quick inspection of Gordon turned into relief as I didn’t find any bruises on him.

The teenager folded his arms and leaned his butt against the nightstand. “I think it’s time to fly the coop.”

Me and Assauer agreed. I pulled up my phone, saying, “Listen to this text I just received:

“Hey you pasty-ass losers, it’s me, Neil Campbell. lol

I sold your statue and got cash like you wanted.

I also got us all into a MAJOR art event.

Come back to L.A. right away or you’ll miss out.”

“So, fuck it. Let’s go.” I finished with a hand flourish.

Assauer agreed, standing up and stretching. “As long as we’re not around those donkey dick freaks anymore, anyplace is fine.”

Gordon nodded, so it was decided, but then added, “You both stink. We better shower before we blow this popsicle stand.”

I licked my lips. My boy is so sexy when he’s authoritarian. “You go first, Assauer. Me and Gordon will do it together.”

Assauer was too sick to protest or make a ‘gross, you two’ face, so while Gordon climbed in my lap to cuddle, my ex stripped before us.

He turned around, scratching at his navel, and I could feel both Gordon’s and my own spine stiffen.

When Assauer had closed the bathroom door behind him, I asked my boy, “Did you see—”

“His cock…?”

“…Yeah….”

“You think—”

“It grew overnight?”

“Yeah.”

Gordon lifted his arm and hugged me across my back. His head came resting on my shoulder, as he murmured sleepily: “Looks bigger than yours now.”

“You think?”

The boy bobbed his chin, already nodding off.

“Trick of the light,” I said, more for myself than my boy.

The shower came on in the other room as I stroked Gordon’s locks. I allowed a little wayward thought to intrude on our bliss, a soft speculation really, for my morning wood was a notorious nuisance to my boy, but this morning…? There had been none when I woke up, none to try and piss through, and now – with Gordon dozing in my lap – there was still nothing stirring down there.

‘Funny,’ I thought. ‘Just overly tired, I guess.’

I shrugged and gripped Gordon all the tighter.

˚˚˚˚˚

A few days later, I felt a little better.

It was a lovely afternoon in West Hollywood. From my position on the sidewalk, I could see the rainbow lampposts, and the people-watchers as the young and buff strode by.

I looked at my phone; the text from Neil said:

“We’re parking and can see you.”

“Where?” I typed.

“Right in front of ya, mate!”

Glancing up again, the only thing I could see moving was a plumbing van parking off to my right.

The side door rolled open and out camped a scantily dressed Neil Campbell. He had on a pair of flimsy nylon board shorts, and a ‘surfer dude’ type tank top that left nothing to the imagination; loose about the arms and flashing tits and armpit hair at will.

He slammed the door after nodding in my direction, and came sauntering over. The sun pinged his eyes, so he pulled shades down from the front fringe of his dirty-blond dreads.

Neil called out “G’day” just as another man, a dude in a We-B-Ho Rooters uniform and gray cap came around from the driver’s side. Seeing who it was, it took me a moment to re-hinge my jaw shut.

“But…but…” I stammered as he approached.

Napoleon Trueblood had to explain: “My life coaching consulting, and my motivational speaking engagements are my ‘porn gigs.’ Snaking shitty drains is how I pay the bills.”

I shrugged; Assauer was right. We all do what we have to.

“Is this where we’re supposed to meet?” I asked.

“Yep,” Neil said, gesturing to the glassy building behind me. “Pump Up the Volume Gym – the man-mecca of SoCal.”

I chuckled, scanning my hosts up and down. “Didn’t know you were the sports club types.”

Napoleon put his arm around my shoulder and led us on. “We’re not, but if there’s one place to be seen and make contacts in Queer L.A., it’s right here.”

After changing, and me getting annoyed with Neil’s open checking out of my bod – I mean, the guy’s boyfriend was right there! – the three of us walked into the main exercise room. Floor to ceiling windows looked out onto the sidewalks on two sides; gorgeous men were on the treadmills facing the glass, all heads down, looking at their phones.

Neil chuckled, poking me in the ribs with his boney Aussie BBQ elbow. “They’re on hookup apps, seeing who’s around.”

I told him, “You’d think they’d just look up and find a guy the old-fashioned way – by cruising.”

The two parts of Neil Campbell that were the brassiest, his laugh and his accent, came to the fore. “Ya’ jokin’?! We ain’t in the dark ages anymore, busta.”

Napoleon pulled us along, bobbing his man-bun at us sagely. “Come on, boys. The eye candy can wait. We’re on business.”

The celebrity self-help guru guided us to an interior glass wall. I noted lots of people watching what was happening on the other side. Many of them held phones way up high to stream vids; a few others copped ‘gangsta’ poses for selfies in front of the action.

Neil used his foreign tones to make room for us at the glass.

Our view was of the long side of a brightly lit handball court. The ‘front wall,’ against which the ball was bounced, was off to our right.

Two guys were engaged in very casual batting back and forth. One of them was a middle-aged, slightly paunchy man in dark clothes. His deferential opponent was a long-haired blond twink, who in his white tennis shorts was needlessly shirtless. But he was hardly alone, for behind the red serving line, a long file of equally hot and bare-chested studs leaned against the walls and feigned interest in the older man. One of these hotties appeared to be keeping score, because he made periodic notations on a tablet. However, something seemed to be off about the timing of when he made a note on his iPad….

“Who are those topless guys?” I inquired.

Napoleon told me, “He has contracts with all the best modeling agencies in town. They send over their newest, freshest faces to him for free, and hope he gets the models into the tabloids.”

“What…?”

“Christmas crackers!” Neil Campbell blurted out. “Don’t ya recognize the bloke?”

I closely scrutinized the looks and actions of the older man on the court. He was not bad-looking, say for a guy in his mid-fifties, but he was far from memorable, with somewhat truncated and ordinary facial features. His hair was not too full, a uniform dark-brown, and suspiciously non-moving as it hugged the top of his head above a soaked sweatband.

The guy suddenly lunged for an easy return and missed; the ball went bouncing out-of-bounds. And then it dawned on me. The recordkeeper dutifully updated the ‘score,’ but he was only counting the number of balls the older man fouled.

I eyed Neil and Napoleon, and said under my breath, “Well, the half-naked boys explain this hungry-tongued assortment of spectators, but who the devil is the old guy? I have no idea.”

Napoleon informed me matter-of-factly: “That’s Tre-Princely Knight.”

I shrugged; the funny-sounding name rang no bells.

Neil proceeded to be agog. “The big man-on-man pornstar…. And I do mean big!”

“Sorry, I’m not a size queen,” I said, but looked harder at the man, trying to jag my memory.

Napoleon tapped my shoulder rhythmically, explaining: “He was the highest-paid male bottom in porn a couple decades back. He made a fortune and invested it all in oil fracking, Big Tobacco and modified food engineering, so needless to say, he’s insanely rich today.”

Neil chortled. “Yeah, even more so now that workin’ Yanks put a fox like the great Orange One in the henhouse of oversight. Well, safety and health regulations had a good run, but they’ve gone the way of the Dodo thanks to private corporate funding of the GOPs.”

Trueblood agreed. “But it’s hardly new. We all remember how the Chaney-Junior Administration ‘tackled’ the threat of Mad Cow disease getting onto American BBQ grills by forbidding the FDA from testing for it. Big Ag didn’t want an encephalitis panic.”

“Bad for selling ground beef over the 4th of July weekend,” I said.

Neil smiled snakishly, glancing at his boyfriend. “Yeah, but careful, Kohl. Don’t get this guy going on the Brush Administration, or we’ll be here all bloomin’ day!”

“Well,” huffed Napoleon. “It matters how people vote.”

“Amen,” I said, mainly to shut up the conversation.

On the court, the long-haired boy was dismissed, and Tre-Princely chose an almost identical one to replace him in the competition. In the meantime, another significantly younger lad with red hair brought the man a white towel and tropical cocktail, complete with parasol and pineapple chunks. The former pornstar wiped his face, and I noticed Napoleon trying to get the man’s attention through the glass. It did not work, so after a deep sip, Tre-Princely Knight shooed the red-haired boy away. The game continued, with the man playing notably more aggressive, maybe due to the iron content of his Bloody Mary mix.

“Yeah,” Neil said as the ball went back into play. “He was the biggest man-bottom for over a decade, and even though a billion guys have wanked watchin’ him get dicked, he’s straight.”

“What?!”

“Hundred percent,” confirmed Trueblood. “Real name’s Malcolm Schwartzbaum, from Cheboygan, Michigan—”

Neil interjected with a leer: “He’s one hot Jew!”

“Anyway”—Napoleon slapped his boyfriend’s chest—“he has a lovely Mrs. Schwartzbaum at home.”

“A real smart cookie she is too,” Neil added.

“And he has a habit of calling her his Rabbit’s Foot or Lucky Charm. You’ll meet her at the event.”

I was still stuck in amazement mode. “So, this guy’s not Gay?”

“Nope,” Napoleon said. “But even though he’s retired he still maintains the front of liking boys to promote his tube-site – Nightly with Tre-Princely dot com.”

As we made room for a Japanese tourist with a shutter-bug of a Nikon, Neil rapped in a joyful singsong:

“He was gay-for-pay

When it was just known,

Way back in the day,

As whorin’ for dollars.”

The former pornstar under-glass had tuckered himself out, for his opponent was dismissed, and to my astonishment, a completely different towel boy appeared. This one was just as young and spry, and wearing the same uniform, but African American and toting a margarita glass. The rocks of salt glistened on the bowl as Tre-Princely Knight drew it to his lips. His eyes sparkled in my direction, and I glanced to see it was because Napoleon had finally gotten the man’s attention.

In another moment, the player wiped his face and gestured to the side of the court.

Trueblood evidently knew what that signal meant. “Come on, boys. Time to get naked."

˚˚˚˚˚

Through the sweat and steam, I idly watched two ‘professional’ masseurs compete. The guys with model-worthy bodies wore only leek-green Speedos and flimsy white vests without shirts. They operated the clinking ice and firm agitation of cocktail shakers from behind a drinks cart. It was incongruous to see one in this cedar-lined gym sauna, but me, Napoleon, Neil and Tre-Princely sat companionably enough on the room’s wooden ledges.

Naturally, we were all down to nothing but towels, and I tried hard not to stare at our host. He was a bit more pug-nosed closeup than I could see from afar, or maybe it was just a certain way he looked out on the world. It was quite a challenge to keep my eyes off the bald head of the ex-pornstar, which was now slick with perspiration. The toupee was off…possibly getting combed and spruced up in another part of the gym.

“So, Napoleon, I’m very pleased you’ll be at my little art happening later tonight.’

“Oh, yes. We can’t wait.” The motivational-speaker-slash-drain-snaker indicated the beaming Neil with his we.

“And who is your new friend?” The pornstar’s inquiry was aimed at yours truly.

“This is a very cool German dude, named Kohl.”

“So,” Tre confirmed, “you’re from overseas, across the mud puddle, as they say.”

“Yes, I am.”

Neil chimed in: “Precious fuckin’ accent, ain’t it?”

The retired pornstar ignored that, preferring to murmur towards me, “Kohl; Kohl; Kohl – I’ve heard that name before. Remind me.”

“Hmmm,” I said. “Well, ‘kohl’ reminds me of cabbage, sauerkrauts, kale, soup—”

“No, no. A person.”

“OH! Yeah. You mean former Chancellor Kohl. He was a political bigshot back in the days of Reagan and Gorbachev.”

“Yes, that’s the one.” Tre-Princely beamed, proud of his powers of recollection.

“When I think of that ‘Kohl,’” I chuckled. “I remember how at State Dinners he’d force foreign dignitaries to eat his favorite dish: Palatine Pork Paunch. Pig stomach stuffed with potatoes, root veg, chestnuts, spices and herbs. And then boiled like a pudding.”

Neil and the masseurs-cum-barkeeps shook sour-puss grimaces off their noggins.

Napoleon, however, looked contemplative and muttered with admiration: “How positively Roman. A page right out of Nero’s school for diplomacy. They don’t make politicians like that anymore.”

‘Gott sei Dank!’ I thought: Thank the Lord.

“Ouuuugh, Napoleon.” His Aussie lover whinged. “The whole pig stomach thing’s gross, or just plain feral, as we’d say back home.”[1]

The self-help guru’s eyes lit up. “Speaking of food, I’ve extended tonight’s invitation to Kohl and his, um…boyfriends. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No, not at all.”

I corrected the statement. “Boyfriend, singular. But, also my ex.”

Napoleon hastened to add, “Kohl here is a poet too. Did I mention that?”

“No,” chimed Neil. “No, you didn’t.”

All eyes fell on Tre-Princely Knight. I didn’t know if that information was supposed to mean anything to him, although I knew I didn’t like the sound of that tacked-on too.

“I dabble,” the older man said with a jaded sigh. “But only from time to time, when the muse bites. Why don’t you recite something for us?”

I shrugged and coughed up some famous lines every German schoolchild should know by heart.

“Unter allem Diebesgesindel

sind die Narren die schlimmsten.

Sie rauben euch beides,

Zeit und Stimmung.”[2]

Again, all gazes settled on Mr. Schwartzbaum; would he know I’m shitting him…?

“Wonder-bar!” he exclaimed. “And you wrote that yourself?”

“Sure did.”

I suddenly noticed the hostile glares coming at me from the pair of cocktail makers.

“Oh, my.” Tre-Princely praised me to Napoleon. “So very talented, Mr. Trueblood. Very talented. You know, when the poet laureate of Belize was entertaining me one day at his estate on Trinidad, he said ‘Poetry is like the sap of the rubber tree plant – when it oozes, it’s all about the flow.’ You can’t fake that.”

The competing Speedos tussled a bit to get their admiring looks for Tre’s ‘wisdom’ acknowledged first.

They glowered hatefully at me again, and I got the point of their jealousy all of a sudden: these two happy-endings boys thought I’d captured their potential client’s eye.

Just then, one of them flipped the lid off his cocktail shaker a little too vehemently and splashed some crimson concoction on his rival’s white vest.

That was followed by an angry shove, once the victim had squeegeed liquor off his clothing with a hand.

A full-on tussle broke out between them, and Tre-Princely called out joyfully: “See?! They’re fighting over me. It’s just the way Nature wants it.” Then he told the servers more forcefully, “Come on, now. Slosh out the Appletinis to my guests, guys. Time’s a-wasting.”

While they did as instructed, a daydreaming look crept upon the retired porn-bottom’s face. He recited with a faraway expression:

“Here today,

Gone tomorrow.

What today we’re paid in joy,

Tomorrow we’ll pawn in sorrow.”

Then, laughing, he lifted his glass to us. “Drink up, men. No one will remember us when we’re dead anyway.”

˚˚˚˚˚

A rosy, smog-tinged twilight greeted the stone walls of the Getty Center. It sat aloof, atop its lonely hill over Los Angeles.

After more sweat and awkward poetry from Tre-Princely in the sauna, I’d returned to the motel room and changed. Now we were all here in casual evening clothes.

The museum was closed so the ex-pornstar could have his cocktail hour for about fifty – just him, his guests and the press. Right now, the man was engaged in a kind of red-carpet event on one side of the Modern Art Gallery. Four sexy guys, in sleek Italian tuxes, posed with Tre as their linchpin. I’d say the tableaux was staged to resemble a mob-style night out on the town, because the host himself was arrayed in a white dinner jacket and buff-colored trousers, which did no favors to diminish his belly bump. The cameras flashed away like birdsong, the cellphones were raised to capture live footage; ‘news’ voices called out for the group to look this way and that.

I strolled alone with Napoleon, who was munching my ear off while we perused the staid, artificial-colored paintings on the wall. Occasionally, my eyes drifted out of the many open French doors to the terrace, where there glowed natural and beautiful hues in motion. I could catch glimpses of Neil Campbell, Assauer and Gordon leaning on the railing, drinking in the view and chatting easily.

Napoleon put his arm out and stopped us in front of a silly-looking piece of sculpture. The artist had taken any number of cereal box tops and cemented them together to form a sort of whirligig staircase. To ‘improve’ it – or to make it artistic…? – he’d taken puke-green paint and spilled it down the run of steps.

Trueblood placed a hand on his chin and looked rapt in apparent concentration on ‘the message’ before him. However, he said, “You know, back in the day it was Oscar Wilde who coined the phrase ‘Art for Art’s sake.’ But now, looking at emotionally irrelevant pieces like this, I think the new maxim goes: ‘Art for Fuck’s sake.’”

I copped a similar pose as him, but mainly to mask my smile of agreement. “I see. Go on.”

“Contemporary art is in a funk, a malaise caused by a total detachment with reality. Think about it: if it means nothing to the artist, how in the hell is it supposed to mean anything to anyone else? Yes, Kohl, it’s a sorry state of affairs, for the freer any artwork is of social commentary, cultural context, or emotional relevance, the more it’s praised. For example, freeze, slice and press a marmot kidney between panes of glass, and the movers and shakers will toss a Turner Prize at it, and laude you as great and important.”

We’d started our tour again, but my attention was more and more drawn outside; the ugly canvases and pasteboard dioramas stood no chance against the lure of Gordon’s free-spirited laugh.

I remembered the very first time hearing that laugh as I walked down an open breezeway at Aptos High School; in reality, it was not that long ago. That day I saw a beautiful boy loitering at his open locker with his friends – a taped-up picture of a shirtless pop star on the inside of the door – and the sexy owner’s eyes trained on me as I passed. Though, naturally, or perhaps I should say, especially, alarm bells went off saying ‘Danger Ahead,’ I knew caution was the last thing on the boy’s mind.

Out on the terrace, Assauer laughed too, and like a palm smack to the forehead, it brought me crashing back to reality. My ex’s too-lecherous leer on my boy’s bright face stirred heat within me, and made me wonder what those two could have been up to today while I was at the gym. They spent the afternoon alone in the motel room, and could that explain why Gordon appeared so flushed when I joined them later on?

I slowly pulled my attention away from them and returned it to Napoleon’s nattering.

“…Big Art is currently viewed as a mere get-rich-quick scheme. If you’re a struggling young artist, the only path to success is finding your shtick – one that no one’s done before, or at least one no one remembers. Do that, get in good with the professional critics, and you’re set for life.”

Rather annoyed, I said, “When has it really ever been different?”

I filtered him out again, because he had no real answer, other than ‘ancient times,’ which I scoffed at.

No, my attention drifted back out to the terrace and my boy. The beginning of some verse formed itself in my head:

‘Are we prisoners to that captivity? –

jailed by fickle nature and love,

caged passive to activity,

while freedom we think we have no part of?

 

No. The key to unleash our liberty

is a pre-set combination,

which found, returns our property

And lets us go to our destination.’

I’d have to develop that some more.

Some form of commotion arose. Waiters directed people from the outside areas in, and Tre broke up the photo sesh. The man smiled, thanked the Media and walked up to his wife, who had been standing just out of camera range the whole time.

The couple began to lead the way out of the gallery, and just as the rest of our party joined us, Napoleon explained: “The Event won’t happen here, and only a few of us are going on to the private part of the evening anyway.”

We started walking through the building, making our way down to the ground floor.

“No? Where will it happen then,” asked Gordon.

“At the Getty Villa in Malibu. Tre-Princely thinks it's much classier there.”

“Oh,” my boyfriend replied.

Neil added, “And our host’s arranged for a real V.I.P. procession to get us through all the traffic.”

“Police escort?” Assauer asked.

“Nope,” replied Neil. “It’s better. You’ll see.”

By now we had made it out the front door, and were ushered to wait on the side while the press continued to snap pix of the ex-pornstar. His wife – a buxom brunette, silicone-enhanced sex toy of a former pornstar herself – stood out of the way again and allowed a new troupe of hot escorts to bandy themselves about our evening’s host.

I turned to Neil. “What did you mean by procession…?” but before I could complete my own thought, a pair of black Lincolns rolled up with their lights on. Right behind them appeared a stretch Rolls Royce hearse in silver.

“Noooo…” I gasped softly, but Mrs. Schwartzbaum and the V.I.P. entourage of guests got into the lead vehicles, while our host kissed his ‘boyfriends’ before they all piled into the back of the ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’ death carriage. Amid that action, the press went nuts snapping photos and flinging wild questions.

Once this first assembly of cars had departed, and the museum staff shooed the paparazzi away, more limos with their lights on pulled up to the curb for the remainder of us chosen few ‘second event’ guests.

As I gave one final glance to the twilight streaked behind the trees, a sudden rustle of wind sent chills down my spine. For some unknown reason, a micro-spurt of sound and fury burst like a bubble in my head. I saw and felt Doris blowing me in the woods on Catalina; Gordon’s mercurial smile as I fucked him after kicking Assauer out of our room; of my ex’s newly enlarged dick flopping about as he went for his shower.

And then, like a nasty jolt, the sight and smell of that scruffy stranger, his face hate-filled and close to mine, his eyes burning like coal appeared. The shrill bray of a burro raced across my eardrums like a vindictive laugh.

‘What’s happening to me,’ I wondered as I slid into the backseat next to my smiling and beloved Gordon.

Special thanks to @MacGreg for suggesting the WeHo Gay gym be called Pump Up the Volume