There was a point when Logan Banford realized Ruthven Meradan would never grow up. He wasn’t entirely sure when it happened, but there was a day that came when Logan knew that he, nearing forty, had not picked up on something Dylan Mesda had discovered at seventeen, and this was that Ruthven would never really be an adult. At first he wanted to chalk it up to Ruthven being younger, He was twenty-eight, but in the end, he had to chalk it up to Ruthven being Ruthven.
And Ruthven was not a bad thing. He was simple. He was uncomplicated. He was blond. He was fun. He was there. He had a great body. The sex was magnificent. With Sheridan there had always been those complications of work and relationship, but Ruthven thought Logan’s work was neat, so long after Logan had returned to Rossford and was running Casey’s old studio, Ruthven was around, helping out.
One Christmas, Ruthven had shown up at the house with a stupid look on his face, and Logan now realizes that the fact that he calls this a stupid look ought to have tipped him off to how he was feeling about his lover.
“I got a treat for us,” he said coming into the large living room, the porch door swinging behind him and letting in a rush of cold air.
Ruthven Meraden lifted up a baggie and Logan said, “Is that what I think it is?”
“Only if you think it’s coke.”
“Oh my…” Logan began, but with Ruthven, broad shouldered, broad chested, California hot, in his snug jeans and tee shirt, standing there smiling, why say anything else?
“I need to finish editing…” Logan began, but he was even boring himself. He didn’t want to be this dull thing, and why in the world be dull and be in porn?
They sat doing lines of coke and Ruthven, white nosed while Logan rubbed coke on his gums, said, “You still run the escort business?”
“I still sort of run it. It’s really Ron’s thing.”
“We should do it.”
“Run it?”
“Naw,” Ruthven looked at him with stupid incredulity. “We should do it. Be escorts. Ask a guy if he wants to tag team or something.”
Because he was high this sounded like a great idea, and Logan said, “We’ve got a webpage of appointments and everything. It’s all very state of the art, now.”
“Only if he’s hot, though,” Ruthven held up a finger primly, and then he bent down over the table, took out a Swisher cigar and, with his pen knife, prepared to roll a blunt.
While the smell of marijuana drifted toward him, Logan went through files and he said, “Wow. Some people schedule this ahead of time. You know… we always say we’re asking for descriptions so we can recognize them when we meet, but the truth is we just want to be set up for what we’re getting.”
His voice, shallow and high pressured as it came out with the smoke, Ruthven said, “Yah right. Nothing worse that realizing you gotta fuck a three hundred pound guy with a wiener the size of a baby’s finger.”
Logan shook his head. Once upon a time he had thought the same thing, but the truth was sex work had a way of putting you out of your body, and out of other people’s bodies as well. Refusing to fuck someone you weren’t attracted to was as crazy as not ringing up someone’s grocery’s cause they weren’t cute. This was work.
Ah, but it was more than work, too, and Logan said, quietly: “This is the guy, Ruthven.”
Ruthven came over with the blunt, and Logan casually took it from him and inhaled as they looked over the profile of one of three men who had written just a few hours ago. He was aged forty-two, married with three children, a resident of Wilmington, the next town over. He’s always, always had the fantasy of being with two men which he knew was crazy because he’d never been with even one. He just wanted to touch someone.
“No one’s taken him yet. I think he just wrote in, and Ron would look it over tomorrow. Or more likely, I would look it over tomorrow.”
Ruthven shrugged. “I guess we could surprise him tonight. I’ve never done this.”
“Are you sure you really want to?” Logan frowned at him. “It’ not for everybody. Really, it’s not for anybody almost.”
“I’m not everybody or anybody. Just ask him if we can bring drugs. I might need drugs for this.”
Logan thought about it then said, “Okay. But you have to shower. We’re professionals.”
“I showered right before I went out to get the coke. Besides, he might like to watch me shower wherever he is. Ask him.”
Within a half hour they had arranged everything and were on there way to Wilmington. The man was even more nervous than they’d thought he’d be, and Logan considered explaining that, very often, you were dealing with very nervous men who had spent money on something they didn’t know what to do with. The man didn’t smoke pot or snort cocaine, but he said he was glad to watch Logan and Ruthven do both. Logan said he was good, but Ruthven did a little more coke and finally the man asked if they would take off their clothes and he could just look at them, or touch them. Ruthven almost tittered, but Logan kicked him under the table.
They stripped slowly, and then sat on the bed, and the man sat between them, touching their thighs, and then, eventually, touching their cocks, and stroking them.
“I’m so nervous,” he said, as he sat there, looking at the wall, but holding Ruthven’s dick in one hand and Logan’s in the other, stroking.
“Maybe you’d be less nervous if you sucked my dick,” Ruthven suggested with a gentleness that surprised Logan.
So the man got up and Ruthven said, “Take off your clothes.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“You paid for this night so you could feel free. Right?” Ruthven told him. “Well then take off your clothes.”
The man did, awkwardly, and Logan would have been turned off, if he was here to be turned on and off. Ruthven was hard as a rock and thick, waiting, and then the man got down on his knees and attended to Ruthven’s directions until Logan watched his boyfriend, slaming his dick down the man’s throat, grasping his hair, gagging him, watch Ruthven on all fours commanding this man to eat his ass, to suck on his balls. As he watched Ruthven, face enraptured, Logan, already stiff, remembered the men he’d worked with who came to porn in their thirties or even forties, totally in command, completely ready for it. Logan had started off his life in this world as a poor, scrawny stripper who turned into a prostitute. Ruthven, golden bodied, golden haired muscled, apple assed, was a natural.
“Whaddo you want?” Ruthven demanded. “Whaddo you want?”
“I want to watch him fuck you!” the man shouted out, pointed at Logan.
In that sex trance that so often called to him, that kept him in this work, Logan, dickheavy, stood up, and shoved himself into Ruthven. He stood on the edge of the bed until he pressed Ruthven under him, He wanted to fuck him so desperately, and in this room, with this man, it was as if he’d never fucked Ruthven before.
“I want to watch you come inside him,” the man said fiercely.
Ruthven was his boyfriend. They did that all the time. So it happened, and when it was done and Logan lay on his back, he watched Ruthven fucking this man on the floor while the man’s face went red and he hollered in pleasures. In the end, Ruthven pulled his head back and came inside of him, the way he wanted.
On their way back to the house, on the darkness of Main Road, while Ruthven drove, Logan counted out money.
“Two hundred for the initial appointment. Another two hundred for having both of us. A hundred for fucking. Another hundred for fucking without a condom. And yes, another for you fucking him without a condom. And a fifty dollar gratuity. And you,” Ruthven separated bills, “get half.”
“Holy shit!” Ruthven swore as a snowflake went past them. “Is it always like this?”
“It’s sometimes like this.”
“But…” he shook his head.
“How do you feel?” Logan said.
“Like I’ve never felt before,” Ruthven said. “I’ve never done that. I’ve never felt that. I felt like I was someone else. But… I felt like I’d never been myself until then. No limits or anything. With Dylan I was so nervous, and when we got out of line I was embarrassed and scared. With Kenny it was fun. I always liked fun. But that was…”
“Uninhibited.”
“Yeah,” Ruthven said. “It was like… freedom.”
They kept driving and Ruthven said: “Do you still make films? Like, are you still in the movies?”
“Nope. I just run this shit. I haven’t even escorted in about two years. Until tonight. You know that.”
“I think we should make a movie,” Ruthven said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Not tonight,” Logan jested, making himself yawn. “Tonight I want to climb in the shower and then climb into bed.”
“Then tomorrow. After we get back from Todd and Fenn’s. Or before. Or not go at all. We can make it natural. Take out the camera and just be ourself and fuuuucccccck like rabbits. People’ll love that.”
And people did love it. Ruthven, who had never displayed much in the way of intellect or skill for anything, had a genius concerning porn. He was one of those people Logan had heard of, but didn’t really believe in until then, who did it for fun, who showed up as adults and wanted to get into it. He and a guy named Dave from near Lafayette who came up every month or so, did threesomes with whoever wanted it, and they usually shot a movie, though Logan discovered that, personally, he was done with both. He was certainly more about the administrative end of things now.
He wasn’t even jealous. He was never angry that the man who was now his boyfriend wanted to go out and have sex for money, taking Dave with him. He was dispassionate about watching Ruthven get fucked by Dave, and when this guy, whose name was Finnegan Hussein came to the studios from Miami, and did some scenes with Dave and then a few other guys and lastly, Ruthven, Logan was indifferent to this as well.
