Dingo and the Frog

Slow night on goober street.  Occasional bouts of drizzly rain, air so humid sweat feels like oil beading on your skin.  Loitering in my usual spot under the overhang of the condemned pawn shop, I’m trying to earn some green, but I ain’t hopeful.  Don’t get me wrong, I look good, as usual; backwards ball cap on my brown buzz-cut head, shirt unbuttoned to show off my hairy chest and sleeves rolled up to show off my arms, ripped jeans tight enough to advertise my talents.  Problem is, too much bait and not enough fish.  Every time a prospective client cruises up masses of whores descend, all of ‘em clamoring discounts and flashing skin.  Like as not the freaked drivers dart away, especially if Tranny Jack is in the front line.  Jack’s not a bad sort, but he looks . . . I guess ‘unsettling’ is the best description.  He’s huge, well over six feet of bulging, tattooed muscle crammed into a slinky black cocktail dress two sizes too small and wearing enough makeup on his square-jawed puss to make Tammy Faye look restrained; if you grok the reference, you’ll understand I ain’t being rude.  Jack throws a mean lipstick stamp (he scores the tubes wholesale from somewhere—nobody asks) and he’s got a tiny pecker but big dangly balls, making him immensely popular in certain circles.  He’s also married to a cool chick what hustles the dyke bar around the corner, he loves kittens but hates cats and hopes for a sugar daddy someday who’ll shower him in expensive cosmetics and skirts.  A real doll, truth, but intimidating to a nervous fish.

Why the fuck am I thinking about Tranny Jack?  I fire a cigarette and scope the rest of my competition.  Losers.  My moneymaker is bigger than any of theirs, and I’m for damn sure a better lay; I know this because I’ve worked with most of ‘em at one point or another.  My best hope of attracting attention is to stand alone from the horde as if disdaining their pathetic can-do enthusiasm—trust me, no stretch of my acting ability.

Oh lookie, here he is again, third night in a row.  Short and skinny, couple years younger than yours truly.  Shaggy blond hair covered by a stained green hoodie; bodacious bubble butt rounding out scuffed and wrinkled black jeans.  Might be a frog, standing there in the drizzle like that.  He’s too far away for me to see his face but I know he’s got baby blue eyes and high cheekbones and thick red lips.  He’ll thrive here, if he ever nuts up the nerve, but for the past two nights he’s only watched.  Occasionally a car would pull in front of him and he’d take a hesitant hop forward but the other goobers, correctly reading him as a dangerous rival, flocked together like hissing geese to drive him away.  He’s standing a little straighter tonight though, his hands balled into fists and shoved into the catch-all pocket of his hoodie.  Desperate.  Determined to tongue-snag a fish of his own.

Meh.  Not my problem.

A chime from my cellphone yanks me back to my own business.

Beanie:  “I visit your city.  Are you interested to work?”

Interested?  Hell yeah!

Beanie:  “I wish usual arrangement.  Bring new friend.  I trust you.”  Heh, I can hear him rolling the R’s.

I stow my phone and pick over the mess of goobers in front of me, considering.  The frog’s still standing off to himself, and yeah, there’s an idea, but skittish as he is over a thirty-dollar blowjob in a dark alley there’s not much chance he’d scratch up the stones for a full-on porn threesome in private.  Casting my attention back to the horde I’m disquieted when, as one, they hunch their shoulders and turn away.  I glance behind me, dreading, but instead of a black-and-white I spy a cherry 1979 Firebird.

Shit.  I step into the shadows myself.  This prick is three miles of bad sky.

He prowls up the block past a solid wall of buttocks, then brakelights flash as the car eases to a stop.

Directly in front of the frog, who doesn’t know enough to turn away.

Again, shit.

The passenger window slides down and the frog takes a hesitant hop forward, listens to what the prick driver says, cornpone crap any goober on the block can repeat verbatim.  The frog nods, takes another hesitant hop.

No, I admonish myself.  Not my problem.

He’s almost to the car, his lowered head peering through the open window as he listens. 

“Don’t do it,” I breathe.  Read the wind and turned backsides, froggy, don’t jump.

But he does.  Right as I’m thinking the words he reaches to open the car door.

Once fucking more . . . shit.

I flick away my cigarette and step into the drizzle, pulling the bill of my cap around to keep rain off my face.  “Hey kid!  Stop!”

He jerks back like he’s been gigged and surprised murmurs punctuate the air around me as I stride forward.  Tires squeal and the Firebird wings off, the frog sagging as he watches it go.

 “What the hell, man?” he demands, his frustration spinning to anger at my approach.  “That was my . . . my date!”

“Why, if you ain’t the purtiest thang!  You must be new ‘round here.”

The frog blinks, anger leaping to uncertainty.  “Excuse me?”

“His first words to you.  Am I right?”

 “Uh . . . yeah?”

Trying to ignore how cute he looks biting his lip in confusion, I continue, “And next the fish says, ‘How’d you like to make some money, honey?  I’ll give ya fifty hot ones to wrap yer sexy lips ‘round my big ol’ wiener.’”

The frog puffs up.  “He promised seventy-five.”

I scowl.  “So he’s spit-polished the spiel.  Must be aware word’s gone out.”

“What do you mean?”

I gesture around us, where the wall of buttocks has crumbled into bricks of social asses, all gossiping about my uncharacteristic concern.  Fuck ‘em.  “Everybody knows the prick.  He flashes bank for a simple blowjob, then when you get to the dark alley you find out he carries a big wiener alright, but it don’t go hard.  You suck on it anyway, bucks is bucks, truth?”

The frog nods, distrust giving way to curiosity.

“Then the prick gets pissed you can’t work him up so he smacks you around some before shoving you into the alley without a dime.”

The frog’s eyes widen.  “Oh.”

“You said it.  ‘Oh.’  This one guy Hobo, pal o’ mine from way back, got his nose broke and two teeth knocked loose.”  Never talked right again either.

He says it again.  “Oh.”  After a moment’s consideration, he offers a reluctant, “Thanks.”

I sigh, once more glancing around at my chatty, cutthroat peers, and irritation thrums through me at their indifference to the predictable harming of an innocent and obviously desperate frog.  Unreasonable, I suppose, it’s every goober for himself around here, but there ain’t no call to act a shithead.

“Come on, kid,” I say, abruptly making up my mind.  “Stroll with me.”

He stiffens.  “Where?” he asks, his voice tight with suspicion.  “And why?”

Cool.  Maybe he’s not so naive as I figured.  “Just stroll with me.  We’ll stay on the sidewalk.”

He looks up and down the fishless street, weighing.  “Okay, but only for a minute.  I need to make some money tonight.”

He flinches as I lean forward to whisper in his ear.  “I can help, if you’ve got the balls.”

Interest flares in his baby blues.  “How?”

Winking at him, I cock my head.  “Come on.  Don’t want dese bitches all up in our bidness.”

“Yer the bitch, bitch!” screeches a voice from the horde as the frog and me set off up the street.  I shoot my middle finger up at whoever it was; I think Tweety, so called because of his bright, yellow-dyed hair and pubes gimmick; sore loser.

The frog stops hopping the instant we’re out of earshot.  “So how much money we talking?” he demands.

“Relax, kid, first things first.  You legal?”

“I’m eighteen!  So stop calling me kid!  My name is Ja—”

“No it isn’t,” I insist, grasping his wrist to emphasize how serious I am.  He moves as if to pull away but I hold on.  “Your name is Frog.”

“What?”

“Your name is Frog.”

“My name is Frog,” he repeats dubiously.

I grin and release his wrist to grasp his hand in a formal shake.  “Hi, Frog, delighted to make your acquaintance.  I’m Dingo.”

“Seriously?  Dingo?”

Time to impart some basic street smarts.  “Never ever ever spill your real name to anyone doesn’t need to know.  Cops, doctors, you follow the drift.  You carry ID?”  He nods warily.  “Put it in the back of your wallet, keep your wallet safe.  Always.  You seen the chains most of the goobers around here wear on them?”  He nods again.  “It ain’t the latest Paris fashion, truth?”

A third nod.  “Gotcha.”  He hesitates, bites his lip again before asking, “But why Frog?”

I run a finger along the sleeve of his green hoodie; rather than state the obvious I simply answer, “Why not Frog?”

He rolls his eyes, accepting the inevitable.  “Fine.  Whatever.”  A nervous grin trembles on his thick red lips.  “Then why Dingo?  You’re neither Australian nor canine.”  Oh, so he paid attention in middle school.

“No clue.  Hobo christened me and it stuck.  I didn’t like Dingo any more than you like Frog, but now whenever someone says my legal name I take a beat to respond every damn time.”

Frog laughs like I’d uttered a funny, which I hadn’t, then throttles down in favor of more pressing business.  “So how much money we talking?” he repeats.

“The prick in the Camaro promised seventy-five you’d never get.  I’m offering eight hundred, five of it guaranteed.”

No hesitation.  “I’m in.”

I smirk.  “Not even gonna ask for what?”

Frog glances away, then back.  “I’m hungry,” he mutters, almost in defiance, “and I’ve spent the last two nights in a dumpster behind an abandoned motel.”  I know where he means, having slept a time or two there myself, and I barely suppress the urge to tell him he can crash at my castle for one night when we finish.  He ain’t my problem, he’s a potential work partner, period, and five to eight hundred bucks will buy him what he needs for now, if he don’t get mugged or suckered in by a goddamn pimp.  “So whatever the job is, I’m in.”

Time for basic lesson number two.  “Never agree to something without knowing exactly what.  Not from a fish, not from a cop, not from any goober on the street claiming to be your pal.”

“Gotcha,” he says again.

“No, you don’t,” I reply, “but you will.  And soon.”

He nods like he doesn’t believe me, asks, “So, theoretically then, what would a person need to do to earn this eight hundred dollars?”  Better.  Too eager, yeah, but subtlety is a lesson for another day.

And from someone else.  He ain’t my damn problem.

“Amateur porn, the Frog, Dingo, and Beanie kind.  You, me, and the fish,” I clarify at his puzzlement.  “The usual shit, and all on cam.  We suck each other, suck him, then he fucks us.  Plus whatever else his pervo mind dreams up.”  Frog’s scandalized gasp gives me the guilts for my deliberate crudity, but I need to ensure he doesn’t misunderstand.  “You have been fucked before, right?”

I’m somehow unsurprised when Frog shakes his head.  “Only done oral, wouldn’t have made it halfway across my home state otherwise.  One dude asked, but—”  He shakes his head again, likely not realizing how lucky he’d been the dude had taken “no” for an answer.

“There’s a first time for everything,” I comment, trying (and failing) to remember my own.

“I guess.”

“Beanie’s dick ain’t nothin’ special, you’ll have no trouble with it.  Mine’s big, but if he wants me to fuck you I promise I’ll go easy, at least at the beginning.”  Frog steals a quick downward glance and fails to look reassured.  “What about you?  Got a big dick?”  Professional curiosity, understand.

He flushes, bites his lip again, and I have to swallow back an “aww” at the preciousness.  “No, it’s kinda . . . kinda small.”

Hmm.  Seems froggy boys with small dicks are my weakness, if I can be said to have any.  Who knew?  “I’m sure you’re fine,” I assure him.  “Bet it’s cute.”

“Yeah, just what a guy wants, somebody calling his dick ‘cute’,” he mutters.

Unable to stop myself, I throw back my head and chortle while Frog eyes me in a manner to suggest he hadn’t been joking.  Moving past what I sense is a prickly subject, “So how about it, you in?”

He appears surprised I’d asked.  “I already said I was.  I’m in up to my fuh . . . fuckin’ asshole.”

“Just checking,” I reply, entertained by his defiant vulgarity.  “You look spooked.”

“I’m more hungry than spooked, and eight hundred bucks’ll buy a ton of chicken nuggets.”

Acting like he’s found a pot o’ gold at the steaming butthole of a fish-covered rainbow.  “’S about all it’ll buy.”  He looks confused but I move on.  Poor frog’ll find out soon enough how far eight hundred won’t get him.  It beats what we’d score turning dark alley tricks on a slow, rainy night, but not by much, in the grand scheme of life on the street.  I pull out my phone and aim.  “Say cheese.”

Startled, he fumbles a grin from somewhere and says, “Cheese,” then flushes at the conditioned response.  “Why’d you take my picture?”

“For Beanie,” I answer, typing furiously.  Sure, he’d said he trusted me, but full disclosure is always a good idea in these things.  Only seconds later his reply dings back.

Beanie:  “Very pretty, I love!  You come quickly, yes?"

Dingo:  "On the way.  Same condo?"

Beanie:  "I stay in usual place.  Come quickly!"

I laugh and put away my phone while Frog watches anxiously.  "What'd he say?"

"Exactly what I figured, that you're pretty.  Come on, Beanie's horny."

Frog nods, biting his lip, but as we take our first steps up the street a disturbance from behind catches his attention:  a war of goobers surrounding a familiar station wagon, the old-fashioned kind with fake wood panels and seating for eight.  As we watch Tranny Jack roars and slings Tweety backwards, but the game little fucker catches himself and dives into the car while Jack, ambushed by a well-timed panty-yank, tumbles over to lipstick stamp the pavement.

"What the hell?"  Frog doesn't seem to know if he should be amused or horrified.

I'm definitely amused, but only because I've been in the middle of the melee before and would surely be tonight, if not for Beanie.  "They're fighting over Auntie George, this sweet but lonesome old queen who only shops when she gets her social security check," I explain as Jack somehow manages to pull himself into the station wagon and slam the door.  "She'll ferry home however many fits in her car and pay 'em twenty bucks each to sit around bareass for high tea.  When the chow’s gone she'll pick one to blow and slip him an extra five for a tip."

"Doesn't sound . . . profitable," Frog judges, watching the car ease from the curb while the goobers left behind curse and fall away.  "Isn't thirty dollars the minimum for anything around here?"

I shrug.  "The minimum is the most you can dicker, always.  And twenty, maybe twenty-five bucks for a couple hours out of the rain, with free food to boot?  Tonight that shit's prime."

Frog hesitates, and though we should be heading for Beanie's hotel I wait him out, for some damn reason interested in his thoughts.  "But isn’t it dangerous?  For an old man, er, queen, especially?”

Again I have to choke back an “aww” at the lip-biting concern.  “I dare any prick to fuck with Auntie George, they’d be ripped taint to tits.  She might be just another lonesome old queen but she’s a sweetheart and well-loved around here.  She’s probably feeling guilty about the ones couldn’t fit in her wagon and she’ll bring sandwiches and scones when she drops the others off.”

“Oh, okay.”  He doesn’t appear convinced, but I’ll make sure they meet next check.  They’ll adore each other.

Dammit.  Who knows or cares if the frog will be around in a month?  Hell, who cares if I will?  “Let’s boogie,” I grunt, and he nods and follows.  I tap loose a couple cigarettes and offer him one, cursing my generosity but unable to be rude.  He coughs as he lights up, coughs again, and I glance over to see his complexion has gone green.  He sucks another determined puff, choking again but holding it, and I don’t say a word, merely demonstrate how to cup his palm to keep off the rain.  Everybody needs a crutch, even and especially nervous frogs.

As we splash I can’t help but wonder about his past, wonder what brought him to this city at this time.  Normally I could give a crap; every goober’s got a story, most of ‘em depressingly similar.  Trouble at home, kicked to the curb or pulled a runner, no education, no prospects, no hope.  Nothing but a pretty face, a fresh body, and a blind sex organ responsive to stimulation.  Kingdoms have risen and fallen, people lived and lied and died for reliance on such insolent and, finally, fickle beauty.

Freakin’ misty, drizzly-ass summer nights; they send me maudlin.  The clouds need to make up their collective mind and either pee or get off the pot.  I hate the sense of dramatic expectation woven into weather like this.  It’s almost a film cliché, but you don’t know if you’re in an unrated sex comedy, a sappy romance, or an irate, salty satire.  My luck, I’m starring in all three at once.

(ii)

The conjugal odors of grease and fried onions along with a plaintive growl reclaim my attention from the cinematic abyss.  As we approach the tiny diner on the corner I glance over to find Frog staring steadfastly ahead even as another whine gurgles through his belly.  Figuring better than to comment I adjust my angle, and after a slow, hesitant moment he hops along behind.

The diner’s empty tonight, the crew about as shit outta luck on business as the horde we’d escaped.  The wizened hag-slash-waitress what runs the joint jets in broomstick-quick from the back kitchen, glaring with deep distrust as we approach the high bar.  “Two double-dip tort-dogs and large lemonades to go,” I order, plopping into a seat and pulling out my (chain-attached) wallet.  “Hold the eye of newt, I got green.”  The witch snarls and spits curses in some obscure Transylvanian dialect but scribbles on her pad and spins the ticket on a creaky old-school clip-wheel.

I can feel Frog biting his lip behind me.  “I don’t,” he whispers.

“Don’t what?”

His stomach gurgles again.  “I don’t have any money so I can’t pay.”

“Sit,” I command, and, surprised, he slides onto the lilypad beside me, pushing his damp hoodie back to uncover his shaggy, shoulder-length blond hair.  “My treat, Frog.”

“But—”

“I’m starving, ain’t ate all day,” I lie, “and my dear mother, god rot her soul, raised me be polite, so you’re eating too.”

“But—”

“Besides,” I continue over his protests, “I don’t want you going woozy in the middle of our act.”  Trying to sound pragmatic, if rough.  “And you don’t need the distraction.  So.  You’re eating.”

“Fine,” he snaps, “but I’m repaying you after . . . after we . . .”

Exasperated, I grab his jaw and plant my mouth on his, sneaking inside to touch tongues then drawing back before the stun breaks and he objects.  “We’re square now, okay?”  Licking the (sweet) taste of him off my lips, I grumble, “First time I ever bought somebody dinner for a one-off snog.  Feel honored.”

Frog ribbits at me soundlessly, his cheeks a deep and fiery red, until he finally croaks out, “Are you crazy?  We’re in a diner!”

“So if we were in, say, a fast-food place, kissing would be cool?”  I’m enjoying this far too much.

“Dingo!”

I enjoy the flustered, irritated way he snaps my name far too much as well.  “Relax, Frog.”  I’ve a feeling I’ll be saying that to him a lot.  Um, tonight, I’ll be saying it to him a lot tonight.  “You worried about her?”  I cut my gaze over to the witch, muttering an invocation near the service window and studiously ignoring us.  “Never fear, she’s seen worse in this neighborhood.”  Including me on my knees behind the building, but I don’t feel called to confide the tidbit.  “A dingo goober sparkin’ with a cute frog at the high bar don’t so much as bubble her cauldron.”

As intended, he splutters and blushes at being called cute and, sensing he’s outmatched, pipes down, leaving us to sit in a silence broken only by the ever more insistent grumbling of his belly.  A comfortable silence unbroken by brags or bitching or blame.  I watch him from the corner of my eye, taking note of his generous curved lashes and the tiny, upturned bump at the end of his nose and the soft, fair sprouts of a hopeful mustache lining his plump upper lip.  Further down, to observe the nervous twisting of his short, skinny fingers in his lap.  My cock stirs in my jeans, surprising and vaguely annoying me.  Sex is an act I perform, not anticipate.  I enjoy fucking, sure, but I don’t need it, and attraction and desire are uncommon enough I can’t remember the last time I felt them.  Or, come to think, the last time I spanked on my own dollar.  Huh.

At last the hag-slash-waitress sets our order on the counter.  Frog immediately grabs his lemonade, sucking half down in one swallow and eyeballing the bag holding our double-dip tort-dogs with pure drooling lust as I pay the bill.  The witch counts, counts again, raises her unkempt unibrow.  I smile.  Yes, keep the damn change; wool of bat is probably expensive.  She grunts her appreciation, and I add aloud, “Would you mind topping up my friend’s drink?”  She looks as if she’d rather not, but I did tip her, so after the required short stand-off she gives in, and Frog drains the cup before handing it over with absolute wonder on his face.  What, they don’t got complimentary in-store refills where he’s from?

A chime from my cellphone distracts me.

Beanie:  “You come?”

Dingo:  “We come!  My friend was hungry, chill!”  And shake myself.  Why the free and liberal use of the F-word?  But as I’d figured, Beanie's cool.

Beanie:  “If friend hungry and cold you feed, then come.  Quickly, yes?”

Dingo:  “Quickly, yes!  LOL!”

No response.  Beanie takes his fucking fuckin’ seriously.

It’s stopped drizzling outside, but still damp and humid and expectant, with intermittent rays of the waxing moon stabbing through rainclouds to glitter and skitter off the surface of oily puddles.  I toss over the tort-dog and Frog tears through the wrapper.  “What is this?”

“Mini corndogs wrapped in a flour tortilla with scrambled egg, chili, onions, jalapenos, and cheese, then deep fried again.”

“Sounds disgusting,” he judges, taking a big bite and hissing at the heat before moaning at the explosion of flavors, which shouldn’t work together but do, very well, owing to the witch’s spellcraft.  Holding back yet another grin at Frog’s obvious enjoyment, I cock my head and he follows, gobbling.  As we walk I start in on my own artery hardener, but since I ate before casting my line tonight I’ve barely nibbled by the time he’s swallowing his last bite.

“Here,” I grunt, shoving my tort-dog into his chest and forcing him to catch.  “I ain’t as hungry as I thought I was.”

He glowers suspiciously but doesn’t try to return it.  “Why are you being so nice to me?  Sharing your fish, giving me advice, buying me food.  Why?”

“Hell if I know, Frog.”  I finish my lemonade and slam-dunk the cup.  “Two points, yes, the kid is on fire tonight!  Eat the damn tort-dog, will ya?  They’re nasty cold.”

He’s still suspicious, but not enough to turn me down.  “Thanks,” he mutters, digging in but eating slower this time, savoring.  And thinking.  Feel the ruminating rumble.  “Are you gay, Dingo?  Because I’m not.”

The question strikes me hard with hilarity and for the second time tonight I throw back my head and chortle.

Another irritated flush spreads over his high cheekbones.  “I’m not!” he insists.  “I have—had a girlfriend back home!  I’m only messing with guys for quick money!”

“No, no, I believe you,” I manage to choke out.  “I ain’t laughing at you either, I’m laughing at me.”

“What?  Why?”

“Because nobody’s asked for decades and you caught me by surprise.  Fish assume I’m either het or a closet case for some unknown reason.  Goobers don’t ask because they’re afraid I’ll ask them, and then they’ll have to lie, distract, or admit what I’m about to admit to you now.  I don’t know what I am, Frog.  If body parts count for anything I’ve rolled with more men than women, by a huge margin, but on the rare occasion I do suffer actual attraction it ain’t because somebody’s got a vadge or a dick or both or neither.  There’s probably a label for me, if I cared to research, and I don’t, labels ain’t nothin’ but a social-marketing pigeonhole.  What matters is I got a warm mouth, a big cock, and an easy ass for any fish wants to help me survive.”

“That’s . . . kinda sad, Dingo.”

I shrug.  “Meh, it is what it is, and I ain’t unhappy.”  Which ain’t the same as being happy, I expect, but you can’t split hairs when a hammer’s what you carry.  “Why’d you ask?  We’re getting paid to fuck, preferences be damned.”

Takes him a minute, but he finally admits, “Because you kissed me.  I . . . I wasn’t expecting you to.”

“I kissed you to shut you up,” I answer, being partially honest.  Hell, might as well go all in.  “And because you’re cute, okay?”

To my surprise there’s no splutter, no demanding of answers I’m reluctant to give, if only to myself.  Instead he nods his head thoughtfully and finishes the tort-dog.  I fire a cig but don’t offer him one and am relieved when he don’t ask.  Not because I mind sharing with him, oddly enough.  Because the notion of turning a non-smoking frog on to expensive (and deadly) self-medication is suddenly repugnant to me.  As I said, everybody needs a crutch; he deserves a chance to find a better one.  He deserves a chance, period.  But he ain’t my goddamn problem.  Or, more accurately, I ain’t his.

Truth.

“So,” Frog says at length, willing to change the subject now he’s eaten, “tell me about our fish.  What’d you call him, Beanie?”

“I don’t know his real name.  I call him Beanie cuz of his bald head.  He’s foreign, from the Middle East somewhere, maybe?  Or one of the old USSR satellites.”

“You do realize those are mutually exclusive regions and peoples, right?”  Teasing me, and don’t I dig.  Ugh.

“You’ll see when you meet him.  He’s a cool dude, wherever he’s from.”

“But also a pervo.”

I shrug.  “Everybody’s a pervo, in some way.  Beanie, us, the old witch at the diner.  Even when they’re just pervo for not being pervo, if you see what I mean.”

“Strangely, I think I do.”  He sounds amused.  Relaxed.  As if the food, or maybe my admission I was into him (temporarily, anyhow) had given him confidence.

I’m going with food being the reason.  A busy belly works wonders for the ol’ disposition.

“So what’s Beanie’s preferred perversion?  What are we gonna have to do?”  Frog’s voice half dread and half anticipation.  Straight?  Nuh-uh.  More like bi-curious, at the least.  If you’re into labels, which I most decidedly am not.  Social-marketing pigeonhole, remember?

“Like I said, the usual porn shit.  He uses his phone to record us sucking each other, sucking him, then he fucks us.  Worst he’ll want is to tie us up, but—”

“No!”  Frog stops walking and glares before I finish the sentence.  “Eight hundred, eight thousand, eight million, nobody ties me up!”

“But,” I emphasize, “he uses thin twine you can snap with a flex.  Relax.”  I deepen my voice, doing my best Beanie impression and aware I suck at rolling the Rs.  “Easy for weak boy to break string, only strong boy not break.”

For the second time tonight, Frog fails to look reassured.

“If you don’t want to be restrained, tell the man.  He won’t be mad, he’s not a prick, but it might affect the tip.”

“Tip?  What tip?”

“This is how it works.  You get five hundred regardless, he’ll pay before we do anything.  But if you do a good job, make him happy, he’ll lay the other three bills on you.  I’ve never known him not to tip at least something,” I add.

“And tying me up with thin, easily snapped twine will make Beanie happy.”  Again with the lip-biting.  Dammit, frogs don’t play fair.

“He’ll be orgasmic.”

Frog growls, low in his throat.  “Maybe.  We’ll see.”  He starts walking again, and I scurry to catch up.  “We’re using condoms, right?”

I hesitate.  This is where the exposition gets dicey.  But as I open my mouth to clarify another thought occurs to me.  “You’re not on PrEP, are you?”

Frog shakes his head.  “I’m not even sure what it is.”  Big surprise.  “Some kind of AIDS vaccine?”

“No, a daily dose HIV preventative, and it needs to be in your system a week before it provides the minimum protection.  But don’t worry,” I hasten to assure him as the lip-biting resumes anew, “you’re in luck tonight.  Beanie always wears a rubber, for any kind of contact, but anything between the two of us will be raw, and I am on PrEP.  Not only that, my bi-weekly bloodwork for other STDs came back bug free this afternoon.”  I’m more liable to catch something from you, I don’t say, depending on the quality of shuttle-fish what leeched you up on your way here.

He thinks about it, while I think about all he doesn’t know.  He doesn’t know how to read turned backsides to avoid trouble.  He doesn’t know how to fend off the goddamn pimps who’ll soon be circling like drug-abusive sharks.  He doesn’t know fish with wedding rings are—usually—nicer, cleaner, but less generous than those without, or the questions to ask to make sure you’re not dealing with a crusading and/or horny cop, or that stoner fish are easier to get off than drunk or wired fish, and infinitely less dangerous.

Why the fuck am I making the damn frog my problem?  Stop!

“Fine,” he grumbles.  “I’m trusting you.”  Looking me in the eye to ensure I receive the memo.

I meet his gaze.  “Although it goes against everything I’ve told you tonight, you can trust me on this.  I promise.  And trust me on something else, too.  Tomorrow when you wake up, first thing you do is go to the health department, any bus driver can point the way, and score a scrip for PrEP, the generic ain’t too pricey.  Most importantly, no unprotected anal, from either side, no matter how much somebody offers, for a minimum of two weeks, if ever.  Then at the very least monthly if not bi-weekly checkups for chlamydia and everything else, or anytime you so much as imagine something might be wrong.  Promise me, Frog.”

He nods, biting his lip.

“Promise me!”

Sensing my urgency, he grimaces and throws my word back to me.  “Relax, Dingo.  I promise.”  And, under his breath, “I don’t plan to be doing this for long, anyhow.”

“None of us did, Frog,” I reply under my own, “nary a one.”

(iii)

By now we’re in view of Beanie’s hotel, a swanky oasis in the middle of a downtown oh-so-suddenly less gritty; amazing the difference a few hundred feet can make.  As we approach the brightly lighted portico and door-dyke-guarded rear entrance Frog slows, his entire body sagging.

“Frog, you can do this.”

He scoffs.  “I’m not worried about that.”  Indicating his stained green hoodie and dirty black jeans and worn-out sneakers, he confesses, “I’m not exactly dressed for high society.”

“Me neither, but we won’t be dressed long anyway,” I reply, text-advising Beanie of our arrival.  “Come on.”

Sparkled up in a double-breasted red-and-black pantsuit and double-sharpened buzzcut white hair, the door-dyke doesn’t bat a double-thickened eyelash at our plebeian appearance.  “Dingo and friend for B-fourteen,” I say into the mic, repressing the urge to add “Bingo!”, and she holds up a finger and calls Beanie from the phone on her desk.  After a moment she hangs up, nods, and buzzes open the door.

“Elevator at the end of the hall.  He said he’d be waiting for you.”

Familiar with the routine, I nod back.  “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

“I can’t believe she let us in,” Frog whispers as the door-dyke falls behind us.  “Or that she was so . . . so . . . nice.”

“She knows we’re goobers.”

“What?  And she still let us in?  Why?”

“She’s hoping for tips herself, from us when we leave and then from Beanie, and she’ll get them or she’ll never open the door for us again.  Consider it a necessary business expense.  Pity we can’t write bribes off our taxes.”

“Oh.”

He’s still shaking his head in disbelief as the corridor ends in an alcove with a freight elevator and neighboring set of fire stairs.  As he reaches out to hit the up button, I reach out to stop him.

“What?”

I’m not sure what.  I think I’ve got some insane urge to ask if he’s sure he wants to do this, now is his last chance to back out, but then he’d ask what the hell else he’s supposed to do and I’d spill about the four shelters and three churches and six old queens in the neighborhood who’d open their doors without question tonight and then he might take me up on it and I’d feel guilty because charity life’s a whole ‘nother ugly beast and worse than honest prostitution but he might not because he might already know how the system fails and I’d feel guilty then because while prostitution might be honest it’s also a shitty trade and the only way of surviving with your sanity and soul intact is to have pals but the only way of keeping your heart intact is to not have pals and I’m not sure which is most awful, for him or for me, truth?  So I slide around him and call the elevator myself, improvising, “Nothing, I just like to be the one pushing buttons.”

“You are so weird, Dingo,” Frog observes, and I’m saved the indignity of pondering the wry familiarity in his voice by the elevator door dinging open.  We step inside and my smartass companion motions toward the control panel with an elaborate wave, granting me the extreme courtesy of pushing the button for our destination.  In such close quarters his lack of access to regular bathing becomes glaringly obvious by the stewed odors of sweat and stress and soured clothing plus an added soupçon of tort-dog, for piquancy.

I’ve smelled worse.

“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” Frog groans, crimson with shame.  “I didn’t think I . . . I didn’t think . . .”

“Relax,” I say, rushing in to soothe, “second thing Beanie’ll have us do is take a shower.”

As intended, the phrasing distracts him.  “Second thing?  What’s the first?”

“First, we sign consent forms and hand over our IDs so he can copy them.  And yes, Frog, Beanie does need to know.”

“When you said amateur porn you meant—”

“I meant amateur porn.  Why do you think he’s paying us so much?”  I neglect to compare the paltriness of our fee to how much he’ll rake in on our images; Beanie’s a cool guy, but he’s also a capitalist, and traveling the world hiring goobers for sex vids is apparently a profitable gig; go figure.

“So we’ll be . . . we’ll be . . .”

“Fucking on the fuckin’ internet.  Yes.”

He’s still biting his lip as the car rumbles to a halt and the doors open.  As expected, Beanie’s waiting for us, grinning with anticipation, the usual pink bathrobe belted around his hirsute body.  A strange look, a cross between heartbroken and determined, flickers across the frog’s face, and right as I calculate the odds on whether he’ll crap or croak he smiles big and hops from the elevator, holding out his hand.

“You must be Beanie.  I’m Frog.  Nice to meet you, and I’m looking forward to our, uh, venture.”

Beanie’s so damn charmed his bald head glistens as if splashed with precum, and he pumps the proffered hand with sheer ready-to-nut fervor.  “Grrrreetings, my dearrrr Frrrrog,” he booms, rolling the snot out of the Rs.  “You are surely more gorgeous than your picture!  I trust you are no longer hungry and chilled?”

“No, I’m . . . fine?”  Clearly lost, Frog glances my way.

I laugh and join them on the landing.  “No, Beanie, I meant ‘chill’ as in ‘relax’, not that we were cold.”

“Bah, American slang, I shall never figure out.  Dingo!”  He pulls me in for a hug.  Tall, plump, hairy everywhere except on his head, Beanie looms over everybody, and both he and his flagrant sandalwood aftershave know it.  “How magnificent to see you again, my good and beautiful friend!”

“Well,” I drawl, “you could see good and beautiful me every day if you wanted.  I’d make a helluva trophy husband.”  I’m joking, of course.  Mostly.

“Ah, but my dear Dingo, one must not snatch the impossibly thriving flower from the jungle, for fear it will wither and fade, yes?”

“Ah, but my dear Beanie, one is impossibly full of shit, yes?”

He bursts out laughing, claps me on the shoulders, kisses me full on the lips.  “Your vulgarity is the reason I adore you.”  In actuality he adores me because I swing a big dick, work cheap, and don’t rob him stupid, but why comment?  Drawing the frog into our huddle (and doing an admirable job of not wrinkling his nose), Beanie ushers us through the open service door and into the laundry room of his suite, and from there into the small (by gazillionaire hotel standards) kitchen, where, as I’d anticipated, his cellphone, a digital camera and consent paperwork await us on an oaken table bigger than my mattress.  “Frog, for your work today I pay you five hundred ‘up front’, as they say.  I trust the beautiful Dingo explained, you provide good show, I provide more money?  Excellent.”  He sighs, long and heartfelt.  “You must forgive me, Frog, but Interpol and your FBI force upon me the regrettable necessity of asking for your papers, your identification.”  Beanie truly appears distressed.  The old liar.

“I . . . I understand,” Frog says, reaching for his wallet with no discernible hesitation.

Beanie examines the ID like a pawnbroker looking for flaws in a suspect gemstone, but after a moment another, wider smile spreads on his swarthy, stubbled face.  “Ah, congratulations!  Happy, happy birthday, my dear Frog!”

“I can’t believe you neglected to inform me of such an important event, Frog,” I chide, giving him a tiny kiss on the cheek just to watch him flush.  “Happy birthday.”

“It was . . . it was yesterday,” Frog stammers, flushing.  “But, uh, thanks.  To both of you,” he adds.

I grin, glancing over to see if Beanie’s enjoying the discomfiture, and find him grinning as well.  But at me, not Frog.

Wisely moving on, Beanie snaps shots of our IDs with the digital camera, even holding them aside our faces for several.  After, he has us sign the forms, insisting Frog take the time to read every word although the legalese can be boiled down to one codicil: “screw you, I do what I want with the images.”  I look away as Frog signs his legal name.  Beanie passes back our IDs along with stacks of fifties, and I cram mine into my wallet while Frog counts.  Upon reaching ten a clear tension drops from his shoulders.

“Now,” Beanie proclaims, laying down the camera and hefting his insanely expensive cellphone, “we start to business.  Dingo, you begin, and Frog, you follow.  Go!”

I throw out my best megawatt smile and my usual line.  “Hi.  If you don’t already know me, I’m Dingo.  I’m a goober, and I’m gonna make you cum hard.”

“We’re gonna make you cum hard,” my costar corrects, giving me a lustful smile I’d never have imagined fitting his lips.  “I’m Frog, I’m a goober too, and today’s my birthday.”  He winks.  “Dingo’s gonna help me blow out the candles.”  Leaning up on his tiptoes, he drops a smooch to my surprised cheek.

What the fuck?  What happened to my nervous frog?  I’d complain if his touch didn’t give me a semi.

“Perfect, you were perfect, Frog, I love, I love!” Beanie enthuses, and maybe I’m the only one notices the slight grimace crossing Frog’s face as the camera drops.  Shit, I thought for a minute he meant the flirts.

Dammit, Dingo, he’s acting, earning his tip!  Maybe you should grok a pointer or two, huh?

“Thank you, Beanie,” Frog replies politely.  “Dingo said something about you wanting us to shower before we do anything?  I’m, uh, I’m sorry if my cologne offends you,” he jokes, his cheeks reddening, “it was on sale.”

Beanie bellows laughter, putting Frog at ease.  “You are too wonderful, Frog!  But yes, bathing is essential, and not only for cleanliness.  So erotic to see beautiful young men sharing the spray.” 

To his credit, Frog doesn’t falter as he asks, “You want Dingo and me to shower together?”  I’ll choose to interpret the lack of disgust in his tone as a compliment.

“But yes!  You will wash first, slowly and with lingering touches, then suck each other, again slowly but with many flourishes.  Such ordered foreplay is important for the overall production, you see, as it enhances the tease and slow burn before the race to climax.”  Oh, so he’s blown a student filmmaker or two.

“Okay then,” Frog agrees, nodding his head decisively as if he understands and approves.  “But first I, uh, need to take care of something alone.  Where’s the restroom?”

“I’ll show you,” I volunteer, and Beanie waves us away, fiddling with his phone.  Frog follows me into the front room, where he stops to whisper, “I see what you mean!  He looks like he rode in out of the desert, but his accent . . . is it Slavic?”

“No clue, I’ve never asked.  I’m worried he’d tell me.”

He laughs, but as he turns away his laughter catches in a shocked gasp.  I reacted the same way my first time too.

You’ve seen an entire wall made of one big window in the movies?  Yeah, that.  The thick, highly polished glass looks out over a blithe and rain-dappled city with no evident grit; amazing the difference a few hundred feet can make.  Goober street is just visible from here, but the view is gauzy, near translucent, the infrequent and cloud-shot moonshine not up to fully illumining such alien desperation.  The rest of the front room is nice, by gazillionaire hotel standards, with eloquently overplush furniture to recline upon and chin-stroking paintings for decoration instead of generic prints, but the panorama of incandescent metropolitan indifference smothers any self-satisfied aura of luxury.

“Come on,” I beckon softly, and Frog nods, saying nothing about the view; there are no words, not from whores.  He gasps again at the sight of the ship-size bed with its headboard of intricately carved scrollwork, and a third time at the majestic bath, all expensive tile and style with a jacuzzi in one corner and a ginormous glass-enclosed shower in the center, the setting for our porn’s first act.

“This is bigger than my room back home,” Frog murmurs, hushing his voice as if afraid of echoes.

“Bigger than my entire apartment now.  Rich people shit and shine in luxury undreamt by goobers, for sure.  Wait ‘til you feel the heated toilet seat.”

“Speaking of the toilet,” he says, his cheeks reddening again, “can you give me a minute?  I wasn’t kidding about needing to do something, uh, alone.”

Tort-dogs do it every time.  “Sure.  Commode behind that panel, the other’s a bidet.”  As I turn to leave:

“Dingo?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think Beanie’ll mind if I use the washing machine while we’re, uh, busy?”

“I doubt he’ll mind, long as he don’t have to figure out the buttons.”

Frog smiles, stealing my breath away.  “You like to be the one pushing buttons.”

“Damn straight.”  As I turn again to leave:

“Dingo?”  Biting his lip.  Of course.  “You said he uses thin twine?”

“It’s actually kite string.  Like Beanie says, the trick is to hold yourself back from snapping it.”

“I . . . Between new clothes and a phone and food and somewhere to stay and the medicine you were talking about . . . I need to earn the whole tip, even if it means being tied up.”

Meaning he’s already sussed how far eight hundred won’t get him; he’s a smart frog.  “We’ll earn the fuck out of your tip,” I assure him, and he rewards me with a half-smile.  On impulse I add, “Hey, how about this, when we get done tonight—” and catch myself.

“When we get done tonight what?”

 “When we get done tonight I’ll, uh, give you a list of the good thrift stores around here.  And maybe a couple suggestions on cheap motels what ain’t firetraps or drug-nests.”  Or goddamn pimp hells.

His expression softens.  “I’d appreciate it.  Thanks.”

“Sure,” I mutter, and this time when I turn to flee he allows me go.

While Frog poops I head back for the parlor or lounge or whatever the hell gazillionaires call this kind of room and stare out over the apathetic city, wondering at myself—am I fuckin’ crazy?  The offer to let him stay with me in my tiny castle had again been right on the tip of my tongue, ready to spurt out like the premature ejaculation of an overeager virgin, something that’s never happened once before, much less twice.  I don’t help.  I don’t trust enough to help.  What do I even know about the frog?  Certainly not his legal name; I’d carefully looked away as he signed the consent forms.  Yeah, he’s cute, and sweet, and naive, but innocence in some areas doesn’t signal a lack of degeneracy in others.  He might not have much carnal experience with guys, maybe he’s raped girls.  Unwise to the ways of street life, he could be a UMC punk on the run for thieving or dealing or hacking or any of a hundred other despicable crimes.  I ain’t shit but a low-rent prostitute, truth, however I do have principles and ethics learned in an ‘educational’ childhood and I refuse to ever again shoulder the karma of another person’s reckless choices.

Nuts, Dingo, who you tryin’ to fool?  He’s a baby, Frog may be eighteen but he’s still a sheltered baby lost in a jungle he never knew existed, let alone imagined he’d someday need navigate.  And that bothersome innocence is the reason you’re drawn to him, ain’t it?  You want to protect it.  Protect him.  But how can you when you’re the corruption?  You dumbass goober, you shoulda left the freakin’ frog on the sidewalk and invited Tranny Jack or Tweety, who know how to take dick and go away after.

“You like the boy.”

I start, offer Beanie a feeble, “I don’t know him.  We only met tonight.”

“How many times I hire you and another for scene?  Five, six?”

“Somewhere around there.”

“I have never before seen such a smile on your lovely face.  Even now, yes, even as he troubles you, you smile.”

“He’s cute,” I say, admitting the lesser truth to obscure the greater.  “Can’t wait to get him nekkid and his cock in my mouth.”

“Perhaps.”  Beanie’s eyes glitter, undeceived by my adorable vulgarity but willing to move on.  Sort of.  “And I cannot wait until he’s naked and in your arms.  I am confident your . . . performance will be impassioned.”

“Perhaps,” I throw back, regaining my snark.  “I always give an impassioned performance, as you well know, not to mention how I also always bring along a pretty co-star, which is the real reason you contact me when you’re in town.”  Beanie smirks, conceding the point.  Changing the subject (don’t you love how that works?), “He wanted me to ask if he could wash his clothes while we’re fucking.  They are pretty rank.”

“I take care of the wonderful Frog’s garments myself.”

I cock an eyebrow.  “You?  Do you even know how to operate a washing machine?  Did you watch the maid one day when you were bored of jerking off?”

He cocks his own eyebrow; dammit, his is bushier.  “Do you think I was born to wealth?”

“Yes.”

Beanie roars laughter.  “You are right, my father was filthy rich, and now I am happy to spend his filthy money on my own filthy pleasures.  But I nevertheless take care of the wonderful Frog’s clothing.”

“Thanks.  And, um, speaking of the wonderful Frog—your word, Beanie, not mine—will you please go easy on him tonight?”

Our employer’s gaze sharpens.  “Ah, so he is virgin?”

“Not so much virgin as green as hell.”

“Green?”

“I mean he’s innocent.  He’s got no clue what he’s doing, other than trying to fill his belly.  He knows what we’re gonna do, yeah, but knowing ain’t the same as knowing, truth?”

Beanie studies me intently.  “The wonderful Frog must earn his money, same as anyone.”

“He will,” I promise.  “He’ll give you your money’s worth.  Just . . . go easy, okay?”

“I go easy on him,” Beanie concedes, but again raises one bushy eyebrow in my direction.

Correctly reading the expression, I retort, “Don’t worry about me.  I’m game for whatever you throw my way.”  Shit, if Beanie imagines his weak-ass tricks with kite string color him intimidating he needs to tag along on jobs with my other regulars.

A distant flush interrupts our dueling eyeballs.  “I’m gonna go check on my co-worker,” I bluster, and Beanie’s chuckle follows me out.  As I raise my knuckles to tap on the bathroom door the unmistakable song of a regurgitating frog worries my ears, and I pause.  A couple more retches, the toilet flushes again, and only then do I tap.  Without waiting for an answer I ease the door open, surprising him in the act of rising to his feet and wiping his mouth.  “Damn tort-dogs,” I remark.  “Two of the bitches on an empty and unsuspecting stomach, wasn’t a smart choice.  My bad.”

He’s aware I’m aware of the true reason for his nausea, but he plays along, grateful, with a slight tilt of his thick red lips.  “Yeah, they were pretty spicy.”

“Sometimes they’re lethal, depends on the cook.  I, uh, they make me vomit too.  On occasion.”

“Then why do you keep eating them?”

Huh.  Never asked myself the question.  Why would I?  “They’re the only diet I know, I suppose.”  Moving along from what we’re not talking about, I pull open a drawer in the marble-top vanity.  “Brushes still in the wrapper and unopened Crest in here.”  To encourage him I clean my own teeth, taking care to hit my tongue and gums.  I don’t normally kiss my co-stars, Beanie’s never asked, but I recall the sweet taste of Frog from my sneak attack in the diner and I might possibly entertain the notion of another nibble.  Our gazes catch in the mirror.  I’m telling him something, or he’s telling me, I ain’t sure which.

(iv)

The bathroom door whines open, proving gazillionaire hinges need lube too, and Beanie steps in, his cellphone’s camera aimed our way, shattering the moment.

“Showtime,” I whisper under my breath, and Frog grunts and spits.  After we rinse I grab his elbow and edge us in front of the ginormous glass shower, Beanie’s phone following with the rapt attention of a hungry hawk, Frog’s eyes following the swoop like prey.  “Ignore it.” I whisper.  “Look at me.”  He bites his lip and nods, the unease in his baby blues urging me to pluck the cellphone from Beanie’s clammy paw and smash it against the expensive tile and style.  Instead, I continue issuing instructions in low, soothing voice.  “Okay.  We’re gonna strip each other, being all sexy while we do.”  Bite, nod.  I reach for the hem of his green hoodie and pull it over his head, revealing a too-big once-white wife-beater, one pierced nipple protruding against the filthy material, and he gasps when I brush against it.  As he raises his arms his pungence changes, more natural sweat and less soured clothes, and I breathe him in.  His torso is smooth, pale, and he gasps again as I run my nails across his too-skinny chest and belly, then moans, long and low, as I take the stud between my fingers and twist, not hard but enough to sting.  “Now me,” I command, releasing him and stepping back.  Bite, nod.  He reaches for my cap, tosses it aside as I draw another deep breath of him, mining through the grime for the elusive scent of his true essence.  His trembling hands unbutton my shirt, slow enough to be considered sexy rather than hesitant as he slides it from my shoulders to the floor.  His touch light, ticklish, he self-consciously tweaks both my unadorned nipples; they’re not as sensitive as his but I shiver anyhow.

“Perfect,” Beanie murmurs.  “So sexy.”

Frog and I ignore him.  I tweak the stud again, eliciting yet another gasp and a swelling slither in his pants.  I drop my fingers to the waist of his jeans but he grimaces and shakes his head, takes half a step back.  ‘S cool, I don’t mind being first.  His short, skinny fingers comb through my chest hair as if intrigued by the density before his touch drops lower, lower still, making me squirm, then, against all odds, straight down to my crotch, brushing against my straining erection.  I hadn’t noticed I’d gone fully hard, but I ain’t amazed.  He bites his lip and settles his grip across my length, squeezing.  “Holy crap,” he whispers.  “How big are you, anyway?”

“Open my jeans and find out.”

Frog brings both hands into play, fumbling with my belt and then my buttons as I toe out of my shoes.  He spreads the placket of my pants, and his jaw drops when my moneymaker pops free, proud and uncut and pointing to the sky.  To my amazement and delight he wraps his fist around me, his fingers barely meeting around the girth.  “Holy crap,” he whispers again.  “I’ll never be able to fit this in my mouth or . . . anywhere else.”  The trepidation in his tone inspires me to curse my endowment for the first time ever.

Striving to keep my voice steady despite the delicious sensation of his grip, I reply, “Maybe, maybe not, either way I’m gonna enjoy when you try.”  He grins despite himself, and I continue, “But we gotta strip your ass nekkid first.”  He loses the grin.  I pull his suddenly motionless fingers from my rager and slowly, oh so slowly settle my own hands on his hips, drift them inward.  When my left encounters a half-chub he sighs and doesn’t move away, instead locking his gaze with mine and stepping closer, pressing into my palm.

“Oh, I love, I love.”  Shut up, Beanie.

I rub and knead and he responds, hardens to full.  The layers of jeans and underwear may be exaggerating his size but in my expert opinion he’s bigger than he thinks he is.  And ain’t his insecurity just endearing as hell?

Once again, ugh.  I got it bad, don’t I?  Gimme a torch song and a hot mic, I’m hip.

“Do it, Dingo,” he says, breaking through my rueful self-disgust.  In the flirty, decisive tone he’d used in our intro, he continues, “Strip my ass nekkid.”

“With pleasure, Frog.”  Still holding his gaze, my practiced fingers unbuckle his belt.  Pop the button.  Unzip.  He’s breathing hard now, incipient panic mingled with burgeoning desire, and to ensure lust wins I press in close, rub my erection against his belly, and slide my hands around to grab hold of those meaty chunks of bodacious bubble butt, so at odds with the narrowness of his frame.  My fingers feather into the waistline of his jeans, venture inside the elastic band of his sure to be filthy boxers.  I breathe him in, the mint of the toothpaste, the sweat in his hair and the street on his face, and damned if I don’t smell something intriguing way down deep underneath, something familiar but from long ago, or from something I deserved but never dared request.  What is it?

Cupping the cheeks of his ass in my hands, skin to skin and eye to eye and naked cock to covered, I’ve got two choices.  I can shitcan the bullshit and my tip and run screaming from the room, leave him to sink or swim or frog-paddle like all the other goobers in the world or I can . . .

I can . . .

I can give in?

“What are you waiting for?” Frog asks, biting his lip and sending me insane with the need to mark him.  “Do it, Dingo.  I’m ready.”

The choice is as easy as it is hard.  I give in. 

Kneeling in front of him, hooking my thumbs into the waist of both jeans and boxers, I push down and off, adding his socks as I pass, and I allow this fucked-up infatuation to wash over and around and all through me.  His cock, not big, granted, but not small either, circumcised and ridiculously cute, pops up to bounce against his lower belly, though I’m not so stupid as to imagine anything intimate with him beyond tonight, unless we’re hired for another duo job.  A dense but compact patch of dark blond curlies, so soft and lovely in appearance, decorate his crotch, because let’s face it, he ain’t gay, at least not enough for social-marketing purposes, so if we’re going to be in each other’s orbit at all, whether as co-goobers or even, possibly, as pals, our relationship needs must remain platonic.  Smooth set of balls between his thighs and below his boner, but I’m allowed to enjoy him tonight, ain’t I?  I glance up and recapture his regard, and as I stand I take one long lick up his undershaft, driving him to shivers and moans, my tongue sneaking a taste of the arousal leaking from his slit, and maybe this memory will be one of the few I allow myself to keep.

Maybe.  If it don’t hurt too much.

I look down into his upturned face as he looks up at me, and with one hand I grab his erection while I employ the other in the delicate art of learning the thickness of his hair and the line of his high cheekbone, as he inevitably touches me back, tracing my face as I’m tracing his, and I refuse to imagine he’s committing me to memory too.  I refuse.  So I concentrate on the way he feels under my touch.  On the tiny bump at the end of his nose, on the softness of his hopeful mustache, on the warmth of his breath on my fingers.

“Now kiss him,” Beanie commands one or the other of us impatiently, overpowering the fragility of the wonderful Frog’s whisper, a sound only for us.

“Kiss me, Dingo.”

So I do.

Like the incongruity of the bodacious quality of his bubble butt compared to his skinny frame, his thick, full lips are at odds with the thin, pinched angularity of his face.  They’re as giving as his anxiety and stress are grim.  Luscious.  Succulent.  I probe beneath the minty overlay in search of the sweetness I’d sampled in the diner, the . . . earthiness? . . . of the elusive but familiar scent from an eternity of minutes ago.

Then he shifts his head so his lips press against mine just right and opens to me.

“Ahh.”  Maybe one of us, maybe Beanie, and don’t matter either way.  Frog’s taste overwhelms all thought, all reason, and I curse the goddamn spearmint residue, I’d rather dig through real and immediate tort-dog than artificial and premeditated toothpaste, because I want more of him, more of his, yes, earthy flavor, though I deny myself any speculation on the honesty of his morning breath.  Our palms quiver against our cheeks, our fingers stroke our temples, we hold ourselves securely in our grips down below.  Neither of us close our eyes.

“I love.  Beautiful.”

I’m not sure who breaks our kiss, but we both pull back at the same moment, and I ain’t even ashamed to say I’m the one who whimpers at the loss.  A secret smile plays on Frog’s glistening red lips, the sly, scorching humor doing fuck-all for cooling me down.

“I shall come back momentarily, my erotic young animals.  See, I place my phone here on the vanity, but please not to move until I return, yes?”

Frog releases my face and my cock but holds on to my gaze as he retreats a half-step, biting his lip.  “Where’s Beanie going with my clothes?”

“I asked if we could wash them and he said he’d handle it.”

“Poor Dingo, having to let someone else push buttons for a change.”

“Wouldn’t be fair for me to have all the fun, would it?”  Besides, the only buttons Beanie’ll push likely ring Housekeeping.  “And don’t worry, he won’t—”

“I know he won’t,” Frog assures me.  “He’s a pornographer, not a thief.”

“Truth.  But you should never—"

“What are we doing, Dingo?”  His baby blues boring deep.

I hesitate.  “We’re earning our daily bread.  No manna from heaven for goobers, ain’t it a bitch?”

And of course the frog doesn’t let me get away with my bullshit.  “Answer me!  What the hell are we doing?  Are we acting?  Are you acting?”

Gifting me the perfect prompt to laugh and exclaim Why yes, I am acting, thanks for noticing!  But he wouldn’t believe me and I can’t find the nerve to lie so, hoping Beanie’s cellphone lacks sensitivity enough to pick up our murmurs, I temporize.  “I’m not thinking about anything other than being intimate with someone I find attractive, and that’s enough for now.”

“So you’re not acting.”  A declarative sentence, not a question.

“No, I reckon I ain’t.  What about you, Frog?” I ask, dreading.  “Are you acting?  What do you think we’re doing?”

“I think,” he says slowly, his baby blues refusing to release me, “I think if you were kissing me neither of us would have a mind to wonder.”

“I do admire your talent for problem-solving.”  Stepping up, I embrace him, turning slightly so Beanie’s camera is at my back; our first kiss was for posterity, this one’s for us.  Frog’s arms wrap around my neck and he tilts his head and meets me halfway.  We both close our eyes.

I’m not going to describe the kiss; like I said, it’s for us.  I will say it goes on and on and on, beyond what any imagined voyeur wants to endure.  Timeless for us, for me, but for you?  Not so much.  I’m just barely pulled back to the less-vibrant ‘real’ world by the annoyed “ahem” Beanie grumps when he returns to realize his camera’s only filming my hairy ass.

We separate, reluctantly, and Frog says it this time.  “Showtime.”

“Yes, shower-time,” Beanie agrees, mishearing.  “Dingo, if you would be so kind?”

“See what happens when you’re selfless, Frog?” I tease, reaching past him into the stall.  “Let somebody else push a few buttons for once and the universe grants you a big ol’ knob to play with.”  I push the ball straight up, starting a flow of tepid water.

He says them again, those words to which I might easily become addicted.  “You are so weird, Dingo.”  To reward him (and to sneak a taste before the soap washes his natural bouquet away) I drop to my knees and suck him down my throat—

“Dingo!”

—damning Beanie’s notion of the “tease and slow burn”, burying my nose in the frog’s soft-appearing-but-prickly pubes.  His cock is the perfect size for my mouth, his plump glans knocking at the entrance to my throat, his undershaft pebbly against my tongue.  He tastes of earth, of sweat, of salt and semen and desperation, but sweetness follows, the honeyed flavor of virtue forgotten but not yet lost.

“. . . oh, Dingo.”  His hands settle on my scalp, his sweaty fingers massaging the bristles and telegraphing shivers of want through me, and I clasp a meaty chunk of bodaciousness in one palm and cup his twitchy, perfect balls in the other.  “Oh . . . oh . . .”  Close to cumming already.  Yeah, I’m that good.

The only thing stops me swallowing jizz is the certainty Beanie will subtract every drop from Frog’s much-needed tip.  I allow myself one last suckle, savoring the groan my enthusiasm inspires, and draw back.  Standing up and without wiping my mouth I graze my lips against his, painting them with his own taste, and his tongue sneaks out for a sample.

“Ahem.”  I cut my gaze over to a narrow-eyed and clearly irritated Beanie; he’ll get over it.  I tip him a wink and usher Frog into the shower.  He stiffens in surprise when the tepid water hits his overheated skin.

“Can’t be any hotter or the steam will cut off Beanie’s view,” I explain.  “Wait a sec, you’ll get used to it.”

Does Frog wait?  Oh hell no.  He breathes deep and hops under the spray as if cool water is his natural habitat, then turns to me and says, I shit you not, “Ribbit!  What are you waiting for, Dingo, me to whip out my tongue and drag you in here?”

“Baby, I’d be the luckiest fly on the pond if you did,” I grin, stepping into the glass box and closing us inside.

To my surprise he doesn’t flush, only grins back at me, not biting his lip.  This fuckin’ crush or whatever it is rises like mercury across another degree, and I bury myself under the spray, the stinging tepidity cooling my temperature but not doing diddly for my heat.

I’m so fucked.  And y’know what?  I don’t care.

(v)

So.  Just us now.  Beanie and his camera prowl around outside our cage like greedy tourists at a skin zoo, but in here, just me and Frog and the water.  Grabbing the bottle of body-wash (which likely costs about what I make for an average trick—in other words, more expensive than you’d expect) I pour half the precious gel between us and we get to work scrubbing each other.  His fingers slow, exploratory yet knowing on my body, my fingers inquisitive and restless on his.  He giggles as I dig into his pits, moans as I brush his nipple piercing, squirms as I slide down his sides.  He settles both hands on soaping and stroking my cock, squeezing my balls just this side of painful.  His baby blue eyes peering into my darker ones, his gaze searching but open.  We don’t talk, and Beanie circles, his lips moving in a soundless I love, I love.

Fuck Beanie.  He ain’t in here.  Him and his fuckin’ cellphone camera can’t feel the heat building between the frog and me, and—

“Dammit, Dingo, you think too much,” Frog growls, shoving me backwards against the glass and out of the spray, surprising me enough to allow it.  Crowding close, he zeroes in for a lick and a nibble at my lips, draws away as I chase him for another taste.  Kissing my chest, nipping my nipple, nuzzling in my soaked chest hair, he works his way down, tickling a laugh from me with the swirl of his tongue in my belly button before dropping to his knees, eyeing my length and girth with both lip-biting trepidation and resigned curiosity, a look as clear but muddier than the way he regarded the tort-dog bag back at the diner.  Tentative but resolute, he parts his thick lips to take me in.

He ain’t good.  Not even close.  Too much suction, not enough play, the sharp edges of his teeth covered less adequately than he imagines.  Although he’d admitted to doing oral before, he’s had zero experience with anyone my size, and it shows.  But fuck if he don’t feel amazing on me, so hot and wet and . . . and . . . present.  Like he’s always been there, even before I knew he was possible.  And his eyes, arcane and baby blue and gazing up at me as he works to please, to teach himself my secrets, secrets I’ve never known myself.  Does he see himself reflected in my own clear but muddy eyes, can he possibly miss the intensity of my concern?  No clue either way.

The frog is fuckin’ right, I think too fuckin’ much.

Screw thinking.  Steeling myself for the loss, I push him away.

“What are you—”  The gasp cut off as he slaps against the glass and I kneel behind him, spreading those bodacious bubble buttcheeks, exposing his hairless and twitchy center to my ravenous regard, his aroma tickling my greedy nostrils.  Leaning in, I trace my tongue along his crack, top to bottom, grazing his balls, bottom to top, pausing to lap into his virgin indention.  The soap here is only superficial, easy enough to ignore in my quest to taste the earthy, savory warmth inside him.  He climbs up on his tiptoes, shoving his bodaciousness into my eager face, moaning at the sudden and new sensations, so I dig deeper, wishing to penetrate him clear to his chest, hoping to lick his heart.

A tapping at the glass door.  Oh, right, this is business, not pleasure, so I reluctantly pull my head outta Frog’s ass, not allowing myself to be drawn back in.  Beanie glares at me, wriggling his camera, irritated he’d not been able to capture the rimming, and I shrug, my own version of an apology: sorry, got carried away.  The tepid spray sprinkles back in between us as we separate, and I stand, unable to resist one more quick caress along his crack, his hole snapping at my finger as I pass.

“I . . . I’ve never . . . I didn’t know anybody even . . .”  Bemused, biting his lip, his baby blues open and shiny but not abashed, and I need to forcibly resist snatching another kiss, Beanie’s pissed enough already.  Sighing, I shut off the water and return my full attention to the job.

“I must be able to see,” our employer scolds as he opens the door to our cage.

“Sorry,” Frog apologizes, trembling at my side.  “Didn’t think about it, I guess.”

Beanie softens some, repeats, “I must be able to see, you understand.”  He tosses us a couple towels, long and wide, clean and soft.  “Please to dry your bodies and meet me in bedroom.”  Muttering to himself, Beanie leaves us alone.

“You okay, Frog?” I ask.

Biting his lip, “I’m fine.” 

He ain’t, truth, but his tool’s still hard, and that’s something, so I don’t call him out.  Wouldn’t do any good anyhow.  We’re too far in to quit, and both of us know it.  We don’t talk, don’t trade glances, just pat each other down with the plush gazillionaire towels, and when we’re done, he tucks his hand into mine, his grip loose but strong, with only the minutest wobble to betray his nerves.  Or maybe I’m the one wobbling?

Beanie awaits us on the massive bed, pink bathrobe tossed aside to reveal his stocky body, hirsute but for the shaved pubes (don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness), condom already rolled down.  Training his insanely expensive cellphone on our bareassed entrance, using the flash despite every damn lamp in the room cranked to maximum shine.  He notices Frog’s and my clasped hands, and the slightest sneer twists his thin lips.  Not gonna lie, I almost smirk at the irony; wasn’t he the one who couldn’t wait to see Frog and me together?  Didn’t he comment about how he was positive we’d give him an impassioned performance?  The only reason I don’t smirk ain’t because I don’t want to piss off the ol’ honeypot fish but because if I let myself smirk I’m unsure what might come next.  Something’s brewing inside me, something with the potential to be nasty, and I don’t like it.  Or rather, maybe I do like it, and that’s what I don’t like.

Fuckin’ Frog.  Kid’s got me turned right round tonight.

“Dingo, you lie here,” Beanie orders, his voice brusque and still mildly irritated, “and Frog here, if you please.”

Thus instructed, we let go of each other (though not without a faint squeeze of fingers first) and clamber up on the bed, one to either side of our employer.  Beanie transfers the spotlight to his quivering, latex-squeezed dick, instructing us where to lavish our attention, and we get on with it.  Frog shows no hesitation, no awareness of the camera memorizing his every lick and suckle, and neither do I, but as I draw Beanie’s hairy, wrinkled balls into my mouth a jolt of irrational insult thrums through me.  I’ve always been a people-pleaser when it comes to my trade, have publicly espoused the simple business philosophy of giving the fish what he wants, no matter how kinky or kooky, but don’t you think forcing me and my scene partners to go raw while he himself suits up for even the most elementary blowjob is kinda, well, rude?  Guess I chomp down a bit hard on one testicle, because Beanie hisses.  Don’t say anything, though.  Wise man.

We trade places, me licking up the shaft, Frog trailing down, our tongues touching briefly as we slide on by.  The latex is tasteless in the worst way, stale and impersonal, but I rein in my baser instincts and get on with the job, giving Beanie the blowie of his life, goin’ ornate and shit, because if I don’t strive to be good there’s a chance I might be bad, bad enough to scrape instead of bob, or bite instead of suck.  Me and Frog seem to be on the same wavelength, doing our best to please the client, ignoring the spotlight in our faces.  Our tongues meet now and again, our lips tickle at kissing before sliding away, our sex-breaths the only taste in this latex-fouled desert.  Beanie appears to appreciate our effort, way he keeps spouting “I love I love” or cursing in his native language while caressing our scalps with the hand not holding the cam.  Frog’s eye catches mine, and the resignation I glimpse under his determination again gives me the urge to bite hard.

Luckily Beanie decides to move before I give in to the temptation.  Frog sits up, wiping his mouth, and I ain’t surprised to see he’s gone flaccid as me, his cute penis huddling close to his nest of soft-appearing-but-prickly-pubes.  Beanie doesn’t notice, or if he does, doesn’t care.  As he rises and indicates for me to lay on my back in the middle of the bed, he comments, “We try something new tonight.  Will be fun!”

Something new.  Great.  I resist the urge to grimace, and while Beanie fiddles with his kink-bag shoot what I hope is a bored look at Frog, and he meets my gaze.  Matches it.  He’s got stones, for sure.  Damn shame he’s having to weigh ‘em here.

Beanie rejoins us, his bald head shiny with sweat and his dark eyes blown with anticipation.  “We try something new tonight,” he repeats, displaying the accessories he’d rummaged up: four leather wrist cuffs and a rectangular ball of kite string, and I relax some, having been a mite worried he’d decided his “something new” required a stronger restraint, like rope or chains.  Irrational, I know, Beanie preferring his victims to enforce their own submission, but I’m itching over something I can’t pinpoint.  Like I said, fuckin’ Frog’s got me turned right round, like a record baby right round, considering what I ain’t never considered before, and it’s freaking me out enough to blur my instincts.

Beanie tosses me the first pair of cuffs, tosses Frog the kite string, and I relax some more.  Whatever this “something new” crap is, don’t look like it’s too far off the same old same old.

“Frog, if you would be so kind?” Beanie instructs.

Frog appears confused, but as I reach up to grip the intricately carved scrollwork he catches on and knots the string to the eyelet hook on my left cuff, the end to the headboard, biting his lip the whole while.  Soon’s he’s got my wrist restrained I yank it forward, snapping the twine like cheap thread (see how easy it is?) and am rewarded with both a relieved lip quirk and Beanie’s impatience.

“Yes, yes, easy for weak boy to break string, only strong boy not break.”  Heh, Beanie thinks he’s mocking me.  I’d like to see him go a round with Tranny Jack; that bitch can undercut with the best passive-aggressive sniper queens.  “Now, Frog, try again, with two loops this time.”

My coworker glances at me and I give him a minute nod.  Two loops ain’t no stronger than one, simply requires twice the pressure.  Easy-peasy, if need be.  While he fiddles with his own cuffs I take an experimental pull, find plenty of give.  Perfect.

“Frog, please to lie atop Dingo.  Supine.”

Okay, there’s a curveball.  Beanie usually binds his actors side-by-side, on their backs, knees, whatever.  I ain’t a fan of this new style, but it’s nothing to protest.  I hope.

Frog is frozen, uncomprehending.  “Beanie means your back on my chest,” I clarify.  “Relax, you’ll fit.”  Yeah, not very funny, but the quip seems to work, and he dubiously follows direction, eases himself down atop me, his weight negligible, his presence profound.  His earthy, mysterious scent bleeding into my nostrils.  His sweaty bodaciousness cuddling my limp cock, almost enough to send me plumping.  At Beanie’s silent command Frog raises his arms, his hands grasping the intricately carved scrollwork right next to mine.  Beanie leans over him but only as the hook of my cuff clicks into the eyelet of Frog’s does it hit me: the asshole’s tying us not in tandem but strapping us together.  What’s his fuckin’ game?  He trying to handicap us?  Handicap me?  As if.  Frog makes no comment, reading this shit as maybe eccentric but normal, and I’ll let him keep thinking so, but damn if this ain’t tripping all my alarm bells.

Finished securing us, Beanie turns his attention to rummaging in his kink bag while Frog wriggles on my torso, searching for a less precarious pose.  “Comfy?” I breathe into his ear as he settles.

“Except for your dick,” he whispers back.  “It feels like trying to get situated on a tree root.”

I chuckle, surprised, and he chuckles too, surprised at my surprise, but levity fades as Beanie climbs onto the bed with an unopened bottle of lube, the expensive kind what lasts awhile to prevent chafing.  Frog catches his breath as Beanie knees our legs apart, focuses the camera on our exposed crotches while he deliberates, then stuffs a pillow under my ass.  Satisfied with the raised positioning, he nudges our legs further apart while pushing them up, exposing our underneaths, and Frog gasps again, short and cringy and ending with a whimper quickly stifled.  I get it.  Not so difficult to exhibit your nuts and bolt, you’re raised all your life figuring they’re going to be seen by others at least (and hopefully) every so often, but the wrinkled, toothless asshole?  A place held self-sacred from the moment you learned how to keep it functional and clean?  Flashing that puppy for the first time is excruciating, especially when you ain’t never seen it yourself.

Beanie’s greased finger invades me, suddenly and without warning, and I bite back my own whimper when a second bullies in too, both of ‘em twisting and crooking, prying me open with all the finesse of a posthole digger.  Yeah, Beanie, sock it to me, like I ain’t been gaped before, but I whimper a little louder when he bullies his cock in, filling me up in one fell plunge, smiles at me over Frog’s shoulder, and I roll my eyes; savor your cheap victories where you may, Beanie, you ain’t getting many.  He sets a punishing rhythm, jabbing into my glow gland with uncensored precision, tapping out flushes of warm and familiar electricity; the prostate don’t care who’s knockin’, it just welcomes ‘em in.

Another gasp from Frog, and his left hand slides from the headboard to cover mine, our fingers entwining, his grip solid and strong.  Beanie must be staking claim down below, but I reckon he’s going easy on Frog because he ain’t going easy on me, exactly as requested, so I can’t bitch.  Frog stiffens then relaxes some, grunts dropping from his lips to run down his cheeks and drip on my shoulder; two fingers, gotta be.  Between those half-disbelieving, half-discovered groans, the sweaty, slippery weight wriggling around at my crotch, and Beanie’s cruel massage inside, goober habit and undeniable physical stimulation kicks into the inevitable and I harden to full, a blind but stoic soldier snapping to attention and impartially awaiting the sergeant’s pleasure.

Beanie slips out of me, adjusts his position, and though Frog controls his gasp I can hear it in the absence, in the way his breath stops at his first penetration, the way he crushes my hand.  Nothing prepares you for this either, fingers may probe their bony hearts out but the shock of a breaching cock is shattering; I may not remember who first pushed inside me, I sure as shit remember the stuffed hollowness.  Frog grunts as Beanie slides home and jealousy floods through me much like the tendrils from prostate probes, only instead of warm they’re cold, so cold.  I ain’t jealous of Beanie being the first, I’m jealous because it shoulda been the frog’s free will choice of penetrator, his choice to get fucked at all, a decision fueled by imagination or curiosity rather than calculated survival.  My cold annoyance blares past warmth into heat, searing heat threatening to incinerate me from the inside out.

Slam!  Back into my tunnel, the goddamn camera aimed at the juncture, showcasing not only the piercing but also Frog’s sullied, riven opening, and I’m absurdly glad the focus is on the flesh and not on our faces; the fuckin’ internet don’t need see my irritation or Frog’s preoccupation.  Beanie goes back and forth between us, stroking the frog, slicing into me, the familiar, habituated rhythm lulling me into dissociated complacency as I count the beats, climbing towards climax; this, then that, then plateau, then we’re done.  So I don’t think nothin’ of it when Beanie wraps his ingers around me and pulls me out into the open, when his greasy fist slides up and down on my cock.  Feels good, yeah, especially with the prostate pinging, but I’m a master at holding back and choosing the proper moment.  But then he slides me between the frog’s bodacious cheeks and up against the slick, twitchy, loosened hole, and my mellowing heat flashes right back to coldness, now bitter and more biting.

“Beanie,” I warn, “this ain’t taking it easy on—”

Beanie ignores and overrides me.  “He is strong boy, is he not?  Please to try, Frog.”

The frog’s right hand slides over, wraps around my fingers, squeezing hard.  “Frog, you ain’t gotta do this if—” but I’m interrupted when Frog growls and shoves his hips down, impaling himself on my twice-as-big-as-Beanie cock, and the growl turns into a shriek as he shoves himself down further, his agony bouncing off the soundproofed walls and echoing from the expensive tile and style in the bathroom, flooding out the door to the front room to sing along the picture window, too loud to be contained, too quiet to break free.  He takes as much of me as he can reach, and when he hits his limit suspends himself for a single silent, breathless moment, just long enough to amplify Beanie’s satisfaction.  “Oh, I love, I love.”  Frog slides himself up, glides back down, and returns to sound, not as another scream but instead as a primal moan, crammed and uncomfortable and steeped in a reluctant and pained wonder.  Out of sheer habit I thrust upwards, aiming for his glow gland as best I can; I’ve been known to enjoy pushing buttons before, ain’t I?  Frog’s fingers grip my fingers tighter, tighter still, cutting off the blood for both of us, a high, whinging whine slobbering from his lips.  Raising my head, I glance down his torso to see he’s hard and leaking, meaning he’s feeling those involuntary, overwhelming tingles, and I hope they give him a focus; if he’s gotta do this shit, better to ride the wave than drown, and it’s the same damn wave I’m riding myself.  Between Frog’s guts on my cock and Beanie’s unceasing attention to my sweet spot I’m gonna spew in a handful of strokes, professional restraint be damned.

“You may orgasm when ready, Dingo,” Beanie instructs, his greedy camera focused on the twin penetrations, “but please to warn me when you pull out so I capture, yes?”

Money shot.  He’s fucking with me, fucking with Frog, fucking Frog through me, and still demanding his fuckin’ money shot.  The absolute goddamn prick.  I increase my pumping, down onto Beanie, up into Frog, both of ‘em meeting me halfway, Frog still whining but breathless too, all “uhhhh-EEE-uhhhh-EEE”, rolling his blond head on my shoulder, swallowed by sensation, at the point where it ain’t bad and it ain’t good, it just is.  My nut begins building in my balls, swelling my size, and Frog gasps, gasps again, and . . .

And . . .

Without thought but aware of every move, I yank my wrists free, snapping the kite strings with a single clean flex, my arms swinging around Frog, his fingers still clasping mine as I clutch him close, grab onto his nipple ring and twist, not going easy but dialing the voltage all the way to red.  Frog erupts into another holler, this one astonished, not stoic.  Hurting and burning but present and embraced, he shoots, his semen spurting out in uncontrolled evacuation, his sleeve milking me with every spasm, and I roll with it, burying myself deep and spilling my balls into his bowels; fuck Beanie’s money shot.  Beanie clocks my own spasming hole, and anger at being denied my climax churns in his dark eyes and furrowed, bushy brows even as his own release approaches.  Ripping out of me hard enough to hurt, he scrambles up the mattress, breaking the condom just in time to spray, aiming most of his spunk all over my cheeks and forehead while Frog gets only dribbles.  Newsflash, Beanie: jizz washes off—goober lesson 101.

For a long minute, nothing.  Just the flash in our bespattered faces, the rhythm of our harsh breaths, the realization we’d scaled the peak, leaving nothing left but the fall.  Beanie drops the camera, and as if the action had been a trigger Frog comes to life atop me, groaning like a battered surfer, trying to simultaneously snatch his wrists free from mine and wriggle off my softening cock.  He manages the second, pushing me out with a strained hiss, and I manage the first, loosening his left cuff as deftly as possible, although it costs me two tries, due both to his controlled panic and my damp, clumsy fingers.  Soon as the left restraint pulls free he rips off the right, leaving both dangling from my own, and bolts bowlegged for the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Beanie pulls his bathrobe closed, ties the belt, all without looking at me.  “I think,” he says slowly, pausing not to choose his words but for effect, “I think this will be last time I call you.”

I sit up on the bed, drop all four cuffs onto the sweaty sheets, and don’t pause at all in my reply.  “I think that would be best.”  Standing up, I stretch and redirect my attention towards the frog.  Should I go after him?  Or give him time to process?

Beanie breaks my deliberation with an honest question, his voice ruefully affectionate, if distant.  “Why?”

I know what he’s asking, and I let a few seconds tick by while I calculate which reason he deserves to hear, finally settle on the one what speaks for all.  “Because I can’t abide rudeness, Beanie, especially from those who should know better.”

His swarthy face goes all puzzled, but if he can’t figure it out, then that’s his issue.  Leaving Beanie to stew in his own confusion, I cross the floor, tap on the closed door, and wait.  It ain’t up to me to go after Frog.

It’s up to him whether to let me in.

(vi)

“Get in here, Dingo,” Frog calls.  “I figured you’d show up sooner rather than later.”  Slipping into the expensive tile and style, I find him sitting on the commode, panel door half-cracked; there ain’t no point to modesty now.  He grimaces and farts out a great gust of compressed air followed by the tinkle of what’s unmistakably me draining out into the water below, but he seems okay.  Not comfortable by any means, but okay.  After a moment he relaxes and resumes wiping away the spend on his belly with the tissue paper wrapped around his fingers, stroking slowly and methodically to ensure he attends every drop; he’s already mopped Beanie’s dribbles from his high cheekbones, meaning he’d grasped goober lesson 101 without me needing to explain; told ya he’s a smart frog.  Again not commenting, I head for the sink to scrub my own face, wishing I’d thought to use the gazillion-thread-count sheets, but bullshit pettiness would’ve just forced some poor maid to clean up a nastier mess than we’d already made.

Dropping the fouled tissue between his legs into the toilet and without looking at me, Frog asks, “How mad is he at you?”  Not only smart, but perceptive.

“Let’s just say no tip for Dingo,” I reply, shutting off the tap and patting my complexion dry with one of the damp towels from earlier.  Frog’s baby blue eyes meet mine in the mirror, not asking why I did it, why I deliberately broke Beanie’s rule and forfeited my money, although he surely wants to understand.  I wish I could explain, but he probably wouldn’t get it, and maybe that’s a blessing.  Needing something to say, I redirect the convo to reassurance.  “I wouldn’t worry about yours, though, you more than earned it.”

“You’re damn right I earned my tip,” the frog agrees.  Not arrogant, not wounded, but pragmatic.  Confident.  As if in protest another great blast of compressed air rips out of him, and he grimaces again.  I open my mouth to say something, to commiserate or land a “been there done that” joke or, you know, whatever, but he stops me quick.  “No, Dingo, you are NOT allowed to feel bad for me.  You knew what you were doing, I knew what I was doing, and we both made a choice.  I could’ve rolled away, he wouldn’t have stopped me, but I wanted to do it, and not for the reasons you imagine.”  Frog ain’t comforting me, but he ain’t trying to neither; he’s annoyed and cutting through the crap with his usual lack of finesse.  “I didn’t do it for the tip, or because I felt pressured, or even because I thought you’d like it.  No, I did it because for a few blessed minutes there you were the only thing in my head.”  Letting go my gaze in the mirror, he abruptly stands and uses another wad of tissue to clean his backside and then flush.

I nod.  Message received.

“You want the first shower?” I ask as he walks all spraddled towards the room’s ginormous centerpiece.  “Hot water ain’t no problem, take your time.”

 “Dammit, Dingo, stop being so careful and take a shower with me.  Clear enough?”

Well, when ya put it like that . . .  Giving him the honor of manipulating the faucet ball, I take my turn at the toilet with a long and loud and necessary piss, and when I finish and join him on the bathmat steam’s already pouring out the open glass door; no need to keep the temperature tepid now.

He ushers me past and shuts us inside.  The water’s just the wrong side of scalding, but it don’t take me long to adapt and prickle up; like sex, a hard, hot shower is gonna affect your body whether you like it or no.  The steam billows around us, fogging the glass walls, giving us a privacy nobody outside may breach.  We soap up in silence, washing each other off ourselves, but there’s still intimacy all up in here, an intimacy maybe stronger than skin-on-skin and enhanced by closed, close distance.  Frog grimaces again as he washes his backside, then hisses as he brushes a particularly wounded patch.  “I was so focused on how it felt to do,” he confides in a murmur, “I didn’t consider how it’d feel after.  How do you ever get used to it?  Or do you?”

“You do,” I confirm, and it must be true because I ain’t ever thought to think about it.  You get fucked, your sphincter adjusts, you wash off the lube, it’s over.  Any discomfort is always minor and certainly never to be indulged, because it’s just gonna happen again, so why make a fuss?  And suddenly, right here, right now, standing in this swirling, weeping fog with a different, younger, and perhaps more resilient version of myself, a bone-deep and skeleton-heavy weariness sags my spine, along with a concept I’ve skirted but never dared identify later: I don’t wanna do this shit no more.  I don’t want Frog to have to do it, for anyone to need to do it.  But like my dear mother, god rot her soul, used to opine, wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which’un gets full quickest, and remember the rent’s due tomorrow.  Yeah.  The goddamn rent is always due tomorrow.

The lather washes away, leaving behind two used but clean goobers.  There’s plenty of room in here, no reason to huddle up, but neither of us move away, maybe shuffle in a little tighter so his earthy, enticing, mysterious yet familiar scent filters out from under the smell of soapy perfume to tease me.  His baby blue eyes meet mine in the mist, questioning, and I tilt my head down as he tilts his up, our lips meeting, at first lightly, undemanding, testing the limits before settling in, sliding with confidence, his thick lips giving and taking and sharing, and we both close our eyes.  It ain’t sexual, it ain’t romantic, it ain’t even purely relief.  Hobo and me used to kiss like this sometimes (or maybe fuck, if we were bored or horny) before he buggered off to wherever he buggered off to and left me on read, and I’ve missed it.  Missed the connection.  I could give a crap about more sex with the frog, not because I’m suddenly unattracted (I ain’t) or I because I didn’t enjoy him (I did).  Because this feels more personal.  I fuck all day every day, but kissing is rare, and kissing with intent rarer still.  So I throw myself into it, giving Frog everything I’ve got, and he throws it back to me, and if it never happens again, we’ll have had it once, and that’ll have to be enough.  This shit ain’t nothin’ but an endorphin high anyhow, even pros are liable to catch a bad case of tenderness after a heavy scene.  It’s happened to me before.  A couple times.

He draws back and settles his wet head on my shoulder for a good few minutes, not saying anything, just breathing me in the same way I’m breathing him in, then he places a gentle hand on my chest and pushes, not against me but toward himself, leaving me in increments, until we’re not touching anymore, and I’m the one shuts down the ball.

Guess we were under the spray for longer than I’d figured, because the mirrors and expanse of expensive tile and style are fogged to hell and back.  Frog’s laundered clothes sit neatly folded on the vanity with his meager possessions deposited atop, meaning Beanie’s been in here; hopefully the steam kept him from getting a greedy eyeful of Frog’s and my moment.  As I slip into my drawers Frog gasps, and it ain’t a pretty sound.

“What?” I ask, then notice his shocked gaze fixed on the pile of clothing.  “Everything there?”  Looks fine to me.  Shoes, socks, black jeans, white drawers and tee, green hoodie, along with a thin, battered wallet, a creased guitar pick, and an empty Fleetwood Mac keyring.  Odd.  I’d have figured him for a metalhead.

“My hoodie,” he whispers, and I look closer, only now understanding his confusion: the clothing ain’t the set Beanie took to be cleaned but instead spanking new, identical to the old but for the wifebeater, now traded for a full-sleeved cut.  Decent of Beanie to replace them, I suppose.  Or maybe he’d been afraid they’d disintegrate in the laundry.

But since Frog don’t look happy, I get specific.

“What about your hoodie?”

“It was the last thing my mom gave me before—”  He breaks off, yanking on the new clothing with quick, vexed snatches.  They fit him perfectly.

I hurry to catch up, only taking a sec to fold and hang the damp towels before tilting my ball cap backwards on my head and trailing after as he storms out.  He stops in the front room, takes a deep breath, and deliberately relaxes his shoulders.  Normally I’d pause here, drink in one last gulp of the gazillionaire panorama of indifferent city, but somehow it don’t impress me much anymore.

“Beanie?” Frog asks as he enters the spotless, intimidating kitchen.  “What did you do with my clothes?”

Our employer looks up from the paperwork on the table, takes Frog in over his half-rim glasses, which I’ve noticed he only dons after the shoot.  “I throw out,” he says slowly, as if wondering why the frog would ask.  “They were, what is word? Threadbare.”  And stinky, he doesn’t have to add; it’s implied.  “You like new outfit?  You look much better now, more handsome boy than wet rat.”

“Drowned rat, Beanie,” I murmur, but he pays me no nevermind.  And he wonders why I called him rude.

Frog opens his mouth to say something, closes it again, and I’ll bet I’m the only sees the disappointment in his baby blues before he firms himself and lets it go.  “They’re very, um, sturdy.  And clean.  Thank you, Beanie.”

Beanie waves Frog’s half-hearted gratitude away.  “Is nothing.  Now, we have one last task before I give you tip.”  Grabbing up his cellphone, he aims it our way.  “Please to make nice goodbye.  Go!”

Frog blinks once, blinks again and kicks back into his confident pose, only barely missing the beat.  “Uh, yeah, I had a good time tonight, and I hope you guys did too.  I, uh, I hope you all came as hard as I did.”  Said with a big, bright, brittle smile, but Beanie seems satisfied, and only as an awkward silence descends do I catch on.

“Yeah,” I say, focusing on the cellphone and not the pornographer.  “What Frog said.  Thanks for letting us show ya how it’s done.  Beanie, it’s been a business doin’ pleasure with you.”  My standard exit line, and Beanie dutifully, showily chuckles as usual, but he’s never truly understood it, and I don’t think I ever understood it until now either.

Beanie drops the phone, and the job is finished.  Reaching into his bathrobe, he pulls out a stack of twenties and begins counting them into the frog’s outstretched palm.  Frog counts along, and at fifteen starts to close his fingers, draw his hand away, but his jaw drops as Beanie keeps going, piling on more and more cash, until he reaches thirty.  Six hundred dollars.  Not only denying me my tip but adding it to Frog’s.  I’d laugh, but the prick would just take it wrong.  Frog glances at me, one breath away from protest, but I minutely shake my head, same way I’ll shake my head when he tries to split it with me later.  He earned the tip, no matter how pointed Beanie’s being with the snub, and needs it more than I do anyway.

“Uh, thanks, Beanie, glad you were, uh, pleased,” Frog says, tucking the cash into his battered wallet.  “I guess—”

“But wait!” Beanie interrupts, and I stiffen.  “There is more!  I have gift for you!”

“You don’t have to—”

“Is not much,” Beanie declares, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a slim box, acting all smooth and pretending it’s been there along.  Presenting it to Frog with a flourish, he continues, “For your birthday, you see.”

Although dubious (on both our parts) Frog opens the box, and what he finds inside don’t widen his baby blues so much as tighten them.  “A . . . a phone?”  Once again I’d laugh, but they’d both just take it wrong.  “I can’t—”

“You must,” Beanie insists, all but shoving away the frog’s attempt to hand it back.  “You need, is your birthday, you take.  Is registered with local number and paid for ninety days.  After that . . .”  He shrugs, implying pay your own damn bill or we can renegotiate, and he proves my hunch dead on the money when he finishes, too casually, “Maybe I call you when I next visit your city, yes?”  His dark eyes briefly flicker to me, but I only raise my chin, bored, not giving him the satisfaction.  It ain’t his bullshit towards me got me conflicted anyway, it’s the extreme generosity; he's dropped north of two grand on the frog tonight, and I don’t like it.  Can’t bitch, though, Frog surely did need new clothes and a phone.  Besides, Beanie always did me a’ight, up til tonight, and he ain’t in town but a couple times a year, so maybe Frog can get off the street before Beanie thinks to call.

Yeah, okay, I don’t believe it either.  But we can hope, can’t we?

“Um, well, okay.  And thanks,” Frog offers at length, voice still uncomfortable but tempered with faint charm.  “You didn’t have to, but I appreciate it.”

Beanie holds up a finger.  “One more thing!”  Again reaching into the robe’s pocket, he pulls out a card I recognize instantly, having received a few of them myself.  “Is URL of website, with username and password so you may watch scene.  I edit and post in one month, maybe two.”  I always trashed mine, having no desire to eyeball my own distended asshole, but I wasn’t kidding earlier about how everybody’s a pervo in some way, and maybe the frog will be curious to check out how he looks on the little screen.

Yeah, there’s something else I don’t believe.  I got a notion this night won’t be one of his most treasured memories.  He thanks Beanie again anyway before slipping the card into the phone box and the box into the catch-all pocket of his new hoodie.

Before we go Beanie claims a hug from Frog, not seeming to notice the looseness of the embrace, and offers me a hand.  Surprised, I grasp it and we shake, not friends anymore, if we ever were, but not enemies either.  Just . . . done.  He closes the door behind us, leaving two paid-off goobers to head for the service elevator, not talking.  Once there, Frog stands back, allowing me to push the down button, and while we wait turns to me, opening his mouth to offer, and I shut him down.  “No.”

I’ll give him credit, he don’t challenge me, or even look surprised, just turns back towards the elevator.  When the door opens we close ourselves inside, and he takes a turn pushing the button.  On the ride up the atmosphere had been rife with the aromas of sweat and stress and soured clothing, now there’s nothing but clean Frog, soapy on top but earthy, mysterious, enticing underneath, and I’m no closer to figuring out what it reminds me of, so I push it away and concentrate on now, on this moment.  Where do we go from here?  Back to goober street?  It’s late, all the business probably dried up by now, and besides, working while carrying a big wad of cash ain’t the brightest of ideas.  Frog needs somewhere to stash his pay, somewhere to fall out for awhile before getting up to do it all again tomorrow, and I did promise to supply a list of safe motels around here.  Maybe I should invite him to breakfast and do it there; he’s gotta be hungry after puking up the tort-dogs earlier.  Come to think, it’s late, like I said, and will be even later when we finish eating, so all the decent rooms will be gone.  I suppose I can offer to let him crash at my castle tonight, give him a fresh start tomorrow.  I can move some of the thrift-store paperbacks around, make a spot for him on the couch.  Or he can slide into my bed with me, there’s plenty of room, if a little tight.  If he does maybe I can figure out what the hell his scent reminds me of.

The door-dyke awaits us at the exit, her double-thinned eyebrows raised enough to count as tip expectation, but as I reach for my wallet Frog barrels past, hand already outstretched.  “Thanks for letting us in tonight,” he beams, handing her one of the fifties and shocking her and me both; she’d have been happy with a twenty.  Neither of us object though, merely share a single, rueful glance.  He’ll learn.

“My pleasure,” she returns, tucking the tip away into a double-trimmed pocket.  “Have a great rest of your evening!”

Outside, the rain has returned, with a vengeance born not of volume but sheer inevitability, the kind of drizzle what promises to hang around awhile for no other reason than to piss folks off.  As we leave the building I hang back to hold the door for a drenched old Mexican woman wrangling a herd of rolling garbage carts.

“Gracias,” she murmurs as we pass.

“Con gusto, señora,” I reply absently, my mind elsewhere.  I wonder . . .  “Stay here,” I tell Frog, “I’ll be right back.”

“Why?  Where you going?”

Not wanting to get his hopes up, I spin my cap around and trot out into the rain, heading for the enclosed set of dumpsters at the back of the lot.  The gate’s locked, natch, but the chainlink fence and barbed wire are easy enough to navigate, despite my grip slipping at one point and almost scraping across a spur.  Vaulting myself up and over, I check the first dumpster: empty.  Trash must’ve run yesterday.  The other’s around half-full, and I peer inside.  It’s dark and shadowy out here but there’s enough light from a nearby streetlamp to illuminate a flash of green at the very back.  Nothing to do but crawl inside and check.  Most of the muck is solid, to my relief, but my weight compresses the trash underneath me and a lucky layer of ripped cardboard gives me a precarious stability as I root around.  Yup, it’s his original hoodie alright, decorated with old stains and new coffee grounds and wet with rain and refuse, but it looks okay, not much the worse for wear, and maybe not as threadbare as Beanie and me assumed.

Did the frog wait under the portico like I asked?  Of course he didn’t, and now he’s standing in the rain outside the enclosure, new hoodie hood covering his shaggy, shoulder-length blond hair, hands shoved into the catch-all pocket, baby blues I can’t see but only feel in the dimness alight with curiosity.  “What are you doing, Dingo?”

I toss the retrieved hoodie over the fence in answer, and his muffled gasp tells me he recognizes it before even yanking a hand from his pocket for the catch.  He stays silent as I brush the worst of the mess from my clothes and launch myself up and over, and he only speaks when I’m once again at his side.  “Thanks.  But why didn’t you just tell me?  I would’ve climbed in myself to get it.”

I shrug, stuffing my hands in my pockets and hunching my shoulders against the rain.  “No point in getting your new clothes all dirty.”

Frog’s baby blues rest upon me for a long moment, and it ain’t so dim out here I can’t spot the gratitude, but all he says is, “You are so weird, Dingo.”  In a sudden, decisive movement, he yanks his other hand from the catch-all pocket and, before I can stop him, tosses the phone box into the dumpster, not taking his gaze off me long enough to see where it lands.  His thick lips break into a grin before his froggy ass leaps away.  “Breakfast  on me, but last one to the diner has to tip!” he calls over his shoulder as he blasts into a dead run across the parking lot, gait still bowlegged but fast as fuck.

Kicking away my two shocks, I jet off into the drizzle after him, laughing like a loon, intent on giving him a real challenge but planning to stay one step behind the whole way; don’t need him overtipping again.  Wish me luck!

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