Pull of the Grove

I could have laughed—if I weren’t a little weary and tired of the cruising—and tired of looking over my shoulder in case I saw Austin, not knowing what to tell him about having walked out on him. I’d walked the paths of Marconi Plaza park for over an hour without a bite when all it took was for me to sit down for a rest on a bench and a man sat on the bench beside me. He had a box of popcorn and was eating it but also sharing it with the pigeons that came out in force at the opportunity. There was something sad about him, like being alone in the park and feeding the pigeons wasn’t his first—or thirtieth—favorite choice for spending his time. He turned to me and held out the box.

“Some popcorn?”

“Thanks,” I said and took a few kernels to be polite. I looked away but then turned my face back to him to find he was looking at me.

“You come to the park often, don’t you?” he said.

“I live nearby,” I said.

“On 10th Street, do you?”

I gave him another look. I didn’t live on 10th Street. I lived in the other direction. Merry’s, the gay bar I went to, the bar where I did a lot of my negotiation with johns, was on 10th. So was the fleabag hotel where I took my johns.

“I see you out here often,” he said.

I took a closer look at him. His clothes spoke of money. A well-cut camel-hair jacket and razor-thin-seam pressed brown trousers. An expensive-looking tie. Brown leather loafers, probably costing more than I made in two weeks. A white shirt that looked more Brooks Brothers than JCPenny. The suit was cut very well, in fact. A close inspection had him a little pudgy. The suit was cut so that you had to look hard to discern that. He was in his late fifties, if he was a day. But he was manicured and his salt-and-pepper hair was styled. Some sort of executive, I decided. Money.

But what was he doing in this park? Alone—very obviously alone—in the park in the late afternoon. Every evidence of cruising as much as I was. And he’d been checking up on me.

I hadn’t answered quick enough. “I’m sorry,” he said, “Am I bothering you?”

“No, not at all,” I answered. “I appreciate the company. And I wouldn’t mind having some more of that popcorn . . . unless it’s really all for the pigeons. I get this image of The Birds. Both of us being attacked and pecked to death because I was eating their popcorn.”

He laughed at that, but it didn’t seem to be an awkwardness-clearing laugh.

“Oh, of course. Here, I’ll put the box on the bench between us and we can share.” It gave him an excuse to move closer into the center of the bench. To show him I was friendly, I moved a bit in his direction too. I gave him a smile, and his arm went to the back of the bench. I could feel the tips of his fingers being lightly applied to the back of the neck of my athletic T, just about where it left off and the skin between my shoulder blades started.

“Sorry if I’m being impolite,” he said. “My name is Jerry.”

“John here,” I answered. “I’ve said why I come here—it’s the closest park to where I live and I need the light exercise walking gives me. And you?”

“You don’t look like you need a lot of exercise. You look like you’re in great shape.” A nervous laugh, like maybe he was being too forward too fast.

“Thanks,” I said. “You look good yourself. A good-looking man, and you wear your clothes well.” He didn’t look especially toned, and we both knew it. But we also both knew this was a form of foreplay. The negotiations had begun.

He spoke next, not referring to his physique, although I could tell he tried to pull his little pot belly in. “Guess you could say I’m lonely. And looking for something.” He let that just lay there for a moment, waiting to see if I’d pick up on it. I needed the money, so I did.

“Maybe you looking for some companionship, Jerry? For an hour maybe.”

Bingo. The fingers of his hand moved up to the skin at the base of my neck. They didn’t just lay there; he was lightly moving them around in small circles, sending a shiver down my spine. He looked down in my lap and I realized that he was hoping that what he was doing with his hand would cause a discernible stirring down there. It didn’t, but I spread my legs and grimaced a bit to pretend that maybe it was. My bulge was pretty prominent anyway in these running shorts, so whatever he saw wouldn’t be disappointing.

“Maybe you’d like to spend some time with a younger man?” I added. I raised my right arm and covered the hand he had on my neck with my hand, holding his there against my neck, showing him I knew his hand was there and that I wasn’t rejecting the touch.

“I certainly wasn’t looking forward to eating dinner alone,” he said. “Might you be interested in having dinner with me in a restaurant. I’d really enjoy the company. My treat, of course.”

“That sounds pretty good to me.”

“And maybe a nightcap at my house. I live in Westchester. And I’d be happy to drive you home . . .”

The hand was massaging the back of my neck now, and doing a pretty good job of loosening up the muscles there.

“. . . maybe in the morning.” This was said hesitantly, like maybe he was going too far, too fast.

“Overnight? I don’t know. I don’t usually . . .”

“What do you usually get for an overnight?”

The big number floated into my mind again. “Oh, at least a hundred.”

“Are you a meat eater?” he asked, turning a smile in my direction.

“Yeah, included in the price, I can give you a great blow job,” I answered.

He laughed a nervous little laugh, and I realized instantly what I’d gotten wrong. It did sound strange that he would suddenly be so blunt.

“I meant which do you prefer—steak or seafood? For what kind of restaurant we went to,” he said.

“Whatever,” I answered, a bit embarrassed.

“But a great blow job would be nice too,” he added, with a smile.

Maybe I hadn’t asked for enough. What if he was like the ghoul?

But he wasn’t like the ghoul. His house was huge and on a large, wooded lot, just as I figured it would be. And he drove us there in a Lexus coup. While he drove, he kept making references to someone by the name of Danny and he kept saying that I reminded him of Danny this and that. I didn’t think much of what he was pattering on about in that vein at the time, but I probably should have figured it out.

He parked in a garage big enough for four cars, and loaded with three, all looking like luxury models, and closed the garage door behind us before telling me I could get out of the car. I understood that. He probably had neighbors he didn’t want to see him bringing a rent boy home. But as far as I could see, there were no neighboring houses that could tell—or hear—if he shipped in a brass band.

“Whoa, you got a family at home?” I asked, eyeing the cars.

“No. All of the cars are mine,” he answered. “I live alone . . . now. One was Danny’s, but I can’t bear to sell it yet.”

After ushering me into a living room with a sunken conversation pit around a stone fireplace and a ceiling that soared up two stories, he excused himself to get us some port—or so he said.

A baby grand piano was covered with framed photographs, most of them of Jerry and of a slightly younger man. The photos actually covered a good bit of time, with the men at different ages. But Jerry was always older than the other man in all of the photos. Jerry had been quite a looker when he was younger—and in good shape. The younger man, maybe in his forties in what looked like the most recent photo, was quite handsome, but of smaller statue and of at least partial Chinese or Japanese ancestry. I couldn’t help but mark the similarity in his looks to mine.

“That’s Danny,” a voice said from an arched entry from the side. I was holding one of the photographs when Jerry entered the room. “He was my partner—for nearly twenty years.”

Ah, of course. The loneliness. My looking like this other dude in the photo. The researching me. The rather direct approach. The car in the garage he couldn’t part with yet. Danny had left him for some reason—and probably fairly recently.

“Was?” I asked as I carefully replaced the photo on the piano.

“Yes. He died last year. Lingering, I’m afraid. I’ve been absolutely devastated ever since. And so lonely.”

Ah, I thought again. It was an ominous “ah.” Jerry had two glasses of port, but he had also changed clothes. He now was in a robe, one in gold silk with flamboyant and colorful Oriental-designs embroidered on it. Underneath he was wearing boxer shorts in the same material. He had a pot belly, but not too bad, and a hairy chest. His pecs hadn’t drooped yet. He probably still worked out when he could. The fly of his boxers gaped—probably on purpose—showing the curve of a nice-sized cock. Danny looked satisfied in all of the photos I’d seen. Jerry probably fucked him real good in his day.

“It was cancer. Not a good way to go. And I wasn’t good about it. I blamed him for leaving me. I had always planned to be the first one to go.”

“So, you fucked this Danny of yours?”

“Every day of our lives together.”

Leaving me to process that, he turned his back on me and went over to a CD unit and fiddled around producing some quiet Wes Montgomery background guitar music. I got the impression that the reason for that trip, though, was more so I couldn’t see the tears forming in his eyes—which I did glimpse before he managed to turn.

So I was going to be Danny for tonight, and when he fucked me, he was going to be fucking Danny. Well, OK, nothing much wrong with that. As long as he was paying for it.

We engaged in surface chit chat for a while—mainly about his house and his work. Flares of crossing lines had already gone up in my mind when I received the impression that Jerry really was his name. He seemed to be quite open to me about everything I asked about and I found myself trying to ask questions that didn’t lead into him baring his background and soul.

I increasingly was feeling like this wasn’t really meant to be a one-night stand—in Jerry’s mind, at least. I didn’t mind being Danny for one night—or even periodically, if Jerry paid well. But I had enough weird stuff going on in my life not to welcome changing my name. I suddenly felt quite protective of “John.”

I looked out through the wide expanse of windows, where floodlights had just come on. “Oh you have a pool.”

“Yes. Danny loved to swim. He swam almost every night in season. Do you swim too, John?”

“When I get the chance.”

“You could swim now. The evening is quite warm and the pool is heated.”

“Now? I don’t have a suit.”

“None is required. Danny swam in the nude. I enjoyed watching him. He swam like a fish and was an expert diver. Are you a good diver, John?”

“I suppose.” I, in fact, was quite a good diver. I just was becoming increasingly leery of the comparisons with the dead Danny.

“So, Danny swam in the nude for you while you got it up. And then you fucked Danny afterward?”

“Yes, exactly so.” He could be as blunt without moving an eyelash as I could be.

“And that’s what you want me—?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Did Danny give you a blow job before he swam or after?”

“After, before I made love to him.”

As long as I know the schedule, I thought, as I began to strip down.

“Oh,” he exclaimed when I had stripped. “Danny was a lot smaller.” For the first time, I didn’t feel somehow inferior to the departed, but ever-present Danny. I was beginning to hate him. Now I could pity him for having a smaller pecker. The way Jerry was looking at me, I didn’t think he minded that I was built bigger than Danny had been.

I swam and dived, while Jerry sat at the side and watched me. When the novelty of the on-display swimming and diving was wearing off, I looked over to find that his robe was open and his boxers off and laying on the stone paving at the edge of his chair. His legs were spread and bent over the arms of the chair, he was holding an erect shaft in his hand, and his eyes were slitted and glued to my every movement.

He was not just looking at me; his eyes were darting down to his dick and back up at me. We’d made quite clear that blow jobs and fucking were included in tonight’s pay—he’d been very business-like about that once we’d established he was buying and I was selling. We’d even established a schedule for the festivities. It didn’t take much imagination for me to know that he wanted me to blow him now, out here on the patio by the pool.

It was show time. I sauntered over to him, grabbed up a cushion off a sofa nearby, and dropped it on the ground in front of his chair. I knelt down on the cushion before him and slid my lips over his cock head. He grasped the sides of my head between his hands, threw his head back, and groaned as I gave him head. He said nothing. He was getting what he was paying for. He was getting Danny again for a night.

I found he was holding a condom packet in one hand. I slid that out of his grasp, rolled the condom on his cock; straddled him, facing him; and fucked myself on his staff until I knew he had come.

“Danny did it just like that,” he murmured. I obviously was getting it right so far.

“Is that it then?” I asked as I stood up from his lap. “Is that what you wanted me to do?”

“I’ll give you another hundred and fifty to stay the night. For as much lovemaking as I want—the way I want it.”

It didn’t get kinky until we got to his bedroom, where he opened a closet to reveal, not just men’s clothes in smaller sizes than Jerry would wear, but women’s clothes as well.

“Danny’s closet,” he said in a low voice. “He often became a woman for me. I see that in you too. Would you mind?”

Of course I wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t mind if he was padding out the paycheck for the extra kink, of course, but I had a feeling that he’d want to do far more to take care of me right than just to add a bit to the pay. And besides, I dressed up to go clubbing occasionally myself. I’d even had other men who had wanted to fuck me as a woman, and I’d had no qualms about that—as long as they didn’t actually think I was a woman. That would be a fast trip to the hospital.

But long-term here, with another man—Danny—always in the room? Comparisons always being made? I didn’t think I wanted that.

Of course I’d always have a longer cock than Danny did. *smile*

Jerry fucked me in various positions in his bed that night, after I had sat for him at a dressing table while he made up my face, rouged my nipples, and then dressed me in lacy panties and bra, and a filmy negligee. The panties had a slit up the butt, so I wore the lingerie throughout the night with no adjustments needing to be made for his cocking. The bra didn’t last long, however, because Jerry enjoyed sucking on my nipples. Best I could do for him there was to arch my back and stick out my pecs. A more intimate photo of Danny in the bedroom had shown that he’d had some surgery to give Jerry some tits to suck on. Jerry didn’t complain, though. He certainly paid enough attention to my nipples to indicate they passed muster with his desires.

That was another thing I wasn’t going to stick around here and do for Jerry. I liked dressing like a woman, even giving a man the illusion of my being one when he fucked me. But I had no intention of trying to make myself over into being one.

Once I was someone else—his feminized Danny—and we were enveloped in the dark of his bedroom, Jerry lost all reticence and took full control and fucked me proficiently, giving deep-throated commands and expertly moving me into the positions he wanted. There was every indication that he’d once been a lover to keep Danny cooing.

Becoming an automaton as I withdrew into myself, as I did to be able to do any john, I moved on command and gave him the sounds and shudders of expert taking that I would give any man I was paid to be with. I had nothing to complain about in the working of the cock and his hands and had no trouble coming for him.

Frequently while he was fucking me, he called me Danny. And between fuckings, when we were lying stretched along each other’s bodies, my buttocks drawn into his crotch, he whispered to me of how nice life was with a companion—one just like Danny. And how good Jerry could be to such a companion.

He drove me back to the park late the next morning and we exchanged telephone numbers and spoke of the possibility of hooking up again in the near future. I had no doubt that the number he gave me was genuine. The one I gave him most certainly was not—and I didn’t appear at Marconi Plaza park for the next several weeks. FDR park was farther away, but it was closer to the Navy Yard, so, in many ways, it was a better spot for me anyway.

I suddenly was creating a list of men I wanted to avoid—not because they were unpleasant, but because they hinted at opportunities in life that I knew the groove would never permit me to hope for.

I wasn’t stupid. I could see the possibility that I could get so down and out that Jerry’s obvious offer someday would be my best option. So, I kept his telephone number. I only wished that I could see that possibility of a future with Austin, who fucked me into total submission.

But I just couldn’t see it. I’d never been that lucky in life.