Sugar Daddy for the New Year

Franklin Rainey—Frankie to everyone he knew—left the Royal Menswear House on Manhattan’s 37th Street, in the garment district, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues late in the evening of Christmas Eve burdened with one more thing to carry than he’d come in with before the dinner hour. He’d come with a duffel bag with the uniform—nothing official, just silky-black trousers, a white long-sleeved shirt, and black bow tie—he’d need for the Christmas Day party at Professor Weeks’s apartment the next day. Frankie lived in a shared room in Brooklyn and didn’t want to be traveling back and forth to Manhattan over Christmas. He left with that and a box containing the new clothes Herman Kahn had given him—or so Kahn had said that was what was in the box. Frankie hadn’t looked in the container. Kahn said it was Frankie’s Christmas present.

Herman Kahn, who was something older than seventy and Jewish, was a clothier. He was the owner and designer for Royal Menswear and lived in the same building where the men’s fashion house was located, an older mid-rise building, where the showroom and workrooms were on the seventh floor and Kahn’s bachelor apartment and storage rooms were on the eighth. Kahn was a widower but had been widowed for so long that no one working at the business knew anything about his wife.

There hadn’t been a Christmas tree or other decorations in the apartment—just in the showroom—and there was no business other than Kahn draping unfinished clothes on Frankie, using the twenty-two-year old dance school student and sometimes model for Royal Menswear as his clothes horse. The shop was otherwise deserted, the others off for Christmas, so Kahn used Frankie for other purposes, being free to do so without worry that they were alone. The old man’s use of Frankie didn’t amount to much other than snuggling and some handwork, though, so Frankie didn’t find it too demanding.

The relationship between the two wasn’t serious or deep enough to be considered a sugar daddy arrangement, and Frankie was definitely looking for one of those to cover his living and tuition expenses—he not only was studying dance at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, AMDA, on West 6st Street, but also was taking a fine arts masters in playwrighting at the New School in Greenwich village. He was looking to earn his keep with the dance in Broadway plays, but his real love was to write plays and, better yet, screenplays. In the meantime, he was supplementing his catch-as-catch-can living by pleasing such men as Herman Kahn. Most men required more pleasing than Kahn did.

Kahn not only gave him occasional model and live manikin work, as he had done today, but, in exchange for a little cuddling, hand jobs, and an occasional blow job by Kahn, he gave him meals and tailored clothes. Other than the pay for the part-time work, money didn’t exchange hands. The old clothier didn’t qualify as a sugar daddy—more an old friend. Kahn mostly liked having Frankie around after a day’s work to talk small talk with him and be companionable. That they often ended the evening on the sofa, each slow stroking the other, or Kahn bent over Frankie and sucking his cock never seemed to be the peak of the two being together for Kahn.

Today, Frankie had come primarily for a decent Christmas meal and to check in with Kahn on the holidays—to give the old man some human contact with someone he was comfortable with. He didn’t want to eat alone on Christmas Eve himself, and Kahn was a friendly and benign companion with no complications and seemed anxious to cater in something fancier than they usually ate. If Frankie felt in the mood for something more intimate after the meal that would be fine and would occur naturally. If not, Frankie wouldn’t be made to feel that Kahn was not getting attention he wanted.

There were no Christmas decorations and no sex—the old man had been more maudlin than sexually attentive and was moving on fewer cylinders than usual—but Kahn had been thoughtful enough to provide a gift—tailored trousers and a very nice shirt to go with it—both from the fashion house’s new line, both designs that Frankie had had a hand in bringing to reality.

From Kahn’s building, Frankie walked down 7th Avenue and turned onto 25th Street, moving into Chelsea. The streets were crowded with revelers, and, for the first time that day, Frankie was getting some sense of the Christmas season. He wasn’t Jewish himself, but most of those around him in his world were, so Christmas wasn’t so much in evidence until he got out on the street with strangers.

A couple of blocks toward the Hudson River on 25th Street, he stopped at the Get Lucky gay bar, where he knew that, in contrast to the near silence and dreariness of Kahn’s Jewish apartment, he’d find a Christmas Eve party in full swing. The doorman waved him right through. Although Frankie didn’t work here, his best friend, Josh Schwartz, who was studying dance at the AMDA as he was, did work, and live, here. Josh’s sister, Amy, yet another dancer, now graduated from the AMDA and working sometimes in Broadway revues, was Frankie’s roommate in Brooklyn. They weren’t “a thing.” They just got along well together and gave each other a bit of protective coloring when it was needed. Amy liked other young women in the same way that Frankie went with men.

Frankie paused at the doorway into the club room to look around. There weren’t as many partying in there as he had thought there would be. He looked at his watch and was surprised to see that it was almost midnight. Apparently, many of the clientele of Get Lucky had paired off on this special night to do just that—get lucky. There were a couple dozen guys, some on the dance floor, some at the bar, and some at the tables making goo-goo eyes at each other and getting touchy feelie. Josh was on stage, dancing the pole to the beat of the music from a recording. That’s how Josh covered his room, which was upstairs—he danced the pole here and cleaned up after the bar closed. He earned his board by taking men upstairs, half to the house and half to him.

Josh was popular with the men. He probably was the biggest draw at Get Lucky. Not only was he a good looker with a great body, but he also knew how to dance. He also was versatile in bed.

Frankie hadn’t realized he’d stayed at the fashion house as long as he had. Herman seemed to be lonely and to need the company, though, and after the jabbering at the dance school, Frankie enjoyed Kahn’s quiet conversation and the comfort of his apartment, which was more homey than chic, a welcome feeling for Christmas. The old gray-haired Jew had fed the young, small, willowy strawberry-blond dancer well and they polished off a couple of bottles of wine. He had Handel’s Messiah on, and they listened to all of that. Often on an evening like this, Frankie would do some interpretative dance to that in just briefs that Herman had tailored just for him, and there would be some cuddling and kissing and a shared hand job and an overstuffed sofa in Herman’s living room. That hadn’t happened tonight, though, and Frankie had come to the club and its lusty atmosphere sexually keyed up.

Usually at Kahn’s place, Frankie was the only one getting stroked because Herman wasn’t usually able to get it up. Tonight, Kahn just wanted to talk of his life and the young men who had been in it before and how much they had meant to him, which is probably why Frankie stayed so late and lost track of the time. As far as Frankie knew, Herman had no other living family and probably had taken to Frankie because the young man showed interest in men’s fashion and had a flare for assessing and wearing what Herman created.

At a couple of points the young dancer thought Kahn was going to ask him to move in, but Frankie waltzed away from that as kindly as he could and changed the subject. If Frankie did move in, he thought it would be the end of his youth and independence and of getting what the old man couldn’t give him—not just sexually but in terms of financial support. Frankie got the definite impression there wasn’t really enough in margin in this business of his for the two of them, especially to the level Frankie wanted to live. As a sugar daddy, Herman was just not going to be able to cut it for Frankie.

Frankie’s relationship with Josh was entirely different. He had originally asked Josh if he could stay in town with him tonight because he had a Christmas Day gig and didn’t want to go across the river. He didn’t want to spend a lot of Christmas Eve and Day on public transportation. Now, though, Frankie wanted more than that from Josh on Christmas Eve. Their relationship was pretty loose, complicated by both essentially being in a brother relationship to Josh’s sister, Amy. They fucked, with moments of deep passion and sweaty intensity of two young, fit men getting their sexual exercise, but most of the time they held off from each other and acted more like family.

After he’d gotten Josh’s attention as his friend danced the pole, doing so in sensual, fluid movements that he had learned in his dance classes and the men present obviously appreciated, Frankie renewed his grip on the duffel bag and clothes box and went around to the corridor running beside the club room toward the back of the building and up the steps to the next floor. There were offices and storage rooms here. The dressing rooms for the club were located on the first floor, behind the stage. The second floor also had bedroom facilities for each of the dancers for them to use with clients. Whether and how often they used the room was up to them, but the club management got half the take, including of the tips, if they did. Josh took care of clean-up on the first floor after each night the club was open and each of the performers cleaned his own room on the second floor. One of the other dancers cleaned the office space. Josh was the only performer to live on the premises full time.

The purpose of the room Frankie entered was obvious. The bed dominated, even though the room was fairly large. A small sofa ran the width of the foot of the bed, and a good imagination wasn’t needed to understand where a tryst could start and then end up. The colors were masculine, with a color scheme of dark beige and navy-blue dominating, and, while not fussy, the room clearly was put together by a decorator. There was a large, wide-screen TV on the wall above the door to the corridor, with a pile of gay male sex videos on top of one of the nightstands, and a well-appointed tiled bathroom was located off to the side. The luxury of this room was a surprise for a building this old, but as much money could be made upstairs at Club Lucky as at the bar. Club Lucky was as much a male brothel as a bar. When Frankie had mounted the stairs and moved down the hall of the second floor, he’d passed two doors through which sounds of sex could be heard. That made him feel all the hornier himself.

Everything was neat as a pin in Josh’s room except that the covers and sheets on the bed were tussled, there was a tube of lube and packets of condoms on the top of the nightstand, and when he looked into the trashcan at the side of the bed, he saw two spent condoms with their torn foil packets. So, Josh had done some work up here on Christmas Eve. Frankie hoped he had some energy and interest left.

What really surprised Frankie on this night was that there was a small decorated Christmas tree, its white lights twinkling, in the corner of the room at the foot of the bed. A coffee table in front of the sofa supported two champagne glasses, and soft Christmas music was being piped in from somewhere. Josh was Jewish. Just as Herman Kahn hadn’t done any special decoration for the season of his apartment, Frankie hadn’t expected Josh to decorate his room. But then maybe Josh thought his clients would expect that on Christmas Eve. Frankie would have thought the clients would have something else occupying their mind when they came up here.

“It’s for you. Do you like it?” Josh entered the room, in a sparkling red sequined Speedo. A green sequined vest folded over his shoulder. Other than that, he was unclothed and looking mighty fine. He obviously had just come off the pole downstairs. He had an ice bucket in the crock of his arm with the neck of the champagne bottle peeking out of the top.

“Yes, you look very sexy. And Christmassy,” Frankie said.

“I meant the Christmas tree. I put it up just for you.”

“For me? That was nice. So, does that mean the champagne is just for you?” Frankie asked.

“There are two glasses, I see, so I guess I could share. Make yourself comfortable and let’s savor what we can from what’s left of Christmas Eve. I know you have to go to work tomorrow, and I’ll have streamers and confetti to clean up downstairs. The crowd wasn’t big tonight, but it was rowdy.”

“And I see that it wanted its sport,” Franke said, nodding toward the mussed-up sheets on the bed.

“Yes, it was a profitable evening. But enough of that. You’re here now and the celebrations can begin in earnest. You’ve been to the fashion house?”

“Yes, for dinner.”

“And Mr. Kahn didn’t wear you out?”

“Not even close. He was in a strange, melancholy mood.”

“Great—that he didn’t wear you out. Let’s take the sofa and break out the champagne.”

So, they did, sitting close together, cuddling and kissing and drinking champagne on the sofa, while watching the Christmas tree and listening to Andy Williams singing tame carols through some hidden sound system.

“This the music you played for the johns tonight?” Frankie asked.

“Not anywhere close.” Josh answered. “We stick to the bump and grind music. But I don’t want to talk about work. I want to talk about us.”

“Oh,” Frankie said. He’d been trying to avoid this.

The cuddling was suspended and, sitting close beside each other on the sofa, they each took a swig of their champagne, the bottle already open and the contents half drunk before it came upstairs, obviously having been liberated at closing from the bar, before Josh spoke. When he did, he surprised Frankie, who thought his friend was going to take a different approach to the issue.

“Have you made any New Year’s resolutions, Frankie?”

“Of course, I intend to find a sugar daddy by Epiphany, January 6th of next year, to take care of all my needs and have the latest play I’ve written bought by a big Hollywood producer to turn into a movie. I can give that until Epiphany too.”

“Epiphany? What the hell is Epiphany.”

“It’s a Christian thing, Josh. I don’t expect you to know. The twelve days of Christmas. You heard of them? Well, Epiphany is when the three magi—the three kings—arrive at the manger. It marks the end of Christmas. Most people—even Christians—think the last day is Christmas Day and that’s it, but Christmas Day is the first of twelve days of Christmas—you know, like the song.”

“OK, so why do you give it until that day?”

“They were actually last year’s resolutions, and, though I’m getting antsy to move on with my life. I plan on taking the Christmas season building options and then choosing one on January 6th.”

“Your clothier, Kahn, he’s an option?”

“I don’t think so. He doesn’t make enough for both of his to have a cushy life. I don’t think he’ll cut it as the sugar daddy I need. Besides, I think of him more as a friend or family than as a meal ticket with bedroom privileges.”

“So, I won’t cut it either?” Frankie had been looking at the tree and talking flippantly, not taking any of this seriously. Something in the way Josh spoke made Frankie turn his head and look at his friend.

So, what I was afraid he was going to ask again was what he really was building up to, Frankie thought. He’s asking me to move in with him again—for the two of us to be a couple. Frankie knew he had to be careful in a response.

“No, you couldn’t be my sugar daddy, Josh. You mean too much to me for that. I would never take advantage of you that way or want to think of you as a meal ticket.” He stood up, put his empty champagne glass on the coffee table, and walked around to the side of the bed. “What I want with you is here, you and me on this bed.”

“That’s not what I want,” Josh said. This made Frankie’s heart go thud. Was this it then? If he didn’t move in with Josh, did Josh want to cut it all off? Was this some sort of ultimatum?

“Oh, don’t look so stricken, Frankie,” Josh said. “I mean I don’t want to do you in this bed. This bed is for ‘them,’ not for us.” He stood and took Frankie’s hand, and led him through the adjacent bathroom and to the far side of that, where there was another door. This led into another room, a smaller room than the first, but it also had a bed and it had a kitchen unit on one wall. This was, Josh said, his private room. The other was a working room. “I don’t want to think of you as a john, Frankie. Let’s celebrate Christmas in here.”

And that’s where they celebrated Christmas, entwined on Josh’s own, private bed, flesh on flesh, exploration of each other’s curves and crevices, and, eventually, Josh inside Frankie, the two rocking together, merging as one; two young, fit, and virile men; climaxing together—again and again—into Christmas morning.

* * * *

“Whoa, what is this?”

“What is what?” Josh asked, rolling over toward where Frankie was sitting on the side of the bed in Josh’s private room late on Christmas morning. Frankie had the box he’d brought from Royal Menswear on his lap and was holding a pair of reddish-brown jeans in one hand. A soft-material T-shirt that coordinated completely with the jeans was under that, still in the box. “Hey, those are great threads, Frankie.”

“Thanks. It’s one of my designs that Kahn put into his line this year. No, I’m talking about this.” He held up his other hand. He was holding an envelope stuffed with money.

“Well, Merry Christmas to you,” Josh said. “Is that your sugar daddy giving you a Christmas present? How much is in there?”

Frankie was already counting the money. “Holy shit, there’s $5,000 in hundred-dollar bills.” But then he added, “I don’t understand. Herman isn’t that flush. Not enough to be throwing this sort of money at me. He’s not my sugar daddy; he doesn’t have the means to be that. He’s getting by OK and he gives me stuff, but nothing like this. There’s a note.”

After reading the note, Frankie didn’t know anything more than he had before. It said, “Happy Christmas. I know you have tuition coming up, and I wanted you to have at least this much, just in case.”

“In case of what?” Frankie said.

“In case you were leaving him—not going back for whatever you do for him?” Josh asked. “Have you been talking to him about needing a sugar daddy? Maybe this is his way of bidding for the position.”

“Yeah, maybe. Or it’s his way of saying he couldn’t step up to the bidding—that this was as much as he could do. No, I don’t think I said anything to him about needing someone to take care of me better than he does. He’s been acting strange lately. I’ll have to give him a call. I’ll have to call him about this money anyway. This is too much to be throwing around for what little I do for him.”

“As little as you did for me last night?” Josh asked, but then he laughed to take the sting out of it.

“You went to sleep on me—literally on me, in me. You must have been exhausted last night.”

“I’m not exhausted this morning. And I want my Christmas present. Come here and ride me.” He brushed the covers away to show that he was locked and loaded.

“You’re Jewish. You don’t get a Christmas present,” Frankie answered.

“OK, then, come and get your Christmas present.”

“I thought you’d never tell me what you got me,” Frankie said, with a laugh. Dropping the clothes box, with the envelope of money in it to the floor beside the bed, he twisted toward the other side of the bed, coming down at Josh’s midsection, where he enclosed the root of the other young man’s erection in a fist and lowered his mouth on Josh’s shaft. In short order he’d moved to saddle himself on Josh’s hips; descended on the young man’s cock, facing Josh’s head; pressed his palms into Josh’s pecs; and began fucking himself on his Christmas present.

He’d forgotten, at least for now, the thought of needing to call Herman Kahn about the wad of cash he’d included with the clothes he’d already told Frankie were his Christmas present. There was time enough for that later. For now, there wasn’t much time for him to take his pleasure on Christmas Day with the young man who meant so much to him but, being as poor and struggling as Frankie was, wasn’t going to be the answer to Frankie’s need for a sugar daddy. They’d slept late and Frankie only had an hour or so before he went on to his next prospect to fill that role.

* * * *

“No, don’t put your work clothes on yet. Come to daddy first and give me some sugar. You knew why I asked you to come early.”

By “some sugar” thirty-eight-year-old southern writer and New School creative writing professor Nelson Weeks meant a blow job. And, yes, Frankie knew that just as he knew why Weeks had asked him to show up for his duties at Weeks’s Greenwich Village apartment early for his Christmas Day reception. The reception wasn’t just to bring together some of Weeks’s creative arts friends and colleagues but also to honor the visiting Hollywood publishing agent, Richard Janney, who had been giving a series of lectures at the New School the previous week.

The apartment was the entire second floor of an old village brownstone mansion on East 8th Street. It was a two-bedroom, two-bath place, one bedroom large and one small, and a large room, with kitchen at one end and two fireplaces at the other end, one in the living room area and the other in a library extension off to the side. Frankie didn’t know if Weeks owned it or rented it. He suspected he rented it, as the man, slender, dark to the point of suspecting some black in his background, and hirsute, reminding Frankie of a fox, had come to the New School from the creative writing program at Georgia Southern University, and, by the way the man clung to his southern ways, probably planned to return there.

Either way, he had to have money from somewhere else other than a university teaching position to afford an apartment like this. Perhaps, Frankie thought, the novels he wrote of the antebellum south, with their sexually ambiguous male characters, paid well. The man himself was sexually ambiguous too. He squired women, but Frankie well knew that Nelson Weeks fucked men.

Frankie had only been with him a couple of times in this apartment, but it had been often enough for Frankie to consider whether Weeks might be the sugar daddy he was looking for. Weeks had fucked him in the living room, library, both bedrooms, one of the bathrooms, and in the kitchen. Weeks was a regular little bunny and they both enjoyed finding inventive places and ways of doing it. The problem there was that Frankie didn’t think there was enough commitment on his writing professor’s part for such a relationship to develop. Weeks seemed to be into very casual sex, including both young men and women.

Today, Christmas Day, at least before the party, it was Frankie. Upon arrival at the party, three hours before the party time and an hour and a half before the caterers arrived whose Job it would be for Frankie to supervise during the party, he’d gone to the second bedroom, far smaller than the master bedroom but one Frankie had looked at as a possibility to be his if a more serious relationship developed between him and Weeks. Here he was changing into the uniform he was to wear at the party marking him as staff and was down to his briefs and undershirt when Weeks came into the room, sat on the bed, and demanded a blow job. Frankie dutifully went down on his knees between the man’s thighs and sucked him off.

As Frankie gave attention to Weeks’s cock, the professor ran his hand over the younger man’s body, getting his undershirt and briefs off. He’d come into the room just in a silk robe that he had opened and brushed to the side. He was hard-bodied and pelted with dark, curly hair. His cock, not especially oversized, was cruelly curved up in a way that Frankie had felt before, the mushroom cap kissing his passage walls as it stroked inside him. At the moment it was kissing the roof of Frankie’s mouth as he sucked on it.

“You know that Richard Janney is the guest of honor this afternoon, Franklin,” Weeks murmured as he bent over Frankie, glided his hand down the young man’s back, and ran his index finger into the cleft of the Frankie’s buttocks, searching for, finding, and penetrating his entrance.

“Ummm, umm,” Frankie murmured as he sucked on the cock.

“And you know from the classes you attended where he spoke that he’s an agent, out in Hollywood, for books and movie screenplays. He’s quite famous and rich.”

“Ummm.”

“I gave him the play you wrote last semester for my class.”

“Did you?” Frankie’s mouth came off the cock, and he looked up into Weeks’s eyes, interested now.

“He said your script was intriguing. He wants to meet you. It’s not just your play he’s interested in. He remarked on how good-looking you are to me after a class of his you attended.”

“Good looking?”

“He said ‘sexy.’”

“And he wants—?”

“I think it would be a good idea if you walked him back to his hotel, the Walker Hotel at 13th Street and 6th Avenue, after the party today. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I think so,” Frankie said. This pretty much put Nelson Weeks out of the running for sugar daddy, if he so easily would give Frankie to someone else. Frankie wondered what Weeks was getting out of pimping him to the Hollywood agent. But then he remembered Weeks mentioning that he’d gotten a Hollywood agent to handle the movie optioning of his next novel. He’d said there was more money on optioning a book for filming, whether or not it actually got filmed, than there was in the print profits. Obviously, that agent was Janney. Frankie shuddered. Janney was a large, robust man, full of himself and very commanding. He was craggy faced and so ugly that he was arousing in a thuggish way.

“I think you should be very grateful to me,” Weeks said.

“Yes, yes, I am. Thank you.”

“I think you should show me how grateful you are. Now.”

Frankie showed him, allowing himself to be raised up and settled into Weeks’s lap, skewered on the man’s cock. Frankie’s legs were bent, his knees on either side of the professor’s hips, and he arched his torso toward the floor, his arms stretched out on the carpet in a sacrificial cruciform position, while, grasping the young man’s hips, Weeks pulled him on and off the cock to his eventual ejaculation.

* * * *

Janney had surprised him. He had become forceful and commanding. He had Frankie on his back on the bed, his head arched over the side. Frankie had been stunned by two backhanded slaps across the face and was winded when Janney put him on his back, leaning over him, his monstrously thick and long cock lodged in Frankie’s throat, the man’s fists pressed into the hollows of the young man’s shoulders, holding him pinned to the bed. Frankie’s eyes were watering and he was gagging from taking the erection in his throat. In, out, in out, insistently.

It hadn’t started out this roughly. Standing close to each other, they’d kissed and then kissed more deeply as their hands started to roam, undressing each other, Janney fisting their cocks together, stroking them together as they made out. Both of them knew where this was heading. They knew before they’d left the Christmas party at Nelson Weeks’s apartment.

They’d gotten on quite well at the party, although Frankie had had to break away frequently to check on the caterers. Janney had been patient. He’d waited for Frankie to come back and take up the conversation from where they’d left it. Janney had read the play script Frankie had written and, although he said he’d liked it very much and obviously had read and spent some time with it, he did have some questions and a few suggestions on how it might be improved. This didn’t put Frankie off. It impressed him and was far better than if the man had claimed to love every word of it just to get into Frankie’s pants.

It was clear from the outset that Janney wanted to get in Frankie’s pants. There hadn’t been any pretense on what Janney wanted in that way. He’d given Frankie deep looks and smiles and had touched him here and there and the conversation was increasingly intimate when it went beyond the play script and the classes at the New School.

“Nelson told you I wanted to meet you from when I saw you in a class?”

“Yes,” Frankie said.

“I want you to know those are two separate interests?”

“Two separate interests?”

“I’m genuinely interested in your work. That’s quite separate from . . . I’m genuinely interested in you too.”

“In me? Interested?”

“In being with you, laying you, laying you out and fucking you good.” And when, shocked at the directness of him, Frankie didn’t respond right away, he said, “Excuse the directness, but I’m only here for a few days—and there is your play to discuss as well. We don’t have much time. Nelson tells me he fucks you, but that it’s just casual, that there’s nothing serious between the two of you. I want to fuck you too. You’re a sexy little piece. But if you don’t let me fuck you, I’ll have to look to my entertainment elsewhere. Taking time to do that might mean I don’t have time to read deeper into your play either.”

So much for saying that his interest in the script and in Frankie were two different issues. The deal being proposed was obvious. He was being quite honest and open about it. He had his hand on Frankie’s buttocks, and Frankie wasn’t moving away.

“That is direct,” Frankie said. He thought he should be offended being called a “little piece,” like he was a slab of meat, but instead that had aroused him.

“Have I offended you—by letting you know directly what effect you have on me and what I want to do about it? You do open your legs for men and take their cocks, don’t you? Nelson tells me he isn’t the only one, and you write so sensually—and homoerotically, I must say. Surely you see that in your writing. You write from the perspective of a submissive. You’re gay and you want men to fuck you. Nelson says he fucks you and that you take it like you want it.”

“Yes, I see that in my writing.” Frankie admitted. And he was impressed that Janney saw it too. He also was impressed with Janney, the man, beyond what he admitted he saw in Janney as a probable sex partner and even a possible sugar daddy. He also clearly was an “in command” man. Frankie liked the role of submissive. His fantasy was to be taken by force—completely. He would get his wish before the night was out.

“Nelson says you will walk me back to my hotel. If you still are willing to—”

“There’s a lock on the door to the second bedroom here,” Frankie said.

On the bed in that room, on top of guests’ coats, although commanding, Janney had been tender and worshipful, putting Frankie on his back, crouching between the young man’s spread thighs, and holding him in close embrace as he entered him slowly, giving Frankie the time he needed to accommodate and stretch for the shaft, even though Janney was built so thick and long that it would have been a chore to take him under any circumstances. But Frankie did take him then, hugging the man’s hips with his knees, arching his back and head, and staring at the wallpaper across from the bed, his mouth in the silent scream of a yawn and his eyes flashing, as the monster cock invaded, stretching him, and moved inside him. Every nerve of Frankie’s body was honed in on the shaft working inside him, Frankie toiling hard to coax the gates of his channel to open up and stretch to accommodate the possessing cock.

They weren’t naked then, knowing that they had to be quick, that someone could need his or her coat at any moment. Janney being clothed, though, and exposing that big, rock-hard cock, made the shaft seem all that much more commanding. Time wasn’t available for Frankie to slowly open to the demands of the monster cock, but Janney didn’t care. He’d rip it out of Frankie if need be. Frankie’s trousers and briefs were off, but he otherwise was clothed, including the knee-high socks, held up by black garters. Janney was fully clothed except for being unzipped and his fly flared.

The coupling had been quick, both of them having been in high heat, both of them concentrating on Frankie opening enough for Janney to reach down into his soft core and rip his surrender out of him, both of them coming quickly once Janney had. And it had been raw, neither wanting to take the time to bother with a condom.

When it was over, Janney murmured, “I’d still like you to—”

“Yes, I’ll walk you to the hotel.”

“I want you to stay the night.”

So, Frankie wound up in Janney’s hotel room and in the man’s standing embrace, as they kissed and undressed and fondled. And then, as Janney changed—when he became forceful and demanding and rough, slapping Frankie around a bit, winding the young man, and putting him on his back and making him deep throat the cock—Frankie became all the more submissive to him, until he snapped.

Confused and a bit frightened—although highly aroused as well—Frankie kicked up with his legs and buttocks and managed to roll off the bed. Naked now, as Janney was, Frankie didn’t necessarily head for the door out to the corridor or even to where his clothes were. He more just squared off a few steps away from the panting, crouching, big and muscular older man. It was more a “slow down, not so rough” maneuver.

Janney didn’t give him time to regroup, though. He took three steps toward Frankie, grinned at him, and backhanded him again, sending him sprawling onto the carpet.

“I know what you want,” the man growled. “And I’m just the one to give it to you—to take it from you.”

He reached down and pulled Frankie up, slammed his back against the wall next to the door to the corridor, grasped Frankie under his thighs with his beefy hands, and lifted and spread the young man’s legs. He pressed Frankie’s back to the wall with his muscular chest, put his cock head in position, and thrust up inside Frankie’s channel. Frankie was still dilated from the earlier fuck in Weeks’s apartment. Still, he cried out at the thick, deep penetration. Janney thrust up again and again and again, grunting his own exertion and pleasure each time.

“Take it, bitch. Take it!” Janney growled again, in deep rut.

The older man searched bruisingly for Frankie’s lips with his own, forced the young man’s lips open and pushed his tongue in. Frankie surrendered to the fuck, grasping the older man’s shoulder blades and digging in with his fingernails. He hugged Janney’s hip with his knees. Frankie was fully open to the invasion of the cock now, able to take it all and to take it deep. Pulling away from the kiss, if only briefly, he cried out, “Yes! Yes! Fuck me, Daddy!”

Daddy fucked him. He fucked him against the wall, and he pulled him off the wall and threw him on his belly onto the bed. He slapped the young man repeatedly on the bare buttocks, eliciting yelps and making the cheeks blush, before mounting him from behind and fucking him there. He palmed Frankie’s belly with one hand and cupped his chin with the other, arching Frankie cruelly back into his chest, the back of Frankie’s head buried in the hollow of his shoulder, and fucked him and fucked him and fucked him, while Frankie panted hard and groaned at the total taking.

Janney fucked Frankie on the bed through the night in multiple demanding positions and Frankie surrendered to it all, crying out time and time again, “Yes! Yes! Fuck me, Daddy!” Frankie had never been fucked this roughly and totally before. Frankie had never before realized what a turn-on and satiating it could be.

The next morning, Boxing Day morning, when Frankie woke up with a groan, Richard Janney was standing in front of a mirror on the bureau, putting his cufflinks in. He had showered and shaved and looked fresh and ready to go. Frankie, sprawled out on the bed on his back, arms flung out and legs bent and spread, a couple of pillows under the small of his back, his hole still dilated to Janney’s specifications, the rim red and raw, moved to roll over and sit up on the side of the bed. But with a grunt and a groan, he fell back into place.

“Your play script is here on the dresser,” Janney said. “I’ve marked it up. I suggest you work in some of the changes today while I’m lecturing at your school. I’ll want to take it back to Hollywood with me and start shopping it. It needs to be a clean version then.”

“Yes, sir,” Frankie answered. He was dancing on the clouds. The man hadn’t told him he liked the play just so Frankie would let Janney fuck him. Janney had already read the full script and marked it up. Frankie groaned. It didn’t feel like he let the man do anything. It felt like the man took what he wanted. He was magnificent—so commanding.

“I’ll tell Nelson you won’t be able to come to class today.”

“Thank you, sir.” He’d have to call to bug out of the dance classes as well—and Herman Kahn. He had promised to act as a clothes dummy for Herman that evening.

“I’ll be here two more nights. I want you to spend those nights here.”

“Yes, sir.” Frankie groaned at that. How would he survive? Somehow he had to. The man was a master. Frankie had to have whatever he gave.

“And I think you should go out to the West Coast with me. There will be a big New Year’s Eve party at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Everyone who needs to pass on your play will be there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You should go back to sleep. You look like you’ve been run over by a train. You are too good-lucking a young man to let yourself look rundown. It’s your looks that are going to make you a fortune and keep you from being just another impoverished playwright, if you play your cards right.”

“I have been run over by a train,” Frankie answered. But Richard Janney didn’t hear him. He already was out of the door, whistling and strutting toward the elevator.

It was highly possible that Richard Janney would be a good option, financially, as a sugar daddy, but Frankie wasn’t sure he could survive the experience. Beyond that Frankie was terrified at the realization that he had thoroughly fallen for the man’s cruel possession. He couldn’t say “no” to the man. Janney probably would kill him if he did.

* * * *

Frankie woke to a hand, from behind, running between and inside his legs, high up. He wasn’t fully awake. He sensed he was in a bed, in an unfamiliar room. A hotel room? A well-appointed one. The sheets were lush to touch and tussled, as if there’d been a wrestling match in them. A warm body was stretched out along his back. He was on his side. The hand coaxed his left leg to bend, the knee going up into his chest. The fingers of the other hand were rubbing, pinching, and prodding one of Frankie’s nipples. He’d had no idea he could be so sexually sensitive there. The man’s face was buried in his throat, kissing and licking him there. His hole was being fingered. The sponginess of a cock blub was rubbing against the hole, and he was opening to it. He knew, from the internal feel, that he been filled and pumped recently—sometime in the night. From the way he felt, drowsy and hung over, maybe much of the night.

He knew the cock would slide in easily. It had been there before. The man could thrust to the quick and resume his full possession of Frankie.

* * * *

Where was he? Where was this. Los Angeles. A ritzy hotel. New Year’s Eve. A big party. Lots of celebrities. Feeling very much out of his element, except some of the men Richard Janney was introducing him to were no different from many of the men he met in New York—assessing, on the make, on the make for young men.

And Janney was selling him to these men, assessing who would be most helpful to Frankie—or maybe who would be most helpful to Janney—and talking up how luscious and submissive Frankie was in bed. Obviously, that had spun out to Frankie having been sold to someone for the night. Sex was so openly talked up here in Hollywood.

“I want you to meet Clifford Close, Franklin. He’s seen you from across the room and wanted to know who you were. You know who Clifford Close is, don’t you?”

Who didn’t know who Clifford Close was? The thriller action movie star from two decades previously. More a dramatic actor now. A line of award nominations. Still a hunk. Gray now, but as imposing as ever. Still muscular, tall and straight. Great smile, flashing white teeth. Gray eyes. Piercing eyes, taking everything in, undressing Frankie with an assessing look. Holding out a champagne flute, having one in each hand. Frankie had had no idea the man was gay, but he obviously was from the way he was looking at Frankie.

“I seem to have two champagnes. Would you be so kind as to relieve me of one?”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Close.”

“Call me Cliff. I sense we’re going to be good friends. Richard tells me you are a promising young playwright. From New York. He’s representing you on a play he says can easily be made into a blockbuster movie.”

“Clifford’s interested in your play, Franklin, especially if it’s adaptable into a movie. He knows a lot of people. He’s a very good person to know. Ah, there’s Sarah. I need to talk to her. Why don’t the two of you get better acquainted?” Then, as Janney turned to move away, he leaned into the veteran actor and said, “As I told you, he does. I’m sure he will. A sweet, tight channel despite quite a bit of experience.” He said it loud enough for Frankie to hear and his eyes were on Frankie, signaling, not on Close.

Acting embarrassed, Close looked at Frankie, giving him a wan smile, one that always worked so well on movie audiences, and said, “You heard that, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Frankie answered.

“And you’re still standing here.”

“Yes.” Frankie had been in Hollywood long enough to know the score here.

“I have a room upstairs in this hotel.”

So much for slow seductions. The characterization of Frankie hadn’t been as embarrassing to Close as his performance indicated. Frankie sensed that he and Janney had worked this all out beforehand.

“Yes, fine.”

* * * *

Frankie winced as the bulb pressed in, opening his hole up and resting there. The beefy arm, muscular, covered in gray curling hair, draped over his side, pulled Frankie closer into the man’s chest. The assault on the young man’s nipple by the hand on the end of the arm intensified. Frankie moaned.

“You like that?”

“Yes,” Frankie murmured. He didn’t mind it. He kept telling himself this was a film star.

“You’re a sweet lay.”

“Thanks.” He gasped as the shaft of the cock thrust inside, moving up toward his soft core. It penetrated with ease. It had been there before. He ran his left arm along the one embracing him, putting his hand on top of Clifford’s, and turned his face for his lips to meet those of the movie star. He moaned as, buried deep, the cock began to move inside him.

They came out of the kiss. “You’re awake,” Close whispered.

“Yes,” Frankie answered. Had the actor moved back a page in the script? Had he run out of small talk and needed to recycle?

Close rolled over on top of Frankie, moving the younger man on his belly, stretching out on top of him full length, flesh pressing flesh, cock moving deeper. The move star put more movement into his hips, holding Frankie close elsewhere, though, only the man’s hips moving, taking longer, deeper strokes. His embrace was tighter, holding Frankie closer, more possessively. The shaft was thrusting more vigorously, faster, attaining regular rhythm, establishing ownership, command.

“Shit. Fuck,” Frankie whimpered.

“Good, good. Take it. So sweet.” Thrust, thrust, thrust.

The man could fuck.

Frankie groaned, stretching his arms out, clawing at the bunched-up sheets to hold himself in place. His cheek was pressed to the sheets, his eyes taking in the room. A cart with an ice bucket and two glasses, a tray with still-artfully arranged small sandwiches, a bottle of champagne in the ice bucket, still corked. Clothing items strewn from the door of the room to the bed.

Thrusting, thrusting, thrusting.

“Oh, shit! Oh, fuck! Yes! Get it. Getitgetitgetit! Oh, FUCK!”

“God DAMN. Gonna Blow!”

And then he did. Close hadn’t been wearing a condom. He was an active top from before the eighties. He’d take his chances—and expected Frankie to as well. Frankie moaned at the sensation of the cum being released to lubricate his passage.

Frankie collapsed in exhaustion. He watched the man roll off the bed and trot off to the bathroom. He looked older, heavier than the previous night. He was nearly bald. He hadn’t been bald at the New Year’s Eve party downstairs at the Beverly Wilshire. Frankie could see now that the toupee was on the nightstand.

The man could fuck, though. But even there, Frankie could see the man in the bathroom. He’d left the door open. He wasn’t hung. Not anywhere close. But he’d known how to fuck. He’d obviously been topping young men for decades. He made the best use of what he had. And he probably still had young men like Frankie whenever he wanted.

When he was alone, Frankie reviewed the last couple of days in Los Angeles. Janney had been pleased. He’d mentioned Frankie staying out here and living with him. Still a sugar daddy possibility even though the man remained a cruel lover, and Frankie felt a bit like a battered housewife. But he’d pimped Frankie too. Clifford Close wasn’t the first one. Janney had said it was all to advance Frankie’s contract possibilities, but Frankie knew it had promoted Janney’s network and favor standing as well.

Clifford Close a possible as a sugar daddy? Maybe.

That was scotched when Frankie went down to brunch, though. Close was there, with two young women at his table. He didn’t even acknowledge him when Frankie walked by to where Janney was sitting, waiting for him. There was another man with Janney. Obviously a business man who spent more time at his desk than on the golf links.

Frankie had only a brief moment to think further upon Clifford Close before moving on to the next. He felt a bit sorry for the young women looking so worshipful at Close at the brunch table. Would he get one or more of them—or possibly both of the starry-eyed wishful thinkers at the same time—in his hotel room as easily as he had Frankie? Would he be able to keep his toupee on while trying to fuck them both? Would the stars in their eyes prevent an honest assessment of the old man as those in Frankie’s eyes had? Well, he couldn’t blame anyone but himself for that. More power to Close to take advantage of his past for as long as he could. Frankie was learning the ways of Hollywood, though, and, as Janney had told him in the Greenwich Village hotel, his looks were his fortune, if he played his cards right. They might also get him a career as a playwright.

“Frankie, there you are. I want you to meet Harold Peters. He’s a movie producer. We were just talking about your screenplay. He’s interested. Come, sit, talk to us. Talk with Harold.”

“It’s not a screenplay yet; I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will be,” Frankie muttered, not loud enough for the other two to hear, as he slid into the booth next to Peters, whose hand immediately went to Frankie’s knee under the table. Janney was giving Frankie a pointed “take care here” look. Frankie got the message. They were moving up the chain in those who could get Frankie’s play sold.

“Richard’s just been telling me about you,” the movie producer said, nearly leering at Frankie.

“I’ll bet he has,” Frankie said, although his smile belied the tone of what he said. I’ll bet you have a hotel room here at the Beverly Wilshire too, he thought.

The man did. The man wasn’t even the least bit embarrassed by how quickly and openly the arrangements were made.

Peters was on his back on the bed—thankfully, Frankie had thought. If the man was doing him in a missionary, he’d have been crushed by blubber. Frankie was on top of him, facing up, looking at the ceiling. Frankie’s legs were bent, his feet pressed to the knees of the man’s spread legs. Peters was big, much bigger in equipment than Close had been. He was gripping Frankie’s hips, raising and lowering Frankie’s buttocks on his buried cock. Frankie didn’t have to feign a moan.

“Yes, Daddy, you’re so big. So masterful. Screw the hell out of me!”

Peters proceeded to do just that.

Frankie’s cellphone was ringing. He’d forgotten to turn it off. He reached over and turned it off now, checking on who had called. Josh Schwartz. Frankie hadn’t talked to him since he’d left New York. He’d call back when this finished—unless Richard Janney had someone else on the string who Frankie simply had to meet.

“I want you on all fours now.”

“Oh, yes, Daddy. Ride me. Ride me hard.”

Peters mounted his ass and rode him hard.

Was this someone Frankie could stomach adding “sugar” in front of the “daddy”? He was a whale, but could he deliver?

* * * *

Try as he might, because of the New Year’s celebrations, Frankie wasn’t able to get a flight back from L.A. to New York City until January 2nd. When he got there, he went straight to the funeral home.

“I’ve come about Herman Kahn,” he said when he got there. “I’m told he died last week. I’ve seen the obituary but not anything about the arrangements.”

“Herman Kahn?” the man at reception, a tall, gaunt, morose looking man with a sad expression on his face, all probably a requirement for someone working in his position, said, as he looked through a book file. “Ah, yes. Are you a relative?”

“No,” Frankie answered. “We were just good friends and I did some work for his company. My name is Frankie—Franklin Rainey.”

“Ah, yes, your name is here for contact.”

“It is?”

“Yes, you should contact his lawyers. They provided the name. They said they were trying to find you.” The funeral director wrote the name of the lawyers’ firm and the address on a card and handed it to Frankie. “There are no arrangements yet, though. The estate is tied up and we’ve needed for someone to start the process.”

“Start the process?”

“A deposit at least. The lawyers weren’t able to release any money yet. They said they needed signatures from the beneficiary first. So, I’m afraid—”

“I could give you $5,000 on deposit. Would that be sufficient?” It was the money Herman had given him at Christmas. Frankie had never thought of it as his money. He didn’t think he deserved it. He hadn’t even known Herman was that sick. He should have known, though, because the man had been so melancholy when they’d last been together. Frankie should, he thought, have caught on that there was something wrong—that there was some reason Herman wanted to give him that much money. He should have called the next day.

“Yes, that would get everything started nicely,” the man said. “We understand he was Jewish. We’ll know who to contact to arrange the services. Would you like to pick out a coffin today?”

“A coffin? Me?”

“Yes. The lawyers said Mr. Kahn listed you as his designee. Normally, being Jewish, he would have been buried before now, but there was so much that had to be pinned down first and no one available to make arrangements. It’s good you’re here now.”

Frankie was to find that Herman Kahn had listed him as his beneficiary too. He hadn’t considered that was a possibility at all. When he contacted the lawyers and went in to discuss the matters with them, he found that Kahn, having no living relatives and listing Frankie as his sole heir, had left everything to him—the fashion house business; most significantly the building it was in, free and clear; and nearly two million dollars in other assets.

As he was leaving the lawyers’ offices, in a half daze, Frankie received another cellphone call.

“Good news, Franklin?”

“Uh, is that you, Mr. Janney?”

“At your service and working hard for you, my boy. Bottom line. I sold your play to Paramount, through that producer, Harold Peters. I told you the priming the pump paid off in this business. You’ll get $30,000 in advance and percentage when profits start pouring in—that is if you agree. You can get that right away, if you’ll give me a lawyer’s address where the paperwork can be sent.”

“Yeah, sure, that sounds good,” Frankie said, still in shock from his first meeting with the lawyers. They said they’d represent him in Kahn’s estate and maybe they’d handle this as well. He gave Janney the address and turned to go back to the lawyers’ office.

“Come back out to the coast as soon as you can, good looking,” Janney said. “In fact, move back here. You can move in with me. I’ll take good care of you. You can write full time.”

A sugar daddy. Richard Janney was offering himself as Frankie’s sugar daddy. It was what Frankie had been looking for, and Janney certainly appeared to be filthy rich. There was every reason to believe that Janney would be his pimp as well as his sugar daddy, though.

“Let me think on it, Mr. Janney—Richard. I can’t make a decision at the moment. A friend has died and I have to help with the arrangements.”

“Not a close friend, I hope.”

“Closer than I realized,” Frankie answered. Closer than I deserved, he thought. But he didn’t say so. He hadn’t been giving enough thought to those close to him, he realized.

* * * *

On his back. Just a straightforward missionary. But the top was young, virile, flexible, a lover. It had been too long. The top was grasping Frankie’s knees and rowing them back and forth, in rhythm with the stroking of the cock. The shaft found all of the sensitive spots as Frankie’s passage wall muscles grabbed at it, caressed it, undulated over it, Frankie gasped and whispered, “Yes, yes, yes, screw me hard.” The shaft plunged deep, invading the soft, spongy inner core and slayed Frankie there—murdered him, conquered and vanquished him—and flooded him with the peace of a perfect breeding.

Both of them came out of the near-mutual orgasm panting and moaning. They stretched out against each other in the bed in Josh Schwartz’s private bedroom above the Get Lucky bar in Chelsea. Having discovered he melted to it, Frankie moved one of Josh’s hands to his chest and Josh played with the nipple there. Frankie moaned his pleasure.

“I’ve missed you,” Josh whispered.

“I think I could tell,” Frankie murmured. And then, after short pause, “I missed you too. That was . . . incredible.”

“Even after all those rich men and celebrities you’ve been telling me about in Hollywood?”

“I won’t change what I said. This was incredible.”

“Is that what was so urgent that you had to see me today—that you needed your Josh fix?”

“It’s the sixth of January—Epiphany.”

“So, it is. This is about your New Year’s resolutions? That you found a sugar daddy and sold your play script by Epiphany? You came to gloat? Does becoming newly rich mean you are cutting off your studies—the dance and the creative writing degrees? Are you moving to Key West or someplace where you can live the decadent lifestyle of the rich?”

“No, I’m staying right here. I’ll finish my studies. It’s best to have credentials in careers I want to pursue. I’ll see if I can make a go of the men’s fashion house too. And I didn’t come here today to gloat. I realized that you didn’t tell me that day what your New Year’s resolution was. I want to know. Did you want to find a sugar daddy this year too, someone to support you through your studies and put you on the road?”

“It was rather more specific than that, and I wasn’t thinking of sugar daddies at the time. I was thinking of you.”

“Of me?”

“Yes. My resolution was that you move in here with me and we try to make a go of this together. But I realized that your dreams were far beyond that, so I didn’t say anything.”

“My dreams aren’t far beyond the bottom line of yours, Josh. I dreamed of getting a sugar daddy, but so that I could continue with you. If you’d asked me that day to move in with you, I’d have happily said yes. Now, though, I’m in a position to be a sugar daddy myself. I came here today to ask you to move in with me—in the apartment above the Royal Menswear fashion house and to let me help you finish your studies, along with me, and realize your professional ambitions. Would you consider that?”

“Would I have to remain in the apartment, barefoot, and have your supper ready for you when you came home from the office?”

“You could do anything you want.”

“You’re not going back out to Hollywood?”

“Not permanently, no. I’m staying right here, with you—if you’ll have me. How long do you need to think about that prospect?”

“I decided on that long ago, long before we made New Year’s resolutions . . . Daddy.”