Chapter 8
"The bucket's right there," Rod said, his eyes following Paul. "Make yourself a big one, get real drunk, and give me an even chance of raping you."
"You haven't got that much booze, not even downstairs." Paul's tone was bantering; Rod took everything as a joke, laughed heartily, and turned to face Wade.
"I've been propositioning Paul since the first night we met," he announced. "But I haven't made it into that beautiful ass of his yet." Paul had finished pouring his cocktail onto the rocks, and Rod turned toward him. "For five hundred bucks, Paul?" It sounded like a private joke -- at the same time it didn't sound funny at all.
Paul's expression did not alter. He neither frowned nor smiled, only gazed with a searching stare.
"Wade came up to talk about playing your deserted piano," Paul reminded Rod. "What happened to Sammy?"
"Who the fuck knows?" Rod snorted, picking up a clean shirt draped over the back of a chair and beginning to put it on. "He left here at closing time Friday with a couple of guys from Ohio, I think. I heard them talking about Key West and the possibility of going there and picking up some sailors. You know, once in a while Sammy sobers up long enough to remember what sex is, and then he goes off on a cruising jag. The trouble is, he can work while he's drinking, but he can't play the piano while he's sucking cocks, so I'm the one who's left high and dry." Then he swung around toward Wade. "Except," he said, "you're supposed to be a piano player too."
"That's right," Wade said. "Jazz. Cocktail. Rock, if I have to."
"Do you sing too?"
"That's not too important. I see you drink, though."
"When I'm working," Wade said, "a highball like this will last me maybe two hours."
Rod nodded. "Is Paul your agent?"
Wade laughed. "No. I'm just sharing his apartment right now."
Rod's eyebrows shot up. "Lovers?"
"Are you publishing a Goddamned newspaper, Rod?" Paul said. "Or are you just a nosy sonofabitch?"
"A thousand dollars, Paul!" he said. "I mean it, and you have a witness. I'll give you a grand in cash this minute. All you have to do is open up that nice little ass of yours and let me in!"
Paul drained his glass and set it down hard on the bar. "I better get out of here, Wade, or he'll never talk business to you."
"Yeah, why don't you split, Paul," Rod said. "You're distracting me from important things."
Paul winked at Wade as he passed on the way to the door. "I'll see you downstairs."
Rod stood staring at the door after Paul had gone out. He still had not buttoned his shirt after putting it on; Wade could not keep his eyes from wandering over the splendid chest, and from surreptitiously dropping even lower to the man's crotch, which revealed an interesting imprint beneath his trousers.
Rod seemed to be easily distracted from one idea to another. "I've got a thing about that kid," he said. "And I suppose a lot of guys in this town who know him are in the same boat with me. He's really different from the rest. I'm not sure how or why because I only know him from the bar and from a few reasonably respectable parties. But whatever he is, I'd like to get next to it once." He laughed. "But then I'd like to get next to a lot of guys in the same way, so what the hell. Let's talk about your playing. Have you ever played in a gay club before?"
Wade nodded.
"There are some problems, you know," Rod said. "You have to play it cool with the customers. I mean, be friendly, but distant. I don't hire people to make it easier for them to find sex. A pianist at the bar is in a great position to cruise and be cruised."
"You don't have to worry about that, Rod. When I'm playing, my mind is strictly on my music. Besides, I'm not the kind of guy to go looking for bed company. I live with someone and have for a long time now."
"In Los Angeles?"
"Yes."
"Is he there now?"
"Yes, he is."
"And you're here?" The look accompanying his obvious question already got his meaning across.
"It's kind of a vacation. You should know that I'll most likely be going back within a week or so."
He shrugged. "I expect Sammy will be back before that. I can only hire you on a night-to-night basis, you understand. Despite all his faults, Sammy has preference on this job."
"That's fine. We understand, each other then. When would you like me to start?"
"Right now, if you're ready. Or do you need music?"
"It's all up here," Wade answered, tapping the side of his head. "Suppose I play a couple of sets and see how your customers like it. If I'm not right, there's no point in wasting my time or yours."
"Fine," Rod said. He walked across the room to shake hands with Wade. "Go downstairs and start working. I'll be down shortly and we can talk money then."
"Great," Wade answered, and he turned away to go to the door. As he did, Rod gave him a kind of friendly pat on the ass, a pat which lingered for just a second longer than a purely, offhand gesture could account for. There was absolute silence until Wade had opened the door.
"Think nothing of it, Wade. I've got a thing for asses."
"Well?" Paul asked Wade when he came up to the bar.
"Well, I'm about to go to work for awhile."
"Great."
"You don't mind?"
"Of course not. It was my idea, wasn't it?"
Wade grabbed him by the shoulder. "This was probably exactly what I needed. I was beginning to feel kind of useless. This may only be for one night, or a few -- till Sammy comes back -- but at least I'm doing something."
Paul turned and called to Henry, the bartender. He introduced Wade and told him he was going to play piano for a while. Wade ducked through the gate under the bar, opened the piano, and made himself comfortable on the bench. Henry snapped on a switch and abruptly there was a soft spotlight on Wade. Then he realized that the conversations had hushed and most of the eyes were on him, interested and expectant.
That familiar excitement coursed through him and said the words, "Show Tunes." It was always good to start with them at least. He put a program through his mind and then started to play; the full room of people seemed to condense into the single person of Paul sitting on the stool closest to him.
A vocalist had once told him that her method of putting a song across to an audience was to find just one person in it and sing directly to him. She said it made the performance a personal act, and helped her to give the proper phrasing and meaning to the lyrics. Wade had found that this could work for him, too, when he was playing solo. In most instances, the singe person from the audience would not be someone he knew, but just a fact which seemed more receptive to his performance than the average.
But Paul became that object not simply because he was sitting close enough for Wade to see him easily against the glare of the spotlight, but as the one person who would best understand what Wade was trying to say with his music. He had spent most of the past week telling about himself in words. This was another way of transmitting more of what he was on a deeper, more direct level. It was not too much different from making bye to him, it was just out in the open.
And even as he was enjoying the wonderful, personal contact, he wondered why he had never been able to do this with Rick.
The applause was as much a surprise to Henry and Paul as it was to Wade. It came spontaneously at the end of his first set and built to an exciting and satisfying volume, including a few whistles of appreciation and some straightforward complimentary comments. It continued until Wade had gotten down from the low dais the piano stood on and Henry had turned off the spotlight.
The bartender rubbed him on the shoulder. "That was solid," he said. "Right down the middle."
"You're a star!" Paul grinned at him as he came up from the gate under the bar. "Why didn't you tell me how talented you are?"
"There are thousands of guys who can play as well as that," Wade protested happily.
"Oh, sure," he came back. "That's why all these guys are giving you the big hand. Believe me, it takes talent to take their minds off themselves and their gossip and their cruising. They were really listening to you up there. I've never heard them really applaud for Sammy."
"They're used to him. I'm something new."
"That's true," Paul grinned affably. "New and talented."
"Thank you very much," Wade told him. "If you liked it, then that's all that counts."
Henry came over to them and broke in. "You might be interested in knowing that the boss just called down and wanted to know what all the noise was about. I told him the boys were applauding your playing. He says he'll be right down to talk to you."
Paul put his hand on Wade's arm. "Look, Wade, you won't mind if I head home. You're going to be here late, and I could use the extra sack time. You have enough audience without me and I can look forward to hearing you play for me sometime soon... just for me, right?"
Wade felt a little let down; his face must have revealed it.
"Besides," Paul sighed. "I can't take anymore of Rod tonight. You understand?"
Wade said, "Of course I understand." But when Paul walked out of the place he seemed to be very much alone. He sensed that there was more to Paul's relationship with the owner of the bar than he wanted to let on. It was not his business, though, and he knew he had no right to ask any questions. Still, it disturbed him.
A few minutes later those thoughts were gone from his mind, as he found himself the center of conversation with a number of patrons. Within five minutes, he had been introduced to a dozen or more smiling, sun-tanned guys and was answering their questions about where he was from, had he made any recordings, who did he know in the music business, and what was the gay scene in Los Angeles. It was, impossible to maintain any dialogue with any one person before another was talking.
Wade had to admit to himself that he liked it. He was a performer at heart, and he liked attention. It was all very friendly, gay, open, genuine appreciation for what he could do at the piano, and what seemed to Wade to be honest interest in himself as an individual. Then Rod showed up and everything changed.
Without really trying, Rod seemed to dominate the group from the moment he joined it. It was partly his own appearance and personality, and partly a kind of deference the men showed him. Rod was different from the rest, just as he felt Paul was different, but not for the same reasons.
Not one of the young men around Wade was an effeminate or obvious type of gay man; all were healthy, outgoing, athletic types, well-dressed, in their early twenties. But there was just something about Rod. Perhaps it was because he was older. Perhaps it was his size, his well-carried massive frame which outshone the one basketball player in the circle around Wade. More likely, it was the slow assurance of his actions, a kind of self-contained arrogance or nonchalance which said, "I know what I want and I get it by asking for it."
Wade wasn't quite sure why, but little by little the group began to break up, drift away to another part of the room, leaving him talking alone with Rod.
"It sounds as though you've made a good impression on the customers, Wade. I'm looking forward to hearing your next set."
Suddenly it was very important to Wade to have this man's approval of his playing added to the response he had already received.
"Is there a schedule of playing I'm supposed to follow, Rod?" he asked, "or can I get back to the piano now?"
"Be my guest," he answered, and then he said across the bar: "Henry, put on Wade's spotlight. He's going to give a command performance."
The next set went even better than the first and Rod's reaction was the reason. Wade wasn't more than a dozen bars into the first piece when he saw the approving smile, or half-smile, on the man's rugged face; Wade knew that Rod liked what he was hearing.
With Paul gone, Wade used Rod as his total-audience-of-one, and the evening began to dissolve into a long, unspoken conversation between Wade at the piano and Rod at the closest stool. Rod took perfunctory time out to speak with the bartender or give an order; once he even made a circuit around the room. But he always came back to watch Wade. Occasionally he would keep time with the music with his hand on the bar as he stared long and intently, not smiling, at the new pianist.
Since it was a week night, the bar began to empty not long after midnight. By one o'clock, after Wade had completed a medley of Judy Garland favorites, Rod said, "That's enough, Wade. You've earned yourself a good night's pay." He glanced around the room and added, "The ones who are staying up later than this are interested in booze or cock rather than in music. Never outstay your audience."
"I enjoyed it," Wade smiled at the man. "It's good to know that I haven't lost my touch in a week."
"Not likely," Rod said. "Come on upstairs so I can pay you and make some arrangements for the rest of the week. Even if Sammy does come back, I'll tell him to take a vacation. I want to get the full benefits of your talent while you're in Miami."
After they climbed the stairway and entered his apartment, Rod said, "Relax, and pour yourself a drink. It must be tiring sitting on that bench for hours."
"Pianists get used to it," Wade said, flopping down onto the deep sofa. "I guess we develop good muscles where we sit."
"Yes, I noticed when you were up there earlier," he replied. The words came out very directly and they stared at each other for a moment. Wade's heart was beating very hard all of a sudden and he wouldn't have known how to answer Rod's statement had the man not burst into a deep-throated laughter. "Imagine," he went on, "developing the shape of your ass and getting paid for it."
Wade stood up. "I think I'll have the drink," he said, and he walked past Rod over to the bar. He was putting ice into a tall glass when he heard the man's warm breath, and then his voice, right behind him, almost in his ear.
"I'd like to see that ass, Wade."
And now his pulse was pounding so loud in his ears that he felt dizzy. He couldn't move, he could only stand there with the glass of ice, not answering, not turning around. He knew what he was waiting for, but he dared not speak it. The noisy silence went on until the pressure of his own blood in his own ears was like an excruciating pain.
Then he felt Rod's hand move onto his backside, not hesitantly, not delicately, but with virile assurance. It was a contact so strong that the layers of cloth which separated them seemed to disappear. And the strength of the hand was what made Wade Matthews heart pound, made his knees feel weak all over, rendered him speechless. Rod's big fingers seemed to mold themselves to Wade's bunching flesh, and Wade moved back against Rod's palm with an abrupt and knowing thrust of desire.
"It feels better than it looks," Rod told the boy, and his other hand moved between Wade and the bar to pull skillfully at Wade's belt buckle, opening it and the button at the waistband of his trousers more rapidly than Wade himself could have done it. Just as rapidly, Rod opened Wade's zipper and undid the snaps of Wade's shorts, then pulled both garments down to his ankles.
Both of his hands were exploring the curves of Wade's exposed ass, massaging and kneading the trembling cheeks until Wade felt that any moment his legs would buckle.
"You little bitch," Rod whispered hoarsely in Wade's ear. "I knew you'd drop your pants for me... you're just like all the others, aren't you... all of them except Paul. Tell me, does he fuck this sweet ass of yours?" His voice sounded mean and full of contempt.
"Yes," Wade whispered, knowing that he was lost now, knowing that he loved it.
"Does he have a big dick?"
"And I bet you love it, don't you?"
"Yes, yes, I love it... every inch of it." Wade heard the man chuckling behind him. And then he was aware of a quick movement back there -- and an instant later, lightning struck him. Hot, wet, lightning. Rod's mouth was nibbling, animal like, at the aroused nerves of Wade's ass; the tongue was licking with an accelerating speed. And then both Rod's big clumsy hands were pushing the cheeks apart and that flicking wet sword went to its target without parrying.
Wade had to grab onto the bar for support. So Rod had a "thing" about asses -- hell, it was an unadulterated talent. He had his tongue rotating Wade's ass with a technique designed to unlock the portal in the delight of pure surrender.
Farther and farther Rod pressed into his ass with his tongue, wilder and wilder were the sensations radiating from the lunging tongue-kiss and, consequently, just as Rod had calculated, greater and greater was Wade's own need to be entered, penetrated.
Only vaguely was Wade aware that his own stiff prick was jamming mercilessly against the wood paneling on the front of the bar. At that moment his entire universe was centered upon the thrilling, vibrating nerves of his rectum.
And then he could hold it back no longer.
"Fuck me, Rod!" he screamed, his voice rasping, hoarse. "For shit's sake, use your cock... and fuck me as hard as you can!"
"You asked for it, you little bitch," Rod's deep voice assured him, "and you're fucking well gonna get it now."
There was a hurried rustling of clothing. And much faster than Wade thought anyone could have gotten undressed, Rod was against him, his strong hands on his hips, holding the cheeks spread wide.
Then Wade reached behind him, and down. He gasped. His mind did not believe what his hand was feeling, it was too terrifying at this point, and he whirled around so swiftly that Rod did not have time to step back and they crashed chests first into one another. The monstrosity of a cock was stabbed into Wade's belly as they came face to face, and he reached down to grip it again. The weight alone was enormous.
"Oh, my God," Wade breathed quietly. "Oh, Rod... let me see it, let me look at it..."
Rod laughed. "You'll do more than look at it, you little queen. You're going to get it shoved up your asshole."
"I can't take it... it's too..."
Rod grabbed him by the shoulders, flung him back around against the bar. "You'll take it, all right," he snorted. "You asked for it and you're gonna get it." He held Wade pressed into the wood as he found his mark again. "Okay, bitch, I'm coming in!" he announced.