Chapter One: New Year's Eve 1989
There were four of them on the bed in the second-floor master bedroom of the Baccarat Hotel and Residence Condo building on Manhattan's West 53rd Street, conveniently located near the Broadway theater district. The caterers were downstairs in the living area doing last-minute preparations for Ted Sullivan's early-evening buffet dinner party that led off the dispersal of his and Jeff Malone's literary and theater circle friends to their individual ringing in the 1990s events.
Sullivan, a literary agent, and Malone, a Broadway producer and set designer, were a couple, but only loosely so, and at the moment they were celebrating the approach of New Year's in coupling with separate rent-boys. They were doing so on the same bed, though, which permitted them to do some fondling and kissing of each other in the process.
Thirty-five-year-old tall, slim, and blond Ted Sullivan was fucking nineteen-year-old Columbia University creative-writing major freshman Ken Curtain on one side of the bed set against a twenty-ninth-floor full glass wall looking out on the Times Square area of Manhattan. He was sitting back on his calves on the bed, with Ken sitting in his lap, skewered on his cock, and leaning away from him, palming the bedspread in front of Ted's knees. Ted was gripping the young, boyish-figured man's narrow waist between his hands and pulling a moaning submissive on and off his cock.
Beside him, his apartment mate, Jeff Malone, was doing twenty-year-old Manhattan Arts Center student Russ Jackson in a missionary. The solidly built, muscular and dark-haired hirsute Jeff was standing on the floor at the foot of the bed, leaning over the small mulatto actor-to-be, lying on his back on the bed, his legs spread and raised, while Jeff, gripping the young man's ankles, fucked him in long, deep slides.
The two apartment mates were starting the festivities of ringing in the 1990s in lustful style. It was a premium pay night for Curtain and Jackson, and they were just happy that they had drawn studs rather than duds for the evening. Somebody at the escort agency must like them, they thought.
All four of the men were naked. Their clothes scattered haphazardly around the bedroom. They'd had quite a romp getting into their respective fuck positions. As they had all been in similar black and white evening wear before the athletics had begun, it would take several minutes after they were finished cavorting to discern what item of apparel went with which man and Ted and Jeff's guests would be arriving soon. As if realizing this, Ted and Jeff stepped up their thrusts almost simultaneously. Russ, acting to the hilt, was crying out what a masterful stud Jeff was, raising his pelvis with the leverage of the feet Jeff had lowered to dig into the edge of the mattress at the foot of the bed, and digging his fingernails into Jeff's biceps as Jeff fucked him hard. At the same time, Ken had collapsed back onto the bed, streaming back in front of Ted, his arms dangling out from his body in a virgin sacrifice position and moaning, as Ted came up on his knees, bringing Ken's pelvis up to his crotch, and pulled the young man on and off the cock in ever-quicker pulls. With a simultaneous cry of their own, both Ted and Jeff came, disengaged from their own conquered young man, and went off arm-in-arm to the master bathroom to shower together. They directed the two rent-boys to the en suite bath in the second bedroom of the two-floor condo.
Ken and Russ were just two of four rent-boys engaged for the early-supper party. The guests would be a mix of literary and theater folks, most of whom were gay, and the couple liked to provide easily approached eye candy at their parties. The young men were engaged from a high-end Manhattan escort service specializing in luscious young college students studying various aspects of the arts. Ted and Jeff had selected two from the portfolio as New Year's gifts to each other to get an early start on their own New Year's celebrations.
By the time Ken and Russ were cleaned up and dressed and coming down the staircase to the large combined living room, dining room, and kitchen below, the party was in full swing. Although the doorbell was ringing continuously, there already were more than two dozen guests, rent-boys, and serving men and women milling about. Most of those in attendance were men, although there was a smattering of woman, as well. Most of them floated around talking with authority and gusto on arts topics. Some of them were recognizable as celebrities in their field. Ken knew the other three rent-boys there that evening. The two who arrived later and weren't topped by Ted and Jeff—at least before the party; Ted and Jeff did take pains to get their money's worth on entertainment and the four rent-boys had cost a small fortune—were already being embraced and fondled by two hefty men who Russ whispered were Broadway producers.
After this identification, Russ wafted off to try to find one for himself, leaving Ken to wander on his own for a few minutes. Ken was much too good-looking to be wandering on his own for long, of course, and he was quickly snagged by a walrus of a middle-aged man who Ken had turned and looked at when he'd heard someone in a group the man was conversing with ask the walrus how sales were at Harper and Row. Ken would die to be published by Harper and Row. His hesitation under the walrus's gaze caused the man to reach out and pull Ken into the small discussion group. Ken, aspiring fiction writer, was willingly snagged.
The younger escort agency rent-boys tried to hook up with someone influential in their chosen field at a party like this if they could and as soon as they could. The networking opportunities it provided were primary reasons they were selling their bodies. Everyone was on the make for getting established in New York. Ken had jumped at the offer to work this New Year's Eve gig when he could have made more in painting the town on a visiting industrialist's arm because Ted Sullivan was a literary agent. If the walrus worked in publishing, as the question about Harper and Row publishers posed to him had hinted, this party was earning double opportunity points for Ken.
Exposure of your talents to a person of influence was a step up in the networking world. If he was an older man and you were a younger man and he enjoyed using your body and you could stomach him doing so, that was an upward leap. Ken actually liked older men if they weren't grossly out of shape. They tended to be more experienced, to appreciating being between a young man's legs than another young man did, and they usually demanded to have control. Ken liked being controlled.
* * * *
"Have you tried writing a novel?" Jason Mason, the publishing company walrus, was working Ken toward the bed. He had the young man backed up to a column, there not being much in the way of solid walls on the first floor of Ted and Jeff's twenty-ninth-story West 53rd Street condo, with an arm extended past Ken's shoulder. Ken was a good four inches shorter than the walrus and over a hundred pounds lighter. He was holding a Martini glass in the other hand and alternating between making large gestures with it and touching Ken where his nipples were under the material of his shirt with the knuckles he was hold the stem of the glass with as he expounded on the publishing process and how important it was for new, young authors to have connections. Ken had every reason to believe that Mason was fully aware his knuckle landed on a nipple each time.
"I've just started with the formal training in creative writing," Ken answered. "My professor says I have promise, but I haven't completed anything of my own yet. We're looking at the techniques of various established authors." Ken thought that maybe this was a mistake. He was worrying about networking too soon. He needed to have some writing under his belt before he started trying to cultivate men in the business such as Jason Mason. He calculated what an editor at Harper and Rowe might make and decided that perhaps he should be cultivating a better paid publisher at this point in his development.
He moved forward from the column as if to start sliding out from the walrus's clutches, but Mason was having none of that. He set his Martini glass down on an adjacent table and palmed Ken's chest, pushing the young man back against the column.
"That's understandable. You've just started in college, haven't you? You're how old?"
"I'm nineteen. This is my freshman year."
"Sweet," Mason said, giving the young man a bright smile. "I like young men. I mean it's good to start working with a writer early. I could help you with the publishing process—guide you on how to direct your writing while your professor—who is he?—helps you with the actual writing. It's never too early to start learning what sells."
Ken had not trouble understanding that he sold well with men like Mason. The publisher's editor pulled his hand away from Ken's chest long enough to run the back of his fingers up Ken's cheek, ostensibly putting a golden curl back in place, although both he and Ken understood it meant more than that. Mason was a tactile man. He was in luck, though. Ken was aroused by being intimately touched. The "start early" advice got across to Ken and he tilted his head to press his cheek into the hand before Mason pulled it away, noticeably trembled, and gave the man a shy smile, batting his eyelashes at the man. Maybe at this point, a publishing house editor was a good choice. Mason's hand came down, but only to Ken's chest. He palmed Ken's left pectoral. Ken, subtly, he hoped, pushed his chest into the man's hand. The signal was clear.
The deal was done. Mason was going to fuck him. It's what Ken had been contracted to accede to during the party anyway—to let a guest or two fuck him if they wanted to. If any guest propositioned him, the cost was covered. He hadn't been brought in just for Ted Sullivan to fuck.
