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.
