Shuck by Daniel Allen Cox

color-saturated sets. His shots, according to HX magazine, “are making new again the concept of Lost Boy as objèt-trouvé , diamonds in the
rough polished up with Vaseline.”
    In my photo, I was wearing a jock strap and enough pancake makeup to be a geisha girl. I made a few contacts (ahem) among admirers, raped the cheese platter of Roquefort, and skedaddled before Aaron got any funny ideas about shooting me again. On the way out, I bumped into his pornstar boyfriend Donnie Russo, who gave me a wink.
    Saturday
    Nothing. The way I like it. Watched Derek paint from my notebook.
    When I went to bed, my eyes kept bouncing around and didn’t want to close, so I went out into the empty city and tweaked around for interesting shit and ephemera:
    Detached prescription lenses, shit-smeared newspaper (not a favorite), wish-bone halves, still-breathing fish heads dumped on the street in front of Chinatown restaurants (a favorite), plane tickets for two, dead birds throbbing with maggots, cum-filled condoms, lipstick tubes, baby strollers hanging from barbed wire, Coke bottles filled with piss, fake Fiorucci shoes (I can tell the difference, motherfuckers), peach pits sucked bald.
    Objects, in case you haven’t noticed, tell the parts of the story that people leave out.
    Sunday
    The Lord’s day. Shot a video with Donnie Russo called Brooklyn Meat Packers . It was pretty hot pissing into this cute guy’s mouth and wondering if he could taste the Red Bull and crystal meth. Getting artsy was the thing to do, ever since Terry Richardson had declared in Nerve magazine that the difference between art and porn had been erased forever. I had to play my part in the revolution, so I made a crude goblet with my foreskin for pigboy to sip from. Yikes, the looks he
was giving me. I had to keep my left hand behind his head so he wouldn’t slip a ring on it.
    And that’s a hustler’s week in a New York minute.

    Doormen with white gloves mean business.
    At any residential building on the Upper East Side, they routinely chuck heads of state out by the scruff of their cheap Armani suits for the crime of not having an appointment.
    But if you’re a rent boy like me (funny how that expression doesn’t seem to fit anymore), if you smell like sex and refer to tenants by their suite numbers, they’ll lead you through the royal gates and apologize for having asked you any questions in the first place. I’m serious.
    If you have a convenient hole in the thigh of your jeans, the doormen will know that you have business there, even if it’s your first time. If they have any sense about them, they’ll realize that your customers are the ones who give them a fat cash tip every Christmas.
    The universe takes care if itself.
    And you can’t take any shit from them because they’ll sniff out weakness and make you sign the guest register.
    I walked into the elevator, a polished brass space capsule that was shiny and claustrophobic. The doorman followed me in. He hovered a finger over the elevator buttons and lifted his eyebrows, waiting for me to tell him what floor.
    â€œHow the hell should I know.”
    He nodded knowingly and pressed fourteen. His eyes. I could tell he’d been trained to use them to dilute embarrassment and make
people feel better. Magnanimous prick.
    â€œI’m going to fuck him,” I told the doorman. “Let’s just clear that up. Pick me up in half an hour.”
    I got out on the fourteenth (he knew better than to expect a tip from my ass) and found the suite door open. I walked into a princess palace of white carpeting and kitschy crystal figurines, shelves crammed with priceless pieces of junk, and antique Chinese furniture sagging under sick wastes of money. Only the stacks of manuscripts seemed out of place.
    â€œYou must be the famous Jaeven. I’m Dennis.”
    I gave him fifty-three, fifty-four, the type of daddy who took care of his boy.