Shuck by Daniel Allen Cox Page A

I gave my crotch a squeeze and made sure he saw it.
    â€œYeah. Vodka cranberry.”
    â€œYou’re good at this. Ice?”
    â€œWhy not.”
    â€œTake your shoes off,” he said.
    â€œHow do I know you’re not going to steal them?”
    A butler in a tuxedo (who I guess had been listening) served my drink on a mother-of-pearl tray—without meeting my eyes, of course.
    The lights of New York City pulled me like tractor beams to the big bay window and I stood there transfixed, wondering how long I would own all this, how long my reign as Boy New York would last. Dennis reached over my shoulder and laid a stash of twenties in my hand.
    I didn’t need to look to know that they were twenties. I can distinguish the smell of a twenty from a hundred from a single. They have different degrees of dirt on them. They’re born of different transactions. Hundreds have this sinister scent about them, because the
more zeroes you tack on, the higher the stakes. They usually smell like puke, for some reason. Twenties smell like booze. Tens and fives smell alternately like crotch and ass, and that’s why I can never tell them apart.
    The only thing I wasn’t sure about was whether or not he included a tip. I wasn’t about to count the money, because only debutantes do that.
    I folded the bills into my pocket, the hustler signal that it’s a go. In any other part of town, he would’ve put the money on the nightstand and we’d both stare at it until the transaction was complete. This was the Upper East Side, however, and we both knew the rules were different.
    After the Fire’s “Der Kommissar” ran through my head. Don’t turn around . Because if you do, he’s going to kiss you. These old men, in the end, want affection more than anything else.
    You can never be sure, though. And things can get dangerous in soundproof buildings where you have to rely on doormen to let you out.
    We went to the bedroom and I sat on the bed, waiting for him to make me shuck my pants. Instead, he pulled up a chair in front of me.
    â€œTake off your socks, one at a time.”
    So I ripped one off and dropped it on the carpet. He looked disappointed.
    â€œWho sent you here, anyways?”
    â€œPhil McDougall.”
    â€œDidn’t he tell you anything about me? That I’m specific?”
    I was confused so I asked for another drink. The butler brought it, left, and locked the door behind him. Dennis looked at me and wiped
the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief.
    â€œI need you to do it s-l-o-w-l-y. Is that too difficult?”
    â€œNo, sure.”
    â€œOkay, now continue.”
    He knelt like a shoe salesman.
    I slinked the other sock off slowly, like a condom I’d just blown a load into. It was weird but I was getting into it. I’d never thought the curly hairs around my ankle were sexy until now, until they were feeding someone’s desire through anticipation and deprivation. He was sweating contentedly a few feet away, happy to be without the object he wanted most in the world: my sock.
    Now this was power, I thought. If only I could wield it in the other parts of my life.
    The sock was halfway off my foot when the funk started to waft up—me in all my raunchy glory. He was trying his best not to sniff, and I could see in his face that holding back was getting him off. Just thinking about how I had a human puppet more than twice my age made my dick pudge out and poke through the hole in my jeans. My erection didn’t interest him in the least.
    â€œNow take it off completely.”
    â€œSlowly?”
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    So I did as he said, exposing dirty toenails, cracked and misshapen. I handed him the sock and he brought it up to his nose with both hands like it contained the last breath of oxygen in outer space. As he inhaled my funk for a solid minute (I shit you not), he turned away from me and gazed out the window at the