SoMa Literary Review - SoMa Serial - Circuit Stories ~ Chapter 2: Fireball

Circuit Stories

By Ken Cimino

Chapter Two: Fireball

An unconscious man-child with pale skin, languid breath and sunken eyes lay on the three by six bed.

The air in the small cubicle was heavy and stagnant. On the screen in the corner, two faceless male torsos meshed into one, over and over as if on a loop. While the room's occupants changed by the hour, the pictures on the monitor were always the same: perfect naked muscle men, skin on sun kissed skin. Gay porn stars - the post-AIDS generations. While in the straight world porn stars are firmly at the bottom of the food chain, in the gay world they're top of the chain - symbols of the perfect male specimen.

Jack stared down at his Movado watch, its silver and gold band reflecting the small screen light. Apart from the white terry cloth draped around his waist, the watch was the only thing he'd been wearing for the last few hours. He could have checked it in at the desk of course, but he didn't want to waste time. Jack was on a mission to get off within an hour, and he knew he could lose whole hours in this place - loose them in sex and manhood.

"Shit! It's after three!" He thought, glancing down as the comatose young guy by his side finally started to stir. Jack felt himself relax for the first time in hours. At least the guy was showing signs of life: in fact, if he looked carefully he could almost see the kid's spirit return to his body, the way a light brings existence to a dark room.

“Hey man, do you know where you're at?" Jack asked, moving into the kid's line of vision.

The body before him blinked a few times in confusion, before his head seemed to clear. "The sauna," he said at last. "Steamworks."

"And do you know which city you're in?" Jack questioned, realizing the kid was still lost in his thoughts.

" Chicago … I'm here for Fireball," came the answer. Jack permitted himself to relax a little more.

"Cool," he said. "And what's your name?"

"Billy."

"OK, Billy, last question: what the hell were you on?"

Billy's expression turned vacant as he tried to meet Jack's eyes. His own eyes, however, remained unfocused, slipping up and down Jack's body, his gaze finally fixing on the hissing snake tattoo twisting up his arm. With a start he realized Jack was dressed only in a towel. He was in his late 20s, with a muscular body and hairy chest. Billy's eyes widened as he saw the trail of red, downy hair snaking down Jack's stomach and dipping underneath his towel.

"I took a little capful of some salty tasting stuff," he said. "My friend, Jake said it would give me a little buzz. He called it firewater. I took a shot a while ago. He said it would make the sex in the sauna incredible."

Jack handed Billy the Coke he'd bought on the first floor while Billy was passed out.

"Where are you from?"

Billy grabbed the drink, looking around, still dazed. He could see a few men, some in towels and some just naked, standing close to the doorway of the small room he was in. He himself was laid out flat on the bed. In his peripheral vision he saw a litter of lube, torn condom packages and keys attached to a red rubber bracelet. On the TV above the bed, four guys were going at it, one of them getting fucked and sucking another guy's dick at the same time. Had he just done the same thing, Billy wondered? He recognized one of the performers from Gold’s gym.

"I’ve seen that guy working out in my gym and at Numbers in West Hollywood ," he told Jack. "You know, I always thought that gay porn stars led such a fantastic life, then I look in the back of Frontiers magazine, and I recognize so many of them in the escort ads."

Jack nodded his head in agreement

"That’s how most of them make their money," he told him. "They only get about five hunderd dollars a scene."

Billy seemed surprised.

"Really? They don’t even get residuals?" He looked back at the screen, amazed.

"They should: it's their bodies that are on display!" He glanced at Jack, his eyes appraising him frankly. "I bet with that body and face you could do porn," he said.

Jack blushed with the compliment.

"I’m way too old for that," he replied. "And for you, come to think of it."

Billy was still watching him. Jack looked familiar somehow. He just wasn't sure why.

"Who are you anyway?" he asked. "When did we meet?"

Jack grinned. He'd had a feeling Billy's memory might be a little stalled.

"I'm Jack," he said, suppressing the urge to laugh. "We met while you were giving me a blowjob. You were giving me head, then you stood up and tried to get to the bathroom, dry heaving all the time. Then you blacked out."

Billy squirmed in embarrassment and tried to cover his body with a towel, only to find that there was none. He was completely naked and exposed.

"Where's my towel?" he asked, struggling to sit up. "Where's Jake?"

He looked around, as if expecting to find Jake hidden in a corner somewhere in the small room. "Man, I was so buzzed, and so horny" he groaned, falling back onto the bed.

Jack nodded agreement. "Honestly?" he asked. "You were sorta acting like an asshole. You followed me to my room. You kept babbling on about my biceps, and how you liked men with buzzcuts. Then you went down on my dick, even though I told you not to. Wouldn't take no for an answer. You started groping me. The more I tried to stop you the more you spiraled out of control like a raver on ecstasy."

There was a short pause as both men gazed at the screen above them. "Are you on X?" Jack asked eventually. "I don't think I know what firewater is - and I thought I’d done just about everything."

"I took G and passed out," Billy admitted. "I’ve heard that if you take too much you drop like a weight. I feel so embarrassed."

Jack began to feel sorry for the blond-haired twink. Billy could only be about twenty. He had a baby face and his body was almost completely hairless, except for the dirty blond pubic hair surrounding his lifeless dick. He appeared both innocent and worldly at the same time. He was cute, but he was too young, thought Jack. He preferred men with something of an edge. As an attorney, he was used to always being in control: he wanted men who were out of control. He loved sex that was just short of chaotic. That’s what made the Chicago Fireball party so much fun. Mid Western men, briefly out of their minds.

Billy could tell Jack wasn't that into him. Why is it so hard for gay men to make real emotional connections, he wondered?

"You're not attracted to me, are you?" he asked, ruefully.

Jack stared at him, wondering what to say. He liked hairy men. Bearish men. He particularly liked older men: like the guy he'd seen when he'd first entered Steamworks. He'd paid his entry fee and been given a towel and a locker key. As he'd changed downstairs, he'd noticed an older, muscled man in the corner. Jack had watched him for a moment, before deciding it was too soon to play. He'd showered and then made his way upstairs to see what was going on.

Upstairs, he found a number of rooms playing porn, a sling and a very dark room with a way in and a way out. Inside it, Jack found four cubicles with glory holes in them. Opening the door of one, Jack stepped inside and waited for his eyes to adjust to the light. When they did, he saw holes in each side of the cubicle - one of which had a medium sized cock poking through it. Jack took it in his hands and started to stroke it. It began to grow, and soon he heard a voice telling him to put the cock in his mouth and suck it. It was too soon, though. Jack left the room and saw the older man standing outside, stroking himself under his towel. Jack was drawn to the older man’s features. He was hot! That’s what he wanted: a masculine man! An all-knowing sexual coach in his locker room fantasy.

"I like masculine men!" he blurted out now to Billy, who looked hurt.

"Masculine men? Isn't that a redundancy?"

Jack struggled to explain himself. "I guess I like men who are bit more…bearish," he said. "With facial hair, mustaches, you know."

Billy sniggered. "A mustache? Did the Village People come out with a new 8-track? Come on! No one wears a mustache any more! No one hip, anyway. That's reserved for old, tired gay clones, policemen, and high schoolers hitting puberty."

"OK, so what about goatees?" Jack asked.

"Those are for guys with no chins," asserted Billy. "They always look like they need to wash their face. And before you say it, Luke Perry ruined the coolness of sideburns for a century. And a beard… a beard is just a way to hide insecurities. It's the ultimate mask."

Jack shrugged and changed the subject. "Billy, you know, you scared the hello out of me a few moments ago."

Jack had panicked when Billy's body had started twitching and jerking, when he'd failed to respond to Jack's voice. He'd even tried shaking him. Billy's breathing was so shallow Jack feared he was going to end up sharing his room with a young, fresh corpse.

"You should stay away from the G," he told him. "That stuff is just floor stripper, you know. People make it in their bathtubs. They get the recipe from the Internet. You have no idea what you're getting."

Jack was speaking from experience. He had taken too much G himself, last year at the Mayan party in Los Angeles . He had been dancing when he ran into a friend who handed him a shot of G. It was only after Jack had taken it that he remembered he'd already had one, just thirty minutes earlier.

G makes one so forgetful.

Jack had tried to find his friends. He could see fear in their eyes as he felt like he was looking at them through a tunnel. Like he was watching himself move on TV. And then everything had gone blank: just like Billy had a few hours earlier.

Billy searched his mind for the answer to the riddle of how he got into Jack’s room. He was so embarrassed. He felt like he was in some bad Jerry Springer episode. Like he was brought into Jack’s room to have some family secret exposed.

"I remember taking my shot of G," he said slowly. "And walking around in the maze area. And I had this sudden feeling of being wild, giddily high. I remember how the bass beat of the music playing over the loud speaker was getting louder and louder. I saw you walk by and I wanted to have sex with you. Something about your arm tattoo. I just couldn’t stop myself from wanting you. But at the same time I felt myself needing to take a nap."

Jack understood what Billy was talking about.

"Look," he said, "When I woke from my bad G experience I didn't know where I was, or what month, day, or even year it was. I was lying naked next to a toilet in the hotel room of some guy I didn’t even recognize. He kept telling me the time, but it seemed wrong. I wasn’t sure when I had taken the G: was it one day ago, two? Had this guy fucked me without a condom? Was the guy HIV positive? I felt absolute panic as I speculated about what had happened."

Billy listened, but instantly disregarded Jack's warning.

"Yeah, but sex on G is so hot," he insisted. "I get real verbal, real aggressive, real pig like. I should go find Jake and we should do some G together."

Jack stared at him, blankly. Billy clearly hadn't learned a thing. His own four-hour coma, in the middle of a stranger's hotel room, had convinced Jack that GHB was one circuit drug he'd be leaving off the menu from now on. The loss of memory had freaked him out for months.

It had taken Jack almost an hour to figure out that he'd only been knocked out for a couple of hours, not days, as he'd thought. His friends had walked him around the Mayan trying to keep him from passing out. They'd put cocaine and crystal meth under his nose, trying to get him to sniff. They'd tried to make him drink. By the end of the first hour, though, Jack's friends were getting frustrated. They were warriors of the dance floor. They needed to join the other soldiers on the fight to dance all night. Jack was causing them to end the battle early. When they found a guy heading back to his hotel which was close and Jack’s friends managed to convince him to let Jack come back to his room and sleep off the G.

Jack didn’t want to continue on this path with Billy so he tried to change the subject.

"Is this your first time in Chicago ?"

Sensing Jack's discomfort, Billy readily agreed to the new game.

"You know, Chicago is such a strange name for a city," he said. "I wonder what it means?"

It was a clumsy question, but Jack decided to go with it.

"I read somewhere that according to an Ojaibwe Folk Tale it means place of the skunk. Something about an Ottawa hunter following a trail of a skunk that ended in marsh."

"But why do they call it the windy city?" Billy persisted.

Jack shrugged. "I guess because of all the winds," he said, lazily.

A deep masculine voice interrupted the question and answer session.

"It goes back to the 1800s, when the city was known to be full of crooked politicians and windbags."

Jack turned around to see the Daddy who had been chasing him since he arrived at the club an hour ago.

"It’s not because the city has a lot of wind?" he grinned.

"Well, not really," the Leather Daddy replied. "The newspapers used the term for windy speakers who were full of wind, and there were wind-storms, like tornadoes, that would hit Chicago . So, it's both at once."

"So it's really a put-down, then?" asked Jack.

"Mid west cities after the Civil War were constantly poking each other in the eye," the older man told him. "They need to build themselves up and tear others down."

Jack thought these cities sounded a lot like Jerry, his on-off boyfriend, who'd finally left him for his friend Caesar three weeks ago. Jack had met Jerry when he'd hired him through an escort ad six months earlier. He'd known at the time that it was a mistake to fall in love with an escort/personal trainer/Eagle bartender, but he'd wanted someone who was out of control - if only for the weekends. Now, Jack hoped the Fireball would bring a new wild boyfriend.

One with a different set of problems.

One with a crazier job.

One with a different city’s baggage.

Jack had forgotten about his Daddy fantasy when Billy latched on to him. Now he couldn't help but smile to see the 6 foot, muscular body standing in the doorway. He had a hairy chest, goatee and salt and pepper hoar. He wore a black armband on his left arm, identifying him as a top, and he was playing with his dick underneath the towel. He reached out and rubbed Billy's hair, brushing Jack's chest in the process.

"My name is Master Mike," said, his eyes fastening onto Jack's.

Billy was starting to get anxious. Master Mike was interrupting his bonding time with Jack, and Billy was jealous. A scarlet spirit consumed his body. He could feel his heart drop as he lost the battle to Master Mike. He had hoped that their conversation would slowly seduce Jack into sex. How could he turn Billy down for an old guy with a hairy back and a belly?

"I should go look for my friend Jake," Billy mumbled, slipping sullenly off the bed.

"Just take care of yourself, Billy," Jack said, letting him go without an argument.

"And no more G. Please learn from my mistakes: I know I never do."

Billy left the room without a backward glance. It was Jack's loss, he told himself. He was young and fabulous and he someone would want him. He just needed the right lighting to show off his physique.

Jack adjusted his towel, making sure Master Mike got a shot of his ass as he did do. He stared the older man straight in the eye, wanting to prove that he as just as aggressive, just as dominant.

"So do you want to come in?"

Mike moved into the room, passing his hand over Jack's chest on the way.

"Why do you shave it?" he wanted to know. Before Jack could answer, though, he spoke again. "As long as you're with me you'll have to ask permission to shave anything," he said. "Understand?"

Jack nodded, feeling a prickle of excitement rise within him. He was totally turned on by his new orders. They began kissing and sucking each other, and Jack felt Mike finger his ass. Mike grabbed the lube on the table and put some on his fingers.

"I bet you get into role play," he said, moving to kiss him again.

The statement made Jack think about Jerry and his stories. The guy who paid him a hundred bucks just to worship his feet. The guy who would have him wear a speedo and flex in the mirror while he rubbed oil all over his body. The guy who had Jerry come to his apartment to tell him how dirty his oven was. Jerry would tell him these stories and Jack would live through them vicariously. Now it was Jack’s turn to let Jerry live through him.

"Yes Sir!"

"Good Boy. Is my boy going to let me own that ass?"

"Yes sir!"

Mike started to lube Jack up and told him to suck his cock so that he could get hard. Jack sucked, swallowed and licked like he never done before. He wanted Mike so bad. He wanted David to be so proud. Mike put on the condom. He bent over and put the tip of his cock slowly into Jack.

"Man, you're tight. Come open up that ass for Daddy! Come on Boy let me pound that tight ass!"

Jack immediately fell out of character. "It’s been a while," he explained, although since he'd had a three-way last month with Jerry and Cesar at the Blue Ball, it wasn't that much of a while…

Mike became angry.

"You mean yes sir!"

Jack jumped back in with his two-word script.

"Yes sir!"

Mike pushed his seven inch uncut cock into Jack. It hurt at first. Jack felt his muscles clench in pain. It was unbearable. But then slowly Mike slid into him, and he pushed his asshole back onto his dick. It still hurt, but now Jack had started to leave his body, just as he had on GHB. He always entered a new world when he was getting fucked.

If I take you from behind
Push myself into your mind

Another realm…

When you least expect it
Will you try and reject it

There was just one problem: Jack hated getting fucked by strangers. He only could stand to be fucked by Jerry. Within minutes he was begging Mike to stop. Mike, who thought it was part of the game, simply fucked him harder. He told Jack that he was going to rape him: to treat him like the piece of garbage he was. It was at that point that Jack started screaming.

A frustrated Mike pulled out.

"Figures!" he spat, angrily. "You're one of those bottoms who is ashamed of who he really is. Ashamed of his role. Ashamed of his place. Ashamed of his being. You're filled with Gay Shame."

Jack apologized for being a tease.

"I’m sorry, I was just wasn’t ready for it tonight. Having that kid pass out; I’m not in the right space."

Mike grabbed his towel and removed the condom from his dick.

"I bet you’re one of those bossy bottoms who has control issues. It’s all in your fucked up head. I’m so sick of gay self hate!"

Jack tried to explain in more detail. "Listen," he said, "My therapist says this has to do more with a fear of intimacy. I just broke up with a boyfriend that was real on and off. Well, mostly off. And now I have a hard time just fucking with anyone. Maybe I should go ask that kid for some G. I’m sure it's just psychological."

Jack noticed Mike wasn’t staring at the porn. He was looking for his locker keys on the table by the small bed, looking angry and tired.

"The great gay pioneer, Harry Hays, writes about the psychology you’re talking about as being based on heterosexual expectations," he said. "You seem to think anal sex is deviant. That our sex is unnatural. That being gay is based on a clinging to a mother or a lack of a father."

Jack answered the Master defiantly.

"So, what are we supposed to do? Stop going to therapy? Not try to see the good that psychology has done for the gay community? But you can’t blame psychology for our problems. Yes, we gays know psychology has not been kind to us. But to condemn using psychology is boring. "

Mike had a rehearsed answer ready. It was as if he had said his speech thousand times before, in situations just like this. He probably had.

"When fags like yourself learn to love themselves in an authentically queer way, the world will be a very different place," he said. "Your therapist should be teaching you how we are our own worst enemies. We oppress each other. And psychology trains us in this oppression."

Jack was flustered by Mike’s rhetoric. He never really understood why some gay men embraced therapy while others had such a disdain for it.

"Haven’t you heard of 'gay damage'?" he asked. "We're taught to hate ourselves at an early age. You’re right psychology has not always been kind to gays...mainstream psychology removed many if not all of those gay deviate label in the early 70's....so does that discredit every bit of research done by the psychology profession?"

Jack took a deep breath then continued. "By your way of thinking, the practice of psychology should be done away with, and no gays should ever visit a therapist!"

By the time Jack finished his diatribe, though, Master Mike had left the room.

Jack watched the porn for about another twenty minutes, then showered and went downstairs to grab his clothes from his locker. As he approached the door, he saw a flashing red light and two men wearing paramedic uniforms rushed past, carrying a stretcher. Jack rubbed his eyes, blearily. Had the porn he'd just been watching come to life? Had he somehow slipped inside someone's fantasy about men in uniform? At that moment the paramedics returned - and this time there was a body on the stretcher. He couldn't tell who.

Jack sensed danger. A possible fatality, even. He rushed out the door knowing he would never know for sure who had been hurt. Was it Billy? Mike? Some other gay man, living life on the edge for the weekend? Or maybe he'd just imagined it.

Maybe the flashing lights were just an illusion, the last few hours some erotic fantasy. He would never know.

Jack looked at his watch again. Almost four. Plenty of time to take a three-hour disco nap and be fresh for tonight. Jack hoped to see some porn stars dancing at Fireball tonight. The role mode who represents the flagrant manifestation of the gay individual through their sexual performance which in itself defines that identity.

The privileged of the gay realm.

The rock stars of the gay world.

The starlets of the gay community.

Jack walked south down Halsted. He looked for the Belmont Stop to catch the red line back to his hotel. He turned right on Belmont Ave. He could feel a gentle wind blowing against his stiff body. He would never know whose body lied on the stretcher. And he didn’t really care either.

Also by Ken Cimino on SoMa Literary Review:

Circuit Stories

Chapter One: Blue Ball

Chapter Two: Fireball

Chapter Three: Black Party

Chapter Four: White Party

Chapter Five: Cherry Ball

Chapter Six: San Francisco Pride

Chapter Seven: Fire Island Pines

Chapter Eight: Lazy Bear

Chapter Nine: Labor Day

Chapter Ten: HellBall

Chapter Eleven: Promises

Chapter Twelve: Exits

Kenneth Cimino holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University's School of Economics and Politics. He is the author of The Politics of Crystal Meth: Gay Men Share Stories of Addiction and Recovery. As well as the forthcoming Gay Assimilation: The Group Consciousness of Gay Conservatives, as well as numerous articles for Advocate.com and other publications. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor of political science and policy at Drake University. He lives with his long-time partner, Wayne, in the Southern California area. Visit Kenneth’s website at: www.gayitics.com.