The role of the hero in antiquity 6/7
“Brendon, I need you to do me a favour.”
There wasn’t a reply unless you counted the small, serious nod.
“I can’t… I can’t explain right now, okay?”
Brendon nodded again.
“I need the guy. That guy you owe money to? He needs to lend me ten thousand dollars, right now. Today.”
Jon had figured he’d have to talk Brendon into this, find some bullshit excuse, anything. He hadn’t expected for Brendon to ask him the question Brendon came out with.
“You wouldn’t listen if I told you you’re making the biggest mistake of your life and Tom really isn’t worth it, right?”
Jon shook his head, not even pausing to consider.
“Okay. Gimme a minute.”
Brendon pulled out his cell.
The conversation was brief, too brief for Jon to glean any real information.
“I’ll be there.”
Brendon slipped the phone back in his pocket, his expression inscrutable.
“Okay, we’ve got it.”
“Brendon…”
Brendon shook his head. “If you thank me right now, Jon, that’ll just make you look like more of an idiot later on.”
“But…”
“No, you don’t know shit, so shut the fuck up. Listen to me. I’m gonna go meet someone in an hour and a half. I’m gonna come back with ten thousand dollars. This isn’t a bank loan. You pay it back, 25 per cent interest. You don’t even wanna know what will happen if you fuck this up. If you’re lucky, you get to die, but don’t hold out any hope, even for a second, that they’re gonna be quick about it. From here on in, you’re absolutely, utterly screwed so don’t fucking make it sound like I’m doing you a favour.”
Jon didn’t reply and watched as Brendon slipped on a hooded top and black leather jacket.
“I’ll be back around ten.”
Jon couldn’t really figure out an appropriate response to that, either.
Jon couldn’t figure out anything anymore, basically. Jon went and made himself a cup of coffee and channel-surfed knives and porcelain dolls without seeing a single thing flickering across the screen. Jon smoked a couple of joints, forcing himself not to think and praying Spencer and Ryan would stay where ever the fuck they were, cause he couldn’t have handled questions without completely losing the plot.
Brendon came back a quarter to ten, nodded at him and walked straight upstairs.
Jon followed him, blankly staring at the room where just hours before he’d taken Brendon’s photographs for a profile that had creeped him the fuck out.
Brendon handed him an envelope and Jon didn’t bother to count, just stared at Brendon helplessly.
Brendon huffed out one of those incredibly shitty laughs. “Yeah, fuck.”
Jon wholeheartedly agreed.
“Brendon, I don’t even… fuck. What do I do?”
Brendon sighed and reached for his laptop.
“Watch and learn, Jonny Walker.”
About two hours later, Brendon had arranged a hook up with some random guy for the next day.
He shut down the chat windows, glancing at Jon who still wasn’t over the part of being able to earn two hundred fifty dollars for one afternoon’s work.
“Mind if I’m blunt about this?” Brendon asked and Jon faked a grin, hating his own quick comeback more then he ever had.
“I’m a hooker, remember?”
Brendon smiled briefly, but he didn’t look all that amused. Jon couldn’t blame him.
“No, seriously, Brendon. We’re kinda past the point where you tell me this isn’t a good idea.”
“Yeah, okay. So. Condoms, Jon. Do anything and everything you can live with doing and push the rates as far as you can get away with, but stay the fuck away from bareback, no matter what the offer.”
Jon nodded. He wasn’t stupid.
“That pretty much covers it. Try to get straight what the guy wants before you meet. Set the price, charge him up for extras, and collect upfront.”
“Extras?”
Brendon shrugged. “Anything that’s more then a straightforward blowjob or fuck. Humiliation kinks, S/M, breath control, bondage, watersports, scat, CBT, cutting, role playing, attack fantasy, whatever.”
Jon didn’t respond for a moment. “Um. So this is the part where I’m an utterly innocent mostly straight twenty-something.”
Brendon didn’t smile.
“This is the part, Jon, where that person starts getting in the way of you paying off your debts. If you’re very good and I mean really fucking spectacular at baiting, you can get away with charging maybe a hundred for a straightforward fuck. Kink can pay ten times that.”
“I don’t even. Brendon, I don’t know shit about any of those things.”
“Yeah, neither did I. You kinda learn on the job.”
It wasn’t that Jon didn’t believe him. It was just that Jon really didn’t wanna find out how much it was true.
***
While Jon certainly hadn’t expected to be a natural he was still surprised how hard he actually sucked at being a hooker. Trying to be a hooker, more like, cause he still hadn’t even managed to keep a conversation in any of those chat rooms going for more then about three sentences when Brendon came back from his job the next night.
He’d sent the money order to Tom’s account and then tentatively ticked some of the boxes on his newly acquired profile doing his best to fill in the “about me” section, but Brendon just glanced at the page and rolled his eyes.
“Okay, move over.”
Brendon typed and deleted furiously, occasionally glancing over at Jon as though he was sizing him up.
“Right. Your parents kicked you out when you were seventeen cause they found you sucking off the neighbour. Your dad was in the military and considers you a waste of space. You always wanted to go to college, do well for yourself, prove something to your old man. You’re ambitious. A little shy at first glance, but very eager to please. You’ve got three brothers, but the oldest one’s the only one who still calls. You’ve got a thing for older guys who allow you to still be the kid you didn’t get to be cause your parents fucked you up so bad. Chances are, you’re gonna wind up with considerably older Daddy types if we play it like this. They’re good money and usually, their kinks are pretty basic. You can expand on the story when you’re ready, dropping hints about your old man hitting you with a belt, all that kind of thing. They’ll love it.”
Jon stared with his mouth open, pretty much.
“You… you just pulled that out of your ass? Just like that?”
“Jep. Running with that theme, your interests section…” he typed away for another couple of minutes.
“Okay, here goes. Your favourite movies are E.T. and Good Will Hunting and you’re into De Niro, Connery and Robin Williams. You don’t read much, but you really liked The Lord of the Rings cause everyone does or at least they can pretend they do. Favourite actress is Liv Tyler. You’ll eat anything, you don’t drink, you’d like to travel to the Artic and New Zealand at some point. You’re not that fussed about music, but you’ve got a thing for Bob Dylan. Other hobbies include baseball, hiking and rock-climbing. Pretty much every homophobic self-hating pretend-straight asshole’s dream son, except with the added bonus of also liking their cock up your ass. How big’s your dick?”
“What?”
“Jon.”
“Yeah, no idea.”
“Right, we’ll make that eight inches. You’re bottom-versatile, so it’s not like it matters all that much. Uncut?”
Jon nodded.
“Perfect. That’s you done.”
“Great. Now what?”
“Now, you shave. Stubble’s fine, but the mountain man look won’t work. No offence, but no way are you gonna pull off role-playing like that unless someone’s looking for a Hobbit or Dwarf. Which, actually, taking into account your Lord of the Rings obsession, you could totally work with. You are pretty short, too.”
“Says who, half-pint?”
Brendon grinned. “Little House on the Prairie references? Kinky. You might not suck at this as much as I thought. Besides, tiny helps. It makes you look helpless and innocent. Not to mention like a kid, which opens up a range of possibilities you’re not ready to hear about.”
“I just bet.” Jon got up to head to the bathroom. The beard had become kinda boring anyway, he wasn’t all that sorry to see it go. It wasn’t like it mattered.
“Bren?”
“Yeah?”
“I never finished Lord of the Rings.”
Brendon shook his head and smiled, warm and real and maybe a little pitying.
“Of course you haven’t. No one gives a shit. All that information is just so they can pretend they get a person instead of just a talented tongue and ass. That ups the price and sets you apart from your average street-corner cock-sucker.”
“Right. So why not just tell them the truth?”
Brendon’s smile vanished and he concentrated on the computer screen.
“If you still want an answer to that after your first client, ask again.”
Jon very much doubted he would.
When he got back to the bedroom sans fuzz on his face, Brendon eyed him approvingly.
“Perfect. Also, if you wanted to, I just fixed you a date for tomorrow.” He clicked on a profile.
“Here, check it out.”
Jon figured it’d be seriously impolite, not to mention ungrateful, to point out the guy was ancient and not exactly eye-candy.
“He wants to take you out to dinner, hear more about your ambitions and goals. He’s not into anal, so that’s good for a first time. He’s got a thing for teacher-student role-play, but he’s okay with taking it slow cause you’re really shy and inexperienced, but you wouldn’t mind a mentor-figure in your life cause you’ve really been slacking off recently. Chances are he’s gonna wind up wanting to spank you, but we’re still talking specifics.”
Jon contemplated lighting a cigarette, but decided to fetch the bong from his room. Times like these called for more drastic measures then just nicotine.
Brendon took a hit when he offered, continuing his aim conversation one-handed.
“Okay, we’ve got ourselves a deal. Two hundred plus free dinner, plus a possible tip if you are and I quote, a very good boy. You want it?”
“Want might be a strong word. Yeah, sign me up.”
“Awesome. I got his number, he’s gonna meet you outside a coffee shop on Fullerton called the Bourgeois Pig, right across from the Memorial Hospital. You know the place?”
Jon nodded.
“I’m pretty sure Ryan would love that name for one of his plot-lines.”
Brendon grinned. “Yeah, probably. Okay, all set. Just save the number into your cell and you’re good to go. 5:30.”
“Thanks.”
Brendon shrugged. “I’m really not doing you a favour here, Jon.”
“Yeah, but if it weren’t for this, I might have robbed a bank or something equally stupid. And just. Yeah, thanks. For showing me the ropes and that.”
Brendon rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Walker. By the way, what are you planning to tell the guys about the clean shaven thing?”
Jon considered for a moment. “You complained about my rim-jobs?”
Brendon reached for the bong.
“Right on. You might make a decent whore yet. Also, it gives us an excuse to hang out together and troll the net all day long.”
“You remember the part where Spencer is going to kill me, right?”
“If that’s your biggest worry, you’re a lot more stupid then I thought.”
Jon was pretty sure it wasn’t. That client, for one. He helped himself to the bong.
“So, tomorrow.”
Brendon shrugged. “You’ll be fine. He’s not… I’m pretty sure it won’t be complicated. Just play up the mostly straight and innocent angle and he’ll be fairly forgiving even if you’re a useless nervous wreck. Pretend you’re starved for fatherly affection and make sure you keep your teeth to yourself.”
“You ever get tired of sounding like a jaded whore?”
“You have no idea.”
***
For better or worse, Jon was outside the coffee shop the next afternoon. He only half registered the temperature had gone up again, which meant a comfortable fifteen minutes of not quite freezing his ass off. The guy was on time and Jon had barely pulled his phone out when the old dude spotted him.
“Jonathan?”
Brendon would die a slow and painful death for convincing Jon to use his full name, but Brendon had been adamant he should use something no one but clients ever called him, so Jon gave in. He had no friends brave enough to call him Jonathan, not even Pete or Tom had ever dared cross that line. He banished the thought. He hadn’t heard a word from Tom since that desperate phone call. Tom probably had a lot of other shit to sort out. Water under the bridge. Jon forced a smile.
“Hi, very nice to meet you.”
It went sort of all right at first. Dinner was good, the conversation boring and predictable, the food bland, but at least, it felt kinda normal. It felt like maybe going out to catch up with an uncle or your Dad’s best friend, not necessarily enjoyable, but certainly not as sleazy as Jon had feared.
The illusion vanished far too quickly when the guy suddenly leaned forward with a gleam in his eyes, exposing rows of tiny, pointed teeth, his voice low and hungry.
“I really want to help you, Jonathan. A smart boy like you, I’m sure you could be very successful if you just had someone taking you in hand, some authority.”
A lot of answers sprang to mind, but Jon let it go. He wasn’t here to alienate paying customers, no matter how witty the responses he could’ve come up with seemed.
“I hoped you might, Sir,” he replied, keeping his eyes firmly on the slightly off-white table-cloth.
He really fucking hated himself, but the guy reached across and patted his hand reassuringly. “I know what you young boys need.”
The guy paid up and they left for a cheap hotel two blocks down.
Jon was handed a key card.
“Room 534. I’ll join you in about ten minutes.”
Jon kinda wanted to forget what had happened after that. It didn’t even make a good story, it was just sad and stupid and more then a little humiliating. The guy liked to talk. Lecturing Jon about ambitions and dreams and work ethic and being a good boy while Jon was sprawled across his lap like a naughty five-year old with his jeans and underwear round his ankles. It didn’t really hurt too bad when the guy brought his hand down on Jon’s ass a couple of times and he didn’t complain about Jon’s pretty much non-existent blow-job skills, but altogether, it was still fucking pathetic.
Two hundred and fifty dollars and a mumbled promise of behaving himself and working harder later, Jon was out of there with a pat on the cheek and another date fixed for the following week and he still didn’t feel any better about it.
He walked back home in a daze, stopping to buy cigarettes on the way, taking a deep breath before sliding his key in the lock and going in.
Ryan was typing away quietly, Spencer wasn’t in sight, so he just gave Ryan a little wave and disappeared upstairs, taking a long shower and heading back to his room, pulling the blankets over himself and hoping he could just sleep off the self-disgust.
He woke up to someone holding him.
“What the fuck?” he mumbled into a pillow and Brendon pulled away quickly.
“Sorry. I just. I came back and you were sleeping and. How did it go?” he finished quietly, keeping his arms to himself.
Jon shrugged, reaching out to drag Brendon back down next to him.
“It kinda went alright, I guess. He asked me to come back next week.”
“Wow, that’s really good. A couple of regulars are gonna make your life a lot easier.”
Jon didn’t reply and Brendon sidled closer, draping one arm over Jon’s shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Do you have to ask?”
“Not what I meant. Just. He didn’t really hurt you or anything?”
“Nah.”
“That means you’re okay. Don’t think about the other shit. The mind-fucking and how pathetic they are and whatever the fuck else. If you make it out with your skin intact and the money in your pocket, that’s a win.”
“Yeah, thanks. Way to make me feel better. If this is winning, I’m not sure I ever wanna see what loosing’s like.”
Brendon didn’t comment on that. He didn’t have to. Jon was pretty sure he’d find out for himself soon enough.