Ty suggested they go to the lobby of the club, where it was just a couple decibels quieter. Where they could talk. He kept touching Martin’s leg. He squeezed Martin’s arm, asking if he worked out. Martin felt eighteen again. His cock felt like it just got its first hormonal rush of puberty. Martin wasn’t sure if he hoped Ty didn’t notice the hard-on poking at the front of his khakis, or hoped that he did.

When Ty said he was ready to leave, asked if Martin minded giving him a ride, Martin quickly obliged. A ride to Ty’s apartment could only mean a ride on his dick.

“So, where are we going?” Martin asked, turning the ignition. The car rumbled to life.

“Depends on what you feel like doing.”

“Don’t waste time, do you?”

“Who’s got time to waste,” Ty said, finally lighting his cigarette.

“Well, we could go to my place. I live over in Decatur, but—”

“Decatur?” Ty snorted, exhaling a plume of smoke. “Don’t think so. How ’bout pulling around the corner.” He pointed to a dark, narrow side street. “There’s an alley you can park in. No one will bother us.”

“That’s preferable to Decatur?”

Ty took another drag. “You willing to spring for a motel?”

Martin was willing, and they were on their way, down Spring Street, blood racing through Martin’s veins and pulsing in his cock as he pondered all the possibilities with his young trick.

Twenty minutes and a $74 charge on Martin’s Visa later, they were entering room 206. Ty had put on his shirt—a body-hugging electric blue tee—for the walk from the car to the room, though he needn’t have bothered. Martin planned on tearing it off him in the next thirty seconds. He shut the door and prepared to do just that, but Ty was fishing another cigarette out of crumpled pack.

“Shouldn’t you save that for after?” Martin chuckled, walking toward his young trick. He couldn’t wait to feel that young, smooth body pressing up against his, to see what was bulging in those jeans.

“Let’s settle a few things first.”

“Settle?”

“Like how much you’re planning to spend.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Ty lit his cigarette. He tossed his lighter and pack of Winstons on the room’s fake woodgrain dresser. “You want to blow me, it’s twenty-five. I blow you, it’s thirty—fifty if you want to come in my mouth, but I don’t swallow. You want me to fuck you, that’s also fifty, and—”

“You’re…a hustler? ” Martin’s excitement went into a tailspin, spiraling toward disappointment.

There was a definite sneer on Ty’s face now. “You didn’t expect me to give it to you for free, did you?”

Ty’s words were like a slap across the face, and Martin’s cheeks reddened accordingly.

“I guess not,” he said quietly.

“So, what’re you interested in?”

He should throw this guy out, Martin knew. Tell him thanks but no thanks. Push Ty out into the night to go find some other poor S.O.B. Find someone else who was looking back at what could’ve been but never was and make them think it might not be too late—only to make them feel a hundred years old. Find someone like Martin.

And once Ty (or whoever he really was) was gone, Martin would be left in the room. Alone. Hearing Ty’s words over and over.

You didn’t expect me to give it to you for free, did you?

Disappointment took a detour, speeding toward rage.

“How much to fuck you? ” Martin asked.

“Hundred,” Ty said, smoke puffing between his lips, his head tilting upward as if to say, “Bring it on, motherfucker.” “But you have to wear a rubber. Don’t care how much extra you pay me.”

“No problem,” Martin said tightly, unbuckling his belt.

“So, can I see some cash?”

Martin stopped unfastening his pants and looked at Ty coldly. He reached for his wallet and rifled through the bills. Not quite a hundred bucks; only $92. Close enough for this cocksucker. He pulled the money from his billfold, holding it up for Ty to see.

Ty made a grab for it, but Martin pulled the cash out of his reach. He pushed Ty backward, roughly. “Not yet. After.”

“Hey, I don’t operate that way.”

“I do.” Martin stuck the money into his front pocket. “Now get undressed. And put out that goddamned cigarette.”

The two men stripped, silently, each eyeing the other with suspicion and curiosity. Ty shucked off his jeans and underwear (basic tighty-whities) in one quick motion. Though his torso was so smooth, he had surprisingly hairy legs. His black pubes were trimmed into a neat trapezoid, however. Just below Ty’s left pelvic bone was a tattoo: a cartoon rabbit munching on a carrot. Ty’s cock hung limply. The big bulge in his jeans was apparently owed to a pair of hefty, low-hanging balls.

Martin was surprised that he himself was hard as an anvil, his dick jutting forward like a sword. “Wow,” Ty whistled, and he actually sounded sincere.

“You got a rubber?” Martin asked, stroking his cock.

“Yeah, of course.” Ty picked his jeans up off the floor, rummaged around the pockets, bringing out two packets. He tossed them to Martin. One packet was a rubber; the other was a trial size tube of lubricant. Martin tore the condom wrapper open with his teeth. Quickly and efficiently he covered his cock. He snapped open the tube of lube, squirting some into his open palm and rubbing it over his hard-on.

“Get on the bed,” he ordered Ty.

“How you want me? From behind or face-to-face?”

“Face-to-face.” There was no question: Martin wanted to see this little bastard beg him to stop.

Ty sprawled back on the bed, his legs spread. Martin climbed on the bed with him, positioning himself between the hustler’s legs. He pushed Ty’s legs back, curling his body into a loose fetal position. Ty’s butthole was a puckered, dark tan ring, nestled in a valley of silky black hair. Martin squeezed the remaining lube on the hustler’s asshole, tossing the empty tube over his shoulder. He circled the rosebud with his index finger, lightly pressing the raised ass ring as he spread the slick liquid around. His finger then stopped at the hole, shut to invaders but easily opened. Martin pushed, and his index finger slipped inside the tan lips, into Ty’s warm chute. As he suspected, Ty’s sphincter didn’t offer much resistance.

A hiss and groan left Ty’s lips. There was no sneer this time. His eyes were closed, his lips parted. Martin wondered, briefly, what he was thinking. Was it ever fun for him, or was it truly “just a job,” like all the whores interviewed for salacious cable documentaries said? But these musings were interrupted by what Ty had said—

You didn’t expect me to give it to you for free, did you?

—and Martin no longer cared what Ty’s thoughts were.

He pushed his finger in deeper, wiggling it around the warm, moist channel of Ty’s anus. Martin thought he felt the prostate and applied some extra pressure. A louder moan from Ty’s lips this time. His cock was finally beginning to stir.

Martin’s middle finger joined his index finger, the digits sliding deep into Ty’s asshole. Still a lot of give to those nether lips. A third finger was added, taking up the slack. Martin added a fourth, and this was Ty’s limit.

“Okay, that’s enough, dude,” he grunted through clenched teeth.

“Can’t handle it?” Martin pushed his fingers in a little deeper. This time Ty winced, sucking in his breath.

“C’mon…that’s…enough.”

Ty’s dick was completely hard now. Not quite worthy of his pendulous balls, Martin noted, but a respectably sized boner nonetheless.

“You ever been fisted, Ty?”

Fear suddenly crossed the young hustler’s face. “Look, man, that’s not what I agreed to.” Trying to sound tough, and failing miserably. He had his legs up over his head and four fingers up his butt—how threatening did he expect to be, Martin wondered.