21, Compositions

Douglas A. Martin

 

_picture 1

I was the fair haired one, the only one. The other two boys had darker hair, black, brown. One of them was skinny, like me, even a little more, and the other guy was built, but still looked youngish, cute.

That had something to do with his ears and tentative smile, big and kind of goofy.

There were three brown bottles of beer on the table in front of us, our bodies already angled slightly cocky in wooden chairs like one might expect to find in a dorm room we are supposedly in. My hand is wrapped around the width of one of the cold bottles.

Moist labels will be blurred. We're not here to sell beer.

The guy with muscles shows the skinny boy his hand, and I'm laughing in this picture like this is just how I've decided to spend some boring weekend. You can see the dimple in my left cheek.

We boys have been told by the other men in the room, the photographer and his boyfriend, the art director, to enjoy all the beer we like, drink as much as we like. There's lots more. I should be pacing myself, though. It doesn't take much to get me drunk.

The photographer and his boyfriend the art director live here in this large loft. They work out of where they've built a set for us. They want it to look like we are off at college in a dorm. The art director is particularly proud of the walls he's plastered with glossy photos of women's spread legs, their fingers dug in, and nipples erect on huge breasts. We all laugh at the inside joke, how ridiculous it all is, how none of us are even remotely interested in that. Between the women, the art director has carefully placed a couple of guys, pretty harmless images pulled out of skate boarding magazines and such, a couple of pros with shirts off to sweat better, a few muscle men any guy would be willing to let another see on his walls, nothing like you'll see us doing in front of them.

There's a particular picture I will come back to during all of this, just for myself, while sitting at the table, waiting to be turned on.

The ad is of a group of guys huddled around together, backs to camera, looking down at whatever happens to be sticking out in front of each, in a circle they've made with their bodies, gauging I impose respective size and length.

Our night will one day be kept under mattresses, top shelves of closets, behind sweaters, safe away from wives and the prying eyes of girlfriends. But some men will share this issue with various, more open partners.

The art director notices I'm not really touching my beer and asks me if he can get me anything else to drink.

I'll take some water.

We have orange juice, too.

Water's fine.

Are you sure?

OK, I'll take some orange juice.

Then, since I'm hungry, they order-in sushi, their treat. Of course none of this ends up present in the picture, wouldn't really fit the overall mood. The other two guys nurse their beers, aren't really hungry. We size each other up sweetly, while the photographer and his boyfriend the art director are talking about how to make the scene ring even more true.

We were just about to get started. The guy with muscles asked me and the skinny boy if either of us had ever done this before. The skinny boy hadn't.

The guy with muscles is nervous, even though he's done it a couple of times before.

He says to me I don't seem nervous at all.

I tell him I’ve modeled for some art classes before, back in college.

That was before I moved to the city. It was different, though. For the art classes, you had to try not to get hard in front of the students there to draw you. Tonight is just the opposite. The point is to capture us three getting and getting each other stiff, proceeding from there accordingly in flashes.

_ picture 2

The guy with muscles wins a round, so the skinny guy removes a sock. It looks like I'm reaching under the table to do something similar. Shoes are already off. The guy with muscles shuffles the cards for the next hand, smiling.

I had to go out and buy underwear for tonight. The art director told me over the phone he wanted me to bring both briefs and boxers. He'd tell me what I was going to wear when I got there, depending on what the other two boys brought.

We all look about eighteen, although none of us are that young still.

_picture 3

The guy with muscles tells me I look like a little cat, when I tip the big blue porcelain bowl the art director poured the miso that came with the sushi into, from it's plastic container, up to my lips. The picture doesn't show this, though, or that our beers have been replaced by the art director, after the other skinny boy finished off my first.

This guy with muscles removes his black tank top because someone else has won the round. I'm already forgetting rules given quickly to me at the beginning of the game.

You can’t show actual penetration in the magazine the shoot is for. We can’t show our three dicks in each other's hands, only our own. We can place them however suggestively near certain areas we like, though, make due. What we do between takes, the photographer says reloading film, as his boyfriend moves around props, and places an economy pack of Kleenex beside the bed we'll be moving onto by the end of the night, is up to us totally.

The main thing is to have fun, the photographer clicks his camera.

I soon know I'll be the first one to lose all my clothes. I’m not a good card player.

We've switched to 21 because the poker hands were taking too long and the others are still mostly dressed. The other skinny boy goes out to smoke on the fire escape, after telling me I've got a dancer's body. He has a friend who tours with a dance company. He could give me his number if I'm interested.

At the end of the night, the photographer will give us a number, and all three of us boys will exchange digits as well. Once outside the loft, the skinny boy and the guy with muscles appear to walk off the same way, but I won't join them.

_picture 4

Soon we have to get hard for the pictures. The photographer tells the other skinny boy he should start trying to do something about working himself up first. You can't really see in the pictures the scar on the side of the other skinny boy's face. It's from a car wreck. Earlier he wanted to change chairs with me at the table from where the art director originally wanted him, to turn to the camera his better half.

He has to take off his pants now. He jokes he keeps getting moist. He means little spots of pre-cum that dot the white cotton of his jockeys, making them close to translucent in spots where his dick presses up against the fabric, in the shape of readiness. Before these pictures are sent off to the magazine, we will all come over to the photographer's house again, look at all the prints. We can say if there are any we really don't like.

Ones that show his scar won't be used.

_picture 5

The other skinny boy keeps pushing up under his white jockeys, trying hard to stand up straight. There are the nice black hairs along the inside of his thighs, as he sits in a chair, with his hands on his knees, waiting for the guy with muscles to deal again, another hand.

We are still before the table, while the guy with muscles shuffles.

_picture 6

I lose my shirt but am asked to keep the tie knotted around my neck. It trails down the center of my now bare chest.

_picture 7

The other skinny boy takes himself we can see under his underwear, like he just can't help it. He sits there and feels like touching it. We're look like just a bunch of guys around a table, possibly friends. What's it matter if we see one of us horney?


The other skinny boy pinches himself lightly. I've lost my pants and taken off the tie. The boy with muscles is wearing a jock-strap. The two guys behind the scenes are still fully dressed. The skinny boy wants to light the prop joint on the table. The art director rubs through his jeans himself.

The photographer tells me I'm gorgeous, god, that he really feels likes he's getting this through his camera. He tells me I should get hard. The art director asks if he can help. My hand is against my face in the close-up. I say, oh, all right.

We play like we're just joking around, not like he's really going to get down there in front of me on the floor, in front of his boyfriend behind the camera, place a face between my thighs, nuzzle around first with his chin, then tongue, take me in inch by inch in and out of his mouth. He does, though.

The art director looks up steadily into my face while he's doing it. I hang out his mouth more and more pointedly.

_picture 8

The other skinny boy is told to slide down his white jockey shorts now, while the guy with muscles looks on. The subtext is supposedly I've lost the next round of strip 21, and I have to go over to the other skinny boy's chair to go down on him.

We are no longer really playing.

According to the Encyclopedia of Sexual Perversions the photographer read from to us earlier at the start of the night, once a player runs out of clothes, the player has to continue bartering with sexual favors winners specify.

_picture 9

The other skinny boy bends over to pull down his jockeys, a drained bottle of beer in front of him on the table.

_picture 10

On the floor on my knees, in front of the other skinny boy back down in his chair, it's time for me to get ready to put my head down in the lap.

The guy with muscles is asked to stand out from behind the table, so we can all see he's ready, too.

_picture 11

I move up to kiss the skinny boy's neck, while the guy with muscles crosses closer.

We touch ourselves during the process, while the voice behind the camera directs us not to stop.

_picture 12

The skinny guy's dick is pressed against my ear, the shaft rested on my shoulder, as I'm kneeling again. The guy with muscles stands close enough to put his hand on my back, begin bending to go down near us, his dick brushing against the top of my hair, head, blonde.

_picture 13

We are moved over to the prop bed. The other skinny boy is glad he had a shot of liquor and a beer, then another, and a joint, before he came over tonight. He looks on on his knees behind the joined bodies of me and the guy with muscles kissing. The guy with muscles is on top of me, his tongue wanting me, lips down my face.

My hand clenches the back of his neck, like I want to pull him into me. He asks me quietly if I mind if he takes me in his mouth for real.
The photographer takes a picture of the moment just before.

I open my eyes and look at the guy with muscles over me. He looks like an old friend of mine. I kiss his face, keep thinking this is really something. The skinny boy comes over like he's told, to help me lose myself further, my face hidden against his neck while my body feels him out.

I'm barely aware we're being seen like this now. I feel the skin up and down the skinny boy's back, sliding my flush hand then around to his chest, spread over his skin.

The photographer walks over to join us and arrange a new position, put me behind the other skinny boy up on his knees, and tells me to throw back my head, to stretch my neck just like I’m about to come. I think I hear a couple of actual sighs, the pleasure of exhaling in this pressure.

_picture 14

I slid my body off the bed so just the back of my head rests on the edge of it, as they arch over my upturned face. My hand reaches up like I'm about to just start grabbing whoever.

_picture 15

Back on my back on the bed with the guy with muscles between my legs, and the skinny guy behind him, it's supposed to look like the skinny boy is fucking the guy with muscles, while the guy with muscles kisses me.

_picture 16

The skinny boy and me on our knees are approaching the guy with muscles.

He has his pick.

_picture 17

While they kneel on either side of me, they arch over my stomach, their dicks pointing at and wanting each other. The guy with muscles reaches over me to pinch the nipple of the skinny guy.

_picture 18

Just a simple close-up of my hand, palm-down, low on my stomach, the fingers spread to support my dick arching across my knuckles.
You can see my thighs spread wide.

_picture 19

I laugh with my teeth and nose against a stomach.

There's a hand on my shoulder in the frame.

_picture 20

We have our arms around each other, are about to get photographed getting dressed again.

_picture 21

The centerfold is the two of them on top of me.

The skinny guys's ass arches as he slides up over onto the back of the guy with muscles, who's on his stomach underneath, on top of me on my back.

The guy with muscles is up high against my chest, between my legs spread wide enough for one to be off over the edge of a single bed, like in a dorm.

My hands are on the shoulders of the guy with muscles. The skinny guy is reaching over him to try and get to me, too. There's an alarm clock and a couple of books on the prop table beside the bed, lots of unused condoms.


Issue Three
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