“Culture hour’s over!” Ariel bellowed to his housemates Tyler and Brian, who lay prone on his enormous leopard-print beanbag. “Hit the road, ladies!”
“I’m not a lady,” Brian grumbled, knowing no one would hear.
“Medulla asked me to fill in tonight. Or get filled, rather,” Ariel clarified. “So I gotta be showered, douched, snatched and vivacious at the Harlequin in” -glancing at Judy - “seventy-nine minutes.”
Tyler rolled off of the beanbag, singing with arms outstretched in her best Gene Kelly: “GOT-TA DOUCHE! GOT-TA DOUCHE!”
Tyler was Ariel’s best friend of three decades: a Manhattan “It Girl” during Ariel’s ascent as a downtown go-go superstar.
“Who’s the ah, lucky guy?” asked Brian, his bisexual Millennial business partner.
“Some blue-blood tourist. One of Medulla’s VIPs, so you know he’s got bank.” Ariel pulled his shirt over his head and pitched it toward a laundry basket, missing the target by several feet.
“Pansy,” Brian jeered, retrieving Ariel’s laundry from the floor.
“So before we adjourn, what’re we gonna do about the foreclosure?” asked Tyler.
“The looming foreclosure,” Ariel clarified. “We got a week to raise $12K. I’m doing my part. Whilst in Downward Dog, as it happens, in an hour and a half. Meanwhile you two better get busy vending our wares.”
Brian dropped a three-pointer into the hamper from across the room. “The cupboard’s pretty fucking bare ‘til Prada Purse gets back with our K.”
“Where the hell is he, anyway?” Tyler asked.
“He crossed the border yesterday,” Brian grumbled.
“It’s a twelve-hour drive.”
The drug in question was Esketamine, Ariel’s favored strain of Ketamine, an elusive hallucinogenic dissociative intended for medical and veterinary purposes. Their courier was a day late after picking up the product in Nuevo León. Ariel and Brian dehydrated the liquid into powder and sold it by the gram - when they could source it, anyway.
“I can’t believe y’all trusted Prada Purse to go to Mexico.” Tyler was appalled. “Kid’s half a wit short of a half-wit.”
“He may be no tenured professor, but he didn’t get his moniker for nothing,” Ariel pointed out.
It was true. Prada Purse had a knack for clandestine transport. Back in lockup (where he was so christened), Prada Purse was a darling of the block, celebrated for the volume of contraband that he could nestle within his rectal cavity. Witnesses reported that delivery was like a magician’s “endless hanky” trick, but with cellphones, weapons and packets of drugs.
“The longer he keeps the K, the more he’s gonna step on it,” Brian grumbled. “We better find him sooner than not.”
Judy ding-donged the third quarter-hour. Ariel shooed his housemates. “Time’s a-wastin’. Scram, allayou. I got magic to do.”
“He got MAGIC to douche!” Tyler belted on her way out.
#
Ariel loved his job, all in all. Along his three decades as a sex worker, he garnered a loyal collection of regulars.
Most were out-of-towners to whom Ariel was a gay sherpa, guiding them in exploration of otherwise forbidden pleasures. Other clients lived openly as gay men but inhabited closets within the culture; Ariel brought their fantasies to life beyond the eyes of their provincial gay fellows.
Others were just lonely. And Ariel gave good company.
His early regulars watched him mature over the years from Twink to Jock to Young Dad. And as he aged, he learned that when a Twink door closes, a Jock door opens, and so forth, and as every door opened a new market emerged.
But lately Ariel wasn’t sure when or where the next door would open. And he noticed that his regulars were becoming irregulars more and more. Medulla hadn’t set him up with a new client in months. And even tonight he was but a pinch-hitter for someone younger.
You’re not the only person to face such a transition, he mused. If you’d chosen a career in ballet you’d have aged out years ago.
#
Like a Danseur Étoile at the Paris Opera House, Ariel was trained by the very best.
He overcame his people-pleasing tendencies under the tutelage of Master Rick, one of New York’s legendary Old Guard BDSM Masters-For-Hire. Master Rick instilled in Ariel the generosity in taking charge, the kindness in consensual humiliation, and the gentle art of administering painful pleasures. By the time he was twenty-six, Ariel could crack a whip with the adroit precision of a leather-clad Indiana Jones.
And he developed Taste from the Gods in such areas: that tight-knit group of gay Tastemakers known as the Gay Mafia: eminent cultural leaders in fashion, art, music and entertainment, who knew no shortage of grasping, pretentious climbers. In his humble, good-natured authenticity Ariel was the furthest thing from them.
The men of the Gay Mafia taught Ariel that Taste is worlds apart from “stuffy,” as it embraces High and Low Culture with gusto, elevating the Interesting from the commonplace in everything. His legendary benefactors encouraged Ariel to measure life in shades and gradations, eschewing the trap of snobbery - that binary worldview that divides things into In or Out, Hot or Cold, Cool or Uncool, a fearful way of living and a prison of itself.
With Taste comes Authenticity, and with Authenticity, self-possession.
October 2000
One unforgettable night in his mid-twenties, a legend of the music industry invited Ariel to dinner on the Grand Tier of the Metropolitan Opera House, followed by opening night of the Zeffirelli production of La Boheme. In the Lincoln Town Car over, freshly-fucked and in a natty suit, Ariel learned that Beverly Sills was joining them for dinner.
THE Beverly Sills, legendary diva soprano, long since retired, and currently chairwoman of the whole fucking Met. Ariel went white.
“You okay?” asked his benefactor. “She’s lovely, I promise.”
“I feel, like, insecure all of a sudden.”
“You weren’t intimidated by me. Thanks a lot.”
Ariel laughed. “Well I had a job to do.”
“And expertly-done, I might add, and with admirable consistency.” It was their seventh meeting.
“What if she, y’know, asks me a question?”
“Then answer it,” his companion smiled.
“What if she asks how you and I met?”
“I’m sure she knows, kiddo. It’s the last subject she’ll broach. And if Bubbles breaks protocol, I’ll tell the bitch myself!”
Ariel sighed and touched his forehead to the window.
“Tits out, Ariel,” the music-industry legend said.
“What?”
“Claim your space, own your history, and take on the world Tits Out.” His benefactor stroked Ariel’s neck, admiring him. “I’m gonna let you in on one of life’s great secrets. Ready? Look me in the eye.” The pupils of the famed producer always burned black, and in that moment his eyes were portals:
“It’s okay to fake confidence, because often in the process, confidence arrives.”
September 2023
Now Ariel was 49. His wealthy mentor was dead, a decade now, from early-onset Alzheimers. He read his obituary in the Times; they’d been out of touch for years. Ariel stood before his own reflection at half past six on a Friday, remembering him.
He was douched, showered, shaven, nose-hairs plucked; he wore a jock beneath tight jeans of buttery Japanese denim; he tucked a simple white Hanes tank-top into a belt fashioned by his friends at Mr. S Leather in San Francisco; and on his feet he wore a well-maintained pair of vintage 16-grommet Doc Marten boots.
If these boots could talk.
Ariel was sure that his Republican client knew nothing of leather tradition. But for the Old Guard’s sake he flew a navy hanky from his right rear pocket and snapped a simple black armband on his right wrist.
As a final preparation, he sorted through a collection of plastic cards until he found a key marked HARLEQUIN HOTEL.
He was just in time to meet his first sight-unseen client in God knew how long. Could it have been a year?
Ariel always found adventure in the opening door, in meeting the stranger with whom he’d share his body, his company and a laugh if the client allowed it. After so many doors opened over all of those years, he was unflappable.
He grinned through the worst because sex work and drug dealing kept his body and soul together. And now the fate of the Cozy Rooms hung mostly on him.
Tits out, Ariel.
###
Thank You For Reading!
☮️ & ❤️,
