"Man, don't you ever give up?" Dave asked in exasperation, removing Zane's hand from his basket and rising from the sofa and moving over to a stool by the bar.
"No, Dave, I never give up. Not when there's something I want like I want you."
"I should have known when you brought me up here and offered me all of that fine liquor. You just wanted to get me drunk and have your way with me, didn't you?"
"Yes, that was the general idea," Zane said dryly, a smile of perseverance on his lips. "What's the problem? You don't find me attractive?"
"Yeah, you're plenty attractive all right, Zane," Dave said, with a glint of defiance in his eye. "And well you know it to. I just don't open my legs for anyone who says he wants me."
"You sure open them for Karl," Zane retorted, the smile just as sparkly as before.
"Karl's different," Dave said.
"Right. Karl has money and position and is a proper sugar daddy. Karl can get you some place. You know what that kind of arrangement is called, don't you?"
"Yeah, that's called good old American trade," Dave shot back. "Quality goods for quality services. And I see no reason for you or anyone else to look down your nose at it."
"Oh, I'm not," Zane answered calmly. "Believe me I've been there myself."
"Excuse me?" Dave said, surprised and intrigued now. "You of the Ivy League education and good Wall Street job?"
"Right," Zane responded, getting a glint of an opening here. Maybe if Dave saw him on equal footing he'd come across with what Zane was after. Maybe the evening wouldn't be yet another loss in this long-term battle to win Dave.
"So, what do you know of what a guy's got to do to make it in this town?" Dave challenged.
"I didn't come from money, Dave," Zane shot back. "I know it looks like I did from this apartment and from my education, but I earned my education on my back—just like you are doing with Karl."
"What do you mean?" Suddenly all of Dave's antennae were up. He was suddenly very interested in what Dave was saying.
"I put myself through school by working for a hard-core call boy service," Zane revealed. "I came to this lifestyle through hard work."
Dave was all interest now, and he returned to the sofa and started pelting Zane with questions. He took a couple of swigs of scotch from the generous portion Zane had poured out for him and settled back in the sofa cushions. He didn't even seem to mind when Zane put a hand on his thigh and started working it up his leg—or if he noticed, he didn't seem to mind. He only wanted to hear the gory details of Zane's past now.
"And what was your strangest assignment?" Dave asked Zane at the end of a flurry of other questions that Zane had dutifully responded to. "I mean, can you remember any? There must have been some."
Zane chewed on that one briefly—but only briefly, because he didn't want Dave to zero in on his hand, which now was on Dave's bare belly, under the hem of his shirt. His other arm was snaked around Dave's shoulder.
"Hmmm, let's see. That might have been the night of the men in the tuxedos."
"The men in the tuxedos?" Dave was all ears.
"Yes. As the night was starting out, I knew I was in for a workout, because the caller had specified he wanted someone experienced with men and had authorized for the full unlimited service for a four-hour period. That usually meant multiple ass work, although it's true that some out-of-town hicks just didn't realize what the various options were and had more money than brains when they set up a session.
"The address I was given was for a large, but nondescript brownstone, up on 57th Street, near Central Park. A polished brass plate by the doorbell simply stated that I was at some club, Hedgewood or Hedgeneck, or something like that. I later assumed that it was one of those old-world highly exclusive men's clubs that had existed for a couple of centuries without catching the public eye.
"I was met at the door by the epitome of a butler type who told me to follow him toward the back of the house. Outside a double oaken door set in a whole hallway of polished oaken paneling carpeted with an Oriental rug in vibrant colors, he told me to strip entirely and to leave my clothes folded on a Chippendale arm chair that was located next to the door. I did so, and then he knocked twice on the door, opened it, and ushered me into the room.
"I was in some sort of club room. Leather-upholstered arm chairs sitting on a huge Oriental carpet in the middle of a wood-paneled room with glass-fronted shelves of books on three walls and on the third wall a fireplace flanked by French doors that apparently led to garden at the rear of the building. At the opposite end of the room from the fireplace was a large mahogany desk with a leather top. The arm chairs were arranged in a circle in the center of the room, facing each other, with a clear space out in the center. There were six chairs, each with a little cigarette table beside it and a brass floor lamp behind it. All of the lamp shades were turned up so that they functioned as spotlights trained on the circle in front the chairs. Each of the chairs was occupied by a man in a tuxedo. All of the men were fairly young—none older than his mid forties—and all had the air of pampering to a high gloss and well-toned physiques and of highly successful position. They had brandy snifters in their manicured and bejeweled hands, and each was smoking a cigar. The air was cloudy with the smell of premium Cuban cigar smoke."