Free Some Men Are Lookers: A Continuation of the "Buddies" Cycle by Ethan Mordden Page B

the string, and the pants immediately sag to the floor, revealing—”
    “How can you tell they’re cowboys,” said Cosgrove, “if they’re naked?”
    “They’d still have their Stetsons on.”
    “I,” Dennis Savage began, in his careful mode, “always think these fetishist fantasies are like the haikus that fourteen-year-old girls write. For your eyes only.”
    “No, it can be very everyday as well,” Roy replied. “Just your standard date. He says, ‘Let’s get naked.’ And his zipper pulls down on a whopper, big-time. Instantly, the mind clears of its trash. The
truth
of the partnership is . . . Figure it.” He paused, eyes half-closed, savoring the moment. “This prince, this tyrant. This wolfling about to . . . to stuff your cream tunnel with—”
    Roy halted as Cosgrove jumped up, went into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.
    “Did I say something?”
    “Try the Stilton,” Dennis Savage urged.
    The doorbell again. Now Virgil joined us, waving a brown paper bag like Churchill flashing victory fingers.
    “Look at this contest I’m entering!” he crowed. “I could win fifty dollars!”
    Out of the bag came a romance comic book; the contest, flourished on the cover and detailed on the last page, called for a brief essay on the theme of “My Dream Man.”
    “It’s surely open only to pubescent girls,” I put in.
    “It doesn’t say so.”
    “It assumes so, because that’s who the readership is.”
    “I’m entering anyway. I even bought a composition book and an extra-fine-tipped pen. Hi, Roy. Where’s Nicky?”
    Flopping onto the couch, Virgil fished a spiral notebook and pen out of the paper bag, murmured, “My dream man . . .” and dug in.
    “I wish people didn’t lump me with Nicky all the time,” Roy grumbled. “He’s one friend out of many that I have. And he’s so . . . you know.”
    Dennis Savage said, “No, tell.”
    “Well, sure, I’m fond of him in his way, but he’s this kind of asexual, isn’t he? Try standing around in a bar with him sometime. He never wants to talk about the guys and scope them out. You’ll spot some really fly number and speculate as to the size and weight of the junk he carries, and Nicky just . . . he just . . .”
    “Doesn’t really care?” Dennis Savage asked. “Do you find that aberrant?”
    “Oh, please. There are only two kinds of gays—size queens and liars.”
    “I’m not a liar,” said Dennis Savage, “and I’m also not a size queen—although I can be impressed. I don’t know how many kinds of gays there are, but even the four males in this room are completely different from each other.”
    “And wait till Cosgrove comes in,” Virgil added, looking up from his notebook.
    “Kinds of gays?” Dennis Savage went on. “I don’t know if there are kinds of gays any more than there are kinds of people.”
    “I’ve offended you, haven’t I?” said Roy.
    “I’m always offended when someone assumes that his taste is my taste. I also find this romanticizing of size questionable in an age in which fucking and sucking are fatally risky. This is seventies material. It suits coming out and beginning to comprehend the expanse of male sexuality. But that was an experimental age. This is an embattled age. Today, your icon is poison.”
    I asked, “Who wants more coffee?,” and Cosgrove rejoined us, prompting Virgil to do a little number on the Dream Man contest. Cosgrove expressed a thrill or two and we talked of any old thing till Roy blurted out, “Look, everybody, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to expose you all to my . . . I thought you . . . I mean, who doesn’t feel this way? Isn’t cock the center of male sexuality?”
    Dennis Savage and I were silent, Virgil was deep in composition,and Cosgrove was reshelving his CDs, to study the effect from different parts of the room.
    “I’m sorry,” Roy repeated. “I should be more low-key about it, I guess.” He shrugged. “Everybody’s got something.”
    “That