"Tell us your name."
"Um, I'm Ben."
"OK. Hi, Ben."
"Ha ha... hi." He looked up, then to the guy next to him. A forced smile was on his face as he said his name, but, no, he didn't quite feel happy at all. He felt disgusted and dirty. He felt used, and he hadn't even done anything yet.
"So why don't you tell us about yourself, Ben."
"About myself?"
"Yeah, you know. What do you like? You got a girl? What's your story?"
Ben's Story
Ben was a loser. To put it truthfully – and you know we'd never lie to you – he was a downright, professional loser at the sparkling age of nineteen.
Now, it wasn't Ben's fault he was a loser (actually, it kind of was, but he had a mountain of excuses that needed sifting through). He was actually a fairly good student. Active. Smart. Cute. He was your slightly above average high school student once, maintaining a 3.0 GPA and a hot girlfriend to boot. He even got a 27 on the ACT his junior year, which was better than half his graduating class. His freshman year, he was on varsity soccer, which was phenomenal, actually. People were jealous, but when Ben started speaking, they found his easy going nature and crookedly handsome grin endearing, and so the jealousy melted away and in its place was a warm affection. He was even able to make the newspaper once, though it was only a small column. It still counted. His town was in love with him. And, he too, was in love with his town.
So, yes, if anyone was thought to go places, it was Ben. With his charismatic nature and OK-intelligence, he'd land a job – no problem. Colleges would want him. Ladies would, too, and eventually he'd find a nice wife and settle down and have that green yard-white picket fence fantasy with two and half kids and one dog running around. Ben had a promising future ahead of him, and he would be damned if he wasn't going to live up to the expectations.
Well, that's when reality hit. After graduation, Ben just wasn't ready for the transition from dependent to independent. While everyone was readying themselves to go to college or go to work, he was trying to maintain some of his high school life. Parties every weekend, video games during the weekdays, ignoring the urges of his parents to apply for colleges. That became his life the summer after his senior year. No one knew why Ben was so reluctant to slide into adult life, not even Ben. The only thing he did know was the fact that he didn't want to be like his dad who was paying back student loans even though he was fifty years old.
Being a kid rocked in Ben's book. You got away with everything, got the change your mom didn't want when she came back from the store, and got to sleep late on the weekends. Why would anyone want to change that? That was the life. And, yes, Ben knew that he'd have to grow up sometime, but he wanted to prolong his childhood for as long as possible. That wasn't so bad, was it? If anything, he thought it gave him some culture. He thought that it tapped into his inner child, and so he'd be creative forever and would never lose his sense of humor. Right? He was convinced of it.
But then summer ended, and his friends moved away. Erin was up north. Hayden was abroad. And Key was working on some construction sight near California, doing God-knows-what. The hot, blistering days of summer quickly changed to a few cool hours with dying leaves and school buses driving around that he wasn't allowed onto. He wasn't in college. He didn't have a job. He was stuck in his house while his sister, Meredith, made something of herself a few hours away. His parents would look at him with pity, and that's what got to Ben the most. The fact that he was looked down upon was like a low punch to the gut. He hated it, hated when his parents' friends came over and he heard their hushed whispers from downstairs.
"So, he doesn't have job?"
"Why didn't he apply to college?"
"You know, my boy got into Stanford. Yes, he's a psych major. Going places, that one."
Why did everyone have to look down on him? He was a kid. Not even twenty. And they didn't understand how hard it was to go from having to raise your hand to speak your opinion to making detrimental life decisions within three months. And if you missed that train to adulthood, yeah, well, you were pretty much stuck where you were. You weren't going to be anything. Nothing but dirt, nothing but a has-been.
Wasn't that just the picturesque dream every kid had when they were eight?
That was the thing. Adults set kids up for failure. They tell them they can be anything they want; no star is too far away for the taking. You want to be a firefighter? Done. You want to be an astronaut? Sure. You want to be a rock star? Dude, totally. Just have an education under your belt, and you can do anything you want.
But that was the biggest load of shit Ben had ever heard in his life. What happened if you were eighteen and had no life experience under your belt, and so you had no idea what you wanted to be? To be blunt, you were screwed. Because college cost a lot. Like, tons of money. And if you major in one thing when you go into college and find out you want to major in another, that's, like, hella money to pay just to switch.
Ben didn't understand why you had to pay for college. People expected so much out of others – they needed doctors and lawyers and scientists and architects and politicians and all that good stuff. And that involved money, but if you didn't have money, then you couldn't be what everyone needed. If you couldn't be what everyone needed, then you were written off. Placed in the non-recyclables. We'll go ahead and find someone who has the money and the potential, thanks.
That just sucked. Adults told kids that they had an infinite amount of opportunities. They said there were a million doors that were unlocked, and they just needed to open them.
Bull. So much bull. Ben didn't know if some of those doors they talked about had been forgotten, but they sure weren't unlocked. He needed a key – a key called money. And though he wasn't the poorest kid on the block, he wasn't the richest. And student loans just didn't sound appealing, and the scholarships his coach made him apply for were a bust. No one wanted him. He was just some kid who could kick a ball around. There were millions of those. With money – something Ben didn't have.
And Ben guessed his parents understood. His mom didn't go to college, so she was more sympathetic to his cause than his dad was. Mom was a secretary at a roofing and siding company. Dad was the top salesman at the same roofing and siding company. He had majored in business, like, thirty years ago. Mom had majored in how to seduce Dad, like, twenty-eight years ago. Both of them understood how hard it was to find money to get into college, so they didn't pressure too much (of course, Dad got a little testy every now and then, but it wasn't too bad), so they had moved on to pressuring Ben about getting a job.
Now, jobs were nothing like college. There were fewer choices, as if college was apples on a tree and jobs were the worm in every other apple. It felt like Ben had applied everywhere. Restaurants. Retail. Book stores. Hell, even janitorial services. But nothing. No one was hiring, and even if they were, there was no way they would want some (at the time) eighteen year old jerk off who had never had a job before. Trying to find a job was like trying to find an oasis in a desert. Yeah, it was there, but it wasn't anywhere near you.
So, Ben resigned himself to his parents' basement in solemn silence, sleeping all day, masturbating at night to pixel-y porn on the internet, and overall just feeling like the the world's biggest screw up since, like, the dudes from Columbine. It was nothing like what he dreamed he would be doing at his age ten years ago. It was nothing like what everyone dreamed he would be doing. It was depressing. He'd be lying if he said dealing drugs hadn't crossed his mind a time or two or three or eight.
But there had been one little sparkle of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel he was inevitably trapped in. It was dim, but it made him feel comforted, and that was it.
Kate. Kate Langston, nineteen year-old college girl who Ben had met through Key the last weeks of their senior year. She went to the same school as Ben, but he had never noticed her for some reason. Probably because they cycled in different circles. She was pretty, with wavy brown hair that brushed her shoulders and bright blue eyes and full lips. And her ass... Her ass. It was great. Ben was definitely an ass man, and Kate Langston's was his ideal poison.
Yeah, they had talked for nearly a month and a half when they kind of made it official. Kate listened to Ben's thoughts about his future and whining distresses. She was also always down to fuck, and that's what Ben liked in a girl. He liked when they listened to him instead of the other way around and would let him fuck them to his heart's content. She wasn't needy and she wasn't an idiot. Kate was kind of funny and liked being his little spoon when life seemed to weigh down too much on certain days. She was great.
But it wasn't love, and five days after his nineteenth birthday in December – close to Christmas – she had broken up with him. It was unexpected, actually, because Ben thought it had been going pretty well. Kate always smiled at him and texted him, but not too much like some of his exes. She got along well with his parents, and his mom was in love with her in the way only mother's can be with their son's girlfriends.
"Why?" he ended up asking when she laid the news on him.
And, bless her heart, Kate smiled that beautiful smile that was ladylike and dirty all in one. "You're not here," she had whispered. They were on the patio, and her breaths were heated puffs in the night, swirling up around her, making her look like a ghost, making her look intangible.
"What do you mean?"
Kate looked down at her mittens. Her nose was red, extremely so since her body was already pale. "You're not emotionally here. You're unattached, and I don't want to be the only one in this relationship who has feelings."
"I have feelings," Ben defended, but when Kate looked at him like he had just shoved a knife in her stomach, he quickly shut up.
"Don't lie, Ben. You don't have feelings. At least not the ones that I want. Not the ones made for a relationship."
They were quiet after that, letting the cold air nip at their cheeks. Snow fell lightly on their heads as they both stared anywhere but the person in front of them. Kate probably felt like something had shriveled up and died inside of her. Ben supposed he felt like that too. But in reality, he didn't. He felt a tiny ache, but it felt familiar. It felt like he knew this would happen eventually, and he was ready for it. He was ready and, really, he didn't care.
"So, this is it," he had said.
Kate nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, this is it."
"I'll miss your ass."
She laughed at that one. "I'll miss your mouth." Kate had always loved the shape of his lips. So, they kissed after that, but Kate wouldn't let Ben go any further. She had left and he had deleted her number. They were history, and Christmas passed and so did New Years. He found himself jobless in January, and thought that it sounded too much like a sitcom to actually be fully depressing. But, nevertheless, it was depressing.
One day, while searching Craigslist for potential employers, Ben had come across an ad that seemed like a potential laugh. It was titled "Gay for Pay," and so of course, he wanted to see what it was about and laugh and text Key about it instead of Hayden because Hayden was in, like, Africa and was completely uninterested in modern technology anymore. What a hippie douche he was becoming. Ben was having his weird borderline teenage-adult crises needing his best friend while Hayden smoked some dope with some African tribe.
So the ad. It gave a number and an address, which was surprisingly close to Ben's house, and said they needed straight guys willing to do the do with other straight guys. Pay would be negotiated. The guys had to be of age, but not in high school. And they had to be filmed while fucking.
Filmed while fucking.
Filmed, like, while fucking.
So... porn? That was funny, especially since these people who called themselves... FuckSquad 69 Studios? Really? OK, sure. Especially since these people were putting ads on Craigslist. Like, if you were trying to hire amateur porn stars, the first place you thought of to put your help-wanted ads was on an internet site? It was just too funny. But, in the back of his mind, Ben wasn't sure if it was stupid or ingenious.
He had immediately texted Key about it and they laughed for a long time, making jokes that would forever cause him to burst out in giggles on the bus or in the gas station. He exited off the site and went to jerk off. He'd look tomorrow for another job.
But Ben still couldn't find a job when tomorrow actually came. He called around, introduced himself, schmoozed like Schmoozy Schmoozerton the Third. Still, no one wanted him. And it was really depressing. He called Erin, told her his luck, and she had pounded into him with "You should have applied to colleges blah blah blah." And, yeah, Erin was like his sister (actually the similarities between Meredith and Erin were pretty surreal), but she was a bitch. A straight up bitch who was too blunt for her own good. And sometimes, Ben just needed a pretty, sugarcoated lie to keep him going on the days he wanted to face plant into the ground.
And that's why Key was there. He told him that his job was looking for another employee and he could recommend Ben to his boss. Ben wasn't really looking to move out to California – he liked his ugly, boring Midwestern town – but still he gave the green light. After, they talked about a lot of things. Apparently Key was giving the D to this girl out in LA – totally hot surfer babe – and things were getting pretty serious. How Key's fat ass could score a babe like her (he had sent Ben some pictures and OK wow) was beyond him when Kate – who was a thousand times more beautiful than Key's girl – had dumped him. He just didn't understand life.
They hung up and Ben went out to eat with his parents. Apparently, they had hit a goal they never thought they'd hit, especially since it was winter. All throughout the meal, though, Mom had raved about her friend, Mary's, boy who was graduating from some big name college Ben didn't care about. Dad would slip in comments about his job search, which made him feel like shit, because, OK, even if he wasn't having luck, he was trying. That accounted for something. Someone give him a gold star because he fucking deserved it.
After dinner, Ben went home feeling the shittiest he had in days and went to sleep. He kind of resigned himself to the life of a bum forever when a few weeks later, am employer actually called him back. Like a real one. With a voice. And a job and everything. Ben felt elated and even more so when they said come in the following week for an interview.
Which sucked by the way. Ben didn't know what to say in interviews. He had never had one before, so he sat there in his graduation suit looking awkward and messy because his hair was being a massive jerk today and kept sticking up in random places. The interviewer – a really fat greasy man with a toupee – was nice enough, though, and made jokes throughout the interview. Ben, too, cracked jokes that had the man holding his stomach in laughter. Even though he didn't answer the questions to the best of his abilities, Ben still came off funny and personable, so maybe – just maybe – he was going to get the job.
A week passed and no call.
Another week passed and still no call.
Then another week passed and still no call. The fuck.
So, Ben sucked up his pride and called the place. He asked to speak to a manager and when the manager got on the line, he asked if they made a decision on his interview yet. And, he'd be damned, this place – this fast food joint in all its D-rated health inspection glory – had decided not to hire him, but a community college graduate.
What a low fucking blow that was. Really? A place where probably not even a high school education was needed picked some college kid over him. Wow. Ben couldn't describe how fucking done he was with everything in his life.
He ended up going out and getting shit faced, fucking some random high school girl he hoped was at least seventeen, and passing out at her house. When morning came his skull was screaming and he felt like a party was going on in his stomach, but certainly not the good kind of party. He showered then left her naked on her bed without his name or number. Did he use a condom? He sure hoped so.
Ben went home and passed out and tried not to cry thinking how hard his life was. He was nineteen and no one wanted him. College didn't want him. Jobs didn't want him. Kate didn't want him. Hell, he was pretty sure his parents didn't want him. It was all a swirling vortex of "fuck you Ben you're a loser and will never amount to anything." Video games couldn't cure this, and no amount of tight pussy could either. This depression – this helplessness – was something Ben had never known before. He was always the guy with a million opportunities around his belt, always the guy with the crooked grin, great personality, and kind of above average intelligence.
He threw that all away though, and now he didn't even have a half of an opportunity. No, that one went to the community college graduate. Fuck, man. Just... fuck.
For, like, the eightieth time that day, dealing drugs became a prevalent option. Timmy Sanders was a dealer. He could ask him to ask his supplier if he could get in on that, too, but Timmy was a little bitch who was scared of his supplier and probably wouldn't do it. And Timmy was the only dealer he knew. So, that option was out.
Prostituting crossed his mind, too, but, like, the straight kind. There had to be forty year-old milfs who were unsatisfied in their marriage and needed a hot, young piece of ass who could last hours. And, well, Ben could last fifteen minutes so that was a start.
But that was illegal. And so was dealing. And so was life but somehow everyone accepted life.
What else could he do, though? Kill people? Become a hit man? That shit wasn't even real, probably. Just some crime drama TV trope people were interested in nowadays. And even if it was real, Ben would end up turning himself in most likely because killing another person is fucking sick, man, unless it's said in the non-literal fashion, then it's funny.
And then there was the obvious legal choice: porn. Only problem was that you had to have the right kind of body and skills to be in porn, and there was never a lack of hot-bodied dudes willing to fuck big booty bitches. The chances of Ben actually making it was slim to none. And porn would kind of ruin his chances at ever finding a real job, right? At least, that's what he heard. He didn't exactly know the merit that statement had, though.
But, then, something crossed his mind that he had hoped would never come up unless he and Key were laughing about it.
The Gay for Pay ad. In his mind, he went over their criteria.
Straight Guy. I am of the straight orientation and happen to have a penis.
Of age but not in high school. Nineteen year old loser who graduated a few months ago.
Needed to be willing to fuck other dudes. Um... no.
OK, so Ben considered it for a while. Doing a dude? He could do it. He could pretend the ass he was fucking was a girl's, was some hottie's like Kate's or Jennifer Lawrence's. He just needed to close his eyes and fuck until he came. Simple.
But getting fucked? Now, that was a clear possibility in this industry, and something he didn't even want to fathom. He could hardly deal with painful shits. How was he going to deal with something bigger than his poops going up his ass? Wouldn't it, like, rip? Would it be bloody? How could you even get over that burning sensation? God, Ben hated relating it back to shitting, but that's all he could think about. His poops were sometimes quite painful, and he knew a dick would hurt worse than that.
And, yeah, OK, he was scared. Scared about a lot of things. First, the pain. He could deal with pain – he played soccer all four years of high school and got the occasional scraped knee or ball to the crotch. Yeah, pain was no biggie, except that it was when it was a dick going up his ass. He didn't understand how gays could do it or how they found enjoyment from it. Like, why wouldn't they want to stick their dicks into something soft and hot and wet instead of a place where excrement laid? Ben felt nauseous thinking about it.
And second: he wasn't gay. He liked girls. A lot. Like, a lot. He was an ass man, but a straight ass man. He liked girls. Ladies. Women. Vagina. Carpet. He didn't like guys. In fact, dicks were like the ugliest thing he had ever seen in his life. They were like fleshy deflated balloons when they weren't hard. It was pretty gross, and he didn't want one near him. He could hardly stand his own.
And three: Let's say he did do this thing. He was going to be filmed, which meant that more than likely – unless FuckSquad 69 Studios were total perverts who were only filming for their own sick pleasure – many people were going to see this. And the chances of someone Ben knew seeing it was high. It only took one person to find the video for them to recognize him and then it was over. They would tell everyone they knew and he'd be labeled as gay and nasty and an even bigger fuck up than what everyone already thought he was.
And Ben didn't want that. More than people thinking he was gay and more than the pain, he didn't want people to see him as a screw up who could never recover from his choices. He would rather die than be shamed like that.
So, Ben pushed the thought in the back of his mind and went to sleep. And when he woke up, he felt only mildly better, and only slightly more curious about this whole Gay for Pay thing. When he went over his job options in his head, he found that, most likely, no one was going to hire him. Not anytime soon, at least. At least with the porn, he had a fighting chance. And what was the harm in going to see what was up with FuckSquad Studios? He couldn't be shamed for that, and it wasn't like he was going to say "yes" or anything. He was going to check it out. Simple, you know? Yeah, he couldn't be shamed for that. There was no way.
"OK, well, I'm Ben. I'm nineteen, and I have a loving girlfriend of two years back home." Ben ran over his lines in his head, making sure to stay on script, making sure he got his two-hundred bucks worth.
"Does she know you're doing this?"
"Ha ha... Um... no. No, I haven't told her about this."
"Hmm... That's OK. She doesn't need to know. It's just fucking, right?" Behind the camera, he saw the director nod to the guy next to Ben.
Ben knew he had to look at the dude even though he didn't want to. He knew he had to act like he was sizing the guy up, readying himself to fuck him. And so, he did. He put on a lustful smile and lowered his eyelids, hoping that he looked somewhat sexy. But the guy didn't respond. Just stared at his knees. Following his own script.
"Yeah. Yeah, it's just fucking."
It turned out that only Ben and another guy had answered the ad. As expected, he thought. They put the advertisement out in a small town. No person was going to reply to that. No sane person was going to put themselves on the line like that.
Except Ben. And another idiot.
Ben and the people from FuckSquad met at a house. It was a big house close to the city, and when Ben saw it he nearly drooled on the front porch. This was where he needed to go for the interview? Christ.
The inside was just as lavish as outside. High ceilings, lots of windows, lots of leather furniture. It was nice. And rich. When Ben sat down on the impeccably clean, white leather couch, he kind of sat gently on it like a girl. He didn't want to, like, rip it or anything.
As it turned out, FuckSquad 69 Studios wasn't even an official studio. They were composed of three people: Kellan Mercury, director; Andy Summers, editor; and Liam Crenshaw, cameraman. When they all introduced themselves, Ben had promptly looked around for anyone else. He asked if they were the only ones apart of FuckSquad and they shrugged and nodded. They were amateurs, just like Ben.
And if that wasn't a big siren screaming at him to turn around and go home, then he didn't know what was. Yeah, he was ready to book it, but then the editor – Andy – pushed him down (OK can she even do that), and told him to hear them out. Ben didn't really have a choice, did he? What with being pushed down by a woman and all.
So, the deal was that he'd get paid two-hundred for each video. They were on a budget, and it was kind of nonnegotiable.
"OK, but the ad said I could negotiate the price," Ben stated angrily.
Kellan snorted and pushed up his bulky glasses. "That was a lie to reel guys like you in, which, obviously, it did."
Ben was offended. He didn't like how Kellan said "guys like you" like he was so predictably suckish in all things life that he was being lumped with other guys now. Ben kind of wanted to run out of there, but Andy looked like she was a former track star so he just settled his ass right down on the couch.
"Do you have any STD's, STI's, history of venereal diseases, heart problems, anything else?"
"No."
"You're above eighteen, right? Can we see some ID?"
Ben showed them his driver's license and Andy took it and began writing something down on a piece of paper. "Um," Ben said, pointing at her, "what the hell are you copying my information for? Do you really need this?"
"Kind of," Kellan responded, looking at the tablet he was reading questions from. "Have you ever been in a porn film before or have been associated with the adult entertainment industry?"
"No."
"OK." Andy handed him back his license. Kellan continued with the questions until Andy took out a piece of paper from her satchel and slapped it down on the coffee table in front of him. He glanced at it, then back at Kellan for explaining.
"It's a contract," he explained coolly, not really seeming to care at all about what was happening. Ben was about to do porn, for fucks sake. That was a momentous occasion! And he was kind of being forced into it. He didn't even have a chance to calm down and evaluate what was going on.
"I need to sign it?" Ben asked. Kellan nodded. He looked down at the contract and read through it. It basically said that they were allowed to film him and promote him and stuff. It made him swear he wouldn't work with anyone other than FuckSquad and was willingly allowing his body to be filmed during sexual intercourse.
But, the thing was, he wasn't sure if he wanted to do it. This was a major life decision. Something he needed to think a lot about. The pain, the shame... All of it was very much there, hanging in the back of Ben's mind, a constant reminder of the consequences he would face when he signed that piece of paper. And was he ready to deal with that? Ready to deal with the fear of someone recognizing him on the street? The fear of watching people look at him with disgust, calling him a homo or fag or man eater or whatever the fuck else people called gays? Was he ready to be gay even if it meant only on camera? Was he ready to fuck another dude?
And the answer was simple. No. No, he wasn't. Ben was insecure. He didn't want to be labeled as gay or a fuck up (even though he already kind of was). He didn't want people to laugh at him or whisper behind his back. He didn't want this video he would do – or the videos he would continue doing – to be out there in the real world with the looming chance that someone he knew and loved would pick it up, see his face, and have their world fucking shattered.
Ben couldn't do it. He couldn't. The shame already was burning brightly in his vision. He wouldn't fuck another guy for money. No way. He wasn't gay. He wasn't a screw up. He was Ben: soccer player, charmer, 3.0 GPA, 27 on the ACT. He was Ben: the kid everyone loved.
He wasn't gay.
He wasn't a fuck up.
"I can't," Ben said, pushing the contract further away from him. He stared at it as if it were a congregation of tumors underneath a microscope. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to waste your guys' time, but I can't deal with this shit. I'm not gay. I don't want people to see me and think I'm gay. I just... I can't do this."
Ben waited for them to say something. Something that dismissed him, something along the lines of "we knew you wouldn't do it." But he didn't hear it. He looked up and saw Kellan, Andy, and Liam staring at him with surprised looks on their faces.
"What?" he asked.
"Wow," Liam breathed, shaking his head disbelievingly. "You really are straight. Aren't you?"
"So's the other guy," Andy said, crossing her arms and staring at him like a teacher would if they caught you stealing from their desk.
"We're fucking lucky," Kellan said. He was looking at Ben like Ben was the answer to all his questions. It made him feel uncomfortable, and he had absolutely no idea where this conversation was going. "So, you're really straight? Not, like, in the closet or posing to be straight to get on film?"
Why the fuck would anyone want to do that? The thought offended Ben and he scoffed. "Yeah, I'm straight. Isn't that what you asked for? What's the big deal?"
"Most guys that come to gay for pay auditions are gay guys posing to be straight. They want a little camera time and they think this could open doors for them," Andy explained. "It's rare that an actual straight guy would show up. They usually have too much pride."
"I do have too much pride. That's why I'm saying I can't do this."
"OK, calm down," Kellan said, holding up his hands defensively. "Just think about it. You get two-hundred bucks for each video. That'll make you two-hundred dollars richer than you were yesterday. Capiche? Plus, the first time, it'll only be hand jobs and maybe – if you and the other guy are feeling it – a blow job or two. Nothing major. You're just going to work the waters. Not plunge in right away."
"Yeah," Andy commented. "We want the audience to taste you a bit, OK? See if you're good or not. See if you get their juices flowing."
Ben tried not to scoff in disgust but it was pretty hard. Just the thought of some gay guy jerking off to him jerking off another dude was pretty gross. And gay. Ben still wasn't feeling up to it.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm not seeing any merit in it. I think my worries outweigh what you guys want from me. Sorry."
"Think about it," Kellan mused. "You're nineteen years old, have no job, and not in college. You look like you used to play sports. Did you used to play sports?"
"Uh, yeah. I did."
"Which one? Track? You look like you did track."
"Soccer."
"Soccer. OK, yeah, soccer. And you're fine as hell. You've had some pussy in your short lifetime, right?"
It was a compliment, but Ben wasn't feeling very boastful. He was wary. He squinted at Kellan and nodded slowly.
"See? There you go. You were probably doing alright grade-wise too. But now, sadly," he paused, clucking his tongue and shaking his head. "Now you're a nobody. You've missed your window of opportunity to do anything meaningful, right?"
Ben felt like he had been stripped naked and examined down to his DNA. Kellan hit it right on the head. And now that it was out in the open, said from another person instead of ravishing his mind silently, it sounded even more pitiful. He felt disgusting. Felt so, so, so stupid that someone he didn't even know – someone he had never met – understood him from just a look. It was humiliating; it was fucking demoralizing.
And was this supposed to make Ben change his mind? If anything, it made him want to not film this porno even more and to crawl underneath a rock and go to sleep for a couple hundred centuries.
"I got it right, didn't I?" Kellan said softly. It prickled against Ben's skin; it sounded fake. It sounded self-serving. "So, yeah. This could be your chance to be something, you know? Make money that you've never seen in your life and, trust me, if the videos get more and more popular, the pay will increase. And you can also make people feel good. It's a win-win, you know? You can feel good yourself, and people can feel good watching you."
"And doesn't it feel good to know that people are lusting after you? It feels hot that people think you're sexy as fuck," Liam added. "And, you know, you don't have to think of the other guy as a dude. Just imagine it's a girl. You'll be fine."
"But what happens when I have to get fucked? Because I have to get fucked, don't I?" Ben nearly shouted. When none of them replied, he scoffed. "Yeah. Yeah, I fucking knew it. Look, I don't really want to feel like some bitch getting fucked, and no matter if I imagine a girl during the time I'm getting fucked, it won't help. I'm getting fucked. How the hell am I supposed to imagine I'm having sex with a girl when something's working my asshole?"
"It's not that bad."
"But it's bad for me!" Ben felt his blood boiling hotly underneath his skin. It was a mistake coming here. It was a mistake ever going on Craigslist. It was a mistake ever deciding not to apply to colleges. Everything was one big mistake that he was regretting.
A long silence followed, and then Kellan said lowly, "How about this – and hear me out, OK?" When Ben didn't say anything, Kellan continued. "You give the other guy a hand job. He gives you one. Let that shit evolve into oral–" When Ben began to complain, Kellan held up his hand. "Dude, listen. Let him give you a bj and then return the favor. We'll give you two-hundred for that. OK? You don't have to sign the contract or anything. We won't even film you. Just a hand job and blow job. You cum, he cums. You guys find out it's not that bad, and then we're in business. But if you still can't even fathom the idea of doing another dude, we'll let you walk and find someone else. Deal?"
The anger had turned into a simmer. Ben was still peeved about the thought of having to get fucked, but Kellan had just given him a proposition. A straight-laced, no strings attached deal that he could either take or leave. Do or not do. Get money or get broke. He hated the idea of touching another guy, fucking hated it. But, dude, two-hundred bucks, no contract, no camera...
No. No, OK, he wasn't gay. He wasn't going to do this shit. Look, he wasn't dumb, OK? He knew anything that kind of touched his dick was going to feel good, no matter if it was from a girl or guy or a damn monkey for all he knew. Yeah, Ben wasn't an idiot. He knew when he was being played.
But, still, two-hundred bucks? That was two Benjamin's looking him in the face. He liked the idea – and that was the only idea he liked about this whole thing – of becoming two-hundred dollars richer. And, he figured, if he did this, there would be no one who they could tell and then be believed. There was no evidence that he did some gay shit. He would cum, get money, and then get gone.
It sounded like a fucking plan.
But... Could he live with himself? The shame of doing it, the guilt – would there even be guilt?– seemed to lay thickly on his mind like chocolate on a wafer. He didn't want to hate himself even more than he already did. And he hated himself a lot at that point.
It was just jerking off, though, basically. He could do that. He did that a lot anyway since he was jobless and education-less. Doing it to another person sounded weird, but he thought he could do it. A few minutes of jerking, and then maybe a few more sucking. Then they'd cum and he'd skip the fuck out of there. Right?
Ben supposed Kellan found the resolve on his face that hadn't quite worked its way through his system and clapped him on the back. "Ay, there's our boy! You want this, right?" Kellan reached into his pocket and pulled out a band of cash. Ben swallowed. "Cash makes men do crazy things. And, don't worry, you'll enjoy it. On some fucked up level, it'll feel good, but there's no scarring. Trust me, I've worked with people like you before. They go about their lives and it's like nothing happened."
"Can't you just give me the money now?" Ben mumbled.
Kellan laughed. "Ha! Don't be fucking ridiculous. You got to work for this money, baby. So, you better jerk and blow pretty well. Two-hundred dollars are on the line."
Liam came over and hauled Ben up. He grinned widely at him. "Time to go meet your lover, Benny boy."
"He's not my fucking lover," Ben growled.
"Technicalities." Liam shrugged and began to push him towards the steps. "This way, bro. The dude's attractive, so you lucked out."
Yay for me, Ben thought. Wasn't he just the fucking poster child for luck?
"So, why don't you try kissing him?"
"Kissing?"
"Yeah. You can do that, right?"
Ben swallowed the spit in his mouth. He looked over at the other guy and glanced at his lips. His stomach churned.
"I... I guess."
"It's just fucking, dude. Remember that."
He let out a shaky sigh. Before he leaned over the guy, he repeated the phrase that was quickly becoming his mantra.
"Just fucking."
an: yeah i have no fucking right to be starting a new story but oh well. reviews are appreciated and i havent been this excited about a new story in a while. lots of sex. and straight boy love. yum.