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the scene?” He laughed. “I could tell you about that. I could tell about the scene! ” He laughed again. “You know what they are?”
    “Who?”
    “They’re garbage is what. They’d rob blind cripples.”
    “Don’t you have to stay in touch with your clients?”
    “My what?”
    “Your regulars. The johns.”
    “Oh. Wallets. ”
    “That’s what you call them?”
    “That’s what they are. Money. Talking money. Asshole money. Fat, drooling money, and hair all over it like stupid. What do I want with them now? I got a deal here. I can sleep late. No hassle. I can do like … anything. And then Mac comes home and makes me feel good. Little Mac. He makes those cute things with his hands. He cooks dinner. All I have to do is lay him nice and easy. Sometimes they like it when you hurt them, you know? But Little Mac likes it lullaby-style.”
    “He makes you feel good?”
    “You bet. Like when he smiles if you put your arm around him. He feels nice. You know, he’s pretty. A pretty little nice boy. You know that kind? I like to feel him up. Tickle him, you know? Watch him shake. That’s real dandy. I make him dance. Did he ever dance for you? Real pretty, when they dance. So pretty. He’s not like a wallet and he’s not like dig. You know?”
    “Dig?”
    “Dig is what I am. A wallet pays a dig, right?” He toyed with his suspender again. “Oh, what’s he like, now? He’s like a brother I had once. Kid brother. I made him dance, too. But like who could tickle a wallet, you know?”
    “Dig is what you are.”
    “He should go pro. Let me turn him out. We could make two hundred a night, easy. These East Side wallets, they’ve got these videos? Pay you anything to make tape for them. They like tell you this story and then you do it. Acting. Maybe I’ll be an actor, right? But the best thing I do is dance video. That’s my hottest.” He sat up.
    “Dance video?”
    “Mac’d be good at that, too. I like to dance. I like to fuck and dance. You got video? You want to make some tape, now? Bargain rates, ’cause you’re a friend. We’ll make one together, you know? Anything you want. Anything.”
    I looked at him. It was quite a long moment.
    “What’s with those shades, anyway? You doing something bad?”
    He took hold of my glasses at the bridge and pulled them off. “Uh-oh.” He replaced them. “No video. Gotcha.” He laughed. “The man doesn’t dance. The man does not choose to dance.”
    “Not with the likes of you.”
    He stopped laughing. “You got the eyes of a cop.”
    *   *   *
    I’ve witnessed various liaisons with hustlers over the years, the street kind as well as the call-boy elite, on a dating and live-in basis; each has ended differently. One hustler drifts out of reach like a balloon in the park, another dwindles into a sexless chum, one vanishes, another gets pushy about money or moves on into his host’s coterie or turns lawless and ends in jail. I even know of one—I’ll get to him some pages hence—who was thrown out by a man who couldn’t live with perfection. Nick adds another trope to the catalogue: the fuck machine plugged into a good gig, he simply hung on. Mac’s friends fretted and his visiting brothers scowled, but something like a year went by and everyone but Mac was still waiting for Nick to clear out. Dennis Savage thumbed his black book to tatters manifesting Italian accountants, and dinners were duly arranged. But it was the dark lord whom the accountants loved, not the mute boy. Like it or not, Nick was hot.
    So it stayed Mac and Nick, though no one ever tied them verbally, out of fear of giving their duet legitimacy. I think most gays respect the mating of twins, not the sharing of fantasy. Mac had offended custom, and this sin above all bills its dues. And Mac paid, when somebody with money beckoned to Nick.
    It hit suddenly, at another dinner—perhaps my thousandth in New York, and never have I been given enough to eat—and Dennis Savage and