I peered over the stall door and saw him seated on the toilet bowl, leaning back against the rear flush pipe, his pants lowered to his knees, his thighs outspread, his hand around his cock and quickly jerking off. His eyes were shut, as though envisioning some particularly remembered image from the movie downstairs—the way a tit bulged out of a bra, the way a hand groped at an ass, the way a body moved atop a body—and a few times his masturbation grew even more speeded and rapid as the recalled image grew in intensity and fervor. Was he now fucking her? I wondered, watching his thighs and torso clench and slightly jolt off the toilet seat.

It had been less than half an hour since I had seen him outside the Bryant ticket booth angrily pulling out his wallet and passing a mangled frayed olive card to the fat ticket seller.

He was round-faced and long-haired, wearing boots and jeans and a denim jacket over a thick woolen sweater. He shifted from leg to leg, his face a ruddy flush of anger, humiliation, disgust, obviously self-conscious at being held up by the intrusive ticket-seller and standing so openly outside a porno theater.

I had forgotten what it was like to be underage and trying to enter a sex theater, though the reminders of age were everywhere, plastered in between and around the arcade displays of big-breasted sex-starved bimbos, as if hung there by some spiteful teaser: Sex-Sex-Sex-No-One-Under-18-Admitted! On one display the prohibitive words even appeared in a giant comic-strip bubble coming out of a giant bimbo’s mouth: Sorry, boys, I need a MAN…No One Under 18 Admitted.

I approached behind him and glared at the fat ticket seller: always in the same dandruff-sprinkled black dress; always the same stern eyes judging, deeming; always the same pursed red lips admonishing, No Drinking! No Sleeping! No Loitering in the Men’s Room! while passing over an entry stub. I’m certain that here was the composer and designer of the Under 18 signs.

Pig! I thought, and, as though reading my mind, she quickly glared at me and gestured for my money. I blushed, but nodded at the long-haired boy and said, Excuse me, and moved before him (hoping at least our pants touched) and slid in my two dollars through the tiny opening crack. The fatso set down the boy’s ID card and took my money, turning over one of the bills so they both lay face up, then pressed a green button atop her counter. A tiny metal sliver popped open before a green button and a small blue ticket snapped out of the metal mouth. (I had once told her to keep the change, but whether it was management policy or her own resentment at the humiliating offer of a tip, she refused to slick open the turnstile and wouldn’t let me enter the theater until I took the two pennies out of the window slot.) I pocket the coin and smiled at the flustered long-haired boy, then flicked my stub to the floor, slowly moving through the impatiently clicking turnstile.

(That was the problem with most of the theaters on the street: matronly ticket sellers ensconced in their booths and in a glance measuring and judging your worthiness, your demeanor, your perversions, your sexuality. Judging, and condemning. A few times across the street at the Pix, I was denied entry by an ugly old fart who studied me each night I approached her booth then slammed down a wooden block before her change slot and shook her head, Sold Out! No Seats! Sold out? Since when did the jumpy grainy black and white film A Secretary’s Dream become a cult classic? Or was it the sleeper on the twin bill Her 3 Daughters? Fortunately, the Pix guardian wasn’t there long and soon disappeared from the booth and I was able to regain admission once again into the always desolate Pix orchestra seats and crowded balcony rows; but I rarely even got a chance to see more than a few frames of the Sold Out cinematic classics.)

-18 today? I heard the fatso’s yelping voice behind me; I did not turn around.

Pig! I cursed again, wincing at the sound of her shrill voice, and pulled open the glass entrance door and entered the long brightly lit mirror-lined passageway leading into the theater.

I walked a few steps and paused before the full-length mirrors. I looked at the image of the boy but could not see his face—his long hair draped down the side of his lowered head—but I’m certain it was now more flustered with embarrassment and resentment, probably even regretting the foolhardy attempt of trying to enter a theater meant for adults, even if today he had turned of age and was now a legal adult.

I felt sorry for the boy and looked at the fatso’s reflection: she was smiling (something she rarely did in her booth), and I clearly made out her smirking lips telling him not to loiter in the men’s room.

I quickly turned away from the mirror and moved up the passageway. Behind me, I heard the onrush of 42nd Street traffic surge through the opening/closing door and the taunting clicking of the turnstile continue after the boy had passed through.

Pig! once more I cursed, and bustled up the passageway and entered the flickering theater auditorium.

Unlike most of the movie houses on the street, the Bryant was constructed without a balcony, just a single sloping tier of orchestra seats drifting down towards the large movie screen at the front of the theater, and it was a haphazard and risky quest for a grope of a thigh and crotch, as the borders were unclearly defined and uncertain; and though the crammed back rows were the usual blatant roosting grounds, it was possible, and also exciting, to sometimes sit in a front seat and get a more satisfying and pleasurable handful then from anything in back. It’s like the difference between a whore and a virgin: getting it from a cunt giving it out is one thing, winning it from a saint holding back is quite another. Yet in a sparsely filled porno house the temptation could also be dangerous, for how do you walk down an aisle and pass rows of vacant seats and finally enter a row where a lone figure sits, his legs outspread, his hand in his lap, his crotch an evident hard-on, but his eyes and face glaring at your interruption. And how do you read his glance: a threat to keep away, or an inducement to sit down? And where do sit: a seat away, or the seat beside him?

The long-haired boy came into the auditorium and without even giving his eyes the needed time to adjust to the darkness and flickering movie screen light, surged down the aisle to the front of the theater and dropped into a vacant seat.

I smiled. Give him time, I thought, studying the distant faint lump of his head and sloped shoulders; give him time to stew over the fatso and to slowly forget and to look on the screen and concentrate on tits and asses and simulated fucking; give him time to relax and calm down and get a good hard-on; give him time so his hard-on would pulse and he’d hesitantly brush his fingers over his crotch, then more boldly, attempt a furtive squeeze of his cock, and finally, checking the empty seats around him, begin to confidently masturbate through his denim pants; give him time, give him lots of time to where my entry would by then not be an intrusion but a welcome substitute, a sort of fake consolation prize for the arousal induced by the equally fake sex acts on the screen.

For that’s what made theaters like the Pix and the Bryant so enticing and attractive; though on the outside they were remnants of legitimate movie palaces which had once presented feature dramas and comedies and now had turned to the exhibit of sex to survive, the darkened interiors had also adapted with the change from patrons who wept or laughed with films to the current clientele who eyed and groped and sucked each other and barely even glanced at the distant screen.

Yet while the porn film may have concentrated on female bulbous tits, curvaceous asses, and garter straps lining fleshy thighs, the audience for these films was in actuality a contradiction in terms. The fact that a woman willingly took her clothes off on the screen seemed to make it that much safer for the reality of males to mingle together in back rows and crowded balconies. Entering the theater you maintained your façade of straight heterosexuality, stressing, Heck, I’m only going to see naked broads, and in the darkness conspire with your self-deceit into blaming the film’s successful arousal by your lapse of letting some fag dip his fingers on your knee, slide them up your thigh, and circle them round your crotch. Just keep looking straight ahead, concentrate on the tit, explore the close-up nipple, that’s right, get a good glimpse of her panty crotch…and help him with your zipper, help him get your cock out of your shorts, come on, oooo! that’s it, heck, a handjob is a handjob, ain’t it? Easy with the teeth, fella!

I lit a cigarette and decided he’d had enough time and should be hard by now. I would approach him from the front; if I came slowly up the aisle, the screen light behind me, perhaps he’d recognize me from the ticket booth; all I needed was an acknowledgment, a slight nod of the head, something familiar and recognized in the eyes, a puffing of the nostrils, a faint smile; it wouldn’t matter if he still wasn’t ready for a handjob, much less a blowjob, as long as I got near him, because sometimes the play movements of getting close to someone were often as exciting as the actual touch of a crotch or cock. Many times I’d masturbate recalling myself approaching a stranger, with the wariness of making contact, the hesitant uncertainty of my appraisal, of whether the reading of the signs was correct, and then, the thrill of acting on my resolve and taking a chance and being rewarded with the first sensation of physical contact, even if it be nothing more than a subtle brushing of my knee against his.

I took a few more puffs and stubbed out my cigarette and stared down the aisle, keeping the lump of his head in constant sight as a sort of target and destination. His shoulders had sagged beneath the back rest of his seat and I’m certain by now he had his hand in his crotch, responding to the promptings and inducements of the girls on the screen; because the best movie house ejaculations are always the ones synchronized to the movements of the characters of the film: to touch a crotch when one was groped on the screen; to masturbate when the actor was simulating the same; and to finally erupt in mutual orgasm with not only the panting film characters, but also with ejaculating cocks in the seats around you.

But I should have stayed at the back of the theater, given him, and myself, a little more time, for as I came down the aisle his indistinct head and stooped shoulders rose from the seat and moved up the aisle towards me. Did my knees buckle in fear? Did I sigh in regret? Did my face wince at the disappointment? He had taken off his denim jacket and carried it in his hand as he rose up the sloped carpet aisle. I slightly shifted to the left, certain in just a few steps I could maneuver my pace so as to be struck on the leg by the sleeve of the swinging jacket. (Was it warm from having covered his crotch?) But he casually tossed the jacket into his other hand and passed by without a glance; all I felt was a meager waft of air as we moved by each other.

What a cunning tramp! 18 today, and knows all the tricks! First the aisle seat, and now this; ah, but I knew the ruse only too well: many times I had walked up the aisle doing just that, alternating my newspaper, my jacket, my hat, from hand to hand, disguising my hard-on with a clever sleight of hand, a magician’s ruse, drawing attention to my hat or coat, while my cock was desperate for center stage.

Still, I entered the vacant row he had stepped out of and sat in the seat next to his. In the front row movie lights I could clearly make out the crushed contour of the fake-leather seat bottom: two large indentations and a small rising puff in the middle, as though a death-mask of his ass.

I bent over the armrest and lowered my face to the seat. A tinge of warmth and presence flitted against my nose and lips and I gently moved my fingers atop the seat, careful to leave the rounded contour undisturbed. I dabbed the two cheek-shapes and stroked the elongated puff spewing between the cheeks and dropping over the front edge of the seat. It was like a massive indented cock and balls. I sat back up and grabbed my own cock. I glanced around, making sure he wasn’t coming back down the aisle, then lifted the seat to preserve the ass-shape, and stepped out of the row, my hard cock pushing at the front of my pants. I had nothing to disguise myself with and didn’t care;—I walked back up the aisle.

The Bryant had no real lounge area, just a few soda and candy machines in the mirrored walkway out front, and the rest rooms were located up a narrow flight of stairs next to the projection booth. I looked at the solitary putting machines, then moved past a few figures lingering at the foot of the stairway, keeping my eyes off their tempting crotches,—I only had one in mind,—and went up the stairs.

It happens at some point halfway on the stairwell that the putrid bathroom stench of urine, shit, vomit, and disinfectant first penetrate your nostrils. It isn’t a slow sweeping into your pores and sense and awareness, but a quick explosion and splash of bodily excess that is tossed at you from the top of the stairs as though to repel or entice you closer. I climbed higher.

Every night, after the pictures, they clean the bathroom tiles, the enamel, the porcelain, but the next day the urine spills back to the floor, the shit is smeared on the bowls, the scum is dribbled out of cocks, spat out of mouths, compressed in wadded paper, left floating atop turds and bubbled piss, and each evening savored by a constant assembly of gawkers, snifters, gropers, dreamers, stallers. Because sex in the theaters and balconies and bathrooms is always peopled by others; not in the sense of an orgiastic participation, rather, an aloof observing and peeping. Whether on the curving stairways, in darkened seats, or over stall partitions, I can’t recall ever touching or being touched by another, without someone standing nearby and gazing at the touching and pawing.

Sometimes, though it’s happened rarely, the observer would step in to be a participant; and deep on my knees before a crotch, I’d feel a hand on my shoulder, a body crouching and pressing to mine, lips on my neck, mouth on my cheek, and I’d realize the cock I held and share it with him, our tongues and teeth and lips quickly lathered in scum and spit and urine.

This is the purity of balcony/bathroom sex: the un-possessiveness of sharing and giving and taking, There is no love, and neither is it expected. Yet I have been held more tenderly by a brief stranger than I have ever been embraced by a familiar friend or lover. I have been kissed and fondled as gently as one would a child, and as a child I responded with trust and openness. There is no ownership and no one strives for possession. It occurs suddenly, last briefly, and hurries on to others.

I entered the men’s room and looked at the cubicles: they were both occupied, their doors shut, yet I brightened at the sight of rumpled jeans and pointy-toed boots beneath one of the stall doors. An old figure, gray and fat, stood at the urinals, looking over his shoulder, though shielding himself from view. I ignored him and moved to the stalls. I took a breath and peered over the door. The long-haired boy was on a toilet seat, his eyes closed, and quickly jerking off. I smiled. 18 today, and I wished I could summon naked women and smear their perfumed flesh not only into his thoughts and fantasies but into his constant reality; I wished I could smother him in massive tits and tight cunts and soft asses; drown him in vaginal ooze and lactated bilge; choke and gag him in sweated garters, soiled bras, crusted nylons. For this is why I came to porno theaters, and probably always will: to teem and share my body and thoughts with other bodies, male and female. To people my senses, my pores, my dreams, my imagination with flesh on the vital point of lust, craving, need, explosion.

But is it a dream? If something is intangible, out of possible reach and touch, flitting before the eyes, teasing, as an image in sleep, always moving, always beckoning, illogically formed or formless, and you, just as in sleep, a fool panting in pursuit, reaching and grasping at air, find yourself stirring, as though awakening, and sigh alone, has the dream been worth it? How many days have I gone without a touch, a positive glance, a crude grope? Yet the image is always real, even if the reality is often unattainable. So I will dream and pursue. I will trace footsteps and look into eyes and hope for a glint of encouragement, a spark of enticement, a flame of longing. And if not, I will close my eyes and dream and quest for the same in visions and fantasies. For it is a dream, a beautiful dream, a sleepwalk even, a primitive lucidity of cave paintings, shadowed forms, distant fires. I am afraid, but I will dream. I will be desperate for touch, and perhaps cowardly at the possibility, but I will continue to dream. And who dares deny that the dream be called Love? I call it Love.

I sighed; I was content; and as though in response to me contentment the masturbating boy yelped and buckled on the toilet bowl, ejaculating and doubling over. I saw the back of his head and his long hair shaking and streaming down the sides of his neck and into his shirt/sweater collar. Suddenly, a balding head peered over the dividing partition from the other stall; the forehead was flushed and sweated and I’m certain he too was jerking off. We looked down at the doubled-over boy, and I hoped he was careful not to soil his sweater too much.

I stepped away from the stall and moved to the urinals. The old fat figure turned and showed me his drooping flaccid penis. I unzipped my pants half-way and heard the cubicle door open. I turned; the long-hair boy stepped out and walked to the sinks and ran water over his hands then brushed and stroked back his long brown hair back over his ears and into a loose pony-tail in back of his head. He noticed me staring and pursed his forehead as if trying to place the recollection, then blushed when I smiled, and quickly turned and walked out of the men’s room.

18 today, I thought, and smirked at the old fat figure trying to reach towards my crotch. 18 today, I thought, as I zippered up and bolted from the urinals and winked at the red sweated face showing off his cock as he also stepped out of his stall and moved to the urinals. 18 today, I thought, and ran out of the man’s room.

I could at least wish him a Happy Birthday!

 

© 2006 Mick Dementiuk - Contributor's Bio