Gulliver's Travelog

Hello visitor!

If you have just somehow stumbled upon this blog, then you missed the party! No biggie, though. Here’s the scoop:

Gulliver Travels was an experimental, social-media-driven gay novel about a Los Angelian transplant to NYC named Gulliver Leverenz who had to fight tooth and nail with the Big Apple, one of the greatest (and most vicious) cities in the world.

But just because you missed the party doesn’t mean you missed the fun!

Click here to start at chapter 1 and then work your way up from there.

Someday hopefully, the revised (and already very different) final version will be published and purchasable somewhere.

Thanks for stopping by!

- Justin R. Buchbinder

I look around the near-empty bar for Chase but he’s nowhere to be found. In the pit of my stomach, jealousy. Did he go home with someone else? That fast? I hurriedly count my tips and cash out my drawer in the basement, saying goodnight to my fellow bartenders. It all means nothing when I step outside and see Chase, smoking up against the wall.

“Jesus, didn’t think you were coming out of there,” he spins his cigarette around, pointing the filter at my mouth. I pull a hard drag and gag on the minty taste.

“I don’t understand how anyone smokes these. I heard there are bits of glass inside of it.”

“Cigarettes? Bad for my health? Man, I wish I had known sooner.”

“Smartass,” I laugh, and kiss him against the wall. “Come on, I’m starving.”

The diner is empty – between the 2AM drunken gay boy rush, and the 7AM senior citizen attack. Because of this, Jenny, my waitress (and usually, breakfast partner) has no problem with Chase and I taking up one of her booths until 6 AM. Over challah bread French toast (me) and an egg whites omelet with turkey and broccoli (Chase) I am racing through the story of me.

His eyes are wide and I wonder if he believes me. It amazes me that a Cliff Notes version of my past 6 months here has taken this long to tell. Of course we stop so he can ask the required “are you serious?” and Jenny walks by, refilling my coffee and says, “trust me honey, it’s all true.”

“You told your waitress all of this?”

“She could poison my food at any time, there’s a certain type of trust that comes from that.”

“Wow. That’s… well that’s a story, Gulliver.”

“Yeah, and now, I guess, I’m just worried.”

“Worried?”

“Yeah, you know. Like, when will the next chapter start? When will something come back and bite me in the ass or some character I’ve left behind magically show up?”

“Like Marty.”

“Sure, like him. I mean, so much has happened and it’s only been six months. It’s kind of like in 24, where Kiefer Sutherland has to save the world for 24 hours straight. And it seems to happen once every few years. I wonder if he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat wondering ‘is this it? is this another one of those shitty days where the entire world will be in danger and only I can save it?”

“Well, maybe it’s done. Maybe you’ve found a stable place,” Chase says, yawning.

“Maybe. We should get you to bed.”

“Oh I think at this point, we know where I’m going to bed.”

I wasn’t even thinking about that. But between his smile and the fact that he didn’t run screaming from the diner at any point during my tale, I am more than happy to take him back with me, and to pay for his omelet, too.

We take a cab up to Harlem. Along the way he naps with his head on my shoulder. I look out the window as the neighborhoods change the farther we climb. Along the way we pass by so many landmarks from my time here. The bars from my first night here, Stanford’s office, the theaters and stores I brought my parents to when they surprised me with a visit. All of these places are closed, or closing. The bartenders and dancers and clientele long gone – the cleaning crews walking in to set everything up for the following day.

How many people have come to this city, like me, and then stayed? I look up at darkened (and some lit) apartment windows. We all come here from other places, allow ourselves to be stacked on top of each other in apartments we can’t afford and are not worth what we can’t pay for them. We cram into subways filled with Swine Flu and listen to crazy people tell us that the wrath of God will be upon us soon. We walk from bar to bar and listen to the same music and drink the same drinks and see the same people. Lunch is never cheaper than 10 dollars. Dinner is never south of $20. And yet, we fight tooth and nail to stay here. Because all of these sufferings are medals to us – shiny decorations that we can buff up and show off to those who were too afraid to come, or unable to stay.

We are on a gigantic college campus where nobody grows up and nobody really wants to. And we’ll do anything and everything we can to avoid packing up our things and heading back to where we came from. Because once you’ve been to New York, you can’t leave. You cannot fail. You cannot let this city win. And, as Chase and I climb up the three flights to my apartment in Harlem, I think: I did it. I’ve beaten New York. And at the same point I wonder, have I? Or is it just taking a breather, stepping to the sidelines to strategize and come up with a plan? Biding its time so that I get comfortable with the bartending, the beginning of promoting, and then BANG something else comes out of nowhere.

I am wary, New York. I am ready for you. The events of the past six months seem so far away, and yet, so close. Two months ago I was getting fucked in front of thousands. Three months ago I had begun working in porn. Four months ago I was scaling the ladder of talent representation. Five months ago I was living in a luxury apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. And six months ago I was hastily packing my bags and fleeing the City of Angels. And nobody knows how everything happened. Maybe Graham. Maybe Todd. Now Chase (who is so adorable lying on my bed, wrestling to keep his eyes open.) Not my parents. Not my old friends from Los Angeles.

I would say I’m a New Yorker. Sure, some New Yorkers might laugh at this, but fuck them. I deserve it. If anyone feels differently, I’d like to hear my experience. If this city chews you up and gargles you as much as it did me, and yet you still somehow grab a hold of that hanging tonsil in the back of its maw, hang on for dear life so that, no matter how hard it tries, it cannot spit you out. If you survive New York and don’t end up leaving, then you’ve won.

Then you are a fucking New Yorker. No matter what anyone else says.

Before I go to bed, I hop in the shower. Chase mumbles that he’ll be awake when I get back, but I’m pretty sure he won’t be. Under the warm water I scrub myself with something featuring sweet hints of vanilla and honey. Todd called it girly, but it relaxes me, and does a great job of cleansing the second hand booze out of my system. When I get out, it’s 9AM. My phone is ringing.

“Hiya Ma,” I slip into a pair of flannel pajama pants (I won’t turn on the heater until I absolutely have to, don’t want to waste money on utilities when all I have to do is add layers for a while.)

“My sweetie! I thought I’d get you.”

We call this the changing of the working guards. With the help of the three-hour time difference, there is the occasional chance that my mom’s life and my own will overlap briefly as she wakes up and I go down for the count.

“Getting up for work?”

“Yes my honey. Your Dad’s out jogging. And here I am, suffering hot flashes and getting dressed for work.”

“And here I am getting back from work.”

“How does it feel, being a vampire?”

“Ma.”

“I’m kidding baby. You work hard. I’m proud of you. Make good money tonight?”

“Yes,” I am actually flipping though my take home – just under $400. “Very good actually. And now I’m going to bed.”

“Sleep tight my baby, everything is going okay over there?”

I look at my bed, and Chase on it, snoring. As if he knows I am watching him, he turns over on his side, humming loudly as he does so. His left leg kicks twice, reminding me of a dog.

“Yeah, everything’s better than okay. It’s great.”

“We’re looking forward to seeing you in two weeks!”

It’ll be the first time I’ve been back to California. But I can afford it. And I know that I won’t break down and beg my parents to keep me from going back to the airport when I get there. Plus, it will be good to go by the old bars and see if anyone I remember is there.

“Same here Ma. Okay. Bedtime for me. I love you.”

“Love you too baby, sleep tight.”

I hang up the phone and plug it into the wall, turning off the buzzer. Since neither Chase nor I have any reason to be up, I figure I won’t bother setting an alarm. The sun has a habit of peeking through the cracks between the blinds in my window and we’ll wake up naturally when the skin on the back of our eyelids turns pink and warm with the incoming rays.

I lay down slowly, gently in the bed. Chase greets me with another sleepy hum. I sidle up next to him, wrapping an arm around him and pulling myself up closer. We are interlocking, my legs with his legs, my midsection with his midsection, my face with the back of his neck.

“You smell clean,” he mumbles.

“Shhhhh,” I say, kissing his neck.

He smells good, too. A mix of shampoo and citrus-y cologne. I like his hair better short, too. It doesn’t itch my nose when my face is up against the back of his head.

“You wanna have sex?” he whispers, already halfway back to sleep.

“Maybe tomorrow. Right now, we sleep.”

“Sounds good…”

And then there is snoring again. My arm lifting and falling on his chest. I am smiling. I don’t know why. Maybe because I spoke to Mom on the phone. Maybe because I made a lot of money at work today. Maybe because everything that seemed to be going wrong up until 5 months ago seems righted again (at least for now, don’t think I’ve counted you out yet, Manhattan.) Or maybe it’s because Chase is here in bed with me and I don’t feel a need to have sex with him right now. Or maybe it’s because my body is just so exhausted from the gauntlet that is working the happy hour at Musical Mondays four weeks in a row that it is actually vibrating with pleasure because it is horizontal.

But I am smiling, and I am slowly, slowly falling into sleep. It embraces me calmly, its tendrils wrapping around me. My eyes are heavy. My breathing matches Chase’s breathing. We are going deeper and deeper into sleep together. What we do tomorrow we’ll figure out tomorrow. But right now, we’re sleeping. Right now we’re smiling. Right now we’re dreaming.

Outside, there is the occasional honk of a passing truck. Somewhere down by the corner, a couple is having a scuffle about something. But I am already at that point where delirium kicks in and I imagine that they are in my room and arguing and that they are puppets. Then I wonder if there really is fighting going on, or if I am dreaming all of it. And then I am laughing at how ridiculous I am, trying to make sense of things as I teeter this close to the edge of sleep. And then I’m not sure if I’m actually laughing, or am dreaming that too.

Chase turns over and I feel his breath on my face, it smells like syrup and I wonder when he stole a bite of my French toast. Or maybe I fed it to him. That would have been adorable. I imagine us years from now and we’re living together. I imagine us getting married in whatever state will allow it. I know these are dumb things to think about after just having met each other again for the first time. But that’s what’s good about thinking – it doesn’t hurt anyone else so long as you don’t tell them. And so I think away. I think of a life with Chase, and even though I barely know him, I decide that I want to know him. I realize that I am being a bit of a silly romantic, but I also realize that I don’t care.

I feel Chase’s smooth mouth on mine as he kisses it just once. I remember the last time we were in bed together we were being watched by thousands. We decided who would top and who would bottom based on a public online poll. I can’t believe he came home with me again. I can’t believe I told him everything about me. I can’t believe he didn’t care that I told him everything about me.

I feel his hand searching for mine. And I think about Todd and Servando and Shane and Rowan and Jack. Yes, and Brayden too. I think about how lucky I am that somehow all of this blew over, just like Todd said it would. I think about how Todd said it all would. How he was right. I think I am lucky to have a best friend and brother like him. I think that, without him, New York would have beaten the shit out of me and sent me back to the West Coast in a steamer trunk. I think that it’s okay that I needed some help to beat New York. I think that stubborn idiots who go at it alone without leveraging any networks they may already have are morons and deserve to get chewed into gristle by this city. We are not alone. We need all the help we can get. I have all the help I can get, plus more.

Chase and I grab a hold of eachother’s warm hands. And I’m thinking about Mom and Dad and Leo. And how I can’t wait to come back out to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving. I wonder what it will look like and will I suddenly change my mind and want to be home? I think that I won’t want this. I think that, as I thought before, I am a New Yorker now. I’ve earned my medal and now I’m going to stay here. Maybe not forever, but certainly for a while. Maybe I’ll end up on the West Coast again. Maybe Chase will come with me. Maybe he’ll persuade me to live here and we’ll somehow strike it rich and end up in a luxury duplex apartment overlooking Central Park. Or maybe we’ll strike it rich and move to California and get ourselves a mansion out there.

Or maybe Chase and I will end like Graham and I. Maybe I’ll be the one to cheat on him this time, so mentally fucked by my now-gone ex-boyfriend’s former transgressions that I am unable to love or be loved ever again. Chase will find out about my infidelity and our seemingly perfect relationship will go down in flames and sour smoke. I’ll chase after him apologizing for months. He’ll flee the coast and try starting a life in California. He’ll have his own set of adventures.

Chase and I, hands holding, dive into sleep together. And maybe I’m thinking all these things because I’m already asleep. Maybe it doesn’t matter what happens. Maybe that’s the New York adventure after all. You get up, brush your teeth, shower, and shave and get on the subway. From there you have no idea what will happen. Planes may crash into towers and kill thousands. Or maybe you’ll crash into Sarah Jessica Parker on the street and she’ll give you an autograph. Or maybe you’ll start a career in porn, or end up assisting an up-and-coming talent agent and his up-and-coming star. Or maybe you’re mugged on the street three times on three consecutive nights. Or maybe you end up in a backroom orgy. Or maybe you end up grabbing a slice of pizza, a few drinks at a bar, and take a cab home and have a thoroughly uneventful and boring day. Or maybe you end up sharing a cigarette outside of the bar you now work at with a guy you fucked in front of cameras and an audience of thousands and you go home together to your new apartment where there are no cameras and end up not fucking, just spooning and thinking silly marriage-ish things for no good reason whatsoever.

Anything can happen. I guess that both terrifies and excites me.

Now Chase is laughing. Hard. He’s having a hard time breathing, his face crinkling up in the cutest way I’ve seen. “Wow. You look different!”

“Yeah, I sorta retired and left it all behind as fast as I can. That’s the good thing about being in this city, you can change everything in 24 hours.”

“I like you better like this. That chinstrap made you look like a douche bag.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

Our faces are getting closer as we flirt with each other. Our breath that comes out with each word grazing each other’s faces. And then I’m kissing him. His hand is rubbing my naked back, and I put my hand up his shirt to rub his torso.

“I gave you my number then, you never called me back. And then you ignored me that night you guys did that show at eWrecksion.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I guess, all I can say is that I am in a different place now. One where I’d want someone to actually get to know me.”

“That’s awfully bold, Gulliver. The only quality time we’ve shared was in front of thousands of anonymous online viewers.”

“True. But so what? I’ve never followed any rules since I got here, why start now?”

Chase finishes his cigarette and stomps it out. Patti Lupone is belting “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” her voice – which to me was always like a flat vacuum cleaner switched on reverse – blowing out of the open doors to the bar.

“I should get inside before they come out looking for me,” I say.

“I’m afraid to give you my number. What if you never call me again?” He kisses me in between each of these words.

“You have my real name in all of its weird glory. And here,” I pull out my cell phone from my sock. “Put your number in here and I’ll call it right now.”

“So that’s where you guys keep your phones,” he types it in, his fingers flying on the Blackberry keypad. “Second time’s a charm?”

I dial the number, and his phone rings from inside of his pockets. “I’m here until 2AM. Not sure what your schedule is like, but if you want to do breakfast at 2:30, I know a diner a few minutes away.”

“You talk like I don’t dance in this neighborhood on a weekly basis,” he laughs. “And sure, I only have a midterm study session tomorrow. Fuck my perfect attendance.”

“And who is this!?” It’s Servando, in the highest register I’ve ever heard. He and the crew are quickly approaching on the sidewalk. Chase looks up, confused, and backs up into my arms, which wrap around his torso almost instinctively.

“He’s cute, that’s for starters.” It’s Brayden, sounding as close to genuine as he can, I’m sure. And it means the world to me that he’s trying.

“His name is Chase. And I’m glad you guys finally made it out. Rowan, glad you finally found a pair of jeans.”

“Whatever,” he whines, “they’re not the ones I want. But Todd said he’d kick my ass if he had to wait one more minute.”

“I would’ve too, bro,” Todd says, clenching a fist and faking a shot at Rowan.

I make introductions and Chase shakes hands all around. I then walk with the boys back into the wall of showtunes blasting out of the front doors of the bar. I give hugs and kisses all around and jump back behind the bar. Bruce, a bald, muscle-bound man with a scar above his stomach who was working double-time so I could smoke is now drenched in sweat. I tap him on the shoulder, he takes a deep breath, and runs from the bar to suck down his own cigarette.

Refreshed by the nicotine, and excited by Chase, I am a blaze of energy. I’m pouring Long Island Iced Teas. Screwdrivers. Vodka Cranberries. Madrases with Stoli Vanil. Someone orders a 007, and is shocked that I know how to make that. Plus there are plenty of beers – dometics and imported – that I yank out of the cooler and crack open on bottle opener sticking out of the bar.

I am pouring and pouring to showtunes. My boys (now with Chase included) are stationed at the corner where I am pouring. They dangle tips in front of my face and flirt with rich-looking men who walk up to get a drink. As the booze continues pouring, Rowan and Servando are at it and Todd is making eyes with one of my regular fans. I nod and call him over, whispering that the kid is an out of work actor but if he doesn’t mind that, he’s completely and totally available. Todd, of course, doesn’t mind, and he and the boy disappear within the hour.

The night is on fast-forward and through the squeaking noise of showtunes – both on the screens, and then live at midnight, I am sweating and pounding back glasses of water. One by one, my crew leaves.

And then Chase is gone…

After 3 hours of running, pouring, shaking, icing, bottle-opening, money-taking, pretzel bowl-refilling, shouting “what!?” and “where’s your ticket!?”, squatting, evading the bar back, ice well restocking, bottle flipping (a little trick another one of the bartenders taught me, both fun and attention-grabbing) I am able to sneak out to the front of the bar. The October air is cold and the street is gleaming with a recent sheet of fallen rain. I’m trying to brainstorm a Halloween costume that will work for me and the crew this coming weekend. We’re going to hop onto the route and walk all the way up from the Village. I light a cigarette and check my text messages. Between drags I read and erase, read and erase.

Mostly the messages are coming from guys who asked for my number while I was working – and that I gave to. I’ve gone out with a few, played around with a few others, but there’s no one that’s caught me hard enough yet for me to consider stopping my hunt. Also, I wouldn’t say I’m really “looking.” As I told Todd and the boys over brunch last weekend, “I’m not looking, but I’m not really opposed either.”

A few of the other text messages are from Todd and other members of the crew, who will be coming down as soon as Rowan decides what fucking pair of jeans to where (“like it fucking matters? These Broadway bitches will drop his ass the second he admits he has no idea who Judy Garland is!”) And one is from Chris Ryan – another promoter that Todd introduced me to during my triumphant return to the real world. Chris is everything a promoter should be – tight and toned with a boyish face, short brown hair, and just short enough that he doesn’t intimidate you as much as he probably should. Given how large of a promoter he is, it’s shocking that he’s so down to earth. He wants to talk, to have me help him out with promoting a party this weekend. I tell him sure, why not. I won’t be working that night, and Todd has been helping me grow an email and text list. Maybe that’s my next step here in New York City. I’d love to see my name alongside Todd’s and Chris’. Gulliver Leverenz presents: something something something. Clearly the creative party name will come later. Right now, I can just dream about the fame that will come with it.

“Hey, got a light?” I turn around and there’s Chase, the guy I met months ago. That came back with me to the dorm and got on camera without batting an eye. He’s cut his hair since then, it’s severely spiked, threatening to take out an eye if given the opportunity.

I’m not sure if he remembers me. My chinstrap is gone. My eyebrow ring too. And my hear has grown back to its natural, brown state. I light his Menthol and he leans up next to me.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

And then we’re both silent, both with our backs against the cold, slightly wet bricks on the exterior of Splash. Cabs are speeding down the block, the bouncer – Louey – is telling people they can’t smoke in front of the entrance, and could they please move somewhere else?

“You having a good time tonight?” I ask him.

“Thanks to those drinks you’re pouring, for sure.”

I’m laughing. “Oh wow. I’ve been serving you? I’m so sorry, I didn’t even notice…”

“You’re a fucking speed freak back there, it’s totally understandable. Anyway, I’m Chase.”

“Gulliver,” I shake his hand.

“Is that your real name?”

“Yeah. But you met me when I had a different one.”

Chase turns to face me, looks me up and down from sneakers to package to face. “I did?”

I figure, what the hell, I’ll go with it. If he’s not interested in me after I tell him, then that’s the way it will be. “Yeah. I was Marty Brayden. You came home to the Dude Dorm with me.”…

The Musical Mondays party is held at Splash down in Chelsea. The same location as Campus Thursdays and John Blair Fridays, you would not know from stepping inside of this party that it is even the same location. The go-go boy dancing blocks are removed on Mondays, and the dance floor is filled with metal tables and stools. Leather daddies and jockstrap wearing twinks are replaced by out-of-work actors and show queens galore. On the large projection screens surrounding the dance floor, instead of Janet and Kylie and assorted other pop goddesses, you get Chita Rivera, Angela Lansbury, Patti Lupone and Bernadette Peters.

I love Splash because, even though it’s always changing, it always ends up the same if you show up on the right day.

Sure, hookups happen here, but they’re a lot more infrequent. The boys who come to Musical Mondays are coming to sing at the top of their lungs. To show off how they memorized the entire opening number from A Chorus Line. To stand up on one of those metal stools, an invisible (or sometimes, actual) broomstick in one outstretched hand as they belt the dramatic end to “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. The bar is packed at 7 and emptying out by 12:30. You can get trashed on the buy one get one special by 10 at night and still end up in bed before midnight, getting more sleep that night than you will for the rest of the week.

And this is where I work now, as a bartender. They started me out last month down on the basement level – the same space where Todd auditioned go-go boys with Alan Picus on Campus Thursdays. I proved my worth quickly, always pouring perfect shots and earning my own little fan club – people who came to the near-empty basement so they could drink with Gulliver. Plus, Todd and I have been working out since I moved to Harlem, and I’m starting to bulk up. Nothing dramatic, but enough to show off a six pack and a healthy set of cum dumpsters – all which works incredibly well when your work outfit is a pair of briefs. Needless to say, between my following and the way I was looking in my briefs, I am now working on the front floor by the entrance – high traffic, high octane, and high stress.

I owe a thanks, again, to Todd for all of this. After “returning” to New York and his life, Todd was a driven man on fire – committed to getting me a job that could help me pay the rent for my Harlem rental. He took me to his parties where I met every bartender, every promoter. He threw me behind the bar on quiet nights at the bars where he threw parties, and there I learned the trade. I was a natural, having had my own history of working at Starbucks back in high school. Suddenly I was able to make all of the drinks I had been imbibing since arriving in New York City. From there, it was a few phone calls and Todd had gotten me into the basement of Splash on Musical Mondays.

From the basement to the top floor, and from Musical Mondays to bartending four nights a week at Splash. The old crew drops by to say hi (and get free drinks) I am paying them back my apology in drunken nights highlighted by blackouts and a never-ending tidal wave of Long Island Iced Teas. Brayden and I are speaking, but it’s still kind of awkward. Not sure if it’s me, him, or both of us. But we’re trying, and while the conversations may be labored, they have been getting better. For the rest of the guys, however it’s back to where we were before everything happened.

Oh, and I see Joey and Ryan, too. They followed a trail of the “sightings” of me online, cornered me one night when I was still working in the basement (at that point, my head was still buzzed down to stubble). Joey and Ryan leaned against the bar, smiling at me, winked, and asked me if I knew how to make a Marty Brayden. I actually did. They are now regulars, also. Ryan is thinking of retiring, trying to get into bartending as well, and I’m trying to get him and Todd to be in the same place so I can make some networking magic happen. Joey, on the other hand, is going to be working in the dorms until he is too old to be on camera. Then he will no doubt step behind the camera and work alongside Sebastian as they turn the site into a force that tramples all of the best known adult studios in the world.

As I predicted, I haven’t seen nor heard from Graham again. I even asked Mom and Dad if they had seen or heard from him again since the random visit so many (wow. So many) months ago. They had not. Mom and Dad are fine. Leo still has that girlfriend that my Mom thinks is an alcoholic. But, then again, now she probably thinks I’m one too. She wasn’t too hot on me working as a bartender until the wee hours of the morning. But I know that this job is a better one for her to find out about than the one that preceded it…

I leave Graham behind, nodding at the bouncer who pats my chest and lets me in past the line. Voices recognize me, compliment me on the scene from Thursday. I blow them kisses and tell them I’ll see them inside.

The show goes on as planned at 3AM. Sebastian has brought in two beds from the dorm and we go at it – a live sex show that everyone will talk about for the next three years. Those who saw it will swear it was the hottest thing that ever happened in their lifetimes. Those who missed it, and think that New York’s gay nightlife scene was scraped and scrubbed clean by responsible senators and mayors will look at these friends and call them liars. But we know better.

We know that Marty Brayden was on a bed getting plowed, tag team style, by Joey Gambit, Ryan Roberts, and Trevor. We remember the money shots. We remember Todd DiTempto disappeared that night from the club – something no one quite understood, because the boys of NewYorkScrewniversity.com were right up his alley. Some remember Todd telling his friends that he “just couldn’t” see the show, and blaming one too many Marty Braydens from the bar. We remember Michael Porcelain manning the microphone and in such a frenzy that paramedics on-hand were prepared to respond to the classic query “is there a Doctor in the house?” We remember the lights and the music, with a bass that rocked every last person in the house to their very core. We remember the bartenders stepping away from their posts to admire something that, until now, was reserved for fictonal programs like Queer as Folk (in Britain AND America).

And of all of those gay men who remember this gay night of nights – this porn come to glorious life on a stage surrounded by more than 2,000 frothing fans – almost all of them will remember it as the last public appearance of the newcomer Marty Brayden, who took it up the ass from 5 of his dorm mates, his eyes rolling back in his head, always throwing the most perfect of facial angles, and then, when all was said and done, hopped back up from the bed as though he had been napping and not getting furiously fucked by piles of muscles and tattoos, blew kisses to the cheering crowd looking like he had stumbled into a bakery and come back out coated in frosting from head-to-toe, crammed himself back into the NewYorkScrewniversity.com party bus to wherever this magical dorm existed, and then disappeared from the porn scene forever without a single trace.

Weeks later, there were reports among the porn blogs – Fleshbot and QueerClick were on the case like it was the only thing that mattered – that people thought they had seen Mr. Marty Brayden on and around the gay New York City scene. Some saw a guy that looked like him at Pacha. Others could have sworn that he was seen drinking at Campus Thursdays, even hopping up on the bar with some of the go-go boys to dance the night away. But no, the prevailing rumor was that Marty had taken the small fortune he amassed and moved on from New York, maybe to Europe, or Tokyo, or Rome.

Memorials were erected (no pun intended… okay, well maybe intended a little) online to the blue-haired ingénue of NewYorkScrewniversity.com. The famous threeway rose to the top of the most viewed videos in the archive. Emails came in regularly to Sebastian and the others, asking them if Marty was working for other companies, if they could donate any untold amount to get him back, if even just for one single scene. Sebastian responded to all of these emails with a form response: Marty Brayden has retired from adult film work. We will miss his presence at the dorms, but please keep coming back, we promise you his replacement will blow your mind.

The replacement, Billy Rage appeared on September 1st. A smooth, tanned, tattooed boy with dirty brown hair and only one dimple moved in to the dorms, and kicked off his residence with a four-way with Trevor, Joey and Ryan. By September 14th, Marty Brayden was forgotten about, and Billy Rage was, well, all the rage.

Meanwhile, up in Harlem, near 145th street, a boy with an eyebrow ring and a shaved head moved in to a small studio owned by a lesbian Broadway makeup artist on tour with Jersey Boys. She didn’t really know much about him, but she was more than happy to accept his first month, last month, and security, which was paid for in cold hard cash.

His name was Gulliver Leverenz, which made her think of a book by the same name, inspiring her to say, “Well, Gulliver, I’m sure your travels in Harlem will be plenty adventurous. Much more adventurous than boring Los Angeles.”

“I’ve always been down for an adventure,” Gulliver laughed over the phone with her. “PS: love your apartment, it’s gorgeous.”

“Thanks Gulliver, and welcome to New York.”

“Thank you,” he told her, and hung up the phone as he flipped on his laptop and began, once again, looking for jobs.

Three hours later, he pulled out his phone and dialled a number he hadn’t used in what seems like years.

“Yo?”

“Hey bro.”

“Gully! Where have you been?”

Maybe he knew. Maybe he didn’t know. Gully didn’t care.

“Oh, around. Wanna meet for dinner?”

“Definitely. Can I bring the boys? They’ve been missing you like crazy.”

“What about Brayden?”

“Believe it or not, he’s been missing you too. Wants to apologize.”

In the background Gulliver heard, “and tell him I have an iPhone now, and it’s way too expensive to break on a bitch’s face!” Brayden’s laugh is joined by a chorus of other, familiar laughs.

And Gulliver hung up, thinking: nothing is ever over. Nothing is ever done.

He spins around. I am staring my ex-boyfriend Graham in the face.

“Hey Marty,” he smiles. “I’m so glad to meet you.”

My smile is a frown is a grimace is a frozen flat line of fury. Seething. Heat builds up inside of me. My fist is clenched, and is in his face. His arms are up and deflecting the full force of my knuckles. I am spinning around on my heels – almost falling thanks to a puddle of caffeinated vodka – and I am rushing across the room, straight for the door.

“Marty! Wait!” he’s coming after me, holding the blood in his nose.

My NewYorkScrewniversity.com boys are all turning to see what’s happening as I sprint past them. My knuckle is throbbing. My head is filled with fire. My throat is closing. I am out the door and down the stairs, the voices of Joey, Ryan and crew asking me where am I going? They are trying to stop Graham from chasing me but he is wiggling through them, pursuing me.

I don’t make it to the street, he has my arm. He is yelling, “if you do NOT stop and talk to me, I will call your parents and tell them EVERYTHING.” My fury is sky-high. My eyes are made of tears. My ears are ringing and my head is hurting so much I want to throw up. My life, for the third time this summer, is over. But I am stopping. I am no longer running. I am turning around and looking my ex-boyfriend in his gorgeous (and bleeding, man is it bleeding) face for the first time since May when I told him I never wanted to see said face again.

“I hate you,” I spit.

“That’s fine.”

“I’ll meet you outside in five minutes. Meet me around the corner.”

“If you disappear on me again like you did in June, I’ve got you Mom on speed dial.”

“Fuck you,” I throw over my shoulder as I walk back upstairs to tell my boys I’m fine and I’ll be back in twenty minutes. “I’ll be there.”

Outside of the club, around the corner from the line of gays who have fingers crossed that they make it inside before the doors close and they miss the show of the century, I slap my ex-boyfriend across the face. The slap echoes on the empty street – a loud, resonating, reverberating sound that bounces back to my ears. It isn’t enough. I slap him again.

Graham rubs his face, which is now red. His nose is no longer bleeding. There are tears in his eyes. “You get one more of those, Gull. Better make it count.”

I pull back and put every last drop of me in the sweeping arc, my hand cutting through space and displacing matter, bringing kinetic energy to a forceful smash on the side of my ex-boyfriend’s stubbly cheek. He falls backwards. And despite this, I am the one crying.

“You asshole. You fucking psychotic asshole!” I am rubbing my face like I had been slapping myself. “You had to come here! You had to come and FUCK EVERYTHING UP.”

Graham stands back up slowly, cautiously. “Everything looks pretty fucked up from where I’m standing. Jesus, G. What have you done to yourself.”

I am wearing underwear, socks, sneakers and an unzipped hoody – the outfit of choice for go-go boys and gay bartenders on their smoke breaks all around New York City.

“What have I done to myself. I haven’t done ANYTHING.”

Graham pauses and looks at me like there’s a roach crawling on my face. “Is that a tongue ring?”

“Yeah,” I sniff. “So what.”

“Nothing. It looks good. Not sure about the blue hair. And that chinstrap makes you look like such a douchebag.”

“Is this what you wanted Graham? Did you pay over $2,000 to let me know I look like shit?”

“You don’t look like shit. You look good. You look… you look different.”

“I am different.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You don’t know anything!”

“Okay, okay.” His hands are up and his voice getting lower. “I don’t know anything. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you here? Why are YOU HERE?”

“How couldn’t I be?”

“How long have you been here?”

“Two days, I flew out here. I’m staying with Kevin.”

Kevin, one of the many guys Graham and I had slept with together towards the end of our relationship. An average-bodied guy with one of the most beautiful faces you’d ever seen. One of the many frenemies who knew about my ex-boyfriend and Alec, the boy I never knew about.

“I didn’t know he moved here.”

“When he told me he thought he saw you on a porn he saw on xtube, I told him he was full of it. That you would never, ever do porn. That you would never dye your hair blue.”

“Enough about the hair, Graham.”

“Okay, one more. BLUE? Really?”

I’m laughing. And then I’m angry because my asshole ex-boyfriend is making me laugh.

“Gulliver, what the fuck? I thought you were living with Todd. I thought you were working as a talent agent.”

“You’ve been doing your fair share of Facebook stalking.”

“Always a talent of mine. What happened?”

A cab rushes around the corner and speeds past us. I jump at the sudden sound.

“Shit. Shit happened. Point is, I landed on my feet.”

“You landed on your back. Legs in the air.”

I’m zipping up the hoody, which makes no sense since I’ll be shucking it once I get back into the club. “This conversation is done.”

“I. Will. Call. Your. Mom.”

“You wouldn’t DARE.”

“No, YOU wouldn’t dare.”

I stop zipping. He’s right. What would she do? What would Dad do? Would they kick me out of the house forever? Leave me to rot on my own – without a family? Treat me like I’m dead – hit by a car and gone forever? Or would they come to New York City, take me away from here. Back to LA. I’d be under constant watch, my cell phone with a tracking device embedded inside. I’d be Britney Spears without the million dollar recording contract. New York will have won and I’ll pack and go back home – yet another hopeful chewed up and spat out by the skyscrapers.

New York won’t win.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to go back on stage and do whatever it is you’ve planned with the other NewYorkScrewniversity.com guys.”

I’m measuring his face for sarcasm.

“Okay…”

“I want you to go back home, and do your last webcam solo show ever. Tonight you’re retiring.”

“You can’t.”

“I am. I can’t make you forgive me. I can’t get you back. But I also can’t let you do this to yourself. This isn’t you, Gulliver.”

“This IS me!”

Graham’s connects with my face and I am on the ground. Ow. He looks at his own hand like it’s a foreign being – an unwelcome guest that showed up completely unannounced. He shakes it out and shoves it into his pocket, as if to make sure it won’t pop up again.

“Fuck Gulliver. Fuck!” And he’s crying.

I stay on the floor, the city lights twirling above me. Inside, the other boys of NewYorkScrewniversity.com are getting ready for our live sex show. Michael Porcelain is instructing his doormen to not open the doors for anything, and if a plainclothes comes, the correct code to whisper into their walky-talkies.

For all the troubles we had, Graham had never resorted to physical violence with me. Even in the stinking depths of our relationship issues, we took the high, verbal road. Even when I found out about Alec. Even when he found out about all the guys I fucked after I found out about Alec. Even while we were both in Los Angeles, broken up, and he wouldn’t leave me alone – before I ran to New York. Never.

“You’re going to retire. This isn’t you.”

“You did this,” I sneer at him.

“No. I didn’t.”

“NONE of this wouldn’t happen if you didn’t sleep with Alec! We were SO happy! And then you go off and fuck another guy for NINE MONTHS!”

“I’ve beaten myself up enough for this Gulliver. Every day and every night I did. I am done feeling bad about what I did. And take some FUCKING responsibility for your own actions. People break up all the time. Relationships are made and unmade. Not all of them end up doing gay porn.”

“Fuck you, Graham.”

“I can tell you over and over and over again that I’m sorry for what I did. I can tell you that it took what I did to realize how I felt about you and how I felt about us.”

“Bullshit,” I’m standing up and zipping my hoody. I have a show to do. And apparently I have an early retirement to announce. Sebastian is going to be so pissed. I need to go home and check my savings. Count the raw cash I’ve been piling up in my room. I’ve made enough to find a place, I’m sure. But again, I’m back at square one.

“And of course you’d say that. Say what you want. Enjoy your last show. I’ll tell LA you said ‘fuck you.’”

“Right,” I’m turning around now. I’m walking back into the club now. I’m trying to figure out where the hell my life is going from here now. God I can’t keep restarting like this. I just can’t.

“Gulliver,” he calls out to me.

I turn around and look at Graham. He stands under a streetlight which makes him look like a ghost. He is something from my past that is going back into my past. I know that as soon as I retire I won’t see him again. Hear from him again. He’ll go back to Los Angeles and the chapter of Gulliver and Graham will have reached its end – Graham having flown to New York City to save the boyfriend he destroyed from further destroying himself.

“I’ll always love you. You believe that, right?”

“Yeah. I do.”

Graham wipes tears off his face and blows a kiss across the empty space between us. “Good. And good luck.”…

The dance floor is packed and people are too busy dancing to notice me. I go to the bar and order a Marty Brayden. The bartender asks for $12, not realizing I’m the drink’s namesake. I pay with a 20 and don’t wait for the change. I slow my breathing. Did Todd recognize me? Or was he just hitting on me? I realize it doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s so drunk and I look so different that he has no idea. Or maybe he recognized me and, as drama averse as he is, decided not to do anything about it.

“Gulliver!” It’s Sebastian, calling me over to the VIP door.

“Yeah boss?”

“Your number one fan is here.”

“Huh?”

“MartyMan22!”

I had completely fucking forgotten. I look all around me. “Where?”

“Oh, I don’t know. All I know is he gave me $1,500 and asked if he could meet with you after the show. Wouldn’t take the money back, either. I’ll give you your 1k after the show. I figured you’d be up for meeting with him.”

“What does he look like?” my voice is high, riding a wave of panic.

“Oh, he’s CUTE Marty. Very cute. I would offer him a job if we had an extra room in the dorm. You’ll love him. I guarantee it.”

I dig for more description, but Sebastian can’t remember, plus he has to go talk to the DJ – give him the CD he prepared with music for our choreographed show. I’m stuck with merely knowing that my number one is in fact, cute. At least by Sebastian’s standards. Then again, those standards are high. So he’s not a creepy murderer. Or, if he is, he’s a sexy one, like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. And if I’m going to be murdered in cold, psychotic blood, I might as well be hard while it happens.

I can’t even make it up the stairs before my boys rush past me. It’s showtime. We run to a room behind the stage where we do one more shot of caffeinated vodka and fall into a group hug.

Over the speaker, I hear my former roommate’s voice: “Boys, are you having a good time!?”

“NewYorkScrewniversity.com!” Joey yells.

“Get it!” we yell back.

Sebastian hands Joey a microphone and pushes us out, one by one on the stage.

“Put your hands together for the boys of NewYorkScrewniversity.com!” Todd announces, stepping downstage as we come running out. The DJ gives us a thumbs up and starts spinning Sebastian’s CD. The first song is Britney Spears’ “3”. We line up along the front of the stage and we’re dancing – nothing Broadway, just a lot of gyrating. We’re pairing off. Joey, Trevor and I are at the front, a little inside joke for anyone in the crowd who saw our scene earlier in the week.

“Hello New York City!” Joey yells, with Trevor and I dropping to our knees, our legs each wrapped around one of his. We each throw a hand up to his chest, ripping the easy breakaway shirt, and revealing his hairless chest. The crowd is all camera flashes and iPhones urgently recording video. “I’m Joey Gambit, the head of NewYorkScrewniversity.com!”

The audience knows who we are. Sebastian had assured us of this. A lot of them weren’t members, but our torrents are being stolen for free on illegal porn sites all over the net. People in the crowd have made mash-up videos of us and hosted them on every site from xtube to PornoTube to RocketTube. I look out into a dark sea of heads and hands. I can’t make out a single face, but I’m looking for MartyMan22 regardless.

“We want to thank you for coming out tonight. Now, let’s turn the heat up. We want to see you sweat!”

And off we go. Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” is pumped into the room like sleeping gas and we begin our choreographed dance. First we remove the shirts, throwing them into the audience (each has the web address prominently displayed on them, as well as a secret code that, if used, will provide the user a free month-long membership to the site.) We are all six packs and chests. We are sparkling nipple and belly button rings. Next come the pants, which are track-style, lined along each leg with snaps. One hard pull and we’re down to jockstraps, boxer briefs, briefs, and bikini briefs (with the NewYorkScrewniversity.com logo emblazoned on the ass.) The boys are reaching from the dance floor up to the stage. Sebastian encouraged interaction and we get to it. I run to the edge of the stage and sit, my legs hanging over the side. Like piranha on a cow, hands are all over me. I guide some up to my abs, between my legs, I will myself erect and it is so. I am sweat-slick and the hands sip up every droplet of perspiration. A hand finds its way up my underwear and I spin around to my knees, humping the hands that make it up to me. Down the line, all the boys are doing the same. Joey and Ryan are all over each other, licking nipples, rubbing hands up and down, down and up.

Gaga begats Janet begats Cascada begats Blackeyed Peas begats Britney again. We are all rock hard. We are giving peeks at the goods. We are letting the boys touch and grope. We are inviting them to put their hands on what they’ve only fantasized about to this day. And as I do this, I wonder, is MartyMan22 one of those hands? I look down into dark, indecipherable faces for a clue but all I see is desire. He could be any of them, or he could be none of them. We are sex on stage. Ryan plucks Joey out of his underwear and the crowd is insane. They are demanding, begging, pleading please please please put it in your mouth. Ryan shrugs and goes to town. If there’s a plainclothes cop in here, this club will be shut down for good. Michael Porcelain and Todd could care less. The street cred that comes with shutting down a club will have them rich for decades. They can throw a party on a full garbage barge with a transsexual puppeteer performing the songs of Tiny Tim after tonight and sell the tickets out in advance.

And then we are off the stage, with Joey promising we’ll be back for an extra special scene in two hours, and that if anyone has a friend who hasn’t made it there yet, they better hurry, because the doors WILL be closed at 2AM. Then the show will really get good, he swears.

Back in the VIP room, Michael Porcelain is all waving, hooting, and sweating. “Fucking amazing! You boys are insane! I told you Seb! Did I tell you?”

Seb nods, Michael did, apparently, tell him.

Michael rips his ever-present sunglasses off of his face, his eyes are wild with success and filled with dollar signs. “They fucking LOVED you guys! We’re running out of promo cards and coasters!”

This isn’t a problem, because Sebastian has ordered a second round in case this happened, and he sprints out of the room to help the promoters restock all the bars. Michael, ablaze with the evening, rushes back out of the room and to his party of the century, leaving us and the other VIPs to relax between sets. I meet actors, dancers, Broadway guys who are expecting Tony nominations this year. They tell me they’ve never seen my work, but now they need to. I blush and nod and thank them for the compliments – everyone loves modesty. They want to see my tongue ring, they want to lick my eyebrow ring. I let them because it’s all in the name of NewYorkScrewniversity.com.

A hand grabs my elbow and I’m pulled out of the crowd by Joey. “It’s MartyMan22! He’s here!”

“Where!?” I ask, again my head darting in all directions, trying to see through the drunk to make out the face.

“Right there!” I follow his finger to the corner of the room where Todd had been sitting there before. The guy is facing away from me, talking to one of the potential Tony hopefuls. He looks cute through my drunken blur. And I think okay, maybe he’ll want to come home with me. Maybe I’ll get him on camera. I tell Joey I’m going to go say hello, and Joey says “do more than that. He is HOT.”

And I’m walking across the VIP room, ducking between go-go boys stripping out of their first pair of their underwear and into their second pair for the night. I see Chase in mid-change, but don’t say hello to him. MartyMan22 is really into the conversation, talking with his delicate hands. I am right behind him.

“Hey MartyRules22,” I have a sexy grin prepared for his attention…

The black drag queen at the door demands a photo and Michael herds us around her and the flash goes off. Afterwards, she gives us each a wet cheek kiss and goes back to hassling the long line of boys and hags, scanning their IDs and giving out free entry tickets to those lucky enough to know someone.

The club itself is three floors and so many rooms. Dark. Thousands of dollars of moving and stationary lights of all types and colors. We’ll be performing on a theatrical-style stage on the main floor which features a spacious dance floor and a balcony that overlooks it. The NewYorkScrewniversity.com balloons are already on the ceiling, our logo is everywhere.

We follow Michael to a door behind one of the four bars (where each of us has a drink special named after us. The Marty Brayden is Blueberry Stoli and seven up, garnished with a blueberry… I love the attention to detail there) and up a winding staircase that takes us to a small VIP area. Tonight’s sponsor is a caffeinated vodka and there are iced bottles of it all over the place.

“I love this shit! They need to infuse EVERYTHING with caffeine!” Michael yells, swigging straight from a bottle and shaking his head out like he just hopped out of a swimming pool.

Michael has gone all out for this party, “every promoter who’s ANYBODY is working this fucking thing. The invite has gone out on Facebook, MySpace, through texts and emails, word of mouth like you wouldn’t believe. RSVPs are through the roof! We’re going to break the fire code! The cops will come! Even Jesus is going to offer to blow the bouncer to get in here!”

And then I see him on the other side of the room: Todd. Joey notices something is wrong and asks me if I feel okay. I tell him I’m fine, turning away from Todd so he can’t see my face. Don’t notice me, I think. Don’t notice me. And then he’s walking towards me, slowly.

“Fucking Todd!” Michael screams. “Don’t think I don’t know that 95% of this crowd is on your list!”

Todd is trashed. His face is beet red and his eyes are blinking hysterically, his eyelashes like erratic butterfly wings.

“You’re too sweet, bitch.”

“Have you met the boys of NewYorkScrewniversity.com?” Michael gestures at us with a hand like we’re a new car in a showroom.

“I haven’t,” he smiles, leaning forward and almost falling over. “How’s it going guys, I’m Todd DiTempto.”

He’s offering his hand to me. I reach out and shake his hand. “Marty,” I say. “Marty Brayden.”

“You’re cute, bro,” he says, winking, and then continues going down the line, meeting the rest of the boys. After he’s done shaking hands and getting his chest and abs rubbed by three of our crew, Todd returns to the other side of the room where he is putting the moves on a punky looking kid with a Mohawk that could blind you. I feel like I’m going to cry. I excuse myself and run down the stairs, almost falling on the way.

Sebastian shuts the cameras down early, putting up another promo he paid me to design for him (an extra hundred bucks! Sweet!) that says the boys of NewYorkScrewniversity.com will be making a one-time only appearance at eWrecksion, a new social media-powered party in downtown NYC.

Come meet the boys of NewYorkScrewniversity.com!
Join Joey Gambit, Ryan Roberts, Marty Brayden and all of your favorite college studs!

The boys will be taking a study break at Haven this Saturday for their new eWrecksion party, thrown by NY’s own Michael “Porcelain” Puzo.

Come to see sexy striptease shows, and an extra special surprise at 3AM. Get there early! Doors close at 2AM!

Behind the headline I’ve put a photo of all twelve of the dorm boys, Joey Gambit at the front and the other 11 of us slowly fading into the background. Joey’s holding his arms open wide and I’ve put the NewYorkScrewniversity.com logo in such a way that it looks like he’s actually holding it – complete with shadow effects.

Sebastian had been a blaze of activity all day, running to the print shop where he ordered a run of 3,000 glossy promo cards. There are 12 versions, each with a photo of one of us boys. I designed these too. Gulliver Leverenz (er, I mean, Marty Brayden): porn star and graphic designer extraordinaire. On the back of these glossy promos is a code that allows the bearer to get a free three day sample of the site. On top of that he has printed three large banners, our logo and faces popping out of a black background. There are tons of other promotional materials too – coasters, cigarette lighters, tank tops, baseball caps, helium-packed balloons that will float to the ceiling, weighted so that they will hit the ceiling and stay there in such a way that the hundreds of logos will be looking down on the party.

We all pile in to a party bus featuring a stick-on sign advertising the site (why not promote on our way there, too?) Sebastian pops the cork on a bottle of Korbel Brut and we lift our glasses, cheersing a performance that will take New York City by storm. We are blasting Lady Gaga as our driver winds up and down side streets. Joey and Trevor poke their heads out the windows, out of the moon roof, catcalling the cute boys we speed past, telling them to come by The Big Banana for the show of the century. Mother Nature has blessed the performance with a beautiful, starry summer night. No rain to keep the gays away for fear of melting into the gutters.

When we pull up to the club, Michael Porcelain opens the door and immediately escorts us past the line that is wrapped around the block. There are some cheers from the crowd and tons of camera flashes going off. We blow kisses, and kiss and grab each other, putting on a show. Above the entrance to the club is the first of the three banners that Sebastian has printed. There I am, right next to Joey, smiling, my hands on my hips, my pointer fingers drawing attention to the bulge I only photoshopped a tiny bit (a camera puts on ten pounds, but I’m convinced takes off an inch and a half). We walk under ourselves and towards the entrance…

It was a big deal, and Sebastian was all for our excitement. We promoted it on all of our separate chats. I fired up my Adobe Photoshop for the first time since I got to New York City and created a promo graphic, all three of us naked and grouped together with a heading in a font aptly named “Fucker” that said:

For the first time ever, newbies Trevor and Marty get it from Joey Gambit.

And then under that: the Threeway of the century.

Sebastian then took my promo and, after many effusive comments and an offer to pay me extra every week to create similar promos, popped it into his weekly email to the users and sent it off. Our open rates were apparently 400% higher than they had ever been. In a final feat of genius, Sebastian decided to charge an extra four bucks per user who wanted to watch. He had read a recent article on Wired on the success of micro-purchasing online – a model perfected by none other than Apple and iTunes. The price was low enough that it was impossible not to justify the price of a cup of coffee to see three twinks go at it.

We decided to stage the scene in an extra room which Sebastian redecorated and relit, dragging in a giant bed as well as a pool table. There are actually butterflies in my stomach the night of the shoot. Trevor and I both bottom for Joey and then we’re in a chain, me in the middle, Trevor in the front, his red hair fragrant and smelling like floral shampoo. We’re on the pool table, on the bed, on the floor. We each shoot two times. Our widgets tell us after the scene is over that we’ve been watched by 7,000 users – in both the United States, as well as abroad.

But, despite all this excitement, I find myself thinking about MartyMan22. Where did he go? Will he end up showing on Saturday? My wondering is cut short by Sebastian who comes in to tell us that everyone in the house is getting a bonus – with more of the bonus going to his three favorite three-way stars, of course. I consider pitching Sebastian to Inc. magazine. If anyone should be interviewed on how to keep employees ecstatic, it is him. What an interview that would be.

On Friday night, I have a chat with my parents. They’ve gotten a call from Todd. My heart skips and everything feels like it’s coming down around me.

“He’s so sweet, he just called to say he hoped we’re doing well, and that you two are going upstate for the weekend. Why didn’t you tell us that, Gully?”

I smile. A brother to the end. When the call is over and Dad and Mom are off to a fundraiser dinner somewhere in Orange County, I take another postcard out of my desk and write a thank you to Todd. I tell him I’m still doing fine, and that I’ll meet up with him soon, I promise. I tell him I love him. And I give him a PO Box address (which Sebastian had set up for each of the boys in the house) and tell him he can write me back if he wants to.

I am in such a good mood that I do two jerk-off scenes that night, my fans practically foaming at the mouth for the unexpected surprise. All of them are still flying high off the three-way scene from Thursday. Half of them have already downloaded the MP4 video and put it on their iPods and iPhones. When will I be doing another one? I’ll do it when I do it, I tell them. A boy needs a rest after a scene of that sort of caliber.

And then it is Saturday…

“How was it Marty?” “Hot?” “How much do I have to pay for a show??” “Who were you chatting with? Which one of these bitches do I gotta cut??”

MartyMan22 is not on the chat room attendee list. He has signed off for the night. Signed off after paying $700 just to talk to me alone in a chat room. I feel like I’ve been fucked. Directly through my ear to my brain. And hard. And then, when all was said and done, left there, on my bed, wondering how I got there in the first place.

“Leave me a donation of more than $500 and send a request.” I smile and wink.

There are digital groans, a ton of WTFs and a few ☹s that fill up the room.

“Sorry boys, you want a crack at this on your own, and you gotta pony up the bills. A boy’s gotta eat!”

With that I bid my chat fans an adieu and sign out of the chat. In the living room, the boys are gathered around the TV watching a DVRed episode of The Soup. I join them and we laugh and hoot at the ridiculous actions of every television freak ranging from Tyra Banks and that gayish judge from So You Think You Can Dance to Wendy Williams and the latest YouTube sensation – some girl who dances to Single Ladies in a bumble bee costume. 

During the commercials (which we forget to fast-forward through) I tell them about MartyMan22 and what he said and what he didn’t do.

“That’s kind of creepy,” says Trevor, pounding a fistful of popcorn into his mouth. “You didn’t tell him where we live, did you?”

“Of course I didn’t.”

“It’s not really THAT creepy,” says Joey, who’s wearing just a g-string and a tiny yellow tank top. “I’ve had my fair share of creeps. And he MAY actually be 22. And hot. And rich. You’d be surprised by the people who are members of this site – a lot of them are our age. Plus, when we go to events, Seb springs for a limo rental, so it’s not like he can hop in a cab or follow us back.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s a 22-year-old gorgeous millionaire,” Trevor laughs. “If that’s the case, I’ll give you a hundred bucks.”

“And if I lose, I’ll let you top me on camera,” Joey says, grabbing onto Trevor’s dick through his sweat pants and shaking it firmly.

“Deal!”

The rest of the week goes by so, so slowly. Every time I go on my nightly chat, MartyMan22 is nowhere to be found. I ask the other guys in the room if they’ve seen them, and suddenly they are all jealous. I have a crush on one of my fans, they say. They want to find him and kill him. He must be gorgeous if he’s gotten the attention of the one and only Marty Brayden. I assure them this is not the case, and jerk off for them twice in one night, three fingers up my ass and my legs in the air, feet resting on my desk and my chair tilted back to show them my loyalty to each and every one of them. A handful of them swear they are pooling together their resources so they can get me in a private chat. I wish them luck.

On Thursday night, Trevor, Joey and I do our threeway that we had planned two weeks earlier…

MartyBrayden: So what do you want me to do for you? Jerk off? Fuck myself? I just bought a new dildo ☺

MartyMan22: No thanks.

MartyBrayden: Do you want me to get someone else in here? I mean, you did pay all that money.

MartyMan22: No. I just wanted to be able to speak to you without all those other perverts in the chat room. Can I have your phone number?

MartyBrayden: Sorry babe, against house rules.

MartyMan22: Where IS the house, any way?

MartyBrayden: New York City

MartyMan22: But where?

MartyBrayden: I can’t tell you that either, babe.

MartyMan22: For someone who was willing to do anything, there sure is a lot you’re not willing to do.

MartyBrayden: These are the rules.

MartyMan22: Are you getting pissed at me?

MartyBrayden: No.

MartyMan22: What if I wanted to meet up with you?

MartyBrayden: No can do. I can’t even see what you look like.

MartyMan22: Does that matter?

MartyBrayden: I’d say so.

MartyMan22: Well, what if I told you I’m a 22-year-old stud with an 8-pack and more muscles than you could ever imagine?

MartyBrayden: It certainly sounds hot, but I’d need proof to back that statement up ☺

MartyMan22: Okay, and what if I said I was a 500-pound 70-year-old with millions of dollars and a terminal illness and that I’ll write you into my will, no questions asked, in exchange for one final night of passion that will probably kill me with a heart attack, turning you into an immediate billionaire?

MartyBrayden: You’re funny.

MartyMan22: I want to meet you, Marty.

MartyBrayden: Oh yeah? What would you do to me when you do?

MartyMan22: Talk to you.

MartyBrayden: What else?

MartyMan22: That’s it. What’s your real name?

MartyBrayden: Marty!

MartyMan22: Everyone says their porn name is their real name.

MartyBrayden: Yeah, except I’m telling the truth.

MartyMan22: I see. So you’re telling me there’s NO WAY I can ever meet you, ever?

MartyBrayden: Well we do these events… I think we’ll be doing one Saturday actually at Club eWrecksion. Are you in NYC?

MartyMan22: Maybe.

MartyBrayden: NOW who’s not answering the questions? What’s YOUR name by the way?

MartyMan22: Marty Man.

MartyBrayden: Fucking smart ass.

MartyMan22: Haha. Okay. Yes, I live in NYC. You guys are going to be at Club eWrecksion?

MartyBrayden: Yessir! It’s gonna be a blast! Drink specials, me and all the other boys will be in attendance. May do some… sexy shows… after they lock down the doors at 3AM. You gonna come meet us?

MartyMan22: Without a doubt.

MartyBrayden: Hot. Maybe you and I can duck out somewhere…

MartyMan22: Okay, I should get going.

MartyBrayden: You don’t want me to jerk off for you? I’ve been teasing it for an hour and a half… I’m going to shoot at least ten gallons all over. Might hit myself in the face

MartyMan22: I already told you, I just wanted to talk to you. Maybe I’ll see you on Saturday, yeah? Xo.

MartyBrayden: Wait, how will I know if it’s you?

MartyMan22 has signed out of the chat room.

I stare at the screen, my lone cursor blinking weakly. I rush back to my public chat room, where the guys are still there, waiting.