Shuck by Daniel Allen Cox Page A

twenty-three, looking scruffier than he had to. It’s freaking summertime and he was wearing a winter jacket with rips in it, when there are shelters all over the city that give clothes away for free.
    It’s easy to steal disposable razors, so he has no excuse for the two-week beard. And as for his nappy hair, all he has to do is run a restroom faucet—tap water in New York is the cleanest in the world.
    Couldn’t he have hustled a room by now, a mildly compromising living situation, anything? A Prada liquidation center? He’s crouching in a doorway under a pile of torn cardboard when he could be on the beach under the stars, eating hot dogs and clams for free.
    This kid clearly has no skills. Put me back on the street and I’d have all the details worked out within a week, I swear.

    I took a free subway to Broadway and Houston today and had a meeting
with Phil McDougall, lord and emperor of the gay porn magazine world.
    It was intimidating walking down the hallway to his office, through a gauntlet of framed magazine covers all tilted down to make you feel small and unimportant if you weren’t up there among the nudie idols.
    Honcho : The magazine for bears, bear-cubs, and the men who love them. Leather cross-straps, cigars, neck tattoos, and young turks with enough facial hair to ruin their boyish glee. Furry patches moistened with spit, hairy asses spread on pool tables, reluctant manly cherries, five-o’clock shadows, chains, dangling cigarettes, dark mischief, rimming, spit wads all by themselves, muscles, military deviance, revolvers, and pissed-on jock straps.
    It’s actually a less cliché read than it sounds.
    Inches : The magazine for size queens and those who get off on being consumed by envy. Rulers, measuring tapes, yardsticks, fisheye lenses, awe-inducing perspective, heft, swing, low-hangers, miles of shaft, off-the-page, white lies that nobody minds, foreskin fetishes, growers, curves, bulges, packages, centerfolds you want to ride to the moon, big dicks on little twink boys that make them look ridiculous and irresistible, Latino chulos.
    Black Inches : See above, but black.
    Playguy : The magazine for candy twinks and those addicted to their fruit-loop flavors. Bubble butts, twist-on/twist-off smiles, dimples, dorm-room play dates, popsicles, lollipops, sparkles and eye shadow, low-slung belts, hairless cracks, shaved pubes, Photoshop, coyness, fake ID cards, undies, go-go boys, parental consent, frolicking poolside with slender dildos, lip gloss, loose shorts, puppy dog love, necklaces and bracelets, pacifiers.

    I wanted it all. Not because pornstar was my preferred career choice, but because it would pay enough to give me time to write. I was sure that publishers, no matter their stripe, all hung out together. I could use my porn fame to make connections that would get my fiction published. The challenge was to become everyone’s perfect whore without taking myself too seriously.
    Phil walked me over to his Wall of Polaroids.
    â€œDo you know what it takes to become Boy New York?”
    I looked at the thousands of awkward, posing boys and bit my tongue because I was about to answer “ugly.” I didn’t want to spoil my big chance, so I tried to be innocent and cute by saying nothing and giving him nonchalant eyes. He returned to his desk.
    â€œYou have to be magic, pure and simple.”
    I jumped on the desk, swept his Jeff Stryker dildo/paperweight to the floor, and reclined on one elbow.
    â€œYou know I deserve it.”
    â€œNo one deserves anything. A lot of kids come to New York and make that mistake.”
    He had a nice shaved skull and drippy brown eyes that were either expressionless or consistently sad. I couldn’t tell which.
    â€œYou mean if you weren’t queen shit of this magazine empire that you wouldn’t pay seven bucks to see me nude?”
    â€œYou’re being cute,” he said.
    It was time for Plan