How Writing Erotic Fiction Led to My Fifteen Minutes of Fame In Porn

Now posing in the nude can be oh-so-artsy or down-and-dirty smutty depending on who’s doing it and for what. My first plunge in exhibitionistic immortality came oddly enough from a fine arts doctoral student who reached out to me a few years ago down here in Fort Lauderdale where I live on the hook-up site, Daddyhunt, to pose nude for his photo project called “Guys in Their Living Space.” The best of the shoot would be displayed, wall mural size, along with those of a dozen other men, at a gallery in Miami’s new Art District as part of his doctoral dissertation.

The shoot took a few hours and Doug, tall, all ass and geeky, was purely professional about the whole thing, doing the shoot with me sprawled naked in my living room. No erections here, more like Michelangelo’s soft-cocked Adam.
The night of Doug’s exhibit, I dragged along one of my buddies who still didn’t believe what I had done. After pondering myself up on a wall, bigger than life, ten feet by six feet, and, well, getting self-aroused, I stepped back and quietly observed the reactions of my admirers, mostly retro-hippy collegiate types, with a sprinkling of older couples and smartly dressed yuppies. Surprisingly, the only other gay men in the room were those up on the wall, all with friends or lovers.

Only one man, an older guy, dressed in a blazer and slacks, actually recognized me as the man in the picture and coming up to me at the refreshment table quipped, “Nice tan, young man.” If he only knew I was probably older than he was.

A few years later, again at an age when most men – straight or gay – would be content to have their remote control for their TV in their lap, I went on the now defunct male escort site “Rentboy” to gain the hustler’s perspective of what it was it was like to be a man-for-hire. After all, I would use the hustler motif in two of my books, “Not in It For the love,” published by Totally Bound Press; and in my latest work, “Buy Guys,” published by Wilde City Press. Believe or not, that one month I was on the site, four men plunked down a hundred and fifty dollars to spend an hour with me.

And so, in a convoluted way, it was desire to experience what I would write about that led to my fifteen minutes of fame in porn. Chris, a producer for San Francisco-based Pantheon Productions that specializes in older men, bear and daddy porn, was canvassing for potential new talent for some planned shooting dates in Lauderdale, saw my RB ad, and e-mailed me, asking if I might be interested.

I only hesitated for two reasons and not that my high school English teacher would ever see the results: would I be able to perform, i.e., keep Mr. Peter up for a four hour shoot, Viagra or no Viagra; and not so much how much I’d make but when I’d get paid.

You see, I had already been hustled by a local porn producer who when asked that question said payment would be forthcoming six to eight weeks after the shoot. Huh? And what if he snookered me? What was my recourse? Complain to the Better Business Bureau of Porn Distributors?

But Chris assured me I would be paid the day I did the shoot and that I could do a “solo” if I liked. I was still a bit gun shy till Chris added it would be just me and him and that he would provide all the arousal material I needed. With that he e-mailed over his pic. He was a youngish, tight bodied, handsome fucker complete with goatee, not some old, fat, leering troll as I imagined most porn directors to be. He apologized for not being hairy to which I replied, “Don’t worry, you’ll do.”

On the day of my junket into the world of virtual sex, I reported to one of the local guesthouses by the beach where Chris had rented a suite. He met me at the door wearing only a pair of cargo shorts and was obviously pleased with my furry, equally shirtless body.

“Yep, you’re definitely daddy material,” he said with a sly smile.

After I signed my life away or I should say my images into residual-free perpetuity, we bantered around a screen name. Randy which I used on rentboy was already taken so we decided on Ray Andrews, my real first name and Andrew my middle name. I asked where Ray Andrews would surface, either Pantheonbears.com or Hotoldermales.com. “Probably both,” he went on, stroking my crotch, “you fit ‘em both real well.” I wondered if guys still bought DVD’s with all the porn on the web, and Chris concurred that that end of the business had transitioned to streaming but there was still money to be made.

All that was left was the shoot.

We started with stills of me in a jockstrap and boots, first sprawled across a chair, my legs lasciviously spread, then posed against the wall. From all angles of course.

“Nice pouch, daddy,” Chris replied as he casually let his shorts drop to the floor in between snaps. He wasn’t wearing underwear.

Then came my own unveiling, and with this boyish 40 year old standing there naked in front of me, every so often pulling on his nice cut cock which was getting hard, I had no problems in the erection department. By the time we moved to the video, he was even coming over to give me an occasional lick or two in the right places. I knew it was all for the camera, but I can’t deny this aging faggot didn’t enjoy it.

It didn’t take much to get me close and I had to actually hold back a bit so Chris got his required ten minutes of footage, zooming in closer and closer, as cum finally cascaded over my dick and the camera lingered there like some photographer for National Geographic shooting a newly erupted volcano.

As I cleaned up, I asked Chris if he wanted me to give him some “relief” but he just gave me a kiss and said he was O.K. Spoken like a true porn coach.

“We usually pay by check but I was able get to the ATM. Cash OK?”

“No problem,” was my understated reply.

We parted cordially, he promised to look me up for a possible dynamic duo next time he was in town, and I didn’t bother to count the bills till I got back to my car. Because ATM’s only spit out twenties, he had actually overpaid me for the session – $260 instead of the $250 he had quoted when we were still in e-negotiations.

I looked at my watch. I had been with Chris for exactly 57 minutes.

The easiest money I ever made in my life.

As a kid, I thought movie stars never grew old and today I still think photography in all its forms is the closest thing we have to immortality. So if I’m lucky enough to live to ninety-seven, I guess there just may be some young boy out there in Cyberland still jerking off over my furry daddy bod, forever perpetualized in time one warm Lauderdale Tuesday afternoon in a room by the beach.

More About My Latest Book, “Buy Guys:” My One Month Career As A “Rentboy”

They say write about what you know, but if I was going to write erotic gay fiction about hustlers, as I did in “Not In It For the Love” and more recently, “Buy Guys,” well, logic would dictate I have to experience being one myself, right? So, at an age when most gay men are content to have the remote to their TV or DVD player in their lap, I plunked down my fifty bucks of Visa dollars and posted a profile on the now defunct rentboy.com.

But honestly, would someone actually pay for me, even if time had been kind, to have sex with them?

A buddy once said to me that he found it pretty pathetic that somebody had to pay for sex. But I heartedly disagree. Sure, sex can be a wonderful exchange between two people, but why can’t it also be a commodity for those willing to buy what they want, just like the newest tech toy or an Abercrombie and Fitch polo? Contrary to the notion that only losers pay for sex, there are plenty of good looking guys out there, busy with high power 24/7 careers or entwined in complicated personal lives, who just choose to take the expedient route. I’ve always been an advocate for making prostitution in this country legal and get over our collective Puritanical hang-ups. Make sure the boys and girls are disease free, and tax ‘em, baby.

“Who’s your daddy?” was my on-screen persona, trying to create a market niche distinct from all the pretty boys, and I openly admitted I was over 40 in my ad (how much over 40 I conveniently left out), but rationalized that tidbit with the tagline, “but you did say you wanted a daddy, didn’t you?”

I low bowed my hourly rate to $150 so I’d have a better chance at scoring, given the stiff competition, and made myself “out only” – their place, not mine. Would-be clients could contact me either via email on the site or my cell phone #, and I used a Tracfone just for that so if or when I had any issue associated with my new career – as in being stalked, like I should have such problems – I could chuck the phone just like a drug dealer.

So what does it take to be a Rentboy, besides, of course, some alluring physical attributes (mine I hoped would be my still boyish looks and a tight compact furry body I worked hard at to maintain) and a lot of moxie?

(a) The ability to do it with just about anyone, and if you’re playing the top like me, you know dicks don’t lie, which I figured wouldn’t be a problem given some of the loser tricks I’ve had over the years. You just put yourself in a fantasy mode, right? I soon learned what kept your libido steaming was the fact the guy wanted you bad enough, he’d pay for you. I later read professional escorts need money in their eyesight even when they’re having recreational sex, like Pavlov’s dog.

(b) A feeling of super-superiority and super self-confidence, even if it’s all pretend.

(c) The absolute resistance to ask the guy what he looks like. Yes, you need to know what he’s looking for, but, again, those big bills on the night stand are what are supposed to arouse you,

not whether he looks like Woody Allen’s older brother.

When a week went by after posting my ad and I got no takers, I was convinced I had pushed the envelope too far, that I was a jerk for even thinking I could pull this off at my age, with all the twenty something, thirty something porn star quality meat that was vying for that same universe of hungry, lonely men. What was I trying to do? Make the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s oldest male hooker?

Ah, but my feelings of dejection were premature. At the beginning of my second week I got a hit, and by the end of the month I had had four guys pay me for sex: a social anthropologist and university professor in town to judge a doctoral dissertation; a vacationing retired dentist from Palm Springs; a farm boy cute, multimillionaire software developer from D.C. in town to close a deal and who wanted me to play “coach.” We spent the last twenty minutes of his hour talking about his mousey wife and two kids.

My last “client” was my greatest challenge, a big guy, as far away from my sexual preference as, well, a woman, but do him I did, thanks to a 100 mg, of Viagra and my determination to pass my male escort final exam.

So what did I learn from my month as a rentboy? That physicality and physical attraction defy and transcend social class, professional standing, race, and most of all, personal pride; and that while money can’t buy you love, it sure as hell can buy you one of the best fucks of your life.

BTW, my brief career as a rentboy led to a gig on a male porn site, hotoldermale.com, but that’s a story for another day.

How I Came Up With The Characters in “Buy Guys”
Available on amazon.com

A preferred locale for the moneyed retired, a vacation mecca for millions, and a prime international gay destination for both partying and living, sunny balmy Fort Lauderdale also attracts many young gay guys from Little Town, Nowhere, with no ambition or credentials, searching for a breezy lifestyle at some other guy’s expense.

So the protagonists of my new novella, “Buy Guys,” Blaze and Pete, two young, handsome drifters with nothing and nothing to lose, who leave dreary New Jersey to lead what they think will be easy lives as male prostitutes in sunny Fort Lauderdale, posting their profile on the fictitious male escort site, Buy Guys, are actually composites of many guys I met or bedded down with over the years. Pretty, often with a chip on their shoulder, but vapid, with no thought of the future, working at nowhere minimum wage jobs in between hustling some lonely gay man for a buck or drugs or both, or just “fucking around.” In fact, most of the sex my two guys experience as dicks for hire is based on experiences l had as a private citizen, shall we say, and as a Rentboy, which l played a month, to research my book. The retired dentist from Palm Springs, the naive Scottish tourist, and the Born Again gay boy who Blaze and Pete have as clients are guys I actually played with.

There are a number of other characters in “Buy Guys,” who play a more pivotal role in my story that are likewise drawn from real life, undiluted.

The Bimbo Boys, the two pall bearers Blaze knows from his funeral home job back in Jersey and who mysteriously reappear when my guys are down in Fort Lauderdale, are modeled after a pair of big, burly, furry partners who I met in Lauderdale while they were on vacation from Chicago. And like the Bimbo Boys, they were heavy fist fucking bottoms.

Then there’s Harry, the maître d’ at La Bella’s, a restaurant/bar on Lauderdale’s gay strip (modelled after an actual place, Tropics) frequented by retired, often wealthy old men and their potential younger paramours. An effeminate version of the rotund comedian, Jackie Gleason, Harry was modeled after Charlie, my old boss at the department store I worked at part time while going to college. It was Charlie who, on my twenty first birthday, took this then naive kid from the burbs to the seedy (now gone) West Village and my first gay bar, the Stonewall, yes, the Stonewall, a year before it was it raided and the whole Gay Revolution was put into motion. I learned that night that Charlie had been a drag queen headliner at clubs in the City and Jersey back in the fifties.

It’s while at La Bella’s one night solo that Pete meets Mitch, the rugged, stocky, furry methhead paramour of Randall, a kingpin in the South Florida funeral home game, who pays Pete a thousand dollars to watch the two of them having sex. Mitch was actually a rugged, stocky, methhead buddy I met and bedded down with in Fort Lauderdale, who, though he held a CPA license, never practiced but instead led a checkered life as a sometime male escort, while cuddled by his wealthy West Palm Beach Jewish parents. A Tina addict/compulsive gambler, Mitch died when he fell asleep at the wheel of the compact car his parents had leased for him coming back from a drugfest weekend in the Keys.

John The Cop, a retired NYC detective now living the Good Life in Key West as a meth dealer and who has a brief but torrid affair with Pete is based on a cop named – yes, named John – who I knew from Pennsylvania’s Poconos where we both owned vacation homes. Tall, blond, handsome, affable John retired to Miami a few years after I left NYC for Fort Lauderdale, and we stayed in touch. Sadly, John died a few years after that when he was thrown off his motorcycle, his favorite mode of transportation, by a van making an illegal U turn, and his beloved bike was thrown up in the air and landed on him.

One of the clients Pete makes is wheelchair-bound Vinnie who is paralyzed in an auto accident in which his partner is killed and who is testing the waters with an impartial party like Pete to see if he can still have sex. Vinnie is a mirror image of a buddy, Danny, I befriended, again in PA, one summer who was paralyzed not due to an accident but the result of a rare spinal infection.

P.S.: Yea, a paralyzed guy can still have sex. Trust me.

I did say my characters are real, didn’t I?

Plotting “Buy Guys”

“Buy Guys” is my latest piece of serious erotic gay fiction, available on amazon.com.

So l got these two handsome gay young guys from Jersey, short, stocky, furry Pete, and tall surfer boy Blaze, with nowhere jobs and nowhere futures who decide to drive down to sunny Fort Lauderdale to play male hustlers to frustrated locals, partying vacationers and wealthy retirees. The title, “Buy Guys,” comes from the name of the fictional escort site they use to advertise their talents, a rip-off of the now defunct Renboy.com. But they soon see their dream of a breezy lifestyle turn into their own private existential nightmare.

Hey, l’m a Jersey boy, born and bred in Bergen County, in the extreme northeast sector of the state, a fart and a few heavy tolls from Manhattan. So it’s only natural l’d use the working class neighborhoods l grew up as locales for some of my fiction. “Buy Guys” begins in Garfield, New Jersey, where my lead characters, renting a flat in a two family house modeled after my grandparents’ where l spent my childhood, decide to try out a new life as paid escorts in the land of the moneyed gay retired, Fort Lauderdale. I’ve used contemporary Fort Lauderdale, my adopted home since 2002, as a setting for a good portion of my fiction as much for its breezy, “Forever Summer” environment as for its “throw caution to the wind” decadent gay lifestyle which offers a writer of erotic fiction endless possibilities.

The storyline, with its series of sexual escapades, was perfect for replicating the style of the book that has probably influenced me the most, Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.” Considered America’s first true novel, it uses a rite of passage and episodic approach that enriches the plot with stories within the story, and explodes the opportunity for introducing new, fresh characters that help change the dimensions of your protagonist.

In my very first draft, l had one of my protagonists, methodical Pete, with a girlfriend who he doesn’t know he got pregnant until the end when he and cocky Blaze return from their adventures down South. But l soon dropped that storyline since l felt it was a distraction from the budding romance l wanted to develop between my two guys.

Now l can already predict your immediate knee jerk reaction to all this: pretty standard fare for male gay erotic fiction, huh?

But ripping off a technique from Alfred Hitchcock, famed movie director of such terror classics as “The Birds” and Psycho,” l came up with what Hitch called a “MacGuffin,” a plot device or hook. So what could have been a ho-hum boring fuckfest turned into a male version of “Thelma and Louise,” with my protagonists, who thought things would be easy, breezy, instead finding themselves running for their lives.

In the beginning when Blaze, who is trying to convince Pete to join him on this adventure, asks “What have we got to lose?” the answer should be “Everything.”

But if l told you more about my “MacGuffin” you wouldn’t buy my book now, would you?

One hint: it revolves around a Jersey funeral home where Blaze works at the beginning of my book as an all-around guy, and who discovers, quite by accident, the home isn’t just in the business of handling corpses. My first time experience with a funeral home was not when a family member died but came when I was twelve helping my mother clean a local home not far from us on Saturday mornings after the grieving families had departed with their loved one for the cemetery. My job was to vacuum up all those damn flower petals in the viewing rooms, and when Mom needed some more Windex or Ajax, I trotted down to the basement to the supply closet which happened to be in the embalming room with all those caskets lining the walls. No wonder to this day I have a somewhat warped view of death.

BTW, most of the sex my two guys experience as dicks for hire is based on experiences l had as a private citizen, shall we say, and as a Rentboy which l played a month to research my book.

Hey, anything for my art, right?