Cool folks, we have a short story in Best Gay Erotica of the Year (IV) which is out now, published by Cleis Press, the notorious imprint.
As the title suggests, the stories are extremely adult, including Michael's, so it's not so easy to find a short passage that rhymes with the PG-rated content of this blog. Okay, here...
Jamie and Dex, the notorious couple, find themselves rooming in the Savoy Palace Hotel of Florence, where the former, an unassuming math genius, takes private lessons with the mysterious Professore Pellegrini. They've run out of money, and a convenient sexual arrangement between Dex and Luigi, the hotel manager, is upended by Savoy's new, all-knowing booking system. Dex starts a career as rent boy, and is remunerated with a very sizable check from his very first customer--a veritable billionaire--for having public sex in the Uffizi, the museum...Dex narrating:
So, I hurry home—if you have to call a hotel you home, sadly—eager to settle the Savoy Palace bill once and for all. Luigi, the reception manager, is still on duty. I hand him the check. He raises his brows. “Giovanni di Cristallo,” he reads up. “A mineral water. Let’s see.” His eyes travel to a small, yet articulate toy robot that sits on the reception desk and doubles as digital reader of Savoy’s all-knowing reservation system. Luigi presents the check to the reader.
“Ah ah ah,” the robot snickers. “Ah, ah, ah. Giovanni di Cristallo. Risanto. Another mineral water.”
“I knew it,” Luigi exclaims, trying not to snicker himself.
“What is it,” I ask. “Anything wrong with the check?”
“Cristallo…well, the name is new,” he answers, “but it gives him away. He used to call himself Fabia, or Grazia, or Pellegrini…He sports a distinctive Roman nose, è vero?”
“Yes.”
“Still quite young? Fuckable, save for the nose? Dressed like a billionaire in Bond-Street fashion?”
“Yes.”
“He’s an impostor, a poseur. But he’s more when he rises to the occasion. He becomes a true make-belief artist, someone in the tradition of Houdini, Ponzi, and Donaldo Trump. Believe me.”
“He makes his money as an impostor?”
“The old-fashioned way. He spent three months in our hotel not paying a cent—room and board and Martinis and cum and everything—well, you know how it is. I still remember his nose on my underbelly. I’m a bit ticklish. Meravigliosa. That was before we got the new reservation system.”
“Well,” I say, “he didn’t make any money from me.”
“What did he do, then?”
"Artful intercourse is all the rage"
I tell him the Uffici story.
“Mmmh,” he says, tapping his fingers on the reception counter. “A new beesiness model. Wouldn’t have worked fifteen years ago, when people still frowned upon smuttiness and raunch. But these days? Grab them by the pussy. The Volpe network, you say? Never heard of it. But there’s the deeep internet where he can vend his wares. Under the Annunciation! Artful intercourse is all the rage. A brilliant idea. A brilliant guy, I told you.” He grips my arm and rolls his eyes the way Italian hotel managers roll their eyes. “If I were you I would be careful, though. Giovanni has a dark side. You may have had a chance to observe his anatomical peculiarity during you leetle get-together under the Annunciation?”
“You mean that nose?” I ask disingenuously.
“You know what I mean,” Luigi replies. “A problem not uncommon in Florence. With all those renaissance willies around us, many a young man develops a penis complex so profound that he becomes unable to unfold his virilia into distinctive proportions. You understand?”
“Yes. No.”
“But Giovanni,” Luigi continues, “has turned his complex into a twisted, nay perverted advantage. He poses as sexologist on the internet, promising healing to youngsters with erotic or other relational problems. If he finds a taker, he invites the lad to Florence and fills him up with talk as to how true satisfaction is best achieved with very smallish organs. You understand?”
