Sugar Daddy for the New Year

"I want you to meet Clifford Close, Franklin. He's seen you from across the room and wanted to know who you were. You know who Clifford Close is, don't you?"

Who didn't know who Clifford Close was? The thriller action movie star from two decades previously. More a dramatic actor now. A line of award nominations. Still a hunk. Gray now, but as imposing as ever. Still muscular, tall and straight. Great smile, flashing white teeth. Gray eyes. Piercing eyes, taking everything in, undressing Frankie with an assessing look. Holding out a champagne flute, having one in each hand. Frankie had had no idea the man was gay, but he obviously was from the way he was looking at Frankie.

"I seem to have two champagnes. Would you be so kind as to relieve me of one?"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Close."

"Call me Cliff. I sense we're going to be good friends. Richard tells me you are a promising young playwright. From New York. He's representing you on a play he says can easily be made into a blockbuster movie."

"Clifford's interested in your play, Franklin, especially if it's adaptable into a movie. He knows a lot of people. He's a very good person to know. Ah, there's Sarah. I need to talk to her. Why don't the two of you get better acquainted?" Then, as Janney turned to move away, he leaned into the veteran actor and said, "As I told you, he does. I'm sure he will. A sweet, tight channel despite quite a bit of experience." He said it loud enough for Frankie to hear and his eyes were on Frankie, signaling, not on Close.

Acting embarrassed, Close looked at Frankie, giving him a wan smile, one that always worked so well on movie audiences, and said, "You heard that, didn't you?"

"Yes," Frankie answered.

"And you're still standing here."

"Yes." Frankie had been in Hollywood long enough to know the score here.

"I have a room upstairs in this hotel."

So much for slow seductions. The characterization of Frankie hadn't been as embarrassing to Close as his performance indicated. Frankie sensed that he and Janney had worked this all out beforehand.

"Yes, fine."

* * * *

Frankie winced as the bulb pressed in, opening his hole up and resting there. The beefy arm, muscular, covered in gray curling hair, draped over his side, pulled Frankie closer into the man's chest. The assault on the young man's nipple by the hand on the end of the arm intensified. Frankie moaned.

"You like that?"

"Yes," Frankie murmured. He didn't mind it. He kept telling himself this was a film star.

"You're a sweet lay."

"Thanks." He gasped as the shaft of the cock thrust inside, moving up toward his soft core. It penetrated with ease. It had been there before. He ran his left arm along the one embracing him, putting his hand on top of Clifford's, and turned his face for his lips to meet those of the movie star. He moaned as, buried deep, the cock began to move inside him.

They came out of the kiss. "You're awake," Close whispered.

"Yes," Frankie answered. Had the actor moved back a page in the script? Had he run out of small talk and needed to recycle?

Close rolled over on top of Frankie, moving the younger man on his belly, stretching out on top of him full length, flesh pressing flesh, cock moving deeper. The move star put more movement into his hips, holding Frankie close elsewhere, though, only the man's hips moving, taking longer, deeper strokes. His embrace was tighter, holding Frankie closer, more possessively. The shaft was thrusting more vigorously, faster, attaining regular rhythm, establishing ownership, command.

"Shit. Fuck," Frankie whimpered.

"Good, good. Take it. So sweet." Thrust, thrust, thrust.

The man could fuck.

Frankie groaned, stretching his arms out, clawing at the bunched-up sheets to hold himself in place. His cheek was pressed to the sheets, his eyes taking in the room. A cart with an ice bucket and two glasses, a tray with still-artfully arranged small sandwiches, a bottle of champagne in the ice bucket, still corked. Clothing items strewn from the door of the room to the bed.

Thrusting, thrusting, thrusting.

"Oh, shit! Oh, fuck! Yes! Get it. Getitgetitgetit! Oh, FUCK!"

"God DAMN. Gonna Blow!"

And then he did. Close hadn't been wearing a condom. He was an active top from before the eighties. He'd take his chances—and expected Frankie to as well. Frankie moaned at the sensation of the cum being released to lubricate his passage.

Frankie collapsed in exhaustion. He watched the man roll off the bed and trot off to the bathroom. He looked older, heavier than the previous night. He was nearly bald. He hadn't been bald at the New Year's Eve party downstairs at the Beverly Wilshire. Frankie could see now that the toupee was on the nightstand.

The man could fuck, though. But even there, Frankie could see the man in the bathroom. He'd left the door open. He wasn't hung. Not anywhere close. But he'd known how to fuck. He'd obviously been topping young men for decades. He made the best use of what he had. And he probably still had young men like Frankie whenever he wanted.

When he was alone, Frankie reviewed the last couple of days in Los Angeles. Janney had been pleased. He'd mentioned Frankie staying out here and living with him. Still a sugar daddy possibility even though the man remained a cruel lover, and Frankie felt a bit like a battered housewife. But he'd pimped Frankie too. Clifford Close wasn't the first one. Janney had said it was all to advance Frankie's contract possibilities, but Frankie knew it had promoted Janney's network and favor standing as well.

Clifford Close a possible as a sugar daddy? Maybe.

That was scotched when Frankie went down to brunch, though. Close was there, with two young women at his table. He didn't even acknowledge him when Frankie walked by to where Janney was sitting, waiting for him. There was another man with Janney. Obviously a business man who spent more time at his desk than on the golf links.

Frankie had only a brief moment to think further upon Clifford Close before moving on to the next. He felt a bit sorry for the young women looking so worshipful at Close at the brunch table. Would he get one or more of them—or possibly both of the starry-eyed wishful thinkers at the same time—in his hotel room as easily as he had Frankie? Would he be able to keep his toupee on while trying to fuck them both? Would the stars in their eyes prevent an honest assessment of the old man as those in Frankie's eyes had? Well, he couldn't blame anyone but himself for that. More power to Close to take advantage of his past for as long as he could. Frankie was learning the ways of Hollywood, though, and, as Janney had told him in the Greenwich Village hotel, his looks were his fortune, if he played his cards right. They might also get him a career as a playwright.

"Frankie, there you are. I want you to meet Harold Peters. He's a movie producer. We were just talking about your screenplay. He's interested. Come, sit, talk to us. Talk with Harold."

"It's not a screenplay yet; I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will be," Frankie muttered, not loud enough for the other two to hear, as he slid into the booth next to Peters, whose hand immediately went to Frankie's knee under the table. Janney was giving Frankie a pointed "take care here" look. Frankie got the message. They were moving up the chain in those who could get Frankie's play sold.

"Richard's just been telling me about you," the movie producer said, nearly leering at Frankie.

"I'll bet he has," Frankie said, although his smile belied the tone of what he said. I'll bet you have a hotel room here at the Beverly Wilshire too, he thought.

The man did. The man wasn't even the least bit embarrassed by how quickly and openly the arrangements were made.

Peters was on his back on the bed—thankfully, Frankie had thought. If the man was doing him in a missionary, he'd have been crushed by blubber. Frankie was on top of him, facing up, looking at the ceiling. Frankie's legs were bent, his feet pressed to the knees of the man's spread legs. Peters was big, much bigger in equipment than Close had been. He was gripping Frankie's hips, raising and lowering Frankie's buttocks on his buried cock. Frankie didn't have to feign a moan.

"Yes, Daddy, you're so big. So masterful. Screw the hell out of me!"

Peters proceeded to do just that.

Frankie's cellphone was ringing. He'd forgotten to turn it off. He reached over and turned it off now, checking on who had called. Josh Schwartz. Frankie hadn't talked to him since he'd left New York. He'd call back when this finished—unless Richard Janney had someone else on the string who Frankie simply had to meet.

"I want you on all fours now."

"Oh, yes, Daddy. Ride me. Ride me hard."

Peters mounted his ass and rode him hard.

Was this someone Frankie could stomach adding "sugar" in front of the "daddy"? He was a whale, but could he deliver?

* * * *

Try as he might, because of the New Year's celebrations, Frankie wasn't able to get a flight back from L.A. to New York City until January 2nd. When he got there, he went straight to the funeral home.

"I've come about Herman Kahn," he said when he got there. "I'm told he died last week. I've seen the obituary but not anything about the arrangements."

"Herman Kahn?" the man at reception, a tall, gaunt, morose looking man with a sad expression on his face, all probably a requirement for someone working in his position, said, as he looked through a book file. "Ah, yes. Are you a relative?"

"No," Frankie answered. "We were just good friends and I did some work for his company. My name is Frankie—Franklin Rainey."

"Ah, yes, your name is here for contact."

"It is?"

"Yes, you should contact his lawyers. They provided the name. They said they were trying to find you." The funeral director wrote the name of the lawyers' firm and the address on a card and handed it to Frankie. "There are no arrangements yet, though. The estate is tied up and we've needed for someone to start the process."

"Start the process?"

"A deposit at least. The lawyers weren't able to release any money yet. They said they needed signatures from the beneficiary first. So, I'm afraid—"

"I could give you $5,000 on deposit. Would that be sufficient?" It was the money Herman had given him at Christmas. Frankie had never thought of it as his money. He didn't think he deserved it. He hadn't even known Herman was that sick. He should have known, though, because the man had been so melancholy when they'd last been together. Frankie should, he thought, have caught on that there was something wrong—that there was some reason Herman wanted to give him that much money. He should have called the next day.

"Yes, that would get everything started nicely," the man said. "We understand he was Jewish. We'll know who to contact to arrange the services. Would you like to pick out a coffin today?"

"A coffin? Me?"

"Yes. The lawyers said Mr. Kahn listed you as his designee. Normally, being Jewish, he would have been buried before now, but there was so much that had to be pinned down first and no one available to make arrangements. It's good you're here now."

Frankie was to find that Herman Kahn had listed him as his beneficiary too. He hadn't considered that was a possibility at all. When he contacted the lawyers and went in to discuss the matters with them, he found that Kahn, having no living relatives and listing Frankie as his sole heir, had left everything to him—the fashion house business; most significantly the building it was in, free and clear; and nearly two million dollars in other assets.

As he was leaving the lawyers' offices, in a half daze, Frankie received another cellphone call.

"Good news, Franklin?"

"Uh, is that you, Mr. Janney?"

"At your service and working hard for you, my boy. Bottom line. I sold your play to Paramount, through that producer, Harold Peters. I told you the priming the pump paid off in this business. You'll get $30,000 in advance and percentage when profits start pouring in—that is if you agree. You can get that right away, if you'll give me a lawyer's address where the paperwork can be sent."

"Yeah, sure, that sounds good," Frankie said, still in shock from his first meeting with the lawyers. They said they'd represent him in Kahn's estate and maybe they'd handle this as well. He gave Janney the address and turned to go back to the lawyers' office.

"Come back out to the coast as soon as you can, good looking," Janney said. "In fact, move back here. You can move in with me. I'll take good care of you. You can write full time."

A sugar daddy. Richard Janney was offering himself as Frankie's sugar daddy. It was what Frankie had been looking for, and Janney certainly appeared to be filthy rich. There was every reason to believe that Janney would be his pimp as well as his sugar daddy, though.

"Let me think on it, Mr. Janney—Richard. I can't make a decision at the moment. A friend has died and I have to help with the arrangements."

"Not a close friend, I hope."

"Closer than I realized," Frankie answered. Closer than I deserved, he thought. But he didn't say so. He hadn't been giving enough thought to those close to him, he realized.

* * * *

On his back. Just a straightforward missionary. But the top was young, virile, flexible, a lover. It had been too long. The top was grasping Frankie's knees and rowing them back and forth, in rhythm with the stroking of the cock. The shaft found all of the sensitive spots as Frankie's passage wall muscles grabbed at it, caressed it, undulated over it, Frankie gasped and whispered, "Yes, yes, yes, screw me hard." The shaft plunged deep, invading the soft, spongy inner core and slayed Frankie there—murdered him, conquered and vanquished him—and flooded him with the peace of a perfect breeding.

Both of them came out of the near-mutual orgasm panting and moaning. They stretched out against each other in the bed in Josh Schwartz's private bedroom above the Get Lucky bar in Chelsea. Having discovered he melted to it, Frankie moved one of Josh's hands to his chest and Josh played with the nipple there. Frankie moaned his pleasure.

"I've missed you," Josh whispered.

"I think I could tell," Frankie murmured. And then, after short pause, "I missed you too. That was . . . incredible."

"Even after all those rich men and celebrities you've been telling me about in Hollywood?"

"I won't change what I said. This was incredible."

"Is that what was so urgent that you had to see me today—that you needed your Josh fix?"

"It's the sixth of January—Epiphany."

"So, it is. This is about your New Year's resolutions? That you found a sugar daddy and sold your play script by Epiphany? You came to gloat? Does becoming newly rich mean you are cutting off your studies—the dance and the creative writing degrees? Are you moving to Key West or someplace where you can live the decadent lifestyle of the rich?"

"No, I'm staying right here. I'll finish my studies. It's best to have credentials in careers I want to pursue. I'll see if I can make a go of the men's fashion house too. And I didn't come here today to gloat. I realized that you didn't tell me that day what your New Year's resolution was. I want to know. Did you want to find a sugar daddy this year too, someone to support you through your studies and put you on the road?"

"It was rather more specific than that, and I wasn't thinking of sugar daddies at the time. I was thinking of you."

"Of me?"

"Yes. My resolution was that you move in here with me and we try to make a go of this together. But I realized that your dreams were far beyond that, so I didn't say anything."

"My dreams aren't far beyond the bottom line of yours, Josh. I dreamed of getting a sugar daddy, but so that I could continue with you. If you'd asked me that day to move in with you, I'd have happily said yes. Now, though, I'm in a position to be a sugar daddy myself. I came here today to ask you to move in with me—in the apartment above the Royal Menswear fashion house and to let me help you finish your studies, along with me, and realize your professional ambitions. Would you consider that?"

"Would I have to remain in the apartment, barefoot, and have your supper ready for you when you came home from the office?"

"You could do anything you want."

"You're not going back out to Hollywood?"

"Not permanently, no. I'm staying right here, with you—if you'll have me. How long do you need to think about that prospect?"

"I decided on that long ago, long before we made New Year's resolutions . . . Daddy."