Paul finished his impersonation. He sat, shoulders hunched, breathing noisily. He had paid a heavy emotional toll.
“Thank you for trusting us enough to tell us that story,” Matt said to Paul. And he meant it. “We have a tradition here. When an interviewee shares something painful like that, we show our solidarity by removing an article of our clothing.” Matt was already shirtless. He removed both his shoes, set them aside.
The rest of the members peeled off their shirts, careful not to dislodge their masks.
Matt watched Todd remove his dress shirt. The twink with the dark, curly hair. Todd now sat bare-chested, the red necktie draped loosely around his collar bone, hanging limply between his flat nipples, pointing like a flashing red arrow to the garter belt and fishnet stockings.
Todd must have sensed Matt’s scrutiny. He looked over his shoulder at Matt, graced him with a half-smile.
Matt’s cock stirred impatiently. It wanted this interview to end.
Paul studied the eight shirtless guys and smiled for the first time since the interview had started.
“Pirate, it should be your turn now,” Matt said to Evan. “Yield?”
“I yield my question to Stormtrooper,” Evan said.
Matt resumed questioning Paul. “I hate to ask you this. I know the word is offensive. Are you retarded?”
Paul shook his head. “I’ve been diagnosed with mild Asperger’s Syndrome. Bill Gates has Aspergers. So did Alan Turing.”
“Ok. What’s the ‘Dick Diddler’ about?” Matt asked.
“Dad suspected I was gay before I knew it myself. He says queers get off by diddling dicks.”
“I guess that makes everyone in this room a dick diddler,” Matt laughed.
Paul snickered. He was loosening up.
“When did your dad start calling you R2D2?”
“When I was twelve. That was the year I got diagnosed. Same year dad decided I was queer.”
“That was the last time anyone called you by your given name? Six years ago?”
Paul nodded. “Until I came here.”
“Why? Why did your dad go to such extremes with this nickname?”
“He’s Paul Olson, senior. I was his junior. He couldn’t stand the idea that his namesake is a retarded queer. Deleting me was cheaper than hiring a lawyer to legally change my name.”
Harley and Todd audibly gasped. Matt saw Kevin reach a hand under his mask and wipe away tears. William shook his head in disgust.
Matt sighed with relief. His role as inquisitor was over.
Matt wanted to demonstrate his solidarity with Paul, something more than just removing a single article of clothing. Paul had stripped emotionally, baring his soul before the club. The least Matt could do was to strip off his remaining clothes as a sign of support for his friend.
The other members had the same idea. One by one they stood, quietly shedding their clothes, piling them at their feet in silent tribute to the boy who had almost been deleted.
The vote that followed was a mere formality. The members unanimously approved Paul’s candidacy.
Paul finally released the tears he’d refused to shed during the interview.
***
Matt was in the little group of nearly naked guys who had gathered around Paul, introducing themselves, shaking his hand or hugging him. Nearly naked because Todd had retained his red necktie. Jake still wore his blue high tops.
Paul, of course, remained clothed. Barefoot, but otherwise clothed.
Matt smiled. Paul had come a long way in a very short time. Like Matt himself, Paul was growing, evolving. He would always, though, have Asperger’s, would always lag others in recognizing social cues. He had his own unique superpowers others did not.
“No hard feelings?” Matt asked Paul when it was his turn to congratulate him.
Paul weighed his answer. “I still feel angry. I know that’s not fair of me. You did what you had to do—to help me.”
Matt understood. He had ripped away a bandage that concealed an ugly, festering wound. Ripped it away without warning. Such things were always painful in the short-term, regardless how much one intellectualized the fact that the underlying wound would now be able to heal.
Matt leaned in for a hug. He whispered in Paul’s ear. “Look around, dude. You’re the only guy not naked. Take your clothes off. You’re one of us now.”
Paul grinned, started undressing.
Matt moved away. He had a question for Todd. Paul was in good hands.
Todd hovered near the back of the group. Without his fishnet stockings and garter belt, he was the shy, uncertain village virgin he’d seemed at Matt’s interview. Matt found it endearing this time around.
Matt noticed something he had missed when he’d seen Todd naked before. The guy was uncircumcised! His scrotum and groin were as bald as his head was thick with dark, softly curled hair. His dick, with its foreskin drawn tight over the glans, seemed disproportionately small—like the penis on Michaelangelo’s David. It was a short, wormy, Vienna sausage-sized thing that rested atop the scrotum, unable even to dangle over it—a top knot as opposed to a ponytail.
Matt was entranced. An image flashed across his mind: Todd, in his garter belt and fishnet stockings, freed of his black thong underwear, standing. Matt fucking him from behind. Todd’s limp dick bouncing with each hard thrust of Matt’s cock.
Matt’s cock started to harden. There was no hiding it. It would figure out nothing was happening anytime soon—if at all. This setting—ten young, naked, gay guys with a group ethos of mutual dick diddling–was rife with cocks prairie-dogging up for a look-see, getting bored, and settling back down.
“Do you have plans later?” Matt asked Todd.
“You mean if Paul doesn’t select me?” Todd teased.
Matt nodded. His cock nodded, too. “I thought we could get better acquainted, handshake-wise.”
That was the thing about the Gay Mafia: their handshakes were simultaneously commonplace and intimate.
Commonplace in that these exchanges were not dressed up in formalities. Their purpose was not obscured by social conventions. There was no delicate dance as part of some broader mating ritual that led to a change in status, exchanges of promises. It was sex—plain and simple.
But intimate—magically intimate. Absent the mummery of any priest, the commonplace exchange of fluids between two males was transubstantiated into fraternity and brotherhood.
William’s voice rang out. “Okay ladies, gather round and settle down!”
It was time for Paul’s first handshake.
Todd smiled at Matt, stroked his red necktie, and attempted nonchalance. “Let’s see who Paul selects. It could be you. It could be me. But, sure, if we’re both in the reject pile, I could be persuaded to take a private tour of the locker room.”
The locker room? Todd obviously knew about Matt’s rendezvous with William. Todd’s saloon slut getup had nothing to do with fishing for Paul’s attention, everything to do with Matt’s.
“That might be arranged,” Matt said, referencing the locker room. “But there won’t be any Kraken. Just me.”
Todd smiled shyly. “A pillar candle is all I want.” He turned and went to join the others.
Matt found Paul and stood beside him.
William waited for the room to quiet down, then he addressed Paul. “Another tradition of ours is that as a new member you get to pick one of us–anyone but your sponsor, Harley. And you get to specify the sex act you want to perform with that person: handjob, blowjob, topping, or bottoming. It’s our way of welcoming you to the group.”