One young man kept coming back. Dorian and the young man didn’t stop tricking even as Dorian’s eyes shrunk into his skull. They didn’t stop after Dorian stopped keeping house, food scattered atop furniture not commonly associated with meals. He came back as Dorian’s skin tightened around his bones; the obvious fallout of all those missed meals. The crystal meth, procured to convince his tricks to stay, proved too tempting. 

​

The odd thing, the frightening thing, was that Dorian grew, if not older, at least weathered at a much faster rate than warranted since he stood before the mirror three years ago and took the pic so many men admired. Always the story was the same, told more emphatically with each passing month, when a trick’s face fell in disappointment after Dorian answered the door. It was a trick of the light, Dorian insisted. I took that picture just last month.

​

He turned thirty-eight last summer but once was mistaken for fifty.

​

Corey knocked each time, three soft beats, like a pencil against a desktop. Did Dorian love this boy? This boy who had retained his puckish, beguiling beauty while Dorian’s quickly faded? At least, faded everywhere but upon his Adam4Adam profile. He didn’t think of the question in those terms, but nothing scared him more than silence. The boy indulged Dorian’s desire for foreplay, and he couldn’t say that about any other trick.

​

Dorian’s initial forays with online hook-ups left him devastated. Some men actually liedabout their appearance—a false age, the body pic of a porn stud, sometimes a pic over a decade old. Swallowing his pride and occasionally his bile, he’d stayed with these men, sucked them and teased them, bent them over and pretended each encounter meant everything until climax reduced it to nothing. Part of him, perhaps a naïve part, believed he’d accumulated such glowing sexual karma, the men he lured to his own studio apartment would treat him with kindness,misleading profile pic notwithstanding. At least, he hoped, they’d show him mercy.

​

While Dorian waited for Corey, he clicked on his own Adam4Adam profile and studied theforeground pic, larger than his body shots and cock shot. Unlike the latter shots, this profile pic could be seen by Adam4Adam users on their iPhones. The face, he believed, was the invitation; to what, he didn’t always know, but he avoided men who showed everything but their faces.

​

In the selfie, Dorian’s cobalt blue eyes glimmered like coals deciding whether to ignite. His lips were full, his dimpled chin wide and commanding. His dirty blond hair bucked and curled in an appealing skirmish. His tan, applied to his face despite warnings about spraying near the eyes, lent the photo a nice sense of cohesion, of unity. Not one feature drew desire at the others’ expense, but they all—hair, nose, eyes, lips, chin—executed their tasks in perfect harmony.

​

He’d stood shirtless in his tiny bathroom, the track lighting bright over the mirror, and clicked. The simultaneous leer and faraway gaze took a few tries, but Dorian knew to be patient. The email had promised total satisfaction if he followed instructions. After posting the pic, however, he couldn’t back out. The email explained that such a gift could only be given if the man offered it were truly serious. He often believed something sinister spawned the email, but doubts did him little good. Dorian focused on his future, regardless of its oddly accelerated pace.

​

“Some bitch almost sideswiped me on I-45.” Corey slipped off his sneakers and flopped down on Dorian’s bed. There was no frame; the mattress rested on the floor.

​

“I’m glad you made it.”

​

“I have no doubt you’re glad I made it.”

​

“I’ll load the pipe. You relax.”

​

“I’m good, Dory. But don’t let me stop you.”

​

It disconcerted Dorian, like attending an orgy peopled by men wishing only to talk, when a trick refused his chemical refreshments. Did their jobs test for drugs? Were they one of those self-righteous “straight-edge” kids that lurked online for anonymous sex among men they disdained? Dorian wasn’t sure he could perform without the meth. He certainly couldn’t silence the clank of emptiness awaiting him if he tried.

​

“When we’re done,” Corey said, “I have something to show you.” 

​

“If it’s dirty, show me now.”

​

Loading the pipe, Dorian didn’t register what Corey said. Instead he thought about the bargain he’d made. Logging in these last three years, bartenders and club kids and gym rats all clamored for his attention. Killer smile! Fucking gorgeous! Get over here now, hot stud! 

​

Corey laughed gently. “Don’t shoot before you score, old man.”

​

Those proclamations, the surge of confidence constantly renewing itself, made bearable his humdrum life of serving overpriced Vietnamese cuisine and returning to his studio apartment to watch basic cable. The tricks’ reactions upon discovering his withered appearance were a necessary codicil to the bargain his vanity had deemed irresistible. The online lust of ten men far outweighed the face-to-face disappointment of one.

​

“Finally,” Dorian said, tossing the tiny plaster sleeve of crystals, “the party can commence.”

​

“You hear me?”

​

“What’s that?”

​

“After we’re done, I want to show you something.”

​

Dorian chuckled. “Boy, you better show me now. I told you before…”

​

Corey grimaced, a flash of pain informing his smile. He’d fantasized about asking the young man to move in, perhaps be his houseboy. Wasn’t that what older queers of more considerable means called their conquests? Dorian imagined waking at night, after the jerky, feverish sleep that followed a tweak trip, and finding him lying there like a loyal hound. His dark, longish face and lithe body—all natural, all bestowed by a God that Dorian refused to believe gave a damn. Surging inside Corey while the young man cooed and bucked, he recalled the few times his guest had stayed after the assignation, the pretty little grunts escaping his lips.

​

Then they were done. Lewd compliments led Corey to grin at him from over his shoulder, asking if he’d come hard like last time. At least, that was the motive Dorian assigned his lover.Dorian remembered nothing of the encounter just completed. No doubt, however, he’d convincehimself otherwise in order to soothe himself when the parade of deceived tricks resumed its march toward his door.

​

Dorian heard paper rustle. Corey stood nude, hip thrust forward, eyes wide with impatience. He held a printout of some kind. By the size and layout, Dorian thought, it must be the hard copy of an email. While Dorian frankly envisioned nestling with Corey like mice inside a tenement wall, he couldn’t help fretting that his time ticked away. He wondered how much was left.

​

If I’ve aged five years for every six months over the last three years…

​

Corey smirked. “Amazing how some people abuse their imaginations, huh?”

​

“Who wrote that? Another trick?”

 

“Aw, don’t be jealous.” Corey tapped his chest, after rolling up the message, and remindedDorian that he remained nude. Somehow, Corey had slipped on his jeans and green long-sleeved jersey without his host’s notice. “It’s probably some scam. I’ll have to buy hundred-dollar face cream once a month till I die.”

​

Dorian asked Corey what precisely the email said. Instead of answering, he lazily spun around and drifted toward the bed. The printout uncurled and threatened to flutter away beneath the revolving ceiling fan. These young guys, Dorian thought. They think all you need is a big dick or a tight ass, and you can waste anyone’s time. Don’t they realize we’re dying? Corey grinned and gestured for Dorian to read the printout himself.

​

Before finishing the first line, he knew what the entire message promised.

​

Tonight was remarkable, he read. The moon, Neptune and Venus aligned in such a rare way that you had to pounce. Take the photo one second too soon, or too late, and the image would bear no magic, forgettable like those snapshots parents on Facebook posted of their small children. Display this picture to the world, the email promised, and you will be desired for eternity. Age was the one indignity no gay man escaped. The young twinks at the bar spurnedyou while the men your own age chased those same twinks, their desperation close to crescendo. 

​

One picture, it instructed. Seize your romantic destiny.

​

“It’s a crock of shit, right?” Corey asked. His voice had lost its confidence.

​

His dry eyes red and blinking, Dorian crumpled the paper. “Of course it is,” he said. “If this were legit, every fag in the city would be taking a selfie in…”

​

Corey checked his watch, also reclaimed outside Dorian’s notice. “Four minutes.”

​

“You sure you don’t wanna hit?”

​

“Smoke too much, and I might start believing this voodoo.” 

​

Scooting back on the bed, Corey propped himself up with misshapen, soiled pillows. He looked bored. He didn’t try to hide it. At that moment, Dorian despised him. Corey always bent over without complaint. Maybe, though, he had another trick, up the highway, waiting for histext. Maybe Dorian was no more special than a cage in a zoo. His skin prickled and his breaths grew short. The meth distorted and muffled emotions so ruthlessly, he’d years ago stopped monitoring his feelings.

​

“I don’t think it has to be a selfie,” Corey said.

​

“What’re you talking about?”

​

“Maybe you should shoot me.”

​

Dorian’s tone flattened, his eyes brightened. “Don’t say that, Corey.”

​

“You’ve done it before. My whole sexual oeuvre is on your laptop.”

​

Dorian paced. How could he explain the email was more than the work of a sociopathic cyberpunk? The half-eaten pastrami sandwich discarded on a stereo speaker had turned. Three half-finished Coke cans balanced precariously upon an end table. Dorian struggled to reveal the truth without telling the truth.

​

Corey climbed across the bed, arching back and ravenous eyes tempting Dorian. His guestoffered a trade: if Dorian took the pic for his profile like the email instructed, then Corey would suck him off. His host could take as many pics as he liked of the act. On hands and knees upon the corner of the bed, Corey gazed up at Dorian.

​

The goddamn certainty enraged Dorian. No matter what happened tonight, tomorrow would come and Corey would still be desired, able to charm any man. 

​

A small mirror in a beaten brass frame hung over his laptop. Knowing he’d despise what he saw, knowing the only way to stay sane was to pretend the online selfie spared him the humiliation of growing old, of younger men witnessing him age. Dorian gasped as loneliness engulfed him. He missed every man he’d ever fucked, from a neighbor boy at age fourteen to Corey ten minutes ago. Frowning, he created even more lines in his face and thought how easy life must be for the blind. He’d have to trash that mirror. Trash all the mirrors.

​

Corey bounced on the bed like a toddler. “It’s almost time, Dorian! I wanna do it!”

​

Looking away from the glass, Dorian spoke plainly. “Take off your clothes.”

​

Dorian asked Corey to stroke his erect cock then curl up on his back, exposing his asshole.. Without pornography, no gay man would know what’s sexy. The mini-shoot commenced. Corey implored his host to photograph him sucking cock, but Dorian said it didn’t matter anymore. The aspect among those three planets had passed, and the universe once again was connected by nothing more than hope and heartbreak.

​

Walking Corey to the door consisted of less than five steps. Dorian promised to email him the “best” shots. Corey clung to the doorway as if drunk, his wide grin piercing Dorian’s heart. What had he done? He could’ve still warned Corey not to post the pictures—the bargain required each man to make his image public. Corey would’ve dismissed him, maybe never to return. Dorianslid his arms around the boy and kissed his forehead.

​

“You ever think about fucking me sober?” Corey asked.

​

“If I were sober, I wouldn’t call it fucking.”

​

The door clicked softly behind Corey, his footsteps fading. Hopping back on Adam4Adamright away seemed rude, exposing a lack of gratitude. Ten seconds passed before Dorian felt compelled to click on his profile. A blinking graphic in the upper corner of the screen denoted new messages. So much more exciting than sex, he thought. He knew the other men regularly online agreed—but only behind the protection of locked doors and intricate passwords. Still, they were junkies for any bawdy compliment tossed their way.

​

When would Corey realize what eternal online youth had cost him? Would he confide in Dorian? The older man might be so ruined by then, a recluse surrounded by take-out containers and burned porn DVDs, even Corey would reject him.

​

He’d learn when he saw his reflection—Dorian was sure of that. It was why he’d taken those pictures, why he’d condemned to despair the only trick who treated him like a person. One day, he knew, Corey would be too decrepit to find dick, and he’d knock. They’d embrace and bemoan the injustice of growing old, swap stories of hot studs in cyberspace fooled by their forever-young profile pics. Just for grins, Dorian would answer Corey’s messages while Corey posed as Dorian. He’d ask Corey to move in, and the young man would say yes. After all, hadn’t the email promised Dorian he’d be desired forever?