Speed, After All, Is Important

by Jeff Cochran

Kamchan spreads a towel on the bed before we fuck. His apartment is clean, neat and he wants to keep it that way. It's better for business. He wants me to fuck him.

"Oh, Not," he says. "So good, so good."

Kamchan's ass is always filled with some kind of lubricant. When he's on the streets, in the park, at home, always. Speed, after all, is important. I enter easily.

"Oh, Not, so good, so good."

Kamchan speaks little English. His understanding of the dynamics of U.S. money--supply and demand capitalism--is quite adroit. I enter easily. Speed, after all, is important.

Kamchan is twenty. When he was twelve, Kamchan crossed the Chinese border in Laos. He has always been a hustler; played fuck-boy for the aristocracy of Laos first, then Cambodia. When Kamchan was eighteen, Americans, thinking he was a Hmong tribesman, found him a sponsor family in the U.S. From Amarillo, Texas, Kamchan migrated to Seattle.

I ran into Kamchan on the streets in September, 1981. It's the last I've seen of him. He'd run into hard times. His welfare was cut off. He'd been robbed on Seattle's First Avenue, the local meat market. Kamchan, neat, pressed despite misfortune, bore one addition. A long belt carefully tied beyond the buckle, provided protection for the last valuable.

"I go to San Francisco, Not."

"Kamchan, you fuck me."

"Oh, Not, I love you. I love you."

We jay-walked across Howell Street. Red light crossing in Seattle can get you a twenty dollar ticket. I grab Kamchan before he walks into the street.

"It's O.K.," he explains. "I no speak English. I don't know lights."

We laugh. Clutch each other's ass. Walk arm-in-arm to the hostel where Kamchan lives.

"Not, I love you. I love you."

"Harder, Kamchan, Harder."

Kamchan must register guests at the manager's desk of the hostel.

"He knows I play men. He knows I play you." ("Play men" is Kamchan's term for queer sex; hustling.)

"He don't like me. He say nothing." The last statement says, "He can fuck himself."

We climbed over a doper on the bottom step, and four flights up. There are three locks on his door; two work. Kamchan's room is mirrors, white lace curtains, red light bulbs. Service for two is set on a low side bar. A stereo. Low music.

The towel.

"Not, I love you. I love you."

"Harder, Kamchan, Harder."

After sex we talk, about how his ass looked in the mirrors, about the robbery, about the streets, about friends, about lovers, about tricks. He's never asked, so I don't pay him.

Author Biography:

Jeff Cochran  is a jack of all trades-writer, computer software programmer, printer, chef, and all around nice guy.

This story first appeared in the Volume 1, Number 2 (Summer 1982) issue of
Sign of the Times-A Chronicle of Decadence in the Atomic Age

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