Stuart Armstrong | Lay-by / 2024

wrong hook-up

by Douglas Messerli

 

Stuart Armstrong (screenwriter and director) Lay-by / 2024 [6 minutes]

 

Everything goes wrong for the closeted gay man Barry (David Kirkbride), who for the first time other than an occasional sauna meet-up, arranges to have auto sex with a young man in a car.

      With a wife at home and trembling desire, Barry enters the hatchback car to find the rather cute man sitting on the other seat, Rizla (George Usher). But before he can even adjust he eyes, Rizla demands money.

      Completely unprepared for a rent-boy pickup, Barry is ready to leave but as he prepares to leave decides to “go for it,” coughing up what cash he has on hand. It’s not much but enough apparently for Rizla to dig into his pants, appearing to ready his cock for a blow-job.

     But Barry isn’t at all ready for the sudden pleasure, evidently having never before given a blow-job, and wondering if Rizla also takes it, the young man, rather puzzled by his comments, stating that, no, he “dishes it out.”

      Barry claims he’s versatile—and this he thinks he is. Rizla interrupts his nervous plaints to simply ask, “Look mate, you want it or not?”

      The married man admits that he’s never done it in a car before, Rizla wondering where he usually goes.

    Our friend admits he’s been to the sauna a few times, which truly surprises Rizla, who claims: “Well I’ve got the best goods in town. No need to go to anyone else when you want the white stuff from now on, yah?”

      Barry is ready to go along with the situation, but this time when the boy reaches into his pants, he brings out a small bag of what looks to be cocaine, truly startling Barry, who responds: “I’m guessing you’re not twinkfucker04?”

      The minute Barry exits the auto, Rizla races off.”

      But suddenly at close range is another car with a young twink (Mac Benson) sitting at the wheel. The new desperate Barry begins to move toward it, recognizing that, in fact, this was the young man with who he was scheduled to meet with. At that very moment, however, Rizla’s customer (Mike Roper) appears out of nowhere and enters the car—clearly to be just as surprised and perhaps puzzled by the sexual encounter he is expected to provide.

      Barry hurries off, clearly disappointed in the experience of trying to allay his hidden gay needs. 

      While British director Stuart Armstrong’s black-and-white short clearly is not very innovative in its cinematic style or content, it is fairly witty with the twist of its plot.

  

Los Angeles, June 28, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 28, 2025).