by Damon Suede
“One.”
3
SOMETIMES an artistic career felt like climbing a glass mountain wearing nothing but bacon fat.
Trip had waited for Cliff’s decision on his new comic pitch for three months. After four-plus years of Hero High, he’d worked up a whole “College” concept that built on the company’s brand with grittier topics and grown-up issues. Nothing explicit, because Big Dog had to stay family-friendly, but Campus Champions would at least let him get the characters beyond second base with impunity… and save his sanity besides.
The “Super Graduation Day!” tweet from his editor had forced him into the office. Cliff had finally decided, and Trip was eager to get to work. He could hand off the Mighty Mites to one of the foreign pencillers, like Dee or Francú, and go work up a whole new cast of capes. The past year and a half had almost broken his spirit, but his patience had paid off. Trip also had an ulterior motive for schlepping uptown on January 10 in the freezing cold. He’d finally figured out what he wanted to say to Silas and worked up the nerve to do it—if he could track him down.
After Trip ditched the Gotham bash, he’d done his web digging in just under twenty minutes. Silvercup kept its general schedule posted online. Only one cop show shot in Queens: Undercover Lovers. And the producer had offices in Tribeca, which meant some intern doing television triage in a cubicle below Canal Street had Silas on speed dial. Easy-squeezy.
Trip’s best shot at getting a real response from a TV crew was to make it sound like money was involved. Comic books commanded a special reverence from media suits, so his idiotic plan was to have the Big Dog receptionist place a call on his behalf, claim it involved makeup work related to Hero High, and leave his number. The ball would land on Silas, who would either call or blow him off. Even if it was a stupid waste of time, no one could say Trip hadn’t taken a shot.
As long as I take the shot.
He’d try, it would fail, and life could go on as previously scheduled. Maybe he’d have a new comic to draw and Cliff would be so dazzled that he’d finally take the hint and ask Trip out.
Trip popped a Benadryl and took the C train uptown to Big Dog’s cramped midtown offices on West Forty-Seventh Street, just off Ninth Avenue. They had three rooms that faced the back of a dingy pre-war apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen filled with computer repair services, electronic wholesalers, and passport expediters. The mildew in this place would fuck up the Toxic Avenger. To prepare himself, Trip took another pill on the stoop and fought the urge to scratch his arms raw inside the chilly foyer.
The elevator literally squeaked as it huffed and puffed its way to the fifth floor. The tiny hallway T-boned toward a children’s talent agency only open on random afternoons or back in the direction of Big Dog’s bright red door.
Trip pressed the bell and got buzzed in pronto.
Kimmie, the latest Big Dog receptionist/intern, was on the phone, so he waved hello and sat in one of the battered office chairs. She smiled as she held up one elaborately manicured finger to indicate she’d wrap up the call.
Trip didn’t see Cliff, but his door at the back was shut, so maybe he had a meeting. Trip picked up the latest candy-colored issue of Hero High from the coffee table. This one had sold several thousand copies, up from the fall definitely, but the series kept sucking. A perfect moment to move on.
“He is in a mood today.” She craned her head to check Cliff’s closed, silent door. Her hair was a loose manga mane exactly the color of mulberry sauce. “Diamond called to give him hell about some interview he owes them, and then they started talking numbers….” She thrust her chin at her monitor. “Didja have a meeting scheduled?”
“I can wait.” Trip’s mouth went dry instantly. Where does spit go? Sitting felt ridiculous with the carbonated anticipation fizzing in his veins, so he stood again. “I need a favor.”
Kimmie closed her drawer and spun to face him.
“Listen, this isn’t work-related at all. So you can say no.” Trip crossed his arms.
Her instant conspiratorial smile made him feel sleazier than he did already. “No problem, Mr. Spector.”
“Trip. It’s just a phone call. I need to get hold of somebody and I don’t—”
“Gotcha.” Kimmie picked up a pen. “We got ’em on file?”
Begging her to stalk a total stranger left him feeling like a total scumbag. “I’m trying to reach somebody who works on Undercover Lovers. That is, he’d be in their file.”
“I love that show.” She sounded sincere. Maybe she was.
“Yeah. Uh… they have a makeup artist named Silas.” He dropped his eyes. “I figured if you called from Big Dog and left my name and cell number….” He fell silent.
“Silas at Silvercup? Surname?”
“Dunno.” His abject humiliation was now complete. He muffle-sneezed behind his hand and glanced down the hall, wondering if he could just ambush Cliff.
A tiny smile bent the edge of her lip. She looked right into his eyes and whispered, “No sweat, Trip. I’m in the intern mafia.” She winked. “I got this.”
“Thanks, Kimmie,” he muttered, and she nodded, still smiling faintly. “Don’t say anything to….”
Shit. She knew the deal. Everyone who worked at Big Dog knew the deal with him and Cliff. So they got great art at a shit rate, and Trip compared every guy he dated to someone he’d never even kissed.
“Triple-threat! ’S’up, my man?” Cliff stood in his open door, wavy brown hair and a slash of perfect teeth with all kinds of charming in between. His wide shoulders and tan forearms bulged with muscle. He had a loose-limbed college athlete’s physique, more Silver Surfer than Batman.
Trip hated himself for being turned on, but a sliver of doubt stayed lodged. Maybe Cliff really questioned his orientation. Maybe Cliff liked him enough to cross over to the dark side. Maybe Cliff’s nerves and confusion tied him into dumb homoerotic pretzels. Maybe working on this new book together would give Cliff a chance to face the connection between them. Hell, if Trip’s life was a rom-com, all these innuendos and misunderstandings would end in a big dance-off and a gay wedding in Fag Harbor.
Cliff spoke with what Trip called his closing-the-deal voice, the plummy tenor of a cabinet salesman. “Come on back, bro. I’m just giving Diamond what for.”
Well… maybe Trip would start on Campus Champions and Cliff would come to his homo senses. Drinking in his fratboy grin, Trip almost told Kimmie to forget the call, but before he could, Cliff was in motion.
Trip patted Kimmie’s desk and walked back past the light boards and filing cabinets in the middle office toward the editor and CEO of Big Dog, his boss, no matter what he told the girls. The only window faced a brick wall.
Cliff pulled him into a firm embrace, hand pressed firmly at his lower back. He smelled damp and a little bitter, like a locker room after a circle jerk. Before he let go, he pulled his head back to read Trip’s face from six inches away. “You look guilty as hell. Ya cheating on me already?” He stepped back and pressed a hand to his heart.
“I gotta take commissions, man.” Trip let himself linger near Cliff. Totally unhealthy, but tell that to his gonads. “Just to keep my brain working. Give me something to sink my teeth into and I’ll bite.”
“Someone’s cranky.”
Cliff invaded his space. The gym-damp arm and sturdy length of his thigh rattled Trip’s saddle. Cliff’s loose workout clothes hung easily on the kind of blocky hairless sinew that spawned boy bands and gave Trip goose bumps. Cliff sat on the edge of his desk, his cock and balls wadded front and center under ripstop nylon. No underwear.
Does that feel good? Nobody has to know. We both need it.
None of the other proposals submitted could have come close to Campus Champions: full character workups, a script and a twelve-issue treatment, cameos for the Mighty Mites. “Why aren’t you locked in your garret finishing the pages for Issue 51?”
“I…” wanted to stalk Silas. Perving over Cliff at the same time m
ade him feel queasy and schizophrenic. “…had an appointment with my allergist.” Trip dropped his gaze to the parti-colored comic in his lap. He still got a charge out of seeing his name there, even though he hated the perky blandness welded over his pencils and inks.
Hero High was pretty much a C-string title that had seen a surge since Cliff had taken it over and gotten it into Walmart and other big-box retailers. The whole series stayed squeaky clean: no sex appeal, no blood. The chipper, ethnically diverse adolescents solved problems like superacne and peer pressure in unthrilling compromise-a-thons, like demented anti-comics. Their average reader was a homeschooled ten-year-old whose parents watched professional wrestling without irony or lube.
In Cliff’s mind, the Mighty Mites and Hero High occupied an alternate lobotomized universe where teenagers chained in the dungeons of puberty picked nice manners over hormonal insanity. Trip rolled his eyes and cashed the checks, secretly certain Swamp Thing and Deadpool were somehow more real.
Could one imaginary world be more imaginary than another? How do you measure reality?
Trip skimmed the pages of his comic and pretended to see the back-patting dreck he’d drawn. He wished he could leave before his boss confused him even more. He wondered if Kimmie had reached Silvercup or Silas.
Trip sighed. “So…. Graduation Day?”
“And how!” Cliff’s hand was hooked in his waistband so that his fingertips brushed the head of his cock through the nylon. A lifetime of looking like a winner and getting what he wanted had corroded his modesty. He didn’t even realize.
Originally, Trip’s infatuation had brought him to Big Dog a couple of times a week to hover nearby. Pathetic. He’d draw for hours in the workroom and chat with Cliff every moment he could. For a month and a half he’d convinced himself Cliff just needed to work up the nerve. For six weeks, he’d jerked off in the bathroom and had elaborate kinky dreams about how he’d plunder Cliff and teach him how to want a man.
Cliff never bit.
Oh… he flirted and he preened. He praised Trip’s work and treated him like a movie star when they went to conventions and signings. They shared hotel rooms and bar tabs. He learned Trip’s private jokes and knew his history. He craved Trip’s adoration and the chance to scheme with a willing cohort.
Trip ignored the pumped triceps and the hard flank under Cliff’s gym pants and leaned forward for approval. “You liked it. My proposal.”
“Y’nuts! This college thing hooks a whole new market.” Perched on the desk, Cliff cracked his neck like a deodorant commercial jock. “It’s fucking genius, what you put together.”
Cliff’s grunt reminded Trip to turn another page: kooky cafeteria squabbles, a sidekick in a trashcan, a cheerleader with sauce in her hair.
“Wait’ll you see those pinks,” Cliff crowed like a proud papa.
Trip thumbed to the first splash page. Pink, it definitely was: an alien ship about as menacing as a throat lozenge landing on the baseball diamond of Hero High.
For whatever reason, Cliff Stapleton wasn’t built for human contact. He loved to flirt and work a crowd, but he couldn’t focus on anyone long enough to relate to them. By default, Trip had become Cliff’s best friend. And all that terrible attraction got funneled into Cliff’s pet comic: the Mighty Mites of Hero High.
Everything began and ended with his work at Big Dog. Since Cliff had hired Trip four years ago, Cliff had never had a relationship: a boyfriend or a girlfriend. No romance at all. The fantasy lingered, but Trip had grown pragmatic about his chances. He went on a date or two. He whacked off a whole bunch. Every once in a while, Cliff actually seemed to want him for more than adoring approval and standout pages.
Maybe he didn’t want Trip Spector. Or maybe he didn’t want a man. Or maybe he didn’t want anybody. Who knew for sure?
Trip glanced down the hall toward Kimmie as she hopefully made the call to Silvercup. Maybe Silas would swoop in and save him.
Cliff didn’t need to know about Silas. Eesh. Trip would never admit it out loud, but for a few minutes in the park on New Year’s, Silas radiated the same addictive charm that left Trip boneless and weightless in the Big Dog offices. Empty calories.
“So?” Cliff gripped the desk and flexed his oversized forearms as he leaned forward.
“Really sharp.” Trip rubbed his face in frustration. Still, he’d ostensibly come by for the comic. “The, uh, pinks are bonkers. Beautiful. Did Dolores color this?”
“She costs a couple cents more, but she just did some trading cards for Marvel. Can’t hurt us in the big leagues.” Cliff wanted to sell up as soon as he could swing it. If DC or Marvel bought Big Dog, he’d end up with some real power in the industry.
Trip nodded. Was it safe to change the subject? Cliff’d had the proposal for months.
“These South Americans keep making the Mighty Mites too old. These kids aren’t horny. They’re nice.” Cliff leafed through pictures: a happy scatter of nubile teenagers in crayon-bright spandex. “I wish they’d stop sexing it up.”
“Well, dude….” Trip laid the sarcasm on with a knife. “Teenagers get horny, I hear.”
“You know what I mean. When you draw them, they’re nice. I mean, they’re sexy, but they don’t read like prosti-tots.”
“Sharp modeling, though.” Trip flipped more pages. “And no way could I pencil that fast.” He gripped the chair arms and took the plunge. “So what about Campus?”
“Sold!” Cliff chewed on a hangnail. A pleat appeared between his brows. “Six months.”
Trip stood, revved with anticipation. “Six months what?”
“We’ll announce in six months.” He held up a hand before any excitement could froth over. “Bad news, bro: Dee’s gonna draw it.”
“What?” Trip’s brain skidded to a halt. “Cliff, that’s my pitch!”
“And it’s awesome. We pay you for the concept, but she’s a better fit.”
“I’m not a good fit for the genius pitch you just bought… from me!” A cold fist gathered Trip’s guts into a sailor’s coil.
“Your guys have gotten a little too sexy. Your ladies are a little too… I dunno.” Cliff ambled around the stool, leaned directly against Trip’s right side, and looped an elbow over his neck as if they were best buds in seventh grade, as if all guys hung on each other like marmosets, as if he didn’t know Trip was a big fagoo who pulled his putz more often than he ate solid food. “You’re just a little too… alternative for something like this.”
“What the fuck does ‘alternative’ mean?” Trip’s hands shook. He squirmed free, even though it felt good to be maneuvered into that kind of humid proximity. “Because I’m a cocksucker. Are you fucking her?”
“That’s not what I said.” Cliff stroked the bristly air between them. “C’mon… I don’t care about all those labels.”
Trapped in Hero High. Trip’s insides went shaky and loose. Any second, he might just shit his lungs onto the floor. His nose tickled, but he was too furious to sneeze. He stared at the office, at the brick wall visible through the frosted window. Stop thinking with your dick. He couldn’t afford to lose this job. Cliff paid him a fortune to draw crap.
“By the end of the summer, I’m gonna sell Big Dog’s titles and set us up somewhere we can do the kinda shit we want.” Cliff leered.
Trip’s phone jangled; he glanced at the screen but didn’t recognize the number.
“Go ahead and take it.” Cliff circled the desk and sat down.
What if it was Silas? Trip shook his head. “Nah. I’m gonna split.” He should go out with his hot zombie and forget anything he’d ever thought about this schmuck. Fuck Cliff and fuck Hero High.
Cliff looked at him strangely, so he waved and went before he gave anything away. Trip’s poker face sucked. And maybe, too, he didn’t want Cliff to have any more leverage… if such a thing were possible.
Trip turned his back on Cliff’s dim-witted curiosity and started down the hall. He nodded thanks to Kimmie but kept walking
, past the posters and out to the elevator. In the last second before the phone flipped to voice mail, he pressed the green Accept icon on the screen. “Hello?”
And then Silas’s hoarse voice was in his ear, exactly the way he remembered it. “Well, hell yeah.”
“Uhh.” Trip wanted to swallow but his mouth had gone dry. Shit. Again, he didn’t know what to say. All his banter evaporated. No script. He should have practiced some before he answered. Hurray for hormones. Mindless lechery to the rescue.
“Trip? You there?”
“Yes. Ugh. Yeah. Sorry. Signal sucks in this building. This is short notice, but would you wanna, maybe….” Fuck? Make out? Help me hide a dead editor?
Silas chuckled. “I sure would.” Only the sure sounded like shore and the torn-silk raspiness of his drawl melted Trip’s insides.
Trip chuckled too. “Jeez. Gimme a chance. I haven’t made you an offer yet.” He stepped out of the pokey elevator and walked toward the sunlight outside. “What are you doing later?”
Silas rumbled. “Mmm. Something special, I bet.”
Fuck Big Dog. Fuck the Unboyfriend. Fuck his phobias and mine.
“Sorry. I was so psyched to track you down, I forgot to make a plan.” Trip sighed. “You got any good ideas?”
Silas laughed, low and lusty. “One or two.”
SILAS almost screened the call he’d stopped hoping for.
This particular Thursday morning had started off normal. He’d booked another three weeks on Undercover Lovers, so he’d taken the E train out to Silvercup to assist the beauty crew, mostly second-unit bullshit. The midseason episode was titled “Sex Bomb.” Based on the female extras on the call sheet (twelve) and the location in the script (“Int. Strip Joint—Night”), the showrunners had dialed up the tits and gore for Showtime.
All his setups today had been pretty tame: scorching, a couple of black eyes, and the elaborate tattoo ’n’ trackmarks workup on the show’s new bad boy. Make some scratch, and then the weekend beckoned like cheap jewelry.
