by Amy Lane
“Oh geez,” he gasped, when they could both talk again, “God, I actually had some more questions, but I can’t remember them now.”
Dex was busy wiping tears from his eyes and he just shook his head. “Man, you’ve got my number, right?”
Chase nodded—he’d put it in his cell before he left.
“Well, you give me a call if you need to. We’re supposed to show up an hour before the shoot; show up three hours before and I’ll show you around, let you see the other shoot going on, introduce you to some of the guys. It’ll be okay. Are you nervous?”
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!
“Actually, I’m sort of amped,” Chase said thoughtfully.
“Great, Chance. We’ll have a good time.” They stood and shook hands, and then it turned out they’d both parked in the same downtown garage about three blocks away, and they talked all the way to their cars.
Chase enjoyed the conversation—he honestly did. His skin still buzzed with anticipation, and the thought that Dex, with his wide smile and the cocky swagger to his hips, was going to actually sit next to him and watch his naked body. But Dex (or whatever—he must have a real name too, right?) didn’t have Donnie’s reckless, Labrador retriever smile. And he didn’t have that suddenly thoughtful way of putting shit into perspective when Chase needed it most. It wasn’t until he opened his car and had a moment to analyze that familiar post-Christmas dropping of the stomach that he managed to place his odd disappointment in the entire meeting.
Yeah, he’d finally got that new bike for Christmas. But he’d been asking for an action figure instead.
THAT didn’t mean he didn’t get up early the next morning, use the enema kit he’d hidden in his duffel bag, and pack an overnight bag with a few changes of clothes. He had no idea if he was going to use them, or how bad he’d look when he was done, but he figured if he had something he didn’t want Mercy to spot, he’d want something to wear as he camped out at Donnie’s house.
And then it hit him. If he camped out at Donnie’s house, he’d have to tell Donnie.
That big buzz of excitement in his stomach cramped wickedly into dread.
He packed the clothes anyway, but he very very carefully didn’t think about telling Donnie.
And then he kissed Mercy on the cheek as she lay sleeping and whispered, “It’s in Tracy. I’ll call you if the job goes long.”
Mercy gave a sleepy “Mmmhmm…,” and Chase turned around and walked out of the apartment.
On his way down the stairs and out to the car, he was suddenly there in his memory, meeting Mercy for the first time and thinking she was the best thing that had happened to him.
HIS iPod had been playing Foo Fighters, and playing them loud, but that was okay. He was alone at Sac State, because Donnie was still going to junior college while he decided what he wanted to do and saved money for State, and Chase was lonely. He was in training for the baseball season and had been working hard at his fast-food job, trying to keep his shitty apartment. He didn’t want to move back home because his old man would never stop giving him shit about his useless time spent in college, and basically? If he was going to have to read Of Mice and Men, he was going to do it with the Foo Fighters, because they made shit better.
Suddenly an older student, in her forties maybe, was standing up and yelling. Someone tapped Chase on the shoulder, and a girl with blonde streaks in her dark hair who also had her iPod ear buds in was making eye contact. They both looked at each other and then up at the student, and Chase pulled one of his ear buds out in time to hear….
“And you two should be totally ashamed of yourself for causing such a ruckus in the library! This library is for everybody, you know!”
And about the time Chase and his new companion had figured out she was yelling at them, she had flounced off with her little wheeled cart and three layers of sweaters, leaving the two of them looking at each other with wide, laughing eyes.
They had both stopped their iPods then, and laughed, and then had commiserated on the English 1B reading list, and then ended up playing a giddy game of notebook-paper-football while they quoted movies. They had finally conceded that no homework was going to be finished at that point and had pooled their resources to go to the campus McDonald’s for the dollar menu and endless soda. They’d talked until the place had closed down around them and made plans to meet the next day.
“Maybe we can catch a movie over the weekend!” Mercy had said animatedly. She had been animated for most of their conversation, and Chase genuinely enjoyed her smile, the way her little chipmunk cheeks had gone hard and round and shiny, and the way her brown eyes danced and she clapped her hand over her mouth when she was afraid she’d laughed too loud. But now she was blushing, and she added, “You know, if you wanted to go out again.”
It hadn’t been until that exact moment that he realized they were out on a date.
CHASE walked briskly to his car—a big, bruising, almost-free Ford truck in primer gray—and threw his bag in the passenger seat and slammed the door, trying to block out the memories. It didn’t work. On the fifteen-minute trip to the office suite of Johnnies, Chase fought a mini slide show of things like their first kiss, or the first time they’d made love, or all of the times he’d orgasmed inside her while imagining Donnie’s hard hand stroking him, inexpertly but willingly. That last one triggered more memories of Donnie and that one fabulous, giddy night when Donnie had stopped waiting for Chase to reciprocate and had simply laid back on his bed in his parent’s house and stroked his own cock, at his own pace, until he exploded all over his hand. Chase could still remember the look—pleasure so exquisite it was past bearing—on Donnie’s face, and he could remember the way his heart hurt when Donnie had innocently taken his own come-covered hand to his mouth and sucked on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, just to see what it tasted like.
Chase had wanted to taste it too… oh God, he’d wanted it so bad. But he hadn’t. He’d told Donnie he was brave, but it would never happen between them for one simple reason.
Chase wasn’t gay.
And as he pulled up and around the office suite of Johnnies to park, he thought that maybe he would finally see the upside of being a straight man once he got behind the plain brown doors.
THE receptionist John had been missing that first day was there. She was a gum-cracking girl with a dirty-blonde ponytail, a faint sneer, and ripped jeans, and she gave Chase a friendly smile as she picked up an intercom mike and said, “Dex, your rookie is here to see you!”
Chase ducked, feeling stupid, when the words bounced around the office too, but the girl rolled her eyes self-consciously. “Goddammit,” she muttered. “Seriously, why do I keep doing that?”
“Goddammit, Kelsey!” Dex snapped, coming through the door in a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and shower shoes, much to Chase’s surprise. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“I don’t know!” Kelsey wailed, hitting button after button on the intercom. One of them started a feedback loop that punctured the entire compound at full volume, and the next one….
“Oh God!” screamed a disembodied male voice. “Fuck me now! Fuck me, dammit! Fucking now!”
“You like that? You like that big fat dick?” answered another disembodied voice, and the look Kelsey sent Dex was both eloquent and horrified. He grimaced, shoved her rolling-wheeled chair out of the way, and punched buttons until the assorted grunts, groans, and pants went away.
“Oh God,” Kelsey groaned, burying her face in her hands. “John is going to kill me!”
“John is going to laugh his skinny little ass off,” Dex muttered. “It’s Ethan and Tango who’re going to kill you.”
“Oh God. It was Ethan’s first bottom, wasn’t it?” Kelsey smacked the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Jesus, he was so fucking nervous! Oh God….” Suddenly she stood up. “Here. Dex. You and new guy man the fort. I’ll be right back.”
“Where the fuck’re you—”
“Oreos!�
� she called, grabbing a giant tapestry bag of a purse. “He loves them. I’m going to the mini-mart next door, and he’s gonna have a big pack of fudge-covered Oreos and some milk when he’s done with the scene if it kills me!” And with that she went trotting out the door, leaving Dex there at the counter, shaking his head, and Chase staring after her, smiling.
“God,” Dex muttered. “She’s a good kid, you know? I mean… Oreos for Ethan—hell, I think she brought flip-flops for you, because I forgot to tell you about them, right?”
“Uhm, yeah?” Because it was late October and who wore sandals of any sort, right?
“Yeah, so she’s totally thoughtful and we all really adore her, but….” He shook his head and looked at the intercom board again. “Well, it’s just a good thing John rewards people for doing their best, you know? Otherwise, she’d be fired, we’d all feel like shit, and no one would get Ethan his fucking Oreos, right?”
Chase nodded. Sure. Made total sense to him.
“So, uhm,” he said when Dex had stopped clucking over the phone and intercom, “shower shoes?”
Dex looked up and shook his head. “They like pictures of our feet—and some guys really like toe sucking—”
“You?” Chase asked, and was surprised when Dex nodded his head.
“Giving and receiving,” he confirmed. “So we take a pre-fuck shower, and there are wire brushes and shit to help get the feet all purty, and then there are almost always shots of our feet. Besides, flip-flops are easier to take off than tennis shoes, right? Nothing kills the mood like trying to get off a high top and a sweat sock while the other guy’s got his dick out.”
Chase had to giggle. “Yeah, yeah—I can see that.”
Dex reached over the counter and ruffled his hair. “Just look at you. They’re going to eat you up with a fork!”
I have no idea how to respond to that.
“Well, Jesus, I hope so! It would be awesome to come back!”
Dex laughed wickedly and patted his cheek. “Dude, we’re men. It would be awesome just to come!”
Did that pun ever get old?
So they were still cracking up when Kelsey got back, red-faced and breathless, a cloth shopping bag hanging from her hand.
“Oh God,” she panted. “Should I go back there? Do you think he’s done?”
“I dunno, Kelse,” Dex said dryly. “Would you like to push that button again and see where they are in the shoot?”
Kelsey let out a little wail and buried her face in her hands. Dex laughed, dropped a kiss on the top of her head, and then motioned Chase to follow him through the door and into the rest of the office complex.
“Is she going to be okay?” Chase looked behind him, half afraid he’d hear muffled sobbing or something.
Dex shrugged. “Yeah, she’s fine. Once we’re gone, she’ll start working again and totally forget how bad she feels until Ethan goes in to work the guilt thing. Then she’ll give him Oreos, he’ll stop angling for sex, and the whole thing goes back to copacetic.”
Chase blinked. “Ethan’s straight?”
Dex rolled his eyes. “Ethan will fuck anything that moves,” he said. “Twice if his boner won’t go away. It’s a good thing he’s such a nice guy or we’d all hate him to pieces.”
Hey! He’s a nice guy! That’s always good to hear!
“Yeah, well, it’s good to be loved.”
“Yeah, well, with Ethan, there’s a lot to love. C’mon—you ready to explore the glorious world of porn?”
Chase cracked his gum. “I got nothin’ better to do.”
Hamster Riots
THE two boys on the bed looked relaxed and comfortable with each other as they answered the cameraman’s questions.
The bed itself was nondescript: beige sheets, a beige comforter, and a worn khaki blanket on top of the comforter. It wasn’t like anyone was actually getting in the bed, right? The walls were white, the furniture was cheap but sturdy, and there was a big mirror on one wall next to a dresser that looked like it could hold a man’s weight.
“So,” said the man behind the camera, “Chance, Dex, you guys been getting to know each other?”
The one with the cropped, dyed blond hair and slightly crooked front teeth dimpled and cracked his gum. “Yeah, Dex has been showing me the ropes, right, Dex?”
The other one with the longer, darker blond hair and the overbearing confidence shrugged. “Absolutely. Figure if we haven’t scared him off yet, he’s in it for the long haul.”
There was a gentle chuckle. “So, see anything scary yet, Chance?”
Chance grinned. “Only Ethan’s cock. He flashes that thing around a lot!”
Dex gasped unexpectedly and started to chortle into his outstretched arm, and the voice over the camera joined in. “You’re right! You want to check that out sometime?”
Chance shrugged, his cheeks coloring slightly, as though he was now a little embarrassed at his brazenness. “Maybe. But first, you know, Dex has been pretty good to me. I’m thinking we should get to know each other better.”
“Good idea,” said the voice, and then Dex looked at Chance like they were about to have a bike race or play a game of Frisbee.
“You ready?”
There was a suddenly sober look on Chance’s face, as though he was seriously considering a casual question. Then he sat up and pulled his T-shirt over his head. The thin layer of baby fat over his flexing muscles showed he’d barely entered his twenties.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said, and nothing about his direct stare into the other boy’s eyes or his easy movements as he sat back on the bed and started rubbing his chest showed that he had any doubts at all.
“Then do what feels good,” Dex said, following suit. He tweaked his own nipple then and gasped, then moaned. Chance followed suit, and then did it again. They both shoved their other hands under the waistbands of their shorts at almost exactly the same moment, but it was Chance’s toes-deep groan that electrified the action on the screen.
“MMM…,” John said, looking at the final cut, “that was a good moment.”
Chase swallowed, mesmerized once again by the sight of Dex, right next to him, with his cock in his hand and his knees spread wide as he stroked himself slowly and with so much pressure his circumcised, swollen head turned purple.
“Think it’ll sell?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
John snorted. “Kid, it’s five-star hot, and there isn’t even any penetration. Shh… here’s the best part.”
And it had been for Chase too.
DEX’S head was thrown back, his eyes closed, his fist stroking easily, when he heard Chance groan. He looked up, and some pre-come had spurted on Chance’s cockhead. Slowly, he moved the hand that was on his own chest, pinching his nipples, to Chance’s chest. Chance murmured, “Oh God, yes!” and Dex popped up, threw himself over the bed, and took Chance’s long, thick erection into his mouth.
Chance howled, both hands scrabbling in the sheets, his chest arching up off the bed.
HE HAD hardly needed any fluffing, although those moments in the room with Dex and John and the second cameraman (another model—Grant?) had been furtive and fun, like his first remembered moments masturbating under his own bed sheets, except this time he had a friend across the room doing the same thing. There had been no moaning, no shared experience, just the simple nuts and bolts of reaching in and… oh yeah, squeezing and… rubbing… and it wasn’t like he wasn’t semi-hard in the first place, just from the tour of the place itself.
It turned out that the office and the viewing room were the only real professional places in the building. The rest were sets, various bedrooms or living rooms, complete with wallpaper and color schemes.
“We’ve got a house set with a yard not far from here,” Dex said, “so we can film from the yard and into the house itself. It all depends on where John wants us, right? And of course the courtyard gets used a lot when it’s warm. Not right now though—nobody wants his nuts shot when it’s onl
y fifty degrees outside.”
Chase giggled. “Dude, I’m not sure why anyone would want to see my nuts anyway.”
Dex looked at him and rolled his eyes. “I saw your profile, Gigantor. Straight guys would look at those nuts and think, ‘God, I could get every chick on the planet with those things!’ Women are going to be looking at them and thinking, ‘I’d bone this guy in a hot second!’”
And gay guys? What will they think? Will they think I’m desirable? Will they fantasize about being with me? Will they hope I like men for real?
And that right there was when his erection swelled inside his pants.
Dex took him down the hall to what looked like a gym locker room, and, sure enough, there were big lockers with electronic keypads to lock. Chase had his duffel bag of clothes over his shoulder and realized this would be the place to stash it.
“The showers,” Dex indicated, and as he did so, there was a commotion down the hall. “Shit!” he grimaced. “They must be done with Ethan and Tango’s shoot.”
Chase’s eyes got really big. “And they’re coming in here?” he squeaked.
Dex shrugged—he did that a lot, and it did put Chase at ease. With Dex, everything was all okay, nothing to get excited about, just two straight guys about to get naked and come, but no, nothing to see here, folks.
“Yeah, but so is the film crew. They like to film the after—sometimes fun shit happens, you know? You don’t just get naked with someone, come, and stop touching in real life—you don’t do that here, either. Besides, like I said, you’re co-workers. You just did something difficult and challenging, and hopefully it ended successfully. You’re going to want to talk about it.”
Personal closure. More nakedness. And wetness. And sex!
“I hear you. Sort of like a debriefing or a report or something.”
