by Amy Lane
But as soon as he was naked and the guy’s mouth was on his cock, his boner just melted. John didn’t have girls then—which might have helped. Instead Reg had stared at John helplessly, not wanting to voice that promise John had made, that he’d have a job no matter what.
John had called “cut,” given Reg a robe, and taken him quietly into the bathroom and given him a little tablet he called Silver Sword. It worked fine—in fact, it had given him a boner he was practically feverish to get rid of. He’d managed to fuck the guy—long since retired and gone from Johnnies—until his eyes had rolled back in his head and he’d dry-come into the bed.
John had a long talk with Reg after that, about being kind and taking other people’s cues. He said it was like working at McDonald’s. People wouldn’t yell at him, but he had to remember that he was touching other people’s bodies, and he had to be respectful.
Reg had nodded and remembered as much as he could. But he hadn’t taken an enhancement again. Seems he didn’t really need it once he knew that being with a guy didn’t mean he was a bad guy—just meant he could fuck guys, and that was okay.
Didn’t mean he was gay. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep looking for a girlfriend. Just meant, well, his job was a little unusual. Given that he’d had to take a special class in school just to figure out how to fill out a job application and balance his bank account, Reg was sort of proud of that. He had a job skill, one not many people could claim.
Ten years later, he was still proud of it.
He’d caught on to the reason for the porn name, though.
Girls saw him on the website. He had no idea girls watched gay porn.
The first time a girl had seen him at the gym and called him Reg, he just thought he’d met her somewhere and forgot. Medium height, brown hair, muddy-colored eyes—she looked like a lot of other girls, and his memory, not always the best. She’d been aggressive at the gym, touching his biceps, his ass, and he’d thought, “Yes! A girlfriend!”
His last girl had left him when Veronica had gone off her meds. That was a whole other story.
He’d been excited—and willing. She’d gotten into his Camaro with him and started giving him head, right there in the gym parking lot. Her mouth on his cock was decent—he had to admit, he usually got the best head at work—but then she’d stopped and gazed at him dreamily.
“I bet this would be great if Tango were here,” she said, licking her lips. “Could you call up Tango so we can have a threesome?”
Reg had gaped at her, for a moment trying to figure out if he’d met her with Tango, whose real name was Tommy, but he hadn’t known that then.
And it hit him. “Uh, Tango and I only do that at work.”
She pouted. “But… but you guys are hot. And you’re friends! You were working out together!”
Well, that day they had been. “Yeah, but we’re not boyfriends,” he said. At that point, he’d been in the business long enough to not care if people thought he was gay. He hooked up with enough Johnnies guys off camera, just because a friend in need was a naked friend who gave good head.
“But you fuck,” she said, getting upset. She sat up in the seat and pulled her jogging bra back over her boobs. He sighed. They were nice boobs—pert and bouncy with big raisin-colored areolas. He’d really liked it when she hit on him.
“Yeah,” he said, trying to be kind like John had been to him. “We do. It’s a job. I like him—he’s a friend. Like… where do you work, Leona?”
“Leora,” she snapped. “I’m a receptionist at a law firm.”
Oh God. She was smart. Why had this smart woman seen his picture on the computer and thought he’d be smart like her? “Well, that’s a real good job,” he said sincerely. “And I bet there’s guys there you like to talk to. You may even see them on weekends or go to the movies and shit. But you don’t sleep with them—they’re just guys from work, right?”
She nodded, the furrow in her brow reminding him of John’s the last time Reg had gotten help with Veronica’s papers.
“So, it’s like that. Except when I go to work, I fuck guys. And we work out together and see movies and shit. But I don’t fuck them unless I’m at work. ’Cause fucking guys is my job.” He tried a smile then, because it was sort of funny, right? He wasn’t quick—not like Dex or John or Tango or even Ethan, who was actually damned clever although he said he wasn’t.
Leora didn’t smile back. “So you’re not gonna call Tango,” she said, sounding bitchy.
“No,” he told her. “Tango went home to paint his house. I told him I’d come help when we were done here.”
“You’ll paint the guy’s house on the weekend but you won’t wax his knob?” she asked, eyebrows doing that weird jumpy thing people’s did when they were reasoning shit out.
“Tango tries to have boyfriends,” Reg told her. “That would just make shit complicated.” He didn’t tell her that yeah, sometimes he hooked up with Johnnies guys because girls were thin on the ground. He just didn’t feel like he owed her that much information.
She shook her head. “You,” she said succinctly, “are a disappointment. Damn. Porn stars—not what you think.” She grabbed her workout bag from the back of the car and went to get out.
Reg pulled his pants over his cock and said, “So, uh, will I see you around the gym?”
She shook her head. “Are you kidding? After this I’m doing the women’s-only gym across the street. Jesus, what a letdown.”
She slammed the door, and he adjusted himself before turning the key and making his way to Tango’s. That day, as he and Dex and Kane were painting Tango’s trim a really unusual shade of blue, he asked Dex, “Hey, is it too late to have a porn name?”
Dex had blond hair and blue eyes, so not like John at all—not even any freckles—but he still got some of the same looks on his face when Reg talked. Reg wondered if they were brothers.
“No,” he said, drawing the word out like he was buying time. “Why would you want a porn name now, Reg?”
Reg shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about the girl and the sort of weird and subtle way she’d hurt his feelings. “I dunno. Just, maybe want to be someone else for a little?”
He smiled gamely and pulled on his thinning brown hair. He tended to have it cut different once a month, because it wasn’t thick and he liked to hide that, but it had grown out a little since his last do. “I could, you know, cut it. Dye it. It would be like a whole new me!”
Dex shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “Why not? You get your hair done, and we’ll take some new pictures for the site when we’re doing your next shoot. Replace the pictures, replace the name, keep the stats….” He wrinkled his nose. “Do you mind if we keep your backlist? I don’t know if people will link the two, but you’ve made a lot of movies in the last nine years, Reg. You still make money off them. I’d hate for you to lose that.”
Reg shrugged. “It’s not like people can’t figure it out,” he said. “I just want to be able to say, ‘No, you got me mixed up with that other guy’ and mean it.”
Dex let out a laugh. “So, what do you want your new name to be?”
“I’ll have to think about that,” he said, shoulders slumping.
“Should be Digger,” Kane said, walking by and not even bothering to pretend he hadn’t listened in. Reg liked Kane. He was simple.
“Why Digger?”
Kane grinned at him. “’Cause last time we fucked, it was like you were digging in my ass with a four-by-four. I couldn’t walk for three days!”
General laughter then, and Reg laughed too.
“Digger,” he said. “I like it.”
Dex was staring at Kane with a sort of awe. “It’s like genius,” he said, shaking his head. “But… not.”
“Totally genius,” Reg said. “I mean, total. I’d totally give him a blowjob for that, but that guy’s not ever hard up.”
Dex grunted. “You shouldn’t be either.” He shivered then. “Hey, Tango—it’s gonna rain here. Mayb
e finish the home improvement in the spring, you think?”
Well, early November got pretty cold in Sacramento, even on a nice sunny day like this one.
“Dammit! I was hoping to finish before I flew to Florida!” Tango was a good-looking guy—dark hair, snapping black eyes, pale skin—but he kind of snarled when he talked, and he moved so much it made Reg nervous. Reg liked him, but he tried not to be too stupid around Tango, just on general principle.
“You going to Florida?” Reg asked wistfully. John had offered to fly him out there to do location shoots, but Reg couldn’t leave town that long.
“Yeah,” Tango said, coming by and taking Reg’s paintbrush and little paint can from him. “You got that pole real good, Reg. Sorry you can’t come to Florida with us, though.”
Dex grunted. “Yeah—I’d love to get you out of this city, just once, you know?”
“Well, I can go,” Reg said. “Just on day trips. You know, so I can—”
“Take care of your sister.” Dex shrugged and kept dabbing since Tommy hadn’t taken his paint can. “Reg, I try not to say this too often, but is there any way you could get some help with her?”
Reg swallowed. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he said. Because Veronica had tricked him this last time, and he’d figured it out, but she wouldn’t admit it. The pills made her sweet and all, but she could still be cunning when she wanted, and Reg wasn’t smart enough to go up against cunning.
“Okay, buddy,” Dex said kindly.
Reg had given thanks that day, because Dex reminded him that people at Johnnies were good to him. He could have been at McDonald’s, and he wasn’t sure they would have understood quite so good.
He wouldn’t have had time to work out either, and his body had gotten way better since that first audition with John. He’d declined to wax his pubes, though, not after the first time made him cry. John had soothed him that day, giving him a painkiller and some ice cream—and some ice for his crotch—and they’d never made Reg wax again.
But all things considered, on that bright fall day nearly a year after painting Tango’s house, when he sat for a minute stroking the new guy’s hair while he recovered from what looked like one hell of a climax, he felt good about welcoming another Johnnies boy into the fold.
The place had treated him real good.
“YOU OKAY?” he asked after a few.
The new guy with the giant dick sat up a little and yawned. “Damn. I don’t usually come that hard. Doing that in front of the camera was sort of a rush.”
Reg grinned. “I’m sayin’. Wait ’til someone else is there—gets even better.”
The kid frowned. “I think I can do it with girls,” he said softly. “Guys—” He bit his lip, full and soft. Reg didn’t usually think of guys as pretty. He thought of them as, well, guys—but this one…. His long jaw and soft brown-green eyes were sweet. He had freckles—not like John, but like he was a little kid not too long ago. “Is it weird with guys?”
Reg thought about it, because the kid seemed so vulnerable. “My first guy,” he said, remembering the Silver Sword, “I sort of froze. But that was ’cause I had all this dumb shit in my head. You know—you’re not supposed to do that ’cause it makes you a fag?”
The boy nodded, wiping his chest down with the towel. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. But a hand on your dick is a hand on your dick, right? And the guys are fun. They play. They kiss—and it’s okay. It’s like….” Suddenly Reg felt self-conscious. “You know. My hand in your hair. Nothing wrong with it. Just nice.”
Kid nodded, and Reg stood up abruptly. Was nice—but men didn’t dwell.
“C’mon. We got showers and shit—like a locker room in a gym, ’kay?”
Another nod. “I’m down for that. Thanks.”
“So,” Reg said, to break the sudden awkwardness as he led the way through the building. “What’s your name gonna be?”
“You mean my porn name?” The kid—Vern?—pondered for a sec. “My last name’s Roberts. I could be Robbie or Bobby.”
“Bobby’s good. I can remember Bobby if I’m screaming your name in bed.”
Bobby let out a filthy laugh, and Reg—who didn’t find humor sexy because he never got the joke—found himself getting hard.
“How do you know you’ll be screaming my name?” Bobby asked.
Oh. Easy. “Anybody who’s got that thing in their ass’ll be screaming. Shave around it, it’ll look bigger. Mine’s only seven inches. You’ve got the Chrysler Building, and I’ve got….” He flailed. He’d heard of the Chrysler Building, but he’d never even seen it.
“Yeah, but at some point, a dick up your ass has gotta be like a city skyline, right?” Bobby said thoughtfully. “Yeah, sure, some are bigger’n others, but a fall onto any one of ’em is gonna kill you.”
Reg thought about that literally. Thought about all the times he’d bottomed, both personally and professionally, thought about how it hadn’t mattered—four, five, six, seven inches—there had always come a time when the size hadn’t mattered. In the end it had come down to somebody inside him. A person willing to touch him in such a way that he got off.
“That was supposed to be funny,” Bobby said behind him.
“Oh.” Reg’s face heated. “I’m not smart enough for jokes,” he said honestly. “But I thought what you said was real bright. It’s true. I mean, guys are gonna be grabbing at ya ’cause you’re hung, but if that’s the only reason they’re grabbing at ya, any dick’ll do. If you want a guy not on the set, you’re gonna need to find one who wants something besides your Chrysler Building, you think?”
And now Bobby’s silence stretched uncomfortably. Reg paused outside the locker rooms, looking for the sign they’d had up the week before, saying there were girls in there.
No sign, so Reg ducked his head in and glanced around. “Empty.” He opened the door wider to let Bobby inside. “Can you find your way back to the office?”
Bobby nodded, smiling slightly. Yeah—probably only Reg who got lost that easy. “Sure.”
“Then I’m gonna take my schedule and go work out. But it was real nice to meet ya, Bobby. You’re fuckin’ awesome on camera—you’re gonna do great here.”
He offered Bobby a hand to shake, and Bobby—after wiping his hand a couple of extra times on the towel—took it.
“Thanks for the advice,” he said, thoughtful. “So, I’ll see you around?”
Reg grinned. “We’ll be bumping into each other’s uglies eventually. I mean, I do everybody, right?”
Bobby laughed. “Yeah. I was just gonna start with girls, but—”
Reg shrugged. “Most guys say that. Don’t know why. I’ll be seeing you around.”
He left Bobby in the locker room and trotted up to the front desk. He stuck his head into Dex’s office to make sure Dex didn’t need anything else.
John was sitting in Dex’s chair, head tilted back, utter exhaustion on his face.
“Uh, John?”
He startled, like he’d almost fallen asleep. “Yeah, what? What is it? What do we need?”
“Nothin’—just making sure you don’t need me for nothin’.”
Even John’s tired smile was impish and a little crazy. “Dex gave you the schedule with all the shoots on it, right?” he asked, making sure.
“Yeah—that’s looking good. You need a light guy or anything?”
John thought about it for a minute before printing out another schedule. “Yeah. Sure. Here—all your shoots are Tuesdays, but Thursdays are usually pretty busy. I’m going to say come in every Thursday and I’ll put you to work. How’s that?”
Oh, awesome. An excuse not to go home. Reg loved this guy, he really did. “That’s great. Happy to do it. Thanks, John!”
“Thanks for asking. It was nice of you, Reg.”
Reg’s heart always warmed to praise—both John and Dex were real good at making him feel not stupid.
“I think the kid’s gonna be good, you think?” he said
so John didn’t have to go back to feeling tired.
“Yeah,” John said, waking up enough to be enthusiastic—and less careworn.
“He picked out a porn name,” Reg went on. “He decided on Bobby. Which, like, couldn’t fit him any better, right?”
John laughed. “Vern Roberts, Bobby Green—he’s pretty quick.”
Reg couldn’t manage the bolt of sadness that passed through him then, so he put it in the dark place in his head where all his secrets went. “Too quick for me,” he said, meaning it and grieving it and forgetting it, all in one sentence. “But I can’t wait to see him on camera. Gonna be great!”
He left on that line, because he had to go home and put his schedule in his phone and then stick it on the refrigerator or Veronica would get jumpy. It was time to take her to the doctor’s soon—he knew it—because she was getting twitchy way more than she had six months earlier. But he couldn’t get her to tell him when exactly it was on the schedule, which meant he needed to sit down that night and call people.
With a sigh, he made a notation in his phone, because Dex had taught him that, and it had really helped. Small steps. He took small steps every day to try to be as grown-up as the guys he worked with.
Mostly, it worked.
“VERONICA! I’m home!” He always called out before he opened the door. Bad things could happen if he didn’t.
She didn’t answer, so he paused for a second and looked with despairing eyes at his rotting porch. He should ask Dex or John how to fix it—he’d have to replace boards and stain the new wood, he was sure, but he didn’t have so much as a hammer in the garage.
“Veronica?”
“Come in!”
He pushed the door open and peered about. The dishes had been done and still sat in the rack, and the table was clean as he’d left it. The floor—cracked and peeling linoleum and all—remained swept.
On the one hand, it was good because everything was peaceful. On the other….
