He nearly sat up to ask for a minute, but the director said, “Action.”
Everything happened so fast. Kit yanked down his pants, and then Jeremy’s cock was simply there. In his face. Turning three shades of red, Kit shot from the bed.
“Not cool, dude!” the actor hollered and stormed off the set.
Jeremy yanked his pants up and had that awful feeling of dreaming he’d gone to school or been in a play naked. Except he really had.
“Sorry,” he said, feeling as lame as he sounded. “I forgot it after lunch.”
Greg gave him an acerbic stare, but the director chewed on the sides of his mouth, trying not to laugh.
“Someone haul the prima donna’s ass back here before I cut him a half-day’s pay,” Greg said, then strode to Jeremy and got in his face. “Go get it. Do that again and I’ll hand you a pink slip.”
“I-I didn’t…” Jeremy started to stammer but realized he almost broke a cardinal rule against excuses in acting and finished with a whispered, “Sorry.”
On his way to his trailer, Jeremy caught Kit coming back into the building with a soda.
“I forgot,” he said, stepping in front of Kit. “I’m sorry. It was unprofessional.”
Kit popped the top on the can and swallowed down half of the drink as he considered him. Mesmerized, Jeremy watched his throat work the liquid down. Finished, Kit wiped his mouth and said, “Next time, don’t leave marks.”
Watching Kit’s retreating back, Jeremy murmured, “Next time?”
Turned out next time meant every day—sometimes twice a day—over the next week. Before every school-based sex scene, Kit wanted Jeremy to “fix it.”
“Why’d you want me to blow you?” Jeremy asked one day after working the kink out of his jaw.
Kit rolled his head to the side and opened one eye. “So I can focus during filming.”
“Seriously?” Jeremy lifted his head. “You mean so you don’t get a boner?”
The scenes on the sound stage had long since ceased to titillate Jeremy. Too much stop and go. Too many people watching. Lines to remember and ridiculous facial expressions to mime. And the sounds he had to fake? Those were the worst. Nobody made those sounds. Did they?
Flipping to his stomach, Kit sat up on his elbows. “Whatever.”
“I don’t get hard. Why d’you?” Jeremy asked. “You’re not even gay.”
Though he said the words, he didn’t really believe them. Kit, at the very least, had bisexual leanings. Probably tending toward gay. Either that or he had a blowjob fetish, and as Kit’s character pointed out in the film, being a guy, Jeremy just knew “how to do it right.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t anymore.” Kit shrugged. “I just don’t want to take the chance.”
On Monday, the rest of the cast would be there and the sex scenes would end until they went on location in Connecticut. If Kit only needed him to keep himself from getting a cock stand in front of the crew, Jeremy wouldn’t see him in his trailer again for several weeks.
Jeremy glanced above Kit’s head. “Will you do me?”
Hooting a surprised laugh, Kit shook his head. “I’m not gay.”
Jeremy scowled. For four days running, he’d serviced Kit, then felt like a used tissue as he watched him walk out the trailer door. “What am I? Your bitch?”
“No.” A wary hesitancy entered Kit’s gaze as he recognized the thin ice he stood on. “You’re gay. I’m not.”
“Is that why I make you so hard?” Jeremy asked, verbally pushing Kit’s back against the wall.
“No offense.” Kit stared at the wallpaper as he spoke. “I mean I’m sure plenty of guys think you’re hot, but it’s the contact.”
“The contact?”
“Sure. Anybody’d get hard if someone touched them like that.”
“Kit, you came to me,” Jeremy pointed out. Frustration high, he refused to give Kit an easy out. “It’s always you going after me. That’s about as gay as it gets.”
Pushing to a sitting position, Kit scrambled for his robe. They’d been filming a shower scene today. It didn’t involve any touching, but it also involved zero clothing after the first five minutes.
“Not so fast.” Determined to make his point, Jeremy grabbed Kit’s arm.
A fist swung toward him. Years of homegrown training kicked in, and he ducked as Kit’s arm grazed his face on the follow-through. The power behind the punch threw the actor forward, and he lost his balance as Jeremy grabbed to restrain his arm.
At the physical contact, something in Jeremy snapped. He’d never lashed out in anger. Violence sickened him. That abhorrence morphed into something ugly in his desperation to defend himself, and he pushed Kit to the floor. He snarled into his face, “You are a motherfucking coward.”
“Get off me!” Kit bucked upward.
Adjusting, Jeremy straddled Kit, increasing his dominance. The actor’s cock began to harden between them. Painfully erect himself, with no promise of relief in sight, Jeremy ignored the display of arousal. As far as he could tell, the guy always had a hard-on.
“You ever come to me again for a blowjob?” Jeremy leaned into Kit’s face. “You’re paying first. And I don’t mean with money.”
Kit snorted.
Bending low, Jeremy blew hot breath into the shell of Kit’s ear as he rumbled the words, “I’ll ream your ass.”
Kit’s voice cracked as he shoved at Jeremy’s chest and said, “Get off me.”
“Fine.” Jeremy loosened his grip and sat back, feeling more like Greg in that moment than he ever had. “Go. Just remember the consequences if you decide to come back.”
Chapter Ten
“Did you hear about the show at the Viper Friday night?”
The actors who played the core clique of cadets flanked Kit on set Monday morning. About to film a fight scene, they stood close to their marks on a sound stage filled with fake snow, headstones, and skeletal trees. Wearing wool pea coats and red scarves over military-style uniforms, to Jeremy the group looked like latter-day Hitler Youth flocking around their Aryan leader, posturing for his approval.
Jeremy stepped away, and Kit turned his back so the configuration excluded him. For a second, he thought Kit’d done it deliberately. Then he realized the actor never did anything like that on purpose. He was just…Kit.
“What were you up to this weekend?” one of the actors asked Jeremy, surprising him.
Knowing he’d done nothing as exciting as watching a fight break out among a bunch of head bangers, he shrugged and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “Not too much. Watched a movie with Greg.”
“Didn’t he just, like, hand you the part?” Matt Forrester asked.
“What?” Jeremy frowned. Did the guy just imply he’d not earned the role?
“You didn’t even have to audition, right?” another actor asked.
Jeremy looked to Kit for support. “No. I went to an open audition.”
Kit crossed his arms over his chest and excluded himself from the conversation with a bored stare, committing to being neither for nor against Jeremy.
“A cattle call?” Derision laced Matt’s question. Another actor mooed.
Jeremy’s throat constricted as the gang of actors seemed to circle him. In reality, he moved, turning to find his exit points—a space between Kit and Matt, a direct line to the stage door. There.
“Did they ever say why they hired someone who looked so much like Falkner?” The question, from Matt and directed to the other actors, made it seem as if Jeremy wasn’t standing right there.
Jeremy couldn’t say what he knew—that he’d been hired because he looked like Greg—even as the thought popped into his mind. While he’d always known the resemblance had been a deciding factor, it hadn’t occurred to him until that moment he might have been hired only on that basis.
“Actors, take your marks.”
The pack fractured, each actor taking his place at the directive. Inhaling moisture-laden air through his nostrils, Jere
my stepped back from the group and tried to find anger for the fight scene. Instead, he choked on a bleak depression more deadening and barren than the false graveyard landscape in which he now stood.
KIT WATCHED JEREMY retreat into himself and floundered for something to say to bring the guys around without damaging his own reputation. If he stood up for Jeremy, he’d eventually be on the outside too. With the part requiring so much physical intimacy between him and his costar, he’d likely be labeled queer, and then the rumor mill that fed the tabloids would rear its ugly head.
While he knew Hollywood jealousy and backbiting could shred less sturdy egos, he had faith Jeremy could stand up to this wolf pack. At some point, the kid needed a good lesson in self-preservation. Mentioning he’d hung out with Greg this weekend—been all buddy-buddy—counted as too much honesty. The guys were just jealous he had such a close rapport with the people important to this film when they’d been busting their asses since childhood to land a part as juicy as the one Jeremy had waltzed into seemingly effortlessly.
As they’d done for so many days now, he and Jeremy faced off. This time, with a crowd on the set and three other actors in the scene, the dynamic shifted. A wall formed between them, and they circled one another both physically and emotionally in their choreographed movement. Jeremy shed his coat, tossed it over a crypt, and faced him. Kit did the same, shunting his gloves as well.
“Rules?” Kit’s character directed the question to his posse.
The other actors jeered as their parts required, urging him to just, “Kick ass.”
Turning to Jeremy, Kit delivered the line, “Any rules?”
The next few lines had Kit up in Jeremy’s face, tripping him so he landed on his back in the snow. With two cameras on them, the crew filmed some close-ups at the same time as the wide shots for continuity. When his boot pressed lightly to Jeremy’s windpipe, the kid turned a color Kit only saw when he forgot to discard old dairy products from his fridge.
“Cut!” the director said.
Vaulting to his feet, Jeremy ran to the side of the set and vomited into a trash can. Kit looked away, feeling awkward, until the actor wiped his mouth and rejoined the cast.
“Sorry. I’m good,” he said as if nothing had happened and looked at the director. “From the top?”
“You sure?” Kit asked, surprised when Greg only stood back with his arms crossed over his chest, a stony stare chiseling his features.
“It’s not a big deal, okay?” Jeremy talked out the side of his mouth, hiding apparent embarrassment behind his nonchalance.
Kit wanted to press the issue, but Jeremy bent to retrieve his coat and scarf, effectively cutting him off. They went again, with Kit’s emotions wound so tightly he had no trouble believing the tension of the scene. Trading blows and stinging words, they poured their mutual frustration into every brushing touch and every choreographed strike.
Sometime later, Jeremy scrabbled to his feet to deliver the most sincere rendition of a line Kit had ever heard.
“I mean, if you want to get someone on their knees, I’m sure one of your bitches here would suck dick.”
Forgetting momentarily that he lived a fantasy, Kit knocked Jeremy to the ground with too much momentum. The actor hit face-first, and blood appeared on the snow. When no one stopped the scene, Kit gave a stage kick to Jeremy’s ribs. The actor gasped and spat blood onto the snow.
“Get up, pussy.” The line came from one of the other cadet actors.
More insults peppered the scene as Jeremy clawed his way to his knees. Not until he looked up at Kit with the staged moonlight shining on his face did he see where Jeremy had bitten through his lip.
Blood covering his chin, Jeremy grinned, a little crazy, and delivered his last line with a rasp. “You should have told me you liked boys.”
Shock coursed through Kit as he met Jeremy’s eyes and heard the knife’s edge of truth in the insult. Not wanting to lose the momentum of the moment, Kit played off the shock coursing through him and delivered the stage kick to Jeremy’s face. Unsettled, he misjudged the distance and grazed Jeremy’s jaw with his boot. Horrified, he watched as Jeremy toppled backward at an unnatural angle into the snow. Did he really hit him as hard as it appeared? Or was the kid doing some amazing acting?
Not knowing if he staged the fall or if it was real, Kit clenched his fists against the urge to go to his knees next to Jeremy. He stared at his chest to gauge his breathing. Until someone called cut, he had to continue. Do anything less and they’d ruin a phenomenal scene on the second take. Still, the blood… The effects crew hadn’t prepped any blood for this. That’d be done later in a couple of remaining close-ups.
As if standing outside himself, floating above the scene, Kit delivered his last lines. When the director called “Cut” and “Print,” everyone cheered. They’d filmed a very difficult scene in less than an eighth of the time everyone thought they would and were now ahead of schedule.
Jeremy sat up, and the on-set medic stepped in to care for the gash on his lip. She looked to the director and said, “It’ll need stitches,” and everyone—especially the makeup guy—groaned. Kit waited for an explosion from Greg that never came. Looking around, he found him absent. He must’ve left sometime after the first take, which seemed strange. The guy hadn’t missed a minute on set since they began.
“Jeremy? You take the rest of the morning off,” the director said. “Kit, you too. Beautiful performance. Everyone else, we’ll get your shots down in the dining hall scene and do some blocking for tomorrow.”
Back in his trailer, Kit channel surfed until he heard Jeremy’s trailer door bang. Sitting up, he saw the medic leaving. A few seconds later, Greg paced in front of Jeremy’s door, raised his fist to knock, dropped it, and walked away. Then the costume lady brought a clean uniform to his door. Groaning, Kit lay back on his sofa and watched another half-hour program about mother lionesses and their offspring.
He wanted to go to Jeremy to say sorry for kicking him in the face. Would the gesture be misconstrued as a come-on? A tightening in his groin said his cock found the idea as interesting this morning as it had all weekend. It amazed him he didn’t have a sprained wrist from jacking off to the image of himself held down, Jeremy’s palm pressed into the back of his neck as the dark-haired actor hovered over him.
Desperate to banish his fantasies about being Jeremy’s bottom boy, he’d even gone out with Amber. The disastrous evening ended in an argument when, unable to find the interest to use her as a Jeremy substitute, he’d dropped her off at home two hours later.
But this visit wouldn’t be about getting it on with his costar. It was friendly. Innocent. Trying to reconcile the withdrawn, socially inept Jeremy from that morning with the one who’d promised to exact revenge on his ass should he show up on his doorstep again, Kit decided he had a fairly good chance of surviving the encounter…if he wanted to.
“Stop thinking with your prick.” Heaving himself from the sofa, Kit huffed a breath into his hands. “Just go apologize.”
Somehow he found himself in front of Jeremy’s door, fist raised to rap on the aluminum. Before he knocked, the door opened. Barefoot, dressed in a muscle-hugging white undershirt and artfully ripped jeans, Jeremy loomed large and battle scarred in the entry. Kit mounted the steps to bring their eyes level.
“Hey.” His gaze traced the angry red gash marring the rounded fullness of Jeremy’s lower lip. “I’m sorry about that.”
Dark eyes stared over his shoulder. “You didn’t do it.”
“I didn’t?” Kit blinked.
“I bit my lip when I fell wrong.”
Brow tight, Kit contemplated Jeremy’s monotone and decided he didn’t want to ask his next question from the doorstep. “Can I come in?”
Jeremy stepped back. Kit pushed himself into the trailer, and the door shut behind him, darkening the confined space. Blinds closed, air conditioning humming, a blanket on the couch, the trailer appeared as if his costar had been taking a
nap.
Nestling his fingers in his back pockets, Kit turned to find Jeremy standing three inches behind him. He’d moved so quietly Kit hadn’t heard him.
“What do you want, Kit?”
Heat rolled off Jeremy’s body in Saharan waves, his muscles and flesh shedding the byproduct of the inferno Kit knew raged within. The dry tinder of Kit’s lust needed only the barest spark to flare to life, and he found himself leaning in for a tentative, openmouthed kiss.
“Does it hurt?” Kit whispered against moist, parted lips.
“Not really. Lots of anesthetic, and they used surgical glue.” Jeremy tugged him closer until their abs met.
So much heat…ridged outlines of abs and denim. Constricted cocks slid together as each actor fought for dominance in a kiss designed to test the limits of self-restraint. Despite the anesthetic, the kiss had to hurt, but Jeremy didn’t so much as whimper. In a sudden surge, Kit thrust him backward against the wall. Jeremy pivoted in response, and Kit found his cheek pressed to the wood paneling.
Jeremy’s cock ground against Kit’s ass. “I told you what’d happen if you came back here.”
Kit bucked backward but not quick enough. Jeremy pinned him.
Legs unexpectedly kicked wide, Kit stumbled. Jeremy laid a hand between his shoulder blades to keep him pressed against the wall. With his other hand, he shoved Kit’s jeans low and leaned forward to push a hot brand of rigid flesh along the seam of Kit’s ass.
Eyes flying wide, Kit gasped, “Lube!”
Jeremy chuckled.
The unmistakable sound of lotion squeezing from a plastic bottle accompanied the scent of coconut sun block. Kit gasped as long fingers spread the lube down his crack and probed his entrance. An insistent finger pressed against the intimate muscle, then slipped past the resisting ring. The knob of a knuckle popped through and slid inside with agonizing slowness.
Kit sagged, and the band of Jeremy’s arm came around his waist. Held him up when he would have crumpled to the floor. Jeremy withdrew his finger and replaced it with two. Pressed. Entered. Wiggled. Kit jerked once and saw his orgasm thundering toward him. Unstoppable. And without so much as a single brush to his cock. Hips jerking, limbs shaking, he threw back his head and bellowed to the ceiling. Both he and Jeremy collapsed to the floor in a tangle of sweaty limbs. A long time later, Kit lifted a tentative hand and stroked along the side of Jeremy’s face.
Acting Out Page 9
