Ethan in Gold

by Amy Lane

  “Hey, Regina,” Jonah said thoughtfully, wanting someone to bounce this off of, mostly.

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “What kind of job gives you two names?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Like, some people call you Reggie and some other people call you Gina?”

  For a minute, Reggie’s plain face and flat mouth went blank. “I don’t know. Don’t writers have… whatyacallums?”

  “Pen names? Yeah. They do.”

  “And actors, right? They have, you know, like stage names.”

  He hadn’t thought of that. Legitimate acting. “Yeah, they do too.”

  And then Regina’s eyes crinkled. “And then there’s porn names, but everyone knows that’s, what? Like the name of your first pet and the street you grew up on? So, like, what’s your porn name?”

  “Betta Fish Marconi,” Jonah said with a straight face, just to watch Regina laugh.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t wanna do ya. I’d be Fluffy Fulton, ya think?”

  “Yeah,” Jonah said, grinning on the outside but calculating on the inside. “I think you’d be fantastic, Fluffy.”

  Regina giggled some more, emphasizing that for all she’d been married three years, she was still younger than Jonah the Virgin.

  Who winked at her and turned around and clocked out, and then went home to surf for porn.

  It was pretty easy to find, actually, but buying the one-month membership—that hurt. Jonah had to tap into his car fund for that, and since most of his money went to his family, well, there wasn’t much.

  But the results were worth it. “Johnnies,” he read from the website’s tagline. “‘Where all the boys can come home with you.’ Cute. Let’s see. Tango, there you are—omigod, Tommy, would you look at the size of your fucking penis. It’s like a whole other you! Chance—damn. Just… damn.” Tommy’s boyfriend was beautiful, like a statue or a film star or something—blond and loose-limbed and lazy-eyed and cocky. Even his stills, where he was just shirtless, screamed sex on legs. And, oh yeah, look. Johnnies’ number-one pick. “Helloooo, Ethan.”

  But he couldn’t keep his voice light and flippant. Not anymore.

  It was one thing when he saw his boss on the screen, his stills revealing a sexy, down-and-dirty fucker. Jonah had seen the cheap porn, and he found he could actually handle seeing his boss naked with some production value. It didn’t do anything for him—Tommy was beautiful, and he was beautiful naked, and yeah, naked hot men did make a virgin horny, but it didn’t hit anything in his chest. Tommy and Chase/Tango and Chance—they were out. This was something they’d done in their past, and they’d obviously made their peace with it.

  But Ethan.

  God.

  Jonah put in his earphones and clicked on Ethan’s first movie, the one where a faceless voice interviewed him and he got to come on camera for the first time.

  The date said a little more than two years ago, and Ethan didn’t appear that much younger. But the look on his face.

  The disembodied voice on the other side of the camera asked him questions as he very casually took his clothes off.

  “So, Ethan, I understand this isn’t the first time you’ve tried to come on camera.”

  Ethan grinned and folded his shirt. That cocky, boyish smile just zapped through the lens, didn’t it? “Yeah, you’re gonna bring that up, are you?”

  “Well, it was a good story.”

  “Okay, then, well, my old girlfriend, she used to try to take pictures of me coming. She got one where I hit my chin.”

  Jonah grimaced, wondered if the person on the other side of the camera knew the whole story, and then doubted it.

  “That’s pretty funny. What do you think she’d think of what you’re doing here?”

  Ethan paused before he answered. “I think she’d be happy for me,” he said, and a small smile played at his full lips, his warm brown eyes crinkled at the corners. Jonah thought, He’s telling the truth, and then Ethan lay down on the bed and started fondling himself underneath his shorts.

  “So, Ethan, you got a big present for us?” the guy on the other side of the camera asked, and Ethan shoved his shorts down. Jonah had seen it before, but seeing it now, he thought the camera really did make things look bigger. It wasn’t so much that Ethan was small in person, because Jonah had been astounded when that thing had popped out of his pants. It was more that here, in this context, that thing between his legs suddenly became the only thing the camera cared about. The funny, quirky guy who talked about comic-book heroes and bought manga for Jonah’s sister still lay on the bed, but all you could see was a big pair of hands fondling an outrageously sized cock.

  And then another cock appeared in the picture, and it wasn’t until Ethan started giving directions to the cock’s owner that Jonah even recognized him as the guy who’d been in his store that afternoon.

  Jonah watched, mesmerized, repulsed, as the boy of his dreams had loud, obnoxious sex with the guy who had a hard time following directions to go get cake. The thing was, Jonah thought painfully, he didn’t look exploited. He looked like he loved it. He looked like….

  He needed it.

  Suddenly Ethan shouted, “Holy shit… holy shiiiiiiiiiit, I’m gonna fuckin’ coooooommme!” And Jonah, who had been going to turn it off and nurse his guilty, revolted hard-on to its own climax, watched something awful happen.

  He watched Ethan’s hands fling back and his body tremble and his eyes roll back in his head. He was shaking, and he was vulnerable, and he needed this. It wasn’t a lark, and it wasn’t for play, and it wasn’t making money. As his limbs convulsed around Kane’s massive gorilla body, all Jonah could see was desperation and sheer stinking necessity.

  He needed that touch. It wasn’t getting him off, it was feeding his soul.

  Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click….

  Tumbler after tumbler fell into place in his head. There were still big missing pieces, but Jonah could start to see the shape of the key.

  What if you needed something, say food….

  Oh God, Ethan. Was that touch like food? Jonah watched, still horrified, still fascinated, as the big gorilla guy who didn’t seem that bright showed unexpected tenderness, kissing Ethan’s forehead, his eyes, his cheeks, and gentling him, easing him down from the convulsive, needy boy who had just shown his throat to a bloodthirsty world.

  Jonah clicked the movie off when it faded to black, and sat staring at the screen with its multiple pictures showing frames from Ethan’s movies.

  And then he noticed the last one, and he found a growl rising in his throat.

  No. Oh, hell. Seriously?

  Yeah. It was dated the day before, when they’d had their disgusting little talk about enemas. Telling the truth, Ethan, you bastard. God.

  But that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was the raw, red-looking mark recently tattooed right at Ethan’s lower back and left hind cheek.

  Jonah didn’t speak Chinese, and he sure as shit couldn’t read it, but he was damned if he didn’t know what that symbol would mean.

  He stared at it, dry-eyed, angry, hurt, and sick, until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

  He stood up and closed the browser on his computer in case Melly wanted to use it to watch a movie in her room or something, and then, just to make sure, he went and erased his entire browsing history, presets and all.

  Then he went out to the front room, where his mom and sister were watching Game of Thrones. Amelia looked better, but Jonah still asked permission, because they had one car between them, and some things were just ingrained.

  “Mom, I gotta go out for a while, is that okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, Jonah. Where are you going?”

  “I gotta see a friend about something. It’s gonna take me a while.”

  “Sounds dire,” Melly said dryly. “I hope it’s legal.”

  “It is in the state of California if you’re over eighteen,” Jonah said g
rimly, and then he grabbed the keys off the counter and ran.

  Step 8—what's the ideograph for whore?

  HIS apartment didn’t look any better after the first week without Jonah, and the fuckin’ kid kept texting him, just so he’d know what he was missing. And Ethan? Ethan must have been some sort of fucking crazy. He’d lie in bed at night and scroll through his phone texts, rereading all of the bullshit nonsense Jonah sent him during the day. Pictures of some of the animals that came into the pet store, pictures of Amelia waving to him from the treadmill, memes, stupid jokes, and the inevitable demands to talk to me! And when he got to the end, Jonah would say something like Good night, Ethan. I hope you’re missing me, because I could at least be a voice in the dark. And it was so fucking romantic, and so sweet, and so hopeful, and Ethan hated him, absolutely hated him, because he wanted to believe it and it wasn’t true.

  Chase at least had the guts to break up with Tommy when he thought it was for the best.

  Ethan kept reminding himself of that. When Chase hadn’t been able to leave his girlfriend and Tommy had been hurting himself because the pain had been too much, Chase had left Tommy instead.

  Ethan couldn’t leave porn.

  He had a scene the day before Chase’s welcome-home party, and every night, after he shut off his phone, he lay in the dark and ran his own hands over his skin in that empty space, shivering under his own touch. Often, when he couldn’t keep it away, he saw Jonah’s face, sometimes just talking, sometimes when he was looking at Ethan sideways, those gray eyes lit up with an idea.

  Sometimes, when he was weakest, he remembered that moment when Jonah was half-naked, his eyes closed, as Ethan tasted his come from his cock.

  Those times were the worst. He’d wake up shaking, sometimes with the fullness of his own cock in his hand, his body cramping from needing to be touched.

  And then he’d check his phone to see if Jonah had texted yet. He wouldn’t answer if he could help it, but he just… just needed to see.

  The only other time he could remember feeling that tingling in his body, the one that suffused him when he saw Jonah’s name in the text box, was right before he shot a scene. Some days it was the only thing that got him out of bed.

  The day he shot the stills for the scene with Bobby, he was so desperate to be touched, he almost cried when they were fluffing before the shoot.

  He slouched low in the couch on the set, his hand down his pants, and dreamed of the interlude with Jonah, hoping the photographer would want lots of easy shots, the kind where they stood and touched bare torsos or splayed hands on the naked skin of the other’s ass.

  “Hey,” said the kid next to him, and Ethan turned and smiled at him. He was a new kid—Ethan knew Dex had broken him in as his first top, and now Ethan got to be his first bottom. He had a long, sweet face, with massively curly brown hair, green eyes, and full lips. In a way, he reminded Ethan a little of Jonah, because he looked so young and so sweet, but unlike Jonah, he carried his swimmer’s build like it had a place in the world and he was sure of where it should be.

  Ethan sort of missed Jonah’s uncertainty. He’d learned to mask his own by using his body to swagger and by carrying his shoulders like he’d clear any doorway that didn’t fit him, but Jonah’s tentative slouch? The slight duck to his head, the shy way he looked out from under his brows? That’s the way Ethan felt on the inside. It was probably why Ethan had been so attracted to him in the first place.

  But that was okay right now. Bobby just had to hint at being like Jonah, and Ethan’s cock sat up and sang for attention. This particular photographer did not do the soft, romantic moments, the ones where the mood was all about touch and hint and hotness. This photographer wanted Bobby’s erect cock right at Ethan’s opening but not penetrating while Bobby put his hand on Ethan’s back and shoved his face into the mattress. This photographer wanted Ethan on his back, propped up on pillows, with his mouth wide open while Bobby shoved his nine-inch dick down Ethan’s throat.

  Ethan was a professional, though. It got to the point where keeping his erection up and his body positioned just right for minutes at a stretch were matters of pride, if nothing else. By the time they were done, both Ethan and Bobby were messes of sweat and shaking muscles from holding themselves awkwardly. When the photographer called cut, they collapsed on the bed, Ethan crushed on his stomach under Bobby’s weight.

  He wasn’t sure which one of them started laughing, but he felt only gratitude that both of them succumbed, bodies shaking on top of each other, hearty guffaws coming out of their stomachs, naked skin in contact, but not sexual at all. He twitched his shoulders a little, trying to breathe, and Bobby rolled off of him, both of them still chuckling after their complete meltdown.

  “God,” Ethan said with feeling. “That was awful. You wanna go get a beer after that?”

  Bobby laughed good-naturedly and patted Ethan’s cheek. “Can we make it a soda? I’m only nineteen.”

  Ethan nodded happily, because a giant vat of carbonated sugary goodness sounded wonderful right then. And because Bobby didn’t seem averse to touch, but they couldn’t have sex that night, because the next day they had to shoot a scene.

  “Awesome. But no dinner!”

  Bobby nodded vigorously, because who wanted to fuck a guy in the morning if he had the giant jumbo burrito for dinner, right? Just like Dex said in his big fiber speech at the beginning, that shit (or lack thereof) was only courtesy.

  They showered, talking genially about waxing, about movies coming out, and about how ridiculous that last shoot had been, and then they went to a restaurant and ordered raw vegetables, no dip, which they split over giant sodas, which the waitress refilled ad infinitum.

  Bobby was fun—easy to talk to, excited about his first top scene, happy with all the guys at Johnnies—and Ethan enjoyed the conversation. It reminded him of all the reasons Ethan had loved Johnnies to begin with, and why he’d been doing the job for two years, regret-free.

  And then Bobby told him about his girlfriend, who lived in one of those tiny California towns up north, and how she had no idea what he was doing.

  “Do you feel guilty?” Ethan asked as the entire crashing wave of guilt fell on his own head, almost crushing him flat.

  Bobby shrugged. “Yes and no, you know? I mean, I get on the phone with her, and she’s all money this and money that, and how excited she is that I’m earning a living for us. I mean, I tried to work construction—and some guys are great at it, right? But me? I practically maimed myself after a week. The boss didn’t so much fire me as beg me to go before I got his insurance canceled. So she wants to come down here when she graduates from high school, and how am I supposed to get an apartment? I’ve got a job waiting tables now, but I’m only so good at it. I’ll get better, but in the meantime?”

  “Food is good,” Ethan said, thinking he’d forgotten that too. Food was great, and now that he wasn’t living at home anymore, at least he had a way to pay for his own. But Jonah didn’t expect Ethan to pay his bills. All Jonah expected from Ethan was… was touch. Honesty. Needless to say, Ethan hadn’t ponied up on that last one. Hell, if he’d been honest even a little teeny bit, he would have admitted that even the touch was a lie, because he wanted so much more from Jonah, and only so much of that was sexual. He took a sip of his soda, pondering, wishing desperately for clarity, for reassurance, for faith, for Jonah, and then his pocket buzzed. He was an idiot and checked it anyway.

  Just finished working out. You’re right—

  it does make me feel more in control of things. How

  in control do YOU feel right now?

  He swallowed and tapped back, I haven’t been in control since I was five years old. Then he looked up at his companion, who’d been texting his girlfriend during their entire conversation, and who was going to fuck him raw in the morning.

  “Hey, Bobby,” he said, making the commitment right then. The idea had been swimming in his brain like a toxic fish for almost two weeks now
. “Want to come with me to get a tattoo?”

  He looked up the symbol in the car as Bobby drove him. He’d originally wanted it close, right up next to his hole, so that nobody who ever went near that part of his body would have any doubt as to how used, how cheap, how much of a whore Ethan really was. If he could have, he would have had it tattooed on his cock too, but when he thought of that, he realized why he had to move the symbol up to the small of his back.

  Good hardworking whores didn’t have time to heal from their “whore” tattoos.

  Bobby was real nice to him the next day—considerate as hell about not touching the fresh ink—and Ethan was grateful. When the time came to actually fuck, Bobby lay with his shoulders propped up against the headboard, his cock jutting rampant from his groin, and Ethan sucked it hard until Bobby writhed against the comforter and begged him.

  Ethan would say later he got so hot he forgot the lube, but he knew. With barely enough spit and a quick rim job from Bobby in the foreplay, he straddled that monster and impaled himself, and the pain washed over his body so fiercely his vision went black for a moment. He didn’t stop moving, though, didn’t even lose his hard-on. Just kept bouncing slowly, oh so slowly, as every vein in Bobby’s cock rubbed his rectum like sandpaper. The raw edge of pain kept that little tattoo needle in his mind perforating all of his skin until even his pores hurt, and as he bounced up and down and fucked Bobby until his eyeballs rolled back in his head, he heard it—the new litany, the one that was going to keep his whoring ass in business for years.

  You want touch, asshole? You need touch, you fucking whore? Well, touch this! Touch this! Feel this touch inside you and love it, jerk-off, because it’s the only touch you’re going to get.

  He came three times that scene. One shot was so hard, it landed right in Bobby’s open mouth.

  At the end, Bobby rolled him over and fucked him from behind, then came on his ass, the semen searing sharply in his new wound. He welcomed it too, rubbed the jizz hard into his skin and ignored the stinging in his eyes.