I went into my room and put the envelope on top of my packed bag. I was taking off my clothes for a three-hour nap when I remembered my answering machine. There were four calls. My mother. My agent. A hang-up. Then, “Hi there, Alex.” It was him. My eyes darted to the wall. If this had been a movie, there would be a slow zoom-in to the photo hanging there while his deep voice filled the soundtrack. Instead, it echoed off the walls and hardwood floors, because I didn’t have the money for extraneous furnishings yet. “Sara tells me you’re leavin’ tomorrow, and I wanted to make sure we got together for at least a little bit when you come to Austin. So… call me, and we’ll give you a hard time about bein’ a TV star. Okay? See you soon.” He sounded so easygoing and friendly – no, folksy – like a hot but humane cowboy doing a PETA PSA about why he left the rodeo circuit. I sank weakly to my wrought-iron bed that came with the apartment, clad in the Perry Ellis briefs I only wore because he’d confessed they were his favorite underwear, my hand already reaching for the rewind button.
APRIL 20, 1990
He was driving me so crazy that, at first, I put the videotape in backwards then stood there stupidly waiting for it to start playing. I’d just given my best performance yet as Starcat in Psycho Beach Party at Capitol City Playhouse in Austin, fueled by nervous energy and Nick’s presence in the audience (for the second time), along with my resolution to actually kiss him tonight. I ejected and reinserted. Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks started. I dropped to the floor in front of Nick’s chair. “Is it okay if I sit here?”
“Sure,” he said, as if I’d asked if he wanted another Coke. I leaned back, and he put his legs over my shoulders. I pulled off his Topsiders and ran my hands over his bare feet and up his calves. After months of forbidden longing, he was touching me and I was touching him. I felt like I’d been starving and was now being presented with an exquisite gourmet meal that I would be allowed to finish, course by course, only if I exhibited perfect table manners.
I waited as long as I could then turned around, still between his tan, muscular legs. We kept talking about the play and my final exams, and I slid my hands under his shirt and slowly and carefully stroked his stomach and hard, hairy chest. His hand stayed on my shoulder, and I looked into his eyes, which were fiery blue steel. It didn’t matter that he had been living with a guy for years and we could never spend a night together. I whispered the words I’d waited six months to say to him: “Nick, I’d really like to kiss you.”
“We’d better not,” came the unconvincing reply.
Undaunted, I pleaded, “Just a little one.” It worked. He closed his eyes as I rose up for the kill. Kissing him was like hot rain in a tropical forest. I was the willing virgin sacrifice, he the pagan love-god with movie-star sensual lips.
“You’re falling in love with me, aren’t you?” he breathed afterward then smiled just a fraction, clearly not hating the concept. Jolts of pleasure shot down my body as those lips brushed against my ear. I couldn’t tell him I’d been in love with him since the second I first saw him. So I opted for tasteful unspoken assent, squeezing him as tightly as I could, my face pressed against his partially exposed chest.
“It feels good to have a man hold you, doesn’t it?”
This question seemed safe to answer. “Yes,” I half-panted. “It feels so good to touch you.”
My hand was somehow on his thigh, then my fingertips just under the leg of his neon-red nylon running shorts. I was no longer in control. Someone else was sliding his hand further and further until he encountered Nick’s huge, rigid penis encased in the mesh lining of his shorts. Someone else had to be squeezing it, making him close his eyes and emit a shuddering sigh of pleasure.
“Alex…” he said. I guess it was me. I withdrew my hand, breathless, praying he wasn’t about to bolt, fully engorged, for the door.
Instead, he hooked his fingers into the waistband of his shorts and forced them down, revealing insanely sexy bush.
His big dick slapped against his stomach when we finally wrested his pants past it. I stared at all of him as he kicked off the red shorts… the mesh liner thankfully precluding underwear… not believing this was really happening. I could barely talk. “You’re so beautiful,” I said. His fingers interlocked with mine, his left hand clasping my right. I kissed him all over. He let me. He went home to Barney at 11:55 p.m.
✽✽✽
Dear Alexander, You’re one of my favorite actors! Hearts Crossing is one of my favorite shows and I especially like the scenes with Simon. A personally autographed photo would really mean a lot to me! I’ve enclosed a SASE. Ruth Velverson Tacoma, WA
The SASE was a classy touch. But what was with the fill-in-the-blanks? Had some national teachers’ magazine declared these pre-fab fan letters this season’s elementary-school hand-made gift trend for students with starfucker moms? Obviously, I couldn’t sleep. It was almost 4:00 a.m. so why bother. I played Nick’s message again, closing my eyes and running a hand over my pecs and biceps, imagining it was Nick showing affection in our enormous bedroom in a Nichols Canyon Mediterranean villa. Pointless, pathetic, retarded. I went back to the mail, wondering if any guys besides Arlow Shank had written. Didn’t look like it. I noticed one letter had a San Antonio postmark. It was her again. I ripped it open.
Dear Alex, HI! It’s me again. Thanks for the autograph! I didn’t even mind cutting up my yearbook, because now I have a great, wallet-size reminder of you that I show everyone I work with. They’re pretty freakin’ impressed when I tell them I was in your algebra class at Roosevelt! Your super-sweet mom said she didn’t know when you’d be home again when I called today, but when you are, I hope you’ll let me take you to lunch! Congratulations on getting that yicky Cyrinda out of the picture! I’m not going to miss one single episode of HEARTS CROSSING now. Please write if you have time. Sincerely & God Bless! Juliana Butts, 4950 Royal Glen Dr, San Antonio, TX 78239
Question #1: Why didn’t my parents have an unlisted phone number? This was Juliana’s seventh letter in the sixteen weeks I’d been recurring on Hearts Crossing. Question #2: Who the hell was this girl? I had no idea. I’d have to find an old yearbook and look her up when I got to Texas.
I turned on the TV and must have fallen asleep immediately because when I woke to my blasting alarm clock, the Trinity Broadcasting Network was still on. In a pre-taped segment, Jan Crouch was bouncing her wacky-eyed, punk-moussed grandbaby Kalin on her hip while cooing, “Can you say ‘Jesus’? Jeee-zus?”
“Jesus Fucking Christ, Jan!” I couldn't resist shouting.
The stylishly dressed Christian tot batted Jan’s rock-stiff, silvery-pink angora-kitten wig with a tiny fist. “Deeza!” he gurgled. As much as I hated to tear myself away from Jan doing anything — seriously! — I had to move my ass. I quickly switched to a Madonna Rock Block on MTV and hopped to it.
When Trevor rang me, I was making my bed – returning from a trip to an unmade one was too much of a depressing image. I buzzed him up, grabbed my bag and a seltzer and met him on the porch.
He was a slightly offbeat kind of gorgeous and one of those striking model-types that looks most natural dripping wet in a tank top, which he had plenty of practice at in photo layouts for Hawaiian Tropic, Nautilus and International Male. Not to mention his more private and special appearance in an Advocate Men centerfold the year before.
We’d met last January at Risa Bramon’s casting office, the day’s last two appointments for a part in a Keanu Reeves summer-fluff movie. I was sneaking glances at him in the waiting area while scanning my sides and trying to decide how I was going to add some zing to the nine-line role of Bran (which Trevor ended up getting, even though he’d picked up the wrong sides and kept calling Risa “Rita”). Trevor, not preparing, listlessly perused Dramalogue. He tossed it down loudly, prompting eye contact. Then he spoke: “Remember Highlights For Children?”
Pretty, and quirky too? Intriguing. “I used to look at it in the
dentist’s office… if I forgot my book,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “It was always in waiting rooms. Like in the Seventies they gave every office a free subscription. Even when I was real little, it always seemed like it came from another universe.”
“A retarded universe.”
“Yes! Especially the page with the supposedly really tricky brainteasers. ‘Headwork’. More like Sp’Ed-work! ‘Does a baby have teeth?’ ‘How many shoes in a pair?’ Did you find those questions insulting?”
“I never made it to that page. I went directly to Goofus & Gallant.”
“Gallant always applies plenty of spermicidal foam to the vagina. Goofus never chips in for abortions… and makes his girlfriends take the bus to the clinic! Oh, my God. You’re in Teenage Brides of Christ.”
“Speaking of abortions,” I self-deprecated. He was already up and sitting down next to me. Teenage Brides had been my first movie, a low-budget sickie about a crazed former altar boy knocking off the wayward novitiates at a Dallas convent. I played a CCD leader tempted by busty, impure Sister Bernadette. We both ended up pitchforked, courtesy of Greg Nicotero’s prosthetic splatter make-up effects. Turned out Trevor, like my parents, owned the film on Vestron VHS. I introduced myself. “Alex Young. Hi.”
“I’m…” He was cut off when Risa’s assistant peeked in.
“Trevor Renado,” she announced.
“She’s right. Don’t go away,” Trevor told me. He got up, still shaking my hand. The assistant was gone. He squeezed my hand then withdrew his, sensually trailing his fingertips on my skin and shockingly triggering a semi in my Gap jeans.
We became best friends for a few weeks and had a torrid micro-romance that ended when he started hitting the club scene with a chiseled airhead from a Janet Jackson video. I felt like dogshit only briefly, realizing that Trevor’s zany and energetic hunkiness didn’t come a la carte. His entrée-size emotional immaturity was the real staple of the menu. Not to mention every time we wrestled shirtless on the apartment floor or achieved a record combined total of nine safe orgasms in a seven-hour period or I discovered a hickey in some outlandish place, I felt like I was cheating on Nick. Talk about emotional maturity.
We remained in contact just enough for it not to seem totally prickish of him to ask me for a ride to the airport a couple months ago. I was glad to reciprocate the imposition. “Hi, Trevor.” I couldn’t believe he was actually wearing a spandex wife-beater/gym-shorts unitard/onesie thing. Sans undergarment, too, from the way things were hanging up front.
“Good morning!” He took the flavored seltzer from me. “Bubble-water? That’s your idea of a fortifying breakfast?” He took a big gulp, belched outrageously and handed me a small pink bag. Croissants, organic grapefruit juice, little containers of “Beurre” and “Fraise Confit”.
“Hey, thanks.”
“You can eat in the car,” he said, grabbing my flight bag and sliding down the banister, legs akimbo, showing off. “You look great, Alex.” Right back atcha, I thought but refused to say.
We continued to the street and got in his Miata. He was in a very chatty mood. “International Male’s sending me to Rio for the spring catalog shoot. I’m real excited. Have you seen those Kristen Bjorn pornos? Yeeeow! Set your VCR. I’m going to be on Bold & the Beautiful two weeks from today. Are you still on Hearts?” He pulled into thickening morning traffic on Cahuenga.
I finished a croissant and carefully wiped my fingers and the corners of my mouth with a moist towelette. “Haven’t you seen it lately?” I enjoyed toying with him.
“No. I’ve been kind of busy. I’m sorry,” he offered, looking at me with a wide-eyed expression and coy smile more suitable for the Gish Sisters circa 1921, or others similarly less buff.
“Actually, they just put me under contract.”
Trevor spit the last of my seltzer all over the steering wheel, a favorite trick of his. He choked off the Divinyls on KROQ and gaped at me. “Are you joking?”
“No. Eyes on the road,” I said, grinning in spite of my affected detachment. “Three years.”
“That’s amazing,” Trevor said. Not that amazing, you little tramp. “How much?”
A little tacky, but… “$1350 a show.”
“That is soooo great. And you’re playing that wonderful psychopathic maniac. And you have your own dressing room and get to make all those personal appearances… Yeeow! So what are you going to be doing in Texas?” Muscles bulged as he whipped the car toward the 10.
“I just did eight episodes in a row. So sleeping mostly. Hanging out, visiting friends.”
“Nick, too?”
I looked at him, genuinely surprised. He glanced at me, expressionless behind Ray-Bans. “I don’t know,” I said. “Why?”
He got a little defensive. “I don’t know. It just seems pointless for you to get embroiled in that again. He’s still with What’s-His-Face, isn’t he?”
“Dunno. Maybe not.”
“Did he tell you they broke up?”
“Trevor, I’ve barely spoken to him in almost a year. I’m not making this trip to see Nick.”
He popped in a cassette. An obscure Book of Love remix started rocking. It was a tape I’d made for him a long time ago. “Good. Because you have a hell of a lot more going for you than he deserves.” He’d never met Nick, of course, but hated him. Not that it was now or ever had been any of Trevor’s fucking business.
We overtook one of those family truckster/minibus suburban torpedoes. It had Utah plates and lots of bumper stickers: MOM’S TAXI, WE SUPPORT PROVO’S FINEST, JESUS ON BOARD. Plus a trendy Bart Simpson license-plate frame. As we passed it, a pubescent chick with a goony grin waved at Trevor, while her sister or cousin or lucky BFF slapped her shoulder and giggled and stared. Trevor slid the strap of his unitard over his left shoulder, revealing an erect nipple. He licked his lips lasciviously while the girls went berserk. Mom’s Taxi put on speed. A boy about eight years old was jumping around in the back window, and when they moved in front of us, the young scamp shoved his bare ass against the Saf-T-Glass.
“Goddamn kids!” Trevor snarled. He sped past them, flipping the whole family off.
“You’re really a scream,” I said.
He flashed me a sand’n’surf smile. “If you have a week off, maybe you can come to Rio with me.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I was politely aloof, tastefully unexcited. But filed the idea away for future consideration.
We hit the airport. At my terminal, Trevor pulled into a red zone. “I’ll pop the trunk,” he told me.
“Thanks, Trevor.”
“I hope you have a great trip.” He put one of his big hands over my smaller-but-normal-size one. Then he leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. I didn’t exactly protest.
“The top’s down,” I reminded him.
“That’s okay. You’re not a star yet, you know.”
“Says you.” I got out and hoisted my bag out of the trunk. He took off, waving, in a cloud of electro-pop.
The plane was full. Luckily I had the aisle. A couple in their late fifties separated me from the window. The husband had his hat, a Tom Clancy novel, and a Zip-loc bag of pistachio nuts on my seat. He moved them when I stepped up but didn’t seem too damn happy about it. I’d just squeezed myself in and was trying to slide my legs under the seat in front of me when the wife reached over and accosted me. “Hi, we’re Buzz and Bernice from China Grove, Texas.” The husband, Buzz I presumed (you never know), grunted. I introduced myself. They asked me what I did, and I told them I was studying to be an astronomer.
We headed down the runway. I pulled out a pack of spearmint gum and offered Buzz a stick. This did the trick. Now we were pals. “You just saved my damn eardrums, bub,” he said. I looked past Bernice as L.A. dropped into a flat, stained patchwork carpet against the Pacific. I’d kept a promise to myself, that I wouldn
’t return home until I was a success. I wondered how much fame and fortune it would take to make me want to confront my most significant failure.
NOVEMBER 2, 1989
If I had decided to go home and take a nap or had felt like hanging out at the Fine Arts Library instead of the Undergraduate, or if I’d taken one minute to get a drink of water or had chosen another study-table, or if the Jansport backpack hadn’t been unzipped and resting at the right angle, it never would have happened. It was the most randomly perfect alliance of cosmic variables that I could ever hope to be a part of.
The floor was pretty deserted as I pulled the complete works of Voltaire from the stacks and carried it over to a table, vacant except for a navy-blue backpack. It was open. As I walked by it, something inside caught my eye… an inch of magazine cover that seemed to feature the unmistakable tarty smirk of rising new porn starlet Joey Stefano. Intrigued, I glanced around. Nobody. Still keeping watch, I slid two fingers into the backpack and propped up the magazine, upside down but easy to identify: the latest issue of Jock.
I snatched my hand away as if scalded. The contents of the backpack shifted forward and a red folder popped out. NICHOLAS MILLER was written on the right-hand corner. I quickly pushed everything back in, then sat down two chairs away as the cutest guy I’d ever seen approached the table.
He was so hot all I could do was try not to stare; my brain so paralyzed it didn’t occur to me it was his backpack and, by simple deductive logic, his Jock. His hair was almost black. A dusting of five o’clock shadow made me wonder how it would feel to have that chiseled jaw rubbing against my ear while those muscled, hairy arms encircled my lean blonde torso. I shuddered. We made eye contact. “Hi,” he said, in a deep, honey-smooth man’s voice. He picked up his backpack, smiled pleasantly, and walked out. I watched his ass move under Structure jeans. Nicholas Miller. I stared stupidly down at Voltaire. It was going to be a long night.
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