Glamourpuss
Page 13
“I had a pilot callback yesterday. And I’m recurring on The Bold & The Beautiful Monday.”
“That’s great. How many times have you been on?”
“This’ll be four. I play a Spectra model.”
“With Darlene Conley? She’s one of my all-time faves. My mom and I used to watch her on Young & Restless when she played Rose DeVille. In 1979 she was an evil madam who beat up her teenage hookers and threw them down the stairs. Then she came back seven years later, running a black market baby-ring and stole a newborn from Tricia Cast, who I also love. I was so excited when they created Sally Spectra for her on B&B. She’s like the Divine of daytime.”
“I’ll tell her you said that,” he smirked. “Darlene and I? Also like this.” He waggled those two crossed fingers at me. “She sent me a Christmas card. With a hand-written personal note.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“My first episode, I had three lines, one being, ‘Sally, I have a cramp!’ ‘Cause I’m a whiny bitter male model. Shut up. So after it’s blocked the crew’s on a break and Darlene asks if we want to run through it one more time, for lines. And when I tell her I have a cramp, she’s supposed to give me ‘a withering stare’ or some shit, like, silently. She’s doing that, right beside me, and I tell her she should say ‘Behave yourself and I might rub it out for you.’ And she laughs, very surprised, and goes ‘All this and you also pitch jokes?’ Then, totally on-cue, she turns to the guy who plays Thorne Forrester and says ‘Get out!’ Everyone cracks up. And we’re getting ready for the first take, and she must’ve asked somebody in the booth, because she passes by me and I hear ‘Your line’s in, honey!’ And it was.”
“Good for you! And her. Excellent Darlene impression, by the way. Apt, yet respectful.”
“Always! She’s a goddess. Did you know she was in Valley of the Dolls?”
“The original?!” I gasped, queering out. Trevor nodded, rolling those big doll-eyes like it was obvious. “Wait. As whom?”
“You know the Neely O’Hara nuthouse flashback? Where they stick her in the canvas-covered hydrotherapy tub? Darlene’s the one sitting there taking notes while Neely has a shit-fit.”
“She’s Stupid-Ass Nurse?! Christ, that was her!” I was so impressed. “How do you top a fun fact like that?”
Trevor shrugged coyly. “By bonding with Suzanne Somers when I guest-starred on Step By Step. Did you see that?”
“No… and I always, always tape it. There must’ve been a power outage that day,” I deadpanned.
“It’s a charming show,” he growled. “My little niece in Pennsylvania is nuts about it. Suzanne’s been one of my idols for years, so meeting her was like… yeeeow! She even autographed her poetry collections, which I’m proud to have already owned. ‘To Trevor, My Sexiest Co-Star Since Joyce DeWitt.’”
“If that’s true, I think she was being sarcastic,” I countered.
“It’s totally true, you evil slut! They’re at home. I’ll show you. Don’t let me forget.” So he was planning on taking me back to his place. A tremor of evil, slutty excitement rippled my nerves.
Just as I expected, our destination was Little Frida’s, a hip dykey coffee house nestled within a mock-French Quarter mini-mall directly across from The Sports Connection, where the finest in Nineties health club facilities met the sleaziest in Seventies steam-room action. Trevor owed his lucrative physique to six stamina-stretching workouts a week there. I preferred to stay firm, fresh and fun to look at on Beverly Boulevard, at Easton’s Powerhouse Gym, a cozier, scaled-down, less meaty exercise experience.
We ordered mocha cappuccinos and Trevor scanned the room in vain for rumored regular Madonna. Darn the luck. At our tiny corner table, he said, “You never told me how your trip to Texas went.”
“You never told me how yours went, either.”
“Cool. Fun. It was only three days.”
“Mine was interesting. I went back to my old high school, alternated between my mom’s cooking and all my favorite restaurants, spent a lot of time with my friend Sara… caused a minor riot at the mall.”
He laughed at that, thinking I was kidding. I decided not to explain. He had something else in mind, anyway. “How do things stand with Nick?”
Feel free to get right to the point. “We had dinner when I was in Austin. The night I saw you, as a matter of fact.”
He took a sip of his coffee, then licked foam off his upper lip. “How’d it go?” Was that concern and vulnerability darkening his fine features?
“Okay, I guess. Nothings changed as far as the Barney situation. Nick’s really stuck in a rut, but that's not my problem, right?”
Trevor shook his head. “So it’s really over?”
“Yeah.” Now he was going to tell me he was madly in love with someone he’d met rollerblading.
“Good to know,” was all he said.
Okay, enough. I plunged in: “How’s your love life?”
He narrowed his massive peepers and raised one eyebrow simultaneously. “If you must know, I’ve been celibate for six months.”
I laughed out loud. “And I’m Colonel Sanders.”
“I’m serious, Alex!” He challenged me with a grave look.
“What brought this on?”
He shrugged. “I had an HIV test last summer and it came back negative, thank God, and I thought, okay, great, let’s pull in the reins. What’s the point of screwing around with guys I don’t give a damn about when I can masturbate and get the same results, without the risk or aggravation?” He paused for more coffee. He was a real P.O.W. (or Piece Of Work, as my agent dubbed many in The Biz). “No one knows what feels good to me better than I do, right? I picked up some awesome lotions and stuff at Origins, a few videos and all-action collector’s stroke-mags, then treated myself to some new pillowcases…I’ve been very happy ever since.” Performance-piece played, he smiled gorgeously.
The image of him jerking off was a tad hard to shake. “Nice,” I replied. “The old ones must’ve been covered with bite marks.”
“How dare you?!” he faux-seethed, before laughing long and hard.
“So…no slip-ups?” I inquired.
“No,” he said, then had to look away, smirking, caught in a lie.
I gave him a condescending nod. “I see.”
“Okay, it was only one time, right before Christmas. And it almost doesn't count, because it was just, you know…” He cupped his hand around an air-penis and whacked it for two seconds. “I was sitting in the sauna at the gym, absolutely innocent, wearing a towel which covered everything, just relaxing, alone, when the door opened and this guy walked in, totally strapping, perfect bodybuilder daddy, around 40. I didn’t want to stare. I mean, I did, but I couldn’t, or else… so I closed my eyes again for a little while and tried to remember the complete cast of Mayberry RFD, but when I opened them for a second” — he leaned forward confidentially — “his dick was as big as a baby's arm and he was sliding the foreskin back and forth and staring at me. And we ended up spanking it together.” Our faces were about two inches apart. “He was from Sweden and knew three words of English.”
“Were two of them let’s fuck?”
“Please. I didn’t even get his name.”
I shook my head. “So bittersweet.”
“Alex, don't you ever do anything trashy?”
“Just my show. Did you see it last week at all? There was an amazing scene where Gwen was seducing this stud in front of Ollie — they're trying anything to help him get it up — and she started flashing back to her rape on the yacht and freaked out. Plus Sean got beaten up in jail, and I tried to kill Cyrinda again in the hospital.”
“How do you keep track?”
“I only worked one day last week so I watched it at home. I slept in, heated up Trader Joe’s frozen entrees, talked to Soap Opera Digest on the phone.”
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br /> “You have such a dream life.”
“Stop. You’re killing me.”
“All I want is a series, Alex. A soap, some skanky Stu Segall late-night detective show, a nuclear holocaust sitcom, a pilot. One pilot! It doesn’t even have to air. I just need to have Series Regular on my resume. It’s the next step if I want my career to go anywhere.”
“Well, it is pilot season. Have you been out a lot?”
He sighed petulantly. “Some. The callback I had was for this hideous sitcom pilot. Elayne Teitelbaum and Karyn Wulbrun are casting.”
“Love them. What’s the show?”
“Dino & Muffin.”
“You’re up for Dino, I hope?”
He giggled spasmodically. “No. Ky. That's K-Y. As in jelly. Dino will be played by Corey Haim.”
“No.”
“Yeah. He’s set! I’d so tell him how much I loved License To Drive. Both Coreys were in that, y’know. Haim and Feldman.”
“It was a Coreyfest.”
“Just like The Lost Boys!”
“That was torture.”
“Alright, maybe. But you have to read this pilot script. I’ll show it to you when we get back to my house.” Yes!!! “Because it’s just, like, atrocious. Muffin is this adorable black tot who’s adopted by… get ready… a fraternity. I’d play Corey’s zany, fun-loving roommate. I’ll never get it, though.”
“Why not?”
“I’m just totally wrong for it…. you don’t think I’m too effy to get a series, do you?” He sat back in his chair, folding his arms over his flexed chest in a pseudo-unconsciously butch manner.
“Oh, no, Trevor. Don’t ever think that.” I saw no reason not to lie.
Relieved, he kicked me lightly under the table. “Do you have to get up early tomorrow?”
“Well, it’s Sunday, so there’s my paper route…”
“Skip it, Kevin Wiles.” I felt myself blushing at his brazen Big Guns porno movie reference. We’d watched the 1987 all-male classic together the one night I spent with him in Venice Beach during our micro-fling. When smirky bottom Kevin was caught peeking at the anaconda swinging under customer Chad Douglas’s open bathrobe, submission to sodomy the insatiable teen’s only recourse, Trevor said, “Obviously that newspaper can’t afford to lose one single subscription.”
He leaned in a little, that lethal smile confirming our mutual recall of the Homo Hardcore Hall of Fame scene… and what followed in front of his TV for the remainder of the movie. “I rented Two Moon Junction and Make Them Die Slowly. Let’s have a Vomitrocious Film Festival.”
✽✽✽
Trevor had moved to his apartment from Venice about a year ago, but I’d never been inside, which was very Cher’s Sanctuary catalog: high ceilings, hardwood floors, a fireplace in which he’d cleverly installed a better TV. Trevor gracefully snatched clothes off the plush scarlet sofa. “Have a seat!” He disappeared into the bedroom.
I couldn’t help noticing Trevor’s modeling portfolio, displayed as it was on the coffee table, like someone normal would have done with France’s Wine Country or A Norman Rockwell Christmas. I picked it up. Page One: Our host on a crunch machine, tummy rippling, shorts riding up hairless buttery thighs. Page Two: A tuxedo shot beneath the full moon. Page Three: Back to the program with the cover of Undergear, featuring Trevor and all his 2000 parts laced into a hi-tech jockstrap. Page Four: Wait, let’s go back to Page Three. Jesus. I made a mental note to order some Undergear tomorrow and reactivate my mailing-list privileges.
“Sorry, Alex.” Trevor slid out of his room on stockinged feet. “Let me just check my messages.” He switched on his answering machine. Quickly and carefully, I put the portfolio where I’d found it.
“Bon soir, Trevor. It’s Marcel. I got the how-do-you-say contact shits, and I want to shoot another roll, somewhere nice and tres L.A., like the tar pit. Ring me back.” Beep. “Hi, it’s Larry… guess you’re not home… Anyway, it’s Saturday, so tomorrow’s Sunday… um, I kinda wanted to drive down to La Jolla. Gimme a call, dude.” Click.
“Who was that?” I asked pertly.
Trevor rewound the tape, then sat down beside me. “Larry. This dumb blonde I met at the grocery store.”
“Hey — he knows his days of the week. And at least this one speaks English.”
“Barely. We had lunch recently and all he talked about was what kind of tattoo he should get, and where. Total nightmare.” But more of a nightmare for the young beach-bunny who had every reason to think Trevor would be getting into his trunks and vice-versa… if I was to believe that celibacy crap. And what if it were true? Did I want to be the reason Trev fell off the meat-wagon?
“Wanna watch a movie?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“I dunno. Why don’t I give you the tour?”
“Lead the way.”
Highlights included his Suzanne Somers autographs, Darlene Conley Xmas card, the refrigerator (empty except for a bottle of Calistoga seltzer and chocolate-covered espresso beans), and the $709.95 stone-and-glass coffee table for which he’d been mistakenly charged $19.95 at Cost Plus Imports. We ended up in his room, mysteriously candlelit… possibly by the Celibacy Elves? Their more popular cousins, angels and cherubs, were the dominant motif — plaster ones seated on his nightstand and dresser, ornately carved ones fluttering around the frame of the obligatory full-length mirror, painted Renaissance ones gazing down from a huge print hanging over his bed — the only place to sit. Oh, well…
The cozy aroma of melting wax scented with frangipani was suddenly very prevalent. “It’s a great apartment, Trevor. And you haven't even shown me your American Gigolo gravity boots.”
“Color me your color, baby,” he quoted Blondie, smiling and tentatively extending one of his big hands to my face to brush a lock of hair behind my ear. I kept my eyes on the newly re-covered pillows for a few seconds, then looked at him. “I hope this is okay,” he said, still smiling. His hand alighted on my shoulder.
I undid his single button and the vest fell open. I laid my hand on his bulging pectoral. His skin was feverishly warm. (“Metabolism,” he’d explained long ago.) My thumb grazed his semi-hard nipple and he inhaled sharply. Then his arms were encircling me, pulling us together. I smelled Paul Mitchell gel and something smoky and decadent… sandalwood?
After several sizzling make-out minutes, Trevor started to undress. The vest sailed across the room, followed by his socks. He stood up and I unsnapped his pants, then lowered the zipper, feeling irresistible pressure from within. I reached around his waist and pulled them down, my fingers trailing over his sculpted buns. For someone who’d earned so much hawking underthings in print, he certainly had an aversion to wearing them.
I had to ask, so I seized his thick rigid penis and spoke into it like a microphone: “What about celibacy?”
“It really sucks,” he said, slithering on top of me and starting to pull off my clothes while I grabbed hot handfuls of muscle with my eyes closed and didn't fantasize that it was Nick until I felt Trevor’s lips riding the nerve-ending railway up the back of my neck.
AUGUST 28, 1990
I hadn’t dreaded a school year so much since the fourth grade, when I’d had advance information that my homeroom teacher was to be megabitch Ms Cookstone, who, it had been widely reported, had gotten into a screaming, wrestling altercation with her Weight Watchers counselor the previous Easter break. (She wanted those Cadbury Eggs, and God help anyone who tried to stop her.) UT started on the last Wednesday in August, so I drove up Tuesday night. My apartment, unoccupied for the summer, was dusty and oven-like but intact. I turned on the TV, dialed Sara’s number and started rummaging through the grocery bags my mom had packed for me. Sara’s machine kicked in.
“Hello, gorgeous,” I said after the beep. “Be the first and only person to welcome me back to sultry Austin. Same number. Bye.” I hung
up and started flinging clothes out of my suitcase, trying to dig out my phone/address book for Sara’s Daily Texan digits. She’d stayed in town the whole summer to work at the paper, and moved to my side of the river, into a studio apartment in the overpriced, heavily “Greek” West Campus area.
I found the book and flipped to the R’s, pausing briefly on the M page. Nicholas Miller — address scratched out, new phone number inked in. Apparently he’d moved right on schedule the end of July. I’d called from Maine a few weeks ago, jumping out of bed (after tearfully listening to a special tape of depressing songs I’d masochistically mixed) and creaking down the stairs as my non-Floridian grandparents slept. I punched in Nick’s number, knowing damn well that “shitty” was the only possible outcome. If Barney answered, I’d hang up. Ditto for Nick. Hearing his voice after three months, even just saying “hello” would undoubtedly let loose a Pavlovian spurt of lust and misery. The final option — listening to some recording stutter out the new number — meant Nick didn’t care if I had his new phone and address or not. Okay, so I’d been away all summer, but there was no reason he couldn’t call Sara —
Dee-doo-DEEP! “The number you have reached…” I scrawled it on a napkin. “Now go to fuckin’ bed, loser!” Inner mini-devil Jeff Stryker didn’t take summers off. But Your Satanic Hugeness, I still don’t —
“Enough, young man!” Neither did his seraphic, jockey-shorted counterpart, mini-Rupert Graves from A Room With A View (still over a year away from being recast with Kyle Chandler). “All you can possibly find out is that Barney’s still with him,” Rupert sighed in his Freddy Honeychurch posh-Brit accent. “There’s no way to prove Barney’s NOT there!”
“Dial that goddamn number! You know you wanna, you homewreckin’ pussy!” Mini-Jeff snarled. And he was right. I dialed. One ring. Three rings.
Then: “Hello?” It was definitely Barney.
“YEAH, it is!” Jeff chortled, loving this.
Mini-Rupert hung his pretty head, his bangs flopping over his eyes in shame, as, becoming more impatient, Barney barked, “Hel-lo?!” I forcefully hung up. So the saga continued. Had Nick wavered for even one second before leasing himself to another year with Dogface? “That hardly matters,” Rupert whispered sensibly. “Don’t waste your last year of college on this. You’ve squandered nine months already, my dear boy. And the end result is the same as if you’d never met him.”