Glamourpuss

by Christian McLaughlin

  Enclosed is an original erotic charcoal rubbing and an Aleister Crowley poem. I am an artist as well as a wizard. Soon we shall meet. Forgive me if I admit I want to suck you dry. “Astaroth”

  “This is brilliant, Jane,” I told Anna Ford. I looked up from the graph-paper notebook the art department had scribbled arrows, equations and chemical symbols all over. “No one else has seen this, have they?”

  ​Anna was wearing a forest-green sweater that offset her bobbed chestnut hair and a black miniskirt with matching tights, although she wisely kept her chicken legs curled up beneath her on-camera. I didn’t know what the writers were planning to do once Jane completed the first lot of Simon’s father’s sexual potency drug (which she’d been told was a cure for leukemia). But right now I had to make her believe I intended to unveil her as the Madame Curie of Harts Crossing. And that I was falling in love with her.

  ​I couldn’t stand Anna. A former teen star of a notoriously mediocre early Eighties family drama, she’d been on Hearts Crossing six years but had yet to achieve big-time soap prominence. She had Serious Thespian delusions and was constantly invoking the acting teacher in whose class she studied with Sharon Stone; two years before she’d written and produced a play in which she essayed three roles opposite Willie Aames at some Equity-waiver theater in Culver City. She’d been pissy to me since Day One. I figured she resented our mutual storyline: before Simon arrived, she’d been involved in a passionate triangle with Gwen’s younger brother (played by Italian teen sex-pistol Cary Rietta) and Debbie Kringle (Nori Ann Marshall) and had been taken on a five-day location shoot to Key West.

  ​“Oh, no, Simon. I’ve had complete privacy in the lab,” she assured me.

  ​“Sounds cozy,” I flirtatiously remarked, sliding down the chintz sofa toward her. I put my arms around her, per script and rehearsal. It was like embracing fiberboard. I held back, waiting for her line: You’ve given me so many reasons to be excited. It didn’t come.

  ​“Sorry,” Anna called. I was only too happy to release her. That was Take Three and she couldn’t stop fucking up.

  ​“Engineering five,” the technical director intercommed from the booth. The crew dispersed for a five-minute break, although Tommie was conscientious enough to touch up my face before retiring to the open-air deck to smoke.

  ​“How’s it goin’, sugar?” he asked.

  ​“I’ve had better moments.”

  ​“She’s being a real little c-word today. You know I don’t tell tales out of school, but Miss Anny-Fanny was in the hair room pitching a bitch about the scene you just didn’t finish. Specifically, the kiss.”

  ​“She doesn’t want to kiss me?!” I was outraged. I’d kissed Anna precisely twice before. And both times my breath had been so minty-fresh I practically had a Scope mustache. There was only one explanation. And it stank to high heaven.

  ​“Look out. Here comes trouble.” Tommie ducked around the back wall of the Jane’s Apartment set just as Anna appeared with exec producer Reese Jacobs, who waved to me.

  ​“C’mere a sec, you two,” Reese said, leading us to Jane’s couch. “The scene’s not working. Something’s off.”

  ​“Should I be doing something differently?” I asked, the picture of cooperative innocence.

  ​“No, Alex, you’re fine. What we’re gonna do is end it earlier.” He unfolded a sheet of yellow legal paper. “After This is brilliant, Jane, she’ll say Thank you, Simon — I’m so glad you chose me for this project, then she’ll go behind the couch and put her hands on your shoulders, and we’ll end with a two-shot of her all happy and gullible while you give us one of those evil looks you do, Alex. Okay?”

  ​“Great,” I said. We did it and the next take was a buy. Thank God it was my last scene of the day with her.

  ​It’d been about one month since the outing. I was in the second week of my latest option cycle, and had started to think no upheavals were going to threaten my status as a daytime regular. Now this. Right in front of the entire crew, not to mention Babs Flanagan’s coed niece and her sorority sisters, who happened to be visiting the set. I cringed at the gossip that would arise, doubtlessly speculating that I had AIDS. Could that stupid asshole Anna have lived in Hollywood for 15 years and still think you could get it from kissing? I channeled my hateful feelings for her into my remaining scenes, all the while mentally composing a blistering rebuttal I intended to lambaste her with.

  ​But by the time I was in my dressing room, slathering on the cold cream, I realized going off on her, delicious or not, would be counterproductive. Making waves at the studio? Severely ill-advised. I grabbed my bag and walked out, secure in my maturity, but as I passed Anna’s door, a suitable compromise came to me. I knocked. She answered, hair wet, in a gaudy Picasso-esque shift that probably cost $400. “Hi,” she said blankly, surely quite surprised to see me.

  ​“I’m HIV negative,” I told her, as if speaking to a mental defective. “But if you haven’t gotten tested, you should. You’ve been in the business a lot longer than I have. Being older and all.” Ironically, even with no makeup, she now looked more fresh-faced and youthful than I’d ever seen her, like a clueless high school student who’d just walked in on the cousin she had a crush on masturbating. I savored her discomfort for only two seconds before wordlessly exiting.

  ​ I had to walk by a studio audience waiting in a carefully cordoned queue for the late taping of Cash Crazed, a syndicated game show that recently attained notoriety for persuading a librarian to strip down to bra and panties in the middle of the Beverly Center for a way-too-generous $18K. I said hi to the page guarding the crowd and headed for my car.

  ​Wait a second — did someone in line just call me a faggot? I could’ve sworn I heard it. I realized I’d stopped walking, so made a deliberate show of fishing out my keys. I was just paranoid. No way would tourists be that rude. The Anna Ford incident had rattled me, that’s all. I popped Jane Wiedlin’s Fur into my CD player and practiced deep breathing techniques. Everything was going to be fine, I told myself. The dirty phone calls and that persistent reporter from Edge had ceased plaguing me since I changed my number. The gay-issue fan letters had already slowed to a trickle. So what if Anna was a bitch and I had to act with her — I was up to the challenge. And I had 11 weeks to be professional and accommodating before the show could opt to fire me.

  ​It would’ve been nice to talk about the situation with Trevor, but since homosexuality was a sore spot with my gay boyfriend, I planned to keep the Anna story to myself. I’d basically been living at his apartment the last couple weeks. It was just more convenient, since our white-hot careers left so little time to spend together. And it wasn’t just sex. The water pressure was better at Trevor’s, too.

  ​He was out doing the gym and getting a facial (a real one) when I got there. The place was immaculate — Dora the maid had been in. I checked the fridge, hoping she’d left a batch of enchiladas verdes. Nada. I extracted a Fresca, then called my answering machine, which picked up on the first ring, indicating new messages. I’d just punched in my “secret” code, the unoriginal 666, when Trevor’s call-waiting beeped in my ear. I hung up, frustrated. His phone started to ring. As always, I let his machine pick up. It was the discreet thing to do. Trevor’s overly friendly greeting, a beep, then this: “Hi, Trevor, it’s Vidal from the Advocate editorial office. I’ve got a message I should maybe give you from a guy who says he knows you, and urgently needs to get in touch. He’s called twice today. Seems like an annoying pest to moi but in case it’s legit, his name’s Barney Gagnon…”

  ​As Vidal rattled off a Santa Monica phone number, I felt unreality cascade around me. “There’s no way, there’s just no way,” Mini-Kyle Chandler insisted, fluttering hysterically above my shoulder. I couldn’t replay the message because then the machine’s memo readout would reset to zero. But I really had no doubt. He’d said “Barney Gagnon.” And the chances there were another Barney Gagnon on the planet who just happened to
know the current boyfriend of the guy with whom the other Barney’s husband had had a torrid relationship were the same as Tipper Gore’s going on tour with Dead Or Alive. And he was in Santa Monica — today.

  ​I called my machine back and Nick was on it. “Hey, TV star. I called you at the show and they said you were gone already. But that might’ve been a security measure, I guess. Anyhow, I finally made it to L.A. So call me…” He left a number… the same one on Trevor’s message. They were here together. Next to a series regular role on Big Brother Jake — the only sitcom taped live at Christian Broadcasting Network headquarters in Virginia Beach, VA — this was my worst nightmare.

  ​Before I could formulate a plan, I heard Trevor’s key in the door. He pranced in, pumped up and exfoliated. “Hi!” He dumped his gym bag on the sofa and wandered into the kitchen. “No enchiladas?” Then, singing: “’Damn… I wish I was your lover/I’d rock you ‘til the daylight comes/Make sure you were smiling and warm/I am everything’ — Hey, they’re having me sing on the show this week!”

  ​“Trevor, you’ve got a message.”

  ​“I’ll listen to it later.”

  ​“I think you need to play it now.” He came out, already sweatshirtless. “What’s going on?” he asked, troubled, and a mite annoyed that I was ordering him around. He hit Play on the machine without waiting for an answer from me. We listened to Vidal’s message without looking at each other. When it was over, he turned to me, a paler shade of tan. “Alex, I can explain…”

  “Go ahead.” I was actually more curious than upset.

  ​“Remember when I was in Texas?”

  ​“Yeah.”

  ​“The night you saw me at the club?” I nodded. “Okay, I’ll start at the beginning. Since we first met, you always talked about Nick, and how you couldn’t believe he’d stay with such a useless ugly dork, and I thought you were exaggerating, y’know, out of jealousy. So I was in Austin and had some time and wanted to see for myself.” This was downright intriguing. I waited for him to go on.

  ​“So anyway, I looked him up in the phone book and called and asked for Nick. Not home, at work. Then the guy asks who I am, all curious. So I said ‘Barney?’ And he said ‘yes’, and I said I’d call back and hung up. Then I went down and borrowed a bike from the hotel and rode over to their house. Austin’s so easy to get around in. I really liked it. And I was wearing my cycling shorts and this string tank, but when I got near the house, I took off the top and stuck it in my pocket. Then I got some grease from the bike chain and kinda smeared it right here.” He stroked a zigzag just east of his right nipple.

  ​“I tossed the bike under a bush next door, then rang their bell. God, you weren’t kidding, Alex. He was a complete mess. Homely, baggy rumpled clothes, stupid haircut that hung in his face.”

  ​“What’d you say to him?”

  ​“That my bike chain broke and I needed to make a call. But while I was pretending to use the phone, he was just, like, staring at me like he’d never seen a good-looking guy before. Which I knew wasn’t the case,” he added hurriedly. “And this wicked part of me kept saying to push it. To see what he’d do.”

  ​“Oh, God, Trevor. You didn’t…”

  ​He sat down next to me and kept touching my arm as he continued, occasionally breaking into a disarming, self-conscious smile. While relating one of the most disturbing and hideous stories I’d ever heard: “So I ask if I can use the bathroom. To clean up. And he sort of mumbles yes and shows me to it, and he’s kinda loitering by the door, so I start the shower and take off my shoes and socks and I’m about to lose my pants, and I look over at him. And he darts back into the hall! So I get in the shower naked, start lathering up, and then I call him. ‘Barney, can you come in here a minute?’

  ​“Listen to this. I hear the front door slam shut and lock. Then he’s back in the hall saying, ‘Uhhhh, what is it?’ So I pull back the shower curtain, soaking wet, slightly fluffed, and I say, ‘I think I pulled a muscle trying to fix my bike. Can you help me wash my back?’” I was shaking my head, reacting to so much more than the conversational specifics Trevor had just reported, but he thought I was questioning the dialogue. “Verbatim,” he insisted. “It was like I was in a classic porno movie.”

  ​“Trevor, if this is some elaborate, mischievous little improv, stop right now, okay?”

  ​Now his head was shaking. “All true.”

  ​I sighed. “Then what happened?”

  ​“He came up to the tub with this stupid look on his face, half-terrified, half I don't know — trying to be raunchy or sexy, and failing… badly. And he started fondling my back, then touched my butt for one second, and I thought I’d start laughing, so I decided to get mean. Y’ know, hot-mean. So I spin around and grab his shirt, getting his clothes wet. ‘You don't know the difference between a dude’s back and his butt?! You touched my ass. Strip, you fairy!’”

  ​“What’d he do?”

  ​“What do you think, Alex? He stripped. And it was the strangest thing, because I was really getting turned on, and it was, like, in spite of him, because he was such a walking hard-off. I guess it was the power, the fact that he was totally under my domination and nothing like this was ever going to happen to him again, without paying in advance. Anyway, I was fully boned, and as soon as Barney sees, he puts his hand around it, without asking, and tries to shove it in his face. Not happening. So I go, ‘Did I give you permission to blow me? I’m giving the orders here!’ Then I told him to beg me to suck it, and I kept saying no, and jerking it in front of his face and not letting him touch it. Then I caught him masturbating and flipped out: ‘Did I say you could play with your tiny baby-dick?’”

  ​“And was it?” I asked, trying to downplay my curiosity.

  ​“Was it what?” Don’t make me clarify… Jesus. “Oh. Yeah, pretty much. Short and stubby. It kinda looked liked one of those Fisher-Price people that came with the barn, and the castle, and the Sesame Street. Did you have those?” I nodded. I’d owned all the toys he mentioned and found using their components as a measure of penis-size very bizarre. Trevor didn’t notice.

  ​“I couldn't really see it until I told him to put his hands behind his back, and repeat after me: ‘I’m a dumpy, cum-starved little slut.’”

  ​“And he said that?”

  ​“Repeatedly. Like he was possessed. Until I came in his face. It was so nasty… I made him sit there all goopy, jizz in that shitty haircut, while I got dressed.” I cast an oblique glance at Trevor’s hotpants, noting burgeoning evidence of seismic activity as we spoke. If this XXX-rated confession led to us boffing on the sofa, I’d never feel clean again. “Then I dropped the whole S&M thing, gave him some bull about what an incredible fantasy adventure it’d been, and maybe we’d meet again, and I was out the door, on my bike… back to the hotel, then the club. And I never saw him again. I swear.”

  ​“I believe you. But apparently he figured out who you are. He had to have recognized you in Advocate Men to have called the magazine.”

  ​“He had that issue?”

  ​“How else, Trevor? He’s probably got a massive collection. Nick said he was a huge porn-hound.” Trevor shuddered, as if Barney getting all steamed up over his photospread was somehow more distasteful then Trev pasting his pathetic puss in person. “You’re insane,” I told him, as if it wasn’t really a bad thing to be. Which it wasn’t.

  ​He pulled his legs up and leaned over his muscled knees. “I deserve a spanking… bare-ass.” Couldn’t argue with that. “Are you mad?”

  ​“I don’t know. Do you think I should be?”

  ​“No!”

  ​“Why not?”

  ​“Because. You and I weren’t, y’know… together — when this happened. And I didn’t do it to fuck anything up for you.”

  ​“So why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  ​“If you were me, would you have told?”

  ​“I wouldn’t have done it,” I almost laughed.
>
  ​Trevor dug his fingers into the cushion and stared down at his hightops. “I guess I thought you might use it to try to get back with Nick again.” How kooky. Perish the thought! “And I don’t want that to happen. Because I love you.”

  ​I looked deep into his jawbreaker-size hazel eyes for some sign of sarcasm or irony and there was none, and it was a little frightening. “Trevor…” I said, thinking I had to say something. He stroked my cheek with his fingertips. I spread my arms, and he moved in and I slid my hands over ridged lats and felt the marbled perfection of his bare back. His head was against my chest. I raked my fingers through his chic, $60 haircut. He lifted his head and gave me a shy, close-mouthed kiss. “There’s still some firming masque behind my ear. Quick shower, then let’s go out to dinner?”

  “Okay.”

  ​He disappeared into his room. Jesus H baldheaded Christ. I tried to sort out what I’d absorbed the past 15 minutes. Barney had cheated on Nick. I believed Trevor… why would he possibly invent something so sordidly messed-up? And here Barney was, in Santa Monica, trying to establish contact with Trevor (or “Randy Northcutt” as his Advocate Men fans knew him) and do it again. I’d been thinking about it during his entire spiel, and had come to the conclusion that, even if faced with Trevor’s nubile charms in a zipless-fuck situation — if I were Nick’s and he were mine — I’d stay true to him.

  ​Something else occurred to me. While I’d been locked in a passionate clinch with Nick at his office, Barney and Trevor had already… that goddamn phone call from Barney… about the cookies?! He was probably stalling for time while he mopped up their saturated, jism-spackled bathroom. Oh, the salty irony. Even so, I refused to indulge the fantasy that Nick had come out here to be with me. The presence of Barney — duplicitous dogfaced would-be nudie-model-sucker he may have been —nixed that fairytale scenario. Sara said Nick was worried about me — I guess he’d never know that the tantalizing agony of his erratic interest in my life stung worse than a dozen tabloid cover stories.