Glamourpuss
Page 25
Between finishing the movie, graduation and tying up the ends of my life in Austin, we hadn’t seen too much of each other. There were a couple of wonderful evenings right after I got back from Dallas, but he hadn't been willing or able to stay the night with me since that single epiphany/milestone back in March. We had a longstanding engagement to spend my last day in Texas together, so I drove up from San Antonio the morning of Memorial Day with an air mattress and a portable CD player in the backseat and waited for him in my empty apartment.
He knocked and I answered and there he was, at my door for the final time, in a white cotton button-down and khaki shorts, his arms and legs tan from a recent trip to the lake with Dogface. “All cleaned out,” he observed.
I nodded without saying anything, not wanting to cry before we’d even had sex. We looked at each other for a long moment, then he kissed me like no one had ever been kissed at eleven in the morning. “I think I miss you already,” he said.
“Don’t,” I whispered. “Today’s gonna last forever. I decided.” I made quick work of his shirt and palmed his bare shoulders and blue-ribbon chest before blasting into nipple-sucking, stomach-licking overdrive. I felt his hugeness against my pecs and slid a hand up into his shorts, squeezing and stroking the hot bulge through his briefs. I channeled his stiff dick through the leg-hole of his underwear and pushed his khakis up high enough to reveal the first two or three inches against his hairy muscled thigh. I wrapped my lips around it, teasing with my tongue while he pulled my Flying Fish t-shirt over my head. “Your pants, too,” he half-growled in that butch bedroom voice that could’ve turned Rambo queer. While I complied, he forced his own past his raging erection then lowered me onto the air mattress, which, conveniently, was as inflated as our dongs, and sheeted with my mother’s fresh linens in the middle of the living room.
Fifty minutes later, my head was resting on his chest and I was wondering if this was the last time doing it would feel like this. From the Undergraduate Library to here, I marveled, loving the way his big penis didn’t become less than half hard for most of the refractory period. Loving him. I burrowed my face under his arm, into the warm muscle of his lat. Would I get him wet if I cried? How could I leave this behind?!
“Hungry for lunch yet?” Nick asked, rubbing his index finger over the small of my back.
“That Nick-sausage whet my appetite,” I said, toying with the meat in question. He laughed.
We walked across the street to the Hyde Park Bar & Grill and ate tons while discussing the logistics of the drive west and, Darcy, the busty trash-film vixen who was “totally psyched” that her Teen Brides co-star would be crashing at her Studio City apartment for the next couple of weeks. The rest of the afternoon was gobbled up by a matinee of Truth Or Dare at the luxurious Arbor Cinema in north Austin. We kept up a lightweight conversation about the merits of the film on the way back to my place, but I could feel the crushing specter of goodbye hurtling toward us at the speed of light. I’d promised my mother I’d be home by eight for a major dinner. That didn’t leave much time. Not much at all.
We went upstairs. I took a Coke and a seltzer and dark chocolate peppermints from the barren, Mom-scrubbed fridge. We sat on the air mattress because there was nothing else but the floor. I’d been dying to tell him something for a year and a half. So I did.
“Nick… we didn’t ever meet at Human Rights Activists at law school. I’ve never been to one of those meetings.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I always knew, Alex.” He smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “I knew it the first time I came over here.”
“Were you mad?”
“Oh, no. I guess the word would be intrigued. So when was it? My hypothesis is one of my rare outings to a bar. The Boathouse?”
I shook my head. “UGL. I saw you there one time. Actually I saw your backpack and the copy of Jock magazine hanging out of it. You know, the Joey Stefano issue?”
Nick shook his head, amazed. “I remember. Barney had me pick that up for him at Hastings.” No fucking way. Gracias, shithead. “Then I did go to the library! But how’d you know my name?”
“It was on a folder next to the magazine. I looked you up.”
“Why?” He was looking into my eyes like he’d never seen the whole me before. My heart trip-hammered a sudden hopeful beat.
“Because you were the handsomest guy I’d ever seen.”
He took me in his arms. “You’re an angel, Alex,” he breathed softly.
Sara, forgive me. I made sure we were still eye-locked, then said it. “I love you. I’ve loved you from that first night in the restaurant. And I always will. I promise.” I leaned in to kiss him, but he pulled back and stood up, covering his face. He made no noise, but I saw his shoulders heave a little and heard the quiet velvety splat of tears on carpet. I tried to embrace him.
“Please don’t,” he choked.
“Why?” I was crying myself and didn’t even realize it until I heard my own clotted, fragile voice.
“Because I’ve loved you as much as I can, and now it’s killing me.” I couldn’t believe it. He’d said it, too. I put my arms around him. He resisted for a moment, then pulled me to him and held me tighter than ever. Before, during and after a searing hot kiss.
“What’s happening to us, Nick?” He shook his head.
We sort of slumped onto the mattress on our backs. “I can’t go to California with you, Alex. As tempting as it is. And I’ve been thinkin’ about it for quite a while now.”
“I’ve got over $40,000, Nick. Cash. That’s enough for both of us, for a year, easy. As soon as I get a place to live…”
“Alex.” Robo-Nick. “I can’t leave Barney. He needs me.”
“I need you, too.”
“You don’t get it, Alex. If I left, he'd never find anyone else. I can’t.” I wished like fucking hell that red-headed ball-and-chain could’ve been under my bed (now in my parents’ guest suite in San Antonio — yes, I realized) to hear that last choice line. Was even Barney’s self-esteem low enough to live with such an assessment?
Nick stared at the ceiling, shutting down. “Someday you’ll understand, Alex. You will.”
It was the only lie he ever told me.
✽✽✽
Dear Mr. Young, I am a regular viewer of Hearts Crossing. And I like your character of Simon Arable, an excellent villain on Hearts Crossing. I DON’T like what you did to Cyrinda. I DIDN’T like the way you framed Sean. And then lying to Jane and stealing the secret formula and then hypnotizing Oliver to be your gay love slave and then threatening Natalie if she reported you to Rutherford after blackmailing her and poisoning Cyrinda and framing Sean and lying to Jane and stealing the secret formula and hypnotizing Oliver to be your gay love slave. Yours truly, Gigi Panunzio, Lincoln, NB
✽✽✽
By the time we went on a 48-hour hiatus for the Daytime Emmys, the Simon storyline had been covered to varying degrees by The Advocate, Buzz, Details, Genre, Inches, The L.A. Weekly, MTV, The National Enquirer, Newsweek, Out, People, Playboy, Playgirl, Rolling Stone, Soap Opera Digest, Spin, Spy, TV Guide, Us and The Village Voice. Basically everything but Humpty Dumpty. I’d turned down interview requests from all who asked, plus the E network’s Inside Word, Oprah Winfrey, Jane Whitney, Montel Williams, Arsenio Hall and most regretfully, Ricki Lake. Connie insisted I keep a low personal profile. “It’ll make you more of an enigma, doll. Nobody’ll feel like they really know you, in spite of all the hoopla, and you’ll still be fresh and fascinating when this blows over.”
Her theory also excused me from having to offer any personal or political justification for my part in what GLAAD continued to call “a daily mockery of 22 million gay Americans.” They hadn’t let up on the show and had managed to get some fairly widespread publicity themselves. The upshot of all this — Hearts Crossing had climbed to the n
umber four Nielsen daytime slot and even tied for third a couple of weeks.
No amount of media exposure could win Brent Bingham the Emmy, though, and when he got back from the awards in New York, it was one tantrum after the next. None of his nastiness was directed specifically at me, but when I had to stay until ten or eleven at night to post-tape scenes because he’d called in “sick” two days in a row, I suffered along with everyone else.
One particularly late evening I got home and found Trevor’s Yale sweatshirt (yeah, right) casually tossed on a living room chair. I penetrated deeper and discovered Air Jordans outside the bathroom door. I flicked the hall light on and peered into the depths of my bedroom. He was a B&W postcard waiting to happen — sheet pooled around his 29” waist, one athletic arm flung over his head. Absurdly touched, I padded into the living room and checked my messages.
“Babe, it’s Sara. It’s urgent you phone me back… pronto. Bye.”
I speed-dialed and she picked up on the sixth ring. “Hello?”
“It’s Alex.”
“Jesus, what time is it?”
“You said it was urgent!”
“Oh. Yeah. Give me a sec. Did you just get home?”
“Yes. I spent the last five hours trying to convincingly portray anxiety over the possibility of Ollie cheating on me with my own sister.”
“I thought you turned him gay with the sexual wonder-drug.”
“There may be a problem with the secret formula. Now enough of that shit. What’s up?”
“This is horrendous, so you might wanna take a seat.” I stayed standing, but put the container of lobster salad I’d extracted from the fridge on the counter without opening it. “Remember Juliana Butts?”
“She’ll be giving me douche-chills ‘til the grave. So, yes.”
“Guess who’s making local headlines with the Baptist censorship group she started with her fat mother Eunice?”
“Are you kidding?”
“No! And the fuckin’ idiot newspaper here just ran this nauseating feature on them last Sunday. The group’s called Clean Airwaves… cute, huh? And they have this hit-list of TV series they want to get rid of. Hearts Crossing is Number One With A Bullet.”
“That hypocritical slut,” I said. “She and her goddamn mother have seen every single episode of it. They told me! This is all because I told her to fuck off.”
“They hate other shows, too. Sisters, Roseanne, Silk Stalkings… the Fox line-up. The scary thing is how efficient and mobilized they are. They’re affiliated with that turd Wildmon and his American Family Association, and this nationwide network of churches, and they’ve started a massive letter-writing campaign to sponsors and networks.”
“They’re getting a lot of press in San Antonio?”
“All of a sudden. A few days ago they picketed the TV station here. They want them to stop showing Hearts Crossing.”
“Sara, if I get wind of one more protest against this show, I’ll be on Prozac. It’s a fucking soap opera! Am I the only one able to handle it?”
“You know how right-wing San Antonio can be. Despite my efforts to the contrary. Call me at work tomorrow and I’ll fax you the news article. I hope the fugly-as-sin photo of Juliana and Eunice reproduces. How’s Trevor?”
“I just walked in and found him in my bedroom.”
“Naked?”
“How else?”
“You’re doing better than me then.”
“Where’s Nathan? I keep forgetting you’re shacked up. You still are… right?”
“Yeah. The band’s playing a gig in San Marcos tonight. I’ll send you their new demo. Think Ramones Meet Morrissey.”
“You must be in a constant state of wetness.”
“I’ve got to get back to sleep. The entire group’ll be waking me up for a gang-bang around four.”
“No more double-penetration, missy! Save something for the wedding night.”
“Yes, Pastor. I’ll fax you tomorrow. Oh… and Alex? You better hire a publicist. I didn’t see one word about you in my mother’s new Modern Maturity.”
“The real hell of getting all this press is that I haven’t had a single offer to do anything else. Acting, I mean. Except this horrible play for literally no money, nudity required, at the Pride Playhouse in West Hollywood.”
“How could you do anything else anyway? You’re under contract. You still are… right?” she zinged me.
“There are ways… if it’s quick and decent. But it’d be nice to be asked…”
“Good night, media whore.”
“Bye.” I clicked off in time for Trevor’s bed-headed entrance.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“Sara.”
“Everything cool?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to get into it. Actually, I was afraid to; afraid of push coming to shove and Trevor’s squirming coming to bolting, forcing me to confront the emotional attachment to him I’d sworn would not happen.
Was a supportive, well-adjusted, sexually inventive boyfriend who kind of got off on dating daytime drama’s “evil gay mastermind” so much to ask? But who in Queer Nation had an ass like this, I thought shallowly, as Trevor bent over, firm round buns parting for a flash of centerfold anus (waxed as usual) and picked Vanity Fair off the floor to show me his Guess ad. I was sure the entire Queer Nation membership roster hated me, anyway. I listened to Trevor babble about Anna Nicole Smith and the male photostylist — both from the layout, both “desperate to do” him. He’d spent all his time in Seattle trying to fend them off — the nerve of some people. Poor pestered Trevor. He was like a young Marie Osmond… with seven fat inches and a cinnamon-flavored butthole.
✽✽✽
Juliana’s administrative training as a student office-aide during her Roosevelt High School years was apparently paying off like a prayed-over lottery ticket, as I followed with morbid absorption the Clean Airwaves saga via Sara and my mom, who was quoted in every newspaper in the region re: the brouhaha over the South Texas network affiliates possibly dropping Hearts Crossing. “If these people don’t like what’s on TV, try turning it off. Don’t dictate our freedom to choose. This is Bexar County, not Iran,” Mom said, when contacted by phone at her Windcrest home. I found it loathsome that station management even agreed to meet with Eunice, Juliana, “and other key members of the group, including two deacons from Trinity Baptist Church,” much less consider their demand to replace HC on the afternoon schedule with “family-oriented programming that reflects the Christian values of this community.” Read a book, bitches. Or… perhaps replace that hour of television with something cardiovascular, to your favorite shitty tunes of praise and worship?
Despite a petition and a slew of anti-Crossing propaganda that used ultra-lurid plot synopses to convince the city how reprehensible and scandalous the show was (but surely only enticed more to start watching), the proposal was nixed by the TV station just after Sara published a killer anti-censorship editorial in the San Antonio Express-News, and just before the ACLU and 20/20 were about to pounce on the situation.
But glory be and hallelujah — the devoted efforts of Eunice and Juliana to undermine the First Amendment did not go unnoticed by those in even closer contact with Heavenly Father and Jesus Himself. And so it was that the righteous sisters of Clean Airwaves were blessed with the highest of evangelical media accolades, a guest appearance on that venerable and most exalted pinnacle of Christian infotainment, The 700 Club.
On the appointed night, I cut short my non-recreational/strictly-pore-therapy sauna and sped home from the gym, turning on the TV to hear Pat Robertson say, “These little ladies from Texas saw a problem on our airwaves and they’re busy cleaning it up as we speak. Please welcome, all the way from San Antonio, Eunice and Julie Ann Butts!” And there they were. As I knew quite well, the video camera added 20 pounds so, to be fair, Eunice Butts probably we
ighed 245, max. She sported a rosy-pink ensemble, a big Eighties perm, and drawn-on eyebrows a la Francine Fishpaw in Polyester. Juliana had a hellacious blonde do happening, complete with a frizz-pinwheel the size of a pie plate over her forehead and sky-blue eye shadow that matched the dress she’d specially purchased at Windsor Park Mall.
“Hello, Pat. We’re so happy to be here,” Eunice purred.
“It’s our pleasure,” he assured her. “And you both look lovely, I might add.” Whoa — keep it in your pants, Patty-Cakes. “Now why don’t you and Julie Ann tell everyone at home what Clean Airwaves is all about?”
“Well, you see, Pat,” Eunice began. I was glad she was already starting to sweat. “I work out of my home — I’m a regional distribution manager for a major cosmetics company — and one day my daughter had an afternoon off work, and we happened to have the TV on.” Liar liar — pant suit on fire. “And we simply could not believe what we were seeing on this soap opera. Two men kissing, right on the air. Frankly, I was shocked.”
Juliana piped up. “Pat, we personally believe homosexuality is a sick and perverted lifestyle in the eyes of Father God and Jesus, but I don’t judge what people do behind closed doors.” You just did, dumpling. “It’s when they start advertising it on TV that we get offended.”
“Absolutely, Julie Ann,” Pat nodded.
“We weren’t big TV viewers… except for your show,” Eunice fawningly claimed, “but we started watching as much as we could, day and night, just to see what kinda filth was out there, Pat. We kept a diary and found that 55 percent…”
“Sixty-five,” Juliana corrected her.
“Thank you, darlin’. Sixty-five percent of all shows deal with, or joke about, or refer to premarital sex, adultery, perversion, bathroom functions… or just outright smutty sensuality.” Pat continued to shake his head, the wickedness of the world a bottomless lake of anguish for him. “And this is regular broadcast TV, too,” Juliana shrilly reminded the money-grubbing old charlatan. “We’re not even talking about cable or movie channels or anything like that.”