Destiny (Waiting for Forever) (21 page)

“S
O
,
WHAT
happens now?” I asked Mike after we dropped Emilio off at the studio. He’d jumped out of the Jeep after kissing us both and telling us he’d call when he finished for the day. “He just goes upstairs and screws some random guy?”

“Actually, for this studio, Em is more of a bottom, so technically he’d get screwed
by
some random guy,” Mike said with a shrug, and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. Our friend was up there having sex with some guy he probably didn’t even know, and Mike acted as if he didn’t care.

“And you’re okay with that?” I turned slightly in the passenger seat to look at him while he drove.

“It’s a job, kid. We get paid to have sex. It’s not a big deal. It’s like you working with Kenny. That’s what you get paid to do,” Mike reasoned.

“Does it pay… a lot?” I asked tentatively, not sure if the question was out of bounds.

“It pays my rent and stuff. One of the things life—and Leo—taught me when I landed on the streets was that anything could happen and you need to be prepared. Doing the porn while working for Kenny allows me to bank some cash for a rainy day.”

“But if you don’t know the guy that you’re… working with, how can you have that kind of connection?”

“I don’t need a connection. If I’m not into the guy, I just think about someone I
am
into, like you,” he said with a wink. “Once I’m hard, I do what the director tells me, get off, and go home.”

“You mean there’s a guy standing there telling you how to have sex?”

“Sometimes he tells you what to do during a scene. Usually he tells you what to do before the scene starts. If you screw something up or he doesn’t like it, he’ll cut the scene, but generally you just go until you both come,” he said matter-of-factly, with that same casual attitude.

“And can you?” I asked, feeling a little stupid for my lack of knowledge. Aside from that few minutes watching it on Richard’s computer with Jamie, I’d never sat and watched porn.

“Can I what? Get off?” Mike asked, and when I nodded, he started to laugh. “Sure I can. I like sex. I get paid for sex. It’s a win-win for me.” He winked, and I saw the underlying tension in his face. He was only partially kidding.

One question burned inside me as we fell silent in the Jeep. I thought about Richard and Carolyn, about that small, dumpy town I would be going back to. I thought about Leo and all my friends at the boardinghouse. Finally, I thought about Jamie, lost and desperate, trying to fight his way through life all alone, and that question bubbled out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“Do you think I could do it?”

If we hadn’t been stopped at a red light, I’m sure Mike would have crashed into the car in front of him, because he turned to gape at me. He didn’t speak; he just stared at me in shock. When the car behind him laid on its horn, Mike finally turned his attention back to the road and kept driving.

“Brian, we didn’t bring you on this road trip to try and convince you to do porn,” Mike said slowly, his eyes not leaving the pavement just ahead of the Jeep. “In fact, I’m surprised that Em even let it slip, as scared as he was for you to find out.”

“Why was he scared for me to find out?” I asked, not sure what that had to do with the conversation we were having.

“Because you were always so uptight about sex,” he said gently. “I don’t think you’ve realized just how much you’ve changed since you’ve been with us, Brian. You never laughed at our dirty jokes, you’d hide whenever someone flirted with you, and your face was almost constantly red. I thought you might actually have a permanent blush.” Mike laughed, but his eyes were serious. “Em and I were both afraid that you’d find out about the porn. Especially me, since we started hooking up. I should have told you, I know that. I just couldn’t stand the thought of us not being friends.”

“You guys are my friends.” The truth of that simple statement filled my chest as I said it. Mike and Emilio had been there for me since my very first week at the boardinghouse. They had helped me, cared about me, and taught me things about myself I may have never known otherwise.

T
HE
rest of the weekend seemed to drag as we talked about the pros and cons of me applying to work with Nick Hartley, the guy who ran the porn studio where Mike and Emilio worked. When I got back to the house, I talked to almost every guy in the house, including Leo. No one seemed to want to advise me, but each time I thought about getting back on that bus, the decision became easier. I kept searching for a job but came up empty.

Finally, on the last day of April, as I was putting my last bit of rent money into an envelope for Leo, I decided I didn’t want to go back to Alabama, and with Mike and Emilio’s help, I would make one last ditch effort to stay. I would apply to work for Hartley.

With sweaty palms, I watched Mike dial the phone. I could feel the blood pounding in my ears as I sat on the arm of a chair in the common room. Emilio soothingly stroked my leg as he talked to Mike, saying words I didn’t pay much attention to. My focus remained on waiting for Hartley to pick up.

“Hey, Nick, it’s Mike Burrows. I got your e-mail,” he said, sounding more professional than I had ever heard him. Mike listened for a while, nodding as he scribbled on a piece of paper. “Yeah, we can do that. Then you just want me to send you an e-mail and let you know when we submit the stuff?” He listened a little longer and then said good-bye. He hit the end button on his phone and looked up at me.

“He wants us to go ahead and submit the application through the website but call him to let him know when it’s there so he can pull it to look at himself.”

“So, what do we have to do?” I asked, feeling a little better with the conversation over.

“Let’s go up to your room. Em will bring his camera,” Mike said as he stood up and grabbed my hand. “We’re going to fill out the app, take some pictures, and see what happens.”

I swallowed back the fear and squeezed his hand as he led me upstairs.

“I’ve got the camera and Pete’s tape measure,” Emilio said as he opened the door to my room and stepped inside. “Do you want to do pictures first, or….”

“Tape measure?” I asked as a parade of butterflies on steroids bounced around my stomach.

“Yeah, baby, we just need to take some of your measurements for the application,” Emilio told me, his voice carefully easy.

“Good call, I’d forgotten about that,” Mike said. “Let’s do what we can of the app first while we get him ready. I’ll type.” Emilio instantly began to bounce and clap. I looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“You need to be hard in your pictures,” Emilio explained. “If Mike’s typing, that means I get to play with you and get you all ready.” My eyes widened, and I swallowed hard. I guess if I was going to have sex with other guys, Emilio touching me would have to be okay. If I couldn’t do that, there was no way I would be able to work for Hartley. I nodded, and he leaned forward, putting his hand on my cheek.

“That’s a good boy,” he whispered against my lips just before he kissed me. The taste of chocolate and his morning coffee filled my mouth. The slow, erotic kiss made my body tingle, delicious anticipation igniting a fire in my belly.

It died somewhat when I remembered why we were playing. I was applying to be a gay porn star.

Twelve

I
HAD
not expected the porn studio to be a house.

When Mike pulled up into the huge circular driveway of a large house about twenty minutes outside the city, I thought maybe we were at Hartley’s home, because it looked like a place where movie stars might live. Lush, green trees encircled by rust-colored rocks lined the brick walkway that led up to the house. The low porch extended out several feet from the darkly varnished door, and the pale wood gleamed in the light. Six horizontal windows covered in individual bamboo shades ran nearly the entire height and width of the entryway. Floor-to-ceiling windows next to the door were thrown open to catch the spring breeze. The house itself was the color of hot desert sand.

“I thought I was going to do a solo scene?” I asked as Mike opened his door and started to get out.

“You are. Why, are you getting cold feet?” he asked, the concern in his voice touching me. No matter what happened, whether or not I jacked off on camera or I had sex with another guy, Mike would stand by me.

“No, but it’s…. Whose house is this?”

“It’s not someone’s house; this is where we film. There are a bunch of bedrooms set up for scenes and a pool in the backyard where they shoot stills. I’ve even had a few scenes back there.”

As we approached the house, a guy rounded the corner from the backyard wearing nothing but a pair of cutoff shorts and sandals. The world seemed to stop spinning for a moment to watch. His golden skin, the color of warm honey, glimmered in the early morning sun, and his blond hair clung to his head. He looked like he’d either stepped out of a pool or a centerfold, because he was gorgeous.

“Hey, Brandon,” Mike said with a casual wave.

“Hey, Corey!” I looked around to see who the guy was talking to, then realized that “Corey” must be Mike’s porn name. I’d been so preoccupied with the pictures on his profile that I hadn’t noticed the name. “Is it bring-your-kid-brother-to-work day?”

Mike snickered. “Nah, he’s here to audition for Nick, and I’ve got a shoot with the new kid. Taylor, I think,” Mike said as he opened the door and gestured for me to go in. Brandon followed us into a large, open living room where a couple of guys were playing video games on a huge flat screen that hung on the wall just above an unused fireplace.

The guys lounged on leather theater-style seats, and other, smaller leather chairs were scattered around a low table where the players propped their bare feet.

“Hey, Corey,” one of the guys said, glancing over for a second while the game loaded a different scene.

“Hey, guys. Nick upstairs?” Mike asked, not wasting any time on pleasantries.

“I think he’s in the kitchen.” The two guys, one with jet-black hair and broad shoulders, the other slender with long blond hair, barely noticed we were standing there. A third with close-cropped brown hair looked massive and almost too big for the chair he sat reading in. When I looked closer, I saw two white buds in his ears, their wires almost invisible against his white T-shirt.

Mike reached back and grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the room. When we got into the kitchen, I saw a man sitting at the breakfast bar, dressed casually in a T-shirt and cargo shorts. Something on the screen of a laptop held his attention. As we got closer, I heard low moaning coming from the machine and realized what it was.

“Hey, Nick,” Mike said, dropping onto a stool across the bar from the man, and I stood next to him, not feeling comfortable enough to sit.

“Hey, kid,” Nick said, clicking a wireless mouse to stop the video. “Dylan, Brandon, and Josh—hot scene.” He indicated the laptop. “Want to see?” Immediately, I shook my head. Watching the video would just remind me why I was standing in the freakishly expensive house with shaking hands and a racing pulse.

“Maybe later. I think he’s a little nervous,” Mike said with a laugh, and Nick looked over at me.

“You still up for this?” he asked seriously, his blue eyes boring into me. A slight sheen of sweat glistened on his high forehead, and he ran a hand through his thinning hair, revealing a large bald spot before he rubbed the hair back over it.

“Yeah,” I confirmed, choking the word out of my suddenly dry mouth. He studied me, probably waiting for me to change my mind and leave.

“Okay. You got a name?”

“Brian,” I said automatically, and he smiled, leaning back away from the bar to reveal the front of his T-shirt, which read “All-Star Pitcher.”

“No, kid, do you have a name you want to use on screen?”

“Oh, I… I guess I hadn’t really thought about it.”

Hartley opened up a window on his laptop and typed in a few things, scanning over every few entries like he was putting in stuff about me.

“Danny is going to school to be a programmer, and he wrote this for me. It’s a pretty sweet little program. It takes the hair color and texture, eye color, and a few other characteristics of a guy and matches it up with a name. I think he uses an algorithm based on nationality and ethnicity, but it gives a list of five possible names. I like it because I’m sick of making up names.” The computer beeped, and he looked at the screen.

“Okay,” he said. “Your choices are… Trent, Rudy, Thomas, Scott, and Taylor, but we already have a Taylor.”

“I like Scott,” Mike offered, and out of that list, I agreed.

“Sure, I’ll take Scott,” I said in almost a whisper, feeling very far away from my body. Some stranger had just helped me pick the name I would use when having sex on the Internet. I started to feel a little light-headed.

“Take him up to the red room,” Nick told Mike. “He’s ready to shoot, right?”

Mike must have understood what he meant by that. “He’s shooting a solo, so I didn’t go over douching with him. I figured we’d wait to see if he makes it through today,” Mike said, and the older man nodded.