Playing Along

by Louisa Keller

  By the time I was making enough money to support myself by making videos full time, people were asking for videos about things other than just sex. They wanted advice on navigating all kinds of situations as gay men. The more they requested, the more I learned. I dove into my work headfirst, doing everything I could to make my community a safer, more informed group of people.

  I had not been planning to do much networking outside of the US when I first started out, but it became increasingly clear that there were YourTubers all over the world who were excited to work together. So, when a fan sent me a link to a website for a conference in Paris, I bought a ticket without thinking twice about it.

  Once I was registered, fans started requesting that I collaborate with a bunch of other YourTubers while I was there. I readily agreed, of course. I had not even heard of most of them, but that was a good thing; it meant that we would each benefit from each other’s fanbases.

  I hadn’t heard of most of their handles, but that was fine. With any luck, Paris would bring not just collaboration, but a handful of new friends.

  I loved my job more than just about anything else in the world—except for my roommates—and I couldn’t wait to get to the conference. But I had no idea how life changing it would prove to be.

  “I’m sorry, Monsieur, but we cannot check guests in until four o’clock,” the desk agent told me.

  I was standing in the hotel lobby, jet-lagged like you would not believe, desperate for a nap.

  “Oh, I see,” I said, pushing my glasses up my nose. It was an old nervous habit that had evaporated with age but tended to reappear when I was particularly exhausted. “There isn’t anything available? I don’t need a King room.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the agent, her voice heavily accented. It sounded lovely, like it was dripping with honey. God, I needed to sleep.

  “That’s fine,” I said, flashing her a polite smile. “Four o’clock, you said?”

  “That’s right,” she said, nodding firmly. “We can hold your luggage if you would like.”

  “Oh, wow, that would actually be great,” I said, hoisting my bag up onto the counter between us. “Should I leave my name or anything?”

  “No need, just hold onto this claim ticket,” she said as she slapped a bright sticker onto my bag and tore off the attached claim ticket. She handed it to me and added, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Oh, uh, I think there’s a social around here somewhere? For the YourTube conference?”

  “Right over there,” she said, pointing to a pair of large double doors.

  It was a clear dismissal, and there was a family of five behind me who looked just as haggard as I felt, so I headed for doors. They led to a beautiful ballroom with tasteful, modern decorations. There were about a hundred people milling around, most of them with drinks in their hands, and I tried to mentally prepare myself for whatever the evening might hold.

  I had absolutely no idea what was coming.

  I made a beeline for the bar, of course. I’m not generally an anxious person, but I suffer from the teensiest bit of travel jitters, so I was craving something to calm my mind. Leo always said that whiskey was the cure to whatever might ail you, and in that moment, I was inclined to believe him.

  “What can I get you?” asked the man standing behind the bar. He had a million-watt smile that made me go a little weak at the knees. Or maybe that was his French accent?

  “An old fashioned?” I ventured. My friends always made fun of me for ordering that drink, but it was my very favorite. I wondered if I should have tried something more traditionally Parisian. There would be time for that later, though. Best to stick with something I knew would quell any remaining anxiety.

  “You got it,” said the bartender, mixing the drink with confident movements.

  The whiskey was rich and slightly spicy on my palate as I threw back the first sip. I began wandering around the room, drink in hand, enjoying the atmosphere. I have always liked crowds, and the excited voices reverberating off the walls were beginning to reenergize me.

  The ballroom was absolutely gorgeous, of course. It was all clean lines, with what felt like miles of blinding white marble on the floor and thick golden drapes tied at either side of each window. The view through the windows encompassed all the iconic sights of Paris. I could make out the Seine winding its way through the heart of the city, the Eiffel Tower peeking out in the distance, the masses of white buildings with ornate exterior decorations. My heart sang as I took in the view. It was exactly as I had imagined it, and the entirety of the city was at my disposal for the week.

  To tell the truth, France was not my top travel destination. If it were up to me I would have probably gone to Spain, to hike along the Camino de Santiago. I was fiercely intimidated by the French language, and my stomach did not handle lactose particularly gracefully. But I was armed with several bottles of Lactaid, and an intense desire to see the world. So, once I was presented with the rollicking landscape of Paris, I found myself falling in love with it despite my trepidations.

  Location aside, I was really only there because of the conference. I threw back the rest of my drink, took a deep breath, and pulled myself out of my head. It was time to start networking. I was about to approach a group who were sitting against the far wall when I heard a commotion to my right.

  “Come back to my room, man,” one guy was saying. He was big and barrel-chested, towering over another man, and his voice was wavering alarmingly. “Your videos changed my life, I want to…” he leaned close to the smaller man, clearly intending to whisper, though everyone within a fifteen-foot radius could hear him. “I want to thank you.”

  And if that wasn’t one hell of a line, I didn’t know what was. Unfortunately, it seemed that he was barking up the wrong tree.

  The shorter guy’s eyes widened. “Oh, wow. That’s really nice of you, but, uh…”

  “I brought toys,” the barrel-chested man nearly bellowed.

  Things were going from bad to worse, and I felt myself preparing to step in, to intervene in some way. It wasn’t that I thought they couldn’t sort it out themselves. I just had an instinct for diffusing situations, and this was very quickly becoming a situation that needed diffusing.

  “Right, good for you. It’s just…” The shorter man’s eyes locked onto mine, his expression pleading. I shot him a reassuring glance, wondering how I should intervene. Would he want me to step physically between them? To distract the aggressor? To speak with authority?

  The whiskey was beginning to kick in, along with a bit of adrenaline. God, I loved solving problems. I was in my element. I took a step closer, holding myself with a kind of relaxed confidence that tended to dissuade people from messing with me. It was a relic from my days as the only openly gay kid in my New York City middle school.

  “I made sure to pack that prostate massager your reviewed last month. Come on, we can—”

  “Sorry, man,” the shorter guy interrupted, arranging his face into something that looked almost apologetic. “It’s just that, uh…that I’m here with my boyfriend.”

  My eyes widened. This was a change of course. I was annoyed that he had felt the need to mention a boyfriend in order to fend off an unwanted advance—I have always hated the idea that people don’t want to mess with another person’s partner but are fine messing with a single person. At the same time, I commended him for doing what he needed to do to get out of a tricky situation.

  “Boyfriend?” asked the towering man, looking crestfallen. “What boyfriend?”

  I looked around, wondering if the boyfriend was going to make an appearance, but no such luck. The shorter man was sauntering over to me, and all at once I realized what he was about to do.

  God, what a power move. I was mad impressed with this guy’s balls; he wasn’t pulling any stops.

  I opened my mouth to say something but then he was whispering in my ear, “Play along?”

  I wasn’t about to say no to him.
To tell the truth, I kind of liked the idea of playing the dashing hero for a moment, even though he clearly didn’t need me.

  Back in high school I was always swooping in to rescue my friends when they got themselves into sticky situations, and when I got to college and met my roommates…well, they needed my help more often than not. I had provided an out for more than one of Finley’s awful dates, not to mention shepherding the more persistent of Leo’s one-night stands out of the house on the pretense of a family emergency. This was right in my wheelhouse.

  Plus, it didn’t hurt that this guy was absolutely gorgeous. He had a slim build, and now that he was next to me I could hazard a guess that he was about five-foot-eight. His light brown hair was perfectly coiffed—the kind of hairdo that probably took twenty minutes each morning—and he had these full, perfect lips that were scrambling my brain. His hand, when he placed it on my chest to indicate that we were together, was long-fingered. I wondered what those fingers would feel like pressing into me one by one. A shudder rolled through my body, and without thinking I leaned forward to kiss him.

  It sounds crazy, I’m well aware. But I’ve always been a caretaker by nature, and that extends to the random dude in distress. Plus, he was completely in control of the situation. It was like he and I were working together to take down an obnoxious foe. I was into it.

  And there was something…magnetic about him. I can’t think of any other way to describe it, but I was drawn to him like a compass to the north pole. His face, his voice, his gall…they all made me want him. It had been a while since I had wanted anybody so abruptly and completely. And he must have felt it too because he chose me out of all the people gathering around the commotion. He chose me, and he was utterly committed to the act.

  Good god, did this guy know how to kiss. He was quite a bit shorter than me, and he played it up, stretching onto his tiptoes and throwing his arms around my neck as his lips parted beneath mine. He licked into my mouth, filthy right from the get-go, and I moaned as I pressed my entire body against his. He felt phenomenal against me, and my cock started to perk up, hardening as he gripped my waist possessively.

  Who was he to hold me with such ownership? We were complete strangers in a foreign city, and a thrill rolled through my body as I realized how crazy this was.

  Crazy or not, I could have lost myself in this gorgeous stranger right there in front of a crowd. He was biting at my bottom lip and twining his tongue against mine and basically blowing my mind with just a kiss. I was hot for him and I didn’t even know his name.

  But the pushy guy was making an outraged sound and I reluctantly pulled back to watch him break into what was essentially a tantrum. He was staring at us, slack-jawed, his face turning steadily redder and redder, and he tossed his empty glass onto a nearby table where it landed with a thud.

  “Boyfriend?” he roared.

  God, what an asshole. I was about to give him a serious lecture on manners, but my brave companion beat me to the punch.

  “Yup,” he said, his expression wavering between forced neutrality and the genuine smugness he was attempting to suppress. “Sorry, my friend.”

  “But your videos are about—” the other guy began.

  “I know what my videos are about.” There was a coldness creeping into his voice, and I wondered what kind of content he produced. The conference was open to pretty much any type of queer YourTuber, from social justice bloggers to camboys.

  “You never mentioned a boyfriend.”

  It was time for me to go all in. God, I was absolutely stoked to have a chance to speak up. I was riding the high of that kiss as I wrapped an arm around my guy’s shoulders and pulled out my most authoritative voice.

  “We retain a modicum of privacy about our personal lives,” I said. “Just because our relationship isn’t public doesn’t mean that it’s not real. Now if you would kindly excuse us, we have some private business to attend to.”

  I steered the two of us away from the aggressor, leaving him gaping after us. My heart was pounding, triumph pumping through my veins. There wasn’t much that I loved more than putting someone in their place. And when I was able to do it with complete composure…well, that was about as good as it got.

  We made our way across the ballroom, my arm still around him.

  “Thanks so much, man,” the guy said as soon as we were back in the lobby.

  “No worries,” I assured him. “I’m just glad I was able to help. I’m so sorry that you had to deal with that.”

  “Eh, the odd run-in with a fan is kind of inevitable,” he said with a shrug.

  I stared at him, my mouth falling open.

  “Odd run-in?” I said in disbelief. “That guy special ordered your favorite sex toy and brought it on an international flight and then started yelling about it in a room full of strangers.”

  His mouth quirked as if he were tamping down on a smile.

  “It happens.”

  “Not to me, it doesn’t,” I said with a laugh. “What kind of videos do you make? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Oh, you know. A little of this, a little of that,” he said. “I focus on Ethical Slut type stuff.”

  “As in Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy?” I asked.

  He looked impressed. “You know the source material.”

  “I mean, I’m a gay sex ed enthusiast, of course I do,” I said.

  “Sex ed, huh?” he quirked an eyebrow. “Tell me more.”

  I gulped. I honest-to-god gulped. He was positively incandescent, and his sultry tone was absolutely killing me. I wanted him so badly.

  But he had literally just escaped from one unwanted advance. The respectful thing would probably be to speak to him like a colleague…not to start spewing innuendo.

  “I make videos about all kinds of gay issues, but I started out basically creating an online gay sex ed curriculum. So many people don’t get any useful information in school or from their parents, you know? And I wanted to provide an alternate way to learn about sex.”

  “Fascinating,” he said, licking his lips lasciviously. His arm was still around me, and I couldn’t help leaning infinitesimally into his side.

  “A big part of what I do is just, you know…explaining the mechanics of how various sex acts work,” I said. “But I incorporate a lot of information about health and safety, consent, slut-shaming. I’m trying to teach people how to be respectful partners.”

  “I’m all about that,” he said.

  I was about to ask him if he wanted to go somewhere to talk. After all, we were just standing in the lobby arm-in-arm, chatting casually about the intricacies of gay sex blogging. The least I could do was buy this guy a drink while I yammered at him about my work.

  But Paris apparently had other plans for us.

  “Messieurs Chalamet?” came a voice from the front desk.

  The two of us looked up quizzically, seeing as we were the only people in the lobby except for the desk agent.

  My instinct was to say something, to indicate that they had the wrong person. But my new friend had other plans.

  “Oui, c’est nous,” he began. And then he and the agent were speaking rapid fire French.

  Like I said, I don’t speak French. So, I just nodded along, smiling blandly and wondering what on earth I was about to get myself into.

  “Okay, just follow my lead,” he whispered as the desk agent handed a pair of keys across the desk.

  2

  Smith

  Fuck me sweetly in the asshole.

  I was barely at the hotel for ten minutes before some terrifying super-fan started harassing me. Loudly.

  It wasn’t the first time something completely batshit like that had happened to me, obviously. But I wasn’t expecting it, and it caught me off guard.

  Then, incredibly, a devastatingly hot guy caught my eye, and I could just see that he would be game to help me out. And hell, if I have to put up with some asshole shouting about sex toys in a fucking ballroom, I’m damn well g
oing to have some fun messing with him. So, I made some sizzling eye contact with Hottie McHotterson, and to my delight he was willing to play along.

  What I didn’t see coming? That fucking kiss.

  He just planted one on me, and let me tell you, it was not your ordinary kiss. He opened up to me right off the goddamn bat, parting his lips and letting out this tiny, near-silent moan. Which obviously sent my stomach plummeting and set loose an entire colony of butterflies in my gut.

  I would’ve been content to just make out with him right there, smack dab in the middle of the ballroom for hours. But the dude with the prostate massager was making a scene and I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of about a million colleagues and fans.

  What’s a boy to do?

  Well, I dragged my knight in shining armor out to the lobby, fully intending to secret him off to the nearest corner and show him just how grateful I was.

  But then the front desk agent asked if we were Mister and Mister Chalamet, and I leapt at the chance to impersonate a gay French couple. I hadn’t spent all of my childhood summers in France for nothing, after all. My mom’s family is from Normandy, and Grand-mère drilled me on verbs and nouns and numbers until French came as easily as English.

  I had no idea who Mister and Mister Chalamet were. I wasn’t even thinking about what we would do once we got up to their room. But when the agent announced that our honeymoon suite was ready, I knew that I had been presented with a gem of a mistaken identity crisis.

  Were we ready to head up? (Yes.)

  Did we want our bags delivered to our room? (Obviously.)

  Would we like a massage therapist to come up once we were settled? (We’ll call down once we’re ready for them.)