by Damon Suede
Cliff took that opportunity to step behind Trip’s table and sit down in the empty chair beside him. His feet brushed the boxes of Scratch posters and shirts, though he couldn’t know that. “But Issue 51 has done crazy business. You should see the numbers.”
He peeped back over his shoulder toward the main floor, then at his watch. “Big Dog’s been mobbed all morning.”
Maybe it had been, and maybe the crowd wasn’t something Cliff whipped up for the photo ops. He often gave shit away and used booth babes to keep the space jammed. He’d even taken his own shirt off a time or two, though he denied it.
Cliff rolled his hand making the tendons bunch. “Those new Hero High pages have gotten a lot of attention in Century City.”
Trip crosshatched shading down one side of the characters. He’d darken it with markers. “Where’s that?”
“Hollywood. Sorry. Feature executives are always hunting for product.” Cliff kneaded Trip’s shoulder slowly. “Apparently some D-girl caught your act at Forbidden Planet last month. Came by us first thing, she’s bringing her bosses over to meet you.” He ran a hand over Trip’s stubbled scalp.
“Who?” Trip had no idea what he meant.
“Development, dude.” Cliff clucked. “They know that indie’s where it’s at. DC and Marvel have already gone conglomerate. The smart folks are sniffing around us because small fry mean big deals.”
Trip wiped his nose and sniffed in frustration. What did he know from movies? He just wished Cliff didn’t sound so eager and desperate. Silas talked a lot about film people, but he never gushed or gawped. He treated it like a business, pro and con.
“Actually, Silas knows people too. He does creatures.” Trip placed a wax pencil on the table in front of him. “Maybe you should talk to him.”
A look of interest and gratitude completely failed to make its way to Cliff’s face. A frown did. “He’s below the line. I mean suits. We just gotta get into the right parties, and Hero High will go global.” He seemed pissed.
Trip sighed. He’d tried. In the end he didn’t care, and if Big Dog sold the property, he’d be free anyways. “So that’s the master plan. The one that’s great. Right? That’s what you wanted to see if I liked?”
Cliff’s jaw tensed. “Obviously.” He spread his arms at the convention center. “Why the fuck do we come here if we’re not gonna do battle?”
Trip peered up and down the aisle. “Well, I sketch. The fans come by, and I draw things.”
For a split second, something skittered across Cliff’s face.
Does he know something I don’t?
“Sure. And that’s cool. Gotta feed the freaks.” Cliff wiped his hands as if he’d decided something. “Great. So you’ll do your thing, and I’ll see what I can line up for us.”
He squeezed Trip’s neck.
Trip had never noticed how much Cliff rubbed and groped him. Maybe he misconstrued it, but now that he had Silas in his life, the constant pawing weirded him out a little.
A ruckus drew their attention. The line at Rey Arzeno’s table clapped and hooted at some kind of giveaway. Arms waved in the air. Cliff leaned back and scanned the alley for something.
Trip felt completely unqualified and ignorant. For a split second, he wished Silas was here so they could face each other man to man, so he’d know what the fuck was real and what wasn’t. Everything they said was so diametrically opposed. They couldn’t both be right, and they couldn’t both be smart.
Cliff spread his shaking hands wide. “Dude! Look at Walking Dead. Look at Scott Pilgrim. Hellboy? Some dork in a cubicle picked that shit up at Golden Apple and wham… the creators are living in Maui and bathing in the blood of virgins.”
“Well, yeah, but all those titles have sex appeal. I mean. They’re not exactly family- friendly.”
“Which makes me a genius. Well, us.” Cliff glanced at him. “We’d be the first.”
“Right. Sounds great.” Bent over the page, Trip laid in the uniform logos in pencil.
Cliff snapped his fingers and pointed. Without irony. “Great.”
Had they agreed on something? “What’s great?”
“You agree. With the plan.”
“What plan, Cliff? You just told me that some comics become movies and that some movies make money sometimes. We’re in a building with a hundred thousand fanatics who all love the same thing.”
Trip looked back at the line that had built while Cliff flapped his arms. Preteens with mothers wearing appliqued sweaters and too much makeup, and fathers in polyester pants. They watched Cliff uneasily. Our fans are repressed.
He grew embarrassed for both of them. Still, Cliff could hop around the convention center trying to part execs from millions of dollars.
Scratch would have its launch and earn its own fans.
“I’d like to talk to Silas about this.” Trip had no interest in a fight, but Cliff had to understand, right?
“Dude. Why?” Apparently, he did not.
“Well… he’s in film. And he’s my….” He frowned. “With me.”
The Unboyfriend made an inscrutable face. “You sure?” Cliff opened and closed his mouth.
“Never mind.” Trip didn’t bother to hide his exasperation. “The point is: I’m happy and healthy, and Silas Goolsby is the best thing that ever happened to me. This crazy little comic I’ve done showcases my work and has a lot of buzz around it. One of my friends has pushed it to her fans. Romance writer.”
“Romance.” Cliff spoke as if the word was a long hair he’d fished out of vanilla ice cream.
“And so it’s sexy. Who cares? Even you said my Hero High pages are the best you’ve ever seen. Silas is really good for me.”
Cliff chuckled nervously. “That’s good.”
“I’d like you to give him a chance.” This wasn’t going to happen easily. “I mean, it’s pretty serious. Three months. For gay guys that’s like ten years.”
“Dude, no offense. I don’t give a fuck about your love life.” Cliff scowled. “I’m here doing business. I am fighting to put you on a bigger map. I’m trying to score publicity that could move fifty thousand copies of a book you create, bro.” Cliff glared. “Feel me?”
Trip tried to swallow. Mouth dry. Chest tight. He hated confrontation.
“This dipstick boyfriend of yours is filling your head with fairy-tale bullshit. He’s got you drawing porn. He has you coming out of the fucking closet. I’m trying to get you nominated for an Eisner Award.” He stepped back and sighed. “Grow the fuck up, Trip.”
“This is about Scratch.”
“Obviously!” Cliff raised his voice once and then glanced around them to make sure no one heard. “I have spent four years grooming and fattening a prestige property, and now I’ve brought it to the slaughterhouse. And he wants you to piss it away. I got an earful in the bar.”
Trip squeezed his fists and let them go. Why did Cliff hate Silas so much? What happened last night? Invisible ants marched across his shins and forearms. He refused to scratch the maddening itch because he couldn’t go to the Nerd Herd panel looking like a burn patient.
“I’ve got a movie lined up.” Cliff dropped his voice again. “No one’s supposed to know. We blow it if there’s a leak. I’ve got a six-figure offer that will get Hero High on screen in two years. With republication and full rebranding. TV.” He pursed his mouth. His eyes slashed back and forth at the folks in their vicinity. “Bullshit now.”
No one seemed to be watching. Small mercies.
“Movie.” Trip licked his dry lips. “And you’ve known this how long?”
“A week. I got confirmation yesterday, and I came to find you in the fucking bar last night.”
Fuck. Now Trip understood. Silas had defended the new book. Trip hadn’t been there to keep the peace. And Cliff couldn’t fight back or he’d have blown his movie.
“Panel. Porno.” Cliff stood and clapped him on the shoulders. Like old times. Cliff spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Fffth. You do w
hatever the fuck you think is right.” He chuffed in resignation and started to walk away.
Rey Arzeno cruised Cliff’s ass and whistled silently.
“Come by Big Dog later so you can sign copies for the movie peeps. They might still want ’em. Never know.”
“Hold up.” Trip stood. And came out from behind his table. “Are you serious?”
“Hollywood, bro.”
Mike McKone kept his head down. Anne glanced at him, and her expression seemed guarded. Had she heard anything? Had everyone?
At that moment, Trip realized they stood in a building with tens of thousands of people and in a matter of moments, he might march up on a stage and set himself and his career on fire for their amusement.
“Cliff.” Trip stopped short, and his editor turned, handsome and doomed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Cliff scratched his head and gave a surly laugh. He started to walk away, answering over his shoulder. “I just did.”
AS TRIP scurried across the main hall, a yaoi flash mob exploded around him like a summer squall. He barely escaped with his pants.
A roar of laughter. Was he late? Trip picked up the pace, jogged a little. Hoots and applause. Shit. He’d lost track of time talking to Cliff, and now he looked like a dick walking into the LGBT panel late. If he’d known about the movie earlier, he could have canceled.
In the hall, two twinks in Ozymandias jerseys gave him a high five, and one older Mystique clapped for him with a wacky grin on her face. Why was everyone so fucking happy that he was late?
Hall B, Hall B. The door was jam-packed. Great. Now he’d have to scuse me-pardon me his way through a standing-room crowd so he could stand up and make no announcement at all.
As he approached the knot of fans wedged into the doublewide doorway, a chubby Asian grandpa turned and spotted him. “There he is!” Then they all turned, and miracle of miracles, the knot untied itself, and the people created a narrow passage that let him slip inside.
More applause and a lot of raucous laughter. Had the Nerd Herd started without him? He finally stepped into the room and picked his way to the stage up front.
Scratch stood there in the center of the aisle, gleaming and naked in a spotlight.
Ropy muscle and wicked points glimmered at his brow and fingertips. No navel, and every inch of his exposed skin painted a creamy pearl that blazed under the lights.
Silas.
His bohunk boyfriend had dressed himself as the incubus, from the tousled lavender hair to glossy cloven hooves that let him stand and walk like a beast on hellish tiptoe. Beautiful, yes, but naked in front of several hundred people.
Correction: there was no spotlight, but the iridescent body paint was so pale, he seemed to be lit from all directions, luminous even in a bright room. The entire crowd took pictures and video of Scratch in the flesh with phones, tablets, and cameras.
A fucking spectacle.
Silas wasn’t completely bare-assed, but he might as well have been: he’d covered his cock and crack with some kind of translucent skin that flexed over his unmentionables, painted the same lustrous ivory as the rest of him. When he moved, the millimeter of creamy silicone was thin enough to show veins.
The lenses clicked overtime, and Silas ate the attention like sirloin. The fans pawed at him and snickered. He hadn’t noticed Trip yet.
Trip had never wanted to hit anyone in his life, but right then, if he’d been closer he would have belted Silas, so when he spoke, it came out too loudly.
“What the fuck are you doing?” His stomach turned over.
Silas turned, and the smile on the Scratch face died. The hubbub around him abated as the room watched him walk on his hooves to Trip… so sexy but so naked.
“It was a surprise.”
More flashes as cameras captured Scratch from every angle. Twitter had to be going nuts.
“You’re fucking nude. In front of a gigantic crowd of people.”
The demon eyes twinkled, still optimistic, as if he thought he could cajole Trip into a good mood. Ha ha, your boyfriend’s getting fingerfucked by strangers in public.
“I’m your booth babe.” Silas wore some kind of contacts that made his irises opalescent.
“I don’t need a booth babe. I don’t want a booth babe.”
Up at the tables, a lady with a buzz cut under an Apocalypse helmet held up two fingers for two minutes.
Silas spoke softly. His accent got thicker as he got closer. “I just came to help out. I didn’t announce anything.”
Not me.
“Goddammit, Silas.”
“Okay. Okay. Too much. I didn’t know—”
Trip watched the people staring. His heart jerked rhythmically in his ribs.
“Hey. Hey. My mistake. I tried to add a little razzle-dazzle to take the pressure off. I thought you’d dig it.”
Trip glared. “No you didn’t.”
The buzz cut woman squinted, then spun her hand in a “move it along” signal. The people on the LGBT panel looked alternately charmed by the nude demon in their midst and annoyed that he’d stolen focus. Everybody had projects to pimp.
The demon face scowled at him for the first time. “I called to give you a heads-up, but you didn’t answer your phone.”
“Left it in the room. And I was stuck in Artist Alley with Cliff.”
Silas’s confusion was obvious.
“About Hero High. We got a movie.”
Silas smiled then, open and sweet as summer. “Congrats! Oh babe, that’s wonderful.” The demon took a step forward to embrace him, but Trip stepped back. The smile flickered. “Whatsamatter?”
Upfront, Ms. Apocalypse spoke into the mike a little too closely. “Ladies and gents, we’re gonna get rolling here in a minute, if Mr. Spector will join us—”
The heads in the room turned to stare at him like bullies in an anxiety nightmare.
“We are experiencing”—Trip spoke quietly—“technical difficulties.”
Silas stepped aside, uncertainly. “C’mon, you’re gonna do great.” He stretched his Scratch claws.
“Technically.” Standing next to his ass-naked, demon-seed boyfriend, Trip steadied his voice and addressed the room. “There’s been a….” He couldn’t think of the word. Someone took a picture of him chewing the air like an old dog as he groped for whatever the goddamn word had been.
The buzz cut hissed into the mike. “Change.”
“Change.” Trip tilted his head.
“Change?” Scratch muttered.
Trip held up a finger. “Please stand by.” Keeping his eyes on the industrial carpet, he took Scratch’s muscular pale arm and dragged him into the hallway. The door swung shut with a crack.
The pulse thumped visibly in Silas’s throat. His smile turned into a dead stretch of lip muscle. “Trip, what is going on?”
Hubbub-what-the-hubbub. The crowd took to the Internet with typical con-ferocity. Conventions thrived on gossip, and bloggers lived for this shit. The tweeting and Facebooking and Tumblring had already whizzed past them into the ether. Hero High gets Horny. Alphalad assraped by Asmodeus. Trip Spector an Ig-bay Ag-fay. He remembered his mother sneering the words “that way” the day she tossed his first sketchbook.
Trip pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to stop his brain from slithering out of his nostrils. Too mad to let himself see Silas, he searched for the right words for a good thirty seconds. He stared at the tiled floor and one cloven hoof as people walked past them.
“Spector, will you fucking talk to me?”
Trip looked up, and Scratch, in the flesh, stared back at him out of fire-opal eyes. To his credit, Silas had done full Hollywood makeup, suitable for shooting a few inches away. His entire body had a shimmer that invited the hand and eye.
“You’re standing in the hall.” Silas crossed his arms over his bare chest. “What happened in there?”
Trip shook his head. “Why did you do it?” He gestured at the flawless makeup and the near-nudity.
“You were announcing the comic. That’s an LGBT panel. Friendly crowd, eager to get the word out.”
Trip snorted, an ugly short chuff of judgment. “I didn’t know you were going to get your pork out for the whole fucking con.”
“C’mon. It’s a painted suit. Like a latex speedo.” Silas frowned at his crotch, his knob and balls clearly visible. “It looks ruder than it is.”
People took pictures as they walked past. Trip pushed Silas against the wall and stood close, trying to block the view by using his too-skinny body. “Cliff gave me a piece of good news while you were trying to unleash fucking Arma-gaydar in the middle of a comic convention.”
Stop talking.
“Staplegun.” Silas said the name with clear distaste. “Perfect. Just in time to fuck with your head before the panel.”
“Doesn’t fucking matter, though. Because I’m not announcing Scratch on the LGBT panel. All I had to do is say ‘secret project,’ and I’d have covered my ass. Hell, if Cliff hadn’t kept me so long, I could have pulled myself from the panel completely.”
“I didn’t know that, did I? You didn’t tell me.”
“Hot costume, man!” The fat Jedi from earlier gave Silas a thumbs-up.
Trip glowered at the retreating figure before turning back. “I noticed Kurt trailing around after you with his meat on a stick.”
“He’s a game producer hunting for licenses. He goes to every con he can stomach because he can scoop the major outlets. And he brought a bodybuilder to tap his sap, so it’s not like you have worries on that score.”
“I can’t compete.”
“It’s not a fucking game, Trip. It’s not a race.”
“Of course not. Not with Kurt, I meant you. I wasn’t—”
“We’re a team. At least one of us is a grown-up having a grown-up relationship with grown-up history and grown-up expectations.”
Trip wanted to slow everything down. He wished he’d said “I love you” back to Silas this morning. How much of Silas freaking out was because Trip had ignored his accidental declaration? Had Silas freaked out, or was Trip misreading shit again? “This doesn’t have anything to do with us. I’m talking with a naked demon, in a Marriott, about what’s left of my career.”