No, like everyone else, Mason wanted to be appreciated for what he thought he did well. For what he was proud of. For his accomplishments.
“Well . . .” Mason stretched it out. I realized for the first time he didn’t know what to say. I had him off-script. Finally, he finished his sentence with an awkward “thank you.”
“I mean it,” I said, sitting forward on the bed. “You have a gift, man. There’s no other studio out there that has a roster like SwordFight. It’s no surprise you’re the first to go international. It’s all about picking the right talent and backing them up with production and distribution that’s second to none.” That last part was actually paraphrased from SwordFight’s own Web site. I figured it would resonate with him.
“Exactly!” Mason said with excitement. He sat forward, too, causing his canvas seat to buckle frighteningly low. “That’s what I try to tell people. Anyone can throw some hot studs in front of a camera and film them fucking around. Hell, there’s thousands of people doing it on the Internet for free.”
“But where’s the art?” I asked. “Where’s the creativity? That has to come from someone with a vision.”
“Yes!” Mason agreed.
“Which is why I really hope that Brent didn’t leave because he’s planning to work with another studio. Even if they pay him three times as much, they’ll never make him the star you would have. They’ll put him in cheap crap that will make him look like any other boy. Bad scripts, bad photography, bad direction. It’ll be the end of him.
“And you know what burns me the most? Your competitors know they can’t find talent like Brent. They don’t have the eye. But they can steal it from you. It must drive you crazy.”
“It does,” Mason agreed enthusiastically. “It’s happened more times than I’d care to remember. But go explain anything of what you just said to a starry-eyed twenty-two-year-old who’s being offered more money than he’s ever seen before. He doesn’t understand that’s money that won’t be going into good production or promotion. He doesn’t see that in a year, he’ll be old news, washed up and unwanted. After you appear in enough cheap pieces of crap, the audience isn’t going to spend their money on you anymore.
“Whereas, had he stuck with me, he’d be a bigger star than ever at that point, with another decade of work before him. Delayed gratification. It’s a concept these kids just don’t get.”
“So, do you think that’s what happened? To Brent? That he’s lying low until he announces that he’s working for someone else?”
“No,” Mason said with no reflection. “I don’t.”
I wondered what made him so confident. “Well, what do you think happened?”
Mason opened his mouth, but it was Pierce’s deep bass that responded. “Excuse me. I thought we were here to make an audition tape.”
“Aren’t you taping?” I asked innocently.
“Please,” he replied testily. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. Mason, weren’t you about to propose some quid pro quo?”
“Yes,” Mason said, shaking his head as if waking from a daydream. I think he realized he’d given away more than he intended to. “Quite right. Kevin, I’ve answered some of your questions. Now, you need to answer some of mine. But, not as you.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know the way things work, right? The deal is you’re an innocent. A first-timer. Usually, a straight boy who’s here for the money. Reluctant. The audience likes reluctant.”
“I think,” Pierce offered from wherever he lurked, “we might want to go the closeted/in-denial gay youth route with Kevin here. I mean, I’m not sure he’d be remotely believable as a straight boy.”
Fuck you, too, you creepy son of a bitch.
“Good point,” Mason said. “Have you ever done any acting?”
“A little.” Actually, my specialty as a hooker had been role-playing. With my adolescent looks and boyish demeanor, I was often asked to play the part of the first-timer or innocent. Judging by the size of the tips I received and my long list of repeat clients, I think I did a pretty good job with it.
“Okay. So, we’re going to repeat the first five minutes of our conversation. But this time, you play the part we just described.”
“That’s not what I agreed to,” I said.
“You agreed to do an audition tape,” Mason countered. “You know what those are like. Discussing the abominable work ethics of one of my models is hardly the way they begin. No, before we go any farther down that road, I’d like five minutes of usable tape. Just in case you decide you want to . . . go further yourself.”
I was dubious. I was here to manipulate Mason, not the other way around. On the other hand, I didn’t want to shut down the conversation. Not yet.
Seeing my hesitation, Mason made a concession. “We’ll just do up to the part where you start getting undressed, okay? Then we’ll stop. I promise.”
Sometimes you have to give a little to get a little.
“Fine,” I said. “Give me a minute.”
I did what I used to do before I saw a client. Closed my eyes and tried to put myself into the character he wanted me to be. Channeled my own insecurity, vulnerability, and virtue to become the wide-eyed virgin just itching to be taken.
I looked up at Mason with new eyes. Nervous, unsure, and more than a little scared.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” I said, my voice quavering. “I mean, I guess I know I like guys and all, but I’ve never . . .” I let my voice trail off and took a deep breath.
“Dang, this is harder than I thought. But I could use the money. I’ve seen the videos on your site, and the DVDs, so I know what I got to do, but . . . man.”
I ran a hand absently over my crotch. “It’s kind of weird, you know. Like I’m really nervous. But, a little excited, too. So, what do you want to know about me?”
Mason’s reply didn’t come right away. I could see he was watching the monitor intently, mouth open, eyes wide. He was impressed, I could tell. He didn’t know this was an act I’d played hundreds of times before. He must have thought I was either a split personality or the Laurence Olivier of smut. He finally found his voice.
“Let’s start with, um, how old you are.” He cleared his throat. “And what brings you here today.”
I answered those questions and a few more. The more I spoke, the more in character I felt. Even I was hot to see what would happen when this long-repressed twinkie-in-training finally burst loose.
“You’ve obviously been keeping these feelings bottled up for a long time.” Mason’s voice was sonorous and calming. “Why don’t you take off your shirt for me?”
I was so into the scene I almost did. Then, I remembered.
“Not so fast,” I said. “You got your interview. Now, it’s my turn to ask a question, right?”
Pierce grunted in the background. Mason moaned. “Fine,” he said begrudgingly. “But, Kevin, that was amazing. The camera loves you. And that performance—are you sure you’ve never professionally acted before?”
What had I said about acting before? I couldn’t remember.
Focus, Kevin, focus.
That was what I hated about lying—I was so bad at it.
Better not to answer. “Hey, I’m the one who gets a question now, not you,” I said, teasing, but not leaving it open to negotiation.
Mason leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. Body language experts tell us that’s a clear sign of a person guarding himself against giving anything away. A defensive attitude I was determined to break through.
“Ask away,” Mason said. “I’m an open book.”
His posture said the opposite.
21
Inch by Inch
“I’m worried someone might have hurt Brent,” I said. “Or kidnapped him. An obsessive fan or something. Do you have a problem with that kind of thing? Do your models ever get threatened? Or stalked?”
“These boys tend to thrive on attention, not be scared of it.
” Mason hugged himself tighter.
“Really? That’s hard to believe. There are a lot of sickos out there. What about, I don’t know, some religious nut who thinks your models are leading the world into sin?”
“Oh, we get letters from time to time. As a company. Nothing serious, though. A few quotes from the Bible, threats of eternal damnation. But nothing that concerns me.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Mason waved his hands. “Look around. Do you see any guards? Security cameras? Panic buttons? Trust me, I have no desire to be martyred for my work. If I thought we were under serious threat, I’d take whatever precautions I deemed necessary. No, the few people who bother to complain seem harmless enough.”
“And the models? Have they never felt threatened?”
Mason rubbed his hand over his mouth and left it there. Another body tell—this one indicating a lie. “Not that I remember,” he said.
I realized he evaded the question the first time I asked it, too.
“Think back,” I said. “I promise I won’t say anything. I understand if word gets out that someone is stalking your models, it isn’t going to help your casting calls. But if there’s a possibility that Brent was stalked by one of his fans . . .”
Mason laughed. Uncrossed his arms and sat relaxed in his chair. “Fans? Believe me, Brent’s fans were too busy watching his films to be bothered with stalking. Besides,” he said, with a nasty little laugh, “there’s only so much harm you can do with one hand. The only person who ever stalked Brent—”
“Ahem,” Pierce interrupted. Just like that. As if it were two words. “A hem.”
“Thank you,” Mason said to him. “You’re right. I am giving our young Mr. Connor a lot of information for his one question.”
Mason ran his eyes over my body. “Time to hold up your end of the deal, sunshine. Think you could lose that shirt for me?”
“I think,” I said icily, sickened by how cavalierly Mason took all this, “if you cared about Brent at all, you wouldn’t be playing this game with me.”
“Well,” Mason sighed, “we’re all entitled to our opinions. But I’m afraid you’re just too appealing to allow off this set without showing some skin. Take it as a compliment. Besides, it’s just your shirt, Kevin. You show more than that at the beach. Don’t be such a little prude.”
“Brent’s life could depend on this,” I said, regretting how melodramatic my words sounded even as they left my mouth.
“All the more reason why I can’t understand your reluctance to show a little skin. It’s just your chest, for god’s sake. Are you saying Brent’s life isn’t worth the shirt off your back?”
What a son of a bitch this guy was.
“Fine,” I said through clenched teeth.
“And get back into that character you were doing. That was marvelous.”
“Sure thing,” I said.
I’d arrived at SwordFight dressed to play the kind of young man who’d find himself auditioning for a porn studio. A plain white Hanes T-shirt, faded Levi’s, athletic socks, and white Keds. An anonymous outfit that could have come from anywhere. Nothing top-label or flashy. The jeans and sneakers were distressed in a way that suggested I might be a bit down on my luck.
But it was the custom accessories I wore underneath that I was counting on to get me out of this mess.
“What,” Mason asked, looking horrified but trying not to sound too appalled, “is that?”
He pointed to my chest, where a long, red, ugly, and jagged scar ran from just above my left nipple to an inch above my naval.
“Oh, this?” I asked surprised, as if it was something I was so used to that I’d forgotten about it. “It’s a scar.”
“Yes,” Mason snapped, “I can see it’s a scar. What is it doing there?”
I had to suppress a laugh at Mason’s indignation. He’d been expecting smooth perfection. The resemblance to Frankenstein’s monster did not amuse him.
“Last year, I started getting dizzy spells,” I told him. “Lightheadedness, shortness of breath. I thought it was nothing. That I wasn’t getting enough sleep or something.
“Then one day at the gym, I just passed out. They took me to the hospital. Turns out I had a congenital heart condition no one had ever noticed. I needed a valve replaced. I was in surgery for eight hours.
“This,” I said, pointing to the disfiguring gash that bisected my torso, “is my souvenir. Hey, better than being dead, right?”
From the expression on Mason’s face, it wasn’t clear he agreed.
The whole story was made up. As was the scar.
After I’d hung up on Pierce earlier today, I knew I was in trouble. There was no way I was going to get to talk to Mason without appearing in an audition video. While I had no intention of actually jacking off on camera for him, I was going to have to show something. At the same time, I had to make sure what I showed was something he wouldn’t be able to use.
Then I remembered my mother’s crackpot proposal to use our makeup staff to age me for our visit to the adoption clinic. While the purpose of her idea was wacky, pulling it off wouldn’t be impossible. In fact, I had just the man for the job.
As one of the first senior staff hired for Sophie’s Voice, I did a lot of the initial interviewing of prospective employees. One of my earliest hires was Steven Austen.
A show like ours, with multiple guests on every episode, needs a few people on hand doing makeup and hair. Steven’s background for the position wasn’t typical. Yeah, he had the basics down and had gone to cosmetology school. He was one of the few straight guys I knew who’d done so.
But for the past few years he’d been employed in the film industry, doing mostly special effects work. A lot of his experience was on horror movies. I thought that sounded about right for working with my mother.
Steven had been successful in Hollywood, but the work was sporadic. He had developed a reputation for his work on slasher films. He created wounds and mutilations so convincing that his participation on a project pretty much guaranteed an R rating.
When Steven’s wife had their second baby, she convinced him he needed more steady employment. Movie work paid well, but he often went months between jobs. He was grateful when I hired him, and I knew he liked working on our show, but he also missed using his more specialized skills.
I didn’t need Steven to age me. Mason and I had already met—if I showed up looking twenty years older, he’d know right away I was up to something.
But I could use Steven to ugly me up a little. Or, maybe even a lot.
I called him into my office and told him what I needed. I didn’t give him all the details. I fibbed, telling him I was playing a trick on my boyfriend. Would he help me?
Steven was thrilled with the opportunity to whip out his prosthetics and liquid latex. “If you want to look really disgusting,” he pledged, “I’m your man.”
It wasn’t a promise I ever thought I’d want to hear, but I was grateful to him for his enthusiasm.
Mason couldn’t have been more uncomfortable. Somewhere inside of him, I believed, was a human being who actually experienced feelings like empathy. Either that, or it was just common sense that led him to say, “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
I never heard a less convincing expression of sympathy. It was further eroded by his subsequent conversation with Pierce.
“So,” he asked his assistant, “what do you think?”
Pierce didn’t bother to pretend to care. “It looks terrible on screen,” he said. “A real turn-off.”
“You think we could hide it with makeup?” Mason asked.
I tried not to laugh at the irony.
“Maybe,” Pierce replied thoughtfully. “I’d imagine we could cover it up and tone down the redness. You’d still see the ridge, though. It might not be a deal-breaker.”
Mason rubbed his chin. “It’s really too bad. He’s got a great body. If only that scar wasn’t so prominent. . . .” The way he ta
lked about me as if I wasn’t in the room was so charming and considerate I regretted not bringing a handgun.
It was true I kept in shape. When I worked as an escort, my body was my fortune. I went to the gym nearly daily to maintain my trim but muscular gymnast’s form. Since giving up that work, I’d slacked off a bit, but I still tried to maintain what I’d had.
“You know, it could work. Maybe, if we can tone it down a little, some of our viewers will find the scar endearing,” Mason offered. “An appealing vulnerability on an otherwise perfect torso.”
Pierce snorted.
Mason ignored him. “Let’s keep going and see how the rest of it goes. Kevin, could you stand and let us get a look at you from behind? And, in character, please.”
These audition videos always followed the same pattern. First, the model took off his shirt. Then he turned around and showed off his back. At this point, Mason usually directed them to flex and show off their muscles.
Then it was time to lose the pants. This also started from the front, with the camera zooming into the cloth-covered crotch. Building suspense. Another pivot as the model removed his underwear, showing off his butt first. Then, the big reveal, when he turned one last time to display his cock, which, through the magic of editing, was always standing at attention and raring to go, as if the very act of disrobing for the viewer was so exciting that it’d brought him to full erection.
I was counting on my video following the same progression. I had my own reveals planned.
First, though, some more negotiation.
“Your turn,” I said. “You got my shirt off. I get another question.”
Mason stood and looked more closely at the monitor. He spoke to my image there. “Scar aside, Kevin, you look fantastic. You looked like such a kid in that shirt—who’d have known you’d be so ripped when you took it off?” He ran a finger down the screen as if tracing my body with his hand. I felt a chill on my chest as if he was really touching me.
Third You Die (Kevin Connor Mystery) Page 16