Tricks Of The Trade

by Ben Tyler

  Rod, on the other hand, smiled, knowing that Bart was still physically attracted to him. In his mind there was always the possibility that they could get back together. Rod, too, was distracted by thoughts of his ex, and just as he reached the guard kiosk, he absently said, “Of course he wants me.”

  Rich, the security guard, overheard. “You flatter yourself, guy,” he said derisively. Rod hadn’t heard Rich. He simply continued toward his car with a smirk on his face.

  PART TWO

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Let’s go over this again,” Shari drawled in one of her slow-burn moods. She sat at her desk facing Bart. “You’re telling me that Owen Lucas came into your office one night and something happened? What? Tell me exactly.”

  Bart hesitated for a moment, trying to visualize in his mind the entire scenario. “Okay. It was like this. So I’m working late on the press kit for The Last Chance, starring Chevy Chase. The office is empty. Even the cleaning people have done their jobs and left for the night. I’m extremely tired. Suddenly I’m startled when I see a shadow outside my office. At first I think it’s probably a security guard making his rounds. Or the ghost of Uncle Ralph, whose supposed to be frozen, but you never know about ghosts. Then I look up again, and there’s Owen standing in the doorway.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Just looking at me.”

  “There isn’t any law against…”

  “Well, he’s standing there with his shirt unbuttoned…down three or four buttons…and his jeans are unbuttoned at the top. The president of marketing wearing jeans to the office always surprised me. Not to mention his sexy hairy chest.”

  “Forget about the fashion statement or the physiology. Just tell me what happened next?”

  “For a moment he just leaned against the doorframe.”

  Shari prompted, “He said…?”

  “Yeah. He said, ‘Why don’t you blow it off for the night, Bart.’”

  “He actually said, ‘Blow it off, Bart’?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t think he even knew my name.”

  Shari snapped, “I mean, he said ‘blow it,’ like it was a come-on, right?”

  “I didn’t think so at the time. I’m kinda naive about these things.”

  Shari rolled her eyes. “Then he came up and stood in front of you with his, his, his, crotch in your face or something?”

  “Actually, his mossy stomach. And he asked if I’d eaten anything.”

  “Dinner?”

  “I suppose. At least that’s what I thought at the time. I said I was too busy, that I’d probably grab something at Wienerschnitzel. Then he put his hands in his pockets and started moving them around, like maybe he was feeling for his change or something. He asked me if I liked working at Sterling. I told him I’d been doing it for a couple of years and it was great. I told him I liked my colleagues and…and…I told him I especially liked that he had taken over as president of the department because he was a creative guy.”

  “Why would you tell him that?”

  “Because I thought he was sexy and—”

  “No! No! No!” Shari convulsed. She stood up and paced the room like an angry prosecuting attorney, gesticulating with her hands to hammer home a point. “You’re supposed to be a victim here, Bart, not some fucking faggot cocksucker looking to score points with his homo boss, you stupid idiot!”

  Bart blanched at the scolding. “Sorry. What am I supposed to say again at this point?”

  Shari plopped herself back down in her leather chair and exhaled with enough force for the air to scatter some papers on her desk, expressing enormous frustration because they had been at this practice performance for more than an hour and still Bart wasn’t getting the lines absolutely perfect.

  “Once again! Final time!” she admonished Bart as if speaking to an idiot child. “This is where Owen tells you he’s had his eyes on your performance and he’s really impressed with how much work you do and how well you accomplish your tasks without complaining and how you should have a promotion and that he’ll personally see to it that human resources has a glowing recommendation from him in your files so you can find another department to work in.”

  “Oh. Right,” Bart said, picking up the thread of the drill Shari and Cy had discussed with him earlier that afternoon.

  “Continue.”

  “Okay. So I asked him what he meant by a different department. And he said he was really sorry, but he always made it a practice at all the studios where he’d worked before to never have a special employee that he found too attractive because it was a distraction. And since I was very cute…”

  “Oh, brother,” Shari editorialized.

  “…And I was all he could think about since coming aboard as president. He said it wasn’t fair to either of us, because he felt like a lecherous old man—since I’m twenty-seven and he’s forty-two—and was certain I’d be uncomfortable with him having these feelings, especially since he’d just made me fully aware of them. He said he didn’t want to hurt me or create an unpleasant working environment. He had to think of not only himself and me but the entire department.”

  “Right. Good. And then you pleaded with him because you love your job and you didn’t know what else you’d be qualified to do. And that’s when he asked how much you love your job and what you think of him as a man. And what you’d be willing to do to stay on as head writer. In other words, are you attracted to him?”

  “And I told him I just wanted to please him. And that if he wanted a blow job every now and again, I’d be happy to—”

  “For Christ sake, no! No! No! No!” Shari bellowed so hard that the poster of Marked Woman rattled on the wall behind her desk. “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! The guy is forcing himself on you, you imbecile! Remember? You can’t stand his guts. You think he’s an ugly old troll.”

  It’s your ugly old guts I can’t stand, Bart thought. Instead, he said, “He’s all of what, forty-two? I shouldn’t say he’s old, should I? Who’d believe it?”

  “You’ve had nightmares ever since then, right?”

  “Well, wet dreams, to be more accurate.”

  “That’s more than I need to know, you little perv. Christ, you’re as thick as a brick. Listen, are you with us on this project or what? I’ll vouch for the fact that your job performance has slipped way down. You became worthless to the department because you were so traumatized and disgusted by Owen’s affection and alienation.”

  “Isn’t that taking it too far, Shari,” Bart asked. “I mean, first of all, I’m openly gay. Won’t a jury find it unrealistic that I’ve rebuffed another gay man? An attractive one, I might add. You know how breeders—excuse me—think gay guys are all such horny bastards willing to take on anything in pants.”

  “Not true, of course,” Shari said sarcastically.

  “Will a jury believe this story? Secondly, the work I’ve done speaks for itself. There’s no lack of quality in our press kits.”

  Shari shook her head. “This will never go to any trial; I’ve told you that a dozen times. We’re simply building a case against Owen because we know he wants to get rid of me and bring in his old team from Warner Brothers.” Shari was trying to sob. “I can’t lose my job. I have a sick mother to take care of and a huge mortgage hanging over my head. Owen doesn’t like me. This is just for insurance. Besides, your press kits pretty much suck.”

  “But you’ve been approving them, haven’t you? What if the court makes me provide all your approval sheets?”

  “No court! I’ve told you! All out of court!” She paused. “On second thought, get rid of ’em right away. And I’ll write up some complaints for your personnel file.”

  “That’s not necessary, is it?” Bart said in a wounded tone. As far as he knew, his employee file was impeccable. Never a day late. Seldom a day out sick. There were commendations from Francis Ford Coppola, Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, and Maggie Smith offering praise for the work that Bart had accomplished promoting their films eithe
r through his writing or when he was on the steering committee for a fund-raising event with them.

  Shari said, “Everything bad will come out as soon as this is all over.”

  How true, Bart thought, but said, “So now you’re going to lie about me, too? I’m not the one on trial here, Shari. Perhaps I’m not the guy to go through with this.”

  “Too late, dipshit. And stop being such a sissy,” Shari yelled. “This information will never go beyond my office. Trust me. We’re just trying to turn up the heat and scare Owen to let him know we’re not stupid.

  “That’s enough for tonight,” Shari finally said, giving up. “We’ll try again tomorrow. But get the fucking facts that we discussed straight!”

  She thought aloud for a moment. “Maybe we do need a straight guy to do this right…Are there any straight guys in the office? I mean, ones who are halfway decent looking? What’s with you gay guys, anyway? You’re always the best-looking men. It’s such a waste.”

  Bart felt depleted of energy. He walked back to his office and closed the door, then called Rusty on his cell phone. He didn’t dare use the company lines because rumor had it they were tapped. The computers, too. It was suspected that all E-mails were downloaded at night. When the names of the CEO or board members or certain four-letter words in the text of a message showed up, the message was selected for review by corporate communications. Nothing was secret—or sacred—at Sterling.

  As usual, the extraordinary Rusty was completely supportive of Bart. Although Rusty was already settled in for the night, he suggested they both meet for a late dinner and a bottle of wine. “Better still,” Rusty said, “if you don’t mind leftovers, my doggie bag from lunch at the Bistro Gardens with Minnie Driver this afternoon is probably more than enough for you. That’s it. And I’ll open a bottle right now. By the time you get here, it will have breathed sufficiently.”

  Bart didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation. Although they hadn’t planned to be together that night, Bart wanted to be comforted by Rusty and reassured by him. Rusty, too, wanted to be near Bart and also to hear all about his horrific day. He also was hot to listen to the tape Bart had made of his latest tutorial with Shari.

  As soon as they concluded their conversation, Rusty put aside the book he was reading. He turned on the CD player, loading the disk tray with romantic selections from Doris Day, Carly Simon, Johnny Mathis, Linda Ronstadt, and his favorite, Carole King’s Tapestry. He then withdrew a special bottle of merlot from his wine closet. He brought out two Bordeaux glasses, then removed the lead seal covering the bottle’s cork and neck. When he extracted the purple-tipped cork, he placed it on a silver tray next to the bottle and glasses and set the shining, round serving disk on the coffee table in the living room. He lit some candles as well as the gas fireplace. Then he unwrapped a wedge of Brie and set it on a plate in the microwave, ready to melt the moment Bart arrived.

  It was a little after nine when Bart rang the bell at Rusty’s home. “Sanctuary!” Bart exclaimed, imitating Tom Hulce from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  After a long and strong embrace, which included a deep, breathless kiss, Rusty led Bart into the living room. Once they were seated, an exhausted Bart was absolutely thrilled to be in Rusty’s gorgeous home in the Fryman Canyon section of Studio City.

  It may be the so-called Valley, which got its share of snubbing from those in Beverly Hills and the West Side of town, but Studio City was home to the Radford Studios, which was once MTM Studios, owned by Mary Tyler Moore and her husband, Grant Tinker, and then the studio where Roseanne was filmed each contentious week. The area was a haven for a lot of actors. Not always the supersuccessful ones, although there were some of those, too, but certainly many recognizable faces. The ones you’d see at Gelson’s, which was just down the street on Laurel Canyon, or at that hole-in-the-wall seven-table restaurant called Vivian’s, on Ventura, which was a second home to actors and dancers because it was next door to a well-used rehearsal and audition space.

  The clientele didn’t necessarily patronize Vivian’s for the food. It was the atmosphere (every inch of wall space was filled with autographed eight-by-ten glossy head shots of the famous and not so famous who had been customers) and the camaraderie of owners/brothers Brian and Mario that kept the place jammed.

  Rusty’s house was on a secluded tree-lined street that could have been a backdrop for a small East Coast town. It gave the feeling of being in an old-fashioned neighborhood. His neighbors included Nancy Dus-sault, from the old Ted Knight Show, as well as Roddy McDowall—until he checked into Forest Lawn after a bout with cancer. In fact, the area was often used as the location for television shows.

  “Yikes, what a day,” Bart said as he and Rusty settled on the sofa and looked lovingly at each other. “I still don’t know if what I’m doing is the right thing, but I’ve taped another session with Shari. The third so far. She’s giving me all these instructions on what to say in the deposition against Owen Lucas.”

  Ever since Rod first convinced him of the potential value of the tapes he’d made of Shari’s duplicitous activities, Bart decided to throw himself into the part of double agent. He’d act out his undivided loyalty to Shari and Cy and Sterling but in the meantime furnish the information to Owen Lucas.

  After consulting with Rusty and Owen, Bart had gone to Shari with his tail between his legs. He apologized to her for being a wuss. He had told her that to show how much he respected her and how honored he was to have such an important job at the studio. He would do whatever she felt was best for everybody involved. Shari took the bait without a second thought.

  “Let Shari and Cy think I’m going along with their conspiracy in exchange for a promotion,” Bart had said to Rusty once his decision had been made. “I have this angelic face. I have a smile that makes people trust me. No one ever imagines I have the capacity for being disingenuous. See, these are the valuable life lessons one gets by working in Hollywood!” Bart laughed.

  “She still has no idea that Owen is completely aware of all this clandestine business of hers and Cy’s?”

  “She’s definitely not the sharpest tack in the box. She thinks I’m an idiot because I keep goofing my lines. I just want her to keep reiterating her plans on tape.”

  “It’s going to shock the hell out of her when she finds out that you and Owen are old friends. I think it’s such a great ‘six degrees of separation’ thing.”

  “I never lose my real friends. We may not stay in touch as often as we’d like, but we always know we’re there for each other. I’m in contact with all the guys I knew in college. Owen’s like a brother.”

  “But tell me again. How did Owen know that you and I…”

  “I have a great relationship with my clients, too. They obviously talk about me. In this case, it was Warren and Annette. She told Gwyneth, whose parents are old friends of Owen’s, about me and my new relationship with you. When Gwyneth described you to Owen—cute young guy, a publicist at his new studio, etc.—he put two and two together. When he caught on to all the palace intrigue, he knew he could count on me for help. I’m just sorry for getting you so involved.”

  “Not a problem. Owen’s one of my favorites of all your great friends. I’m thrilled to be doing something that will blow up in Shari’s face. If we can just get enough recorded evidence, she and Cy will be history.”

  “We probably have enough now,” Rusty said. “But don’t forget, in Hollywood, the type of behavior which Shari and Cy are involved with is completely condoned. There’s that old Hollywood maxim When you get fired from one studio, you go on to a better job at another studio.”

  “That’s usually after they get out of jail,” Bart said. “You know I don’t care about my own career at Sterling. I have enough in stock options to quit anytime.”

  “And you know I’m not wild about interfering with the course of events in anybody’s life,” Rusty said, sipping his wine. “But I also can’t stand around and watch the people I love, O
wen…and especially you…being abused.”

  Bart smiled gratefully. “I hate to admit it, but although I can take care of myself when it comes to weathering the storm of Shari, I’m getting a lot of satisfaction from thinking about being part of the team to kick her ass.”

  Sidling over to Rusty and nuzzling his lover’s neck, he said, “When this is all over, I may accelerate my plan to kidnap you and run away to Scotland. To that little farm we’ve talked about? The place where I can write and you can take care of the village animals. We won’t ever have to worry about Sterling or Hollywood again.”

  Rusty had been hearing about Bart’s desire to relocate to Ireland or Scotland ever since their first date. Bart had it all planned for himself before they met and wondered what Rusty had thought of the idea.

  As with all things that were Rusty/Bart or Bart/Rusty, there was only harmony. They both agreed they would eventually settle abroad. England, Ireland, Scotland, perhaps a farm on the Hebrides. They weren’t sure, but they planned to spend a month traveling as soon as the situation at the studio was resolved or Bart’s first book was published and successfully launched.

  Bart stared into Rusty’s eyes and whispered, “I want our naked bodies pressed hard against each other.”

  Without further words, Rusty placed Bart’s head in his hands and locked his lips over his lover’s. Their tongues began tasting the elixir of each other’s mouths. Both men were vibrating with electrical energy as they began their slow, passionate foreplay. Their respective moans of ecstasy were uncontrollable. They began to contort their bodies together on the sofa.

  “The bed,” Bart sighed.

  The two rose from the coach, their lips still pressed hard against the other’s, their tongues dueling. As they moved out of the living room, candles still burning, Shirley Bassey on the stereo, they found their way to Rusty’s king-size bed. Both men were removing the other’s clothes, their lips never parting.