by Nicola Haken
Yes.
Did I regret it? Did I think I’d regret it in the future?
No. Because I had no other choice.
I left New York with fifty bucks in my pocket and enough clothes to last me three days. Not having a clue where to head¸ I bought a ticket to the first available city and ended up here. I’m not sure there’s a gay man in the whole world who hasn’t heard of Back Door Studios, and when I saw they were looking for new boys on Twitter, I made the phone call immediately before I had a chance to change my mind.
I’d been a go-go boy so I was used to parading my body and having people stare at me. The only doubt I had lurking in the back of my mind was the sex. I’d had sex before of course, but still I couldn’t help wondering if I’d close down, or somehow people watching would be able to ‘tell’. I knew if I admitted that I’d never bottomed before during my interview I wouldn’t stand a chance in hell of getting any further. But the hard fact was, I needed money. I had no qualifications or address to provide any potential employer, and although that didn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t find a regular job, it would most definitely take a longer time. Time I didn’t have.
“Hey, Mason!” Ryder called after me as I was slinging my backpack, currently the only thing I owned, over my shoulder. We’d cleaned up after our scene together, I’d talked with Ivan and signed his contract and now I was heading God knows where. “Some of the guys and I are going out tomorrow night. You should come. Introduce yourself.”
“Ah sorry, man, I don’t think I can. I still don’t know my way around yet. Maybe next time though.”
“No problem. I’ll call for you on the way. Show you around. Where you living?”
“I, um… sorry, Ryder. Another time.” I turned to leave but he grabbed my elbow, stopping me.
“Well how about you just give me your address and I’ll pick you up sometime and give you a tour of LA?”
“Look I don’t know where I’m staying yet. I’m going to find somewhere now,” I admitted, hanging my head in embarrassment.
“Does Ivan know?” he asked, seeming a little stunned by my confession.
“No. I, um, kind of faked an address on the form.”
“Jeez, Mase,” Mase? “He’ll check that shit out you know.”
“Well I figured by the time he does I’ll have found somewhere and I can just tell him I had to move,” I shrugged, fighting the urge to huff and storm off.
“You should’ve told him. He looks out for his boys. He’d have fixed you up. But hey, why don’t you come and stay at my place until you find somewhere.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I can’t do that.” Pity. Great. Just what I needed. “I don’t even know you.”
“We just fucked, Mase. Close enough don’t you think?”
Well he had me there. Was now really the time to start thinking about morals and rationality when I’d just fucked a man on camera for money?
“It’ll only be for a couple of days,” I said resignedly. “If you’re sure?”
“You’re one of us now, tiger. We take care of each other.”
“Did you seriously just call me tiger?”
“Grrrrrr,” he growled, winking as he pawed the air. I shook my head, smiling for the first time since I arrived here yesterday. It was too early to say I’d found a friend, but for now this guy appeared to have my back, and right now I had to take it where I could get it.
**********
After arriving at Ryder’s apartment he headed straight to his bedroom to change, ready for dinner out with some friends tonight. He told me to make myself at home and take a look around while he was gone, but not wanting to intrude I just took a quick glance around the kitchen and adjoining living room before plopping myself down on the couch.
“Sure, mate, no problem.” I looked behind me at the sound of Ryder’s voice to see him nestling his cell to his ear. “See you soon.”
I turned away immediately, not wanting to pry, but not before scanning him up and down a couple of times. He’d changed into some baggy black pants with white skulls sewn onto the pockets. He’d paired it with a black tank and some black and white bangles around his wrists, and I also spotted that he’d swapped his black ear tapers for turquoise plugs. He looked fucking hot.
“My friends will be here soon. Will you be okay on your own for a couple of hours?”
“How do you know you won’t come back to all your stuff missing and me nowhere to be seen?”
“I don’t. But from the look in your eye when you fucked me earlier I’d say you want to stick around and do that again sometime.”
“Nothing wrong with your ego I see?”
“Tiger, you can’t be in this business and not have an ego.” He winked at me and disappeared again, into a room which I assumed was the bathroom. He was still in there a few minutes later when a knock sounded at the door. Not being my place, I stayed where I was, until he called out to me. “Hey, will you get that for me?
“Sure!” Standing up, I walked over to the door, feeling a little awkward. When I opened it, I suddenly forgot how to breathe. “Holy shit…”
No way.
No fucking way.
“Hey, I’m Sawyer,” he introduced himself before gesturing to the two men on either side of him. “This is Jake and this is my security guard, Neil.”
“Yeah, I um, I know who… fuck.”
“Oh yeah,” Ryder said with a wicked grin on his face when he waltzed back into the room. “I might’ve forgotten to mention that the friend I was going out with tonight is a rock fucking superstar.”
“Um, yeah. You kinda did.”
I stepped back, consciously closing my gaping mouth and feeling like a giant imbecile for reacting like a teenage girl.
“Put your tongue away, Mase,” Ryder teased. Sawyer – Sawyer freaking Knight – laughed, whereas I took the option of shooting Ryder the dirtiest look I could summon.
“Saw, Jake, this is Mason. He’s just joined the studio and will be staying with me for a few days,” he introduced.
“Nice to meet you, dude.”
“And Neil?” Ryder continued. “What the hell you doing here, buddy? Thought you wouldn’t have been able to get away fast enough after the band split!”
“Splitting from the band doesn’t make him any less famous,” Neil explained. He looked familiar to me, no doubt I’d seen him pictured with Sawyer in magazines. As for Jake, I knew exactly who he was. The whole world knew about the man that managed to snag the infamous Sawyer Knight’s unattainable heart. “And as much as he’s a pain in my ass I can’t seem to find the will to walk away from the fucker.”
“Hey, you should come with us,” Ryder suggested. Forcing a smile I shook my head. “That’s okay with you guys, right?” he asked, turning to Sawyer and Jake. Neil had walked past us all a few seconds ago, plopping himself down on Ryder’s couch.
“Sure it is,” Jake replied.
“Ah, no thanks. To be honest I just need a decent sleep.”
“Wear you out did I, tiger?” he teased, winking at me.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just real tired, that’s all.”
“Well you’re gonna need to learn how to stop being such an old man if you wanna succeed in this game,” he added, smiling impishly. “But I’m dragging your arse out tomorrow whether you like it or not.” I found myself smiling at his accent. It was kinda cute, especially the way he said ‘arse’. “You can crash wherever you like. Spare room, couch, I don’t care.”
“Thanks, man,” I uttered, my voice serious and flooded with gratitude.
Once I was alone I didn’t feel as impolite about taking a look around. There wasn’t much to the place really. The living space was open plan, and there were two bedrooms and a shared bathroom coming off it against the back wall. It was small but modern, decked out in whites, blacks, and steel. I took my backpack into the bedroom I knew didn’t belong to Ryder and set it down on the double bed that was housed between a set of mirrored closets.
I caught my reflection and, running my hands down my face, realized I looked like shit.
I’d been travelling for five days, hitching various rides from strangers and sneaking onto different buses, praying I wouldn’t be noticed. I had fifty dollars to my name, and that had to last me until I got my first check from Ivan. I still didn’t know when that would be because I was too busy trying to sell myself to remember to ask.
Physically and mentally exhausted, my body was unable to resist the temptation of the mattress. I’d slept upright, against windows, shoulders and walls for the best part of a week, and so as I lay down on the bed, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep before I’d even pulled the blankets over myself.
**********
I’d been staying with Ryder for just over a week now. I knew when I came here it would be difficult to find a place that didn’t require a deposit, I didn’t however expect it to be impossible. Seriously, this week had been surreal. I hadn’t shot any more scenes yet but I’d modeled with some of the other guys, taking promo shots Ivan planned to use to introduce me as their new exclusive. I’d made an unexpected friend in Ryder – he was crazy, wild, hyper, his confidence was off the freakin’ charts and of course he was fucking gorgeous. He damn well knew it too... and I suspected so did every other guy whose naked ass I’d seen stumbling from Ryder’s room every morning this week.
But when we were alone he could be so different. So calm. So mysterious. Sometimes I saw a look in his eye that told me he hid a lot of stuff about himself. I knew that look because it was the same one I forced into my own eyes when facing the mirror every morning.
The most unreal part of this week though had been hanging out with Sawyer. Not only Sawyer, but Kip Benson too. It was like I’d been living under a rock the past few years, because I had no idea Ryder was one of the stylists on the Souls of the Knight tour last year, or that he was best friends with Elle Wilson, or that Elle and Kip were now a couple. The band was one of my favorites until life went to shit, so I guess I stopped keeping up with the latest gossip columns.
Everyone had been amazing. I didn’t expect to make friends so quickly - if at all, I didn’t actually believe the guys at Back Door were a ‘family’, and I literally didn’t think I’d ever know what it felt like to laugh so hard my stomach ached again.
“Right, tiger,” Ryder said, literally jumping onto the couch next to me and propping his feet up on my legs. “I’m bored. Entertain me.”
“Maybe later,” I replied, shifting his feet over on my lap so I could continue to circle potential apartments in today’s paper.
“We’ve talked about this,” he grumbled, kicking the newspaper off my knee. “You don’t need to live in some shit hole out of town when you can stay here.”
“I’m not staying here for nothing, Ry. And right now I can’t aff-”
“Then owe me. Whatever, mate, just stop being a boring old twat and amuse me.”
“Fine,” I relinquished. “What do you wanna do?”
“If I knew that I’d be doing it. You decide.”
“You can be so demanding. You know that right?”
“It’s been mentioned on occasion.”
“I’m voting stay in, movie, pizza, and enough peanut M&M’s to make us sick for two days. You in?”
“What movie?”
“Fast & Furious?”
“Beaches.”
“Beaches? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Bette Midler’s a legend! What kind of gay are you?”
“One with taste. I’m not watching that shit, dude.”
“Well I’ve seen all the Fast & Furious movies.”
“Man of Steel.”
“Superman? That’s for kids.”
“You’re never too old for Superman. Besides, it’s got Henry Cavill in it,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows.
“He’s probably old enough to be my dad.”
“Didn’t think you were the type to discriminate. Usually if it moves, it’s fair game.”
“Hey, I’m not saying I wouldn’t fuck him. Just stating a fact.”
“So Man of Steel it is?”
“How about Iron Man 3. You get your comic hero and I get Robert Downey Jr.”
“Man, you can be such a pain the ass.”
“I’ll be a pain in your ass any time you want me to, tiger.”
I forced a smile but inside my stomach rolled with nerves. Fuck knows why I was being such a pussy about this. I didn’t even know what exactly was bothering me. I wasn’t a wuss about pain, I wasn’t shy about my body… maybe it was just because the likelihood was I’d be giving up my bottoming V card in front of a camera.
“I’ll order the movie and you order the pizza.”
“Ugh, my phone’s over there,” Ryder grumbled, nodding towards the kitchen work surface. “You sort the pizza and I’ll do the movie.”
“No way. You’re way too picky. I’m not risking messing up your order and having you whine in my ear all night.”
“Fine. What do you want?”
“I’m easy. I’ll eat anything.”
We were about forty minutes into the movie when the pizza arrived. Ryder jumped up and headed to the door. He came back balancing two pizza boxes on one arm with a bottle of soda wedged under his other.
“Top one,” he said, nodding towards the boxes. I took the top box, placed it on the table in front of us and slowly raised the cardboard lid.
“Holy fuck!”
“You said you’d eat anything,” he said cockily, trying to stem his laughter. There must have been every single kind of chili and pepper known to man covering the base and as I started plucking them off, more seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…” Beneath the layer of chilies and peppers were… “M&M’s. How the fuck did you get them to put M&M’s on a pizza?”
“I’m a paying customer. I can get whatever I like,” he said, grinning wildly as he brought a slice of pepperoni pizza to his lips. “For a few extra dollars,” he added around a mouthful of food. The way he raised one of his perfectly pruned eyebrows at me while I poked and prodded my pizza led me to pick up the first slice. His eyes were gleaming with silent challenge and much to his surprise, I accepted. “Fuck, you’re not actually going to…” he trailed off as I took a sizeable bite of my M&M pizza. Despite removing most of the chilies, the second I swallowed it still felt like a firework had just exploded in my mouth. Reaching forward I unscrewed the cap on the bottle of soda, wincing as I swished it around my mouth. “You’re fucking crazy.”
Not one to give up on a challenge, I took another bite. I found if I ate it with my mouth open, it wasn’t nearly as bad.
“Mate, stop it,” Ryder snickered. “Just share mine.”
“You bought me food and I’m gonna eat it,” I said, trying not to breathe.
“It was a joke! I got mine big enough to share!”
Turned out laughing and trying to hold your breath at the same time is pretty much impossible. The second air passed through my nose I almost choked on the urge to vomit.
“Waaater,” I choked out, holding out my hand. My eyes were burning, tears pouring down my cheeks. When Ryder jumped up to get me a drink I wafted my hand in front of my mouth as if that would make the slightest bit of difference. Within seconds an open bottle of beer appeared in front of my face and I grabbed it immediately, chugging it down without hesitation. “Okay, okay, you win. I can’t eat that shit.”
“In fairness, you did say you wanted to eat M&M’s until you were sick.”
“I’m pretty sure I don’t ever want to eat another one as long as I live.”
“Here,” Ryder said, sliding his pizza box to the middle of the table. “Share this.”
“I’m good,” I objected, pushing the pizza away from me. “I’ll take another beer though.”
“Fridge,” was all he said, before stuffing another slice into his mouth.
We spent the next few hours drinking beer and
talking about random shit. We never did get around to finishing Iron Man. It played on in the background but neither of us took any notice. By 3 AM I was giving Ryder lessons on pole dancing, improvising with the doorframe.
“Hey, I think I’ve got it!” he practically sang as he slid down one handed.
“Um, yeah,” I agreed lamely, scratching my head as I laughed at his efforts. “We need to get you on a real pole.”
“Hey I’m totally up for that. I need to drag your arse down to Bend,” he said, smiling as he followed me over to the couch. I stole a quick glance at him before he sat down. He was shirtless, exposing his slight but toned frame and the intricate blossoming flowers tattooed onto his chest. Beads of sweat trickled down his torso, his cheeks were flushed from both the alcohol and the doorframe dancing and his green eyes were glowing with juvenile excitement. “Best. Club. Ever.”
I flopped backwards onto the couch and Ryder lay across it, draping his legs over my knees.
“You excited about your shoot with Will next week?” he asked me. I got a call from Ivan today and next Tuesday I’d be shooting a scene with Will – ‘Chase Gold’ – Fernand. Will was a top and only a top. I knew this was coming but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous as shit about it. I mean sure I could’ve said no, but I figured it’d be best to get it the hell over with.
“Sure,” I shrugged, aiming for nonchalance.
“Sure? What do you mean ‘sure’? If mind blowing sex was a person, it’d be Will.”
“I mean, yeah. Yeah I’m looking forward to it.” I could hear the slur in my voice which stopped me reaching forward for the beer in front of me. I knew I was in for a motherfucking headache when I woke up tomorrow.
“You don’t like Will?”
“Sure I do,” I protested. “I’ve only met him once but he seems like a decent guy.”
“Then what’s eating you?”
“Nothing’s eating me!” I snapped, regretting it immediately. “Just drop it, okay?”