Object of Desire

by William J. Mann

  “Please,” he said. “Sit down.”

  I took a seat at one end of the curved sofa as he pulled shut the sliding wood door of the study. I folded my hands in my lap.

  “Any auditions lately?” he asked.

  I shook my head no. “Nothing I could get into.”

  He sat at the other end of the sofa, appraising me with his cold blue eyes from under those enormous eyebrows. I pegged him to be about fifty. He wasn’t unattractive. Indeed, in his day, he might have been quite handsome. He had a strong jaw and very high cheekbones. If Katharine Hepburn had ever done herself in male drag with a white wig and fake white eyebrows, she might have looked very much like Gregory Montague.

  “So that’s why you decided to give me a try,” he said to me.

  I shrugged. “Anyone just starting out who is serious about making it in this business would be a fool not to respond when a well-known agent gives out his card.”

  Whether or not Gregory Montague was well known or not was a matter of some discussion. Yes, he was listed in the directories of agents I’d looked at, with an address and a phone number, but no one I’d asked had ever heard of him. He didn’t appear to be affiliated with William Morris, CAA, or ICM. But the photos on his wall seemed to suggest he knew some big names. After all, President and Mrs. Reagan!

  “Well, I’d certainly like to do what I can for you, Danny,” Gregory said, leaning back into the cushions of the sofa now. The sash of his smoking jacket had come undone, and he patted his round, white-shirted belly as if he’d just had a good meal. “But you know, I can’t just sign someone with no experience.”

  “I’ve heard that song before,” I said. No way was he getting off that easy. My months in West Hollywood had hardened me. Emboldened me. No longer was I the hick who’d just stepped off the bus. I knew how the game was played. That was why I was there, after all.

  I narrowed my eyes as I looked at him. “Every agent I’ve spoken to has said the same thing. You can’t get a job in this town without an agent, but you can’t get an agent if you’ve never had a job. So how come the acting pool doesn’t just dry up? Sooner or later, you’re gonna run out of people, and then, when you guys come looking for me, maybe my price is gonna be a lot higher.”

  My little rant made Gregory laugh, as it was intended to do. “You have spunk, Danny,” he said.

  I gave him an eye and a smirk. “That’s what Lou Grant told Mary Richards just before adding that he hated spunk.”

  Gregory’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, I can assure you, I adore spunk.”

  “Lucky me.”

  He rose. “If I can’t offer you a drink, might I offer you something else?”

  “Whatcha got?”

  He walked over to a small bar at the far end of the study. “Around here, liquid refreshment is never quite as effective for doing business.” He withdrew a small, thin silver case from a drawer.

  I cocked my head at him. “But, we will do business, won’t we?”

  “Oh, indeed, Danny. Indeed we will.”

  I smiled.

  On the bar, Gregory was arranging two lines of cocaine. My heart beat a little faster, and I felt my mouth actually begin to water. It had been a couple weeks since I’d snorted coke, and suddenly I was starved for it. Two weeks of being good, of staying as close to Randall as I could and as far away from Edgar as possible, had made me only want that magic white powder even more. I stood from the sofa and tried to appear casual as I sauntered toward the bar.

  “I find it helps the conversation,” Gregory was saying, offering me a little straw. “And helps get to the heart of one’s talent.”

  “Yeah, funny how it does that,” I said, accepting the straw. In seconds both lines were gone. Gregory was laying out more. They might have been intended for him, but I snorted them myself, faster than any Hoover vacuum cleaner. My host simply smiled.

  “Oh yes,” Gregory said, finally doing a line himself, “there are many, many opportunities for a beautiful boy like you.”

  I laughed. The rush was spreading through my body. I could taste some of the powder at the back of my throat. I felt happy and confident and, yes, beautiful. I stood back, leaning against a bar stool, my pelvis thrust forward, allowing Gregory to inspect the merchandise. It was the same cocksure feeling I had up on my box at the bar.

  Gregory drew close. He ran a hand up my leg and over my ass. “Very beautiful indeed,” he purred in my ear.

  “Do you really think so?” I asked in a little voice. Even high, even cocksure, there was still a little part of me that was afraid of the answer.

  “Could there be any doubt?” he replied. He took my hand and placed it on his crotch. I felt a hardness there. I smiled.

  I wriggled away from him. “Now I’d like a drink,” I said.

  “Certainly. What can I get you?”

  “Dewar’s. On the rocks.” I thought that seemed like a classy choice. “So if we’re gonna do business, let’s get down to it. Tell me what you can do for me. I want to be big.” I moved in a little closer to him. “I’m serious, Gregory. This isn’t just a lark for me. I want to be a huge star.”

  Gregory was fixing my drink. “Movies or television?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well, you should. Aim high, Danny. Don’t you want to be Harrison Ford or Richard Gere more than you want to be Ted Danson or Michael Landon?”

  I considered it. “I suppose. But a top-rated TV show would suffice. Like I could do Family Ties if Michael J. Fox decides to split permanently for movies.”

  Gregory handed me my drink. I took a sip.

  “Are these your clients?” I asked, gesturing to the wall. “Why don’t you have Ron Howard put me in his next picture?”

  “We need to start with getting some photos, Danny,” he said, ignoring the question and the suggestion. “A sexy portfolio of head shots and body shots.”

  “Sure.”

  He smiled. “Mind showing me what you’ve got?”

  I held his smile for a few moments with one of my own.

  “Of course,” I said and began undoing my bolo tie.

  Gregory sat on the arm of the sofa and watched. I unbuttoned my shirt, exposing my slender, smooth, tanned chest. I pushed the shirt open just enough to allow for a glimpse of my nipples, hard little cones that revealed my anxiety. I hooked my thumbs in my jeans and posed, imagining a photographer aiming at me with his camera.

  “Well, go on,” Gregory said.

  I looked at him. “Maybe we ought to keep a little mystery.”

  He laughed at me. “Come on, Danny. I could go down to Santa Monica Boulevard some night and see more of you than this.”

  I moved in close. “I’m serious about wanting to be an actor.”

  “I know you are, sweetmeat.” His big white eyebrows twitched, and his blue eyes twinkled. “And I’m just as serious. Believe me.”

  I placed my hands on his shoulders and held his gaze. “I just don’t want to…you know, do something for nothing.”

  He laughed. “I doubt a boy like you ever does something for nothing.”

  “I’m not a whore,” I said, feeling suddenly indignant. “I dance. I strip. But I’m not a hustler.”

  Gregory slipped his arms around my waist and kissed my nose. “But you’ve been paid for it. Can you tell me you’ve never been paid to have sex?”

  I couldn’t tell him that. I just looked away.

  “Oh, maybe you’re not leaning up against the wall at Numbers, but if a man wants you, he can find a way to have you.” He ran his hands up and down my exposed chest. “And who wouldn’t want you? You’re beautiful, Danny. Simply stunning.”

  “Stop it,” I said, uncomfortable. “I am not.”

  “But you are. Those beautiful, perky nipples. Those tight, little boy abs. Those saucy blue eyes.”

  “Please stop.” I felt weird. Maybe it was the coke. But suddenly I felt faint. I would’ve fallen down if Gregory wasn’t holding me up.

  “You knew wh
at coming over here meant, didn’t you, Danny? You knew what you were doing when you agreed?”

  “Yes,” I answered, dizzy. “Yes, I knew. But I’m still serious about being an actor. Still serious about wanting your help.”

  “And you shall get my help.” He popped open the top button of my jeans and pulled down my zipper, grinning up at me with that toothy Katharine Hepburn smile. “We help each other, Danny boy. That’s how we do things in Hollywood.”

  He knelt down in front of me. Out of my white briefs, he pulled my cock, gobbling it up as quickly as a kid going down on an ice-cream cone.

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Good thing I got hard easily. All a guy had to do was look at my cock, and I got a big, old raging hard-on. It didn’t matter if the guy was hot or sexy. Just looking at my cock and wanting it in his mouth were enough to give me a boner. That was the reason I was so popular with Edgar’s customers, why they came back for more. I just closed my eyes and let my cock do all the work.

  Gregory was making quite the slobbering sound when I heard the sliding wood door of the study start to open. I turned, not inclined to move or pull out of Gregory’s mouth. So let his housekeeper see, I thought. I didn’t care.

  And then my eyes met those of Frank.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Frank said, quickly sliding the door shut.

  Gregory pulled off my cock long enough to gripe. “I told him I was doing an interview. Sorry about that.” Then he resumed his slobbering.

  I looked down. A glob of his saliva dropped from his chin onto my shiny black boot. And then another. And another.

  “Okay,” I said. “I can’t do this.”

  Gregory looked up at me, spittle all over his lips.

  I was zipping up. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

  “What is the matter?”

  “I can’t do this!” My voice was louder than it needed to be. “He saw. I just can’t do this. Sorry.” I buttoned my shirt.

  Gregory got to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It doesn’t matter, Danny. He’s just a friend. He doesn’t care.”

  “Well, I do.” I stuffed my bolo tie down into the pocket of my jeans. “I’m sorry. I need to leave.”

  He arched a bushy eyebrow at me. “I thought you were serious about becoming an actor.”

  “Guess not that serious.” I let out a long breath. “Thanks for the blow. It was good. But I have to go.”

  He shrugged. “Fine. Your choice.” He picked up the receiver of a phone on the bar. “I’ll call my driver—”

  “No,” I said. “No driver. I don’t mean to be rude. But no driver. Nothing.”

  Gregory laughed. “But how will you get home?”

  “God gave me two feet. I’ll use them.” It was a line my mother had always said.

  It only made Gregory laugh harder. “I have news for you. It’s a long way down that mountain—”

  “I know,” I said. “So I’d better start now.”

  I slid open the wood door and hurried out into the hallway. I saw Frank at the far other end of the house, in what appeared to be the kitchen. He watched me as I walked briskly toward the front door, my boots clicking on the parquetry floor. From the study behind me, Gregory emerged.

  “Danny, wait!” he called. “You can’t walk all the way back—”

  “Yes, I can,” I said, heading out the front door. “I don’t care how long it takes. I’m walking home.” Outside, I broke into a jog, taking the steps down the hill two at a time. I didn’t want them to see that I had started to cry.

  The night was dark. And Mulholland Drive was very long and very twisty. Even when I got to the end of it, I knew I had steep, winding Laurel Canyon to deal with. How long would it take me to get home? Ninety minutes? Two hours? Four? My heart was racing in my chest. The cocaine was making the anxiety even worse. In the darkness, I began the long trudge down the road, one foot in front of the other, barely seeing two feet in front of me. Every once in a while, through the trees, I’d catch a glimpse of the lights of West Hollywood far below. Cars raced past, their headlights swinging across me. A couple of drivers honked at me when they were startled to see a figure moving on the side of the road. I tried to stay on the grass as much as I could, but the road was so dark, and sometimes I wasn’t sure where the pavement ended and the grass began. I was also scared of losing my footing if I walked too close to the precipitous drop; then I’d go tumbling down the rocky edges of the Hollywood Hills.

  I may as well just toss myself over the side, I thought, like that girl Randall had told me about who’d jumped off the Hollywood sign to her death when she realized she’d never be a star. I may as well just jump.

  More headlights swung across me, causing me to squint into their glare. A car slowed down and pulled alongside me. From what I could make out, it was an old Plymouth Duster. The driver was leaning across the front seat and rolling down the passenger window.

  “Danny,” came a voice from inside the car. “Get in.”

  I stopped walking. It was so dark that I couldn’t make out who the driver was at first. Then I recognized him. It was Frank.

  “No, thanks,” I said and resumed walking.

  He got out of the car. I heard the door slam in the darkness behind me. “You’ll get killed out here,” he called after me. “Please. Let me drive you home.”

  I stopped walking. The headlights of an oncoming car momentarily blinded me, and I felt the rush of air as it zoomed past. I turned around and walked back to Frank’s car.

  “Where do you live?” he asked.

  “Just drop me off at Santa Monica and Fairfax.”

  We both got into the car. It smelled of bananas and coffee. I left the window open to keep the fresh air flowing. My head was really starting to spin. Frank didn’t say anything right away. He just put the car into drive and steered it back onto the road.

  “Look,” I finally said, “about what happened back there…”

  “None of my business,” Frank replied.

  “I’m not a hustler.”

  “None of my business.”

  We drove in silence for a while.

  “Yes, I knew what I was getting into,” I said, unable to bear the quiet. “But I just couldn’t go through with it after you walked in.”

  “It’s okay, Danny.”

  I leaned my head against the side of the door, breathing in the night air. “I’m not a hustler.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “But you don’t believe me.”

  “I believe you.”

  I turned and looked at him. “It’s just that I really need an agent! I came out here to make it as an actor. You think I want to keep dancing on a nasty old box in a skanky old bar for the rest of my life?”

  Frank laughed. “I doubt they’d let you do it that long. Usually strippers get forcibly retired at the ripe old age of twenty-five.”

  “I’m not a stripper, either. I’m a dancer.”

  “Danny, it’s okay. Really.”

  I started to cry again. My tears were an embarrassment, but I couldn’t help them. They just came. Gushing down my cheeks like waterfalls.

  “Hey,” Frank said. “Baby, don’t cry.”

  He reached over and touched my cheek with his fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay.”

  We were heading down the mountain. “Just drop me off on Santa Monica,” I said. “I’ll walk home from there. I need to clear my head.” It was pounding actually, and I could still taste the coke in my throat. My nostrils itched. I kept wiping my nose, and Frank must have figured things out.

  “You need something to eat,” he said.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Okay.”

  We drove in silence again for a while. There was a backup of cars ahead of us, a constellation of red taillights clustered at the bottom of the hill.

  “I hate this road,” Frank said.

  “Where do you live?” I asked. />
  “Venice Beach.”

  “I’ve never been there.”

  “Never been to Venice Beach?” he asked. “How long have you lived in L.A.?”

  “Little over a year.”

  “You should check it out sometime. It’s like a small town in the midst of a big city. Great beach, too.”

  I looked over at him. “How do you know Gregory?”

  “Long story,” he said.

  The traffic was moving again. “You can just drop me off…oh, I don’t know. Maybe at the bar. I can’t go home yet. My roommate is like a mother hen, and he’ll start asking all sorts of questions.”

  Frank looked over at me kindly. “Might I suggest a bar is the last place you should go when you’re feeling like this?”

  I sneered. “Then what would you suggest?”

  “Come with me. I’ll show you Venice Beach.”

  I said nothing.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “You don’t have to take care of me.”

  “I’m not. I’m just offering to show you a part of town you’ve never seen.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, if you don’t want to go with me—”

  “I do.” I looked at him. “I do want to go with you.”

  So we headed through West Hollywood, down La Cienega and onto Venice Boulevard. I couldn’t quite believe the way the night was turning out. I’d thought I’d be planning my future as an actor with Gregory Montague, and here I was instead, heading to Venice Beach in a beat-up old Duster with Frank Wilson. That was his last name, I learned. I also learned that he was born out near Palm Springs, and that he taught English at a high school in Inglewood, and that he was in the process of getting his master’s, and that he hoped someday to teach at the college level. Frank reminded me a little of Randall: he had that ambition to become something serious. It wasn’t ambition like mine, which was to become something frivolous.

  When we got to the beach, I was struck by how fierce it was. Nothing like the soft, gradual beaches of the East Coast. Here the Pacific slapped the coast with big, pounding waves, ridden by surfers whose long golden hair reflected the moonlight. We headed down the boardwalk, the neon of the shops and cafés burning through the darkness. A Rastafarian in dreadlocks and a colorful knit cap played a reggae guitar; Asian girls roller-skated down the boardwalk, holding hands. Off to our left, adjacent to the sand, was Muscle Beach, an outdoor gym. Bodybuilders so big they seemed ready to explode hunched over benches, curling dumbbells, wearing nothing more than Speedos.