by Zack
“When were you last in?” Gil asked as Mike fished out some money.
Mike shrugged. “I’m not sure. Not for a while, actually, not since I was last here with you … ah. No. I did come once after I’d done some camera work for Aiden Parnell and, as coincidence would have it, one of the models was a skinhead version of that kid you and I picked up on Hampstead Heath that night. Remember?”
Gil nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. Fun. Do you mean he was a different person who resembled the kid on the Heath, or the kid on the Heath turned skinhead?”
“The last bit. Name’s Dylan, and he wanted me to take him. No money to get in or buy a drink, of course.”
Gil wanted to ask whether anything had happened, but he left it there and Mike, who was paying for the entries, added nothing more.
Paradise had changed quite a bit over the year. An entirely new and more massive lighting array sparkled, shimmered, flashed, and exploded overhead. Some of the fittings looked as though they cycled down to within inches of the dancers’ strobe-animated heads, but Gil realized it was an illusion. One item hadn’t changed, or not much. Mike pushed to one side of the long island bar, found a moderately empty slot, and Gil had just leaned the base of his rib cage against its edge when he felt a hand slide around to his front and give him a friendly fondle.
“Wha—”
“Och, there, if it’s not my favorite Yank.”
“Duncan.”
“The same. Back again, hey?” The compact little busboy, dressed only in his usual tight, red running shorts with a white stripe down the sides, reached up and pecked Gil on his turned cheek with a last squeeze on his dick. The Angel of Paradise raised the big round tray he carried and waved it like a fan. “I’m off on an empties collection. But don’t you move till I get back. That goes for you, too, you big lunk,” he threw at Mike.
“He’s shaved off the stache,” Gil said.
“Yeah? Oh, that was some time back. Clones are last year’s flavor and his then-boyfriend didn’t like it, apparently. Hi, er … two Heinekens, please,” he addressed the hunky barman who had become free and bore down with the expression of the constantly harassed and busy. He came back with two cans and waved one enquiringly.
“Tinnies okay, mate, or d’you want a glass?”
The accent and phrase gave him away as Australian. Mike leaned forward. “Just the cans will do thanks.”
Gil leaned across as well and tipped his head up. “What’s playing? It doesn’t sound very Paradise.”
The barman winked and rolled his eyes as he placed the beers in front of them and Mike handed over the right amount in change. “You’re the One for Me … D-Train?” He gave an apologetic shrug. “It’s mixed night for the sheilas.”
“Ah …?” Gil turned to Mike for an explanation as the barman zoomed off to serve someone else.
“It’s this new thing, mixed —gay and straight. He means they have to play more stuff that the curious boys and girls like.”
“Sheilas?”
“That’s what Aussies call girls when they’re trying to put the accent on strong. Gay disco is all the rage with the cool crowd, I hear. Either that, or they like to come and see the natives perform their quaint and curious connubial rites. ‘Conjugating the verb,’ as my Latin master at school used to joke.”
As if to confirm the musical point, You’re the One for Me segued into Kelly Marie’s Feels Like I’m in Love, which at least had a more frenetic beat. Gil wasn’t sure how long they stood there, bumping shoulders to the music, but his beer had gone way down when Duncan came back, bearing a laden tray of empties raised up on one splayed palm. He went to the server’s station, kicked open the lower hatch, raised the hinged bar top with his free hand, and slid gracefully through. Gil smiled in admiration at the fluid action which accomplished the maneuver without a single glass sliding. Duncan disappeared momentarily behind the central stacks of drink shelves and then came back with a thumbed gesture at the end of the bar, which had emptied of customers for a moment.
“Come down here, it’s quieter.”
Gil doubted that, but with a glance at Mike, slid more than walked along the edge of the counter. Mike joined him and reached right across to grab Duncan around his naked neck and pull him close for a quick kiss.
Duncan kissed back and then slipped into a camp pose. “You shouldnae touch the guids until you’ve paid, Mister Smith.”
“Hey! Mike and … oh … Gil?”
Gil looked around to see Rod, the cameraman they had worked with on the Paradise promotional movie and in New York at the Subway. He shook Rod’s hand and nodded with a bright smile. If Rod was surprised to see him suddenly reappear in London, he didn’t say anything, and after a brief round of pleasantries, leaned up against the bar the other side of Mike and engaged him in a deep discussion about something to do with movies. Against the loud disco Gil couldn’t hear a thing, so he laid his arms on the bar top and turned back to Duncan, but he’d vanished, presumably on bar service around the other side.
Gil raised his beer and chugged down a couple of swallows. As he did so, something tugged at his jeans fly. He dropped the can on the bar in surprise, leaned back a bit so he could see down, and there a pair of hands was busily undoing his buttons. So that was Duncan’s plan. The bar top might be down at the server’s station, but the hatch below gaped open. He glanced quickly at Mike, who was turned three-quarters away to hear Rod better over the hammering music, and then pressed up against the edge of the bar. Cool air and warm fingers sent shivers through him as Duncan wasted no time in whipping his stiffening cock out. And a moment later hot lips fell wetly down over it, which completed its transformation to rampant.
Music whirled around his head in buzzing phases, body heat vibrated like a physical presence, his body thrilled to the pulses of flickering dance-floor lights reflected off the shiny black ceiling; surreal and amazingly erotic. Duncan worked his lips up and down Gil’s cock in a fury lent by the precariousness of the situation and the doubtless narrow window of opportunity. Gil prayed no one would have to enter or leave the bar area before he blew his load. Duncan’s expert tongue brought him very rapidly into the zone. He closed his eyes tight to shut out the disturbing lighting effects so he could concentrate his whole being in the eight rigid inches of feeling. Every sinew of his body oscillated and rippled until he was sure Mike would feel the reaction in the thick air, but he and Rod were laughing about something, and Duncan was sucking him so hard he just couldn’t … hold out … any … longer.
Aaaahh …
He snapped his eyes open at the moment of first ejaculation into the engulfing mouth beneath the bar. It was simply too late to stop coming, and the shock of seeing Duncan leaning casually on the other side of the shiny bar surface only added to the exigent outpouring of his jizz into … who?
Duncan, with sly smile, leaned over, grabbed the back of Gil’s head to pull him sharply against the bar, and pressed his moist lips against Gil’s. Gil was certain his knees would buckle and give way from the force of his orgasm. Then Duncan let him go suddenly and stepped back, licking his lips with relish and grinning so broadly, Gil thought his canny, narrow face might split.
“Hey, enough of that!” Mike threw lightly at the busboy, and then he turned a tad more, caught sight of what was happening next to him, and managed to catch Gil as he staggered back weakly. Gil saw Mike’s questioning glare at Duncan, who shrugged nonchalantly, all innocent. A slight scurrying under the bar alerted Mike, who looked down just as the hatch swung back into place. Gil hastily tucked himself in and tried to do up the fly buttons.
“What’s this then?” Mike asked.
Gil glowered at Duncan’s evident amusement, “I thought …”
“I know, babes, I know,” the busboy said in the soothing tone used on choleric infants. Gil smarted from Duncan’s gentle cheek pat, but then the humor of the situation bubbled up and he started to laugh.
“So …?”
Duncan opened his eyes
wide, the remiss host. “Let me introduce you.”
Another topless busboy slowly rose from behind the bar, eyes demurely downcast, cheeks flushed. He wiped two fingers slowly across his lips.
“This is Taylor,” Duncan said. “And Taylor owes me five quid, don’t you.”
Mike frowned. “What for?”
“I bet Taylor Gil would let him suck him off. Taylor didn’t think so.”
“But you wanted to?” Mike asked.
Taylor had buzz-cut sides and a careless flop of tawny hair falling in a fringe over his tall forehead. He looked a baby, not much larger or taller than Duncan, with a naturally lean torso. Cute, Gil thought, and then felt acutely embarrassed to think he’d just shot a heavy load into the boy’s mouth without even knowing him. It recalled the time he went to WeHo with those guys who picked him in Venice and got to try a glory hole. The anonymity had been a turn on. Okay, here he thought Duncan was doing him, but after the fact, finding he’d been unloading in a unknown boy generated an involuntary frisson of excitement. He smiled. Taylor smiled back, the shyness seeming to evaporate as Gil saw the boy’s eyes turn to roam over Mike.
“You,” Mike snarled at Duncan, “are an irresponsible little Scottish bitch-tyke. It’s just as well I love you dearly, otherwise …”
Duncan smiled, blew Mike a kiss, and waltzed off around the other side of the central partition with a backward wave at Gil and a wink. “Next time, Yank!”
After a second’s regretful hesitation, young Taylor followed him.
Rod, who seemed to have been oblivious to the main action, suddenly announced he had to dash. He patted Mike and Gil on the shoulder with a quick “See ya” and sallied off toward the stairs.
Mike gripped Gil’s nearest butt cheek and spoke softly in his ear. “So it’s all right to get a secret blow job if it’s the Angel of Paradise, is it?”
“Mike, he took advantage of me. One second I’m having a drink—”
“The next you’re getting blown. Amazing isn’t it, how often Duncan takes advantage of you?”
“Aw, Mike—”
You should’ve said something. After all, there were two of them back there and two of us, and”—he appraised the under-bar hatch—“room enough for both of us and them. After all they’re both skinny kids, they’d have both fitted.”
Gil slid his arms through Mike’s and pulled him close. “I love you,” he whispered before pressing his lips to Mike’s. He wiped the tip of his tongue between Mike’s, and his lover responded. When he pulled back, his smile lit Gil’s heart.
“I don’t know. You’ve only been back in London a few days and you’ve already got the boys lining up for sex with you.”
“That Taylor kid was giving you the beast-with-two-backs look, y’know.”
“I know,” Mike breathed. “In fact he’s got me so worked up, I think I need to get you home, stripped off, well wanked up, and sucked off again.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“Well, if it isn’t young Mr. Graham. Come on in, Gil, take a seat.” Jim removed his reading glasses and beamed from the other side of his paper-piled desk in the cramped upper office of the A.C.T.T., the British movie union, in Wardour Street.
The general secretary’s warm, Scottish-flavored welcome flattered Gil, who had thought he wouldn’t be remembered. But then, Jim was gay, which helped. Gil suspected he always remembered the gay boys in the Association of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians—to give its full name—better than anyone else. He squeezed onto the only chair other than Jim’s.
“I heard a whisper you’d gone back to the States.”
“I did, for a bit.” He hesitated to say more. Mike had never said whether Jim knew anything about the break-up.
“And then James Rosen kicked the bucket … or should I say the bucket kicked him.” Jim smiled gently and rubbed his chin.
Gil smiled back and nodded. It seemed no more need be said.
“So, what can I do for you?” He sat forward and steepled his fingers in a business-like way.
Gil felt his cheeks flush. He was always embarrassed when it came to showing someone his writing, so it was a comfort to have had Blood of Satan professionally bound, like a proper movie script. “Mike said I might show you this. I’ve been writing.” He pushed the manuscript across the desk. Jim picked it up, read the title, and nodded sagely.
“What can you tell me about it, son?”
Gil cleared his throat and launched into his prepared spiel about his horror film which gave an overview of the action and emphasized its potentially low budget and high returns; that he was well aware that since 1974’s It’s Alive, Gothic grand guignol like Dracula had fallen from vogue for more modern, even science-fiction projects, but pointed out that there was something of a classic revival in the gruesome and horrible. In the States, Sam Raimi’s movies had hit a chord, Monster Club over here had done okay business, and the recent announcement that First Metropolitan, arguably Hollywood’s biggest studio, had secured the rights to the first of the bestselling Terry Blood vampire novels on a giant budget indicated a renewed appetite for more conventional horror movies.
Jim listened with patience throughout the ten-minute speech. “Well, Gil, I’m not the one to make any kind of decision, as you know, but I welcome anything that might provide work for my members. So here’s what I’ll do. I’ll get the script—you can leave me this copy?” Gil nodded eagerly. “Okay, good. I’ll get the script registered, best done to protect your interests, and there are a couple of producers I know who might, just might, be looking for something like this. No promises, though.”
“Oh, I know. Thanks, Jim. That’s real kind of you.”
Jim chewed his lower lip for a moment and his head bobbed very slightly from side to side in a curious marionette motion. “Ah, well. Anything for a handsome young man.”
Gil couldn’t stop the blush. “You’d do the same for anyone if you could help, I know that.”
“Hah, don’t be too sure. There are some pushy bitches about this business, and I don’t have the time for them. Okay, I have another appointment in a minute, so I’ll let you know what happens, but don’t hold your breath, and don’t expect a quick answer either.”
Gil got up. “I won’t. Thanks again.” His shoes clattered loudly on the uncarpeted wooden stairs of the rambling union offices.
Out on Wardour Street, Gil hunched under the new heavy-duty coat he’d bought at an Army Surplus store in Oxford Street—a donkey jacket, Mike had called it. He needed it. The weather was raw, dank and dismal, with a breeze that sawed through to the marrow. He cut down the narrow passage of St. Anne’s Court, thinking that crossing Dean Street and going through Soho Square was as reasonable a route to Tottenham Court Road tube station as any. On the sidewalk of Dean Street he wondered whether he might go right and get a quick drink at the Crown & Two Chairmen or go right and drop into the Nellie Dean. As it was more on his planned line, the Nellie Dean won out. He reflexively checked how much cash he had on him reflexively, which reminded Gil that the good money he’d earned on Blade Runner wouldn’t last forever. Crossed fingers for Jim finding someone to like Blood of Satan. He glanced at his watch. Almost midday.
The pub offered a glowing warmth through its narrow corner door and the buzz of conversation from early lunchtime customers crammed around the small round tables against the ornate windows. It felt a bit odd, being there without Mike, and Gil’s natural timidity made him hunch deeper into his donkey jacket. Nevertheless, he went up to the bar and ordered a Heineken. Once he had the glass in his hand—a tall one not a “handle”—he leaned an elbow on the bar and looked around. And that’s when he heard a familiar voice, quiet, but somehow slicing through the general hubbub.
Trevor spotted him standing there the same moment Gil’s eyes came to rest on the guy from Rex Sound Facilities. Trevor. Trev. The boy Mike was supposed to have fallen for, which resulted in Gil’s eviction from Mike’s life. Ironic, when Gil considered
it from the distance of Los Angeles, from his home in Mar Vista, that he and Trevor had made out on more than one occasion and that hadn’t changed things between him, Gil, and Mike one iota. But then, the Trevor-Mike thing, it had all been fake. He knew why the charade had been played out, all the reasons. And, according to Mike, he knew the effect it had on Trevor, but it still caught him a sharp blow in the gut whenever that awful night in the Finchley Road Pizza Hut played across the widescreen of his brain in full sensurround.
He didn’t command his feet, but suddenly he found himself standing next to the table where Trevor sat staring up at him with those green feline eyes in company with three others. Unsteadily, Trevor got to his feet with a scrape of chair legs on the polished floorboards. They stared at each other. Trevor’s steady gaze could transfix butterflies to their places in a display case. Gil was aware of the curious looks the others were giving them.
Trevor pulled the left corner of his lips into a dimple, almost a smile and Gil returned it in kind even though his eyes flickered uncertainly. Gil was aware that Trevor would always be able to outstare him. It seemed Trevor took his ocular submission as friendly intent. Hadn’t Mike joked he still wanted to get into Gil’s pants? Yes, probably a joke, though.
“Hi …”
My, it speaks …
“How are you, Trevor?”
Trevor, his gaze still fixed almost dreamily on Gil’s, nodded slowly as if to confirm that he was fine. And suddenly Gil saw in those deep agate pools a wealth of guilt. He narrowed his eyes and Trevor looked away. “Do you want to sit? Hey, this is Gil Graham,” he said to the others. “That’s Chris, Nola, and …”—he turned back to Gil—“my boyfriend, Dave.”
“Thanks.” Trevor freed an unused chair from the next table and Gil sat down with Trevor on his right and Chris to his left. He gave Trevor’s boyfriend a polite nod. He’d not met Dave when he was in London before and tried not to be obvious in his scrutiny. Dave was not at all what he had imagined: tall and apparently slim under the winter clothing, mustachioed, with a receding hairline, nice brown eyes, and bushy eyebrows which gave his forehead an unbalanced look. Not at all what he expected of enigmatic Trevor. Dave, sitting on the other side of the round table from Trevor, went back to the conversation he’d been having with Chris and, by turning half around on his seat, with a man and his two companion drinkers on the next table.