by David Horne
Greg popped his head up from the comforter. “Will you fuck me?” His eyes were lit with desire. “I want to feel you inside of me.”
I pulled Greg to me. “If I fuck you, I’m going to be way too tired to walk around with you all day.”
Greg rolled his eyes. “Are you making me choose?”
Rubbing a thumb over his lips, I nodded. “Do you want to get fucked or do you want me to go with you today when you know I’ll love any place you pick anyway?”
Greg took my thumb into his mouth and sucked it. “Fuck me.”
Grabbing some lube from the side table, I squirted a generous amount on my hard dick. I squirted a big dollop onto my finger. Kissing Greg, I pushed my finger into his asshole, massaging it to relax and open up for me. Greg moaned as I worked my finger in and out of his tight hole.
Greg, still straddling me, squirmed in excitement. Pulling my finger out, I slowly guided Greg’s asshole down onto my eager cock. Greg lifted himself up and down on it, smiling at me. “Your cock feels so big inside my ass.”
Greg’s tight little asshole felt so delicious wrapped around my dick. “Make yourself cum,” I commanded.
Greg slammed down onto me with eyes tightly shut. Suddenly, Greg’s mouth dropped open in satisfaction as he moaned. Grabbing his hips, I pushed my dick in and out of him faster until I could feel the rush of an orgasm overtake me. I spurt my cum into his asshole, enjoying the tingling sensation pulsing through my body.
Within seconds, Greg hopped up out of bed. “I’m going to shower. You sure you don’t want to tag along today? The wedding planner has some beautiful places to show us!”
I groaned covering my head with a pillow. Greg took the pillow away from my head. “Okay. Just checking.”
“Pick whatever and wherever makes you happy.” I sat up to kiss him on the cheek.
Then, I flopped back down on the bed. “We’ve got dinner with my parents tonight anyway. I need to mentally prepare.”
Greg walked into the bathroom. “Your parents are great!”
I flipped on the TV. “Easy for you to say. They love you more than they love me!”
Both of my parents were ecstatic when I brought Greg home for Thanksgiving last year. When Greg left the dinner table for the bathroom, it left an opportunity for my parents to give me their assessment of him.
“This one is a keeper!” my mom squealed.
My dad agreed with her, which I’ve only witnessed happening two other times in my life. “Definitely has a great head on his shoulders.”
Their eagerness annoyed me. “It’s nothing serious,” I protested. I wasn’t exactly going to listen to my parents’ advice for God’s sake when all they did was fight with each other. They even had separate bedrooms. Granted, their fighting seemed to have toned down in the last few years, but still!
My mom put her fork down. “Oh, honey. We’re just happy you finally brought someone home. You’ve never done that before.” She gave my father a knowing look. He twitched his eyebrows at her. My parents had this unspoken language that used to drive me nuts when I was a kid.
Regardless, I had to admit they were right. Greg was my first real boyfriend and the first guy I’d ever brought home. I hadn’t realized that significance until they pointed it out.
My parents had always been so excited as a child whenever I brought a friend home. They’d put on this ridiculous act of being the perfect married couple. I rarely invited any of my classmates home, though simply because my parents put on such a big show whenever I did. It mortified me.
Nine months after meeting my parents, Greg proposed to me on a sailing excursion. It was ridiculously romantic. By then, we’d been going out for over a year and a half. I guessed that must be an appropriate length of time of dating before nuptials.
Clearly, our beginning wasn’t a romantic one by any stretch of the imagination. We met on Tinder and slept with each other within an hour of meeting. It was pure lust. Afterwards, I insulted Greg who then appropriately stormed out of my apartment. When he left, I was perfectly satisfied to never see him again.
Out of sight. Out of mind.
A few days later, Greg had hit me up on Tinder apologizing for acting like a baby. He asked me out to dinner to make it up to me. At that point in my life, all my Tinder dates had been one-night stands. In fact, most of my romantic endeavors had been strictly one-night stands.
His messages seemed sincere. Who was I to turn down free food? And besides, why not try a two-night stand for a change?
After that, Greg slowly planted himself into my life bit by bit. Until months later, I realized we were in a relationship. Because it had happened so slowly and subtly, it didn’t freak me out. I went with it.
He was an understanding boyfriend for the most part. Knowing that I needed lots of space, he didn’t crowd me and didn’t insist on spending the night too many nights in a row.
Marriage was going to be a gigantic step for me as a person. We’d have to move in together and share living space. This caused me apprehension, but I figured that this snag in our marriage would be something we could deal with together. The thought of my parents and their separate bedrooms dawned on me. Maybe it wasn’t as awful as I’d always thought it to be.
Besides, Greg had been so supportive of my screenwriting career and enjoyed when I would bounce ideas off of him. My latest screenplay, QWERTY, was a dramedy. It helped to refine the funny parts with him to make them even funnier. He acted out scenes for me helping me get the right tone for the characters. Greg turned out to be a helpful addition to my career, so it was worth biting the bullet and moving in together.
Recently, Blue Market Films had expressed interest in optioning it. Against Barb’s wishes, I mentioned to Blue Market that Greg was attached as the lead actor. Blue Market had yet to get back to me. I’d been waiting for their response on pins and needles.
QWERTY would be my sophomore film after Magical Mountains. I was anxious to prove that my early success was not a fluke.
Originally, I hadn’t written the part with Greg in mind, but he was in love with the part. He’d helped so much in developing the character and tweaking dialogue. I had to go to bat for him since he’d been so helpful with the screenplay’s development.
When Greg was dressed, he asked one more time for good measure. “You sure you don’t want to come? Melanie is dying to see you!”
Melanie was the wedding planner. She was a bit over the top for me: loud hair, makeup, and voice. She had the perfect personality for planning weddings, but not someone you wanted to be around if you were in the mood for a low-key day.
I’d been sipping on a coffee. Raising my mug, I said, “I seriously doubt that, but tell her I said hi anyway.”
Greg chuckled before blowing me a kiss and leaving. “Have fun being a hermit for the day.”
Turning on my MacBook, I stretched my arms up over my head. Seeing Harrison last night took a lot out of me for some reason. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, which made me feel awful. My fiancée was out looking for wedding venues while I pondered a silly crush I had on a guy I’d met two years ago.
Checking my email account, I saw that I had a message from a producer from Blue Market with the title: “Exciting News!”
Salvador,
We are in love with your screenplay, QWERTY.
The exciting news is that James Chanco is in love with it too. He would love to play the lead part.
My understanding is that your boyfriend had his heart set on the lead, but possibly we can compromise and give him the role of the best friend?
If not, Blue Market regretfully will not be able to option your screenplay.
Let us know what you think! I hope we can make it work.
Best,
Walter Owens
Fuck. This was exactly the reason why Barb did not want me to option the screenplay with any actor attachments. She warned me that I was still too new in the industry to make this kind of request. She’d also warned me ab
out dating actors because she claimed that a person could never tell if they were being genuine or acting. She’d advised me that I didn’t need that kind of confusion in my life.
Barb threw out wisdom from the right tea to drink (matcha) to dating and career advice all the time. It wasn’t always easy to follow her suggestions to the tee. Greg could be very persuasive. Was it because he was an actor?
He was going to be heartbroken for losing out on the part, but we were going to be life partners. Inevitably, he would understand that I had to take Blue Market’s offer. It was important that I make a film soon after Magical Mountains.
Who knew how long fans would like my work? Who knew how long critics would be generous in their appraisals of my work?
I needed to ride on Magical Mountains buzz while it lasted.
Greg would have to understand. There would be other parts.
Suddenly, I was hit with the urge to talk to Harrison about the screenplay. It was a comedy drama. It would be cool to see what he thought of it since he was a comedy writer now. More than that, I wanted to talk through how I should tell Greg the part was going to James Chanco. Harrison had more relationship experience than I did.
I found his contact information on my phone and dialed.
A woman answered. “Hello?”
“Um. Is Harrison there?” I paced the room. Who was this woman answering Harrison’s phone?
The woman was polite, but in a hurry. “Harrison? Sorry, wrong number.” With that, she hung up.
I stared at the number in my phone.
Had Harrison mistyped his phone number into my phone?
Bummer. I really wanted to talk to him.
A thought ran through my head that I couldn’t shake.
Had he purposely given me the wrong number?
Throwing my phone down on the bed, I crawled underneath the covers.
Once again, Harrison was in my life and out of my life, in one big swoop. I was genuinely looking forward to being friends. After our drive down to LA and realizing that Harrison and Arnie were more than just friends, it felt wrong to keep up a friendship with Arnie. Harrison was a nice guy. I couldn’t be around Arnie as his friend if he was always cheating on him. I’d lost touch with them both.
Taking a deep breath, I readied myself for when I had to break the news to Greg about QWERTY. He loved me. It was just a part in a movie. He would definitely understand.
Chapter Seven
Two Years Later
Harrison
Draped lazily on Tabitha’s chaise lounge next to her pool, I was happily doing absolutely nothing. It was Sunday after a demanding week on Cubicles. We were almost done with producing the current season. After winning an Emmy, the pressure of coming up with amazing material every week was taxing.
In the back of my head, my fears echoed: What if I can’t keep it up? What if I stop being funny?
Tabitha was the voice actress who played Mandy, the disgruntled stork who was the COO of Dyden Corp, where Cubicles took place. The irony of the role of Mandy was that she was a stork, who had pressure to focus on babies, but all she really wanted to do was take over the CEO role from David, a lazy shark.
Tabitha brought dimension to the role because, in real life, she was funny and charming. Her personality literally sparkled. I’d never met anyone in my life who was so genuinely happy and upbeat. She was a happy woodland fairy without the pixie cut.
It was difficult to find real friends in Hollywood because, more often than not, someone always wanted something from you. Old classmates from high school and college came out of the woodwork to show you their headshot or read their script. But Tabitha, or TabWar, as the paparazzi called her, was already wildly famous.
“OMG! OMG!” Tabitha scurried out from inside shrieking. Her red hair glinted in the sun. “Guess what just happened?”
Tabitha easily got excited over the most, in my opinion, benign and unexciting things. “What? Did Starbucks come out with a new drink?”
She shrieked again. “Yes! The new flat white is amaze balls! But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Amaze balls? Are you allowed to still say that because you’re TabWar?” Under my sunglasses, I closed my eyes and shifted my face up to the sky. The sun felt good on my face. I’d spent the last week locked up in the studio until ungodly hours. I needed my Vitamin D.
“You’re not guessing!” She hit me on the shoulder.
“I’m not going to guess.” I yawned. “I’m not a guesser. We’ve been through this thousands, probably millions, of times!”
Tabitha stood in front of me jumping up and down. Her chiffon swimsuit cover-up fluttered as she jumped. “Ronnie just called. Guess who wants me to read for a part?”
I put on a thick Southern accent. “Tabitha, darling, I think we have already gone over that I’m not going to guess.”
She twirled around and screeched, “Salvador Lerman!”
My eyes popped open. I flung my sunglasses off my face. “What?” I clamped my hand over my mouth.
“Alexa, play my dance music playlist!” Tabitha commanded. EDM blasted out of the pool speakers while Tabitha flailed her arms and legs around. Tabitha was a phenomenal actress, but not a particularly excellent dancer. She pranced around the pool, dancing like a baby horse learning to walk for the first time.
Thoughts of Sal flooded my brain: his face, his body, his voice, his everything! Throwing myself back into the chaise lounge, I flung an arm over my face. Sal! Immediately, I remembered Sal and his CW heartthrob husband. They were probably so stupidly happily married. They probably had beautiful twin girls named something Hollywood hip like Magenta and Pelican.
Tabitha galloped up to me where I sat dumbfounded. Hitting me on the arm again, she screeched, “Don’t you know what this means?”
I rubbed my arm. “You know? For a little girl, you hit hard!”
She sat down next to me with a serious look in her eyes. “The universe is bringing Sal back to you!”
“Oh, really? I wonder how his husband is going to feel about that.” Tabitha spent loads of money on spiritual healers and detailed horoscope readings. She was a proponent of the universe and opening your soul to its gifts.
She scoffed loudly, “How do you even know they’re still married?”
I crossed my arms defiantly. “Relationship information on Greg Stewart or Salvador Lerman is unavailable. I scoured the internet okay? It’s not even on Wikipedia! Apparently, they are both private people. They’re probably so damn happy they don’t even need to tell people about their relationship.”
Tabitha stifled her laugh with her hands. “Well, if it’s not on Wikipedia…”
I ignored her giggles. “Shut up!”
“So, you still have something for Sal, huh?” Tabitha looked at me deviously.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I protested, shooing her away from my chair.
“You looked him up. You googled him!” She paused, thinking it over. “Seriously, the chances that they are still together are really tiny? They are Hollywood married. They’re probably already divorced. I can name off the top of my head celebrities who divorced within months of getting married. Months!”
I put my hands over my ears. “You’re screaming. I’m right here!”
A week later, Tabitha read for Sal and obviously got the part. She was a spectacular actress. I’d even heard she beat out Emma Stone for the lead role.
Tabitha begged me to come out to Hungary where the film, Budapest Sunrise, was being filmed, but there was no way I wanted to be anywhere near that set. Sal was a married man. It was better to stay away and keep him out of my mind, as best I could.
That’s what I’d done after running into him on the plane. I deleted his contact information to dissuade any temptation to contact him. For that matter, Sal hadn’t contacted me either.
Granted, I’d given him the wrong number, but that wasn’t the point! There were ways to find my number. I had an agent, didn’t I? It wasn’t
like I was a person who couldn’t be found.
Had Sal tried any of the millions of ways to contact me? No!
Well, I didn’t know that for a fact, but the probability was no.
In my forlorn state, without Tabitha around to stop me, I called Arnie. It had been years since we talked, but I needed the old comfort of my asshole ex-boyfriend. Arnie was easy. He was always up to seeing me. He was like an old trusty dog that you could count on being around forever but also count on occasionally biting you in the ass.
“Harrisoooon,” Arnie answered the phone in a sing song voice. After all these years of silence, he skipped over the awkward phase of reacquainting each other and went right back to our old shtick.
“Hi, Arnie. You in town?” I asked hoping he wasn’t in Louisiana or Georgia for filming.
“I am. Just got back actually.” Arnie’s voice sounded amused. “Toronto. I don’t care what anyone says Canadians are the nicest people.”
“Wait, what? The common stereotype is that Canadians are the nicest people in the world.”
I heard Arnie stretch and exhale. “What’s that now?”
Shaking my head, I mumbled, “Oh nothing. Never mind.”
Silence filled the line. I wasn’t sure I could go through with what I was doing. I’d forgotten how dense Arnie could be. Gorgeous, but not the sharpest knife in the kitchen.
“You wanna hang out?” Arnie asked.
“Okay,” I said automatically.
Damn it. Here we go again.
An hour later, I opened the door, and there Arnie was… that beautiful blond mane and killer smile.
He sauntered into my house in Pacific Palisades like he’d been there before and that it hadn’t been years since we last talked. That was Arnie. Relaxed and cool in any situation.
He looked through my glass patio doors and spotted my hot tub. “Hot tub,” he declared with a dirty grin. He jerked his head for me to follow him. Without missing a beat, he quickly took off his clothes, leaving them in a pile outside the glass doors. Dutifully, I followed his tight ass outside.