Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

“I know it’s rough,” said the Boy, patting the producer’s shoulder. “But every picture we do is like this. It’s always a nightmare.”

The old man stood and made his way to the door.

“Think it over, you scary old cocksucker,” said Pierre, embracing him. “Mr. Piece of Shit Roadkill.”

“A one-day shoot!” said the Boy, jumping around like the circus had come. “I love it!”

Chet Stoddard

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He sat in the outer office, scanning a ViatiCorps brochure. Horvitz appeared behind the girl at the desk, waving him back.

“I’m sorry you’re leaving us, but I understand. It’s not for everyone.”

“And I thought show business was depressing.”

“Thinking of giving the talkers another shot?”

“Too many out there right now.”

“Every time I pick up TV Guide , there’s a new one. Where do they find these people?” He took an envelope from a drawer, handing it to Chet. “Your paycheck and…a partial commission from the ‘dentist’ deal.”

“I appreciate that, Stu.”

“Not at all. Keep in touch. If you change your mind, the door is open.”

“I’ll call you.”

“By the way, Phil Dagrom just died. The costume designer.”

“I’m not surprised. I thought he was going to die while we were there.”

“No, he got much better — after we gave him the money. Happens all the time: the pressure eases, spirits rise. They get better . And Ryan — the roommate?”

“What about him?”

Horvitz smiled like a maître d’ with no more tables. “He ran off with the money.”

“You’re kidding.”

“With a lover. They get on a plane to Paris .”

“Oh Jesus.”

“And poor Philip dies forty-eight hours later.”

“Did you tell the dentist that?”

He closed his eyes and gently shook his head. Did Chet think he had no finesse? “I told the dentist Mr. Dagrom died in Crete, in his roommate’s arms, while the sun went down on a ruin. Hey! Isn’t that what Jackie O called it when she gave Onassis a blow job? Going down on a ruin?”

Aubrey was subdued. He was desperate to touch her, kiss her. The timing was bad, she said. She’d been to UCLA that day for tests. Something was funny with her eyes. They dilated the pupils and made her scan a grid — she was certain it was CMV. If the virus was confirmed, she’d have to take medicine each day through a shunt. She was forthright and even-tempered except when it came to Zephyr. She didn’t want the boy to see her around the house with a fucking permanent tube in her arm.

Chet laid her shaking body down. She wet his face with tears and sex, and searched his eyes with the drama of the inchoately blind. He pulled off the condom but Aubrey made him put on another. She came in great, shuddering waves, and when Chet caught up, he hated that his come couldn’t find hers, turning stickily onto itself, sheer pornography; he wanted to give her his best, a viscous magic bullet — to fuck her to life as she’d been fucked to early death. Once outside, he tore off latex and quickly wrapped their bodies in sheets, as if to preserve and protect — to cleanse — through an improvised classicism of the bedroom. Aubrey said, “I needed that,” and laughed so hard she shrieked and gasped, pounding his chest with tiny fists.

Zephyr and the sitter were asleep on the couch when they came in. The girl quietly gathered her things, and Aubrey lifted the unconscious child in her arms. She trudged upstairs and tucked him in, then called to Chet from the landing. They went right to bed. It was a long time since Chet had a sleepover. He hoped he wouldn’t snore or cry out from a dream.

His last thoughts were of the treasonous roommate, and not the girl he left behind: Ryan the apostate, the cockatrice à table at a swanky bistro, say, Le Voltaire, beneath what was once the master’s house — supping on canard aux cerises , awaiting his lover’s return from the urinal.

Wish Jason and his Argonaut well …

Troy Capra

The legendary personal manager was well known for his collection of large outdoor pieces. He walked them past a Nevelson, a flock of Lalanne sheep, a Schnabel table with some kind of metal figure in its center, an enormous bronze breast and, finally, the most peculiar of all: a phony garden populated by two male manikins, one young, one old, pants down around the knees, the latter humping a tree while the former fucked a hole in the ground. The figures were motorized; Moe flicked a switch and everyone watched straight-faced. He waved toward a Kienholz — more middle-aged men in suits without pants, standing around a barrel — but the sprinklers had been on and it was too far a trudge.

Rod Whalen’s body was amazingly beautiful, a transformation casually attributed to years of power yoga. It was easy to see how a true collector might be stirred. Instead of desiring him, Troy merely wondered how muscles could look that way — gills seemed but a small evolutionary jump. They reminisced about that Guys and Dolls summer while a gang of pretty boys and fortysomethings arrived, including Zev Turtletaub and the dermatologist Leslie Trott. The producer escorted a handsome kid with tangled eyebrows and a cold sore: “Taj Wiedlin, my Veepee of Bedevilment.” Troy shook hands all around. Maybe Quinn was right and coming here today would somehow pan out. He liked the queers well enough but rarely went to house parties. Wall-to-wall men had a way of throwing him into heterosexual panic.

When the guests disbanded for drinks, Troy cornered Moe for a little spin control. He told the attentive manager how he was in truth a theater director who’d conflated his labors in the adult film world into an epic monologue that he planned to film before an audience the very next month, with himself as star. Trusskopf said the idea was brilliant and demanded an invitation. He seemed sincere.

The director introduced Up in Adam as his “seminal work” and that got a polite laugh. The half-hour film took place in a barracks. It featured a raw recruit (Rod Whalen aka G.I. Blow) and a black drill sergeant (Sarge Large). For kicks, Troy had ripped off a favorite movie, The D.I . — he had the black get in Rod’s face and shout, just like Jack Webb: “ Do you love me? ” G.I. Blow rejoined, “ Yes sir! ” Again: “Do you love me?” “ Yes sir! ” “I can’t hear you!” “ I love you, sir! ”—and on and on, until Sarge Large barked, “Prove it, Mister!” At this, the room broke into pandemonium. Troy hung a few minutes, then went to find the head.