more out of them.” He punctuated his praise with an extra little squeeze.
I was too aware of the heat coming off his body. His ridged oblique muscles pressed against me-I could feel their definition through my shirt and his. He must be ridiculously shredded. I felt myself tingling in places I shouldn’t be tingling.
I loved Tony, but I was only human.
“Thanks,” I said, twisting my body away and turning as if I wanted to face him. Actually, I just wanted to put some distance between us. “I’m relieved. They were a pretty… colorful bunch in the pre-interview. Things got a little heated.”
Andrew’s eyes swept me from head to toe. “What’s wrong with getting a little hot?”
When we reunited six months ago, Andrew came on like a house on fire, and I had to hose him down. He’d behaved himself since then, but there was still an undercurrent of flirtatiousness. One which I kind of enjoyed. As long as it didn’t sweep me out to sea, that is.
Speaking of which, we were about to be swamped by the flood of audience members leaving the theater. They gathered their things, noisily discussing how much fun they’d had.
“Let’s go backstage,” I suggested, “and bid our guests a fond good-bye. Shall we?”
“You got it,” Andrew agreed. “But I’m not getting too close to the plushie. Did you notice the stains on his fur?”
I gave a little shudder. “Maybe you can handle Mistress Vesper.”
“I’d rather handle that Brock Peters. He looks even better in real life than on my TV.”
“You watch his movies?”
“Watch them? I own the boxed set.”
I smacked him on the shoulder. “You are the biggest horn dog.”
“Guilty.” Andrew shrugged. “Plus, Peters came with a few other guys from his studio. Half the cast of Star Whores-The Phantom Penis are here.”
“And me without my autograph book,” I told him with a grin. I batted my eyes coquettishly. “Whatever will I do?”
“Come on,” Andrew said, swatting my butt. “I’m sure we’ll find something they can sign.”
On the way backstage with Andrew, a production assistant stopped me with a question about the next day’s show.
“Go on,” I told Andrew. “I’ll catch up with you later.” I answered the PA’s queries and headed to say my good-byes.
My parting exchanges with both Mistress Vesper and the plushie went quickly. I didn’t see Andrew in either room. Maybe he’d finished quickly.
Mistress Vesper gave me a firm handshake. She extended an invitation for me to feel free to give her a call if I was a “bad boy” who needed some punishment. I promised to keep her in mind.
Plushie tried to hug me good-bye, but I avoided it with a playful high five. I’m not a germaphobe, but I imagined the places that fake fur had been and doubted it was easy to clean. I could practically see the salmonella and Ebola crawling all over it. I beat a hasty retreat and wiped the palm of my hand on my pants.
My last stop was to the small room we’d set up for Brock Peters, but it was empty. I must have missed him. No great loss. I was walking out when I heard voices and laughter coming from down the hall. It sounded like a party. The only thing in that direction was a large space we sometimes used for full staff meetings.
Just then, another PA came out of it with an armful of empty pizza boxes. I gave her a quizzical look.
“It’s the gay porn guys,” she said, anticipating my question. “There’s a whole gaggle of them. Bigger than the entourage that arrived with Beyonce. When Andrew saw they were overflowing the space we’d given them, he invited them to use the conference room.”
She looked at the cardboard boxes she was schlepping to the trash. “He sprang for ‘catering,’ too. You should check it out. It’s a good time.”
On my way to the conference room, I noticed a gross smell. I sniffed and followed it to Oliver Armstrong, our maintenance worker. As I got closer, the odor got worse, almost overpowering.
Oliver was a good worker, but a bit of a weirdo, with an Asperger’s-like discomfort around people. I was one of the few guys here he could look in the eyes. He also seemed a little slow. I was glad we were able to employ him, but I sometimes worried about him.
Had he not been showering lately? The stench emanating from him was gag-inducing. Rotten eggs mixed with body odor covered in sour milk. It barely smelled human. My eyes watered.
I dreaded having this conversation with him. It was hard enough for him to feel comfortable around people, and now one of the few he trusted had to confront him. But someone had to let him know this kind of hygiene wasn’t acceptable in the workplace.
“Oliver,” I began, “I hate to tell you this, but…”
Oliver held up a silver canister he’d been carrying by his side. “It’s not me,” he said. He moved the container closer to me, and sure enough the smell strengthened.
“My lord,” I said, waving at him to hold the canister away. “What is that crap?”
“Some kind of chemical.” He pointed to the label. “Ethanethiol.”
“What is it?” I asked. “Some kind of insecticide?” I hoped not. It might get rid of the roaches, but it’d likely send the staff scurrying, too.
Oliver shuffled nervously. He hadn’t been doing anything wrong, but just this level of human interaction was hard for him. “Naw, it’s the gas company. They installed it in the main system in the basement. It’s part of the alarm system. If there’s a gas leak, some of this stuff gets out, too.”
“So we die of the stench before the gas kills us?” I asked.
Oliver smiled. It was nice to see he could get a joke. “Actually, it’s to save us. Gas is odorless. If it leaks, we wouldn’t know till it was too late. But they said if we do have a breakdown, this stuff will be released into the line. Gets everyone out of the building real quick-like.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That makes sense. There’d be no missing that smell.”
“And that’s what it smells like inside the bottle,” Oliver said. “I was there when they poured some into the alarm system. I thought I’d hurl.”
“You throwing that away?” I asked.
“No, the gas people said we have to save it. I’m bringing it into the storeroom. I’m gonna put it into a trash bag, then another, and throw them both into a sealed storage box I have in there. That should be enough to keep the smell from leaking out.”
“I hope so,” I said. “But you have to work there every day. If that’s not enough, let me know. We’ll find somewhere else to store it.”
Oliver looked genuinely touched that I cared enough to offer my help. “You got it, man,” he said, smiling despite the stench.
Two smiles from Oliver in one conversation. I felt like I’d won the jackpot.
I reached the conference room. The PA with the pizza boxes wasn’t exaggerating. The room was filled with about fifty people, all talking excitedly. About ten were staffers with the show; the others must have arrived with Brock. If so, they’d have to catch up with him later. I wasn’t surprised to see his attention monopolized by Andrew. The two stood closerthanthis in a far corner of the room, their body language engaged and flirtatious.
Everyone else appeared to be either friends of Brock’s or co-workers. A mix of pretty boys, handsome men, and the less physically favored who bankrolled the operation. It was one of the latter who approached me first.
“Well, hello,” he drawled, stretching out the greeting like a lizard uncoils his tongue. It wasn’t the only reptilian thing about him. High cheekbones drew your attention to his badly capped teeth. His skin was pulled unnaturally tight, and his eyes were slanted and narrowed to barely functional slits by what I’d guess were at least a handful of overambitious face-lifts.
Had it not been for all the tinkering, he might have been handsome. Underneath it all, you could see the bone structure of a movie star from the 1950s. But too much plastic surgery, too many tanning beds, and his predatory smile combined to give him the friendly appeal of a hungry crocodile.
He regarded me with the same top-to-bottom appraisal Andrew had earlier, but this one was decidedly creepier, accompanied by lip smacks and a quiet whistle of approval at the end. I’d been a professional sex worker
