unmistakably Brent. I was surprised Lucas had it out like that. I couldn’t believe his sugar daddy appreciated having a picture of his boy toy’s ex around.
Unless that was part of the appeal. Having not just your own live-in porn star, but one who was connected to another. Acquisition by association.
Brent stood in front of a typical suburban home. It could have been anywhere. The sun settled against his yellow-blond hair like the heavens were kissing him with light. Even though he squinted against the glare, you could see the affection in his eyes for the person taking the picture.
Lucas saw me catch what he was looking at.
“Did you take that picture?” I asked.
Lucas nodded. I suspected it would have been hard for him to talk at that moment.
“That’s what makes it so special, then. You can see how much he loved you.” As the words left my lips, though, I realized something wasn’t adding up. What was it?
I had some part of the story wrong. Okay, maybe Brent had been sleeping with Lucas on the sly. But love? That deep a connection? When had that developed? Over the year Brent had known Lucas, he was either trying to avoid him or dating Charlie. Unless someone was lying to me, the timeline didn’t make any sense.
Lucas nodded again, this time accompanied by the sound of a man trying to swallow the unwanted lump in his throat. From across the room, I could smell his sweat, which had turned sour.
But who was lying? And why? Someone must have misled me, because I had no doubt that the boy in that photo not only loved but adored the man who took that picture. There was an innocence about it, too. This was a love that contained no shame nor concealed any secrets. From a boy I’d been led to believe either feared Lucas or was having an illicit affair with him. It made no sense.
“I’ve seen hundreds of photos of him,” I said, “but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Brent more beautiful than he looks there.”
Lucas looked at me and, for the first time since I met him, he laughed. But it was a shrill laugh, tinged with a high keen that made me think of breaking glass.
He stood up so suddenly it startled me. He picked up the picture, kissed it, then handed it to me.
“See what I mean?” he said. “Why I believed God sent Brent to me? Why, during one of the worst periods of my life, a time in which I was becoming addicted to four different drugs without even realizing it, I became so obsessed with him?”
I studied the photo he handed me. Yeah, I thought. I can. I’d fall in love with someone who looked at me like that, too.
Then, I peered closer and felt a weird dizziness. Like a kind of double vision as a few details I hadn’t seen before emerged like tiny ripples on a puddle from a single drop of rain. A mole on the left cheek. Bigger ears than I remembered. Darker eyes. Differences so small I’d never have noticed them if I hadn’t been wondering why Lucas felt the need for me take a closer look.
“I assumed…,” I began.
“That’s not Brent,” Lucas said. “That’s my brother. That was Colin.”
32
“Well, you know what they say,” Freddy mumbled through a mouthful of marble cake. “Incest is best.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I insisted.
I’d called Freddy the minute I’d left Lucas’s gilded cage. On the way out, the guard who’d opened the elevator, Matthew Smith, winked at me. “Have fun up there?” he asked.
Something made me think he knew the score between Lucas and his benefactor. I suspected he might have seen a film or two of Lucas’s, too. There was a knowingness in his inflection that you only achieve when you’ve seen a person perform fellatio. It brings people together like that.
Luckily, his goofy smile and foppish hair made his remark more playful than pervy.
I couldn’t help flirting back. “The only way it could have been better,” I answered, “was if you’d joined us.”
Matthew widened his eyes in mock shock and swept back the loose lock of hair that flopped to his forehead. “I don’t know if that place could have stood the three of us in there,” he teased.
“Don’t worry,” I assured him, “it’s bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside.”
Truth was, Matthew’s playful banter was a welcome tonic after Lucas’s increasingly depressing tale. I shook my shoulders like a puppy shedding a summer rain. I needed to talk through what I’d just heard with someone.
Freddy. I was supposed to call him anyway.
“You’re just in time,” Freddy answered the phone. “I was about to ring Tony and tell him you’d gotten yourself in the deep shit again, darling.”
“No,” I said. “Although I do feel like I’ve taken a swim in the sewers. Wanna grab a bite and I can fill you in?”
“Who could resist an invitation like that?” Freddy asked. “What boy doesn’t dream of being invited to dine with someone who’s covered in crap?”
“This is New York, Freddy. Everyone’s full of crap.”
“Yeah,” Freddy agreed. “But most of them have the good sense to keep it on the inside, darling.”
“Okay…” Freddy began, scooping up some of the vanilla ice cream he’d ordered as “dessert” for his pound cake. Don’t ask.
How Freddy managed to look like he did while chowing down like a starving dog at an all-you-can-eat buffet I’d never understand. Unless what I’d assumed were his biceps and pecs were really fat deposits. Naw, fat never felt that hard and strong. If he were an X-Man, his mutant ability would be to convert junk food into muscle.
I’d skipped dessert-let alone two-and watched him with envy and hatred.
“… let’s say we believe Lucas-that he never fooled around with his real-life brother.”
“I do believe him,” I insisted.
“Okay, Nancy Grace, calm down. I’m giving him that one. But hooking up with Brent because he reminded him of his brother is still kind of icky, don’t you think?”
“Consider the circumstances,” I said. “It’s not like he spotted Brent in a bar somewhere and went out of his way to pick him up. The first time he ever saw him was in a pretty unusual situation that forced them together.
“Remember, at that time, he was at one of the lowest points of his life. He was depressed and feeling guilty about his brother’s death. He was just getting into the adult film industry and experiencing the excitement of having people constantly telling him how gorgeous, special, and desirable he is. At the same time, he’s doing something that goes against every value he’s been taught by his conservative army parents. He’d cut off his family-the one he felt he betrayed by allowing his brother to go to Iraq ‘in his place,’ and he’s becoming part of a new community-one that values him only to the extent he stays hot and available. It’s all jumbled together in one big mindfuck.
“Meanwhile, he’s keeping himself together by self-medicating. Taking every street and prescription pill he can get his hands on.
“One day, he arrives on set tweaked on meth, primed to perform with a hard-on-ensuring Viagra and mellowed out by a Valium chaser. That was pretty much his standard cocktail for filming. He walks into a room crowded with strangers for what he expects will be just another day of shooting. Pardon the pun. That was the dorm room scene we watched.
“There Lucas sees this breathtaking creature who could have been his brother back from the grave. The director introduces them, gives them a simple scenario to act out, and then it’s time to fuck.
“Meanwhile, Brent reads Lucas pretty quickly. He doesn’t know what Lucas’s story is-not yet-but he can tell Lucas is awestruck, almost hypnotized in his presence. Brent, being SwordFight’s hottest new property and the
