“What?” I asked, feeling irritable and annoyed and left out.
“He says he would go gay for you,” Malloy said.
I rolled my eyes.
“Great,” I said.
Jarocho flashed his dentures and gave me two thumbs up.
The next order of business was to translate the note. Malloy gave me a wad of cash and then checked in with Didi by phone while I ducked into a nearby beauty supply store for some cheap non-prescription color contacts to disguise my black coffee eyes.
On impulse, I also bought a bleaching kit for my hair. Just because I was a boy didn’t mean I had to put up with gray hair. I figured bleached blond would be about as far from my normal look as I could get and would be still reasonably believable for a gay guy my age.
Born actress that I was, I started imagining details about my new character. I figured I used to be a hot little twink ten years ago, but now I was getting older and thicker in the middle. My boyfriend of five years had just dumped me so I was overcompensating with the blond hair. I did a drag show on the weekends using the name Ivana Mandalay, which would explain the girly eyebrows. Of course, coming up with a believable real name was a little harder. I didn’t want anything too butch, too silly, or over the top. I needed something generic and easy to remember.
“Daniel,” I told Malloy when I got back in the car. “That’s my new name.”
Daniel was the name of the first guy who ever put his finger inside me. Danny Zawadski. He was big and blond, and stuttered when he was nervous. I think he’s married now and owns a restaurant in the old neighborhood. Not a drag queen by any stretch of the imagination.
“Daniel?” Malloy said, looking me up and down. “That works.” He looked down at the bag in my lap. “What else did you buy?”
“Bleach,” I said. “I figured I should have blond hair to go with my new blue eyes.”
“Right,” Malloy said.
I wondered if he was pissed at me for improvising. I don’t know why, but I got a peculiar thrill from being off Malloy’s script. I was really counting on him way too much. It felt good to make decisions for myself.
“Didi said that Romanian broad is on a shoot today,” Malloy said. “But that we can meet her on the set at three when they break for lunch. In the meantime, we can go back to my place. You can do your hair and get those contacts in.”
I wondered how many more different people I would need to be before I could be me again.
Tabitha Moore’s shoot was for Rawkus. They were set up in their dusty, cavernous studio on Stagg Ave. I never shot for Rawkus, since they don’t pay for shit and I don’t care for their creepy, misogynistic and insulting titles.
Unsurprisingly, they were shooting a gang bang scene. The set was a half-assed mock-up of a locker room and a few of the guys had on random, contradictory pieces of athletic gear and various mismatched team uniforms. The parts of Tabby I could see between the seething tangle of male bodies seemed to be half dressed in a torn cheerleader outfit. I remembered Malloy’s comment the night before about
There were maybe five guys actively working the various stations of Tabby’s anatomy while another six or seven stood back on standby, keeping their pumps primed and waiting to be rotated in. One funny thing about working in porn is how quickly you get used to seeing guys jack off. When I first started out, I couldn’t stop staring. It gave me a nasty kind of thrill I can’t quite explain, seeing something that was supposed to be this shameful secret done in such a public, nonchalant sort of way. I was fascinated by the wide variety of techniques and the odd, individual quirks each guy seemed to have to get the job done. But that didn’t last. By my fifth or sixth film, I barely even noticed it anymore, unless the shoot was on standby, waiting for wood. Veteran cops and paramedics are unfazed by the sight of sucking chest wounds or decomposed babies. Porn pros don’t bat an eye at the sight of six guys standing around yanking their cranks.
Malloy only had two months in country and was clearly not quite used to it yet. As we stood on the sidelines, waiting for them to finish up and call lunch, I could see in his body language that all this wanking made him itchingly uncomfortable. A lot of guys imagine that it would be this big turn-on to visit a porn set. My advice is, unless you really love watching other men jack off, don’t bother.
Malloy turned away from the action and from me and walked quietly over to stand near the director. The director was young and morose with a large shaved head and a scruffy, chinless face like a strung-out fetus. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the action. He sat alone and hunched over by the monitor, picking at a large scab on the back of his hand.
The cameraman was the one running the show. He was older, fat and beery with a backwards baseball hat and an oily little ponytail. Sweating profusely as he hovered around the fleshy jumble like a woozy fly, he droned on and on in a wet, nasal voice about how great everything was.
“Tito,” the cameraman said. “Grab her hair. Great. Keep going. Now Tabby, can you raise your left leg up a little higher? Great. Keep going. Nick, trade places with Drew. Great. Keep going.”
I felt sorry for the editor who was going to have to replace all that audio. I also felt sorry for Tabby, who was giving it 110 percent and would probably wind up with dreary stock music over all her saucy, creative dialog because that asshole camera guy wouldn’t shut up.
A very deep man’s voice spoke softly to my left, startling me.
“Hey.”
I turned and saw that it was Dick Dallas. He had debuted just as I was getting out and we had never worked together, but we knew a lot of the same people. He was bigger than ever, shredded muscle on top of muscle and his formerly handsome face was becoming distorted and caveman-craggy from excessive use of steroids and Human Growth Hormone. He had a deep, leathery tan the color of barbeque sauce and had dyed his hair a dull, monochrome black. It kind of looked like he had gotten those hair implants, but I didn’t want to look closely enough to be sure. He was wearing nothing but sneakers and was very happy to see me. I didn’t take it personally. I knew it was just the Caverject. My breath caught as I waited for him to recognize me. Amazingly, he didn’t.
“Are you okay?” he asked instead.
That was not at all what I had been expecting. The genuine concern in his face and voice seemed almost funny coming from a big hunky guy standing there naked with a hard-on.
“I’m fine,” I replied, trying to pitch my voice as low as possible.
“Did he do this to you?” Dick asked, frowning as he gestured with his chin toward Malloy.
“Oh,” I said. “Uh... no.” I dug around in my brain for my cover story. “Some guys beat me up in front of my apartment, so I’m staying with my uncle until they get caught. He used to be a cop, my uncle. I was, y’know, scared to be alone so...”
“Son of a bitch,” Dick said, shaking his blocky head. “Those spineless fucks don’t dare try shit like that with me. Instead they gang up on a little guy like you to prove they’re real men. Bastards.” He put a hand on my shoulder, leaving a greasy lube spot on my t-shirt. “What’s your name?”
