Gale/Randy RPS
NC-17
I think it was a Thursday afternoon when I got the call. Showtime was desperate
to cast the final leading role in a new “groundbreaking” gay drama, blah blah.
I errantly thought ‘this could be interesting’ and let my agent talk to me into
taking a meeting.
I was having trouble paying my bills anyway, so turning down even the
possibility of work seemed stupid.
They were cool guys (the producers), the script for the pilot was decent and I
liked the thought of working on something that might have an iota of social
impact. I impressed them. It wasn’t hard. I was pretty sure I was going to get
an offer, they were panting by the end of my first audition. But it wasn’t
until a read through the following day with another unknown, a young blond with
wild eyes who’d already scored one of the other leads, that I was sure I was
going to take the project.
Two lines of dialogue and we shifted our bodies so our knees touched, four
lines in we leaned in closer, six lines in the scene called for a kiss. We
didn’t hesitate to use tongue and pull hair.
Jaws dropped and eyes gleamed. It was the kind of chemistry that altars are
built to. The kind of chemistry that directors and producers pray for. The kind
of chemistry that shakes your insides up.
I think Ron and Dan actually creamed their pants when I took the role. A few
weeks later I was living in Toronto, making a new
life and fucking some blond more than ten years my junior. Funny how fast life
can change.
**
If anyone thought that Randy and I weren’t fucking, they were idiots. But, like
any good closeted actor in Hollywood I was sure
that no one had proof that we were. Randy was very “I’m here and I’m queer” but
was fine telling no one what was going on between us. He had a boyfriend back
in New York and I had some girlfriends on the side
(these were women I actually liked, not just public beards) so we were both
content to let everyone believe what they wanted. We weren’t famous, yet. It
really didn’t matter.
The first season of shooting came and went. Randy and I did some decent acting
by day and some decent fucking by night. He had a smile that I knew would cause
problems for me and an ass that refused to let me leave him alone.
**
It was some time the following summer, when the network was airing season one,
that everything changed. I got a call from the studio saying the show’s ratings
were climbing and the media was calling us ‘daring’, ‘edgy’, and all those
other bullshit buzzwords. They planned to release DVDs and have us tour for
signings and interviews and shit. I suddenly had to have a fucking Palm Pilot
to keep track of when I was allowed to piss.
**
I had a mantra while we were on the publicity tour: ‘fame is fleeting’. I
chanted it like some twisted prayer that I was hoping would be answered. I
smoked a lot of pot and drank more than I care to admit. Randy and I were
mostly scheduled at different locations because, and I say this just to be
honest, we were the main attractions. That irony was not lost on us.
A couple of times we ended up in the same city, at the same table, signing the
same 8 million DVD boxes, which somehow made the whole thing bearable, but
mostly we were apart, which sucked. It wasn’t like I couldn’t live without the
little fucker, but I was used to having him around. Life was easier when we
could commiserate about how utterly fucked up our lives had become and how
guilty we felt because we weren’t elated by fame.
All summer I told myself we’d get back to Toronto and
back to our routine and back to something comfortable. I guess part of me knew
that wouldn’t happen, but to get through those months of false smiles and
heartless autographs I had to hold onto to something.
**
When shooting started for the second season we all had our free time booked with
interviews and extra shit that the network set up. They had us doing chats and
filming ‘day in the life’ bullshit. It made me want to kill someone, mainly
myself, but I knew it was part of what was expected.
This was what I’d signed up to do. This was the very thing I’d asked for.
**
The thing I’ve learned about actors is that most of us get into the profession
seeking love and acceptance on some universal level. We crave the attention,
the adoration, the fans. It’s generally much more about the ‘me me me’ shit
than the craft. Randy and I were truly drawn to the art form, but because we
were pretty boys who fucked on film, no one wanted to hear that.
I did this ridiculous interview with a magazine about half way through shooting
the second season. I reluctantly told the reporter I was straight, because
frankly he wasn’t going to stop badgering me until he had some sort of
definitive answer. At the time I was the only person in the cast whose
sexuality was still in question. To this day I don’t know why that seemed like
the answer to give.
When the issue hit stands a month later, Randy showed up on my doorstep with
tear-stained eyes. There was a lot of yelling. I was seriously high. The whole
scene is pieced together in my memory like a shredded love letter, but I’m
pretty sure I told him I was never going to be the ‘fucking proud fairy’ he was
and kicked him out of my apartment.
**
During the hiatus Randy and I both lived in New York. We
didn’t run into each other once. I have a feeling we didn’t keep company with
the same crowd. I heard from Michelle, or maybe it was Thea, that he was living
with someone, a young designer with a pretty smile. I pretended to be totally
uninterested.
I was doing an off-Broadway show. Friends told me that he came to see it twice,
sitting in the back row and leaving before the house lights came up.
I found myself walking through Chelsea looking up at
lit windows at 4a.m. wondering if he was there,
sitting up reading his fucking books. I’d made a point to forget where it was
he said he was living.
**
Toronto was the same as I’d left it, cold but
familiar. I bitched constantly about the weather, still do actually, but I
really like the city. Canada suits me.
When I sat down to read the script for the first few episodes of the third
season I actually got pissed off that Brian and Justin weren’t getting back
together immediately. I paced my apartment wondering if Ron and Dan had decided
to go the way of the original series and marginalize Justin’s character, making
Brian and Michael the fated couple.
I was irrationally angry for days.
**
We had a few scenes together and a few dinners with the rest of the cast. We
exchanged polite conversation and timid smiles, but things were still broken
between us. I went through stages of totally not giving a shit at all to
feeling it so deeply I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him.
Then Brian and Justin got back together.
I couldn’t tell you how things changed, but they did.
He told me about this Italian film he saw that I’d really like. We had this
long conversation about how the French and Italian really know how to make a
movie. Then he asked me over to watch it. I, of course, said yes.
We hung out, we drank wine, we got through half of the movie and then we had really
rough sex on his living room floor until the sun came up.
**
We didn’t talk about the sex, the fact we were having it I mean, but it
continued regularly without consequence. We made plans for the hiatus and
neither of us consulted the other. We were going to be living on opposite
coasts and working on separate projects. I think things would have faded into
the ether at that point if it wasn’t for a unexpected conversation at the wrap
party.
It happened because Peter and Boby got shit-faced and made out. This sparked
conversation as to who slept with whom over the years. By 3 a.m.
there were eight of us doing shots and playing a very adult version of truth or
dare, in which everyone elected truth (which was a dare all in of itself.)
Turns out Randy and Peter slept together a few times right after they met, but
decided they made better friends than lovers. I laughed a little too loudly at
this revelation and made a tasteless joke about Randy being a size queen.
Michelle shared too many details about our encounters and Randy got very, very
quiet. Hal went on for ages about the various b-list actresses in Hollywood he
preferred to bone and Thea smiled slyly at the whole scene, happily married
with nothing to add.
After the incestuous talk died down I stood to get my jacket with plans of
stumbling home and passing out. Randy and I were both moving the following day
and I really didn’t feel like dealing with it. If I felt torn up and pissed off
about the entire thing, it didn’t show.
Then it happened. Peter looked at me squarely as I said my goodbyes and
slurred, “So how long have you and Randy been sleeping together?”
It didn’t occur to me to lie.
I leaned over Randy’s shoulder as he turned to see my face. Something about how
easily we both smiled made the answer very simple, “Long enough.”
He wrapped his warm hand around the back of my neck and kissed me without a
second thought. We proceeded as if there were no startled gasps, dropped jaws
or questioning eyes. I am sure that they’d all known. The shock was born of
their inability to believe I finally told the truth about it.
**
We went back to Randy’s. We always ended up there. He had a nicer place, more
comfortable bed and there was always food. I was always hungry after sex.
We stumbled through the front door, him pawing me like it was our first time. I
gripped his waist and held him to me, practically carrying him down the hall.
We left the front door open, some silent invitation for the world to watch.
Slow hands and warm mouths and something a little more than we’d ever had
together made it different. He felt more sure and more peaceful than he had any
of the other million times we’d done that in the years prior. He made me feel
like I’d given him something, and I guess I had. I’m lucky he was still willing
to take it.
I remember a lot of mumbling and murmuring and professions of things we’d never
discussed. Randy and I had always been simple, unmessy, silent. For the first
time we said the things we felt. I guess it was time.
I’ve read a hundred eloquent descriptions of sex. I enjoy phrases and words
like taut muscle, wet trails, deep pull, hard thrust, burning need, skin on
fire, hiss, buck, suck, lick, bite, burn, sweat, slick, moan, rock, shake,
earth shatter, edge of oblivion and on and on. All of it can make your gut
tingle when the words are strung together in the right order and when the
emotion is conveyed in the right manner.
I could be mechanical and say he fucked me and then I fucked him and there was
dick sucking and deep rimming and a lot of sweating. But, that doesn’t do it
justice. The problem is, I’m not a poet, not even a decent storyteller, and I
couldn’t possibly begin to tell you how that night felt. It was the kind of sex
that defines you and startles you. But an attempt at a verbal retelling just
waters it down and makes it something it wasn’t – ordinary.
**
The next day Randy left for New York and I started
my drive to LA. We had coffee in his kitchen and laughed about leaving the
front door open. “Guess I really wanted to fuck you,” he said almost shyly. A
blush crept into his cheeks and made me stare for too long.
I drove him to the airport and dropped him curbside. Seemed a ridiculous thing
to do, but we both had plans for the hiatus and those plans did not coexist in
the same city. I was headed to LA to work on films and he was headed back to
the stage in Manhattan.
“See you…in a few months.” We both stood still until blaring horns forced me
back into my truck.
“Yeah, definitely,” he smiled again and then he was gone.
**
It’s been a few months, I hear his play is doing well. I’m thinking of flying
out to see it before the end of the run. Though even if I don’t make it, I’ll
see him in the fall. I expect it to bring what it always does: cold weather, a
comfortable routine, and some very decent fucking.
End
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