“I drink too much. I know. I know that. Like my dad.” Griff looked at his scarred knuckles. “I only do it when I’m trying not to….”
“Love your friend?” Alek’s voice was gentle, his accent a soft, understanding burr.
The room felt suddenly stil to Griff, like even the dust had stopped dancing in the motes of cold sunlight and the wind had stopped dead outside. His heart
paused. The blood stopped in his veins. The world holding its breath, holding its breath….
Until he looked up, his gray eyes startled and wet and relieved as the word escaped his mouth. “Yeah.”
His heart started again.
“Mr. Muir, loving your Dante is not a bad thing. He certainly loves you… although I don’t know if he can love you in the way you wish. Or I wish, for that
matter. Only he knows. You understand? Life is very rarely romantic.” Alek wiped his hands on his pants. “But if you are not going to be honest with him, you at least need to be honest with yourself.”
Griff nodded then shook his head no.
Which is it, idiot?
“I just get hammered every once in a while so I don’t have to feel anything. I’d rather be numb than feel everything al the time. Ache for him.” He fiddled with the pleats of his kilt and strangled on his cowardice.
“A dangerous habit for someone so often in danger. What do they say on pils? Do not operate heavy machinery?
Life
is heavy machinery.” Alek was looking at something on his pants, unwiling to raise his eyes like he knew he was going too far with a stranger but couldn’t stop himself. “Trust this: drinking until you go away from the world only wastes moments of your life. Al that time is lost. And time and love are incredibly precious. Yes? Don’t waste either.”
“I know. IknowIknowIknowIknow….” Griff nodded. He felt the hot tears on his face before he realized he was crying.
- Plip -
A tear hit his hand. “You didn’t see Tommy al smashed there on the fucking ground. People who
loved
him did that. Family. The truth did that, not fucking romance. I gotta do something. Whatever it is I gotta do. And I gotta take care of those videos or someone is going to hurt Dante and I’l snuff out like a fucking candle. Extinguish. If our family did that to Dante or me, I’d… I dunno, I don’t know if….”
He choked, quietly bawling in the middle of a porn studio with this strange, kind Russian watching him with awkward concern.
How had he gotten to this exact point? Griff tried and failed to retrace al the steps that had landed him here on this fake couch crying real tears with a gentle pervert who wanted to pul him out of the rubble.
Ground Zero.
Alek didn’t say anything for a while, just patted his fire-fuzzed forearm with the patient pessimism of a burn-unit nurse. His quiet breathing actualy helped
calm Griff down. After a few minutes, he nodded his bald head to himself and stretched to open a briefcase on the fake coffee table. “Mr. Muir… can I make you an offer?”
He extracted a big envelope.
“Are you fucking kidding?! Have you been listening?!” Griff glared at the papers and then up at Alek. “Jesus H. Christmas. I didn’t bring my fucking turnout
gear! I don’t want any more fake online porno bulshit that’s gonna get us kiled. No thanks.” He took a breath. “No offense.”
“No. That was not what I was going to suggest. A moment.” Alek shifted on the loveseat and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You helped me
once, before even you knew me. Now I would like to help you.”
“Yeah. Sure. But first I gotta find a way to keep us safe, to help Dante, to protect what he cares about, to get both of us to a place where we can be honest, even if it’s just for one goddamned minute, the two of us.”
Alek just watched him, gears turning inside his head as if he were doing calculus. “I think we should remove the remarkable footage of ‘Monte’ and ‘Duff’
from the website. Streaming it was a mistake that could have unfortunate repercussions for you and for me.”
Griff nodded, stunned.
“However, that video content has been very popular with the members. You are fan favorites. It is that bright heat between you, you see. Not just the flesh,
but the feeling. The rest of us are drawn to it like pitiful moths. I’ve gotten an enormous boost in registrations with your masturbation clips, and I am a businessman.” Alek steepled his fingers, tapping his big nose and looking straight into Griff’s eyes. “So I’l make a deal with you, if you are wiling.”
“Yes!” Griff was on his feet so fast that Alek flinched. “I could pay you. I’l buy ’em back. Cash! I can borrow….”
He’d sel his truck. He’d rob a bank. He would swalow his pride and beg his dad.
“No. I don’t think you can afford what the footage has turned out to be worth. Especialy the extraordinary felatio scene, which has not been seen by anyone
other than myself.” Alek’s empty hands opened like he was offering something. “And need not be.”
Anything. Yes.
Griff nodded, then shook his head, feeling like an idiot. He plucked at one of the pleats in his kilt.
“But the earlier scenes have served their purpose, and the members’ appetite for fresh product is relentless. You represent something to them now. A fantasy.
By removing these clips I could of course suggest some kind of homoerotic scandal in the FDNY, which would only enhance the site’s reputation. That is almost a strategy.” Alek’s blue eyes scanned the ceiling, and he ran a hand over his shaved scalp. “In return, I would like something from you.”
He turned his eyes to Griff’s and smiled.
Griff froze, his chest cold, his face salmon pink and roasting with embarrassment. “I don’t think I could, with you. I know you like… like me. Whatever. I
mean, if you’re asking…. You’re handsome and al, but I don’t think I could have sex….”
Alek laughed and shook his head. “No, no! You misunderstand me. I do like you enormously, Mr. Muir. But as beautiful as you are, I think you have blundered onto something quite rare and precious with your Italian friend that deserves protection from perverts. Even from me. No, I want you to model for some photographs.”
“But I thought
—
”
“Nothing explicit. Nothing that would reveal your identity. I’d like you to be the HotHead man. My coverboy, as it were. My brand. I wouldn’t show your
face. You don’t even have to represent yourself as a firefighter. We can easily find you other uniforms if you prefer.”
“But you want to take naked pictures. Of me. Being naked.” Griff knew he was missing something. He scanned the nubby oatmeal carpet, trying to put the
pieces together. He wiped his wet lashes.
“Wel, yes. Obviously. With some uniform elements, of course. And in exchange for those photos, I wil agree to remove al of our Monte and Duff content:
videos, photos, bios. The website has become quite popular in the past few months, in no smal part thanks to you and Mr. Anastagio. But I’m rebranding it as
something a little more upscale, and I want someone”—Alek scanned Griff’s body frankly—“exceptional to represent HotHead for its new incarnation.”
Griff waved away that idea. “How is me naked al over your site gonna fix my problem?”
“We wil not show your face or any identifiable markings, tattoos, etcetera. But of course, you do not have tattoos on that flawless skin. Smart.” Alek grinned and nodded, flirting a little in a friendly way that made his accent a little stronger for some reason.
“Bulshit.” Griff was already shaking his head adamantly. “I’m not that hot. I’m not that ripped. And I’m not that hung. I seen some of the monsters you got
on the site.” He blushed, but he stuck with being honest. By now, what did he care what Alek knew about him haunting the site incognito?
“I could argue the point.” Alek’s blue eyes creased and twinkled gently. “And the members are fascinated with that chemistry between you and your friend.
But that is not the reason.”
“What, ’cause I’m a redhead?”
“Because you are
authentic
, Mr. Muir. One hundred percent genuine. You don’t look like a stripper or a hustler or a criminal. You’re not pretty or groomed or juiced. You look like exactly what you are: a handsome American hero who doesn’t know his own appeal. And you
are
intensely appealing. That is most of the reason, anyways.”
Alek tilted his head, giving Griff’s arms and crotch a close once-over. “Plus I do love your remarkable coloring, and it is appropriate after al. I cannot
imagine a hotter head.”
A wink and Alek chuckled like they weren’t haggling over their respective futures.
Over by the door, one of the computers made some kind of squawk, rebooting itself, for al the world as if it was butting into their conversation. Griff and
Alek turned at the sound, but it had nothing else to say. On the row of monitors, the smoldering HotHead logo ping-ponged around the blank screens against the shadowed wal. The light was fading outside.
When had it gotten so late?
Alek tipped his bald head and glanced back to Griff for his answer.
Griff frowned and scowled so hard that he knew he looked like his father playing bad cop. “So… what? You take skin pics of me and the porn clips go
away?”
“Mm. Not me, though. I have a photographer who would work with you over a three-day period. Beth. She’s very polite and very talented and very professional.” He put his hands behind his head and relaxed against the cushions, daydreaming his bigger, better HotHead.
“A chick? Sheesh.”
“A dol, she is. Beth does primarily editorial and fashion photography. But she has a sideline in beefcake calendars, and she has a real eye for artistic nudes.
She wil, no doubt, swoon when she sees you in your glory. She wil be made to understand that your face, name, and any identifying features wil never be associated with HotHead-dot-com or the pictures themselves.”
“Dante wil kil me if he thinks this is charity.” Griff turned the idea over and over in his head. “Worse, he’l be pissed you didn’t ask him. He’s crazy vain and he’s the one who needs the fucking money.”
“Then you should discuss it with him first. Along with… other things. Yes? Talk to him.” Alek unfolded pages with single-spaced legal crap on HotHead
letterhead and waited for Griff. His brown eyebrows scrunched over kind eyes, as if they were old friends chatting. He understood Griff and vice versa, so in a way they were.
Crazy
.
Griff didn’t know where to begin. His mouth tried to get words out, but nothing came. Was this for real?
“And do not think I’m letting you off easily. A three-day shoot can be quite exhausting. You wil earn every cent of my costs of kiling those videos.”
“Why?” Griff finaly formed an inteligent thought, rubbing his hands on his thighs and standing up so he could pace like a caged bear.
Nothing is this easy
.
“Again, Mr. Muir, you ask the right question.” Alek seemed pleased, like it had been a test. He watched Griff pace the carpet, and as he had the day they’d
first met in this room, the Russian counted off his reasons on his fingers. “Because you may be able to fulfil a crazy fantasy for me about hot men in uniform.
Because I saw whatever rare thing burns between you and your Dante. Because I once felt something similar and let it die. Because people should not be punished for loving and hoping and holding their hearts open.”
Griff felt himself smile and nod, stupid with gratitude.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
He wiped his cheek with a rough hand. In this room where everything had changed between them, he could almost feel Dante’s leg pressed against his, like they were together on the loveseat.
“What is funny?” Alek seemed perplexed by his reaction, but stil pleased.
Then Griff did laugh, his face warm, his relief so strong it felt like whiskey in his veins. “Open heart. Someone else said something similar to me a while back.
A lady who’s known me a long time. Huh.”
“Wel… we are both right.” Alek held out a hand, waiting for an answer.
Suddenly, Griff hoped Tommy was okay in his hospital room. That someone had gone by. He’d go visit in the morning before his tour. He wondered if Dante
would go. He wondered if either of them was brave enough.
He took a breath, weighing the offer. What was the right thing?
Outside the November daylight had cooled into a powder-blue evening. Inside the studio, in the failing glow, it was almost dark except for a warm ring
thrown by one fake floor lamp next to the fake loveseat on the fake carpet in the fake living room. A little island in the middle of the cold blue November sky. The fake room, the fake art, the fake porno world, and Alek just holding the exit open for him, for Dante… the world waiting.
Griff sighed, eyes closed and happy. He could feel Alek’s eyes resting on him with patience he didn’t deserve. For a split second, the smal flickering fantasy of the set almost felt cozy. A place to hide, and a place to find answers for al the curious people in the world who had no place else to ask or dream.
“Okay.” Griff shook Alek’s hand firmly, like a promise. “I’l talk to him.”
GRIFF drove from HotHead to his best friend’s ramshackle house ready to hash everything out, ready to lay his guts on the table. He didn’t even rehearse what he needed to say. He already knew.
I love you; yes, like that.
His heart was slamming against his ribs like a chimp in a cage.
When he got there, the sun had gone for good. The front door was wide open to the winter air, and music was pouring out into the lamp-lit street: the
Carpenters.
Mr. Anastagio had to be here. He loved al those gloopy Muzak singers of the seventies. He loved them so much that after about fifteen minutes of listening to
him hum along and
feel
the hokey lyrics, you started to love them too.
It was probably better that Griff leave and come back when he could talk to Dante alone about Alek and the offer and, oh yeah, his feelings. This was going