“It would never have happened without Pierce. He’s the one who first approached them. The lawyers hammered out the details, but Pierce got the ball rolling.”
He was so excited he was mixing his metaphors.
“We’re going to be the first
international
M/M video company. Can you imagine what that means to me? I started this company from nothing.
Nothing
. Just a five-hundred-dollar video camera that shot on VHS tape.
“Now, we’re weeks away from having a worldwide presence. It’s—literally—unbelievable.”
The jubilation in Mason’s voice was almost manic. His grin was so wide I wouldn’t have been surprised to see his jaw completely unhinge, like a snake’s.
He squeezed Pierce tighter. There was nothing sexual in the gesture—it was pure pride. All business.
“I’m telling you,” he continued, “I’d be lost if anything ever happened to this guy. I’d track him to the ends of the earth if that’s what it took.”
I didn’t doubt it.
As long as Pierce continued to produce, as long as he brought in the money, Mason wasn’t about to let him go.
So, why was he so unconcerned about losing Brent?
Something didn’t add up.
“But enough about that.” Mason released Pierce from his clutches and stood by my side.
“We’re here for you today, Kevin. You ready to start making some movie magic for me?”
No,
I thought.
“Yes,” I said.
“Excellent.” Mason clapped his hands together. “Let’s get the cameras rolling and see what you’ve got. Pierce, you ready to start shooting?”
“Oh, I was ready to shoot him before you even arrived,” Pierce assured.
If Mason got Pierce’s double meaning, he didn’t acknowledge it. “I don’t blame you,” he said, with seeming sincerity. “He’s absolutely adorable. I can’t wait to see if what’s under all that clothing is as delicious as I expect it to be. I’ll be surprised if isn’t.” He winked at me.
Oh, you’ll be surprised,
I thought.
At least, that was my plan.
Although now, under the blinding, hot lights, the running cameras, and the unexpected presence of Pierce in the room, I was wondering if Freddy was right and I hadn’t gotten myself in trouble after all.
Plans and I didn’t get along very well.
20
Star Maker
“So,” Mason began. He picked up and unfolded a wood-and-canvas contraption that had been leaning against one of the cameras, and I noted with amusement that it was an old-fashioned director’s chair. Like something Alfred Hitchcock might have used on set. I wondered if Mason had his last name stenciled on the back. “Even though you’ve already signed a release, I need to confirm that you’re aware that this interaction is being videotaped for possible public viewing at the discretion of SwordFight Productions. This distribution may occur online, on DVD, or through other technological means yet to be developed. By appearing in this video, you give full and informed consent. Do you agree to these conditions?”
Mason appeared to have the spiel memorized. I thought of police reading suspects their Miranda rights. They knew those by heart, too.
It didn’t usually bode well for the arrested.
Dry-mouthed, I nodded.
“I need you to give your verbal consent, please.”
“Yes,” I croaked.
“And you are of legal age?”
“Yes.”
“You provided a driver’s license with your written consent form and contract. Is that accurate?”
“Yes.”
“And would you state for the record your date and year of birth.”
Considering I’d come here to ask questions, I was giving a lot of answers. I confirmed my birthday.
“Excellent,” Mason said. “Tell me what brings you here today.”
This was the part where I was supposed to say I was broke and trying to make money to buy my girlfriend an engagement ring. Or, I’d lost my job and the rent was due. Or that my mother had end-stage renal failure and it was up to me to buy her a liver on the black market. Anything to endear myself to the audience, establish my bona fides as a first-timer, and, if at all possible, convince them I was straight and, maybe, just maybe, bi-curious.
Was that what I was supposed to do now? Did getting my questions answered require me to play the role? I looked at Mason for direction.
After all, he had the chair for it.
Mason looked back, a slight smile lying across his face like a dead slug.
Fine. If he wasn’t going to do his job, I might as well do what I’d come to accomplish. “I’m here about Brent,” I said. “I want to find him.”
“All right,” he said. “How do you think I can help?”
“Do you have any idea how to contact him?”
“I don’t.”
“Did you check his application?”
“Pierce?” Mason asked.
His assistant stepped forward and handed Mason a sheet of paper. “Just give it to him,” Mason said.
It was Brent’s application. He’d used his stage name, not his real one.
There were two emergency contacts. One listed his parents; the other was Charlie.
“The one for his parents was a ruse,” Mason said, anticipating my next question. “We tried it. The area code is real; it’s for a town in Wisconsin. The number isn’t registered, though.”
I remembered Brent telling me he came from Queens, New York. I also recalled Charlie saying that Brent was cut off by his parents.
“You think Brent was from
Wisconsin?
” I asked.
“I think he wrote down the first ten digits that occurred to him,” Mason said. “You’ve met and talked to Brent. Was there anything about him that screamed ‘Wisconsin’ to you?”
Maybe he liked cheese.
“We have tried to contact Brent,” Mason said. “When he didn’t show up, we left a message with Charlie.”
“Two messages,” Pierce corrected from somewhere in the darkness. I’d almost forgotten he was there running the cameras.
“Thank you.
Two
messages. Charlie didn’t return either. But, then again, I imagine you know how he felt about Brent’s work.”
I nodded, scanning the rest of the application for anything useful. Nothing appeared revealing. He left blank the sections for references, experience, and education, but what would you put down for a job in porn?
“That’s a copy,” Mason said. “You’re free to keep it.”
I folded it and put it in my pocket.
“So, now that I’ve given you something, don’t you think you should give back?”
“What do you mean?”
Mason looked to his left and I saw he had a monitor there, probably feeding him whatever video Pierce was taping at the time.
“You look as good on screen as I thought you would. It’s a rare quality.
“Some people, even pretty ones, come across dead on camera. Flat. The features are pleasing, but you don’t
feel
anything when you see them. You might as well be watching animations.
“Think of all the models who’ve failed to succeed as actors. They’re perfectly lovely in still shots, but on film, they’re wooden. It’s not that they’re bad actors, although most of them are. It’s that they don’t
come alive
on screen.
“On the other hand, you have actors with undeniable screen presence. Look at someone like Sean Penn. Or Glenn Close. They don’t have the most classically beautiful features, but you can’t take your eyes off them. It’s what makes them stars. That indefinable quality of being amplified by the camera rather than reduced by it.
“Billy Wilder called it ‘flesh impact.’ He said the first time he saw it was in screen tests with Marilyn Monroe. He described her as radiating sex in every scene, even the comic ones. He said she had ‘flesh which photographs like flesh. You feel you can reach out and touch it.’ ”
I remembered thinking exactly that when I’d watched Brent’s movies at Freddy’s the other night. That Brent somehow seemed more
alive,
more
present,
than anyone else on the screen.
“Wilder said he’d only worked with a handful of stars who had that quality. Monroe, like I said. Jean Harlow and . . . Rita Hayworth, I think. The man filmed almost every major actress of his time, but he could only name three who had that magical quality.
“So, imagine how rare it is. Look, all of my models are great-looking guys. They wouldn’t be in my movies if they weren’t. But they’ll never have that ineffable
something
that sets them apart. That special quality that makes them the star of any scene they’re in, even if the other guy is technically more handsome, or better built, or bigger hung.
“After twenty years in the business, I like to believe I’ve gotten to the point where I can see as the camera does. That’s why I approached you after the taping of that television show. I thought I saw in you the same quality Brent had. Brock Peters has it, too. Flesh impact. Skin the camera reads as
real
.
“Of course, to be sure, I’ll have to see more of it.” The leer in his voice was subtle but couldn’t be missed.
The film history lesson was interesting and flattering. It might even have been enjoyable if I didn’t think it was just another ploy to get my pants off.
Something else disturbed me. Mason said “flesh impact” was something Brock “has,” but Brent “had.” Why was Brent being referred to in the past tense? An innocent slip of the tongue into which I was reading too much? Or maybe Mason just assumed that since Brent had stopped showing up for work, he was done making movies?
Or was there a more sinister reason for Mason’s wording? A subconscious slip that indicated he knew more than he was saying?
“I agree,” I said. “Brent did have that ‘special something.’ I didn’t know what it was that made him stand out, but you’ve nailed it. ‘Flesh impact.’ Wow. You really know your stuff.”
A little fawning never hurt.
Mason sat up straighter in his ridiculous director’s chair. “My eye for talent is one of the keys to my success.”
“Well, yeah, but it’s more than that. Anyone can pick out a pretty face,” I said. “But you . . . you see deeper, don’t you?” I tried to sound sincere with a little awestruck thrown in.
I was sure ambitious and sexy lads hit on Mason all the time. It wasn’t that he didn’t get his share of flattery. In fact, I bet stroking Mason’s ego was in Pierce’s job description.
But I’ve been around boys on the make long enough to know they usually get it wrong. They tell men like Mason how hot he is, that they like the “daddy” type, or they call him a sexy bear, when the truth is he’s just overweight. He probably appreciates their efforts, and he may take them up on their offers to exchange sex for a shot in a movie, but he’s shrewd enough to know how empty their compliments are.
No, like everyone else, Mason wanted to be appreciated for what
he
thought he did well. For what he was proud of. For his accomplishments.
“Well . . .” Mason stretched it out. I realized for the first time he didn’t know what to say. I had him off-script. Finally, he finished his sentence with an awkward “thank you.”
“I mean it,” I said, sitting forward on the bed. “You have a gift, man. There’s no other studio out there that has a roster like SwordFight. It’s no surprise you’re the first to go international. It’s all about picking the right talent and backing them up with production and distribution that’s second to none.” That last part was actually paraphrased from SwordFight’s own Web site. I figured it would resonate with him.
“Exactly!” Mason said with excitement. He sat forward, too, causing his canvas seat to buckle frighteningly low. “That’s what I try to tell people. Anyone can throw some hot studs in front of a camera and film them fucking around. Hell, there’s thousands of people doing it on the Internet for free.”
“But where’s the art?” I asked. “Where’s the creativity? That has to come from someone with a vision.”
“Yes!” Mason agreed.
“Which is why I really hope that Brent didn’t leave because he’s planning to work with another studio. Even if they pay him three times as much, they’ll never make him the star you would have. They’ll put him in cheap crap that will make him look like any other boy. Bad scripts, bad photography, bad direction. It’ll be the end of him.
“And you know what burns me the most? Your competitors know they can’t find talent like Brent. They don’t have the eye. But they can
steal
it from you. It must drive you crazy.”
“It does,” Mason agreed enthusiastically. “It’s happened more times than I’d care to remember. But go explain anything of what you just said to a starry-eyed twenty-two-year-old who’s being offered more money than he’s ever seen before. He doesn’t understand that’s money that won’t be going into good production or promotion. He doesn’t see that in a year, he’ll be old news, washed up and unwanted. After you appear in enough cheap pieces of crap, the audience isn’t going to spend their money on you anymore.
“Whereas, had he stuck with me, he’d be a bigger star than ever at that point, with another decade of work before him. Delayed gratification. It’s a concept these kids just don’t get.”
“So, do you think that’s what happened? To Brent? That he’s lying low until he announces that he’s working for someone else?”
“No,” Mason said with no reflection. “I don’t.”
I wondered what made him so confident. “Well, what
do
you think happened?”
Mason opened his mouth, but it was Pierce’s deep bass that responded. “Excuse me. I thought we were here to make an audition tape.”
“Aren’t you taping?” I asked innocently.
“Please,” he replied testily. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. Mason, weren’t you about to propose some quid pro quo?”
“Yes,” Mason said, shaking his head as if waking from a daydream. I think he realized he’d given away more than he intended to. “Quite right. Kevin, I’ve answered some of your questions. Now, you need to answer some of mine. But, not as you.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know the way things work, right? The deal is you’re an innocent. A first-timer. Usually, a straight boy who’s here for the money. Reluctant. The audience likes reluctant.”
“I think,” Pierce offered from wherever he lurked, “we might want to go the closeted/in-denial gay youth route with Kevin here. I mean, I’m not sure he’d be remotely believable as a straight boy.”
Fuck you, too, you creepy son of a bitch.
“Good point,” Mason said. “Have you ever done any acting?”
“A little.” Actually, my specialty as a hooker had been role-playing. With my adolescent looks and boyish demeanor, I was often asked to play the part of the first-timer or innocent. Judging by the size of the tips I received and my long list of repeat clients, I think I did a pretty good job with it.
“Okay. So, we’re going to repeat the first five minutes of our conversation. But this time, you play the part we just described.”
“That’s not what I agreed to,” I said.
“You agreed to do an audition tape,” Mason countered. “You know what those are like. Discussing the abominable work ethics of one of my models is hardly the way they begin. No, before we go any farther down that road, I’d like five minutes of usable tape. Just in case you decide you want to . . . go further yourself.”