Chapter 27 #2
Mike released his hand, got out of the truck, and came around to Tommy’s side to open his door. “Any time you wanna leave? You just say the word, and we’re outta there.”
“’Kay.” Tommy clambered out and waited while Mike locked up. Then he sighed with relief when Mike took his hand and intertwined their fingers. Tommy glanced down at their joined hands.
Mike nodded. “I’ll be introducing you as my boyfriend, just so you know.” He smiled. “That okay with you?”
Tommy breathed easier. “Yeah.” He really liked that. It made him feel… safe.
Mike led him to the main door and held it open for him to enter. Once inside the cool interior, they crossed the floor to the glass desks of reception, where a young man smiled broadly when he saw Mike.
“Hey, Scott. Tony said you were coming in today.” He gazed inquiringly at Tommy. “This is your guest?”
Mike nodded. “Hey, Paul. This is Tommy, my boyfriend. You got a visitor’s badge for him?”
“Sure.” Paul reached into a drawer and handed over a white plastic badge on a red lanyard. He smiled at Tommy. “Can you sign in, please?”
Tommy gave a nod and stepped forward. His hand shook slightly when he signed his name, and he had to wipe the pen on his jacket before he passed it back to Paul. His palms were clammy with sweat. Mike passed the lanyard over his head and then kissed him on the cheek.
“Ready?”
“No, but we’re here now, so let’s do this thing.” Tommy took several deep breaths. “Lead the way.”
Mike stunned him by pulling him into his arms and kissing him on the mouth. He brought his lips to Tommy’s ear. “Just remember that I love you.”
Tommy was aware of the small noise of approval Paul made behind him. “Love you too,” he whispered. Mike released him, grasped his hand, and led him through the wide doors beyond the reception area. Tommy held on tight as they passed through a long corridor and out into a wide space.
“This is the main floor of the studio,” Mike told him. “There are different sets here, but they tend only to shoot one scene at a time, to cut down on noise interference.”
Tommy just nodded, gazing around him, trying to take it all in.
He could hear noise coming from off to the left.
Mike steered them in that direction, and Tommy saw they were in what looked like a hotel bedroom.
There were lights set up around the bed, and reflective panels at various angles.
A man was walking around the set with a light meter in his hand, while two men in bathrobes were sitting on plastic chairs, chatting about… .
“Football? They’re talkin’ about football?” he said incredulously.
Mike took one look at his face and laughed. “Why not? Hell, I’ve sat waiting to be filmed and discussed the elections, the previous night’s TV, just about any topic you can think of.” He grinned. “Why? What did you imagine they’d be doing?”
Tommy gave a nervous laugh. “I thought they’d be, you know… kissin’? Makin’ out? Stuff like that?” He’d imagined the actors getting in the mood, certainly not participating in a boisterous argument about a recent game.
“Hey, Scott!” A young man with a camera walked over to them. “I thought I heard you were coming in.” He gave a polite nod to Tommy. “Hi, I’m Wayne. I take the publicity shots. And you must be the boyfriend.”
Mike guffawed. “Word sure gets around here fast. This is Tommy.”
Wayne extended a hand to Tommy. “Delighted to meet you.” He turned to Mike. “Oh, I meant to tell you. The wife has sent you that recipe you were after, the one for peanut butter pie?”
Mike let out a moan of pleasure. “Oh, great. She’s been promising me that for months. Thank her for me, will you?”
“Sure.” Wayne grinned and then gave Tommy another nod. “It was nice meeting the man who got our Scott. You must be pretty special.” He walked off the set.
Tommy stared at Mike. “His wife?”
Mike nodded. “Wayne’s straight. Having said that, a lot of the guys that work here are straight.”
This was definitely not what Tommy had expected. Then he got a further shock when a short, pretty woman walked over to them.
“Scott! Nice to see you again. Did Tony tell you I was gonna be filming some of ManFactory’s scenes?”
“Hey, Alexa!” Mike hugged her. “Yeah, he might have mentioned it. You’re shooting this one?”
She nodded. “We’re just about to get going. You guys wanna take a seat?” She turned to Tommy. “I hear you’re Scott’s boyfriend. It’s a real pleasure to meet you. About time this guy settled down with someone. He’s been on his own for far too long.”
Her smile was infectious, and Tommy couldn’t help but return it.
Mike pointed to a couple of chairs out of the cameras’ viewpoint. “There,” he whispered.
Tommy followed him and sat, his stomach roiling.
He didn’t have a clue what to expect next.
He regarded the two actors who were disrobing.
“Do you know them?” he asked in a hushed tone, his eyes focused on the lean bodies emerging from the white robes.
Both men were tall and slim, with defined abs and well-toned arms and legs.
Mike nodded. “The dark-haired guy, that’s Trey. He’s been in the industry for a while now, about five years. And the blond, that’s Nick. He’s fairly new. He’s a sweet guy, very professional, even if filming with him can be a pain.”
“Why?” Tommy’s throat tightened at the thought of Mike having sex with the gorgeous young man before him. What could be a pain about making love to him?
“Well,” Mike began, leaning closer, “it’s difficult to film with a guy who has to keep stopping ’cause he can’t stay hard for too long.”
Tommy stared at Nick, his gaze drifting lower to the actor’s dick, which was soft. “Does… does he have a problem? I mean, with gettin’ hard?” He couldn’t imagine someone with a medical issue like that lasting long in porn, even with his inexperience.
Mike chuckled. “Let’s just say, he’d find it a whole lot easier if Trey was a girl.”
Tommy gaped at Mike, openmouthed, and then glanced over at Nick. “He’s… straight?” Mike nodded. Tommy was bewildered. “But… he’s doin’ gay porn! Why would he do that? Why not just do porn with a girl?”
“Because this pays better.” Mike’s expression had lost some of its good humor. “That’s why there are loads of guys in this industry who are straight. We call them gay for pay.”
Tommy studied his face. “You don’t like them.”
Mike shrugged. “Some gay-for-pay guys are okay, like Nick over there, but there are others who are a nightmare to work with.” He tapped Tommy’s hand with his finger. “They’re ready.”
Tommy gave his attention to the scene on set.
Alexa was instructing the two men, who were now lying under the white sheet.
The lighting made it look like early morning, and it became clear they were just waking up together.
Alexa stepped back, and the cameras started rolling.
Nick was spooned around Trey and was kissing his neck and shoulder, his arm reaching over to stroke his dick under the sheet.
Trey let out a soft moan and twisted around to face Nick, kissing him and pushing the sheet down past his groin to reveal his stiffening cock.
He pushed up gently with his hips, and Nick kissed him while he worked Trey’s hardening dick.
Tommy was mesmerized, not by the men’s actions but by the emotion he was seeing on their faces.
Nick was gazing at his costar, his soft moans so real that Tommy could believe they were lovers.
Nick shifted and rolled on top of Trey, his hips rocking as he rubbed his cock against Trey’s, getting faster, their moans increasing in intensity.
“Yeah, want you inside me,” Trey whispered, gazing up at Nick before cupping his head and drawing him down into a passionate kiss that made Tommy’s toes curl just watching it.
And then abruptly everything came to a halt when Alexa called for a break.
Nick and Trey broke apart. Trey lay there on the bed, resuming their previous conversation as Nick sat up and was handed a tablet.
“Why’d they stop?” Tommy demanded. “An’ what’s Nick doin’?”
Mike moved closer until his breath tickled Tommy’s ear.
“They stopped because Nick is about to top Trey, and it’s a little difficult to fuck a guy when you don’t have an erection.
” He indicated Nick with his finger. “Right now Nick is watching straight porn and working on getting his dick hard for the next bit.”
Sure enough, Nick’s gaze was focused on the tablet, his hand sliding up and down his dick, which lengthened and thickened as Tommy watched. Now and then he’d acknowledge something Trey had said with a smile or a nod.
Tommy turned to Mike. “When they were kissin’ before, if you hadn’t told me Nick was straight, I’d have believed they were both gay.
” More than that, he’d have believed they were lovers.
The way Nick’s eyes lit up when he looked at Trey, the way his hands caressed his costar’s body, lovingly, tenderly…
. Except looking at them now, the passion was gone.
Tommy stared at Mike. “That’s what you were tryin’ to tell me, wasn’t it? That it’s just an act.”
Mike nodded. Just then Alexa called out that they were about to film again, and all conversation ceased. Nick put aside his tablet, and he and Trey resumed their positions.
Tommy watched the entire shoot from beginning to end.
As each part of the scene progressed, he was amazed by the number of breaks and the almost clinical feel to it.
The sensuality and heat of the scene was only present when the cameras were rolling.
Otherwise, it was a case of stop-start, stop-start, with precise instructions as to what the director wanted to see on the screen.
It wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t hot, and Tommy finally understood that it was just a job.
When it was over, the cameras stopped rolling, the lights were moved off to another set, and the actors went to the showers. Alexa came over to speak to them.
“Was it what you’d imagined?” she asked Tommy.
“No, ma’am,” he said gravely. Mike’s hand tightened around his.
“I’ll be seeing you on Monday, right?” she addressed Mike. “I’m filming your scene with Sean Devlin.”
Mike nodded, and Tommy’s gut rolled over. Mike’s doing a shoot? The rest of their conversation went over his head. All he could think of was Mike, having sex where they were standing, surrounded by cameras and lights, him touching another guy….
“Hey.”
Tommy gave himself a little mental shake. Mike was regarding him, eyes full of concern.
“You all right?”
“Can we go now?” Tommy just wanted to get out of there. Yeah, he’d had his question answered, but it still left him with an awful big dilemma, one he was reluctant to mention.
“Sure.” Mike led through off the floor and back to reception, where Tommy handed over his badge. They walked out into the bright daylight, yet despite the warmth of the sun, Tommy felt cold.
This changes nothing. He understood clearly what Mike had tried to tell him, that it wasn’t real, but it didn’t alter the way Tommy felt about porn.
Okay, so it was just a job to the likes of Trey, Nick, and Mike, but deep down inside him, Tommy couldn’t overcome his feelings of revulsion.
There was a… wrongness to it that he couldn’t get past, no matter how hard he tried to see it from Mike’s point of view.
He was quiet throughout the journey back to Morningside, lost in his own thoughts. Mike didn’t attempt to engage him in conversation, for which Tommy was grateful. But it was a shock when the truck came to a stop and Tommy realized they were parked outside Mike’s house.
“What… why are we here?”
Mike gave a sheepish smile. “I thought we might spend some time together before I have to go to work.” He reached across the seat to take hold of Tommy’s hand. “I’ve really missed you this week.”
Lord, what do I say now?
He knew what Mike wanted. He knew where they’d end up—in Mike’s bed.
And right then? Tommy couldn’t. Just… couldn’t.
There was too much turmoil in his head. He wanted to yell at Mike, to ask why he couldn’t see what this was doing to Tommy.
But he didn’t trust himself to speak. The words would come tumbling out of his mouth, and then everything would change yet again.
He could almost picture the look of hurt on Mike’s face, a look that he would’ve put there.
Tommy knew there was only one thing he could do.
“Take me home, please?”
Mike stared at him. “What’s wrong?” He tightened his grip on Tommy’s hand, but Tommy pulled it away. “Tommy?”
“Please, Mike,” he begged. “Just take me home? I… I can’t talk about this right now.”
Mike paled. “Talk to me. Maybe I can help.”
Yeah, you could quit doing porn, Tommy wanted to scream at him. “Trust me, you… you don’t wanna be ’round me right now. I’m… my head’s not in a real good place.”
Mike sat there so still. “You’re unhappy.”
Tommy kept silent. There was nothing to be said.
Mike sighed, the heavy sound rolling out of him like it came from his soul. “I’ll take you home.” Even his words had weight. He switched on the engine and backed out of the driveway.
“Thank you.” It was about all Tommy could manage. The hope that had filled him when Mike appeared in Caroline’s kitchen that morning had evaporated, leaving in its place a sick feeling of dread.
What if we can’t get past this? What if this really is the end?