Chapter 9
nine
Alex was trying to decide. It didn’t help that he was tired and grumpy, having slept barely four hours the night before.
By the time he’d taken a taxi home, unwound from the shock he was feeling at the bizarre and abrupt ending to their sex, it was after three a.m. by the time he dropped off to sleep.
He’d ended up just dozing, only to have to crawl out of bed at seven to try and get to the set under his own steam.
That meant taking the metro, and then a train, before having to call the production company to come and pick him up from the station.
He hadn’t wanted to do that, since the company had already organized transport for him the night before, and it looked unprofessional, but he had no other way of getting from the station to the shoot.
This gig—following an actor around and ferreting out an unused space on every temporary set in which to teach his student—was proving a tricker ask than he’d expected.
For a start, just from a practical viewpoint, film productions had a way of spidering out and colonizing any unused space in the vicinity.
Take this masia, for example. He considered his options.
They were mainly filming in the low scrub outside the farmhouse, with one major scene in the masia’s main dining room, which had been styled to resemble an old tavern in tune with the film’s Western aesthetic.
So, in theory, any number of rooms should have been free in which to work: except that Wardrobe and Make-up had commandeered the second dining room (the masia’s day job as a country-style restaurant meant most of its spaces were dining rooms); the Electrical department had invaded the kitchen, stacking every available surface high with aluminum carrying cases, voluminous coils of cable, sheafs of colored gels, and massive, twenty-kilowatt Fresnel lanterns for lighting indoor scenes, turning dark interiors as bright as day.
There was the spacious foyer area, which had metamorphosed into an impromptu green room for actors waiting to do their scenes.
With Stetson-wearing actors sprawled in every available armchair and even stretched out on the floor, it looked like a saloon bar after a hard party.
Here, down on Barcelona’s outskirts, where it was warmer, no one had been given a caravan, so all the actors, both renowned and never-heard-of-before, mixed in together, telling anecdotes and cracking jokes while they awaited their moment before the camera.
Alex had passed through there once, and seen Isard sitting among his famous co-stars, once more all got up in his clownish cowboy outfit.
Isard’s eyes had snapped to his and he had half-risen to come toward him, but Alex had halted him with a curt nod and just kept walking through the space.
So Isard had sunk back in his armchair uneasily.
It was stupid, he should have talked to him, but he reasoned that he first needed to find a space for them to work.
Then he could come and fetch the actor. He didn’t want to be idly strolling around the grounds in Isard’s company with no clear plan.
That would be a sure-fire way to make his resolve crumble.
Just as he thought he was going to have to settle for finding some quiet corner outside, which would be tiring under the hot sun, he opened a door and there was the perfect room.
Judging from the mats, blankets, and wood blocks scattered around, the space normally functioned as a yoga room when the restaurant was operating normally.
It was perfect. With almost no furniture, and carpeted wall to wall in tatami matting, it could have been conceived specifically for teaching martial arts.
Alex turned to go and summon Isard, and almost bumped straight into him.
“What the—!”
“Sorry to scare you. I thought if we’re going to work… so I followed you.”
“Yeah, right. OK.”
He felt flustered, having him this close, inhaling his scent of pine and earth, when the last time he’d seen him, just last night, his dick had been in Isard’s mouth.
And that was the other thing: How was he ever going to broach that subject?
Or talk about whatever weird family set-up Isard had?
How was it OK for his father to watch them having sex.
Isard hadn’t even seemed particularly shocked.
Turning away from him, he stepped into the space.
“We can work in here if we clear away all the stuff.”
He began to stack the wood blocks in a neat pile in the corner, and collect all the blankets that had been arranged grid-like across the floor.
Working head down, he didn’t look at Isard, though saw through the corner of his eye that the cowboy had stooped and was helping him clear the space.
Finally there was nothing left to do and he had to face him.
“OK, let’s go over what I taught you yesterday.”
Had it only been the day before that he’d met this comically ungainly cowboy and become charmed by his earnest dedication?
Alex assumed the starting pose, and Isard copied him.
Trying to avoid meeting his eyes, and taking it slowly, he moved through the entire siu nim tau form, Isard doing his best to mimic his moves.
He was actually a fast learner, and had a decent memory, along with a true knack for copying a gesture accurately.
Once they had completed the entire form that Isard had learned yesterday, Alex gave him some pointers on specific parts of the routine, specifically the wrist gyrations, which were tricky to master.
Isard kept rotating his wrists in the wrong direction.
“And above all, keep your elbows in. Everything should be as close as possible to your center line, your center of balance.”
Isard nodded, mimicking his moves perfectly.
“OK, today I think it’s time to learn how to break your fall.”
He began to demonstrate the three basic break fall techniques—back, to the side and forward—all the while explaining the way it should be done. He kept his mind on the task, sticking to being professional and impersonal. This was the only way they would get through the next few weeks.
Isard watched Alex explaining the falls, and tried to follow the content of his words, but inside he was all worked up.
How could the guy have shut down so completely, like some sort of automaton, when just the day before, it had felt that they were destined for each other?
They had dozed in each other’s arms throughout the long car journey down to Barcelona, and in his flat, they’d been ripping each other’s clothes off.
They’d been devouring each other’s bodies.
He’d had Alex’s dick in his mouth for God’s sake!
How had it all changed so quickly and so finally?
“OK,” Alex was saying. “We’ll try the backward fall. Remember, don’t stick your arms out straight like a cross; you can hurt yourself. Keep them on a forty-five degree angle from your body.” He demonstrated. “And your chin tucked in. That’s important. I’ll show you again.”
And he did. Isard tried to concentrate, but all he could think of was how gorgeous Alex’s body was.
And when he did that backward fall, he came ass-up like…
well, he was just presenting that ass… its two rounded globes of muscle hanging there before him, encased in a pair of shiny red track pants.
He should not be thinking along those lines! He had a film to shoot.
“Now you,” Alex said.
What would he think of his ass? Isard knew it wasn’t his best asset. Concentrate! He tried, rolling back the way had Alex done and hitting the floor with his outstretched arms. A searing pain shot through both his upper limbs.
“Aaagh!”
“I told you: forty-five degrees! If you don’t listen to me, you’ll break something.”
“I think I just did!”
Alex sounded angry with him. Isard wanted to cry. Why did he hate him so much? He was trying.
“I don’t think I can go on… My arms are…”
Alex scowled at him. At first he said nothing. But then after a short silence, he dropped to his knees.
“Let me see.”
Isard, whimpering in pain, held his arms forward. Alex took his right arm between both of his. Tenderly he examined it. Then he began to massage it softly.
“I’m sorry, I should have prepared you better for that,” he said.
He took Isard’s other arm between his hands, examining it carefully, and then massaging the muscle back to life.
“I’m sorry,” Isard said, his voice broken. “I don’t know what I’ve done to you, but it wasn’t intentional. My family… my family… is what it is. They might be strange to outsiders, but they’re the only family I’ve got.”
“Let’s not talk about this….”
“No, let’s. My dad met Diego when I was fifteen.
I don’t know much about it, but I don’t think my parents ever had a very conventional marriage.
They were both hippie kids, part of the gauche divine, as it was called here, upper-class progressives.
And Mom was somehow cool with it all—at least in front of me.
Dad’s no weirdo; he wasn’t trying to watch anything.
He literally just wanted to make me a cup of tea and find out how the filming had gone.
He had no idea I had company. Diego and he have been together for years and they’re actually the most traditional couple I know, and really happy together.
But I totally get that the way you met him… was a bit much to deal with.”
They sat in silence on the tatami matting for a while, Alex simply massaging Isard’s arms.
“How’s that?” he finally croaked. “Are they feeling better?”
“Sore, bruised.”
“I… look, I’m not… judging you. But I’m from a pretty traditional background… I mean really traditional, not like yours. No one is more traditional than Chinese parents, and immigrant Chinese parents… that gives a whole other meaning to the word traditional.”
“I thought you said your Mom was born in Figueres?”
“She was, but not Dad. Mom’s dad was actually the first Chinese restaurateur ever in Figueres. I know that’s original—a Chinese family opening a Chinese restaurant. Dad came over on the boat.”
Isard said nothing. He loved hearing about Alex’s family, so different to his own, but wasn’t sure where Alex was leading with it. But Alex went on:
“Anyway, being born into a family like mine comes with heavy expectations.”
“Yeah? Try a wealthy Catalan one. My grandparents are—”
“Not even close, mate. We do traditional like we invented it.”
“Whatever.”
“OK, look, I freaked out. It wasn’t at your dad seeing us; it was that you both seemed so… relaxed—”
“Relaxed we were not! Dad seeing me suck dick is an embarrassment that will go with me to my grave. And for him too. But there was nothing… consciously inappropriate about that. He’s not like that, I swear.
I’m twenty-four. I’ve known he was gay since I was fifteen.
He’s known I was gay since I was seventeen.
In that time, nothing weird or inappropriate has ever happened.
Either with him, or with his husband, Diego.
Rather, they’ve been amazing role models for me, growing up, and learning how to be a decent gay human being.
” Isard paused, panting. “Please believe me.”
A short silence went by, and then Alex said:
“I do.”
There was another moment of silence, and then he slid his hands slowly, gently up Isard’s arms, reveling in the pale elegance of his biceps and triceps.
Then gripping his shoulders, he gently pulled Isard toward him, until their faces were mere inches apart.
Isard felt his breath warm upon his face, a slight aroma of ceder and lemon along with the other, saltier note of his perspiration that he hadn’t even known he’d missed.
But his lips, when they kissed, were as soft as that first kiss, as soft as the snow of the Pyrenees, though deliciously warmer.
They kissed for along time, but when Alex went to lay Isard down, he resisted.
“No, this feels weird. Not here, not where we’re working.”
“Sure, I get it. Let’s go then, and find somewhere…”
“Wait.” Isard paused, his hands on Alex’s chest. “Yes, I really want to do this. But you were right. We do need to be professional and not blow this chance we have. I have to make the best film I’m capable of, and you’ve got your work cut out teaching me Wing Chun in just a couple of weeks.
Let’s focus on our professional priorities for now, and go on with this when we can at some future date.
“I hate you for saying that.” Alex leaned in and touched his forehead to Isard’s. “But I’m afraid you’re right.” He pulled away and stood up. “OK, ready to try that fall again? And this time, when I say ‘arms at forty-five degrees’, do like I told you!”
Isard nodded and scrambled to his feet. But just then they heard little Joanet’s voice calling:
“Isard! Isard Muntaner! Wanted on set!”
“Go!” Alex urged, but Isard was already halfway to the door, scrambling to settle his over-sized Stetson back on his head.