“Well,” Noah said, with a breathless girlishness, as he sat in front of Todd’s laptop. “Here we go. We’re about to be downloaded. Ey, do you think we should start our own site?”
“What? Like Guy?”
“Yeah,” Noah clicked Enter, and grinned. “There it goes. And you can charge folks. And folks’ll pay.”
“You mean, shoot you and me fucking each other over and over again.”
“No,” Noah made a noise and waved that away. “I mean we get some of the other guys, find out where the fuck Burt is for instance. Start something up here. Not in this house. I mean, Fenn and Todd probably wouldn’t like that.”
“Todd wouldn’t,” Paul agreed.
“Would you? Oh, fuck! There we are baby. Let’s watch this shit.”
“I don’t know if I want to.”
“Want to start a company? Or want to watch our hot ass video? Don’t worry, Pauly, I saw it last night. It’s pretty tight. I touched it up a bit.
“You know, we’ll need our own camera. We can’t just keep sneaking Todd’s. That’s not right. And our own equipment. If we want to get good. I’m sorry,” said Noah, “I interrupted.”
“I mean, I don’t know if I want to see a video of us. That just sounds… redundant. And I don’t really know if I want to start my own porn company.”
“Other Worlds Video, Paul. They started just like us. They were doing little shit for someone like Guy, someone who had never acted and just wanted to get fucked and have dicks in his mouth, and knew the best way to get it was to pay people. And they left and started their own shit. They do gay and straight stuff. Their stuff is fantastic.”
“Well, then maybe you should do it,” Paul told him, trying not to sound rude. “The way you talk about it, you sound like it’s… Hollywood or something. Like the Oscars. To me it’s just crappy shit people do to get off, or to pay their bills or to… or because the only way they can get laid is in front of a camera and by beautiful people. I don’t like it like you do.”
“You do like it like I do,” Noah said. He turned to the screen, frowned at it, worked it a bit, and then Paul heard his own voice.
“You know what I mean. Filmed?”
Then Noah’s: “I’ve seen Guy do it. If his dumb ass can shoot trash, then you know we can.”
“I’ll just… put it on the tripod like this… Make sure it’s seeing us.”
“How do we know it’s seeing us?”
“Look, whatever we screw up we can re-shoot. And what we don’t like we can always edit out.”
“I’ve seen you nail the fuck out of folks, Pauly. And get nailed. And love it. Man, I saw Pizza Slut, so… Com’on, for old Noah. Let’s just do a few more. I mean, Let’s do one…” Noah moved to set up the camera, “where we’re doing it to ourselves doing it.”
“You mean now?”
“Yeah.”
Paul just looked at him.
Noah touched the bridge of his nose. He brought his finger down Paul’s nose slowly, to rest on his lips. He pressed his lips to Paul’s and they stayed there. He sucked on them, pulled them, pushed his tongue through Paul’s.
Noah’s hand plunged into Paul’s jeans, into his underwear, started to stroke him.
“I’m making movies with the hottest guy in the biz,” Noah murmured while kissing Paul and pulling him down to the bed.
“Now, how hot is that?”
“Noah wants me to make porn.”
Fenn cocked his head.
They were sitting on the sofa in the living room. Everyone else was asleep upstairs.
“He… He’s been bored, Fenn. He needs something to excite him. So, he wants to make porn and put it on the Net.”
“I take it…” Fenn put down the large tea mug, “that he needs someone to make the porn with?”
“That’s where I come in.”
“Yes,” Fenn nodded. “I thought so.”
“He wants us to make porn and… get some other folks. Start up something new now that Guy won’t be doing anything for awhile.”
“And you want to know?”
“I want to know what you think?”
“Well,” Fenn shook his head, “I’m going to have to be academic and annoying about it and ask you, ‘what do you think?’”
“Fenn!”
“I mean, do you want to? If you want to do it, then it doesn’t matter what good reasons I have for it or against it. But if you really don’t want to do it, then you shouldn’t.”
“It just doesn’t feel right,” Paul stopped for a moment. He had come dangerously close to saying what he wasn’t ready to admit yet, that he and Noah had already shot and put two movies online.
“Well, then you’ve got your answer.”
“But… it’s like I said. He’s bored. He needs something That’s how he is. He thrives on… something to excite him. Something naughty.”
“That’s why he wants to do the money run.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why you and Dan Malloy are going along.”
“But what comes next?”
“Whaddo you mean?”
“I mean when the run’s over?”
“You come back and do the play. You work for the playhouse now. I thought that made you happy.”
“Look. It does, Fenn. This whole set up—except I have to get a place of my own eventually—makes me happy. But, Noah’s going to need that excitement.”
“Paul,” Fenn said, firmly. “It is not my job to keep Noah excited. And it’s not yours either.”
Fenn stood up and yawned. “We should both get to bed.”
Fenn was quiet a moment, and then he said, “Are you afraid if you don’t keep that boy excited he’ll go away?”
Paul didn’t answer. He stared at his cup, his face firm.
“You can do everything you want to entertain him; you can’t make that boy stay, and you shouldn’t have to try. Good night, Paul.”
“What I’m saying, is that it’s time to really do… whatever the fuck we want with this playhouse,” Fenn said at the meeting that morning, pouring some more of the too black, too bitter coffee Tom liked to make into his cup.
“For the sake of paying for our own upkeep, at least,” Tara said.
Others nodded and Brian, folding his hands suggested, “A workshop.”
Fenn nodded for him to continue.
“I mean, we’ve got our connection to the college. It’s no reason we couldn’t work with them to make one of the best acting programs this side of Yale. Real theatre. Not community crap.”
“We never do community crap,” Tom said with a small smile, tracing a circle on the table.
“And we can never really afford to pay people what they deserve,” said Brian. “I mean, Fenn’s right. If we’ve come into some money then we can really be something. We’re not Chicago, but we’re the biggest city around here. We could draw in folks from everywhere, probably as far as Indy.”
“That’s awfully big,” Tom shook his head, uncertainly. “I mean, I think we might be reaching too high.”
Fenn opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Brian said, “That’s how you get anything done. You reach. Start small with as much as you can chew all the time. But don’t be afraid to reach.”
“We need to do another play,” Fenn said. Tara and Brian nodded. “I mean, from now on I want us doing a lot of different plays at once. I want this place to be jumping, and we’ve got it open to that theatre troupe at the college. Well, I think we need to put out the word to anyone trying to do any acting that we’re here. For a price, obviously. I want this place to be fucking jumping. All the time.”
“What about more than plays?” Tara said. “I mean, we can’t do a play every night and I know lots of dykes who want to do slam poetry. They want to sing and try to be Ani DeFranco all over again.”
“Yes, Goddamnit yes,” Fenn cried. “Anything that keeps this place filled and people coming.
“But I want to get back to Brian’s idea.”
Brian put down his pencil and nodded.
“Can you make it happen? Something with the college?”
Brian grinned. “I can try to make something happen. Try very hard.”
“Make it happen.”
Brian smiled and nodded. “I’ll make it happen.”
“Good,” Fenn said. “And Tom, can you get on finding us another play and putting out casting calls?”
“I can do this.”
“I am excited as fuck,” Tara declared.
“For so long we were just limpin’ along, praying the lights didn’t get turned out. And now, look at us, doing shit. Planning a future. Feels damn good.”
On his way out the door, and to Saint Barbara’s, Brian turned around and said to Tom and Fenn, who had been talking and he said:
“Fenn, I just wanted to say I agree with Tara. It is exciting. You know… to be making something happen. We’re gonna do this?”
“Yes we are,” he nodded at Brian, and Brian smiled and left.
“One, Two,” Fenn murmured.
“What are you—?” Tom began.
“Three…. Four…. Five,” he turned around. “Brian’s a nice guy, Tom. You should try to not screw it up.”
“What are you…? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Now that you’re sleeping with him again, you should try not to ruin it.
“Now, don’t give me that stupid look. I know what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“The history of us is this. I left you on a Monday, and Brian was back in bed with you Tuesday. He realized you still wanted me on Wednesday. On Thursday I said that ship had sailed, and ever since Friday you all keep coming together, breaking up, coming together, having the discretion to do it behind my back and not in my face. And, Tom, he’s as in love with you as he always was and you…. You’d better not still be in love with me. If that’s what’s keeping you from Brian… Don’t let it. He’s talented. He’s beautiful. He’s a prize. He’s there. Don’t let him go.”
“Where are we, exactly?” Paul said, looking putting down the map.
“Somewhere in Virginia. Actually, a little past Lynchburg.”
“That,” Noah stated from where he was curled in the back of the van, “is one of the most unpromising names I’ve ever heard.”
“Let me know when you want me to take over,” Paul said.
Dan yawned and said, “Do we want to drive all night, or should we find some place to rest?”
“I vote for a resting place and a bed,” Noah sat up, yawning.
“You’re not even driving,” Paul told him.
“But I’m aching,” Noah said. “My back is killing me. I can’t believe yours isn’t. We weren’t made for all of this… rough living.”
Dan Malloy laughed and said, “We could crash somewhere for the night. Some Motel Six or something. Start early in the morning.” He yawned. “See, look at us. No one can stay awake.”
“How long should it take us to get to Florida?” Paul asked.
“America looks so much smaller on the map,” Noah commented.
“If we match the pace we set today,” Dan said, rolling his tongue around in his mouth as he bent toward paul and ran an old pen over the map, “I would guess we would reach the pan handle at this time tomorrow.”
“Oh, God!” Noah wailed from the back. “It feels so long already.”
“Just for that,” the priest said, “you get first shift driving.”
“Ha ha,” Paul murmured and, turning to the backseat, gave Noah a long, sick, smile.
