The Lovers in Rossford
SECRETS THAT WOULD GO TO THE GRACE
CONCLUSION
GUY ASKED HIM, “HOW old are you, Noah?”
“Twenty-one,” Noah said. This sounded like an appropriate age. Eighteen was probably a legal age, but twenty-one got you just over the hump.
“So, you’ve done a few solo shoots for us. How did you like ‘em?”
“I liked them,” Noah said.
“They were…” he looked around, “Nice environments. Easy to do stuff in.”
“You like the few scenes you did with other guys?”
“Yeah, that was hot.”
“What was your favorite?”
“Uh… the one with Billy.”
“Yeah, I could tell you enjoyed that.”
Off in the corner, Noah saw someone enter the room and then come and sit down beside him. He was just, in some inexplicable way, the nicest looking guy Noah had ever seen. No, it wasn’t inexplicable. He looked nice. He looked like the sweetest person in the world. He had green eyes and marmalade hair, and Noah had seen him before, from a distance. Even seen some of his stuff. But here in person he got that same palpitation, that excitement that often hit him before he was about to have sex.
“This is Johnny Mellow,” Guy said. “You may have seen him.”
“Yeah,” Noah grinned, and he laughed nervously.
“We were wondering,” Guy continued, “if you were ready to get fucked? And if you’d like to get fucked for the first time by Johnny Mellow?”
“Uh…” Noah said, not faking stupidity. “Yes, I mean… Uh, huh.”
“A little nervous?”
Noah felt himself getting red as Johnny gave him a little grin.
“Yeah. A little.”
Then he added, “But I’m ready.”
“And cut,” Guy said in a different voice.
“Guys, come in at around eleven tomorrow and we’ll start filming the rest. I needed to catch Noah’s surprise,” Guy told them. “And Noah, if you don’t know already, you need to learn how to douche. Johnny, can you teach him?”
Johnny nodded.
“We want you to be sort of new and convincing, but if it’s too new, it’s just going to be gross,” Guy went on. “Johnny, introduce Noah to some sex toys. Help him experiment. Nothing too crazy, nothing too big. We’ll start in on this tomorrow.”
While Noah was coming out of the shower and drying himself, Johnny said, “You’re going to love this.”
Noah waited for Johnny to elaborate.
“Bottoming,” Johnny said.
And then he added, as Noah dried his head, “Not because I’m so great, just because this really is where the money is. When there is money.”
“I’ve never done stuff like that. With toys,” Noah said, putting his hand to his behind. “I’ve never had someone put stuff up there.”
He’d had stuff up there, but not willingly. Stuff up there equaled a rape in a parking lot and gravel in his face. Stuff up there equaled being back in Indiana.
“But you liked it,” Paul told him.
“Yeah,” Noah said in a small, reverent voice. “I did. After I got used to it.”
“Good. Guy might want us to do that in the video, you know, where I’m supposed to be doing all that to you for the first time. Before I fuck you.”
Johnny said it so negligently. It was just a day’s work. It made Noah a little embarrassed for the way he was feeling for him.
“Say,” Johnny turned to him as Noah pulled on his shirt. “You wanna go out or something? Get a beer or some dinner? I don’t really have any friends around here.”
“Me neither,” Noah said. “Yeah,” he still felt a little in love. “I’m free.”
“Oh, and by the way,” Johnny added. “I’m always celibate three days before a shoot, so I’m not rebuffing you. They just like to see a nice load and some passion. It’s something you might want to try.”
Noah chuckled, “I don’t have to try. No one wants me. I’m not doing anything with anyone outside of here. And I’m glad.”
Johnny stood looking at him with that sweet, sexy smile.
“What?” Noah said.
“I just don’t believe that no one wants you,” said Johnny.
“Well, try it with this first,” Guy said. “You gotta practice.”
The practice films of him with the pink gel dildo, and the Pyrex dildo, fucking himself were all there, of Paul, as Johnny Mellow, inserting fingers in his ass, shocking him into a new pleasure.
“It hurts when someone doesn’t know what they’re doing,” Johnny said. “And when you don’t know what you’re doing, either. When you don’t know how to take someone in. Don’t worry,” he chuckled. “I’ll be easy on you. If it’s too much, just say stop.”
He didn’t say stop. The camera hardly mattered. By now Noah knew Johnny, so it was more or less comfortable talking to him. And this was work, work that allowed him to get other types of work where he wasn’t naked or pimping himself to desperate men on the street.
They shot the real scene the next day. He could never remember what he wore, but Paul—or Johnny—came in, chewing gum, looking country and innocent, his marmalade hair a little spiked, that sweetness and shyness in his green eyes. He had one of those old Cuban shirts from the 50’s—white with a black stripe down the middle—but it was snug on him, and when it was time, when Guy stopped talking, Paul took the gum out of his mouth and put it in the wrapper like a gentleman, and then he pulled Noah to him. And it was the first time he’d been with Paul, the first time he’d done this. Paul’s mouth was all spearmint. Noah was trembling and Paul was whispering where no camera could hear, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t fall apart. I got you.”
“It can be,” Johnny said, as all of Johnny filled him and Noah tightened on him in shock of the pleasure, wanting to pull him all in, adjusting to sweet Jonny’s rhythm, “the most wonderful thing in the world.”
And so it was.
Noah was sitting quietly by himself, waiting for the bus. He wanted to be hidden in the stall because he wanted to be by himself with the way he was feeling. He was shocked when a car stopped and honked at him and he looked up to see Johnny Mellow, in black shades, chomping his gum. He was struck in the chest with the memory of him. He couldn’t believe how good it had felt to have him make love to him. He was still trembling from it, and embarrassed. He was a fucking professional after all.
“Noah, get your ass in the car,” Johnny said.
Noah came over, climbed in the car, and they drove off.
As they whizzed through a yellow light, Johnny placed his hand on Noah’s thigh.
“Firstly, Noah, you need shades. Not cause they’re cool, but because you’ll fry your fucking eyes out. And secondly, today was pretty fucking intense, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Noah said.
“I don’t usually feel that way. I like fucking, you know?” Johnny said. “And I like being fucked. But it’s not always like that.
“I think it’s because I wanted you. I had to be a good boy last night, but not anymore.”
Noah’s lips were dry. He licked them and wondered where Johnny was going with this.
“Noah, we’re off the clock. We’re not working for another week or so. You wanna go back to my place? Or your place. With no cameras. Just us.”
Noah felt his cock stretch and go hard. He half panted: “Yeah, that’s all I wanted.”
“Me too,” Johnny said, suddenly gunning the engine and violating the speed limit.
Johnny turned to him, eyes hidden behind shades, a huge grin on his face, and said, “Let’s go!”
“PAUL,” NOAH WHISPERED. “PAUL, get up.”
Really, he didn’t want Paul to wake up. He wanted Paul to stay, to not catch his flight. He wanted the both of them to stay right here in this room. Paul’s slowness in waking was the excuse to lay next to him and squeeze him tighter, to say his name again.
“What?” Paul began, and shook his head.
“You have to go.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he said, coming to and sitting up. His hair was sticking up and his face was splotchy with sleep. “Am I late?”
“I wouldn’t let you be late. You said you wanted to be gone at eight.”
“It’s eight?”
“It’s six.”
“Oh, good, I can shower and go straight there.”
Noah lay back in the bed and chose to say nothing.
Paul got up. In the semi darkness Noah could see Paul’s back, Paul’s ass, his thighs. The bed smelled of him. He hadn’t moved to go to the shower. He sat back on the bed.
“Did you think that if we spent the night together, the feelings would go away?”
“Yes,” Noah said. “Then we could go back to normal life.”
“But my feelings haven’t gone away,” Paul said.
“They’ve always been there,” he went on. “It’s just we’ve been so confused. We didn’t even know who we were all those years ago. But from the first moment we met there was something. I remember the first time we went back to my place and made love. And maybe we always thought it was just sex, or maybe sex was the only part of it we could understand. But, it’s still there,” Paul told him.
“How old were you then?” Paul asked.
“Eighteen.”
“And thirty-five now.”
“You make me feel so old.”
“No, it’s our love that’s old,” Paul said. “You…” he shook his head. “You’ve got a hold on me.”
“Paul, when you were Johnny Mellow I was in love with you. And now that you’re Paul Anderson and you’ve got a husband and three sons and you wear dress shirts and trousers and a tie everyday—”
“You make me sound so appealing.”
“Now when you’re closer to forty than thirty and all the abs you had are just… normal. And I’m normal. With a son. With James… I am more in love with you than I ever was. Last night was more intense than anything we ever did.”
They were both very quiet, and Paul moved to touch Noah’s hair.
“I don’t know what to do about that,” Noah said quietly, looking to the window.
Then he waved it off with his hand.
“Go take a shower. The plane’s not going to wait for us to work our stuff out.”
Paul nodded and stood up to go to the bathroom.
As the shower came on, Noah wished Paul had kissed him. At the same time the toilet flushed, his phone rang.
Noah looked to the screen that said CHAY. “Hello?”
“Dad,” Chay said, “where are you?”
“I… I’m on the East Side.”
“What the hell are you doing there? Well, never mind. You have to come home. I just got a call from Danasia. Fenn and Adele’s grandma died.”
Thus ends out penultimate chapter, In chapter twelve, our final chapter, we'll learn just what love can resolve, and what it cannot.