“Who cares?” Pitts said. “If the fans like it, we can give it to them.”
“You know what else is good?” Rag Man said, rising suddenly, wagging a huge finger wildly at all of our faces. “You know what I’ve been tryin’ to get goin’ for years?”
“A liposuction?” Timberlake mumbled.
“Ass-to-mouth!” Rag Man cried, his eyes blazing. “Picture it: after we shove that video camera deep on in there to film Planet of the Gapes, our girl takes that butt-flavored dick and sucks on it like a dang lollipopl”
“That’s great,” Pitts said. “Excellent thinking.”
Rag Man glowed. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” he bragged, sitting down with a fatty grunt, his arms folded across his chest.
“From this moment forward, I want three gapes and three ass-to-mouths, minimum, for every scene,” Pitts ordered.
“Impossible,” I warned. “First of all, what if the girl won’t do anal?”
“Then we don’t hire her.”
“But,” I stammered, “what if she’s really pretty?”
“Well, then you could see if you can make her pussy gape,” Pitts said, as kind of an afterthought. “No, never mind. I don’t think people will like that as much.”
“But what about. . . making it funny . . . what about... a story,” I mumbled softly.
“Stories are all well and good, Sam. But we have to make sure we get enough hardcore footage in the bag. That’s what pays our bills.” He slammed his notebook shut. “Anything else? No? Good.”
Rag Man rose and pip-pip-pipped his way out to his rental car, zooming off in a joyous mood to Jack in the Box. Timberlake and I strolled out to the grounds to talk strategy. Timberlake had a nearly full pack of cigarettes with him. Every now and then, he would buy a pack and then smoke about two cigarettes and get bored with them. He passed me a cigarette now, refusing to take one for himself, and I accepted it gratefully, lighting it with one of the giant barbecue lighters that we kept on the table outside.
“Don’t you sort of wish he would fire us, sometimes?” I said, exhaling.
“Hell no! I gotta pay off that car. If Pitts says bye to me, I’m history. Back to the freakin’ poorhouse, probably Oakland, no less.”
“Sounds awful.” I shuddered. “You’d probably have to get a real job.”
“Yup. When you take a second to consider the alternatives, this porno thing isn’t too horrible after all.”
“How’s your lady with it?” I asked. “She holding tight?”
“Oh, she hates it,” Timberlake answered. “But she rides in my Acura, now don’t she?” He laughed that wacky laugh of his. “Wanna go take a spin? Surprise Rag Man at the Box?”
“Nah,” I said sadly. “I’ll pass.”
“Hey, kid,” said Timberlake, inspecting me more closely, “what’s bugging you? You’ve been dragging ass all day.”
“Girl problems,” I said.
“Finally,” Timberlake said. “Liz’s cornin’ round to the real stud of the house.” He snugged up his balls with his white-boy palm.
“I’m actually kind of bummed, guy,” I snapped, “so have a little sympathy.”
“Oh,” Timber said. “Sorry, bro. You know, I am sorry.” He took a moment to stare at me, then dropped his gaze. “But I mean, couldn’t you see this coming?”
“No, I couldn’t, actually,” I said bitterly. “What are you, some kind of soothsayer?”
“You ain’t such a closed book as you might like to believe,” Timberlake said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, from this guy’s front-row seat, you’re starting to resemble the true porno animal/’ Timberlake said. “And you guys don’t mate for life.”
“I’m not the one. I promise you that. I came here to change the game, not get changed by it.”
“Well, that’s what you’ve always said. But you have to admit that lately, you’ve got. . . well, you’ve got this edge about you.”
“What edge?”
“Don’t know,” Timberlake said. “Ya know? I’m just a schmuck who likes a big ass in his face. But I glance over at you sometimes, and it looks like you’re watching the whole scene way more intently than anybody needs you to. You get my drift?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
“What I’m saying,” Timberlake said, patiently, “is I kinda get this feeling from you that you’re still deciding whether or not to go native.”
“Go native?”
“You know. Join up.”
I snorted. “I’m joining nothing. I’m about done here.” “Animal,” Timberlake repeated. “Porno animal.”
I walked around the big house aimlessly, killing time before my performers showed up for their shoot. This house was so sweeping, so majestic, and it had so many goddamn rooms to it that even after living in the place for more than six weeks, I hadn’t really explored them all. The library, for instance, was more or less uncharted territory for me, aside from the time that Timberlake had shot a five-on-one in there with some frightening cougar that I had watched about thirty-five seconds of before fleeing. Part of the reason I never hung out in there was the fact that there were almost no books. There were about ten different leather-bound sets of encyclopedias up on the wall, and I swear there were some false books on the shelves, too, some of those cardboard jobs. It was a terrible, drafty place to be: it felt like at one point the room had been a giant garage or filling station, and they had decided to raze it and convert it to something classier in order to raise the value of the property. There were no good chairs to hang out in, or any warm, cozy desks to write your essays at. Just bullshit enormous ceilings and false yak heads extruding from the walls, with their shiny dead eyes gazing down at you.
I checked my watch glumly and wandered down to the pool. Staring down at the cold water, I considered a brisk swim. But I didn’t have it in me. I just stood there, my hands stuck in the pockets of my old shorts, watching the haze part in the distance. By afternoon it would mostly burn off. That made me sad, for some reason. The haze was miserable, but I was always sad to see it go.
“What’s the word?” Timber said, as he approached.
“Getting ready to film my first Gape-O-Rama, I guess.”
“I just had a great idea for my scene,” Timberlake said. “I’m gonna pretend like my girl is studying for her medical boards, right? And her lab partners just desperately need her to pose for a colonoscopy.”
“I’m so proud of you,” I murmured, my head lilting down to the grass, checkin’ out those blades.
“Hey, I appreciate that, man. Now, cheer up, dude. You’re going to put up something classic.”
“The word is nasty,” I said, in my best Rag Man impression.
There was nothing I wanted to do less than knock off a few gaping buttholes. But duty called, and I prepared to receive the talent. My actress turned out to be one of Spiegler’s Czechs, the type you weren’t so excited to greet and whisk away all for yourself. She had dried-out blond hair, a reddened face, and plenty of meat and potatoes on her bones. But what was I going to do, send her away? Instead I shoved her into the bathroom and let her get into her whore costume by herself.
Downstairs, I made a cup of black coffee and checked the age on her passport. Thirty. That was almost dead in porn years. Her name was long and complicated, but luckily she’d picked a nice, vacant sex-film moniker. She was literally calling herself “Alice.”
As we waited for her to dress, a new actor named Byron Long showed up to take part. He didn’t raise an eyebrow on my part, but his presence turned Rag Man into a trembling fanboy. “Well, damn if we didn’t hit the big time now!” he whispered, awed. He sucked in all the fat of his stomach, and military-saluted our new, dreadlocked talent. “Huge fuckin’ fan, man! This is one hell of an honor!” And I’ll be damned if Byron didn’t dig it. No matter the context, when someone thinks you are the tits, that’s a beautiful thing. For the next several minutes, Rag Man just shook his head adoringly, and was seen to be murmuring over and over, “Byron fuckin’ Long.”