Going Down in La-La Land (13 page)

We walked down the stairs together, and Hanley asked me how I got connected with a sleaze bucket like Ron, only he used the word “gentleman” to describe Ron for the sake of throwing more sarcasm out there.

“
Of course, using the word gentleman and Ron in the same sentence is an . . .”

The word escaped him.

“
Oxymoron,” I answered for him.
Hooray! Yet another big word out of the male whore!

I hope he’s not looking at the top of my head and noticing my thinning hairline,
I thought as we walked down the stairs. I walked at a brisker pace to prevent him from noticing it.

Downstairs I put on my fleece jacket and sat down to tie my shoes. Hanley stood nearby and thanked me for coming over, much to my surprise. Our conversation coupled with the fact that I actually told Hanley what I thought of his personality during the course of the evening must have caught his attention. That and I used a few big words.

He seemed nicer now that we had finished having sex, letting his big shot guard down a bit and actually showing a softer, human side. I got up the nerve to suggest we do it again, and Hanley had me write his number down. Then he went into a drawer and pulled some cash out and handed me an even five hundred. I had hoped for more and was disappointed, but relieved to have some cash in my fingers.

He walked me to the door, and before he shut it I turned around and said, “Thanks for everything.” Then I sarcastically added, “My Visa bill thanks you too.”

He shut the door and that was that. I don’t know what in God’s name possessed me to say something so goofy. I guess I was pissed he didn’t give me more, especially after being so rough. Not that saying something stupid every now and then was anything new for me. But chances were I might have had a better hope of hearing back from him if I had played it cooler. Then again, maybe not. He probably preferred fresh meat each time.

Candy was in disbelief when we sat on the balcony later that night and I told her I had just had sex with one of the most powerful people in show business.

“
You’re kidding me” were the first words out of her mouth, to be exact.

For the next twenty minutes I filled her in on the details of how the event unfolded while she grilled me with questions.

“
Do you think he’s going to want to see you again?” she asked pressingly.

“
I have no idea,” I sighed. “No, I don’t think so. I made a crack about my Visa bill. It’s been on my mind because it has gotten so run up from moving out here and not having a steady job. I don’t think he appreciated it.”

“
Well that’s too bad,” she said bluntly. “Having a sugar daddy like that, even for a little while, could solve a lot of your problems.” Candy had my interests in mind, and this was her way of showing that she cared.

“
Yeah. I know.”

“
There is a rumor he takes care of that pretty boy at the gym,” she went on. “The one I pointed out to you, from the music video. They say it was Hanley who bought him a Jaguar. I mean, all the guy does is go to acting classes and the gym, kind of like yours truly. And all he’s done is that one music video. And he is always hanging with a few pretty girls, but none of them are his girlfriends.”

“
Well if that’s the case, I can kiss my chances good-bye. Comparing me with him is like comparing Divine Brown and Liz Hurley. I was the cheap trick for the night. And that’s it,” I murmured while petting one of the cats as it purred loudly below.

“
Come on. You don’t know that for sure.”

“
Look, it’s not like I’m broken up about it,” I spoke up, coming to my senses. “The guy almost put a hole though the back of my neck!”

“
Eww, I guess you’re right,” Candy laughed, scooping up one of the cats and placing him on her lap. “Who needs that?”

I knew better than to think I’d hear from Hanley again. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. Sure enough, a few days went by, then a few weeks. Soon I chalked Hanley up as another life experience and laid him to rest with all the others.

The old metal shelves around me were covered in a thick layer of dust, drawn through with lines where videocassettes had been stacked. Due to boredom I found myself fixating on the gray dust and cruddy smears on the paint of the walls.

For the past few weeks I’d been toiling around the offices of HUNG Video, doing shipping work and whatever else needed to be done. It wasn’t so bad. I was getting $10 an hour for mindless work. But I’d tired of focusing on trying to perfect my shrink-wrapping. For some reason I just couldn’t get it right. Invariably the plastic at one corner of the cassette box came out bubbled and fried.

“
You’re holding the blow-dryer too close to the box,” a voice boomed from behind, startling me. I turned around and saw Dale Warner looking my way with a smile on his face, a combination of amusement and mockery. It irritated me.

“
And you’re holding it in the same spot for too long. That’s why you’re getting holes. Here, learn from an expert,” he said while grabbing the dryer out of my hands. Ripping a length of shrink-wrap from the roll, he proceeded to heat up the plastic, sealing it perfectly smooth.

“
Voila!” he said, holding up the shiny tape cassette. The title
Jungle Gangbang
was blazed across the front, two naked and oiled models wearing forced smoldering expressions staring from the photo with tropical foliage behind them.

I stood unimpressed with my arms folded across my chest.

“
Wow. That was great,” I said in monotone. “I have a hundred more. Why don’t you keep that for the rest of the day?” nodding toward the blow-dryer.

“
Sorry. No can do,” Dale smiled back smugly. “I’m afraid I’ve graduated from the shrink-wrap department.”

“
Gee, did you wear a cap and gown?” I asked, grabbing the blow-dryer back.

“
Well, we’re sure in smart-ass mode today, aren’t we, Mary?” he said in his finest church lady voice.

“
Whatever,” I murmured as he walked away. Although he was not the perfect pinup of a guy, there was a cockiness about him that was sexy. Maybe it was his skater clothes, gruff voice, and stocky lumbering body. I tried to visualize what he looked like naked. He probably had a thick, fat dick, like his meaty forearms.

He’s trouble anyway, so quit thinking about it,
I told myself.

While my days taping up packages at the warehouse were often boring, evenings at home with Candy were always eventful, especially when she had a new project or endeavor, which was more than half the time.

Later that evening was one such occasion. Candy ran a racy, yet not explicit pinup site of herself to promote her lagging acting and modeling career. Every night she clicked away at her computer e-mailing various “fans.”

One visitor to her Web site saw a photo of her from
Sect of Lucifer
dressed in character as Morgana Sateen. This guy had a vampire fetish and e-mailed her a request. He would pay her $500 to make a ten-minute video of herself dressed as vampire in a French maid outfit. In the video she would have to crawl out of a cardboard coffin that he would supply in the mail. He would pay her half up front and the other half when he received the tape.

When Candy asked for my help I imagined what a fiasco the whole event would be. The fact I hadn’t held a camcorder in my life didn’t further my enthusiasm for getting involved in this latest project. When I arrived at home to help her out she was just as eager to get it over with as I was.

“
Okay, Adam, let’s knock this thing out. I just want to get this shit done so we’re not up all night like a couple of idiots,” she said while running around getting stuff together.

She was already wearing a cheap French maid outfit, the kind you bought prepackaged around Halloween. The clicking of the black patent leather pumps she wore against the hardwood floors sent the cats scurrying under the furniture.

Dean the useless ex-boyfriend was over that night and seemed doped out as usual, more interested in watching television in the other room than helping me assemble the cardboard coffin. Somehow I managed to get the thing together even though I am notorious for being the worst handyman to hit the planet. Too bad I wasn’t this good with home electronics or furniture from IKEA.

Candy was wondering how she was going to keep her fangs in, with toothpaste the only thing on hand to glue them. We put candles all over her living room and they actually looked very good with her ornate baroque mirrors and overstuffed furniture. If you stretched your imagination a little you could think you were in some European palace that a vampire might haunt, albeit with a lot more cream and shabby chic accessories. After practicing on the camcorder a bit I got the hang of it. We leaned the cardboard coffin against the mirrored armoire and had Candy open it slowly and come out that way. It didn’t look right on the floor, and besides the cats kept walking back and forth to see what all the fuss was about. Having a fluffy white Persian cat walking by in the frame took away from the dramatic effect to say the least.

Dean just sat on the couch the whole time like a lazy bum while Candy and I did all the work. Her fangs weren’t staying in well and she had to continually keep sticking them to her teeth. The tape needed to be at least ten minutes long. We tried to do everything as slowly as possible, like have her take a long time to just to step out of the coffin. She was so over the top I burst out laughing a few times and had to stop the camera.

“
I adore the night!” Candy pronounced in an affected, thunderous boom that sounded like a cross between Joan Crawford and Mrs. Howell from
Gilligan’s Island.
She continued babbling nonsense into the camera to kill time as I grew steadily sicker of holding the damn camcorder.

“
Her name is Lilly,” Candy purred into the lens out of the blue in a sultry, taunting voice. It was like a bad impersonation of Eartha Kitt.

This caused me to break into titters of laughter.

Lilly was the name of Candy’s little sister, but not an actual little sister. Candy did volunteer work for the Big Brother and Big Sister program. She was forever keeping me entertained with tales about Lilly. Lilly was peculiar, like Candy and myself. She was an overweight child who happened to be very talented young artist. Her favorite activity to do with Candy was go to Color Me Mine, this place where you bought ceramics and could paint them, and then have them bake it in a kiln for you.

Lilly once painted this really cool Elvis bust and even counted the exact amount of rhinestones needed to glue around his collar. How many nine-year-olds out there would choose an Elvis bust to paint to perfection?

I had a soft spot in my heart for Lilly because like her I had been an eccentric child, and we are both Capricorns. Lilly was obsessed with astrology and the zodiac. One day Candy and Lilly were crossing the street and the light turned in the middle and Lilly ran and screamed like a lunatic. When Candy told her to calm down Lilly’s response in her baby voice was “I worry a lot because I’m a Capricorn.”

Lilly had an obese mother who met men on the Internet, putting her picture up on sites for men who love fat women. Their house was always in filth and disarray. The carpets were crusted with crud, the walls were dingy, and there were ketchup stains on the ceiling. Toys were strewn all over the house and the backyard. Her grandmother lived with them as well.

Every week Lilly would tell Candy and me, “And guess what? Grandma says if we clean the house we can get a puppy!”

And on the next visit: “Guess what? Grandma says if I have a good report card, we can get a puppy!”

And the following week: “Guess what? Grandma says if we pick up the yard, we can get a puppy!”

“
Talk about hope,” Candy told me one night. “With her tenacity this girl should be a fucking actress.”

So needless to say, with all I knew and had heard of Lilly, I lost it at the mere mention of her name.

“
Knock it off, Adam!” Candy groaned, barely able to stifle her own laughter as I tried to get my composure back together.

“
That was a bit over the top, Candy,” Dean commented with a dumb laugh from the couch behind us, where he was sprawled out with a can of beer.

“
Shut up, Dean!” Candy snapped in exasperation. “Look, you guys I want to get this stupid thing over with. These fangs keep falling out and I’m really getting over it,” she went on, indicating how tired and impatient she’d become.

“
Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t laugh any more,” I said in earnest.

I’m guessing it was hard work improvising and trying to be a convincing vampire woman for ten minutes. Therefore, she had to draw inspiration from whatever peculiar ideas crossed her mind.

“
Where is my beautiful Lilly, she was supposed to be here!” Candy roared, sounding like a sex-crazed lesbian awaiting the arrival of her lover.

Though it was difficult, I kept my mouth shut through the remainder of her performance, and signaled to her when ten minutes were up, finally able to put the camcorder down. Candy sent out the video to her quirky admirer a few days later. He wasn’t very appreciative after viewing it, complaining he would have rather had her lay the coffin on the floor and climb out of it that way. And instead of Candy lifting her skirt up for the camera, he wanted the camera to actually travel up her skirt.