My Lucky Star (29 page)

R
ICKY SLATHERED A GENEROUS
amount of massage oil on his right hand and, with little fanfare, poked a finger into Stephen’s bottom. Stephen gasped, which
was a damn good thing, as it kept him from hearing my own. This was not the sort of incursion one expected a rugged, humanity-saving
action hero to countenance and I wondered if Stephen would turn to face his invader with a stern glare and a cry of “You go
too far, sir!”

But Stephen did not protest. He groaned softly and wagged his bottom from side to side, a gesture Ricky correctly interpreted
to mean, “More fingers, please.” He obliged with a second, then a third, performing this chore, I felt, in an oddly dispassionate,
businesslike way, as though he were looking for his keys in there.

Some verbal foreplay ensued, Ricky drawing his inspiration from the screenplays of his favorite adult films. Rubbing himself
through his briefs, he asked Stephen if he wanted his big nasty cock up his butt. Stephen replied that, yes, he wanted that
big nasty cock real bad, lust wreaking its usual havoc on grammar. Ricky repeated the question and Stephen replied once more
in the affirmative. “You like a big fat cock, don’t you?” asked Ricky, as though Stephen hadn’t made himself quite clear on
the point. Stephen, polite to a fault, said yes, he did very much. “You want this big boy up your ass?” inquired Ricky, and
by then I was ready to spring from under the table and shout, “He wants to get fucked! What do you need? A UN interpreter?!”

Ricky finally decided to oblige, ripping off his tear-away undies and exposing their impressive cargo, a sight that left me
feeling both aroused and daunted; it was one thing for Stephen to be a bottom but did he have to be spoiled? Ricky sheathed
it in a silvery condom that made it gleam like a hood ornament and I wondered frankly how Stephen’s garage was going to accommodate
it. Ricky parked it though and with an ungentle velocity that caused Stephen to arch his back and bury his face in the massage
table’s doughnut hole, a feature I hadn’t even noticed till I felt hot breath on my neck and gazed up to see Stephen’s face
framed in it mere inches from my own. The eyes, thank God, were tightly closed, his lovely features contorted in a lip-biting
wince. The thought bubble, had there been one, would have read, “Remind me again why I like this.”

I stared up at him, my emotions whipsawing between terror of being caught and the natural fascination one feels on beholding
the face of a penetrated action star. Ricky delivered a second salvo that caused the table to shake and Stephen to whip his
head up out of the doughnut. I ducked down and peered out from under the sheet again. There was Ricky, looking less lustful
than diligent as he plied his trade, the strokes slow and regular as though quality control were timing him. But the sight
of Stephen squirming in bliss was one I found overwhelmingly stimulating and soon old faithful was indignantly battering the
walls of my trousers as if to say, “I’m here too, y’know!” I reached for my zipper then stopped, realizing how drastically
this would compound my embarrassment were Stephen to peer through the doughnut and discover me. A moment later Ricky, bless
him, growled, “Turn over, I want to see you!” and Stephen promptly obliged. Free now from fear of exposure, I exposed myself
and soon they were at it again with yours truly downstairs playing the home version.

I could see Stephen’s face in the mirror through the whole thing. His eyes never left it, so transfixed was he by the view.
There are those who might have called this narcissism, but I was inclined to take a more charitable view. There was, after
all, not a gay man alive who wouldn’t have been utterly mesmerized by the sight. Why should Stephen himself find it any less
engrossing?

This portion of the festivities went on for about five more minutes, Stephen’s low moans softly punctuating the hush, the
erotic spell marred only once when Ricky, without missing a thrust, remarked, “You know, I’m an actor too.” But just when
things seemed to be speeding toward the finish, Ricky abruptly withdrew and hopped off the table.

“What’d you stop for?” whined Stephen.

“I’m bringing in reinforcements,” teased Ricky.

“Huh?”

“I have a friend,” said Ricky. “Someone you know. I’m pretty sure you’ll be glad to see him.”

“Whizzy?” asked Stephen, sounding more out of it than I’d realized he was.

There was a knock at the door to the back hall.

“That’s him now,” said Ricky with a smirk. He scooped up his clothes and, fishing a key from his pants, opened the door and
said, “Stephen, meet Oscar.” And in walked Oscar.

Or rather in walked
the
Oscar.

Or, more precisely, in walked a well-muscled young man costumed quite skillfully as a life-size replica of an Academy Award.
The outfit subtly combined gold body paint with some skintight fabric, like spandex but thinner and with a metallic sheen.
His face was masked, the features, like the statuette’s, barely suggested, and he held the requisite two-edged sword. There
was one noteworthy departure from verisimilitude. Real Oscars lack genitalia and this one quite markedly did not, sporting
a large gilded erection that jutted out from the costume just to the right of the sword. Ricky cast his eyes on it, his exaggerated
double take a clear sign that he’d do well to keep his day job.

“Whoa! I think he likes you!”

Stephen just stared for a long moment, then burst into a bizarre honking laugh that made me wonder again just how strong the
pot had been.

“Hey, Oscar,” giggled Stephen, “nice to see ya, buddy. Watcha got for me there?”

Ricky, content now that introductions had been made and the new friends had found a mutual interest, bade them farewell and
departed. Oscar advanced toward the table with small geishalike steps, as his legs were meshed together to enhance his resemblance
to the statuette On reaching the table he tossed aside his sword and hoisted himself up to join Stephen, who wasted little
time in demonstrating that his own legs were not similarly encumbered.

They soon found their rhythm and Stephen, who’d stared so intently into the mirror before, barely glanced at it now. He only
had eyes for Oscar, gazing raptly into the inscrutable gilded face with a look unlike any Ricky had garnered from him. That,
it appeared, had merely been lust. This was the Real Thing.

I asked myself, “Would he ever look at me with such rapture, such unalloyed adoration?” It seemed doubtful. It seemed more
doubtful still that my plan to seduce him this weekend had even the paltriest hope of success. What would he want with the
likes of me when his needs had already been amply met by a studly masseur and a famous award? It was a bitter pill to swallow
but one tries to be philosophical about these things, so I just shrugged and resumed masturbating.

“Yeah, big guy!” cried Stephen ecstatically. “Yeah! Just like that, Oscar! Come to Poppa!”

Oscar picked up the pace and they began galloping toward the finish line with self barely a furlong behind. But just when
Stephen seemed only seconds from shouting, “You like me! You really really like me!” the mood was shattered by a loud knock
on the door.

“Stephen!” came Gina’s voice, muffled but unmistakable. “Stephen! I need to talk to you.”

“Shit!” he hissed as Oscar hastily disengaged from his flustered recipient and jumped off the table.

“We need to talk! I know you’re in there. The woman at the desk said so.”

“I’m —having—a—
massage!
” yelled Stephen, his voice choked with terror and frustration.

“You can’t give me one minute? What’s going on in there?” she added, suspicion darkening her tone.

This was not good. A refusal to open the door now would prompt the most dire conclusions and spell an end to Stephen’s freedom
to frequent the spa with impunity.

“Nothing! Jeez!” he said indignantly. “Get out!” he whispered frantically, a needless command as Oscar had already hopped
to the back exit and was madly twisting the knob on the locked door. He turned to Stephen, flinging his arms wide in panic.
I could only imagine his face beneath the impassive mask but Stephen was in the grip of a complete stoned freak-out, his expression
calling to mind the one Janet Leigh had worn in
Psycho
shortly after meeting Mrs. Bates. Beholding it, I knew at once what had to be done.

“Fear not,” I said, rolling out and springing gracefully to my feet. “Cavanaugh’s here!” I felt I’d executed this maneuver
with the same manly élan the superheroes of my youth always displayed when swooping in for last-minute rescues. Glancing down,
I saw that the effect might have been more suave had I remembered to do up my pants.

I addressed Oscar, my voice soft but commanding.

“Under the table!”

He hastily complied as I handed the stunned and speechless Stephen his boxers. “Put these on.”

“How did you...?” he began, then trailed off, just staring at me with a look some might have characterized as zonked but which
I preferred to see as worshipful.

“Shh,” I said, boldly stroking his cheek. “All will be well. Lie down.”

He obeyed as I refastened my belt and opened the door.

“Gina!” I said, my tone brisk and assured. “Come in.”

“What are you doing here? I thought Stephen was getting a massage.”

“He is. From me.”

“But you’re not a masseur.”

“Ah,” I replied smoothly, “but Monty
thinks
I am. If I don’t follow through and massage a few people he’ll know I’m lying and then where are we?”

“But weren’t you giving Monty a massage?”

“There’s the rub, so to speak. I’m not, as you pointed out, an actual masseur, something I feared Monty would detect unless
I got some practice in first. Stephen graciously volunteered to be my guinea pig. We’ve only been at it half an hour but I’m
making great strides, wouldn’t you say, Stephen?”

“Uh . . . yeah?” came Stephen’s rapier reply. I saw that the cannabis had done little to enhance his improvisatory skills
and that this would not be a good time to name a famous person, a household object, and a literary genre, then shout, “Go!”

“So, whassup?” he mumbled.

“Your mother is totally out of control! She’s going to get us kicked out of here!”

Gina explained that after Stephen had left for his massage Diana had withdrawn from the salon to the terrace.

“I went with her and right away she orders another martini. It’s what she always does when we’re alone—like she can’t endure
my company unless she’s smashed. I think it’s a bad idea and I say so, very tactfully, but she has it anyway and then she
wants a
third
so she calls the waiter. And this bizarre woman at the next table — she’s wearing this huge hat with, like, netting covering
her face —”

“Lily!” I said, remembering her gardening hat from my first visit.

“Exactly! And she’s even more crocked than Diana! She starts making this huge stink about how she was there first and how
the whole world doesn’t bow to Diana the Great. And by now we realize who it is and Diana lays into her, calling her a washed-up
old drunk, and Lily’s all, ‘Wait till my book comes out! We’ll see who’s washed-up then!’ And you know me, Miss Peacemaker,
I’m doing my best to —”

She paused abruptly and wrinkled her nose.

“Do I smell pot?”

Knowing Stephen to be hobbled in the quick-answer department, I jumped in.

“I smelled that too. Some sort of incense, I think, piped in through the air vents.”

“It’s pot,” said Gina, an accusing eye on Stephen. “You’re stoned, aren’t you?”

“I’m under a lot of stress, okay?” managed Stephen. “Monty showing up, now all this with my mother...”

Gina, in a rare display of lucidity, pointed out that Stephen had gotten stoned before she’d told him about Diana. Then, softening,
she said, “It’s this whole Oscar business, isn’t it?”

Stephen stared at her in frozen horror before catching her drift and replying uneasily in the negative.

“Oh,
please,
” she said, tousling his hair. “It’s all I’ve heard about for weeks. You’re
going
to be nominated, hon.” She turned to me. “He is
obsessed
with the Oscar. It’s this whole mother-son thing. Y’know, ‘Mom’s got an Oscar so I’ve gotta have one too.’ ”

“Gina . . .” he pleaded weakly.

“I tease him all the time. I say, ‘Oscar or me—if you could only have one which would it be?’ I hope he never has to choose
though ’cause I think Oscar would win!
Kidding!
”

I thought of shooting Stephen a wry look to comment on the irony but sensed he wasn’t ready to see the humor yet.

“Look,” he said, his voice quavering, “we came here to relax, which I am
trying
to do. Let me finish my massage and I’ll talk to Mom before dinner.”

He would in fact talk to Mom a good deal sooner for she was even now staggering indignantly into the room.

“There you are!” she declared with that majestic exasperation only a drunken thespian can summon. “Will you kindly inform
your friend Moira that if she does not evict my sister immediately we’re leaving this place!”

“Maaaaaa!”
wailed Stephen, now officially in hell. He shot me a look of aggrieved disbelief. You couldn’t blame him. Moira’s brochures,
while stressing the advantages of a family friendly brothel, had mentioned none of its potential pitfalls, which clearly were
numerous. “I am trying to have a massage here!”

“She struck me!” thundered Diana, then, registering my presence with a woozy double take, asked what I was doing there.

“Giving Stephen a massage.”

“You’re a masseur now?”

“I’m learning.”

“I see,” Diana said vaguely, then returned her attention to Stephen.

“Your aunt has gone quite mad! If you could see the hat she was wearing!”

Her harangue continued and Stephen listened in helpless misery. There is no overstating the dismay of a man who must mollify
an irate wife and mother even as he contemplates the catastrophe that awaits should either of them peer beneath his massage
table and notice the nude, gilded man there. It was a daunting dilemma for a man in peak form and more harrowing still for
one on whom pot had conferred the mental acuity of a bivalve. I resolved to rescue him as swiftly as I could.