There’s a sketch of my body by an artist from Provincetown who asked me to pose for him two summers ago. He paid me $50 and then sent me a copy of the drawing. There are photos of me pulverizing a boxing bag at a gym in high school, when I had a better body and looked younger. And then there’s a photo of me during Halloween 2001, dressed as a shirtless GI Joe (I called myself GI Ho) with my camouflage pants. My abs were really tight in that photo, and my biceps were like two cantaloupes. I looked perfect, hot! I wish I looked like that again, so youthful, so beautiful. My hair has receded a bit. I have two runways opening my hairline by the sides of my forehead. So I cut my hair shorter on the sides and longer on the top. I wear a baseball cap sometimes to hide the obvious gaps.
The loss of hair makes me look older than twenty-seven. Shit. I’m getting old. I hate this crap. I started taking Rogaine here and there to get some growth back. I can’t tell if it’s working. But right now, I am feeling good.
“Oh, oh, OH GOD, yeeaaaaaaaaaah. Molto bene,” I shout out in Italian, releasing my load on this kid’s face, making it look like a Krispy Kreme doughnut. I push my head back in my pillow and just take a few long deep breaths and savor the moment. That was hot. Nothing like a good blowjob after a night out and a week of brainless stock pricing. Any monkey can do that job.
The kid looks at me and grins. He crawls along my side and cushions his head into my bulging left bicep, as if to cuddle. No way! Once I get off, I want the guy to get out but I don’t want to offend or hurt this guy. He seems like a nice kid but just not for me. I’m not looking for much more than a quickie these days.
I clean the white liquidity spill flowing on my abs, chest, and on my tattoo of the Italian flag with some Bounty paper towels. All cleaned up, I toss them into the trash near my computer’s desk. I pop my back.
I’m shirtless with my boxers on, lying on the bed with this kid tracing invisible circles on my slightly hairy chest and all around my nipples with his index finger. I wish I could remember this kid’s name. He seems like he wants to stay over or something.
He looks up at me. “Can I sleep over?”
I glance at my alarm clock and it reads 3:35 A.M. in large glowing red digital letters. And then I look at him again. “If it was a weekend night, that would be cool. But I work tomorrow. Gotta get up at 8 A.M. Sorry, man.”
The kid hears me loud and clear, even though he seems a bit down now, like a puppy that has lost his way. In fact, his fuzzy crew-cut hair feels like the back of a puppy’s head. He is such a cute guy, but not for me.
“Well, Rico, nice hanging out with you,” he tells me as he puts his Abercrombie green T-shirt back on and starts to collect his clothes and J. Crew shoes from the floor.
“Want my number?” he asks.
“Yeah, um, sure,” I say to be polite.
He walks on my wooden floors, loops around the bed, which takes up 90 percent of the room, and he writes his number down on a yellow Post-it. As I walk him out of my bedroom, I give him a kiss and a hug good-bye and wish him a safe drive. I escort him through the narrow hallway by the living room and out the front door. A quick arctic breeze sweeps inside the house before I close the door. My nipples harden from the chill. I hear the guy’s footsteps crunching into the snow as he goes down the front steps of the porch and into his Honda Civic hatchback.
Walking back to my bedroom, I look at the Post-it with the number on it and I laugh. “Call me! Topher,” the note reads.
So that’s what his name was.
Chapter 3
KYLE
“I was represented by Model Citizens Inc. in New York last year and I’ve been featured in editorials for Details and GQ as well as print ads in Paris. See, right there in my portfolio. Those are the ads and catalogs,” I explain to a trio of casting agents for a modeling job that could bolster my notoriety. There’s a buzz about this hot, up-and-coming eighteen-year-old designer from Miami, and he’s been getting good press all over the trade and entertainment magazines. If I score this modeling gig, I will be the face of his line of Spanish couture called Papito Clothes Inc. It could be huge! Stores are being planned in all the major metropolises: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., and even Boston. Billboards and a national television ad campaign are part of the deal. I deserve this job. It’s what I’ve been dreaming of forever!
Thing is, I’m as Latino as Nicole Kidman. Truth be told, I’m as Anglo as the lineup in a typical Friends rerun. I don’t even speak the español. But I have to try. The potential payoff is too great. Exposure. Acting jobs. More fame. Stardom. You know it!
I have to work it, flip it, and reverse it. Get myself out there. The Battle of the Genders has been airing new episodes featuring moi. Perfect timing for maximum exposure. That’s why I keep bugging Tommy to write a story about me in The Boston Daily. That article would run all over New England and get picked up on the news wires and probably get published around the country. I could even include that in my portfolio, if they send their own photographer to shoot me. I really need to get Tommy to write that story. This ad campaign would be a perfect timely peg for an article. Just perfect.
“Mr. Kyle Andrews, your photographs are quite striking,” the stern, gray-haired woman tells me from the middle seat of this long white-clothed table. “The camera just loves you. You have a classic look. You photograph differently in every shot.” Two other men are perusing my modeling portfolio inside the lobby of the Hilton in Cambridge. It’s quite warm in here, so warm that it’s easy to forget that just outside is Memorial Drive and the icy Charles River.
The woman looks like a former ballerina with her slender build. She speaks with a slight Spanish accent. I’m guessing she’s probably Puerto Rican, like many Hispanic women in Beantown. The two other men seem like corporate types, with their dress shirts, ties and reading glasses, and their curly dark hair slicked back with lots of gel. They are obviously representing some of the investors as they assist in the search for the new face of this clothing line. But no worries. I can hold my own with anyone. This trio does not scare Kyle!
“Gracias,” I tell the woman, trying to win her over with some basic español I learned from my ex-boyfriend, José.
I right my posture, arching my back as I patiently watch them marvel at my pictures. I’m not the only one here, of course. There are rows of guys, also models, sitting behind me in fold-up chairs, waiting for their chance to show off their portfolios as well. They’re all coiffed, clean-shaven, with dabs of makeup to cover up their unexpected blemishes. They share similar jutting mandibles and too-good-looking faces to be part of this planet. They could easily star in a Benetton ad. Like me, they are all sitting upright, perfect posture, and with elegant statuesque demeanors that silently scream, “I’m beautiful. Watch out. I’m getting this job. Booh-ya.”
I’m relieved as I scan the rows of heads behind me. I’m not the only white boy in the room. There are some red-haired guys, brunettes with dark tans, black sculpted models (They always have the best bodies, right?), and hunky Asian guys with their spiked-up black hair. So I’m not the only one trying to push the envelope to be the face of a Latino ad.
As the woman and the two men “Hmm” and “Ahhh” their way through my portfolio, they close my book of pictures, hand it back to me, and smile. Then the woman, whose thin, penciled eyebrows furrow a little, shoots me a quizzical squint, asks, “Mr. Andrews, um, were you on that show The Real Life? Jou look bery familiar.”
Yay! She recognizes me. I’m more famous that any super male model around these days. Not many people can name one right off the top of their heads, besides moi.
“Why yes!” I answer proudly, as my right eyebrow lifts a little. That’s my trademark “interested” look. “That’s how I was discovered as a model. It happened totally by accident. Destiny, you know.” I flash her a smile. This is so easy!
She glances down, nods, and shoots me another curious look like she just found the missing word to complete a crossword puzzle. “Sí, I know