in those episodes, especially one that was muy, how do I say, vulgar.”
Oh God! Just great! She must have seen my threesome episode, the one with the KY Jelly and the two other guys including José. This is going to torpedo my chances for representing Papito Clothes Inc. Who’d want a guy who got it on with his Puerto Rican boyfriend and a cute Brazilian barback from Club Café. Shit!
She takes off her black-framed glasses, holds them in her wrinkled hands, and says, “I remember it well. It’s something we will all have to consider. This is a new line and we don’t want to send the wrong message to young teen buyers, our targeted demographic. Mr. Andrews, thank jou for coming in and we will be in touch with jour agent shortly, either way.”
She graciously reaches out to shake my hand and the other two silent brooding corporate men do the same but they seem reluctant now to return my handshake since it was part of a former threesome episode. I grin, maintain eye contact with all six eyes, grab my portfolio, and push the chair back under the table.
“Thank you so much for taking the time to review my work. I look forward to hearing from you all very soon and, hopefully, to be working with your client. Adios!” I smile and walk away, showing them my runway walk. I pass by the aisles of male models; most are dabbing their faces with powder from their compacts as they wait for their names to be called. Good luck, suckers!
Once I’m out of the conference room, I take a seat in one of the so-cushy-your-ass-sinks-into-the-seats chairs in the lobby of the hotel, which overlooks the ash gray Charles River. Another soft snowfall sprinkles the water as people walk and cycle on the ribbon of concrete that hugs the river on both sides, Boston and Cambridge. The redbrick and brown Boston University buildings on the Boston side of the river are cloaked in white. It’s a gorgeous scene. This place is a winter wonderland. But I’m not really feeling it the way I want to. It’s just another winter afternoon with my chances of getting this job now falling with each snowflake.
That threesome episode is going to haunt me for the rest of my career, my life. What was I thinking when I brought José and Paulo back to The Real Life house and into the hot tub? We’d just met up at Club Café during Pride Week, and we all had too many Apple Martinis. What can I say? They’re always to blame. On that June night, the guys standing in line on Columbus Avenue wore pride beads (in rainbow colors, of course), tank tops, shorts, and sandals. It was hot! Because of The Real Life cameras, the crowd parted for us like the Red Sea did for Moses as we cut to the front of the line. José and I made a dash to the bar and ordered drinks. I was so in love with José then. We’d been dating for two months, and things were going well, but sometimes, we got a bit wasted at the bar and created a bit of drama, on and off camera. This night was no exception.
Alcohol brought out the weird aspects of our personalities. Sober José was a shy, mellow, easygoing guy who produced a nightly radio program for the nationwide public radio station. He was a perfectionist and proud of his Puerto Rican roots. He organizes the float for the annual Puerto Rican parade and he speaks English and Spanish fluently. I picked up some español from my Puerto Rican lover. Ay, Papi!
Everywhere we went, from the grocery store, to the mall and the movies, we held hands and kissed openly. We wanted people to see that it’s okay for a gay couple to be out and open. And with the cameras around, no one would dare pull a stunt or strike a punch because it would be recorded and possibly used in a court of law. The cameras were like our guardian angels, watching us.
After a few drinks, though, José transformed into a frisky, aggressive guy who was always looking to push his sexual boundaries. By this I mean the guy wanted to have acrobatic sex, hanging upside down while I stood upright or using objects like coat hangers and lots and lots of feathers. I’m all for experimenting. It’s hot, but even I thought his ideas were, how shall we say, out there like Anne Heche.
For a few weeks, he had mentioned how great it would be to have a threesome. He thought it would bring us closer. Hmmm. I didn’t see how bringing a stranger into our bed would bring us closer, but José and I tended to see things differently sometimes.
I can be a bit loud and melodramatic and somewhat obnoxious but, hey, that’s me sober. When I drink, it’s Kyle squared, me to the second power. Don’t hold it against me. I’ve been known to flirt with other guys’ boyfriends, in front of them, just to cause trouble because I know I can. No one wants the most popular gay guy at the moment to be talking to his boyfriend. You know what they say, meet them in a bar, lose them in a bar, which I learned the hard way with José after the show ended.
So that Thursday, José and I were at Club Café, guzzling down the liquor as cameras surrounded us in this chaotic carnival of men celebrating our right to be gay and free. Around midnight, by the front bar, José noticed a young stud, a Brazilian guy (They’re everywhere in Boston. Who would have thunk it?) with his toned copper arms, black wavy hair, and eyes so dark that they reach deep. You couldn’t tell where the circles of his pupil began or ended. José in his drunken stupor grabbed the guy on the ass and pulled him over to us. He then whispered to Paulo if he wanted to go back to The Real Life house with us on Beacon Hill and hop in the hot tub. The guy, apparently intrigued by the cameras and the powers of my model looks, said he was about to get off work in a half hour and would meet us outside.
Jealousy consumed me as fast as I had consumed those three Apple Martinis. I told José, “Why? Am I not enough for you? Why have another guy with us? You always want more and more, sugarplum!”
José grabbed my face, caressed my cheeks with his olive-hued hands, and said in his slurred tropical voice, “Honey, I love you. This has nothing to do with me liking that guy. It’s about us, enjoying another man together, to make our union more alive. This does not change how I feel about you. Please, let me do this for us. You will love it, I promise, papito!”
I was just drunk enough to buy it. So stupid of me—and I totally forgot the cameras were taping all of it. Geez! Just my luck.
As soon as we stumbled into The Real Life house, the three of us stripped down to our birthday suits, tossing our clothes and jackets all over the wood floors. We then jumped into the steaming hot tub on the second floor. No one else seemed to be home; the other roommates were out. We had the house to ourselves: José, Mr. Brazil sex toy, and me. The camera crew, aka Big Brother, was watching us doing the dirty deed.
We wrestled in the hot tub, splashed water all around, and then out of nowhere, José pulled out a big jar of KY Jelly from a bag. He smeared it all over his ass as well as Paulo’s as if he were about to wax a car.
“José, what are you doing with that?” I asked, paranoid about what was to come.
“Watch, you’ll see, baby. You are going to looove this, papito! We will remember this for a long time,” he told me, with his intense smoldering stare. José could turn me on with just one look from his beautiful Caribbean-sun-kissed face that resembled a butcher Ricky Martin. But like Ricky Martin, we were about to live la vida loca. (That’s another new Spanish phrase I learned.)
Next thing I know, José, who is standing up like a sentinel, positions himself behind me and places Paulo in front of me. We’re like a manwich and I’m the meat. They both start grinding me from both ends, up and down. It was really hot. I was so turned on. I was slipping and sliding between both of them like a well-oiled car piston.
It was getting hot and heavy, with lots of heaving, breathing, and moaning, our bodies in sync, kind of like Madonna’s threesome photos from her Erotica video with Naomi Campbell. Lost in the ecstasy of it all, the rhythm of the body grinds, we completely forgot about the cameras mounted in the corner of the wall amid our drunken haze.
And then a voice interrupted.
“You disgusting faggot! GROSS! Que sucios!”
It was Giselle, my conservative, bitchy, hot-tempered Latina roommate from Los Angeles who aspires to be a politician. “What the hell are you guys doing in the hot tub? We all have to use this. Disgusting!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
I was so embarrassed and shocked, I froze, unable to utter a word for the first time in my life. José managed to dash