My Lucky Star (28 page)

Just then the door to my right opened and a young man wearing a turban and white terry robe poked his head out. His face was
concealed beneath a thick mask of beauty goop, its hue a bilious aquamarine.

“Philip! I thought that was you I heard.”

“Gilbert!”

“Hon, you have
got
to get a massage here!” He peered down the hall, making sure we were alone, then turned back to me and whispered in naughty
glee.

“The masseurs put out!”

W
E RETREATED TO THE SAFETY OF
Gilbert’s massage room, a spare, serene chamber with a cool slate floor, dove-gray walls, and cove lighting. I swiftly related
the harrowing events that had transpired since his cowardly flight from the bar, getting as far as Moira’s proud performance
in
Call Me Madam
before pausing to catch my breath. Gilbert was, as usual, slow to grasp the broader implications of the situation.

“Well,” he said after a pensive silence, “she’s nuts if she thinks I’m paying for that blow job.”

“That is not the issue!”

“You think Stephen will cover it, being host and all?”

“Gilbert,” I snapped, “we’re talking about a criminal enterprise here—and we’re practically accomplices! She forced us to
shill for the place, and now you’re a goddamn customer.”

“You’re only a customer if you
pay,
which as I made quite clear —”

“Wake up, you brain-dead slut! What if Moira gets busted? What’s to keep her from dragging us into it?”

I cannot say if he rolled his eyes, as they were under cucumber slices, but he waved a dismissive hand.

“You worry about
everything.
”

“Well, one of us had better ’cause that’s only half of it! Monty’s here!”

Gilbert frowned. “Has he seen you?”

“Yes. He still thinks I’m Glen. But he also thinks this place is the second job I’ve been telling him about. He thinks I’m
one of Moira’s rent boys!”

Gilbert sat up and removed the cukes.

“You
told
him that?”

“I had to!”

“And he
bought
it?” he asked with more astonishment than I felt was warranted.

“He
assumed
it, thank you very much!”

“Well, no offense, hon, but you’ve seen Moira’s boys. We’re talking USDA prime. You’re more like a nice Salisbury steak.”

“I seem to recall being good enough for you for six months!”

“True. But you weren’t
charging
me.”

I replied with some asperity that there were more pressing issues at hand than my credibility as a top-shelf courtesan. For
starters there was Claire, to whom I’d been introduced only moments ago as Glen.

“Ouch! How’d that happen?”

I described the scene in all its horror, ending with my flight to the shelter of the spa.

“Well, guess that cat’s out of the bag,” said Gilbert. “I mean, once you and Monty took off you just know Claire must have
asked Stephen or Diana what the hell was going on.”

I replied that at this point my secret career as a ghostwriter seemed the merest triviality compared to what was going on
in the treatment rooms of Les Étoiles. What would Claire do when she found out about that?

“You’re not thinking of
telling
her?”

“I might as well. You know she’ll find out.”

“How’s she gonna find out?”

“She’ll find out! Claire
always
finds out!”

“Damn right I do!”
snarled Claire from the other side of the door.

Gilbert flinched so violently he fell off the table even as I shrieked like a smoke alarm and lunged for the door, unsure
if we’d locked it. Luckily we had and the knob twisted in impotent fury.

“Open the damn door!” hollered Claire.

“Far whom, please, var you luke-ing?” said Gilbert in a ludicrous attempt to sound Swedish.

“I know it’s you, you nancy jackass! Let me in!”

Gilbert clambered to his feet. “Follow me!” he mouthed and scuttled over to the room’s other door, which I’d taken for a closet
but which apparently wasn’t if he was proposing we escape through it. He tried the knob and found it locked.

“Shit!”

He spun around, stamped a slippered foot in fury, and slumped, thwarted, against the door, which promptly opened into the
room, sending him sprawling once again to the floor. His facialist was not, I presumed, the same staffer who’d been on fellatio
duty earlier. This one was a formidable woman who reminded me of the late Lotte Lenya if Miss Lenya had abandoned the musical
stage to seek fame as a competitive weight lifter.

“Sorry!” she exclaimed, helping Gilbert up. Riveted briefly by this spectacle, I almost failed to notice that the door to
deliverance was even now swinging shut. I saw it in time though and, leaping balletically across the room, grabbed the handle.

“You can’t go out that way!” said Lotte sternly. “That’s for staff only!”

“First day!” I said and zipped through, locking it behind me. She’d have keys I knew, but it would take her a moment to fish
them out and by then I intended to be as far away as possible. I skedaddled down a narrow, dimly lit hall, rounding corners
twice before pausing to take in my surroundings.

I appeared to be in some sort of “backstage” area, a drably utilitarian warren of halls and cupboards. Doors to my left led,
I presumed, to more treatment rooms; doors to my right might have been storage closets or God only knew what. I tried a few
of these and all were locked save one holding towels and sheets.

“Mister!” called the disgruntled facialist, and I resumed my sprint, advancing through the maze till I came to a dead end
at a door marked VIP ROOMS—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. I tried the door, which, not surprisingly, was locked. I doubled back,
hoping to find a treatment room to escape through without bursting in on some poor überagent who wished only to be spanked
in peace. I’d just pressed my ear to a door and was listening for voices when a door on the opposite side of the hall suddenly
banged open.

Turning, I saw a fetching young man with short hair and very important biceps enter the hall carrying a garment bag. Both
literally and figuratively dashing, he hurtled past me like a chorus boy late for a curtain. On reaching the VIP door, he
waved a small card at a wall sensor. There was a click and he hurried through it into another hallway.

“Mister!” called Lotte, angrier now. I sprinted madly toward the VIP door, thrust my arm out to keep it from shutting, and
hurried through it just in time to see Biceps disappear into what looked like a small dressing room. Seconds later the handle
of the VIP door clacked up and down a few times but Lotte, as I’d suspected, lacked clearance for this area and could chivy
me no further.

Glancing about, I found that I liked this hall much better than the last one. Apart from its welcome shortage of marauding
facialists, it was sleeker, more like the spa’s Zen-chic public spaces. Assuming still that the treatment rooms were to my
left, I went to the first door and listened a moment to see if it was occupied. Hearing nothing, I opened the door and immediately
received a valuable reminder that sex is not invariably noisy. I don’t know if you’ve seen that famous statue of Romulus and
Remus, the mythological founders of Rome, suckling a wolf who represents the city. The sight I now beheld resembled a living
sculpture based on it with Rex Bajour as either Remus or Romulus and a nude, broad-shouldered café-au-lait youth in the role
of the wolf.

“Sorry!” I said as politely as one could in such a circumstance. “Carry on!” I closed the door swiftly but not before Rex
had recognized me and shot me an understandably disgruntled look.

I moved on to the next door, listened at it, and again heard nothing. I opened it the merest crack, peered in, and, finding
no tryst in progress, entered.

The room was similar to Gilbert’s but larger and with more amenities. There was a leather sofa against one wall and the opposite
wall had a counter with a sink and a glass shower stall. The wall between them had a large floor-to-ceiling mirror and in
the center of the room stood a sturdy massage table draped in white sheets.

I crossed to the door that led to the public hall and opened it, cocking an ear for predators. I had no plan at this point
but to make it back to my room without meeting anyone intent on either pummeling or purchasing me. I’d then barricade myself
within, granting admittance to no one save Stephen till I’d figured out my next move.

I listened a moment. Hearing nothing, I set foot gingerly into the hall. The minute I did I heard approaching footsteps and
retreated at once, closing the door. I pressed an ear to it and heard the footsteps draw near, then stop directly in front
of it. Fearing it might be Claire, I raced over to the door I’d come in through and found it locked. Grasping at once my striking
paucity of alternatives, I dove under the massage table, praying the long, draped sheets would serve to conceal me.

The door opened and two people entered.

“How are you this evening, sir?” said a low pleasant voice with a hint of an accent. Spanish? Italian?

“Tense, Ricky. Really, really tense!”

Stephen!

“Well,” said Ricky sexily, “we’ll see what we can do about that.”

It dawned on me that there was no further need to conceal myself. Stephen would have nothing but sympathy for my decision
to flee from Claire and would, if anything, be amused by the misadventures that had brought me to my current absurd position.
I shifted my weight, preparing to pop out with an impish “Surprise!” when a second more powerful thought struck me.

Stephen was about to have sex with this man.

Right on this table perhaps.

And I was
leaving?

For leave I certainly would if I revealed myself, the odds of Stephen saying, “Hey, we were just about to fuck—pull up a chair!”
being remote at best. Why choose exile when I could crouch here in thrilling proximity as the monarch of my fantasies surrendered
to carnal bliss? There was, after all, no guarantee I’d ever win him for myself. This could, I reasoned, be as close to actual
sex with him as I’d ever get.

“Crazy fucking day,” sighed Stephen as his exquisite ankles swam into view inches from my face. “We barely get here when who
walks in but my batty old uncle. He’s harmless but my mom hates him. Now she’s all, ‘I thought you said this was a nice place.
They let anyone in!’ ”

Ricky laughed at Stephen’s Diana impression, which was quite good. His ankles suddenly disappeared, obscured behind a heap
of fallen terry cloth. I leaned forward, kneeling now in a cat stretch position, and lowered my face to the floor. I found
that if I carefully adjusted the crumpled robe I created a thin space between it and the dangling sheet through which I could
peer out at the mirrored wall.

There sat Stephen, wearing only a pair of white silk boxers, his godlike physique gloriously backlit by a pin spot over the
table. Behind him, gently massaging his shoulders, stood Ricky, quite an eyeful himself, with auburn hair, sensuous cheekbones,
and lips like two lovely little flotation devices.

“My uncle’s pretty damn nosy,” said Stephen, “so if he should, you know, ask you about me—”

“He won’t hear a thing from me, sir,” vowed Ricky with becoming solemnity.

“Great. Did you remember the, uh—?”

“Right here.”

Stephen swung his legs around and sat facing the other way. I could only see his back now though I had no complaint about
that. I heard the click of a cigarette lighter and soon the pungent aroma of marijuana filled the air. “Stephen smokes weed!”
I thought, delighted to find he indulged in a habit well known to sharpen the libido while hampering judgment.

“Want some?” asked Stephen, holding his breath.

“I’m good.”

Stephen took a few more drags, then lay down on his stomach, his face toward the mirror. He seemed to be watching the scene
as if it were a movie, smiling at the tableau they presented. Ricky, aware of this, peeled off his T-shirt, proudly displaying
what a few thousand hours at a good gym can do for a boy. Stephen’s smile crinkled into a loopy grin that was equal parts
contentment, anticipation, and pot. I was thrilled to be witnessing the scene even as I wished I could do so in a posture
less reminiscent of a Muslim at prayer. I am, alas, tall, and didn’t dare lie flat lest my legs protrude.

Ricky removed his pants, revealing a tight pair of briefs. He straddled Stephen on the table and began massaging his neck
and shoulders. This went on for two minutes, then five, then ten. My right thumb began twitching uncontrollably, a reflex
that puzzled me till I realized that my brain, acting from long force of habit, was instructing the scene to fast-forward.
Ricky finally leaned down and lightly kissed Stephen’s neck.

“You are so hot, sir.”

Stephen grunted in pleasure as Ricky teasingly worked his hands down Stephen’s spine till he reached the top of his boxers.
He gently tugged them down, exposing Stephen’s bum, which was even more magnificent than I remembered it from its brief but
oft-downloaded appearance in the first Caliber movie. Ricky massaged Stephen’s butt, kneading the cheeks in slow circular
moves. After a moment, he gently parted them.

T
HOSE OF YOU READING
this aloud to small children might find this a good time to tell them that the big strong masseur rubbed the handsome actor
till he felt all better and who wants ice cream? Likewise, those of you whose appetite for hot masseur-on-film-star action
is limited or nonexistent may want to start skimming now, as things are about to get pretty racy. I’m aware that certain of
my readers (and you know who you are, Aunt Leslie) feel strongly that gay sexual encounters, when regrettably necessary to
move the story along, should be described with all possible decorum, succinctly outlining the essentials before panning across
to the fluttering curtains. I remind those who take this view that many others among my readership approach such scenes with
positive eagerness, muttering, “Finally!” under their breath and complaining only when they feel the author has stinted on
details. It is for their sake (and that of young Amos, who has to learn somewhere) that I relate what follows.