Author: Damon Suede
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/damon-suede/page,5,510994-bad_idea.html
Starting tomorrow, the cast was gonna shoot the insane bomb scene that had gotten Silas the job in the first place. He’d sculpted for a month, and he had over seventy-five latex and silicone appliances prepped: burns, lacerations, even some grisly bits and blobs for the scenic artists. Friday to Monday he’d be in his glory: collecting overtime for night shoots, showing off for the Showtime brass with his own FX designs.
A week after the zombie run, he hadn’t exactly forgotten about Trip, but he’d shelved the possibility. Since he had no way of contacting him beyond posting a blind item in the personals, Silas gave up. And then… when he was covered wrist to elbow in alginate, his taped-together phone rang on the workroom table. He wiped his hands and picked it up. The screen read BIG DOG COM.
The “Dog” should’ve reminded him, but it didn’t. He knew comics, so he assumed they wanted him for a fabrication gig for a comic convention. “Yello?” He held the phone with his cheek and scrubbed his forearms with a grubby towel.
“Kimmie calling from Big Dog Comics; your production office gave me this number.” A lady’s voice, crisp as pine shavings. “I’m trying to reach a Silas Goolsby.”
“You found’m. I am a Goolsby named Silas.” He could sure use the money from a con, and some publishers paid—
“For Trip Spector. Trip—”
Plonk. Silas sat down on his work stool. In truth, his ass sat down for him and air whooshed out of his lungs like someone had socked him in the gut.
“—asked that I call and leave his contact info.”
Laughter churned out of him for a few seconds before he got hold of it. “You gotta be shitting me.”
“Uh. No. He just asked that I call and leave you his number and e-mail and all. He said you—”
“That’s perfect, darlin’. Let me grab a pen.” No pen in sight, he grabbed a fabric marker and wrote the details right on his forearm. “You said Spector? Trip Spector.”
Ten minutes later, he and Trip had a date. And now, two hours later, Silas stood on East Twelfth Street in his peacoat hoping this guy could live up to the anticipation.
Silas loved the East Village. The brownstoned streets and scraggly trees felt homier; the bars and bistros never really stopped bubbling. Right now, when the NYU students had come back after Christmas, the streets bustled with funky youngsters.
S’MAC looked jammed with mac-n-cheese addicts eager to escape January. Its yellow and orange plastic furniture hollered cheery and nonthreatening. As he crossed Twelfth, the line for a table spilled out into the bitter cold. Inside, the air shimmered with butterfat.
He’d wanted to make a reservation, but in this place you turned up early and waited. As soon as a two-top opened, he swung into action so they’d have a little spot to themselves: a high table with swiveling barstools. He draped his coat over one and sat in the other. Come into my parlor….
“Silas?”
He spun, and Trip stood there, nervous and gorgeous as before. “Perfect timing.”
Trip stared for a few seconds, his pale arms held out as if he was trying to balance in the doorway. Taller than Silas remembered, maybe six feet or six one and that long neck like a ballet prince.
“Oh….” Trip still hadn’t come closer. The glass door swung shut behind him with a January gust that blew him forward.
Silas held out a hand to shake. “Everything okay?”
“Nothing. I mean, yeah.” Methodically, Trip scrutinized his hair, mouth, eyes, ears, nose, torso. “Wow.” He gulped. “You’re really handsome.” The line between his eyebrows vanished. “Is that okay to say?”
“Buddy, you will hear no complaints from me.”
“You don’t look as dead. As you did.”
“Right. Of course. You never seen the real me, have you?” Silas shifted nervously and spread his arms for inspection. “Still interested?”
Trip nodded and examined the floor with a stricken expression. His hands shook.
Silas stepped closer. “Hey… hey.”
“I got some rotten news today.” Trip closed his eyes and rubbed them. “Horrible. Sorry. My editor.”
“You shoulda said something.” Silas wished he’d chosen someplace less public. Stupid move. After all, what did they know about each other?
“I wasn’t sure you’d show.” Trip checked his titanium watch, showing fragile wrists and elegant fingers that talked for him.
“Uhh. I called you, goofball.” Silas gave him the full grin-wattage and tamped down his confusion.
“Right.” Trip responded with a tentative smile. “Yeah. I know. But people forget things sometimes.”
“No chance.” Silas bumped against him. “Tiffany lost the card. I ’bout died when she told me. So I can’t believe you tracked me down. I been trying to find you since the park.”
“Me too.” Trip grimaced and his wet glance veered off Silas like a slap. “That sounds retarded. Obviously, because I called you, so you know that. I mean, I had someone call you. I mean….” He shut his mouth and gave a little strained exhale. “Agh.”
“Take a breath. I ain’t gonna bite.” Silas took a step closer and steered Trip unsubtly toward the table he’d claimed, pulling a tall stool out for him to sit. That felt better. What the hell had happened to the geeky charmer he’d met in the park?
Trip looked around at the emphatic orange and yellow interior, the plastic chairs, and the exposed kitchen. “What is this place?”
“S’MAC. All they do is macaroni and cheese… but imagine a Baskin-Robbins of mac and cheese: prosciutto and curry and figs and pretty much anything you would ever want. I’m a Southern boy… religious about this place. Can I get you a drink? Beer, juice, soda?”
“Water is fine.”
Silas walked to the counter to ask for a bottled water and a Heineken. He couldn’t find his footing at all. Take your time. He returned with the bottles.
“I needed something to look forward to, after this morning.” Trip opened his water. “I mean, he has no fucking shame.”
With a tickle of alarm, Silas held up his hands. “You lost me again.”
“Going to the office, I mean. Big Dog. I’ve kinda been wandering around trying to get my head on straight.” Trip opened his mouth wide, and a laughing sound stalled there. “I’m a mess.”
Understatement. Trip looked like he was fixing to rattle apart like an old tractor.
“I’m not really this crazy most of the time.”
“Don’t sweat it.” Silas put his hand on the table between them, as if to steady the entire room around them. “Wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again. I went to the after-party on New Year’s. Hunting you down.”
“Yeah?”
“To find you at Gotham Hall. Seemed important somehow.”
“I flaked out at the last second.” Trip shrugged. “I’m not big on crowds.”
Silas crossed his arms to make his pecs bulge. “I felt like there was a conversation we hadn’t had. Y’know?”
“That was my New Year’s resolution. Risks.”
Silas sat and offered him a napkin from the basket. “I’m big on ’em.”
Trip relaxed a little. “At first I felt like a stalker. This is okay?”
“And how.” Silas relaxed a bit too. Better. For the first time tonight, he felt some of the strange chemistry that flowed between them a couple of weeks ago. “I’m so hungry I could eat the asshole out of a bobcat.”
Trip acted shocked and then burst out laughing. “You what?”
“Sorry.” He flushed. “Figure of speech.”
“Some figure.” Trip grinned and his shoulders settled.
Silas knocked their bottles together. “Our first real date.”
Trip set his hands on the table. “So this is a date?”
“Well, I’m not interviewing for a job.” Silas winked and prayed he wasn’t coming on too hard. He raked a hand through his mussed hair and tried to imagine what he looked like to Trip, with his scarred fingers and his burly thighs under the
corduroy.
Trip took a shallow breath before speaking. “I have a confession: I have a couple allergies. Nothing crazy, but I gotta be careful.”
“I ordered the sampler: eight flavors. You can sample a bunch, and then you’ll know what to order when we come back.” Silas winced at his own presumption.
Neither of them acknowledged that little faux pas… so they both must have noticed it.
“Pretty crowded. That’s a good sign.” Trip blinked. “I smell butter.”
“This is the temple of butter.” Silas tipped his pelvis forward. “Bless me, butter, for I have sinned.”
Trip pinked and laughed. “I kinda live on junk food.”
“And I bet you don’t even work out. No justice!” Silas groaned and slid a fork his way. “Confession: I googled you. You’re a pretty big deal.”
“Nah.” A grateful smile slipped across Trip’s face. “I just draw and script. Total crap but Big Dog pays out the wazoo.”
Silas covered a twinge of envy. “I bet you deserve it.”
Trip shrugged. “Most of my friends don’t get it. The art thing.”
“Likewise. Everybody I ever dated thinks I just sit around playing Xbox and blowing Viggo Mortensen while they sit in a cubicle.” Silas let the full force of his smile slam into Trip, wielding it like a big, happy club.
Trip snorted and covered his mouth. “Don’t you?”
Smile for smile, they gazed at each other. Nothing was going according to plan, but maybe that was okay.
A paunchy man set a skillet between them, divided into eight pie slices of mac and cheese, sizzling ivory and orange. “Hot.” He slapped a little flavor map down.
“Thanks.”
Trip eyed it dubiously. “Only thing I can’t eat on this is figs. Which is…?”
“That one. Fig and Gruyere.” Silas tapped the wedge in question with his fork. “Twist my arm.” He scooped a big mouthful to give Trip permission to do the same.
“I’ve got all kinds of stupid allergies: cats, pollen, mold, feathers, berries, grass.” Trip pulled an inhaler out of his pocket. “Pretty much anything alive.”
“Not everything, though.” Silas waved a fork at him.
“It just seems so junior high. And asthma? All I need is headgear and acne for the trifecta.”
“Hey. Hey. It’s okay.” A sleepy tenderness softened the words.
Trip’s cheeks pinked, and he devoured the mac and cheese like a starved greyhound. “I needed to eat, I think.” He flushed a deeper rose. “I’m being a pig.”
At least that spark still sizzled between them. “Not at all. I love that you have an appetite. You’re so lean.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“I forget to eat.”
“I wish!” Silas coughed. “I was huge growing up.” He patted his belly.
“You’re big now. In a good way! I’ve always been a stick insect.”
“No.” Silas tried to keep the frown down. “I mean, I was porky. Like fat-camp fat. Didn’t get into shape till I was in college.”
“Bullshit.”
“My dad was the same before he died. Heart attack. Butter and beer.” Why had he shared that?
“Sorry.” Trip dropped his soft gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“Naw. He died right.”
Trip’s wary brown eyes melted a little.
Silas rubbed his stomach self-consciously. “But I gotta work to keep it off. Even now I couldn’t have a six pack if I drew it with a sharpie. And I say that as someone who has drawn abs on people. Mainly I got a rep for really good wounds.”
Trip snorted. “Nice.”
“That sounded creepy. I was a sculptor. Or I thought I was gonna be. Anatomy came easy, I guess. Comes easy to me.” He flexed his hands and spread his fingers. “That sounded even creepier.”
Trip’s gaze drifted over them, as if the hands were Silas’s portfolio and four years of FX were visible in the lines and calluses. “Right. Zombies. I knew that.” Trip scowled at his lap. “Sorry. I bet you’ve had some crazy adventures.”
A flurry of movement outside caught Trip’s attention. For a moment, Silas saw nothing but a freckled hand waving.
“Silas?” The plaintive word came from outside, hushed by the sheet glass between.
Oh please no.
Silas swiveled toward the frosty street and discovered one of his exes: a freckled face, auburn hair—Jesus Christ—Paddy Wilton stood outside on the sidewalk waving at him through the front window and shouting. A lanky Tom Sawyer with pierced ears and a tattooed collar. Not now. A couple of other patrons turned to ogle the boyish face.
Trip twisted. “A friend?”
“A loony-toon model with a pill problem.” Aka five ridiculous weeks of sex and overdoses. Walk away. Walk away! Silas kept the bland smile nailed over his nerves and waved back with warning in his eyes.
Crestfallen in his puffy jacket, Paddy looked between them and offered something between a smile and a prayer.
Trip turned back with a strange expression. “Should you say hi?”
“This is plenty.” With a frown, Silas waved and tilted his head toward Trip, his eyes wide. Date.
Paddy moved to open the door, and Silas pinned him with a cold glower. Don’t you fucking dare. Paddy shook his head and gave a gloved salute before he left.
Awkward silence.
Silas broke it. “Long story. We went out for about ten seconds.”
Trip scraped stubbornly at the iron skillet with his fork. “I shoulda figured you did movies, looking like you do. You ever act?”
“Nope. Cosmetics and prosthetics.” Silas glanced at the sidewalk. No Paddy. He sat back and licked his teeth. “Bad guys are what I’m best at, by far. I mean, that’s what I love: creature modeling. Hitchcock said, ‘The greater the evil, the greater the film.’”
“What?” Trip glanced up with a sudden, dazzling smile. His dark eyes flashed like a nocturnal animal’s. “That’s— Wow.”
“I didn’t say it. Hitchcock did. I wish I had.” Silas demurred with his hands. “But the darkness in a story. The pain. That’s where you squeeze for the juice. ’S’my favorite thing. Magneto. Lex Luthor. Green Goblin. Villains.”
“Wait a sec….” Trip leaned forward as if a lamp had flicked on inside him. “You read comics?”
“Hell, yeah.” Silas rubbed his hard tummy in mock satisfaction. “Talk nerdy to me.”
Trip gaped. “Bull. Shit.”
“Yeah, buddy. I’m a comic dork from way back.” Silas rocked in his chair a little.
“What d’ya collect?”
“Mostly vintage these days. Silver Age are my favorite: goofy bad guys. Dumb puns. Antiauthority and snarky as hell.”
“Marvel or DC?” Trip seemed to be testing him.
Silas sucked a buttery fingertip, getting into the geek groove. “Marvel mostly. Spider-Man. X-Men. Well, Nightcrawler really. The first time I jerked off, it was to a Nightcrawler poster.”
Trip did laugh then, right out loud. The soft sound bounced off the brick wall and made Silas laugh too. “He’s so creepy.” Trip’s eyes traced Silas and his edges.
Silas grinned back. “When I was thirteen, my dick didn’t think so. Sexy devil.”
They cracked up as if sharing a private joke.
Silas leaned over the table. “I like ’em long and lean.” Wink. “Dark prince.” Silas’s gaze roamed over Trip’s trim body. “Sarcastic and acrobatic.”
Trip blushed—the pink started at his collarbone and swept up the pale column of his throat and over his cheekbones.
A-dork-able.
“Make me do bad things. Wake me in the middle of the night.” Silas didn’t quite touch Trip’s hand. How much is too much?
“Oh.”
“Sorry. That sounded cheeseball.”
“It didn’t.” Trip shredded a matchbook with those long fingers. “Nobody says things like that.”
Silas tried to see past the glitter at the shyness swimming there. Maybe Trip imagined he�
��d had some kind of Norman Rockwell boyhood climbing trees and scaring cats in Alabama. Fuckleberry Finn, his daddy called that crap. Yankees always expected rednecks to be a little simple.
“You?” Silas brushed Trip’s forearm a moment before he pulled his hand back into his lap. “What were your favorites?”
Trip quirked his mouth. “The first comic I ever read was Vampirella. Then Hellblazer. Dr. Strange, if I got desperate. I loved Promethea.”
Silas rested his gaze on Trip. “Sexy comics, then.”
“Not—no! Hardly.” Trip creased his forehead, his mouth a rosy O till he closed it. He stared through the walls at something. “More the gothic adventure stuff. Totally passé now. Just my luck I ended up at Big Dog drawing tweens in spandex for too much money. Bills to pay.”
“Same. Not a lot of money in makeup, but compromise. Totally.” Silas dug a forkful out of the skillet and promised himself an extra half hour on the elliptical to make up for indulging his worst impulses.
“My friends think I’m a hermit.”
“So how the hell did you wind up in scrubs for the zombie run?”
Trip bounced in his seat. “Drafted. Rina shot this whole crazy video at OutRun and then edited it together to recreate a whacko wedding from one of her novels. With a veil and a big dress. The link’s posted.”
Silas snorted and barked with laughter. “C’mon….”
“For real. She writes romance. Erotic fantasy stuff.” He flapped a hand like a big moth and dropped it. “Boys and ghouls. She had this idea that the zombie run would be a great promo spot for her new series.”
“Wait a minute! I saw her. Big foofy dress and updo. The photogs went batshit. Smart lady.” He tried to sculpt her outfit and coif in the air. “Puerto Rican?”
“Brazilian and Dutch.” Trip’s shoulders relaxed a little as he talked about her. “She has a series about a vampire archaeologist. Another with gargoyles. Pretty awesome, actually, and I can’t stand romance.”
“Well, that’s a shame.” Silas let a little Alabama leak out and lowered his voice to a wet rumble. “I love romance.” He let the word come out of his mouth like rohh-manse. Up north, a Southern accent could be a powerful weapon. Yankees assumed you were dumber, but at the right moments, it sounded nostalgic and seductive.