Gulliver Takes Five (14 page)

“Well, your crazy ex Brayden seems to have gone viral. Are you still friends with him?”

Yes, I am still friends with Brayden. Why? Because he never bothered to remove me, and because it’s good to stop by his wall every now and again to remind myself of how lucky I am to have gotten away from him.

“Maybe...what is it?”

“I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Let’s just say he’s turned a corner. He’s a bit of a Facebook celebrity right now. Most popular post and everything. I recommend you check out his viral video before Mark Zuckerberg pulls it down himself.”

Wait. What? I fire up Facebook. The post isn’t hard to find. It’s the most popular post on my newsfeed too. It has over 500 comments, 28 shares, and 1,700 likes. And it was only posted two hours ago. Some of the comments that I can see include:

“HOLY SHIT BRAY! WHO IS THAT?”

“OMG! You trying to get BANNED gurl!?”

“Dude! Give me his number!”

“GROSS! Why hasn’t FB removed this?!”

I don’t feel like clicking. I don’t need to see. Of course, I do anyway. Let’s say because it’s a great excuse to stay away from the smug smile of Grant Majors and the pity glances of everyone else at the table.

The video is called “Good Morning Starshine.” The
Hair
reference is strange—Brayden’s not much of a theater person. Far lower quality than the first porn I saw today, this vid looks like it was shot on a single camera—one that wasn’t even set up properly. Brayden is now sporting blazing-white hair, which looks worse on him than his usual color selections. (And what’s with my exes dying their hair so damn dramatically, anyway?)

Even stranger? Brayden’s actions. He’s a hell of a lot rougher than I’ve ever seen him. To his credit, the bottom is a gorgeous blond with muscles everywhere. Strong cheekbones. Perfect thighs.

No. No way.

This cannot be who I think it is. My brain is just manufacturing more weird coincidences. The video is so blurry and choppy no way I could make a definitive identification. But it does look like...

Impossible. He’s a total top! Or so the gay theater rumor mill churns. And regardless of what sexual role he’s playing, there’s not a chance Grant would ever consent to making a sex tape.

Would he?

I turn up the volume on my phone.

“I’m not done ’til you get off, sir!” the bottom howls, grabbing a tight hold of my ex-boyfriend’s waist.

Certainly sounds like him.

My ex barks, “Just do what I tell you. Ride my dick, and if you’re lucky, I won’t tell everyone on the Great White Way how big of a bottom you are. What would they think of that?”

There are more actors in this city than pigeons and rats combined. It could be anyone. Right?

No. This is all wrong. Around now is when I’ll wake up in my bed and ask my temp-worker friends to brunch so I can ramble incoherently about the ridiculous dream I had. “And YOU were there! And YOU were there!”

And so was Boq. Or Bottom Boq, as Brayden has just named him.

It only takes a few more thunderous thrusts before the bottom explodes all over, grabbing ahold of a chair next to the bed to brace himself and keep from falling to the floor.

The very same outfit that Grant Majors is wearing tonight rests on the chair, folded perfectly to prevent wrinkling.

I turn around and peer into the restaurant. Grant is there, arm around Leon. He looks like he’s singing. Does he know about this? It must have been filmed earlier tonight!

My eyes return to the screen, but the clip has ended.

I text my friend back:
“Oh. Wow. Thank you for sharing this.”

“How could I not? Have a good night babe. Let’s grab drinks soon. I have an idea for a web video series we can start if you’ve got the time!”

“Sounds good!”
I say. My mind is so frantic right now that it takes me a minute to properly type those two words.

I take a deep breath and try to make sense of what I’ve just seen. Grant isn’t dating Brayden, that much I know. Last I heard, my ex was with some DJ. (When did that end?) I consider reporting the video on Brayden’s wall, get his profile removed from the site. Except my brain is also firing in four thousand other directions. Playing out the next scene of my life in every possible way.

Gulliver is in porn. Chase guest-starred in a porn with Gulliver. Brayden’s now in amateur porn. Even gay everyman hero Grant Majors is an unwitting porn star now. If this got out, it could ruin him.

If?

No. It’s already out. It WILL ruin him. Assuming it hasn’t already.

I return to my newsfeed. My theater-obsessed actor friends haven’t mentioned the video. I click to the
Broadway World
message boards. No new threads about this. The video viewers, so far,
don’t seem to have connected the dots. Despite all the views and shares, this is far from the viral sensation it will become if a single show queen is tipped off as to who this blond bottom is.

So nobody knows. Nobody besides Brayden. And me.

And most likely, nobody ever WILL know. This can still disappear. When Grant finds out, the video will be taken down. Details will go fuzzy in everybody’s minds. There will be no way to prove it was him once this gets deleted. And it’s unlikely anyone has all the pieces to puzzle it together like I did.

Yet.

Chalk it up to the fact that one too many people who’ve pissed me off turned up in a porn today. As angry as I am at Brayden, and Chase, and Gulliver, none of them have earned my wrath in quite the way Grant Majors has tonight.

He thought he was so much better than me. So powerful. So invulnerable. It seems that he is actually none of these things.

I click away from the incriminating video to make a call. Inside, Stanford looks down at his phone, excuses himself. He ducks into a corner by the
Naked Boys
table where the Internet’s newest amateur porn star was supposed to be seated.

“Goose? You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Can you come outside for a second?”

Stanford’s straining to be heard above the din. “Sure...Should I be worried?”

“Just get out here, okay?”

Stanford is outside and standing next to me within a minute. From there, he only needs to watch the first thirty seconds of the video before he pushes the phone away. “Why are you showing me that?”

“Does the bottom look familiar to you?”

Stanford shakes his head. “I didn’t invite you to this event so you could go outside and watch porn, Marty.”

“That’s Grant in the video!” I shout way louder than I wanted to.

“What are you talking about?”

I press
Play
on the video again and hold it up. “Just look.”

Stanford watches for a while longer, steps away to light a cigarette, giving himself seven seconds to mull over what he’s just seen. “It just looks like him.”

“Look at the clothes on the chair. Listen to his voice! You can’t deny it. Boq’s getting bonked!”

“No. Listen, I understand you’re upset about not getting the part, but you’ll land one soon! Second place is pretty fantastic for a show like this.”

“Right. I was so upset I spent the past fifteen minutes searching XTube for a video of someone who looks like the guy who beat me out for a role. His headshots are lining the walls of his apartment, Stanford!”

Stanford takes my phone and holds it right up to his eyes, wiping moisture off the screen. The tinny sounds of Grant screeching get louder.

“Oh my,” he says, handing me back my phone. He takes two more deep drags. “How did you get this?”

“How? It’s spreading around Facebook like crazy!”

“Really?”

“Yes! What should we do?”

Stanford takes another long moment, sucking deep on his cigarette and blowing it out toward the street. He looks at my phone, on which Grant is still howling and bouncing. My agent’s eyes meet mine. We don’t say a word, but his gaze asks if we’re about to do what we’re about to do. If we’re bad people IF we do. I raise my eyebrows, looking back to the video.

“If this is about to go viral,” he says, “there’s only one thing we can do. We need to warn Leon before he announces the casting. Or this will get him all sorts of negative press he doesn’t need.”

“Okay. How?”

“I’ll handle it. E-mail me that link. You just go to the buffet and look busy. Head over there now. I’ll finish my smoke and then take care of it.”

I follow my agent’s instructions. Returning to the restaurant, I am welcomed by the wafting odors of the buffet. I walk nonchalantly to the table and begin scooping baked ziti and eggplant parmesan. It’s my second dinner of the night and I’m far from hungry, but I pile my plate high, then position myself at the edge of the buffet so I can watch.

Stanford returns to the table and puts his hand on Leon’s shoulder. Leon looks up mid-laugh, meets Stanford’s eyes, and follows him outside. Stanford’s phone is already out before they make it to the street.

“Enough food there, Marty?”

It’s Grant, grinning from ear to ear. His lips and tongue are a toxic green from however many
Wicked
-flavored drinks he has downed already.

“I’m a growing boy,” I toss back coldly. “We can’t all eat young talent for breakfast.”

“Whoa, watch the attitude there, scout. Don’t want to come off like a diva who can’t handle losing out on a part. You’ll land something soon, I’m sure!”

“Yes. I will,” I say, watching the entrance to the restaurant. Through the glass, I see Leon looking at Stanford’s phone. He recoils, head
shooting back toward the doors like Stanford just revealed a rotting corpse under a blanket. Then he leans in, probably confirming that the clothing on the chair matches what’s on his beloved Boq.

Confirmed, Leon pulls out his phone and storms to the other side of the sidewalk, his free hand waving in the air.

“Anyway,” Grant prattles on, “I’m still trying to decide what to sing tonight. I was feeling ‘Lost in the Wilderness,’ but even Hunter Foster and Stephen Schwartz know that one is played out by now.”

I reply with a blink and a smile.

There’s a special place in hell for dickheads like Grant Majors, a place where they perform nothing but
Hot Feet, Ring of Fire
, and
Carrie: The Musical
.

I laugh at Grant’s bad joke, put my lips close to his ear. “Have you ever tried out for
Hair
?”

Grant’s laughter stops. “No. Why?”

I set my mountain of food on the table and wrap my arms around him, pulling his head close to mine so I can whisper-sing in his ear: “
Good morning starshine. The earth says hello
...”

He cranks his face toward me, eyes bulging. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“
You twinkle above us. We twinkle below
...”

“What the fuck? Have you lost your mind?”

Maybe a more experienced actor could pretend like he didn’t know what I’m referring to. But not this one.

I stop singing. “Oh. Never mind. Just a tune I couldn’t get out of my head. Now don’t you have to warm up for your number? Or—well, you’ve already hit a lot of high notes this evening. I’m sure your vocal chords got all the workout they need. Sir.”

Grant gives me a frigid half smile. He sets his plate down, scans the room, eyes pausing on every person who’s looking down at their cell phones (even Sutton is checking hers). Are they viewing his latest starring role? Probably not. But if not now, they soon will.

Grant lets go of me, says something I can’t make out, walks across the restaurant and out to the street. Neither Leon nor Stanford tries to stop him as he passes them on the sidewalk.

A minute later, a text message hits my phone. It’s from Stanford:
“You just couldn’t resist, could you?”

“Sorry!”
I text back, adding a smiley with its tongue hanging out.

“I’ll bb in a few. Talkin with Leon. PS: he wants you back in the office tomorrow for another audition.”

“HE DOES?”

“Congrats, Goose. You’re headed to Oz.”

I abandon my mountain of food for the bar with an Ozian spring to my step. In my head, the bridge in “The Wizard and I” begins to play.

“Unlimited. My future is unlimited. And I just had a vision almost like a prophecy...”

You and me both, Elphy.

Stanford catches me just as two Boq and punches make it out of the shaker.

“What happened to Grey Goose and cran?”

I shrug. “Grey suddenly seemed so drab. A little too Kansas for this boy from Oz.”

“Ah. Don’t go getting too big a head now, whiz kid.” Stanford picks up his green concoction. “I suppose I’ll let you do the honors?”

“Is it too crass to say, ‘Ding dong! The witch is dead’?”

“No,” Stanford says. Our drinks meet. “It is a little cheesy, though.” We sip, and savor, in silence.

When we come back up for air, our lips are green. “You know, that video could have probably gone unnoticed, or at least unattached to Grant. The quality was terrible.”

I wince. “It’s very possible. Or it could have been discovered. There’s no telling.” I take another sip so I don’t have to look at him, then ask, “Do you hate me?”

“Nah. I’d have done the same. Probably be passing it around the party by now. Little bastard shouldn’t have talked shit about my office.”

I giggle. “So you think he’s done for?”

Stanford takes a long, thoughtful drink. “For now, maybe. Depends. I mean, if Leon and his associates keep this amongst themselves, there’s still a possibility the world at large will never find out why he lost the role. And that video will surely be pulled down in a few hours. Unless someone found a way to save it, it may end up disappearing forever.”

“Good thing no one in the Broadway world likes juicy gossip, then, huh?”

Stanford raises his eyebrows and sighs at me. “Uh-huh. Hey, by the way, I think this should be your last one of these drinks tonight.”

“Why? Too early to celebrate?”

“No.” Stanford smiles. “But it seems our evening’s entertainment has mysteriously deserted us. Leon needs someone to fill in, and it turns out he’s got a hankering to hear ‘Lost in the Wilderness.’”