The Legend of the Ditto Twins (47 page)

"Do
you always receive guests naked?" asked Libor.

I
laughed. "Only friends. Should we put on a towel or something?"

"That
is not necessary," Pavol assured us. "We will not stay long."

"We
have seen you naked before," added Libor.

"And
we will see you naked again." Pavol raised his arms in triumph and
smothered a war cry. "Jay has hired us to play role of farmhands! So we
have come to express profound debt to you for suggesting Libor and me for this
casting. Thank you."

"It
will be our pleasure, and there may even be..."

“...a
double entendre
there
someplace."

We all
laughed.

"How
can we ever repay you?"

"Not
necessary," I assured him.

"But
we must show our gratitude." This from Libor.

"Well,
the best way to do that..."

“...is just
to be wonderful in the movie."

Libor
nodded. "We will be super gay."

"You
see, we have studied your advice very much today," added Pavol.
"About being gay while on set."

"That
is correct," added Libor. "We have decided we will be more than that.
We will be gay at all time here until we go home at end of shoot. This will be
useful?"

I smiled.
"This will be useful."

"And
now we must go to bed and sleep good. Being grip is almost as hard work as
being superstar."

And they
were gone.

Clark and
I crawled into bed, only to toss and turn restlessly. We could not remember the
last time we'd ended the day without making love, and restraint had never been
our strong suit. Finally, we decided to turn back to back, for the sake of the
film. It was a small sacrifice. After all, by this time tomorrow, we would be
movie stars.

Ever
since the day Jay had agreed to direct, he'd spent hours trying to explain to
us the differences between life and art. To begin with, in the m
ovie we would be playing twins who were very much like us, he
said, but not
actually us.
For starters, we were to be called Ryan and Bryan.

Because
it was our first real film, Jay planned to shoot in continuity (new term),
which meant he'd try to film the scenes in order, so as not to confuse us.
What's more, in the script, many of our memories had been cut, condensed, or
changed. For example, our movie would begin with us buying cigarettes from the
Go-To Guy, not swiping them from Walgreens. And that is why we found ourselves
at six o'clock the next morning standing in a back alley in Prague between
buildings owned by a friend of Ed Riggs and pretending we were back home in the
Midwest.

Pavol and
Libor were on ladders, focusing lights, and Phil was pacing back and forth as
he chose the various shots he wanted. At one side, Lily and Riggs's hunky
driver (who would be playing Go-To Guy) sat sipping coffee and flirting with
one another. Clay and Jay hovered nearby. We weren't surprised to see that both
had started smoking again.

When Clay
looked at his watch for the umpteenth time, Jay reached over and patted his
arm.

"Relax,
Babe. It's like the army—hurry up and wait."

"Jay,
we've got to be out of here before the stores open and trucks start making
deliveries."

"Do
you want it now or do you want it right?"

Clark and
I grinned. We'd awakened hours earlier with morning wood that had not subsided
for one second since then. I guess, for us, making a movie was a new kind of
aphrodisiac. We were anxious to start, and so were our dicks, even though this was
a dialogue-only scene.

Finally,
Phil announced, "Ready, Jay. It's all yours."

Jay had
decided from the start that since neither Clark nor I had ever had any acting
training, there would be no scripted dialogue. We would use our own words. To
that end, he and the hunky driver came over to us, and we went into a huddle to
review what the scene was about and what we needed to say. We walked through
the scene once; Jay made a few suggestions; and then it was time to hear the
magic word that marked the beginning of our new life.

"Action."

As Go-To
Guy, the driver strolled toward the entrance to the alley, nodded to us, and
darted inside. Jay gave us the signal; we moved into the alley; the cameraman followed.
Only the backs of our heads were on film, but it was a start.

I could
feel Phil close behind me as he shot over our shoulders toward Go-To Guy.
"Line,"
he
murmured.

"Hey.
What's going on?" we asked.

Elaborately,
Go-To Guy opened his jacket to reveal the unopened pack of Marlboros tucked
into his jeans.

"Cigarettes.
Wow!" I said.

"Marlboros.
Wow!" Clark said.

"And
pull back to medium shot." Jay again.

It was a
bit disconcerting at first to hear Jay talking all the time, but he'd assured
us his voice could be cut out later in the editing room. What was far more
distracting were the movements of Phil as he darted about getting his shots.
Still, we chatted away with Go-To Guy about trying to swipe our dad's
cigarettes and other stuff, and soon he offered to sell us our first Marlboros.

"How
much?"

He told
us.

We
reached in our pockets.

"We'll
take the whole pack."

"And
cut," said Jay, pulling us aside. "Not bad for a first take, but...
you were acting."

"Thanks."
In unison, with proud smiles.

"That
wasn't meant as a compliment. You weren't listening to each other. You weren't
talking to each other. You were too
busy
acting. Forget about acting. Just be natural, just be
yourselves, okay?"

"Sorry.
Shit. Can we possibly..."

“...do it
again?"

"Of
course. It's called Take Two."

Our
woodies
had deflated by then, but we didn't even notice. We
were too busy—two more takes over our shoulders, then three takes of the
reverse shot, and lots of close-ups. Making a movie was not as easy as we'd
thought it would be, but we loved it anyway. Especially the close-ups. Little
by little, we got better. At least, that's what Jay said. Anyway, we finished
up just as the Town Square clock chimed nine, and a bread truck pulled into the
alley.

Quickly,
everyone packed up, and we headed back to the villa for our next scene, the one
in which we discover the joys of cigarettes and masturbation. Sometime during
the drive, it hit us that Clay, Jay, and Lily—not to mention all the crew—would
soon be intimately witnessing how much Clark and I meant to each other. The
prospect of being naked, both physically and emotionally, in front of everyone,
sure turned us on. By the time we stepped out of the limo, our
woodies
were back.

While
everyone else stopped for a quick lunch, Jay, Clark, and I grabbed containers
of yogurt and headed for the big bedroom to go over the details of the scene.

"A
sex scene isn't like a dialogue scene," Jay began. "You can't go back
and do a second take if it isn't right. But I can make it right in the editing
room—that's why we're going to shoot all the sex with two cameras. If something
doesn't look good in one camera, then we can always cut away to the other one.
That way, we can create a perfect reality that never actually existed. As
soon
as the second cameraman
gets here, we'll start. Any questions?"

We
grinned. "How soon is soon?"

I must
confess it was a little weird to be waiting around in just our cowboy boots and
skin-tight jeans, sporting hard-
ons
that everyone
could see clear as day. There we were, surrounded by our uncles and Lily, by
our friends, Pavol, Libor, and Phil, by the second cameraman (another hunk
named Felix, to whom we'd been introduced only moments before), by Riggs and
the two replacement grips (to whom we had not been introduced at all), and by
the owner of the place, an arthritic old man in a blue serge suit and a pinky
ring. It was weird, yes, but not intimidating. See, now we had an audience
waiting for us.

Once the
lights were set, Jay pulled Clark and me aside.

"Just
one thing—remember, in this scene you are, what, four or five years younger?
More innocent than you are these days, God knows."

We
grinned and began to relax.

"If
you believe you're younger, the audience will, too. Take a minute, go back in time,
find those kids you were that night. Okay? Then we'll start the scene." He
hugged each of us and walked way. "Quiet on the set, please!"

Clark and
I looked into each other's eyes and together began some kind of mutual time
travel back to that night. A few moments later, we nodded to Jay and moved in
place to make our entrance into the bedroom. We closed our eyes, groped each
other for luck, and exchanged dittos.

Then we
heard Jay speaking.

"Warning...
Lights... Are we rolling?"

"Rolling,"
replied Phil and Felix. "Speed."

"Action."

We walked
through the door into a blaze of hot lights. Clark went to the window to open
it; I got the Bic lighter from under the mattress. And then we began to
undress.

"Should
we stuff a towel under the door?" asked Clark.

"And
Scotch tape for the keyhole," I added.

"Get
a close-up of the keyhole, Felix," said Jay.

Before we
knew it, we were bare-ass naked. Since I figured everyone else was looking at
my dick, I stole a glance down, too, and was horrified to see I wasn't hard.
Then I remembered I wasn't supposed to be yet, and everything was okay again.
My dick knew the script better than I did.

Occasionally,
Phil or Jay would ask us to go back and repeat or add a line in close-up, but
mostly, the scene played straight through. It wasn't long before we were on the
bed and I was teaching my brother how to inhale. When our lips touched, we held
that first kiss longer than I suspect we did the first night, and I heard more
than one muffled gasp in our audience.

"Get
me close-ups of the kiss, Felix. Tight close-ups. Tighter... Tighter!"
urged Jay, watching what was happening in the twin monitors in front of him.
"Keep kissing, guys. Phil, get me a 360-degree circle shot."

Things
moved along smoothly as we revisited discovering the fringe of hair on each
other's upper lip.

"Puberty
at last."

"'Bout
time."

When we
examined each other’s pubic hair, Phil climbed on the bed to get a top shot.
When we started to measure each other with the ruler, Felix moved close to
focus on our crotches. Actually, our dicks proved to be pretty good actors,
too—they began to grow right on cue.

"Oh,
my God!"

"What?"