The Legend of the Ditto Twins (58 page)

"Um...
I don't know. We have two shows tomorrow, so..."

“...we
were about to turn in for the night."

He
nodded. "My friend is flying to London tomorrow, so he can't make a late
night of it either."

"Well.
One drink."

"Or
two?" He smiled. "Sometimes one drink leads to another, one thing
leads to another."

"Oh."
In unison.

"Thanks,
but we'd better not," said Clark.

The
bodyguard's tone changed. "Let's skip the bullshit. He'd like a private
show. Name your price."

"Uh...
we don't..."

“...you
know, escort."

"Of
course not. That's not what he's looking for." The giant lowered his
voice. "He just wants to watch. Okay? You two get it on; he gets
off." He raised his brow hopefully. "He won't touch you. You won't
even have to talk to him."

"Uh...
Could you excuse us a minute?" I asked.

"About
the money." Softly, he named a figure.

We were
so stunned we asked him to repeat it. It was more, a lot more, than we would
make at Limbo, tips and all.

Still, we
had to clarify. "And no sex except..."

“...between
the two of us?"

He
nodded, and we retreated. Clark spoke first.

"Don't
even think about it. This is our first night, and you're already talking about
escorting?"

"This
wouldn't be escorting," I protested. "You and I don't do escorting.
But, well, maybe The Ditto Twins do."

"That's
a really bullshit rationale. If it's not escorting, what do you call it?"

"Manna
from heaven." Kimmy had joined us.

"Kimmy!
You heard?" In unison.

"Darlings,
I don't miss much." She lowered her voice. "Relax. Your Big Spender,
he's okay. Shows up whenever he's in town. Always incognito." When we didn't
seem properly impressed, she leaned closer. "For God's sake, you do know
who that is, don't you?"

And then
she told us.

"No
shit!" In breathless unison.

She
nodded. "He's incredibly generous. And I'm told he's very well hung."

When we
told her the amount of money being offered and what we would have to do to earn
it, she clutched her silicone breasts dramatically. "That's all? That's
it?"

We
nodded. She handed us our wallets.

"Listen
to Mother. Go."

Still,
Clark hesitated. "You're sure he's who you say he is? Not an axe
murderer?"

"Oh,
please, Bryan! Go change!" She gave us a shove toward the stage door.
"But a word of advice: If you go to his place, don't touch the
Oscar."

We didn't
go to his place. I remember that much. The moment we drove out of the parking
lot, the giant lit up a
doobie
the size of a
cigarillo. We refused his offer to share it; Big Spender did not. By the time
we got to the motel in some place called Venice Beach, the two of them had
burned their way through another one, and to be honest, both Clark and I also
had quite a buzz going—just from the contact high.

At the
motel, we didn't stop to register but drove directly to a cabin at the farthest
end of the lot. We figured Big Spender probably rented the place by the month,
or for all we knew, owned the whole damned motel. The giant parked the car out
of sight and leaned over the back seat.

"Cabin
18," he said, passing me the key. "The night light is already on.
Don't turn on any other lights, okay?"

We
nodded.

"
Here.
" He handed over a roll of bills. "In
advance."

Clark
took it and pocketed it without counting it.

"Well.
That's it. Go on in. Just strip down and do your thing. The bed's very
comfortable, I'm told."

We gulped
as one. "Thanks."

"In
a few minutes, after you get warmed up," he continued, as if Big Spender
weren't even there, "my friend will come in and sit in the big green easy
chair, so don't throw your clothes on it."

"Are
you coming in, too?" In unison.

"Nah,
I'll wait out here. See you're not disturbed."

Inside,
Cabin 18 was clean, impersonal—and a little bit spooky. As we'd been told,
there was only one dim light in the ceiling directly over the bed, and the rest
of the room ranged from shadowy to inky black. In fact, it took us a few
moments to spot the big green easy chair which was positioned opposite—but not
too close to—the bed.

The
nightstands held a variety of offerings: bottles of liquor, soft drinks, spring
water, and mouthwash; a tray of joints, a mound of coke, a bowl of pills, and a
bottle of poppers; a string of condoms, a jar of lube, half a dozen cock-rings,
and a stack of paper towels.

"We
can still leave," said Clark.

"I'll
bet the giant wouldn't like that, and he's bigger than both of us."

"We
can always call a cab."

I looked
around. "I don't see a phone."

Clark
looked around. "Shit. I don't either. Give me your cell phone."

"Don't
you have yours?"

"I
thought you brought yours."

"I
thought
you
brought yours."

I pulled
him toward me. "It's a lot of money to throw away." I kissed him
gently. He moaned agreement. "And it
is
kind of an
adventure, right?" I kissed him once more, and he agreed once more.
"And I promise
we'll
never
do
this
again if you don't want to."

"Promise?"

I nodded.
He instigated the third kiss.

By the
time we heard the door open, The Ditto Twins were on the bed, naked, making
out. We barely looked up as the silhouette of Big Spender appeared in the
doorway. He closed it, slipped the chain-lock in place, and moved with
familiarity through the darkness to the big green easy chair. We never saw his
face, but we heard him kick off his shoes; we heard his aviator glasses land on
a side table; we heard him light another joint and inhale deeply; we heard his
zipper being unzipped; and soon we heard him stroking himself.

The next
half hour or so went very naturally for us. We both just pretended that Big
Spender was the cameraman, and we were The Ditto Twins making another movie.
The
schitzy
mindset kicked in just as it had the
night we made our home movie: We were loving each other as much as ever, but we
were also loving the fact that we were being watched.

As was
our custom, we stopped after half an hour or so to have a cigarette. That was
when we heard his voice for the first time. We recognized it at once. All he
said was: "I will double your fee if you let me join you."

He leaned
forward, out of the shadows, and we saw his legendary face for the first time.

I looked
at Clark. He smiled. Together, The Ditto Twins slid off the bed and moved
toward Big Spender. He was a very good kisser. In fact, he was very good at
everything—not as good as Helmut, but still very good.

I suppose
I could excuse our graduating to full-fledged escorts by claiming that by then
we were really ripped, but that was only part of it. Talk about affirmation!
There we were, two farm kids actually having sex with a multi-million-dollar
mega-star, who wanted us a lot. Clark and I glanced at each other and grinned.
We were both thinking the same thing: how much we would love to call Mom and
tell her the name of the man who was, at that very moment, touching us down
there.

We were
totally taken aback, though, half an hour later, when he stopped servicing us
to speak again.

"That
thing you do in your movie... with the double rubbers. Do you suppose we could
try that on me?"

"I
think..."

“...we
should try."

The Ditto
Twins then proceeded to oblige him, and it proved as spectacular a finale to
the evening's activities as it had in Berlin and again onscreen in
The Ditto Phenomenon.
Even
without Helmut.

Afterwards,
I guess we passed out. When we woke up the next morning, Big Spender and the
giant were gone, as if the night before had never happened. On one nightstand,
though, was another roll of bills, as big as the first one. A limo was waiting
outside.

I kept my
promise to Clark. We haven't escorted since. And we haven't seen Big Spender
again, except on the big screen. For the rest of our life, though, I'll bet
we'll dine out on the tale of our night with him. Over time, the anecdote will
be repeated and embroidered by many. Certainly, our confirmation of Big
Spender's sexual preferences will add as much to our legend as it will to his.

The Ditto
Twins made the front page of the
Los
Angeles Times
that morning after
our opening—or rather, Rev. Abel Flamm did. Here's what happened after we'd left
for Venice Beach with Big Spender: A group of gay activists had confronted the
Bible Thumpers, and a mini-riot had broken out. The Ditto Twins were mentioned
only briefly in
The Times
article, so we gave serious consideration to calling the
newspaper and offering to do an interview, but T.J. asked us not to, so we
didn't. The rest of the weekend passed largely without incident. We did our
show each night; Rev. Flamm did his.

The next
week, when The Ditto Twins opened in San Francisco, the protestors were waiting
in full force outside the club. Even so, there were lines of hunky men around
the block every night. With nothing to do but wait, many of them took to
baiting the hecklers, but the cops kept things i
n check. The manager of the club urged us to lie low, so we
slept all day, did the shows, and made love all night. But we didn't get to see
San Francisco at all. Show biz was not as much fun as we'd thought it would be.

Whenever
we called Clay to vent, which was practically every night, he urged us not to
respond to the reverend's attacks nor talk publicly about the specifics of our
relationship. ("Play it safe," he said.) Still, at The Meet and
Greets, everyone wanted to know if we were really twins. And if so, did we
actually have off-screen sex with each other? Though it seemed hypocritical, we
always kept our answers elliptical—we were the mystery twins, after all. But
the evasions gnawed at us; that's not why we'd made the film in the first
place.