Love on Stage Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Contradictions

  Starlit Lake

  Convincing

  Hashtag Awesome

  Miles Away

  All Business

  Face Value

  Worth Waiting For

  The Limits of Language

  Exhilaration

  Where Stars Are Born

  The Adventure Begins

  Saying Something

  Baby Boy

  A Hip Vibe

  Pitch

  Golden Boy

  Nobody Rides for Free

  Roadside Romeos

  What You Want

  A Wonderful World

  Such is Life

  Paying Attention

  Stage Fright

  Star Power

  Awesome Numbers

  Climbing the Charts

  Business Deals

  See the World

  Four Pairs

  Overcoming Obstacles

  Shift Change

  Merely Spectators

  Loose Id Titles by Neil Plakcy

  Neil Plakcy

  LOVE ON STAGE

  Neil Plakcy

  www.loose-id.com

  Love on Stage

  Copyright © September 2014 by Neil Plakcy

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  eISBN 9781623005191

  Editor: Maryam Salim

  Cover Artist: G.D. Leigh

  Published in the United States of America

  Loose Id LLC

  PO Box 806

  San Francisco CA 94104-0806

  www.loose-id.com

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  * * * *

  DISCLAIMER: Please do not try any new sexual practice, especially those that might be found in our BDSM/fetish titles without the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Neither Loose Id LLC nor its authors will be responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of the information contained in any of its titles.

  Dedication

  For Marc: We were strangers, starting out on a journey, never dreaming what we’d have to go through.

  Acknowledgment

  Once again, I have to thank my terrific editor, Maryam Salim, as well as all the staff at Loose Id who help make my work sing. Gratitude goes as well to my most excellent critique partners: Miriam Auerbach, Christine Jackson, Kris Montee, and Sharon Potts. Their advice is reflected in everything I write. Brody and Griffin get me up and walking when I’d rather be sitting at the computer, and my writer friends at Broward College keep me energized about the process of putting together words on the page.

  Contradictions

  Gavin Kaczmarek expertly dumped a bag of organic Ethiopian coffee beans into the grinder, set the dial to Turkish fine, and flipped the switch. The alarm on the dark-roast pot was ringing behind him, and he turned it off and removed the glass pot from the burner. He pulled two shots from the tray of the espresso machine and poured them into a china mug, then reached for the pitcher of hot milk.

  At six-one, Gavin was slim but muscular, with a tribal tattoo around his right bicep. He had been told often that he looked like a young Robert Redford, with a Nordic profile, a dimple in his chin, and a smile around his eyes. He kept his golden blond hair glossy and shoulder-length.

  Humming along with the song on the stereo system, he placed a big spoon over the mouth of the pitcher and filled the mug. He pivoted to the grinder just as it finished and flipped the switch off with his elbow. Then he dropped the spoon in the sink and swirled the remaining foam in the pitcher into the shape of a leaf, finishing with a tiny doodle of his own invention. He handed the mug to the customer—an elderly woman in black tights and an electric-blue tank top, with a pink-tinged bouffant that had been lacquered in place.

  She smiled a gap-toothed grin and took the mug, and Gavin bagged up the finely ground coffee beans for the customer behind her. He flirted with everybody—men, women, young, old. It didn’t matter. A raised eyebrow or a sexy smile added to the pileup of coins and bills in the tip jar. And sometimes Gavin was slipped a business card or had a phone number written on the back of a receipt. The women never got a call back, but if the guy was cute or sexy or just different, Gavin often made the call, though he denied it to his boss—a Kenyan immigrant named Careful Handa.

  Java Joe’s, where Gavin worked the opening shift, was a funky fair-trade coffee shop a block off Lincoln Road. The place buzzed with office workers until nine, when there was a brief respite before the beauty school students, consultants meeting clients, medical staff in scrubs, and elderly java junkies showed up.

  Gavin had unspoken nicknames for most of the regular customers, from Saggy Boob Lady to Hot Hasidic Guy to South American Soccer Mom. Because all of Java Joe’s products were certified kosher, they did a good business with students and staff at the nearby rabbinical colleges, and Gavin was always amazed at how someone could live in twenty-first-century Miami and yet still dress like they had in seventeenth-century Poland.

  Around ten, Music Dude came in for his regular Jumbo Joe with extra foam. He was skinny and serious-looking, with hipster glasses, a goatee, and thinning hair, and had to be at least thirty. But there was something about him that Gavin liked, and if things were slow, he’d fantasize a bit about seeing the guy naked, and his dick would jump.

  Music Dude always had high-tech earbuds, and when he’d pull them out to order, Gavin could hear all kinds of tunes, from Brazilian sambas to blue-eyed soul to rap. A couple of times Gavin had seen him working on a laptop with what looked like musical notations on the screen.

  Gavin made the Jumbo Joe, a sixteen-ounce latte with two extra shots, and instead of his regular leaf, he drew a musical note with the foam and served up the coffee with a bit of song. “I love java, sweet and hot, whoops Mr. Moto I’m a coffeepot.”

  “Your voice has a nice tone,” Music Dude said. “But you’re losing your breath on the lower register.”

  “You know about stuff like that?” Gavin asked as he handed Music Dude his coffee.

  “It’s what I do. Digital music production.”

  “Very cool.” Gavin struggled for something else to say, but there was a line of customers out the door, and he felt tongue-tied.

  “Have a good day,” Music Dude said. He took his coffee and left.

  Gavin was bummed. He had hoped to impress the guy, though he didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he was super handsome or anything.

  He went back to work, making coffees for Slope-Shouldered Tall Guy, Russian Realtor Lady, and a raft of others who weren’t regular enough to have
nicknames. At noon he signed out and walked to the corner of Lincoln and Alton, where a big orange school bus was idling in the crosswalk.

  He signed in with the pimply-faced photographer’s assistant and took a seat halfway back, across from Tate, another model he’d worked with in the past.

  As the bus took off, he looked around at the half dozen other models and the mixed bag of crew members. He leaned over to Tate and asked, “You know where we’re going?”

  “I hear the underwear company rented out the locker room at the Miami Dolphins training center,” Tate said.

  “Maybe there will be a stray Dolphin hanging around,” Gavin said. “I’d do a pro football player in a heartbeat.”

  “Too early for pre-season practice,” Tate said.

  Gavin had met Tate on his first modeling gig. He was a nice guy, despite having the kind of good looks that immediately put Gavin on the defensive—oval face, high cheekbones, tanned skin, and shoulder-length dark-brown hair. Gavin preferred to hang around with guys less good-looking than he was, but he made an exception for Tate.

  When they walked into the locker room, the team’s presence was everywhere, from the trophies along the wall, to the big sign that read THE ROAD TO THE SUPER BOWL STARTS HERE.

  The stylist pulled Gavin’s shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and slicked it down with gel. He was handed a red-and-black jockstrap studded with silver metal bolts, which he slipped on. The stylist fiddled with the position of the waistband, then sprayed his shoulders and chest with water so that he’d look like he’d just come from a sweaty workout.

  He was directed to a bench in front of an open locker, and the stylist pooled a pair of slacks around his bare feet to look as if he’d just stepped out of them. There was an erotic kick to being in a place suffused with so much testosterone, and so far the photographer, a slim Asian guy wearing one of those vests that hunters wore during deer season, had chastised two of the models for getting boners.

  Suddenly the photographer was right beside him, his lens up in Gavin’s face. The camera’s rapid shutter clicks reminded Gavin of the sound the crickets made back home in Wisconsin. He was looking forward to spending the Independence Day weekend with his family at their summer home at Starlit Lake.

  “Don’t think about anything!” the photographer demanded. “You are a blank canvas. An empty shell. A mannequin to display the clothes.”

  Gavin imagined that the photographer was his father, yelling at him for some screw-up, and switched to the distant-focused look he had perfected as a teenager. He emptied his mind and stared straight ahead.

  “Excellent!” the photographer said. He snapped a few shots, then reached down and lifted Gavin’s left leg, placing it on top of the wooden bench beside him. He moved Gavin’s arm so that his right hand rested on the top of the half-open locker door. Gavin didn’t understand why the guy couldn’t have just told him what to do, but that was the business.

  The photographer took some more shots, then sent Gavin back to wardrobe.

  The wardrobe mistress was a plump Latina with dyed red hair, who had “fag hag” stamped all over her. She looked at her clipboard. “You’re Havin, right?” she asked, giving the G at the start of his name a breathy accent.

  “Yup.”

  “You’re wearing the body shapers next.” She handed him a T-shirt and a pair of briefs with some kind of reinforcing on his abs and waist.

  “What are these?” he asked.

  “They slim you.” She rubbed her belly. “You know, down here.”

  “I don’t need these!” Gavin protested.

  “Of course not. If you did, you wouldn’t be able to model them.”

  The contradiction confounded Gavin until he’d slipped into them. If they were tight on him, when he had single-digit body fat, he could only imagine how awful they’d be on a guy who needed them. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror in the dressing area.

  The white fabric clung to him like a second skin. Not an ounce of fat pushed through. He felt like he was standing up straighter, perhaps because of the lumbar support. It was the least sexy underwear he’d ever modeled, but what the hell, he was making money and building his portfolio.

  When the bus returned them to Lincoln Road that evening, Gavin headed back to Java Joe’s. He was relaxing, sipping a low-fat fruit smoothie, when he noticed a guy across from him checking him out. The dude was older, at least forty, and wore the kind of suit you couldn’t buy off the shelf. The coal-black jacket was tailored snugly over his shoulders, and the slacks fell perfectly over his black tasseled loafers.

  He was on the phone, but his eyes met Gavin’s. In a flash, the guy ended his call and looked at Gavin with one of those gazes that said to Gavin that he was being stripped naked. Then the man smiled. “I’m Ben,” he said.

  “Gavin.”

  “You look very familiar to me,” Ben said. “Have I seen you before?”

  Gavin shrugged. “I work the morning shift here.”

  Ben shook his head. “No, that’s not it.” He reached for the glossy magazine by his side and flipped through it. “There,” he said, pointing at Gavin’s photo in a group bathing-suit shot. Gavin was wearing boxer-brief trunks, and his skin glistened with what was supposed to be either perspiration or seawater from the Atlantic Ocean in the background.

  His blond hair was longer then, and the hair stylist had sprayed in some glistening highlights. It was a great shot and in fact the first one in Gavin’s portfolio.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” Gavin said.

  Ben looked at his watch. “I was just about to get something to eat,” he said. “Honestly, I’ve been delaying because I hate eating alone when I’m on the road. Can I buy you dinner?”

  Gavin’s roommates complained that this kind of thing happened to him all the time—getting picked up by handsome, sexy guys. The truth was it didn’t happen that often, and he was delighted whenever it did. “Sure,” Gavin said. “Where would you like to go?”

  “What do you recommend?”

  That was a touchy question. The guy dressed well, and he’d already mentioned he was traveling on business, which meant expense account. Most of the places Gavin knew wouldn’t be appropriate.

  Ben saved the day, though, by mentioning the name of his boutique hotel. “The restaurant there looks pretty good.”

  That was an understatement, Gavin thought. He was no gourmet, but he knew that the restaurants in those fancy hotels were beaucoup expensive and therefore had to be beaucoup good at the same time. And there was an unspoken message in Ben’s suggestion: come eat at my hotel, and then we’re just an elevator ride away from continuing the evening together.

  He didn’t mind that at all. The guy was rich and handsome, and maybe Gavin could short-circuit the track that was intended to lead him to Mr. Right.

  Not that he was jumping ahead of the game or anything.

  It was only a few blocks to the hotel, and Ben spent most of the walk on the phone, confirming a business meeting the next day. That was fine with Gavin; he could flirt like mad but wasn’t much for small talk once the deal was sealed. Ben finished his call as they approached the Collins Avenue entrance to the hotel and even ushered Gavin in ahead of him as the valet opened the door.

  Ben led Gavin across the lobby, to the restaurant entrance. He spoke to the maître d’, who took them to a table with a view of the beach and the ocean beyond. “Kind of like where you were shooting,” Ben said.

  “Just down the beach,” Gavin said. He smiled.

  The place wasn’t as pricy as Gavin expected, and he was considering what he wanted when Ben said, “I know you guys are always watching your weight. They have some nice salads.”

  “I’m more of a carnivore,” Gavin said, arching an eyebrow. “And I’m lucky to have a fast metabolism.”

  Ben smiled. “Then order whatever you’d like.”

  Since he didn’t have any gigs set up for the next few days, Gavin decided to splurge on the surf and turf—a
petit filet mignon, which came with a grilled Ivory Coast prawn, whipped potatoes, rapini, and a béarnaise sauce. He had no idea why a prawn shipped in from Africa would be better than a lobster from Maine, and he had only the vaguest idea what rapini was, but it wasn’t the most expensive item on the menu. He announced his choice to Ben. “I’ve got a hankering for meat.” He’d have preferred the twenty-two ounce T-bone, but that was a few bucks more, and he didn’t want to seem like a pig.

  Ben snickered at the double entendre. “I guess I do too. I’ll have the T-bone.”

  Crap, Gavin thought. He could have waited and then tagged onto Ben’s order. When the waiter came over to take their drink orders, Ben ordered a Manhattan, and Gavin a Cosmo. The alcohol relaxed him, and they chatted through the meal about Ben’s job—he was in something called “advertising specialties,” which he must have assumed Gavin knew all about because he never got specific.

  Gavin told some funny stories about modeling jobs. The food was great, and Ben had a salesman’s charm.

  The waiter cleared their plates, then asked, “Can I tempt you with our chocolate tart?”

  Ben said, “We’re good,” then signed the check to his room with a flourish, adding a hefty tip.

  “It’s such a beautiful evening,” Ben said as he stood up. “Would you like to take a walk along the beach?”

  “I’ll bet the view from your room is just as good,” Gavin said.