Love on Stage Read online

  Ben smiled wolfishly. “I like the way you think.”

  They rode the elevator up to Ben’s room, and he swiped the card in the door, then ushered Gavin in ahead of him. The view was disappointing, miles of dark ocean with the lights of a single freighter off the coast.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ben said, coming up beside him. He put his arm around Gavin’s waist. For the first time, Gavin realized the guy was a couple of inches shorter than he was.

  “It sure is.” Gavin turned toward Ben and leaned down to kiss him. The kiss he received in return was more like a peck, and then Ben backed away.

  “Let me get out of my suit.” He stepped back into the hotel room, and Gavin watched as he opened the closet door. He took his time, hanging up his suit jacket, removing his dress loafers and lining them up on the closet floor, then unbuttoning his white shirt.

  Well, Gavin thought, if my clothes were worth that much money, I’d take good care of them too. He pulled his polo shirt off and toed off his deck shoes. When he turned to go back into the bedroom, he saw Ben had put on black leather boxer briefs, and he was fastening a studded leather bandolier over his chest.

  Kinky, Gavin thought. And interesting.

  He walked back into the room, and Ben looked up at him. “You’re still wearing your pants.”

  “Not for long,” Gavin said. He unbuttoned them, and they slid down over his waist.

  “Shorts too,” Ben said.

  Gavin’s dick was already hard, and it bounced against his stomach when he jerked down his briefs. As he looked up, he saw Ben take a pair of leather-lined handcuffs from his backpack. Gavin was surprised he’d been able to get them past the TSA check. Weren’t handcuffs on the prohibited list?

  Before Gavin realized it, Ben had locked a cuff on one of Gavin’s wrists and expertly pulled that arm behind his back. “Hey, hold on,” Gavin said, but Ben already had Gavin’s other wrist in the second cuff.

  Ben removed a leather paddle from a backpack and slapped it against his palm. “Bend over.”

  Gavin did as he was told, though it was awkward with his hands cuffed behind him. “Nothing that shows,” he said. “I have another shoot in a few days.”

  “Like that matters to me,” Ben said, and he smacked Gavin’s butt.

  It sent electric currents through his dick and the rest of his body. It was kinky, but he thought he could get into it.

  “I’m new at this,” Gavin said. “So go easy, all right?”

  He felt the edge of the paddle caressing his butt crack and relaxed. Funny how the innocent-looking guys turned out to be the weirdest in bed. Ben slipped a leather glove on his right hand and began fingering Gavin’s hole. He alternated with light slaps of the paddle, and Gavin’s dick began to leak precum. This was getting good.

  Ben’s leather-clad finger pushed past Gavin’s anal ring, and he winced. “Take it easy,” he said. “That’s not Grand Central Station back there.”

  “You know, you’re much better looking with your mouth shut,” Ben said. “But if you won’t shut it yourself, I can take care of that.”

  He reached back into his bag of tricks and brought out a ball gag. Gavin had never seen one of those in person, but he’d seen enough videos online to know what happened next. The ball would go in his mouth, with the rubber strap around the back of his head.

  “Hey, I’ll shut up,” Gavin said. “You don’t have to use that, honest.”

  Ben was surprisingly strong for a little guy. He pried open Gavin’s mouth and stuffed the rubber ball inside, then pulled the strap over his head.

  Gavin’s dick had begun to soften. This wasn’t his scene. What had happened to the eager guy who’d wanted to make it with a model? Who’d paid for a great dinner and wanted to take a walk on the beach?

  Ben began smacking Gavin’s ass hard. It hurt, but he couldn’t cry out because the ball filled his mouth. Tiny tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes.

  “Not such a big stud now, are you?” Ben asked. “You model types are all alike. You lord your good looks over normal guys. But when it comes to pain, you’re just a wimp.”

  Gavin tried to shake his head, but Ben slapped his cheek. Anything Gavin said turned into a garbled mumble, but Ben wasn’t paying attention. He dug through his pack and found a big black dildo, larger than anything Gavin had ever had up his ass.

  That was it. He had had enough. He turned around and caught Ben off guard, then kneed him in the balls.

  “You fucker!” Ben yelped. “You’re really going to get it now.” He clutched his balls and writhed on the bed.

  Gavin grabbed the key to the handcuffs from the bureau in one hand, then stepped into his deck shoes. While Ben was still immobilized, Gavin squatted down and grabbed his shirt, slacks, and briefs.

  “Don’t go out in the hall like that!” Ben screeched.

  Gavin didn’t bother to answer. He used his elbow to knock the door open and then stalked out into the carpeted hallway, stark naked. He used his elbow again to push the elevator button.

  When the door opened, the car was empty. Not my day, Gavin thought. He managed to push the button for the ground floor, though it took some contortions. He rode down alone, and when the door opened to the marble foyer, he stalked over to the concierge desk. He dropped his clothes to the floor and then placed the key on the desk. He turned around, presenting his hands to the young woman on duty.

  She didn’t say a word, just unlocked the cuffs for him. He immediately removed the ball gag from his mouth and laid it and the cuffs on the concierge desk. “These belong to the asshole in 1210,” he said politely. He pulled on his briefs and his slacks, then tossed his shirt over his shoulders. “Thank you for your help.”

  He walked out of the hotel bare-chested, daring anyone to stare at him. He was a fucking model, and they’d just gotten a free show.

  The walk back home seemed longer than usual to him because his ass stung, his mouth felt weird, and he kept running over the events of the day in his head. What had gone wrong? Ben had seemed like a perfectly normal guy. Rich and handsome and sexy. But he had turned out to be a jerk.

  Gavin was wasting his time going after rich guys. It was time that he became successful so that he could afford the custom-tailored suits, the expensive champagne, the sports cars, and the exotic travel.

  But what could he do? He wasn’t about to invent the next must-have electronic product or develop a cure for cancer. He’d never been a great student, and he had no desire to go back to school for a degree in business or law.

  Modeling was boring, and the real money was in runway work. Though he’d auditioned for dozens of shows, he hadn’t been able to get any gigs. He had performed in musicals and dramas in high school and college, and though he had auditioned for a couple of productions in Miami, he’d never been called back.

  He knew his looks wouldn’t last forever. Even at twenty-two, he was beginning to get edged out for jobs by teenagers. His whole life, it seemed, he’d been accepted at face value. Wasn’t there something he could do to prove he was more than he appeared on the surface?

  Starlit Lake

  A week later, Gavin was back home in Wisconsin for Independence Day. That evening, he leaned back in an Adirondack chair next to his Grandma Frances as fireflies danced in the cooling air and the sun set over Starlit Lake. He loved coming back for visits, almost as much as he had hated being a teenager there. Now that he lived in Miami Beach, surrounded by glitz and glamour, he found comfort in the simple rural pleasures of his home state.

  He had grown up spending his summers at Starlit Lake, in a rambling three-story house at the water’s edge that was jointly owned by his grandmother and her two sisters. Someone’s mother was always cooking something in the old-fashioned kitchen, and there were cousins ready to swim, sail, or water-ski on the lake.

  A wide porch stretched along the lakefront, and evenings, the family would gather out there, the old folks on the porch, Gavin’s parents’ generation sitting at t
he picnic table sipping cocktails, and the kids romping on the broad green lawn, jumping on the trampoline or tossing a football around.

  It was the Fourth of July and the fireworks spectacle across the lake was about to start. Gavin was enjoying sitting with his grandmother when, behind him, he first heard his Uncle Jim run his fingers over his banjo and then the familiar chords of “Apple Cider Time,” a song his grandmother and her two sisters had made famous back in the 1950s, when they were a harmonizing trio called the Sweetheart Sisters.

  His grandmother had long since quit the music business, but she still loved to sing. She was still pretty too, with a slim figure like Gavin’s and thick, glossy blonde hair that had shaded to white.

  “When you take my hand and walk me beside the apple trees,” Grandma Frances began, her voice still lovely to listen to.

  Across from her, Gavin’s great-aunt Myrtle chimed in. “Then I know what they mean by the birds and the bees.” Myrtle was the middle sister, and her face was unlined, her hair blonde, though Gavin thought the color was enhanced. She had the deepest voice of the three sisters.

  His other great-aunt, Ida, joined them, walking up to the porch. She was the soprano, with the highest voice. She was also the tallest and bustiest. The three of them harmonized through the first verse, and to Gavin’s ears, they sounded almost as good as they had on the old thirty-three-and-a-third records from his parents’ basement.

  After they finished the first verse, Grandma Frances motioned to Gavin and his cousins Archie and Erica. “You children join in too. You know the words.”

  Gavin, Archie, and Erica, all three of them second cousins, were the only kids who’d inherited their grandmothers’ voice talent; the rest of the family couldn’t sing, though many, like Gavin’s Uncle Jim, played instruments.

  They fell into harmony easily. Grandma Frances’s voice quavered a bit, and Myrtle and Ida didn’t have the volume they used to, but Gavin found it was a lot of fun to sing together. If only he’d been born earlier, he might have been one of the Sweethearts himself. Of course, that would have to be in some kind of alternate universe, when he’d somehow be the same age as his grandmother and her sisters.

  As little girls in the 1940s, Frances, Ida, and Myrtle had begun to sing at beer festivals and talent competitions in Milwaukee. They’d blossomed into slim, beautiful blondes, and following the lead of groups like the Andrews Sisters and the Lennon Sisters, they’d exploited their looks, their sweet voices, and their three-part harmony to build a following.

  Years of singing together as children had helped them blend their tones, but Frances was always the star because her voice was stronger and could do more.

  They’d sung at Funtown Amusement Park at Capitol Court in Milwaukee, recorded a jingle for a local dairy, and performed at a benefit at the rectory of Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church. A talent agent who’d spotted them on Dance Party with Johnny Anthony had gotten them an audition for Texaco Star Theatre, and for a few years in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the trio had made occasional appearances with hosts Gordon MacRae and Milton Berle. Gavin had grown up watching reruns on public television, amused by the ads for old-time products and the happy gas station workers who sang the show’s theme.

  After the fireworks were over, the younger cousins went inside to watch TV or play video games. The grandparents went to bed, and the parents sat on the porch drinking beer and cocktails. Gavin walked down to the lakefront with Archie and Erica. The night seemed much quieter after all the noisy display.

  When they got to the water’s edge, Erica pulled a joint out of her pocket. “You guys want to smoke?” she asked.

  “Put that away!” Archie said. He had red hair and freckles and had always been teased about his resemblance to the cartoon character. Gavin thought that was what had made him so serious.

  “Don’t be such a stick, Arch,” Gavin said. “Sure, Erica. Light it up.”

  She pulled out a cigarette lighter and ignited the joint, then inhaled deeply. She passed the joint to Gavin, who did the same.

  He was about to give it back to her when Archie elbowed him. “Don’t hog it.”

  The light breeze was blowing from the land out over the lake, so the smoke floated away on the water. Erica’s hair was as dark as a blackbird’s wing and just as shiny. She’d been a Goth as a teenager, and she still favored dark clothes, though her taste had shifted to a more forties-inspired style. That evening she was wearing a sleeveless black dress in a sleek fabric, with her hair twirled up in a french braid.

  “You seeing anybody back in Miami?” Erica asked Gavin.

  “Nothing serious. Just playing the field.”

  “Pretty broad field down there,” Archie said. He was resolutely straight.

  “Broader than in Chippewa Falls, that’s for sure,” Gavin said. “Guys and girls both.”

  Archie snorted with laughter. “You mean guys looking like girls?”

  “No, douchebag,” Gavin said, but he couldn’t help snickering too, and soon Erica was laughing with them as the marijuana floated through their brains. “You ought to come down sometime. I can hook you up with some of the female models.”

  “Archie and a model?” Erica said, her laughter deepening.

  “I could date a model,” Archie said. Gavin thought it was probably true, if his cousin ever got out of Wisconsin. He was studly in a Midwest farm-boy way, and Gavin knew that some chicks—and guys, too—really dug the whole redhead thing. “But Mary Anne is woman enough for me.”

  Gavin had met Mary Anne once, the last time he was in Wisconsin. She was very pretty, in a petite, blonde cheerleader kind of way, but she was a quiet girl, at least among Gavin’s family of performers.

  Erica laughed. She was a stone fox herself, curves in all the right places, though not skinny enough to be a model. Gavin liked the way the three of them looked together.

  “How about you, Erica?” Gavin asked. “You seeing anyone?”

  She shook her head. “I’m getting ready to move to Madison in August and start graduate school. I can’t see getting involved with someone just before I leave.”

  They spent an hour or so lazily out by the lakefront; then the dope made them all sleepy, and they walked up to the house. Gavin sat up in his third-floor bedroom, under the eaves. He opened his laptop and found some old clips of the Singing Sweethearts, lyrics to some of their hit songs, and a lot of publicity stills. The most interesting link, though, wasn’t about them at all.

  It led him to a website for a concert called Yesterday’s Music, Today’s Sound, in the Wisconsin Dells on Labor Day. It was billed as “a return to old-fashioned choral singing, in the style of the Andrews Sisters, the Lennon Sisters, and the Singing Sweethearts.”

  None of those groups were performing, though. Instead they were younger, newer groups, many of them from the college a cappella world.

  Why couldn’t the Sweethearts perform again? Gavin wondered. Wouldn’t that be cool? He found a contact link for the concert organizers and wrote a quick e-mail, introducing himself as a member of the new generation of the Sweetheart family, asking if there would be any interest in having the Sweethearts themselves perform. He could be the emcee, he thought. It would be a chance for him to get on stage, see if that kind of role fit.

  He sent the e-mail and then went to bed. The next morning, he woke just at six, as if he had to get ready for a shift at Java Joe’s, but he turned over and went back to sleep until noon. By the time he descended the stairs to forage in the kitchen, most of the family had left the house to do whatever, but his grandmother was at the table playing solitaire.

  “What can I make you to eat, baby boy?” she asked.

  “Are there any eggs?”

  She stood up. “How about a cheese omelet? And there are some fried potatoes left over from breakfast I can reheat for you.”

  “Thanks, Grandma. That would be great.” As she began to cook, he asked, “Why did you all stop singing professionally?”

&nb
sp; “Oh, it was time,” she said. “I met your grandfather, and I wanted to settle down. My sisters weren’t happy, you know. Ida got married soon enough, but Myrtle tried to make her own career. Didn’t work out, though.”

  “Would you ever sing again, if you could?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Who wants to listen to the three of us anymore? All the music nowadays is that hip-hop and rap.”

  That reminded him of the Dells concert. “I’ll be right back, Grandma,” he said, and he sprinted up the stairs to retrieve his laptop. By the time he got back down to the kitchen, his breakfast was ready, and he dug in. His grandmother watched approvingly, and he remembered the times when he and his older sister had come out to Starlit Lake as kids during the summer with their mother, while their father stayed in Eau Claire running the family car dealership.

  His grandmother often made breakfast then for him and his cousins, and they’d all sit around the big table clamoring for attention. Sometimes Grandma Frances would sing for them as she cooked, and the grandkids would sing along. Those had been good times.

  He did the dishes while his grandmother sat at the table playing solitaire. When everything was finished, he opened the laptop and checked his e-mail, where he found a quick response from the concert promoter. He would be delighted to feature the Sweethearts, he wrote, provided that Gavin could prove that they could still sing.

  “You want to play cards?” his grandmother asked as he looked up at her.

  “Sure, Grandma.” He and Grandma Frances had been playing gin rummy since he was old enough to graduate from Old Maid.

  As she dealt the cards, he asked, “Have you heard about this concert at the Dells over Labor Day weekend?”

  “What concert is that, dear?” she asked, picking up her cards.

  Over the next couple of rounds, he explained the concert to her, showing her the website and the response from the promoter. “Wouldn’t it be fun for you guys to sing again?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “You don’t realize what hard work it is, baby boy. And none of us have the voices we used to.”