“Nah,” Ben says. “I’ve never been on a date in L.A. that didn’t involve media somehow.”
We laugh and I think how much I liked his answers to the interview questions about school choice and speed humps and clean-air initiatives. We seem to be on similar pages, and we “cheers” our iced coffees. “To clean air,” Ben says.
When I get home, I have a good feeling about our first date, so I email the crew and ask for a copy of the picture. If Ben and I work out, it will be so special to have a photo of our first meeting.
I’m thinking, Blue dots at last.
* * *
Hey, Siri, the show must go on. We’re in Seattle. Kathi agreed to shoot a TV show that we’ve never heard of, never seen. She’s agreed to play a character whose name she can’t remember, from a script she hasn’t read. But money is money, and working occasionally looks good and appeases her agents and her mother.
In our hotel lobby, we spot k.d. lang. Does she know who we are? Does she want to meet Kathi Kannon? Does she think I’m Kathi’s lover or son? Does she want to ask me to hook her up with an autograph, a meet and greet? Does she think I’m important, too? I’m back to feeding my addiction. With k.d. is a young companion, male, stylishly dressed, possibly an assistant. He looks over at me. He smiles and nods—to our being gay, to our being assistants? I’m not sure. I’m thinking, Maybe there are too many assistants in the world, too many gatekeepers for too many gates.
Kathi and I are wearing weird hats she bought at the airport—her in moose antlers and me, reluctantly, in a woolly Russian-lumberjack-style getup. Roy in tow, we turn from k.d. and her companion and get in the elevator. A drunk guy enters behind us as the doors close. We all stare at one another for a moment. I wonder if he recognizes Kathi, whether I’m going to have to fight with him, or more probable, lose a fight with him. And as we start to ascend, the guy mumbles at us, “Weirdos.”
I’m trying to assess the degree to which we are maybe in danger. Kathi is still. Roy is still. I look over at Kathi, her makeup smeared, glitter in her eyelashes, her wacky hat askew. I look at Roy, tired, hair matted from his nap in the limo. I imagine my face, exhaustion, my eyelids droopy, a nasal drip starting in the back of my throat. We are a mess. Maybe we are weirdos.
The elevator dings and Kathi and I exit, not murdered after all. I safely take her to her room, with a promise I’ll see her in a few moments to say good night. I go to my room and start to unpack and prepare for the next day.
As I’m about to leave my room to go back to Kathi, I hear the drunk guy yelling in the hall. He must have followed us or remembered our floor. Is he looking for us? Is he lost, confused, dangerous? I watch through the peephole. There’s a threat between me and Kathi Kannon—I’m thinking, Not the first time.
A short time later, the man’s friend collects him, tells him to be quiet or they’ll get kicked out of the hotel.
I stand at my hotel door for several minutes, my face squished against the peephole, looking for any signs the threat is still lingering. I hear nothing, see nothing.
Therapista says some threats are silent.
I slip out and go to Kathi’s room.
Kathi is snuggled in bed, Roy snoring beside her. She’s watching TV, clicking channels.
Click, click, click.
I sit next to her, that awkward moment where I wait to be dismissed, wondering if she really wants me to leave or really wants me to stay, to be with her, to share some common thread, some companionship.
Click, click, click.
And on the television, suddenly, it’s her! Her movie. The movie! Nova Quest. The film that truly birthed her celebrity. I gasp. Everything stops. She freezes. I freeze. The AC in the room shuts down, every molecule turns to see what happens. Kathi watches herself as Priestess Talara onscreen for a few moments. Her young face, her young body, her young hand—all while her current hand, her real hand, clutches mine.
It’s a dramatic moment in Nova Quest: One of her co-stars is dying, worrying he failed in his mission to save the planet. Priestess Talara holds him tight and whispers her iconic line, the one that has lived on, survived these decades on T-shirts and posters and coffee mugs. She says the line that defined part of my childhood and brought me comfort in the dark days of my young life. Priestess Talara says, “It’s all the All.”
Awesome! In awe, I look at Kathi. Her lips part. I stop breathing. She’s deciding what to say. The quiet wakes Roy and he perks up like the rest of us.
Hey, Siri, I want her to become my hero, Priestess Talara, to show me she still has it, to show me she gets it, the lore and the magic. I want her to validate my childhood and my jagged journey to being in the room with her. I want her to leap from the film to the screen to this hotel room and make me a part of this iconic moment, even if it’s just by proximity to her talent. I want to stand, I want to lock eyes with her, I want to be a part of this insane scene both in the room and on the television, in this tall order that lies before us. I hold my breath.
Kathi shakes her head and says, “Asinine,” lets go of my hand, and changes the channel.
Click, click, click.
I’m thinking, A million infomercials seem more interesting to her than her history, her life.
“Did you take your meds?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says.
“Want to write?”
“No.”
“Want to go over your lines for tomorrow?”
“Definitely not,” she says.
I bid her farewell.
Asinine.
* * *
I’m naked and I call Ben.
The usual exchanges about our day only get us so far, and we both turn to what we really want. We start masturbating on the phone together.
My eyes closed, my hand rubbing myself, my mind in a room, in a bed, intimate with Ben, I say, “I wanna feel you inside me.”
“I wanna feel you inside me,” he repeats.
I open my eyes, wondering if he’ll say more, but he doesn’t. “Is that it?” I ask.
“Is what it?”
“I just said, ‘I wanna feel you inside me,’ and then you repeated it.”
“Right,” he says.
“No, no. That’s not dirty talk. You have to say something fresh. Not just repeat me. Or you can repeat it, but you have to, like, add to it, move the scene forward, you know?”
“Oh, right, right, yeah,” he says. “Um, I’m gonna get inside you tonight.”
Perhaps Therapista is right that relationships are an ever-shifting pie chart, with some slices big—like Ben’s everyday good looks and kindness—and some slices smaller—like his ability to talk filthy. But right now a small slice of talking filthy is just fine. I’m more nourished on this night by the slice of Ben’s pie that seems biggest and warmest: He’s here for me, at least on the phone.
We laugh, we talk, we orgasm. As I end the call, I’m thinking, This would have been so much more fun if I wasn’t so many miles away.
* * *
It’s five A.M. and I have no idea where I am.
The digital clock on my nightstand displays the time in a glowing orange oval with black numbers, giving the hotel room the feel of a spaceship.