Danny's Choice Ch. 03: Star Chase

I listened to the gossip and heard the rumors. I knew which film stars had earned their rise in films by lying on their backs—and often with someone of the same sex. It didn't upset me or scare me. I could go with the flow.

My parents had been protecting me from that in my film career, or so they believed, but what I thought was that their protectiveness was what was keeping my career from taking off. And it was interfering with my developing natural inclinations. I didn't think they were stealing money from me or anything like that by closely managing me. I just didn't have the prejudices or scruples my parents did—and I wanted to increase the size of the letters in my name on the billboards faster. This was why I filed for—and obtained—my complete emancipation from my parents as my managers upon my eighteenth birth. It also was what had spurred a long-conceived plan to start to unfold.

The timing was crucial. The rumored film, Danny's Choice—one that purposely would challenge social and film industry standard codes—was the story of a young man coming into touch with his homosexuality and moving into that lifestyle. A story of being cultivated and initiated and completely dominated by an older man until a younger one came along offering him different choices and more independence.

The twist was that the young man found he couldn't manage to make his own choices and returned to his first, older lover's control. It would be an art film, not totally a pornographic one—it was the early '60s, after all. But there would be fondling, kissing, partial nudity and many not-so-subtle references. And some rumors said it would present the sex scenes graphically but artfully. There even were whispers that the actors wouldn't be faking the sex scenes, they'd actually be having sex—that maybe the most graphic parts would be edited out in a public version but included in an underground offering.

But everyone knows how gossips blow stuff like this out of proportion—not that I wasn't prepared to play the role however the director wanted it played.

The movie wouldn't play in mainline theaters and it wouldn't win any awards—in Europe perhaps, but not in the United States. But the star of that movie would be noticed and, if he played the role well, he'd rise to stardom—on word-of-mouth notoriety as much as anything else. That didn't bother me. Notoriety was one of the flashier forms of fame.

I was determined to land that lead role. I knew the emotions; I looked younger than I was. And I was determined to play the role well. My stint in Steamboat Landing would position me for consideration, if I could get the attention of the movie's casting chief and producer. Real life experience would inform a well-played role.

"Yes, I want the role of Danny in that movie," I answered Grant, looking directly into his face.

"And prepared to do anything to get it?" Grant asked.

"Just about anything."

"You realize that it will queer Steamboat Landing, don't you?"

"How so?" I didn't really care, but I might as well ask what his reasoning was on that.

"If you play an obvious queer on the big screen, the general public will realize that you're playing that in Steamboat Landing too. You'll kill the program. The censors will chop us to pieces."

"You don't see getting more than one more season out of this sinking ship anyway, do you?" I shot back. "The way the script is going."

"The way the script is going?"

"If you start fucking me off stage in the program, the general public is going to catch on anyway, won't they?"

I thought he was going to swallow his tongue before he managed to speak. "If I—?"

"If the writers add in hints of incest, don't you think that will tip the program over on its side? Don't you think the general public will start catching on to what's going on under the surface?"

"Oh, that. I suppose you're right. But you're willing to risk all of our cushy jobs here for a chance at a controversial art film?"

"Yes."

"Ambitious little prick, aren't you?" Grant said it with a smile. We bantered like this all the time, so I didn't take umbrage. It did sting a bit, though.

"What did you do to get roles, Grant?" I shot back. "The way I heard it you fucked a program director—a male program director." And the shot went home, which took more of the sting out of Grant's "prick" comment.

Our conversation paused, as it looked like the scriptwriters were about to descend to pass out lines. But it was a false alarm and we settled in with our coffee again. Grant settled rather closer to me than he'd been before and placed a hand on my thigh. If I called him on it, he'd probably just say it was part of his method acting thing. I didn't say anything, though, because it fit in with my plan.

"I hear that your documents dropping your parents as your managers went through," he said, seemingly changing the topic of the conversation, although I didn't see it as a change—and Grant didn't intend it as a change, either, I was sure.

"Yep, on my eighteenth birthday, three weeks ago."

"Eighteen," Grant said. "Yes, I have trouble thinking of you as that old. You play younger quite well in the program."

Trouble thinking of me as that old, I thought. Why do you have my eighteenth birthday circled on the calendar in your dressing room then?

Another pause, with Grant taking up the conversation again. "So you don't live with your parents anymore."

"No, I've got an apartment with a couple of other guys I went to high school with. They're doing college. I've got other fish to fry first."

"Is your apartment far from here?"

"Far enough. The bus is a pain. I'm just now looking for a car to buy. Think I'll get a Thunderbird."

"I just bought a brand-new Buick Convertible. A '64 Wildcat. Next year's models were introduced just a few weeks ago. I got the first one sold in Hollywood."

"Sweet. Sure would like a ride in one of those."

"I could give you a ride tonight." There was a pause; I sensed what was coming. I sensed he wanted to move that hand farther up my thigh—much farther. "I could give you a good ride," he added in a voice so low I suspected it was gauged to permit me to just pretend I didn't hear it, if I chose.

I didn't choose. We'd been bantering on the edge of this enough. He wanted to fuck me and I wanted the expanded experience in being fucked. I gave him a sharp look. We both knew we no longer were talking about driving in a car.

Time to play the wild card. "You want to ride me tonight? You want to fuck me tonight?" I covered his hand with mine and gave him a little "knowing" smile. There, he'd been circling around me for months.

Damn cocky actor. He didn't skip a beat or anything.

"Yeah, I'd like to fuck you tonight. You really are eighteen, aren't you? You aren't shitting me about that, are you? You really know that I can get you an interview with Ted Atkins for that Danny's Choice part, don't you? We both know that's why you've been sucking up to me for weeks. You know I've wanted to fuck you for the past two years, don't you?"

The lot Grant had bought up in the Hollywood Hills, overlooking the city, to build his house on wasn't on the way from the film studio to my apartment. But it was isolated, private, and had a great view from where Grant nosed the hood of the Wildcat to the edge of the drop off giving the big city panorama.

1964 Wildcats are roomy vehicles, and if they're convertibles, you don't even have to worry about headroom if the top's down. After Grant leaned over from the driver's seat, unzipped my trousers, and took my cock in his mouth—giving me an expert blow job that had me taking copious mental notes—Grant scooted over into the passenger seat, lifting my much slighter body, and sat me down on his hard cock.

I murmured, "Be good to me, but be gentle. I've never—"

"It's your first time?"

"Yes."

"Hot damn." Grant slowed down his approach. He was already buried in my ass, with me facing the dashboard, my arms folded on the dash and my head laying on my arms, but he held there and waited for me to accommodate to him.

I did the huffing and moaning and groaning that he thought would go with the first time—and I seemed to have been convincing enough with Grant, who was all kisses and thank yous and careful handling—at least until he got taken up in the heat of the moment. Early in the pumping, with me crouching up, leveraging on my feet, so that my ass was raised a bit from Grant's crotch and Grant could fuck up into my channel, I started to move my buttocks—back and forth and in a circular motion—just like Father Paul told me drove him wild. It got to Grant too. He lost his control and ended up grabbing my waist and slamming me up and down on his cock until we both had ejaculated.

I did what I thought was the appropriate screaming when being taken this way for the first time, and Grant had asked the right questions on stopping or slowing down—neither of which he could have or would have done—but I think I managed to make the right statements of wanting Grant's cock regardless.

Sitting, panting, side by side afterward, each of us with a hand on the cock of the other—both of us coming to life there again, Grant said, "You do that well for your first time."

"Thanks." What I was thinking, though, was that I'd had plenty of practice in a short time. It was Father Paul's favorite position. And Father Paul had become my favorite priest to practice with. I'm sure there are those who would wonder why I first gave myself to priests. The ways of priests weren't that great a secret, although the Catholic Church and society as a whole seemed to want to be blind to that—and probably would remain so into the next century. And, since I was reaching for public fame, a priest fucking me was likely to have too much to lose to call me out in public about that. He had more to lose than I did.

"I guess you want me to drive you home now," Grant continued. He wasn't hiding the disappointment very well that the session was coming to an end.

"If you get me an interview with Ted Atkins," I responded, "we can both get naked, you can lay down on the backseat, and I'll ride you into the sunset."

The backseat of a 1964 Buick Wildcat convertible is quite commodious indeed.

* * * *

On the following Friday, I rode Ted Atkins' cock in the producer's office after work hours, with Atkins sitting on the side of a studio couch and me in his lap, facing him, my arms thrown around Atkins' neck so that the producer could suck my nipples while I bounced up and down on his cock.

I couldn't play the "first time" role—Grant had gotten me the interview, and, I was quite sure told Atkins what I would do to get an audition—but I could, and did, play the "I've never had a cocking as good as this" role. I think I was pretty good at it. In fact, I think I'm a damn fine actor and deserve the role of Danny on those merits alone. But this is Hollywood. There's no straight road to anyplace worthwhile here.

Afterward, Atkins said. "You interview very well, young man. Very convincing. It's an iffy movie, though. So much depends on the investors. I have investors really hot to get a movie like Danny's Choice filmed. But the leading role in such a movie is all important to men like this. They have to know who they're dealing with. But, say, there's an investors' meeting at my house on Tuesday. Perhaps—"

I hesitated slightly. I'd been hearing rumors that the investors for this movie were no more than a chummy men's club chasing free-use young male tail—that there was no such movie in the offing. But I had to take the risk.

"I can be there. You'll put in a good word for me?"

"Well, I'm sure you'd be one of the leading possibilities."

"Take me home with you tonight. Let me convince you." My research had told me that Ted Atkins lived alone and was between personal trainers.

When I arrived at the investors' meeting at Atkins' Beverly Hills mansion on Tuesday evening, I made the trip by descending the stairs from Atkins' bedroom where I'd been—on Atkins' bed with my legs open—the better part of the days since Friday in Atkins' office.

As I came down the stairs, I saw them—seven middle-aged men, sitting in a semicircle in Atkins' living room. Sixteen wide-open eyes, including those of Atkins, followed my descent. In anticipation of exactly what I found, I was stark naked.

Damn. My descent was arrested by noticing that, though, all eyes were on me, some hands were otherwise engaged. Anthony. The little Italian dancer, Anthony—the same age as me, hitting Los Angeles at the same time as me, answering the same casting calls as me—was already ahead of me here. Leave it to Atkins to be making this a competition.

Anthony was down to his briefs—although that didn't mean much, because a hand was doing a disappearing act under the waistband of Anthony's briefs—and the Italian's lithe little body was wedged between two of the investors. His legs were spread, one slung over one guy's lap and the other over the thigh of the guy on the other side of him. The investors' arms had him in a close hold and their hands were everywhere on his body. Anthony was showing a scared expression, but I assumed that that was pretense—that he wanted the lead role in Danny's Choice as much as I did.

OK, battle on, I thought as I continued down the stairs. How will it be; how will I take them? I asked myself. Left to right or right to left?