Chapter 1

“Lights! Camera! Action!”

The director’s voice called out the words synonymous with the start of filming. The clapboard snapped, and silence descended on the set as the actors began to play out their scene.

In it, a particularly buff Santa, played by Ebenezer Splooge, had just come to town on Christmas Eve and was giving a very good college boy his Christmas present —a holly jolly blow job in front of the Christmas tree.

Ebenezer, the stunning brunette, blue-eyed, chisel-featured star — he knew what he looked like, worked hard at it, and was justifiably proud of it — of twenty-five holiday-themed movies, including big-budget hits like Santa Claus is Cumming to Town , and Jingle Bell Cock, the winner of sixteen — sixteen! — Golden Dick Awards for Best Actor, (which he kept lined up on his mantel like a gay conga line), and the most sought-after gay porn star in the business was trying to work.

Trying being the operative word in that sentence.

Cameras, lights, and booms encircled him. The director sat next to the bed barking orders he expected to be followed. The script girl stood nearby with a copy of the screenplay in case someone needed to be thrown a line, of which there were at total of ten in the entire production. At least a dozen people were watching the action, most in total boredom because they’d seen it all a million times before in a million variations, and through it all, Ebenezer tried his damnedest to give a blowjob to an actor who was not even remotely in the moment.

He sucked and sucked, rolled his tongue over the head of a long cock, teased at the slit, jerked it hard and fast, slow and easy, played with a pair of hairy balls that could choke a hippopotamus, used every damned trick he’d learned over his long career, and…nothing. The cock in question remained as floppy as a dead fish. Take after take after take.

He finally glanced up at his co-star and was almost startled into speechlessness. Almost.

“Stop! Cut! Allan!” he shouted to the director. “Allan! Do you see this? Do you see what I have to put up with? Look at what he’s doing while I’m trying to work. He’s eating M&Ms and reading a fucking comic book! Why do they keep hiring these straight actors for gay porn films? That old ‘a mouth is a mouth, and a hole is a hole’ bullshit is wearing thin.”

“Come with me, and we’ll have a talk, Ebbie,” Allan said. “Fluffer! Fluffer!”

A young man who looked as if he was just realizing he may have made a very grave error when choosing which college internship to take ran up. “Yes, Mr. Gray?”

“Get that dick stiff for the next shot.”

“But, Mr. Gray, he doesn’t really want to cooperate. You saw how Mr. Splooge—”

Allen sniffed and barked. “I don’t care if you have to tie it to a fucking popsicle stick or encase it in cement to get it to stand up, just do it!”

An assistant threw a silk robe over Ebenezer’s shoulders, which he quickly slipped on and tied with the belt. It was chilly on set once you got out from under the heat of the lights.

Ebenezer started right in. “Allen, we must do something about these co-stars you keep hiring! Is it the money? Does the budget not allow for hiring top-level gay actors?”

Allen shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s not the money.” He spread his hands. “You need to listen to me—”

“Then what is it? There are just as many gorgeous, well-hung gay actors as straight ones. Why are you not hiring them?” Ebenezer brushed a piece of lint from his arm. “The last three actors you hired to play opposite me were terrible! This latest one is the worst! Where did you find him? Starbucks?”

“Look, we can dub another guy’s cock for the blowjob scene. You won’t have to suck him again. But you need to understand that the only one holding up the production is you , Ebbie. You need to come down off that high horse you’re riding and remember your roots. Stop being so goddamn condescending. You do remember how it was before you got here, don’t you? Back when you were waiting tables and giving blow jobs in the alley behind the gay bar?”

Ebenezer was fully aware that everyone on set was staring at him and chose to ignore them all. He also remembered those dark days, slaving long hours slinging burgers and drinks and sucking strangers for rent money. They were the days he’d tried hard to forget, and it pissed him off that Allen had the balls to throw them in his face.

Allen took his arm and hissed a sharp whisper in his ear. “I took you away from all that, Ebbie. I made you the star you are today. It’s not the money and it’s not your co-stars! It’s you , Ebbie. Nobody wants to work with you anymore. Finding anyone in the Adult Performance Artists Guild to drop trou for you is nearly impossible!”

“What?” Ebenezer pulled his arm away. He spun to face Allen, getting up close to Allen’s face. “That’s utterly ridiculous. I’m a great actor. I’ve won more Golden Dicks than I can count! If anyone’s made anyone, I’ve made you ! Your production company was teetering on bankruptcy when you hired me. My movies brought you to the top of the field.” He began to pace, his arms clasped behind his back. “I’m nothing if not the ultimate professional. Perhaps they’re intimidated by me. After all,” Ebenezer lifted his nose in the air, “I am a star.”

“What you are is a royal pain in the ass, and not the good kind that makes us money.” Allen grabbed Ebenezer’s arm again and pulled him out of the bedroom set and into the airplane hangar they’d rented for space. In addition to the bedroom, there was a kitchen set, and a living room set, complete with a Christmas tree, a chimney, a recently shed Santa costume, and a shower set. He dragged Ebenezer until they were far enough away not to be overheard. At least, not easily.

Allen pointed a finger at Ebenezer. “You need to get hold of your ego, Ebbie. It’s ruining your career, and you don’t even see it!” He pushed Ebenezer away from him. “You think the problem is with everyone else — poor actors, straight actors, inept technicians, bad scripts, but it’s not. The problem is you .”

“You’re out of your mind!” Ebenezer yelled. “I am the only thing keeping this under-budget, untalented bunch of ingrates in business!” He stormed back onto the set with Allen trailing behind him. “Who says I’m hard to work with? Was it you, Norbert?” He pointed at the soundman. “No?” He turned on the script girl. “How about you, Melanie? Come on, speak up!” He turned to his leading man, who was still being serviced by the fluffer. “And you, George? Is that your name? Pete? Harry? I can’t keep track. Can you take your nose out of that fucking comic book long enough to look at me?” He spun around and faced Allen again. “See? Nobody has a problem with me. It’s this company! This set! Look at it! Motel Hell is what it is, not a bedroom. Those paintings on the wall…where did you get them from? Motel Six?”

He grabbed a corner of the bed sheet and pulled it off along with the comforter. “And these sheets? Thrift store clearance aisle?” He flung them into the corner of the set.

The fluffer came up for air. “I don’t think you’re difficult to work with, Mr. Splooge.”

Ebenezer glared at him. “Nobody asked you, kid.”

“Look, keep your head down and keep sucking, Fluffy. I don’t care if you have to suck the skin off the damn thing, just get it done!” Allen cried. “And you, Gerald!”

The disinterested actor finally looked up from his copy of Superman Unchained and cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Put the damn book down and concentrate! I need a hard-on right now !” Allen bellowed.

Meanwhile, Ebenezer was off on a rant, tearing around the set, fully out of control. “I’ll bet nobody treats Ryan Reynolds or Hugh Jackman this way! Nobody pulls Denzel Washington out of the room like a bad schoolboy to take a lecture!” He picked up a plaster cast of some Greek sculpture and threw it, smashing it against the wall dividing the bedroom set from the kitchen set and leaving a big hole between the two. “Nobody tells Brad Pitt the problems on set are all his fault!”

Ebenezer picked up another plaster doodad and flung it, narrowly missing Allen’s head.

“Ebbie! Get yourself under control! Nobody said everything is your fault. We’ll dub in another guy’s cock, like I said. And the next scene is you fucking his ass, and we don’t even need to show his face for that! Come on, Ebbie! Be reasonable!” Allen begged. “It’s almost Christmas!”

“No. I will not be treated this way anymore! I quit! Do you hear me? I quit. This picture, this industry, and this fucking holiday! I retire!”

With that, Ebenezer spun around and marched off the set and out of the hangar, fully expecting someone to try to stop him.

But nobody did. Not that he noticed. At least, not yet.

The bite of a cold wind couldn’t even break through his hot rage to remind Ebenezer that he was running outside with only a very short robe on — one that didn’t cover his dangly bits.

He stalked through the parking lot, got to his car, and only then when he went to check his pockets for his keys, did he discover he didn’t have any pockets or keys — and that he realized he was half naked.

It dawned on him then that he would need to skulk back to the set to retrieve his clothes, shoes, and keys. It was mortifying, but he’d show them how good an actor he was by walking in with his head held high and ignoring their whispers. Let them talk. Let them bitch. Allen would be on the phone before sunset, begging him to come back.

He hurried the way he’d come, much more aware of the wind’s bite and his exposed bits and pieces on the way in than he’d been on the way out. That’s what they got for filming in Canada, where it was less expensive than Hollywood — cold dicks and frozen asses. Although he admitted he’d done movies in the U.S. where the sets were so cheaply designed they probably could’ve filmed in the bathroom of a 7-Eleven and still got the same quality shot. The business was the business, he thought, no matter where they filmed. That’s what you got with Allen’s company — either better quality and a frozen cock, or terrible quality and possibly hepatitis.

Maybe he wouldn’t even come back when Allen called. Maybe he’d go rogue. Get an agent. Make movies you could take your grandma to see.

Oh, no fucking way. I’m not starting all over again. I didn’t work all these years to end up playing a corpse on CSI.

Taking a deep breath, he centered himself, then lifted his chin and stalked inside the hangar.

Where nobody noticed him at all.

They’d gotten the fluffer to take his place as Santa.

The fluffer .

And what was even worse, they’d traded out the straight guy they’d hired to play the college boy with one of the cameramen, who was having the time of his fucking life. His cock looked hard enough to split a coconut. The fluffer must’ve chosen the right internship after all.

The speed at which they’d replaced him gave him pause and doused his rage. In its place rose a thick plume of regret.

The scene was underway, and everyone’s attention was on the action happening on the bed. Nobody even noticed he’d returned.

He quietly crept into his dressing room, feeling like an impostor, and gathered his things. He threw on a pair of pants, a T-shirt, his coat, and sneakers. He stuffed the rest into a duffle bag, which he carried out with him.

Refusing to look back at the set where the action was going hot and heavy, he walked steadily out of the hangar again and never looked back.