In my line of work, I can detect talent with ease, like a bloodhound to game, like an ansty journalist to a scoop. My ability, though, can misfire on me. I knew I was in trouble when my best friend's finance peeled off his shirt, and I found myself unable to escape the idea that I needed that body in front of my cameras. I was coming up with video titles when he pulled his pants down.
. . .
"We there yet?"
I grumble like a toddler.
Felicity's eyes disappeared into her arching black lashes, giving me heated side-eye I knew all too well.
"We're almost there,"
She mocked,with baby-talk.
"Need to go pee-pee?"
I laugh, absentmindedly eyeing lush pines that dart past in blurs of green. The rolling landscape of the country brought me back to a small-town childhood I was glad to escape.
"How far is this place anyway?"
I ask.
Felicity tugged the cuffs of her sleek blazer that matched her green eyes, absently. Green isn't a color that usually evokes the idea of flame or anything harmful, but these eyes told a different story. They are a piercing green that sets whatever its gaze dares to meet ablaze.
"Couple miles left. Regg's family's orchard should be fun, they have a private lake."
I stuffed my face into my knuckle, leaning against the door, wishing I was spending the weekend anywhere else.
"Sounds more like a summer camp than a bachelor's party."
I snorted, arousing a little giggle from Felicity.
"C'mon, it won't be that bad, you poor city boy."
She snickered at me.
"Coming from the person who is heading back into the city for her bachelorette, getting twerked on by pretend cops and manicures or whatever you chicks do when you party."
"In that order?"
She replied playfully. The chipped and faded pavement turns to rocky gravel, and the car is absorbed in the melody of crunching. We are silent for a couple minutes before my mind stubbornly wanders.
"You really like this dude, huh?"
I say, flinching at the sound of gravel tapping the paint on her Mercedes.
"If by 'this dude' you mean Regg, then duh. He's a sweet guy. Hoping to settle down a little bit, save up and move back to Europe. Regg wanted to have the wedding here with his family because of that."
I'm taken so aback that I choke on nothing.
"'Settle down'? Wha- who are you and what did you do with Calco?"
That green blaze turns to me, and she smacks my arm sharply. She was a lady that had a good smack in her.
"Don't go mentioning my old stage name! That's years behind me."
I look over at my best friend skeptically. The name sparks up old memories of our first meeting: as co-stars in a porno. After a shooting for a video, we hit the club for some drinks, and her sassy, eccentric nature oddly enough laced pretty well with my laid back, fun loving nature. We balanced each other out, she helped me push past my boundaries and I was there to ease her down to a more suitable level. We tried a relationship, but it didn't work out. We both couldn't find ourselves settling, we rode the perpetual shining lights of NYC, in constant motion.
She was the life of the party, finding new fun and people when things would start to become mundane. It's hard imagining that same girl settling down and marrying.
"How did the hubby take the news of your old career?"
I ask, prying as usual. She smiled, knowing what I was doing.
"He took it well. He understood that I was a starry-eyed immigrant who needed cash and had the body to get it."
We arrive at a fading wooden sign painted red and green that reads: "Simpson Orchard." We turn into a matted dirt driveway, aligned by plump apple trees like pillars.
"Yee-haw, here we come."
I mutter. If it wasn't Felicity who had asked me, I wouldn't have come. She considered me family, so she begged if I could be a groomsman for her fiance, who had an open spot from a last minute ditcher.
We pull into a wide driveway filled with vehicles in different shapes and sizes. Burly, manly trucks, to petite Sedans that glinted in the late Summer sunshine. Before the vehicles, a large house of ravishing dark wood stood tall above the delicate greenery and flowers that blossomed at its base. An intricate garden splashed color in front of the house, fountains trickling quietly, stone benches hidden among the woven paths.
Before I could get out of my seat, Felicity gripped my forearm in a way that thrusted me back to the times of our bodies tangled before the glinting lens of a camera. When it came to her work, you weren't fucking her, she was fucking YOU. Her sassy attitude would flare up in times of arousal, and she took charge. Viewers ate it up. When I look to her eyes though, the reminiscing excitement deflates, and she looks on the verge of a scolding.
"Now, ground rules. Regg played college football, so his groomsmen buddies are a bunch of jocks."
This trip suddenly got interesting. She detects the excitement in my eyes, and pops that shit like a balloon.
"Looking for talent is OFF LIMITS. Just be one of the guys. You hear me?"
I sink back into my seat with disappointment. Her green eyes were burning holes in me, and I knew she was expecting a verbal answer.
"Yes ma'am."
I grumble.
Felicity fled the porn scene as soon as she was raking in good money, and could stand on her own two feet in a new country. I never left, I went from the person in front of the camera, to the person behind it. A producer saw creativity in my performances and suggestions when filming, and offered me a job in the industry as a co-producer. With the money I was making, I felt no reason to leave.
We open our doors and step into the warm air of the orchard, and my nostrils are flushed with the potent scent of greens. Like a projector shining into the back of my eyelids, I was a scrawny kid hurtling across the dirt and grass with my siblings. I shake off the nostalgia, and tail Felicity as she clicks with her high heels up a tarnished cobblestone path up to the front door. She opens the door without knocking, and we step into a house alive with noise. The house enters immediately into a wide kitchen area furnished with vintage decor and signs that gives the room a feel of stepping into a 50s bar. Instead of a kitchen table, a round oval booth was placed in front of a window that curved around it, showing the driveway and the stretching greens of the orchard.
Women fill that booth right now, and men are scattered around the kitchen, standing. Stepping through the room, one side was poignantly female smelling rich with flowery and creamy perfumes, and the other was thick with musky deodorant and Axe. I've never worn Axe since a co-star complained. I stuck to more expensive colognes. It was more than prevalent that my fellow groomsmen were jock-heads. They were wide shouldered dressed in college sweatshirts, muscle-tees, and sweats. In contrast, the girls crowding the bench were sporting lavish dresses, curled hair, and make up. I had the feeling I knew what I was in for with my night with these guys.
The tallest, biggest of the guys approached Felicity and I as we entered. I felt my breath catch in my throat, looking at him. He had a sweet, coppery complexion that gleamed against his stout curls of black on his head. He had a freshly shaven face, and caramelized irises that glowed. A rugged and thin football sweatshirt couldn't fully conceal his broad frame, and a hint at large round shoulders and even larger pecs bulge from the old cotton. He sported fading jeans that were taut on his bulky legs.
The man who must be Regg leans forward and kisses Felicity with his full lips, and the happy couple's smiles tangle and illuminate like a beacon. He turns to me, outstretching a hand and looking his groomsman up and down.
"You must be Cesar. The name is Reginald Simpson. I've heard lots about you from my fiance."
It takes me a moment to realize the man was talking to me. When your job is ornamented around sex, your perspective on it really changes. As a co-producer, beauty is a utility to make dollar signs, and my own arousal has been grinded and made less meaningful by the day to day use. When I'm filming, I'm not watching two people having sex, I'm making production decisions with angles, lighting, finding the best way to make a good product and get those dollar signs rolling. When I shake this man's hand though, electricity nips at my crotch, reviving nostalgia from the live and unpredictable sexuality of my teenage years. His grip is firm, respectful.
"N-nice to meet... you."
What is wrong with me? I must sound like an idiot. I felt color rising up my neck and I tried to swallow it. Felicity gains his attention with a tug of the arm and I feel like I can breathe without those honey eyes melting me.
"Okay hun, if one of your boys calls in strippers, I'll have your balls. Don't get too wasted! You know how I get when I get back home drunk."
Her fingers find his bubble butt, and some of the guys make a scene of impersonating grossed out preteens.
"Ewwwww- cooties!"
Even some of the girls joined in. Reginald chuckles deeply, and to provoke the onlookers more, he wraps her in another kiss, pressing their bodies to each other. This kiss though, his beacon shines less brightly. There is a stiffness to his kiss, and strain to his jaw. Felicity took no note of it and was consumed in her man's love, and I thought that I'd maybe imagined it. They pull away, and Felicity gives me a side hug, putting a hand on my chest.
"C'mon, Cece, Lets all get something to eat, we got a lot of liquor ahead of us."
She coddles. My pet name, no matter who heard it usually has no effect on me, but a wave of embarrassment sinks into me like a kid at a family reunion when amusement shines in Regg's eyes. The girls all cheer noisily and the men grumble in reply. Guys never change.
Chairs were pulled up to the booth, but there was no room for all of us, so most of us ate with our knees as a table, chowing down on homemade burgers and fries, complimentary from the Simpsons.
"Cece, huh?"
Regg's growly, bassy voice teased me, his position squeezed into the booth. Felicity was perched on his lap, a queen mounted on his thick thighs, snacking on fries. Felicity's eyes dart to our conversation and she smirks. I raise my hands in innocence.
"A pet name for me. Had it ever since we met at work."
This makes Regg nearly choke on a fry. Calco clearly didn't mention that footage of his fiance and I getting to it exists on the internet. Felicity's eyes flare like gasoline on a ghostly green flame, and she interjects.
"He's a producer."
