CHAPTER TEN
“Breakfast?” Selene asked me as she let us both out of the front door.
“Excellent idea,” I said, squinting in the bright sunlight as I reached for my sunglasses.
“How are you finding working there?” Selene asked me after I had bitten into my hamburger.
“I’m enjoying it,” I said. “It’s different from anything I’ve done before.”
Selene ate a mouthful of eggs. “Good. I like it too. It’s dull. Tonight will be interesting. Charlie’s working.”
“Who’s Charlie?” I asked around a mouthful of hamburger.
“Charlie is one of the Minx girls, another porn star like Glenn. She doesn’t work often, but it’s always crazy when she does.”
I drank my espresso. “How come porn actors work as prostitutes? I would have thought they made enough money from the videos.”
Selene shrugged. “I guess to you and me, who are earning $15 an hour, it would be enough. I know a few girls consider stripping their primary job, and the videos are something they do to promote themselves as strippers. I guess it’s the same for those that turn tricks. They come to us to work because the owners are part-owners of Minx and one of the gay porn video labels. Keeps it all in the family.”
“Makes sense. I’d wondered if there was an industry connection there. What about you? Are you tempted to work too?”
Selene shrugged. “Sometimes, when I get under $400 in take-home pay at the end of the week, and I know I could make that in a night on my back. But then I look at the customers that come in, and it makes my flesh crawl. What about you?”
I shrugged too. “I don’t think so. I’ve done crap things for money before, crap things. I guess it’d be alright for a while, then I’d start missing sex recreationally. What do the staff do to unwind? Knit? Play basketball?”
Selene laughed. “What do you do to relax?”
I wondered if Selene was flirting with me. “I’ve been unemployed for ages, so relaxing has been all I’ve done. I paint, that’s what I want to be doing.”
“Not acting? I thought Eamon said you were an unemployed actor like most of us.”
I nodded. “There’s more money in acting than painting,” I said, and Selene laughed again.
“Painting must pay incredibly bad then.”
Selene was smiling at me with her eyes, and sipping her coffee, and I was sure now she was flirting with me. She licked her lips and said, “Come home with me?”
She was pretty, with the morning sunlight bringing out the highlights in her hair, her skin clear and healthy looking after all the working girls with their heavy foundation, and I hesitated. I wanted to, all I had since Daniela had left had been sympathy sex from friends, but my common-sense told me it would be a stupid thing to do on my second day in a new job. And what had Shane told me? Try to stay off the girls' radar, and that it was an political workplace.
“Not today,” I said. “But thanks for the offer.”
Selene nodded. “You prefer guys. Sorry, I should have realized that.”
I let it go at that. If Selene assumed I was gay, then she wouldn’t take the rejection. If I took her up on the offer another time, she’d be thrilled that she’d persuaded me to try women. Everyone was happy this way.
After Selene had left, I ordered a second cup of coffee for myself and settled down to read the paper and wait out the morning rush hour before I tried to drive home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jarrod let himself into his flat and yawned. He didn’t have time to go to bed, no matter how tired and sore he was, he needed to shower and dress and get to his film test.
It had been a rough night, and he let the hot water run over him and leaned against the tiles in his shower. Clay had wanted to be his lover again. However, Jarrod wasn't ready to love again. There had been two guys in Brentwood had hurt him, his back was messed up again now, and he had to move like there was nothing wrong with it in front of a casting director. He wanted to take Vicodin and go to bed for a week. Alone.
He remembered the look on Jude’s face when he had opened the bathroom door. He was used to people lusting after him, made his living from it; but there’d been so much longing there that Jarrod felt warm now in a way that had nothing to do with the scalding water streaming over his back.
He closed his eyes for a moment. He’d take about anything at all that made him feel good right now.