Acting Naughty Book 1 of the Action! Series Read online

  Standing outside the set, Keith crossed his arms over his chest tightly. This was what he was waiting for, wasn’t it? This huge break into the world of acting? What the hell was he going to tell his mother and father? Hi, Mom, Dad, I play a fag on TV.

  They would understand, wouldn’t they? They knew ever since he was in high school drama club he had aimed for an acting career. They even paid for his singing lessons. Sent him to USC’s drama school. They were one hundred percent behind him. But…

  Jesus. Why this? Couldn’t I play some macho sports hunk on daytime soaps? Not a fag for a racy cable television series.

  Charlotte was beckoning for him to step up to the plate once more.

  Clearing his throat, Keith hurried back to her.

  “Right, next scene. You two ready?”

  Keith nodded.

  “Good.” She crossed her arms waiting. “On your own time…”

  Inhaling deeply, Keith tried to relax as Carl held aloft the paperwork in his hand.

  “Ready?” Keith whispered.

  “Yes.”

  Trying to focus, Keith inhaled to calm himself and began. “It’s blackmail, Troy. Plain and simple. I just don’t know if I should go to the police without a lawyer with me.”

  “You did the right thing, Dennis.”

  “Will you come to the station with me?”

  Carl rested his hand on Keith’s shoulder. It sent Keith’s body into another trembling fit. Tensing his muscles he tried to fight it.

  “Why don’t we discuss what really happened first?” Carl rubbed him softly.

  Almost forgetting his line, Keith forced himself to look into Carl’s green eyes. “Yes. I need to tell you everything.”

  “You do. It’s the only way I can help you.”

  “I’ll do anything you need me to do, Troy.”

  “I know, Dennis. I’m not worried about that.”

  Keith stared at Carl as if they were waiting for someone to say something. Finally, Keith whispered, “Isn’t that it?”

  “I think so.” Carl read over the paper he was holding.

  Waiting, looking at Charlotte and the rest of the crew, Keith asked, “Was it all right?”

  “Yes. Perfect.” Charlotte paced and added, “I don’t want the scene to end there. Why don’t we keep them going?”

  As Charlotte and company debated, Keith sat down on a chair, interlocked his fingers, and resting them on his lap, watching. Carl sat next to him and leaned on his shoulder to whisper, “This is when the quick reads turn into hours.”

  Keith gave a soft chuckle.

  “You’re doing really well, Keith. I can tell you have some good training.”

  “Thanks, Carl.”

  After another silent pause, Carl said softly, “Christ, why don’t they just decide. I hate waiting around.”

  “Does it happen often?”

  “Sometimes Charlotte begins brainstorming and changing things around. I get very frustrated.”

  “That’s her job.” When Keith turned to look, Carl was smiling wryly at him. “What?”

  “It’ll get on your nerves. I promise.”

  Charlotte turned back to address them. “Look, let’s keep going through the next scene. This one’s too short and I don’t like where it breaks.”

  “Okay.” Keith sat up on the chair.

  “Right. Take it from ‘I’m not worried about that’.”

  Turning back to stare at Carl, Keith waited for his next line. As Carl spoke, Keith focused on Carl’s mouth and eyes, forcing himself to repeat his rehearsed lines and not get distracted.

  ~

  By the time he arrived at his apartment, Keith was exhausted. Parking in front of the building, Keith took the new script with revisions penciled in up to his unit. When he walked through the door, the apartment was vacant. Patty’s waitress job was for mostly nights and weekends.

  Tossing the script down on the kitchen counter, Keith took a beer out of the fridge. He twisted off the top, taking a deep draw off of it. Leaning back against the Formica counter, Keith had his character lines spinning in his head. Charlotte’s suggestions, ideas, motivations, overlapping the words he was reading. It was overwhelming. They didn’t have long to prepare. It was a weekly series and they needed to get the lines and directions down quickly. Walking around the living room with the beer connected to his mouth and his revised script in his hand elevated at eye level, Keith memorized the changes, hiding the text and saying the lines.

  A strange flash of nerves washed over him.

  Carl’s hand resting on his shoulder came back like a vision or dream. It wasn’t in the script. Nowhere in the script did it say, “Troy Wright now touches Dennis Jason’s shoulder.”

  “Get used to it, Keith. You’re going to get a lot more contact from Carl than that,” he mumbled. As if suddenly he had to prove his manhood to himself, he set the bottle and script down and dialed Patty’s number.

  She sounded rushed.

  “Sorry. I know you’re busy.” He felt badly.

  “Yes. You okay? How did it go?”

  “Good. I just wanted to say hi. See you later.”

  “Okay. Bye!” She hung up.

  He set the phone down and walked to the window looking out across the street to the apartment house opposite theirs. Though his gut was in knots, he knew this was a good thing for his career. He had no choice.

  Turning to walk to the bathroom, Keith flipped on the light and looked at himself in the mirror. Brushing his hand back through his blond hair, the echo of Adam’s comment about him being too pretty reverberated in his head. He leaned his hands on the sink and studied his eyes and facial features. “I’m not fucking pretty. Bullshit. I look like a guy.”

  Parting the buttons of his shirt, he opened it up and stood back, inspecting his appearance. His chest was well developed, though almost hairless. But that was genetics. His parents were both blue-eyed blonds, and his dad’s hair was so fair you could hardly see it on his arms and legs.

  “Fuck you, Adam. I am not pretty.”

  He flicked off the light and returned to fetch his beer, brooding.

  ~

  Lying in bed and watching TV, Keith heard the door and checked the time. Hopping out of the covers to greet Patty, Keith found her taking off her jacket and setting her purse on the kitchen table.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi.” She appeared tired.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No. I ate at the restaurant. I just want to shower and sleep.”

  He stepped back as she passed him by to the bedroom.

  “How did your first day go?”

  As she took off her uniform, Keith leaned against the doorframe. “Good.”

  “Are the actors cool?”

  “Yes. They’re really nice.”

  “You’re so lucky, Keith. I wish I could get a break like that.”

  He followed her to the bathroom as she finished taking off her undergarments. “You will.”

  “I doubt it. I don’t have Adam Lewis as my agent.” Reaching into the shower, she turned on the water, waiting as it heated up.

  Staring at her naked body, Keith wanted them to make love before they slept. Patty was very slim, almost too skinny. Her shoulder blades poked out of her back in sharp angels, and her bottom was flat.

  He had answered her ad to share an apartment. Originally he didn’t think they would connect on any kind of deep level, but he was a man and she was a woman, and it just happened one night after some beers.

  The apartment had two bedrooms, but Patty stayed in his now.

  When she stepped into the shower to wash, Keith reached into his briefs, touching his cock. He wasn’t hard, but could motivate himself if he tried.

  “So,” Patty asked over the noise of running water, “what was it like?”

  “It was good.”

  “Good? That’s it? What’s Carl Bronson like? He’s really cute.”

  “He’s nice. He seems pretty down to earth.”
Keith’s fondling of his own cock was getting it hard. When an intruding thought of Carl’s hand on his him popped into his mind, Keith forced himself to stare at Patty’s blurry naked form to get it out.

  She turned off the water and wrung out her black hair. When she opened the door to reach for a towel, she moaned, “Oh, no way. Keith, I’m exhausted.”

  Taking his hand out of his briefs, Keith shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  She stepped out of the tub and vigorously dried her hair, Patty said softly, “Sorry. I know we don’t make love very often.”

  “I understand. The job wears you out. I suppose soon mine will as well.” His cock quickly lost its erection.

  Watching her comb through her wet hair, seeing her small, but firm, breasts in the mirror’s reflection, Keith lowered his eyes. “I’ll be waiting in bed for you.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Heading back to the bed, Keith shut off the television with the remote, and climbed under the sheets waiting.

  He couldn’t understand his melancholy mood. He’d been accepted into the hottest new series on cable, and finally had something to brag about. Why did he still feel so lost?

  Rolling to his back, staring at the wall with the bookcase and small portable television wedged into one of the shelves, Keith knew what his fears were, and that haunting sense of dread was blocking the euphoria he should be feeling.

  Patty emerged from the bathroom and slipped on a small, loose fitting shorts and tank top pajama set. She snuggled under the covers, her back to him and mumbled, “Goodnight, Keith.”

  “Night.”

  He reached for the light on the nightstand and turned it off. As he lay in the darkness, hearing Patty’s deep breathing quickly plunging her into sleep, Keith’s heart ached.

  Chapter Two

  Carl sipped his cup of black coffee in his new condominium. Standing out on the terrace, the view of the city and surrounding hills visible through the smog, he repeated his lines in his head to get them embedded in his brain cells. Tiny flashes of excitement kept sparking through him. He loved the fact that his character’s popularity had grown and his initially small part was expanding. Fan sites had begun to pop up on the web. He had waited his whole life for that. At thirty he felt slightly old to be just beginning his prime in acting. Previously living in New York and doing nothing but theater and stage work, Carl truly felt vindicated to all the doubting family members who told him he would never make it. Acting for a living was like a game of roulette, and almost everyone went home from the casino empty handed.

  Landing the role as Troy Wright was like winning the lottery.

  But…

  Carl wondered if this new direction, this sudden gay storyline was good or bad for his career.

  Stepping back into his kitchen, Carl checked the time and refilled his cup. The upcoming season was supposed to twist and turn the plot of Forever Young to astound the viewers. The one thing Charlotte Deavers did not want was predictability. And from the start of the show, Carl’s character, Troy Wright, had given no indication of his sexuality. He had actually been asexual, not making a move either way. Carl had always thought that was strange. But now he knew why they had kept his preference ambiguous. They must have had his character in mind for being gay from the beginning, though they never mentioned it to him before. Receiving the new script, seeing where they were taking him, Carl was very apprehensive and nervous. Though he had to admit the thought of touching a man had crossed his mind previously, Carl hadn’t acted on it.

  Gay men surrounded him in drama school, but none struck his fancy enough to accept their propositions.

  Carl thought it was ironic he wasn’t dating women either. Life imitating art, he was becoming his character.

  A brief fling with one of the female technical staff of Forever Young that went nowhere was his only sexual foray in ages. He told himself it was because he was busy. Too busy to date. And the idea of going through a “dating” game to find a mate didn’t really fill him with enthusiasm.

  The irony was that very soon he was going to be acting gay and in bed with a man.

  An image of Keith O’Leary came to mind. The man was so damn adorable. He hadn’t even imagined asking Keith if he was gay or had an opinion of the role they were going to play. He didn’t know Keith well enough, and knew if someone had asked him that question he didn’t know how he would answer it.

  It was a job. They went to work, did what they were paid to do, and came home. Wasn’t that the reality?

  Carl had no idea what kissing Keith would be like, and he dreaded and craved it simultaneously. Why he craved it worried him.

  To himself he whispered, “You just crave human touch, Carl. That’s the damn problem.”

  ~

  Happy to be back on the set, Keith was escorted to a room with clothing hanging on metal racks. His wardrobe assistant stood near, pushing loaded hangers across the metal poles. Melvin held a shirt against Keith’s chest.

  “Yes. Perfect with your eyes.”

  Keith felt slightly uncomfortable by the man’s obvious feminine lisp.

  “Try this one. And these black slacks.”

  Keith looked around the room.

  “Oh, don’t turn modest on me, Keith-dear. Before long you’ll be stripped down for your sex scenes.”

  Wanting to tell Mel to shut up, Keith instead took off his shirt and jeans.

  As he slipped the clothing on, he caught Melvin’s gaze on his crotch. “Come on, man,” Keith whined, “use a little tact?”

  “Get used to it, honey. With your looks and body, you’ll be on every internet gay site the minute the new series starts.”

  Feeling sick to his stomach at that thought, Keith stepped into the slacks and zipped up the fly.

  Melvin checked the fit. “Not bad. Go, take a look.” He pointed to a triple mirror.

  Walking towards it, Keith brushed his hair back from his forehead and inspected the clothing.

  Another shirt in his hand, Melvin held it up under Keith’s chin. “No. Light blue. It has to be light blue for this scene.” Melvin twisted around, shouting out, “Ken!”

  Another man showed up behind Keith in the mirror’s reflection.

  “He’s ready for you.”

  “Great.” Ken tapped Keith’s arm. “This way.”

  Sitting in a chair having a man apply powder to his face and brush his hair, Keith imagined all the contact from the male employees was prepping him for the ultimate performance. Of course that was just something he thought of on his own. It was silly, but it was a way to stop flinching every time a man laid his hands on him.

  Patty hadn’t budged this morning when he woke. He had tried to cuddle behind her, his morning hard-on hungry for release. She’d just groan in exhaustion and edge away.

  Keith thought their relationship was unusual. When he first met her, answering her ad, he didn’t think she was his type. But as the living arrangements encouraged them to lose their modesty between each other, Keith began to think of Patty like a sister. Until she made a pass.

  They were watching TV and a passionate love scene from a late night movie had flipped her switch. When she offered, Keith accepted. But in retrospect he wondered if it wasn’t a mistake and the brother and sister respect they had once had should have been maintained. Sex complicated life. He didn’t mind getting his rocks off with her on occasion, but he knew Patty wasn’t his ideal match.

  Keith still felt too young to be thinking about being tied down, and at times resented Patty for her possessiveness. Yet at other moments, he appreciated her help and advice.

  He was woken out of his thoughts by someone calling his name. Ken removed his paper make-up shield from his shirt and stood back.

  “Thanks.” Keith hurried off, jogging to the set.

  Seeing Carl in his character’s clothing, looking polished and fresh, Keith felt a tiny flutter of nerves race through him.

  Charlotte urged Keith to come over to her. H
e did and leaned down closer, as it seemed as if she wanted to whisper something to him.

  “You ever kiss a man, cutie?”

  “No, ma’am,” he laughed nervously.

  “Well, I’m afraid you’re going to get your chance.” She looked over Keith’s shoulder for a moment before continuing. “Close your eyes and pretend it’s a woman if you need to. But you are going to have to get used to it.”

  “I know.” Keith stomach tied in knots.

  “Whatever you do, try not to recoil in disgust. It’ll really upset the gay employees.”

  Chuckling, though he was wrought with nerves, Keith replied, “I won’t. Promise.”

  “Okay, babe. Knock ‘em dead.”

  Meeting Carl on the set, Keith smiled at him.

  “You get the pep talk?” Carl asked.