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“Don’t eat where you shit,” had been his dad’s sage advice once Adriano was old enough to get a job. At the time, none of them had really considered that porn would be on the table. His dad was merely trying to warn him that fucking an interpreter not only crossed moral lines, but it would cause complications Adriano wouldn’t be able to handle.
And maybe Eric really had been a fuck-you to his parents who would never know what it was like to need someone like Eric in his life just to communicate with the outside world. But Eric was also…different from most people he’d worked with. He was smaller, and he was pretty, and he didn’t turn his nose up at the fact that when he was hired on, it was to provide director interpretation on a porno set. Eric’s hands never hesitated when the director told him to thrust harder, or to use more lube, or to turn his head slightly to the left so the camera could see when his tongue sank into the other man’s asshole.
He thought maybe Eric was the exception in interpreters—or maybe he was the exception to the rule that you can’t mix business and pleasure, but thinking back, Adriano wasn’t sure he was ever happy. He loved him—in whatever way you love someone who had been in your life for that long, but in love?
He never really did wonder when Eric started to change. It was years later and subtle in a way. It started with Eric answering questions for Adriano instead of interpreting them. It seeped into meetings where Adriano found he was agreeing to terms and shoots and movies he wasn’t quite sure he had the time for.
‘You’re not my agent,’ was the one time Adriano brought it up. ‘You’re trying to make decisions for me, and you have no right.’
But Eric had pouted and seemed genuinely hurt by the accusation, and Adriano gave in because, in truth, he was a sucker for those baby blues and full lips.
Though, in reality, Adriano was just a sucker. He let his graduate degree gather dust the way his bank account gathered zeros, and though Eric never pushed for a marriage, they shared everything else. A nice house in Malibu and one on Coronado. They had three cars they both used freely, and Eric’s expense account never ran out. They lived like celebrities with the bonus of most people being too nervous—or maybe ashamed—to approach them in public. And he was fine with that.
It let him order his Starbucks from blushing baristas who wouldn’t ask for his autograph with everyone watching. He got to grocery shop, and walk his dog in the park, and make sure his siblings and parents didn’t want for anything. And he got to come home to a nice guy.
And that nice guy decided to leave Adriano one Tuesday afternoon during a rainstorm and publicly announce it before talking to Adriano about it first.
OnTwitter.
Thunder crashed. He knew it by the way the table rattled under him. Storms this bad were rare for their little seaside cottage, and he held his breath, but the power indicator on his laptop didn’t blink. It probably would, eventually, not that it mattered. He was nursing the raw, fragmented edges of his shattered relationship, and the dark felt appropriate.
His phone buzzed, and he saw his brother’s name on the screen. He had half a mind to just turn the damn thing off—too many people wanted information—not just reporters but people he’d barely call acquaintances. He was ready to shut down his social media, and his technology,andhis brain if this kept up. Having a life that allowed for the public consumption of who he was—it was difficult most days. Today, it felt impossible.
Pietro: Do you want to talk?
He thumbed a reply, then changed his mind and slammed the phone down on the table so he couldn’t see it. He scratched the empty spaces behind his ears. His hearing aids were long dead, and he had no intention of changing out the batteries. He didn’t want a single excuse to be able to hear the way people were clawing at him for more, for everything, for every last drop he had to bleed.
He finished his drink, the buzz humming in his veins, then he clicked on the faint letters that readWhat’s Happeningon his Twitter feed and stared at the blank space he wasn’t sure he had a hundred and forty characters to fill.
@SylentOfficial: The best revenge is living well. That’s the way I try to live my life. Tell me how I can live better.
Asking that question was asking for trouble, but he felt like if he didn’t say something—do something—he was going to explode. He didn’t have the strength to watch the replies yet, but he would. Maybe. When he was drunker, and a little sadder, and steps from sleep.
His Skype alert began to flash, and he nearly ignored it, but when he saw his agent’s name, he knew he wasn’t going to have much of a choice. He clicked the Answer button, and immediately, Xander’s mouth was flying faster than his fingers on the keyboard.
Adriano had freely and often admitted how much it annoyed him that Xander wouldn’t even learn the basics of sign, but he had been good at making sure Adriano was making some of the top money in his field, and he figured trading cash for that peace of mind was enough. But Xander was clearly losing his shit and waiting for the chat bubble to post wasn’t great for his state of agitation.
Meeting tomorrow. Shit hit the fan.
For the sheer amount of time he’d spoken, Adriano was annoyed that’s all he’d managed to type out. He considered typing back, but it was just to annoy Xander, so he didn’t bother. “I don’t have my ears on, and I don’t plan to get them, so I didn’t catch anything you just said.”
Xander scowled at the screen, and it was too easy to make out the word, “Great,” on his lips.
“I’m drunk as shit right now, and I’m going to be drunker before I fall asleep. Text me the details, but don’t make it too early.”
With that, he signed off, knowing he was leaving his agent swearing up a storm at his blank computer screen. Another call lit up his laptop, so Adriano slammed the lid down, then sat back in the chair, leaning as far as he could toward the counter where the bourbon was resting at the edge of the polished marble. His fingers scrabbled for it before it fell against his palm, and he didn’t bother with a glass this time.
Who the fuck was he trying to impress now?
He took three more shots into his mouth before pulling out his phone, and he swiped away all his text alerts before opening up his Twitter again, hating that he’d left it right there on Eric’s words that had flipped his world upside down.
@ChaddicusRex: I hate the phrase newly single and ready to mingle but that’s my entire mood. Where’s a brokenhearted guy go to get some rebound dick? Last night wasn’t enough.
There was a text waiting for him too. Three long pages of Eric’s endless words explaining why he was leaving, but none of them explained why he’d decided to take to Twitter ten minutes after everything ended. And none of them, really, explained why, after fifteen years, Adriano suddenly wasn’t enough.
Maybe it was just because Eric was falling in love with someone else.
Eric: I don’t know how to explain it. I guess maybe he makes me feel the way you used to when you appreciated me. I want to be sorry, but I don’t know if I can be. Not when it feels this good. I know this has probably hurt you, but I bet it doesn’t hurt the way it should. Am I right?
