A Room with a View (of the Brooklyn Navy Yard) - 1. i. Tea and Sympathy – in reverse

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i.

Tea and Sympathy

– in reverse

Now we scurry ahead four weeks in time, noble listeners, so let your imaginary forces print a proud corporate office before you, one where two higher-ups of the Manhattan publishing world discuss our Brooklyn author.

For as soon as the printout hit his desk, Marshall Kingston emailed and signed up Patrick Forsa, sight unseen. An erotic writer of his caliber wasn’t going to escape the experienced publisher’s greedy grasp. Money was at stake!

A whirlwind of activity followed. Corrections needed to be made, a proof struck, and Patrick given an appointment with the firm’s preferred head-shot photographer.

And there lies the rub, for these glossy monstrosities now lie strewn across Kingston’s desk.

Several sleepless nights followed receipt of these unbearable unusable images . . . until, a solution presented itself in Kingston’s wily mind. His thirty-five-year-long career has been spent in pursuit of richer and richer publishing ‘finds’, and no setback, no matter how unappealing, would keep the executive from bringing his biggest discovery yet to the market, especially not one sure to penetrate the sex-starved book club circles as deep as this one.

Today is the day of action, and Bray J. Gerhard, the internal liability mitigation lawyer the firm’s assigned to the project, stands with Kingston in the publisher’s cushy corporate digs.

“So, you’ve never met him? But you signed him anyway?”

“Listen,” says Marshall, “there was no time to lose! His book’s going to be the hottest selling piece of Gay smut since Sixty Shades of Cray!”

The company’s law-man strikes a dubious tone. “Oh, come now.”

Kingston picks up the tome’s correction proof and slaps it emphatically in his free hand. “If you thought there was money to be minted in endless knockoffs of Mickey Sparkle’s straight tripe, wait until the uptight, sexually frustrated Karens of this country get a load of this!”

The executive guffaws, realizing he’s just made an obscene pun. He shakes his jowls to clear his head.

“Here,” Kingston announces, “I’ll read you a section, and you tell me what you think.”

It was too late for Phillip. At the very last syllable he could form, semen shot jets of crystalline rivulets onto his abdomen, his chest, his nipples and throat. He’d never climaxed like that before; never imagined it possible.

But he was brought back to reality instantly, for just then, Todd slid in as far as he could, held Phillip’s legs apart – cross-like – and cried out for the stars.

While he reads, the publisher notes with satisfaction how Bray J. Gerhard needs to cross his legs and shift in his seat a few times.

Yes, their first time together would never be excised from Phillip’s essence. For as long as he was destined to be this sentient form of flesh and blood, he’d never be able to forget its union with Todd’s equally perfect corporeal being.

They’d become one, as they’d been meant to, and now and forever, no parting was again possible.

By the end of it, Gerhard’s loosened his collar, his color suddenly turning ‘high’ and rosy.

“Well,” the straight lawyer declares, “to paraphrase Herbert Hoover, those queers sure got sex rhythm, I’ll give ‘em that.”

“But”—Kingston forms his words around a frown—“we have a problem.”

“Which is?”

“The author. He’s . . . . He’s . . . . I can’t even bring myself to say it out loud. Here, see for yourself.”

The publisher rifles through the photos on his desk, looking for one headshot in particular. He holds it up like a poison pill, placing it carefully in the lawyer’s hands.

“Oh, dear lord; anything but that!” Bray exclaims.

“Yes, it’s the worst possible situation. He’s a nerd.”

Gerhard nods, in total corporate shock. “You can’t use a pic like this, not on the back of any book you hope to sell.”

“I know, right? But that’s the best of the lot, yet it still makes him look like a yearbook freshman in high school.”

“At Geeksville High, I agree.” Bray holds Marshall’s eyes, pitying the poor bastard’s situation. “So you’re going to drop him, right?”

“Shit no, I’m not! No; no; no – I can’t lose this golden-egg opportunity. I’ve come up with a solution.”

“Which is?” Gerhard’s intrigued.

“My plan is this – we need someone to up this limp biscuit’s game. To help him swag just right so social media goes ape-shit nuts for him. I mean I want influencers on every platform to be talking about him; from Mush’s pro-Russia, pro-Nazi ‘Z’ virgin freaks, to dancing kid zombies on Dick-Dock, and back again to Crow-Anne Fabrics’ scrapbooking forums for half-drunk, angry-all-the-time white women.”

“I get ya,” the legal medieval assures his overly heated colleague. “You want netizen tongues flappin’ in the breeze from here to Timbuckthree; you want A.I. controversies faked from Novobizerk back to here again. I get it. The greater the noise, the greater the revenue flow for us.” Folding his hands, and leaning forward on his seat – as if discussing a presidential assassination – he asks, “So how are you, you know, gonna pull it off?”

Kingston’s eyebrows flare. He whispers: “I know a guy.”

“What guy?” Gerhard whispers too.

“A guy . . . who, I know . . . who’s”—Marshall stops whispering, startling his workmate—“good at this stuff.”

Trained in the law as he is, Bray J. Gerhard can smell a sin of omission in whatever it is that Marshall Kingston is keeping from him.

Just as Bray is about to ask for more plan particulars, Kingston’s executive assistant knocks on the door, opens it and ushers in a young man with the words, “They’re expecting you, sir. Right this way.”

The particular sunglass-shaded, single dangling cross earring-sporting young man who saunters into the office happens to be a parttime thespian, and fulltime proprietor of a heavily trafficked Fanaticsonly page. He goes by the handle The Erector, Yo! amongst his many, many fanatics.

“Ted!” the publisher calls out. “Come in. You’re right on time.” By which he means 25 minutes late.

Taking to one of the leather club chairs in front of the man’s desk, the tall, white jeans-wearing hottie chuckles. “Am I? Glad to hear it.”

Truth is, “ten AM” is nearly an unknown concept to Rector, especially on a hungover morning like this one. But, money talks, as they say, and here he is.

Now sitting, he turns to the side, pillowing his head on the armrest, letting legs flail over the other end. Here, boots fold heel over ankle, and the man’s hands flop atop his leather jacket as if getting ready to take a nap. Around his neck is the hipster-requisite, totally reclaimed, and totally butch, pearl necklace – and at least his came from 47th Street and not Shamazon.com.

“I’d like you to meet—”

“Bray J. Gerhard, legal account manager.” He hands the stud a card.

Ted reluctantly lifts his sunglasses from his eyes. They nestle in his dark blond, ear-length strands, and stay there as he gives the business prop a cursory inspection. That done, it gets shoved into one of the many decorative pockets of his coat to be promptly forgotten. He rotates his head. “So why am I here, Kingsy?”

The airing of the publisher’s bedroom pet name makes the owner of the same blush.

“Ted Rector,” says Marshall to Bray, “is going to be our savior.”

“Save you from what?”

“He’s an actor who can take our poor dirty-minded schmuck under his wing, and fix him.”

Marshall sits on the front edge of his desk. “Ted, have you ever seen that old black and white movie Tea and Sympathy?”

Ted draws his legs apart, swinging around to sit upright. “Possibly. Describe.”

“Well, in it, a pathetic light-in-the-loafers college kid gets lessons from a not-so-straight jock on how to pass so the boy doesn’t get bullied for being Queer so much.”

“Oh, yeah, I think I have seen that. What’s it got to do with me?”

“I’ve got this absolutely filthy-headed, man-on-man sex virtuoso who can write blue with the best of them. He’s like what would happen if the Marquis de Sade and Danielle Steel hooked up for a night and had a baby! Pure. Sexy. Genius! But, sadly, he’s got no street game. The Socials will never chew him up, the way we need him to be chewed up and spit out again! Therefore, we’ve got to get him to be . . . well, in a nutshell . . . more like you.”

“Come again?” Unconsciously, he fingers his strand of nacre nodules.

“I want you to tutor this young guy. Take him around the Neighborhood, set him up good with the Community. And I need it done fast. Book launch is just a few weeks away.”

Ted’s head hurts. “Oh, Kingsy, you think I’m the right Gay for the job?”

Under Gerhard’s candid inspection, Marshall colors once more.

All in all, Kingston is a rare type in the business word – an actually good-natured person. But this handicap has meant he’s spent years honing the underhanded tactics he’s needed to rise in the publishing world, but ones which do not come to him naturally.

Bi, with a wife and kids, he’s still found that nothing can substitute for a good romp under a sturdy young fellow now and then. He met Ted from the professional’s website, and has hired him on numerous occasions over the last few years. He knows that beneath the twenty-six-year-old’s tough, Queer-savvy exterior beats a Julia Roberts heart of gold.

The publisher doesn’t care about his unknown author, but knows in Ted’s hands, his valuable “asset” is more or less safe. Kingston also knows there’s no way the nerdy kid can be Ted’s type, which the escort told Marshall tends to run along the lines of NFL linebackers.

So, underhanded, yes. But Kingston trusts Rector – and trusts the validity of the non-disclosure agreement the guy signed eighteen months ago. But as for Gerhard . . . the publisher will have to watch his back with that one.

“Do I think you’re the right person for the job, Ted?” Marshall repeats the rephrases question. Then answers it emphatically. “I know you are. You’re this geek’s last wing and a prayer. Maybe his only chance at landing this deal as anything but a flaming wreck.”

Ted’s posture slumps again.

“Two- three weeks, tops! That’s all it will take,” assures Kingston.

Ted’s not so sure. It seems he is missing something here, and wonders if it’s because he’s suffering the effects of a long night of work and not thinking straight.

However, it’s at that point that Bray J. Gerhard decides to make a show of extracting a gold pen from the inside pocket of his suitcoat. He waves it around like a wand, maybe expecting it to magically wave off Ted’s wavering.

The lawyer writes a dollar amount on a slip of paper, folds it and slides it along the tulipwood of Marshall’s desk to the actor.

Ted picks it up, then, does a double-take: the amount’s equal to three months of what he usually pulls from his Fanaticsonly account.

The Erector, Yo!'s still not sold . . . but his thoughts get interrupted by a mealy-knocked rap on Kingston’s door.

The publisher stands. “That’s him now. No one act . . . shocked. Come in!"

The portal creaks open. “Is this Mr. Kingston’s office—”

“Come in; come in!” the publisher says, trying to sound warm.

After he enters, closes the door and timidly turns around, well—

If Ted Rector can be said to represent the pearl necklace in the room, does that make Patrick Forsa the sow’s ear . . . ?

Starting from bottom to top, black sneakers sole his feet, of the sketchy variety known to be comfortable, but also conducive to tripping young males. His foot apparel is complemented by drugstore argyle socks peeking from between his red laces and the bottom of his trouser cuffs. These chinos form-fit all the wrong places to make the young man’s lower portion seem lumpy, somehow, although he’s neither slender nor beefy of build.

Fortunately for Kingston – for he just might lose it and call the whole deal off – the boy’s friction belt is discreetly covered by the bottom of his green sweater vest.

Sticking out from the arms and collar of this knitwear jumper, signs of a check-patterned short sleeve shirt in yellow are visible, but completely overridden for attention by the woven tie – of a macramé inclination – looping his neck.

Standing there, the unwanted center of attention, the twenty-one-year-old raises an arm to instinctively push on the battered bridge of his spectacles. This spot has been broken and fixed more than a few times with good old Snooper Glue™ and rounds and rounds of Botch Tape™.

Rather handsome, dark and smooth of facial features, the young man’s not-too short hair is slicked back and weighed down with some strong-holding ‘product’.

While Kingston, the lawyer and their firm’s newly signed author exchange introductions and gawky handshakes, Ted stands to his feet. A lump gets swallowed as he makes an initial assessment of the guy who may become his student. Knowing he’s blushing – a trait none too welcome to one in his industry – he sits again and collects his cool.

Marshall walks the novelist over to the club chair next to Ted’s. “And,” he says with a gesture, “I’d like you to meet a . . . friend . . . of mine, Ted Rector. Ted, Patrick Forsa.”

Forsa smiles, his finger going to his glasses.

“Sup.” Ted nods, and the two make no more formality of their intros.

“Sit; sit,” says Kingston, and Patrick – still fiddling with Gerhard’s freakishly white card – does.

Once settled, the publisher gets to the heart of the matter. “I’ve called this meeting today, because . . . . Well, because, Patrick – let’s face it – you need help.”

The sudden intervention tenor of the confab breaks over the writer. “I do?”

“Hells to the yes!” The lawyer gets jiggy jiggly with it.

“You see,” Marshall continues sympathetically, practically cooing, “you’re a mess. You need tutoring on how to be a successful author in this day and age of fake intelligence, and human bots on social platforms, and Ted here – Mr. Rector – has agreed to help.”

Kingston’s manipulative nodding at him only makes Ted feel less inclined to be a part of the proposed scheme. However, the searching look Patrick offers him at this point causes him to relent a bit.

The actor plays it nonchalant: silent and observant.

“But, Mr. Kingston,” stammers Forsa, “am I so bad, the way I am?”

“Worse—”

The lawyer gets cut off.

Marshall continues. “The book launch will be in a couple of weeks. Between now and then, let Ted show you a few of the finer points on how to be a modern . . . person. One that people will want to—”

“Buy.” The lawyer has his dig.

“I’m not sure,” says Patrick, “I can be anyone other than myself.”

The publisher suppresses his ‘For God’s sake, try!’ and calmly mutters, “No one will have to know, and in the end, it’s only a tiny white deception.”

Still fingering the lawyer’s card, Patrick’s mind runs through thoughts of how Brown kids like him are forced to live through plenty of ‘white deception’ already.

“My work should be able to stand on its own two feet, for as Oscar Wilde said:

‘The book that’s not a Lazarus tomb

Never had life in it to begin with.’”

“Speaking of which”—the publisher’s now distracted—“that title of yours is too cerebral; too high-brow for the book-buying public these days.”

Patrick’s incredulous. “Really?”

“Oh, yes. It’ll have to go. What we need is something shockingly new.” He snaps his fingers, then makes a reverse fandeck motion with his hand. “Picture it: S.E.X. – it’s short and sweet and what everybody wants to see!”

Now the room’s incredulous.

Marshall defends his executive decision. “It worked for Maronna a generation ago, during her spiky titty phase.”

Bray J. Gerhard suddenly speaks up. “That may be true, but we should be wary of anything overly ‘infringey’.”

“Well”—Marshall’s not giving up—“we can come back to it later.”

“Or not,” Patrick mutters softly, bravely in Ted’s eyes. “The title’s perfect as is, for as Louisa May Alcott said:

‘Some authors need clichés,

But like sequins,

Others don’t.’”

“Look, young man.” The lawyer lays down the law, bringing people back to why they are there. “Smut is smut, and if you wanna peddle it successfully, you’ve gotta look the part. Look like the dirty-minded deviant that you are.”

Patrick, not as naïve as he appears, is not particularly surprised by a display of open anti-gay sentiment, but still resents the poke.

Ted, on the other hand, has a more visceral reaction. He turns his glare from Gerhard, resolved to be of use. It settles reassuringly on Patrick, as now the actor sees someone in need. He does feel ‘sympathy’ for this poor, raunchy schlemiel after all.

He says with a suave smirk and a split-second wink, “Don’t worry, kid. I’m Queer as December too, so you’re in safe hands.”

Patrick’s throat makes an audible gulp. He scans the expectant pair of corporate faces in the room, and then the one offering guidance from Ted.

A sputtering stream of “ . . . Well . . . I still don’t know . . . ” comes from the content creator’s lips.

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