1
LUKE
“Shit.”
And that’s exactly what I’m looking at: shit. Everywhere. A whine from the puppy at my feet makes me close my eyes and count to ten. A bone-deep tension has been building for hours and finally releases with a long sigh from deep in my soul. What a fucking way to end the day.
I woke up at the crack of dawn to the sound of my neighbor mowing the four-by-four patch of grass he keeps on his patio. We live in connected condos in the middle of the second biggest city in the US; why you’d try and fabricate a lawn in a place like this is beyond me. The obnoxious wake-up call should’ve been my first indicator of how the day was going to go. I stayed out way too late last night after accepting a last-minute party invite, but at least I had the foresight not to drink too much and to snap a few photos to post to Instagram while I was out.
As a “content creator,” people only see the glamorous side of my life—the carefully curated image I project in my feed. They see me hitting up my favorite local coffee joint, or meal prepping for the week, or camping in Yosemite. They see me lounging on beaches where the summers are always hot and the company isalways hotter, and—in the case of my paid subscribers—they see countless videos of my insatiable sexual appetite and seemingly endless stamina.
They definitely donotsee the hours of preparation—physically, emotionally, mentally—that go into filming twenty minutes of content. They don’t see days like today, where after planning this thing with another creator online for weeks, he arrived at the shoot with nothing but complaints about the scene and the location. They don’t see the stress of maintaining a cheerful, professional facade the entire day, when all I really want to do is call the whole thing off and go home and curl up on my couch alone instead.
And they absolutelyneversee the way the last ounce of my energy drains from my body when I arrive home to find that my brand-new puppy also did not appreciate the length of the shoot.
I can’t even be mad at her. It’s not her fault that I had no business adopting a puppy at this stage in my life, but impulsivity has kind of been my brand lately. Whether those decisions turn out to be good decisions or bad ones remains to be seen—a looming fork in the road that I’m doing my best to ignore for now.
I haven’t always been like this. Actually, I’m kind of a control freak. Any stability I’ve had in my life has been as a result ofmyactions andmychoices. It’s been me, myself, and I for as long as I can remember, and if I didn’t look out for me, no one else was going to. Until now, I didn’t think I was capable of being impulsive or frivolous.
So no one was more surprised than I was when, two months ago, I purchased a home on somewhat of a whim—a condo in West Hollywood. The one currently covered in shit. I rationalized it at the time by telling myself that the housing market in California wasn’t going to get better any time soon, and I was tired of throwing so much money away on rent withno return long-term. Plus, I’ve lived in West Hollywood for a decade and have never owned my own home, so it seemed like as good a time as any to cross that item off the bucket list. Valid enough reasons as far as impulsive decisions go, I suppose.
But it’s like once I opened the can of impulsivity, there was no shutting it again. My first week in my new place, I was up too late one night watching the news and decided I should probably invest in cryptocurrency because that shit doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon, and with my unconventional career, I don’t exactly have a typical retirement fund.
Who knew that fucking men on camera for two decades didn’t come with a 401k?
I’ve been in adult entertainment since I aged out of the foster system—a literal lifetime. Bouncing around to different foster homes was all I ever knew, but what they don’t tell you about aging out of the system is that you’re just sort of…set free, with no marketable skills, or guidance on how to apply for college, or rent an apartment, or whatever. I always knew I liked boys, and by the time I was eighteen, I was a connoisseur of gay porn, so I figured,I can do that. Even my name works as a porn name: Luke Larson. Some guys use a stage name or handle, but who doesn’t love alliteration? Rolls nicely off the tongue, easy to remember. It’s not like I’ve got a family that will find out what I do and be disappointed.
At thirty-nine, I hardly consider myself old, but it doesn’t help that the social hierarchy of queer culture does not look kindly upon aging. With the big four-oh looming, it’s somehow only just occurred to me that I can’t do this forever. I’ve built quite a following through the years, and I’ve enjoyed my work, for the most part. It’s all I’ve known, so the idea that I’m about to figuratively age out of the system once again makes my throat close up a little if I let myself think about it too long.
I needed a distraction, which led to impulsive decision number three, and that’s how I find myself now standing in the middle of a literal shitstorm in my beautiful, brand-new, modern condo. I’ve never had a dog before, but I probably should’ve known that leaving a puppy home alone all day wasn’t a great idea.
I spotted Agatha two days ago on a local animal rescue page I follow online. I always wanted a wiener dog when I was a kid, so it took me all of two seconds looking at the sweet dachshund puppies who had been dumped outside the rescue in a cardboard box to decide one of them was coming home with me. The perfect distraction. The entire litter had names that were more suited for old people than dogs—Bill, Marvin, Gertrude, Walter—but Aggie stole my heart immediately with those big brown eyes.
I think I might have panicked and gotten in over my head here. Pretty sure I can say that I’ve found myself in the midst of a minor midlife crisis. God knows what I’ll do next.
Another soft whine sounds at my feet, accompanied by tiny claws scratching up my bare leg. I can’t help but grin down at the tiny culprit and scoop her up with one hand to cuddle to my chest. She immediately hides her face in my armpit; she knows what she did. “How does a dog so little make this much poop, huh?” I chuckle softly, rubbing behind her velvety ears.
Opening a window first to let out some of the stench, I make my way to the kitchen for cleaning supplies…only to find she’s left a couple of surprises in here, too. “Really, girl? What in the world am I feeding you?” Her ears flatten, and she looks up at me forlornly as her tail thumps against my chest. An apology if I’ve ever seen one.
I’m about to start digging through the cleaning supplies under the sink when my phone begins buzzing insistently from my back pocket. Shifting Aggie to my left hand, I can’t help butsmile when I see who it is and accept the call. “Nate! What’s up man, you back from your shoot early?”
Nathan groans on the other end of the line. He hates that I call him Nate, but I like the way it annoys him when I do. We’ve been friends over a decade, and no one is better behind a camera than Nathan St. James. A performer’s dream come true. When I’m lucky enough to get time on his calendar to film one of my collabs, he always manages to get the best angles and lighting to make my body look insanely good. Don’t get me wrong, I put in a lot of hours at the gym every week to look the way I do, and I’m pretty happy with what I see in the mirror without a filter, but Nathan is an actual film wizard, I think. We took a shot at making our own magic without the camera once, a few years back; the sex was great, but the spark never caught, and we’ve stayed good friends.
“Nah, it’s all business tonight, buddy,” Nathan replies. “I got the most intriguing email today, and I didn’t want to wait till I’m home to tell you about it. You got a minute?”
“Sure, but only a minute.” I glance down at Aggie, who’s grown tired of the close contact and is doing her best to wiggle free. Closing the cleaning supplies cabinet so she can’t go exploring and get into even more trouble, I add, “It’s been a long-ass day on a shoot and I’m in the middle of cleaning up actual shit from every surface of my living room.”
“Jesus fuck, Luke, what kind of collab were you doing?!”
“Fuck no, dude, not like that,” I choke out between laughs. “I got a goddamn puppy. Learned the hard way that maybe she’s not old enough to be left by herself while I’m on a shoot all day.”
“Thank god,” Nathan chuckles. “No kink shaming from me or anything, but that didn’t seem your style.”
“Nah, I’m still not that wild. Sorry to disappoint.” I flop back onto a clean section of the couch, keeping eyes on Aggie as shetosses a tiny stuffed toy in the air and chases after it on stubby legs. “So, tell me about this email that couldn’t wait.”
“Well, you know I’m always on the lookout for up-and-coming talent,” Nathan begins, his voice pitching up in excitement. He doesn’t even leave me room to make a crack at the “up-and-coming” comment before chattering on: “The next big star just fell right into my lap.”
My stomach twists unexpectedly. Next big star? Like…bigger than me? Like…my replacement? I can feel Nathan’s anticipation crackling through the phone, and I’m certain silence isn’t the response he’s looking for, so I manage a half-hearted, “Uh-huh…?”
