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About eleven hours later, Max and heartbreak were the last things on my mind. The flight from JFK had sat on the runway for longer than I cared to remember, and once I’d finally landed in Madrid, the train I was scheduled to take had left without me. So I struggled with my luggage onto the platform and waited, miserable and sweating. I hadn’t been prepared for the heat. It was summer, obviously, and I had been told that this area of the country was warm, but it hit me like being tossed into a desert without warning. I tried to calm down and remember that I would have time to make myself presentable once I got to La Mancha.
The train ride, at least, gave me a chance to concentrate on something besides my nerves. As we rolled into Castille-La Mancha, I grinned at the sight of a line of windmills. It was just like out of the stories, and I could see Don Quixote, lance at his side, galloping toward the giant monsters that threatened him. But, I wondered, what if it was a sign? What if I was the delusional nobleman who thought he’d been granted a higher purpose when I was really just on the path to destruction and humiliation? I shook my head and tried to ignore those ever-present doubts. This was my shot, I couldn’t sabotage it before it had begun.
I was tripping over myself, dragging my luggage behind me and trying to respond to a dozen texts I’d missed during transit as I stumbled into the hotel lobby where I was supposed to be meeting the cast and crew. My mind was racing, and I kept chastising myself silently to chill the fuck out. But as soon as I caught sight of him across the lobby, I came to a halt, captivated.
My eyes wouldn’t leave him. As he stood talking with Carlos Pedrón, the director, it seemed as if there was some glow around him, a golden aura like he had been backlit—as if he was playing a mystical being in a fantasy story. James Dennis Herbert. The sun god himself. Light, energy, joy just seemed to pulse around him, emanating out and touching everyone and everything nearby. When Dennis smiled, even my most gloomy mood stood little chance against the radiance. And when sadness clouded his beautiful face it never failed to break my heart. This I would come to soon learn, all too well.
“Ah, there he is,” said Carlos, catching sight of me.
He turned to look at me, following Carlos's nod, and he seemed to light up even more.
My stomach did a dozen flips and I felt suddenly too small for my own body. So this was what it felt like to have James Dennis Herbert, movie star, hold me in his gaze. It felt as if I’d just walked on stage, my first cue, and the spotlight was hitting me. My skin tingled.
“Xavier!” he cried and rushed toward me.
I nervously tucked a fallen curl behind my ear and extended my hand for a shake but he brushed it aside and wrapped his arms around me. I'm six-one myself and not used to feeling slight, but he towered over me by several inches. I felt his large hands on my back as we hugged and I swore if he had reared back just a bit he would have lifted me off the floor. This dude was massive.
“Buddy, so good to finally meet you!” His deep voice rumbled against my neck and sent a small shiver down me. “Carlos has told me so much about you, I've really been looking forward to this.”
“Me too, James, nice to meet you. I'm such an admirer of your work—”
“Nope, nope,” he interrupted. “You have to call me Dennis, Denny—all my friends do—or at least Jim. But no James—that’s my dad—and please, please no Jimmy—that’s me when I was twelve and it was scary enough the first time. Oh, and no “admirer of your work” bullshit either. No jerking each other off—we'll save that for later.”
He winked and my mouth fell open slightly. He chuckled.
“I'm sorry, bad joke. But I want us to be comfortable around each other. Deal?”
“Sure thing, Jimmy.” I teased.
“Oh, my man has jokes, huh?” He cackled and tried to grab me in a neck hold but I dodged out of the way, laughing.
He was about to give chase when Carlos stepped in, waving his hands.
“Boys, boys. Save this energy for the set, yes? We still have to meet with the investors from São Paulo before we head to location. We don't want you showing up with the broken limbs, no?”
“More investors?” asked Denny, with a slight grimace. “Is the funding still up in the air?”
“It's fine, it’s fine,” said Carlos. “No te preocupes, mi amor. This is what happens when you make the independent film, no? They just want to meet you and make sure their money is well spent. And how can they resist these faces?”
“I always say the wrong thing. It'd probably be best if I just shut up and look pretty,” said Denny.
“Yes, this is probably true,” answered Carlos in a deadly serious tone.
Dennis burst out laughing and Carlos joined in. I was relieved at the easy camaraderie we all seemed to share. I knew then that this was going to be a special project. But I could never have dreamt exactly how special.
#
WE WERE HEADED FOR a small village in the heart of La Mancha where Carlos had grown up. Carlo told us that he wanted to come back to this place to make his film because it was special. The building we would be filming in was a villa of sorts. It had once been a hotel decades ago, a sort of boutique hotel, almost like a resort, for the elite of the Franco era. Then it had been bought and turned into a private residence. Now, through movie magic, we were taking it over and teasing out the ghosts to bring it back into its former life as a hotel. The villa was about an hour's drive from the city. Some of the crew had gone ahead on the train and the rest of us would be following with the costumes and equipment by car and truck. I was surprised Dennis hadn't taken the more comfortable train option but Carlos said he insisted on hanging back until I showed up so he could meet me. I tried to hide my sudden goofy smile when he told me this.
I knew very little of La Mancha and only just a little more Spanish than that. Besides asking for a café or where the baño was, my rudimentary two years of high school language had left me with very little.
I was not prepared for the overwhelming beauty. Golden landscapes stretching far and wide, the sun shimmering just above the surface. Some areas appeared desolate, stark in their beauty. And then suddenly we would come down the other side of a hill and there would be vineyards stretching on either side of us, long bursts of small green bushes tied to lines, with glorious mountains in the distance. We even passed windmills, like great gods out of the myths, and it all felt like a storybook.
I wondered, gazing at the vast spaces around us, what it would be like to make a film so far away from... well, everything. I could tell Denny had similar thoughts on his mind as he stared at the landscape wide-eyed.
We were sharing an SUV with two of the crew up front. It was a long drive and they rambled on to one another in Spanish. I didn’t want the silence to get awkward, although Denny seemed anything but uncomfortable. Still, I worked up the nerve to strike up a conversation.
“Can I ask you something?” I said once we had gotten past all the usual small talk.
“Shoot. Ask me anything.”
“Why are you doing this film?”
Dennis cocked his head and he suddenly looked guarded. I was sure I had offended him.
“Sorry, that didn’t come out right. What I mean is—look, I’m barely out of drama school. I’ve got a couple of credits to my name. So even though this is tiny and there’s no budget, when Carlos Pedrón calls, it’s a no-brainer. But you, you’re like a genuine fucking movie star.”
Dennis gave me a small smile and the guard dropped a little. He shook his head.
“It’s the same for me, man. I mean, sure, the pay's not much. But it's Carlos-fucking-Pedrón. Hell yeah, I'm going to do it. And ‘movie star’ is maybe a step too far. I’m like ten minutes and a kung fu grip away from being a cartoon character.”
“What? You’re crazy, man. You’re a fucking awesome actor.”
I was interrupted by a chastising lift of the brow.
I smiled. “No, seriously. I’m for real. I’m not just jerking you off.”
“Not yet,” he said with another cheeky wink.
I shoved him in mock disgust. “Shut up, you know what I mean. Like, you're a for-real actor. And this—well, this is kinda risky.”
He waved away my concern.
“I’ve heard all that, a dozen times and more, from my agent and anybody else who I told about this. And that’s exactly why I’m doing it. I’m tired of all that cops and robbers shit. If I have to do one more stunt scene, I’ll lose it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of fun. And I’ve been lucky. That stuff paid well. Maybe nobody took me seriously as an actor but I had fun. And I learned a lot. But I’m getting older and I need more.”
“Older? You’re not even thirty yet. Come on.”
“I know, but I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. And it’s just time for... something else. It’s like my first big movie—after I got off of that TV show—I keep thinking about it.”
“Call Waiting? That was great.”
“No, not that one. Before that, it was this small drama where I played the troubled younger brother of the main character—My Parents. Nobody saw it, but I loved doing it. It felt like there was a point, you know, like what I was doing had something to say. And it did zilch at the box office but the director of Call Waiting saw it and that’s what got me in there. So it felt like this huge blessing.” He shook his head and laughed at his introspection. “And then it was all downhill from there. A washed-up action star at twenty-eight.”
“‘Washed-up,’ yeah right. I’ll be so lucky to be washed-up by your age.”
“My age?” He punched me playfully in the shoulder.
“So you’re not worried about alienating your fan base, then?”
“Dude. You sound like one of those YouTubers. ‘Your fan base.’ You’ve got all the jargon.”
“You know what I mean. You don’t think your action movie audience will be kinda thrown by a movie in a small, sleepy Spanish village where two dudes fall in love?”
He turned away from me and looked out of the window at the passing fields.
“Yeah, of course,” he said after a moment. “I mean, some of them will.” He shrugged. “But, hey, fuck ‘em, right? It’s just a movie, you know.”
I nodded.
“And what about you, Mister Intrepid Reporter? Aren’t you worried about alienating your fan base?”
“My fan base? You mean my mom and my grandma? Nah, I think they’ll be cool with it. They’re just glad I’ve got a paying gig.”
“Amen to that.”
“Besides,” I hesitated, unsure if I should go there yet. But he did say we should be comfortable so better now than later. “Besides, I came out a few years ago.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, during the press junket for this film I was doing. There were these rumors about me and my co-star and I didn’t want to evade any of the questions anyway, so I just decided to do it. I told the next reporter who asked that I’m gay. It clearly didn’t make a lot of headlines or anything, but I don’t think anyone who knows about me will be surprised by this film choice.”
“Wow, that’s brave, man.”
I shrugged. “It’s just what it is, you know. It’s not brave, it’s just the truth.”
Denny blinked. “Yeah, I guess so.” He looked out of the window again.
I gritted my teeth and tried to calm my sudden anxiety.
“That’s gonna be cool, right?” I asked nervously.
“What?” He turned back, bemused.
“That’s not gonna make it weird or anything.”
“Weird?”
“Yeah, there are some pretty graphic scenes in the script. And I mean, you know, I know you’re not—well, I just mean, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable if you think, like, maybe I’m attracted to you— N-n-not that I am, I’m just saying.” Fuck, what was wrong with me? If I could punch my own mouth shut I would have. “I just mean, I don’t want you to feel weird or uncomfortable or anything just because—”
He put his hand on my knee to stop my prattle and it worked.
“Dude, chill. It’s completely fine. It’s a movie. I’ve had to kiss plenty of people on-screen. You can’t let all that other shit get into it. If you’re attracted to them, them to you, whatever, it’s all secondary to the work.”
I nodded. “Of course. Sorry.”
He patted my knee, which somehow made me feel all the more mortified. “Don’t worry, buddy. Hell, Ronnie probably loves it.”
“Ronnie?”
“My fiancée. I think she’s getting a kick out of me playing gay. In fact, I think she wants to see this film more than anybody. She says it’s gonna be hot.” He punched me playfully in the shoulder again. “So we can’t disappoint her, right?”
He gave me one of his big, beaming smiles and I couldn’t do anything but smile back.
“Right. Can’t disappoint Ronnie,” I said with a forced chuckle.
As I turned to look out of the window myself, all I could think about was my knee. My skin still seemed to pulse with heat from where his touch had lingered. If just him patting me on the knee had done that to me, what were those sex scenes gonna be like? My body stirred at the mere thought.
I chewed on my bottom lip and tried to concentrate on the scenery going by.
Fuck, I thought. This is going to be a long shoot.