Gay Romance Parody The Way We ALMOST Were: Oh Hubbell, Oh Hubbell
I have a book coming out next week sometime (don't have the exact date yet, but I'll post it soon) that's a ridiculous, hopefully funny, sometimes tender, and a parody of the old movie
The Way We Were.
I stuck to the basic storyline. How could I not stick to that mush and write a parody? But I also made a few highly significant changes that I thought worked better for a gay book with gay content. In other words, I made it gay, I made is sexy, and I made it what I hope will be something readers will enjoy. And, of course, I gave it a happy ending. Because all romance has a happy ending...even a parody of romance.
I'm really not parodying romance in general; just this particular story that is so straight and so heteronormative I couldn't resist. However, oddly, it worked with gay characters, too...with the changes I had to make.
And I'm not being shy about this one. It's parody. I repeat: it's parody. It's not serious romance and I'm not laughing at romance either. I'm laughing with it, because yes, sometimes romance and erotic romance is funny, too. A snarky book reviewer once taught me that and I never forgot it. She had a vicious, sarcastic way of reviewing romance she didn't like that left me crying in the end.
Will this win a Pulitzer? Dear God I hope not. The best I can hope for is that it might piss Barbra Streisand off a little. I only want to make a few people smile, and make a few people wonder what it would have been like if good old Hubbell Gardner had been gay.
Raw Excerpt Before Edits...because it's easier to copy and paste this than a PDF:
It was a warm Friday afternoon in
June. The sidewalks of Times Square were
jammed with pedestrians, the street was filled with traffic, and the director
was waiting for Acer to get out of the limo and finish the final scene of a new
episode of The Naughty Boiz. The director was also the star, the producer,
and the creator of the show, Mikey Phoenix. And The Naughty Boiz was a
syndicated half hour television show about idiotic young guys with too much
testosterone, doing stupid pranks and trying to pull off lame stunts in public.
Mikey Phoenix
had hired Acer in the first season for small stunts, back when no one thought a
show like this would ever become a hit series. And Acer had taken the job
because he’d needed fast money. But as the show gained ratings beyond what
anyone ever could have predicted, Acer’s small stunts and pranks became so
popular with viewers he’d practically become the star of the show. People
couldn’t wait to see his next stupid prank.
Acer
kicked off his shoes, removed his socks, and pulled down his pants. While he
was pulling his white T-shirt off, there was a knock on the limousine window
and Mikey Phoenix opened the back door. “Are you almost ready, Buddy?” Mikey
asked. “After this one scene, we’ll wrap up for the day.”
Acer
covered the middle of his body with the T-shirt. He lowered his eyebrows and
said, “Close the door. I don’t want anyone looking in.” He wasn’t completely
nude. He was wearing the same sheer leopard thong he always wore during his ridiculous
stunts. “I’ll be ready in a minute.” He and Mikey were also best friends, but
Acer didn’t want anyone on the street looking into the car.
Mikey
rubbed his jaw and laughed. “Don’t get all upset,” he said. “No one can see
inside except me. Besides, the entire world is going to be seeing you like this
on television. What’s the big deal?”
“It’s
different,” Acer said. Mikey was a typical straight guy; he never understood
these things. “When I’m doing a scene, I’m working and no one can see my face.
I’m in character: I’m not me anymore.” He felt as if he’d explained this a
thousand times to Mikey. Other than the sheer leopard thong, Acer always wore a
pair of heavy black boots and a black ski mask. The public never saw his face
and they had no idea about his true identity. When he’d taken the job with
Mikey Phoenix four years earlier, he’d thought it would only be temporary; just
something to hold him over until he landed a real job as a journalist. He’d
never dreamed that he’d wind up becoming famous and making tons of money for
doing stupid pranks on television in a thong. Acer and Mikey had become instant
millionaires, thanks to The Naughty Boiz. And the press was always
trying to find out Acer’s real identity.
“I’ll
wait for you outside,” Mikey said. Before he closed the door, he looked inside
and said, “Hey, if anyone even tried to get into this car, I’d kick the shit
out of them. You know I’m always watching out for you, buddy.”
Acer
looked up and smiled. “Yes, I do,” he said. “Thanks.” What else could he say?
He knew Mikey meant well. Mikey was a strong, good-looking alpha male and he
felt an obligation to watch out for his gay buddy. Acer didn’t need anyone to
watch out for him. But Mikey was a nice guy and his best friend, Acer didn’t
want to hurt his feelings.
When
Mikey shut the door, Acer reached down to put on his black boots. He was doing
a skateboard scene that afternoon, with another actor, where he would be
skating through Times Square, up a wooden ramp,
and over a pretzel vendor. They were racing; the city had been notified and a
section of the street had already been roped off. If they didn’t make it over
the pretzel vendor, they would both wind up falling into a vat of yellow
mustard, together. Mikey was also in this scene acting as the announcer, to set
the scene up for viewers. And the pretzel vendor was a paid actor. Acer had
already planned on falling into the vat of yellow mustard. He’d always been
athletic and he was excellent on skateboards. He knew how to ride a skateboard
well enough to do the jump without falling into the mustard. But that wouldn’t
have been funny.
In
the past four years, Acer had made an art out of looking like an absolute fool.
And he’d been paid well to do it. He’d wrestled alligators, teased sharks, and
ridden elephant trunks. Even though Mikey was a straight guy, and the viewing
audience was geared toward a straight audience, The Naughty Boiz
produced strong homoerotic stunts that people seemed to love. The episode where
he’d wrestled in quick sand with another actor, wearing nothing but his leopard
thong, had been one of the highest rated shows they’d ever done. And once,
they’d fastened water balloons to Acer and another good looking actor and made
them bump into each other until all the balloons had popped and their almost
naked bodies were saturated with water. The entire public, including gay and
straight viewers, seemed to love watching straight guys play gay chicken, and
they couldn’t wait to see how far Mikey Phoenix would go.
When
the black boots were tied, Acer pulled the black ski mask over his head and
stepped out of the limo. People walking down the street knew who he was. They
stared at his naked body; one young guy carrying a small poodle almost tripped
on the sidewalk; two middle aged women murmured something to each other and
leered at his ass. Acer’s attractive body was thin, with long, lean muscles and
rugged ridges of bone. The lines where muscle connected to bone were well
defined, because he didn’t have an ounce of fat. He was naturally smooth, and
he shaved off the small amount of body hair he had on his legs and crotch. The
two most pronounced sections of his body were between his legs: he filled the
leopard thong with a floppy eight inch dick and his solid round buttocks
resembled two smooth, perfect melons. Most of the people who sent fan mail to
the show commented on Acer’s spectacular ass.
Acer
crossed to the front of the limo where the crew and the other actor were
waiting for him. As long as the ski mask was over his face, he didn’t feel
self-conscious. He adjusted the sliver rings in his nipples fast. He’d had his
nipples pierced a month earlier and they had become highly sensitive. If he
didn’t adjust them, he started to get an erection. Getting his sensual nipples
pierced hadn’t been his idea. Mikey had wanted him to get a few tattoos,
because he thought it would make him look wild and kinky. But Acer had rejected
the tattoo idea. He didn’t want anything as permanent as a tattoo attached to
his body. So when Mikey suggested that he get his nipples pierced instead, he
reluctantly agreed. If he got tired of having pierced nipples, he could always
remove the silver rings and the holes would eventually close up.
The other actor
doing the stunt, a semi-regular on the show, was wearing pale blue boxer
shorts. He was an average looking straight guy type, with a blank expression
and a hairy chest. He had a stocky body and fuzzy legs; he looked like a
weekend baseball player from the suburbs that’d had too many beers and pizzas
since high school. Mikey knew what he was doing, and hiring this average
looking actor had not been an accident. Whenever Mikey put smooth, slim Acer in
a stunt scene with a stocky, hairy guy, the audience sent tons of fan mail
begging for more.
When Acer reached
the crew, he saw a large machine with a long black hose next to the pretzel
vendor. He looked down and said, “What’s this?”
“It’s just a
prop,” Mikey said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Then
Mikey handed them both skateboards and said, “We should be able to get this in
one take. You guys know what to do.”
The
stocky actor smiled and punched Acer in the arm. “You ready, Dude?”
Acer nodded and said, “Here we
go.” He’d worked with this actor in the past. He looked straight, but he was
really gay. And Acer knew that he could depend on him for support. When he was
doing stunts like this, trusting the other actor was important.
Mikey
grabbed the stocky actor’s arm and said, “Just make sure you fall into the vat
of mustard first, and then let Acer fall on top of you. And when he falls on
you, make sure you accidentally grab his ass a few times. Do it on purpose,
feel him up a little, but make it look like an accident. And make it look like
you’re a straight dude totally freaked out because you just grabbed another
straight dude’s bare ass.”
The
stocky actor nodded yes and followed Acer to the end of the block.
It
took a while to get everything set up just right. Acer stretched and prepared
for the scene as if he were about to enter a boxing rink. A crowd had formed in
the street by then; Acer concentrated only on the stunt he was about to perform.
If they didn’t get this perfect on the first take, they’d have to clean up and
start all over again.
When Mikey stood
on his mark and shouted, “Action,” and they started shooting the scene, Acer
went into character. He bobbed up and down for a few minutes, joking around
with the other actor, acting as if he’d just returned from a drunken frat house
party. His goal was too look as stupid as possible, and to show that he was
willing to do any prank they dared him to do.
Mikey
began to explain the scene with his deep announcer’s voice. Acer and the actor
mounted the skateboards and started racing toward the wooden ramp in front of
the pretzel vendor. They remained at an equal distance until the last minute,
when Acer slowed down on purpose. When they reached the vendor, he ducked and
they rolled up the ramp. The stocky guy gained a three foot lead on Acer, made
the leap first, and fell into the middle of the vat of mustard.
A
second later, with a large group of people watching everything on the street,
Acer was soaring over the pretzel vendor and into the vat of mustard. The
stocky actor was covered with yellow goop from head to toe. When Acer landed
next to him, he wrapped his arms around the guy’s shoulders and his smooth legs
around the guy’s waist. The camera followed them; they got a good shot of the
stocky guy placing his hand on Acer’s ass. It looked accidental and innocent.
The actor shouted, “Dude, this is too gay. Get the fuck off me.” Then he pushed
Acer back into the mustard. The people on the street watching the scene
laughed. Acer and the actor pretended they couldn’t get their balance in the
vat of mustard and continued groping each other by accident.
When
the scene was almost over, a couple of assistants ran to the mustard vat and
helped Acer and the actor climb out. When they were on the sidewalk, covered in
yellow mustard from head to toe, Mikey ran over and shouted, “Okay guys, hose
them down now.”
