Seduction Gone Awry
Wednesday evening came all too soon for Mark Allen, but he was ready and waiting at five o’clock in front of the Lazy Leopard, one of Hollywood’s popular night spots, when a white Cadillac limousine pulled up in front and stopped. The driver of the limousine, a distinguished-looking man with gray hair and a pleasant smile, got out and opened the rear door.
Mark Allen climbed into the back seat and sat comfortably on the black velvet seat covers. A tape of Mary Martin singing, I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right out of My Hair, played on the speaker system. A small bottle of red wine, a fifth of Canadian Club, a bucket of ice, crystal glasses, silver stir sticks, and a small decanter of water stocked an open bar to the right of a television set. On a small, marble counter to the left sat a silver tray of finger sandwiches, a basket of fruit, and a stack of lemon-scented washcloths.
The driver rolled down the window between the front and back seats. He raised his voice over the sound of Mary Martin’s singing and said, “We will arrive at the house in about forty minutes. I am instructed to tell you to help yourself to the food and drink, sit back, and enjoy the drive.”
“Where are we going?” Mark Allen asked.
“To a house in the hills.”
“Whose house?”
The driver rolled up the window between them without answering, started the limousine, and pulled away from the curb. Mark Allen fixed himself a Canadian Club and water, sat back, and tried to relax in spite of his impulse to knock on the window and tell the driver to take him back to the Lazy Leopard.
About thirty-five minutes later, the limousine stopped. The driver got out of the car and opened the rear door.
Mark Allen got out of the car and found himself in front of a sprawling Tudor house in a grove of jacaranda trees. Cascades of red and purple bougainvillea covered stone walls to the left and right of the house.
The driver smiled. “The front door is unlocked. Open it, and go inside. You are expected.”
Mark Allen walked to the oak front door and opened it. He stepped into a dimly lit foyer with gray, stone walls, and a bronze chandelier that hung from a high-beamed ceiling. He closed the door and walked across the foyer into a spacious living room with a large couch across from two matching club chairs, mission-style end tables and other furnishings, tile floors, and red plush area rugs. French doors opened onto a large patio with slate flooring, a pool, and cabana.
Paintings by Cézanne and Chagall hung on the walls. Mark Allen recognized them from a book he had read in high school and wondered if they were originals. Wood carvings and bronze statues of angry animals, especially horses and dogs, adorned a large bookcase on the far wall and several tables in the room.
He spotted a bar inside the living room entrance and headed toward it. As he reached for a glass, he heard a man’s voice behind him say,
“Don’t drink too much. I want you relaxed but not incapacitated.”
Mark Allen turned. On the other side of the room, a tall man with dark eyes, and gray-at-the-temples hair stood at the entrance to a hallway. The man was barefooted and dressed in a cream-colored, silk shirt and tan, linen slacks with no belt.
Mark Allen’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open when he recognized the man. He had seen photos of the man in Variety and the Los Angeles Times. It was Harold Makin, a movie director who had won his second Academy Award the previous year for directing The Careless Life with Joan Crawford and Barry Sullivan.
Harold crossed the room and hugged Mark Allen. “Hey, you do need a drink. You’re tense,” he said. “My sources tell me you like Canadian Club and water. Right?”
Mark Allen nodded. “Right.”
Harold fixed Mark Allen his drink and handed it to him. “It ought to relax you,” he said.
“Thanks, Mr. Makin.”
Harold smiled. “You looked surprised when you recognized me.”
Mark Allen sipped his drink. “I was. I would never have guessed that you were the man who wanted me to come here tonight, and, well, you know, fool around.”
“I like women, Mark. But I also like a good-looking young man like you once in a while.” Harold said, then pulled out a fold of one-hundred-dollar-bills from a front pocket of his slacks, handed it to Mark Allen, and added, “A thousand bucks for the night, right?”
“Right,” Mark Allen replied, taking the money and stuffing it into his hip pocket.
“Now that the money thing is out of the way, drink your drink, maybe have another, and relax so that we enjoy each other,” Harold said. “We have all night, and who knows? Maybe we’ll want to spend other nights together.”
“I’ve never done this before, Mr. Makin. I don’t know how to act, what to say, or what to do.”
“Call me Harold and relax for starters. We won’t enjoy ourselves if you’re uptight.”
Harold seated himself on the living room couch, his right leg folded under him. Mark Allen took a seat across from him in one of the club chairs.
“This is unreal—you and me here like this, I mean,” Mark Allen said.
Harold smiled. “I understand that you want to be an actor.”
“Yes, I took a couple of acting classes at UCLA, and I belong to the Young Actors’ Studio. I think I’m ready. All I need is a chance to show what I can do.”
“I’ve got something coming up that might be right for you. I assume you’d be interested?”
“Are you kidding? I’d do anything for a chance to break into the movies,” Mark Allen said, immediately regretting his choice of words under the circumstances.
Harold smiled. “You’ve still got a bit of a Missouri twang in your voice, but other than that, you speak very well.”
“I’ve been working on getting rid of the twang and also on improving my grammar,” Mark Allen said, then finished his drink and set the glass on the table beside his chair.
“Good. Now stand up, and let’s have a look at you.”
Mark Allen stood and waited awkwardly for further instructions. Harold gazed up into Mark Allen’s eyes. “Kick off your shoes, and take off your clothes.”
Mark Allen kicked off his shoes. He stripped down to his undershorts and tossed his clothes on the club chair.
Harold chuckled. “The undershorts too, Mark. I want to see everything.”
Mark Allen pulled down his undershorts and stepped out of them. He tossed them on the club chair with the rest of his clothes. Standing naked with his arms at his sides, he watched Harold ogle him. He tried not to think about what he was doing, only his chance for a part in one of Harold’s films and the thousand dollars in the hip pocket of his slacks.
“Turn around, Mark.”
Mark Allen turned and waited for further instructions.
“Fine, Mark, you can turn back around,” Harrod said momentarily.
Again, Mark Allen did as instructed, feeling more awkward by the minute.
“You look great, Mark—great facial features and a nice ass. And you’re circumcised. I like that.”
Harold got up from the couch. “Come closer.”
Mark Allen walked over and stood in front of Harold.
“Undress me,” Harold said. “All I have on is this shirt and these slacks. I don’t believe in underwear.”
Mark Allen unbuttoned Harold’s shirt, removed it, and tossed it onto the couch. He unzipped Harold’s slacks. With no belt, the slacks fell to the floor. Harold stepped out of them and kicked them aside.
Harold pulled Mark Allen’s naked body close to his. “Kiss me,” he said.
Mark Allen froze.
Harold smiled. “Relax, and kiss me. It’s okay. I won’t bite.”
Awkwardly, Mark Allen parted his lips and kissed Harold. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend that he was kissing a woman, even though the stubble on Harold’s face made that difficult. Harold returned the kiss gently at first, then vigorously with lots of tongue, lip-sucking, and heavy breathing. Although Mark Allen didn’t want to, he responded in kind because he didn’t want to irritate Harold and risk losing the thousand bucks he had been given and a chance to break into the movies.
“Wow! You really know how to kiss,” Harold said when the two of them stopped to catch their breaths. “Now, suck my tits.”
“What!”
“My tits. The nipples. Suck them until they’re hard. Hasn’t a woman ever done that to you?”
Mark Allen put his lips around the nipple of one of Harold’s tits, rolled his tongue over and around it, and sucked it gently. This is disgusting, but it beats kissing him, he thought.
“Suck it harder,” Harold said.
Mark Allen sucked harder, almost chewing the nipple at times. The nipple enlarged and became hard and rubbery. Harold squirmed and moaned. Mark Allen felt Harold’s penis enlarge between his legs.
“Suck the other one,” Harold whispered. “Then go back and forth.”
Mark Allen did as instructed until both nipples were enlarged and hard.
Harold panted and moaned. “Oh, yes! Oh, yes, Mark, baby! Suck ’em good!”
The sucking didn’t sicken Mark Allen nearly as much as standing naked in Harold’s arms with Harold’s penis erect and moving in and out between his legs.
“Go down on me,” Harold said. “Hurry!”
Mark Allen cringed. “What!”
Harold pushed down on Mark Allen’s shoulders. “Go down on me!”
Mark Allen pulled away from Harold. “No way!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought you wanted to do that to me, not me do it to you,” Mark Allen said.
Harold pushed down hard on Mark Allen’s shoulders. “I’ll do it to you later, but right now, I want you to do it to me.”
Mark Allen dropped to his knees. He stared at Harold’s large, erect penis. The thought of putting his mouth around it nauseated him.
Harold held his penis with one hand, and with the other, he pulled Mark Allen’s head toward it.
Mark Allen closed his mouth and pressed his lips together.
“Come on, Mark, open up!”
Mark Allen jerked his head loose from Harold’s grip and got up on his feet. “I can’t do this!”
“Just what the fuck did you think I was paying you a thousand bucks for?”
“Johnny, the bartender at the Lazy Leopard told me you’d pay me a thousand bucks for the night and you were a bigshot in Hollywood who could help me break into the movies. And he told me you didn’t like queers, so I assumed I wouldn’t have to do the things they do—except, of course, let you fool around with me, kiss me a little, and you know, suck me off.”
“For a thousand bucks and a part in one of my films, you should be willing to do anything I want.”
“Yeah, well I can’t. I just can't!” Mark Allen said as he hurriedly gathered up his clothes and shoes and got dressed.
Harold dropped down on the couch. “Your problem is you just don’t want to keep my money or want my influence bad enough!” he shouted. “You’d better wise up if you want to make it in this town!”
“Oh, I’ll make it, but not this way,” Mark Allen said as he pulled the fold of one-hundred-dollar-bills out of his hip pocket and tossed it in Harold’s lap. “I needed that money real bad. But I know now that I don’t need it bad enough to let some bigshot like you turn me into a queer-for-pay piece of shit!”
Then Mark Allen turned and headed for the front door. He jerked it open and slammed it behind him. Once he figured out where he was, he made his way out of the neighborhood to a bus stop about a mile or so away. He had to transfer from the bus that stopped for him to another one, but an hour later, he arrived at the rooming house where he lived. On the way, he remembered his father’s parting words when he left home for Hollywood: Be careful that you don’t end up in a worse hell than the one you think you’re leaving.
Copyright © 2024 Frank Zahn. Published in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Number 67, July 28, 2024, https://adelaidebooks.org/seduction-gone-awry.