Castaways and lovers meet
Then kiss in Tropicana's heat
Watch the waves break on the bay
Soft white sands, a blue lagoon
Cocktail time, a summer's tune
A whole night's holiday
Club Tropicana drinks are free
The drinks are free because JC knows this guy Alexi, a cute redhead who's old enough to tend bar the way JC's old enough to get in the door. They met at a cattle call for underwear models, not that JC wants to be an underwear model in the slightest but eventually he's going to have to do something he doesn't like if he wants to make rent. He'd rather strip to his jockeys than end up taking them off completely, which is what this guy he and Tony met their first day in LA has already resorted to.
This place is like an Orlando club except the famous people are really famous, not just famous in Florida. JC picks a dark mineral flake off the back of his neck. He goes to the beach in the afternoon and no matter how many showers he takes between then and his trips out at night, he can never get rid of all the sand. He runs a hand back through his hair and thinks again about the free haircut this girl Julie he met at a music comp workshop offered him.
He knows all these people already, from auditions or concerts or open mics or the unemployment line. Gorgeous people all one big break away from being famous and even when he was on TV, JC didn't care that much about fame. Fame is for child stars like Justin, for stage moms and whiz kids who haven't finished growing yet. Tony wants an album deal, he wants a living and a nice house and maybe a wife and kids, too.
JC wants people to remember his name when he's reintroduced to them a week later. He wants the Pacific to look friendly instead of like a surfer's inner sanctum. He wants all these guys and girls he meets around town to feel like a family, to know when he wants to nurse his Mai Tai out on the deck and just absorb the bass instead of getting sweaty in the crowd of dancers. The sun is setting late and bright against the ocean, blue and pink and red like the inside of a heart. JC's still not sure how to get something like that into a song. He just knows he wants to.
"I'll never get tired of the sunshine," a voice says over his shoulder. Heavy vowels, British, so fond and familiar it's almost teasing. JC turns, thinking it's someone he knows using an accent picked up in this week's acting class.
It's not someone he knows. It's George Michael, or someone who looks just like him anyway, which happens sometimes in LA. He has a week's worth of beard, heavy hair on his arms and a tight sleeveless black shirt that wraps around him like the night on the other side of the sunset.
JC blinks. The guy takes a step forward and rests his elbow on the wooden railing, looking out toward the sea. JC stood in line for coffee behind Demi Moore once. She didn't smell like Calvin Klein cologne or lean in towards him like he had a secret to share or let her pinkie finger trail up along his wristbone. Of course, she was married.
"What's your name?" the guy asks. He cocks his head as if JC's got something interesting to say.
"Um, JC." He stumbles only because for a second it's like one of those stories this guy Marco is always telling, about picking up stars who never use their real names and don't want you to, either.
The guy squeezes JC's hand on the railing instead of stepping away to shake it. "George," he says. "You don't seem quite comfortable yet with your stage name."
"I, it's. Do you like Josh better?"
George, because it is, it really has to be him, George says, "No," and helps himself to a sip of JC's drink. JC laughs aloud because, what the fuck, and he runs his fingers through his hair again. Greasy and sandy and George is tan and perfect and shaking his ass a little to the music inside. Man, he has a really great ass.
JC looks up and George has caught him staring. He smiles like he knows what JC's thinking. "You're an actor," he says, and JC wants to crawl inside his accent and be that fabulous for a living. He bumps against JC's shoulder when JC doesn't respond.
"Oh, no, no. I can't act. I'm, I'm sort of a singer."
"Well are you or aren't you?" There's something under the question, wistful impatience, and JC nods like he's sure.
"Trying, anyway," he says. George fishes a pack of cigarettes from out of a linen blazer he's laid on the railing and lights one with a cool, practiced flick of a silver Zippo. This girl JC knows named Marie smokes Silk Cuts, which she buys from the Tinder Box on Santa Monica. They look expensive, but he takes one when it's offered and George curls in to cup a hand around the lighter. "I, um." JC half-inhales and swallows roughly. "I really liked your album," he says. He's not sure how to talk to people like this.
George shakes his head slightly, like it doesn't matter. "Why are you a singer, JC?" He blows smoke out neatly, cigarette already burned halfway down. JC taps ash off the balcony.
"Because nothing else feels right," he says, and George nods. "I mean. Things feel good," he says. "But --"
George laughs and kisses him, just like that, prickly face against his lips, tongue pushing into his mouth. He exhales into JC's throat and JC fights not to cough. George pulls back just in time for JC to gulp air like he's been drowning, and then he lets George box him in against the railing. "You like this kind of fun?" George whispers against his ear, plucking the cigarette from JC's fingers and flicking both down onto the beach below.
JC manages to say, "I..." before George has slipped his fingers up under his t-shirt, and then it's just a long sigh and his hips pushed into George's hands, which is as good an answer as he can form right now, thank you very much. He feels like a castaway up on some wild shore where waves beat on their legs and his knees are soft like jellyfish and he falls a little when George slides his hand inside his shorts.
"Hold on, hold on, we're not going anywhere," George says, propping him back up against the railing, and JC realizes he means it. There's bad Swedish pop playing through open glass doors, all that she wants, all that she wants, and George is moving his hand to the beat and then faster. His beard is scratching across JC's throat, his collarbone, getting caught on the soft, worn fabric of his cotton shirt.
For one long crazy moment he thinks he can hear his flesh tear on the scruffy angles of George's jaw, and then he bends back over the wooden bar and comes with a surprised shout. George crouches and laughs like a growl against his stomach, licking him clean, and when he crawls back up the length of JC's body he smells like saltwater and sweat.
He kisses JC harder now, not asking a question, pushing his thigh against JC's. His body is so solid, so adult, tufts of dark hair curling out of the neckline of his shirt, hip thrusts like their own special choreography. JC can barely move, he's not sure he even qualifies as a warm hard place to push against because his spine is all loose and George is kissing his ear.
JC wants to feel that, taste that, and he holds the back of George's neck steady and dips his tongue into George's ear, licking and then kissing around it, like if he gets the angle right he'll hear the roar of the ocean in the curves of skin.
"Ohhh," George gasps, right into JC's chin, and then the weight of George's arms around his shoulders gets heavier, has gravity and motion and oh, oh, oh, like that. JC sinks down to his knees, back against square cut wooden beams, face pressed to the tight denim of George's pants. George's fingers are there, smelling of tobacco and knocking at JC's nose as he unzips his fly just enough to ease out. His cock is blunt and the coarse hair is in JC's nose before he can even really get a good look.
It's a little too dark to be sure but JC swears there are fine grains of sand in the crease between his hip and leg and the idea of this man, this beautiful man with a voice like a brushfire and stadiums full of screaming fans -- that he might lie on some beach in the nude under the same sun JC fell asleep in yesterday -- JC opens his mouth and swallows deep so he doesn't do something embarrassing like ask for an autograph. George pushes in farther, juts and presses deep until JC's lips are stretched and raw like skin the day after a sunburn.
George's hands slick through JC's hair again and again, not holding, just stroking. JC tilts his head back to feel the pressure of fingers on his scalp and George shoots down his throat. He misses most of it, come on his chin like some virgin, and he wipes his mouth on the shoulder of his shirt. He stands slowly, weak-kneed again.
George gropes out to find him and pulls him close, kissing his cheek softly except it still burns like sandpaper. "JC," he says, and JC smiles.
"You're, um." JC catches himself rubbing at his mouth. George grins, white teeth flashing in the deepening dusk.
"Take some advice from an old pop star?" George has found the pack of Silk Cuts and lit a pair. He hands one to JC and JC inhales deeply, nodding. "Don't do that unless it's fun."
"Oh no," JC says, coughing a little. "No, I wouldn't --"
George kisses him again, a little wet and thirsty. "I'll buy you a drink," he offers, stepping back and straightening his clothes.
"I already get them free," JC says.
END.
Credits: For the would-be Miss Iowa. Title/summary by Wham, "Club Tropicana." Back when Lance was still "the blond gay one in the back -- no, no, the other blond gay one in the back," I wrote a 20-page linguistics paper comparing George Michael's self-presentation of his sexuality versus the terminology used by the media to describe his coming out. ("There's things that you guess and things that you know," after all.) And there was a night when the beauty queen and I drank too much bourbon and it was like every George Michael video I owned went on forever and ever.