Fluffer

It might surprise some to learn I like my job. I'm a makeup artist in a film crew for Ahab&Jezebel Productions. You read that aright: The adult film conglomerate, AKA Studio. Our crew shoots films for the gay male market, with an emphasis on kink and fetish themes. And you might think my title 'makeup artist' is an euphemism, but it's not. My job classification is, in truth, makeup. I have the training and everything. Most, however, use a different term for my specialty.

I'm a fluffer.

I'm responsible for keeping our best actor Bud hard while he waits for his closeup. You could call my work chaste: Masturbation with gloved hands, as long as necessary.

Bud is of medium height and stocky build, with broad shoulders and a splendid six-pack. His jaw is square, his cheekbones high, his nose blunt, and his tousled hair sandy. You could drown in his grey eyes.

His ability to produce a dozen thunderous orgasms per day is legendary in gay porn circles.

He specializes in the niche genre of asphyxia.

Our crew has another makeup artist. My colleague Cindy does the more conventional kind of film makeup. Mostly. We don't get along.

She's lesbian, while I'm gay. I don't know why she dislikes me, though I can imagine why. It's possible Cindy believes Bud and I are conducting a love affair on company time, or maybe she regards me as rent boy scum.

Either way, she's wrong. I enjoy servicing Bud, and even in the era of Viagra he prefers a fluffer, possibly as a perk, but not once has he shown the slightest interest in me.

I have the most hopeless and pathetic crush on him you can imagine.

Today's shoot is at an isolated beach on Maui. It has a sandy path through a volcanic rock formation, with a clear line of sight to crashing waves. We've timed things nicely. Clouds race before a black horizon, while we're still in sunlight. The heavy air is warm. A storm will hit the beach inside the hour, lashing everything with torrents of wind-driven rain.

Before this background, cameras fixed and handheld record Bud and his usual partner Frank in action. Both men are naked. I watch Frank's erect penis piston in and out of Bud's ass. It's almost time for Bud's money shot. Frank jerks Bud off with one hand while slowly tightening an improvised noose around Bud's neck. Bud's face is red, his expression vacant. His penis twitches and throbs in Frank's practiced hand.

Lightning blinds and thunder buffets. Bud stiffens, his face darkens, his penis expels ropes of cum. Frank releases the noose and lowers Bud to the sand before standing tall and masturbating to his own mighty orgasm. I always enjoy this part; nothing beats a true professional.

Frank and I help Bud up. He recovers in no time.

Everyone rushes about tearing down our equipment and shoving it in the van before the storm hits.

I'd hoped to sample gay clubbing in Lahaina, but the downpour flooding the island puts paid to that. We spend a pleasant evening staying dry in the hotel bar and call it our wrap party.

Lying naked in my bed I enjoy an intense jerkoff session, savoring visions of Bud and Frank going at it.

Sweetest of all: Bud's asphyxia orgasm. Before my eyes! I long to have done to me what I saw, ache to know how it feels.

On our return from Maui our footage goes to post-production and we shift to other projects. Straight gay porn shoots await: Our bread-and-butter, the studio's budget for specialist fare like breathplay being limited. Bud and Frank turn in stellar performances. I keep Bud ready for action.

On Friday, he invites me to spend the weekend at his mountain cabin. You could've knocked me over with a feather.

We leave after work. The drive takes a couple of hours, with supper at a small diner on the way. It's almost sunset.

The cabin is at the end of a long driveway off a main road. Woods lie behind it and I see a secluded yard fronting on the lake before it. A lawn ends in a bit of beach.

We're both tired. Bud makes a bed for me in the guest room.

"I want to take things slowly," he says.

In the morning I admire the view of the lake from Bud's yard.

"No skinny-dipping, I'm afraid," says Bud.

"Prying eyes?"

"Brain-eating parasites."

The parasites don't molest the local trout. We spend the morning fishing, and Bud prepares a simple lunch. We eat on his enclosed front porch.

It's quiet. Bud and I look at other.

Next thing I know, our hands are all over each other. We kiss deeply.

"Want to go outside?" he says on coming up for air.

"Yes!"

"The sun can be brutal up here."

A first for me: Sunblock application as foreplay. Bud devotes special attention to my prick.

My heart pounds.

"I want you to strangle me!"

There. I said it.

Bud stops and gives me a look I can't read.

"I can help you with that," he says, "Though I have more experience on the receiving end. Back in a mo."

He returns with a leather belt made into a noose.

"The first rule of breathplay is, don't play solo. If we're doing this, you need to promise me upfront that you will never try that. Too easy to end up dead and looking really stupid."

"I promise! Will it hurt?"

"Doesn't have to, if it's done right. Preferences vary."

He places the noose around my neck, tightening it just enough to be snug, with the rest running down my back, before fondling my prick again.

Naked, we walk onto the lawn while holding hands. Bud has a beach towel over his shoulder, while I carry a tube of KY in my free hand. It's my first good look at the lake frontage.

"... Bud? Isn't this a bit exposed? Can someone see us from the other shore?"

"With binocs, maybe. Or a telephoto lens. Never noticed any paparazzi, though the studio would love the free publicity."

"Fine for you," I say. "But not for me!"

"Perhaps not. I wouldn't worry."

The still air is warm and hot sunlight caresses me all over. Bud spreads the blanket. I kneel and take his cock in my mouth.

Reader, I slurped him.

When he's truly hard he pulls out.

"Turn around."

I'm hands and knees on the blanket as he lubes and finger-fucks me.

His tip touches my bud. I shiver to feel him probing. Sun on my naked body, noose around my throat, belt in his hands now feeling myself open up to him he's part way in me, my asshole tries to push out his cock, he bears down on me I open up God his cock moves in and out of me we are fucking. Finally, Bud is fucking me.

I stroke myself until I don't need to. It feels like Bud has been plowing me forever.

"Ready?" he asks.

"God yes!"

"Gonna start easy."

I feel the belt tighten. My pulse throbs. I can breathe, but it costs me.

Time slows. Sounds recede. I'm lightheaded.

My prick is so hard I'm afraid to touch it. I fear coming too soon, fear leaving the world of sensation engulfing me. My naked body, swiveling in time with Bud's thrusts, bathed by the sun and the humid air, begins to tingle...

"Lean forward for more pressure," Bud whispers from the other side of the galaxy.

...On my elbows and knees, the noose tight on my neck, constricting my carotid and throttling my airway...

The universe shrinks to sensations. Sounds fade, open eyes see nothing, my prick has never been so hard, never so coiled so tense the pleasure rising in me, flooding me, drowning me, my God the noose just made me come...

...and I lie on my side, gasping and jerking myself to wring out the last drops of my spunk.

Bud stands over me, wearing the same unreadable expression as before.

"Did you come?" I ask.

"I did! Where you were, that doesn't always register. Just rest. I'll be back. Don't go anywhere dressed the way you are!"

I lie on my back, legs spread wide, basking in the sun with warm breezes wafting over me.

Bud returns with a tray of milk and cookies.

"Aftercare time!"

Monday we pretend nothing happened, honest. Bud doesn't need my services, anyway. There's a hiatus in projects for reasons known to Studio, if not to us chickens in the trenches. To purée a metaphor.

My crew finds other chores. After a week with no word from Studio, however, anxiety stalks us hourly types, even though we all juggle side hustles to keep body and soul in the same room.

Lightning strikes. A reclusive eccentric, with enough money to corrupt Satan, expresses interest in bankrolling a production.

One devoted to gallows play.

"I'm a great admirer of your work. I own every one of your films," says the billionaire, eyes glowing.

"I'm flattered, sir," says Bud.

Word came down from the pinnacle of Studio: Give the man what he wants.

"I've taken the liberty of preparing a treatment of what I have in mind," says The Money.

Our script doctor Beth accepts it. She's one of the few from Studio who isn't a brainless suit. I glimpse the title: The Banquet of Sardanapalus. She finds a chair and reads.

"Mr. X," says an assistant, "message for you." He whispers in X's ear, getting a sharp nod of assent.

"Great news!" says X. "I secured the perfect setting for this production. A good day to you all. I'll be in touch."

"As a draft shooting script,"says Beth, "this isn't bad. Much better than the half-bright crap we usually get. It has a plot! Dialog! Gotta say, though, it's way over the top...ten percent of The Bloody Banquet, easy."

"Only ten?" asks Cindy.

"No forced cannibalism, to start."

"Relieved to hear it. Say no more."

"Beth," says Bud, "we're shooting porn. There are low expectations to satisfy. Suits at Studio may not know art, but they do understand our customers."

"Worry not," says Beth. "This is as hardcore as gay porn gets. Besides, the sponsor doesn't want it in general release. Private stock only. I can see why..."

"You pricks are so full of shit I can't believe it!" says Cindy. "What are they paying us?"

When Beth tells us, even Cindy is silent. I've never known her to bite her tongue and remain schtum if she has an opinion. She always has an opinion.

"La Cuesta? Really?"

I hear whispers in the hallway.

"He snagged it for three days. Can't imagine what that must cost."

We arrive early on the first full day of filming. It's a long drive from the coast to the castle. The van groans all the way up the hill.

C. F. Cain built La Cuesta over two decades, starting after the First World War, on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. By the time he died thirty years later, it was the largest private estate in California.

Our first sight of the Ranch, as Cain called it, is the Grand House, a massive affair that could pass for a Spanish Baroque church in dim light. There's a fountain in the small plaza before its doors.

A tanned muscular woman wearing eyeshades and wielding a clipboard gives directions and checks us off her list.

"Next!" calls the Mistress of the Clipboard.

We park our kit in a gingerbread cottage behind the Grand Pile while Cindy parks our van. Once Cindy returns, we explore. The Poseidon Pool figures in the script as a key location, so we seek that out first. The rest of the action involves interior settings which, we discover, are stunning as to both architecture and furnishings. I never expected to work on a film that had a genuine Rubens in the background.

Everywhere we go, crews are working. Suits from Studio stand around looking lost. I see a dozen men fucking naked in a daisy chain by the side of the Poseidon Pool, camera operators swarming all over them while trying not to get caught up in each other's field-of-view. I haven't seen so much priapic male nudity since my last visit to a bathhouse...

Mistress of the Clipboard collars us for the principal director, who is anxious to shoot a scene with Bud, cast as Elagabalus, and the actor playing Enkidu.

We spend the afternoon filming Elagabalus bottoming for Enkidu at multiple locations. I do my duty as fluffer, getting the odd wry look. The take that makes it into the final edit is filmed in the Grecian Pool, an Olympic size indoor affair with glittering tile mosaics on the walls and pool bottom: Opulent, tasteless, and perfect!

Before day's end, we see rushes for the opening scene of the film in which Sardanapalus watches hidden camera footage of Enkidu assfucking Elagabalus while throttling him with a belt. Closeup of Bud's orgasm; an extra he suggests and which the director approves. Second camera captures Sardanapalus' reaction: tears stream down his face, expression aghast, turning to fury.

The banquet scene takes place in the Assembly Room with furniture. replaced by cushions and low couches. Dozens of naked men eat, drink, masturbate, kiss, embrace, suck and fuck each other. Techno music with backbeat reaching magnitude 8 on the Richter Scale serenades them. Sardanapalus and Elagabalus canoodle on a couch at one end of the room, but mostly watch.

"Excuse me a moment, love," says Sardanapalus. He stands and moves behind the couch, watching the orgy. The Assembly Room has a hidden entrance to Elagabalus' rear. A man enters through it silently and whispers in Sardanapalus' ear.

I don't witness the accident early on day three, but hear about it right away. A few hours later I'm summoned to a meeting with the head of Studio, Mr. X, Beth,...and Bud.

His right leg is in a cast. Mr. X looks distraught, Studio looks worried. Bud and Beth appear unruffled.

"Mr. X," says Bud, "Meet my understudy."

For once in my life I think quickly.

Must not faint

"What may I do for you?" I ask.

"Please disrobe," says Mr. X. He compares me to photos of an uninjured Bud.

"You are correct, Mr. Roper. His physique is remarkably similar. The pubic hair is pretty close. Mr. Winston, are you familiar with the climactic scene Mr Roper can no longer perform?"

"The gallows scene? I am, sir."

"Can you do it?"

Deep breath.

"I'd love to."

Bud speaks.

"Stan shares starring credit with me for playing Elagabalus."

"Agreed," says Studio. "Let's move, folks! We're losing the light."

Sardanapalus stands and raises his hands for silence.

"Friends!" he cries. "We are gathered to honor the love of my life Elagabalus. Long has he stood by my side, long has he shared my bed. Let us praise him!"

His audience roars. Sardanapalus waits for the acclaim to subside, and addresses Elagabalus.

"My love. I treasure memories of the pleasures we shared with no one else, secret ones that left us breathless (sotto voce) literally.

"I will now honor you as you truly deserve. Seize him!"

Tips of two swords press his throat--

"Here's where we do the switch," says Beth. "Cut from Bud to closeup of Sardanapalus, and cut back to Stan with a hood over his head. Goons drag him from the Assembly Room while the crowd jeers. Closeup of Sardanapalus looking over the crowd with a thunderous expression."

"Make it so," says Mr. X.

Elagabalus is frogmarched to the Poseidon Pool behind Sardanapalus. Rewrite: Elagabalus wears a black hood. Two gallows have been erected during the banquet. The riotous banqueters, all naked and still groping and stroking each other, follow Sardanapalus.

Lifeless Enkidu (dummy to be replaced in post-production CGI) hangs from one gallows, while another waits for Elagabalus...

I'm standing on the gallows wearing a black hood with the afternoon sun warming my naked body. Grips fuss around me, while the director argues with camera operators.

I fluff myself. Not enough time for Viagra. Everyone else is busy.

"What do you think you're doing?" whispers Cindy.

"I'm working," I whisper back. "Do you mind?"

Cindy colors up, and sniffs while looking at her clipboard. Hard.

"Oh, for Pete's sake, let me do that."

"I thought you hated my guts!"

"I thought you were being a wuss. You think I couldn't see the bulge in your pants every time you fluffed Bud? You can bet he did! And you never did anything about it."

"A makeup artist coming on to one of the studio's top stars? Career-limiting move, much?"

"Ok. Maybe I was wrong about you. Anyway, we're in the same boat now. We're all depending on you!"

"Just don't say 'break a leg'..."

Frank tells me Cindy's fluffing is efficient. Precise. Clinical, almost. He's wrong about one thing. She's efficient, but her ministrations don't feel in the least clinical. Only when I feel myself relax do I realize how tense I am.

Naked Elagabalus stands on a stool under the gallows, feet bound. Noose around his neck. Hands loosely bound before him. Sardanapalus stands before him, also naked and with penis erect.

"You wronged me greatly," says Sardanapalus, "The wound will never heal. For that, you shall pay with your life!"

The mob of banqueters roars.

"However. For the love I bore you, and still bear, I extend a small mercy. I have left your hands free for a reason."

Sardanapalus starts stroking his cock...

The script calls for Sardanapalus to turn me off the stool, steady my body, then suck my cock a while. He stands back. I masturbate while swinging in the noose, he masturbates while watching me dangle, and we both have orgasms in front of all the other men before he triggers the small nuclear weapon that destroys La Cuesta and kills everyone.

You read that correctly the first time.

There was just enough rehearsal time for me to learn how it feels to hang from the noose. It's padded so it constricts my carotid just enough, without real discomfort.

I can't see much through the hood, but feel Sardanapalus' hands stop me from swinging. The sensation of dangling naked with penis erect in front of camera and crew spikes my arousal: This is it!

I already feel woozy.

Sardanapalus puts hands on my buttocks. I feel his tongue run over my penis, my stiff prick, my cock! before he takes it in his mouth. My pulse pounds in my ears, and I feel spaced out, like being stoned. It's as if the universe has shrunk to the feel of his tongue working over my cock, and the shivers of pleasure coursing through my body.

My naked body, exposed to everyone.

Sardanapalus spits me out. My wet cock swings free. Warm air wafts over it. I grab it and start pumping with a lubed hand.

My head throbs my naked body pulses with pleasure I can't last much longer my cock tenses I spray...

"Gnnnngguh!"

I wake lying on the floor, afterglow receding as I struggle back to wakefulness. To life.

"Cut!" calls the director.

The rushes for the final scene come as a revelation.

My naked body tenses and shudders as I run fingers up and down my cock. When I shoot, cum arcs up before falling to spatter on the face, shoulders, and open mouth of Sardanapalus. His cock jerks to vertical.

Sardanapalus strokes himself while I twitch and shake, before passing out. He faces the men who have just applauded my execution.

"Now you will receive the reward your loyalty to my beloved Elagabalus deserves!"

(Cut to view of the more alert men in the audience looking spooked.)

Sardanapalus stares the crowd down while masturbating to an orgasm that spatters my front with his cum, before keying the TV remote for triggering the nuke to be added in post-production, and lowers me to the floor, gasping. Face deep red once the hood comes off. We'd timed it to three minutes max in rehearsal.

The Banquet of Sardanapalus becomes the most famous fetish film no one ever saw. We all get swollen paychecks. Mr. X fills the studios' coffers and invests in more conventional fare as well as further nooseplay projects.

Bud recovers without incident. We no longer hide our relationship--and I get promoted from makeup artist to actor.

When doing a shoot, I use Viagra or Cialis. Not a fluffer! Bud, however, remains old-school, and tells me Cindy is the consummate professional.

I can't begrudge him that. At home, he's insatiable.