Page 28 of Back Room Host

“Yeah! Could be you’re some kind of pervert.”

“Me? No.” Luca chuckled.

“Promise you won’t film me.”

“Promise. I just want to talk to you. And before I start making notes all the time …”

“Because I have so many interesting things to say …”

Laughing, he shrugged.

“With the loud music here? It drowns out everything anyway.”

“We’ll see.”

He opened an app on his phone and placed it between us on the table. I glanced at his screen suspiciously.

“And now?”

“Tell me something about yourself.”

“No,” I replied, crossing my arms. “Why don’t you tell me something?”

He bit his lip and shook his head, laughing. “Okay. I owe you that.” He took another sip of his beer. “I’m a bit under pressure. I have to submit my concept for the final project in a week. If I don’t manage that, it’ll be tight. And I don’t want to extend another semester in the fall.”

“What’s it about?”

“Do you know … um … back rooms?”

I grimaced. “Yes?” It was more of a question. I knew plenty of back rooms in clubs and bars where dirty or dubious things happened. Even the old tobacco shop around the corner had a back room. It had been in operation since the 19th century. But somehow, I had the suspicion that Luca was talking about something else.

“You’re thinking about the dirty back rooms, am I right?”

I laughed. “And you’re not?”

“The back rooms are boundless spaces. Endless corridors. A labyrinth outside our real world. Once you get lost in them, you’ll never find your way out again. They keep you there,torment you with your own monsters. And there’s no escape, because in the back rooms, you don’t age and you can’t die. You’re trapped.”

As much as I respected Luca’s passionate description, somehow these back rooms seemed quite familiar to me. With my work as a callboy, it felt like I was trapped in one myself. Training to be a chef had been an attempt to break free, but it hadn’t worked out. Sex work had caught up with me, and I was back to square one.

“You seem lost in thought,” Luca said, pulling me out of my gloomy thoughts. “Everything okay?”

I shook off the melancholy and forced a smile. “Yeah. Of course. What do you plan to do with this idea?”

“It’s going to be a short film. The requirement is 15 minutes. But I’m still stuck on the details.”

“Ah, I don’t know much about short films.”

“Do you like movies?”

“Who doesn’t like movies?” I replied with a counter-question.

“True. The question should rather be: Which movies do you like?”

“Well, I’m more into … I like modern noir films likeL.A. Confidential,Lost Highway, orThe Salton Sea.”

For a moment, my response seemed to leave him speechless. “Wow … uh … I really didn’t expect that. I mean …” He spread both hands and gestured toward me. “Sure, it doesn’t surprise me that you like film noir. You hang out at gothic parties, but …The Salton Sea! One of my absolute favorite movies!”

A warm feeling spread within me as I took a sip. It was the first time I had met someone who knew the movie. That, coupled with Luca’s excitement, brought a smile to my face.

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