Page 79 of The King of Halloween
“That,” Raj said. “I got into special effects because I wanted to do that. To make dinosaurs real. To viscerally tear a man in half and have his intestines pulse on camera. But by the time I got out of school, physical effects were out, and everything had to be CG. Instead of being on set, painting actors in blood and rigging mechanics, I spent most of my time inside a small, windowless room moving pixels. It was mind-numbing.”
“Surely some people still do practical effects,” Adam argued to the man who’d lived in this world. He realized his folly as Raj gave a loud huff and looked back at him.
“They don’t even use blood anymore. Like that. What I wouldn’t give to see some ketchup splattered across a screen. It’s all CG, so they don’t have to deal with touching up the actor’s makeup or wardrobe. That’s Hollywood in a nutshell. Doesn’t matter how terrible it looks. If it’ll save ‘em a hundred dollars, it’s worth the cookie-cutter gore.”
Adam nodded along with him. There were good, new horror films on occasion, but most had the same jump scares, the same villains, and the same blood animations. It was more repetitive to see a new movie than for him to pull out the VHS tape he’d worn down to scratches. “So you decided to try a career as a hotelier instead?”
Silence, save the screams of the goats, cut through them. “You ever watch any Hindi horror?”
“No. Wait, do you have some?”
Raj smiled. “A few. They aren’t in such an antique format as what you’ve got, though I might be able to snag a copy of one from the eighties.”
“Yes, please.” Adam leaned closer to whisper in Raj’s ear, “Next date is at your place.”
“Oh…okay.” He swept his palm over the back of Adam’s hand as they both fell back into the movie.
It wasn’t until the real protagonist arrived at the haunted house that Raj spoke up again. “What about your mysterious past? How’d you go from being in the theater to running the costume shop?”
Adam closed his eyes. “Well, when my dad died—”
“Damn. I’m, I’m sorry. You don’t need to tell me.”
“It’s okay. It was a while back and…” Everyone assumed that was why Adam abandoned his glitzy life in New York. He was doing right by his family. What a difference that was. He was damn near treated like a returning hero compared to how he’d been pilloried growing up. It’d be so easy to let Raj believe the better version of Adam. That he was so selfless, he had to come back for his poor mother. But the timeline didn’t quite line up, and besides…his mask was getting heavy.
“When did you know that you preferred the banana in the fruit bowl instead of the fig?”
An uncomfortable snicker broke from Raj, probably at Adam’s awful metaphor. “I dunno. I guess sixteenish. It’s hard to say. Looking back, it seems obvious, but it was like my brain hadn’t caught up with my body.”
“Sixteen? That’s rough.”
Raj sighed. “Tell me about it. I wound up taking a girl to prom because I showed up at her door and she assumed I was there for her.” In a quick whisper, he admitted, “I was trying to ask out her brother.”
Okay, Adam could deal with a pimply sixteen-year-old in his past. “What was he like? Handsome?”
“Eh? Yes. Tall. He was six-foot-five and on the basketball team.”
“At that height, he could have been the basket.” Adam wasn’t feeling any shame about his perfectly acceptable five foot and eleven inches. Besides, he had the extra two inches where it mattered.
“Is that a touch of jealousy on your breath, Mr. Stein?” Raj spun around in Adam’s lap, innocently pressing against Adam’s half-erection. Adam moved to adjust when dark eyes stared into his. Maybe not so innocently.
“Merely an observation. Please, tell me all about this giraffe you crushed on.”
Raj stared him up and down, then he placed his palm on Adam’s chest. “He was lanky, lean. A bean pole. With eyes so blue they were almost white. And he only wore black suits because he knew they flattered him from every angle.”
“A teenager wore suits?” Adam asked, not buying any of this
“What can I say?” Raj shrugged and shredded Adam to pieces with his mischievous grin. “I have a type.”
“You, Mr. Choudhary, are an awful liar. Which I happen to find adorable.” He bent his lanky head and kissed Raj, tasting both the oaken notes of wine and the charred mozzarella of pizza.
As Raj slid back down into place, he nuzzled his cheek against Adam’s chest. “What about you? When did you realize you prefer the sausage to the…um…?”
“Calzone?” Adam suggested.
“Sure.” Raj chuckled. “So…?”
Here came the freight train of trauma, right on schedule. Adam did his best to hold the man resting in his lap to remind himself he wasn’t that outcast little weirdo anymore. “There’s the thing. I never had to figure out I was gay because the whole town did before I learned the colors of the rainbow.”
