July 19th 2002

Finally conclude the task of conquering the jungle-like monstrosity that is my wardrobe. Megumi seems all too eager to help me pack, haphazardly and accidently slipping in some of her own items of clothing in the process, rendering one of my bags to nearly explode with their contents of garish nightgowns and several brassieres. I absent-mindedly stuff several last items of tank tops in my suitcase, my mind deep in scheming about the possibilities of making out in hotel suites with Gackt.

At the dining table, as I wait for my staff to come pick me up and drive me to the airport, the aura of wonder in my suddenly changed public status is still rich and ripe. Megumi abortively attempts to wrest from me the glory that is rightfully mine by relating some trivial airheaded stories she'd compiled from her long-gone dorama acting days. I smile tolerantly and begin carrying out stunning and exaggerated impersonations of a husband deep in longing and remorse of having to leave his beloved wife. I briefly contemplate shedding tears but my lack of acting expertise would probably give me away. I can say my show is a relative success because Megumi manages to heartily wave a hanky and retain a wistful look in her eyes as I depart with my staff away from the range of my home, towards the airport.

It isn't until I am at a height of several hundred feet in the air in a private jet headed towards Taiwan am I struck with vivid, alarming premonitions of the disastrous scenes of debauchery my home will undoubtedly become in my whole month's absence. The flight crew will not land the plane back to Japan for me, so I spend the better part of the journey pretending to be sobbing over the in-flight movie (which, unfortunately, happens to be Alien III).

Arrive in Taiwan, check into hotel, and spend the evening enduring the agonies of getting assailed by hotel staff at five-second intervals while counterfeiting merriments with Taiwanese movie officials. Retire to bed out of delirious boredom and have disturbingly arousing dreams involving Gackt and alien tentacles.

July 20th 2002

Have ceremonial opening event arranged with the rest of the movie cast and crew in the morning. Wake up positively late. Clamber down to lobby and come to face with staff eyeing me as if I am ready to be stoned to death. Get whisked away to the location through the chaotically crammed streets of Taiwan in scenes of carnage that would have made Vin Diesel look like an amateur. Intense motion sickness slightly dampered by fantasies of having sex with Gackt inside van compartment.

Get unceremoniously thrown off of van at the beachside location and finally get reacquainted with Gackt for the first time in Taiwan.

Fuck.

No, let me rephrase that.

FUCK.

Gackt's newly attached hairdo is not a sight for sore eyes.

He greets me with his usual soap-opera gusto as I step off the vehicle and cordially attempts to hug me. I can't quite decide whether to stagger back at the sight of his outrageous hairpiece or the powerful reek of his perfume. Both do an equally successful job of nearly throwing my nausea over the edge. I stretch my masochistic streak to its limits as I valiantly hug him back, miraculously managing not to tear off his god-ugly braids and stomp them into the ground repeatedly while they are within arm's reach.

The rest of the ceremonial gathering continues in this same unappealing manner. The director and the officials act just as synthetic and pretentious as Gackt's attempts in building his yakuza image by committing a fashion crime of such revolting nature I'm pretty sure it would get him lynched in Harajuku. Us cast members are welcomed, greeted and introduced one by one, in which I successfully carry out my magnificant line of little smiles and false-modest waves with which I acknowledge my followers. Then the director reaches the inevitable, exclusively reserved session of the ceremonial, which turns out to last for about eleven hours (at least that's what it feels like) and might as well be condensed into six words: ALL HAIL YE TO GACKT ALMIGHTY.

Then Gackt is given his chance to deliver a speech.

We spend the rest of the day standing on the beach amidst Gackt's neverending babble as the sun slowly goes down. I periodically rescue my mind from lapsing into permanent catatonia by relishing the tortured looks on the other actors' faces as they silently contemplate individual plans of suicide.

July 21st 2002

Perhaps I should elaborate once more on my surroundings for the sake of the mortally curious.

The Cast

LEEHOM WANG
One of the latest, hottest names in Taiwan's dorky-movie circuit who spends damned near the entire filming procedure breathing down Gackt's neck, conducting their conversation exclusively (at least for me) in the Cantonese language. Under other circumstances I would have gotten irrationally jealous at their unconcealed liaison, but the thing is Leehom has a way of doing everything that makes him seem adorable instead of despicable (yes, including following Gackt around like a piece of toilet paper clinging to his shoe), which made it all the more repulsive. I have quickly plotted up ways to destroy his soul at the movie set upon the first hour I am reconciliated with him at Taiwan.

SUSUMU TERAJIMA
Uptight bastard who becomes amusingly tranquilized under the use of illegal drugs. Trust me, the constantly stoned, fundamentally comatose role he plays in the movie is as close as he can get to being humane.

ZENY KWOK
Nice, cute and funny kind of girl. Not much of considerable crotch-perking material, though.

ANNE SUZUKI
Horny jailbait who spends the better part of her stay in Taiwan humping my leg.

ME
Public icon has-been facing a major quasi fellow-idol mid-life sexual identity crisis to add to unrecoverable issues of paranoia and a fastly approaching case of bankruptcy.

GACKT
The stunningly gorgeous media deity who upon the first hour of arriving at the hotel warily approaches the swimming pool, tentatively pokes a toe in the water and lets out an skull-piercing bellow, throwing a day-long tantrum to get the hotel manager to heat up the whole body of water for him (including explicit orders that the angle of the pool's location from the direction of west be reconsidered so that it shall not later face sunset in such a grossly offensive way). Later on he pounces up to his suite and gives hotel staff another earbash because he can barely even fit in his packed thong collection inside the 'insufficient amount of wardrobe space provided' (which, may I note, includes a suite closet that is larger than the combined size of my house, my yard and the house beside it put together). Which makes his curious orders of imported Earl Grey teabags, cucumber slices and powdered milk an utter relief for everyone, although I suspect he would be using said ingredients to groom himself rather than eat them.

TARO YAMAMOTO
A loud, obnoxious, sophomoric jerk-cum-award-winning-actor who regularly feigns arousal at everything he sees just for the kick of it. As you might remember he was the guy who'd terrified the shit out of me by making disturbingly disturbing passes at me during our first dinner gathering in Japan, but apparently he'd done this solely under the assumption that I looked exactly the kind of guy in the business who, if the movie set were prison grounds, shall we say can be fully defined as 'fresh meat'. However, gleefully, the horrifying revelation he'd made that I was hauled to Taiwan under the pretext of being Gackt's sex slave did wonders in unnerving him immensely in my presence, so during the time the movie shoot was carried out I remained relatively unharmed from his advances. He regularly amused himself by aggravating people on the set with rude remarks and had initially practiced his wily advances on the women, but everytime he started assailing them they'd immediately turn to one another and loudly discuss how small his dick must be, so he finally resorted to harassing Leehom, which pleased me immeasurably. I made quick friends with him on the third day on the set under this very reason.

I am somewhat taken aback that Gackt seems to be the only person on the set who Yamamoto doesn't care to molest with a ten-foot pole. Considering his constant chilling attempts at simulating buggery with the other male members of the cast, and also the Viagra-by-the-fistful effects of Gackt's charisma, I am naturally curious as to why. So after a potential gropage situation after filming involving Yamamoto, a permanently traumatized Leehom and a fantastically near-successful attempt at a perfect wedgie, I bring the topic up to him.

"You know, why don't you try hitting on Gackt instead of scandalizing the entire movie grounds as it is?" I say in mock-seriousness to avoid erupting in neverending peals of laughter, snakily watching Leehom stagger away from the premises while prissily rubbing his bottom and muttering something in English about calling a lawyer. "Take it from me, he's quite a piece of ass. It could be fun."

Yamamoto looks at me in sincere disgust, which coming from him, must mean that I have just said something of apocalyptically intolerable nature. "That perverted, conceited, plastic-nosed queer? What the FUCK do you take me for?"

July 22nd 2002

Shoot some scenes. I am vaguely disturbed by the fact that I will have a particular scene with a child actor, but soon launch into a full freak-out session when I discover the kid's horrific resemblance to Gackt. A mini-sized, pre-pubescent Gackt. How scary is that? By all standards, it's just WRONG. And when the director barks orders for me to slouch in front of the kid and start making orgasm faces I have to be physically restrained from fleeing in the general direction of the beach and swimming towards the Japanese Sea.

I am finally tranquilized and agree to continue participating in the movie only after the real Gackt comes to my rescue and threatens me with perversely delectable 'punishments' involving handcuffs and vanilla mousse. I am so busy drooling I don't notice that the latest travesty in the form of a scraggly, flea-infested wig that looks and smells as though it has been used to wipe someone's hinder is being forced on me until it is too late. I carry out my scene with Gackt Junior quite impressively, although during the whole time it is being filmed I do all I can to keep my mind off any thoughts involving vanilla mousse.

July 23rd 2002

Pain. Boring pain. Spend six hours with Gackt trying to choose fucking ammo from the catalogues like a pair of housewives yipping over magazine beauty tips at the hairdresser's. Not only am I forced to make admiring noises in Gackt's direction as he tries posing with four thousand identical firearm replicas, I also have to severely restrain myself from smuggling away some of the fakeys with the idle intent of hijacking my homeward plane. All in all a tiring day.

Another child actor has been summoned to the location, this time to act out the part of Gackt's six-year-old daughter, and Gackt ostentatiously practices his fun-loving, kiddie-birthday-party googly greeting for an hour in advance to provide himself with a hopefully adawwwable daddyish impression.

When the little girl arrives at the set, she takes one look at him and spits on his shoes. (Okay, she actually burst crying, but I know she was thinking it.) I want to whisper to Gackt that his guns are probably scaring the shit out of her, but at this point he has sulked off and is moping dejectedly under the immense shadow of the director's flabby ass, and hissily declares he will not talk to the child until she apologizes to him first.

July 24th 2002

Weird day wandering around with cast in the streets of Taiwan. I successfully manage to avoid getting mobbed with the distasteful effects provided by my El Cheapo shades, although walking in public alongside Gackt and his please-mug-and-rape-and-kill-me giga-yen wardrobe for the entire morning does not exactly put me in a relaxed state of mind.

I later remind myself that I am in this country solely on the grounds of having sex with Gackt, which is a cause exclusively important in itself to whore out my self-image on hundreds of wide-screens all over Asia and by far still exceeds my ambitions of pounding out a noteworthy first-time acting job. So later on in the night when the city has tucked itself away to hidden corners of darkness, I sneak out of the quarters of my hotel suite and slither invisibly to Gackt's floor to conduct our first passionate tryst within the exotic, nocturnal mysteries of this foreign country's boundaries.

For someone as deviously promiscuous as Gackt, he is frustratingly very hard to get a hold of once he knows you're the one pining for him. Secretly I speculate that this has something to do with his failure of dividing time between his ever-increasing bedroom conquests as well as his deliberate attempts at maintaining his perpetually unrevealing aura. I try to make myself believe that Gackt has had his spontaneous moments in our heart-wrenching adventures of romance, but I still can't help the overriding conclusion that every move of torture and seduction he has inflicted on me thus far has been effortfully premeditated.

I stand confidently in front of the door to Gackt's suite--five feet and three inches of contemporary Eastern beauty at its ultimate. For the occasion of obtaining my first screw with Gackt in Taiwan--no, I won't lie--my first screw with Gackt ever, I have completed beforehand the meticulous ritual of ablution that would result in a vision of masculine beauty so blinding that there could be no conceivable chance for anything but a spectacularly loud, lube-exhausting, knee-bruising twilight (read: I bathed). Teeth agleam, three bleachings' worth of carefully sculpted hair, I exude all the aromatic mystery of a thousand mingled scents enveloped in a palpable cloud of Lifebuoy, the soap of those who care for others. As a final fillip, I have gargled at great length, swirling it about my mouth voluptuously--a generous draught of Listerine. Well I knew of The Pitfalls of Halitosis, a dread disease that had struck down many a burgeoning romantic career at its very inception. I am wearing a painstakingly unbuttoned dress shirt, ball-squeezing leather pants, and a patently seductive leer which I desperately hope shall avert Gackt's attention from my ever-increasingly-tortured erection as I knock on his room door in well-rehearsed laziness and pose in waiting, an designer-approved jacket draped classily (and uselessly) over my shoulder.

When he answers the door for me, he is starkers.

As in, birthday-suit wise.

As in, devoid of any piece of string whatsoever.

As in, acute-nasal-bleeding-inducing naked.

My mind automatically sends telepathic waves in English to whatever deity might be listening: Good job.

The beauty of having the pure, honey-toned smoothness of Gackt's tanned skin wrapping the Grecian-god-like structure of his frame in full-blown nudity is the way that it leaches the weariness and frustration out of my nonexistent marital sex life and opens the door to passionate love--I stumble through the door, grab him like a drowning man and he strips the clothes off me with his left foot while we roll over and over on the floor and, though we try to make the moment last, mindless sexual passion tosses us like the 'Juice' setting on a blender and now I forget which of us is him and which is me, I seem to be wearing the hotel carpet and am frantically driven face-down into the ground as he drills into me over and over again and then we are in the stratosphere looking down at the lights of the city far below and now there is a joyful updraft and now I can write no more.

Joke. Don't worry.

As you may have guessed, my primarily instant reaction upon sighting him at the doorway is to blindly throw my jacket under his waist and scream, "FUCKING CRAP, GACKT! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!"

It is what any person of decent upbringing (horny or chaste) would have done. Do not attempt to kill me. (I am perfectly capable of doing it myself.)

Gackt looks at me quizzically, not seeming in the least insulted by the fact that I am more ashamed than he is, probably inwardly questioning the injustice of why superstars with the apparent habit of prancing around naked in their hotel rooms like five-year-olds had no more rights in this world. "Grow up, Hyde," he says in a mildly amused tone, obviously being a great one to overcome the hassles of public decency that comes with Growing Up. Indifferently stepping over the puddle of my discarded jacket on the floor he saunters into the room in a manner that makes me and my fully dressed state seem like the unforgivable violators of a nudist camp. My eyes instinctively dart inside their sockets at the scary possibilities of an ongoing orgy--however the room behind him is perceptibly and mercifully empty.

"Come inside. I was just getting ready to take a bath," he fleetingly mentions as if I have just interrupted him in the middle of a TV dinner.

I watch his shapely buttocks depart from my presence in the doorway and I close the door behind me, cringing, wondering what is wrong with myself, but eventually coming in terms with the fact that Gackt's undressed state has utterly demolished every scrap of sexy, romantic faff I have prepared for the evening. I have actually hoped to whisper to him sweet nothings while naughtily biting on his earlobe, rake my fingernails in a tantalizing trail down his chest, butterfly-kiss my way down to his G-string, etc. As it is, the most vital part of my plan which would hopefully involve a three-hour act of disrobement has already been mercilessly crushed before my eyes.

So. On to Plan B.

At the moment I am being led into the lairs of his suite precisely, I imagine, the way a curious bloodhound is ruthlessly lured by the tantalizing whiff of a familiar crotch. (Okay, bad metaphor.) His movements appertain to nothing of the awkward scamper of most naked men--just a walk so astoundingly normal it made you wonder whether the entire human race was actually destined for survival without clothing. He doesn't tell me to sit down and wait for him to finish, so quite unsolicitedly I follow him to the apparent direction of the bathroom in a boggle-eyed trance, no doubt leaving a trail of drool from the doorway all the way inside.

The bathroom is pristine and laden with hysterically expensive marble tiles, just like the one in my room. The humongous tub is halfway filled with steaming water and the roar of the constantly running tap reverbrates throughout the room's marble-y, shimmery confinements. I remain standing moronically at the doorway as Gackt slips with unnatural calm into the scalding water with as much fluid grace as a naked body can maintain and still be human.

A silent tension lingers for several moments and then, amidst the clouds of steam billowing from the tub, Gackt mutters softly, "Darn."

"What?" I say, straining blindly to make out his whereabouts in the steam-pumped space.

"I forgot to take off my braids. Here, can you help me out with them?"

Under differing circumstances I would have undoubtedly taken this as a desire-inflamed invitation for my hunky ass to join him in the tub A.S.A.P., launched an athletic long-jump number into the water and buggered him until one of us drowned. But the smoke--sorry, steam--permeating the bathroom is simply too dense, and as a result it takes me about five-minutes' worth (an age in buggery terms) of undignified crawling and groping porcelain before I manage to finally locate his position in the marble-tiled nimbus. Carefully, I sit on the brink of the tub right behind him, fatalistically splashing into a small unseen puddle that immediately soaks up the entire seat of my lust-stretched pants.

"Well? Come on," Gackt says in a tone of impatience that in the circumstances somehow manages to be more irritating than arousing.

I am initially reluctant to touch Gackt's hideous hairpiece, mostly because of the assumption that it will latch at my throat and kill me if I make any attempt to disrupt its peace, but eventually force myself to comply to Gackt's expectations and carefully start extracting the creature's braid-like tentacles off Gackt's head, slowly prying apart the hairpins, horsehair, excelsior and tiny bedsprings with which the wig is equipped to give Gackt that dashingly breathtaking yakuza bad-ass look. Afterwards it sort of just hangs limply from my hand like a dead thing, and from a lack of anywhere else to put it I place it inside a box sitting over the sink that I desperately hope is purposefully manufactured for the object's final burial.

Meanwhile Gackt is elegantly splashing about, rinsing his hair and working up a lather, totally oblivious to the sick, obscene, missing-schoolgirl rates of perversion my mind has quickly taken on in his defenseless presence. I trot back hopefully to the tub, thoughts completely immersed in twisted rape fantasies involving Gackt, the shower curtain rod, a judicious use of hotel bathing amenities and disturbingly enough, tentacles.

I have barely even managed to return to touching distance when he pipes up again, "Hyde, will you be so kind as to scrub my back for me?"

As I am not about to waste any opportunity that allows me to revel in the unworldly, Venus-kissed wonders of Gackt's silk-textured skin I quickly and hornily comply. My claws lash forth in the speed of sound to grab the spongey biological waste he offers me and in no time I am using it to scrub the skin on his back in washboard pace, periodically pausing to check that no embarassing haemoglobin leakage is trickling away from my nose.

However in an incredibly short time I realize that I have, once again, committed a catastrophic error; in my lust-filled haste I have forgotten to roll up my sleeves and have now soaked up the immaculate cuffs of my exclusively hand-picked shirt by suds of soapy bathwater. As Gackt makes no audible command for me to stop I incessantly go on with my five-star scrubbing like tomorrow is doomsday and within twenty minutes my sleeves are soaked up to the armpits, I feel the alarming beginnings of what may be premature arthritis in both hands and my entire vision is wavering and crammed with bubbles. I feel it may seem somewhat rude for me to mention this but despite what anyone else might have to say, Gackt's back is not exactly known for its tiny-ness.

I finally drop the sponge in limp exhaustion and Gackt cursorily cranes his neck to scrutinize my handwork before rinsing the suds away with the showerhead in dainty ungratefulness. I am about to seize the showerhead and shove it up a part of him where no photo blitz lights have ever shone before (at least, not to my best knowledge) when he breaks my train of thought yet again and asks, "Thank you. Could you now wash my hair for me, please?"

I almost cough to hint to him for a tip but thankfully catch myself in time.

I stand beside the tub, clothes asoaked, hairdo disheveled, glowering down at him, facing clear premonitive visions of me filing the toenails of Miss Priss a.k.a. Gackt in the threateningly near future, taking in the degeneration of my megastar idol-status into a terrier-hinder existence of Gackt's personal groomer, and decide that, indeed, it is time to show him who is Top.

I lower myself until I am kneeling outside the tub and on eye-level with Gackt before beginning to speak slowly and carefully, forcing dangerously persistent eye contact with him as I sling one elbow over the edge of the tub and let the fingers of my other hand trail spiderishly over his face.

"Gackt, I have laid awake many sleepless nights trying to figure out why your company draws me in so. Apprehensively, it isn't so much of your martini-dry wit and charming shows of ditzisms that keeps me coming back for more, rather than the unspoken comfort of familiarity that I perpetually sense in your presence. The safety of knowing that despite my constant trips through hell and back, you will always readily partake in my misery, despite the fact that we deal with our conflicts in marginally different ways. I often have dreams where you and I are trapped in separate boxes, floating in the vast, limitless oceans of an obscured space and time, silently screaming to be released, uncaged, freed, let go. Most of my fears reside inside these circumstances--the desperation of being trapped in a solitary confinement where no one is really able to reach me. No one except those who are trapped in similar, albeit separate, boxes. This is where the nature of our relationship resides, Gackt." I swallow and prepare to drop the bomb, "And now we shall make use of the ever-glorified beauty of our physical endowments to celebrate the tenderness of our connection."

Truly, I cannot fail now that I have mastered Gacktese.

Gackt tilts his sopping head a little and asks, "What kind of boxes?"

"You know. A sort of trunk," I say.

He squints and purses his lips. "With drawers?"

"No. Actually, they were more similar to coffins."

"Did they have lids on them?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Were they made of oak? Plywood? Fiberglass?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't know."

"Why don't you know?"

This is the maddening thing about Gackt that, devastatingly, I have neglected to consider beforehand: he is an unstoppable rambler but a horrifically bad listener. You relate to him a great story or an erotic revelation and he gets wrapped up in one dumb little detail, like when out of frustration I abandon my surrealish attempts at sweet-talking him and instead, unleash my gutter mouth to have it describe to him the most explicitly nasty things I would like to do to his varying limbs, endowments and orifices, even though the whole point of my gabber is to persuade him on the spot to have mindless ecstatic sex with me, he leans forward against the tub, hand tensely clenching the shampoo bottle, and says, "Let's go back to that matter of peanut butter. Why smooth instead of chunky? And why not low-fat?" until I groan with frustration, reaching out in desperate futility for his glistening, wet, naked body, longing more than ever to be entwined with it in night-long throes of passion, and he says, "And those rolls of duct tape you mentioned. Do they come with flavored lube too? For that matter, ARE THEY ANIMAL-TESTED?" For someone who is supposedly the country's most sought-after sex bomb, Gackt makes talking dirty an irreparable turn-off.

Finally I sink into a defeated, exhausted, prematurely drained blob in the middle of the bathroom floor as Gackt finishes his bath and smoothly steps out of the tub before towelling himself down. Drying his hair, he looks down at my keeling form on the floor as if he has just noticed me for the first time, seemingly genuinely curious as to why I look like I am on the brink of tears, which indeed I am.

Having put on a hotel bathrobe (to my odd relief), Gackt gazes at me meaningfully before swooping down and helping--okay, dragging--me up to my feet. "I don't understand why you just never seem to be enjoying yourself, Hyde," he says in a beguiled tone of concern. "Is it because of something I did?"

I raise my eyes to meet his and say, with sanity-straining patience, "I do realize, you know, that this may be your subconscious attempt of denying the reverse of control that has undoubtedly taken place between us. But Gackt, you must soon come in terms that my dominance in our relationship is irretrievable and irreversible. Me being in control means that I get to decide what flavor of body paint we get to use for the week, as well carrying out without requiring your approval in which Kama Sutra position I shall decide to ruthlessly take you."

"You're avoiding mentioning the whip cream," Gackt says, nostrils flaring again at the mention of food. "Why?"

I weary of my apparently life-term mission in trying to seduce Gackt. My spirit has sank so low I retreat from the bathroom out into the hall, skulking damply in my pants like a bottom-wetting kindergartener, Gackt trailing behind me in confusion. I am starting to abhor being in range with his waxy, glowing presence and trying to get him to acknowledge me, trying to make him feel needy, when, in fact, I am steadily plunging myself deeper and deeper into the bottomless abyss of disgrace with every suggestion of homoerotic enthusiasm I muster towards him. So I decide to quit.

In the hallway of his suite, I say, "I am not a lifeless dildo fully reserved for your own private use. Get yourself a new sex toy to screw around with." Then I tiptoe slightly and kiss him goodbye on the lips--a lingering teen-flick kiss that will surely give him something to think about.

He maintains a thoughtful expression as I retreat, rubbing his lip slightly as if taking in what little taste of me is left there, then catches my arm just as I have halfway turned away and says, "Hyde. Wait."

I swing back towards him angrily and am about to stab him with a blinding glare but I fail to catch his gaze as he is no longer standing in front of me he has now knelt down in front of me and I had no idea that anyone could undo another person's belt buckle and fly at such a rapid pace while miraculously avoiding inflicting severe genital injury upon said other person and I can only see the the top of his bleached head as his face slides under the ends of my crumpled shirt and oh. Oh.

Oh.

It might be best that the details of my experience in this sudden assault be left to the gleeful speculations of the vividly imaginative.

Let's just say that Gackt's lack of ability and tact to verbally apologize can be more than adequately compensated by his natural gift of managing the wettest, sloppiest, most deep-throated...

...well, let's just say that to date Gackt has never delivered to me a single spoken apology.

And to add a new niche in my lifelong record of indignity--as I crawl back to my room in weary over-satiation half an hour later--I discover that I don't mind one bit.

July 25th 2002

Wake up with remnants of last night's pleasantly warm memories still tingling between my legs, not a strange sensation for a guy who has been thoroughly and properly Gacktjobbed. I stare at the hotel suite ceiling above my bed with a glazed, dopey smile lingering on my face, inwardly celebrating the holy revelation that indeed, there is a God, and for the first time taking in the glorified magnificence of my current surroundings. Taiwan is purely heaven on Earth! This island is a throne of angels! I have found enlightenment! I shall stay in this place forever! I leap off the mattress and prepare myself for the day's schedules, breaking into tiny involuntary shudders every now and then upon flashbacking the skills of Gackt's multilingual tongue.

While showering, my mind is lost in deep plotting of the cunning schemes I will further inflict on Gackt to make my stay in Taiwan the best conceivable trip ever. I will approach him at breakfast, dish out my best CFM (Come Fuck Me) expressions and make a carefully timed schedule for him to meet me every night for the rest of the time we will be spending in Taiwan. I spend a significant portion of the morning perfecting my persona in front of the mirror, experimenting how I should greet Gackt good morning (ranging from the bashful-virgin blush and subtle aversion of eye contact in accordance to the whispered "Ohayo", to the brutal-seme approach that consists of sidling in behind him, grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanking his head back until he is twisted painfully underneath me while I huskily rasp in his ear some dirty compliments regarding his fellating techniques.)

At long last I bounce out of my room and spring light as a gazelle into the hotel's fancy banquet hall downstairs, victoriously managing to locate Gackt sitting at one of the tables, alone. His face is stylishly cast downwards and he seems to find the dreadful gunk that people in this place call coffee as the most interesting sight on the location because he is rigidly refusing to look anywhere else outside the realms of his miniscule cup.

Gackt notoriously sees the process of aging the way a full gasoline tank sees an unextinguished cigarette butt, and he normally avoids frowning whenever possible if only to supply himself with the self-deluding hope that he shall be rescued from the fate of wrinkling until for ever and ever amen. So I am a bit disconcerted upon noting that this morning he seems to be intent on bringing upon himself the dreadful threat of beauty-lines at least a few years early. The sight of Gackt's face appertaining to anything crabby alone should be enough to make anyone back away from the premises in a slow, terrified procession, but being the persistent sack-tiger I am and also due to my fond knowingness that Gackt has never been capable of resisting me, my plans refuse to acknowledge their foreshadowing demise. I wobble over to the table he is sitting at, pull a chair for myself and begin reciting my lines.

"Hey Gackt--"

"Shit. I was drunk last night. Fetch me some juice from the bar, will you?"

I don't reply. I feel the sudden breakings of cold sweat and an urge in my bowels to let loose.

"Are you deaf? Fetch me some juice."

As if in a dream-vision, I see myself shakily approaching the bar and retrieving to him a glass of orange juice, the ground wavering beneath my feet. When I have returned to our table with the glass, which Gackt rudely snatches, I brave myself to try again, squeaking in the intensity of three decibels, "Sugar-honey... (cough) I mean... er... Gackt... is something wrong?"

Gackt scowls (fleetingly delighting me with the prospect of yet another crow's-feet) and says, "I have a mountain of details to go over with Zsezse in forty minutes and we have to start filming by nine. Being in this project is killing me beyond belief."

"But last night we--"

"I don't expect you to console my stress by your fruitless babbling, Hyde. If you can't actively help me manage my time at the set, I'd suggest you grant me a moment of peace."

Desperation. The end. Possible suicide.

"By the way," Gackt snaps, apparently not at all immune to the misanthropic effects of a hangover like I'd thought after all, "I've noticed the results of your screen tests do a potentially great job of damaging the reputation of the Japanese acting scene. Unless you're in some kind of political conspiracy where the Taiwanese government is bribing you to deliberately mess up your lines, please concentrate on them more seriously so as to not disgrace my business scheme."

Out of a lack of anything more dignified to do, in my terribly shaken mental state I rise from the table again and begin helping myself to a hoggish portion of breakfast from the banquet, crumbling. When I make it back to Gackt's presence while balancing numerous plates in my arms I have calmed down somewhat, my shock has morphed into anger and I am about to declare that I've just about had it with staying on the set if he keeps carrying on like this and I'm going back to Japan and I'm telling my manager, bee-dah, when I notice that Leehom is just about approaching our table.

We find ourselves locked in a brief glaring competition as we stand with Gackt's seated position impeding the two of us. (Actually I glare. Leehom fawns.) Straining to balance no less than twenty-seven delicacies in my hold, I offer him a seat, but the rat will not sit until I do. We play a little game of Who Will Sit First? Relievingly (but infuriatingly), I lose.

I look at the smoothly shaven, perfectly sculpted lines of Leehom's jaw and wonder if I am playing Who Will Speak First? Then studiously ignoring me Gackt rattles off a machine-gun greeting to Leehom that is deliberately uninterpretable to me and in no time the two start clanging away in Cantonese. I feel like the Invisible Man.

Seeking vengeance, I soon embark on a remarkably loud ostentation to relish the fleshiness of the ill-fated carcass that is my breakfast, making deafening chomp-chomp noises like a Pacific shark devouring an unfortunate diver, ferociously trying to top off the sounds of their private conversation with my outrageously unsavory table manners. Gackt and Leehom stop talking and stare at me.

"Hyde," Gackt says in that strained tone of faked goodwill I have grown to loathe, "do you mind? We're talking. Please get a hold of yourself."

I choke deliberately and cough, spewing a finely chewed spray of what may have once been a sinless calf on the polished surface of the table, Gackt's and Leehom's eyes never leaving the projectile journey of the meaty chunks as they are hurled forth from my maw and splat into a wet distribution in the middle of our breakfast rite. "Can I have a water?" I wheeze, pounding at my chest like a lung disease patient to avoid being told off. Leehom frantically pushes his glass of mineral water in front of me and the look of despair on his face is so pleasingly pathetic I briefly contemplate choking on my plate as I jacuzzily gargle the drink down. But the sudden chilling thought of being accidently killed by either Gackt or Leehom in their possible attempts to give me a Heimlich petrifies me so I grudgingly begin to eat more quietly.

I soon discover that Leehom obviously has more expertise than Gackt when it comes to being skillfully sensitive towards other's miseries because he keeps throwing me these worried, thoughtful glances the entire time I am wallowing at my trough. Then just when I think that he cannot be more repulsive he speaks up, in tentative but otherwise flawless Japanese, "Did you sleep well, Hyde? You seem to be a little... distraught."

Fuck! He spoke to me! This complacent teacher's pet of an actor is attempting to chat me up in front of my own (momentarily deranged) soulmate out of pure pity! I am about to belt out a rude retort to demolish every grain of Leehom's goody-goodiness but am reminded that he will most likely fail to interpret my slovenly Japanese obscenities so I grumble in English, "I'm fine. Case of... uh... coffee poisoning. The usual."

Leehom looks at me with a genuinely concerned expression and woe is me, he switches to English as well. "Is that really possible? You really should start paying more attention to your own health being so far away from home, you know."

I mutter in Japanese, "I come to Taiwan to hear this crap!" but instead of translating for me, Gackt suddenly emits a cackling noise which makes me nearly fall over from my chair in shock. Warily, Leehom and I turn our heads in his direction.

All traces of the morning's grouchy getup has completely disappeared from Gackt's features, being replaced with his strenuously trained author-on-the-back-of-a-book-jacket-gazing-sensitively-into-the-distance pose. "Hyde having very good time in Taiwan," he waffles in counterfeited adoration and agonizing English. "He have beautiful wife, but he wishing he go with me in this... this beautiful country."

Leehom smiles a little and says, "You know, this may sound lame, but I'd just like to say how much I feel really comfortable in working with you two. You just seem to get along so well."

Gackt makes a show of gazing at me mesmerizingly. I realize that in Leehom's presence he has seamlessly evolved back to his lustworthy Dream Date Ken™ persona, and the effect it brings on him at the moment is truly, remarkably satanic. For someone who has yet to launch his debut in the movie industry, Gackt manages to deliver an obscenely stunning performance. "Oh, not me only. Everybody love Hyde," he says in a sing-song voice which I half-expect will break into vibrato any moment now. "You and Hyde, understanding each other very good. Very... beautiful."

Leehom throws me a shy smile and a fond, slightly gushing, adoring expression--an extremely useful sight if a person needed to vomit. "I'm sure Hyde and I will have a great time... er... understanding each other. I can barely wait shooting my scenes with him."

More than ever, I want to grab hold of the severed pigtails that have been distastefully replanted on Gackt's head and use them to hang him from the ceiling.

I don't bother replying. Instead I agitatedly claw at an innocent salt dispenser, shaking it at masturbation speed over my meal if only to avert myself from doing anything that might result in a jail sentence. But Gackt will not shut up.

The only saving grace is that he has exhausted his entire English vocabulary and begins chippering off in Japanese in the possible hopes that Leehom will catch at least one out of every five words from his novel-length drivel. "Hyde is always so much fun!" he squawks relentlessly, disregarding my silent, well-intentional attempts of preserving him from bodily harm. "Oh, the things in the world that I'd do for him. I've been having to look after this angelic bundle of cuteness since the very first moment we were fatefully reunited in Japan. We met up at a friend's party where he got drunk and practically puked all over my shirt, the darling."

Before the world can end and dissolve us all in oblivion dust, Gackt has managed to unleash my infamy in The Night Of The Sake-Flavored Vomit in the record-winning pace of less than two seconds.

My eating utensils have ceased their bloody acts of incisions and drop to my plate with a thunderclap rattle. I barely consider the fact that I am displaying the mangled, partially digested parts of a baby cow in my mouth in full view of the whole dining hall as both Leehom and I stare agape at Gackt in disbelief.

I've just been KO'ed. Punched down. Immobilized. Would I ever walk again?

At this point Gackt's jabbering has become too voraciously fast-paced for Leehom to follow but apparently it doesn't require veteran Japanese linguistic skills to make out the terms for 'drunk' and 'vomit', because Leehom squirms embarassedly, chuckles uneasily and tries to change the subject. "I'm sure we've all had our own amusing tales of intoxication at one point or another, and by the way what did you say that new game you'll be endorsing is called again?" He unsolicitedly comes to my rescue as he is too well-behaved to have this kind of conversation at the table.

Sadly Gackt is not equipped with such shame. "But Hyde was so... amusing!" he trills. "I've never seen anyone pass out and throw up over two and a half rounds of sake before!"

"WILL YOU STOP GOING ON ABOUT THAT!" I finally and suddenly manage to holler, turning all cranial forms inside the banquet hall in the direction of our table, but I am past caring. I have honestly never imagined for Gackt to be able to stoop any lower than to grope at me during interviews for fun and profit. Having played the regurgitation scenario over and over in my head a million mortifying miserable times I don't need myself being reminded of it--much less have the dark tale's dreary, cringing details be played out to the existences of others, be they living or dead. "And besides," I add sulkily, being painfully aware that the personal battle between me and Gackt with Leehom as the Berlin wall is now in full gear, "it isn't half as embarassing as trying to drown in a waist-deep puddle while imitating the squeals of a strangulated pig, anyway."

Gackt quakes out a shrill, tinkling laugh that would have sent chills up Marilyn Manson's spine. "Oh, don't be silly, Hyde. Bad coffee really does make you talk some rot." His feathery-light intonation is of pure malicious evil. "We all hope that you'll manage to... stomach the conditions of working in a movie, though. I'm sure you'll be able to... spew out your best shot."

I have had enough. I may be a surly drunk and a potentially humiliating actor but in no way am I going to sit here and have the gory innards of my sufficiently undignified past be picked on by the spindly fingers of The Follicle-Fake Traitor. I wipe my mouth, slam down my napkin, stand up and am about to approach Gackt to hurl him to the carpet and kick him to death, when I have a sharp vision of the future--of the suspiciously eavesdropping hotel banquet hall making a joyful celebration of the disastrous punch-up between two Japanese rockstars, the unrightful profits being reaped by every available newspaper in Asia over my printed mug shots under tomorrow morning's headlines, the life-term restraining order Megumi will by no doubt have on me back at home.

So I look down at him and say coolly, "I have involved myself in this project in the hopes of gaining knowledge with more intellectual values than expired barhopping anedotes told by visual kei has-beens." I pause for dramatic effect and to let the snappiness of my comeback slug through Gackt's slow brain. "So once you've had enough expertise in this business worthy enough of gloating over, do feel free to enlighten me."

Then I turn and create a miraculously non-embarassing scene of stalking out of the dining hall, leaving Leehom to gawk over the close-knit wonders of our beautiful relationship with awe and envy.

Amazingly I manage to retain my unperturbed cool persona even when I reconciliate with the two of them later on in the day at the location. Gackt seems to be ignoring me with considerably less effort than usual and instead tires himself out to the brink of an exhausted coma by "angst"ing over his role and whingeing over how miserable Sho is supposed to be to anyone who will listen all day long. Whereas Leehom keeps throwing these self-derogatory, needy looks at Gackt reminiscent of a ball-gagged masochist looking up at his favorite dominatrix on an S&M stage. I decline from the post-filming dinner invitation with the cast under the unfabricated excuse of feeling ill.

I depart to bed at the monstrously uncool hour of nine that night. I feel sorry for myself and, incredibly, for Leehom.

July 26th 2002

Get out of bed with marginally painful effort, being instantly assaulted by memories of the cataclysmic breakfast and Gackt's treacherous betrayal from the preceding day the moment I open my eyes. Briefly consider escaping from my hotel room window with tied bedsheets and going back home to Megumi and our passionate, steamy bitching sessions. Mercifully shake out of my ludicrous state of mind in time and carry out a complex operation for the long day on the set that awaits me, which is as follows:

1. ARRIVING AT LOCATION
2. ACTING OUT VAMPIREY HISSY FITS FOR SEVERAL HOURS
3. PROVIDING SYMPATHETIC CHUCKLES OVER GACKT'S SADLY FAILING ATTEMPTS AT PERFORMING COMIC RELIEF
4. PARTING WITH GACKT WITH ADMIRABLE CIVILITY IN FRONT OF THE DRESSING ROOMS
5. CLOSING THE DOOR AND BURSTING INTO SOBS
6. SMOOTHING GARMENTS AND READJUSTING FANGS
7. FACING THE FUTURE BRAVELY

I manage at least three out of these seven items successfully, which makes to me quite an impressive feat. So I end the day with newly provided knowledge of how a quart of fake blood tastes like and a slightly more positive aura.

July 27th 2002

Gackt does his own stunts.

This is not as gaspingly cool as it sounds. Gackt insisting on doing his own stunts somehow reminds me of a spoiled, obnoxious, piggish child who, upon being tormented by every other kid in the schoolyard, screams out in defense, "I CAN SO!!!!" Having obviously never before partook in any action scenes in his life other than the odd bloodcurdling attempts of raping musicians onstage, Gackt bestows hell on everyone as he forces them to wait on him while he perfects and endlessly repeats his leaps, somersaults, cartwheels and handstands, kicking many an innocent bystander in the head for the whole nonstop 24 hours his practice carries on. I briefly contemplate warning him about the crew's impending wrath but then decide that the possibility of Gackt being gang-lynched in the middle of his own movie set would make for a marginally interesting sight.

I start noticing the familiar symptoms of saliva over-production that seems to always take over Leehom everytime he comes within groping distance to Gackt. I can only place a hand over my heart and sincerely hope that he will eventually be able to make his way out of this newly found obsession without having to suffer from that painful, painful wardrobe-and-haircut-imitating phase, because I have actually been there and OH GOD IT WAS HORRIBLEasfdjnsdkjsfdlmfjsf

July 28th 2002

More stunts. Combined forces of excessively inhaled fake gunpowder as well as a huge leap in my cigarette consumption by no doubt bringing on my death several decades early. But such is the price to pay for acting out the world's coolest (and probably only) nicotinesucking vampire. Gackt accidently sprains his spine while doing a swordfight scene, but realizing it would be untrendy for him to yowl in pain he brings the scene to a halt under the excuse that his braids need to be "rejuvenated". He limps out of the room with an excruciating smile, fills the corridor with echoes of chillingly shrill sobs for few minutes, then returns to the set and hunkishly continues the scene. Meanwhile, Leehom is practically frothing at the mouth with awe.

July 29th 2002

Do yet MORE gunfire scenes with Gackt and Leehom. By now I have became positively deafened by the incessant thunderous sound effects provided by the endless supply of firecrackers and probably wouldn't take immediate notice should any real bullets stray loose on the location and blast through my eardrums. I am prodded against my will to act out so-called 'humorous' action scenes of unbelievably shameful nature, consisting of comical choreographies that tries (in an utterly unsuccessful way) to turn me into a cool bastard and instead makes me look like an epileptic ballerina, using an overload of B-movie special effects that would have killed the entire Matrix cast on the spot in cringing humiliation. I try to avert my soul from its crumbling demise during the making of these scenes by pondering over the delightful choices of painful death methods I shall later inflict on Gackt, the director and the special effects supervisor (not necessarily in that order).

I am thrashing in fits of jealousy to the fact that Leehom (ie. Gackt's new bitch) is by no doubt acquiring for himself a larger portion of coolness compared to me in every one of the action scenes, to no one's surprise. But I grudgingly admit to myself that this might also be due to the fact that Leehom is a remarkably good actor. In my opinion his most impressive acting achievement can be credited to his ability to maintain a straight face everytime Gackt staggers over after a scene, shoves the back of his fiendish wig into his face and asks, "How's my hair?" in which Leehom always sweetly responds by "Your head looks great," even though the posterior view of it is always significantly worse than a horse's ass. Leehom does some really wicked improvisations of an aggravated brother and a brooding gangster, while Gackt pinballs from one corner of the ceiling to another, stretching the butt seams of his hazardously tight pants to breaking point in his obsessive determination to not let anyone take the spotlight away.

July 30th 2002

At this point I realize I will not be able to withstand the workaholic schedules of the filming procedure and simultaneously also be forced to watch a whole season of unresolved sexual tension between Gackt and Leehom. Also at this point the tortured war prisoner that is my libido has gotten so repressed to the point that I have actually begun ogling keyholes, so I do a quick absence-roll on the cast in the desperate hopes of inflicting my sex drive on any near-desirable object outside of the range of the two lovebirds' mutual slobbering. My survey goes in the general direction of this:

I pore over these results and wisely decide that from these anorexically limited choices, I shall go after Zeny. While Zeny's innocent charisma weeps and pales in comparison to Megumi's Attack-of-the-50-Foot-Woman sexual virtues, in drastic conditions such as these a guy has to settle for what he can get his hands on. During the time we have spent on the set thus far I conclude that Zeny can actually speak fairly interpretable English the moment she discovers that I am not, contrary to popular belief, entirely an unilingual moron. We carry out most of our conversations (as I secretly slave over my pick-up lines) in varying degrees of skill and distortion within this universal code.

Finally in the late afternoon I decide that I have perfected my irresistable charm in her eyes and begin throwing out subtle suggestions that will hopefully lead to the conclusion that I think she is pretty cute and Iwanttonailher. Of course, I am aware of the fact that I am infamously married and that I have to maintain at least one scrap of dignity in the very small chances that I might get rejected, so I remind myself to be tasteful. We hang out together at the public park in front of the mural after the day's scenes have been shot, and Zeny shares me her wistful aspirations of someday achieving glory that is akin to the painting's magnificence in real life (very boring). Eventually I cease my serial yawning and carry out my mission to drag our pleasantly platonic relationship towards the inevitable One Night Stand.

"Zeny," I try to speak in that bashful tone popularly known to have driven many interviewers mad with lust, but my awful Engrish accent detains me, so I come out sounding oafishly awkward, "why are you in acting?"

An astonished pause. Then, "Why do you ask?"

Is it only my imagination, or did I detect a hint of amusement in her voice? However I quickly belt out the next line in my pick-up operation. "Oh, nothing. I'm only thinking. Because you have so many other..." I rack my brain for the correct word, "capacities."

I can hardly believe the suaveness of my own mouth. I am truly the Don Juan of J-rock! How many other idols as gorgeous as myself could master the art of seduction in another language? Even Gackt would have stood tongue-tied in my presence. The effect of my statement has Zeny lowering her head and blushing shyly. "Oh, you don't want to know."

"No. Tell me. I'm really interested," I say, splattering her with feigned interest.

"Okay. It all goes back to when I was still living with my mom and stepfather. My stepfather used to beat up my mother into a bloody mess and touch me in funny places, so one day after he was drunk enough I grabbed one of his beer bottles and bashed him on the back of his skull. My stepfather lived, but my mother could not forgive me and threw me out of the house. I lived on the streets on my own for a few months, offering sex to anyone that would take me in just for a warm bed and some food to eat."

At this point the proportions of my eyes have probably grown larger than the size of Anne's overdeveloped bra cup. My lower jaw has since long ago dropped onto the ground, right between my shoes. If I were a tabloid reporter I would have undoubtedly shuddered in climax over the magnitude of Zeny's story. "Tellmemore!" I gasp.

"I wanted to be an actress because I dreamed of someday directing my own porn movie, so I tried to make my way to the big city by foot. I didn't have any money, and I didn't eat for days. Then some men in a truck passed by. These men wanted sex and I said I would if they took me to a restaurant. I swear my stomach was eating itself, all burning and acid. And... and... oh, Hyde, it wasn't my fault..."

"What did they do?" By now my nostrils are making visible puffs of steam in the humid night air.

"They put me in their truck, and there were five of them, and they tied me up for two days and raped me. It was horrible. They beat me up with the handle of their guns, and then they dumped me naked in the back of an alley in this city and now here I am." The end of her sentence cracks with a suppressed sob. "I'm sorry, Hyde," she chokes out, her words muffled as she covers her mouth with her hand. "I can't continue."

I accept this gratefully as by this point I simply cannot bear to hear any more. I gulp enormously, petrified, but realize that this might be a great time to dish out that prince-charming-comes-dashing-to-the-rescue-image. I have been known to be a great shoulder to cry on in many occasions before this. Perhaps I should become a therapist. I muster every ounce of sympathy I can scrape and painstakingly wail, "Oh. Zeny. My God, that's very bad."

"Oh, you can't imagine," she weeps, hunching away from me.

I watch Zeny's quivering shoulders and suddenly realize my unforgivable sin of having unleashed an utterly soul-destroying past trauma on her part and perhaps also sent several years' worth of mental counseling down the drain. Frantically, I begin blubbering in my barely legible accent that I am sorry for giving the question to her, she doesn't deserve any of her tears, I hope she will find herself a better future, when she falls over from the bench we are sitting on in hysterical tears...

...of laughter.

I watch in paralyzed shock as the woman bearing the role of Gackt's mute, angelic, complacent housewife in the movie twitches and shrieks over the ground in undignified paroxysms of hilarity. When she finally recovers from her laughter somewhat, she wipes her eyes and says, "Oh, Hyde. I didn't think you could be so gullible. That look on your face! Those deep words of consolation! Very funny."

I am about to ask what gu-ri-bi-ru means when my brain finally catches on to the rest of what she is saying. Fuck! Funny! Me? She was just mentally fucking me up the ass after all. I can't believe this.

"I'm in acting business because of the money, of course. Also because it's fun to mess with people who ask me stupid questions."

"You're... lying?" I can hear myself say, aghast.

"And to think that for a while I almost thought you were attracted to me. Short men can be so cute." And with that, she ruffles my hair like one would do to a kid before trailing away muttering something about nearly wetting herself.

"I didn't believe you," I yell after her, trembling in suppressed rage and sexual desperation. "I know you lied all the time."

I didn't believe her.

Fucking bitch.

July 31st 2002

Sneak away from more scenes involving long faces and jugular-slurping and watch Gackt spend the whole morning in vigorous practice to lift up his movie-daughter into the air several hundred thousand times. A significant portion of it is spent with her kicking him in the teeth, which cheers me up a little, but not nearly enough.

I retire from suicide watch (metaphorically as no one seems to care enough to watch me) into my usual daily bouts of depression in the evening long enough to make an international phone call to Megumi. I can't help but to feel a twinge of guilt (and a deep-seated psychological paranoid terror derived from enduring two traumatic years of her brainwashing techniques) for having carried out an attempt to bonk another woman--however fruitless the result--behind her back. She is, gruesome feat it may be, still my life partner after all. I listen to the dial tone at the other end and finally the beautiful sonata of Megumi's mezzosoprano flows through my ear in all its pure, glass-tinkling, siren-like glory.

"Hello?" she says.

"Hey there, pumpkin," I say sultrily.

"Hey yourself, sweet-buns."

"What are you up to?"

"Oh, you know, just hanging around the house in my black, silky, lacy underwear--oh, it's so warm! I must unfasten my negligee."

"Wow, that's so hot."

"Oh! Is that the door? Goodness me, hello, plumber. Have you come to... clean out my pipes?"

"Megu-chan, my lovely anemone, hush up for just one second."

"Okay... big boy."

"Listen. I know this may already be somewhat obvious but I want you to know that I love you with all my heart and I would do anything in this universe for the sake of your happiness and wellbeing and go through hell and back to fulfill your endless whims and shower you with the most expensive gifts in existence and fancy first-class trips to Paris sopleaseohpleasedontstalkmedownandkillme."

Silence. Then, gushing forth, "Oh, baby, that's so sweet. I love you too."

My heart does an unbelieving leap. "Really?"

"Yes, and I'll second everything you said. But may I know who's speaking and while we're on the topic can you tell me more about that first-class Parisian cruise?"

I hang the phone back on the hook and later on redeem my sex drive from its impending doom by discovering satellite pornography on the hotel TV.

August 1st 2002

Act out vampire monologues laden with enough psychological angst to kill Jonathan Davis. Possibly the only upturned point of working in this movie is that most of my role consists of chronic bitching and acute self-pitying--two very useful habits of mine that can only be mastered by years of refined practice and an autocannibalistic marriage. I am also demanded to look either suicidal, constipated, or ungracefully drunk, which truly brings out the superb potential in my long line of natural talents.

I'm bloated from a dangerous intake of red food coloring, I've grown to be positively repelled by the constant reek of Gackt's cologne (which, if I think of it, really does smell quite cheap) and as yet, I don't know what I'm doing in Taiwan.

Chapter Nine - Act II

Notes: ...cannot...take...writing...awful...dialogue...anymore...must...*GAG*

©Cupidophilia 2003, text by nyde. All rights reserved.