His casting techniques had never been a secret. His pool parties, his auditions in hotel suites or club VIP lounges. How he’d always been surrounded by a seemingly endless roster of beautiful men with sculpted shoulders and muscles striping the sides of their ribs like fish gills. Muses, he’d be quick to say about the men who’d inspired his art about the beauty and ugliness in all of us and blah—who he’d plucked from gym locker rooms or on the beach. Models/actors/personal trainers/servers had flocked to him at parties and had introduced each other to him because he’d basically made Joel Hassan, casting him out of some no-name off-Amsterdam play in New York City and look at him now. Multiple franchises under his belt, along with his billboards hocking cologne and watches, plus he’d followed Logan from flick to flick as his uncredited creative partner.

Besides, Logan had still been handsome then. Before the gristle of exile on Luna One, before the scars across his nose and the pink splotch over the right side of his face after he’d tried to fix one of the weather habitat systems but just ended up whacking it with a wrench and getting a face full of steam. He’d been fit and tan, even if his face had been pulled too tight to hide the wrinkles of two decades in the California sun. He’d made the boys laugh and made their lives comfortable while they hung around him, and when they’d wanted to leave he’d wished them luck, and made a few calls to get them their next gig.

I mean, I’ve banged sketchier guys after a sidewalk sale outside of a WeHo club at 3 am, a lot of the men he’d cast had decided, so I might as well get on my knees and think of my name in lights.

Riz told me all of this as I tried to keep my face still, imagining just when in Logan’s life he became a monster. Maybe because he’d gotten all he’d ever wanted. All I’d ever wanted—though I’d give it up to keep from becoming a gross shark like him.