"I'm very lonely" - Naked in the Trophy Room
The nappy around his neck crinkled as shifted his bony little elbows from the arm rests. He was trying his best not to fidget but it was hard. Especially when those thin, painted fingers that grasped a handful of his puffy curls critically, tugged a little to roughly.
"You want me to clip it?" the hairdresser questioned as she tried to pick the ends out of the big tuff of hair that rest above his head.
"Right. No, I was thinking you could actually just look at it. You know, just give it a good stare. Really," he made an animated gesture with his hands, "really, intimidate it into a new hairstyle" Simon got that tiny cheeky grin that usually accompanied his sarcastic remarks.
The hairdresser just clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. However, the edge of a smile could be seen as she went to retrieve her scissors. "Don't change a bit, do you?"
Simon smiled down at the giant smock like napkin tied into his shirt collar. "No, no, I actually think I'm… eh… getting a bit taller, don't you think?" He sat up straight in his chair and turned himself to a profile view for Bonnie, the distressed hairdresser. "Yeah, taller?" his voice gave that characteristic squeak.
Her flat complexion as she busied herself scraping together the last of the scissor set made Simon bit back a smile.
Bonnie was always such a good sport about his heckling. Her tiny little barbershop wasn't more than a tiny room full or mirror and striped wallpaper, but Simon had been coming to her for years.
"No?" He faked a look of confused sadness making his thin little eyebrows turn up as his eyes scrunched slightly around the ends, "Ah well, then turns out I'm about the same."
Bonnie raised a eyebrow, her wispy blonde hair stack on as a giant pile on her head. It was always distracting for Simon. "Really," she challenged, "'Cause I heard you got a big celebrity boyfriend now." It was obvious that this is where she intended the conversation to go the whole time. Looking for juicy bits of gossip.
Simon didn't mind. He liked the attention. "Oh…" he nodded, "no. Don't know where you heard that from?" He looked at her like she was crazy. "Preposterous. Someone finding me attractive," he scoffed. "Wouldn't have it."
Bonnie smiled arranging her tools on the white counter to Simon's left. "So what his name?"
Simon's house was much like his life: oversized but disguised with organized clutter and self-denial. Or at least he partially thought it to be when he walked down the hallway of his quiet, little home just out of London, and let his eyes run down their blank walls. Like a canvas just waiting to be painted with a life he still hadn't led.
Although to be fair, his whole house wasn't like that, and he wasn't pathetic. He had several a framed photo with his popstar friends and such, they just were all stored away in their own private room. His display room. A room entirely dedicated to his ego and self-importance that he often liked to stroll into at the heights of his vanity completely in the buff and swinging around an ice-cream tub of Moose Tracks.
However, these fits of pride were usually followed by the quick realization of the draftiness of the room and the way a particular picture of Stephen Fry seemed to watch his flaccid penis no matter where he stood in the room. These things never seemed as uncomfortable until he was actually in the act. Yet those particular nuisances weren't the pinnacle of the downfall of the ego deflation. No, he still had the secret wish to climb into an already warmed bed with a thin, good-looking man that would put his arms around him and berate him for his childishness to really squash his narcissism.
Who was he kidding? He was actually really pathetic.
But tonight he had plans. Plans that he would not single-handedly destroy with his awkward self-interest.
Last week, at one of his many theatre outings, he'd stayed after the show a bit – NOT to catch a glimpse of anyone in particular or perhaps stand close to him while causally sip from a fancy glass of liquor offered in the lobby. That wasn't his interest. Instead he'd choose to be quite gracious and stay behind to make sure the janitorial staff got into the auditorium safely and began their rounds diligently. He was only watching out for the lower class of London.
Right, so as he attempted a dapper sort of mysterious look in the corner of the grand lobby while trying to catch the eye of his boyish crush he'd actually come to the play to see. He straightened his tie like he belonged there while secretly fretting over how his hair looked. Or perhaps his dress choice was wrong? What if Ben Whishaw didn't like the color green of his cardigan? Perhaps he found the color offensive or to similar to a tree. What if he looked like a tree? His inner dialogue of stuttering insanity was interrupted, and for once not just by some who wished him to move out of the way of the vacuum.
An old someone to be more precise, with a tiny gray beard that was clean cut and short and gave him the look of someone important. Simon went through his quick checklist of qualities he desired in a man. He found the list's boxes empty, aside from the ambiguous thought of him perhaps having a penis, but as it was something he wasn't hopefully on getting first hand knowledge of he decided to leave that unchecked as well. But he tried to be these immediate disappointments aside.
He quickly figured out that Robert, which was his name, was a nice enough man, and at first Simon thought him a fan of his work, as he immediately brought up the work he'd done on writing 'Grandma's House'. Simon did his formal 'thank you's and tried to be polite, but kind of hoping that this man would wrap it up and just ask for his autograph already and leave him alone.
He had thin, long-haired men to look at.
But then Robert sort of casually mentioned that he was the play write of this particular play. This left Simon in the awkward position on trying to remember anything from the play that didn't revolve around Ben Whishaw and the way the lighting accented his pouty lips. He managed something half-assed and in the form of a compliment. Robert seemed pleased enough with that.
However it was then that things started to get important. Robert mentioned that for his next play he was writing a character that was quite cheeky. Apparently the fellow was suppose to be a sort of brash, snarky little weasel-like fellow that no one really liked. He said he'd drawn on Simon for inspiration, and wondered if he perhaps would like to get involved with the writing and help him write some really offensive material.
Throughout the whole thing Simon just nodded, and tried not to look overly excited on the invitation into the theatre world – a world they held his secret love. He'd hastily agreed and traded information. Robert ended the conversation saying he'd fax over the bits that he needed help with sometime next week.
It was next week now.
In his hands he held the script of a play that he knew Ben Whishaw had been casted in… as the character he was writing for. Robert had let it slip in their emails. He was now only a degree away from actually meeting him in a way that didn't involve him embarrassingly screaming his name and how much he loved his plays.
He had to beat back the idea that his mum had told him give up the desperate pursuit of this man, and his own personal childish issues where just last year he'd thought Ben had maliciously tried to ruin his life by not emailing him back. He hadn't seen two of his plays in protest to the actors indifference, yet he found himself back there this year. Angsting away in his theatre chair.
If he wasn't so beautiful, maybe he could have given him up.
Simon poured the documents onto his desk, and pinched his reading glasses from the cup on the shelf.
He was going to write the words that came out of Ben Whishaw's lips.
This would be the end of the crush, Simon had decided. This would be as close as he ever got to Ben Whishaw. This would be the last bit of hopeless mangirling over his wild dreams. He was sowing his wild oats now. Just write him a few witty words, go see the show and know that he got that he'd influenced him, changed Ben's life like he'd unknowingly changed Simons, even in a small way, and he'd be done.
This was it.
Now what to write?
Happy 32rd Birthday Simon Amstell. You're an amazing entertainer and I really do hope that you someday will find your Ben Whishaw - even if he's not Ben Whishaw. You funny little bastard.