"Selling your body doesn't mean selling your soul"

A young, and incredibly beautiful rent boy Paul, is desired by everyone who comes into contact with him but lost to himself. Paul has a rare gift, apart from his beauty. When he has sex with his clients he experiences incredible visions that put him into a transcendental state. Sometimes his visions are shared by his clients, both exciting and scaring them.

Sometimes in his dreams, Paul glimpses his brother Saul, an identical twin, from whom Paul was separated when he was a child. Paul is convinced that Saul, is in trouble, that he has also got into escorting, and that he is being pursued by a dangerous client who can't let go, an enigmatic black coated figure, in a faceless white porcelain mask. Paul seems to project all his own fears and desires onto this anonymous figure (blank faced like the heroine in Geroge Franju's "Eyes without a Face") who is without emotion or personality,

Paul must loose himself in sex in order to have these visions and find out more, but every time he goes with a client he looses a little bit of soul.

As the film opens he is having sex with an unattractive client and seeing one such vision. Their sex is animal, urgent, frenzied, and when it finishes the Client throws him into the street, scared by what he has glimpsed. More than that, he comes after him and hits him, calling him a freak.

The whole incident is witnessed by Zhivago, an attractive barman, just shutting up the Gay bar over the other side of the street. Zhivago takes him in, bathes his wounds, asks him questions about himself and tells him about a Gay film director Baxter who he thinks can help him out.

In parallel, in the film's first scenes we have also been learning about Baxter.

Having picked up a pretty Brazilian escort in Zhivago's bar, he is now back at his apartment making love. But the sex is somehow meaningless and Baxter is overtaken by a sense of loss. Baxter is a film director, squandering his talent on porn. Earlier in the bar he witnessed a level of intimacy and reality between the young men flirting with each other, that is completely absent in the porn he makes. Like Paul, Baxter is searching for something beyond the normal, but in this case a film that transcends reality.

Calling over his producer for a midnight chat, Baxter complains about the porn studios who want to make him shoot bareback (dangerous) sex, and hassles the producer to hurry up and help him make his crossover, art house film. The Producer tells him he will help him, but that sex sells, and first he has to find him a really pretty face, someone who will stand out and sell the project.

Meanwhile, back at Zhivago's apartment Zhivago, like everyone else, is falling a little in love with Paul. But Paul tells him he can't be close to anyone right now and tries to avoid making love to him. Nevertheless they do sleep together and in the middle of the night Paul once again dreams of his brother Saul. He steals Zhivago's wallet. But only in order to get Baxter's business card. Then he head's over to Baxter's apartment.

Baxter is intrigued by Paul. He has found his muse, the beautiful guy who can star in his cross over film. He tells Paul he hasn't seen his brother, but if Paul works for him he will help Paul find him. Baxter asks him to make this one film, five scenes that will help him know himself better. And he asks Paul, doesn't he want to be like Wilde's Dorian Gray and live for ever, on video at least?

At this point Pan arrives, Baxter's assistant, with his boyfriend, another young and impossibly handsome escort, Griffin. Pan is an older, slightly mysterious, retired porn star. A slightly psychic, tarot card reading figure, he shakes Paul's hand and immediately senses something about him, something wrong. But it is not something he can yet put into words. Zhivago also turns up, having found his wallet open and the business card gone. He admonishes Paul, asking him   to stay with him, believing even after one brief night that they have something together. Paul says he has to stay with Baxter, read his script and decide whether to make the film.

Paul decided that he needs his own space and Baxter sends Griffin to show him an empty space, an old photographer's studio, which he leases and will use for the shoot. There is a mattress against one of the walls and Paul can make himself at home there. Below the studio, the rest of the building is empty.

Griffin and Paul bond. Once again Paul tells him that he cannot get too close to anyone right now. Griffin sees in Paul, something mysterious and wants to be close to him.   He feels an immediate and growing love, but for now it must be unrequited.

That night Paul once again dreams of Saul and hears noises from the floor below the studio, including the sound of a baby crying.

Also in the middle of his fever dream, he dreams he is in Baxter's apartment staring at the balcony of a flat opposite. It is then that his identical twin, his Brother Saul appears, pressing his hands to the glass window in the flat opposite and staring into Paul's eyes.

Waking from his dream Paul calls Baxter and leaves a panicked message on his voicemail. He can't do the shoot, not under any circumstances.

That evening Paul looses himself by going to a Gay club, taking drugs and looking for dark sex with strangers. He is picked up by a tough looking guy Adam. Adam gives him more drugs and presses him into brutish, abusive sex in one of the cubicles. But Zhivago and his fuck buddy Nick also happen to be in the club and the spurned Zhivago has been wondering whether to intervene despite Nick's protests. Kicking open each of the cubicle doors he finds the drugged up Paul just as Adam is about to fuck him without a condom. He pulls him out of there.

Back at Zhivago's flat, Paul convalesces. Zhivago tells him he is being stupid and destructive and must sort himself out. And in the night, getting up from the couch where he is sleeping, Paul opens the door to Zhivago's bedroom and watches unseen as Zhivago and Nick have loving, peaceful and pure sex. Paul finds himself again slipping into a waking dream and walking along a candle lit corridor to the bathroom. Inside the bath is full and Paul finds himself staring into the face of his identical twin brother, just below the surface of the water, like an unborn child.

The next day Paul calls Baxter, he will do the film. He must find out what lies behind his crazy dreams.

That day, they shoot with Carlos in the studio. Carlos is a Prima Donna like porn actor, Baxter's previous star, who doesn't like Paul. Their lovemaking in front of the camera is false. But nevertheless Paul begins to trip, and seeing visions of the client in the china mask pulls Carlos into the dream. At the height of his panic, Paul bites Carlos' neck, drawing blood. Carlos freaks out and the shoot is brought to an abrupt end.

That night at one of Baxter's famous porn parties various models sit around and discuss the business. Carlos is scathing about Paul and says he will never work with him again, but Griffin, the wide eyed innocent, says he cannot wait to shoot with him.   In the other room, while discussing clients one of Baxter's models says something very prescient. He tells Paul what one of his fellow escorts said, that somehow when you have been with many clients, doing things that you don't really want to do, they all seem to merge together in your imagination into one single, blank faced client.

Meanwhile Paul persuades Pan to tell his fortune, but Pan is reluctant to tell him about the future he really sees for him. And at the party, a dark, threatening presence makes himself known,   DeLeon. Deleon is another porn director, sent by the studio to make sure Baxter is fulfilling his brief. Baxter only allows DeLeon there under sufferage. At the height of the party DeLeon pulls Paul into Baxter's bedroom to have a private chat with him. He knows about Paul's gift and his visions, and he knows about his need for a transcendental sex. They discuss the fact that Baxter won't shoot bareback sex, but DeLeon tells Paul he must. He needs to get to that next stage of intimacy, something that will make his dreams and visions even more intense.

At that point Baxter comes in and hearing what is being talked about throws DeLeon out of the party. Meanwhile, just before Griffin leaves, Paul gets him in the hallway about meeting up for sex tonight. Griffin says he can't he must be with Pan and that they should save it for the shoot tomorrow, so that the sex is a genuinely fresh experience and a surprise.

That night, back in the studio, Paul hears more noises from the flat downstairs. He dreams about the apartment of the man in the china mask. He sees Saul there and sees their strange love making. And he sees a row of Polaroid's on the dressing table mirror, faces of other escorts, possibly alive, but maybe dead. Pulling up his t-shirt and hearing the noises of a babies cry from downstairs, for the briefest instant, Paul dreams of a baby twin beneath the skin of his own stomach, as if it is a womb.

The next day Griffin arrives early for the shoot. He and Paul start to kiss but feel like they are being watched. They are interrupted by the menacing figure of DeLeon, who has come to watch the shoot and supervise Baxter. As Pan makes up Griffin he talks about his jealousy about Griffin's obvious love for Paul. He also tells Griffin to be careful because Paul is not what he seems.

As they start their love scene Paul tells Griffin that he needs to be filled and that he must "loose himself entirely". As they have sex Griffin is sucked into Paul's dream and finds himself in the apartment of the client in the china mask, together with a ghostly looking Saul. He panics and pulls away from Paul, telling him that he is so obsessed with himself, he can never love him.

Paul is devastated and stays alone in the dark studio that night, curled into a foetal ball on the mattress. He dreams of figures in the flat downstairs menacing a figure with Griffin's face.

Meanwhile Griffin visits a client and Paul dreams about it. He dreams of a vast antique warehouse that has visual echo's of the man in the china mask's flat.

Griffin sees one of his paintings on an easel there. And flashing his torch into some of the dark recesses, he sees glimpses of bloody shapes wrapped in polythene, which could be body parts.

In his dream Paul is back in the apartment of the Man in the China Mask, looking at the row of photos of the escorts, which includes Saul's. Now they have been joined by a Polaroid of Griffin.

Unable to sleep Paul tries to call Griffin's mobile, but there is no reply.

He goes to the make up mirror, in the room adjacent to the main studio and looks at himself in the mirror, trying to understand what is going on. Sensing something, his hand reaches down and opens the draw beneath the make up counter. His hand pulls out THE CHINA MASK. He goes to sleep on the mattress clutching the mask, and dreams some more.

In the morning the mask has gone, and Paul finds himself being rudely awoken by the model Carlos. There is a new shoot today at a new location. Paul explains that he can't go, he feels ill and is worried sick about Griffin. He also asks why Baxter isn't with Carlos. Carlos says Paul has to go, and persuades him to take some GLB, both to put him in the mood for sex and to calm him down. When Paul has taken the drug he nearly passes out and Carlos takes him out of the studio and downstairs, to a disused part of the studio, a leather workshop.

It is this location that Paul has seen in some of his dreams. Here there is a collection of rough looking guys. Paul is to be at the centre of a different kind of porn shoot, a gang bang. It is going to be non consensual and decidedly unsafe. The guys are older and rougher, with danger signs tattooed on their bodies. It is pretty obvious that they are going to give Paul HIV. A man in a china mask is at their centre, just like in Paul's dreams....but when he takes his mask off, IT IS DELEON.

Meanwhile both Pan, Baxter and Zhivago have suffered from troubled dreams. Pan has got up to deal tarot cards in the moonlight, while Zhivago has decided he must go to Baxter's. There they all discuss what has happened and Pan reveals the truth. His sense is that Paul doesn't have a brother, or at least not one who is alive. His brother was stillborn and Paul has invented a life for him, to explain his own dark impulses. It's a kind of schizophrenia.   He also believes that Paul is danger but can't tell how. They decide to go over to the studio.

In the studio DeLeon is telling Paul he is about to encounter what he has always wanted, the ultimate sex, the ultimate closeness, and the way to really get in touch with his twin.

When they arrive at the empty studio Pan finds the GLB paraphernalia and senses something is wrong. It's something downstairs.

In his drugged state Paul sees them enter and feels himself being dragged away from his tormentors. There is a struggle, and DeLeon is hit. We don't see how badly he is hurt but a line of blood spatters across the white mask as it falls to the floor.

In the car on the way back to Baxter's,   Baxter holds Paul's head and imagines what he must be thinking. He curses himself for getting Paul into the business even though none of this was his intention

Still out of it, Paul gets tested for HIV and is given PEP.

Lying on a bed in Zhivago's flat, Paul tosses and turns. He has a terrible fever. Maybe he is really ill, or maybe just reacting to the treatment.

In his fever dream he is back in the apartment of the Man in the china mask. He picks up the Polaroid of Saul and then turns to see the man in the china mask lying motionless on the bed. Getting astride him Paul pulls off the mask.

The man's face is like DeLeon's but is somehow not DeLeon's It contains the face of Baxter, of the first client....it is all clients..

Then the fever dream switches, and Paul is on a rooftop walking across a windswept piece of rooftop towards his twin. They embrace. Saul tells him the truth that he was an older brother who died when he was a child and that he has only ever existed as a force in Paul's imagination. Paul says he knows, and that he has imagined every moment of his life what Saul would have been like if he had lived. Saul tells Paul that whilst he was needed to protect Paul from his own baser instincts and more dangerous desires, he came to him in his dreams. Now that Paul is safe, he no longer needs him. They look at each other high above the city. For a moment it looks like Saul will fall to the street below, and then his head is enveloped in spectral blue flames. As his face fades from view Paul grips him tighter.

Paul wakes from a particularly heavy fever to find himself being tended by Zhivago. Zhivago tells him that he is getting better, but won't know the true result of his HIV test and whether he is in the clear, for several months.

Meanwhile he has a surprise. Griffin walks through the doorway. He is back. Zhivago leaves them alone. Griffin tells Paul that he is sorry he panicked and ran out on him. He wants to stay with him and help him through his problems.

Paul is happy and relieved. He has found his true love. They embrace.

Meanwhile across town, as darkness falls Baxter has a drink in his apartment and reads his film script. He contemplates what happened to Paul and wonders what will befall him now. Sensing he is being watched, he turns and looks at the flat opposite. The Man in the China mask is standing at the window opposite, watching him, just as Paul was watched by Saul. He pulls down his mask to reveal DELEON'S smiling face and we CUT TO BLACK and end titles.

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Seeing Heaven © Ian Powell May 2009

From an earlier version of the script © Ian Powell 2001

(In turn from an original treatment "The World Within The Flame" © Ian Powell April 2 nd 1988, and the short film "Lonely Hearts" © Ian Powell 1993)