Chapter 10: Girlfriend Time
Our Heroes Decompress; John Finds His Counterpart; Clark Puts the Finishing Touches on His Rampage.
“Ugh, that moon’s bright!” Ariel slurred to his guests in his best Coral Browne, drawing his parlor curtains to block the rising sun.
Gage giggled from his perch on the leopard beanbag as Brian and Tyler sprawled on the floor, analyzing the events of the prior hours.
“Those bachelorettes paid Rose off,” Tyler decided. “She’d never let them in otherwise.” She referred to a bossy, drunken hen party that invaded the Corner Pocket with what Ariel called “putrescent whoo-whoo energy.”
“And this one,” Brian pointed at Gage, “of all people, kidnaps their tacky-ass inflatable party penis.” Gage grinned, blushing with pride.
“I was on the fence about you ‘til then,” Tyler admitted, reclining on the beanbag beside Gage. “You seemed outta your element at first. Like somebody cast Julie Andrews in Showgirls.”
Gage smiled blankly. An awkward silence descended.
“Do you get the reference?” Tyler ventured.
Gage shook his head.
“Which reference don’t you get?” Tyler asked in alarm. “Julie Andrews or Showgirls?” Then the truth descended. “Oh my God. NEITHER?”
Gage shrugged. Tyler collapsed in a grief-stricken puddle. “How did I become one of those gay men?”
“Don’t feel bad,” Ariel consoled Gage. “You never had a Eldergay in your life to pass down The Curriculum, that’s all.”
“Even I know who Julie Andrews is,” Brian announced proudly. Ariel raised his hand to slap him anyway, and Brian recoiled. “Don’t, Mommie! Don’t!”
“You love to make me hit you,” Ariel hissed with narrowed eyes. Then he plopped on the floor and snuggled with Brian, who wrapped a brotherly arm around him. “This is my favorite hour of living: Girlfriend Time.”
“What’s that?” Gage asked.
“It’s a term I learned from my chum Vivian,” Ariel reminisced. “Girlfriend Time is when you’re with your friends, the hootenanny’s over, nobody’s ready for bed, so you do exactly this.”
“And did we show you a revel?” Tyler asked, nestling into Gage. “A rollick? A spree?”
“Yeah, so much,” gushed Gage, daring to stroke her head. “Thanks, you guys. I’m like…” He took a breath. “This might sound stupid, but…”
“…we love you too,” Tyler finished.
“…we’re sure it’s not the drugs talking,” added Ariel.
“…that was my first gay bar,” Gage revealed, triggering a minor earthquake among his elders.
“You’re not a virgin any more!” Tyler announced.
“What?” Gage asked.
“To gay bars!”
“Wait,” Gage said. “I’m a virgin - just not to gay bars, any more. Sorry. I got mixed up.”
Tyler picked up the dangling thread. “So you mean you’re a virgin virgin?”
Brian went on high alert. “Bro, you’re a virgin?”
“Is that lame?” Gage asked, blood rushing to his face. “It’s lame. YES.”
“Hold it. Do you mean ‘YES’ it’s lame, or ‘YES’ you’re a virgin?” Ariel demanded in the manner of a war crimes prosecutor. “ANSWER US, damn you!”
Gage rose and proclaimed, “I. Am. A VIRGIN!” Then he dropped back into the beanbag. “There.”
After a moment, the others burst into applause. “Fucking original, actually,” Brian declared in wonder.
“Shay, shonny, can I buy yer hymen off ya?” Tyler asked in an old-timey gangster voice.
“I go to a religious school,” Gage explained. “My parents don’t know that I’m, y’know.”
“A faggot. Just say it,” Ariel coached. “A faggot.”
“And I live with them,” Gage continued. “They’re big, like, Christians.”
“Christ would like a word with Christians.” Ariel shook his head. “Many of ‘em. Most.”
Tyler nodded out briefly, dropped her head and then snapped to attention. “Uh oh, MawMaw hit the wall. She ain’t twenty-one no more.” She rose unsteadily to her feet and gave Gage a kiss. “Sorry we didn’t find your wallet.”
Gage shrugged. “It could still turn up. I got my passport in my suitcase.”
“I’m hittin’ the sack too,” Brian yawned, rubbing Gage’s knee. “You’re welcome to ah, chill at my place, by the way.” He tipped his head toward the door. “I’m downstairs. I got candles, and like, incense.”
Ariel raised a gentle hold it hand. “Why don’t we let our guest call it a night?”
Brian and Ariel exchanged a look.
“And like, incense.” Ariel whispered in a mocking tone. “I mean.”
#
John fell onto the bed in Room 805, his undershirt soaked in sweat.
“Gimme a minute,” he ordered, augmenting his afterglow with a bump of coke.
The lithe young escort remained on all fours, waiting, obedient and still.
John wanted to howl at the moon. The kid was like a slot machine that came up cherries every time. Worth every bit of trouble from before. How could anybody be so perfect?
Even with the Band-Aids on his nipples.
“What was your name again?” John asked, petting the young man’s head.
“Vel, Sir,” the young escort replied without affect, remaining still.
“How about you do what you wanna do for a minute, boy,” John bossed. “Which means making me happy. I don’t wanna be in charge right now.”
Vel backed off of the bed and kissed John’s feet, his brown eyes gazing peacefully up at him.
John squirmed, laughing. “No, not now! I get ticklish after I shoot.”
Vel’s eyes fell on the bedside clock as 5:59 became 6:00. He stood up abruptly, breaking character. “You asked me to remind you when it was six.”
“Didn’t I tell you to call me Sir?”
“I’m off the clock.”
John searched Vel’s face for insolence. “Tell the Boss Lady I wanna keep you ‘til breakfast.”
“That’s fine. But I need a ten-minute break.”
“What if I don’t want to give you a break?”
“Then I’ll go,” Vel declared, all business. “I’m happy to stay, but if I do, then I need a ten-minute break.”
Looking for lines to read between, John found none. The kid was refreshingly absent of that passive-aggressive punishing bullshit so common in so-called “submissives.” John sensed no meltdowns on the horizon, none of those complex emotional geisha fan dances that other boys employed to seize control.
“Take fifteen.”
John glanced at the ring finger of the kid’s left hand; his heart went pitter-pat to find him unowned.
#
With a Marlboro Red clenched in his teeth, Clark drove a steak knife into the easy chair and carved an ‘X’ into the cushion. He pulled out fistfuls of stuffing, scattering them like snow over the post-Apocalyptic rubble of Room 817.
He was itching to start a fire but the place was trashed to perfection already. Don’t wanna overdress, he thought, admiring the graffiti over the headboard. Eight words that say so much. He shoved the spray paint canister into his satchel with Gage’s passport, laptop and iPad, then picked up his meth pipe from the cracked glass coffee table.
His lips curled as he reconsidered, rolling the stem between his fingers. He set the pipe back on the table, then sprinkled the methy crumbs from his baggie into an adjacent pile. He carved a couple of lines with Gage’s hotel key, then dropped the empty bag beside the contraband.
His stomach gurgled. The nibbles from earlier unleashed something awful in his intestines. He climbed onto the mattress and stood at the foot of the bed, dropping his pants. One more gift for Miss Innocence.
He bent over, clenched his teeth and aimed for the headboard.
This is what he gets for not bringing me up here in the first place, Clark thought. Like I’m some kind of criminal.
#
“I figured the incoming gays had it easy, coming out with the Internet and all,” Ariel said, blowing out the candles one-by-one. “Then I met you.” He was alone but for Gage, who showed no interest in leaving.
Ariel’s music playlist delivered gay forefather Andy Bey, crooning “River Man.” Gage buried his face in the beanbag. “This feels so nice.”
“That’s why it’s called ecstasy, dear. You’d snuggle with a porcupine.”
“I’m sorry I’m weird,” Gage murmured into the fabric.
“Apology accepted. I do not tolerate weirdness.”
“I never had any older, like, gay guys to look up to.” Gage’s voice was barely audible.
“It helps, that’s for sure. When I was a young’un, younger than you, even, there weren’t any guideposts. We had to figure ‘gay’ out as we went along. I was lucky. God delivered me a couple of fabulous mentors. In the state of Washington, of all places. But then, they…”
Ariel’s words trailed off. No need to get into that right now.
“Now you are,” Gage ventured.
“What?”
“A mentor.”
Ariel blinked.
“I have so much I wanna say to you.”
Ariel gazed at the kid as he yawned into the beanbag, the uncanny familiarity returning once more. He rifled through his closet, bantering over his shoulder in an ‘old geezer’ voice:
“When your Grampaw was a twink, he had to look up homosexuality in a ‘card catalog’ at the town library, and I reckon you don’t know what a ‘card catalog’ even is.” Pulling on a onesie, he turned back to Gage.
He was fast asleep, snoring lightly.
Ariel rubbed his eyes, yawning at last. Always the last one up. He pulled a comforter from his bed and tucked his guest into the beanbag. He knelt beside him for a moment, smoothing his hair, mulling over what he knew of the kid’s life.
The light of the remaining candle flickered in a tear that streamed down Gage’s cheek.
“Aw, baby,” Ariel murmured, rubbing Gage’s back where he slouched. “Wish I was a better influence.”
Ariel closed his eyes.
Hey Jesus, he prayed. Or God. Or Karma. Help this kid find his tribe.
“Oh, how they come and go…” sang Andy Bey.
As Girlfriend Time surrendered to bedtime at the Cozy Rooms, Ariel kissed the young man’s tear away. He doused the last candle. Then he climbed into bed.
“Oh, how they come and go…”
###
☮️ & ❤️,
