This is gay erotic fiction. If you are offended by graphic descriptions of homosexual acts, go somewhere else.
Neither this story nor any parts of it may be distributed electronically or in any other manner without the express, written consent of the author. All rights are reserved by the author who may be reached at cepes@mail.com.
This is a work of fiction, any resemblance of the characters to anyone living or dead is pure coincidence and not intended. They are all products of the author's overactive imagination.
Damaged Goods Part 2
The velvet felt soft under his rump. His naked rump. Living along, he decided, did have its advantages.
He picked up his fork and stuck it in the box of slowly cooling Thai food. Greasy, but oh so tasty. Anything delivered on demand couldn't be all that bad.
The bonus was if he missed his mouth, the saucy bits just hit his chest. Too bad there was no one around to lick it off. He wondered if Joe -- Joseph, he corrected himself -- could ever steer himself around to enjoying the idea. What an icy one.
He did have to keep Catcher from jumping up and licking the bits off. Maybe using the kennel might be a good idea.
Maybe putting Joseph in a kennel and humanizing him might be a good idea, too.
He was so awkward around people. He looked like a stunned owl, just staring around and trying not to fall off his branch. But, alone, just chatting with him, he could be sweet. He was smart, too. Just so mixed up.
He had the cute thing going on. But the vibes coming off him were like waves of chemical pollutants from a sewage treatment plant. He smiled and giggled. Maybe he could work that into a pitch for one of his clients.
He just wanted to help the guy. And maybe get a friend out of him, or maybe something more.
The phone rang. He pressed pause on the DVD player remote just as what's-his-name was beginning his `I'm not lovable' speech. It had been Peter's favorite movie; sometimes, late at night, he just had to watch it.
He jogged the four steps to the phone. "Hi, this is Steve."
"Sexy beeatch! How's it hanging?" He loved the sound of that voice.
"Hey Fuckhead, I'm naked, why don't you come over and find out?" The purr he threw in made him sound like an ass, but anything for a laugh!
The laughing voice managed to become intelligible again. "Stop, you're killing me. We're going to Spangles. Wanna come?"
"Brad, what the hell is Spangles?" It sounded promising. Drag, definitely sounded like drag. Bald headed men looked ridiculous in a dress, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.
"New club thingie. Out in the middle of nowhere, like Los Feliz."
"Drag?" Almost a hopeful tone hung on the line as Brad digested the question.
"I don't think so. Wanna come?" Brad could always be counted on for a thoughtful invitation. He was great, just great. The best thing Peter left him really.
"Nah, I'm going to hang in tonight. I was already out at the Abbey until 10.00 or so." He didn't have to tell Brad that that was his favorite hangout.
"You sure?" He could almost see Brad's smile, an offering of trying to coax him out for one more set of kicks and giggles.
"Yeah, like I said, I'm already in my comfy clothes." He had a silly grin on his face.
"You do like to lounge about like that." Brad knew many of Steve's quirks, the private nudity being one of the lesser items on the list.
"Sue me. Or suck me, beeatch!" Catcher made a slight whining noise, apparently having been roused from a mini-nap. It was just a single noise, maybe sleep would take hold again, for the night.
"Fuck you, queenie. I'm off. Have a good night."
"Don't do anyone I wouldn't do, okay?" Steve's mothering instincts kicked in. Brad was a definite looker and had a bit of a wild streak in him. There wasn't too much he wouldn't try at least once. And innocent. The perfect guy -- to get hurt, if someone didn't remind him to watch himself.
"Right." Brad laughed as he said it. Steve had a reputation for being less-than-active on the pulling circuit.
"Seriously, be careful."
"Love you, too, Steve." Brad's taunting voice belied a depth of affection and care for his older friend.
"Bye, Brad." Steve heard the phone click off.
No matter what he said, Brad could put a smile on his face. He was a ball of energy and a lovely guy, heart, mind, and soul. Not to mention the body or the face.
Steve didn't have to look down to know that Brad's voice had aided in hardening Steve right up. He looked to the couch and the freeze framed image on his television: a movie. He looked to his bed: or something else. His fleshy protuberance led his body toward the bed.
Not a damned one of the articles in the New Yorker caught my attention for a minute. The cartoons, as usual, were a nice diversion. I lobbed it toward the garbage can. I still had a few more issues to go to get current. Like everything else in my life, I was behind on my current events. New Yorkers, Atlantic Monthly's, Harpers, and other glossy paper with beautiful people printed in the ads lined the flat surfaces of my little place.
It was a mess again. God damn it. It would be one of those nights.
Visiting the bars always made me depressed -- and then guilty. I felt guilty after lying so much; guilty for leaving so quickly. For so obviously wearing my boredom on my sleeve.
Of course, in Hollywood, scripts weren't supposed to go like that. If you ever talked to a development type, the "d girl," she could wind you through the formal arcs that stories took; the number of quirks each character was supposed to have; the different types of plots that could exist. They thought in terms of plot, rhythm, energy, big name stars.
Life, as expected, was nothing like that. No plot; that would require already knowing the end of the thing. It was messy; there were no cuts or second takes. And one couldn't pick his or her plot from a handy-dandy list of possibilities in a `learning to write for the screen' guidebook.
There was no easy formal structure to deduce; no way to just add in a best friend if the story missed a couple beats or slowed down in the middle twenty minutes. Or add in a car crash if a villain needs to be conveniently taken care of in the name of filmic justice. It was fucking messy -- and painful and unpleasant. And why did people like Steve have to bear the whole mess so easily? Why was he and his ilk so oblivious?
Thin characters, they existed everywhere around. It's like that Woody Allen movie. He asks two reasonably attractive people, "you look like a very happy couple?" He says, "I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say." She dumbly agrees. Is that the way to happiness. Compatibility through ignorance?
If someone were to write a movie where thin characters stood around lying to each other, that guy would get shot, drawn and quartered, and boiled in oil. So, why do I stand around at fast food places listening to so many thin people lying to each other?
So fucking fruitless. Better to take out the garbage, which, I see actually needs to be disposed of. Actually, I just need to get out of here. Old magazines, formalist analysis of films and lives, and all that shit inside this place are just no good right now.
The shoes go back on. The keys find their way into my fist. And I pick up the garbage with my other hand. It's quickly disposed of -- and I run across no neighbors. This city is nothing if not cold to the people who live next door. It's actually quite easy to tell recent transplants from everyone else; they will look at you and speak to you in the hallway.
As I got into the car, I remembered that I used to laugh. Hell, I could make people laugh. Just not anymore. Maybe Steve was right. About the therapy. About asking for someone else to help.
Or more likely he wasn't. I started the car. I still had the book on the front seat. It was due back at the West Hollywood library in a few days. I had meant to return it when I was at the Abbey, but my foul mood got in the way. Maybe a random drive and a quick stop at the library. Maybe a quick snack somewhere. Or a run to a grocery store. Or something to occupy a few minutes, anything.
Los Angeles just hurt. It put a whole in my body that nothing could fill. It was a beautiful, arid, awful place. And it made the people who lived here attempt to live in its image. It did things to people, rotted their senses of judgment, bored into their souls and decimated what it found.
And still the city, a festering maggot in my mind, held some fascination. To drive around, to try to park someplace, to see the old torn down for the new, to witness the parade of flesh, in aggregate, that never seemed to age (when, of course, the old and infirm -- the over-30 set -- went off to die, or at least vacation, in Palm Springs).
I turned left onto Robertson. I would be starting the course up to Melrose, then San Vicente, then the dumpy little county library. In a land of such wealth, such a meager library spoke volumes about priorities. It seemed nothing I cherished was loved in the same ways by the people here.
The traffic was light. It was already 10.00 on a Wednesday. People who knew better were homeward bound to get sleep for work the next day; people still out didn't give a damn. There wasn't all that much to see on Robertson at night. Once one got past Wilshire and the music powerhouses, it was boutiques and restaurants and limos blocking the opposite lane out in front of the Ivy. There wasn't all that much here.
I drove the rest of the way and let the sights sink in. There just weren't any thoughts, pure inflow of information, nothing critical, biting, caustic flowing back out. Driving around long enough usually got me able to do that.
The funny thing, I realized later, was that driving back toward the Abbey -- the library was on the same block, though an opposite side, as the bar he had been at that evening -- was providing the coolness for his mind. That could make a good, ironic image in an art-house flick.
I made the turn onto Melrose, missing the Abbey by a half mile. I turned left onto San Vicente and the pulled into the library parking area. I turned the car off and got out. The athletic areas, the pool, and the green spots were all dark; it must be later than I thought. I found the book deposit and placed the so-so book into it.
What to do? The reason for venturing out a second time was finished. Maybe it was time for food. Maybe time for another drive. Drive and eat -- what a great merger, an LA merger. I didn't feel like heading back home anytime soon; nothing there for me, anyways. It would be a long night. If I stayed out long enough, perhaps I'd stop thinking so damn much and just enjoy being outside.
"This is Joseph." Joseph the Sleep Deprived. Joseph the Cotton Brained.
"Hi, Joseph. This is Cathy at Anderson Shipping." The reasonably large account Henry had landed two weeks ago was Anderson. I got it thrown in my court at the beginning of the week.
My bachelor's from UCLA and my relatively young age qualified me for no practical or useful employment aside from project management, the ubiquitous jack of all trades and master of none.
"Hi Cathy."
"I was told you were my point person on the data warehouse migration you guys are going to be doing for us." No small talk with this one. Her voice was strained and deep. Tired? A life of cigarettes?
"That's right. I'll be managing the engagement on this end." I managed nearly all the engagements. We were a small consulting shop. Only 12 staff, down from nearly 40 a few years ago. Where the wind blows, so goes the cash. The wind was definitely not behind technology's sails.
"I know you've been working with Frank Dillon. He's asked me to take over for him. What can you do to help get me up to speed?" This one seemed reasonable. She knew what she was doing: take over a project, learn about it, get it done, don't fuck around or get mired in politics. This whole thing could be smooth.
"Well, I just sent Frank our proposed migration plan. Let me get your contact info and then I'll send it over to you as well. Then we can set a time to discuss it. Does that work?" We would both be reasonable. My head would stop aching from lack of sleep. Stalin would be awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize. And then I would wake up from this dream.
"Joseph, that sounds great." She then gave me her contact information and we did a haggle on dates to talk again. Two days in the future at 3.00 was the compromise. This would work.
The minutiae of paperwork can be relaxing. The form has a logic of it's own. You determine what it's about; what it wants to extract from you; then you figure out how not to give it what it wants, but what you have available. Then you lie a bit to your advantage and squeeze the answer into the boxes, columns, tables, or quadrants of the form. They couldn't yell at you -- or make you work faster -- or ask you to drinks at an openair bar. Paperwork was a blessing at times.
I buried myself in it fairly often, particularly when I didn't want one of the guys on the beach -- not currently staffed on a project -- to ask me lots of bullshit questions. Paperwork gets respect from some people. But not all.
Of course, being away at lunch is the ultimate way to keep away annoying questions. Which is exactly what I planned to do. I locked my computer and stood up. I decided a nice walk was in order. To the Westwood Village, just south of the school I had spent four years at. And now I was back here. I must have waged genocide in a previous life.
Two steps away from the desk and the phone rang. Instinct kicked in before hunger could.
"This is Joseph."
"Hi there, hot stuff. This is Steve." Of all the people to call, why him?
"How're you?" This was a tone colder than my professional voice. With my luck, Steve was tone deaf, though.
"Good. You bailed early last night. How're you doing?" Accusatory without being in my face -- maybe the ole bald guy deserved more credit.
"The same. So, what's up?" Another notch colder -- paired with a non-answer. My typical response; it usually only took 5 or 6 of these before people decided the husk was impenetrable and downright unattractive.
"Well, I wanted to ask you to dinner." Unexpected.
"What's the occasion?" Not as cold this time because I didn't really know what Steve was doing.
"Just dinner." I was silent for a while. Had the guy lost his head? I was obviously sending out every known signal to gay men that I wasn't interested in his companionship, friendship, or any other trinkets he had to peddle.
"And what fine dining establishment will we be visiting? And on who's expense account?" Flippant sometimes worked wonders. I wouldn't be able to make over my previous image -- Steve knew me too well to convince him I was an airhead -- but I could try another tact.
"My place. I'll cook." Silence. I didn't know what to say. This was a bit much, a lot much. The connotations behind such an invitation -- well, I didn't want to think about them.
"Should I call the health inspectors now or later?" Atomic bomb: rude and crude.
He paused. He knew I had heard many stories about his culinary `feats.' "It won't be that bad." He sounded doubtful himself.
"And what will the fine cook of the establishment be serving?" Meanness as a tactic has a lot of power.
"Something that's not nuked, reheated, or from a can. How's that?"
"And you're in marketing. That's the best you can do?" It didn't sound too bad, actually, but I wouldn't cave that easily.
"Didn't know I needed to sell you on eating." My eyes rolled.
"Ordinarily, I prefer that as a solitary activity." Did I say that -- out loud. It could almost sound like a risque line to someone just overhearing my end. And it wouldn't be all the complimentary to me.
"See what you're missing? Mastication is best when shared." He picked up on what I hadn't intended to mean; witty fucker when he wanted to be. I couldn't stop myself from laughing.
"You're awful."
"You coming then?" Fuck; he was going in for the kill.
"Do I have a choice?" Plead innocence.
"Well, you could always say yes."
My belly said it was hungry; time to cut this chit chat short. "I'll show up. What time?"
"Seven."
"Fine. But I'm out by 8.30." A boy had to retain some dignity.
"We're negotiating this in advance, huh?"
"Definitely."
"I can live with it. See you then."
Grunt. I hung up the phone. My face was blotchy red from embarrassment. I hated that; I hated saying yes. I would not enjoy myself tonight.
I'd be sure of that.
To be continued.
Author's Note: I appreciate hearing your comments on this story or anything else. You can send me a message at cepes@mail.com. I will respond to all messages I receive.