Disclaimer: Don't read this, you're too young to have such prurient interests. What would your mamma think? Why are you still reading? Well, okay, then... just don't get caught, and don't blame me. I don't know any of the people in this story. A few of them are based very loosely on real, semi-famous (to a particular demographic) people, but they are not, in fact, them. Even if the names and physical descriptions and favorite flavor of ice cream seem similar. If you are N'sync or represent them, before filing a slander or libel lawsuit against me, just ask and I'll have this deleted, I swear. Besides, I'd be way flattered to be the object of the fantasies of thousands of people. This is my first story. I'm not a huge boybands fan, but I read most of the archive just because these stories tend to be updated more often (uh, yeah, that's why...) I don't know N'sync's tour schedule or whether they wear boxers or briefs or any of that obsessive fan stuff, nor do I care to. So if little details don't mesh with reality, bear in mind that the big ones (the whole "gay" thing) don't either.
Another Night at the Club - Chapter One "You Don't Even Know Me"
This story begins in a hospital.
They all get there at some point anyway, so I figured I would get it out of the way real quick, and move on to bigger and better things.
I wasn't sick... I do tend to get into the angst-y thing if I'm not careful about it, but I like to build up into my angst. Don't spend it all at once, you know? So you aren't going to be getting graphic details of knife wounds received in saving the life of my favorite boyband member or anything silly like that. I don't even like boybands. I'm 23 years old, not 16, and the boybands didn't hit it big until I had almost graduated college. And as everyone knows, people in college only listen to alternative music. Or Bob Marley.
I wasn't sick, but I was in the hospital. The cafeteria, to be precise. I'm a graduate student, and my department is in the medical school, just a few buildings down from the hospital. I often have lunch there when I've been too lazy or too busy to go grocery shopping. Today was a Friday, and I had used up the last of my lunchmeat the day before, so here I was.
It was around 12:30, the peak lunch hour. I weaved my way between the old ladies in their walkers and the fat women who waddled about like they had never been in a cafeteria serving line before. It wasn't that difficult... four lanes to choose from. You want a sandwich? Go to lane 1. Salad bar? Lane 4. Hot food? Pick lane 2 or 3, depending on what you want. Not so many options that you have to stop in the middle of the corridor, and keep me from my food. Besides, I've got an experiment running, and have to be back in lab in 45 minutes at most.
So I make myself a chef's salad, grab a slice of pizza from the hot- foods line, and get my diet Pepsi. I've been here in the Midwest for a year, but I still refuse to call it pop. After an eternity waiting for some old geezer to pay for his meal entirely in change, I'm through the check out. And, big surprise, there is nowhere to sit.
Ever notice how when you are in a cafeteria, or an airport, or even a men's room... that people never sit next to people unless there is absolutely no other option? The cafeteria has tables for four and tables for eight. All of them are taken, and most are way under capacity. I'm used to this, though, and grab a seat at the far end of a table for eight. At the other end of the table are four guys in their twenties, I'd guess. Obviously not employees, and they don't have the "something obviously wrong" look about them of patients, so they're probably the family or friends of a patient. I barely pay them any mind, missing the annoyed glance the curly-haired one gives me as I sit. I try not to people watch in the hospital cafeteria; I've been known to lose my appetite looking at some of the slice of humanity that hobbles in there.
I eat my meal in silence, fishing out a photocopied paper from Cell that I should have read weeks ago, and skim through the figures. The cafeteria is noisy as well as crowded, and I'm having trouble concentrating. The paper is as boring as dirt, anyway. I idly listen to snippets of the conversation around me. I gather that the guys at the other end of the table are here for a friend, who is having an emergency appendectomy. They speculate as to how much time off of work this is going to give them, and worry that their friend will be okay. His appendix burst, one of them says. Nasty business, that. I mentally shoot heavenward a prayer of thanks that all my internal organs are intact.
A few minutes later, and I'm done my meal. I get up from the table, gathering my tray and my bookbag. As I push in my chair, I glance at the guys again, and suddenly find myself wishing that I had made an exception to my people-watching rule, for once. They are damn fine specimens of masculinity. One is blonde, with spiky hair -- not necessarily enough to ping the gaydar, nowadays, but three or four years ago it would've been -- and the most amazing green eyes. Another is tall, with dark hair and blue eyes, and a handsome face. The third is older and bigger, just a little portly, with black hair and a goatee -- a bear, which I normally wouldn't go for, but for him I'd almost make an exception. The final member of the group is the youngest, with blonde, curly hair. He scowls at me, challengingly, as he notices me staring at them. The four almost seem familiar, but I can't place it. In any case, I realize that I've been standing there for more than just a few seconds, and turn bright red as I hurriedly turn away and head back to work.
The rest of the day is a blur. I have twenty things to do at once, and know that I will get to only a few of them before the end of the day. I've been in graduate school for a year now, and have finally mastered time management enough to be capable of running three experiments at once -- sometimes -- but at the same time, my advisor is now expecting more results out of me. The grace period is over; time to produce. On the bright side, I'll probably have a paper in press sometime in the next two months or less.
It's a Friday, which means -- that's right -- happy hour. Five o'clock comes, and I'm tying up a few loose ends before the weekend. On a weeknight, I'd be willing to stay until 7 or 8 at night if necessary, but this is Friday, the one night of the week that I reserve for myself.
I drop in at happy hour, briefly, getting myself a Bass Ale from the ice buckets. We aren't supposed to have alcohol on campus, technically speaking, but the secretaries have gone home for the weekend, and the faculty sometimes even drops by to join us. It's the usual crowd -- our department isn't all that big, even with five plus years of students, and we all know each other. As per usual, some of the third and fourth year girls are gossiping about their principle investigators' love lives, departmental affairs, who had sex with whom in the darkroom. It's disgusting. Half the reason that I come to happy hour is because I know that they won't talk crap about me if I'm actually in front of them. I shudder to think what they say when I've left the room. But, being the only gay guy in the department, I'm not dating one of the other students and I keep the details of my love life (paltry though they are) to myself. In the beginning, I spent a lot of time with the other first year students, but now that I've been in town for a while I've made other gay friends, and have drifted a little apart from the rest of my department. It's a little depressing, actually.
Finishing my beer, I leave. One of the other grad students from my lab leaves with me, and we commiserate about the terrible gossip. Our lab is at the far end of the hall, and our professor keeps mostly free from the obvious departmental politics. I'm glad of that, not for the first time.
At home, I check my email for the twentieth time that day. Nothing new. I'm feeling very lazy, and tired. I check my watch; it's only seven. I decide o head downtown and grab a bite to eat somewhere. Maybe get a mocha at Starbucks to keep me awake for later in the evening. It's Friday night, which is my club night, when I can relax and be myself among a bunch of other gay people my age.
So an hour later, I found myself sitting in a comfy padded armchair in the downtown Starbucks with my Venti iced nonfat mocha, worth every penny even on a grad student's stipend, and with my nose in a paperbound copy of "The Eye of the World." Every few minutes, I pause for a sip of my mocha and a quick glance at the other patrons. Starbucks isn't really the gay hangout, but there's some not-so-bad looking customers, some of whom ping on the 'dar. That's when I see them again, the guys from the hospital.
The four of them are sitting on one of the large couches just to my right, on the other side of the big faux-fireplace that sits in the middle of the lounge. The blonde with spiky hair is closest to me. God is he hot. He's wearing a loose fitting T-shirt, but from his forearms and calves I can tell that he's in pretty decent shape. He's got smooth, white skin, absolutely flawless, with the cutest little nose. And the eyes...
Oh shit.
I'm staring into his eyes, which means he's looking at me, which means he caught me staring at him.
But on the bright side, he didn't break the gaze off either.
I look away, glancing briefly at the other three. The one with the black goatee is chatting with the tall blue eyed guy, and neither of them have noticed me watching them. At the far end of the couch, though, is the curly one. He's noticed, and doesn't look happy about it. He scowls, and I get the distinct impression that the only reason he doesn't say something is that he is at the farthest end of the couch from me. I put my head back down into my book quickly.
And, okay, I admit it... I keep glancing up every few seconds to look at the blonde one.
Finally my brain kicks in. This is absolutely ridiculous. I've been out for almost three years now, and in that time I've learned that you don't try to pick someone up unless you are pretty damn sure that they are also gay. Coming out was a huge relief for me; I no longer had those schoolboy crushes on high school or college friends who were straight. I instead developed crushes on people I met at gay coming out groups or, eventually, clubs and bars. At least those had a slight chance of being productive. You don't pick up a guy in a coffee shop. I resolve to concentrate on my book and ignore the guy, however cute he is.
Well, you don't pick up in a coffee shop unless you play the eye-contact game hard and heavy and are damn sure that the other guy is interested. And I'm so busy sitting there trying not to be obvious about checking him out, and trying not to be turned to dust by the fiery gaze of the curly haired one, that I never notice the blonde casting his looks my way either.
My life would have continued in its normal orbits, if only a shadow hadn't fallen across the pages of my book, and a man's voice interrupted my thoughts. "Er, excuse me? I was wondering if you could help me and my friends out..."
Well, that was part one, which turned out better than I was expecting it to. IMHO. If your opinion differs, direct feedback to: kevin9y9@yahoo.com Tune in whenever I get around to writing more to learn who it is that is addressing our hero, and how in god's name I can semi-believably make my character hook up with the fab (pun intended) five.