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
"You mind if I sit here for a second?"
The twitchy guy I'd noticed at the bar was eyeing me, talking to me. He had this elaborate drink in his petite hand and a long brown cigarette in the other. Pretty in a club kid way, vaguely Filippino.
But, it was a ploy I'd heard before. The pretty ones muscle in on the plain ones holding down tables. Coax them into being granted a seat, like a vampire asking for permission to enter your house. Then the pretty one's friends show up and the original occupant, feeling uncomfortable with the all the people swarming around his formerly empty table, gets bounced voluntarily. So typical.
"My friend is going to be here in a second." It was a nonanswer, more than a tad hostile too.
Club Kid, hair coifed, the linen shirt looking just the perfect amount wrinkled, looked at me as if he hadn't heard what I said. Coward that I am, I backed down.
"Yeah, go ahead. My friend is running late."
"So are mine," he said. I knew what he had in mind, a race for the table. Real estate in the bar, like anywhere else in Los Angeles, was at a premium. If a guy had to be stranded waiting for people, though, this might as well be the place. The Abbey. A mixing ground of temper-tantrum queens, older companioned couples, lithe twinks bucking for a bang, muscled men who applied their tans with a brush weekly. An interesting group of people in a comfortable open-air space, hey, it's fucking LA, what do you expect? Anyway, that's what the promotional literature says -- who am I, aside from a smartass, to question it?
Cynicism aside, here I am again, with my chip on my shoulder and my head up my ass. Or so others tell me. I don't know why I said yes when the invitation was extended. This was definitely not the place I would go if I had an hour or two to kill on my own. I'd rather be home, reading the New Yorker or jerking off to bad porn.
"My name's Frisco," he said, extending his arm and breaking me from my thoughts. Just when I was already edgy with the energy of this place throwing my internal rhythms off kilter, we have to go and start this old game again. The awkward name exchange ritual, likely to be followed by forced conversation, and then one of us getting bounced from the table.
"Joseph." I grasped his hand and shook it. He turned away and sucked on his cigarette, his twitchiness had not left him. He was scanning the upper terrace looking for his compatriots.
"My cousin and my friend are supposed to be coming."
"My friend is also late. It's funny, I'm usually the one who's late for these things." It was a lie. I was always early. Even in having to sort out the somewhat confusing parking situation: you can park here but only with a permit, you can park there but only until 9.30. How I missed places that had enough space for parking lots.
Why lie? I lied when I felt like it. Club Kid would never see me again. Fuck him.
I think it all came down to the fact that I didn't really like people. It was the cornerstone of my philosophy. People as an aggregate are uninteresting; I use that fact to keep myself from investigating individual specimens to determine if I might be wrong. Things in theory are always so perfect, so simple. Four unpleasant years at UCLA had taught me that. I might have been better off flogging myself -- like an ascetic, like a horned-up sex monster, take your pick -- for all the good it did.
Frisco or whatever his name was had finished his cigarette, one he never seemed to ask if he could smoke. I looked around. Nada. Not only was he not here, my designated host, but I couldn't even see anyone physically attractive to me. I knew there were several, at least, who should be. But, nothing. Not a single mental spark. My watch clocked the fucker as being 25 minutes late. 5 more and I would gracefully surrender the battle to Club Kid and let him have the table. My pineapple juice was being to get watered down by all the ice, yuck.
He tried intermittently to start a conversation. My pineapple juice always became incredibly interesting to me when he did. It was too sweet, too watery; not real enough to fool me into thinking it was really pineapple juice. But, it would give me a reason not to have to talk. Or at least to delay answering. Forced conversation is high on my list of offenses that should be made capital crimes. Talking on a cell phone while driving was another.
Finally I saw Steve. Damn, only another minute or two and I would have left. Round faced, bald by choice, seven or eight years older than me. But, persistent enough to get me to say yes to meeting him here. Droopy, drippy, a nice but stupid man. It's a good thing I don't admit out loud what I think to myself.
"Hi Steve." I said it loudly. He didn't seem to hear. I waved, he eventually noticed where I was sitting. He appeared to have a very large dog by his side. Probably a ploy to get hit on by desperate queens. I didn't really want to chat. However, as a consolation prize, I had won, the table was still fucking mine. Not that I really cared anymore. Frisco stopped trying to chat and started nursing his martini or whatever the hell it was. Pink, things shouldn't be pink like that.
Steve came over. "Nice dog," I said as a question.
"I'm sitting for a friend. She's Catcher." I made the appropriate gurgling noise to suggest I was interested.
"I'm looking for Kevin, he was going to join us, have you seen him?" The real estate guy, actually he did PR, but his passion was real estate, rental properties actually. He could, and did, spend hours talking about how he bought properties, renovated them, and rented them. He loved his tenants and talked about them like they were his children. He was 29 going on 55.
"Haven't seen him."
"That's bad. Well, let me see if my other friend is here and I'll get a drink." He started moving over to the newest of the several bars in the Abbey. Undoubtedly, he would also make a loop around the place, eyeing the nubile flesh abundantly on display, all in the name of looking for this mysterious friend. And hopefully he wouldn't find Kevin. I don't know if I could stand to hear about the latest and greatest from his tenants.
Steve was always like that, inviting along random people he wanted me to meet. I was never sure if he was trying to set me up with them or what. If he drug them along, though, I was instantly sure to dislike them. It's like being forced to eat Brussels sprouts as a kid; the more it's forced, the more unpleasant your mind will make it taste.
I looked back at Frisco. He'd started a new cigarette. Delicate fingers grasped it between his lips; someone would probably have the enjoyment of them later in the evening. He looked like he was an accomplished performer. On the plus side, the tension with Club Kid had diminished; no more awkwardness, he had recognized that the table was mine. He left a moment or two before Steve returned with his own overwrought drink. A martini with a slice of apple in it. A waif of a young girl trailed behind him.
"Joseph, this is Carol. She works in my office." Another straight girl for me to talk with. I'd spent evenings like this chatting to his college-age sister, random friends, and other misfits he found. The men he knew were, well, special people I'm sure I didn't care to investigate further. That's how these things usually worked out. I chatted up the straight girls, making jokes, laughing with them, while Steve blathered to his random friends, such as Kevin. Tonight, apparently, would not be a break in that trend. I wasn't sure I minded.
"So how do you know Steve," she asked. I thought of saying he seduced me when I was 13. Or that he was my dungeon master and he owed me a fisting tonight. Perhaps neither of those would be scandalous enough for someone in this jaded city. I opted for the truth.
"He used to be with the company I work at. We've kept in touch since." Well, he'd kept in touch. I didn't even know his phone number.
I looked away, back into the jungle. The men cruising each other. The Capri pants and the shorts and the packages that had been stuffed, enhanced, or pumped up prior to hitting the Abbey. Asses and cocks, under clothes, dozens of sets of eyes sizing up every nearby pair. The straight girl, at least, wouldn't make me hurl. Nothing can defy gravity like some of these packages seem to be doing; does no one believe in truth in advertising any more?
Carol was an interesting person: early 30s, a musician, trying to break into the tough-as-fuck music scene. She had a construction worker boyfriend in Indianapolis; he built cookie cutter homes alongside a lake for wealthy fucks. She was living on a tight budget, but had found a couple roommates in West Hollywood to stay with. She literally knew no one in LA, Steve was the friend of a friend and was meeting her as a favor. Big hearted dope, takes in strays or dogs for dogsitting, takes in curmudgeonly self-hating fags, takes in stranded straight girls from middle America. She wasn't from the Bumfuck, Nebraska, I originated in, but her hometown sounded pretty similar.
A few of Steve's friends had filtered by the table while Carol and I spoke. His dentist was among them. After the man walked off, Carol commented, "How strange to run into your dentist in a place like this."
Steve said, "it's pretty normal, his office is right around the corner." The WeHo crowd worked here, lived here, shat here. They loved it. I'd rather be sitting on a sandy beach.
My watch checking began to happen more often; some part of my brain was signposting its distress. Time to leave again. Time to make up a flimsy story and get the hell out. The later it got, the fuller the place became, it never got hot or muggy with bodies packed in to each other -- after all, it was an open-air bar -- but my claustrophobia was kicking into high gear already. And listening to mildly inebriated people laughing at poor jokes wasn't my idea of entertainment.
"Steve," I said, extending my hand, "I have to be off. Swimming in the morning, you know?"
"You swim," asked Carol.
"5.30 every morning." A small lie. It was more like 6.00 or 6.30 before I stumbled into the pool and I had been a bit spotty on attendance lately. Laps were wonderful, but without a goal to aim for, sometimes it was hard to get motivated. The eye candy, at times, could be an advantage.
I shook Carol's hand and then made my goodbyes to Steve's menagerie of friends who had collected at the table while I was studiously avoiding them by talking to Carol. Maggie or something M, the quiet lesbian; another K person, the flight attendant who must be using a tanning bed for 2 or 3 sessions a week; Stu, who was as attractive as his name; and a bitchy Asian man who I'd never been introduced to. Thank god.
As I stood up, Steve looked at me and got out of his chair. He handed the dog's leash to the Asian man. The dog, lodged between a couple of chairs, didn't even notice.
I started walking toward the exit onto Robertson. Steve walked behind me. He touched my shoulder when we reached the sidewalk.
I turned to him. "Did you call," he asked.
I decided to play dumb. "Hmm? Who?"
"I gave you some names. Those therapists are very good. I'm worried about you, Joe. Call." He knew calling me Joe would piss me off.
I smiled sweetly, contrary to my mood. "I will. I've been busy, but I'll call. Don't worry about me, I'm fine." At least three lies, maybe four; I'm sure he knew that as well.
He smiled back, he obviously wasn't buying what I was trying to sell. "Really, please call."
"I've gotta go, Steve. Thanks, this was fun." Only one lie.
I wriggled away from him and walked towards Santa Monica. All the beautiful people were paired up and wandering in or out of bars and clubs. The slinky outfits, the happy smiles, the intertwined fingers, real or all for show? Another production on a Hollywood scale, I felt; there were no happy endings like what I seemed to be witnessing here.
I always felt nervous coming into this place, West Hollywood, and I always felt sad when I left. Not sad at the fact I was leaving West Hollywood, a more universal sadness. This was a place where I didn't belong; coming here reminded me, each time, of that fact.
Lately, aside from the usual interests, I'd been in a bit of a poetry mood. I hadn't really read much since graduation; a literature degree will give most people a lifetime's fill of plays, poetry, and prose. But, Robert Lowell's lines have been haunting my mind lately. "My mind's not right." "I myself am hell." I know what he means, I've read Milton, I've read Freud. But I've been living it, too.
Even walking across Santa Monica I couldn't make this awful shit go away, it tracks you wherever you go. Who wants to be this kind of a curmudgeon all the time? To be 23 and damaged goods, it's not the greatest thing. Maybe Steve was right. Droopy and drippy, but right? Stranger things had happened.
To be continued.
Author's Note: I think this will become a bit of a series. I have no idea where I am going to take this, though. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!
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.