Philadelphia

by L B Winter

  Steven leaned his head back and smiled. “Eavesdrop much?” Taylor walked over to me, leaning over the back of the couch and resting his forearms on top of my head.

  “You knew I was in the bathroom,” he said mildly. When we moved into our dorm, I had introduced Taylor to the guys, and he and Steven were always bickering with each other. Sometimes I thought they clashed over who was my “best” friend. I probably made it worse when I told them I was still deciding and to wait for the end-of-year review.

  “You want to take us to the club and dance with a bunch of hot, half-naked men, Tay?” I teased him.

  “What’s a fake I.D. for if you aren’t gonna use it?” he shot back. Taylor had been a bit wilder since starting college, and sometimes I didn’t know what to make of it. He’d gotten us a couple I.D.s from a guy in our dorm the first week of classes, saying if we needed to blow off steam, now we’d have options.

  I glanced over at Steven, who was staring sadly at his phone in his lap. “Steve-o?”

  He looked up and smiled (a fake smile if I’ve ever seen one). “I want to meet the drag queens there, and see if maybe I can get them to let me perform as a guest now and then.”

  “That’s a great idea! Look, I’m sorry you and Trent fought, but that’s no reason to mope around all night.”

  “I texted him twice to tell him I support him and I’m proud of him, but he didn’t write back.”

  I felt like Trent was the one who should have said that to Steven, but it probably wouldn’t help to say so. “Well, like you said, he’s busy. I think Taylor offering to come see a drag show is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, by the way, so maybe you should take him up on it.”

  Tay scoffed at this. “Nah! For you, Stevey boy? I’d come out to the gay bar and brave the huddled masses.”

  “The huddled masses? It’s not Ellis Island, Reese!” Steven’s eyes were lit up now, and I could see that we were succeeding in cheering him up. He only calls Taylor “Reese” when he’s in a good mood. It’s as close to affectionate as the two of them get, and I was so glad my two best friends were getting along that I decided to push us through to the obvious conclusion.

  “Then it’s agreed! We’ll go check out The Beat and you’ll meet whoever you need to meet to get on the performance schedule, and Taylor can make his mother proud by using his fake I.D. to get into a gay bar!”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Spectacular Non-Gay Gay

  __________

  The Beat was all neon lights and thumping bass. The downtown brick building quaked with the weight of the sub-woofers, heaving relentless rhythmic earthquakes across the dance floor. “The Beat” is right. People were pressed against one another in motion, as though a gravitational pull from the center of the room was capturing orbiting dancers and pulling them toward the sun. It felt like the sun, anyway, it was so hot. Through the back-and-forth motion of the floor lights and the beating strobe lights above them, everything visible was blurred with heat, wavy like a mirage.

  “So,” Taylor tried to shout at us over the dance beat, “this is gay nightlife. Huh.”

  “This is gay nightlife!” a happy Steven confirmed, and proceeded to kiss Taylor on the cheek, a show of affection that I was pleased to see Taylor didn’t resist, even given our setting.

  I hooked my arm around Taylor’s elbow. Steven had been reluctant to let us use our fake I.D.s, but we faithfully promised to drink responsibly, and he’d finally relented. I had a feeling booze was the only way to calm Taylor down right now—we’d only been out drinking a couple of times since coming to Franklin, but I could tell already that Tay was a very happy, laid-back drunk, not to mention a worse light-weight than even me. So we bundled together to the bar opposite the D.J. booth, where the music was only slightly quieter and the crowd of people less sweaty and more fully clothed, but still every bit as intimidating.

  Steven tapped my shoulder and said he was going to try to meet the hostess, whatever that meant. He gestured toward the stage where the drag show was scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes or so, and I nodded.

  Taylor seemed surprised when we arrived at the bar alone. “Where’s Steve-o?”

  “I think he’s going to meet the drag people or something,” I said.

  Just then a queen with a purple wig turned to face us and said, “The drag people? Oh, sweetie.”

  Before I could sputter out an explanation, Taylor wrapped his arm around my shoulder and said, “We weren’t talking to you, were we?”

  Our unfriendly drag queen rolled her eyes in disgust and downed a shot of tequila before scampering off.

  I laughed at Taylor’s attempts to defend me against the scrutiny of the lithe dancer who was now shimmying across the dance floor, but he simply shrugged and smiled. I ordered us two beers as a thank you for his blind loyalty. One of the best things about him.

  Steven was engrossed in conversation with a very large drag queen near the performance stage. 10:30 came and went, and I realized that the drag show was not going to start as scheduled. I heard someone mutter something about “drag time” being an hour later than regular time, and I felt a sudden rush of annoyance. Why say something starts at 10:30 if it’s really code for 11:30? Although I supposed I shouldn’t complain, since Steven was really hitting it off with big-boobs over there, and wasn’t that the whole point of coming here?

  Taylor and I couldn’t really talk over the loud music, but I realized right off the bat that he was apparently the sexier of the two of us. I knew this because he was getting hit on left and right, and after two beers, he surprised me by agreeing to dance with a shorter Hispanic man with a dazzling smile and bright eyes. I couldn’t blame him for setting his sights on Tay; blonde and six foot two, he’s really the total package—that is, if you’re a woman. Obviously the fact that he isn’t gay makes him somewhat less desirable to a man, but no one here had any reason to suspect that.

  I sat by myself, nervously tucking my brown hair behind my ears. Maybe Steven was right that it was too long now, and that’s why nobody wanted to dance with me.

  As if he heard my thoughts, Taylor split from Javier and strode back over to me.

  “Think maybe I’ll let him find somebody playin’ for his team to dance with,” he muttered in my ear before scooting up onto a barstool. I hopped onto the stool beside his, and he said, “If you wanna meet somebody, get on out there. Everybody’s friendly.”

  “Maybe to you,” I said.

  “Stop being such a baby and get your ass out there! Guys have been staring at you, hoping you’ll come out and dance!” he hollered over the music, snatching my nearly-empty beer mug and roughly shoving my shoulder.

  And I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right. As soon as I walked onto the dance floor, bodies started colliding with mine right and left. Dizzy and buzzed, I found myself dancing (well, more like swaying) between two very good looking older men, each facing me and running their hands up and down my sides. It was painfully erotic, and I couldn’t control my erection when I felt theirs pressing against my hips. They smelled like alcohol and sweat, but it was intoxicating, and the strobe lights made me lose my bearings. Before I knew it, I was dizzy and surrounded in the middle of the dance floor, and as much as I felt terrified, I had never felt this turned on. And somehow, inexplicably, it made me feel numb.

  After a few minutes, the song changed and one of the men leaned in and started kissing my ear. I went rigid, and the other man put his hands on my hips to keep me loose. I was overwhelmed. It was the kissing, that intimate act—or, it should be intimate—lost in the anonymity of the relentless beat and the gravity-defying dance floor that did me in. I couldn’t do this, couldn’t be here, anymore. This wasn’t me; I couldn’t break my promise to my father.

  I pushed away from them, trying to escape the cage their arms made around me. But as soon as I walked a few steps away, I felt lost. It was a big room, and I couldn’t tell where I was. I stumbled past energetic, happy people, feeling distinctly out of place as I fo
llowed the occasional beam of light from the ceiling, hoping it would lead me somewhere I wanted to be.

  Suddenly I felt two hands grip my shoulders. “Baby, you look like you’re about to cry,” Steven said, spinning me around to face him and looking at me, eyes filled with concern.

  I sputtered relieved laughter onto his shoulder, resting my head against his neck.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I looked around and see that I’d made my way near to the stage where the drag queens would be performing shortly, where Steven spotted me and was now guiding me out with a firm hand against my neck.

  Once we’d reached the stage and it was slightly quieter, I said, “Yeah, I’m good. Just got a little bit lost.”

  Steven said, with a hand still protectively holding my neck, “I know the feeling. First time here, I shouldn’t have left you by yourself. Hey, speaking of by yourself, where’s Tay?”

  Now feeling positively giddy with relief, I said, “I left him at the bar. He’s being hit on left and right.”

  “Of course he is,” Steven said nonchalantly with a wave of his hand, as he guided me along the wall of the club to walk back and find Taylor. “He’s got ‘easy lay’ written all over him.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, come on. Tall, sexy blonde. Smiley, friendly. Easy lay. It’s not rocket science, Pauly.”

  “Well, he’s straight…”

  “But nobody here knows it. Now,” he said, glancing up at me with a smile, “you, on the other hand, are hard to get.”

  “Am I?” I asked, amused, but also flattered, and frankly a little bit relieved.

  “Yeah, you are,” he said, then stopped walking for a moment to look me in the eyes. “It’s clear that you’re smart, just in your face alone, but you’ve also got this innocence. Like you wouldn’t trust just anybody, and if somebody’s gonna be with you, he’ll have to really work for it.”

  I felt my cheeks color, and I looked away, muttering, “Yeah, starting with working on being a woman, ‘cause I can’t be with a man. Remember? Promised.”

  Steven sighed heavily and grabbed my arm to start walking again. “I remember,” he said.

  Filled with liquid courage, and none of the goodwill that Taylor exudes when he’s similarly sloshed, I gave Steven a little push and told him, “Just say it.”

  He heaved another heavy, exaggerated sigh, before saying, “I’ve said it before, and you know I’ve got no problem saying it again. That promise is bullshit. When you find the right guy, you should absolutely be with him and not give anything your dad says a second thought.”

  “It isn’t what my dad says, it’s what I say,” I muttered, but I’d repeated the line so often by that point that it had lost most of its meaning.

  Steven rolled his eyes and dropped my arm, turning to lead the way in front of me. I gave him another little shove. “What?” he snapped as he turned around abruptly.

  “What’s your problem?” I demanded, still buzzed enough to feel a little bit combative.

  Shaking his head, Steven said, “You know, if it’s you saying that being gay is wrong, then you’re calling me wrong, and Trent wrong, and like, half our friends wrong. So…sorry if I’m not jumping on board your crazy train every time you tell me that being myself makes me a sinner.”

  “I wasn’t even talking about you,” I protested, but it was half-hearted. I felt blood rushing to my face in a heated blush.

  “Whatever,” he muttered, turning back to lead the way to where Taylor waited at the bar.

  I exhaled in a rush and followed him, and when I caught up, he was whispering something to Tay and patently ignoring me. I scooted up onto the stool on Tay’s other side and acted like it wasn’t bothering me. Tay laughed at something Steven said, nodded and said, loudly enough that I could hear him, “Oh yeah, man, I can do that!” Then he sauntered off onto the dance floor.

  Steven stared at me from across the space Taylor had just vacated, an evil grin beginning to spread on his lips.

  “What?” I asked nervously.

  He shrugged and leaned on the counter, whispering his drink order into the bartender’s ear. I was still watching him when Tay returned with a tall, dark-haired man wearing a black t-shirt, muscles busting out from under his sleeves. He nodded at Taylor once, smiled, and leaned up against the bar right next to me.

  “Paul?” he said in a low voice. “Your friend said he’d introduce me. I’m Eric.”

  My mouth went dry as I looked into his face. He had easily, hands down, the sexiest face I had ever seen—beautiful lips, long eyelashes, dark eyes. I swallowed and tried to answer, but my voice came out strangled and high-pitched. Embarrassed, I tried to choke back my formal, “It’s nice to meet you,” before he heard it and laughed in my face. But Eric smiled, leaned even closer, and growled in my ear, “Let’s dance, gorgeous.”

  Still feeling numb, still feeling like this was all happening to somebody else, I let the man lead me onto the dance floor, feeling Steven’s eyes bore into my back. I realized this was his doing; he must have asked Tay to introduce me to this guy. I knew at once what he was trying to prove, and it wouldn’t work. I was sure I had more self-control than that.

  Eric was dancing with his arms around my waist protectively, smiling down at me. I could see that while he had his arms around me, no one else was approaching. His hips ground against mine, and my dick started to wake up again. Great. Just what I needed. Eric kept smiling, and it was this cocky, arrogant look that somehow made me even more turned on. The numbness started to ebb, and my heartbeat picked up speed. I liked being looked at like that. It stirred that feeling in my stomach that I had spent years crushing. I wanted him to like me. Tentatively, I returned his smile.

  Almost as soon as I did it, Eric bent down and kissed me, a ferocious, wet, probing kiss that left me rocking on my toes. I had never been kissed like that before; the only other boys I’d kissed had given me such careful kisses. Even Jamie, whose lips still haunted my dreams, hadn’t kissed like this. Eric knew what he was doing. His hands snaked around my waist, lifted my shirt, probed underneath, and finally reached my shoulder blades. When I pulled back to gasp for breath, he brought his hands around to the front of my body and ran his thumbs over my nipples. I gasped at how good it felt, how it made my dick stand to attention. Remember the exhibitionism thing? Yeah, that was back.

  Eric kissed me again, still rubbing with his hands, and before I could help myself, I was grinding against him. I felt his smile against my lips, and then his hands were on my blue jeans and he pulled me close to whisper, “Wanna get out of here?”

  I pulled back, feeling guilt slam against me. Get out of here? That only meant one thing, right? I couldn’t think of anything to say, but I licked my lips and he took that as a yes. His hand enveloped mine at once, and he dragged me off the dance floor to a darker corner behind the bar. I wasn’t sure where he was taking me, because the exit was in front of the bar. Then I figured it out. Fuck. He was taking me to a back room. I knew what happened in those rooms. And it made me even harder.

  Eric was several inches taller than me, so I had to hustle to keep up with him as he led me by the arm. I thought that once we got into the room, I would just tell him I had to leave. No harm done. Maybe I would say I have a boyfriend or something—

  My thoughts were suddenly arrested when we turned a corner and found ourselves in a wide, dimly lit hallway with doors on either side. It smelled like men’s cologne and sweat—sexy and intoxicating. I wondered where we were going, but it was so hot and shadowy that I was having trouble staying alert. I realized that the men we were passing on our left were having sex, right there in the open, both facing the wall and moaning. I would have been horrified if it wasn’t so hot. I knew it was wrong, did I ever know it was wrong, but I wanted that. That was exactly what I wanted, and when Eric turned and smiled at me over his shoulder, I could tell that he knew it. My dick was so hard I didn’t think there was enough blood anywhere else in my body, and
I couldn’t be thinking straight. I almost laughed. Not thinking straight was the problem, wasn’t it?

  When we reached a corner, Eric turned and pressed my back into it, holding me stiffly by the wrists, and hissed, “Okay if we stay out here?”

  I was confused at first, but then I realized he meant as opposed to a room, and I definitely didn’t want privacy. The idea of doing this where everybody could see—it was literally all I could think about. So I nodded and he smiled and leaned in to whisper, “Let me put on a rain jacket.”

  I watched in the dark, still throbbing with want, as he pulled a condom out of his pocket, unwrapped it, then unbuttoned his slacks and rolled it on, nice and slow. Holy hell, he was big. If I thought it had hurt with Jamie, I didn't know how I could handle that. But then I glanced up at his eyes, and saw that he was watching me watching him. He loved it. I almost laughed at the narcissism of it, and the way he reminded me of Tay a little, tiny bit too much for comfort—a thought I quickly swallowed back as he grabbed my hips and spun me into the corner. I thought regretfully that I hardly even got a good look.

  I fumbled, shaking, to undo my jeans, and when they were loose, I felt Eric’s hands helping me pull them down, fingers dragging over my skin. I leaned my forehead against the place where the walls met, only half-aware of the words Eric was whispering in my ear, telling me how sexy I was, how he wanted me the moment I walked into the bar, and he couldn’t believe I wanted him, too.

  I heard another packet tear, and then Eric had one hand on my hip and the other tentatively jabbing between my legs. I felt a finger press inside me, cool and wet, and I lost myself, lost everything.

  Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I remember thinking this was a bad idea. I remember convincing myself that I didn’t want this, that it was wrong. But that thought was so distant, so clouded and far away. I felt vaguely surprised that my inhibitions, that my morals, could fall away so easily. Just like they never existed. I knew this wasn’t like me, but then I didn’t really know who I was at all, did I? I always did what was expected of me, or what I’d been told was right. Never what felt right.