Gay Fiction, Volume 1

by Mel Bossa

  “And then what?” he prompted.

  “I told her I missed you. She said whenever she missed you, she went into your bedroom. So…that’s what I did. I sat on the bed for a few minutes. Then…I fell asleep thinking about you. About us. I woke up. It was late. I thought she was asleep. But she wasn’t.”

  Diego turned away from me and faced the icy trunk of the tree. “I should’ve been there,” he said. “You know I didn’t want to go on the tour. I hated leaving you. I won’t do it again, Justin. I can’t take being away from you.”

  “Every second of it was agony for me,” I said. “Twelve days have never felt so long.”

  He faced me again. I reached up and pushed his electric blue, magenta, and black bangs away from his tear-filled eyes. “Who did all this?” he asked. “The service? The funeral? The flowers?”

  “Starsky took care of everything.”

  “But why?” he said. “She doesn’t really even know me. Or my mom.”

  “Because she’s my friend, Diego,” I said. “Not everyone in this world is like Nina.”

  “I don’t know how I can look her in the eye now,” he said. “I’m so angry with Nina. How can I work with her?”

  “Can’t you just fire her?” I asked. “She hates her job anyway.”

  “Are you kidding?” he said. “Now that we’ve got the record deal and they shipped out our new single to every radio station in the country, there’s no way we’ll get rid of her. She’s milking us for every penny she can make. She gets twenty percent of everything. We all signed the contracts.”

  “I understand she has a business relationship with you and Athena and Mary Jane, but to make a profit off her own daughter…that’s disgusting.”

  “It’s all about money now,” he said. “It’s not really about the music anymore. We haven’t even started to make some noise in the industry and I’m already sick of it. I just want to write some amazing songs and play some kick-ass guitar…just like Jimi did.”

  “And Halo? What does she think about all of this?” I asked. “Why isn’t she here, Diego?”

  “Brenda’s in rehab,” he said. “She needed to sober up for a few days. She drank so much in Paris, she puked all over the stage during our show. The club owner wanted to sue us but Athena paid him off. It was a bad scene. The three of us threatened to quit the band unless Brenda cleaned up her act. Nina forced her to go to some place near the beach.”

  “So, then…what now? What’s next for you guys?”

  He sighed. “Another tour.”

  I felt my body tense up immediately. “How long?” I asked.

  “Twenty-four cities in five weeks. Las Vegas is up first. Then Los Angeles. New York. After that…who knows?”

  “Five weeks?” I said. “I’m not going to see you for five weeks, Diego?”

  I feared his answer. School was over until January. I would be completely alone. The only thing I’d have to keep me occupied was work.

  I’ll work extra shifts. I’ll find a hobby. I’ll buy a fucking cell phone.

  I felt his palm against the small of my back. “No,” he said. Our mouths were only inches apart. “You’ll see me every day.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, staring him in the eyes.

  His lips curled into that delicious crooked smile I found so irresistible. It was impossible to refuse him when he turned on his charm. “I’ve already made the arrangements,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

  *

  Diego and I retreated to my apartment after leaving the cemetery. We didn’t say much. We didn’t kiss. We loosened our ties, peeled off our sport coats, kicked off our dress shoes. We curled up next to each other on the futon and fell fast asleep.

  I dreamed he and I were in the apartment he’d grown up in. It was night. I was sitting on the worn-out sofa. Diego and his mother were dancing together around the living room, bumping into the wooden edges of furniture, knocking over pictures, laughing. I cheered them on, clapping and stomping my feet. The song they were moving to was in Spanish. I couldn’t understand a word of it, but the upbeat energy of the music made me happy.

  Mother and son hung on to each other, breathless and smiling, speaking silently with their eyes. I never wanted them to let go.

  The sun was just starting to rise over the city of Chicago when Diego and I were woken up by the electric buzz of his cell phone. He rolled over and reached for the phone on the floor.

  “Hello?” he said. His voice was heavy and gruff. “Yeah…we’ll be there.”

  I stood up and moved to the coffeemaker in the kitchenette. “Everything okay?” I asked once his brief call had ended.

  “How fast can you be packed and ready to go?” he asked. “That was Athena. We have to be to the airport by nine.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. “I can make it,” I said. “I need to call Starsky, though. I don’t want to leave her stranded. She’s depending on me to be there to help out at Clouds.”

  Diego moved to me. He pressed me up against the edge of the counter. I could feel heat generating from his body. “I need you with me,” he said into my mouth. His kiss felt angry, almost violent. He pulled away from me and moved toward the bathroom.

  A few seconds later, I heard the squeak of the shower faucet and the usual thud in the water pipes as they sprang to life.

  I turned toward the cabinet and reached for the canister of Folgers.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I wasn’t expecting Darla Madrid to be in Las Vegas, but there she was in a white faux mink coat, a sparkly pink tube top, rhinestone-studded cowgirl boots, and a mirrored miniskirt that reminded me of a disco ball. Her dark hair was huge and barely moved, sprayed into place within an inch of its life. She was wearing big sunglasses and way too much perfume. She looked like she’d crawled out of an ’80s heavy-metal music video.

  Whitesnake, anyone?

  Darla picked at her fake bubblegum pink fingernails and sighed every few seconds to remind all of us how incredibly bored she was. When that didn’t get her the attention she was craving, she crossed—and uncrossed—her legs repeatedly. Each time she offered a free peek at the asset she’d used to land herself a record deal and a manager / fiancé who was twice her age and half her height.

  She hadn’t said one word to me in the five minutes we’d been in the same room. She refused to make eye contact with me, even though I gave her death stares from where I sat, a few feet behind the members of the band—sans Halo. Nina stood near the exit door, hovering over her musically inclined meal tickets like a pterodactyl. Diego sat between an irritated Athena and an overmedicated Mary Jane.

  Geoffrey Cole was short and squat. His little feet barely touched the goldenrod-and-burgundy carpet of the empty ballroom in the hotel. He was shoved into a cheap suit and tie, sitting in a metal folding chair with a yellow legal pad balanced on his knee and a stubby pencil clenched in his meaty hand.

  We were the only ones in the oversized room. On other occasions, I’m sure the ballroom was a great location for conventions, seminars, and wedding receptions. Today, it was the meeting place for an interview between a new band and an old reporter.

  Apparently, the interview had officially begun.

  “All right,” Geoffrey started. “First question. How long has the band been together?”

  Darla decided to chime in. “Too long,” she sneered.

  I thought Nina was going to leap over the band to strangle the skinny bitch. “The band has been together for three years,” she said, boring a hole into Darla’s forehead with her silver eyes.

  “But those years were bad,” Mary Jane said. Her eyelids were so heavy she was struggling to keep them open. I predicted she’d nod off before the interview was over. “Real bad.”

  Athena jumped in. “We couldn’t get a record deal. So we were playing a lot of bars and clubs. It was rough.”

  “And then your first single came out and it was an instant success for the band. Your song was already
on the charts before the record deal.”

  “None of this was instant,” Diego reminded the round-faced journalist. “We worked our asses off to get where we are today.”

  Nina’s tight smile made her look like she was in pain. Did she have a spasm in her neck? “And they’ve loved every minute of it. Can’t you tell?” she said.

  “What about the name?” Geoffrey grinned, revealing a slight overbite. “Where did Sour Kitten come from?”

  “That was Halo’s idea. She just likes the words together. It doesn’t conjure up a single image. It’s noncommittal…like us. We’re constantly changing,” Athena explained.

  “Change is good,” Mary Jane echoed, staring at invisible specks of dust floating in the air around her chair. Maybe she saw something that the rest of us couldn’t.

  “Speaking of change,” Nina said, “the band is now called the Jetsetters. It’s in their new press kit, Geoffrey. I had a copy of it sent to your room earlier.”

  “I read it,” he stated, “but I like Sour Kitten better. The Jetsetters sounds too pop to be punk.”

  “They were never officially Sour Kitten,” Nina continued.

  “And we were never officially punk either,” Diego added. “Not even close.”

  Nina put a hand on Diego’s shoulder, silencing him. “They started out as Broken Corners. Then the name was changed to the Jetsetters at the suggestion of their record label.”

  Geoffrey raised his squinty eyes and met Nina’s. “I’m well aware of the history of the band,” he said.

  She could barely contain her rage. Her earlobes were purple. Her nostrils flared. She saw red and was ready to charge. “Look,” she said, struggling to maintain her composure, “I know this interview is important. But they need to get upstairs and get some rest before their sold-out show tonight. We’re leaving for L.A. in the morning.”

  “I still need to interview Halo Jet,” he insisted.

  “Don’t you mean Brenda Stone?” Darla taunted. “Last time I saw her, she was passed out in an alley.”

  “She used to be your favorite singer,” I reminded Darla. “You used to live and breathe for her.”

  Darla still avoided my eyes. She shrugged and said, “People change.”

  “Apparently they do,” I shot back, “but not always for the better.”

  Nina stepped forward, and one of her four-inch heels barely missed Darla’s foot. “I can arrange some time for you to meet with Halo,” she said to Geoffrey.

  “Where is Miss Jet?” he asked.

  “Probably puking her guts up,” Darla offered.

  Nina spun around and raised her arm as if she were about to backhand Darla. I wished she would have. Instead, she lowered her arm just as fast as she’d lifted it, catching herself and grasping for self-control a millisecond before her temper got the best of her. Before she annihilated Darla Madrid with her bare hands. Instead, Nina closed her eyes for a few seconds and exhaled deeply, finding some form of peace within.

  I smiled. Darla was closer to the truth than she realized. Halo was upstairs sleeping off a relapse. She’d been released from rehab earlier that morning. She stayed sober long enough to get to the airport. There, she wandered into the first bar she found and killed off nearly an entire bottle of tequila before stumbling onto the plane. Sitting in first class, she drank herself into unconsciousness, unaware the flight had landed in Las Vegas. Finally, two sympathetic flight attendants piled her into a wheelchair, pushed her into the terminal, and left her there to fend for herself, passed-out drunk. A security guard found her, retrieved Halo’s cell phone from her purse, and answered it the fifth time a shrieking Nina called.

  A half hour later, Halo arrived in front of the casino in a shuttle van, not sure where she was. Nina paid two hotel maids to stay with Halo, get her showered and cleaned up and pumped full of black coffee.

  “Halo was feeling a little under the weather,” she said to Geoffrey in a sugary voice that none of us bought. “I’ll arrange for you to meet with her after the show tonight.”

  Mary Jane sat up, suddenly alert. “Can we go soon?” she asked. “I feel like nothing important is being said here.”

  “It’s journalism, Mary Jane. It’s their job to make things seem more important than they actually are,” Diego said to his band mate. “But really, it’s just a bunch of words on paper with little impact.”

  “You’re quite a pessimist, aren’t ya, Diego?” Geoffrey shot at him.

  Finally, Darla acknowledged my presence. “That’s not all he is,” she said, and pointed at me. “Ask him.”

  I mouthed the words “fuck you” to Darla, who appeared shocked and insulted by my response. Her mouth even dropped open. I secretly wished Athena would’ve had one of her drumsticks on hand to silence the newly born monster once and for all.

  “No, Geoffrey, I just don’t like reporters,” Diego said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they don’t seem to like our music. I’ve read the early reviews of our new single. They’re not taking us seriously.”

  Geoffrey smirked. “And with a name like the Jetsetters you expect to be taken seriously? You’ve only recorded one original song so far. It’s a good one. I’ll give you that. But the rest are all covers. The Yardbirds. Berlin. Concrete Blonde. Who in the hell are the Jetsetters? What is your sound?”

  “Our music speaks for itself,” Diego said.

  “It does,” Mary Jane agreed. She tilted back in her chair and put her arms behind her head. She looked up at the ceiling, at the twinkling of the chandeliers. “Lock yourself in a room and turn off the lights and put on some headphones and find a really good pillow. Then lie back, close your eyes, and enjoy the ride. If you do that with our music, you’ll have an awesome time.”

  Athena tugged on the sleeve of Mary Jane’s blouse. “Jesus, Mary Jane, get a grip.”

  Geoffrey leaned forward in his seat. “One last question, and it’s the obvious one,” he said. “Why make music? Why be in a band?”

  Diego flashed his smile, cracked his knuckles, and answered with, “Why else? We wanna be fucking rock stars.”

  *

  I was surprised to find Diego waiting for me the minute I stepped out of the shower. I thought he was asleep on the king-sized bed, taking a power nap.

  I knew we were pressed for time. According to the detailed schedule Nina had drilled into each of us after the interview with Geoffrey, the band needed to do a sound check and some radio promo spots, autograph some T-shirts for a giveaway, pose for some photos for local papers, and perform later that night to a sold-out crowd of nearly two thousand people.

  “Hey,” I said when he suddenly appeared in the doorway of the marble-tiled bathroom in a pair of white boxers and nothing else. Like our room, the bathroom was grand and impressive. I felt like I’d won something from a game show: a week-long stay at a fancy casino hotel. “You ready for the show tonight?”

  I reached out and wiped a hand across the thick layer of steam covering the mirror above the double sinks. In the glass, I saw him appear behind me.

  He started to kiss my neck. His lips brushed against my skin. I felt his hot breath. There was urgency in it. He reached around my body and pinched my nipples before trailing his fingertips down my stomach. I shuddered from the sensation. Before I realized what was happening, Diego ripped the bath towel away from my hips.

  “Diego—” I started to say.

  He reached inside his boxers, pulled out his hard cock, and bent me over the sink. I grabbed onto the smoothed edges of the marble counter. I closed my eyes when I felt him slide slowly inside me. A low moan tumbled out of me. It felt that good.

  I could see him in the mirror, thrusting against me. His bangs fell into his eyes as he started to pump me as hard as he could. There was intensity on his beautiful unshaven face; a hot lust was burning in his expression.

  “Fuck me,” I begged, encouraging him to go even deeper.

  Moments later, an orgasm rippled throug
h his body. He collapsed on top of my back and whispered “I don’t think I can live without you” into my damp skin.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I don’t really remember how Halo Jet and I became close friends, but our lives started to merge after the show that night in Las Vegas.

  I was standing backstage in a green-tiled corridor, waiting for the band to finish their last song. The fluorescent lights above me flickered and twitched, reminding me of the hallway at my hometown high school. It felt like a hundred years had passed since I was that quiet, shy kid who rarely spoke from the back of the class, terrified if I opened my mouth everyone would discover the deep secret that I liked boys.

  I noticed him at the opposite end of the hall. He was pacing back and forth outside of the dressing room door with Halo’s name on it. He was holding a white envelope. He looked a few years older than me. He was taller, had an athletic build and shaggy brown hair. I wondered if he’d gotten lost on the way to a frat party.

  Nina was on him like a mother tiger. They exchanged heated words. I strained to hear what they were saying, but the roar from the audience muted their conversation. By the flashes of anger on Nina’s face and the college boy’s insistence, I knew our surprise guest was also an uninvited one.

  Mary Jane stumbled down the metal steps from the back of the stage. She reached for the railing to steady herself. She looked down at her glittery platform shoes and said, “Shit.”

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “That was crazy, Justin,” she said. I had no idea she even knew my name, or anyone else’s, for that matter. “The audience—they knew the words to most of our songs. How did that happen?” She blinked at me a few times, perhaps considering I was personally responsible for teaching the entire audience the lyrics.

  “Was it a good show?” I asked.

  Athena appeared on the steps behind Mary Jane with a pair of drumsticks in her half-gloved hands. She was covered in sweat. “They’ve never screamed like that before,” she said, wide-eyed and flushed. “Never.”