Glamourpuss

by Christian McLaughlin

  My buzz had plunged the entire club into a languid torpor — even my recently relentlessly teased dick was re-hardening in slow-motion. Paul was asking me if I’d “done” any of the guys on the show. Please… I haven't even done lunch with any of them, I thought wildly. His encroaching steely thigh cozied up to my crotch and he leaned in to kiss me, Eternity zapping one of my nostrils, Aussie hair products the other. I looked over his shoulder — where the hell was Swann?! Not that they really had a future if he was staying in the Air Force — and saw Trevor Renado strut by. It couldn’t be… right? I practically fell over trying to catch another glimpse before whoever it was disappeared into the mass of tightly compressed tight-bodies. There was no way. But — I started to drift through the throng, Paul and his brazen distractions already a blurred memory.

  ​“I thought you were being molested somewhere,” Sara said, latching onto my arm.

  ​“I was! Sara, Trevor’s here! I just saw him!” Words were gooey caramel nuggets I could barely spit out.

  ​“Trevor? That slut from L.A.?!” she shouted dubiously. “How much did you drink?”

  ​I tried to protest while continuing to scan the hard-to-focus-on crowd. Paul was back by the bar, Swann sucking on his neck like those white-trash Lost Boys. “Come on, sugar. Let’s go!” Sara started to guide me out. I needed help. Before we got to the exit, I turned for a final survey of the dance floor. It was him. Dancing to “Like A Prayer” in black bike shorts, an art-deco crucifix whipping against his flawless, shirtless chest, like he’d been wardrobe styled after consultation with the DJ. I had a perfect five-second strobe-lit view, then he was swallowed up by a hundred sweaty, pumping, gyrating gays. I backed into a wall and would’ve gladly slid right down it if Sara hadn’t yanked me away with impressive strength and coordination. We sailed out of the club and into the October night, which still sighed the warm breath of summer.

  ​“Puke in my car and you’re hitchhiking home — contract player or not.”

  APRIL 22, 1990

  ​“For Christ’s sake, don’t call him,” Sara said. We were in direct violation of her apartment complex’s pool rules (eating tortilla chips) while lounging under a killer sun two days after I’d first kissed Nick. “It was bad enough you made plans before he walked out the door,” she lightly chided, flicking a bit of tomato-stalk from Vanessa’s otherwise amazing home-blended smoked-chipotle salsa.

  ​“I know, I know,” I snapped. My Hook’em-Horns-burnt-orange Psycho Beach skin looked oh-so-lovely next to my blue Speedo. I wondered what the introduction of actual sunlight would do to my complexion. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be more screwed-up than my state of mind.

  ​When Nick had left my place with a promise to day-trip to Houston with me the next week, I’d tried to remain calm by doing Spanish homework and taking a long, hot shower, but had ended up masturbating (twice) and staring at a Meredith Baxter/Lisa Hartman infomercial for 45 minutes… in that order. It had been too late to call Sara, and of course phoning Barney with my big news was tragically out of the question. Somehow I’d made it through the preceding 36 hours, including two perfs of Psycho Beach Party/Vampire Lesbians and a leisurely lunch before one of them with my parents, who’d driven up to see me onstage. “Doing that play is really great for you, honey,” my mother said. “You’re practically glowing.” Well, actually, Mom, it’s ‘cause I finally went down on the man of my dreams. Please pass the pepper.

  ​If I’d been a mess worshipping Nick from afar, I was now a complete shambles. Had I worked six grueling months to get close to him for a 15 minute payoff that would make it impossible for him to face me again, much less fall in love with me? Before he left, he’d hugged me and said not to be afraid. “You’re not scarin’ me away,” he almost sang, softly, in my ear. What did that mean? How could our friendship continue if I could never touch him again?

  ​Any time I wasn’t concentrating on something immediate and specific, my brain would lapse into a slide show of magic moments from That Night. I constructed an elaborate fantasy based on the knowledge that Nick & Dogface’s lease was up in July; it ended with a euphoric cohabitational montage of me making the two of us brunch while Nick landscaped our yard, intercut with bringing him to unimagined heights of sexual satisfaction whenever I could coax him out of his pants.

  ​In the real world, Nick was nailed down as far as the trip to Houston went, but I had no idea how to proceed once this could-be romantic idyll was underway. “How do I make the physical part happen again?” I asked Sara.

  ​“If you try to make anything happen, the whole thing will probably explode in your face. And not the way you’re hoping.” She reached into the ice chest and dug out a couple of non-diet Dr Peppers. She had something against NutraSweet. Not that a few tablespoons of sugar mattered one way or the other to me. I was already as jittery as I was ever likely to get without the aid of a controlled substance.

  ​“It’s just that I’ve always had to be the aggressive one, and I doubt he’s ready to start initiating things, even though he’d probably be receptive if I did.” I was rationalizing in a mad attempt to get Sara’s approval to jump Nick’s bones on Monday.

  ​“This situation is so dysfunctional,” she lamented. “You probably will need to make the next move.” Goody. “But it’s dangerous.”

  ​“How?”

  ​She slathered sunblock on her arms and drum-taut stomach. “Your relationship’s changing. It’s at its most delicate right now. Before you get nasty, you have to be absolutely sure it feels perfectly relaxed and okay. If you force it, I can’t be responsible for the consequences.”

  ​“I’ll be careful,” I promised. I strolled over to the pool and jumped in. When I came up, shaking water out of my ears, Sara was talking to me. “Huh?” I hoisted myself out of the water on diligently toned triceps, flicking my eyes down to make sure the swimsuit wasn’t dipping below the close-cropped pubic timberline.

  ​“I said you don’t seem too concerned about your Shakespeare audition.”

  ​I wasn’t. It was hard to muster up enthusiasm for a summer doing six of his plays in sweaty, Ridley Scott-ish Houston, even though auditioning for the goddamn festival was the whole purpose of the Nick trip. If I were cast, I’d probably tell them no. They were bound to put the company up in some disgusting community college gymnasium, so conjugal visits from Nick would be out of the question. We went inside and I explained this to Sara while she packed for a quick run to San Antonio. After a couple more warnings about keeping my lust and insecurities in check, she took off.

  ​I was playing Edie Brickell loud and cleaning my apartment the next day after my matinee and didn’t even hear the phone ring ‘til my machine beeped. “Confess at the sound of the tone,” I quipped on the outgoing just before Nick started talking. Hands foamy with Softscrub, I ripped it off the hook, causing piercing feedback whine. “Nick! I’m home,” I blurted.

  ​“How’s your weekend going, Mr. Young?” Nick asked, the voice of Texan friendliness.

  ​“Awesome,” I insisted. Thank God you called. Please don’t tell me it’s over. Please, Jesus, please. “We still on for tomorrow?” I sounded pretty flip considering I was digging my nails into my palm hard enough to raise welts.

  ​An eternity, then: “Sure. I’ll come by around ten. You playin’ hooky?”

  ​“Sort of.” I love you so much. Eyes closed, I affectionately stroked my cheek with the receiver. “My acting teachers know I’m auditioning. I can afford to miss Spanish.” Mi corazon es tuyo. Vamos muy lejos de aqui, guapo.

  ​“Stay out of trouble ‘til then, okay?”

  ​“I’ll try.” We hung up. I threw on a t-shirt and drove around until I found an open car wash. Then I hit Whole Foods for road snacks to add to the Cokes and seltzers I was packing in Sara’s borrowed ice chest. I found a bag of miniature high-end dark-chocolate-covered peppermint patties, Nick’s favorite. I decided it would be too Good Housekeeping to go whole-hog and make us submarine
sandwiches to sheath in extra-large Zip-loc bags, then coincidentally passed the condom display. If only.

  ​I took a hot shower before I went to bed, and looked at myself naked in the mirror after toweling off. I shoved my face in close to the glass and discovered a lone blackhead, which I promptly eliminated. Then I stepped back and surveyed the entire package. Nick could do a hell of a lot worse. Christ, he had been… for years. But, of course, there was more to life than defined pecs, a cute little puss and above-average wang. “I love you,” I practiced saying to the mirror. I cocked my head slightly to the right, displaying my best profile, looking into my eyes. “I love you, Nick.” There was no way he would’ve agreed to this trip if he didn’t want to see me anymore. I went to sleep and tried to dream about him.

  ​He knocked punctually the next morning. I opened the door, jazzed to the point of breathlessness… and I knew everything had changed.

  ​“Hi,” he said, with a smile about one-tenth as big as it should've been. He stood in the doorway, shoulders rigid, hands stuffed into the pockets of his shorts. The same red shorts I’d gone exploring under several nights ago, I noted with a fluttery twinge.

  ​No kiss. No whispered “How y’doin’, Alex?” while he embraced me and laid his head on my shoulder. No nothing.

  ​As I grabbed my backpack and the ice chest and set the A/C to 70, I thought for a brief but crystalline-lucid moment about calling the trip off. But no, I went bravely and stupidly down to my car with Nick and drove us to fucking Houston.

  ​As each dull prairie mile of the nearly three-hour ride unfurled, I became more confused and uneasy. Nick had never been this quiet and withdrawn. I had to fill up the tomblike climate-controlled space by randomly babbling about any neutral subject I could latch onto: my family, the Student Association elections at school, rayon versus 100 percent cotton. Nick chatted back at the most minimal level.

  I thought of a dozen ways to start a conversation about what had transpired between us and what it meant to the direction of my life. Any of them would’ve been deadly.

  ​Things went from weird and tense to embarrassing and infuriating when I took the wrong exit for the University of Houston and we ended up 15 minutes late for the audition. Nick went to the bookstore while I ran to the drama department, found a bathroom, toweled the sweat off my face, and then was told by a weasel-faced beret-head signing people in outside the auditorium that I’d missed my appointment and would have to wait an hour. While I deliberated about spending it in the bookstore, a white woman with dreadlocks came out, asked who I was and ordered me into the auditorium. After chastising me for being late, she made me sit backstage. “We’ll see you in a minute,” she snapped.

  ​I tried a few quiet warm-up exercises as some hopeful’s bombastic monologue echoed through the building. It was no use. Alone in the dark, the reality of the situation with Nick set upon me like a flock of evil birds. How could things have morphed from the tender, erotic revelation of our most private and special feelings to the impenetrable malaise of today? How could I ever find the Nicholas I’d become close to and nurtured and made able to trust me, and bring him back from whatever icy tower of guilt he’d exiled himself to? It beat the shit outta me…

  ​When the lords of the Houston Shakespeare Festival finally summoned me, my performance was mediocre at best, but a hell of a lot better than the quiet, strained dinner Nick and I underwent at the intimate Italian restaurant I’d carefully selected from Vanessa’s Houston guidebook. Depending on how the day went, I’d planned on suggesting a movie at the River Oaks Theater. Needless to say, we headed for Austin as soon as final mouthfuls of food had been swallowed.

  ​Conversation was sparse and superficial. About 45 minutes into the drive, Nick fell asleep. I initially thought he could’ve been faking it to avoid further interaction, but occasional glances (every three seconds or so) showed him to be genuinely unconscious and thus relaxed: head tilted gently onto his left shoulder, legs spread, hand unclenched and resting at his side. After 20 minutes of vicious deliberation, I reached over and carefully closed my hand around his.

  ​He started to stir a little when we were about a half-hour outside Austin, and I let him go, blackly thinking I’d touched him for the last time. At my building, I got my backpack and the chest containing a couple quarts of melted ice and the uneaten mints out of the backseat. Nick surprised me by wordlessly following me upstairs. It was almost dark. He excused himself to the little boys’ room. I’d just gotten a multi-CD player… oblivious to the current contents, I turned it on. Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits played.

  ​Nick returned and sat a respectful distance from me on the couch. We talked a little about my summer plans (zilch) and his upcoming Bar Review course and job-hunt. Then he yawned and said “Sorry I’m so tired. Guess I’m worn out.”

  ​Terrified, I slid in closer and started to massage his neck. His head drooped forward. Everything was okay after all! I let out a quiet, shuddering sigh of relief. Then with the first chords of “Sara” softly filling the room, I stopped kneading Nick’s tense neck muscles and kissed him. As I did it, inside my head I heard the real Sara screaming, “No, no! Big mistake!”

  ​“Alex,” he said, pulling away sharply, “we can’t.” I put my hands on his shoulders and kissed him again. “We can’t.” Louder this time. Like I was a date-rapist.

  ​“Why not?” I whispered.

  ​The sea of love/where everyone would love to drown, Stevie Nicks chanted. I tried to kiss him one more time, praying that his defenses would crumble in the wake of our muscular, chest-to-chest contact. This ploy worked like shit.

  ​Nick stood up. “I know this is what you want, Alex. It’s what you need, but I can’t enter into that type of relationship right now.” It was such a lawyerly thing to say. What it meant was that everything I’d worked so hard for since spying that open backpack in the library was demolished — because I couldn’t take a fucking day-long hint and give him his space and play it cool and keep my goddamn paws off him. I started to cry.

  ​In the weeks to come, I replayed the revised, corrected version of this scene in a torturous, endless brain-loop. Instead of mouth-to-mouth contact, I continue with his neck, bringing both hands into play. His head rests on my chest while I work his shoulders with rhythmic firmness. He relaxes and is still and I hear his breathing even into sleep. I barely kiss his cheek, then luxuriate in the closeness, the warmth, the delicious smell. He sleeps.

  ​Nick put his hand on my back and sat beside me. He held my hand, fingers interlocking with mine. Everything was out of my control. I wiped my tears away, hating myself, hating the day. “I can’t help the way I feel,” I managed to choke out. Brilliant.

  ​“I know,” he said. “It’s painful. But you’ll find somebody…”

  ​“Don’t say that!” I hissed. Then I looked him in the eye and broke another sensible rule of romance: “What about the other night?”

  ​He shook his head. “A moment of weakness.” What poisonous, awful bullshit.

  ​“You’re not weak, Nick. Please stay. I won’t…”

  ​“I gotta go home,” he said, standing up, fumbling for his keys. I didn’t hear the door slam because I was sobbing.

  ✽✽✽

  Dear Alexander, I just had to tell you what happened at my job! See, every day me and my girlfriends on the floor watch Hearts Crossing during our lunch hour. So yesterday, our supervisor Mr. Hyde (uh-huh, that’s his name, child) toted his big white ass into the break-room and planted himself right smack in front of my favorite and only soap to tell us we gotta be takin’ half-hour lunches for the rest of the month!

  ​I said, “Uh-uh, child, you gotta be joking — when Alicia’s about to discover that diary’s a big ole nasty fake?! Now you’re tellin’ ME to move my onion outta this room? Look here, sucka, you can just go find yourself another g-d nurse, ‘cause I ain’t even missing her OR my Simon, not for one lousy episode! I gotta put up with needles, enema bags and pap
-smears all day and you tryin’ to eliminate my one hour of happiness?! Excuse me, I don’t THINK so!”

  ​And don’t you know he marched outta there pronto and not one more word was said about it! He knows I’ll file a g-d union complaint in about 19 seconds if he start messing with my soap.

  ​Anyway honey, you’re as cute as pie and bad to the bone and we all cannot get enough of you. Sincerely, LeRoi-Jacques Fortenberry III, RN, Atlanta, GA

  My mother was wrong. The fat blonde in the QVC Fashion Channel sequined sweater hadn’t been following us around North Star Mall since we left Crabtree & Evelyn. It was a coincidence. Yes, I’d seen her at the pet shop, browsing dog-beds while I admired the iguanas. And she did just happen to be coming down the escalator when we were exiting Dillard’s. The last straw for Mom was seeing her carry her Corny Dog tray to a nearby food court table, where she and three other gals happened to be positioned for an unobstructed view of us enjoying a politically incorrect Chik-Fil-A luncheon. “I’m telling you, they watch the show,” Mom said, careful to avoid eye contact with any of them.

  ​I started in on my second sandwich. “Even if they do, they don’t know it’s me. I don’t look as good in person.”

  ​“Sweetie, that’s ridiculous. You’re beautiful.”

  ​“Thanks, Mom.”

  ​It was the day after my Austin adventure. I’d woken up late, thinking about Trevor for some reason, bars of noon sunshine striping my lovingly preserved high school bedroom. It took a few seconds for me to remember what had taken place the night before, as it always does when something great or really shitty has just happened, so that every time one awakens one re-experiences the thrill/devastation anew.

  ​Dedicating my morning erection to Nick, I embraced one of the massive, April-fresh pillows and buried my face in it, reliving the delicious pressure of his lean hard body on top of mine, simultaneously soothing and ferociously exciting. Then Mom knocked softly and I cleaned up my act and told her I’d love to go shopping with her. So here we were.