Gulliver Takes Five
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 Justin Luke Zirilli
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by AmazonEncore
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612184234
ISBN-10: 1612184235
In memory of my father
Have fun laughing obnoxiously and dancing in Heaven
SERVANDO AND ROWAN’S RANDOM REUNION
Have you ever asked yourself the question, where was HE last night? I know I have, quite often. Whether you’ve wondered where a friend was during a wicked-crazy party, or where your boyfriend was when he was supposed to be at home sleeping, or where YOU’VE been when you’ve awakened the morning after, still in your clothing, on the floor of your apartment.
Well, turns out readers ask that question too! In my first novel,
Gulliver Takes Manhattan
, I introduced a gay twenty-something Angeleno named Gulliver who left home to escape an asshole ex-boyfriend, moving to New York City to live with his best friend, Todd, in the up-and-coming gayborhood of Hell’s Kitchen. There, he quickly became friends with Todd’s core crew: Rowan, Servando, Shane, and Brayden. Due to a couple of bad decisions (including secretly dating Brayden’s ex-boyfriend, Marty, and engaging in some extramarital adventures with a seemingly random guy named Chase on Fire Island), Gulliver found himself homeless, jobless, and caught in a struggle to stay in the city. Desperate and driven, Gulliver ultimately chose to work in porn, and became an adult film celebrity in the process.
In the original novel, there comes a pivotal, dramatic, and surrealistic scene where Gulliver does something he probably would never have imagined he was capable of. I won’t ruin it for you if
you haven’t read it yet. In that scene, all of Gulliver’s exes, friends, and confidantes are strangely (mostly) absent. Where are they? How are they not at this major event? Everyone wanted to know. And, luckily, so did I.
This novel will show you that each of those other characters had VERY good reasons for his absence. I penned the collection of five first-person accounts you are holding in order to answer this question: Where were Brayden, Marty, Chase, Todd, Servando, and Rowan on the night when Gulliver took the stage at the “Gay Party of the Century,” otherwise known as eWrecksion?
Why did I call it
Gulliver Takes Five
? Two reasons, really. One, we have five tales within these pages. And two, Gulliver gets to take a blessed break from talking your ears off about his drama. (Don’t worry, he’ll be back in the third book.)
Writing this so soon after my original novel was an exciting adventure. I got to jump into each of my characters’ heads and write five tales that all occur on the exact same day, a day that occurred during the timeline of
Gulliver Takes Manhattan
. Just think of this as my written version of the Oscar-winning film
Crash
, except with a lot more sex and bitch slaps. Hopefully you’re in the mood for something of that nature.
Okay, you’ve heard enough from me. I’m going to shut up and let my gay boys do the talking. Have fun.
—Justin Luke
Christian isn’t up yet. He’s breathing deep, sprawled in a position that looks like a marathon runner midstride, about to sprint through the wall and out to the street below. And if the past four Saturdays are any forecast for today, he’ll be down for the count for another hour. Loverboy didn’t get home from spinning his weekly gig at Splash until 5 this morning. That means I have plenty of time to make this absolutely perfect.
So that’s what it’s going to be.
There’s a “Happy Anniversary!” card hidden under a stack of
Next
magazines in the kitchen. There are four more drafts in the garbage, buried under Chinese take-out containers, just in case Christian decides to dig through the trash for some reason. Those first four didn’t get my feelings right—either too sappy or too presumptuous or too formal or too blasé—but the fifth time’s the charm. I really hope he likes it.
I also got him that plug he’s been drooling over since he first fell in love with it at Sam Ash. I have no idea what it does or how it does it, but he said it’ll make his sound even brighter, cleaner, crisper. If you ask me, none of these adjectives should be applied to music, but what do I know about being a DJ? For the one hundred bucks
it set me back, it better be one hell of a fucking plug. Please, please let it be right.
The apartment is silent, my guy’s slow, rhythmic breathing the only sound. Roommate Shane never came home last night (witness my jaw NOT dropping), which means Christian and I have the apartment to ourselves, to celebrate however we see fit. Will this include naked breakfast making? Stay tuned. It very well might.
Shit. Christian’s phone is unplugged. It’s sitting on his crumpled pants at the foot of the bed. When he gets up, it’ll be dead. That’s going to piss him off. Then our morning is already off to the completely wrong start. We’ll just consider a fully charged phone his OTHER anniversary present.
I pick up the phone, sort of accidentally waking it up with a clumsy thumb. A notification pops up on the lit screen.
I shouldn’t.
I must.
I can’t.
I might...
He’s dead asleep, right? We’ve been seeing each other for a month now. A month to the day since our first, oh-so-promising encounter. Someday we might share bank accounts, credit cards—and phone bills. What could he have to hide? Plus, I’m sure he has
password protection. Who doesn’t these days? So what’s one quick peek? I swipe the thing into action, only to find that not only does he not have password protection, he also has a text message waiting for him.
I’m staring at the name
Grant Majors
, the Broadway gay we met through my good friend Todd DiTempto the same night we met each other out on Fire Island (Todd made ALL the introductions that night, per usual). We’ve hung out with Grant a couple times, since he only lives a few blocks away, once to grab drinks and once to watch a DVD—plus he always has the hookup for free tickets to see his show.
Should I? No. But why not? I’m scrolling down.
It’s a photo: Grant’s ripped abs—and then some. His rock-hard dick takes up a large portion of the screen. “Good Morning Starshine!” says the caption underneath. I’m instantly pissed, and slightly aroused. I zoom in.
“What are you doing?”
Shit. My guilty hands lose their grip on the phone, sending it clacking and careening to the floor and under my bed.
“What?”
Christian sits up in bed, his hairy torso and chest puffing up and out of my bunched-up sheets. “What were you just DOING?”
“I...I was going to charge your phone. You forgot to plug it in.”
“You weren’t plugging it in. You were looking through it. I saw you!” He’s reaching for his shirt, putting it on. “And now you’re LYING about it? Son of a bitch. How crazy are you?”
Shit. The C-word. The dreaded C-bomb. When a guy drops it, I know everything around me is about to explode and collapse, leaving me with only a charred ruin to remember it by.
“How crazy am I? I’m not the one getting morning-wood sexts from our mutual friend!”
“What? Who?” He looks genuinely confused.
“Grant fucking Majors!”
This was not at all on my itinerary for this morning.
“Were you going through ALL the texts on my phone?” He drops to the floor and scrambles under the bed to rescue the lost phone, moments ago so harmless with its almost-drained battery, now a lightning rod electrifying both of us into fits of fury. “I don’t care if I’m getting underwear photos from every twink in New York State. You don’t go through someone’s phone!”
“Why is Grant Majors sending you his cock? Why is his cock on your phone?” I rush to him, pulling him up from the floor, our faces colliding.
“Why are YOU on my phone?” He pushes me away, looks down at the screen. At the incriminating cock shot. “This is the first I’ve
ever seen of it. Digitally or otherwise. I have NO idea why he sent it!”
“Do you even know what day it is? Did you have to pick TODAY?” My voice is getting higher and higher, toward the breaking point. I know what’s coming next.
“I didn’t pick anything! He sent it to me! What are you talking about?”
I know I’m going to cry.
“I’m talking about...” I begin. Then have to stop. These first words are barely a whisper; that’s all I can muster. Because there’s a sob in me looking for any excuse to break free.
“Our anniversary.”
I had intended it to be a joke. Well, half a joke, at least. Who gets someone an anniversary card after one month of dating? And not even full-on, seriously committed dating, because we’ve never really discussed where we are or where we’re headed. We’ve been spending more nights together than apart, enough for me to know Christian wouldn’t have TIME to be dating anyone else, regardless of whether or not he had the desire. So, naturally, I’d just assumed things would keep going in this direction...And yeah, maybe an anniversary card would get that conversation rolling.