Sparkle: The Queerest Book You'll Ever Love (5 page)

I don’t really remember anything after that. But I do remember where I woke up the next morning. I know it had to be really early, because it was just starting to get light outside and the room had a faint blue-gray glow to it. I blinked a few times and forced my eyes open to look around. I say forced, because it felt like my head was being crushed by a thousand-pound weight. Beneath a boulder. Everything looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. It was all sort of déjà vu-ish. So I just rested there, very still, and tried to let my mind go over the details of the night before. And then a new thought popped into my head. Because it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn’t wearing any clothes. And, wouldn’t you know it, at that very same moment, I felt another person behind me as I heard a rustling noise.

Very slowly, I rolled over. I kept my eyes closed and pretended to still be asleep. Why? Fuck if I knew. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. Remember, I was still new at this (but learning fast). After what seemed like an eternity, I blinked open my peepers, and there they were: those same steel, blue eyes I’d seen just before William kissed me.

“Morning, Secret,” he whispered, with a wry grin, probably the same one the Devil gives you just before he tosses you into the lava pit.

“My name’s Bruce,” I mumbled back.

“Let’s stick to Secret,” he countered with, drawing ever nearer. I knew I should’ve hated him. I knew I should’ve jumped out of that bed, found my clothes, and hightailed it out of there. But, damn it, he just looked so… so… well, he
just looked,
and, like a deer caught in the headlights, I stayed put.

“What time is it, William?” I asked, terrified of the answer.

“It’s almost seven, why?” he answered, and my head pounded.

“I have to be at work by eight.” I felt like crying. I probably should’ve asked for the day off, but I needed the money way too much to have done that, smart as it might’ve been. And I, not in my wildest dreams, ever expected to be where I was right at that very moment.

“Don’t worry, you can shower here, and then I’ll drive you over to the restaurant. You’ll be there in plenty of time, and I guarantee you’ll be wide awake and ready to serve your pretty, little ass off.” He was still grinning when he said that and then he put his index finger beneath my chin and gently leaned in and gave me the softest, sweetest kiss.
Good morning to me
, I thought.
And what in the world am I getting myself into?

Chapter Two

Homo We Go

Well, that was a lot to take in, wasn’t it? But I did have to fill you in with some background tidbits, right? Get all the main characters into play for you, I mean. Okay, maybe now I’ll take it a little slower. Huh, what’s that you say? You like it fast? Fast and furious? Is that how you like it? Well,
yippy
, ‘cause that’s how I like to give it, Baby. In other words, you better put your helmet and shin pads on, because here we go…

Needless to say, getting out of bed was tricky. As you may or may not remember, guys who are twenty-one tend to wake up with, how should I put this delicately, a raging hard-on. (Hmm, delicate no, visually appealing, most definitely.) And, even though my head was splitting, I had enough sense not to lead William on, tempting as it seemed.

“Mmm, could you shut your eyes, please?” I pleaded, with as much dignity as I could muster.

“Mmm, no way, Secret. Anyway, I already saw it. How do you think you got that way to begin with? But fear not, Sweetie, I was a complete gentleman. And, uh, by the way, most gay guys these days trim those nasty little pubic hairs. I mean, seriously, I found a spare set of car keys tangled up in there last night.”

How, exactly, do you respond to something like that? So I just laid there and looked pitiful until he finally relented and shut his eyes. It was then that I quickly got up, found my clothes, and got dressed. Luckily, boners go down just about as fast as they go up, because I really didn’t want to remain naked for very much longer than I already had been.

Modesty, however, may have come easy for me, but not for William. No sooner was I dressed, and there he was, springing out of bed and making his way to the dresser. William, being twenty-two, was just as easily
up
as I was, so guess what I got a gander at? And, no, he couldn’t have cared less and merely started rummaging through the top drawer of his dresser. I hadn’t a clue what he was looking for and, to tell the truth, I had my eyes on something else. I mean, I’d only ever seen someone else’s prick in magazines and in gym class, and then they were soft and non-threatening.
This
sucker was big and hard and pointing right at me, like a divine divining rod.

“Better watch out, it senses fear,” he said, with a chuckle, and then tensed something to make it bounce. I gulped and turned three shades of red (they were… wait a minute, we’ve done that one already. Let’s add a fourth one then: fire-engine.)

“I wasn’t looking. I was just…”

“Yeah, yeah, right, whatever.” He shook his head and walked back over to me. In his hand was a little baggie with some powder in it. Now, I may have been unlearned way back then, but even I knew what he was handing me. “Here,” he said.

So there I was, face to face with my first hard-on (that wasn’t my own) and my first bag of coke. (Decisions, decisions.) Despite my better judgment, I took the coke, even though
it
was behind curtain number-two and I wanted the box where Carol Merrill was standing. (Twenty-one, friend. Keep reminding yourself of that. It’ll make it easier to explain the choices I made.)

“Take it. Trust me, it’ll make your day go by a lot faster and easier.” And with that, he produced a little, silver spoon, grabbed my free hand, and sat me back down on the bed. Then he reached below his bed and pulled out a little, square mirror. (By the by, his pecker was still standing at attention. Honestly, I didn’t know whether to look away or salute the damn thing.) “Okay, I take it, by the look of terror on your face, that this is your first time. (Oh, if he only knew.) So, I’ll go first. And if you want to play with it, go ahead,” he said, very matter of factly, before glancing down at his manhood and them back up to me.

So, as he gingerly poured the white powder onto the mirror and spread it out with the blunt end of the spoon, I grabbed my first, my very first (oh, I just love this part of the story) penis. Penis, penis, PENIS! (Shout it like Oprah does; it helps to get the point across.) There it was and there was my hand around it. I, Bruce Miller, was holding onto an honest to goodness, hard as a rock, prick. Hallelujah!

And, as I stroked it, which wasn’t easy because my hand was shaking life a leaf, he was snorting the coke from the little, silver spoon. First one nostril and then the other. “Bird can’t fly on just one wing, can it?” he said, sniffling, before handing me the spoon, newly filled for yours truly.

I shook my head, not knowing what the hell he was talking about. All I knew was that I had to let go of something that I had waited my whole life to hold on to, only to grab something that I had no desire for whatsoever. In any case, I reluctantly let go of his willy and apprehensively snorted the white stuff. (Bad choice? Please. As if you’re so perfect.)

I have one thing to say: yuck-the-fuck-o. It tasted horrible going down and it burned just a bit, too. Then, before I could even get my wits about me, William filled the spoon again and placed it beneath my other nostril. “Toot, toot, Sweetie. Up the hatch now.” He sounded like a mother trying to feed her baby. Anyway, I blindly obeyed, shook my head a little, like I’d just taken some bad-tasting medicine, and forced a smile on my tired face. (Okay, I know I’ve said this already, but drugs are bad. Just say no. Usually. And only do it if the situation calls for it. Which, of course, this one clearly did. Then look up
justification
in the dictionary and find a picture of yours truly.)

“Thanks, William. Much appreciated.” Suffice it to say, I wasn’t talking about the coke.

“Okay then, let’s get me dressed and get you to work,” he said, jumping up and back over to the dresser, where he set the baggie down and rustled about for some clothes to wear. Believe it or not, I was kind of relived to see him get dressed, seeing as I didn’t know how much more of William naked I could take. Honestly, if Michelangelo really was gay, imagine what he went through staring at the guy who posed for his David day in and day out.

Thankfully, it didn’t take William long to get some clothes on, and, before I knew it, we were out of the house and into his little, red Corvette. (No, no song references here, easy as one would’ve been; he really did have a little, red Corvette.) William looked like he was born for that car of his, too, and when he put his big, black Ray Bans on, man, let me tell you, it was fantasy made flesh. My heart, by then, was racing as fast as the engine. (Oops, did it again; I forgot I was on drugs.) Quite suddenly, my head was reeling, my feet were tapping, my hand was slapping my knee, and I was up, Up, UP and away.

WHOOSH
!!!

Well, I hated to admit it, but those couple of bumps really did the trick, and when I looked over at William, he had the biggest shit-eatin’ grin on his beautiful face. He was just smiling and nodding and vibrating all over. Least he looked that way to me. Maybe, in reality, it was me that was vibrating and he was sitting still. Whatever. Because the effect was the same. Then he cranked up the radio and we both looked at each other again, and at that exact same moment we both started singing to
Rock Lobster
, something about boys in bikinis and girls in surfboards. (B-52s reference there, Sweetie. Dig it.)

That’s when I felt it, too. Do you ever have that feeling of rapture when it just, you know, dawns on you that you’re alive and breathing and happy as all fuck? When that great, big slot machine of life tumbles over to triple sevens? Well, that was what I felt like right at that split second. Yes, yes, I know it was the coke and the cool San Francisco air hitting me in the face, but all I was certain of at that moment was that I was happy, and, whatever the cause, I for one wasn’t knocking it.

“Secret?” William said, staring at the road ahead, that mesmerizing grin still plastered to his equally mesmerizing face. The sun had fully woken up and, looking in the rearview mirror, I could see the patches of green grass on Twin Peaks as the fog began rolling in over the hills. It was a perfect summer morning in the most beautiful city in America.

“Yes, William,” I replied, now staring straight ahead, not wanting to miss a moment of the picturesque scenery. (Plus, looking at William still made me a trifle bit nervous.)

He began to nod. “The way I see it, we have two choices. One, I can keep driving and, in about five minutes, we’ll reach Joe Joe’s and you’ll get out of the car and go into the restaurant, where you’ll serve hung over queens and tweeked out clubbers for the next eight hours. Oh, and that shit you snorted will wear off right about the time every one of your tables has been seated and twenty other people are waiting for a chance to fill one of them the split second they become available.”

“Or?” I wondered, not really liking the first option.

“Or, two, we can turn around right here and keep driving until we’re far, far, far away from Joe Joe’s. And far, far, far away from the tweekers, geekers, slackers, hung over, fucked up, drugged out messes of humanity that you call customers, and be somewhere… somewhere (and here he pointed hither to the north)… somewhere where there are no people ordering coffee or asking for change for a five.”

“And where, pray tell, would that be?” Forgetting that, not only did I have to be at work in approximately five minutes, and that if I failed to perform that duty, I would, no doubt, be unable to pay for food, gas, rent, or (heaven forbid) a new bottle of Wet.

“Black Sand Beach,” he answered, smiling and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Blondie was now singing
One Way or Another
. Somewhat prophetic, huh? You betcha!

“You know, I really can’t William. You live high up in your ivory tower without fear of starvation or homelessness, but I need Joe Joe’s to live. To eat. To sustain my meager existence.” I sighed, heavily. “Maybe you should just take me to work.” Now, I may have said it, but it was obvious from my tone that I clearly didn’t mean it.

“Way too melodramatic, Sis, for this early hour of the morning. I mean, please, you’re like twenty-one or something, probably fresh out of college, and Joe Joe’s was, like, the first paying thing that came along. Am I right, Secret? Am I?” Of course, he didn’t wait for a reply. “Well, just sit there and stop your fretting; Auntie William will take care of everything.” (Hey, you up there, are you sitting there screaming at me right now? Are you shouting no, No, NO! Don’t do it! No good can come from this. Well, are you? Yeah, smart of you. Bravo, Einstein.)

Well, he was right about one thing; I did take the first thing that came along. And, to tell you the truth, it wasn’t all that hard to get that job. There had to be a million jobs just like that or better, in fact. So I sat there for the next couple of minutes, as we drew ever nearer to the aforementioned dining nook, and I tried to convince myself that William was right.

“Fuck it!” I soon relented, throwing my arms up as I motioned William forward, willing my brain not to think of the dire consequences.

Again, I was only twenty-one. William was also right about that. Meaning, common sense and thinking things through were not my forté. And if I’d waited one more minute, I probably would’ve changed my mind. I do like to eat, you know. But I threw caution to the wind (I threw it, but it came back and whopped me in the face. Yep, the breeze was that strong) and I chose the road less traveled.

“Fuck it!” William shouted back. “Fuck the whole damn thing!”

And we were off. Not surprisingly, the elation I’d been feeling just five short minutes earlier had given way to an awful feeling of doom and apprehension. What, I thought to myself, had I just done?