Sparkle: The Queerest Book You'll Ever Love (6 page)

Naturally, William had the cure. “Oh, I see worry on that adorable face of yours, Secret. I told you I’d take care of it. Here, take this and perk up, Sweetie. Grey clouds are gonna clear up, so put on a happy face.” Then he handed me that same little baggie. Well, I was already in it up to my chin, might as well go all the way under. (Yeah, yeah. Enough of you up there. Where were you back then when I needed you?)

I took the spoon and the mirror and took a bump up each nostril. It went down a little smoother this time. (No, a different spoon and mirror than I had used that morning. This one he pulled out of the glove compartment. That should’ve told me something right there, huh?)

The next few minutes we drove in silence. By then, my mind was racing with all kinds of thoughts. I mean, there I was, zooming to Lord knows where with a man I just barely knew and, at times, couldn’t even stand. I was jobless, presumably. I was broke, definitely. And I was now wired for sound. But then we hit the Golden Gate Bridge and I got a shot of the bay and the boats and the hills and the virgin-white fog rolling gently over the lofty, rust-colored bridge, and I just, I don’t know, I just snapped out of it. I was free, free from that crappy job and miles away from my rat-nest hovel and driving in a snazzy, red Corvette with Tarzan. And me, Jane, felt just hunky-dory. (Welcome to the jungle, friend. Keep a good grip on the vines. The drop down is a killer.)

***

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the beach. Well, not exactly the beach, mind you. The beach, as it turned out, was way, way down a dirt and rock path. Going down, in my present
up-lifted
state, should’ve be a snap, I figured; going back up looked less than promising.

In any case, we were a third of the way down when William stopped short and turned to me, pointing to the vista far below. The sky, by now, had completely cleared of the usual morning fog and was as blue as William’s eyes. I took a deep breath and looked up and then to the left and then to the right. The ocean was glistening like a diamond, reflecting under the beautiful California sun. Then I looked down at the beach, which seemed to be littered with quite a few people, actually. We moved along and I kept glancing down as we made our way along the precarious path. That, of course, is when I started to notice something a little unusual. See, all the people appeared to be males. And, getting a little nearer, most of them were,
gulp
, naked.

“Um, William, is this a gay nude beach by any chance?” I was hoping that it was maybe just National Buck-Naked Day that we’d accidentally and quite coincidentally strolled into.

He shrugged. “Yup, is that okay with you?”

“Oh, well, sure. Well, sure, why not?” I croaked out. Thank goodness we were out in the sun, because I was now as white as William’s ultra-expensive sheets.
A gay nude beach.
I mean, how was I going to lie there among all those naked gay men? I’d just barely gotten over the shock of seeing one naked gay man, and now I was expected to be surrounded by them. Thankfully, I figured, I could just lie on my stomach. All day. Until everyone else left.

A few minutes later, we’d found a nice spot right in the middle of it all as William threw down the towels that he’d brought from the car. (He must kidnap helpless, out-of-work neophytes regularly, I thought. I mean, he seemed awfully prepared for it all.) Then I helped spread out the blankets and plopped my butt down on one of them.

I looked up as William got undressed: first the shoes and socks, then the shirt, and, finally, the shorts and undies. And then there was naked William again. He was
softer
, no doubt, than he’d been that morning, but no less intoxicating. Especially with the sun right behind him and the waves lapping the shore in the not too distant distance.

“Your turn, Secret,” he commanded. “Off with it.”

“Er… yeah.” I was helpless before him as I slowly started to undress, while he plopped down on the towel right next to mine.

Naked, all too soon, and quite tense from both the coke and the situation before me, I just rested there with my eyes closed and tried desperately to forget about my current circumstances. But then a new thought dawned on me, that old proverbial light bulb turning on above my noggin. “William?” I said, one eye popped open as my head tilted to the side.

“Yeah, Secret?” he rolled over and looked down at me.

I shielded my eyes from the sun, looked over and up at him, and asked, “William, you planned this whole, entire escapade, didn’t you?”

He smiled and shrugged. “Yup.”

“Thought so.”

“Secret, don’t look so serious; everything will be fine.” And he bent down and gave me a soft, wet kiss on my mouth and then gently squeezed my privates. (Mmm, nice.) “And, if not,” he continued, “at least you’ll have the best tan on the unemployment line.”

The thought made me no less stressed out, needless to say, but I nodded just the same. He smiled even brighter and rolled back onto his towel. Oh well, I thought, at least my hangover had gone away. Things were looking up. (Wait, just wait;
looks
can be deceiving.)

***

We sat out there like that for a few hour, neither one of us saying much to the other. People walked by and stared a lot (usually at you know who), but, for the most part, we had an uneventful morning. In fact, it didn’t take too long for me to get accustomed to the fact that almost everyone around us was naked, and, after a brief time, I started to enjoy myself again. I was half-baked from the coke, basking in the sun, and, every so often, gently being stroked by William. In other words, thoughts of Joe Joe’s were quickly fading like a forgotten nightmare, like a hazy mist burned off by a brilliant summer sun.

Somewhere in the distance, I could hear Kate Bush singing about running up a hill.  William could hear it, too, and started singing along with her. Never one to miss an opportunity to sing along with Kate, I piped in with the chorus. And there we were, two naked, tweeked out, gay dudes singing and having a fine old time. A prettier sight you’ll never see. This, I figured, must’ve been what Lewis and Clark were looking for, had they been coked-out butt-buddies.

“Kate Bush fan?” I asked him as the song ended.

“Isn’t every healthy, red-blooded, American queer boy?” he replied.

“I don’t know; you tell me.” I guessed that I was in for another lesson, and listened intently.

He rolled back over my way. “Well, certainly everyone I’ve ever met is. Next time you go into someone’s home that happens to be gay, go check out their music collection. I guarantee they’ll have
Hounds of Love
at the very least, if not everything she’s ever done. (And I’ve done just that for the past decade, and, you know what, he was right. Except for lesbians. Replace Kate Bush with the Indigo Girls, then the rule holds true.)

“Thanks for the tip,” I told him.

He giggled. “Bruce, you’re kind of new at this whole gay thing, aren’t you?” He caught on fast.

“Sort of.” I hated to admit it. I mean, Kansas wasn’t exactly the place to learn how to be a card-carrying gay boy. I could, however, shuck an ear of corn in no time flat. That was bound to help me make friends and influence people, right?

“How
sort of
?” he asked, eyes now in a squint and an inch away from my own.

“Um, well, I guess about… let’s see, um… just under a few months.” I looked up at him as I said this. He was grinning down at me and started teasing my left nipple with his index finger.

“Guess that makes you more of a Fag-it that a Fagg-ot,” he said.

“And what, exactly, is a Fag-it?” I couldn’t help but ask as I propped myself up on my elbows.

“That would be a Fag-In-Training, Secret. Welcome to Graduate School,” he proclaimed and gestured down the length of the beach in front of us. (I always was a good student, and school, apparently, was back in session.) “So what exactly am I working with here? What do you know up to this point?” William had suddenly taken on the air of a learned professor, albeit a rather studly, naked one.

“Let’s see,” I said, tapping my chin. “I know that I like men. (Long pause.) That’s it. I like men.”

He smiled and nodded. “Well then, at least you have the fundamentals down. That’s a good start, Secret. Mind if I give you your first lesson?” Ooh, this should be good, I thought as I looked over at him. And I don’t know if it was the drugs (and yes, it probably was) or if it was the sun burning my retinas, but William’s eyes and teeth were, well, sort of sparkling. Actually, there was this whole sparkly aura around him just before he started in on his lesson plan.

“William,” I said and reached out to hold his hand, “if you’re going to continue calling me Secret, and I take it that you are, then I think I should be able to call you something other than William.”

“Sounds fair,” he replied, looking intrigued at the prospect of a brand new moniker. “And what would that new name be?”

I thought about it for a second, squeezing his hand just a bit, and replied, “How about… Sparkle?”

He jumped in place, like a shiver had run down his body. “Oh, I like that a lot. Okay, Secret, Sparkle it is then.” And, voila, an era was born. “Well then, now that we have that straightened out, for lack of a better tem, on to our first lesson. Pay attention because there will be a test at the end of this. Lesson One, Secret, is the easiest and most basic of all the things you can learn from me, but it’s also the most important. Ready?” he asked, looking over to make sure that I was indeed paying him heed. (Which, of course, I was.) “Right then, Lesson Number One is this: all men are pigs. Straight, gay, bi, curious, and all creatures in between. We all want one thing and we won’t stop until we get it. Do you know what that one thing is, Secret?”

“Sex?” I answered, eager to make teacher happy.

“Good boy, Secret. Sex it is. And do you know why all men have sex first and foremost on their brains?”

“Because it feels good?” I thought I had that one for sure.

“Wrong, Secret. Though, yes, it does feel good. But, no, the real reason men, and that is all men, want, need, and have to have S-E-X is because it’s programmed into us by Mother Nature herself. See, we’re all born with an innate obsession to spread our seed: to propagate the species, as it were.” He nodded and continued. “Now then, the difference between straight men and gay men is this: straight men, poor suckers that they are, start spreading their seed at a young age, just like we do. However, at some point, society, and by this I mean parents, the media, and women, start telling them that they have to settle down with one female and spread that nice, gooey, white man-sap in only that one woman. And you know what, Secret? That idiot straight man falls for this trap every time and pays for it the rest of his poor, miserable life. See, Mother Nature never intended for him to share that seed with just that one woman. No, he was supposed to spread it around to any woman, and as many women, that would have it. Much as gay men have been doing all along.” (Not me, though. Alas, my white, sticky stuff had only reached my miserable sheets thus far.)

He continued. “Now, gay men, and a few lucky straight men, rarely fall for this trick. Society isn’t telling us queers to do anything accept maybe cut hair, wait tables, serve drinks on planes, and choreograph dance recitals. Society, or I should say, straight society, has no clue, Secret. None whatsoever. Gay men, you see, are able to spread that lovely, white peter-glue from one end of the world to the other, just like old Mother Nature intended. And our poor, straight brethren are doomed, year after monotonous year, to spread their tired, old seed all on that same one woman.”

“But,” I interjected, with a hopeful look on my face, “aren’t there gay men that also want to settle down with just one other man and not spread their seed around?” I was hoping for an answer that I knew I would never get. Sparkle, you see, was nothing if not predictable.

“Oh, poor misguided waif. No, society has brainwashed these men just as they have fooled our straight counterparts. If marriage was truly
natural
then fifty percent or more of all marriages wouldn’t end in divorce and seventy-five percent or more of all men wouldn’t cheat on their wives each year. It’s simply not natural for a man to settle down with just one, or even a few, other partners. But because women have a different biological and emotional agenda than men, your average straight man, who is highly inferior to any gay man, is duped into believing that a women’s agenda is also his own. Then they grow fat and complacent with their lives. In other words, trapped.” He smiled and moved along. “Now we, on the superior side of the coin, have been operating as Mother Nature meant us to, and, as a reward, are able to
maintain
ourselves in a much more desirable fashion. We are artistic, sensitive, intelligent, motivated, caring, compassionate, and better adjusted than the vast majority of men on this planet. Not to mention cuter, hunkier, and just plain old more fabulous. And all this because we aren’t constrained to the fallacy of one man, one woman, forever. Gay men have it exceedingly better than any straight man ever will, and this is because we understand our roles as men on this planet better. So pity the straight man, Secret, and revel in your gayness. We may be in the minority, but I for one would never want to be part of that boring, complacent, bourgeois, banal majority.  Viva la Fag!” he said, raising his fist in the air.

“Viva la fag!” I repeated, also with my fist in the air, though I was a bit less sure of myself than Sparkle was. Because, truth be told, it was exactly that one-man-forever thing I was looking for. Hoping for. Praying for. Still, far be it from the student to contradict the teacher. In any case, right about then, my stomach started to grumble. The coke, it seemed, was wearing off, and I was quickly realizing that I hadn’t eaten anything all day.

“Secret?” said Sparkle.

“Yes, Sparkle?” said I.

“Your stomach is making some funny noises over there and you’re starting to look a bit pink. What say we head on out of here and go grab a bite to eat? (Music to my ears.) School is out for today.”