Gulliver Takes Five (19 page)

Thanks to Nick, I’m in a shitty mood. I feel completely worthless, both personally and financially. I want to crawl in my bed and sleep through the next twenty-four hours, not spruce myself up for a Thai dinner during which I’ll have to nod and smile and match my date’s no-doubt-theatrical level of energy when all I really want to do is lie on the floor and take a nap. I’m already resenting this kid for taking up my would-be slumber time and I haven’t even met him yet.

He better be worth it.

Date status: epic fail. I slam back into the dorm, a bottle of hair dye in a soaking Ricky’s plastic bag choked in my right fist. The fucking asshole! That fucking piece-of-shit judgmental cunt! I will NEVER give another actor a chance. I should have quit while I was ahead. I have never felt so insulted, so pigeonholed. Backed into a corner by a stereotype that couldn’t be further from the truth—especially in regard to me. That wasn’t a date; that was a fucking gay arraignment. And he wasn’t even that fucking cute.

My room is disgustingly hot. My one window opens crookedly; I have to go from this side to that to even get it all the way up. Ah, my scenic view of the next building’s brick wall, a pair of
sneakers knotted and hanging from a fire escape. My tiny twin bed with the broken leg and lumpy mattress. My college-issue furniture.

It’s all so suffocating. I can hardly breathe.

Everything is spinning and blurring because I made the mistake of getting sloshed from too-sweet frozen drinks. I let my guard down, which sucks because my comebacks weren’t half as cutting as they would have been if I were sober. I should have just stayed home and napped, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. Now I’m drunk, SO exhausted, and goddamn, it’s fucking hot in here! Turning on the fan does nothing more than spin and blow the gross hot air around like I’m stirring a vat of soup. And, last time I checked, brick walls don’t bring cold air in through a window, so I’m fucked there too.

Oh, because I’m a go-go boy, that means I’m some drugged-up, loose-assed slut, right, Mr. Thespian? God forbid at least ONE of us transcend the piss-poor view you have of the whole lot. Have you ever even MET a go-go boy besides me? Irony of ironies is that YOU are like every other fucking actor I’ve ever met. So self-important. So sure of his stupid opinions.

Wasted time. I could have spent the afternoon out on Long Island with Nick, who’s looking much better after a couple hours opposite that drama queen. I would have gotten laid. (Since that’s what sluts do, right?) Could’ve gone shopping to kick up my credit card debt by another few hundred dollars. Instead, all I have to show for my afternoon is this bottle of bright-green hair dye and my grand plan to rock out tonight at eWrecksion.

Oh, I’m not making some radical change to my appearance because I’m pissed about a bad date—don’t give The Actor that much credit. It’s one-wash hair dye, and I was planning on doing this anyway. It’ll be back out by tomorrow (at least, I hope so).

Let’s just say that my date’s condemnation pushed me over the edge. Tonight, I’m going to make a scene. And why shouldn’t I? I’m a slutty go-go boy with no future and nothing but shame to my name; all I have to look forward to is drug overdoses, STDs, and old age (which will invariably render me useless to greater society—no one wants to see an octogenarian rocking a G-string).

So let’s put on a show. Something The Actor himself might appreciate—because, little does he know, I give the performance of a lifetime every time I’m up on that box. Why, yes, Skeezy Old Man With Foul Breath, I DO enjoy having my nipple pinched so hard I have to check to see if it’s still there after! And thanks for the dollar! If you ask me, there should be a whole separate category at the Tonys for go-go dancers. Tonight, however, I will be reprising my role as Marty Brayden’s mysterious, late-night love interest at the Screwniversity.

He’ll spot me across a crowded room, with my neon lizard locks. And it’ll be love at second sight. Or whatever. Yes, my emerald tresses are an homage to Marty’s own shock of blue. If we fuck on camera again tonight, all our fans will see is blue and green and flesh tones flying across the screen like it’s an orgy in a Crayola factory.

But not so fast—because Todd DiTempto will be there too. And if Marty Brayden wants another shot with me, he’ll have to prove
he’s worth it. All I know is, I will not leave eWrecksion tonight without either one or both of them leading me by the hand; I will not surrender to the absurd exhaustion burning my bones and mushing my eyes to putty unless it’s in one of their beds, after some of the hottest sex this city’s ever seen.

You want slutty, Mr. Actor? Well, there you have it.

When the dying deed is done, I have to admit I look cute. Like the lead singer of a ska band. I scoop up a generous dollop of gel and spike my hair into a pure Mohawk, eliminating the sides with a buzzer to make it as punky as possible. I may be getting paid four hundred dollars tonight, but this hair is gonna earn me at LEAST double that in tips.

I still have an hour and a half until I’m expected to make my grand entrance at the club, and the subway ride should take less than twenty minutes. I set about my nightly go-go prep. First there’s two hundred push-ups with my feet suspended on my bed. (I have to move my chair and desk into the corner to fit my body on the floor.) Then four hundred sit-ups, mixing up twists, crunches, and hanging crunches with my legs on the bed again. Then to the twenty-pound dumbbells, which are each lifted one hundred times. I do all of this while staring in the mirror. My body screams for a break, but that’s not on the menu tonight. To nap at this point would only end with me snoozing my alarm and sleeping through the gig. Nope. We’re in it for the long haul, motherfucker, so quit your bitching and man up.

Then I shower—it’s a quick one, since I’m too pissed to jack off or anything. I’m still a little drunk, and still PLENTY angry. After so
little sleep, even Friendly Spice has his limits. Fuck you, actor boy. I’ve had about enough of everybody thinking they’re better than me. Tonight the spotlight is MINE.

Todd wasn’t kidding when he said this would be the party of the century. Whoever he’s working with rented out an abandoned warehouse and converted it into a four-floor party wonderland. I’m riding high on the temporary boost you get when you cut in front of a line of hundreds wrapped around the block—and get a kiss from Miss Chocolate Bunny, one of New York’s fiercest black drag queens, who’s in charge of the door tonight. Good luck to her. Those boys looked mutinous and the party hasn’t even started yet.

There are no half-price drink specials, no free anything—no need to bait the boys. There’s no way they’d be anywhere else tonight. The music is deafening, the lights blinding, the beautiful guys equally blinding. I wander the many rooms, each themed and decorated differently: the Aliens Room (complete with H. R. Giger statues and masks hanging from the walls), the Rancho Relaxo (wooden fences lining the walls, lassos and cowboy hats hanging from the ceiling, even a boot rental), the White Noise Room (everything white, from the bar to the couches to the glasses), Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a room made up to look like a French boudoir, two adjoining rooms in red called the Mouths of Hell. Each impeccably decorated space has a different DJ already in the heat of his set as people enter, admire, and leave again to see what else this chaotic complex holds in store. Too bad Mr. Bad Date Actor is a self-loathing loser; he probably would have liked the theatricality of it all.

Whatever—his problem now. For me, it’s time to party.

Seriously, how can you not love gay nightlife? Yes, there’s sex and drugs, but BFD. There’s also so much more. These parties are a chance to escape the dirty streets of the city, the burning sun and judgmental glances. Your stress and your studies and your baggage all just disappear in the dark for a while, your eardrums thumping from music so loud you can’t possibly think about anything else. Cold drinks loosen you up, remove painful memories. We’re all here for one reason and one reason only: to have some fucking fun. There are a million ways to escape: with a blow job (the shot or the activity, your choice), shaking your ass atop a box for some spending cash, covering yourself with face paint and glitter (trying to outdo last week’s almost-as-fierce look), or simply dancing yourself stupid. We are all here to get away, to bring some fun back into our lives before it’s time to go home, go to bed, get up, and deal with all the shit that comes with real, regular, retarded life. To miss this is to seriously miss out.

I haven’t spied Todd DiTempto, but he must be here somewhere. He’s always the first in and last out at these things, running around making sure the bartenders know the special drinks, the DJs are ready for their contests and giveaways. The boys from New York Screwniversity have yet to arrive, I’m sure. First it’s the security, bathroom attendants, coat check, and cleanup crew, then the bartenders, barbacks, and waitstaff. Next enter the go-go and shot boys, then come the entry-paying party boys. Then, finally, the entertainment.

I return to the main floor and find the go-go changing station, off the main dance floor in a back room by the stage. A special
green bracelet that identifies me as a member of the go-go-dancing troupe allows me entry. There are already fifteen guys here in various stages of dress and undress. According to the roll call list on the wall, there will be over fifty dancers here, most of whom I’ve never met.

Wow. This party gets more and more impressive. Sure beats a night on Long Island—not to mention a shitty date.

The first shift of go-go boys are pulling off underwear, pulling on other underwear, checking tan lines, wrapping tape around their wrists, applying eye makeup, lipstick, paint, and stage makeup to their abs and pecs. They’re doing shots to loosen up, deep in squat stretches, counting off as they go through sets of push-ups and crunches. They’re figuring out their stations and the intervals at which they are expected to rotate from one room or block to the next. The management has set aside costumes for us to don as we go from room to room. Cowboy hats for Rancho, ray guns for Aliens, white gloves for White Noise. There’s themed underwear too, adorned with peppermint stripes for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or pitchforks and flames for the Mouths of Hell. There are even two full-time go-go wranglers running around like the harried stage managers at my dance shows, telling boys where to go and what to wear, making last-minute adjustments to the schedule and positions.

Since I’m already prepped as far as workouts are concerned, I only have to slip into a pair of nut-huggers provided courtesy of the underwear sponsor. My first outfit of the night is a tiny pair of briefs covered in vertical stripes of blue, green, and purple (the green being pretty damn close to my do’s new hue).

I have twenty minutes until I’m expected to be shaking my moneymaker up on the block in the center of the main dance floor. Ahead of the game, I decide to go back out to find Todd.

“Chase?”

I freeze. Nick is standing in the doorway, in a pair of underwear identical to mine.

“Chase! What the fuck did you do to your hair?”

“Nick? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Surprise!” he says, summoning a pitiful smile. “I asked Todd if there were any last-minute spaces available.”

I catch myself before mentioning that, yes, there is probably still plenty of room out on the smoker’s patio, where Nick spends all his time when he’s working.

“There weren’t, but he said I could come anyway. There’s always room for one more, right?”

“Yeah. Hey, that’s great!” I say, even though this situation is anything BUT great.

“AND he has us dancing side by side all night!” Nick cheers. “Cool, right?”

No. NOT cool. All my plans tonight were contingent on me flying solo, NOT attached to a guy who thinks he has some
kind of dibs on me just because I let him sleep over after work sometimes.

“Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t stay in Merrick tonight. I’d be dining with your parents on my own.”

“Oh, whatever,” Nick rolls his eyes. “I felt bad that you had to work tonight. I figured this was at least a good way for us to spend more time together.”