by Daryl Banner
Connor stares at me, deadpan. “The sound of you lying to yourself is literally painful to hear.”
“I don’t think I’m ready,” I blurt suddenly.
He frowns at me. “What do you mean you’re not ready? For what?”
“The real thing. A guy like Skylar. Whatever could become of us. He needs a man who can take care of himself and be an adult. That’s clearly not me. At least not yet. I’ll probably be a late bloomer. I’ll still be a frat boy when I’m forty.”
“But … isn’t that what he loves about you?”
I laugh. It doesn’t last long. “You know what, Connor? I think I’m finally tired of feeling sorry for myself. I just want to get drunk tonight, dance ‘til I lose half my clothes, and take home the first guy who twists my nipple.”
Connor’s face scrunches up cutely. “That’s an oddly specific bit of criteria.”
“It’s a metaphor, Connor! A metaphor!”
“I don’t think that’s what that is at all. Are you sure this is a wise idea? Partying tonight?”
“Nope!”
Connor frowns. “I’m calling Lex and Omar.”
It turns out not to matter whether it’s a good idea or not, because two very fast hours later, I’m down the street at a nightclub called Polar Bar. Its sign squeezes a tiny “e” in the word Bar, making it appear as “Bear”. No one really knows whether to call it the Polar Bar, or the Polar Bear, or the Polar Bear Bar. But that doesn’t seem to matter either, because it’s actually half a nightclub and half a bar with an Antarctic theme, bluish lighting, and tons of sweaty, shirtless boys dancing and shouting and having a great time from wall to wall.
And I’m right in the sweaty middle of it. If you zoom in really close, like a super gay Where’s Waldo illustration, you’ll see my plastered face as I laugh and bounce and sweat my ass off on the floor.
Just another Saturday night for Big Bro Brett.
Fast forward an hour of who-knows-what, and I’m pissing my brains out in a bathroom that has urinals that look like upside-down igloos.
I hope it’s actually the igloo I’m peeing into.
Also, everything I see, I’m seeing two of.
I have no idea how it happens, but before I can blink again, I’m strutting down the street among a group of at least twelve shirtless bears, twinks, and a fifty-something in a top hat. I don’t know any of them, even though they all seem to know me from my “epic parties”, and it doesn’t faze me. Anyone I pass on the street, I high five like a best friend. Isn’t this what my life’s all about? Look at how not-alone I am! Somehow, a hotdog ends up in my hand, which makes me laugh, and I’m chomping it down while one of the twinks I’m with cracks jokes to me, all of which apparently fly over my head.
Then I’m on a barstool at Aubergines, and I have no idea how I got back here, but Lex and Omar are on either side of me, and I have a feeling I just got a lecture about something I was supposed to be paying attention to.
And against all logic and reason, and despite my somewhat inebriated state of mind, I spot a suspicious figure by the dark curtain leading to the backstage. He isn’t anyone I recognize. And after a moment of uncertain peeping over his shoulder, the figure slips past the curtain.
All of my protective instincts are triggered.
“Uh, where you going?” Lex calls at my back.
I cut through the crowd, bump into a table (causing some dude to shout, “Hey! Watch it!”), and slip past the dark curtain.
It’s so dark back here, I almost walk straight into a black-painted brick wall. Squinting in the darkness, I feel my way toward the narrow hallway leading to the performers’ dressing room. “Where the hell are the damned bouncers or whoever?” I mutter at one of the dancers walking by, who gives a roll of his eyes as he moves along.
Before realizing it, I’ve pushed my way into the dancers’ dressing room. It’s surprisingly bright. A long mirror runs down one wall with lockers and rows of costumes lining the other wall. The room is empty, since most of the dancers are on the stage performing right now. Somehow, my eyes aren’t blurry and I’m not staggering anymore; some kind of superhuman focus has taken control of me, and my heart is racing with a fight-or-flight response.
Past the rows of costumes, I find a nook where the room bends, opening up to a small shower and bathroom area. It’s there that I find a strange guy with a backpack propped up on one of the sinks.
The backpack is open. He’s rummaging.
“Who the fuck are you?” I exclaim.
The man jumps out of his skin, then falls right back into it and stares at me, his eyes as big as his face. “I w-was just—” He drops the whole backpack, its balance on the sink lost, and all the contents spill to the tile. “Fuck! I, uh … I was …”
My eyes drop to his hands.
He’s holding two silvery thongs.
Yes, even in my state of mind, I am very well capable of deducing a few things. “Are you stalking Zak? Wait. Is that his backpack? Are you going through his things, you fucking weirdo?”
“No! I-I mean—” He gulps. The thongs—which look like Christmas ornaments—are visibly shaking in his hands, shimmering. “I’m a f-f-friend of his.”
“Yeah? You’re Zak’s friend, are you?” I come right up to him so fast, he literally yelps out like I just spanked him. “Prove it then. Tell me what his real name is, Mr. ‘Zak’s Friend’.”
He drops the thongs. “R-Real name??”
“What’s Zak’s real name??”
The man might have already shat his pants. I should be careful not to make that an unpleasant reality for us both.
Also, I hope the guy doesn’t call my bluff.
Because even I don’t know Zak’s real name.
“I’m sorry,” he quietly whimpers, giving up his whole Zak’s-friend charade. “I just … He just …”
“Well, c’mon, then. Tell me. What the hell are you hoping to achieve back here? Steal some of Zak’s used undies?”
“Maybe. N-No. Yes. No. Yes.”
“That’s it, huh?” I scoff at him, disgusted on behalf of Zak, whose actual name I suddenly very much want to know. “Fetch yourself a possession that belongs to the guy you’re obsessed with? Press it to your face and sniff it next time you wank off in your lonely little fifth-floor apartment? Recall the days you guys were in the same frat, and kick your own ass for every time you could’ve had fun with him, but instead let it all slip through your fingers?”
My head spins.
I take a step back.
Did I seriously just compare my love for Skylar with a creepy dude’s obsession with Zak?
“Y-Yeah, I guess,” the guy confesses nervously. “Something like that. Except for maybe the frat part. W-Was that a … a metaphor …?”
I glare at him. “I suck at metaphors.” I’m on him at once, gripping his shirt and putting my face in front of his. “You realize Zak’s an illusion, right?”
His big blank eyes are his answer.
“He doesn’t exist,” I state, spelling it out. “Zak, or the notion of what you think Zak is, is just some big, elaborate fantasy you’ve built up in your head. Beyond the beauty on that stage, there’s a human being who is likely nothing like the muscle demigod you fap to at night. He’s got dreams. He’s got a life. He might be boring, or nerdy, or—for all we know—straight. The point is, you don’t know him.”
I don’t want to look to confirm it, but I think I might have been wrong about the shitting-his-pants bit; I think he’s pissing himself instead.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. Do you want to make a deal?”
He blinks. “D-Deal? What deal?”
“Forget Zak. Let my words of wisdom sink in. Find someone in the real world. Go on a fucking actual date. Never come back to Aubergines. And I won’t call the fucking cops. I’m here just about every night, and if I see you here again, I swear, I’ll make you suck Larry off for penance. Got it?”
He squints at that last part,
confused. “Who?”
I don’t even know why that part came out. I’m gonna blame the alcohol. Or the street vendor dog I downed. “Never mind. You gonna fuck off now?”
He nods so quickly, his head might fall off.
I let go of his shirt, and the guy scurries away. “And I’m serious about that finding someone in the real world to date!” I shout as his scuffling footsteps carry him out of sight. Soon, all that surrounds me is the ringing silence of the empty dressing room.
I peer down at the toppled backpack and all of Zak’s things on the ground.
“This place needs some better security,” I state prosaically to the empty room.
Or maybe I say it slurred.
I don’t know.
For the next five minutes—and while my head spins from a definitively killed buzz—I thrust all of Zak’s things into his backpack where they belong. Among his stuff (not that I’m taking inventory) is a bunch of colorful thongs, a plain white t-shirt, and a paperback book called The Inventor with a strange geometric shape on its cover.
Just before I zip the backpack closed, I notice a tiny charm wedged inside between his shirt and the book—a golden lion inscribed with “PAYTEN”.
Is that “Payten” a name? Or is it “pay ten”, like a reference to a dancer’s tip?
“Thanks, man.”
I look up. Standing at the entrance to the bathroom area is the slender, toned form of Zak in just a pair of royal blue bikini briefs. He holds a pair of pants and a shirt by his side, which I guess he stripped off on stage. A black cap presses all his hair down flat, his forehead glossy from sweat.
“For what?” I mutter belatedly.
“I saw you dealt with my … ‘fan’. Dunno if we should dignify him with that title.” Zak chuckles to himself, then comes up to me as I rise to my feet. He takes the backpack from me. “I appreciate it.”
“No prob. Connor mentioned something about a stalker you were dealing with. I saw the guy slip back here, and …” I round on Zak suddenly. “The hell kind of security does Larry hire here, anyway? How can some rando-guy make it all the way back here and get to your personal stuff?”
Zak—who appears cool-mannered and entirely unfazed by this whole thing—just shrugs and says, “Usually there’s at least one or two of us back here, but tonight we all had a group routine on stage. I guess lesson learned, huh? Besides …” He shoves his backpack into a nearby locker, then shuts the door. “My fault for leaving my shit out in the open. That Connor roomie of yours … He’s alright.”
I find myself smiling. “Yeah, he is.” Perhaps in my drunkenness, I can’t refrain from letting the question fly out of my mouth. “Who’s Payten?”
Zak’s smile fades.
Uh oh. I struck a nerve.
“Sorry,” I mutter, dropping the question. “I’m kinda wasted. I’m not gonna remember any of this in the morning, anyway.”
“Don’t worry about it, man.” Zak gives me a wink, at once excusing his brief moment of stiffness at my questioning, then proceeds to fish through the costume rack in search of something. Deciding my purpose here is fulfilled—and maybe Zak needs some space to get ready for his next show—I excuse myself from the room, narrowly dodging the door as I almost walk straight into it.
The second I emerge from backstage, Connor, Owen, and Lex surround me, and I’m showered with compliments for “dealing with the creep” and “saving the day” and a hundred other things I’m not sure I deserve credit for.
“Seriously,” Connor tells me. “You took the initiative and did what I was too chicken to do. I mean, that was pretty brave.”
“Brave … and a little foolish,” puts in Lex.
It doesn’t make a difference what my “heroic” and “responsible” act was, in the end. A drink finds my hand a second later, Owen and Lex are at my side by the stage, and the three of us (plus a few others who followed me here from the Polar Bear Bar, I’m guessing) perform our own little routine in front of the stage, dancing until we’re numb.
The rest of the night is a blur of shouting, thumping beats, and laughter—and a ringing, nagging, aching feeling that something vital is missing from all of this.
18
I open my eyes.
The very first thing I see is the discolored spot on my ceiling. And the very first thought I have is Skylar Haas and the lack of his body next to mine.
By the way, how did I get home?
I turn my head. A guy is snoring on the bed next to me—a guy I don’t know.
I sit up at once. The whole world rotates like a loop on a rollercoaster, and a crashing headache throws my hands to my head. “Fuck!” I cry out.
The dude stirs, then lifts his head. “Morning.”
“Jesus, hell, fuck! Please tell me we didn’t have sex last night.”
He scowls at me, remembering. “Ugh … nope.”
I lift an eyebrow at him. “Nope …?”
He pushes himself off the bed, rubs his curly head of hair, then gestures at me. “Do you see all your clothes still on? No. Clearly we didn’t fuck.” Then he mumbles, “Not that we could with all of your sad crying and blubbering …”
I squint at him, not following. “My … what?”
Apparently this guy is very annoyed with me. “I was in need of a little relief after my hard week at the dentist office. Do you remember that?” he adds as an aside. “The part about me being a dental hygienist?”
“Uh … no, sorry,” I choke out.
“Anyway, you never had the intention to do anything with me. All you did was cry about some guy from your frat days called Skylar you wanted back. I felt sorry for you and kept you company—for all the good it did. I had to console you like some kind of sad girlfriend.” He yawns. “Ugh, why do I always get stuck with the ex-obsessed weirdos?”
“He wasn’t my ex. He’s …” I peer up at the spot on the ceiling for some reason. A smile finds my face. He’s my cute little pinhole I can’t live without.
“Yeah, yeah,” he groans, “I’m about up to here with who this Skylar guy is. Sorry to be rude about it, but I need to get home and jerk off now. And to think, I could’ve gone home with that hot DJ guy Parish.” He inspects his phone after pulling it out of his pocket, then sighs. “I must’ve dozed off. It’s eight in the morning, if you care. We were barely asleep for three hours, it would seem. Wow, I’m full of beer. Where’s your bathroom?”
“Wait, wait, wait.” I feel like I’m still playing catch-up. “I was … crying … about Skylar? Like, actually crying? Tears?”
The guy—whose name I certainly don’t know—looks at me. Suddenly, the irritation drops off his face, and a look of sympathy takes over. “You are clearly crazy about this guy.”
“I am?”
“Yeah. Crazy with a serving of crazy on top. It’s kind of … sweet, actually.” He smiles faintly. “I can’t remember the last time a guy made me feel the way Skylar obviously makes you feel.”
I bite my lip, then slowly nod. “He’s definitely a great guy.”
“And unless this frat boy is a totally lost cause, it’d be my … a’hem … professional recommendation … to call him up and make this big love between you guys happen one way or another.” He chuckles to himself as he stuffs away his phone. “It isn’t often I’m encouraging men to satisfy their sweet tooth, but it’s also not often I end up in a bed with a guy I didn’t fuck … or even kiss or cuddle for that matter. Ugh, this weekend’s a bore.” With that, he goes to seek the bathroom himself, departing my room.
I stay on my bed, fully clothed, staring through my opened door. I spot Lex on the couch, snoring, with an empty pizza box resting on his chest. I’m guessing Connor is in his room, too. I don’t know if they encouraged any of my crazy behavior last night, or if they were looking out for me the whole time, ensuring I didn’t do anything I’d later regret.
Maybe they knew I’d wake up with this feeling. The realization that I’ve let something precious slip through my fingers …
something called Skylar.
Something I need to get back.
19
I grip the bar over my head, focused with mad concentration on where the train heads.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
I glance at Connor, hanging on to the bar next to me. “I have no other choice.”
“He isn’t answering your calls or texts?”
“None. I tried all morning. And I know he’d be awake by now, so I think he’s ignoring me.”
Connor yawns, then rubs his eyes. “I still wish we’d gotten breakfast before we left. After a night like last night, I could devour four plates of eggs.” He glances back at me. “Are you sure the address is right? We’re way past Uptown now. I would’ve gotten off four stops ago to get to Alan’s.”
“Yeah, I know where we’re going,” I assure my roommate, then nod ahead with purpose. “Straight into my future, that’s where.”
Connor makes a face. “Hmm, ‘kay. That’s nice and everything, but I was meaning more literally.”
It’s three more stops later that we finally get off the train and climb up to the streets. Connor and I wade through the busy Sunday morning traffic up a few blocks, then cross the short bridge separating the west side from the east. Connor remarks about how beautiful the sun looks over the skinny river, scattering its warm golden rays across the water in strips and shards. I give it a look, but find myself too taken with a different beauty to even appreciate the sight for longer than two seconds.
Skylar’s beauty outmatches a hundred sunrises.
I know. I’m so gross in love, right?
We reach the other side of the bridge in twelve long minutes, and after cutting hurriedly across a busy avenue lined with vivid green trees preened to perfection, we arrive at last at the front door of a sightly and well-kept townhouse.
“We could’ve taken an Uber,” Connor points out, “and saved ourselves an hour of walking.”
“Extra cardio,” I throw at him.
“Goodness, look at you.” Connor observes me. “You can’t wipe the smile off that face of yours.”
I take a breath, staring ahead at the door. “I’m happy. I’m where I’m supposed to be.”