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Through the Mirrorball

Page 16

by Browatzke, Rob


  “I couldn’t let him do it again, you see. He’s to blame, for what happened to my son. For what he did to himself. What Michael made him do. Not again. If he came for me, it didn’t matter. I am to blame to, for what happened. But not you. Not you, Alex. Never you.” She took my hand in hers. It was sweaty, and her eyes locked with mine, and they were wide and sad. “I never blamed you for Taylor dying.”

  She started to sob, and I could feel the tears on my cheeks. Taylor was gone, and Steven was going.

  Suddenly, I heard the sound of approaching sirens. “Steven!” I leaned down to his ear. “They’re here. Hold on. They’re here.”

  Chapter 51

  Sunday brunch at the Duchess was a tradition, but it was a tradition that was ending. Steven and I went there together, hand in hand, the Sunday after what happened in that basement. There was a sign on the door saying that the Duchess would be closing at the end of the month. The building was getting torn down to make way for another condo-in-the-sky, and the gayborhood would never be the same.

  Neither would we.

  When his bandages came off, Steven would have a scar from the bullet, but no other permanent damage. How he survived, I had no idea, but every second of every day for the rest of my life, I would be grateful he did. And I would be grateful for Sheila, for showing up like she did and saving us.

  When the ambulance came for Steven, the police came too, with their questions about what had happened. How he had harassed me, assaulted us, shot Steven. How Sheila had had no choice but to hit him with that board.

  Thank God she had.

  If she hadn’t . . .

  But she had.

  And that was all that mattered.

  That, and that Steven was wearing the ring again.

  That, and that I was now almost a week clean and sober.

  Nothing else mattered. No what-ifs. No could-have-happeneds.

  It didn’t really even matter that the Duchess was closing.

  “Except it kinda does,” Steven said, when I mentioned that.

  “Why?”

  “I always wanted them to cater my wedding,” he said, with a smile. “Our wedding.” His smile got bigger, as did mine.

  “Why all grins, boys?”

  It was Aaron, walking across the room to join us. “Not that you don’t both have cause to be happy. I am just amazed . . .”

  “Us too.”

  He had called the police, too, when I hadn’t called him back. They had gone to my parents’, but there wasn’t much they could do at that point. I was grateful he had, though.

  He sat down. “Are we having mimosas?”

  “I’m not,” I said. “You can, though.”

  “Me neither,” Steven said, “not with these pain meds.” Again, gratitude swept over me.

  “Well, I guess just OJ won’t hurt. One brunch.” He poured himself a glass from the pitcher on the table.

  “Hey, guys!” Dinah and Christopher joined us. Dinah gave us both huge hugs. I felt her belly, even if it was way too soon to feel it kick. I would be a good godfather to her child. There was that gratitude again.

  “I guess just OJ for you, too, hey, Dinah?” Aaron asked, offering her the pitcher. “You can have a drink drink, though, right, Chris?”

  “No, he’ll have juice. If I get just juice, he gets just juice.”

  “This is definitely one of those ‘we are pregnant’ things,” he said, grinning at my best hag.

  “Tell me that when you get morning sickness,” she said, playfully slapping his arm.

  “Oh God, there better be vodka in that,” Brandon said, sliding up to the table. He’d looked better, that’s for sure.

  “Rough night?” Dinah asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” he said. “I haven’t slept. God, I need a drink.”

  More gratitude swept over me, that it wasn’t me, hung over and hurting and needing that something just to face the day. Steven looked at me and smiled, and I knew he knew what I was thinking. Like he always knew what I was thinking.

  He squeezed my knee under the table and I leaned over and kissed him.

  “Aw wwwww w w w,” our friends collectively sighed.

  “Well, look who it is,” Brandon said. “It’s the Wonder Twins. I am amazed to see you guys here this morning.”

  Jesse and Colton blushed in unison.

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, just bar shit,” Colton said.

  “Yeah, nothing important,” Jesse said.

  Steven’s face fell, and I knew what he was thinking. Maybe I was getting the hang of it.

  “Look guys, don’t worry about me, or about us. We want to know what happened. Believe me, we could use the distraction. Now, tell us.”

  “Well,” Jesse said, with a look at Colton.

  “Well,” Colton said, with a look at Jesse.

  “Oh, for fuck sake, guys,” Brandon said. “I’ll tell them. So, it started on Thursday. It was just another normal night at Wonderland . . .”

  Normal at Wonderland? Normal was just a word.

  Don’t miss where it all began, in Wonderland, available now . . .

  Boy Meets Boy. Boy Loses Boy. Boy Goes to Wonderland . . .

  After six months of hot-and-heavy dating, Alex is ready to say

  good-bye to the sex-drugs-and-dance-till-dawn lifestyle and settle

  down with the love of his life, Steven. He’s even bought an

  engagement ring. But when Steven finds an illicit party favor in

  Alex’s pocket, the powder hits the fan. Steven breaks it off, and Alex

  heads out to drown his sorrows—in Wonderland. . . .

  The hottest, hippest nightclub in town, Wonderland is where every

  boy’s dreams come true. Where the DJ, Hatter, spins the maddest

  tracks, the Caterpillar sells the trippiest drugs, and the Queen of

  Hearts sends every drag diva off with her head. Still, Alex can’t stop

  thinking about Steven—even while being seduced by a pair of

  twinks who are tweedlehot and tweedlehotter. Things only get

  weirder when Alex learns that Steven is missing—and an

  anonymous phone call warns him that he’ll never see Steven

  again . . . unless he eats this, drinks that, and dives deeper down

  the rabbit hole of decadence. This certainly isn’t just another

  weekend—in Wonderland. . . .

  Chapter 1

  I looked around the club and couldn’t believe no one seemed to care. The party was still going on! In the booth, the Hatter was on the decks, spinning away, without a worry in the world, and below him, on the dance floor, it was a sea of bodies, shirtless, glittered, glistening. Strobes flashed and lasers wove among the crowd, and heads were thrown back, hands in the air, in ecstasy. On Ecstasy, maybe. Who knew? Sure enough, the Caterpillar was at his table, and people visited him briefly, their money for his drugs, and then they were off to the bathroom, to snort, to drop, to bump whatever he’d sold them.

  The air vibrated. It was the bass pounding off the dance floor, it was a hundred conversations being yelled out over the din. Here, the twins, in their matching tanks, eyes closed, muscles bulging, as they gyrated together in a cage. There, a flock of mindless twinks, fluttering about in the drama of the moment. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they care?

  I sipped my gin and cran, and shook my head. I wanted to scream! Wanted to grab some passing boy and shake him till he understood. Maybe he’d only mattered to me. Maybe I was the only one who really loved him. Maybe to everyone else, he’d just been a face in the crowd, just one nameless pretty boy among all the other nameless pretty boys.

  From the first moment I laid eyes on him though, getting into his white VW Rabbit, he had been so much more to me than just some nameless pretty boy. Sure, right then, he’d just been nameless and pretty, but for the brief second his gaze met mine across the parking lot, we connected. In those few seconds, I imagined a
hundred scenarios, and in all of them, we ended up with a white-picket fence, happy-ever-after in Suburbia, away from this sea of smooth bodies, fast beats, and hard drugs.

  Away from Wonderland.

  But no, now he was gone, and the party was still going, and I was still sitting here, on my perch at the bar, where I sat night in and night out, watching the freak-show train wreck I called my life. And no one in this club could give a shit. Give a bump maybe, or get shittered, but actually care? Actually reach out and genuinely connect with another human being?

  Unlikely.

  The Hatter spun, and the Caterpillar sold, and the people danced, and I sat there, staring at my ice cubes, thinking it was time to go home, knowing I would order one more. It was a Friday night, and that’s what I did. What we all did. We left our real world, our nine-to-fives, our condos in the sky, and we came down here, under the traffic, to a dirty little hole that lit up with beautiful lights, and even more beautiful people.

  “Another?”

  It was Brandon, beautiful and blond, all abs to the front, all amazing ass to the rear, and he was leaning across the bar. His eyes were blue, and my drink was empty.

  “Sure.” His fingers brushed the back of my hand as he took away my empty, replaced it with another.

  “On me,” he said, and he was back to the lineup. I watched him for a while, doing the graceful dance of the bartender. He spun about, pouring shots, cracking beers, dispensing drinks and flirts and seven-dollar ounces of happiness.

  I twirled the drink around in my hands. I really had had enough, and I knew I should go, but I hoped he’d come. Still. Even though the Hatter had already announced last call for the first time. Even though the last thing Steven had said to me was that he never wanted to see me again. He couldn’t have meant it though. It was the heat of the moment and when he calmed down, when we both calmed down, we’d work it out. He’d come down those stairs, and through the crowd, and he’d take me by the hand and lead me to the dance floor, and with our bodies pressed together, we would kiss under the strobe, like we did that first night, and everything would be the way it was.

  “You have five minutes left until last call,” the Hatter counted down on the mic, and Kesha mixed with One Direction, and the twinks squealed and the dance floor, already full, bulged with more people, one big writhing mass of beautiful, tragic homos. And not one of them knew or cared that he was gone, and it was over, and my drink was empty again.

  “Brandon!” I yelled as he spun past me, dropping drinks down at the other end of the bar.

  “Another?”

  “Make it two,” I said, and slid a twenty toward him. He dropped off the drinks and my change, and I took the drinks, left the change. It was just money. And his ass was easily worth the tip.

  I pushed back my stool, lurched to my feet, drink in each hand, and fought my way through the crowd. Eyes went up and down me, in that judging homo way. My eyes went up and down the people I passed, just as judging. I wove my way through fat straight girls and their skinny gay best friends, past the plaid-wearing lesbians playing pool in the corner, my eyes on the Caterpillar. I knew I shouldn’t. I knew Steven wouldn’t like it.

  But he hadn’t come. And if all these people didn’t care, why should I?

  “Alex!” I heard my name as an arm wrapped around my waist. An arm attached to the gleaming torso of one of the twins. He pulled me into him, and I lifted my drinks over his shoulders as we hugged, as we kissed each other’s cheeks. “How’s your night?”

  “It’s a night,” I said, sipping my drink, my eyes darting past whichever twin this was to the table in the corner, where the Caterpillar watched and waited. “Yours?”

  “Where’s Steven?”

  There it was. His name. Hearing it made my chest tighten. “He didn’t come out tonight.”

  “Too bad! Come dance with us!” He went to take me by the hand as his look-alike came up and grabbed me by the other. I felt my drink spill down my arm.

  “No, I was just headed home. I—”

  “One dance?” Two matching smiles, four matching dimples, four sparkling green eyes, so much muscle. How could I say no? And with Steven not here, why should I say no?

  And then we were on the dance floor, hands in the air, and I had one in front of me, grinding back into my crotch, and one behind me, grinding into my butt, and all around me, people danced and laughed and drank, and the lights were bright, and the music was wordless and fast, and faster and faster we danced, and I finished my drinks and threw back my head, and let myself get lost in the moment.

  Steven hadn’t come. I had waited and waited and waited, and he hadn’t come. He had made his choice. The twin behind me was kissing my neck. I tilted my head back and met his lips with mine. He tasted like berries.

  I twisted around so we were facing each other. Behind me, the other one lifted up my shirt, and I let him take it off. His lips were on my shoulders, and I paused briefly, thinking how I must look between their tanned and toned bodies. But then the one behind me slid a hand into my pants and I stopped thinking. And we danced and we kissed, sweat and skin and sweet sweet sin.

  In the mirror that ran along the dance floor, I saw us, and what a sight we were, the three of us, three among the many, and it was wonderful and it was beautiful and it was wrong. It wasn’t Steven. And there, at the end of the mirror, I could see the Caterpillar’s reflection, as he sat there, beer in hand, and watched and waited.

  Waited for me?

  I squirmed out from between the twins, and their hands followed mine until the crowd separated us, and I looked back at them. Their hands had found each other, and they were kissing, and people watched as they danced, because the twins were beautiful and shirtless and gleaming, looking enough like actual brothers to be forbidden, taboo, exciting. I wound my way across the floor and up the stairs, and sat down across from the Caterpillar.

  He smiled at me, raised his beer in salute. I raised an eyebrow in question, and I could feel the desperation on my face. It was late. What if he was out? He nodded, and I could feel the relief and the guilt and the excitement all mingle inside me. I slid my hand across the table, money hidden in my palm. He shook my hand, and I could feel the money disappear, feel the familiar little plastic Baggie.

  Away from the Caterpillar I went, and back through the throng, now even more frenzied as the Hatter announced, “Last song of the night.” People were flooding onto the dance floor, and I was going against the stream, headed to the bathroom, where the strobes and lasers and swirling color went away, in an ugly fluorescent glare. I locked the stall behind me, ignoring the water all over the floor, the clumped toilet paper, the unflushed bowl.

  I held up the Baggie, flicked it to loosen it, opened it up. I dipped in my key, scooped out some powder, and inhaled. My body tensed and then loosened. I was floating on fire.

  Tucking the Baggie into my jeans, I checked my reflection in the mirror, looking for any telltale signs of drug use. Finding none, and not really caring either way, I went back out in the club, where everything seemed more real now. The music was just a little clearer, the lights were just a tad brighter. The twins were still lip-locked on the dance floor. I fought my way toward them, and reached them just as the song faded away into the silence of a hundred conversations, laughter and shrieks and disjointed words.

  I was high and alive, and I had a twin on each side, and as the three of us found our way out of Wonderland and into the world above, I looked around the club one last time, and right then, I didn’t care either.

  About the Author

  Rob Browatzke has been writing for as long as he can remember, and is pretty darn excited for someone else to be reading his stuff finally! When it comes to gay bars and booze and drugs and drama, he knows what he’s talking about. He has over fifteen years of experience working in gay clubs in Edmonton, Alberta, and his current Wonderlounge is every bit as amazing as Alex’s Wonderland. Feel free to stalk him on Facebook and Twitter @robbrowatzke.
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br />   To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2015 by Rob Browatzke

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Lyrical and the L logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  First Electronic Edition: May 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-6018-3370-9

  First Print Edition: May 2015

  ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-371-6

  ISBN-10: 1-60183-371-7

 

 

 


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