by David Stukas
Michael sat down beside me and sighed with complete satisfaction.
“Michael, you better fasten your seat belt—the plane’s getting ready to land.
“I think my wheels have already touched down,” he stated for the record.
After we landed, we changed planes and had a short and sex-free flight to Palm Springs. We gathered our bags and walked to the curb outside the terminal, where someone from Rex’s house was supposed to pick us up.
I had never been to the desert before, but I was struck by its awesome beauty. From the mountains that towered over the city to the palms that stretched their tops toward the sky, this desert was anything but a barren wasteland.
“Michael, look at the size of those mountains!” I exclaimed.
“I’m too busy looking at the size of the biceps on that cop over there,” Michael replied. “Holy moley! I’m going to go over and ask Mr. Biceps directions.
And he did. Michael was the master of seduction. His plan to ask for directions was brilliant. The cop, in order to help Michael, had to lift his arm and point in various directions, putting his bulging arm within licking distance of Michael’s tongue. Michael didn’t take a taste, but he certainly did stare.
“Are you Michael Stark and Robert?” a voice from a Mercedes SUV asked.
“I’m Robert Wilsop. Michael’s over there,” I pointed. “Are you our ride to Rex’s house?”
“I am. I’ll pop the back hatch and you can throw your bags in. I just can’t get out of the car,” our driver said.
“Michael!” I called. “Our ride is here!” I said as I shoved my bags into the back of the car and came around to a side door, opened it, and got in the car.
“My name’s Vince,” Vince said, extending a hand for me to shake ... which was attached to an arm, which was attached to a nude man.
“Hi, I’m ... Robert. Oh, I guess I just told you that,” I said, laughing nervously. I began to wonder if I was in the right car, but then again, who would rightly belong in a car driven by a nude man? The answer came to me instantly: Michael Stark. Yes, I was in the right car.
I heard Michael throw his bags into the back of the car, then watched as he got into the front seat with Vince.
Vince and Michael introduced themselves.
“Nice piercings, Vince!” Michael complimented. “Did you see these, Robert?” he said, grabbing Vince’s private parts and showing them to me like he was a salesman displaying a collection of watches at a counter in Macy’s.
I was in Rome, so I had to do what the Romans do. I leaned forward, trying to appear appreciative of the dozen rings that formed a row all the way up Vince’s scrotum, and the three that sat in the end of his you-know-what.
“Very nice,” I reported. “I’ll bet you’ve busted some teeth in your time with those,” I offered.
“Tell me about it,” Michael chimed in. “I was giving this guy a blow job one time and it was like chewing on a length of chain! I chipped the crown in this tooth,” Michael said as he pried his mouth open to show us his beleaguered tooth.
This vacation was off to a running start. It was like going on a roller coaster ride blindfolded—you never knew what was going to happen, but when something did, it was sure to be scary.
Vince put the car into drive, and we sped out of the airport, heading toward the very mountain that towered over the town. The car turned down several streets, leaving the desert landscape behind and entering a neighborhood of winding roads and vegetation so lush, you thought you were in a tropical jungle. It was not what I expected to find right in the middle of the desert.
“This is the movie colony area of Palm Springs. A lot of the old Hollywood stars had houses here. Now it’s mostly gays,” Vince said.
Vince pulled into a driveway that was blocked by a tall and imposing gate. He pushed a button on a remote control unit that was clipped to the car’s visor, and the gate swung open, revealing a lush and shaded compound of Spanish colonial buildings. I was going to like this. Now I knew why it was worth putting up with vacationing with Michael: he never stayed in dumps.
The car pulled to a stop, and we all got out.
Vince grabbed two bags and led us toward what must be guest houses, the metal in his frankfurter jangling like a janitor’s set of keys. “The weather here is perfect. That’s why I never wear clothes—unless I have to. I’m very spiritual, and I believe that the body is a beautiful thing and shouldn’t be hidden.”
I begged to differ with Vince. It’s not that I expected every nudist to have a perfect body. God knows, somewhere along the line, the gay community trampled on the commendable 1960s idea that everyone is beautiful as is, and swallowed the ideas of Hollywood and Madison Avenue that model perfection is not only desirable but attainable. Now, it seems, you’re summed up by how you look and not who you are. An honest, warm, sensitive, and caring person is tossed aside because he doesn’t have a thirty-two-inch waist and rock-hard pectorals. Ironically, the same gay men who toss others aside because they don’t measure up to strict physical standards are the ones who cry to their therapists that the only men they meet are shallow and unable to commit beyond a sexual encounter. Duh! Anyway, I agreed with Vince that the body is indeed beautiful, but I had to defer to my eyes and recognize that Vince had a very ugly penis. I mean ugly. I won’t go into detail, but trust me, it was ugly.
“You’re here, Robert . . . and Michael, you’re in that one right next door.”
Vince set the bags down and opened the door on my casita, revealing a sanctuary exquisitely decorated with a mixture of gigantic overstuffed furniture, rough-hewn tables, cool Mexican tile flooring, and exposed ceiling beams large enough to hold up Chrysler Building. No kitschy Southwest faux-adobe crap with rusted metal candlesticks in the shape of coyotes here.
After deciding that I would just move in here for life, I realized that I was only looking at the living area. The bedroom sat behind a massive oak door that looked like it came from the Spanish Inquisition. The same careful decoration here, including a bed that could easily hold a small Marine garrison. No wonder Michael wanted to stay here.
I settled in, then went next door to ask Michael what he planned to do. I knocked on the door and entered, only to find Michael in the embrace of a rather hunky-looking man who was, like Vince, naked. I quickly surmised what Michael had in mind for the rest of the day.
“Oh, God, Michael, I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect you to ... to ... be getting, you know, so soon.”
“Robert, stop being so Midwestern. This saves me the time of introducing you to Rex. Rex, this is Robert,” Michael said pointing toward me.
I shook Rex’s veiny hand. He had the grip of an anaconda and the muscles of one, too. He was built like a proverbial brick shit house and had a gruff, no-nonsense look about him. His chiseled jaw, aquiline nose, flattop haircut that ran down seamlessly to the beard on his face, plus the tattoo on his arm that depicted the Marine bulldog mascot with the letters U.S.M.C. underneath, completed the look of a refined but swarthy gay trucker.
“Glad to meet you, Rex,” I said, shaking his hand that, just thirty seconds ago, was on a certain part of Michael’s anatomy. I would wash my hand later.
“Why don’t we all go out to the pool and cool off?” Rex instructed us.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Michael said, dropping his pants faster than you can say “George Michael.”
I knew I had no choice. If I didn’t go with the flow, I would look uptight and guilt-ridden—which I was. But there was no sense in making that clear to Rex—he’d figure that out after spending five minutes talking to me. I peeled off my shorts and underwear and followed Michael and Rex toward the pool.
The pool was magnificent and enormous, with hot tubs on either end of the rectangular pond, and completely private, thanks to the ever-present greenery, which poked out of every inch of available planting space. The water was as warm as bathwater, a fact that I felt worth noting out loud.
“I have it h
eated all year long. I do laps every day, and I don’t like the cold,” Rex reported.
“So Rex, I can hardly wait for your Red Party,” I said. “Michael has told me so much about it!”
Michael broke in. “Boy, Robert, your opinion of the Red Party really has changed!”
“Changed, Michael? What do you mean?” I asked, a flush of embarrassment washing over me.
“Back in New York, when I was trying to get you to come with me to Palm Springs, you said ‘Why would anyone in their right mind want to attend a nonstop narcissithon infested by drug-crazed, hairless post-adolescents with the depth of a Petri dish?’”
I eked out a nervous laugh, trying to downplay what I had indeed said. “Oh, for gosh sakes, Michael, the things you say!”
“And on the plane you told me the Red Party is like a tick, hungrily sucking dollars off a very fat deer.”
Rex glared at me as I shifted into damage-control mode. “Michael, I said that some people perceive circuit parties as being drug-infested and narcissistic and that I wanted to see for myself before I took anyone’s word for it.” Somehow, as the words were quickly formed in my head and headed out of my mouth, I began to realize that they didn’t sound that much better than what Michael had quoted me as saying. Right then I decided to cut my losses, swallow my foot gracefully, and dive under the surface of the water, where I hoped I’d drown.
When I came up for air, I felt that the damage had been done, so the best way to handle an awkward situation was to do what I had practiced all my life: denial. I launched into more questions, designed to calm Rex’s feathers by stroking him gently.
“So Rex, how is your Red Party coming along? It must be exciting to take on a challenge organizing something that big!” I said, trying to make conversation.
“I have a lot of balls,” Rex bragged.
I could plainly see that.
“Organizing and planning is a cinch,” he continued. “The difficult part is dealing with all the assholes who are trying their damnedest to keep the Red Party from becoming the success that it will be.”
“You mean people are trying to sabotage your party?”
“As sure as I’m standing here,” Rex said with complete conviction.
“Who would want to do a thing like that?” I inquired.
“Lots of people. Jimmy Garboni for one.”
“Jimmy Garboni? Don’t tell me. He’s the mob boss who controls the circuit party Hello Kitty concession stands.”
“Good joke, Robert. You’re as funny as a road accident,” Rex barked.
Feeling as though I had just been slapped across the face by one of Rex’s meaty hands, I guessed that I had gone too far in my kidding. This guy really didn’t take any guff. “I’m sorry if I upset you, Rex. I know you’re probably under a lot of stress.
“You have no idea,” he said, sounding oddly vulnerable and powerless—an odd situation for a man who had the physical build and drill-sergeant demeanor that should be afraid of no one. “I have no doubt that Jimmy Garboni has been pressuring party-planning people not to work with my company. Darlene Waldron is trouble, too. She has an exclusive contract with the White Party, and she stands to lose the most when the Red Party is a success. What I don’t understand is why someone would threaten me when the Red Party is designed to work with the White Party. I planned that guys would go back and forth between the two.”
“Threaten you!” I exclaimed. “Physically?”
“Yes, but not exactly. Let me explain. Someone sent me threatening letters. You know, with the letters cut out of a magazine and pasted to form words.”
“What did they say?” I asked.
“Bunch of horseshit. They want two and a half million dollars or they say they’ll prevent me from throwing the Red Party.”
“How do they propose to do that?” I asked.
“Kill me,” Rex said as if he had just told me that the capital of New York was Albany.
“Whew!” I said, whistling the word. “Somebody is very serious about this stuff, Rex. Did you tell the police about this?
“I don’t want word about this to get around. It could ruin ticket sales. Let’s face it: no one is going to buy tickets to the Red Party if they think there’s a chance it might not happen.”
Michael didn’t care a fig about Rex’s problem, but I was clearly concerned—especially since I was staying in his house and didn’t want to die in a hail of bullets fired by masked men with thick necks and gold pinkie rings. “So what are you going to do about it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” was his answer. “I mean, what can I do? Two and a half million would take about everything that Rex Productions has. Listen, I’ve run up against tougher competitors than this. Sometimes you just gotta stare them right in the face and wait for them to blink first.”
“Well, Rex, suit yourself, but I think that it would be better if the police at least knew about this. You did keep the threatening notes, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Of course I did. I’m a careful businessman. That’s one of the reasons I’m so successful. I’ll show ’em to you at dinner tonight.”
“Why else are you so successful?” I inquired, just to be nosey.
“Brass balls ... and I can be ruthless when I want something. I can be driven, too. Red Party tickets are almost all sold out because they’ve seen the publicity and they know it’s going to be big. A once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
“I see.” I was beginning to understand Rex’s character quite well, what little there was.
Clink, clink, clink, clink. Vince’s body jewelry jingled and jangled as he approached the pool with a phone in hand. “Rex, it’s Leo. He’s having some problems with some sound equipment or something.” Vince handed the phone to Rex and walked away. Clink, clink, clink-a-tink. It seemed like a fair assumption that Vince would never be able to sneak up on anyone.
“Excuse me, guys,” Rex announced. “I have to take this call inside. I’ll be right back.”
I turned to Michael, who was floating around on a raft, sunbathing as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Did you hear what Rex said about those death threats?” I asked excitedly.
“Yes, I heard about them. So?” Michael replied, reeking with indifference.
“So? You don’t care that your friend is being threatened by some lunatic?”
Michael turned his head toward me but didn’t lift it from the raft—don’t strain the neck muscles, because it might leave lines in the skin. “Rex isn’t a friend, per se.”
“Then what is he?”
“A fuck buddy.”
“I see. Then what does that make me, since we’ve never had sex?” I needed clarification.
“You’re a friend. The only one I have. Everyone else either hates me or is jealous of me. True friends are hard to come by”
“Michael, are you getting all mushy on me? Stop it before I start puddling up!” I said, dabbing my eyes with the edge of a towel.
“I’m serious, Robert. I really do think of you as a friend. I would never think of you in the context of sex.”
“Thanks, Michael. I think.”
Michael continued. “Rex is just a fuck buddy. He’s a hot guy, and we enjoy each other’s company.”
“So what place does Vince play in all of this?”
“He takes care of the place and does stuff for Rex. As far as the rest goes, I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“Okay, back to the death threat part. Aren’t you concerned?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why not, Michael?”
“Why should I be? Let Rex take care of his own business. I’ve got myself to think about.”
“Ah, that’s the old Michael that I know well. For a minute, you were sounding human there, and it scared me.”
“Don’t you have something to do, Robert? Weren’t you going to call Monette and meet up with her?”
“I left a message for her, but she’s out hiking.”
; “So she’s at some lesbian White Party?”
“She’s at the Dinah Shore Classic.”
“The equivalent, from what I hear.”
“I think Monette would agree with you. It’s become the same thing.”
“Don’t push it, Robert. Lesbians are not going to put on skin-tight spandex shorts and get up in go-go cages and dance with glow sticks stuck into their orifices.”
“I guess they’ll just have face the fact that they’ll never match gay men in terms of the cultural legacy they leave to the world.”
“You know what I mean, Robert. Lesbians can’t party like gay men do. They’re more nurturing.”
“I tend to disagree, Michael. Monette can drink you under the table and outdance you any day. She did win that lesbian charity dance marathon, you know.”
“Robert, let me remind you that winning a dance marathon to eradicate vaginal itch doesn’t hold a candle to my two-day dance frenzy at the Pink Party in Miami. It’s still the talk of the town.”
“I think that what they’re talking about wasn’t your dancing. It has something to do with that part where you collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital—that and the fact that you were screaming about a thirty-foot bird that you said pecked off the head of Sandra Bernhard, who, by the way, wasn’t even at the party.”
“I blame those Chinese herbs that this guy gave me.”
“Michael, when was the last time you saw Chinese herbs that came in pill form?”
Michael was getting that exasperated look that rose to his face when confronted with a reality he couldn’t deny. “Could we change the subject?”
“Fine, change it.”
Michael was about to change it when Rex returned, tossing the phone into the pool.
“Goddamn it!” Rex bellowed. “Fuckin’ ass-wipe Leo. The dumb shit can’t get his hands on a fuckin’ amplifier that a trained monkey could order! Do I have to do everything for this party?”
Michael, seeing that his fuck buddy would be in no mood for love—at least while he was in a hostile mood—tried to calm Rex’s anger.