by Rick R. Reed
Finally, one of the janitors tapped me on the shoulder. “Sir? You need to leave now. We’re about to finish up and we’re going to start locking up for the night.” He nodded in the general direction of outside. “Exit’s that way.”
I got up and hurried from the theater, feeling the gaze of the janitor upon me as I walked out, making sure, I suppose, that I truly did leave the building. I wondered if I had become the stalker I feared without even trying.
Outside, the night was alive with people laughing and talking, cars jockeying for position, and honking. Everyone seemed to be with someone else. I expected a core of fans still outside the main doors of the Paramount, but they all must have dispersed by now.
I had started up the street, vague thoughts of visiting the Cuff on Capitol Hill and drowning my sorrows in vodka, when I saw you.
“Oh shit,” I whispered, shaking my head and wanting to retreat back into the shadows, to vanish, like a ghost into the solid façade of the building. I prayed you had not yet seen me. I prayed for the opposite. I prayed for a glimmer of recognition.
You were with your drummer, an impossibly tall guy with a leonine mane of long blond hair, and a couple of other boys, who looked exactly like what they were: groupies. I could tell from their fawning postures and starry-eyed gazes up at you.
My face flushed red and I felt an insane urge to just turn and run—as fast as I could—up the street. But even I had enough dignity and sense to know how insane that would look.
You had spotted me…and I believe, from the length of your stare, that you perhaps even remembered me. Or maybe I was kidding myself. But you were staring.
I proceeded closer to you and the little group, standing at the curb next to an idling limo. Nice. One by one, the others in your little posse turned to regard me.
You smiled at me. And I knew you remembered. My heart started to thud in my chest and I began to wonder how we would get rid of these others. Maybe all along I had been wrong about your abandonment of me. Maybe you were just riding the dizzying vehicle known as fame and there wasn’t time for me even if that was what you, yourself, wanted.
I sidled closer, grinning.
You cocked your head, your smile broadening. I could bask in that smile, like sunshine, and need little else to survive.
Then the moment shattered. You spoke.
“And who have we here?” You looked me up and down like you were appraising me, which is, I suppose, exactly what you were doing. And that smile of recognition was not, after all, one of fond remembrance, but one of lust, one of easy entitlement that probably had been worn so many times I was surprised your face wasn’t frozen into the expression. I suppose, once upon a time, I could have settled for lust, but not now. Not after all the years of remembering the past and fantasizing a future together. I wanted more.
“Don’t you remember me?” There was an absurd, stupid, inane, little optimist within me that still hoped for the dream coming true, still imagined your eyes lighting up in recognition and you holding your arms out to me.
“Should I?” You turned to the drummer and the two groupies. “He looks pretty memorable, guys. What do you think? Should we ask him to join the party?”
There were approving murmurs all around, which is what I suppose you were used to these days. Anything you said, went. You leaned your head close to mine and, without the faintest shred of recognition, looked in my eyes and asked, “Did we have fun?”
And I knew, there and then, that you had had “fun” with hundreds, if not thousands of guys like me, and I was about as memorable as a ham sandwich you had three years earlier.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.” I turned to walk away, uncertain if I would cry or scream, or just go into some sort of numb state from which I would never emerge. You grabbed my arm and whispered, “We’ve got some coke and we’re going to party all night. You sure you want to miss out? We’re staying at the Four Seasons.”
I pulled myself away and did not look back, heading away from you.
I had gone only a few steps when I felt someone closing the distance behind me. Still, still, that optimistic flame had not been extinguished and I thought you had come to your senses and remembered our night together. You would apologize and tell me you wanted to get me alone.
I had a half-smile on my face as I turned. But it was not you standing behind me.
* * * *
I stare down at the water below me, sparkling in the sun, the vision blurred by tears.
“Hey, time’s up.”
I stiffen at the sound of—what was his name again?—Russell’s voice.
I imagine just leaning forward, leaning, leaning, until gravity took over.
But I turned to Russell and said, “You know what happened next?”
I could see he had no idea what I was talking about. Why should he? He was not inside my head. He shook his head. “Come on, buddy. Let me buy you a coffee.”
“What happened next was dumb.”
Russell steps closer and I hold my hands up, warding him off. I turn away from him.
* * * *
“Hey, man, I don’t really get into the whole group sex coke scene myself. I don’t blame you.”
It was your drummer…he of the long blond hair, leather jeans, and basketball player frame. He looked like some sort of Anne Rice fantasy, or maybe the more correct and contemporary reference would be Charlaine Harris. His blue eyes twinkled in the dull light of the streetlamps and his smile lit up his face.
“You want to go get a drink with me?”
I wasn’t sure what to do. I glanced down the street and saw you staring at us. The boys around you simply looked bored, waiting, I suppose for their fix and their dose of anonymous sex with a star…fodder for bragging rights for years to come.
You called out to your drummer. “Hey Kyle, we’re gonna go. Come on!” You opened the back door of the limo and cast an impatient stare the drummer’s way.
A light went on. Were you jealous? Of the drummer? Or—more provocatively—of me?
I looked back up at Kyle, the drummer, who rolled his eyes. “I really don’t want to go with those guys. I’ll just pay the price for the rest of the week. And that shit is starting to get old. So what do you say?”
I looked back down the street at you, where your easy nonchalance had morphed into something else: impatience. You stood by the car, arms folded across your chest, tapping one foot on the sidewalk. You were someone not used to being challenged. The posture and the attitude gave me a perverse—and cruel—thrill.
“I say yes.” I glanced down once more and watch your face turn to surprise as I take Kyle’s hand. “Good night!” I call down the street.
I began to walk away with the drummer, who let go of my hand to press against the small of my back, then to drop lower, to cup and caress my ass encased in worn denim. Good. I hoped you were watching.
I knew I should be feeling a kind of triumph, elation at this unexpected victory. But all I felt, once we had moved a block or two further away and out of your vision, was empty. This gorgeous blond man was not what I wanted.
No one else was what I wanted.
Yet I went and had a drink with him in a little bar called Absinthe. We didn’t do much talking, but he did grope me under the table, kiss me too sloppily and with too much tongue, and whispered the filthiest ideas in my ear, none of which aroused me in the least.
But that did not stop me from bringing the drummer home, just as I had you that night so long ago. And I am ashamed to admit I let him do the exact same thing to me, on the exact same couch.
The whole time the drummer sweated, writhed, and groaned above me, I thought of you.
* * * *
And now I am exhausted: exhausted of memory, of wanting something I cannot have, of just trying to live from day to day.
I turn to consider Russell. He stands only inches away, really. The bridge’s sidewalk is narrow, bordered by waist-high railings, one to protect us from
the traffic whizzing by at speeds that seem well in excess of the forty miles per hour speed limit, and the other to protect us from the precipitous drop that, if it didn’t kill us, would leave us severely incapacitated for life.
The latter is something to consider.
“Why are you here?”
Russell smiles at the question, but looks a little lost, a little confused as if the answer to my query should be obvious, yet perhaps he doesn’t have the words to convey it. He runs a hand through his shaggy hair, locks me in his dark stare.
I lick my lips, appraising him. “Really…why? You don’t know me. You don’t know my pain. My troubles.” I snicker. “You don’t even know if I’m worth saving. There might be no one who’d even care if I jump off the bridge. Or worse, maybe there are a lot of people who would be glad I’m gone, I’m such a hateful old witch.”
And Russell still said nothing, slowly shaking his head, a glimmer of a smirk upon his handsome face. He begins to sing, which surprises me for two reasons. One, because his voice is so beautiful; it’s a clear tenor, with just a hint of huskiness beneath the low notes. It’s a voice that gets beneath my skin, almost making me want to catch my breath. Out of nowhere, I feel a lump in my throat and my eyes begin to tear up as your voice, fearless, washes over me.
The second reason I am surprised is his choice of song. It’s so smart-ass and perverse and it shows me a lot about his character; he is not the dead-serious Good Samaritan I made him out to be.
The song he serenades me with? “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead,” from The Wizard of Oz. He has the heart, the brains, and the courage, to call out a potential suicide’s self-pity and make fun of it.
Through my tears, I begin to laugh. My face starts to redden from describing myself, so sadly, as a “hateful old witch.” I feel stupid and, in an odd way, cared for.
Russell stops singing and the vibrato of his voice hangs in the air like an echo. We stare at one another.
He moves closer to me, just half a step, and waits.
I cannot smile, if that’s the sign he’s waiting for. But I don’t frown and I do not turn back to face the drop off the bridge.
He inches closer. Then, all at once, he rushes me and gathers me up is his arms. I feel his stubble pressed against my throat, scratchy. I smell his tang: sweat, but with a sweetness beneath, manly.
“Don’t.” He presses his mouth close to my ear.
I push him back, just a little, not enough so that his arms drop away from me, but enough so I can look into his dark chocolate irises. “Will you sing for me again?”
He nods.
And I let him lead me from the bridge.
THE END
ABOUT RICK R. REED
Rick R. Reed is all about exploring the romantic entanglements of gay men in contemporary, realistic settings. While his stories often contain elements of suspense, mystery, and the paranormal, his focus ultimately returns to the power of love.
He is the author of dozens of published novels, novellas, and short stories. He is a three-time EPIC eBook Award winner for Caregiver, Orientation, and The Blue Moon Cafe. His novel, Raining Men, won the Rainbow Award for Best Contemporary General Fiction. Lambda Literary Review has called him “a writer that doesn’t disappoint.”
Rick lives in Seattle with his husband and a very spoiled Boston terrier. He is forever “at work on another novel.”
For more information, visit rickrreed.com.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC
JMS Books LLC is a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance, erotic romance, and young adult fiction. Visit jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!