Part 6


"No, no. Nix on that one, C. Show me something else, and let's bid on the Price Is Right Showcase Number Two. That one's too much."

"Too much?"

"Too much gay. Get rid of it. Eeww. And hurry too. It's making me feel all……….I dunno……….metrosexual. Sling it back in the closet, please. Just eeww. I might be hetero, but I know a little something about clothes, man."

Standing beside his iron-framed bed, with his back to the wide wall of small-squared windows, JC Chasez huffed out a breath of frustration with one hand on his hip. Without moving his head at all, he darted his eyes upward from the array of clothes splashed over the mattress to the face of his friend sprawled on his side next to the garments.

"Dude, it's an orange cotton T-shirt, not a pink chiffon camisole. How in the hell is that 'too gay'?"

The friend rolled his large, almost-ebony eyes. "C, it's an orange cotton MUSCLE T-shirt. The kind pretty gay boys like yourself love to wear to show off your bulging, glistening biceps and the like when you do strenuous exercise-y sorts of things in front of other pretty gay boys in the workout setting. Do I lie, or do I speak the truth?"

JC shot him another wry look, and a bird too, as he snatched the T-shirt up off the bed and flung it to the floor. "So what's wrong with that anyway, man?"

"Well, nothing, I guess, as long as everybody playing the game is on the same page of the rules."

"I love it when you break it down in jacked-up riddles and mangled clichés, Chris," JC smirked, with the dappled afternoon sun behind him silhouetting his slim frame onto a nearby wall. "It makes you sound even less fucking whacko. Not."

Chris Kirkpatrick tilted his head to the side like a curious puppy. "JC, JC. You remember the last time, don't you? The tragedy of miscalculation? What was that? Like two weeks ago?"

"Three months ago, ass."

"That guy……….What was his name again?..........Same name as one of the presidents, wasn't it? That prez from the South……….What was it? It's on the tip of my tongue……….although you never got to taste him on the tip of yours……….Ringing any bells, C?"

"Nick." JC smirked again, tired already of this conversation.

"Oh, yeah! Nick Carter! That was it! He calls you up, wants to rent you out for some tennis coaching."

"Racquetball." JC rolled his eyes.

"Racquetball. Tennis. What the hell ever."

"Dude, if you're going to tell the twisted little story, then get the details straight."

Chris lazily rolled over onto his back and gazed at the loft's high ceiling, lacing his pudgy fingers together on his pudgy stomach. "Okay. So where was I? Ah, yes. The Carter boy rings you up and melts you into a gooey puddle all over with his soft, smooth phone voice. Right?"

"Um, hardly. But exaggerate away if it makes your whacking-off daydreams better, CK. Whatever."

"Let's see. How did you describe his voice to me? 'Sleek and swa-vaay'? Wasn't that it, C?"

JC had turned and stepped over to his dresser now to retrieve more shirt choices since the orange one had been officially "nixed." His only response to Chris's questions was a quick, bored snort. Unfazed, Chris smiled and carried on.

"So you go and do that assuming thing - which we all know just makes an ass out of you and me -"

"Insert edit here. You were born an ass, Kirkpatrick. Nothing made you one."

"As I was saying……….Assuming from how Nick sounds on the phone that he's a hot, pretty gay boy too, and maybe you're even hoping for him to turn out to be a potential lay."

JC snapped his head around just enough to flash Chris another sharp roll of his eyes, in profile, over his shoulder. The two of them had been friends for more than a year now and neighbors slightly longer than that. Chris owned the warehouse loft directly below JC's, and they'd literally run headlong into each other on the freight elevator one day when JC had been completely lost in his own head and not paying attention to where his feet were taking him.

"It wasn't so far off to assume such a thing, man, in a town crawling with homos and fauxsexuals - which, let me just add here, is just another name for fags in denial."

"Ah! The Philosophy of the Known World! By JC Chasez!" Chris bellowed out in his scratchy, high-pitched voice.

"And I was NOT hoping for him to be a potential date either. Tighten up the facts, dude."

"I said 'lay,' as in fuck. Potential lay. Not date."

"And not that either," JC grunted and sauntered back over to the bed with a stack of more clothes contestants. "Sorry to wreck your warped theory, CK."

"But you donned the cute muscle shirt to your meeting with him to impress him just in case, didn't you, dude? Come clean."

JC shrugged nonchalantly, looking down at the garments without much enthusiasm. "You never know when you might run up on somebody special, now do you? I mean maybe even your soul mate, right?"

Chris swung back over onto his side again and propped himself up on one elbow as he stared at JC with lively dancing eyes and renewed interest. "Aww, now see there? Chasez, you're gonna make some fella a damn good boyfriend some day. You're all deep and introspective and artsy, and you say romantic shit like 'soul mate' all the time. Dude, I'll bet your stock value on the meat market is sky-fucking-high, man……….Plus, you've got a nice little ass. I'm just saying, from a straight-dude point of view."

"Excellent. Glad you think so," JC snorted again, with aloof breeziness. "So are we to the 'The End' part of your little drama yet, man? The part where Carter turned out to be a dud anyway? Too portly for my tastes. You know I like the tall, lean ones. And he……….just wasn't."

"And too not-gay for your tastes too. You left that tiny essential detail out, C." Chris giggled. "The detail about how he likes hot chicks rather than hot boys, namely your buddy Paris."

"Yeah, well, she can have him. No love - or lust - lost."

Chris watched JC drag his long, slender fingers through the thick, black waves of his hair. "How long's it been, C? Since you stepped out on a real date, man? And clubbing with Tony or Rob at the Crisco disco doesn't count."

"I date, here and there," JC said quietly, distractedly, picked up a beige golf shirt, and squinted at it before dropping it to the floor with a disgusted flinch.

"Sure. But never more than twice with the same dude. And it's been, like, months since you even did that. Whassup with that? All the fish in the sea been snatched up already by somebody else?"

"All the good ones, I guess."

Chris slapped a palm down on the mattress under him to rouse his friend's lagging attention. "C, you gotta get out more and check out the possibilities, man! See what's available and what you're missing out on!"

"Why?"

"Why? Because you just DO, man! No dude's an island and circle of life and all that jazz. It's the way the world goes 'round! You've got to mingle and get some feelers out there. You know what I'm saying?"

JC glanced up at him and wrinkled his nose. "I'm just……….choosy."

Chris sighed and rolled his eyes. "Choosy? Ain't that the damn truth? You're finicky like a fucking cat, man. But even the finicky kitty goes out and gets itself some cream once in a while. Know what I mean, man?"

"That's what Lucca says. Always nagging me like that. Like you."

Chris scooted a little closer to the side of the bed where JC stood. "And he's right too. Tone knows the deal. He's the smart one, I'm saying. Don't make us gang up and go all intervention on you, C. 'Cause I'll organize that bitch, and we'll do it. You can bet your saucy little ass."

"Enough about my ass from you, CK. You scurr me."

"Don't you want to meet somebody, C?"

JC shrugged again. "Of course I do, Kirkpatrick. Doesn't everybody? But I'm not looking for just ANYbody. I mean call me old-fashioned, but I've got, like, standards. You know, certain qualities I'd like to find in a guy."

"Ah, you have discriminating tastes."

"Yeah. That's it. And call me a damn snob too, but 'average' just won't do. I'd rather just keep holding out for something real. Something that fits and feels right……….Is that so wrong, man?"

Chris sighed. He wasn't about to give up yet. JC had actually thrown off some glints of life when, over lunch earlier that day, he'd been telling Chris about the new client who'd called the day before for an appointment. Sparks of life in the potential-social-interest area. Glints of living matter Chris hadn't seen recently. There was hope at last. Perhaps.

"So level with me here, Chasez. There must've been something different about this new talent that phoned you up yesterday, different enough to get you to notice, man."

"How do you figure that?" JC asked, not arguing the point at all.

"Hey! You asked me in up here in your pad to give you advice on what to wear when you see him this evening. That's how I figure that."

"Did I?" JC furrowed his brow.

"Yes, Chasez. Stop acting coy and spacey. You ain't fooling me. Now what did this one's voice sound like?"

"Fluffy."

"Fluffy? What the fuck? You are one weird dude, dude."

JC shot a glance upward for a brief second and then back down to the clothes again. "Fluffy as in airy and whispery……….like he was speaking through a cloud of soft feathers or something."

"Hmm. Are you sure it wasn't a chick?"

"Oh, eat me, CK. It was a guy. I'm not stupid."

"Did he sound gay?"

JC rolled his deeply inset teal-blue eyes. "What? Did he sound gay? Um, I thought you'd already reamed me about the dangers of speculating on that. Isn't that, like, why you're here?"

"Okay, okay. But you picked up on a vibe or something? Anything?"

"I dunno. Maybe. I mean he didn't come out and ask to suck me off or hump me or anything like that……….but he did find that business card of mine at a queer-owned restaurant."

"So do you have to be a homo to get in the place?"

"No!" JC rasped, a little impatiently. "I'm just saying it's kind of unspoken knowledge in some joints that it's mostly gay clientele. Everybody's cool about it. But it's like you just know."

"Oh, yeah." Chris laughed. "I forget about you guys and your little gaydars or whatever and that undercover gay mafia shit."

JC half-smirked/half-sneered at him. "Fuck off, Kirkpatrick. I'm really not in the mood."

"Fine. So what was angel-voice dude's name?"

"Justin." JC pronounced it slowly, quietly, silkily.

"Yeah, even that sounds soft and moondust-like. Or 'fluffy,' as you put it. So the guy might be a prospect after all. Hmm."

"So how about this? Too much gay and assuming? Or plain enough to be acceptable to L.A.'s ultimate straight cat, Chris Kirkpatrick?" JC asked, ignoring Chris's last forward comment, and held up for display a simple outfit in shades of blues he'd been arranging as they'd chatted.

Chris studied it seriously for several seconds. "Perfect, man. That's your color, C. Looks good with your eyes. And if this new kid's too blind to see that, then he doesn't deserve you anyway."

"Maybe you're the one who shouldn't be jacking your hopes up, dude. It's nothing but a one-hour racquetball match. So c'mon and get off it."

"Sure, Chasez, sure. You just keep telling yourself that. And I'll keep telling myself that one day I'll get to hit that bitching Paris Hilton stuff when Nicky Whatver gets tired of it."

"Well, you are portly like dude is," JC laughed wildly, freely. "Keep dreaming, man."



next

Email: whatweallwishfor@yahoo.com