Baggage Claim - Part Three

Part Three

He'd been living with me for about three months when he finally gave me a reason to quit my job.

"I'm quitting," I said.

"Hey, whoa, no you're not," he warned, lyrics for about 40 songs spread across the bedroom floor. I'd stopped treating him like a kid, and he'd stopped acting all shy like one. I guess what I mean is, we respected each other now. And thankfully, that respect meant he had never said anything about that first morning. Hopefully he'd forgotten. I hadn't.

Anyway, he pulled out these songs, reams of them, that he wanted music for. He wanted a band, he said, and he wanted me to be in it. Christ, who's gonna turn that down? We promised each other there and then that we would be big, Michael Jackson big, Madonna big, and we wouldn't do it without each other. Which is why I wanted to quit my festering hell hole job as a DJ, bring my equipment home, and work full time with Darren on the album. He wouldn't allow it.

"How else are we going to keep this apartment, Dan? Putting out a demo costs money we don't have. Neither of us is quitting."

I leafed through the sheet music. "You're so reserved," I said. "This calls for celebration! Let's go out and do something stupid, Darren!"

"We don't have to go out to do that, Daniel."

His tone made me bleed lust. He had other ideas, as usual. He pulled out a small box and threw it to me. Hair dye?

I looked at him in confusion, but he was all shits and giggles.

"I'm not dying my hair, Darren."

He rolled his eyes. "Not you, me. I want you to dye my hair. Black."

This time I was grinning. I stood and pulled him to his feet and we crowded into the tiny bathroom.

He sat down and dipped his head back into the sink from the chair I had dragged in there for him. I was towering over him, wetting his hair and we were just talking. My mind was going a mile a minute. Darren. Me. Working side by side in this tiny little apartment every day and side by side in that noisy limbo of a club every night. Holing up money together, sparing every expense, enjoying nothing until we had enough cash to buy studio time. Could my brother, Oliver, help us get musicians? Meet producers? He was halfway in the door with a band of his own. And now here I was. Washing my best friend's hair while he-

"What?" I said. Darren had said something I hadn't caught.

"I said, I need to take this shirt off if you're going to be slopping black goop all over the bathroom.”

"Right then," I said, catching my breath. "Off with it."

He unbuttoned his shirt, some tacky hawaiian thing he had taken to wearing, and slipped it off while I pulled on the gloves that came in the kit and squirted a bunch of the black goop all over Darren's head.

I bit my lip, trying not to stare at him, naked from the waist up, as he closed his eyes and let me massage the stuff into his scalp.

I sat down on the toilet seat to let the dye set in, and he opened his eyes. He had a very dreamy look in them, but I pretended not to notice. Yeah, right.

"What're you thinking about, goldilocks?"

He turned to look at me, his neck still resting in the bowl of the sink. Looked bloody uncomfortable, if you ask me. But he didn't complain.

"Just about the band. It's kind of scary when you think about it."

"Then don't," said the automatic smartass in me. I turned my gaze away from him again. God, but he was beautiful. An angel. I studied the dirty grout between the tiles, but I could still feel his eyes on me.

"I guess you're right. Just let things happen, and don't think about them so much."

His words disturbed me, I'll have you know. If that wasn't an opportunity to jump him, I don't know what was. Instead, I stood up and started washing his hair again. He shut his eyes once more, letting the water seep down his hair. A few drops hit him between the eyes and dripped down his nose. I had to command my hands to not brush them away. I stared at the plaster covered wall and thought back. Why had I stopped sleeping with men? They used you. They were closet cases. They turned out out be bi. And oh yeah, that time I almost got HIV. But you know, you have the same risks with women. I shook my head.

"What's wrong?" asked Darren, looking at me through shuttered eyelids.

I shrugged. "Everything. Nothing. I'm glad we're friends, Daz."

"Well good, so am I. Are you hinting at something?"

My blood froze.

"Is it my hair? Is it horrible?"

Whew.

"No, no," I murmured distractedly, letting him up and toweling it off. He went into the bedroom to check it out in my only mirror, and came rushing back into the bathroom.

"I LOVE it!"

~*~*~*~

Six months later, I'm ready to kill him. He let me quit, finally, but all he does now is work at the club or work at home, and he expects the same from me. Work on the fuckin' songs 24/7 or go back to the Sooper Dooper, where Ben was ready and willing to give my old job back.

It was 5 pm, a summer night in LA. There is nothing worse than a California summer heat wave, a tiny apartment, no AC, and Darren combined.

He stood over me at my keyboard. "Watcha doing?"

"Memories," I mutter, angry that he broke my concentration. "You?"

"I want you," he says.

I spit Pepsi out all over my synthesizer. "Pardon?"

"The song? 'I Want You'?" He looks at me like i'm an idiot. I am. I try to cover up my overreaction. "Is that what we're calling it."

"That's what I'm calling it, yeah."

"That's what *you're* calling it!"

"Yeah!"

"What about me?" I fumed almost desperately.

"What *about* you?" he snapped.

That really hurt. I'm not kidding. I thought I might cry. What I said, though, was "Fuck you," as I walked through the door.

~*~*~*~

When I got home, it was just past midnight. Darren's precious lyric notebook was sitting on the music rack of my synthesizer. He had written me a small note.

"Dan- sorry I snapped. We'll talk when I got home. -Daz"

With about two hours to spare, I opened the notebook to a page.

~*~*~*~

I was still on that page when Darren came home. I was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the page and he leaned over my shoulder to see what I was reading.

"Like it?" he asked. "It's called Universe."

Did I like it? Everytime I read it, my cock got harder, imagining doing those things with Darren. Did I like it? I licked my lips nervously. "It's heavy," I managed, wondering how I was going to be able to think straight with this pouring through my brain all night.

"It's supposed to be," he said, sitting down. "Personal experience usually is."

Doctor, we're losing pulse. The patient is going down. Life support, stat.

"Oh?" was all I said.

He nodded. "Losing my virginity."

I had the feeling of wanting to cry again. "Sounds like you used the girl, Daz."

He looked up at me, straight into my eyes through those long lashes of his. "It's not written in first person," he said.

We're losing him, doctor. Bring the paddles. Clear! Again. Clear! Heartrate normal. Thank god, doctor.

“I'm sorry," I said.

He shook his head, refusing my pity. "It's happened a lot. I'm just way too fragile right now for this love shit. I've been bloody used, Dan. And it hurts. It really does."

"Hey, it's okay," I said, reaching over to rest a hand on his shoulder. "Don't think about it. We don't even have to use the song. Or we could change the context."

He stood up and nodded. "It's your turn for the bed."

"You take it. Free of charge. I can sleep any time."

He went off without argument.

~*~*~*~

About an hour later, I went into the bedroom to check on him. It had to have been at least 100 degrees, which is why he was wearing only a pair of navy blue boxers and the covers were shoved down to the floor. But looking at him lying there, I almost climbed into bed with him. He looked so perfect, so insanely sculpted, his black hair dripping all over his face, making his paleness stand out. Two little specks of blue appeared to me just as I was about to leave.

"Dan?" he murmured.

"Yeah?" I said

"You okay?"

How was I supposed to answer that? Yes, I'm fine, could I just suck on your cock for a few minutes, wipe away your pain and let you cum, even though you don't like guys, let alone me, that way? Thought not. Thanks anyway.

"I'm fine, Darren. Just go to sleep. Dont worry about me."

He smiled a minute and then turned over, trying to catch a puff of breeze from the open window. After I knew he was asleep, I left.



continued in part four...