The Show Must

"I don't..."

"What the fuck, Danny?"

"I just don't want to talk."

"Danny, what were you doing?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he says as he drops sideways on the leather couch in his dressing room.

Someone pokes Gus in the back. He turns to see some little blonde intern holding her hand over a phone. Behind her, maybe a dozen gawkers crowding over each other. Some of them look scared, most of them look curious, like those assholes slowing down by the big accidents on the highway. They want to peek a little red on the pavement, thinks Gus. He shoots them all a hard glare and closes the door. They'll have to wait.

Danny is soaked in sweat, flopped face down across the couch like a rag. His shirt is half ripped. His belt, unbuckled. He lost his jacket somewhere out on the set. Gus makes a quick note on his clipboard. Someone's going to have to get that back to costumes.

Gus watches him lie there. He's not moving at all. Maybe he's holding his breath, like a toddler turning blue for an extra cookie. Gus has been in this business a long time, sweeping up shit from all the talent. This was new, though. Gus never saw anything like what happened out there.

"Danny, you know we have to talk about this."

Gus pulls a stiff, wooden chair over. He sits right next to the couch. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Delicacy is a very important thing in this business.

"Danny, I want you to start talking to me."

He coughs and sucks a deep breath in, "This couch smells."

"The couch is fine. I want to talk about the show, the show you just did."

"It smells like mold," Danny finally rolls on his side. His face leaves a wet imprint on the leather, "like mildew,"

"Well that's where people sit. Their butts go there," Gus keeps his voice even, not a hint of sarcasm. You never really know with talent.

"It's not a fart smell,"

"Yeah, Okay. Listen Danny. I need to know if something is wrong. I have to spin this somehow. So you need to talk to me so I can get on the phone and save our jobs,"

Danny turns his face back into the wet leather.

A tremor cramps up Gus's arm. He takes a couple of breaths.

"Do you want to do something different with the show? Do we need to change things up?"

Gus taps his pencil on his thigh. He places the clipboard on the floor. Danny is motionless again. There is a timid knock at the door.

"Not now," snaps Gus. He turns back to the couch, "Is this it man? You want to kill the show? We can do that if we have to."

Another knock.

"Fuck off!"

The door opens anyway. That little blonde intern inches into the room holding that phone like it was a gun to her head. Poor girl. This place will chew her up like a spitwad.

"I'm sorry Gus, but it's..."

"I know who it is. Tell him I'm talk... I'm working here and I can..."

The girl winces and holds the phone away. Gus can hear it squawk from all the way across the room. Someone is screaming into the other end.

Danny rolls back, his eyes look wet, "I don't think I exist,"

Oh for christ's sake.

"Danny, let's take a moment to clear our heads and figure this thing out."

"I can't get it. I can't believe it anymore. I don't know what's going on,"

"Gus, what should I tell..."

"Delay. Keep him busy. I'll get the phone in a sec," then turning back to the crumpled mess on the couch, "Danny, you're stressed, you're falling apart. We can fix this. We can get you cleaned up, get you to a shrink."

"I don't think I'm really here Gus. I don't think I'm anywhere,"

"Well here," Gus places his pencil next to Danny's face on the moldy cushion. "You can pick this up, right?"

Danny pinches the pencil with his thumb and forefinger, lifting and looking at it like some odd bug.

"I guess." he speaks softly, like a child slowly waking.

"Well you have to be here, right? I mean, I'm talking to you. I can see you," Gus jerks a thumb over his shoulder, "She can see you. Who are we talking to if no one's here?"

"I don't know. Maybe you're fucking crazy."

Not Allowed to Touch

First picture a man kneeling directly upon your face. Rather, it is my face. We are naked, the man and I. He rocks back and forth. His anus moves across my cheeks. Sometimes while he rocks, my nose brushes against it and I can feel it tighten.

His legs fold under him on either side of my head, his knees touch my shoulders. The hairs of his legs tickle my skin. He leans forward, hovering over my chest and stomach. He is a tall man, hirsute. He is older, but fit. The loose skin of age collects at his midriff and hips. The hair on his head is grey, but along his body it has already turned chalk white.

His genitals hang just past my chin. The slack weight of his testicles droop and brush against my throat as I patiently wait. He leans slightly to one side as he moves one hand to his penis, limp but heavy. He lifts and points it down my body, directing a strong, hot stream of urine across my torso.

The piss sprays in a wild cloud as it strikes me. The man gasps in relief. He had been holding back for some time. As the initial pressure of release recedes, the man can direct the stream with more purposeful control. He paints the length of my body. The fluids collect in puddles along the creases of my limbs. They form rivulets as they seek to escape and soak into the beige carpetting of the recently remodeled town hall lobby.

The urine flows over me, but my own erection remains dry. The man takes care to direct his stream away. Still, the urine rolling down my stomach soaks into my pubic hair. I can feel the heat and wetness collect, and my penis slowly grows turgid. My hands rest at my side, sweating. The man tells me I am not allowed to touch. Not allowed to touch anything.

The man's streams dies to a dribble, then ceases. The warmth of the wet on my body turns to a chill as the urine starts to dry on my skin. Again he tells me not to touch. My erect phallus twitches, now dark and swollen, curved starkly up and back, pointed directly at the man leaning over me. My hands itch and shake by my side, not from the cold, but from a consuming desire to touch. I must not touch, though. I am not allowed.

That's why I don't vote.

My Carolina

At the time, I let myself blame the booze. We were five hours into a big bottle of gin, rolling around on Mother's persian rug. We had reached that point of perfect exhaustion where the entire world and everything in it becomes hysterically absurd. We couldn't stop laughing about his stupid cat and how much it hates purses. He, I think it was him, he put an arm, or let an arm fall on me and... Well at the time I blamed the booze, but now I know. I kissed my first boy. I was seventeen and lying under a black coffee-table when I fell in love.

In time, we did all sorts of unmentionable things to each other at the country club. It was easiest to meet there without attracting suspicion. We'd sneak away from our families and find some hidden, secret place. Even now, when I pass those little changing booths by the pool, I can't help but feel a faint stirring. I know it's awful to suggest, and I certainly don't miss those ignorant, hateful days, but there was something incredible about the danger. North Carolina at the time, though it's not much better now, was a hostile sort of place. Everyone was angry, but no one ever said anything. Maybe they didn't know how, or didn't know any better. They were just angry and couldn't do a thing about it. I don't know if it helped much, but every now and then some boys would go lynch a faggot and everyone seemed to feel better for a day or two. He and I would crowd into a changing booth and he'd stand on the changing bench, so the people passing by would only see one pair of feet. And we'd have to be quiet in there. Oh, that certainly helped. Biting our lips and whimpering, pressing each other up against the rough wooden walls. It was a long time ago. Sometimes it feels like it happened to someone else.

That August, we spent a whole two weeks together. Mother kept a boathouse on a lake in Georgia. She didn't have the time to wrap it up for fall, so she sent me off. "Take your time, dear," she slurred over her cocktail, waving me toward the keys, "Bring a friend, have fun," I wondered if she knew, or somehow consented, even encouraged me. I never asked, and I suppose it never mattered. I had my love, a quiet lake, a small cottage. It must be trite to call it paradise, but to a young man... Ah well, I beg you forgive an old man his follies.

I'd like to end the story in proper dramatic fashion. I could paint such a picture of my love slung to the back of a truck and dragged through the night until there was hardly enough to bury. Or perhaps we are discovered entwined and he sends me a tear-stained letter before hanging himself, or vanishing on a train with whatever he could steal from his family to invent himself a whole new self on the other side of the country. But this would all be flattery. The truth is, as truth should be, pathetic.

Toward the end of our two weeks by the lake, he grew cold. On the drive back to Carolina, he wouldn't even look at me. He stopped answering my calls, and turned up a month later with some picture. He nearly shoved it in my face, some girl, his girl. What could I say? He told me he was happy, but he looked so angry. "That's that," he said. And that was it.

Oh I made a big fuss about it at the time, but that passed. I was an old man before I found love again, though... Well, if there's a lesson, it is that there is love to be found in life. It's the same sort of thing in every story. It's what stories are all about. It is the only story.